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One of my favorite parts about my business is that I’m able to help so many incredible entrepreneurs build thriving businesses, who then go on to help others, creating an unstoppable ripple effect that impacts hundreds of thousands of lives in the best possible way.
It’s so inspiring to see them become beloved leaders in their communities and how their work transforms the lives of others. It warms up my heart and reminds me of the limitless potential for good we all have inside.
And today, I couldn’t be prouder to introduce you to one of my star students, Ela Thier of The Independent Film School. She has taken her leadership role to the next level and used it to transform her life, and that of those in her community. This is a detailed look inside the business of just one of 10 incredible students of mine. Check out my latest podcast at the end of this post to hear from everyone else 🙂
I first met Ela when she enrolled in my courses and I’ve been so blown away by her diligence and determination not only to build her business but to help filmmakers and screenwriters across the globe share their own creations on the screen.
Before Ela ran a successful online business, she spent over 12 years teaching filmmaking and screenwriting in-person.
Her classes were very successful and her students loved learning from her. So much so that she’d often receive emails from people far and wide wanting to learn from her, asking her if she could record her classes so that they, too, could learn from her.
For the longest time, she’d simply say it wasn’t possible.
Until she realized the only thing standing between the impossible and the possible… was herself.
In her own words “I finally broke down and I was like… We’ve got to make this available and figure out how to translate it into an online format”.
She also felt conflicted and unsure of whether she was a teacher or a filmmaker.
“If I’m a filmmaker primarily, then I’ve got to figure out how to sustain myself. How to make that viable and not have teaching consume my entire life, my work life”.
That’s when Ela started thinking more and more about the potential in bringing her teaching classes online so that she could have more time to dedicate to her filmmaking projects, make a living to sustain herself, and help other independent creators on a worldwide scale.
That’s when she started looking into this new possibility and someone she knew recommended she check out my resources (isn’t that sweet? Thank you, mystery person!).
So how did Ela go from teaching in-person classes and having limited time to work on her filmmaking projects, to building a six-figure business selling her online courses?
Well you, my friend, are about to find out!
STEP 1 – ELA HAD TO OVERCOME HER LIMITING BELIEFS SO SHE COULD BUILD HER DREAM BUSINESS AND HELP THOUSANDS OF CREATORS WORLDWIDE
Although Ela went on to achieve incredible milestones in her business it almost didn’t happen.
“I was super resistant, not just to teaching online, but also to taking your course. I took the free training that you did. It was so great, and I totally fell in love. Then the emails started coming in about the course, and I was like, ‘It’s too expensive.’”
She believed that she had to figure it out by herself, to bootstrap the whole thing on her own without external help if she wanted to build her business.
“I made myself a promise I was not going to enroll. I swore to myself I would not enroll. ”
But there was more to it than thinking she needed to figure it out herself or even that she didn’t want to spend her money.
“I was not ready to invest in myself and take myself fully seriously”
Ever felt like that? Those fears often show up to keep us from pursuing our lifelong dreams and goals. But after teaching thousands of entrepreneurs I know that what lies on the other side of fear is so worth it.
Fortunately for Ela, she had the best ally in her corner. Her dad. She told him all about her goal of making her courses available online for all filmmakers and screenwriters to learn from her. She also told him about her fears and concerns.
And what he said changed everything for Ela: “But isn’t that what you *want* to be doing?”
There were a few short hours before enrollment closed but her father’s encouragement was the loving nudge she needed to take the leap. To invest in herself and share her knowledge with the world.
“I still thank him for being the catalyst who had me take the plunge. Certainly it was a very, very good investment to say the least.“
STEP 2 – SHE CREATED A LEAD MAGNET THAT WOULD GIVE HER SUBSCRIBERS A TASTE OF WHAT IT’S LIKE TO LEARN FROM HER
When Ela first began her course creation journey, her email list was around 2,500 subscribers. But they weren’t very engaged and her open rates were under 15%.
And even though she admits she hasn’t even “scratched the surface” of potential list building strategies, she still was able to grow her list to over 10,000 engaged subscribers relatively quickly.
