From Courses to Co-Pilots: The Next 3 Years of Digital Products

Hey guys, welcome back to the Freedom Business Podcast. And in this episode, number 240, I'm going to be opening your eyes to something really big. Because see, over the last three years, the way people buy digital products has completely changed. Back then, people were throwing money at courses just to collect information. But today I noticed that people are paying for transformation and they're paying for proof. And in the next three years, they are going to be paying more and more for certainty products that give them outcomes which are powered by AI and co pilots and also supported by strong communities. So in this episode, I'm going to be connecting all the dots. The past, the present, the future, so that you know exactly what to stop doing, what to start doing, and what to double down on if you want to stay relevant and build a Freedom business that truly lasts. So take notes and let's get started.

Hey there, Sid here. So happy that you're here in this podcast. And this is one of my favorite topics to always connect the dots, past, present and future. And here I'm talking more in terms of buying trends. And I'm going to be sharing with you 10 different concepts. So take a lot of notes. And the first concept I want to share with you is something called as the information hangover. Okay, so if you remember those crazy years between 2020 to 2022, just after Covid, everybody and their cousin was launching an online course. And by the way, I was a fire starter for that. It was literally like a gold rush. People were buying ebooks, they were buying 20 hour video courses, they were buying masterminds swiping their cards on impulse because ads made everything look like the magic pill. But what I observed is that most of these courses were never finished because I've been in this business since 2018. And in fact, even studies show that less than 15% of people who buy courses actually complete them. In fact, it's less than that. It's 5% of people who buy courses don't complete them because what they bought was just information. And information without application is like. It's like stuffing your fridge with food. And.

I'm just thinking about it, like stuffing your fridge with a lot of food and you're not even cooking. So what happens is people end up just buying impulsively and they never use that information. And what I've observed is that in the last three years, people have been drowning in content. Many of them felt overwhelmed and disappointed. And that's why I'm calling this as the information hangover. And that is what I Combated through the Internet lifestyle Hub. If you observed from 2020 to now, like, we have grown over 35,000 people in our community and massive success rate and retention rate and people attending my calls even after three to four years, because I knew about this hangover. And this hangover taught us a huge lesson. Because selling knowledge is not enough. If you want to build a freedom business at last, you got to go beyond dumping information, whereas you got to deliver transformation. And that's where community comes in. And if you're not in the community, in the Internet lifestyle Hub, I want you to come into the community and see exactly how it works. So the first concept is the info hangover. The next concept I want to share is something called trust or dust. See, from 2023, that is to now, the game has completely changed. Buyers are. They are no longer impressed by fancy funnels or flashy ads, big promises. They've seen it all because they've got burnt. And they've also wasted their money in many of these things.

What they are asking is very, very simple. Can I trust you? If the answer is no, you're dust. People want authenticity. They want to know who you really are and not the Instagram version of you. They want proof. They want real stories, real case studies, real numbers. And that's why if you go to internetlifestylehub.com what I've done is my entire website. Before I used to design, I had designed it in a different way. Now internetlifestylehub.com is just stories and stories and stories and stories. And that's what people want. And you know, above all, what people want is they want a transformation. They don't want more content. They do not want more overwhelm. They want a system that actually gets them results. Now the question is, if you're building a business on hype, I mean, the question that, that you got to ask yourself is, are you building your business based on hype or are you building your b. Your business based on trust? And the solution is very simple. Stop selling your information and start selling outcomes with everything that you do. Share proof every single week. Build case studies every single week. And this I've been doing from 2019, I've been documenting so many hall of fame interviews. I've done more than 200 hall of Fame interviews. If you go to my YouTube channel, you can see, and the beginning, it says, seemed that not many people are watching those videos, but now so many people are watching those videos, videos that I posted even two, three years, four years back. Because highlight your students wins. When you highlight your students win. And when you show your face consistently and not being faceless, the market is going to trust you. Because in today's market, trust isn't built in ads. You can buy attention through ads, but trust is built in the results that you create and the community that you nurture and the depth that you nurture your community. And this is my second concept.

The third concept I wanted to share is that community is the curriculum. Many of you want to build high flying curriculums for your audience, right? But community is the curriculum. And let me show you how.

I want you to think about this. See, people don't join programs today just for the content. Because let's be honest, that you can go to Google, you can go to ChatGPT, you can go to AI and you can ask for it. And what I've noticed in the last few months is that what people are really paying for is belonging. They want to be a part of a tribe where others are also on the same journey, where they do not want to feel alone. And so that they can even share their wins, they can share their struggles without being judged. In fact, that is what people really want in where I'm seeing the trend going. In fact, many of my students, they tell me that their biggest value in ILH is not my system, it is the energy of the community that keeps them moving forward. Because if you see your community is not just support. Your community is the curriculum, the conversations, the collaborations, the accountability. That's what drives real transformation. So here's your action point. Don't just build courses, build communities. Create spaces where your students can learn from each other, where they can celebrate wins together and where they're able to grow as a family. Because in the end, the biggest teacher is not the content. The biggest teacher is the community. Okay? In fact, I have a course in my diamond membership called the Tribe Building formula. And what decisions did I make to go from, you know, 0 to 100, 100 to 500, 500 to 1,000 thousand to 5,000, 5,000 to 20,000 to 8,000, now 35,000. What decision did I make to build this community is there in my damn membership? Now let's go to the next concept. The next concept is this outcome is greater than information.

