Picture this. You buy a licensed product, set it up, and send your first visitors to it. Then you search the web and find three other people selling the exact same thing. Same title. Same cover. Same words.

That is the built-in problem with every licensed product. The license that lets you sell it lets everyone else who bought it sell it too.

Buyers never see the license. They see a title, a cover, and the first few lines. If yours look like everyone else’s, they have no reason to pick yours. If yours look different, you hand them one.

The good news is that you can fix this fast. I have been in this business since 2001, and I have watched the sellers who stand out do the same few things. They make the product their own.

Here are seven ways to do it, starting with the one check you must make before you change a single word. Pick two or three, and your licensed product will look like nothing else in the market.

In This Article...

Read Your License Before You Change Anything

Not every license lets you edit the product, so start here. Your license decides what you can change.

Regular resell rights often mean the content stays as it is. Depending on the terms, you may be able to change the packaging, but not the words inside. Private label rights give you far more room. You can often edit the content, change the title, and put your name on it as the author.

Even then, do not assume. Some private label licenses ask you to change a set share of the content before your name goes on it. Others limit how you can bundle or promote the product.

If any part of the license feels vague, ask the vendor to clear it up in writing. That one email protects everything you build on top of the product. Keep a signed copy of the license in your files too.

Every idea below assumes your license allows the change. Read your license first, and check each idea against it before you start.

Give It A Title And A Cover Of Its Own

The title sells the product before anyone reads a word of it. Many licensed products ship with a flat title that looks like an afterthought. Yours can do better.

List the top benefits first, and rank them. Then put one to three of them in the title, with a dash of curiosity. Here is a simple example from the licensing training I wrote. Flower Gardening 101 becomes The Secrets of Growing Prize-Winning, Beautiful Flowers. Same content. Far more reason to click.

Write a dozen titles before you pick one. The first idea is not the best one. A better title costs you an hour and can set your product apart for good.

Then give the cover the same care. Swapping the title on the old cover is the bare minimum. A new cover with your own colors and layout makes the product look like it belongs to you. A simple design tool or a freelance designer can handle it.

Make The Sales Letter Match

The sales letter in your package needs the same touch. Decide what makes your version different, and put that front and center in the headline or the opening. Then write a fresh headline, a fresh opening, and add your own graphics. Now the page that sells your product no longer matches the copies other people sell.

Keep the letter in step with the product. If you cut a section from the product, cut it from the description too. If you add a section, add it to the letter.

I have shared more on how licensing fits into a small business in other ideas I have been writing about lately.

Narrow It For One Group Of Readers

Most licensed products aim at a broad market. That is where you can stand out fast. Start with a group you already know something about. Your examples flow, and your readers can tell. Narrow it so it speaks to one group, and you leave most of your competition behind.

Take a general weight-loss guide. Rewrite it for busy moms, and the examples change. An office-party cake is no longer the temptation. The drive-through, with the kids in the back seat, is. You can add quick recipes the whole family will eat, plus exercises that fit at home.

The steps are simple. Cut what does not fit the new reader. Add examples that do. Change the wording so it speaks to them, and swap in matching graphics. Then update the title and cover to name the new group. A reader should see the cover and know the product is for them.

Here is the best part. Once you have done this one time, you can do it again. The same guide can become weight loss for new moms, for men over 40, or for vegetarians. One licensed product turns into several, each with its own title and its own sales letter.

Rewrite The First And Last Pages

Readers remember the first thing they read and the last thing they read. The middle matters, but those two spots decide how your product feels.

Many opening pages are bland. Rewrite the opening so it tells readers what they will gain without giving away how. Take a guide on cutting grocery costs. Open it with a line like this one:

“You’ll find out how to shrink your weekly grocery bill and still serve the foods your family loves.”

That line names a gain and hides the method. It shakes one assumption too. Readers expect savings to mean sacrifice, so they keep reading to find out why it does not.

Readers who love page one keep going to page two. A strong opening lifts the whole product.

Then rewrite the ending. Keep it short. Tell readers what to do next, and point them to the next thing you offer. A flat ending wastes the moment when your reader feels most pleased with what they just learned.

Add Your Own Tips, Stories And Examples

Sellers who hold the same license share the same tips. One fresh tip from you changes that. When a reader thinks, “I never thought of that,” your product stays in their mind.

A tip can be a new twist on a proven method. A fitness trainer can add an exercise variation they invented. You add what you know, and nobody else has your twist.

Stories do even more. A story about the day a wedding almost fell apart sticks far longer than a list of dos and don’ts. If you have no story of your own, put the reader in the scene. Ask them to imagine they are planning the wedding of their dreams.

Add your own view too. Pick a point you can improve, and say how. Pick another that deserves more room, and expand it with an example from your own experience. Readers can tell when a product has a real person behind it.

A short case study works too. Show where someone started, what they did, and where they ended up. No two case studies match, so nobody can copy yours.

Your own tips and stories make the biggest difference of all. One fresh idea from you turns a shared product into your product.

One fresh idea from you turns a shared product into your product.

Change The Format Or Pull An Excerpt

A text guide can become audio. A video can become a written report. A guide can become a live event or a printed set. Change the format and you reach readers who prefer it, and your version looks different from the plain copy others sell.

People learn in different ways. Some like to read, some like to listen, and some like to watch. Offer a guide with an audio version, and you serve two kinds of reader with one product.

You can also go the other way and pull an excerpt. Take one chapter from a long ebook and turn it into a short free report. Take one module from a course and offer it as a small first product. You can even pull excerpts from several products to build a new one.

Each new format also gives you something new to promote, which brings fresh eyes to the same product.

Keep your license in mind here too. Format changes and excerpts need rights that not every license gives, so check before you start.

Where This Leads Next

Customizing is step three of a seven-step system I teach in Product Licensing Formula. The system also covers how to pick a market, find a good product, build your advertising, and bring buyers back for more.

If you want to go further, step three goes much deeper than this post. The rebranding and niche steps come one at a time. You will find the full system at ProductLicensingFormula.com.

And if you would rather start with ready-made products to customize, look at the done-for-you license package at go.LicensingVault.com. It comes with rebranding software and full private label rights.

You do not need to rebuild a licensed product from scratch. Pick one change from this list and make it today. Then make the next one. Every change moves your product further from the crowd and closer to being yours alone. I am rooting for you every step of the way.

Nick James

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7 Smart Insider Ways To Make A Licensed Product Your Own