In my last blog post, 24 More Ways to Make Money with PLR: E-books, I finished a short series on using Private Label Rights (PLR) content.
(Note: click here if you don’t know what PLR content is)
This time I am going to talk about actually creating new products.
I know this is a bit of a departure from the normal because we usually talk about using resell rights and PLR products but I’ve had some demand from people wanting to know how they can create their own products to sell with resell or private label rights.
This topic is larger than on post so I guess it’s another series 
In this post, I’m going to give an introduction on how to develop and create your own products.
This will lay the groundwork and in future posts we’ll talk about developing specific kinds of product.
First things first though, let’s talk about the different kinds of products you can create.
There are different kinds of products you can create.
Yeah, duh, but the three kinds of products we’re going to talk about are not necessarily as obvious as you might think.
We want to talk about three primary types of products:
- Physical products
- Intellectual products
- Digital products
Technically, most intellectual products are physical and most digital products are intellectual but you’ll see why I’m going to treat them differently.
Physical Products
Physical products – sometimes called them real products – are products that you can hold, touch and feel and usually they are for specific purposes.
Nearly everything you own is a physical product: the chair you’re sitting in, the computer you’re reading this on, the desk that your computer sits on.
Physical products have always been with us… from the first rock attached to a stick (a “spear”) however long ago to all the toys and gadgets of the modern world.
We don’t live in a Matrix-like world so we need physical products to do things like dress, eat, work, even entertain.
Plus, by developing physical products you will be an “inventor” – how cool is that!
Intellectual Products
Intellectual products are things like books, music, art, and concepts or ways of doing things.
Some of these things, like books and art, are physical products but you’ll notice a difference: these products may require much more creativity to develop and they are unique in the sense that no book is exactly the same as another book.
Frankly, unless you are someone like J.K. Rowling, George Lucas or the Rolling Stones there is not a lot of money in intellectual products to be immediately had.
People who create physical products are called inventors but people who create intellectual products are often called artists.
Later I’ll tell you the secret you need to know to create and sell intellectual property.
Digital products
Physical products have been with us, literally, since the dawn of time.
Digital products have been with us since computers were developed… so about 60 years or so.
However, their income-generating opportunity to the entrepreneur and their resulting popularity has increased dramatically with the Internet; the public Internet is almost 20 years old now.
Two of the most familiar and popular examples of digital products include e-books and software but there are other digital products as well.
People who create physical products are called inventors and people who create intellectual products are called artists but what do you call people who create digital products?
There isn’t just one name for them but often they are called entrepreneurs. They may be writers or marketers or they just may be software programmers.
Which Products to Create
Okay, you’re ready to roll up your sleeves and start creating products!
But which ones should you create?
Here are a few things to think about when you’re deciding what to create:
All products cost time and money to make and they cost time and money to sell, that’s just reality, and each offers its own advantages and disadvantages.
Physical Products
Physical products will cost money to make because you have to build a prototype, test it, then get it manufactured and sell it.
The profit margin can be high but you are always paying to turn the raw materials into the finished product.
Once you have it made, you will have to spend money on packaging, shipping, warehousing to keep products that have been manufactured but not yet sold, as well as marketing your product.
Digital Products
Digital products will cost money to make and they take time to develop and review (plus there’s the potential costs of the computer and programs required to turn it into the desired finished product).
Once the product is made, you have to spend money to create a Web site, get it posted online, and market your product.
Intellectual Products
Intellectual products lots of time cost money to make because they take ideas and turn them into a products whether that product is a book, a hit song or artwork; then they need to be marketed and sold.
| Please note: The reason intellectual products were separated out from physical products and digital products is because they can have great profitability but are difficult to monetize and earn a living from.
However, if you want to create these products, here’s the secret: you can develop them like digital products and sell them like physical products. Anyway, I’m going to stick to physical products and digital products in the rest of this post and series. |
My Recommendation
What do I recommend?
Unless you have a real like burning passion to be an inventor and create physical products, start with a digital product.
Digital products may cost money to make at the beginning, but usually that cost is significantly less and there isn’t ongoing costs associated with the production of each new item.
Instead, you can create one digital product and sell it a thousand times and, with a few small exceptions, the cost is generally going to be the same as it is for just one digital product.
Nonetheless, there is a continuous need for physical products in the world and maybe you’ll come up with that one great opportunity to invent the better mousetrap so go for it if you think it is for you!
Conclusion
Want to develop products to sell?
You’re entering a huge world of opportunity.
People have been doing that like forever and you’re about to join a ranks of inventors, artists, developers, and entrepreneurs.
With the Internet, there is now more opportunity than ever to get your product developed and marketed to the world.
You can choose either:
- Physical Products: which can have a high profit margin but will have high costs for creation, manufacture, transportation, inventory and marketing.
- Digital Products: which can have an insane profit margin and modest creation costs. There is marketing costs but usually there is no manufacturing, transportation or inventory costs.
- Intellectual Products: which can cost lots of time cost money to make and, unless you are remarkably talented, you won’t make much money.
While I recommend at least starting with digital products, I will be talking about physical products also.
Next time we’ll talk about how to how to find a product to create.
What do you find hard or scary about creating products?
Which kind have you created or would you like to create?
Please leave a comment below and let me know.
Talk soon,
The Shameless (Ethical) Marketer
http://www.Twitter.com/DavidHusnian
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