How To Build A Coaching Business As A Solopreneur By Giving Stuff Away For Free - The Hybrid Access Business Model
How I'm building my digital education business, and you can too
Selling courses? You’re running a digital education business
Writing articles? You’re running a digital education business
Running a newsletter? You’re running a digital education business
Consulting writers, creators, or marketers? Digital education business
80% of online business, is about coaching, teaching, consulting, and guiding customers
You see a cool way to build an education business, try stuff out, make a bunch of mistakes, have no idea what you’re doing, keep failing, hope for success
This is what most digital education or coaching business owners are doing
They throw sh#t at the wall, hoping something sticks..
This is normal, its how you learn to overcome your problems in business
The issue isn’t an ineffective method, its the wrong method
Your current method works, but using a tried and tested method is smarter
You’re going to spend hundreds of hours figuring stuff out..
Only to produce less polished results than your competitors
It won’t be as effective, it won’t produce the same results..
And it’s going to take a lot of time to understand
The way you structure your digital education business lays the ground work for everything → You need a system
But somewhere out there, someone has already gone through the process
They’ve developed the client acquisition system, they’ve developed the course creation system, they’ve built a thriving community, and they’ve built their social media brand
Your problem right now, is that you’re not them..
But you don’t have to be
Instead of being them, you can emulate them
It’s the process of taking what works for them, and combining it with your own knowledge & expertise
The result is a well oiled machine built on the backs of your competitors
If you want to learn how to emulate, you can read my article on it here
If you wan to know how to ethically steal their sales system, read my article on it here
But what do you emulate, and who are your enemies?
What we’re breaking down today is my digital education business model, which is based off coaching & consulting industry experts on X
These digital education creators are pulling in over $50,000/mo from client revenue
To get started, we’re detailing what education means in this context
To solve a problem, you either need to figure out the answer yourself, read up on the answer, or get someone to explain it to you
This is your job as a digital education business owner (yes, even if you run a newsletter)
Your product is information, your vehicle is how you share that information
Social media posts, articles, courses, coaching, mentorship etc.
These all fulfil the same function. Help someone solve a problem
But instead of offering people different services or products that help solve their specific problems, we’re going to offer them the same services and products, but at different levels of access
This works, because you’re selling access to your expertise
With that in mind, let’s go over the levels of access
Access Level 1 (Posts & Articles)
Something that always bothered me about the way creators or digital marketers on social media work, is that they don’t give away information
They don’t help people solve their problems, and instead only sell the solution
Now on the surface, this is not so bad
Selling is part of the marketing process, so naturally you can’t give away all the information for free right?
Why would they buy things from you, if you give away all your knowledge for free?
This is an age old argument. Because of big marketers like Hormozi saying you should give stuff out for free, people have started thinking this is a great marketing tactic..
But based on data we have right now, conversions are much higher when you don’t give out resources for free, but put a paywall behind the more valuable ones
That does not mean you can’t share information that would really help your audience solve their problems
Let’s look at my articles for example, they function as a free resource for my audience to solve their problems..
My articles function as lead magnets.
It introduces a problem
It solves the problem
it makes the reader aware of a bigger problem
It promotes a paid product to solve that problem
This is what lead magnets are supposed to do
Give away actionable information, without giving away too much for free
This has become an industry norm, after the rise of market intelligence
The more resources are available for free, the less valuable certain knowledge becomes
“How to grow on X”, for instance
There’s hundreds of articles and courses on these things..
Now it has lost a lot of its value, and mostly functions as a free resource
Which is exactly why I’ll write an article & full masterclass on social media growth
But let’s take notes on what I’m doing here
This is the “Free Resources” Level of Access
My social media posts, and my articles are on the 1st level of access
They solve my audience’s problems, but don’t give away too much information
This way I can offer digital education to my followers and subscribers, and convert some of them to higher levels of access
It means I can teach online business, personal development, and writing for free..
But still run a profitable digital education business
You can access all my lead magnets here
Access Level 2 (Courses)
When I solve problems in my articles, there is always information I don’t share
Valuable information I know from years of experience and data backed research in the digital marketing sphere
These take the form of courses
Things I sell that have more detailed and valuable information, that you’d have a hard time finding on the internet
How valuable these resources are, is dependant their scarcity, and how big the problem is they solve
Let’s look at my course called “The Simplified Selling Framework”
I used this X (twitter) based Direct Messaging framework to do 5 figures online
One of the biggest questions I get from those I consult, is that they can’t get any clients using outbound marketing
They send hundreds of DMs, but they have no idea how to actually convert strangers into clients or paid clients
I see this EVERY. SINGLE. DAY
The amount of DMs I get from people who have ZERO idea how to sell products or services using direct messaging, is worrisome to say the least
Without an understanding of human psychology, you won’t get very far
My framework teaches you how to sell using direct messaging (works on any platform), by breaking down fundamentals of human psychology..
