← Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
Strategy Hour | Online Marketing for Business Growth
902: How I've Sold $3.3 Million in Digital Products & Courses
01:05:29
A transparent look at the strategies, hard-earned lessons, and yes, even mistakes that took me from running a small marketing agency to generating over $3.3 million in digital product sales.
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Abigail Pumphrey
You need to understand and research and identify the needs and problems of your ideal client. You have to make sure you understand, in their words what they need and then develop an offer that meets those needs for a specific audience. Welcome to the Strategy Hour Podcast brought to you by Boss Project. I'm your host Abigail Pumphrey and I'm dedicated to supporting online businesses. I don't believe in one right way to build a business. I'm here to help you build business your way. One that supports not only the life you have, but the life you want. I'm on a personal mission to help you become financially free. I'm taking all the lessons learned as I turned a layoff into a seven figure online business. I'm here to help you prioritize your life every step of the way. Whether you're creating your first digital product, growing an email list, or scaling an already profitable business. Business settle in. It's time to talk strategy. Looking for a way to make a difference with your morning coffee? Grab a bag of talitha coffee@bossproject.com Coffee Every purchase helps support survivors of human trafficking. Make every cup count@bossproject.com Coffee I've sold more than $3.3 million in digital products and course sales and that doesn't even include affiliate income, strategic partnerships or high end agency services. And I'm recording this episode today because I want to give my listeners a clear, transparent look at what it really takes to scale sales in the digital product and course space. I'm going to dive into strategies, lessons learned and actionable tips for those of you looking to start or scale your own digital product and course business. Now I want to start by saying if you are interested in building your first or next digital product, I want to invite you to check out Digital Product Jumpstart inside. I'm walking you through the exact digital products I would not create in today's market. The ones that are going to be the position for you to convert the most sales and exactly how I build out my offer ecosystem. And this is including not just one digital product, but how you can use them strategically to build them into other offers that ultimately convert one client into multiple products. You can find out more and check it out@bossproject.com jumpstart. Now I want to give you a little backstory. When I started my business, I had no intention of building a digital product and course business. In fact, this business started as a marketing agency. I was working with local branding and marketing clients to help individuals build their small business building out Their website creating, package design, logo design, anything they could possibly need to build a business and appeal to a local market. My niche at the time was food based businesses. I love food, I've always been a foodie, I've always loved cooking, although I did have a love hate relationship there for a while. But I am on the train of loving it. And I really had a passion for helping people go from a concept or idea into getting their products on grocery shelves. It was so fun. I learned a lot about manufacturing and what to do and not to do. Like, did you know that you could get stickers that are specifically designed to be in the refrigerator? I sure didn't until I messed that up. But I really enjoyed working with people and helping see their dreams quite literally come to life. Now while I didn't necessarily think this was going to be the thing I would do for the rest of my life, I definitely thought my path was going to be way more going from designer into a creative director role and then like bringing on more staff to handle the day to day production work. But I would say the universe had other plans for me and it definitely put this in my trajectory and it felt very intentional, very natural, very much like the step I was supposed to be taking. The way I ultimately got from a hyper local agency style business to an education company that quite literally reaches millions of people from around the world was not exactly a linear experience. Like it wasn't do this, do that, and then you know, a few years down the line you're going to be here. That's not realistic, that's not what it looked like. Ultimately I started over. Like I don't want you to assume that I was fully able to leverage what I had built. The clients I had previous to running this education company were not ones that translated over. I think some of those people have gone on to purchase products from me, but that would make up a rather small percentage of what I've done. Instead, what I was able to actually leverage was the experience that I had as a small business owner. I was turning around and teaching absolutely everything I was learning and executing on. Everything from how I was packaging my goods and services, how I was pitching clients, how I was getting people to write me $10,000 checks at our first meeting. Like all sorts of really in depth strategy that was very specific to the style of business I was running at the time. But I suppose I'm getting ahead of myself a little bit. How did we quite literally go from agency to selling our first digital product and course? Well, it started Because I became a part of a community. I was truly looking for a place that I could meet other female entrepreneurs who were also at the beginning stages of building their own businesses and hear from them and give back to them and understand their needs and see how I could show up for them. Now, this was a rather tight knit community, though it was growing really rapidly. Back in the day, if you were online savvy, business owners was a very popular Facebook group. And in that group I met Emily. Emily lived in Tulsa at the time, and