Episode 32: How to Create and Launch Your Digital Product With The Empowered Business Lab

You’re listening to the empowered business podcast. I’m your host, Monica Froese, a mom of two and your secret weapon to creating a six figure digital product business. I’m on a mission to help 1000 women make $100,000 a year. That’s right $100 million towards financial independence for women. As an online business expert, I am teaching you everything I know, right here week after week. So you can join us on the journey to $100 million dollars. Sound good? Then let’s jump in. Guess what today is the morning we open the cart to our signature program, the empowered business lab. And today I want to tell you all about the first let me welcome you back to another episode of The empowered business podcast. I’m so excited. You’re here today. You may have heard me talk about our signature program in the past. But today I’m going to pull back the curtains and tell you why it may be exactly what you’ve been looking for. My guess is if you’re listening to this podcast, you’re interested in creating and launching your own digital products. The empowered business lab is our six month signature program that empowers you to create a digital product sales machine. It’s a complete solution for creating strategizing building and selling your digital products. We’ve had over 300 students go through the program, and we’ve seen some really awesome digital products come out of it. One of the most common objections I hear from potential students is they have no idea what they should or could create. And I get it because something that may come easy to you seems ridiculous that someone would pay you for that knowledge. But seriously, they will I see it time and time again. And here are some examples of products that my students have created. Over the last year, I had a student create an E book about how to start a subscription box business. You can actually listen to her story, Jessica Principie, she was on the podcast and talks about how she created her all girl Shave Club subscription box from scratch and she knew nothing about e commerce and she put all of that knowledge into an E book to sell. Another student created something called a budget by day spreadsheet for busy moms. Another student clever name named her homemaking binder hashtag home goals. I have another student who did a meal planning system using air table and probably one of my favorite and ebook about how to take care of livestock. One of my students, Sarah created a kid’s guide for taking a day trip to Maryland and turned it into this amazing app. And then another student created the ultimate guide for decorating and styling your living room, which is something I need because my living room roles after moving into this house a year later are still there. Now this episode isn’t about how to identify a digital product to create. But I do have an episode all about that called How to create the perfect digital product, which is Episode 13. And I’ll make sure to link to that in the show notes as well as Jessica’s episode if you’re interested in how she developed her all girl Shave Club box. Now today, I want to talk about the empowered business lab and help you make a decision if the program might be the right fit for you. After launching the program several times over the last year, we’ve learned a thing or two about our ideal customer. If you identify as a blogger or online content creator, listen up because the empowered business lab was built for you. And I’m going to make one of those bold statements that I like to make. And I’m going to say that the way blogging has been taught in the online space is all wrong. Blogging when done right is content marketing. Content Marketing is the act of creating free content that serves a purpose. putting out a bunch of free content with no intended purpose is not a way to make money. In fact, it’s the quickest way to burn out and quit before you ever see any real results from your hours of effort. Being stuck on the content hamster wheel. It sucks. And I know because I was stuck on it too from 2013 to 2016 until I discovered digital products. In June 2016. I launched a $17 budget spreadsheet to a list of 403 people and it has gone on to make over $200,000 sense. Now you can hear more about how that happened in Episode Two which I’ll link to in the show notes. Over the last five years I’ve launched around 75 different digital products and made a lot of money doing so I’ve launched ebooks, spreadsheets, printables, website, templates, courses, group coaching programs, memberships, you name it, and I’ve pretty much done it. I got off the hamster wheel of producing free content that was not serving a purpose. In other words, there wasn’t making me money. And I started producing content I was getting paid to create. Maybe you start your online business or blog to make a side income for your family pay off debt or have some extra money to travel. Or maybe you start it because you want it to replace your day job income. One thing is for sure, all of that is possible, but only if you are getting paid for the work you are doing. This is where the empowered business lab comes in. The lab is designed to help you grow an audience while getting paid at the same time. One of the best decisions I made in my business early on was to create most of my content behind what I call the paid firewall. What I mean by that is, when I was growing, I knew that my time was finite. I didn’t have a team yet. So I was doing everything myself. So I could spend all my time putting out free content and hoping I’d attract the right people to me. Or I could spend my time creating an amazing digital product that people could pay me for, and then work on attracting the right people to me once I had something to offer them. Because here’s the deal. Why are you working so hard to attract people to you, if you have nothing to sell them? At the end of the day, you cannot have a business if money doesn’t exchange hands, which is exactly why you need to build your business with the end in mind, the end being you attract people who actually pay you money. This concept of starting with the end of mine is applicable to almost all things in life. One of my favorite examples is getting a college degree. You know, the end goal is to graduate with a degree. So when you walk into those boring Gen Ed’s freshman year, and wonder why you’re sitting there listening to why the Roman Empire fell, you know, it’s because it’s a requirement for the degree that you want in four years. If you didn’t know what the end goal was, you’d probably not show up to many of your gen ed classes. The end game and online business is to make money. So why in the world do we spend so much time focused on the things that have