Why you're not ready for a digital course yet!
There's a common pitfall many budding entrepreneurs face: the allure of quick success through digital courses.
Hey, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and this is my podcast "The Weeniecast!"
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Now, back to this episode...
You know how tempting it can be when gurus paint this picture of creating a digital course and then magically earning thousands in passive income?
It sounds too good to be true, but is it?
If you've tried and failed, got lost in the process, or felt disheartened, trust me, you're not alone.
Patience and a step-by-step approach—think tortoise, not hare—is crucial for turning your dream into a sustainable business.
Throughout this episode, I'm tackling the myth around these get-rich-quick digital courses head-on, exploring why jumping straight into building a digital course without a solid foundation is often a recipe for disappointment.
Timestamped Summary:
00:00 Digital course doesn't bring value or profit.
03:23 Frustration of failure, especially for neurodivergent individuals.
09:05 Develop group program based on client needs.
11:13 Iterated small group program evolves into community.
16:18 Personalized client work helps, not courses.
18:04 Clients should guide strategy, not idealized vision.
00:21:52 - Perspective changes so you'll see opportunities instead of obstacles.
00:25:52 - Ensuring your beliefs align with your business dreams.
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Transcript
In this episode, I'm going to tell you why
Speaker:your digital course needs to follow the tortoise and not the
Speaker:hare. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and
Speaker:money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weeniecast.
Speaker:Tell me if you've been sold this
Speaker:dream. And now that I've said tell me, I realize that this is a one
Speaker:way platform and I'm just talking at you and you can't really tell me back,
Speaker:but if you want to email me, you can. There are so many
Speaker:business coaches and business gurus out there who are selling a program on how
Speaker:you can develop and sell a digital course or some kind
Speaker:of digital product. And they paint this picture of you
Speaker:creating this thing once, launching it, and then raking in
Speaker:millions of dollars, and they make it sound so
Speaker:easy. And for the low price of
Speaker:$999, you can do it, too.
Speaker:You can make $100,000 in two months. And like
Speaker:most people, including myself, I'm sure you've bought one of these
Speaker:programs before thinking, oh, yeah, that sounds really nice. I would love to do
Speaker:that. Yeah, you know, I would love to make more money while
Speaker:spending less time doing work. That is the dream. So you bought the
Speaker:course and you started it and you probably dropped
Speaker:off beyond having ADHD and losing interest
Speaker:or, you know, just not feeling like the right fit for you energetically and
Speaker:work wise. There was something off. There was
Speaker:something that just didn't click for you about how this was going to
Speaker:work and if this happened to you. I
Speaker:just want to give your intuition a big nod.
Speaker:Spot on. There are very few programs out there that can
Speaker:actually help you build a digital product that will
Speaker:actually sell. And those programs, if you were to sign up for them,
Speaker:they are tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because that's a
Speaker:ton of work that someone has to do on your behalf.
Speaker:Like so many of my clients before they started working with me, maybe you
Speaker:actually did create a digital course. Maybe you created a whole
Speaker:curriculum and you outlined it and you made the PDF's and you filmed the videos
Speaker:and you found a place to host them and you put it all together and
Speaker:launched it to hear crickets and you frantically
Speaker:scrambled to try to figure out what the went wrong. Was it your
Speaker:marketing? Was it the course? Was it too long? Was it too
Speaker:short? Was the pricing right? On and on and on. You probably freaked out
Speaker:about every single little detail. And now this digital
Speaker:course is probably sitting on a very dusty theoretical shelf in your
Speaker:brain and on your hard drive, not helping anyone
Speaker:and not making you any money. And it's really easy to do
Speaker:that and have it flop and start making up a story about yourself,
Speaker:that no one wants to hire you, that you must not be that
Speaker:good at what you do, that this could be wrong with you and that could
Speaker:be wrong with you. And there are so many other people out there who are
Speaker:doing the same thing as you, and they're probably just better at it than you.
