How to Create Digital Assets That You Can Sell Over and Over With Mark Timberlake

Welcome to the Real Fast Results podcast!  Today, you’re going
to have the chance to learn about digital assets and the advantages
of producing them.  The information found herein was first
presented by Mark Timberlake, who is an absolute expert when it
comes to exploiting this type of aperture in the marketplace. 
Mark, welcome to the show… Today we’re promising to help people
understand how they can create digital assets that they can
actually sell over and over.  So, by the end of this, they
should have a clear concept of how online training can be packaged
as a digital asset, and how a person could then put that outlet in
some of the places where you can get some instant income coming in.
Benefits of Creating Digital Assests In terms of lifestyle, it’s a
residual-based income so it’s a dream; it’s living the dream. 
Me and my wife, we live this dream.  We create digital
products, and we sell them, and we live off the income. 
It’s just freedom from employment and service-based
work.  We escaped employment 15 years ago and started
our own business, but we still had a lot of service-based work
going on. We were still dealing with clients, but that’s one step
away from working with an employer because you’re still being
employed.  You’ve just changed your employer, and you can pick
and choose your employer a little bit more, but you’re still being
employed.  However, when you actually create digital
content that you can sell, and it’s a digital asset, there is no
employer.  That’s the real beauty, and it’s
exponential in terms of how much that product can actually
earn.  It’s limited by the amount of people you can get in
front of, and it’s limited by the amount of times you can sell that
product.  That is where it gets really exciting. A third-party
platform is very good when you’re launching cold.  Now, if
you’ve got a really strong, established audience, I wouldn’t
recommend that you go on to these third-party platforms over that,
to increase your audience.  But, if you’re brand new
and you don’t have a list, you’re new to online marketing, you love
to teach, and you’ve got a passion about something, these places
can give you that really quick launch.  Particularly
sites like Udemy, which have got really high-quality standards but
help you through the process, they can really get you learning how
to create courses quickly. I would recommend looking at third-party
courses from instructors like myself. The reason why I say this is
because we’re going to teach platform agnosticism, which is really
important.  While we're talking about platforms, I just want
to mention this principle.  We want to create courses that we
can put on platforms, but we don't want to create Udemy courses, we
don't want to create Skillshare courses, and that's some of the
platforms we can put stuff on.  We want to create
agnostic courses that are primarily our asset, that we can then put
into them in an appropriate manner, which will allow us to tap into
their marketplace without losing our identity as a
business. Does that make sense?  It's like going into
a supermarket.  You don't want to supply the branded
product.  You don't want to supply, you know, the Walmart
ketchup.  You want to supply the Heinz ketchup.  You want
your brand to be consistent, and that's one of the key things you
need to understand.  When you go to these places, the
temptation might be to hand over your brand to these places, but
what you really want to do is just use the supermarket and put your
brand in there, and then people can come back to you.
Udemy likes big mega-courses.  Now, Skillshare wants 20-30
minute courses.  Let's look at that practically for a
moment.  For instance, I've just released my online
Instructor Masterclass 2016, and there are 16 modules in that
course.  This is a practical example.  On Skillshare,
they want small courses, and they're going to pay me per
enrollment.  So, I've got 16 modules, which are independent
courses on Skillshare, and I've got one mega-course on Udemy. 
On Skillshare, I get 16 enrollments for everyone that takes that
course, and then on Udemy, I get one big enrollment. Then, when I
put it on my website, which is another thing we're going to want to
do. I encourage people to use a third-party website to start out
like Teachable, or something like that, where they take in all of
the back-end hosting, you put into your course, and then you can
market them as well.  So, then I can now put the same course
on my website, and then I can upsell.  I can have  a
subscription on there. I can bundle a load of courses. I might have
a monthly Hangout or webinar.  For instance, on Zenler, who
I'm just switching over to from Teachable. Zenler has a built-in
webinar functionality, so you can literally host the webinar inside
your school.  You can host a free webinar, and literally on
the page is the subscriber.  So, there is lots of really
exciting stuff happening right now. The key is that you
want to be able to create the content from the very beginning
knowing that this is platform agnostic, this is your
content.  You need to split it up in different
ways  for different platforms, but you maintain control.
It becomes really exciting when you start doing that
because now you're developing all of these different income streams
in different places.  If one falls over and
collapses, you've got five or six others that are still running and
you're minimizing your risk.  That's the key thing.  From
the beginning, don't get tied into one platform. Different Ways To
Use Your Digital Content There's a couple of really exciting things
potentially happening at the moment.  Just whispers and rumors
right now, but there's a whisper that Amazon might get into the
online teaching space, selling digital training courses. 
