12 more product ideas for funnel businesses to expand the number of ways they can generate revenue

If you liked my previous post on 10 perfect products for single person businesses, that scale easily and FAST or my other post on 100 product ideas you can use to expand the number of products and services you sell you’re going to love this post.

We all need new product ideas for our business. This is a list of 12 more product ideas, for funnel based business, to help you generate more revenue.

Featured image thanks to Alex Jones.

1. Teach someone to go through a worksheet

A massive value add on for a worksheet or template, is to teach people how to use it.

For example, if we have a lead magnet which is worksheet, it might not be enough to talk people through it in a blog post.

When our new subscriber is looking at the worksheet, they might like someone to go through it with them in real time.

Often, new users like examples and a little hand holding through the process. If you can provide a video walkthrough of you or someone filling out the worksheet, that’s a huge bonus to new subscribers.

It works best as an added bonus, not something that’s promoted with the lead magnet. We’re trying to over deliver on their expectations.

Also, video walkthroughs are a fantastic time to promote splinter products and other services.

For example, if you’re a book publishing consultant, that teaches authors how to promote their books. Let’s say you have a series of worksheets on creating a social media presence, self-promotion and finding publishers.

For each of those worksheets, fill out the worksheet in real time and record the screen of you doing it. No need to go overboard, a screen capture (Camtasia or Screen Flow work great) recording and a voice over are enough to fill in a worksheet.

If you want to use an example customer, go for it. But don’t think you need to do this. What we’re doing is giving a demonstration of how to fill in the worksheet.

 

2. Teach someone to consult someone else on one worksheet

When it comes to paying for walkthroughs, going through a worksheet with someone, one on one can be charged for. However it’s time consuming and harder to scale.

What we want to do is teach someone else to consult your customers.

If you have a series of worksheets, think about the structure of a course and teach someone to go through all the worksheets. That’s something you can absolutely charge for.

Offer a series of walkthroughs, examples and tutorials. All focused around all the worksheets. Charge something low barrier, like $19 or $9 to access all the video walkthroughs.

Position it as a complete consulting course. Or workshop series. Give them access to worksheets and walk through each worksheet like we did with the single worksheet for free.

However, what we’re also going to do is teach them how to work through the sheets with someone else. We’ve added this as bonus content to the course. They buy access to the whole series for themselves.

What we’re trying to do, again, is over deliver on their expectations. A short bonus video and document for each worksheet, explaining how to consult someone ELSE on these worksheets, is bound to be seen as super valuable.

Teaching someone else to use your worksheets is more simple than you probably think.

When we’re going through the sheet with them, we outline the whole worksheet, then go through each step with examples. Then we explain why each stage is useful and at the end sum up what they’ve completed.

When we teach someone ELSE to teach, we give them cliff notes on those same points above. So they can explain in their own words why each section and sheet is important. What each sheet does and what they’re going to do.

In the past we have tried to sell it as a consulting course, so they can consult other businesses, but neither way has explicitly got better results.

“But if I teach them, won’t my customers leave me for them?” Probably not. What you’re doing, is teaching your customers to find you MORE customers. We’re going to talk about how to monetise this in the next section.

You’re empowering your customers to reach out and find new sources of revenue. The truth is that most people are honest enough not to rip off your content. If people are doing that, take it as a sign you’re doing something right.

 

3. Get customers to sign up and run through your external consultant with worksheets

Here’s where we can start getting clever. People that DO buy the worksheet walkthrough series, have essentially been taught how to complete a worksheet.

Offer to pay THEM to teach others how to complete the worksheets. A super easy, scalable and profitable product is to work through a series of worksheets on Skype with a customer. You can charge $100 or so for the hour and offer $60 to those who have already done it, to teach it.

These numbers are purely for demonstration purposes. Our coaching for example runs at $497 for the hour and we pass $350 to the coaches.

What this means is that you’re not taking the time to consult, but you are delivering results to a customer.

Package up the hour as a coaching or consulting session. Ask your current worksheet customers if they’re interested in coaching a little on the side.

All your leads and customers that haven’t bought the walkthrough series can be offered this consulting hour. All the bookings go through you and you take the payment. Giving your part time coaches $40.

You might have to negotiate on the rate, but there is a balance that most people understand. Besides, you’re not forcing anyone to do anything.

