How To Create Evergreen Products With Marlon Sanders

Welcome to another episode of the Real Fast Results Podcast. I'm so
pleased you are here!  I have a very special treat for you. I
have a good friend and a mentor of mine, Mr. Marlon Sanders, on the
line. We are going to talk about
something that's really important for the longevity of your
business--that is creating evergreen products. In
other words, information products that sold five years ago, ten
years ago, and they'll sell fifteen years into the future. They are
evergreen. These are great types of products to focus on
within your business. Not only will your product be evergreen, but
the potential to sell that product and profit from that
product long-term also exist. I'm all about leveraging your
time and your efforts to get the most bang out of the least amount
of effort. Focusing on evergreen types of products, are
a really great way to do that.  And a master of this is
Marlon Sanders. Why Evergreen Products? Here's the thing that
people need to know: We all got into this business because
we would rather trade our products for money than we would our own
personal time. However, if you have to keep creating
new products in order to do that, you're kind of in a rat race.
It's like being on a treadmill because you created the
product, you launched it, two weeks later the sales are dead and
now you're having to create another product. I'm not criticizing
that, but imagine this. This is a future state. Imagine that you
have a product that you created ten years ago and you're still
getting paid for it. You have a product you created five years ago
and you're still getting paid for that. You have a product you
created six years ago, you're still getting paid for it.
That's the beauty of evergreen products.
Because now:

 you can relaunch them

if you set them up right, these products can sell literally
for years

Product creation itself has changed because the market has
morphed and changed. Trying to combine launches today and having a
successful launch today with an evergreen product, that's a little
bit of a trick. Those are the topics that we want to discuss today.
I want t break it down as much as I can. Step By Step Overview On
How To Create Evergreen Products We'll review the steps in brief
and then detail each one. Step number one is to find
timeless topics. If you're doing a topic that is going to
be dramatically different six months from now, then it's going to
be really hard to have that as an evergreen product. Nonetheless,
there are certain topics that are incredibly timeless. Step
number two is nailing the product format. What format
do you deliver on, that allows it to sell long-term? This is
something that's really huge and it's something most people don't
know and don't do. Step number three is what's selling
today? How do you combine this with what you can launch
today and what's selling today? Those are the three basic steps
that we'll break down into more detail. Step 1 - Timeless
Topics Technology Topic Concerns One of the things that sort of
comes to mind for some people is, "Well, what if I'm in a tech
industry or what if I'm in some industry that doesn't necessarily
lend itself well to an evergreen topic?" I believe
that in just about every industry you're going to find topics that
are more evergreen than others. It's all relative, and
we'll compare it to a chess game. Static Advantage In
chess, when you study the theory of chess, there are advantages
during a game that are called static. Meaning they'll last the
whole chess game. It's a static advantage, right? You're
up a rook. It's a static advantage. They're not getting a rook
back. You're up a rook the whole rest of the game. That's a
static advantage. It stays the same. Not forever in chess, but
for that game that you're playing. Dynamic Advantage Then you have
dynamic advantages. A dynamic advantage in chess is when you have
it right now on the board. Their pawn is backwards. There's an open
file that you can seize. There's a combination you can take
advantage of. That is a changeable dynamic, very short-term
advantage. The thing is that the game that you
play with tech topics, is more like chess. The nature of
that game is shorter than the game. Maybe it's in internet
marketing, but you still have static plays within whatever the
parameters of that game are. That's how I would look at that, and I
would try to identify the things within the tech field that
are more static than they are dynamic. Another idea to mention to
people who have the "tech topic" as a concern is,
"What is the variable in this puzzle that doesn't
change?" Generally that's a human being. If there's some
aspect of your product that deals with human psychology, human
behavior, human looks, anything like that, those tend to be more
evergreen topics. As a machine, humans don't change from generation
to generation like computers do. Finding Timeless Topics It's
amazing how much things change and how much they don't change. If
you study books and magazines from the very early 1900's, there are
ads  and products you could take from then, that would
still sell today. It's amazing how much things don't
change. For example, back in the early 1900's a popular
product was about memory. You would think that today with iPhones
and iPads that people wouldn't still buy memory courses, memory
training and memory books, but guess what? They do. You go
down to Barnes and Noble. You go to the self-help section, and
what are you going to find books on? How to improve your stupid
memory. They were selling that in the 1800's. You pick up that book
on how to improve your memory, and the methods in it were invented
around the 1700's. It's the same method. You go back and you study.
