#45: Reducing your 1:1 Client Work by Scaling with a Digital Product

When you're just getting started or thinking about scaling your business with some type of digital product, you have to take a step back and figure out how can I help my clients?

Hey, coach, my name is Lindsay and I'm here to help heart-centered women like you build the money-making coaching business of their dreams. I've been coaching since 2019 and this pod is about It's about using your gifts to build a life and business you're 100% obsessed with. I went from working 50+ hours a week as a first grade teacher to building a sustainable business that replaced my job salary and gave me back 30+ hours a week of my time. Tune in to join the ride and learn from other coaches and experts along the way. Hello everyone. Welcome back to the Aligned Coach Podcast. If you are a return listener, if you're a new listener, thank you for tuning in today. I'm so excited. I'm so excited for today's interview. It's going to be super duper juicy. I have Dr. Destiny Koop. Oh, I'm saying that so wrong. It's Kopp. Destiny Kopp. Dr. Destiny Kopp, right?

You got it.

You got it.

You're perfect.

I wrote it down with two Os instead of two Ps. But okay, so Destiny is here today. She is going to speak to us on all things marketing, on scaling your business, digital courses. This episode is going to be so good. So welcome on, Dr. Thank you for being here, Lindsay.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here with you today. Yay, I love it.

So glad. So Destiny and I were just speaking before the interview started and we are both from Georgia. We are actually like neighbors. Are there any other fellow Southerners listening to this? Definitely like say hello on Instagram or wherever and let us know where you're from. But yeah, so we're going to go ahead and hop right in today. I think that Destiny has a ton of really awesome stuff to dive into. Alright, so introduce yourself to us and let us know kind of what it is that you do, who you help, and give us the scoop on, on your biz.

Alright, well, Lindsay, first of all, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to be here with everybody today. And I help entrepreneurs and business owners and coaches just like everybody who's listening here today, scale their business with digital products. So when I'm talking about digital product, I'm talking about like an online course or membership. And there's a lot of different ways that you can package this in your business. So, you know, you don't have to be pigeonholed into a certain type of course or a certain type of membership. But I help entrepreneurs scale their business with digital products so they can reduce their reliance on those one-on-one services. So a lot of people out there, they're working one-on-one with clients and that's great. But at some point you do have a limited amount of revenue that you can make. And when you add something like a membership to your program and/or an online course, you can help more people, you can increase your revenue. So that's what I help people do.

Yeah. Yeah. I love it. I love it. You're so right. I think that one-on-one is beautiful. I still take one-on-one clients myself. However, it is limited, right? Like we are limited. Like we have, limited energy and limited bandwidth ourselves. So there's only so much that we can take on. So I think that that's super juicy. So okay, so whenever you say like digital products, are we talking about $7 ebooks?

You know, it could be that, right? It really just depends on what's right for your business. So I sell a digital product off of Amazon, it's a book that I wrote. So that, you know, it doesn't bring in a ton of revenue, but it does bring in leads into my business. But you know, the revenue is nice. I got about 3 notifications from Amazon yesterday saying that they were depositing money into my bank account. So that was cool. In addition to that, but also what's more important, I also had those leads coming into my business. So in my book, which is a digital product, in the, in the inside of it, when somebody purchases it, they have a chance to sign up for more one of my free online courses. So that's how the lead comes into my business. So they buy the book on Amazon. So I'm using Amazon's audience, right, to grow mine. They sign up for my online course in my business, and then I can upsell them my other products and services or coaching that I do because I do some coaching too. So it really just depends, Lindsay, on, you know, how you want your business to set up. And there's a lot of different ways you can package all of this.

Yeah, yeah. Wow, that's such a good idea. Like utilize someone else's audience, you know, like utilize the resources they already have set up. There reminds me, I have a client who is starting to create a course for Udemy. Like the course, you know, it has all those courses on there. And most of those are like lower ticket, quote unquote. But the whole idea behind it is that she'll bring in leads through that platform, right? So That's so good because once again, we only have so much time and energy to promote ourselves, to coach, to create the content, to make the course content, right? So utilizing those platforms and, and other audiences, right?