And its incredibly easy to understand
If you use this framework, you should be able to land clients consistently, every month, completely dependant on the amount of effort you put in
If you send 5 messages a month, conversion will be low or non-existent
If you send out 50 a month, conversions will be much higher
Success depends on volume, effort, product, and problem you solve
I haven’t officially launched the product to my network (not people have seen it), because I’m working on other projects.. But if you want to land clients consistently using X DMs, you can get it here
The “Simplified Selling Framework” is a course I built, that solves the problems of my ICP → My ideal customer profile
It is PAID, and it represents a level of access higher than my free resources
This is the same for every paid course
Courses are typically $9-$35, and inside the course there’s a link to an upsell of my services or products
Access Level 3 (Consultations)
To solve a problem, often courses aren’t going to cut it
The reason for this is because people might feel a little uncertain, they might need feedback, or they might need step by step guidance etc.
Since I am the one building the courses, this is even better than buying a course, because the solution can be personalised to the person specifically
The person doing a consultation with me can get a solution to their problem, based on what they tell me, instead of a random issue they might be having that the course solves
This is a higher level of access than courses, because the person gets 1 on 1 access to me, which is worth more money
Something I should address straight off the bat, is that consultations don’t need to be on video calls..
They can be purely text based
In fact, I know a coach doing $30,000/mo doing just text based consultations with her clients
Remember, as a digital education business owner, you’re not a coach (the market for that is way too saturated anyway), you’re whatever your clients requires
A mentor, a guide, a coach, a consultant, a resource depository, a leader etc.
To solve a person’s problem, you need to think holistically
One of the issues I’m encountering in my digital education business, is adapting to roadblocks
Sometimes a student I’m consulting has motivational issues..
Then it’s my job to guide them in the right direction, help them eliminate behaviours that’s holding them back, and answer the questions they have
This is an example of the things you will face with consultations, and how you can help customers, clients, and students overcome their problems
Access Level 4 (Coaching)
This is the highest or second highest level of access to me or the person you can get
This means getting access to:
Me 24/7 as long as I’m awake
As many consultations you need
Access to all my courses and books
Masterclass trainings by other successful marketers and creators in my network
This level of access to me, is obviously the highest
The only higher level could be mentorship, but as I’ve mentioned before, mentorship is included for my digital education students
Not everyone’s “Level 4 Access”, will look the same, and that’s fine
Here’s how to build this:
Sit down with your students or clients to really understand their problems
Build a curriculum based on the journey you guide your students on
Add a community feature once you have plenty of students
Build a client acquisition system to enrol students
Setup a waitlist for when students drop out
Repeat step 1-5
If you want to join DPU, which is my level 4 access service, I’m still taking 3 more students
If you want to:
Learn how to write courses (23 Courses Built)
Learn how to write sales pages (last sales page I wrote made Over $5000)
Learn how to write educational articles (20+ written with over 10,000 impressions)
Learn how to land writing clients monthly (649 clients & customers served)
And learn how to setup a system that predictably produces those results consistently..
Then you can join the DPU enrolment here
IMPORTANT NOTE:
Your results will be completely dependant on traffic
If you have no traffic, you won’t make money
Course sales, clients, students etc.
It doesn’t matter what you are selling and who you are trying to sell it to..
If nobody knows you’re selling it, you won’t make money
There are many ways to generate traffic..
But without proper guidance, you will make no progress
Most people don’t have time to spend months figuring stuff out
DPU is a way you can get to where you want to be in 90 days, instead of 3x as long
Remember, if you want 1 on 1 guidance on setting all of this up..
You can join DPU by signing up here
Whenever you’re ready, here’s how I can help you
“On Mortality”, is an education based novel & book I’m writing that talks about the consequences of loss, how I dealt with it myself, and how drastically my way of looking at life changed after losing my brother, my best friend, and my dad, before the age of 25
It’s on pre-order right now, so feel free to grab it below if you’d like
Number 1 - My “Full Scale Website Builder Course” - FREE
Get step by step instruction on building your own website with my video course.
Learn how to build a website to sell your products or services in just 2.5 hours
Without writing a single line of code
Number 2 - My “Notion Course Creation Template” - PAID
Get a built for you interface to host your online course. Perfect for customers and students to enrol in.
No fancy databases or complicated software. Just copy & paste all your links, images, tutorials, text, and BOOM! - Fully built out online course in minutes
Number 3 - My “Digital Domination Framework” - PAID
Learn how to build your digital product with a roadmap in 30 days, without paying for expensive software, including how to make sales with zero followers
Includes 27 Course Modules including video tutorials, resources, my course creation template, my digital product sales CRM, and 2+ years of expertise
Number 4 - “The Simplified Selling Framework” - PAID
Get access to the 7 step DM sales & networking framework I used to generate over $10,000 online, and build a 263,000 follower network on social media
Easy to implement, and results can be seen in within 24hrs