Moving from reselling physical products – whether dropshipping on Shopify or Retail Arbitrage on Amazon – to developing your own products is a big step. It’s really the key to creating a really valuable, sellable business. It’s a big, expensive and complex undertaking compared to simply reselling others’ products. In this 2-part episode we’re going to go over how to approach this complex process in a structured way to get you the best chance of a profitable product that gives you profit and makes your business valuable and – if you choose – sellable.
What you’ll learn
- The 6 steps to creating a custom product.
Resources for product development
Some of the resources on this page may be affiliate links, meaning we receive a commission (at no extra cost to you) if you use that link to make a purchase. We only promote those products or services that we have investigated and truly feel deliver value to you.
[00:00:30]Intro-P3: [00:00:30] Hello there folks. Welcome back to the e-commerce leader. We are in the middle of a three-part mini series. This is the third of the three parts. And we’re talking about the big topic of creating a digital products or digital products. In fact, a catalog of digital products is what Jason really advisors, which makes most sense.
[00:00:49] And today we’re going to talk about the whole topic of how to grow your business, really, how to make money. In overtime increase that. And that’s really about reinvesting the proceeds. So with no further ado, let’s plunge into the content and see what Jason has to teach us about this topic. Before we forget, Jason has sold over 10 best-selling books that he’s written himself and has over 37,000 students at the last count on you.
[00:01:13] Tamisa this is really a man. He knows his stuff. So please take this seriously and take notes. If you have any ambitions at all, to add a digital product or product suite. To your existing physical product business, or you’re starting from scratch either way. You got a lot to learn, so listen closely and enjoy it.
[00:01:30] Jason: [00:01:31] Well, there’s a huge, huge, huge , um, I guess mindset shift that will unlock here for people, I think, as they go through this.
[00:01:38] And hopefully I can describe it, but let me just say this, let’s say you make a, a quarter. And or training, let’s say it’s an hour training. It took you 10 hours to put it together. So you’re invested time in the project is 10 hours. What’s your hourly rate,
[00:01:53]Michael: [00:01:53] I guess it depends entirely how much you sell it for exactly. And how many.
[00:01:58] Jason: [00:01:58] Yes, but not only how much you sell it for and how many you sell, but for how long you’re selling it. And so this idea of effective hourly rate for digital work or teaching content is insanely important to get, get , um, clarity on the, the effective, hourly rate for a project on a physical product, a project on Amazon, let’s say you ordered 10,000 units of something and you sell them and it took you a certain number of hours.
[00:02:25] You can calculate clearly what your hourly rate was for that work. Let’s just, you know, just forecast it out, do a proforma for that a sales event and you’d know , uh, how much, but. But that is not possible with , uh, teaching content, because for example , um, let’s just use my courses on you to me, on you. To me, I have 37,000 students, I think in total I have 45,000 , uh, you know, student entries.
[00:02:52] So some people have bought multiple courses. Um, and , uh, is that good or bad? I always think about number though. So, okay. 37,000 people took one course, but only 45,000 in total, you know, I’ve gone through, so man is that , uh, I dunno, that’s so anyway, so in my mind, that’s how I look at it. And, but , um, but the thing about it is I didn’t do any work on you to me in the last year.
[00:03:13] In fact, I can’t remember the last time I did any work on you to me, and yet I get a distribution from them every month. So my effective hourly rate this month is I spent no hours. And so this idea of this digital content pieces being assets that you in essence are planting a seed. That’s a fruit tree.
[00:03:35] That’s giving you back a little, it’s a, it’s a little asset that is generating income for you. That is insanely important for you to think through. And , um, I know a lot of people have done a course once, and then if you ask them about it, they’re like, well, I did a course. I only make a hundred dollars a month off of it.
[00:03:53] So, you know, there’s like, but that’s $1,200 a year free money. And you know, so that’s the first important thing to think through because then even if the numbers are really small, I think this idea of reinvesting , uh, your earnings back into your education business is really, really valuable. So I just say that as sort of the first thing , um, and , uh, And any thoughts on that before I go onto the second little tidbit here on this?
