Kathryn Binkley:

Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Today, I have Eden with me. She is the digital product lady. After billing on her plan to attend law school back in 2016 despite paying her seat deposit, securing an apartment, dropping 1,000 on textbooks, Eden decided to try her hand at entrepreneurship instead. Since then, Eden mastered the art of making a full time income with digital products, things like e-books, courses, workshops, etcetera. Eden's a rebel.

Eden Fried:

I love that.

Kathryn Binkley:

And she believes that you shouldn't need to work for someone else in order to pay the bills. She's dedicated her life to inspiring and teaching other rebel women how to turn their passion into a digital product that they can sell and make an income from online. She's the host of Rebel Boss Ladies podcast and the founder of Rebel Boss University, a membership community where she teaches rebels how to create and launch a digital product within 90 days. When she's not at work, she can be found at the gym throwing around some moderately heavy weights, and she says emphasis on the word moderately or rewatching an episode of Friends or How I Met Your Mother for the millionth time. Welcome, Eden.

Eden Fried:

Thank you so much for having me.

Kathryn Binkley:

Is there anything that maybe we missed in all of that? That was an incredible bio, but maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you got to this point. What does your entrepreneurial journey look like?

Eden Fried:

Absolutely. So like we mentioned in the bio, my story starts a few years ago when I was enrolled to start law school, and what I didn't mention was kind of how I made the decision not to go. So basically, I went to my brother's wedding. He lived in Budapest, Hungary at the time, and I'm from the States, so quite the journey overseas. And during his wedding he's an entrepreneur, so he had a bunch of entrepreneurial friends there. During his wedding, he had all of his friends charging at me with the intent of convincing me not to go to law school and pursuing entrepreneurship instead. He obviously was very loving and supportive, and if I really did wanna go to law school, he would have undoubtedly supported me 100%, but he had this feeling and gut that it wasn't really for me and that I was just doing it because I was in my early twenties and didn't know what else to do with my life.

Eden Fried:

You know, they say, go to college, get a job, or if you don't like your job, go back to school and get a graduate degree. And that's what I thought I should be doing, and him and his friends just totally changed my perspective. I'm the kind of person who I'm not 100% set in my ways. I'm very, very open minded. And if somebody approaches me with a new idea, I like To listen to their perspective and consider changing my own, and he succeeded that day. I literally called my boyfriend, who's now my husband, that day at his wedding and said, you know what? I'm not going to law school. I'm gonna pursue entrepreneurship. I didn't know what it was gonna look like at the time.

Eden Fried:

I just knew that I was gonna dive into it and cross my fingers and toes and hope that it would work out. But the very next day, I started my blog, and the rest is history.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. So how did you go from starting a blog to the digital product lady?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. That's a good question. It definitely wasn't an easy transition by any means, but, basically, when I started my blog, the goal was for it to be kind of like a diary or journal as you go. I started my blog with a host about how I had bailed on law school and was gonna try and make money online, and so all of my content was focused on sharing my experiences trying a bunch of different things. And, you know, if you guys are listening, there's tons of different ways to make money online, and I pretty much tried all of them.

Eden Fried:

I tried affiliate marketing and sponsorships and ads and the whole 9 yards. I had done a bunch of freelancing. And eventually, like, the very last thing that was left was digital products, and it was kind of the thing that had postponed the longest. And I think it's just because it seems really daunting and intimidating because it's your product. You have to make it. You're in charge of the customer service and the creation and, everything, so it was scary for me. But, you know, at some point, I realized I'm not making what I need to be making in order to survive, and if I'm gonna give myself the best shot at success, like, I need to be open minded to try all the things. So I decided to create a course, and it wasn't like a big gigantic online course.

Eden Fried:

It was a pretty simple course that I had created within the course of a week. It was created due to me getting a bunch of questions on the same topic, which is a great way to come up with a product idea based on customer feedback. And from there, I launched the course and it worked. You know? I made my first $500, that turned into my first $1,000, that turned into my first $2,000, and it just kind of it grew from there, and I knew that that was the direction I needed to go in in my business.

Kathryn Binkley:

Love that. I also love that you said it was your first $500, and some people will make their first $500 and give up and think that it's not enough, or they make nothing that first time and they give up. Right? But you split it, and it just continued to grow.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. That's so true. I mean, I know so I work with product creators obviously all the time, day In and day out, and I had somebody talk to me the other day saying they were feeling kind of down, and I asked her what her numbers were. She was in, like, day 2 of her 5 day launch or something like that. And she told me that with a small audience of less than 250 people, she had sold 6 copies of her $29 e-book. And if you actually do the math on that, that's almost a 3% conversion rate, and industry standard is 1 to 7%. So I'm like, well, hold on. Let's shift our perspective.

Eden Fried:

You have, like, a massive success story right here. You know? That's like, people always think you're gonna make $1,000 and $1,000 your first time, but, no, you make your first hundred, your first $200, your first $300, $500, that's the beginning. You have to keep going from there. Like, everything just grows, but you can't give up before you give yourself a chance.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So I want to dive in a little bit more, but before we do, I just wanna hear. So what do you love about your business? What lights you up about either the work that you do in your business or the life that you have because of it or both?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Oh, this is such a good question. I love that. This is a focus of your podcast in business. Super important. Alright. So in a past life, I'm somebody who has lots of different career potential trajectories. So my education is actually in early childhood education, although I obviously never pursued that. I was hired to be a teacher, and I'm certified to be a teacher and decided that the traditional classroom environment was not the right place for me. But what I love about what I do now is that I get to take my passion for teaching and do it every single day in a way that is really, really flexible for me. So I don't need to be, you know, in a classroom 9 months to 10 months out of the year. I get to be, you know, at home on my computer, and I get to work with people when it works for me and when it, you know, when it doesn't work For me, I don't have to work with people, but it's very malleable to what I'm feeling on any given day or in any particular month, But I still get to teach, and that brings me so much joy. Like, I truly love working with people and seeing the transformation that they go through and getting them the results that they crave. That's, like, the best possible thing in the world.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. I absolutely love the idea of taking a traditional skill set, a traditional path or trajectory, as you mentioned, and then applying it online, and so many people miss how I say easily, not that it doesn't take work, but how easy it is to just shift things online and still operate in your passion but doing a different thing. Like, so many of us have so many things that we love to do, but that can be expressed in so many ways, and it's good to explore those.

Eden Fried:

Like I mentioned, I'm a rebel and a rule breaker. You know, I always say that when I was a teenager. I never really went through my rebellion, and here I am now in my adult years 100% going through it, but in a really good way. So break the rules and, you know, like, even if you think something needs to be a certain way, it doesn't have to. Like, your creativity is the only limitation here. You can 100 percent make things the way you want them to be.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yes. Absolutely. Okay. So I have a lot of entrepreneurs who listen in, and quite a few of the people that follow, not everyone, but quite a good majority are offering services. And they might just be thinking about or maybe they've never thought about breaking into the digital course world. And a really great first step, while still delivering the services online is to create a tripwire. Oh, yes. It's an incredible first step, and I know that you know a ton about this topic. So first, just in case there's anyone who doesn't know what the word tripwire means, can you talk just a little bit about what it even is?

Eden Fried:

Basically, a trip wire is a very low cost product. It's typically marked down. So you might sell it separately for, let's say, $47. But when it's a trip wire, it's Probably $9, $12, maybe 19, but typically more in the 9 or $12 range. And a trip wire works Super well because what happens is somebody will sign up for your freebie or lead magnet, whatever you refer to that as, and instantly when they subscribe to your list, they're gonna be taken to a page. Some people might use this as a regular thank you page, but I like to squeeze as much juice out of everything I do as much as possible.

