Podcast Archives - Page 3 of 5 - The Course Consultant

Podcast

Podcast, Service
Book Retainer Clients as an Introverted Freelancer
- May 24, 2021
In this week’s episode, I interview one of my clients Sam, the co-founder of How to Fire and Fire Up Freelance. We talk all about how to book clients as a freelancer, even if you’re starting out, are an introvert, or hate posting on social media.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify| Anchor| Google Podcasts | Get Transcripts

Table of Contents

About Sam from Fire Up Freelance

Samantha Hawrylack is the Freelancing Coach behind Fire Up Freelance and the Co-Owner of How To FIRE. She quit her finance corporate gig back in 2019 to pursue her side hustles full-time, and has taken her freelancing business, SJ Digital Solutions, to six-figures. Now she helps apsiring fireelancers book retainer clients so they can successfully transition from working full-time.

Finding Clients as a Freelancer

Clients can be challenging to get, especially if you’re just starting out. That’s why during our chat, Sam shares her process of making online connections in a way that fits her personality. What I love about her process is how introverted friendly her process feels!

Using Facebook groups to find clients

Sam shares that she uses Facebook groups where her ideal clients hangout so that she can make connections with others that would benefit from her freelancing services. By sharing valuable tips and answering questions, she was able to find repeat clients. Over the span of two months she was able to actually replace her income after quitting her corporate finance gig!

Yeah, so it started off with just one client, very small client client I made about, I would say, probably $300 a month from that first client. And from there, I was then able to use the work I was doing for them as a reference for my next client, which was my first big ticket client. And they were roughly about I would say, $3,000 a month. And I got them in month two of after quitting my job. So that's when I was able to replace my income.

Sam Hawrylack

Making the Full Time Leap to Freelancing

Sam says that she was able to make the leap to freelancing, but it was really nerve wracking since she quit her job without having any clients lined up. Thankfully, she says that she had some funds set aside and was able to replace her monthly income with her first few clients. Now she recommends that others having an emergency funds before taking the leap to freelancing full-time. Before quitting her job, Sam connected with others via networking events where her ideal clients were attending. After answering questions via Facebook groups and reaching out to clients via email, clients booked her services. Her clients enjoyed working with her so much that they wanted to continue working together! This meant less searching for more clients each month!

Sam's Resources

Sam shares alot of valuable tips when it comes to freelancing online. Access some of her free resources!
Sam’s instagram account: http://instagram.com/fireupfreelance
Visit Fire Up Freelance

The Course Consultant Resources

Access monthly trainings and resources inside Clickworthy Courses so you can successfully create and promote your courses with time saving templates!
Join Clickworthy Courses

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Marketing, Online Courses, Podcast
Four Student Examples of How to Grow Your List & Course Sales
- April 16, 2021
This post includes affiliate links

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

What You Need For a Profitable Course Launch

Launching a profitable online course requires having a strategy. The truth is that what most aspiring course creators don’t realize is that there are four very important things to consider when creating your course or program so you actually see course sales instead of hearing crickets.

Profitable Offer Design

Creating a course just isn’t about what you know (sorry to say), but rather identifying what exactly it is that your ideal course students “wants to learn” Read that statement again. By choosing a topic that you are knowledgeable in, and also providing students what they want to learn will create the right type of course buying attention from your audience. I know lots about many different topics, but not all of these topics make a profitable course. That being said, if people are currently paying you for your knowledge in the form of a service, I believe you can turn that concept into a course that actually sells.

High Converting Content

Ever thought to yourself, “How did So-and-so read my mind?!!” Well it all starts with identifying and capturing your clients painpoints and providing a clear relationship with your audience through content marketing. Having content that is both engaging, educational, and entertaining can help you get the right eyeballs on your business so you attract. the right students so they come back for more. Research and social media experts agree that video marketing is a big piece of what drives people from being casual consumers to active and engaged customers.

Visibility & Traffic

Visibility is the spark that sets off a big boom in your business. Whether you get this visibility through networking with others such as Podcasting, guest blogging, speaking at a summit, or using paid advertising – you need more people finding out about how awesome you are and what value you have to share to others. Like I’ve said before, Facebook ads really aren’t the only way to sell your course or program – especially if you’re on a tight budget. I recommend trying to promote your content organically first then slowly investing in other aspects of your course marketing like affiliate marketing or social media Instagram growth. Long term success can’t be built overnight,, so remember this when you get frustrated trying something new for the first time. Visibility and traffic will drive the right people to your neck of the digital interwebs and grow your email list so you speak to the right people.

A Winning Course Sales Strategy

You need a winning strategy to sell your course and a powerful marketing message. What people often miss is the strategy leading up to the sale. Besides, how many times have you purchased something and read many reviews online or researched a product by using Google? A sales strategy that I highly recommend using for larger and higher priced programs is the sales webinar. I talk more about gaining confidence as a course creator to promote your course with a webinar. Sales webinars are amazing because they can both grow your email list (making it even easier to have the right people in your world) and then showcase both free and paid resources including your courses. I’m going to share with you exactly how some of my students are scaling their online business through webinars. And the great thing is, you don’t have to be a business coach or someone with a large following. In fact webinars work for those even with a small email list because the entire purpose is to get more visible with the right audience! Take a look and read about these student examples!

Sam is one of my coaching students inside of Course Impact Mastermind

Sam Hawrylack

Sam Hawrylack is the owner and founder of Fire Up Freelance and co-founder of How To Fire. She now helps aspiring freelancers grow their income full-time through freelancing. In Sam’s upcoming training, she shares about exactly how she started freelancing after quitting her job in corporate and starting making consistent 5 figure months and replaced her monthly income under 2 months! In this training you’ll learn how to accelerate your side hustle into a profitable freelancing business even if you’re an introvert, don’t have a huge following, or just plain hate selling. Sam is going to share some awesome resources when it comes to navigating the numbers so you can become zen about making the big leap into freelancing full-time.

What I love about Sam is how passionate she is about helping her coaching clients feel good about their freelancing business, even if they're just starting out.

Sign-up here for the free training!

Sam’s Fire-up Freelance coaching program focuses on three main pillars of support. In the first stage, she helps her clients fine-tune their exit plan from corporate by reviewing what numbers they’ll need to transition to full-time freelancing, creating a profitable freelancing business roadmap including choosing their service and pricing, and lastly she works with clients to land and support consistent clients so they don’t have to publish frequently on Instagram or cold-pitch to strangers. Doors aren’t open yet for Fireup Freelance coaching program, but you’ll definitely want to signup for the free training once the doors are open!

Sign-up here for the free training!

Kendra Courtney

Kendra helps overwhelmed photographers and coaches stuck in admin create clear and simple workflows using Dubsado so they can get back to running their business. Inside of Kendra’s training, she will be teaching her 4 part workflow framework that she uses for all of her 1:1 Dubsado set ups. Photographers will leave with a foundation on how to set started with their time and energy saving workflows!

Sign-up here for the free training!

What I love about Kendra is her ambitious and hard-working nature. Not only is Kendra very knowledgeable when it comes to helping her clients and course customers with Dubsado workflows, but she's an absolutely sweetheart to work with!

Kendra also has a complete program perfect for photographers that want to get back to supporting their clients called, Dubsado Set Up In a Box For Photographers: A live group program teaching you everything you need to set up your Dubsado to take care client admin. The program isn’t live yet, but I highly recommend you check out her free training in order to level up your photography business without getting stuck in your inbox!

Sign-up here for the free training!

Michelle Stevens

Michelle Stevens helps women redefine healthy living through an energy-first approach to fitness, nutrition, and self-care. In her training, attendees will learn the benefits of fitness (especially for your business), how to sneak little bursts of fitness into your busy day, how to build awareness around your energy and honor it, plus the key differences between setting fitness and business goals.

What I love about Michelle is her straight-forward approach to nutrition, fitness, and self-care that makes it feel easy and doable. Not everyone can make fitness fun, but Michelle does this effortlessly!

Sign-up here for the free training!

Michelle Stevens helps women redefine healthy living through an energy-first approach to fitness, nutrition, and self-care. In her training, attendees will learn the benefits of fitness (especially for your business), how to sneak little bursts of fitness into your busy day, how to build awareness around your energy and honor it, plus the key differences between setting fitness and business goals. If you’re a busy business owner and want to take out time for self-care and a workout routine that doesn’t involve burpees at the beach, Michelle’s training is an absolute must!

Sign-up here for the free training!

