The Tribune

By D’Arcy Rahming

My son and I began working on an information product on Thursday night. Our challenge was that by Monday afternoon we would have a completed product, a sales funnel and, if possible. some actual sales. I had a hidden agenda; to make him do the majority of the work so that he would develop expertise on how to create a product within 72 hours. This was based on the old Gary Halbert principle: Work as if someone had a gun at your head and they were going to pull the trigger unless you came up with a saleable product within 72 hours.

I remember my first information product. It was a book on self-defense. I took me a year to write. And it took me a lot longer to market and sell. It also cost me thousands of dollars to complete, and that was back in 1991. A part of the challenge was that we were going to do the work with resources that we already had; that is, without spending any additional money. I knew that I could do it, but I wanted to see if I could teach him to do it and make him an expert in the process.

To be fair, we were not exactly starting from zero. I had a MacBook Pro with standard software, a list of customers consisting of people who had inquired or bought products from me over the years, and an HD camera. But outside of the camera, he did not know how to do any of these things. And the problem was that none of my customers considered him a credible expert on anything.

So the first thing we did was brainstorm on identifying issues that groups of people, who were experiencing extreme emotions such as fear or greed, had. The next step was that we took an inventory of his skills to see if he had any that could help these people with their issues. This was tough going because we wanted something where he would have an advantage over everyone else in the marketplace who were selling similar products or services. I surveyed my existing list for feedback to see if we were on to something or not. Immediately I got a sense that interest was there, even if not a burning desire yet.

Once this skill-to-issue match had been verified, we set about writing a sales letter that we could use on a website and or in direct mail. The next step in the process was to get honest opinions about the sales letter and website. This is a painful stage, as my mastermind group picked his idea apart while giving helpful hints on what he could do to make it stronger. This stage is not for the thin-skinned. Adjustments made, we now had to create the actual solution and figure out how we could get it in front of the prospect and get him to pay for it. That will be the subject of my next article.

NB: D’Arcy Rahming holds a Masters of Management from Kellogg Graduate School of Management at Northwestern University. A lecturer at the College of the Bahamas, Mr Rahming has clients in general insurance, retail, the health and medical fields, sports federations and financial services. To receive his marketing newsletter FREE go to http://DArcyRahming.com or contact him directly at darcyrahmingsr@gmail.com