Hello, everyone, what's up and welcome back to my channel or welcome to
my channel if you're new, if you are new, Hey, I'm Latasha, I'm an
online business owner and content creator and this week we're talking
about launching an online business.
Be sure to come back on Wednesday and Friday for new episodes in this series,
you can also subscribe to the channel and click on the notification bell
so you get notified whenever a new episode goes live.
Okay, so today I want to talk about how to pivot away from client work.
This is a very hot topic I get a lot of questions about this because a lot
of people know that I started out as a full service provider, and now I do a
little bit of full service stuff, but a large percentage of my revenue in the
business is semi-passive productized work.
What I mean by that is online courses that are both live and that are evergreen.
We're going to talk about that and how I got to that point right now.
So let me first say that the first step in moving towards a productized or
passive income model is by productizing your existing service-based work.
So what I mean by this is, you know, back when I first started
freelancing, I was just applying for anything that looked semi-interesting.
I would learn new industries, I would learn new skills.
I would kind of just do whatever to get the gig.
And there's nothing wrong with that, one that's a really exciting way to live.
Let's just be honest.
And you might find something new that you didn't know that you wanted to do.
So there's nothing wrong with that, but if you're looking to kind of streamline
this part is really important.
So I moved from doing full service, done for you, social media management
services, which could include anything from Instagram post, Instagram stories,
to LinkedIn updates, to live stream management, to light graphic design.
I moved from that to simply offering strategy work, meaning I would
sit down with a business owner
we would come up with content, pillars, content ideas.
I would do all the research on their competitors.
I would provide them hashtag libraries.
I would provide them some training for their team member or themselves,
whoever was actually going to be managing the social content.
And I would give them that report,
and that was it.
That was kind of the extent of my involvement.
Now, the reason I productized my services is because this was easily
repeatable for me and my team.
I knew exactly how to put together a social media strategy
report like nobody's business.
It was something that I could do really any time of day, besides
the actual calls with the clients.
I could work on that report at 7:00 AM, 7:00 PM.
2:00 AM whenever really worked best for me, which then enabled
me to take that additional time to work on building something else
of my own, like a digital product.
Now what this can also help you do is raise your value, increase your value.
And it might sound a little bit counterintuitive to take services
away in order to make more money.
But if you can position yourself as the go-to person for bomb social
media strategies, or take it even further to become the go-to person
for Squarespace websites for organic food and beverage companies.
You can do that or the go-to Tiktok creator for fashion brands, whatever it
is that you want to do, this can really help make you the perceived expert,
and in turn enable you to raise your rates.
Now what raising your rates enables you to do is take on less client work.
You see how it kind of is this whole ecosystem.
It all sort of works together.
Now, the other thing about offering a productized version of your
existing service is that a lot of times you'll see that it takes the
less time to actually complete.
You might be thinking if it takes less time than it's going to be less pay,
but that doesn't have to be the case.
If I'm delivering a strategy to somebody I'm really giving them
the keys, I'm teaching them.
It's like that saying, if you give a man a fish, you feed him for a day.
If you teach a man to fish, you feed him for a lifetime.
So this is really how I priced my strategy work.
It was, value-based not time-based whereas some of my other packages
were a little bit more time-based.
And really required me to be there, sort of on the ground at all times,
meaning that they didn't really have a huge ROI or return for the
business, my business that is.
So productize your existing work, establish yourself
as a subject matter expert,
raise those rates and then take that additional time that you are getting
from maybe being able to drop a client or two, or maybe it's just time that you're
saving from not having to do full service or, you know, whatever it is that looks
like for you and your unique business.
Take that time and start investing that into building a signature
evergreen product.
This is the method that I used, I went evergreen first and now I'm doing a
lot more live launches and cohort-based courses, which have really enabled me
to increase the value of my courses.
But we'll get to that at another time.
Now an evergreen course is something that's kind of
going to always be relevant.
It doesn't necessarily have a start and end date.
