42. Should You Create An Online Course or Membership?

Andrea Nordling 0:00
Hello there, my friend, I have really been looking forward to this episode to give perspective and to answer a question that I get asked a lot, which is different variations of this one question, Should I create an online course or membership? Now we’re gonna get into all of the details of the answer to this question. But the short answer is yes, yes, you should. But maybe not yet. We’ll talk all about that. Today, we’re going to get into exactly how to know when and if you should be considering offering a digital product like a course or a program, or a membership in the rest of this episode, of course, and I am going to tell you all about how I totally screwed this up in my holistic nutrition business early on. So you don’t have to make the same mistakes that I did. That is the goal of this podcast as a whole, my friend who’s for you to have a much smoother business journey than the rest of us have had. We are going to unpack all of it with courses and memberships and programs. So if you are wondering about online courses, or any variation of a digital product that you want to sell on your website to strangers on the internet, that’s what I’m talking about here. This is an episode you’ll want to save and listen to a few times, I’m sure. And if you are listening to this episode when it originally airs in July of 2022. And this topic is top of mind for you right now, I want to invite you to save your seat for a free webinar that I am hosting on August 2, where I’m taking you behind the scenes of my half million dollar a year online coaching business that’s currently scaling to seven figures a year. And my digital program called the profitable nutritionist program is a key component of that growth. So on August 2, on the live webinar, I’m going to be going deep into all of the strategy behind knowing what to offer, when to offer it, how to price it, all of the things. And I’m an open book. So you’ll be able to ask any questions that you have live on the webinar, there’s going to be ample time for q&a. And I just love this kind of format. I love teaching behind the scenes and unfiltered because the questions and the live q&a is by far the best part. They’re always such juicy questions. And I just love it. I love teaching that way. So to save your seat for this behind the scenes webinar, first of its kind, I might add, Register at www dot build a profitable practice.com forward slash behind, like behind the scenes behind. So pause this right now and go sign up, build a profitable practice.com forward slash behind. Okay, and if you are a new listener to the podcast, let me take a minute to introduce myself. First of all, welcome. My name is Andrea Nordling. I am the founder of Build a Profitable practice which you probably gleaned by now. And I’m also the creator of the profitable nutritionist program. And it is my mission and my pleasure and my happy place to help holistic nutritionist and health coaches to grow a profitable online practice without relying on social media, which means it’s all about organic marketing and sales techniques. And that’s all you’re going to hear about around here. No posting, no scrolling required whatsoever.

Andrea Nordling 2:58
Now, every week here on the podcast, you get a mixture of entrepreneurial mindset coaching and business strategy to fuse together to help you grow a massively profitable and impactful health and wellness business. Like I said, this is my love language. It just I feel so strongly that the more healthy and health minded people there are that are making a lot of money and making decisions and impacting a lot more people, the better off all of us are going to be obviously. So this is I don’t know, this is just something that I feel very strongly about, obviously, which is why I have built my business around it. And like I said, My background is as a nutritional therapy practitioner. So around here, there will never be a shortage of food references and metaphors cannot help myself. We will talk about food all of the time. All right, so let’s launch into this discussion about digital products, namely courses and memberships. But like I said, any digital product or program that is delivered to strangers on the internet via your website is what I’m talking about. I want to start this discussion by telling you a little bit about the early days of my holistic nutrition practice in one late 2015, early 2016. And the first online course I ever created and sold now to date I have created and sold I did a quick tally here before I jumped on over 15 online courses and four different membership sites. So I have made all of the mistakes. I’ve already made them. Believe me, I’ll tell you all about it. Like I said, I’m an open book, but I also have had lots of success. So remember, lots of failures, lots of mistakes, I’ve done a lot of things wrong. I have launched things and sold them but not sold them because nobody bought them. I’ve done lots of it, all of it. But I’ve also had a ton of success, which I am very excited to tell you all about as well. I don’t think that there is enough of that going on, especially in our industry, people sharing exactly how they are successful. Today. Now I have helped hundreds and hundreds of my students to navigate these waters as well and avoid the common mistakes so they

Andrea Nordling 5:00
You can have faster success too. Which brings us to this topic of the podcast today because none of what I’m sharing with you is theory. It’s all been tested and refined over and over and over again. But I still find that I get asked the question a lot, should I do an online course or membership? Should I do an online course or membership? We got to talk about it. I talked about it in my programs. I talk about it in other episodes, but we’re going to do an entire dedicated, focused mission mission. What do we want to say like mission intensive discussion about it today? Because back in the beginning of my holistic nutrition practice in 2016, when I was diving into the world of online courses for the first time, I had no idea what I was in for. You may have already heard me talk about this. If you’re a listener to the podcast for any length of time, I have talked about my first online course. It was called paleo boss, babe. Now, you can just take a moment we can giggle about it together paleo boss babe was in there was there was an avatar involved. There was a little graphic with a person she was a paleo. Anyway, I’ve talked all about this already. Oh, my gosh, anyway, Paleo boss babe happened. It was the first course I didn’t know anything about anything. When it came to building an online course in the beginning of 2016. I had no idea what I was in for nobody was teaching this stuff in our industry, or if they were I wasn’t seeing it. I don’t know where it was. Honestly, I have to be totally honest, when I decided to create my first nutrition course and sell it to strangers on the internet. I had never even taken an online course before. But I started saying these words, I’m going to create courses, and I’m going to sell them on my website. And I said it enough times that I believed it.

