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
We’re competitors turned to biz besties who chat daily and now we’re bringing you into the conversation.
Hey y’all Kat here, welcome to another episode of talking small business. In today’s episode, we are going to be talking specifically to those of you who either have or are thinking about creating a digital product in your business. We’ve talked about digital products before y’all know Megan is our go to expert for digital products. That’s her whole business is built on a foundation of digital revenue. And she’s also the ideal girl. So in today’s episode, I want to pick her brain a little bit and share with you all her expertise for helping you uncover how to come up with a digital product that you should create in your business. Something that’s not only interesting to you and something you’re passionate about, but also that your people actually want to purchase because the whole point of creating a digital product is to also then bring in revenue. So Megan hotseat time for you again today.
Megan Martin 1:17
keep getting in the hot seat.
Kat Schmoyer 1:19
No, what are we doing here?
Megan Martin 1:22
I’m super pumped about this topic. This is something I’m so passionate about. I feel like my little hidden, like talent is that I could pretty much sit with anybody and hear their life story and their life experience and help them come up with a digital product. So it was I, I essentially like, tried to turn my ability into a course that’s what revenue ripple is all about. But it was I just I really do love like coming up with ideas. I feel like I get about 25 ideas a day, and I have to like stuffed them down to the depths of
Kat Schmoyer 2:01
a true visionary. Like my brain would explode. I’d be like, No, no, no, no, no.
Megan Martin 2:05
I’m constantly seeing business ideas all the time. And I like I remember I used to, I used to say that I should make a business of being somebody who generates business ideas just for other people. Like, that’s actually my dream job.
Kat Schmoyer 2:20
I think that’s so true. And it’s also I feel like what you’ve been able to do like with even in the digital lab, like with getting to work with your members, and like getting to help them brainstorm and verbally process like, what should the idea be? Which direction? Should we go? Like all of that?
Megan Martin 2:35
Yeah. So let’s just like start off by talking about, you know, how, like, where do you generate an idea from I feel like a lot of people, there’s like people in my like, there’s I have customers of mine who are usually in two different camps. Either you’re in camp like that you don’t have any idea what you could sell, like, you love the idea of passive revenue, you love the idea of creating a digital product, but you just don’t know what to sell. And there’s also people in the camp that are more like me, who just have ideas like growing out of their hair, like they just ideas everywhere, you know, but even if you’re like that person that has a ton of ideas, it doesn’t necessarily mean that you can generate ideas that are going to be profitable ideas. So no matter what camp that you’re in, I really want to help you determine how to pick a digital product. That’s not like you said, cat, not only just going to be exciting for you, but also going to be profitable for you. So to start, I think there’s a few different things I would suggest thinking about if you’re like, where do I start with an idea for a digital product. The first is I would say, look at your life experience. I feel like people when they think about starting with digital products, they’re like, trying to come up with the next greatest idea. And they’re like trying to like wrack their brain of like, what could they invent? Like the next like crazy seller, you know that like the next Amy Porterfield type of idea, and I want you to like rein it all the way back.
Kat Schmoyer 4:11
Stop being a three, that’s what you’re telling you. Like, stop trying to just beat everybody else. Like it’s
Megan Martin 4:18
like, I want you to like rein this all the way back in and stop trying to invent something like we’re not trying to like, if you have something and you’re like an inventor at heart, like please go for it. But like for the most of us, you don’t have to pull things out of a magic hat in order to create a digital product. I want you to I teach this in my course, that no matter if you have all the ideas or if you’re like stuck with no ideas where you need to look is inward and not outward. Which is totally different than I think most everybody teaches. Even some of my students inside the course have said like I’ve never heard someone say it this way. Most people think if I need to create a product what’s the Natural first thing that I do I go speak to every person on the planet that I can think of and ask them what they want. And while that’s valid, and it is a part of product creation, I think it’s a very important step of product creation. I don’t think it should be the first step of product creation. I think the first step of product creation should be looking inward to things like your life experience, what have you done in your life, that’s really interesting. Or maybe if you don’t even think your life is that interesting, what have you spent a lot of time focusing on, whether that’s something you’ve been learning about, or some sort of skill that you’ve acquired, that you spend a lot of time on, these are types of things that you could actually turn into a digital product. And I also do, like, I know, it’s not just about passion of what’s going to sell, but you need to be passionate about whatever it is that you’re selling, you do need to be passionate about your digital product, because guess what, you have to sell that thing every single day. And a digital product is so difficult in terms of sales, because you can’t show it. That is one of our hardest hills that we have to climb as digital business owners like even cat. We’re like on video right now doing this podcast. And I can see behind her in her desk, she’s got her giant printable calendar that she sells as a digital product she like you have a little bit easier cat honestly than a lot of us because you while it is a digital product, it’s a physical, like you can show it in a physical way. That’s awesome. You know, but for a lot of us who are creating things like courses, or memberships, or templates or whatever, templates a little bit more you can show. But like courses and memberships specifically, it’s really, really difficult to show tangible tangibly, the value of the product that we are selling. And if you are not truly passionate about that product, you are going to be so annoyed selling day in and day out, right? Yes, yeah, imagine like talking over and over and over and over and over and over and over again about something that you’re not passionate about like it would.