They've already opened up Amazon Video.  Now, there's a
whisper that they're talking about getting into the actual delivery
of education.  So, in the way that they have embraced Kindle
eBooks, they want to embrace training. LinkedIn also just purchased
Lynda.com.  This is the grandmother of online training
courses.  They've been doing it the longest.  They are
the ones that have mastered it, but the way they have always
operated is you produce the course and they own the rights. 
So, for me, they would have to pay me a lot of money to get the
rights to my business because I know the exponential value of my
product over time.  It's a case of the more eyeballs
that go in front of it, the more money I'm going to
earn.  That's just simple math with a good-quality
online training course. There's a whisper that they (Lynda.com)
will start opening up the platform so that third-party vendors can
upload.  Now think about that.  That's Microsoft,
essentially, and Amazon are starting to sniff around the online
education sector.  So, when you create your courses--you've
got these things, they are like bags of sweets, you can put one bag
over here and just a couple of sweets over here, and you can put a
big multi-pack of sweets over here.  The point is that
as the market progresses and grows, you've created a digital asset
that you can then just drop straight onto these platforms, and
that's where it gets really exciting. Online education is
absolutely massive.  It's one of the VCs.  The venture
capitalists are all trying desperately to find somewhere they can
get involved and spend money on because it's one of those areas
that's really exploding fast.  If people are spending
money, that means content creators have a massive opportunity to
get into right now while we're still in the early
part.  We aren't even in the boom part.  We are
in the early part, and there's a massive opportunity to get in
right now and create courses because this is going to boom.
 It's a pebble on the beach at the moment.  It's going to
be a whole beach soon, and now is the time to get involved. 
Create high-quality courses that are agnostic, that can go
anywhere, and that can earn you this residual income. 3
Steps To Making Digital Courses I can give you a simple overview of
the three things you're going to need to master.  I can give
you some quick tips, but the process, in itself, is a learned
skill. Step # 1 Quality of Educational Content So, #1) Quality
of Educational content.  Now, where a lot of people fall down,
they'll see an opportunity like this and they'll think, "Okay, I
can just create a quick course, and I can make loads of
money."  No.  If you want this to be a long-term
asset, you've got to put the time into it.  You've
got to be thinking, "This could potentially earn me $100,000 over
its lifetime."  You've got to design from the beginning with
that kind of potentiality in the back of your mind.  You might
only make $100, but you've got to approach it like, "This is a
significant asset I'm developing here." I've created courses where
I said, "This one's going to absolutely go crazy," and it just
falls flat.  I've created over 40 courses now, and there have
been some that I didn't think would do that well, but all of the
sudden, it really surprises me.  So, #1) Quality of
Education.  You have to remember that, at the end of the day,
that's what people are actually buying. Step #2 Quality
Production Values #2) Quality Production Values.  That doesn't
mean you have to have a professional studio.  You could
literally use a slideshow and a mic.  You could
literally combine a slide show and a good-quality podcast setup,
and you can create courses.  So, you don't need lots
of money. I've got a green screen studio where I do a lot of
talking heads.  Whichever level you go to, you've got
to keep pushing the quality.  So, the quality of production is
really important. Step #3 Marketing Excellence And
then there's #3) Marketing Excellence.  You have to
learn the basics of online marketing. It's a skill set
that's absolutely fundamentally required.  Although you're
starting out by putting it onto platforms, you do need to
understand some key things like SEO.  You do need to try and
understand how to optimize some text.  That sounds really
huge, but it isn't as big as you think.  You've just got to
learn the trade.  That's the key thing.  You've really
got to take time to learn the trade. Let's say that you've got a
very popular podcast.  Well, you would have had to learn the
trade of podcasting.  Yes, everyone can do it, but only the
people who have mastered the process will do it well, will do it
professionally, and will do it to a high standard.  That's
what sets it apart.  So, that's what you've got to have--high
quality teaching, very high-quality production values, and
marketing excellence.  When you build an online course
creation, digital asset business based on those principles, it's
just a case then of finding the course, or set of courses that are
going to start getting that response from the marketplace that
you're looking for. How to Find a Responsive Niche The
first thing to do, believe it or not, don't go to niche at the
moment.  It's still very early in the marketplace, and the
temptation is to do your "DIY Brain Surgery Course".  Bear
with me.  There's not very many people in the world that want
to practice DIY brain surgery.  On the other hand, there's how
to do a Facebook ad.  You know, that is so broad.  Let me
give you another example.  You can create a master course on
online marketing, but you've got to be specific about who you're
trying to reach.  What I'm trying to say is don't go
too broad, but don't go too narrow either. One of the
things to test what's working is to go on one of the sites and have
a look at what's working.  Go on a platform like Udemy and
Skillshare.  If you want to make big courses, Udemy is
#1.  Some other places are starting to catch up quickly. 
