What Sucks About Selling Spreadsheets And How to Solve

<div>00:00 This is a video all about why selling spreadsheets sucks, or what sucks about selling spreadsheets. I've been selling spreadsheets for four years now, since April 2020, when I launched my course, and I originally thought I will produce some templates as part of my course, and then I'll release them for 00:18 free, in hopes for marketing my courses. But in fact, I found out, after a while, that people actually just like buying templates. 00:26 They like buying the spreadsheets. They like adding these to their workflow. Hello?

They like implementing automations that I can code in Apps Script . 00:34 They like implementing new workflows in how sheets are set up. And they really like well-designed templates themselves. There's an entire industry selling just templates, just templates alone, no courses, no automations, just designing spreadsheets. 00:50 And this is very fascinating to me, uh, because I'm trying to learn all the time to make my spreadsheets better, and what I can do to build spreadsheets that people want to buy. 00:59 And you're probably watching this video.

Video thinking, yeah, I want to do the same thing. I make spreadsheets and I want to sell them. 01:06 So this video is all about just what sucks about selling spreadsheets. By the way, I have a course called selling spreadsheets. 01:15 I offer it on Udemy as a standalone course.

You can buy that or you can become a member at bettersheets.co and get that course for free as a member of bettersheets.co. 01:24 I also have a tool that will help you sell spreadsheets, But I'm going to get to that later because it is the actual solution to one of these problems. 01:33 Now, the first problem that I think, uh, we have, uh, the first problem I think we have for selling spreadsheets is not the spreadsheets themselves, but rather that users who have not yet bought the spreadsheet or do not have access to that spreadsheet to see it, they don't know that they need the spreadsheet 01:52 .

So how do you solve this problem? I solve this problem by making videos. I solve this problem by writing a lot on my landing pages. 02:00 And there's one specific thing that I do in my landing pages and when I create a spreadsheet to sell is I tell the story of why I created this spreadsheet for myself. 02:13 So I'll start with a little bit of a story of the problem and say this is the problem that I encountered. 02:19 Here was the, the current solution at the time. Maybe it's too expensive, too time consuming, or too manual.

Then I'll talk about why Google Sheets may solve this, but again. 02:31 It may be too time consuming and why this spreadsheet that I made, this template , or this workflow, or this automation that I created, why that fits perfectly in my business and how that works. 02:44 And that's the landing page copy. That's the story I tell.

And it's very simple, but my story is the story of the users. 02:53 And so by walking them through that, it gives them the opportunity to have their questions answered of like, why don't I just build my own spreadsheet ? 03:02 Or why don't I just use this other software that actually does this thing or should just do this thing? It answers those in about three to four sentences. 03:15 Now you could also make videos. You can make videos for free with OBS Studio.

Uh, you can create screencasts where you don't have to show your face. 03:23 You don't have to be good in front of the camera at all. you can just open the spreadsheet , show how you use it, and put that out as a marketing material. 03:31 That is very easy to do.

Now, speaking of marketing, the second problem I found is that you've, when you're selling a spreadsheet , you're really marketing into the void. 03:41 You think, oh, I will just post this on some Google Sheets related, uh, forums on Reddit or on Twitter or on LinkedIn. 03:49 And these places I find are just screaming into the void, especially in Google Sheets focused groups. Even the Google Sheets focus group I run, which is on Facebook. 04:00 kids have. free Facebook group called I Love Google Sheets.

I share all the stuff that I sell there, and it still feels like it's marketing into the void. 04:09 Well, what have I done to solve this problem is I don't rely just on those channels that I own.

I rely actually on marketplaces. 04:20 So two marketplaces that are the best for me, there are others, but these are the two that are best for me, are, uh, AppSumo Marketplace, which is for businesses and for small businesses. 04:32 And the second marketplace is, and the second marketplace is not Etsy for me, but that actually is very useful for a lot of other people who are creating just templates that are very design focused. 04:52 But I find selling on Gumroad is a good marketplace too. They have Gumroad Discover.

I don't do anything whatsoever for Gumroad Discover. 05:00 I just create templates. I create a Gumroad page, which I use myself to promote on my own channels, with SEO, with YouTube videos, these kinds of things. 05:09 But the Gumroad platform has Gumroad Discover, where I can list it on their marketplace. Now, this doesn't bring me a lot of money, but it is 100% passive. 05:22 These are customers that would have not found me any other way. So, I can give a percentage of my sale to Gumroad to promote it more. 05:31 Up to something like 90%.

