What if your digital product was easy and fun with Liz Wilcox

[00:00:00] Liz: It feels so good. So validating. Even if you get it up there and you make promptly zero sales in, you know 72 hours flat.

[00:00:11] It always come back to what Rene said, like, this is something to be proud of. Not everyone takes the time, sets it aside. You’re a service provider. You’re always, you know, deadline after deadline, somebody else’s goals before yours, but just taking that time for yourself and like what you want and how you wanna serve.

[00:00:37] Oh my gosh. You’re gonna feel so good and don’t tie that worth to the sales. The sales will come eventually, right? They might not come at first, but they’ll come eventually if you keep at it. But that, that sense of pride and ownership can come right now. So allow yourself to feel that when you get it done.

[00:00:59] 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!

[00:01:27] Rene: Hey everybody. Today I’m here with Liz Wilcox and she is the fresh Princess of email marketing. She’s an email strategist and keynote speaker showing small businesses how to build online relationships, package up their magic, and turn it into emails that people want to read and most importantly, purchase from.

[00:01:44] I love that. Hey, Liz, how are you?

[00:01:47] Liz: Oh my gosh. I’m so awesome and super pumped to talk about my first digital product.

[00:01:53] Rene: Yay. Awesome. Great. Yeah. Do you wanna tell us a little bit about you first, kind of give the audience a, you know, kinda a little background on you.

[00:01:59] Liz: Yeah, [00:02:00] so before we hit record, Rene and I were talking about how I started off as a travel blogger. So unlike a lot of service providers that just kind of start, maybe they had a nine to five. Then they started a side hustle, or they, you know, worked under, you know, a larger name. I just actually started off as a blogger.

[00:02:19] I said, you know what? I think I could make money on the internet if these people are doing it. Surely I can figure something out. And I lived in an RV at the time and I, I just lived in it. I didn’t travel in it. But I wanted to, I wanted to travel in that bad boy, but I couldn’t figure out how to make money and travel.

[00:02:38] So I started the blog and I got really good at email marketing. And actually when I, I launched my first digital course. I had a wait list of about 141 people. This wasn’t my first product, but it was my first course. The big one, right? I had 141 people on that wait list, and I made 141 sales in the first launch. Yeah. So if you can’t see Rene, ’cause you’re just listening, she just went, wow.

[00:03:08] So yeah, that’s, that’s pretty remarkable. But I didn’t know that. I, like I said, I didn’t start off as a service provider, I just started off as a blogger. I didn’t know anything about marketing other than I needed to do it. And I have a loud mouth.

[00:03:23] So here we go. And uh, that’s when I realized, wow. I am exceptional at email marketing and I want my friends to be exceptional too. So that’s when I actually sold that blog and went all in on teaching email marketing, uh, and doing some copywriting as well.

[00:03:44] Rene: That’s awesome. Um, I wanted to ask about the, because you have products right now, do you offer services too, or you’re just a product business at this point?

[00:03:54] Liz: I am just a digital product business, so at the time of this recording, [00:04:00] it’s been almost two and a half years since I’ve had to take a client.

[00:04:04] Rene: Nice, nice. And do you wanna tell us a little bit more about when you were a copywriter? Like that’s, I’m curious about that.

[00:04:11] Liz: Yeah, so I, like I said, I sold the RV travel blog, but because I had that blog, I knew I could sell digital products. You name it, I’ve sold it. Printables, summits, bundles, uh, you know, whatever, right? So I knew I wanted to be in the digital product space, but I also knew I needed money. I have a stomach, I’ve got a kid, she’s got a stomach, she needs a pillow, electricity, all of that stuff. So I needed cash.

[00:04:41] And so I started. Uh, once I sold the blog, I started as a copywriter and I started to grow my email list at the same time. I knew eventually I wanted to sell those products, so I sold pretty high ticket stuff. You know, my packages ranged from $3,000 to $10,000. A day rate was, I think $2,500. And you know what? I just really didn’t like it. Because I came from that blogging background I knew the potential of selling digital products, and this is why I’m so excited to be here because Rene is out here on these internet streets trying to teach you of the potential and the whole

[00:05:24] Rene: Spreading the news.

