Episode 114: How to create and sell a quality $7 product fast – with Trevor Dumbleton

Episode 114: How to Create and Sell a Quality $7 Product Fast – with Trevor Dumbleton

Mike: Hi there everyone! Welcome to Episode 114 of The Mike from Maine Show, the place where we do daily online interviews with successful online entrepreneurs. This is your host, Mike Tomas. And today on the show, I have Trevor Dumbleton on to talk about product creations, specifically how you can create a top quality $7 product fast. And what I really like about this – what really caught my eye is that I personally want to release a product and I’m – specifically about making interviews. And I’ve been really caught up with the fact of – okay, how am I gonna do this? How am I – on what platform am I gonna produce it? How much am I gonna charge for it? It’s just all these little things that keep on making me stop and not do it, that I just wanted to see okay, what goes in to a successful $7 product and hopefully if I kind of understand this a little bit, I’ll be able to get past my fear. And that’s definitely something that we talk about. We talk about specifically product creation and how you can also create your own $7 products and we also get in to the fear that holds people back. And we specifically talk about my fear and how you just need to get past it and put something out there. But anyways, we’ll get into that in the interview. Here’s Trevor Dumbleton.

Mike: We are here again today with Trevor Dumbleton. Trevor, welcome to the show. Trevor: Thanks very much for inviting me.

Mike: Um, let’s start off and we’ve had you on before so we won’t really get in to all of your history. But why don’t you just kind of let our viewers know a little bit about who you are and what you do.

Trevor: Okay, I’m been in internet marketing since 1995, going to launching Warrior Special Offers and creating products since the start of this year which is I think why I’m being interviewed today.

Mike: That is why you’re being interviewed today. You – the last product you put out that I’ve interviewed you about was your – what was it? How to create a Squidoo lens in an hour?

Trevor: That’s right, yes. Yup. That’s what we received and – lots of people wrote back and said yes, we’ve done it now. Mike: It seems like these products that you’re putting out –
Trevor: Yes, actually –

Mike: Yeah, these products that you’re putting out lately, it seems like you’re hiding something with people. You’re hiding a need and a very basic need that is not too complicated. But it’s just like okay, omeone’s actually explaining these things that I don’t quite understand. But you’re able to do it in a way that they can connect with, they can understand, it’s step by step and it’s – it’s working.

Trevor: Yeah, well I run scout groups. I’m kind of used to explaining things in – to attend an 11-year old or whatever. And no offense to anyone, but often you need to explain that way. Otherwise, it’s just – it goes over your head.

Mike: It’s really true. I just – one of my past interviewees send me one of his products and I was taking a look at it and trying to understand part of it. And there was these little thing where he was submitting links to a ping directory. And he kind of explain it – okay, do this, do this, do this. And I look at it and I’m not an idiot. And I – just there’s some little things that I was confused about. And I contacted him and asked him to create kind of a either a PDF or a video showing how to do it. And he was totally fine with doing that but once you’ve been doing things for so long you kind of assume that it’s easy and it’s self- explanatory, where for other people might not necessarily be.

Trevor: Yeah, and also lots of the things that we used in the web were written by programmers. I’m a programmer as well and I know we’re not on the same platform.

Mike: Yeah.
Trevor: Basically, they’ve done – it’s a way that makes sense to a programmer but not in anyone else in the world.

Mike: You’re right. You’re right. Well, let’s get right in to it. You’ve come out with your next product. And it’s how to create a top quality $7 product fast. Now –

Trevor: Yes.

Mike: This year is something that for me is really interesting because I’ve got an audience now. And they – I’ve got lots of skills that I know I can teach people, that I know that people will wanna pay for. So, let’s get right into it. Why don’t you start explaining the process of how you find something to create? How you go about doing it? How you create all these pages? I’ll give the stage to you.

