Online courses have become a legitimate business diversification option in the midst of the challenging times brought about by the Covid-19 pandemic.
Many businesses have faced significant impacts on their main sources of income.
For those in industries such as events, where traditional avenues have been severely limited, exploring new opportunities for diversification has become crucial.
One option that holds immense potential is e-learning through online courses.
In this blog post, we will delve into the importance of diversification, the benefits of online courses, and how they can help businesses navigate uncertain times.
The Need for Diversification in the Current Landscape
The Covid-19 pandemic has had a devastating impact on numerous businesses.
Many experienced a significant decline in their main sources of income.
The limitations imposed by the pandemic have left event-based businesses, for example, with few options to adapt.
This calls for a discussion on diversification and the potential it holds for businesses during these challenging times.
Exploring the World of Online Courses
Amidst the search for diversification, one particularly promising avenue is e-learning through online courses.
Rather than completely shifting a business online, it can be beneficial to consider adding an online course as a supplemental offering.
This approach can provide a solution for businesses facing a period of downtime or uncertainty, allowing them to pivot their operations.
Let’s explore the value of online courses and the advantages they bring to the table.
Is Creating a Digital Course Right for You?
The idea of creating an online course may seem daunting, particularly for those who feel overwhelmed by technology.
However, it is essential to consider the benefits and potential it can offer your business.
In this section, we will address common concerns and doubts, and explain how online courses can be accessible to anyone, regardless of their tech-savviness.
We will also touch upon the importance of defining your target audience and understanding their needs to create a successful course.
The Transformative Impact of Online Courses on My Business
As an example of the power of online courses, I will share my personal journey of transitioning from a Virtual CFO to an online course creator.
I will discuss the tipping point that led me to explore online courses, the challenges I faced, and how this shift transformed my business.
By sharing my experiences, I hope to inspire and encourage others to take advantage of the opportunities provided by online courses.
The Growth and Potential of E-Learning
E-learning has experienced exponential growth, and its trajectory shows no signs of slowing down.
We will explore the projected expansion of the e-learning industry and the significant role it can play in the future of education and professional development.
By embracing online courses, businesses can tap into a thriving market and position themselves for long-term success.
Diversifying Income Streams and Managing Risk
One of the key advantages of online courses is their ability to diversify income streams.
We will emphasize the importance of having multiple revenue sources and how online courses can provide stability and resilience during uncertain times.
By diversifying income, businesses can mitigate risk and ensure continued success even in challenging circumstances.
What’s Next?
The Covid-19 pandemic has highlighted the need for businesses to diversify their operations and explore new avenues for revenue generation.
Online courses offer a viable solution, allowing businesses to adapt and thrive in a rapidly changing landscape. Whether as a supplementary income stream or a complete pivot, online courses provide flexibility, scalability, and the potential for long-term impact.
By embracing e-learning, businesses can navigate uncertainty and create a solid foundation for growth and success.
If you want to learn more and get my resources for Digital Course Creators check them out at https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation.
If you are interested in learning a step-by-step approach to creating a Digital Course then I highly recommend Amy Porterfilds Digital Course Academy.
I am excited to share my journey with DCA, experiences, and valuable bonuses with you.
Visit https://jamietrull.com/dca to learn more and unlock over $1,800 worth of bonuses when you enroll through my referral link.
Take this opportunity to invest in your business and embark on a transformative path toward success.
*This video was recorded on August 5th 2020 and some of the information has since changed or may not be currently available. Read the latest blog about my Digital Course Academy Review here from 2024 with new updates. And visit my Course Cretor Resources Page here to find the most recent resources for you https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation
The following is a direct transcript that has been lightly edited. Please forgive any errors and misspellings.
Good morning. Happy Wednesday everybody. Jamie Trull here. I am currently going live in three places. I am in my financial literacy for women business owners group. If you’re not in it, you need to come join. It is awesome. Go to balance cfo.com/group. I’m answering all of your questions over there. This is also being streamed on my Balance CFO Facebook page and on my YouTube channel, Jamie Trull.
So if you’re watching this and you’re not a subscriber, go hit subscribe right now, please. Today is gonna be a little bit different than our typical topic. So I’m usually here, I’m a CPA, I’m also a financial literacy coach and a profit strategist. Usually I’m here talking about something along the lines of finance, accounting, taxes, something in that realm, maximizing profit, all of that, or those are the things that I’d love to talk about.
But today we’re gonna talk about some kind of different things. So today we’re actually gonna be talking about diversifying your business. And it really does relate to what’s going on, right? It really does relate to where we’re all at right now.
I think from what’s going on with Covid, from what I’ve been hearing from so many business owners, has been really around the fact that this has really been so, so devastating for so many people. And there are so many businesses where your mainstream of income is significantly impacted, significantly impacted through all of this, just by the nature of what you do.
