How To Turn A 1-on-1 Service Into A Digital Product (FAQs)
New to creating Digital Products? In a podcast episode with freedom and impact coach Nicolene Prinsloo, I address many common questions about how to get started with Digital Products, how to move forward when feeling stuck, and how to feel confident that the product you’re creating delivers value.
Listen below:
In the episode, I talk about:
[02:06] A framework for identifying which parts of your process can be turned into a Digital Product
[03:43] What kind of digital product to make if you haven't gotten anyone results yet
[05:45] How to validate if your Digital Product idea is profitable
[07:28] Pricing for different types of products (low, mid to high ticket)
[09:41] Deciding which parts of your Digital Product are live vs pre-recorded
[10:52] How to know when you're ready to create a higher level product
[12:28] Biggest mistake when creating videos for your Digital Product
[15:04] How often should you update your presentation or course
[16:12] How insecurity prevents most people from creating Digital Products and how to overcome that
Links mentioned in this episode:
Descript - My favorite video editing tool for! Edit a video as easy as editing a word document
Digital Downloads Made Easy - Mini-course to create a digital product in less than 7 days
Transcript
Introduction
Nicolene: Hey everybody and welcome to another interview in the Impact Income and Freedom Summit. Attract your ideal clients and amplify your income without sacrificing your time. I'm your host, Nicolene Prinsloo, and joining us today is Klara Cu. Klara helps coaches and consultants turn their knowledge into Digital Products that earn them more money in less time, so they can escape the trap of trading time for dollars.
As CEO of the creative agency, Conquer the Digital Empire, she guides service providers from concept to creation of their course, group coaching program, or membership. Klara, a warm welcome to the summit. I'm excited to have you on today.
Klara Cu: I'm excited to be here. Thanks for having me, Nicolene. I'm so excited to talk about this topic with you.
Nicolene: Oh, thanks, Klara. Before we get into it though, if you could share with everybody a little bit about who you are and what you're about, that would be amazing.
Klara Cu: Hello everyone. As Nicolene said, my name is Klara Cu and I come from a background with design photography, art and design was always in my soul as like my first love. I was a designer actually within IT. That was my corporate job for about eight years. And so really being able to blend that creativity with the tech side of things.
Bringing the two sides of people's brains, the creativity and the logistical part of the digital world was really a big reason I was able to launch my agency in 2020 and helping people bridge that gap between taking an idea in their head and actually making it come to life through technology and processes that really helps streamline that creative process for people.
Major challenges that keep service providers stuck trading time for money
Nicolene: That's wonderful. When people come to you, what major challenge do they usually face that's been keeping things stuck?
Klara Cu: Oftentimes the people who are coming to me are in some sort of a service industry.
Whether they're a hairstylist, in the financial planning space, something where it's a direct service that they give to a client, and then they're trying to break out of that 1-on-1 time trap, because anything they are charging for typically involves very hands on work with the client right? And so they're coming to me asking like how do I make that shift where it's not always them having to do this work in order for them to generate income for themselves. One of the things that I like to ask them is:
Escape To Arrival Framework
Klara Cu: First, what are you always repeatedly either teaching or doing for a client that if you were really to document it, it could actually be very hands off. Take a step back and realize oh, I'm repeatedly going through these same series of explanations or steps and they might not even realize that they're doing that.
So you don't always have to be teaching something or coaching something live all the time.
That's really the best foundation for turning it into a Digital Product that you can sell in the background. And a really great framework that I like to use for that.
It's something called the Escape to Arrival framework. When you're helping a client with one of your services, what is the problem that you're typically helping them escape from? And what is the point at the end that they're going to arrive to where they're really happy because they've solved that problem.
And then what are all those steps in between escape to arrival that you actually help them go through. Oftentimes those manifest as different phases or stages of their own process. Let's say five phases.
A Digital Product can be really comprehensive, where it's taking them all the way from phase one, all the way to phase five, or it could be something really small, where you're helping them just in the phase one part of that framework. That can manifest as like an introductory course or mini training.
Sometimes when people think of making a Digital Product, they think they have to make a product that solves a huge problem all at once, but really it could be a very small problem that's in the first phase of someone's journey to arriving to that ideal state. That's one way to break it down so it doesn't seem as overwhelming at first.
What kind of digital product to make if you haven't gotten anyone results yet
Klara Cu: I got this great question actually via email where someone asked, “What kind of Digital Product can I make if I haven't really gotten anyone results yet?”
If you're someone first starting out in your business even if you don't have any client results or testimonials yet what is a process or framework that you have discovered where you've gotten yourself results?
