$130M Business — Then She Started Over | The Casey Zeman Show #3 ft. Amy Porterfield

Okay, everyone, welcome to this episode. I'm so over the moon excited to, uh, to share this episode and to share who I have on today. I have Amy Porterfield and she is, first off, she's an amazing human first and foremost. I've known her, oh, maybe 10 years. And, uh, and she's just always been the sweetest, kindest person and You know, we've had wonderful conversations on life, growth, and, you know, I'm really excited to talk to her about all those things. But if, you know, if this is your first time, she has served over 100,000 students. She is one of the premier, if not the premier online marketers in the world. She's built a business of $130 million. She's a New York Times bestselling author. Amy, thank you so much for being here and coming on today. I really appreciate you.

Casey, I'm so happy to be here. We have been friends for a very long time and we've done some good business together as well. So I love that.

Yeah, we've both geeked out, uh, fully on webinars. She's been on my summit before. Like, it's like really great. And you know, I want to touch— I want to talk about this. Like, um, you know, there's— you've built an incredible business, um, but I know, and I'm— I think you're okay talking about this, you made this really masterful, large pivot, right? And I think a lot of people when they see pivots, they think, "Did she just make that decision?" Or, you know? And I've known for a bit of time that this was not just a split decision. This was not instantaneous. You're you're a preparer. You are someone who sharpens your axe more than most, I think. And can you touch on that? Like, yeah, what— when did you decide, and when were you having these moments of thinking to make this pivot into your business, your business, where obviously now you're focusing on, um, I— on, uh, on coaching? Um, your program is Calibre, right?

Or Calibre, Calabrese.

I love that, by the way. Calabrese. And it's just so interesting that this was the move. I'd love to find out and dig in a bit deeper that a lot of people think maybe it was, you know, just a moment decision, but like, how long have you been preparing that decision in your mind?

Such a great question. I would say probably a good 2 years, but really seriously, a full year before we made the decision. So to back up a little bit, for many, many years, I had a program called Digital Course Academy, and we— it's a $2,000 program. We sold it through boot camps and webinars, and it did really, really well. $60 million well. So I— and I had a lot of affiliates, great relationships. And the last year that I launched it, which was just recently last year, We had a multi-million dollar launch, it went great, but I knew something inside me had already been stirring. I had done this program for years and years, since 2019, this exact program, but years before that, iterations of this type of program, how to create and launch a digital course, very meta. And so I've done it for a long time and I've stayed in my lane. I became known for something and I would eat, breathe, and sleep how to create and launch digital courses for my students. So So it was a huge part of my identity, what I've done and what I'm known for. And I've been doing this for 17 years now and I've learned a lot. I've made a lot of mistakes. I've grown a lot and I've watched my audience grow with me. And I realized I really feel called to working with female founders specifically who have already started because I attract a lot of beginners or I have for many, many years that maybe are still in their 9 to 5 and they're using a digital course to kind of start their own thing and get out on their own business. And so we had a lot of beginners in my audience, and I love them, and I will always love my beginners because there's this special energy and hope around that. But I was ready to start working with people who had already started and are looking to elevate where they're at. And so it was on my heart for about a year. I started talking to other women, started kind of surveying, and then I started a program called the Milly Club, and it was a group of 30 women who were around $500K and they wanted to hit their first million, and I got to work with them in a small cohort, and I loved it, and I thought, okay, I really think I need to go for this. So, long story short, we started a coaching program called Calibrate. The reason it's a fake word is because I couldn't trademark anything else. Everything is taken, And so the focus is recalibrating your marketing.

Oh my goodness, I absolutely love that.

