Angela Bowman:
Welcome to Women in WP, a bi-monthly podcast about women who blog, design, develop and more in the WordPress community. Hi, welcome to Women in WP. I’m Angela Bowman.
Tracy Apps:
And I’m Tracy Apps.
Angela Bowman:
Our guest today is Rene Morozovich. Rene has her own business called Scenic Route Digital, which helps service providers create digital products. She also hosts the podcast, Your First Digital Product at yfdp.show. We’ll put that in the show notes. Welcome, Rene.
Rene Morozowich:
Hey, how are you both?
Angela Bowman:
Great. We’re so happy to have you back. So Rene was on a previous episode where we asked our usual question, which is how did you get into WordPress? So we’ll put her past episode into the show notes. But today, as we reboot the Women in WP Podcast, we’re interviewing other women in the WordPress space who have their own podcasts. So our question for you is, how did you get into podcasting, and tell us all about it.
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah, for sure. So I’m not really into podcasts myself. I know that’s terrible to say, and I feel like you have to be in the podcast to have a podcast, so that’s a weird thing. But I had been working with a few people who mentioned that people like to listen. So it’s a way for them to learn something without being in front of the computer, without having a book in their hand or looking at something, so just going about their day and listening and learning. That really hit me hard, and I was like, “Oh, okay, so that makes sense.”
I also really wanted to have conversations with people who had launched products, and you probably have experienced this yourself. If somebody is like, “Can I pick your brain?” You’re like, “Ah!” But if somebody’s like, “Will you be on my podcast?” You’re like, “Sure,” but it’s really the same thing. So you publicize the interview for everybody and everybody wins. So that’s how I started because I really wanted to talk to people who have launched products. Half of my episodes, I think I just released episode 55 at the time of this recording, half are interviews and half are just me looking at the camera talking about something. So that’s an interesting thing too, but yeah.
Tracy Apps:
I love that. So what is the most common question you get about launching a product?
Rene Morozowich:
I don’t know if there’s a common one, but I think I need to do some work on my marketing because people are like, “What’s a product? What’s a digital product?” So if I talk to people in the WordPress space, they will think of plugins and whatnot, which are fine, but I like to take the approach of having something that it’s a little bit more hands-off. Like a plugin, you have to keep updating it. Software, PHP, all the things are updating all the time, user support requests and whatnot, and that’s fine. That’s just a little bit more hands-on than I think a digital product really could be a template, a workbook. People mostly think of courses and courses are generally really big and overwhelming, but I’m a fan of something smaller. So I’ve been trying to dial in my own marketing of, I help service providers create smaller digital products like templates, workbooks, eBooks, guides and toolkits. I don’t know, that’s my latest iteration of my elevator pitch.
Tracy Apps:
Nice. I like that because, well, I remember years ago when I was trying to… ’cause I do user experience design, and I would tell my grandma, I was like, “Oh, I do user experience design.” She says, “I don’t know what that is.” Then I’m like, “Oh, yeah. Well, so I do the design and research and create digital products.” I went through this thing, and I went through some examples, and she’s like, “Yeah, I still don’t understand what you do.” I think that comes a lot, especially when you think about, because it’s easy to say, “Oh, this is a product, this is a pen. You can hold it in your hand.” When you get into the digital side of things, it becomes a little bit more ambiguous, people don’t necessarily think of a workbook as a product-
Rene Morozowich:
Right. Right, but I think-
Tracy Apps:
… but it absolutely is.
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah, and I think those are even better because courses take so long to develop. I don’t know about you, but my tolerance, my interest in buying a course these days and completing a huge epic course is zero. I don’t have the attention span for that. I don’t have the time for that. So I think that if there’s something smaller so you can launch it smaller or launch it more quickly, people can get a win more quickly, I think it just benefits everybody all around. You can get a taste of that because as a service provider, you’re in one zone. You’re in one frame of mind providing that service and products are different, so you learn and grow and just it’s something new and different. I think that’s exciting as a service provider because it gets to be same old.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah, the amount of courses that I have, and what I do is I leave the tab open because otherwise I forget that I have that subscription and then something happens and all the tabs close, and then I lose everything. But I actually just recently saw an example, actually, my fiance alerted me to this, ’cause we watched this film, it’s a documentary, and they had mentioned this book. What she had done is she broke up the full book. The book wasn’t even that long, but she broke it up into basically even really smaller chunks that were just very hyper-focused on the different subjects of the books, basically like chapters. I was like, “That makes much more sense.” If I want to say, “Oh, how to do this thing,” “Here, take this small booklet, this little leaflet even of this one chapter,” and people are much more likely going to actually learn it and then be like, “Oh, I want to learn more,” then, “Okay, then find another one.” By the end of it, oh, look at that, you read the whole book.
