Why you're not ready for a digital course yet!

In this episode, I'm going to tell you why your digital course needs to follow the tortoise and not the hare. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weeniecast. Tell me if you've been sold this dream. And now that I've said tell me, I realize that this is a one

way platform and I'm just talking at you and you can't really tell me back, but if you want to email me, you can. There are so many business coaches and business gurus out there who are selling a program on how you can develop and sell a digital course or some kind of digital product. And they paint this picture of you creating this thing once, launching it, and then raking in millions of dollars, and they make it sound so easy. And for the low price of $999, you can do it, too.

You can make $100,000 in two months. And like most people, including myself, I'm sure you've bought one of these programs before thinking, oh, yeah, that sounds really nice. I would love to do that. Yeah, you know, I would love to make more money while spending less time doing work. That is the dream. So you bought the course and you started it and you probably dropped off beyond having ADHD and losing interest or, you know, just not feeling like the right fit for you energetically and

work wise. There was something off. There was something that just didn't click for you about how this was going to work and if this happened to you. I just want to give your intuition a big nod. Spot on. There are very few programs out there that can actually help you build a digital product that will actually sell. And those programs, if you were to sign up for them, they are tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because that's a ton of work that someone has to do on your behalf.

Like so many of my clients before they started working with me, maybe you actually did create a digital course. Maybe you created a whole curriculum and you outlined it and you made the PDF's and you filmed the videos and you found a place to host them and you put it all together and launched it to hear crickets and you frantically scrambled to try to figure out what the went wrong. Was it your marketing? Was it the course? Was it too long? Was it too

short? Was the pricing right? On and on and on. You probably freaked out about every single little detail. And now this digital course is probably sitting on a very dusty theoretical shelf in your brain and on your hard drive, not helping anyone and not making you any money. And it's really easy to do that and have it flop and start making up a story about yourself, that no one wants to hire you, that you must not be that good at what you do, that this could be wrong with you and that could

be wrong with you. And there are so many other people out there who are doing the same thing as you, and they're probably just better at it than you. I have a no b's reality check for you right now, and it's that none of that is true. You just got sold a bill of goods like so many of us. You cannot start off selling a digital product that helps people. I get the desire. I understand how alluring the idea is that you could create this thing and it'll just generate

money for you without you having to do a ton of work. That is the dream that most of us are working towards, but it isn't where you start. When I work with clients and what's extra frustrating for those of us with ADHD is that we're used to learning things really quickly. We're used to hearing how it's done, putting into action, being really good at it, if not perfect, and then moving on to the next thing, and then the next thing, and then the next thing. Failing is incredibly hard,

specifically for neurodivergent folks. When we fail, it activates a whole bunch of rejection, sensitivity, dysphoria for us, especially when we failed at something that was public facing, like launching a product

or a service. And it hurts that much more because not only did it not work out, and not only do you not have any money coming in, after you spent money on the program that was supposed to teach you how to do it, after you invested all that time, after you dealt with all the frustration and trying to figure out all the bits and how they would work for you, but the reason it didn't work out is because people saw it and they thought, nah,

I'm good. And there's a whole bunch of meaning you can attach to that. You can make it all about how you're not smart enough, you're not pretty enough, you're not thin enough, you're not qualified enough, this isn't good enough. There are other people doing way better than you,

and that's really hard to deal with. And if you're in that position right now, I want you to have a ton of grace for yourself because that's a very painful place to be, and it takes a lot of kindness and compassion to move you past that stage in your business. The mindset I want you to have when you're starting your business and as you're growing your business is to always remember the tortoise and the hare. That's right. We're getting, we're diving into some fables

today. We all know the story of the tortoise and

the hare. They start a race and the hare takes off because that's what rabbits do. They're really fast. And I think the rabbit gets confused or distracted along the way and then also gets tired and needs a nap and all the things. I think the hare actually had adhd, but the tortoise just kind of just keeps plodding along. Doesn't rush, just slow and steady. The tortoise finishes the race first.

The hare comes in second. The hare is actually also really stressed out and has had too much caffeine and has called their mom crying several times because they don't know which direction they're going because it got turned around at some point on the race course. And they also spent money on a digital course that was supposed to help them finish the race quicker, and it didn't work

out. Whereas the tortoise was just listening to a podcast the whole time and just spending time and its thoughts and just continuing the way it was going to continue. The tortoise probably also got one on one clients along the way, right? Because, I mean, the tortoise won a marathon. I'm actually making up that as a marathon. I don't think a tortoise could actually walk 26 miles. Anyway, if you know different, please dm me. We need some

tortoise experts to get up in here to correct me on this. Also, I don't think that the fable is actually based on actual capabilities of actual animals. Anyway, you get the point of what I'm saying. Slow and steady wins the race every single time. I know it's really tempting to try to hack the system. We're all really into all the hacks these days and to find the fastest way to the biggest results where you have the most impact. But that's not usually how it works. I'm currently volunteering

