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Keep It Simple

I fall back on that phrase so many times, “Keep it simple.”

What is it about human beings…we always want to complicate and make everything as difficult and complicated as possible?

This DOESN’T just apply to my customers and clients. It applies to me also. Multiple times I’ve had the brilliant idea for a product. Then I kept adding to it and adding to it until it became an encyclopedia that took months to finish…or was never finished.

Or I’ll work on a project and keep adding all these ideas to it…until it becomes so complicated I never want to do it.

I don’t want you to think I’m some weirdo who is totally unique in this, I find the same rule holds true for the majority of clients I work with.

We all want to complicate things.

Part of this comes from there being so much information out there and so many different ways to do things, that we want to add them all in until we end up in a big mess of different pieces. The other part seems to be part of human nature itself. We think the more complicated something is, the better it must be. We say to ourselves, “It can’t really be that easy, can it?”

Let’s say you’re currently building a list and promoting affiliate products.

You decide your goal is to create your first information product. What do most of us do? We go out and find a whole new market we have to learn about. We study it for months. Then we write an outline which we keep adding to for the next two weeks. Once we think we’re done, new ideas come up. We add those. Eventually we start writing, get 30 pages in, and give up in frustration.

You think I’m giving you a fake story? Nope. I’ve seen it many times. In fact I’ve done it a couple of times.

Instead if you’re in that position, do this.

1. Send an email to your list where you survey them about what they want (have some freebie for filling it out like a quick report or something you own rights to).

2. Find out what questions they have about the subject.

3. Pick an expert who can answer those questions (maybe you OR maybe one of the affiliate program owners you regularly promote).

4. Interview them through one of the free teleconference services that records. It doesn’t matter which one.

5. Produce a CD through Kunaki or even sell it as an mp3. If you want to be real studious have it transcribed also.

Wow…your first product is done. You could go into depth on writing this incredible sales piece, but your very first one doesn’t have to be that way. Make a list of all the questions you answered, some proof about the expert, and give a guarantee. You have a basic sales piece now. The next one you write will be better.

Simple to get started. Will that be a million dollar project? Not likely, but who cares. It’s your first product. You’re now a publisher.

OK…let’s take it further. You don’t have a list. You don’t have any money.

Let’s follow another process. We don’t have a list and don’t have any money so we can’t do a survey to our list and we can’t do a survey to any type of paid advertising. Instead let’s go over to Amazon.com and look through the best sellers in different categories. What are the comments and reviews people are leaving for popular books in that category? You can LEARN a lot about what the market wants just by looking at what others have said about the material there. They tell you what they liked about the products…and what they wished they had covered more in depth. How nice is that for you?

Next step…find an expert. Going over to the new releases and new upcoming books are a good place to find experts on Amazon (most authors are used to doing a lot of interviews). Or you can look through a site such as the Radio TV Interview Report. Those aren’t top authors but they ARE experts looking for interviewers.

Now follow the method above and record your first product.

Where to sell it? Even if you don’t have a website you could start somewhere simply like selling it on eBay (take Paypal). Or turn it into an mp3 and PDF report to sell on Clickbank.

Again this isn’t the extent of your “big information empire,” but it is a fast starting point instead of getting stuck in all the minor details as you grow. You learn by practice and experience, not just study. So get out there and get moving.

Remember the rule, KEEP IT SIMPLE.

That applies to your internet business, your information products, and your life.

If you want to improve your interviewing skills, I highly recommend the product I did with Fred Gleeck. In it we cover:

* Step One: How to Choose Your Hot Subject

* Step Two: Track Down Experts for Your Interviews

* Step Three: Recording Over the Phone and/or In Person

* Step Four: How to Come Up with the Right Questions to Ask

* Step Five: Become Comfortable on the Interview Itself

* Step Six: How to Package and/or Duplicate the Product

* Step Seven: Selling It Online

* Step Eight: Make Even More Money From the Interview

You can find out more at http://www.MyInfoMastery.com

Until the end of February, get 50% OFF. Simply use this coupon code when you get to the order form: HALFOFF

Go to http://www.MyInfoMastery.com. Click on the order form normally.

Enter the code HALFOFF until February 28th, and get 50% knocked off.

Written by Terry · Filed Under All 

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Comments

10 Responses to “Keep It Simple”

  1. Ryan Healy on February 26th, 2009 10:00 am

    Great message. Mankind complicates things naturally. Real genius is learning how to simplify.

    One of my favorite nonfiction books is The Paradox of Choice by Barry Schwartz. It’s about the effects of too many choices vs. a restricted number of options. Fascinating stuff.

