Let's just get into it. The world has a lot of big fat liars. I've seen so many people trying to sell a course exclaim how successful you will be once you create a few profitable passive income products, that "you'll have money pouring in while you sleep- just follow this 3 step process & you'll be making 6 figures." Uh, lying. If it was that easy, why wouldn't everyone be doing it?
“I’m not upset that you lied to me, I’m upset that from now on I can’t believe you.” – Friedrich Nietzsche
“The trust of the innocent is the liar’s most useful tool.” – Stephen King
We are all inundated with so many potential products and sales offers that we tend to tune most of them out. So you do have to have a strategy. There isn't a quick path to riches.
A little back story, I had an Etsy shop back in 2010. The strategy to get sales was exponentially easier than it is now. Etsy experienced massive growth between then and now. They have a lot more customers which makes it really appealing. But that also brought a lot more sellers. And honestly, the people that promise that you will make tons of money selling in a marketplace by simply listing a product and forgetting it are doing all of us a big disservice. Etsy boosts new listings for a short period of time. So those that list and forget can get a limited time ranking higher than your proven product. And they flood the market mostly with cheap or copied products.
I'd love for you to take a look at Etsy in any category, you can quickly discern who put up a product with little thought & effort versus those that went above and beyond to curate great photos and are a bit higher in price because they've been doing it long enough to know that quality matters. You can tell, right? I used to get annoyed when those quick buck sellers would steal my designs. (Etsy has a policy where I can report them to get them removed- but I tend to think that my customers are smart. They will see through to the people that care.) At least I know the thieves like my work. :) But those list & forget sellers won't stick around. They realize the easy button they were promised is a lie. And they don't typically choose to pivot to learn the ropes.
Back to the point, creating products to sell, whether a physical product that you package and ship or a print-on-demand or digital download product, takes a LOT of effort. So what advice would I tell you when starting?
After you have thought through your long term business model and decided on the types of products you're interested in selling, do market research. Do not just list and hope for the best. Use a tool like Everbee that attaches to Etsy as a plugin. Just use the free version, that's what I use. When you go to the Etsy search bar and start looking for whatever product you want to sell, Everbee has a cute little bee that pops up next to the keyword you're typing and the top few keywords underneath it tells you exactly how many people searched for those keywords on Etsy in the last month. You want that number high. If it's a seasonal product, that number should be high within the 90 day period before that season/holiday.
And another tip, when you start typing and Etsy gives possible search suggestions- those are usually great keywords to add to your listing. There is quite a bit more detail on this in the membership but I try to keep the blog posts under a few minute read. Message me if you want more info & I'd be happy to guide you.
When I started designing our membership, I knew a few things that it needed. The first is honesty. It is absolutely a lot of work. And I will share the truth of it. The second is that I wanted to simplify things for the people that want to do the work but just don't have enough hours in their day to get it all done & they need a roadmap, some tools, and guidance along the way. And lastly, I wanted it to be a community. Having a supportive community can give a massive compounding effect to your efforts. We are all better together.
I will be unpacking more of the common questions I get over the next few weeks as we lead up to the membership launch. And I have a launch date set for July! I am actively building out the site and will start releasing details about the Founding Member group and what will make it so special soon!
Warmest regards,
P.S. More info on the membership, here.
#liar liar pants on fire
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