💡 10 lessons from selling $10m of digital products
- John J D Munn
- Sep 10, 2024
- 3 min read
I am conscious of overwriting here, so instead of telling you about it in depth I am going to include some of my favourite lessons and snippets from the article instead.
There’s also a YouTube version if you prefer to watch than read.
These are just some, I strongly encourage you to read this article regardless of your business type.
There’s no such thing as “passive income.” (Definitely read his explanation re: organic vs. paid)
Books and eBooks are one of the worst business models for selling information, but can work great in other ways (like credibility or initial entry points).
The best digital education products are 50% education, 50% belief-breaking. (I would argue it’s even higher towards belief-breaking)
“You will learn that the hard skills of whatever you’re teaching or explaining aren’t the real bottleneck on the person’s growth. 99% of the time, the bottleneck is rooted in some sort of faulty belief or internal objection—and so if your education product doesn’t ALSO address these objections, the “How To” information isn’t going to land.”
People drastically underestimate how much work everything takes, largely because they do the wrong things or things in the wrong order. Paying for professional help to shortcut this is well worth it.
Sell people what they want, not what they need.
A tell-tale sign this is the case is if the positioning of the digital product is to “learn.” The truth is, nobody wants to learn (just like how nobody wants to go to the gym). What people really want and care about is the outcome they can expect as a result of learning (just like how people want 6-pack abs in time for summer).
Not all digital products are created equal.
Each vehicle has a different business model, and each business model has different pros and cons. For example, the way a customer values an eBook is completely different than the way they value an online course.
There are only 3 pricing tiers for selling an online course.
The psychological distance between prices is more important than the absolute financial distance. The difference between a $1000 service and a $2000 service is smaller than between a $99 service and a $499 service
The broader your front-end product, the harder it will be to build a high-converting backend product.
Don’t give away too much. Charging high prices can actually help your customers
“The moment someone joins a “membership” with instant access to lots of different education products, the perceived value of all those products immediately goes to $0.”. This is because people have “abundance”, they no longer covet the resources as they have unlimited access. You can help people to actually implement things and get the value by charging appropriately and/or adding other barriers to access (like levels or pre-requisites)
The structure for making kickass course content:
Reasons Why (Benefits)
Mistakes To Avoid (Problems)
Steps How To (Action)
Commonly Asked Questions (Objections)
Walkthrough Example (Proof)
Critique of your own walkthrough (Analysis)
These were all very timely reminders of useful insights.
You can find the article by Nicolas Cole here:
I shared this in my Work Smart Wednesday newsletter. Want the full set of related insights? You can read them here: https://worksmartwednesday.substack.com/p/work-smart-wednesday-september-11
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