I have a theory.
We live in a unique period in history where anybody with a stagnant income can sell their knowledge without selling their time and without slaving away for years.
Think back to a challenge you struggled to overcome. Your journey and the mistakes you made are unique and they can be turned into a course, booklet or workbook to help someone in a similar position to where you were. Contrary to popular belief, we learn better from peers who are a few steps ahead of us rather than experts who are miles ahead.
Of course, this sounds like one of those passive income ideas from which one must run for the hills. But technology and the times we live in have changed, making all this possible. Also, most of the tools to create knowledge products are available for free and millions of people are using them to turn their knowledge into a second income to fight off the infinitely rising cost of living.
I want to add that mastering this game takes time, often up to two years. But how many people apply for expensive four-year degrees and end up using a different set of skills to get by?
I’ve been in the knowledge economy for a while now, but not long enough to consider myself an expert. As I said above, this is good news because experts have often forgotten about the basics, making it difficult to learn from them. Therefore, let’s compare notes.
Today’s newsletter is dedicated to sharing what I have learned so far. If this concept is new to you, then hopefully this will be a brow-raiser, opening the door to a new world. If you are also on this journey, I would love to compare notes with you.
Let’s dig in.
Before getting into the how let’s start with the why
Let me share the story of Peter Chamberlens (1560 – 1631).
Chamberlen was a physician riddled with why mothers and their babies were dying at birth. While everybody had resigned to witchcraft and spirits as being the cause, he remained steadfast in his search for a practical solution, eventually becoming a man-midwife.
Of course, he became a laughing stock among his peers and vilified by women who thought he was a sick pervert. But undeterred, he found the odd families who allowed him into their chambers. Eventually, he learned that some babies were in a bridge position, making it difficult if not impossible for them to pass through the birth canal. Some came out feet first, creating a significant risk of breaking their neck. Yet another group were entangled by their umbilical cord, often leading to strangulation.
This led him to invent a gadget that he called a special set of hands. His gadget was effective and kept secret as word spread that he magically solved maternal and infant mortality. With his special set of hands, he rose in the societal ranks, eventually becoming the physician to Royal family members. Even then, he took care to hide his special hands, sometimes blindfolding people in the birthing chambers while performing his magic.
When he came of age, he passed his secret to Chamberlen The Second. Likewise, Chamberlen II kept the family secret and enjoyed generational wealth, rubbing shoulders with the who’s who of the day. Similarly, The Second passed on the secret to his son, Peter Chamberlen The Third, and the tradition of secrecy continued for over a hundred years until a cash-strapped family member, Hugh Chamberlen, leaked what we now know as obstetric forceps to a group of physicians.
When the secret leaked in 1733, maternal and infant mortality cases dropped significantly, leading to their widespread adoption in hospitals – to this day.
What is your special set of hands?
Have you faced a challenge and overcome it? If so, you probably know something that can help someone who has yet to face that challenge. The Chamberlens recognised this and secretly deployed their knowledge to great social and financial gain. Most of us also have a special set of hands, but seldom think of it that way, resulting in a lost opportunity for additional income.
The good news is that discovering your special set of hands and deploying them is easier now than ever before. Let’s start with discovery, followed by tools you can use to get started.
STEP 1: The Journey, not the skills
We often mistaken skills as being valuable. For instance, one might think that their special set of hands is being an accountant, a graphic designer or (in my case) a software engineer. But the problem is that many people can call themselves by these titles and claim to have the skills. How does one differentiate oneself and create value?
The real value is in the uniqueness of one’s journey. For instance, there are many bike packers but very few have my experience cycling from Musina to Cape Town. There are many software engineers, but few are self-taught like me. There are many entrepreneurs but few have fallen into my pitfalls and encountered the challenges that presented themselves in my journey.
Your journey and its unique challenges and how you overcame them are your special set of hands. Take a piece of paper and make a list of three situations that you overcame. From the list, identify the most challenging one. Then, move to the next step.