But, if you want to do business to consumer, like craft-based
courses, hobby-based courses, and lifestyle courses, Skillshare is
much better.  Once you understand that, and you've got the two
main, sort of, protagonists in the marketplace, Udemy being
business to business, and Skillshare being business to consumer,
then have a look at your expertise.  Go in there and
see what types of courses, in your expertise, are getting the
students, they're trending, they seem to be doing well. Be
honest with yourself.  If you look at a course and
say, "I can do better than this," then make a better
course.  That's the place to start, but one other
thing is when you make your first course, your first course is
disposable.  You're going to throw it away.  That's where
you learn the art of making a course.  You'll continually
learn, but that's where most of the big lessons are.  I've
seen people do this.  Don't try to create an 18-hour
talking-heads master-class because you're going to film it, you're
going to look at it in six-months time, and you're going to be
embarrassed of it. The thing to do is to create a small course,
maybe with something like Skillshare, just to go through the
process of learning.  Take some courses on how to plan
and how to structure.  Just start with a small
course.  Don't throw away your best course on your first
course.  If you're a master at Facebook advertising, and you
can show, "Here's what I've spent.  Here's my return on
investment."  Start with how to set up a Facebook group. 
Don't give up your best stuff at the beginning because that course
won't be your best.  Go and have a look, see what's
working, and don't fall into the trap of going to niche or too
wide, but do a little research and see what's actually
going. Building Course Material You'll want to break up
2-10 minute segments.  You know, 2-5 for most subjects, and 10
if it's technical.  You have to learn how to translate
Chinese.  This is one of the core educational issues that
nuance online instructors may not have grasped yet.  It
doesn't matter if you're a professor.  It doesn't matter where
you come from.  When you start speaking to someone,
every area of knowledge has its own language. So, if you
sit down with someone and start talking to your granny about
podcasting, and you start saying, "Yeah, I'm going to be doing
this, and I'm going to be using my preamp," she's not going to
understand what you're saying.  You're speaking Chinese. Every
area we have expertise on has its own subset of language. 
English isn't some sort of homogenous blob.  It's built upon
all of these areas of expertise.  If you want to do quantum
physics, you have to learn a whole new language before you can
comprehend that.  That's the core thing to understand. 
When you're teaching someone, you have to translate Chinese. 
That's what the best instructors do.  They take a
complex subject, which is complete Chinese to someone else, and
they translate that into language so that the layman can
understand. It's not about being the smartest or
the most knowledgeable; it's being the best
translator.  If you can explain a simple concept to
them, that's simple to you, but complex to them, better than
everybody else, people will pay you money to solve their
problems.  Become the translator.  Become the one that's
best at translating Chinese, and that's what's going to give you
long-term value in your product. Recap: Steps To Making Digital
Courses The "Golden Triangle" of course creation is high-quality
educational content, #1.  You want to solve people's
pain points and problems.  You want to be doing that
better than anyone else.  You want to be translating that
Chinese.  #2) You want high production values.  No matter
what level you are, you want to take the time to do the editing and
remove all the "ums and ahs" so that you have really good
quality.  Invest in that process.  #3) Marketing
excellence.  Learn how to market yourself, learn what's going
to work, and learn how to place your product. And, just
understand that these third-party platforms are going to do some
marketing for you, and that's why we're using them at the
beginning.  A beginning instructor, usually the worst
skill they've got is marketing.  That's the thing they least
understand, but that's where the leg up on these platforms are
going to be.  You're going to have some stabilizers on your
bike.  They are going to supply the stabilizers, and they are
going to get you going, but you don't want to stay on stabilizers
forever.  You want to be platform agnostic, and eventually,
you want that audience that you're building on your website, on
your property.  I think those are the core things to know.
Third-Party Platforms Suggestions If you go to my website,
SMEHeroes.co.uk, you'll find a platform guide.  It's a
resource that we keep up to date, and it shows all of the latest
places and some of the things that you need to be aware of. 
On that, we've got Udemy, Skillshare, StackSkills... There's lots
of information on there that is current and up to date.  It's
a great resource for someone trying to figure out where to put
their courses.  For instance, if you have courses on
programming, you may not want to put them on Skillshare,
necessarily, but there are other third-party sites that specialize
in those types of things. There are also sites to avoid.  For
example, there are some sites that won't pay you.  They've
been identified too.  There are also some third-party hosting
platforms.  These are places you can put your courses
and  sell them.  Go to SMEHeroes.co.uk, and go to the
"Platform Guide".  It's linked at the top, and you're going to
see lots of different places where you can sell.  If you want
to connect with me, you can find me on all of the social platforms
from there. Resources: Udemy.com Skillshare.com StackSkills.com
Third Party Websites for Back-End Hosting
Teachable.com Zenler.com Mark's Platform Guide
Platform Guide Real Fast Results Community If you are diggin’ on
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