[00:04:18] Michael: [00:04:18] Yeah, I think , uh, effective, hourly rate is something that people who are in the digital goods space or , um, coaching consulting. If they’re really well trained and they’ve listened to James Schramko and in my case, very, very aware of, but I think it’s something that everyone should be aware of if you’re selling and buying goods on Amazon.
[00:04:35] And you’re looking at the raw numbers, but you’re working 80 hour weeks. There’s something out of whack. You’re not thinking about the value of your own time or even why you got into the water in the first place. It’s Dan Kennedy says you’re getting into the swamp. All you’re aware of is staying away from the alligators, but you got in there to get to the other side, which is what probably hopefully working 20 hours a week for much more money than you were doing in your 40, 50, 60 hour week , um, you know, work week in an office.
[00:04:56] So yeah, I think it’s a really great metric to bear in mind. And, and I love what you’re saying. I mean, you work once and you get paid multiple times and that stretches into a long enough horizon. Um, then that suddenly becomes a lot of money per hour and that’s a really great reason for doing it. Um, so yeah, that’s really, really good stuff.
[00:05:10] I like it a lot.
[00:05:11] Jason: [00:05:11] Okay. My next little nugget there in this idea is I, the metaphor here might be a stretch, but understand how long the fire will burn through the long dark winter. And what I mean by that is understand how long your content will make you money without you doing anything further. And there are different degrees of success in that regard.
[00:05:37] The, so like the evergreen nature of the content, I guess, is the phrase you might use. Um, there are famous authors who have written one book and live their best lives forever based on that outcome. Uh, that’s just the reality for, you know, for authors, but there are also people who have done courses that have done courses, they get installed, they get popular there, they’re there, and the income just continues to come in , uh, without them doing anything further.
[00:06:06] Now there are other , uh, educators who do a training and an hour later, It is of no value and they have to go on to their next training to their next event, to their next, you know, webinar or whatever it is. Uh, and so understanding the long-term nature of your content or whether it does have long-term nature , uh, is really valuable.
[00:06:31] And I think that’s a really important insight and lesson. Um, some content and modalities are better than others , uh, in that regard, you know,
[00:06:37]Michael: [00:06:37] Yeah, I think it’s really important if you’ve got a scale in a sort of digital marketing space, for example, to really think through, because if you’re doing something about Google SEO or Facebook, SEO, whatever I’m in, imagine for example, you were doing something about Facebook ads.
[00:06:50] I know a lot of people who create content about Facebook ads as I’m sure we both do. And, and I’m just thinking if they read a book in, I don’t know, let’s say December, although they said they wrote it from July through to September, 2020, and they got it published in January, 2021, the iOS updates probably invalidated Hm.
[00:07:07] A fair percentage of that book. I show that the evergreen principles would be true, but to the extent that it’s technical and, and sort of, you know, depends on that is going to need to be rewritten. So it does strike me as that’s a really important piece to think through in terms of the topics that you tackle and what are you, what’s your approach to that?
[00:07:25]Jason: [00:07:25] I am not very smart at that stuff. Writing social media books is rather unwise. If you think about because , uh, sadly they’re still on Amazon and to be completely candid when people buy my book from 2011 or 12, I don’t know what their experience is going to be with my book. Now, the Pinterest power book I wrote back then still has good solid marketing tactics that still work.
[00:07:49] And I’m honored to be able to say that our Pinterest work is bigger than other , uh, uh, bigger than ever. Uh, and we’ve just done the same core thing that I taught in that book. So it’s not horribly out of whack, but everything related to Pinterest, this is all dated. Uh, you know, it just doesn’t work the way it did back then.
[00:08:07] And , uh, so yeah, that was not wise of me. And I just didn’t think through that. Authors or, you know, educators are much wiser when they talk about universal principles like leadership or something along those lines that are much more transcendent and long-term in nature. So I think that’s a, that’s important , um, to think through.
