The Business Behind Online Courses

Hello. Hello. Good morning. Good morning. How are you? Welcome, welcome. Hi. Alrighty. Welcome to Thursday. Welcome to another live. So you're going to get me live a lot at the moment because it is launch time. So it is the fabulous time when we, we open the doors to my mastermind. So the doors to my mastermind, her empire builder, open on Monday. And so I'll be coming live and talking to you about all the different things so that you get a little bit more of an idea of what's happening and if it's going to be the right thing for you. Good morning, Karen and Helen. Just getting coffee. Nice. I like it. I like it a lot. So if you're live online, say hello so that I can see you here. Hi, Michelle, how you going? All right. So today I want to talk about the business behind online courses. So if you see me kind of looking a little bit to the side, I've got Facebook right in front of me and I have Instagram just to the side. So if you see my eyes kind of flicking a little bit, that's wise. I'm looking at, I'm looking at the comments all over the place. Hi on, Dina, how are you? Alrighty. So I want to talk about the business behind online courses, because so often we see people running online course businesses and we see kind of the front end. Only rarely do we see all of the work that happens behind and all of the things that are happening behind the scenes in there as well. Hi, Sarah. Hi, Melinda. So what I want to talk about is what actually happens behind the scenes of an online course business. Because there is a lot, and often when people first are starting their online courses, they're coming, coming out and they're going, you know what, how is this actually going to work? Because they see everyone having such good, easy results and wonder why that doesn't happen so easily for them and always think that they're doing something wrong, when in actual fact, it takes a lot of work in order to run a super profitable, highly pumping online business. I know that when online courses came out, I've heard people say before, they're passive income. You know, you just create a course, you set it in there, and then all of a sudden it's just passive income and it just ticks over by itself. On that one, I want to call bullshit straight away because it's not passive. It could be as you grow up and if you get like amazing kind of low cost, high quantity, which is fantastic, Facebook ads, machines just running at something, but the type of online programs that, that I run the type of online programs that my clients run. It's building a business. It's not building a passive kind of income. There it is. What it is, is extremely leveraged and extremely scalable. And that is why we do. What we do is being able to reach more people and make a bigger impact in the world with a lot less output and a lot less time. So a lot of the people that I work with have been running their businesses and they've been doing it on service basis. So on a time exchange, in going, okay, how can we serve people and how do we do that in a one on one sort of capacity? And so a lot of people then go to online courses in going, okay, I've got all of this expertise, I've got all of this IP that I know I want to be able to package and to be able to sell to people because I'm tapped out of time. When you're serving people one on one, the only way to make more money is either to hire more staff or to do more hours. And there's only so many hours in the day and time is our most valuable commodity. And so online programs give a great opportunity to be able to reach more people in a leveraged capacity. So Michelle's got here. I just had a breakthrough last night. Oh, I love breakthroughs last night. I've been frustrated at seven months into my online course business and realized I need to wait a few years in at least. No one is ever an overnight success. You know what, Michelle? That is so incredibly. That's an amazing breakthrough moment. And that is kind of the whole point of what I wanted to get across today. So you've made that whole point for me because a lot of people will come on and they'll go, you know, they just go into online course world and they run their first webinar, for example, and there might be three people on the webinar and they're going, oh my gosh, what did I do wrong? When we do online courses, aren't we supposed to have like hundreds of people on here? And there is nothing wrong. It just takes time. It takes time and it takes consistent effort built up over that time in continuing to show up and continuing to serve. And then when that compounds and when you keep going, that's when you face this amazing success. Good morning over on Facebook there. Hi, Melissa, how are you? So, Michelle, that's a great realization because you do have to continue showing up for people again and again and again. But there's different things that you can do to shortcut your success in doing that. So I've been in business for 16 years, and it was. It started 2018, so nearly three years ago, that I started my first online course. And I'll tell you what, it was an absolute revelation to me, to people that know me well. It's no secret how obsessed I am with online courses and membership programs, because