Getting support on the journey to your first digital product

[00:00:00] Rene: Hey everyone. Welcome to Your First Digital Product, a show that helps maxed-out service providers create their first digital product so they can gain an additional income stream, grow their impact without increasing one-on-one work and experience more time freedom. On the show, I talk to business owners who have launched digital products and dig deep into how you can create, launch, and market your first digital product. I’m your host, Rene Morozowich. Let’s go.

[00:00:28] Hey everybody. Welcome to this week’s episode and real quick, before I dive in, just a reminder that I’m having a 30 minute YouTube live on Monday, July 17th at 11:00 AM Eastern. It’s all about selling your digital products with Lemon Squeezy. Lemon Squeezy is a great alternative to Gumroad. You’ve probably heard of Gumroad and we’re going to take 30 minutes to just dive in, talk about how to set up the account, how to set up a product and you’ll be up and running in no time.

[00:00:55] So you can go to the YouTube channel and click under live and then click notify me. Um, and don’t forget to subscribe so that you can chat live with me too. So super excited about this episode today. And what we’re going to talk about is learning from experience and then getting support in your journey. So a couple topics for the episode today. I’m going to talk about riding the train. Last week I think I mentioned, last solo episode I think I mentioned that we recently rode the train.

[00:01:26] I’m going to talk a little bit about my ankle. Uh, about a coach that I’m currently working with. And then we’ll talk about getting support with creating and launching and marketing your digital products, especially if you’ve never done it before. So a few weeks ago we went on vacation and we took the train. Now I had never taken the train before and my picture of the train was like White Christmas. Right. So.

[00:01:50] Um, there was going to be a little man who like greeted us when we got on. And he was going to ask us about our tickets, um, all about the club car, and they were going to have, you know, malts [00:02:00] and drinks like that. Maybe we’re going to sing some songs. Uh, while we sat in the club car, uh, but really I had no idea. There were so many unknowns, um, you know, from parking, um, you know, to the station in general. I live in kind of a sleepy town and I really just didn’t know anything about the train station had never been there other than for like dinner.

[00:02:18] Um, you know, the times like how, how far in advance you have to be there, you know, with the airport, you have to be there like two hours in advance. Um, not the case with the train. Just everything like tickets and what’s available. I really just didn’t know what to expect. And I always get a little bit nervous when I don’t know what to expect. So I did some research beforehand, as much as I could to try really, to feel more secure when I went into this new environment in this new situation.

[00:02:46] So. During the trip. I took a couple pictures. I made a couple notes and I made some short videos. My family always is like, what are you making these videos for? Because I don’t post them on Instagram or anything. I’m like, they’re just for me, they’re for us. Um, and really like, I like to document while I go, uh,

[00:03:01] Uh, you know, just things like, oh, we should do this next time or, oh, I’m really glad we did that. So examples would be parking. Uh, there are some parking spots at the train station, they’re very clearly marked, but they’re kind of in a hidden spot. Um, and we did have a couple backup plans. Uh, food, there was food available on the train, but the club car closed at certain times, depending when we were at certain stations.

[00:03:25] And also some things sold out. So, you know, for next time I would know if I really wanted the chicken bahn mi, which I did, um, I couldn’t get it on the way I got it earlier on the way home. Uh, and the wifi, like the wifi was terrible. You couldn’t do anything with the wifi. So just to be really well-prepared when you ride the train, you know, to expect that the wifi is just not going to work. So I feel much more confident for next time. If we choose to ride the train again, just having done it, that one time, just having gone through the experience, I know what to expect for the most part, and I can feel more secure next time. [00:04:00]

[00:04:00] And I talk about this a lot in that recap reflection sort of framework that I recommend that people go through. Um, on any project that they work on or any product that they launch, because we forget these things, we forget, oh, Hey, I really want to do this next time. Or that didn’t work or, oh, you know what? That was a really great way to do it. I really want to do that again the same way next time.

[00:04:23] So I really encourage people to go through that reflection really on anything that they do.

