Digital Product Advice From a $1 Million Plus Seller, with Alice Seba

Most digital products fail within the first month. Alice Seba’s don’t. With over two decades in online business and millions in product sales, she understands what actually works in today’s competitive market.

In this episode, Alice breaks down the brutal truth about why most digital products never see a single sale, and more importantly, reveals the exact strategies and mindset she’s used to build a sustainable online business since 2002. From the early days of her first ebook, “The Internet-Based Moms Guide to Marketing Your Website,” to running successful product launches today, her insights will change how you approach content and product creation.

What You’ll Discover

⭐ The #1 mistake content creators make with online strategy
⭐ Why starting small beats going big every single time
⭐ How to validate product ideas without wasting months of work
⭐ The psychology behind “selling as service” that removes sales anxiety
⭐ Alice’s framework for creating less content with greater impact
⭐ Why building 1,000 engaged followers beats 100,000 passive viewers

About Alice Seba
Alice has been building online businesses since the early days of e-commerce, growing her YouTube channel to nearly 8,000 subscribers and her EKit Hub Facebook community to 4,700 members. She’s the founder of EKit Hub University and Noomu, an all-in-one business-building platform designed specifically for digital entrepreneurs. 

These sources offer a wealth of information for digital creators, and Noomu includes an AWESOME $197 freebie to help get you started as an online creator business. I highly recommend checking them out. 

This episode is not sponsored. 

Thanks for listening! Do you have a comment or question about a topic or episode? I'd love to hear that. Feel free to contact me via Instagram or the Contact Us page, and check out our merch for content creators.

Transcript

[00:00:00] Tim: When we think about income stream for content creators, digital products often figure prominently in that mix. Over the years, creators such as Sean Cannell, Vanessa Lau, and Katie Steckly have shown us how digital products have provided a significant stream of revenue for their businesses. And indeed, for some creators, digital products have become their primary source of revenue.

[00:00:20] In principle, there's a lot to like about this type of product offering. Aside from the initial investment in creating the product, the upfront costs are limited. Plus there's no inventory and marketing costs can be scaled up or down depending on how things are going. And if you can build up a library of successful products, you can compound that growth further or diversify your income streams 'cause you are not just directly trading your time for money per sale. That's what makes this income stream so scalable.

[00:00:47] But here's the catch. Creating a successful digital product can be incredibly challenging to do. There is just so much competition in this space right now, not only from people deploying entire creative teams towards this, but also from the use of tools such as generative ai. So if your product is not well scoped, appropriately targeted, uniquely positioned, and backed by some kind of social proof, your chances for a successful product launch are next to zero. Like it's zero.

[00:01:16] That's why in today's episode, we're really fortunate to have the opportunity to speak with Alice Siba. Alice has more than 23 years of experience in online business as a digital creator. She has a YouTube channel with close to 8,000 subscribers, and her Facebook group for EKit Hub has 4,700 subscribers. And over the course of her career, she has sold millions of dollars in digital products. So you're gonna wanna hear what she has to say about how to get started in this and sell more digital products.

[00:01:44] So let's get into it. 

[00:01:46] 

[00:01:50] Tim: Hi Alice, welcome to the show. 

[00:01:52] Alice: Oh, thank you very much for having me.

[00:01:54] Tim: Maybe we'll start from the beginning here, where you began your journey as a stay-at-home mom looking to support your family, and could you walk us through those early days and what that was like? 

[00:02:04] Alice: Yeah, like I had just had a baby and I was on the wonderful maternity leave that we do get in Canada, that when moms can stay home with their kids for a year. Just thinking, how could I not go back to work? I still need to pay bills and all that stuff, but how could I do this? So I went, this is, yeah, very like 2002. There were, obviously, there were web, the internet was, there's a lot of websites. There wasn't a lot of e-commerce, but it. Sort of starting to maybe get going, and I joined these work-at-home mom groups because they were places where you could learn about how to make money from home.

[00:02:47] And they were all focused on those direct sales companies, MLM, like a lot of home party products like Tupperware and stuff like that. I remember that but that's not working at home. That's going to people's houses and doing parties. And I said like, there must be a way for you to make a full-time income online.

[00:03:07] And everyone's like, well, you can make some money online, but you can't do it full-time. It's just supplement your business. And I was like, I don't think that's right. I'm gonna find out how to do it. And then I did decide to do that, and then I was gonna take these moms on the journey with me.

[00:03:23] So I actually created this really great community of work at home moms. We called ourselves internet-based moms to prove that we could be online full-time. Amazing. And it just grew from there. And then, you know, learning about different types of products, different niches and things like that.

[00:03:38] But yeah, that's really what got it started. And just a desire to prove people wrong. And then also, I've always been very interested in writing. I did imagine myself as a fiction writer and maybe even a poet, but I got to have this outlet through content that was. Nonfiction most generally. So, but it was great.

[00:03:58] It was, yeah, that was the beginning and it grew from there. 

[00:04:02] Tim: Well, what was your first digital product that you created?

[00:04:05] Alice: Well, I had to look up the name. It was called The Internet-Based Moms Guide to Marketing Your Website.

[00:04:12] Okay. So basically walk them through the basics of search engine optimization, you know, building your list. But yeah, it was an ebook. Just a plain old ebook. 