Angela Bowman:
That’s amazing. Yeah, that reminds me of the serial newspaper stories back in the old days when they didn’t… Mass media wasn’t buying books, it was like you’d get the newspaper or the radio show that would publish the little bit of the story weekly, and then maybe many years later someone puts it all into a book. But people were, in a way, a lot busier then. You had to work the farm and do different things to sit and read a whole 500-page novel, but piece by piece in one article in the newspaper, you might be able to digest it.
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah, and what’s old is new again. I had Joe Casabona on the show early on last year, and he talked about how he had a course and it was very linear and that I’m a linear person. I am going to start at the beginning and then you tell me what the next step is, I’m going to follow that path. But he said that people were coming to his product and picking and choosing what they wanted, which I don’t know, but any change the name of it to a playbook so you can just go and get the piece that you need. That’s probably easier to build that way too, because you can create one piece, release that, create another piece, release that, and so it’s not so overwhelming for creation or for consumption.
Angela Bowman:
What do you think is the benefit, you talk about, you say you help service providers create digital products? So as a service provider, I’m sure when you talk to service providers, it’s challenging to convince them why do you need a digital product and how can you leverage that? How’s that going to benefit them? What are ways that they might be able to use that?
Rene Morozowich:
Right.
Angela Bowman:
Obviously, lead gen is probably one of them, but what else can it help them do?
Rene Morozowich:
So just before that, I don’t like to go into it wanting to convince all service providers that that’s what they need. I want them to be problem aware, if you will, where they at least are interested in doing it. Because it’s the same thing like if you have a website client and you know they need a new website but they don’t know they need one, the sell is so much harder to get them to come along. I think the outcome maybe is not as good. So I want people who at least have an interest or a curiosity about digital products, so that’s the first part. But I think that with a product, there are a couple different ways to position it. So if you’re getting a lot of inquiries for maybe people who can’t afford you, having a product that’s a DIY product could be really great. Be like, “I’m sorry, my packages start at X, and if that is outside of your budget, I have product that is Y.”
So that’s something where it’s not tied directly to your time, but that would really depend on the kinds of leads that you’re getting. Also, if you have people who are not quite ready to work with you yet, so an example of this would be a website client who maybe doesn’t have their content ready. So having something that helps them create the content, they buy your little package, they go create their content, and they come to you and everybody’s so happy. They’re ready, the content’s ready. So that’s just one example, or maybe a service provider that serves locally, so somebody who has local clients where they can expand their reach by having a digital product where they’re not really traveling outside of their geographic area to provide the service. But if I live 300 miles away, I could work with them by buying their package, learning more about whatever the subject is. So that’s a way for them to increase their reach and maybe make some money too.
Tracy Apps:
I really like that because the best clients that I have worked with have that knowledge of what to expect. It’s basically, it’s training your client to be a good client. I think that is really great because people, they don’t know what they don’t know. So when someone is like, “Oh, I need this, and can you do this?” We’re like, “Well, that’s actually not how that works. The technology has these limitations, whatever that is.” I really like looking at having that digital product as a supplement. It’s been one of those things where I’m like, “Oh, I’d love to be able to do that.” When you’re working with providers and thinking, “Oh, well that would be really cool,” what kind of advice do you give to get started on doing something like that?
