181: How Your Digital Product Business Can Grow With Speaking
Do you have a digital product that either you offer for sale or for free? Friend, speaking engagements can help you scale your business when you are in front of the right audience. In this episode, you will hear success stories from business owners who have used speaking engagements to promote their digital products, along with helpful information for anyone who wants their digital product business to grow.
If you loved this episode and it motivated you to work on more polished presentations, I’d love for you to leave a review on iTunes and tell me about your biggest takeaway. Take a screenshot of you listening on your device, post it to your Instagram Stories, and tag me @jessicarasdall.
Resources mentioned in this episode:
PASSIVE INCOME ON DIGITAL PRODUCTS
For the month of March, I will be focusing on how you can earn passive income on digital products. You will hear behind-the-scenes stories and tips to help with practical application. Plus, you will learn how speaking can impact your sales.
HIGH TOUCH BIG IMPACT
I get it, it’s tempting to feel like everything should be automated and passive. Maybe you have set up the most amazing funnels and automated systems, but nothing compares to those high-touch interactions with your people. This is why speaking has so much impact.
SPEAKING IS NOT ONE SIZE FITS ALL
Speaking requires a unique approach for each business, which depends upon the business model. This means that all businesses will need to take a different approach to the opportunities they’re going after, what’s included in the presentation, how much they’re charging, and why they’re speaking in the first place.
WHY USE SPEAKING?
Speaking allows you to intentionally target your ideal audience for a specific product. It helps you generate new leads with a deeper level of connection, which means that you will build that know, like, and trust from the very beginning. This makes for a shorter client journey, from stranger to buyer. It’s one of the best ways that you can scale your digital offers.
SUCCESS STORIES
Christina Scalera is the owner of The Contract Shop, which offers downloadable legal templates and DIY options. Scalera knows that her business wouldn’t exist if she hadn’t taken up speaking opportunities. In fact, her store kicked off with a joint venture webinar that was broadcast to about 1,500 people live, plus to others who watched after. She made $3,700 in one weekend. Today, she has a $2 million revenue store.
Krista Miller is the owner of Summit in a Box, which offers every training template, script, and resource someone could ever need to host a profitable virtual summit. Krista primarily sells her program through a webinar, which is sometimes live and sometimes pre-recorded. She believes that speaking is the ultimate connection tool.
Megan Martin helps creatives and entrepreneurs turn what they know, love, and do into what they can sell with a digital product so that they can start earning passive income in their business. Megan offers website templates, courses, and a membership to help digital entrepreneurs. Speaking has helped her gain confidence and reach new audiences, which resulted in selling more products and making more money to provide for her family.
Natasha Samuel is the owner of Shine With Natasha. She is an Instagram strategist who focuses on video. Natasha offers a digital product suite, including a 30-day Reels Challenge. By creating her own stage on Instagram, she was able to attract speaking opportunities. Her digital products work for her as authority builders.
Paige Griffith is the owner of The Legal Paige. She sells digital products, contract templates, short legal forms, legal guides, and more. Paige believes that speaking has helped contribute to the overall success of her business because customers are able to develop that know, like, and trust before they purchase. Speaking opportunities allow potential customers to know the face and the voice behind a digital product.
TARGETING THE IDEAL AUDIENCE
Friend, you want to speak in front of the audience that your digital product was designed for. In order to do this, you need to understand where your audience is right now. What are they struggling with? Do they even know that they have this problem? Knowing this information will help you determine what you need to include in your presentation.
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Transcript for Episode 181:
If you offer digital products in your business, I feel like it can be tempting to set your business on autopilot, automate all the things and maybe even think, speaking is not for you. Well, today I'm going to show you how your digital product business can grow with speaking. And I'm going to show you how, let's go.
Welcome back to another episode of The speak to scale podcast, where we're helping small business owners just like you grow and scale their impact by speaking on stages, podcasts, webinars, and more.
Listen, friend, as a small business owner who has digital products of her own, I know it's tempting to feel like everything should be automated, everything should be passive, right. But that's just not how it works around here. And if you've worked with me in any capacity, you know, I am team high touch big impact when we hear about digital products and passive income. So often we hear about funnels and automation. And today I want to bring a different perspective, not just from myself, but from some of my friends, to really show you how speaking can be the thing that helps you scale your digital product business. But I want to let you in on some housekeeping stuff first, because this month is for you. All month on the speak to scale podcast, we are focusing on passive income in digital products. That means or solo episodes, or guest interviews, all of them are going to be focused on those of you who have digital products have passive income, have one too many offers in your business, or are getting ready to create those, I want to show you some behind the scenes stories, give you some practical application, and give you a month to dive all in on your type of business, and how speaking can impact it. And to take that one step further.
