Yvonne Heimann [00:00:00]
You've got a shelf full of expertise, years of client wins, a track record most people would kill for. And somewhere in the back of your mind, there's this idea: a book, a course, a community that you've been meaning to build. You've been meaning to build it for years. And it's still not built. It's not that you don't know enough, you know plenty.
The missing piece is the packaging. And that's actually the easiest one to fix once someone shows you how to. That tightness that you feel when another person in your space or in your niche launches a product and you think, I could have built that. Yeah, that might be a little bit jealousy, but it's not just jealousy. That's a signal. It's your expertise.
Telling you you are ready. And today's guest built a 100K community starting from a $20 book. She didn't have a massive audience, she had the right people, a warm network, and a strategy for turning what she knew into something people would pay for. She Is A Leader of the podcast for women who are done building everyone else's vision and ready to build their own.
I'm your ha I'm your host, Yvonne Heimann, and this conversation is going to change how you think about what's already in your hands. Lauren Erickson is a marketing strategist and founder of Onward Bound Marketing. She helps established founders package their intellectual property into revenue generating products, courses, communities, roundtables, and more. Lauren, welcome to the show.
Now I'm curious. Because a twenty dollar let's start with the book. Published author over here too. I'm assuming the book was maybe probably self-published.
Lauren Erickson [00:01:58]
It was. It wasn't my book, but it was a client of mine who I work very closely with. And but but yes, I am an author. It's not at all related to my business. But Steve's was all about finance. It it was about as dry of a book as it could get, all about how do people nearing retirement, in retirement, facing retirement, how do you make sure that you don't run out of money? Which I I'm I'm I'm a little bit too young for that conversation.
But I've also I also know that there's never it's never too early to start thinking about that kind of thing. So it's a lot of natural exposure in that kind of conversation. But yes, it was self published.
Yvonne Heimann [00:02:40]
And it with the topic of that specific book in this example, and like it's it's even a double struggle, right? Number one, self-publish. There is a lot of work that goes into self-publishing, into getting it out there. If you do the Amazon self-publish, that twenty dollar book probably makes you makes a what, like three bucks. Books nowadays are not a moneymaker.
It's a marketing asset. It's a social proof asset. But I'm like, even if you don't make it into a New York bestseller, books don't make you money. I'm sorry, anybody that's out there that wants to publish, I'm still actually working on my secondary book next to my ClickUp book. It's not a moneymaker. It it really isn't. It takes a lot to make a book a moneymaker. That's why I was so
So interested in all of this and and this turn of events, because again, I've always said books are a marketing campaign. They are something for you to go out there to use it. Now you took that to a whole new level because turning a book not only into social proof, but into complete community. And then you talking also about taking knowledge, right? Knowledge usually usually means we have to show up, we have to work with the client, we have to be there in one-on-one cults and all the things. And you talk about this whole idea of productizing knowledge. That's where I was like, girl, girl, we gotta taught. So for everybody that's out there right now and listening and is like, my god, great, cool. No Yvi told me I can't make money with my book.
How can they start making money with their knowledge?
Lauren Erickson [00:04:30]
Yeah, and that is kind of the golden question. of course, it's gonna be different for everyone because everyone is starting at a different starting point. But the commonality is that I've seen across all the different folks, people projects that I've worked with all have a lot of the similar, all have very similar components. I've done my best to distill it into four major components, which I call PANN, P A N N. And the first is that you have some kind of proven method, strategy, framework, whatever you do, you're really good at it and you've got a really specific way that you do it. The A is for authority. And that kind of goes back to what you were saying about, you know, having a book is sort of the stamp of approval of credibility of that authority because you have something that only a slight percentage of people say that they're gonna do, but then you actually go on ahead and do it, which is publish the book. That's you're you're kind of in the minority when you do that. So, automatically, whether it's that, whether it's X number of years of experience, whether it's X number of dollars you saved, X number of hours you've saved, whatever, you have every reason to be speaking about the stuff that you know. The second N is there's some kind of niche interest. There's some kind of niche field that you're working in. Maybe you're you may, maybe you're in this really, really specific intersection of one thing versus another.
