This week we are going to be talking about digital products and creating offers. Now, I put out a small survey last week to see if you wanted data or offers, and offers were the overwhelming majority across all of the different channels that we added. I’m just here, we’re just going to dive into it.
In the next two weeks, we’re going to be talking about writing an ebook. I think on Thursday, we’re going to talk about membership sites, and then we’re going to talk about video courses. Membership sites are going to be probably Thursday because I want to get through video courses and audio programs. All of that gets locked into a membership site regardless. Whenever you have a digital product, that thing gets locked behind a username or password. It protects your access. It protects your product so that people aren’t downloading it and going crazy with it and they’re paying for it. So, writing an ebook, video courses, audio programs, membership sites.
We’re going to flip into a little bit different modality, so we’re going to be talking about some live stuff. We’re going to talking about teleseminars, webinars programs, and associations. Associations software, I’m going to go put together a presentation on how to build software from scratch. Professional services, coaching/consulting, and agencies, so that’s the roadmap. It’s aggressive, I know.
We’re going to be covering 10 different business models in 10 days but they all reinforce each other. Because if you’re writing an ebook or creating a video course or an audio program, you can upsell into coaching and consulting. If you have a webinar program, then you can sell into an association, you can up upsell the software. There are so many different ways that this stuff ends up working together. If you are the least bit inclined to start something online, we are going to hit it in the next 10 days, so that’s the idea. That’s the goal at least.
Every day we’re getting new people who are showing up. For those of you who are unfamiliar with who I am, my name is Jason Drohn. I’m the creator of Done For You and I do three things well. I clarify a message, clarifying your sales and marketing messages, building sales funnels, and automating your sales systems, and then also interpreting data. So, everything that we talk about lives within those three spheres. Thank you, Rob, for pointing out that sometimes listening to me talk is like drinking from a fire hose. I get it and the buckets help. It is nice to clarify in the buckets.
Now, in the next 10 days, we are going to be getting into the nitty-gritty of creating digital businesses., so we’re going to be talking about creating stuff. At the end of the day, capturing your knowledge and information and creating stuff. There are several types of products and services that I’m going to teach you how to create. We talked a little bit about that, but the point in teaching you isn’t so that you feel you need to create all of these things. A fool’s errand would be going out in thinking that you need to start writing an ebook or recording a video course and an association and a membership site and a coaching offer.
What I want to do is give you the information and arm you with the knowledge so that you can create the type of digital product that you want to demystify this idea of digital product creation, membership sites, and associations, and all of that other shit. It’s not complicated. It is when you don’t know what you’re doing and you never know what you’re doing when you’re starting something new. That’s the point of starting something new and failing fast. You’re going to fail whenever you embark on a new journey, but failure is key to progress.
Roadmap
In creating your digital products and in creating your stuff, your business online, then having a roadmap to follow in any of these areas is needed. So, this is going to be your roadmap now.
This is just an example of a digital product piece. One of my client’s skillsets positions her perfectly for doing a teleseminar series. She likes being on the radio, being on the phone and she enjoys it. She’s an extrovert, she enjoys that stuff. I don’t. A teleseminar series would not work for me, but she’s interviewed hundreds of people already. She’s connected in that area and she does well on the social piece.
In helping her create products, we decided to go with the webinar route, teleseminar route association route, because that fuels her extrovertedness. That fuels her need to build and join and be a part of the community. Writing an ebook or creating video courses, not so much. She disliked being in front of the camera, but she disliked, even more, the fact that she was not in front of an audience in front of a camera. It was just her and a camera like this, what I’m doing right now, she would not be able to do. Writing ebooks, sitting down for 20, 30, 40 hours, and writing and creating and scripting an ebook and editing an ebook, again, not something she wanted to do.
When going through this material, your filter is the knowledge of yourself. It’s knowing, “This is what I want to do. I see the future of my business and how I see my future,” all of that stuff. There are offer types and what I want to do is teach you how to build each one of them and then let you decide what you want to do. If you want to start writing an ebook, that’s awesome. If you want to do video courses, that’s awesome.
Even the best selling services are packaged as products and sold to the masses. Not a lot of software but a lot of services. But the best selling services are the ones that basically have a couple of different buckets and you’re able to purchase them in quantity or package and then they’re product services.
Software is a great type of product too. I’ll teach you how to build and how we’ve created SAS offers. With software, it’s less about the transformation and it’s more about the access whereas, with writing an ebook, or creating a video course, membership sites, it’s more about the transformation. It’s more about the information and the knowledge that you’re giving somebody and the transformation they’re going to have in their life as far as how successful they’re going to be because of that information.
