Explore Your Spreadsheet Selling Options

About this Tutorial

- Template
- Custom Formulas
- Custom Functions - Apps Script
- Google Sheet Add-ons

Video Transcript

0:00 Let's take a moment now to explore your spreadsheet selling options. When you think of selling a spreadsheet, you might be thinking sort of a lot of different stuff or you might be thinking only one thing I want to share with you four ways that I think you can sell spreadsheets and do this technically
0:17 like inside of the sheet. What are you actually selling? One of the first ideas most common is a template. This is workflows, planners.
0:26 These are all the habit trackers you have on Etsy. Most Google sheets that are selling are templates. So they are essentially a designed workflow or a designed way.
0:39 And they might have some pretty colors here. They are probably going to be pastel if they're selling on Etsy. That's like rule number one of Etsy is to sell pastels.
0:50 There might be some interesting things about it, but I do find that most, the 95% of sheets that are selling now are templates.
0:58 But I don't think, I don't think that has to stay that way. So the next thing what people may do, and a lot of people do, a lot of really good spreadsheets that are for sale, are adding custom formulas.
1:11 That is, they are inserting a little formula already for you so that you know, hey let's go to C3, add you know, 50, put 50, put 50, put 50, put 50, put 50, put 56 in there, and then let's actually make this a little bit bigger, and put in 88, and automatically this function, or this formula, pops up
1:33 and we have the result of 56 plus 88. And that's really cool, right? I have saved the work of adding that formula, I have saved the work of where to know where I need that data to go.
1:47 But I think we can even do one better, is instead of a, a formulae, a formulae here that looks and is a formula, if it's blank and it has the plus, plus, plus, we can actually, let's delete all of this, add in a custom function, in this case we're just going to add it up, but like add it up, and we're
2:07 going to use c4. And d4, and it's loading, right now it's going to be probably zero, so let's see, there it is, 144.
2:18 How did this work? We just went up to extension's app script over here, and we created the function, add it up, and we have two variables, one and two separated by a comma, and then we just returned one plus two.
2:31 Let me share with you one of the coolest things possible, I think this absolutely makes like, creating app scripts and then selling them, so amazing.
2:41 So above this function, so above this function, just add a little enter, add a slash, and then two asterisks, it will add a third asterisk and have some comments here.
2:55 What we're going to do is do at custom function. We're just going to write that at custom function. We're going to hit save project right here.
3:03 And now once it saves, go back and instead of writing equals added up and having to know that, we're going to hit, we're going to do equal I'm like, hmmm, what was that function add?
3:17 Oh, there it is. Add it up. It is in here natively. And I think if you just sell that, you can literally just sell this script alone and have this at custom function so that someone can have custom functions that work as native functions inside of the spreadsheets that you sell, I think this is like,
3:35 could blow away your competition and make people absolutely love the spreadsheets that they're buying from you. If you, however, oh you need to add it, you actually have to select it.
3:46 And one, and it even includes the one and the two, okay, one, comma, two, and it will work, 144. Perfect.
3:55 But say you want to not show this kind of script. There is one way that I think you can sell.
4:02 Your quote-unquote cheats is by adding add-ons. Now, I'll say two things here. I don't necessarily think creating add-ons, if it's the first thing you're doing, is really that great.
4:15 I think there's lots of, well, I know there's lots of things to do. Because I've made a course called Create, How to Create a Google Shit Add-On.
4:22 It walks you through the entire process of publishing it on the Google Workspace marketplace, which is beyond dreadful. It is very hard to navigate that.
4:29 And that's why I made that video course to walk you through step-by-step on what to do, how to make a webpage.
4:34 How to make all this stuff. It's very hard. But, I will say, I think it's one of the most interesting possibilities that I've thought of to extend functions of your sheets.
4:45 So if you're selling a template and you're consistently selling well and you want to add a function but you don't want the function to, be in Apps Script, publishing a free Google Sheet add-on as an addition to the template that you're selling could add some great functionality.
4:59 I've already done this about six times. The last one I did was literally just a custom function called CPM and it's part of, the course how to create a Google Sheet add-on.
5:10 But I've also made other Google Sheet add-ons which are like I can create a one-by-one sheet with tiny sheets and these are all free by the way go up to extensions add-ons get add-ons I can also do I also have sheet styles which I created which shows a sidebar over here again can add some really cool
5:28 functionality to a template you're already selling and we're gonna change all of the background to the sort of papyrus style and we're gonna change the text to Carla just by clicking this one button we can also do dark style if we want or we can reset to default which is aerial and black here see I took
5:45 all of the background away which is totally fine right this is that's what that function that that's what that add-on does but if you add if you create a google sheet add-on for free and sell a template I think this could be a really really good combination I think it could be really powerful too where
6:05 one you're getting the benefit of selling the template and making a profit off of that and two you're offering something that is pretty hard to implement which is app script and you can again there's that sort of middle ground here where you can just create the app script to sell the template along with
6:21 the app script but sometimes you're like I just want to like save this app script for myself like I want people to use it but I don't want to like show it and I think creating a google sheet add-on is the way to go here again I have not done this combination myself so I'm not bullshitting you here but
6:39 I think it's a really really powerful combination and look you might be thinking oh the google workspace marketplace might be a great place to get known and get traffic but I have to say I don't think there's really any traffic on the google workspace marketplace I think nearly 100 percent of people 
6:57 who are going to there are going to download or install one specific thing. You can still find mine, right? You can type in, ah, sheet styles here.
7:22 But nobody is really going to Google Workspace Marketplace to look for things to get and buy. I think, ah, here, like, this is sheet styles.
7:32 It's already installed, but you can go install it if you just search for sheet styles. Tiny sheets is available here.
7:39 I think it's two words. I even get this wrong myself. There it is, tiny sheets. Ah, so, really cool possibilities.
7:46 I think, ah, I hope that this, these four ideas give you really like an infinite number of possibilities to think about and add.
7:57 And I'm happy to share that experience with you. I have of course spreadsheet automation 101 on better sheets and also master spreadsheet automation on Udemy which covers all Apps Script integrations of APIs, tons of coding stuff and tons of examples.
8:12 You can add really cool stuff to your spreadsheets with that. Alright, thanks.

