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Would you say you love money?

Or does it make you feel dirty and guilty even to think about loving money?

I LOVE money. I love the thrill of making money. I love so much about money and what it can do for me, both in terms of needs and wants. I love it. I have no guilt about loving money and I want you to love money too.

You will have heard before that money and happiness are not mutually exclusive, and that life is not black and white. So how did we come to acquire all these weird feelings around money?

This week on The Shine Show, I’ve dug deep into the history of money and explained how the past has created these screwed-up stories about value, greed, and natural riches. I find it fascinating and painful, all at once.

It’s time to change the way we create and distribute wealth in the world. Time to stop trading a steady paycheck in return for showing up. It’s time to heal our relationship with money. One lipstick at a time.

PS - You can join The Accelerated Launch Bonus Experience by clicking here. $497 gets you everything you need to map out your entire course, build your launch and get it all up in time to launch early in 2023 to a raving crowd who cannot wait to buy from you.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Salome Schillack (00:00):
Hello and welcome to episode number 175 of The Shine Show. Today, we are announcing that the podcast is taking a break. I'm going to tell you why we're taking a break and I'm going to share with you a little bit of how you can do it too.

(00:23):
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster then tune in because you are ready to shine and this is The Shine Show.

(00:57):
Hello, my friend, my student, my listener, my community. Hello and welcome. This is episode number 175 of The Shine Show. I am having a moment to lead into what I want to share with you today. Maybe the best place to start before I dive into why the podcast is taking a break is I want to tell you all about my swimming. I have been sharing here on the show for many, many, many months, the lead up to the 100 100s that I was going to swim. So for those of you who don't know what it is, it's 100 by 100 meters. I swim three days a week. Right up on the hill near my house, there's a beautiful private school that's right on the hill and it overlooks the city. And every Monday, Wednesday, and Friday at quarter past 6:00, I swim there for an hour in an adult swim squad. It has definitely kept me healthy and fit post 40. I have never in my life had done this much exercise ever.

(02:31):
And every year, the swim school puts on this event called 100 100s. Last year, I did not participate because my first thought when I heard that is, “What kind of lunacy is this? I will not partake in this degree of madness.” And then my friend who swims with us, who is 75 participated last year. And she completed, I think last year she did about 60 100s. And I went, “Oh my goodness.” If my friend who is 75 can do this, then maybe my brain is the problem here. Maybe it's not that I'm not physically capable of doing this. Maybe it's that my brain goes into fight or flight when I think about it. So maybe my brain is going into literally into flight mode when I hear this sort of challenge. And so I thought, “Okay, I'm going to sign up for this and we'll just see how it goes. And I'm going to pay special attention to what my brain does in the lead up to this.” And it has been very entertaining watching my brain freak out over this challenge that I signed up for.

(03:54):
So for those of you who don't know, I was diagnosed with ADHD in the last year. Gosh, I'm really sharing a lot with you today. I'm being very vulnerable and open and sharing a lot, but this is an important episode. So if you're here for Facebook ads, sorry to disappoint you today, you're going to get a raw and real Salome. A year ago, I had a panic attack. Following the panic attack, I have been working with my GP and working with my psychologist and I am on anti-anxiety medication. I've been diagnosed with ADHD and I feel and I have been... I was going to say religiously meditating, but I think that's the wrong word. I have been good at meditating and I have been learning how to build more mindfulness into my life. I think all of this is really important for you to understand for what I'm going to share about why the podcast is taking a break today.

(05:03):
So all of this has happened in the last year, and it's been a joy this last year, the journey that I've been on. It has really been a joy slowing down and watching my brain being the true version of me and uncovering who I am when I am not my thoughts. “Okay, so, whoa, Salome, what did you just do there? There's too much going on now.” I have learned that I am not my thoughts. My thoughts are just things that move through my brain. I have learned that I am not my feelings. My feelings are just things that move through my body based on my thoughts. And I have learned that I am not my body. I am just the habitant of my body. That has been the most liberating thing ever. So now, I'm kind of like, “Oh, okay. So if I'm this being that is neither thoughts nor feeling nor body, then what am I?” That has taken me down quite a fun rabbit hole, but that is a conversation for a whole nother day.

(06:43):
But so as I am meditating, which basically is the art of watching your thoughts without judging them and allowing them to be there without associating with them and without judging them. And then mindfulness, which is the art of being in the moment. So you're not constantly just giving into your brain that tends to live either in history, which is memories, which are all made up anyway, or the future, which is fantasies because it hasn't happened yet and you don't know what it's going to be. So you're either living in memories or you're living in fantasy. So mindfulness is teaching me to really just be more in the moment and for... I don't know if this is an ADHD thing or if it's a Salome thing, but maybe you can associate with this.

(07:53):
For people like me, who constantly have the urge to be where you're not right now, mindfulness and meditation is a whole trip. Because when you are constantly feeling chased, when you always feel behind, when you always feel like you're catching up, when you always are anticipating a future that hasn't happened or fearing a future that hasn't happened, or coming up with creative ideas for a future that hasn't happened, it's hard to be present. And mindfulness and meditation is teaching me that.

(08:55):
And so as these skills are building and as I'm learning more and more of these skills, I said yes to the swimming. And I said, “Okay, I will swim.” Not 100 100s because I'm not quite insane yet, but I said, “Okay, I will give 75 75s a go.” The pool is 25 meters long. So if you're doing 75 75s fives, you're doing 75 batches of three laps, and I did it. I did it. Last Friday afternoon, I got in the pool at quarter to 5:00 in the afternoon and I did it in two hours and 40 minutes, I swam 75 75s. And I had cramps all through it. My legs were cramping like it's never cramped before and my brain said, “Maybe you should get out. Your legs are cramping like it's never cramped before, maybe you should get out.” And I was like, “No brain, I'm staying in this pool because I can do this.” And I stayed in and I just went slower, took more breaks, took it easy.

(10:22):
Because this is the other thing that I watched my brain do is I watched my brain freak out about being really good at this. So initially, I had this thought that, “Oh, well, if I've signed up for this, then now I have to start training like a mad person and I have to go swimming on Saturday mornings at 5:00 o'clock for two hours and I have to go faster and push myself.” And then I was like, “No. Nope, nope, nope. None of that required, no hustle required here. No crazy fight energy required.” So you see how a year ago my brain went into flight and then when I signed up for it went into fight. It's like, okay, well we can't just be stable in the middle here. We either have to be super obsessed with something or not do it at all.

(11:17):
And that's the exercise for me, is it's trying to take this brain that I'm watching now do things and seeing when my brain goes into fight or flight and seeing what the triggers are for that and just watching it and making decisions not necessarily from that place, but being able to recognize that my brain is just thinking thoughts that it has been programmed to think, but I can override it. There's a lot of power in that, and I am only starting to scratch the surface on this discovery. And the benefits that I've experienced in my life is, it's thousand... There's so many benefits that I have experienced on so many levels and I'm just loving it. I'm loving the journey and I feel very at peace, I feel very at peace.

(12:30):
I feel like as I'm going on this journey and my nervous system is literally calming down, I can in hindsight, see how absolutely incredibly jacked my nervous system was a year ago at the end of two years of COVID. I'll be honest and share the U.S. election and January 6th stuff and the Black Lives Matter stuff, I feel, even as an Australian, that stuff was hard for me. I know there's many of you for whom it would've been far, far harder, but that stuff added to my anxiety to the point where I had a panic attack. I mean, we all had a COVID journey. And I think when I talk to other people, I realize how much people are coming out now with their mental health issues.

(13:53):
I feel like we've all been bunkered down for almost three years. We've all been kind of just making it through. And now, that we are kind of through it, it's kind of this, “Okay, now what? We survived this, we came through this, now what?” And then our defenses fall down, our walls break and we go, “Oh actually, actually, I just need a break. Actually, I'm exhausted. Actually, it's time to make some big life changes.” So if that's where you're at, I just wanted to share that because I want you to know that you're not alone.

(14:36):
A few weeks ago, I recorded a podcast episode called What To Do When You Don't Like Your Business Anymore. This is episode number 175. And out of 175 episodes, I have never, never had the reaction I got from the episode called What To Do When You Don't Like Your Business Anymore, and it made me cry. I felt so sad for so many women who reached out to me and said, “I started this business because I wanted freedom. I wanted time freedom and I wanted financial freedom and what I have instead is a job with a shackle around my feet that is not bringing in the money I hope, that is exhausting me, that's making me feel tired and I resent it and I don't want to be in it.”

(15:54):
There's a lot that this moment in time, this September, October 2022 is asking of us. And I think it is really important that we listen to our hearts, that we listen to our desire for rest, that we learn to simplify things, and that we learn to do it with less hustle. And maybe there will come a time again when we are ready for hustle, when we are ready for work, when we are ready for push. Because don't get me wrong, I am very much for, there's a time and a place for both things. But for me, right now, the time and the place is for massive, massive, slow down, massive taking on fewer things, massive relaxing, massive just sitting and doing nothing because I am seeing that there is a time for healing needed.

(17:27):
I want to sit on my patio and read more. I want to sit on my patio and write more. I want to learn new things. I love learning. And I feel like I've been teaching so much the last few years that I have forgotten that I want to learn. I love learning. I want the content that goes out on this podcast and the content that goes out in the emails that I write to you and the content that goes out on my ads and the content that goes out on my social media, I want to look at it and feel good about it and feel like I did my best. I don't want to feel, and I'll admit to you that sometimes it does feel that way. I don't want to create anything that feels like I'm just pumping out content to feed a content machine.

(18:28):
I want to spend more time with my team. I want to create less chaos for my team. I want my team to build better structures in the business. I want our customer service to be better. I want to serve our students better. I want to spend more time with the students so I can understand their needs. So I can really understand what the best ways to teach marketing, to teach them how to make money, to teach them how to really sell their knowledge and build businesses that really does give you freedom. I want to do more of that and I just pretty much want to do less and I want to have more fun. It's never fun for me when I feel like I'm always behind, and it is a complete and total construct in my head I know, but I also created it because I just take on more and more and more.

(19:50):
So the podcast is taking a break. The podcast will be on a break until the end of the year. When I decided to do this, the first decision is, “Oh, you're quitting.” I'm not quitting. This is not me quitting. This is me nurturing. This is me taking care. This is me healing. This is me giving you the respect you deserve to come back and hear me at my best. Initially, I thought, “Well, what if you lose listeners?” Yeah, what if I lose listeners? What if I lose listeners? It's probably going to happen. That's okay. That is okay. I know that there is no scarcity. There is no shortage of people I can connect with. And if I'm going to take a break, I'm going to take a proper break.

(21:10):
So initially I thought, “Well, if I'm going to lose listeners, maybe I should just take all the best episodes from the past and put them on a rerun.” But that just creates work for my team again, and I want the team to have a break too. I want us to take a break and then put everything about the podcast back on the table and go, “Which parts do we want to keep and which parts do we want to get rid of? And how do we want this to look so that it looks amazing for you when you come back?” So there will not be any episodes. And at the moment, my plan is to have it back in January ‘23. And if that plan changes, then that plan changes. But for now, let's say January 2023.

(21:58):
So when I do come back, there will be less content about Facebook ads. There will be more content about integrating all of the parts of you into your marketing and into your business. Exactly what I'm doing here. I'm integrating the parts of me that does not align with what traditional marketing and business principles tell me that I should not take a break from creating a show. Traditional marketing and business says, “Pump out a show every week. No matter how you feel, no matter what's going on, you never stop. You got to be consistent.” And I'm saying, “Uh-uh, uh-uh.” An integrated human and a human who is healthy in their ability to hustle and healthy in their ability to rest does not need a guideline like that. That person shows up healthily in every situation and creates the best damn content on the planet.

(23:22):
My personal mission for a while now has been to change the way that women work and earn wealth in the world, and there is so much I want to share around living a healthy, balanced life while making money and being available for your family. That's what we'll be talking about. That's when we come back, when I am ready to talk about that. You can expect a lot more in depth conversations about our relationships with work and money and how we can restore that relationship and heal it so that we are truly free to earn as much money as we want and live lives that fulfill us and where we are challenged to evolve and grow, not challenged to burn out.

(24:29):
This boundary that I'm putting in place, this comes from love and it serves us all and it will serve me, it'll serve my team, it'll serve my students, it'll serve my listeners, it'll serve my community. And my hope is that it can serve as an example for you of what is possible when you step back and take care of yourself and create a nurtured environment for your team and your students first, and then for your audience.

(25:07):
When I was 13 years old, I read The Power of Positive Thinking, and I always believed that I can do anything and I can power my way out of anything. And today, at 42 with ADHD, I realize that's bullshit. I don't want to power my way through anything. I don't want to do anything because I have to do it when I don't want to do it. Now, hear me, I'm all for discipline. This is not lack of discipline. This is conscious resting and I'm watching my brain. My brain's going, “You're going to lose money.” Maybe. That's okay, I have skill. I know how to make money. Actually, I think I'm going to make more money because I'm going to show up better. I think you and I both can make more money when we feel better.

(26:13):
So what I wanted to leave you with is if you are also in this post COVID come down, post COVID mental health, wake up moment where you are just now realizing that actually not everything in your business serves you, actually not everything you've done works for you anymore. I want to invite you to take your journal and sit down and just start free writing, just start writing. What are the things that you need to take a break from? What are the things that you've kind of been doing on autopilot because some coach somewhere or some guru told you that, that's what you have to do to succeed?

(27:17):
I hope I can be an example for you. I hope that when we come back and put our absolute best content out on the podcast, that we will become a story that you can refer to and tell and say, “See, sometimes you got to take a step back in order to take two steps forward.” I hope that if you are not liking your business right now, or if you are feeling burnt out, or if you are seeing how your brain is doing fight or flight, that I will be an example for you and that you will take a break too.

(28:13):
Now, there's one thing I'm not taking a break from. There's one thing I'm going to be doing more of, a lot more of, and I'm so excited about it and it makes me feel so good to even think like I can't wait to do this, and that is to write more. And I never thought I'd say this, but at this moment in time, I am just loving writing. It's like, I'm getting back into it. I hired a copywriter a year ago and it's just been wonderful, but I miss writing and I never thought I'd say this because I used to hate copywriting and now I love it. So if you're a listener, but you're not on my email list, dude, you got to get on my email list. Okay?

(29:09):
So I have created something brand new for you. It is a free guide to starting an online courses business and I am going to show you exactly how women are turning their knowledge into wealth using online courses. If you are not on my list and you want to get on my list so you can get my emails that I'll be sitting on my patio writing to you, then go to shineandsucceed.com/money and get the guide on how you can make money building an online courses business in a completely free and peaceful and integrated way, the way we should.

(29:59):
I love you. I am cheering for you. I'm rooting for you. If you're one of my students in either A-Lister or the Launch Lounge, I cannot wait to spend more quality time with you. If you're not, why not? Get on my email list and make sure you are opening my emails so you can see when we're opening enrollment for both A-Lister or the Launch Lounge, and let's hang out, let's become friends in more of an intimate setting. And then when I have got some healing done, some restoration done, and I've built some structures in my team and we've got some good material that have thoughtfully been created with love and care, then we will be back. I want to thank you for being here. Have a good day. Bye.

(30:55):
Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

20 Sep 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

Would you say you love money?

Or does it make you feel dirty and guilty even to think about loving money?

You will have heard before that money and happiness are not mutually exclusive, and that life is not black and white. So how did we come to acquire all these weird feelings around money?

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Join The Accelerated Launch Bonus Experience today!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Salome Schillack (00:00):
Hello and welcome to episode number 175 of the Shine Show. Today's episode, I'm going to share some thoughts on making lots and lots of money with you.

(00:17):
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster, than tune in because you are ready to shine and this is the Shine Show.

(00:50):
Hello, I'm so glad that you're here. I'm recording this on Thursday the 8th of September and 24 hours from now I will be in the swimming pool and I will have been swimming for about three hours at this point. Yeah, I'll be three hours into a four hour swim. When you hear this, send me love and energy, even if you hear it afterwards, send me over love and energy. I don't know what I was thinking when I signed up to swim 100 meters in the swimming pool. But you know what? What's the worst that can happen? I can fail. And who cares about failing at swimming when you're 42? Really? That is exactly why I'm doing it, is to give my brain this exercise in overcoming perfectionism and overcoming the need to be anything other than saying yes and doing an adventure and seeing where it leads. So we'll see how that goes. I will report back to you.

(02:14):
Today's episode is about my thoughts on money, particularly my thoughts on making lots and lots of money. I started planning this episode using my little reMarkable, which is a nifty little tool that I have where I can hand write my thoughts. And I have handwritten 24 pages. 24 pages of notes that I want to share with you because once I started writing, I couldn't stop. It just flowed. Does that ever happen to you? I love it when that happens. It just flowed out of me. So here goes.

(03:13):
I love money. I love money, I love money. I love the thrill of making money. I love seeing it come into my bank account and I love everything that it can do for me. I love that I don't have to look at the price of groceries or petrol or gas or energy bills and worry. I love that for the most part, when I want to learn a new skill, I can buy a course that teaches me that skill. I love that I can afford to break away for a weekend every now and then and take two big holidays every year. I love that I can go to the GP when I don't feel well, and I can go to the dentist twice a year, and I can pay to see my therapist every other week. And I can go to the physio and the chiropractor when my neck and my back hurts, probably because I'm sitting behind my computer too long.

(04:34):
I love that I can have a massage now and then and I can pay for a facial that makes my skin feel great. I can have my hair colored when I need to. I love money and I love what it gets me. And I do not feel guilty or bad sharing this with you because I want you to love money too. Money is awesome. What sucks about money is how we think about it. And what I hope you'll see at the end of this episode is that money is just money. Money cannot corrupt you if you're not already corrupt. Money cannot make you greedy if you're not already greedy. Money cannot make you less worthy or more worthy if you don't already believe that you are more or less worthy. Money cannot make you anymore happy or sad than you already are. Money itself is not the cause of your stress, your fear and anxiety or your depression.

(05:59):
Having money will not prevent you from also having the full experience of being a human who is alive and experiences their humanness. Happiness, sadness, joy, fear, anger, love, you will feel all the feels with and without money. So where does this nonsense come from that we believe about money? I looked up the definition of a false dichotomy, and basically a false dichotomy means two things that are compared to one another but that are not mutually exclusive. And when you think about false dichotomies, it's pretty much everywhere. It's in our governments where we have this two party system, where we basically, if you live in a democracy, you can only choose between idiot number one and idiot number two, when you vote.

(07:17):
It exists in masculine and feminine, male and female. We are becoming more aware that life and human bodies are not just masculine and feminine or male and female. There's a whole range in between. It exists in Hollywood where we are fed the stories of good guys and bad guys. And it exists very, very, very deep in our psyche where we're always looking for heroes like us and victims that we can save. And when we are the heroes, that means there has to be villains as well. And when there are victims, then there are villains. And we tend to see ourselves either as the heroes or as the villains.

(08:25):
But life is just not that black and white. We know that. So this false dichotomy around money, when someone says, "Well money can't buy you happiness." Well, who says the two things are even related to one another? I mean, think about it for a second. It's the most ridiculous comparison. Money and happiness. What does the one thing have to with the other? Absolutely nothing. You ask any rich person whether they have the full range of emotions and they will say yes. You ask any poor person whether they have a full range of emotion and they will say yes. Money and happiness is a full stock dichotomy. They do not exist mutually exclusive of one another. The same with money and spirituality. Having money is not going to make you less spiritual.

(09:29):
The same with money and being a good person. Having money is not going to corrupt your soul. Just like not having money doesn't make you more holy. Our brains, this primitive part of our brains loves making sense of the world when we are presented with things in contrast, because it's simple, we understand black and white. We understand up and down, we understand right and wrong. We understand good and bad. But money is never part of any contrast. Cannot be part of a contrast. Because the only thing money is an agreed upon value that we exchange. It's not even in 2022 a real thing anymore, it's just numbers on a computer screen. An imaginary coin that is locked up in an imaginary bank where they invest it in imaginary stocks and the value of those stocks are imaginary.

(10:52):
It really is quite bizarre when you start unpacking it. So to show you how bizarre this is, I'm going to replace the word money with lipstick for a second. I have a whole bunch of lipsticks on my desk. A whole tri full of lipsticks because when I go onto Zoom, I often find that I feel a little bit more confident when I have a little red lippy on. So I have a whole range of lipsticks on my desk. So let's replace the word money with lipstick in some of the false beliefs we have about money or lipstick.

(11:39):
Having lipstick won't make you a better person. Or we can say having lipstick won't make me a better person. I won't be a better person when I have more lipstick. I also won't be a bad person when I have more lipstick. I will not be less spiritual when I have a lot of lipstick. Lipstick cannot take away my spirituality. Lipstick won't make you happy. I'm not going to go after lipstick because I know that it won't make me happy. Lipstick is not going to solve all of my problems or I can't solve every problem by throwing lipstick at it. You think you're better than me because you have more lipstick? Or maybe I don't want a more lipstick because I don't want to think I'm better than you. What about, I'll be successful the day I have a million lipsticks? Or I'll really feel worthy when I hit my lipstick goal. My business is successful when I make lots of lipsticks. I know I've finally made it when I hit that lipstick goal.

(13:23):
Do you hear how ridiculous that is? I mean, I wonder if you can come up with some other ones. I would actually love to hear your lipsticks. Lipstick lies, let's call it lipstick lies. And it's can kind of be our inside joke. You can send me your lipstick lies and I'll know you're talking about money. But from now on, when you hear someone else say something like, "Money can't buy you happiness." Just go lipstick can't buy you happiness. And just for a second, pause and think how ridiculous that is, because who says it has anything to do with that? It has nothing to do with that. So where does all this bull shit come from? I asked myself that. Where did we get this burden that we carry with us? That money is so bad because, damn, I love it.

(14:26):
So where does money come from? I did a whole thing on this, I researched it. There's a documentary, I think it's on Netflix called Capitalism or Capital. Capital. Capital in the 21st Century. Maybe that's what it's called. Watch that. Watch that movie. I watched it maybe a year ago And it has stuck with me. I've even bought the book that it's based on. The book is called Capital by Thomas Piketty. I think that's how you say his surname. It's originally translated from French. And if you're not a big reader, don't get the book because it's the very like, you can kill someone with that book. Maybe get the audio book. But it's an enlightening read. But definitely start with the movie.

(15:17):
So I'm going to give you a little bit of a short history of where money comes from so you can see I did like, "Oh, this is why we've inherited all this nonsense." Okay. So way, way, way back in the day, mama and papa had their little block of land and they worked the land and the land provided them with everything they needed. Until they realized that Joe Blogs over there has pumpkins and we have chickens and we would really like some pumpkins so maybe we can go and trade our pumpkins for their chickens. And so people started trading their makings. They started trading whatever they were producing and there was no production line. It was just mama and papa and the kids. It's probably a lot of child labor, the kids and whatever they could create together. And that got traded.

(16:34):
But that didn't work very well for a long time. So money was invented to make it easier for people to trade things. And this was specifically in the context of farming. So I have a chicken and I want a pumpkin. We can decide that one chicken is worth two pumpkins and then we can trade. But what happens if I have chickens and you have pumpkins and I want a pumpkin, but you don't want chickens, you want a tractor? I don't have a tractor. I have chickens. I farm with chickens. Where are you going to get a tractor? You're not going to give me a pumpkin because I don't have tractor to trade? Plus a tractor is probably worth thousands of pumpkins. So what are we going to do? You're going to give me 1,000 pumpkins? You see the dilemma?

(17:24):
So money comes along and makes that process a lot easier and standardizes it. So if my chicken is worth 10 units of money and your pumpkin is worth five units of money, if I want a pumpkin, but you don't want a chicken, that makes it easy because I give you five units of money in exchange for the pumpkin and I've got my pumpkin and you've got money that you can then go and spend on your tractor. And now that we have money that we can trade for goods, we're discovering that we can also trade our labor in exchange for money.

(18:14):
So if I can help you do something, you can pay me. And that removes me, creates a degree of separation from my intimacy with that trading relationship. So now that I'm selling my intangible invisible value to you, my woman power, my muscle power or my help, my time, I have removed myself one degree of separation from the intimacy that I used to have with that agreed upon value exchange we had when it was chickens and pumpkins. Does that make sense? Do you understand that? It's labor and the trading of money in exchange for labor and the subsequent relationship that the person who labors has with the person who buys the labor, that removes the laborer from their intimacy with money and this was the invention of work.