It's just something that people can buy access to.
And they can use it.
They can learn from it.
They can complete it or do it whenever they have the ability to do it.
I personally host my courses on a platform called Thinkific, but there are
a ton of other really great resources out there like Gumroad or Podia.
You can check them all out for yourself, see which one works best for you.
But I do personally like Thinkific because they do offer a free tier, which
is important if you're not sure just how much you're going to sell at launch.
When I first launched my evergreen course, it didn't really sell anything.
It took some time, maybe even some years to really build up, to be
a sizeable chunk of my revenue.
But the great thing is because I was focusing on these productized services
over time, those courses just began to sort of replace some of those clients
and just kind of grow naturally with me.
Now you don't have to just stick with a course, of course, there are many
other types of digital products that can be evergreen, that you can sell.
Maybe an ebook, maybe a download of some sort, maybe some other type of resource
or a video series or something like that.
But if it is an online course that you're looking to create, I'm going
to give you a fun little resource.
I'll link it down in the description box.
It's just a simple course planner that enables you to really plan
out your modules, your lessons, the downloads that go along with
those modules and lessons and
even start to map out some of the marketing content that you're
going to create that is relative to those modules and lessons.
So linking that down below.
All right.
So once you've raised those rates, you've got a little bit more time back.
You are using some of that additional time to build this evergreen product.
Now it's really time to sort of go to market with it, depending on what this
digital product is that you're offering.
It's important to establish yourself in that particular space as an expert.
Now we've already kind of talked about doing this for your service-based clients
and using that to raise your rates for them, but you need to do the same thing
for your prospective students or customers for your digital products as well.
Let's just say that you are this Squarespace designer for organic food
businesses, and you are going to start offering a course on how to customize
your own Squarespace website, as opposed to doing it all for the client.
You are going to just put together a course you're gonnna make it a hundred
bucks and offer that to people instead.
So my recommendation is to get on every single Squarespace or
design-related podcasts that you can weasel your way into.
It means looking for press opportunities through platforms like
Haro, or maybe even hiring somebody who can help you out with that.
It means raising your hand for speaking opportunities that might be design or
Squarespace or even organic food industry
related.
I definitely don't believe that it is too late to launch a digital product,
but if you are going to educate people in particular, it is really important
that you know what you're talking about and that you are a perceived expert.
People are done buying digital products that don't work, or
that make all these promises.
They really want quality.
So really growing your presence as a subject matter expert, as
an industry leader is a really important piece of the puzzle.
The other reason I recommend doing this kind of at this stage, while you
might still be taking on some of those full service or package clients, if
you will, is because a lot of these subject matter expert building activities
don't really pay, right?
It takes time to fill out a HARO response.
It takes time to put together a presentation for a speaking gig, even if
you are getting paid a little bit of money for it, they usually don't even out to
the same amount that you would be able to charge a client or something like that.
So it's important that you have some of that retainer work or some of those
package projects available to work on, so you are not kind of diving in doing
all of this work to build your brand, but not yet seeing the return on it.
Another way to really establish yourself as an industry expert is by developing
a strong content marketing strategy.
Content marketing, particularly Youtube
content marketing is really a pillar for me and is how I've been able to build a
big part of my digital products business.
It's by sharing videos like this, by helping people build
their own businesses by helping people learn about social media.
So I would encourage you to do something similar, whether that is
on a YouTube video, on podcasts, on a blog or somewhere else.
Now, once you have this digital product out into the world, this
is a great time to start just getting really loud about it.
Again, using content marketing, using some of those, maybe PR strategies,
speaking engagements, press, things like that, but you also might want to consider
scaling back some of that done for you
client work even further and pushing people towards the digital product.
It sounds really simple, but what's on your website is what
people are going to go for.
If you only have contact us packages start at $2,000 on your website and you have
no mention of your online course, people are probably going to either contact
you or click out of your website, but
if instead of having that home page signal that you want to work with
people one-on-one and you have it go over to your digital product
website or your course website.
