Great! You’ve decided to start your own business. You are willing to take the plunge and start down the path toward success. They say the first step is the hardest. But what is the second step? Is that one really easier? If you’ve decided you are going to start a business. The second step is deciding what to sell. This can be daunting to many…it can get over complicated too. It doesn’t have to be.
There are ready made products out there waiting for you to sell them. Joining an affiliate program is a quick way to get some money in the door of your new business. Plus you don’t have to develop any products of your own. Starting out as an affiliate or distributor
is a quick start but overtime maybe you want to start something of your own.
Here are some tips for creating your first products.
1. Stick to what you know. If you are a hairdresser sell accessories or information about hair care, not food products. Use the skills you acquired in your work experience before you decided to start your own business to build your first products. You are an expert in your field, show your audience what you know.
2. Don’t worry about design. Less is more. You don’t need an overly designed product. Don’t spend thousands on a graphic designer and printing large amounts of copies. Test the idea for your product first then spend the money to develop physical copies. And when you know you can spend the money to create a product keeping the design simple is still something to strive for. IT save money too!
Now I’m not saying slap an eBook together without a cover page or table of contents. People are more likely to buy an eBook that has a nice cover with header graphics on each page and that’s been formatted to be easy to read with short paragraphs and maybe a graphic or two sprinkled in somewhere. Just don’t go overboard and put your logo on every page and make the text a different color on each page.
3. Pick a price point. Is this going to be a cheap product that you use as a lead generation. Or a back end product that costs mucho dinero? Design a product with a price point in mind. In other words don’t write an e-book and expect to get hundreds of dollars for it as a backend. Those are cheap to produce so use e-books as front end pieces to get leads.
4. Check out the competition. Buy a similar product to the one you’re thinking about creating and then rip it off. Well not exactly. You don’t have to reinvent the wheel here. Take the good parts and make them your own. Just make sure you add more than the competition so customers have a reason to buy yours over the competition.
5. Solve a problem. Products that are created without a need in the market place will never sell. Whatever your product is, make sure it solves a problem. Make sure you have an audience that needs or wants your product before you put forth time and money to create a product no one needs. Ask yourself who would buy this product and why? If your answer comes to mind easily you’re probably on the right track.
There are so many facets to product design. I could make never ending lists of things to remember and look for when creating new products. The biggest tip I can give you though is to provide quality. It is not good enough to just slap together a bunch of information or items and then expect the money to come rolling in. If your product is not quality you will not have any repeat customers. People are savvy shoppers and expect to get more than what they paid for