[00:04:29] Now I mentioned that I did break my ankle on said vacation. Now, again, I’ve never broken an ankle before, so I don’t really know what to expect. Um, and this is kind of a reactive thing, right? Like I didn’t do research ahead of time. So at this point, I am kind of crowdsourcing information act after the fact. So I’m getting tips from my friends and family. Um, I put a couple of things on Twitter. I’ve watched several YouTube videos on various things from how to sleep with a boot on to how to actually use crutches because they kind of gave me the crutches and I don’t know, they seem self-explanatory, but, uh, they’re not.

[00:05:06] Um, you know, and from nurses, anybody that I talk with on the phone, you know, at the hospital or the doctor’s office, things like that. So I’m seeking this information now and kind of crowdsourcing that. I’m asking people for advice. Hey, if you have gone through this before, what worked for you? Um, and that’s mostly been okay.

[00:05:25] You know, there’s some drawbacks to that. I could get some bad advice, you know, and I wouldn’t know either way because I’ve not been through it. So I wouldn’t know necessarily that it was bad advice or that it wouldn’t work for me until I tried it. Um, it also could be a lot of information to sift through. Um, and that’s the case with some of the YouTube videos. I’ve been looking to keep up my exercise routine and, you know, there’s 800,000 billion YouTube videos, um, on, you know, seated upper body. And it’s so much to sift through. I’ve, I’ve gone through some that are not very good.

[00:05:58] I have found some that are good, [00:06:00] but you know, it really does takes time because it doesn’t seem like there are any targeted to my specific situation. So, you know, I am very much looking to do upper body workouts, but I’m not a senior. I do need to sit the entire time. I can’t do anything with my feet. So it’s not just like limited mobility. I’m really looking for something and it’s been hard to find. So I’ve been trying to sift through a lot of those videos. And likewise, I could also miss important info. Like I don’t know what I don’t know. So it’s been really hard to kind of collect the information that’s important to me, and that is useful and helpful to me and kind of sift out the rest while, not leaving anything out.

[00:06:39] I want to talk a little bit about having a guide. So experience is definitely one way to go about any given thing. So anything that you have not done before going through it is a great way to learn about it. Um, so you can do that ahead of time, right? So we talked about researching and doing the thing.

[00:06:55] And then feeling more confident or, you know, when the thing happens, if it’s something that happens to you, you know, crowdsourcing that information. Um, and then doing that research, but just thinking about the train example. What if I had had support like beforehand? What if someone had told me exactly what to expect?

[00:07:14] So what if I had a guide? I would definitely have had to do less research. So for example, on parking. On the Amtrak website, there was a phone number. So I called that phone number three separate times and it was always busy and I wasn’t sure what to do. So I ended up calling the city parking phone number.

[00:07:32] And when I talked to that woman, she gave me a bunch of information like, okay, you could do this. And if that doesn’t work, you could do this. She actually gave me three plans, so that was great, but I had to seek it out. I had to call during business hours and, you know, keep trying until I found someone.

[00:07:49] Just so that I could go into this situation informed so that my car didn’t get towed away while we were on vacation. If someone had already gone through that, or if someone was really [00:08:00] well-versed in that area, they could have told me, okay, Rene, here’s what you need to know about parking. Here’s what you need to know about the station.

[00:08:07] You only need to be there maybe 20 minutes, early, 30 minutes at most. You know, here’s the thing about the times, here’s how the tickets work. Here’s what’s available. Don’t forget to get your food early, take some extra snacks and all of these things. So having a guide would have helped me to not have to do as much research myself and to just, you know, get exactly the information that I needed.

[00:08:30] Now, I just want to talk a little bit about a coach that I’m currently working with. I have worked with coaches before some business coaches, and I’m currently working with one who specializes in midlife for women. So I have not gone through this before. Right. So I am not sure what to expect. What is normal, how to navigate.

[00:08:49] And yes, I could go online. I could do research on my own, but there’s so much information out there and I’m not sure what is good information and what is not good information. And I don’t necessarily have the time to spend just digging and sifting and learning. And I really do want to learn because I do want to be more well-prepared than I would be if I were just letting things happen. So this coach has a podcast, so it’s a great way to learn. Um, she’s accredited. I’ve I like her things. I really resonate with the topics that she has and it just, the way she goes about things in her approach, she has a membership community that I joined. Learning modules. One-on-one calls, group calls.

