Megan Martin 0:00
This is talking small business with Kat Schmoyer. And Meghan Martin, a podcast for creatives who like to keep it real about what it actually takes to grow an online business,

Kat Schmoyer 0:09
where competitors turned to biz besties, who chat daily, and now we’re bringing you into the conversation.

Megan Martin 0:19
Welcome friends to another episode of talking small business, Meghan here, and we’re gonna have sort of an entire blog post that is one big unpopular opinion. And when we said that, we wanted to create a podcast where we were going to talk about small business, we really wanted to not only create high value educational content, which you will find here on this podcast, but we want it to get real. When we when Gary and I are boxing together, like we share all of our real thoughts and feelings about running a small business about the industries that we show up in. And we see a lot of things that we just don’t agree with. And we’re going to talk about one of those topics today. And it’s all about when people, aka educators and the small business world tell us that you should only sell one thing, and that’s how you become a millionaire, or whatever it is that they’re schlepping with their messaging, Kat and I have talked so extensively personally about this and how we feel about people who say, you should only sell one thing, and we just wanted to bring this conversation here to talking small business. So also

Kat Schmoyer 1:32
happy like I have to like I feel like I have to tell everyone like I’m like nervous. I feel like in this situation might in your game to like my like people pleaser. Like it’s fine, like whatever. And then you’re like enneagram eight of like, I don’t know, let’s just have a conversation. I don’t know. I don’t know. We’ll see what happens y’all, we’ll see what happens.

Megan Martin 1:54
No, but honestly, it’s true. Like, you’re such a people pleaser. And I’m such a challenger by nature. And, you know, it can be hard to share your real opinions, right. But I really think that this episode is going to be life giving for some people because that message of only selling one thing can be crushing. Absolutely, actually, if you’re one thing that you’re working on right now is not selling well. So like, Oh, great. Now what I have nothing, you know, right,

Kat Schmoyer 2:26
right. Or, like we’ve talked about, like the lies that we feel like are being bred in a Facebook ad or in other programs that we see. And it’s like, man, but that is not reality for everyone. And there needs to be a lot of little disclaimers about what it means when people say you should only sell one thing.

Megan Martin 2:42
Yeah, so cat super nervous. But when we’re gonna, if we named this podcast, talking small business, like there was no way that we were not going to have real candid conversations about some of the things that we see that were just like, there needs to be disclaimers, just like you just said. So cat, what do we mean by selling one thing,

Kat Schmoyer 3:02
literally sell one thing, like literally you guys, and I don’t know, maybe we’re the only ones that have seen this messaging floating around the small bays, internet worlds, but we’ve seen it before, you know, whether it’s, you know, kind of niching down and saying like, this needs to be the signature, this seems to be what it is that you’re selling, this needs to be who you’re speaking to. But we keep seeing this messaging of selling one thing.

Megan Martin 3:27
So it’s like one product, you have one, whether it’s a physical or Well, I feel like the physical product world is sort of not in this conversation. I think it’s a lot more geared towards people in the digital or service based models. Do you agree with? I agree with that? Yes. Okay. So physical people, physical product people, like we’re not necessarily talking about you, we don’t think you can only sell one physical product. But this really this messaging definitely comes out, in my opinion more when we’re talking about people who are selling things like digital products, templates, courses, memberships, whatever, versus as well as people who sell services. So you focus on one service and one service only and you don’t do anything else. That’s what we’re seeing this messaging come up, and it stirs a lot of feelings within us clearly already from the beginning of this episode. Okay, so on. But what’s interesting about this conversation, surrounding selling only one thing is that we hear this message loud and clear from the people who are educating us. But then somehow, the tables get turned in, then we start talking about diversifying your income from the same people in the same conversation. So like,

Kat Schmoyer 4:39
what I know, it’s literally what’s so baffling, and I am to just put this out there. I’m a huge proponent for diversifying your income like I feel like that is the like lifeblood of creative entrepreneurs is not having necessarily all of your eggs in one basket and being able to dabble. Maybe part of that is because I’m multi passionate and so I love how Not just various revenue streams, but I’m the girl with various brands, you know, multiple brands. But we think about a year like 2020, we could not event professional service professionals like could not have all our eggs in one basket, you couldn’t just sell wedding planning, you couldn’t just sell wedding photography, you weren’t going to be making revenue or as much revenue. And so I’m a huge proponent for diversifying, to really build a foundation and have multiple streams coming in, so that you aren’t just reliant on one market, or one specific thing.