Inside of the speaking strategy Academy, we are opening up a digital products passive income themed cohort. So if you are a business owner who's wanting to use speaking to scale your digital products business, this means that we are opening up a small group inside of our academy just for you. So if you've been thinking about using speaking inside of your business, this is the time to join, just head on over to the speaking strategy academy.com or click that link inside of our show notes and fill out an application right now. We're currently reviewing applications for people who have digital product or passive income offers in their business.
Okay, so let's talk today about what it actually looks like to use speaking in your digital product, or passive income business. Now, first off, when I say that I'm not saying your entire business needs to be a passive income model or a digital product shop or something like that. But I'm saying that you have at least one offer in your business that is delivered digitally. That does not require you to be there exchanging time for dollars when it comes to speaking. I know I say this all the time. And sometimes I feel like y'all are tired of this. But speaking is not a one size fits all we know this right? We know there are three different speaking tears, we know that we need to design a strategy that fits our business. But did you know that speaking requires a unique approach for each different type of business model? I know crazy, right? I'm so nerdy about this stuff. But depending on what your business model looks like, you're going to need to take a different approach with what types of opportunities you're going after what you're including in your presentation, why you're speaking at all in the first place, how much you're charging, all of that is going to change depending on your business model. And that's why this month we're fully immersing ourselves in digital products and passive income. Because I want you if that is your type of business to understand how this works for you. So why would we use speaking, if we already have a business model that's kind of set up to operate without us? So they say, right? Well speaking allows you to really intentionally target your ideal audience. This is particularly important for those of you who have a service based business and you're adding a digital offer.
So maybe you are a why can I never come up with examples on the fly? Let's say you're a web designer, but you're adding in DIY website templates. The audience who is hiring you for full service design is probably not the same audience that's hiring you, that is going to purchase a template from you. So that allows you to speak in different settings in front of different audiences, and target that audience for a specific offer. Even if you're serving multiple audiences side of your business, what's awesome about speaking is that it also helps you generate consistent new leads for people. And you create these leads with a deeper level of connection from the very beginning. So for example, if somebody is meeting your brand interacting with your company, for the very first time from just a Facebook ad, there might not be much connection to you. But if instead they are reaching your business connecting with your brand, learning about you for the first time, because you shared your story on a podcast, or you taught them something new in a summit, they are starting to build that know like and trust with you from the very beginning. And that in turn resorts results in a shorter client journey from stranger to buyer. Speaking is one of the best ways to scale your digital products, your passive income products. And before I show you the nitty gritty of how you can use speaking with your digital products, I want to show you a few different stories here. I've brought in some of my friends, who have amazing businesses, incredible digital offers to share with you what it has looked like in their business, for their different offers to use speaking to skill. I want this to show you what it could look like for you, and maybe even help you envision and dream a little bit about what it could be like if you got that offer into even more hands. So let me shush for a minute and introduce you to some of my closest business friends.
Hey, my name is Christina Scalera. And my online store is called the contract shop. My digital products are downloadable legal templates, enabling contract templates. And we also have a couple of DIY options like trademarks on tap, that helps you to do your trademarks yourself, my store would not exist if I hadn't taken up speaking opportunities. In fact, my store kicked off with a joint venture webinar that was broadcast to about 1500 people live and countless others who watched after the fact I had never made more than $2 on a digital download product before that summit. And all of a sudden, in one weekend, I had made $3,700 I went from thinking this online business thing was such a lie to wow, I can see how this could actually work that year, I worked so hard to get on as many stages that I possibly could. And I even got to meet Jessica in person in Phoenix since that year. And since meeting Jessica, I've gotten on every single stage and podcast that I've had in mind and I've had to reevaluate and uplevel those goals. Every single time I'm able to share my message like right now. I am so humbled. I think it's such a privilege and I don't take it lightly. I also do my best to educate and bring some fun and funniness to the speaking engagements that I do. I think all of this combined has helped me to have a really successful digital download product business, and even begin teaching other people how to do the same, even though I'm super introverted, and I immediately need to go back to my hotel after a long day of networking at conferences or presenting at an online Summit. Ultimately, it's all worth it because that content or that speech lives on forever, either as a recorded version or in the hearts of the people who attended and watched it. One of the most underrated things in business is having people spread the word about you and your existence. A lot of people are going for those big fast wins. But I think this is a really deep win when you do a speaking engagement and people notice you it's going to open up so many doors for you to sell your digital products. I should know it opened the door to a nearly $2 million lifetime revenue store at this point, and countless other opportunities and some of my best friends. Have fun with it. And you're in good hands here with Jessica.
