41: Digital Course Creation Simplified: Answers to Your Biggest Questions

Hi, I'm Lydia. In 2020, I resigned from my corporate job and took a big leap of faith. I launched a business I had been dreaming about for a long time. I had so many questions when I first started and zero people on my email list. But I was committed to one thing. Taking massive imperfect action. Within 18 months, I had thousands of students in my courses and coaching programs and was able to retire my husband from his 30 year career through to work with me. I'm still pinching myself that we get to run a six figure business while living a life we love. But the truth is this overnight success did not happen overnight. For more than two decades, I let imposter syndrome, fear of failure and perfectionism hold me back from my passions and purpose. What is it that you've been wanting to launch? In the Launch Perspective podcast, we share the mindset and the step by step strategies that will help you launch and scale the online business of your dreams so you can live life with more freedom and impact. It's time for a new Perspective. Welcome to the show. It is time for our course creation Q and A session. If you don't know my story, I launched my business two weeks before COVID shut down the world. And it was literally that very first week of COVID that this gal said, I'm going to be going live in Zoom to answer anybody's questions about bringing their business online, about launching a digital course. And I had literally launched my business. So I was like, oh, I want to hop on Zoom and ask somebody some questions and I want to see what people are thinking of. And I just remember thinking, how cool would it be one day to do that for other people? And here we are. That was three and a half years ago now. So this is. It's so much fun for me. I gave everybody the opportunity to ask questions ahead of time. So our first question, how do you figure out what idea to turn into a course? Who has ever had this question? I remember when I first started, I was like, I had so many ideas in my head and I'm like, what should I create a course around? And then Julia actually asked a very similar question. So I'm going to kind of talk to both of you at the same time. Her question was, how do you pick a niche that isn't already saturated? So probably two of the most most important questions that people start off with, what do I make a course about? And how do I pick something that isn't already created and sold by the rest of the world? So let me share with you A resource that I actually put together that does answer these questions in depth. So I'm going to give you a quick overview today. But I want to give you this resource because I think it's going to help you if you go to launchperspective.com that is my podcast. I just did a podcast. It's called Brainstorm your course idea with AI and ChatGPT. And if you have not listened to this yet, I highly recommend it because I help you go through the exercise of how to determine your best course idea. I even show you with prompts how to create the outline of your course. And one of the big things you're going to want to grab is this free guide. This guide will blow your mind if you have not started using ChatGPT. And if you have used ChatGPT, it's going to open your mind to so many more possibilities of what's possible when it comes to digital course creation. It is a video tutorial, so you'll see me going through things step by step. You will also see me go through this prompt guide. This is what you get for free when you click on that link that I just shared, and it walks you through exactly what to ask ChatGPT, who I call my brainstorming buddy. So you're going to just literally follow the instructions in the video and go through this guy. But I wanted to at least share an example today. So when I first started, I was like, well, I like digital organization and I like teaching tools like Evernote, but I'm also really good, good at marketing and relationships and helping people connect. My mind was like, in 7 million directions. I would do this exercise for both of the niches you're considering, and as the ideas come out, it's going to help you kind of narrow down, and at the end of the day, you're just going to pick one. And that is literally the most important tip I can share with you. Because I could have spent all day long going, well, I like this and I like this, and I could talk about this. And there really was a lot of ideas. But I finally was just like, I'm gonna pick what feels the best to me in my gut, something that I think people will definitely want to learn from me. It's that thing that people always come to me about and say, you're so good at that, or, can you help me with that? And I was like, I'm just gonna start here. And that's what I did. I started with a course called the Digital Clutter Cure. That is what Launched my business. And since that time, I have now created an additional nine courses and challenges. So you will have plenty of time to create other things. It's matter of starting in that first spot. Okay, so create a digital course related to helping people who are entering the administrative workforce. So this is what I teach you in that podcast that I mentioned. I show you how to take my prompts and then put in your own specific thing. So in the administrative workforce, teaching people how to bring values, organism efficient and build value for future advancement. Okay, see how my prompt now says give me 10 ideas for a digital course related to