Claudia Orengo

Claudia was one of my first students inside of Wondrous Webinars and her webinar has evolved over time as she’s grown her business. You can read the full feature breakdown I did of Claudia’s course and free training. I must say I’m actually pretty proud of my students! Claudia helps artists and creatives grow their passive income through creating and selling digital designs. Not only as Claudia’s training been featured in Skillshare, but she has some amazing beautiful watercolor designs that she provides to her clients. Inside her free training, How to Make More Money as a Creative Online Without Working Harder or Being Famous, she explains what she’s found to be the perfect way to increase your income without having to get more clients or increase your rates; through selling digital products as instant downloads to grow your passive income. She also explains how to decide which product to start with, where and how to sell them and an in-depth report of her revenue in Creative Market to show it’s possible even if you don’t have a big audience.

Sign-up here for the free training!

Inside of Claudia’s Course Beginner’s Guide to Passive Income, she shares exactly how to make money with your art selling them as digital products on creative marketplaces like Creative Market, Redcircle, and so much more! If you’re a creative who wants to make more money without adding clients to your to-do list, I highly recommend Claudia’s training!

Sign-up here for the free training!

The Course Consultant Resources

Leave us a comment below and let us know your biggest takeaway from this episode!

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Marketing, Podcast
How to Build Brand Authority with Nkiru Akusa
- April 13, 2021
In this episode, I interview special guest Nkiru Asika. Nkiru has been featured on CNBC, The Wall Street Journal, Dallas Morning News, Business Day and many more outlets. During our interview we discuss strategies to build your brand, grow your authority and stand out to others with an authentic message. We also talk about unique selling propositions and how to connect with your community before you sell a service, course or program!
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify| Google Podcasts | Anchor

Table of Contents

Communicate Your Unique Selling Proposition

Are you underselling yourself? Are you worried that others don’t quite see you as a brand they can trust or showcases your experience? These are exactly the kinds of questions and challenges that Nkiru helps online business owners overcome using brand authority. By helping identify your unique selling proposition, you can transition from an unknown virtual resource to a sold out profitable brand. So whether you are an online coach, service based business owner, or course creator – you need a specific unique selling proposition to market and sell your programs and services.

Grab my free Course Creator Starter Outline

Grab this free Course Creator Starter Outline so you can create high impact virtual training programs!

Leverage Other People's Platforms

One major aspect of becoming an expert is by leveraging other people’s platforms. Nkiru says that becoming an expert doesn’t happen overnight. By leveraging other people’s platforms and making strategic business relationships, you can showcase the best tips and tricks to others, grow your audience, and build a connection with them. These fabulous relationships can include being interviewed on podcasts, becoming referral partners, creating joint ventures, creating multiple digital products. These types of magical relationships can help you grow, even if you don’t have a large following.

Define Your Ideal Client & Market

Are you solving a pain point? Are you trying to solve everyone’s problems or do you have a targeted solution for a specific client or audience? By establishing your authority and becoming more visible is to share with people your unique message to support your clients and customers. Your message will be helping your clients and customers to really dig deep into the solution that you offer.

Access the free training!

Learn the exact system you need in order to book out and scale your courses through a brilliant, authentic marketing message with live webinars.

Create A Nurturing Campaign

Are you looking to find out the best way to launch to your course to sales instead of crickets? Take a listen to Nkiru who says that usually you can give away more than you actually think! When you share free resources with your audience that are strategically created with the intention of showcasing your program – you’ll find that people will be much more interested in your offers – rather than second guessing. Nkiru’s clients often triple their fees for their services because of the fact that they can overcome common objections simply by becoming an expert in their niche. Call it lead generation or nurturing, you need to create a connection with your audience to promote it to the world.

Find Your Authentic Marketing Method

A common mistake that Nkiru says that others fall into is by trying to copy what others are doing instead of finding a system that works for them. Asika says that her content marketing takes people along a journey and sometimes not every “template” or script will work for each individual. Some may prefer email marketing, others might prefer videos. What it comes down to is being consistent with your social media and marketing presence.

Additional Resources

Check out these free resources:
Free Facebook group
Free 6 Profitable Funnel Ideas
Free Course Creator Starter Outline
Instagram
Find out more about Nkiru here

Need More Help?

I’ve met many entrepreneurs who want to create an online course, but need guidance and direction. Even when it comes to creating your own online course, you need a strategic marketing plan and assets to help promote your programs for you. That’s why I recommend you check out and enroll in Clickworthy Courses, an entire year’s worth of course creation and marketing templates designed with the busy online business owner in mind. Join now and get access today!

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Course Creator, Marketing, Podcast
Podcasting for Teacher Leaders
- March 25, 2021
In this episode I speak with Brittany Rincon, the Podcast Host of the Teacher Leader Podcast. We talk all about running a podcast while also working a full-time job and having a family. Brittany shares her experiences as an educator and how she hopes to help educators find their voice as an educator inside and outside of the classroom. If you’re an educator looking to start your own podcast or an online course creator wanting to take your marketing to the next level, I highly recommend listening to this episode!
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

About Brittany Rincon

Brittany is a podcaster with a passion. She is also a powerhouse educator, mother, and host of the Teacher Leader Podcast. She started her podcast to help educators find their voice and make an impact both inside and outside the classroom. She now coaches teachers who want to launch a podcast and grow their side hustle or business.

Making an Impact

Brittany shares that she wanted to help educators create a podcast to step into their leadership role even if they aren’t working their business or side hustle full time. She says that one of her favorite episodes was speaking with a colleague who later became one of her mentees and launched her own podcast. I share also how important it is to have a way to share your knowledge as a coach or consultant in a bite sized way.

Getting Out of Your Own Way

When it comes to starting a podcast, it can be nerve wracking to think of what topics to cover, how your voice will sound, and scary to book your first guest! Brittany shares that it can be easy to feel intimidated by the whole process, but it’s important to remember that you have something important to share. Your first guests can be a colleague or a close friend which can make it sooooo much easier to have engagement and rapport. I use Calendly to book my guests which syncs up directly to my Google Calendar.

Grab my free Podcast Booking Workflow

Grab this free podcast booking Calendly workflow so you can streamline your booking process, book influential guests, and grow your audience without going back and forth via email!

Life Before and After the Podcast

Life before and after having a podcast can look differently for each person. For Brittany, she was able to find time after her kids went down to sleep so she could focus on her business growth. She uses her podcast to make connections and promote her services and her course. For me, podcasting has given me the ability to meet new and interesting people! It also gives me authority as I build out more courses, services, and programs. Podcasting has been a huge pillar for me to learn how to grow my audience.

Guest Resources

Brittany shares some amazing details about her course Podcasting for Teachers.
You can also find more information about her podcasting audits and other services on her website.
Brittany’s Instagram

The Course Consultant Resources

Join the free Facebook group
Grab the Podcast Planner
Listen and Subscribe to the Podcast

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Marketing, Podcast
Content Marketing for Course Creators
- February 1, 2021
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

About Dr. Gee Nonterrah

In this episode, I interview Dr. Gee Nonterrah is a Biomedical Scientist, Biology Professor, and Content and Writing Coach! If that’s not enough, Gee has been featured on MediaVine, Work from Home Woman, and so many more online brands. In fact, after one of her clients worked with her to develop her unique content marketing strategy, the PR team for Michelle Obama actually reached out to her to become an ambassador. During our conversation, we break down some major myths around content creation for course creators and how to convert this free content into a course sale!

Why Content Marketing?

Gee says that you need to create free content as a way to provide a “taste test” like an appetizer to lead into a sale for a larger course, ebook, book, or service. If you include a sales message and direct people into a funnel your content marketing will work for you by utilizing your organic reach through search engine optimization, social media, or video search engines like Youtube. Nonterrah says that content marketing can seem like a waste of time only if you aren’t strategic about your content marketing or messaging to direct people to the sale.

Does Content Marketing Work?

If you are omitting a sales message from your sales content, you are just doing charity work. Always ask for the sale.

Gee Nonterrah Tweet

Dr. Nonterrah says that if you are omitting a sales message, you are just doing charity work. But if you showcase your digital product or services, people can move from the free content to the paid services and digital products or courses. Content marketing works because you can attract and convert your ideal clients or customers!

Content Marketing Strategy

Gee discusses several tools she uses for her Youtube strategy including VidIQ and Tubebuddy to rank on Youtube search as well as utilizing the Yoast plugin for her podcast shownotes. She also does research by taking an idea that is performing well on the Youtube platform before creating content for her own channel. Gee also plays with different thumbnails images and titles. She says to avoid creating click-bait titles that have nothing to do with the actual content. The titles should be catchy but overdeliver on content quality.