Hi there. My name is Krista and I am the founder of Summit inbox, which is a program containing every single trading tablet script tutorial and resource someone could ever need to host a profitable virtual summit without wondering where to start or what to do next. When I started thinking about how speaking has helped me sell my course I was absolutely floored. Sure there needs to be a solid product with good messaging and marketing for it to work. But I can attribute some kind of speaking to a very good amount of my success. First, I primarily sell my program through a webinar sometimes live to a group of anywhere from like 20 to 100 people and the rest of the time. It's pre recorded. Sometimes those live presentations I'm delivering to my own audience and sometimes it's to the audience of affiliate part. But my business would not be where it is today without speaking through webinars. I also do a lot of speaking on summits and other people's podcasts. And while I do always see some list growth and get sales from events and opportunities that are the perfect audience wise, it's the other people I connect with through those opportunities that really make them worthwhile on a long term basis. These are people who know about me in my Magnavox program, they're people I can turn to when I'm looking for some kind of support, the people I can count on to partner with. And they're the people who can point their audiences to me without needing anything in return, although I do always want to send people to write back to them. So speaking is the ultimate Connection Tool, and such a big factor in my digital product success.
I'm Megan Martin, and I help creatives and entrepreneurs turn what they know what they love, and what they do into what they can sell with a digital product so they can start earning some passive income in their business. My digital products run the gamut. I have products like website, templates, courses, and even a membership that all work together to help digital entrepreneurs. When it comes to speaking on stages, podcasts, webinars, live streams and summits, I have to tell you that speaking in general just helps me gain more confidence in what I know, and what I'm passionate about. And therefore it allows me to reach new audiences, and sell more products and make more money so that I can provide for my family, and not only has speaking given me that confidence to get out there and put myself out there and sell more, because what I have to offer matters just like what you have to offer matters. It also helps me in the actual products and services that I am creating for my customers. Learning how to speak live on a stage or on the fly in a podcast has helped me be a better presenter and a better teacher and a better educator when it comes to actually building these digital products. Because whether I've created a download, or a template, or of course an entire course, I have seen in my own business that all of those types of products do end up coming with some sort of video video component. And having that confidence to know that I have already spoken on a live stage helps me so much when I go to create my own product so that my customers feel really confident and their purchase. So it really has come full circle for me as a digital product creator. So I really encourage you to take the time and learn the skill of speaking, even if it doesn't come naturally to you.
Hello, my name is Natasha shine with Natasha I'm an Instagram strategist who focuses on Instagram video. And I have created a digital products we on the sunshine shop with one of my best known products being the 30 day reals challenge which has been updated added to and a lot of different ways. Essentially it is 100 different prompts for creating Instagram reels, which started as a free challenge and now is a resource on my shop. And quite literally I started selling this product by creating my own stage on Instagram as an early adopter and educator on Instagram reels. And just by creating a lot of really high value content around reels by hosting a 30 day real challenge on Instagram, I was able to attract so many speaking engagements that were summits, coaching and private programs and even going on podcast to talk about reels because they were new to the scene. And even now they're one of the hottest parts of Instagram so it was really able to capitalize on a topic that people wanted more speakers on and easily offer that next step and that next option, which was the 30 day rails challenge ebook and courses. So by using the 30 day rails challenge during my interviews and during my talks as not only an authority builder, but also as a case study to use as like this not only works for me, but it works for other people to really weave it into the value that I was sharing. I was able to easily sell it as an intro offer to my brand and have it be one of my best selling shot products. So hopefully you found this really helpful. Thanks, Jessica for having me a part of this podcast episode and if you want to connect, be sure to check me out on Instagram at shine with Natasha or on my website at shine with natasha.com
Hey there this is Paige Griffith, the owner and lead attorney behind the legal page Online, we sell digital products such as contract templates, short legal forms, legal guides, and more at the legal page.com. And speaking on stages, in podcasts, in webinars, live streams and on summits, has definitely helped contribute to the overall success of our digital products sales, because it has really helped build that know like and trust with potential customers before they purchase. Especially since we sell legal products. It's been a great way for me to showcase our expertise as lawyers behind the curtains of the legal page, so that people know that when they buy a digital product from our shop, they're getting quality digital downloads. I've also learned that speaking on platforms like this really helps a potential customer understand the face and the voice behind an actual digital product. Because digital products are sometimes a little bit in personal. And in order for a potential client to truly understand the full breadth of what they're getting from the digital product, they really want to know the brand behind it and the owner behind it, and the person creating the digital product behind it. And speaking is a great way to showcase that part prior to a customer coming to your website to purchase digital products.
