Lacey Sites is a business mentor and success coach, helping clients scale to six and seven figures using mindset, strategy and execution.
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I believe NFTs being used as smart contracts is the future of business. The online space is moving much closer to Web3, the metaverse and cryptocurrency as the new normal. I also believe that it’s our job as entrepreneurs to start adapting and figuring out what this could look like in our businesses.
I did exactly that and recently sold my first NFT for $20,000. This NFT was not about the actual image but the smart contract behind it. It included a life-long coaching spot in my business that could be used, re-sold or leased. The winner is still required to pay all normal coaching fees on top of it, and I am entitled to 10% of all future sales (there is no royalty on the leasing portion, though).
This sale was not an accident but came from lots of forethought, strategic planning and a willingness to experiment and adapt. Here are the steps I took to make it happen and how you can, too:
1. Figure out what this looks like with your current business model.
One of the biggest challenges most people have in implementing something new is that they feel like it means having to change everything about what they’re currently doing, and that’s almost never true. Even though NFTs are being used in specific ways, it doesn't mean that’s the way you have to use them.
Thinking about them as new technology and smart contracts that can support what you’re already doing is what allows you to run with it and ensure it’s easier/quicker to implement. Personally, I have a 1:1 business model with an extensive waitlist, so selling access to one spot in my business made the most sense for me.
More importantly, it also made the most sense to my audience because they were already bought in on the value of the 1:1 coaching spot. My work was simply to get them on board with the NFT portion, which made my focus clear and felt very attainable.
2. Get clear on how to make it a win for everyone in your community (not just buyers).
Ensure that the process not only serves the people who bid but also offers a learning opportunity for your community as a whole. It was so important to me that our community was able to learn from and benefit from this process. When you can truly involve the people already supporting you in a new endeavor, it’s amazing how much more traction you pick up along the way.
Then if you can make it a win-win for them, too? You're in such a different position to not only have success with this one sale but to create long-term results that lead to your community continuing to come back to you, buy from you and learn from you. I knew I wanted to create value behind this NFT not just for this first sale, but for the subsequent leases and sales, and this was my strategy for doing so.
3. Create ample time to educate your audience.
When you're doing something new, your audience needs time. I knew that even the word “NFT” would be new to much of my audience so it would make no sense to launch this quickly and go right to auction. Give yourself at least a 30-day window and spend time daily on audience education.
When I did this, it resulted in many people buying and using crypto for the first time and many bidders who otherwise wouldn’t have bid without that time to learn more and warm up to what we were doing. If I had to do it over, I’d not only give myself the 30 days, but potentially even longer, as I believe this helped us tremendously.
4. Create value and utility behind the NFT.
I sell a service in my business, so it would make no sense to sell an NFT that isn’t backed by the value of the service and the utility of it. I knew I had value not only in the coaching spot, but in the ample waitlist of people interested in it, so I used the NFT as an opportunity to utilize that.
That meant that whether someone purchased because they wanted to be able to use that service and skip the waitlist or because they wanted to sell or lease it, they could see the value behind it. We had current clients and non-clients bid all with different intentions (i.e., use, sell, lease), and we were able to see that our audience recognized value across the board with this offer.
5. Provide exceptional support to walk people through the process.
People need support figuring out new things, and to make the most of this process, you should provide that. In my case, opening a support email and providing as much assistance and information as possible paid off both in terms of seeing those people bid and in terms of our community feeling a lot more comfortable with crypto and the process in general. This did take a lot of time but was worthwhile and something I absolutely recommend.
Ultimately, this was a worthwhile process and something I would absolutely do again. It’s so important that we, not only as business owners but as women, start adapting to the changing online space. I’m so glad we were able to do so strategically and have so much success in our first round, and I hope this information supports you to do the same.
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