Moving past imposter syndrome to create, launch and market 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 friends, it’s Rene. Today I want to talk about a conversation that I had last week with someone about imposter syndrome. I can’t believe I’ve gotten through so many podcast episodes without talking about this. It was something that was on her mind and it inspired today’s episode. And what we’ll talk about is getting past imposter syndrome to be able to create, launch and market your first digital product.

[00:00:55] So real quick, before we dive in. I’m looking to have more of these types of conversations. I’d love to learn more about the problems that you’re having with your first digital product. So I’ll be doing free 15 minute, no strings attached calls. No pitches, no sales. I won’t even put you on my email list unless you really want to be on there. And if I can offer any thoughts or resources I will, but really my goal is to learn more about you so that I can understand and create the best possible content. So, if you’re interested, you can go to yfdp.show/convo and the link will also be in the show notes.

[00:01:31] So let’s dive in and talk about imposter syndrome. So, first I want to think about what is the imposter syndrome in relation to. Is it in relation to your service offerings or is it in relation to the digital product itself? If it’s in relation to your service offerings, I have a couple thoughts. And if it’s in relation to the digital product itself, I have some other thoughts. So first let’s talk about your service offerings. Now with this, hopefully you have been a service [00:02:00] provider for a while and you have some data that you can go look for. What we want to do here really is to go and find the proof that you are good at what you do, even when sometimes you don’t think you are. And for this, we want to look for the feedback that you’ve received along the way. So. Every once in a while I get an email from a client and they say something amazing and I tag it with the word nice. You can tag it with anything you want. If you’ve been doing this now is the time to go back and read through those emails. And if you haven’t been doing this, I encourage you to start doing this. You can even look back for a couple of keywords in your previous emails, just to see what your clients have said about you and said to you via email over the years. I bet there’s some really nice stuff in there that sometimes it’s just really helpful to, to kind of go back and see like, oh, you know what? My clients do like me. I have been doing a good job. I don’t have to have this imposter syndrome. Hey, imposter syndrome, get out. Also testimonials. Now, again, if you are not collecting testimonials, when you finish a project or finish an engagement with a client, or just somewhere along the way, I encourage you to do that. If you are great, now’s the time you can go back and read through those. Really you just want to get a sense that you have been helping people over time and you are good at what you do. Also look at any content that you’ve created. It could be emails, social posts, really anything. Blog posts, videos. Anything where you’ve gotten some engagement or comments and really just see that people do appreciate what you do. They do look to you that you are great at what you do. So go back and look for that data now. And even it could just be anything like the number of clients, the number of sales that you’ve had, the number of years you’ve been in business. Any kind of data that you can get your hands on that will help you realize, [00:04:00] hey, you know what? Imposter syndrome, you can beat it because I do see that I am doing well. I have been doing well. I’ve been showing up. I’ve been serving my clients to the best of my ability for all this time. So that is a little bit about if you’re having imposter syndrome related to the service that you’re offering.

[00:04:19] Now, if you’re having imposter syndrome related to the digital product that you either want to create, launch or market, let’s also get some data. Let’s do some recon of the situation. So before you create something, reach out to people. See if it’s something that people are actually interested in. Is it a solution to an important problem that people do have. So this is really good because you don’t want to spend all your time creating something that people aren’t going to want because then when you go to sell, nobody’s going to want it. And then that imposter syndrome will kick in even more.

[00:04:54] Let’s say you’ve already created something. You could possibly do a live cohort, a launch where you are walking through the product with them, and you can get some feedback and you can go back and modify as needed before you launch it to the rest of the world. If you see that people are responding well at any point, you can be more confident in your offerings, in your product, in your sales and marketing. You could also do a soft launch with limited quantity. So instead of releasing it to the entire world, say I only have 10 of these, or it’s only going to be open for a certain amount of time.

[00:05:27] And that way you get a much smaller group of people and you can kind of control what’s happening. Where you can see what people are having problems with, what people like or don’t like. And again, if you have to make any changes, you can do that from there. So basically data is what we’re after here. Before, during or after the product creation process. So if you can get that data before, during or after, that’s going to be so much more helpful for you because when someone comes to you and says, yes, this product solves my problem, that can help you to be more confident and again, tell imposter [00:06:00] syndrome to hit the road.

[00:06:01] The next thing is to keep your blinders on. Now I know that I just said to go and talk to people and gather data. And those are important people to talk to. Now the people that you don’t want to talk to are the people who are doing something really well or doing something similar to what you’re doing. Basically, people who are really far ahead of you, that may be detrimental to your mental state. So put those blinders on and don’t worry about what those people are doing.

[00:06:26] Don’t worry about their products and how amazing their social media is, because that doesn’t matter to what you’re doing. You purposely want to block that out so that you can get down to business, create yours, market yours, launch yours. That way, you don’t have to worry about what they’re doing. And you can surround yourself with support. People who will be kind and honest with you and your product so that you, again, don’t have to worry about what other people are doing. So keep those blinders on and forget everything else.

[00:06:59] You also want to adjust your expectations. So think about your kids or your partner or your friends, and if they were doing something new for the first time, what kind of expectations would you have for them? Would you tell them it has to be perfect? Would you tell them it has to be the most amazing thing of all time? No, you would cheer them on just because they’re doing it. Just because they’ve showed up and they’re putting themselves out there. So I would say if you can do that for yourself, great. Maybe write yourself a letter or leave yourself some audio notes or some post-its, you know, on your computer, something like that.

[00:07:34] Or find a friend, find someone who can do that for you. Someone who can cheer you on. And have those expectations that it doesn’t have to be perfect. It doesn’t have to be over the top. This is your first product. It’s okay just to be the way that you are. And show up with the information that you have. Also think about that, you will get better over time. It’s okay not to be great at something at first. And this is definitely different [00:08:00] from service work, from one-on-one work. This is a whole different thing. Even if your product is related to your service. Just the act of creating that product and marketing that product will be way different than how you market yourself as a service provider. So adjust those expectations, lower those expectations. That way you can meet those expectations and feel good.

[00:08:23] And the last thing I want to talk about is to ignore imposter syndrome. It’s okay that it comes in but you don’t have to indulge it. You don’t have to entertain it. It’s like a party guest who you didn’t invite. They can come and sit in the corner but you don’t have to feed and entertain them all night. Eventually maybe they won’t come back. So don’t let imposter syndrome hold you back. It can come in and exist but basically just tell it, hey I don’t have time for you. I have work to do. There’s something that I really want to do. I really want to create and launch and market this product and I don’t have time to have you be holding me back from that. And as you continue to do that it should also get easier as well.

[00:09:06] So what do you think? Are you letting imposter syndrome hold you back in one of these areas? Is there anything here that might work for you? Send me a voice message at yfdp.show/share. I’d love to hear from you.

[00:09:19] 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.