For Printer friendly version of this transcript Click here

Michael: So, you’ve got some experience in something that you have been doing for years. You want to create and information product out of it, because you know it works, you have confidence it what it has done – because of your experience. But, the bottom line is that you want to make some money out of it to help fund what you are doing so that you can keep doing it. Right?

Larry: Yes.

Michael: Then what it all comes down to is your market. You know your market. Is your market going to pay for something like this? When it comes to marketing, and you are selling products, it is a lot harder to sell the prevention than it is to sell the cure. Do you know what I am saying? I am just talking from a marketing standpoint. I have a product that I manufacture and sell – it is a pen that marks in invisible ink. I sell it to people to mark their property, before they have a burglary or a theft in their home. Let me tell you, the only time burglar alarms sell is after you have had a robbery.

Larry: Right.

Michael: That's just human nature. Are the people who are going to buy this product in enough pain, that they will do anything to try to resolve the problem with their (UN)?

I think the first thing you need to do is figure out how much money you want to make. If you are going to invest your time and money into this, you have to have some kind of realistic goal of what you want out of it. I don’t want to say “Realistic” meaning that it won’t be much, it may be a lot. But you have to have a goal to start with. It has to be enough to keep you really excited about it and to put a lot of energy and passion into it. Do you want to make a thousand a month from it? Would that make you happy? Two thousand? Three thousand?

Then you have to work backwards off this number to figure out what you could sell it for. Were you thinking of selling it as a book for twenty dollar or something.

Pat: Well, actually, we were thinking between ten and twenty. That would be the range. That would be wonderful.

Larry: Part of it too would be how do we package it?

Michael: When you think of a book, you think of a book in a bookstore. They cost about twenty dollars, right? But when it comes to information marketing, you can create and information product. You can actually create the “course” and sell it for two or three hundred dollars… as long as it does not look like a “book.” You want to create a course that is going to solve these parents’ problems. And you want to guarantee them that it will work if they follow it, and, if it doesn’t work, you’ll give them all their money back.

Have you put together some written information already?

Pat: Yes.

Michael: Let’s say you have 50 pages of written information.

Pat: Not that much.

Michael: Not that much? Well, even if you don’t have that much, that’s okay. You have a plan outlined, about what these parents need to do about their children.

Larry: Yes.

Michael: You want to create a course, like a three ring notebook. So you set up a step by step course and you include that as part of the information product. Then you probably want to add some audio tapes, which may seem hard to do and may seem confusing, but it’s not at all difficult. You can sit around in front of a tape recorder or you can get some recording device at Radio Shack, like a little cassette player that records. And you can come up with an outline of topics that you have talked about with previous clients. You want to basically create an outline for a book and then you want to talk on those topics. You talk right into the tape player. You would just say anything that you would say to a parent, any kind of counseling that you would give to the child. Use your written material as the outline for what you are going to talk about, and you want to put that onto an audio tape. You want to put that onto maybe three of them. Or four, or five, or six audio tapes. Do you think that you could talk about the subject for about six hours?

Pat: Oh, yeah.

Michael: The more you can talk, the more value you put into the product. Just get it onto audio tape. I can help you find people to do the editing for you. It’s no big deal.

Once you have it down on tape, that is your product. Now you have written information and you have audio tapes to go with it. You have increased the value of the product substantially. And what would that cost you? What does it cost for six audio tapes? Maybe six dollars.

You said that the information that you could put on them was very valuable, because it comes from your years of experience. You could increase the value of that package even more by adding a video. You could have a video of a consultation with one of your clients. Are you still doing any of these interventions or consultations?

Pat: We are not, at the moment.

Michael: I would bet that you could find someone, maybe a teenager, who would be willing to be in a video. You could do a little mock up video. The teenager could be acting or you could have a mom and dad there with a teenager, and go over the exact exercise of what you want to show these parents. All you need is a video camera, and these cameras record digitally. You can rent one or have a friend come over and videotape it for you in your living room. It doesn’t have to be a professional quality presentation. You just have to get the information out there and on tape. People just want to see how to do it.