[00:04:23] Tim: Yeah. And what did you learn about how to turn an idea into a digital product people actually wanna buy? I imagine would be particularly challenging at that time, 'cause unlike now where there's a lot of advice online about how you can do it, courses you can take on " how to create a digital product" just didn't exist at that time.

[00:04:42] Alice: Yeah. I mean I saw other people doing it and I think that another fellow Canadian, are you familiar with? Ken Voy, who is from Site Sell, he actually had a little ebook on making an ebook.

[00:04:54] Tim: There you go.

[00:04:56] Alice: But what I think I really learned, you know, a lesson that I learned and I think would be great for other people to get from that is my experience is that online, you know, you just, you don't have to be an expert.

[00:05:08] Like I wasn't really an expert, right. I was just a determined person. I found a group of people. Who were interested in what I was interested in, and I brought them on my journey. And I think creating products around that are great because your audience is everything. So if it's just people you connect with and then you know, show them how you do stuff, that's one of the easiest ways to make a product.

[00:05:31] And obviously you gotta know if they're gonna be interested, but if they're already interested in you and love to follow you, and there just have to be people who are maybe a couple steps behind you my friend Col Ontario actually pointed that out to me. He's a copywriter and he illustrated that so well.

[00:05:47] It's really cemented to me now that yeah, you just have to be a couple steps ahead and they're gonna come along for the ride. 

[00:05:52] Tim: Yeah. In some ways I think it's an advantage because you believe that the system the other person's going to show you is something that you can actually do.

[00:06:01] Alice: Exactly. 

[00:06:02] Tim: It's like, well, you know, I'm not, I'm not at that level. I can't implement all those systems.

[00:06:07] Alice: Right. Oh, and then people get in this idea like, yeah, like you, it's easy for you because you're an expert. It's like, well, how did you become an expert? But people do feel that way. You're right. 

[00:06:17] Tim: Exactly. What do you find that people get wrong about content marketing? 

[00:06:22] I think really not having a purpose or a plan for their content. Like, they will treat content creation separate from whatever products they're developing and not really connect the two things, but they go hand in hand.

[00:06:38] A lot of people might create content for the algorithm, what they think the algorithm's gonna like, but that isn't gonna necessarily translate into paying customers. And I think that if you have a more solid. Content marketing plan that naturally drives people to your products. You're gonna do way better with that than trying to get this huge audience to see content that never buys anything.

[00:07:01] Yes, where people are, you know, as they say, chasing views, but they're not necessarily chasing the right views and they're not connecting it back to what they're actually selling. And then, yeah, of course it becomes frustrating 'cause you're either getting views and people aren't buying or um, you know, you're not getting views and then it feels like the whole thing is 

[00:07:21] Alice: yes, is a 

[00:07:21] Tim: wasted effort. 

[00:07:22] Alice: There's a kind of a middle ground that you have to go for, right? Yeah. And I think when you're excited about what you wanna share, then that gets contagious and you'll get that audience that follows. I think that goes along with what we said about, bringing people along for the ride on your journey.

[00:07:39] People will wanna follow that. You don't need a huge following to make a great business. 

[00:07:46] Tim: Right. And, well you've, as you said, you've been doing this for a long time. You know, before content marketing was even a buzzword. What's the most surprising thing you've seen in how it's evolved and what are some of the fundamentals that have remained unchanged?

[00:08:00] Alice: So, I don't know if anything really surprises me, but I do think a lot of fads come. Years ago there were like these content scrapers. It was this automated tool that would basically sort of make a Google search page and it would be links to a bunch of sites, right?

[00:08:21] People got tons of traffic from it and they monetized it with ads, but it was something that was not gonna last, and it wasn't even content, right? It was garbage. People always chase that kind of stuff. Or even when it comes to reels now. And I think you can do amazing things with TikTok reels, Instagram reels or shorts on YouTube.

[00:08:39] I think you can do amazing things on that. But a lot of people, again, they don't make a plan for it. They're just trying to figure out how can I get more views of this thing? Yes. Right. And, now we also have people using, I think AI is a wonderful tool, but also turning out garbage. That just like I need to get more content out and they're spitting out, this kind of reminds me of that content scraper time where people are just putting out whatever.

[00:09:06] So I think the fundamentals are actually still the same, that there's new tools, there's different ways to get traffic, and I think it's important to not just chase fads, but to have a solid plan. That's the fundamentals of selling by through information. Through connection with your audience.

[00:09:24] Like those fundamentals really haven't changed. 

[00:09:27] Tim: Yeah. And I think the platforms sometimes lead us astray themselves with the number of metrics that you have access to. 

[00:09:35] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:09:36] Tim: And, and like the views and the follower count and all of that stuff is what's constantly in front of you if you're checking that.

[00:09:43] But the, not the like, how many deeper conversations did I have in the chat? Or how many people signed up to my email list? How much revenue did I drive? Those things that really are longer term, more meaningful, but they're not, you know, they're not measured in the same way. And the numbers with that are always gonna be smaller, especially when you're starting out, they're not gonna be 

[00:10:06] Alice: mm-hmm.

[00:10:06] Tim: Impressive or as motivating. And I even find, I get caught up in that a little myself.