she was a photographer, and she was specifically working with local clients to do lifestyle and family sessions when we met. I was specifically trying to grow my Instagram at the time and really looking to build engagement. And one of the ways that that was working, you know, circa 2015, I. E. A long time ago, was that you would end up in these pods that were all about engagement. And so when someone from the group posted, everyone who was in your pod would be like the first one to like your content and comment on it to really boost engagement. And it was a super effective strategy. But Emily was in my pod. And so we very quick started, you know, consuming pretty much every single piece of content the other person was putting out there. And we saw so many similarities into how we wanted to talk to people and the kind of people we wanted to reach and the kind of impact we wanted to make on them. And to make a long story short, I ultimately decided, because I had seen a lot of other businesses do it, that I was going to have my very first webinar. And I had no idea what would go into that. I had no plan of selling something on the back end. All it was really meant to be was a celebration and to get people together in the same room and really ultimately create community. That was my entire goal. But I had only ever attended a handful of workshops. We're talking, like, probably less than 10, maybe even less than 5. So while I had heard of them and participated in a few, I didn't necessarily know what it meant to put that together or how I would even ultimately market it. Well, Emily got a hold of, you know, this idea, and she was like, I'm going to help. I've done one. I know what I'm doing. I would love to help you. And what if we sold my first course and she had built a course called, I believe it was Pricing for Profit. It might have had a different name at that point. Unsure. We later sold it as Pricing for Profit, but she had sold it to, I want to say, like six People in her very first webinar. And so the goal was to sell it again at my webinar. And then the thought was that we would co teach it. So she originally had taught it specifically to photographers. But the goal when we worked together was how could we market it to a broader audience and really focus on pricing strategy that would work regardless of the style of service that you were selling. And it worked. We did our very first webinar together. We had so much fun and we ultimately decided to continue partnering. So Emily actually became my contractor for the first. Oh gosh, I don't know, almost two years potentially now. During that time period, we started marketing together as if we were one business. You know, whether that was a good or bad idea, it, you know, who's to say? It ultimately was quite effective. And we started building an audience. But this was still. At the time that I was running the agency, I had merely just started putting content out there. I had started building an audience on Instagram, I was sharing blog content. And my goal was simply to reach more people and to help more people build business. Honestly, the mission of this company has not changed all that much since the very beginning. It's more the how that has shifted. I have always wanted to see people create more profitable and sustainable income for their families. That is the root of it all. I want to see people financially free. How I have helped people accomplish that is the thing that has changed and ultimately why I never created another business. It has been one in the same same the entire time. But that first launch of selling courses, I want to say we made approximately $500. I could be wrong. I'm not totally sure what the math was back then. I'm sure I have it written in a spreadsheet somewhere I could dig up and find for you if you're really, really curious. But, you know, because it wasn't our primary focus, we were both ultimately selling services. It was our outlet, it was our passion, it was the thing we were doing for fun to really make this business feel like something we were truly excited about. It wasn't until I was in a car accident and Emily was, you know, six weeks out from adopting her daughter before we decided that like we needed to fully pivot. We wanted to set down services and ultimately focus on education. We had been executing in the agency for a number of years. We had built many websites, we had built out mini brands, done a ton of styled photo shoots, and were ready to create something that ultimately allowed us to do the work up front and then multiply Our efforts over time. We both saw such a huge opportunity with courses and digital products, but I could have never predicted that it was actually capable of fully supporting two full time incomes and then later down the line up to 10 full time employees. I see a lot of people come up to this point in their business where they feel like they're at a crossroads. Whether they were working in like a more traditional career path or they had been building their business for a while. I see these people, whether they're in one on one, high end services, coaching or consulting, I see that these B2B business owners who are subject matter experts, they have been walking the walk. They know what their clients need to be successful, but they're burnt out. They have been burning the candle at both ends and they are ready for more time freedom. And I definitely felt the same way. That's exactly what was motivating me. I needed time to recover and focus on my health after my traumatic brain injury. And digital products and courses felt like an opportunity to do the work when I was having good days and when I wasn't to be focused on rest. And while I could have never predicted that it would be as successful as it has been, I am so grateful I put in the time and effort. I think what a lot of people don't tell you about this kind of business is that it is very front loaded. You spend a lot of time in the beginning building an audience, developing your content, your ip, your intellectual property and ramping that up. And you don't necessarily see the rewards immediately. You know, the people