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In today’s podcast, we are going to share our 5 best tips on what your family needs to do to start earning an income online.
We’ll be talking about:
1) How to figure out what to sell so you can start creating your first digital product or service
2) Why you need a unique spin on your product or service to stand out in your niche
3) Why you shouldn’t be discouraged by competition online
4) How to get started creating a digital product
5) What to do once you’ve made the product…and why it ain’t gotta be perfect, it’s just gotta be done!
To find out all these tips so your family can start to make a living online, Click Play at the top or Subscribe and download directly from iTunes.
If you like what you hear we’d love for you to leave a review or leave us a message on Facebook!
Click Here to Learn How to Create & Sell Digital Products Online
Can’t Miss Moments This Week:
Each week Jocelyn and I share moments that we might have missed if we had not started our online business. We hope these moments inspire you to see the possibilities and freedom online business could provide for your family.
SPECIAL BONUS: Get our FREE 6 Video E-Course on How to Create & Sell Digital Products!
We will walk you step by step through the 5 tools for creating and selling stuff online – the same process that led us to the success we have achieved today. Once you’ve gone through the e-course, we want you to share your goals and dreams in the comments for this podcast! The Flipped Lifestyle community will be here to cheer you on as you chase those dreams!
Click Here to gain FREE INSTANT access now!
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Thank you for listening!
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If you have comments or questions, please be sure to leave them below in the comment section of this post. See y’all next week!
Can’t listen right now? Read the transcript below!
Jocelyn: Hey y’all, in today’s podcast, we’re going to show you that it is possible for your family to sell stuff online. We did it. So can you.
Shane: Welcome to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast where life always comes before work. We’re your hosts, Shane and Jocelyn Sams.
Join us each week as we teach you how to flip your lifestyle upside down by selling stuff online. Are you ready for something different? All right. Let’s get started.
[spoiler title=”Click to View Transcript”]
Shane: Watsup guys? Welcome back to the Flipped Lifestyle podcast. There’s an awesome topic and we think it’s going to help you to get your online journey started. We’ve had a lot of emails, tweets, Facebook messages lately about people who have heard us on various podcasts, blog and they really have a common thread of, “Wow you guys really make it believable that you can make money online and make a living on the internet and it’s not high in the sky fantasy stuff.”
We started talking the other day and thought, “Man we really need to go out and show people that this is possible and it’s not some kind of pipe dream and that you can do this and your family can sell stuff online.” I think where people get really confused is they think that when they read these success stories online people making tens of thousands of dollars a month and it’s just not believable.
The truth is very few people make that much money online and it takes a couple of years before you can do that. But it is possible to make smaller amounts online and quickly. It only takes 3-4 months to start making $2000 extra per month and really we started with this premise of what if we could get $20 from 20 people or 10 people give us $40.
Either way, you look at that equation and $400 extra a month is great. So what we want to talk about today that it is possible for your family to do what we do to make money online and while you won’t be able to quit your job right away but you can move on the needle on your budget, you can sell things online and you can make this happen. When we first started out, it was mostly me saying what if we could get 10 people to give us $40 and Jocelyn wasn’t on board with what we were talking about.
Jocelyn: Shane would have started that very day if he had his way but I’m the more practical person so I said that we can’t just start selling stuff from tomorrow and in our mind we had no website or products or anything like that so when we first started talking about online business, being a librarian, I needed to do some research to find if it’s possible and is there something I can create people would want and these are all questions you would have so, first of all, I needed to ask what could I sell? This may be the point you’re at right now.
Shane: The question she’s asking now is something I was never asked. I was always asking how could I get 20 people to spend $20. But I never thought about the product.
Jocelyn: That’s why we make a good team. Shane is like let’s just do stuff and I’m more the details person, like what’s going to happen a week/month from now and of course, those things change over time but I’d like to at least have an idea so that’s the very first thing I started doing. I thought about what would I like to find online? What is something that I’m always searching for that I wish I could find out there?
For me that was elementary library materials and not just any but very specialized, aligned to standards, very detailed, there were things like that out there but not in a nice, neat package and that is how I got my idea for my first product and the good thing about doing it that way was that it was related to my day job as a librarian so in my mind I could use my extra time to create something that could help me in my job so that way if this online thing was a total wash then I could at least have something to show for my work.
