Welcome to this week's episode of Digitally Done, and this week they've left me, Sam Wynch, in charge of all things, and we are talking about what do you actually want. I know the ladies and I have been talking about this, and we feel like sometimes you get led to believing you need a certain thing, and each of us have had discussions with our clients who turn up and say, I want a sandwich.

And it takes us a while to dig into what that might look like. And so today's episode, we're going to be talking about what do you actually want to build? What are some of the things that are available for building? And is that what you actually want? Like, have you thought through that at all? Ladies, am I right there?

This is what we're talking about today.  Is it what you want, or is it what you've been told you should do? The big old thing, isn't it? It's what you think you should have. They're two very, very different things. Lizzie, do you want to talk to me about some of the things you've seen people wanting to build when people say they want a digital something?

What do we see? What are people building? Oh, the digital something iverse.  So it could be courses and we, like, we're talking off mic to break the fourth wall about what actually What constitutes a course, and it could be a membership, could be a community, could be a program, could be an e book, and I have a particular sticking point about what an e book is and isn't, which I possibly will get into later.

I'm very Can we cut it? Because I'm interested now. Oh, let's just go there now. I, I have a particular grump about people selling me an ebook that is two to three pages long.  I'm sorry, no. Um, you're setting an expectation there and what you're doing there is doing yourself and your, your community a disservice.

If you're selling an ebook, that is going to be a disappointment to open, um, call it something else and then there's no problem. But part of our job, especially. In fact, almost all of our job in the marketing world is to meet and exceed expectation through our messaging. So if we're doing that, uh, and you know that the reaction is going to be less than wonderful, then maybe the ebook is not the thing that we're selling.

Maybe we're selling a worksheet or a fact sheet or a checklist or something. Not an ebook. So I digress really early, but you know,  no, I love it. And I will hook into Nikki in a sec too, cause I'm sure she has these discussions as well, but I have a very similar discussion when clients come to me and they use the word course, because the question is always, Okay.

When you say course, what do you mean? Because I work with such a variety of people that course means different things. Sometimes they think it means they just want someone to press a button and they get a couple of video lessons and that's the end of the story. And for some people, it means they get an eight week live program and they turn up to one on one or turn up to group calls and they turn up to one on ones and they get this platform where they log in and they download their stuff and right.

But both of those clients have called that a course and they're very different outcomes in terms of what we put together. So. I think part of that digging down to what you want is finding out for you, what do those words mean? And Lizzie, it's really interesting that for you, e book means a certain thing, right?

In your head, you visualize the concept of an e book and it means something to you. And it's the same with my clients. When they say course, it already means something to them. By the time they get to me, I've got to try and work out what it is that they mean.  Nikki, you deal with a lot of people, I think, who deal more in the membership and community side of things, not just course, but more than course.

What are some of those options look like?  Well, it's interesting, like with the, the users that we have on our platform, for example, like we get, you know, people coming through and they're like, I want to create a membership. And it's like, well, what does that membership look like to you? Is it literally just, you know, using the social wall elements and having people engage, or is it you providing A wall, like a library of content, you know, are you taking those people on a journey of information?

Is there like a start and end or is it just, you know, a wall of information? Like you walk into a library and you just grab information as you want it. Like there's so many different ways that you can. Format, um, you know, the content you want to share and also format the way you want to engage with your members.

So sometimes when you're looking at what's your definition of a course or what's your definition of a membership, what's the definition of a challenge, you know, it's different to everyone. Um, and how you lay it out online,  it's different to everyone. So yeah, we come across that quite often now. Yeah, I think some of those questions are really great starting point.

If you can start to ask your things like, you know, do I want lots of content? Do I want them to start at point A and finish at point B? Do I want them to have a live option so they get together with other members? Do I want them to do it by themselves? Do I want everyone to start at the same time? Or do I want people to buy at any time from my site and start when they get there?

There's some really good groundwork questions to work out. What do you want  rather than just, I want a thing. What, what is that thing? Yeah. What does it look like at the end? Yeah. Well, yeah, it looked like at the end, yes, but I think something else to interrogate there is literally what you said is what do you want?

And you're not trying to guess what your customers maybe might want. Obviously. Go do your research. We're going to talk about that in another episode. So not to  dangle that carrot, but like, there you go. Uh, but genuinely my, my entire philosophy, and I think you guys as well is around building what suits you.

