68: Emily Reagan: Digital Marketing Consultant, Implementer + Online Course Creator

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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 I have Emily Reagan with me. Emily is a Jill of all trades when it comes to digital marketing and techie skills. She has worked as a behind the scenes digital media implementer and virtual assistant for a decade for online business owner clients. She's a mom of four, Air Force wife and founder of the Digital Media VA Crash Course where she teaches women the digital marketing skills to get hired online as an in demand, highly sought after unicorn virtual assistant. Emily, thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited to chat with you. I love what you've done with your business and very excited to hear more about your journey.

Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure and I love to share my story with other course creators.

Well, why don't you take us back to whatever point where you kind of had this aha moment I need to or I want to go into this online world. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in all this?

Oh, of course. I love to share this story because I think we can all relate, especially those who who are in the support role of businesses and don't really picture themselves one day being like insta famous and putting themselves out there. So I am a military spouse as you said and I can't deny that my resume shows it. I have moved so many times. I have never had a job longer than 18 months and I even had a boss tell me I knew I could get you for cheap because you're a military spouse and it was a great job that I was getting but it just, it was hard on my career moving all of the time. So I had an opportunity to start freelancing and I know you've had a lot of freelancers here on this show and it just kind of fell into my lap. I said yes, not really knowing where it was going, but we were getting ready to PCs, which is a military term for move. And I had had my son and things just changed for me. I didn't want to start working at the time. I was a full time job at the time. I was in PR and marketing and communications and I just couldn' see learning a new media market and I decided to stay home with my son. I had already started working with this client and then next thing I knew I'm like completely booked out because I like these skills were so in demand. Business owners wanted to hire somebody who could help them a little bit with the tech, like have an eye for writing, have an eye for like website updates, writing emails. And I just kind of figured things out as I went and had several more kids because now I have four. And I was completely happy doing the work behind the scenes because for the first time ever I could bring this job with me. I wasn't starting over. I wasn't starting over with low pay, like nobody knew me or like 10 days of leave a year, you know. So it really worked with my lifestyle. And I had a client invite me to go to Tribe Live actually, so Sue McLaren's tribe live and I showed up there with no business cards. I had never really marketed myself. And this was the summer of 2018. My husband was getting ready to deploy so I kind of had the hall pass and I picked a business conference and I hadn't attended anything like that in years, probably in a decade because I've been doing the mommy stuff. And I showed up to Tribe Live and I got inundated. Destiny. So many business owners were like, I need you, I need you, I need you. And I just had this aha moment that I could start teaching my very smart, over educated, underemployed fellow military spouse friends mainly they were moms to do this work. I'm like this isn't rocket science. And so I decided I could be the middleman. I could start connecting them. And then I wasn't disappointing business owners by saying no because I am a people pleaser. I mean I want to help and I have it in my heart. But this was a way to help my friends get in. So I started teaching them. I started first, kind of had a micro agency at this point and through the training for my own team, I realized that was scalable. And so that is what birthed my course right there.

So Let me. First of all, I want to go back to that comment that your former manager made about because you were in the military spouse, that he could get you for cheap. I've never heard that before. What was the rationale for that? Just because you were moving around so much.

Yeah, because when you're starting over, no one is, no one knows who you are. I was, you know, still in my 20s at that time, but he saw the wealth of experience I had had from moving and this crazy resume of mine. It looks like I'm disloyal. It looks like I'm just going to quit a job. But he, he actually meant it as a compliment. Compliment. He saw that, hey, you've done all of these jobs and I see the advantage of that and other people don't. But he also knew, I mean it was a nonprofit. He also knew that I wasn't going to waltz into like the corporate space in that city. You know, no one knew who I was. And what's funny is that resume is now an advantage in the online space because it's given me such a breadth of skill. So that are in demand online. Everything from video editing to I worked with HGTV for a little while doing their scripts. I've helped with conferences. I've done journalism jobs and TV news jobs. And he saw it as an advantage. He just didn't quite say it so nicely.