For example, I was once working with a hairstylist client. She never made a Digital Product before. But she'd made this spreadsheet that helped her track inventory for the salon products she's selling in her salon. And she was, showing me the spreadsheet of how it tracks how many products she has left and what would be the best time to order it so she's never lacking in that product.
And I was like, hey, you've put a lot of work in this spreadsheet. You could actually just templatize it and share it as a link to new stylists in your industry who might not even know the first thing about how to track their inventory.
And she's like, “Oh, I'd never even thought to share this. It's just something that I did to make my life easier.”
And that's often the trick, right? Like you're probably doing something in your business that's made it more efficient for you, that's saving you time and effort. It could be actually really helpful to someone else who might be in your position or just very new in the niche as well. So look at what you've done for yourself in your own business. That could easily be a Digital Product.
Nicolene: If I have to start at my course today, that then that's what you would suggest that I focus on. Look at what I'm doing, repetitively, like you said. Maybe there's something of value to somebody that's earlier in their stage in the journey and then start there.
Klara Cu: Yeah, something repeatable and something that's gotten you results, it's a great starting point. Maybe people have the pressure on themselves that if they haven't gotten dozens and dozens of testimonials that they don't have something of value to offer.
But if we could just put that out of our heads and realize you have clearly found something that has streamlined your own process so there's value there. Once people take away the insecurity and the fear of that, they can see that value they've created even for themselves and start sharing it.
How to validate if your Digital Product idea is profitable
Nicolene: So how can we validate whether our ideal knowledge is profitable?
Klara Cu: There's a couple ways to do that.
The very first way is where you put up what's called Validated Offer Statement. If you've got a decent social media presence, or even if you don't, if and you could say, hey, I'm thinking about putting together a training on XYZ to help you do [whatever achievable results you can gain for them]. Is anyone interested?
Even just the idea that you're putting it out there and seeing what kind of response you get, even if it's just friends and family, because you might be surprised that this knowledge that you have can attract people within your personal network. They might become your first customers.
The first thing is being able to just put your idea out there. And the phrase "I'm thinking of doing this" sort of takes away that pressure. Because it's not this fully formed idea. You're just like thinking about it, right? It's less pressure on yourself because you're just testing the waters and seeing if it triggers a response.
I actually did that with a training I offered recently, where I wrote:
“Hey, I'm thinking of putting together how you can launch an evergreen product in time for Black Friday. Would anyone be interested? Just please leave me a comment.”
And I got four or five comments. Just the fact that there are people responding, you can then gauge was it enough for you that you want to move forward? And maybe when you're very early on, four or five is more than enough for you to test your idea and keep going with it.
So that's one way you can validate if it's profitable enough for you to actually move forward with the idea.
And once you put that initial version of your product out there, then you can tweak and refine it and charge a higher price going forward.
Pricing for different types of products (low, mid to high ticket)
Nicolene: Okay, so let's talk about high ticket offers, because usually we see that's connected to client work or 1-on-1 coaching. Do these Digital Products - can they also be high ticket or are they more lower or mid ticket?
Klara Cu: They can definitely range. And I like to actually think of the Digital Products in three main buckets.
I call them Digital Downloads, courses and then group coaching programs. So Digital Downloads typically would be things that in my opinion, don't involve any sort of video production whatsoever because it's oftentimes recording and editing video that can take up a lot of time.
And that's just the honest truth of it. But Digital Downloads are the quickest ones to get out the door. Those are things like templates, guides or ebooks. That story I was telling you earlier about the hair stylist with a spreadsheet - that falls under a Digital Download type of Digital Product.
Easy for her to create. She'd already made it, honestly, and there was no video involved. It was just explaining what it was, and then someone could pay for it, get the link to it, and boom, consume it, and they're done.
A lot of times, those types of products - it will vary, obviously, on the niche - but those could be anywhere between less than $50, less than $75, somewhere around that range.
With courses, there's no live teaching or live component to it - those can oftentimes range between a few hundred dollars. Sometimes you've seen courses a $1,000 or more, depending on how much depth they’re covering in the course.
And then the highest tier tends to be the group programs, because typically, that does involve some sort of live interaction, that live component, whether you're working with a group of people weekly or monthly. That is when it can get up to a couple of thousands or more.
That's typically the pricing structure that you can spread out across those types of products.
I say that for someone in the very beginning stages, if you're someone who just wants to test out beginner level content, Digital Downloads is a great place to start and get some momentum. But if you're someone who has a lot of clients already that you're working with 1-on-1 that you feel you can then transition them into a group program, then maybe that's the right place for you to start and then you could charge higher ticket.