Shane: This was during summer time and I was preparing for the football season, I was a football coach. I was creating a playbook for other coaches on our staff and I thought to myself, this is something I’m already doing, I know this inside and out and I’m going to make it anyway for my football team so I might as well create a playbook that would be a quality product that I might be able to get 20 coaches to give me $20 for so we started looking for things we were already planning to do that we could take it a step further in our own time and create a high-quality product that something we would be looking for. If I went to Amazon I would search for this playbook and I would pay to buy that. Same thing for Jocelyn, she was looking for library lesson plans she could everyday walk into her classroom and have something to do so those were the products that we started working on.
We want you to right now think about something you’re already doing that you could create some kind of digital product for but be careful if you go this route you have to respect the people you work for and the time of other people you might be taking away from. Don’t work for any of this and your day job even if it is something for your day job. Make sure you’re always doing it in your own time and you don’t want to get into any legal troubles. Give up your TV show and work on your digital product and don’t use your first hour at work. Also, don’t do any trade secrets or confidential or proprietary stuff but we started this way because we did not have time to come up with some brand new thing. We had to work it into the life that we were living so that in the end we not only have something we can use in our real life because there’s no guarantee that you’ll be able to sell for money but if it did sell then we would make some extra money.
Jocelyn: So it doesn’t need to be related to your day job. Maybe if you’re a cashier and there’s really not much you can do to make your job better but think about things that you’re good at. Maybe you’re really good at gardening or canning vegetables or make-up application or something else.
Shane: Maybe something that people always call you for advice on or what do people always ask you to tell them how to do? Maybe you’re good at making homemade bows.
Jocelyn: So those are just some of the examples of things you could use even if it is something you can’t necessarily tie to your job. There are still other options.
Shane: You can also think about things you look up when you search in Google or if you have a hobby, chances are there are a lot of other people around the world that have that hobby. Outside of your work, if you know how to do something you can easily create an information product that they will be willing to pay for.
Jocelyn: Think about all the things you know, all the interests you have and there’s someone else out there who likes it to or wants to know more about it. The next thing you want to do when you’re creating your digital product is once I decided what I want to create, to start looking out there in the search engine to see if anyone else out there so you want to do to make sure your product is going to be viable and there is an audience for it but don’t be discouraged if somebody else is already doing what you had in mind.
Shane: When we first started we did all this stuff and everybody says do your keyword research and see if anybody else is searching. Jocelyn and I found with hers that not a lot of people were necessarily looking for it but we knew there was an audience for it because there are tens of thousands of elementary school librarians in the country so she didn’t find a lot of competition for creating library resources so we knew we had a pretty good market. Don’t be discouraged if other people are providing it because you don’t need every single person to buy from you.
There is a lot of competition in football resources, a lot of companies make drill videos but all you have to do is try to be different and see what they’re doing and see if you can do it better or make it unique. Eg. Coach X is a website I created and it is designed to bring in football coaches and give them a place to talk about football and then I can provide things that they might buy like playbooks or drill videos but there’s a lot of other people who do that on the internet, there’s a lot of forums and when I did my research I noticed that the forums were just random places to talk about random topics and they weren’t building a community. So I built my entire website around building a community of coaches just like facebook, they could come and have a wall, have their own timeline and could join groups. That was my unique spin on it and that’s what made it attractive to coaches to come and join.
Jocelyn: The reason you did this is because it was something you were looking for.
Shane: When I was coming up the ranks I never had someone I could really just go to any minute of the day and say Guys I need to know this or I’m having trouble with this. I wanted to create a community of coaches to help them and discuss things like Oh practice was terrible yesterday etc. So even though there was a lot of competition for football I had just about a unique spin where I could start building an audience and then you sell stuff to them.
Jocelyn: When you’re starting to think about which product you’re going to create think about what your ideal customer would want and a lot of times people will say poll your customers or give them a survey. That’s not going to work. The thing is if you’re going with something you know inside and out, your ideal customer is you so think about what would I want if I’m looking for a product online, if I were going to purchase something about whatever your product is what would I want to find? If I found a website what would I want it to be and look like? Ask yourself those questions considering which product you might sell.