Trevor: Okay. Well, how you find something to create is either look in a forum, like the Warrior Forum, because there’s question all the time there as to what people – I’m sure about, it’s the best way of putting it. Sometimes you get emails saying, as you were saying there you know, not quite sure how to do that and kind of explain better. Another is choosing a format for that product. Now, the main problem for format is it’s the same as Amazon’s already. It’s PDFs which is the same as books, audios or videos. And that’s kind of a sending order of what people seem to want. And that most people, if they buy a book, they don’t read it. It’s about PDFs. They get through the first three or four pages and they put it – it’s not even like a book with a PDF. It’s just only a hard drive somewhere. So, you probably never go back to it. An audio, you can listen to in different circumstances, can be background in some music. Video, especially when if it’s waffling about as some audios do. Then, people would do that and just listen to it as they go to community to work or background or actively listen to it. Video I prefer, because you can demonstrate things in the same way as we’re talking here. It’s a lot easier to spot it on screen and be shown it. If you look over my shoulder, it seems to work really, really well.

Mike: Yeah. I think that works really well, especially when you’re – are you saying like, do you put your face up as well or do you just show your screen?

Trevor: I just show the screen, mainly because I have more to tell about the software than my face. And also, I have to like what we’re talking today, I have to put the camera somewhere so it shows video okay and microphone — I tend to do it with the headset on which doesn’t look brilliant on a video.

Mike. Yeah, it’s not always necessary to have it on.

Trevor: It is kind of from – what, if I’m demoing on the web as well because I have to maneuver or I might endanger knocking it because the mouse is there and things like that. So, that’s how I tend to do it. Screen capture is easy because from the program called Screen Customatic, which if I were starting again, I’ve got Camtasia, so here is that. But if I’m starting again, Screen Customatic is a lot cheaper. And that’s what you need to do. It’s $15 for a year or $29 for 3 years.

Mike: Yeah, I think a lot of people go out and they buy the super high-tech software that if you’re gonna use it, if it’s gonna be something that you’re professional and you know how to use all the little tools. Then, sure. It’s gonna be useful for you. But for people like myself, this – the more basic programs are gonna do the jobs just as well.

Trevor: Yeah, I’ve done that with electronics. On the first video, I did absolutely everything, it’s almost my cup of tea. And then, I realized, the only anything I pressed was the fast forward or pause. And they all do that.

Mike: Yup.
Trevor: And it’s the same with software. It – you only need about four or five things. Everything else is bloat. Mike: True.
Trevor: It’s like everything that Microsoft Word can do it. It’s basically, most people just don’t type things.

Mike: Do you think, it’s interesting here. You talk about there. Okay, you can put it out as a PDF, you can put it out as an audio, as a video. Do you think that the format that you released something as has a direct correlation with the price or the perceived value that you can sell the product for?

Trevor: Definitely. Look at it and again with Amazon books are the cheapest products, CDs are the next cheapest. Videos and DVDs are the most expensive. And that’s the same on the web. People will pay for that format. A DVD must cost, apart from the case, which is possibly slightly more expensive for DVD because it’s a bigger case. But the actual disk will be the same price. But people pay more for that. You’re paying probably double.

Mike: And you talk about creating top quality $7 products specifically. Are you charging $7 for PDFs, $7 for video? Is it the same across the board there?

Trevor: I don’t tend to do PDFs cause it take longer to produce. It takes a lot of time to write something. So, I’ve got one product. I did one on file but that wasn’t a PDF. But generally speaking, I’ll do audios or videos because they don’t take that – well, typically all I’m aiming to do is something I can teach you in about an hour because that’s again the people’s attention span. Sounds bad, saying that. It’s just like a TV show, so you can actually digest it and watch it in one sitting. Where as if it’s a multiple 10-hour thing or something like that, it – you’ll never get through them for another 9 hours.

Mike: Yeah. No one – no one wants to sit there for 10 hours and possibly learn something or possibly not. Like, you’re going to be skeptical anyways when you’re watching one of these things. And an hour probably is even pushing it for some people.