Rene Morozowich:
So I think the first place is really honing in on that idea. If you don’t have any ideas, I have a quick worksheet of places to look for ideas, but some people already come-
Tracy Apps:
You have your own digital product to help your-
Rene Morozowich:
… as well, so it’s not a paid product. But yeah, lead magnets are essentially digital products. They just don’t have a price tag on them, but there’s an exchange. So there’s an exchange for hopefully a valuable piece of information for an email address or the next step, valuable instructional whatever for money. So yeah, it’s the next step. So coming up with that idea I think is the first part of, what exactly is this product? Maybe what format is it? In what format do I like to create? So going and saying, “You have to do a video,” and people are like, “I hate video.” Nope, that’s not going to be successful. So figuring out the format, but then also figuring out who is it for? So is it for that DIY lead? Is it for that person who will be ready, but they’re not quite ready yet? Is it for those people who don’t live in your geographic area? Or it could even be for your peers.
So you’ve been doing this a really long time and you’re like, “I know how to run a web design business, and I can show other people to do that too.” So that’s just another idea, maybe that’s not so much funneling into your same area, but an option if you’re looking to do something else. So I think honing in on the idea, and then also really peeling it back. What people tend to do is be like, “Oh, and I want to tell them this, and I want to tell them this. They need to know this and I’m going to give them this, and this and this and this and this and this,” to justify in our minds that it’s worth it. But actually pulling that stuff back and not overwhelming people is better for everyone. It’s less stuff you have to create. You just have to find some confidence that the product that you have is good. You can get feedback on it, and it’s okay, you don’t have to add everything to it. It’s all right. Let them get that win with that smaller product and don’t overwhelm them or yourself.
Tracy Apps:
That’s really good advice.
Angela Bowman:
That’s amazing. This is just is blowing my mind ’cause I’ve wanted to do this course forever. I had a course and then it became so outdated that the idea of having to recreate this course. Then of course, we’ve had friends in the space who’ve done these full-blown things and had it all stolen from them. Then you’ve invested all-
Tracy Apps:
Oh, I’ve heard.
Angela Bowman:
… this time and money and someone scrapes it and takes it all away from you. I love that idea of the easy win for both you and the person who might want it, because I had never really considered, I knew it was a hard investment on my own time to create something really big, but it’s an investment on their time and they don’t get the easy win, but if you can piece it out… One thing I was thinking about when you were talking about the different purposes and potential audiences is your own current customer base, almost like FAQ things that they might come to you frequently with that you could have.
You’re not going to necessarily sell it or you could sell it as part of your ongoing contract with them, that they have some of these almost knowledge base, but a little bit beefier than that kind of thing. I wanted to ask you a little bit more about your podcast too, ’cause really looking through all of your episodes, and I do see you have a lot… What’s amazing about your podcast, if any of you go to even just scenicroutedigital.com, you have the archive there as well of the podcast, that you have all those episodes where it’s just you talking, but those seem to be very practical episodes where you’re really-
Rene Morozowich:
I try.
Angela Bowman:
… really trying to break it down for people. Then it seems like the interviews with the people are really a little bit more all over the map, just their experiences with their thing.
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
So how would you say people could engage with your podcast? If people were interested in creating a digital product and wanted to go to your podcast to learn some more about that process, where would you have them start in that?
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
In the beginning or just-
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah, I don’t know.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah?
Rene Morozowich:
This is how I consume podcasts because I have become a listener. Once I realized there were other podcasts, other than business podcasts, I only read business books, and eventually, you just get tired of that. So I’ve been listening to some other podcasts, and what I do is just look through the most recent, I don’t know, maybe 10 episodes and whichever one sounds interesting, I’ll just start with that one and then see, do I like the person? Do I like the topic? Then I think from there, if those are yeses, then I can dig in more. So yeah, there’s no real pattern or outline. A lot of the solo episodes come from conversations, so I love to have conversations with people because they have the best questions. One recently was like, “Why should I create a $50 product when my services are thousands of dollars?:
So I love questions like that ’cause then I can really dig in, and I’m like, “Well, it’s not $50, thousands of dollars. That’s not the comparison. There’s more to it than that.” So then I can really dig in. But it is a little bit harder for me to think of those off the cuff all the time, so relying on people. But yeah, I would just say take a look and see if anything resonates. I try to really have descriptive titles, and I’ve been trying to work on more enticing descriptions to highlight the actual episodes. But if you come to me by way of someone else, if I interview another person and you know them, but you don’t know me, obviously listen to that one first and see if it’s a good fit, and then you can dive in from there. So that’s not a great answer, but that’s that.
