91: Venese Lau: How Facebook Groups + Collaboration With Other Entrepreneurs Grew Her Business Exponentially

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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 Venice Lau. Venice runs an events and marketing company in Tokyo, Japan. She has been an entrepreneur since she was 19, running all kinds of offline and online businesses. She is the host and face of youf Entrepreneur Resources where she helps entrepreneurs start, start, grow and scale their businesses, connecting them with the right mentors, resources and tools. Denise, thank you so much for joining me. I'm so excited to have this conversation with you.

Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I'm super excited to chat with you today.

So why don't you take a few minutes and tell the audience a little bit more about your entrepreneur journey and how you got to where you are today.

Yeah, absolutely. So I actually just fell into entrepreneurship out of the blue. When I was around 19, I moved from, well, I was living in Australia at the time. So I moved from Australia to Japan and I was alone, I had no friends, I didn't know anybody. So I decided to get myself out there and started attending all kinds of events. And through that I met a lot of people and for some reason I thought, you know what, instead of attending them, why don't I join, not join them, why don't I start hosting them? And I started running events, meeting all these different people and I helped, started to help international brands like Red Bull, Moe Budweiser, Brooklyn Brewery and all these international entertainment brands and fashion brands and helping them bring their presence into Japan. And that was incredible. It was a lot of fun. I also helped the local government, embassies, tourism boards and run all kinds of events. And you know, it was all fun and it was going very. I was supposed to help out with the Olympics as well, but Covid hit right? So everything Just kind of disappeared in a moment. And I was like, oh, gosh, like, how am I going to, you know, continue on with my different businesses? And I decided to turn online and see how I could potentially help other entrepreneurs. And through talking to different people, I realized that a lot of entrepreneurs are just super overwhelmed. And there's so much information, there's so much, you know, content, so many YouTube channels, and they're just so many things going on online and it's hard to know what to focus on and what to hone in on. So I decided to start your entrepreneur resources. And just like what you said, connecting entrepreneurs with the right mentors, resources and tools.

So I have to ask you, what made you want to move from Australia to Japan?

Yeah, so actually, so I was born in Hong Kong, and when I was around eight, I thought, oh, I don't like the educational system here whatsoever. I don't want to have to memorize textbooks after textbooks. It was not practical at all. So I decided, okay, I want to go to Australia. And I was lucky that my parents were supportive. I got a scholarship to go to boarding school. So I moved to Australia when I was 10, 11 by myself, which was scary. And then when I turned 18, I thought, okay, I think I've gotten enough out of Australia. It was fun, but I'm ready for the next adventure. And yeah, Japan has always been amazing and it's super interesting and different from any other country in the whole Thai world. So I thought, yeah, Japan is my next destination. And I've been here for, oh my gosh, nine years now.

So is your family still in Hong Kong?

Yeah, they are. They are.

All right, so basically your business that you are doing with all the events and helping people with events and yeah, we know what happened with the Olympics when Covid hit. So it basically disappeared.

Yeah.

Okay, so from there you decided, you know, you have to pivot and you started putting together the. Your entrepreneur resources. And in here, tell us a little bit about how you structured that business, how you've gone about building it in the past, you know, year and a couple of months. I'm assuming that you've been working on it for about that point in time. So tell us a little bit more about that.

Yeah, absolutely. A lot of it was actually just listening and talking to people. All of my businesses, I run all kinds. I've run online e commerce stores, I've run an agency, I have a blog. I have all these different things. I have a talent management company. I have all these things going on. And a Lot of it was really about talking to people, understanding what is lacking, what is missing in the market, and kind of trying, like, knowing that I have the ability to fill that gap and just entering that. So for your entrepreneur resources, it was very much about just talking to different entrepreneurs, female entrepreneurs, small business owners, understanding what is, you know, they're, what they're struggling with and how I could help them. And to be honest, I had no idea what I was going to do in the very beginning because I still had all these different things going on. And I was like, okay, I think Covid won't last forever. You know, I'm sure everybody was like on the same boat as me, but I'm so glad that I listened and I talked to different people and I managed to kind of shift my business model and start your entrepreneur resources. And since then, I have different programs that I'm running, although they're still very new and not super big, but they've been amazing because I work with entrepreneurs that I know need my services and I've got my courses as well, got my lower ticket offers, got a lot of different things I'm just putting out there and I've got my podcast as well. So just a lot of exciting things happening.