I was very curious about this so I asked her how she did it. After all, she went from having 2,500 fairly unengaged subscribers to having 10,000 that LOVE her. Want to know what she did?
“I started working on my lead magnets. The key for me was to create a way for people to sample what it’s like to study with me, where it’s free.”
Ela’s strategy is spot on. Not only does it provide value to her audience, but it also serves to attract her ideal audience who’d be the best fit for her paid courses, and since they have a taste of what it’s like learning from her, they’re more likely to become paid students. Score!
If you’re anything like me, you’re probably dying to learn what some of her most successful lead magnets or opt-in freebies were and how she was able to grow her list so much with them.
Let’s hear it from Ela:
“A recent one was on character building when you’re writing a screenplay. How to build your screenplay out of creating really interesting characters. Then I had a really successful one on how to budget short films, how to turn a tiny budget into a really big film.”
All of these are very specific to the kind of problems filmmakers and screenwriters have, which makes it a no-brainer for her subscribers to jump on board. Just like I covered in my recent article on the crucial strategy all successful business use, getting clear on which problem you’re solving for your audience, and creating content that solves it is the key to major business growth.
Ela took this to the next level and it resulted in over 7,000 new subscribers joining her email list.
STEP 3 – SHE PUT HER LIST BUILDING ON AUTOPILOT USING FACEBOOK ADS
Although there are awesome free and organic ways to grow your audience, using paid ads can be another tool to speed up your growth and reach your ideal audience. This is the route Ela preferred to go.
She wanted to focus most of her efforts into building her online courses and getting them out to her community as soon as humanly possible.
That’s why she decided to put her list building efforts on autopilot through paid advertisement, specifically through Facebook Ads.
“I have relied on ads because I have put most of my time on creating my courses at this point. I’m still very much into the course creation phase of building the business.”
To do this, she created a landing page for her lead magnet offer and ran ads to it. So whenever someone saw her ads on Facebook, if they clicked through, they’d be taken to Ela’s landing page where they could sign up to her email list to receive access to her freebie.
“I did rely on ads to build quickly, but it is the strategies around the kind of offers that I make in these ads that gave me the best results. The key is learning how to present your offer and how to create the landing pages to convert. My landing pages are getting like a 60% conversion rate!”
Isn’t that just mind blowing? She was able to build a six figure business from scratch, with no previous knowledge or skills, except her filmmaking and screenwriting knowledge. So Inspiring.
Ready to break through the roadblocks holding you back from “The Thing” you really want to do? You’re in luck! Because I’ve created a free, 5-day challenge to help you remove fear, ditch doubt, and move from less overwhelm confidently into more results. Click the image below to sign up!
STEP 4 – SHE BUILT A STRATEGY TO NURTURE HER EMAIL SUBSCRIBERS AND GAIN THEIR TRUST
If you remember, Ela had 2,500 fairly unengaged subscribers, and she knew why.
“It was really inconsistent. I really only wrote them when I had something to sell, which is a lesson I learned since then.”
She soon realized what she needed to do if she wanted to build a thriving business and truly help her audience and future students. She needed to nurture them consistently and position herself as someone they could trust and learn from.
Ela was able to grow her email list to 10,000 people and increase her open rates to 20-30%.
Her subscribers reach out all the time now to thank her for the inspiration and the valuable tips she shares with them.
“They love my emails. I write them every week. I used to worry about bothering them and now I see the more I bother them the more they like me.”
Ela found her groove in sending her subscribers a “Tuesday Tip” every week. Writing these emails takes her very little time but it’s helped her audience come to know, like and trust her. Big time.
Her secret to earning her audience’s love and trust?
“You know, I really, really know how artists operate and what we need to hear. The kind of encouragement, reminders and information that we need. I think a lot of art schools and film schools don’t know how to provide this. Film schools are really competitive and my community is all about support, not about the competition.”
Goosebumps.
