From Zero to Your First $1 – Getting Started in the Online Course Industry

Hi, friend. Welcome to her Empire Builder Show. I am Tina Towler and today's episode is the first in a three part series that I'm doing for you. For this and the next three episodes we have. This episode will be about how to go from zero to your first dollar. Getting your first sale in the online course industry. And then the next episode in the series will be getting from that $1 to your first six figures. So that first hundred thousand dollars. And then the final EP in the series will be creating your first million so that I can talk about the different things that are applicable at the different times and the different stages that we're going through along that journey. So whatever size you are, whatever part you are up to, you can start there. But I do think that there will probably be tidbits that will be helpful for everybody in all of the episodes. So let's get to it.

Welcome to her Empire Builder Show. I'm your host, Tina Tower, business strategist, course creator, best selling author, and unapologetic champion for women chasing big, audacious dreams. Since starting my first business at 20, I've built and sold multiple companies, traveled the globe and discovered the magic of online courses. A business model that has changed my life forever. Building a business is no easy feat. It's a long road filled with sometimes challenges. But with the right strategy and consistency, your success is not only possible, but it's inevitable. Here on the show, in this video, I'm bringing you candid conversations with extraordinary humans, practical strategies and a whole lot of inspiration to help you scale your online business, create wealth, freedom and impact that you deserve. This is where bold dreams meet proven action. Where we ditch the limits and go all in on business building. And we get to live lives full of fun and freedom that light us up. If you're ready to play bigger, earn more, and step into your power as a fearless empire builder, you're in the right place. Let's make it happen.

So if you've ever dreamed of starting an online course but you don't know where to start, this episode is for you. This is how to get started in this wonderful world of online courses. It is a very important milestone in getting your first dollar. I know. I still remember my first sale. Sometimes I will interview course creators that are super, super successful. They've made millions and millions of dollars and I will ask them, like, what's been one of the most exciting moments in their whole journey? And often they say that first sale. So it is something that is very memorable. It is something that you just don't forget. And it matters. Making that first dollar matters. I think that so many people, when they're wanting to start any business in any industry, they have it as a dream. And there's a great book called the Five Regrets of the Dying by Ronnie Warehouse. And she talks about all of the things that people regret. And for me, I like to live my life with no regrets. I can't think of anything that I wish I had done that I have not done. I sometimes need a little bit of encouragement the other way. Like you don't need to do everything that you think about. But what I am always surprised to discover when I am with a large group of people, especially when I'm with people that are not yet entrepreneurs, is how many people have a dream and don't go for it. And I just don't, like, I don't compute. Like, if you want something, if you want to do something, like, do it, do the thing. What's the worst that can happen? And usually people will say, well, the worst that can happen is I'm going to fail. I'm going to absolutely humiliate myself. I'm going to lose money, I'm going to lose time. People are going to judge me. You know, like, the list is long of what's the worst that can happen. And I think to that, so what? Like, if you don't do it, if you don't try at all, then what is the point of the whole game? Of what? You've just got these dreams and you've just got these things that you want to do, but you're never actually going to back yourself and go for it. Like, to me, that failure is worse than if you tried and it didn't work out. Your odds of failure are 100% if you never try. Your odds of failure, if you go for it kind of like 50, 50, which is pretty good odds. They're odds most people would take. So if you're feeling fearful of it, because there's a big mindset thing around getting started, I want you to know that it is a muscle that, you know, you exercise a little bit more and it gets a little bit easier. While no one loves failing, no one loves going into the unknown and not knowing what's going to happen. The more you do it, the more you feel like you're going to be okay, like you're going to be safe no matter what happens. Um, I have failed so many times. Like, so, so, so many times. Um, and because I am used to it, I don't take failure so personally as what I did in the beginning of my business, I would take it in a lot of absolutes. Actually. I was having this conversation with a friend the other day in going, like, she's operating in too, too many absolutes. Like when things go well, like, she gets one run on the board, she's like, that's it. I've made it. Like, I've got all the money. Like, let's go, babe. Like, we're here. And then she'll have like a bad day. And things, something will. It's just like, I'm doomed. I knew it was going to fail. And it's like this entrepreneurial rollercoaster, right? So you want to avoid that as much as possible. And when you've been going for longer, it gets a lot easier to not believe the hype and also not get down in the dumps. You kind of can ride that middle ground a whole lot easier than at the beginning. So I'm not going to pretend it's not there. You are going to feel that emotional roller coaster just until you kind of get used to it and get more comfortable within that. One of the exercises that I absolutely love is Tim Ferriss has a fear setting TED Talk that he did many, many years ago. Like, probably it would be at least 10 years old. I'll link to it in the show notes for you. But pretty much it in a nutshell is you go through and you write down every single thing that could possibly go wrong, every fear that you absolutely have, and you document all of that and you look at it and you go, all right, what are the odds of that happening? So if that all happened, what are the odds of it happening? But if it did all happen, it's absolutely like go full doomsday and absolutely everything that you were fearful of went wrong. What would you have to do to get your life