[00:05:25] Liz: Right. The whole thing of trading my time for dollars as a service provider, it was, I mean, you know, I was making big money or bigger money than I ever thought I would, and that was fine, but I was having really big responsibilities and so that’s one of the reasons I said, okay, I really need to double down on this email list and figure out some digital products because I only have so much time and Liz Wilcox personally, I can only, you know, sell so much.

[00:05:58] I can only charge so much. [00:06:00] You know, I’m never going to be the copywriter that charges 20 to $50,000 for a package. I don’t wanna work with large companies that can afford that either. I wanna work with the little guy. And so after I’d say about a year in the service-based, uh, type of doings. I was like, okay, I’ve gotta, I gotta double down on this email list and come up with some products.

[00:06:25] Rene: I love it. I love it. So just to kind of go back, what was the first product then? You said there was like a first course, but there was, was there a product before that? Like you mentioned a couple different things. Like what was the first one?

[00:06:36] Liz: Uh, the first product in my email marketing was a, just an outline called 20 Minute Newsletters, and it was literally, guys, listen, I I know you’re driving or maybe you’re doing the dishes. You can’t write this down, but commit it to memory. It was just a Google document. It was nothing special. It was called 20 Minute Newsletters.

[00:07:02] Guess what it did? It helped you write a newsletter in 20 minutes. No fancy title, no. There wasn’t even a footer or a header on my Google Doc. I don’t think I even had brand colors yet. Um, but I was doing this event, I was doing like a digital summit and I knew that, you know, they gave me permission to sell a trip wire.

[00:07:23] So something when they sign up for your freebie, uh, you could have a product, you know, on the back end of that. And so I said, oh, I, I, this is a missed opportunity if I don’t create something. And I thought, well, what is the number one problem that my clients have? Like if I’m writing them a sales sequence, what is the number one reason that sales sequence wouldn’t work?

[00:07:46] Oh, well, they’re not writing a newsletter, right? They maybe haven’t emailed their people in six months. Well, I, you know, I tend to write my newsletters in about 20 minutes. Let me go back in the last, like couple months and see. [00:08:00] I must be using some sort of framework. I must have some, there must be some method to this madness.

[00:08:06] And you know, I, I said, oh yeah, there’s the pattern and I just typed it up. I put in like a little voice guide as a bonus, which the voice guide was like five rules, right? It wasn’t anything special. There were no videos, nothing. Um, and I think I sold something like $500 of that $20 product. I charged 20 bucks, uh, in like the first week, and that product still sells today, almost five years later.

[00:08:36] Rene: Nice. I like it. I like that you mentioned Google Doc because I do think a lot of people think like, okay, not only do I have to make the product, but I have to make it this beautiful PDF totally branded. Nobody cares about that. Also, nobody can even see that before they buy. They’re not like, you know what, I’m not gonna buy this because it’s not gonna be beautiful on the other side.

[00:08:56] Like, that’s not, that’s not a thing. Solving an important problem. So you were seeing that people were not writing newsletters or not writing them quickly enough. Maybe it was taking too long. Like so providing an important solution to an important problem for your audience, I think like is, is so valuable.

[00:09:14] Liz: Yeah, listen. Think about who your ideal customer is. If you were to sell a digital product or you’re selling one right now and you’re wondering, is the format accurate? For me it was okay well, I serve mostly online entrepreneurs. And online entrepreneurs what do we use? Oh, we use G Suite, right? We’ve got a Gmail account.

[00:09:35] We’ve got Google Docs. We use Google Sheets. Well, I’ll just put this in Google into a Google Doc so that they can just make a copy of it so that it’s actually on there. If I would’ve made it a PDF. You download a PDF. Does anybody organize their PDFs? Is that a thing?

[00:09:54] Rene: I put them in a folder called PDFs like.

[00:09:56] Liz: Okay. Well, I mean, that’s one up me. I [00:10:00] download them and promptly forget because I have a life, and so I was like, oh, well if I can. If I can combat that by just keeping it in their drive. So when they, oh, I’m here to write my newsletter. Oh, last week I bought that 20 Minute Newsletters. Let me see if I can use that. They can just search it in their drive.