But I want you to know that this giving 90% to a platform is not actually losing 90% of your revenue. 05:42 You're in fact gaining total profit from these, because you're not doing anything to market your spreadsheet . And I think that's very interesting. 05:50 Now, Etsy is something that doesn't work for me, because I do a lot of automations and I do a lot of tools that I create in Google Sheets. 05:57 whereas people are making a huge amount of money selling it. They're selling just templates alone.

These are well-designed, really nice-looking spreadsheets that people use daily or in their business all the time, and they sell them on Etsy. 06:13 There are at least two six-figure sellers that I know of, if not more.

Now, what is the sheet that you're selling? 06:28 Is it something you use and you just think other people use or is it something you're coming up with for a specific target audience? 06:36 Now, I think one of the things that sucks about selling spreadsheets may not be the actual selling of the spreadsheet , but coming up with the ideas of what to create, what to sell. 06:48 Now, I think this is actually something that sucks because you do it yourself, meaning you yourself, from your own creativity and your own experience, come up with an idea to create it, and you go and create it, and you think other people should use this. 07:04 That's where the problem stems, and I think the solution here is just to talk to people.

Find out how people are using Google Sheets. 07:11 Find out what solutions they have for very specific problems. So what I find is super helpful is when I can talk to people using spreadsheets, using my spreadsheets, using even free spreadsheets that I create. 07:29 Anytime you can talk to other people or watch them. Use Google Sheets or your spreadsheets. You'll come up with more and more ideas of how you can create templates and create better templates all the time. 07:40 For example, I created a tournament template where it was a tournament day.

We had different people in different matches playing. 07:48 And there was a moment where you had to take the matches played, figure out some ranking, and then declare the next part of the tournament. 07:57 Now, what I did is I created a checkbox that you had to check and say, okay, when did, this time arises, just check this box and you'll see the ranking. 08:05 I did this because at any point that you looked at the sheet before the final match of the, like, sort of morning session, uh, these rankings were wrong. 08:14 Like, actually they weren't wrong, they just weren't completed yet.

And so I wanted to hide them until you needed to actually see them and put in the next matches for the afternoon, let's say. 08:24 Um, but what happened when someone else used this sheet is they didn't know where that checkbox was. It was not in a very, let's say, intuitive place. 08:36 And what I did to change that is after seeing them not use this next ranking system, which was the entire purpose of the sheet, not to just capture the data but to actually deal with the ranking in and of itself. 08:49 We didn't have to do any calculations ourselves, the sheet did it all.

So I was really upset when this, uh, person didn't find this checkbox that actually did all of the work they needed to do. 09:00 And so Oh, I made it. the next iteration of this spreadsheet without that checkbox and just put a little note that says this is not yet the completed ranking until all matches are done. 09:10 So they could see the ranking as it, as it changed during the morning session, let's say.

One more thing that may suck about, selling spreadsheets is the customization requests and you might think that talking to users will provide you with more customization requests and that may get messy. 09:44 But here's how I solve this problem.

So very often I will get emailed, hey, I use this sheet, here's this other thing I want to use this sheet for, or I noticed this does this but I wanted to do this other thing. 09:58 And what I will do sometimes, not all the time, I will actually make that change in the spreadsheet that I sell and then I will email everyone else who has bought that spreadsheet with this update. 10:12 This is very interesting because I find that more people who buy spreadsheets from me, that means that I get more of these customization requests. 10:22 I then make more updates to the sheet and the sheet gets better.

So more customers make the sheets better. That's how I did it, what you did. 10:32 What you might want to do is take these customization requests and turn them into a side business and you can generate more revenue by asking people, do you want this customization? 10:42 You can pay X amount or X amount per hour and I can definitely make these changes just for you.

There is someone I know who is selling a spreadsheet . 10:49 I helped them make this spreadsheet itself so I have insider information about how the spreadsheet works and how they're selling it and they are adding this customization as another revenue stream for themselves. 11:01 This is really good. This is useful because now these customization requests that you get in your inbox or in your email or any kind of DMs or something, they become revenue streams. 11:11 So now you're incentivized to respond, to help them through it.