Shane: I think a lot of people when they first start out in online business there is still this physical, real-world mentality that we all grew up with, don’t be scared of online competition because it’s not like a local business. The market is the world so there’s plenty of room for more people in a space/niche. My best friend runs a football coaching website and sells exactly the same product that I do and we talk all the time, we strategize, we share keywords and talk about what’s working and what’s not, what our audiences want etc and we work together sometimes to create products even if we have the exact same audience, because online your competition are like your colleagues and you’re really working together and the market is so big that you’ve got plenty of room so don’t be discouraged. Take it as a good sign when you find competition.
Jocelyn: Especially if you have something new/different to offer, something that no one else is doing yet so don’t be afraid of perceived competition because the world is a big place and there a lot of people in it and somebody is interested in what you have to say.
Shane: And the question that comes back around is how can I get x people to give me x dollars? Imagine what $400 extra a month would do to your budget if you could just get every month 20 people to give you $20. What we’re going to over at the end of this podcast here are 4 simple steps you can take to get 20 people to give you $20.
Step 1 – You need to find something you know about / Something you’re an expert in
This is because it’s a lot easier to go with what you know or to do something you really like to talk about (Eg. Fantasy Football teams) but you don’t have to be a Ph.D. in something.
Jocelyn: And don’t let that hold you back, maybe you’re good at it but not an expert and you think you’re not good enough, don’t worry about that because when I started my site ElementaryLibrarian.com I had been a school librarian only 3 years at a time and there were people with so much more experience than I had that had been doing this for years and years, I hadn’t even worked in education for very long and there were probably people out there saying What are you doing? You don’t know how to be a good librarian but I had ideas that people loved and it has been incredibly successful so if you think you’re not good enough or people are not going to listen to what you have to say, don’t worry about that.
Shane: It’s not about being the expert in the field, it’s about being expert enough like I’m not an NFL coach but I do know a lot more than a lot of other coaches. You just need to know more than the people who are going to buy your product. If you don’t know how to change a tire and your tire is flat on the road, you would probably be willing to pay someone to teach/change your tire for you and you don’t have to be a mechanic/rocket scientist to do that but you do have to know how to change a tire so whatever your subject is, you know it so be expert enough.
Step 2 – Take what you know and go online and see if it’s something people are looking for or want to know more
Jocelyn: You can do that by a Google search.
If you type in whatever you search for something about your topic or even try blogs about Bonzai trees or whatever it is you’re interested in and just see if there’s anybody out there writing about it, see if there are any products that people are selling about that topic.
Shane: A lot of times when you’re doing Google stuff, that’s not to knock anybody, you’re not doing this to go out there do all this keyword research, you just need to get an idea if people are looking for it. If there are other websites about it and you got an idea of something you know how to do, you know better than the people around you and that’s fine so just go with it. Don’t over think this.
Step 3 – Make a digital product.
Shane: This need not be a massive 18 video series or some 400-page e-book. All you have to do is create your smallest product as quickly as possible that answers the question or meets the need of the person that you’re writing to.
Jocelyn: A lot of times you would want to do this to gauge interest so what I would recommend is to start with a free product that you can give away and that way you will know if people are interested in downloading something that they would pay for. When I started my site I wrote a month of free lesson plans to see if it was going to work. The response was so big that people were saying Yes please make more of these. That’s when I decided to really take the plunge and start investing lot more time into what I was doing. It doesn’t have to be something as big as what I did, it could even be a single page, maybe 5 tools to do xyz whatever your topic is.
Shane: And you can even make your outline or skeleton to your bigger product and use that to gauge interest or just create something short, maybe one part of what you do (like what to feed Bonzai trees) and then later on once you realize people are interested in it you create a massive thing.
Jocelyn: Or maybe what you could do is a course on herb garden, something that I’m interested in but know nothing about so maybe you do the top 5 herbs you could grow at home.
Shane: And that will be a springboard later on once you figure out the process. The key point is to just make something and make it fast and make it pretty good and get it out there. You do not have to go and create the world’s biggest internet digital product.
Step 4 – Just sell it
Shane: Put it out there. There is a fear hurdle that you got to jump over when you first start doing this. As long as you’re the person that does it, you get your stuff out there and someone is going to listen. So basically you use a service like Gumroad or Ejunkie or Paypal to take money, email them your digital product.