STEP 4 – ELA OWNED THE VALUE SHE PROVIDED IN HER COURSES AND WENT ALL OUT IN HER LAUNCHES
Ela is teaching people how to create independent films, which is so unique and so creative. I just love that. Just the creativity behind it and how she’s translated something that she was doing in person to doing online. What an opportunity.
Now, you know Ela was deeply focused on creating her courses and getting them in the hands of her community of filmmakers and screenwriters. But she didn’t fall for the “If you build it they will come” trap. She chose to go all out to make sure her students truly understood the value they would get from her classes.
She embraced her role as a leader and owned the value she provided in her courses.
“I learned how to be bolder and I lost the feeling of intimidation about writing too much or pitching my courses”.
So when Ela was ready to launch her very first online course, she planned it carefully with bonuses and webinars. All the things. But she only made one sale on cart open day, and another during the webinar…
She was perplexed because she’d heard others’ success stories and how many sales they’d made on cart open days and webinar days and yet she had only made two sales in total. Say whaaa?
She decided to trust the process and stay the course, even when it felt like her launch was going to be a total flop.
“By the end of that launch, it was two weeks long, I ended up making more than $17,000, which was half of my yearly income at that point.”
$17,000 in sales from her two week launch! Ah-mazing!
But I know you’re wondering… Okay, what’s going on here?! How did she go from two sales on the two biggest days of the launch to $17K by the end of it?
“I learned in hindsight that the special bonuses I was offering earlier were just not compelling enough. All the sales came in at the end when my cart was closing.”
This realization made her become smarter about the bonuses she offered to drive continued sales throughout her launches.
“Now I know how to structure bonuses that do bring in sales in the beginning, during the webinar and at the end. I was actually not expecting the results. The last time I did a webinar, I made around 15 sales. This is a $700 program, so at this point I’ve earned more than $100,000 from doing course launches. ”
She also learned how to really drive the concepts home to her audience, to really make them see the value and transformations in her offers, and make sure they don’t miss out on the opportunity they have in front of them. She decided to offer a 1:1 consultation with her as a Fast Action Bonus during her webinar and it sold like hotcakes.
“I also learned to not skimp out on how hard I pitch the bonus. I don’t just say, ‘Oh and you’ll get a consultation with me’ I really drive home just how valuable that is and what a difference it’s made with my students to have private sessions with me. I pitch the bonus hard”
Not only did this bonus work like gangbusters, but it also gave Ela the chance to get to know her students better, learn more about what they need and what made them join her course. So it was super valuable to her students, but it also worked as market research that helped Ela polish her courses and marketing strategies.
STEP 5 – EMBRACING HER ROLE AS A LEADER IN HER COMMUNITY AND DOING HER PART TO EMPOWER OTHERS TO BECOME LEADERS AS WELL
Even though Ela owns a renowned business of her own teaching filmmakers and screenwriters, she’d always feel intimidated by competing with the big, fancy Film Schools out there.
But then she realized what set her apart from them and the one thing big Film Schools would never be able to offer their students.
“One of the things I learned is what a big difference it makes to have a personal brand where people really connect with you personally. No big school can offer that. People really get to know me and they feel like they have a relationship with someone who’s going to champion them.”
*mic drop*
Everything changes when you realize that what people actually want is that human to human connection. They want a mentor who champions them, who’s there for them versus this big faceless school, where they don’t have a human to connect to like you.
I think that’s something that’s so special about content creators and people who have a personal brand. They’re using that to empower or teach people about something that matters to them.
Ela could have gone to a business school and spent an insane amount of money. But she realized what she truly needed: “Practical, real world ‘here’s how you build a business that really works’ strategies.”
And this realization changed everything for her too. It made her think of what her own audience’s options were when it came to learning how to create their films.
“When I think about what the alternatives are, what they cost and what they teach I’m like, ‘I think I’ll make sure people really understand what I’m offering here.’ I don’t want to get in the way of anybody really getting a full picture of what they would be getting.”
But Ela’s biggest takeaway from the program wasn’t a business strategy, or how to grow her income. It was actually deeper and more meaningful than that.
It was embracing her own leadership role and helping her community become leaders of their own, too.
