You know, there’s alot of misconceptions out there when it comes to creating a successful info-product, or even a full-fledged six or seven-figure business around ebook publishing. Everyone seems to think that you need to be selling some long-lost secret that’s been somehow “hidden” - until now, of course…
That’s simply not the case.
In fact, if I accomplish my mission with this post, I want to show you just how simple it really is to make a fortune by – literally – providing information that your market already knows, but in a way that will actually make a powerful impact on their life, thereby recruiting scores of loyal customers & repeat buyers in the process…
But to do this, I need to to first of all unveil a surprising truth about many successful products. It’s one that will be very liberating for anyone who really “gets it”.
So here it is:
Many of the world’s most “revolutionary” products are nothing more than a glorified approach to common sense.
Think about all of those “amazing” diet programs like Weight-Watchers, Atkins and others like it. They’re really nothing more than an organized, systemized way to EAT LESS. But the customers love it, because it takes a task (like dieting) that’s normally excruciatingly difficult, and reduces it to a managable “points” system.
It removes the “thinking” element for the end-user. It’s no longer self-directed, reliant upon belief, confidence or self-motivation.
Instead, the product is sold as a “magic formula”, but it delivers its value by almost tricking the customer into doing the inevitable actions required to achieve the results they want.
Read that last sentence again – as many times as it takes to see the immense possibilities that lay ahead of you in practically any market when it comes to creating “breakthrough” products by the dozen – with ease, no less…
This is the big secret to creating hot-selling products that aren’t misleading. You make it “easy” to do something that’s difficult. Everyone knows that eating less is going to result in weight loss. Everyone knows that working out consistently is going to result in muscle gain or toning. But it’s a very difficult thing to do, because it’s not cut and dry, and the results aren’t immediate. Everyone also knows it takes time, patience and work.
This is why “Weight Watchers” and other programs like it are such a sensation. It makes it easy for people to mentally switch from having to somehow just “eat less”, to actually being able to measure their daily intake. It gives them a system for doing what they already know works.
Of course, their marketing (and your marketing) will focus on the insider “shortcuts”, and all the wonderful, scientific methods of dramatically increasing results using [insert product here] – as opposed to the customer trying to figure it out on their own.
But really, the real truth behind all this is that these products are purchased because they represent the result, and they give the customer a “definite thing” to take action upon. Subsequently, when the common-sense actions take place consistently, via whatever “system” or “magic formula” has been sold, the desired results will follow.
And that’s why they’re beneficial.
So yes, you really can sell something that everyone already knows and make a fortune by simple packaging it as a “magic pill”, and then delivering on the promise by creating a logical, EASY system of taking necessary actions, which leads to results.
Want Some More Examples?
Sure thing.
Here goes…
1) All Those “[Whatever] For Dummies” Books. Whether it’s Microsoft Office, basket-weaving or even prayer – there’s sure to be a yellow book with a guy that looks like Waldo (from “Where’s Waldo”) on the cover, promising to make some seemingly difficult task real darn easy.
And if you’ve actually ever read one, you’ll immediately see that it’s no more than a simply-written, big-font approach to doing what all the other books on the subject will teach as well. And, it’s yellow. That helps too, possibly 
2) Rich Dad, Poor Dad. The book sets itself up to be some sort of prophetic revelation of one of life’s great mysteries – why some people are rich and others are poor, regardless of their career or income. It’s a perfect example of selling a magic formula and then providing the basics of business, investment and leverage.
And those things truly are a “magic pill” for people who haven’t yet been educated on the truth about how the majority of the world’s wealthy actually build wealth, though you can hardly call it anything more than an appetite-whetter. But that’s also it’s purpose – the book isn’t a blueprint; it’s an eye-opener. It’s also a feeder product for the dude’s board game; smart cookie he is
3) The Tae-Bo “Box-Along” Videos. I find these things so funny. Aside from being the staple item of practically every garage sale I’ve ever attended, it’s kinda ridiculous in general to mimic someone on a TV screen for hours on end. But it works. And it’s not because of the special moves, or some sort of patented “exercise system”.
No, rather, these crazy videos work because instead of sitting on one’s ass – you’re moving around. Expending calories. Maybe I’m a hardened realist, but – hey, that’s the simple truth. Whether it’s boxing, “caribbean” aerobics or doing the bloody “Macarena” dance till you drop, the results will all be the same.
