“Where do products come from, daddy?“

I was having a conversation with my son-in-law. I was teasing him today, about how he’s going to have “that talk” with my grandson at some point… he’ll have to answer the question, “Where do babies come from, daddy?”

But that leads me to a question for you that may people have?

Where do products come from?

And, more specifically, where do GREAT products come from? (Because most products / info-products suck!)

There are actually only three (primary) ways products make it into the marketplace.

1 – How Most People Make a Product

The first way is how most people make a product.

They have what they think is a “million-dollar idea” and think the idea itself will make them rich (this is the classic mistake).

I remember from my web development business, we would have people we called the “low talkers.”

They’d come in and say in a very hushed, secretive voice, “Man! I need a website. I’ve got a million-dollar idea for a product on the Internet.”

We would say, “Okay, great. What is it?”

“I can’t tell you. I can’t tell you what it is, but I want you to make me a website.”

They have an idea… they create a product (oftentimes spending a ton of money to do it)… and they also expend a lot of time making it.

After they’ve created the product, only THEN do they go look for a market.

They (finally) ask the question, “Who will buy it?”

The problem is that 99 times out of 100 (actually 999 times out of 1,000) it ends up being a great big, fat loser… a mulligan… a giant piece of @#$%^!

The reason for that: the product promise isn’t positioned right.

And when the promise isn’t right… then all sorts of mental obstacles pop up as far as the marketing is concerned, which most people can never get past.

Bottom line: The worst way to create a product is to

(1) create a product first, and then

(2) go look for a market to find someone who will buy it.

… yet that’s how 99 out of 100 do it. Sigh

2 – A Better Way to Make a Product

The second way that products get made and brought to market is much better.

This is a way that I did it for a long time.

But now I use the formula I’ll teach you in the 3^rd part of this article.

Basically, you

(1) find a market first, and then you

(2) find out their problems or their desires. Then you

(3) create or find a product that actually solves their problems.

This is a great way to do it (and much better than the first way).

The only thing that’s lacking is that you might have the greatest product in the world, the greatest solution, but either everybody can’t find it or they can’t understand it.

Or even worse, it doesn’t make a promise that actually motivates people or gets them excited… and that makes it hard for them to want to buy it.

That’s really the same as not having it at all.

If your product is missing that killer positioning, if it’s missing that immediate gut reaction where someone says, “Oh, yeah! I got to have that!” then you’re going to have sales, but you’re not going to have crazy, crazy sales (and “crazy sales” is what we want).

We want crazy sales.

We want people to hear our promise, look at our positioning and go, “You know, I’ve got to have that,” — whatever it is.

3 – The “Get Rich Way” to Make a Product

The third way to create a product is really what I call the “get rich” way to make a product.

This is a process where, basically, you (1) find a market.

You (2) make the biggest, sexiest, most incredible promise you can to them, about how to solve their problem

You (3) remove every obstacle possible, and then you

(4) create a product fast to actually fulfill that sexy promise, and then you

(5) start selling it to see if they’ll buy.

You then (6) improve the product as necessary, based on feedback.

The reason this works so well is because you create the promise without the limitations of the existing product actually holding you back.

Really, what you do is target the market and create the promise first… then you deliver on your perfect promise once you find or create the ideal product.

I’m not saying you’re going to sell vapor-ware or take people’s money on some pipe dream, or get them all hyped up and then deliver these chintzy, crappy products (that you often see the “web weasels” deliver).

I’m saying you want to figure out the perfect promise your target market wants FIRST (without the mental constraints of an existing product), then you’re going to deliver on it.

That’s how you create a product with the highest likelihood of making CRAZY amounts of sales, no matter which market you’re in!

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Here is a (marketing) trick you can use, though, you must be careful with this.

When I say it’s a trick, it’s a trick of psychology more than anything else.

I saw this used the other day, and I’ve (also) used it before. “I can’t tell you that you will __________.”

You can even do, “By law, I can’t promise you that you will __________.”

