Lessons

Lesson Info

Planning for Your Product Creation

So logistics planning page in eighteen in the work buck what do you need thinking about your particular a product that you selected what do you think you're going to need in order to create and sell the next digital product or your first digital product if it's a prince are you going to make it an illustrator and photoshopped or are you just going to pick illustrator or things like that if it's an equal ours are you going to sell it on a separate fight do you have a wordpress site where you can have a second installation and set that up? I can easily install second installations on my website it's a click of a button which is really nice that's what I do for all of my courses so thinking about your particular product what do you think you're going teo need to create it and if you don't know and you want to ask I don't know if I'll have the answer for you but I could and somebody else might have the answer for you too so if you're stumped let me now when you say second installation does...

that mean it's ah unique earl that is being built off your current website or is it a page that at it's it's sort of a unique earl it's blacks for belle dot com backslash whatever the course is and so it's part of blacksburg bell dot com but it's on its way I think of it as a separate website because you can't access it from blacksburg belt are calm you have tohave that specific earl kind to access a secret page yeah the hidden track and that you have I believe I would say that it's a separate website because you it doesn't just look like your website it's not as if you create a page and then all of a sudden it looks like your website you have to do everything to build it as a website like I have to install the theme I have to upload a header all of that stuff that if you have just another page on your website all that stuff is already there okay, thanks do you have any tips for like so just in these two months that I've had this blogged I've had plug ins that have made my blogged break you know? And then I've had plug ins that worked really great and I'm a little bit scared of plug ins because I don't know if they're going to be awesome or awful so installation that sounds a little scary too. So do you have like good tips for you? You know, non techies how what's the maybe least expensive way or the best approach to sort of managing that kind of thing in terms of do you suggest hiring somebody or is it you trip along and you know what I mean? Like I have done for my membership stuff, I've done everything myself, so one of the things that I dio is I look at the reviews of the plug in and what people are saying about it, and if it if it has bad reviews or, you know, it's got the star system and wordpress, if it doesn't have but so many stars, I don't even try it because there are so many options I picked the ones that look high quality, and people are saying really good things about it. Thankfully, I've never had a plug in that has broken my sight or done anything like that. That would be scary. That would not be fun at all to the reviews they also have when they were last updated. So if it wasn't updated in the last, I usually do a year, maybe six months, so if it was back in two thousand twelve when I was last updated, then you definitely don't want to probably download that plug in and also see if it works with your latest installation of wordpress, so it needs toe work with your version of wordpress so that I won't break your website and then also with her other plug ins because sometimes there's nothing wrong with either one but together, bad news, so it's a little tricky a that was a great tip. Thank you for thinking about you and I think it's about experimenting and figure ivy's plug ins that just don't work for what I want, and I think they're going to be something different, and I tried them out and it's not the right fit. When I was trying to figure out a plug in to play the videos on my membership sites, I went through about five different ones until I found one that worked really well for me, and so you can hire somebody who's going to have that expertise, especially if you have the budget for it. But if you don't, then I say experiment, and also, if you had a second installation of your are you on a word parasite? Okay, if you have a second installation, you could play with everything on have like a test installation, play with everything on that and see if it works, and if it does, then use it on your actual upstate, so you're not messing it up and I wish I could remember the name of what I youth to add installations. I will think of it, I will look in see, because really it's just a click of a button and them choosing the you are all the end of the earl and that's it. It creates it for me and it's really easy. I am, I do not consider myself a tech savvy person at all, and so if I couldn't do it, I promise you can do it. Anybody could do it. So also where will you sell it? Are you going to sell it on your website? Are you going to sell it on that? Here? You going to sell it on creative market? There are lots of options. Where do you see yourself selling this product? For now? For the next few months, the next six months, you can always update that. What programs do you need to buy or learn how to use? So any do any of you guys know what you need to do in order to create your products? Yeah, he's no, jennifer, what did you pick to work on? I'm going to do the course design workshop because I've already started that I have the content. So now it's just a matter of revamping it and redoing it. So I'm going to do that on like how you do a separate installation I do in a separate sub domain. So my course, my website is teach good stuff dot com and so my courses on course dot teach good stuff, dot com so it's a separate kind of sub to me so similar to what you have is a complete installation and wordpress again and head and all that stuff and we might be talking about the same thing even probably so I'm not that I can tell you that I think is the same thing so I have the plug in a wish list remember although there's tons of other plug ins and depends on you know your goals and what you're trying to dio so I might well just go with that just because I have already set up and ready to go I use pages and pdf escaped to make it available so that people can type into the worksheets or they can print them out themselves and write by hand can you share that again what that is? Pdf escape pdf escape and if you need a tutorial video I have one of my website in a sidebar but yeah that's awesome put it out there yes um video I used video toe hold my videos and that's it I think I want to learn how to use and design an illustrator. I'm not even sure exactly what they will do for me outside of pages, but I I like that idea of making little buttons and headers and little images so I might have toe look into courses on how to learn how to do that as well okay, when you are thinking about creating a digital product, one of the things I highly, highly highly recommend is making it automatic system eyes ing it, making sure that it flows seamlessly, because when you're creating digital or information products, the last thing you want to do is have to do something manually on top of everything out, you wanted to just work, so an example would be an instant out load. Somebody buy something let's, say