Now you can add a video, which is going to cost you about a dollar plus your time and effort involved in getting it together. Now you have a video, six audio tapes, a course outline and you can put it all together in a nice package. I can help you with getting sources for all that too. You put a nice cover on it and put it in a three ring notebook – now you have some meat in your product.

You can show people how to do it, they can listen and study on the audio tapes, and they can read the written material. There are other information products that don’t cost much, but you can keep adding to it and building up the value of the product. Does that make sense?

Pat: It does.

Michael: Isn’t this something that is a lot more valuable than a twenty dollar book?

Pat: Well, it really is!

Michael: This is something that you can make some money on, and at the same time, you are offering much more value to your customer. You are not saying. “Here’s the book. Read it and you figure it out.” You are showing them how to solve the problems on video. You are right there with them on the audio tapes. They are in pain and they want to solve their problems with their teenagers, and their behavior. You are going to help them get better, as a family. They are going to listen to, read, and watch every bit of it. If they don’t, that is just too bad because you cannot make any one do anything, can you? No matter how hard you try with your clients, you are not going to make them change, are you?

Larry: No.

Michael: They have to be ready to do it. You already know from your experience that all you can do is lead a horse to water, but you can’t make them drink. That is what your product is there for – if they are willing to take the time to listen to it, implement it, and follow it, you have done your job. You can’t worry about the people who will return it. Most people won’t, but maybe a couple of people will. You can sell this for three or four hundred dollars, you really can.

You probably thinking, “How do I sell it for three or four hundred dollars?” You have to look at your combined experience. How long have you been doing this?

Pat: Ten years.

Michael: Ten years of combined experience. That's worth three hundred dollars to some one who is in crisis and in pain. That is the type of market you are looking for: people who have gotten to that point. You want to market to them. You want to aim towards those in a crisis situation where they are just beside themselves. They have to have a solution. A lot of these parents are going crazy, right?

Larry: Yes, they are.

Michael: That’s good for you because people will pay anything for a solution. I will give you an example from my personal life. This really hit home with me. I had a four month old baby and when he was born, every thing was fine. But as he was growing, when he was two months old, his head was a little off the scales, in the ninety-six percentile. That is when the pediatrician said something. We were looking for information about it, my wife is a bit neurotic, she thought it was hydrocephilitis, or water on the brain. We were researching it, but the pediatrician said, “Ah, don’t worry about it. He doesn’t have that.” We kept looking and looking and we realized that he didn’t have that soft spot on his head. My wife works in mammography, in X-rays, so we had one of the radiologists take an X-ray of his head, and we realized that one of the fissures, the places where the bones meet that allow the skull to expand as the baby grows, was fused.

So, we did some research and we found out exactly what it was. It was Cranial Stynosis, which is a premature fusion of the fissure. What can happen is that the head can become deformed. You can imagine… here we are with our two month old; we need a solution to this problem. We found out what the problem was and that one in three thousand children have this…

Pat: Really?

Michael: We found a specialist in Missouri who was doing a surgery, orthoscopically, under the skin. The traditional surgery is a very hairy surgery with a scar from ear to ear.

Pat: Oh, wow.

Michael: Now, our insurance would have paid for that, but obviously, we don’t want a scar on the baby’s head. We wanted to give him the best chance possible. So we went with the team of surgeons out of Missouri, who had been specializing in this for a number of years, and have done more of these than anyone in the world. People from all over the world would go to them. It was costly, but even though we could have gotten it done for free if we would have gone the traditional route, with our insurance, and the orthoscopic surgeons could not guarantee that our insurance would cover it…. Do you think that we had to think about that decision?

Pat: No. Not a minute.

