How To Create Your Own Product Or Service (Part 2)
| Category: Home Based Business - Getting Started | Date: 2003-06-17 |
In the first installment to this series, we looked at creating and marketing your own info product. I gave several concrete examples of info products I created with very little investment of time or money which sell with tremendous success. If you missed that article, its posted online at: http://williecrawford.com/limitless22november02.html In this installment lets look at creating and marketing your own services.
When looking at marketing your own services you should thoroughly examine, brainstorm, and tear apart several critical issues. These issues are:
- What services are you qualified to offer
- Will offering this service provide a good return on your investment of time and money
- Is this service suitable for leveraging by offering through an affiliate program
- Is there sufficient market for this service to offer a steady stream of customers long term
- Can you develop a line of back-end products to increase the revenue stream from offering this service
Lets briefly look at these issues.
Most of us possess some unique talent that we can use to create a service and earn an income from sharing this talent with others. Talents that come to mind immediately are web design, graphic design, copywriting, programming, data entry, script writing or installation, legal research, website optimization, website promotion, diet counseling, fitness coaching, personal coaching and counseling, proofreading services, ghost writing services, and too many other possibilities to list here.
All of these services can be and are marketed successfully over the internet. Develop a reputation for delivering quality in any of these areas and you will get a steady stream of customers.
When looking at what service you might offer as your own "product" also consider services that allow you to leverage yourself more. To do this I generally think of services that can be provided semi-automatically and delivered in an almost endless quantity. The distinction between product and service may get a little blurred here but thats ok. What are "services" that might fall within this category:
- Pay for subscriber/lead services
- Pay for website traffic/visitor services
- Website submission or promotion services
- Website monitoring services
- Website translation services
- Website hosting services (very competitive)
- Remote script hosting services
- Custom content provider services
- Article writing or distribution services
- List management services
- Providing custom diet plans
- Providing custom fitness plans
- Personal financial management services
... you get the idea. Think of services that you can generate and provide with the aid of software so that you really do have an unlimited supply. Look at how you can improve on existing services or come up with totally new services. Realize that if you dont design your service properly you severely limit its growth potential and the potential to offer back-end or add-on products or services.
I recommend services where there is less competition due to difficulty in delivering the service. Difficulty in product delivery as a barrier-to-entry is a good thing. It means it will be longer before someone encroaches on your market. This allows you to perhaps price differently at first and harvest "monopoly profits." Sorry - my economics training is slipping through :-)
Many services are so generic that its difficult to distinguish your service in the mind of your potential customers. This makes your service a commodity and many customers will buy largely based on price. Web hosting is a commodity service that immediately comes to mind. To many customers, one web host is just the same as all others. If you can distinguish your generic product in the mind of your potential customer by becoming known for superior quality or customer service then you no longer offer a commodity. However, that takes a lot of very hard work and time. If you can offer a service FIRST or where there are fewer competitors then your task is easier.
When thinking of your service (or product) think in terms of income stream. If you are forced to constantly search for new customers so that you can make a one-time sale, you severely limit your growth potential. If your system brings in customers who use your services over and over again, then you build in repeat business and a revenue "stream." Lead generation and traffic generation services are examples that come to mind. If you deliver quality traffic or leads then your customers will buy from you again and again.
Along the same lines... if you can offer a range of different levels of service you increase your revenue stream and back-end sales. An example of this is Lead Factory (a service offered by my friend Marty Foley). You pay for subscribers to your list. His system generates subscribers by presenting your ezine or list subscribe boxes displayed on high traffic websites. Lead Factory offers a product line in that you can specify the quality and demographics of the leads. You can specify that you only want leads from certain countries, or certain other demographics. You can get single opt-in leads, or for a little more, you can get double opt-in leads.
Just by giving customers a few choices, this service comprises a range of products and thus a product line. Satisfied customers, such as myself, use the service over and over generating a nice residual income for the provider. Check out this excellent example: http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/tk.cgi?subs
A service that can be offered in unlimited supply can generally be priced and scaled so that you can also market it through an affiliate program. A service where you manually do most of the work cant generally be marketed successfully through an affiliate program. If you are just selling your time and effort then you generally dont want to share the revenue. Offering a finders fee or commission is possible with a personalized
service but it needs to be "high-end" enough to allow you to charge a premium price. The limiting factor will be the number of hours that you can spend delivering the service.