Analysis

In this stage, I highlight the main considerations you can take to break down your own content marketing strategy! Like Gee, you can analyze your competitors through researching search engine optimization and create content that people are actively looking for and provide high quality content to lead to your sales funnel.

Free Funnel Ideas!

Grab my 6 free profitable funnel ideas to sell your course on autopilot!

Name

Email

Visibility

By using these strategic content and messaging, Dr. Gee’s clients have been able to land ambassador programs with people like Michelle Obama not to mention sell more for their program and services. By boosting their visibility and remaining consistent, you can improve your ability to provide strategic messaging content to your audience so that they can convert into your paid programs, courses, and services.

Guest Resources

Follow Dr. Gee Nonterrah on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/geenonterah
Follow Dr. Gee Nonterrah on Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/c/GertrudeNonterahTV/videos
Learn more about Gee: http://geenonterah.com/

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Marketing, Podcast
The Heart-Centered Way to More Sales
- January 13, 2021
In this week’s episode, add intro here……
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

About Kristen Achziger

In this episode, I speak about human centric marketing and interview Kristen Achziger, a Copywriting and Launch Strategist, who helps people convert into sales in an ethical way. Kristen and I were friends for many years in college. She started her business helping other business owners in commercial and brand video development. She later transitioned into ethical sales copywriting for business owners that want to sell their services or promote their digital products and courses. Kristen shares her main tips and takeaways for helping people land more sales without coercion or making people feel guilty.

Human Centric Sales

So what exactly is human centric sales? Kristen shares inside of the podcast episode that the copywriting tactics should be focused on persuasian and not coercion. She talks about how coercion amplifies pain points and manipulates people based off of real vulnerabilities instead of empathizing and allowing people to make educated choices based off of the information presented. Kristen shares more about the key differences in strategy for heart centered sales in the graphic below from her Instagram.

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Sales Page Strategist (@goingultraviolet)

Share Your Story

One especially important way to support your audience’s decision making is to provide information about your story in an authentic way. By sharing any insights, examples, and your story – you can provide background knowledge about opportunities to work with you on a closer level either for services, group programs, or self paced courses. This is especially important in email newsletters or sales emails to nurture your audience before you begin the process of selling.

You don't have to persuade someone to buy something they know they need. - Kristen Achziger

GoingUltraviolet Tweet

Share Your Excitement

Kristen shares that it’s important to share about your courses, digital products, or services in a way that is exciting. I mean, selling courses and services should feel exhilirating! You are in fact helping people by supporting them reach their goals! Create an experience for your audience to feel excited about their purchase so they can go on and conquer their goals! As you continue to work with them either through their courses or services, this provides them with a higher level of support as they work towards accomplishing their next goal.

Share the Details

Sharing the details about the offer including what’s included, pricing, and special bonuses you’ll be able to provide your audience with the best information possible to make a decision based on all the information provided. By not being up-front about all of the information you may not be able to share all of the information needed in order for people to make educated decisions based on the information.

Grab my free Course Creator Starter Outline

Grab this free Course Creator Starter Outline so you can create high impact virtual training programs!

Name

Email

Guest Resources

Like many, Kristen began the process of creating her own unique digital products to help individuals create ethical sales copywriting if they were not able to invest or work with her closely 1:1. She now has a shop available for a variety of products covering the topic of ethical copywriting. You can learn more about her business Going Ultraviolet in the following areas.
Instagram
Going Ultraviolet Shop

The Course Consultant Resources

Are you looking to create a course or digital product without pulling your hair out, spending hours huddled up with your laptop, or trying to earn a Youtube degree? Join us inside of the free Facebook group where we have trainings, special community building conversations, as well as discuss how to build your income and online business.

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Online Courses, Podcast
My 2020 Year in Review
- January 12, 2021
This post may contain affiliate links. I only recommend products or services I have personally use or are passionate about. For more information, review my disclaimer.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

View this post on Instagram

A post shared by Melody Johnson | Online Course (@thecourseconsultant)

January 2020
I’m going to try to review the entire year and process everything that happened both good and bad. Over the past year, I’ve transitioned from a freelancer, to an agency, and then into a course creator which was incredibly challenging for many different reasons. I increased my rates over 3-4 times over the course of three months, but I hope this blog post serves as a reminder that I’m still learning and although I’ve seen many wins I’ve also had my share of lessons of what not to do.
In January 2020, I was fully invested in Pete McPherson’s Online Impact Community and began to pivot my already thriving one person freelancing company into a bigger online brand. I met Pete Mcpherson back in 2019 when I used to have an entirely different business in the FinCon community. I first learned how to develop and design my website and pretty much understand a lot about blogging thanks to his course: Elementor for Bloggers. I still refer back to that course to understand little tweaks that I need to understand about the tech side of Elementor and designing my web pages. I’m still really close friends with people I’ve met in that group.
At the end of January/ beginning of February, launched my new podcast “The Online Course Consultant Show” and shared about 7 Course Creation Tips You Need to Know . This remains to be one of my top downloaded episodes. A majority of income was still coming from Upwork, I also launched an entirely new website and created entirely new social media handles.
My income was primarily coming from freelancing services:
Freelancing Blog Post Writing
Freelance Course Creation Services
Blog Posts Created:
How to Create an Online Course 2020

Best Online Course Platforms 2020

5 Simple Steps to a Successful Digital Product Launch

How to Build an engaging email list without a big following

Moving and renovating

In January, my husband and I finally put our home on the market. We had lived in metro Detroit area in Michigan for over 6 years and were about 2 miles away from my husband’s parents. During our time in Michigan, my husband and I held a total of three jobs each! You can obviously see we change things up frequently! This was our first home that we lived in together after we got married. Below is a picture of the kitchen and dining area. I was a bummed we couldn’t stay there and “enjoy” the renovations we did to the house which included adding granite countertops to the kitchen, new kitchen sink, and an entirely brand new kitchen cabinet set.
Our house was on the market for 5 days and we had three offers and it was under contract by the end of the week which closed about a month later! We had been commuting for months in 2019 renovating the house and driving to my husband’s job in northern Michigan in the middle of winter. Needless to say, I was happy when it sold!
February 2020

In February, I had a serious dip in revenue which made me really nervous about how I was going to handle making more income in a way that was sustainable financially for my family. I instinctively thought that each month I would be making more money from the previous month as a freelancer. But some of my freelancing gigs were much less frequent and though I was paid retroactively for some projects completed in January, there were less active projects this month. At the end of February, I only had $200 in my business bank account.
I still managed to stay consistent though with SEO and creating fresh content, because I knew creating more revenue was going to really be a long game instead of only focusing on shortcomings. I published my second podcast episode and blog post: What is a Salesfunnel and How to Make One.
I also published a blog post and podcast episode with Michelle Jackson called How to Create and ebook and sell it.
I also realized that at the time my friend Pete Mcpherson lived closer to my new home. So we had a nice chat in a coffeehouse and I showed him my coworking spot and I interviewed him my my third episode of my podcast: Website Design Tips for Course Creators.
Pete also created a fun Youtube video which I was featured in. I still actively get people messaging me or emailing me that they found me from this video. You should check out his channel. I actually landed a client later in 2020 thanks to this video which resulted in about a 5 figure deal.
Blog Posts Created:
7 Course Creation Tips You Need to Know
What is a Salesfunnel and How to Create One
Website Design tips for Course Creators
How to Make and Ebook and Sell it

March 2020

In March, I went to Social Media Marketing World and met some amazing friends. I still follow and am friends with many of the lovely people there. I volunteered as a speaker concierge helping organize and ensure that all of the speakers on stage and emcees had their mics and their slide decks available to the AV tech crew. It was so much fun.
I was featured on a Youtube Video with Mike Damazo where I talked about courses. Funny story, I never actually launched the course I was promoting that time of the year! This was my second solo business trip without my husband. I normally prefer to travel with him. I ended up staying in a really fun hostel downtown San Diego. I really enjoyed the ambience. Sadly, this was my last really big social networking event for the year (at least in person). I was also bummed because I was supposed to attend an in-person graduation for completing my Master’s degree in Instructional Design but it was later cancelled due to Covid.