    Ryan

  2. Dave Lovelace on February 26th, 2009 1:22 pm

    Terry

    Great article! Those 5 steps could be the first 5 steps of someone’s entire online career.

    Let me tell you a short story as proof..

    When I first created my product, which (by the way) was an audio interview, I had no idea that it would later lead to creating a much larger “product”, again with no content of my own, that generated 6-figures in 10 days. If I had not taken action and taken the steps that someone else told me to do, I wouldn’t be where I am today working full time from home.

    One thing leads to another. But it starts with step 1 and taking action.

    As I first heard Mike Litman say, “you don’t have to get it right, you just have to get it going!”. And your article is the perfect “get it going” blueprint!! Would love to reprint it on my blog.

    FYI: I’ve been following you for about 5 years now. I’m a customer of your Internet Marketing Protege course a few years back and I have to say I wore those cassette tapes thin listening to you! You’ve played a huge role in my success online over the years. Thanks Terry.

    Dave Lovelace
    http://DavidLovelace.com

  3. Tom on February 26th, 2009 2:10 pm

    Terry,
    Well written.
    I very much appreciate your insights!.
    Best,
    Tom Mitchell

  4. Fred Roberts on February 26th, 2009 2:17 pm

    Nice post. I would love to see a few posts that explain the 8 steps. Anyways this was a great one. Cheers. Fred

  5. Markie on February 27th, 2009 4:24 am

    I couldn’t agree more with the basis for the post. Firstly, simplicity gets you to act. I stops you thinking about it and gets you doing. Secondly, simplicity gets you to complete. I am the world’s worst article writer because I start with a simple idea and I finish up trying to write something for Business Week. I need to remind myself to stick to my original simple idea and get on with the next project.

  6. George Chernikov on March 1st, 2009 1:13 pm

    I agree – simplicity is key.

    I think many of us have been conditioned by the gurus to think that content is the key selling characteristic of a successful product – but it’s not. What really makes a product sell is the marketing that surrounds it. As such, we end up laboring under the false belief that somehow, magically, if we just cram our info product which every single relevant strategy under the sun, it will be flying off our digital shelves.

    The result? We end up with a brilliant product that doesn’t sell because we invested all that time into product development rather than marketing. This leads to discouragement, disappointment and, eventually, a burnt-out Internet Marketer who gives up on ever making money online and moves on to a 9-5 job.

    Perfectionism is great – but you should always, always remember that content is not what sells your product. Marketing does – and if you really want to invest a LOT of your time into something, focus on marketing rather than content.

    Remember, your sales copy is what your visitors will see first when they get to your site!

  7. Dim - Car Finance Calculator on March 1st, 2009 1:22 pm

    But there is another part of the story – when the thing is too simple, this can be:

    (1) either an illusion – this just looks to be simple
    (2) or has small effect
    (3) or is just part of the big story

    Let me give an example.

    One of the core rules of blogging success – ‘just create great content and everything is going to be fine’ – what a perfectly simple phrase. Moreover, this is not a hoax – great content is the basis of blogging.

    But, if you are straightforward, then you need to tell a person that this is also about pushing your great content to the eyes of the targeted visitors, otherwise no one will spread the word of a mouth about this info.

    And pushing the content is about SEO, or catching the people on the forums or chats and so on.

    So, I hate when something is too difficult. But too often I saw how the viable “keep it simple” approach was nothing but an illusion.

  8. don resdi on March 1st, 2009 2:17 pm

    Part of keeping it simple is, simply, keeping focused. It is like the interviewing improvement list you lay out in numbered steps. Few people can create or find such a list, go through each step and get to the end without being distracted many times along the way. I think distraction is fine, provided it is with good reason, but I know I am very guilty myself of getting off on tangents that have nothing to do with my original intent.

    Anyway, I enjoyed reading this article and being reminded about all this.

  9. Dr. Michael Beck | Chiropractic Marketing on March 2nd, 2009 9:07 am

    One way to keep things simple is to hire a good coach to help with that. I know in my case it helped me focus and get things done much quicker.

  10. Melody Campbell, The Small Business Guru on March 3rd, 2009 2:25 pm

    Love these product creation ideas!

    A phrase that helps me is “reduce it to the ridiculous”. Sometimes when I have done research in a discussion group and pulled real time questions, I will continue asking the jounalism five – who, what, why, where, and how.

    I like the way you’re adding the email sign up in each blog post. How’s that working? Is there a plugin for that or are you adding that manually?

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