You can also say things like…

“I can’t tell you that you’ll publish an ebook, and make a million dollars next year.”

“I can’t tell you you’re going to put up five or six mini sites in the next three months, and be able to buy a brand new dream home.”

“By law, I can’t promise you that you’ll make enough to buy a Porsche 911, red Cabrera, in the next 6 months. I can’t promise you that.”

“No reasonable person could promise that to you, because I don’t know if you’re going to work hard, and if you’re going to do everything that I tell you to do. Of course, your results are going to vary.”

“I can’t tell you you’re going to make a million dollars this year and buy your dream home, and go on a cruise at the end of the year to celebrate.”

As soon as I say any of these things, what are the pictures that are created in your mind?

• A million dollars
• Dream home
• Cruise vacation, etc.

This is a way to get people thinking about big benefits / payoffs without making crazy claims or exaggerating.

“I can’t promise you that you’re going to get a brand new red Porsche, as a result of creating mini sites in your own business. No reasonable person would, because I don’t know if you’re going to work, if you’re going to take action. I don’t know your skill level and your motivation, stuff like that.”

You’re maybe thinking, “Nobody does that.” Nobody phrases stuff like that…

Yes, they do.

Here’s a great example from a Video Professor ad on TV.

SIDE NOTE: I’ve made no bones about the fact that I think the guy that does Video Professor is cool in one way, and I don’t agree with one thing that they’re doing. Overall, the owner is one of my direct response heroes, as far as how much direct response advertising he’s doing.

He said, and this is paraphrasing, “Hi. I’m John Scherer, the guy that teaches you all the computer-learning CDs. Now I can’t promise you that I’ll make you the next Internet millionaire selling an attic full of baseball cards. But I can promise that we’ll teach you how to use eBay, and probably put a few dollars in your pocket selling unused stuff out of your garage.”

Do you see what he did there?

“I can’t promise you I’ll make you the next Internet millionaire selling an attic full of baseball cards, but I can promise that we’ll teach you how to use eBay, and probably put a few dollars in your pocket.”

FACT: A reasonable person could probably make a few dollars, if they slapped enough crap from their garage up onto eBay (without any help from Video Professor). But it sounds great when he says it the way he does.

But here’s a thought I had to make this sales message even more powerful…

There’s a statistic that I saw in the newspaper the other day that I thought was interesting. I didn’t save the article, though I should have, but I didn’t make the connection until I was getting ready for this.

The statistic basically said that the average US household has over $2,000 in “stuff,” just lying around that they could sell. They could literally sell and raise about $2,000 from stuff that is lying around their house.

Can you imagine if he had combined those statements in the ad with that statistic, how powerful that would have been? It was a government statistic, “__________ says that, on average, there’s at least $2000 worth of stuff just lying around in everybody’s house. Clear out your stuff, and then maybe you could start a part time business clearing out everybody else’s stuff.”

What they don’t say is, “You’re going to make $2000,” or that “you could make $2000 off of every single person that you know.” Yes, that’s implied, but I wouldn’t have a problem doing that. (Though I’m not an attorney.)

What I’m saying is that this is a neat little (marketing) trick you can use to get people thinking in terms of HUGE benefits while also looking at your product or service offering.

FORMULA: “I can’t tell you that you’re going to do this, this, this, and this, because I don’t know you. I don’t know your motivation level, your skill level, so I can’t promise you that.”

“I can’t promise you you’re going to become a millionaire and buy a brand new house, because I don’t know you. I don’t know your skill level.”

That’s a neat little trick that you can use in your advertising, sales letters, videos and more. Use it carefully and sparingly because it can easily get abused and blow up in your face.

But if there’s something your target audience REALLY wants, this is a way to connect what you’re selling with that desire without making outrageous claims that push people’s “BS Detector” buttons.

By the way… if you liked this, you’ll LOVE what we have to offer in July here at
The Net Reporter… Click Here To Check It Out