this topic. So you just hit go now what Chat GPT is going to do, which by the way, there is a free version of this. I am using the paid version, which is $20 a month, but the free version is what I use for many months. But I want you to see what's happening here. ChatGPT is literally being your brainstorming buddy and helping you come up with more specifically what you could teach about this niche. And one thing I want to teach everyone on this call, I know many of you are probably full of ideas and you're like, I want to create this amazing course and it's going to have 12 modules and I'm going to teach the A to Z of this concept. That's how I was when I first started. That was my thought. I'm like, I'm going to create like everything people need to know about digital organization and all these tools. And then I realized that it was actually better to niche down a bit and create what most people call a starter course, meaning I don't need to create my first course with this, this A to Z huge transformation thing. That's $5,000. I can create one course that gets out quicker, that teaches somebody how to go to step one, to step two, or point A to point B, and it's going to transform their life in a matter of four weeks or two weeks or 30 days. Right? And I'm going to teach these few things and it's going to help me get my course created faster. I find that people that start smaller launch faster. So that's just a little tip I want to add in for everybody. That works so well for me when I kind of brought it down a bit and then I grew it over time, I found it was so much easier to create a signature course, one that's really in depth and a higher price point once I got comfortable with launching some of these shorter things. But do you see how it's Kind of picking out a few things. Like, look at this, time management. Like, if that is something you're passionate about, you could absolutely create a course focused on time management. Or maybe communication is more your heart and passion. It's what people always say, oh my gosh, you're such a great communicator. And maybe there's like a formula, a framework, a roadmap that you follow from your years of experience that you now can wrap up in a pretty bow and sell to others. Right? Isn't that cool? So look at this. Understanding, organizational culture, project management basics. I mean, these are such good skills. And the cool thing about this is you could take any one of these topics and turn it into a course all by itself. One that's only about time management, only about communication. But you could also create something a little bit more broad, like the three essential things you need to have in your new administrative role. And the three essential things could be time management, communication, project management. Like, you just pick three of the things on here. Okay, we make it so hard because, you know, our brains are just going crazy of all these ideas. But if you can break it down to be simple, it's actually a very simple thing to come up with your course idea, especially with the tool like this. I'm so excited for you all to check out Chat GPT to watch my training on how to use that prompt guide. And I use this constantly, even to brainstorm how I might market this, how I might share this on social media, how I might write an email about it. Like, what Chat GPT is so amazing at is as you're commenting and you're in this same thread, it gets smarter and smarter and smarter. And you can even tell it to write copy and messaging in your voice, which is so awesome. So I teach you in that podcast, I tell you how to find the thing you're most excited about. Let's just say it's time management. And then you literally say, I want to create a course about this. What would a sample outline look like? And before you know it, you now have a topic. But now you also have what the modules might look like, what the lessons might look like. How would I break this down down and get into the nitty gritty of what they need to learn? Blown away, right? Like, this is going to really help all of you that have that little overwhelm about what should I create my course about? You just keep asking it questions. You keep niching down. You're going to use that prompt that's free inside my podcast resource. And you are not going to believe how much more clarity you have on your course. Now, let me go ahead and address, though, the question that you also asked. What if it's saturated? So I have some good news there. And those of you have been following me for a while already know what I'm going to say here. So when I first did pick my title or my first course, I did go the digital organization route, because I had that worry in my mind. I was like, well, there's a lot of people teaching some of the other things that I want to teach, so let me just kind of pick a lane that a lot of people aren't teaching, because I did think that that would be the way to go. And so I picked digital organization. I focused solely on the digital clutter cure for, like, two whole years. And what I determined or discovered in that process is how much I love to launch courses with a live challenge. Okay, some of you have probably been in my challenges before. I did a banished business clutter challenge. That's what's launched my business. And it took me from 0 subscribers to my first 400 people on my email list and my first 95 students in my course. And so I was so grateful for that experience. But because I was doing challenges every quarter, people kept coming to me and