A few days ago I sent out an email showing you how self-made millionaires build wealth (if you missed it, check it out here). Creating multiple streams of income are essential to building lasting wealth long term. Particularly, streams of income that are not dependent upon your labor. If you have to show up and deliver services to get paid, there is a hard limit on how much you can make. As a human being, you can only work so much. However, if you have a stream of income that is not dependent on your ability to show up somewhere and deliver, well then your income is no longer limited.
Intellectual property makes your income infinite.
One of the best ways to develop intellectual property is by creating a digital product. Digital products allow you to package your expertise, experience and personal brand of genius into an educational program that helps others achieve a goal, solve a problem or have more fun.
One of my favorite things about digital products is that you can get so much value from your product once it’s created.
My first digital product, Small Business Bodyguard, has served as training material for every employee of my law firm. I’ve also used the contents of SBB to create keynote presentations, to serve clients of my law firm, to create licensing relationships with other businesses and to be a showcase of my expertise for clients or partners who want to work with me. There are tons of ways to benefit, financially and otherwise, from your digital product.
Here are five ways you can make money from your digital product:
- Sell the product. Of course, the most obvious thing to do is sell your product directly to customers who can benefit from it. But, believe it or not, this one is often overlooked. I see lots of entrepreneurs creating digital products, doing an initial launch for it, and then leaving it on the virtual shelf to gather dust. If your digital product can solve problems and change lives keep selling it. Small Business Bodyguard continues to bring on new members and generate five figures of income every month without constantly doing massive launches.
- License the product. This is the holy grail and one of the best things I’ve ever done for myself. Entering into a licensing deal with an organization that has a large audience of your ideal clients allows you to make significant money for your business with the least amount of work. The organization sells the product, and you both get a cut of each sale. Of course, these deals take some work to create, but once they are done, you can sit back and collect a check each month. #iloveroyalties
- Have affiliates sell the product. Affiliate relationships are similar to licensing relationships in that someone is doing the selling of your product for you and you both split the proceeds. However, affiliate relationships are more work because you need to arm your affiliates with the information and training they need to sell your product. It’s almost like managing a team of salespeople (no, actually, it’s exactly that). Even still, it’s an excellent way to generate continued income from your digital product and reach new audiences with your work.
- Turn the contents into a new offer. Your digital product, if it’s done right, synthesizes your expertise into a step-by-step process. You can take that same step-by-step process (along with the supporting worksheets, templates, etcetera, included) and deliver it in a different format. You can create an offer where you work with clients one-on-one to take them through the process laid out in your digital product. You could also take them through the process in a small group setting where they get to interact with you. This would serve clients who prefer more individualized attention. And it doesn’t require a lot of work for you because you’ve already prepared all of the content.
- Turn the contents into a retreat or live program. Likewise, you can take the content from your digital product and turn it into a retreat, workshop or other form of live event. Instead of your customers working through the product online at their own pace, they would have the opportunity to work through the product with you in person. This is something that my client, Dr. Lindsay Byron, has done very successfully to expand the revenue she generates from the contents of her digital product into an epic, life-changing live retreat.
Now you know that creating a digital product is a brilliant (perhaps THE MOST brilliant) way to expand your income in a variety of ways. So what are you going to do about it? How about coming to my free, live masterclass next week? I’ll teach you how to create a digital product the smart, simple way. Register right here.
xo,