Megan Martin 5:33
I think also, you know, one of the disclaimers we should bring up is that if you take this message to heart of only selling one thing, especially in the beginning phases of your business, that is going to limit your capacity to see what actually works, and to see what products or services really connect with your people who are actually willing to pay you, I love that that’s such a good perspective. So I mean, to to, to save straight from the get go, I’m going to create, say, you know, a course about this specific topic, and that’s the only thing I’m going to ever sell. I just think you’re gonna shoot yourself in the foot by never trying to test the market with other ideas. And so I think that’s a disclaimer that needs to be made from the people who say only sell one thing, maybe when you test the market with a few different ideas or concepts, and then you realize what works, Sure, absolutely run with it, scale it to the moon, whatever, you know, whatever that product or service is, but not having that disclaimer in the first place is detrimental to the people who are trying to build their business. Absolutely. Absolutely. Well, let’s talk

Kat Schmoyer 6:46
about I know we have, we have so many things to talk about with this. But I feel like this kind of lends itself to the next point that we wanted to bring up Megan, around brand messaging when it comes to should you only sell one product selling only one product? like can we talk about the differences in that like, what is the difference between having like crystal clear messaging around who you are serving, but maybe you’re also selling multiple things within that brand?

Megan Martin 7:14
Yeah, so I think that, you know, I, I don’t know what the actual number is, I’m making numbers off the top of my head right now. But it’s something like it’s seven times more costly to get a new customer than to retain a customer, right, get a customer who purchases multiple things. So I think by telling yourself, I’m only going to ever sell one thing like you are putting a limit on how much money you can make in terms of serving that customer with additional products, right, taking that relationship to the next level. And it’s essentially what’s called a value ladder, like creating a value ladder of products in your business. This concept comes from Russell Brunson of clickfunnels. And essentially, it talks about, you know, you have maybe an opt in that’s for free, or you have a super low cost entry, price point for a product or a service, whatever. And then, once you already get that customer in the door, it’s so much easier to sell to them as opposed to try to convince new people to buy. So you could create an entire suite of products that’s going to serve that person over, you know, again, like constantly marketing constantly trying to get leads in the door. But I think that so you could do it that way you could build a business that way. Or you could also have, you could have a lot of talents and strengths. And one specific topic, right like cat, you’re more like this, like you are the quarterly planning girl, you’re the girl who can help you help people plan through plan goals and their business and achieve those goals and their business. Right. And so you don’t just sell to one person, you sell to multiple different people, right, but you have it under this umbrella of the strengths that you have in the experience that you have that can help people. And so I think that you can build a business that doesn’t just sell one thing or sell one thing to one person, you just have to be strategic, when you are talking about whatever product it is. So the difference is like if I if you are on a sales page of mine for say, my membership, I’m only talking to you through the lens of my membership. I’m not talking to you through the lens of everything else that I sell in my business. So I think there’s another little disclaimer here like when you are selling something, only focus on that one thing, but that doesn’t mean that’s the only thing in your business that you have to sell in order to succeed. Absolutely.

Kat Schmoyer 9:48
Absolutely. And knowing I mean you’re you’re the copywriting guru, but knowing when you’re writing that copy, you know when you’re speaking to that person, you are speaking to one person, you know, you have your various cific ideal client in mind, you know her pain points, you know why she needs said product or service from you. And so your marketing and your sales page, all of that collateral is speaking to her. And so that absolutely hands down is so important in the marketing and selling part of your business. But I think that to go to just like piggyback off of Megan’s point here, I think that there is so much more value in your business, if you have that either that value ladder, or you have multiple different products, and your client can kind of jump around and say, Oh, I need help here, oh, I need help here. And you can make one person, a raving fan and send them back to you again and again and again, versus having to convince more people to be your raving fans. Yeah,

