The Money's In The Products (Now, You Can Create Products In Hours)
Do you know how really successful solopreneurs make a lot of money?
I had two very pleasant coaching sessions yesterday, and one of them got me thinking.
Do you know how really successful solopreneurs make a lot of money?
Products.
That’s the top-earning revenue stream of all successful solopreneurs I can think of.
Marie Forleo
Dan Koe
Eve Arnold
My best friend (who’s killing it on Etsy)
Products are awesome because:
They solve specific problems.
Customers can use them at their own pace.
They’re affordable.
They’re easy to scale.
Yet, many of you don’t offer (nearly enough) products.
Myself included. Developing digital products is my top priority this year, as I’ve already postponed it for two years.
I want you to consider doing the same.
Make them in different formats and cover different topics.
Price them differently. You can use some of them as freebies.
Use them to improve your sales skills and attract a bigger audience.
Here’s why creating digital products is the best next step for you, even if you think you’re not ready.
We’re spoiled solopreneurs, I tell you.
I remember when bloggers had WordPress websites and had to find sponsors to monetize.
Now, we just post on Medium and whine about the partner program.
I remember when freelancers pitched to clients.
Now, we just make profiles on Fiverr and LinkedIn.
We’ve become a bit lazy, which is why many solopreneurs don’t understand how marketing works.
Maybe you don’t even believe in marketing.
You can justify that in many ways. You think marketing is a scam. You think you’re not good enough yet to put yourself out there. You think it won’t really work for you. Or you’ve tried something, but it didn’t work, and you lost faith in the entire concept.
In short, you reject marketing. It’s an internal thing. Even when you show up, your energy is dwindling. You second-guess yourself and are willing to prioritize almost anything over marketing.
There’s an easy way to know whether this applies to you. Just answer this question: how much time do you devote to marketing every day?
2 hours? 1 hour? 30 minutes? For most people, marketing is a secondary thing. They say they know it’s important, but their actions speak otherwise.
The funny thing is, once you get into marketing, it’s so fun. As Marie Forleo says, good marketing is empathy at scale. You’ll love it.
If you just start, before you know it, you’ll become a super-marketer, which is great because if you want massive success, that’s what you should be.
Creating your products and selling them is the ultimate course in marketing — and instead of paying for the knowledge, you get to make money doing it.
Here’s how products fit in your business.
Here are the 3 types of offers any solopreneur should have.
Your free or low-cost offer that gets people through the door (freebies, ebooks, newsletters). If you want to charge for that, think single or double digits. This isn’t meant to make you money as much as it’s meant to attract the right people to your business.
Your average-priced offer that packs a lot of value (courses, memberships, communities, digital or physical products). This one pays the bills — the highest percentage of your income should come from this. Think 2–3 digit pricing.
Your premium offer (services, one-on-one coaching). This is your premium offer, and it usually comes with a 3, 4 or 5-digit price tag.
Most one-person business owners don’t have all three, or get them wrong: they price their one-on-one services too low and expect them to be the main bread earner. Or they think their low-cost offer — their e-book, for example — should be their main source of income.
That’s how they prioritize the wrong things and sell the wrong way.
If you’re ready to start creating products, I’ve simplified it for you in a little PDF and priced it super low so anyone can get it. You can get the How To Create Best-Selling Educational Products In Hours PDF here.
Paid subscribers will get this one for free. I’ll share a free link for it shortly.
This is a new format for the One-Person Business Success newsletter. Free subscribers will only get one of these essays per month + shorter versions of our weekly deep dives. If you’re ready to achieve your solopreneurship goals, now is the time to upgrade to paid.
I’m starting to create digital downloads and cheap prints as lead magnets. Marketing is still a vague area for me