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Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should
By Robert Schultz
JUST BECAUSE YOU CAN, DOESN'T MEAN YOU SHOULD:
The Four Pitiful Pitfalls that Can Kill Even Your Most Promising Audio Product Ideas
I received a huge surprise a while back when I went to update my website.
I scarcely recognized my own business!
The offerings presented didn't reflect what I now knew. The content had not kept up with everything I had learned. The marketing techniques and copy seemed stiff.
Yet when I uploaded the material just a few short months ago, I felt I was on the cutting edge.
I had discovered a powerful truth of small business. One that has a direct impact upon the success of our audio information products:
Especially in the early stages of business growth, you will learn at an astonishing rate. So you're faced with a choice: update your content every few months, or choose to focus on timeless principles that can stand the test of time. Fly with the latest trend, or convey information that will be as powerful five or even ten years from now as it is today.
We have that EXACT same choice with our CDs and Downloadable Audio Information Products. And if we take the wrong fork in the road, our outdated information will be reflected in our plummeting sales.
To walk this fine line you must avoid the Four Pitiful Pitfalls that can kill even your most promising product prospects. Avoiding them can mean literally tens of thousands of additional dollars in your bank account, and months of dead ends avoided.
1. Plan Your Products To Avoid The Ravages Of Time.
To avoid the cost and hassle of constant revision, be sure the products you produce will be relevant to your market years into the future. If you want your products to sell ten years from now you better be sure the information in them is useful ten years from now.
Don't force yourself to re-edit your products every few years to keep them current. Create 'timeless' products that will keep revenue coming in forever.
This doesn't mean to serve up the same recycled dreck. Find a new angle on timeless ideas. Present them in a fresh, unexpected way. Frame them through your own unique experiences and triumphs. And watch new customers beat a path to your door.
2. The "Bookend or Brick" Syndrome.
Creating your own affordable audio products can be intoxicating. And it often leads 'audio-preneurs' to create products that have NOTHING to do with the main thrust of their business.
I call this "The Bookend or Brick Syndrome". Meaning products created in this spirit are just about as useful to your business as bookends and bricks. While your raving fans love to see you try new things, there is a limit to what they will accept.
Oprah can write a cookbook and it will sell a million. You cannot. (Unless, of course, you're a chef).
These kinds of off-the-wall products are doomed from the start. They have nothing to do with your current focus or specialty. They confuse potential customers and longtime fans as to what you're really about. And a confused mind always says "No!"
By all means continue to grow and explore. But don't let your new-found audio production bravado lead you astray.
3. Just Because You Can, Doesn't Mean You Should.
When George Lucas re-started the Star Wars series a few years ago, he could reach for the sky. He had an unlimited budget, his own horde of digital effects wizards, and literally millions of people waiting to pay top dollar for whatever he produced.
Yet most people I talk to believe the original Star Wars Trilogy - produced when he had none of these assets, and a ton of financial and contractual limitations - were far superior films to the latest crop.
We can take a lesson from dear George. Having the technological or financial resources to create and sell something, does not guarantee quality. In fact, often the opposite is true.
Avoid the temptation to make a product out of everything you're doing, anything you've ever recorded, or any brainstorm you've ever had simply because you can. While technology can free you to create, it cannot create quality for you. Choose your content wisely, or your customers will make you pay for it.
4. Know in advance the purpose of your products.
Especially in the early phases of your business, you'll learn new things at light speed. Which makes it easy to get off track with your audience.
The most successful authors, speakers and artists have a knack for helping their audience to grow and discover as they do, without leaping so far ahead that they leave customers in the dust.
Its a cliché, but your most successful Audio products are created from your passion. Your passion has a consistency and integrity to it, that will allow you to grow, without deviating into confusing dead ends. By knowing, in advance, the purpose and focus of your products, you can ensure they maintain the strong connection to your existing fans, as well as an increasing ability to attract new ones.
It surprising how just a little bit of planning can ensure your product plans don't end up in the ditch.
Because when I noticed how out of synch my web copy was, it took only 20 minutes to fix. A full-length audio product can take you weeks or months to substantially revise. Or even longer to re-create from scratch.
And your original investment in time and money that went to produce it? Gone!
As you learn to create your own audio products, and you're riding that wave of confidence and excitement, make sure your productions are ones that will serve you and your business years into the future.
Resist the temptation to put something, anything out there for its own sake.
Just because you can, doesn't mean you should.
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copyright (c) 2005 by Robert Schultz. All rights reserved.
About the Author
Rob Schultz, the creator of the Audacious Audio Success System, mentors cutting edge entrepreneurs to catapult their profits with their own affordably produced audio and information products.
Receive your free "5 Audacious Avenues to Blockbuster Audio Profits" special report, packed with crucial keys to getting started at: http://www.audaciousaudio.com
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