Information products out of date? Give ’em a new twist

My article in the October issue of Professional Speaker magazine, the trade magazine for the National Speakers Association, offers 11 ideas on how authors, speakers and experts can come up with new products simply by giving their old products a new twist.

They include:

1. Get rid of those old cassette tapes and convert them to CDs.
2. Turn audio products into electronic transcripts and ask, “Do you want fries with that?” In other words, upsell them to the transcript if they buy the CD, and vice-versa. When customers buy my CDs and transcripts, many go for the upsell. 
3. Turn CDs into MP3 files and offer an instant download.
4. Turn audio products into podcasts. A six-CD package, for example, can be sliced and diced into 24 short podcasts that customers can buy for $5 each.
5. Turn a handout into a notepad. I sell notepads with “10 Magic Phrases to Use with the Media.”  You can use them as cheat sheets when you’re talking to reports on the phone.
6. Slice and dice your printed book into electronic special reports. I’ve written 50 special reports on a variety of topics.
7. Take an existing product and turn it into one or more videos.
8. Take the best tips from your ezine and turn them into an ebook. I did exactly that with “The Best of the Publicity Hound’s Tips of the Week from 2005” that I give away.
9. Take any existing product and turn it into a tips booklet. Paulette Ensign, The Tips Booklet Queen, will show you how.
10. If you’re a speaker, customize generic handouts for a specific industry and bundle them with other products. Turn the handouts into a spiral-bound workbook.
11. Turn a print book into an ebook.

Now isn’t that a lot better than starting from scratch?