Michael: Not a minute. And that is where your customers are probably at. So, twenty dollars, three hundred dollars, a thousand dollars – in many cases, if they have the money, they are going to spend it. You just have to make sure that you deliver, and you give them the best solution that you have.

Pat: Right. Right.

Michael: Ask yourself – are you doing them a service? If you can solve their problem, they would gladly pay you a thousand dollars over and over again. If you have an edge, or if you have techniques that really work, they will be thanking you for it, because you are doing them a favor.

If you sell them a twenty dollar book, it doesn’t seem very valuable. There are a bunch of twenty dollar books up on the shelf, and they are probably not going to read it or value it as much as if they had invested a thousand dollars, or even five hundred, are they?

Pat: No. You’re right.

Michael: You see? You are really doing them a favor by charging them more, because it becomes more valuable; it makes you more credible, because they are saying, “God, it’s so expensive, it must be really good.” You do usually get what you pay for, right?

Pat: That’s true

Michael: I think that is where you should start. Those are some things you should think about. It’s absolutely doable. And once you have your product together, then you need to develop your sales message or your sales letter or the reasons why your customer should purchase your product. I am sure you could list all the reasons and benefits why someone needs this product. I offer a service will help you with this. I am very good at asking questions and drawing out answers, getting all the reasons why. We tape the conversation, and then as you are talking passionately about your subject, the words will come out perfectly, rather than sitting down in front of the computer, with a blank screen, and trying to write it out. That is almost impossible.

Pat: Yeah.

Michael: Can you imagine that? There are ways to elicit the reasons why people should by this product from you. And I can help you do that or I can certainly teach you how to do that. That is what is going to make up your sales letter or your sales message, and that is what you are going to use to sell your products – automatically, without you having to do it one on one. You need to get your entire story – who you are, why you got into this, how long you have been doing this, how you have seen it change lives, why your techniques are different than other’s techniques. Your most convincing sales argument is if you are sitting in front of two parents and their kid is getting ready to commit suicide, and you say to these parents, “You have got to get this course, and put your family through our system, or your kid is going is going to die.” You need to give them your absolute, most passionate, most convincing argument why they should do it. That is going to be your sales message. Once you have it in print or on an audio tape or on a fax or in an email, you use those marketing delivery systems to deliver that message to your market.

You can get a list of people in your target market. That is done with some research in mail lists… you can get a mailing list of anything. You probably have a good idea of who your target market is, or maybe several markets, and you can test this sales message with your target market. Then you are in business. You have your product, you’ve got your sales message, and then it just becomes business.

Pat: Right.

Michael: Did I put it into words that made sense?

Pat: You sure did.

Michael: Paul Hartunian is great with this. On his web site, he gives a lot of free information. I have, on my web site, other things that might help. Can you listen to audio on your computer?

Pat: Yes.

Larry: Yes.

Michael: Have you ordered my CD-ROM yet?

Pat: Yes.

Michael: Okay, on the CD-ROM, I have about eight hours where we talk about nothing but publicity. It’s done with a gentleman who we call the PR Doctor. He is a Paul Hartunian student, and he offers a lot of great information. The information on my CD-ROM and my website is just as valuable. There are more techniques that you can use and it will give you more of an education on publicity and you wouldn’t have to pay for Hartunian’s stuff. Have you listened to any of that?

Pat: Not yet.

Larry: We just got the email this morning.

Michael: Ok, I’ll send that CD right out to you, and you can listen to some of those audio clips up on my web site, www.hardtofindseminars.com .

Larry: Okay.

Michael: It’s the one with the PR Doctor. I’m not sure which one it is, you are going to have to read the descriptions to find it.

Larry: One thing that Paul offers in his kit is a CD with a media source. We are looking at our particular expertise and our particular product. Something in our story that might be interesting.

Michael: Well, the thing is, those media sources can be obtained in other places. What does this kit retail for?

Pat: The whole thing is seven hundred. Five to seven hundred.

