This is the sixth in a series of 10 podcast episodes/blog posts all about digital products. Check out the other posts in this series below.
1. How to Create Digital Products That People Actually Want
2. 8 Digital Product Ideas for Your Service-Based Business
3. When is the Right Time to Create Digital Products?
4. How to Find the Time to Create Digital Products
5. 5 Ways to Validate Your Idea for Your Digital Product
6. 5 Limiting Beliefs Keeping You From Creating Your Digital Product
7. The Tools You Need to Sell Digital Products
8. Digital Products vs Courses – Which Should You Create?
9. Your Digital Product Launch Questions Answered
10. Digital Products Not Selling? Here’s What to do
I’m going to guess that if you haven’t yet created a digital product but it’s something that you want to incorporate into your business, there is something holding you back. There could be many reasons why you haven’t made a start on this part of your journey and in today’s episode, I’m going to highlight 5 common limiting beliefs keeping you from creating your digital product and my own perspective on each of these to help you overcome them.
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1. They will affect my 1:1 services
One of the biggest misconceptions I hear about building digital products into a service-based business model is that it will affect the 1:1 services that you are offering. What I mean by this is that some people think that if you offer a DIY option with a digital product in your business, there is no reason for someone to hire you to do the work for them.
This is a topic that I wanted to cover in this digital product mini-series because it is absolutely not the case. In fact, digital products are only going to enhance your business, not take the focus or revenue away from another offer.
How many times have you received an enquiry from someone and they weren’t quite ready to work with you on a 1:1 basis whether it’s because they weren’t financially ready or they didn’t have certain things in place that you need before committing to working together 1:1. This right here is the exact reason why digital products are the perfect addition to your business model. You can support those who are not yet ready and help get them to a place where they will be ready so that they can then come back to work with you on a done-for-you basis.
2. There are too many people doing something similar
In the last episode about validating your product idea, I mention that one of the ways to do so is to take a look at the market and see what is already out there. The idea behind this is to see whether there is already a demand for your idea. What you then need to do is to take the research that you have done on similar products and see how you can make yours better.
Let’s take what I do as an example. Are there other products available that teach business owners how to package up their expertise into digital products? Yes! Did that put me off creating Expand Your Brand? No! The reason for this is that I know that there are people in my audience who enjoy my way of teaching. I know that within Expand Your Brand, I’m not just showing you how to create and launch your digital product, I’m also educating you on building a sustainable marketing strategy because in order to sell digital products successfully, you need an audience of people who are going to buy it.
I’m also going one step further and including the EYB Academy which is going to be packed full of additional courses and workshops so that you can learn how to actually implement the marketing strategies we speak about. Could I sell the Academy as a separate offering? Most definitely. But my aim with Expand Your Brand is that you won’t need to buy another marketing or digital product course again.
So what I’ve done here is looked at other similar products that are on the market and I’ve seen how I can take what’s already out there and created something that is unique to me and my business.
Something else to hopefully help you overcome this particular limiting belief is to take a look at your 1:1 services. My bet is that there are most definitely other service providers who offer similar services. What makes you different is both you as an individual and your approach to what you offer. The saying that people buy from people couldn’t be more true here.
3. I need to have a big audience before I can launch
Launching is something that I am going to be talking about more this week so I will cover this in more detail including how you can launch a digital product with a small audience.
Something that I have learned in business is that if we keep waiting for the perfect time to launch, we will just keep putting it off. Instead, by launching to a small audience initially and allowing yourself to see the power in starting small and growing slowly over time, you are overcoming perfection and just getting it out there. In fact, launching is something that can grow your audience rapidly so by creating a product and then launching again and again over a longer period of time, you are therefore growing your audience at the same time.
I mentioned in a previous episode that you are far better off building a small audience of 500 engaged people than an audience of 3000 people who are not engaged. Let’s look at an example here. If you have an audience of 500 people who you know are highly engaged with you and your content, you could convert them at let’s say 5%. This means that out of the 500 people in your audience, 25 people could buy your digital product. If this digital product is $500, you can make $12,500 from this one small audience. However, if you have an audience of 3000 people who aren’t necessarily the right people or they don’t seem very engaged, you might only convert 1% of your audience. Yes, this means you might sell 30 and therefore make $15,000 but it’s going to take you longer to build an audience of 3000 than it is to build an audience of 500.
4. What if no one buys it
Worrying about whether anyone is going to buy your product during a launch is something we will all experience and I think even those who have launched time and time again, probably still worry about this. I know I do. This is especially true when it comes to launching group programs. The worry that if only one person buys it, it’s not a group.
This is where validating your product idea comes in perfectly. By pre-selling your product, you can gauge whether or not it’s an idea that is worth pursuing. Whereas if you validate your idea and only one person buys, you can then choose to be completely honest and refund that one person. There’s nothing that says you have to proceed with it.
Now I know that me talking about this possible scenario probably isn’t helping you if you do have this worry but I want you to see that you have options available to you. I also want you to see the importance of building an audience and validating your offer before you spend too much time working on it.
You are able to control this scenario as much as you can by ensuring that the foundation work has been done rather than just turning around one day and saying you’re going to create something without necessarily having an audience of interested people to launch to.
5. There’s so much free content out there, why would anyone buy it?
The final limiting belief is another common misconception when it comes to creating digital products and the truth is yes, you can pretty much find out anything online these days if you look hard enough. However, searching for free content online and trying to piece everything together is a bit like buying a 1000-piece jigsaw puzzle without a picture to follow or trying to drive from one side of the country to the other without a map so you don’t know if you are heading in the right direction.
A digital product provides your clients and customers with a clear guide, framework, roadmap, process (whatever you want to call it) to help them solve a particular pain point and to help them get closer to their goals. Also, all the time spent searching through free content could be much better spent learning and implementing and actually doing the work. Essentially a lot of things in business come down to two things, time and money. Your job is to educate your audience as to the benefits of investing in your offer.
If you’re currently experiencing any of the limiting beliefs I’ve talked about in this episode, I really hope that this has helped you change your perspective on them and given you more confidence to just get started. It’s time to stop sitting on your ideas. It’s time to implement and take action and don’t let these thoughts hold you back from doing the work. Just imagine where you could be in 6 months’ time if you start doing the work now. You could be well on your way to more freedom in both your life and business.
Be sure to check out the other posts in this series. Here’s a reminder of them again.
1. How to Create Digital Products That People Actually Want
2. 8 Digital Product Ideas for Your Service-Based Business
3. When is the Right Time to Create Digital Products?
4. How to Find the Time to Create Digital Products
5. 5 Ways to Validate Your Idea for Your Digital Product
6. 5 Limiting Beliefs Keeping You From Creating Your Digital Product
7. The Tools You Need to Sell Digital Products
8. Digital Products vs Courses – Which Should You Create?
9. Your Digital Product Launch Questions Answered
10. Digital Products Not Selling? Here’s What to do
If you’re looking for support, accountability and guidance in building digital products into your business, be sure to check out Expand Your Brand, my 12-month high-touch group program for online service providers who want to grow their audience, launch their digital product and make consistent sales.