although not passive income, I work my ass off in serving the people that give me money. It is highly leveraged. So it means that you can take your expertise, you can take everything that you know, you can package it in a way that works for you and your lifestyle goals, and you're able to deliver that to people and get paid very well in return for it. So it's beautiful. But I've learned the different things that make a difference to kind of catapult you into the stratosphere of success of where you want to be. So with my mastermind program, her Empire Builder, my goal and my mission with that is by 2025, to have 100 women a million dollars a year, because I know that when women make a lot of money, they give it back to the economy. And it all goes very, very well. And so I'm very passionate about being able to do that. Hi, Hazel, how are you? Hazel is one of my Empire Builder members there on Instagram there as well. Okay. So the different elements that you need to have in your online business in order to get it to that next level, it's not just one thing. Often people will ask me, you know, to hit. So I hit a million dollars in my second year of online courses, which was fantastic. And of course, looks and sounds really, really good. But I didn't I say in my second year of online business, but it was my 16th year of business, and I had been spending 10 years before that building a personal brand, building my business profile, and kind of had a lot of backing behind me before I actually entered into that. There's a caveat behind that kind of thing. Okay, so what I want to show you, and this is really interactive, too. So if you have any questions, as I'm saying the different things, please feel free to just ask them. Just sing them out so that I can answer them for you. So the first one is to be really clear on your brand. So be really clear on who it is that you serve, how you show up, and who you're representing. A conversation that I had with someone just this morning was going. Was flicking from being a business name into a personal brand. Because what I find with online courses is even though it's all online based people, humans do business with humans. And so you really want to make sure that when people are talking about you and referring you that they can find you easily. So for example, if I like I'm her empire builder is my program. But I don't build everything on her empire builder. I build everything on Tina Tower. Because when people are talking about me to other people, they're like, hey, have you seen Tina Tower? You need to go and check, check her out, she can help you. So people are searching for that in Google for the name, not for the business or the program. So it's really important that you have that all solidified so that people can find you nice and easily and that you're communicating to your customers super, super clearly. So I spoke about yesterday, if you were on my live yesterday, I was talking about funnel marketing and how important it is to have your ideal customer super clearly defined so that you can talk to them so easily. And I was talking Alice Carrington, because Alice is my ideal customer. So instead of having like a customer avatar and talking about a customer avatar in a really clinical sort of sense, I made up Alice. And so Alice to me is the perfect customer. And everything I create, I can say, is this right for her? Is this what she's looking for? Is this adding massive value to Alice? And sometimes it's good to make that person up. Sometimes you might just find your ideal customer and be able to go, go that as well. So the next thing is getting in front of people. Now this used to be way easier pre Covid times because we could have live speaking events and get on stages and in front of audiences and conferences and do a whole lot of speaking. So we can't do that at the present time because of COVID But there are still ways to virtually get in front of different audiences. You have this amazing thing in your pocket that I'm on right now, and a lot of it is showing up for your audience and stepping out there. And so you've got to get really comfortable stepping into your light and owning the space and your expertise that you have. And I don't mean like fake inflating it. I'm not. I hate the saying fake it till you make it. No, just be you, come as you are, but don't diminish what you've got. So I work with women primarily, and rather than it ever being an issue of people, you know, having to like inflate what they're doing, I find people shrink themselves. They Diminish the expertise that they have built over time and what they're so good at and the value that they have to bring to the world. And so it's, there's an element there of getting comfortable in going, you know what? I'm pretty freaking awesome at what I do and I know I can help serve people and this is how I can. And continuing to show up for those people and continuing to add value and serve them. And so that's in doing things like networking events, like speaking. So at the moment, there's plenty of virtual speaking opportunities. So if you're building an online course business, you want to try and get as many different speaking engagements as you possibly can. Because what it does is it allows