[00:10:19] And I’ve even had people say like, oh, I just bookmarked it on my address bar and every time I write a newsletter. You know, it’s just right there. 20 Minute Newsletter. And so think about who your ideal person is. What are they using? What are some obstacles that you need to overcome so they actually use your product and create that format. Don’t worry about it being beautiful. Worry about it being useful.

[00:10:43] Rene: Mm-Hmm. And simple. Like, it’s so simple, but it’s so powerful. Like, we don’t, how often I think we overcomplicate everything and that’s, you know, it doesn’t help you and it doesn’t help the customer either. So.

[00:10:54] Liz: Yeah. The last thing I’ll say about that, ’cause I can already hear someone say, yeah, but Liz, I don’t serve online entrepreneurs like I, you know, I have a certain level of sophistication I have to, uh you know, stand to, and I, I totally get that. But again, just remember like, is this, am I making this actually usable?

[00:11:19] Not just useful, but like, can they actually use this? And my very first business, that RV travel blog. I was selling courses to men in their sixties who didn’t know you could buy stuff online other than Amazon and eBay. Right? Like this was, you know, 10 years ago almost, you know, Facebook ads and buying things online.

[00:11:40] You know, it was, it was pre pandemic. That’s all I gotta say. Right?

[00:11:44] And so just being able to, you know, say to them, Hey, this is a course, that means you’re gonna get a login. Things like that. So in your sales process for this product, if you feel like, you know, your people need a certain level of [00:12:00] sophistication, just calling it out. Hey, this is gonna be in a Google Doc.

[00:12:04] That’s not because, you know, I threw it together. It’s because I actually want you to use it. You’re just gonna go, click File, hit Save, and then you’ll have it in your drive for you, or something like that. Just make sure you’re telling them if you feel like there might be some friction as to, oh, this is just a Google Doc, or this is just, you know, a Canva PDF, or just anything. Tell them why you created it that way.

[00:12:31] Answer the objection before they even buy it. Just like Rene said, like they can’t see it yet. So just call, call it out. Hey, this is just X, Y, Z. That’s because I actually want you to use it. When you purchase da da da da da instructions. And that honestly is probably gonna make you a lot of sales.

[00:12:50] Rene: Yeah, because I think you’re telling people why, and I think if people don’t know why, then they, yeah, they don’t understand the thing. But if you’re saying like this, I actually did this for you for this reason, I think people are really receptive to that.

[00:13:03] Liz: Amen. I, what Rene just said is so key. People listen, we, we love to think we outgrow the why stage, right? When we’re toddlers. Why? Why? Why? But we don’t ever outgrow that. We always wanna know why something is the way it is, and so just calling that out is gonna help with your sales tremendously.

[00:13:25] Rene: Definitely. Yeah, I totally agree. Awesome. Okay, so let’s talk about. So it sounds like you created that product relatively quickly. Like you had a, there was kind of a deadline, right? You said you were part of a summit and you wanted to create something on the other end. Um, you found something that was, you know, the potentially useful for people.

[00:13:46] Put that together. Um, did you. Some people like to know about like sales platforms. Did you pick the platform that you are always going to sell with? Um, just kind of maybe any other things about the creation process, you know, [00:14:00] what about that like landing page and, you know, the sales page and things like that, and anything else that you wanna share about that?

[00:14:05] Liz: Yeah. Y’all, I’m a two step chick. If it takes three steps, I’m out. And so I literally made this the day that my talk was going live, I got up, it was like 6:00 AM and I thought to myself, you know, Liz, you can’t miss this opportunity. You’re finally getting invited to this event. Uh, you know, you’ve been watching it for a while, and now they invited you. Um, you know.

[00:14:34] Don’t miss out. And so, you know, I walked through that whole process I walked you through. And then like Rene said, like, okay, what cart am I gonna use? I, you know, right now I’m just using Stripe invoices, right? For my big clients. Uh, I need a cart, right? Like, and so I literally just got on Google and I was like, online cart. And I saw that Sam Cart had a 14 day trial.