Trevor: Yeah, it could be – cut off one of the video. I will do it in to 3 or 4 chunks, so that they can watch the first one, then again when they’ve got time watch the next one and so on. It depends, it’s – what they want is a complete one hour take because if they want to take a shower, they could do it in that time. But the product creation, what I’ve told about, is a lot of smaller videos about 5- 10 minutes because the other advantage of that, if you don’t – if you know some of it but not the rest, you can just go to the one rather than trying to scroll through the video and work out where enough you’re gonna get to because that’s not easy either.

Mike: In a $7 price point that you talk about, is that – do you usually, when you release a WSO on the forum, do you usually have it so that it’s a dime sale, so that it’s gonna be increasing by small increments as people buy or do you just have it as a one price for everyone?

Trevor: Most of the ones I’ve done had been a dime WSO because that seems to create shortage in a way that not to everyone else can do on the web because most people know that you can sell another download quite unhappily. I did one on $5 or so, I sold that in $5 because it seemed to fit. But pretty much everything else, I’ll cap them at around about $10 because that seems to be approximate or about that.

Mike: Do you find that these –
Trevor: Some extra money will go up 99 and stop.

Mike: Do you find that these products have a shelf life once you released them? You released them on the forum, then they stop selling after a week?

Trevor: Ah, yes. With the WSO it’s very much let a shiny penny. And you fall off the front page in about a day, which is fair enough. They let you bump or bank up, I don’t have much success doing that. What seems to happen is that you sell a few to your list and then, one or two affiliates signed in and think, I can sell that. So, they apply to sell it. Some of them manage and some of them don’t. You get to know who’s got a decent list.

Mike: Let me ask you a question, we talked earlier about how you – we talked before the call, before we started recording, about how you built a buyer’s list so far. How big is your buyer’s list right now?

Trevor: It’s around about 12,000. And what I do is, I have start with WSO, send the list a link saying, I got something else. You might like to buy, friendly enough.

Mike: And how does that work usually? How many — from that 12,000 people buyer’s list, how many sales, for example today, react to this one? Was this something that they were interested in?

Trevor: Most of them didn’t react to this one, because most of them got affiliate sites. They’re trying – well, they’re trying to find a niche market. So, this is product creation scout specialist. So, there may be 10 or 12 people that bough it out of that. It doesn’t sound a lot but it’s useful. It gets my mentor in the warrior forum as well, because I guess of Warrior Plus. And I told affiliates how many sales in sort of clumps. So one said, none, 1-10. I guess 10-25. 25-50. 50-100. And then it goes up to 500 plus or a thousand plus, something like that. So, they know – and affiliates tend to not get excited if it’s only sold none or one.

Mike: And it’s nice because you give it – you give it kind of a push. You give it a bump itself where you can drive those initials sales to it and get some initial attention to it. And then, it’s much more likely that affiliates are gonna say okay, this looks like it’s selling a little bit maybe I can send it out to my list as well.

Trevor: Yeah, and some of them have a sort of general list and others have a only-do-that kind of list. So, Reed Floren who does, never mind the code, the ad swaps.

Mike: Oh, ad swap and solo ads, something like that.

Trevor: Yeah. He promotes it instantly. It seems to fit better with his list because he’s promoted a couple one of this and they’ve – it’s not done maybe quite as well. But this one, resonate it. Others – other affiliates I got only do Amazons- or Squidoo-type products. They don’t even promote this one.

Mike: Yeah, I mean it’s gonna definitely. There’ll be people now that I mean – I’ll send out to my list and there will be people that are really gonna be interested in this. And there’s gonna be people that are gonna pass it over.

Trevor: Yes.

Mike: So, it’s definitely more of a specified niche. But that’s not necessarily a bad thing because for those people that are interested in it. I mean, they’re gonna be more likely to buy it and to check it out. I mean, for me, this is something that I am personally interested in because I want to put out my own products in the future. So, it would have caught my attention.

Trevor: Yeah. It works as in the same way as I wouldn’t buy something Iike ad words traffic because it’s not something that interests me. So yeah, but because as I create it, so many offered help – well, they show people it’s not actually as difficult as they thought, coz that’s probably why you also hold back on this, I’m guessing is that. Even if you do this video course, which is scammy still, that we said before the call.