Uh, and if you're tying yourself in knots, trying to build something in the hopes that everybody loves it, you you're backing up people. Probably the wrong tree because not everybody's going to love it. And that's just what you should be doing, right? You should be building something that suits you first and building a community around that, wouldn't you say?

Yeah, exactly.  I've a great example that I was working with a client in the past. He'd come to me cause she wanted this super engaged community, like activities happening every day in the group, all this sort of stuff going on. I was like, cool. Why do you want that? She's like, I want passive income so I can travel.

It's like, none of that delivery is passive, honey. If you have to be in that group every day, hosting community activities and engaging, that's not passive. And if you want to build something so you can travel more, you're like, you're tying yourself down to the complete opposite, which is fine. If that's what you want to build.

But if you want something that requires less of your engagement, that's not it.  That's one of the biggest thing I was, I was about to say, it's your personal investment to like your, what  involves you and what investment do you want to put into it? And yeah, in the world of business, we call it sweat equity before you start earning anything from it.

How much are you prepared to put into this to build it up as well is that portion of it as well. So you've got to have, you've got to be prepared to put the effort into it. Based on whatever it is that you want to build. So that time  with a caveat that, uh, and again, we'll get to this is yes, definitely sweat equity, putting a lot of effort in, but you kind of need to validate the idea. 

Yeah. And we'll go through that. And we will talk at length about that, but I just wanted to put that great big sign over it. So people don't go like, right, I'm doing post today. I'm going to build it now. And then next week I'll figure out the next step.  Take it easy. Um, so this is why the digital something title has come through in what we've been talking about is because it's quite slippery.

The terminology, isn't it?  Yeah, I think there are lots of different terms for lots of different things and something again to break that fourth wheel we were talking about before the episode and I'll pass over to Lizzie for this because I think she's probably our guest expert in this is that choosing your what you want part of that thought process is how do you want to market that?

This, because I know that when I talk to clients about online courses, there's a big difference between selling something that's a live program where everyone starts together and selling something that's a digital asset where anyone can buy at any time. And Lizzie, do you talk to clients about that?

Thinking about what they're selling as well? For sure. And how are people going to get there? You know, how are you going to sell it? Why? What's the value proposition? I guess is a big part of it is if it's a free thing, why should they handle it? Like even basic, basic at that level, why should they hand over their email address for that free thing?

You know, just starting at that level of have you, have you, have you Demonstrated the value exchange for that in your messaging, you know, starting from there and working your way up and really picturing that. I think  we get caught up in, this is going to be the thing I'm going to do it. It's going to be great without sort of like, there's a lot of emotion in that and we need to kind of step back, zoom out and look at the big strategic picture of that.

So that's, yeah, I spent a lot of time in that space for sure.  Nikki, I know you are one for looking forward when we're thinking about what we want,  what would you suggest that people need to think about probably as part of a bigger picture as a strategic picture? What do you talk to people when they're thinking about like, I'm just going to add a course to my business model?

Are there things they should think about as part of that?  Yes, well, I, you know, I think with all of us, every step we take, we're making sure is that step, the right step that we want to take. And sometimes we overthink a lot of stuff, but having, um, an idea of where you want to go and why you want to go in that direction is so important.

I think for a lot of us, cause we go, Hey, I dove into building this platform. And at one point I'm like, why the hell am I doing this?  But I realized my why and it's, you know, but I realized also the effort and, and what I'm happy to do. To go through to achieve that end goal and, you know, who I'm helping, et cetera, blah, blah, blah.

But I think with respect to, if you're going out there into the world to share your knowledge, um,  you know, it's a passion that you might have. It's a love that you might have, and you're wanting to share a story. You're wanting to build up a community of like minded people, whatever it is.  I think having, um, the steps laid out with just an idea of where you want to go.

And you touched on this before, Sam, with the whole passive income thing. It's like, it drives me nuts when I hear people say that too, but it's like that reoccurring income. I get it because you want to get to that point of reoccurring income, whatever it is that you're selling, you want it to just sell itself.

Um, there is an element you can't sit and forget. You've got to constantly look forward and see where you're going with it because information just changes constantly out there and you've got to keep building that value. I swear you can see my eyelid twitch and the vein in my head bulge when people say passive income.

I swear you can. In defense of it though, wouldn't it be nice? I, I like, you can understand why people are,  I would love to get millions of dollars in my bank account by twiddling my thumbs.  We're being sold a pipe dream though, it's never as passive as it's sold. It's possible. It's not to say it's not possible, but it's, you know, people sell this whole pretty view.