Yeah, and you can only recalibrate if you've already started. So that's kind of where those connect. And, but here's the thing, two things. Number one, the reason I was confident about making the pivot is I feel like I have earned my elevation. And what I mean by that is I've put in the reps, I've done the time, I've become known for something. So moving in a new direction is actually easier for me because I already have the foundation and I already have the trust and the respect in my industry. So earning your elevation really looks like staying in your lane, becoming known for something, doing the reps even when you want to try something new. You know, entrepreneurs love variety, but I just did the same thing over and over and over again I've done thousands of webinars to promote this program. So, that has allowed me this opportunity into a new business model. Now, I'm not saying it's been easy though. I went from live launching, which I know and love, to a high-end coaching model where it's a webinar into a call into a sales— with a sales team. I've never had a sales team. When they get into my program, they have a one-on-one coach. So I've never had a team of coaches. So very new and very difficult to change a business model when you've been like a dog with a bone for so long. Yeah, I was ready for a challenge.

What I love is like, you know, you've been doing this for quite, quite some time and meaning that you've seen growth from the people you've served and those same people were probably like, where else can we go with you? Because we only want to go with you. Therefore, where else can we go? And this could be an answer. I mean, correct me if I'm wrong, but I feel like this is also— you get cues from your community, you get cues from the world and from your world. And is that— were those elements any part of this where people still wanted to continue with you. You helped people grow from $100,000 to $500,000 to $1 million. So they just wanted the journey to keep on going. And if you were, yeah, if you like, if you were listening to them, then this was kind of, this is kind of like an answer to that. Yeah. Yeah.

I didn't have anything to offer anyone after they got into my $2,000 program. I had a membership on the backend that was $97 a month. But nowhere else to go. And so I, yeah, I started listening and thought, you know what, I would love to continue this journey. I've seen these women grow and build these amazing businesses. I want to be a part of that. So I did have to really listen to my audience for sure.

Yeah, I, you know, what's really interesting is how is that you've, you've kind of talked about this, like stay in your lane. You have to, you have to get really known for something, right, before you can make this pivot, right? These, these, uh, these moves. Um, and, um, and so again, preparedness, like, again, it sounds like you had, you had had this on your heart for almost, as you said, 2 years, really only seriously, um, you know, carving it out within 1 year. Um, but again, I still think people think that, oh, this is like a sudden decision that you've made, but no, clearly Over time, you've thought this through, thought around the pivot, and did you have to restructure a lot on your team? A lot of, you know, what did that look like? And was that, you know, when we talk about things that are uncomfortable, a lot of people feel uncomfortable when pivoting and moving and thinking in this agile way, right? I want to know what you think about this. And I know I'm throwing a couple things at you, but one is, what is it, is it important for you to live in being uncomfortable? And for you personally, as someone who's a high achiever and someone who I think is, you clearly, you focus and can put a lot of attention into you know, building a quality organization. So, but in terms of pivoting, in terms of being uncomfortable, like, how important is that for you to sort of feel that, you know, um, when you're taking on a decision?

It is everything. So back in the day, I used to work for Tony Robbins, and I bring that up to say one of the biggest lessons I learned from him is that he would teach entrepreneurs that we would create these events for that they had to get uncomfortable. There is no growth in comfort and he would say this over and over again in all these different ways and it really kind of just like melted into me to become like my core value is if I want to grow, I guess it's not a value, it's more of a motto. If I want to grow, I have to get uncomfortable and so over the last— we've been at this only for 4 months now, and it has been so uncomfortable, so uncomfortable figuring it out and being new at something and not having multi-million dollar launches anymore. But my model is 1, 2 sales a day coming in. It's a different model, right? So, uh, it just makes me want to come out of my skin, like, am I doing this right? How do I do it bigger? You know, all the things. And then I think, oh, this is what I'm supposed to feel like. I'm supposed to be uncomfortable. It's supposed to be itchy, scratchy, like, oh, I just don't know. And so anyone listening right now that if you haven't felt that on a pretty regular basis and you're frustrated that you're not growing or go— getting this— the results you want, you have to shake it up. You have to try something new. You have to be a beginner again. It just, it's essential. So I just really believe being uncomfortable is the only way to grow a business.