“I empower artists to lead their communities and to see themselves as the leaders that artists are. I think you’re successful for that reason, Melyssa. You’re not just helping people like me. You empower us to take our rightful place. You’re creating leaders and we’re in turn creating more leaders. It’s what the world really needs right now.”
That just gave me chills.
That is what we need, more leadership and people ready to own their power. The transformation Ela went through leaves me speechless to this day.
When Ela was thinking about joining the program, it was a moment of like, ‘I’m not going to own my power.’ Then she took a step, almost like a leap of faith in herself, and that just snowballed into an incredible business that allows her to share her knowledge with the world on her terms and have time to dedicate to her true passion: filmmaking.
She’s now doing the same for so many other people. It’s really magnificent, isn’t it?
OVER TO YOU
Ela’s inspiring story starts from scratch, with an in-person teaching business and the desire to bring it online to reach a wider audience and have more freedom to work on other projects.
All it took was for Ela to overcome her limiting beliefs and bet on herself. When she did, she owned her power, embraced her role as a leader in her community and the rest as they say is history.
Are you ready to own your power? What comes up for you when you think of starting your own business? What’s one aligned step you could take right now to get started?
Want to learn even more strategies to create + launch your online course? Tune in to today’s bonus episode of the Limitless Life™ podcast where you’ll hear the strategies that are working NOW for 10 successful content creators.
Listen to the episode below:
Ready to break through the roadblocks holding you back from “The Thing” you really want to do? You’re in luck! Because I’ve created a free, 5-day challenge to help you remove fear, ditch doubt, and move from less overwhelm confidently into more results. Click the image below to sign up!
Links from the episode:
- Ela’s Website
- Manu’s Website
- Jenny’s Website
- Aurelia’s Website
- Collin’s Website
- Ashley’s Youtube
- Emilia’s Website
- Po Tim’s Website
- Cassie and Shay’s Website
- Tamar’s Website
- Register for my free, live workshop, The 3 Systems You Need to Create a 6-Figure Online Course
- Follow me (Melyssa Griffin) on Instagram for honest conversations about business, mindset, and my life.
- Follow the Limitless Life™ Podcast on Instagram for new episode releases and wisdom on how to live a life with no limits.
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Thank you SO much for being here, sweet friend. I’m honored to walk this journey with you.
See you in the next episode! xoxo Melyssa
Read the Episode Transcript HereMelyssa
You’re listening to the limitless life podcast and today I’m bringing you a special bonus episode with not one guest, but 10. And they’re all answering the question for you. What is one of the best online course strategies that’s working for you right now? I’m Melissa Griffin. And while I was in my 20s, I turned a hobby blog into a multi million dollar company. Now what I’ve discovered after working with thousands of entrepreneurs is that the greatest thing standing in the way of success isn’t another business tactic or marketing strategy. It’s your own mindset. Now, I believe that you’re meant for more than just the status quo. So on this show, you’ll feel like you’re sitting down with a friend who’s here to help you transform your fears and roadblocks into a truly limitless version of yourself. It’s time to upgrade your life and business from the inside out. Let’s do this.
Hey,
limitless family. So for this special episode I’m bringing in 10 of my students who have taken my online course profitable creator, which used to be called blog to biz have by the way. Now all of these students have gone through the program and created and launched an online course of their own. And so this episode is where they’re sharing some of their best hacks and strategies that they’ve learned along the way. Each of their clips is just a couple minutes long, so you’ll get a taste of a lot of different tactics and perspectives that have helped them. And the cool thing is that everyone is in a unique and different niche in industry. And they all had varied results when they launched their online courses from earning a few thousand dollars to some having a six figure launch. I cannot wait for you to hear their brilliance because they have a lot of really good stuff to share. Now, by the way, if you want to learn more about how to have a successful online course launch, then I’m hosting a free online webinar where I’m breaking down the funnel
systems that you need to have in place. If you want to have a five or six figure online course launch, it is happening on May 5 2020, which is very soon if you’re listening to this episode when it comes out. So to register, just visit the profitable creator.com forward slash workshop. That link one more time is the profitable creator.com slash workshop. I cannot wait to see you there. Now without further ado, let me hand the mic to some of my students so that they can share some of their best strategies with you.
