How to Build a Creative Business Online

Thanks so much for having me. I'm thrilled to be here.
I'm so excited. Before we dive into some really good stuff. Will you share a little bit about your background? And how have you gotten around this mindset of okay, a service is a product and this is how you can grow your business like I would love for you to share your journey. Yeah, for sure.
So the long story short, is I got fully booked up, and I raised my prices to as high as I, I legally could. And we can get into that story if you want. But I literally could not raise my prices anymore without being like in violation of a certain code of ethics for the professionals. And so as a lawyer, and you can't have your like, you can't actually make your prices higher than is reasonable. And so that was the territory I was entering into. And I just, I couldn't work with any more people. So I had to figure out a way, if I wanted to keep growing, I had to figure out a way to work with more people. And productize my service instead of just keep raising my prices work with, you know, as many people as possible, which was also burning me out. So as a service provider, I think the number one thing I hear is, Well, I'm just feeling really burnt out. I don't feel like working today, I don't feel like doing much of anything today. And you know, the natural place to go is like, well, you know, have you raised your prices? Are you fully booked out? Are you spending time on your own? And sometimes the answer is yes. Like you have raised your prices as high as they can go you have booked your calendar out in a way that's productive for you and your clients and you there's just there's not much out where there's nowhere else for you to go at that point. And so I try to offer people a different solution to that. So that was the long story short, but like the nitty gritty of it is I graduated from law school, I bounced around. I tried a lot of different things in my 20s as far as like teaching yoga and blogging and becoming a graphic designer and calligrapher and shooting some weddings. And so I tried a lot of different things. And so now I had this background as a lawyer and as a creative, and I was able to marry those things together. And I created my online store, which is called the contract shop. And then fast forward a couple of years it runs on its own. And I'm able to do what I do now, which is help people to also turn their services into products in a similar way through an online storefront like I did.
That is it's so awesome. And it really is out of the box from where just providing services, which is first ever a lot of people is trading money for time and are trading time for money and trying to figure out how can you maximize your time and there's only a few ways you can grow. It's like hire some people take a person or do something online. And how can you wash rinse repeat all of the knowledge, but I did not know that there was a legal I guess threshold of pricing that is that just in the attorney space or Yeah. Is like how does that work? I'm like I yeah, this existed.
Yeah. So I mean, it might be hard to believe, depending on who you've worked with, legally, but there is a code of ethics and every state has adopted some version of that. And more or less every state has a rule for attorneys that says that you have to charge reasonable fees. So I couldn't just charge you, you know, $100,000 for a trademark registration when everybody else is charging $3,000, or, you know, 1500, or however much they're charging. And so it started to get into the territory, where to make it worth my while, I was not at 100 grand, but, you know, I was, like, nearing the 10k mark. And that's just, it was getting a little uncomfortable in that space. And so, I was worried about, you know, the professionalism aspect there. And I was also worried about, you know, making sure my clients were satisfied. And of course, maybe you guys have felt that mindset of like, well, they're paying a lot, I want to respect that investment, you know, are they getting their money's worth. And so I just internally had this, this battle going on. And so it made it not very worth it for me to continue in that that way. In that line of work, when I could be also, you know, at this, at this point, by this point, my shop was making so much that, you know, like a $10,000 week wasn't like that wasn't as exciting to work with one client, I could just do that passively and not have to really do anything except for record a YouTube video here and there or whatever. So it just made more sense to jump full time into my product shot versus continuing to offer services.
So what was the first step that you took to figure out how to, like create the products and then figure out the platform that you're going to do? And then, you know, hooking up stripe and PayPal and Venmo? You know, there's all these different things. It's like, people think course creators, they just make a few videos and like, put, you know, put them online, and I'm like, oh, no, it's like eight to 10 month process, right? To work. But once you but there's a payoff, right. So it's like you put the hard work and upfront, or do you recommend like, you know, building things one at a time, build one products, scale it, make sure it's working, and then listen to your audience, and then add more things to the shop, like, what are your recommendations for that?