Mike: Don’t be scared. Anyone who comes on the show. Don’t be scared. I don’t bite.

Trevor: I know that, but it’s the same way with creating a product. Most people have this kind of hold back on it. They think I’m not good enough, I’m not worthy. And viola, they got knowledge that other people haven’t got. Even with some of the dark stuff I’ve done where I look and see the suggestions on the Google keyword. And I don’t use Google Keyword Tool but I just use it just to search, coz that’s what the average person using my anything else I’m selling is gonna be using. And I explained it a couple of that you can go to the front of the search and put a space and that will bring out extra words. And everyone that I said that to went, “What? I never knew that”.

Mike: It’s amazing. You’re right, it’s amazing that things that you know, that you think everyone knows that they really don’t. And one thing that I would be scared of is okay, I know a lot, I know a lot of stuff. I’ve been doing internet marketing for – I don’t know, 5, 6, 7 years now. I can’t even count anymore. But I know a lot of stuff that is for me, like we talked about before just seems like everyone should know it or knows it but they don’t. Now, what I wouldn’t wanna do is put out a product and then have my audience go, “Of course, we know how to do that”. Like, how to do a Google search. You know, you know what I mean like, put something that’s so – I get that as an obvious example but like, something that – I wouldn’t want to put out something that would – maybe I’m afraid of failing. Maybe, I’m afraid of putting out something and failing with it. What would you say to people that have the same feeling that I do.

Trevor: For the 97, just do it because you actually don’t know what’s gonna sell until you put it out there. For example, I always refer to that as the new coke, if you remember that.

Mike: What is it?

Trevor: New coke where Coca-cola reformulated because it didn’t taste right. The blind test challenge, Pepsi always beat them. But it was a shock. Coca-cola would have beaten Pepsi coz you buy the red can. So, coke reformulated about a decade ago and it was the most expensive marketing flop ever. Or some cynics think that it was done because they just want to increase their market share and just place the winners. But they re-formulated and have – they were forced back to their old formula.

Mike: So, they changed – they changed the taste of it.

Trevor: Yeah. They changed the taste of coke and everyone says you can’t do that. But they researched it like mad with all the trials. Everyone said do it.

Mike: Do you know something – I’m sorry. Go ahead. Trevor: Until you actually do it, you really don’t know.

Mike: You know that coke, some people already know this, but in different countries, in every country you go to, Coke is gonna have a different formula. It tastes different here in Turkey, than it does I think in the UK, or it does in the US because different cultures have different taste sensitivities. Like, I think in America, it might be sweeter.

Trevor: Alright. I knew in America, the owned brand cola is varied according to whether it’s a Coke state or a Pepsi state.

Mike: Ah. In some people call it – what do they call it, Pop? Some people call it soda. Anyway, yeah. We’re going a little bit off here.

Trevor: What we’re saying is, until you actually put the products out, then you really don’t know what’s gonna sell. And often, it’s the one that you least thought that just gets people in the – maybe the sales letter’s written differently or it’s just something they’ve secretly wanted to buy but no one’s ever sold them.

Mike: It’s true.

Trevor: So, don’t be afraid. The problem only is probably gonna be fairly technical, coz it’s gonna be how you set up the recording of skype —

Mike: Yeah. To let people know, like the thing that I’m planning on doing. What I’m working on right now is putting out a course of how to do the whole interview process that we’re doing now. And there’s so many different aspects of it where there’s the set up of the camera, there’s the editing of the videos, there’s reaching out to guests, there’s how do you get the guests, how to you write the questions, how do you have your website set up. I mean, there’s so many different things. I have an issue of, okay do I – I don’t wanna undersell it because it’s actually, it’s quite a – it’s quite a, it’s gonna be a process in recording this. This isn’t a $7 product where it’s gonna be just okay, I’m gonna sit down and record it. I’m gonna have to really sit down and think this out and plan it out and then, there’s other aspects to it as well, like how do you build traffic, how do you build an audience, how do you build trust with that audience. It’s a huge thing, so pricing that for me has been something that I’ve been struggling with.