You’re spending time and money promoting the product, it’s your system and you built the worksheets. Your coaches don’t worry about lead gen or customer payments, they just take their time to deliver the consultation session.

product funnel worksheet sell

Bloody hell do I LOVE a worksheet Helloquence

4. Sell transcripts raw via e-commerce

Remember those raw transcripts we spoke about earlier? If you’ve done 6 or 10 workshop or coaching sessions, maybe a few webinars, there’s no reason you can’t package those up.

I like transcript selling because there’s something really authentic about them. There’s something quite gritty and real about a Word document with 8 transcripts inside it.

Raw, unedited and easy to produce. The best way to position this is just as we’ve said. Raw, unedited and open use.

If it’s a particularly specific series, position it as the insiders content. Expert transcripts with tons of information.

We have seen people offer transcripts with PLR (private label rights), which means the customer can use them however they want. Sell them on, use them as content. Do whatever.

It becomes a commodity sale, as your customers could add value and charge way more. But honestly? That’s probably fine.

 

5. Use webinar recordings as video tutorials

If you’ve got webinar recordings, as a video format, they’re probably teaching people how to do a certain task.

Make a list of the short steps that you teach, in the whole webinar. Think like the course topic lessons we mentioned earlier.

Can your webinar be cut up into several (or more) topic lessons and sold as video tutorials?

If we look at the typical presentation format for a webinar-

Introduction and promises
Problem
Myths and changing
Knife twist
About us
Solution
3 – 7 points

The first section, up to the solution, is a free video tutorial talking through a subject. The next 3 – 7 demo points are cut up and charged for.

If you have a worksheet per lesson/point too, even better.

For example, if we’re a website designer. Let’s say we’ve got a webinar on writing great search engine based content. Designed to help you climb Google’s rankings.

The first section becomes the free video tutorial. We talk about the environment, Google, content, what does and doesn’t work.

When we look at the main points, we can charge for access to all of them. Again, use a simple paywall and store your videos on Vimeo (great protection).

 

6. Offer protection/maintenance/update service for a subscription

Moving past your core product, is there a way to make products after your core offering? Is there hidden profit past what most of your customers end up buying?

Most customers want support when something goes wrong. We’re not really buying “just” a website, we’re buying the support and updates to make sure it doesn’t break.

Support, maintenance and protection services are available for almost all products and services. Creating a subscription program or recurring payment product is going to become a CORE component to almost all businesses in the future.

If you’re building websites, or even if you’re a social consultant or SEO coach. You can offer plugin updates and security sweeps. Backups, reports, small bug fixes. They’re all things that you can provide to your customers

There are recurring revenue opportunities for you in all businesses.

It’s a relatively simple concept. What do your customers want every month? What is it that they need every week or every 4 weeks, to keep their business running?

Coaching and consulting over Skype is the fastest method of setting this up. Coaching calls can be fast, relatively little set up and recorded for future customers.

Scaling up, weekly group coaching or webinars are a great way to reach multiple people. The cost can be lowered for all members and you reach a wider audience. Again, no need to over complicate the delivery.

Finally, automated protection and reporting can be built for almost any service. Accountability calls and workshops all offer huge value to businesses and customers that need your help.

Aim for more and more recurring payments into your business, focus less on one off projects. If you have a one off project, think about what customers would need after that to keep those results.

The easiest way to think about recurring revenue products and subscriptions, is to think “how can I help someone get those same results faster and with more automation? How can I protect those customers and give them peace of mind. Do they want those results every month?”

 

7. Teach/outsource updates/maintenance plan for customers

All websites require maintenance and updates. Doing it yourself for every customer at first might be OK, but eventually you’ll need to document the process and outsource it to someone else.

Updates, maintenance and security are all very repeatable processes. Most of the time we can write down step by step what happens to every site.

Make a database backup once a day
Make a site backup once a week
Save the backup somewhere safe (offsite and cloud)
Check core updates
Check plugin updates
Run spam comment sweep
Run malware sweet
Security check
Upload new content

This is a very brief overview of what a website maintenance plan looks like. You might have your own additions.

There are also tons of examples of other items to add in maintenance plans. Some people include SEO, link checks, content updates, social posting and more.

Once you’ve executed a few maintenance plans, start recording what you do. Make a list of what you do, in order. Make a screen recording of what you do in the same order.

This checklist and video can now become a process that you outsource. Finding cheap virtual assistance from $5 can work REALLY well, when you’ve got a checklist and video process.