Manu
My name is mano Morocco. My business is your social team and my online courses teach business and enterpreneurs how to use Instagram to grow their business and revenue. I wanted to share a few things that have been working for me right now when I’m launching my online courses. The first one is that a couple of months before the lounge, I give a high value freebie to grow my list for the last one I opened
Manu
In one of my members, classes, replays for all public and I grew my list around 10% in a week. And then the second thing is that I’m creating a free webinar with complete strategies that people can implement. Even if they don’t buy the course. I usually pick a webinar topic that would be a prequel to what I’m teaching in the course. So for example, for my Instagram organic engagement course, I did a webinar on the Instagram algorithm. I am finding that some of the people who watch the webinar burn ready to buy yet end up buying the course at a later date because they have seen the value in what I teach. It also makes people who have taken past free webinars want to take them again because they know it’s not just a sales pitch. And another thing I have been working for me is giving incentives to my community to spread the word of my free webinar. So in this past one I offered a freebie to all of those of my Instagram followers who would share my webinar promo to their stories. And I love this strategy because it reaches
Manu
More people that are similar to my own followers. So the last time I did this, I had three times more signups on a single day than usual. And my signup rate also went from 70% to 87%, which means more people sign up when they’re sensitive, linked by a third party that they trust. And finally, I also use influencer marketing to push my free webinar. I feel that conversion is better this way than if I had the influencer push the actual course. So in this last lounge, I did only one paid post of an influencer. And I got more registrations in an hour than I usually get in a full day. And these are strategies that anyone could use regardless of the size of their audience. And that’s why I think they’re so exciting.
Jenny
My name is Jenny Golding. And my online course teaches people to connect on a deep personal level with the natural world by learning how to tune into and interpret the fascinating world of animal language. It’s definitely a unique niche. I work as a team with my head
Jenny
Been Georgia human. And we live on the doorstep to Yellowstone National Park where we are able to observe, study and interact with animals on a daily basis. Our course teaches people how to listen into the animal conversations that are happening around them all the time by providing tools they can use at home or when they come to Yellowstone. Our audience loves nature and loves wildlife and wants to have a deeper relationship with wildness like we do. What’s working for us right now is finding ways to actively engage with our audience. So working to go the next step beyond providing great tools they can use, to giving them a way to interact and share with us and with each other as they practice what they’re learning. We just finished our first course launch on March 17. We had 65 enrollees, which is about 3% of our email list and around $19,000 in sales. What made that launch so successful for us was increasing our level of engagement beyond just sending regular emails to encouraging our
Jenny
Participation in conversation really works. before the launch, we started asking questions in our emails and asking for a response, so that we’d be able to engage there on a more personal level. During the pre launch for our course, we ran a five day email challenge with a pop up Facebook group, which both grew our list actually more than any other thing we did, and also got folks to actively engage with our content. We did a webinar which helped with that. Also, we promoted all of our free content, including the email challenge and the webinar in the in person lectures and programs that my husband does in Yellowstone, as well as on social media. So now that our course is launched, we’re offering a free video series called Wild conversations, to continue serving our audience and to build interest for our next launch. We interact with our core students in a private Facebook group daily. Honestly, it’s like a dream, finding ways to encourage our audience to have a conversation with us.
Jenny
to actively engage is not only growing our list and selling courses, but also creating our dream and serving our mission, which is to have a community of people discussing and sharing what we’re passionate about, and developing their own deeper relationship with the natural world.
