84: Colleen Welsch: How She Uses TikTok to Sell Her Online Course

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And today my special guest is Colleen Welsh. Colleen is a freelance beauty copywriter turned online educator. After spending three years as a freelancer traveling the globe, she began a coaching business to teach other aspiring writers how to turn their passion for words into.

A profitable, sustainable business.

Today she offers a course called the Freelance Writer's Guide to the Galaxy as well as one on one and group coaching programs. Colleen, thank you so much for joining me.

I'm very excited to hear a little.

Bit more about your story and your journey as an online entrepreneur.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me.

So why don't you just jump right.

In and tell the audience a little.

Bit more about your story, your journey, how you got started to where you are today.

Yeah, so I feel like before I get into talking about becoming an Online educator. I need to talk about my freelancing journey because it kind of illustrates why I'm so passionate about helping other people become freelancers. So I'm just like a classic, like millennial. Graduated during the recession, broke tons of student loans. That's kind of like my background. This stereotypical overworked millennial person. And I worked in a number of nine to fives in fashion, retail and marketing. It was just miserable. Never, never liked it. I never liked working for someone else's dreams. And I also just had a hard time, like committing to that 40 hour work week, which ends up being so much more when you add on your commute and everything else. And I was just really unhappy and I wanted to travel more. I actually never left North America until I was 27 years old. And that really inspired me to pursue freelancing because I had like seen all this stuff online like, oh, you can be a freelance blog writer and make money and work part time hours and go wherever you want. And that just sounded so amazing to me. So I tried freelancing twice and failed both times before I did it, like actually made it happen on my third try in 2017. So those failures really taught me a lot about where people get hung up when they try to become a freelancer. So on my third try, I finally made it happen. I actually ended up moving in with my parents for a while in order to get my business established and get out of some credit card debt. But it all worked out because eight months after that I was on a one way flight to Paris. So since then I was, well, pre Covid. I was traveling all the time, meeting lots of new people, working part time as a freelancer, and just basically living my dream life. And then prior to Covid, like weeks before we went into lockdown, I bought a house in Cleveland. And because of that, I started, you know, really worrying about with my income, like, what's going to happen to all my clients marketing budgets? Am I going to be able to pay my mortgage? So I applied for an SBA loan and I was really lucky because they did give me some money. But then I got even luckier because I didn't lose any income from freelancing, so I had to spend that money on my business. So I decided to hire a marketing Internet just to help me with my social media and my emails and everything. And you know, the whole time I had been traveling and freelancing, people would always ask me like, oh, how are you doing this? How can I do this? And I'm like, oh, it's easy, you know, like just Google it. But then I joined some Facebook groups with other freelance writers in them just to make some connection because I was stuck in my house and freelancing can be very lonely. And I noticed that all these people were struggling just to make like pennies per word. Meanwhile, you know, I was making $150 plus per hour as a copywriter. So I realized that I must know something that other people didn't. And because freelancing just really, it opened up so much space in my life to work on my mental health. Like I'm a recovering alcoholic. So I was able to like see a therapist, quit drinking, all that. Like, it totally changed my life. And that's why I'm so passionate about helping other people to become freelancers. So when I saw these people struggling, I just, I had to do something. So that's kind of my whole background of how I got into this course thing. So then the creation of the course itself. I decided to do a course over coaching because I am an introvert and I didn't think that I could handle having coaching calls all day. So that's kind of like why I decided to share the knowledge via a self guided course. I had said for years that I wanted to make a course, but. But once I had a contractor working for me, I had someone on my team that really motivated me to get it done because I had been promising her that we were going to do this. And I also was worried about money because of course we had really bonded after a few months and I didn't want to have to let her go once I ran out of the money from the loan. So that really kept me up at night worrying about that and having that extra responsibility on me. So yeah, we made the course. It ended up being a really big course. It's called the Freelance Writer's Guide to the Galaxy. And I just wanted to include everything in it that someone would need to know in order to launch and manage and grow their career. So it takes a writer all the way from like the mindset just to get started to like turning into an agency at the end. So it's everything that I know about freelancing. It's a lot of information. It was a real struggle to organize that information. And then we had to create a script and slides for everything I had to make. I recorded videos of all the lessons, which was very challenging because the week that I wanted to do it, I live in Ohio and it rained that entire week. And I have a studio in my house because I'm also a musician, but it's in the attic. So like every single raindrop was picked up on the microphone and I had to record the whole thing in my bedroom closet. And it was, it's not a big closet, it's an old house. It was a real struggle. I almost suffocated several times. But anyways, I would say project management is not my greatest asset. So it was really hard to put together all the pieces, but we did get it done. So then we had our first launch where I was so excited to finally put this thing out in the world that we had worked so hard on. And then we only sold four courses, which was really upsetting to me because, you know, we'd work so hard on this. And I was just worried that I was going to let her go. And I was also worried about money because this house required $20,000 of emergency repairs in the first year. So I was also worried about my own money. And it was just a lot to deal with and it was extremely stressful time.