Speaker:I have a no b's reality check for you right now, and it's that none
Speaker:of that is true. You just got sold a bill of goods like
Speaker:so many of us. You cannot start
Speaker:off selling a digital product that helps people. I
Speaker:get the desire. I understand how
Speaker:alluring the idea is that you could create this thing and it'll just generate
Speaker:money for you without you having to do a ton of work. That is the
Speaker:dream that most of us are working towards, but it isn't where you
Speaker:start. When I work with clients and what's extra
Speaker:frustrating for those of us with ADHD is that we're used to
Speaker:learning things really quickly. We're used to hearing how
Speaker:it's done, putting into action, being really good at it, if
Speaker:not perfect, and then moving on to the next thing, and then the next thing,
Speaker:and then the next thing. Failing is incredibly hard,
Speaker:specifically for neurodivergent folks. When we fail,
Speaker:it activates a whole bunch of rejection, sensitivity,
Speaker:dysphoria for us, especially when we failed at
Speaker:something that was public facing, like launching a product
Speaker:or a service. And it hurts that much more
Speaker:because not only did it not work out, and not only do you not have
Speaker:any money coming in, after you spent money on the program that was supposed to
Speaker:teach you how to do it, after you invested all that time, after you dealt
Speaker:with all the frustration and trying to figure out all the bits and how they
Speaker:would work for you, but the reason it didn't work out is
Speaker:because people saw it and they thought, nah,
Speaker:I'm good. And there's a whole bunch of meaning you can attach to
Speaker:that. You can make it all about how you're not smart enough, you're not pretty
Speaker:enough, you're not thin enough, you're not qualified enough,
Speaker:this isn't good enough. There are other people doing way better than you,
Speaker:and that's really hard to deal with. And if you're in that position right
Speaker:now, I want you to have a ton of grace for yourself because that's a
Speaker:very painful place to be, and it takes a lot of kindness and
Speaker:compassion to move you past that stage in your business.
Speaker:The mindset I want you to have when you're starting your business and as you're
Speaker:growing your business is to always remember the tortoise and the
Speaker:hare. That's right. We're getting, we're diving into some fables
Speaker:today. We all know the story of the tortoise and
Speaker:the hare. They start a race and the hare
Speaker:takes off because that's what rabbits do. They're really fast. And
Speaker:I think the rabbit gets confused or distracted along the way and then also gets
Speaker:tired and needs a nap and all the things. I think the hare actually had
Speaker:adhd, but the tortoise just kind of just keeps
Speaker:plodding along. Doesn't rush, just slow and
Speaker:steady. The tortoise finishes the race first.
Speaker:The hare comes in second. The hare is actually also really
Speaker:stressed out and has had too much caffeine and has called their mom crying
Speaker:several times because they don't know which direction they're going because it got turned around
Speaker:at some point on the race course. And they also spent money on a digital
Speaker:course that was supposed to help them finish the race quicker, and it didn't work
Speaker:out. Whereas the tortoise was just listening to a podcast the whole
Speaker:time and just spending time and its thoughts and just continuing
Speaker:the way it was going to continue. The tortoise probably also got one on one
Speaker:clients along the way, right? Because, I mean, the tortoise won a marathon.
Speaker:I'm actually making up that as a marathon. I don't think a tortoise could actually
Speaker:walk 26 miles. Anyway, if you know different, please
Speaker:dm me. We need some
Speaker:tortoise experts to get up in here to correct me on this. Also, I don't
Speaker:think that the fable is actually based on actual capabilities
Speaker:of actual animals. Anyway, you get the point of what I'm saying.
Speaker:Slow and steady wins the race every single
Speaker:time. I know it's really tempting to try to hack the system.
Speaker:We're all really into all the hacks these days and to
Speaker:find the fastest way to the biggest results where you have the most
Speaker:impact. But that's not usually how it works. I'm currently volunteering
Speaker:on a political campaign for a local Democrat. She's running for
Speaker:state representative, and this is her first time running for office.