Yeah, for sure. So I jumped in, you know, two feet ahead of myself. When I first started, I got on a webinar. And it was, it was the rising tide society. So they had it was the first webinar they ever did. And there were something like 4000 people that were registered. And then like, I don't know, somewhere between like 12 and 1600 people that showed up live. And so I knew it was going to be really big, because this is like right at the height of when it was like, you know, seven months after the rising tide society had started, everybody was like, really, really latched on to it. And I knew it was gonna be really big, but I didn't have any thing to offer at the end of it. Like, luckily, I'd been in the online world now for Yeah, your eyes if you're listening to this. So luckily, I'd been in the online space for I don't know, maybe like 18 months at this point. And so I knew that you had to have something to offer to people when you had this kind of opportunity. And so I didn't have anything made, I didn't have anything created. I didn't know how to sell like nothing. So that day. I don't know why I waited so long, because I knew this was going to happen, you know, two months in advance. But that day, I sat down I made a Squarespace site, I got a bunch of products that I thought people would want, but wasn't for sure. You know, like I didn't know for sure that they'd want that. So I just put everything up. And then I put a very critical freeze next to it, which was pre sale will be delivered within 30 days, or actually, I think I put 14 days because I was you know, super ambitious and whatever. And I was like, ah, like probably, you know, five people buy this and I'll be fine. Like, I'll just make this over the next two weeks. It'll be great. So I had something like, I don't know 20 or 30 product listings on presale so I go live I do the webinar. It's called contracts 101 I know like super compelling right like what a snooze fest but I tried to make it fun for people and I guess I made it fun enough because I pitched at the end of it and it was the worst pitch you've ever heard it was like so I'm the products. My name is Christina escolar my shop and go to the URL and thank you and like that was literally the pitch was terrible. And you know whatever people still went to my website which it was just called my name at the time. Now it's the contract shop but they went there they bought because I was doing you know a discount and all that whatever so on these pre sell products, and we ended up selling about $3,700 worth of products. I know I've way under priced them too. They were only like 100 bucks. So we had like, I don't even know like 50 to 100 orders come in really quickly. And I'll that weekend. And so then I had to fulfill all that, and I had no idea what I was doing. It did give me a really good idea of what people wanted. Because, you know, there were like three products that sold really well. And then like 10 products that didn't sell at all, and then some that sold in the middle. And so it not only showed me what I needed to create, but it also forced me to be really efficient with my time because I only got two weeks to create these, you know, dozen or so products. So that was a lot of work in those two weeks. And that's why I recommend now everybody say 30 days, because a month gives you a little more time, especially if you need to hire or anything like that. But yeah, it was just like trial by fire, and I got it up and that that was the start of everything. And fortunately, it worked out. That led to more speaking engagements and things like that. And so then the shop just started to get more and more popular. And but I also I don't want to like just very lazily say, Oh, like that was all that was all I had to do. Like I worked really hard because in my mindset, if I didn't have another event on the calendar, like another speaking event, and other podcasts and other JV webinar like that, everything was going to fall apart. Nobody would know my name in a month like this was it. That was my NFL career. So I had to constantly seek out those new opportunities. And I did that like relentlessly for about three years. And that was kind of where I hit a turning point and started going more passively into the shop.
Do you think that, okay, so something really important that I want to point out, that is so important that at first, I was like, I would never do that. But I was at a conference over a decade ago. And the people it was all about writing a book. And so many people got out there and talks about how they pre sold their books. And they had not written a thing. They just did the cover. And I was just like, Oh my God, these people are crazy, I would never do that. And then I go and finish something. And then don't go about it the right way. And then no one bought anything. And then I was thought to myself, I'm like, Hmm, there has to be something this has to work. Like there has to be something about testing the water. I didn't know anything about data. I mean, there's so many analytical things like at our fingertips, and people still don't use it, you should use it, guys. But it's like putting the information out there. You knew that you could fulfill it. But like the whole sell it before you spend a whole weekend creating it is so brilliant, and so genius. And then like the 30 day thing like, yeah, I love that. Great,
great tip. Yeah. And it's always about framing it for their benefit. Because, you know, people didn't want to wait even 14 days when I said that. And so it was like, Well, how do I make this something that's actually a benefit to them and not a like a con. And so they were able to wait 14 days, because I said you know when after the sale, it's not gonna be on presale anymore, it's gonna be created, and the prices are gonna go up by 100 bucks. So not only are you getting an on sale, but you're also getting it at the pre sale price on sale. So you're gonna save about 200 $250 You know, buying today versus like, in a month and I wasn't lying, I actually did yeah, we very quickly increased our prices from like, $100, you know, after all a sudden done to like 250 in the shop, and then 350, the year after, and now they've kind of held steady around 450. So that was the process of pricing that out and just making sure that that was going to be a good fit for them. But I'm always a fan of like reframing a situation into the benefit of the customer.