So that may be, you may be an event in the event space, and right now there’s just not a whole lot you can do about that. So I wanted to talk a little bit this week about options for diversifying and specifically e-learning because I think that this is a, I think this is a really important topic and for those of you that you normally come here and you wanna hear about the stimulus stuff that’s going on, I’ll give you a quick update right now. There’s not a whole lot to update. There’s a lot of discussions happening in Congress.
Hopefully, I posted yesterday that hopefully, it looks like they’re making a little bit of traction on making an agreement. So probably Friday ish, hopefully, we might have something by then to at least, at least a deal to be looking at really between the two.
But right now they’re still pretty far apart. So we’re kind of waiting, we’re sitting in kind of a waiting period, which is why this is kind of a good time to talk about something a little bit different from what we have been talking about. But for those of you who want that information, Friday, we are still gonna be doing our stimulus Q&A.
So Friday at 1:30pm, I will be here, I will be here to answer all of your stimulus questions. Make sure to post a comment and say hi, to make sure that I can see you. Cuz right now I’m not really seeing comments come through. So say hi. Let me know you’re here if you’re watching. So that I know.
Okay, so today I just wanted to talk about, I know I’ve, I’ve put out a couple of feelers recently about online courses and specifically being able to kind of diversify your business through having an online course. Doesn’t mean necessarily moving your business to entirely online courses, but perhaps having something as a bolt on right now, especially if you’re in a situation where your main business might be a little bit in limbo, or you might be kind of in a downtime and you’re wondering what to do to pivot your business. I think there’s a great time. I mean, it’s a great time to have this conversation and talk about it. And I wanna talk to you guys about what it did for my business as well and where I was and how glad I am.
Hey guys, I see, I see you’re coming through now. Hey, Vicky. Hi guys. Okay, I see some Facebook users. Awesome. So, but I really want to just talk about why and how this can help you. Whether you’ve thought about this for a while, and I know a lot of people have thought about, okay, we’ve heard this whole online, you know, course craze.
Is Creating A Digital Course for you?
Is it not? You know, if you’re kind of in that, I don’t know, I’m, I’m scared of tech. And let me tell you, I I’ll be the first to say I hate technology, I hate it. So if I can do it, you can do it.
I promise. I hate it, I hate it, I hate it. But there may be a whole laundry list and I’d love for you guys to share kind of your, your experiences as well, or anything that you’ve been thinking about with regards to an online course if you’ve been thinking about it. But a ton of you guys have shared that you’re, it’s something you’ve thought about, something that you’re interested in.
Maybe you don’t know where to start. Or maybe you don’t know what your course topic would be. Maybe you don’t know how to do it if I have some thoughts and some free resources actually to help you with that. And so I just wanted to do a little bit of, of teaching on it.
So first I’m just gonna, for those that don’t know, I have a whole story, the backbone of my business previously, right now I sell online courses. That’s all that I do. That’s how I make my money through, through online courses and a little bit through things like YouTube video ads or affiliate links and things like that. But for, for the, the most part, right?
Online Courses are the Backbone of my business
I sell online courses. That’s the backbone of my business and I’m so glad now. So I had no idea, you know, that this was going to be the business to be in in 2020, right? Is e-learning because everybody needs to there, there’s, there are hardly any other options right now. And I’m so glad that I pivoted my business.
Actually last year. Previous to that, I did one-to-one work only. I was a Virtual CFO I worked with multiple different businesses to be their CFO, to help them with maximize their profit, to help them get their financials in order, all of those things. And so I, you know, but the problem that I had last year, and for those of you guys, some of you guys have opted into my, I’m doing a special series that’s just about my journey to create an online course where I’m giving you a little bit of the behind the scenes of where I was and then how I got through that to, to where I am now.
So if you haven’t gotten that, there’s a link at the top if you’re on Facebook at the bottom, if you’re watching me on YouTube, or you can go to https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation and you can opt into hearing about my journey. So I’ve already started sending, I’ve just got like a four part email series that I’m gonna be doing that delves into that process and gives you a little bit of the behind the scenes of where I was literally one year ago. I mean, it was honestly this week that the story starts.
The Moment that changed my business forever
So it was this week a year ago, the first week of August where everything turned and I was kind of at this tipping point of just overwhelm and frustration and in the middle of trading dollars for hours all the time. And I had, you know, I had so much work, not enough time to do it.
I barely got to see my kids. It just felt like I started this business because I wanted to have balance and I didn’t have it. And my business is called Balance CFO because it is so, so important to me that we create a life that we love and that has balance. And I was not in that place a year ago today.
