The content + skills playbook to generate sales

How you can sell expertise, not just words

Nov 09, 2025

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Last week, I wrote about how to find your own writing voice in the age of AI.

The piece hit hard because most writers are stuck in this weird tension: use AI and risk sounding like everyone else, or avoid it completely and get buried by people who ship faster.

But here’s what I didn’t cover: what happens after you’ve found your voice?

You’ve figured out your style.

You’re publishing consistently.

Your content actually sounds like you.

Great, but…

Most personal brands never make the jump from “writer” to “expert who sells.”

The money-making personal brands aren’t writing more.

They’re packaging what they know into products that sell while they sleep.

That’s the shift I made a year ago, and it changed everything.

Today’s guest post is from Katharine Gallagher, creator of Learn Grow Monetize, who teaches ambitious professionals and side hustlers how to monetize their skills.

After a personal crisis forced her to rebuild her income from scratch, she figured out how to turn expertise into automated revenue streams without a massive audience.

This is what most personal brands miss after they’ve found their voice:

The transformation happens when you turn your knowledge into products that scale.

Today, she will give you a hands-on beginner's guide to start exactly that.

Here’s Katharine.

Most personal brands treat their content like a chore—they post, hustle, repeat—without turning it into scalable income.

The truth? Your content can build an audience and sell your expertise while you focus on growth.

Why This Matters Now

The creator economy flipped the script on what it means to have a personal brand. The creators building real wealth today aren’t the ones writing more—they’re the ones positioning themselves as experts and selling what they know.

According recent research by The Leap by Thinkific, “67% of creators who’ve monetized an audience sell some kind of product.”

Today, platforms like Substack and Gumroad or Stan Store make it easier than ever to monetize your expertise without tech headaches or massive audiences.

I discovered how to turn my content and expertise into products that sell—without trading more hours.

You can do the same.

You just need the right system.

…and here’s exactly how to do it.

The Content + Skills Playbook: Your Framework for Monetizing Expertise

1. Understand the Shift: From Personal Brand to Expert

Your value isn’t measured by how much content you produce—it’s measured by the insight, guidance, or results you deliver.

Your brand is your authority. Make it visible. Make it sell.

When your audience sees a clear point of view and consistent expertise, they start to trust you. And trust opens the door to premium opportunities.

Stop thinking like a content creator who simply posts—start thinking like an expert who solves problems. This isn’t about ego—it’s business strategy. Experts charge more, attract better opportunities, and create income streams that scale beyond trading time for content.

The mindset shift: Stop asking, “What should I post?” and start asking, “What knowledge or system can I share that people will pay for?”

The moment you present yourself by what you solve, not just what you create, everything changes:

People lean in.
They ask questions.
They see you differently.

When I made this shift, my income changed—not because I produced more content, but because I started attracting the right opportunities and packaging my expertise in ways that sold.

2. Choose Your Power Platforms: Substack + Gumroad or Stan Store

You don’t need a complicated tech stack to start selling your expertise. Two platforms do the heavy lifting:

Substack builds your authority and audience. You publish valuable content consistently (weekly works best), own your subscriber list, and control your content. No algorithms deciding who sees your work.

It also helps establish your authority and is a space for you to build your personal brand.

When you consistently share your unique insights, style, and expertise through a well-branded personal voice, you become someone that others turn to for guidance, not just for content.

Gumroad or Stan Store handles your sales. Upload digital products, set prices, share your link. When someone buys, Stan Store delivers everything automatically—payment processing, file delivery, confirmation emails.

Why this combo works: Substack builds trust through free content. Gumroad or Stan Store converts that trust into revenue. Your newsletter becomes your marketing engine. Your store becomes your automated sales system.

I am convinced that owning your audience is the only sustainable path forward. Social media algorithms will change. Platforms will come and go. But your email list? That’s yours forever.

I use this exact setup for my Learn Grow Monetize Substack. Readers get consistent value in their inbox. When they want deeper frameworks or done-for-you templates, they click through to purchase.

The system runs while you sleep.

That’s how you leverage your skills and not only earn your worth but protect your income in an uncertain employment market.

3. Skills to Sales (4 Steps)

Before you sell anything, make sure people know who you are. Your expertise and how you present it—through your words, your insights, and your presence—creates trust.

The clearer you are as a knowledgeable, approachable authority, the easier it is for people to see the value in what you offer.

