105: {Interview} How to Create Multiple Income Streams via Digital Products with Taylor Smith

The days of relying on one income stream are over. We have officially entered the gig economy and it's essential to have multiple income steams to not only survive, but thrive. 

Today you are in for a treat! I have digital product and membership expert Taylor Smith with me. 

In this conversation, Taylor, shares her journey from a corporate education background to becoming a successful entrepreneur and founder of multiple businesses. She emphasizes the importance of side hustles and digital products in today's economy, highlighting the growth potential in the digital education industry. Taylor discusses the significance of niche markets, the advantages small creators have over larger influencers, and the different types of digital products available, including courses, memberships, and masterminds. She also provides insights on building an audience and the value of investing in oneself through networking and attending events.

takeaways

• Taylor transitioned from corporate education to entrepreneurship during the pandemic.
• She successfully launched multiple businesses, including an e-commerce brand and online courses.
• The digital products market is rapidly growing, with significant opportunities for entrepreneurs.
• Niche products tend to be more profitable and easier to market.
• Small creators often have higher conversion rates than larger influencers.
• Courses are typically self-paced, while memberships offer ongoing support.
• Building an audience requires consistent engagement and positioning as an expert.
• Investing in oneself through networking can lead to valuable connections and opportunities.
• Masterminds provide a unique environment for growth and collaboration.
• Taylor's upcoming course aims to simplify the process of launching digital products.

Taylor teaches female entrepreneurs how to launch online courses & memberships that bring in predictable profits. She is the  Podcast Host of 🎙 The Power Table, Keynote  Speaker, 4X Founder, Marketing & Launch Strategist. You can connect further with her HERE

Transcript

Caroline (00:01.198)
Welcome, Taylor.

Taylor (00:03.288)
Hi Caroline, I'm so excited to be here.

Caroline (00:07.354)
So you and I met actually, we met on the internet first and then we actually had the opportunity to meet in real life at Damn Good Lab Marketing in Louisiana back in October. So tell me more about, I wanna hear your story about you used to work in corporate, now you've been an entrepreneur, you're a four times founder. I wanna hear all the things.

Taylor (00:28.046)
Yeah, well, I think I stalked you. That's how we met. Like all good friendships and collaboration partners on the internet. I think I saw you through the conference and I was like, I'm gonna track her down and send her a DM. Like everything good that starts online. So I am a former academic. I have a bachelor's

bachelor's and master's degree in anthropology. And I really like had my heart set on this career in like human behavioral sciences. And I started out as a teacher and then that did not take very long before I realized, crap, this is terrible. Public education is terrible. I'm underpaid and undervalued and I have to get out. So then I went into corporate education and I was like, that'll be so much better. And so I did make marginally more money.

And there were actually a lot of things I really liked about working in corporate education and instructional design. And I really kind of started to get into this like online world of courses and memberships and working with curriculum design online. And I think I was kind of doing this all along, but it became more of a expertise for me when I was in corporate. And then the pandemic hit and like so many people, so many entrepreneurs, I was like,

I think I'm going to lose my job. And so I was working at that time, two different contracts with corporates. I had a job and then I had a separate teaching contract at the same time teaching online. And I was worried I was going to lose my job. So I started businesses, two of them in that same like early COVID time period. And one of them blew up and it was a physical product shop. It was an e-commerce brand.

My sister is an artist. She designs stickers and does like nature style art. And so I was like, Hey, what if we, what if we really dive deep into this? And the shop blew up. We're ranked in the top 1 % of 8 million Etsy shops worldwide. And people started asking us like, Hey, can you help me with my Etsy shop? Can you give me an audit? Can you help with this? And so I was like, so now we have to launch another business.

Taylor (02:45.72)
and we have to build an online course teaching FASellers how to grow their businesses. So we did that, also very successful. So now I'm running three multi six figure companies and I realized like, okay, I can do all the things, but that doesn't mean I should do all the things. And so what actually makes me excited versus what is really draining me. And I didn't love the physical product side and I was always coming back to, like education. Like I'm a teacher at heart. This is what I love doing.

