Time for another installment in our series on Commercializing Your Influence! In this series, we dive into strategies you can use right now to build your personal brand and create new wealth streams.
Most coaches, consultants, authors, speakers and experts have one, maybe two, streams of income. They have a book, a high ticket offer, a few funnels and some courses selling passive or scalable income products. BUT… what they don’t know is that their expertise and audience is their way to creating millions in additional income and deepening their impact. Using a multi-stream wealth-building method allows you to take your expertise and build it into an Iconic Empire.
That method is what we’re sharing with you in this series.
And this time, we’re exploring the fascinating world of courses and digital products … a world that can be a little tricky for Icons to navigate.
Leading versus teaching
Before we get into the details of selling courses and digital products, a quick caveat: We generally advise Icons to steer clear of teaching, since you want to envision yourself as more of a Pied Piper. Lead people by example, share your ideas bravely and let them follow naturally in your wake. (Read more about this philosophy here.)
Many clients come to Iconic Influencers with an existing course that may or may not be working. It’s a good mainstream strategy, but few people are able to truly nail it. What we tend to do is start fresh at the top—take the best of what they are doing and offer it at an ultra premium price—then see how we can downsell leveraging courses they have already created.
We are also working on a number of commercial deals where we are partnering with larger brands to integrate client courses in their offering as a lead generation and wealth creation strategy.
That said, certain Icons have used courses and digital products to great advantage. Chopra Global is the umbrella brand where wellness guru Deepak Chopra houses his app (which costs $70 annually), masterclasses ($300 each), and additional links to register for retreats. Additionally, Chopra offers a suite of six certification programs, offering students the chance to study his meditation, health/wellness, and coaching techniques. The cost of the programs is between $1,000 and $10,000, depending on the duration and depth of training. And somewhat surprisingly, producer and showrunner Shonda Rhimes offers an online course! Her MasterClass.com course on Writing for Television has reached millions. Instructors are paid about $100,000 upfront when they begin working with MasterClass, then receive 30 percent of the revenue their classes generate.
If Icons playing at that level can offer amazing courses, why not you?
How to make your courses & digital offerings iconic
The content of your online courses and format for your digital products is entirely up to you; we want you to build and customize those to best suit your expertise and appeal to your ideal audience.
What we can offer you is strategies for up-leveling these offerings so they truly sit at an Iconic level and appeal to a luxury consumer. Ready? Here we go:
- Build your magical world: Before you even begin to outline your course or plan your digital offering, ensure that the website or platform that houses it is up to Iconic standards. Build a place where your biggest fans can interact with you. Build a place of true beauty and stunning experiences. It must be a space that truly represents you, through images, words, movement, sound … everything the visitor experiences there. You need to create a place where people who are curious about you can go, and people who follow you can connect.
Your magical place is also where strategies like sales funnels come into play. Where are you sending people once you become visible? When you start talking to your market, where will people go to learn more? And once they’re there, what will you show them, offer them, and tell them?Give careful consideration to the experience. When visitors enter your magical place, they should feel a drastic shift. It should be like leaving the noise and grime of the airport at large and entering the first class lounge. Elite, elevated, refined, and unspeakably beautiful. Think about your $100M company – your biggest version of your brand – and you’ll know that by creating that magical world now — even if it’s just a Facebook Group — you’ll have that paid back over and over again as your business grows.
- Utilize exquisite design: Along those same lines, ensure that both your site and everything available for purchase on it is breathtakingly gorgeous. Do NOT skimp on this. Hire the absolute best designer you can afford and work closely with them to ensure your course materials or downloadables look incredibly exclusive, rare, and beautifully exquisite. They should align with your brand, but also be elevated.
- Create a luxury experience around the course: Don’t trust anything to templates or Kajabi’s embedded checkout system code. Create a truly impeccable quality, delivery, and service experience for your clients. The whole process needs to be both seamless and beautiful. This includes the way that the course is spoken about and the way the transaction is handled. Make a point of pulling the luxury experience and feeling throughout the purchase and follow-up experiences, and pull the exquisite rarity and exclusivity through your online environment.
- Raise your prices. A lot: Cost is perceived to be a concrete measure of value. It’s not, of course. Plenty of companies and individuals inflate their prices above market standard as a way to convince buyers that they are offering top quality and luxury experiences. This pricing strategy is used to encourage favorable perception based on price alone … but most consumers are aware of quality standards on the most basic level. If they know that a product is well-made or a service is high-quality, a high price reinforces the beliefs they already held. They believe they’re paying the price with good reason.
In the case of Icons like you, a higher price point IS merited. The courses you offer and digital products you create are of a caliber that most people have never dreamed of, much less experienced. You’re not teaching life skills or hacks: you are sharing your world-changing ideas and inviting people to join your revolution. And you will charge brave prices because you are the absolute best at what you do. Period.
And, naturally, you should ensure that the content of your courses and products reflects your brilliance. The messaging you use should be elevated and energizing, too. Leverage your status as the best in the world into statements about the paradigms you’re shifting. Talk about the revolution you’re leading, the concepts you’re pioneering in these digital offerings. Tell people how you’re pushing boundaries and own it.
This will feel uncomfortable at first, but once you step into it that fear will fall away!
Want to learn more about commercializing your influence as an Icon? Watch our masterclass BEYOND INFLUENCE: How Elite Influencers, Creators And Personal Brands Are Landing Massive Deals And Clients.
Watching it is your first step toward new worlds of wealth and success.
