87: Krystle Church: Elementary School Teacher to Email Copywriter + Course Creator of Ignite Your Inbox

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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 Crystal Church. Crystal is a full time world traveler, email copywriter and business coach who helps female entrepreneurs build and scale the business of their dreams so they can expand their reach, income and impact. Whether working one on one with clients to to craft high converting email funnels or privately coaching women to grow and scale their business, Crystal leverages the unique power of email client experience and brand authority to create impact and growth for her clients. Crystal, thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited to jump into this discussion with you and learn more about your entrepreneur journey and your online course portfolio.

Absolutely. I'm thrilled to be here.

So why don't you take a few minutes and walk the audience through how you got started into entrepreneurship and how has your business kind of taken some twists and turns over the years?

Oh, there certainly have been many twists and turns. I am actually an elementary school teacher by trade and actually only started my business about 14 months ago. So in March of 2020. This was not planned at the same time as the pandemic, but it just happened to be so that I started my online business. I had previously been spending nearly a decade traveling the world and working and teaching in different prestigious international schools in countries like Romania, Singapore, Germany, Myanmar, Australia. And I kind of thought that I had found the best of both worlds because when I first set out and graduated from college, all my friends were going down their corporate ladder career path. They were buying a house in the suburbs and it just didn't really feel like me. It wasn't really something that I was interested in. I always loved to travel and I knew I wanted to live life a little bit differently. So I took the first job that I got Internationally, which was in Romania. And I started this circuit and I was able to work in the classroom. What I did like was absolutely fulfilling and just brought me so much joy teaching, typically fourth grade. And then on my time off, I was able to just travel the world and, you know, fly to amazing places like jungles of Borneo, explore the cobblestone streets of Montenegro, and really just have this balance of the career that I found fulfilling. And then also the travel side. However, as time went on, I realized just how stressful and just how toxic a lot of the work environments were that I was in. And I feel like a lot of entrepreneurs can relate to that, relate to sort of that grind and wanting to get out of this environment that made them feel maybe perhaps like they didn't have any control over their day to day. And. And as much as I kind of tried to fool myself for many years thinking this was the best of both worlds, I had the job, I had the travel lifestyle. I really wasn't happy if I was at work. There was just so much bureaucracy, there was so much toxicity in a lot of the environments that I was sort of just living for the weekends. Like I felt like everybody else back home was. And I was like, this isn't any different. This is kind of the exact thing I was trying to avoid by leaving the US So I found a loophole in my job contract and I quit. And it was the scariest, most alive feeling I had ever had. And I went full force into learning what it meant to be a copywriter. I'd always actually had writing personally, like fiction writing as an interest of mine. And before I majored in education, I was majoring in journalism. So it kind of seemed natural, seemed full circle for me to come back to writing, writing in one way or another. And I just got online, I found this bubble on Instagram of online entrepreneurs and I just dove headfirst in absorbing, learning all the things, entrepreneurship, to figure out what kind of business I wanted to build and really go from there to create a life I actually enjoyed and loved and didn't feel like I was waiting for the weekends.

So I have to ask you, you've been to all these amazing places. What was your favorite place to to live?

Wow, they were all so different. I'm currently still living in Singapore at the moment, and that's one of my favorites. Just because it is so developed and it's so easy to live here, the people are wonderful, but it also has proximity to so many amazing places and you can just hop around Southeast Asia and Outside of COVID travel really easily. But aside from that, the most unique experience was definitely Myanmar. Just the most. I feel like protected from the modern world environment that I'd been in at the time that I lived there. It was right when borders opened for people to come in for business travel. It was very much closed off before that from the outside world. And we lived a lot of times with no electricity and all sorts of things. Like there was no international banking. So we were paid in stacks of cash that we had to carry to different countries. It was just bizarre but amazing at the same time.

So I have, you know, and just to kind of delve in because this just fascinates me. You got your degree in teaching and then you were there's. And I didn't know that this existed. So there's opportunities in these other countries for English teachers, people who speak English, to go over there and teach the children.

Yeah, you know what? You are not alone. Not many teachers even know that this exists. So the only reason I learned about this entire sector, which is like thousands of international schools around the world, is because my best friend's mom from high school, she told me that she had spent majority of her teaching career working and traveling international schools around the world. And most of these schools aren't for, quote unquote, like teaching English. So a lot of people can get like a TEFL certificate and go and teach English to kids. But these are actually like licensed educators that are teaching. Like for example, I was teaching fourth grade in a British school or in an IB school in Singapore. And then typically your classrooms are made up of kids working with their parents, working in places like high corporate CEO level roles, people who are ambassadors for other countries, working for the embassy. I taught the daughter of the ambassador to Saudi Arabia. So a lot of very like elite level family positions that just tend to be in an expat lifestyle abroad.

