If your business runs entirely on services, and services alone, you will burn out long before you’re able to scale your business to the next level. If, however, you are a gladiator and never get tired of performing tasks for your clientele, then you are the exception to this rule and I’ll have what you’re having for breakfast please!
For many of the rest of us though, we need to learn the importance of incorporating multiple offers inside our brand so that these varied streams can carry us during times when we’re too tired to fulfill services or just creatively bankrupt. These product-based offers are perfect to fill in the gaps to ensure our monthly income isn’t fluctuating when we are taking a break from fulfilling deliverables.
Here’s a list of ways you can immediately add more passive streams to your brands revenue model.
- A Course – No matter what the next entrepreneur may vocalize, I personally believe courses are still the go to method for adding value to your personal audience and income to your brand. It may feel like we’re in an oversaturated season of DIY experts selling their brilliance at a premium, but in reality when you have a firm bridge established to an audience of fans and followers, then you’re doing them a service by giving them an array of products that can solve a few problems in their life. Take a portion of the method you use to solve problems on the service side of your business and turn it into a mini course that your audience can buy to get their feet wet. If they like the outcome they receive from this mini course, then make sure you create an upsell/funnel offer to a high ticket service that they can tap into next.
- Ebooks – Why not turn your methods into an easy to follow ebook for the DIYer that wants to improve on something, but do it for themselves? Ebooks are a cost effective, fast and easy way to solve a problem for your audience without breaking the bank with course video production or a major product creation. Apps like Canva offer templates that you can drag and drop your text into to make your Ebook pretty and appealing. And if you’re stuck on the creation side, Pinkney Creative has an easy to follow ebook called “How to Write an Ebook in 24 Hours” that will have you churning out value by the truck load. By the end of the month you could have an entire Ebook Library on your website selling 10 to 20 ebooks a day if you know how to work that marketing missile.
- Podcast – Most people ask themselves, ‘how exactly do podcasts make money?’ Many ways my friend, many ways. One of the best ways they make money through a podcast is with sponsorship opportunities with major or emerging brands that want the chance to tap into your audience. Another way is through connecting listeners to some of the passive offers we’ve already mentioned above. You can initiate conversation with your Podcast Guest around the services and products you offer in your brand and invite listeners to tap in in such a way that makes them run, not walk, to your shop page.
- Online Community – I remember as a child paying weekly dues to be a girl scout. It wasn’t til I crossed into adulthood and started my journey into entrepreneurship that it dawned on me that this was the first community, although not online, that I paid a membership fee to belong to. The Paid community model has been going on since forever, from co-ops, to motor or golf clubs and beyond. We’re savvy enough now to bring those membership clubs with all the value models and arcs to the online space to reach more people outside of an x mile radius. If you have fans that follow your social media accounts, give them a $14.99 a month exclusive offer to engage with you on a more intimate level. You’re offering a community that takes the dynamic of what you post on social media on a day to day basis to an entirely different level with connection and conversation.
If you try any of these ideas or have any other ideas to contribute to this list, share them below. Let’s help each entrepreneur reading this article find more and innovative ways to level up in business.
