If you are an absolute beginner — I want to get this out of your head now:
Do not rely on any platform for the foundation of your income.
YouTube adsense
Twitter “super follows”
Instagram reels
Patreon or other similar platforms are okay — but you will see the best results (in business AND personal life) if you provide a product or service.
Creating your own product or service is the only way you become in full control of how much money you make.
That is — packaging up the information in your head in a simple, impactful, and understandable way.
This will require you to grow as a person.
This will require you to develop your skill set.
This will require you to bust through levels of personal development that will cause massive discomfort.
But — this is what you become known for.
Types Of Products & Services There are 3 types of products and services.
Done for you
Done with you
Do it yourself
I personally love to focus on digital products (and sometimes services, depending on the person)
Why?
They are the most accessible, cost nearly $0 to create, and can be sold infinitely once they are built.
They allow you to work your way up the experience ladder. The only thing stopping you from charging $100+ for a consulting call is your mind (unless you are an ABSOLUTE beginner).
They allow you to get results and establish authority fast. You can use those results for anything else you create.
You can change and improve them at any time to make more money.
If they are a good product or service, you can expand your offering into physical products, software as a service, or anything else you want to create.
Everyone can and should start with a digital product or service stack.
This allows you to build authority in your space, create a full-time income for yourself quick, and open up new opportunities for your business.
You Are In Control
Start a project right now. Like RIGHT now. Write it down.
The sooner you do this, the sooner you can identify unconscious blindspots and create a better product or service.
These are not physical products. You can change and improve them at anytime.
The Evolution Of Your Offer Stack When you are just starting out, it doesn’t make sense to create a full-blown digital product.
However, this is heavily dependent on your personal goals and what you talk about.
In most cases, this is the smartest progression when starting from zero:
Step 1) Create a Lead Magnet
A lead magnet is a way of establishing authority fast.
A lead magnet is a free product that people receive in exchange for their email.
This allows you to:
Show your expertise
Build a deeper connection
Give immense value that wouldn’t do well on social media (because of algorithms)
Gives you content ideas to start establishing authority in your emails, articles, and short-form posts
Make people aware of their problems and educate them to the point of solving them
Allow you to talk about your interests more — because the lead magnet is there for those that want help on what you have expertise in
Form the foundation and outline of your first Minimum Viable Offer for step 2 (building a service business)
Don’t overthink this yet. Anyone can create a 2-3 page lead magnet based around one problem in the area you want to become an expert in. Little experience required.
Step 2) Start a Service Business
Freelancing or consulting (I prefer consulting) with your skill or expertise of choice.
This is not as daunting as it sounds.
At the start, you will help people for free, so there isn’t any pressure to deliver insane results.
Helping people for free in the DMs or on a call will lead to deeper connections, potential paid work, and it will shine a light on what you don’t know — so you can learn about it and improve your skill set.
Then you can start charging.
This can be as simple as offering a pack of 4 one-hour-long calls for $500 to help someone in your area of expertise.
In the case of freelancing, this can be a simple landing page, email, content writing, or anything else for ~$500.
As you discover:
What gets results
What skills you have to learn to improve your offer
What problem people are really trying to solve (that you only find by talking to these people and immersing yourself in an online environment that they hang out in)
Then you can start to create your own unique system, promise better results, and increase your prices accordingly.
You don’t need a large following to do this.
All you need is perceived authority (brand and content) and the ability to send a DM like a normal person — which we go over in Non-Needy Networking.
Step 3) Turn Your System Into A Product
Once you have proven results and a replicable process / system that you’ve tested on your clients — you can turn it into a product.
Why do this after you’ve gone the service business route?
Because (hopefully) you’ve built an audience along the way AND you have testimonials from the start.
It’s guaranteed to sell and free up time for you.
Buyers buy again — meaning most of your clients at this point will come from those that purchased your product (so you don’t have to spend time DMing people anymore).
Of course, this is all unpredictable. This is not a path that is set in stone. If you feel compelled to create a random product or service that isn’t “optimal” — then create it.
What’s the worst that can happen? It doesn’t sell?
Does that mean you can’t make it better and relaunch it when you have a larger audience?
Nothing is permanent in this game.
You are in full control of your products, services, content, and everything else.
This should be liberating, not destructive.
Zoom out and focus on consistency.
The one thing that will screw you up from the beginning is the NEED to make money fast.
If this is the case for you, get a job.
Step 4) Expand Your Offering With Complimentary Products
At this point, you can do really anything you want.
We are building a personal brand.
Everyone has the same problems within the eternal markets.
Every problem has a different method of being solved that is unique to you (how you solve it).
If you want to pivot and try something completely new, you can.
If you want to turn your product or service into a software, you can.
If you want to take on public speaking gigs relating to your expertise, you can.
If you want to build a membership product or community for recurring income, you can.
Anything is possible at this point.
Focus On Results
If I could give you one piece of advice:
Just start helping people.
DM someone that you want to meet. Get to know them. Ask them what they are working on. See if your skills can help with that. Offer to help them for free and give them tips.
At minimum, you have a connection that respects you. At maximum, you get results and potential work from them OR referrals.
An Example To Show You What’s Possible Let’s start with a small, overly attainable goal for beginners:
$50,000 a year (on the low end, I would say $200,000 but that is hard to get people to believe when they don’t have prior awareness or a bad relationship with money).
Now, this is only a possibility if:
You execute lever-moving tasks on a daily
Learn from your mistakes and constantly iterate
Promote yourself every single day
Understand how to learn by building out real world projects
There are 3 options for hitting that $50,000 in a year:
- Land 4 clients per month at $1000
This can be a single skill-based freelance service OR a pack of 4 calls consulting service.
Let’s say you do that for 3 months at the beginning, get results, and increase your prices - then you would only have to land 2 clients per month at $2000.
You can start landing clients with a proper DM method when you have a small following.
When done right, it would take 5-10 DMs to do this correctly.
You can also write a targeted thread, get eyes on it through DMs or paid shares, and land clients that way.
As you continue building your audience, you can stop spending so much time on sending DMs.
As you increase prices, you can charge $2500-$5000 for your services and make 6 figures from client work alone.
- Sell 43 digital products at $99 for $50,000 a year
Again, there are many ways to do this at many different price points.
But once you have built an audience and content ecosystem that makes sales for you, this is more than possible.
When I had 500-3000 followers, I was making around $3,500 from digital products alone because I knew how to leverage other’s audiences (next module on Distribution Networks).
- Do both
If you only stick to selling one type of offer over the other, you are shooting yourself in the foot.
The majority of your high-ticket clients will have bought your digital products beforehand.
Digital products are also a way of “creating your own clients,” because you are educating them to the point of becoming a client.
Now you can focus on selling the digital product, have processes in place to have them sign on with you, and have a diversified source of income that you can scale as high as you want.