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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00:00:00
In this episode, I'm going to tell you why
00:00:04
your digital course needs to follow the tortoise and not the
00:00:07
hare. Hi, I'm Katie McManus, business strategist and
00:00:11
money mindset coach, and welcome to the Weeniecast.
00:00:13
Tell me if you've been sold this
00:00:17
dream. And now that I've said tell me, I realize that this is a one
00:00:20
way platform and I'm just talking at you and you can't really tell me back,
00:00:23
but if you want to email me, you can. There are so many
00:00:27
business coaches and business gurus out there who are selling a program on how
00:00:31
you can develop and sell a digital course or some kind
00:00:35
of digital product. And they paint this picture of you
00:00:38
creating this thing once, launching it, and then raking in
00:00:42
millions of dollars, and they make it sound so
00:00:46
easy. And for the low price of
00:00:49
$999, you can do it, too.
00:00:53
You can make $100 in two months. And like
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most people, including myself, I'm sure you've bought one of these
00:01:01
programs before thinking, oh, yeah, that sounds really nice. I would love to do
00:01:04
that. Yeah, you know, I would love to make more money while
00:01:08
spending less time doing work. That is the dream. So you bought the
00:01:12
course and you started it and you probably dropped
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off beyond having ADHD and losing interest
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or, you know, just not feeling like the right fit for you energetically and
00:01:23
work wise. There was something off. There was
00:01:27
something that just didn't click for you about how this was going to
00:01:31
work and if this happened to you. I
00:01:34
just want to give your intuition a big nod.
00:01:38
Spot on. There are very few programs out there that can
00:01:42
actually help you build a digital product that will
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actually sell. And those programs, if you were to sign up for them,
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they are tens if not hundreds of thousands of dollars because that's a
00:01:53
ton of work that someone has to do on your behalf.
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Like so many of my clients before they started working with me, maybe you
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actually did create a digital course. Maybe you created a whole
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curriculum and you outlined it and you made the PDF's and you filmed the videos
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and you found a place to host them and you put it all together and
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launched it to hear crickets and you frantically
00:02:16
scrambled to try to figure out what the went wrong. Was it your
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marketing? Was it the course? Was it too long? Was it too
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short? Was the pricing right? On and on and on. You probably freaked out
00:02:27
about every single little detail. And now this digital
00:02:30
course is probably sitting on a very dusty theoretical shelf in your
00:02:34
brain and on your hard drive, not helping anyone
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and not making you any money. And it's really easy to do
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that and have it flop and start making up a story about yourself,
00:02:46
that no one wants to hire you, that you must not be that
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good at what you do, that this could be wrong with you and that could
00:02:53
be wrong with you. And there are so many other people out there who are
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doing the same thing as you, and they're probably just better at it than you.
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I have a no b's reality check for you right now, and it's that none
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of that is true. You just got sold a bill of goods like
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so many of us. You cannot start
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off selling a digital product that helps people. I
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get the desire. I understand how
00:03:16
alluring the idea is that you could create this thing and it'll just generate
00:03:20
money for you without you having to do a ton of work. That is the
00:03:24
dream that most of us are working towards, but it isn't where you
00:03:27
start. When I work with clients and what's extra
00:03:31
frustrating for those of us with ADHD is that we're used to
00:03:34
learning things really quickly. We're used to hearing how
00:03:38
it's done, putting into action, being really good at it, if
00:03:42
not perfect, and then moving on to the next thing, and then the next thing,
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and then the next thing. Failing is incredibly hard,
00:03:49
specifically for neurodivergent folks. When we fail,
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it activates a whole bunch of rejection, sensitivity,
00:03:57
dysphoria for us, especially when we failed at
00:04:01
something that was public facing, like launching a product
00:04:05
or a service. And it hurts that much more
00:04:09
because not only did it not work out, and not only do you not have
00:04:13
any money coming in, after you spent money on the program that was supposed to
00:04:16
teach you how to do it, after you invested all that time, after you dealt
00:04:20
with all the frustration and trying to figure out all the bits and how they
00:04:23
would work for you, but the reason it didn't work out is
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because people saw it and they thought, nah,
00:04:31
I'm good. And there's a whole bunch of meaning you can attach to
00:04:34
that. You can make it all about how you're not smart enough, you're not pretty
00:04:38
enough, you're not thin enough, you're not qualified enough,
00:04:42
this isn't good enough. There are other people doing way better than you,
00:04:46
and that's really hard to deal with. And if you're in that position right
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now, I want you to have a ton of grace for yourself because that's a
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very painful place to be, and it takes a lot of kindness and
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compassion to move you past that stage in your business.