Trevor: Yeah. Pricing is gonna be – pricing is gonna be interesting. Like, we talked before the call, how much is a car, how much is a house. And your thing, it’s gonna be a fairly small market, I’m guessing, which means price tends to be – typically, if it’s a mass market price, it’s gonna be cheaper. Coca-cola. If it’s a small market, price gets more expensive. So, a fine wine or brandy or something like that will be more expensive.

Mike: What I thought about doing is offering three-price points and there is a post I read about this, I’ll open a link to it in the show below, where you can offer a basic – they’re talking about offering a basic product for, like a PDF or something that for cheap, then offering a mid-range product that gives kind of some more bells and whistles and obviously a higher price point and then giving the whole shambangle, whatever you wanna call it, for the third one and that’s gonna be quite a bigger price. That maybe what I talk about where you will learn everything, about – from setting up the interviews to getting people in the show, to building an audience. I mean, that would be – that would cover everything and I think that might be the route that I’ll take because there will be people that just wanna know, hey Mike, how do I record this little interviews? And that’s all they’re gonna wanna know, they don’t want – they already know about other things and they don’t necessarily want to pay for that. But then, there’s gonna be people that are wanting to replicate what I‘m doing here, that are gonna be willing to pay more for that. Does that make sense?

Trevor: It does, yeah. I think, if I was on your shoes, I’d probably do the how do I record these things coz that’s actually a fairly wide market, coz that could even be just inside the company. People might want to do this kind of chat and then send it out to his staff. So, that could well be your introductory product. Then, you got maybe an affiliate so on the actual software you use. There’s always that kind of thing that gets put in. And then, possibly on yours, there could even be some kind of coaching because people are gonna hit things you haven’t. You’ve been doing this for a while. And you’ll think everyone knows and the truth is no one knows.

Mike: Exactly, that’s so true. Like, I think for me now, a lot of this is just second nature. I just set it up and go. But today, when I was setting up my interview, I’m at my girlfriend’s house today. And her mom was looking at, like I’m bringing out this microphone and this – I got my set up and I’m setting up all the lighting, I’m rearranging things in the house. And for me, it’s just okay, I can just set it up now. But for other people, they would be like okay, how do I do the lighting, how do I do the camera, what do I include in the camera, do I want just my head close up or do I want it back.

Trevor: Yeah.

Mike: And these are things that I played so far. If you go back and look at my first interviews that I did and if you look at the lighting and the videos and the quality of everything, it was atrocious. But I said at that time, I’m gonna – I said, screw it. I don’t have the best camera right now, I don’t have the best set up but if I don’t start now, if I don’t just do something, kinda like what you’re saying

with just put out a damn product. Just put it out and get it out there. If you don’t just try, you will keep just sitting there and thinking okay, what if I do this, what if I do this and you’ll never do it.

Trevor: Yeah, definitely. I remember listening to something about Dan Kennedy, he’s a world-famous copywriter nowadays but he was saying, if he could actually go up and round up all his original tapes and destroy them, he would love to.

Mike: See, I wouldn’t to destroy them. I like that I have those videos and that people can go back and look at them and let them laugh. Let them look at them and see that they weren’t as good as they are now. And in a year from now, I’ll look back at these videos that I’m doing now and go, “Oh, God! I can’t believe I did that. What was I wearing? What was I thinking with this background”. You know what I mean, like there’s always something that you can improve on but if I hadn’t started at that one point and if you hadn’t put out some products. I’m sure you’ve had products that have failed.

Trevor: Oh yeah. There’s one. Yeah, I think I have one that hasn’t achieved broken even versus a few that broke even. And I didn’t pursue that. Yeah.

Mike: And you’ve had made some that made thousands.

Trevor: Ah, not thousands. But certainly, in the thousands. Yeah.