Speaker:And literally, we're going door to door, knocking on doors,
Speaker:introducing her to the constituents and her district
Speaker:if she wins, covers seven towns. And let me tell you
Speaker:about this candidate. She's incredible. She's worked
Speaker:in homelessness prevention for decades. She's
Speaker:been super involved in her community. She gets on stage and
Speaker:she connects with each and every audience member. She's an incredible
Speaker:speaker. She has a really great head on her shoulders. She knows when to
Speaker:ask questions, when she doesn't know the answer to something. I personally
Speaker:could see her climbing the political ladder and becoming
Speaker:a much bigger figurehead than what she's going for, but it's
Speaker:not like she's jumping straight there. She's literally going door to door
Speaker:in each of these small towns, in these tiny, quaint little neighborhoods,
Speaker:saying, hi, my name is. But in a much less Eminem kind of
Speaker:way, more of like a, hi, I'm running for state representative. You know what
Speaker:I mean? It's
Speaker:not sexy, but you have to go slow.
Speaker:The number one goal we have when we start is let's make you
Speaker:money. Make money, money. Make money, money, money. Make
Speaker:money, money. Make money, money, money. And I
Speaker:always tell clients, our fastest path to cash is always
Speaker:going to be one on one clients. And the reason for this is
Speaker:because, a, you're not trying to enroll a ton of people
Speaker:into the same thing on a timeline. That's arbitrary to them.
Speaker:So, for instance, if you were to launch a group program that starts on
Speaker:September 1, you have to find the people who are willing to start on
Speaker:September 1 to sign up for it. Whereas when you're working with someone one on
Speaker:one, it's on their timeline. They can start when they're ready. And if they're
Speaker:ready now, they can start now. One on one clients know that they're going to
Speaker:get a higher level of service from you because they're going to get that one
Speaker:on one attention as well. And because they're going to get that one on one
Speaker:attention, they're going to get customization that they wouldn't be able to get in a
Speaker:digital course or in a group. After you've developed your one on
Speaker:one book of business and you have several one on one clients that are
Speaker:paying the bills every month, then you can move on to
Speaker:developing a group program. And you want to start with the group program
Speaker:first before you move to the digital product, because this is where you are going
Speaker:to trial and error, all the things that go into the digital
Speaker:product. Now, having worked with a whole bunch of one on one
Speaker:clients, you're going to look for, what is the common problem here? What is the
Speaker:thing that all of my clients seem to struggle with, and how do
Speaker:I train them out of it? And you're going to develop your whole group program
Speaker:around this one thing. And you're going to run that group program multiple
Speaker:times, you're going to relaunch it and you're going to iterate it and you're going
Speaker:to change it. And to give you some behind the scenes, this is exactly how
Speaker:I've grown my business. I built my business solely with one on
Speaker:one clients until I got to the point where I realized, oh, there are some
Speaker:parts of what I do with clients that everyone needs.
Speaker:And I could absolutely roll this out as a group program.
Speaker:And as you've probably listened to this podcast before and heard me talk
Speaker:about BYOB, the build your own business group program, that was not its first
Speaker:inception. Earlier on, I actually rolled out
Speaker:different portions of that program in a standalone
Speaker:fashion. So like holistic selling, which is my model for how to sell, it's very
Speaker:consultative, it's not manipulative, it's very based on helping the
Speaker:person in front of you. I actually ran that as a
Speaker:standalone group training multiple times before
Speaker:I dialed in what that training would be, empathetic
Speaker:marketing, another portion of BYOB. I did that multiple
Speaker:times, again with different groups, all on its own, so that I could
Speaker:really understand, like was the material helpful, who
Speaker:was the best client for it. And throughout this process,
Speaker:I realized that to do holistic selling well, you had to understand your
Speaker:ideal client. So that was a big part of what I needed to incorporate
Speaker:and build your own business through doing empathetic marketing. Again, I realized
Speaker:you have to have a deep understanding of your niche. And running
Speaker:these two independent programs, I realized how they needed to
Speaker:feed into each other. And I probably ran eight different
Speaker:short small group programs before I
Speaker:came up with the build your own business model that would help
Speaker:people start their businesses and start to scale them. And
Speaker:even then, my first iteration of BYOB
Speaker:no longer exists. It started off as a six month program
Speaker:and it has evolved into a two year support
Speaker:community. If people so choose where I've broken down
Speaker:exactly what you need to start with to start your business and start getting high
Speaker:paying clients. And then you can graduate into an advanced version
Speaker:of it where you can learn how to do all of the fundamental things that
Speaker:will help your business kind of run in the background while you do the things
Speaker:that you love. And I've been at this for six and a half years now.