they buy your print, they instantly get it. You don't have tio then see you've got a sale run to your computer, send them the doubt, loon or a seamless membership sign up. So for my course, is what happens is people click on the buy button, they go to the shopping cart page, they insert their information, and immediately they are directed teo a page to sign up for the course so they pick a user name and password, and then they're n and so I don't have to do anything extra and keep this in mind when you're planning logistics. It's worth taking a few extra steps now for more freedom later to figuring this stuff out on how to make it automatic in seamless, it really is worth it. When I was doing my interview with bonnie, she was telling me that at this point or previously she had teo autumn she had tto add every single person who signed up for her membership program and I said girl, you have to get until one shopping car immediately because it's going to help you just automate this thing just like I know I do need to check that out and so it's worth it it's worth it to take those extra steps to make it to make life easier now when you are writing about all of these things that you need to do all of these things that you possibly need tto learn you may feel overwhelmed I'm sure that there are some of you sitting here thinking this is a lot this is overwhelming if you are overwhelmed by how much you have to learn for bi to sell your digital product make a smaller version make it easier on yourself make it less overwhelming an example instead of creating an online course turn that content into an e book and then later you could offer the online course so make it easier on yourself if you're feeling super overwhelmed like I all of these words all of these different things that I'm gonna have to do to my website that sounds really stressful don't don't let it do that to yourself and you can always make a bigger version leader like my carla she made her life is messing planners and from those planners she made life is messy boot camp and those air completely different target market she made the smaller version, tested it out saw that people loved it the great reason to make a smaller version, and you can see how your audience responds to it, and then you can put out the larger version, and if the technical aspects of your project, like adding code to website, are overwhelming taken easier route for now again, do something that's easier. So instead of selling the product on your own website, fill it on etsy or creative market or somewhere like that so that you are feeling like you have all of this additional stress and all of these extra step that you just don't know how to do at that point in time, you could always make things easier, and then you can always move it later you're going to be growing, your business is going to grow and change, so there is always time, tio make things better or move things off of, uh, market like I'd seen onto your website. Don't let that stuff stress you out and don't let that self keep you from doing it. And remember, you can only do one thing at a time, and this is supposed to be my like my zen succulent planter that like, makes you feel calm and relaxed, you can only do one thing at a time, I I kept telling myself that when I was creating this course because I had a to do list that was incredibly long and I just kept saying, I can only do one thing at a time I'm working on this now I will worry about all the other stuff once this is finished and then I'll do the next step overwhelmed we've had a couple of questions come up on this one I want to read here that says I teach online upholstery courses and I have many, many pieces that go into these courses at times it can be overwhelming. When is it time to hire someone to help me with some of these tasks? Maybe eliminate the overwhelmed? When do you know if that's a good idea for your business? Yeah, absolutely, I would say one if you have the budget for it, hire somebody to get some of those tasks off of your to do list whenever you feel like you need that in your at that point in your business, where you need help, hire help it's only going to make things easier. Then you get to do the stuff that that's within your realm of genius and people are doing the other stuff that they're good at, and it makes for an even better business emily from indy shop biography she's, one of the case studies in the book she has a team of, I believe five people now and it started out as just her in a design business, but as she's grown, she has hire people to do some of the stuff that she doesn't love doing some of the admin tasks she has somebody who does that she has somebody who also helps with the admin tasks and he does all of the emails about collecting money and all of that kind of stuff that she doesn't want to dio she has a professional photographer who take ex photos for her blogged pictures and all kinds of stuff and she has a beautiful studio space but she's grown and one of the things that she said to me when we were chatting is that it's so nice to be in this place where I'm doing the work that I love and I am able to dole out tasks to other people that I don't love to dio and that's something to consider when you're creating your dream business the stuff that you don't love to do if it still has to get done. You know there are certain parts of your business that you're probably not gonna love but need to get done that's when you figure out how can I hire this out? How can I how could I get other people to do this work so that I can spend my time on what I'm really good up great I'll follow up with one more quick question that came in on a related note from kisses and chaos they say I launched any book two years ago and it received great reviews with some well known names in the blogger sphere but then the sales were well, she says insert sad tramp trombone sound so anyway she wants to know is it time to revamp this product or scrap it? She wants to know how do you know when it's time to just put a product aside when you're overwhelmed with it? Maybe it's not getting the sales when do you know to move onto the next product? I would say we're gonna discuss failure in a in one of the upcoming segment group and we're going to talk about tweaking things we're going to talk about really asking yourself the questions of did you do the work did you put out a quality product are you really proud of it? Could it be better did you do the marketing for it? Did you actually launch it? Are you continually marketing it? Are you doing in a way that connects to your target market so you have to ask yourself those questions if the answers are that you've done everything that you can first of all I would have other people look at it and give you feedback that's one of the things I would absolutely do before just scrapping it I would have somebody who maybe I used as an accountability partner, or somebody who I know, that I respect their opinion. I would probably go to my and say, hey, can you check out my product? Can you check out my sales page? Can you tell me why this might not be working and get that constructive criticism and then make changes? So before you scrap it, I would absolutely get some feedback from people who you trust and can help. You kind of see things that you're so close to it, and so in it, that you can't always see things that other people pick up on.