And hearing you tell me that, I'm like, yeah, I think he probably could awarded that a different way. But we all understand what he was saying there. So you started as a freelancer. How long did you work as a freelancer? Until you went to this conference where you had that aha moment.

So I wasn't at max capacity. I am very privileged. My husband's in the military so this job was not supporting me. You know, I didn't have to have a full time income, I didn't need benefits. So I was doing the mom thing. I was working at nap time. Weekends were a big time for me to work, especially in the morning, I was working in the evening. I was doing a lot of Pinterest marketing. So it's stuff you can work ahead on. And I did that for a good. Let's see, I got that first job right when my son was born. 2009 is when I first took on my first Facebook client. And I was doing PR for him as well. So I was never maxed out. But I had been doing that. And every time my client said like, hey, do you know anything about this? I would just say yes. And learn. Because I realized quickly they didn't want to go out and find somebody new. It's so much easier to keep it in house. And I love learning. Obviously, like the growth mindset has paid off for me. And yeah, so I just kept saying yes to projects that would help me, not really knowing the online formula that we all are very well of now. And that served me well.

So between 2009 and 2018, you were working with clients not fully booked because you obviously you have four, four kids at home. So you are. Had. Had your hands full there. So you went to this conference in 2018. Were you. What was the rationale to go to the conference? Was it to figure out what you wanted to do? Was it to grow your business or were you just doing it because you had that hall pass because you were about to be deployed again, your husband was about to be deployed.

A little bit of all of it. But the conference was in Toronto, so that was like very alluring to me. I want, I mean, I really cared about my clients and their business. And I went with Wendy Batten. She's one of Stu McLaren's success stories. She launched a membership. I was her right hand woman when it happened. And so he uses her story a lot in marketing. And she was going to be talking on stage. Her husband backed out, so she had this extra ticket. And I had a couple other clients who were in Stu's world and I just thought I'm going to go learn everything I can and not actually sign up. Which was great because his conference was just a regurgitation of his material and then, you know, a whole bunch of selling. But it was great. Like the people at Tribe were fun. It was so fun networking. Like, I did not think I would like it as much, but I really, I had gotten a bonus from another client and I turned around and booked the airfare in the hotel for Toronto. Totally splurged. I had a hotel room with this like shower in the middle of the room. It was so bizarre. And I stayed up purposely at a hotel away from the conference so I could have a little bit of a mom reprieve. But I had, like I said, I hadn't been to a business conference in a while, so it's kind of a big deal. It was kind of like all of those factors, you know, and as moms.

Sometimes we have to just take that break too.

Right? We like multitask, don't we? If we can like turn anything in a mom time, we do.

Absolutely. Absolutely. And what, you know, to Your point? And I love what you said there about the conference. And one of the biggest benefits I have found by going to events like that is the networking and meeting people. Like. Like, we're meeting each other here virtually, but actually go in there and meeting people live. That's what I like about conferences like that.

I did not really think about it like that because I just had not been promoting myself. I didn't need to. I was getting. I was turning down clients all the time. I didn't even have an Instagram. I didn't even have a website. I just kind of went. And it makes me sound kind of dumb, but, you know, I just never needed to do that. And when I was there in person, it was so powerful to, like, be around people who could speak my language. And it was just amazing.

So you were at this conference and you had this aha moment. And tell me again a little bit more about what you were feeling and what happened after you went home. What actions did you take?

I was terrified. And I had already helped my clients, like, start transitioning their talent online. I've really been kind of married to the DIY space. A lot of my clients have been furniture painters and designers, and I've helped them kind of monetize their talent with blogs, affiliate programs, and digital products. Right? So I knew the steps. I'd been implementing the steps. And my first thing I did, Destiny, was, I'm going to be honest with you. I had a glass of wine in my hotel room, I put on a face mask, and I did my first Facebook Live. And it was terrifying. And I've deleted it. I wish I had it up, but I did a Facebook Live and announced what I was gonna do. Because I figured, like, if I'm gonna commit, I'm gonna commit. I'm gonna do the scary thing. Cause I knew the power of Facebook Live, right? You're supposed to do that all the time, right? It's better for the algorithm. And I just thought, like, I'm gonna hold myself accountable by announcing it. It was the scariest thing I've ever done.