Lauren Erickson [00:05:53]
Maybe you're someone like Steve, where you find that the folks who are nearing retirement have this big fear about running out of money after spending decades working and saving and funneling away into your 401k. That's a really, really particular kind of problem. The fourth component, the second end, is gonna be a network. And to me, this is kind of the biggest marker for how successful you are likely to be with whatever it is that you're launching. And I'm someone who really prioritizes quality over quantity. If you don't know many people, that's okay. You just need to know the right ones. And like I said, this varies person to person very, very widely. But if if you have just some kind of group of people that like, know, and trust you, whether these be the parents at your kids' school, whether these be people on LinkedIn that you know, readers of yours, faithful newsletter subscribers, you've you've got that pool of folks that you can kind of cash in on, I guess. I hate to make it sound so transactional, but that's gonna be your go-to, folks, because all the statistics will tell you that the most effective form of marketing is going to be word of mouth because it leans on those elements of like, know, and trust. And anytime that you launch anything, the people who are gonna talk about it are gonna be the people that know you and can vouch for you. And so if you've got your friend Joe saying.
Lauren Erickson [00:07:12]
Hey, check out Susan's noob community that she's got going on. Joe is pre-vetting Susan for the other person who doesn't know Susan. So if you can the idea is that if you can use that as your starting point, that will kind of help with that ripple effect. That becomes that wider word of mouth so that so that other people start to know about it, it seeps into your secondary, tertiary circles. It's just that word of mouth is meant to kind of get it going. And then
Based on the kind of interest that you get, assuming things grow and you're you're you've got the systems that are matching that interest, you know, the the systems that will eventually allow you to scale, that's that's where you can start fine-tuning and tweaking and being more intentional about the kind of experience that you're wanting to curate for those folks. So, you know, every every new product, every new launch.
Every brand is gonna have a humble beginning. there's no such thing as being a a sexy beginner. It's it's just not really a thing. So if you can use the power of people, yeah, yeah. Like if you can use the power of word of mouth with people that you know, that's a great place to start. And if you don't know anyone yet, that is your invitation to start chatting with people that you feel like you can resonate with.
Yvonne Heimann [00:08:30]
Now, your clients are established founders, people with like decades of expertise, and they haven't productized yet. I'm like, the idea of productizing our knowledge, it's it's not a new idea, right? we've heard it around, we've done it around, and I find it interesting because there's a lot of framework frameworks out there, right?
Just as you mentioned, you find the right framework for you. So I'm curious, what's actually stopping them? It's it's because we are coming back down to the human, right? I'm like, the framework is out there. It's, or maybe I'm just too expert blind where I'm like, yeah, sure, I don't want to be sitting in one-on-ones every single day and my business being reliant on me, because if I'm sick, my business still needs to go work, is it me, am I in the problem here that I'm just expert blind and it's just so obvious to me? Or is there more behind it? Is there is there human aspect to why they are just not doing it yet?
Lauren Erickson [00:09:43]
I'm sure that there are a lot of different reasons. I'm I I think it depends a lot on where you're at professionally, like in your career timeline. Are you near the beginning, the middle, the end? A lot of the folks that I usually have these kinds of conversations with tend to be in the latter half of their career where they have decades of experience and most of the time they're want the want is to have some kind of legacy behind it. I think that's a really big one, depending on you know, what kind of age they might be. I think part of it is I've spent decades helping people to do X, Y, Z. I'm really tired of doing that. I want to sit at the top with all with everything that I know and have something that's a little more high touch or a little more exclusive or a little more proprietary. And then you've got other folks who it's just, you know, people don't know me that way. This is like a whole new identity hat that I'm trying on where, you know, I I've never done public speaking, but I want to, or I've never written a book, but I want to. And so I I think part of it is that there's this new identity kind of emerging that you haven't really tried on yet that feels a little unfamiliar. And it's also just a fear of self-promotion, I think, too. A very, very common fear that a lot of people have, where they don't want to come across as annoying. They don't they don't want to come across as like they're bugging someone.