Absolutely. And I'll give you an example. You know, speaking of the Udemy example, I have one of my courses on a course marketplace that's actually on AppSumo, which is a huge marketplace out there. They have a lot of different types of software, right, that you can buy, but they also have courses that you can buy. So one of my courses is on AppSumo. And when people purchase through AppSumo, they're added to my online course platform. So I get their name and their email address, which is a little bit different from Udemy. They kind of own all of that. So there's, again, there's so many ways you can set something like this up.

Wow, that is awesome. I've never heard of that. It's called AppSumo.

So I use AppSumo and I've used it for years to buy— generally what they specialize in is lifetime deals for software. So just to give you an example, I have a software that I use in my business is called GrabSign. And I use it for contracts. So whenever I'm working with a new client, or maybe I'm having somebody speak at one of my virtual summits, I'll just send them the speaker release form, they sign it, and it's all automated. But I have a lifetime deal to this. So I'm not having to pay that monthly fee. And I think I purchased it for like $47, like years ago, I saved a ton kind of money on it. But that's the kind of stuff that AppSumo has on it. It has a lot of these up-and-coming type softwares that you can get these lifetime deals. So definitely check it out.

I've got to go binge that. Yeah, that would be like 3 months or like 2 months basically of what I pay for like my contract signing service right now. So definitely gonna go check that out.

They have all sorts of software.

So Yeah, yeah, that's awesome. Okay, so tell us a little bit on your background. I'm sure everyone's wondering the same thing I was in life. What kind of doctor are you? Like, tell us what that is. I love it. I have so many amazing women that come onto this podcast, such credible and just like educated women that come here. So I would love for you to tell us about your background, sort of where your experience has, what it has been in, and what got you here to now helping other entrepreneurs. Scaled through their own digital courses.

I'm happy to jump into this with you. It's actually a little bit of an interesting story. So I've had multiple careers over my life and I'll talk about some of them. So I've worked— my undergraduate degree is from Clemson University in accounting, but I only worked in that for a very short amount of time because accounting is not my thing. And then I made the switch into finance. With a startup. And that really, you know, was somewhat like accounting. I liked it a little bit more because it was more strategic, but that's when I got exposed at that firm. They had an opening in the marketing department and that's when I moved into that. So I worked in corporate marketing for—

okay, here we go. Hey, Destiny.

Hey, I'm going to stop my video because I really think it's messing up here.

Sounds good. I'm going to keep mine on just so maybe you go ahead.

That's what I was worried about. That happens whenever I tend to leave the video on. You want me just to start when I was kind of introducing my journey, or where do you want to start?

We're just gonna jump back in. We're gonna trim out this little part right here. While you're out, I was like, we're having some technical difficulties, give us a moment, we'll get right back in. And then so yeah, you can just start right back in. So I was— so I moved into marketing. So from finance to marketing.

Okay. So Lindsay, sorry about that. So I moved in to marketing. Marketing. And I worked in marketing for many, many years, and I got burnt out working in corporate marketing. I had, you know, this huge marketing department that I was managing. I had an $80 million— $800 million revenue budget. I mean, it was just— I was working a ton of hours day in and day out, and I got burned out. And at that point in time, I had 2 young children. And I'm sure a lot of your listeners can relate to this. And I really just knew that I didn't want to be at that 9 to 5 every single day working all of those hours. I wanted to spend more time with my kids, spend more time with my family, and that's when I made the switch and said, you know what, they were giving away packages at the time because they were going through a merger. So I raised my hand and said, you know what, I'd like to have one of those. And they gave it to me. So I took some time off. And took a step back and tried to figure out, you know, what do I want to do? Now, this was back in like 2003, 2004. So I took a year off. And at that point in time, teaching online at the university level was just getting started. It was like when online courses were just coming on the horizon. In fact, when I was talking to people about them, they're like, you could teach online at the university level? Like people actually do that? And I'm like, yes. So I got a job teaching online. I was teaching marketing at this, at this point in time. So teaching online at a university. And I did that for many, many years, working all the way from an adjunct faculty member all the way up to an associate vice chancellor of academic affairs. And again, Lindsay, I got burned out again. Yeah. And In the back of my mind, I was like, you know what? I've always wanted to start my own business. I've always wanted to be an entrepreneur. I've always wanted to be my own boss. And that's when I decided to make the switch. So I left my high-paying university job and went out on my own. And that was back in, I want to say that was back in 2018, somewhere around there. And I've never looked back and I've loved every minute of it.