Absolutely, absolutely. So we get a lot of people that want to create online courses, which is great. But there are other ways to make money on line. So why should people consider having like an online product shop versus just one big coarse, what was around that you kind
of mentioned it earlier. But to make a really good course, it takes a lot of time, a lot of talking to the people who are going through as either, you know, beta participants, or just that first round of paid participants or whatever you're doing for it. Can even after you've sold it, you know two or three times, it's still a lot of work because you always at least I always want to make things better. And so I'm always constantly iterating and changing it and making it better. And that that just is a lot of work. So the difference between a course and a product is that a think of a like a product is a very small portion of what you would have in the course so for example, if you have like a set of templates, maybe have 10 sets of templates in your course, but you just Take one of those sets of templates and sell it in a shop. So that's a lot more accessible for people both price wise, and like maybe that's all they need to get started. And then they see your brilliance, and they want to upgrade into your course or work with you or something. But creating a course is just a lot of work. And so you can either start with a course that kind of sold, okay, and then pull the products out, put them in a shop, and they'll probably sell a lot better, because you'll be able to market them individually and see what people are really interested in. Or you could go the other way and just start creating products. And then you can leverage those, put them all together and put them into a course, with some additional training that teaches people how to use those products, or you know what system that fits into. So that works really, really well if you just want to get started with some passive income products, but you're not ready to create like a whole course. And you just want to kind of avoid the drama of like mini courses where they're like always this awkward offer in anybody's value ladder where you're like, well is the mini course like a tripwire is it like a course is it. So I like products, just because they're very clear cut, you know, you can have products for less than $50, those tend to sell really, really well. And then you can have some more of your core products, which are going to be more expensive, usually in the 150 to $500 range. But they accomplish something really important for that person at the other end, who's the customer purchasing those products, but just a little tiny thing, like it's not like a course where you're taking them from A to Z, it's just maybe taking them from DTE or like em, I'm using letters that sound like each other. I don't mean to but like, you know, S to T. So you're just taking them a little tiny bit along that process instead of the entirety of it.
So you talked about this a little bit about but but we have clients, they're like, how much should this be? Like? What? What do you think the market? would stand? Do you have? Like a some type of a formula? Or is it just kind of see what sticks? And then do you set personal goals for after we sell 500 of these, then we're gonna up it are like how do you decide like the increments? And you know, it's like, do Yeah, questions from your clients, it's like, I know, I'm like, we have to stack the value. Like, y'all, if you don't know what a tripwire is, if you don't know what or if you're not familiar with like a value ladder or anything, it's like, you know, when you're filling the funnel with leads, and different marketers will tell you different things. But typically, they'll say start with something free, like lead magnet, and or mail them something, make it free, but it's 99 cents for shipping. And then psychologically, you know, they've, they've spent $1 with you, I don't know that there's this whole like value letter thing. But I do want, I want to know what your thoughts are on the pricing. But I want to back up in a second. And so if people aren't familiar with like, what that means that I want to make sure that they know what that means. But what are your thoughts on like, how to price it and then when to increase the price?