saying, how are you doing these challenges? How are you getting so many people signed up? And it actually helped me realize what I truly love to teach. Sure, I love digital organization, but my heart is helping people launch a business with online courses like I just had done. Right? I spent two years figuring out that the ins and outs of launching from nothing to where I am today. And I discovered, like, this new passion along the journey. But my head, my imposter syndrome kept going. I can't teach challenges. I can't. I can't teach launching. I can't teach course creation. There's a gazillion gurus out there teaching this concept, including my favorite digital course, mentored Amy Porterfield. I'm like, I cannot compete with Amy Porterfield. Right? And so I almost didn't branch out. And I'm so glad that I didn't listen to that critic, that little voice in my head, because here's the bottom line. It doesn't matter if everyone in the world is teaching the same topic. We could all have the same course with even the same title, and every course would be uniquely different. Every course would touch different people. You've heard the term your vibe attracts your tribe. Who connects with me may not connect with Amy and those who don't connect with me may connect with Amy. It doesn't matter. There are billions of people on this planet, and so it's the phrase swswsw, which stands for some will, some won't. So what? Because someone's waiting. And the whole beautiful thing about that mantra is it doesn't matter if you create something that someone else has created, because people will find them and people will find you. And it all works out because you are going to bring a different bent to it, a different framework, a different personality, a different resource list. Nothing is saturated. If you are teaching a topic that is super popular, that's actually to your benefit because it means people are wanting that content. Okay, so pros and cons to everything. But I'm so glad you asked that question because I struggled with that so much when I was first starting. And now I create content based on what I love to teach and what I know people are going to be impacted by. And I don't worry about who else has created what anymore. And it has paid off. So I hope that answers both of your questions and that's a good start for today. All right, what is the cheapest platform to use? Initially? It is probably the second question I get. What course should I create and how do I sell it? What platform to use? What tool do I use? And I want to challenge you that the question you should actually be asking is not what's the cheapest platform to start? We all asked that question. I know I did. But I have learned the right question to ask is what platform will help me accomplish the goals I have for my business? It's not about what's cheapest. It's about what's going to help you create, market, and deliver the content that you want to deliver in the way you want to deliver it. And for many of you, your goals, I'm assuming, since you're here, is you don't want to just create a course because it's fun. It is fun. You don't just want to create a course because it's going to impact others. It a hundred percent does that. But you want to create a course because you're also here to create more freedom and flexibility in your life. Am I right? I mean, and how does that happen? It happens through revenue. And so how are we going to earn revenue? We have to utilize tools that are going to give our users the best experience possible, because first impressions matter. I'm not saying you have to get the most expensive thing. I am all about being scrappy. I Talk about being scrappy. In a lot of my programs, meaning you can go the, what I call the basic route before you go the better or best route. Because we all have to start, start somewhere and we all have a budget. I totally get that. But instead of what's cheapest, it's what do I need to accomplish the goal that I have. So in saying that, there's a lot of ways that you can do that. I have helped people launch with nothing more than a Facebook group and an email list. So when you're asking about cheapest, I know that's usually the budget question. There are actually very inexpensive ways to, to launch your first course. In fact, would you believe that I launched my first course essentially from a Facebook group? Now I did have the tool I'm currently using today, and that's Kajabi. I'll talk about that in a minute. And Kajabi did help me in many ways, but I delivered the course very, very simply inside a Facebook group before it was officially built in that tool. Okay. Now Kajabi did give me some capability like a payment button where people could pay me for the course. It delivered all my emails, it sent people to the group. So there's a lot of automations in the more robust all in one tools that are definitely a blessing. But I 100% have helped people get start with nothing more than an email service provider. An email service provider, if you aren't familiar with that term, it's things like ConvertKit, ActiveCampaign, Mailchimp, MailerLite, Flow Desk, like there's a ton of them out there. And some platforms like the one I use, Kajabi includes an email service provider, meaning you wouldn't have to have an extra thing, it's just included as part of that tool. But an email service provider such as like ConvertKit, there's actually a free version of ConvertKit, meaning you could get started. Right now I'm going to put my partner link here, so y' all have it. But if you