Megan Martin 10:48
one thing I think is really interesting. And when I see people putting out the message of you should only sell one thing to be successful is I actually, like, I love to look at the history of their business, right? To see. And when I say history, I’m not going back like 10 years, you know, I’m saying like, Megan is like, in the last six months, what do I see what has happened, you know, and so what I think is really interesting is when I see people who say you should only sell one thing, and like three months ago, they did a giant, like JV affiliate launch with one of these big celebrities, you know, and these big celebrities are selling their courses or their memberships or whatever it is for like $2,000. Right. And so the affiliate split is probably something like 50%. So there’s, you make $1,000 per sale on these giant JV affiliates. And that drives me insane. It drives me crazy when you say you should only sell one thing just be successful. But you’re also over here like, you know, playing this game of like the affiliate marketing. Now, let me be clear, I don’t think there’s anything wrong with being being an affiliate for somebody, I affiliate for lots of people. But that messaging is false. You’re not just selling one thing, you only have one product that you sell in your business under your brand, but you are selling more than one thing, even when you do affiliate launches, you’re still selling something, it’s just not the product that you created. So again, this is a disclaimer that I think needs to be made in this conversation that I’m not just making my income on the product that I created. But I’m also making my income based on somebody else’s product that I am now affiliating for absolutely

Kat Schmoyer 12:34
well, and affiliate marketing can be very, very smart when done strategically, right? Like, rather than, you know, me putting in time, effort, energy, creating content, I can partner with people that I know are really awesome experts in their field, I have an audience that needs what they offer. So let me partner up with them. Like Megan and I are huge proponents for affiliate marketing, when it’s done strategically, our issue with affiliate marketing under this lens is that it feels a little bit sleazy, because you’re saying one thing about you should only sell one thing, but yet you’re going and collaborating with other people and it just doesn’t sit well with us. And even though we’re in the digital marketing age, right, and everybody’s like throwing up Facebook ads and doing this and that we’ve done it too. We’re not knocking any of that. But we want to know that we’re being really, really genuine with a messaging behind what it is that we’re sharing. And we’re not getting somebody in the door or trying to teach somebody one message and not living that out to the fullest in our own businesses.

Megan Martin 13:35
Yeah, like it’s not a big deal. If you want to do an affiliate launch, do it, you know, but just don’t tell budding entrepreneurs that they should only sell one thing because it’s really not the truth, especially if that’s what you that’s how your business works, you know, because again, it comes back to the concept of you are diversifying your income, you are not solely relying on the one product that you say that you focus on because you are doing this JV affiliate launch, like you wouldn’t do that JV affiliate launch. If you didn’t want the money,

Kat Schmoyer 14:07
right, right now, totally. Okay, so let’s talk about I know, this wasn’t in our notes, but I’m just gonna, like throw this out, you might get okay. Because I feel like it’s just really helpful in this conversation, especially through the lens of if you are a new entrepreneur, or you’re just getting started with your product suite testing out either some new products or new services within your audience. How do you know which one to do? Right? Like if you we don’t want to go with the messaging of should you only sell one thing, okay? We’re saying no, don’t just sell one thing like you need to diversify. You need to have more things. But how what would you say Megan is like your number one tip or your you know, top two tips for somebody to do that strategically. So it doesn’t feel like they’re spreading themselves too thin, right? Like I don’t want Okay, I guess let me give you guys this example when I first launched a shop a couple of years ago, I literally think I launched my digital marketing online shop with over 20 products I kid you not, it was awful. It was not a good strategy. I did way too much too soon. Okay, I didn’t test, I just threw up stuff. Now I don’t I say threw up, I worked really hard. I worked really hard to create all of that content and like put it out there. But I didn’t necessarily have a lot of strategy around the launch of this product. So what I don’t want this episode to swing to is you guys listening to this and saying, oh, Megan, and Kat, like, they’re telling me I need to diversify. Like, I don’t need to just sell one thing. So then you go and you create 15 new products in the next month, like, please don’t do that. So Megan, let’s give a little bit of like strategy and feedback for how to start to diversify really well, in your business.