That's where people are probably going to click and where they're going to start
training themselves to look for you.
Wherever you show up, instead of saying, Hey, I may social media manager, or I'm
a graphic designer, or I'm a Squarespace designer, or I'm a photographer.
Instead you can start saying, I teach people about taking good photos with
their iPhone, or I teach people how to build their businesses on Squarespace or
customize their own Squarespace website.
So what you tell people is what they're going to start taking in and you'll be
able to start cultivating an audience that knows you as that versus as this
done for you consultant type of person.
Okay, so be sure to come back on Wednesday, we're going to be talking about
sales funnels and how to take people from that awareness phase to the sales process,
whether you are a digital products person or a service-based business owner.
But what I want you to do in the meantime is take a look at your current numbers,
pull out that profit and loss statement, pull up that spreadsheet, pull out those
bank statements, whatever it is that you have, however it is that you're
tracking your current revenue and really take a deep dive into those numbers.
Knowing your current numbers is really important if you're looking
to shift them or change them.
So first take a look at what your biggest sellers have been.
Again, if you're a social media manager, are people mostly coming
to you for Instagram marketing?
Or are they coming to you for Facebook ads?
This is going to help steer you in the right direction
if you're deciding to launch coaching or a digital product in one of those areas.
So, if you're selling more Facebook ads, you should probably create a course about
running your own Facebook ads, as opposed to doing an Instagram marketing course
if you're not even selling that already.
If you don't have an audience for it, as it is, it's going to be a
lot harder to build from nothing.
So take a look at that.
Also take a look at what sort of your hours are like and what
your return on investment is for each of your different clients or
different services that you offer.
For example, if a Facebook ad only takes you about an hour to plan
and set up and launch, well, maybe there's nothing wrong with continuing
to do Facebook ads for people
if you're making a lot of money doing that.
But if you're finding yourself constantly tracking down clients, constantly
doing admin stuff, like emails and account cleanup, then yeah, maybe it
is going to be a better time investment for you to put some good hours into
developing an online course or training program, and then launching that
so business owners can do it themselves.
I want you to also take a look at your emails, your inboxes, your DMS, wherever
people are coming to you and inquiring about your services and take a look at
what you've been turning down lately.
Have you been turning down work just because you're at capacity and you don't
have the bandwidth to take on new clients?
If that's the case, then I'm going to challenge you to raise your
rates for your full service work.
Again, thinking about maybe there's a way that you can get rid of even just
one client, that one client is going to enable you to work on an additional
revenue stream, like an online course, a digital product, a coaching program,
whatever it is that you want to offer.
If you're turning people down because you can't do something or you don't
want to learn something new, or it's not within your area of expertise,
then I'm going to challenge you to think about how you can offer that in
a productized format if it's something that you're getting a lot of demand for.
Again, maybe you are a social media manager and you're just not doing
Facebook ads right now, just because you don't want to get into all of
the account stuff and all of that spending other people's money stuff.
So maybe that is an area where you do want to create an
online course for that product.
And lastly, I want you to think about what you really love doing.
What really lights you up during your work day?
Is it talking to your clients one-on-one?
Is it helping them do a particular function in their business?
And what are the things that you really don't look forward to?
What are the things that kind of get you down in the dumps
for lack of better words?
And make those things are top priority to get off your plate either by just quitting
doing them, this is your business, so you can design it however you like.
Or again, maybe offering some type of alternative that is a more productized
or passive option for people.
So think about those things and then meet me back here on
Wednesday at the same time.
Again, subscribe and turn on the notifications bell if you want to know
exactly when it goes up and we're going to talk about selling that digital
or online service then.
Oh, and also drop any questions that might've come up for you down in the
comments, I'll be sure to check those out over the next couple of days.
Thanks so much for tuning in.
I'll see you next time and have a great rest of your day.
Bye.