I really love that you're saying that, you know, because like the rules have changed to some degree in my opinion, and you probably feel the same way with AI, you know, and how many people do you think are in that same boat of this like feeling sort of this itchy, right? As you just said, like, like, These, you know, a lot of us, I think we wait to take an action and we're waiting on something, a cue or something like that. Like I feel like it's so much more important to just, you know, right now, allow yourself to make these agile shifts, you know, and in the hopes that you can still, you know, even though they might be big swings, you know, you're still, you know, you are, it's, they, they could, you could come out the other side with a much, you know, more relevant business or more relevant position in life. With these rules changing, like, how much did you guys have to pivot with this whole, like, the, the AI boom for your, for yourself?

You know, when we had Digital Course Academy last year, we really did enhance the program adopting AI. So I've got this philosophy around AI that I either get on board or I fall way behind. And is love it or hate it, I, I do believe it's important that we embrace it for our businesses, especially online businesses. And also, uh, there's many reports that women adopt AI a lot slower than men, and, uh, they're getting left behind faster. And I think it's because a lot of the AI tools and platforms have been built by men, so it's through a man's brain, and maybe not as, um, uh, women don't pick it up as much because it's not how we think per se. That's just a guess. Yeah, but regardless— oh, also the report said women feel like they're cheating when they're using AI. And so, uh, really interesting as well, where very few men feel like they're cheating when they're using AI. I think it's very interesting to look at. But so with that, I'm like, my team— I have a team of almost all women. We are on board, we are adopting 100%. But yes, we've had to— when you think about courses, we had to change our course. And I've taught my students to do this as well. So the first thing we did is we created something called Porter. And Porter, it was an AI tool that had my entire Digital Course Academy programming in it. And actually it was broken out into different segments. And so people could, you know, how to choose their course topic. This is my sales page for my course. Give me a review. How do I put together my outline for my course? So now we had them using AI tools to get it done a whole lot faster. So right away we adopted that, we put it into the program, and then we started having more touch points because one thing AI can't do is that human touch and that in real life connection. And so we incorporated those a little bit more into the program, and we actually called it the Digital Course Academy Experience. So the last time we sold it, we called it an experience because we added all these different things. And I really do think that just a digital course where you're not involved in it, there's no connection whatsoever, no community, I think it's harder to sell these days because of AI. But when you add the experience of any sort, I think it could do incredibly well. And I've seen it do incredibly well for many of my students.

Yeah, I think you're right. I mean, it obviously adds so much to, you know, building it. It's like having a soundboard of like, hey, okay, I can put this together. I can, you know, arrange my thoughts. Because we, you know, we've been, we've been doing a lot with AI on our side. Um, we built an AI webinar builder. So we have like a whole, like you put a prompt in, it will build a, the script, it will build the, the, the, uh, presentation. Um, you know, uh, slides, uh, and what go, what goes in those slides, it will build the pages based on the script.

And then I can't even imagine because Casey Zeman, you and I have been at this game for a long time. I've spent probably 50 hours creating a high-converting webinar from start to finish.

Oh my gosh, I know, I know. And that was the goal here is like we wanted to be able to create something. We want to give people two tracks. One is like a simple prompt, you know, they can put in and then have an output because the output is probably the biggest thing. The hurdle is like getting something out there, even if it's not perfect, just getting something out there. So we have the script, we have the pages, so it builds the webinar registration page, thank you page, uh, the, um, the, the waiting room page. And then it builds the emails pre and post, and then it gives you poll options based on what your goals are, and then it builds out the offer. And so it does it all within one prompt, um, with the intention of having something ready to go. Now you can obviously tweak and refine it, but And this is where I think AI misses the mark, is the mastery, right? To some degree, it doesn't have the mastery, right? Like it doesn't have the story nuance. And obviously AI, if it's not been trained, like your Porter has been trained specifically with your content, so it's elevated, it's an elevated AI. But if it's pulling from the generalized AI, it automatically becomes, this like general information. So we've taught ours, you know, this very specific webinar formula so that the webinar is high converting.