Kat Schmoyer 7:05
And to like chime in there, Megan, I feel like we’ve both done like we’ve done this in our businesses where like we created a product. And maybe at the time, I’m thinking of like a course in particular actually the very first course I ever created at the time, I was really passionate about it. But I outgrew that passion, like I all of a sudden wasn’t passionate about it anymore. And then it felt like pulling teeth for me to even talk about it. So like, if I don’t really believe in the product, if I’m not super passionate about it, I’m not going to be able to convince somebody else. And for me, I need to just close the door, the product, the course isn’t even available on my website anymore. Maybe that’s not the smartest business thing, because it’s all done. It’s like back jump. It’s sitting in a dropbox folder right now. But I don’t sell it anymore.
Megan Martin 7:45
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and that’s, I think that’s a permission slip to to say like, you can create a product and doesn’t have to be the product that you sell for the rest of your life. Like I have digital products that I created that no longer are live and you can’t purchase them anymore. I love them for the time and now they don’t work in my business, and that’s fine. Um, but I do think, you know, at the time of you creating a product, you really do need to be passionate about something. And yes, you want to make sure that people actually want this product. But first, you know, you need to look inward and say what makes me unique, what makes me unique, and the way that I get something done, or the way that I have created whatever it is that you are really passionate about. I would I don’t want you to do when you’re first trying to come up with an idea is look online at what other people are selling in genre. Again, market research, a very important step in product creation. But it’s not the first step to coming up with a good product idea that is going to lead you down a hole of potentially copying someone, whether intentionally or unintentionally. And we don’t want to do that. So I always encourage my students to look inward first. And a really easy way that you can generate an idea is a concept that I teach called selling your sawdust. Have you ever heard
Kat Schmoyer 9:02
of this cat? No, I’m so excited. Alright, tell me more. Okay,
Megan Martin 9:05
I didn’t come up with this. So like I don’t remember the name of the man who comes to like, share it in my course. But so this is a concept that it’s really fascinating if you’re a nerdy person like me. Okay, so essentially like way back in the day when this whole concept of selling your thoughts comes from lumber yards and lumber yards when you go to Home Depot and you buy a huge piece of wood that came from a lumber yard they had to cut the wood into that shape that then you got from Home Depot. Well, when you are cutting trees or cutting wood, there’s a ton of sawdust. If you’ve ever cut a piece of wood, you know that sawdust comes out of cutting it right. So imagine huge lumber yards that are cutting tons of wood. You can only imagine the amount of sawdust that they produce on any given day. It’s like astron amicale. Now, way back in the day, lumber yards, were trying to figure out how to get rid of this stuff. They’re like this is a nuisance to me. And so they would literally go out in the middle of forests, and they would try to burn the sawdust, they would do anything they could do to like they would throw it in the trash, they would do anything they could do to get rid of it until someone who was really smart thought, Wait a second, this is a resource that we are creating every single day in our business. Can we do something with it? And so guess what? Every single piece of furniture furniture that you buy from IKEA was built, because someone thought, What can I create with a byproduct of the work that I’m doing the main job that I’m doing every single piece of furniture like all these particles were fascinating, that fascinating particle board literally is made of sawdust. And so there’s tons of companies that sell product by products of lumber yards that are making wood for you to go buy at Home Depot. Totally fascinating, right? So this is something I teach to my students is I want you to look at whether whether you have a business or not, I want you to look at your life, your life experiences, what are you doing day in and day out? And can you find a byproduct of your day. So a really tangible example of this is my husband. And he is I mean, he loves real estate and he really like it for our entire marriage, he has had a goal that he wanted us to have a portfolio of rental properties. And so as a husband and wife team like just us together, we have been investing in residential real estate from the beginning of our marriage like it was like your as soon as we hit our first anniversary, we bought our first home and that kind of like kicked off this experience for us. And so we are now in our fifth home. And because of all of the time investing and