Angela Bowman:
Well, I think there’s just such a treasure trove here. I see-
Rene Morozowich:
There’s a lot at this point.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, three easy groups of people you can sell your digital product to. So that’s just that conversation we were-
Rene Morozowich:
That’s a good one.
Angela Bowman:
… having.
Rene Morozowich:
Yes. Yeah.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, that’s a good one, she’s like, okay, so people, that’s February 14, 2023.
Rene Morozowich:
Yes.
Angela Bowman:
It’s on page six of the archives. Definitely, that looks like a… I think you’re right, I bet you could cherry-pick any of these. I liked your talking about how you’re using a question someone really asked you as the catapult for those solo episodes, and that seems really brilliant. But then how do you pick the people you end up interviewing? Where do they come from?
Rene Morozowich:
Yes, everywhere, anywhere. So at first, when you first start a podcast, you’re like, “Okay, who’s in my immediate circle? Who do I know of who…” So basically the criteria is they have a product or they have had a product. So that’s where I started. Then from there, mostly social media. I’ll find someone maybe interesting on social media, Instagram or Twitter or wherever people are these days, and they’ve said something interesting, maybe not even related to products. Then I’ll look at their profile, and then I’ll dig in a little bit, and I’m like, “Okay, maybe they might be a good fit for” this. That’s been really great because I’ve met some people that I wouldn’t have talked to otherwise, and I’ve really liked that. So that’s pretty much how I’ve been. Not too many people come to me like, “Hey, I want to be on your podcast,” so I’ve mostly been finding people.
But I would assume that after a certain point that maybe it will be harder or I’m really not sure if that’s the way to continue. But so far, it’s just like you have come into my orbit somehow. I’ve identified that you have a product, it looks like a product that maybe would be interesting to talk about. Although, I have had a couple of people on recently, so an episode just came out yesterday where she’s not talking about her product, she’s talking about marketing your products. I also have one upcoming about social media that, again, is not about the person’s products, it is about using social media to market your products. So we’re changing it a little bit. Those are hopefully interesting to the audience. But honestly, when I look at the downloads and the YouTube views, I don’t understand why people are watching some and not watching another, like, I have no idea why this one has 45 and this one has 8. I’m not sure. I don’t know, maybe I’m not key wording correctly or something, but yeah. Maybe that’s podcasting 201, and I’m just not there yet.
Tracy Apps:
There is no rhyme or reason to anything, I think. I follow this TikTok creator, and she usually starts with, “Don’t be afraid. Everything’s made up anyway.” I’m like, “That’s true. Yep.”
Rene Morozowich:
This is very good. This is very good.
Tracy Apps:
So just make up other stuff. Like great-
Angela Bowman:
Yes, perfect.
Tracy Apps:
… and sell it, and sell it, for $50. $50.
Rene Morozowich:
One thing, I haven’t created anything around yet, and I feel a little bit anxious about this, a lot of people are talking about using AI to create your product. I do think that that might be a good episode, but I’m not an early adopter kind of person. AI is fine. I’m not like, “Oh, my God, it’s going to take over the world.” But I’m also, “I don’t care.” So I don’t know. I feel like with any person that you listen to or engage with, they have to resonate with you. So that’s the kind of person I am. I have a T-shirt on right now. That’s just me. I’m just low-key. I’m not super interested in that, so I’m not going to go down that path right now, maybe someday.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah, AI can be really controversial too though, ’cause it’s-
Rene Morozowich:
I know, and it’s, ooh.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah. Being in user experience design and seeing in the ways that technology can be used to harm and seeing that is starting to emerge more, anything that when you say something and it gives you that ick, and I’m like, “Okay, I don’t know. I don’t know.” I love following Morton on anything digital ethics wise because he has immersed himself in that and has such an eloquent way of being able to articulate their thoughts. So that’d be hard to do if you don’t ’cause it changes so fast and it’s so crazy.