back to where it is right now? What would you have to do to recover? And then you go on the other side and you go, all right, if I did the thing that I want to do, what is every single thing that could possibly go right. And looking at all of the upside of it and then looking at that and weighing them against each other and going, all right, here is all the upside, here is all the downside. Am I willing to risk everything on the downside for the potential upside? So you're not going in blind. You're not. You're not going in like with your head in the sand. You're going in really well informed. And for me I am quite, I'm emotional but I'm also quite pragmatic in I like to know the risk. I am not risk averse, I am very happy to be taking risk risks. But I want to know if it doesn't work out, can I recover and how I recover. And because I already have a plan of how I can recover before I actually go into it, I'm always a lot better prepared. So I do think that at the beginning a lot of people overcomplicate it. So I will see people, I mean I even have them as members inside her empire builder, I love you. But I will say to them again and again, like sometimes I will have people do annual memberships and they will get up to their annual renewal and they haven't launched yet. And lovingly I will say as much as possible, just do it, like just sell it. And there's, you know, there's a lot of psychological evidence around this in that people like to still exist in the space of anything is possible. And for us, once we actually get started, it's then like it's game time. And then you'll either get the proof that you've got, so then you'll either get the proof that it is going to fail and it's not going to work out or that you've been successful and you are going to be able to continue on. And so a lot of people like to exist in that middle name where still everything is possible. But you don't want to overcomplicate it. You don't want to be spending time on, you know, I've seen people make their website and then fancy up their website even more and then change their design and then, you know, they're working on new worksheets and they're working on all of these, doing a bit more market research, building social media first before they actually sell anything. I would always give the advice, sell something as quickly as possible, like get that run on the board, you're off in your racing, like get underway with that. Um, and I do think that, you know, you don't need the big fancy tech, you don't need big audiences, you don't need years of experience, you need to start. That is where the experience is going to come from. What you need is one person, you need one person to be able to say yes and then you are in business. So let's look at four steps to making your first $1 online. First one is choose a profitable course topic. I know that that sounds very simplistic, but in my experience I've seen a lot of people and I will hear their ideas and go, winner, chicken dinner. Like, this is going to fly. This is a great idea. And then I will hear other ideas that I go, the odds of this working are slim. Should we look at the different niches or different ways to package it or how we can do it? So the best course idea kind of sits at that intersection between your expertise, what people are willing to pay for, and also what you love. Now some people will say it's not important to do something that you love. You know, it's work. It's not super happy, fun times. But I think for our business style, like when you're talking about something that is IP driven, thought leadership driven, you have to talk about it a lot. You have to get out of your comfort zone a lot. You have to be in front of people a lot. You have to really be passionate about what you're talking about and at the essence, really care about it and love it or people will smell the bullshit a mile away. So I do think that it's important that you love what you do. Um, it's also important that that's the area of expertise. That's what people already know you for. Um, and also what people are willing to pay for is a very important one there as well. Ask yourself there. So when you're looking at what's that thing going to be, really ask yourself, what do people already ask you for advice on? So, you know, sometimes I'll talk to people that are, that are setting up for the first time and they'll be like, you know, this is, this is what I could just do straight away, but I don't want to anymore. I get bored of it. Maybe I'll go and do something totally left of field. And while that can work, if you can do something that people are already knowing you for, that people are already asking you for advice for, you already have that ready made customer base there ready to go. So that's going to make your life a whole lot easier. If someone's already asking you for advice, pay attention to that. Go. All right, I could package this into an online program. Next one is, what problem can you solve faster and easier for other people? So if you're seeing something now, because you know, I will hear constantly people saying, yeah, but someone's already doing that. I don't know if I can do that as well. Can you do it better? Can you do it with faster, easier results? We are in the world where more than ever people want it faster. They Want it easy. They want to get from point A to point B, the quickest, cheapest, fastest way that you possibly can. If you can enable that, that's going to set you on a winning path and what transformation can you provide? So looking at along the way, when someone's at point A and they want to get into point B, how can you help them? What can that journey be getting people across? If you're not sure, what you can do is you can post on social media, you can email out your closest friends and ask, hey, what do you think I'm best at? What do you think I'm known for? That could be a whole. Like, you know, it's often surprising what people will come back with to reflect back to you or give you confidence in the thing that you have chosen there as well. Or you can have a conversation with ChatGPT, which is something that now I'm so thankful that we have the ability for to go, hey, I'm thinking of doing this. Can you ask me some questions that can help me clarify whether this is the right road for me to go down? So that is step one. Step two is validate your idea before you build obi. So I don't love to see people go down a road, spend a heap of money, a heap of time, and then get disheartened when it doesn't work out and have to change and go back again. The way to avoid that is to validate your idea before actually building. So don't