Yeah, so anytime you have an online store, it's this holy triangle of conversions, leads and average order value. So anytime someone, one of my clients is having an issue, I always look at this triangle. And I say like what is happening here, you know, if, if you're only getting 10 people to see your products a month and no one's buying, it's a leads issue. If you're getting 1000 people to see your products and no one's buying, it's a conversion issue. And then if you're getting 1000 people to look at your products, they're converting, but they're only spending $10, then we have an average order value problem. So it's always one of those three things that you're going to run into issues with and literally me expanding my shop from, you know, 40 something $1,000 to nearing seven figures a year. That is literally just going around that triangle endlessly. And so you're not going to like this answer. But to price my products higher going around that triangle, I just said, Let's raise the price by 100 bucks for a month and see what happens. And every single time we did that, you know from the 100, to the 200, to the 250 to the 350, then to the 450. Every single time we did that we just made more money. And so our conversions went down a little bit every time but then they picked back up a couple months into the experiment. And then I was really okay with it. Because every month we made more money and had to serve less customers, which is less customer support on the back end. So I was like great, let's keep going. But there also is like a like a hot like a top end threshold. So we haven't broken the $500 barrier on our products yet just because when I look at my mission, my mission is really to empower people to run their own businesses well and to know confidently that they can do that themselves. Whether that's you know, In my coaching business as someone helping people productize their service or back in my shop, you know, creating easy legal for people. So my mission is always is always to help them and the ideal customer for that situation, they can't spend more than $500. Like that starts to really stretch their budget. And so that's kind of where we've landed. We probably could go higher, but you know, so it's, it's this mix of where where do we want to be energetically but then also, like, what will the market tolerate? Like, let's just experiment for a month and see what happens? Do our sales, you know, dropped to nothing, and we don't make any money. Or, like I said, in my case, we made more money by having to do less work. So that was an easy win.
Yeah, and, and again, sometimes it's like, what works for you or me or one person may not work for another person. So it's like, it does depend on like the audience, maybe a little bit about the industry, what the need is, what problem are you solving? And then backing up to the tripwire? Can you explain to people Yeah, for sure.
Yeah, so tripwires are typically products that are under. I mean, there's varying people that will say different things, but typically under $30. So these are kind of like, you know, if they were on an end cap at a store, you would just grab them throw in your cart, like wouldn't think twice about it, right? Like if you guys have ever checked out at h&m or trying to think like Zara or Nora AK, yeah, like like anything like that. They have these little kiosks right before you check out. And it's just literally those are tripwires. So you guys are already used to them. But in the digital space, it's typically just something. So if you get something for free, instead of having a regular thank you page, we might have a tripwire page. That is, you know, the equivalent of the Sephora little kiosk, that you have to wind around and see all the cute little things that you want to purchase. And then you end up throwing some in your basket. Again, we're going around this triangle. So all they're doing there is increasing your average order value. And you can do the same thing as someone who has her own digital business.
Absolutely. So we all make mistakes. I know I've made a lot of mistakes, and building landing pages and just an E commerce. I mean, for a couple years like I thought I was like, oh, I'll just hire consultants to do it. And then they'll do it the right way, which I learned very quickly that everyone's knowledge is limited to their experience, but then they call themselves a consultant. And so my first experience and doing this back in 2013, I learned that there was no numbers or analytics, but I didn't know that until the next consultant came in and started asking me questions about reports and analytics. I'm like, huh, I don't know, you're taught? I've never I didn't know that yes, or no. So it's just, I mean, it's it things have grown so much more since then. And there are platforms that do make it more accessible and much easier, then, you know, 10 plus years ago, but what are some of the biggest mistakes that you see creatives making in this space?
As far as creating their own products? Yeah.