You’re gonna burn calories. The “method” simply serves as a distraction so as to pacify the normal inclination (doing nothing) long enough to produce results.
And there’s thousands of other examples like this, and they all do the same thing. They put a shiny label on something that’s UNIVERSAL knowledge, add their own little twist – and then proceed to make millions…
…while actually helping their customers see real results.
——————————————————————
When you look at it from this perspective, doesn’t it seem MUCH more attainable to establish yourself as an “expert” in a niche, create a report, a blueprint or some kind of results-focused “system” that indirectly coerces people into taking necessary action?
This in itself can truly become a “system” for you. One that you can repeat over and over, generating as many leveraged income streams as you care to create.
So don’t be afraid of the “expert” competition in your niche. In any niche, for that matter. They’re all doing the same damn thing, whether they realize it or not.
Now that you know the big secret here, you can literally step into any mainstream niche and make a HUGE splash by taking what you know as a marketer, and using those skills to create a red-hot seller that will actually help your customers.
Go get ‘em.
-Chris
P.S. What?? No mention of some related product for you to buy (and me to earn commissions from)?
Well, actually this post isn’t just another one of my ”pro bono” rants/raves. It’s actually an entirely selfish pre-sell for a my next post, which is going to be a review of one of the best blueprints I’ve found for creating “sure shot” info-products every time.
Feeder products like ebooks are amazingly effective at diversifying your traffic network, building your list and making a killing in backend affiliate sales. The traffic that you can generate from your own affiliates is going to be a pleasant surprise for anyone who does this…
So stay tuned for the next post this week, on how to identify topics and markets that will buy up your one-time-effort ebook like wildfire.
20 responses so far ↓
1 Badi Dang // Feb 29, 2008 at 10:49 am
I purchased countless ebooks and almost every single one talked about these subjects:
-keyword research
-Overture, Google
-competition research
-forum marketing
-article marketing
-social media marketing’
-traffic generation, list building, ads marketing…
bla bla bla
And yet every author presented it in significantly different way from the other.
So yeah, they are all just a bunch of glorified approach to commonsense. And they all work!
2 Matt // Feb 29, 2008 at 11:36 am
Thanks Chris, insightful post and I’m eager to see what you’ll be flogging on your next post
3 Jeremy Hier // Feb 29, 2008 at 3:33 pm
We should all post this post on our walls.
It will always be true.
Its amazing, if you keep track of the hot stories
in magazines in major bookstores you’ll probably
see a pattern.
Jeremy
4 Landon // Mar 2, 2008 at 3:46 am
Nail on the head!
Great car ads sell a feeling of what “you” will feel like, in that car.
Clothing companies sell a feeling of what their clothes give “you” when you wear them.
Cell phones… same thing.
How about energy drinks?
it is a pattern, and how you package it determines your success.
Chris, you have a very clear and to the point way of expressing your thoughts. I got your book, three weeks ago. Read it twice and added the aspects I hadn’t used before. Nicely done and your blog is coming along well (even though you dont like blogs, lmao).
I have an an offer for you, wont post it here and give away the details. If your interested send me an email.
5 Jenn Dize // Mar 5, 2008 at 10:21 pm
Amazing! I had never thought of it this way, and it truly is that easy. It is all about the packaging and psychology behind it all. Thanks for sharing and I’m glad I clicked over from WF
6 Muscle Builder // Mar 9, 2008 at 9:52 pm
I know exactly what you mean. I recently read an ebook which is apparently selling well yet it is pretty awful in every way. There are similar ones also making good money.
I have decided if they can make money from it then so can I. The subject of my ebook will be the same but I know I can do it so much better and make serious moolah from it.
7 JohnT // Mar 9, 2008 at 9:59 pm
Hey Chris
Nice post, I liked the way it perfectly illustrated the point you were making. : )
Ol Marlon Sanders convinced me that having your own product is the only way to go but I’m still poking around at affiliate marketing until I come up with a quality idea. I just can’t bring myself to sling yet another piece of crap on the market. ( and I’ve bought several of them).