nothing to do with making money? Because a lot of gurus aren’t teaching from a big picture approach. And honestly, I really don’t even like the term guru. One time someone referred to me as one, and I cringed because I just don’t see myself like that. I don’t have all the answers, and my method isn’t going to work for everyone. But I do know that I am right when I say that if your number one priority is not making money in your business, then you have it all wrong. Okay. Even though this program is a great fit for bloggers, and content creators, there are a few other types of people that the lab can help. First service providers, anyone who does or provides done for you services really should consider a digital product for two main reasons. The first is your time is finite, which means your earning potential is capped. And the second reason is you have an expertise that you can monetize and reach more people than you can if you’re only offering done for you services. The second type of person that might be interested in the lab other than service providers would be online business owners. So if you have an existing online business, and you want to add a revenue stream to increase your profit margin, digital products are a great way to do that. Because you create it once and you can sell it over and over again. digital products when done right have an amazing profit margin, which is one reason I’ve never done physical products no matter how many times I’ve thought about it, because I just can’t give up the profit margins. I see you with digital products. And the third would be if you’re new to online business. So here’s the thing, even if you’re new the lab can help you. The only caveat here is that you have to be willing to dig deep because the learning curve, if you are brand new to online business will be a bit more intense for you than other people that may have already been further along in their business journey. Okay, so now that we know who the lab is for, let’s talk about what the actual program is. So the empowered business lab is a six month program made up of three unique pillars. And each pillar is like a program all on its own, except you can only purchase them together inside of the empowered business lab. So the first pillar is what we call digital products at scale. And this is where you’ll learn the foundations of validating and creating a digital product that your audience actually wants to buy, including very detailed lessons that how to use the necessary software to create a digital product like Canva Google Sheets, loom for video recording, and much more. It is a very robust course with everything you could think of or need to create the actual digital product. Now the second pillar in the program is called funnels at scale. This is where you’ll learn my highly sought after sales funnel strategies that will grow your email list and of course make you money. I’ll teach you how to sell in a way that comes naturally and doesn’t feel pushy, including my unique triple dip funnel strategy, which you can learn more about in Episode Six, where I talk about the 13 tips for a high converting sales page. Now the third pillar is systems at scale. This is where you’ll learn about the software and tech that you need to build your sales machine. This part of the program is filled with videos to show you exactly where to click and what buttons to push to set up your sales funnel. Because I’m pretty good at Tech, but I realize a lot of people are not and it’s intimidating. So systems that scale just makes it makes the text so easy. Now at the end of the program, the goal is that you will have a sales machine that brings in consistent sales with your digital products. And we’ve jam packed this program with so many things to help you see success, including monthly live q&a calls with either myself or our operations manager Hayley, we show up live every month to dive deeper into strategies that we teach inside the course, we show real world examples. And of course, we answer all of your questions. You’ll also get six month access to our dedicated tech support. In our student only Facebook group, you’ll get access to our tech expert, Melissa, who is honestly just a genius when it comes to how programs fit together. And she can solve some of the trickiest tech hang ups I’ve seen. Also deep dive trainings with guest experts. So we have several guest experts lined up on topics like Facebook ads, copywriting, data tracking, all the things that you really need to master, your digital product sales machine. And we bring in guest experts when we can take certain topics to the next level. Because one program can’t cover everything. No good program covers every single thing you need to know. But we can bring in people to supplement what we teach. And so that’s what we do. Also, we include more templates than I could probably even count, sales page templates, checkout page templates, Canva, templates, spreadsheets, I mean, you name it, and pretty much every template you could possibly need to be successful is inside the program. And then, of course, we have our six month access to the empowered business lab, Facebook group, here’s where you get all of your pressing questions answered, you get support from our mentors, you get to network with other people in the community who are doing the same thing that you are doing. And of course, me and my team are in there. And we just have a really fun time in there. Also, this is huge. We include two incredible bonus courses. The first is called funnel feeders where I show my exact ad strategies for Pinterest and Facebook. I had a whole entire course on Pinterest advertising that cost $1,000. And I pretty much made it a bonus. And I updated it. And I include it Facebook strategies. And that’s just a bonus to this program. The second bonus course is called promotion pushers where we help you leverage the power of your existing audience to capture more profit, because that’s what we’re after. So we asked our students to share their big reasons why right now is the perfect time to create digital products. And they had some really amazing answers. Some of these you may be able to relate to. We heard to support their family during the pandemic to prove to themselves that they are worthy of chasing their dreams, to fund their retirement accounts, to bring their hobbies home from the frontlines to escape a bad boss and a thankless job to have more flexibility to be with their kids without needing to ask permission. I always thought it was so funny to have to ask in corporate if I could take my daughter to the doctor like why am I asking another adult? If I can do that? It’s kind of weird, right? And probably my favorite answer to this question was to share joy with others. I mean, I actually have a