I was absolutely not there. And today I am. And it is because I was able to pivot and scale my business with online courses and then I was able to actually let go. Now at this point, I’ve more than recreated that income. I was actually able to let go of all of my one-to-one clients. That’s not necessarily what you guys may be wanting to do, okay?
Some of you guys might just want some supplemental income, right? You might just want another income stream to really diversify your business such that when you’re in a situation where things are, you know, hard, right? When you’re in a situation like this, you have another avenue. It’s always a good idea to have multiple streams of revenue. I mean, if we, let me tell, I, I’ve always preached that, but man does this drive at home and there are some people that have multiple streams of revenue and this has impacted every single one.
How can I diversify my income?
But there are some people that because they had multiple streams of income, one side of their business is now propping up the other side while all of this is happening. So I just think it is so important to think about how can I diversify my income and my risk, right? How can I, how can I have different ways of making money that have different risk profiles that will help me to continue to succeed? So let’s see. Yes. So this is exactly right. I don’t know who this is, I can’t see your name, but yes, it was right after I got back from Rise Dallas, which those of you, plenty of you guys were there with me.
It was a huge women’s conference and I came back, back on fire and I was just ready to go and make change and make the world happen. And literally like the next week, everything just started happening. I mean, it was, it was crazy. And again, if you subscribe to that email sequence, you’ll, you’ll, you’ll get to hear all the inside scoop. I’m not gonna go into all of it today, but you’ll get to hear the inside scoop of how it all came to be and how this pivot happened down the line.
Evergreen vs Live Launching a Digital Course
Okay, let’s see. So Julie says, is your course evergreen or on a launch schedule? I have two. So we’re gonna talk a little bit about what we mean by, we’re gonna start kind of with what is, oh it’s Christie. It was Christie. Yes, Christie. It was after I was Dallas. Yeah. So Mike, I have two courses. One of them is Evergreen, my Basics courses on Evergreen.
For those of you who don’t know that terminology, evergreen just means it’s available to buy all the time that you can go buy it. It exists out there all the time. And I have one course that I launch approximately once a year. My signature course is every nine to 12 months, which will probably be coming up late fall, but I may, it may actually be January before I launch that one again. So I’m kind of trying to decide, I’m looking at my schedule to decide on that.
But I have two different courses. They’re at two different price points. My basics course is more of an intro and my signature is more of a money management course and it’s got a live component and all that, which is why I I launch it once a year. But you only really need to start with one, right? Like I think people think that okay, they gotta have all these different courses. And that’s how I was too. I went into this thinking like I need to have 10 different courses. No, no, no. You need to have one course.
Start with one course that you know can help people and that, and have a very defined idea of who your ideal customer, which sometimes y’all hear the terminology i c A. That just means your ideal client avatar, your ideal customer avatar that you are trying to help and know intimately what their problems are. So that’s really what having an online course is, e-learning in general.
Where is E-Learning Going Next?
E-learning, Forbes projected that by 2025 it was gonna be a 350 billion industry. That’s what they protected back in 2015. It’s gonna be more than that by 2025 with all of the, this was, that was pre covid, that’s what they said it is gonna be even more than that. It has taken off like gangbusters through all of this.
And that will continue So much of this, so many people that have gotten online for the very first time, right? So many people are, are getting comfortable with e-learning that they’ve never done it before. So I think that there are some people that are worried, well if I, I didn’t have a course, I’m missing the boat, right? You’re not missing the boat.
This is the time to get on the dang boat. I’m telling you because this, this is going to create a long-term impact of people being more comfortable with e-learning. It has accelerated that growth. And you wanna get in on that curve, right? You wanna get in now, you don’t wanna think you’ve missed the boat. This thing has a lot of legs to go you guys.
What problem are you trying to solve in your business?
So I’m telling you, and depending on what your problem is, I think different people have different issues. It may be diversification of income stream, income streams. You wanna have an online business because maybe your other business is brick and mortar or maybe your other business is an event space, right? You’re an event planner and you need a second set of income, right?
That may be why. Or maybe you were like me and you wanted to get out of trading dollars for hours and you were tired of, you know, that push and pull of feeling like to make money you had to work all the time, right? This is scalable without hiring employees. That was my, I came to this precipice of okay, I need to scale my business. Am I gonna go hire out a whole bunch of employees and manage employees and set up processes and and grow my one-to-one business that way?
Which honestly sounded awful. I’ll be the first to say I hate managing people, I hate it. It’s not my forte. I love to teach. Go figure. That was something I didn’t know. I figured that out just over a year ago. How much I love to teach. And so that was the other option is scaling through teaching, scaling through e-learning, scaling through creating a product that I can sell to lots of people.