You think, "This is the same stuff." They probably taught it
better in the 1700's. It's amazing how much
things change and how much they're the same.
Character analysis back then was a big thing. Analyzing people,
analyzing people using many of the same exact methods, very similar
to the way they are taught today. There are so many
more. The subject of motivation. Hypnosis. Great in the 1800's and
1900's about hypnosis. My friend still sells the hypnosis stuff
today. Joe Vitale and Steven Jones sell more hypnosis
audios than you can fathom. There isn't anything new
about it. They've been doing hypnosis since the 1900's and
before. Another piece to look at is what are things
that have sold long-term? How about analysis? Selling analysis.
People have been buying personality analysis, business analysis,
literally since the early 1900's. What's an analysis? What's
the value of an analysis? An analysis is going to be
evergreen. People perceive value in an analysis. There
are all of these timeless topics, and yet within them obviously
things are updated and changed, so you're living in both
worlds. You have a foot in the past and a step in the
present and kind of a third foot going into the future. Or, eyes
going into the future. In step one we're hitting on the evergreen
topics. Yet, you're also trying to get in touch with what aspects
of those topics people are wanting to buy now. If they
don't want to buy it right now, then it's not going to
sell. Therefore, it's updated with current angles and so
forth. It's still something that's going to sell over time. There's
a bit of a balance there and a bit of an art. On a side note, if
you're looking for evergreen topics and evergreen content within
your niche, make sure to download show number two: Publishing
And Profiting From Public Domain Content With Tony Laidig. I think
we all understand step one, Marlon. Let's jump into step number
two. Step 2 - Product Format The format is important when selling
evergreen products! In general, PDFs are a tough format to sell
long-term. I don't have a lot of PDFs that I wrote ten years ago
that sell well today. It's a very controversial topic and people
have an awful lot of opinions about them. Some people say, "Oh,
don't worry about them." All I know is PDF products struggle
to sell long-term and I don't know why. Dan Kennedy said one of the
most brilliant things I've ever heard, and here's what he said,
"Don't produce your info product in a format people can
compare." Now, I'm talking about the item you're
selling for money. Obviously, a Kindle book is a Kindle book and
you're using it to generate new customers, probably not as much for
profit. I'm talking about your moneymaker. Don't make your
moneymaker something that people can easily compare it to.
In other words, if you know anything about Dan Kennedy and buy
something, he might include some books, checklists, some
templates, some conference calls, or even just his old simple
products. Dan Kennedy wouldn't just sell you a book. It would be a
manual with this ugly thing stuck in it with cassette tapes popped
into there. Then some other sheets and items stuffed in a big
nine by twelve envelope. How do you compare the value of this with
someone else's info product? Another format is example is, Dan
Sullivan. Dan teaches people in all kinds of
industries to create and sell processes instead of
products. It's one of the most profound things I've heard.
He'll take somebody in a really difficult commodity type
industry. Let's take a financial planner. If you ask, "Well, what's
the difference between Johnny and Jimmy financial planner?" Most
people would just scratch their heads and say, "I don't know. They
both, what? Give you a plan?" Dan Sullivan teaches how to
create this process with these steps. They have these fancy
graphics created for it and give it this name, like, "The Parents'
Easy Transition Process," to easily transition your finances when
your parents are elderly. It would teach them to create a process,
create illustrations and diagrams and put a name on it. Now
how does someone compare the value of that to the value of a Kindle
book, a course or a PDF they'd buy on the internet? I
have a treasure box that's actually a card file, like a
Rolodex. I write my ideas in there because I'm scared if
I stick them on my iPad or iPhone it'll crash and I'll just lose
them all. I still trust index cards. The point of this is let's say
you bought a product and I shipped you this little thing of index
cards with notes on them. What's the value of that? That's the
reason I do dashboards. I created the dashboard format. A few
people have done dashboards, but there's not very many. What's the
value of a dashboard? The value of a dashboard is what I
tell you it is and what you feel it's worth. Product
Platform - Planners Evergreen products, here's a great
idea. Planners. I don't care what niche you are in,
people love planners. It's the weirdest thing. They just sell.