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The mindset I want you to have when you're starting your business and as you're
00:05:08
growing your business is to always remember the tortoise and the
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hare. That's right. We're getting, we're diving into some fables
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today. We all know the story of the tortoise and
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the hare. They start a race and the hare
00:05:22
takes off because that's what rabbits do. They're really fast. And
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I think the rabbit gets confused or distracted along the way and then also gets
00:05:29
tired and needs a nap and all the things. I think the hare actually had
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adhd, but the tortoise just kind of just keeps
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plodding along. Doesn't rush, just slow and
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steady. The tortoise finishes the race first.
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The hare comes in second. The hare is actually also really
00:05:47
stressed out and has had too much caffeine and has called their mom crying
00:05:51
several times because they don't know which direction they're going because it got turned around
00:05:54
at some point on the race course. And they also spent money on a digital
00:05:57
course that was supposed to help them finish the race quicker, and it didn't work
00:06:01
out. Whereas the tortoise was just listening to a podcast the whole
00:06:04
time and just spending time and its thoughts and just continuing
00:06:08
the way it was going to continue. The tortoise probably also got one on one
00:06:12
clients along the way, right? Because, I mean, the tortoise won a marathon.
00:06:15
I'm actually making up that as a marathon. I don't think a tortoise could actually
00:06:18
walk 26 miles. Anyway, if you know different, please
00:06:22
dm me. We need some
00:06:26
tortoise experts to get up in here to correct me on this. Also, I don't
00:06:29
think that the fable is actually based on actual capabilities
00:06:33
of actual animals. Anyway, you get the point of what I'm saying.
00:06:37
Slow and steady wins the race every single
00:06:40
time. I know it's really tempting to try to hack the system.
00:06:44
We're all really into all the hacks these days and to
00:06:48
find the fastest way to the biggest results where you have the most
00:06:51
impact. But that's not usually how it works. I'm currently volunteering
00:06:55
on a political campaign for a local Democrat. She's running for
00:06:59
state representative, and this is her first time running for office.
00:07:03
And literally, we're going door to door, knocking on doors,
00:07:07
introducing her to the constituents and her district
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if she wins, covers seven towns. And let me tell you
00:07:14
about this candidate. She's incredible. She's worked
00:07:18
in homelessness prevention for decades. She's
00:07:21
been super involved in her community. She gets on stage and
00:07:25
she connects with each and every audience member. She's an incredible
00:07:29
speaker. She has a really great head on her shoulders. She knows when to
00:07:33
ask questions, when she doesn't know the answer to something. I personally
00:07:37
could see her climbing the political ladder and becoming
00:07:40
a much bigger figurehead than what she's going for, but it's
00:07:44
not like she's jumping straight there. She's literally going door to door
00:07:48
in each of these small towns, in these tiny, quaint little neighborhoods,
00:07:52
saying, hi, my name is. But in a much less Eminem kind of
00:07:55
way, more of like a, hi, I'm running for state representative. You know what
00:07:59
I mean? It's
00:08:03
not sexy, but you have to go slow.
00:08:10
The number one goal we have when we start is let's make you
00:08:13
money. Make money, money. Make money, money, money. Make
00:08:17
money, money. Make money, money, money. And I
00:08:21
always tell clients, our fastest path to cash is always
00:08:25
going to be one on one clients. And the reason for this is
00:08:29
because, a, you're not trying to enroll a ton of people
00:08:32
into the same thing on a timeline. That's arbitrary to them.