Here’s the framework I use to turn knowledge into profitable offers:

Step 1: Identify Your Most Valuable Skills

Don’t guess. Look for patterns:

What do people already ask you for advice about?
What problems have you solved that others still struggle with?
What knowledge or systems can you share that help your audience achieve real results?

Write down everything. Circle the three skills with the highest marketplace value.

Quick tip: The skills that feel easiest to you are often the ones people will pay the most for. What’s obvious to you is breakthrough material to someone three steps behind you.

Step 2: Validate Your Niche

Before you create anything, confirm there’s demand. Go where your potential customers hang out online—Facebook groups, Reddit threads, Twitter conversations, comment sections.

This is a great hack: Search ‘[your topic] + Reddit’ or ‘[your topic] + struggling’ on Google. You’ll find unfiltered conversations showing exactly what people are willing to pay to solve.

Pay attention to:

Questions asked repeatedly
Complaints about existing solutions
Gaps between advice people get and results they want

This research tells you exactly what to create.

Step 3: Design Offers That Solve Real Problems

Start with the outcome your customer wants. Then reverse engineer the steps to get there. Package those steps into formats your audience prefers:

Templates (save time, eliminate guesswork)
Mini-courses (teach specific skills in 5–7 modules)
Guides and workbooks (combine education with implementation)
Frameworks (your proven process, clearly documented)
AI prompts (especially valuable right now)

Example: I identified that ambitious professionals want to start side hustles but feel overwhelmed. I created a 90-day roadmap breaking the process into small, achievable steps. It sells consistently because it solves a specific problem with a clear system.

Step 4: Deliver Concise, Actionable Solutions

People don’t want 100-page manuals. They want clear paths forward—what to do first, second, third. Give them exactly what they need to achieve the specific result they want.

As I see it, most digital products fail because they try to teach everything instead of solving one thing brilliantly. Be ruthlessly specific about the outcome you promise.

Nothing more. Nothing less.

4. Simple Digital Products You Can Sell Today

The biggest myth holding personal brands back? Believing digital products require months of work or technical expertise.

You can validate your skill, create a simple product, and start selling in one weekend.

Start with any of these:

Mini-courses: 5 written modules delivered by email or PDF. Teach one specific skill. Price: $50–$200.

Templates: If you have systems for content planning, productivity workflows, or audience growth, package them. Price: $20–$50.

Paid newsletters: Exclusive content or deeper insights for subscribers. Price: $5–$20/month.

Guides and workbooks: Educational content with implementation worksheets. Price: $30–$100.

Prompts and frameworks: Your proven process or battle-tested AI prompts. Price: $15–$75.

Notice something? None require video. None require sophisticated technology. You use the skills you already have—organizing information, explaining concepts clearly—and package them in ways people will pay for.

Based on personal experience, your first product teaches you more about your audience than six months of ‘research.’ Ship something simple. Learn. Iterate. That’s how you build a real business.

My first digital product was a 15-page PDF I created in two days. Not fancy. But it solved a problem. People bought it. That proved the model worked.

5. Price for Profit: Sell Outcomes, Not Words

Many personal brands underprice because they focus on effort instead of the value they deliver.

I think that a really powerful point to note is this: when you underprice, you’re not being generous—you’re training your audience to expect cheap solutions. Premium pricing attracts serious buyers.

The shift: Customers pay for outcomes—what they’ll be able to do, achieve, or avoid because of what you teach them.

If your framework helps someone land one client worth $2,000, your product is worth several hundred dollars minimum.
If your template saves someone 10 hours and their time is worth $50/hour, you just provided $500 of value.

Price accordingly.

How to position your offers:

❌ “Includes 12 pages and 3 templates”

✅ “The exact system I used to generate $5K in product sales in 60 days”

❌ “Comprehensive guide to building an audience”

✅ “The 3-part content formula that grew my email list from 0 to 1,000 in 90 days”

Focus on clarity and specificity. Vague promises don’t sell. Specific outcomes do.

Here’s an idea: Before you set your price, write down the dollar value or time savings your product provides. Then charge 10-30% of that value. Suddenly pricing feels less scary.

When I ethically raised the price of The Substack Scale Blueprint from $25 to $57 (reflecting the true value it offered instead of staying low out of fear) sales actually increased. The higher price signaled to people that it contained valuable, worthwhile information, boosting their perception of its worth.