Lauren Erickson [00:11:08]
And the way that I always like to combat that is with a few different bullet points, but some of the top ones probably being that it's you it's it's all about how you frame it, how you position it, where it's not about you. It's about the message. You just happen to be the vessel for the message. Because no one knows about X thing more than you. No one's more experienced in Y thing than you. Everyone has had no experience is unique, but how you interpret those experiences, how you interpret the things that you've seen, how you want to poductize everything that you know is going to be very specific and very unique to you. Because if you're leading that experience, if you're the face that is pasted onto the brand that that is pushing out these kinds of products, well, then only you know what you want that to be like for people who might subscribe to access that experience or who might pay to access that experience. and I think if you can reframe it that way where it's not about me, it's about the message. I just happen to be the messenger. That's a really healthy reframe. Another way of thinking about it too is is that there is a cost to not knowing something. There's a cost to not being exposed to something. And most of those somethings can be grouped into three different buckets. You've got time, you've got money, and you've got relationships. Those are kind of like the three common ones. And there's always one or a combination of those things that are at stake.
Lauren Erickson [00:12:30]
There's there's some challenge around that. I don't have enough money. I don't have enough time. I don't know enough people, one thing or another. it there's always a cost to not knowing something. So that's another way to reframe it. There's always, you know, there are so many statistics out there that you can dig up that are that support whatever it is that you're wanting to build. I there's there's so many subjective components when it comes to people who are maybe fearful of doing it or don't do it for one reason or another. But I think those are probably some of the more common ones that I've seen. But like I said, it's a lot of the folks who are in the latter half of their career who want to do something that's a little bit bigger than themselves, but don't know how to do it. They've funneled themselves into one thing for so long, 20 years, 30 years, 40 years. And it's like this is all I know how to do. I'm really good at it. Now I want to do something about it and get creative and have some fun with it. I I just I don't know how to do that. Either the tech is ahead of me, I just I don't have the manpower to do it, one thing or another. And that's that's where it gets really fun for me because I get to borrow what they know, plug it into something new and high tech in very 21st century, that benefits everyone else. So it's it it's it's a combination of things, but I I think that's about the cleanest way I've learned to distill everything.
Yvonne Heimann [00:13:48]
And we are about to get into the part. Many get wrong when they start to try to build this for the first time. So everybody listening or watching, you remember Yvi's got the funniest faces. You should watch them on YouTube. Stay with us here. So we are talking the the mid to high, so not necessarily the beginners, right? We have our pro process down, we have our our framework down.
We have an established business we want to productize now, right? So when we go after our established founders, after our leaders, right? The everyday looks like something probably to the my god, I don't have time for this, right? They they have the idea of wanting some more time, leaving a legacy behind, not
Doing it how they have done in the past. And chances are, you tell me, I'm assuming there is a limiting belief coming out, there is a pushback coming up where they are like, my calendar is full. I don't have any extra hours to do this. So how do you implement that in and every day when you get the pushback of?
I don't have any extra hours. I have a full calendar. How the heck how the heck are we gonna do this?
Lauren Erickson [00:15:15]
Yeah, and that's actually a really easy question to answer. And it's firstly outsource it. If you have the money, definitely outsource it. Hire me. I'm your girl, or whoever else who does what I do. Doesn't have to be me. And the other thing that I would say too is that the great thing about this new channel that's out there that is digital products is that it's so it's so scale scale friendly. Where you've got courses, let's say, or you've got a webinar series, let's say, or you've got you know, an online course or something. The great thing about a lot of those different containers, I guess is what I'll call them, is that a lot of them can run without you. Justin Welsh is a really, really good example of this. And I love what he what he puts out there. but he's all about building a lifestyle brand. He's he's all about, you know, I don't want to give up my time, my energy, and have this transactional relationship with the work that I have. And with that mindset, he was able to build like an eight million dollar solo brand. He doesn't have any employees or contractors as far as I'm aware. And he does this through newsletters, through courses, through these downloadable DIY type type of resources, because all he has to do is promote it to the audience that he has built one way or another. And and and they pay for it. It's self-led. It tracks their own progress. It's up to them how engaged they want to be with this product.