Now, this is an advanced tip and the reason I’m sharing it with you right now is that it is super important. If you plan on going this route, if you plan on creating products, then this is something that you’re going to want to write down and have in the back of your mind as you’re creating your digital enterprise, and that is, you do not need to create the product first.
It is perfectly legal, acceptable, smart, and okay to set everything up for your product before you create it. So you build your website, you build your sales page, you build your emails, you have your buy button, you have a shopping cart. And then, you see if it’s going to resonate in the market before you go and create the offer meaning you just don’t activate your shopping cart, so you don’t take somebody’s money. So they hit the sales page and then they hit the checkout page and then they click the button and nothing happens. Well, you didn’t take their money, but you can track the click.
Google Analytics
With Google Analytics or with screen capture software, whatever, you can see that somebody clicked that button or you can see that somebody loaded that cart for them. Then, you know if what you’re doing is working. Because if it’s not working, why create the product? It’s perfectly fine to do that, to test first.
What it lets you do is it lets you brainstorm your product. It lets you create your unique selling position. It lets you build a website and create a new page first, and then you offer it for sale? Then, after you get some data, you can script it in, you can build it out, and record it, and create it, and all of that stuff. So, that’s why I’m sharing it with you right now even though we haven’t even got into the products or anything.
The product testing piece: super, super important. Make sense? All right. Yeah. So the only difference with product testing is that rather than take payment, you send them to a page that says, “Thanks for your interest. We’re temporarily sold out.” And then you track how many that page gets or you just simply be upfront with them and tell them that you’re building this product. They’ll be founding members if they buy, so that works too. If you ever hear of any of the classifications like founding members and early beta testers, that’s all that means is that they bought when the product was still being built because they believed in the product.
Now as we said, in the next two weeks, this week we’re going to talk about writing an ebook, building membership sites, video courses, audio programs, and teleseminar/webinar programs. And also, the next week is going to be associations, software, professional services, coaching/consulting, and agencies. And what I’m going to do in each of these categories is I’m going to show you exactly how you need to set it up to make money, including the technology you need, the processes that you need, the thinking that you need to have to implement and execute on these things, and the positioning, and just basically weird stuff that’s going to make you money.
Writing an Ebook
Today’s lesson is going to be about writing an ebook. It’s the simplest of them all. Ebooks or PDFs, when I first got into this idea of digital products, ebooks were like fucking game-changers. People were charging $37/47 for a PDF download from a website and that was revolutionary. That was, well, 14 years ago, 12/14 years back then. And then Kindle came out with this thing called an E-reader, the ugly Kindles, the ones with the keyboards, but it revolutionized digital reading. So now there are Kindle books and there’s iBooks and there’s a lot.
The idea of digital books is commonplace whereas before, it was you had to in the email, the confirmation email where you sent the PDF. You had to link to Adobe Reader, which is a free program that everybody could use to read a PDF. But you had to link to it because the software wasn’t native on a PC yet. Browsers didn’t have it automatically embedded in their browser. You had to download it to read it. And now, it’s like no matter what device you are on, you can open up an ebook, any device.
Writing an ebook is the least complicated information product in the world to create. It’s short in form like reports. They’re brilliant for lead generation, little eight to 10 page PDFs, meaning that you can give them away and collect email addresses easily.
The process to writing an ebook is nothing more than a PDF that you sell and distribute from your website, allowing you to charge more and keep 100% of the sales price. At the end of the day, that’s what any book is, is an ebook is something that you sell. It’s a digital file you sell. You can keep the money. Ebooks typically sell for $37/$27 if you’re selling from your website.
Although right now, a lot of people are selling for $4.95 as tripwire offers or as low ticket introductory lead generation, buyer qualification type offers and they work well there. That’s the idea for these digital files. You can also sell them on Amazon Kindle or iBooks, although you’re going to be making less per sale due to Amazon and Apple’s large distribution network, so you have to pay a percentage because of their distribution. But first, let’s talk about putting them together.
1. Structure
Typically, in writing an ebook, you need to have a structure.
- cover page
- table of contents
- a bio
- introduction/story
- body
- conclusion.
You’ve read books, you know what books look like. The important thing is figuring out what the hook and the transformation you’re going to make for your reader is going to be. At the end of this, we’re going to go through and talk about mind mapping and putting together your ideas in a book form because the software is pretty easy.
2. Word Processor
All you need is a word processor to write an ebook.
- Google Docs
- Microsoft Word
- Apple Pages
All of those word processing software you can export as a PDF, and then your PDF is good. Then you’re done. They all have a native inbound table of contents, scripts, and stuff too. The software takes care of all of that stuff for you.