[00:15:03] I don’t know if this was back in like 2019, 2020, something like that. And I don’t know if they still do the 14 day trial, but I was like, well, you know, if I don’t like it, if I don’t make any money, I can cancel, but right I need a cart by noon, like in the next four hours. And this looks pretty intuitive. I could make a quick landing page. Um, and so, you know, I bought the, or I got the 14 day trial. I spent, you know, an hour making the landing page. And luckily they had templates and nowadays most carts do, uh, even the lower end ones like Thrive Cart, they’ve been adding lots of templates for you.

[00:15:43] And I just put it up there and then get this guys. This is, this is the crazy part. I waited. I put it up as a tripwire. I use ConvertKit as my email service provider, so anyone that signed up for my email list, ’cause of course I’m giving [00:16:00] away a freebie during the event, you know, it redirected to this new sales page. And I did not create 20 Minute Newsletters until I made the first sale. I said, well, ’cause I then, I had to get up, I had to take my daughter to school, I had to make breakfast. You know, I had to do all the tasks I already had to do that day. And so I waited until I made my first sale, and honestly, I made my first sale within like the first 10 minutes of the product or of the, uh, event going live that day.

[00:16:33] And I thought, oh crud. Now, now I gotta create this thing. And that’s when I went, uh, and I said, okay, let me really look at this framework that I’m using. Let me type it out. Uh, let me, oh, I’m gonna add in this voice guide. That sounds good. Uh, and then I sent it over to the, I think at, by the time it was done, I had made like four or five sales.

[00:16:55] And so I just individually, this is key, individually, sent those out. I said, Hey. Uh, sorry you didn’t receive this yet. I saw you purchased about an hour ago. You know, here it is. And then I set up the automation so that it would just get sent out and it, yeah, like I said, I made something like 500 bucks. I made like a crap ton of sales. I could not believe it.

[00:17:18] Rene: That’s awesome. I love so many things about this. Ah, and I love that it’s, um, not always. Part of why I like doing the podcast is that not everybody has the same story. Like a lot of people are coming on to talk about selling digital products and nobody does it the same way. So I love the, the creating like after the sales.

[00:17:35] Like that’s, that’s amazing. What’s interesting to me is. The, so you, you had some kind of sales page but didn’t have the product yet. I think some people create the product and then write the sales page, but some people write the sales page and then create the product. Have you done the same thing with your other products or have you kind of switched back and forth depending on the product?

[00:17:57] Liz: Honestly, usually I create the [00:18:00] sales page. Like of course the idea comes first and then I say, okay, let me write the sales page and let me, this is a hack, y’all. You heard it here first with Rene and Liz. When you write the sales page, it helps you build the product, right? Because you’re going through those sections.

[00:18:17] Okay, what does this include and what is this actually gonna help? And oh yeah, the FAQs. Why does this cost $30? Oh, snap. This should be 50. Or, oh, no, I don’t I don’t, I don’t wanna do that. This is gonna be simpler. It’s only gonna be $15, right? So the sales page, in my opinion, really helps guide you towards solidifying the product and making it better.

[00:18:42] Honestly, I’m not saying just slap up a sales page and you know, wait around and eventually get to it, but as you’re building the sales page, you know, as you’re going through those sections of the transformation, the headline, the FAQs, it’s like, oh yeah, this is what I want my product to be. This is the result I want it, uh, to have for my people, and this is what I need to put in it to ensure I keep my promise right.

[00:19:11] And so I, I tend to write the sales page first.

[00:19:15] Rene: Nice. I like it. So just, this is kind of meta, but do you have an email sequence? Is one of your products an email sequence that that also sells the product? And is that kind of related to the sales page? So like you write the sales page, do you have an email sequence that pulls out sections of those things?

[00:19:36] Does that make sense?

[00:19:36] Liz: Yeah. Yeah. So once you write the sales page, I love what Rene is suggesting. So write the sales page first, and then each one of those sections of the sales page can be an individual email. The thing about, uh, every sales email you write should answer the question, why should I buy this, and why should I buy this right now?

[00:19:59] [00:20:00] And so you can go to your sales page and say, oh, well you should buy this because you know it’s $197 and you know, the sales page says it’s going up to 300 tomorrow. Right. That’s a, that’s an email. Or you know, you should buy this because of this transformation. And oh, look at that. I already wrote about it on the sales page, copy and paste, right? And so definitely writing the sales page first helps you with that sales sequence for sure.