[00:10:10] Alice: It's hard. It's 

[00:10:11] hard not to, right? 

[00:10:13] Tim: Got a thousand views. I've gotta get a thousand views again. 

[00:10:15] Alice: Yeah, exactly. But then it's a mystery who, how do you even know if it's gonna do that? It's better to focus on the business-building part.

[00:10:24] Tim: Yeah, I'm trying to do a little bit more of that myself, thinking about what's strategic content for the stuff that I'm marketing. So if it's like, whether it's my merch store or affiliate links to make content that's more aligned with that, even if it doesn't get as much views.

[00:10:41] Alice: You create these things that they can be repurposed and used in different places. So an interview can be reused for other purposes put into a product, right? It will be the whole product because you've released it for free, but, you know, an extra thing that people can watch or clips of things or, or articles that you write. Like, there's just so many different places you can reuse this or think of them as assets

[00:11:05] Tim: That's a good point. You know, you could become more like if you're more of a multi-platform creator. Yes. You're probably creating stuff that is getting less views on any one platform. It's not being driven by just that platform algorithm, but you can actually reach more of your right audience and, maybe not all in one place, but you know, you have more opportunities to reach them by distributing it more widely than mm-hmm.

[00:11:30] Narrow. Yeah. That's something I'm thinking a lot about now in terms of like, you could probably get more followers and more traction if you just focused on one platform. But I think there's a lot of risk that goes with that at the same time. 'cause things change so quickly. 

[00:11:45] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:11:45] Tim: Are you reaching the right people or are you just being driven by the growth of that platform?

[00:11:49] Alice: Yeah. I think it's important to try to get everyone onto your mailing list because then mm-hmm. 

[00:11:55] Tim: Yes. 

[00:11:55] Alice: The Algorithm doesn't control that. Yes, spam filters may have some things saved, because they're not always rational, but it's still, that's an asset that you will own. For me, I don't worry so much about platforms, like I don't mm-hmm.

[00:12:09] It's actually a whole lot of social media, like we use YouTube because it's a great tool for like having a channel there. That's a really big asset for a business. So any customer we send over there is gonna have a wealth of information. It's useful to them. Facebook groups I love because I get to connect with people, and you mentioned having conversations, and they are important.

[00:12:35] Even though we don't like, we might think it's just one person and it's always the same person, but you grow through those conversations, you're learning a lot through them. Like, there's always so much benefit, and that's what I always try to think about, like how outside of the algorithm or the views, what am I learning from this experience, and usually there is a lot. And, I focus on the platforms that help me grow or that I can create valuable assets for, for the business 

[00:13:04] Tim: I think we're coming to a point too, where we can talk about how important they are in terms of your. Validation, not validation as a creator, but the validation of your ideas or your products.

[00:13:15] Alice: Yeah, absolutely. And they're the people that are gonna be talking about you or the people who, when other people come along and leave comments, like you're really dedicated fans, are the ones gonna be answering questions for you and when, when they're answering the stuff. 'cause they know where all your products are, wherever, like vertigo for this, that like, that shows a lot.

[00:13:35] Like, that means that that person. That person feels that's social proof for them, right? That they're seeing that someone else is like, engaged with this person and they're the real deal. 

[00:13:47] Tim: So here's the dilemma then. Like with relationships being always important online, just as in real life, like networking, building real relationships with supporters, but at the same time, we have this accompanying trend of ai coming up and it's changing, how content's created and also how people engage with each other online. 

[00:14:10] Alice: Mm-hmm. 

[00:14:11] Tim: Because you've probably seen too, like people that used to leave human comments now sometimes leave AI comments. 

[00:14:17] Alice: Yeah, like I think that if you are still a human and you're being a human, then keep connecting with humans, because they're up there and I think that's gonna stand out.

[00:14:27] And that doesn't mean you can't use ai. I use AI a lot, like, to, because it's sort of an extension of me. It knows like all my ideas, and my philosophy, and my values, when it comes to business and stuff like. And it can help me create things that match that, like that are, are not just generic.

[00:14:47] I don't even know how, how do they even do those comments?

[00:14:49] Tim: I guess the bot like reads the post. And then we can sometimes copy the post in the tool and then say, what would you comment on this? And then I think it's getting even more sophisticated now where you can get some direct integrations where you could just typing something and it will elaborate on what you said. 

[00:15:10] Alice: Okay. 

[00:15:11] Tim: Yeah. So, but it is like, it does make it in a way, there's just more noise out there, I guess. You can still engage with real people. There's, as you say, they're still out there. You have to find them, and I actually agree that it does stand out more now when somebody makes a real comment.

[00:15:27] That, it's like, wow, someone took the time to think about my post. But you know what? I actually appreciate even the AI comments. 'cause then you, you know, like, well, at least somebody stopped and even if they used AI to help 'em.

[00:15:37] Alice: It thought your content was important enough.

[00:15:41] Tim: That's right. And I think sometimes it's just people trying to maximize their reach. 

[00:15:46] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:15:46] Tim: Their ability to connect with a lot of people. But it kind of goes back to what we were saying before, where it's like reaching people for the sake of reaching them, but not thinking enough about, you know, the depth of the connection.