go to ConvertKit, it not only allows you to build an email list, but you can create a landing page with a Buy now button. And so you send out this email with a link to buy your course. They click, they pay, and now you just invite them to a Facebook group where you're going to deliver your course. I mean it really, really can be that simple if that is what you're trying to accomplish. Others of you are like, oh no, no, I would not be creating things in a Facebook group. I'm not a Facebook person and so you're like, nope, I want to create my course where delivered this experience where they can go to a library and click on their product and everything's delivered to them with a password. I don't have to worry about like repurposing that content I've made somewhere else and then putting it somewhere. There's a lot of options. And for me, I knew I wanted to start with a platform that I was going to keep long term. So I did not make this decision based on my goal at the moment because at that moment I was not making any money. And so sure I didn't want to spend money, but I had the vision and the commitment of I'm doing this and I want the tool that I'm going to stick with because I didn't want to build it in one platform only to have to rebuild it again later in a more robust tool. So I'm going to share this link. This is my link for Kajabi. If you have ever thought about Kajabi or you thought about building your course, this link I'm sharing with you is taking you to a page that's offering a 30 day free trial. This is something that you can get through my partner link at any time. Kajabi normally offers a 14 day free trial. When you join through my link, it's 30 days and I have a program that does help you fast track. With this tool you have a chance to go in there, work with it, get something set up, get something created, and potentially earn the money that will pay for your first year of Kajabi. When your trial is getting ready to end. If you're like, nope, I'm not ready to move forward or I'm not, Kajabi's not for me, you could just cancel and you will pay nothing. So it's worth everyone signing up and you can always cancel. Or before your trial ends you can switch to the basic plan if you would like. The basic basically means three products which a lot of people don't need more than that to start. And if you Pay monthly, it's 149amonth. Or if you pay annually, you save 20% and it breaks down to be 119amonth. I want you to think about this. If your course that you're going to sell is $125 anywhere around that range, you just need to sell one course a month to cover Kajabi. So it's not as expensive as it sounds, especially when you start realizing all that it does. And I'm not going to go into those details today. However, I did do a podcast that covers Kajabi. So if you're like, what is Kajabi? How does it help me create a course again? That launchperspective.com will take you to all my episodes and I recorded the complete video on how to create your course inside Kajabi, like step by step. But I'm not just going to stop there because I want to support anybody who joins Kajabi. Through my partner link, I also grant my partners free access to my Countdown to Launch program. And what I love about this program is it shows you how simple it is to create a course. This course walks you through in six videos with resources, how to launch everything you need for your business, your course, your lead magnets, your website, everything. I walk you through all of those steps. And this is a program I Normally sell for $97, but I grant it for to my Kajabi partners. Kajabi literally runs almost everything in my business. Exactly. Kimmy says when you add it all up and all that it offers, it's worth so much more. I love that. I love this question. Do you sell before you create? So that is actually exactly what I did when I launched my first course. It's not for everyone, but for those of you that love teaching, especially love teaching live. And what I mean by that is you would feel actually better about just hitting a go live button and teaching to a group like I am right now versus hitting record on a camera when it's just you. I personally love live versus recording. And here's why. I, I attempted to record my first course and it was almost a disaster because for me, when I hit record, I know I'm the only one in the room. I know I can stop the recording. And so because I know I can, I do. The first time I did this, I created this course. I was recording lessons ahead of time and then like opening a module each week. It would take me 20 tries to do each one because I was constantly stopping and recording and re recording. And you're going to be tempted to do this now in the journey, I have gotten better at editing. So now if I had to record something, I could do it. I know a little bit of few tricks to make it go a little faster, but for me, naturally I have way more energy when I'm teaching live. And so I've learned that selling something and then delivering it live and then repackaging it into a course that sells 247 is my personal favorite way to launch a course, but it is not everyone's. So you have to understand how you like to deliver content for other people that would completely stress them out because they don't want the pressure of having to create it more on the fly. I am one of these people that thrives in last minute procrastination. I don't know if anyone else my my team jokes because they say my best work hits me like five minutes before I hit the go live. But I have found my