Michael: I am going to save you some money. You really don’t need to invest that kind of money. I may have a pre-owned one. I’ll look on the shelf… I may have the entire kit right here. Now, the media sources, you can find in other locations. Don’t worry about buying the media sources right now, because you can find them in other places.

You need to keep in mind, if you want to go that route, to free publicity, when you put out your press release, you are kind of stuck. If a media source calls you and wants to talk to you, you have to be there on the phone ready to talk to them. And they are going to put their recording on the radio, or the T.V., or whatever. You are just using that as a regenerating device. People will hear about it and they will have contact information, and they are going to call you directly.

Pat: Right.

Michael: What you are actually doing is you are taking that information which you are going to give while you are giving your passionate story as to why someone should buy your product. Basically you are going to give this while talking to the radio announcer or the T.V. announcer. You are putting it out there in a shotgun approach, shooting your message to the masses and seeing what sticks. This way only the people who are in need, and who happen to hear it, are going to possibly call you.

I think you are going to be much more effective if you put your passionate sales message, and reasons for buying your product, in the form of a letter and target your market.

Pat: Right.

Michael: Your market, and only the market that you know has a need for your service. That way you are not just taking your sales letter and sending it to everyone in the phone book. Rather, you are sending it only to those people who have children in crisis, who need a solution.

Pat: Right.

Michael: Everything else is a waste of money and time and effort. Does that make sense?

Pat: It does.

Michael: You can, with today’s technology and research, target your specific market with your sales message. That is going to be less time consuming, you are not going to be stuck by the phone waiting for a media source to call you. You are going to get your message directly to your prospect in need. It’s just more efficient. Does that answer your question?

Pat: Yes, it does. I have written articles for a parenting publication, and it occurred to me that that might be something to look into. I am sure that they accept editorial features.

Michael: That is a great idea, and even the free publicity is a good idea. I am just saying that you can multiple techniques in generating leads. I am not saying that they are not good ideas… they are. You want to do more than one. You want to do as many as appropriate. What I am saying that direct marketing or direct mail is going to be the most efficient. If you can do an article as an editorial feature and get it into a magazine that targets these people, that is a wonderful way of generating credibility and generating leads.

You want to do what I am doing. You want to be the world’s expert in this topic. This is what Paul Hartunian talks about. You are saying, “How do I qualify myself at the world’s expert? Because you say you are! It’s just like you calling me because I have established myself as a marketing expert. There are lots of marketing experts out there, but I am good because I say I am and that I am good. I study this stuff and I have been doing it for a long time. I am passionate about it and I have proved to you, in a lot of ways, that I am. That is why you are calling me.

You want to do the same thing for your niche. You want to become, and claim yourself as, the world’s expert at rebuilding families. You want to create your niche. My niche is I’m the guy who gets the Jay Abraham marketing materials for pennies on the dollar. That is how people remember me. You want to create “Who are you and what are you all about.” What is your USP, what is your Unique Selling Proposition? What is it that makes you different? What guarantees a promise? Those are some marketing things that you will want to think about too.

Pat: Interesting. You have given us some great ideas on how to market our product. What would be involved? What would be the fees for what we talked about?

Michael: I have those on my website. You can review my consulting service. What I could also do, and it's on there too, is help you with the audio interviews. I can act as a consultant to you and I can do the interview to try to get out your sales message - that passionate appeal to the parents of why they should buy your program. And I could help craft a sales message from that. All of that is listed up on the web site under my consulting services.

But you don’t need me to do this. You can do this on your own. You really can. And if there is something that you don’t know how to do, there are other people who can help you. I would be more than willing to help you with it. I am just saying that you really can do this, it’s not hard.

Larry: Really quickly, what do you think about target audience. Just about every one that has teenagers that have communication and behavioral problems. Where do we go? Do we go to the library and look it up?