(19:49):
And I believe today in 2022, we are only starting to scratch the surface on how broken work is. It's incredibly broken, but this starts the journey of men going out of the home. So mama and papa used to work on the farm, but now because papa is stronger than mama, papa can go out and sell his labor outside of the homestead or the farm. And mama stays home and does all the labor on the farm, takes care of the kids, but she doesn't get paid for it. And so that's the start of women doing unpaid labor in the house while men go out into the labor force and get paid for their labor.

(20:54):
And some of those lucky men build wealth. And some of those lucky men use their wealth to buy more land. And the more land they buy, the richer they become. And some of those men become landlords. And the landlord has power over the person who rents the land. And the landlord can evict the renter, the worker. And the landlord can fire the worker, the laborer. And the relationship between landlords and renters are established and the relationship between laborers and bosses are established. And the bosses and the landlords start increasing their wealth because of the increase in value of the capital that they have. The collective value of the land or the business that they own. Whereas the laborer can only sell more of their time, more of their energy, and they're always reliant on the goodwill of the landlord or the business owner.

(22:30):
And rich families start marrying their children to one another to strengthen their riches and keep the money circulating amongst themselves. And the rich gets richer, because the capital grows in value and they put their money together and the next generation is even richer because now they inherit mommy's family's money and daddy's family's money. But the money there really is only so much to go around and so scarcity is born. And scarcity is a real thing because when you're a laborer and you are reliant on a landlord and a boss for your income and the roof over your head and they get richer and richer, but you don't have the ability to work harder and harder, then you see the gap.

(23:38):
And it's okay to go, "Well hang on. If he's the have and I'm the have not, then something must be off here." And if there's poor relationships between landlords and people working the land or bosses and laborers, then it almost takes on this caricature negative picture of Scrooge. I think you can see that caricature in your mind. And that's where our beliefs about money come from because the landlord was the rich one, because the business owner was the rich one. And for centuries they were bad to their people and governments didn't protect them. And then it took on a whole nother dimension when the rich climbed into boats and traveled around the world and started taking land from people who never agreed to their value of money, who never agreed to surrender their land.

(25:02):
And so colonialism is born from greed to obtain more land and the natural riches of land that did not belong to these people. And out of that comes slavery. And slavery makes everything worse and worse and worse. And meanwhile, the ones who own the buildings and the banks and the businesses hoarded more and more. And the poor are stuck in the labor if they can find a job. And labor develops to what it is today where we clock into our nine to fives and we are so far removed from the value of what we bring to these businesses, to the companies, that we just keep clocking in and out, in and out, in and out. And we are all too grateful for our one or a 2% increase every year.

(26:18):
And among it all, we are all raised with a picture of the rich is bad, the greedy people who hoard money that is scarce and in short supply. And we start to rely on our jobs to provide us with stability, with money and with security, so long as we show up every day from nine to five. We completely lose touch with our relationship with money. We fall out of intimacy with money and instead we replace it with a steady paycheck in an exchange for showing up.

(27:02):
And enter the internet and entrepreneurship. And suddenly we all have a little device in our pockets that connects us with the world. We suddenly have a little device in our pockets that can take payment. And we are given this power without restoring our relationship to this invisible agreed upon value. The lipstick, the coin, the thing that we are given in exchange for value provided. Now money is no longer an actual thing. It's not a gold coin anymore, it's just numbers on a computer screen or on an Apple watch, if you've got one. Sure you need to balance it, but there is literally no limit to how much money can be generated today. There's literally no limit.

(28:13):
When you sell your ideas and you use the internet to reach millions of people to sell your ideas to, there is no limit as to how much of your ideas you can sell. As long as you can reach more people and you are skilled at getting them to agree that the information you sell is worth the money they give you in exchange, you're good. Money is back to just being money. The playing field is somewhat, not entirely, definitely not entirely, but the playing field is somewhat evened out. And for anyone in the middle class, the playing field is right open. Open for the taking. And I want to say, the playing field for the middle class is so open that we have to restore our relationship with money because we have a social responsibility to earn money and change the way that it gets distributed. Change the way that the half of the world's population who lives off of the 5% lowest amount of money can change that.

(29:59):
It is the job of us, the middle class, the middle class, and upper middle class, it is our job. It is our responsibility to restore our relationship with money because we are privileged to have devices in our pockets, to have our ideas in our heads, to be able to add value to millions of other people and create wealth beyond our dreams and change the way that wealth gets distributed in the world. Work made us forget that we are in relationship with money. Work told us that we earn money by working for a selected handful of owners of the workplaces who got to reap most of the benefits. And in mythology we only see those people represented as bad people.

(31:19):
But, today money may as well be lipstick. It has no meaning. Having it has no meaning and not having it has no meaning. Having money makes no one more worthy and not having money makes no one less worthy. We are all souls playing in a physical realm. We are not defined by the physical realm. The physical realm is just decorations. Ru Paul said, "We are all born naked and everything else is drag." Money is drag. Not having money is drag, having lots of it is drag. It's all bells and whistles. So why don't we all go and live in monasteries then and forget about money if it doesn't matter and it's not even a real thing? Because even the Dalai Lama's cloak has to be paid for by someone.

(32:40):
Because we are creative beings put here on earth to give expression to our creative desires, to make things and connect with each other, to serve each other and to see what our limits are. To taste things and grow from experiences. To build things together. Money does that. It gives us creative outlets for our talents and our desires. It lets us build things and play with what's possible. When you're an entrepreneur and you know how to create value from your own mind, you become unstoppable in how much money you can create. Money is what buys good healthcare when you need it. Money buys experiences. Money can buy beauty. It can buy fun. Money buys luxury and it buys comfort. Money solves problems. Problems like a burst tire on your car or something broke.

(34:01):
We need to heal our relationship with money. The wound is centuries old, but we can do it for the sake of our communities and for the sake of our children. My dear online course creator, listener, friend, I want to invite you on this journey with me to rediscover our intimacy with money again. To get back to loving money, irrespective of whether we have a little bit of it or a lot. I want to invite you to start loving money unconditionally and sit back and watch as money loves you back. Have a great day.

(35:03):
Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

13 Sep 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

You’ve been hearing me talk about Amy Porterfield for a few weeks now and I’m sure by now you know that Amy teaches course creators how to create and launch profitable digital courses.

But all you really need to know is that Amy is 100% the reason why I’m here today, speaking with you from this platform I have built thanks to what I learned from Amy.

She’s the reason I have a beautiful business, where I get to work from my own home, around my kids and their activities AND make money.

Today on The Shine Show Amy joins us live to share her story and tell you why NOW is the best time to start an online courses business.

During my interview with Amy, you’ll hear exactly how much her influence on me has been totally life changing. I know that sounds really cringy and the term is over-used, but listen in to hear how real that feels.

Yes, there were tears and I make no apology for that because the gratitude and passion I feel for being able to work and make money on my terms, while impacting the lives of so many others, is truly special.

Everything Amy has helped me do, she can help you to do too.

Start now.

Quit your job.

Let go of the security blanket.

When the world feels a bit uncertain, online courses are a safe bet. If you’ve been thinking you’ve got a digital course in you (and yes, my friend, you 100% do) then don’t miss this uplifting, practical episode where Amy shares exactly why NOW is the best time to start your digital course business.

P.S. In case you haven't seen my other emails, we’re excited to announce The Accelerated Launch Digital Course Academy Bonus Experience! Not only will you receive 5 star step-by-step guidance from Amy, but you will also receive support from my team and I. Resulting in big life changes for you and your family, for you and your sanity and for you and your contribution to the world and in how you earn wealth. Click here to learn more!

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Salome Schillack (00:00):

Hello, and welcome to episode number 173 of The Shine Show. Today, I have a special treat for you. My mentor, Amy Porterfield is on the show, and she is going to tell you exactly why now is the best time to start a digital course's business.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads. So that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

Well, hello, my friend. How are you right now? I have such a treat for you today. You are in for it. I have invited Amy Porterfield to the show to share with us three reasons why now is the absolute best time to start an online course business. And you are going to want to hear this interview. Not just because of the wisdom Amy shares, but also because you get to see me get all gushy and emotional, and ball my eyes out, talking about my journey. And I know that you have been listening for a few weeks now, and you've been hearing my story about quitting my job and starting an online courses business. And it was hard. I tell you, but for some reason this year, it feels extra emotional to me. I think it's because I have a little bit more distance now. It's been seven years since I started, but I failed for the first three years, before I found Amy.

And so I want you to know that it really, really matters to me that you hear my heart, and that you hear Amy's wisdom, because I have taken every online course. I promise you, I spend at least $30,000 a year in online education. I kid you not. I have the tax returns to show you. And there is nothing like Digital Course Academy and Amy Porterfield. I promise you. You are going to absolutely love it. Now, before I play you the interview, let me tell you who Amy is, if you still don't know it. Amy teaches business owners, educators, and entrepreneurs, the profitable action steps for building a highly engaged email list, and creating online training courses. And using online marketing strategies to sell with ease. That is it in a nutshell.

But girl, I really want you to join me inside Digital Course Academy this year. My team and I came up with the absolute best bonus that will get you traction fast. We are going to sit down and workshop, and brainstorm your course creation with you, and we're going to workshop and brainstorm your launch with you. That's why we're calling it The Accelerated Launch Digital Course Academy experience. And you can sign up for DCI, Digital Course Academy and our bonus now by going to shineandsucceed.com/amy, I'd really love to see you inside Digital Course Academy.

Salome Schillack (03:55):

And now here is our interview.

Amy Porterfield.

Hello there. It's so nice to have you. I Feel like-

Amy Porterfield (04:06):

Oh my gosh, I've been looking forward to this all day. It's just so fun. I haven't gotten to chat with you for a while.

Salome Schillack (04:11):

I know. I feel like you and I, when we get together, I just love hanging out with you so much. And then it's like a year and we kind of communicate via our teams and it's all other people, but I always know you're there. I always know you're there. And that just makes me feel so loved. Thank you so much for being here today.

Amy Porterfield (04:31):

Of course, I'm so glad to be here.

Salome Schillack (04:33):

Yeah, well, you know what Amy, it's been this last six weeks, telling my Amy Porterfield story. It's just sometimes, every year when it comes to this season, what I call DCI season. Digital Course Academy season of course, is it's an up and down journey. It's an emotional journey for me going back and remembering how I struggled, and remembering how hard it was for me when I was a coach, trying to get clients. Trying to figure out how do I become a mom who works from home, and has a job that I love. And then when I tell the story of how I found you and how I found webinars that convert back in 2015, and the only reason I could buy it was because you had a 12 pay option. And that every month looking at that $97 going off of my account, but knowing and putting in the work, and then eventually when I came to San Diego and I'm going to cry telling this. And quitting my job-

Amy Porterfield (05:47):

Oh the San Diego time.

Salome Schillack (05:48):

Was so special when we got to meet.

Look at me, I'm going to cry. It's just been, I'm very hormonal at the moment. I will say that. I think my audience will enjoy me crying, telling the story, but it has been life changing.

Amy Porterfield (06:08):

I don't take that lightly when you say that, and I know for you it has, not just because of my help, but what you've done in your business. I remember when you came to me and it all kind of cracked open for you and just watching your transformation and watching what you've created. And it blows my mind. So if I got to be a little part of that, I feel very, very fortunate. I'm very inspired by what you've created. I knew you before all of this, and that is a really cool thing.

Salome Schillack (06:42):

Thank you. It is a journey. And I want everyone listening to know that if I can do it, you can do it too. And I know there's something that you and I have in common, and that is the quitting of the job, right?

Amy Porterfield (06:59):

Yes.

Salome Schillack (07:00):

I mean, here I am balling my eyes out because I remember that so much, but I want to hear a little bit about your quitting your job story, because I know that wasn't an easy journey for you either. And just like me, you didn't get success straight out of the gate. So tell me a little bit about, what would you tell Amy back then? If you could go back and talk to Amy who's in her job and wanting to quit, and recently quit and trying to get it up to speed. What would you tell her?

Amy Porterfield (07:33):

I would tell her that it's not supposed to be easy and rainbows, and all come together from the get go. I don't know any entrepreneur who has quit a nine to five job, started their business and boom, everything just worked from the get go. I'd also tell her that your business will transform and transition, and stop waiting to do the things that you want to do. So the biggest mistake I made was that I went out on my own after leaving Tony Robbins, and I started a business doing consulting and doing social media. So a service based business. Hated it, hated all the clients that I had because I was resentful of all of them, which is terrible to say, I know, but I didn't have boundaries. So it was way too much work for one person, but I kept piling it on. Then I got frustrated. Anyway, the whole time, my goal was always to create digital courses, but I was scared to take the leap, because I didn't know how to do that yet.

And I didn't know a course. I didn't know any courses out there teaching people how to do it. So I put it off for two years. Today I have the business of my dreams. The business of my dreams is to create digital courses and teach other people how to build businesses. But I waited two full years building a business I didn't even love. And I haven't ever even thought about it like that until you just brought it up now. I would tell my younger self start. Now you're going to regret waiting this long, but everything happens for a reason.

Salome Schillack (09:02):

It does. And we become different people on that journey. But isn't it nice to look back and go, oh, I should have started sooner. And now and know that now moving forward, you can remind your future self that you've already learned that lesson.

Amy Porterfield (09:18):

Yes.

Salome Schillack (09:19):

Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (09:20):

That is so true.

Salome Schillack (09:21):

And I find myself when I'm facing big changes, facing big shifts in the business, because that never ends. That's just an onion that you just keep peeling the next layer of facing a new challenge. Then I can remind myself you've done this before. Yes, I have done this before. And I think it was you... Yeah, it was you who told me that few days in San Diego, you said, let go of the security blanket.

Amy Porterfield (09:52):

Let's talk about that for a second. So this idea of a security blanket, it came around because my sister who is in her 40's, still sleeps with under her pillow is her baby blanket, her security blanket when she was born. Now it's in knots. It's disgusting. I mean, she washes it, but it looks horrific and she hides it under her pillow. She just loves to have it. And I started to think, think a lot of us have a metaphorical security blanket that we do not want to give up. And typically it's our nine to five job. It's that thing that, we feel like it keeps us safe. We hold onto it. We're getting a regular paycheck. We've got the benefits and all of that. But we're like, literally our soul is dying inside every single day. That's not security. So we have this false security and you have to let it go. Until you let it go, you are not entirely free to do all the things you want to do in your business. So it's an important lesson to learn.

Salome Schillack (10:48):

It is an important lesson to learn. And I'm so happy that now, that I know I can confidently tell anyone in my audience that fear is okay, I had it. You had it. It should be there. It's healthy. It should be there. But if you have a step by step system that shows you exactly what to do and you have support around you, then you can take it one baby step at a time and just get started.

Amy Porterfield (11:21):

Absolutely.

Salome Schillack (11:23):

Yes.

Amy Porterfield (11:23):

And that's the thing you just have to get started. And when you start, let's say you want to create a digital course and have that be your number one offer to make money, or have it be your side hustle, or add it to the business you already have, whatever it might be. You are not going to know exactly all the steps you need to take. Now of course I can help you do so.

Salome Schillack (11:43):

Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (11:44):

But there's going to be times where it's going to be confusing or overwhelming. Everything in life that's worth it is worth that time, energy, and just time to figure it out. So you have to give yourself some grace. No one teaches this stuff in school. We didn't go to college for this stuff or high school or whatever. So give yourself some grace. You're not supposed to know it all.

Salome Schillack (12:04):

Yeah. And I'm glad you said that because I always tell my students, in school, we are taught you have to achieve a certain thing by a certain time. And then we have a test to say, did you achieve this thing in this certain time? And so when they start their journeys with online courses, the end goal is to have a profitable six figure business or seven figure business, or whatever your goal is or to replace your income. But sometimes it helps to just go, in the next six weeks, eight weeks, I'm just going to learn and that's going to be step one. And if that's what I accomplish before Christmas, that's great.

Amy Porterfield (12:49):

What a concept, to give ourselves time to learn. It's like sometimes people want to create a digital course. They're like, let me get it done in the next 30 days, let's go, let's go. You're building an asset in your business that can make you money for years to come. Give yourself the time to learn how to do it and learn how to do it right, from somebody who's gone before you, so that when you have this finished asset, it is good. It actually converts people into audience members, into customers. It makes you money and makes an impact. That you can do over and over and over again. It's worth learning how to do it right from the get go.

Salome Schillack (13:28):

Absolutely. And isn't it freeing when you do it the second, third, fourth, fifth, 10th time, and you look at everything you've created and you go, wow, I've put in a lot of work and I don't have to put that work in again. That work is done.

Amy Porterfield (13:45):

Amen to that. One of the biggest lessons I learned from working with Tony Robbins is that entrepreneurs who are the most successful, do not consistently recreate the will. Look into your business who's ever listening or watching right now, think about all the times that you're starting over, you're starting from scratch. It might just be because what you're doing is not working and you need to go back to the drawing board. A lot of the times is that entrepreneurs crave variety. So they want to chase the next shiny thing, start something new. I've got this great idea. I'm going to do this. I'm going to do that. My secret to success. And I know so much of yours as well, is we created something and we continue to make it better and scale it and dive into it and learn about our audience and grow our audience and market it again. I've marketed the same thing for years. It's no mistake. I have a multimillion dollar business because I stayed with one thing, to grow it. Now I have multiple courses now, but I never add a new course until one is dialed in.

Salome Schillack (14:41):

Yeah. And I love that because you really are good at that. You really are good at doing the same thing consistently. And that doesn't mean that you're not trying new things, but you're not trying new things with the product. You're trying new things with how you can optimize the sales of the product. And that's the difference.

Amy Porterfield (15:02):

Absolutely. Yes.

Salome Schillack (15:03):

Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (15:03):

I love it.

Salome Schillack (15:05):

And I love seeing you try new things on social media and try new things with your launches. So, that's where you get almost the entertainment value, that what entrepreneurs crave.

Amy Porterfield (15:16):

Yeah. So true.

Salome Schillack (15:18):

Yeah. So true. All right, so you quit your job and then you started taking on, one on one clients, and you said you hated it because you didn't set clear boundaries. Talk to me a little bit about what that was like.

Amy Porterfield (15:32):

So what happened was I left my job and I didn't have a big nest egg or anything like that. I needed to make money right away. So because I didn't know how to create digital courses yet, even though that's what I always wanted to do. I wanted to teach and reach the masses. I started to take one on one clients, doing their social media. Now this is back in the day when social media was kind of the wild wild west. So everyone in their mother was a social media manager. And so I got clients and I started to work with them. They had crazy unrealistic expectations. I didn't know how to tell them that their expectations would not work. So I just kept saying yes to everything. And we'd get off a call and I'd have a list of 20 action items, but I had 10 different clients and it was just me.

And so it became a beast and I realized, holy cow, I have no boundaries. I'm not saying no to anything, because I felt desperate to make money. And the problem with trading time for dollars as your only revenue stream, is there's only one of you, usually is how we all start. There's only so much money you can make, but beyond the money, burnout is inevitable with something like that. I have a lot of students now that do one on one coaching and consulting. They love it, but they also have a digital course. So they charge premium prices and they get to say yes to only the clients they want to work with, everybody else they're directed to their digital course. That's a beautiful business model.

Salome Schillack (16:58):

That is a beautiful business model. And I know that because that has served me so well, and I want to tell you a secret. When the agency was all, I feel like I often say, it was like a present and it was built and it's wrapped, and it has a ribbon around it. And we have our SOPs in place and I have my right team in place, everything. That's when I added digital courses into my business mix as well. And I added $400,000-

Amy Porterfield (17:29):

Oh my gosh. I did not know that.

Salome Schillack (17:31):

... To my existing agents. So there was the agency, which is my business and I added $400,000 in revenue to my business, just by adding a digital course to the mix.

Amy Porterfield (17:46):

Wow. That's incredible. That's life changing.

Salome Schillack (17:50):

It is.

Amy Porterfield (17:50):

That's why, when I see you get emotional and remember what you've created, I get it. And you're doing it on your terms. So this idea, both of us left our nine to five jobs. We both probably wanted something a little bit different. I know you wanted to be available and more home with your family and children, right?

Salome Schillack (18:10):

Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to, I say to women, I want you to work and create wealth your way.

Amy Porterfield (18:18):

Yes.

Salome Schillack (18:18):

That's it.

Amy Porterfield (18:18):

Amen to that.

Salome Schillack (18:18):

Because that's what I wanted.

Amy Porterfield (18:21):

Yeah.

And that, your way. I'm so big on that life. By your own design.

Salome Schillack (18:26):

Yeah.

Amy Porterfield (18:27):

You cannot have that when you're working for somebody else.

Salome Schillack (18:29):

No.

Amy Porterfield (18:30):

I loved working for Tony Robbins. He was an amazing boss to have. I also was helping him build his empire, on his time. I went on the trips that he needed me to go on. I was available when he needed. That is not freedom or creating a life by your own design. So even when it's good, it was good with my corporate job, I knew that I wanted something different. And you and I were talking about quitting things before we went on camera, and you can quit a job that's good, because you want something different and more, and that's a beautiful thing as well. You don't have to hate your life or hate your job to create digital courses and change things up. You could even stay in your job and have a side hustle with digital course, just to see if this is something that maybe one day could be your full-time thing. So there's so many different ways to dice a digital course to fit into the life that you want to live.

Salome Schillack (19:22):

I love that so much. And the beauty of digital courses is that, you can have your, it's like you say, you don't have to hate your clients or hate your business. You just add it into the mix. And because it's not something like a client, where you have to be a 100% in the whole time you have that client, you get to build a course at your own time. You get to build your audience at your own time. That's why I love that you can use social media to build your audience and you can use ads to build your audience, because it gives you freedom.

Amy Porterfield (20:00):

Yes.

Salome Schillack (20:01):

Then add that extra revenue in. And that means you get to say no to more one-on-one clients, which means more time, more freedom, or maybe it just means better boundaries. So again, your design, whatever that looks like, I don't think there's anything else on this planet right now in terms of, if we look at commercial availability and how people are making money in the world with where we're at in 2022, I don't think there's anything else that can provide you with the level of income and the level of freedom that a digital course does. I'm 100% committed to it.

Amy Porterfield (20:48):

I'm biased, but I'm with you a 100%. And the thing is, I've been talking a lot about how to recession proof your business with a digital course. And what I mean by that, is that digital courses have been on the rise for many, many years. I think COVID really exploded them. And then we never saw it go backwards. And we just continued to see the growth of digital courses in terms of people investing money into courses. And the reason why they work in any environment, any economy, any uncertain times, is because digital courses cut out the travel. When people are saving money or we couldn't go anywhere, digital courses allowed that location barrier that having to go somewhere to get the information you need, cut it out. It also allowed us to go at our own pace. So a lot of people like to do things on their terms, on their timeline.

Well, when you have to show up for a training at a specific time in a specific location, it's not on your terms. So during COVID what happened was, and as we move into a whole new world with possibly a recession looming, one thing that's important is people kind of reevaluated what was most important to them and their time, how they spend it, who they spend it with, became very, very important. Digital courses allow you to learn something new, whether it be personal or business or whatever it is, on your terms, on your time, in a more inexpensive way than any other option out there. That is why they continue to thrive even in uncertain times. So as a course creator, I can't imagine running a business without a course, because I always feel like it's going to be the safe bet when the world feels a little bit uncertain.

Salome Schillack (22:29):

Amen to that. Yeah, absolutely. And I want to add to that. If you think about this new generation, I look at my kids who are 11 and nine and they're growing up with digital learning, almost becoming the norm. Not quite yet. They're still at school for six hours. And thank goodness for that.

Amy Porterfield (22:53):

Spoken like a true mom.

Salome Schillack (22:55):

Yeah. Maybe I wouldn't love them as much if they stayed home all day. But the next generation, that's going to be normal. Whereas you and I have had to learn to get used to sitting behind the computer all day and doing these things. And so this new industry, I think digital courses is fairly new, because let's say, how old is it? 15 years?

Amy Porterfield (23:20):

Yeah.

