Let’s face it…you are not going to get rich selling or promoting just one product! If you’re honest, you know this!

If you really want that holy grail of the “Internet” lifestyle, you simply have to have a portfolio of products all making you money on autopilot. Once you have achieved that you have a stable base to your online business and then you can start to develop the lifestyle.

So, when you look to develop a product you really have to focus on it, because, if you do, product development really is quite quick and easy. Most people though, have a real mental block with this. I know I did when I started out.

So, hopefully this hub will help you overcome those mental blocks and allow you to really “turbo charge” (great marketing speak, eh?) your own product development.

First up some general pointers.

The best bit of advice I was ever given on product development was don’t try to build a product that is all things to all men. A 300 page epic is not what people want. People want short concise solutions to their problems. Just ask yourself what you look for when you have a problem to solve…you’ll know this is the case!

So, think short concise 40 page guides that give condensed, actionable and effective “how to” information.

To start with do an outline of the steps needed to reach the end goal or solution.

Next you need to block off a chunk of time when you will write and nothing else. Then do just that…write, don’t even try and edit as you go along, just get everything down at this stage.

It is important that this time is truly “blocked off”. You must have email, the ‘phone and your browser off. Do not let anything interrupt you…and just write! The reason so many people take so long to write is that they allow interruptions. Again, you know what happens when your train of thought is broken.

Write for 90 minutes then take a break for 10 minutes. Keep this cycle going until you complete your first draft.

The next stage is vitally important. Ready for this?

O.K, now just leave your draft for two or three days. You may well find this difficult, but it is important as it allows you to clear your mind of the project and come back to it in two or three days time with a fresh “pair of eyes”.

Now do your editing.

Up until now I have talked in terms of writing your product. Remember the principles of this hold true for product development itself as I am now going to look at different methods of developing products.

It’s really easy to record yourself these days. If you don’t like writing you can record a “how to” product. There are a multitude of tools that allow you to create MP3 files.

Pamela from Skype and Audacity (both free) are the two I use. You can also use Camtasia to record audio only (see Video section later).

Or if you want to stay online you can use Armand Morin’s Audio Generator.

You can even buy hand held MP3 recorders nowadays. How easy does this need to be for you?

So, instead of writing, why not record your product and offer it as online streaming audio or MP3 download. If you want to add more value offer a CD version.

You can also outsource the writing up of the audio and offer a download PDF or physical paper based transcript of the recording to add value. How easy is this??

Added Note - This came up as an Adsense ad on this hub, so I had a look. A great free voice recording tool you can use to build audio products...I didn't know about this software before, but it's good, how weird is that?

http://www.nch.com.au

If you are not the creative type then you can use either PLR or Public Domain products as the base for your solution.

PLR - Where To Get It And How To Develop It

Basically a PLR product (Private Label Rights) is a completed product that is sold giving you the right to call it your own and do with it as you wish!

These days most come with a sales page, thank you page and all of the graphics done for you. It amazes me that you can pick them up at ridiculously low prices – like $6-7!

When I use PLR for my products, and here’s an important point, I use them as the basis for my product. I don’t just pick up a PLR product and slap up the website and leave as is.

I generally (not always) totally change the product and I also have new graphics made up. The reason is simple. Otherwise, you are just running with the rest of the pack that have picked up that product and are selling it. Differentiation is key when using PLR.

You only need to do a Google search on “subject” + PLR and you will find more products than you could ever possibly need!

If you want some free PLR products, sign up to Gabor Olah’s PLR Wholesaler I highly recommend this and Gabor is one of the “good guys”. There is a paid option, but there is still a ton of good stuff gratis!

As far as developing your PLR products I suggest U.K marketer Michael Green’s 20/20 Challenge. He goes into great detail on how to find and customise your PLR products as well as how to build a solid business using this technique.

Again, if writing doesn’t come naturally, why not get someone to interview you or interview an expert on your chosen subject matter.

You will need one of those hand-held MP3 recorders I mentioned earlier for this. You can get them at most electrical stores at very reasonable prices.

Why not find a number of experts in the field and create a series of MP3 interviews for either download or produce on to CD. Believe me, experts love to talk about their subject. With a bit of research it is not difficult to find people to interview.

Expert interviews sell like the proverbial “hot cakes”.

For Public Domain check out Gutenberg at www.gutenberg.org

Basically works in the public domain are out of copyright. This means you can use them in the same fashion as PLR. There was a bit stir around the Science of Getting Rich a couple of years back.

A very sharp lady called Rebecca Fines built a very big business just around this public domain publication (originally written by a guy called Wallace D Wattles – great name!). She simply wrote a new introduction and then built a portfolio of add on products having given the original away free. What a great business model!

To be fair these do take a bit of work in setting up and you have to make sure you have enough attendees. So a bit of pre-marketing is needed, but if attendance is free, that shouldn’t be a problem.

And the beauty of teleseminars is you only have to do the work once, then you have a product that has a high perceived value. Again you can offer a PDF transcript as an added bonus.

Again, it’s important to have your call (or series of calls) fully mapped out before you start. But the same principles apply here to those when writing!

Also a Q & A session at the end of each seminar adds real value.

I remember talking in my newsletter some two years ago about using video as a differentiator in your Internet Marketing. Over those two years it has pretty much become the de-facto standard in Internet Marketing. Some sales letters are video only nowadays.

So, it was a natural progression for product to become video based.

There are many tools that allow you to create video. I prefer Camtasia as it is easy to use. It has great training (there’s that investment in your business again) and is a good price for the functionality you get. I think you can still get a free trial via download, check out Techsmith at www.techsmith.com

It allows you to capture your screen so that you can demonstrate what you are saying “live”. It allows you to import video from your digital camera or camcorder and it also allows you to import Powerpoints to which you can record a voice over. It also allows you to record MP3 audio only. It’s a great tool and easy to use.

Many Internet Marketing products deliver by way of online video today. It’s easy, quick and cheap to deliver.

You can have your video made up on to DVD and that will attract a premium, but I prefer online video delivery it’s just easier.

So to conclude, I will show you how Lee, my business partner, and I developed our new product Instant Social Traffic.

Lee is very good technically and he had been working on understanding and implementing the entire Web2.0 “thing”. Over about three months he had worked out how to use social marketing to get a page one listing on Google time after time.

Now, Lee is not so good at writing - he won’t mind me saying this :>) So, he wrote the system out and then showed me how it worked. We did a little more fine-tuning together and then I re-wrote the system as an eBook adding screenshots. (It took me just one day).

Lee then made sure the PDF was factually and technically correct.

We then sat down together and recorded Camtasia videos to demonstrate all of the main techniques in the PDF. (This took another day).

The product delivery is via a membership blog that is password protected. So we have delivered a product that is a mixture of two of the techniques outlined above. And therein lies another lesson, mix and match for maximum effect!

Setting up the blogs and writing the sales pages and affiliate media took another two days. Four days to develop a brand new product. In the great scheme of things, that’s pretty quick!

I hope this has helped you with some ideas on how you can quickly and efficiently build new products.

I’d love to hear what you’ve got to say, so please add comments and questions at the bottom. I check regularly so I’ll reply as soon as I can to any questions.