Knowing Your Audience
And when you have and build an audience, I can’t, I have 28,000 people in my Facebook group right now. I couldn’t if, if I had to like work one to one with even a small fraction of that, there’s not nearly enough of me to go around to do that. There’s just not. And so I get a lot of people asking, Hey, can I work with you? Hey, can I do a call? I don’t do them anymore because I just do not have the bandwidth to do that.
But I can say no to that because I know that my business and I can give and give the reason, I can give you guys free information. If I had a bunch of clients, I could not have done what I was able to do when this whole covid thing started right in April, may, June, like that whole time, my entire job was reading this stuff and helping you guys for free.
The only reason, the only reason I was able to do that is cuz I had exactly zero clients that I had to be working with for most of that time. And so because of that, and that’s why I’m so passionate about it, is because my course business is able to help me create impact. Not just for the people that buy my courses, right?
Absolutely For those people, but also for everybody else. And so I feel really, really strongly in the ability to really make big impact much bigger than probably what you’re able to do in your business depending on what you do right now, if you have something scalable like that, it frees up your time to do so, so much more. And so I’m so thankful that I was in the position that I was to be able to do that.
Most CPAs couldn’t do that. They couldn’t pivot all this cuz they were still doing tax returns and they were still trying to help all their in one, one clients. I wasn’t. And so I could do this for you because I had the freedom from my online course business and the revenues that it generated. So I am just the biggest proponent of this business model.
How to add an Online Course to Your Business
Again, most people I think start with having a course kind of as an add-on to their business. And I think that’s a great place to start, right? Like I think that that is an awesome place to start. But it eventually, if that’s something you want, that could become your main source of revenue as well. So whatever kind of you’re looking for whatever change you’re hoping for, whatever you’re struggling with right now, there’s a decent chance that digital courses could be the answer. Okay?
So let’s see. Yeah, yeah. Drowning. Exactly. So I mean I think and that, yeah, so CPA, so Kimberly 100% and I I, I got so many people that were like, my CPA isn’t helping. And I’m like, your CPA is literally drowning. And the only reason I’m not is because I launch a product a couple of times a year and that sustains the rest of my year. I got time, you know, to do what I wanna do. And what I wanted to do at that time was to help people and still is to help people. And I continue to do that as much as I can.
How adding a digital course to my business transformed my life
So this is how I felt. The same way I felt like I was drowning in client work. I was always behind. I, you know, with, when you’re, when you’re a one one person shop, especially those of you who are my one people shop, right? That are just like, I do everything. I do sales and marketing, I do, you know, social media, I do like, I do my accounting, right? I do like the actual work that has to get done. All of those things is sitting on your shoulders when you’re a one stop shop. And I mean it’s, it’s exhausting, right? Even like you could work all around the clock, around the clock.
And because I was not in a position, I didn’t want to price gouge my customers, I wanted to be able to give good value. I was in that spot where I just felt like I was working all the time and not making what I wanted to make and not making what I was making in my old corporate career. That made me just wonder, wait a second, I just traded my old corporate career.
Cause it was, it was so demanding and I wanted to spend time, more time with my family and now I’m spending less time with my family and I’m more stressed out because it’s my own business. And wait a second, I’m making less money net at the end of the day. Like that doesn’t make any dang sense.
And so that was another part of the impetus of just the shift that I made. This community was so receptive to it and has grown so much and you guys have supported me so well to be able to do that. And so that’s why I’m just committed to showing up, helping you guys doing what I can do. But I wanna, I want to give you guys this tool in your tool belt.
Resources for Aspiring Digital Course Creators
I want to tell you about it because it has been so instrumental in the change in my business. So I’m gonna tell you about some, some free resources. Y’all like, you know, importantly and real quick. Yeah. One woman show. Like there’s like how much time for me time is the biggest resource that I have. It is the most valuable resource and probably for all of you as well, right?
We have got to be picky and choosy about how we spend our time. And that sometimes means investing in something that’s gonna help us later, even if we don’t feel like we had time. Now when I started this course creation journey (https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation) , I’m like, how am I gonna have time to create a course? I’m so busy, I don’t have any time.
I had to make a lot of concessions just to buckle down and get it done because I knew what the impact was gonna be in the future. And I, I see so many people put it off and put it off and put it off because they don’t have time. But then you get a year from now and you’re like, shoot, I wish I had spent more time on it before.
So don’t be that person. Start now. Even if it’s a little bit every single week, start making some, start making some of that change. Okay? Now, okay, so I would love to know if you guys have questions, put them in here about digital courses or anything like that. But I wanna tell you guys about some resources that are free. And then I’m gonna tell you also because I wanna be totally upfront, right?