And putting it like, and putting them up online? Like, how should they start going about it? And then just pick a platform? And watch a YouTube video and like, do it? It's not Yeah, I
mean, I, you're hitting on one, that's a big one, which is, you know, they keep waiting, or they keep thinking after this client, after I clear my client roster after I have more time, right. And like, when is that ever worked out in the history of anything ever, never. Because, you know, you'll always you'll always find time, or you always find ways to fill that time. So one thing that always stops people or, you know, allegedly stops people is time. And so I try to work with my clients to figure out where they do have time and why they're not prioritizing their shop, because that's a mindset issue. That's not actually a productivity or time issue. At least not in like 99% of cases. So you know, if you have a chronic illness or something, it might actually be a time thing. But that's like, the biggest mistake that people will make is just thinking that this is something that they can kick down the road. And like I hate to say I told you so but I've been literally telling people they need to have products for I don't even know, like know, like, three or four years now where I'm like, You need to diversify your income. Like it's not enough to just be a wedding planner. You can't just be like a photographer, you need to have a digital space to sell things. And everyone's like, yeah, yeah, like whatever works for you wouldn't work for me. And then the pandemic happened, and everybody was like, What do I do now? And I'm like, I don't know. I've been trying to I was much nicer about it. But you know, I was just like, I Like I've been trying to tell you like we've had this ultimate, you know, product digital product download creation guide for two years now. And, you know, so I've been trying to help you with this for a long time. But yeah, it's it's really about knowing how much space you have available on your calendar. Knowing that you can only work with let's say, six clients is your max, maybe like six full time and like three part time projects a month, and then allocating one of those clients spots to building your shop or building your products. So that you do set a time aside time that you're working on that where you know, that's, you know, your time really his money then because that that was a client you could have been working with. And instead, now it's it's your own store, so you better make the most of that time. So I think that's one of the ways that I could see people improving and then we talked about pricing. So another big mistake I see is people who overpriced their products to begin with my naivete, like totally saved me because I underpriced my products and like, in hindsight, I can, you know, kind of kick myself and be like, Wow, I really underpriced that that first go, I should have, you know, had it a $200, I would have made, you know, $7,000 instead of 37 that weekend. But in hindsight, it also or not necessarily in hindsight, but like watching my clients overpriced products, and then having to backtrack and then take the products down to a better price point, that's a better fit for that audience. That's always harder to do than to underprice. And then very quickly see that this is a best seller and raise the price. Because the other thing that happens when you get those sales is now you have customers that you can have feedback and like you're talking about that data, testimonials, like all these great things that help you to further sell your product. So you always want to underprice as you're getting started. And then you know, you can raise it quickly. But you want to make sure those sales are coming in first.
Yeah, definitely. And then it's so I know, again, I'm talking about myself here, because it's like, I didn't realize also too, that you really do need to map an entire customer journey from like, if you want someone to like start at a starting point. Like if they're completely cold, they have no idea what you do, or, or how you can help them. But somehow they landed there, you know, really mapping out what the funnel and what the customer journey is going to look like, will save a lot of headaches, at least it did for me, like it took a few years for me to like take the time exactly what you said and treat myself as a client. So I would actually like make myself do it. And so that's really important too. But from the consumer side, if they land on a landing page or your website, or wherever your your shop is, it can also be overwhelming for them if it's not mapped out correctly. And so how can we avoid that if we're going to start putting our services into products? Because, you know, I keep hearing like one landing page for one product because people get overwhelmed, and then they buy nothing. So what are your thoughts on that?
Yeah, I don't know if I agree with the one landing page per product. Especially if you do have lower, you know, $50 type products like people are used to shopping on very distracting sites like Amazon. So that doesn't exactly give people enough credit for what they're they're capable of. To me, it's more important that you have a compelling results from your products, because that will keep people on your page, organizing it in a way that helps people to understand what they need. So for example, on my shop, we have it organized by product type and then also by industry. So if you want to shop by industry, you can do that if you want to shop by product type. Like if you just want templates, you know you want something done for you, you can shop that you can shop our courses if you want something that's done a little bit more with you. So giving people a couple different options in your store is really helpful. I like to treat my homepage like that landing page. So our best sellers always go on that homepage to help guide someone's experience and their journey. But yeah, as far as like customer journey like overall goes I think having that that really strong clear user interface is critical. But then also looking at your back end as well. Because remember, like you don't have to sell every like Not everything has to be public facing on the front of your site. It can also happen in sales, or in sales emails that come after someone's already made a purchase especially of something like the tripwire we were talking about earlier. One book that really helped me like I need a royalty for this book at this point because I refer it to everyone but something that really changed our shop and how much we sell like we went from like a you know 100 $150,000 company to like, you know, we're on track for for 750 Tea this year. So it's like the one book that changed everything. And it was so painful to go through was perennial seller. The book isn't painful. It's great Ryan holidays an awesome writer, but actually applying those concepts and taking a hard look at why are people buying from us? How are we actually helping them? What results are we getting? What does it look like for that customer to go from finding us on a Facebook ad or a freebie or an Instagram post to you know, our shop and then making a purchase on a checkout? And like, are the links all working? You know, what does that journey feel like for that customer? How are we making sure it's a fun one for them so that they're telling their friends about us, and joining our affiliate program and things like that. So we took like a year and a half to really improve those things. And I think it's one of the things that, like speaking of mistakes, like this is one of the biggest areas that you can improve right away. But it's expensive, in the sense that we're just for me, I allocated the team, the time and the money that I would have otherwise spent on growth through maybe ads, or a new Pinterest strategy or something like that, like all the sexy marketing stuff kind of sat on the backburner during these 18 months, where we took a look at all of these processes and systems and improve them. And so that was that was a really difficult 18 months, like financially because it was like, oh, like, we're not advertising, we're not marketing, you know, but we're making everything better, like cross our fingers. Hope it works. And it worked beautifully. I, I don't regret it at all. Because it's, it's the thing that allows me to step away, like, you know, I was just in Mexico, and then San Diego, and I hadn't checked my emails for a week. And it didn't matter because the you know, the money was coming in through the shop. And like it truly was as passive as it possibly can be, because of those systems and those processes. And that time that we took up that we took to set up all of these things so that it could run on its own, but in a way that supported our customers and gave them a really good experience with our brand.