Aurelia
My name is Aurelia and my online courses teach flavor obsessed home bakers, how to become confident and successful home bakery business owners. The strategy that’s working in my online business right now is to strategically nurture my email list. I’ve noticed that although it’s important to get new leads, it’s even more important for me to turn my existing leads into red hot ones that are eager to invest in themselves. Every single email I send helps them to overcome false beliefs about themselves, about life and about home bakery businesses in general, when I help them to believe in themselves
They will invest in themselves, they’ll only invest in a brighter future if they believe it’s possible. So with every email, I address their false beliefs and misconceptions, then I tell a story to break that lie down and replace it with truth. And only then do I call them to action. The response from my email list over the past year especially has been amazing. I’m just about to launch my course again. And it’s so encouraging to move into my launch with a waitlist of nearly 400 homemakers.
Collin
My name is Collin belt, and my course teaches people how to win more business using a software called proposal five. So the course itself is actually a free course and we link to it from our social media channels from our website on our blog. And we get a lot of people who sign up for the course because they’re trying to learn how to use this software in order to send better proposals. So throughout the free course we teach people how to
Collin
To use the software access all the design tools as well as understand how to structure their proposal, how to collect their copy, and how to really get everything that they need in order to send a beautiful proposal that’s going to increase the odds of them getting that prospect into a paying customer. And we’re finding that leads really well into our paid digital products. We’re a design agency. So we offer proposal templates that we’ve professionally designed, and we’ve set them up for all kinds of different industries, from caterers, to yoga instructors, to photographers, videographers, pretty much every industry that we’ve had the chance to work with, we sit down and we think, Okay, how can we create a proposal template that’s really going to set these people up for success? So the course naturally leads into that because while we’re offering all the information and all the tips for free, oftentimes, people may not have the design skills that they need in order to put together a really outstanding project.
So oftentimes what we’re finding is people will go through our course they’ll really absorb the material, they’ll understand how to use the software. And they’ll either purchase one of our pre designed templates from our proposal by template store, or they may get in contact with us and engage with us as a design agency so that we can design a custom proposal for them from scratch.
Melyssa
Alright, this next one is with a special student of mine, Ashley. Now I originally met Ashley when she came to one of my in person workshops a few years ago and I have been inspired and blown away by her ever since. Ashley is deaf, so I have the honor of reading the advice that she sent in for you. Now here is what she said.
My name is Ashley, and my online course teaches people the basics of American Sign Language. The thought of creating a big course overwhelmed me so I chose to create a small one teaching fingerspelling to ASL students. I create free valuable content or
The courses topic on the regular to help them practice and improve and it makes promoting the course feel less salesy because I know the course is going to help them since they were interested in my free content on the same topic. I now have about 800 students enrolled in that small course. But I could have had zero if I’d convince myself that I needed to create a large course to begin with learning from experience. Don’t let the overwhelm of creating a huge course stop you from sharing what you know and helping others. Start small. Teach the first step or one step in the process, because your audience will find it so valuable. Thank you for everything you taught me, Melissa. You’re welcome, Ashley.
Hey, limitless listener. We’ll get back to the show in just a moment. But I wanted to take 20 seconds to invite you to the free at home digital retreat that I created just for you. It’s called limitless entrepreneur.
And it’s all about helping you to create an abundant, fearless mindset. All growing your online business. You want to join just visit limitless entrepreneur retreat.com to register. It’s totally free. That’s limitless entrepreneur retreat.com all right friend back to the show.