like the money that we spent and all of the work that Jeremy’s done to get tenants and people paying for our mortgage, and all of the things that goes into running a residential real estate rental property portfolio, Jeremy has learned so much about that that world right? And so it’s not that hard for him to think okay, we’re doing this every single This is literally our life like we have an a portfolio of investment properties. I could teach somebody I could take the byproduct of all of that time, effort, resources and energy and teach somebody else what I have learned and that is such an easy way to create a digital product is to look at what have you spent so much time energy resources and investments in and could you create a digital product Could you turn around and turn it into something else? That’s a totally different revenue stream like we didn’t start investing into real estate to make money in a digital product but it’s a natural next step for us to turn around and teach an entire course on how to do what we have done
Kat Schmoyer 13:16
I feel like this is genius Megan like I know you didn’t create that idea um but I I’m literally sitting here right now in my own business thinking through like what are the byproducts like what are the offers that I’m potentially just leaving on the table right now what are these things that I do on a regular basis that I could package up and sell
Megan Martin 13:36
well and you honestly cat I actually talked about you on my course I share your example like your your calendar is an exam like is a total representation of this like you are the planner girl right like you’re the quarterly calendar girl. You are type a to a tee you love color coding like you you’ve been this girl who’s like been tied to her planner forever it’s so natural for you to have turned that passion and that experience that you have that actually has brought you real results into your life into a product and it doesn’t have to be some giant huge Signature Course it’s a printable, a printable calendar that you made I don’t you didn’t even realize that you did that like no I know you know, but that’s been a revenue stream and it’s been so exciting cat when like you send me Vox messages like I made X amount of money like for my calendar this month and I didn’t even know that was going to happen like that is the power of turning inward and creating something based off your unique experience. And not because you are trying to innovate and like are not correct. Yes, we do want to innovate not because you’re trying to like invent the next best, right? Right most expensive product that could ever be put on the market.
Kat Schmoyer 14:50
Well, no, I think I think that’s such a good point because I feel like as creatives like I know, I joked like don’t be in enneagram three Like when you’re creating something, but like really though, you’re like, that’s what we tried to do. And so like for me with a calendar, I actually hesitated to create it. Because gosh, you could go on Etsy and search for printable calendar. And you can probably find several 100, right? Like they’re there. They’re not that hard to create, like, it’s a thing, okay? So I was not the first I didn’t innovate this, I didn’t break a mold and doing something different. However, it was something that tied in with other offerings and services that I provided was a missing link for my client, like my potential clients, and in my own little bubble of the industry has proven to work really, really well. So I want that to be a permission slip for all the threes out there that are starting where Megan says not to start, right. And starting with the competition side, like we’re going straight to market research, who else is doing it? How can I beat them? What can I do different? Like, I think it’s genius to instead be like, No, I just need to think about myself for a minute. And I need to really look at what I do. What I’m good at doing. What are other people asking me like, what what do they see in me, versus all the sudden going outward?
Megan Martin 16:07
Yeah. And it’s it’s exactly how I teach my course, like in a chronological way we turn inward. First, we look at our life experiences. We look at, again, what we’ve spent time, money and resources investing in. And we look at what we’re passionate about. And also we look at what makes us unique, before we ever look outward, and then once we have an idea that that is like birthed from looking inward, then I say, Okay, let’s go market research through the lens of not how do I make sure my product is up to snuff WITH the Joneses on the market? But how can I validate that my concept is actually unique. And if I’m seeing that my idea is not as unique as I thought it was, I need to guess what not, not try to like one up my competition, it’s actually look inward again, and dig deeper to figure out like, what makes me unique, and what makes my the way that I approached this process or topic unique in order to differentiate myself from the market. So it’s, it’s like a total spin on the typical product creation concept.