Charge your customers per month, set up a subscription plan or direct debit from PayPal or your bank. Offer a “no-contract” service. Cancel anytime, no tie-ins.

Very simple to set up and it doesn’t require a huge amount of effort. Maintenance and security plans are where your business will find traction, with repeat income.

You can have various levels of service, a basic package and a few more inclusive services too.

Coaching products funnel build sell

Coach customers and get THEM to coach people David Schap

8. Hire coaches for new content to take over webinars and blog posts

If you’re delivering regular webinars and coaching, your audience get used to hearing what you have to say. Even one new webinar every month is 12 a year.

Sooner rather than later, you’ll become bored teaching the same things over and over.

So to combat presentation fatigue, it’s fantastic to have other people coach and present for you. We’ve seen several coaching and course models hire other coaches to present and give talks.

Just 2 extra coaches, paid per webinar, will take hours off your diary. Split the webinars between the 3 of you. Hire people with experience and passions different to yours.

An SEO coach and a social coach will do WONDERS for the variety of content. Your customers will thank you for the change in pace and difference in presentation styles.

Again, a lot of this boils down to process. What’s the process for your presentations and webinars?

Have a slide deck and a method and order of presenting. Your external coaches will thank you for having a structure around your presenting.

Some coaches might prefer to have their own presentation method. It’s important to be flexible when taking people on.

If you know that every presentation or webinar you start with a roll call slide, or a weather update, then make sure your coaches include that. Otherwise maybe they want a more free structure.

For example, our presentations always follow the same format.

Roll call
Webinar headline
House-keeping
Promise
Agenda
Main problem
Myth
What’s changing
Main teaching points (3 – 7 actions)

The main teaching points are where we let our coaches have free reign. Some coaches prefer slides, some prefer screen grabs or shares.

 

9. Provide further reading for your books/eBooks

A model that’s becoming more and more popular, in the veins of Jeff Walker, Ryan Deiss and Mike Michalowicz (although there are many many others). Is to provide further reading and materials from the eBooks and regular books.

If you’ve written a book, electronic or real. Think about how you can make the transition from reader to subscriber.

The book content guides readers through a process or a new technique. It spends time to educate and help them. Really, books are longer blog posts, or collections of blog posts.

If you want to really help your readers, offer them worksheets and exercises exclusive to the book. They can get access to extra help, hidden chapters, raw interview content. All just by going to yourbookurl.com/extra.

Think in terms of lead magnets. What would really help someone get results faster, after reading this chapter. What are the key takeaways?

Maybe offer a checklist at the end of a chapter or section, that readers can follow along with. Or a simple quiz at the end of a chapter and answers on the website.

Or, think about a companion website to the book. Let the reader know that they can download exercises and worksheets, specifically for the book. The reader can then follow along with the book, complete the exercises and smash through their goals with you.

It’s worth noting that you don’t HAVE to do this with your first book. If you’ve released a book or eBook already, don’t panic.

You can always go back and add more content later, creating a v2 and v3 and so on of the book.

It’s also not a great idea to hold off on publishing just because you want to put worksheets in. Getting content out there and published is 100x more important than waiting for slightly more content.

 

10. Remember the “what to do, how to do and you do for me” funnel

Publishing free content, lead magnets, splinter products and core products all follow a basic funnel structure.

When people read our posts and buy our products, they’re following a relationship path.

First, they’re understanding WHAT they need to do. They know they have a problem, such as low sales or back pain. They search for free content via blogs and posts.

Then, if they sign up to a lead magnet, or buy a small course product. Something that doesn’t cost a huge amount, but lets them invest in themselves. They’ll be taught HOW to do something. They learn how to properly execute the steps read in the blog posts or free videos.

Finally, when they’re ready to accelerate their results (and not every customer will be ready for that), they can ask you to do it for them.

This relationship pathway is important to remember. It gives you an idea of what to create next. What’s interesting, is that the relationship of what, how and for me, is cyclical.

Blog posts and videos might show a reader what to do. What they need to think about and what steps they’ll need to take.

There might be some how-to steps, and the blog posts might even be a how-to guide. But in order to grow our email list, we want to think in terms of the relationship of WHAT to HOW.

HOW can I help someone get those same results faster. Even if the initial post is literally a how-to guide, if I think about WHAT I teach them, HOW can I get them those same results faster?

