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Why You Should Sell Digital Products

Let's talk a little bit about the pros of selling digital products. There are so many lovely pros of selling control products first of all, like we've already said, you make it once and you sell it over and over and over again, so you have more of a passive income and it depends on the particular product that you sat up, but you can do this with pretty much anything you spend less time working, and I don't want teo, I don't want to give the illusion that it's not hard work because it absolutely is hard work, but once you have built a base, then you spend less time working on all of those smaller bits and pieces that most people want to get off of their plate. You're to set your own hours. This is one of my favorite parts of selling digital products I usually take off almost all of december because I like to make handmade gifts for friends and family, and I like to watch holiday movies, and I like to bake, and I like to just relax and chill out, and I can do that because I've sent my bu...

siness up that way that I can take off pretty much an entire month and things are going to be completely fine and it's not to say that I don't work hard because leading up to this course, I was working crazy and ten hours working till two or three in the morning and then getting up again at seven or eight in the morning and continuously working throughout the day taking breaks for food and fur to shower myself you know the basic things that you need so there are points in time when you're going to work really hard and other points in time where you can take off but you get to decide that's one of the best part is that you get to shoot say financial security with multiple streams of income that's a good one right everybody was that would so you're not stressed about money no it's continuously coming in and you have multiple sources you can actually charge more for your handmade products which you would think maybe you could have if you were selling patterns of how to make something that you wouldn't be able tio charge more but you can and a really great example of this has anybody heard of alabama chanin has anybody heard of that ok you have got to check it out you're going to look at this website and you are going teo love this business model because they sell their dresses for like three thousand six hundred dollars I am not kidding and it's a successful business she has a team of people that create these dresses everything is sewn by hand it is everything's handmade it's amazing but there are lots of people who either can't afford to spend that much money on a dress or would never think to spend that much money on a dress or, you know, it would just really stress them out to even consider that so she also sells books with her patterns on them, and then she sells the material so you can create one of those dresses for less than a hundred dollars. If you buy the book, you buy some material, and then you have all those patterns and the next time it's even less to create one of those dresses. So if you want to do it, you can and it's perfect for those die wires for people who look at something and they say, I'm never goingto by that, but I want to make it, and there are lots of people like that out there until I think one of the reasons that her design sell so well, and for that kind of price point is because first of all, they're two different target market, and then also people can see the detail that goes into this. I have made one of the ponchos, and it took me about six months, and I am working on one of the dresses right now and it's going to take, I would say about one hundred hours, so I know that it's worth three thousand six hundred dollars that that dress is being charged for because of how much goes into it right so people can see that and there are people who are going to look at your products and they're going to say I want that product I would never make that and then they were going to be people who look at it and say I want to try to make that I'm not gonna buy it it so you have these different target markets that you can hit you can charge more for your handmade products especially when you're having money coming in from digital products it's less stressful so when you're not having as many sales in one area it's okay because you have this other area of your business there's no shipping that's my favorite part's still a lot of well I enjoyed packaging when I sold jewelry I really enjoyed packaging it but the shipping part oh my goodness that was not one of my favorites and you get paid immediately and it's mostly profit unlike if you've made something and you put in the materials it's not all profit which isn't to say again that a handmade business isn't a great model it's a lovely model I buy handmade all the time and I would be very, very very sad if it all of a sudden went away however adding to it can be helpful you can reach a worldwide audience I know so many makers who do not ship worldwide because they're so nervous about if the product's gonna get there if it's going to get there in one piece if the person is gonna have to pay additional tax and they get angry customers there are all those pieces that go into it when you sell digital products and they get it instantly consult to anybody anywhere, any time and you can reach and work with a lot more people when I d'oh for instance, individual consulting I only have so many hours in the day but when I do something like group coaching I can help a lot more people in the same amount of time and you can work from home or anywhere this is me and my working from panama were having such a fun time I can pick up and go anywhere and do my work which is really I think that's really awesome I want to emphasize that the course is not about overnight success or getting rich quick I am all about doing the work in doing hard work and building a solid business and caring about your customers in creating a loyal customer base so this isn't about overnight success although I have seen some people build their business is really quickly and it's because they're putting in a lot of work into them and you get to reach multiple target markets so you definitely have different markets and you don't have to sell to all of them so