00:08:36
So, for instance, if you were to launch a group program that starts on
00:08:40
September 1, you have to find the people who are willing to start on
00:08:43
September 1 to sign up for it. Whereas when you're working with someone one on
00:08:47
one, it's on their timeline. They can start when they're ready. And if they're
00:08:51
ready now, they can start now. One on one clients know that they're going to
00:08:54
get a higher level of service from you because they're going to get that one
00:08:57
on one attention as well. And because they're going to get that one on one
00:09:00
attention, they're going to get customization that they wouldn't be able to get in a
00:09:03
digital course or in a group. After you've developed your one on
00:09:07
one book of business and you have several one on one clients that are
00:09:10
paying the bills every month, then you can move on to
00:09:14
developing a group program. And you want to start with the group program
00:09:18
first before you move to the digital product, because this is where you are going
00:09:22
to trial and error, all the things that go into the digital
00:09:25
product. Now, having worked with a whole bunch of one on one
00:09:29
clients, you're going to look for, what is the common problem here? What is the
00:09:33
thing that all of my clients seem to struggle with, and how do
00:09:36
I train them out of it? And you're going to develop your whole group program
00:09:40
around this one thing. And you're going to run that group program multiple
00:09:44
times, you're going to relaunch it and you're going to iterate it and you're going
00:09:47
to change it. And to give you some behind the scenes, this is exactly how
00:09:51
I've grown my business. I built my business solely with one on
00:09:55
one clients until I got to the point where I realized, oh, there are some
00:09:58
parts of what I do with clients that everyone needs.
00:10:02
And I could absolutely roll this out as a group program.
00:10:05
And as you've probably listened to this podcast before and heard me talk
00:10:09
about BYOB, the build your own business group program, that was not its first
00:10:13
inception. Earlier on, I actually rolled out
00:10:16
different portions of that program in a standalone
00:10:20
fashion. So like holistic selling, which is my model for how to sell, it's very
00:10:24
consultative, it's not manipulative, it's very based on helping the
00:10:27
person in front of you. I actually ran that as a
00:10:30
standalone group training multiple times before
00:10:34
I dialed in what that training would be, empathetic
00:10:38
marketing, another portion of BYOB. I did that multiple
00:10:42
times, again with different groups, all on its own, so that I could
00:10:45
really understand, like was the material helpful, who
00:10:49
was the best client for it. And throughout this process,
00:10:53
I realized that to do holistic selling well, you had to understand your
00:10:57
ideal client. So that was a big part of what I needed to incorporate
00:11:00
and build your own business through doing empathetic marketing. Again, I realized
00:11:04
you have to have a deep understanding of your niche. And running
00:11:08
these two independent programs, I realized how they needed to
00:11:12
feed into each other. And I probably ran eight different
00:11:16
short small group programs before I
00:11:19
came up with the build your own business model that would help
00:11:23
people start their businesses and start to scale them. And
00:11:26
even then, my first iteration of BYOB
00:11:30
no longer exists. It started off as a six month program
00:11:34
and it has evolved into a two year support
00:11:38
community. If people so choose where I've broken down
00:11:41
exactly what you need to start with to start your business and start getting high
00:11:45
paying clients. And then you can graduate into an advanced version
00:11:48
of it where you can learn how to do all of the fundamental things that
00:11:52
will help your business kind of run in the background while you do the things
00:11:54
that you love. And I've been at this for six and a half years now.
00:11:58
And while yes, there is a digital format of BYOB,
00:12:02
there are training videos and all that stuff, I'm nowhere near turning this into a
00:12:05
digital course. I share this with you because I want you to really understand the
00:12:09
amount of time that it takes to verify an
00:12:12
idea, the amount of time it takes to understand
00:12:16
what works in a group format, what works in a video training,
00:12:20
and where you're going to have to augment your
00:12:24
delivery. It doesn't happen overnight. And this is why you
00:12:27
cannot start with a digital course. You have to trial it with your one on
00:12:31
one clients, and then you have to trial it with a group program, and
00:12:34
eventually you are going to evolve it into a digital course.