[00:08:28] I do think that there is some , uh, some interesting nuance here that I just, in my own reflections on these things. I’ll just tell you that, like one example, that’s blown my mind lately as I I’ve always liked bonsai trees and I’ve killed the ones I’ve ever owned. And why are you laughing? You’re laughing.
[00:08:45] Okay. It wasn’t
[00:08:46] Michael: [00:08:46] expecting you to go there, but this is really cool. Okay.
[00:08:48] Jason: [00:08:48] Let me, let me show you this. Yeah. Okay. So, and if you’re watching by , um, with us live and apologize for those who are not, but I’ll just share my screen real quick for those who are watching live now. Um, this guy who , um, I’m sharing on the screen here , um, I just typed in Bonzai into , uh, at YouTube and this guy’s video transformation of a Japanese large Bonzai.
[00:09:10]Um, it was published a month ago. It has 1.4 million views. And , um, this guy Bonzai relief. He only has two videos on YouTube, but his total view count is 4.8 million and 1.4 million, whatever that is together, he literally has two videos and they have just dominate. In terms of viewership and , um, you know, he doesn’t teach a single thing in those videos , uh, like conversationally.
[00:09:42] It’s not like a, here’s how you clip up a Bonzai and blah, blah, blah. It is simply him doing it. And he put music underneath it and it’s time lapse and it’s beautifully videography kind of content , uh, put together production value and, and he’s got whatever that is a wow
[00:10:01] Michael: [00:10:01] 6.2 million
[00:10:03] Jason: [00:10:03] views with two videos.
[00:10:05] Amazing. And those videos I can tell you, cause I I’ve watched both of them several times, myself. Those will be making him money on YouTube for years to come. Yeah. Cause
[00:10:18] Michael: [00:10:18] like one side is an ancient art, right? It’s not going to change anytime it’s going to change, it’s going
[00:10:24] Jason: [00:10:24] to change his videography, his editing, his music underscore might become dated, but not for years.
[00:10:33] And so I just, I think we need to think about what people want to see and how they want to learn. And you know, his, it just, his videos do have, you know, onscreen little, you know, phrases or words that pop up at certain times. But , um, you know, once 22 minutes, long one’s 18 minutes long and. Um, so I, I think we need to think about this, you know, what am I good at and how can I, you know, how can I , uh, you know, monetize or teach others with it?
[00:10:57] We need to look at it broadly. It doesn’t need to just be a boring webinar. That’s packed with info about businessy junk stuff that only, you know, weirdos like us. Like, it can be much broader than this, you know,
[00:11:13] Michael: [00:11:13] one person’s meat, this another one man’s meat is another man’s poison is as the Bard said. So, I mean, obviously, you know, bonsai is a fascination to you.
[00:11:22] I, I, I’ve never looked into it personally myself. I mean, I’m kind of intrigued now, cause I didn’t know you were into that. I’m kind of in cheek because you are, but, but I mean obviously, you know , uh, you know, digital marketing for the right person is definitely intriguing, but what’s interesting is that evergreen.
[00:11:36] To use a phrase that evergreen, literally in the case of bonds, which has been around for hundreds of years, I’m guessing I don’t know much about that, but Japanese culture is very ancient and the Zen kind of traditions come in versus, you know, just to marketing on Facebook, which might be out of date six months later or interests or whatever it may be.
[00:11:53] So yeah. Isn’t that smart? It’s it’s it is interesting. Yeah. Having said that though, the interesting thing is that you started with a very specific thing, which maybe dates quickly, but it kind of gave you your, your foot in the door. So , um, let’s talk about that. Cause I mean, I know this of third principle here is, is, you know, kind of, I guess we’re talking really in the area of reinvesting your proceeds or building on what you’ve done.
[00:12:14] So tell me a bit better, how you went from your , um, was it Instagram power and sort of leverage that gradually into more evergreen stuff?
