Module 6: Serve & Profit
Serve + Profit: FAQ
02. Pick Your Path
My readers are always emailing me and asking lots of questions. Does that mean I need to start consulting?
You can if that’s the direction you want to go! But if consulting isn’t a good fit for you right now, another approach you can use is to set up a consulting page mainly as a way to establish a healthy boundary between you and readers who want to pump you for one-on-one coaching via email. Because as a business owner, you can’t afford to give away all your time for free – that’s for hobby bloggers on the road to burnout. You need people to realize they can’t talk your ear off for free.
Then when someone emails you a bunch of questions, you can answer one question to be helpful and build your relationship with that reader, then refer them to your consulting page if they need more guidance. You don’t need to market that service to all readers, and you can set your rates high to make sure only the truly motivated readers will consider it.
As much as I’d love to ditch my ads, they make up between a third and half of my income each month, and my family needs that income right now. How do I get to the place where I can ditch the ads?
If your ads make your blog profitable, you certainly don’t need to ditch them! As long as you keep the amount of ads reasonable and prioritize the user experience of the readers on your site, you can neutralize the potential negative impact of ads your brand. And so while ads aren’t building your brand, it’s possible to monetize with them in a way that doesn’t tear it down either.
With that said, if you have a personal aversion to having ads on your site in the first place and that’s why you want to ditch them, a great next step would be to create a product. As your product sales increase, you can cut back on the ads. Then keep following the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle (see that lesson in this module) to create new products and grow your product income — until you can eventually get rid of the ads entirely.
But don’t jump unless you have a parachute! If you feel bad about the ads, you can think of them as funding your “entrepreneur habit” until you get further into the game.
What's the best way to grow my affiliate income?
A good place to start is to look at your top ten most popular posts and evaluate whether any paid solutions can help your reader solve the same problem you tackled in each of those posts. For the best results, follow the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle covered in this module.
I'm excited to create my first product, but one thing I always get stuck on is this: How do you decide on a price?
You’ll need to do some good old-fashioned competitor research. Find solutions similar to what you’ll be offering your target market, and evaluate what they do well and what could be improved. Use your findings to improve what you’ll offer to your target market so you can serve them even better.
After you have a plan to serve your readers as deeply as possible through this solution you’ll be delivering, then you can evaluate your competitors’ product pricing. Pricing and positioning is a big topic (probably a separate course in itself!), but the shortcut to being able to charge more for your products is to position it based on the outcome your reader will experience after using it — not “Hey, buy my $49 e-book!”
When you’re confident that your solution will serve your target market deeply, you can feel confident positioning your product at the top end of the pricing range you found in your research.
Can I include content that's free on my blog in an e-book that's for sale?
Yes! Your target market is hungry for a solution to their problem, so they often appreciate the convenience of a one-stop e-book or how-to guide they can rely on — rather than having to search your site and hunt down all the information they need to solve that problem. With that said, be careful not to just throw random blog posts into an e-book and call it done because you need to deliver a cohesive solution to the reader.
I have an existing product that sells pretty well, but working through this program made me realize it doesn't exactly align with my Brand Promise. Should I bring it in line with my Brand Promise, or work on developing a new product that does align with my brand?
In general, it works best to leverage what’s working. If it’s a matter of just needing to make some moderate updates, like tweaking messaging on your sales page or rounding out the value you’re delivering in the product, making those updates now might increase your sales conversion rate and deliver immediate results. Pro tip: Be sure to keep track of the changes you make so that if for some reason your sales conversion rate goes down after the updates you make (always be listening!), you can pivot from there.
However, if you feel like you need to strip the whole product down and start over again, that’s like creating a new product from scratch, so you could go either way on updating your existing product or developing a new product.
03. Listen + Plan + Deliver
How often should I be using the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle?
The Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle is a process you’ll rely on every day, for the rest of the life of your business. In fact, every business decision you make should move through this process so you can make sure you’re doing the right thing for your people and for your business.
Want to create a product? Use the cycle. Want to write an awesome blog post that will knock the socks off your target market? Use the cycle. Not sure what to email your list that will help them and serve your business? Use the cycle.
And here’s the best part: The more you use the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle, the better you’ll get at it and the more confident you’ll become, which will unlock even better results for your target market and your business at the same time.
I'm having trouble thinking of an idea for a product. What are the possible formats I can use to deliver my product?
Remember from the lesson: Figure out the end result you’ll deliver before you figure out the format you’ll deliver it in. What your target market wants is a solution to a problem – they crave an end result. The format won’t matter if you don’t first nail down the end result you’re promising the reader.
After you do that, here are some ideas for possible formats for your new product:
- Printable your reader can use in their day-to-day life, like a checklist, planner, and so on
- How-to guide or workbook
- Downloadable pattern, template, or DIY plans
- Webinar or workshop your readers pay to attend
- E-book
- Online course in a written, video, and/or audio format
- Membership program
I have an idea for a course that would be perfect for my readers. But the idea of writing a course is overwhelming! Where do I even start?
Before you get too far down that path, here’s a question for you: Is it easier to build a skateboard or a car?
The answer is a skateboard, of course. You could build that in your garage on a weekend, but building a car is a whole lot more complicated. That might take you several months if not years to figure out and get road-ready.
But as a business, you make money when you help people achieve a transformation they desire – when you help them get from point A to point Z. If you’re spending all your free time developing a car-level product when you don’t already have a skateboard-level product available for your target market, you won’t be making any money until that car is ready, months down the road.
This is why for your first product, it’s best to start small. A skateboard still gets people from point A to point Z, and your customers will experience a quick win. They’ll be grateful to you for how much faster they’re able to get places. And while that skateboard is out there earning sales, you can take a little more time to develop a bicycle-level product. It will be a little more involved, sure. But because you’re monetizing the traffic you’re already getting with that skateboard, you can afford to take a little extra time.
Then after you have those smaller products out there earning you money, you can take more time to develop a car-level product that will help your people in an even deeper way, like a course or a membership program.
Starting small is a smart CEO strategy because it uses your time more wisely, but it also prevents you from wasting a huge amount of effort developing a big product that won’t actually sell. You can create a smaller product to solve that same problem and test that your target market truly is so interested in a solution to that problem that they’ll pay for it.
04. Where to Go From Here
I have quite a few products, but my sales are dismal. I’m not sure what to start working on. Sales pages? Better blog posts that lead into sales pages? An automated email series?
Creating an automated email series when you don’t have a product that’s already selling well would be premature. Remember from Lesson 1 in this module: Fine-tune first. Automate later.
If you find yourself in this situation, the best next step is to listen. Start at the top of the Listen-Plan-Deliver cycle and listen to what your target market is telling you: Do you have any products that are selling well? Why are they different than the others? Also, listen to your customers who have purchased your products. What are your customers telling you or asking you? What impact did your product have on their lives? Could you tweak the product to serve them even more deeply? Could you use their actual words in your marketing materials (blog posts, emails, sales pages) both as testimonials and to make your target market feel known, heard, and understood?
Then go back to what your all your readers are telling you in their Golden Question answers, emails, and blog comments and figure out what they need help with. Does that align with the products you’re delivering? If not, how could you align their wants and needs with the solutions you’re delivering? Listening deeply will help uncover why your products aren’t selling as well as you’d like so that you can come up with a plan to deliver an even better solution that will sell.