Oh my gosh, that is amazing. Like what a journey, you know, to go from working in corporate and then teaching. I would love to teach at the university level. I'm a first grade teacher, or I was a first grade teacher. I'm a first grade teacher by trade, I guess. I'm a first year first grade teacher. And it did not take long for me to be like, peace out, y'all. This is not going to happen another year. So I always thought it would be interesting to work in a university or like you know, teaching adults, which is sort of what we do now as coaches, right, as coaches and consultants. So that's really, really awesome. That's really, really neat. So you came into the online space in 2018, right?

Somewhere around that timeframe. I don't have the dates in front of me, but somewhere around then.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, I love it. I love it. So, so I would love for us to dive into a little bit around like, what does it take to scale with digital courses? Because I think that some of us, and I've like raised my hand to this, I'm like, yeah, I'm going to create this course. And then it's just gonna sell out and I'll never have to work again. I'm going to have like this laptop lifestyle. And I'm going to drink margaritas on the back porch, like, you know, so what does it really take? And what does that really, really mean? What do you like, what do you focus on? What would you recommend? Like, tell us about that some.

So, you know, I think when you're just getting started or thinking about scaling your business with some type of digital product, you have to take a step back and figure out What exactly do I want this business to look like and how can I help my clients? Right. There's a lot of different ways, like I mentioned, that you can set up and scale your business with digital products. And I'll walk through a couple of them now. One is, is just to launch what we call like a mini course or a starter course or a tiny offer. You know, people call them different things, but really it's just a a really high-value small course that really keeps your students or the people, their clients that you're working with or want to work with, keeps them from getting stuck and kind of moves them to that next step. So it's something that you can, you know, put on your website. You can, you can even sell it on social media. It's like a $27 offer or $47 offer. So it's really a low price option that you can even put on the back of a lead magnet as a tripwire. So if you have a free lead magnet in your business on your thank you page, you can have this low-cost mini course as a tripwire just to bring in that extra revenue into your business and also to give you a chance to have an instant customer because we know that people who purchase from you initially are more likely to purchase from you in the future. So that's one way you can scale. That's a really, it's an easier way to kind of dip your toes into online course creation and kind of get started. Another way, especially for coaches out there that they may want to consider is kind of like bundling a signature program, a signature course that they have with their one-on-one coaching or group coaching that they're doing. So giving their clients some extra information to kind of help move them along through that transformation. And that tends to work well for a lot of coaches. You can also bundle that too as a membership. So if you have like a, you know, a year-long membership or year-long program, you can have somebody sign up for it. They can pay over the course of the 12 months, you know, maybe that'll also give them a chance to kind of spread out those payments to make it a a little bit more palatable for some folks. So that's another way that you can bundle that in. And these are just a few, Lindsay. So I'll stop there and see what other ideas do you have?

Yeah, I love that. I think this is super informative for a lot of the beginner coaches or the coaches that have just been doing one-on-one where it's taken like, you know, all of their manpower, so to say, in serving their clients. I think this is a great intro to like, okay, how can I think outside of the box instead of me having to get on these calls and personally teach my client and coach my client and check in on my client, like all those things. And like, in listening to you, I will say from my own personal experience, bundling is pretty much what I like specialize in. Like, I've never heard it be called that. But I think that that's a great way to put it, like you're bundling coaching with a course. So that's what I specialize in, I guess. Like, that's how Align to Coach Academy is structured. It's like, hey, I'm going to give you the coursework and you go do the coursework. And then we're going to come back to these calls. And I'm going to coach you through this. Right? Which is so powerful, you know, like, like, as a teacher, we— and just, you know, you working as an educator, like, you know, that people don't learn from you just spitting information at them one time. Like, it has to be integrated, and they have to kind of chew on it, has to be like reconnected with everything else. So yeah, I think that, that, that method has been the most effective for me and for the women that I have worked with. What would you say? What would you say has been like, what do you kind of work with the most with your clients? Or like, what do you sort of use the most? Or do you use all of it?