Eden Fried:

So instead of making it a thank you page, make it a tripwire sales page. It's gonna be a very simple page that offers your low cost tripwire product At a very discounted rate for a very limited amount of time. Usually, it's gonna have a 15 minute timer, a 20 minute timer on that page. And why this works so well is because it's so low cost and because it's only low cost while the timer is there, and because the timer adds that sense of urgency. So people really feel like they're gonna miss out on the opportunity if they don't take action right now. So the conversion rate on your tripwire page is gonna be really, really high. So at its very core, that's what a tripwire is and why it works super well.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. And then the whole idea is to turn these leads into instant customers. Now why would someone want to do this?

Eden Fried:

So people who purchase from you once are statistically more likely to purchase from you again. So the goal for you as the seller is to turn your leads into customers as fast as possible, and the way that you do that is by immediately giving them an opportunity to buy from you with a trip wire.

Kathryn Binkley:

First of all, a couple things I just want to highlight. If you're using your thank you page just to say thank you, you're missing an incredible opportunity. There are a few things that you can do on your thank you page to optimize and to get more out of it, as Aidan was saying, and a tripwire is fantastic. And then getting people to purchase right away means their propensity to buy from you in the future is greater, which is awesome. So what does that look like long term? Have you you've worked with a lot of women and helped them put trip buyers in place. Have you seen that impact over time?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. It's interesting. It's not even necessarily over time. It's The instant results that they get that I personally love the most, I'll have people who set up their trip wire today and tomorrow they make their 1st sale, And it's such a different feeling. Like, I know a lot of you guys listening are service based people. So if you're a service based person, you might not have ever experienced the joy that comes from earning passive income online. And the trip wire might be your first way to achieve that feeling. And it's Freeing, honestly, because you're so used to selling your time for money that when you can create something once and sell it over and over again and earn money from that, like, That is gonna be really incredible for you and your business and just adding an additional, like, layer of revenue for you, which is great.

Eden Fried:

But I would say that long term, what happens is people who implement tripwires is they actually they don't get rich off tripwires. Right? These are low cost products, you're not gonna get rich off of them, but they actually break even. So they end up covering the costs for the tools that they're using and other aspects of their business. Or even if they plan to run ads, they're actually breaking even on their ad spend, which is obviously a really, really great place to be if you guys are familiar with Facebook and Instagram ads. So that's really powerful, and, of course, those leads who purchased the trip wire turn into customers who pay more down the line. Okay. Great.

Kathryn Binkley:

I have a question for you. Well, I have a few, but one right off the bat that's just kind of for fun. First of all, do you have notifications set up on your phone so that every time you have a purchase, you get some kind of a notification?

Eden Fried:

No. You don't? Okay.

Kathryn Binkley:

I was just curious. I've heard so many people do this, and I actually have set that up for one of my digital products. And I was gonna ask, where's the craziest place that you've ever been or the most fun you've been having while getting that you just made a sale?

Eden Fried:

I can still answer that because I don't currently have it, but I have had it set up in the past. And I the funniest place because I was literally sitting on the toilet, and, yeah, maybe it's TMI, but let's be real. We've all done it. We've all done the toilet scroll before, and, yeah, I was on my and got a sale, and I was like, yeah! This is the most, like, profitable bathroom trip that I've ever had.

Kathryn Binkley:

I love it. Great. Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. Okay. So can you tell us a little bit more about what do you need in order to create a tripwire?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Okay. So, obviously, you need a product, and this doesn't need to be a really robust product. For service based folks, it might feel a little bit intimidating for you, but it can be very simple. You know, I have people who Maybe they sell, like, photo based memberships, and their tripwire will be, like, 20 photos or something like that. They already have it, basically, so it's not that difficult for them to create. So I would say, you know, whatever you're doing right now, think about something simple that you can provide to your customers that scratches the itch of the problem that your product is solving. So besides the product, you need a payment processor.

Eden Fried:

So that's gonna be the thing that actually collects payment. You know, you can use a whole number of different things. If you're a course seller, you can use teachable because you already probably have of course, software, you know, teachable or similar. You can use SendOwl. You can use Gumroad. Really, there are so many different options out there. It doesn't need to be Fancy schmancy. It's just whatever works for you as long as it can collect payments preferably through Stripe and PayPal.

Eden Fried:

Having both of those options enabled is going to drastically increase your conversion rate. The next thing that you need is a timer. You know, trip wires are not gonna work well for you if you don't have a sense of urgency, but you can't just slap on a regular timer. You know, there's that free timer motion mail app, which is great. I've used it a ton of times in the past, but the problem is it's just a timer. It needs additional functionality. With a tripwire, you need your timer to be able to show the time that's remaining, but it also needs to expire the page. Because one of the most important things with Tripwire is that we're being truthful that the offer is going to disappear when the timer runs out.

Eden Fried:

So I use a tool called deadline funnel, which is Really powerful and really amazing, and I've used it on all my trip wires, and I absolutely love it. There are free options out there, page robot, evergreen countdown timer. But whatever you choose to use, you need to make sure that your timer shows the time, obviously, but also expires The content. And beyond that, you you basically just need a website to host your stuff. It doesn't need to be a fancy website, but it It's got to be there. It's your freebie. Sign up needs to be connected to your Tripwire page so that everything's a seamless transition from 1 page to the next, and you are good to go.

Kathryn Binkley:

Awesome. And you said that you set up your 1st entire course in about, like, a week. What does it take timing wise to set up a trip by? Or some people could set this up far more quickly.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. I would say you could do it today. It's not particularly challenging. The most difficult part is obviously just, like, choosing what tools you're gonna use to make it happen for you. But if you're, like, halfway decent with technology, you're gonna be able to get it up today.

Kathryn Binkley:
Do you wanna walk everyone through the process, maybe from the buyer's side, from their experience, what this is gonna look like?

Eden Fried:

Absolutely. So your buyer comes from somewhere. Right? So maybe they're just browsing through on Facebook or maybe they're scrolling on Instagram and they're watching your Instagram story, and you shared your freebie on your Instagram story. And you said, hey. Go to the link in my bio. So they go to link in your bio, and they click to access your really awesome freebie, or maybe they're even just looking at a blog. It doesn't really matter.

Eden Fried:

But either way, they land on your site. And whether they're looking at your blog, they're gonna see your freebie eventually, or whether they're just directly on your freebie page, doesn't matter. Either way, they see your freebie, and the freebie is so to them because it solves a problem that they're experiencing. And when they look at your freebie, they think to themselves, like, wow, she's speaking to me. Like, it's like she's reading my mind. She knows exactly what I need right now, and I totally I just have to sign up. And in this world where there's so much stuff online And there's tons of free content out there. Your freebie has to really, really target that pain point.

Eden Fried:

So you've succeeded in making your this person feel like, Yeah. I need this. So they put their name, their email address in. It's headed to their inbox. Instantly, they're taken to this page that says, Hey. You know, your freebie's on its way through cyberspace to your inbox, but before you go, do you wanna also take advantage of this opportunity? Here's this product. Here's what it's gonna do for you, and here's the value that it's gonna provide. Here's some of the things that are included.

Eden Fried:

It's actually usually $47, but I'm gonna give it to you right now for just 9. But the thing is, it's only $9 before the 20-minute timer runs out. And when the 20 minute timer runs out, that's it. This page is gonna expire, and you're no longer going to be able to access it. You might show this person some testimonials on that page. You'd probably have a mock up of your tripwire on that page as well to show them the product and get them to have a little bit of sneak peek, and maybe she even watches a video of you telling her what the tripwire includes. Obviously, you're not using the word tripwire, but you're talking about the product itself. And maybe she's even, like, sitting in her bed, which has happened to me, by the way, or I'm just, like, in my bed scrolling through And, you know, looking at this and you're like, oh my gosh.

Eden Fried:

There's only 20 minutes left, and now there's only 19 minutes left. Now there's only 18 minutes left. I'm gonna go get my credit card. And then she goes, puts in her credit card information, and she buys it, and now you just made a sale. Super, super easy peasy. It works exactly like that, and that's kind of like the end of the journey. From there, she's now your customer, and you can upsell her in any way that you want to, put her in your funnels for your more expensive products, but that's the journey. Super quick.