Inspired by the great content I received from Social Media Marketing World, I went on to publish three blog post and podcast episodes in March.
Blog Posts created:
Social Media Strategy for Course Creators with special guest Andrea Jones
How to use social media to grow your business
How to Make and Sell Digital Printables with guest Chelsea Brennan
Behind the Scenes of 6 Digital Course Creator Launches

April 2020

By April, I was getting really burned out from all of the freelancing, staying up late and working solo at home during quarantine. I was starting to miss my family a lot since I normally visited them during this time, but due to COVID restrictions we weren’t able to visit. I invested heavily into coaching to create my “first digital product” or mini-course. My first digital product was actually a more in-depth course called The Course Designer’s Toolkit, which is actually retired!
Projects Completed:
During this month, I was working closely with a referral I received from Social Media Marketing World. I worked with several clients for smaller projects on upwork.
Resources Invested In:
I spent the better half of 2019 trying to research an affordable and high converting cart checkout software. I had tried many in the past, but I decided to invest in Thrivecart. I went on to create multiple digital products and consulting services and made over 5 figures using the platform. I really appreciated the fact that the product was a one time purchase. Since then, I haven’t really seen other cart checkout platforms that are one time payments. Most, if not all, are a monthly recurring payment. I also appreciated the fact that there is some really robust features for affiliate marketing. I have so much more to say on the subject, but I’ll just let you read on… 😊

Blog Posts created:
Facebook Chatbots for Facebook Ads
An Interview with Facebook ads Manager Latasha James

May 2020

During this month, I started to transition and look into hiring more team members specifically surrounding Instructional Design. I hired my first non-assistant hire in May. I really was concerned that I wouldn’t be able to scale my operations specifically because I had never hired anyone before. My first hire was amazing! He was a referral from my grad school director.
Resources invested in:
I hadn’t hired anyone else besides a virtual assistant previously, so I decided to invest in Theresa Baretta’s Optimized Outsourcing Manual. It was really helpful because there were job description templates for the main hires I was looking to hire. I went on to hire two paid interns, a new virtual assistant, a project manager, as well as three video editors, and a voiceover artist thanks to this template!
I loved Theresa’s templates so much, that I wanted to learn how to optimize my standard operating procedures that I decided to invest in her monthly membership – SOP Success Lab. I was able to really understand the process in which I was able to onboard my clients, outsource more admin tasks to my team, and become more of a CEO in my mindset. Overall I felt more confident delegating my tasks as well as really charging higher prices. In May, I decided to shift to an agency model. At the time, I was charging less than $2k for my done for you services. I increased my prices to $2k for done for you services as a direct result of the mindset shifts I received from Theresa’s help.
I wanted to really give my website a make-over and so I decided to invest in some templates by Amanda Genther. The framework inside of her templates Salespage in a Day helped me understand the key things needed to create compelling copywriting as well as use templates to sell my services and digital products. As a direct result of using these templates, I’ve landed high ticket clients ranging from $2k-$32k.
I also hired out help to create more customized salespages thanks to Bethany who I previously met at Fincon back in 2019. Bethany and I went on to work on several additional projects and we actually live fairly “close” to each other in Arizona! The work she did was really professional and quick.
I started to take more and more courses from Elizabeth Goddard about email marketing. I took Lizzy’s course (at the time included in her membership Convertkit Club which is now retired) called Email Rockstars. It reinforced the fact that I needed to automate and send out more emails to my email list. I also really loved more fundamental training inside of her course ConvertkitHer course really went into depth both from a technical standpoint as well as an instructional and strategy standpoint about building confidence nurturing and selling to your email list. At the time of this post, I’m now inside of Elizabeth Goddard’s group program, The Profitable Playground.
Blog Posts:
Work from Home Tips during Quarantine
How to Avoid Burnout while working from home
Digital Products Created:
I created the Profitable Presentation Canva Pack as a direct result of creating many different digital presentations for my clients. I wanted an affordable option for people that were already creating presentations but didn’t want to hire a designer.
I launched a mini-course on course creation called the 5 Day Course Creation Challenge. I started to automate my digital products and started seeing more evergreen sales thanks to Lizzy’s course!
Collaborations:
I spoke at my alma mater CSU Fullerton about creating a winning portfolio for starting freelancing as an Instructional Designer. I had a presentation developed about the key things to consider when developing a freelancing agency and getting started owning your business. It was a lot of fun!

June 2020

In June, I was scaling so quickly I decided to raise my prices dramatically and joined Theresa’s Consultant to CEO Accelerator Program.
I landed a $7k client the very next month that I started working with Theresa. I began to invest heavily in optimizing and creating professional videos. I started to use a program called Vyond which I had previously used in corporate training and development for professional animated videos.
This month was heavily spent creating systems, organizing my workflows, as well as understanding how to operate as an agency and really support my clients. It was also wrought with so much pain and turmoil in the United States. The Black Lives Matter movement and the murder of George Floyd really moved me to create a safe and supportive space for my audience members who were grieving and trying to understand how to cope with racial injustice. The conversation still is happening in the United States, but I think this was a really big wake-up call for everyone to have these very important conversations to create change.
During that month, I decided to give away 100 copies of The Profitable Presentation Canva Pack to Women of Color Podcasters. I also spoke at the Creatress Summit about creating online courses.
Blog Posts Created:
5 Steps Towards Diversity and Inclusion in the Workplace
How to Avoid Burnout While Working from Home
How I Motivate My Team

July 2020

During this month I was still working very closely with my clients as an online elearning agency. I created monthly power hour consultations which helped other new course creators to work with me without having to invest in my agency. I also saw some incredible results from working with my clients back from earlier in the year. My good friend Adam Kol started seeing some amazing growth from his group coaching program. I’m always really proud of my students when they see growth, make sales, and take their offers to scale their business!
I also spoke in July at Podthon Summit about creating Pitchdecks to help grow your sponsorships as a podcaster.
My husband actually received a new offer to move from northern Michigan to southern Arizona. And for the fourth time of the year, we started the process of moving – this time across the country. It was really challenging moving my business to an entirely new state. At the same time, I was grateful for the level of support that Theresa and her team provided because I was such a nervous wreck!
Resources Invested In:
I invested in a digital course bundle from Bundle.co. There were so many course creators that were involved with the bundle. One of the many courses that were included was Elizabeth Goddard’s Profitable Live Training Course. During that month I learned a lot about her methodology around creating and launching a course quickly. I found her sense of humor refreshing, her tutorials very instructional, as well as her Facebook group and community very supportive. I also really loved that she had a onesie on her website homepage (just saying).
I also invested in the Affiliate Program Toolkit a month or two previously and started learning so much about affiliate marketing for courses. I had never previously been interested in affiliate marketing. I had tried affiliate marketing for Amazon links, but never actually saw any progress. In fact I never made one sale. I really loved Zoe Linda’s fun and playful approach to internet marketing. I also appreciated that she was a Potterhead and Ravenclaw.
Blog Posts
How to Create an Online Membership Group
Transformational Learning with Adam Kol
Content Creation Tips by Pete Mcpherson

August 2020

In August, many of my projects were still in full swing. I was now completed moved in southern Arizona and it was incredibly hot! One day it was over 100 degrees Fahrenheight. I decided that after working as an agency, I wanted to start creating more digital courses. After applying the concepts from Lizzy’s Paid Live Trainings course, I created my workshop Systematic Funnels and launched it in about 10 days. You can check out the alumni blog post here.
I was so excited to be involved in the program because it had previously taken me months to create digital products. Her course and methodology really helped me to create content quickly without overthinking it.
This month was the highest amount of income I ever received roughly to the tune of $20k. I was so incredibly grateful for the lessons learned and the people I had worked with. During this month I had so much more clarity about the type of business I wanted to run, the lifestyle I wanted to lead, and I realized things weren’t exactly in alignment. I wanted to help clients and customers that might not be able to invest in the high ticket programs and services and so because of this mental shift I decided to invest in Lizzy’s Profitable Playground group coaching program to create a more digital product based business.
That month I also decided to create a free training called: How to Make a Magical Offer That Sells Like Hotcakes. During the training, I also showcased my bundle product which included several other digital products I had created previously called the Course Creator CEO Bundle.
Digital Products Created:
Systematic Funnels Workshop
Course Creator CEO Bundle
Blog Posts:
Leading on Purpose with Julianna Hynes

September 2020

In September, I started to shift my business model to creating more passive income products and reducing my 1:1 client work. I started to kick up more content creation and began to plan out different ideas for more growth using the digital product and course route. I became incredibly excited as I dug into the curriculum for Elizabeth’s program and started meeting more amazing friends in the group. I had a few people ask about how I started freelancing and booking high ticket clients. I knew that I wanted to create an on-demand offer that would help people learn more about the tools and processes I had in place to make more money through selling high ticket services. So, I created a masterclass and workshop and sold the Sweet Service Success workshop. Since then, I’ve been able to coach and share some tips on helping people start growing their income through services as well as selling courses.
Blog Posts Created:
Creating Effective Video Training
My Journey to Five Figure Months and Beyond
How to Design Creative Templates to Sell on Creative Market
5 Easy Way to Pivot into a High Ticket Service
Digital Product Created:
Sweet Service Success

October 2020

In October, I started actively saying no to new 1:1 client work because I wanted to focus my efforts to creating more digital products. This was probably the hardest decision to make. Knowing that someone would be willing to pay me $20k or more for my services and saying no helped me to focus on creating a lifestyle that aligned with my ideal work day instead of chasing down high ticket services. I was able I began to wind down on my 1:1 projects and begin the process of supporting them as the projects wrapped up.

