How to create a digital product as a coach (even if you have never sold any before 😊) [Episode 61]
Transcript
Today, I want to share how you can make passive income as a coach. If you are a coach, there is a very high chance that your time and your income are tied to your work calendar and work schedule. And you can only serve one client at a time. Or, if you are further along in your business, you may have ‘live’ group coaching sessions. Which can take place in person or via Zoom. If your business model is either one of these, or both, you earn income through active work or active coaching.
Today, I want to show you another way to boost your income. We will talk about you can create digital products to sell, even if you have never sold a single digital product before.
Hi, I’m Shikah, and welcome to Feel Good Business. This podcast ep is specifically for beginner or even mid-level coaches who want to explore earning passive income and are feeling stressed out trading your time for money and who want to serve more people without burning out. At the end, you will have a clear idea of what to create for your first product and a simple plan to market it.
Before we start, I have something free you can download for this episode and it’s called: Five coaching journal prompts to help your clients shift from overwhelm to calm . You can use this as a lead magnet on your blog to grow your email list. You can rebrand this lead magnet with your own branding and your own pictures too. You can promote it on your blog, IG, TikTok and YouTube. You will find the link in the description box.
Why sell a digital product? Mindset shifts needed…
Let’s start with one of the biggest mindset blocks I noticed.
It is the belief that a digital product has to be a big and complicated course or program. It does not have to be that. A digital product is something your clients can use on their own without your guidance or with minimal guidance.
So this can be a roadmap, a workbook, a tracker, a set of deep-reflection prompts, an audio course, an app or an ongoing membership where you add a short workshop to it every month.
Your clients probably have forgotten some concepts in between your sessions or perhaps they have said they can’t afford thousand-dollar coaching sessions, or perhaps they are lost on how to start. Your digital product can be a lower-cost alternative which they can refer to whenever they feel stuck. And the wonderful thing is, you can serve more people even when you are on holiday, when you are sick and give you more breathing space to reflect and grow your business.
Step one to create a digital product as a coach: Identify and solve ONE struggle or pain point
We do not start creating a product until we figure out one struggle or one pain point which we are going to solve.
You can look back to your coaching sessions and pinpoint the common struggle(s) which your clients keep running into. Is there a concept which you have to keep repeating over and over again? By the way, you can choose to do a keyword search to identify a common struggle.
You can pick one struggle or one pain point and make it super specific. Instead of helping people ‘develop a positive mindset’, you can ‘help busy millennial women be in touch with their intuition and make better decisions’ everyday’. The more specific the pain point is, the easier it is for you to create a digital product out of it. And the easier it is for the right person to resonate with your product.
I have a one-line formula to help you with this : “This [workshop/guide/digital product] helps [target market] who struggle to [pain point] to get [result]”.
Step two of creating a digital product as a coach: Choose a simple format for yourself
Choose a format which is simple enough for you to deliver to solve that struggle.
For some people, writing comes easily for them. For people who have a gift of the gab or who can talk for hours on end, creating audio courses or paid podcasts may be easy for them.
You can think of your offerings as a ladder. At the bottom rung are the quick, low-effort products which you can create such as one-page templates, checklists, a one-page worksheet or some prompts.
Next are the workbooks, the trackers and perhaps an ebook or guide to help them solve their pain point. Above that will be the audio courses, mini courses, short workshops or a membership to give them access to self-paced videos. And at the very the top of the ladder will be the 12-week programs, 12-week courses or even a certification program.
If this is your first time offering a digital product, I would recommend starting with bottom or middle rungs. Because that’s how you can gauge your audience’s interest without investing too much effort upfront. That means, release a low-cost template or worksheets for them to solve their painpoint. Or release a digital planner, trackers, guides or workbooks. From here, you will find out what your audience likes to buy. And you will get real feedback based on sales numbers before investing your time to create a huge program.
If you are not a beginner coach, you can refer to your own frameworks, client worksheets, talks or summits you have done in the past or even look at your podcast episodes for ideas to repurpose them into paid digital products.
Step three: Create a digital product you can finish in 3-4 weeks
So this is where you create a small digital product which solves a specific pain point. Keep it to one clear outcome - for example, if your workbook helps a busy millennial woman be in touch with her intuition, you can offer 5-7 solid, proven methods for her to tune in to her inner voice to make decisions. There is no need to have lengthy exercises on the law of attraction or anything like that. Just keep your product to one outcome, offer 5-7 methods and clear instructions on how to use those methods to get the outcome.
To keep it simple, you can start with Google Docs or Canva to create your workbook, tracker or first digital product and offer it as a PDF product. You can embed video links in the PDF to demonstrate your concepts so that your clients feel ‘closer’ and have a ‘connection’ with you.
There is no need for perfection at this stage. I would say that putting out a useful mini product beats a perfect unpublished product anytime. Also, your digital product should not guarantee results, but supports and educates people in their journey. No course or workshop can guarantee results because people use and digest your information differently. It is liberating to be honest about whom your digital product is for, and whom it is not for.
Step four: Put a price on it
Pricing is always tricky and some beginners will price their products too low because they lack confidence. One way is to price your digital product based on the value of the solution(s), not on the number of pages or the number of hours your product has. A super specific proven checklist or roadmap which solves a problem and saves someone stress is worth more than a 50-page workbook. For the first digital product, many coaches start with an accesible price, then add more elements to the product based on feedback and results - and then raise the price as time passes.
For avenues to sell your products, I would recommend simplicity. You need a page which explains your product clearly, a very easy way for your customers to pay you (this is very important) and an automatic delivery of the file. These days, it’s easy to find online platforms which allow you to do this. Just choose one platform and start. You can move platforms or sell on multiple your platforms when your business grows.
On your sales page, focus on how you can solve your customers’ pain points. Have a demonstration video to show how your method or product works, if needed.
Step five: Promote and share your digital product
Reframing is needed if you are selling for the first time. You are not being ‘pushy’, but you are actually helping people solve their struggles. It helps a lot to have a digital product which you wholeheartedly believe in because it makes sales and promoting it easier for you.
Share short form videos or content on your social media focusing on the results of your digital product or how it works. Address their struggle directly. For example, you can start a reel saying “If you constantly second-guess yourself when making decisions, here is one thing you can try today,” and share a tip. After that, mention your guide or workbook which you have for sale.
Marketing is something we have to do everyday if we are selling digital products. Also, ask your audience what they want from you and what helped them solve their pain points. Feedback is always good for business because it gives you clues on how to improve your digital product or what your next digital product should be.
These are the 3 mistakes to avoid…
Firstly, creating a product before choosing a specific pain point to solve. Secondly, choosing to create a massive program or workshop which is a recipe for procrastination. Thirdly, not promoting your product everyday. We have to get creative in promoting our digital product with many angles because product visibility actually takes time.
So, start with identifying one specific pain point to solve, choose a product format which is easy for you to create based on your inclinations, price it based on the value it provides and lastly, promote it everyday.
If you want to start selling a digital product today, you will like my done-for-you workbooks which cover topics such as productivity, goal-setting, self-care and other helpful topics. You can find the link in the show notes or description box. And remember to sign up for my free 5 Journaling Prompts to Process Emotions which you can use as a lead magnet on your blog or social media to grow your email list! It is also linked there.
Thank you for listening! If you have feedback, share it with me or leave a comment. I will see you in my next episode.
Thank you for listening. If this helped, share it with a coach friend who has been thinking about this. I will see you in the next episode.