voice from doing this for so long. I was not this confident of a teacher and trainer back in the beginning, but by forcing myself to go live and knowing I can't hit stop it. I learned how to be more relational and have more conversations as I was teaching, answering the questions that people are answering and then I would just package that up and put it in a course. I just did this with a refresh. In June I did a complete refresh of my Digital Clutter Care program and I'm like just the thought of having to re record those of with me by myself in my office was depressing me. I was like nope, not doing it that way. We are going to sell this. And I sent out all kinds of messages. I'm like I'm doing a complete refresh of this program. If you want to be in it, it's this price. We're doing it live in a Facebook group. Join me. We ended up generating $28,000 in that launch and I went live in a Facebook group. I did two lessons a week for four weeks. And so every Monday and Wednesday I would just go live to teach that lesson. And then those eight lessons, all those recordings are now uploaded into the Digital Clutter Cure program and people can buy that course at any time. So I personally love selling that way. If you don't want that pressure, then you can absolutely plan out your outlines and your modules and do what I call a founder member launch. So this is a way to sell your course while you're building it, get feedback on it, and then improve it before it officially is announced to the world. And so a founders member launch. I love this concept. It's almost like some people call it your first first 10, like finding your first 10 students. Some people call it a beta launch. But I don't like the word beta launch. As a tech guru, the word beta in my mind always alludes to this is going to have glitches and be terrible until later. So I don't recommend calling your things beta. But a founders launch, a first 10. I love those terms but you literally can create your course outline, send personal messages to those you know, people you've worked with, those on an email list, and say, this is the course that I'm working to create, and I'm offering it at 50 off to my first 10 students. And you sell it to them. You can record all your lessons, and as those lessons are released, you open it up to them. They get to watch it, they get to go through your program at half price. And then at the end, you get to ask them their thoughts. What would you improve? What would you add? And then you get to do all of that. Fix it up, tweak it up, put a pretty bow on it, and now sell it to the masses. All right. That's another one of my favorite strategies for launching a course for recorded sessions. Did you invest in video editing or just push them out as they were? That is a great question. I have actually helped people launch courses where they paid a professional video person to, like, come to their house and record them them and then edit them. And you can do that. But I have never done that. It didn't even cross my mind to do that. I'm like, I don't have time for that. And it sounded expensive. I'm like, nope, we have to do this in a way less fancy, professional way. But here's the thing. There's a difference between perfection and excellence. You can still do things with excellence, without perfection. And in my opinion, the perfect videos, where everything's like, looks amazing and you're like, squeaky cling and. And you've, like, edited out all the US and ums and all that. I love that we live in a world today that. That's not so important. Ten years ago, if you didn't have professional videos, like, people didn't consider you. Today, people don't want that. They want relatable people. They can feel like, I. I can relate to this person. They're not perfect. Now you want to do things with excellence. Sure. With your budget and your equipment. You make sure the lighting's good. You make sure the audio is good. Because if people can't hear you, that's a problem. If it's all crackly, like, invest in an external mic if you can. I paid for a webcam. Both of those items were under a hundred bucks. And those are the only two things of equipment that I had for a very long time. If go back to my original videos, I don't have these awesome lights. Like. Like it was dark. Maybe not that dark. I tried to do it during the Day. Okay. But I invested in lighting that improved things. And that's what you do. You, you improve things over time. But I don't feel like fancy video editing is needed. The cool thing is, is there are tools out there like descript. Now I'm going to put my, my link to this because if anybody is wanting an amazing tool for video editing, this is actually really inexpensive. I think I pay $12 a month maybe for this. And the cool thing about descript is you can edit by text. So you record your course lesson, and when you upload the video into descript, it transcribes the video so you can physically see what you're saying in the video in written form. And if you're like, oh, I messed up this one section, I don't want that in the video. You highlight the text and you hit delete and it pulls it out of the video. There is no complicated video editing required here. It's literally highlight the words you don't want and delete it. And it pulls it out. It is, to me, one of the best tools out there. It's what we use for our podcast, is what we use for our YouTube channel. My husband laughs at me because whenever I do a podcast, I have like a minimum of like 80 to 120 odds and umps. And so he actually