I’m also surprised that only one person noticed that Mr. Shearer didn’t mention how much he actually netted that month, a small omission. tsk tsk Mr. Shearer is now on probation…. lol
Its funny but since I started out on the internet marketing quest 5 months ago my list of trustable sources of information continues to dwindle. They start out good enough but slowwwwwly and surrrrrly metamorph into the good ol pitch mongers……lol
At least you tell me upfront you want my money.I can deal with that,it’s the sneaky crap and really lame sales copy that they don’t even rewrite so it could sound even a little bit believable, that I dislike and so I dump the culprits.
I actually have several skills that I have decades of experiance with such as carpentery,guitar playing,herbal stuff,cooking but don’t quite know how to package it yet. Working on it though.
Thanks for the tips…..
Later
JohnT
8 Paul // Mar 9, 2008 at 10:33 pm
Hey Chris – Like you say, put a new spin on something that inevitably will work (if pursued)…
like a certain product I purchased that kind of recently just came out “CoaLSA”
But I must say that those are more unique
tactics, and their described in a unique way!
Good Job.
And thanks to the original “ass” motivators…
Jack Lalane & Richard Simmons !
9 Internet Marketing Strategy // Mar 10, 2008 at 12:48 am
Very very true, its the same cake with different types of icing on top and going by different brands and marketing.
10 Internet Marketing Badger // Mar 10, 2008 at 10:44 am
Don’t forget, everyone, that Chris’ instant classic Confessions of a Lazy Super Affiliate stands head and shoulders above the rest. His techniques WORK and produce MAJOR results if you apply them. It’s not so much what he he is telling you (because some of it you’ve probably heard before) but the WHY….WHY you need to do things in a certain way, at certain times, with a certain emphasis, to maximize your profits and increase your leverage into money making activities (and spend less time on non-money making activities.)
So if you haven’t checked it out yet, please do!
Jennifer
11 Maria Kokubo // Mar 10, 2008 at 11:52 am
Hi Chris,
you made a very good point in your post.
I agree with you.
I e-mailed you last week about a JV-partnership
for my new e-book “How to be a successful Business Fundraiser”:
http://www.businessfundraiser.com
hope you can answer me soon.
All the best
Maria Kokubo
businessfundraiser@safe-mail.net
12 admin // Mar 11, 2008 at 1:05 am
Thanks Jennifer
You’re right – Confessions is actually a very good example of this principle at work. The title and the domain name subliminally convey that this is the secret, “easy” ride to the top.
(And in many ways, it is, because it skips out on all the crap that’s not worth doing, and my approach is a lot more sales-focused.)
However, the book itself has the reader start out “lazy”, and then gradually use that first wave of momentum to their advantage to rapidly compound their efforts and over time, build a REAL business.
Thus, it fulfills the promise of achieving “low effort” commissions in comparison to other traditional approaches, and yet if the reader follows the entire blueprint, what they’ll inevitably end up doing is going to be anything but “lazy”.
Smarter, for sure – but not just something that’s been slapped together on a whim.
————————————————————
Maria,
I don’t recall your previous email, but then I do get a lot of JV requests (daily, actually), and I physically can’t respond to all of them – otherwise it’s all I’d be doing
Your product looks great, but it’s not the direction I want to take my list promotions at the moment. Also, it’s more catered to the “raise capital” niche, more so than affiliate marketing.
This is largely because generally, there’s not much startup capital required to launch practically any kind of affiliate marketing business.
Best of luck,
-Chris
13 How a 12-Page Ebook Brings In $200 Daily in Sales… // Mar 14, 2008 at 1:40 am
[...] WordPress.org ← The Surprising Truth About HOT-Selling Info Products… [...]
14 Joseph Ratliff // Mar 15, 2008 at 11:23 am
Chris,
I am currently reviewing your e-book on affiliate marketing. Nicely done.
One of the secrets to information marketing is how you “package” information and then your offer around selling that information.
You put the information on stage, and because we are all humans…you can put the same exact information on stage in different forms…
And sell it over and over again.
“Sell stuff that people want to buy.”
“People don’t want to buy what you are selling them, only what they want to buy.”
etc…
Nice post Chris.
Joseph Ratliff
Author of The Profitable Business Edge 2
15 "The Mad Webmaster // Mar 23, 2008 at 9:04 pm
Chris
Great Post.
I’m curious as to why more and more authors (or so called authors) choose to just spin their eBooks rather than at least take the time to “put a new twist” on them.
This has nothing to do with rehashed re-seller eBooks, I’m talking about real eBook authors who take a little time to write.