Andrea Nordling 6:40
And so I decided to figure out how to do this thing that I had no idea how to do. By the way, I was just saying those words. Honestly, I have to also give this caveat, I was saying those words about an online course. Because I did not even know that premium one on one clients were an option. I did not know this, my background is real estate, as you may or may not know. So I was used to making great money. I was used to working with clients, I knew how to get clients, I knew how to sell to clients, I knew how to serve clients, in a way that was excellent customer service. So I would get lots of referrals. I knew how to do that. But for some reason, there was a disconnect. In my mind, I was not aware that I could translate that same skill set into my nutrition practice and help people the same way, I did not know it was an option. I guess I should have in retrospect known that. But I truly did not even have the thought that it was possible to make 1000s of dollars working with people helping them one on one. And that they would pay for that help. I did not know this, I was looking around at the few people I knew that had a nutrition business, they were charging, you know, a couple $100 At the most for some one off client appointments. And it took me about 20 seconds to do the math on that and realize that that was not going to pay the bills or be worth my time. And so I didn’t even entertain pursuing premium one on ones didn’t even know it was a thing. I just knew that there were not enough hours in the week for me to make a living, selling, you know, $200, one off client appointments. So I had to create something I could sell that I could make ones that I could sell to infinity without taking more of my time. If you have considered creating or have already created a digital product in your business, you have had the same thought I guarantee it. So I totally understand. I had this idea that I was going to create paleo boss babe. And I was going to sell paleo Boss Baby to infinity to all of the strangers on the internet via my website, it was going to be amazing. And it was not going to be that much work. Can you feel the sarcasm dripping off of every statement I

Andrea Nordling 8:44
make it was not going to be that much work. I was just going to put in the work in the beginning that it was going to be done it was going to sell itself. Yeah, you’ve had those thoughts I get you. But listen close to this episode because what you’re going to find out and what I was very quickly finding out is that jumping into creating a course or membership too early can be a very, very expensive mistake. Not necessarily expensive out of pocket financially. But when you calculate the time and the income that is lost as you spend months, sometimes years creating and trying to figure out how to sell this thing that you created. It’s a lot of lost revenue, very expensive mistake. How do I know this once again, because I did make that mistake, I had no awareness at all that I could work with 10 clients at a time and make six figures a year. I had no idea. Now if I had known that, I would have definitely gone that route. And I would have stuck with getting really good at marketing to those clients and selling my one on one spots converting very high to people that were interested and perfecting my client processes with those one on one clients while making a lot of money. That’s what I would have done. I did not know that that was an option though, and I made things way harder for myself instead, which is why it took me three years to make 100k in my holistic nutrition business. So before we go any further into this story, let me just make it very clear that I recommend working with one on one clients at a premium rate, while you get really dialed in on your marketing, and your messaging and your sales techniques, so that you have such high demand built up, that you can easily sell a digital product, like a course or membership when you decide to offer it in the future. Because what really, really sucks, asked me how I know this is when you create a course or membership too early, and nobody buys it. Okay, we’re gonna get into that. But once again, I just want to make it clear that I recommend working with one on one clients for a bunch of reasons that we’re going to go into. And I’m going to give you all of the reasons behind this. That’s what I recommend. But if you do things backwards, like I did, you may find yourself in this position where you have to figure out why the heck your course is not selling. And we’re gonna get into that too. Again, I did not do it the easy way, because I did not have the awareness of premium pricing. And everyone that I knew at the time was charging a few 100 bucks for their nutritional therapy Consulting at the very most, I might add some of them charging way less than that, which is so sad. And so I didn’t know, I did not even know what I didn’t know, at that point. So if you’re listening to this right now, you do have that awareness because I’m telling you, that is the much simpler way to quickly grow your practice by working with premium one on ones. I have to mention here. That my business bestie Amy tufts rude was the one that I created paleo boss babe with. And again, I went into a lot of detail about the beginning of my business and what I would do differently in episodes 26 and 27. So if you are curious, after this episode, you can go back to episodes 26 and 27. And listen to more detail on my story and all about Paleo bonds. Which I just love. I love saying sometimes Amy and I and if you don’t know Amy, she is the online course guru. So if you are thinking about creating an online course she’s a fantastic resource. Her website is Rebel nutrition, R E LL. E nutrition.com. She’s amazing. Amy and I will just sometimes these days, we’ll just text each other randomly out of the blue and we’ll just say paleo boss, babe, and then we will just die laughing because that happened. Okay. Anyway, back to what I learned in my journey and about making courses too early. First of all, with paleo boss, babe, Amy, and I launched this course one time. So we created it, we created all the content of it. And we launched it out to the world thinking we were going to instantly be millionaires, I might add, and it didn’t sell that much. Let’s be very clear, it did not sell that much. We made about five grand to my recollection, the first time we sold the course. And since it wasn’t $5 million. We thought it was a dismal failure, and did not launch paleo. Busbee. Again, Oh, how I wish I had known what I know. Now, when we did that, because we did not have any criteria to evaluate our launch. And what went well, and what we should do, again, what we should tweak for next time, which is what I teach to my clients. We didn’t have any of that. We just thought well, okay, Paleo boss, babe isn’t happening. So we rebranded the content of the course and the niche, and we changed it into more specifically an adrenal fatigue resource. And we launched launch it again, within a few months later with different content, different name, different everything, which I’m sure was very, very confusing to the people that were paying attention, which we’ll get to, we also lowered the price, which didn’t make any sense.