Salome Schillack (23:21):

Maybe.

Amy Porterfield (23:22):

Somewhere around there. Somewhere around there.

Salome Schillack (23:23):

That is just going to get bigger and bigger and bigger. And it is going to become the norm for anyone to create a digital course from anywhere, anytime.

Amy Porterfield (23:37):

Absolutely. And that I've always said since I've started teaching people how to create digital courses, years and years ago, everybody has a digital course in them. Like everybody listening right now, I absolutely know you have one, if not two or three topics that you could teach on. And so the only difference between you right now, not having a digital course and somebody else having a digital course, is that they just took the leap and did it. Meaning, you probably could do it better. I was talking to a woman this morning and she was saying, I have a client who's been in the industry for 20 years of her coaching business. And she does what she does really, really well. And she just noticed a 20 year old woman putting the course out on the topic that she knows like the back of her hand. She knows it so well.

And she's like, what? What's happening here? She's got a digital course on this topic. I don't have a digital course. And the girl 20 years old, is killing it. And then this woman who's older and more experienced, she's like, I could have done it better. She could have done it better, but she did not. Most people wait on their digital course to the point that they regret waiting so long. And I promise you there's people that are going to do what you want to do and you are going to do it better, but you didn't do it. And there's enough room for all of us. My students, if you look at all the digital courses, my students have created, many of them have created very similar courses, and they're each individually successful, because everyone teaches in different ways. Everyone grows their own audience. There's enough room, no matter if your course ideas out there already or not.

Salome Schillack (25:11):

I could not agree with you more. And if you're listening to this, I want to tell you and you are thinking, I'm wondering if I can. I want to say, please, please, let's commit to not being the ones who say I could have done it better.

Amy Porterfield (25:30):

Yes.

Salome Schillack (25:31):

To not saying I'm going to put it off. I'm going to wait. I'm going to see, until you see someone else, and then go, oh, I could have done it better. There's like, let's just do it and get it out there. And it's not going to be perfect the first time. I mean, I look at some of the stuff I've put out years ago and I go, wow, there's a spelling mistake and-

Amy Porterfield (25:52):

Oh, same.

Salome Schillack (25:54):

It's terrible. Doesn't have to be perfect. We just have to get it out there. But if we wait, nothing happens.

Amy Porterfield (26:00):

Absolutely.

Salome Schillack (26:01):

Yeah. And I know that you have a step by step system that takes people through that. And Digital Course Academy is opening for enrollment today, when this episodes-

Amy Porterfield (26:16):

Today. I am so excited.

Salome Schillack (26:18):

Yes. So tell me bit about, what are they going to learn? Tell me everything about the life change that this will create for someone thinking about a digital course.

Amy Porterfield (26:32):

So Digital Course Academy is what I call my signature course. It is literally the course that will help you make a total transformation in your business. I created it because when I came on the scene, when I wanted to create courses, I literally had no idea how to do it. So this is the course that I wish I had 13 years ago, that virtually holds your hand step by step, by step. Most people that get into Digital Course Academy, do not have an email list or not a big one. If they have one it's not big and they've never ever created a course and they're starting from scratch. And when they get into the course, I start out with helping them create their digital course. What's going into it, how to organize it, how to outline it, how to get it recorded, how to pre-sell it, all that good stuff.

And then pre-sell it to make sure that your ideas actually going to make money. But once we get through the creation of a digital course and content is my love language, so I'll walk you through to create a stellar digital course.

Salome Schillack (27:30):

Yes.

Amy Porterfield (27:31):

Once we've got that course dialed in, now it's time to market it. From webinars to email marketing, to growing your email list, to social media, I'll show you a way that will fill really good to you, to get this precious thing you've just created out into the world. So it's creating and launching everything you need to know. My style is very patient, step by step. Yeah, because I can't assume you know this stuff. Where would you have ever learned it? So you're going to hear terms that are foreign to you. We have a glossary. You're going to learn about new technology that's affordable, but you've never used it. We'll walk you through click by click. So we really like to cater to people that have never done this before, but they are eager and they're willing, and they've got a great attitude. Let's get to it.

Salome Schillack (28:14):

Let's get to, it is my kind of attitude. And I want to say that this is really, when Amy says she walks you through step by step, that is no joke. Step by step, this woman is the best teacher on the planet. She's shown me step by step, how to do it. And I will be with you every step of the way when you join Digital Course Academy through our bonus. Amy Porterfield, I love you.

Amy Porterfield (28:41):

Oh, love you friend.

Salome Schillack (28:42):

Thank you so much for being here. I appreciate you. And I am so excited to give the gift of Digital Course Academy and Amy Porterfield and the mentorship of Amy Porterfield, to so many of my listeners.

Amy Porterfield (28:56):

Oh, I can't wait to meet many of them if they come into the program. So if you get into Digital Course Academy, let me know you came in through Salome because I would love to give you a virtual hug.

Salome Schillack (29:06):

I would love that. Thank you so much.

Amy Porterfield (29:09):

Thank you friend.

Salome Schillack (29:11):

Well, I really hope you love this as much as I did. Amy's signature course, Digital Course Academy is now open for enrollment, but it will only be open for another couple of days. There is no other online course training like Digital Course Academy. Nothing out there takes you through how to validate your course idea and see the big picture, and then guides you through the entire course creation process, before finally moving you onto the webinar creation and an intuitive cringe free course marketing strategy. And when you join using our link, shineandsucceed.com/amy, not only do you get the entire Digital Course Academy system with all the bonuses included, you also get our bonus content where my team and I will hold your hand every step of the way and make sure you get the juicy bit, profitable course launch sooner. Go to www.shineandsucceed.com/amy to get started today.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button. So you never miss a thing.

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

06 Sep 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

When you’re faced with the raw truth of life, that it’s all going to end one day, you think about things differently. You think about what you ‘really’ want.

Sitting there in the waiting room, I decided I ‘really’ wanted to teach. But until I came across Amy Porterfield and her course, I literally had no idea how to make that happen.

Life is too short to hold onto things that don’t fulfill us. Today, I’m so privileged to be in the position to be teaching inside Amy’s own community and now I share 25 (+1) things that I’ve learned from this amazing woman, friend and long time mentor.

This week on The Shine Show, you too will fall a little bit more in love with not just Amy, but everything she shares, everything she teaches and absolutely everything she stands for.

Listen in, take a stand and don’t be bland.

P.S. In case you haven't seen my other emails, my go-to online business gal, Amy Porterfield, is hosting a FREE Masterclass called How To Recession-Proof Your Business with One Digital Course: 5 Strategies To Create & Launch a Profitable Digital Course From Scratch and there is a ticket with your name on it HERE.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Sign up for Amy's FREE Masterclass called How To Recession-Proof Your Business with One Digital Course: 5 Strategies To Create & Launch a Profitable Digital Course From Scratch.

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

01: Welcome to The Shine Show

TRANSCRIPT

Salome Schillack: (00:00)

Hello, and welcome to episode number 172 of The Shine Show. Today's show is called 25 Biggest Lessons in Online Marketing I Learned from Amy Porterfield.

(00:18)

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money, and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in, because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

(00:51)

It was 2015, and I was sitting in a hospital waiting room next to the ICU unit in Pretoria, in South Africa, where my dad was dying. He'd been diagnosed with cancer only three months before that, and had already survived one stint in the ICU and pulled through, so we were hopeful, but this time, we knew it's different. A year before this, I started my sales coaching business, and at this point, I hated every minute of it. In the months that he'd become ill, I'd had a lot of time to reflect on his life, and it looked eerily like mine at that point. My dad hated his job, or maybe I should say he hated his business. He was a lawyer, and he did a lot of family law, and that just weighed him down. I remember one day, I was about 14, when he looked at me and he said, "Never, ever start your own business, because you're always the last person at work, and the last person to get paid."

(02:23)

A month before I received the call from my brother that I had to fly to South Africa to be with him because he didn't have much time, I was at my breaking point in my coaching business. Coaching didn't come naturally to me. I wanted to teach. I'm more of a natural teacher. I like telling people what to do. I wonder if you've noticed that by now. I want to instruct. I wanted something practical that I can tell my students how to do and that they can implement right away, and it frustrated me, sitting there asking things like, "And how is this a problem for you now?" My love for personal development drew me to coaching, but my practical go-getter, fixer of problem side just wanted to jump in and fix it for them.

(03:25)

I saw an ad for a webinar, and I wasn't even sure what a webinar was at the time, hosted by someone named Amy Porterfield, and I still remember the yellow slides that she used in all of her presentations at the time. She promised that she could show me a way that I can sell an online course using webinars like that one, and start to make some real money online, just like she had done. And I remember her telling the story of how she was working for Tony Robbins, and she decided to quit her job around the same time, her husband, Hobie, decided he wanted to be a firefighter. And so, she became the breadwinner, but it didn't go so well initially for her either.

(04:19)

My problem was that by the time I was introduced to her on this webinar, I was already $30,000 in debt from the coaching certification I had purchased and been taking part in, and I only had one client. And as soon as Amy announced the price of her course, my hope sank, it sank very deep, because I knew there's no way my husband is going to let me spend another thousand dollars on another online course. And when she said there's the 12 payment plan of $97 for 12 months, that made it a no-brainer for me, and I was instantly ready with my credit card. I bought Webinars That Convert, that was Amy's flagship program at the time.

(05:29)

And this was September 2015, and by October 2015, I was sitting in that hospital waiting room. I don't know where my brain was, but I couldn't be fully present for what was happening, but I also couldn't not be there. And so, what did I do? I sat there working my way through Webinars That Convert. And I tell you this somber story, because for me, that was a turning point for me, sitting there comparing how I felt about my business, with what I knew my dad told me he felt about his business, and being confronted with how much time I have left, made me really realize that this life is too short to hold on to things that don't fulfill us. And so, I started learning how to create a webinar.

(06:53)

Now, if you know the rest of my story, you know that there are many chapters in my Amy Porterfield book, and this was only chapter one, but it led me with many ups and downs, and curves along the way to launching my first course, the Facebook Live Superstar, a year later, and that was chapter two. And then there's chapter three, when I was back in my day job in 2017, and I used my salary for my job to buy B-School from Amy in 2017. Now I'm three years in, and I already had a successful course under my belt, but I didn't know it was successful. In 2017, I immersed myself in everything Amy taught, absolutely everything. I listened to every podcast, I listened to every live Q&A, I inhaled it. I also learned ads, not from one person, but from about three different persons. I learned funnel building, and that you can't just run an ad and expect sales, you need a funnel. I learned copywriting, one of the key skills to selling anything online.

(08:35)

And at the end of 2017, I used my last thousand dollars in my business card to buy a ticket to fly to San Diego, to meet Amy at her live Entrepreneur Experience Event. Before I arrived there, the night before, I met someone in the bar at the hotel, her name is Dora, and she became a really good friend of mine, and that night I say to her, "Dora, I am not going to cry tomorrow when I meet Amy." And you know what? I have photos of me and Dora standing next to Amy, and my eyeballs are red. I bawled. She was just as nice in real life as she came across on her podcast, and in her courses, and in her groups where she did the live Q&A's. I got my photo taken with her, where you can see just how much I was crying.

(09:46)

She was kind, and she was generous, and she looked at me and she said, "Tell me what you need," and I said, "Amy, I need clients. I need clients for my Facebook ad freelancing, because that's all I can do right now," and boy, did she come through for me. She introduced me to anyone who told her that they were looking for a Facebook ads manager, right there at the event. If someone said, "Amy, I need ads," she goes, "Here's Salome. Meet Salome, she's going to run your ads," and I signed up four clients that day at that event, and I could not believe the generosity and the kindness of this person, who in my eyes, was this absolute celebrity.

(10:48)

After I came home and I quit my job, I posted about it on social media, and Amy picked up on it and she congratulated me, and then she said, "Well, how would you like to support my students?" And she invited me back in 2017 to start supporting her students with Facebook ads, and post in the group and to answer their questions. And here I am five years later, five years later, and I'm still supporting Amy's students, but this time, I'm not the one answering the questions, I'm the one creating the content, I'm the one creating the courses, and Amy is stepping up and selling my courses to her students.

(11:42)

There's no other mentor that I have learned from, and who continues to inspire me for this long. Seven years. Can you think of anyone in your life that has mentored you for seven years? I can't. Maybe my parents, they must be the only ones. I think anyone who has a mentor for that long is very lucky. So, today, I want to share with you some of what I've learned from her, and I hope that you'll see that there is no better person to learn online course marketing from than my trusted, trusted mentor, Amy Porterfield. I have 25 things written down in front of me, actually, 26, that I want to share with you that Amy has taught me, and I'm going to go through them and then just expand on them a little bit, but we'll go through them quite quickly.

(12:53)

Number one, compassion for people. Oh my goodness, this woman has a heart for people. I know that Amy's number one value is compassion. She doesn't hire anyone to work on her team, unless their number one value is compassion too. Not perfection, not performance, compassion. Now, for someone who performed as well as Amy to have compassion as her number one value, you must know that that's a pretty special team to work for. I have seen behind the scenes when the going got tough, I have seen people be incredibly mean and selfish, and do things very questionable, and she has met that with compassion every time. So, that compassion that you see when you see her show up for her students, please know that that is the real deal.

(14:19)

Number two, it doesn't need to be perfect to get started. Have you seen Amy's slides from five years ago? So, at the moment, she has Chloe, who I think Chloe is her marketing manager. Way back, way back in the day when I started following her, she didn't have Chloe. Chloe brought an eye for design to Amy's team, and I will tell you think your Canva skills are bad? My girl Amy does not have Canva skills. See if you can find some of her really old slides, they're not perfect. You do not need to be perfect to get started.

(15:10)

Number three, you don't need a big team to get started. You look at her now and you see that she has a big team, and maybe you look at me and you think, well, I have a big team, and you wouldn't be wrong. I have a big team. I love my team, I could not do it alone ever again, but back in the day, Amy was doing it alone. I remember when she brought on her first VA, and I remember that VA working for her for a year or two, and then quitting to go start her own business. And then she hired Chloe, and then it was just the two of them for many, many, many years, and then it started expanding and she started hiring people. You do not need a big team to get started. You need to do a few things well, and don't start from scratch all the time.

(16:08)

Number four, let your audience celebrate the big milestones with you. I think Amy is probably sitting around 300 or 400 episodes of her online course. What's her podcast called? Online Marketing Made Easy. [inaudible 00:16:25]. I remember when she celebrated hitting episode number 100, oh my goodness, and I thought, wow, what a body of work, and here we are today with episode number 172 of The Shine Show. I remember she hosted a competition, and we could win a strategy session with her, and there were so many of us in there. I just remember how we cheered each other on, and competed with each other, and made fun of each other, and did all the things we could because we wanted to win that strategy session. And I was really rooting for one of my friends who ended up on the shortlist, and then didn't get it, but I remember how involved we were. So, number four, let your audience celebrate the big milestones with you. Here I am, seven years later, and I remember all of her big milestones, because she let me celebrate with her.

(17:31)

Number five, build your list. Build your list, build your list, build your list. I heard Amy say this from day one and every time she said it, I had some excuse for why I couldn't double down on list building right now. And then it got to the end of 2017, 2018, I think 2018, I'm not sure, 2018, when I wanted to be an affiliate for Digital Course Academy for the first time, and at this point in time, I don't think I had the podcast. So, and I was just running the agency, so I didn't really see the point in building my list. And then I tried doing an affiliate launch, and it did not go very well, and I realized, oh snap, I need an email list. Build your list.

(18:33)

Number six, vulnerability is a superpower. Vulnerability is a superpower. This girl has no airs about her, and she has shared really vulnerably and really honestly all the ups and downs of her entrepreneurial journey, but also her personal life, and her struggles with anxiety and depression, and [inaudible 00:19:00]. And I want to encourage you to go and listen to any of the podcast episodes where she shares a little bit of her personal journey, because seeing her be completely human, just like me, seeing her say, "I also get up some mornings, and all I want to do is pull the blanket over my head."

(19:33)

Hearing her say, I remember there was one episode of her podcast where she was sharing behind the scenes of what she was doing, or a week in the life off. That's what it was. And by Friday morning, she said, "Today, I plonked down on the couch, and I watched back to back episodes of The Real Housewives."And I was like, what? You mean you didn't put a power suit on and try to dominate the day? No, she had a bad day. She came back from it, but she let herself have a bad day. Vulnerability is a superpower.

(20:15)

Number seven, a webinar is the easiest way to sell a big ticket course. This is true. A webinar is a really bad way to sell low dollar offers, but if you're selling something more than $1,000, save yourself the five day challenge, because that is five days of your life you'll never get back. Save yourself the PLF style video series launches, because that's three months of your life you'll never get back. Create a webinar, it works. A webinar is the easiest way to sell big ticket courses.

(20:53)

Number eight, helping your audience means saying the same thing over and over again. Oh my goodness, I got to a point where I was like, if I have to say something about Facebook ads again, I am going to stick a fork in my eye, and then I watched Amy in one of her launches and I thought, how on this earth does she talk so much? Because let's face it, I'm a little bit straightforward. I'm a little bit to the point, and once I've said something, I don't think I'm going to say it again soon. But when you're launching, you need to repeat things over and over, and I just went, holy cow, how does this woman say the same thing over, and over, and over? And she has been for years, for years. For years, she's been saying, build your list, and that consistency is what serves us so well. Helping your audience means saying the same thing over and over.

(21:54)

Number nine, sales is not a dirty word. Sales is not a dirty word. You can get as many sales as you want, as long as you are super clear on who your course is for, trying to sell your course to someone that it's not right for is going to be icky and yucky, but if you know who your ideal customer is, and you know that your ideal customer is stuck with a problem and she really wants the solution, then sales is not a dirty word.

(22:32)

Number 10, this one's one of my favorites. Women can make millions, and millions, and millions of dollars, and still be very nice people, and I want you to insert after, and still be whatever the thing is that you think, "Sure, but you have to be this way, or that way, or the other way when you have lots of money." Sometimes I have to remind myself that women can make millions and millions of dollars, and still don't give a rat's ass about a Chanel handbag. You don't have to start caring about designer anything when you make millions of dollars. You also don't have to not care about anything stuff-wise. You get to just be you, and you don't to be different, just because your bank account is full of millions and millions of dollars. That's what Amy shows me.

(23:52)

Number 11, build your list. Yes, I did that. Build your list.

(24:01)

Number 12, get uncomfortable. Get uncomfortable. I remember watching Amy the year she committed to making $10 million. Now, I think she'd already done five or seven the previous year, but she thought it's impossible to do 10, and she got so uncomfortable that year, and she implemented every single thing imaginable into that year. Now, I'm not sure personally how that went for her, but man, I could see her push her boundaries. I could see her overcome her own limiting beliefs. I could see her challenging the limitations she thought her students put on themselves. You know when you do that, when you go, "Well, I don't want to sell something to someone, because what if they don't want it?" I think us Aussies are often guilty of that. Get uncomfortable, do the uncomfortable thing. That's number 12.

(25:09)

Number 13, don't be everything to everyone. Be a purple cow, stand out. Put your foot down for what you believe in, put your foot down for who you serve, put your foot down for who your ideal customer is, or what your position is on whatever it is that you sell. Put your foot down. Take a stand, don't be bland. Ooh, I'm going to try to trademark that. Take a stand, don't be bland. I think I should do a Reels audio like that, maybe it'll trend. You can see what I've been watching lately. Don't be everything to everyone.

(25:50)

Number 14, show up for your mentors, the way you want your students to show up for you. I love that one so much. Show up for your mentors, the way you want your students to show up for you. I know some of you might be thinking, "Wow, Salome. Yeah, your story's great, but Amy Porterfield sent you clients," and yes, she did. "Your story's so great, Salome, but Amy Porterfield promotes you." Yes, she does, but you know what else? I have bought every single thing she sells. Every single thing. I have shown up for her students consistently for years. There have been so many other mentors in her community that have come and gone with me, that have come and hung out with me for a while for a year or two, and showed up for her students, and then they're gone, and I'm still here.

(27:04)

And you know what I'm experiencing? My students showing up for me the same way. I have students who do so much behind the scenes, who shows up for my A-lister students, who teaches ads, who coaches, students, who show up for every webinar I do, to sing our praises. It blows my mind how these students show up for me for free, and they just keep doing it, and they do it year after year, and I just hope that I can give them only the tiniest bit of what Amy has given me. But I am so committed, so committed to showing up for the students in my community who understand what it means to show up for your mentors, because that's been something that has been absolutely instrumental in my success, is choosing a good mentor, and showing up for her consistently.

(28:21)

Number 15, you can quit your job and you'll be okay. You can quit your job, and you will be okay. The first time I quit my job, I went on maternity leave, and I was very arrogant, and very filled with some false confidence, based on the fact that I'm a Type A personality with, I don't know, I probably have a little bit of intelligence and a bright personality, and I can open my mouth and speak. I knew I had something going for me, and in most places in life where I've gone, I've usually ended up somewhere in the top. Never quite the best at anything, but somewhere in the top. And so, I had this real ego-driven bullshit confidence when I quit my job, and when I started the coaching business, and man, oh, man, did that business knock my ego to the ground, to the ground, and it was so hard for me to go back to my job. Oh, I felt like such a failure.

(29:55)

And now, I think back at it and I just go, man, I should've not held onto it so tightly, I should've not wanted it to be so perfect. I should've just enjoyed the journey, because even when I quit my job the second time, this is after I'd been to America, to San Diego and signed up the four clients at Amy's event, that second time I quit my job, I thought I was going to be filled with joy, and what actually happened was I ended up feeling a little bit depressed. I ended up feeling very anxious, and all I wanted to do was sleep. There was a sense of "finally," which maybe was part of why I just wanted to sleep, because I realized I'm at the end of my very long hustle, but there was also this absolute dread and fear.

(31:04)

And now that I've been in my own business for a few years, now that I've weathered some storms, now that I've built up some confidence, now that I have seen what I'm capable of and what I'm made of, I want to say you can quit your job, and you'll be okay. There is nothing wrong with going back to your job. There's nothing wrong with going to work at Macca's. That's McDonald's in Australia, for those who don't know what Macca's is. You can go work at Macca's. If it means you put food on the table and you buy time to start your business, do whatever you need to. You can quit your job, and you'll be okay. You can go back to your job, and you'll be okay. You can be in a job, and you'll be okay. Relax about it.

(32:02)

Number 16, find what works for you, and then double down on that. I started out using Facebook Live to build an audience, and it worked really well for me, because I was fairly confident on camera. My musical theater background, if you haven't yet noticed that I'm a little bit dramatic, and that moved into podcasting. Find what works for you, and then double down on that. If it's speaking, do that. If it's writing, do that. Whatever it is that is your first love and that works well for you, do that.

(32:48)

Number 17, you can handle it when things are not perfect. I remember the first time Amy sent out an email with a broken link in it. I was so relieved because I was like, finally, she makes a mistake. I'm so glad to see she sends out emails with broken links too. And you know what? Since then, it's happened many times. You can handle it when things aren't perfect. That student that didn't get the refund they wanted, and then complained and kicked up a storm, or someone you promised something to, and then you weren't able to deliver it? Everything's not always going to be perfect in your business. Just know that most people will be forgiving when you are sincere in an apology and you work to fix it, and those that aren't, just let them go.

(33:48)

Number 18, making money online doesn't mean you have to become a bro. Oh, I can't stand those bro marketers. It's very tempting. The bros make it look like it's easy for them, the bros probably build momentum faster, the bros probably make more sales short term, but there are many, many feminine ways of making money and selling online, and Amy leads the way in being the example of using every marketing tactic imaginable in a feminine and integrity, filled with integrity way, marketing doesn't mean you have to become a bro.

(34:45)

Number 19, team is everything. Your team is everything. I have seen the love and dedication with which Amy handles her team, and I think when you see her with her students and you realize she brings that degree of leadership to her team too, you know why most people stay for years, and years, and years in her business. You know why she's now been able to create a four day work week for them, and they love it. Team is everything.