Speaker:And while yes, there is a digital format of BYOB,
Speaker:there are training videos and all that stuff, I'm nowhere near turning this into a
Speaker:digital course. I share this with you because I want you to really understand the
Speaker:amount of time that it takes to verify an
Speaker:idea, the amount of time it takes to understand
Speaker:what works in a group format, what works in a video training,
Speaker:and where you're going to have to augment your
Speaker:delivery. It doesn't happen overnight. And this is why you
Speaker:cannot start with a digital course. You have to trial it with your one on
Speaker:one clients, and then you have to trial it with a group program, and
Speaker:eventually you are going to evolve it into a digital course.
Speaker:But at that point, you have a verified
Speaker:idea, you have a verified audience, you've done the market check. You know
Speaker:that there are people out there buying what you're selling.
Speaker:So you're probably listening to this and thinking, but Katie, I've heard of so
Speaker:and so who said that they quit their job and they started
Speaker:this course and they launched it and they made
Speaker:$200,000 in the first few months. And then they did this and they did
Speaker:this and they're selling a course on how I
Speaker:can do the same thing. Why are you saying that that won't work for
Speaker:me now? I'm not saying that it's 100% not going to.
Speaker:There are exceptions to every rule. But the chances
Speaker:of you creating a digital course that is actually going
Speaker:to sell and make you hundreds of thousands of dollars without
Speaker:building it off of what one on one clients want from you, and what you're
Speaker:teaching in a group program is extremely low.
Speaker:And if you're independently wealthy and you don't have to worry about paying the bills
Speaker:and this is just something that you're doing for fun, then you know what? Knock
Speaker:your socks off. Go for it. Have fun. Try it and
Speaker:see if it works. But if you're independently wealthy, it doesn't really matter if it
Speaker:fails, which it likely will. But if you're like the rest of us
Speaker:and have bills to pay and a dog to buy, really
Speaker:expensive treats for, and maybe a small, small book
Speaker:buying habits that you have to support, then that's not going to be
Speaker:the best course. And even for those of you who start a one on
Speaker:one coaching business or consulting business or whatever, know
Speaker:that when you launch a group program, 50% of them will fail.
Speaker:Even after you've done a market research check, even
Speaker:after you have, like, gauged it with your audience.
Speaker:There's so many factors that go into you having a
Speaker:successful launch of a group. You know how many followers you have
Speaker:on social media and how engaged they are. That's a big factor. How
Speaker:big your email list is and how engaged they are, and
Speaker:how honed in your email list is on your ideal client. That's
Speaker:another massive factor. I think we've all been a part of one of those
Speaker:groups. I think early on in my business, I had a business mentor
Speaker:who pushed us all to grow our email list,
Speaker:but didn't give us any guidance on how to do it. And so they're like,
Speaker:just ask your friends and family. Ask people in this group. Go
Speaker:to Facebook, say, join my email list. And
Speaker:we all did it. And we all got a whole bunch of people on our
Speaker:email list. And let me tell you, there's nothing more disheartening than getting an
Speaker:email back from your newsletter, from your aunt who's telling you that you shouldn't swear
Speaker:so much. Like, thank you so much. Great feedback. Not
Speaker:listening to it. Also, would you like to buy my stuff? No. Okay, cool.
Speaker:I'm just kidding. I would never ask a family member to join any of my
Speaker:programs.
Speaker:These are all things that take time to build. They either
Speaker:take time or they take a ton of money to
Speaker:establish quickly. And like I said, if you're a normal human
Speaker:being who needs to pay the bills and needs to buy the
Speaker:treats and is buying stuff for whatever hobby
Speaker:you have, be it reading, woodworking, underwater, basket
Speaker:weaving, you need to be making money from your business in the interim.