[00:09:33] All of these things make me feel really well-supported as I learn about this one specific part of life. So let’s just take that and talk about digital products. Now you know, this is a personal coach that I’m working with, but I mentioned working with business coaches too. And also with digital products, someone like me can help you do some of these things. Right? So validate your product. How do you even validate a [00:10:00] product? How do you know what you should do ahead of time before you create a product?

[00:10:05] How to navigate the planning. How do you plan for something? How long should it take? The timeline and then that accountability. So someone, a guide like me can help you with your digital product in all of those areas, all the technical stuff, right. That technical stuff is hard. All the sales platforms, which one do you pick? Payment processors. How do they work together? Integrating with other systems like your website and your email marketing platform. All of those technical things. Sometimes we can get really bogged down in and it can be difficult to find what we need, do what we need and keep moving. Everything about launch marketing. How do I promote my product on launch? And then how do I continue to promote my product ongoing because those are two totally separate areas. And then this may sound strange, but like emotional support. Now I have to say that with the broken ankle. Yes. There’s a lot of pain and there’s a lot of. Uh, things that have happened that, you know, it’s very difficult to, to deal with, you know, getting a shower or even getting to this point and sitting in this chair right now in this room has been difficult, but what’s also been hard is kind of the emotional stuff.

[00:11:16] Like it. It’s scary. It’s, it’s a whole different place and creating your digital product can be hard in that same way, because you’ve never done it before. You may be scared to put yourself out there. You may think, is it good enough? Am I charging enough? Am I charging too much? Are people going to buy it? What if people don’t buy it?

[00:11:34] All of those things are intangibles. Those are things that are outside of the validation and the creation and the marketing and the technical work. This is mindset work. This is work that you may need help with as you navigate creating and actually launching that product and marketing it ongoing. So that’s something that I can help with as well.

[00:11:57] Now. You may not need a [00:12:00] coach, but there are other ways to get support on your journey, whether it’s building a digital product or something else.

[00:12:08] You can look to people who have been down the same path as you. Creators who have created products that you like that you have consumed and see how they did it. I do a lot of podcasts interviews, and I love that because we can actually hear from creators on what worked and what didn’t work for them. So I recommend interviewing people yourself, or listening to interviews and learning from people who have already been down the path that you are trying to go down.

[00:12:35] You can talk with your clients or potential clients or colleagues to validate your product ahead of time. You can use apps for planning. Um, you know, Pomodoros for time management, all that good stuff to help you move along in your product. Masterminds or small groups are, are super helpful in the entire process. Right? So from that accountability,

[00:12:57] Uh, to, um, encouragement or even technical help and support. A lot of software platforms have support and documentation. So if you’re stuck in the weeds on the part of the software, you can look to their support, especially if it’s a paid product, you probably have access to a different level of support and you can go from there to help you create your product.

[00:13:19] Um, and there are tons of marketing people out there who can help you with a marketing plan or, you know, maybe you can purchase a plan or just learn from them, you know, consume their content, their videos, and their blog posts and their email newsletters to learn how to create that marketing plan for yourself.

[00:13:37] So I would think about what kind of support do you need. So in the instance of riding the train, I figured it out, you know, not a huge deal. But in other parts of my life, I have needed more support on my journey. So a couple of questions that you can ask yourself, will you have enough confidence to do this on your own? Have you been putting it off because you’re [00:14:00] scared? Because you don’t know? Will you be able to find all of the information you need?

[00:14:05] Or will the fear of the unknown actually stop you from doing the thing that you really want to do? So, what do you think about this? Have you ever worked with a guide or a coach? Did you find it valuable? What’s your experience? I’d love to hear it. Send me a voice message at yfdp.show/share.

[00:14:22] I’d love to hear from you.

[00:14:23] Hey, thanks for listening. I’d love to continue the conversation in your inbox. Email SUBSCRIBE to hey at yfdp.show or sign up in the show notes to get bimonthly emails about how you can create, launch, and market your first digital product. Can’t wait to see you there.