And I love digital products. Like I'm obsessed with them. I'm obsessed with launching. I love looking at launch numbers and data and I could just nerd out on that all day long. so needless to say, I sold my portion of the physical product business back to my sister and I was like, I'm just going all in on courses. And so from there we retired our course suite. I started working with

freelance clients, so I was working managing people's six and seven figure course launches and really just kind of working behind the scenes for the past few years. then this year, I really kind of said, all right, time for me to stop playing behind the scenes, get back into myself as a personal brand and start teaching more solopreneurs how to build profitable online courses. Because I think that

As I can talk more in the podcast, small creators are under monetizing as a whole and they don't realize that it's very, very possible to make a good living and make meaningful income online by monetizing their expertise and their talents.

Caroline (04:18.064)
Okay. I love your story and I just learned something new about you. So thank you for sharing. So if anyone's listening to this podcast now, why should every single person have a side hustle or create an additional income stream via digital products?

Taylor (04:35.266)
Yeah, that's a great question. So I'll kind of come at it from two angles. one is we are at the very beginning of the digital products boom. Now, if you're a business owner, if you're B2B, it probably doesn't feel like that because you are inundated with courses and digital products that we're in a vacuum. That's all we see on social media, but that's actually not true. So in 2020, 2 billion people purchased a digital product. That's what, like a quarter of the world.

Since 2022, digital product purchases have increased by 70%. And Forbes says that by 2030, the digital education industry is going to be worth $95 billion. And by the digital education industry, mean solely courses that are going to consumers. So B2B and B2C in the sense of like, we're not talking about Rosetta Stone or like true EdTech, but rather consumers buying courses from

solopreneurs from subject matter experts. It's gonna be 95 billion by 2030. So one reason is that we're only at the beginning, this is only gonna grow. And then the other side is that according to Forbes, 46 % of people right now have a second job or a side hustle, and another 36 % say that they want to start one. So everyone's becoming aware that having a second revenue stream

or a third or fourth revenue stream is a smart move because you're no longer lying awake at night thinking, gosh, if I lose my job, which is what happened to me, if I lose my job, I will be in a huge problem, right? It's going to be a terrible situation. I will have very risky circumstances. And so I think people are realizing I don't have to.

If something happens, my business slows down, I lose my job, I don't have to wait the six months to find something else. I can go ahead and build something else right now.

Caroline (06:35.108)
I love that. And okay, so I'm really curious now. So you're listening to this podcast now and you're thinking, hmm, what could I create in a digital course about? And what exactly would I sell? What are some topics that maybe people aren't thinking about or that seem like for you and I like a duh, no brainers, but what, what are these people purchasing? Like what are they looking to learn?

Taylor (07:01.418)
Yeah, that's a great question. Niche products sell best and are the most profitable. And so what I mean by that is like, get more specific with like one outcome you could deliver. And there's actually a lot of things that are under saturated. So I'll just throw out a couple of examples. So for, let's just say you're really good at baking and that is your hobby. It's not even necessarily your business. You could monetize that.

and I would go very niche, I would pick just vegan baking or just cupcake decorating or sourdough bread. So pick one specific thing because it's easier to grow a brand around that and it's easier to sell a smaller digital product where people can conceptualize they're gonna learn that one thing.

Caroline (07:51.024)
Okay, I love those examples. And then I saw a video that you did on Instagram recently about how maybe you're listening to this podcast and you're like, I don't have 10,000 followers with this huge audience. Maybe I have a small Instagram account. Maybe it's 1K or below. Why can those people still monetize and make a lot of money off their smaller audiences?

Taylor (08:14.348)
Yeah, such a great question. So there's a couple of reasons why I say small creators will make more money on courses and digital products than big creators. And the first is trust. So smaller creators, what is typically called a nano influencer, which is one to 5,000 or micro influencer, which is five to 10,000, those accounts sizes have the highest conversion rate of any type of account.

So you can actually convert more people who follow you if you have a smaller audience. Higher conversion equals more money with less work. You're able to sell to more people in your audience because they trust you. Because they know you're not, a lot of times with smaller creators, you're not taking a bunch of brand deals and flipping from product to product all of the time and ripping other people off. Like everything that we see big accounts do and I'm like low key calling some people out here.