And you said, you don't have it anymore. You got to keep that on your Facebook. I know.

And I can't remember if I started. Like, I can't remember. I must have had a Facebook page, or I might have just started my group somewhere around that time. I. I can't quite remember that. The order. But right after that, I set up a website. I just set up a quick one. I didn't, like, fuss about it. I just got One going. I got my Facebook group group going, and I just started showing up weekly. And it was painful at the beginning because nobody was there. Right. We all start from zero. Nobody was there. But I did it because I knew the power of consistency. I helped my clients show up consistently, and I had to do it for myself.

So you set up your website, you set up a Facebook group, and I think that Facebook groups are powerful when you're just starting out and building your audience. So I love what you did there. Were you doing any type of content marketing, like blogging or podcasting at that time around there?

I started blogging because I also. I love organic traffic. I love SEO. So I started getting that going just to kind of, you know, show off my reputation. I was very uncomfortable talking about myself, sharing my knowledge. It came easy. But doing it in a way that, like, benefited my business. Like, I just hadn't done that before. So I loved. I love to plan content. Like, the newspaper editor in me, like, loves to have a plan and story ideas and whatnot. So I did that. And then at the same time, I was documenting what I was doing with my clients, and I was doing it with Loom. I started super simple. I used Loom and just kind of recorded myself doing the things I do for clients so I could start to assemble that in a course. And so that was about six months of doing those and trying to get organized with my content. I do not have a teacher background. I am not a curriculum specialist. But I also knew how I had gotten results. What I do weekly for clients, like, what are the steps I get there? And I just kind of mapped it out.

Okay, so it was six months. You were showing up in this group. You were, you know, blogging. When did you start monetizing this in terms of helping other. Other individuals become VAs, which is what you do today.

Yeah. So, you know, six months into that, we're talking January 2019, I did a beta launch, and I just did it. I just did it, and I had things together. I was a couple weeks ahead of the content. One of the key moments for me was just investing in my tech, and I paid for that annual tech, and that was a big chunk of money, but it was, to me, like, a commitment to show that I was serious about this business. I did a beta launch with that Facebook group. I think I had an email list of about 66 0. Like, not huge, because, remember, in this time, my husband deployed, so I'm, like, struggling with life, and I'm still doing, like, client work. And I had 60 people buy, and I gave a stupid low price. If I went back in time, I would not do that, because I did get people who were not invested. I mean, we kind of know the rule of pricing there. You know, people who are serious will pay more, and then they will finish. But I got just enough people to have success. And I paid for Kajabi for the year, so I think I made about $1,200. And my price. You're gonna laugh. Was $67. And this was a signature course. And I know you talked about your signature course and going all in, like, this was a comprehensive course, but I knew I was a nobody. I needed to start, and I knew the power of, like, getting success with just a few, and I could, you know, roll that snowball from there, and I did.

So you said you had 60 people on your email list. How many were in your group, or do you even remember that?

I had about 20 actually. Buy.

Okay, 20 people buy. Gotcha.

Okay.

All right, so. And it sounds like you were able to get some testimonials from that and some feedback from your beta clients.

Yes, I was. I did that. And it also gave me a way to. It gave me the information and feedback I needed to make some updates. And by then I realized, like, my tech was not good enough. Those loom videos I did were not good enough. And so I needed to refilm things and just do a better job. So I did that, and I did a really quiet, soft launch going into that summer and just opened it to a few people who'd been asking. I don't even think I tracked the revenue from that. I have slowly increased it every time, so people had that sense of urgency, and they saw that I was serious every time I launched, I upped the price, and we were getting ready to move that summer, so I just quietly let some people in, and then I went all in with my first real big launch that fall. So October 2019, I did the webinar thing, which is so funny.