[00:20:32] Rene: Nice. And it’s, it’s not lazy. It’s effective and it’s consistency I think. Whenever you are saying different things in different places, I think that creates kind of a disconnect in the, in the potential buyer’s mind. So if you have these reasons on the sales page and these other reasons in the emails, I think it can be confusing.

[00:20:50] Liz: Yeah, you. Oh my gosh. Rene is on fire. Pause the podcast, five star review. She knows what she’s talking about. Seriously. Y’all marketing is not saying a hundred different things. Marketing is saying one thing a hundred times. So even on your sales page, you’re gonna be saying very similar things over and over. Right? And depending on the price, uh, of the product or program, you know, it can be short or long. You might be repeating yourself a lot if it’s a very expensive program. Right. We all, we all know that, you know, we’re service providers. We know when we get on a sales call, we’re saying the same things that they’ve already seen on the sales page, and then we do the proposal.

[00:21:35] It’s the exact same thing we talked about on the call. Right? You wouldn’t introduce new ideas that, like Rene said, would confuse the buyer. And so just saying that same thing, those same, you know, five bullet points, this is gonna help you A, B, C, D, E. You know emails, email one A, email two B, et cetera, et cetera, that’s gonna help solidify that, oh [00:22:00] yes, I know what this product is about.

[00:22:02] I know it’s gonna ha help me because X, Y, Z, and I know how it’s gonna do that. Right? And that kind of trust that, uh, knowing is what is gonna create the sale for you.

[00:22:15] Rene: I love it. I love it. Let’s talk a little bit about your other products. So you have a bunch of products, um, and I’ll obviously link to all of them in the, in the show notes. Are there any that you want to highlight specifically? Any maybe that this audience would benefit from? Um, really just anything that you wanna share about your bunch of products.

[00:22:38] Liz: Yeah, so I think maybe an interesting, uh, little product that as you’re listening might give you some ideas. If you’re, if you’re like me and you know, you wanna help people with all the things related to your industry, uh, what I did when I had a lot of those products. So first, asterisk here.

[00:23:00] I have a $9 a month email marketing membership, that’s the name of it, email marketing membership. Um, and one day I decided that I was going to offer a year into that membership 108 bucks, that’s nine times 12. But when you join for a year, when you said, you know, yep, I’m committing Liz, I committed to you and I offered all my other products for free.

[00:23:25] And so you got everything for $108. Uh, nowadays I only sell that once a year on Black Friday. It’s still my favorite offer, but I mention it because as you’re building and as you’re growing, you are in charge of your business.

[00:23:41] You can have, you know, as many products as you want, like Liz Wilcox, and you can bundle them any which way you want. So as you grow, you know, you listen to Rene week after week and you get all these ideas from these other guests and from Rene herself. You know, you might come up with this [00:24:00] library right.

[00:24:01] And so I’ve actually found that this is my number one seller. It’s 108 bucks. In 2023, we did three launches of this. The first launch, uh, we made over a hundred thousand dollars. The second launch was just a 48 hour sale, and we made $48,000. And then, uh, in, on Black Friday, uh, for that month, just this one product made $160,000. And so I mention all of that to say like, whatever product you wanna create, whatever price you wanna price it at, if you’re excited about it, people will get excited about it too. Um, yeah, I love, I love that I called the annual pass.

[00:24:49] Rene: Yeah. That’s amazing. I was gonna mention the membership because I was curious too, what was included and, and some people who have, you know, courses and templates and products, the membership sometimes overlaps where you can get access to the products, but, you know, not always. So I, I was curious about that.

[00:25:06] Liz: So, the annual pass, you get all my products and a year inside my membership. But of course, you know, I don’t always sell that. So I do have a membership model and that’s basically the membership is a lot of little products, you know, every single week. So it’s a weekly newsletter template that you can take and make your own no matter what kind of business you have. Comes with a video walkthrough, samples, all this jazz. And so if you really think about it, it’s, you know, Liz creating a new digital product every single week, right? The membership is over three years old now, and you know, the library keeps growing.