I learned it all from Amy Porterfield and Digital Course Academy
So my journey started, for those of you who don’t know who she is, Amy Porterfield, you need to look her up. She is the online course guru. Don’t take a take, take a course on building courses from anybody but her. Okay? That’s what she, she builds courses on making courses. It’s a little inception, but, but that’s what she does.
And she is amazing. Amy Porterfield’s built a multimillion dollar business on this. She’s been doing it for 10 plus years. She is amazing. And she was the one that found me and I took her program and it changed my life. And I’m normally a scrappy person.
Like I’m a pretty much a a, you know, I want to reduce costs. I can figure it out myself. I’ll listen to some podcasts, I’ll, I’ll kind of put it all together. And I’m so glad for this that I just said, you know what, I’m just gonna go all in and I’m gonna have somebody walk me through exactly how to do this.
So she has a course, it is not out yet. Yes, Amy Porterfield is the queen of online. 100%. That’s who she is. She’s amazing. She is amazing. For those of you guys who don’t know who she is, again https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation . I’m gonna tell you the three things that are on this and we’re gonna start.
Free Resources for Digital Course Creators
These are, these are free resources. She does have the course that I took, which is Digital Course Academy or DCA, you might hear it called It is launching next month in September. I am an affiliate when I sell it, keep watching me because if you buy it through me, you get Amy Porterfield’s bonuses and you get bonuses from me as well for the exact same price.
So, you know, I am an affiliate so I have to have to say that. But the reason I’m an affiliate is because it changed my life. 120%. If you guys wanna see the change that it had, go sign up for that email sequence. And I link to a podcast I did, I was on her podcast back in, we recorded it this week, actually last year in August, but it, it aired in September of last year. It was exactly where I was before before I took the journey to start a course. And I hadn’t done anything. I hadn’t started Digital Course Academy at that point. And we did that interview. We have another interview that’s coming out soon that’s an update that you guys need to listen to as well.
But make sure to subscribe to that. So let me show you the resources that I have for you guys if you’ve not gone to it, okay? There are three things on this page. So when you go, and again Facebook, it is above in YouTube, it’s below or https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation . You’ll get to this landing page. There are three options.
Where do you go next?
The first one, if you are not sure, if you’re like, I don’t know if a quiz is or if a course is right for me, I don’t know what I would do. Like maybe I’m not meant for that. I don’t know. If you’re not sure, hit this button and go take the quiz. This is Amy Porterfield’s quiz. It will take you to, and it is fantastic.
I also, by the way, for the quiz and also the bootcamp that I’ll show you here in a minute, I would love for you guys to go through it and join it. It’s all free if you do it. And I also get, we have a contest going on right now for, for the number of people, number of clicks that we get and joins to the bootcamp and people to take the quiz. So I do get credit, so if you guys wanna help me out, at least go through that.
Again, it costs you nothing except your email address they probably ask for in the opt-in. But that’s it. And you’re gonna get a lot of great information.
So the quiz is gonna tell you whether a course is right for you. They’re gonna email you your results and it’s gonna either tell you yes, a quiz is right for you and it’s gonna invite you to the bootcamp to make a course. Or it’s gonna say no, a quiz, maybe a course isn’t right for you, but here’s some other resources that might be right.
So she has some other resources depending on where you are in that journey. So if you’re not sure, go take the quiz. It’s free and it helps me out. Also, if you haven’t yet signed up to hear about my journey, of course creation and the behind the scenes on that, go ahead and do that. And the third thing down here is joining the bootcamp.(https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation)
So this is Amy Porterfield, it’s her 30-day digital course, Kickstarter bootcamp. It’s all free, it’s run through a Facebook group. She’s giving free information for the entire week. It’s usually stuff that would be part of her paid program that she is doing for free. So you guys, I don’t care if you just jump into that and soak up all the free information and decide, you know what, I don’t need the program.
Fine. I think the program is fantastic, but like 150% you gotta get in this boot camp. You have got to be in this boot camp. So if you know you’re ready, just go ahead and join the boot camp. You don’t even need to take the quiz if you know you’re ready for, for all of that.
And again, that helps me out from like a tracking perspective as well. So go pick one of these, pick three of these, do what makes sense for you. But I really recommend kind of getting some of those free resources because I, I, I think the more you get into it, it’s gonna talk about things like, I don’t know how to pick a topic, right?
It’s one of the things they’re gonna talk about in the bootcamp is, well, what’s a good topic for you? What are, what are the things that you know, you could teach and be successful in? Right? Yes. And this was something really important to her is that that’s why she created the quiz. Because some people may not yet be at the point where it makes sense for them to create an online course.
There may be some steps they need to do before that. So that’s why I think the quiz is awesome and it also gets kind of your wheels turning on what your next step might be. Oh good. I can’t see who this is, but that’s good. Yeah, go, go join it. It’s gonna be awesome. I’m over there too. I’m gonna be in Digital Course Academy as well, which is her paid program.