[00:15:59] Alice: Yeah, for sure.

[00:16:00] Tim: So this is something I've thought about a lot as I've thought about creating digital products is, how to validate them before you really get too deep into putting them out there because, the kind of product that myself and a lot of other people would want to create, takes a lot of time and effort to develop it.

[00:16:20] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:16:21] Tim: Test it, 

[00:16:21] Alice: yeah, 

[00:16:22] Tim: the last thing you want is to push it out there and find out, well, actually nobody wanted this. 

[00:16:27] Alice: I think the solution to that is not make one that. That requires that much work. It doesn't have to be your life work, right? And you can make something smaller and inexpensive and test it and see if people are interested in it,

[00:16:43] or you could release a series of inexpensive. Products and then later put it together into a bigger thing start testing those waters, seeing what they'll pay for. Because you can ask your audience what they're gonna pay for. And the answers they'll give you will probably not reflect reality.

[00:16:58] I think you have to get it out there. Yes. And you have to see. So make it like, you know, think about your topic. Maybe you can make some templates or checklists or a little work. Book instead of like it being a whole like 

[00:17:11] Tim: mm-hmm. 

[00:17:11] Alice: Training program or whatever digital product you wanna make, and you can build on it later. And the cool thing too is if you make something smaller to start with, you can, like when you get your customers, you can add to that. You don't have to make different, you can add to that product, continue to promote it, and you're gonna wow the customers. Like, they already probably liked your product to start with, and now they're gonna be so like excited that they got this extra stuff.

[00:17:37] And that's a, when you give them that extra stuff is a perfect time to ask for a testimonial. So you have right testimonials to publish on your site, which will bring more people. So yeah, start, I think starting small is the way to do it because there is, what we're seeing, like so much noise online, it's a little harder, like, right, like you, we used to be able to, back in the day, we could make a product based on a keyword, like on the search engines, a long tail keyword that would have a few, like a, a longer phrase and make a product and just get sales from Google. Like, and it was, it was not easy. It's not that easy anymore. 

[00:18:15] Tim: There's almost no niches that don't at least have some products for them already, so you have to, raise the bar. 

[00:18:22] Alice: Yeah, I think that's the important part about having this tight knit audience. Doesn't have to be a huge audience. Mm-hmm. But one that loves to follow what you're doing and is excited to see what you publish next. Is excited about your products. Like just be proud of what you have to share and, get it out there and, and the people. Yeah. Like, I don't wanna say, oh yeah, just do that and everyone will come because that's not, you know, you still have to do work.

[00:18:48] It's a way to grow a really dedicated audience and not be shy about those products. 'cause you also want an audience who is willing to pay for stuff. A lot of times people will grow a big audience and they don't have any interest in buying anything. They just want your content. So by positioning yourself differently 

[00:19:07] Tim: Right. 

[00:19:07] Alice: And you will attract the consumers in your market. 

[00:19:10] Tim: Yes. Yeah, absolutely. I do think that if, you're positioned in a certain way as this person who's providing free content all the time, then it is harder. You haven't built an audience of buyers yet.

[00:19:22] So then, yeah, that's the next step when you get to that stage. In your career now, are you focused on. Like I think when you start out, you probably sell a lot of lower ticket products and then maybe medium and high ticket. Do you do the full range still? Do you focus more on one area than another?

[00:19:40] Alice: Me personally, like, yeah, because everybody should do different things. I actually, most of the time, have done lower ticket products. 

[00:19:49] Not too many high ticket, not more than a couple hundred dollars. But I have found, like now doing more because I think it is harder or more higher ticket items.

[00:20:00] And addition to those lower ones, right? Because I think it used to be easier to get more customers for those low ticket ones, so you have to do the math and if not as many people are buying. Then you probably need to charge more and you can make the experience more premium for them. You're serving fewer customers, but you're charging more so you can actually do more for them. So, yeah, I think a balance now, but up until the last couple years, it was mostly low ticket. 

[00:20:26] Tim: I used to see that, you know, where there would be those. Creators, they'd have a lot of wonderful, like lower ticket products. And that's how I think they're building their audience. And you know, it was useful and you always knew one thing I appreciated.

[00:20:40] Yeah. It's like it's 20 bucks or it's 40 bucks, but you know, you're gonna get the value for that. So I, I could see that being a good niche. It's harder to find that now, I think because there's so many, so many other lower quality stuff. 

[00:20:52] Alice: Yes, people always tell me they wanna start a membership site and I'm like, you know, you have to have something pretty special for people to even wanna sign up for a subscription. They've already, everything else is already a subscription. Yeah. They don't want another one. You have to have something that they really want, that they're gonna use, that they can't live without. That they have to keep coming back to get it every month. 

[00:21:13] Tim: Mm-hmm. And the erosion of that over time. It's a, you can, it is easy to get out of a subscription.

[00:21:20] I know some people don't always think of it, but like when that bill comes in and you think, well, how many times have I been to that site this last month? You know? 

[00:21:27] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:21:28] Tim: It can erode very quickly if you like, you say, unless there's something that is like 

[00:21:31] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:21:32] Tim: Really compelling and 

[00:21:33] Alice: more now, because now people already have so many subscriptions. Right, right. So they're always having to look for something. So you have to, like, stay on top of it.