Deciding which parts of your Digital Product are live vs pre-recorded
Nicolene: Okay, so let's say we do have a few clients and we're trying to transition from 1-on-1 to 1-to-many. What process can we follow to create that course or that coaching program?
Klara Cu: Let's say you have five 1-on-1 clients right now for your particular industry. My first step is always asking, “What are the things that you're doing in the same sequence repeatedly?” Because those repeatable things don't always have to be taught live. You can pre-record.
For example, if I'm going to teach someone how to set up their landing page, my advice on how to do that doesn't really change. Maybe the tool might change, but the general steps of what you need to put that together, that stays the same. So I'm going to pre-record a training.
And then the stuff that needs some massaging or maybe some personal feedback, that's what I strip out to be that live coaching element.
So when you look at your clients, what are the things that you're always saying the same? Pre-record that so you save yourself some time and effort. And then save your coaching calls for giving 1-on-1 feedback, or maybe you're hot seating with someone or brainstorming with someone, and that's how you can have a hybrid product.
So you're not always having to do everything live.
How to know when you're ready to create a higher level product
Nicolene: Okay. In the beginning, you suggest that people do the Digital Downloads and when they're more advanced, you do the bigger programs. Is there a way for us to know when we're ready for the next step?
Klara Cu: I do want to say you don't always have to start with Digital Downloads. It just tends to be one of the easier ones to get into.
I would say that once you've started selling more repeatedly, then you've really validated that your particular topic can help people,
Then identify where does that particular problem you solved fall along that Escape to Arrival framework. Were you helping them solve a problem that's early on, like in phase one? What's the next product that will help them with phase two, three, and four, etc. and getting them closer to the Arrival state?
When you start thinking of it that way, maybe your Digital Download is solving something at a very early stage. And then it's much easier once you help them with that initial problem to upsell them to bigger products, like a course or a group coaching program that helps them solve the rest of it.
Because Digital Downloads are really often helpful for that initial quick win for someone that might be testing you out. New followers may think:
I don't quite know Klara yet so maybe I'm not going to drop a few thousands on her, but she has a $30-$40 product. Let me see if she can help me with my one specific problem. And if she does, then since she already helped me with this beginner level stuff, I'm much more willing to invest in her more advanced work.
You should give yourself a target on how many sales of a specific product is enough for you to then be able to invest some more time and money into producing the next Digital Product and then going on from there.
Biggest mistake when creating videos for your Digital Product
Nicolene: So what mistakes do you see people make when they create their Digital Products?
Klara Cu: I'll talk about the ones that involve video because we know that video is obviously such a huge part of teaching online and doing any sort of online event, right?
People always ask me about lighting equipment and all these things. People get in their head that it has to look so good and so perfect, there's so much pressure on having something really polished. If your content is good it's okay if you don't have all the bells and whistles.
So many great trainings that I've bought is really just someone screen recording just on Zoom, like we're recording on Zoom right now. But if you have really good core content that you're sharing it's perfectly fine if it’s not 100% polished.
One tool that I absolutely recommend people use when it comes to video editing, especially if you want to do it yourself, is a tool called Descript. They have a free plan to test it out. What I love about Descript is it makes it easy to edit a video like the way you would edit a word document.
When you import a video, it automatically transcribes everything that you're saying in the video. Then you can read the transcript and you can delete anything that you don't like, or you can even rearrange paragraphs of text if you think something actually sounds better at the beginning rather than at the end.
As you're editing the transcript, it's editing the video at the same time, and it makes it much easier for people who might not have a video editing background.
Nicolene: That's a great tip. That sounds like it saves a lot of time.
Klara Cu: It does! It has other features - like it removes filler words. If you say “like, um or uh” a lot, it can take all that out in one step. It just makes it very easy to clean up trainings. If you were to screen record yourself setting something up, you could screen record it and any mistakes you make, you can cut it out in a few seconds.
Then you’ll have a “polished enough” file that can be your training that can be sold as a Digital Product like a course or a mini course.
Nicolene: So it's more important to get your good information out there than it is to have it perfect in terms of lighting and all these other things that people tend to get stuck on.
Klara Cu: Yeah. And you know how you were asking before, how do you know when you're ready for the next thing? If your scrappy Zoom recording was already selling, you can then invest money, time and effort later on if you do want to zhuzh it up.
Because there's eventually a level of success you’ll achieve when you do care about the polish in the presentation - but that can come later once you've got enough sales under your belt.