3. Brainstorming the Topics
The hard part is brainstorming the topics and the table of contents and the things that you want to talk about. That’s the hardest part of writing an ebook is figuring out what your topic is going to be and what you want to talk about. Because once you have that, then you can go through and just fill in the paragraphs that are in between the content.
You can also record audio or video and then have it transcribed to quicken the process using software like rev.com, which is exactly how I create these podcasts. I Livestream these things and then I send them to a transcriptionist, pay a buck 25 a minute, so they transcribe the content into texts. And then for me, I can use it however I want. I can put it in an ebook if I want and I have. I can add it to the blog and I do, so there are lots of different ways once you have the content that you can use it or you can just write it. And then, when it’s done, you export it as a PDF and you upload it to your website.
You export it, PDF file, you put the PDF file in your WordPress site, or on Amazon Cloud, or in Dropbox, or whatever, however, you want to send that PDF out and then you just link to it. And then boom, you have a digital file that you can sell for 27/37 bucks, 5 bucks, 10 bucks, whatever you want to sell it for.
4. Ebook Cover
Now, I recommend putting together an ebook cover. It can be a digital cover like this where it’s standing up. It’s pretty, it looks like a book and that’s fine. It conveys that it’s got a tangible feel to it, trust. Then there’s some mental imagery there and all that stuff.
I have found lately that just literally having an image in an even block, a flat image, works just as well, just because even in Amazon, people are used to buying books with just a flat image. It doesn’t need to be all this although it can be if you would like. I use a piece of software called CoverActionPro to create that. I’m sure there are a million other ones. I don’t even know if CoverActionPro is around anymore, but there are Fiverr people who will do it. Now even though people understand that they’re downloading a document, they like to see it. We have some sort of graphical representation for the book. It doesn’t have to be a book, but we want to have some imagery that represents the book because they do want to at least see a cover.
Having an image also increases conversions three or four times. If it’s just a straight-up text-based sales page, then it’s not going to convert as well as it would if it had an image that did represent the book. You can get ebook covers designed in Upwork, Fiverr. As I said, you can use a Photoshop plugin. There’s, I’m sure, standalone software that you can use too for it. And if you’re using Upwork and Fiverr, just post a job on the job boards and just chose a bidder. It’s going to end up being pretty cheap.
5. Ebook Format/Length
Now, there are a couple of different formats when you’re writing an ebook that you should be familiar with. They’re not formats, it’s more terminology about different ebook lengths. So, when I think of an ebook, I think of 30 to 100 pages. That is something that somebody’s going to sit down and read and go through and all that. Now a guide, in my way of thinking, is 10 to 30 pages, so it’s enough to get into a specific topic, but it’s not enough to just go nuts with it. Do you know what I mean?
A report is something that usually is given away for free and it’s 8 to 10 pages, or it’s you charge a couple of bucks forward, or it’s in addition to membership or something, something very concise, very particular. It’s 8 to 10 pages and it’s meant to solve one problem. So it’s just how I view digital downloads. There are lots of other ways. You can call it white paper. You can call it a one-pager, two pagers if it’s a super short one. So, there are lots of other things you can call ebooks, but those are the ones that tend to resonate the best.
Also, this isn’t a hard and fast rule, but it seems to be the norm. Many people use the words temporary or interchangeable. So a report is something you give away for free, a guide has very punchy, quick value, and then an ebook is meatier and really should be less expensive. It’s one of the reasons why we like our Funnel Factor Report. I call it a master guide because it’s 274 pages long. It’s not even an ebook, it’s way, way, way more than just writing an ebook. It should be a textbook.
6. Ebook Pricing
Several titles, manifestos, blueprints, video reports. I have heard that before. Typically, pricing for your books, if you’re downloading it from a website or you’re enabling to download it from your website, let’s say, you’re going to charge 27 to $37 for it, 47 to 67 is less common. You can get away with that for a digital download if it’s highly specialized like if it’s a very specific kind of tech procedure. Something if it’s just specialized and it’s going to have a very high transformative effect for your user.
Kindle, iPad, and Digital Reader, ‘re usually 10 to $12. They can go up to 40, but if it’s a digital download through a different marketplace, they’re usually 10 to 12, 10 to 14, somewhere in there. Ours are typically priced 9.95 for digital readers, and then the books are usually 14 bucks like the paperbacks. So, that tends to be where it is.