Kathryn Binkley:

That's amazing. I know I've done that many, many times myself as the customer and then also have been on the other end having set some of this up, and it's incredible. So I'm sure if you're listening, you've purchased someone's tripwire. Whether you knew it was called that or not doesn't matter. I'm sure you have.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. I know I have. Many. Yeah. More than once, for sure.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. Okay. So what are some of the best examples of tripwires that you've seen or some that you recommend or any tips about? Which works better?

Eden Fried:

I would say the most high performing tripwires are gonna be the ones that are filled with value. So, You know, it might not even be a traditional tripwire. So, you know, I run a summit, a virtual summit. Technically, my summit is 100% free, and my tripwire is an upgrade where you can pay for the summit to have lifetime access. And you can actually get the this is more expensive than a traditional trip wire, but you would get access to all the interviews and you would get access to, like, 1,000 of dollars in bonus courses and e-books and other resources, and it was priced for the first time I did it at $47, and within 20 minute that 20 minute time frame, over 8% of the people who view that page purchased it. And the thing I mentioned earlier, like, a traditional conversion rate is 1 to 7%, so to have an 8% conversion rate with over 3,000 attendees, it's pretty remarkable. That's not a traditional trip wire, but technically by definition, it's still a tripwire.

Eden Fried:

So the reason why it works really well is because it's just filled with value. Like, it's such an easy yes, and that's what makes a trip r successful. Like, it has to be a no brainer, easy yes offer in order for it to be successful.

Kathryn Binkley:
Yeah. And you also in that example, it's very closely aligned, and I think this is important, very closely aligned with what they originally opted in for. You know what? That that's a
got to be key.

Eden Fried:

Thanks for bringing that up. That's such an important point for sure. You know, you might be tempted if you have this, like, product that you already have, even though that's not quite what you're doing right now and it's not quite, like, relevant to your target customer, you might be tempted to create it turned it into a tripwire. And you know what? That's just a waste of time and energy for you because no one's gonna buy it. And maybe if someone buys it, it's a fluke, and you got lucky. So it really does need to be very closely aligned with your end product, but and with your whole brand messaging, for sure.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. Anything else that you feel like, as a listener, someone would need to hear on this topic before we wrap up?

Eden Fried:

So just one thing. I know a lot of you guys are service based people and, you know, maybe your products or passive products are not something that you've thought of, but I would encourage you guys to keep your mind open to tripwires even though you're service based entrepreneurs. Because like Catherine said earlier, you really are leaving money on the table if You just have a regular thank you page for a lead magnet that already exists. But, also, this is a great way to just earn a little bit of extra money to cover your costs and expenses And also to branch into passive income. I always say service based entrepreneurs have this whole other side that they could be leveraging to support their customers. You know? Think about what you would do if a customer can't afford your services. Do you just turn them away, Or is there another way that you can make a little bit of income working with them just in a more passive sense? Maybe you can sell them a little bit of a digital product.

Eden Fried:

You know, obviously, it's not a time commitment for you. The product already exists, and you can still make some money off of that customer and give them exactly what they need and serve them in the best way Well, a trip wire is obviously a great way to start dipping your toes into the water of passive income with a product, And it's also a great way just to support your customers a little bit differently.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yes. And, you know, as a service provider myself with a few things in place that are more passive, it's incredible for even let's say you have a one to 1 or done for you service, but you mentioned earlier answering the same questions over and over again for your audience, but we do the same with our clients. So why not bundle up some of that into a product that you can sell as a low tier product, but then also give access to your higher end clients so that you don't have to answer those questions over and over again. I know that that's been incredibly helpful for me to have a course in place for the basics, and then they can come to me for higher in question. So they work together really, really well. And then one last thought is, I talk a lot about different phases of marketing, strategy visibility, lead gen, and sales, and Tripwire specifically are a great way to transitioned quickly, that's what we're talking about today, from the lead gen to sales, and that's critical because I see so many people, so many entrepreneurs, spend time just on lead gen this month, and then next month, I'm gonna focus on sales, and then this month, I'm gonna focus on visibility. But you really need a seamless process that includes all of those all of the time. And so trip buyers are an incredible way to, as we've talked about, instantly turn those leads into So just wanted to point that out as well.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that.

Kathryn Binkley:

So where could everyone find out more about you, and is there anything specifically, that you would like to call out to point them to if they want to continue to learn more from you?

Eden Fried:

For sure. So you guys can find me online edenfreid.com. It's where I produce a lot of content related to digital products. You'll find some stuff on tripwires there as well. If you want to learn more about tripwires and start to implement tripwire strategy in your business, you can go to edenfried.comforward/lit. Again, edenfried.comforward/lit, and I will give you access to an entire document that's gonna basically show you how to set up your 1st trip wire and some tools that I recommend that you use. It's just gonna make it so much easier for you. You guys can also find me online on Instagram at Eden Fried, and I also am the host of the Rebel Boss Ladies podcast where we talk exclusively about digital products. So lots of places.

Kathryn Binkley:

Perfect. Okay. I hope everyone will go check you out. Go download all of your freebies and see tripwires at work because, I'm sure.  So go check that out and thank you so much for joining me today.

Kathryn Binkley:

Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Today, I have Eden with me. She is the digital product lady. After billing on her plan to attend law school back in 2016 despite paying her seat deposit, securing an apartment, dropping 1,000 on textbooks, Eden decided to try her hand at entrepreneurship instead. Since then, Eden mastered the art of making a full time income with digital products, things like e-books, courses, workshops, etcetera. Eden's a rebel.

Eden Fried:

I love that.

Kathryn Binkley:

And she believes that you shouldn't need to work for someone else in order to pay the bills. She's dedicated her life to inspiring and teaching other rebel women how to turn their passion into a digital product that they can sell and make an income from online. She's the host of Rebel Boss Ladies podcast and the founder of Rebel Boss University, a membership community where she teaches rebels how to create and launch a digital product within 90 days. When she's not at work, she can be found at the gym throwing around some moderately heavy weights, and she says emphasis on the word moderately or rewatching an episode of Friends or How I Met Your Mother for the millionth time. Welcome, Eden.

Eden Fried:

Thank you so much for having me.

Kathryn Binkley:

Is there anything that maybe we missed in all of that? That was an incredible bio, but maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you got to this point. What does your entrepreneurial journey look like?

Eden Fried:

Absolutely. So like we mentioned in the bio, my story starts a few years ago when I was enrolled to start law school, and what I didn't mention was kind of how I made the decision not to go. So basically, I went to my brother's wedding. He lived in Budapest, Hungary at the time, and I'm from the States, so quite the journey overseas. And during his wedding he's an entrepreneur, so he had a bunch of entrepreneurial friends there. During his wedding, he had all of his friends charging at me with the intent of convincing me not to go to law school and pursuing entrepreneurship instead. He obviously was very loving and supportive, and if I really did wanna go to law school, he would have undoubtedly supported me 100%, but he had this feeling and gut that it wasn't really for me and that I was just doing it because I was in my early twenties and didn't know what else to do with my life.

Eden Fried:

You know, they say, go to college, get a job, or if you don't like your job, go back to school and get a graduate degree. And that's what I thought I should be doing, and him and his friends just totally changed my perspective. I'm the kind of person who I'm not 100% set in my ways. I'm very, very open minded. And if somebody approaches me with a new idea, I like To listen to their perspective and consider changing my own, and he succeeded that day. I literally called my boyfriend, who's now my husband, that day at his wedding and said, you know what? I'm not going to law school. I'm gonna pursue entrepreneurship. I didn't know what it was gonna look like at the time.

Eden Fried:

I just knew that I was gonna dive into it and cross my fingers and toes and hope that it would work out. But the very next day, I started my blog, and the rest is history.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. So how did you go from starting a blog to the digital product lady?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. That's a good question. It definitely wasn't an easy transition by any means, but, basically, when I started my blog, the goal was for it to be kind of like a diary or journal as you go. I started my blog with a host about how I had bailed on law school and was gonna try and make money online, and so all of my content was focused on sharing my experiences trying a bunch of different things. And, you know, if you guys are listening, there's tons of different ways to make money online, and I pretty much tried all of them.