[00:25:45] It’s a way of keeping myself accountable to what we talked about earlier. I didn’t really care to take on client work forever. So having this type of membership allowed me to commit to, yes, I’m [00:26:00] going to be a digital product business one day, right? And so. You know, promising something week after week made me commit.

[00:26:10] Right? It was kind of like this forced accountability. Oh, you’re paying me every single month. I better get my butt in the seat and do it. And then of course, um you know, there are a couple of those little products that you can see on my website that are inside the membership. You know, what’s another objection people have when it comes to emailing?

[00:26:31] Well, my list isn’t growing. So I put my $12 list building training in there. Another one, well, I don’t really understand how email works to begin with, so I put my email staircase training in there to teach them the framework. And so those things live inside the membership. They’re available for purchase separately, but you can get them for free inside the membership.

[00:26:52] And that when it comes to digital products is a great idea because individually these products cost $12, so 24 bucks, if you got both. If you sign up for this monthly product, you get those for free, and the monthly is only $9, so you’re having a lot of savings. So that’s a great way to pitch it, to keep people inside the membership or to get them inside the membership once they’re inside.

[00:27:17] Wow, there’s a lot of good content in here. I think I’ll stay.

[00:27:22] Rene: Yeah, for sure. And how are you thinking of the ideas, uh, each week? Like are people saying like, Hey, this is what I really need, or are you just knowing like what people are needing to create, you know, to, for you to create.

[00:27:34] Liz: That’s a great question. So I I don’t believe there’s such thing as writer’s block. I mean, there’s no such thing as talker’s block, right? There’s always, even now I paused, but then I had, you know, I gave it a second. I had something to say. Right? And so that’s the same with your email newsletter. And it’s the same with me creating newsletter ideas. There’s always [00:28:00] something, whether it it’s evergreen or it’s something in the moment, right? Whether it’s seasonal or you know, it’s turned on the tv. This is pertinent to February, 2024, right?

[00:28:11] There’s always ideas. Just the same as no one ever runs out of things to post on social media. You don’t actually ever run out of things to say in your newsletter. And so usually it’s kind of a combination of what Rene said. I’m getting ideas from other people, I’m getting ideas from my members. You know, they, you can request things in the membership. Um, and it’s just, you know, my experience and oh yeah, we, here’s a, here’s a content gap that we need to fill. Here’s a way we can show we’re invested.

[00:28:47] Here’s a way we can become relatable. Things like there’s always something to say.

[00:28:53] Rene: Yeah, I like that. Awesome. And just to kinda reiterate, I, I know it’s implied well, I know we said it and I know it’s implied, but you’re seeing so much success with your product because you have an amazing email list. That’s just kind of something I wanna, you know, and other reasons of course, but like the email list is. This is a very meta conversation.

[00:29:13] Like the email list is crucial. Like if you don’t have anyone to sell to, it doesn’t matter If your product’s the most amazing product of all time and you spend a ton of time on it and you did market research, whatever, if you don’t have anybody on the other end to buy it. You know that that’s kind of a, a disconnect in the whole process.

[00:29:29] Like you wanna make a great product and you want to sell that product to people who need it.

[00:29:33] Liz: Yeah, I was actually talking to a copywriter. She emailed me asking if growing an email list would be for her. And I told her about when I was a copywriter, you know, albeit copywriting wasn’t my end all be all. Eventually I wanted to retire from that. But in the moment, growing my list allowed me to sell my services as well.

[00:29:58] It wasn’t just [00:30:00] about digital products, it was, you know, some people come to me and they’re ready to buy and you’re a service provider, you know. You know the drill, right? So and so reached out, asked for a copywriter. Here’s the introduction. Okay, we’re off to the races, right?

[00:30:16] But there’s so many people that aren’t like that, and this was, this copywriter’s argument was when my customer finds me, they’re ready to buy. And I said, well, what about the people that look at your site and never DM you or never ask their friend for the introduction? And then six months later, they’re finally ready. And you know, they go with someone else, right? Email keeps you top of mind. So I might not be ready for a web designer, but I am actively saving up the money, right?

