In today’s episode I share my honest, no-fluff answer about what it takes to succeed in the online business world.

From setting realistic expectations to building a brand and playing the long game, this episode is packed with insights for anyone considering creating a digital product.

Whether you’re just starting out or scaling your business, this conversation is a must-listen. 

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Join Emily in Elevate: The Mastermind, a 6-month container to uplevel your business, marketing, and life so you can truly have it all. Apply here: https://go.embodiedmarketing.com/elevate 

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READ THE EPISODE TRANSCRIPT

Emily Hirsh: 

Hello everybody. Welcome back to the podcast. Happy first week of 2025. First full week. We have a cold front. I think like the entire United States has a cold front right now and we might get snow in a few days in Austin. It’s freezing outside for us Texans do not know what to do when it’s cold. I know those of you in like Minnesota and up in Canada laugh, but it was like with a wind chill of like 25 or 23 degrees and people are freezing and then they canceled my daughter’s soccer practice, which I think is funny. I’m fine with it. Like, okay, we don’t have to go to soccer or the freezing, but they will practice when it’s 102 degrees out in the summer and they don’t cancel it. So it’s just so funny to me how like different places really are so sensitive to the temperatures that they’re not used to. Like I think that when I lived in California, if it was 102 degrees out, they’d cancel soccer practice, but just so funny. So we have the cold. I love it. I love being able to have my fireplace on.

I mean, I don’t want to have it cold every single day of the year, but it’s rare here for it to be cold. And so I really enjoy, enjoy the cold and being able to have the cozy vibes. So, all right, you guys. So I had a friend ask me this question the other day and I was like, I really want to answer this on the podcast. I of course answered her, but I think it’s a really good conversation that I want to have. So I have a friend who is very new to the online space and has actually, she’s a friend of mine here. She’s seen my business and seeing, you know, what I do and it was considering is considering building a course, building an online business and she sent me a message and she said, how much money could I make creating a digital course? Like is that actually possible to be successful? And I knew and know her situation right now and and she needs to make some money now. And so this was my response. And I think that it is a response very much coming from somebody who has been inside of this industry for a very long time with a very realistic view of this. 

And I do think that digital businesses and having a digital course gets this reputation for being very easy because in theory, It sounds great to be able to build something once and then sell it and not have to trade your time for money. That’s kind of the vision, right? Of having a digital product, whether that’s a course, a membership, something you can sell without having to do the work and trading dollars for hours. Sounds amazing. Is it possible? Yes, but I want to share what I answered, my friend. Because I think that a lot of people have this vision that it’s going to be extremely easy, passive income, and is like a secret. Like if I can build a course, then I’ll just sell it.

So my answer to her was, number one, absolutely. Can you make a lot of money? Absolutely. Can you be successful? But it’s a long game. It won’t happen overnight. So in your situation, you have two things. This is what I told her. You need to make money right now. It’s not going to be through a digital course right away because she doesn’t, she’s, brand she’d be brand new. She’s never a brand. And I said, but simultaneously, as you figure out how to make money right now, you can start to build a brand. Start to build a following. Start to generate leads. Maybe create the course, but don’t have the expectation that you’re going to sell a bunch of them out the gate. Because the reality is in today’s world, there are so many options online. There’s so many digital products. There’s so many courses. There’s so many creators. There’s so much noise that you have to build a connection and trust with potential customers before you’re going to really make sales.

And if you don’t have a brand and you don’t have a following yet then you have to start there and you have to be in this for the long game and so i told her if you are in this because you want to Have something easy. If you want to, if you see this as like, I’ve got kids and I could just make this course and I could sell it and it would be really easy because I wouldn’t trade my time and money. You’re going to be disappointed because that’s not the reality of how it works. You have to put in a lot of energy and a lot of effort in terms of branding, like what is your brand? What are your values? What is the content you’re creating? You have to build a following. You have to generate leads. You have to nurture those leads. You need to be in this for the long game. And if you can do that, if you can do that for six to 12 months consistently, then it will become so much easier for you.