other people to really see you and get to know you. So it's very different when you know, you can just pop up on an Instagram live as to if you were speaking on a stage or speaking for a full day or delivering a workshop or something like that. So you want to do that. Michelle said, guilty of shrinking here. Yes. And so many people are. But, you know, it's fear based. And so we're always, as humans, so worried about people judging us. And I know when I first started public speaking, I would be violently ill. Like, oh my gosh, how just standing and talking can be so petrifying is ridiculous. But it really is because we've got that really innate fear of judgment. And I had someone once tell me going, you know, don't worry about people judging you. People are only thinking about themselves. They're not thinking about you. I'm like, bullshit. Because whenever I would go to a conference, you know, you'd come off and then at the break, everyone have the discussion of going, oh, that person was amazing. I absolutely loved it. I got so much out of it. Or vice versa. They would say, well, that was a waste of an hour of my time that I'll never get back. Right? That person sucked. So people are judging you. But a lot of it is getting comfortable with that going, you know what, it's going to happen. But I'm not going to worry about the people that I'm not right for. I'm going to worry about serving and reaching the people that I know I'm going to be able to communicate with and I know I'm going to be able to add value to and I know I'm going to be able to lift up in the world and they're the people that you focus on. Michelle said, how do you find speaking engagements? Oh my Gosh, so many different ways. That is a very big conversation and something that I cover in my mastermind with how to find speaking engagements. So a lot of it is a snowball effect. Once you start with some and start talking about speaking, people then see you as a speaker and then know to book you for other speaking engagements. And it's also doing simple things like on your website, making sure on the homepage or in the navigation at the top, sure that you have an option there for speaking so that you're showing people, hey, I'm available for speaking. So many people will tell me I want more speaking jobs, but nowhere on their website or nowhere in their social media marketing or anything like that are they actually talking about being available as a speaker. So that's a good place to start. Okay, so then we've got the different elements. I'm going through six, by the way. I didn't say that at the start, but the six different elements of building the business behind online courses. And so we've got. One is being really clear on your brand. Two is doing live events, whether that be workshops, virtual speaking in person, speaking, consulting, networking. And then three is the actual online programs. In having them so well thought out and priced properly, packaged properly, having your offer absolutely irresistible for your target market. So a lot of it is going, you know, what, what exactly does the person that I serve need? And then packaging that and then delivering that to them and adding massive, massive value. And you know, value is something that we talk about a lot in online programs. Because my first business, I had a retail store, really super simple. You buy something for $2, you sell it for $4. So easy to package and price. Online programs are a lot more abstract, so a lot of it is based on value perception rather than the cost that it actually costs to provide or what it actually costs you to deliver it. So for empire builders, for example, my mastermind, it's not the most expensive mastermind, but it's also certainly not cheap. It is an investment. So people are paying $1,000 a month to be a part of that. But for that I go, okay, so for that thousand dollars a month, I know I need to be able to return people between 2 and 5 in order to make that happen. So if someone's paying me $10,000 a year, am I going to add 20 to $50,000 a year to the profit of their business? Can I do that? Yes, I can. And so I go, okay, while that's an expensive investment, it's highly valuable and highly leveraged. And so you have to be able to say that with your programs, is this going to be worth it to people? And I will say it is much easier to do that in a business sense when you're serving business owners. Much harder to do things like health and well being and things that aren't going to get people a financial return. So you are capped at how much you can actually charge in those things and you have to package that accordingly so that people are going to still want to purchase it and still be able to afford it, but still see massive value in doing that. One of my clients is in Empire Builders. She runs a health program and she was saying the other day, so her Health Programs, 297. It's a health challenge that goes over six weeks. And someone was in a Facebook group and said, oh my gosh, $300. That's really expensive. I can get health challenges all over the place. And she was thinking, okay, so they've got nutritionists, they've got body scans, they've got all of these different stuff that makes it incredibly valuable. What is the cost