It really just depends on the business. But I will say that I love your model and how you work with your clients. And the reason is, there's a lot of reasons for it. But one that you mentioned is, you know, people really need that hand-holding, right? They need that coaching as they go through the content in the transformation. You know, we don't always get everything the first time. They need the opportunity to ask questions, just like you do. You're a first grade teacher, your students ask you questions. I was a college professor. We had students came to us and ask questions, and you, you really need that back and forth in that human interaction and the ability to ask questions and to learn from others to really make that full transformation in a lot of cases. So that's probably to your, to your question, that's probably my favorite model is bundling in either group coaching or one-on-one coaching with, you know, with an online course.

Yeah, absolutely. And then I think it, like you said, it also depends though, right? If you just, if you want to broaden your leads that are coming in, give them a lower ticket offer, let them come in through like your ebook or through a mini course, right? And then have that paid customer, right? Like what I love what you said, once they've paid you once, they're more likely to do it again, because you have that report built, you know, and especially if you like delivered, if you were like, bam, this, and they were like, wow, she really blew my mind in that $7 ebook, right? Like they're more likely to buy again. So I think that it does depend. Yeah.

Yeah. I mean, I would say that in my business, some of my flagship products are, you know, either ones that people have, you know, come in through like a tiny offer or maybe even from a course marketplace, like from somebody else's audience. You know, they've come in, they've experienced that, they got used to how I teach, right, and how they can work with me. And those have been some of my best kind of opportunities for to upsell people to my higher products and services.

Yeah, yeah, so good, so good. Okay, so one of the, like, one of the most common questions and like one thing that like we really have to work deep into like with the clients that I serve, um, is like how do we take all that knowledge that we would have been teaching in like a one-on-one setting or that we would have been like just kind of walking our clients through, how do we take that and structure it into a course, right? And do it effectively. Like, what is your take on that? Because there's a big difference between courses that teach you or like courses that are teaching at you versus like, you know, courses that are actually like, hey, like this is effective and the students are learning it and like they can take this and apply it. So like what would you say is like any advice there to any of the coaches that are listening?

Yeah, this can be a struggle for many folks. So if somebody's struggling with this, they are not alone. I mean, personally, for a lot of the courses that I have developed over the years and probably about 200 courses at this point. I'm a huge fan of step-by-step-by-step processes. And that will work in a lot of different cases. Now, somebody I know is listening, they're going to be like, I don't, you know, that's not going to work for mine. And I hear you. I understand that. But I'm a huge fan of here's where you start, here's step 1, step 2, step 3, step 4. Now the question is, how do you get all of that knowledge right out of your head and into an online course? And that, you know, that can— people can struggle with that. There's a lot of different ways you can do this. You can use a mind mapping type service where you just do a brain dump and get everything down. I've used Google Docs. I've also used like Post-it notes and put them up on my wall, especially if I had a very complicated course and process that I was trying to get out there. But just, you know, you're going to have to somehow, you're going to have to categorize your information to get somebody from point A, which is where they are today, to point B, which is where they want to be, or their transformation. Now, one thing I always like to mention is when people are mapping out courses, I also want you to think about not only the content in the course, right, that you are going to be delivering, and that's the content that your client needs to have in there in order to get to the promised transformation. Don't forget to also outline what you need to include in terms of supplemental material. And this would be like any workbooks or cheat sheets or checklists. So anything that you need to include in that course to help them get through your steps or, you know, to get through the content and actually learn it. The other thing I also want you to keep in mind, and this is something that a lot of people overlook or miss, especially until the last second, they're like, oh, I should have done this, is make sure that you outline all of your bonus material. So here's what I mean by that. So once you, once you're ready to start selling your program or your course to, to the, to your market, right, to your ideal customer, you're going to have a sales page. Now on your sales page, you're going to have sales page copy. You're going to have details about your course, but you're also going to have some special bonuses. And a lot of times those special bonuses will help like push people over the edge to actually sell it. So think about what are some, you know, some fantastic bonuses that you can, you know, deliver and offer as part of your course bundle that people don't necessarily need necessarily to get the transformation that you're promising them, but they would look at that bonus and be like, oh yes, I got to buy it just for that bonus type thing. So think about that too, as you're outlining your course content.