On a personal note I was a bit sad that the pandemic was still going on because I actually love dressing up for Halloween. I was a bit bummed so my husband ended up baking some halloween treats with me and we individually bagged prepackaged candy into ziploc bags and placed them outside on a table for any neighborhood kids to grab in a safe environment. I still wish I had worn something fun for Halloween. Oh well.

Resources invested in: Lizzy’s Rock your Day of Voxer course was delivered as part of the Group Coaching program. What I found really interesting about this service was that I didn’t have to feel stuck to having zoom calls. Instead I played around with my own version of having Voxer available for both students who previously purchased my bundle the previous month. I still prefer Voxer over Zoom calls for coaching my team members as well as my clients. I find it’s so much easier to run errands while also being productive. I also love that Voxer gives you a personalized connection with your customers rather than feeling restriced to one Zoom call. You can check out one of her trainings on the subject of Voxer sessions in her training: Magical Low Effort High Value 1:1 Offer.

*New Service Created*

Inspired by Lizzy Goddard’s Voxer 1:1 services, I created my version called “Course Launch Framework” where I help new course creators map out and discuss their ideas about launching their courses or digital products.
I also ran a quick sale on several products I had created for Halloween! It was such a fun holiday sale that I knew I wanted to run another one in December and the New Year.

Blog Posts Created:

My Anti-Approach to Launching

How to Convert Your Email List into a Cash-Flowing Party

Thrivecart Vs. Samcart Review

November 2020

It was November and things actually started cooling down in Arizona! I was shocked that the summer months of over 100 degres Fahrenheight were cooling down to 40-50 degree weather. I realized then that I was already accustomed to the climate and my thick skin from enduring cold sub zero tempature in Michigan was over. I had officially become an Arizonian. I was still feeling blue that I couldn’t see my family. My family is a large Mexican-Filipino family. Think “My Big Fat Greek Wedding” (movie) but a filipino and mexican version. Normally our family hosts a giant Thanksgiving with so many of my favorite dishes ranging from lumpia (Filipino “egg” rolls) and pancit (Filipino spaghetti) as well as empanadas (Mexican pastries filled with meat and vegetables.) Although I didn’t get to have a big family Thanksgiving meal, I did see my immediate family in an outdoor seating area and we had a nice meal together.
I started to see the momentum from all of the things that I had created from before and realized that I wanted to continue making more digital products.
Resources I invested in:
The Email Closer – I found that I had so many emails to write out to start bringing attention to my salespages and offerings. I wanted something quick and painless to help me craft the words to share about my products without feeling super salesy. Dani’s course was a great quick win for me. Since then, I’ve created so many additional emails and have been able to craft more unique messaging around what I have to say and share all without feeling guilty about it. I love her integrity and find that her emails are really something I look forward to in my inbox.
Tripwire Training – Although I had already created a tripwire in the past for my digital products, I wanted to see the unique take on tripwires that Lizzy had. So I decided to invest in the Tripwire Training. I found that I was able to quickly optimize my existing tripwire for my Digital Product Toolkit and was featured on Lizzy’s website and blog post. Several people signed up for my free resources and went on to buy a few other items from me.
Blog Posts Created:
My Easy Sales Webinar Checklist
5 Mindset Shifts to Sell Your Course with a Webinar
How to Prepare for Black Friday as a Course Creator

Digital Products Created:
Wondrous Webinars
Collaborations participated:
I spoke at Vidfest about Systematic Funnels and shared with people about how to create more digital product income using funnels. I met some amazing speakers there and the community that Chris has created is really quite amazing. I was so enthused about speaking there that I’ll definitely apply again to speak!
I participated in a Black Friday Bundle with Vanessa along with multiple other digital product creators. It was definitely a big learning experience for me since I was also simultaneously selling my Black Friday Boost for courses and templates. I wished that I had decided to only sell one thing during Black Friday instead of lots of different things. Oh well! Lesson learned.

December 2020
Oh my gosh, I’ve already rambled on so long. I’m not even sure if you’re still reading this blog post. December was the highest digital product income I had ever made in one month. In previous months nearly 80-95% of my income was actively selling services or some sort of consulting. In December, about 80% of my income came from digital product sales. I was so proud of the progress I made that I was finally headed on the path I wanted to create instead of charging on with a plan for a lifestyle I didn’t care about.
Collaborations:
I collaborated with Danielle Desir, founder of WOCPodcasters and we created the Podcast Planner. We also worked together on creating a masterclass, multiple templates and resources for the planner, as well as answering Q & A session live! We had so many people sign up in under a 24 hour period, my inbox was flooded was sales notifications. I honestly thought I would have made only a few hundred dollars when the product went crazy and I realized that having really clear directions was really important. Also I realized that having a low ticket product doens’t mean you won’t get paid big bucks for sales!
I also participated in Lizzy’s Christmas Goody Bag which was an entirely experimental bundle which included a free goody bag as well as a premium goody bag. I contributed to both bundles and I had over 1,000 people sign-up! People then went on to grab other digital products, courses, and items from me during that week and I realized quickly that I needed to tweak a few things so I could make my systems even better for new customers at scale.
Blog Posts Created:
How Claudia Makes Passive Income Selling Digital Templates
How to Make a High Impact Course with Kelsa Dickey
How to Plan your Course Launch in 2021

Lessons Learned:
Overall the lessons that I learned from 2020 helped me to see things differently about growth and having an online business.
Never plan on things being 100% immune to crap hitting the fan. Things won’t always go as you plan.
Your life, family, and mental health are so much more important than your business.
It’s okay to say no to things you don’t want in your life, even if it doesn’t fit the mainstream way of doing/running things in your business or persona life.
I think 2020 was a trying year for so many people. I’m fortunate that I’ve been able to learn alongside you and growth with you. Let’s take 2021 on with hope and a supportive community.
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Course Creator, Online Courses, Podcast
How to Create a High Impact Course with Kelsa Dickey
- December 23, 2020
This post may include affiliate links, read my disclaimer policy to learn more.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

How to Create a High Impact Course

Kelsa is the Founder and Financial Coach behind Fiscal Fitness Phoenix. What began as a side hustle for Kelsa over a decade ago has grown into a business that helps hundreds of clients every year gain clarity, purpose and peace of mind with their money. Several years ago, she decided financial coaches are the key to solving the stress people feel with money so she launched the Financial Coach Academy – a robust training program and course that teaches future financial coaches how to get great results with their clients. Kelsa’s coaching style provides a high level of support for not only her 1:1 clients but also for her financial coaching course customers.

Identify Who You Want To Serve for your Course

Kelsa started to see clients that were struggling with everyday money challenges were the people that she wanted to show up and serve. This vision propelled her to create a unique financial coaching package to serve the people that weren’t getting the support they needed when it came to handling their everyday finances. After years growing her own financial coaching business, Kelsa wanted to make a greater impact and converted her knowledge of helping others with their finances into a high impact course for aspiring Financial Coaches. This ripple effect of helping financial coaches find their footing has literally helped thousands of individuals, couples and families have a better understanding and peace about handling their own finances.

For some reason money is seen as something you're good or bad at, when really it's a skill like any other skill. And that is the skill we help strengthen people.

Kelsa Dickey Tweet

Define The Painpoints for your Course

Kelsa says one of the major reasons that she created the Financial Coach Academy is because other money training programs focused soley on a “one-size-fits-all” approach leaving people feeling frustrated and that something is innately wrong with them. As a coach, Kelsa teaches her clients as well as her financial coaching students to help people think strategically about their finances through the lens of understanding unique goals and personality. The process of unique knowing and supporting the individual and unique goals of her customers has not only helped Kelsa create raving customers for Financial Fitness Phoenix but also with her Financial Coach Academy!

