Idea of the Day: Build a product portfolio in 10 steps (yes, I’m talking to you)

I recently bought the deluxe inventRight course, and I’m glad to report that is has already proven to be worth every penny. But I wasn’t so sure at first. I was hesitant in fact, unsure whether I wanted to invest so much money.

What sold me? Their free radio shows on blogtalkradio.com. I listened to all of them, got great information and wanted more. Finally I called their office and got one of the partners on the first ring. He patiently answered all of my questions and gave me a sense of security, a comfortable belief that they would be there to answer more of my questions down the line.

Talking with my sister-in-law today, I realized that this process would be simple to replicate. Jen, for example, publishes a high end Global Asset Strategy newsletter. She is an excellent researcher and insightful reporter. Producing top notch content is no problem, but expanding her platform requires a marketing toolkit that she’s still developing. Here’s what we came up with:

1. Start with the same research method, but keep some ‘quick notes’ on interesting subjects that won’t quite make it into the newsletter.
2. Blog about those peripheral topics once or twice per week (keeping to short-format entries).
3. Start Tweeting some of them as well.
4. Start a weekly podcast, interviewing a subject matter expert for each episode (5-13 minute segments).
5. Get the audio show transcribed, and use the transcriptions on the website and also as the basis for workbooks.
6. Choose the best audio guests and invite them to present one-hour webinars.
7. Use free video capture technology to record the webinars.
8. Create DVD’s from the webinars, arranging them by topic.
9. Hire a designer to build graphics for the DVD’s/CD’s and workbooks, then build them all into a kit.
10. Sell the kits online, through your own website, eBay and Amazon,com.

The trick is to save yourself a ton of time by investigating the market up front and measuring demand for certain topics. I’ve written about this before. Please review that post if you don’t yet know which tools to use. The bottom line is that you could do all of this without spending a dime, until your orders started coming in. You just need to pick a topic. You don’t even really need to be a subject matter expert. There are plenty of ghost writers out there will will generate content for you.

Find a niche. The rest is gravy.