So, you’re ready to look for passive income, the kind of money that comes in while you sleep, work on other things, or have fun. I applaud your initiative! Just make sure you don’t fall victim to the top two traps I see in action time and time again.
The biggest mistake I see others make is starting too big. Many think the smart thing to do is start with a book or something equally ambitious. They make an outline and get to work on their book or a complicated home study course that would take years to complete, given their overall plan.
One product developer, for example, asked to interview me as one of 12 experts in a large home-study course and promised to send me the entire package when it was finished. Every two months he would email him to ask if he could send me a copy of the product. However, it was not done yet. It took him almost two years to finish creating that course! And when I finally got a copy, I could see half a dozen ways that she had made her project much more difficult and complicated than it needed to be. Worst of all, some of the information from the experts in the course was already out of date.
Both books and large and complicated infoproducts each have their place. Just don’t start with one. Start with an easy project that you can start and finish in a week or less. Then set it up to start earning with it. Then you’ll be ready to tackle a bigger project.
The second most common deadly mistake made by first time information marketers is creating a product focused on what people should want to know, what is good for them to know, not what they really want to know.
For example, a psychotherapist I know believes that unrecognized shame is the root cause of many people’s unhappiness. She may be right about this. However, unless people are very knowledgeable about psychology or have been in therapy for a while, they will not identify shame as their core problem. And in that case, they are not going to buy a report or a course on how to overcome their shame.
Similarly, maybe you’re a copywriter and have a great workbook on translating features into benefits. This would be extremely beneficial for anyone who wants to find more customers or clients. He hopes to sell this to small and medium business owners. However, the average business owner is not aware of the features and benefits, so this is not going to be a huge seller for the business community.
For one more example of this, imagine that you are a financial planner and you see over and over again families complaining because they have refused to create an emergency cash fund for emergencies. Then you might decide to create an audio course that teaches families how to do it. It would certainly be good for them to have this information. But since they’re not looking for this information en masse yet, you’ve got a tough sell ahead of you.
As a developer of information products, you must always separate the solutions or insights that people deliberately seek from those that they don’t know would be good for them. Focus on the former and you’ll have a better chance of first-time success in an info product. Later, when you have a client list and a reputation, you can sneak into the “good to know” stuff, and fans can snatch it away.