[00:12:21] Jason: [00:12:21] Yeah. Um, yeah, it’s a good question. And the, the first thing I started doing, my first foray into being a teacher educator was a blog called marketing on pinterest.com.
[00:12:32] Still out there, you can go look at it. It’s so dated and so ugly now, but , um, but there it was, and that turned into a book deal with McGraw-Hill. Um, and so the third point here in my little, you know, reinvesting your proceeds is understand how to leverage a small win into a snowball. And I don’t care how small the win is.
[00:12:50] I mean, if you’re making $10 a month off a course that you publish or proceeds from a YouTube video or, or a Kindle book or something like that, the idea here is how do you reinvest that into your education business? And it’s a very straightforward principle. Um, I call this traffic stacking. We’ve talked about this before, so you can do this.
[00:13:10] Regardless of the modality and regardless of the marketplace or platform that you publish on. So let’s just say, for example, you do a , uh, um, an e-book on Kindle and you make, let’s say $40 a month in ongoing roll T payments. You can take that $40 and set up a Google ad for the related key phrases. And you can then send traffic to your own book on Amazon and that’s called traffic stacking.
[00:13:39] And the reason you do that is because it will blow up the , uh, bestseller ranking on Amazon for your book. Or you could just spend the money on Amazon, through AMS or Amazon advertising , uh, to blow up your book and in effective lead your then taking that $40 and not putting it in your pocket as profit your , uh, doubling.
[00:14:01] On your venture. And you’re saying, you know, I only make 40 bucks, but I’m just going to spend it, you know, promoting my thing. I’ve got doing that initial step by itself will lead you to a snowball that will continue to compound that’s. And, you know, I know that when, you know, you’ve mentioned some of my things that I would call successes, but honestly, when I started this and it, when I started writing in 2011 , um, it, it, it’s not very profitable, straight away.
[00:14:31] There’s not a lot of money. Even a book deal from a Gara hill. They gave me a $5,000 advance. Um, it wasn’t, it wasn’t a lot of money. So in fact, I think it was $2,500 if, you know, as a Vance and then on completion of the manuscript, it was 2,500 more. It’s not a lot of money, even though it was in Barnes and noble and that kind of thing.
[00:14:50] So, but the idea of re-investing is really, really , um, you know, the, the trick and that traffic stacking, you learn to do that. And then you’re in the game and regardless of how good or bad you think you are, you know, your own insecurities around , uh, you know, comparing yourself to others, just get in the game and just start to invest in your own business.
[00:15:12] And , um, those steps will lead you to bigger and bigger outcomes. And I’m glad I continued to do that from 2011 through today. Uh, Kyle and I have , uh, educational business that has , uh, you know, five solid revenue streams , um, and it’s a successful business and it includes software smarter. Coaching, one-on-one coaching a done for you services , um, eBooks , uh, educational events and on and on.
[00:15:37] And so it, you know, the revenue stream sort of compound and grow and you learn over time. But the fees, the core thesis is if I make, you know, 30 or 40 bucks , um, this next month, what am I doing? And I guess I would say it this way, what is the highest and best use of those dollars to help grow your educational business?
[00:15:59] And , um, so that’s the way to think about this and hopefully that’s helpful. Yep.
[00:16:03] Michael: [00:16:03] Yeah. Well, that’s very inspiring stuff, man. I just think about myself. Probably early in 2011, doing a lot of research about writing stuff, about stuff that I had degrees in multiple degrees in, you know, music and always freaking myself out by just kind of doubting myself.
[00:16:17] Whereas you did the differences that I guess two things, first of all, you are maybe in a more cutting edge thing, which maybe dates quickly, which is a downside, but on the other hand, it was, it was current and therefore in demand and somebody approached you, but then also, maybe it’s a blend between your personality and the fact that you’ve got somebody approached you, who is a serious legit, you know, a very big name , um, business publisher McGraw-Hill, but nevertheless, you, you actually got on with it.