Yeah, that's so good. Like that, that's such a good suggestion. Because it does, like we all, as much as we don't like to admit it, we all, not all, I guess, but a lot of us buy from like, ooh, like, ooh, excited. Oh, this like invokes like emotion, like an emotional response out of me. And I get so happy I'm like, oh, I get all that as a bonus? What? Like, heck yeah, like I'm gonna buy. It just makes me feel good. Even if it was something that like the course creator was actually going to include in the paid product anyways, right? Just seeing it as like a special bonus or exclusive one-time offer, I'm like, heck yeah, like let me get that, you know. So that's funny that you mentioned that because it's true.

It's good.

It works.

It is. I mean, people buy on emotions. So they see something and they, they make some either feel good or what have you. So they're going to buy on emotions and then they're going to rationalize, justify, justify it and rationalize it later.

Yep. 100%.

Yep.

They buy from emotion and they're going to justify later.

Yes. I love that.

Okay. So what advice would you give someone who is one-on-one coaching and they're like, okay, Destiny, I know that I have got to get my butt into high gear and start like cranking this course out, right? What would you say to them? How would you tell them to start? Like, what would be like the very next thing that they need to do to be on their way of getting it done?

So, you know, I think that if somebody's considering adding like a digital product, whether it's an online course or membership to their product portfolio, the absolute first thing that I would want them to do is to go survey their audience. Ooh, yeah. So, you know, when I, I recently created a new product and I surveyed 100 people before I started developing it and just talked to them about what they were struggling with. Um, you know, what did they think they needed? Now people don't always know what they needed, right? What they need, but you know, get feedback from them. Um, you can tell them what you're thinking about and ask them if that is something they would be interested in, but really dig into what their migraine is, what their pain points are. And then you're going to take all of this data back and you're going to figure out how can you help solve for that. And maybe, maybe you'll come, you know, you'll come out of that and you'll say, you know what, I need to put together a 12-month group coaching program. And I can, you know, every single month I can give them some training and we can have, you know, bi-monthly group coaching calls. I mean, it'll help you kind of structure your program, but your ideal customer and your audience are the ones that are going to help you structure what your program needs to look like.

Yeah. Yeah. You're so right about that because we don't want to create something that like the market doesn't really want, right. Or there's not really like a need for it, you know, something that's really good. That's good. Good advice. Solid. Thank you.

And you know, you can use a Google Form and send out your survey to your email list or post it on social media. And then some folks that actually respond, you can say, can I get on a short Zoom call with you and delve into this a little bit more? Yes.

Oh, I love it. It's so good. Y'all take notes now, go and implement and then let us know how it works for you. Come back with all those calls that you've booked.

I love it.

All right, Destiny. Well, this has been really good. I think that this has been like, like literally like a mini course in itself, just breaking down like the difference you know, types of courses or products or digital products that, you know, a coach or entrepreneur or service provider even could, could start implementing in their business to create, you know, more diverse range of leads, of lead generation and, and more consistency in their business. So thank you so much for this. This was so juicy. Where can our audience connect with you? How can they get to, you know, like explore products that you have or learn more from you?

So the best place to find out more about me is just to go to my website, which is destinykopp.com. And Lindsay, I'm sure you'll put that in the show notes. And if you love podcasts, which I know that you probably do, because you're listening to Lindsay's podcast here, you can check out the Course Creators MBA podcast. I always interview people who have implemented digital products like online courses and membership into their business. So you can just get an idea of how others are doing this in the marketplace.

Oh, I love that. Yes. Let's collaborate. Let's learn from each other. It's not a big secret, right? Like we're all here for the same reason— time, financial freedom, and to make an impact on others. So I love that. I love the idea of that podcast. So yes, we will definitely put those in the show notes. Thank you so much, Destiny, for coming on. This has been so good. I've enjoyed it. And I know that our listeners have too. So any of our listeners who want to reach out, who want to follow Destiny, get to know her, the link for that will be in the show notes. Go find her podcast. Leave us a review. Let us know what you liked. What did you learn from this? What did you take away? And what are you going to implement, right?

Because we can learn so much.

But what are you going to take action on today? Let us know in your review or message us. And we will see you on the next episode.

Episode.

Thank you so much, Destiny.

Thank you, Lindsay.

Um, thank you. Bye, everyone.