Personal finance is personal. There is no one way that will work for everybody.

Kelsa Dickey Tweet

Presell Your Course or Coaching Program

Kelsa says that there is no way that she could have forseen the growth and transformation of the Financial Coach Academy without using the preselling method. She started to outline the first and second lesson of the course and started to presell the program. During the first iteration of the Financial Coach Academy, Kelsa shared that any coach that enrolled in the program would receive lifetime access to any subsequent round of the academy. At the time, the Academy was instructed live and students received access to the recordings. Because the course was new and there weren’t any testimonials for the program- Kelsa wanted people to get excited about joining the program even because of having lifetime access. Kelsa also incorporated methods to request and actively request feedback from her students. By asking people how the program could be improved, the impact of the overall program increased and the amount of trainings improved.

Where I thought I was going to go with my course, was not what happened. What they were telling me that they needed was different from what I had originally anticipated.

Kelsa Dickey

Kelsa used the information she received from her “founding members” to provide feedback and give her insight about what people truly needed. This in turn, helped to provide robust information and trainings for future rounds of the Financial Coach Academy.

Free Course Starter Outline!

Grab this easy Course Starter Outline available via Google Sheets!

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Plan Your Quarterly Course Launches

Kelsa also shares about their planning process for their Mastermind, Financial Coach Academy or Financial Coach Symposium. Although planning can be challenging with so many different considerations, Kelsa shares that she and her husband Michael Dickey write out all of their ideas on post-it notes and slowly and methodically think through their quarterly launches and remove items off their priority list as they consider what to launch or promote.

Kelsa's Resource List

Follow Fiscal Fitness Phoenix to learn more tips about creating a plan for your money without having to follow a “one size fits all” approach.
Listen to the Fiscal Fitness Podcast with host Michael Dickey.
Join the free Facebook Group under Financial Coaches Unite with over 5K experienced and aspiring Financial Coaches to learn free trainings and support to help you lead a thriving financial coaching business.
Learn more about Financial Coaching through Kelsa’s book Financial Coaching Playbook now sold at Barnes& Noble, Amazon, Walmart, and more!
Learn more about Financial Coach Academy, a robust training program that teaches future financial coaches how to get great results with their clients. Financial Coach Academy provides over a decade’s worth of knowledge about the financial coaching industry inside over 382 lessons and an active and supportive engaging community of Financial Coaches and professionals.

The Course Consultant Resources

Are you looking for a way to launch your course or need help finding a way to sell a course or program with funnels? Reach out to get your strategic call to gain clarity on your ideas and finetune your course marketing strategy. Book a Strategic Course Framework call where we’ll discuss your ideas and come up with a plan to help you launch your profitable program. That’s it for today’s episode! Let us know what your biggest takeaway is!

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Course Creator, Podcast
How to Convert Your Email List into a Cash Flowing Party
- October 15, 2020
This email includes affiliate links. Click here to read my full disclaimer.

Email marketing doesn’t have to feel sleazy or unnatural. That’s why we’ve brought Liz Wilcox, an email marketing strategist and copywriter on to today’s show.

Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

Welcome to the course consultants show I am super super excited to have Liz Wilcox here with me today. Liz is a super cool person and human being. And just a little bit about her, Liz is an online entrepreneur and copywriter who specializes in email marketing. She helps freelancers and professionals alike package up their magic and turn it into emails that convert. In a previous life, Liz was actually an education major and like many before her never actually got a teaching job. Instead, she found her way to the online space and fell in love with sales and strategy.
Today, she helps people build online relationships to attract their ideal buyers. She actually is part of a mastermind group that I’m a part of, and she brings so much to the table and I was so excited to have her on the show because if you do not know Liz, you seriously are missing out because she has so much interesting cool stuff to do and tell you about. When she’s not bringing in high ticket sales she likes to run, yes, actually for fun, eat steak, and hang out at a local beach in Destin, Florida. Listen to the podcast for the funny story on how we met and our first introductions.

How to Convert Your Email List into a Cash Flowing Party

Liz is an expert copywriter and email conversion person, so naturally the first question that I jumped into was, What is important to include in emails when it comes to actually converting into sales? Followed by, How do you start that process?
A common theme that Liz was reading or listening to was the biggest mistake that entrepreneurs made, that they didn’t take their email list seriously. Liz found that a lot of them were saying, if they would have just started selling to their email list or using their email list to get ideas for a course, or a product, etc, that they would have succeeded much earlier. So as a person who hates waste and is very efficient person. Liz took that as, she just needed to focus on email and do that really well. She decided not to create free content and worry about Pinterest or slide up into everybody’s dm. Her focus was just emails because that’s what the gurus were saying, the money’s in the list……

Convert Followers to Friends

Liz quickly realized the money’s not really in the list, it’s in the relationship and effort put into that email list. Her three part framework, is really simple, but it really works. first you have a follower, somebody that joins your list. Then you turn them into a friend and not your best friend, someone that you’re chit chatting with and you’re writing basically love letters to, and your weekly newsletter. No, who has time for that? Once you turn them into a friend, like someone friendly, then you can turn them into a customer. She found this framework because she realized and learned that people buy from people they trust. And if you can gain that trust, if you can create a sort of friendship, a friendly thing in their inbox, then they’re much more easily converted to customer. Follower, friend, customer.
Email Welcome Sequence
How do you turn them into a friend? With a solid like a rock solid welcome sequence. If you don’t have a welcome sequence here’s what happens. After two to three years of business, where you’re doing all the things – you’ve created your course, you’re buying ads, you’re posting on Instagram, you’ve got a Facebook group, you’re listening to this podcast – and then you go to sell from an an awesome affiliate program or you finally create your course with guidance from The Course Consultant, and it’s just crickets and a really low open rate. Then, it’s completely sunk to the bottom because everybody’s leaving your list like they’re running out of a burning building. It leaves you wondering because everybody said the money was in the list.

If you don’t have that solid foundation, if you don’t welcome them in the right way, if you don’t turn that follower into a friend first, it’s so hard to convert them into a customer. They don’t trust you. So with a welcome sequence make sure you can get people to reply to you in those first few emails. They’re never going to be more engaged than those first couple of emails. And then, you set expectations.
If you create mostly free content, and then suddenly ask people to buy something from you, it can be a little abrasive, like there’s a disconnect. It’s like, you’re just trying to jump through this hoop that is just too high. But if you set the expectation right up front in your welcome sequence That you’re going to offer free and paid products or free and paid advice or free services and paid services, then they know upfront. So when you get into that sales mode later on for your course launch, they already know you’re a business. Even if you don’t have your course created yet, even if you have no idea. if you are going to create a course or an ebook, or whatever your digital product is, that you don’t even know yet, in your welcome sequence, you need to tell people you have paid services or products.

Just a side note, when you get nervous about selling your product, you just think like you have a stomach and your stomach deserves to eat. So you need to sell like, that just puts it in simplest form.

Liz Wilcox

What is a Nurture sequence

Liz’s welcome sequence is just four emails in four days, it’s super simple. Check it out below, but remember she also gives it to you for free in her swipe file, check Guest Resources below.

Email 1 - The Freebie

That first email, you just want to give them the freebie, the biggest mistake I see people make is the first email they like, just throw everything but the kitchen sink at people, nobody actually cares. They just, they just want their freebie or whatever it is they’ve signed up for.
Here’s Liz’s:
“Hey, congrats on getting this mega swipe file. I’m so excited. You’re getting your email crap together. By the way, my name is Liz. And the biggest thing you’ve got to know about me is I love to laugh. So you know, if you don’t have a sense of humor, I don’t know what to tell you. PS, hit reply, whatever question I asked.”

Email 2 and 3 - Great Content, Set Expectations

The second email is kind of best content, give them a little more flavor of who you are. And then that third email is, when you set those expectations. Tell your readers this is who I am, this is what I stand for, and this is what I have to offer. Liz suggests using quick bullet points.

Email 4 -The Invitation

Then in the fourth email, you can kind of mix up and talk a little bit about more about why you’re passionate, why you do what you do. And then invite them wherever you are on social media, or just invite them to reply again, to your emails because once you can get people to reply that is basically like the number one thing you want. then that is we’ll get to out of spam. It’s all this domino effect.