Eden Fried:

I tried affiliate marketing and sponsorships and ads and the whole 9 yards. I had done a bunch of freelancing. And eventually, like, the very last thing that was left was digital products, and it was kind of the thing that had postponed the longest. And I think it's just because it seems really daunting and intimidating because it's your product. You have to make it. You're in charge of the customer service and the creation and, everything, so it was scary for me. But, you know, at some point, I realized I'm not making what I need to be making in order to survive, and if I'm gonna give myself the best shot at success, like, I need to be open minded to try all the things. So I decided to create a course, and it wasn't like a big gigantic online course.

Eden Fried:

It was a pretty simple course that I had created within the course of a week. It was created due to me getting a bunch of questions on the same topic, which is a great way to come up with a product idea based on customer feedback. And from there, I launched the course and it worked. You know? I made my first $500, that turned into my first $1,000, that turned into my first $2,000, and it just kind of it grew from there, and I knew that that was the direction I needed to go in in my business.

Kathryn Binkley:

Love that. I also love that you said it was your first $500, and some people will make their first $500 and give up and think that it's not enough, or they make nothing that first time and they give up. Right? But you split it, and it just continued to grow.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. That's so true. I mean, I know so I work with product creators obviously all the time, day In and day out, and I had somebody talk to me the other day saying they were feeling kind of down, and I asked her what her numbers were. She was in, like, day 2 of her 5 day launch or something like that. And she told me that with a small audience of less than 250 people, she had sold 6 copies of her $29 e-book. And if you actually do the math on that, that's almost a 3% conversion rate, and industry standard is 1 to 7%. So I'm like, well, hold on. Let's shift our perspective.

Eden Fried:

You have, like, a massive success story right here. You know? That's like, people always think you're gonna make $1,000 and $1,000 your first time, but, no, you make your first hundred, your first $200, your first $300, $500, that's the beginning. You have to keep going from there. Like, everything just grows, but you can't give up before you give yourself a chance.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So I want to dive in a little bit more, but before we do, I just wanna hear. So what do you love about your business? What lights you up about either the work that you do in your business or the life that you have because of it or both?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Oh, this is such a good question. I love that. This is a focus of your podcast in business. Super important. Alright. So in a past life, I'm somebody who has lots of different career potential trajectories. So my education is actually in early childhood education, although I obviously never pursued that. I was hired to be a teacher, and I'm certified to be a teacher and decided that the traditional classroom environment was not the right place for me. But what I love about what I do now is that I get to take my passion for teaching and do it every single day in a way that is really, really flexible for me. So I don't need to be, you know, in a classroom 9 months to 10 months out of the year. I get to be, you know, at home on my computer, and I get to work with people when it works for me and when it, you know, when it doesn't work For me, I don't have to work with people, but it's very malleable to what I'm feeling on any given day or in any particular month, But I still get to teach, and that brings me so much joy. Like, I truly love working with people and seeing the transformation that they go through and getting them the results that they crave. That's, like, the best possible thing in the world.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. I absolutely love the idea of taking a traditional skill set, a traditional path or trajectory, as you mentioned, and then applying it online, and so many people miss how I say easily, not that it doesn't take work, but how easy it is to just shift things online and still operate in your passion but doing a different thing. Like, so many of us have so many things that we love to do, but that can be expressed in so many ways, and it's good to explore those.

Eden Fried:

Like I mentioned, I'm a rebel and a rule breaker. You know, I always say that when I was a teenager. I never really went through my rebellion, and here I am now in my adult years 100% going through it, but in a really good way. So break the rules and, you know, like, even if you think something needs to be a certain way, it doesn't have to. Like, your creativity is the only limitation here. You can 100 percent make things the way you want them to be.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yes. Absolutely. Okay. So I have a lot of entrepreneurs who listen in, and quite a few of the people that follow, not everyone, but quite a good majority are offering services. And they might just be thinking about or maybe they've never thought about breaking into the digital course world. And a really great first step, while still delivering the services online is to create a tripwire. Oh, yes. It's an incredible first step, and I know that you know a ton about this topic. So first, just in case there's anyone who doesn't know what the word tripwire means, can you talk just a little bit about what it even is?

Eden Fried:

Basically, a trip wire is a very low cost product. It's typically marked down. So you might sell it separately for, let's say, $47. But when it's a trip wire, it's Probably $9, $12, maybe 19, but typically more in the 9 or $12 range. And a trip wire works Super well because what happens is somebody will sign up for your freebie or lead magnet, whatever you refer to that as, and instantly when they subscribe to your list, they're gonna be taken to a page. Some people might use this as a regular thank you page, but I like to squeeze as much juice out of everything I do as much as possible.

Eden Fried:

So instead of making it a thank you page, make it a tripwire sales page. It's gonna be a very simple page that offers your low cost tripwire product At a very discounted rate for a very limited amount of time. Usually, it's gonna have a 15 minute timer, a 20 minute timer on that page. And why this works so well is because it's so low cost and because it's only low cost while the timer is there, and because the timer adds that sense of urgency. So people really feel like they're gonna miss out on the opportunity if they don't take action right now. So the conversion rate on your tripwire page is gonna be really, really high. So at its very core, that's what a tripwire is and why it works super well.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. And then the whole idea is to turn these leads into instant customers. Now why would someone want to do this?

Eden Fried:

So people who purchase from you once are statistically more likely to purchase from you again. So the goal for you as the seller is to turn your leads into customers as fast as possible, and the way that you do that is by immediately giving them an opportunity to buy from you with a trip wire.

Kathryn Binkley:

First of all, a couple things I just want to highlight. If you're using your thank you page just to say thank you, you're missing an incredible opportunity. There are a few things that you can do on your thank you page to optimize and to get more out of it, as Aidan was saying, and a tripwire is fantastic. And then getting people to purchase right away means their propensity to buy from you in the future is greater, which is awesome. So what does that look like long term? Have you you've worked with a lot of women and helped them put trip buyers in place. Have you seen that impact over time?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. It's interesting. It's not even necessarily over time. It's The instant results that they get that I personally love the most, I'll have people who set up their trip wire today and tomorrow they make their 1st sale, And it's such a different feeling. Like, I know a lot of you guys listening are service based people. So if you're a service based person, you might not have ever experienced the joy that comes from earning passive income online. And the trip wire might be your first way to achieve that feeling. And it's Freeing, honestly, because you're so used to selling your time for money that when you can create something once and sell it over and over again and earn money from that, like, That is gonna be really incredible for you and your business and just adding an additional, like, layer of revenue for you, which is great.

Eden Fried:

But I would say that long term, what happens is people who implement tripwires is they actually they don't get rich off tripwires. Right? These are low cost products, you're not gonna get rich off of them, but they actually break even. So they end up covering the costs for the tools that they're using and other aspects of their business. Or even if they plan to run ads, they're actually breaking even on their ad spend, which is obviously a really, really great place to be if you guys are familiar with Facebook and Instagram ads. So that's really powerful, and, of course, those leads who purchased the trip wire turn into customers who pay more down the line. Okay. Great.

Kathryn Binkley:

I have a question for you. Well, I have a few, but one right off the bat that's just kind of for fun. First of all, do you have notifications set up on your phone so that every time you have a purchase, you get some kind of a notification?

Eden Fried:

No. You don't? Okay.

Kathryn Binkley:

I was just curious. I've heard so many people do this, and I actually have set that up for one of my digital products. And I was gonna ask, where's the craziest place that you've ever been or the most fun you've been having while getting that you just made a sale?

