90-Day Product Creation Challenge – Time to Go Back to School

Today is Day 1 of Tiffany Dow’s Product Creation Challenge and I’m really excited about this one.

The motivation and support that comes with participating in any type of challenge with others is a great way to get a lot more done in your business.

And whether you have your own products already, or you have no clue what kind of products you’d even WANT to create, I really hope you consider joining in with the rest of us.

I have no doubt that you’ll learn something along the way. Who knows? You might even make a friends or two along the way or gain a few more followers. Leading up to this challenge, there have many people expressing fears about creating their own products and doubts about whether they can.

Trust me… you can!

Be the Teacher AND the Student

For me, one of the keys to product creation is to remember that all you’re doing is teaching. And whether it’s teaching something you know or something you don’t, it’s really no different than when you were in school. After all, isn’t that the whole point of having gone to school… to learn about things we don’t know? And if you approach it like that, you really have no excuses… especially if you have kids.

Think about it…

You send your kids to school every day… to learn. They’re learning about things they don’t know anything about… math, history, grammar, cooking, art, and more. They have to learn about the subject, write about it, talk about it, sometimes present it to their class in an organized fashion, and get tested on it.

So why would you think that YOU can’t create a product?

If your children can do it (and you expect them to do their best), then how can you set a good example by expecting less from yourself? Treat it like a school project that you’re helping your kids do. When they don’t know how to do something, they ask their teachers or friends.

You’ve got all of us here online. The folks participating in this challenge are from different backgrounds, different countries… they have varying degrees of knowledge about all sorts of online and offline subject matter… and they’re willing to assist others in getting products created… because they’re doing it too!

And remember, it’s going to be much more fun than it was when you were in school because YOU get to pick the topic, design, layout, presentation method and more.

That’s right. You’re not going to have someone telling you that you can or can’t add something to the end product. And yet on the flip side, when you have to come up with ways to present it and sell it, you have an entire “class” online to go to with questions. How cool is that?!

Time to Get Back to School

Now I know for many of us, it’s been a while since we were in school so you may have forgotten a lot about those projects. If you have kids who are still in school, you can always ask them for some help… go ahead… they love feeling like they know more than you so give ’em their day in the spotlight!

If you don’t have kids (or you’re not willing to pay them the bribery fee they’re demanding), just break it down. Here’s an example of how I’d go about putting together a simple information product.

Pick a topic. This could be a niche that you’re already involved in, or it could be something that’s been more of a hobby so you feel more confident about it… or it may be something that you know NOTHING about but have always wanted to learn about.

Start doing research.  See what kinds of information is already available to people.

Check Amazon to see what kinds of books have been written on the subject matter. Read the reviews on the books to see if people say it’s missing something else they would have liked to have. Do the same things at forums and blogs.

Jot down questions that people have. You may find out there’s something that people want to know about the topic that just hasn’t been covered yet. And even if there’s not, don’t let that stop you from doing it.

Maybe no one’s done video or audio or power point presentations with their products. Maybe no one has organized it in the way you will. Regardless, your product is ALWAYS going to be different… because YOU’RE different from everyone else out there!

Create an outline. It doesn’t matter how you do this one. Write it down on paper. Type it out in Word. Create a mind map (always my favorite).

Use whatever method you’re most comfortable with and remember, you’re no longer in school so you can outline in full sentences, partial sentences, or a couple words. You can also break it down into as many pieces as you want and add as much detail to the outline as you choose… and I highly recommend you do because the more detail you have on your outline, the easier it’s going to be to create your product.

Write your rough draft. Don’t edit as you write. Just use your outline and start filling it in. You can do it in order or you can bounce around. It’s not going to matter since you’ve already got an outline together.

If you find something along the way that you don’t know enough about, just jot a note down to research further and go back to it once the draft is done. In other words, you can go back and fill in the blanks AFTER the draft is done.

Gather your images. Now that you know what you’re writing about, you can start gathering images to make the product more clear to your end user. Are there screen shots that you can get to explain something better? Are there pictures of things you’ve explained that will make it easier to understand?

Be sure to note any references to images that require proper credit so that you have them inside the end product.

Walk away from it. Now that you have your rough draft, walk away from it for a couple of days. With the amount of time you’ve already spent with the research and writing, it’s going to give you a fresh perspective. When you give yourself some time away from it, you’re more likely to see what pieces might be missing.

Write your second draft. Once you’ve been away from your writing for a few days (or longer), come back and read thru it with a fresh eye. At this point, you can do any additional research to fill in areas you didn’t have covered before. You can also double-check the flow at this point to see if anything should be re-ordered.

Choose & create your media. Now that your product is close to final draft, it’s time to decide on how you’re going to present it. Are you doing a .PDF only? Do you plan to add audio or video? Are you going to create a power point presentation or a mind map for any or all of the information?

This is where you get to be creative. You don’t have to do ANY of it if you don’t want to… it’s YOUR product. You can always add it later if you’d like to as well.

Just keep in mind that your customers have a wide range of preferences and learning styles so you’re going to reach a wider audience if you have additional ways to deliver it.

Get an outside perspective. Now that you have all your text, images, and media together in a single product, ask (or pay) someone outside your immediate circle of influence… in other words, NOT your spouse or friends who worry about your feelings… to take a look at it from a customer perspective.

You’re looking for spelling errors, grammar errors, typos, out-of-order issues, confusing concepts, etc. Everything that could make your product look less professional or be more difficult to understand for the end user.

GIVE UP ON PERFECTION! Look, even if you’ve done all the steps and have 50 other people look thru it, chances are there will still be errors. You’re not looking for perfection (well, you may be looking for it but stop it!).

Your goal is to eliminate as many errors as can be while not slowing down the creation process. In other words, you will NOT be using this whole edit part of product creation as an excuse to not get your product out into the world!! Now that we’re clear on that part, I’ll stop here and we can talk about the whole technical side of all this on my next post.

Your Turn: Are you worried that your product(s) won’t be “good enough” for the public? Have you let that worry get in the way of creating your own products? Are you an affiliate marketer who plans to never create your own products? I’m curious to see the different perspectives of how people go about creating (or not creating) products of their own.

Tiffany Dow’s Product Creation Challenge Posts & Tips Mind Map

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