Did you do Facebook ads to fill it up?

Yeah, I did. I was just starting, so I didn't have any data about my audiences, but I started with Facebook ads to kind of get an idea, but nothing like crazy. I mean, my budget was tiny, and I made. I made about 7,000. Probably got about the same, like, 20 people. But that was just a big moment for me to do the webinar, to do it in a way that was authentic to me, in a way like my webinar really taught, you know? And I Had room to improve in my, like, speaking skills, like my messaging and my marketing. So it was all part of the, I don't know, part of the journey, part of the lessons of live launching. So that one went well, I thought. I was pretty happy with that.

And this just so everybody listening knows that this is your signature course. This is your. I believe you call it the Unicorn VA crash course. It's your signature course that you use to train Vascular.

Yes. Yeah, I didn't even mention my course, but yeah, it teaches like, oh, my gosh, there's like nine modules. I went all in with the signature thing. We start with SEO and we walk all the way through helping clients with email marketing, affiliate marketing, we do social Media, we do YouTube blogging. So it's just teaching the tech skills behind all that work. Because I found so many business owners go through a course or get a coach. They have the strategy, they just need help implementing it, and they want somebody who gets it. So I'm like, okay, I'll just give them everything. And then from here, they can kind of pick and choose and have the resources to come back to. So somebody who hadn't worked in a while or somebody who didn't necessarily have a marketing degree could get up to speed really quick and be able to do the work. Well.

What I like about what you're doing is I know a lot of us are going to places like Upwork and Fiverr and picking people. You know, this person has, you know, in Kajabi, or this person has experience in ConvertKit, or this person can help me with blogging and SEO, but you're really teaching them how to do everything. So somebody has one point of contact for their business.

Yeah, I found that such a sore spot for business owners because usually we all start out, we're a solopreneur and we're looking for that first hire. Yes, sometimes we do need that specialized person. We need a Facebook ads person. We might need, like a coder. We go to upwork or freelance for that. Right. But a lot of times we just need a teammate. We need a sidekick. And that's what I had been doing for years with my clients. And they just needed somebody to knock out the task. And there could be a couple admin things on there, but it was mainly digital marketing tasks. It was online marketing tasks like the weekly content, the emails, the social media, and just having somebody who can help you and understand your business but be in it for the long term. And yes, you can. You can hire the specialists, you can go overseas but what I found was the stateside VA who can be like, just take your business seriously and love your business and be. What am I trying to say here? Just dedicated. Like, that's what people really wanted. You know, that's what they wanted on their team. Especially if they're going to grow, they're their business long term.

And I know there's going to be people listening here. They're like, you know, that's absolutely what I need. So we'll make sure that they know how to, you know, to get to your website. Because one of the things that you also do is you have a place on your website where people can come hire folks that you've trained through your course.

Yes, I bought the website, hire a unicorn.com and I just have a form on there so business owners can fill out their top priorities. It's totally low key. Like I said, this is good for your first hire. And there's tons of ways, like you can always post your job in Facebook groups. You can, you know, build it out on your website, but sometimes that just takes a lot of work or you're going to be inundated, especially if you post in like a Facebook group where there's 40,000 VAs. But you don't. They're all like admin, and that's not quite what you want. So I found a way to streamline it. I don't charge business owners anything. And right now I kind of make it a. A perk to being in my program and just kind of helping these, you know, rock stars who are quick and smart and hungry and eager get those first jobs.

So thank you for that. I took a little bit of a tangent there. So in fall Of October of 29th, 2019, you launched your course, you did the webinar thing, you made about $7,000. You even did the Facebook ad thing, which is, you know, a big leap of faith. I know for many.

Yeah.

Where did you take it from there?