Kat Schmoyer 17:20
So when doing that, like when thinking inward about, about what we’re good at, and what we like doing and things like that, are you I’m like, again, maybe I’m going to like logistical maybe my typing before happening here. But I need I would love to hear does this is this more of like kind of a brain dump of like, oh, maybe I could do this? Or maybe I could do that? Or is this, like the product type is being factored into this conversation? Does that make sense? What I’m saying like, are you in this phase thinking through like, Oh, I could make a course on this? Or is this more just idea generation and then you decide what product to type? After you’ve done some more market research, like further on in the process? Or what what does it look like?
Megan Martin 18:02
So I in my course, I, I definitely encourage my students to create what I call your sodoes list. So I say, you know, okay, look at all the things that you love in your life. And then let’s brain dump it. And I like, when you’re in the idea phase. The other thing is, like, you’ll come up with an idea and you like, just start running. And I am like, Whoa, we’re gonna hold on for a second, I want you to like, dream as big as you possibly can. Like as many things as you can imagine, I want you to write on a list. Because what happens a lot of times when you get an idea and you start run with it, then like later on, your idea starts to get convoluted with new ideas, and then you like start creating a product, that doesn’t even make sense anymore. And so instead of like going down that path, I say, let’s bring up as many possible ideas on the planet that we can think of right now based on you know, our sadhas that we are creating every day in our life in some way, shape or another. And I would say you can come up with tons of ideas that are very similar. So you could create a membership about the same topic that you could create a course about that you could create a printable about, right. So like I literally say, like, hey, let’s bring up every single idea that you can think of, and then we’re gonna whittle it down from there.
Kat Schmoyer 19:18
I think that’s, I mean, of course, it’s the most strategic You’re so strategic anyway. But I feel like that makes sense because it allows you the flexibility of don’t feel like you have to know all the things right away, like the sawdust list can feel more open, like let’s just put out all of the ideas. And then from there, think through Where could this go because for all of those different product types, there’s a lot of layers to that, like it’s a membership and of course are vastly different and you need to weigh those options when thinking about the sawdust list two.
Megan Martin 19:49
Yeah. And the other thing I teach my students is, you know, I’m be real with you. The dream of passive profit is sold just an original Kill this way, okay. And I hope and pray that I’m not a part of that. And if I am, please call me out and I will fix whatever messaging needs to be fixed. But like, a lot of people who teach about digital products and passive profit, like they’re, it’s just, it’s ridiculous. Like, the expectation level is just beyond reasonable at this point. You know, the dream is I’m going to create a course, and I’m going to launch it, and I’m going to have a six figure launch. And I’m going to like, make a bunch of money, and then I’m going to be able to do whatever I want. And then I’m gonna become a seven figure business owner by launch three, like it’s just, it’s not reasonable, it’s not reasonable, you know, that cat with your Oh, no, it’s not reasonable at all. It’s not and it takes a lot of freaking work like passive profit is not passive for a long time. Honestly, it is, it’s a lot of work. And it’s really a disservice to people to teach people to create these giant products, when it’s their first go around. It’s a huge, huge disservice to a lot of people to invest a lot of time, money and resources into creating giant products. And when I say giant products, I’m talking about like, imagine like this, the concept of the Signature Course that’s like, 10 hours long and content with a huge resource of different printables and workbook and, you know, I’m going to send you a gift in the mail when you join, like I’m talking like these, like 1000 2000 $3,000 courses. And you see the numbers like, right, we’re not dumb, like, we can see the numbers, if I sell $1,000 course, to 100 people like, I’m done, like, right? on, you know, like, that’s exciting, you can see the numbers and like that vision, that dream is so big and your mind and it’s like, that’s not reality, for the most part, like the majority of people when they’re starting out like it’s just, it’s to like expect that you can launch something like that, for your first go round as a digital product creator, I just think is a huge disservice. And so I teach in my my course that, honestly, out of all the ideas that you just put on your sadhas list, I would pick whatever is the absolute easiest to put together right now. Like what’s going to be the what is going to be something that you’re still passionate about. But something that’s really quick and easy that you can put together. And again, it’s like the concept of testing the market. Like, you’ve got to put something out there and see if people bite and see if people start talking to you about this concept. If not, you’re going to spend a lot of time and energy potentially creating a giant product that might not move. Or maybe it would move if you would have spent more time building an audience. And guess what you can build an audience with a low ticket product.