If it's a very easy fix or even if it's a bug fix, we'll just do that ourselves. 11:20 We'll make those changes ourselves. No cost necessary and we will make those bug changes for everyone. Now, you might be thinking, wow, it sucks if it sucks if you sell a spreadsheet and you have to give support forever. 11:36 And yes, that does suck about spreadsheets. That is the next thing that sucks about spreadsheets is that the pricing. You will most likely have a one-time price. 11:45 You're buying this spreadsheet for $5, $10, $20, and you will get support forever.

There is a couple solutions for this. 11:54 One solution for this is to provide updates only for a certain amount of time. Say, you are buying this template and I will provide you updates to this template I'll see you next time. 12:03 If you wish to get more updates later, you need to get a different spreadsheet that I will create a new product listing for, or I will create a brand new product that is that year's version and you have to buy that. 12:14 I see this often with software that is on Macs or on Android phones.

Anywhere where someone's going to download that software, use it, and they need those updates maybe one or two years later, they will do this. 12:27 Some products like Keyboard Maestro is a product that every year has updates. And if you want the new, the next year's update, you need to pay for the new version and they will give 50% off for anyone who has an old version. 12:42 That's nice, uh, and provides extra revenue as you improve the product.

But it also provides a really nice thing for customers because they get a one-time price. 12:52 They do not have to continue paying a subscription fee to continue using the spreadsheet that they have downloaded and used in their own Google Drive. 12:59 That's a very helpful thing for students. You could also provide updates continually for an extra price or a subscription price, maybe a monthly or a yearly price. 13:14 You can do that if you wish. I don't do that myself.

I do have a membership that I sell on a monthly recurring basis, but that's access to videos that I constantly are adding to and updating and access to myself. 13:26 So, with templates, however, every single template that I sell or give away, sometimes I give away for free, so. But the ones that I sell, I actually do provide infinite support for. 13:37 You can email me anytime. I'm trying to continually update these past templates all the time.

And if I don't, I will just take them down that landing page if I don't want to update it or if it's an old thing. 13:47 Like, for instance, there are a couple calendars that I, uh, give away actually. I think they're free or sell for very little. 13:55 these are a certain year calendar, so I don't provide updates to those. If I do want to create a new one, I will just create a new page. 14:02 A new listing, and say this is the new, this new year's calendar version of this.

Speaking of updates, this is another thing that sucks about selling spreadsheets, is that it is very hard to update users' spreadsheets who are using it in their own Google Drive and you sold it to them and they made a  14:25 copy. Now, I find this is actually a feature because I will, like you said, like I said earlier, may post, provide more updates and customization requests to people, uh, for a certain price. 14:38 That is a benefit instead of something that sucks. But I still find that updates can be a little sucky.

And you might think they're a little sucky. 14:49 But here's the thing. I will create two emails when I create an update. One, I will create an update and share it with those who bought it. 14:59 I will write a different email to those who have not yet bought this device. And I will say, these are the new updates for this template that you have not bought, here's why you should buy it. 15:08 So these updates become a marketing channel. And that's really, really good. It turns this update into revenue for me.

So it turns a really sucky thing about selling spreadsheets into something that's really awesome and can provide more revenue for me. 15:23 And also, more users can buy this template . It gets into their top of their mind, uh, and they go, oh, that update's actually really nice. 15:32 or hey, I didn't, didn't even hear about this yet. So I have a main email list that people sign up for when they get a freebie from me or they sign up for tips or something like that. 15:42 And I send it to those people who have not yet bought the template .

I use ConvertKit, now kit.com, so that I can know who bought what. 15:50 Uh, it connects very well with Gumroad , so I can say, hey, go get this thing on Gumroad . And if you didn't get it on Gumroad , you don't have, uh, this tag in the back end. 15:58 so I can send it to just people who have not yet bought it. Gumroad also. By the way, has this option. 16:04 So you can get it for free from Gumroad , or you can pay for an email service like ConvertKit.

On Gumroad , it's very similar, where you have tags of who bought what, and you can say, I want to send this email to everyone who has not yet bought this product. 16:18 That's a really awesome feature of Gumroad and why I continue to use Gumroad , even though their pricing has changed.

Their feature set is very, very nice for having, basically, those features for free, even though they take a 10% take of the revenue. 16:35 Now, the final and probably worst thing about selling spreadsheets, the thing that sucks the most about selling spreadsheets is when people steal your spreadsheets. 16:42 Now, there are two versions of this.