When you create a welcome sequence and subsequent newsletters where you’re writing every week sharing information, those subscribers go from the front of the table to looking at what you have to offer. they’re behind you in your stuff, they want to know more, they want to be a part of it. And that is so powerful. That’s when it becomes so much easier, so much simpler.

Show Up As An Expert

So one thing I really want to just point out for people, is to consider how easy it is to sell your courses and your digital products and your services, when you start to think of yourself as a bona fide professional, as a bona fide expert. New entrepreneurs especially feel like they don’t want to sell to people because that feels crummy or not authentic when you want to serve. what I think we often fall into the trap of is finding out that we have to get stuck on getting out new email blog posts, or getting out new blog posts, or getting out the new video, or getting out the new podcast. When in reality, when we are doing those activities, the point of those activities is to drive people to share with them to work with you in a closer fashion. So whether that’s an course, a one on one service, an intensive, any type of thing that you’re selling, It’s going to help them see the value add that you will be able to provide to them.
I think when entrepreneurs say I’ve got to have 10,000 email list subscribers, run Facebook ads, Or I’ve got to have a following amount XYZ They’re disqualifying themselves from all the sales that they could be making if they actually put themselves out there. It is a lot of work, yes, but there’s a way to do it without being sleazy, without being one of those marketers, there’s totally a way to do it.

Show Up As Yourself

I really liked that Liz provide ways to be funny and show up like yourself. When you’re thinking about who it is that you want to work with, you have to show up in a way that’s true to yourself. That’s true to your personality, that’s true to your core values. And when you do that, and you show up in email, the people that actually vibe with you, are the people that will buy from you. And that makes it so much easier to work with people. What I’ve noticed before is I would try to sound like this person or sound like that person or add in more gifts, and there’s nothing wrong with gifts. It’s just, is that true to who I am? Does that speak to me? Does that speak to what I’m about? And honestly, sometimes it hasn’t been. And so what I’ve noticed, too, is just am I attracting the buyers that I love to me. In the reality I’ve seen, I haven’t really been showing up like myself. So I really just love that about Liz, is that she does attract those people to her. She’s so fun and so friendly and so by the time someone buys, they’ll say, I feel like I already know her and feel like best friends.

Guest Resources

Join Liz’s inbox party if you’re looking for late 90s feel. She makes a lot of MC Hammer, NSync, and Fresh Prince jokes, so if you’re into that go to lizwilcox.com and scroll until you see join the inbox crew.
Also grab her mega newsletter swipe file, where you’ll get her welcome sequence to plug in your personality and niche, and also three newsletters and video explanations for each.
For you folks that want something “done for you” I highly recommend checking out Liz’s email marketing membership!

The Course Consultant Resources

Join us LIVE in the Facebook Group for more awesome content and guest interviews: http://www.facebook.com/groups/inspiredcourses

Leave us a comment below and let us know your biggest takeaway from this episode?
Missed the last episode, check it out here.

Read More
Marketing, Podcast
How to Design Creative Templates to Sell on Creative Market
- September 25, 2020
A lot of people don’t actually know what it looks like to create an online business and have passive income generating products. So in this episode, I would love to introduce you to Diane Pascual and her business on Creative Market.
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Spotify | Anchor

Table of Contents

Diane has experience as a graphic designer, worked for a lot of corporate companies, and then four years ago, started an online business on Creative Market. She has a creative market shop that is now successful. She just creates products every month, and it continues to generate passive income for her. So that’s kind of the gist of it.

Running a business with a family

Diane not only has a lot of online products, but also has a family. I asked her to tell us what it’s like to actually run her business because she has a little one; I think it’s just one. Diane shared, actually, he’s not so little anymore. He just turned 18. He is a really creative kid. Six months ago, when the pandemic hit, he started helping her upload some products on a lot of the different platform that she sells on. So the main platform is Creative Market, and then she also has a shop on Design Bundles and Shopify as well. She trains him to help out because it’s a lot of work. As a parent, she’s also making sure the bills are paid on time, she’s also chef at home, and you know, just like the day to day, all the things that you have to do with your kid. She shared that it’s a lot easier now that he’s so much older. She doesn’t think she could do this with a small kid at home.

Creating a Digitial Product

As a graphic designer, Diane has been in the industry for over a decade. She’s had many jobs, lots of random jobs and biotech tech, and worked at a lot of really cool companies, and also freelanced on her own in the last couple years. For Diane, that produced a lot of burnout as far as like, keeping up with doing all the work for clients. Then at the end of the day, it just made her feel like she spent that energy creating work for them. She decided to create work for herself, as an artist and creative person. She believes you want to not only create things to make money, but also create things because it brings you joy.
When she first got started on Creative market, she had a good friend, who had immediate success on it back in 2015. That was when she first heard about creative market. Her friend was testing out all these like, spiritual products, vector sets, that kind of thing. She told her to find something that she really enjoyed and is really passionate about. At that time, Diane had a shop on Society Six, creating patterns to print on yoga pants, or pillowcases, throw pillows, that kind of thing, for herself. Then, she started building a kind of a tie dye pattern shop and was like, “oh, this is kind of fun”.

Market Needs

But she realized it was just taking too long to make patterns. She asked herself, how could she make the pattern-making process even quicker. She started creating her own Photoshop brushes, tie-dye Photoshop brushes, and that’s when she really saw a need in the market. It was like this really specific niche that nobody else was like tapping into. She decided to create Photoshop brushes that were tie dye shapes so that people can use to create patterns of their own, use it for print and digital products. It took her two months to make her first tie-dye Photoshop brush set. She was just testing the market out to see how people would respond. And mind you, she had applied for a creative market shop and got denied, like three times. She would always ask her friend for feedback about what she did wrong. Her friend gave her specific and helpful comments about like, “maybe you should do this first and how about you try that”. Then pretty soon, the last time she applied, maybe the third time she got approved. That’s when she hit the ground running. In the first two months, she was making, $100 here, $150 there. That was enough validation for her to actually think of something that people could use that they find helpful. It took her a while, probably like another eight months to really start seeing more than just $300 coming into her bank account.
I wanted her to go back to the part where she talked about how you saw that there was a need in the market and stepped into that, that is so amazing and magical. I want to applaud Diane for that one and then to share with people who are listening to the podcast, or watching the replay of this video, when you’re creating a digital product, that is truly what it’s all about, you see a need in the market, you’ve stepped into that and you analyze your zone of genius, and you package it for the world to see and share. And over time, eventually more people get to see it, you consistently share about it and you grow your knowledge, you grow your skills, and then you grow your income. And so, you know, a lot of people feel like there’s just only one way to make money. But it sounds like Diane has really diversified a lot of her business, you know, you had your site up, first on Society Six, then she was like, hey, this Creative Market sounds cool. Let’s try this out. And so I love that she kind of shared about that. So I asked Diane to tell us a little bit more about creative market for people who aren’t familiar with creative market and to tell us a little bit more about how she finally set her shop up on creative.

Market Research

Diane She did a lot of research on tie dye stuff and didn’t want to make something just to make money. She wanted to make something that people could use like something useful, right. Why put your energy into something if you don’t think it’s going to be something that other people can use?
So just to backtrack a little bit, Diane has a background in concept art, illustration. So that 2d animation background, she painted a lot of backgrounds in Photoshop, in the last couple years and did a lot of digital painting, for illustrations with past clients. And so when she was looking and researching in the marketplace, like okay, tie dye, she saw that people were making it. People were making videos on how to create tie dye in Photoshop, but it was like really generic looking and tie dye is so specific. You can tell if it’s a natural dyed shirt versus something that was digitally made. She wanted to merge those two elements together. She started painting the tie dye shapes that she would sell as Photoshop brushes. So that’s kind of like how she got into it.

Trial and Error

Then setting up her shop on Creative market was kind of a trial and error of like, learn as you go kind of process. When she first released her Photoshop brushes as her very first product, they put her on their blog as ‘new products this week’ or something like that. She thought it was really cool and guessed that nobody else was making them. Then from there, she started making little background sets and things like that. Then she also started testing different kinds of things like vector sets, quotes, and seeing what would make money. She learned early on some of the older products that she would publish, wouldn’t get a lot of traction because they weren’t really products that people can reuse over and over. So she thinks that some of the things that work really well on Creative Market are templates, things that people can use for the business, and tools like fonts are really good products to sell as well.

