Saturday 24 December 2011

Have You Productised Your Business yet?

I'm constantly looking to stretch myself and learn more from life. I think this is one of the ways we grow; become better people; become more successful. I'd hate to stagnate. I'm never going to be someone who accepts life as it is. I believe there are people who go through life accepting the cards they have been dealt; accepting mediocrity. This is a crying shame.

I'm the opposite - I strive to further myself and to grow and become the best I can be. Thanks to this way of thinking I chose to attend one of Peter Thomson's brilliant seminars in London in September 2010. It was a product creation seminar.

Every Business Should Have Products
Peter spent the day explaining how important it is for every business to have products which it can sell and what he means by products is physical products such as books, CD Audios and DVDs with content based around your business and your area of expertise.

My Book
My book "31 Mistakes Every Online Business Makes" is a great example of a product which I created to share my knowledge and help other people. I've already had it turned into a Kindle version so people with a Kindle and people with an iPhone or iPad can download it via the Amazon Kindle website. And thanks to Phil Clarkson, a Bristol based business trainer, I'm now creating an audiobook version of it.
Phil saw my book and congratulated me but explained he would never buy it. At first I was a tad upset, but Phil immediately explained that he doesn't like to read books, but he loves to listen to books in his car! So one product very quickly turned into three products!

Leverage
Brad Sugars, the CEO and Founder of ActionCoach shared with me at one of his seminars the secret of "Leverage". Brad explained the beauty of leverage was only doing the work once and getting paid over and over and over again! Brad's written over 14 books on business and he gets paid each and every time somone buys one of his books. Compare this to any consultantcy or training based business where you get paid for your time. Sure, the money can still be good, but we only have 24 hours a day and most people only work a maximum of 10 hours so you only really have 10 hours to bill out your services. So you have to keep on keeping on!

Every time you get paid, you have to do the work all over again. If you run seminars you have to keep doing the same seminar over and over again. However, instead, you could record a video of your seminar and then sell it on DVD. Now wouldn't that be cool? Think how many times people have said to you, "I'd have loved to come to that but I can't make that date." If you had a DVD of your seminar you could sell them a copy to watch at their leisure! 

What Products can you Create?

So think about your business - what products can you create? When I ask people this question I usually get the standard repsonses of "I can't write" or "I don't have anything worth sharing" or "I don't want to share my secrets; my competitors will copy me" etc.

Lucky for you Peter Thomson says you can; you do and you should share! Each and every one of us is unique with a wealth of experience, advice and guidance we can share with our target market. If you're a business coach, your experience of life and business and coaching is completely different to any other business coach out there.

So get your thinking cap on and start creating products for your business. No matter what your business is, you can create a product or products which will provide useful advice to your target audience.
  • If you're a car valeter, you could sell DVDs showing people how to polish a car properly.
  • If you're a personal fitness trainer, record your exercise sessions and create a DVD.
  • If you're an estate agent, start using video to market your client's houses.
  • If you have a blog and been writing it for a while now, use your blog posts and turn them into a book!
What products have you created for your business? Please share them by adding a comment below.

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