66: Elizabeth Goddard: How Her Journey Led to a 100K Launch

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Welcome to the Course Creators MBA podcast. I'm your host Dr. Destiny Kopp and I help business owners increase the revenue with digital products and automated sales funnels. In this podcast we tell the stories of ordinary business owners just like you. We talk about their story and how they got started, the challenges they've experienced and how they overcame them. And these are discussions with real people who understand what it's like to own an online course or membership business. Before we begin our show today, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by our flagship Course in a Box program which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is available on AppSumo at a special deal and you can learn more about Course in a Box by visiting the link in the show notes. Let's jump right into our show.

And today my special guest is Elizabeth Goddard. Elizabeth is an online business strategist, course creator and email marketing nerve, tech geek, affiliate marketing lover, multi offer enthusiast, mindset magician. Keep going on. But you gotta get the gist. When she's not supporting online business owners to have more fun, make things easier for themselves and implement faster, you can probably find her watching trashy TV and answering questions on Facebook. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited for our conversation here today.

Thank you so much for having me. I'm really looking forward to it.

So why don't you take a few minutes and walk the audience through your entrepreneur journey and how you got to where you are today.

So like many online business owners, it's quite a long and twisty journey. The very abbreviated version is I graduated university in 2011 with a theology degree of all things and I then was elected to be education officer in my students union, which is a full time paid sabbatical role running like being a trustee of this multi. No, it's not multi million million pound organization. I was like 21 at the time, so I was far. I had grand like ideas of my level far beyond what I should have done. So I finished that year and I was really ill. I have had chronic fatigue syndrome since I was 16 and over the course of that year I also developed fibromyalgia, which is a form of chronic pain and I was just really ill. So I signed up for a master's because being a student was like all I knew at that point. And then I dropped out of a master's and I kind of was pretty much housebound at that point. Like I maybe went out once or twice a week and that was incredibly exhausting. And some point in this time, I had had a friend at university who had a blog about lifestyle design and she had this email list and she'd email once a week. And this was just like such a foreign world to me. But I was curious and I asked her, because here were all these people in this lifestyle design world, like, seemingly making money from their laptops all around the world, like, what I now know are like digital nomads. And I just looked at this and I was just like, this is very interesting because I don't want to travel the world, but if I could make money on my laptop from my bed, that would be amazing. So I reached out to her and she sort of like, it was kind of like my gateway into the online business world. Shortly after that, I set up a business called the Pillow for, which was for young people with chronic illness that was selling physical products, digital magazine, Facebook community. It was really good, but I wasn't going to make enough, like, money to live off almost on that. If there's any audience that doesn't have any money, it's young people with chronic illnesses. And so then I went to my lifelong plan B. My health was doing a little better at that point and I decided to train as a maths teacher because I've always liked maths. It was just this weird thing that I did a theology degree and it was going to be fully funded and it was about six months before the teacher training course started that I kind of like had to kill. So I. I was quite in the online business world at this point. I'd done quite a lot of courses and programs and I was fairly well networked. And I looked at my skillset and I was just like, oh, I'm going to be a VA for six months. I'm going to be a virtual assistant for six months. It started my prices fairly low and because I was well connected and kind of like, well networked, within days of like announcing this and setting up my website, I was getting clients and I was able to fairly quickly increase my rates. I got near fully booked. And it was just the most magical thing that I was getting paid to faff around on the Internet all day, which is exactly what I had been doing before, but now I was getting paid for it. So I didn't end up taking up my maths teacher training course. And I, I joke I'm the only person who became like a permanent va. Like, I feel like everyone starts as a VA and then quickly transitions into something else. But I'm like no, I'm a temporary va. And then I made that more permanent. So that was 2015, I became a VA and that started making decent money fairly quickly. By decent, I mean a thousand or two a month. But that was, I had been living on disability benefits at that point, so that was great. Then 2016 I started using ConvertKit and I became one of the first four ConvertKit certified experts and I really started leaning into focusing on ConvertKit work. So I was still a VA, but like I've become more of a tech VA and my specialism was ConvertKit. I launched my membership ConvertKit club in mid 2016 and that started bringing in a little money. Then in 2017 I launched a group program called Convertkit Rockstars and that was a real, real turning point for me. So that was, that was the launch of ConvertKit Rockstars was my first 10k month before I think my biggest month had been 5k something. So this was a huge jump. And the later half of 2017 I started creating more courses and trainings on like a variety of online businessy things. 2018 was really quite a limbo year for me. So, so I was still doing VA work, I had ongoing VA clients and I was offering convertkit migrations, various done for you services. But I was also starting to create more courses, paid live trainings, group programs, that kind of thing. So I was really in that limbo to 2019. My wife, most of that year was spent with my wife and I adopting our two little girls who were 5 months and 17 months when they came to us. And the, the adoption was very hard for a number of reasons. So the second half of 2019 was incredibly hard. If I'm honest, it's all a bit of a blur. And 2020 I kind of hit my groove with selling my courses on webinars and kind of like staying up late blitzing a project and then kind of like collapsing in a heap. So having two toddlers in a pandemic is absolutely no joke. But I had my first 10k launch in 2020 and, and towards in middle of 2020 due to the pandemic. But actually I think it was a blessing in disguise in some way. I stopped doing all calls all done for you client work. I let all my remaining VA clients go and I kind of like from now on I'm creating courses, I'm selling trainings and doing some affiliate marketing. And in August last year I launched the Profitable Playground, which is my six month group coaching program which is kind of like a culmination of all the things that I had created up to that point. And that launch was my first 100k launch, which was very exciting. And yeah, still like that program, still going. I've still got all my courses and such, and here we are today.