I have a lot of questions for you.

You gave us a lot to kind of unpack there.

And I definitely want to get into the discussion about your course launch and everything related to that. But first I want to go back to a point in time where you mentioned that you had tried two times with this freelance kind of moving into this freelance world and you failed.

Yeah.

So tell us what you were doing during those times that you don't feel like, you know, it just for whatever reason didn't get off the ground to your third time. What did you do differently?

Well, the first two times, the first time I had literally no idea what I was doing. I had no concept of money or how to budget. I decided to pair my first foray into freelancing at the same time when I sold everything I owned and moved to LA with only $3,000 in my pocket. I don't know what I was thinking. I had no plan, no idea what to do. So needless to say, the money ran out very quickly and I had to get another nine to five. So that was not so great. The second time I, you know, instead of what I always recommend to my students is that they work I'm as a freelancer, like they side hustle on top of their regular job and then when they're making a part time salary on part time hours and they also have at least three months of living expenses saved up, then it's safe to switch to freelancing full time and leave your job and do that. The second time that I pursued freelancing, I was in a very toxic work environment. So I just kind of, you know, quit my job out of the blue and decided to try to make freelancing work again. Unfortunately, even though I did get some clients at that point, like, for example, I booked a project with real techniques like the makeup brushes right off the bat, which was an amazing opportunity for me. But I kind of was partying too much, I was drinking too much at the time. I really missed the mark on any of the opportunities I received. And I also ran out of money again. And I got really lucky that I was offered role at a different beauty company because I was in a difficult spot financially.

And then the third time. You tell us, tell us a little bit about the third time, because then at that point you. It was in 2017, I believe you said you moved in your parents, you got really serious about what you were doing, and then eight months later you.

Were on a flight to Paris.

So you obviously were doing something right. What did you do differently there?

Yeah. So two things happened before I decided to start freelancing again. One was that one of my coworkers at my job was a freelancer. He was a freelance web developer on the side. And he told me how much I could make as a freelance copywriter. And I was like, excuse me, because I had no idea how much you could charge. And he was like, yeah, actually, I need a copywriter for this project. So we did some freelance things together and. And he answered all the questions that I had about the things that really scared me about freelancing, like how to do my taxes and how to pay for my health insurance. And he's like, it's not a big deal. You go to covered California and just buy it. So he kind of opened my eyes to the fact that it wasn't so scary to start freelancing. And then the other thing that happened was that I went to China for a week and that was the first time I'd really left North America. And I just realized how big the world was and that it was more important to me to be able to travel than to continue living in Los Angeles. And I guess the third thing that happened was everybody at my job was laid off. They decided to shut down their LA office and we had the opportunity to move to New Jersey or leave the company. But they were like, it'll happen next summer. So I had at least six months to plan out what I was going to do, save some money, do a lot of Research. And I think that's really what helped me was because I had a plan that third time. And I was also really dedicated to my goal. And sticking with the goal was the most important thing to me.

So when you first started freelance and what kind of jobs were you doing at that point in time?

So I was doing a lot of stuff. I was mostly writing blog posts. And when I started off, I made the mistake of only applying on freelance writing job boards, which is kind of a crapshoot, pardon my French, because those jobs are so competitive. Those job boards are very popular. Lots of people want to be freelance writers. So there's dozens, if not hundreds of applicants for those jobs. And there's always going to be somebody who has more experience and will charge less for you less than you on those job boards. So I really struggled to find work there. What ended up working for me instead was just looking for beauty companies who had a blog on their website that obviously hadn't been updated in a few months. And then I would just email them and say, hey, I write beauty blogs. Would you like me to write yours? Let's schedule a call. And believe it or not, that worked. I got, I ended up building a full book of clients. And I went from making, I think I made $800 my first month as a freelance copywriter, and then six months in, I was making $4,000 a month.