can go into Descript. I don't have them take them all out, but like, if I say like three times in one paragraph, he can literally go in there and they have this tool that says highlight filler words and it'll show you where all your filler words are and you can go in and just delete the ones. So it really does help you get a little cleaner, which I think is more important for a podcast, honestly, than a video. But for my courses, I am just me. I am authentically me. And there are many times I mess up and I never go back and fix it because I want people to understand that's part of the course creation process. Okay. It really is. So don't stress over that. That was a good question. Yeah. Descript is so worth it. So thankful for these tools. So I just want you to understand that there are many ways to sell and generate revenue before you even build your course. And it's a great way to validate your idea without spending months and months and months creating this thing that you and you've made no money. I. I have done founders member launches multiple times in my business. I've delivered courses live to create courses. There's lots of ways to generate revenue before you create. So great question there. My question is about marketing. I created a course but struggle to market it or better how to hire someone to help market it it. So this is a great question and this ties into what I teach in my Ignite membership. Because you essentially need three things to build a profitable online business. We call it building your business fire. Just like a fire needs heat, oxygen and fuel, your business needs three elements. It needs a wildfire offer offer. The offer is the thing you sell. And so your course needs to be something that is a no brainer for people. Something that people go, oh my gosh, I want to learn that. That's for me. So you need a wildfire offer. The second thing you need are leads. Leads are the oxygen. Without leads, your business fire never starts or fizzles out. And so in Ignite, I talk about how to generate leads because if we don't have enough eyeballs seeing our offer, our course or what we're selling, it could be the most amazing thing in the world. But no one's seeing it. You need to generate leads. So, so that's the second part. I'm gonna go back to to some tips on that. But the third piece that is going to a hundred percent put fuel to your fire is your launch strategy or your marketing plan. So for those of you that have already created a course, maybe you have a lead magnet that's building in leads, but you're still struggling to make revenue. It's this launch marketing piece that's still missing. And that is what we need to hone in on in order to sell that course. And, and there's a lot of pieces to this puzzle. But the good news is is it's all learnable and it's all doable. Okay, I love this phrase I got from Amy Porterfield. I can do hard things, right? And so it's all new in the beginning. And maybe you're not on social media yet or you're not sure how you would promote market, but marketing is a massive, massive piece of what we do. So I started off literally marketing my courses with one main traffic source and it was Facebook group. One of the very first things I did when I launched my business is I love community. This is not going to be everyone's traffic source. You have to pick a traffic source that's right for you. In fact, I do have a free guide, gets banish business clutter.com forward/guide that talks about the three things you need to launch and scale your business. And in there is an entire resource of traffic sources for you. You. But I started off with one. It was Facebook group and I love community. So inside this Facebook group, which is a free group, I basically started sharing tips on digital organization as a way to start bringing awareness to the program. I was going to launch the Digital Clutter Cure. So I opened up this group and I started with a five day challenge. So I basically said, I'm doing this five day challenge. It's called Banish Business Clutter. Sign up for free. You're going to get into my free Facebook group and then for five days I'm going to teach you something. And that was the launch of my business. So I have lots of resources on challenges and launching and different things that you can check out on my website. But I just want you to understand you can start with one marketing strategy just by doing that challenge and just by inviting people into that group. Group. That's what built my list from zero to 400 people. That's what gave me my first 95 students. So you can start with one to two traffic sources and just hone in. You do not have to do everything now. Over time, we have learned how to now start repurposing our content and sharing it everywhere. One of our main hubs of content is our podcast. I'm only like episode 35 or something, so I'm not saying I'm like this major podcaster, but I chose podcasting as one of my main ways that I would share content so people would get to know me. And this is what we do. We pick a topic, we create the podcast. That podcast becomes like 30 pieces of content for us. I actually record it as a video so that I can pull out the audio and make it a podcast. I then transcribe it and I turn it into a blog. I then take the video and I put it on my YouTube channel. I then take that topic and I turn it into stories. I turn it into Instagram posts, I turn it into a LinkedIn post. Like. Like we create quote graphics. There's all of these things that you can create with one main topic or focus