The internet is an elephant, so to speak. So how do you eat an elephant? One would say one piece at a time. Every internet guru has his own views about how to succeed in the internet or online, but like any other thing in life, there is no one perfect way, or one size fits all. Some say content is king. Some say begin with a list. Some say begin with 100% automation. Content, list, and automation all matter, but what about the person that is just beginning and doesn’t know his left from his right? I believe a beginner should start with a Jeeter farms to prove his credibility and from there move on to building a list while at the same time gradually working towards automating his website to work on autopilot.
A Caveat about Starting With a Product
Having said that it’s better to start with a product, I believe it’s appropriate to throw in this qualification by saying that at the highest levels, you can actually sell a product you have not yet developed to your list or followers, but as a beginner, you may not be able to employ that strategy. At its most basic, it involves telling your followers that you have a product that is coming out in say 90 days or 180 days time and any one among them that buys in advance would get it at 30 or 20 percent discount. Some may decide to buy and you can then use the cash to develop the product. This strategy is for already well known “brands” like Peter Diamandis, Brendon Burchard, Tim Ferriss and Tony Robbins to mention just four.
How to Develop Your First Product
This presentation focuses on how you can develop your first product. The truth is, in internet business, you don’t have to wait until you have a perfect product. Just begin and continue improving along the way. If you compare cars or any product for that matter made in the 1970s, 1980s and 1990s and 2000s, you notice that they keep getting better in terms of design, sleekness, and performance, to mention just three aspects. That should be your aim. Start, and keep improving day in and day out.
In this presentation, the focus is entirely on electronic products (eProducts), not the selling of physical products online, which is referred to as e-commerce. I’m assuming that you’re already an expert operating in six dimensions as an author, trainer, speaker, coach, consultant, seminar leader and now gunning for the seventh dimension, information marketing. If you don’t consider yourself an expert, don’t worry too much, we’ll come back to that and the scales will fall off from your eyes. Even if you’re not operating in any of the dimensions yet, say you’re just an employee, don’t worry, this presentation will open your eyes to the possibilities ahead. The author of the book Instant Income, Janet Switzer, listed over 52 eProducts one can develop in her Maverick Program but we’ll limit ourselves to just the simplest products as this is a beginner’s program.
Understanding or knowing which products to develop, the demand for those products and how to position your products are beyond the scope of this presentation. Also marketing, selling and launching your product are outside the scope of this presentation. Having covered those preliminaries, let’s dive in on your product development journey.
PDF (Portable Document Format)
One of the easiest ways to join the online business as an expert is to start with training course, workshop, seminar or a book. Your book in particular can and will open doors especially if you can write a New York Times best seller. For a beginner, that might be far-fetched so let’s just begin with a good book or a well thought out course. Having done your book or course (this applies too to seminars and workshops), you save in word or PowerPoint and convert it to PDF. PDF (portable document format) is a special format developed by Adobe and can be bought online or better still buy the CD and install in your laptop. Once converted to PDF, no one can amend or tinker with your product and you can upload it to your website and start selling. Sounds so simple? Yes! Technology simplifies things. Anybody with a laptop or smart-phone can buy your product and start enjoying it right away. Most new generation laptops and smart-phones have PDF reader pre-installed or you can simply download an app that enables you read the PDF document.
