How I Created My First Digital Product And Did Over Six Figures In Sales

Today I want to share with you one of the BEST ways to get ahead.

And in my opinion, that’s to build an online business.

Why?

Because an online business gives you FREEDOM. It’s something you can work on from anywhere in the world. And the revenue your business produces helps you build long-term wealth.

So if you’re thinking about starting an online business or wondering if your idea would work and people would pay for it – you’re in luck.

I’m going to show you right here, right now, how to get ahead by putting your idea into action. I’m going to inspire you to start your very own online business in the next 90 days. I’m going to walk you through two real case studies, including my own where I created my first digital product and did over six figures in sales.

Sound good?

Okay, let’s get started …

“Future Proofing” Yourself And Your Income

Today’s world is VERY different from the world our parents and grandparents grew up in.

We now live in an entrepreneurial culture. Gone are the days of landing a full-time job and working there for 30+ years.

We now all have access to tools and platforms that make it easier and more affordable than ever before to start a business.

And most importantly, the world is changing faster than ever. Last time I was at the airport I didn’t even talk to a security guard, it was all automated. This is happening in grocery stores and other places too. The world is changing very fast.

And the best way, I believe, to future proof yourself and your income is to build your entrepreneurial “muscles.”

Entrepreneurship is a skill, after all. It takes practice and effort. And the more you do it, the better and more successful you’ll get.

But in order to succeed, we first have to understand what might be preventing you from taking action and launching your online business.

What Prevents Most People From Ever Becoming Entrepreneurs

So what stops most people from starting?

Some of the more common things I hear are not understanding the technology involved, not having a perfect strategy, not knowing what to do, or not “loving” the idea of marketing and sales.

That’s just for starters, but I don’t believe this is what truly holds us back. These are just surface-level excuses.

After coaching thousands of people I started noticing patterns. I got to see what REALLY holds people back from success. See if you can relate with any of these:

Fear of Failure and Success. This is a big one that stops a lot of people dead in their tracks. A lot of us don’t think we’re good enough or we don’t know enough to succeed. So we don’t take action. Or the opposite of that – we don’t take action because we might fail, we might get rejected, or we might get embarrassed. And the way to get past these is to identify which limiting beliefs are leading to either one of these fears. Maybe you don’t think you’re good enough. That’s a limiting belief you’d want to overcome. Or maybe you think if you succeed, it might make those close to you uncomfortable. Or maybe you believe if you try and fail, people will laugh at you. Whatever it is, identify the limiting belief and see how it isn’t really true. And then take action in spite of it!

Needing a Perfect Plan and Everything Figured Out FIRST.  Look, I am the biggest “planner” in the world. I LOVE to plan everything. However, when it comes to launching a business, you need to realize that having a perfect plan is what stops us. The last thing you need is a 40-page business plan. Imperfect action beats a perfect plan any day of the week. So realize that you don’t have to have a perfect plan. Just get started. Then adjust your “plan” accordingly, as things come up.

Feeling Like We need To Know So Much More Than We Do To Get Started. This is another biggie. Again, when you’re starting anything new, whether it’s a business or you want to train for a triathlon (like I’ve done in the past), or any new thing, there are all these thoughts I find that go through us. We feel like we need to know so much more than we do to get started. I know that was true of me.

Here’s the reality. Nobody who starts a business knows all the skills they need to be successful. I’ve now acquired 22 investment properties. I’m still learning things as I go. For example, my largest building right now is a 16 unit apartment building. I’ve never purchased a 36 unit apartment building. But when I do, there’s going to be another set of challenges that I’ve never encountered before. That’s the kind of stuff you can’t foresee or plan for. Because it’s still unknown.

So the key is to have the attitude that you’ll learn as you go. You’ll hack it as you go.

Entrepreneurship is like a puzzle, that’s how you want to view it. And as you go on the path, you’ll see how all the pieces fit.

Alright, now that you know what stops us, let’s move onto the actual process of launching your business.

Five Steps To Turn Your Idea Into An Online Business

I’m going to walk you through what I’ve personally done to launch one of my new brands and did six figures in revenue to start.

Step One: Get A Mentor

As entrepreneurs, we tend to isolate ourselves from the world and those who can help us. And the truth is entrepreneurship can be lonely at times.  We try and isolate ourselves from others and just do it all ourselves, like a lone wolf. And that’s when we run into issues.

So what to do? Well, here’s no need to reinvent the wheel. I know this is probably common knowledge, but get a mentor, get a teacher, get a coach, whatever. But this truly IS step one.

This is what I’ve done with every single thing in my life that I’ve wanted to learn.

Find somebody who’s successfully doing what you want to be doing and learn from them.

This can be in the form of a coach you work with one-on-one. It can be a course, a book, or a class you take. Or it can even be a group of people or a community that can mentor you.

Step Two: Set Aside Time Every Day To Work On Your Business

Look, what gets scheduled gets done, period. We all know that, but most of us don’t do it.

So pull out your calendar and pick a time you can consistently work on your business DAILY.

If that’s 7:00 AM for you, awesome. If that’s 3:00 PM, awesome. If that’s 9:30 PM, awesome. Set it and do it, and stick to it every single day. If it’s half an hour, great. If it’s an hour, great. I don’t recommend doing it any more than 90 minutes though, because our attention can’t really focus for more than 90-minute chunks.