it's completely okay if we do not sell to every market but it's good to know that they're out there the first one there are people who just want to buy your product, they don't want to make it themselves, they don't have the time to make it themselves, they don't have the skills to make it themselves. They just want what you sell the second market they pride themselves on d I y and they want to make it themselves, and sometimes this is more than one market and you'll see examples of that coming up and then the third market they want to build a similar business as what you have, and there are lots of people, lots of creative entrepreneurs who do not sell to this market and you do not have tio people get nervous about this sometimes like sharing my business secret soon is somebody going teo use my business model and then get rich off of it and then they're competing with me, so you don't necessarily have to sell to this market, but there there people are coming to your website, especially when you're successful and looking at how you're doing it, trying to figure out how they can use parts of whatever is happening in your business tio make there's more successful so you want to talk about a few case studies of creative entrepreneurs who are selling digital products and doing an amazing job? And the first one is bonnie christine, who actually has a creative life course where she teaches you how to create surface patterns. So when I interviewed bonnie, I asked her why she started creating digital products, and at first she had an etsy shop and she sold handmade products, and she said that she reached a handmade feeling that it got to a point where they're just there weren't any more hours in the work week, and so she clinton's grow her business, and so she wanted a way tio continue to sell and grow, and she knew that there was no way unless she had a sudden factory of balloon buzz to come and do everything for her it's just not possible. So she was on a road trip, actually it's kind of a cool story, and she got the idea from someone who told her, you have a really large blawg audience. Have you ever thought about trying, teo, move some of those readers to customers? And she thought I have, but I don't really know exactly how I would make that work, and she thought about it for the next few days constantly, she came up with a list of ideas, she decided teo move from just all free content on her blogged teo a paid membership program and it's only five dollars a month to join her program and one of the reasons she priced it like that and I'll mention this again when we talk about pricing is because she wanted it to be a no brainer and at the point in time when I interviewed her she was making about two thousand dollars a month from her five dollar membership program and that was something that she did because she wanted that extra income right? And so her block readers who love her stuff they can get more of her content through signing up for her roots tribe, which I think it's awesome and if you want a free month to the roost tribe that is in the case study book bonus she was so generous she goes, I will even let your people have a month free to check it out. You guys want to check it out? I mean there's clip art there's recipes there there is illustrator tutorial there's all kinds of good stuff in there. She also has some e books and the way that she created those e books and how she came up with the topics is through the questions that she kept getting from her readers, so pay attention when you're getting emails from your readers email after email after email asking the same thing your people want to know more about that and so that's, something that she has turned into a box and her e books are also very affordable. Her business model is great, and her main thing is designing fabric. I'm not sure how many lines of fabric she has now, maybe four or five different lines of fabric and that's also beautiful. If you can't tell, I'm a fan of bonnie, I love for work so let's talk about the markets that she's heading the first market are the people who want to buy the fabric that she designs so they don't want to make fabric themselves. They don't want to design patterns themselves, they just want her fabric, the second market people who buy her clip art for personal use, the d ay wires and this can happen in her etsy shop. It can also happen through the roots tribe, and one of the things that she does that is really brilliant is the content, but she gives out in the roost tribe some of it she will move into her at the shop so that other people who aren't part of the ruse tribe and find her via etc can also buy her products like her clip art. And so I think that that's that's pretty genius on her part, the third market people who want to build surface design businesses and she taught a create alibi of course on that specific topics, so she is hitting all of these different markets and they're all different revenue strings coming in another person one of my favorite people in the whole world, my car lace from heart made and you guys are going to hear from her tomorrow on one of the reasons I wanted teo actually bring her on and let you here straight from her is because she made seventy five thousand dollars from her first digital product in one year, her very first visual product she made seventy five thousand dollars isn't that amazing? She is so good at this kind of stuff, and one of the reasons that her product was so successful is she has built a loyal business, a loyal following that love her style. She is a very unique, specific style if you know her and people love her for that. And so when she released planners, people were buying them up like crazy. Now the really cool part about this story is that when mine created these planners, she didn't have adobe illustrator she didn't have the budget tobe I adobe illustrator because she was new in business, she had been selling handmade headbands up into that point and that you couldn't buy the adobe suite of products and pay a monthly payment for it you have to pay a lot of money and she just didn't have it in the budget so she did what any stubborn amazing entrepreneur would dio and she got very creative and she downloaded the thirty day free trial of illustrator and she created those planners in three weeks because