Why Anyone Can Make Money from Digital Products, Expert or Not

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In this episode, Dan Henry will help you clarify whether you should consider yourself an “Expert” or “Non-Expert” in your field of knowledge and how you can leverage your skills to create your own digital business!

People like to learn from other people… and “other people” don’t always have to be at the very top or be the very best! The knowledge someone has or can teach others is relative to the person who needs to know that information and at what level they need your help. You only need to know a little more than your audience to be considered an expert in their eyes!

In this episode, Dan is going to cover:

• What defines an “Expert” vs. a “Non-Expert”
• Why knowledge is “relative” depending on who’s teaching and who’s learning
• How NOT being an expert might actually be doing you favor
• What to do if you aren’t an expert in anything, but still want to start your own digital product business

No matter how little you feel educated on a topic, even if it only changes five lives, it’s worth something! Because if you can help five people, you can help 50. And if you can help 50, you can help hundreds.

Even if you know nothing at all, there is still a method of making money and profiting from others’ knowledge!

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— TRANSCRIPT —

Hi, everybody in today's episode, we're going to talk about why anyone can make money and profit from digital products, expert or not.

All right, everybody. You're probably wondering at this point cause you know, you've heard me talk about digital products, online courses, coaching, and you might be thinking, well, can I do that? Can I profit from that? Will, will people even pay me? Am I allowed to do it? You know, all these things now, unless you're like a lawyer or a doctor or something like that. And it is legally required for you to have a degree in order to operate on somebody's brain with those rare exceptions. The answer is yes, anybody can profit from digital products. Now, if you're lazy and you're entitled and you don't want to do the work and you give up at the first sign of adversity, well then you're not going to make money. Anything. So not everybody can do it because some people frankly are lazy. But for those of us that aren't lazy for those of us that are willing to put in the work.

Yes, you can profit. Now, here are two separate categories that I like to put things in. I like to put them in expert and non-expert now experts can make money from digital products. So can non-experts. So let's first talk about experts and then we'll talk about non-experts. Now first, I'd like to talk about what defines an expert. Now you have to understand that, you know, perception, it's all about perception. It's all about, it's relative. Like if, if you were the last person on earth, right? And you knew nothing about growing crops like you had to grow your own food and you knew nothing about it. And you're literally the last human being on earth. And then you find another human being and you find you're not alone. There are two people left on earth and let's say that person was not a professional farmer, but you know, one time he grew some, some potatoes and some basil and some tomatoes in his backyard garden, one season for fun and it worked out and he ate them in.

Great. Definitely what you would not consider an expert, right? You would think like some sort of professional farmer or professional gardener would be an expert, but at that moment to you, the person who knows absolutely nothing about growing food to you, that is the number one expert in the world on growing food, because it is the number one expert, right? Cause there are only two people left on the planet. Now, why am I telling you this? Well, here's the thing people like to learn from other people and other people don't always have to be at the very top. The very best. If you remember, in one of my previous episodes, I talked about being in college and how I made a hundred bucks where this guy asked me to teach him how to use his home recording gear. Now here's the thing I was going to school for audio engineering.

I had just taken maybe a few weeks earlier, intro to recording. So my knowledge, I was a student, my knowledge on the matter, it was very minimal compared to somebody who's like Bob rock or somebody who's like a professional, you know, music producer. But to that man, I knew far more than he did and what he wanted to know. I knew, and the guy did not want to go to college for that. I don't even think he wanted to buy a book on it. He just wanted to work with somebody that knew a little bit more than him, so he could get to the next level. And for him, it was just knowing what microphone to choose. And how do you do the basics of how to use his home recording gear? And I knew that I knew how to use home recording gear because I had been doing it for a while.

You know, I learned off YouTube and stuff like that, but then I decided I got so interested in it. I decided to go to college for it. And I was only in college one semester when I met this guy and you know, again, I met him in a guitar center. I gave him some free advice on microphones. He was impressed. So he paid me to come to his house. Now, what I don't believe I mentioned was that I started paying my way through college by offering sessions online, over screen-share where I would teach people. And I charged 50 bucks an hour. I remember I advertise it on Craigslist. I said, Hey, do you have trouble with your home recording software? And by the way, the software that they were having trouble with was called pro tools. And it's a very popular software for producing music.