6. Build Your Automated Sales System

Here’s how Substack and Gumroad or Stan Store work together:

Week 1–4: Launch your Substack. Publish 3–4 valuable newsletters that demonstrate your expertise. Focus purely on helping your audience. Build trust.

Week 5–6: Set up your Gumroad or Stan Store. Upload your first product with a clear, outcome-focused description. Add your store link to your Substack bio and newsletter footer.

Week 7+: Continue publishing valuable newsletters weekly. Include natural calls-to-action: “Want the full framework? Grab my guide here” or “I created a template that automates this—check it out.”

The content calendar: 3 out of 4 newsletters focus on pure value. Every 4th newsletter can spotlight your paid offers more directly—share customer success stories, explain what’s inside your products, or make limited-time offers.

I love this strategy: Give value three weeks, sell on the fourth. Your audience never feels sold to constantly, but you’re consistently reminding them you have solutions when they’re ready to go deeper.

Email automation: Create a welcome sequence for new subscribers. Introduce yourself. Deliver immediate value. Mention your paid products naturally. This runs automatically for every new subscriber.

It seems to me that most personal brands stay stuck trading time for money because they don’t realize this: the same 20 hours creating a digital product can generate income for years. The same 20 hours on a one-time project pays you once.

The work you do once continues generating results indefinitely.

7. The 90-Day Action Plan

Before diving in, remember that credibility matters. How you show up in your content, emails, and interactions sets the stage for trust. The more confidently and clearly you present your knowledge, the faster people will see you through the lens of your personal brand as the solution to their problem.

You can go from idea to first sale in 90 days with this roadmap:

For me, 90 days is the perfect timeline (long enough to create habit, see progress and build something genuinely valuable, short enough to be achievable and maintain momentum.

Any shorter and you rush. Any longer and you overthink.

Days 1–14: Validate and Define

Research your potential customers online
Document top 5 problems you could solve
Choose one where you have expertise + clear demand
Write a 1-page outline: problem → transformation → components

Days 15–45: Create Your Product

Build what you outlined (focus on useful, not perfect)
Write clear explanations with examples
Include templates or checklists for immediate use
Format simply (a well-organized PDF works great)

Days 46–60: Build Your Foundation

Set up Substack (if you haven’t already)
Publish 3 valuable newsletters in your niche
Set up Stan Store with your product
Create a welcome sequence for new subscribers

Days 61–75: Soft Launch

Tell your network about your product
Share in relevant online communities
Post on social media
Email your subscribers

In my opinion, your first three sales matter more than your first hundred. They prove the concept. They give you testimonials. They build confidence. Focus on getting three buyers who love your work.

Goal: Get your first 3–5 customers and prove the concept works.

Days 76–90: Refine and Scale

Improve your product based on feedback
Continue publishing weekly newsletters
Test different ways of describing your offer
Pay attention to what language resonates

My first sale came on day 73. $50 for a guide I created in about 20 hours. The buyer emailed saying it was exactly what she needed. That email changed everything—it proved people would pay for my expertise.

Within 6 months: 5 products generating consistent income.
Within a year: Digital product income exceeded my previous income.

The Takeaway

The most successful personal brands of tomorrow won’t just post—they’ll teach, influence, and lead. They’ll position themselves as experts whose knowledge is valuable and worth paying for.

The employment landscape is changing rapidly. Job security is a myth. The only real security comes from skills you own and knowledge you can monetize.

The real security comes from building multiple income streams based on expertise no one can take from you—even in a recession or amidst layoffs.

When you build a personal brand, create digital products, and cultivate an audience, you create security no employer can give you and no economic downturn can take away.

This isn’t about creating more content. It’s about creating smarter—using your content to build authority while packaging your expertise into products that scale your income.

Your expertise is valuable. Your knowledge is worth paying for.

The question is whether you’ll claim your authority and take the first step toward selling expertise instead of just words.

Your Next Steps

Ready to turn your content into a scalable business?

Start here:

Identify one skill you have that solves a real problem for people
Validate there’s demand by researching where your audience hangs out online
Create something simple this weekend—a template, a guide, a framework
Set up your Substack and Stan Store
Ship it

You don’t need to be perfect. You need to start.

Drop a comment below: What’s one skill you could package and sell if you packaged your expertise? I read every response.

_________________________________________________________________________

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