[00:30:49] Because I know it’s worth it. It’s going to, you know, help me make more sales once I have a better website. You know, I’m gonna look up web designers as soon as it pops into my brain. And if you’ve got a good lead magnet, you get me on your list, you know, once a week, every other week, whatever. You keep popping up with some tips on web design, some tips on branding. You know, by the time I’m ready to buy, I’m going with you. And so, you know, digital products or you know, your services, like Rene said, like it’s implied, but let’s say it again. You’ve gotta have that email list to catch those people that are on the fence or aren’t ready to buy. And you know, especially if you do high ticket, you know that customer journey might be really long, right?

[00:31:37] So get them on the email list. Nurture them. Show you’re invested, stay top of mind. And then, you know, they’ll purchase either those smaller digital products that you have as they become available, or you know, the big kahuna service package, uh, when they’re, when they’re ready for that day rate or whatever.

[00:31:57] Rene: Yeah, and some lead into the other, depending on the types [00:32:00] of products that you have. You know, your smaller product may be for this audience right now, but then as they grow their own businesses, they may be ready for your one-on-one services, or the product itself might be just a product that is something to do right before they work with you.

[00:32:16] So, you know, these can tie in really well to each other. There’s a lot of things that they can help each other if you wanna stay in the service business, but also if you just wanna pivot completely at some point to just selling products online.

[00:32:31] Liz: Absolutely. If I wanted to make a million dollars right now, I would turn my services back on and I would say, Hey, after six months I would have an automation. Hey, you’ve been in my membership six months. Are you not seeing any movement? Let’s book a one-on-one, or you know, let’s join this group program where, you know, we work together on accountability and you get personalized reviews. You know, there’s, I can’t tell you how many business coaches, Liz, just, you could double your sales tomorrow. I’m like, yeah, but I’d rather be at the pool.

[00:33:03] Um. But you know, that’s, that’s my stage of life right now. I have a 9-year-old. I like hanging out with her. I only want one kid. This is my only shot. Uh, maybe when she’s a teenager and you know, she can’t stand to be around me.

[00:33:18] I’ll turn those services back on and, you know, people will rejoice. Business coaches all around will rejoice when Liz turns her services back on and maximizes those profits.

[00:33:28] But. Yes, it definitely they should. It should coexist. It should be an ecosystem. That’s the, that is like, now I’m geeking out. That’s the super awesome thing about email marketing and about creating digital products with your services is they can all blend together.

[00:33:46] That example of the, you know, web designer. I actually, before I hired my web designer I had a VIP day with someone she worked with to help me get my brand stuff together. [00:34:00] Before the brand day with this person, I bought a smaller product to help me figure out, uh, you know, like, which brand colors work best for you, or some, I can’t remember, but it was a small digital product that led me to think, huh, I really need some help with this.

[00:34:18] Led me to hire the VIP day. Led me to the actual web designer. So it’s this like beautiful, beautiful ecosystem, uh, that works so well together. And it’s not, it’s not about leaving money on the table, right? ’cause a lot of people, oh, Liz, you’re leaving money on the table. You should do this, that, and the other. It’s about servicing your people where they’re at, right? Your person, your ideal client might not be ideal yet.

[00:34:48] She might need another year. So, but if she’s looking at you right now, what can you give her to, you know, keep moving her along, encouraging her, creating trust with her so that when she is, you know, totally ready to book your services, she books your services, not someone else’s.

[00:35:12] Rene: Right, without even looking or thinking. She just knows that that’s just what she’s going to do because you’ve been helping her all this time. So I love that.

[00:35:21] So what two to three things you recommend for someone who is creating their first product? They haven’t created any products, but they’ve been thinking about it for a long time.

[00:35:28] Maybe they have a product like, you know, in their Google Drive, like half started, or some things around. They kind of have some ideas, but they’re just really not sure what to do or not to do, you know, to get that product created and launched.

[00:35:40] Liz: Yeah, so. I always ask myself two questions when, whenever I do anything. This is digital products, life, business, all that. So, you know, like Rene said, if you’ve got something half written or maybe it’s just half written in your head, I want you to ask yourself these two questions. [00:36:00] Number one, what would this look like if it was easy? Right.

