210: Offering an online product with Joslin Romphf Dennis

When you are sitting on something good and valuable for other music teachers — what do you do? Turn it into a digital product of course. And that example what Joslin Romphf Dennis has done. If you recognize her name, that’s because she was a guest in episode 184! I’m this episode, we discuss the next level of Joslin’s online expansion and so much more. One theme that runs through this episode is that doneis better than perfect. It’s a hard pill to swallow because if you’re like Joslin then it’s probably not how you usually do stuff. Even with her new  digital download — Joslin’s didn’t think she would be ready until now or even next month  because she felt that there's so much work to do. So instead of doing busy work and waiting until everything was perfect, she took the advice of a trusted advisor to just launch it and then if stuff needs to be fixed then you fix it. So she launched. And it’s was good. It is still good! What Joslin has created is called the singer's oral skills drill book for teachers. It is full of examples, musical examples written out for singing teachers specifically to help their students prepare their ear training skills. Joslin modeled this after the royal conservatory of music syllabus for vocal practical exams, but it is 100% usable for preparing your students for choral auditions and other non-exam based opportunities. This digital product was built toremedu one of those things that tends to fall through the cracks a little bit. Everyone seems busy working on repertoire and vocal technique and learning songs and learning assignments and things like that so that ear training tends to fall away unless you actually have something to prepare for like an exam! Joslin built all of the levels from grade one to grade 10. Each level has level specific examples according to what is required by the RCM syllabus. When this whole idea started, she was thinking “I'm the only teacher out there that doesn't want to build a dominant seventh chord in my head” and other material she would need to use. And this personal guide was started … and then what started to happen when Joslin was telling people about it and they were like, “can I have a copy?” If you have created something that you use regularly in your studio, talk about it with your peers, you might be sitting on a diamond and not even know it. Another thing is that Joslin didn’t set out to create this product, she was seeking an existing resource and there just wasn’t anything in the market that for her needs. Think about it —  How much easier is it for you to just have a sheet where there's like 80 Iterations of dominant and diminished seventh chords and you can just pick from them? And so Joslin started to sort of just disseminate her little examples in little photocopies, because other teachers needed what she had created. Joslin was 100% her first customer for this resource. And because she was confident in it, she was able to showcase it in such a way that other teachers wanted it. And now, she can sell it with even greater confidence to even more teachers who will use it for the benefit of their students. This digital product is an entirely new vertical for Joslin’s business — providing something that is for other teachers and there is so much power in that! As a teacher you can put yourself squarely in their seat. You understand everything every nuance because you are them. Seriously, the best person for you to be creating, a course, a download, a workshop or whatever it is is you x number of months or years ago. Joslin loves this because “it's nice to be a contributor to the industry”. Some of the nuances with creating a digital product: Not infringing on others’ copyrights Protecting your Intellectual Property Collecting and remitting taxes Staying in love with the product through the messy middle Tackling the internal and external nay-sayers Acknowledging your journey What kept her going? “This is something that people need because I needed it so badly and it did not exist.” So… the selling side and the delivery side. Joslin went with the built in functionality of her SquareSpace site to sell and deliver. You could use any number of tools for this — and I would be thrilled to talk about those with you. Book a call at https://callwithJaime.com Joslin has several versions of her product — individual levels, bundled levels, everything and other combinations. She wanted to make sure her customers got what they wanted and needed and didn’t have digital dust collecting on irrelevant files! Joslin isn’t done. She has some research to do for where and how to distribute these next. That’s phase 2. She had created the product and is validating it by getting sales. Passive sales - waking up in the morning and saying, oh, I got new money overnight! Now it’s more marketing. More publicity. More validation. And the iterate. Improve deliver ability and conversion rate. The digital product space is such an exciting vertical to be in right now, because there is always somebody new who's going to find your product and then if we can make it so that you are part of their core system and your product becomes something that they rely on, then you have a customer for life.  And as much as teaching the student is what every single listener is all about, making sure that their students are successful as a business owner, there can be more verticals, you don't just have to offer lessons to students, that's why music studio or musics stores the stores that sell the instruments often bring in teachers because they're adding a second vertical. Teachers who have an independent studio where the primary business — when you add a new vertical that’s when we go from being a teacher to being a business owner. Joslin shared her business coach - Michelle Markwart Deveaux and the Speakeasy Cooperative as part of her support system and success journey. We don’t do this stuff in a vacuum. We are better in community and conversation. Remember that, always. And you might pop into and out of communities throughout the process — some tech focused ones to get the product created, some marketing focused ones to launch, some industry specific and some general business. They all have a place and value. If you are a music teacher and you have an idea for something like this and you make sure that it's not something that has necessarily been done to death or is a saturated item that you can literally do whatever you want. You don't need permission from anybody. You don't need anybody to tell you that it's okay to do it. You just have to figure out how to do it. Don't be afraid to ask for help! Here are a few ways to connect with Jaime and Joslin: Jaime on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/ Joslin on Instagram: https://instagram.com/jrdvoicestudio Joslin’s digital product: http://jrdvoicestudio.com/the-singers-aural-skills-drill-book-for-teachers It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.