that gets people starting to see you as an authority in your niche. Niche. So a lot of the marketing is all about building your audience and your authority. And so it all comes down to what are my traffic sources? So where am I sharing and then what content am I sharing to build my authority? So I encourage you. All are welcome. I am an open book. I love sharing behind the scenes. You are welcome to like dissect my. My website, my YouTube channel. You'll see I don't have millions of subscribers. Okay, I'm. You're not following somebody who's been doing this for 14 years. But in three and a half years, we've been able to generate enough revenue that 18 months into the business, I was able to retire my husband from his 30 year career. So I'm not sharing that to brag. I'm sharing to show what's possible here. What you're building without building a million followers on TikTok, you're building an opportunity to bring revenue into your life, to change your family. It has completely transformed our family. My husband homeschools our son. He could not do that when he was working 50 hours a week. Okay. We get to travel to Florida to see our daughter, to Pennsylvania to see my parents. These are life changing things for us. And this is why I'm so passionate about teaching this. And he does help me in my courses. He's my podcast. Manage, actually. And it also helps in our training and things. I'm the Mac guru. He's the windows guy. I love it. What was your lead magnet that drew people to the Facebook group? It was actually the challenge. So that challenge was my lead magnet. It was the only lead magnet I had for the first 18 months. I never created anything except that I did that challenge every quarter for the first two years. So that challenge would always add hundreds of people to my list. Now, not everyone would buy my course, but it was still growing my list, which over time, people ended up buying other things. Right. So that's what I'm saying. You don't need 50 lead magnets. You just need one that is effective now. After the first 18 months, I did start creating some other lead magnets. That guide I just shared with you is one of my lead magnets. Magnets that lets people know, hey, I love teaching things like how to launch an online business. Another lead magnet I have is a checklist. This is for those of you that want to learn more about challenges. If you go to banish business, flutter.com forward/checklist. I created a challenge launch checklist that was a great league magnet for me because it leads to my challenge launch launch boot camp. I have a signature program that teaches people how to launch with a challenge. But all of these examples that you're seeing were after years in the business. And I think sometimes we look at people who are ahead of us and we see all the things they're doing and they. We think we have to do all the things to be Successful? No, I didn't do a fraction of what I'm doing today when I started. Not a of fraction. Okay? So please know you can start small. Start with one lead magnet, one challenge, one traffic source, one area of focus, one course. That's all you have to think about. Think in ones. But until you get it out there, nothing's moving forward. So that's why I always say done is better than perfect. Get it out there, get it done. Because even if your first course flops, comps. Let's just talk about that for a minute. You put together this thing and it just doesn't take off and you're not feeling it. You don't want to really fix it up. You're not really motivated to market it. You have not failed. You have learned about yourself. You have learned about your audience. You've gained skills along the way. And now that next thing you launch is going to be spectacular. I always think of Shark Tank Tank, right? How many of you guys have ever watched Shark Tank? And they talk about, like, the many failed businesses they had before they discovered the one that took off like wildfire. You have to have that mindset in this business. If you are going to be frustrated in thinking every time I fail, this means it's not for me. Nope. You have to go through those steps to get to the thing that's going to be your thing. All right? So I hope that encourages everybody. I'm always. A mindset is a big, big piece about what we do. All right, last question, and then I'm going to open it up to anybody else that's on here. How do you deal with the overwhelm? Because some of you are probably super excited about things I've shared with you today, and others of you are already feeling the overwhelm. Like, okay, I got to pick a course. I have to decide how I'm going to launch it. I have to pick a traffic source. What. What's a lead magnet? Right. I want you to know I didn't even know what a lead magnet was when I first started this journey. I didn't know what a funnel was like. All of these words kind of freak us out a bit. You just learn them as you go. You know, the verbiage will come to you. But as far as the general overwhelm, I think it comes from this. It stems a little bit from not knowing our next best step. So decision making is a part of this. Making decisions is hard. And so with all the ideas I shared with you today, you already realized how many Decisions you have to make, make the course, the platform, the audience, all this stuff. But making decisions is what puts things in motion, and motion leads to momentum, and it reduces that overwhelming feeling. Anytime we're making a decision about something, the most stressed out we feel is when we haven't