And I see, you know, do you have problems with your, with your ProTools software? And I had this website called the pro tools helpline and they could book a time and I would help them with their software. And here's the thing. There is a certification for pro tools called pro tools operator and it costs thousands of dollars. And it, you know, you go through all this stuff and you get this certification and it allows you to work in certain studios in New York and Miami and Chicago and, and whatnot because you're a certified pro tools operator and they hire a certified pro ProTools operators to operate pro tools in the studio. But I didn't have that certification. I had just read books, watched some YouTube videos, played with it myself and I learned enough to produce my own music at home.

Was that music going to be on the radio next week? No, but I knew way more than somebody who, you know, sat down for the very first time with their guitar and decided I want to record music. And I ended up making like thousands of dollars per week doing that and paid my way through college. Because again, was I an expert in, in if you looked at it like in the music industry? No, I was, I was entry-level at best, but to that guy, to the people that were just, you know, 40 something-year-old dudes at home who wanted to record a song, I was, I was like Einstein. And that's the thing is, you only need to know a little bit more than your audience to be considered an expert in their eyes. And at the same time, think about this, if you want to grow a restaurant, right?

Like, let's say you want to start a restaurant and you want to grow that restaurant and you want to have a successful restaurant business. Now let's say you had the option to choose from two people to teach you. One guy was a neighbor who lived down the street, who owns six restaurants in town and was very successful at it. Or maybe he owned two restaurants, whatever. And he was successful at it versus the CEO of subway or the CEO of Papa John's or whatever. Right. Who would you rather learn from now? A lot of people, probably the majority of people would say they wanted to learn from the neighbor that had a few successful restaurants. Why is that? Why is that phenomenon? You know, why did, why wouldn't you want to learn from the CEO of a, of the number one restaurant, you know, the CEO of Panera or something it's because when somebody is that high up, it's hard to relate to them and it can be intimidating.

So people look all the time for people that are closer to where they are. Right? Because think about it. Think about, you know, somebody like Jeff Bezos who started Amazon in an office and now years and years, decades later, he's got this huge company, you know, some would think that maybe he might forget some of the things he went through in the beginning. I mean, maybe he doesn't, I can't speak for Mr. Bezos, but the point is the perception is there that when you get to a certain level, you may now be out of reach, or maybe you just don't remember what it was like to be where your prospect is and whether that's true or not. It doesn't matter. People are comfortable with people, they can relate to more. And that's the thing is you just have to know a little bit more than the next guy and that not only is that enough, but that's attractive.

That is attractive because people feel like you're down to earth and they relate to you and they want to buy from you. How many times have you seen somebody say, “Hey, man, you're really good at this thing. You know, I'll pay you to teach me.” And then the guy's like, you know, Oh, well, well, you know, I don't, you know, I'm not really an expert. I don't know. It's okay. It's okay. You know, I remember I had a friend once in college who she was really, really, really, really good at skateboarding. And, you know, she wasn't a professional. She didn't, she just would skateboard to college every day. And so I remember one time I was sitting at one of the, you know, the cafes at the campus and somebody offered to pay her 20 bucks to give him skateboarding lessons. And I remember what she said.

She's like, I'm no Tony Hawk. I just skateboard to college every day. And he's like, I don't care. Every time I get on a skateboard, I bust my rear end. Like, do you think you could make it where I didn't fall every time she says, well, yeah. And he goes, well, then I'll pay you. You know, I remember that conversation like it was yesterday. Cause it really stuck out to me. So that's the thing you have to understand is, is if you know anything that somebody else would like to know, no matter how small, right. It could be something like using Microsoft, Excel, something tiny, they consider you an expert and you can profit from that knowledge and think about this. Our formal education system is behind. So if you have knowledge that can help change the world, even in a small way, you can do your part to change the world.