on a political campaign for a local Democrat. She's running for state representative, and this is her first time running for office. And literally, we're going door to door, knocking on doors, introducing her to the constituents and her district if she wins, covers seven towns. And let me tell you about this candidate. She's incredible. She's worked in homelessness prevention for decades. She's been super involved in her community. She gets on stage and

she connects with each and every audience member. She's an incredible speaker. She has a really great head on her shoulders. She knows when to ask questions, when she doesn't know the answer to something. I personally could see her climbing the political ladder and becoming a much bigger figurehead than what she's going for, but it's not like she's jumping straight there. She's literally going door to door in each of these small towns, in these tiny, quaint little neighborhoods,

saying, hi, my name is. But in a much less Eminem kind of way, more of like a, hi, I'm running for state representative. You know what I mean? It's not sexy, but you have to go slow. The number one goal we have when we start is let's make you money. Make money, money. Make money, money, money. Make money, money. Make money, money, money. And I always tell clients, our fastest path to cash is always

going to be one on one clients. And the reason for this is because, a, you're not trying to enroll a ton of people into the same thing on a timeline. That's arbitrary to them. So, for instance, if you were to launch a group program that starts on September 1, you have to find the people who are willing to start on September 1 to sign up for it. Whereas when you're working with someone one on one, it's on their timeline. They can start when they're ready. And if they're

ready now, they can start now. One on one clients know that they're going to get a higher level of service from you because they're going to get that one on one attention as well. And because they're going to get that one on one attention, they're going to get customization that they wouldn't be able to get in a

digital course or in a group. After you've developed your one on one book of business and you have several one on one clients that are paying the bills every month, then you can move on to developing a group program. And you want to start with the group program first before you move to the digital product, because this is where you are going to trial and error, all the things that go into the digital product. Now, having worked with a whole bunch of one on one

clients, you're going to look for, what is the common problem here? What is the thing that all of my clients seem to struggle with, and how do I train them out of it? And you're going to develop your whole group program around this one thing. And you're going to run that group program multiple times, you're going to relaunch it and you're going to iterate it and you're going to change it. And to give you some behind the scenes, this is exactly how

I've grown my business. I built my business solely with one on one clients until I got to the point where I realized, oh, there are some parts of what I do with clients that everyone needs. And I could absolutely roll this out as a group program. And as you've probably listened to this podcast before and heard me talk about BYOB, the build your own business group program, that was not its first inception. Earlier on, I actually rolled out different portions of that program in a standalone

fashion. So like holistic selling, which is my model for how to sell, it's very consultative, it's not manipulative, it's very based on helping the person in front of you. I actually ran that as a standalone group training multiple times before I dialed in what that training would be, empathetic marketing, another portion of BYOB. I did that multiple times, again with different groups, all on its own, so that I could really understand, like was the material helpful, who

was the best client for it. And throughout this process, I realized that to do holistic selling well, you had to understand your ideal client. So that was a big part of what I needed to incorporate and build your own business through doing empathetic marketing. Again, I realized you have to have a deep understanding of your niche. And running these two independent programs, I realized how they needed to

feed into each other. And I probably ran eight different short small group programs before I came up with the build your own business model that would help people start their businesses and start to scale them. And even then, my first iteration of BYOB no longer exists. It started off as a six month program and it has evolved into a two year support community. If people so choose where I've broken down exactly what you need to start with to start your business and start getting high

paying clients. And then you can graduate into an advanced version of it where you can learn how to do all of the fundamental things that will help your business kind of run in the background while you do the things that you love. And I've been at this for six and a half years now. And while yes, there is a digital format of BYOB, there are training videos and all that stuff, I'm nowhere near turning this into a

digital course. I share this with you because I want you to really understand the amount of time that it takes to verify an idea, the amount of time it takes to understand what works in a group format, what works in a video training, and where you're going to have to augment your delivery. It doesn't happen overnight. And this is why you

cannot start with a digital course. You have to trial it with your one on one clients, and then you have to trial it with a group program, and eventually you are going to evolve it into a digital course. But at that point, you have a verified idea, you have a verified audience, you've done the market check. You know that there are people out there buying what you're selling.

So you're probably listening to this and thinking, but Katie, I've heard of so and so who said that they quit their job and they started this course and they launched it and they made $200,000 in the first few months. And then they did this and they did this and they're selling a course on how I can do the same thing. Why are you saying that that won't work for me now? I'm not saying that it's 100% not going to.