Megan Martin 15:46
Yeah, so there’s a couple ways that you could go about this, in my opinion, number one is to create some sort of like opt in. So a freebie opt in, right around in and around the concept of what you want to eventually sell. So that’s a key point. So that’s actually second. First, you should have a very clear understanding of what it is that you want to test with your market. Right? So think about the product first focus on what is that product? What is it made of? Why does that person need that product? What problem is it gonna fulfill? How is it different than what’s currently on the market, like do the work of really what I call idea mapping, it’s fleshing out what a product is, it doesn’t mean you have to build it right at that point, but it’s understanding those nuances of what you want to create. So that way, when you create content to prime people for the buy, they’re going to be ready to purchase it when it is ready, right when you when you press publish. So step one is flesh out what the idea is. Step two is test your audience with content about that idea. So that’s what I mean by freebie opt in. So create some sort of freebie opt in, I wouldn’t go like bananas trying to create the most like tricked out opt in, but just put content out there, right like and make sure it tightly aligns with that original product idea or service idea, whatever it is. So I would put an opt in out there, see how it resonates? Are people flooding to go opt in, is nobody opting in, like that’s a clear indicator, if nobody is biting on an opt in that maybe you aren’t on the right track. Or you could instead of opting in, if you don’t want to go that route and wait to launch, you could launch a product quickly, you just do it in a minimal way. Right. So maybe that I always love to encourage people, especially in the digital product world to start small first, like, if you have an idea for something, you know, a great example is like you have a talent or experience in something and you immediately like, I want to create a course on this. So in your brain, you start to like build this course out towards this like signature program that you’re going to put out there. It’s like 997, or whatever you know. And so you create this big signature idea in your mind, when what you should really start with is like maybe a guide, or an ebook, or a downloadable product around this concept for a small ticket price, and test the market or maybe instead of a tricked out beautifully designed and produced course, you put together an hour long recorded workshop and you try to sell that workshop for again, I know it sounds like people are like gonna kill me who say you know, charge what you’re worth, and I believe in charging what you’re worth. But by creating lower ticket price products, you can test your market really, really fast. If nobody is willing to spend 27 or 47 or maybe $97 on something, then they’re probably not going to want to spend $2,000 on your signature program like that allows you to test the market fast.

Kat Schmoyer 18:50
I love all of those a my current shop y’all is exactly what Megan was just talking about. I put together small pieces of content for low cost, because I wanted to start to test out i knew i want i know i still want to create a course like that’s on the pipeline for my own business plan within the next couple of months. But I wasn’t quite sure which direction to go. So by putting together some very small pieces of advice a small they were still you know, several hours or you know, some bundles of content and things like it’s, it’s still a good value for the purchaser like for my customer, but it’s allowed me on the back end to see like, what’s the most popular what questions are people asking are people willing to put money to purchase something it’s different than a free often so I think that’s such good advice. I also feel like all of those things you said Megan from the you know, really assessing what it is you want to sell to looking at the opt in or to potentially putting together some you know smaller price items. All of that comes back to understanding your audience. So knowing like your audience pulse, I do believe that you can sell to a small Audience I We are not here to tell you that you have to have the fancy k even though Megan has the fancy K, on her Instagram, she gets a swipe up, I don’t get to swipe up, it’s fine. I’m not salty about it, you know, we’re not, we’re not going to tell you, you know, you have to have XY and Z before launching your next service or before putting together your first product launch like absolutely not, I do think that small but mighty, but you do whether it’s big or small, have to have a good pulse on your people. And so when you’re starting to diversify, you need to know what they want from you. And so go through some of those steps that Megan mentioned, and also just be really engaged with your people be active in the places that they are active so that you can best understand what it is that they are looking for. I’m also a huge proponent, which I’m not sure how Meghan feels about this, but I’m a huge proponent for trying something potentially as a service before you flip it to a digital product. For most things, obviously, like a membership community, like there’s some things that you can’t necessarily do that for just because of the nature of the digital product. But if you’re thinking about creating a signature course, and you want to teach somebody how to quarterly plan, start by actually working one on one with people on how to quarterly plan, you’re going to get really great market research that will help you continue to refine and define the products and the ways that you want to diversify the actual revenue in your business. Absolutely, I