[00:16:42] And I suppose there’s a big lesson there that I think if we can make our journey into any form of business creation, including, but not limited to digital in the broader sense, I e-commerce digital products, as you said, artificial distinction anyway, but we could really slow it down a heck of a lot by not getting out there and being willing to have people say this sucks, or I love this actually more than you.
[00:17:03] I was going to, and it’s a great reminder that, because I think that that’s one of the pieces of head trash that gets in our way a lot. It’s not even starting because we prejudge what the market needs by what we think about ourselves. And, you know, that can
[00:17:16] Jason: [00:17:16] vary. Yeah. I’d love you just to kind of open the next topic for me in this conversation, which is what are the fears and constraints , uh, fear, uncertainty and doubt in people’s minds.
[00:17:25] And so if you’re watching with us live, I’d love to have you just put in any fear, uncertainty or doubt that is stopping you from taking the next step. And, you know, Michael, you just expressed , um, you know, one of those things, all of us as content creators have, we cannot, we cannot do it without comparing ourselves to what else is already out there.
[00:17:46] And , uh, that unlocks a whole set of uncertainty, uncertainties, insecurities , um, fear and , uh, comparison. Challenges and we can get in our own head. And , um, and I, I guess the reason for those who haven’t heard my original story about my blog, I got really mad, I guess, by , um, originally by going to one of my senior leaders at the place I worked in telling her about a book idea and she basically shot it down over a lunch, which was, she just deconstructed the idea for me.
[00:18:15] Like, here’s how, here’s the, how all of that’s a bad idea. And I walked away from that lunch with just this ironclad will that no one was ever going to stop me from doing what I thought was a good educational content idea. Why would I allow a gatekeeper to stop me? And so I, but that didn’t mean I had any skill at doing any of the work.
[00:18:38] I just had a determination that I was not going to allow someone to tell me what could or couldn’t be done , uh, in that regard. And so , um, Then I just started blogging WordPress blog, just a generic WordPress blog. And , um, marketing on Pinterest was super hot, was , uh, an an and I was doing it and I knew that no one else is talking about it yet.
[00:18:58] And so I just started blogging and in a V over vacation for two week period, I wrote 24 blog posts. And were they the most amazing blog posts ever? No. Um, but what happened was so few people writing about marketing on Pinterest that people started when they were Googling marketing on Pinterest. My blog was just ranking.
[00:19:17] And one of the people who Googled was an author who was under contract to write a book about Pinterest. And she reached out and said, I don’t know enough about this topic. You seem to be the online expert. Well, I was an online expert cause I had written 24 articles two weeks and no one else was talking about it.
[00:19:34] And so. And so that was just the door that, you know, the work that unlocked the door and the work was a short blog articles. And I would really encourage everybody. Who’s doing this to, you know, find a way to get in the game, even if it’s in a micro-content way, micro publishing way. And to stop yourself from just the pent up huge course.
[00:19:57] Now I’m going to create an, a future mindset, you know? So what does that unlock for you, Michael, other fears or concerns or issues you think are let’s
[00:20:06] Michael: [00:20:06] therapizing my fears around this, but I do think is going to reflect for a lot of people that I’ve spoken to over the years, it got the same things. I mean, first of all, your story is so inspiring.
[00:20:16] What I really like about it is it started off with the rejection. And instead of saying, I accept your judgment, you went the opposite. Typical entrepreneur. Yeah, I am now determined to make this happen and that little spark of, but years ago, like one of my favorite sort of musicians in the world, he was teaching me.
[00:20:32] He sort of, to me jokingly. Oh, you’re unemployable. I thought, yeah, maybe that’s not true. So joking I’m and I’m kind of unemployable because at some point I know what I think is right. And I’m just, no, I look at the world proved me right wrong rather than, than a boss. So I think maybe you have to have that streak in you, but I really love the fact that you, you went vigorously in the opposite direction.
[00:20:51] And then I guess there’s a degree of luck and there’s a degree of maybe an instinct that you have going into an area that you were intrigued by because it was new and working for you. And therefore that, that kind of organically led to that answer. The question I posed earlier, which is how much research should we do?
