A small break from “Sites That Make You Money” for a bit of learning
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I want to share with you how I develop many of my products.

You’ll find it a bit strange, and probably unlike anything you’ve heard before.

Since I always want to give credit (where credit is due) to those who have helped me in the past I think I learned this from Ted Nicholas in an interview he did on audio tape with someone I have fogotten the name of now (sorry to that person) but it was a great interview!

In any case, Ted said that he always begins a new copywriting project by first writing the Order form. He said that by writing the Order form first he had to work very hard at developing the main selling message and the primary benfits of the product in a concise way as possible because there isn’t much space on the order form! - so the copy had to be really tight.

———Personal Note —————–
I remember that Ted said it was “easy to write long sales letters”, the tough part was “selling in the shortest space possible” or words to that effect. As an illustration he said that the President of the US needed a speech in a hurry for an upcoming event. He asked his speech writer to prepare a 10 minute speech. Then the President told him that it shouldn’t take long to write, “…I only need 10 minutes of material” he told the writer.

The president’s speech writer replied that if he wanted an hours’ speech he could have it ready by the afternoon, but if he wanted a 10 minute speech it would take him a day or two.

The President didn’t understand why it would take longer to write a 10 minute speech than an hour speech, so the writer said to him,

“Writing speeches shorter in length are much more difficult because they require clarity and focused thought to make your pint clear Mr. President, longer speeches are easier to write because you have much more time to make your point understood”.
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Then, after Ted was able to write copy in a short space, all he had to do to write the letter was expand on the central ideas and benefits listed on the order form!

It was brilliant!

Listening to Ted talk about this process was one of those “light bulb” moments for me.

I thought about it for a while then said to myself, “If it works that well for writing copy, maybe I can use that idea to help me develop products!”

I didn’t stick to Ted’s original idea (bt writing the order form first), instead I used his idea to help me create entire products.

What I did was start writing a sales letter for a product I was thinking of creating… and it worked fantastic!

For example, in the letter I would write about the biggest problem my reader was facing and how I had a solution. Then I would write how I came to create the product and it’s background.

But the most important part of the letter came when I started listing all the features and benefits of the product!

Even though the product was not even in existence yet, this simple process of writing down the features and benefits I wanted the product to have helped me create the product!

The process amazed me! I could literally WRITE-IN any feature or benefit I wanted the product to have! The product practically created itself!

I would just write in ANY feature or benefit I wanted the product to have… I did not censor myself at this point, yet. I wanted every idea possible- even if it sounded a little outrageous at first.

Later, after I completed listing every benefit I could think of, I went back and started to evaluate whether the feature was not possible (it just could not be created) or the benefit was bull crap and too hypish.

Then I would cut the list down and review it at the same time to make sure I didn’t leave anything out I wanted this product to cover.

Why does this work?

Well, first, I think it works because when you get an idea for something it’s easier to bring the idea to ‘life’ by writing about it. But just writing the idea down does not gurantee success.

See, if you get an idea for a product and write it down in something like an ‘idea’ notebook it’s like ‘taking notes’ in class…

…boring.

But if you start writing a sales letter for it, one that you know other people will read, the product starts to take a form-the idea becomes more tangible and concrete- it’s taking form right in front of your eyes!

So if you want to create products faster, try writing the sales letter for it first… you’ll give the product a personality and you can then use all the bullet points of the features and benefits you wrote down as the outline for actually creating the product!

Writing a sales letter should be natural, just write like you talk!

Just creat a sales letter for an IMAGINARY product- or one that you WISH SOMEONE would create! (Why not you?)

The biggest benefit though is one I haven’t mentioned yet…

You get EXCITED yourself about the product. Creating the sales letter first is like adding fuel to a rocket- it’s ready to blast off!

Then once you have the sales letter written all you do is create a product that lives up to the promises you put into the letter!

If you’re stumped about trying to create your own product … try it!

Works for me …