In today’s all-connected, online world it seems everyone has their own website and some product to sell. Whether it’s a service, material or digital products, on the outside, it may seem to you that they are super-successful, and they know what they are doing.

And if there’s one thing that holds promising entrepreneurs back from launching their business, it’s a lack of confidence in their products. Sure, you think that new course or workshop is a great idea, but how do you know it will sell?

Imagine spending weeks or even months of time—plus the cost of document design, video editing and all the other pieces that go along with it—only to discover it’s not what your audience wants or needs.  How frustrating would that be?

You don’t have so let the doubt and fear take over. You also don’t have to leave it to chance. There are plenty of ways to test your idea before spending the time and energy on a full launch. Using these techniques can help squash your fears so that you can confidently ask for the sale.

Here are four fundamental methods of creating passive income products and being super successful with it.

Planning and preparing

Creating passive income products and a successful business does not happen overnight. You may get the idea for it overnight, but starting your business is a gradual – and sometimes slow – process. From working with my clients, I have come to understand that self-confidence comes from being prepared. If you plan well and you believe in what you do while preparing for a variety of outcomes, nothing can shake you or change your mind.

With enough preparation and planning, even the most complex task becomes simple.

When I say preparation, I don’t only mean learning and acquiring the needed skills to produce that product or create that service. Preparation also involves solid research of the market and learning what your potential clients or customers want from their ideal product or service.

Luckily, in this day and age, when we are all connected through this magical thing called the internet, it is pretty straightforward to assess people’s opinions in order to create precisely what they need.

All you need to do is ask! You can create an online survey (Survey Monkey or a Google form) and post it in some Facebook groups. Or, if you already have a mailing list of your potential clients, then simply send it to them. It will only take a fraction of their time, but to you, it is a valuable input on developing your digital products. In your survey include:

• What are their struggles (whether generally in their life or with a specific product)
• Their preferred learning method
• How much are they willing to pay for a product that can solve these struggles or for training that addresses some of the pain points in their life.

With these answers, you’ll have a plethora of ideas on what to create and how to launch your product. You can determine your marketing strategy, the placement, and the price.

Don’t get hung up on perfection

I know I said that planning and preparation are key, and they are. But now that you have started preparing for your product, keep in mind that you are not striving for perfection. Let me say that again – you are NOT striving for perfection. You are striving for effective. If you misspell a word or don’t have your branding completely perfect, it’s okay. It’s okay to be human. If you worry about being perfect, your product may stay an idea forever, which is no good for you or your clients. All businesses start from humble beginnings and evolve as they grow. You will do the same thing.

Launch as soon as you find the need for it and be satisfied with the small victories in the beginning. By starting with an MVP – minimum viable product – you are able to present the main core of your version of the product to the world, you can test it on the market faster and evaluate the potential of the idea without investing a lot of capital.

Then, as you go, improve your digital products or services and watch your passive income grow, which brings us to the following method.

Constantly listen to your customers

Having launched your initial product only means that you have a lot of developments and improvements to employ in order to get far with it. You can do so successfully by listening to your clients continually.

This can be done, again, through a survey of your mailing list or handing out forms on the streets and asking people to fill them in. You can do any of these depending on what your product is and where it sells. For instance, if you are a business coach that covers the digital niche and you see a lot of people asking for more information on running Google ads, then clearly, you haven’t covered that part well, thus you need to reevaluate and improve. Or, even better. Create new training that covers the topic of Google ads and another one for Facebook ads in-depth. People who already bought your previous product trust you enough to purchase from you again, and to those who haven’t, you can offer a bundle of the two courses you have.

Opt for mentoring

Last, but certainly not least, don’t forget that mentoring can help you and support you in times when no one else can. Finding a good mentor can prove significantly useful when starting a new business. Those are people with experience who have worked with an array of entrepreneurs that have already gone through what you are going through at the moment.

Your mentor can help you with new ideas, increasing revenue, funding, acquisitions, partnerships, and a plethora of other useful things. In fact, stats show that mentoring boosts idea execution by 42% and business survival rates by 83%.

The Passive Income Rocks Academy provides you with a group of like-minded entrepreneurs who can support you through your entrepreneurial journey. Are you ready to create your first (or next) passive income product? Come and check out the academy to see how we can help you.