My personal experience with marketing services is that I offered website and ezine promotion services. I also offered website optimization services. I found all of the above too labor intensive for my personal preference. I also noticed that many relative newbies entered the market and offered cut-rate fees. I priced my services based upon the value I placed upon my time and expertise. I noticed many people enter and leave the website promotion and optimization business - I suspect for the same reasons. Dont get trapped offering a service
that under-values your time, effort and expertise.
A service which really cant be duplicated because you are offering "you" is consulting or coaching. If you have, or if you can develop expertise in an area, then this may be the perfect service for you to market. It can be marketed in many different ways depending upon how you define the service. For example, you can market your expert knowledge through telephone consultations, audio and video tapes, and even tele-seminars. As you go from personal consultation to recorded presentations, you go from service back to product but they
all tie together. Marketed properly, one will set you up to offer the other as a backend product. For example, short telephone consultations will often show the customer that they need your longer videotaped or audiotaped presentations. Sometimes listening to an audiotape or tele-seminar will show a customer that he need to set up a personal consultation to discuss to his specific situation more in-depth. Your expertise in effect becomes an entire product line.
Creating your own product or service is how you earn the big incomes online... especially if you use the leverage of an affiliate program. Hopefully, this short series gave you the basics of creating your own product or service. You now have a good start for launching your own informational product or service. If you find that you do need one-on-one consultations, I do offer telephone consultations. Details are available at:
http://williecrawford.com/consultations.html You can see that Im not offering you a lot of theory. Im showing you exactly how I generate and market both products and services :-) Use these examples to examine the feasibility of your own ideas
To your success.
Willie Crawford
Copyright 2002 by Willie Crawford
About the author.
Willie Crawford has taught thousands the secrets of operating a successful on-line business through his free Internet Business Success Course. Its more extensive than many $197 courses. Sign up today and start building your *successful* online business: williecrawford.com
your-own-service@therealsecrets.com
http://williecrawford.com
When looking at marketing your own services you should thoroughly examine, brainstorm, and tear apart several critical issues. These issues are:
- What services are you qualified to offer
- Will offering this service provide a good return on your investment of time and money
- Is this service suitable for leveraging by offering through an affiliate program
- Is there sufficient market for this service to offer a steady stream of customers long term
- Can you develop a line of back-end products to increase the revenue stream from offering this service
Lets briefly look at these issues.
Most of us possess some unique talent that we can use to create a service and earn an income from sharing this talent with others. Talents that come to mind immediately are web design, graphic design, copywriting, programming, data entry, script writing or installation, legal research, website optimization, website promotion, diet counseling, fitness coaching, personal coaching and counseling, proofreading services, ghost writing services, and too many other possibilities to list here.
All of these services can be and are marketed successfully over the internet. Develop a reputation for delivering quality in any of these areas and you will get a steady stream of customers.
When looking at what service you might offer as your own "product" also consider services that allow you to leverage yourself more. To do this I generally think of services that can be provided semi-automatically and delivered in an almost endless quantity. The distinction between product and service may get a little blurred here but thats ok. What are "services" that might fall within this category:
- Pay for subscriber/lead services
- Pay for website traffic/visitor services
- Website submission or promotion services
- Website monitoring services
- Website translation services
- Website hosting services (very competitive)
- Remote script hosting services
- Custom content provider services
- Article writing or distribution services
- List management services
- Providing custom diet plans
- Providing custom fitness plans
- Personal financial management services
... you get the idea. Think of services that you can generate and provide with the aid of software so that you really do have an unlimited supply. Look at how you can improve on existing services or come up with totally new services. Realize that if you dont design your service properly you severely limit its growth potential and the potential to offer back-end or add-on products or services.