(35:19)

Number 20, you don't have to be the center of everything. People like being team members too. You don't have to be the center of everything. People like being team members too. What I mean by that, is I learned from Amy that she is not the center of her business. She's the product, and she's definitely the face, but her team handles their own business. Her team works together with one another, not with her. She sets the vision, she sets the tone, she sets the values. The work gets done between the team members, not with her. That's something I'm still working towards. I'm still a little bit the centerpiece of all of my team members, but I think 2023 and all the beautiful changes we have planned for 2023 will set us up well, so that I can also step out of being the center of everything and move more towards being the product, being the teacher, being the content creator, being the CEO instead of the project manager, and the logistics manager, and the everything else.

(36:50)

Number 21, teach what you can, until you can teach what you like. Teach what you can, until you can teach what you like. Did you know Amy started out teaching Facebook ads? Yeah. So, this is even before I knew who she was. After she quit her job from Tony Robbins, she started a social media agency, I suppose, but it was just her, she was a freelancer. She was creating social media content for other people, and she hated it. She hated it.

(37:27)

But then she was approached to be a contributor, and she knew Facebook ads back to front back then, which Facebook ads wasn't rocket science then, or maybe we all thought it was rocket science, and today we know rocket science is something a whole other level. She was approached to be one of the contributors to, I think it was the Facebook Ads for Dummies book. So yeah, she wrote the book. She wrote the book on Facebook ads, but she hated it, and she never quite fully owned the role of expert in Facebook ads. Very quickly, she started moving away from that. But you know what? Her first course was a Facebook ads course, so teach what you can, until you teach what you like.

(38:11)

Number 22, don't be afraid of students who don't like change. Oh my goodness. How much change have I seen in her community over the past seven years? So much change. Facebook groups that have been closed down that have been nearly the cause of World War III, weekly Q&A calls that became monthly calls, again, the cause of World War III. Oh my goodness, it's ridiculous what people can complain about when you change. Don't be afraid of students who don't like change. Make the change to serve your energy. Make sure you have people on your team who can support your students, and then make decisions for your students that serve the majority of them, and don't be afraid to make big changes. It'll be okay. Yes, people will be unhappy. Do it anyway.

(39:14)

Number 23 is build your list. Have we talked about this? Build your list.

(39:21)

Number 24, pass on the good fortune. Pass on the good fortune. Maybe in your community, there's already a student showing up for you the way I've shown up for Amy, and the way my students show up for me. Make sure you pass on the good fortune. Make sure you create space for them to grow with you. Make sure you understand really well that there is absolutely, absolutely no scarcity in this world, that nothing can ever be taken away. So, pass on the good fortune.

(40:02)

Number 25, be loyal to your mentors. Maybe you started out learning from someone, and you've wandered off to someone else. That's great, you need that. That's called growth, but stay loyal, stay kind, stay polite, and don't be afraid to come back. Don't be afraid to move back and forth, and back and forth. There's a reason you were attracted to someone in the first place, and I've often found that when I circle back to someone I was attracted to to learn from initially, I discover how much I really enjoy it.

(40:51)

Number 26 is my bonus one, because I've had build your list three times. So, number 26 is don't be afraid to dream big. Don't be afraid to dream big. Amy Porterfield dreams bigger than most people I've ever met. I do not know how she does it. I will ask her one day, because for me, as soon as I start thinking as big as her, I'm consumed by anxiety, which is probably my ADHD, but that's okay. Don't be afraid to dream big.

(41:28)

If you have a dream of building an online course, if you have a dream building an online courses business, of creating a life that you can live on your terms of building wealth for you and your family, the way you want to do it, to the amount that makes you happy, and with the lifestyle that gives you joy and peace, if you are dreaming about an online courses business, then I want to invite you to join me inside Digital Course Academy. Digital Course Academy is Amy's flagship program, where she gives you the step by step of creating your first online course, and mapping out the launch so that you can get it out into the world sooner, and start making a bigger impact in other people's lives.

(42:36)

The cart for DCA will open in a couple of days, and in the meantime, you can go to shineandsucceed.com/amy to check out our bonus page. We call it the Accelerated Launch Digital Course Academy Experience. It's a mouthful, but you can check it out at www.shineandsucceed.com/amy, and once you're there, what I want you to see is my team and I have really asked ourselves, "What's the one thing our DCA students need this year, in order to get their launches up faster?" And I believe that one thing is implementation sessions. I believe that one thing is for me to sit down over two and a half hour sessions with you, and have you look over my shoulder, as I map out course content with one of my team members for a course that she's launching, and then we're going to spend two and a half hours mapping out her launch. You're going to see all the questions I ask myself when we decide what to put in the course, and every ingredient that goes into building a launch that works.

(43:56)

I'm drawing on my years of experience of being behind the scenes as the Facebook ads manager, in launches as big as $2.5 million, and on my own launch experience, where I have successfully added an online course and a membership to my existing business, my agency business. If I can do it on the side, you can do it on the side. Come and join me in inside Digital Course Academy. Be part of this experience with me, and let me hold your hand, as you start to change the way you create wealth in the world. Go to www.shineandsucceed.com/amy to check out our bonuses.

(44:47)

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week, and remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

30 Aug 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

Why does social media for our business stress us out so much?

If you’re like me, then you love endlessly scrolling through other people’s content, there goes a gazillion hours down the rabbit hole. Yet when it comes to posting our own message on the socials.. we see it oh, so differently.

Nothing is quick, nothing is good enough and we often hate it. Am I right?

Social media doesn’t need to be like that.

This week on The Shine Show we talk about the one thing that makes it all worthwhile and I can tell you it’s definitely not fake eyelashes or number of likes and it’s certainly not perfect posts.

When we consider that the purpose of social media is to build our email list (hint hint), and we realize that there are many ways to do this with social media playing a very small role, then we totally remove the pressure. Social media is about connection. Nothing more. And of course, when do we make the best connections? When we’re sharing our authentic self. Think of it like dating!

Listen in to hear how to chill and relax your own approach to social media. You get to choose your preferred platform, your favourite message delivery and EXACTLY how and what you communicate with your audience. I want you to choose whichever options help you to be confident and feel like the expert that you truly are.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Salome Schillack: (00:00)

Hello, and welcome to episode 171 of The Shine Show. Today, we are talking about social media and I'm going to share with you one thing that makes all the effort worthwhile

(00:18)
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack. And I help online course creators launch grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster than tune in because you are ready to shine, and this is The Shine Show.

(00:52)
Hello, my fabulous, fantastic listener, my friend. I do feel like we're friends. I love it when you guys and gals send me emails telling me what you love about the podcast or what I said that really resonated with you. Or sometimes I get emails from people saying, "I've been thinking that, but I've never said it out loud, and now you've said it, and you've given me permission to do something or to not do something, whichever the case may be."

(01:33)
Today's episode is one of those where I'm going to give you permission to do something or give you permission to not do something. And that something is social media. It's a bit of a hot topic this one, because you know I'm the ads girl. So I have been spouting for a very long time that you do not need social media to build an audience. And the reason I say that so often is just because the psychological power that social media has over early online entrepreneurs, anyone who is still trying to figure out how to make money online.

(02:23)
And I remember the same thing. It took me three years to figure out how to make money online. And in those three years, pretty much all I did was social media. I did a lot of social media. And look, I'm going to be honest and tell you, I actually have so much fun when I do social media. So don't get me wrong. I'm not saying no one should do it. I'm not saying you should do it if you don't like it. I'm saying, take that load off your back. That load that makes it look like the only people that are successful are the extroverts building giant audiences on social media because that, my friend, is the burden I want to lift for you today. In this episode, I want to show you that it's possible and not just possible, but it's important for you to approach social media with a chilled out, relax, no pressure attitude.

(03:40)
Imagine if you approached dating, finding a husband or a wife or a partner or a parent for your children with the same amount of pressure you felt about social media, you'll be like, "Oh I got to be on everyday. I got to look pretty everyday. I got to be all polished everyday." Yeah. There goes the authentic relationship. But then also, if you don't show up ever, that person's not going to marry you. So while there are people who dominate the world of social media and who look like they're having a great time living their best life, hashtag blessed and everything they do, say, hear, touch, eat, not eat, pick up, put down, put in their mouths, not put in their mouths, ugh, buy or sell has to be posted on social media. And it's all super perfect. Well, you know what? It's not. And that's okay. That is just so, okay.

(04:50)
So let's stop pretending. Your grid doesn't have to be perfect. Your reels don't have to be polished, you don't need to go to the hairdresser before you take a selfie. I remember back in the days I would not record a video if I wasn't wearing fake eyelashes because I felt like I needed the look because a lot of the people I look up to have look. But I'll tell you, fake eyelashes are the bane of my existence. I can't stand them. If anybody has good fake eyelash advice for me, please send it my way. But it has to be better than what I can find on YouTube because the magnetic ones, no thank you, the gluey ones gets in my eye and I can't put it on strike, the little wispy ones, it's just too much.

(05:38)
So I gave up because I realized, nobody cares. Nobody cares if I have fake eyelashes on or not. Nobody cares if I'm wearing my brand colors, nobody cares if I have a cold and my nose is red, nobody cares. It's not why they're there. They're not there to judge me. They're there to love me and bond with me. All of that perfectionism doesn't align with the true purpose of social media for business anyway or social media for any reason.

(06:14)
I want to be clear that the focus of this episode is on social media for building your business. Not for having fun or sharing with your friends, but social media specifically for business. And yeah, I've said it before, but I'm going to say it again. I'm going to let this cat out of the bag one more time. Are you ready? I'm going to reveal to you the only thing you should be doing on social media. The only thing. The only thing social media is good for. What is it good for? Only this one thing. Here's the one thing. Social media, are you ready? Are you listening? Okay. Here it is. Social media is only there to build your list. What did she just say? Social media is only there to build your list.

(07:23)
Okay. I'm going to explain that and I can already hear you say, "But I can't make a call to action to download my lead magnet in every social media content I create." And that's not what I'm saying. I'm not saying you have to keep pushing your lead magnet, your one lead magnet in every post. That's not what I'm saying. That's going to get old very quickly. What I am saying is, you build relationships with people on social media, by visually showing them that you understand their pain and you can help them achieve their desires or you have already achieved their desires.

(08:12)
Think for a second about how many visual posts you can create, because remember, social media's visual. How many visual posts can you create that personifies their pain, that pokes fun at their pain and by poke fun. I mean the collective fun. Like we're all in this together type of thing. Don't laugh at them. You can probably come up with at least 10. And then what visual communication can you use to show them that you understand the journey that they're on, towards getting to that thing and what visual communication can you use to show that you've already achieved what they have. Like there, I've just given you ideas for 30 posts, right?

(09:07)
But every now and then, once they've related with you, you're going to tell them to sign up for a class or join a webinar or get your lead magnet or move your relationship along, get a free thing, any free thing, a free thing that's going to help them. And that's where the magic of social media lies. It lies in getting them on your list.

(09:34)
The other way you can do that is you use social media without making those call to actions and you retarget people on your social media accounts with ads. That gets them on your email list. And it just depends on what your journey is and what your budget is and how confident you are with ads. But still, your goal with social media is to get people on your email list.

(10:01)
And then once they're on your email list, now you're engaged. Now they have said, "Hello, how you doing?" And they have responded. I have said, "Yes, Joey, I will go to the movies with you." The real work starts. You get them to your large format content, your large format content is your blog or your podcast or your video blog or your lives. If you use Facebook Live or Instagram Live to create large format content, it's the content that's longer than two minutes and it doesn't have to be much longer. It can be five minutes. When I vlogged back in the day, my videos were about five minutes long and I would send out a video once a week and that's my large format content. And I added a lot of value in those five minutes.

(11:08)
So again, don't think you have to start a podcast because everybody else is doing it. Actually, I feel like blogging is coming back a little bit. YouTube is a very hot right now. Long form video is very hot. So whatever your creative format is that makes you feel most comfortable and most confident to deliver your messages. Some people like writing, some people like being on camera, some people like speaking without having their camera face on like what I'm doing right now. And it just depends. Whatever floats your boat. And once they're on your list, then you're going to start making offers to them. Because now we can ask them to marry us.

(12:00)
That's why it took me three years to figure out how to make money on social media. Because you don't make money on social media. It's not where you make money. You make money by taking the audiences from your social media and bringing them down the funnel and in human language, that means you connect with people on social media and then you create gates behind which you build a relationship. So first you invite them into your house, your living room, your email list. Then you sit down, have a cup of coffee with them. Woo them a little bit. That's your large format content. And only once you've put in the hard work, do you invite them anywhere else in your house?

(13:02)
I'm hearing some of you and it might be my social bunnies asking if I've got so many followers on social media and they really, really, really like me and they love my posts. They watch my videos, heck they even share my posts. Why do I want to bother them and ask them to do something to get on my email list? Do hear the flaw in that thinking? Why do we always think we're bothering our audiences? I hear this so often from students, "I don't want to send more emails because I don't want to bother them. I don't want to shove my lead magnet down their throats." People, let's create content that doesn't bother. I don't think I'm a bother. I try really hard not to bother you. The fact that you're listening tells me, I don't. If I do, you need to go find something else, right? We don't bother people. Stop thinking you bothering them. Come on, come on, come on.

(14:11)
Either put in more work, put in more creativity or we need to talk about your self-esteem. Don't bother your audience. You are never, ever, ever a bother to your audience. If you think you are, you need to either love them more or love yourself more. Wow. That was wise. I feel like RuPaul, "If you don't love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else, right?"

(14:43)
I make my kids watch RuPaul. Well, I don't make them watch it. That sounds terrible. I love watching RuPaul, you already know that about me because I did a whole episode about RuPaul but now, Milam, my 11 year old, in the morning when I tell her she has to have a good day at school and be kind and be a good friend and make all your dreams come true. And then she looks at me and she goes, "And if you can't love yourself, how the hell are you going to love somebody else?" And I crack up laughing and then I go, "You're a good mother." When my kids are quoting RuPaul to me, I know I'm a good mother. It's my measure of motherhood.

(15:23)
Anyway, back to social media. So you're asking me if I have all these followers on social media, why would I want to ask them to join my list? Those of you who've been listening for a while will know that the simple answer is because you don't own your social media. You should have been around about, it was maybe two years ago. I feel like it happens every two years where either Facebook and Instagram gets hacked or they don't tell us what the real problem is. They just say there was a server down, but for about 24 hours, Facebook and Instagram disappears off the planet. And the collective panic always entertains me thoroughly.

(16:16)
The first people who freak out are the influencers because when their large accounts go away, their livelihood goes away, which is a really shitty business model if you ask me. So don't be an influencer or be an influencer by all means, but build your list, build your list. That's what you need to do. You can have 50,000 followers in a heartbeat on whatever platform you choose, right? Particularly if you go for one of the new ones where if you're an earlier adopter, you'll get a lot of followers pretty quickly. And it seems to me like there's a new platform that's here to stay coming out almost every two years now. A couple of years ago it was Clubhouse, and TikTok, have you been on TikTok lately. I spent an hour last night, scrolling on TikTok. It's addictive. So funny. So funny. I love the irreverence on there. It's just so funny. Anyway.

(17:21)
So if anything happens to Facebook or Instagram or any of your other platforms and you do not have those people on your email list, they're gone, you have lost it. And this happens a lot more than you think. And it causes a lot of stress for those business owners. Who've put so much time and effort into their reals, their pointing and their dancing. It is very stressful when you have done that much pointing and dancing and it all goes away and they have to start from scratch. Or the other thing that happens is, they build these mega audiences on social media and then they run an ad that doesn't comply with the policy and Facebook not only shuts down their ad account, but they also shut down their Instagram account. I have seen it happen.

(18:20)
I actually saw it happen to someone who is an Instagram teacher. So that person teaches Instagram and it was Christmas Eve and they were on holiday in Morocco and they lost their entire Instagram account. Yeah. That was back in the day when I was still stepping in and saving clients on Christmas Eve, that's not happening anymore. There's some healthy boundary growth that occurred in my life since then.

(18:53)
But here's the thing, the reason you're focused on getting people's email addresses is because then you're in control. You own the list. You could take it to whichever mailing program you like, ActiveCampaign, MailChimp, Constant Contact, Infusionsoft, whatever you want, but nobody will shut you down. You can back up your list. You can make a copy of it. Your email list becomes your biggest asset in your business for an online course creator or an online marketer.

(19:26)
And in case you're wondering, but how do I get them on my list in the first place? That is where your incredible, amazing free elite magnet come in. And it is just a small piece of content that your target audience will find valuable that will give them a quick win, something practical, something tactical, something that they don't have to go away and it takes hours to consume or they have to implement big things. Has to give them a quick, small win. Those are usually the best lead magnets. It might be a short lesson or a secret revealed or a template of some kind or a cheat sheet. You then set it up so that they can only access your super free thing. If they sign up to your list and then you start emailing them and you email them your podcast, or you go live on Facebook and you send that out every week, they get the freebie and you get their email when you start calling them out to invite them to download your freebie. That is how most course creators will build their lists.

(20:35)
There is another way though, you can use social media to drive traffic to your long form content. If you go on my Instagram account today, today is the 17th of August. You'll be listening to this probably around the 30th of August. But if you go on my Instagram today, you will see a lot of content driving people to this podcast. And I deliberately created it that way for a period, while I was focusing on other things in the business and using ads to build my list, I just wanted to keep my social media alive. So all I did was sent them to my long form content, nothing wrong with that. Just not building a lot of personal relationships on there, but I also did that on purpose to prove to you that you don't really need social media to build the business.

(21:35)
Then once your audience lands on that long copy, and of course they love it. And they're practically eating out of the problems of your hand. Then you add a call to action in that content, which you guess them, asks them to sign up for your list. It's a longer route, but a little bit more energy efficient because you create your podcast content once, your long form content, you take a little piece of that, you put it on your social media and it's much quicker to get it done and get it out. And those people who resonate with your long form content will resonate with it on social as well.

(22:13)
Of course, once you have people on your list, you have to keep nurturing them and you keep helping them with your expertise. Just like I am doing it here right now for you on The Shine Show. Everybody knows that every time they share their email address that at some point there will be something for them to buy. Everybody knows this. They then have a choice to buy or not to buy. I had to learn what it means to really accept fully that other people have agency. Other people can say, no, thank you at any point in time. And I had to learn to not make myself small because I assume that someone else is not going to have agency to say no if they don't want what I have, this is back in the days when I was selling my services as a sales coach, which is the most ironic thing that I became a sales coach and I couldn't sell my services as a sales coach because I felt it was salesy.

(23:30)
I feel like the universe played a wicked joke on me that time. It was a wicked joke that lasted for a year and cost me a lot of money. But that is a funny wicked joke that maybe it wasn't the universe. Maybe it was me just being not very smart and learning, of course, learning. People know that they can continue to consume your free content when they're not ready to buy. And they know that they can access your free content on social media or on your email list. And they have a choice to buy or not to buy. So don't ever hold yourself back from selling to people on your email list or inviting them to a webinar or a class or a workshop or a video series where you sell to them. They have a choice to be there or not be there and they can say yes or no.

(24:22)
What I see happen to many course creators is, they say they haven't made many sales. And then when we unpack it a little bit, either they didn't have enough people see their offer, which happens a lot, particularly if you have a high dollar offer like 997, or if you are new and your audience is small or they just haven't really made an offer, they've just thrown a line into the water to see if anything would bite and nothing bit. And then they threw another little line in the water to see if something would bite. And the funny thing is, every time they discount the course more and more and more, and the more they discounted the fewer people want it.

(25:13)
I've been there, done that. No judgment. If that's you today, come talk to me. We can fix that. It's a bit like going to a restaurant and sitting at the table without a menu. You know that you want to eat, but you can't make a decision because you don't know anything about what's on offer. Well, how long do you sit there before you walk out or before you ask for a menu, if we want to sell, we have to make offers. And it makes total sense to make the offer to your email list rather than just on social media. Because the people on your list have already expressed an interest in what you're offering by sharing their email address. They've already given you consent. They are warmer audience than your social media people. That doesn't mean we don't run ads to our offers, it just means we don't start by running ads.

(26:06)
The final way that we can use social media is as a tool to taste new ideas and content. As entrepreneurs, it's natural for us to be full of ideas for new courses and new products. Particularly if your brain's a little hyperactive like mine, I could come up with 700 new ideas in a day. Finishing something that's harder for me than coming up with a new idea, but rather than diving straight in and spending hours and pouring in resources to bring this buddy new idea to life, you can gauge your target audience response to the new found concept or at least to the offer and what you're calling it or how you're presenting it to people. A lot of problems can be solved in the same way, but solved in different ways. I'm going to say that again, the problem can be solved in the same way, but solved in different ways.

(27:03)
So just because you solve a problem one way doesn't mean because it didn't sell one way that you have to redo the solution to the problem. Maybe you just have to redo the pitch of the solution to the problem. You can even directly ask questions on social media or set up a poll on your stories to get more specific feedback from your target audience and you'll know by how people respond on social media, whether they will respond when you use paid traffic or when you have paid to send traffic to a page and then that page converts or doesn't convert.

(27:47)
So remember, it's easy to fall into the trap of comparing yourself or feeling less than whenever you see what other people in your industry's doing on social media. It's not about the number of your followers and it's not about putting on any show for them to believe anything about you that is not exactly what is real in life. But I want to remind you that followers don't equal sales. Shining, perfectly placed grids don't equal sales. It's like fairy floss. It looks huge and impressive, but when you boil it down, it's a tiny teaspoon of sugar that's highly overpriced.

(28:39)
No one ever said, "Yeah, I bought her course because her hair was so freaking nice in that story she posted." They're there because you're helping them solve a problem they've been struggling with for the longest time. It doesn't matter what you're wearing. It doesn't matter if it's not perfect. In fact, people are drawn to the authenticity of not being perfect. Imperfections are relatable. You can spend hours and hours hustling hard on social media, getting new followers, but you will never own those followers. They can be ripped away from you overnight. It's far wiser investment of your time to use social media as a tool to grow your list and test your content. So have fun with it. Experiment with it, limit the amount of time you spend scrolling on it, because no, create before you consume is what the wise Marie Forleo taught me when I took B-School 700,000 years ago. That's about all I remember about B-School, create before you consume. So stay in your own lane and celebrate your progress on socials without comparing yourself to others.

(29:59)
Social media is meant to be fun, have fun, enjoy it, let it be easy. Let it be a creative process. Express your creativity in any way you want and let it be about the connection you create with people. And then put the systems in place that you can bring them onto your long form content and onto your email list.

(30:25)
That's all I have for you today my dear friend and listener. I want to remind you that my online business go-to-girl, Amy Porterfield, is hosting a free masterclass. It's called, How To Recession-Proof Your Business With ONE Digital Course: Five Strategies To Create and Launch a Profitable Digital Course From Scratch. And by recession-proof, that might sound a little bit heavy, but what Amy's really teaching during this free hour long class are the five must do items to add a digital course as an extra stream of revenue to your side gig or your business. You'll discover everything from what to teach in an online course to how to layout your course content to how to record your course. Even if tech is not your thing and even had to pre-sell your course so you have revenue to work with early on.

(31:29)
Amy will map out a proven path to create a digital course that allows you to take control of your future and your finances. And you know I'm all about you working and creating wealth in a way that works for you. So you can create stability for you and your people. No matter what the outside world is doing, no matter what the economy is doing.

(31:55)
Amy opens enrollment to this webinar on Tuesday morning, 7:00 AM Pacific. And this podcast episode drops on Tuesday morning, Aussie Time. So if you're in Australia and it's still Tuesday, you've got to wait until midnight, before you go to shineandsucceed.com/amy to grab your seat on this masterclass. But if you're in the US and it's Tuesday, then you can register right now for Amy's masterclass. I'll be there and I can't wait to see you there and share Amy with you and share this new masterclass with you because Amy, man, there is no one like Amy Porterfield. I just love that girl. All right. I will talk to you guys next week. Have a wonderful week, everybody. Bye.

(32:56)
Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

170. How To Choose The Right Name For Your Online Course

23 Aug 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

So you already know that launching an online course is the easiest way to change the way you work and create wealth for you, your family, and your community - You know that right! ‘Course you do

So you’ll want to give that course a cool name!

The name is just a tiny part of your course, but it’s easily the one part that most often leads to procrastination.