Well, thanks for sharing that and kind of going on that little tangent with me. So, you know, you were in this amazing lifestyle, but you were feeling some toxic, you know, toxic work environments and you made the decision to do something different. What was your exit plan or how did you make that transition from teaching into online entrepreneurship?

It was a really hard decision and a really hard transition because I felt so well protected with the security of my job and in the international school circuit. At the time I was in Singapore and that was really the creme de la creme. Best packages, best benefits, six figure salary, which for an educator in America, could you even imagine that? So for me to walk away. A lot of people kind of thought I was out of my mind and I wondered myself if I was. But I kind of knew if I stayed that I would just forever have this feeling in my gut that this wasn't right or that I was missing out on something and wasn't really truly happy. So my partner and I basically just looked at our future and we said, well, what is our end game? Like, what do we really want and what is going to help us get there? And for us, we just want to be happy and we just want to have more freedom in our life. Everything for us is about freedom and being able to have balance. So we thought if we don't do this now, we are going to want to do it eventually. So we might as well start laying some groundwork to do this, quote unquote responsibly. So he is also a teacher. So what we did is I found this loophole in the contract. I put my notice in with about four or five months notice. We had some savings and he kept his job with the intention to quit as soon as my business was built up for then him to pursue something similar himself. And that's actually how it works out. He has put his notice in now and he's looking to retire, quote, unquote, retire at the end of this coming school year in a few months, and then he's going to be starting his own business. So that journey took us about two years of him continuing to work while I grew, like, first of all, learning copywriting took a long time and then grew my business from there.

Well, congratulations to him. I think that's wonderful that he also gets to pursue his dreams. Now you mentioned that all of this took place around, I believe you said, 14 months ago. Was that around March 2020 of last year?

It was, yes. So before that I was diving straight into learning copywriting, what it is, how to do it and how to do it effectively. And then I was like, okay, great, I feel confident in this area. Now I'm going to start my business. And it was March 2020, and we.

All know what happened last year. It passed 2020.

I honestly felt like it was a blessing and a curse at the same time. A lot of businesses were really struggling, but the online space that I sort of found myself in seemed to have a bit of a boost. And so I kind of just hitched a ride on that train and helped just learn as quickly as I could how to pivot along with everybody else, basically.

So walk us through the past 14 months. You started out and you still do this, you're doing copywriting, but I know that you've added other products and services to your portfolio. So walk us through what you've done the past 14 months.

It has been a busy 14 months. So in March of 2020, I started my business with my very first goal of getting my email list up and running. So I knew as a copywriter how vital that is to growth and just creating something that you own versus relying on social media for your marketing and lead gen. So what I did is I created a lead magnet was three free email templates. And I really just shared that as much as I could by providing value on mainly on Instagram is where I was hanging out and still do quite a lot and in Facebook groups and things like that. And I put all of my energy into nurturing those subscribers as much as I could. And I spent from March to May really just loving on them, providing so much value, a lot of educational content, a lot of humor, my emails. And I then launched my first offer to them which was a website copy audit. So I think that was a $97 offer. My very first client was $97 website copy audit client. And then she later turned into a higher ticket client and continued to grow with me from there and essentially snowballed the rest of my offers. So I went into doing fuller length projects with clients for website copy sales pages and then really found my true love with sales pages and email sequences especially and got into a lot of personality driven copy. So that's what I right now, personality driven email is my thing and I love creating welcome sequences, evergreen sequences, launch emails for clients that want to show up and stand out from all the sort of cookie cutter emails that you get in your inbox. And I found myself working in a lot of really long projects, sort of trudging in the deep. And it was kind of taking up all my space like I had been in my previous nine to five. I felt like I was just working the same amount and I wasn't getting that freedom I set out for. So I switched my whole business model to working day rates only. And these were like VIP high ticket projects and they changed the way my business really worked. So what I did from there was offer a few day rates only every single month and was able to grow my income and my freedom of time a lot more quickly. And that allowed me to create my first course, which we'll get into, which is called ignite your inbox and then go on to create another product called Day rate Genius Masterclass which is all about helping service providers run their businesses on day rates as well. So I sort of grew the business with the copy side and then started educating other business owners on best practices for email and for business growth.

So tell us about your course Ignite youe Inbox. When did you launch it? And tell us a little bit about that process. How long did it take you? How did you find your audience for the course? Did you launch it five day challenge or webinar? How did, how did you go about it? I threw a lot at you, so.

