212: Double Your Revenue Without Doubling Your Client Load

Foreign welcome to the Creators MBA Podcast your go to resource for mastering the art and science of Digital Product Entrepreneurship. My name is Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners generate consistent revenue from their digital product business without the need to be glued to their desks. I hope you enjoy our episode today. Welcome back to the show. I'm super excited about today's episode because we are talking about something I hear from service providers all the time and that is I want to create digital products, but I just don't know how to balance it with my client work. So if you're a consultant, a coach, a designer, a writer, or any kind of service provider dreaming of having more digital product revenue in your business, this episode is specifically for you. Today I'm going to walk you through a very practical roadmap for building out your digital product portfolio while still keeping your service clients happy. So let's dive right in. Let's quickly talk about the why. And there are some compelling reasons to add digital products to your service based business. The first is digital products give you income diversification. When your entire income relies on you trading time for money, you are very vulnerable. Once a client drops, there's a hole in the in your revenue. Digital products allow you to scale your impact. There's only one of you, but your knowledge and expertise can help hundreds or even thousands through the right products. They provide a different entry point for people to work with you. Not everyone can afford your one on one services right away, but they might start with a digital product and then upgrade later. And finally, digital products can actually make your service offerings more valuable by creating a clearer client journey. When you have both, you can be more selective about which clients you take on for your high touch work. But I know what you're thinking here Destiny. This all sounds great, but when do I find the time to create products? When I am maxed out with clients. So I want to tackle that next. Here's the truth that most people won't tell you. Building a digital product business online, your service business is essentially like running two businesses at once, at least in the beginning. So that doesn't mean that it's impossible, but it does mean that you need to be strategic about how you approach it. The biggest mistake that I see service providers make is treating their product creation as something that they will get to when they have the time. And then guess what, that time magically never appears. Instead, you need to treat your product development as seriously as you treat your client work. And that means dedicated time, resources and energy. It's not just a side project, it's a core part of your evolving business model. So with that mindset established, let's get into my style. Step by step framework for making this transition successful. And the first phase is all about growing your email list. And that's crucial for digital product success, but it's often overlooked by service providers. As a service provider, you've likely relied on on word of mouth and client referrals, and that's great for services. But digital products require a different approach. You need a sizable, engaged email list and you're going to need it fast. So what I want you to do is start by blocking time on your calendar. At least five hours per week. Maybe it's Friday mornings or Wednesday afternoons. Whatever works for you, I want you to treat it like you are meeting with your most important client. Because in a way, it's kind of like that. Next, I want you to create a high value lead magnet that showcases your expertise. This is going to be something that's quick to consume, that solves a specific problem for your ideal audience. So some of the things you can think about here are maybe templates, checklists, guides, many trainings, and then I want you to focus on leveraging other people's audiences to grow your list rapidly. This approach is definitely more effective than trying to build an audience from scratch. A couple things that you can do here, participate in virtual summits as a speaker where you can share your lead magnet. As a service provider, you're going to have a lot of expertise, so that's a really good option for you. Another thing you can test out and try is joining relevant bundles where your resource is featured alongside other experts. You can arrange newsletter swaps with complimentary service providers. You can guest on podcasts in your niche and, you know, have your compelling lead magnet offer and offer it at the end of the podcast episode. So all of these strategies help you borrow established audiences and convert them into your own email subscribers. So for service providers like you, who might be pivoting to more digital products, that's going to be one of the fastest ways to build your email list. Once you have that, you're focused on list building, the next thing that I want you to do is to build out what we call a tripwire funnel. And this is really just a basic funnel that's going to help you to start monetizing your new email subscribers. So this is how it's set up. You're going to have your lead magnet, which is free, then you're going to have a low cost tripwire type offer anywhere from like 7 to maybe 97. Then you're going to have an order bump on the checkout page. So that's a complimentary small offer that's added at checkout. And then you might have one to two. Strategically chose upsells. Your tripwire product is going to be some type of irresistible low risk offer that solves a specific pain point. In most cases, a mini course works perfectly here. It's substantial enough to provide real value, but small enough to create relatively quickly. So that's where I want you to start. And then in phase three, step three here you're probably looking at months four to five. The first couple months have been focused on list building and setting up this tripwire type sales funnel. Then you are ready for what I would call an mvp, a minimum viable product for your signature offer. Sometimes I refer to it as signature offer, sometimes I refer to it as your perfect offer. This is pulling together a higher priced offer that's going to fuel your entire digital product growth. Flywheel. A lot of service providers might have more like a done with you type offer here. So it has some digital products in it. You might have weekly zoom meetings, but it's kind of a stepping point into a course versus you actually doing the work for them. So I love these type of offers because you don't have to build everything up front. You can just do the weekly Zoom sessions and that helps you build your content out. After running your signature offer with your first cohort in the next phase, it's time to refine your program and scale scale your marketing efforts. In this stage, you're going to be gathering feedback from your initial students. What did they love? Where did they get stuck? What results did they achieve? And you're going to use this feedback to improve your program for the next cohort. You're going to document and systematize your delivery process. So are there any templates you need to create SOPs, standard operating procedures? Where can you automate? Kind of looking at everything and figuring out what could you do there. So those are the steps that I would suggest that somebody who wants to switch over from a full service based business and diversify into the digital product portfolio. That is how I would suggest that you start. Now let's talk a little bit about 10 time management. Because balancing service delivery and product creation is challenging. The first thing you can do is batch similar tasks together so you could have specific days for your client calls versus your deep work on your products. The other thing you consider doing is have like a client day model where you only take client meetings on certain certain days of the week, leaving you free for other work like product development and internal work. Third, you can build systems and templates for everything in your business. The more you can systemize these routine tasks, the more bandwidth you're going to have for other growth activities. As your potential product revenue grows, you can consider gradually reducing your client load. For instance, you might take on 10% fewer clients each quarter, replacing that income with the digital product revenue. So let's talk about some mistakes to avoid and I think a lot of us are going to be able to relate to these. The first one is perfectionism. Your digital products don't need to be polished as your one on one work. I want you to know that done is absolutely better than perfect, especially for your early products. Another pitfall is under pricing. So many service providers dramatically undervalue their digital products because they're comparing them to the price of their allery rate. But really what I want you to do is price them based on the value your product actually delivers to your customer. The third mistake is failing to leverage your existing client work. I want you to look for ways to create products based on the work you're already doing. Can you create a template from that custom strategy you just developed? Could you record yourself solving a common client problem and then turn that into a tutorial? Many people create products without validating demand first. Before you build out a comprehensive course or a membership, make sure that people actually want it by pre selling it or creating a minimum viable product version we talked about earlier. The first thing Like I said, creating digital products as a service provider isn't about abandoning your client work. I know that a lot of you want to keep that client work. It is about strategically expanding your business model to create more freedom, impact and security. But here's the thing. This transition does not happen overnight. With consistent effort and the framework that we talked about today, you can successfully build a business that leverages both service and product income streams. Remember that your deep expertise as a service provider is actually your greatest advantage in this digital product space. You understand your clients problems intimately, which means that you can create products that truly solve their pain points. Now before I sign off, I'd love to hear what digital product ideas you are considering for your service based business. Drop me a message Reply back to my newsletter if you're already on it. If you found this episode helpful, please share it with another service provider who's looking to diversify their income. I would really appreciate it. Until next time, keep taking those small, consistent steps towards building your digital product business. You have got this, my friend. Bye for now. Thanks for listening all the way to the end. I hope you enjoyed this episode today. If you like the show, I'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.