Angela Bowman:
Well, I would say the simple win with the AI would be a ChatGPT. If someone’s really stuck with their language, how to approach it could just help them just get a rough outline of what they’re going to talk about and just rather than staring down a blank page. Then they’ll also see all the mistakes in the auto-generated content, and that might fire them up too. I am looking at your archives, I’m just digging, looking at your archives. There’s this one, exploring the wheel of emotions on your journey to your first digital products-
Rene Morozowich:
Yes, and there’s more to it.
Angela Bowman:
I was like, “Oh, that’s legit. This is not just about figuring out your audience and who and what.” It’s like-
Rene Morozowich:
You’re going to be sad. You’re going to be scared. You’re going to be really excited. This is an emotional thing that’s not just like, “Oh, I’m going to make a thing and put it out there.” It’s hard to hit publish. It’s like you feel really great once you do. There are certain things that happen that I want to make aware to people.
Angela Bowman:
Tracy, have you ever made a digital product?
Tracy Apps:
Kind of.
Angela Bowman:
How?
Tracy Apps:
I have been in the boat where I’m like I have this great idea and I start making it, but the way my brain works, and I was downgraded in college for this because I didn’t have a focus. I was like, “Oh, I need to learn all of these things,” and then that branched into that, and then that branched into that. So I started working on it, but then it became it so over inflated and bloated that it took so long that I just gave it up. I started working on a course which was code for designers because I was like, “There’s easier ways. There’s a lot of this documentation that’s out there, it’s development documentation written by developers.”
I was like, “There’s visuals that you can give from designer’s point of view to make it make sense.” So if I would’ve had that advice of being able to just slim it down and maybe even just this one subject and just this one piece and then release those things, maybe then I would actually have released something. But yeah, I fell into that hole of, “It has to be complete. I have to have the Encyclopedia Britannica of courses and before I can release it.” I’m like, “That is not sustainable.”
Angela Bowman:
I have a great ability to focus, but I also fall down that same trap. I have to be so comprehensive, and so I have to say all the things and, “Oh, if I’m mentioning typography, I’ve got to go through this whole history of typography.” We got to talk about the Gutenberg Bible [inaudible 00:25:40]
Rene Morozowich:
But it’s like with kids or even new potential clients, you know that if you start to overwhelm them with the jargon and the things… We bought Windows a couple of years ago and the person came to the house and was like “This and this and this,” and I’m like, “You got to pull it way back because I don’t even understand the basics of the things.” So I think it’s so much more helpful when we give less or know how to start at the beginning or remember what it’s like to be a beginner, and we can always build that 201 and 202 and 301, whatever those products are that are a little bit more advanced. You might have ready-made clients then because they took your 101 and they were so happy with it and they got a win that they’re like, “Oh yeah, Angela has a new product coming out, put me on the list right now because I know that the first product was so good.” So I just think it’s a little bit of a better approach all around.
Tracy Apps:
I agree ’cause how I consume content too, so I don’t know why I get stuck in that. Thanks, ADHD.
Angela Bowman:
So Rene, what is your future vision for your podcast? So are you publishing weekly right now?
Rene Morozowich:
So I started in January of 2023, and I did every other… I think I launched five to begin with, but then, yeah, solo interview, solo interview. Then I paused in June and broke my ankle, and then resumed. I don’t even watch some of those ones that came out in July of 2023 because my leg was probably up on the thing, and I was in a different place. I didn’t have my microphone. Oh, the whole thing. But yeah, so season two was like-
Tracy Apps:
We want a season two because that would be even more interesting.
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah, and who knows what was happening with… I had to stay at my partner’s, I only had a couple like, oh, just, “Ah,” but I kept doing it. So then through, I think, December, I think I paused in December and then started again at the end of January. I have a lot of interviews recorded, but I think the thing with the podcast is it’s all about starting the podcast, like, start, start, start, start, go, go, go, go. I think I posted this on Twitter the other day. I’m on episode 55 like, “Now what? Is it Time to optimize it? Is it working? Do I shut it down?”