that go 0 to 60 really fast typically already have an audience in place. If you have an existing audience and you're not monetizing it, we absolutely need to talk and have a conversation. Send me a dm. You might be a good fit for private coaching. I just simply want to see more of you get to the point that this can fully support you without the need for outside services or consulting to make up the majority of your income. I think beyond the timepiece, beyond wanting to be more in control of my schedule and less at the whim of client needs, was that I felt frustrated by only being able to work with a small group of people at a time like on the agency side of business. You know, that first year I probably worked with 12 to 15 clients. The next year it was probably closer to 40 to 50. But that felt so small to me. Like as much as I loved the up close and personal work and really having the intimate knowledge behind the scenes of someone's business I wanted to help hundreds or thousands of people on their journey and I wasn't there yet. It wasn't like I had already arrived and I already knew all of the things and I simply needed to give people my knowledge. I was just a few steps ahead of the majority of the people I was teaching. And over time, that gap has definitely gotten a little bit wider. But I've been in business a long time. Digital products and courses is one of the few ways you can ultimately work with a large group of people and truly have it be scalable. If you're offering one on one deliverables in any capacity, you can only handle so many clients before you need more hands, before you need more people, project management before you need more people in production. There's just no way around it. You have to scale people. But with digital products and courses, you can run a very profitable, high revenue business with a very lean team. If I had been fully running it on my own, I imagine I probably could have gotten to the 250, $300,000 mark completely on my own, without any team members, and then slowly brought on additional support. But I definitely would have started with a contractor and built up hours over time. I don't actually think every person in this type of business even needs employees. You know, I think for a lot of people, once you get to a certain scale, it does make life a heck of a lot easier. And I am so, so, so grateful. I have a team. I could not create all of the content that I do without their support. So it kind of depends on your motivations and what you want to focus on. I have absolutely seen people run businesses making more revenue than I am with smaller teams. And a lot of that comes down to the risks they're willing to take with things like paid advertising. But I think one of those early experiences that made me feel like I could actually do this as a full time business was when we launched our first digital product. And that first digital product that hit the marketplace was Trello for business. And it went absolutely gangbusters. We made over $8,000 in the first 30 days of selling that product. And it wasn't to say that it was because we had, you know, some massive existing audience. Yes, we had already been working on building community at that point, but it was still tiny. Like very tiny. The reason it worked is because people were getting nearly immediate results and they were telling their friends. I had people coming out of the woodwork who were blogging about my program, who were sharing it with friends, who were DMing other people and texting other people and letting them know that they needed it. And this was without me even asking. It simply was making a massive difference in small businesses lives and they knew other people needed to hear about it. But I think what that specifically showed me was that it was possible to generate volume. I think that was my biggest fear, was I knew how to do the math. I knew that if I was selling a service for a thousand or 2500 or $5000, that I would only need one of those people versus if I was selling something for $11 or $29 or $47, that I would need, you know, between ten to a hundred times, depending on the price point. The volume needing a hundred people versus one, I promise you, one is always going to be easier than a hundred, regardless of the price point we're talking about. But I had proof. I had proof that if I was truly focused on making a real difference and advocating for an audience that was underserved, that I had ability to reach those people and make a real impact. And to me that was motivation enough. Whether I knew it was going to fully work for a long period of time, I didn't. I had no idea. But I chose to pursue it in that season. And then I continue to say yes every single day. Now, I do not want to tell you that there is one perfect way to build out this kind of business. You know, there's a ton of different opinions about whether you need low end products or a low end membership, or you know, mid tier courses or high end group coaching programs, or if you need to deliver support asynchronously or you need to show up live and have live calls, or you know that it has to be all video content or that you can do audio only. Like there are so many opinions. There are so many opinions. There is not a right or wrong answer. You get to develop the business that works for you, the business that supports the lifestyle that you want. Don't let anyone else dictate what that needs to look like. You get to decide, you get to make the decisions and you get to move forward in the season. You're in one step at a time in a direction that feels right to you. But I know you're listening today because you want to know how I did it? How specifically did I generate $3.3 million? It was definitely a mix of strategies. I have built pretty much every type of digital product and course format out there. I'd be shocked if you sent me a message with a specific strategy and I haven't tried it or experimented with it genuinely, I would be surprised. But the things that have been my primary focus have a more specific tilt, I suppose towards low end. We're talking about a primary focus on what I would call high