Or is it just me. Maybe I need a break, but I’ve read about 75 eBooks in the last 2 months and it’s the same “spew”.
I guess that’s why I had no problem investing in “lazy affiliate”. I’m lazy…
No the truth is your approach to affiliate marketing was a new way of looking at it for me and you’re proof that you walk your talk.
All the best,
Paul
“The Mad Webmaster”
16 admin // Mar 23, 2008 at 11:07 pm
Thanks Paul
17 Edqesq // Apr 4, 2008 at 5:43 pm
Mr. Rempel just caused about 200 saved files on my hard drive to get nuked. Thanks a lot pal. No, I mean really, thanks a lot.
I’m one of the horde of internet marketing info horders and I’m sick of it. I’m not doing it anymore. And I’m going to prove it to myself right now.
I’m writing from a Wifi laptop. I just erased deleted and sh&^canned every IM book on my hard drive. I’ve unsubscribed to ever newletter except this one. I’m a lawyer by day, so I even threatned some newsletter people who made it a little hard to find the Unsubscribe button.
Moreover, I am burning, seriously, gasoline to paper out in my back yard, all the other ebooks I bought except for Mr. Rempel’s Lazy Affiliate Blueprint. (By the way: That’s a Crap Name for the best IM product ever written. Call it: “True Honest Internet Marketing Info”.
Right.
Anyway, despite that ass title, Mr. Rempel’s book is the ONLY one which has any validity or accuracy and which actually affords the user something that is do-able based on comprehensive and comprehendable data. The rest of it junk. Everything. One guru just came out with a plan which will have everyone bitorrenting their victim “customers” with viruses while they endure ads just to play free games.
NMOC (Let’s title that’s Niche Marketing On Ass) is on fire at this time. My computer is emptied.
I’m going to create ebooks.
Argue with me all you want, but I say affiliate links are not securable, period. I’m the best article writer ever. I had sales on every article within hours of posting and NO WEBSITE. Within days my sales were dead.
Cloak and croak. It doesn’t matter. From what I can tell, the affiliate business is dead or dying. That business is going to cook just like Adwords with no landing pages sent a bunch of accountants back to real jobs. Affiliate sales are going to get black hacked by thieves who always will be one step ahead of you. Always and they will hijack your hoplinks, no matter what you do. I’ve had it.
I’m selling my own products, period. I’m going to use Mr. Rempel’s method for affiliate marketing, apply it to product creation, as he suggests. My ebooks are gonna be 20 pagers sold to people who don’t care if the product is six sentences, as long as it helps cure a problem.
The rest of the IM world can keep jumping around like slaves to Goog and getting their hop links sent to Romania. I’m selling my own stuff and I’m going to use the Rempel methods to do it. Wow, look at those printed out ebook roast. The neighbors Arbor Vitaes are at risk. Shit, I gotta get this under control…later everyone. Make your own products, otherwise you have no future.
18 Mirko // Jun 8, 2008 at 3:03 pm
Hi,
what about PLR Ebooks to sell.I am thinking about to sell an ebook on clickbank.Is a PLR Product i.e. Health Niche okay or is it not such a good idea with a PLR Product.What are your experiences.
Till then
19 admin // Jun 8, 2008 at 4:31 pm
Hi Mirko,
PLR is actually an excellent way to get started with your own product.
Just keep in mind that if you edit/add to it to effectively become “great” and focus MOST of your efforts on making a splash with your sales page – you can make a killing.
So long as your product does in fact live up to your claims – then the more “revolutionary” you can portray it – the better.
PLR basically just equates to saving time, both in terms of a “shell” product that you can use as a foundation for building a complete product, as well as the RESEARCH factor – it’s all been done for you already.
The vast majority of people who purchase PLR don’t do anything with it.
-Chris
20 darek // Jun 29, 2008 at 12:58 pm
I’ve been reading some of the big money-making blogs for a while(John Chow, etc), but some of the articles on this blog beat all their posts hands-down.
The copy on your main page is genius. Usually whenever I see a salesletter website I glance over it curiously, thinking: “Is anyone stupid enough to buy this?”
On the main page you sell your ebook much better than all the other large red title/fake testimonials copycats. It was the first ebook I truly wanted to buy. The way the page was different and down-to-earth stood out.
But then that’s what you were going for, right? I’d like to see some of your other websites, you obviously know what you are doing.
Thanks(subscribing),
Darek
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