This is where the bacon meets the eggs.
No clue if that’s a saying but work with me here, people.
What I’m trying to say is that you’ve done all of this upfront work on your business idea for this part right here.
The product that helps the Hero transform.
When we talk about building a business that makes $100,000 in a year, this is what it comes down to.
Can you create products that people will buy, love, and share with their peers?
You can because you know your Hero.
If you’ve noticed, I’ve mentioned the Hero stuff twice already.
That means if you’re reading this lesson you should have a clear idea of the Hero that you are going to pursue.
If you don’t then you need to go back to the beginning.
I don’t want you to freak out about this Hero not existing because they do. You’ve done the work to come up with the Hero.
Down the road you might need to tweak some things and that is fine, but this Hero exists and you’re going to create an awesome solution for them
Product Size
If you recall, I wanted you to try your best to narrow down to a specific Hero and this is the main reason why.
It can be hard enough coming up with a product idea when you have a narrowed down Hero. If your Hero is supposed to “simplify their life” and that’s the transformation that you are working with then it can be impossible to think of a product for them.
The key thing to remember is that a product is nothing more than the guide that you’re creating for your Hero to achieve a specific transformation.
It doesn’t have to be the final transformation that you’ve got for the big picture.
It can be a smaller transformation that later leads to the bigger one.
The key here is that if you know the transformation that you want to help your Hero attain then you should be able to think of a product for it.
And this just happens to be easier when the transformation is smaller.
For example, if I wanted to help a high school student get a better score on the SAT (a standardized test that many students take to get into college), then I could think of an all-encompassing big product that can help them with everything.
Or I could look at the Math section and come up with a product for that.
Or I could go even further and if there is a particular type of math problem (maybe a word problem) that I know my Hero struggles with then create a product specifically geared around that math problem.
That doesn’t mean that later on I can’t have the giant ultimate SAT product, but I don’t need to use that as my starting point.
It’s cool to have products that cost $500+, but there is nothing wrong with a library of smaller products as well.
It all adds up in the end.
MVO
Also, remember the MVO methodology that we are going with here.
If you can create a small product that you feel helps with a transformation that people are willing to pay for (that’s important and you’ll learn about that later), then it’s not going to take you as long to create which means you can get it out into the wild quicker for testing.
I’m not here to teach you how to hit a homerun with the first swing of the bat.
That might happen but if that’s your mindset then you can easily get discouraged and want to quit when nobody buys your product on day 1.
Instead, getting a product out actually helps you do MORE research on your Hero. That’s what your business is doing over time. Constantly learning more and more about your Hero so that you’re better prepared to serve them.
I had no idea that this was going to be what DTC would end up being but after talking to many of you over and over and over again, it led me to this solution.
Lots of stuff to keep in mind here and let me tell you that product creation can be a a major mindset hurdle.
“I’m not qualified to create a product.”
“What if nobody buys it?”
“There are better products out there.”
Unfortunately, beyond what we covered in the mindset section, I don’t have much else for you.
This is what creating a business is all about.
You’ve come this far because you still believe that you can Guide your Hero.
This is part of that process.
I must admit that creating products is one of my favorite things in the world (if you couldn’t tell).
I simply love the idea of problem-solving.
That’s all creating a product is about.
Creating a solution that will help solve a problem for someone.
Now, it’s time for you to start going through 6-Figure Product Creation.
The whole goal of this course is to help you wrap your head around that product idea that you might have and if you don’t have one yet it will help you find it.
It doesn’t go into specifics about creating a course or a book or a membership site and the reason why is because I don’t think it’s needed.
Creating a course or writing a book follow the same process.
* List out the transformation(s) that you’re helping the hero
* Create content (writtent/audio/video) that covers each step on how to get towards that transformation
In the future, I’ll add specific workshops or courses on creating a course or book, but they will cover more things like the technology side of things.
So just because that stuff isn’t covered in 6-Figure Product Creation it doesn’t mean you should fool yourself into thinking that you don’t have enough to go on.
You have access to a ton of material here to see that creating a course isn’t as mind-blowingly intensive as your brain would make it out to be.
Remember, you have your Hero and your Transformation.
You might’ve worked through a promise as well as you went through Tribe Love.
Your promise doesn’t have to be as broad for your product. In fact, I suggest that your first product has a smaller promise.
If I started DTC with the idea that my first product was going to help you build a 6-figure business then that would’ve been completely overwhelming for me.
Instead, the first product was a Pinterest book with a simple Promise.
I will help you get 10,000 page views a month with Pinterest.
That is infinitely more manageable than current 6-figure behemoth you see before you.
It’s quite possible that you create a product, maybe a printable that is as good as it will ever get.
That never seems to be the case with the stuff that I create.
At some point I always find a way to improve it.
I’m telling you this because I don’t want you to get trapped into the mindset of thinking that you can only consider your product worthy of showing your audience once it’s “finished”.
I don’t know what finished means when it comes to a product.
I do know when a product has the necessary information to guide a person through a transformation and that’s when I consider it ready to show my Hero.
I’ll state this again though.
That doesn’t mean that later on I won’t think of better ways to guide my Hero or I won’t get feedback from my Hero that I incorporate back into my product.
This isn’t the first version of this Roadmap and it won’t be the last version. However, it was at a point where it was good enough to get out there.
At some point you will have to get your product out there to see how it performs with your audience.
You don’t know what it’s missing until they see it.
It can be scary launching. It can be scary opening yourself up to the world.
But this is whole $100,000 business that you want to create is reliant on you getting stuff out into the open. You don’t get to sell on dreams or fear.
Your Minimal Viable Product will eventually turn into the world’s greatest product for your particular Hero.
The sales page?
We haven’t even talked about writing content! How are we going to talk about a sales page?
We just are.
There is nothing wrong with working on your sales page before your product is even finished.
In fact, it can actually help with your product, sales funnel, and content. How?
Because writing out your sales page means that you have a clear understanding of your product and who you’re trying to target.
The sales page isn’t meant for wording that is wasted.
The sales page is a laser-guided missile that strike its target quickly.
You can’t do that with wasted space.