Andrea Nordling 13:35
Because the price was not the reason that people weren’t buying. And it is never the reason that people aren’t buying from you either. Again, we’re going to get into all of this, as we sort through the nonsense of the story. We did discounts. And then actually what happened here is, Amy started doing business coaching, and she wanted to focus on business coaching, I said, I will focus on this course. And so we had split our partnership at this point. And this was me, I can’t even I can’t even drag her into making these bad decisions at this point, because this was just me selling this course. Now. I’m at this part of the story, which is about fall of 2016. Just to give you a timeline. So now I have lowered the price doesn’t make any sense. I’ve done discounts. I’ve done flash promotions. I’ve done all sorts of webinars to sell this course called The adrenal fatigue detox at this point, it’s no longer paleo baths but I was doing group programs. I was doing a few one off one on ones I was doing paid workshops for businesses, I was doing all sorts of things had a lot of offers. If you needed something, I had something to offer you. Let me tell you, and I wasn’t making money. I mean, I was but I wasn’t not the kind of money that I needed to pay myself for my time and to really significantly contribute to my family finances. And that’s because I was adding offers, and I was changing price points instead of fixing my messaging. So spoiler alert, Don’t do that it is never a price problem, it is never a problem of what you’re including in your offer all of those nuances do not matter. The only thing that is ever the reason for things not selling is your messaging, and your marketing around it and explaining to people the problems that they have, that you understand those problems, the solution that you offer very concisely and in a way that they understand and articulating the results that they’re going to get when they work with you in a very specific way that they understand that resonates with them on a deep emotional level. I’m kind of going to bust through that because I talk a lot about that in other podcasts episodes. But it’s always the messaging always, forever, never is anything other than messaging. That’s the reason people don’t buy. I didn’t know that either. In 2016, I had no idea. So I just added discounts. I did some flash promos, I bundled things together, I added another course that was even cheaper. I think it was $97. I did, I didn’t just try to create new things, and reinvent the wheel all of the time, instead of really, really narrowing in on my messaging, figuring that out and creating a ton of demand for the offers that I did have. It was a hustling, mess. And I see this same pattern with my clients. So this is why I really want to talk about it and get you out of the cycle. If you’re currently doing the same thing. I see this with my students all the time, a couple different paths that this can take. First of all, there’s the wanting to create an online course or membership and planning to do it but never actually launching it never actually even after months and months of preparation and outlining and kind of recording a little bit here and planning and going back and scrapping that plan and then redoing and a lot of cycle of plan research don’t actually execute. I see this a lot people never actually launch their course memberships spend months and months on it, sometimes even years, with the best of intentions of perfecting it, making it absolutely perfect. And finally selling it. But they never get to that point. It that is one track that this can take and how it goes wrong with my students, that might be something that’s showing up for you two, or they do create the course or do create the membership or the digital offer, whatever it is program, whatever it is, remember, this can be variation of things, but we’re gonna just gonna blanket term course or membership. So they create the course or membership. And they want it to be a no brainer. You can’t see me right now. But I’m air quotes, the no brainer, they want it to be a no brainer. So they price it very, very low. And just expect it to sell to hundreds, if not 1000s of people. This is just like what I did, which did not work that well. But I see a lot of

Andrea Nordling 17:37
people having the same thought process, which is I’m just going to make it a no brainer. And then it’s going to sell to people and I’ll raise the price later. And they think that people are going to buy because it’s inexpensive. Okay, that doesn’t work. If you’ve ever done this, you know that the opposite happens, it actually sells less when it’s inexpensive, which is a phenomenon I’m going to talk more about, but it is way easier to sell expensive things than it is to sell inexpensive things. Alright, so But I see people do this a lot, they think I’m just gonna make it a no brainer, I’m just gonna throw it out there, it’s gonna be a no brainer. People buy, even though the math doesn’t work. And they don’t actually have the demand to support the amount of money that they want to make from watching the product. But this is just a funny thing that our brains do. We try to rationalize doing it, creating it now throwing it out there, and then we tell ourselves, but we’ll get we’ll refine it later, we’ll increase the price later, we’ll get more, we’ll get a bigger audience later, there’ll be more people later, but let’s just do the work now. Please resist this, please, please, please resist this

Andrea Nordling 18:37
temptation. Another thing I see my students do, and that I did as well, which I’ve told you is launching one time and not reaching the goals. And so then just go back to the drawing board. And remember, this is what I did as well with the first and only release of the coveted paleo Boss Babes course online course in early 2016, which was just throwing it out there one time didn’t make a million dollars. So obviously, the entire product is flawed. The concept is is stupid, we have to just start all over and go back to the drawing board. I did this. I see people do this all the time. And I am on a mission. If you hear nothing else from this entire episode, I am on a mission to tell as many people as possible to stop reinventing the wheel stop going back to the drawing board and scrapping everything and starting over which is what our brains want to do. This is a very, very natural pattern that we have as humans with human brains is to think that nothing is working and we have to start over. That is never the case wants you to evaluate Sperry systematically evaluate anything that you do in your business and iterate it instead of just scrapping it. Most of the time. There’s plenty that is actually working that you can double down on instead of going back to the drawing board. Okay. Another way I see this course or membership or digital product creation go wrong with my clients is they create a new course off offer this kind of plays along with going back to the drawing board, they create a new course offer when the first one didn’t sell as expected, which is the endless loop. So going back to the drawing board, starting over creating a new course, going, and usually it’ll also be less expensive, which confuses their potential clients so much, because people need to be told what they should do many, many, many times. In the simplest terms, people need to be exposed to your offer and explained why it makes sense for them. Significantly more often than we think it’s been said, and it depends on the source that you look at. But at least seven times people need to see the same offer seven times or more, sometimes you’ll get up to 1319, up to 30 times that experts will say I don’t know who the experts are, you can also put the air quotes on that. Experts will say that people need to see the same offer seven to 30, sometimes or more to make a purchasing decision. So it is very confusing to our potential clients. When we throw an offer to them one time, assume that they’ve deeply considered it, which they haven’t, because they’re never paying that much attention. And then we bail on it and start something else, and then give them another offer, and then bail on that again, and then make another offer, you can see how this is very, very confusing to potential clients because they don’t know what to pursue. And this just tells them I need to do a little bit more research before I’m going to make a decision, they’re very unsure about what they need to get help with. And even if they are very interested in working with you, they just think I need to look into all of these options first and figure out what the best option is. So we assume that when people don’t buy something we have for sale, that it’s because they don’t want it. But really, a lot of times our messaging is is very confusing, and they’re thinking, I gotta get back to that and figure out what the best option is. Because they feel like they need to do some research and some legwork first, and we haven’t made it very, very simple and doable and easy for them to take the next step. Which goes back to the messaging. Remember, it’s never a price problem. It’s never what the offer components are problem. It’s always a messaging problem, if people are not buying what you’re selling, right. Now, again, another way I see this go wrong with my clients is they get burned out on one on ones because they aren’t charging enough. And then they think that the solution is to create the course or membership to sell instead of raising their rates. I think that this is probably obvious from what I’ve explained so far about charging premium one on ones and getting really, really good at your messaging, and converting sales, and then to delivering to those clients and really honing your processes and getting really, really good at what you’re doing and making a lot of money. In the meantime, while you’re doing that research and development, I might add. But if you’re not charging enough to be doing that really tedious work with those clients, then you you will get very burned out. And we see this a lot. I see a lot of people that just think that they don’t want to work with one on one clients, but just because they’re not charging enough to those one on one clients. And they think that the shortcut here is create a course or membership to sell instead of raising their rates. Also, another podcast episode that I will mention here is an interview with my client peg who had this exact experience and talked all about how she totally changed the game in her business. When she made I won’t give the spoiler episode 24 Go listen to episode 24. Also, if you’re interested in this, because peg had had a fantastic revelations around raising her rates instead of introducing a digital offer. She’s fantastic interview.