STEP 2: Value Discovery
Based on your unique journey, let’s figure out how to help someone else:
- Before: Rewind to the days before you encountered the situation. How would you have known and avoided the situation? How would you advise your former self to avoid the problem?
- During: When you were in the thick of it, what did you do that changed the trajectory of the problem? Again, how would you have advised or counselled yourself when you were in the situation?
- After: What did you learn about the situation that could serve as principles for life?
We generally take points 1 and 3 less seriously than 2. In the first scenario, we often do not know what we are getting ourselves into, making us less prone to take preventative measures. In point three, you are preaching to the converted, making your proposition equally less valuable. Point two is where one is most likely to spend and, in our case, make money to make a problem go away.
I spent a lot more time talking about this in The Business Proposal Blueprint, where I teach writing effective business proposals. But as a rule of thumb, your solution is most valuable for people who are experiencing a problem and have tried a solution that did not work. Having overcome the problem, you will know why their attempt did not work and you will be perfectly positioned to propose a more viable solution.
Before proceeding, remember to write down notes on subpoints 1, 2 and 3.
STEP 3: Packaging and Signalling
Now, let’s talk about signally. How best would you have signalled to yourself that you had a solution? Would you have advertised on the internet? Would you have appeared at churches or community groups? Would you have appeared in a magazine?
Forget about what’s trending. Dig deep and meditate on the state of mind you were in during that period and what someone would have had to say to catch your attention and set you on a different and better course. Where would that person have been? How would they have had to show up for you to believe them? Answer these questions in as much detail as possible.
Also, what type of product would you have most likely responded to – a course? A video? An e-book? A blog post? A magazine article? Again, think about, meditate on your former self, and write the best way someone would have had to show up for you to pay attention and accept their offer.
STEP 4: Experiment
My biggest mistake in business has always been assuming that I know the outcome – that I have the best ideas. I learned much later that the best entrepreneurs do not assume their businesses will succeed. They adopt a research attitude, writing down a hypothesis and running experiments to prove or disprove their thinking.
Often, it takes several iterations to prove or disprove a hypothesis but that is the process. In the business circles, they call this iterating and pivoting.
Collect all your notes so far and reduce them into something like this: If I do X then I will get Y. Describe everything you need (X), and then clearly define your expectations. What would constitute success? Equally important, answer the question, “What are you prepared to lose” to find out if you are right or wrong. This is your risk threshold and a point at which you are not prepared to continue losing.
If you get to this point, cut the experiment and move on. Do not fall into the trap of waiting a bit longer to see if you will get the results. Cut the experiment, assess your findings, write another hypothesis and start again if you.
STEP 5: Refine and automate
Your first experiment will likely fail because you have the wrong assumptions about the relationship between X and Y. This is normal and explains why finding the cheapest (or most cost-effective) way of running your experiments is the best approach. Do not make big investments until you have proven your hypothesis.
After gaining traction, it’s time to refine and automate. Automation is all about reducing the time and effort required to deliver your value proposition. Our unique position in history is that we can deliver significant value on autopilot by using tools like Wix and Shopify.
We can also find our audience by buying Facebook or LinkedIn ads. Alternatively, you can create a newsletter like this and help your audience with the knowledge you have, knowing that whenever some of your readers are ready, they will seek more in-depth discussions.
This is a mouthful: TLDR
I have said a mouthful and I hope it was useful to you. If not, please let me know and I will change course. Nevertheless, here’s a summary:
- If you have solved a challenging problem, you have unique knowledge that can help someone else.
- Start packaging and selling your knowledge for an additional income
- Package your knowledge and run experiments to see if others will find it useful and pay for it.
- Remember to take it one step at a time. Treat this as a journey rather than a hit-and-run.
- In the long run, find ways to automate your value delivery system so that it takes you less and less time and effort.
If you need help with this, let me know.
Until next week week.
Have a great Sunday and a magical week.
Vusi.