Emelia
My name is Emelia Farrace. And my online course WP website Academy teaches people how to launch their WordPress website using a responsive, customizable theme I co created to be uniquely there’s using our tried tested and true design templates. I’ve been designing and developing WordPress websites for over 11 years professionally and for about 20 years outside of that for a very long time. I’ve been interested in courses and creating one but I had a lot of mindset issues around what would work for people how I thought they needed to be taught
And how WordPress was showing up for them. I was expecting to create some magical course that would teach them everything I knew, and everything I had experienced in one handy little package. The problem I didn’t see at the time was it’s impossible to teach someone everything you know, in six modules, but you can teach them at the beginning. So when I really started paying attention to the basics, what people were really asking me about their businesses and how tos, I discovered that there were a lot of missing gaps in the information available on the internet about WordPress. The platform was changing all the time, and I didn’t see any repeatable industry leaders teaching on this subject. Everyone seemed to be switching and moving to teach Squarespace instead. So once I started offering my course in a group program and doing weekly live coaching calls to help them with any issues, interest in the course really took off. We have such
engaged body of students in the program. Everyone is always asking thoughtful questions and most importantly, doing the work. And I 100% believe it’s because I’m in the program with them, supporting them on materials we have provided and encouraging them along the way. I also get a ton of blog newsletter marketing and social media ideas from doing this. So much so that I often wonder who the coaching calls are really benefiting more. During the email list Academy, I discovered my list building archetype was passionate performer with a side of terming collaborator. And honestly, I was not surprised in the least with my results. I was surprised that I hadn’t been harnessing them, however, and ever since I decided to go for it and I started offering a live masterclass during the cart open for my live round launches. And since then, my list subscribers have skyrocketed my average attendee
For my webinars are 50%. attendees are staying for about 77% of the webinar duration. And they’re spending 55% of the webinar time focused and concentrated on the material. To me, that is a huge win. And for the collaborator aspect of it, I think we can get so caught up on being in an online space that we forget about connecting offline with people, and the wonderful people that we have in our lives that are cheering us on. So from business besties mentors, fellow business owners, anyone that you know, that has the same passion. These relationships have also helped me with value bumping my own offers with huge bonuses, and I’m so grateful Not to mention bouncing ideas off of each other in private and helping us get better in our own like personal masterminds. Now I operate out of no fear, and that’s my biggest tip for anyone listening. There’s really nowhere to go but up and if we go down
We go down because we needed the lesson. And that’s what’s truly really been working for me. Everything else is just helping it along the way. So thanks for providing the opportunity to share that with you. And thank you for all that you do as well Melissa and team Melissa Griffin
Po Tim King
Leo, Niihau mining name is po team came from fortune cookie mom. And my auto course teaches people about how to create a solid foundation and that engage kid and helps them to learn independently with plans and Chinese resources and things like that. So what’s working for me right now I come to and are creating and selling my own a course. Definitely the first one is my free challenge. There’s nothing I think that no other free you know, printable or PDF, can we place a free challenge that seen in the short time of you know, around five days, you know, they have the resources
And maybe some trainings or even our Facebook groups to support them so that they can get resolved only five days. And I think that’s one of the best things you can do to, you know, help people right away to see a little small wins. And also to help them to be engaging interest of your course, you know, if they want more, they’re going to buy this course. And also, you know, I think having the Facebook group is very important as well, no matter as you’re all promoting from others. Definitely having your own Facebook group and interrupt them and do some live to chat with your members that were really helpful as well. So they get to see you they get to feel, you know, despoil, that they’re in this group, and you spend time for them, you know, specifically this group and to teach them something, where to to your beach. And so this is what I did to when I sell my course. I will
Before that I do a free challenge for them in my group. So we discuss learn different things and interact, you know, everyday for that five days and after that I launch and introduce more things for them. And this is how I sell my course. So hope you like it and be helpful. sincere thank you.
Cassie and Shay
Hey, we’re Cassie and Shay. And we’re the founders of the bucket list bombshells. And our online courses teach people how to ditch their nine to five jobs by starting an online freelancing business. So we have three major things that are really working for us right now when it comes to creating and selling our online courses. So the first one is called evergreen funnels. So we have a couple evergreen funnels, and one of them goes to a workshop or what might be commonly known as a webinar. We use a just in time webinar so someone can join within 15 minutes and watch and consume the webinar and this is a great way
way for us to give people a taste of our training, show them our workshop style, show them our teaching style. And it’s a great way to also introduce them to us as a company or a brand or as individuals who are course creators. The second thing that I want to share is that when we have our webinar, evergreen funnels, we need to be driving traffic to those funnels. So what we use and what we focus on heavily is using a Facebook ad strategy. We want to get eyeballs onto our webinar, we want to be able to get our ads in front of the right audience who will then want to join our webinars. So there’s all the ads strategy that goes into that. And so to accomplish that, to of course, drive sales and new students get people to our evergreen funnels, we use Facebook ads. So that’s the second strategy. And then lastly, the third thing is always listening in and serving our community. So this has been a really important thing since day one of starting our business and
launching our very first online course years ago, and we are always surveying and asking our audience asking our community by either running email surveys asking Facebook surveys inside of posts or even on Instagram stories as ways to create awesome new bonuses, implement new course updates and then of course always creating new courses to better serve our community and their needs.