See, nobody wakes up in the morning saying I want to buy another 20 hour video course. What they actually want is a result that the course promises. And this is the psychology shift that is also happening right now that I'm observing. See, customers, they don't value information anymore. Because information is free and what they value is speed, clarity, and a clear path to an outcome. So if you can show them exactly how to lose five kilos, or how to make that first one lakh, or launch that first funnel in seven days, that is what they'll pay for. So the formula is simple. The outcome is greater than the information. And connected to this, this is the action for you. I want you to redesign every product that you sell around, a measurable result. You can even use AI for this. So don't ask, what videos can I create? That's not the right question. In fact, ask, what outcome can I deliver in the shortest time possible with each video that I create? Because the moment you start selling outcomes instead of information, your products stop becoming commodities and they start becoming irresistible. And that is going to be a big game changer for many people who are going to be applying this concept. The next idea that I would like to share when it comes to this is the rise of the copilot. Now there's a big shift that is happening already. People don't want just to learn anymore. They want things to get done. And that's where AI copilots are going to be coming in in a very big way. And even I'm doing this in my hackathons and people are chatting with AI and I'm sure you yourself are doing it, but it has to get even more conscious. See, think about it. Why would somebody pay for a 10 hour copywriting course when they can just use an AI tool that writes 80% of the copy for them in just a matter of minutes? Why would they need that? So the future is not about teaching every little step. It's about giving your customer a co pilot that does the heavy lifting really fast while you're just guiding them with a strategy, wisdom and accountability. And that's why I've created something called codexes. Now in all our hackathons, like the last hackathon, I mean the current hackathon that's going on, there are more than 1,000 people playing the game. And in each call, the kind of clarity I've been able to give people in that same call is mind blowing because I'm not making them do all the thinking, I'm just making them use the right prompts in ChatGPT. So instead of me just giving them the knowledge, instead of me selling knowledge, what I've started is I've started to sell the copilot systems AI that is helping my students create, execute, and even optimize their entire Game plan combined with the human touch to make this work in the real world. So this is what's going to be the game changer. And my action step for you here is I would like you to look at your product today and ask yourself, where can I add an AI copilot that helps my students implement faster? Because in this era, the winners will not be the ones who don't just teach. The winners are going to be the ones who team up with AI to deliver results. And that is the truth. The next idea I want to share with you is something called as the subscription shift. Let me drop a truth bomb here. One time courses are dying. In fact, I came up with this whole idea of selling my whole, you know, courses as a membership rather than courses. See people don't want to pay like 50,000 rupees up front upfront for just a program that may or may not deliver. What they want is they want access on demand. So that is on one side like a Netflix, Spotify or an Amazon Prime. And this is what I call the subscription shift. So instead of buying a huge course, people are more comfortable paying, you know, lower ticket price points on a monthly basis if they choose to. And what I have done is because in India we have subscription based billing problems due to whatever RBI guidelines and whatever things that are there. I have made my high ticket into subscription based. So when people enter my system, it is a 7999 or a, you know, 14 triple nine entry point which is a low ticket in rupees. And then my diamond is a 2 lakh per year product. It's a subscription based product. And the best part is when you have a subscription based high ticket product, it creates stability in your funnel. Even if 70%, 80% of the people renew their subscription, that is going to give you more cash flow on the high ticket. And the high ticket when you're selling it as a, an annual subscription, it really, what ends up happening is even the people who are investing, they know that the subscription is going to end in one year. So they're going to put in more effort to actually complete all the tasks and get the results so that they can renew the subscription for them to move forward. And people are not active, they will not renew the subscription. Okay, so subscriptions actually make your business more predictable and instead of chasing one off sales, you can start stacking monthly recurring revenue and in my case, annual recurring revenue. So the action is, if you're selling only one time products right now, start thinking in terms of memberships. It could be a learning curve for you. It could be, it could even be like a community membership, a mastermind or a club or whatever. And so whatever the packages, let it be subscription based. Because the future of digital products is not about launch and forget it's going to be Netflix for growth.