People love buying planners. It's great. It's a repeat business
because they use them (take a look at show 4: Profiting From
Low and No-Content Books With Kristen Joy). Grant Cardone sells so
many of his 10X Planners that it's insane. He's got a place
where you write your appointments for the day and then a place
where you brainstorm your goals. Evergreen products contain
information that you can't easily compare. Information that
has perceived value over time. I did a planner just because
I knew that every year when people get on the planner thing,
they're going to be buying a planner. What I learned
about planners is the simpler the better. And don't forget, people
love workbooks as well. Product Platform -
Dashboards I want to just spend a
moment here, Marlon, because you're known far and wide
for your dashboard type of products.  I love your
dashboard products. I first knew of you by buying your dashboard
products. And really, when I was a pup in this industry, it was
you, Marlon, that really helped me along. Not you, directly, but
your products. I'm eternally grateful to you because they were so
doggone easy to use and attractive. I knew what I needed. I needed
to follow along the top row, then go to the next row and follow
along that, and it was just all right there and very easy to use.
I'm going to recommend to you, if you haven't yet bought one of
Marlon's dashboard products, I like the marketing one. Well, I like
them all. I own practically every one of them. Thanks, Daniel! We
have Traffic Dashboard. People are always going to need traffic. We
have Info Product Dashboard. That helps you create Info Products,
and as long as people are buying information that's going to be the
product that sells. We have one called the Marketing Dashboard
because, hey, people are always going to be wanting to market. Big
Ticket Dashboard is the most recent one. Daniel, is probably most
important for you community because I see some of your people sell
consultations on the back-end of their products. Evergreen
Point There's an evergreen point here, which is that people
love information broken down step by step.
Systematic, step by step. Here's something you don't know. You
know, the magazine, Newsweek, wasn't always called
Newsweek. In the early 1900's, the magazine sold more
advertising than any other magazine in America. It literally had a
hundred pages of advertising. The magazine
was about three hundred pages long every month.
It was called "The System." It
documented the systems used by the largest businesses in America in
the day. It's the most phenomenal magazine ever
published in the history of the United States and probably the
history of the world. It was an amazing magazine by A.W. Shaw who
was a brilliant guy. Around 1923 (give or take a few
years) Newsweek bought it because they were the
ones selling all the advertising and Newsweek wanted to be a
part of that. So, Newsweek bought and assimilated the magazine.
The point is, you want to build step by step systems into
your products. People eat it up. They can't get
enough of it, and they love it. Dashboards are just a
way to create a product that people can't easily compare the price
and value, and it breaks it down step by step. Step 3 -
What's Selling Today What's selling today? That's really the third
part of evergreen products. Not every evergreen product is
going to be a good launch product or sell today. Launches
have changed. When I launched Big Ticket Dashboard I added a small
piece of software as a bonus and found out that people eat up
software like it's Oreo cookies or something. People just
cannot get enough software right now. If you can add, even as a
bonus, some kind of software element today, especially if you're
launching, affiliates love it. Like JVZoo. They love promoting as
the "product of the day" items that has a software element to
it. You've got to look at what's evergreen, but it has to be
combined with what's selling now/today. It's a bit of a balance.