value, low cost digital products. And in the beginning there was that with a mix of mid tier and you know, I would say more signature level course programs. We're talking the 29 to 1997 price range. So under 30 bucks to just under 2000, that was what was necessary in the beginning. Right now I'm in a position where almost my entire product suite is on the low end. Like I have very few high end offers and even if the ones that I do have are exclusive, like I don't have a lot of clients in them, there are things that I take online. The truth is most, most small businesses don't have a large enough audience in the beginning to generate the volume necessary for low end digital products to be their only strategy. Low end digital products, their value, the thing that they do better than anything else. And a strategy I don't see other people talk about is they are one of the few ways you can get paid to build a list full of qualified leads to convert them into other things. Most of the time you are paying for those leads via paid advertising or you are getting them free with a lead magnet. Having that low end digital product allows you to make just a little tiny return for the effort you put in to marketing. So you're paid for that time and then you're able to nurture them over time into something like a more signature offer. I would say for the majority of businesses, I would suggest you start with a more advanced offer. Something in that two to five thousand dollar price point range. You know, whether that ultimately is a course or a combo of education and some one on one deliverables, that's up to you. But you are going to build the most income the quickest by having high end something or other. And I wouldn't even say that's super high end. It's not. You know, I've seen some people start out the gate with a $10,000 offer, but I think, I think there are some challenges with a price point that high. Unless you have a really, really market that is basically begging for your help. That is where I've seen people successfully transition from like exclusively services or exclusively coaching or exclusively consulting into something that's like a little more of a hybrid offer. Like they may still be doing some of that thing they were previously doing, but they've added on an educational component that reduces the time necessary to deliver the offer. It may still require ongoing support, it may still require your time and effort and there may be a limit to what you can do with that offer. But it is the thing that allows you to set down some of those things that are burning you out or taking up too much of your time. Now, if you have an existing audience, we're Talking more than 10,000 people, you know, or an email list of more than 5,000 people. If you have an existing audience, I would start instead with a low cost entry offer. And the reason I would start there is you can solve a small problem that specifically sets your ideal clients up for your higher end thing. Even if you don't have the higher end thing built yet, it's going to get people in, it's going to get people warmer so that when you're ready to sell a high end offer, you can. The reason I would have the majority of people not start there is they're not usually generating enough income for that strategy to be viable. They would simply make too little and then create this cycle of scarcity. And that's not what I want for you. I want you to feel powerful. I want you to feel like you're making a real difference. I want you to feel like you know what you're doing and, and a lot of that comes down to you making enough money. The irony is I think the majority of small business owners that I talk to, they're simply not charging enough. Like they're just not, you know, these entry offers are meant to be a starting point. They are meant to be the thing that allows you to get paid for them to come in. But they are not the thing that's going to pay the bills or keep the lights on for the majority. And so you need a course or a program or a hybrid offer that will allow you to make enough money for this to be viable. You know, I would love to see more people charging a premium. And again, it's not to say that everything is premium. I think that's a mistake too. Like I do think you having some low hanging fruit, it allows for conversation, it allows for exposure, it allows for you to reach more people and solve more people's problems. I've sold offers from $29,000 to over $45,000 to one person. And it's surprising what some of those jumps can look like. Like I have absolutely seen someone buy a 29 offer and then within a few hours buy a almost $2,000 offer. I've seen people invest in a $97 offer and then go on to invest 10 or 12,000 in their business. I think a lot of people assume if they're priced too low that they can't sell premium and that they have to keep everything low end. And I truly think that's a mistake. My previous signature offer, the Strategy Academy, which is not currently being sold and isn't available anywhere right now, it on its own brought in $795,000 and that sold at just under $2,000 a pop. I've had other digital products that literally only sold one time. So not every product you make is going to be the winner. But. But a big but here. Most people give up on their digital products or courses before they put enough effort into promotion. They haven't nailed their messaging or their marketing strategy and it isn't working. So I think a lot of people assume that the product is the issue and very rarely is that the case. If you went so far as to think this is something my ideal client needs and I know they need it because I know it's going to help them solve XYZ problem and by doing so they're going to go on to be able to do xyz. If you feel that convicted, very rarely is the actual offer the issue. The issue is more than likely the messaging or you are not getting enough volume exposure to the offer. Like you don't have enough visibility. There are simply not enough people who know you exist who go and visit your sales page. That's a problem you can fix. Inside Digital Product Jumpstart I walk you through how to really assess your offer