Mind Mapping
Now, the one thing I did want to walk you through, the idea behind writing an ebook isn’t revolutionary. It’s a Word document that you export as a PDF and you put it on your website. That part’s not hard. The hard part is getting through the creation of a table of contents, thinking through the idea. So we’re going to go in mind map just a little bit. I want to introduce you to mind mapping. I did this a couple of weeks ago and everybody liked it pretty well. So we’re going to do it again.
Now we’re going to go to MindMeister. MindMeister is my favorite mind mapping tool. And then, we’re going to just go to go through and we’re going to create a mind map from scratch. Let’s say… I need to show you my screen, don’t I? That would be very helpful. All right. I’m going to stop this screen and then I’m going to share my next screen, the other application, so that’s going to be my mind mapping application. All right. Okay. You can see my screen now. Now I’m going to make it big. There we go.
When you’re brainstorming your book, then usually start with a mind map. Let’s say the book is How To Create Digital Products. It is kind of what we’re going to be talking about this week, but How To Create Digital Products. Well, the first thing you want to know, so this is going to be chapter 1 is. We’re going to call it Discovery.
Normally the first couple of sections of the book is discovery or some sort of introductory material so that we can make sure that everybody’s on the same page.
Chapter 1: Discovery
Discovery is going to be skills and talents. We want to make sure that you’re talented and you know what you’re doing. Goals and aspirations, your digital product in your book you need to fit into your goals and how you want your life to look like.
Proficiencies
Then we get into proficiencies. I probably didn’t spell it right. But the experience, what you’re good at and then transformation, what you can help other people with, so that’s going to be your Discovery. You’re going to go through a little bit of an introspective journey and then maybe figure out what you can help other people with.
Chapter 2: Product Types
Your next chapter, chapter 2, is going to be Product Types. And so once we know what we’re into or what we can help other people with, then we’re going to talk about how to package that stuff. So it can be writing an ebook, build video courses, membership sites, associations. Then, once we know what kind of products we’re going to be creating, how about we talk about designing those products?
Chapter 3: Marketing
We’re going to do marketing: Marketing Those Products. Now that we know the next chapter is Marketing, we know that we’re going to need a website, of course, not a webinar.
We don’t need a webinar for this. We’re going to need a website, Google Ads and Facebook Videos and all of that other stuff. And then, after that, we’re going to talk about upsells, let’s say. So upsells are going to be all those other services that we can sell as a companion to that front book. Companion offers. That might be consulting, coaching, and so on.
What we did was we just basically brainstormed what our book could be or could look like. You can take yourself through a similar process, a similar brainstorming process. We started with nothing and then we said, “Okay, we want to create a book on how to create digital products.”. If you look at any book, your first chapter is usually introductory material. What it’s doing is it’s bringing everybody to the same point, to the same understanding, the same level of understanding.
Everybody comes and picks up a book with different messages in their head and with different ways of thinking, with different educations, and backgrounds, and experiences. They pick up this book and now you’re trying to push everybody into the same train of thought.
The first chapter usually sets up the baseline for what that train of thought is. So Chapter 1: Discovery, generally. These are all the things you need to know to get to chapter 2. Chapter 2 is where the actual meat of the book starts. Chapter 2 in our case is going to be, “In writing an ebook, video courses, membership site,” whatever. And your chapter 2’s going to be different. Chapter 2 might be.
Well, if you write about business development, it’s going to be one thing. If you’re writing about how to make money online or MLM offers or real estate investing, your chapter 2’s going to be different. And then chapter 3 typically builds on chapter 2 and chapter 4 typically builds on chapter 3. And then, in the end, you recap the entire book and before you know it, you have an ebook that, A, you can sell and, B, is going to create some transformation in somebody’s life.
It’s going to be a work that you can then use to generate more business, to generate more revenue, to unlink time for money, to live a placeless life where you can do what you want, work with who you want, all of that stuff. So, that is the idea behind digital products. That’s why writing an ebook and creating video courses, membership sites, and all that stuff are so powerful. Now we went a little bit over today. Does anybody have any questions in the comment box? Just let me know.
Okay, cool. So today, we talked about writing an ebook. Let’s look at a roadmap here.
Tomorrow I think we’re going to talk about video courses. We might do audio programs. We might tie it in with video courses. I’m not sure exactly how we’re going to do it yet. I think we’re probably going to do video and audio together because anymore rarely do you see audio without the video.
Usually, video is created and then audio is stripped out and we’ll talk about that tomorrow, but I’m going to put together a video course video, the video slides, and everything. Tomorrow we’re going to be talking about different video software and getting in there.
For Questions and Guide
If you have any questions at all, just go to doneforyou.com/GSD/. Also, make sure if you go to doneforyou.com/start/ and book an action plan call with us and we’ll get on the phone and strategize your business.