I’m not really sure what to do next. Obviously, I will put out the rest of the interviews and if I find people, I try not to interview people and then not put their episode out for six months. So I’m on a pause now because I do have interviews, I think, scheduled through June or July, so I’m not really taking many right now. But then when it comes, I might want to find new people, so I’m not sure. I don’t know. I think all the jargon and all the talk is around starting, starting, starting, and less about continuing, continuing, continuing, making sure it’s working.
Angela Bowman:
Yes, and that’s why I was so interested in talking to you today, and there will be conversations that happen outside of this podcast, but I think we’re in the same boat. We had some rebroadcast, but over 80 episodes ’cause we were doing it for almost three years, and we did ours every other week. But it was like, “Where are we going with this? How long can we sustain this?” Certainly, we have a worldwide group of women we’ve interviewed. There’s certainly a lot of women to interview, but, are there new takes, or how do we keep it fresh? Like you said, the optimizing it, how do we then measure success? How do we grow our audience? How do we make it so that, yeah, it just becomes more and more successful rather than just like, “Okay, we have the same listenership pretty much, it’s flat, maybe.”
Rene Morozowich:
Right.
Angela Bowman:
Taking it down into those bite sizes too, even listening to a podcast episode is a commitment. So that’s where I’ve been thinking about these reels, Instagram Reels and things like that where, wow, you don’t even have to listen to the whole podcast episode. Let me give you a really salient 5 minutes or 3 minutes or it could be 1 1/2. It could be 15 seconds of just someone saying something. Maybe that’s just the quote or whatever that person needed to hear that day, that piece that Tracy was just talking about, about trying to eat an entire elephant in one sitting. If she can’t eat the whole elephant, well, no, sorry, you don’t get to-
Tracy Apps:
Yeah, sorry.
Angela Bowman:
… you don’t get to even come to the table and just never mind. So maybe we need to think about our podcast that way too. It’s like, “Well, maybe we can even break down our own podcast into smaller and smaller digestible chunks for people.”
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah.
Tracy Apps:
You know what’s really interesting to me, though, because yeah, things have been getting shorter and shorter, but then, I don’t know if you watched any of Reesa Teesa’s, whatever, 50-episode TikTok series of Who Did I Marry, basically. Most of them were 10-minutes long, so this went viral, this super long format content. So I’m wondering if there’s a pendulum shift towards people wanting more depth, but I don’t know.
Angela Bowman:
But it’s depth in bite-sized pieces.
Tracy Apps:
Yeah, it is. You’re right. You’re right. You’re right.
Angela Bowman:
It’s almost like dopamine junk food ’cause you get that 10 minutes, “Hit me again. Hit me again.”
Tracy Apps:
Yeah. Yeah, I wonder.
Angela Bowman:
Yeah, and I felt like that that was what was why it was interesting to re-interview you again, Rene, is because we’ve talked to you before. It’s like, that’s another thing. Well, we talked to you once and things have changed and you started this podcast since we last talked to you, and that’s a whole new venture. So even if we’ve cycled through a lot of women in the world, we certainly haven’t cycled through all of them, but we also haven’t necessarily gone into depth with, we talk about how did you get into WordPress? But now people had a fascinating story in their first interview, but wow, I’ve seen a lot of people make massive career changes since we launched the podcast. It’s like, “That could be interesting.” Maybe even with your podcast is going and talking to people who maybe were just getting started with their first product at the time, and you could talk to them again ’cause they could be having this whole incredibly new experience and have learned a lot and that continuing thing you were talking about, for sure.
Rene Morozowich:
I would like to interview people who are just getting started, but that’s been much harder to find people because they feel they’re not ready yet. They feel they’re not established enough or don’t have enough sales or don’t have a big enough audience. But I would rather interview someone like that than interview someone who’s been selling digital products and is a full-time digital product creator. Those are nice and they are valuable interviews, but I’d rather interview people who are closer to what I’m thinking maybe the audience is. It just has been a little bit more challenging to find those people willing to do that.
Angela Bowman:
You need a reality TV show of you can get someone and you follow their journey. Like, “We’re checking back in with Tracy Apps.”
Tracy Apps:
Well, how is that going?
Angela Bowman:
Yeah.
Tracy Apps:
A behind the scenes of the actual process-
Angela Bowman:
Yeah.
Tracy Apps:
… right?
