Pay to Play – The 3 Ways to Build Product for Your Audience

Levels of Experience

Experience is one of the world’s most valuable assets (provided it is presented and monetized properly).

What do we mean when we say “experience?”

Simply put – the ability to take hard-fought lessons and knowledge, and through sharing it, prevent and protect an audience from having to learn it all the hard way.

That’s at the heart of everything that coaching and consulting is, right?

Whether it’s showing your market how to prevent pain, avoid loss, achieve happiness (or an idea of happiness), accrue wealth, strengthen relationships, fix mindset issues, reprogram past trauma, circumvent FUTURE trauma…

The list could literally go on forever.

Turning that experience into a product that can be consumed by your target market is what takes it from a hobby to a self-sustaining business.

But, how do we make that turn. There are three ways to “productize” and monetize experience. Let’s break them down.

Getting Paid for Your Time

This is the most common. It’s the way that the vast majority of humans on this planet turn their experience into money (think of anyone who is currently working a 9-5 job).

If you’ve ever freelanced or done “spec work” on contract, you likely billed based on how many hours the project took to complete. You also likely collected your fee after the services had been rendered. This is what we call “trading time for money.”

It’s a bad trade. Here’s why.

The perceived value of a service is at it’s peak just before it’s rendered. Meaning that the time model is always working against you. Your time is actually at its least valuable right after you’ve given it to someone else. Nevertheless, many service-based entrepreneurs still choose to monetize using this method.

It’s easy to get started with, but almost absurdly difficult to scale.

Getting Paid for Your Process

The second model of monetizing experience is by creating a pre-defined process that works repeatedly. The byproduct of the process naturally generates demand for the process. This means that you can charge an awful lot of money for it, as long as it is proven to work consistently.

There is more nuance in this model, but this is the preferred growth model for coaches and consultants. Typically, they pair their guarded process for producing results with some form of advisory and then sell it as a package. It’s faster to build with, easier for the client, and predictably effective.

You should never charge someone for a process that you haven’t personally tested, vetted, and successfully implemented for others.

It sucks to hear this, but if you’re a pro (yet), earn your expertise by charging as little as possible until you actually know you’re good.

Getting Paid for An Outcome

The most confident and experienced experts use a third model for monetizing their experience – and that is trading money for an outcome. This is usually a payment model that’s tied to upside, or even equity.

In other words, “If I get you X result, you pay me this percentage of the ‘fruit’ produced.”

This model is at its most potent when it is paired with the process model, because then you actually get paid two ways. Once for the process that produces the result… and once when the result actually is achieved.

Example:

• You build eCommerce stores for your clients using a repeatable process that you’ve honed and developed for years – you charge the client $25K up front for the build. Then, say they perform at above 100% per year – you take a percentage of the upside.

Again, we do not recommend this if you are not an absolute expert at what you do, or if you’re not confident that your process can consistently get clients the results that you say it can. This will go backwards on you in a HURRY if you don’t possess the actual expertise to pay it off.

However, if you DO have the expertise, this is a fantastic way to turn your business into an absolute juggernaut.