One, it is people who are literally taking your spreadsheet , stealing it, and trying to sell it on their own. 16:49 That, flat out, is totally unethical and a terrible business practice, uh, and should not be, uh, condoned in any way. 16:58 It should be absolutely not done.

You may be able to find those people and just send them an email and say, hey, you probably didn't know this, or that actually happened to me, uh, someone was actually giving away free spreadsheets that I give away for free, and I actually sent a nice email and say,  17:13 hey, I see you're, uh, giving away the spreadsheets that I give away that I made, uh, all I want is for you to mention that they're from me. 17:23 And also, I would be happy to update these templates for you if you have any personal requests that you know from your audience. 17:31 They ended up coming back and saying, sorry, this was not me, it was someone who I hired to provide these kinds of things, they stole it, and we will be deleting these from our marketing. 17:43 Now, that sort of is not a good thing, because I think that in this case, it would have been mutually beneficial if, A, I could have updated those templates for their audience, and B, if they continue marketing free templates to their audience, but just mentioning me. 18:02 But, whatever.

Hopefully, that gives you an idea of if you find someone stealing, and in that particular case, you can talk to them and have a nice, mutual, beneficial agreement. 18:12 There is one other way of stealing spreadsheets that I actually think turns out to be extremely beneficial for you.

This is when people who have bought your spreadsheet will share it with someone who has not bought their spreadsheet . 18:24 Now, this can happen because people will buy a spreadsheet in one, uh, Google domain, and they will share it with other people on that Google domain. 18:31 Now, I think this is actually incredible. I think this is so awesome that I, in my course, Selling Spreadsheets, I think you should change your mindset about this, and I really, really, really do believe this. 18:46 Understand that people will share your spreadsheet .

One, it's because your spreadsheet is awesome, and two, because it is useful to someone, and if your spreadsheet is useful to someone, they may buy later. 18:56 They may buy updates because updates are hard to get I can update the people who have bought it But now the people who have not bought it who have got it for free do not get those updates. 19:05 If they want the updates, they gotta sign up, buy a new version. Great! They're buying now.

You've turned, now, someone who, quote-unquote, stole your spreadsheet into a buyer. 19:15 But also, add a bunch of branding to your sheet, even when you sell it, and especially when you sell it. 19:21 Because, one, you wanna find out if someone is going to be stealing your spreadsheet and selling it on their own, so you can see, like, oh, they actually included the link to my website that I put into this spreadsheet , they didn't get and delete this when they copied it and started selling it, they're 19:36 pretty lazy. That happens.

Put your branding in, put links to your site, even in Apps Script , so even if you don't use Apps Script itself, you can open Apps Script and type in a comment in Apps Script and say, hey, this is a spreadsheet from this person and from this website, go and check it out on this 19:55 website. For updates, go here.

This is in Apps Script , and a lot of people who are not familiar with spreadsheets, who may be starting a business and thinking, I to take the spreadsheet I bought and I can sell it, they will not go into Apps Script and they will not bother deleting that script because 20:10 they don't know it exists. So that's one way to sort of watermark your sheets. Also include your spreadsheet , include your business in the spreadsheet as another tab about your business. 20:21 Add your website to the bottom or header of your templates.

These are all really good ways to brand your sheet so that people, when they steal, not to prevent them from stealing, but to protect when they steal it, you can get more marketing from people who are actually using your sheet and want more  20:38 from you. Here's one more way to prevent people from stealing is to use Only Sheets.

Only Sheets is a product I created and it's Apps Script that allows access to only people who buy your sheet. 20:51 So when you are selling a spreadsheet and you release that spreadsheet to buyers, you'll usually share with anyone with the link and then just share with them a URL. 21:02 This allows them to share this with anyone on the earth and that person anywhere on the earth can copy. What Only Sheets does is stops you from doing that. 21:10 You do not have to share with anyone with the link.

It will automatically add people to the sheet as a viewer once they buy it. 21:18 It connects with PayPal or Zapier or Gumroad . It's really, really useful. And, it also has some interesting features where you can sell a spreadsheet and offer a unique spreadsheet created just for each buyer. 21:34 I know that sounds a little crazy. I won't go into it in this video, but thank you for watching and I hope this is super helpful for you, uh, taking the suck out of selling </div>

What Sucks About Selling Spreadsheets And How to Solve These Problems