And no wonder…
I mean, who wants to spend countless hours of intense thought and effort, pouring yourself into writing an ebook or other info product for countless weeks (or even MONTHS) on end… only to have the whole thing fall flat on its face and NEVER sell your first copy of the damn thing?
Believe me, I GET THAT (not like I’VE ever done that myself or anything – cough, cough). ;-)
No one wants to go thru all that effort and time to get nothing out of it. And understandably so.
So in this post, I’m going to help you save a LOT of that wasted time and effort… and I’m going to give you unique insight as to how high-quality fitness information products are actually created.
And in the process, I’m going to actually take you behind the scenes of one of my most popular information products, so you can see not only WHAT I did to create that particular piece of content… but I’m also going to show you HOW I did it.
AND… I’m even going to give you the EXACT PATTERN I followed to create this info product, that way you can use the same pattern yourself as you create your fitness information products, free reports, ebooks, and even videos.
And I really think if you can follow along with what I’m about to show you, it will not only cut the amount of time it takes you to create a high-quality fitness information product in HALF… but it’ll also dramatically increase the quality of your fitness info products… AND it will help your customers and clients get BETTER RESULTS, too.
So let’s get right into it…
I’ve attached a few things to this post for you…
The first thing I’ve attached for you is a Mind Map I use to create my information products and content, and in order to read it, you’re going to either need Mindjet Mindmanager Pro software, or you’re going to need to download the FREE viewer software they make.
You can get the free viewer software for Windows or Mac here…
http://www.mindjet.com/support/tutorials/viewer
Just download whatever version you need for the type of computer you have.
Anyway… you’ll need that to view the attached mind map, and that thing is the whole basis of everything I’m about to show you right now…
It’s how I create my systems, my templates, my copy, my reports/other content, etc. EVERYTHING.
Seriously cannot overstate that point.
If I could pound my fist on your desk right now and DEMAND that you get mindmapping software, I certainly would do it. J Cough, cough, hint, hint. Cough. J
So you’ll want to start off by looking at the attached mind map to see how I plan all my content.
Download Link
Fitness Info Product MindMap <== Right-Click this link and select “Save Target As…” (or “Save Link As… in Firefox)
Here’s the rough layout of the land (so to speak)…
All my content is ACTION oriented. In other words, I never want you to passively read or watch my content… I ALWAYS want you to take some kind of action after you consume it. Always.
So, in FREE fitness content… the action I want you to take after you consume it is usually…
- DO what I’m showing you in the content (so I can PROVE to you that my stuff works, AND so you can get some results in advance, thereby causing you to become more internally motivated)
- Accept certain beliefs I want you to accept (so you let go of your objections and also adopt MY beliefs and MY view of the situation… so you’ll take the ACTION I want you to take)
- Take a specific action that brings you one step closer to paying me (click this link, buy this product, fill out this form, whatever)
And in PAID FOR content (like an ebook or video course you plan to SELL)… the action I want you to take after you consume it is…
…to GO DO the stuff I’m telling you to go do.
Otherwise, how are YOU going to get the result you want… and how am I going to get a raving testimonial outta you? ;-)
(and honestly, if you really want your customers to actually consume your fitness information product and get actual real-world RESULTS… you really end up having to get all 3 steps from above in paid for content too… it’s just the 3rd step changes a little. You’re no longer asking them to click links and buy stuff… you’re asking them to go do what you just taught them right now… before your fingernails fall off or the sky falls or something equally bad). ;-)
Anyway, like I was saying…
The mindmap file I’ve attached will show you my outline, or my overall plan for how I structured this particular piece of content. This content actually started out as paid for content inside my membership site, but it got such good reviews, I decided to GIVE IT AWAY FOR FREE (I’ll tell you why that’s a smart move some other time).
The first thing you’ll notice is that the content TOPIC is in the very center of the map… Lead Generation.
And branching out from that central topic are 4 other main “bubbles”…
- Why
- What
- How
- What If
Those are the main sections of the content almost every single time. Doesn’t matter if it’s free or paid for.
This pattern comes from the 4mat system (taught in NLP). It’s sometimes called the 4 learning styles.
Don’t want to get too heavy into all that NLP woo woo stuff in this particular blog post, but this pattern is SUPER IMPORANT because it covers every learning style on the planet, and it will make the most sense to the highest percentage of people.
If you explain something to a person and you cover all 4 learning styles, they WILL understand it. They WILL be able to ACT on the information and put it to use.
And THAT is the whole point of you or I putting together an information product to begin with…. if they don’t ACT on it… we don’t get paid… AND we can’t HELP our customer get what they want. Both are equally bad in my book.
So if you look at the mindmap, you’ll see how I’ve planned the content out so EVERYONE can understand it. In each of those main “bubbles”, I’m entirely focused on answering that ONE PARTICULAR QUESTION for my prospect/customer.