Andrea Nordling 23:37
The lastly, what I want to say about how this goes wrong, and I know I’ve already touched on it a little bit but I want to be very specific is when you do create a course or membership. And I see this with my students a lot. They create it and it doesn’t sell as anticipated. I know I’ve like in 20 different ways already touched on that. But I have to say that this is actually not something that has gone wrong. People think that it is my students do I did in the beginning, of course, think that that was a problem. But really it isn’t. And this goes back to the entire evaluation process. And assuming that if something doesn’t get the results the first time that is flawed, and we need to start over, not the case. In fact, I would really encourage you to go into the mindset of creating and launching a digital product as if it will not sell the first time. And just think about it that you’re creating it for the long term success of your business which we’re going to talk all about in the rest of this episode. But the you are actually creating that for your long term goals not for the short term of selling it now because it probably isn’t going to sell the way that you anticipate the first time and if it does, that’s wonderful. But let’s be real. When you are starting to sell something for the first time and you don’t have your message messaging dialed in and this is any offer is going to take a minute. So just want to say if you have already launched a course or membership, and it didn’t sell as anticipated, that doesn’t mean it never will Will we just have to go back to the messaging portion? Okay. But there’s many times as I say this, our brains are really, really good at defaulting to all of this is wrong, we need to start over. And so I see this with my clients as well, what they think the problem is, they don’t think it’s a messaging problem. They think the problem is they don’t have the right niche, the price of the offer was too expensive. They’re not teaching the right processes, I do see this a lot with people thinking, I need to go get another certification, I need to go learn another process, I need to go learn another testing technique, I need to go do blank so that I can teach that to my clients. And then I will be able to sell this the way I want to and charge what I want to fill in the blank excuse here. Let me see that a lot. Another thing that my clients tend to think is a problem when they are creating a course or membership, and it doesn’t sell as anticipated is or I guess this really also could be a reason where they why they never get the product created in the first place is they think the tech is too hard to figure out or that they don’t have enough time to set it up, or that they set it up wrong. So another thing I see, many people think that they don’t have a big enough audience yet. And honestly, that could be a reason, but not for the reason you think we’re going to talk about creating demand in a minute. But this is something that our brains default to is just thinking I don’t have a big enough audience yet I have to go grow my audience, I have to grow my audience, I would argue that you need to grow your experience with some one on one clients and some experience with selling, not necessarily with growing an audience for the sake of just having more eyeballs. But again, we will get to that. Another thing people think is the problem when they launch something, and it doesn’t sell is pricing uncertainty. So they they weren’t really sure what their price should be, they wanted to make it a no brainer for that reason. And that means that they price it too inexpensively. And people just kind of disregard it. Again, it is much easier to sell expensive things than it is to sell cheap things. We know this because it is hard to get people to opt in for a free thing on your website. And if price was the reason that people make decisions, they would be opting into the free thing all day long. And we wouldn’t have to sell the free things. But we know as business owners, if you ever have tried to pimp something that is free on your website, that it is a chore, it is hard. And that’s because people don’t assign value to things that are free or inexpensive and pay attention the same way they do when they’re paying a premium price. Alright, so these are all of the problems that people think they have not the right niche. It’s too expensive, even though it’s obviously not ever, they don’t have the right processes, texts too hard, don’t have a big enough audience. These are all of the reasons that our brains will throw up for why things don’t work, the first time we do them, really kind of these are a problem. And maybe they are something to consider. But really what’s happening here is that you’re just doing something new.

Andrea Nordling 27:56
It’s never going to sell as anticipated the first time, that’s what the actual problem is. And also it’s the messaging, of course. So I started this episode by saying, you probably do not need to be even considering a digital product yet if you’re not already building a ton of demand and are selling out your one on ones. But you do need to be thinking about these things for the future. And maybe you are at the point where you do have the demand already. And it is time for you to be considering a course or membership, or you have already created one and it hasn’t sold and we need to talk about what that is. So here’s what’s actually the problem. And again, if you’re not at this stage of your business, that this is something you need to be really seriously putting time and attention into right now. Then don’t. But keep listening to this episode and know that you can come back to it in the future when it is time and just kind of know what what’s going to be coming up for you.