You can always go back and, zhuzh things up. But really just focus on getting it out the door first and again, validating that people actually want to buy the value of what you're proposing.
That's the thing that you really want to test.
How often should you update your presentation or course
Nicolene: So how often do we want to go back and update our presentation or our course?
Klara Cu: Financially, if you're at a point where you're bringing enough money from the other Digital Products, it's then up to you when to actually go back and level up their branding and polish.
Usually clients who are further along come to us for that level of polish, when they might want to film more professionally. So Jon and I, we actually also do videography. We film courses on site. We handle all the editing for them because at that point, they've reached a level of consistent success that they’re now able to just completely outsource that.
Clients know that their content is good - they validated that because they already have students who bought their product. So that's when they felt like they were ready to reinvest in getting the branding right, investing in someone to come in and do all that nice lighting for them.
But again, that's when a client has gotten consistent enough sales. That's the tipping point when those clients are coming to us for that.
For those listening out there, that'll be your gauge, right? How many sales have you gotten consistently that you feel like you're willing to go back and reinvest in those products and redo them?
How insecurity prevents most people from creating Digital Products and how to get around that
Nicolene: What prevents most people from creating the Digital Products and how can we get around that?
Klara Cu: Again, it's going back to that little bit of insecurity. "Do I have something of value to offer?" And especially questioning the value you have to offer if you don't have those dozens and dozens of testimonials.
There's a question of:
Should you offer something for free? Like a free beta?
I say that it's a good idea if the thing that's stopping you is that insecurity because you feel like you need some kind of validation for yourself to move forward to put something out there, right?
If you identify that's your main blocker, then offering something for free or at a discount to test your idea is potentially a way to go. It doesn't have to be to a lot of people.
Early on in my career, like I would offer something for free to maybe 1 to 3 people. And I learned so much on how I was teaching those 1 to 3 people that it give me confidence on the stuff that was strong and it gave me confidence on what to cut out because it wasn't really hitting. Or it was just way too much information.
That confidence is really what helps you push a confident sales message. Because have you ever talked to someone, and she doesn't sound confident about the thing she’s trying to sell? That doesn't make you confident as a buyer because she doesn't sound like she's gonna be able to help me.
But if you know that you were able to help someone because you did a beta program, then the way you sell that comes across very differently. You know there's a ton of value in your product and you know that it's going to get people results because you've seen it with your own eyes.
Dealing with that insecurity can often be solved by testing it out with someone that you trust that will commit to actually showing up to consume your product and give you that feedback. That is the big thing.
Nicolene: So the confidence comes with the experience.
And then also, like you said, the feedback also helps you hone in your product and make it a better product.
Klara Cu: Yeah. And, oftentimes those people who do beta programs or who do things at a discount, they are so much more willing to actually share the feedback of the things that they want more from you, but also the things that super helped them.
The trade should be that person is going to promise to give you a testimonial. Whenever I've done some kind of beta or discount, let's say it was a coaching session. As soon as the coaching session is over, I ask, “Can I get a testimonial?”
Cause usually I'm already on a video call. And I get the permission of course. I record it. I ask them a series of questions. And then at the end, I take that recording, I put it in Descript, and then I quickly pull out the snippets:
Why did they love my product?
How did it change their before and after?
And why would they recommend my service or my product to others?
And boom, you have a video testimonial that is priceless for you because now you can go back in front of your audience and say, “Look what Nicolene said when she took this training.”
And that is when you start to build momentum because you feel confident that you helped someone, you have both video and written proof now, and that's when you can start anchoring the value of your product with actual proof.
Gifts
Nicolene: Wow, the time has flown by. You've given us so much value already. This was a lot of fun. Thank you so much. You also have a free gift for everybody. Do you want to share a little bit about that?
Klara Cu: Yes. I talked about how digital downloads is, in my opinion, the easiest Digital Product to start with. So I have a mini-course called Digital Downloads Made Easy. It’s about how to create Digital Downloads, the different types that you could create, and how could you start selling them online, even if you don't have a website.
Nicolene: Oh, thank you so much, Klara. So the links are in the description, so if you're interested in that, you definitely want to grab that. Klara, thank you so much for today.
Wrap-Up
Nicolene: Where can people find you if they want to know more about you and how you can help serve them?
Klara Cu: I am available on Instagram. Our handle is @conquerthedigitalempire, and you can also check out our website, which is conquerthedigitalempire.com. You will see me and my husband and how we work together in helping different service providers turn their knowledge into those Digital Products.
Nicolene: Thank you so much, Klara. Thank you.
Klara Cu: Thank you so much for having me, Nicolene.
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