So let me just. We're going to kind of walk the audience through how you did this. Where did you find those entrepreneurs or your ideal customer, the ones that you wanted to help? Where did you find them to actually have those conversations with them?

Yeah, I think the biggest outlet for me was Facebook groups. So I know probably everyone is in 10, 20, 30 Facebook groups. And I really hone in and focus on maybe around 5 to 10. So I would just go into the Facebook groups every day or every other day, go in there, see what people are talking about, what kind of questions they might have. And I try to just help them if I can and you know, see, like, try to answer their questions there or if they want, you know, one on one chats, I would be happy to hop on a quick 15 minute chat with them just to see how I could help them and just listen to what they might need.

So what were they telling you? What were you seeing in the Facebook groups? Or what were they telling you in these one on one type quick calls you were having with them?

Yeah, a lot of the time it was just people telling me that they're overwhelmed. So I base a lot of what I do around that overwhelm aspect, I'm sure. Nowadays I think it's more and more, you know, you see it Everywhere, everyone's like, oh, over overem. So I do base a lot of my things around what my clients or what people I talk to are struggling with. So information overload as well as false information out there or really high prices that they can't afford. I hear that quite a lot. You know, like, I obviously, I know there are courses and programs out there that are amazing, that cost thousands of dollars. But a new entrepreneurs, they don't have the money to invest into those kind of courses. So I hear that a lot. So I try to, you know, like, understand that they need something different. And that's why I try to do something that could fill that gap.

So I want to come back to that in just a second what you're doing with your entrepreneurial resources. But you mentioned, and I didn't catch them all. I tried to write them down, but I didn't catch them all. You mentioned several other businesses that you were either involved in or running yourself or had lost yourself. So tell us a little bit more about your, you know, your whole portfolio.

Yeah, so I started out running the events and marketing company and I still do that. And within the company we do PR as well. And I ran a talent management agency, so I don't really do that anymore. But so basically in Japan, you know, like a lot of people are not very familiar with English or Western cultures. So it is difficult for people, for companies and brands in Japan to approach international brands or international influencers. So we were kind of the middleman that we're connecting local companies with international influencers and vice versa, international brands with local influencers. So that is something else that I do also have an E commerce store that was kind of like a side hustle. It was fun because I was selling party clothes, so it was easy to kind of link that into my event sector. But I sold that E commerce store at the beginning of COVID because I just got very busy and I just couldn't keep going. And I wanted to really hone in and help people with your entrepreneur resources.

Okay, so definitely a lot of experience since, you know, kind of launching and starting companies. But now you're. It sounds like you're almost completely focused on your entrepreneurial resources. Tell us a little bit about if somebody goes to their site, what to your website, what can they expect? How can you help them?

Yeah, so I try very hard to put a lot of the information, simplify a lot of information and put them into one blog post. So it can be a little bit lengthy. But I feel like that's what A lot of people might need at the end of the day. So, for example, if someone goes on Google and they're looking for, okay, Facebook tips, I'm sure there are millions, if not billions of websites about Facebook tips. And what I try to do is just to summarize a lot of the main information and put them into the blog posts that I have. So I have blog posts strictly around, you know, the overall Facebook tips I have, and then I have very specific blog posts about, you know, certain features or functions of Facebook and other social media platforms. And I also. Well, my main thing is connecting entrepreneurs, right? So I've got a library, kind of like a directory. So instead of people digging around the Internet saying, okay, I want to find a coach or I want a course. I want a, you know, a program around this certain topic, they just come into the directory and say, okay, so I want to learn more about course creation. I want something that's a course. Then I have a few options, and I'll say, hey, look at these. These are amazing. And Destiny's got their course in there as well, because I've checked it out. It's amazing. And, you know, that's how I managed to connect entrepreneurs with different resources.

And you also, Venice, also have some of your own online courses, too, on this website. So tell us a little bit about that and the process that you went through to develop them. Like, how did you determine there was a need in the market? Why did you create them? And just walk us through your launch. I threw a lot at you, but we'll take it step by step here.