Eden Fried:

I can still answer that because I don't currently have it, but I have had it set up in the past. And I the funniest place because I was literally sitting on the toilet, and, yeah, maybe it's TMI, but let's be real. We've all done it. We've all done the toilet scroll before, and, yeah, I was on my and got a sale, and I was like, yeah! This is the most, like, profitable bathroom trip that I've ever had.

Kathryn Binkley:

I love it. Great. Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. Okay. So can you tell us a little bit more about what do you need in order to create a tripwire?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Okay. So, obviously, you need a product, and this doesn't need to be a really robust product. For service based folks, it might feel a little bit intimidating for you, but it can be very simple. You know, I have people who Maybe they sell, like, photo based memberships, and their tripwire will be, like, 20 photos or something like that. They already have it, basically, so it's not that difficult for them to create. So I would say, you know, whatever you're doing right now, think about something simple that you can provide to your customers that scratches the itch of the problem that your product is solving. So besides the product, you need a payment processor.

Eden Fried:

So that's gonna be the thing that actually collects payment. You know, you can use a whole number of different things. If you're a course seller, you can use teachable because you already probably have of course, software, you know, teachable or similar. You can use SendOwl. You can use Gumroad. Really, there are so many different options out there. It doesn't need to be Fancy schmancy. It's just whatever works for you as long as it can collect payments preferably through Stripe and PayPal.

Eden Fried:

Having both of those options enabled is going to drastically increase your conversion rate. The next thing that you need is a timer. You know, trip wires are not gonna work well for you if you don't have a sense of urgency, but you can't just slap on a regular timer. You know, there's that free timer motion mail app, which is great. I've used it a ton of times in the past, but the problem is it's just a timer. It needs additional functionality. With a tripwire, you need your timer to be able to show the time that's remaining, but it also needs to expire the page. Because one of the most important things with Tripwire is that we're being truthful that the offer is going to disappear when the timer runs out.

Eden Fried:

So I use a tool called deadline funnel, which is Really powerful and really amazing, and I've used it on all my trip wires, and I absolutely love it. There are free options out there, page robot, evergreen countdown timer. But whatever you choose to use, you need to make sure that your timer shows the time, obviously, but also expires The content. And beyond that, you you basically just need a website to host your stuff. It doesn't need to be a fancy website, but it It's got to be there. It's your freebie. Sign up needs to be connected to your Tripwire page so that everything's a seamless transition from 1 page to the next, and you are good to go.

Kathryn Binkley:

Awesome. And you said that you set up your 1st entire course in about, like, a week. What does it take timing wise to set up a trip by? Or some people could set this up far more quickly.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. I would say you could do it today. It's not particularly challenging. The most difficult part is obviously just, like, choosing what tools you're gonna use to make it happen for you. But if you're, like, halfway decent with technology, you're gonna be able to get it up today.

Kathryn Binkley:
Do you wanna walk everyone through the process, maybe from the buyer's side, from their experience, what this is gonna look like?

Eden Fried:

Absolutely. So your buyer comes from somewhere. Right? So maybe they're just browsing through on Facebook or maybe they're scrolling on Instagram and they're watching your Instagram story, and you shared your freebie on your Instagram story. And you said, hey. Go to the link in my bio. So they go to link in your bio, and they click to access your really awesome freebie, or maybe they're even just looking at a blog. It doesn't really matter.

Eden Fried:

But either way, they land on your site. And whether they're looking at your blog, they're gonna see your freebie eventually, or whether they're just directly on your freebie page, doesn't matter. Either way, they see your freebie, and the freebie is so to them because it solves a problem that they're experiencing. And when they look at your freebie, they think to themselves, like, wow, she's speaking to me. Like, it's like she's reading my mind. She knows exactly what I need right now, and I totally I just have to sign up. And in this world where there's so much stuff online And there's tons of free content out there. Your freebie has to really, really target that pain point.

Eden Fried:

So you've succeeded in making your this person feel like, Yeah. I need this. So they put their name, their email address in. It's headed to their inbox. Instantly, they're taken to this page that says, Hey. You know, your freebie's on its way through cyberspace to your inbox, but before you go, do you wanna also take advantage of this opportunity? Here's this product. Here's what it's gonna do for you, and here's the value that it's gonna provide. Here's some of the things that are included.

Eden Fried:

It's actually usually $47, but I'm gonna give it to you right now for just 9. But the thing is, it's only $9 before the 20-minute timer runs out. And when the 20 minute timer runs out, that's it. This page is gonna expire, and you're no longer going to be able to access it. You might show this person some testimonials on that page. You'd probably have a mock up of your tripwire on that page as well to show them the product and get them to have a little bit of sneak peek, and maybe she even watches a video of you telling her what the tripwire includes. Obviously, you're not using the word tripwire, but you're talking about the product itself. And maybe she's even, like, sitting in her bed, which has happened to me, by the way, or I'm just, like, in my bed scrolling through And, you know, looking at this and you're like, oh my gosh.

Eden Fried:

There's only 20 minutes left, and now there's only 19 minutes left. Now there's only 18 minutes left. I'm gonna go get my credit card. And then she goes, puts in her credit card information, and she buys it, and now you just made a sale. Super, super easy peasy. It works exactly like that, and that's kind of like the end of the journey. From there, she's now your customer, and you can upsell her in any way that you want to, put her in your funnels for your more expensive products, but that's the journey. Super quick.

Kathryn Binkley:

That's amazing. I know I've done that many, many times myself as the customer and then also have been on the other end having set some of this up, and it's incredible. So I'm sure if you're listening, you've purchased someone's tripwire. Whether you knew it was called that or not doesn't matter. I'm sure you have.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. I know I have. Many. Yeah. More than once, for sure.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. Okay. So what are some of the best examples of tripwires that you've seen or some that you recommend or any tips about? Which works better?

Eden Fried:

I would say the most high performing tripwires are gonna be the ones that are filled with value. So, You know, it might not even be a traditional tripwire. So, you know, I run a summit, a virtual summit. Technically, my summit is 100% free, and my tripwire is an upgrade where you can pay for the summit to have lifetime access. And you can actually get the this is more expensive than a traditional trip wire, but you would get access to all the interviews and you would get access to, like, 1,000 of dollars in bonus courses and e-books and other resources, and it was priced for the first time I did it at $47, and within 20 minute that 20 minute time frame, over 8% of the people who view that page purchased it. And the thing I mentioned earlier, like, a traditional conversion rate is 1 to 7%, so to have an 8% conversion rate with over 3,000 attendees, it's pretty remarkable. That's not a traditional trip wire, but technically by definition, it's still a tripwire.

Eden Fried:

So the reason why it works really well is because it's just filled with value. Like, it's such an easy yes, and that's what makes a trip r successful. Like, it has to be a no brainer, easy yes offer in order for it to be successful.

Kathryn Binkley:
Yeah. And you also in that example, it's very closely aligned, and I think this is important, very closely aligned with what they originally opted in for. You know what? That that's a
got to be key.

Eden Fried:

Thanks for bringing that up. That's such an important point for sure. You know, you might be tempted if you have this, like, product that you already have, even though that's not quite what you're doing right now and it's not quite, like, relevant to your target customer, you might be tempted to create it turned it into a tripwire. And you know what? That's just a waste of time and energy for you because no one's gonna buy it. And maybe if someone buys it, it's a fluke, and you got lucky. So it really does need to be very closely aligned with your end product, but and with your whole brand messaging, for sure.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. Anything else that you feel like, as a listener, someone would need to hear on this topic before we wrap up?

Eden Fried:

So just one thing. I know a lot of you guys are service based people and, you know, maybe your products or passive products are not something that you've thought of, but I would encourage you guys to keep your mind open to tripwires even though you're service based entrepreneurs. Because like Catherine said earlier, you really are leaving money on the table if You just have a regular thank you page for a lead magnet that already exists. But, also, this is a great way to just earn a little bit of extra money to cover your costs and expenses And also to branch into passive income. I always say service based entrepreneurs have this whole other side that they could be leveraging to support their customers. You know? Think about what you would do if a customer can't afford your services. Do you just turn them away, Or is there another way that you can make a little bit of income working with them just in a more passive sense? Maybe you can sell them a little bit of a digital product.