Again, it’s gonna launch in September. Some of you guys have already told me you’re in and you wanna buy through me, which is amazing. It opens September 9th I think. And then I will be announcing my bonuses on September 6th, I think sixth or seventh. So mark your calendars for all of that. But it’s gonna be awesome.
Why I am a DCA Affiliate Partner
And I’m, I’m so, I, I wanna make it really clear, I don’t, this is the only thing, like I officially really like affiliate launch for at all. And, and the reason being because I am so, like, I cannot tell you the change that it’s made in my life and my business. Like it almost makes me teary-eyed to think about little old me from a year ago to what my business and life is today and how different it feels on a daily basis.
And I just want everyone to feel that. And it’s not like I have to be honest, it’s not easy. Like even though her, her podcast is called Online Marketing Made Easy, y’all, it’s not easy. But there are steps to follow to get there that make it so much easier. So I am like an anti-tech person. I screw everything.
For those of you guys who’ve been around for a while, you probably could spout off some of the things that I’ve done. Like I sent, maybe it was January, January or February, I sent an email that was meant for just my students to my entire email list of thousands of people. The whole thing, which was incredibly embarrassing and I had to kind of own up to it because people were very confused.
And so believe you me, I am a person that hates tech and I was able to do it all right? Like I, I swear for those of you guys that are just like, I, I don’t know, I don’t know how to, how to do it. It her, it, there’s it, it is follow the guidelines and do what she tells you to do and you’ll be fine.
Build and Grow Your Email List
Yes, she has an awesome list-building course to you. So if for some people, for some people you guys may be in the spot where you don’t have like an email list, which Amy Porterfield talks about a lot having an email list, right? Those are kind of prospective buyers, people that you hopefully are sending emails to on a regular basis that she wants you to kind of build that out.
If you don’t have that yet, if you don’t have I think at least like 250 on your email list, you likely will get pointed towards List Builder Society, which is an awesome course to help you jumpstart your email list, which is important when you go to sell a course. Now I had a very small email list when I started building my course and when I started Digital Course Academy very small and I was able to build my list at the same time as I built my course so that I had people to sell to at the end of the day.
So it is, I think sometimes we think we need to build the thing and then, and then find buyers. But really like you need to find those people ahead of time and nurture them and give them really, really good value so that when you have something to sell, a subset will buy it from you. You don’t need everybody to buy it.
I don’t need everybody to buy something from me, it’d be amazing. But you know, I need a subset of people to buy what I have to offer so that I can continue to show up and give free value to everyone. So yeah, the list-building course is awesome as well. I’m so glad. So this is, this is where I want you to be right now.
If you’re just like, I don’t know, there’s so much, but I just want you to start thinking about what you could teach, what could you teach? It does not have to be in what you currently do. Now that might be the most natural transition, especially because you’ve probably built up at least some form of an audience, even if it’s small doing what you do.
What to Teach in a Digital Course
But you could teach, I mean let’s, gosh, there are so many things like I just have, I mean I’ve seen a lot of like beauty and salon professionals do really good. Like okay, I’m gonna do a course on how to do your makeup a certain way or a course on, let me tell you, I know a girl, okay, she made, I think, I’m probably not quoting the right amount, but Deira, I don’t know if she’s in this group or not.
She made I think $65,000 on her first launch teaching how to make candy apples. I take it back, it wasn’t candy apples, they’re caramel apples apparently. That’s an important distinction. $65,000 in one launch teaching people how to make caramel apples.
Do you have to know everything to teach online courses?
And she’s made more than that after that. That’s crazy y’all so like don’t think it, you need to teach them the sun, the moon and the stars. In fact, people don’t want you to teach them the sun, the moon and the stars. They get overwhelmed with that. And that’s something that Amy Porterfield will talk a lot about in the bootcamp is just you don’t need to know all the things to have a really successful and impactful online course.
And in fact, if you do know all the things, sometimes that makes it hard for you to streamline it enough to make it useful for the people that buy it. So don’t think you need to be the expert of all experts on everything under the sun before you teach a course. You need to be, Amy Porterfield says at least 10% ahead of where your audience is to be able to help them, right? You just need to be able to help them. Yeah. And so yeah, so like you can teach people how to do the business that you’re doing.
Examples of your expertise you can teach on
Like if you started a business and you’ve had a successful business, teach people to start that business. Or you can teach people to like, so if you’re a pet sitter, right? You have a couple options.