Tune in to today’s episode of The Shine Show to hear all about my own naming course naming confusion and how you can avoid making the same mistakes I did. You really will thank me. And I’ll also reveal what to do instead

P.S. If you’ve been here a while you’ve probably heard me talk about my mentor Amy Porterfield and the life-changing (I kid you not!) impact she’s had on me. Amy has been my mentor since 2015 and as someone who has spent over $30,000 every year for the last 3 years on online courses, I can tell you that Amy’s training is hands down the very best in the industry. I know, because I have bought it ALL!! This year we are offering the best bonus ever for anyone who wants to learn from Amy AND also for anyone who has learned from Amy before. Yes, we will be offering a massive bonus when Amy launches her signature course Digital Course Academy this year but we are also extending that offer to any of the DCA alumni in our community.

P.P.S If you are new to Amy’s teachings and want to find out exactly how she helped me quit my job and create a successful online courses business click here to sign up for the Digital Course Academy waitlist.

P.P.P.S If you are already a DCA Alumni and you want to get the opportunity to go through the experience with us this year click here to find out how you can qualify to get access to our bonus.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

This is episode number 170 of The Shine Show. Today, we are going to talk about how to choose the right name for your online course.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine. This is The Shine Show.

Hello, my friend. Episode number 170. I tell you, there is something that feels good about building up a body of work like that. I give myself a gold star for consistency and a gold star for just getting on with the discipline of doing the thing. There really is value in the snowball effect of just showing up consistently.

How are you, by the way? I wonder how you are right now. Over here in Brisbane, finally, it's starting to warm up a little bit. We are over the hump of winter down here, down under. It is not completely freezing cold in the mornings when I go swimming anymore. It's just cold. It's still cold, but I am swimming my little heart out because I've got that 100, 100s coming up in September, which I was crazy enough to enroll myself in. And if you've been following along, then you will have heard me talk about how my brain is completely freaking out to the point where I am now scared swimming, but it's good for my commitment.

Sometimes, they say stress and anxiety is bad for us, but I am experiencing the upside of anxiety with the swimming, because it is scaring me to get into the pool more often. It is scaring me to work a little bit harder, and all of that is really good for my health. It's actually really good for my mental health and good for my physical health. So, I don't think stress and anxiety is necessarily that bad for us. I think it's just our relationship with stress and anxiety that might be good or not good.

Anywho, today we are talking about how to choose the right name for your online course. I know because you are here that you're an online course creator or an aspiring online course creator. I know because you are here that you love or love to learn Facebook Ads so that you can sell more online courses. And I know because you're here that you are probably a woman, you might be a man, or you might be somewhere in between, and you are looking to create more wealth in your life, and you are looking to change the way that you work in this world, and you would love your work to make an impact in other people's lives whilst making you bags and bags of money so that you can live your life, so that you can be free to do with your time what you want and to do with your energy what you want.

If that is you and you are not already inside Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy, then I want to invite you to sign up for the wait list by going to shineandsucceed.com/amy to get all the details, to get the scoop on our amazing bonus. We call it the Accelerated Launch Digital Course Academy Experience. It's a mouthful, but it is exactly that. It is going to take you from not having a course to launching your course faster. And if you are a DCA alumnus, alumni. What's the right word. If you are already in DCA, then I want to tell you that our bonus this year is designed with you in mind too. We want to get you results faster. We want to get you a kickstart. We want to get a recommitment from you.

It's like a wedding vows renewal or a recommitment ceremony. That's what we want. We want to renew your DCI vows with you, and be your partner in getting your course out into the world before 2023. Let's do that, so that in 2023, you can quit your job, or you can take on fewer one-on-one clients, or you can finally work and earn wealth the way you want to. And if you go to shineandsucceed.com/amy, you get to sign up for the wait list to hear about our bonus as well. But now, let's talk about how to choose the right name for your online course.

I know you're starting an online course or thinking about creating a new product, so you have this great idea and you can just feel it in your bones that it's going to work. But first things first, naming that brand new cyber baby. I've seen entrepreneurs agonize for days and days and lose sleep over finding the perfect name, because nothing feels quite right. And guess what, it won't ever feel right or normal. It's like buying a new pair of shoes. It takes time to become comfortable in them, but at the start, it's going to take a little getting used to.

As a Shakespeare once wrote, "What's in a name?" Would an online course still sell as sweetly if it were known by any other name? I don't think Shakespeare talked about online courses, but he did say what's in a name. Now, this week, on The Shine Show, we're going to unpack how to choose a name for your online course, so that you attract more of your dream students faster.

The first thing I want you to know about your online course is it's based if your online course says exactly what it is. If you try to be funny or use innuendos that only a small group of people are going to understand, it can easily be confusing and you could be turning away a lot of potential students. If a six year old can read your course title and understand what it's about, exactly what it's about, then you're on the right track. A lot of entrepreneurs shoot themselves in the foot with lots of jargon, me included.

I'm going to tell you about a situation where we recently experienced where my overactive creativity, my overactive creative brain, maybe got me into a little bit of this course naming trouble. You know the expression less is more, simplicity is key? That applies here when choosing a name for your online course.

I wonder if you've heard me talk about Flapper Club. Flapper Club is a great name for me. Flapper Club is my favorite community. Flapper Club is my favorite name that I've ever come up with. And it is for those of you who know, or those who don't know, it is what I call the community we have for my online course, A-Lister. It's a place for online course creators to bring all their list building questions, to get coaching and to connect with each other. We teach them how to build their email lists and how to make sales straight away within the first few days from those people who joined their email list.

So, if the course is called A-Lister, and the community that goes along with it is called Flapper Club, in my mind, that's brilliant and fun. We've decked out the whole A-Lister brand with 1920s theme, hence Flapper Club. But I'm going to be really honest and vulnerable with you here. Naming the community for A-Lister, Flapper Club, and separating the community from the actual course in that way didn't really land very well, and ended up confusing people during a launch. So, I thought that people would easily differentiate between A-Lister as the course content, which the name A-Lister actually makes sense because they learn list building mostly. And it's A-Lister because it's a list builder who makes money, so A-Lister. I mean, to me, that makes kind of sense.

I went with the 1920s branding because Facebook Ads is so dry. I feel like we need to make it fun. Now, it still worked really well when it was A-Lister and pictures of me in a 1920s dress, which is fun, because it's still me. I'm just dressed up and it's A-Lister. But then, I pulled out the community, I pulled out the Facebook group, I pulled out the support, and I wanted that to stand on its own, and I called it Flapper Club. I called it Flapper Club because of the 1920s theme. But the 1920s theme was actually originally designed to support A-Lister.

Now, with naming the community Flapper Club, I have made the 1920s theme the focus, and I have confused people. Because now, what happened in our last launch is, I'm talking about you buying A-Lister and getting access to Flapper Club. And then, we get emails from people saying, "But if I join Flapper Club, do I still get the course content?" And we're like, "Yes." Or I get an email saying, "But if I join A-Lister, do I get support?" And I'm like, "Yes, in Flapper Club." And then, I even had people buy A-Lister, join Flapper Club, and then still ask me what's the Flapper Club thing. So, that is a great example where my smarts got in the way, and I should have just kept it simple. I should have stuck to A-Lister. You get support inside there, and it's just the A-Lister community, so that didn't serve me very well.

When you zoom out and look at the big picture, A-Lister is designed for course creators who are getting their head around their list building aspects of their business, and there's a lot to take in. The 1920s branding, even though it's fun and pretty, it has nothing to do with building a list. It has nothing to do with online courses. The branding and the name actually cause people to feel more confused, and we probably lost sales because of it.

As entrepreneurs, we can sometimes have this deep desire to be original and to stand out from the crowd. But sometimes, that creativity can be our biggest stumbling block. Sometimes, the boring option is the best option. Use that creativity for your current students who get you and understand where you're going and can appreciate your clever ideas. So, I'm sticking with the 1920s branding because I also feel that it shows people how we do things in A-Lister.

A-Lister is supposed to be fun. Facebook Ads as hard enough as it is. We don't take ourselves too seriously. We have fun. I'm a little bit dramatic. If you're not cool with that based on my funny 1920s dress up, and then, you're probably not going to love being in my community. So, we're sticking with that, but Flapper Club, we won't sell it as Flapper Club again.

I was recently chatting to one of my team members who's creating her own online course, and she was coming up with all these names that were relevant to her. She likes plants, and she used the word propagate. She knows her audience likes Prosecco. So, she tried a title with the word Prosecco. She even equated the freedom she's teaching with birds and throwing the word uncaged. All of these are okay and you nail it completely.

But in the end, I asked, "What is the one word which all her potential students use to describe how they want to feel at the end of her course?" And without a doubt, it was confident. So not surprising, she's now dropped all her creative left-of-centers, somewhat confusing titles, and is settled on one, which explains the outcome without any question.

She settled on confidence being the main focus of her course title. And for me, it's a clear winner. If you need a touch of creative inspiration with some solid stats to back up that you're not entirely left of field, a great tool to use is Twinword, twinword.com. Check out that website. Choose a few keywords from your course and search alternatives to spark some creativity. Let's say we type in confidence, then we'll get some other words that are similar. So, synonyms... Is that the right term? Synonyms? Twinword will show you the number of searches per month each word has on internet searches, which is a great way to see how relevant or commonly used it is.

Let's talk about using some of these keywords. Not all the keywords have the same power. For example, if you own a pizza shop, the keywords would be take away food or it could be mouth watering, cheesy pizza. Rule of thumbs, always go for the cheese option. Here are some tips on how to choose a cheesy mouthwatering name that will have people queuing up for your online course.

Choose words that speak to this solution. Here's an example. Product Launch Formula. Product Launch Formula. It's Jeff Walker's signature program. It is a formula that teaches you how to launch a product. Who to [inaudible 00:15:22] it? Product Launch Formula. There you go. That is a great solution-focused name. Your course title should make it clear what it's all about. More crucially, how your students will benefit from it, and what outcomes they should expect.

Lining up the name with the outcome is much better than naming it in line with the problem. I have seen this happen in coaching world especially, where people want to teach other people how to feel less overwhelmed or stop procrastinating, and then call their courses something that is the thing that people want to move away from. Best is to name your course according to what you want people to move towards.

Aim for a reasonable outcome that's consistent with the course material. So, don't make promises you can't keep, and keep hyperbole out of it. If you are describing it as the amazing, incredible, fantastic, awesome course that gives you X, Y, Z outcome there, it's just a little unbelievable. Keep in mind your audience ultimately wants to buy the outcome that the online course will give them, not the course itself. Therefore, be sure to express your outcome that will deliver clearly to them.

Do some web research if you're unsure of what your audience is looking at. You know how to find your ideal customer online already. You know how to go to Amazon and Google and type in the type of searches that your audience is looking for. So, just put yourself in their shoes and ask yourself, "What would my dream students be typing into Google if they were looking for a solution?" And start there.

Another way you can name your course is the process that your students will be creating. Digital Course Academy is a good example of this. This is Amy Porterfield's flagship program that is launching very soon. Digital Course Academy tells you that you're going to learn academy. It's like a school. You're going to learn how to create a digital course. I want to know that. I want to know how to create a digital course. So, Digital Course Academy works. It has that collective element to it. Academy or experience or school or community. These can feel really stock standard and everyone's using them, but everyone is using them for a reason, because it gets the message across and audience's understand it quickly.

Nouns are great names for courses too, as it provides a real identity and a sense of belonging for your students. When you think about the noun that's going to stand out based on how your community would describe themselves, when they refer to themselves, think about what would work well. I have the Launch Lounge. My members inside the Launch Lounge, I would say, we're not quite there in nounifying ourselves. Because with the Launch Lounge, we've picked up on the term loungers, which is great, but loungers makes it sound a little bit like we're lazy. Because these women in this membership is not lounging around. I'll tell you that.

It does suggest a sense of ease, which is important to us. But to me, the focus is on being a group of launchers rather than a group of loungers. So, there's another imperfect name, but it still totally, totally works. Names like Funnel Hackers or B-Schoolers and A-Listers all work really well and can be a great way to name your course and to keep in mind the noun that's going to come out of it. It's also usually important that your name speaks specifically to your audience. Sometimes, you can also do this via your branding. But if you only work with authors, for example, then your course title should be fairly clear about that. Think about your niche, and what will they call themselves.

Finally, do your due diligence. It can feel like every name under the sun has been taken and you might have finally landed on the perfect name that makes sense and feels right. Your last step before you name your course is to type it into the cyberverse and look for trademarks. Even if you have to pay a lawyer to do a search for trademarks, it is worth it, because the last thing you want is to launch your course and then find out someone else has already trademarked that name. Especially if it's a name you think, "Ah, this is the best name ever. How has nobody ever thought about it?"

And then, see if the URL is available, the domain. So, I bought the launchlounge.com. I bought that. It wasn't cheap, but I bought it because I want to own it, because I own the trademark, The Launch Lounge. And then, see if social media handles are available. When I started The Launch Lounge, both Instagram and Facebook had The Launch Lounge available, and I don't know why I didn't snatch them up because the next time I checked, they'd been taken on both. There's no leg to stand on, the fact that I have the trademark, it doesn't mean I automatically get the handle. So, do those checks so that you don't get ever any nasty lawyer letters from anybody saying you're infringing on their trademark, or just check so that you can grab those social media handles.

The name of your course is just a tiny part of your business. It can feel like a really big deal at the time, and it can feel like the make or break at the start. But nothing is set in stone, and if you get it wrong the first time, it's okay with all rebranded courses. All the big industry leaders have done it too. Going back to the drawing board is not the worst thing.

I'll tell you what is the worst thing. Procrastinating starting your course, because you're stuck on a name. Now, that would be a real tragedy. So, have fun, play around with different options, do your research, see what you come up. There is so much more to your brand than the name of your course. The content is way more important, the way you show up for your students, and the way you communicate to them matters the most. And consistency. Show up consistently.

Good luck with naming your course. Keep some of these tips in mind when you do. But most of all, take action and get going on getting that course created, getting it out of your head and into the world.

If you are eager to learn how to get your course created and into the hands of many, many, many of your best students faster, I want to tell you about my mentor and friend, Amy Porterfield. Amy has been my mentor since 2015. Over the years, she's helped me quit my job, stop hustling for one-on-one clients, and scale my income, creating more freedom for me and allowing me to build wealth for me and my family my way. If you want to hear more about Amy and her program, Digital Course Academy, that'll be opening for enrollment soon.

If you want to know exactly how me and my team can help you accelerate your launch and make even more profits, then be sure to go to shineandsucceed.com/amy, and get on the list to hear all about it. Even if you are DCA alumni, we are creating our bonus, so you set yourself up for the best 2023.

All right, my friend. I hope you have a fabulous week. I will be back here next week with another episode of The Shine Show. I look forward to talking to you then. Bye for now.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week, and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss a thing.

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

16 Aug 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

Press play and listen now!

Remember when you first signed up for a social media account? Did you love to share absolutely everything? The excitement of posting ten times a day soon wore off, hey?

If you’re anything like me, pretty quickly you started to feel exposed and exhausted, so much so that many of us took a backward step. So, when I tell you that you don’t need social media and you don’t even need ads, have I got your attention?

Today on The Shine Show I’ll share with you 3 types of content you need to create in the lead-up to your launch that will have your audience eating out of your hand when you say “enroll now”.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to episode number 169 of The Shine Show. Today on this show, I'm going to share with you what to post on your socials when you're ramping up for a launch. But before we dive into that, I want to know if you are an eager online course launcher or if you are eager to learn how to get your course created and into the hands of many of your best students faster. I want to tell you about my mentor and friend Amy Porterfield. Amy has been my mentor since 2015 and over the years, she's helped me quit my job, stop hustling for one-on-one clients, and scale my income, creating more freedom for me and allowing me to build wealth for me and my family my way.

If you want to hear more about Amy and her program, Digital Course Academy, that'll be opening for enrollment soon and you want to know exactly how me and my team can help you accelerate your launch and make even more profits, then go to shineandsucceed.com/amy and get on the list to hear all about it. Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Shillack and I help online course creators launch, grow, and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired, to dream bigger, launch sooner, and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine and this is The Shine Show.

What do you post on your socials? I mean, I think that is a question most people are grappling with not just when they're ramping up for a launch, but just on a day-to-day basis. If you're anything like me and you can't stand the constant feeling of being on social media because you're sharing your everyday things like what coffee you're drinking or what you're wearing today or just pooping out your every single thought into the social atmosphere, it's exhausting even on the best of days. So, I am taking a completely different approach to social media. For those of you who know me well, you know I've been preaching for a very long time, "You don't need social media." All you need is to know how to build an audience. That is still true and I'm going to add a little bit of a shocker to that right now. So hold onto your hats, because what I'm about to say might shock you.

You also don't need ads. "Oh!" I hear that shy. You do not need ads. You don't need social media. What you do need is an audience on your email list. You need people on your email list. That's what you need because the real journey you take people on happens inside your email list. But here's the deal.

Unfortunately, ads are getting more expensive. That's no secret. We all know that. But if you hang out with me, then you know that the sooner you start running ads, even at $5 a day, the better your chances are of building your list large enough to have a profitable launch. Now, at $5 a day, you're still going to need some hustle energy. You're still going to need to do some stuff on social media. My feeling right now is that social media is actually getting easier and easier to do.

If you think about Instagram and you're a writer, you can write and use images or if you're a video person, you can use reels. If you like being on all day, you can do stories, but you don't have to. There's turning into this whatever floats your boat. Whatever platform you want to use and whatever way you want to use it, as long as your ideal customer is there, you get to use it that way. And so, I want to share a little bit with you guys today about what to post on your socials when you're ramping up for a launch, because when you're ramping up for a launch, there's a specific strategy that I want you to keep in mind.

It's funny, when we were planning for this episode, I asked my team, "What are the biggest issues people have with knowing what to post?"

Tanya, who I love dearly and who also has an online course and also has a side hustle because that's how I roll, I like employing women who are multi-passionate and who has lots of sticks in lots of fires, said she gets to a place where she wants the perfect strategy to batch content and then schedule it and look at her newsfeed and know that it looks beautifully branded and it all aligns and it looks like it's all part of the same brand. It's one of those stunning news feeds. But then when inspiration strikes, she wants to post something spontaneously and she worries that if she posts the spontaneous thing, it's going to mess with her scheduling and her system.

And so then, she doesn't post the spontaneous thing but she also doesn't really want to sit down and try and crank out things that aren't spontaneous.

She doesn't plan the posts because she doesn't want to mess up the newsfeed and it just gets all too overwhelming and confusing and then she doesn't post anything. Ah, hands up if you've been there. I can definitely raise my hand. I have been there. Now, that's the state of the social media and then you start ramping up for a launch. You wake up one morning and you go, "Hot damn! I should have been posting on social media all along." And now, you're ramping up for a launch and you're like, "Ah, what do I post now?" First, we have to talk about different types of content when we're going to talk about what to post on social media when you're ramping up for a launch, because it's all well and good for me to just refer to content and what to post. But if I say, "Make a post on day X, Y, Z," and that's not really helping you, you're not going to be doing it anyway.

In order to get our heads around the concept of what to post on social media when we're ramping up for a launch, it's important to understand that there are different types of content and they each serve their own purpose. So, here are the three types of content that I want you to know about. The first type of content is why content. Why content helps your audience believe they can do it and it helps them see that there really is an opportunity in what you sell. It's that little glimmer of hope or that boost of encouragement that uplifts your audience. Why content is made up of stories. It's made up of testimonials without calling them testimonials. It's made up of successful students. It's made up of all the things that give you social proof. It is aspirational. It is anything that helps her believe that she can do it.

It reminds them why they started their business or started on this journey that you teach in the first place and it reminds them that other people have successfully achieved what they're trying to achieve. It calms their fears. It shows them that other people have done what they want to do. And so, it takes away the reason for them to believe that they could fail or that they will lose faith. Why content speaks to their motivation. It picks them up when they're feeling down and it reminds them to do the work to get the results. All of you can create why content. When I'm creating why content, it might be something like why I loved the day I was able to tell my boss, "I quit." I might be able to tell that story about the day I handed in my resignation and I knew it was 30 days away from resigning.

I expected to feel tremendous excitement, but what I actually went into was sort of a depression and an anxiety because I knew 30 days from now, I'm on my own and it was very scary. But you know what? Today, seven years later... Five years since I quit my job, seven years since I started the business, I wouldn't have it any other way. So I mean, I can flesh out that story and there're many ways I can tell that story. But when I tell that story, someone hears that and they think, "Yes, I want to quit my job. I have this dream. It's normal for me to feel fear. It's normal for me to have anxiety. But if she can do it, I can do it. If there're other women quitting their jobs, then I can do it too." And so that's how me telling my story becomes why content, okay? That's why content. You can come up with so many different pieces of why content and it's usually the things that connect emotionally to us. It also makes for really good engagement ads by the way.

The next piece of content is what content. What content gives them a methodology that shares your specific strategy or your specific take on the solution to their problem. It can include your coaching pillars. For example, if you have a unique five-pillar system or a five-step process, your specific methods for them to follow to achieve their desired results is what this is. This type of content is based when shared as an example of how you applied it. Example, Brooke Castillo, The Life Coach School. One of my favorite people to follow. Check her out. She has The Model. She just calls it The Model. It's the model for self coaching. She posts videos of her actually coaching the student through the model. And so, she'll show how she's going from circumstance to thought, to feeling, to action, to result and she'll demonstrate it.

She won't come on social media and teach the model, because that's just content dumping, right? She would coach someone through a challenge they're having using the model. That's what content. So people start to put themselves in the shoes of people we're talking about, which is effective for launches as it helps them see that there's a solution to their problem. When Brooke is coaching someone through her model and they see it work for the other person, they cannot not think it works, right? If she just teaches the content, if she just teaches the model, they don't know it works. They haven't seen it work. But if she demonstrates how it works, people who watch that content see it and they buy into it.

To get in front of the right audience and convince them that your product, your course, your package is the exact solution to the problem they're currently facing, your what content cannot just be facts you throw at your audience. It has to be a demonstration of the facts. It's very similar to what I teach the students inside the launch lounge when they're launching webinars: to tell stories of their students in their webinars as their students applied the principles of what they teach in their courses. So instead of dumping a bunch of facts on people in a webinar, you demonstrate your system by showing how other people have applied it. That's how you sell on a webinar.

Okay, third type of content: how content. How content is your course. Be warned, this is where I see one of the biggest mistakes. Now, this next point is crucial. I want you to get a pen and write this down. Tattoo it on your arm or on your face. No, don't tattoo it on your face. Maybe, just on your thigh. How content is the application of your strategy and should never be in any of your promotional material. If you start teaching on social platforms, unless you're giving away the whole form, then you're not empowering people. When you teach a little bit, but not the whole story, it limits them. It does not inspire them. It just leaves them with even more questions. I made this mistake when I started teaching Facebook ads. I would come on social media and try to teach people how to place the pixel on social media.

And the thing is, when you teach someone on social media a how thing, how to place the pixel, you empower them for five seconds, but you open up so many other doors to so many more questions. But because there wasn't an emotional connection and because you didn't help them understand that this how-to thing that you're doing links back to a lot of other strategies, it links back to a what thing, you just leave them in the middle of a desert. They don't relate to you because you haven't given them why and they don't know that you have the bigger solutions because you haven't given them what. You've just given them how. And so while it's tempting to think, "Well, I'm going to let them have a small win," it's literally like giving someone a glass of water who's in a desert and leaving them in the desert. That's a great metaphor. I just came up with that. That's brilliant. It's a glass of water in the desert.

What you should do instead is teach them to get out of the desert. Teach them that there is a beautiful, fabulous tropical island that they already have access to if they just come with you. How content shouldn't be shared on social media and you definitely don't want to share how content when you're leading up to a launch. If you share this type of content on social media, you will end up with a whole heap of free loaders who still only have half the answers. So, they're not necessarily your biggest fans because even though they've devoured every single piece of free content you've shared, they still don't have the full story because hello, they need to buy your course to get that.

They feel like you haven't given them enough to succeed. So, what do people like that do? They then move on to the next person who teaches too much and gives too much away for free. They ingest all of their information too and then the same pattern continues. These people actually never end up being empowered to make decisions for themselves. You don't need those people on your list. If they're checking you out because they know you're an expert in your field and you can help them, that's great. That's why we give away free content and that's literally why you're here listening to my free podcast right now.