The next concept is what I call as the proof economy. By 2027, people will not buy your products because of your ads or promises. They'll buy it because of proof. So think about it. Amazon reviews, Zomato Ratings, Uber stars. We already rely on these pure validation for small purchases. Right? Now imagine if that same psychology that is driving other purchases, these are the same psychologies that's going to be also driving coaching and digital product world. So customers won't ask what does this program teach? Rather they will ask who has succeeded with this program? Where is the evidence? And that's why it's important for you to start building your trustpilot reviews. Like if you go to trustpilot or just go on Google and search for Sidharth Rajshekhar review and go and read that and you'll be able to see at this point we have more than 9,000 reviews on Trustpilot at five star, which is really hard to get. And here's the opportunity. With every testimonial, with every case study, and with every success story, your community becomes a marketing asset. It becomes a marketing magnet. So instead of you trying to convince the world, your students, results will convince the world. So the action step for you here is build a culture of proof. Make it easy for your members to share wins, to track progress publicly and to celebrate results. And if you turn every student into a case study, then you're going to be taking part in the proof economy. Okay? Because in the proof economy, proof is the product. And the more you showcase it.

The more your sales will also skyrocket.

The next concept I want to share is something called as immersive learning. You see, the world is changing so fast. Three years from now, learning will not look like sitting in front of a zoom call or binge watching course videos. It is going to shift. It will look like walking into a VR room classroom, putting on your VR headset and practicing your sales pitch in front of a virtual audience that reacts to you in real time by observing your body language and your language and your gestures. And I see that this is going to be the future of immersive learning. Static content is slowly going to fade away. AI and AR will start, will start to create classrooms that update themselves. So the moment a New strategy works in the real world. It's already inside the program. No more outdated PDFs, no more waiting for a course to upgrade. All of that will happen real time. And the best part is your students won't just watch content, they will experience it. They will practice. They'll make mistakes. They'll improve in a safe and simulated environment, whether it's public speaking or closing deals, or even managing emotions. So the action for you here is this. Start small, add role playing and simulations and interactive practice sessions into your programs. Right now, this is what even I do in our hackathons. We put them into different teams and get them to take action. And even our diamond membership, we have something called as a diamond mixer sessions where we put them into rooms and we create different kinds of role play, simulations and interactive practice sessions. Because when immersive learning becomes mainstream, the coaches who have already trained their students to learn by doing this, they will be miles ahead compared to others.

The next concept I want to share is something called as the human mote. You know, AI is getting smarter every single day. It can write, it can design, can sell, even analyze data better than most humans. But one thing that AI can never do is to be human. And that's what I call as the human mote. Your real competitive edge is not the content you create. See, that AI can copy in a few seconds. It is your ethics, your empathy, your ability to hold the space for people, your ability to inspire them, your ability to build an identity and belonging for them. See, AI can simulate connection, but it can't replace the depth of human love. It can't replace the depth of human mentorship and human community. A human to human community. And this is the moat that you need to protect. Because in the future, products will be automated, tools will be commoditized, but the human layer, I'm talking about your values, your authenticity, your ability to unite people. This will become priceless. This will make you stand out from the crowd. So the action step for you here is this. I want you to double down on becoming human. Share your story, show your vulnerability. Build safe communities where people, you know, they feel seen. And that is your moat. And no AI can cross it. And even what I've consciously started to do now is even on Instagram and other things, I see many people are doing AI versions of themselves and everything else. I, I've consciously decided that I'm not going to go in that route. I want to be more human as I can. And I want to also share pictures which are more human and Even whatever I'm text, I'm writing and stuff, I want it to be more from me. And I feel the more me I am, the more value I valuable I become. And the more raw I am, the more human I am. Because AI is perfect. So think about this. Another important concept.

And finally, the last concept I want to share with all of you is something called as your freedom Playbook. So let's all bring it all together. Okay, so you've seen how the game has shifted from information in the past few years to transformation and now it's moving into automation. Now the question is, what do you actually do with all of this? So I'm going to give you a playbook. First thing is, if you're not in my community, jump into the intel lifestyle hub. If you're already in intended lifestyle hub, just upgrade to diamond because that's where you can see the real game happening from 33,000ft above the air. So here's the playbook. Number one is stop creating endless videos and dumping information on social media. If it doesn't lead to a result, cut it. Okay, Start. Second point is start designing products around clear outcomes. Use AI copilots, role plays, community support to get your students to win faster. And three is I want you to double down on what makes you more human. Your story, your community, your empathy, your. Your values. And that is a moat that no AI can ever replace. So if you align with these three, you will not only future proof your business, but you'll also create products that people don't just buy. You'll create products that they will rave about. So here's my challenge to you. Take one product that you have right now, whatever, whether it's your L1 course or you know, whatever you have designed, and ask yourself, what can I stop, what can I start and what can I double down on today? Okay. And that's how you build a freedom business that lasts. So once again, thank you so much for tuning into this episode. I'm going to be sharing more information with you in the coming episodes and make sure you subscribe to me on Apple and Spotify for more. With that being said, catch you in the next one. And very important, if you're not yet a part of my diamond membership, go to sidz, SIDS Co for get on the wait list and when we open up next, you can get in and see all of the magic in action. All the best.