crying emoji in my notes for this because that’s pretty sweet. Now, nothing is more exciting to me than when my students post things like this inside of our student Facebook group, because it really just lights me up. So Kara, is one of my favorite students. And I know just like with our kids, we shouldn’t play favorites. But when students take action and buckled down to get work done, I love it because I really love action takers, and Cara is one of those people. So she recently posted in the student group and said, whoo, I got my first two sales of her theme day planning method. One was from soft or soft launch email that she sent to her existing list. And it was an email about how she applied beam days to her eight year old online school curriculum last year, and how that led to her daughter finishing her entire year in April with Friday’s off, and then she says she’s definitely going to use her soft launch emails and future copy so that she can bring in you know more people into her sales funnel. So that was super exciting. We got to celebrate two sales for her. And then Penny is another one of my action taker students. And she says, The lab will guide you step by step and provide a working blueprint for each process necessary to sell digital products. Plus, the community is fantastic, and will be a sounding board and cheerleaders for your success. And I do agree with that. She goes on to say that within two and a half months, she added over 1200 people to her email list, she sold over a dozen of her tripwire printable products. And she gained four new customers for her core offer, which is travel service consultation. So seriously, nothing makes me happier than seeing my students succeed. I truly believe that digital products can change your life. So let me go ahead and tackle some of the most frequently asked questions I get about the program. Because chances are, you might have this question too. So the first thing I hear all the time is, do I need an existing audience to be successful inside of the lab? And In short, the answer is no. I will help you narrow your niche and product idea. However, having an existing audience for a jump off point will accelerate how fast you can sell your products. Now, I will show you how to create a free opt in to grow your email list then put it into the world through organic strategies. And in our funnel feeders bonus course, I mentioned we also teach you how to do paid advertising. So you can decide if you want to grow organically or if you want to put some money behind how you grow. The other question I get a lot is how much time will the lab take to complete like this is very important because we’re all busy and the lab is a very robust program. So it is designed to get you up and running with your digital product inside of a six month container. And you should be able to make your way through the entire program in about half of that time, and spend the remaining three months building out your product suite and optimizing your sales funnels. Most students make their first sale within two to three months if they are putting in the work. Now the actual number of hours that will take you is going to vary based on your own skills and knowledge. Because there is no one size fits all when it comes to where you are compared to someone else’s. It’s a self paced program. So you can go as fast or as slow as needed. But understand if you need more implementation time, it’s up to you to make time to push yourself to finish. We do believe in holding ourselves accountable inside the program. Now, here’s a great question. Do I need a blog or website to be successful? Okay, so many people think they need a website or blog to sell digital products. And believe it or not, that is actually not the case. All you need is a landing page builder to be able to create sales pages and opt in pages. Of course, having a website as a central hub for your business is not a bad idea. But it’s not required to get started. Also, you never need to create a blog where you post regular free content on your website if you don’t want to. I literally give you permission to never blog again. And I will say out of all the things I say when it comes to getting people to join the lab, when I tell people that they have permission to never blog again. I have never seen more excited people in my life. So there’s your permission. Okay, do we offer one on one support. Now this is something I’ve been asked about for years. Offering one on one services is not a very scalable option, which is why I love digital products. However, some students still want the ability to talk with me one on one outside of the program, Facebook group and the q&a calls. So I’m happy to announce that for this launch, we have a limited number of VIP seats open, which includes not one, not two, but three, one on one calls with me and my team. So I want you to remember this one thing. If you take nothing else away from today’s episode, I want you to listen to what I’m about to tell you. Your brain is not free. Let me repeat. Your brain is not free. smart business owners are not giving away their best content for free or counting on 4% amazon affiliate Commission’s or my biggest pet peeve sending all of their traffic away from their business through display ads. Yes, it is important to show up and offer value to your wider audience. But that doesn’t mean that everything you provide should be free. You deserve to be compensated for your time and expertise. Every time you send a visitor that comes to your website to someone else’s product, like Amazon with affiliates, or you ask them to click a display ad on your site. You are losing money. Stop helping everyone else get paid better than you The empowered business lab is a six month program that will help you create a sales machine for your digital products that brings consistent leads and sales into your business every single day. It’s simple, repeatable, and scalable. And I honestly know it can change your life because I’ve seen it change so many people’s lives. If you’ve gotten this for her in the episode, and you’re interested in joining us for this round of the empower business lab, we would of course, love to have you so you can head on over to empowered business co forward slash lab to learn more and sign up. Now if you have any questions, you’ll notice there’s a chat button at the bottom right of the screen when you go to the sales page. So please feel free to chat with us. We’d love to answer any questions. And if you’re the Instagram type person, I would love to hear from you in the DMS too. You can find me over on Instagram at Monica dot froese. I’m so excited for the potential of you joining the empower business lab. I hope to see you inside the program and I’ll talk to you back here next week.