Megan Martin 21:35
couldn’t agree more. I mean, when I launched my line of show website templates, that’s exactly what I did. I mean, I was previously a website designer. So I worked one on one to build custom websites for people. But when I decided to move into the digital product world with website design, I did just that I actually put out a message on Instagram, and I said, I am looking for a few specific people. And I put down these notes on my Instagram store. And it was like you must love color. Because we know me, I’m like crazy about color, you must need a new website. And you must be willing to have that website be turned into a template that I can sell to somebody else. And I got bytes on that. And so my original website template line, were actual templates that I built custom for other people as one on one services, they just allowed me to flip them into products after them after that point. But that is such a great segue here. Because, you know, you’re never gonna get the kind of feedback and insight that you need to succeed even in the digital product world if you don’t actually talk to real people and working for real people and having to present provide results for real people. Is that just takes that up a notch?

Kat Schmoyer 22:57
Absolutely, absolutely. So I know we I know we like caveated slightly y’all from like, what we what we titled this episode, but I didn’t like I mentioned before, I didn’t want to just leave you guys with like, we don’t believe you should only sell one thing and not necessarily help you figure out what else you should sell. Clearly a Meghan and I have multiple streams of revenue, and each of our brands, we are huge proponents for diversifying, but we’re doing it strategically. So we don’t just want you to throw spaghetti on the wall. We don’t just want you to haphazardly spend all this time and effort into launching something new and not necessarily getting the revenue from it that you want it. There are, you know, some some things that can be done on the back end? Just like what Megan, you know, kind of explained to you guys before, but I think that that is what would be so beneficial when thinking through Okay, I don’t just want to sell one thing. What do I need to do next?

Megan Martin 23:53
Yeah, I think another disclaimer like to move on to another point is that people when people say you should only sell one thing that I think we should talk about is what like, they also don’t mention that the one thing that they sell is in so high demand that they are able to only sell one thing and a great example of this is for you know, like, we’ve used this example before cat and I in our own conversations, but for example somebody who is like an attorney, right? If you’re an attorney, you went to school, right? Like not everybody can be an attorney, right? Like we didn’t all go to school to be an attorney. But everybody in the small business world needs a contract, right? In order to be a legitimate business run a legally legit business, right? So somebody who’s for example, is an attorney and creates something like a digital product, maybe like a contract template. That business model is gangbusters like I’m not gonna lie every single small business no matter what your niche or you’re into Three is need a valid contract or need some sort of legal protection. So you are entering a market with an advantage over other people who sell things that are not so highly demanded. Right. And so I think this is a disclaimer that we need to know about the people that we’re learning from and the people who are selling, hey, you should only sell one thing to be successful, what is it that they’re selling, and is that products so and so high demand that it allows them to only one sell versus a person who may be selling something that’s like, not the sexy grab or not the must have grab?

Kat Schmoyer 25:34
Absolutely. And this is not to say that those that are creating a, you know, contract template shop, you know, in this specific example, like, it’s not to say that they’re not really, really good at what they do, and working really, really hard to get the sales that they are getting, or to serve the people that they’re serving, I’m sure that they are, it’s just to put it through this reality check for the rest of us, like, Hey, I’m not a lawyer, I had no desire to go to law school, even though I love our kids, right? no desire to go to law school. So I didn’t go to law school. Therefore, I could not create a contract template for other small business owners, even though I’m like, Man, that’s a really great business model, I kind of wish I’d gone to law school now, like, I can’t do that. That’s not my area of expertise. And so that’s awesome that those of us that need that area of expertise can go to those business owners, and get that when we need it, which hopefully, all of you guys have a contract, in your business, whatever it is that you do. But I just want to make the people pleaser in me is like, let’s just make sure everybody knows, like, I know, they’re working really, really hard. But for the rest of us understanding like, hey, they can put all of their eggs in one basket and sell one thing, because of the demand supply and demand, y’all basic economics, there is a demand for their product, and they can continue to hustle and get more sales with just one product than if they potentially spread themselves and diversify their income even more.