and if you don't hit certain goals with that offer, how you can reverse engineer what the real issue is. I think a lot of people don't know how to do this or the approach they need to take. And it's such a necessary piece of the puzzle because if you don't know how to assess what is or isn't working, you're never going to grow again. If you want to check that out, it's bossproject.com jumpstart I keep seeing it happen. You're caught in a loop, waiting for that perfect moment, overthinking every decision and comparing your progress to the curated realities of others online. I've been there too. And I made a shift that changed absolutely everything. It simplified my approach and allowed me to start trusting my intuition again. Truly, everything changed. My business doubled, then doubled again. I rocked $300,000 launch, enrolled over 10,000 students in a single course and finally started showing up in a way that felt effortless and aligned. Now I'm sharing those exact tools and strategies in my new three part workshop series Mindset Reboot. Right now you can grab it for just 11 hurry. Visit creative templateshop.commindset to find out more. Hiring with Indeed. Your search is over. When it comes to hiring, don't go searching for the one, just meet your match with Indeed. Get unparalleled access to job seekers with over 350 million unique monthly visitors globally according to Indeed data and an extended reach through Glassdoor. I love that Indeed makes it easy to hire when we've hired. In the past, the process was full of unqualified applicants. With Indeed, we can target the right candidates for the right position, leveraging over 140 million qualifications and preferences every day. Indeed's matching engine is constantly learning from your preferences, so the more you use Indeed, the better it gets and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit. To get your jobs more visibility@inn Indeed.com strategy hour, just go to indeed.com strategy hour right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com strategy hour terms and conditions apply. Need to hire you need Indeed now inside my membership, which PS does contain quite a few of my digital products. We'll talk more about that in a little bit. I have a training called the Accelerator and in the Accelerator I talk about building a product ecosystem. I also talk about this in depth inside Digital Product Jumpstart. But the training I'm specifically thinking of is the Accelerator and it helps you really start to understand how your offers work together and how you need to look at your ideal clients as a timeline continuum. That these people are at different points in their journey and your products need to touch them at different points on that journey rather than talking to totally different audiences or talking to the same person who's all at the same spot. Because if you talk to the same person who's at the same spot and every offer makes sense at that spot, they're going to be confused what to buy and the moment they're confused, they walk away. Instead, I want people to see exactly what they need and that you have an opportunity to help them that fits where they're at today solves the problem they have today and they can see that they have a path with you to keep learning and keep growing and continue down the line. You know, could you have one offer that you only ever sell? Sure, absolutely. That is definitely a way to Structure a business. The issue is the moment you sell it, you have to have someone new in your ecosystem. Every time you need more sales, you need more people versus when you have a product ecosystem, every time you need sales, you first turn to your warm market. Instead of going out and trying to reach cold, you essentially are building a pool of people who are always going to be interested. Well, I shouldn't say always. Some people are going to grow out of what you do, and that's amazing. That means you did your job. But more than likely you are going to be building this pool of people that can continue to learn from you over time. I want one offer to solve one clear problem that gets them to a finish line where they can start to assess. Okay, here's my next problem. And then, oh, there's another solution that's going to help me tackle that hurdle. You know, I think the majority of people that come to me, regardless of where they're on this journey, most people are wondering how they get more sales because they want to scale. They want to see their business grow. I think you're asking the wrong question. If you want more sales, you need more visibility. That's the actual issue. Because the whole point is like you're looking at a symptom and I want to get to the root cause. The symptom is you don't have enough cash flow. Okay, why don't you have enough cash flow? Because you don't have enough leads. Why do you not have enough leads? Because you don't have enough people that know you exist. How do you people get to know you exist? By you getting visible on awareness channels, period. That's backed up three or four steps. Okay. And so if you want to grow sales, you need to grow your visibility. For me, my primary strategy for reaching a broad audience is strategic partnerships. I am using them as my primary lead driver in my business. That being said, I am absolutely using more traditional forms of lead strategy, including low price digital products to help you get paid to bring in those leads. And I don't have enough time in this episode to get into all of that. But if you do want to learn more about my lead strategy and specifically how I added nearly 10,000 subscribers in just under six months, you can go to bossproject.com leads and I have a case study for you that literally walks through every strategy I used. And it's not just one thing. There isn't one magic bullet, but it is going to walk you through the logic. The reason I made the decisions, I did what I Tried what worked, what didn't. All the numbers, boss, project.com leads. It's totally free. There's no reason not to download it. But once you have that visibility and you have those leads and you're ready to talk to that warm market, you kind of have