Kat Schmoyer 22:43
Right? Right. I think that is hitting the nail on the head. Megan, for I know I said this before, but like our industry is so enneagram three, like our industry is so I have to achieve, I have to be the best of the best like, or maybe it’s not even threes, if you’re listening and you’re not tell me I’m not the only one. Maybe it’s just a comparison thing of we see the things on Instagram, right? And it’s like, Man, I’ve got to do this. And I’ve got to beat this. And I’ve got to be the first one out of the gate here, I need to do this brand new thing. And so we stress ourselves out by having to make this signature quite like I actually hate the phrase signature. I just feel like there’s so much pressure. And I’m like no, go to my website. I don’t have anything Signature Course on there. I’m like, No, I don’t want that pressure on me. Yeah, I just but we do that we like put this pressure of it has to be the mountain or nothing like all or nothing. And what I love about your approach, like with revenue ripple, and the way that you’re serving, like the digital lab members, is that, hey, it can be the easiest thing first, like you can start small, and you can build from there. And actually, if we really think about it, from both a financial standpoint and a time investment standpoint, that’s the smartest thing to do. Why not start small, minimal time that it takes to do it minimal financial commitment that it takes you to film or edit or put together or whatever it is that you’re you know, creating, get it out there and see what the market says And then from there, move up. And I mean, that’s what I did with my calendar. It was like this is a $9 calendar, but I’m gonna put it out there do people like this? Do people think it’s silly that I’ve decided to go into like this product world? No, they like it a lot. So now what else can I do? And how can I leverage the $9 product with more offers that are associated with it that that audience is asking for?
Megan Martin 24:35
Yeah. And I think you’ve got to like you have to it’s like the concept of the iceberg. You know, like you can see the tip of the iceberg on top of the water but you like the majority of the iceberg lives underneath the water and you can’t see and I think a lot of people talk about like, people success in this concept where you can see like the tip of their success is above the water but all the work that went into that. Success is underneath the water. And that’s what I would like encourage you to think through when you’re in the idea deviation phase like, think about companies that don’t sell digital products. Think about companies like, you know, Uber, or Airbnb, like, we know, they are like a part of our lives now, because they are these like widespread, well known companies. But they weren’t always like that they had to test the market in some way to determine is my idea, a good idea. They didn’t jump, they didn’t launch with a global website. Right? Right, they probably started small, and whatever city, that person who made up the idea, and started testing out this idea and their local market, right. And so again, I think it’s so easy, I don’t know why I don’t know what it is about the digital product world. But for some reason, it’s so easy for us, for us to go from like zero to a million with like, no concept of digital products, where every other business model, people don’t think like that, like people are much more likely to start small and every other business model. And so I just like, and so like always hammering in with my students like, we start small, I think I say it like probably 25 times in the course, like, we start small, because this is how we test. And the truth is not every digital product is going to be a success, and you are going to run into failure. But failure can help you learn great lessons. And we can course correct quickly, when we have a smaller product, it’s really, really different or difficult to course correct. When you are working with a really large, bulky product. But your customers can be the people who are driving the course correction. So that way, you actually end up with a product at the end of the day that people want and people rave about
Kat Schmoyer 26:52
when creating something small first. So like we’ve got the idea, you know, you want it to be something more your recommendation is to start small like with it. How do you know when or if course correction is the product or the idea?