00:12:38
But at that point, you have a verified
00:12:42
idea, you have a verified audience, you've done the market check. You know
00:12:45
that there are people out there buying what you're selling.
00:12:59
So you're probably listening to this and thinking, but Katie, I've heard of so
00:13:03
and so who said that they quit their job and they started
00:13:07
this course and they launched it and they made
00:13:10
$200 in the first few months. And then they did this and they did
00:13:13
this and they're selling a course on how I
00:13:17
can do the same thing. Why are you saying that that won't work for
00:13:21
me now? I'm not saying that it's 100% not going to.
00:13:25
There are exceptions to every rule. But the chances
00:13:28
of you creating a digital course that is actually going
00:13:32
to sell and make you hundreds of thousands of dollars without
00:13:36
building it off of what one on one clients want from you, and what you're
00:13:40
teaching in a group program is extremely low.
00:13:44
And if you're independently wealthy and you don't have to worry about paying the bills
00:13:47
and this is just something that you're doing for fun, then you know what? Knock
00:13:50
your socks off. Go for it. Have fun. Try it and
00:13:54
see if it works. But if you're independently wealthy, it doesn't really matter if it
00:13:58
fails, which it likely will. But if you're like the rest of us
00:14:01
and have bills to pay and a dog to buy, really
00:14:05
expensive treats for, and maybe a small, small book
00:14:08
buying habits that you have to support, then that's not going to be
00:14:12
the best course. And even for those of you who start a one on
00:14:16
one coaching business or consulting business or whatever, know
00:14:19
that when you launch a group program, 50% of them will fail.
00:14:23
Even after you've done a market research check, even
00:14:27
after you have, like, gauged it with your audience.
00:14:30
There's so many factors that go into you having a
00:14:34
successful launch of a group. You know how many followers you have
00:14:38
on social media and how engaged they are. That's a big factor. How
00:14:42
big your email list is and how engaged they are, and
00:14:45
how honed in your email list is on your ideal client. That's
00:14:49
another massive factor. I think we've all been a part of one of those
00:14:53
groups. I think early on in my business, I had a business mentor
00:14:56
who pushed us all to grow our email list,
00:15:00
but didn't give us any guidance on how to do it. And so they're like,
00:15:03
just ask your friends and family. Ask people in this group. Go
00:15:07
to Facebook, say, join my email list. And
00:15:11
we all did it. And we all got a whole bunch of people on our
00:15:14
email list. And let me tell you, there's nothing more disheartening than getting an
00:15:18
email back from your newsletter, from your aunt who's telling you that you shouldn't swear
00:15:21
so much. Like, thank you so much. Great feedback. Not
00:15:25
listening to it. Also, would you like to buy my stuff? No. Okay, cool.
00:15:29
I'm just kidding. I would never ask a family member to join any of my
00:15:32
programs.
00:15:35
These are all things that take time to build. They either
00:15:39
take time or they take a ton of money to
00:15:43
establish quickly. And like I said, if you're a normal human
00:15:46
being who needs to pay the bills and needs to buy the
00:15:50
treats and is buying stuff for whatever hobby
00:15:54
you have, be it reading, woodworking, underwater, basket
00:15:58
weaving, you need to be making money from your business in the interim.
00:16:01
And at the heart of it, you're in this to help actual human
00:16:05
beings. Yes. You want to make money. Yes. You want to make lots
00:16:09
of it. Yes. Like, maybe you want to have private jets and you want to
00:16:12
do all the stuff, but more than that, you genuinely
00:16:16
care about helping people. And if you actually
00:16:20
want to help people, creating a digital course that
00:16:24
no one's going to buy and no one's going to go through and really no
00:16:27
one's going to even ever know about, it's not going to help anyone.