Megan Martin 27:00
Right. And it’s my goal was not to, you know, dog on attorneys or whatever, but it was just a good it’s a good example. Right? Everybody needs a contract that is a must have high demand product with low supply. You know, absolutely.

Kat Schmoyer 27:13
I also think this is really interesting hearing, like how you’re answering even, you know, this conversation, Megan, you’ve I feel like you’ve said multiple times, like Why did my research, right, you know, it’s decided to like, look into this business owner, I’m taking, you know, a higher level understanding of what it is that they do or who it is they serve and what they sell. And I think this is, I know another caveat, I apologize. But just to point out like, this is something that we could all do better. We could all rather than just reading something on an Instagram post or reading something that seems flashy and sexy, and Facebook ad and actually understand, but wait, what is the lens at which this is being taught to me? And is this coming from somebody that does have supply and demand working in their favor? Therefore, of course, they’re going to believe that you should only sell one product, right? Or is this coming from somebody that maybe is also doing some JV launches, and not necessarily being as like upfront and you know, honest about all of these other revenue streams that are in their business. So I think just really helpful for all of us, myself included in here to think about, like when I’m reading something from another educator, or seeing, you know, this Facebook ad that I’m being hit with, like, let me actually take a step back and assess, like, who is speaking to me right now? And what gives them the authority like, what is their business background? To have this opinion?

Megan Martin 28:38
Yeah, absolutely. And I think it brings up the thought process of urgency in my mind, you know, especially when it comes to ads, or if somebody launches their course, we’re talking about educators here right now. But if like, say somebody launches a course, or opens up the doors to their membership, or whatever you have, and there’s urgency built into their strategy in some way, shape, or form. So maybe you land on an ad, you get on a sales page, just like you have 15 minutes to make a decision on this or it’s like my cart closes and I’m not opening it again. I never I don’t have any idea when I’m going to open it again. I love when people say you know, I just want to like encourage you This is so unpopular opinion of me but like I want to encourage you to like pause. And this is like talking to the girl on the other side of the screen. That is the urgency Queen, but seriously, pause because I’m going to guarantee you that they’re going to open it up again, or I’m going to guarantee you that you can actually you you probably have more than 15 minutes you can there’s a will where there’s a will there’s a way like urgency is such a powerful closer but sometimes it’s to our detriment. And I love to do my research. I think it’s really really important that you do research the the educators that you are buying into, to save yourself a lot of heartache to make sure that they that not only they have legitimacy, and they have the experience to sell what they want to sell. But you also need to vibe with them, right? Like you need to know their values. You need to know how they present content to decide if you want to buy into their products and services. So do your research. Take a moment and pause if you can’t get something because it’s closing for six months. Like, that’s okay. You probably have a lot of work to do anyways, like you can revisit this in six months. If it’s really that important to you. Like I would really encourage you to do your research before you buy in any circumstance. Absolutely. And yes, I do love the urgency scarcity model.

Kat Schmoyer 30:35
It has worked well with our conference launches. And but none of that was in the, you know, deadline funnel type of way that was legitimately Okay, no, we only have this number, like this many chairs in the venue like this is you know, this is the cap. I do agree. I think there is always time and marketers, I mean, Meg and I’ve done it to y’all. So this is not us like hounding other people, like we have absolutely gotten caught up in the frenzy of like, you know, we need to say this a certain way in order to get people to click by and I think over the years, Meghan and I, I mean, I know I can only speak for myself, but I just feel like based on like, our friendship level, I can speak for both. And that we’ve just, I don’t know, like taken turned a corner in that thought process and really started to think about, like, what are ways that we can take this digital space and make it feel more real, and make it really be genuine with what it is that we’re selling? who it is that we’re speaking to, and doing exactly what Megan said, like taking that step back is one, one part of that, right, like doing your research, and I love her point of it will still be there in six months, if that’s when they say they’re gonna open it up again, it’ll still be there. And then if you really want it by then your business is not going to die in the six months between now and then.