Yeah, for sure. Sounds great. So I think the first course I ever launched was called Online Business Success Bundle. It was not something that I had intended to create, but again, through my conversation, like, honestly, I have a sheet of every single conversation I've had since the beginning. And I think There are over 350 people that I've talked to. I know some people might be like, wow, that's a lot of people don't like, how do you have that much time to talk to people? And a lot of it, you know, maybe around 20%, 30% of those people are potential clients. And also people that are my ideal audience, and the rest are partners, which I can talk about a little bit more as well, because I think collaboration is key to success. But anyways, back to the course. I was just talking to different people that had, like, struggles or different questions that they needed help with. And I would hop on these calls with them, and I started seeing a pattern. You Know, most of these people were completely new entrepreneurs or they're aspiring entrepreneurs that are planning to quit their 9 to 5 or they're just, just ready to get started, super passionate, ready to get their, their voices out there. And they struggle so much because they just have no clue what the first step is, what the second step is. They think creating a website is very complicated. They don't know what social media focus on. And again, that overwhelming, the information overload, all the overwhelm factors out there and all these different things, it just became too much for them. So I decided to put together this tiny little bundle where I walk them through first step, ignore everything else, just don't even worry about what everyone else is saying or what might be the shiny object syndrome. Ignore all of those and just focus on this one thing at the first step. Do the first step and then go to the second step and so on and so forth. So it was born out of my conversations with different aspiring entrepreneurs and new entrepreneurs.

So is the online Business Success Bundle, is that like a mini course?

Yeah, it is a. Yeah, like a mini course that was quite low ticket offer, so people could easily just grab it and just get started right away with creating their online presence.

Okay, so tell us a little bit about how you've sold it. Did you, how did, how did you launch it? And tell us a little bit about that process.

Yeah, for sure. So I, you know, I wasn't intending to make, you know, millions or millions of sales with that. I was very much just creating that to help different people. So actually in the very beginning, I was giving it away for free. So I gave it away for free to about 10 people. And I asked them to take the, you know, go through the bundle and let me know what they think about it, you know, ways I could improve it. Because for me, I, you know, like, I'm not 100% comfortable with selling something that I'm not sure if people would benefit from. So I thought, okay, I should make sure that it is, you know, good and people can learn a lot from it and it's worth the price and I put it out there. And the 10 people, you know, they were very kind, they gave me a lot of feedback. And I tweaked the course, tweaked the course, tweaked the different lessons and the worksheets and everything. And then, yeah, so that was kind of the first moment. And then I also, you know, again, the uncomfortable, like I'm not a very salesy person. I get very nervous when it comes to Selling something. So, you know, it's very much about being comfortable doing what you, what you love. Right. So I wanted to price it somewhere that people would be comfortable spending the money, you know, especially for new entrepreneurs that might not have the budget. So I priced it very low in the beginning. And when I hop on calls with people, I would say, you know, I'll help them answer their questions. I'd say, hey, like I've got this, you know, very low ticket offer. If you want, you know, to get access, it's, you know, at this price at the moment, it can help you to figure out exactly what to do next and you know, every single step that you need to take to be able to build your online presence. And from, you know, like a lower price. And then I slowly price it higher and higher. And I believe now it's at $97, which is still not a very high price for a product. But I'm comfortable with it and I know that it's helping people and I'm happy to be able to do that with my product.

So. Very good. And you have some other courses too, correct?

Yeah.

Tell us a little bit more about those and the process that you went through to create them.