Eden Fried:

You know, obviously, it's not a time commitment for you. The product already exists, and you can still make some money off of that customer and give them exactly what they need and serve them in the best way Well, a trip wire is obviously a great way to start dipping your toes into the water of passive income with a product, And it's also a great way just to support your customers a little bit differently.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yes. And, you know, as a service provider myself with a few things in place that are more passive, it's incredible for even let's say you have a one to 1 or done for you service, but you mentioned earlier answering the same questions over and over again for your audience, but we do the same with our clients. So why not bundle up some of that into a product that you can sell as a low tier product, but then also give access to your higher end clients so that you don't have to answer those questions over and over again. I know that that's been incredibly helpful for me to have a course in place for the basics, and then they can come to me for higher in question. So they work together really, really well. And then one last thought is, I talk a lot about different phases of marketing, strategy visibility, lead gen, and sales, and Tripwire specifically are a great way to transitioned quickly, that's what we're talking about today, from the lead gen to sales, and that's critical because I see so many people, so many entrepreneurs, spend time just on lead gen this month, and then next month, I'm gonna focus on sales, and then this month, I'm gonna focus on visibility. But you really need a seamless process that includes all of those all of the time. And so trip buyers are an incredible way to, as we've talked about, instantly turn those leads into So just wanted to point that out as well.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that.

Kathryn Binkley:

So where could everyone find out more about you, and is there anything specifically, that you would like to call out to point them to if they want to continue to learn more from you?

Eden Fried:

For sure. So you guys can find me online edenfreid.com. It's where I produce a lot of content related to digital products. You'll find some stuff on tripwires there as well. If you want to learn more about tripwires and start to implement tripwire strategy in your business, you can go to edenfried.comforward/lit. Again, edenfried.comforward/lit, and I will give you access to an entire document that's gonna basically show you how to set up your 1st trip wire and some tools that I recommend that you use. It's just gonna make it so much easier for you. You guys can also find me online on Instagram at Eden Fried, and I also am the host of the Rebel Boss Ladies podcast where we talk exclusively about digital products. So lots of places.

Kathryn Binkley:

Perfect. Okay. I hope everyone will go check you out. Go download all of your freebies and see tripwires at work because I'm sure Oh, yeah. Great examples. Yes. So go check that out, and thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you!

Kathryn Binkley:

Hey. Hey. And welcome back. Today, I have Eden with me. She is the digital product lady. After billing on her plan to attend law school back in 2016 despite paying her seat deposit, securing an apartment, dropping 1,000 on textbooks, Eden decided to try her hand at entrepreneurship instead. Since then, Eden mastered the art of making a full time income with digital products, things like e-books, courses, workshops, etcetera. Eden's a rebel.

Eden Fried:

I love that.

Kathryn Binkley:

And she believes that you shouldn't need to work for someone else in order to pay the bills. She's dedicated her life to inspiring and teaching other rebel women how to turn their passion into a digital product that they can sell and make an income from online. She's the host of Rebel Boss Ladies podcast and the founder of Rebel Boss University, a membership community where she teaches rebels how to create and launch a digital product within 90 days. When she's not at work, she can be found at the gym throwing around some moderately heavy weights, and she says emphasis on the word moderately or rewatching an episode of Friends or How I Met Your Mother for the millionth time. Welcome, Eden.

Eden Fried:

Thank you so much for having me.

Kathryn Binkley:

Is there anything that maybe we missed in all of that? That was an incredible bio, but maybe you can tell us a little bit about how you got to this point. What does your entrepreneurial journey look like?

Eden Fried:

Absolutely. So like we mentioned in the bio, my story starts a few years ago when I was enrolled to start law school, and what I didn't mention was kind of how I made the decision not to go. So basically, I went to my brother's wedding. He lived in Budapest, Hungary at the time, and I'm from the States, so quite the journey overseas. And during his wedding he's an entrepreneur, so he had a bunch of entrepreneurial friends there. During his wedding, he had all of his friends charging at me with the intent of convincing me not to go to law school and pursuing entrepreneurship instead. He obviously was very loving and supportive, and if I really did wanna go to law school, he would have undoubtedly supported me 100%, but he had this feeling and gut that it wasn't really for me and that I was just doing it because I was in my early twenties and didn't know what else to do with my life.

Eden Fried:

You know, they say, go to college, get a job, or if you don't like your job, go back to school and get a graduate degree. And that's what I thought I should be doing, and him and his friends just totally changed my perspective. I'm the kind of person who I'm not 100% set in my ways. I'm very, very open minded. And if somebody approaches me with a new idea, I like To listen to their perspective and consider changing my own, and he succeeded that day. I literally called my boyfriend, who's now my husband, that day at his wedding and said, you know what? I'm not going to law school. I'm gonna pursue entrepreneurship. I didn't know what it was gonna look like at the time.

Eden Fried:

I just knew that I was gonna dive into it and cross my fingers and toes and hope that it would work out. But the very next day, I started my blog, and the rest is history.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. So how did you go from starting a blog to the digital product lady?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. That's a good question. It definitely wasn't an easy transition by any means, but, basically, when I started my blog, the goal was for it to be kind of like a diary or journal as you go. I started my blog with a host about how I had bailed on law school and was gonna try and make money online, and so all of my content was focused on sharing my experiences trying a bunch of different things. And, you know, if you guys are listening, there's tons of different ways to make money online, and I pretty much tried all of them.

Eden Fried:

I tried affiliate marketing and sponsorships and ads and the whole 9 yards. I had done a bunch of freelancing. And eventually, like, the very last thing that was left was digital products, and it was kind of the thing that had postponed the longest. And I think it's just because it seems really daunting and intimidating because it's your product. You have to make it. You're in charge of the customer service and the creation and, everything, so it was scary for me. But, you know, at some point, I realized I'm not making what I need to be making in order to survive, and if I'm gonna give myself the best shot at success, like, I need to be open minded to try all the things. So I decided to create a course, and it wasn't like a big gigantic online course.

Eden Fried:

It was a pretty simple course that I had created within the course of a week. It was created due to me getting a bunch of questions on the same topic, which is a great way to come up with a product idea based on customer feedback. And from there, I launched the course and it worked. You know? I made my first $500, that turned into my first $1,000, that turned into my first $2,000, and it just kind of it grew from there, and I knew that that was the direction I needed to go in in my business.

Kathryn Binkley:

Love that. I also love that you said it was your first $500, and some people will make their first $500 and give up and think that it's not enough, or they make nothing that first time and they give up. Right? But you split it, and it just continued to grow.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. That's so true. I mean, I know so I work with product creators obviously all the time, day In and day out, and I had somebody talk to me the other day saying they were feeling kind of down, and I asked her what her numbers were. She was in, like, day 2 of her 5 day launch or something like that. And she told me that with a small audience of less than 250 people, she had sold 6 copies of her $29 e-book. And if you actually do the math on that, that's almost a 3% conversion rate, and industry standard is 1 to 7%. So I'm like, well, hold on. Let's shift our perspective.