Courses

Selling Spreadsheets Course Introduction

What Sucks About Selling Spreadsheets And How to Solve These Problems

SECTION 1 - You Are The Sheet

Coupon Code Maker Updates February 2024 - New Dashboard

How to Make Good Looking Spreadsheets

Curate Google Sheets Easily - Automatic Bookmarklet Maker

Explore Your Spreadsheet Selling Options

What you know matters

Who you are matters

How you think matters

Why you think it matters, matters

Surprising Things about Selling Spreadsheets

SECTION 2 - Your Spreadsheet Blueprint

Easiest Sheet Ever to Sell

Problems Everywhere, and the Spreadsheets that Solve Them

The #1 Mistake Spreadsheet Sellers Make and how to Save People Time

Customer’s Context Is King

The Two T’s: Turn Templates into Tools

Create a Branded Lead Magnet from Qualitative Data

Tracker Tactics

SECTION 3 - How to Make a Spreadsheet

Ask Questions

Quality Curation

Fabulous Filters

Wield Wizardry

Automatic Calculations

Automate Emails

You Must Double Duplicate (If you're selling a sheet you use)

Different Kinds of Automation

How do I prevent people from sharing my spreadsheets by making a copy?

SECTION 4 - Spreadsheet Sales Mastery

Write The Sales Page

The Strangest Secret to Selling a Spreadsheet

The F Word

Reciprocity Rules

Pricing Strategies for Spreadsheets

Upselling and Cross-Selling Techniques

Avoid A Multi-Tier Approach

SECTION 5 - Marketing Mastery

Where to Sell Spreadsheets - Marketplace Marketing

Customer Service is Marketing

Six Figure Secrets

How to Sell Spreadsheets on AppSumo Marketplace

Protect Your Spreadsheet IP

Lock Your Sheets with OnlySheets

Weird Idea: Find a Great Sheet Domain Name

A Few New Spreadsheet Business Ideas

SECTION 6 - Spreadsheet Breakdowns

Maximize Spreadsheet Sales to Startups

A Spreadsheet CRM: Automation at work

How to Make Better Lead Magnets

How to Turn a Simple List into an Epic Lead Magnet

The Art of the Sell: Breaking down a Free Title Generator

How to Make an AI Integrated Freebie Spreadsheet