If you’re a service based business owner, I’m going to guess that you might feel a little bit tapped out on time. As a service based business, you know that time is money, you have to show up to make the sale, and you have to show up to deliver what you promised as a service. It starts to feel like you’re on a hamster wheel. I get it. That’s why I’m so passionate about teaching creative business owners what I do: how to turn your service into a digital product to sell online. Today, we’re going to talk about how to take what you do every single day and turn it into a digital product so that you can start earning passive income, fast.  

How I took my service offering and turned into into a digital product…

Before I share the practical tips, I want to share my story as a digital product creator. Way back in 2011, I started my new business as a wedding planner. I literally just woke up one day and decided it was going to happen. Not joking. I spent a lot of time figuring out how to make it all work – the marketing, the client experience, how to be a wedding planner. All of it. And it was overwhelming in so many ways.

As I began to grow and figured out what worked for my clients, I began to create a welcome pack and other PDF documents I could send to clients that would help with my customer experience. Around 2014, I began blogging. I shared about my weddings but also about the systems and my backend processes that were helping me grow. Early on, I talked about my PDF welcome guide, pinned it to Pinterest, and kind of forgot about it. Before I knew it, I had thousands of hits to my blog about this welcome packet and got emails asking if I would make other business owners one, too. 

At that moment, I knew everything was about to change. 

That was the first time I realized that I could take something I did every day and create a digital product. I created a product, did a webinar, and setup the shop. During a family fun day, I was riding in the car and not even thinking about it at all when my phone started making “cha-ching” sounds. I MADE money. With my family. Without even thinking twice about it. The feeling was incredible. 

How can you do the same thing? How can you take YOUR service and create a digital product from it? 

#1: Look at the deliverables you hand to clients. 

The first thing to do is to look at what you already hand your clients. Whether you work business to business or business to consumer, there’s a deliverable that you have. For example, let’s say you’re a Disney travel agent. If somebody hires you, you are probably sharing with them where to say where to eat, you’re creating itineraries for them, you’re showing them exactly what parks to hit. You really have created this wonderful service that you can help your one on one clients. While you may not be able to give all of that way, what can you pull from that? Maybe you can share an itinerary about how to hit a certain number of rides in Magic Kingdom. 

That’s an example of a deliverable that you can easily pull out of your service that’s already done. This is something you can quickly set up with a link to purchase and sell it to somebody as a digital product. 

#2: Think about what you can create that would lead people into your services. 

If you don’t have a deliverable like that, think about what sort of deliverable could you create that could help people better lead into your services. Here’s an example… Last time I launched a product, I called on my followers to chat with me on my sales page. I wanted to know what they do and I would help them come up with a digital product.

Someone told me that she runs a Princess party business where she has real actors come in and play the princesses. She was stumped about how to offer a digital product from that service. Understandably so. As we talked through what her customers do for their parties, we realized that a lot of them have the invitations and details before they hire her. People definitely BUY those things and we decided that it was the perfect lead into her business. Imagine if she had invitations on Etsy that people are downloading for their kids’ parties because that’s something parents look for every day. She makes a sale (passive income already!) and then, she can deliver them via email. From there, she can pitch her actual service with the princesses.  

That’s how you use a digital product to lead into your main service offering. 

Remember, creating digital products can (and should) complement your service based business. It doesn’t have to take over – or take away – from your service offerings. It’s about bringing more freedom to your life and your business finances. 

So to recap: think about what deliverables you already have that you’re handing over to your clients right now. Consider what you have on hand that you can convert into a digital product that wouldn’t have to be tweaked or adjusted for every new person who used it. Don’t forget to think about what else might exist that can help you push customers towards your bigger service offering. By reviewing these options, you can start to get off that hamster wheel and get some of your time, life, and energy back… all because of digital products.