Mike: In the thousand.

Trevor: So yeah, it works nicely and you don’t know until you try. And anything out there, look at the motor 3/4 versus what we’re driving around in nowadays. If they hadn’t put the first one out there, we wouldn’t be driving around with these Porsche things.

Mike: It’s true. It’s true. One more question for you and it’s about one-time offers, do you – how do you – what’s your stand on one- time offers? Coz people, in general, people have a very negative viewing towards them. But they can be like if we want to talk about what I was saying before, like with my model I was saying. Okay, I could set it up so that you buy the basic interview like okay, how do you create an interview and the one-time offer would be the upsell that would say okay, this is how you monetize those interviews. There’s – I think there’s a good way of doing it and there’s a bad way of doing it. What’s your take on it?

Trevor: My take is that the one-time offer, the one that is allegedly limited and will disappear as soon as you click away from the screen. I don’t like. But I’d put a, what I call an upsell page, so I can go back to it as well. So they kinda see a screen but it’s not, something that’s got a clock ticking on it. Mainly, because I don’t like those personally.

Mike: Yeah.

Trevor: And mainly coz most of them are actually lying about it. There was a launch, I think, called Forever Affiliate. And they did a one – they did a downsell on it, if people didn’t want to pay the full price to start with, you can go $1 and then two lots of $37. And apparently, you don’t only see that screen once. So, I closed the browser and tried again. And funny enough, we got on that screen again.

Mike: And you got it again.

Trevor: Yeah. I don’t like those. You can – not to make it difficult to get it there. I don’t like that. I prefer just, here it is, take it now or it’ll still be available later because most people know it will be.

Mike: And if it’s something that’s not necessarily you have to have it in order to use the product, like if on the sales page, everything that you thought you were buying is matching up with what you’re getting. And then they say okay, well look, if you want to make things a little easier or if you want to – I think, if you think you’re buying a PDF and then they say okay well, if you want I’ve also got videos. I think that’s kind of upsell, actually.

Trevor: Yeah.

Mike: If you think you’re buying a PDF. But if you think you’re buying videos and then you get an upsell for videos – that, I’ll call foul on that.

Trevor: Yeah. This one’s got an upsell for half the credit of $27 product because there’s more that goes into one. It’s a small detail if you wanted to do it but a lot of people haven’t bought it because you can just extrapolate from the $7 one.

Mike: What’s the difference? What are the things – what’s gonna make someone watching this, if you actually say okay, this is why you should get the $27 one. What would be your argument there or what would you say?

Trevor: It goes into – it kinda build on the $7 one because a $7 product is gonna be about an hour, the $27 product is gonna about 3 times that and I’ve got mine about that and it’s going to be a bit more detailed in the process. So, you kinda dig around and think well, I can do that.

Mike: Oh, yeah.

Trevor: And think, well I’ll have that on a plate. It’s one. I’m not pushing on the upsell at all. And it’s at around about 13% of all tip. So, 1 in 6, 1 in 7 or something like that. It’s more detailed and it comes with mind maps as well, if you like those which I do. Because it’s sort of an instant view on the sheet. If you look at it and grab it, it will take you 30 pages of PDF on one sheet of A4.

Mike: Well Trevor, thank you for coming on again. I always love having you on the show. I’m sure you will be a future guest as well, with all the WSOs you’re putting out. Is there anything that we didn’t cover today that you wanted to mention before we wrap it up?

Trevor: Um, I think we’ve covered mostly. The main thing is do it and don’t be afraid of failing because you probably won’t.

Mike: Good advice. Good advice. Trevor, thank you. I’ll have a link to your product in the show notes below. As always, it’s been a pleasure.

Trevor: Thanks so much.

Mike: I hope you all enjoy the show today. If you’re interested in creating your own product, go to mikefrommaine.com/fastproduct. That’s mikefrommaine.com/fastproduct. And you can check that out. Of course, it will be in the show notes on mikefrommaine.com. Thank you for watching and I’ll see you all tomorrow.