[00:21:06] You were kind of drawn to the new and cutting edge anywhere at that point. So yeah. Maybe there’s something in that we’ve discussed the fact that it isn’t evergreen, but I guess starting is maybe the most important thing and you can iterate for that point, right?
[00:21:18] Jason: [00:21:18] Yeah, absolutely. Right. Yep. Absolutely.
[00:21:20] Right. Starting as is crucial and starting in a small and achievable way is it’ll feel like a huge milestone, even though it’s just a small, you know, like it’s just a wordpress.com blog. So what, it’s a huge milestone. And so take those wins, take those milestones and , um, and expound on them. And I think you’re be off to the races.
[00:21:40] Michael: [00:21:40] The final thing that I’m going to take from that before, I’d love to get a summary of these steps, which is first of all, fantastic conversation, man, really great, but SEO is not dead. One of the people that I know , um, actually peers, he’s kind of, he was an Amazon seller, had a horrible 20, 20 cause he was in the travel space and spend a lot of that time that he’d been kind of developing over a few years, a team of people doing SEO work.
[00:22:01] And as, since been doing a lot of work for the other people in the mastermind and now much more broadly , um, Uh, a sort of agency for SEO, but the thing is it’s some SEO stuff he’s doing is blowing up. I mean, as you know, iOS 14 affects Facebook ads and , um, you know, the ability to peer on, on Google edge and various other devices , um, SEO is never really gone out of fashion, just like email, but it’s coming back in.
[00:22:21] I mean, he’s certainly getting incredible results for some, for some, you know, some clients and for himself now. And I just think , um, you know, writing really great content for a really specific audience is never going to go wrong. And, and a blog is a wonderful place to start because there’s no barrier is, it’s not like you have to plan a whole book out, which for me is very worrying.
[00:22:40] My version is podcasting where I’m used, I’ve done what six, 700 episodes. Now it’s comfort zone for me, but I guess for somebody else, it may well be sitting down and writing a blog article, but it’s so doable and it still works. That’s the magic of it.
[00:22:51] Jason: [00:22:51] Well, and there’s new twists and iterations to the tools online all the time.
[00:22:56]Uh, the sub stack is a new , uh, platform that allows you to write newsletters for a subscription. So people subscribe to get your newsletter for, you know, a couple bucks or whatever. There are people minting money on or printing money, whatever the phrase is on a sub stack. So , uh, it’s an interesting new platform and there are, there are always these new tools and that’s the interesting part of it.
[00:23:19]Um, so I would just say , um, you know, in summation , uh, on the fear topic before we finally wrap up and, and , um, and bring this conversation to a close , um, identify, what’s stopping you in your mind and realize that that barrier is something you have to get leverage on yourself on. And by that, I mean, if it’s a, if you’re over analyzing it and not taking action, get an accountability partner , uh, Actually doing stuff shoddily to quickly get a coach, you know, have, have somebody say, Hey, that really stinks.
[00:23:51] And let me show you how to do it better. Um, you know, and, and whatever it is, I mean, whatever mental barrier is is preventing you from taking your best steps forward with this stuff , uh, figure it out and , uh, and improve. Well, there’s great comments popping in here, and I want to just make sure we cover them.
[00:24:05] So , uh, you know, Patrick set, great info guys. I want to tell sprinters everything I know about starting from sprint blocks. Um, pat Patrick, that is fantastic, man. That’s YouTube gold. That is YouTube gold. And so there you go. But there’s many other modalities that you could, you could do with that. And , uh, I love that , um, uh, mark said thanks for the valuable insights, great points.
[00:24:26]Um, Kimberly said, when she asked me a question, when you wrote those 24 posts for patients. Did you have any idea that you’d be one day doing this kind of entrepreneurial work full time? I honestly could never have imagined. All I knew was I really wanted to write and somebody had told me I couldn’t write in the way I wanted to.