made the decision. So if you're feeling that overwhelm, I don't want you to think I have to know every step of the map in order to make the next turn. Think about it. How many times do you get in your car and you put in your address in the GPS and it just says turn right? This is how I want you to approach your business. I want you to know that you don't have to click on details and know in perfect outline every single step in order to get to the destination. You're going to just take one step at a time. Time. And we're going to turn right, Meaning I'm going to make a decision. What's my course going to be about? Now I'm going to make the next turn. How am I going to sell this? What platform am I going to use? Now I'm going to make the next turn. How am I going to market this? Do I want to do a podcast? Do I want a YouTube? Am I better on video audio? Do I want to do a blog? Because I love to write. Like, every time you're making a decision, you're making the next turn. If you can just be okay with making one turn at a time instead of always seeing the big picture. All the planners in the room, all the perfectionists in the room. I am a recovering perfectionist, we all think. But I have to map it all out before I can do anything, Before I can announce to anyone that I'm creating a course. Nope, you can actually say, this is what I'm thinking about making a course about. What would you all love to learn if this was the course for you? Like, you just get it out there, okay? Nobody's looking at you as closely as you are looking at you. You. So don't be afraid of putting something out there and changing your mind, because that's the best thing about decisions. You get to change your mind, but just keep making decisions. Now, when you get in the role, the other overwhelming thing, other than decisions, is prioritizing those next best steps. And that is actually one of the things we do cover a lot in Ignite as well. What are the priorities? And that's why I love that business. Fire triangle. If you're focusing on your offer, your leads and your Launch strategy, you're working on things that will move the needle. Notice how I didn't say build a Perfect website, get 10,000 followers on Instagram. I didn't say those things. I'm like, just focus on your offer, your leads and your launch strategy. And so those sort of things, that focus is really what's going to make a difference. And for those of you that are already at that point, you're like, I'm ready to do this. This. Like, I just, I. I don't want to do this alone. I. Because that also helps with overwhelm. A lot of times overwhelm comes because we feel isolated and just overwhelmed because we're afraid to make decisions. But when you're in a place where you can make decisions with others, get validations from other people, that makes a huge difference. This is my membership where I help you with every step of the online business process. We have monthly master class. We DO Q&As multiple times A month. So if you've enjoyed this, you could have this ongoing. We have so many different benefits I'm not going to go into right now, but I did want to make sure that you knew this was available. The other major resource that I want to mention because of the timing, Amy Porterfield, who is my digital course mentor. She is somebody I followed for actually 6 years before I launched my business business. She has a program called Digital Course Academy. This is only open once a year, and so one of the best things you can do is come in here and get on the wait list because it's like the only time you can get into this course for the entire year. And I launched my business in March. So when she opened the doors to this In September of 2020, I had actually already created my course course. But I knew Amy Porterfield was one of the people I could learn from. And so I did DCA and it took my launches to the next level. So my first three launches ranged between 9, $200 and 13,000. So when I would do live launches on my courses, that was the revenue I generated before I did DCA. My very first launch after DCA was 18,000, and then my next three ranged between 38 and $68,000. So you can see just by learning more and figuring out, like, the ins and outs of digital course creation, how to share and launch and market my offers, this course obviously did had a huge impact on me. By the way, Amy also does a challenge to launch her course. So if you're like, how do these challenges work? You definitely want to jump into her challenge that she does. She actually calls it a boot camp. It's called Course Confident. So as long as you've joined this wait list, she will send you details about Course Confident. I will definitely be in there cheering everybody on. But it's literally a bootcamp where she walks you through how to make key decisions for your course, which is very helpful, obviously, in this whole process. So hopefully all of these resources have been helpful. I know I shared a ton of links with everybody, but I can't help it. A lot of the things I'm sharing with you are just free resources. Some of them are paid programs. But I always want you to know what's out there so you can jump into what you need most. Thanks so much for joining me today on the Launch Perspective podcast. Looking for more? Head over to launchperspective.com for show notes and quick links to the content and tools that we shared today. Want to stay up to date on new podcast episodes or ask a question that I answer on the show? You can do this and more@launchperspective.com See you there.