I'm here for that. I love it. Ignite your inbox really came out of a need I saw from a lot of clients that were coming to me. One of the most common requests I get is help with people's welcome sequences. And there are a lot of people who just want to hand it over and have you take care of it, and a lot of people who want that but then can't quite afford to have done for you custom projects. So I saw this need from people who kept asking me, do you just have some templates I can adapt, I can make it my own and I can make it fit, you know, maybe a wait list I want to have or drive to get on a call with me or something like that. And I realized that what I was telling people individually over and over and over could just be so easily recorded and packaged up into a course with templates and what I call themeplits, which are basically like templates but way more open ended and adaptable. So depending on the level of customization that somebody wants so that they can go and implement that and start and grow their email list themselves and nurture their email list in a very similar way that I did with lots of fun and personality and value being the core piece of that. So what I did for Ignite your Inbox was I took a month off of client projects and I like booked the whole month in for myself and I created the course, but I only did that after I had proven market validation. So my main audience was on Instagram and what I did was I did a waitlist launch there and showed up on stories providing value. I had lots of nurture and prelaunch content going to them before that, really educating on the value of a welcome sequence, what that had done for my business. And then I gave a limited cart open close time just to get on the waitlist. So nobody had to pay anything for that. But they knew that if they got on the waitlist during this time frame that they would Be eligible for a lot of bonuses. I think it was over $500 worth of bonuses, different resources, including one on one review and audit of their sequence for me and other high touch pieces like that. And it was sort of just my time to see, like, do people even want this? Because I'm not going to pour all of my energy and all my time into creating a product and then seeing if people will buy it. And the wait list really just took off. A ton of people joined the waitlist. I was pretty overwhelmed and I realized, okay, I have proof of concept, now I just need to make the thing. So I took that month off and I just really dove into creating the course and having everything ready to go when I actually opened cart. And I didn't want to be creating modules, for example, as people purchased. I wanted everything to be packaged up and then they could access everything as they needed to.

So when you launched, did you launch to your email list or that wait list that you had or how did you handle that?

Yes. So I did a minimum viable launch on CART open day. I actually went and did a staycation in Singapore. My partner and I went to a resort and we just chilled while my emails were rolling out and people were hopping into the course. And I did that intentionally because I had seen since I got into the online space, a lot of people do live launches with a huge focus on Instagram that were completely draining. And I saw a lot of my friends really struggle with this and get completely burnt out. And I really wanted to avoid that. So as an email copywriter, I was like, I'm gonna do what I know best and relieve a lot of that stress by just prepping in advance. I had a great launch sequence going out and I launched only to my email list, which, gosh, at the time it must have been only like 500 people. It was tiny. But they were so warm and engaged because I really spent a lot of time nurturing my audience there that I felt really confident that they would be in tune to the offer. And so I actually ran the launch with two different sequences, segments to my list, really. I had segment A, which was everybody who was on my list that didn't join the wait list. And then I had segment B, which was the wait list. And both of the sequences that they got. I think there were probably about 15 emails in total. They were about the same, but there were subtle differences just because of bonuses and other pieces that the waitlist was going to get access to that the normal list was not. And the emails rolled out at the same time. And I didn't promote anywhere else, just there behind the scenes with a minimum viable launch. And it was really the best first launch for me. It was for me again to kind of prove concept. And I hit my launch goals and was able to, I think at that time hit my first 10k month as an entrepreneur, which was just a really wonderful feeling.

So when you sent out the test sequences, one to the wait list and one to the people that weren't on the waitlist, did you see a difference in the conversion rates between the two?

Oh, that's a great question. I did. The waitlist sequence was way more engaged than the regular list. So those that had signed up were opening emails, clicking on links and buying way faster than those that were on the regular list. And I think that that goes to show just the power of warming people up and letting them know that they're having the opportunity to get in on something that's either special or different or behind the scenes to anybody else. And you're just basically creating this little nest of people who are like, okay, yes, I'm ready for it. When is it available? Just send it my way and I'm ready to buy.

And Krista, what month was this?

That was in October. So I took September off to make IYI and then in October I launched it.

Have you launched since October?

I did a pop up sell when that was in. Excuse me, I did a pop up sell in Black Friday. So about a month and a half later I just popped it up for two days and that was available for people. And then I recently did a minimum viable launch again just to my email list and that went to everybody. There was no special wait list. That was just a pop up cell again for about five days.

May I ask the price point of your course?

Yes, it's 497. Okay.

All right. And then you also mentioned that you had and I think I wrote it down, but I don't know where it is. The day rate masterclass, what was the rationale behind that? How did you develop it and when did you decide to sell it versus offering it for free?