Andrea Nordling 28:51
Here’s what is actually the problem when these digital offers don’t sell. Like I said, it’s always the messaging, always messaging. It’s how you are explaining to someone the problem they have the solution that you offer and the results that they’re going to get get. Again, I’m simplifying this when they work with you, and when they buy your thing. And when they get your help. That’s always the thing that needs to get tweaked if you’re not getting the sales that you want to be with any offer you’re selling and your business ever. Remember, I teach an entire program with a process on how to learn how to get really good at organic marketing, and organic selling and delivering to your clients at a very high level while structuring your business in a way that it’s going to be easy to scale. That’s everything that I teach inside the foundational program I have called the profitable nutritionist. Messaging, messaging, messaging. It is never the price. It’s always the messaging. Please believe me again when I tell you it’s easier to sell expensive things than it is to sell inexpensive things. My clients in the program say this all the time when they get in and they learn the process I teach and they start using it and selling In premium packages at a much higher rate than they ever have before, their mind always explodes. They post in the community immediately and say, I cannot believe that this was actually the easiest sale that I’ve ever made. And I made more money. Okay, it’s all about the messaging, it’s never about the price. Another problem, and what actually is coming up is making the offer too soon when there isn’t enough demand yet. Okay. And I’ve kind of teed this up. But I want to go into more detail about this. Somewhere along the line, helping people with their health as a holistic nutritionist or health coach became synonymous with being a giant, like a genius guru, internet marketer. I don’t know when this happened, it wasn’t that way in 2015 2016, when I was starting here, I will tell you that because people really did not have a lot of awareness about internet marketing, and selling things to strangers on the internet. But over the last five years, six years, that has really changed, people in our industry tend to think that you have to be very, very savvy at this to make money as a holistic nutritionist or health coach, you do not you absolutely do not. However, to sell a digital product, like a course or membership, you do have to have some of the savvy. So in the beginning, they are not the same thing, being a great digital marketer, and being a very profitable nutritionist, nutritionist or health coach, do not have to be one in the same thing. But selling a digital product is a different beast. And it does require a different skill set. So I will say that you do have to up your game a little bit on the digital marketing with your website and your messaging, which is going to be delivered. Just one way. We’re gonna talk about this more in a second. But think about the feedback loop of a one on one conversation where you are saying something to someone or they’re saying something back, you can hear their objections, you can address those objections. That is a much different sales situation than a digital product where all of the sale is going to be done via video or copy one way coming from you and you cannot judge how it’s being received or what objections people have, because there’s no feedback coming directly to you. So it is a different different skill set for sure. What makes you really good at that kind of sales. You might be asking, how do you get good at that? Well, it’s by selling to real humans and talking to real people that you know, or that you meet who want help. Again, this is what we teach in the profitable nutritionist program is how to get really good at organic marketing and sales to real people on the planet that already want help and already have problems and are trying to solve it, talk to them, hear their objections address, those objections get really, really good at that messaging. And then it becomes very, very easy, I don’t know, maybe not easy, it becomes very simple to translate those conversations into copy and video that is going to sell to strangers on the internet via your website. Okay, but you have to get good at that messaging first. Otherwise, it’s just going to be a much, much longer learning curve to sell something digital. So that is also something that is the problem isn’t necessary, I want to reiterate, it is not necessary to be a genius internet marketer to make money in this industry, especially if you’re selling one on ones or a small group. However, when you are selling a digital product to strangers on the internet via copy and video, then you do need to have some of these skills. Okay? Another problem that causes lots of my students to prematurely create online courses or memberships before they find the profitable nutritionist program and learn a better way is that they are scared to fail. And I was totally guilty of this too. So I deeply understand it. They are scared to be put on the spot, or to commit to one on one clients in their schedule. And this is why they want to have a digital offer. They see a business like mine where I coach for one hour a week in my program, instead of having a calendar full of one on one clients. And they say I want that now. Because I don’t know what I’m going to say to those one on one clients, even though they don’t have the demand built up yet to sell out a digital program. But deeply they’re thinking I don’t I don’t want to be put on the spot. I don’t want my one on one clients to ask me a question that I don’t know the answer to. So I would way rather create something that I can record in advance and never be put on the spot. I felt this exact way and his I think if I really dig into it in the beginning of my practice, I think it’s one of the big reasons why online courses really were attractive to me because I was thinking, Oh, okay, I’m never going to be put on the spot. I can really outline the content I’m going to teach I will know exactly what to say. I’ll make sure it’s all true and accurate.

Andrea Nordling 34:39
And I’m never going to be uncovered as not knowing something or it was some variation of that thought in my mind, which is why I wanted to create courses. So if this is you too, I totally get it. But I will tell you it was very expensive thought for me that took years to correct me because it was expensive, it took me years, it was years that I wasn’t making the kind of money that I wanted to be making and helping a lot of people. Because I wanted everything to be perfect. I never wanted to be put on the spot, and I was afraid to fail. So if that is you, don’t worry. This is again, something that we address at a very deep level in inside my program for this exact reason. Another reason why people are so attracted to courses but actually can be a detriment is because they want a quick win, or a windfall success of passive income in their business. Again, something I definitely was attracted to and thought would magically happen. As soon as I created a course that all of the money would come in. It was a no brainer, all of the people would buy it done. Like millionaire status, just dust off my hands go retire tomorrow. I mean, I’m being a little bit dramatic, but not really, I think I definitely had some thoughts about that. And anyone who has created a digital product will tell you, it is anything but passive. And that goes back to the messaging because you can create a product this is there’s no shortage of resources for how to record outline, record, and create a membership, a program, an online course, all of that is the simple part. But what is not passive is figuring out the messaging and how to sell it on repeat over and over and over first to people who know you, that’s your warm market. And secondly, to people that don’t know you strangers on the internet, that’s called your cold leads. And selling to someone who has never heard of you before. And having them exchange dollars to your bank account when they don’t even know you is not a passive activity. Anybody who says otherwise, is lying to you, this is a skill, it’s a skill that is very worthwhile to learn. It’s very fun to learn. It is lucrative when you do learn it, and even in the process when you’re having wins along the way. But it is not passive. So I just want to say anything that you create in your business is anything but passive, because you have to figure out how to sell it. And you have to figure out how to sell it on repeat while delivering very, very life changing amazing results and winning the lottery experience to your clients that have purchased already and that continue to purchase from you. And that is not passive. So just you know, not passive. Worth it. Yes. scalable. Yes. Super fun. And also something to be really proud of when you figure out how to do it. Yes. But passive? No, no, no, no, not that’s up. All right, another problem I see.