But smaller accounts generally, like hey, it's just one person showing up every day. They have very strong loyalty and trust with their audience. And then the other reason is because a lot of the big creators, they created their first digital products minimum five years ago. I just was at a conference in October with one of the biggest creators in the women's entrepreneurship space. I...

was in a room with her with about 30 other women. And this is pretty much unheard of. Like you never get in a room with this person. And I was like, what are you doing right now with your courses and memberships? And she was like, I'm still selling the exact same product I was selling eight years ago. I just, don't even, sure we update it from time to time, but like I'm still selling that exact same product. And my team just pays for ads for me. Now,

Does this girl have it going on with systems and automations? Like, awesome, good for you. And I know she worked hard to get there. So I'm not trying to say it's all bad, but really does that add a lot of value to the consumer or give people a lot of trust in your brand? If you blatantly are telling people it's the same product from eight years ago, probably not. So when it comes to small creators, a lot of us are creating products. lot of people are creating products for the very first time in 2024. And the consumer...

Taylor (10:33.974)
likes that. There's trust around people who are saying, Hey, I'm teaching you methods that work right now. And even like that is true for B2B. like, for example, a social media coach or LinkedIn, right? Like you teach LinkedIn, you're teaching people stuff that's working right now. But also even if you're selling baking, you're probably going to be using techniques that are popular now, styles that are relevant. Now you're not teaching something

or giving people the cost of like how to start your cupcake business with costs that are from like 2020. So there is not only trust, but you can sell more knowing your consumers know that what your stuff is current. I think that's what I'm trying to say.

Caroline (11:18.224)
Okay. So break it down for me. There's definitely different ways you can monetize off digital products. So talk to me about the definitions of you're an expert with digital courses, memberships and masterminds. You've been a mastermind host now for years. What is the difference between the three different products, suites?

Taylor (11:38.734)
Yeah, that's a good question. And really, I will say it's just the packaging's different. That's what I always tell people. Like same content, packaging, how it's delivered is different. Of course, there's a little bit of variation in the content. So courses typically are self-paced. They can run live. I actually have one coming out in January. I'll run live. And it's because it's more intensive. It's for entrepreneurs. So I'll be doing live coaching.

But most courses, I'll say at least 75 % are self-paced. Everything is prerecorded and that means people can purchase your course and consume it on their own time. They watch your video training lessons, they download your worksheets, they can engage in your community if you have one. But for the most part with courses, you're not showing up on a live schedule. Do we say courses and memberships?

Caroline (12:34.724)
Yeah, breakdown. So we've broke down digital courses. Let's go to memberships next. And then from there, let's go to masterminds.

Taylor (12:41.1)
Okay, cool. All right. So when it comes to masterminds, or you can cut this Caroline. When it comes to memberships, this is very similar to courses and actually memberships have taken a shift towards courses in that they are also now more education focused. They're not just community focused. So that's a little bit of a gray area.

Most people tend to think of memberships as some kind of community where you are paying for access to not just the creator or the expert, but you're also paying for access to a specific group of people who are doing the same thing you're doing. It can benefit you to build up those relationships or to even just have support and accountability from people who are struggling with the same things that you're struggling with. sometimes people use these terms interchangeably.

But it's like all communities are memberships, but not all memberships are community. So there are other ways to run memberships. You can do template memberships. This is another really good one where you're running vaults. So every month new types of templates are released. So social media templates are a good example. Any kind of graphic design, legal or contract templates are another really good example for memberships. I've seen, of course, like fitness, meal plans.

All of those things you could release new content. And the good way to think about that is a course is a skill that people learn one time, right? So they can go from A to B and have that outcome. A membership is good for something where people have a recurring or ongoing need. So they don't just do something once, but rather they continue to build up that habit or they need ongoing assets or ongoing support. And typically,

There is that community element, but it's not required. And people who have small accounts, I always tell them, look, it's, it's a lot of work to run a, to run an active community and only 10 % of your community tends to participate. Now with high engagement and a lot of effort from you, you can get that number up much higher, 20 to 50%. But on average, don't feel bad if only 10 % of people in your membership or in your community show up to your live calls, participate. That's the norm.