[00:36:03] And I think Tim Ferris said that first. Uh, but I’ve got a follow up question to that. ’cause sometimes it’s not easy. Sometimes it’s like, well Liz, you know, I’ve got three kids in the background screaming. Um, maybe I’ve got ADHD, uh, and I’ve got $20,000 worth of client work I have to, uh, finish in the next 10 days.

[00:36:22] Like, what are you talking about? Easy. Right? And so what would this look like if it was easy? And the follow up is what would this look like if it was fun?

[00:36:32] Everything you do right now as a service provider is just that in service of someone else. And sure, usually it can be fun. That’s why you got into it.

[00:36:42] You love what you do, but after a while it can kind of turn into a grind, especially with those deadlines we were just talking about. And so thinking of your digital product, how you’re gonna create it, how you’re gonna create the sales page, the sequence, whatever. Like what would it look like if it was just fun to do? Remember back to the story I told you about that 20 Minute Newsletters. It was just fun to get the sales page up and see what happened at this first event. It was just fun to type into Google, right?

[00:37:13] Like I didn’t do much research. I didn’t go on YouTube and watch videos. Like I just saw a 14 day trial. That’s for me. That’s the easiest thing that, oh, it’s kind of fun to use these templates, right? I didn’t try to create anything from scratch. It was much more fun to use the templates, right? So I think between those two questions, you can usually come up with an answer of, oh, yep, that’s my next right step. That’s my next right step because you’re anchoring yourself in a little bit of ease and a little bit of fun.

[00:37:49] Rene: I love that and it reminded me of something that I, I feel like I used to talk about more that maybe I haven’t talked about in a while, is that like, as a service provider, you, you are serving other businesses and you are [00:38:00] building other businesses. So because of you and your efforts, these other people are more successful in their efforts, in their businesses.

[00:38:08] But creating something of your own that is just yours, like creating anything. You bake a cake, you, you know, paint a painting. Like whenever you create something that is yours, I feel like there’s a lot of pride in it. Like, look at this, look what I made, look what I did.

[00:38:23] And that can feel really good, you know? And maybe be fun, you know, at the same time.

[00:38:27] Liz: Oh my gosh. I love that. Yes. It feels so good. So validating. Even if you get it up there and you make promptly zero sales in, you know 72 hours flat.

[00:38:40] It always come back to what Rene said, like, this is something to be proud of. Not everyone takes the time, sets it aside. You’re a service provider. You’re always, you know, deadline after deadline, somebody else’s goals before yours, but just taking that time for yourself and like what you want and how you wanna serve. Oh my gosh. You’re gonna feel so good and don’t tie that worth to the sales. The sales will come eventually, right? They might not come at first, but they’ll come eventually if you keep at it. But that, that sense of pride and ownership can come right now. So allow yourself to feel that when you get it done.

[00:39:28] Ooh, I’m so excited for you to create something.

[00:39:30] Rene: Yes. Yeah, I know. I, I think the same thing. Yeah. And I love when people share what they have created too. So that’s, that’s kind of another perk of the show. So where can we find you online so we can follow you and check out what you’re up to?

[00:39:42] Liz: Yeah, thanks for asking. Of course, I’m an email marketer. I’d love for you to join my email list. You can go directly to lizwilcox.com. In the top right hand corner, there’s a hot pink button. You can’t miss it. It says Free Email Swipes. Hot pink button. And it’s gonna give you a couple things to [00:40:00] get your email marketing started.

[00:40:01] It’s gonna give you a welcome sequence so you can guide those new people on your email list into customers, like we were talking about, set them on that journey, right? It’s gonna give you three newsletter samples from email marketing membership. One to show you how to get people to click, another to show you how to get people to reply. And third, one to show you how to get people to buy directly from your newsletter. And if that’s not enough. I’m a little extra and I know writing from scratch totally sucks. You are gonna get 52 subject lines for a year full of prompts, all that for free. lizwilcox.com, hot pink button.

[00:40:36] Rene: Yay. Awesome. Thank you so much, and thank you so much for being here today. I think that the audience will find this immensely valuable.

[00:40:43] Liz: Awesome. I can’t wait to see what everybody creates. Thanks.

[00:40:46] Rene: 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 bi monthly emails about how you can create, launch, and market your first digital product. Can’t wait to see you there.