Andrea Nordling 37:33
That’s actually the problem is wanting to hide behind a cheap digital product, because they’re scared. And this I see this with my clients. I also know that this is something I struggled with, because of being scared of not being able to get one on one clients the results after they pay a premium price. So it’s kind of a variation of more pricing drama. That’s actually the problem. What people think is the problem is oh, I just I put too expensive, overpriced on it, I need to offer a discount. No, what’s actually happening is that the reason that you’re selling something cheap in the first place is that you’re scared of not being able to get your one on one clients, the results that they are expecting when they pay a premium price. This is a big problem. Because this belief that oh, maybe I don’t know how to get people results like that a little fear behind the scenes in your brain, that thought process that is going to show up in anything that you sell. So if you are new to me, if you don’t know a ton about my philosophy, and what I teach, I teach a lot of mindset coaching, around pricing in particular, because your beliefs about what you’re capable of selling, what you’re capable of delivering, and what people value and we’ll pay you for all of that fusion of all of those thoughts are going to determine how much money you make, the quality of clients you work with, and of course the results that they get. So we want to address any of those little secret thoughts that you wouldn’t say out loud about being scared of not being able to get people results, any thoughts you have about those, we want to shine a light on them and address them and really bring those to the forefront and work on those immediately. Because if you don’t, that belief is going to show up in how you price your digital product in the future and everything else you do in your business and also the results of your clients if you don’t clean it up now. So I just want to say I know that this is a real reason why people actually have a problem with either delaying creating their digital product because they want to have this cheap thing to sell or to creating it quickly can go either way. They could also create it really quickly in an effort to hide behind this cheap inexpensive offer instead of working with clients and figuring out how to get them those amazing results every time when they pay a premium price or not. All right. Now switching gears a little bit here another thing that might actually be a problem, but it shows up differently in what they think is the problem this might be for you to is not committing 1,000% to What a niche. All right. Here’s what I mean by that. Remember, I told you one of the things that people think is the problem when they create something and it doesn’t sell, as they anticipated, is that they don’t have the right niche. But really, what I see much more often is that they’re not actually committed to the niche that they say that they’re committed to. And so they’re half in and half out. And they’re like dipping a toe in the water here thinking this might be my niche, I think, yeah, I think it is, I think so I’m gonna create a course or membership for this niche, but they’re not really committed. And then the back of their mind, they’re thinking, but if it doesn’t work, then I’ll pick a different one. Now, here’s the thing, you do not need to have a niche at all, to work with one on one clients, or small groups in your business and making a lot of money, multiple, six figures and more, with no niche, absolutely possible, I’m not even telling you that you need to have a niche, but I am telling you is when you are creating a digital product, like a course or membership, you do have to have a very specific niche. And that goes back to the messaging conundrum that we talked about a second ago, where you have to have a very specific problem that you are addressing to your people via your copy and videos and however you are selling on your website to a cold market, you need to be able to really articulate the problem that they have, that you are then going to solve and explain that solution to them very, very clearly and concisely. And you need to be able to very clearly articulate the results that they’re going to get that are so important to them, that it hits them on an emotional level, that they have to get these results when they work with you. This is a skill, this kind of messaging is a skill. And it is not possible in my experience. And I don’t even see how this could possibly be contestable, it is not possible to do that if you don’t have a very specific niche for a digital product, okay, because your digital product is going to solve a very specific problem with a very specific solution and give very specific results. This is not a general solution to anything. This is also another thing that was problematic with paleo boss, babe, it was very general, it was a course that was about general nutrition and generally eating better, which generally doesn’t sell.

Andrea Nordling 42:14
So I did something right. And I told you, I was going to talk about a lot of the mistakes I made, but also the successes I had, the success was to niche down the focus of that course into a very specific problem, which is adrenal fatigue with a very specific solution and very specific results. So I will say that the subsequent times that that course was launched as the adrenal fatigue detox and the messaging around, it was very specific to that a person with that problem and a very specific niche, it did sell a lot better than I continually, like, made it harder on myself, by changing the price, and changing the offer and changing the components and changing all sorts of things about it. Instead of just really dialing in the messaging. I made it way harder on myself. But the one thing that I did that was that was great, and I would highly recommend is getting even more specific on the niche when it is a digital offer. Alright, so this is a problem that I see. They think it’s not the right niche, instead of realizing that they’re actually not committed totally to the niche. And what happens when you’re not totally committed to a niche and you’re going to figure it out, no matter what is you vacillate on that decision, and you kind of generalize your messaging more, because you’re thinking well, in the future, I might sell this to x group, this other group, when these other kinds of people, and I don’t want to disclude them. So I’m going to kind of watered down my messaging here, and I’m going to offer it to more than just my niche. And then there’s a middle issue here and not the wrong niche. It’s like a not committing to the niche issue. Thank you see what I’m saying here when I say that. And lastly, another big problem that is actually going on behind the scenes when a course or membership isn’t selling, as anticipated is that there was some version of the expectancy that the success was going to be higher because of looking at businesses that are way further ahead and modeling after that model. Again, we kind of touched on that already. But we grow into our businesses, we scale into them gradually. It isn’t something that just happens overnight. And so I think that what I have seen and I don’t know exactly how I want to articulate this, but it’s some version of let’s see, like overestimating the number of people that will actually buy buy because of looking at businesses that are further along. So I see this with a lot of students who just underestimate how hard it will be to sell a digital offer if they’ve never done it before. And then vastly overestimating the number of people that are going to buy it because they think it’s a no brainer price. And it’s of course people like everyone that’s watching this will buy it because it’s so cheap. In reality, they don’t have enough people looking at it, too, to pencil out for the number of people, what percentage of people that actually buy anything, and it’s I mean rough numbers here like three to 5% of your eye The ends may be ready to buy at any given point. But we think, Oh, if I just make this cheaper 50% of my audience is going to buy. And really, that is erroneous, and is probably based on looking at businesses, again, that are way further ahead have a different sales strategy are much better at their marketing have systems in place that they have perfected over time, and are not at the same stage that you’re at, if you have done that. So those are some of the problems that are the actual problems. Not the ones that people think they have. But those are the actual problems behind the scenes that will come up when you are thinking of creating an online course or membership or selling it. And it’s you’re actually launching it, you’ve done it, you’re doing the thing, and it hasn’t sold the way that you want to. Those are things that are going to come up, I want to let you know how to solve these problems, it is never going to be a good idea to give you all the problems and then just wash my hands and walk away. It’s a good luck. No, of course not. I