Taylor (15:01.27)
And so if you're like, I want this vibrant community, then you have to kind of do some math and you have to say, okay, if I want 50 people to show up, 50 is 10 % of 500, which means I need 500 people in my membership to have an active community. And that starts to feel kind of big if you're a small creator. So you might not need community and you might want to consider kind of like holding off onto that, on that component until your audience is bigger.

Caroline (15:27.482)
So what are some ways that you would encourage someone who's listening to this podcast to get started with building an audience and why is building an audience so important and funneling people into these things of yours that you're wanting to do?

Taylor (15:43.436)
Yeah, that's a good question. And if you want, we can also kind of hop back around to masterminds a little bit. So when it comes to building an audience, the fastest way is to niche down, start sharing tips and education, start positioning yourself as an expert. And what I see a lot of people do is they'll post, let's say three different things that are educational. And then they'll say, it didn't work.

No one wanted me to talk about that. I didn't get any response. Well, the average time to purchase something is now on average for most people, two to three months of warmup time. And people typically right now need 30 touch points before they buy a digital product. 30. Now, of course you're going to have some people who find you and they're like, yep, this girl's my vibe. I'm buying from her right now.

But you actually, on average, need 30 touch points. So that's 30 pieces of social media on average, 30 pieces of email content. They need time to warm up to you. So don't quit too soon and really start positioning yourself. The easiest thing to start with is tips and how I do this tutorials. But also, at some point, you kind of have to shift more into personal brand too. So you've got to start sharing your own journey, how I do this, what my unique take is on this, my trends, my predictions, things like that.

It doesn't mean you have to not share personal things or not share fun content or stories with your email list. You should do all of that. It continues to build trust and build relationships with people. But if you want to sell digital products, the fastest way to grow your audience is to niche down as an expert on the same topic as your digital product.

Caroline (17:31.088)
would add to that too, when you are deciding, when you decide to start an audience or grow an audience, whether it be a personal brand or professional band brand, choose one platform to start on before you go out. So what that means is if we'll say you're going to do sourdough, you're going to teach sourdough baking. Maybe your platform is Pinterest or Facebook or Instagram. That's maybe not LinkedIn.

Maybe you are a lawyer. want to teach about trademarks. Well, we need to be on LinkedIn. So I would say get really good at one platform before you go and try to be on every single platform.

Taylor (18:11.212)
Yeah, I love that. it's, you know, pick the ones that feel good to you that you enjoy posting on. If you pick something that you hate, like I'm not on TikTok because I feel a hundred years old on TikTok. I feel so cringy and awkward. I don't understand it. Maybe I'll change my mind at some point, but like, I'm not going to put myself through something where my excitement, energy and confidence isn't going to be there. So pick the platforms that you do like.

Caroline (18:37.36)
Okay. I love that you added that and I'm not on tech talk either because I also feel ancient over there. Okay. Go ahead.

Taylor (18:43.596)
Yeah. Can we pause for just a second? I am so sorry. I've never done this, had to stop, but my cat is being crazy. Let me shut her out of the office.

Caroline (18:56.142)
It's okay, I'll...

Taylor (19:06.946)
I feel so bad, I'm so sorry.

Caroline (19:08.728)
I'm not even worried about it. I'm just writing down the minutes right now of when I can go at it. okay. So I want to hear from you and this ties into the mastermind thing. And I know that you're a huge advocate of this like I am too about why is it important to invest in yourself and to get in the dang room?

Taylor (19:27.572)
yes. Okay. Get in the room. Unfortunately, I feel like this has become such a buzzword now that it's like pretty soon people are going to make fun of us for saying get in the room. It's coming. I prepared for it. However, this is what changed my life. I'll be honest. I say that courses changed my life. It's true. Like my first digital course significantly changed my income. Getting in the room is what changed my life, my mindset, what I thought was

I was just thinking about this this morning. I was listening to Lori Harder's podcast and I had gone to plenty of conferences before, but when I went to her very first Girlfriends in Business, I was like, my God, there are other people who get it and there are other people who think the way I think and their brain never shuts off and like they're doing really interesting things and no one's questioning why I'm doing this. And it shifted.

everything for me. I realized I wasn't the only one. I realized that I wasn't like crazy in a sense, because maybe many of your listeners feel this way. Especially even if you're not a business owner and you're just a remote worker. Like I live in a town where I am probably the only person in the metro area of over a million people who does what I do.