Okay. Now, you understand the three types of content. Why content, that's your inspirational, motivational story; connection; helps them see themselves empowered and ready to make change and see themselves in the end result that they want. When you're getting ready to launch, you want to post a lot of that and you want to make sure that it is perfectly aligned with the dream state they want at the end of your course. And once you've painted that picture for them say, "If you want more of this, if this is your desire, if this is what you want to learn, you want to make sure you get on the wait list." Have a call to action that puts them somewhere and primes them. You are literally priming them for showing them the desired outcome.

That's what you post on social media. You can post some what content, but post it as a demonstration. Post it as what content but shown from not you teaching the what, show it from people experiencing the what. Stories of your students, successes your students have celebrated, how they've used your system, how they've used your program, what they have uncovered about themselves, what they have achieved. That's the type of what content and zero how content. Zero, none of it. All right. Now, you know the types of content that you need to post before you go into a launch. Now, I want to also talk to you about three different content formats that you need to focus on before you go into a launch. Now, the name of this episode is What To Post On Social Media, but here comes the bonus piece.

This is your bonus piece. There are three formats that you need to think about. The first one is your long format content. For me, that's podcasting. For you, it might be blogging or it might be YouTube-ing or it might be vlogging or it might be just emailing. It might be just the email that you send to your list once a week. When you are planning the content in the lead up to your launch, you start with your long form content. You start by asking yourself, "What why content and what, what content does my audience need to hear?" Let's say, you're podcasting. What do they need to hear in order to believe in themselves to achieve the outcome that you're teaching them in your course, and in order for them to see how other people have done this? So, start with long form content.

The second form of content that is also secondary to your long form content is your emails. Once you've mapped out your communication strategy for your long form content, so let's say podcast, the thing that complements that and pushes it out to more people are emails to your email list. So, your email communication is dictated by what you've got in your long form content. Once you've written your emails and you've created them from your emails, pull out your social media content. So you don't start by asking yourself, "What am I going to post on social media leading up to my launch?" You start by asking yourself, "What is the journey I need to take my ideal customer on in the six weeks or four weeks or three weeks before I announce that they can register for my webinar or my video series?" Or whatever your launch content is.

So ask yourself, "What are the whys I need to answer? What's the picture I need to show them of the ideal outcome? How do I give them what content that helps them see other people have used my methodology with success?" And you start by asking, "How do I do that in my long form content? On my podcast? In my blog? On my YouTube videos?" And from there you say, "Right. Now, how do I communicate that in my emails?" And from there you say, "How do I pull this out and put it on social media?" I trust that looking at it from this different angle will help you ask a better question. A better question than, "What do I post on social media leading up to my launch?" Is, "How do I take my most valuable customers," which by the way is your podcast listeners and your email list, "on a journey and reflect that journey on social media?" That is a big one to wrap your head around, but you, my dear listener, can do this.

When we started this episode, I said, "Shock and awe, you don't need social media and you don't need ads." And I stand by that. What you do need is a relationship with your ideal customer and you need to understand how to take that person on a journey to show them that you understand the pain they're in right now and you know the desired end state that they want. You've created the desired end state they want in your life and you have a four, five, six, or seven-step method, roadmap, structure that has gotten other people to where they want to be and it can work for them too. It's literally building a little bridge for them or giving them a map. Picture a map. You've got to show them you know where they're at. You've got to show them you know where they want to go. And then you've got to draw that line, draw the map for them, and say, "Look, through this five steps, this is how I get you there. Here's how I've done it for other people." That's teaching by demonstrating.

I trust that this has been really valuable for you. I cannot wait to hear from you. Send me a DM on Instagram or if you're on my email list, hit reply to the email that came into your inbox with this podcast episode because I want to hear from you. If I just saved you all the pressure from thinking that you don't know what to post on social media, let me know. If this way of thinking about it is going to massively change the way you approach your content from now on, let me know. I want to know that. I want to tell my team because my team gets really excited when you guys give us feedback and say, "Yes, I love that," because it makes their work so rewarding.

All right, that's all I have for you today and I want to remind you that if you're eager to learn how to get your course created and into the hands of many of your best students faster, I am excited to tell you about my mentor and my friend, Amy Porterfield. Amy's been my mentor since 2015 and over the years, she's helped me quit my job, stop hustling for one-on-one clients, and scale my income, creating more freedom for me and allowing me to build wealth for me and my family my way. If you want to hear more about Amy and her program, Digital Course Academy, that'll be opening for enrollment soon and you want to know exactly how me and my team can help you accelerate your launch and make even more profits, then go to shineandsucceed.com/amy and get on the list to hear all about it. Have a fabulous, fantastic week. I'll see you next week. Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button, so you never miss a thing.

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

09 Aug 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

Are you handling money, or is money handling you?

If you're not paying yourself consistently…

Or you're scared of being taxed twice...

Or bouncing money from biz account to personal account…back to biz account every month…

It doesn't have to be this way!

I know how intimidating it can be even thinking about finances, especially when deep down you know things are a little out of hand.

But guess what? You are not a lost cause & it's not too late to get back on track.

Once you get past the discomfort, there is real joy found from diving deep into your money things.

No need to dive in alone because today I'm joined by one of my Launch Loungers, the brilliant Darcie Milfeld, who went from drowning in debt to financially independent before she reached 40!

After getting an MBA up her sleeve, working as a Senior Vice President at Bank of America, and doing a lot of groundwork, Darcie figured out a system to break free of the debt and build serious wealth.

She has now online-coursified her financial framework and helped over 400 women reach their financial goals while having fun along the way.

And today, she is sharing her magic with you!

She joins me on The Shine Show, sharing her wealth of knowledge, from the money mindset that'll change everything, the small steps you can take today to set yourself up for big financial goals, and the key to creating more wealth in your business.

If today's episode hits home, you can soak up even more of Darcie's wisdom at Green Bites Project. Get her life-changing course, 'Grow Financially Well' & jump on the waitlist for her highly sought after 'Business Finance' course.

XXX

Salome

P.P.S If you are new to Amy’s teachings and want to find out exactly how she helped me quit my job and create a successful online courses business click here to sign up for the Digital Course Academy waitlist.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Salome Schillack (00:00):
Hello, and welcome to episode number 168 of The Shine Show. Today's episode is called, managing your money as a small business owner. With the wonderful Launch Lounge member Darcie Milfeld. Darcie of Green Bites Project is a financial wellness coach, helping women hit their biggest financial goals, from small business finance to personal finances. She is a former SVP of Bank of America and holds an MBA from the University of Texas at Austin. She used her love of numbers to map out her family's own financial independence journey, which they hit in their late thirties. Darcie has worked with over 400 women on their finances and pinches herself nearly every day that she gets to cheer them on as they forever change their money story. And I am so happy to bring you Darcie Milfeld today, as she shares with you how you can transform your money story as a small business owner.

Salome Schillack (01:13):
Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host Salome Schillack and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you're ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster, then tune in because you are ready to shine and this is The Shine Show.

Salome Schillack (01:47):
Darcie, thank you so much for joining me today. I am very excited to talk to you.

Darcie Milfeld (01:52):
Oh my gosh. I'm so excited to be here. Longtime listener, longtime fan, so thank you so much for having me.

Salome Schillack (01:58):
Of course. And you have been inside The Launch Lounge for a while now. Well, actually, you started an A-Lister a few years ago-

Darcie Milfeld (02:06):
Yes I did.

Salome Schillack (02:07):
And then Launch Lounge, and then you're in one of my VIP Launch Loungers.

Darcie Milfeld (02:12):
Yes. And its been such a treat to be there.

Salome Schillack (02:15):
Oh, it's been such a treat to see your journey. I am so honored. I genuinely sometimes have to pinch myself that I get to hang out with smart women like you.

Darcie Milfeld (02:25):
Oh, stop.

Salome Schillack (02:27):
Oh, it's just delightful for me. You're so smart and so talented, I'm in awe of you. So I'm really, really, really happy that you're here to come and share your journey with my listeners today, but also to share with them a little bit about how they can get their finances in order. And I can already hear a lot of them going, oh, maybe I should turn it off. I don't want it. I'd rather just be like an ostrich and stick my head in the ground and not think about finances.

Darcie Milfeld (02:56):
Absolutely.

Salome Schillack (02:58):
Yeah. And I can can say I've been there and there's definitely joy at the other end of facing the pain of sorting out your finances, but you take the pain out of that.

Darcie Milfeld (03:11):
Yes, definitely. It's a tool. It's a tool.

Salome Schillack (03:13):
It's a tool. That's right. It's a tool, but it's a tool that we all get very emotional about, right?

Darcie Milfeld (03:18):
Oh yeah. Every single day there are so many women that I work with that the finances, there's so many emotions that come in with it, shame, guilt. I should be doing more with it and so on. And I think that what is so neat is to be able to see that switched around, like even the reframing around money. So that it's actually a part of your life design, the tools and it actually becomes something that you are in control of and that you get to decide what you do with it and even how you spend your time too, as funny as that sounds.

Salome Schillack (03:53):
I love that we've just dived right into this mindset thing about money. I kind of remember almost automatically allowing myself to become very disempowered around money when I got married. I don't for one second think it's the dude's fault. My husband is an amazing man, a wonderful man, but I think there's just something in the dynamic between men and women where we just take a backseat and the guys just run with it. And it took me a while to kind of realize, hang on, I can actually empower myself here. So how do you see women maybe without meaning to, without intending to, but maybe accidentally or maybe it's not entirely their fault, disempowering themselves around money, which then brings about later the shame and the guilt and all the other things?

Darcie Milfeld (04:57):
Oh, that's a really good question. I work with just all kinds of different people from those that are actually the ones that are in charge of their money in the relationship and then there are people in the relationship that maybe they're... Like I've had women say to me, my husband's a mess with money, I'm the one that's doing this. But as far as the disempowering, I think that sometimes we're waiting almost for someone to kind of like come rescue us or we assume that someone else knows more than we do and we're maybe worried about making a decision or some kind of wrong decision with the money. And so therefore we're like, you know what, it's better if I just don't do anything and someone else is much more equipped. But honestly, I think that we get those messages from society, right? I mean, even the way that at least here in the United States, I'm American-

Salome Schillack (05:51):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (05:51):
But the way that things are structured here in the United States, we can't have certain conversations, there's so much regulation on it. So therefore, it's almost like ingrained in us, like you have to be super smart, you have to be super sophisticated, really good with numbers, in order to be able to just kind of understand like what in the world you should invest in in the first place. And so I think it creates, maybe intentionally, more distance between what we believe we can do versus well, these other people are... There's a whole industry devoted to this, what do I know in the first place?

Salome Schillack (06:28):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (06:28):
As far as what I see every single day, I think that it's so interesting how just even technology has actually opened up more empowerment, if we allow it, more empowerment to knowledge or just even other things that you can invest in without even thinking about it. And obviously, this is not an investment show, but I do think that if you were to get into, what can I do that's actually within my control? I think it makes a big, big difference when it comes to money.

Salome Schillack (07:03):
Oh, I love that. What can I do that's actually in my control? Because we can all do something that's in our control today. To do better with our finances or to just lean in more, pay more attention, be more deliberate, be more like, just know what's going on. I think that's probably one place to start because that's something we can all do, is just look at our bank account, right?

Salome Schillack (07:31):
Tell me your story a little bit. I want to hear, how did you go... Because you had a very impressive career and then launched an online course. So tell me, how did you go? Why online course and why the one you did? Tell me that story.

Darcie Milfeld (07:50):
What in the world was I thinking? So I feel like, how did I get here? I don't know. So I was a former senior vice president at Bank of America. Got my MBA. And I was probably like a lot, maybe a lot of different people, where I was in credit card debt for years and years and years, then I went on to get an MBA, close to six figures, and student loan debt and then the new car too. So I did all of it. No, it's a true story. Honestly, a true story-

Salome Schillack (08:22):
A new car. Yeah, because an MBA comes with a new car.

Darcie Milfeld (08:25):
So I think what was really interesting and the reason why I bring up my own financial story and I'm very candid about it, is because, one, you have to know that this wasn't something that I was like, Hey, look at me, I'm so amazing with money. And back, at least here in the United States, like I would say that I grew up a little bit more on the poor side, with some of the government programs and things like that. And just even with my own family dynamics, the way that they are, it's so interesting to see like literally, call it the American dream I feel like I'm living, because of the fact that, what I've been able to do. But got into all the financial issues and tried so, so hard to work on my finances, but it just did not click at all for me.

Darcie Milfeld (09:09):
And it wasn't until many, many years later when I was in my thirties that I started to kind of figure out the budgeting, sitting down just like you just said, right? And like, okay, how does this actually work? What do I do? Do I make the phone calls? How do I get it together? And then once it clicked, it kind of took off from there for me in that I started to, thanks, with my husband, he agreed to get out of my debt, my student loan debt, my car loan debt that I brought into the marriage.

Darcie Milfeld (09:41):
And I think what was so great about that is that we went on to essentially just get into investing. I took a tax strategy class for here in the United States and I started to really like, kind of understand, how does this mutual thing work? And I kind of self-taught myself and used my husband's knowledge a lot too and my MBA, of how does this all piece together? And just did all the calculations and all of that. And I kind of went down the rabbit hole with that. But I think what I always think is so interesting about finances and what I tell the women that I work with is that, we don't really find it important to work on our finances until we almost find that thing that really, really drives us.

Salome Schillack (10:19):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (10:20):
And so I got out of debt and like, okay, that's nice. But what really, really put my finances into overdrive is that moment that I kind of discovered, wait a minute, you don't have to work until you're 70, hoping that you have a few good years left and your health declining and all of that. I didn't want to be in corporate for like 40 years of my life to only have a little bit of a retirement. It just felt like it was kind of a waste of a life in a way, right? Because I wasn't happy. Like there were many, many people that I work with that like love their corporate jobs, they're good to go.

Darcie Milfeld (10:51):
But when November 2013, I discovered this thing called financial independence, meaning you kind of build up your investments and you live off of a small portion of that and it pays your bills for the rest of your life, meaning retirement is a number not an age. And when that happened, it like freaking blew my mind because it was like, wait a minute, I can buy back decades of my own life and do whatever I want? That's when finances really became meaningful to me.

Darcie Milfeld (11:18):
And so I just got to work, I organized our finances. My husband let me just do whatever I wanted to do with it as long as he saw... Showed him the net worth statements and all that good stuff. So I'm really fortunate with that he was like, fine, fine, whatever makes you happy. And we ended up getting to a point where with the finances, we hit financial independence before we turned 40. My husband was able to leave his corporate job. I was able to be a stay-at-home mom for a couple of years when my kids were much, much younger upon like leaving the bank as a senior vice president. And I think that's what's so interesting, is we use money as a tool in order to kind of really do life design, right? He got to do something he loves, I was a stay-at-home mom so I was super happy about that. And it wasn't until I started helping friends of friends on their finances that I was like, oh, maybe this random stuff that I know is actually helpful to other people. I got hit with an ad.

Salome Schillack (12:15):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (12:17):
That's a true story. I got hit with an ad-

Salome Schillack (12:20):
Yeah. You should be. You should be hard with ads.

Darcie Milfeld (12:25):
Yes. Everybody loves ads. You never know, sometimes Mark Zuckerberg knows more than you do.

Salome Schillack (12:31):
Ads could change lives.

Darcie Milfeld (12:33):
They do change lives, for sure. And so I got hit with an ad in early February and I said, Hey, I think I'm going to try this thing out. And my husband's like, yeah, whatever you want to do. And I started working one-on-one with people and when I got into a course within my program, I started this company and all of that. And it was because I found myself saying the same thing over and over again, to virtually every single client. We're going to do this, we're going to do this. And so much of my own work was actually really framed by the default mortgage servicing work that I did over at Bank of America and seeing people in very interesting situations, also working with people that were like petty loans, which are extraordinarily high interest rate loans literally on your paycheck. It's a terrible, terrible cycle to be in. People that were really paycheck to paycheck.

Darcie Milfeld (13:17):
I mean, I saw a very, very different underside and it really started to bring about my own framework of like, we need to save, guys. We need to get going on savings. And that's what the program that I created as a part of the digital course academy in 2019 was grow financially well. And it was on personal finances and how do we kind of get you from paycheck to paycheck, to like loving your finances? Getting them into a boring state, thinking about what is that space for you? How do you build your own financial independence journey? And doing it in a way that's very loving, very much focused on that acceptance of money and all of the emotional stuff that comes along with it.

Salome Schillack (13:56):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (13:56):
And that's kind of what sort of kicked off how you and I met, I'm sure, with that. And that's been a few years now that I've been running that program with close to 450 people in it right now.

Salome Schillack (14:09):
450 students, that's fantastic. Well done-

Darcie Milfeld (14:13):
It's unbelievable, honestly. Unbelievable.

Salome Schillack (14:16):
And I love how despite, I want to say almost, despite your corporate career, you make it so easy to understand. You speak like us, you're a mom, you're a business owner, you just have this incredible knowledge that you just want to share. And I love that about how you're just one of us-

Darcie Milfeld (14:43):
I made a lot of mistakes and I did all the good things and I think that makes a big, big difference too because it doesn't... I think sometimes we can be really, really intimidated by finances, right? And I think while I do have an MBA and I know like classically, all of the financial things, but I think what's really important is that at the end of the day, we're still talking about cash-

Salome Schillack (15:06):
Yeah, that's true.

Darcie Milfeld (15:09):
And how do we manage cash? And I know for like a lot of case studies and people that I've worked with, sometimes my own process experience of working in corporate of like, how do we move around like a widget, right? If you think of money as a widget, you would be surprised at how much sometimes it's just, Hey, what if we just changed the timing of things? Or what if we change when you're actually getting paid? And just doing some of that stuff. And actually, it just makes a world of difference when it comes to how we approach it.

Salome Schillack (15:39):
That's an amazing reframe. It's a widget and you just get to move around the widget. Love that.

Darcie Milfeld (15:44):
And you can decide. You get to decide. Like I can't tell you and I would never ever tell any of my clients like, oh, you should save more, you should pay off debt or whatever. It's like, what feels good to you? Because I wouldn't want anyone coming at me and saying, you should do this. And I'm like that's nice, but this is what feels good to me, right?

Salome Schillack (16:00):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (16:01):
And I think that's another thing too about money, is that we're all like bombarded with like debt is shameful, you shouldn't be in debt, what's wrong with you? And then that leads into, I'm bad with numbers, I'm behind, I'm never going to get this. And you can kind of see that it just puts that distance between us and our money and it's like, guys, the money is the tool that gets you the life that you want. You want to work less? It's through money. You want to be able to leave your corporate job? It's through money. Vacation, travel, all the things that you want to do. This is the thing that if you can embrace it and work through it, it's going to make such a difference for your entire life. And I think what's so funny about money is like, it can be life changing but not in like a greedy way or something like that. It's like, no, what if we did this for good? And it just changes everything.

Salome Schillack (16:50):
I love that. I love it. That's beautiful. And you have gone on from the, grow financially well, the program that you created for... It's for any woman who wants to take charge of her finance, right? And now you have niched down and created a second program, grow financially well, the small business edition, right?

Darcie Milfeld (17:14):
Mm-hmm. Right.

Salome Schillack (17:15):
Tell us about how... So you've worked with 400 and what women. And then you identified a need for small business owners, so tell me how that came about and what are the things that small business owners, women with small business owners specifically struggle with around finances?

Darcie Milfeld (17:35):
All right. So that came about because a lot of the different either clients that I had or women that came through grow financially well, had a business, inevitably. And what I think was so fun about that is that... And again, sometimes it's just process things, sometimes we are just trying to figure out timing of like when you get paid and when other bills have to be paid. And other times it was like a revenue thing that like, Hey, we've got to work on this other thing and then you'll be able to make more money. And anytime that I was working with anybody that had a business, we always started with their business finances, always, always, always. And so I would really recommend that to anybody who is like, oh, my personal finances are a mess. We've got to back up a few steps and take a look at the business finances first then-

Salome Schillack (18:21):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (18:22):
And so it kind of came about from that. Like, Hey, there's so much more I want to say about small business finances because when you think about that timing, when you think about how do I allocate money back into my ad spend or for marketing or just being able to feel like I can use my money in order to pay off debt, save and hit some of my other personal financial goals, it just became really obvious to create something else where I could use, again, the same framework but using it in a way where like, let's use your business to really grow wealth for you on your personal finance side. And I think as terms of the different mistakes that tend to come up, I would say that one, we're focused on maybe a number that's not quite high enough in order to accommodate for taxes. At least here in the States, there are a lot of entrepreneurs. I know we're not setting aside money for taxes, right? We're like, oh, cool, I've made $5,000, but that actually should be a little bit of a smaller pool-

Salome Schillack (19:27):
Yeah, I made that mistake once.

Darcie Milfeld (19:28):
That's good. That's good.

Salome Schillack (19:28):
Once.

Darcie Milfeld (19:34):
That's not bad at all, right? Yeah, I think sometimes it's like, okay, I just needed one time to learn that, but I think what I see a lot is like, we're almost underfunded when it comes to that revenue. And we're focused on like, oh, I forget about the fact that I want to invest in things or I want to hire out or I want to feel like I can pay myself-

Salome Schillack (19:58):
You see the money coming in but you never know why there isn't any money.

Darcie Milfeld (20:04):
I know. I know. And I think when we kind of look at it a little bit differently and say, okay, what would it look like if... I've had clients that are like, I want to pay myself weekly. And it's like, great. What are the sales that you're bringing in? Let's look ahead at your personal finances and make sure that they're communicating really well. So that would be like another mistake is that a lot of times we're like, oh, I don't want to pay attention to either one of them. And then we end up moving money back and forth between the accounts.

Salome Schillack (20:29):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (20:29):
And we're not actually taking an advantage of the fact of like, no, I want you to have like a true payday in your business. And I think every business owner should have that payday where you're like, oh my gosh, this is the money that I brought in. I've accounted for the upcoming bills that are coming up in my business, paid for those, cash is set aside for that, paying my taxes, paying myself the amount that I want to but also, I still feel like I can reinvest in my business, that is going to continue to grow it. So that's definitely a big one.

Darcie Milfeld (21:02):
Like I said, the personal finance and just kind of keeping them as separate until you start like moving money all around and it's more like really, really reactive because what happens too, is that we're not being proactive enough with the leads too, right? And so when we're not as proactive, like what are the sales coming up and thinking about the cash that's coming in, then that's when it creates like, I just have to move money around because I've got some bills due over here. And like, I need the money out of my business. And I'm like constantly playing Whac-A-Mole between those two different accounts, which is a freaking nightmare. So that's why I always say like any time that I'm working with somebody, we work on the business finances first. So there's just a couple of things.

Salome Schillack (21:47):
Yeah, I love that. And also because the business is where you make money, like that's the fun bit. That's where you get to use your creativity to go, yeah, hang on, if I sell a little bit more of this, I'll bring in a bit more. And I feel like almost every money problem is solved, at least short term with more cash-

Darcie Milfeld (22:08):
More money. And I think that is what's so neat, is like on the personal finance side, and I'm always telling people, like there's three main ways to grow your money, through the stock market, through real estate and through business. And honestly, and I know I've been in your group but I have to tell you, I think that growing it through your business, if you're doing the right things, is one of the smartest ways and fastest ways that you can honestly grow your wealth.

Darcie Milfeld (22:35):
So I've had clients where they had a launch and had a credit card debt, because we had a good system going for them, right? So we had things kind of stable over on the personal finance side. And so when they did get this big bit of cash, they knew, I've got my taxes taken care of on the business side. Expenses, right? I know what I can invest in. If there's this program that I want to invest in or something like that, but then they were able to just pay off debt and in like one month they're like I'm debt free.

Darcie Milfeld (23:03):
And do you know how neat that is, just to be able to literally use the money that you've made in your business to just say debt gone? And I think a lot of times too when we're thinking like, oh, I've got to get rid of debt, I've got to do this. I'm like, no, no, no, you've got to pay yourselves first. We've got to take care of that stuff first, right?

Salome Schillack (23:20):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (23:21):
But it is such a really important way to be able to really build wealth through your business. If you use it right, you create a really great engine for yourself.