Andrea Nordling 45:56
want to help you solve these problems. So first, this is in no particular order. First of all, use math to find out if you are really ready for a digital offer math, not feelings, not the feedback of a couple people saying that they would buy it from you know, use math. Do you have the demand? Are there enough people chomping at the bit for your help right now, at your current offer? I’m not talking about people that are saying, well, I can’t work with you right now the timing isn’t right. But if you had a course I would buy that. No, no, no, no, no, I’m not talking about that. I’m saying is there enough demand for people chomping at the bit right now for your help and your current offer, whatever that is that they will three to 5% will pay for a digital solution, which remember is harder to sell than whatever it is you’re selling right now, if it’s not a digital offer. So that’s step one. If you don’t have the demand built up right now, if you don’t have more people wanting to work with you, then you can take right now, abort, put this idea of the digital offer on the shelf, put it on the bookcase, put it right next to you, and look at it fondly every day, do not be in a rush to create it. It’s coming. It’s gestating, but it’s not right now, what I teach my students in my program is how to slowly outline and build out the digital product over months or even a year, as you’re honing your messaging and getting really, really dialed in and great at delivering results to your clients get really good at that and be building out and outlining the assets for that digital product slowly over time. So that you have an organized system in place to create it by the time you actually do create the digital offer. It has already ready almost the hard part is done the figuring out the process and exactly what you’re going to include has already happened. And it is just a natural transition to create that offer, you have the demand built up, and then you create and sell it. That is what I teach and what I highly, highly recommend doing. Take it if you’re not ready yet, and just start slowly outlining for the future but with no rush and no pressure to get there. Because there is not necessarily better than here. And although it is totally worth it and fun and amazing. And just a thrill to have a product that you put your brainpower behind and you create with your own inner genius. And then you sell it to strangers on the internet for thought that is the most thrilling and the best feeling and I want everyone to have it, I don’t want you to try to do it too soon, and have it waste a lot of time, it’d be an expensive mistake for you. So be building it in the background. If you’re not there yet. It’s coming, just not today. Now, if you have already created a course or membership, and it didn’t sell the way you expected is probably just a math problem. So think about your demand to do a little audit here and think about the amount of demand that you have right now. Your natural thought process around it was probably that it wasn’t a good enough offer, that people didn’t think you were enough of an expert that you didn’t have the right process that you were teaching or your niche or lack thereof, doesn’t spend money on stuff like this. Our brains are really, really good at rationalizing why things didn’t work after the fact. None of that is true. Remember, it was 100% a marketing problem, a messaging problem. And it was coming from a demand problem. Okay, there just weren’t enough people that were ready to buy it. Because of the messaging math, we use math, three to 5% of your email list or audience or wherever your people are hanging out is a good gauge for how many people are likely to take you up on a digital offer at any given time, especially in the beginning, less than 5% I want to really drill that into your head. So do the math. Now that is not the same math Lucky for us, for one on one offers or small groups. So usually you will have a lot higher percentage of people that are ready for that offer, luckily, which is why that’s where I will strongly recommend that you go to first and Neil this messaging and your marketing. Hey, I think that I’m a broken record on that. But I’m going to keep going nail the messaging first with one on ones and actual conversations back and forth that you were Having with real humans, real humans with a real problem that want your help, do that first guy do the tedious work to nail that messaging, it is going to pay dividends for the rest of your career when you are at the point where you get to sell a digital product, because of the demand you’ve created to strangers on the internet, just so fun. There is an entire offer creation method for knowing exactly what to offer at what stage of business you’re at, that I bring all of my students through right away inside the profitable nutritionist program. Because this is such a big deal. You want to know what to offer at the stage of demand that you are at in your business so that you are maximizing your time. And you are giving very clear marching orders to your people, and they know exactly what to do, which kind of goes back to not confusing your audience with too many offers, you want to show them the same offer over and over and over again and talk about it in 100 different ways. So that they know exactly what the best next step is with you. And they’re not constantly being exposed to another variable. And another option, okay, so if you’re not fully booked with one on ones, and you can sell that package in your sleep at this point, if that’s not you, people aren’t throwing their credit card at you asking to start tomorrow and you have to put them on a waitlist, probably don’t make a coarser membership yet, seriously, maybe it’s just put that idea on the shelf, get really good at your messaging, and revisit the digital offer in a while take the pressure off. Now when you do decide to move forward with creating and selling your digital product, be prepared for it to be a different beast to sell it just want to reiterate this at least one more time, it’s going to be different than anything you’ve sold before. Because this is a one way sales conversation instead of a two way conversation. So give yourself more time than you think that you are going to need to launch and relaunch and relaunch it over and over and figure out how to sell it. Give yourself luxurious amounts of space to do this over and over and over again. And honestly, I would even say prepare for it not to sell the first time or first few times nothing has gone wrong. If that is the experience that you have, or you have already had just haven’t nailed your messaging yet, prepare for a learning curve. And this is different, there’s gonna be lots of rinse and repeat with selling a digital product doesn’t mean that you go back to the drawing board and change your decisions every time and start over. Absolutely not. I wish that someone had told me this. With my first course my second course probably my first 10 courses and two memberships that I had launched to the world, I wish that someone had told me this, don’t go back and redo it, just iterate a little bit. Let’s go back and evaluate and find out what was working, do more of that scrap what wasn’t and just course correct a little bit. I really wish I had had that advice. So I want to say that over and over and over, I hope you hear me. Don’t start over. Just tweak and repeat. Basically, I want to say prepare for your course or membership to be way harder to sell and take way more time than you think it’s going to but don’t quit. If this is part of your business plan. And it’s something you’re committed to don’t quit, I certainly don’t want you to abandon your efforts based on anything you’re hearing in this episode, I just want you to have very, very clear expectations of the time, and the skills that are going to be required for it to be successful for you. And when it comes to pricing any offer in your business, whether that is a one on ones, or a group or a digital offer, like a course or membership, no matter what it is, I gotta tell you premium pricing is where it’s at charge premium pricing, it’s going to push you to deliver at a higher level, which is always going to be better for everyone. And it is going to help motivate your clients. When people pay they pay attention. This is just a fact of life. So you’re going to need to sell yourself first on the value that you are creating and delivering to those clients and the results that they’re getting, and what that is worth in their life so that they are more invested. All right, be very, very clear and unwavering on your premium pricing that is going to help you be so much more clear and unwavering in your sales messaging promise. Now, like I said in the beginning, you do not need a defined niche to make a lot of money. But when you are creating and delivering an online course or program or membership or anything to strangers on the internet that is a digital product that they buy, you do, you absolutely do need a very defined niche. And that is because you need to be solving a very specific problem and delivering very specific results to a group of people. Okay, don’t even think of venturing into a digital offer. If you’re still unclear on the exact person that you work with that niche that you work with and the exact problems that they have the solution that you offer and the very very specific results that they are dreaming about when they lay in bed at night hoping for this problem to be solved. If you don’t know very very specifically what that is. You got to start there. Don’t even think about wasting your time with a digital product because you will end up redoing and redoing and reiterating so many times that it’s going to cost you a lot of money in it. Maybe not in monetary expenditure, but in wasted time, opportunity cost lost. I recommend working with 10 to 20 clients one on one in that niche no matter what it is first, so that you can really study them and refine your methods and your processes and your teaching and the way that you deliver to them. And the content that you teach and the systems, you bring them through all of that, I really, really recommend working with people one on one in the niche that you can get solid on all of those things. And then like I said, your course or membership content will have basically created itself by the time you have the demand and decide to launch it. Like I said, I teach a very specific weekly practice to my students on how to do this, where you begin brainstorming and outlining long before you are ready to create a digital product, so that you already have those ideas and processes ready to go. And your subconscious mind has had a lot of time to chew on the obstacles that might come up and the different, just different ideas.