I sold all these courses, but they didn't do it by sitting on their ass. . They did it by actually, you know, putting a bit of push in there or a bit of pull in there and their marketing, just like, you know, you talk about Lizzie. So yeah.  Yeah. I talked to clients about the word leverage a lot.

So we talk about leveraged income, passive income to me always implies that there's no work involved. And as any course creator or digital creator knows there's work involved somewhere, perhaps more of that work was front loaded. So perhaps all of that work went in at the beginning at setting up a great product and then great funnels and then great ads.

Yeah. And now the income feels like it's. Passive, but it's not passive. It's leveraged. The work went in somewhere else to bring the results now. And I think that it's just about working out that yes, you can have that income coming in. You can have that residual process, but most people who've made that would not tell you they did no work to get there.

The work was done somewhere just might not be now. But the work happens somewhere along the line. And this is when language matters.  Yeah. Well, patience and perseverance. I know that's one thing I was brought up on. Just patience, perseverance, keep going.  Lizzie, you're right there. I think language, and I mean, you'll be our language queen, but language matters.

And, and the words we use to describe things make a difference. Oh, definitely. There's, there's a completely different vibe to leveraged income than passive, isn't there? Makes it sound actually more intriguing too. Maybe, maybe we should all leverage.  Leverage our time and our work. Okay. So has anyone got a story they'd like to share of a time when a client came to them who had built something that they felt they should build?

But it obviously wasn't the right fit. That  happens a lot. In fact, yes, I do. 

I run a membership, uh, which is all about equipping business owners with the confidence and skills to, to use their voice with that come strategy, because you can't have words without strategy. So  I have, I, I, part of that membership is doing one to ones  every month.  So I had this chat with one of my oldest clients, uh, who is very, very experienced in business.

, she's very business oriented. She's a strategist.  She's, , super, super specialized. And she came to me and said, Oh, I'm Well, I'm, I, I need to, I'm, I'm gonna need to make a course and I don't know what I'm gonna do.

And I'm like, okay, but why? Um, oh, because  , because that's, I need, I need, I need I, and she, we couldn't quite finish that thought. Um, and I said, why? In the gentlest, nicest way possible. And by the end of that conversation, not only was she not building a course, but she was actually setting up live networking events for the women in her city.

Because that's actually what she wanted to do. And that's actually what was going to make the biggest impact to her and her community that she was building. So, you know, it just sometimes takes a conversation  to get out of the shoulds.  I always like, and it's not quite related to selling a digital something, but it makes me laugh every time that most of the web developers I meet went into freelance web developing because they don't like people and find out that actually the job is entirely client relationship and understanding people's wants and desires to build the client the right websites. 

But that's not actually what they wanted or why they became a web developer. And like the story cracks me up where every web developer I meet went into web development because they didn't like people and it ends up all about people. It makes me laugh.  Well, that's, that's it. It's the, what you think you want or what you've been told that you want versus the reality of sound, isn't it?

Nikki, what about you? You've got a story from a client who's come to you saying they want something, but we know that really deep down they don't want it.  Yeah, now, um, so we, obviously we have our platform, but I also run a program, um, and through that program, one of the girls in our group, you know, she's  felt that she's a bit of an introvert and, um, didn't really want to create something that involved her time with dealing with too many people or anything like that.

And we realized, okay, it might not be a one to many situation, but she actually could build something that's one to one like an actual program. And she ended up building like a high ticket. Program out of that. So, yeah, it's interesting how it can go on the flip side. You think you're an introvert and I want to deal with people, but in actual fact, you just, you can do one to one and you excel.

So, yeah. I think that's a really great point too, because it leads back to that. She had a perception in her brain to that be successful. She had to have a course with thousands of people or whatever, but actually she could build a program that really suited her and her style, not just she had to build the program everyone else was telling her to build.

Yeah. Just change that shifted that balance of quality quantity sort of stuff. Yeah. But that also feeds into the marketing as well. Then you're attracting a certain type of client based on the deliverables, you know, like you may be not mass marketing at 200 a member or something, but what you're, what you're developing as far as your messaging and your marketing in general is something that's very slick and very targeted, I suppose, comparatively.

Yeah.  Yeah, and it leads us to an interesting discussion, which we will touch back on when we talk about pricing and then marketing. Um, the flip side of that is I was working with a client who came to me. She wanted a big health and fitness program, 9 a month and, and join anytime or whatever. I went, have you run the numbers?