Lauren Erickson [00:16:33]
But with those kinds of products, whether it be a a course or, you know, one thing or another, an ebook, a guide, something, is that the work is going to be a lot more front-loaded. But if you're willing to either sacrifice that time or outsource that that type of manpower, you know, to someone like me or whoever else, that's going to give you that time back. And simultaneously, digital products, there's a lot of stats out there that show that the, the time that it takes to see a return on that investment is gonna be way higher because the the overhead is so minimal. You might pay a subscription, you know, or you know, pay for, you know, the next tier up or something. But, you know, it it's all on your computer. You can access it anywhere. It's just you know, it's it if you can find I think the trick, the sweet spot is figuring out what is your message, who's your audience.
What is the best channel for that audience to receive that message? And that kind of helps inform what should my ideal container be with my known constrictions. and you know, for something like a course, just because that's the first thing that keeps coming back to mind. You only have to build it once. And then after that, you just get to sell, sell, sell. It's it's like a book, you know? You write it the first time, you publish it, and then it's out there forever, you know? It's it's pretty hard to unmake a book. very similar type of mindset.
Yvonne Heimann [00:17:55]
Now, I do want to push push on something just a little bit. You work with high trust high trust industries, right? Finance, law, nonprofit, those kind of people. Now, I perceive those audiences as notoriously skeptical of anything that feels like content. How do you sell a digital product to somebody who might think courses are for beginners?
Lauren Erickson [00:18:20]
I think that's probably the difference between I it almost sounds like that might happen if someone were trying to sell a product that matched a personal brand through a B2B type of brand, maybe. a good example of this is I was talking with a law firm and they had a this really crazy specific niche that they were in. I don't I don't even know how to describe it, but it's this really, really, really particular area of law. And as because of how niche they are, they get to charge the big bucks. But not everyone can afford to hire them. But a lot of the folks that they worked with, which were other law firms, had their own in-house legal counsel. So what this particular business did was they built a toolkit that had all of their information built into it of, hey, here's how to navigate this very particular specialized niche issue. Buy it at this flat fee.
And then you can adopt it into your own internal systems. You're basically purchasing like an IP package, kind of. and that's that's a good example of how you can keep something like that, you know, corporate enough where it doesn't seem like you're a sellout or that you're getting off topic or that what you're promoting is really random. Because if it's something that is truly a professional need.
All you gotta do is package it and sell it to the people that are in your network. But that is a good point though, of you know, how do you make yourself not cheapen, you know, with use of a word like content or, you know, with with something like that. But it's these are these are the best kind of challenges. It's just how do we how do we find the unicorn in all of this, really?
Yvonne Heimann [00:20:07]
And it's been been interesting just through my collaborations too and seeing more back end of corporate. I'm like, I didn't grow up in corporate, right? So there's a lot of things that I just learned when working with ClickUp or other companies where when I'm being brought on and I'm pseudo employee, suddenly seeing all of their resources and looking at their educational portal, for example, too, where it's like corporate training to us. I'm like, it's nothing else than a course and a video and a presentation, however long, however big, however intricate or quick and easy it is. They just don't call it course. So it's that's one of the reasons why I wanted to bring it up, where it's like.
Yeah, great for us digital marketers or anybody that is kind of like running a digital business. I'm like, yeah, it's it's a course, it's it's self education, it's a download, whatever it is. Corporate works the same way, you just use a little bit a different language. So it's it's been interesting seeing corporate educational panel and support resources they have.
Lauren Erickson [00:21:25]
Yeah, you just use use what they have. If they're corporate, use their lingo. If they're a personal brand, use that ling. It's just so much of marketing is just positioning. Like how are we? It's just psychol controlled psychology. It's like, how are we manipulating this in a beneficial way for people?
Yvonne Heimann [00:21:40]
And it's it's really just taking walls down. That's that's it for me, where it's like, okay, who are we really talking to? How are they processing information? What is the language they are being used to? funny, funny thing talking about language, right? for me, one of the easiest examples to show that is the woods who I am.