The funniest thing happened to me. I sell a lot of playbooks. I have got literally 1000s of coaches from all over the world but one time I got this hate mail and this guy sent a message saying Who the heck are you? Why in the world will I ever give you money for your playbook? I basically laughed because literally thousands of coaches had downloaded it so I just sent a message back saying Hey thanks for the email. Last I checked (make a little joke) so if you know something and you make it available that’s going to make people trust to buy it because they can’t buy it from anywhere else so don’t be afraid that because you’re not the best in your field or just an average that someone’s not going to listen to you.
Jocelyn: Yeah and just start. There’s one thing that we can guarantee is that you won’t make any money if you don’t do anything. What’s the worst that could happen?
Shane: Nobody buys it? You’re not going to make money otherwise anyway and if anything you can go try something else so the best thing you can do at this point is pick something you know, do a little Google research, see if anybody is looking for it, make your product and then get it online for sale, it’s not as complicated as you think. You don’t even need a website. We actually have a free 6 video course that we put together to show everyone it’s not complicated. There are plenty of marketplaces to sell digital products online like Amazon Store, Ejunkie so don’t be overwhelmed with all this information and it is possible for you to put out information and people find it and pay you money for that on the internet. A lot of times when we discuss online business we listen to so much stuff at the beginning that it just swallows us like How can I ever do this?! But it’s really not as complicated as you think it is if you boil it down to the basics and get it done.
Jocelyn: Check out our free 6 video e-course to sign up for the flip lifestyle mailing list and take a look at that and it might answer a few questions that you may have.
Shane: And if you go to flippedlifestyle.com/podcast5 at the bottom of the shownotes, we’ll put a graphic for our 6 video e-course and that is 100%, we got a great response to that and we actually put it together for his audience and we got such a good response, so many people thanked us for that and we decided to go ahead and make it available for everybody on our email list.
Jocelyn: We need to talk about our can’t miss moments for this week.
Shane: Our kid just started going to school and Jocelyn and I have this awesome thing where we get up in the morning and we both take a walk down the street. Our kid was with us and we took her and went down to the bus stop, I look up and he’s so happy, he gets off and hugs so we were walking back to our house and I was a little bit behind Jocelyn and I looked up and eyes that reached over and I took this awesome picture of my little boy and girl walking down the street back home to the bus stop holding hands together and that was such an awesome moment and at that exact second I thought to myself, Man last year I would’ve been at bus duty at school so I would be watching other kids getting on the bus and picking fights and that’s what I would have been doing but instead because we took the chance and worked so hard to make this online business thing happen, I got to pick my little boy up from his bus stop, walk home with my family and watch my little boy and girl holding hands.
Jocelyn: For me, it was at swimming class. Our kid has just started taking swimming class in the afternoons right after school and it so awesome for us to be able to take him there. In the past we would have been rushing to get home, no way he would have been able to participate in the swim class because it starts so soon after school and I’m just grateful to watch him swim as he loves that and sit with him and know there’s no place else that we have to be or rush to.
Shane: We always tell you these can’t miss moments because we did not have these two years ago because we were so consumed with other people’s schedules and we just want to let you know that you can have more can’t miss moments if you can start working at it and give yourself some extra money and time and make some can’t miss moments of your own.
So that was a fun episode to do and we hope you see now that it is possible for your family to make money online. It does not have to take a long time, you just need to get the ball rolling. The best way is to go to FlippedLifestyle.com/podcast5 and watch our videos and then you should be able to get your first digital product on the internet and if you can’t quite figure it out, we are here to help.
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Brad @ RichmondSavers.com says
Great stuff — I just read the transcript and really enjoyed it!
I particularly liked the ‘can’t miss moments’ about seeing your kids holding hands. Definitely chill inducing as one of the things I talk about with my daughter about why I work so hard on my website is so someday I can be there at 3pm when she gets off the bus every day.
The few times last year I took off during the school year she was so excited to see me that she’d bound off the bus and jump into my arms. It doesn’t get better than that 🙂
I can’t wait to hear future podcasts as I’m incredibly interested to hear about your day-to-day routine for the sites, how you market it, social media outreach, systems you’ve put into place, and how you’re using VAs to assist you.
I don’t have a digital product per se, so I’m not sure if your E-course is right for me, but if you were doing a 2nd course on these type of things, I’d be the first person to sign up!