How do we run Facebook ads and attract people and look at our signup conversion rates? It's 9 a month isn't profitable. You'll spend more in attracting your clients and your churn rate than you will get in the bank at the end. And she's like, Oh, well, such and such is doing it. This person's doing it.

That person's doing it. This PT is doing it. I'm like, cool. Maybe they had an audience of tens of thousands already. And so.  They're just, but we can't with an audience of a small amount, make that profitable. So part of that, what do you want has to sit with, where are you at in your business model as well?

And where are you trying to go?  I'm agreed. I think.  What I'm mindful of is that there, there is rules and exceptions to rules all over the place. And just because it hasn't been done before doesn't mean it can't be done or just because so and so doesn't mean does it that way doesn't mean it is or isn't going to be successful.

And a lot of this stuff is going to come down to trial and error. And  the risk that it might not work out is not a reason not to do it in the first place. So I just wanted to put that caveat. 'cause I think, um, any kind of thought about, well it might not work, is a really powerful reason not to start where what a wasted experience.

Very true. You know,  very.  And the, what you want to do, don't, you're not doing it because you're comparing yourself to someone else. You don't do what other people are doing necessarily. Like, we've all come out from the perspective of uniqueness and we're all, you know, we have our expertise in areas. 

What's their expertise and why are they really doing it for what they want to do? Yeah. Yeah. And I'd also argue is even if  there are other people in your industry, that doesn't.  That doesn't mean very much actually, because what you're building, if you're doing your messaging, right, in particular, you're building a signature, authentic brand that will attract certain people because of any of those assets, whether it's color based or language based or mannerism based, you will build a community around that.

So even if. You and someone else is selling almost identical products. Different people will choose either one of you based on all of this exterior stuff that has nothing to do with the product itself. So just to keep that in mind as you're creating as well.  Exactly. 

 Let's leave everyone with some really important questions. Cause we said we were all about an action step, right? So we want people to take action and go away and do things. I think we do a bit of a round table and recommend some questions that we get them to go away and brainstorm so that they can come back having dug deeper into what think they want, not just what they want.

So what do we think would be some really good questions for them to think about while they go away to work out what they're, what they actually,  what do they want to do?  What can we ask?  What about things as basic as ongoing or time framed?  Yeah, love that. So is it something where people sign up whenever and leave whenever?

I guess we're thinking open ended like memberships or communities, or is it closed like a fixed period program? Like with a start and a finish? Graduation points as well.  So let's say it's a course. Do you have a membership that the course filters into?

So there's another step to stay in your ecosystem, I guess. So graduation points maybe is less basic, but still useful.  My question is live components or no live components. So do you want things like group chats, one on ones, those sorts of question times, or do you want it all online so they can do it whenever live components or no live components? I think my one's best, literally again, built around framework. Uh, how do you want to deliver your content? Is it going to be self paced? Do they come in and choose what they want to read, go through, choose the times they want to come in, or do you set things scheduled and there's a process flow?  I love that.

I think the moral of the story, and I'm going to speak for all of us here, but tell me if I'm wrong, is that there's no right answer to this. I don't have a right answer. And ladies, I don't think any of us do. What it really is about is working out what you want from something. There is no point in you going and building an all engaged live program with all these touch points, with big launches, so everyone can start at the same time.

If you actually don't want to do launches and you don't want to run Q and A's because you've built yourself something you're going to resent delivering and. That just leads to terrible feelings. So best thing you can do is your action step to take away from today is work out. What do you want? When you say you want a digital thing, what does that look like to you?

Does it have a start point? Does it have people joining together? Does it have an end date? Do they get to do what they want? Or do they follow your program? Really start to think about some of those questions and come back to us with the answers because that will help you build the thing that suits you, not just your audience. I believe ladies that is us done for today. Has anyone got any final golden nuggets they want to leave with our audience before we go? Enjoy the journey. Always enjoy the journey. Yeah. And just keep the blinkers on. Don't worry about what anyone else is doing or what so and so well meaning said.

Says you should be doing who's never run a business for instance, or there's lots and lots of opinions out there is my point. And the only one that really matters is yours.  A hundred percent.  Come back with your homework because next week we're going to be talking all about validating that idea and making sure your audience actually wants the things you're building as well.

But for the moment, it's important that you want the thing you're building. Otherwise you're going to end up in a hole.