So you have given us so much to dig into and unpack here. And I have to tell the audience too, that one of the reasons why I reached out to you and I actually approached you to be on our series here is because you had posted basically a blog post about Your, your year 20. And it was to me, you know, as I read through it, you were so open and honest and vulnerable and kind of listing everything that has gone on with you in your business and in your life. So. But first question I have, because it really threw me for a loop, is you said that you graduated with a theology degree and that is like when you go into like the ministry. Correct.

Not in the uk. So.

Okay.

I mean, there are theology degrees that do lead into the ministry, but my theology degree was done at a secular university. And I mean, I could do things that potentially would lead into the ministry, but I'm not Christian or religious myself. It was more out of interest, which I know sounds very strange, but. No, it wasn't. It wasn't leading to ministry.

Okay, so you, you basically. So where, where did you plan to take that? I'm just curious.

So I come from a very math science family and it was always assumed I would do maths, maybe physics for my degree. And I, like, I came from a family where it was kind of like inevitable that I would go to university and everyone just assumed It'd be maths pH. And I'd always loved religious studies at school. Like, I'd always found that really interesting as a subject and I kept doing them. So in the UK we have GCSEs and we have A levels. I'm not sure what the equivalent is, but I always was doing the math science subjects. But I also kept holding on to religious studies. And I remember when I was probably like, I don't know, like 14, joking, oh my gosh, at this rate, I'm going to do it from gcse, then I'm going to do it for A level and then like, I might do it for a degree. Imagine that. And it was just this really funny idea, but it was just what I was interested in. And I, I grew up kind of like almost knowing I, I had to go to university. Obviously I didn't have to go to university, but that was an expectation on Me. And I figured if I'm gonna have to go to university, I might at least do something that's very interesting for me. And I chose theology and I really enjoyed my degree, but also I didn't have a plan for what I was going to do with life after I had a degree and what actually happened because I found my degree, there weren't many lectures and classes. Like, it didn't take me that much time in air quotes. So I got very, very involved in student politics, the students union, both my university level and like the national student level. Very, very involved, particularly in the women's campaign and women's feminist organizations, but also the LGBTQ campaign and organizations local and national. And I just learned so much from that experience in terms of leadership and working with team and creating projects and activism and all sorts of things like that, which that's kind of like what I got out of university. And I, and I, and have a degree, and that's great. But I knew going into it I wasn't going to use that degree necessarily.

And I love that. And I love the fact that you realized or. And this is probably a good message for a lot of people out there. Just because you go to school for something doesn't. Doesn't mean that you have to, you know, work in that or stay in that. I certainly didn't.

And I think a theology degree, like, I can write an excellent essay, I can argue a point very well, I can engage with philosophical ideas. So it was like a classic arts degree in many ways in terms of it being about thinking and articulating and researching and, and those are such transferable, useful skills to have, even if it's not in that direct subject.