I think a lot of us know CRM. And when I think of a CRM, it's a full on client retention management system. It's not just a database, it's not just information. It follows up. It reminds you when you have a call with them. It schedules. It does a whole bunch of stuff. Yeah, but as of 2026, CRM is being used for so many different things where it's like.
Okay, you want a CRM? Can you please tell me what you perceive a CRM to be? And selling our offers is the same way, right? Is it a course in the packaging? Yes. But how specifically do they name it actually to not get that perception of, yeah, it's just an online training, it's just content. No, I'm like corporate training has been around for how long?
And really just putting putting a nice bow on top of it. I'm like if somebody speaks Russian to me, my mom learned Russian in school, but I'm gonna be standing there and like the in headlights and not understand what you're talking about. So really nicely packaging it. It's it is possible in any niche in in B2C, in B2B, in any which way and any which niche.
It's never really an issue. And with anybody listening or watching right now, that's like, okay, okay, you two, I get it. I get it. I'm done talking myself out of this. This fits. I can do this no matter how crazy my niche might be or my idea. We can package this right. Where can she get started? So, right, we can talk all day long. We can say this is all possible, you just need to package right.
I always start, not start, end the episode with a call to action, with sending my audience off with doing something. So what should they do this week? You ladies, you listen to the episode, you know you can do this, no matter what your business is, no matter what your knowledge is, no matter what your reach is right now, you can package this. So where do they start?
Lauren Erickson [00:24:30]
Yeah, great question. assuming you already have some kind of inkling of what it is that you want to package and how you want to package it, I would test that idea. I don't think there's any use in building something if you're not sure it's gonna work. So the mess the most efficient way of combating that would be to go to those people in your network, in your audience, those people, I I would say probably the the first ring of folks, professional people in your contact, Rolo Ducks, if people still use those, and say, hey.
I've got this idea. Hear me out. I'm thinking about doing this thing in this way for this kind of person to fix this kind of problem. If I made that, what would you pay for it? Would you buy it? Would you rec would you feel comfortable or confident recommending it to someone? If you get yes, track those responses. It could be through a CRM, it could be through a survey, it could be just you jotting it down in your notebook somewhere. But if you can keep that contact information and their feedback, then by the time that you do build, the first phase of whatever that is. And it doesn't need to be perfect. It just needs to be made. Then you can go back to them and say, hey, you remember that thing that you said that you would be interested in while I built it. I would love for you to kind of be the first phase of people that pop in here because I'd love to get your feedback and and help grow this thing with me. So now you've got these people that, you know, naturally like, know and trust you because they're in your first ring of contacts. You've got them in here. So they're able to speak on the experience and they like, know and trust you enough.
Lauren Erickson [00:25:58]
That ideally they would be confident sharing that experience with other people. But if they're not, and they're not willing to share that experience with other people, you have to figure out okay, well, what's falling short? What's going on? What am I not delivering on that you were expecting? And those are the really good conversations that you can have that open up a lot of a lot of constructive feedback. And the great thing is that once you it's you're always trading up in business and entrepreneurship. You're starting out with this very modest, maybe not so great product. And then with the feedback that you get and the more people that come in, it's so much easier. It it it validates every effort for you to work on that thing even more to get to a point where maybe you are a Justin Welsh and you have an $8 million solo brand and you can run these things on autopilot and create an experience that actually means something to people. I'm I'm a big proponent of just asking if I built it, would you come? And if they say yes, well then
That's that's your permission slip. Go have fun. Try it out, see what works. And if it doesn't, well, I I would hope that you would be humble enough to figure out what went wrong and maybe try again someday. But I I would say talk to the people in your first ring of contacts and see what they say.
Yvonne Heimann [00:27:05]
And you just heard it from Lauren and you don't need more expertise. You don't need to be a professional learner. You simply need a container for the expertise you already have. So if you've been sitting on an idea, a community, a course, a round table, whatever it is, this is your sign to stop waiting. And forward this episode to a woman in your life who's been meaning to build something. She needs to hear this today.
And I'll see you in the next episode. Lauren, thank you so much for joining me today.
Lauren Erickson [00:27:35]
Thank you so much. I loved our conversation. Appreciate it.