So going into the second launch was exciting and by then I had proof of concept, you know, more so than the beta launch. And it was all about refinement. I've been constantly growing my email list. And I went into my next launch and I think it was like end of January, February. And that is when I had that amazing launch that, like, for me, I ended up making $24,000 in that launch. And I had a good number of students. I can't remember the number of students because each time I raised the price. So it's just not like simple math. But I just remember feeling on fire because, like, this is what I need. I have opportunities for VAs to get work. And I needed more. I needed more students, right? So I did the whole webinar thing there. I'm trying to remember what I did different at that point. I had started building a quiz funnel, but I don't think I had it done in time for that, for that webinar. But it was just all about refinement for that one. My list had grown. I was starting to develop a name for myself. And the funniest thing is, during that live launch, I think it was like a 10 day. It might have been a 14 day open car. It's like, way too long. But when I opened it, I had planned a bonus. I planned an early bird bonus, and not one person bought it. Destiny. It was awful. And I was just panicking. I was just panicking, like, no one's gonna buy it. And all of the things I had gone through with my clients and soothing them and being their therapist in their launch, I needed that. Luckily, I had a team. But it was terrifying to open the cart and have cricket. And I found with that really long card open window, everybody bought at the end. You know, usually you have a spike at the beginning, a slump in the middle, and then you have a spike at a bigger spike at the end. And for that launch, everybody bought at the end. So that made me kind of think, like, well, how can I make the bonus enticing? Or how can I, like, prep my wait list better? Like, there was a lot of ideas, like, happening with that, but I was just glad it ended up with the numbers that it did. And at that point, I had done more Facebook ads. I think I ended up getting like 1200 people into my webinars with Facebook ads, which was just my first real experience trying to scale those. So that was exciting.

So based on your experience there, would you say that maybe a one week cart open period would be better?

Oh, for sure. I mean, it does matter when the cart closes, like, what day of the week that is. And of course, like, just getting clarity on who your buyer is. I've kind of had this problem where I can serve a lot of people. And I wasn't quite sure who I was talking to at the beginning. Like, am I talking to military spouses? Are women starting second careers who want to update their skills? Or is this moms? I think that I was a little bit kind of all over the place in the beginning. And then not knowing, like, when to host my webinars. When people could actually attend them. Like, all of that was like, kind of trial for that launch to figure out what worked and just keeping track of, like, okay, what emails did well, what webinars had better attendance and show up rates and conversion rates. And it was just part of the learning journey.

And this was all in January of 2020. And obviously we know what happened a couple months down the road from that. What else happened in your business last year?

Oh, that Covid pretty much ruined my launch plans. I ended up being at home with four kids, which is something I never planned on. I had just gotten the sweet taste of freedom. For the first time ever, I had all kids in school or daycare. And I did not have to drive because at this point we had moved and there was a bus and I had it so good, I didn't even know it for what, like five months there. And then Covid happened and that was hard, but actually demand went up. Business owners were hiring, moving online. But I just didn't really have the capacity to launch with four kids home. And, you know, by then no one was in school, no one was in daycare. And it stayed that way through the fall. So I tried to. I had an April launch plan. I was trying to launch three to four, four times a year. I had goals to get six figures, and I ended up kind of doing this weird launch in June where I opened the doors and I just left them open. And I got. I think I made about 20,000. Got. Got some students in. But I found out that I had attracted some of the wrong people. And I think that this was a good marketing lesson and I needed to learn it then before, like, and early on. But there is, I guess I don't want to get too deep into this, but you have to watch your brand voice. And when I'm talking about working online and making money online, there can be a tendency to attract the desperate, right? There can be a tendency to attract the wrong person. And I had a couple people in my course that summer who I would never refer to clients. And I was terrified of what that would mean to my reputation. And they were very helpless. And I'm not trying to talk bad here, but it was a big aha moment for me in my messaging. I ended up having to let a couple of those students go. I just gave them a refund and I asked them to leave. And that was heartbreaking for me. I just want everyone to be happy and get along and learn and get hired and like, you know, frolic in the meadow and have A good life. But I needed to change my messaging. So that's been my big growth coming into that fall. I really worked on that. I worked on having a voice that was more authority, less of something that would attract the downtrodden. And this is a whole thing in copywriting. This is the whole thing. You have to watch your tone and how you say things. And I just needed to get very, very laser focused with how I talked about my program, the results it would get, because it's not overnight success. It's not a get rich scheme. You can't sign up and expect to have clients and be booked out in a week. It's just not how it worked. So when I did my next fall launch in 2020, I didn't quite get the numbers I wanted. I think I got about 18 students, but by now, my signature course is 1000. It's 997. So it was worth it to me. I'm attracting people who are better fit, who get results, who actually take on clients when they're done with the program. Like, they have the confidence, they have the tenacity, the desire, you know, the drive, and all of that. So that was a huge lesson to learn. Oh, my goodness. And I had a mentor tell me you have a psychographics problem instead of demographics psychographics. And I had to kind of go down a rabbit hole about that. But it's attracting the person with the right mindset. And for my business to do well, I need to have good referrals. Like, if somebody goes to hireaunicorn.com and wants to interview a couple of my students, like, I need them to be good at what they do. And so I'm like, want it. I really want to take my business to an accreditation when I can get. I need some time to do that. But that would be my end goal so I can, you know, protect my reputation and make sure my. My students are, like, top quality.