I love that. And, you know, and I like the story that you gave us in terms of, you know, you started out as a va, then kind of moved into and were known in the industry. And I think, quite frankly, this is how I originally found out about you was related to ConvertKit. Because I think of mine. Yeah, I think a friend of mine, she was either in your membership or she knew about you. And I had migrated to ConvertKit and I was trying to learn, you know, some things about you, and I think that's how I originally found out about you. So I love kind of how you had all those twists and turns there. And I want to ask you something about. You mentioned in, you know, 2019, your wife and you, you adopted two children. And I can only imagine how difficult it was kind of keeping your business running and going through that adoption process. Because I know people who have adopted in our family, not me personally, but in our family. And it is a lot to go through that.

It is, it is. It was. The process itself wasn't too bad. I think we were really prepared for a very, very intense process and it actually wasn't too bad or too stretching on our attention or whatever. But right before our girls came to live with us, we have to go to this. It's called a matching panel. And where we have to go to a panel and kind of like they have to agree that this is a good match, that these kids are good for us as parents and vice versa. And that for various reasons was an incredibly stressful, verging on traumatic, horrible experience which resulted in an internal investigation. Lots of apologies, like, it was awful. And that kind of like cast a very. So in the blog post I wrote about last year, June, July are just merged together. It was just such a blur, it was so dark, it was so heavy. The girls came to live with us at the start of July. My dad passed away at the end of July and it was just the most like we knew adopting two babies effectively was going to be jumping in the deep end. Like, we knew that. But for. So for the second half of the 2019, it felt like we were just flailing around in the middle of the Atlantic Ocean. And just most days I just didn't know if I could swim, if I could swim any longer. And like, social services were still incredibly involved. We had social worker visits all the time and because they just didn't really know what to do with us because we're a lot younger than the average adopter in the UK. The average adoption in the UK is probably early 40s and my wife and I were 28 and 29. They couldn't really understand that we both worked from home and they just didn't really understand our lifestyle because I think there's so much. They're so used to working with much older people, but whenever they'd come round for all these visits and there was so many visits, they kind of just expected both of us to be stay at home moms because we were both there and I think because we were both women and I really struggled to convey that I need to work. I am now the sole provider for a family of four. I need to work, I need to work. And even when I did get pockets of time, like my brain was just mush. Like I always thought that mum brain was due to hormones, but it turns out mum brain is not to hormones, it is Due to the tiredness that comes with having little kids. And we reach. It wasn't breaking point, but it would have reached breaking point at the end of 2019 and into 2020. Right at the beginning of 2020, we got diagnosed with post adoption depression, which is a whole fun thing. And probably the first couple of weeks of March, we just started to do a little bit better as a family. And then we all know what happens mid March 2020. But in many ways, the pandemic last year was. I mean, the pandemic's still going in the uk, but it was a blessing in disguise because it meant all the social worker visits stopped and we were able to just be a family together with no distractions and no interruptions and like figuring it out, out for a few months. And last year, I like 2.5x to my business in terms of revenue and was a long, hard year last year. But I think that the focus that I felt and kind of like the decisions I made now that the girls were with us and now that I was in a slightly better headspace and they were sleeping slightly better, just allowed me to like, step up almost to the next level of my business for myself, for my girls, my family. Yeah. Don't know if that was a question, but ramble after it.

No, I love all that. And it really just, it amazes me that you were able to accomplish what you were able to accomplish in 2020 when you still had all of that was going on. And one of the things that you mentioned as you were going through your journey is you said in 2020, you kind of groove well, and I think you had done a lot over the years to kind of, you know, set yourself up for success. So let's just. Let's just be real.

2020.

Can you talk about really what you think the game changers were for you?

So it's. I don't. I think it. I've been asked this question recently a few times, particularly by my clients. And I think the main thing is I kept going. I just kept going. Like every single thing I have ever done since I started as a va. Good, bad, ugly, all of it has led to this point. And I think so many people decide it's like not working or not working the way I want it to, they want it to, like, too early. So I just kept going. And a really big factor last year was I went. So I'd created a lot moving. Coming into 29. No, coming into 2020, I'd created a lot of trainings, a lot of Programs, a lot of things. And I spent a lot of 20, 20, like going back over the things that already created and almost like product development, like referring, refining them both in terms of the content itself, but also the like sales process. So I might have had a course and then I would create a sales webinar to sell it and then I would stick that whole lot into an evergreen funnel or something like that. And I just sort of like hit my groove with almost a repeatable process. That worked for me. That was, that was really key. Like no one told me this process. I found it myself through trial and error. But it really works for me. And as I hit that groove, I was able to see for the first time that all these puzzle pieces I had created in my business and I created them just because I wanted to create a training or a course on it or whatever. I could see for the first time that they made up this bigger picture. And being able to see that allowed me to create my profitable playground program, which kind of overarches everything, not entirely, but kind of. And creating that higher ticket six month group coaching program and the launch of that going so well contributed a lot to the revenue and success last year. But in, I'd say, like it was so painful to create and launch that program. It was 10 times the cost of anything I'd really ever sold before. And I had to grow and step into that person and that next level of me. But the, the, like, the door didn't open to do that until last year because of all the things I had done up to that point.

