I had so many “Inception moments” when reading Kate Toon’s drafts of her brilliant Six Figures While You Sleep.
You know. Like the movie. “The dream is real” and all that.
Written for small business owners, just like you and me, the book promises a practical, doable how-to guide on developing your very own digital products to set you up for passive income. It doesn’t sell dreams or get-rich-quick-schemes. But it does offer step-by-step support for knowing your audience, what they need, getting your mindset into gear, and getting the tech right.
And it delivers this in spades.
What knowing your audience really looks like
I had the privilege of reading the drafts, like I did for Six Figures in School Hours, to give feedback on content and structure. And yet, I found myself continually switching between an objective content design mindset, and being a captive member of Kate’s ideal audience.
I just couldn’t put the damn thing down. (Metaphorically speaking. It was in PDF form at that point.)
Here I was, reading Kate’s words on researching my ideal customer, understanding their beliefs, desires and feelings, and figuring out their problems and pain points.
While continually having moments of “Wow. That’s exactly what I’ve been wondering” and “Yes, but HOW do you do that, I’ve been stuck on that for ages?!”. Only to find the perfect answer in the very next paragraph.
It was just like having Kate sitting at my table, having a coffee with me, smiling encouragingly and telling me it was all going to be ok.
And that’s the beauty of this book. Kate gets me.
And if you’re a small business owner, who wants to stop trading your time for money, and start earning those sweet, sweet passive income dollars, Kate gets you too.
How Kate supports her reader
She gets alllll of your questions like “Where do I start?”, “How do I come up with a good idea?”, and “How on earth do I put the tech in place to sell a digital download? Can’t I just go back to bed?”.
Ok, perhaps the last one is just me. But probs not. Because: knowing audience.
Honestly, this book is the almanac in starting from scratch in earning money from, as Kate coins it, an ADPIP. Or Automated Digital Passive Income Product. Covering everything from taking a good look at your money goals (again, she lays this out simply and non-scarily) to deciding on your “big little idea”, to breaking down funnels, and setting up successful launches.
It’s all there. All of it.
Just as I was having a mental wobble (and there were many) while reading this book, Kate would take a pause to speak to my exact thoughts with headings like “Realise everyone is terrified” or “Handling fear makes you happier”.
Cue Inception moment again. I’m reading about my customers’ fears. And I’m having the same fears too. And maybe their fears can be solved just like Kate’s solving mine. And maybe I can help them, just like Kate’s helping me.
And so on.
Mind blown.
And there are many other ways that Kate caters to her audience (you, me) in this book.
Book structure is key
Along with speaking to my fears with freakish accuracy, she also gets I’m time poor and I need real life examples to help me fully grasp some of the concepts.
Enter her ingenious features in her book to make it that much easier to put her tips into practice:
- Toon Tips - honing in on a point with a personal anecdote
- TL;DR - chapter summaries
- Over to you - little steps to take at the end of each chapter to get you rolling straight away
- Guinea pigs - actual case studies from members of Kate’s community as they go on their ADPIP journeys
These features appeal to my little content design nerdy brain so much. Kate’s tailored her message to my needs, my constraints, my learning style, ending in a perfectly packaged how-to guide delivered with a warm hug and a firm now-you-go-do-the-thing-too shoulder grip.
And I feel like I really can go do the thing too now.
With the breakdowns on who I am, who my customer is, what they need, what I can deliver, the marketing strategies and the tech-y details, I’ve got everything I need to have a red-hot crack at creating an ADPIP (and perhaps many more).
The secret sauce
But Kate goes one extra step further to really support me in this journey.
She shares her own journey.
The good, the bad, the snotty-crying ugly.
Everything from not having enough money to buy her son Lego due to a huge tax debt, to battling her own inner critic demons, to slowly clawing her way into the six-figure business she has now.
Hard work. Small steps. Taking action. Telling her imposter syndrome to take a seat. Trying. Failing. Trying again. Small wins. Big wins. The day-to-day realities.
It’s all there. Even her actual earnings from when she started, to now, and how she earned them.
Kate leaves nothing on the table. Because she knows that’s what I need to follow her lead, avoid her previous pitfalls, and to stop trading my time for money.
And she knows you need that too, to back yourself and your big little idea.
Over to you
So, as a content designer with deep admiration for the structure and delivery of this book, and as a fellow ideal customer, my humble advice to you?
Buy the book. Read the book. Do the things.
And I’ll see you in the passive-income earning universe soon.
PS And if you’d like me to take a look at any of your content for thoughts on speaking to your audience, structure, readability and messaging, feel free to