There are exceptions to every rule. But the chances of you creating a digital course that is actually going to sell and make you hundreds of thousands of dollars without building it off of what one on one clients want from you, and what you're teaching in a group program is extremely low. And if you're independently wealthy and you don't have to worry about paying the bills and this is just something that you're doing for fun, then you know what? Knock

your socks off. Go for it. Have fun. Try it and see if it works. But if you're independently wealthy, it doesn't really matter if it fails, which it likely will. But if you're like the rest of us and have bills to pay and a dog to buy, really expensive treats for, and maybe a small, small book buying habits that you have to support, then that's not going to be

the best course. And even for those of you who start a one on one coaching business or consulting business or whatever, know that when you launch a group program, 50% of them will fail. Even after you've done a market research check, even after you have, like, gauged it with your audience. There's so many factors that go into you having a successful launch of a group. You know how many followers you have on social media and how engaged they are. That's a big factor. How

big your email list is and how engaged they are, and how honed in your email list is on your ideal client. That's another massive factor. I think we've all been a part of one of those groups. I think early on in my business, I had a business mentor who pushed us all to grow our email list, but didn't give us any guidance on how to do it. And so they're like, just ask your friends and family. Ask people in this group. Go to Facebook, say, join my email list. And

we all did it. And we all got a whole bunch of people on our email list. And let me tell you, there's nothing more disheartening than getting an email back from your newsletter, from your aunt who's telling you that you shouldn't swear so much. Like, thank you so much. Great feedback. Not listening to it. Also, would you like to buy my stuff? No. Okay, cool. I'm just kidding. I would never ask a family member to join any of my programs.

These are all things that take time to build. They either take time or they take a ton of money to establish quickly. And like I said, if you're a normal human being who needs to pay the bills and needs to buy the treats and is buying stuff for whatever hobby you have, be it reading, woodworking, underwater, basket weaving, you need to be making money from your business in the interim. And at the heart of it, you're in this to help actual human

beings. Yes. You want to make money. Yes. You want to make lots of it. Yes. Like, maybe you want to have private jets and you want to do all the stuff, but more than that, you genuinely care about helping people. And if you actually want to help people, creating a digital course that no one's going to buy and no one's going to go through and really no one's going to even ever know about, it's not going to help anyone.

It's actually just going to end up hurting you and your confidence. But working with clients one on one and holding their hand and walking them through whatever transformation it is that you help them through, that helps people. Launching a group program that helps ten to 20 people who are all working on whatever transformation it is that you help folks with, with, that actually helps people. And the best part, besides helping people, is that it actually makes you money in the

interim. And depending on what your business is and what your niche is, let me tell you from experience, you can quite simply build a $100 to $300,000 a year business, helping people one on one. I've done it and many of my clients have done it. Does it take work? Absolutely. But is it fulfilling? Yeah. Does it actually impact the world?

Yes. And what's cool is that if you do have a dream of eventually rolling out a digital product, this is the best place to start, because through your one on one clients, you're going to verify that whatever problem you'll solve through your digital course is actually a problem that your clients have. And in fact, you could probably figure out what is the problem. They had two steps before, before becoming my client, so that you can capture people earlier on in the process. And then your digital

course isn't just something that you sell to make money. It's something that you sell that is also a lead magnet. It attracts people in, and it helps them with something that you do not work on in your group or your one on one coaching or consulting. People buy that first, and they work through it, and then the next logical step will be to sign up with your group or doing one on one work with you. The key here is that you have to make sure that your work actually works

for the people who matter, and that's your clients. And I know it's so easy to build a strategy around how you want it to work, around this idealized vision of how other people seem to have done it. And it was so easy for them, and it's going to be so easy for me, and so I'm going to do all the same steps, and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's so tempting to get sucked into that kind of thinking. But just because you want

something to work a certain way does not mean it will. You have to build your strategy around a realistic plan. You have to assess what actually works in the world that we live in and follow that, rather than how you want it all to look. And if you're ready to get real with yourself and see, start running your business to a realistic strategy that is designed

to get you making money as quickly as possible. Working with one on one clients, evolving yourself into some kind of group program, and then developing whatever digital course comes out of that. Then I invite you to book a generate income strategy call with me. If you're super attached to how you want things to work and you're hoping that you're going to talk me out of, oh, but like this, this one time, you're gonna help me with the

digital course first, right? Do not book a call. I don't wanna talk to you. I know it hurts to. To realize that you've been following this cult of, oh, it can be super easy, and I'm gonna roll out a digital course, and it's gonna make me a ton of money. It's really hard to let go of that thinking. But if you're willing to be brave and you really want your business to work out, then you're gonna need to invest in a more realistic way to do things, and I'd love to help you with that.

Luna, no barking. Come on, please. Oh, no. Oh, no. Luna, out. Okay. Excuse me while I evict my dog from the room. Okay, out you go. See you later. Bye. Anyway, welcome to my ADHD show, everyone. I hope you're enjoying. Squirrel. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.