Michael: Absolutely. There is a source called the SRDS, the Standard Rate and Data Service, and they are two big phone books of nothing but mailing lists. Everything you can think of. I have a subscription, maybe I can do a quick review of it and see what kind of lists are available out there that would fit your market. I will assure you that there are already companies that are doing what you are doing, marketing and selling information products and courses, directed towards problem children. There are people already marketing to this market.

You are not going to be the only one. You can find other companies who do this already and you may be able to approach them and say, “Look, you guys market a summer camp to the same market that we market to. We have something that is going to help your customers after they get back from camp. Maybe we can work a deal together – you mail our sales letter to your list, we will pay for the mailing and we will split everything with you 50/50.”

Pat: Great!

Michael: That's called a Joint Venture. If you could set up five or six of those with other companies who market existing, non competing products to your market, why would someone say no to that?

Pat: Right.

Michael: That saves you the whole process of finding customers. But you are going to be giving up some of the profits. You were going to sell the book for ten or twenty dollars, but now I have maybe convinced you to sell it for three or four hundred, and you don’t have to get the customers – all you have to do is set up a mutually beneficial joint venture arrangement with someone already selling to your customers. Maybe they only have one product and wish they had another product. Does that make things easier?

Pat: It’s very exciting.

Michael: There are so many ways to approach it. That one, in itself, is one of the most powerful ways of marketing a new product. I have two interviews on my website about joint ventures that you should listen to that are free. There are also the transcripts. This will educate you a little bit more and you will probably get more and more excited.

Pat: That is very exciting.

Michael: You two are on a mission. You want to help families in need. We can work something out. You have to get your product together, the six audio tapes, the video, and your three ring binder for your course. Then you have something for them to hang onto, something that you can sell.

Pat: This has really given us a lot of food for thought. It has made me realize that the product itself can be marketed if we add the audio and the video components.

Michael: Right. You can give it more value. People like to absorb information in different ways. Some people like to see it on a video, some people like to listen on audio tapes, and some people like to read. Some people like the combination of all of them.

On my web site, when you asked for the free CD-ROM, I asked you what way do you like to learn best. Of the 500 responses, let me tell you, everyone is different

Pat: That’s right.

Michael: By appealing to all the ways of learning, you expand your market and increase the value of your product. There are other thing you could do to accomplish this. You could offer free consultation certificates where they could call you for up to one hour for a prescheduled consultation. You could call that a value of three hundred dollars, if that is what you would charge a family to do a consultation, then that increases the value in itself. Most people will not take you up on it, but it is a way, just a piece of paper, to increase the value of the course.

Larry: What about a free report? We read something about this last night. It was about tips on how to communicate with your teenager.

Michael: That’s great. A free report is a wonderful way to generate leads. “Ten Amazing Techniques to Open Up Communication Between You and Your Child.” “Ten Ways To Get Your Kid to Stop Drinking in 30 Days or Less. Send for this free report.” You capture their name, address, age of the child, and any other information you can use. Look what I got from you, when I gave you that free CD-ROM. Do you know how much information I got from you when I gave you that free CD-ROM? For the 50 cents it cost to make, I got what your interests are, who your favorite marketing teachers are, comments… it's amazing.

Pat: You captured all that?

Michael: Yes, and I didn’t think that many people would take the time to fill it out, and some didn’t, but it really works. That is the same concept to use with the free report. If these are the things that are important to your customers, if they could get their kid to stop drinking in 30 days guaranteed, sending for this report is an easy decision. You captured their name, address, mailing address, and some other information from them and your free report is going to be your sales letter. In going to be in your report, and in your sales letter you’ll give those tips. It’s going to be your sales letter, your passionate argument for them to get your course. That's your sales letter. That's what you are going to mail to them.

Pat: Yes it does. Oh my God. Very exciting.