Nice.

But even then, you know, there are those tweaks and refinements that make it yours, right? And that's still the mastery that AI I don't think can fully create, you know? And that's, you know, that's the creative side. That's the, That's the side that we still put our hands into. Can I ask you how much, like in that talking about that, how much of your business is mastery versus AI? Do you know what I'm saying? Like emails going out, do you know?

Gotcha.

Yes.

I think that's such a great question. When we're talking about creating new content. So, uh, in one of my programs, we're redoing, uh, like the Millie Club. We're redoing what we call the Millie Method, the structure of how to get to a million. And so I'm literally on that right now. So what I— the way I use AI is a lot of downloading and uploading my IP. So to me, that is so much of me and coming from my brain. And I use Whisperflow, which— have you started using Whisperflow?

I heard amazing things about it. I've not used it, but like, I just can't type that fast. So yeah, I mean—

Right? I can't live without it now. So I hit a little button and I download maybe for 10 minutes about where I want this to go, the problems I'm seeing, the solutions I'm looking for, and then I fill it, fill it, fill it with knowledge. And then I ask it to, you know, give me the insights and its opinion. But to me, that is so much of me. And, um, never is it just spitting out something random ever. Like my newsletter, I write it every Tuesday. That newsletter is all from me. I'll use AI to, um, perfect, you know, my writing, grammar. I am dictating every story, dictating every lesson. So to me, if you are dictating and spending that time, AI is a great, great resource, a tool. But if you were just expecting it to come up with all the ideas, to me, that business is going to struggle.

Right. And I think that that's so, so, so like it's, it can execute, but, but the, but the strategy, you know, the, the, as I said, the mastery that still is our brains, right?

Like that's still tons of mastery still in my business. Absolutely. And I just don't think I would be able to survive if it didn't have that. Yeah.

Well, with that in mind also, I feel like we're at the— because of this evolution, like the point of high touch, this is what's so interesting is I don't know if you saw the writing on the wall, but like being able to have such a high touch experience with, for people beyond the digital course experience, like now you're doing way more group coaching experiences like that. I feel, and what do you think about this? Like how important is that now, especially with like just how much content is AI'd, you know? And how many, how much just AI has taken over. I feel like this more intimate thing is so much more needed.

I think I did see the writing on the wall about a year ago thinking, we paid really close attention being in the digital space with AI and group coaching or one-on-one coaching. I think it's definitely having its moment again because it's that in real life, high touch opportunity. So in all of my programs, I do live coaching calls and where people can come on Zoom with me. And I will say I've really had to push myself. Talk about being uncomfortable. For years and years, people would write— if they're in my program, they would send in their question, I would look at a Google Doc, and for an hour I'd read off the question and I'd answer it. That's all I've done for years and years, and I just don't think it's enough because they could put that question inside of AI. But if I say, all right, Casey, come on camera with me, tell me your challenge, let's pitch and catch, and it's from someone who's been in the game for a long time and they want to model my business, That's a whole different ball game. But I love that you asked this question because it takes us back to, I've had to get uncomfortable. The easier thing is just to read off a bunch of questions. The easier thing is to not do Zoom coaching calls.

Yeah.

But I wanna stay in the game. I care deeply about my female founders getting big results. And so I'm just gonna get uncomfortable. And here's the secret, it doesn't stay uncomfortable. So I've done enough of these coaching calls that I'm not uncomfortable anymore. And I've worked with the sales team now, so I'm not uncomfortable. So it doesn't stay forever.

Yeah, well, and I love it, like, you know, a lot of us, you know, like for me, when I, so I had a coaching program for a while, now getting it back on track again, but I always felt like when I was going into those calls, initially I was always concerned that I had to sort of have this prep because I was like, well, what am I gonna be able at the time of doing this? Will it just come out naturally? And so this massive fear was there when I would go into them. But then when you're in them, you're like a kid in a candy store if you really love doing this for people, right? And you're kind of like, you're listening to their business and you're like, oh, I see the problem. Yeah. And it's like you have this, you know, this elevated energy and you pass that over to them and they have this elevated energy. And for me, when I went through those moments, it was so soul-feeding. What goes on for you when you have those moments of coaching?