And then yes, you can make sales. People do not understand the value of a warm audience, the value of a brand. And when I say a brand, I don’t mean like your logo and your fonts. I mean a brand that people genuinely want to connect with and you have people consuming your content. You have people on your email list. You have connections of people who are giving you their attention because attention is currency. If you have that, then selling is actually really easy because now all you have to do is connect the dot of solving a problem for people and offering something better than other alternatives out there.

That’s not hard to do. Creating the offer is actually not challenging when you know your ideal customer, but it’s building that following, building that brand. And that takes time. It takes time to build the connections. And I told her it takes time to not just create an offer, but how to talk about the offer how to position the offer, how to know what results the offer is going to get and how you say it and how you communicate it. Is it possible 1,001 million percent? Is it worth it? Yes, because it is such an amazing way to Create a business and sales that’s sustainable and scalable and you know can create so much freedom But it’s not easy and it’s not gonna happen overnight and it’s not gonna happen in a month and it’s not gonna happen in three months It is a process. It is a long game

So what I told this friend was if your problem you’re trying to solve is make money right now, you need to offer some sort of service or one-on-one because people will pay for you to do things for them. People will pay for coaching and one-on-one support more than they will pay for a digital product typically. Because it’s you’re going to go after that higher caliber person who’s like, yep, let me give you the money done. The course, a digital product that is more passive and it maybe has a live component to it. I’m not saying it doesn’t, but is more passive digital product that you create once and then you’re done. It just takes time to build the social proof from it, to build the messaging around it, to build the audience who will trust you enough to buy it. And so I said, simultaneously, you can figure out a way to make money now.

And then simultaneously start building this brand. Start creating content. Start getting clear on who this offer is for. Start creating the offer. You can create the offer. You don’t have to wait. You just don’t go into it with the expectation that you’re going to sell a bunch of them and it’s going to be really easy because what happens is people do that and then they’re disappointed.

And I told her like, you’re asking someone who’s going to give you a very real answer because I’ve seen behind the scenes of this industry for years. And I have seen what goes into creating success. And I’ve also seen the many people not willing to put what is required into their business to create success and to give up because it wasn’t as easy as they were expecting. And I think the expectations is what kills people because i think if you go into something with this expectation and this vision that it’s going to be easy then you’re going to be disappointed and when you’re disappointed it’s going to be a lot easier for you to just throw in the towel and quit if you go into this with the mindset of I know this is going to be a long game. I know this is going to be a commitment and I’m willing to put in and do whatever it takes to be successful and I’m not desperate for this to work overnight.

Those are the people that are always successful. And if that means you have to figure out a way to generate revenue in different ways while you build that out, that’s fine. Most people have done that. I mean, I started out as a virtual assistant offering a service and I’m absolutely not saying like that is the path. No way, but you have to meet the need of making the money you need to make to live while simultaneously building the bigger dream. And I think people try to build the bigger dream and have that meet their need right away and then get themselves into a desperate situation and really understanding Everything you do and the time and the energy and the resources that you put into building your business, it’s for the long game. If you’re not willing to play the long game, then you shouldn’t play the game because business is a long game. It is a snowball effect. What you do today affects you in 90 days and six months and 12 months from now.

And people look at, for example, my success and they want to create this business. They want to create a multi-million dollar business. They want this level of success. What they don’t see is the nine plus years that it took me to get here, the nine years of building an audience that I could launch something tomorrow and make a lot of money because I have an audience, because I have leads, because I have a brand, because I know my ideal customer. The process is simple. It really is. The time and the commitment is what 95% or more people are not willing to put in.