Megan Martin 27:07
This is a really hard question. But I do cover and revenue report and we talk about it. But there’s so many variables in the digital business world that could be affecting something like no low sales. A lot of what I teach in the course is there are many steps to take before you determine to trash a product. Essentially, there are nuances like the name could be literally what’s not what’s not selling, I have an entire module in revenue ripple, that’s just about my naming process in order to like, it’s like that whole module is called product profitability prep. And there’s like, there’s these different variables that we go through. And one of them is naming like, you can literally make or break a product success in the name alone. So I teach my students like, let’s look at these things, let’s tweak these things and test these things out before we decide to scrap an entire product. Another thing is pricing, you know, like pricing can can make or break a product. And it’s not always what you think you might have priced your product too low. And people might be questioning like, why is this product price so low compared to everything else on the market, they must not know what they’re doing, I’m gonna go find somebody else, that’s absolutely like a true possibility. But you also could have priced it too high like that is a normal pop, like that absolutely happens all the time, like you could price too high. And I’m like team charger worth and all of that, like totally supportive of creatives making the money that they should make, but also something is only as valuable as someone will pay for it. Right, right. And so if you are not getting sales, it’s worth at least testing your price point to see if I lower this price point. Do people bite? And if the answer is yes, then you’ve got it right there, you know, like it was just too much money for what they deemed what it was worth, right. So there’s variables like that, that I would I would encourage you to look at I mean, other variables are even its name is one thing, but marketing messaging is another thing, like the messaging around your product could be totally wrong. Like right you could be, you could be like hitting in on a pain point that’s really not strong enough for your customer, you know. And maybe you need to like go at the sale the selling of your product at a different angle and see if that resonates more with your prop your customer. But if you pull all these levers and you still aren’t seeing the kind of sales that you want to see, either a I don’t think you’re doing enough audience building to get leads in the door to want to purchase because again, you’re not going to convert 100% of the people that follow you or that simple scribed to your email list. So either a you’re not doing enough audience building or be the product might just not really work. And then at that point, it’s like, Okay, can I again thinking through my sadhas concept? Can I take a portion of what I’ve created and maybe transform it into something else? So I’m still like cutting out, I’m still not having to go to like, ground zero of this more do I need to return back inward and reevaluate, like do I really believe in this product I’ve seen, you know, people in the industry who’ve created products, and they’re so excited about it. And then four months later, they’re, they’re sending me messages. And what they’re really saying is that I don’t even really believe in this product. And you’re not I’m just I’m sorry, it doesn’t matter how great your sales page looks, or how beautiful the product was designed. If you don’t believe in your product, nobody else is going to buy it. Right?
Kat Schmoyer 30:51
Right. When going back to the sada list, I have another question about this list. I’m literally like, I’ve just loved the list. I can’t wait to make my own startup list. Um, I feel like I know the answer. But I want to ask it anyway, just to get like your thoughts. When you’re looking at your sadhas list, and you’re like, Alright, here’s some potential ideas like Which one should I do when you’re weighing those pros and cons? I know you walk your students through, um, do you ever recommend trying out several at a time like, say you have like two ideas? And you’re like, I want to move forward with both of these things? Or, or would you recommend like no pick one go all in with like, let’s walk through the full process of creating this digital product with one at a time
Megan Martin 31:34
I do. And my so revenue ripple is structured in a way where it’s, it’s meant to be able to go through and have your product created and ready to launch in 30 days, and that is not a lot of time. And so in my course, I teach my students to pick one and commit to one and we’re not gonna, we’re gonna like, I actually tell them, like, Do not ever open this list again, in the middle. Like, don’t do it. The only time I would say, like I tell my students you’re allowed to look at that list is if an idea pops up, and I tell them like in the creation phase, there’s somewhere in the video where I’m like, I’m telling you, right now you’re going to get new ideas as you’re doing this. And that is the only time that you’re allowed to look at your thoughts list is for the sole purpose of putting that new idea on the list and not letting yourself get distracted by it. The only caveat to that answer is, if it’s two products that actually are very, very similar and could be wrapped into a single product, and create options. So another thing we talked about in the course, is pricing and how to create a pricing strategy around your digital product that converts. And by opening up options in your product offer, you actually can increase your conversion rate. So is there a way that you could take the two ideas, if they’re very similar, could they actually be in the same product and you create some sort of like pricing variation option, I would say that’s something that you could consider. But for the most part, if this is your first time creating a digital product, I really strongly encourage you to, to commit to one idea and one idea only. Because the process of creating the product, putting it out there starting to talk about the product is just really it’s not only like testing the market to see if your product works, but it’s also helping you understand how the digital business model works. And the more practice you get doing this, the better you’re going to get at engaging with your customers at selling, the better you’re going to get with being comfortable with this business model. In general, it comes with a lot of tech and software in crazy terms like funnels and upsells, and down cells and trip wires and all of these things. And most people don’t create a digital product because they’re honestly overwhelmed in this world seems like cuckoo bananas, crazy people.
