The Uphill Climb of Creating Products

I’m taking a short break from some audio editing for our soon-to-be-released audio seminar The Sacred Moment: How to talk to potential clients with integrity and heart, and still get paid. It was a tremendous two-day seminar I led here in Portland in April… aside from the technical glitches.

Which were so bad, that we had to reconvene some of the local participants to re-record the first morning, so we would have a usable recording for the participants who had been there in April, and for the product we’re releasing. That went great.

On top of which, Holly’s computer has crashed several times, most recently last night, which I repaired by re-installing the OS. And, even aside from the technical problems, we’ve been really focused on a whole host of things to really create a great quality product, including:

• I’ve written over 80 pages of material, which will be edited twice and fixed by the end of this week.
• All two days of the audio recordings are being transcribed, then formatted and edited.
• The CD label needed to be designed (done yesterday).
• The packaging decided on (done awhile ago.)

A lot goes into it. It’s been fun, stressful, taxing, and inspiring. And, it’s taken quite a bit of time to really put it all together. It’s no wonder that it takes many people a good long time before they get into creating products for their business.

This will be the sixth or seventh product we’ve created, but it will also be the largest we’ve ever done. There are some take-aways for me here:

1) I’m glad I’ve stepped more slowly into creating the big products.
We made a lot of mistakes with the earliest ones- not that mistakes aren’t still being made, but they are less costly, and the quality we’re creating is MUCH higher. I’m glad i started with very small products before attempting something this large.

2) Creating a quality product takes time, attention, and space.
Far more than you might expect. I’m a big believer in avoiding perfectionism- get’er done! And yet, it still takes time. From prior experience, I knew to create space in my schedule to work on this product. And, I put conscious attention on how to maintain decent cash flow during the ‘down time’ – although it really isn’t down time. It’s worked great!

3) The editing process may be laborious, but it’s inspiring.
Listening to the audio as I’m editing it is great! We had SO much fun in this Seminar- we all laughed and joked a lot, and yet the profound moments of learning and breakthrough were so vulnerable and touching. It’s truly amazing, and allowing me to really be alive with this project, and excited.

4) Pre-selling with a deadline makes all the difference.
I’ve written an article on why you should pre-sell. I won’t go into everything again here- you can read the article. (Not to boast, but Chris Garrett recommended the article highly.) It’s worth the read.

As Heart of Business has developed, I’ve watched our revenue shift from almost entirely working one-on-one clients with a few classes, to the bulk of it coming in through classes and products, with just a small handful of really inspiring individual clients. In any given month usually 30%+ comes in from product sales.

In case you’re curious, here are the current products we offer: Unveiling the Heart of Your Business, Creating Heart-Centered Websites, The Business Oasis Membership Forum (Note: the Oasis ended in November 2010.), and by the end of this week, The Sacred Moment Home Study Course. And, later this year we’ll be offering the home study version of The Heart of Money Transformational Journey.

Over the last two years, we’ve sold over $80,000 in products (with only two refunds), and it’s accelerating. And, it’s not just about the money- we could never have held enough classes to serve all the people who purchased those products.

Pretty cool, eh? A lot of people have told me they want to shift to having more passive income through products- it’s well worth it, but it does take some focus and strategy.

If you are wanting to create a product but haven’t, I want to help where ever you’re feeling stuck–please ask me questions here on the blog. I’m happy to take a break during my editing to answer and support you in it.

And, if you’ve launched a product and have lessons you’ve learned that you want to share, like my take-aways above, please add to the discussion.