You know, even if I come into a coaching call feeling a little tired, once I get going, I get so fired up. You're totally right. And oftentimes, you know, every person that asks call, we have to put a timer on it because it's getting to be a bigger group. And so they have like 7 minutes. First of all, I cannot do it in 7 minutes. I want to talk for like 20 minutes.

Totally.

And then second, I get really excited, kind of like on my soapbox, and I'm like, okay, settle down. So yeah, once you get into that exchange and you're like, wait, I know what you need to do, I'll tell you exactly what I think you should do. So I, I think that's exciting, but I'm learning. Okay, so I've been taking some training about how to be a really great coach. And yeah, I'm learning that you're supposed to ask more questions where I'm just really quick to be like, oh, this is what you need to do.

Yeah.

So I'm learning.

That's great. I love that. I love that. I love that you're also going out and still getting educated. Like you're like a still lifelong learner, right? That's so important for everybody to hear and see that you at the elevation that you're at, you're still doing this.

Oh my gosh, so much. Like, I go through phases in my business of being— I told my CEO that I'm in a spending era right now, which is not normal for me. And, um, we bought a— I, I know these numbers are all relative, I make a lot of money, but we bought a $30,000 ads coaching program recently that someone on my team's going through, a $9,000 AI program from my friend Callan that's just like so top of her game. And then a few other things, and here's why I'm telling you this. I'm new at this business model. I don't have all the answers, and if I want to fast-track my way to success, I'm going to invest in the best of the best. I don't have time to try to figure out every detail on my own. And so if I can afford it, or if I could make— find the money to afford it, I'm going to fast-track. But here's what's interesting. I'm 17 years in with a multi-million dollar business.

Yeah.

17 years ago, I made an investment of $17,000 to Marie Forleo's mastermind, and I was still in my 9-to-5. I didn't tell anyone because people would think I was crazy that I paid some girl on the internet that I did not know $17,000. I had to ask for a payment plan. I did not make enough money yet for it, but I I knew I needed to be in the room to see what these other women are doing. So, from day one, I have always found a way to pay for my education and to be in the right rooms, even when I was not making any money yet and I had to kind of scrape by.

And I think that's really important for people to hear, that investing in themselves, you know, that they— people think about the risk-reward and the, the the thought of, oh, putting that much down, you know, when I'm in this financial situation, they don't, they're obviously they're thinking about what I'm gonna lose instead of what I'm gonna gain. And it's like you have to trick your mind even when you don't have the resources, you still have to trick your mind to be able to do that. I love that you said you're in a spending phase. Have there been moments where you're like, I'm not spending anything, I'm just gonna sort of hermit? And like not go and do learn these things.

My no spending phase is when I know what I need to do and I just need to put my head down and implement. Like I've gotten the training, I've, I've listened to the experts and now I'm like, okay, hold on, I gotta see some results here. So head down and get the work done. And so I won't be spending and then I'll come up and I'll be like, okay, I need to learn some new things. So absolutely. And also I have a really good friend that she spends a lot of money on education. Like, she'll go to her Mosey's thing for $100,000 here, and she'll buy this program and that program. She goes through them. She's not like a program junkie that we've all been at one point. We buy programs we don't do. She gets in there and does them. But I asked her, I said, you know, buying all this stuff will take your profit down. Like, it's eating into your profit. How do you justify, let's say, a $20,000 program? And so she says, well, I have a $5,000 program. So as long as this program can help me sell 4 extra, I'm fine. As long as it can pay for itself and I find a way, I'm not looking for the expert to tell me how their program's going to solve it, I'll figure it out. But if I could take the program and say I'm going to get 4 extra sales, I didn't lose a penny but I gained a lot of new information. So I love that. So that $30,000 program I need to make 4 new coaching programs in order for it to make sense. That makes sense to me. And so I am really mindful of that.

