61. 4 More Product Creation Mistakes TPT Sellers Make

As a TPT seller, I know you’re constantly looking for ways to improve your product creation strategies. Sometimes learning from our mistakes can be the best way to move forward and scale our sales.

Last week, in episode 60, I shared a big mistake that sellers often make when creating TPT products. This week, you’ll hear four more product creation mistakes that you’ll want to avoid in the future. I can speak from experience when I say that avoiding these pitfalls will set you up for success in the competitive marketplace.

From steering clear on trends that may fade out quickly, to identifying gaps in the market, these tips will allow you to focus on creating TPT products that are high-quality and what your audience actually needs.

00:50 - Mistake #1: Jumping on super trendy ideas when creating TPT products

02:40- Mistake #2: Diving headfirst into “the red ocean”

06:17 - Mistake #3: Cranking out quantity over quality

07:49 - Mistake #4: Competing with yourself by creating too many of the EXACT same thing

10:51 - How to take action and avoid making these mistakes in the future

Resources:

• Follow me on Instagram @kristendoyle.co 
• Join my private Facebook community: TPT and Website Savvy
• Episode 60, The TPT Product Creation Mistake That's Slowing You Down
• Rate & review The Savvy Teacher Seller on Apple Podcasts

Show Notes: https://kristendoyle.co/episode61

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Get more freedom and less stress ➡️ watch now at kristendoyle.co/training 

Check out my Everything Page at https://kristendoyle.co/everything

Transcript

0:03  
Hey TPT sellers, ready to see growth in your business? You're in the right place. Welcome to the Savvy Teacher Seller. I'm Kristen Doyle and I'm here to give you no fluff tools and strategies that will really make an impact on your sale. Let's get started y'all. 

0:22  
Hey, y'all, and welcome to this episode of the savvy teacher cellar. I'm your host, Kristen Doyle. On the last episode, I shared a product creation mistake that lots of sellers make that is slowing you down. And today we are diving into some more common pitfalls in product creation. 

0:41  
Let's jump into today's top four mistakes, and help you steer clear of them and make the most out of the time you spend working on your TPT products.

0:50  
The first mistake is jumping on super trendy ideas. I know it's exciting and tempting to jump on something that's trending because we know that we'll be able to sell a lot of it right now. However, trends come and go. 

1:08  
One issue that you might face, if you're creating a ton of trendy products, is that those trends will fade quickly sometimes, and then that leaves you with a store full of outdated products, and your sales will decrease. 

1:23  
Anybody remember 2014 2015 chevrons were everywhere and so we're polka dots. And this is a mistake that I am sharing. Because I've learned from experience, I had a store full of Chevron's and polka dots. They were on my classroom decor, but they were also on all the other products that I was creating at the time. 

1:45  
And what happens then is that as that trend fades, your sales, my sales, started to slip of those products, because they just didn't look current anymore, they looked outdated, and teachers didn't like that style. The problem here is that that leads you into this cycle of constantly having to reinvent and come up with new products as those trends are changing. 

2:10  
So I would encourage you, when it comes to trendy ideas that you find a little balance. It is okay to incorporate some trends into your products. But if the sole foundation of the product is something trending that you know is not going to last forever, that might not be the best decision. 

2:26  
Instead aim for your content to be timeless. Things that can every now and then get a little facelift, be refreshed, and look modern and current again, so that they'll continue selling for a really long time. 

2:40  
The second product mistake is diving headfirst into what is called the red ocean. If you've never heard of the blue ocean and the red ocean, it's a 90s business strategy that is actually still totally relevant today. They talk about how sharks are circling in the red ocean, it is a crowded space, whereas the blue ocean is open and free and there's so much more potential there. It's a much better place to be. 

3:10  
The trap of the red ocean is this super crowded marketplace, where there are tons of options for people to purchase. And the products might all be really pretty much the same. And that means that the competition is really strong. And the only way for you to really be successful in the red ocean is to find a way to beat the competition.

3:34  
Whether you do that through Facebook ads, or you have a huge audience that you can email, and so you're getting lots of sales off of your products, from your email lists, maybe your social media, those types of things. That is the only way really to be successful in a red ocean is to have your products positioned so that you can sell a ton of them there. 

3:54  
And so that you can beat the competition. Itt can be very difficult, especially if you are putting a brand new product into an existing very competitive market, a very red ocean. On the flip side, the blue ocean strategy is all about creating resources and capturing that market space that corner of the TPT market that isn't already so competitive.

4:19  
Places where the competition doesn't matter as much, because there aren't as many options. Places where you can create something unique and different that people are searching for, but that there isn't as much competition for. So it's important as you're thinking about creating new products that you spend a little bit of time understanding what is already out there for teachers to buy and what is missing. 

4:43  
You want to find those gaps in the market where you can create the perfect resource to fill in that gap. Because that is somewhere where teachers are searching but they may not be finding what they need because there's not a lot of competition. 