two options. You can go the live launch route and create content in real time and deliver emails in real time and sell live on things like workshops. You can do all of that live or you can choose more evergreen strategies where you're automating funnels and sending people down, you know, a set of emails to ultimately try to convert them into an offer. Both work. There isn't anything wrong with either option. I have seen businesses that exclusively rely on live launches. I've seen businesses that have never live launch ever and are thriving in an evergreen market. That being said, my goal with this episode is tell you what's the easiest thing to do and the easiest thing to do is to have a hybrid of both. Just like you would have a hybrid to start the business that's maybe a mix of what you were doing before and the new thing. I prefer to launch live and then evergreen that strategy because I learned so much more by going through it live and seeing how my audience responds than attempting to market it on evergreen and putting everything in place in advance. Because I don't know how people are going to react, I don't know what questions they're going to ask, I don't know where they're going to get stuck until I've done it live at least once. And once I've done it live, at that point I can look at building out an evergreen funnel. I was just on a call today with a one on one coaching client and we were specifically talking about funnels and I was walking her through a workflow for something that falls after a lead magnet and this included five days of like value add emails before it went into a five day launch cycle that were all sales emails. And she was like, are all your sales only five days? And I said no. Most of the time when I'm live launching, I do a 10 to 14 day cart open and I just take the top performing emails and put them in the evergreen funnel. Because I'm not great every single time out the gate either. Like there are absolutely emails that don't get opened enough or they don't convert high enough or they don't convert at all. I have absolutely sent emails about paid offers that not a single person bought and that doesn't mean I suck at writing or that I am terrible and I should quit this industry. It just means that I have other things that are better performing. And so I put my best performing content on Evergreen. If it's not a great performer, then I will wait and continue to adjust. And maybe I need to live launch again to learn some more insights before I fully evergreen it. That is up to you now. The frequency and size of my live launches have varied widely. I've had live launches that took three, four, five months of prep, if not more to build up to this huge promotion that had massive amounts of money behind it in terms of both time, but also quite literally capital to promote it. I have also made decisions that a week later I started promoting live. I think it's easy to assume that the more time you spend on a promotion, the better it's going to perform. And that's also generally not the case. I do think you need a mix. You're gonna need to try in the beginning some launches that are a little more polished, a little more, you know, put together, a little more planned and executed in advance. And you need to try some things spontaneously and lead into your intuition. You will learn so much from both approaches. Inside Digital Product Jumpstart and my membership both. You can get access to Launch in a box which if you want to, you can definitely get on its own. But it's included in both of those things. So the better deal is absolutely to get one or the other of those things. And inside Launch in a Box I walk you through a full two week live launch. All the emails, all the social posts, all the pre planning, the sequencing, how it all goes. It's like Madlib style ready for you to plug and play. So if you're new to launching, that is absolutely how I would go through it. So if you're building out that first or next digital product, try utilizing that content inside Digital Product Jumpstart. It will be such a powerful way for you to continue to move forward. All that being said, the only way your business will continue to work long term is if you are just as focused on client experience and delivery as you are on promotion. The businesses that you see crash and burn or have massive PR crisis, more than likely they are going through a situation where they got too focused on sales and forgot to take care of their clients. It happens. Ego can get in the way. There's a lot of things at play there, but that's usually why things go upside down. If you're focused on both and you genuinely care about your client results and you know where they're struggling and you continue to create opportunities for them to learn and move through the process and solve real problems. You're going to create trust, you're going to create loyalty. Bring that value packed content, consistently show up in a way that brings value to people and customers will return for more. I've had many clients who have worked with me for years because I have built up trust and loyalty with them and I want that for you too. But I know you want some of those lessons learned along the way. Like what worked best. Is there a product that you feel like is the game changer? Yes and no. Like if the goal is roi, then a high end offer absolutely is going to give you the most roi. You're going to get one person in, two people in, three people in and those efforts will grow exponentially faster than a low end offer. They just will. It's absolutely the best way to get more people in the door. But if you want the most leads, then a low priced entry point offer is the thing that's going to help you get paid to bring in those leads. And they're going to be be more qualified because they've already paid you once. Someone who pays you once is seven times more likely to pay you again than a cold person in your audience. And sure, you can try strategies like order bumps and upsells and other funnel hacks and all of the things those are possible, but I usually think that it makes the most sense to do one or the other, like either go high