This is an interim report on the Mark Steer Product Creation Consultation which was covered in a previous blog post.
Progress is being made, albeit slowly.
Mark has got bogged down in unnecessary detail and I therefore held another 0ne hour consultation with him during which we built out his entire Membership site (from fresh WordPress installation), including all the membership pages.
Mark has already created his eBook and has now added it to the page but I had to help him to improve the eBook cover so that it is presented nicely.
This eBook has simply been uploaded to his host server rather than to Amazon S3, but one step at a time is necessary.
Two Pinterest-related bonuses have been added by me to his Bonuses page so he doesn’t have to worry about that.
Mark wasted a lot of time in fiddling with his website header, making 11 changes to it, until I stepped in and sorted it out within 5 minutes.
The learning point here is not to waste time on things like this when someone else will do it for you for $5 on Fiverr!
As I said to Mark, your customers will not buy your banner from you – it is not adding value to the core information he is selling. (I do understand that he is trying to present his product nicely but in striving for perfection he is not working on his core content i.e. his videos which are the real value in the product.)
That brings me onto the fact that I have now given Mark just over 24 hours in which to create his 6 videos, because he has wasted so much time on unimportant matters. He has not focused on his product creation so we have now agreed a tight deadline. (I have told him that he must not strive for perfection but to get it done because he can go back later and improve it if he wants to.)
His mind is still playing games, trying to slow him up. I have demonstrated how easy it is to create a Screencast video, so he has no excuses.
Once he has his videos, he can strip the audio files from them if he wishes to create another modality for his content.
He also needs to finish off these details:
- create a short video for the Dashboard page – do this last so you can tie up any loose ends for members
- decide on which affiliate platform he wants to use and to create his affiliates page (Earn Money)
- He has a Mastermind page – I don’t know what this is – coaching or Facebook Group I expect – this needs to be created.
- He needs to add resources to his Resources page
- Also a contact form or Help-desk to his Support page
- Fine-tune the settings on his membership plugin and integrate with his autoresponder.
- He needs to add the sales page (outsourced) and payment button.
We will hold the final consultation on Thursday to tie up these loose ends PROVIDED Mark gets the videos done by close of business tomorrow night.
The pressure is now on him and the ‘jury is definitely out’ on this one but, as he is accountable to me for taking action, I still have high hopes that he will do it!
It’s now crunch-time for him.
His mind will be playing tricks on him, trying to slow him up but the reality is that he has everything he needs to get this product done in time for his consultation with Marc Milburn on Friday.
I am a newbie product creator myself and learned a lot just from this one post, so, thanks for sharing it.
It’s really nice to see failures and success outlined with definitive action steps incorporated throughout. It’s a great way to learn by what I call: “Trial and get it right.”
I was an affiliate for this product and after reviewing it, chose to promote it to my small Pinterest buyers list. I made a few sales with zero returns. I even won 5th place in the Affiliate contest.
Mark had some confusion about how JVZoo does refunds, (which is understandable, when you are newbie), so he put even Premier affiliates on delayed payment-60 days. He thought JVZoo was like Clickbank in that you have to wait out the 60-day refund period. That is not the case with JVZoo, any refunds that come through are taken directly from the affiliate’s PayPal account automatically, with zero vendor involvement. I explained that to Mark in a JVZoo message conversation we had.
Additionally, now that the 60-day waiting period is up (as of 9/7), Mark has failed to pay his affiliates on time. Even after repeated follow-up for the past 2 weeks, payment still has not been made. I even contacted JVZoo Support to see if there was a PayPal issue on my end (which would be a first) and nope, Support indicated that Mark merely needs to initiate Mass Pay and it’s done instantly.
This is the first time I have ever encountered this with a vendor and I have been promoting products successfully for over 2 years (which is why I am a Premier affiliate on JVZoo). Mark did pay out the prize money after launch week was over – but he had to be prompted to do that too. The payment did make it through to my PayPal account without any technical issues.
It appears that Mark needs some additional coaching regarding how the JVZoo payment system works and, more importantly, how to pay his affiliates on time.
There is lots to learn to be a successful product creator and the first product is a great springboard for that, it will make or break you, that’s for sure.
I’m glad I found this website. The posts on product creation consultations, in particular, have been very helpful to me and I will be instituting a few changes in my product creation process as a result!
Thanks again!
Thanks for commenting Teri. Yes, this was Mark’s first product launch. He found it to be a very difficult process and the first launch is always a baptism of fire because you don’t know what to expect. I helped Mark to create the membership area but he was moving so slowly that I had to move on my own product launch calendar. I believe that he has also moved back to the UK recently so that won’t have helped his time management!