I can go to networking events here all day long and not meet a single person who makes their living off of digital products. And it can feel very, very lonely. And so I like had to learn the hard way that I had to leave where I was, get out of the circles I was in and really look for online. That's where I started, but look for these rooms where you have to pay to access, but

The relationships and the conversations are different and you're never going to find that taking a course. And I'll say that as an advocate of courses, and you're never going to find that watching people's social media content or frankly, even listening to their podcast. It's just because the conversations are unplanned and they only happen in person.

Caroline (21:41.818)
Yeah, I'm glad that you shared that because it's been a game changer for me too. And yes, it has been a hefty investment when it comes to both time and money, but it's been worth it every single time.

Taylor (21:53.55)
absolutely. I've made more money. I've had more clients come from events that I've been to. So even conferences, I'll say, but like masterminds especially, like I just had someone message me this morning that was referred to me by someone I was in a mastermind with. And she was like, hey, I want to build a course in 2025 and I want you to help me. I've never talked to her in my life before.

She was like, this person said you're the person and I watched your social media content and like, I just want you to help me and I heard you have a course coming out in January and like, I just need it. And it's not just about getting business, but that feels really good too.

Caroline (22:33.114)
Yeah, she's ready to whip her credit card out and pay for your services. And that just feels so good. And you got that from the referral from being in that room. And that's just an example of how the cookie can crumble when you start investing in yourself.

Taylor (22:44.822)
Yeah, it's also like, there's the friendship piece. feel like this is, for me, maybe other people feel that they that it's more the referrals, right? Like, I think we all receive in different ways. So maybe for you really is like the referrals and the networking. But I think the friendship piece for me is something that I have always lacked until I started putting myself in masterminds. Because when I did meet people who are business owners,

They were in very different niches or frankly, like we just are not on the same path in life. They're like, if I could make $500 this weekend, I would be happy in my booth, in my market. And like, that's good. I'm happy for you. That's just not the life I'm trying to live. And masterminds, like finding other people who have very, very big goals and are taking very bold steps.

just like me, really changed the game for me.

Caroline (23:43.386)
So what is lighting you up with some of the clients you have that you're working with right now?

Taylor (23:48.642)
Yeah, I'll go back to the small creator thing. I am obsessed with my clients who are what I would say small creators, like 1200 followers, right? Or they have 500 people on their email list. And yet they are making four to five figures a month on their online courses and memberships. And that is like, holy cow, like we replaced a job, right? We got them out of corporate. We

are able to do something that shouldn't be done because their account isn't big enough and really seeing to that confidence piece of like, they're like, people do want to pay for my knowledge and my skills.

Caroline (24:28.698)
So as we wrap up, tell us about your programs you have coming up. How can our listeners find you? All the things.

Taylor (24:36.494)
So I have an online course that launches in January, just after the first of January. It's called Recurring Revenue Academy. This is my course where I teach you how to launch your course or membership, and we do it in six weeks. It's a live course we meet every single week, and you're completely supported. When I started building courses and when I was working with clients, I really noticed there were like a couple of big stumbling blocks. The reason that

really qualified people don't build digital products and that's because time, if you're already successful business owner, you don't have time. And the learning curve is too steep, it's too big. have to learn to launch a course. You have to learn video content creation, email marketing, social media marketing, new tech platforms. The list goes on and on and on. And I was like, this cannot be the way. So.

I started developing my own proprietary framework where using AI and using my proven templates, we can launch your course or community in 25 hours instead of the average 100 hours inside of Recurring Revenue Academy. So I'm very excited. If that is of interest to you and you want to launch a course in six weeks or community, you can visit my website, TaylorRenee.co. I'm sure it's going to be linked in the show notes or send me a DM on Instagram, also TaylorRenee.co.

And I also have a podcast called The Power Table. Caroline has an episode coming out, maybe around the same time as this episode coming out. And that's kind of where I talk about all things online business and life for women who are female founders and kind of everything in between.

Caroline (26:22.394)
Thanks, Taylor.

Taylor (26:23.992)
Thank you so much, Caroline.