Once you’ve scheduled the time, then what you want to do is ask your mentor what the highest value thing you can be doing is, and devote an hour each day to working on that one thing.

Step Three: Create Value

So we’ve got a mentor, we’ve got time blocked out to work on our business.

The next step is to create valuable content for your market and prospective customers. It’s how you’re going to attract customers and build a relationship.

This can be in the form of videos, articles, social media posts – whatever you feel is easiest or best for you. But whatever you do, devote to creating content DAILY for your target audience.

You want to do this for three reasons. One, to get practice. Part of it isn’t to sell anything or expect huge results, but you’re just practicing. Think about a rock band, U2 or Coldplay, who yes they play massive sold-out Wembley stadiums, 100,000 people showing up now. But where did they start? They started in the coffee shops, in the after-hours gigs.

Second, it also builds your confidence. The more you do something, the more competence you get. And it becomes a positive cycle that continues to build your confidence.

Third, you also get feedback from your market on what they want and what they don’t want.

Step Four: Interact With Your Prospects

This is something that a lot of people don’t do, but they should be doing. You want to speak that your prospects on the phone. Answer their comments on your content when you put it out there.

Encourage them to email you directly. You want to have some interaction. Imagine trying to make a friend with somebody in real life and never interacting with them, just seeing them there but never being able to ask, “So what’s your favorite restaurant? What do you like to do for fun? What type of exercise are you into? Have you read any books lately?” Imagine not being able to do any of that, and then trying to figure out things to do together. It just doesn’t work.

The same is true in business. We have to talk with our customers. We have to understand, who are they, where do they live, what do they want, what are their problems, what are their challenges. Being real with them. Being interested in them. This is what we want to do.

It can be a little bit scary obviously talking with your customers, especially if you’re just getting started. But if you’re coming from a good place, if you’ve got a good heart, and you’re genuinely interested, it will be very easy and your prospects will really appreciate it … because nobody else is doing this.

Step Five: Make an Offer

So once you’ve provided value and talked to your customers to know what they want, it’s time to make an offer. Sales, I like to say, are the oxygen of any business.

You don’t need the product created to make an offer. This is something a lot of people don’t know, or they think, “Oh my gosh I have the perfect product created before I can make an offer.”

You don’t need that. You simply need to make an offer.

So those are the five steps.

That’s exactly how I took an idea for a real estate investing course and turned it into what is growing into a six-figure business. I got a mentor (Eben, who is also my business partner).

Then, I set aside the time to work on the new business daily.

Third, I began posting content DAILY (I still do!).

Then, I interacted with my prospective customers to see what they wanted.

Then, I made them an offer based on what they told me they wanted.

It’s really that simple. You just have to take ACTION.

And in case you think I’m special, here’s a case study of how I helped my friend launch her business using these same FIVE steps!

CASE STUDY: How Ainsley Launched Her Online Business In 90 Days

So I’m going to share with you a case study of how Ainsley started her online business in 90 days.

Let’s get to it.

Just like me, Ainsley followed all the rules, except she spent even longer in school. She spent 10 years getting her Ph.D., became a doctor helping autistic children with their speech and landed her dream job here in Vancouver at the hospital, and makes six figures a year.

BUT she works around the clock doing it.

So a couple of years ago we were hanging out in San Diego. We were with some of my friends and on the plane ride back, she looked at me and said:

“James, all your friends work less than I do, but make more money than me and get to live my dream lifestyle. It’s no fair.”

Then she asked,  “Can you show me how to start my own business?”

I said, “Sure.”

So right there, Ainsley did STEP ONE. 

She got me as a mentor.

Next, we moved on to STEP TWO. We set some time aside for her to work on her business every single day. She had a full-time job, 9 AM – 6 PM, so she chose to block out the morning hours from 6 AM – 7 AM to work on her business. Then, she took it a step further and set a date to launch her first live class, January 31st, 2019 at 3:00 PM.

Now she had a set “launch date” that she HAD to give this class to her future customers.

With that in place, we then started creating value – STEP THREE. 

Ainsley created a free report, she promoted that on Facebook. She wrote a Facebook post to promote it. Then she regularly created content videos, for 90 days straight.

Once that built some momentum and people were commenting, she began STEP FOUR, interacting and talking with her prospects.

She stepped it up and even started talking with some of her prospects on the phone. She learned exactly what her audience wanted.

Finally, she was ready for STEP FIVE – making an offer.

So once Ainsley knew what her audience wanted and created value she put together an offer to sell her course. She wrote up a sales letter and posted a video on Facebook, just saying “Hey, want to learn about a new autism treatment?” She explained a bit about it and then told people to go check out the sales page.

And this was her offer, The Autism Success System. She put that together, and just like that, eight students registered, equalling $2,376 in revenue.

Now it’s just a matter of her scaling things up, and before she knows it, she’ll have a six-figure or even seven-figure business on her hands!

Now it’s your turn. These are the different steps that I’ve followed. You’ve seen how Ainsley followed these steps.

It’s time for YOU to do them.

And remember, the only way is UP! 🙂