Salome Schillack (23:30):
Yeah. I love that. I love everything you're saying about this. Tell me, what are some of the first quick and easy things that people can do if they want to get a better grip on their business finances? What's like the first three things that you go, okay, do this, do this, do this and then it'll automatically be cleaner, better, you'll feel better? Give me the magic wand for making more money.

Darcie Milfeld (23:55):
Give you the magic wand for making more money. Number one would be to put yourself on some kind of paycheck cycle. Where you are like, every dollar that I bring in between now and the 15th, between now and the end of the month, whatever that happens look like for you. Ideally, syncing it up with maybe like, if you have a partner or spouse, whatever their pay cycle might happen to be, because it'll make your personal finances so much easier, because then you have this chunk of money that you're able to kind of disperse out on the personal finance side. And I promise you, it's a process and it makes it so much easier. So the first thing would be, get yourself on a paycheck cycle.

Darcie Milfeld (24:32):
The second thing would be really focus ahead on what do I need on the personal finance side and how do I make sure that I'm bringing in the sales upcoming? And that involves things like, obviously conversions if you're running... Just having the conversations, really working on the marketing or whatever it is that you're doing in order to bring in those sales. And I know you're a really big advocate for that profitable customer journey.

Salome Schillack (24:58):
Yes.

Darcie Milfeld (24:58):
Something like that is exactly what you need. To say, what is the quickest path for me to bring in cash?

Salome Schillack (25:04):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (25:05):
Because I think like when we think of a business, it needs to be very cash focused, right? We need to have cash coming in. So I know when I'm working with my clients and we're like, we need money right away because we've got something else happening on the personal finance side, that is the number one thing of what do we do to make money? What do we do to bring in cash? And I think a lot of times we tend to procrastinate a lot on, well, I'm going to go tweak the website or I'm going to go do this. I've never been guilty ever. Never were guilty.

Salome Schillack (25:35):
No, neither have I.

Darcie Milfeld (25:37):
Like a hypothetical, right?

Salome Schillack (25:39):
True.

Darcie Milfeld (25:40):
Totally hypothetical. But when we get into, oh my gosh, I just need like market, people need to know about what I do or just even how I like offer my services up, then it makes it so much easier for one people to... What do they say? The quickest path to cash is through conversation, prioritizing that. And I think that's where that connection of like, what's happening in personal finances and how that relates to business finances.

Darcie Milfeld (26:04):
And then another thing that I think would be really, really helpful is probably just on the... I mean, I'm going to kind of go with like that lead generation and that top of the funnel stuff, because like creating something that is a much longer lasting thing that allows your business to continue to grow, that takes some of the pressure off of you, on I've got to be... Just like we were talking about, right? I need the cash, like what can I do to get some quick cash? We want to build something that's much more long term and that does have maybe even like some recurring revenue thrown in there too.

Salome Schillack (26:43):
Yeah, I have questions about all three of these things. So number one, you said the first thing we need to do... Oh gosh, now it's out of my head. What was the first thing?

Darcie Milfeld (26:55):
The paycheck. That we need to-

Salome Schillack (26:56):
The paycheck. That's right-

Darcie Milfeld (26:59):
So important.

Salome Schillack (26:59):
Yeah. In Australia, so I have my business is a Pty limited, which I think you guys call it an L-

Darcie Milfeld (27:11):
LLC.

Salome Schillack (27:12):
LLC. Yes, LLC. It's a business. It's a freestanding legal entity that is not me. I am a-

Darcie Milfeld (27:19):
Exactly.

Salome Schillack (27:20):
I am a director in that business. Yes. I pay myself a salary as an employee of the business. Shine and Succeed employs me as the CEO so I pay myself a salary the same way I pay my team members' salaries.

Darcie Milfeld (27:39):
Love that.

Salome Schillack (27:40):
And I am taxed on my salary as an employee. And then I take profit from the business and put that in a profit account and then I pay tax from the profits, right? So is it the same in the US? Because I know I've spoken to some of my friends over there and do you guys have a different way that you're taxed if you pay yourself and you're the owner of the business?

Darcie Milfeld (28:09):
There's a few different ways that you can be structured as a business. You can be structured as a sole proprietor, which means that you're essentially one and the same, you share the same social security number-

Salome Schillack (28:22):
Which is what I suggest everyone starts as. I started as a sole trader as well.

Darcie Milfeld (28:27):
Interesting. Oh interesting-

Salome Schillack (28:27):
I don't know what's better or worse in the US.

Darcie Milfeld (28:30):
It kind of goes with liability, right? Like that would probably be more of a lawyer question in terms of like, what's your liability? However you want to be structured. But if you're an LLC, generally, then it's like you are different but you don't have to be... You're not really like an employee of your business at all, you're considered a member. But you still kind of operate that way but then you can also be like a true corporation, which would be no different from say I don't know, like Microsoft or something like that, right? Like a corporation and then you become an employee. But you can also do other categorizations like taxes and [inaudible 00:29:03] where you are an employee. So it does get complicated from there. So your taxes will be sort of based off of however you are structured, but you want to be mindful of like the business taxes, but then also in that sometimes it can be one and the same depending on-

Salome Schillack (29:20):
Yeah, because I've heard some friends in the US talk about how they don't want to pay themselves because then they pay tax twice. And maybe I'm opening a can of worms here that we shouldn't be opening. But I was confused by that because I go, well, I don't pay tax twice, I pay tax as an employee, so my employee tax and I pay business tax on profit, but I don't view that as paying twice, but I've heard some friends in the US say they're hesitant to pay themselves because they don't want to pay tax twice. So I just wanted to like, is that a thing or am I misunderstanding?

Darcie Milfeld (30:00):
Oh, it's totally a thing. I think that it's always a good idea to bring in a tax strategist, at least here in the US, because then you can kind of figure out how you should even be structured altogether. And I think my general view on it is that like if you're paying taxes, that means that you're making money.

Salome Schillack (30:18):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (30:20):
And I don't know, I feel like you could just make more money and then pay the taxes and have a tax strategist to help you get that bill down. Don't get me wrong, you don't want to pay more. But it would be something that I personally don't really shy away from. And I think like if you read, I'm sure you have, like the book, Profit First by Mike Michalowicz-

Salome Schillack (30:39):
I love it. I run my business profit first.

Darcie Milfeld (30:41):
Yeah. Like it's just the percentages, right? And I think if you're just like, okay, I'm going to set aside that money and just don't even act like it's yours and get rid of it. Like I feel like when I pay myself, I'm already getting rid of it every single month. So that way it's not in my accounts, it's just getting paid, it's like very, very no minimal profits with it and just a way of life, right? And I just kind of see what's going on, but I'm thrilled because when I see the profit and like good problem to have, that's my take on it because otherwise it's probably like scarcity, right?

Salome Schillack (31:14):
Well, I love that you've said that because the number of times I've heard people say, I'm hesitant to pay myself because I'm going to pay tax twice. Now I can say that's bullshit. Just get a tax... Go to a tax lawyer, get your tax figured out and pay yourself.

Darcie Milfeld (31:29):
Yes. And there are so many things you can do to even structure, where you could do like a solo 401k, you could do a SEP IRA, just to literally make those decisions of how do I get that done, but a tax strategist knows all of that so you don't even need to worry. That's not your job to keep up with the IRS.

Salome Schillack (31:47):
I'm so glad I asked you that because I've always like exited the conversation when I hear people say that because in Australia it's structured different and I've never had that issue but now I know. So now I'm going to like, just talk to tax people. Okay, so number one-

Darcie Milfeld (32:02):
It's called tax sheltering.

Salome Schillack (32:06):
Number one, pay yourself. What was number two again?

Darcie Milfeld (32:10):
Oh my gosh.

Salome Schillack (32:13):
Number two was-

Darcie Milfeld (32:13):
We're going to have to come up with this.

Salome Schillack (32:17):
What was it? Are we both having short memory loss? Number two was-

Darcie Milfeld (32:22):
It is on making sure that you're paying yourself enough and that maybe we're focusing on the right number. I don't know. I'm thinking of like the sales, right?

Salome Schillack (32:32):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (32:32):
Because we would like to be really mindful of the fact of the amount that we need, especially on the personal finance side, right? Like I was working with someone and we would work on her finances and she paid herself weekly and we could see that there were certain weeks where she just had like every single bill possibly due during that one week but because she was paying herself weekly and everything we were doing, we needed to really look ahead and see what is happening? What do you need coming up? And how do we actually bring that money in through your marketing, through her sales? And we would make sure that she had enough for her appointments to be able to meet what she needed a week later on the personal finance side.

Salome Schillack (33:15):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (33:15):
And I think that's so, so important, that communication between the business and personal finances and not operating like they're just two things out in La La Land.

Salome Schillack (33:24):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (33:24):
Separate because it-

Salome Schillack (33:25):
I remember what it is that I wanted to ask you about that because there's a phase in everyone's business and I almost see this in my business, I have A-Lister and I have The Launch Lounge, right? And I feel like the students we have in A-Lister is when you're in A-Lister, you're in that newbie phase, you're in that kind of throwing spaghetti on the wall to see if it sticks phase, right? And I remember when I was in that phase, it frustrated me when I heard people say, know what's working and do more. Know what's working and just if you know how much money you need, then just sell more of the thing. And I go, I don't even know what sells yet, how am I supposed to do more of what's working?

Salome Schillack (34:12):
And what I do want to say is, I think that's why it's important, that's why I encourage the A-Listers over and over and over to just take action, take action. Make offers, make offers, make offers, make offers, do not rebrand, do not have more photos taken, do not do your website over, don't do any of that, don't invest in Kajabi or other expensive, fancy platforms that you do not need until you are rolling in dough. Like get by on what's scrappy and just make offers. And that is a space where hustle is totally okay. And you need to hustle your little heart out. And you need to like stick to the same thing and do it a few times until you can find that thing that works and until you can refine the thing that works and then when the students move to The Launch Lounge, I always say to them, now we're at the adults' table, right? Because now we have something that's working.

Salome Schillack (35:17):
Now we just have to collect data on that thing and then be able to see, okay, if I run it this way, this is what happens. So let me run it this way with a small tweak and see if I can change it a little bit and make more money and track the data and get it done. And then you do it again, and you do it again. And I feel like that's how you get to a place where you go, okay, I have this offer and this offer is working. I need money coming up in my personal finances because my kids are starting private school next year. What can I sell more of today in order to release cash to pay a whole year of private school upfront?

Darcie Milfeld (36:00):
Right. It really is that easy though. It really is in my opinion.

Salome Schillack (36:05):
It's simple. It's that simple.

Darcie Milfeld (36:08):
Yeah, maybe it's not easy, but it's simple.

Salome Schillack (36:10):
It's not easy, it's simple. It's very simple but we tend to overcomplicate it, right?

Darcie Milfeld (36:15):
Oh, a hundred percent.

Salome Schillack (36:15):
We tend to get sidetracked with the squirrel, the shiny object. It's like, oh yeah, let me have some new website design and let me rebrand and all these things, right?

Darcie Milfeld (36:26):
Right. I do think that it is scary putting yourself out there and-

Salome Schillack (36:29):
Yeah, what is that called? It's like a form of procrastination where you're still working but you're procrastinating on other things. You're like, let me watch this YouTube video or something on like, how do I code something that I don't need right now? I think that's what is the hardest thing when it comes to even the finances in general on the business side, is that we have to take it almost at a very, very different level of let's pretend that you are the breadwinner and you're the person that's in charge of this, you are the person that's in charge of lead generation, you're literally the CMO, the CFO, the... You've seen those reels before where they're like, I'm the coder, I'm the website designer, I'm everything. But I think when you think about it as like your job, like it or not, is the CFO, what would you do every single day if you only had a finite amount of hours in order to extract the most amount of money from your business?

Salome Schillack (37:29):
And when you go off with that question, and I know I asked that a lot of people that are in smallest edition, what would go? What would stay? And I can tell you from even like my own personal experience because what I'm always thinking of when it comes to business finances, we're worried about burnout, which is a huge, huge problem for finances, personal and business, obviously. So burnout, we're worried about lead generation because if we're always trying to target the same warm audience that we've been targeting or the same thing-

Darcie Milfeld (38:05):
It doesn't work.

Salome Schillack (38:06):
Right, it doesn't work. It gets old, it's harder and harder to get the conversions that you're looking for. And then we're also just really focused on, what do we need to do in order just to make sure that the money is still coming in? How are you spending your time? Are you working on the things that actually allow you to shine in your business, which brings in the money? And I can tell you, like I said, from my personal experience, when I'm into content creation and I'm like working on a program or whatever, do you know what always takes the back seat, like a hundred percent of the time from a risk perspective? It's my marketing.

Darcie Milfeld (38:42):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (38:42):
And one of the things that I've identified as a risk factor is that I know I'm going to get busy. I know that there's going to be days where things are going on in my personal life or I'm just like really involved with a project, whether for a corporate client or for one of my businesses, if I let the marketing go then I can guarantee you that it's going to impact my finances in the future. I don't even have to guess. Like I could plot it out.

Darcie Milfeld (39:08):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (39:08):
That's what I think has been so amazing about Facebook ads too. And from like that risk mitigation perspective, is that it's working 24/7 for me when I'm doing something else, right? I'm not even there and I'm like, wow, this is amazing. My list is still growing, my Instagram's growing and the business is so much healthier, there're sales coming in from something that I'm not even a part of. And whenever I can remove myself financially from something, it's better. Sounds so funny, right?

Darcie Milfeld (39:38):
Yeah. No, I think-

Salome Schillack (39:39):
From a risk-

Darcie Milfeld (39:40):
It is. And you have done a great job with your ads and with your offers and with your webinars and everything, you've just done such a-

Salome Schillack (39:48):
I don't think so. No, I always say this and I'm a hundred percent true. Like I am a one trick pony when it comes to my Facebook ads-

Darcie Milfeld (39:56):
Oh, you have a great trick.

Salome Schillack (39:56):
I know how to have like one ad. I only need to know one ad and that's what I would say, just like nail that one ad and you can roll that for days and days at a time.

Darcie Milfeld (40:04):
Especially you learnt that trick from the show ponies, that's right.

Salome Schillack (40:09):
So there's hope for everybody.

Darcie Milfeld (40:12):
There's hope for everybody, yeah. I want to kind of wrap this up on something that you just said. Gosh, my short term memory really is going, I think I'm starting early menopause. You said something a while ago about, if your sole job in your business every day was to show up and extract as much money as you can from your business, what would you be doing? By that-

Salome Schillack (40:44):
Me personally?

Darcie Milfeld (40:48):
No, I want... Well, maybe. Yes, start by answering. Like I want to sit in that question. I want to go and like percolate in that question because I feel I need to... That's like, oh snap.

Darcie Milfeld (41:04):
Yeah. Well, so this came about, for me personally, when I realized that... And I think it's the life as an entrepreneur, right? You're like I could do this. Oh my God, I have a similar idea, let me go and work on this, right? And next thing you know, you've added hours and hours to your week. And then you turn around, look at it, and you're like, I've been doing this for months, for years and honestly, no let up. And I heard it from... I forget. I wish I knew who it was, but I heard it from someone that said, what if you only had like six hours a day and six hours a day to really work on your business? I can tell you, first of all, that brings on a lot of like, oh my gosh, six hours a day, right?

Darcie Milfeld (41:41):
But immediately you could start rattling off if you knew you only had six hours, like there are a lot of things that would go for sure or I'd hire it out or I'd delegate it or I'd just not do it anymore, right? I would just be like we're done with that.

Salome Schillack (41:53):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (41:54):
But the things that I would do if I needed to be in the position of like, we've got to extract as much money as possible from the business, I would be a hundred percent in, I'd be online, I'd be doing my marketing, I'd be in Facebook ads manager. I would be much more on those things, working on my conversions and really trying to make sure that really gets the bulk of my time. And I'll tell you from a finance perspective, I actually put that on myself because when I get so busy with my own, like creating a course, and that stuff takes so much time to do-

Salome Schillack (42:29):
Yeah, it does.

Darcie Milfeld (42:31):
I've actually put it... Like I've got to spend a certain amount of hours per week working on marketing in some way, shape or form to ensure the longevity of the business and all the things that I want to do with it. And when I think of it that way, that means that a lot of other things have to go. And I would really encourage anybody to think about that. If you only had a couple of hours a day to work your business, truly, I'm talking like hardcore, like thinking work, what would you do? Where would be the best use of your time?

Darcie Milfeld (43:01):
So when I worked with other people, they're like I should be out buying fabric. That's their thing that they really, really shine at for their particular business. It would be getting out and doing the podcast for their business. For others, it might be social media. For me as the introvert, I'm like a hundred percent, I'm an ad manager like I said. And trying to tweak that stuff. But I just think that it's so, so important to kind of know that.

Darcie Milfeld (43:29):
I think that fits in really well with what you're talking about with like the customer profitable journey. For me, I know what my customer profitable... I'm mixing that up. My profitable customer journey is. And so for that, that kind of dictates a lot of my own marketing activities, right? For those just few hours that I have per week to work on that. And going with that question really makes me also say no to a lot more things and put that pressure on myself of like, no, we need to end this and how do we get there? And I think hiring a VA that's like, this is your schedule now, it's been amazing for the boundaries.

Salome Schillack (44:04):
Yeah. Oh, I love that. You talk about working six hours a week. I work six hours-

Darcie Milfeld (44:18):
A day.

Salome Schillack (44:18):
A day. Yes-

Darcie Milfeld (44:18):
It's progress, right? It's progress, it's a step to reach-

Salome Schillack (44:19):
If I had to work six hours a week, I would blow my brain.

Darcie Milfeld (44:22):
What would you do?

Salome Schillack (44:23):
So bored. I would be so bored. I'm not capable of boredom, see-

Darcie Milfeld (44:29):
But go with what would you do... Like what would you do in your business?

Salome Schillack (44:31):
Oh, okay. If I-

Darcie Milfeld (44:31):
You'd find something fun to do, you're so creative.

Salome Schillack (44:35):
If I only worked six hours a week, I would spend... Ah, that's a good question. The two things that light me up is coaching people, answering questions for my students and creating content for my students. Not for-

Darcie Milfeld (44:59):
None of those make money. They do, but they don't. Do you see what I'm saying, from like a long term financial plan? I know that's what gets hard, right?

Salome Schillack (45:10):
But you know what, I look at someone like Brooke Castillo, right? And Brooke is incredibly talented at making money, but she doesn't run her business. She's not the CEO of her business. And I aspire to getting to a place where I have built the business well enough, I have the knowledge to build and grow the business well enough, but I don't have to be the CEO. I can be the person doing... Genuinely, I actually have this sort of, I'm going... Well, if the things that light me up the most is coaching students and creating content, like you're saying, neither of those two things are marketing and sales-

Darcie Milfeld (45:54):
Right.

Salome Schillack (45:56):
I have a problem.

Darcie Milfeld (45:58):
But you know what's so great about that is you might not have to be that person. And I would encourage everybody to think about that because I know I've thought about that too. Like, okay, well, if I'm not doing marketing or sales because it's not my most favorite thing to do, who else could do it for me? And I love where you're going with that.

Salome Schillack (46:14):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (46:15):
Like maybe, you don't want to be the CEO. Maybe you're just like, I want to be the chief creative officer of this thing and that's where I really bring in like customers and like they kind of ignore all of that and like leave all the other CEO type stuff, CFO stuff to somebody else altogether.

Salome Schillack (46:33):
You still need to be the keeper of the big picture. The other people... You can have a CFO and a COO and a CEO and all those, you still have to be the key visionary and the person who understands, which are the important levers that needs pulling in order to reach more of your ideal customers and convert more of your ideal customers and serve more of your ideal... Those are the three... I feel like we need to... So let's go back. If I had to work six hours a week, this is the three things that I need to do. I need to, in that six hours, to reach more of my ideal customers, I'd probably use ads and pay my team to do that, I already do. Checked that box-

Darcie Milfeld (47:21):
And it's automated.

Salome Schillack (47:22):
It's automated. Yeah, and I have the best ads team in the world.

Darcie Milfeld (47:26):
Exactly.

Salome Schillack (47:28):
So I can check that off of my box, so that wouldn't have to go into my six hours. Convert more is my job. Conversion in my business is my job solely at this stage because I do it really well and because I love doing it. I actually do love, like the A-Lister webinar. I mean, I get to put feathers on and entertain people in my-

Darcie Milfeld (47:50):
I love that you're in your element.

Salome Schillack (47:51):
Yeah, and serve more people. That's my jam. That's what I love. You know how I love... I'm an introvert so don't give me social media, give me a Zoom call with a student, any day.

Darcie Milfeld (48:01):
Great. So, that sounds like you've got a perfect week then lined up.

Salome Schillack (48:05):
Maybe I've already created it. But I do want to say, like last year before I had my little breakthrough, breakdown-breakthrough, I was working. I had team issues that I had to fix. Hiring people, hiring the wrong people, hiring people in the wrong positions, I was working 12 hours a day. And what I can say in hindsight is what I didn't know then is it's not as simple as just cutting back your hours if you have a systemic problem. I had a systemic problem then. I have fixed the systemic problem to a large degree, I fixed the systemic problem. It meant I had to say no to new clients in the Ad Agency. It meant that I had to reshuffle everything, all my priorities. But now I genuinely work six hours a day but I have nine people on my team. And so I have replaced those hours with other people, which brings about a new responsibility because now I'm responsible for nine other people's mortgages, which means now I take sales very seriously.

Darcie Milfeld (49:13):
Right. No, a hundred percent. I think that really does shift the responsibility. Like it frees up other things, but it also creates that something else that you have to really be focused on. And I think some people really love it and some people are like, ah, I think it's-

Salome Schillack (49:31):
But it's a better quality problem, right?

Darcie Milfeld (49:32):
It is. But it's really important to know yourself and like, what are those risks that could potentially come up if I'm not that person or I'm not wearing that hat enough? And how does that impact other people within that and like where I spend my time and whatnot? Because especially, I'm pretty much like a solopreneur right now. I have a VA, but I think it's just really, really obvious for me, for other solopreneurs that I work with, that when we take our eye, we get too much into our work and we take our eye off of lead generation or we take our eye off of the social media, beginning to burnout or other things, it can really, really impact the finances.

Darcie Milfeld (50:16):
And I think if I could say anything, it would be really be mindful of knowing yourself and where those potential risks might be or challenges that you could foresee, because this is so important, like this is your personal finances and when you don't feel good about those, it really impacts the energy of your entire business. Your creative, all of the really fun things that make you you, and that special sauce that you bring to your business, it weighs it all down, which hurts your finances, right? And so I think that's why I'm like so protective of that with my clients. Okay, well, like we can't work that much or we need to be charging a right amount for what you're doing because you can't literally take on more creative work right now. This is your cap and I can't get you into burnout because then you're not going to go on to work and our sales plummet and it just kind of goes on and on and on.

Salome Schillack (51:07):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (51:08):
So I think it's so, so important to know yourself and what you're willing to do or not do and set in those protocols so that way you're protected either way.

Salome Schillack (51:16):
Yeah.

Darcie Milfeld (51:16):
Keep the revenue going.

Salome Schillack (51:18):
What lights you up and what drains you.

Darcie Milfeld (51:23):
Yeah.

Salome Schillack (51:23):
I love that. I love that you are a finances person and you get that because that's what it's about. That's the heart of it, right?

Darcie Milfeld (51:31):
Yeah. It is. And it can be so fun. It really can.

Salome Schillack (51:34):
It is. I could talk to you for days and days. Thank you so much. Thank you so much for sharing your Darcie magic with us.

Darcie Milfeld (51:43):
I'm so happy to be here. Thank you so much for having me. And like I said, I think that it's been just so, so amazing to learn from you and for the others that don't know Salome in the same way that I've had the opportunity to learn from her and The Launch Lounge, she is so freaking brilliant with the strategy and I know she's personally pushed me when it comes to what I've done within my business. And sometimes uncomfortably, but it's been the most rewarding thing for me personally, professionally, financially and I'm just so, so indebted to all of the amazing mentorship that you brought in, and I know you've also helped other people within The Launch Lounge too, and certainly A-Listers as well.

Salome Schillack (52:35):
Aw, thank you so much. I'm honored to be part of your journey. Where can people learn more about you and about both of your courses?