Pretty incredible, right? It's so nice to be able to hear these success stories, because I feel like so often we either hear an empty promise, right? Like, buy this product and make a million dollars this week. Or we hear the heartbreak stories of our friends who've invested time, money, and resources only to have a product flop, you can see so much success with your digital offers. But I would challenge you to fast track that success by using speaking to get that product into more hands. So here's what I need you to know, grab a pen. If you're planning to use speaking to scale your digital offers. The most important thing for you to focus on is targeting the ideal audience for that specific product. You probably have multiple products or offers in your business. And if you're going to scale a specific product, you need to speak in front of the audience that product was designed for. The second thing you need to do is really deeply understand your buyers journey. Where is your audience right now? What problem are they struggling with? Do they even know this is a problem. All of that information is going to help you figure out what to include in your presentation, and how to move them through that journey to get them to the point that they're ready to say yes to your offer.
I also want you to focus on creating a quick connection and a compelling story. We want to make sure that your audience feels seen, understood and that they trust you or your resources. To help them take that next step. There is a fine line between positioning yourself as an intimidating, I'm better than you expert in positioning yourself as the trusted advisor in their corner, you've got to walk that line closely and know what your people need from you. Right along that line, I want you to understand what your audience needs to know, do understand or overcome before they're ready to invest in your offer. You've got to build this into your presentation. So if your audience wants to learn how to set up an email sequence, maybe they need to have an opt in up first. So we need to make sure that in that presentation, we've gotten them to the point that they haven't often. What are the prerequisites for saying yes to your offer? And how can you help your audience achieve that. The last thing I really want you to focus on is making sure that your onboarding and client experience is dialed in. You'll want to do as much as you can to optimize and personalize this for your speaking opportunities. And if you're scrambling to get your audience signed up for your offer, it's going to be very hard for you to show up, serve them well and customize it event by event.
So make sure that you have your back end systems and processes set up so that when you are speaking, you can focus on connecting with the audience and over delivering from the stage. Now, as wonderful as all that information is, I wouldn't be serving you. Well. If I didn't give you a little cautionary warning here. Where most people mess this up is they focus on the wrong thing. So I'm going to tell you what not to do. When you're looking at places to speak to share your about your products to get more people into your programs. Seek events where your ideal clients are we've said this, but do not solely seek events where your peers and your friends Are for credibility purposes. I mean, unless your friends are your ideal clients. But this is a trap that so many of us fall into as business owners, we see our buddies or business besties and mastermind friends speaking at a conference and we feel like that's the stage I need to be on. Once I get on that stage, I've made it, I'll be credible in in turn, I will make more sales. That's not how this works.
Friend. If you want an intentional speaking strategy, you've got to speak in front of the clients, you designed that offer for period, the other stages do not matter. So if you have digital products, or you're preparing to create digital products, speaking is a great way to get those offers in front of your ideal clients. And build that know like and trust. fast, quick in with intentionality. And if you're ready to do that this year, you want to link arms with others who are on a similar path, we'd love to have you join our digital product cohort inside of the speaking strategy Academy. Honestly, like it is such an honor to be a tiny piece of the puzzle and watching you guys build out these amazing offers and share it with the world from the stage. So simply head on over to the speaking strategy academy.com or click that link in our show notes. I mean, even if you don't want to do either one of those, just shoot me a DM over on Instagram, we can chat about it. I'd love to hear more about what you're working on what those passive offers are, and how we could possibly support you in getting those products into more hands. That's enough for this week. Friends, I hope you got some great tips from this episode and some inspiration from our friends stories. I will see you right back here next week for more chat about digital products, and how to use speaking to scale them.
Thank you so much for tuning in to another episode of The speak to scale podcast. It would mean the world to us if you would take a minute to hop on over to iTunes and leave us a review. Your support allows us to continue creating this content for you. And we appreciate it more than you know. If you want to dive in even further with speaking, make sure you head on over to the public speaking strategist.com for free downloads, hands on trainings and so much more. As always, I'll be over here cheering you on friend. See you next time.
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