I love that you shared that with us. I think that's an important lesson for all of us. Those students that weren't the perfect fit for your program, how did you find out about them? Were they expressing their concerns to you? Did it come out in, like, a Facebook group that you had for your students? How did that all come about?

All of that? All of that. And thank you. I've never actually shared this story before, and it's very vulnerable, but I want to be transparent about it because it is part of the journey, like getting your messaging right. And it leads everything else. It leads our emails and our Sales pages and our Facebook lives and everything. And I had a couple students who. And I'm not pushy, but I think they were vocal in the Facebook group. They were just kind of whiny, and they needed so much hand holding, and there was no way I could ever refer them. And I felt guilty about that. And I don't want. If they're spending their last dime on my course, like, that's not good. And a couple of them were creating drama out of nothing. And I'm like, I'm really focused on having a community that is. Supports each other. My vision is a referral community. And already this happens, like, inside my group. Freelancers are passing on work, passing on referrals, or hiring each other due to their specializations. And I want this community of abundance and not scarcity. So if there is a job in there, and we know so and so is a better fit, we want to encourage her and not have this, like, competitive, ruthless Facebook groups. So when we do post a job, we only have four apply, no more than four, because I don't want the business owner to be inundated. And I want them to remember, like, there's lots of work. I mean, we're getting tons of job leads. But I want them to think of themselves as a business owner working for the clients they want, not taking jobs out of desperation, because that's not good for anyone in the end. So there was some drama there. Another big key destiny was I was getting a lot of DMs, and I needed some boundaries there as a course creator. And I just. They just needed so much attention from me. And I just. It just became very obvious pretty quickly. And there were some warning flags, like in a webinar, sometimes you can tell by the chat. And, like, I think I just got smarter. I got a lot smarter.

Interesting. Okay, so you had your launch in the fall, and you had. You had a good response there. What does your business look like in 2021 or where are you going to take it this next year?