Megan Martin 31:49
Absolutely. And if they ever do say, I don’t know, when we’re going to open this up again, like I guarantee you they know they’re if they’re if they you know people who I love it when they’re like, they close the launch, and they’re like, Oh, we you know, look a look back on my multi six figure launch. I guarantee you, if somebody has a multi six figure or seven figure launch, they’re never gonna not open it again. Like they’re gonna open it again, because they want money again. Right, right. Like, yeah, it’s just to the point of like, urgent, I have nothing against the urgency and scarcity model. I really don’t like there are reasons why you should close the cart at a certain time. There are absolutely reasons why and go for it. Even if you don’t have a reason of like time or whatever, like and you just want to you want to run your business that way. Like it’s totally fine. I’m not dogging on urgency scarcity model. But from a consumer perspective, it is a very powerful, universal psychological trigger. That was a lot of words, but it is a trigger. And it compels us as humans to act and move when urgency and scarcity are in play. That’s why I look at Black Friday, and people trample over each other because urgency and scarcity are in play. It’s a very powerful trigger. And I just want to encourage you as a consumer, that you can make smart buying decisions here and do your research. Even if that means you can’t get in the doors. If they say it ends at a certain time. That was such a huge caveat. But I do love like that

Kat Schmoyer 33:22
that got brought up here. mutale. And honestly, that’s how it really is in our box conversation.

So we started talking about one thing we and talking about something else totally vibe. Welcome. Welcome to the to the podcast, y’all.

Megan Martin 33:36
Yeah, so cat, let’s end this by talking about going back to that idea of the value ladder. How, tell me your experience of how you’ve created a value ladder in your business.

Kat Schmoyer 33:47
So my value ladder definitely is not necessarily the most like cookie cutter value ladder, I do have some revenue streams that are a little bit more, you know, similar to what Meghan touched on at the beginning of this episode with you know, an entry point and then kind of moving people down the funnel so to speak. So moving people from Okay, so the purpose would be for them to join via this opt in and then grab this product first and then go over to this product and then sign up for coaching. Like you know, I do have some funnels like that. But mine as a whole is a little bit more high level I guess and not high level in that it’s more complicated. I just, it’s more about you have to take a 1000 foot view to really see all of these moving pieces because I do have multiple brands. So I have the Kat Schmoyer brand, where I offer quarterly planning how tos tips and tricks, my integrator agency, coaching mastermind, like all of those things, and then I have the conference. And so within our conference, we not only have our you know, annual conference, but we have our membership community as well. And so the way that I like to describe both of those brands is that one is the right arm and one is the left and I’m actually serving multiple clients multiple different revenue streams and they’re bouncing around. So somebody could find me from the conference, and then jump over and want one on one coaching, or somebody could find my shop and grab some Trello templates and then decide to join our conference membership community. And mine really is this like, kind of big mixing pot of brands and have revenue streams and have like, ideal clients within that brand or those brands. And for a while the Type A in me hated that, like I wanted like a straight line, you know, I wanted to know, okay, well, this, they’re going to get this offer first, and then they’re going to go to get this offer, and then they’re going to go to get this offer. And then they’re done with all of the things that I can offer them. And I hope they have like a really great, wonderful like business experience. But that’s just not the way that my multi passionate like brain works and the way that the brands have kind of evolved over the last few years.