Tamar
My name is Tamar Leibovitz and my online course teaches people how to create beautiful photos for the blog or business. When it comes to the success of my digital course the bloggers photobooth. The top three factors war one is creating a unique course that is essentially the full toolbox for creating beautiful imagery, photography, styling and photo editing, all in one step by step course. This course was born out of the needs of my community which combines bloggers and entrepreneurs that know the value of it.
Quality and unique visual content for the brand and marketing. Second, the most important thing to me is giving real value to my readers, whether it’s free or premium content. I genuinely believe that this made my community trust me when it comes to buying a premium digital product. They trust me and they know that I’ll give them real value for their money. And three, mixing between organic and paid promotion. Organic marketing via social media and mailing lists is fantastic and I use it daily. Still, I believe in attracting new relevant people to my blog by using paid ads for my free e courses, and then turning them into loyal followers and community member before introducing them to my premium content. The good old no like trust factor.
Ela
Hi, my name is Ela Thier and my online courses teach screenwriters and filmmakers whose work would make a difference in the world but who may need the skills encouragement
And support to end blocks and create their best work as to what’s working for me now, something that Melissa says in blog to biz that I would definitely reiterate, is that if you’re teaching something that other people are teaching, you should still teach it because no one else will do it the way you would do it. So, you know, sure, there are all sorts of film schools and screenwriting gurus out there. But no one else is allowed what I offer only I could offer. So if I had to sum it up in a sentence, what makes me unique as a teacher is that I genuinely believe that every human being is vastly creative, that all of us have huge amounts of intelligence, talent and creativity that we haven’t yet tapped into true of all of us, I think myself included. So every student who shows up at my virtual door is going to find a teacher who believes in them. And this basic tenet informs everything that I do and
In my business, every course that I create every ad, every email funnel, every webinar, everything is infused with this basic assumption about humans. So I’d recommend for every online teacher to figure out what is your one principle than everything you create is built on, because that’s really your foundation. Concretely, as far as the business itself goes, there are hundreds of things you can do to grow your business. The fastest way to grow, I think, is to ignore all of them, except for one and do that one thing really, really well. Kind of doesn’t matter which one thing you choose, what matters is the amount of focus and work you put into that one thing, the only course I took on running an online business and you can imagine how many were advertised to me was blog to biz that was it, but I implemented it to the max. So that $1,000 investment by now has
Made me in the last two years, over $175,000 in sales, so I don’t spread thin. In my case, I might have made a lot more money if I just created one course and focused on growth these last two years. But I had good reasons to focus on creating all four of my master classes first before shifting my attention to list growth. Once I complete my SAT, I plan to focus on making my email list explode, and I’m building a team that could handle the growth so I can step away from the business. But if I had to boil it down again to the two main things, one, it’s identifying and sticking to the guiding principle that’s behind your entire business as a whole. And to it’s growing by slowing down and focusing on just one thing at a time. So that’s what’s working for me now. And it’s what’s worked for me from the start and I predict will continue to as I move forward
Melyssa
You just listen to the limitless life podcast. Now don’t worry with new episodes every week, there’s plenty more where that came from. Now make sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next one and visit the limitless life podcast.com for the latest. Now, I’ve also created a free five day at home digital retreat that will show you how to create an abundant, fearless mindset. All while growing your online business. Just visit limitless entrepreneur retreat.com to register, it’s totally free. And also if you want to spread the love You’re welcome to share this episode on Instagram so that other people can come and get this info to now tag me at Melissa underscore Griffin and at limitless life podcast so that I can give you a big ol virtual hug as a thank you. Alright, that’s all for now. Thank you so much for listening. This is Melyssa Griffin and I’ll see you next time.