she knew she only had thirty days to do it and then she she is also somebody who will tell you that she doesn't think that she's very tech savvy so she just put them up on a blonde post she didn't even have a separate sales page for that at that point in time she has moved them on to a separate sales page now but hank this is so inspiring you guys that somebody could do that that is possible I just wanted to share that with you because I think it's really inspiring so the first market that she hits are people who want to buy her gift tags bookmarks in no pads so these are people who are buying stuff in her at the shop in the note the no not the notebooks but the bookmarks and gift tags are digital downloads and the notebooks are products that she actually ship though then the second market people who buy her planner so they're perfect for creatives who need help with organization in business planning and they don't want your average planners I mean, her planners have paige is like your superpower finder in them and mute loser thoughts that's another one of her pages like she's, really cool pages inside of her planner, they're not your average planners, and then the third market are people who want to learn how to build, to create a business, and she helps people in that way through her life is messy boot camp, which is her flagship program, and then she doesn't offer it anymore. But she had ebola called five k sales, and that was based on the fact that she sold five thousand copies of the planners, and she was teaching people how to do that as well. So she's even written in any book on how to create and sell digital products. Sure. So I have a quick question about this, and I don't know if you'll get into it later, but my thing that I was just telling the girls in the front row here is that I feel like if I were to launch sub think I'd be launching it to like a very small crowd at this point, because I don't know a lot of people yet with my block. So are you going to get into how that all works? Because first you need an audience cares, right? And how, how you're growing that while you're creating and what comes first and yeah, okay. Yeah. Gods all part that's, all part of it. But when my launched her planner, she didn't have a huge list. We can ask her how many she had on it, but I think she had been in business for I want to say she had been in business for about nine months, and so she did not have a huge audience, a huge list. One of the things is that people loved her planner so much that they would tell other people about them. And so that's one of the ways that it kind of grew. But we can ask her more about that tomorrow because I know for a fact that she had a newer business and didn't have a huge list. And so that's a great question for her people online are asking the same things. We had a very similar question from o to be stamping said, did you need a large block following first, before you can start selling digital products? No, no, not required, no, not required, I would say start on it as soon as possible, because as you build your audience, you're going to be more successful and that a piece of it, but you don't have to have a huge list or huge blawg readership in order, teo do well. Especially if you're putting out quality products it's going to catch on, people are gonna want to share it more people are going to find out about how awesome you are and they're going to come to your website and buy from you. Another example is jessica marquez and her website is the miniature rhino I think that's such a fun name the miniature rideau er and so she is an embroidery artist and she's just the sweetest person she told me that the reason she started to add digital products is that handmade all hand me, it started to become physically and mentally taxing and you wouldn't think that embroidery would get physically taxing, but think about doing it for hours, your fingers in your arm in the shoulder and all that attention, so it does get physically taxing. So she said that that's why she started teo cell kit and she has kids and her etsy shop, which include the materials and the pattern and everything that you would need to recreate a piece of her embroidery art however, they're still the shipping piece, so then she broke it down and also offered just the patterns and those air digital downloads, so she's got all these different options however, she is somebody who is newer at this and so I wanted to get her perspective as well because she hasn't been doing it for a very long amount of time her first market are people who buy her embroidery so she still sells her embroidery on her etsy shop and she tells really well at it second mark it's because she has more than one, people who buy her embroidery kits in digital digital downloads so that's the first one and then people who buy her book she's a book a published book and by her craftsy class so those are people who want a little bit more hand holding so you're gonna have often to markets if you're teaching a skill like that you're gonna have the one that just want the pattern because they already know what they're doing or want the kit because they know how to make it from there and then you're going to have the people who need more help in need more handholding and so she also has those things to offer a swell and then the third market would be people who want to publish crafty books like she does how do you land the publisher? How do you get somebody interested in that and how to teach courses on whatever craft you are an expert out? I don't think she currently sells to that market, but that is there a swell so it's showing you you don't have to sell to all of these you can pick and choose and she still has lots of different streams of income as you can see, even though she's not hitting every market, another example is juliet crane. And she is the painter that I mentioned who had her certain sit first six figure year last year and eighty five percent of her income comes from teaching online courses about painting. And you can find her website at juliet crane dot com and she is lovely she's. Also in all of these women, by the way, are in the case study e book that is a bonus. So the links to where you can find them more about them more about their businesses. It's inside of there. So she held her