Eden Fried:

You have, like, a massive success story right here. You know? That's like, people always think you're gonna make $1,000 and $1,000 your first time, but, no, you make your first hundred, your first $200, your first $300, $500, that's the beginning. You have to keep going from there. Like, everything just grows, but you can't give up before you give yourself a chance.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. So I want to dive in a little bit more, but before we do, I just wanna hear. So what do you love about your business? What lights you up about either the work that you do in your business or the life that you have because of it or both?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Oh, this is such a good question. I love that. This is a focus of your podcast in business. Super important. Alright. So in a past life, I'm somebody who has lots of different career potential trajectories. So my education is actually in early childhood education, although I obviously never pursued that. I was hired to be a teacher, and I'm certified to be a teacher and decided that the traditional classroom environment was not the right place for me. But what I love about what I do now is that I get to take my passion for teaching and do it every single day in a way that is really, really flexible for me. So I don't need to be, you know, in a classroom 9 months to 10 months out of the year. I get to be, you know, at home on my computer, and I get to work with people when it works for me and when it, you know, when it doesn't work For me, I don't have to work with people, but it's very malleable to what I'm feeling on any given day or in any particular month, But I still get to teach, and that brings me so much joy. Like, I truly love working with people and seeing the transformation that they go through and getting them the results that they crave. That's, like, the best possible thing in the world.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yeah. I absolutely love the idea of taking a traditional skill set, a traditional path or trajectory, as you mentioned, and then applying it online, and so many people miss how I say easily, not that it doesn't take work, but how easy it is to just shift things online and still operate in your passion but doing a different thing. Like, so many of us have so many things that we love to do, but that can be expressed in so many ways, and it's good to explore those.

Eden Fried:

Like I mentioned, I'm a rebel and a rule breaker. You know, I always say that when I was a teenager. I never really went through my rebellion, and here I am now in my adult years 100% going through it, but in a really good way. So break the rules and, you know, like, even if you think something needs to be a certain way, it doesn't have to. Like, your creativity is the only limitation here. You can 100 percent make things the way you want them to be.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yes. Absolutely. Okay. So I have a lot of entrepreneurs who listen in, and quite a few of the people that follow, not everyone, but quite a good majority are offering services. And they might just be thinking about or maybe they've never thought about breaking into the digital course world. And a really great first step, while still delivering the services online is to create a tripwire. Oh, yes. It's an incredible first step, and I know that you know a ton about this topic. So first, just in case there's anyone who doesn't know what the word tripwire means, can you talk just a little bit about what it even is?

Eden Fried:

Basically, a trip wire is a very low cost product. It's typically marked down. So you might sell it separately for, let's say, $47. But when it's a trip wire, it's Probably $9, $12, maybe 19, but typically more in the 9 or $12 range. And a trip wire works Super well because what happens is somebody will sign up for your freebie or lead magnet, whatever you refer to that as, and instantly when they subscribe to your list, they're gonna be taken to a page. Some people might use this as a regular thank you page, but I like to squeeze as much juice out of everything I do as much as possible.

Eden Fried:

So instead of making it a thank you page, make it a tripwire sales page. It's gonna be a very simple page that offers your low cost tripwire product At a very discounted rate for a very limited amount of time. Usually, it's gonna have a 15 minute timer, a 20 minute timer on that page. And why this works so well is because it's so low cost and because it's only low cost while the timer is there, and because the timer adds that sense of urgency. So people really feel like they're gonna miss out on the opportunity if they don't take action right now. So the conversion rate on your tripwire page is gonna be really, really high. So at its very core, that's what a tripwire is and why it works super well.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. And then the whole idea is to turn these leads into instant customers. Now why would someone want to do this?

Eden Fried:

So people who purchase from you once are statistically more likely to purchase from you again. So the goal for you as the seller is to turn your leads into customers as fast as possible, and the way that you do that is by immediately giving them an opportunity to buy from you with a trip wire.

Kathryn Binkley:

First of all, a couple things I just want to highlight. If you're using your thank you page just to say thank you, you're missing an incredible opportunity. There are a few things that you can do on your thank you page to optimize and to get more out of it, as Aidan was saying, and a tripwire is fantastic. And then getting people to purchase right away means their propensity to buy from you in the future is greater, which is awesome. So what does that look like long term? Have you you've worked with a lot of women and helped them put trip buyers in place. Have you seen that impact over time?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. It's interesting. It's not even necessarily over time. It's The instant results that they get that I personally love the most, I'll have people who set up their trip wire today and tomorrow they make their 1st sale, And it's such a different feeling. Like, I know a lot of you guys listening are service based people. So if you're a service based person, you might not have ever experienced the joy that comes from earning passive income online. And the trip wire might be your first way to achieve that feeling. And it's Freeing, honestly, because you're so used to selling your time for money that when you can create something once and sell it over and over again and earn money from that, like, That is gonna be really incredible for you and your business and just adding an additional, like, layer of revenue for you, which is great.

Eden Fried:

But I would say that long term, what happens is people who implement tripwires is they actually they don't get rich off tripwires. Right? These are low cost products, you're not gonna get rich off of them, but they actually break even. So they end up covering the costs for the tools that they're using and other aspects of their business. Or even if they plan to run ads, they're actually breaking even on their ad spend, which is obviously a really, really great place to be if you guys are familiar with Facebook and Instagram ads. So that's really powerful, and, of course, those leads who purchased the trip wire turn into customers who pay more down the line. Okay. Great.

Kathryn Binkley:

I have a question for you. Well, I have a few, but one right off the bat that's just kind of for fun. First of all, do you have notifications set up on your phone so that every time you have a purchase, you get some kind of a notification?

Eden Fried:

No. You don't? Okay.

Kathryn Binkley:

I was just curious. I've heard so many people do this, and I actually have set that up for one of my digital products. And I was gonna ask, where's the craziest place that you've ever been or the most fun you've been having while getting that you just made a sale?

Eden Fried:

I can still answer that because I don't currently have it, but I have had it set up in the past. And I the funniest place because I was literally sitting on the toilet, and, yeah, maybe it's TMI, but let's be real. We've all done it. We've all done the toilet scroll before, and, yeah, I was on my and got a sale, and I was like, yeah! This is the most, like, profitable bathroom trip that I've ever had.

Kathryn Binkley:

I love it. Great. Yeah. Okay. That's amazing. Okay. So can you tell us a little bit more about what do you need in order to create a tripwire?

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Okay. So, obviously, you need a product, and this doesn't need to be a really robust product. For service based folks, it might feel a little bit intimidating for you, but it can be very simple. You know, I have people who Maybe they sell, like, photo based memberships, and their tripwire will be, like, 20 photos or something like that. They already have it, basically, so it's not that difficult for them to create. So I would say, you know, whatever you're doing right now, think about something simple that you can provide to your customers that scratches the itch of the problem that your product is solving. So besides the product, you need a payment processor.

Eden Fried:

So that's gonna be the thing that actually collects payment. You know, you can use a whole number of different things. If you're a course seller, you can use teachable because you already probably have of course, software, you know, teachable or similar. You can use SendOwl. You can use Gumroad. Really, there are so many different options out there. It doesn't need to be Fancy schmancy. It's just whatever works for you as long as it can collect payments preferably through Stripe and PayPal.

Eden Fried:

Having both of those options enabled is going to drastically increase your conversion rate. The next thing that you need is a timer. You know, trip wires are not gonna work well for you if you don't have a sense of urgency, but you can't just slap on a regular timer. You know, there's that free timer motion mail app, which is great. I've used it a ton of times in the past, but the problem is it's just a timer. It needs additional functionality. With a tripwire, you need your timer to be able to show the time that's remaining, but it also needs to expire the page. Because one of the most important things with Tripwire is that we're being truthful that the offer is going to disappear when the timer runs out.

Eden Fried:

So I use a tool called deadline funnel, which is Really powerful and really amazing, and I've used it on all my trip wires, and I absolutely love it. There are free options out there, page robot, evergreen countdown timer. But whatever you choose to use, you need to make sure that your timer shows the time, obviously, but also expires The content. And beyond that, you you basically just need a website to host your stuff. It doesn't need to be a fancy website, but it It's got to be there. It's your freebie. Sign up needs to be connected to your Tripwire page so that everything's a seamless transition from 1 page to the next, and you are good to go.

Kathryn Binkley:

Awesome. And you said that you set up your 1st entire course in about, like, a week. What does it take timing wise to set up a trip by? Or some people could set this up far more quickly.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. I would say you could do it today. It's not particularly challenging. The most difficult part is obviously just, like, choosing what tools you're gonna use to make it happen for you. But if you're, like, halfway decent with technology, you're gonna be able to get it up today.