end first or go low end first and then work towards the middle. Like if you go high in first, I would do high, low, middle. If you go low in first, go low, high middle, that's going to give you the most traction to bring the most people in and generate the most revenue long term. One strategy that I have executed on that I don't necessarily see as many people do, but I'm also not sure I would recommend, which is interesting. So if you see me doing this and you're like, that's the thing I need to be doing, I just want you to hesitate a little. So most of my digital products are positioned to actually drive people to my membership. The membership of everything I do in my entire business is absolutely the most high value bang for your buck. You're going to get the most out of that community. People will see, oh, if I want this digital product and that digital product, I could get all of these and hundreds, if not thousands more inside the membership. I'm going to join the membership. Fantastic. The membership is the best way I've been able to build reoccurring revenue in my business. So if we're talking about the best thing that has allowed me to not have to start over at zero every month, then yes, the membership has been high value from that regard. But in terms of infrastructure, time and effort, maintenance, like every other thing about the membership, is so much harder than the other things I'm doing. Is there a bigger reward for it? I mean, I guess you could argue that point, but I think more often than not, I see people develop memberships when their audience is too small. And what I mean by that is, okay, even if you have a big enough audience that you can get 50 people in, if you have 50 people and you're selling at $47 a month, let's do the math. 47 times 50, that's $2,300. That's not even a full paycheck. So you'd be making that and still need to take on one on one work. And that's assuming that all of those people stay. But the average membership is going to have, you know, on the low end, 15%, on the high end, 25, 30% of the membership cut out every single month. So if you want to grow a membership, you have to grow by more than the number of clients you're losing, which is a strategy, no doubt. It is absolutely plausible. It can absolutely make you a ton of money, but it's also very hard. I would rather you sell those 50 people into an entry point offer and then convert a percentage of them into a higher offer. You could literally make 10x this amount with that 10x in a single month. So we're talking about a $23,000 month instead of a $2,300 month. By having a high and a low end offer. That is where the money gets made. Memberships work if you have a massive audience to market to. And it's the main reason why I haven't spent a lot of time sharing that strategy with my audience, because I don't think it' for 90% of the people listening. When I think about the challenges I've had and the setbacks I've had and the things that have really been roadblocks for me, most of it came down to cash flow. And if cash flow is a problem, it's because leads are a problem, right? We talked about getting to the root cause and if leads are the problem, visibility is the problem. So when I had cash flow issues, it was because I got distracted from building visibility and I'm In a high volume business like the way my business is structured, I need far more leads than the average small business simply because of my product mix. That is a choice that I made that I don't think is right for everyone, but it works for me and my business. But that has also been something that I have had to learn my lesson the hard way more than once. The thing that is going to grow your business is momentum. You have to be consistent. You have to keep showing up, you will grow and then it snowballs. But if you keep starting and stopping or you put effort into something and then you walk away from it, you will be slowed down and there's nothing wrong with that. I'm not saying things have to always be urgent or that you have to like always prioritize all these key things in your business. That's not what I'm saying. What I want you to be focused on is how can I take on a manageable amount and then consistently show up. I don't need you to over commit. I don't need you to do more than you have time for. I need you to do what you have time for consistently so that you continue to reach more people, so that you continue to get more exposure, so you continue to get more traffic to your sales pages, so you can convert more people into your offers. I want you to walk away with some takeaways from this. I want you to feel like you have what it takes to either pivot your service business into a digital product and course business or move from being a subject matter expert out in the real world and building this on your own, or pivoting from coaching or consulting to building a digital product and course business. You have what it takes. I have no doubt you have the knowledge. You absolutely have the thing that you can teach. That's not the issue. The issue is you need to understand and research and identify the needs and problems of your ideal client. You have to make sure you understand in their words what they need and then develop an offer that meets those needs for a specific audience. I want you to create an offer that's scalable. If your audience isn't large enough, a membership on the low end may not be something that's sustainable for you because you're going to run out of leads and then you're going to have to continue to maintain a product for a small portion of people and it's going to take more time than you're earning income. What may make more sense is offering something like an entry point offer that you build Once continue to bring in more leads that way and then you strategically align it to a high end offer and then over time you can build out the middle to create tiers of things that make sense for someone who's still on a path. Where I see people get into trouble is they start to over deliver and they can't maintain it. Like either they're guaranteeing too many things that are going to come out on like a timeline