Zone of Genius

One thing that other people might not realize is that, Diane stepped into this zone of genius where she felt confident and capable and it wasn’t like she was trying to validate it by somebody tapping her on the shoulder saying, you know, you should do this. She saw that it was there and kept working, adding, kept tweaking it. And that’s what I really feel like, is so special and I also really love the fact that she kind of saw her experience as a way to kind of make that pivot. So there’s a lot of things that are just so exciting about what Diane’s doing because honestly, I remember for those people who are just watching or listening, I actually watched her video on YouTube, sent her an email and said, Diane, I need to chat with you. Can you please hop on a call? I never really expected that she would ever respond. She was always sweet and said, yes, let’s hop on a call. I was like, Oh my gosh, this woman is amazing. I was super excited and stoked about that.

Scaling Your Business

I asked Diane to tell us more about the process of scaling her business; she now has multiple shops on different platforms. I also wanted her to tell us more about her expansion of products and the evolution of her business over time, because she’s been doing this for a while now.
Diane started in 2016. Four years ago, she started with making Photoshop brushes and then she expanded onto creating vector sets. Then she did background sets and things like that. Now expanding she would say maybe like a year ago was when she started to see a need for procreate. So she started making procreate brushes. It took her a while to figure out how to convert Photoshop brushes into procreate. she did a bunch of research and looked at how people were doing things and she even bought products that were procreate-like brushes, just to see how, they set theirs up and see if there’s something that she can learn from that and put it into her own product. And so sometimes she’ll do that to do some product research as well. procreate app is really cool Because it’s so mobile, everyone’s on their iPad, so it’s kind of like that mobile experience, like designing as you go or wherever you feel inspired, going. She saw all of these artists and shop owners making a killing on procreate brushes. Plus, a bunch of people emailed her that bought her Photoshop brushes and asked her for a way to convert them to procreate. She didn’t rule out the possibility, she would always email them and say she didn’t know how to do that yet and needed to do some research. Seeing a need like that and learning from customers that purchased her stuff on Creative market and having people email her for their next brush set, she thought that was cool and loved the feedback. She loves when people email her because there’s certainly things that she hasn’t thought of, that she would love to explore. People getting her attention like that helps her to kind of evolve and expand as well.

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So procreate brushes is something she started making. Then themed tie dye stuff and Halloween tie dye stuff are taking off in her shop right now. Seamless patterns, something she already knew how to do she saw people make this and asked herself, “why am I not doing this?” and so she started doing that. They’re repeatable patterns that anybody can use on digital, print, or fabric. So that’s where she sees herself expanding. She made one font last year and found it was hard. It was a learning process. She feels like anything she can do, she’ll start doing research and learn a little bit more about it and take her time and ask, “How can I market this thing? Can people use it? Is this going to be useful?” Those are some of the things she always thinks about when making new products like.

Feedback

I really love the fact that she pointed out a really great process. Feedback. Somebody asked if she could do something and she was honest and said, she didn’t, but she didn’t leave it there. Diane said I don’t know how to do that yet. so when people are first starting the process of creating digital products, it’s constantly this learning process where you’re figuring out what people need, what people want, and what people are willing to fork over money for. When I actually started doing my digital products and courses, I noticed that people would actually send me an email or I would see a question come up in my Facebook group, and there would be a lot of questions that would say, I could use more examples on XYZ, or I really don’t know how to do this part. And I would go to myself and think, oh, I don’t know how to do that, either. So I didn’t let that stop me. I love that we are just constantly learning and it’s about that process of feedback, understanding how to accomplish something, and then delivering on that promise, that feedback, and creating new and helpful tips and tools.
I asked Diane to walk us behind the scenes of her day of creating a product, putting it all together, then getting it on the shop. Also what’s the process of when you get paid, what happens when the magical sale occurs and the whole process?

Diane's Creative Market Process

Diane shared that creating one product from start to finish is probably anywhere from 10 to 15 hours, no matter how spread out those hours are. She could probably do four hours in one sitting and then take a break. She thinks it’s important to take a break to not burn yourself out. She starts off doing research by going on creative market and seeing if that products already out there. If it is she asks herself, what kind of unique flair or unique way can she design that product that people can use? Then from there, she would say the bulk of time is creating in Photoshop. She gives herself time to create because that’s the important part because you’ll start on something and then test it out by approaching it in different ways, whether it’s composition, design, or color.

Research and Mockups

How many different ways can I do this? Is it going to look good? What can they use it on? – Are questions that she likes to ask. For the products, specifically patterns, she thinks about what are they going to put this on, like for apparel, t shirts, swimsuits, that kind of thing. She’ll do that for a couple of hours and create all of the different variations she can with that product, whether it’s a different color style, or two different color ways, like a pink and a purple. Then she’ll do some more research on Google just looking at mockup files, because on Creative market, your shop images, sell your product. You have to make sure that the shop images look good, and they’re kind of illustrating what they can use it on. So if your product is good for specific things, mock it up and show them like, here’s what you can do with it. That’s really helpful for people wanting to figure out if they can use your product. Then from there, she gets the shop images together, that takes anywhere from one hour to three hours depending on how specific she wants to get. Then once she’s got it up, she publishes it. She publishes it at night, super early in the morning, or midday. The last product that she really saw success on was a product she created a month ago and it was one of her newest Photoshop brush sets. She saw that once she uploaded that product, she had made a sale within two hours which was validation that she’s actually going the right path and that people are looking for this. It also helps to like watch the trends and see how that product is so specific to that trend and how they can use it to make specific things.
Mockups are a really important part of having a digital product, no matter if it’s a course, or if it’s a template. And so one thing that I talk a lot about in, in my new training, which I’m super excited about, I talk a little bit more about the sales process and what that actually looks like for people to come across your product, be completely product unaware, and then converting into a sale. There’s so much that goes into it, like visualization and product research. A lot of people when they’re actually making their first product, they’re not thinking like a shop owner. They’re thinking like an online influencer. But you can’t just put something up and not do any work. It is a lot of work setting it up. After the fact it is more passive and of course if you’re doing promotions, you might change things up, you might do more things. But starting first with the product research, doing all the groundwork, working smarter, not harder, because our working is just looking and tweaking and making it better. And then kind of building up to the part where you’re actually generating sales.

Her Most Successful Product on Creative Market

I asked Diane to tell us more about her most successful product and what she’s most proud of. She said it’s a Photoshop brush set. She’s made a lot of different Photoshop brushes over the years. It was the second Photoshop set that she ever made. The reason why it continues to sell to this day is that it’s got a variety of shapes. So it’s really the true tie dye like spirals, all of the little sunburst. She tries to vary the shapes so that they would blend together and test it out before putting it up on her shop. She also provides a template for actually creating an actual tie dye pattern, so they can look at it step by step. She provides a Photoshop template, so they can see how to organize their layers because people also want to learn. For new people who maybe they’re a small business owner and they have a manufacturing company, and they need to create a tie dye design, but can’t afford to pay a designer, you want to outline the steps for them. And she’s now started creating guidebooks, like PDF guidebooks included with the product just so that she outline how to install this Photoshop brush in your Photoshop version, and outline the process of creating the pattern, how to use the product. She hasn’t updated that product in like a year, but it just continues to sell and people have pinned it on Pinterest several times. It’s kind of interesting, once someone sees it, they just repin it, and then it gets traffic from Pinterest all the time.
I love that she thinks through the steps of the customer. She does all the backend work to get it up. Even before she publishes, she’s doing the process steps in her head of what questions are they going to ask me when they get this product? So she builds in an onboarding sequence to help them get acclimated to their whole step by step journey. For those people who have never made a course or you’ve already made a course its super important to have an onboarding sequence for digital courses specifically, for templates, you already have the instructions.

Conclusion

So you guys heard it first here. Diane’s shared all of her success about creating passive income products and she’s made money while working from home. She actually got laid off because of the pandemic but was still working on this on the side. When she focused on her shop she said she needs to create these products because she’s seeing a trend. And for me, earlier this year, tie dye was trending because people were staying home and crafting. So that was one of those things she couldn’t believe it. Before this year, she was barely even making a grand. But now she’s built up her shop to the point where she’s making enough to pay rent and all my bills. It’s kind of a dream come true.
I think that just having the ability to just pursue your dreams and making that pivot you just have to make it work. There’s just no question. Diane would say don’t even wait on your dreams. Do it now. Do it now you guys.

Guest Resources

Diane’s Website: http://www.gypsygoddess.com/
Diane’s Creative Market Shop: https://creativemarket.com/thegypsygoddess
Diane’s Shopify Store: https://the-gypsy-goddess-tie-dye.myshopify.com/
Diane’s YouTube Channel: https://www.youtube.com/dianepascual_thegypsygoddess

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