spend months building a course before you know it will sell. Instead, what I want you to do is you're first going to outline the framework of your course. So you need to have an outline. I don't mean like write it, constantly, build it, film it. Like, I don't mean the whole thing, I mean just the outline of it. Then share your idea with your audience, even if that audience is small. Start sharing that idea. Hey, I'm looking at developing this. This is what we're going to do. This is the transformation promise and kind of feel out what that response is. Then I want you to offer a beta version. So sometimes people will call that like a foundation launch where people can join you at a discounted price in exchange for that feedback. So what you're looking for is you're looking for people that are your already raving fans, that already know you, that already like you, that already trust you, and you can put them through in exchange for getting like, video testimonials or their feedback on the experience of going through your program. Now I did say they're a discounted price, not free. I have seen people say like free access to my course so that you can get those feedback and that testimonials. I would very much discourage you from doing that. The reason being is if people aren't paying for it, they don't have any skin in the game. They're going to treat it differently. Their chances of actually completing it are going to be really, really low. And so you want to charge something so that you can get people through. I would actually charge like a decent price. Say you were going to do 997 for your course, for example. I would probably go like 597 for our founders rate so that people can go through and try that one. If you get three to five people that say yes to that, then run it like stick it out there, put it out there and go for it. If you don't get those three to five people then you want to tweak it. You want to go, all right, I'm going to tweak it, I'm going to put it out again and we're going to try again and see what the, see what the response is from that. If you get that validation and people are like, yep, I'm ready to go, then teach it live. I'm going to talk about that in a minute. So step three is now sell before you create. Now for this one. I can sometimes have arguments with people over this because I have heard people say, like always sell it before you've fully created it, before you've created anything of which I don't entirely agree with. I think it is hard to sell something if you don't know what you are going to run. However, the best courses at the start are ran live. Now, there is a reason why the best ones are run live and that is, that is due to a few different things. So one reason is it is easier for you, it is much easier to teach live than it is to do prerecorded. The reason for that is, is it's usually more comfortable. You can see people on the screen. You can be liaising with people like really bounce off that energy rather than, you know, like I am now staring down the barrel of the camera, which isn't as like not as much of an energetic exchange. So you can be seeing people. It'll keep your energy high. You can also see on people's faces straight away what's landing, what's not landing so that you know if you're going to prerecord your course in the future, what bits to take out, what bits to really double down on. You can never quite pick where people are going to get stuck. So you know, you might get some questions and go that was great questions like maybe I need to add some content on that. It's also really, really great for the customer. So your chances of completion in an online course are so much higher if you are doing live teaching than if you are doing pre recorded. And biggest thing, especially at the beginning you need is completion because you don't have the volume yet. You need people to complete so that you can get that feedback, so you can get that testimonials and so that people can tell their friends and you can grow through word of mouth there as well. So you want to pre sell before building it so that you are getting paid before you actually create it so that you're not losing all of that time. So first things first, I think you can create a simple sales page inside Kajabi. Kajabi is definitely my favorite tool to use. But even if you're not going that far, like I have sold a program before with a Google Doc so you don't need it perfect or polished. It does definitely help but it's not entirely essential. You, you could start with a simple landing page in Kajabi, but if you're not there yet, just start with a Google Doc. To get those three to five people in that beta group you can offer a limited founding member price which I have shared with you already and then you're going to announce it to everyone. So share it with your email list, share it with your social media, share it with any communities that you're in. This is where you use your personal networks. So I will talk to people and go like no one can buy a secret. You like the build it and they will come. Is not true when it comes to anything online. Like the world is too noisy so you need to share it with everyone that you can. So if you're looking at personal networks, you're looking at your personal Facebook page communities that you're part of and share it with them. Don't, don't be afraid like people will want to support you and if they don't like let them like that's fine. But you will find people will be so proud of what you're doing because if you're going after it like people, a lot of people have a dream that they haven't gone after that you going after it will inspire other people and go, well like look at her, she's actually Going for it like this gives me confidence. Maybe I could go for it one day, too. And they'll. They'll give you a hand. So that is what we're looking at with your first. When you're first going to sell, number four is then deliver and refine. So once you've got that first sale in, which is, which is the hardest part, I think, is that first sale. Once you've got that in, though, you can then start delivering. So when you've got sales, it's then obviously time to deliver. And this is where you. You have to be magic. This is where you're going to keep it simple because we don't want to have you preparing for months and months before you're actually running your first cohort. You can keep it simple and teach it live. As I said before, live is the absolute easiest way to teach. It gets instant feedback there. It also means that people will show up because they don't want to miss. Also means you can't, like, chicken out and procrastinate. I know that, you