Yeah, yeah. I mean, it's, again, it's the, it's, if you're thinking about it as an investment, then, then, and you're justifying how the investment lays out, you know, in a business model, right? I've just found that any time that I've committed to doing any coaching, still invested in myself, it always came back. Just because it's how you approach it, right? If you don't do anything with it, it's never gonna, you're not gonna get anywhere. But if you apply it and you're going full force into it, yeah, you're gonna get some results. So I love that you said that. I wanna ask you one more thing. I wanna ask you about half-built bridges. Do you have any in your business? Half-built bridges, because as I said, you're, you're a high achiever, high performer. And I would suspect that half-built bridges, you would be like, I can't look at those. I don't want those done. Like, I—

Give me an example of what that— what a half-built bridge would look like.

So you don't even know what a half-built bridge is. This is how amazing you are. Like, a half-built bridge is like an idea or plan that you have that has not been executed, or it's only been executed from the standpoint of you have the awareness of it, you may be crafting it, but you haven't launched it. Maybe it's a stall of some kind.

Gotcha. Okay.

Maybe it's a part of the business, some element of the business that's not moving.

Okay. So this is, I do a lot of things wrong and I make a lot of mistakes. This is one area I do right, but it's not just because of me. So I, we subscribe to the EOS, how to run our business entrepreneurial operating system. And so the book Traction, Rocket Fuel talks about EOS. So many, many years ago, I applied EOS to my business and it really keeps you— it's a system that keeps you on track. So I have a CEO, but at the time before I had a CEO, more like an integrator, and she was the one who was allowed to tell me, okay, Amy, if you want to do that, that means we are not going to get this done. And so even if I had an idea, there was always consequences and I had to say, okay, one or the other, which one do I want? And I always wanted to finish what I started. So we don't have, which I would say maybe open loops, half-finished bridges. We don't have them in our company because if we say we're going to do something, we are going to finish it. Now that doesn't count. One time I started a coaching program a few years ago and realized this is going to wreck my company, so we stopped it, but that was more of a strategic move. But that's— and that's the thing, we just— we are a little bit like a dog with a bone, like I mentioned, where if we say we're gonna do it, we're all in. But here's the thing, Casey, sometimes it's boring, meaning like I don't get to have a lot of variety in my business. I don't get to switch here and there, and this is fun and that is fun. I have to find that in my personal life, and having a little bit of a more boring business, staying on track is very lucrative. So I'll take that any day.

That— oh, I love that you said that. I think that's really great for people, especially ADHD folks like myself who sometimes have those moments. So that, that is so cool that you, you keep on track like that. Thank you for sharing that. One final thing I want to ask you before we have to go, and thank you for your time. I want to ask you, so Missy Elliott or Lauryn Hill?

I think Missy Elliott. What a random question.

I feel like Missy Elliott is a good answer. I'm glad that you said Missy Elliott. Okay. All right. Both are awesome, but you know. Yeah. I know it's such a random question, but it tells me a lot about you. Okay.

Okay.

It tells me a lot. Amy, thank you so much for your time today. I really appreciate you. I will see you again. Our paths will continue to cross and— Absolutely. And everybody, if you want to follow Amy, it's @amyporterfield, right? Just Instagram. And is there a place where people should go to get access to learning more about your coaching program?

Well, thanks for asking. First of all, Casey, thanks for this time. It's always great to chat with you and get into all the things and you've been so supportive of our company. You've been a recommended resource in all of my programs. So thank you so much for having me. I appreciate it. And I have a newsletter that comes out every Tuesday and we talk about my coaching and we talk about being a female founder. So if you are one, Amy Porterfield.com/newsletter.

That's perfect. Amy, thank you so much.

Thank you.

All right. See you. Bye everyone.