Kat Schmoyer 33:49
Right? Right, right. So no, I 1,000% agree with that. The thing I thought about when you were talking is if the product is a shop, so like if it’s like a subset of website templates, or like even when I did my shop, it’s like several bundles of things. But even in that I still feel like the creation of the products happens individually. It’s just the launch is all like okay, the shop is live, like the launch might be the same. If you’ve got you know, depending on how many products it is. Um, but anyway, I think I do
Megan Martin 34:21
not really get nice, I don’t encourage you to try to create a shop at first I and I specifically say that in my course. I think many many creatives when they think of digital products, and if they’re thinking about creating lower ticket items, they’re like, okay, I want to create a shop, which is a great idea, go for it at some point, but I would highly encourage you not to create a shop first because again, it’s like this. It’s this lie that we tell ourselves that if we don’t have a shop then people won’t think we look legitimate enough. Or you know, people are going to want to options and see all these different items. But the truth is that’s not necessary. You can just create one product and put it out there and see what happens and and leave the concept of creating a shop for later and you can that could be Goal number two, you know?
Kat Schmoyer 35:11
Yeah no that’s so smart man. Other like I feel like we’ve talked about so much when it comes to just like how to come up with that first idea and like what that would mean do you have just any like any experience from your own like your own personal experience with like the digital products that you’ve created that you felt like you followed that system that you’ve taught like to a tee and you’re like, yeah, like this is like my favorite product that I’ve created because of like x y&z
Megan Martin 35:46
yeah so I would say that in the ideation phase, again like I am all about turning inward and I think I have done this myself and my own product line specifically my website templates I think about my website templates have a very I know we were like cracking on the word signature but they really do have a very signature style they do they write like you can spot a mega Martin template like you know I created it, because I have a very signature style. And I would say that like this is such a like tangible example of turning inward because I can tell you that like a lot of people don’t like my style, you know, like I love bold color, I love more bolder design in terms of websites and I would say there’s like probably a vast majority that do not like that style, there’s a vast majority that like like a minimal, very light and airy like I don’t know what to call it but you know what I’m talking about right? And that’s nothing wrong with those styles those styles are beautiful, but that’s not me you know and so what I’m trying to get at is that I could have created a website template that was minimal like even though it’s not my natural style or it’s not my like thing that I’m passionate about in terms of design, I could create it I could whip it up for you if you want me to and I could have sold it and the the most people are like I need to make sure I create something that’s like somebody somebody else like I know like is really going to be popular you know, but I would just say like fight that urge I fought that urge myself where I knew I could create a fine art esque minimal website template and sell it but I instead said okay, what am I what makes me unique? What, what am I passionate about and I guarantee you that there is an untapped market there because people don’t think that that people people look at what’s going on in the market in order to help determine what is popular enough for them to jump into and sell and they forget that there’s probably a huge market that you cannot see because nobody is serving them and so I came out of the gate and now I make six figures with these website templates that look like rainbows you know but like the funny thing is like I tell my customers all the time I’m like you can change the colors of these websites like I love your colors I love your bright colors I’m like somebody who has a black and white brand could use this template and it could be black and white. I have a customer who loves minimal like minimal color and she uses one of my website templates and and but it’s just funny like literally my customers buy from me because they see my website template style and they see bright colors and they love bright colors and that’s what sells them when they could turn any website on the market. Right color website template, right? But by turning inward and saying hey this is I’m going to put out into the world what I’m passionate about, it actually connects better with my customers. Because there are a pool of people. I guarantee you that are also interested and intrigued by something that you’re passionate about.
Kat Schmoyer 39:01
Such a good permission slip like honestly it’s such a great reminder to just remember to like truly do things from the heart. And like if we do things from the heart if that is like the foundation and the core yes there are business strategies and their tactics to make sure that that sells like I know you teach the full process then but start with like that heart and looking inward. I love that.
Megan Martin 39:25
All right friends. Well I hope you enjoyed this episode. And if I could just encourage you in any way if you want to create a digital product, it’s to not look to your right and left to see what other people doing but to look inward and to just stream a little bit and see and try to figure out like what you would be passionate about. If you are trying to create a digital product I’d love to hear about it and hear about your idea so send me a DM on Instagram and Meghan Martin creative and let’s chat. Alright friends, but till next time we will see you or no we will not see you we will catch you in the Next conversation
Transcribed by https://otter.ai