I have a lot of pet sitters in this group. You’re a pet sitter and you’re like, I, I could teach other people to start a successful pet sitting business. Awesome. I could teach pet owners how to take proper care of their pets or train their pets or you know, they’re, you could do so many things with that. Or you could be like, you know what, actually my passion is really sewing and I wanna teach people how to like sew these these really awesome things. Awesome. Like it doesn’t have to be, there’s so many different options.
And that’s the amazing thing with this, that there’s so many different markets, there’s so many different options. Don’t get wound up because someone’s already doing it.
Questions about Digital Course Creation
Do you have any idea if I had let that be like, oh there’s people doing it already. Yeah, there are, there’s enough room for everybody there. There is a group of people that will connect. Nobody’s teaching it like I’m teaching it exactly in the same way Nobody can cuz there’s only one me.
There’s only one you, okay? There’s only one you to teach it the way that you are. So for those of you that are like, ah, it’s already been done, don’t be that person that is gonna get into your way, okay? Like I’m telling you, okay Kimberly, I want you to do it. You need to get in it.
Can Professionals Create an Online Course?
I, I know so many people that are professionals that have done so well. So what I mean by that are CPAs, lawyers, people who can teach things in a way that it makes sense that it’s not necessarily how people have heard this before, right? That’s like, that is what people want. They look for this. They would much rather do a course on this stuff than go and talk to their CPA about it and have, you know, Larry down the street explain it to them. Very condescendingly, right? Like people love this kind of stuff. So yeah, I mean you need, you wanna love your business again. That’s exactly how I was. And I just found I had this huge love and affinity for teaching and it let me get to know all of you guys.
And so you can see I’m getting like really like animated about this, but it’s because I feel really strongly about all of it. Like the impact that you can have through a business model like this, the enjoyment in your own life, right? The control over your own life, the control over your own schedule. I can’t tell you I took a vacation.
More Freedom
You’ll appreciate this Kimberly. I took a vacation in Cam in February this year. You know, the last time I took a vacation in February, you probably know never in the history of time. That’s when the last time I took a vacation in February was I was in financial reporting forever and ever and ever. Which means I did really boring stuff for big companies, but I could not, like, that was not even a possibility. January and February, you don’t take vacations. I went to Costa Rica in the middle of February because I could, right? Because I had time to do it.
And just sitting there, it was like almost unreal to me. And so I think like if you feel like you have those handcuffs from your own business, you know you created this business to love it, right? You created this business to make an impact, to help people, to love it, and to make money too. Okay, let’s not put that on the back burner. That’s also important because that’s what creates a sustainable business that allows you to show up and help people is to actually make money with it as well.
Finding Abundance in Your Business Journey
So anyway, lots of things, lots of feels about all of this. Lemme see what you guys are saying. Yes. 100% abundance over scarcity y’all. Everybody thinks it’s already been done and then the people and then people start it anyway and they’re successful, okay? Nobody’s done it like you can do it all right? That doesn’t mean they’re not they, they’re not gonna be successful too.
There’s enough that goes around. Actually, I have some of my best friends are in the exact same field that I’m in. Slightly different things but we don’t look at each other as competitors. Like that’s the thing. We actually have helped each other quite a bit. Case in point, I dabble in QuickBooks, right? But I’m not gonna teach QuickBooks. It’s not my passion, but my girl Courtney, who y’all have seen around is amazing at it.
Goodbye Scarcity Mindset
So instead of us looking at each other and saying we’re competition, no, we help each other. We like, you know, are in front of each other’s audiences. Like we, you know, help promote each other. Like you don’t have to worry about other people, just worry about what you’re doing, don’t worry. Just put the blinders on. And that’s with everything in life. That’s not just with digital courses, you guys, that’s with everything in life.
It doesn’t matter what everybody else is doing.
The unfortunate thing is we live in the social media world where we can see what everybody else is doing at all times. But you sometimes have to just like put those blinders on and play your own game, right? Play your own game. Yes. I felt like I so felt like this. I felt like a slave to my own business and I’m like, wait, I went from having one boss to having like 10, that’s so much worse being my clients. Like just feeling like I had the expectations of so many people on me and it was so, so hard.
Yes, women empower women and for my guys watching, we like y’all too, but women empower women. I love all of these. Collaboration. Worry about yourself. Yes, exactly. Exactly. Exactly. Let’s see, so we, we just launched our first course. Oh great. Building market.
Yeah, building a market and all that jazz.
Yes. So that’s awesome. That’s awesome. Like there’s, and that’s the other thing is that, and, and the bootcamp I’m sure go into this as well, but the great thing about Digital Course Academy, the, the course that I bought was that it wasn’t just here’s how to create a course, which I think is what I thought I needed was like I just needed to know how to create a course and tell me how to like set up the tech and how to, you know, actually get the course done.