I love that and I love the strategy and the approach that you took there to kind of make yourself stand out from the crowd. So at what point or what year was it that you decided or you decided, you know what, I'm going to get very serious about launching this course. And how long did it take you to put it together?

So that was in 2020 that I decided to get serious. Once I had the intern working for me, I was much more motivated to follow through on this thing that had just kind of been a dream for a long time.

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And how long did it take you to put it together? Was it a 6 month project? 9 month project? Do you remember?

Well, I'm going to say the actual creation of the course took about four weeks, but we had done a lot of research prior to that, maybe a month of research. So I. Maybe the whole thing took about two months, two very stressful months.

What month did you launch it in and start selling it? And tell us a little bit about your launch strategy. I know you said, I think you said y' all only had four students, but, you know, that's four students that you didn't have before. Tell us a little bit about how you found them and a little bit about, you know, how you launched it and let people know that it was actually available for sale.

Yeah. So we launched the course for the first time in November 2020, and we had been building up an email list. We had several lead generators. Like, one was a cold pitching kit, one was like a freelance freelance writing rate calculator, I think another one is an SEO checklist. And then there's a free content calendar. So those are all on my website. So we had pins of all of those on Pinterest, like different designs, and they all linked to the lead generator. And then someone can sign up, like they sign up for the email list, they receive the lead generator for free. So that was most of the strategy. Then there was also just regular blog posts, putting a lot of free content out there, posting on Instagram, posting on LinkedIn. So just a lot of social media. I mean, at the time I was really only familiar with email marketing and social media marketing from my previous roles in the corporate world. So that was the whole strategy going into it.

So may I ask, how many people did you have on your email list or do you remember?

I think we had about 200 people on our email list.

Okay, so you got, you had four sales at that point in time. So what happened after that? If you relaunched the course, do you have more students in it? What are you doing now to get people into your program?

So after that course didn't go as well as we wanted it to, we knew that we were going to launch again in January and we just took some time to think about how we can get more eyes on our content and also more streams of revenue. So My whole thing that I wanted to do was launch a YouTube channel. Because you go on YouTube and you see people talk about how much money they make with monetization and affiliate links. And I'm like, that sounds great. I want to do that. And I just personally love watching YouTube. So I just really wanted to have a YouTube channel. So we did so much research on that and put together a plan to make that happen. And then I just kind of was like, oh, also try TikTok. Because since COVID happened, I've been at home a lot. I go on TikTok all the time. Like, it's really been a lifeline for me, just having fun short videos to watch. I'm obsessed with it. So I just thought like, oh, I'll just make a couple TikToks and see what happens. I heard you could go viral on there. And so I made like a couple of videos that went nowhere. Then in January 2021, I posted a video about how much money I made as a freelancer in 2020 versus how many hours per week I worked. And it went viral. And I went from having 150 followers to more than 10k followers in about two days. Oh, that really changed everything for me.

So they were watching your TikTok video and I'm not on TikTok. I do love Instagram reels. Like I'm addicted to them. So they saw your TikTok video. Were they getting on your email list?

So I did eventually get those people onto my email list, but no, they weren't signing up. They were just on TikTok at first. And once I kind of like cracked the code of TikTok, if you will, I figured out how to make more content that would go viral. So I grew my following to. I think I'm at like 54k now. So what I did to help get people onto the email list was I started offering a free webinar called how to get like it's just about how to get started as a freelance writer. Because that was the number one question I got over and over and over again is how do I get started? And even though I was creating that content on TikTok, the time limit on a video is one minute. And I just have a lot to say on the subject. And I do lives, but people come and go and then get the same questions over and over again. So I decided to do some webinars about how to get started. And to sign up for the webinar you have to give me your email address. And then in the webinar, I would, you know, I would do my presentation about how to get started and then just do a little sales bit about the course and what it's about, how to join it, why you should join it, and then offered any of the Webinar attendees a 10% promo code. And that definitely generated a lot more sales. So the second time we launched was in January, and we sold 44 courses. And then we just launched again in April and sold 53.