I recommend services where there is less competition due to difficulty in delivering the service. Difficulty in product delivery as a barrier-to-entry is a good thing. It means it will be longer before someone encroaches on your market. This allows you to perhaps price differently at first and harvest "monopoly profits." Sorry - my economics training is slipping through :-)
Many services are so generic that its difficult to distinguish your service in the mind of your potential customers. This makes your service a commodity and many customers will buy largely based on price. Web hosting is a commodity service that immediately comes to mind. To many customers, one web host is just the same as all others. If you can distinguish your generic product in the mind of your potential customer by becoming known for superior quality or customer service then you no longer offer a commodity. However, that takes a lot of very hard work and time. If you can offer a service FIRST or where there are fewer competitors then your task is easier.
When thinking of your service (or product) think in terms of income stream. If you are forced to constantly search for new customers so that you can make a one-time sale, you severely limit your growth potential. If your system brings in customers who use your services over and over again, then you build in repeat business and a revenue "stream." Lead generation and traffic generation services are examples that come to mind. If you deliver quality traffic or leads then your customers will buy from you again and again.
Along the same lines... if you can offer a range of different levels of service you increase your revenue stream and back-end sales. An example of this is Lead Factory (a service offered by my friend Marty Foley). You pay for subscribers to your list. His system generates subscribers by presenting your ezine or list subscribe boxes displayed on high traffic websites. Lead Factory offers a product line in that you can specify the quality and demographics of the leads. You can specify that you only want leads from certain countries, or certain other demographics. You can get single opt-in leads, or for a little more, you can get double opt-in leads.
Just by giving customers a few choices, this service comprises a range of products and thus a product line. Satisfied customers, such as myself, use the service over and over generating a nice residual income for the provider. Check out this excellent example: http://williecrawford.com/cgi-bin/tk.cgi?subs
A service that can be offered in unlimited supply can generally be priced and scaled so that you can also market it through an affiliate program. A service where you manually do most of the work cant generally be marketed successfully through an affiliate program. If you are just selling your time and effort then you generally dont want to share the revenue. Offering a finders fee or commission is possible with a personalized
service but it needs to be "high-end" enough to allow you to charge a premium price. The limiting factor will be the number of hours that you can spend delivering the service.
My personal experience with marketing services is that I offered website and ezine promotion services. I also offered website optimization services. I found all of the above too labor intensive for my personal preference. I also noticed that many relative newbies entered the market and offered cut-rate fees. I priced my services based upon the value I placed upon my time and expertise. I noticed many people enter and leave the website promotion and optimization business - I suspect for the same reasons. Dont get trapped offering a service
that under-values your time, effort and expertise.
A service which really cant be duplicated because you are offering "you" is consulting or coaching. If you have, or if you can develop expertise in an area, then this may be the perfect service for you to market. It can be marketed in many different ways depending upon how you define the service. For example, you can market your expert knowledge through telephone consultations, audio and video tapes, and even tele-seminars. As you go from personal consultation to recorded presentations, you go from service back to product but they
all tie together. Marketed properly, one will set you up to offer the other as a backend product. For example, short telephone consultations will often show the customer that they need your longer videotaped or audiotaped presentations. Sometimes listening to an audiotape or tele-seminar will show a customer that he need to set up a personal consultation to discuss to his specific situation more in-depth. Your expertise in effect becomes an entire product line.
Creating your own product or service is how you earn the big incomes online... especially if you use the leverage of an affiliate program. Hopefully, this short series gave you the basics of creating your own product or service. You now have a good start for launching your own informational product or service. If you find that you do need one-on-one consultations, I do offer telephone consultations. Details are available at:
http://williecrawford.com/consultations.html You can see that Im not offering you a lot of theory. Im showing you exactly how I generate and market both products and services :-) Use these examples to examine the feasibility of your own ideas
To your success.
Willie Crawford
Copyright 2002 by Willie Crawford
About the author.
Willie Crawford has taught thousands the secrets of operating a successful on-line business through his free Internet Business Success Course. Its more extensive than many $197 courses. Sign up today and start building your *successful* online business: williecrawford.com
your-own-service@therealsecrets.com
http://williecrawford.com
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