[00:21:41] Tim: Gotta keep vetting it.

[00:21:42] Alice: You canceled that trial. You only wanted because you wanted the free thing. 

[00:21:46] Tim: Yeah. I think the memberships, they work best if it's a course you're working through and you get maybe support during the course or if it's a done for you service, sometimes I think those are worth paying for just because it's an ongoing cost, but now that's something I don't have to do. 

[00:22:01] Alice: That's a lot of what we do too. 'cause we have the website building platform and we help, not for subscriptions necessarily, but like a higher ticket product is doing the work for them. 

[00:22:12] Tim: Yeah. And you can always point to that as the, buyer and say, well, I got that for it. Yes, 

[00:22:18] Alice: Yes. And yeah,

[00:22:19] Tim: It makes sense as a transaction. Whereas, like, I think some of the, sometimes the higher ticket products, you know, they've got. You know, they always have the disclaimers. You might not grow as much as this, as much as I have, but here's the course on how to grow on Instagram. And then it's, it's just hard to have that trust factor. There's only a few, I think, really top creators that can create it. 

[00:22:42] And actually sell it. 

[00:22:43] Alice: Yeah. Or if you give them tools or done-for-you content, things that people can use templates, and it doesn't matter what the niche is, doesn't have to be business-to-business.

[00:22:51] Anywhere, something that they do as a hobby even, but giving them things that they can, obviously, a lot of people may not go in and do it and they'll still cancel, but something that they look forward to create. Maybe a craft, like if it's crafting thing or whatever, that they can go in and they got the templates to make whatever it is that they're gonna make, something that's useful that they're gonna want on an ongoing basis.

[00:23:17] Tim: Well, speaking of creating content, how do you teach entrepreneurs to persuade with empathy, as you've mentioned in your bio there? 

[00:23:25] Alice: If they're struggling, they have to practice. Mm-hmm. It does come from doing stuff. And having confidence in your products. And I know that is where kind of things fall apart.

[00:23:36] They're like, oh, what do they want? Blah, blah, blah. But you created it. You know that it's good. Come on, deep down, you know, it's good. So it's a disservice to have something so wonderful for your audience and not tell them about it. You created them for a reason. Like these are people that you, I think, most of us, care about our audiences, and if we have a solution to some of their problems, we should be telling them. They don't have to buy it. We don't have to get our feelings hurt about it. We don't have to shame them into buying it. But when you really connect that, you know, informing people in, educating people about your products, or how to be ready to use your product. Maybe there's some kind of skills they need to develop to be able to use it.

[00:24:22] You're priming them for that and you're there to help these people. So help them and practice. 'Cause it'll become more natural the more you practice too. And you said authentic too. And then so maybe sometimes people feel like when they're doing cont, like when they're trying to sell their products, it doesn't feel as authentic.

[00:24:42] Right. But it's still, you have to just figure out the way it's comfortable for you. And also I think studying some, you know, copywriting and sales stuff, even if you hate it. Like I was not a salesperson. I got fired from like, I don't know. Do you know the company Bootlegger that Sold? I don't think they're around.

[00:25:03] I remember I got fired from there because I was such a useless sales person. Like they wanted you to push. And I would always just be like, can I help? Like, can I, yeah. Can I, is there anything I can get for you or can I, can I put that in a change room for you?

[00:25:16] But I never actually Right. Talked to the person, engage them and try to help them with Yeah. Solving their problem, which was what, you know, what would look good on them and stuff like that. And we've been into clothing stores and we know who those good salespeople are because they really,

[00:25:31] connect with you and they tell you like, you gotta be that person. Like that's, that's exciting when you can do that for people. So also be excited about it and you more you practice the more excited you're gonna get. 

[00:25:42] Tim: Yeah, I think it's a, it's definitely a big mindset shift up. People have to make. Do you have any, any thoughts about like, if somebody is, you know, they're not sure about their product and I think part of it too is like they, if it's just an idea, you don't actually find out if people want it or not.

[00:26:00] And I think sometimes we're afraid to find out is the real answer to that. Then how did you, you must have had a lot of experience in, in all your career. Like some products will do better than you think, some will do worse. How do you, how do you work with that in terms of your mindset and say, you've had said one that you, that that's flopped.

[00:26:20] How do you think about it and then come back from, from that? 

[00:26:24] Alice: Well, there's a, I mean, there's a ways to get around that too. Like where you're not investing so much of your time is you can do a live something that is live, right? Or that you deliver after they sign up. So you can create at the signup page, say what it is, and if not enough people sign up, then.

[00:26:42] You can just cancel, which can also hurt the ego as well, right? Or you can just go ahead and do it and realize, then you have a recording and then you can ask Chat GPT for the tra. Or you can get, bring the transcript to Chat GPT, get a check checklist, a workbook. You could create so much stuff with the content you've created, and create a bigger course, and do it because maybe the top, I don't know if it's the topic itself, then maybe you let it go.

[00:27:06] But I think that anything you create, I've had products that didn't go as well, but I knew people wanted it, but they didn't really wanna pay for it because sometimes. There is a line, like you have to have some like people. There's information that people need, but they aren't always willing to pay.