of lap band surgery? So a lot of her clients that they'd worked with end up having to get lap band surgery at $25,000. So paying 297 for a course that they can follow really easily and combat that, so incredibly valuable. And so it's really figuring out, okay, what is going to be your core offering, what is going to be your community, how are you going to package all of that and how are you going to grow it? And once you kind of test and measure and get that perfect, it's going to be great. So I can still see people here on Facebook and Instagram, but nobody's asked any questions for a while. Let me know if you're still here. And how you going? Hi, Gina, how are you? Okay, so number four is, is content. So we want to be really strategic with the content that you're putting out into the world and strategic and consistent. So so often I see people when they're wanting to grow online courses and they'll go, you know, they're going to put out a lead magnet or they're going to put it, oh, by the way, with lead magnets, if you're not in my lead magnet challenge yet, jump on in. So go Tina. Tower.com challenge I'm doing a whole week next week on how to a winning lead magnet for your business. So that'll be really great. But so what I see when people go to market there, someone said, just listening here On Facebook. Excellent. When they go to market their businesses is they go, okay, I've got this lead magnet. I'm going to put it out, and then they'll come back to me and go, I put it out on social media. I shared the link, and I've only got, like, three downloads. What's going on now? Let me tell you, it takes a lot of of content to actually get traction. A lot of content. Kerry's just joined the challenge. Thanks, Kerri. I look forward to working with you next week. So it takes a lot of content in order to actually get traction with things. So often we put something out there and we think, okay, that's out there now, that's fine. But it takes consistency and putting it out there again and again and again before you actually get that return. I mean, on my first webinar, I had four people on there. On my second webinar, I had no people. Zero. None. No people. But a lot of the secret to success is going, okay, what worked with that, what didn't work with that, and how can I experiment and improve it for next time and try again? And then it just kept going up and up and up. But a lot of people get disheartened and either change something that's working but it's just not enough time and consistency or give up. And so I don't want you to fall down that trap because often what you're doing is absolutely perfect and working just fine, but you need to rinse and repeat and just keep doing it consistently time and time again. So video works so well. Video is one of the most effective ways to communicate. I mean, right now I've got, Hi, Mish. There's 10 people on Facebook. There's 10 people on Instagram here. That's 20 people that I'm talking to that I'm going, hey, guys. And you're getting to know me a little bit more right now. You're going, you know, I. Either I'm getting off and getting on with my day, or you're going, actually, I'm learning something a little bit here. I might keep listening to this chick. Maybe I might work with her. You're getting to know me and getting to figure out whether or not you want to take that next step in our relationship. But that is so much easier to do right now on video than it is. And someone just went off on Facebook. You can't talk to everyone, right? So that is so much easier to do on video than it is to do on a Facebook or an Instagram post. So when you're posting something and you know you've got a nice photo there and you're trying to be say something really profound, sometimes it hits the mark, sometimes it doesn't. But it's also really hard to get to know you as opposed to video when you're doing that. People can suss you out really, really quickly. So that's why I'm a fan of showing up on video consistently and having some strategic content planning all done business. So there is a group of very, very kick ass women there that are highly ambitious, wonderful, smart women that all get together and every month we have a masterclass. We have a guest expert come in. We have small group coaching. So we go in teams of eight so that everyone gets that input and can ask me questions. But if that's something that interests you, send me a message and ask me about that. Ondina says it's fantastic. Ondina is one of our wonderful members. Members, welcome. Adina. If that's something that interests you, send me a message. Because the process is if you want to be part of Empire Builders, you have to apply. So I can send you the link for the application form and then we have a 15 minute chat just to make sure of your goals and that it's if it's going to be right for you in order to get you to where you want to go and if it's going to be the best solution there. So if you're interested, send me a message. If you do want to do lead magnets, though, I'm running the free challenge next week, so you can jump into that Tina Tower.com forward slash challenge. Now, while before I wrap it up, does anybody have any questions? So any questions around the business behind online courses or