Product Creation: 1 Down 3 to Go

I'm not sure if I updated you on the current progress of the product. I edited the final interview sometime last week and have started working on the scripts for my portion.

I actually filmed the 3rd installment of my portion of the videos last night. I haven't tried to edit it yet but may do that tonight. I'm not sure. The reason I did the 3rd portion instead of the first is that I know someone who could use it now. I want to finish it up and have her look at it to see if it is useful. If so, I know I'm on the right track. If not, then I know I need to work at it a little bit.

I must say, though. Talking for nearly an hour straight hurts my throat. Contrary to what you may believe from reading my blog, I'm not much of a talker=) Doing that much talking takes its toll and my throat is scratchy today.

I do have one really big concern and it lies with my headset. A couple months ago, my trusty Logitech headset died. I bought a new one just like it but it makes a lot of noise if I move when I talk. The problem is that noise comes up as popping in the recordings. I will find out how bad the popping is later. Hopefully it isn't that noticeable.

Product Creation: That's What I'm Talkin' 'Bout!

Thanks, BJ for the kind words. I know that I like reading about people's progress with their businesses. Hopefully people are getting something out of this series of posts about Product 2. Videos 3 & 4 are in their final forms. This leaves me to create my own portions of the product and to finish the promo videos. Things are moving along again.

Burke mentioned that his new product is out and that he was working with Disk.com. Well, it just so happens that I am working with them too. I was able to talk to one of their reps and he was able to help me out. Physical product here I come!

Price point has nearly been decided. I'm still planning to give the product away to a few subscribers and poll them on what they would have paid for the info. That said upon further evaluation today $157 is looking like it may be the sweet spot & if I make the first order 150 instead of 100, I will break the $10k mark if it sells out.

Anyway, that's where things are right now. This month is a busy one but if I hustle, I may be ready for launch by the last week of March. I really need to be because I'm cutting things close if I want to get into 2 more markets, launch 2 new products, and establish a $120/day beachhead before August.

August = Freedom

Product: Back on Track

Last night I was able to do the final edits on two of the videos. By the end, each was an hour or more long. That is ok though because I have made a decision.

This is going to be a physical product!

I've been resisting this shift for a long time but I think it is time to grow. I found a company that will do duplicate, create packaging, and ship the product for me. I will never have to touch it in order to get it in the hands of my customer. The price per unit isn't bad either so I believe it is time.

Going physical will do two major things for me.

1. I will not have to sacrifice quality. If it were just a digital product, I could have to degrade the video and audio quality to the point that I would not be satisfied with it. Also, I would not feel right charging more than $97 for it.

2. Physical products command higher prices. With the digital version, I was hoping for a price point between $97 and $127. Now I'm not going to charge less than $127 and I'm hoping that $157 would sell.

At $157, if I were to sell out of the first order and assume that I paid affiliates 50% and they made 50% of the sales, I would be looking at $9,500 at launch.

Next problem - Affiliates
Physical products can't bee sole on Clickbank. This means I need to set up my own checkout and processing system as well as my own affiliate program. Any suggestions?

Product Creation Marathon: 5:30 PM Update

It's over and I have failed. I tried one of the videos down to the things the person focused on well but still ended up at an hour long. I may just be a bad editor who knows.

I may try again tomorrow but I've been kicked in the mouth enough for today (and yesterday) so I'm going to call it quits for the night.

Talk to you later.

Jon

Product Creation Marathon: 3:08 PM Update

Huge stumbling block. The file size issue has turned out to be a bigger problem than expected. I can render the video in streaming .wmv and get great quality and file size but you can't rewind or fast forward. I've tried a number of options but have yet to come up with a great solution.

I'm to the point where I really don't know what to do about it. I can't command the price point I want with just audio but video isn't smiling on me.

Product Creation Marathon: 9:48 AM Update

I was pretty tired when I woke up this morning. I didn't get to sleep until 2 something this morning. But I'm back at it now. So far, I have:

1. Bathed and such - very important=)
2. Made breakfast
3. Reviewed the images the graphics guy is doing from Rentacoder and made comments
4. Checked sales stats
5. Finished editing a video

There is one video left for editing. I still have to create 4 more videos, however, so we will see how that goes.

Product Creation Marathon: 1:30 AM Update

Diminishing Returns...

That's where I am right now. I'm hungry and tired. Rather than pushing myself, I'm going to eat some tasty enchilada and go to bed. I'll hit it hard in the morning. If I don't finish the product tomorrow, I'm taking off from work to do it. This is far more important than work. This is a step toward my freedom.

Night. See you early tomorrow morning.

Product Creation Marathon: 12:58 AM Update

I'm getting a little tired now. I still haven't been able to find a solution to the file size problem. I decided it would be best just to edit the rest of the videos and find the solution later. At least then I would have the videos finished and could apply the solution fairly quickly.

Since the last update I have:

1. Backed up this blog
2. Unsuccessfully looked for the compression solution
3. Made an enchilada (turned out well too)
4. Sent the base image files to my graphics guy on Rentacoder
5. Edited 2 videos

Editing in Camtasia isn't that bad. Right now, I'm pretty much doing preliminary edits to the big errors. Later I'll go through and find the smaller points I need to cut out.

Now is the point where I decide if I'm going to sleep and pick up in the morning or do one more video.

...I guess one more won't hurt=)

Enter the Marathon

The girlfriend is out of town and it is time to work. This morning I got a late start due to factors beyond my control (Read: Beating Zelda on Wii). But after that I was on it! I was able to:

1. Add new testimonials to my sales page.
2. Set up a new opt-in form to test.
3. Set up a new split test for the sales pages.
4. Add a new flash video to the sales pages to make it load faster.
5. Select a graphics pro from Rentacoder.com to do some images and banners for my current product.
6. Render the first video for my new product to see if I could get the file size smaller.
7. Eat Breakfast/Dinner & take a nap.

Now I'm up and trying to compress the video to get the file size smaller. If anyone knows about video compression, please help me out.

So, you are probably asking "What is this Marathon?" Well, I plan to work like a mad man this weekend until the new product is finished. The reason being that at the price point I am looking for, if I could just pull 10 sales/month it would be an extra $979.75 per month. Combine that with a price increase in my current product and pulling 20 sales of that in a month, I'd be looking at a gross of $1979.75.

That would leave $1620.25 or $54/day to generate before I can quit the job!

That should easily be covered by my next 2 products... assuming the people in those two niches like to open their wallets. One is an expensive hobby niche so I think that one will be alright. The other is more questionable.

Anyway, I will periodically update the blog with my progress in the Product Creation Marathon. Can JonnyQ pull off the impossible and finish the creation of his second product this weekend? Tune in next time. Same Jonny time, same Jonny blog!