[00:24:46] And I said to myself, I’m going to find a different way to do writing. And I took the first appropriate opportunity I could find and figure out. And it’s led to a really fun decade. I get to spend 10 years now of spending time and energy on this. And it’s become not only profitable and, and monetarily meaningful, but it’s also really super enjoyable.
[00:25:10] And so, you know, I had an, it could have never imagined I did not, could not have imagined that I would. Uh, books in Barnes and noble and in, you know, the bookstores around the world and translated into other languages for, you know, Brazilians and people in India and on and on and on. And , uh, it’s just an incredible honor.
[00:25:28] Right? I feel blessed, but it wasn’t luck. It was both luck and I just, you know, took the steps and so. Yeah. So it’s a combo, I
[00:25:37] Michael: [00:25:37] guess, but I guess it’s also the thing that’s coming out of. This is the opposite to what I was saying to somebody yesterday who wants to start with a unique physical custom products, please don’t do this.
[00:25:46] If you are new to the game, whereas with physics, with digital products, it feels like the opposite advice is appropriate, which is don’t over analyze. Just start because the downside is so little, I mean, it’s a downside upside risk reward analysis is completely different, even though they’re both about creating something new that didn’t exist.
[00:26:03] Yeah. There is so little risk and writing a few blog articles, I guess the worst risk is that you write them and nobody sees them, but at least you’ve articulated your thoughts very clearly. And you’ve honed your skills as a writer,
[00:26:13] Jason: [00:26:13] right? Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I’ll tell you why you have to do it that way because what’s in your mind, in terms of your self judgment of your work compared to what’s reality.
[00:26:28] Is insanely different. Yeah. And what happens with , um, with educational content is the people who think they’re horrible at it. And it’s just with a worst and it stinks and it’s not even worth publishing when those, usually when those people, you know, put it out there, it’s like, oh my gosh, this is amazing.
[00:26:50] You know? And that’s, that’s frequently sort of a story it’s like, you’re so harsh on yourself and you’re so unkind to your work. You’re like the biggest jerk boss ever to yourself that, but then when you put it out , um, other people are like, what are you talking about? This is gold. And, and, or there’s the other reality, which is you think you’re amazing.
[00:27:11] You think it’s all just, you just use the most genius genius of all time and you put it out there and you get one star reviews. And so you have to treat it like a catalog business. You have to publish a lot because you have to get better at reading. And not just your own mind reality, but, but the reality of what customers think, and, and the only way you do that is by putting it out there and watching to see how many reviews did it get, what are people saying?
[00:27:40] Is it actually helpful? It, you know, is it getting traction in the marketplace? And so the iterative nature of that, you know, Offering and then re reviews and responses offering, and then reviews, responses offering, and then reviews, responses , um, tunes you up. I mean, it gets you to a place where you’re like, okay, I get it.
[00:28:01] I’m I stink at this stuff in a way, or all right, take this person’s point or, you know, the, the harsh, the vine voice on Amazon, those reviewers that are just like, you know, they just really give it to you. They help you. It helps you. It’s good for you. It’s like reality check, you know? Um, and so I think that’s why you’ve got it, approach this as an iterative way and get out there early, because maybe you’re amazing.
[00:28:27] Maybe, you know, maybe, maybe your first whack at it will be a home run, grand slam amazing multi-million dollar book. You don’t know. You really don’t know.
[00:28:36] Michael: [00:28:36] I love your optimism, man. You definitely California born. I can, I can hear it in it. I really like it. I, we need that in Britain because you’ve got cynics like me in , uh, hanging around too much and being beat down on stuff.
[00:28:47] This is great. And I’m personally really fired up and motivated by this. Conversation’s fantastic. I’m going on vacation next week. So in St. My trustee , um, Chromebook with me and whack out some content just to kind of get, get into the practice of it. I think, you know, listen, my background is as a pianist and before that conductor in home player and everything else tells me that.
[00:29:07] Practice is really essential. It’s amazing how bad you are going to be at the piano first time or guitar or anything you like in my experience of teaching people sometimes for a long time, but it’s amazing how good you can get if you chip away at it every day for a long time. It really , um, the compounding nature of skill , uh, is one of those things where you cannot see day-to-day how good you’re getting.