And I will tell you that you're like the third person that I've even interviewed this week that has said just, you know, everything I've done over the years and I just kept going. That was one of the keys to my success. So I'm happy to hear you say that because I think that's a very powerful message for anybody who's listening today. And they're thinking about giving up because maybe things aren't just exactly where they thought they would be at this point in their business. Okay, so I want to delve into the profitable playground. And I think I'm still, I know I'm still on your email list and I think I remember seeing some of this. And so I want to dig into this a little bit. So tell us a little bit more about this program and why you decided to launch it and a little bit about your launch process. You said you had a hundred thousand if I, if I wrote it down correctly, yes, 100,000. Okay, so we got, we have got to get all the details here, so why don't you kind of walk us through some of that.

So the whole premise for the profitable playground is that there are so many people out there teaching, create a signature course, create a signature program, have one offer, grow and scale that. Like that's the only way to really grow your business and make money. And I have done those exercises where you like look at the percentage of like the 8020 rule. I've tried to do the 8020 rule on my business so many times and the biggest percentage from any single one thing was never more than about 25%. But I had been at six figures for years selling so many different types of things I was doing done for you. I was doing courses, trainings, I was doing affiliate marketing. And I knew that it was possible to create a business that feels fun and feels like a creative outlet that you get to create and do all the things you want to create and do in a way that's not totally overwhelming and just having all those offers. So I kind of say it's for multi passionate people who want to build like big, beautiful, slightly messy multi offer businesses. And I started like whispering this earlier in 2020 and it just really resonated with people. Like I think so many people have tried the like signature program, signature course route and it's just not for them. Like I've never even really tried it because I just, I just can't do it. And I don't think people need to niche down as far as a lot of people say. I don't think most people straight out the gate should be creating signature courses or signature programs. So the program itself is this idea of having fun, experimenting, playing, just creating this ecosystem or playground as I call it, of different offers that all work together and support each other and allow your audience and clients to buy from you again and again and again. So the like core bit of it, which a lot of my playgrounders follow, not all of them to be fair, is this idea of creating, doing paid live trainings, like low cost paid live trainings and then turning those into self study courses and then running like group live rounds two to three weeks long off the content. So this and then you kind of like layer in flash sales, fast launching things, any other income streams you've got. And I always say that like I have worked with so many coaches and mentors and I've done so many programs, I've probably spent over 100k on different things over the years at this point. And I always felt like I was too much for my coaches, for my mentors, my business was too much for them in terms of, you know, like, I would sign up for a program and would be working on a course, but I wouldn't ever bring them something that's going on in affiliate marketing that I'm doing or something that's going on with a done for you client. Like, they're only really interested in one part of my business, but my business from pretty much the very beginning has had all these different things going on. And the profitable playground is just a place where you get to be all of you and bring all of your business and all of your ideas. And I passionately believe that you can build a profitable business with lots of different things going on in a way that is sustainable and you don't get horribly overwhelmed and burnt out. But I think it really resonates with a lot of my audience that it's welcoming of all of them and all of the income streams and all the ideas and getting to play and experiment with that.

So this is different than a lot of what's being taught in the marketplace and a lot of what you see. So I love kind of how you're differentiating this and what you're doing there. And I think a lot of people can relate to, to this. Like they have a lot of things that they want to bring to the world or they they're offering. And so we'll definitely make sure that the link for this, I'm assuming you have some type of wait list page. We'll make sure that the link for this is out there for folks. Walk us through your launch strategy and how did you get to 100, $100,000 launch?