[00:27:24] So if it ends up being something like that, that's something you can repurpose to grow your list. You give it away for free, right? So that no work is ever really lost. Like obviously I love that learn through your experience, but the content is still good. It could be used in different ways. 

[00:27:40] Tim: That's right.

[00:27:40] You're still creating an asset. And, as you say, like it doesn't have to be a loss. It's only a loss if you 

[00:27:46] Alice: Yeah. 

[00:27:46] Tim: Interpret it that way. 

[00:27:47] Alice: Yeah. I mean, it can be frustrating and upsetting, but hey. 

[00:27:54] Tim: That's business, right? Yeah. Well, how about how do you stay consistent with content?

[00:28:01] Because I find this is a struggle, like I've, I've shifted a little bit more to the merch store and creating those kind of products. 'cause I find that there, it's more manageable within my schedule. 'cause I can like come to a design and I can finish it within a, a day or two, whereas like digital products, as I was saying, I think maybe I was trying to be too elaborate in what I was creating, but to create that and then create content at the same time, and then do everything else we wanna do, it starts to become very difficult to manage.

[00:28:33] Alice: It does.

[00:28:34] Tim: So how do you manage it? 

[00:28:36] Alice: Well, another thing when you said like that

[00:28:40] you're trying to make things too intricate. This just goes back before I answer your question. Is that maybe also your topic is really wide? You can go narrower on a specific part of the problem and solve a very specific one, and that way actually you will probably get more like people excited about it rather than I need to be better at that than this large topic.

[00:29:02] How to be an expert in. I don't know, 

[00:29:05] Tim: like podcasting. 

[00:29:06] Alice: Podcasting, sure. 

[00:29:07] Tim: Everything about it. It needs to be so much better at that because like as a writer, I learned that, right? Like one idea, right? 

[00:29:15] Alice: Right. 

[00:29:15] Tim: This essay, one idea. 

[00:29:17] Alice: And if it's podcasting, then it's, think of one thing that's gonna make them money or get more views, like the goals that they want.

[00:29:25] But it's a secret strategy that only you know, or you know, to do it in a really great way. But you're right, right. Fine tuning it and then that way it's a less involved product, What about habits also? Yeah, it's a lot of stuff to do. I think the one thing that any online business owner can do is.

[00:29:42] To help themselves get a lot more done. And really, higher-level tasks are to hire a virtual assistant as soon as possible. A virtual assistant can answer your emails, help, you know, organize things, and like, they usually have technical skills. It depends who you hire, but they can all do things on your website.

[00:30:01] They can do all kinds of. Stuff for you and you can hire them for an hour or two a week, and you think like, oh, if I outsource my emails, it's gonna be too exp or my support, it's gonna be too expensive. But we're always surprised at like, yeah, it takes up a lot of mental space in our head when we're doing all of it.

[00:30:17] It feels like it takes a long time. Mm-hmm. But every time I've told someone to do that and they do it, they're like, it was a lot cheaper than I realized. So just taking a little off your plate to start with and then growing from there. But that's still not gonna get you consistent or have it.

[00:30:33] Although it can be because if your assistant is waiting for you to tell her what to do, you will be more consistent that way. Builds in accountability. 

[00:30:42] Tim: Mm-hmm. 

[00:30:43] Alice: But also, I think one thing I always say is more than consistency, I think diligence. Is a little more important. I see it slightly different.

[00:30:52] I think people think consistent content creation means that I have to post to Facebook every day, or I have to do this every day. Right? But you don't, you don't have to do that. You just need to make a plan. Think about how your content connects with your products and be diligent about that. That doesn't mean that something has to go out every single day, but that you're working towards those goals that you have for your business, whether it's to grow your list, to make sales like that, everything fits around there.

[00:31:18] And for me, I just consider it. It's my duty, it's my job. Right? Like I take it seriously. I mean, if I had a job, if someone hired me to do this, I would do it diligently. And I'm a pretty awesome boss, so I should do the work for myself. 

[00:31:34] Tim: Yeah. And I think what you said about prioritization being so important to like pick a few things and then just make consistent progress on that as opposed to like a little bit of everything and 

[00:31:46] Alice: Exactly.

[00:31:47] Tim: Yeah, and I like the idea about the virtual assistant. It reminds me a lot of like on YouTube, but here are the advice, like just hire an editor, right? Because time, that is the bottleneck for most of us. And it's almost like, you know, you feel like it's part of the creative process, which it is, but it's not the content, right?

[00:32:07] Alice: Yep. Your, like what you find important in the editing process. You can teach someone that.

[00:32:15] Tim: Actually, yeah. And you can get somebody else's ideas too. Because sometimes we get too much absorbed in something that we think's important, but it's, the audience might like something else if you tried it.

[00:32:26] When creators get overwhelmed by, the consistent demand for content, what's your framework for creating less content that has greater impact?

[00:32:37] Alice: I think that probably everyone should create less content than they think they should.

[00:32:43] Tim: We all watch too much Gary V and see 'em posting. 10 times a day and think that's the gold standard. 

[00:32:50] Alice: Yeah. I mean I'm sure that like, obviously what he says has merit too, right? And Yeah, but he, he is a workaholic I think. Right. And not all of us are. So we have to be

[00:33:06] Tim: He's said that, yeah,

[00:33:07] Alice: more strategic than that.