Because even if you change five lives, right, if you change five lives, you’ve still done your part. But when you can change five lives, you can change 50. And when you change 50, you can shave 500. And when you change 500, you can change 5,000. Currently, we have over 15,000 customers at my company. And you know, when I think about it, it all started with me helping like one guy and then another guy, and then a girl, and then a couple who wanted to do this so that, you know, and then it just spires, skyrocket, skyrocket into what it is today. And so, you know, everybody's always talking about, I want to change the world. Well, what better way to change the world than to pass on knowledge, even if it's tiny, even if you can help hundreds of people stop busting their tailbone on a skateboard, something as simple as that, it is still doing your part to change the world.

All right. So now let's talk about non-experts. So non-experts are somebody who either has knowledge that no one cares about. Like, like let's say you, you know you know, you know how to, I don't know do something, so something really silly, like light your farts on fire or something. And I don't know if you could sell that though, to be quite honest with you. I've seen some pretty crazy offers do really well. So then that may actually do well, but if you have knowledge that just nobody is interested and they just don't want to learn, or maybe you're just not an expert. Anything, maybe you just, nobody ever taught you anything or you just went through life. And did you think, and I would challenge that. I would say you probably do know something that other people, you know wants it, but let's just say that you didn't, you can still profit from the digital education business because you can sell other people's knowledge, take a look at colleges take, do you think colleges know a lot about what their professors teach?

No, but they know a lot about organizing and you know, you know, organizing the school and getting admissions to that school. I mean, I'm sure a lot of the administration may have a background in a lot of what the professors teach, but ultimately their background is selling knowledge, right? Look at Masterclass.com. How many times have you seen an ad from a masterclass where you see like a screenwriter or an actor or somebody and they're holding a class? Well, the people, whoever they are behind masterclass.com, I would highly doubt that they're an expert in every single thing that they're that their professors teach. You know, they're not screenwriters and actors and, and, and all that. They get these celebrities to teach something and they share revenue take a look, but you don't have to always share revenue. Cause take a look at Andrew Warner from Mixergy. What he does is he interviews top business people and then he sells access to the interviews.

And so again, there is a way to profit from us. Others' knowledge. For instance, you let's say that you were into you know, we'll just use something completely random, like dog training, right? Let's say you had a dog and you were in stock training, right. But you know, you weren't a dog trainer. In fact, you were struggling with your own dog. And so that inspired you to interview 10 of the top dog trainers or the top authors on dog training books or whatever. And you interview them and you get their advice on different aspects of dog training. And you tell the story of how you struggled with your dog and you struggled with training him. So you went out and you interviewed or whatever, where you paid for 10, one-hour consultations. And from those consultations or those interviews, you learned all this valuable stuff that helped you with your dog.

And then you sell access to that bundle of interviews. I mean, that is a digital product where you are selling others’ knowledge and people do that every day. And there’s not only anything wrong with that, but that's great because a lot of these people out here who are experts have zero intention of sharing their knowledge or, or, you know, promoting it, they just know stuff. And so you go out and you interview them and you get that knowledge and then you share it and you saw access to it because you took the time to curate that, put it nice and neat, package it up in an easily digestible format and sell it. Same thing, colleges too. I mean, think about knocking on random professor's doors and saying, Hey professor, can you teach me a physics? Right? That would be so hard to do. And so disorganized to actually learn anything.

What the college does is it provides the facilities for you to learn and it organizes the classes. And for all that work, you pay the college a fee and you know, the professors get a cut and all that same thing. But with, you know, the online world, you can just interview people and sell access to those interviews and you would market it the same way as you would your own knowledge. You just make it very clear that you're selling access to other people's knowledge. That's it. And again, if you want to know more about this and you want to get a deeper dive into this, you can grab a copy of my book, digital millionaire secrets, it's free. You just got to pay for shipping, got to pay the postman. And I'll send you a copy for free. I'll leave a link to how you can get that in the show notes. So that said in the next episode, we are going to talk about how to profit from a digital product before you create it. And even if you have no budget and no ads, I'm going to be going over how I did a hundred thousand, my very first month doing this. I'll be walking you through that in the next episode. So make sure that you tune in for that. See you guys soon.