Nobody said being an entrepreneur was always easy. To get both of
those things happening can take talent and brains and it's why we
get paid instead of a computer. Otherwise, a computer would just
assemble stuff, assemble a sales letter and launch it. Having
Software Created Here's a great question: "What if
you don't know how to create software or don't even feel
comfortable talking to a programmer?" Talking to programmers can be
challenging because they have a language of their own. Here's
what you do.When I did Push Button Letters, which is a
software program that's been selling since 2001. It cost me about
$350 in 2001 to have it created. I don't know how much of it I've
sold, but it's been a lot. It's great software. My point
is, I wrote out everything in enormous detail. Now, your
more sophisticated people, especially stuff that has a GUI, a
graphical user interface, they go into Photoshop, usually.
However, some of them use Balsamiq or other programs, and they
map out their user interface, They basically use a specs doc.
For every little button on the GUI, that matches up to a document
that explains the functionality of that button for the programmer.
You spec it out in extreme detail. The people I
know that are successful getting programming done, that's what they
do. They leave as little to imagination as they can. They do the
GUI interface and they spec out every single function: what it is,
what it does, purpose of it, etc. Now, in my case the software I
included with Big Ticket Dashboard, it was a bonus. It was really
simple and it probably stretched the imagination some to call it
software, but I am a copywriter. I didn't have anybody
complaining. The software today is one of those elements, and it's
hard for software to be evergreen, it's probably not. This is part
of an evergreen product and it's funny. It goes back to a Gary
Halbert expression.  I miss Gary because he was so colorful.
Some of the people listening may or may not know him. He was a very
famous marketer. Gary said, "Man, I love marketing and sales.
I love sending out thousands or mailing pieces of direct mail and
just seeing those checks come in, but I'll tell you what.
Fulfillment is a bitch." In his case he went to jail because he
said he didn't actually fulfill. So for him it was literally a
pitch. I don't know what the reality of that situation was, but
what I do know is someone has to maintain the
products. Even though it's evergreen, there's still
got to be maintenance. Somebody's got to do it.
Either you have to assign staff or you've got to buckle down and do
it yourself. Now there is a solution to this, which is called
relaunching. This is something I'm personally going to do because
some of my products now need updated. After you update your
products, you relaunch them. If somebody has been
patient and managed to listen to me this long, here's the payoff.
This guy named Alex Jeffreys was number one, two, three, four top
JVZoo vendor. I think maybe last year or the year before he was
number one. He literally relaunched products every four to six
weeks. He would add a bonus or two and call it version three or
call it version four. He put up fresh, new ten thousand dollar
prizes for affiliates, and he would launch the product and get
another three thousand sales just like he had six weeks
before. He averaged like two to three thousand units
of sales and he would throw in a bonus or two and not even rewrite
the sales letter or anything.  When it comes to
marketing and marketing your digital products, think of your target
audience as parade goers. It's not like you get everyone that's
ever going to buy your product into a room and you get to sell them
all at one time. That's not how it works. That's one of the
reasons why this sort of relaunching periodically does work because
there are buyers that come into the marketplace and there are
buyers that leave the marketplace. It's like a parade.
That's one of the things you need to focus in on with regard to
this whole idea of relaunching. Before we move on from the
software, I just want to point out that you can, in fact, find
public or PLR software. PLR software that's almost
all the way built and you just have a programmer add an element or
two. There is a site called Dynamic Drive where you can get
software applications that you can use for free.
If you're brand new and you haven't added software, don't
start off with huge software. Keep it in the back of your mind
or go look for something that's already been created.
Something that you could buy either PLR or get for free.
I've actually given away free software and shareware before
in packages, and I really say, "Hey, yeah, this is a freeware." You
don't have to create it, is my point. You can go out and find it
elsewhere. It's simple. It's probably two or three hundred
dollars to get it programmed if you have something real
simple. Examples of Evergreen Products I'm going to turn the tables
here a second, Daniel, because we haven't put you on the hot seat
yet. What is the one product you have that is the most
evergreen and why? For me it's very easy. It's the
"Speakers Cruise Free" book. It's very sexy to be able to trade
your talents for free on luxury cruises. There's a big
industry around it, but it's really a niche within the speaking
niche. I keep buyers coming because I still have
affiliate relationships from ten years ago that still send me
traffic and it still sells. It's a beautiful thing. Not
only that, for me, because mine was so niched down, I'm about the
only person that still survived in this niche. If you want anything
to do with cruise ship speaking, you go buy my book, which, by the
way, is available on Amazon.com. You should buy it if that's one of
the things that you're interested in. The second big evergreen
product for me actually happens to be my Real Fast Book program.