Your lead magnet then acts as the HOW to the earlier WHAT. Showing how to get those same results but faster and easier.

A checklist, a cheat sheet, an eBook. What can you do to show them how to get those same results? Think of it like a walkthrough or a guide.

To complete the relationship, let’s look at doing it for them. After we show them how to do something, we can say again “if you want those same results faster and with less work from yourself, let us do it for you”.

This stage we can offer them, the customer, automation.

They’ve been reading HOW to get higher search rankings on Google. You’ve showed them exactly how to do it. How you’d do it even.

But now we can look at doing it for them. It’s a lot of work and effort for someone to execute a process themselves. We’re providing them with the exact same goals we’ve got. Automation for their business.

As I mentioned though. It’s cyclical. When we’re doing the work for them, think about the results they’re getting. WHAT are you helping them with. HOW can you get further results?

For example, let’s say you’ve set up an SEO subscription for a customer. Every month they pay $300 to drive the rankings of their site up in Google.

They’re after more traffic, so would it be worth showing them what they can do to increase traffic? Show them what their options are with social, PPC, remarketing and email?

Then we can start the cycle again. Start with what they’re getting and what to do. Show them how to do it and end with you doing it for them.

 

11. Offer affiliate sales to customers or SLOs

Affiliate marketing and SLOs (self-liquidating offers) have had a bad rap recently, although I’m not sure why.

Some people just like to steer clear of the whole situation. But don’t let that put you off.

Affiliate marketing is really just an extension of how natural marketing and sales works. People that trust you, within your network want to promote your product to their audience.

Affiliate marketing means you give other businesses and customers a cut for each sale they make. For example, if you have a course at $97, you can offer other businesses a cut of 30% or $10 or whatever, every time they sell your product.

On the other hand SLOs work in a similar fashion. They’re better suited to lower cost products as your give 100% of the sale to the seller.

The idea is that if you make a sale to a customer, they buy a $10 eBook or splinter product for example, you’ve now got a qualified customer. They’re clearly interested in your area of expertise and you know they’re willing to buy.

If I JUST had those types of leads come in, I’d be a happy man.

So, if I say to my customers who have bought that book, “I’ll give you 100% of the sale for every sale you make”, they’ll see it as a great deal. And I am acquiring customers for free.

I no longer have to pay for traffic or advertising, my customer base is doing it for me. My list not only grows, but it’s full of people who have bought my product. They’re better qualified and they obviously like my content.

It’s much easier to sell them my future products, as they already know me and trust me. I’ve skipped an enormous part of customer acquisition and potentially acquiring customers for free.

There a plugins and websites that easily allow you to create affiliate marketing and SLO sales. Warrior Forum is a great place to look, or WooCommerce Affiliates Pro.

 

12. White-label your older content and sell that

Finally, another product option is to take your current templates, blog posts, books, transcripts and processes and “white-label” them.

This means removing your branding, logo and company name from the material and selling it on as a blank slate.

People love white-labelled content as it means less work for them.

Similar to what we talked about in Chapter 3, we can white-label our own content to sell on. Even putting it on market places for other to see and use.

You can create marketplaces, plugins, apps or just plain docs that sell your content. Ready for others to use and promote. But it has nothing to do with you.

 

Wrap up

I’m a HUGE fan of helping people with videos and audio. By offering worksheets and giving 30 minute guides on filling in that worksheet, you can provide MONUMENTAL levels of clarity to other people.

Often, when I mention this to funnel agencies as an option, they’ll object by saying “our job is building funnels, not creating courses or explainer videos”. I totally get what you mean. But you’re wrong.

Your “job” is to help other businesses and people. Your job is to add massive value to their business. Building funnels is ONE vehicle for achieving that.

Can you honestly tell me that Ryan Deiss or Grant Cardone are only book authors. Or course builders. Or speakers. Or product designers.

They realise that their job is to be helpful and they’re providing as many options to their audience as possible.

That’s your job.

What do you think? Love our product ideas? Which one is your favourite? Have I missed any?

Let me know in the comments below.

Mike Killen

Mike is the world's #1 sales coach for marketing funnel builders. He helps funnel builders sell marketing funnels to their customers. He is the author of From Single To Scale; How single-person, small and micro-businesses can scale their business to profit. You can find him on Twitter @mike_killen.