Well, I have to tell you that the military spouse who never made more than 40,000 a year hit six figures. Yes. Even with COVID I mean, I still do client work too, but I still hit that. So that felt. That was a really important number for me to hit psychologically, just because of my career pauses that I've had. And, you know, some of that, that happened in the past. But I've been doing some client work, and 2021 has been about me laying the tracks. I needed to get organized. I needed to grow my own team, I hired two people from my own group. Someone is managing my YouTube and helping me edit videos, you know, things that I could do that I needed to pull myself out of. I hired someone for my Facebook community to help manage that because I have. I also have a back end membership. So after you go through the course, like I have like an elite program there. And so I have three Facebook groups. So that's one of the things I teach is how to be a good, you know, community manager. So I hired someone there. So I think Covid has really showed me that I needed to get even more off my plate so that when I do do my next live launch, hopefully, you know, it does well. And I'm. When I start to see these higher numbers, like, I can handle it because I couldn't handle it with like a team of just two or three. So I'm doing that, laying those foundations. Some really unsexy things, like switching my esp, like, painful need to do it. I need to get things in line. And we're also working on my evergreen webinar funnel, which is really close to being done. So. And I'm also. One thing I didn't tell you ahead of time is I'm working with a lawyer to trademark programs to start to be able to license things and to build wealth in that capacity as well. And so all of this, like, stuff is going on and it's very painful for me because I probably tell like, I like to take action, I like to jump in, I like to do the work. But I know that to grow a successful business, I need to get some things in order on the back end.

So when you say you're working with a lawyer to license it, will it be a course that other people can basically white label and sell it on their own or how are you setting that up?

Yeah, you know, we're still kind of working through some of that, but basically having this, that type of program that we can share with other business owners as well to be able to get their teams up to speed. It's a little bit of that. I also have my course on terrain. They just launched a platform where they sell courses that are vetted. I don't know if you know about them, but I got my course on there. I had my first sale there. So that's already like kind of licensed through them. So that's kind of cool. It's kind of like trying to be like Udemy, except for they're like vetted courses that they've gone through. And Approved. So mine's on there. So that's kind of cool. But yeah, the lawyer and I are just trying to find what parts of my business I can pull myself out of and have it be repeatable for somebody else.

I love that. And thank you for sharing that. I have one last question for you.

Yeah.

Emily, what advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there? You've been doing this for a while. You have really good success. What would you say to them now?

I have seen it both ways, like as a client working on launches and working with the course creators and in my own course. And the magic is in the email list. I've seen way too many people try to launch a membership or a course without having that list of the right people. Not the wrong people, the right people there. And it just doesn't happen overnight. And there's a lot of list building that needs to be happening to set yourself up. And we need to manage expectations. So many people think I'll just build it and they'll come and it just doesn't work like that. And even I caught myself kind of thinking that because we're hearing these like six figure launch stories. But the best thing you can do to set yourself up for success is be seeding that launch, growing your email list, giving them those freebies that really attract the right person and the right person who's willing to pay for more information and make sure your list is healthy.

That's some great advice. The other thing I want to ask you, you mentioned that other website where your course is on. Tell us again what that is because I want to make sure that that link is in the show notes for folks too.

Okay? Yeah, it's terrain IO.

I'll find it. Don't worry about it.

Okay. It's Terrain. It might be like the Terrain or it might have something there, but Terrain. My friend Iman runs it. She's a copywriter and she was so frustrated at these big wig courses. I'm not going to name any names that are like cost thousands of dollars and don't deliver. And she put together this platform, this tech platform so the little guy can get seen and found and discovered the person who has a good course that actually delivers. And you're in this world so you know that not everybody finishes a course. Like it's staggering stats there about people who actually get through courses that are actually set up right and deliver. And Terrain has been all about vetting courses and building a platform of like good ones.

I'm definitely going to Check that out. I'm not familiar with that one, but it sounds. It sounds fantastic. Emily, where can people find you?

I would love to connect with anyone on Instagram. I finally started my Instagram. Took me a while, but I'm having the most fun over there at emilyragan pr. And then I also have a free Facebook group. I have business owners in there. I have a lot of freelancers in there. You can just search on Facebook and find me there. And I'd love to have you in the group. I also have a podcast, Unicorns Unites, and we talk about different freelancer stories and then I have episodes where I'm talking about things that will help somebody getting started or help raising their rates and things like that.

Emily, thank you so much for joining us today. We loved hearing about your story and I wish you the best in the rest of the year in 2021.

You too, Destiny. Thanks so much for having me.

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 Podcast or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.