Rene Morozowich:
The marketing that you see is sexy marketing, like, “$100,000 dollars in sales, six-figure creator in a weekend,” all that, none of that. We’re not doing any of that here. That is nothing, I guarantee no sales. What you will come out of our engagement with is a launch product and ideas on how to market it, then you can decide what to do from there. If you want to do another one, if you want to change it, you want to pivot, you want to pull it down, you want to give it away, you can do that. But I don’t subscribe to the sexy marketing, but people want the fast and the quick and the easy, and it’s not. It’s not easy.
Tracy Apps:
No, it’s true.
Angela Bowman:
So I’m going to wrap us up with, this is a business you have that you don’t just have a podcast, but you actually do help people, and it’s a service that you have. So if someone were listening to this episode and was like, “You know what? I’ve been thinking about creating a digital product, Rene seems like someone who can maybe help me chunk it down and break it down into something that I could actually accomplish,” how do they get started with you, and what is that process?
Rene Morozowich:
Yeah, so I like to do a call with people first just to like, “Let’s just see if we’re a good fit. You probably found me from the internet, and not every person you find on the internet is a great fit for you.” So I just have free 30-minute calls. There’s no sales pitch or anything. We’re just going to talk about, “You tell me about you. Well, I’ll give you some ideas, we’ll see what you think. If you’re like, ‘Oh, yeah, I really want to work with her,’ then we can talk more about it,” where we would go through finalizing that idea, building a timeline. I hold you accountable. I’m like, “Hey, it’s Tuesday. You said you were going to do whatever. Did you do it?” That kind of stuff, which helps people sometimes figuring out where you’re going to sell it.
If you already have capabilities to sell on your website or there’s tons of platforms out there, testing it, making sure it all works, and coming up with a plan of, “How are we going to do launch marketing? How are we going to launch it? Who launch it to, and then, what am I going to do ongoing?” That’s something that people forget. They’re like, “Oh, I launched it, the end!” Or here’s what people do. “Hey, I launched a product,” and then they go about it… No, you can’t do that. You have to keep telling people that you have a product because not everybody heard you the first time, also because you whispered it.
So we talk about all those things and eventually I myself would like to have products, but as I recommend to people, I’m trying to follow those same steps where building my audience to let them tell me what kind of product would be helpful for them, so that’s the same path. So I liken it to the WordPress community where people who are running meetups and speaking at WordCamps are not super-duper famous developers. They’re people who are just a couple steps ahead of you. They have maybe have a little bit more experience or a little bit more time in. That’s how I position, like, “I’m not Amy Porterfield. I’m me, a couple steps ahead of you. Here’s some information you might be able to use.” So hopefully, that helps.
Angela Bowman:
That sounds fabulous. I want to go. I want to do it. Tracy, I totally want to see this designing coding for web. I have an idea around that too, that I’ve been wanting to for work.
Tracy Apps:
Well, it’s funny. Of course, I spent so much time video editing and doing all this stuff just for, yeah, so maybe I should just release out the one episode that I finished or something like that.
Angela Bowman:
Yes, just do it. Just do it. People love listening to you. It could generate a lot of interest and enthusiasm. I think it would be awesome. I’ll listen to it, for sure. Rene, it was just so great talking to you.
Rene Morozowich:
Thank you.
Angela Bowman:
You’re very inspiring. I think I’m so excited about your podcast and that we can promote it here. I will put all the links in the show notes to the podcast, to your website, to your past interview with us a million years ago it seems like.
Rene Morozowich:
I wonder what that was like.
Angela Bowman:
I know, I know.
Rene Morozowich:
You’re like, “What did I say all those years ago?”
Angela Bowman:
What were you talking [inaudible 00:38:33]
Rene Morozowich:
Oh, oh.
Angela Bowman:
I know. We’ve become entirely different people in just a short one to three years. It’s amazing.
Tracy Apps:
Thanks for listening. Follow us on Instagram and Twitter or join our Facebook group. We would be honored if you subscribe to the show. You can find us on Spotify, Stitcher, Google Play and iTunes. Finally, if you want to be on the show or know someone who would, visit our website at womeninwp.com. Until next time.