Yeah, for sure. So that was my first one, my online business success bundle. And then I started realizing that people that I talked to, they became people that weren't so much completely new entrepreneurs. They became people that had been out there for a little while. They just not getting clients, they're not generating the first sale or they're not sure how to turn a low ticket offer to possibly a higher ticket offer through different things like order bumps, upsells, cross cross promotion and things like that. So every single time I hop on a call or I talk to comment on Facebook groups or I see different people's questions online, I. My wheels were turning. Right, Okay, I think you could do this. And what about that? And I had all these ideas and I know they worked because I've used them in my business like different businesses I've done. And I decided to start writing them down, you know, like, you know, like I mentioned before, upsells, order bombs, you know, affiliate, you know, all those different ideas. And after a while I had, I got I think around 60 ideas on this. You know, just on my computer and the note notes section, I just have all these different ideas. And I thought, okay, so people obviously are struggling to make more sales or even make their first sale. People are struggling to get clients, so what I could possibly sell them or even, you know, not even in a selling way, but more in a, you know, be off surface, like, how can I help them? I decided to put together my next product which was Making Money Online bundle. I don't know why I love calling things bundles. So I created that which had a bunch of different, like sections about, you know, different affiliate marketplaces where you could put your product out there. I think I've got a section that is about, that's got 101 plus ways to making more money online and then different ways to get clients, different places to look for clients. Just like huge, you know, amount of tips and resources that I just kind of put into this bundle. And again, it's very low ticket, a very low ticket offer. And I, you know, when I decided to put it out there, I thought, okay, so who would be the one like the ideal audience that would be interested in this product? And I approach the people that had purchased the Online Business Success bundle because that's kind of the next step. And I just basically launched it and I said, hey, if you're interested, check it out. You know, it's pre launching right now, so it's very, very affordable. And I think out of, yeah, I think out of 50 people or so that I emailed, around 10, 15 people actually got the product right away. Like got the bundle right away. And I was pretty happy with that. I knew, you know, there are people that need it. So yeah, then I just basically put the bundle out there and it is currently the upsell that I have with a lot of the different products and freebies that I have. So it's just kind of like an evergreen machine that's just running in the background and people are just, you know, sometimes I wake up in the morning and I'm like, oh, someone got the Making Money online bundle. It just makes you happy, right?

Yeah. And that's the beauty of, you know, online courses. So one thing I really love about everything that you've said here is you have done a tremendous amount of market research. And you mentioned that you had, you know, 350 people approximately that you've surveyed. And you also mentioned something about, you know, 20 to 30% of those were like either potential students or clients, but 70% of them were collaborators. Can you walk us and tell us a little bit more about that?

Oh, absolutely. I think, oh, gosh, this is my favorite topic. I love collaborating with other entrepreneurs. It is such an amazing thing. And I just get so much energy out of talking and just connecting with people all over the world. And so I think that no matter what kind of business you're in, you have to understand that you need to build that connection with different people and not just because it will bring you sales or anything like that. It's not just a money, money transaction or, you know, that kind of relationship. But having other entrepreneurs out there that are doing similar things to what you're doing right now can truly be so amazing. And you can cheer each other on and be each other's cheerleaders and, you know, when someone is going through a launch, for example, you can help them out and, you know, mention it on your Instagram story, your Facebook, your Twitter, wherever you want. And then in return, they might also be able to help you and do the same. So, for example, podcast interviews, like, just like what we're doing right now, I love it. You know, I can be on your podcast, you can come onto mine, and then I can provide, promote your products. I remember I saw, I read one of your articles and I shared on Facebook because I was like, wow, this is amazing. And you know, like, supporting each other because I really don't believe in, you know, the market being too small for us to all be eating each other's like, clients or something. It's an amazing space and there's so much going on. There's so many things out there. And I think it's so important for us to learn to collaborate. You know, like connection, collaboration over competition, 100% every single day. So, yeah, a lot of the people that I've talked to throughout the, you know, the few months and year plus time of me being in the entrepreneurial space has been just connecting with people, mentioning, you know, collaborating through podcasts, mentioning each other on social media, you know, writing guest posts for each other. There are so many ways to boost each other, other's visibility through connections. And I think that is so incredible. And I love doing that.

You know, and that's obviously just so everybody knows that's how you and I met, because you reached out to me and, you know, we kind of took the relationship from there. And I'm like you, I love trading with other people because I think that, you know, the more you give out in the world, the more you'll get. I mean, just, just, you know, it'll always come back to you. It's kind of like that boomerang effect. So I definitely appreciate that outreach that you did. And I do it all the time too, because I'm a, I'm a big believer in it, just like you are. So let me ask you this. You have a lot going on. And you're building this new business that you created just in the past year or so based on what you, you know, kind of pivoted out of COVID what do you see as next steps in your business?