Kathryn Binkley:
Do you wanna walk everyone through the process, maybe from the buyer's side, from their experience, what this is gonna look like?

Eden Fried:

Absolutely. So your buyer comes from somewhere. Right? So maybe they're just browsing through on Facebook or maybe they're scrolling on Instagram and they're watching your Instagram story, and you shared your freebie on your Instagram story. And you said, hey. Go to the link in my bio. So they go to link in your bio, and they click to access your really awesome freebie, or maybe they're even just looking at a blog. It doesn't really matter.

Eden Fried:

But either way, they land on your site. And whether they're looking at your blog, they're gonna see your freebie eventually, or whether they're just directly on your freebie page, doesn't matter. Either way, they see your freebie, and the freebie is so to them because it solves a problem that they're experiencing. And when they look at your freebie, they think to themselves, like, wow, she's speaking to me. Like, it's like she's reading my mind. She knows exactly what I need right now, and I totally I just have to sign up. And in this world where there's so much stuff online And there's tons of free content out there. Your freebie has to really, really target that pain point.

Eden Fried:

So you've succeeded in making your this person feel like, Yeah. I need this. So they put their name, their email address in. It's headed to their inbox. Instantly, they're taken to this page that says, Hey. You know, your freebie's on its way through cyberspace to your inbox, but before you go, do you wanna also take advantage of this opportunity? Here's this product. Here's what it's gonna do for you, and here's the value that it's gonna provide. Here's some of the things that are included.

Eden Fried:

It's actually usually $47, but I'm gonna give it to you right now for just 9. But the thing is, it's only $9 before the 20-minute timer runs out. And when the 20 minute timer runs out, that's it. This page is gonna expire, and you're no longer going to be able to access it. You might show this person some testimonials on that page. You'd probably have a mock up of your tripwire on that page as well to show them the product and get them to have a little bit of sneak peek, and maybe she even watches a video of you telling her what the tripwire includes. Obviously, you're not using the word tripwire, but you're talking about the product itself. And maybe she's even, like, sitting in her bed, which has happened to me, by the way, or I'm just, like, in my bed scrolling through And, you know, looking at this and you're like, oh my gosh.

Eden Fried:

There's only 20 minutes left, and now there's only 19 minutes left. Now there's only 18 minutes left. I'm gonna go get my credit card. And then she goes, puts in her credit card information, and she buys it, and now you just made a sale. Super, super easy peasy. It works exactly like that, and that's kind of like the end of the journey. From there, she's now your customer, and you can upsell her in any way that you want to, put her in your funnels for your more expensive products, but that's the journey. Super quick.

Kathryn Binkley:

That's amazing. I know I've done that many, many times myself as the customer and then also have been on the other end having set some of this up, and it's incredible. So I'm sure if you're listening, you've purchased someone's tripwire. Whether you knew it was called that or not doesn't matter. I'm sure you have.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. I know I have. Many. Yeah. More than once, for sure.

Kathryn Binkley:

Absolutely. Okay. So what are some of the best examples of tripwires that you've seen or some that you recommend or any tips about? Which works better?

Eden Fried:

I would say the most high performing tripwires are gonna be the ones that are filled with value. So, You know, it might not even be a traditional tripwire. So, you know, I run a summit, a virtual summit. Technically, my summit is 100% free, and my tripwire is an upgrade where you can pay for the summit to have lifetime access. And you can actually get the this is more expensive than a traditional trip wire, but you would get access to all the interviews and you would get access to, like, 1,000 of dollars in bonus courses and e-books and other resources, and it was priced for the first time I did it at $47, and within 20 minute that 20 minute time frame, over 8% of the people who view that page purchased it. And the thing I mentioned earlier, like, a traditional conversion rate is 1 to 7%, so to have an 8% conversion rate with over 3,000 attendees, it's pretty remarkable. That's not a traditional trip wire, but technically by definition, it's still a tripwire.

Eden Fried:

So the reason why it works really well is because it's just filled with value. Like, it's such an easy yes, and that's what makes a trip r successful. Like, it has to be a no brainer, easy yes offer in order for it to be successful.

Kathryn Binkley:
Yeah. And you also in that example, it's very closely aligned, and I think this is important, very closely aligned with what they originally opted in for. You know what? That that's a
got to be key.

Eden Fried:

Thanks for bringing that up. That's such an important point for sure. You know, you might be tempted if you have this, like, product that you already have, even though that's not quite what you're doing right now and it's not quite, like, relevant to your target customer, you might be tempted to create it turned it into a tripwire. And you know what? That's just a waste of time and energy for you because no one's gonna buy it. And maybe if someone buys it, it's a fluke, and you got lucky. So it really does need to be very closely aligned with your end product, but and with your whole brand messaging, for sure.

Kathryn Binkley:

Okay. Anything else that you feel like, as a listener, someone would need to hear on this topic before we wrap up?

Eden Fried:

So just one thing. I know a lot of you guys are service based people and, you know, maybe your products or passive products are not something that you've thought of, but I would encourage you guys to keep your mind open to tripwires even though you're service based entrepreneurs. Because like Catherine said earlier, you really are leaving money on the table if You just have a regular thank you page for a lead magnet that already exists. But, also, this is a great way to just earn a little bit of extra money to cover your costs and expenses And also to branch into passive income. I always say service based entrepreneurs have this whole other side that they could be leveraging to support their customers. You know? Think about what you would do if a customer can't afford your services. Do you just turn them away, Or is there another way that you can make a little bit of income working with them just in a more passive sense? Maybe you can sell them a little bit of a digital product.

Eden Fried:

You know, obviously, it's not a time commitment for you. The product already exists, and you can still make some money off of that customer and give them exactly what they need and serve them in the best way Well, a trip wire is obviously a great way to start dipping your toes into the water of passive income with a product, And it's also a great way just to support your customers a little bit differently.

Kathryn Binkley:

Yes. And, you know, as a service provider myself with a few things in place that are more passive, it's incredible for even let's say you have a one to 1 or done for you service, but you mentioned earlier answering the same questions over and over again for your audience, but we do the same with our clients. So why not bundle up some of that into a product that you can sell as a low tier product, but then also give access to your higher end clients so that you don't have to answer those questions over and over again. I know that that's been incredibly helpful for me to have a course in place for the basics, and then they can come to me for higher in question. So they work together really, really well. And then one last thought is, I talk a lot about different phases of marketing, strategy visibility, lead gen, and sales, and Tripwire specifically are a great way to transitioned quickly, that's what we're talking about today, from the lead gen to sales, and that's critical because I see so many people, so many entrepreneurs, spend time just on lead gen this month, and then next month, I'm gonna focus on sales, and then this month, I'm gonna focus on visibility. But you really need a seamless process that includes all of those all of the time. And so trip buyers are an incredible way to, as we've talked about, instantly turn those leads into So just wanted to point that out as well.

Eden Fried:

Yeah. Absolutely. I love that.

Kathryn Binkley:

So where could everyone find out more about you, and is there anything specifically, that you would like to call out to point them to if they want to continue to learn more from you?

Eden Fried:

For sure. So you guys can find me online edenfreid.com. It's where I produce a lot of content related to digital products. You'll find some stuff on tripwires there as well. If you want to learn more about tripwires and start to implement tripwire strategy in your business, you can go to edenfried.comforward/lit. Again, edenfried.comforward/lit, and I will give you access to an entire document that's gonna basically show you how to set up your 1st trip wire and some tools that I recommend that you use. It's just gonna make it so much easier for you. You guys can also find me online on Instagram at Eden Fried, and I also am the host of the Rebel Boss Ladies podcast where we talk exclusively about digital products. So lots of places.

Kathryn Binkley:

Perfect. Okay. I hope everyone will go check you out. Go download all of your freebies and see tripwires at work because I'm sure Oh, yeah. Great examples. Yes. So go check that out, and thank you so much for joining me today. Thank you!

Eden Fried:

Thank you!