[00:33:09] But I think, you know, start thinking about, obviously, 'cause we've been talking about digital products, I'm gonna assume. Anybody who wants to do this has products to sell. It doesn't have to be digital. But plan your products first. Or your promotions, you don't have to release new products all the time.

[00:33:24] You can do promotions and stuff. Plan those first, and then figure out what kind of content should go around that. Sometimes it's not even creating a bunch of content it's asking them questions, doing polls or, giving samples of stuff

[00:33:38] I was always amazed that on some of our bigger course launches. We would have a launch party. We'd give out a few prizes, but basically, all we do is show them. A product, like how it worked, the members area and stuff. It was like essentially having our own shopping network,

[00:33:57] mm-hmm. We just talked and people came like, that's content. And people left it because they're excited, because we talk about the product long before it comes out, right? So they're already excited about it. They wanna attend this event. And essentially it's just us saying, this is the product and if you wanna buy it, buy it.

[00:34:13] Tim: I love that. And it's like, um, it's that nuance of figuring out how do I make content to get people excited about this and give them an idea of the content without giving away the content itself as part of the lead in. 

[00:34:27] Right. Yeah. I mean, there are snippets of things that you can create. I also like to talk, especially, and I find it very motivating too, is like mm-hmm.

[00:34:36] Post updates about the process. So even though I might not be talking about the content, I'll be talking about something cool that happened while I was making this, or I'm really excited about this because like, and you're not really saying what it is, but you're saying something that motivates them too.

[00:34:54] Right? And then there motivates them in a way that they can see that the situation in a different light or that they're excited, motivated to buy your product. 

[00:35:02] Yeah. The content's the buzz, right? To get people excited about it and share a little bit about it. So when it comes out, people have an idea of what it is.

[00:35:12] They're already kind of primed and you probably get a sense from their questions in there. Input or their excitement or lack of excitement. You know how it's going and what you need to tweak. 

[00:35:23] Alice: Yeah. We often ask. I mean, you have to have your own process. But I will ask them for input on certain things.

[00:35:30] Or like even middle of a launch, we'll ask them, mm-hmm. We wanna add a bonus. What do you guys think? What should we add? Right. And then they tell you, and then they're more engaged with it. 

[00:35:40] Tim: Yes. We talked a little bit about mindset and the importance that is for creators, but what do you do to strengthen your mindset or keep your mindset strong over 20 years in marketing?

[00:35:51] Alice: Yeah. It's, I mean, mindset is everything, like, I think it. It's what helps you keep going. It's what motivates you to learn more. So you have to have it. But I think the important thing is to have some joy in the process. And celebrate your results and the marketing process specifically.

[00:36:12] Even if you hate marketing, but you like helping people. And I think it's the same thing. So find some joy in that. Like when people do react, like, say you haven't got a sale yet, but somebody leaves that really meaningful comment.

[00:36:25] That's awesome. Or they engage in something that you or they sign up for something for free, whatever it is. Like you've got a hundred subscribers or you got, whatever milestone you're hitting. Celebrate those things. Those are exciting. That means that. You are helping people and that it's making a difference and it's going to grow your business too.

[00:36:44] So that's exciting. And marketing is fun. 

[00:36:47] Tim: And I just thought of something there too, like you're creating stuff. The market's excited about it. Hopefully you're excited about it too. When you're creating your products, how do you navigate that? I don't, I don't wanna call it a trade off 'cause I don't think it has to be a trade off, but how do you find those things that you think, this is something I'm excited about, created, and I know there's a demand out there because I know sometimes I've started something and I feel there's a demand for. But I'm not particularly excited about it myself. Right. And then those are always the worst ones to create, I think, because, you know, you feel like there's a market, you are investing the time in it. But then when it comes to the marketing, I think that's where that mindset barrier comes in.

[00:37:27] It's like, well, I'm not even really excited about this, but I've heard that there's a market for it.

[00:37:32] Alice: So yeah, you have to find some love and part of that process, right? Yes. Like convincing people to opt in and then they Yeah. Go through the series and they end up signing up.

[00:37:43] Maybe that's the part that you get excited about. Right. But I also think it's way easier to, be passionate about what you're making and what you're excited about making. The topic of interest, because you'll be way more convincing. Your passion will show through.

[00:37:56] The energy is real, and I know like, it's not law of attraction woo woo stuff. It's real like, right. People know when you're excited about something or you're just kind of like, they know when, even if inside you're like, this is really good, but I won't feel good about that. People can. They may not sense that's what it is, but they will know the difference between someone who's really excited about it.

[00:38:17] Yeah. Genuinely excited about it, not just hype. 

[00:38:21] Mm-hmm. 

[00:38:21] Like people pick up on stuff like that. 

[00:38:23] Tim: That's true. And speaking of that, I think you, like, you have an amazing resource to help digital entrepreneurs with their business. Can you tell us a little bit more about that? 

[00:38:32] Alice: Yeah, we have a couple things we do at EKit Hub University.

[00:38:35] We do a lot of, courses and toolkits for. Creating different kinds of businesses or content. There are also free courses there as well. We do have our business building platform at New Move. It is an all in one business builder. It's got your website, blogs, it's got, it's got, communities and, and email marketing, the shopping cart, all of it's in there.