- Why?
- What?
- How?
- What If?
Why… Here’s what you’re going to learn and WHY you should pay attention to this. Here’s what paying attention is going to DO FOR YOU… and here’s all the bad stuff that’s going to happen to you if you DON’T pay attention. Here’s WHY I’m teaching you this…
You’ve got to tell them WHY they should learn this, otherwise, they won’t be able to.
Remember back in high school when they were teaching us Calculus… and we all kept going “When are we EVER going to use this? Why are we even learning this?”… and everyone thought it was all hard and stuff?
Do you know what was going on there?…
The teacher never answered the question WHY… and because of that, we never understood WHY we should pay attention, or WHY it should be important to us… and we didn’t LEARN (and more importantly, we couldn’t ACT on the new info to cause change in our lives).
So WHY is super important. Most people will be stuck if they don’t understand WHY they should pay attention. So that’s exactly why I spend a good chunk of my outline on the WHY section.
Without writing you a book here, the short, condensed way to look at this is, again, as motivation…
Why = motivation to pay attention and LEARN this
What = the basic concept you need to learn before what I’m about to show you will actually work
How = the steps you need to take to make this happen (and possibly, how to DO the steps)
What If = motivation to actually go DO this stuff in the real world
So, just like a sales letter, this “creating content” stuff is really just a giant “motivation sandwich”. ;-)
You’ve got the actual “WHAT TO DO” and “HOW TO DO IT” there in the middle. And that’s surrounded by the motivation to pay attention and learn, and the motivation to go off and DO it in real life.
Again, this is a condensed version. There’s a lot more to each of the 4 main sections than that (and I’ll show you all that stuff as we go along), but I think this is a good place to start.
And I think if you keep this really oversimplified model in mind as you look over the attached mindmap, you’ll really be able to see how I’ve used each section of the map to get all that stuff into the content so that:
- it makes a lot of sense to anyone who consumes the finished content (video in this case)
- it MOTIVATES the viewer to take an action that’s in their own best interest (an action that will move them closer to their desired end result/outcome)
I won’t go into all the details of it all in a single blog post (and really, it’s best to absorb this stuff in “layers” anyway), but I’ve also attached a Microsoft Word document that has this mindmap exported out into more of a “report” style (just so it’s easier to read).
Fitness Info Product Word Document <== Right-Click this link and select “Save Target As…” (or “Save Link As… in Firefox)
I start at the mindmap level…
Wait let me back up…
I start at the prospect level. I get SUPER CLEAR on what specific, external, tangible, measurable end-result my prospect already WANTS … and from that mindset, I move into the mindmap planning level.
If you want my free system on how to get into your prospect’s head quickly and easily, you should check out my Prospect Mind Probe video here.
I plan content based SPECIFICALLY around the things they TELL ME they already want, but can’t find.
In reality, any given end-result is going to have a set of actions that lead to it. Sure, there’s probably more than one way to skin a cat, but all in all, there’s a given set of actions… and if you get them right, you’ll get the end result you’re after.
So I plan out what the actions are I want the prospect (or customer) to take in order to get the result they want.
And I even plan out how to motivate them to actually TAKE those actions.
THEN… I export that mindmap into a Word document (like the one above) so I can refine things.
I spend A LOT of time in the mindmap level BEFORE I ever export it to the Word document. That lets me drag things around easily, and it lets me add new stuff without having to rework a lot of the document. So because of the time I spend in the mindmap, the word doc is usually pretty cleaned up looking (for the most part).
Just don’t spend too much time going over MY word doc, because it will probably confuse you with too much tree bark, as opposed to a more “bird’s eye” view of the whole forest.
In other words, it’ll be too hard to not get sucked into the content, and then you won’t be looking at the PATTERN for creating content that I’m teaching you right now.
Right now, I’d much rather you get this conceptually, versus us getting all bogged down with the details of how I came up with all the stuff IN the mindmap.
For now, just understand the overall pattern of what I’ve done here (that way you can work on USING THE PATTERN to create YOUR own fitness information products).
Anyway, I’ve also attached the powerpoint slides I used to create the finished video, so you can see how I’ve just taken what’s in the Word document, and converted it over into a presentation.
Fitness Info Product PowerPoint Slides <== Right-Click this link and select “Save Target As…” (or “Save Link As… in Firefox)
I just filmed that presentation with screen capture software (I use Camtasia, but for Mac you can use Screen Flow – it’s better and cheaper).
That screen capture ended in the final video you can view here…
http://www.facebook.com/internetfitnessincome
It will play for you after you hit the “Like” button.
Hopefully all this stuff makes sense when you take a look at it.
Talk to you later,
Allen Hill