Eighty percent of the United States, I've heard that statistic
anyway, wants to write a book in some way, shape, manner or form.
They want to write the great American novel or to get a memoir out.
For me, I put together a very step by step program on how to do
that using CreateSpace and Kindle. By the way, if you go to
Realfastbook.com, you can get a seven part free course that steps
you through exactly how to go about putting together a
print-on-demand book completely for free. Yes, there's going to be
an offer at the , very end, but you're still going to get
exceptionally good value in the seven video lessons that I put
together. That'd be my second one. Daniel, back in early 1900's
books were new then and that kind of topic was still selling back
then. How to publish a book. They were doing it way back then,
believe it or not. It's endlessly fascinating how some of
these topics just keep enduring. Some of these topics
just keep enduring. Recap Number one is you've got to find your
evergreen topic.  Daniel just gave, what I think are, two
marvelous examples. Number two is format. My preference is a format
that's harder to compare the value on. We talked about adding
a software element, if possible. The third step is merging it
with what's selling right now today. Which is where software comes
in. Or other current angles that are selling right now today that
you could throw in as a bonus with it. Just because the
product itself is evergreen doesn't mean you can't make it
extremely timely by throwing in that hot sexy new topic as a bonus
with it or as bonuses with it. There's a company that does
about five or six hundred million dollars a year just using that
marketing method. Agora publishes financial newsletters, like
two or three hundred of them and options, stocks. Investing can be
kind of dry and boring, but they make it incredibly interesting by
adding in these bonuses on the hottest thing going. That's the
bonus when you subscribe to the newsletter. They sell this stuff
like there's no tomorrow by tapping into what is hot today.
Whatever the hot topic is right now today, they're creating a bonus
on it, packaging it in when you buy their newsletter. Marketing
Evergreen Products I had a product, and evergreen product called
"Book of Secrets." My best marketing secrets I learned in a
lifetime. Well, I had typos in the sales letter and typos in
the book. I personally don't care about typos. Other people care. I
just don't care. I care about information. I don't care about
typos. Anyway, Frank Kern comes along and says, "It's one of the
greatest sales letters I've read in a long, long time," and people
just go off on his Facebook because it has typos in it. I mean,
they just go off. The sales are like pouring in from Frank's post.
More and more people are seeing this. About a hundred people
have commented. Sales are pouring in, pouring in, pouring in.
Finally, I fixed the typos and all of the controversy died
down and the sales stopped pouring in. I should've just
left them in there. The headline had a typo in it. It was
really bad. I should've just left them there because people are
like, "Oh my God. I can't believe this," and just more sales keep
pouring in for it. If it's not broke, don't fix it. Contacting
Marlon I have a Facebook group. On Facebook search, Marlon Sanders,
you'll find my Facebook group. If you go to
Marlonsanders.com I have a link over to my blog.
Marlonsanders.com is an easy way to find me. If you want the modern
version of "Creating The Products Quick," that's at the
quickiestart.com. Daniel's Real Fast Results Tips: Evergreen
products

It's OK to use more than one format. One evergreen product
may be a book, the other may be a dashboard.

It all boils down to the topic you pick. Make sure your topic
is timeless.

Relaunching old products with new bonuses is an excellent way
to go.

  Resources Dashboards by Marlon
Sanders: Traffic Dashboard Info Product Dashboard Big
Ticket Dashboard Marketing Dashboard Previous Podcasts That
Help With Evergreen Products: Profiting From Low and
No-Content Books With Kristen Joy Publishing And Profiting From
Public Domain Content With Tony Laidig Open Source
Software You Can Use As Bonuses - Dynamic Drive
Daniel's Best Selling Evergreen Products
Realfastbook.com Speakers Cruise Free