I didn’t know how much help I needed with the backend, which was effectively selling a course, right? Which included things like, so she teaches webinars, she teaches Facebook ads, there’s a whole training on Facebook ads that is like gold in the middle of it, right? Like all the, I didn’t know all the things I needed to know.
Learn How To Market Your Digital Course
Email nurture sequences, like I didn’t know any of that. I didn’t know what I needed to do. And so having that all laid out was amazing. There’s so much past the just like create the course, you gotta then be able to sell it. And I think that’s what happens. A lot of people figure out how to create the course on their own and then they’re like, I don’t know what to do with it now that I have it right? Okay, so it’s not out yet. So Digital Course Academy launches September 9th, put it on your calendar, make sure you buy it through my affiliate link. So check back, it’ll be all over the place once I have it because I have a bunch of bonuses that I’m adding.
You get Amy Porterfield’s bonuses that she’s adding and my bonuses if you buy it through my link and I can’t announce what the bonuses are yet, but I will announce those roundabout September 6th, they’ll be in line for that. But in the meantime, get into all the free stuff. So https://jamietrull.com/coursecreation . Go there, check that out, join my email list, join take, either take the quiz or do the boot camp.
Quiz
So here’s the quiz, the boot camps on the bottom, kind of pick your poison or you can do all three. I recommend just go ahead and doing all three cuz there’s so much that you’re gonna be able to learn through that process. You get a bunch of stuff for free before the course even comes out.
And then if you decide that you want the course, awesome, right? Or you might go through it and be like, you know what I, this isn’t for me but it, but you just got 30 days with of free information. So I definitely recommend going over there and doing it and I will see you over there Anna. Okay guys, so let me know, I’m gonna continue to, you know, put out content here and there over the next probably month, month and a half.
Surprise
I’m actually going, I don’t know if I’m supposed to be able to tell you guys this. I probably am not. I’m gonna tell you anyway. I’m actually going covid, hoping please, Lord Covid hoping I’m actually gonna be part of a live stream that Amy Porterfield is doing the last day or the day before the end of the launch where I get to go out there and have an interview with her.
It’s gonna be live-streamed everywhere. So I’ll make sure you guys know about that as well. So just keep an eye on your emails from me cause you’ll see a lot of that info. But I’m super excited about that. And then I’m also gonna be in Digital Course Academy as an ambassador too, so I’m really excited about that too. So I’ll be going through it kind of with you guys for anybody that ends up joining it.
But I’m also gonna be in the boot camp hanging out there. So thanks Crystal. Crystal is also an affiliate, but bye through me. Just kidding. Okay, so yeah, that’s all I really wanted to say today is that it’s gonna be, it’s gonna be awesome. It’s gonna be so awesome and I really, oh, I’m so glad Whitney, I’m so glad to have you guys.
Free Resources
You guys are all amazing. Go check out all these free resources if it’s something that you’re even mulling in your head. It’s not a commitment, it’s not like you have to do it if you sign up. I love you Crystal. It’s not like, you know, you’re not committed to anything, but I think you’re gonna get a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot, a lot out of it. And thank you guys.
And I want you guys to hear about my journey too, cuz it’s been, that’s been having this pivot. Like I love teaching y’all about financial stuff and technical things, but you guys can tell like the energy I have behind this and it’s because I feel so, so strongly about this.
Like I, it, it has been everything. It has it, it has changed everything. And so I will, I will come after it with a thousand sons and I see like even on this video, somebody gave a mad face and I think they gave a mad face because I’m not talking about the stimulus, but you guys, this is my platform and I get to talk about whatever I want and I’ll be here on Friday to talk about the stimulus.
That’s All for Today
Don’t worry. But I do feel like it is, I know it’s a little bit of a departure from what we normally talk about and you can ignore it if you want to, but I just, I feel so strongly about it and I think that it can help so, so many people. So I hope you come with me on this journey. I hope to see you there.
Thank you, Becky. Thank you. It’s been, it’s been a crazy, a crazy time for those of you guys who have been around for a while. Thank you Crystal. You’re awesome. And I’ve made so many friends through it too. That’s the amazing thing too, is a lot of these people were part of my Digital Course Academy class and they’re like family now.
Like I feel like I’ve gotten to know so many people that I never would’ve otherwise known and have this community of, of support that just would not have been there otherwise. And it’s, that’s been such a difference maker as well. So I love you guys. It’s been 40 minutes. I’m out. I’ll see you on Friday. I’ll just put this up because I love, I love Courtney too. She’s amazing. Yes, I do remember that as well. Yeah. So that’s part, part of the crazy, the crazy journey of, of the last year. Thank you guys. You’re amazing. And keep watching everything and make sure to go and sign up for all that stuff cuz it’s gonna be awesome. Okay. All right.
Bye. See you Friday.