Darcie Milfeld (52:46):
Yeah. So you can visit my website at greenbitesproject.com, all one word. And then I'm also on Instagram, most days, I try to be there. I'm at greenbitesproject over there.

Salome Schillack (52:59):
That's fantastic. I would encourage anyone to go and hang out with Darcie on Instagram and check out her website. Her course for personal finances is on evergreen, so you can get it today. Get started today. And then her business course, we will let you know when that opens up again. Go check out Darcie. Thank you so much Darcie.

Darcie Milfeld (53:24):
Thank you. Have a good day.

Salome Schillack (53:26):
If you love this episode and you are a committed online course launcher who wants to learn how to grow your profits in your next course launch and you want to know how to successfully scale your online courses business to seven figures and beyond, then I'd love to see you inside The Launch Lounge. The Launch Lounge is the only community online that is dedicated solely to helping you develop every aspect of your online courses business so that you can build your business to scale. With no one size fits all solutions, just the right education you need when you need it, coaching from our team of experts in different areas of launching and scaling and the best community on the internet, the Launch Lounge is your online course building home, if you want profitable launches that scale your business to seven figures and beyond. To get on the wait list for our next enrollment season, go to shineandsucceed.com/launch.

Salome Schillack (54:38):
Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you'll never miss a thing.

167. 3 Lies You Were Told About Hiring An Ads Manager

02 Aug 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

I've seen Ads Manager hires turn out worse than Kim & Kanye. It's a story I hear far too often….

Ever thought…

"I’m done with this slow poke organic social media growth stuff; I'll get an Ads Manager to put my course in front of millions of people. Surely at least half of them will love what they see, press 'Buy Now' and boom, instant millionaire."

Easy peasy.

Narrator: *it was not easy peasy*

Well, it’s an easy peasy way to throw a whole lot of money into cyberspace. And chances are if you’ve been in this sinking cyber boat before, you’re still pretty salty with that mean Ads Manager who promised the world, but delivered peanuts!

Well…I've got some news for you….

(And heads up, it might infuriate you a little)

It’s not the Ads Manager’s fault.

But it is a sign that you need to take a deep dive into your biz because there's a problem that needs fixing stat!

So when are you ready for an Ads Manager? What should you look for when hiring an Ads Manager? What can cause it to go so terribly wrong?

This week on The Shine Show we’re talking all things Ads Managers!

I’m exposing the lies you've probably been told, the reason it ends badly for so many course creators and what to do next if you've been the victim of a flopped campaign!

XXX

Salome

P.S Want profitable launch results THIS year? Yes, like before Christmas? We got chuuu, boo! If you are thinking about launching in September, October or November now is the time to get your launch ducks in a row. The fastest way to do that is by joining The Launch Lounge. You'll get the education, the coaching & the support you need to hit 6 and even 7-figure launches! It's like giving your launch a serious glow-up. Doors will be opening very soon with limited places to snap up. Be first in line by joining the waitlist here.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Scroll down for a full transcript of this episode

more episodes

175. We’re Taking A Break. Here’s Why And How You Can Do It Too

174. Some Thoughts On Making Lots Of Money

173. 3 Reasons NOW Is The Best Time To Start A Digital Courses Business with Amy Porterfield

172. 25 Biggest Lessons In Online Marketing I Learned From Amy Porterfield

171. Social Media: One Thing That Makes All The Effort Worthwhile

170. How to Choose the Right Name for Your Online Course

169. Content Planning For Posts VS Content For Your Course And Launches

168. Managing Your Money As A Small Business Owner with Darcie Milfeld

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

165. The Only Way Low Dollar Offers Are Working Today

164. New Ad Targeting Options That Are Working Now

163. How To Transition Out Of 1-1 Work Without Losing Income

TRANSCRIPT

Hello, and welcome to episode number 167 of the Shine Show. Today, I'm going to share with you three lies you were told about hiring an ads manager.

Giving up your time and freedom to make money is so 2009. Hi, I'm your host, Salome Schillack, and I help online course creators launch, grow and scale their businesses with Facebook and Instagram ads, so that they can make more money and have an even bigger impact in the world. If you are ready to be inspired to dream bigger, launch sooner and grow your online business faster, then tuning because you are ready to shine, and this is the Shine Show.

The purpose of this episode for me is to help you decide when is the right time to hire an ads manager and to know what to look for. And maybe you've already hired someone and it didn't go so well, which is a story I hear way, way, way too often. It just breaks my heart when I hear someone say they hired an expert in ads and they didn't have a good experience.

The story is often told to me either in frustration, because the client had an expectation that the ads manager are going to make them some money and that didn't happen, or they had expectation that the ads manager are going to find leads on Facebook and Instagram that will absolutely, certainly convert to sales. And both those things come from lies. And it comes from lies that we believe because of the marketing that Facebook ads managers use. And I want to say, guilty is charged. When I started out, I also believed that this was true and it's only been through years and years and years of experience and working with many, many clients, seeing many students work with ads managers and learning the absolute interdependent, absolute marriage between traffic, in other words, your audiences, your ads, where you're finding people and conversion. And conversion happens through some form of a launch mechanism, either a webinar or an email series or a video series, and it happens through your offer.

So I've created this model and a lot of my students have seen this model. It's kind of a vein diagram. And in this vein diagram, I have audiences in one of the circles, I have your offer in one of the other circles and I have a launch of mechanism in a third circle. And really these three things, all three need to come together in a synergistic way and they need to blend together. I'm looking for a cool name for my model. It's like, The Wheel Of Wonder, it has been called, The Model Of Money, The Online Course Vein Diagram Of How To Make Money. If you have a cool name for that, send me a DM. I will take you up on your cool name. But it wasn't until I realized that we are all buying into a lie, we're buying into a lie that Facebook ads can make you money. It cannot. Ads can never, ever make you money.

Hear me when I say this. This is me, the ads manager, telling you that ads will never make you money. So if you've ever hired an ads manager and your expectation was that they are going to bring the right people to your launch or to your webinar, and it didn't turn out well and your relationship with that ads manager ended because of this, I want to first off tell you, you're not alone. I hear the story all the time. But secondly, I want to tell you that it possibly wasn't the ads manager's fault. It also wasn't your fault. It's both of you buying into the lie that Facebook ads can make you money. And so when a Facebook ads manager takes on a client, they're usually just looking for things like, oh, do they have an existing audience? And so, you can look at someone who has a million followers on Instagram, and they can still do a launch that doesn't work because they have learned how to sell organically, but they haven't yet learned how to sell to cold traffic.

So I make it my personal mission to restore this relationship between online course creators and ads managers, because I love both, because I am both and because I work with both. And I believe that ads managers need to be nurtured and loved and taken care of and never, ever be blamed for lack of results when a client's funnels didn't work. Well, unless the ads manager did something really weird, which also happens. But then that's just lack of experience. You need to send me those ads managers so I can train them properly. Or it is lack of funnel converting, which is the client's job. It is your job as the online course creator. So today's episode is about that. And I trust that at the end of this episode, you are going to walk away feeling empowered and feeling confident that you are going to know when to hire an ads manager and how to know the right ads manager and what to do about it if you've hired someone in the past and it didn't go well.

There's a French expression that when you translate it, it literally means, to put a hose in one's mouth. I don't know what actually the French expression is. So if you're French and you know the expression, please let me know. But I was Googling things because I want you to picture even a person with a fire hose in front of their mouth. I mean, you can picture it, right? And then I found that there is a French expression that says this. Or a hose to the mouth, right? You can see that. That is going to go badly for you. That is really going to go badly for you. And it's one of those things that it's not going to go badly because you don't want water in your mouth, it's going to go badly because you don't want that much water with that much force in your mouth. Right? So it's quite the picture, if you want to imagine it. That's kind of what happens when you hire an ads manager before you're ready to really handle that much traffic into your live launches.

And today I want to help you know exactly why it's not your fault if you did hire an ads manager too soon and what you can do about it so that you never waste money hiring people without knowing that you're absolutely ready to make the most of what they can do for you. Now, I have divided this into three reasons that it may not have worked out between you and your ads manager.

The first reason is, you weren't ready for these large amounts of traffic. And I'm going to unpack that a little bit for you. The second reason is, one of you or both of you didn't really understand how to measure the conversion rights of the traffic your ads brought in. And then the third reason we're going to talk about is, you needed warm traffic and what you got was cold traffic. So let's go over these one by one. Let's start with number one, you weren't ready for large amounts of traffic. I remember feeling that if I can only get my offer in front of more people, I will make more money. I remember it so vividly, it is almost, I want to say, well, it's almost stuck in my nervous system. Those first few years of starting a business truly is traumatic. So I'm sending you lots of love if you're still in year one to three.

I remember feeling so frustrated because social media was such a slow slog. And I thought, if I can only get more people to see my offer, that would be the solution to my problems. And I understand why I felt that way then. And I understand if you are feeling that way. You're probably busy running your coaching business or your practice, and you've already spent a year creating your course. You've taken several online courses. You've spent hours and hours. You've poured hours and hours into this. And you're doing your very base to stay up to date with posting on socials. And maybe you've even launched this course a couple of times with different results. And now you feel you would like to have more people going through your launch. And so you hire an ads manager.

One of the places where I see this often is particularly if you have a second source of income. So maybe you're a coach with a very successful coaching business or perhaps you are a done-for-you specialist. You're a consultant. You do something for someone. And so that is a source of income. So often when business owners have another source of income that is not their online course, then of course they have the means to just hire the ads manager. Whereas the person who does not have the other revenue stream won't necessarily have the cash to hire the ads manager and therefore is actually spared from making this mistake. That's kind of what I'm seeing is, when your online course hasn't made enough money for you to hire an ads manager, you're less likely to hire one prematurely. Okay. So the mistake that you make if you do believe this, if only I can get more people to see my offer, is your offer has to convert well to warm traffic before you can even begin to think about launching it to a cold audience. Facebook and Instagram ads bring cold traffic to your launch.

It brings people who do not know, like, or trust you. People who have not had time to build a relationship with you. And unless you know exactly how much time and effort you need to put into building that relationship with people, then you are going to need to launch this thing warm to your list until you can see that your list converts really, really well. And by really well, I don't mean you're breaking even. I mean, you're making a return on ad spend of three or more. That means if you've spent money to build that list, you need to figure out, did I make three times more money than I put into ads to build my list.

So you want to launch to your list as many times as you can and make sure you have your funnel entirely optimized. So you know that when you're inviting people to your webinar or your challenge or your workshop, your launch mechanism, that live party that you have where you announce the court is open, that they actually come and that they show up and that they participate and that they buy live in the session with you. And then that a whole bunch of other people buy not live, afterwards. Right? So perhaps you do need more eyes on your offer, but the best way to get that is to start by building your list and then invite people on your email list to your launch. Then when you can see that they convert, well, then you're ready to start adding in cold traffic.

So an example of this was a friend of mine who is a business coach, a successful business coach, created an online course about managing your money. And she launched this course twice to her list and using affiliates. She made some good money and then she hired an ads manager and she said, okay, ads manager, I don't want to do another affiliate launch. I don't want to do another warm launch. I don't want to talk about social media. I just want to run ads to this launch. And she was expecting the same results and it was very disappointing. It was very, very indeed very disappointing. A.

Nd one of the things that we had to talk about was when she said to me, she said, yes, but the ads manager just didn't find the right people because if they'd found the right people, then those people would've converted. And my heart just breaks because I understand why she feels that way. I understand that there is a logic in thinking that it was just the wrong people.

But here's the thing is it cannot ever be the wrong people, particularly with how the algorithm is set up at the moment where we are targeting large open audiences. We're not even putting in a lot of interests anymore because the algorithm needs that much volume in order to find the right people. So if you signed off on ad creative, that was talking to your ideal customer and that message in the ad, in the copy and in the image was aligned with who your ideal customer is, and then that ads manager ran the ads to probably very large cold audiences, I'm talking 60 million people in cold audiences, and whoever signed up for that launch were people who reacted and responded to the creatives in the ad. So it is actually impossible to find the wrong people.

It is possible to drill down and make them more right than they would be. But in this case, I had to kind of talk to her and say, well, you cannot expect a cold audience to behave the same as a warm audience. So if you are in those shoes or if you're around that period of time where you've done a couple of successful launches, but you've used your list and your warm audiences and some affiliates, then just be careful to go and hire someone and expect the same results. By all means, hire someone and start out by building your email list. Just let them just help you build your email list and then see how the people behaved in your launch that came in from list building ads prior to your launch. Okay. So, that's number one. Number one is you weren't ready for large amounts of traffic.

Number two is, one or both of you didn't really understand how to measure the conversion rates of the traffic that your ads brought in. And this is another one of those that I totally understand. And I can see how this industry that we worked in have set up the relationship between online course creators and Facebook ads managers to fail. The reason it has is because you can take an online course with a step by step, paint by numbers instructions on how to build your course and how to market your course. And if you follow the step by step instructions in those step by step courses, you are probably going to get a good result, because they're pretty good.

If you hang out with me and you buy from any of the people I have bought from and any of the people I recommend, then you're likely to get a good result if you follow it step by step. Your ads manager though, does not have the intimate knowledge of your step by step process of how you are taking people through a funnel. Your ads manager does have technical knowledge in that they can use the backend of the ads manager and they have data and analytics knowledge in that they can analyze the numbers that the ads manager gives them in order to know if your ads are working or not. But there's a third element here that unless one of you or both of you know this, it could result in some unhappiness, it could result in a challenging relationship.

So, that third element... So I've told you about my model, my vein diagram, where we have audiences in one of the circle and those audiences include all of your audiences that you have, your email list, your social media, your website visitors, but it also includes cold traffic from ads. And then the second circle is your offer. And we need to know for sure, for sure, that your offer converts. And that's why in point number one I tell you, build your list first, make your offer so that we know before we add cold traffic into this mix, we know the offer converts.

And the third element is your launch mechanism. And I call it a launch mechanism, but because again, I'm like, can someone help me come up with a cooler name than launch mechanism? But launch mechanism actually really describes it. It is your webinar, your challenge, your video series, whatever that conversion event is, that party that you host, where you invite a whole bunch of people to and you present something to them live, and at the end of that presentation, you say, go to this link to buy my course, that is your launch mechanism. And that launch mechanism goes hand in hand with which mechanism you choose and how you manage that goes hand in hand with the cost of your offer, your course, the price of your course and the temperature of your audience.

So you cannot make a $3,000 offer to a cold audience with one or two emails. You can, if you have a very big audience and you're very well known and your offer is very established. But if you're starting out and you have a $3,000 offer and you're making it to cold traffic, you're not going to make money very quickly. It's going to be very hard for you. So I hope you see how there's this relationship between audiences and your offer and your launch mechanism. And it's actually like three cogs that have to turn in the right way.

So that's why I say ads cannot make you money. Ads is just traffic. Ads is just more audiences. The thing that results in money is knowing how those audiences move through your launch mechanism, to the point where they see your offer and then either convert or not convert. Ads have nothing to do with making money. Now, the problem we have is that ads managers feel or ads managers often feel, I think ads managers believe that their role in this relationship ends when the traffic comes in. And this is perpetuated by mentors and online marketers who've been doing this for yonkers of years, who says things to online course creators, like your ads manager is just responsible to get you leads under whatever cost you give them.

That's the most ridiculous thing because a cheap lead is not going to convert into a sale unless you know how to convert them into a sale. Now, if you've been in the game for 10 years and you're still in the game, you know how to convert a lead into a sale. But so, if a mentor, if anybody, any of the big cheeses in our community says that, if you hear them say, it's the ads manager's job is just to bring you leads at a certain cost, that perpetuates this lie. It perpetuates this terrible relationship that exists between online course creators and Facebook ads managers, because now the ads manager goes, well, my job is done. I've brought you the traffic. And if they're a nice person, they're going to say, I'm really sorry you didn't make any money. I hope it goes better for you next time. But I have heard ads managers just shrug their shoulders and say, well, it was your webinar. And they're not wrong, but they're also being an asshole.

So just please understand that you and or your ads manager needs to understand how to measure the conversion rights of your traffic as it moves through your funnel. Ads is the icing on the already delicious cake. Ads managers learn a technical skill. People do not buy an online course because the ads were so great. It's like a dating analogy. The ad is the dating app. It just connects you with one another. What makes dating turn into lasting love is the relationship you build with that date that you're on. That is called the funnel. Ads managers often are not trained well to understand that relationship between advertising and marketing.

It's like the old school fight between the sales department and the marketing department. The one needs the other, but one good marketing is a prerequisite for ads to work and good marketing cannot rely on ads alone to succeed. So if you were unhappy about the results in your launch and your ads manager couldn't help you understand why you spent so much money and didn't make any money, then that's usually a sign that neither of you fully understand the relationship between ads and marketing and it's likely that your funnel needs work. It might be likely that your ads need work as well. But if neither your ads or your funnel work, then the gap in the education is marketing. It's online marketing. It's knowing how to make offers to people that they want to take you up on.

So we need to restore that relationship between online course marketers and ads managers by teaching both to fully understand the relationship between audiences, offers and launch mechanisms, and to be able to identify exactly where the most profitable customer journey is that your client takes or your student takes from the day they see your first ad to the day that they convert to a sale. That is exactly what we teach our students inside The Launch Lounge. And it is not sexy. And it's not getting the whole world's attention just yet, because I am saying things that are different from what all of the gurus are saying, right? But we're seeing results. We really are seeing... And I'm seeing light bulbs go off for our students when they discover this relationship between the audience, the offers and the launch mechanisms. Okay.

So if you want an example of how this works, you just have to look at every other bro marketer out there. Every bro marketer spewing that you can make money if you understand this ad strategy or that ad strategy, or all you need is a couple of video ads to make money. It's ridiculous. It is just, it's ridiculous. Ads have never made anybody money. Ads do not make you money. Unless you have an e-commerce business. If you have an e-commerce business, it does. But if you sell online knowledge, sorry, no ads make your money.

All right, number three, you needed warm traffic and what you got was cold traffic. Have you guys heard people say, you can launch with ads before you build your email list, or you can launch your course before you build your email list? Ah, man. I just shake my head. It's lunacy. That's what it is. It's lunacy. You cannot launch a course before you've built your email list. You need an email list. There was once a client who came to us and she was, ah, she was just fabulous. Just the most elegant woman ever. And she had built an audience of over a hundred thousand followers on Facebook within three months by going live every single day.

She went live every single day for three months for at least an hour. And she presented herself in the most wonderful way. And she spoke to other women about building confidence and presenting themselves well in the world. And she had this absolute natural talent for being on camera. She was able to launch before she built her list because she had a hundred thousand followers who had watched her for an hour every single day for three months. She's the only person I've ever met, who was able to launch without an email list.

`So unless you want to go live every single day for three months, please don't buy into the bull dust that you can launch with ads before you build your list. Because what you're going to be doing is you are going to be launching to strangers and that is creepy. And that makes for a very icky experience. The key to making money online is to build your audience, practice getting good at making offers to your audience. And when you know that your offers convert, then you scale your offers. And when you start scaling, that's when you go bigger and bigger and bigger on the cold audiences. So you don't need to build an online course, you don't need to have a big audience and you don't need to have a big launch before you can start making money online. But you will sure waste a lot of money if you run ads to cold audiences and invite them to your launch if you've never tested your offer to your warm audiences before.

We worked with a client in the agency about a year ago, and she was a photographer, food photographer. Ah, she took the most beautiful photos of food. Hauntingly beautiful. They made you hungry just looking at them. And she was selling in a few different countries, which did not include the US. And during our planning for her launch, she said she would like to break into the US market and spend most of her money on the US market. And that's what we did. And the US market did not respond and they did not convert during her launch. So this is just an example of where somebody went into a new market and this could be a new market for you, or it could be just a new offer. And she went straight in with cold traffic into that market.

And so, I don't know. Needless to say, after the launch, she couldn't afford to continue to pay us. We have ended our relationship. It's always very, very sad for me when that happens. It was sad for her. It was sad for me. She didn't make the money that she wanted to make in her launch and that she would've made, if she'd stuck to the countries where she had proven her offer before. But we both thought that since the offer is proven, it should work in the US. And we were both wrong. And what we should have done is we should have built her list in the US slowly and then seeing what the most profitable customer journey in the US is before we put too much money into the cold launch for the US market. Okay. So, that's number three.

So the three things again is number one, you may have hired an ad manager too early, or made a mistake hiring an ads manager because you weren't ready for large amounts of traffic. Number two is one or both of you didn't really understand how to measure the conversion rights of the traffic your ads brought in. And number three is, you needed warm traffic and what you got was cold traffic. So don't put a hose in front of your mouth, when what you're looking for is everlasting love. Build relationships with your audience over time, invest in that relationship and spend time with your audience. Don't waste money on ads because you think it'll solve your conversion problems, because it won't, and you'll just be donating your money to Mark Zuckerberg. And I don't love that.

Thank you very much for listening this week. Please send me a DM on Instagram and tell me what your key takeaway is from this week's episode. And if you are thinking about launching in September, October, November, now is the time to reach out to me and see how we can help you get all your ducks in a row. Make sure you're organized, make sure you have your data collected, your copies written, all the things are in place so that you can have a profitable launch. This launch season coming up, my American friends say, "I'm going to launch in the fall." And I always laugh about that because it's spring over here then. So I want to say, if you're going to launch in the fall, September, October, November, let me know now and I can tell you what the best way is that my team and I can help you make sure your launch is profitable. Have a lovely day. Take care.

If you love this episode and you are a committed online course launcher who wants to learn how to grow your profits in your next course launch, and you want to know how to successfully scale your online courses business to seven figures and beyond, then I'd love to see you inside The Launch Lounge. The Launch Lounge is the only community online that is dedicated solely to helping you develop every aspect of your online courses business so that you can build your business to scale. With no one size fits all solutions, just the right education you need when you need it, coaching from our team of experts in different areas of launching and scaling and the best community on the internet, The Launch Lounge is your online course building home if you want profitable launches that scale your business to seven figures and beyond. To get on the wait list for our next enrollment season, go to shineandsucceed.com/launch.

Thank you so much for listening. If you had fun, please come back next week and remember to hit that subscribe button so you never miss the thing.

166. How To Create Your Online Course Faster with Gina Onativia

26 July 2022 | By Salome Schillack

listen now:

Imagine working for Tony Robbins and having Amy Porterfield as your manager right at the time when this big, mysterious goldmine known as online courses was just starting to emerge.

No need to imagine because this week on The Shine Show, I'm joined by Gina Onativia, who spent 5+ years creating online courses for Tony Robbins before online courses were even a thing!

This gal seriously is one of the pioneers in the industry, which means she's seen it all, from the jaw-dropping, insanely genius marketing ideas to the facepalming, train crash moments.

These days, Gina uses her superpowers to help online course creators take their kernel of an idea and create a clever roadmap to popping that baby into a buttery online course!

We all have something to give; we all have a lot of passion paired with some killer knowledge that helps others solve significant problems.

…..and we wanna get paid for it!

But the reality is, passion alone won't pay the bills.

There are some common mistakes online course creators make when pulling information out of their heads and turning it into an online course, and this week Gina drops some serious GOLD. She shares her sticky note strategy that'll help you get everything out of your head and into an online course that you're proud to put a hefty price tag on.

From finding your niche to creating an irresistible lead magnet that draws in your dream students, let me tell you there is so much value in this week's episode!

If you need more of Gina's magic in your life (spoiler alert: you do), check out her podcast, Online Course Creator Incubator over at Course Creation Boutique. You will find heaps of useful resources for your online course, but you will not find anything helpful on Irvator (IYKYK).

PS: You can still snag one of our spots in the 30-Day Intensive Program where you and I work together one-one to prepare you for your next launch. You’ll leave the experience knowing exactly what worked well for you in the past that you should do more of, identify what you should stop doing, and know exactly what ads to run and how to put together your next launch strategy so that you know you are growing your business profitably. Click HERE to apply.

Subscribe and Review in iTunes Please!

When you subscribe and review the podcast not only does that give me the warm and fuzzies all over, it also helps other people to find the show.

When other people find the show they get to learn how to create more freedom in their lives from their online courses too!!

So do a good deed for all womenkind and subscribe and review this show and I will reward you with a shout out on the show!!

Links I mentioned in this episode:

Learn more about Course Creation Boutique