Megan Martin 35:51
I love that I love that. It’s like a mixing pot. And it allows people to create their own customer journeys under your brand, your right arm and your left arm of your offerings, I think. And I mean, that’s how consumers work. Like, that’s how we literally like work, right? Like I bounced around all the time in my shopping, you know, and so to have a brand where people can like create their own customer journeys, I think is really powerful. And it works under your circumstance because you, you specialize in the skills that you have, right of like helping people plan and execute in their business, essentially. And so there’s different offerings and levels of ways that you can help people implement planning and taking action on those goals. Throughout the whole mixing bowl of your products, I feel like for me, my value ladder is linear up until a point and then it turns into a mixing bowl. So for example, like I in 2020, launched my membership for the called the digital lab, it’s for digital business owners. And I’m going to be honest, I only sold one thing in 2020. So this is like another disclaimer here. And this whole conversation is like sell one thing for as long as it takes for you to establish a really strong product and a really strong sales process, right? Like I love that. That concept of really focusing on like getting a strong strong product up and running or service, whatever it is. So I sold all year long only talked about the digital lab in 2020. And then I realized, hey, there’s something missing here. And so I’ve almost like established my value ladder backwards as opposed to like starting with an opt in, I started with a product that was like, honestly, like my midpoint of my value ladder. And now I’m realizing that there is a product that needs to be sold before you enter the digital lab, which is a course. So now I’m creating a course I’m like working backwards here. And now I know what options I need to create, in order to lead somebody to that course, which is going to lead somebody to the digital lab. And then so that’s a really like linear customer journey that I have. But then I sort of have this mixing pot, I have website templates in the works are not in the works are actually done. They’re out there in the world, right? I have, you know, more like one on one mastermind type of products that are going to be coming out soon, maybe a live event. But mine all fit under this umbrella of who I serve, right like my brand. My brand focus or my unique value proposition from a Meghan Martin creative brand level is that I talk to people who create digital products. And so I think you can also focus, you can focus like cat did, where you’re like, hey, my strength, my experience, what I can do for you is the brand focus that’s like how you approach this, my brand focus is similar yet different, because it’s all talking to one specific person. And then underneath that umbrella is all of the different strengths and experiences and ways that I can serve you, right. And so I think that you can create a brand, create products, but you’re gonna see more traction, as opposed to selling a bunch of different things to a bunch of different people that don’t make sense. And they don’t connect in any way, shape or form. Yeah, don’t do that. You’re gonna struggle, okay, but you can sell you can diversify your income, as long as you have some sort of strong brand focus. And I think that’s where you can start. If you are like, I don’t know, what should I sell? Or where should I start, start at your brand focus? Who are you going to focus on or what strengths and ability and transformations are you going to focus on?

Kat Schmoyer 39:27
Absolutely. And also to to give another little I feel like we’ve said like disclaimer, like 17 episode, but to give another one y’all don’t feel like you have to know all of the answers right now. Megan and I, I mean, y’all if you really could hear all of the Vox conversations we’ve had around like, Well, how do I serve people with this and how does this work like I struggled for years, you guys literally years on the creative at heart brand versus the cash on your branch because for a while It felt like versus it felt like I either was spending all my time in one branch and not on the other or on my time on another and not on the other. Like, it just was very convoluted in my brain with my customer journey and where my time needed to be spent like it was a lot. And so it has been, for me clarity in making moves in those areas. So I don’t want you guys to leave here and throw spaghetti on the wall, I don’t want you to leave here and just like whip out a bunch of offers and spend all this time and effort on these offers and not have the audience for them. No, but I don’t want you to be paralyzed by trying to know the end result before you’ve even started. And so I want to like just really reiterate and encourage you guys to get started to say like, okay, maybe this is going to be the first offering in your business and take what we’ve talked about to heart go back out, we can link the minute that you know when Meghan was talking about this, but when she was sharing, like some of those strategies to think about when diversifying, like think through that, whether it’s your first product, or you’re thinking through creating multiple products or services, but give yourself the time to start. And then as you start you will be able to connect the dots, you will absolutely be able to look back six months from now and see like, oh, okay, this is going to here and then this may be help is going to help people get here and you will start to see all of the moving pieces come together?

Megan Martin 41:24
Absolutely let revenue be what guides your decisions and all of this. Absolutely no, you’ll know at the end of the day, if you if you’re selling and you’re hitting your goals, you’re doing something right. If you’re not, we need to make some shifts and changes and maybe it’s time to test something different. All right, friends, I think that this was such a cool, candid conversation. I hope it was encouraging and enlightening for you. Should you sell only one thing? I don’t know. You tell us we would love to hear from you other maybe on Instagram or in a comment right here on the podcast page, sharing with us what you think should you only sell one thing. We know that we are not right about everything. This is our opinions. Remember, like it was a little bit of an unpopular opinion. But at the end of the day, these are our thoughts, our opinions and we want to welcome you into this conversation. So please feel free to share your thoughts with us. We’ll Of course link all the resources that have been mentioned in this podcast on our website. And we cannot wait to catch you in the next candid conversation.

Transcribed by https://otter.ai