Michael: There is a lot of wonderful information on my web site, that is available to you free, and the CD-ROM has even more of it. I would say, save your money. Don’t invest in all that Hartunian stuff; I’ll see if I’ve got one. You can get the core information from Paul Hartunian’s site. In his course, he gives you those leads, so you have names of all the media contacts, but you can get those in other places. You want to really consider if you want to go that route.

If I were you, I would go the joint venture route. I would listen to the two interviews on joint venture. Read the transcripts. And if you decide to set up joint ventures with parties that are already marketing to your niche market, I think that you would do really well with that.

Pat: All of this is so exciting.

Michael: And don’t even look at anything else and you don’t have to worry about generating the leads or the free reports or anything – you bypass all of that. You just give up some of your profits, but it is profit that you would have never had if you were to charge ten or twenty dollars for a book.

Pat: Right.

Larry: What would be a good place to look for these joint ventures?

Michael: Ask yourself – “Who else out there is selling a product or service to my particular niche market?” Those are the people that you want to contact. Just be sure that their product is not one that competes with yours. Can you think of anyone?

Pat: Oh yeah, definitely.

Michael: You can contact Outward Bound. You can probably rent their list. Remember, the way to find these lists is called the SRDS, the Standard Rate and Data Service. You can call your main library and ask for the research department and ask if they have a copy of the SRDS. They will know what it is. Many times, you can ask them what you are looking for. If they have it right there, they will look it up for you, make some copies, and fax it over to your house. The most important thing is going to be that passionate sales argument for your product and service. I can help you with that with my consulting service, with my audio recording service, by getting that out from you by asking the right questions.

Once you have that on tape, you can have it transcribed into print, and you can take some of those words and craft a beautiful sales letter out of it. Better than if you were to sit down and try to write it yourself. Okay?

Larry: Having come from a non-profit world, we put a lot of our own money into this. We are running on something less than a shoestring budget here. I don’t know if we can afford your consulting service or not – but any thing you want to through out there, like you are doing now, is really helpful. Especially when it comes to sources to create the three ring binder idea.

Michael: Sure, I can send you some sources for that. E-mail me again and say, “Mike, send me the Rolodex.” Also, I have this conversation on tape and I will send you a copy of the conversation and you can review it again and if you like how it sounds… I think I have given you a lot of great information that other people who want to develop their own products may benefit from. With your permission, maybe I could put it up on the website, not now, but maybe later on down the road, would that be all right with you guys?

Larry: Sure, that’ll be fine.

Michael: I’ll edit this and send you a copy of the audio so you can listen to it. I’ll send you a link where you can listen to it on-line and I’ll send you the Rolodex with all the sources for the three ring binders, the audio tapes, and stuff like that. And you call your library to have them check the SRDS and just ask yourself some questions: Who can I sell this to that is already selling a product to my market.” Start making your list. I would think, within an hour’s time, if you wanted to do the audio interview on this topic and pull out all the information, I don’t think it would take more than an hour. You could consider doing that with me if you want.

Pat: Okay

Michael: Okay?

Pat: Thank you!

Larry: We really appreciate it.

Michael: No problem at all. You are doing this for you and for the benefit of others, because now the conversation can be listened to by anyone who has the same questions as you.

Pat: Well, we certainly appreciate it. You are obviously passionate about what you’re doing and you can see that gave us satisfaction for our money.

Michael: And that is what it’s all about.

Pat: That is what it is all about. And that is the reason for this business. We are doing it because we are passionate about it.

Michael: Naturally.

Pat: And that really means a lot to us.

Michael: I agree. I really do.

Pat: We really appreciate your input on helping us get this together.

Michael: You are very welcome. You send me that e-mail and I will get you some of those things I promised

Larry: Great. Thank you so much.

Pat: Thanks so much, Mike.

Michael: Take care.

Pat: You too.

Michael: Thank you again for listening; this is Michael Senoff with www.hardtofindseminars.com . If you want to get in touch with any of the people in the interviews, please email me .