12 Dec Creating a Product Strategy for Next Year

Let’s assume that you’re already in business and clear about your most profitable niche- the one where you can stand out, attract clients and deliver results. Let’s also assume that you have had some success. But you may feel frustrated, stalled or stuck and would like to turn a corner next year.

One of the first steps you need to take is to create a product strategy. If you’ve been selling time for an hourly or monthly fee, chances are you are underselling your expertise or knowledge and unfortunately have created an income ceiling, since there are only so many hours in a week for which you can charge a fee.  If you haven’t already done so, it’s time to package your knowledge and create passive and recurring income.

Once you start creating knowledge products, such as e-books, home study courses, membership programs, video or audio programs and products, you’ll be able to reach many more people and create-

1. a stream of recurring income that doesn’t require your time
2. a funnel of new high quality prospects for higher level coaching
   or consulting programs

In my Knowledge to Income Workshop, I take students through the entire process of creating products that sell, including:

1. Choosing a topic and title that attracts buyers
2. Choosing a format that people respond to, depending on the topic and type of product
3. Step-by-step process for planning out your “create a product” project and for actually quickly completing the project
4. Step-by-step process for setting up the marketing, sales and delivery systems and putting them on autopilot
5. The best marketing and sales process that keeps sales coming in on an ongoing basis
6. Multiplying sales by leveraging your work

Once you master a simple product creation system you can use it again and again. So how do you create a product strategy once you’ve begun to package your expertise?

Let me give you an example. Say you’ve written an e-book that describes the process you take your clients through to get them from “problem” to “result”.  Your strategy for this e-book is to get new subscribers and prospects interested in learning more and in working with you. So you offer this e-book free of charge in exchange for someone’s email address and you add them to your mailing list. You can also offer the same e-book on Amazon’s Kindle for free. Remember the goal is new subscribers, so be sure to include all your contact information and a few testimonials in the e-book.

Once they’ve read the e-book you invite them to attend a high value training webinar—again at no cost. On the webinar you introduce them to a downloadable program or a membership program you’ve created and a certain number of people buy this program from the webinar.

Now you connect with some joint venture partners who are willing to offer the same webinar to their community for a percentage of the resulting sales. You could run this webinar with different partners monthly all of next year.

Perhaps you then plan to introduce a higher level mastermind program or intensive retreat to those who complete the workshop. What will be the goal of the Mastermind? How long will it last? When will it begin or can people join at any time? What will the tuition be?

As you map this out you begin to create a product strategy—a natural progression that  your clients take from one product to the next.

As you can see from this example, to develop a product strategy for next year, you need to ask yourself;

• What urgent problems exist in my market that I could help solve with a new product?
• What is the logical next step or next level program that makes sense for my buyers?
• What educational marketing materials or training would interest people in these products?
• When should I plan on offering them during the coming year?

Once you’ve mapped out a product strategy you will have a solid idea of what you’ll offer and when. Next we’ll work on planning out a product launch marketing calendar and a money map.

Here is a sample product strategy for a coach, consultant or service based business. Wait until you see the Money Map that goes with this chart!  Check out this related article “Create a Business Plan in 30 Days”

If you’d like guidance to create your product strategy for next year, grab one of the limited time slots I’ve made available this month for a 30 minute business strategy session with me. Let me help you get clarity about what will move your business forward fast and how I can help you get those income generating projects done. We can spend just one DEEP DIVE DAY together to polish your brand till it shines and create your dollar-for-dollar one year Money Map.