Andrea Nordling 56:00
I think giving yourself a really long runway on creating something like this is going to help you so much as what I teach to my clients, it works very, very well for them. And then last, but certainly not least, be committed, and, and not attached. I just recently did a podcast episode on this committed means you’re going to figure it out, you have an idea of the timeline, you’re working towards the timeline. But if it takes longer, you’re not going to quit, you’re going to keep going until you figure it out. That is the short definition of committed. attached, on the other hand, means that attaining the goal, whatever it is, whatever you’re working towards, is so that it can mean something about you. Because either attaining that goal allows you air quotes allows you to believe something good about yourself and mean something about you personally, or not meeting the goal is going to mean something negative about you. And you want to avoid that these are the this is attachment one on one, if you’re attached to something, it’s because you’re making it mean something about you good or bad. If you’re committed, you’re staying the course you’re going to figure it out, you have a flexible timeline, and you’re not going to quit. So I highly recommend in any endeavor in your business, especially something that is a totally new skill, like creating a digital product and selling it that you are committed, you’re committed to figuring it out, you’re committing, you’re committing to the long term results, and what it is going to create in your business in the long term, that success is top of mind. And you’re really thinking about creating the best experience for your clients along the way. Instead of wanting to just quickly get the windfall, get the results have the passive income and, and shortcut the line basically, that’s attached, it’s not going to end well, if you’re attached. So the actual shortcut is to not take the shortcut, and just be committed, be committed to becoming the kind of person that can be patient, and can be thoughtful, and plan ahead. That is what I want for you a lot of planning, and not a lot of high stakes pressure, it’s gonna make it much better experience for you in the creation of any digital product or anything in your business. And of course, it’s going to be a better experience for your clients as they consume it. And as they buy it and work with you. So to recap, I think I’ve said this now about 20 times, but I’m gonna cap Yes, digital offer like an online course a membership, or an online program of any sort should absolutely be in your long term business plan. Because it’s the best it is seriously the best. But caveat, depending on what stage of business you’re in right now, it might not be a today consideration. Okay? And if you have any hesitation whatsoever right now wondering if it is the right time or not, then that’s a no. If you’re like, Oh, am I there? Do I have the demand? Probably not. If you have to wonder about it, it’s probably enough, you are going to have so much more success waiting until you have excessive demand for your current offer and it’s bursting at the seams, it’s painfully obvious that it’s time to introduce a digital offer. Because the demand is already there. And the sales experience that you then have from selling it is going to be so much more fun for you. This is again what I wish someone would have explained to me in 2015 and early 2016. When I was just saying the words, I’m going to make an online course and had no idea what I was talking about. And honestly, that is why I created the profitable nutritionist program. It’s the resource that I wish that I would have had because it would have saved me years of trial and error figuring out how to know what to offer and when to increase my prices and how to market and sell out those offers to my most ideal clients every time how to get them results and not hide from them thinking

Andrea Nordling 59:39
I’m kind of worried I can’t get them results would have saved me so much time. So if you need help with the foundational components of any of that setting up your offers, pricing them learning how to market and sell them at a very high level then you need to join the program. The profitable nutritionist program is for you. You can find the link to get all the details in the show notes or the description of This episode, and I will add that we do live coaching every single week in the program. And you have a lot of opportunity for asking questions and getting a real person to answer the questions. So it’s also not just a one way form of communication where you take a course you consume the content on your own. This is a very, very collaborative program. Now, if you are at what I call stage four of your business, which is when you’ve made at least 10k, and you’re making plans for how to continue growing and scaling your practice making sales you’re working with clients, then, and only then the six month streamline and scale mastermind group will be the perfect next step for you. The mastermind is the next level after the profitable nutritionist program. Now, in the small group mastermind, you get direct one on one coaching on creating your scalable offer, and marketing and filling it. The October class of the mastermind will be filling in just a few weeks. So if you are interested in hearing more about it join the waitlist, which is also linked up in the description in the show notes of this episode. Get on that waitlist and you are going to get all of the details straight to your inbox. And like I mentioned at the beginning, if you’re listening to this episode in real time when it’s released, I am doing a behind the scenes webinar on August 2, where I will be going even deeper into the considerations of growing a scalable health and wellness practice online. Without social media I might add and without hustling, and without overworking. And there will be lots of open q&a time. So if you do have questions about the mastermind, or the program, you can ask those live as well. I’m an open book happy to answer any of your questions. Again, to save your seat for the webinar, you go to build a profitable practice.com forward slash behind behind the scenes behind All right, so have a wonderful week my friend. I’m gonna see you back here next Tuesday with another brand new episode where we are digging into how to account and plan for growth in your business as you start making more money and as you need to know how to allocate your time and resources which is a fun, fun topic to dive into. So I will see you then.