marketing or promoting or the lead magnet challenge or the Mastermind or anything? I mean, at the moment there's painters actually right at my window, which is very distracting painting. I'm in my new office and they're painting it pink. So if you have any painting questions, can also answer those. I love renovating. Isn't it the most fabulous thing? Okay, so Haley's got a question here. I feel like everyone who follows you are total pros already. I'm just starting out in the business world and a little bit out of my depth. Where should I start? Hi, Hayley. So this is a classic, discounting yourself. I have people all the time say to me, you know, I see all those other people that are in your mastermind and I don't think I'm at that level yet. And everybody feels that way. And maybe you're not. Not. I'm not sure, I don't know you yet, but maybe you're also diminishing where you're at. So we've got people of all levels in our Mastermind. We've got some people, we've got three people that haven't launched their programs yet, but they already have a lot of backing and a lot of business experience. So I know they've got the capability to really take what they're learning, implement it fast and get that result. So if that's you, you can still jump in. And then we've got women that are nearing the million dollars a year as well. So we've got kind of all of the different levels and I put you in the team with people that are at similar stages in the business so that you can cheer each other on and use the people that are doing well as inspiration, as encouragement, rather than getting psyched out and saying, you know what, I don't know how I'm going to compete with these people. It's not a competition, it's a collaboration. And so it's all going, where am I at right now? And how do I then level up? So to get started, if you're not Mastermind ready yet, because the Mastermind is pretty serious, you know, it's not, it's not a. It's not something you dip in and out of lightly. It's. It's a time commitment and, and a commitment in going, I'm going to commit to growth this year. Like in 2021. It's going to be my year. I'm going to step in, I'm going to take it seriously, I'm going to follow the system, I'm going to implement everything and I'm going to fly. That's what it is. So if you're not quite ready for that yet, I have a short course called Idea to Launch, which takes you from kind of the very, very begin of online courses ready to launch a program. So if that's where you're at, start there. And then I'd also start listening to all of the podcasts. There are so many amazing podcasts out there that will give you so much information for free. So really start getting all of that, implementing all of that so that you can start growing and start earning some revenue, and then you've got that money to be able to invest in education so that you can kind of accelerate that success there as well. Michelle said, how do you keep showing up again and again? I Find my confidence. Confidence. Constantly discounting myself, which affects my energy. Yeah. So how do I show up again and again? Well, one, I love what I do and I focus on who I serve rather than on myself. So if I was always to focus on myself, I think I don't know if I'd be able to do it. I was talking about this yesterday and going, I never watch videos back of me because there's so many things that we will pick on ourselves. So I have to get other people to do the cutting up of videos and all of that sort of thing because otherwise I look at it and I go, oh, my gosh, like, what was I thinking with my hair? And what about my face? And why do I do that with my mouth when I talk and all of that sort of thing. And so it's paying attention to how you show up and what helps you to show up. So while, I mean, I think you've got to be really strategic. So for you, Michelle, it's going. You actually don't have to show up that much to make a big impact. So I do. I get a huge amount of return from my podcast and from Instagram stories and from lives. So I do lives. I mean, at the moment, I'm doing lives every day. Because we're going into launch. Everyone here is in digital business. So it's no secret that we ramp up the marketing when we're going into launch, period. Because I want people to be able to go, oh my gosh, I've got to get on board with that. Tina Tower.com forward slash her empire builder. So we do that, but normally it's every week. So we do that every week. And then I do the podcast every week, and then I do Instagram stories every day. So every week that takes me kind of four hours. It's not much time. But because it's planned and it's strategic and I know what I'm going to talk about and when I'm going to talk about it, it makes it a lot simpler. So I'm never kind of sitting there going, okay, what am I going to say? How am I going to do it? It. It's already mapped out and it has a purpose leading from there. And I'm thinking about, okay, I don't just want, we have enough white noise in the world. So I just don't want to talk about, you know, the weather and what's happening, that sort of thing. I always sit there and go, okay, people are going to give me their time. How can I share something that's going to inspire somebody today or going to