So in July 2020, I joined Mariah Cos's high ticket hybrid program. I was already in her accelerator program prior to that and she's kind of like been my, one of my coaching, mentoring people for a couple of years. So I joined her and I basically for the most part, followed her process. So it is about craft, like, so there was, there was an application page and people could apply for the program and if they were accepted for the program, then they were invited to a private training. So it's kind of like a webinar, but it was almost like more valuable than that. And then I talked more about what was included in the playground and who it was for on this private training and then they could join from there. And the process Mariah has created in High Ticket Hybrid is incredible. If you want to sell A higher ticket group coaching program. And I just, the process just really worked for me and I followed it pretty closely, which is quite unusual for me to follow something quite closely. But it was a big investment and I committed to it and I followed it closely and I, and I ran everything kind of like how she taught and how she does until kind of earlier this year. And now in the last couple of months I've started to like tweak it a bit in terms of the sales process and it's not on Evergreen anymore. I'm going to open it a few times a year and I've kind of like I'm making it feel more me now. But yeah, that was, that was the process. So there was no sales calls. I chatted to people who had questions on email, voxer, Facebook messenger, that kind of thing and they bought which I was very, very surprised about. My Launch goal was 6, I wanted 6 people to join. My like stretch goal was 10 and then my like huge. Could you even imagine goal was 20 and I think by the time we actually started I think I had almost 30 people in there. And I think it, I think it's just the messaging, I think it's quite unlike anything else out there in terms of this positioning to create multi offer businesses whilst having fun and experimenting.

Now did, did you launched your email list or did you run paid ads or how did you find the people that were interested in this?

So I launched my email list. I, I don't think I ran ads to cold. I might have done some ads to warm but not really. Predominantly it was to my existing list and my audience. I had about in the month before I had just wrapped, just done a live round, a three week live round of my profitable live trainings course. So the momentum from that was extremely high and a lot of people kind of like what's next after that live round? And the profitable playground was next and a lot of them came in off the energy of that course basically.

So thank you for sharing that and going into details about that new offer that you put together. Elizabeth, you have, you know, you've done a lot with your business over the years. What do you see as next steps going forward in 2021 or beyond?

So for me it's focusing on the profitable playground still that's going to continue. It's not a signature offer but it's going to continue to be I think like my core offer. I'm always in the process of refining my offers and the, the content themselves, content itself and like adding to, adding to it and updating it, and also the like marketing and sales process for my different offers. So creating new sales webinars for them, putting things into evergreen funnels, that kind of thing. And then because I feel like I'm nearly, I'm pretty much there, having created everything I want to create for now, like, I feel like the. My body of work is almost there. And now new things I create and sell are either updates to what I've already created or are just fun little new things that I want to do. And then also growing my audience. So working with publicity team to get me booked on podcasts. And I'm also hoping to launch my own podcast as a way to grow my audience, share more content, that kind of thing.

Oh, fun. It's fun. So have you launched your podcast? Are you still in the works of doing that?

It's still coming. It's still coming. I've taken like a bajillion podcast launching courses. I'm such a. A researcher. I know exactly how to do it. I just need to sit down and do it. But I'm very kind of like, I don't want to say scatty, but kind of just like I work in these very small little bursts for a couple of like a week or so, and then the whole thing will be done, and then I'll kind of go through a phase where I just don't really do much for a bit, and then I'll get another little burst of energy and do a thing. So at some point in the next few months, I'm hoping the podcast burst comes, but I can't force it. So it'll come when it comes.

I hear you. And, you know, first of all, you're going to be great at it. You're great at, you know, chatting, chatting on the podcast now. But the one thing I love about podcasting is you can take breaks, right? You can season and take a break and, you know, jump back up in it. So I think you're really going to like that. My closing question for you is, what advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?

So, like I already said, keep going. Everything you're doing now is moving you forward, even if it doesn't feel like it or look like it. So you will look back and see the journey got you here. And every step of the journey was necessary to get you to the success. And the other thing is, don't be afraid to experiment and have fun. Like I always say to my clients, not everything needs to be a strategic business decision. And usually your biggest successes are going to be things that you did just for fun, just because you wanted to, not because someone told you to do that. Like that's where your biggest successes are going to come. So keep going and experiment and have fun.

I love both of those tidbits there. Elizabeth, can you let people know where they can find you?

Yes. So my like podcasty page is elizabethgoddard.co.uk pod pod and I'm also pretty active on Instagram where I am Elizabeth Goddard, Underscore UK and we will make sure.

That those links are in the show notes so people can click on them and find you. Elizabeth, thank you so much for joining me today. I loved hearing about your story and your journey all the way from getting your theology degree until launching the profitable playground.

Thank you so much for having me. It's been fun.

Thanks. Thank you so much for joining us today. I hope you enjoyed this episode. If you love the show, we'd appreciate a review on Apple Podcasts or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.