Jocelyn Sams says
Brad, what an amazing story. We will try to give you all the information and tools you need to be at that bus stop man!
You don’t have to have a digital product, we create one in our eCourse with you! We show you the process of how we create and market our information products. This is also a great course for creating an opt-in for lead magnets.
We will have a more advanced marketing course, but it will probably be closer to the new year 😉 Would love to have you in the next “Flip Your Life” Session to get to know you better and let you get a peek at our systems! https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife
Glen says
Having had success selling information products, I liked your advice for getting 20 people to give you 20 dollars and some of the practical tips you have offered, especially focusing on little niches. When you spoke on doing Google Adwords searches and not focusing on the numbers, that is totally true and very helpful. Great practical advice. Thanks.
Gertrude says
Hello Shane and Jocelyn. I got here by listening to your SPI interview and let me just say you guys really inspired me to take my efforts seriously in building my online business. I was introduced to online business in 2009 but did not even know where to start. I didn’t even know about Podcasts so I started an eBay business. I’ve ran many side gigs that have been great and brought in extra income but nothing ever to replace it.
I am ready to take my online business adventure to the next level and I am definitely going to be listening to your podcast starting TODAY.
Thank you for being you and inspiring me !
Jocelyn Sams says
So happy for you Gertrude! Deciding to take action is 90% of the battle! Now you just have to finish 🙂 If you need any help, we have a couple spots left in our next session of “Flip Your Life” Click here to check it out: https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife
Thanks again, you can do it! Don’t ever get up now that you have started!
Joey says
Hi Shane & Jocelyn, I’ve enjoyed the episode 5, too! I’m sort of surprised how genuine you guys sound and make it believable about making money online. To be honest, it’s something I’ve never felt listening to SPI. I’m a big fan of Pat, and listened to all his episodes multiple times, but I’ve never thought about actually starting online business myself. I’ve found myself quite excited after listening to this episode 5, really!!
Your episodes have made me thinking what I can do to make it really happen. I’ll have no technical problem setting up a website, doing web-design/web-dev stuff, but my problem is always about finding an area to be an expert. In areas of my interest (e.g. photography, web-dev), I see myself good, but not as good enough as behaving like an expert. This has held me back for years.
Anyway, thank you for the inspiration! I’ll definitely come back again. Enjoy time with your beautiful son and daughter! I have a 4 y/o son, too, and always wish I could spend more time with him. 🙂
Shane Sams says
Joey, so happy you are inspired to get started! The only guarantee of failure is to never try…so go for it and you have a chance! You would be a perfect fit for our “Flip Your Life” eCourse. We show you how to create your first digital product, and get it online for distribution. It can be used as a free opt-in or even your first paid product. We show you how to use it for both! This will also connect you with other like minded online business folk in our private Flip Your Life Facebook group. And remember, you just have to be expert ENOUGH. Not THE ultimate expert. Do you know more than a lot of people at what you do? Then you can market a digital product successfully! Check out our course. The next session starts soon, but the facebook group is already open and the precourse work is already live 🙂 Click this link: https://flippedlifestyle.com/flipyourlife
Liz says
Another SPI fan here. After listening to all 5 podcasts (this last one I went and got my notebook for!) and your free mini ecourse, I am very inspired. You’ve given me a valuable start point to begin in online business. Create something small, you can even give it away for free to gauge interest, and just START. You don’t have to be THE expert. Thank you! And good luck with the rest of your ventures.
ASM says
Hey Shane and Jocelyn! Thank you for this amazing podcast! And I really like that you mentioned creating a fifteen slide presentation to teach people something I was good at.
You know, when you said “just do something” it just didn’t move me as much as when you mentioned about creating the fifteen slide presentation because hey man I was doing Powerpoint presentations all the time!
So that caused me to realize, in a very real way, that indeed, it’s that simple to start taking action!
Derek says
I find that I have a mindset similar to Joey where I feel like I know a little about a lot of different things, but nothing well enough to make a product. My other mental roadblock is that the things I do know better than a lot of people, I tend to undervalue and feel like nobody would want to pay for that information as it is so easy. I have created a couple of info products before, so I can do it once I get out of my own way and stop convincing myself that I cannot do it.