I love that strategy. Colleen. So they're watching your TikTok videos, and how are they. Is it just in your bio you have the invitation to watch the webinar? Where. Where are they finding you? On TikTok?

Yeah. So it would. I would make a video to like, on TikTok, you can do this thing called a stitch, where you take a few seconds of another video and then you make a video, different video on top of it. So I would stitch with a popular video where I was talking about how much I made as a freelancer and then say, hey, if you saw this video and you want to learn how to get started, I'm doing a free webinar. And then I had a couple dates and times to accommodate people that live internationally or across the country. And then there was a link in my bio to register for. And then it also said in my bio that I was doing a webinar.

That's brilliant, and I love it. So tell me this. What do you see as next steps for your business, given all that you've learned just recently in the past few months?

Well, I still want to grow my YouTube channel. We're about a third of the way to being monetized right now. And the reason for that is because YouTube is really the only platform that will pay you to make content. I understand that not everybody has money to buy a course or hire a coach, and I still really want to help all those people. I want this information to be accessible, but I also need to be paid for the hours I put in, of course. So I'm hoping to continue growing my YouTube channel and get monetized and all that good stuff. And then I'll do two more course launches this year, one in July and one in September. I haven't made any changes to the course since I launched it, so I have. I instituted, like, a lot of feedback surveys throughout the course, and I want to take all that feedback I've received and everything else I've learned just from, you know, doing TikTok lives all the time and getting all these questions from aspiring writers and make sure that the course is the best that it can possibly be. I also want to add more mindset and inspirational content because I see that some people buy it and then they don't do the course because it's self guided. And I think that many people, and this is coming from my experience of failing at freelancing, but people just struggle with accountability. And I think a lot of that is because even if they really want it on some subconscious level, they don't believe that they really deserve to have their dreams come true. And I just want to tell people like, you're worth it and you deserve to live the life that you want to. And the only part person who's gonna stop you is you. And you only fail when you give up. So I just really want people to finish the course and put it into play because I really believe that there is plenty of work out there for everybody and it's just, you know, it's within their reach if they just reach out and grab it. So. And then the last thing I want to do is offer some kind of more passive digital product at a lower price point that's still gonna be helpful for people who maybe want to invest something but can't necessarily afford the course or they're not ready to make that kind of investment yet.

So may I ask, what is the price point for your course?

Yeah, so it is $347. $347. And I also have a six month payment plan because I understand that not everybody has $300 hanging out.

Okay, so my closing question is, you had a, you know, you had a launch in November that didn't go as well as you wanted to, but you've had two successful launches since then. What advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?

Well, one thing is just do it. Don't wait until you know everything. You can figure it out as you go along. That's something that I learned from launching my freelancing business. Did I know everything when I did it? Absolutely not. But I figured it out as I went along and turned out fine. And then the other thing is, get on TikTok because I'm telling you like it really, it really completely changed my life for the better and I'm really grateful that TikTok exists. I know that there are some bad things about it, but it's been really helpful for me and I think it's a great way to learn new things. I've learned a lot from it. I'm always doing like, different, like hair and makeup tutorials from TikTok. So it's a great learning platform. It's a great place to spread your message and connect with people who are interested in learning from you and definitely.

Get on it if your target audience is on it, for sure. So, Colleen, thank you so much for joining me. Can you let everybody know where they can find you or invite you on TikTok too?

Yeah. So, yeah, I'm on TikTok and Instagram. And where else am I? Pinterest. My handle is Colleen Welsh. C O, L, L, E, E, N, W, E, L, S, C, H. That is the German spelling of Welch, not Molly Welsh. On my mom's side, ironically. Yeah. And I'm on YouTube. I also have a website, Colleen Welsh.com and I have tons of free resources for aspiring freelance writers. And, you know, if you ever have questions about freelancing, I'm always happy to help. My DMs are always open and I.

Will make sure, Colleen, that those links are in the show notes so people can find you and learn more about moving into freelance. And thanks so much for everything that you share today. I loved hearing about your story and your experience with TikTok too.

Thanks, Destiny. It was a pleasure.

Thank you. 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.