So when I launched iyi, I realized, wow, this whole thing called passive income that people are talking about is really real and it's wonderful. So how can I start to build out my product suite to really support both sides of my business? So I now have a boutique copywriting agency and IYI helps support clients who aren't ready for done for you but still needs to learn how to write their welcome sequence. And get that in place. But on the other side of my business, I also have the coaching side where I educate and mentor service providers and in building their own businesses. And a lot of people saw me do the day rate, excuse me, the day rate sort of organization to my business and would come to me very similarly with the same questions around how did you do it? How can I do it for my business? And I realized I needed that core piece in place to support those people as well. So I didn't have to continue to basically just do a live training on every coaching call. I could give people a Day Rate Genius Masterclass resource and then give them bespoke coaching support that was specific to their business on our coaching calls. So I quickly got to work after IYI and in December of 2020 I launched day Rate Genius Masterclass at the price point of 297. And I had a workshop style environment where people could come. They learned basically everything from how it works, processes, systems, even marketing deliverables you can give to your clients in a day rate. And then a lot of time for Q and A and individualized support there on the call. And I had an upsell to that to have a coaching call with me that was more specific to including day rates in their own service umbrella. And I launched that with the intention doing it live one time and then having it as a product that goes on Evergreen. So since then I have not launched that again, but it's now the plan to get an evergreen funnel up and running for that. Because I continue to get a lot of requests for day rate. So that's sort of the next step there.

And that was going to be one of my next questions. Now I know what what you're talking about when you say day rates, but can you explain it for the audience in case they have not heard that terminology before?

Of course, a day rate is really where you package up a service in a day, quote, unquote, a day. And I say quote unquote because one of the things I teach in Day Rate Genius Masterclass is that you can actually package it up however it suits you. So I'll give you an example. When I was doing full projects as a copywriter before, they would be a few weeks long typically, and I would have days worth of research. I would have time to get on a call with client, I would draft people's emails, revise them, any revisions from the client and then deliver. So that's over several weeks. When I switched to the day rate model, what I did was I gave the Client prerequisites to jump in on a project with me at the beginning, so requiring them to give me certain pieces of research that I needed to write their email sequence properly. Then I would actually jump into the day rate on Wednesday morning and I would start at 8am and I would work for seven full hours on their project. My notifications are off. That's all I'm doing is writing their email sequence and at the end of the day I'm passing that off to them and it's done. So it's essentially small container for you to be able to deliver high touch support to your clients without the full length project time or investment.

And I know a lot of the service providers are moving to this model. How many days per month do you do day raise service?

I never did more than four a month and for me that's because I am doing it with that core value of freedom in mind. I could certainly do more. I think that protecting your time and your energy is really key with day rates. So they are really, really taxing. You have to sit there, you have to be ready to go and you have to be in a space, especially from a copywriter perspective, of that creativity and that freedom in your mind to be able to think about the strategy behind it and create something that really flows along a customer journey for the reader. So I maximum do four, which is one a week and now I've even pared that down more and I have junior copywriters on my team helping me and we do one or two projects a month only.

So Crystal, you've been extremely busy for the past 14 months and getting all of this up and running. In my opinion, extremely well done and fast. Can you tell us a little bit about what do you see as next steps in your business?

Well, thank you so much. It has been a busy 14 months and the goal with that has been to really just be unstoppable in this first couple of years of business and fill out the product suite, which now we've got almost every piece of our product suite out there. So every few months we're adding another piece to support our clients at different stages of their journey. So at this time building out the copywriting studio even more so. And on the coaching side of the business, we are now building out just the last couple of programs to help support people. And by the end of this year, 2021, we should have every one of our product suite pieces in place, have ignite your inbox and day rate Genius Masterclass on Evergreen and then be able to go into 2021 with a little bit of that sigh saying, oh, okay, everything we're doing now we've done before and we can just continue to advance those offers and make them even better every time we bring them out and revise and share them with our audience.

Well, you definitely have your hands full and I have full confidence that you're going to get there. My closing question is what advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?

My advice would be if you're thinking about getting passive income in your business, definitely just start now and put feelers out there first to get some market validation so you don't have to create something and then test whether or not that's what your ideal client is looking for. Needing. But putting feelers out, validating that and then going forward to create your offer so that you know you're not making it out of haste, but making it out of true intention and just really going with the process because it's all a learning opportunity and there's no failures because you're going to learn out of every single thing that happens to you and your business so that you show up better the next time.

And thanks for that advice. I think it's great advice. Can you let folks know Crystal where they can find you?

Absolutely. I primarily hang out on Instagram so you can come and hang with me there at Crystal Church and find me at my website, crystalchurch.com and I will.

Make sure that those links in the show notes so people can find you and explore the services and the courses that you have. Crystal, thank you so much for joining me. I loved hearing about your story and what you've been up to for the past 14 months and I look forward to seeing what you accomplish in the future.

Thank you so much. It's been so wonderful to share with you.

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