[00:38:56] And we do have a step-by-step, success Online Business Success kit that people can engage in, and they can try the builder for free for 14 days as well. But the toolkit itself is super valuable. Worth looking up, and they'll get, they'll learn a lot from it. A lot of that copywriting stuff I said and being, really learning to be more self-promotional and helpful at the same time.

[00:39:19] Right. Is it designed for digital products or physical products or You can do both, but it's more for digital products. There is no connection to like print-on-demand. Yeah. You're shipping something out of your home. It's absolutely suitable for that as well. Okay. But largely digital products, memberships and stuff like that.

[00:39:39] Tim: Yeah, 

[00:39:39] Alice: But we have a very supportive community that you can come into and we can brainstorm with you. 

[00:39:45] Tim: That sounds great. Well, thank you very much Alice. I really appreciate you spending, some time with me today. 

[00:39:50] Alice: Thank you.

[00:39:50] Tim: So one of the things I found interesting about this episode is we did not spend a lot of the time talking about the technical aspects of marketing or product development that a lot of content creators seem to get hung up on. Specifically, things like the right type of sales funnel or landing pages needed to convert buyers or the tools and workflow processes one could use to produce more content as efficiently as possible.

[00:40:16] Instead, we focused on the foundations of a good approach and the mindset we need as creators to carry us forward to long-term success. And for me, what came out of this is that building a successful online business isn't about posting every day or creating reams of test products to see what, if anything works.

[00:40:37] It's about these four main things, starting with number one: developing a strategic plan that connects your content to your products. This is one of the things I wish I had done sooner in my journey, and it's one of the things that I recommend for all creators to do as soon as possible because this will set you up to build an audience that aligns best with your long-term goals.

[00:41:01] That's not to say that you can't experiment and that you won't evolve what you're doing. In the digital realm, things are changing so quickly, you're gonna have to evolve what you're doing anyways. But at least this way, when you commit to one main focus and one main product offering, you're building the connections and the full range of product development and marketing experiences that you're gonna need to be successful in the long run.

[00:41:26] Otherwise, there's a big risk that you remain stuck in that experimentation phase, constantly testing one new product after another, but never really progressing beyond that because you're not giving anything enough sustained effort and time.

[00:41:41] That brings us to point number two, starting with small products that you can actually finish. Think in terms of one ideal customer, one specific transformation that you're gonna produce for them without some specific pain point which you're gonna resolve for them. Bonus points if you can share a time limit by which this transformation is gonna be achieved. An example of this might be a system that helps beginner our content creators secure their first brand deal within 90 days without spending endless hours on cold outreach or development of marketing materials.

[00:42:13] It's a specific goal for one type of person, helping them with one problem. That's highly doable, much more so than something more broad like. Helping them to become a user-generated content creator full-time. That might be something that you wanna offer as a product, but that is a high-ticket offer. That's something that's gonna involve courses, coaching, and maybe a community too, to help support the person along the way.

[00:42:39] The other thing about these smaller products is that you can be more drilled down on this one specific thing, and that gives you lots of opportunities to test and refine around those details of that one thing so that you're continually improving it, you're improving the product, you're improving the marketing copy, and you're giving that product a much better chance at success rather than doing something big where it's like a lot to improve, so it's gonna take a long time or just doing a bunch of mediocre things here and there and never again, like we said, testing and refining those things.

[00:43:13] This more focused approach also helps to focus your audience, which brings us to the next point: building genuine relationships with an engaged audience of buyers. Think depth, not breath here. This is really about slowing down and trying to get to know your audience and supporting them in what they're doing. Because when you do that, and you're seen to be doing that, you're gonna build an audience of loyal customers that are gonna support you and purchase from you just as you support them.

[00:43:43] In a world of endless free information, people are looking for what they can't get from ai, Google, or another YouTube video. They're looking for clarity from someone that they feel they know, like, and trust.

[00:43:54] Lastly, focusing on quality products that you know your audience has a need for lets you to approach sales as service. Like with my one main product offering my merch store, I'm really trying to focus on doing good research to create cool designs paired with quality products, which I know is gonna bring a bit of joy and value into people's lives. And in the future when I evolve this to the next step and add things like cameras and other physical products, it's gonna be stuff that I've personally tested and like just as I do with my affiliate or sponsored content.

[00:44:28] So in this case, I don't feel awkward promoting this stuff. It's things that I think people in my audience will like and things that I think will help 'em in their business. That's the mindset that we need to ultimately develop with our digital products. Speaking of which, I've got two follow up episodes that you could tune into that I think will help you with this even more.

[00:44:48] The first one is Episode 24, and it's called How to Land Your First Clients by Tiago Faria. And it has a lot of great information about researching and validating a potential product offer. And the second one is Episode 40, the three videos every brand needs with Tim Bradley. Which has some great information on collecting customer testimonials, which is gonna help you on the other end when it comes to marketing the product once it's done, when you're looking to build social proof and the credibility that you need to make that product successful.

[00:45:21] Check those out and don't forget to visit our merch store for content creators. I hope you have a great day. Thanks for watching, and we'll see you in the next episode.