There’s probably 6-figures trapped in your brain.
It’s lying hidden beneath the surface of everyday things you’re already doing. It doesn’t look or feel like a 6-figure idea. In fact, you’ve probably ignored it for years. I see this all the time. Makes me sad.
There’s a cure.
The SEO badass who showed me the way
A single mother reached out to me. She’s an SEO specialist.
What caught my attention was the personality in the words of her email. She’s smart, sassy, and creative. We’ve started working together.
She’s seeing if she can get my personal website optimized for Google, so it can generate its own traffic and reduce my reliance on creator platforms.
Now, she’s definitely not the Neil Patel of the SEO world. But she is self-taught and has skills.
When we chat she’s full of self-doubt. Her current skills get sold to businesses that use and abuse her. Her income is time-based.
With a small child to take care of, and no husband to help, this is bad. When he walked out it left her in a mountain of debt. Like most of us, her only solution has been to work harder.
Then I stepped inside her head and started screwing with her thoughts.
“Expert status” ruins creators’ dreams
She’s a content creator already and a great writer. It’s making her no money. Naturally, I thought of a simple way for her to get started.
“Sell an information product.”
This made her nervous. She believes she doesn’t have the skills yet to sell what she knows. Here’s the trick:
Being an expert is overrated. The key is to be three steps further ahead in knowledge than your customer.
When you’re too far ahead in your knowledge, the average person can’t relate and so the market for your information product is a lot less.
The fact she’s only a few steps ahead of most is the perfect inflection point.
The $400K eBook man
To inspire her I brought up the story of a mentor.
He sold an eBook years ago for $20 a copy. He made over $400K USD. The eBook was so dumb. All it did was explain how to set up a basic WordPress website and buy a theme from a website such as ThemeForest.
The information wasn’t useless. But most of it was available on Google.
The difference is he took the time to curate the solutions. Then he added his personal story to inspire the reader and make implementing what he taught seem reasonable.
Most people dismiss the small things they know as worthless.
Simple sells.
How to find a great product idea
My friend Justin Welsh appeared recently on a podcast with content creators Nicolas Cole and Dickie Bush of Ship 30 for 30 fame.
On the video call he explained how he’s lazy as hell and doesn’t like to write content from scratch. So he’s taken his best Twitter and LinkedIn posts and turned them into templates.
These templates are backed by data so he knows they’ll likely be effective.
Each time he sits down to create, he grabs one of his templates and then just fills it out based on the story or topic he wants to share.
While on the call Justin shares his screen and shows them what it looks like in Notion. Nicolas and Dickie started making loud noises. They were blown away by what they saw — and they’re the best in the business.
Justin went for a walk with his wife later that day. Then it hit him: this operating system is something other creators want.
So, he turned his existing system into a digital product and sold it on Gumroad. It’ll easily make him 6-figures.
The same has happened to me.
Whenever I talk about flow states in an interview people go nuts. They’re dying to know more. This is my unique information product opportunity.
What do people get wowed by when you tell them?
That’s your information product right there. Is it weird events that happened throughout history such as what Sean Kernan shares regularly?
Is it a list of the best camping places in the world with the equipment needed for each one?
There’s at least one great idea trapped in your head. The problem is you always thought it was worthless.
Create your product for one person
The hardest part about creating an information product is knowing who it’s for. The advice I gave my SEO friend is to make it for one person.
In her case she knows a lot about SEO. She knows I need help with SEO. So guess what she’s going to do? Create her digital product for me. If it helps me it’ll likely help others.
I told her to write it with the same personality she does when she talks to me. I told her to keep the 5th grader explanations the way she does with me.
Heck, I told her to write the eBook as an email to me so she doesn’t lose sight of the fact it’s for me. There’s an option to niche down too.
I am an online creator. She could, if she wants, write the SEO eBook for other online creators like me. This makes it different from 99% of other SEO eBooks.
Phase two of online domination
The eBook will become a Do-It-Yourself Guide. Here’s the cool thing: Some people want to learn themselves.
But others, like me, after we buy an information product decide you know what, I’d prefer a done for me service. (Because we’re lazy AF.)
An eBook can subtly become a pipeline of prospects who want 1–1 services for a decent rate, rather than Fiverr slave labor prices.
Get that great idea out of your head and sell it
Here’s how, step by step:
1. Get traffic
An information product is useless without internet traffic.
You need people to see your expertise. Hopefully you’re already creating content online. If not, start to on either Twitter or LinkedIn because they still have viral loops built in.
2. Create a free product
Send the traffic to a landing page that gives a person either a free eBook or an email course. Get their email address in return.
3. Build an information product
The best information product to sell is either a video course or an eBook.
Spend no more than two weeks creating it. Make it simple. Get feedback to ensure others can follow your guide.
4. Do your research on Gumroad
Gumroad is eCommerce done-for-you. It saves you the hassle of creating a website, getting a shopping cart, and dealing with the thieves at PayPal.
Look up the topic of your information product on Gumroad. In the case of my SEO friend, she’ll look at other SEO products. See what’s selling. See how much it is. See how people explain the benefits. Be inspired.
5. Sell it for between $19-$99
List your information product on Gumroad. The first people you offer it to are those on your email list. Give them a discount to get quick momentum.
6. Market it
There’s some in-built promotion to help people find your product on Gumroad … but not much.
You’ll need to do some marketing.
One of the ways I love is to write Twitter Threads about the problem you solve. Then make the last tweet in the thread a link to the information product on Gumroad.
Or run free webinars and mention your Gumroad product. Or go on podcasts and talk about the Gumroad product. Or create Youtube videos and link to your Gumroad product in the text field below the video.
Final Thought
Time-based work doesn’t scale. Information products help scale your time so you can work less.
You already have a 6-figure idea trapped inside your beautiful brain. Get it out. A Twitter mentor of mine began this process in 2020.
He used to be a public school teacher in the US on minimum wage.
In 2021, he made 6-figures on Gumroad selling basic information products. Now he’s quit his teaching job and can retire if he wants to. This stuff isn’t rocket science. Anyone can do it. I’ve done it.
Selling a 6-figure information product requires you to think what you know is useful enough to help someone two steps behind you.
If you can reach that heavenly place, you can easily make 6-figures.
So will you?