know, if I've got to rerecord a course that's prerecorded, I can find every excuse under the sun to push that baby back. But if I've got a live class, never once have I missed it under any circumstance, ever in the last six years. Like, it is on, it is scheduled, people are showing up. I'm definitely showing up. So it makes you accountable to that delivery in there as well. Then you are gathering feedback. You're going to tweak it for the future ones, and then you're going to get ready for your first real launch after that. So this one, at the beginning, you're really focusing on people that you already know, people that are already in your network. And sometimes, you know, I'll have people say to me, well, I don't. I don't know anyone that's right for my course. And if you are looking to sell something that you don't know anyone that will buy, I will say it is the wrong thing. You need to know people that are already going to buy what you're putting out. And then you know you're under the right one because you've already got a reputation in that space there as well. Okay, next one is the biggest mistakes to avoid when you are starting. Sometimes this is an easier thing to go through than to how to actually do it, because I want to make sure that you're avoiding these pitfalls. The first one is overcomplicating your tech. Now there is so many different sophisticated things that you can do. I was having a conversation with someone the other day about activecampaign. Activecampaign does so many incredible sophisticated things. I don't need it. I'm like, I run a business that's over a million dollars a year. I do not need that level of sophistication in my business and probably neither do you. When you are starting, you definitely don't keep it as simple as possible. Like I said before, Kajabi is my software of choice, mainly because it's an all in one. It is not the cheapest on the market, so it is an investment when you're starting. But what it means is that you don't need to have a huge app stack, you don't need all of these different things to go on and you can teach it via Zoom the first time. So when you're going through that, like, don't worry about too many sophisticated tech, like keep it really simple. The simplest way, if you didn't want to go down Kajabi and you didn't want to pay for any tech and you wanted to see if you like this whole online course game, sell it with a Google Doc, just run it through a checkout on Stripe and then deliver it by a Zoom, like that is the easiest possible way. And then after you've done that, you can step in, you can get your Kajabi site built and you can be off and racing. The next biggest mistake that I see people make is waiting for a big audience. Now I don't think you need a big audience to sell for a lot of people. When you've got your profit goal, you can work out, all right, this is my profit goal. How many people do I need to serve in order to get my profit goal? And then once you've got that number, you know, well, how wide do you need to need to go? A lot of people. You know, if you're thinking I need 10,000 followers on Instagram or I need a thousand people on my email list, you don't need that many people. There is a great article by Kevin Kelly called A Thousand True Fans which talks about this in great, great depth. You don't need many people. You just need the right people. And so really look for the right people and not, not going wide because you need just to start those like three to five action takers and that's it, you're in business. Next one next mistake that I see people make is underpricing. So your knowledge is valuable. Do not give it away. For free. Like with your course, I should caveat that and say, when I say don't give it away for free. You're going to do lead magnets, you're going to do podcasts, you're going to do social media, you're going to give away a lot of value for free, but you're not giving away everything for free. And when you're actually doing your course, you are going to price that accordingly. With the transformation promise and with the offer that you are delivering and how you've packaged that so really big conscious that you're not pricing too low out of fiat, it is, in my experience, a lot easier to sell medium to high ticket programs than it is to sell low ticket programs. So keep that in mind as you're starting. And then the final one is thinking that it has to be perfect. Excuse me, Done is better than perfect. That is a line that we have all heard again and again. I do think you can refine it later. Now, in saying that it doesn't have to be perfect, I don't think that, you know, there's a difference between crappy and waiting for perfection. So have a high level of excellence, but not perfection. There is that line there where you go, you know what, this is good enough to go to market because if you try and keep refining it and refining it and refining it before you sell it to make it perfect, the market's gone without you. Like, it's too late, you've missed the boat. So what you want to do is really go, how can I get like the minimal viable product that I can be proud of that can make a massive difference in people's lives that can be really, really valuable and get that out there and make transformations for people. Whatever that minimum is, send it, sell it, get it going. Okay, so that is our wrap up to get you from zero to your first dollar. Now, your first dollar is your biggest milestone because it means that you're officially in business. You know when you're first starting and you're making your name and you're picking your color palette and back in the day, it used to be getting your business cards made, but nobody does that anymore. Like, that is not when you're in business. When you're in business is when you make that first sale. And when you get it, it is one of the greatest feelings that you will ever have because it means that you went from like this idea that just dropped into your mind one day and you had the courage and the bravery to pursue it and to let it germinate and to grow it into something that became real and tangible. And then you were bold enough to go and put it out into the world where rejection is possible. And there were people that rejected it. Then there's also people that say yes. And the people that say yes, you get to work with and you get to do these beautiful transformations, and you get to be personally fulfilled, and you get to make an impact, and you get to make money doing something that you love. And there is no greater thing than that. So if this is you, please let this be your sign. Go and make that first dollar. You'll feel great.