Product Creation

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TRANSCRIPT:
Avish: Next topic — we’ll talk about making products. We have been talking about selling all of these different products, high price and low price. But in order to sell products you have to have products.

Fred: Yup.

Avish: And that can seem very daunting to someone who has never created any but you like to say it is actually pretty simple to create products, right?

Fred: Well specially for people in this particular course who are doing a seminar. Because the ultimate way to create a product and the quickest way is when you are already doing a seminar, is just record it or video tape the program that you are going to be doing and turn that into a product. So it’s a very, very simple and easy thing to do.

And by the way in product creation you have basically three options available to you. Number one is like I just said, record a live event. Number two is what you and I are doing here, even though we are doing it by Skype. We are doing an interview where you ask me questions. The third option is the one that I do not recommend that many people use which I think is dead wrong, which is to sit in a room and talk into a microphone and record a product solo without anyone’s input.

I think this is a bad idea. So you have three options — two of which I recommend, one of which I don’t.

Avish: So why, because like you said many people do that studio-type recording, why don’t you recommend that one?

Fred: I don’t recommend it because I know how I think and I have talked to tons of people that have brought products from me and from other people and here’s what happens. If I sit there and talk into a microphone and talk about a given topic, you know, I maybe marginally effective because I am a good speaker and I can vary my tone of voice and everything else. But it’s certainly a lot less interesting and compelling to the listener who’s hearing one person drone on and on.

In a situation like which you and I are doing here, we are going back and forth and all we’re working from is an outline because you are a smart enough interviewer that you’ll ask questions and follow up and play what I call Mr. Stupid. So I think that you know, in the three options available to you, the number one, doing it on your own, I guess if you have to, it’s a good way to crank out something specially if it’s a free product. But in generally I prefer to see people either do the interview style like what we are doing here or secondly but certainly not less important or less valuable is recording a live event.

But if you record a live event you have to do a few things to make sure that you get it right.

Avish: Okay. And what are a couple of those things?

Fred: Thank you. Thanks for the lead-in. Well one of the things is you have to make sure that if you record a live event and again, I am talking about an audio recording here but it could be a video as well. And the question first is should you record and use the audio or the video? The answer is if you have something that really has a lot of visual components then definitely use video. If you have something that is primarily information that can be communicated strictly by voice and audio then do that. So think about the ultimate goal that your prospect or buyer will have which is how do I understand and get the stuff down and start using it and if audio is sufficient well then fine. The other thing is though when you record live events. It’s a little bit different than you and I sitting here via Skype, my recording this in the Garage Van on my Mac.

In a live event you have a lot of different moving parts and you have to make sure but recently I put up a blog post at fredgleek.com/blog that people can go and take a look at, where I detailed all the equipment that you would need and exactly how to use each one to make sure you get a good live recording. Because there’s nothing worse than having a live recording where you think everything went really great and then you find out your audio system just was, something was screwed up.

So make sure and have and pre-test everything but the most important thing while doing a live program is to make sure and repeat every question when asked. And we talked about this a little bit when delivering a seminar but we also should talk about it when creating products. If you’re going to be creating products and somebody asked a question out of the audience. My biggest frustration as a listener of audio products is when I hear somebody starting to answer question when I didn’t even hear what the question was.

Now sometimes I can figure it out but it’s sort of a pain in the neck not to know, don’t you agree?

Avish: Yeah I try to get myself in the habit of always, no matter what size of the room, just re-phrasing the question, repeating the question before I answer them.

Fred: And that gives people in the audience or whoever asks the question a chance to say no, no-no. That wasn’t what I meant. So by clarifying it and re-stating it in your own words, if the person asking the question who is violently opposed to how you perceive the question they can always correct you.

Avish: Yeah I agree with that absolutely. Okay so these are great tips for recording a seminar and you turn it into a product. The second one we said was the interview so let’s just say someone wanted to do that, what are a couple of tips and techniques that they can use to create interview products?