first painting workshop in december of twenty ten, and she did that after she was featured in a somerset studios magazine. You guys know those magazines. They're like artful blogging where women creates, and then they have, like mixed media magazines. They have all kinds of different types. She was featured in one of those magazines. They contacted her and they said, hey, will you write an article on how to paint in out, because her owl is her iconic kind of painting style? And she said yes, and it was really popular, so she decided to hold a painting workshop and fifteen people came. It was an in person workshop. And then she thought about turning it into an online course, and she didn't know how to do it, so she went to an art retreat and she met with women who are more familiar with selling things like that online. They helped her come up with the structure of it, they helped her brain storm that's, why connections or so amazing that can help you move forward and things like this because she said that she necessarily wouldn't have done it if she hadn't had their help, figuring out how to make it a reality. So now she has ninety courses and that's how she makes her money, and she has built a business around the life she wants to live like she goes to the south for a few months during the winter because she won't to get away from the cold weather her husband works on her business full time with her, she is really built something that she loves and that's so exciting that looks I think today I get really excited about getting stuff could you sell? And one thing that I wanted to mention with her is that she recently self published a book and she was offered a book deal from her dream publishing house. She said that it was the one publishing house that she said if she was ever publishing books, she would want to work with however, she didn't love the contract and she didn't love what they wanted her to write about. She wanted to share more of her work and they wanted more of ah how to tutorial kind of book and she turned it down, and when I talked to her, she said she couldn't be happier that she turned that down and decided to create something that she felt really good about. So I wanted to mention not just because on ly say yes to the things that feel really good to you. The first market that she hits are people who buy her paintings and books. Her book is titled inspired by the little things and that if a compilation of all of her art so there is that first market they want, they just want her paintings because they love her paintings. The second market people who buy her pain courses in order to create their own personal paintings so they don't necessarily want to become a painter. But they want to learn how to get better because painting is a hobby, something that they want to do just for them and then people who take a print painting and art courses to improve their artistic skills because they make a living for art so people who want to do it because they want to get better and improve their business and then there's of course, that fourth market that people who want to teach their own artistic techniques and courses that I don't believe she currently sells teo at this point in time, however better she did, that course would sell out immediately, because I know they're so many artists who would love to learn exactly how she does that. So if you're watching juliette, good idea, and then I have one more for you, jackie rueda and I really love her story, too, because she moved from I'm not sure where she moved from, but she moved to montreal and she speaks spanish, so there was a language barrier, so she couldn't d'oh her previous work, she couldn't get a job in her field of expertise, but she loved photography, so she told me that she started to become depressed because there was that language barrier, she couldn't get a job in the field that she currently worked in, she her health started to decline, and she was looking for something that would be positive in our life. So she started a block, and she started to show pictures of montreal, and she started to share stories about her life there, and her pictures were so beautiful because photography as a hobby was a hobby of hers. Now, she's, an expert at it that way, her readership quickly grew. And she wanted to offer a course. However, she was nervous about doing it because she thought who? My tio offer photography course. There are photographers out there with lots better equipment, way more expensive equipment. And am I going to be taken seriously? Am I the right person to do this, even though I want to do it? And my an expert enough? Am I good enough? So, finally, after four years of blogging, she built up the courage to offer course, and she was hoping for twenty people to sign up. That was her goal. Ninety people signed up for the first one, and then she built a wait list of a hundred people who wanted the next one, and then even better every course she offer after that registration would fill up within ten minutes that same day. So no matter what you do, this is possible. Since why I'm sharing all of these different examples, because I want you to see that no matter what you sell or what you d'oh, there is room for you, and you can build up that courage. You can make it happen. So the first market are people who want to book photography sessions with jackie, which he no longer offers, because she's so amazing at online courses, the second market. People who want to learn how to take better pictures for themselves. So people who take some of those courses because they want to take better pictures of their children, or they want to take better pictures when they travel something like that, and then another market people who want to improve their photography and business skills for their own businesses she has expanded. She doesn't just offer photography courses. Now she brings on other experts to teach courses. My, in fact, has a course that was just released on her site. On marketing. There are food styling courses and bookmaking courses, and then every type of photography course you can think of. And she's got a team of people that work with her now, which, when she started, that wasn't even on the radar, you know, I mean, which I think it's, just it's, so neat how this khun develop in evolve.