Speaker:And at the heart of it, you're in this to help actual human
Speaker:beings. Yes. You want to make money. Yes. You want to make lots
Speaker:of it. Yes. Like, maybe you want to have private jets and you want to
Speaker:do all the stuff, but more than that, you genuinely
Speaker:care about helping people. And if you actually
Speaker:want to help people, creating a digital course that
Speaker:no one's going to buy and no one's going to go through and really no
Speaker:one's going to even ever know about, it's not going to help anyone.
Speaker:It's actually just going to end up hurting you and your confidence. But working with
Speaker:clients one on one and holding their hand and walking them
Speaker:through whatever transformation it is that you help them through, that helps
Speaker:people. Launching a group program that helps ten to 20
Speaker:people who are all working on whatever transformation it is that you
Speaker:help folks with, with, that actually helps people. And the best
Speaker:part, besides helping people, is that it actually makes you money in the
Speaker:interim. And depending on what your business is and what your
Speaker:niche is, let me tell you from experience, you can quite
Speaker:simply build a $100 to $300,000
Speaker:a year business, helping people one on one. I've done
Speaker:it and many of my clients have done it. Does it take work?
Speaker:Absolutely. But is it fulfilling?
Speaker:Yeah. Does it actually impact the world?
Speaker:Yes. And what's cool is that if you do have a dream of
Speaker:eventually rolling out a digital product, this is the best
Speaker:place to start, because through your one on one clients, you're going to
Speaker:verify that whatever problem you'll solve through your
Speaker:digital course is actually a problem that your clients have.
Speaker:And in fact, you could probably figure out what is the problem. They had two
Speaker:steps before, before becoming my client, so that you can capture
Speaker:people earlier on in the process. And then your digital
Speaker:course isn't just something that you sell to make money. It's something that you sell
Speaker:that is also a lead magnet. It attracts people in, and it helps
Speaker:them with something that you do not work on in your group or your one
Speaker:on one coaching or consulting. People buy that first,
Speaker:and they work through it, and then the next logical step will be to
Speaker:sign up with your group or doing one on one work with you. The key
Speaker:here is that you have to make sure that your work actually works
Speaker:for the people who matter, and that's your clients. And I know
Speaker:it's so easy to build a strategy
Speaker:around how you want it to work, around this idealized
Speaker:vision of how other people seem to have done it. And it was so easy
Speaker:for them, and it's going to be so easy for me, and so I'm going
Speaker:to do all the same steps, and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's so tempting to
Speaker:get sucked into that kind of thinking. But just because you want
Speaker:something to work a certain way does not mean it will. You have to
Speaker:build your strategy around a realistic
Speaker:plan. You have to assess what actually works in the
Speaker:world that we live in and follow that, rather than
Speaker:how you want it all to look. And if you're ready to get real with
Speaker:yourself and see, start running your business to
Speaker:a realistic strategy that is designed
Speaker:to get you making money as quickly as possible. Working with one on
Speaker:one clients, evolving yourself into some kind of group
Speaker:program, and then developing whatever digital course comes
Speaker:out of that. Then I invite you to book a generate income strategy
Speaker:call with me. If you're super attached to
Speaker:how you want things to work and you're hoping that you're going to talk me
Speaker:out of, oh, but like this, this one time, you're gonna help me with the
Speaker:digital course first, right? Do not book a call. I don't wanna talk to you.
Speaker:I know it hurts to. To realize that you've been following this
Speaker:cult of, oh, it can be super easy, and I'm gonna roll
Speaker:out a digital course, and it's gonna make me a ton of money. It's really
Speaker:hard to let go of that thinking. But if you're willing to be brave
Speaker:and you really want your business to work out, then
Speaker:you're gonna need to invest in a more realistic way to do things, and
Speaker:I'd love to help you with that.
Speaker:Luna, no barking. Come on, please. Oh, no.
Speaker:Oh, no. Luna, out. Okay. Excuse me while I evict my dog from
Speaker:the room. Okay, out you go. See you later.
Speaker:Bye. Anyway,
Speaker:welcome to my ADHD show, everyone. I hope you're enjoying.
Speaker:Squirrel. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.