4:58  
My recommendation is to do a little basic market research. Look for things that are trending on TPT. Search terms that are trending, because that indicates that there's a lot of buyer need for those resources. But look at the number of results that there are. 

5:15  
If something is trending and there are tons of results, maybe it's not best for you to create that resource, unless it's a market you're already in and you have a really big audience already built up. Instead, look for those resources where the search terms are trending. 

5:29  
But when you look at the search results, there aren't as many results out there, there are not hundreds of 1000s of this type of product. So your product will have more potential to show up in search and do well so that you can be the person who corners that little gap in the market. 

5:46  
Make sure as you're searching for these search terms, not to get inspired by the other resources. But instead just to see how much competition is out there before you start creating. Keep in mind that just because you could create something doesn't mean that you should.

6:02  
Things like an alphabet line. There are a million of them out there. Is yours really going to be that much different from the others, or is your time better spent on creating something that teachers are searching for, but there's not as much competition out there. 

6:17  
The third mistake is cranking out quantity over quality. See, there's this misconception that more products automatically equals more sales, and that the way to grow your TPT business is to crank out over 100 products. 

6:33  
Now while there is a little bit of truth to the fact that your store does tend to start doing a little better when you've hit a certain amount of products, and there's no specific number there, I've heard the number 50, I would say that's probably a pretty good number if we're going to toss out an estimate. 

6:49  
But the more products you create, your store does begin to grow. But it's not because you have more products, it's because you've tried more things. And you're beginning to have products that the market wants. So cranking out more and more and more isn't the way to get to the top, it's creating those higher quality products and the ones that the market needs. 

7:13  
So in the long run, you definitely want to make sure all of your products are high quality, that they are getting good reviews that people are liking them, and that you're getting sales from them over and over. Because that is a big piece of where you land in the search results. 

7:32  
I would definitely encourage you when it comes to how many products you're creating, to take your time, test your products, get feedback, and make sure that you are creating those top notch resources that teachers really need, rather than just throwing a ton of resources into your store as quickly as possible. 

7:49  
And our fourth mistake is competing with yourself by creating way too many of the exact same thing. So the problem here is that when you flood your store with a lot of products that are really similar, that can confuse your buyers and maybe even just overwhelmed them so that they don't end up making a purchase at all. 

8:11  
And in addition to the buyer confusion, releasing a ton of variations on the same product can actually start to devalue the original. 

8:21  
And I can tell you from my experience, and from talking with other sellers, a lot of times when we have created a product, and we realize it's going well, so we decided to create some similar products, if they are too similar. Those second, third, fifth, 12th versions that we create, end up not selling well at all.

8:42  
 And the original product is the only one that really sells all that well. So when you're thinking about what to create, make sure that there is a distinct value and a different purpose in each of the products that you create, rather than just creating multiple versions of the same thing. 

8:59  
One good example of this is something like a teacher toolbox label set. Now I know the teacher toolbox is not nearly as popular as it used to be. But I had teacher toolbox labels that were selling really well. And I had them in a couple of colors that I created for my own classroom. 

9:17  
So then I decided you know what, there are a lot of people who have classrooms in different colors. So I'm going to make an orange that and a red set and a yellow set and a pink set and all of these colors that I didn't originally create. 

9:31  
And guess what? Only one of those extra versions sold well at all - the original and then one of the extras and I probably had eight or 10 different styles or different colors of these teacher toolboxes. 

9:46  
What actually has worked much better is putting all of those teacher toolbox colors into one product and charging just a little bit more for it than I would have for a single color. That way teachers are able to purchase one thing. They're not overwhelmed by options.

10:01  
They purchase one thing, and they have all of the colors available. One of the problems I was running into is that if a teacher wanted two colors or three colors, here, she was having to buy that resource three times. And it really didn't make sense for them to pay three times as much for essentially the exact same thing just in multiple colors. 

10:20  
So that's one good example of a time that having too many variations of the same product really just devalues the original, and overwhelms buyers and keeps them from making a purchase. 

10:31  
Let's recap those four mistakes one more time for you. The first one is jumping on things that are super trendy. The second one is living in that red ocean instead of the blue. The third is focusing on quantity instead of quality. And the fourth mistake is creating too many versions of the exact same thing. 

10:51  
So think through those and identify the one that you might have been doing in your own store. Think about some ways to eliminate that problem. Maybe you need to combine some of those versions into one product. 

11:05  
Maybe you need to do a little product research before you create that product that you were just thinking about. Identify that one step that you can take and use that as your action step for this week.

11:16  
Thank you so much for listening to this episode. If you are loving what you hear, please take a moment to review on your podcast app and to follow the show while you're there. 

11:25  
Your feedback helps make the show better and it also helps other TPT sellers to find it. Talk to you soon.

11:36  
I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you did, please share it with another teacher seller who would also find it helpful. For more resources on Growing Your TPT business, head to Kristindoyle.co/TPT. Talk to you soon.