encourage someone to take that next step and to kind of step more into their life. So I'm all about joy, I'm all about kicking ass in business. And so everything that I do is hopefully helping people do that. In saying that a lot of the stuff that I do on Instagram stories is like, I'll go in, in the morning and just talk about what I've got going on in my day. And I find people really enjoy that because they're wondering what happens in a typical day when you're running online programs and you've got a team and you're doing all of the things. So that's how I show up. There are days. The other thing that makes it really easy is showing up as you are. So what kind of inhibited me at the beginning of my journey when I first started showing up on social media was I felt like I had to present myself in a certain way that wasn't how I normally was. So I felt like I had to have really manicured, like blow dried hair looking all gorgeous. I thought I had to have a full face of makeup on. I thought I had to have my, my fancy clothes, all of that sort of thing because I just thought I had to show up in a more professional manner and that it wasn't good enough to just show up as myself. But what that does is it actually stops you showing up and so you can't appear like that. And also it takes a huge amount of energy when you're putting it on kind of thing. So if you're, you know, if you're not normally super showy and like vivacious and presenty, if you try and put that on for when you go live, it's going to, to SAP every part of energy out of you. So a lot of it is going just come as you are. Just show up exactly as you are. No matter what you normally wear, show up in what you normally wear. If you don't wear makeup like me, like I've got, I've got mascara on. That's as fancy schmancy as I get. So that's how I show up. Because I never want someone to see me anywhere else and go, oh my gosh, like what happened to your face? It's so different. One of the things before COVID hit is the last two years I actually wear sneakers on stage because I love bright clothes and I love wearing sneakers. The only time I ever put heels on was when I would speak on somebody's stage. But at the end of the day, I would always have to leave conversations because I would literally be standing there having conversations with people and just going, ow, ow, ow, ow. Because my feet were so freaking sore. So then I thought, you know what? Fuck it. And I chucked them out and just put my sneakers on. And then I could literally bounce around everywhere, and the energy never ran out because I am like a little energizer Bunny if I'm wearing sneakers. So a lot of it is, show up as you are. Don't try and be anybody else, because when you do that, you'll either attract or polarize the right people. So I know there's some people that if they want a business coach, they will want someone a hell of a lot more polished than I am, and that is totally fine. There's enough. Enough people to serve the right people there. So by you being you, it means that the clients that you get are going to resonate with that and they're going to learn from you more easily because they're going to just. Just have that affinity with you. So you want to just. Just come as you are. Shana said, yeah, sneakers all the way. I can't wait until we can be back on stages again, rocking our sneakers, rocking our kicks from one of the cool kids. Have we got any other questions? Any other questions coming on in there? Again, if you're not in the challenge yet, go tina tower.com challenge. Or if you do want to apply for her Empire builder, the Mastermind, send me a message and I can send you the details of that, and we can start having a little chatty chat to see whether it's going to be the right thing for you. Alrighty, everyone. Have the greatest day tomorrow. I'm going live again, same bat time, same bat place, and I'll be talking about personal brand. So that will be good. If you're looking at how to increase your personal brand and your visibility, I'll be talking about that tomorrow. Have a great day, everybody. Bye. Oh, hang on, hang on. Andina's just asked me a question just before I leave. When you go live on Facebook, do you do it in a group? I do it everywhere on Dina because I'm into leveraging time. So that's why at the moment, with my eyes flicking back and forth, I am live on Instagram here, and then I go live on Streamyard at the same time. So Streamyard is a software program that can push out to multiple locations. So it goes live both on my Facebook page and on my free Facebook group at the same time. So on Facebook, that's Tina Tower is my Facebook page, and I've got a Facebook group called Her Empire Builder, which is a public Facebook group there. So you can choose multiple locations to go live so that you only have to do it once, but you can go to all of your places because, you know, time is our most precious commodity. Shauna says, love Streamyard. Yeah, it's really good because you can put. You can put people's branding, you can put your branding on there, you can put people's comments up on the page, which I really love. So, yeah, I'm into leveraging. Leveraging. Time is the best thing there. Alrighty, everyone have the best day. Thank you so much.