And y'all this really does exist. Like the it's like the American dream, where make money while you sleep. And it does exist. But what you just shared is so important that it does the ship does not happen overnight. And it doesn't happen in a month. A lot of times like, Have you ever been to a Click Funnels conference? Yes, I have. So you probably know what I'm about to say. But and they're great. But some of the speakers, they get up there and say, you know, I did one webinar and made six figures and blah, blah, and it's like, how many webinars and be done? And what was your overhead? Because, like, what was your actual net profit? And I mean, it's like, sometimes you don't know the full story of but sharing like, yes, taking 18 months, like it was painful, but it pays off and the focus, it pays off. And you have to be able to focus on those things. Otherwise, it things don't sell. They just they don't bottom line. So if people want to open their own digital shop, do you have some recommendations for you as we wrap up?
Yeah, for sure. So the best place to get started is with your first product. So we have a guide on how to create it's the ultimate guide. Because I couldn't just ultimate, yeah, I couldn't just like Stop it a little, you know, stupid two, two pager or something I had to like go all in. Mostly because I'm lazy. And I don't want to I feel a lot of questions. So we just poured it all into that. So if you do want to get started, that's available at Christina sclera COMM And we have a training as well there that teaches you how to get started with those products. And if you're a little bit further along, you have a shop, I always say the shop is the new blog category in 2021 and beyond. So if you're a little bit further along, we have some more resources there, that would be helpful as well. But yeah, I think the the biggest thing is just deciding that you want to get started and that that's a path that you want to follow and pursue for the next few months. And see where it goes. That's awesome.
This was so helpful. And y'all we'll put all of the links in the show notes so that if you're looking to start down this journey, you can connect with Christina. And then do you have a favorite platform if people want to connect with you directly? Yeah, Instagram.
I mean, I'm most active there. So if you want to just send me a DM, let me know you listened. You know, tag me in your tag. Angela and I and your story will share. Well, I'll share I can't speak for her. Yeah, we'll share it. Yeah, I love you know, posting people reposting people's stories and just really encouraging them. I love seeing the products that they've made from my courses and the other resources that we have. So it's just it's really great to see see people taking charge of their schedule and their life and just getting back on track for I think what they expected when they started their their online journey but you know, maybe hasn't happened quite yet. So I just I'm really grateful for you for having me here today. And honestly, the most important thing is that you guys go and leave a rating and review for the show, because it helps podcasters out so much. And yeah, I'm just so, so grateful to be here. So thank you for having me.
Of course. Thank you for your time. And if you're listening or watching, thank you so much for tuning in. Stay and be sure to tune in next week to another episode of business unveiled by y'all. That's it for this week's episode of business unveiled. Now that you have all the tools that you need to conquer the world and GSD get shit done. Would you share this with your friends and fellow business leaders? One thing that would really really help us and help new listeners is for you to rate the show, and leave a comment and Apple podcast, Spotify, Stitcher, or wherever you tune in and listen to business unveiled. You can check out the show notes at Angela proffitt.com/podcast and link up with us on social media so you can share your biggest insights. And I want to know your aha moments. Until next week, remember the profitable shifts and structures you're creating in your business. help you be more present in your life. So get out there and GSD