And I think, sadly, many people are sold this very unrealistic expectation of what it takes to be successful because people have courses and people have products and people have ways that they support businesses. That they sell you on this It’s gonna be no work create the course sell it anybody can do it. You don’t even have to be an expert type of Mentality and while I think anybody can do everything that they want and you don’t have to be an expert you can go figure things out obviously with an integrity of what you offer, but it’s not gonna happen overnight and There will be seasons of working hard and challenge and overcoming and perseverance and really putting in the work. And when you do that, then you continue to earn that life of your dreams. But it’s a long game.

So when you look at somebody else’s business, like we do this all the time. When you look at somebody like in this space, Amy Porterfield, Russell Brunson, and you look at the business they’ve built and you think about what they do, you have to take really all of their strategies and what they’re doing with a grain of salt because they have massive email lists and massive audiences. So they can sell a new thing tomorrow and make maybe seven figures. but they’ve been in this game for 20 plus years. All of this to say, I think coming back to the point of figure out how to meet your immediate needs as step one and step two, really go into this business that you are building wherever you’re at right now.

Committed to the long game and committed to the process in the journey and not attached to an end result that has to happen in a certain period of time, which is probably way faster than is real. Because everything worth it takes that time and energy. It takes that effort. It takes the commitment. And if it was easy, everybody would do this. And I think there’s this. There’s this concept that I’ve talked a lot about, about force and ease. And when I say business isn’t easy, I mean that business isn’t where you just get to sit back and everything works and you don’t have to put an effort and you can manifest it. That’s not what I mean. Business is challenging. Like that is the reality. You are going to have seasons and times in business that it’s extremely challenging and most people wouldn’t be able to do it because if everybody could do it, they would. 

However, that doesn’t mean that you have to live a life and run your business from a place of force of like forcing things to work that are just not working of pushing so hard and thinking that’s the only way is force there’s there’s this power versus force concept and it doesn’t mean easy versus hard it’s in a place of It’s challenging, but I’m putting in the effort because I see the bigger picture because it is starting to work because I do feel some moments of momentum, even if it’s not every single day, every single moment. And there’s a power behind it. There’s a passion behind it. There’s a driving purpose. That’s very different than how I used to run business, which is like, ignore feelings, ignore everything and just force it to work because it used to work or because I want it to work this way. So I want to make that clear because you will sometimes hear in my content that I talk about a business with ease. But to me, ease doesn’t actually mean easy. Ease means flow. Ease means power.

Easy, sometimes people would take that as meaning no work, which absolutely is not business. So that’s my long answer short. Well, however you say that of can you make money with a digital product? And I know that a lot of you listening, you may or may not be at the beginning stages of your business, but I think regardless, the kind of moral of the story in this podcast is. Are you in it for the long game? And in those moments where you didn’t hit the goal or something didn’t work how you wanted it to, or you’re disappointed, you’re frustrated, you’re overwhelmed, you’re tired, what’s gonna keep you going? And are you willing to get up the next day and stay committed? Because I can tell you for a fact, there will be many times that you are the only one who has to make the decision to keep going when you maybe are like, this sucks. And the bigger your business gets, the more that’s true. I just talked to a friend who runs a, they do probably six plus million dollars a year and they had a rough year last year and she said, my whole team is looking to me on what to do next and I don’t know. I don’t know what the answer is and I’m I’m not feeling excited. I’m not feeling motivated because we didn’t hit these goals and I’m just sitting in this place of pausing to wait for the answer but I’m still choosing to show up even when I want to walk away so bad.

And I’m still choosing to put in the work. And like that is entrepreneurship. That is business. So sitting with, do you have that driving force behind your business and behind what you’re doing? Because if you do, you’re unstoppable. like This is where my concept of marketing always works. It’s just a matter of when it comes from. Anybody can create any success that they want. And I will go to my grave saying that because I’ve seen it true. I know it’s true. I prove it to myself every day. You can have anything you want. If you have the commitment and the actions and the dedication and the unwavering ability to show up for that thing. That’s it. Like that is the secret, period. And most people don’t have that. All right, you guys. Thank you so much for tuning in. I will talk to you on Thursday.