Fred: Well obviously the best situation is when you can be sitting together live and in person both together. Whereas you and I, you’re in Philadelphia, I am in the LA area right now and we’re recording this via Skype. Now the recording is actually pretty decent. You sound a little bit teeny because you’re coming through but it doesn’t really matter because most of the talking, as usual, is being done by me.

But the thing about it is, is it is always preferable to be together face-to-face if you can do it. Now, it’s not mandatory but if you can do it. The other thing is that with the free tele-seminar lines and everything that they offer. Often times you can record those where the system will record it for you so if you want a cheap way to do a recording like this that’s a great way to do it which is get in to a free tele-seminar line and allow the system to record you and again, free conferencecall.com or free teleseminar.com one of those two I think. Both of them perhaps might have the ability to record your tele-seminars which was really you and another person on the phone at the same time.

Avish: Okay. So that’s a good way to get the great ways to get the recordings. What about the content of the interview, how do you set that up?

Fred: Again base on our old familiar friend, the outline. As long as you have a good outline and you have something that is very savvy, say like you or me, doing the questioning, it’s not going to be a problem, because somebody who knows how to ask questions and follow up with questions and is interested in the material will be able to do a good interview base on outline alone. And by the way when you do your outlines I hate it when people prepare questions for me. I’d rather have the outline and I can come up with my own questions.

Avish: Makes sense. So with those two methods, recording a live seminar or recording an interview, you’re going to end up with some kind of a digital audio file, how do you then sell that whether it’s online or at back of the room?

Fred: Yeah. Well of all that is about taking all that content and information and putting it, uploading it into web marketing magic which we have spoken about before and then cutting it up in small enough chunks and it can be delivered to people in pieces. But then when they order the product they get everything, all the various components and they can go it one, two, three, you know, however many pieces there are.

Avish: Okay. When you are selling products at a seminar back of the room, let’s say you’ve created some of these interviews and things. Do you sell them like a downloadable product that you have to go home and download? Or is it preferable to have a physical like CD or something to give them?

Fred: That’s a good question. I think, to increase your sales you should have a combination as a minimum. Which is if you sold only purely downloadable products it would be difficult to get people to put up their money and buy because they don’t think they are getting anything. They’re not getting a physical product when they give you the order. Whereas, if you make part of the order downloadable or as much of it as possible but you do have one or two CDs or DVDs or whatever it is your selling available at the event that would make it easier for people to justify putting in the order because they can actually see and touch something right there.

Avish: Okay. Do you think that needs to be, and now I’m getting a little bit technical, but does that need to be a CD that’s playable or can it just be a CD with like MP3s burned on it?

Fred: I think it’s better if it’s a CD that’s playable. Just because it makes it such that, you know, frequently you give people on MP3 CDs specially people who are not very sophisticated, you get people calling and saying, this doesn’t work I got a bad CD. So let’s make sure that it’s a standard CD.

Avish: Okay. So let’s say that I have a seminar and I put it together. I have people coming and it is two weeks from today, but I have no products, what would you advice I do?

Fred: What I would have you do is first, create an outline on a topic that you would be covering in a seminar but you’re not going to cover it in depth and in detail. Put together an outline on that specific topic. Find a friend like you or me, sit down and do this either via Skype or in person and record a separate and complete other program having to do with that very in depth topic and then make it available either in CD form or in a downloadable form if it’s a portion of your order. But at least make sure that anytime you’re pitching you have at least some physical product that people can walk away with.

Avish: Okay. Well, that’s great, straightforward, and very simple. Any other thoughts you have on this very large topic of product creation?

Fred: Well it’s funny because if you go to fredgleek.comford/ebooks, there’s another book called “Selling Information” which will give people the full story on any or all of this. So I would refer them there.

Avish: Okay. And again, those are free up there?

Fred: Yup they are free, fredgleek.comford/ebooks.

Avish: Super.