Week 4 - Digital products and lead magnets 🎁

Have you ever felt that you keep repeating the same things repeatedly and already become tired of repeating them, but people still have immense value in it?

I had!

It constantly happens when I talk to a new prospect about building community for their business or a freelancer about the importance of crafting your personal brand and networking.

But I noticed that the more I repeat myself, the clearer those things sound to me, and, over time, I share less and less because “Oh, it’s so easy, everyone knows that!”

And here is the catch:

It’s easy for me, but not for potential clients!

They still need the same level of detail and even more.

So, to overcome this, I decided to create digital assets, such as:

• guides

• playbooks

• templates

• small courses (by the way, I already have one for 9am Freelance Academy 😏)

Why do it? Because it’ll help me organize my knowledge and create tailored solutions for each of my potential clients, and even make some cash by proposing low-cost products for someone who’s not ready to work with me on full terms.

For example, creating a community strategy from scratch will cost $2K —$5K/month for 3-6 months, which is an overall $6K—$30K investment for a company.

But if they don't have enough budget, I’d propose they purchase a step-by-step guide on how to build a successful community for just $199.

This way, if they don’t have money but have time, they can invest their time and start moving in the right direction.

Also, it’ll help build trust with potential clients.

So, if I’m in the negotiations and clients want to have a trial period with me, I’d share a guide with them and answer their questions.

But if they have questions over and over again, it looks like a match made in heaven for us to work together 😁

Last but not least, it can act as a lead magnet (a free item or service that is given away to gather contact details) because even though the idea is to make it paid, I can still create a small marketing campaign to give it away with a 100% discount (still better than for free 😁), and collect contacts of potential clients, and work with them later.

But, for that, I’ll need to build sales funnels, which I’ll discover in the upcoming weeks!

And remember, if you start now and keep improving those products over time, you can build a scalable extra source of income that won’t take much of your time.

Before going down the rabbit hole with those things, here is a disclaimer:

I’m not starting the product creation journey fully from scratch!

Yes, I’ve never sold a playbook or a template, but I’m:

• constantly posting on LinkedIn about community and freelancing

• running Community ROI, Freelance Thrive, and Freelance Sucks podcasts (and even will start one more soon - Humans of Business 😎)

• speaking at different international and local conferences

• networking weekly with at least 5-10 new people

• listening to at least a few 2-hour episodes of the DOAC podcast

• reading self-development books at least 10 minutes a day.

This means that besides personal experiences, I am constantly accumulating tons of extra knowledge from others.

So, if you’re not doing at least 3 of those things I’ve listed - start right away and say “thank you” to me later 😉

And just like that… let’s discover how to create some digital assets!

Coming back to a community example.

Before I start working with a company to help them build a community around their brand, I send them a brief with 7 main topics and extra questions inside each topic.

First of all, it helps both the client and me understand if they really need a community and, if yes, why they need it.

Secondly, it’s a great filter between those who want to build a community and those who just think it would be great but aren’t ready yet.

Also, I post about community ROI on LinkedIn every Wednesday and collect every post in Notion in a structured way because, yes, I want to write a book about Community ROI in the future and approach each post as a small step toward this goal 😎

So, I’m coming back to my chatGPT conversation, feeding it with questions from my brief and content from the Notion page, and asking this prompt:

(before that, I saved the brief and posts collection into PDF to easier add it to chatGPT, and for brief, it was a simple import from Google Docs, and for Notion - copied all the info to Google Docs and used the same import )

I definitely expected to have a whole playbook ready, but it’s not how it works with chatGPT 🤷‍♂️😁

So, it gave me a rather good table of contents and ideas on how to present this playbook to potential clients.

Still, I needed a book, but I decided to make it easier for chatGPT and made the next prompt:

So I went step-by-step through all the 11 chapters it proposed to me before, and I can say I’ve got a very good playbook (which is all based on my experience and knowledge) 😏

Still, it’s not perfect, but I’m not striving for perfection here, the main thing is to start!

^{If you’d like to see it, tell me, I’ll send you a copy} 😉

Also, I have an outstanding experience in how to:

• daily create meaningful content on LinkedIn,

• build personal networks, and help people I know expand theirs,

• start a podcast from scratch and fully close the whole production cycle,

• make an amazing, clear LinkedIn profile (okay, it’s still a work in progress for mine, but I gave a ton of advice to others 😁),

• prepare and deliver an engaging presentation both at online and offline events.

I’d say, for now, it’s enough, and that’s something I’ll be creating digital products for.

By the way, if you’re interested in any of those topics, let me know so I can create this playbook first and share it with you 🤗

So next week, I’ll discover how to make playbooks pretty, add them to platforms like Gumroad, and ensure people can find and purchase them.

P.S. Even though I’m just four weeks on the road to a $1M+ freelance business, I’ve already found it hard to find time for it besides my client work and family time (especially when your kid is sick ), so for upcoming weeks, I’ve added a 30-minute calendar block to work on it no matter what!

Daily actions:

• invite 5 people to join the database of amazing humans

• read a self-development book/listen to a professional podcast for 15 minutes

• make a valuable post/comment on LinkedIn

• work 30 minutes solely on my business 😎

If you have any thoughts, ideas, or questions, please 👇

And if you’d like to walk The Road To $1M+ Freelance Business with me 👇

See you next week! 👋