[00:29:27] But if you look back after five years, you go, wow, that is so different. And I guess what you’re saying is to hone these skills over time and to be brave about it, which is just great advice, man. Um, can you summarize these wonderful steps that you put together? I mean, this has been a far reaching conversations is fantastic.
[00:29:43] Let’s just bring it back home. Three
[00:29:44] Jason: [00:29:44] simple steps. Number one, identify your unique ability and outline your knowledge. Number two, identify the best platform and modality and learn it. Number three, reinvest your proceeds into your educational business. Yeah, it’s so simple. It sounds so simple. That’s a big game, man.
[00:30:06] I’ll tell you one thing after doing it for a decade, I still have huge goals for myself that I’ve never achieved, you know, and, and, and all of us will, and that’s the fun of it is it is a big old game.
[00:30:20] Michael: [00:30:20] Yeah. Shoot, shoot for the stars and accept the moon or something like that. Right. That it’s always good to be ambitious.
[00:30:25] I think that, you know, also if you’re ambitious, there’s an energy that comes from that, that other people pick up on. I think it’s great to have a ridiculously high goals for yourself somehow. I think that’s exciting. So I’m with you on that. So if people want to work with you, obviously you’ve, you’ve worked with someone in a more sort of concrete terms work with some very successful , um, I was going to say physical product based business owners, but actually that’s an artificial constraint and you’ve helped them to add digital products, which has really helped them.
[00:30:49] So if people want to get help with that, then how do they work with you and Kyle on that?
[00:30:54] Jason: [00:30:54] You know, I feel embarrassed to say, but I don’t really have any. Coaching or consulting or groups, even for , um, people who are interested in , uh, educational content. I just, it hasn’t, I’ve never, I’ve never taught the topic.
[00:31:09]Uh, which I’m embarrassed to say, but I do have one-on-one coaching and small groups related to e-commerce generally , uh, you can find [email protected] and maybe I need to do a, a course or training or, you know, turn this little outline into a book or something like that on how to make educational content.
[00:31:25] I do love it. It’s it’s just so fun.
[00:31:27] Michael: [00:31:27] So I would say more than maybe from what we discussed today, I’m knowing you really well. The thing is a lot of people writing this stuff, but you’ve actually been doing it for years, very, very successfully. So I would a hundred percent endorse that if you write that book, I’ll be first in line.
[00:31:42] And I think a lot of people listening will be as well. So a final thing to say, guys is if you’re enjoying the show, obviously we always want you to subscribe because then you get more great content delivered to your podcast player choice, but we’re going to reward you for it until the end of July. And, and Jason, stop me if I’m saying something wrong, we’ve got to.
[00:31:59] A subscription contest. So you just go to www dot contest dot the e-commerce leader.com. There’s no S in contest. So www dot contest dot the e-commerce leader.com and you can win a visa gift card of $250 value. And if you’re in Britain, we’ll figure it out. I mean, read the small print. I’m not an expert in competition law day or anywhere else you’re listening or Australia or wherever else you may be.
[00:32:24] But , um, if, if we can, we’ll certainly make sure that we get the money to you. And either which way we’d love you to subscribe and be passionate about the
[00:32:31] Jason: [00:32:31] content. Well, thank you so much, man. This has been a great conversation and , uh, it’s been encouraging to me to hear people’s feedback and thank you for all the comments as well in the chats.
[00:32:40]Uh, really appreciate everybody’s perspective on this. Good Thompson.
[00:32:44] Michael: [00:32:44] Yeah. Great stuff. Uh, so , uh, very inspiring. And , uh, guys, if you, if you like me are inspired, go and get writing or whatever form of creation, go and get videoing. And , uh, let’s prove Jason right with this thing.
[00:32:55] Jason: [00:32:55] There you go. All right, buddy.
[00:32:57] See you.
[00:32:57]
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