00:16:31
It's actually just going to end up hurting you and your confidence. But working with
00:16:35
clients one on one and holding their hand and walking them
00:16:38
through whatever transformation it is that you help them through, that helps
00:16:42
people. Launching a group program that helps ten to 20
00:16:45
people who are all working on whatever transformation it is that you
00:16:49
help folks with, with, that actually helps people. And the best
00:16:53
part, besides helping people, is that it actually makes you money in the
00:16:56
interim. And depending on what your business is and what your
00:17:00
niche is, let me tell you from experience, you can quite
00:17:04
simply build a $100 to $300
00:17:08
a year business, helping people one on one. I've done
00:17:11
it and many of my clients have done it. Does it take work?
00:17:15
Absolutely. But is it fulfilling?
00:17:19
Yeah. Does it actually impact the world?
00:17:22
Yes. And what's cool is that if you do have a dream of
00:17:26
eventually rolling out a digital product, this is the best
00:17:29
place to start, because through your one on one clients, you're going to
00:17:33
verify that whatever problem you'll solve through your
00:17:36
digital course is actually a problem that your clients have.
00:17:40
And in fact, you could probably figure out what is the problem. They had two
00:17:44
steps before, before becoming my client, so that you can capture
00:17:47
people earlier on in the process. And then your digital
00:17:51
course isn't just something that you sell to make money. It's something that you sell
00:17:55
that is also a lead magnet. It attracts people in, and it helps
00:17:59
them with something that you do not work on in your group or your one
00:18:02
on one coaching or consulting. People buy that first,
00:18:06
and they work through it, and then the next logical step will be to
00:18:10
sign up with your group or doing one on one work with you. The key
00:18:13
here is that you have to make sure that your work actually works
00:18:17
for the people who matter, and that's your clients. And I know
00:18:21
it's so easy to build a strategy
00:18:25
around how you want it to work, around this idealized
00:18:29
vision of how other people seem to have done it. And it was so easy
00:18:33
for them, and it's going to be so easy for me, and so I'm going
00:18:35
to do all the same steps, and blah, blah, blah, blah. It's so tempting to
00:18:38
get sucked into that kind of thinking. But just because you want
00:18:41
something to work a certain way does not mean it will. You have to
00:18:45
build your strategy around a realistic
00:18:49
plan. You have to assess what actually works in the
00:18:53
world that we live in and follow that, rather than
00:18:57
how you want it all to look. And if you're ready to get real with
00:19:00
yourself and see, start running your business to
00:19:04
a realistic strategy that is designed
00:19:08
to get you making money as quickly as possible. Working with one on
00:19:12
one clients, evolving yourself into some kind of group
00:19:15
program, and then developing whatever digital course comes
00:19:19
out of that. Then I invite you to book a generate income strategy
00:19:23
call with me. If you're super attached to
00:19:27
how you want things to work and you're hoping that you're going to talk me
00:19:30
out of, oh, but like this, this one time, you're gonna help me with the
00:19:32
digital course first, right? Do not book a call. I don't wanna talk to you.
00:19:37
I know it hurts to. To realize that you've been following this
00:19:41
cult of, oh, it can be super easy, and I'm gonna roll
00:19:44
out a digital course, and it's gonna make me a ton of money. It's really
00:19:47
hard to let go of that thinking. But if you're willing to be brave
00:19:51
and you really want your business to work out, then
00:19:55
you're gonna need to invest in a more realistic way to do things, and
00:19:59
I'd love to help you with that.
00:20:05
Luna, no barking. Come on, please. Oh, no.
00:20:08
Oh, no. Luna, out. Okay. Excuse me while I evict my dog from
00:20:12
the room. Okay, out you go. See you later.
00:20:16
Bye. Anyway,
00:20:20
welcome to my ADHD show, everyone. I hope you're enjoying.
00:20:26
Squirrel. Squirrel, squirrel, squirrel.