Yeah, I think that's such a great question, and it is one that I'm still challenging myself to continue to think. And, you know, it's never going to be predictable, right? Like the future, obviously. And I think it is first of all, very important to be flexible. You know, things are not going to be easy this year for me. Actually, earlier this year, I lost my mom. And, you know, I, you know, I Think first On 31 December, I sat down and I was like, okay, I'm creating this entire plan. It's going to be perfect. I'm going to be doing this and that. And then I got the news. I lost my mom really suddenly. And for two months I really couldn't, you know, do much. And that's okay, too. I think a lot of the time, entrepreneurs are very hard on yourselves. You kind of, you know, like, you have this plan and you wake up in the morning, even if you don't feel up to it, you kind of like force yourself to get into that minds, like that zone. And sometimes we need to be a little bit more flexible and understanding of ourselves. And for me, I think that my, you know, like, in the near future, I think I'll continue on working on your entrepreneur resources, continue on collaborating with amazing entrepreneurs, and at the same time, I am planning to delegate a little bit more. So I'm going to outsource because I've got, you know, different things going on with my company as well, with events kind of coming back a little bit. I've got, you know, like, different things happening over there. So I think delegation is definitely super important for every single entrepreneur, especially solopreneurs that are, you know, behind the scenes and running everything. So, yeah, definitely going to be outsourcing and continuing on and, yeah, building my businesses.

You know, I want to go back to something you said at the beginning about it's okay if, if things don't go out, go out exactly as you plan. I know you had something that happened in your life that, you know, you had to take some. Some time off for, and that's completely understandable, you know, and that's that I'm sure that's happened to people who are listening. I know this happened to me and, you know, my life where I had to take, you know, six months plus off From, From a business. So what advice Venice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there? You have a ton of experience and launching various things. You've. You've obviously had some ups and downs and things that have happened in your life. What advice do you have for them?

I think the most important thing, I have half of two advices put together, if that makes sense. I think the most important thing is to validate your idea. And I don't mean it in the way that's, you know, do your market research and, you know, keep doing your market research and jump on calls with a million different people. I mean that truly, because when I first started one of my businesses, which was an app, I thought, yes, I love this idea. You know, people are going to pay for it. I'm going to make so much money, and everyone is downloading apps these days. You know, I've got, you know, this is perfect. I love it. And I didn't validate it at all. And I just talked to my friends and obviously your friends are going to be supportive and say, yeah, yeah, that's a good idea. And I truly lost so much money and time and energy building that app that just completely flopped. So earlier on when I was talking about talking to your ideal audience and going to Facebook groups and all these different forums and platforms, talking to people, it's not because I assume that it would work. It's because I truly learned through my failure, I truly learned that it's so important to just put yourself out there, talk, talk to people, talk to your ideal audience. And not just that. You have to know that there's a way of monetizing it, because if you are running a business, you need to make money. Otherwise it's just a hobby that. Otherwise you can just, you know, there's no point in saying that you are running a business, because you're not. You know, you need to monetize it somehow. And the second half of my one tip is to just do it. I know it's contradicting to my first tip of validating your idea, but I think a lot of people are such perfectionists, and that is a bad thing. We should not be perfectionists. You know, there's no perfect logo, perfect website, perfect day, perfect slogan, color scheme and all those things. We can get very much caught up in that entire mindset of just like, you know, oh, yeah, I have to get it perfect before I can put it out there. But that would never come. So instead of getting stuck on the small details, just get your business. Get your idea out there after a little bit of validation. Don't spend months and months doing market research. Just put yourself out there, ask for feedback, talk to people, collaborate, connect with people. And then, yeah, I think that is definitely one of the advice that I would give to any kind of entrepreneur.

So thank you for sharing the story about the app that you worked on. Is it still out there or what happened with it? I'm just curious at this point.

Great question. It is out there, but it's just.

Oh, gosh. Sitting there probably.

Yeah, exactly. So for apps, you have to pay Apple Store to keep your app out there. And I didn't pay for the last payment because I thought, oh gosh, like, I don't know. It's also a tourism related app, so it's the worst timing at the moment. So it's still there, but it doesn't really work.

Okay, gotcha. Gotcha. Well, thank you for sharing that. And Vaneese, where can people find you?

Yeah, you can find me at yourentrepreneurresources.com I'm at your entrepreneur resources everywhere. So Instagram, my podcast is also called your entrepreneur resources. I love chatting with people just like what I said earlier. So feel free to connect with me through DMs on Instagram and I will.

Make sure, Vaneese, that all of those links are in the show notes so people can just click there and find you. And thank you so much for sharing your story today. I love learning about what you did even from going to a boarding school when you were just in elementary school across the world. So thank you for sharing that.

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