or they're offering too much support that is not scalable. So I really want you to be thinking about the lower end offer needs to be more diy. The higher end offer can offer more support, but even still your time is limited. So you need to really understand how much you can take on and when. I want you to think about building that offer ecosystem, helping someone from one problem to the next and making it match match their unique timeline. If you want the full training on that, like I mentioned, the full training is inside the accelerator, inside the membership, which you can find out more@creative templateshop.com membership or I have a smaller version of it inside digital product Jumpstart that will still give you what you need to ultimately build out your first, your next digital product and have all the things necessary to ensure that it's aligned for future offers. I recently talked to someone who definitely was lacking some direction and I think most people assume they need concrete goals. I need to launch exactly this offer and exactly this timeline, you know, at this specific time of year. And if I don't do that, it's not going to work. I wouldn't get so married to what you plan to offer. The things you offer this year will not necessarily be the things you offer five years down the line. And it's not because there's a problem. It's because the businesses that don't innovate die. I need you to hear that again. The businesses that don't innovate die. Like think about Blockbuster. They were great at delivering movies and then streaming came along. I mean technically DVDs came along and things like Redbox came along, but nonetheless you saw them not innovate. Redbox ultimately did the same thing. They had DVDs in great locations, high traffic locations, but as soon as streaming took over, needing to go to the grocery store to pick out a movie for the evening was just no longer necessary and they didn't innovate fast enough. So your business will only stay viable if you continue to innovate. And so I want you to be less married to the thing you're Selling and more married to a direction you're going. Who do you want to help and why do you want to help them? Why are you passionate about that? What is your story? How did you get to where you are today? Those are the things that don't change. Those are the things that don't change. Who you want to help and why you want to help them doesn't change. How will you help them get there is the thing that will change and that's your offers. Your offers will change. Technology changes. There's a million reasons why your offers have to change over time. Your mission and your vision are what is steady. You know, there isn't a magic solution. There isn't the right answer. There are just decisions that have to be made. If you want this to happen, you have to take a step forward. You have to be willing to take messy action. I've had offers that have gone on to make more than a million dollars. I've had offers that have gone on to make $800,000. I've had offers that have gone on to make $300,000. And I've had a heck of a lot of offers that only sold one time, one time to one person or not at all. Or not at all. Because they're not on my profit and loss statement doesn't mean they don't exist. They sold to zero people and that is okay. I wouldn't have got to $3.3 million in digital product and course sales by only focusing on one thing. I was willing to try things. Now I probably have tried more than the average bear, more than is necessary. I fully acknowledge that I have created more than is necessary. But you showing up consistently, you being mindful of your customer needs you focusing on delivering a quality product and giving them a great experience. So you have solid stories to sell your offers in the future. That is what will make a difference long term. If you just want to get started with building that first or next digital product, then I would say digital product Jumpstart is exactly where I would start. And I would send you to bossproject.com jumpstart but if you want like a deep dive into like the whole ecosystem and how the business all works together and step by step guidance on creating and scaling this kind of business, then the co op is where you need to be and that's creative. Templateshop.com membership. You're going to see more of what's in store and what's coming. We have new drops pretty much every month and incredible products that come out to help you scale your business. When I started my agency, I saw a future in which I made a salary. I could have never imagined that I could make life changing amounts of money. Things that would allow me to build generational wealth and impact my family for years and years to come. I had no idea that that was possible. But I want you to know it is available to you too. I'm not going to tell you it's easy. I'm not going to tell you it's going to happen overnight. I'm not going to tell you that it's all passive and you can generate all of these things without lifting a finger. That's not true. And anyone telling you that it is is trying to sell you something. I want to see you successful long term. I want to see you financially free. But that's only going to happen if you start, you stay focused, you remain consistent and you drive value for real people. You got this. I believe in you. Have a great week. Hey, a few quick favors before you leave. I'd love if you'd share today's episode, send it to a friend who needs to hear it and post on social. You can show us where you're listening from, your favorite takeaway or why someone else should listen. Be sure to tag me igalsaysays and ossproject so we can share it. Okay. Second favor to get podcast updates and all the behind the scenes news from Boss Project. I'd love if you join my VIP list. Just head to bossproject.com signup to make sure I have all your contact details. Really love this show. It would mean so much to me if you'd leave a rating and review. It not only helps more listeners find the show, but allows us to bring on quality sponsors so we can keep bringing you this valuable content for free. Thanks so much for listening. Until next time.