46: Jodi Bourne: Freelancer to Vacation Rental Marketer & Course Creator
This podcast episode is part of our course creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators, just like you. We’re talking about their journey in their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced, and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people.
In this episode, you’ll hear Jodi Bourne’s journey from a freelancer to a successful vacation rental marketer and course creator. Jodi’s inspiring story walks us through her journey of working in marketing for a non profit to starting her own business by freelancing. You’ll hear about how she was first introduced to online courses and the steps she took to build her online course business (hint: it wasn’t by creating the course first).
Mentioned In This Episode
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Course Creators MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destini Copp. In this podcast, we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. Before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my Course in a Box program, which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is on the AppSumo marketplace at a special deal. The link for Course, in a Box on AppSumo is in our show notes. Today we are in our course creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators, just like you. We're going to talk about their journey and their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people and let's get started.
New Speaker (00:51):
I have a special guest with here with me today. I have Jodi Bourne. Jodi helps vacation rental owners and property managers market their vacation rental direct to guests without using sites like Airbnb. Jodi, thanks so much for joining me. I'm happy to have you.
Speaker 2 (01:11):
I'm happy to be here, Destini. I always love talking business.
Speaker 1 (01:16):
First, I want you to go into details about yourself, what you do, but also tell us why is it important for vacation rental owners and property managers to have this direct to the guests strategy where they're not using these outside sites like Airbnb?
New Speaker (01:39):
Well that's, that's kind of a fun question for me and it's why I got into the business actually. I'll go into why the entire business in just a second, but the reason I got into the businesses, because I had started my career in marketing as an adult, I was in my late thirties. I had my kids first and then went back to college and started my career. And I was began working in nonprofit kind of human services and really burned out on that pretty quickly, as much as I loved it. It's just a really hard topic. When it was a women's domestic violence and after four years, I just got burned out on that, the sadness of it and decided to do something a little more fun. I also had a daughter with some at the time, some special health issues.
Speaker 2 (02:28):
So I wanted to be where I could be home with her more, not have to take off to go to the doctor twice a week, et cetera. So I started my own business from home, just kind of freelancing. I was lucky enough to have some financial support at the time. So, I didn't have to focus too much on that and and could really just grow my business a little bit at a time and started working with musicians in my area and from Texas. And we have a huge thriving, local music scene. I was able to really grow in that, meet a lot of people, which led me to market music venues in, in my area of the state, which was super fun. And that kind of spurred my interest of helping CBBs, which is small town convention, visitor bureau and turned me on to the tourism industry.
Speaker 2 (03:27):
At the same time, I was kind of working part-time working with an online course creator who I really respected, who taught me so much more about marketing in general than just the traditional marketing I'd been doing. And that was led me to this understanding that anybody can build a website and, and use it for their business. And a lot of people don't understand that any business can have their own website and their own, you know, portal to their customer base. So fast forward a couple well years I had started because of the tourism interest started working with them, hotels and vacation rental owners, property management company outside of Austin. And in that I started networking with individual owners and really started, kind of talking those folks into building a book to direct business, little did I know that that movement was also growing across the entire world.
Speaker 2 (04:33):
People were getting tired of booking on BRBO HomeAway, booking.com, Airbnb, which leads the answer to your question. The reason you should do that is there's so many reasons. If you compare pricing if you just look at VRVO when you book it, VRVO, they're charging you a huge hefty fee for that booking. I believe it's like 12%. So 12% of your fee goes to VRVO the, the owner of the property is also paying a fee, a 12% fee or 15% fee actually. So the cost of that property, because of course they're going to up the rate for themselves. So they're still making money. So the cost of that property is almost 30% more if you, for you, if you book it on VRVO rather than booking direct with the owner. And that's a huge, significant savings for the consumer.
Speaker 2 (05:33):
Airbnb is much the same way. I think the fees are a little bit less, but you just don't realize that when you are using the system and you also don't realize that you don't get to communicate directly with the owner as much. So VR, the systems don't allow that communication at all, really beforehand. They don't allow you to call and ask those kinds of things and really the vacation rental industry, the folks that are doing this the direct way, they really care about the guest experience. They want to be able to provide you with details about your stay and the things to do. So it's a win-win for everybody when you search those places that are ready to book direct, which is why I started it. And, you know, I've successfully helped tons and tons. I can't, I mean, I can't even say how many I've helped do this, so it's very exciting.
Speaker 1 (06:31):
So you basically, and I'm going to walk through some of this, you basically help these vacation rental owners and property managers build their own business online. Like, so just so you know, maybe it's a website, maybe it's a social media presence. Tell us a little bit more about that.
Speaker 2 (06:50):
Yeah, that's exactly right. So there's steps to booking direct. And of course the first step is going to be creating a website with a booking platform. So people can go to that website and, and book, you know, and it goes through a system where they pay there's the guest communication either before or after the booking. So you have a website with a contact form and a phone number you're able to call the owner and then it goes through that process. So, but I started helping people with their social media and then realized their websites weren't very good. They were outdated, or they had built them themselves, or the booking integration didn't work properly. They didn't have any kind of analytics set up on the system. They weren't mobile friendly. So I kind of, that led me into building websites. I had built websites in the past for clients and just decided I took a course, an online course in building and optimizing WordPress sites.
Speaker 2 (07:53):
So that's where I kind of, even though I started with the social media aspect of it, I now, typically when I start working with a consulting client or that's a client, you know, I call a consulting client, which one is one that wants me to help them all the way through this system. And the first thing I do is either build a new website or optimize it for them, and then rewrite their listing descriptions, help them with, you know, finding the best photos or photographer. You know, it's just all the way down the system of building an online business.
Speaker 1 (08:27):
So in the early parts of your business, you really started out with services, right? The social media services website building services. And and then at some point you decided to pivot and to offer online courses. Can you talk us through why you wanted to do that, what you were feeling at the time, why you made that decision and some of the strategy behind it?
Speaker 2 (08:52):
Right. Well, so I mentioned earlier that I had worked with the course creator when I was freelancing and, you know, needed a little bit more income. I got a full-time freelance gig with an online course creator who not only created his own courses, but that was his job what his company did, was optimized courses for other people. And we worked with tons and tons of industry leaders. There's a company called digital marketer, which a lot of people listening may be familiar with. We actually worked with digital marketer in the early days, and then some of the other properties that they own, and then, you know, just tons and tons of different kinds, of course, creators. And so I was learning the industry. I was learning, you know, webinar jam back in 2015 which webinar jam is, as you know, I'm not sure if your audience would webinar jam was one of the original webinar paid webinar systems where you could get people to take over a webinar for free or paid.
Speaker 2 (09:59):
And it integrated all of that with sales funnel, et cetera. So my goal when I first kind of started was to build a course business, even though I was offering services, I did that a for the money and B, I just really believe that that's the best way to get to know your target market is to work with them on the service side first, to get a feel for their needs and their wants and their pain points. All of those things that are so important to creating an optimized sales funnel, you have to know those things about, about your industry. And so I started there and then really quickly added the course part of it. My first course I built in 2018 was an Instagram course. And believe it or not, none of the online courses that you see out there, you know, the typical Instagram, how to do Instagram, you know, even the ones now that have all the templates and graphics included, they don't, they don't talk about the travel industry. They don't talk about tourism. It's a completely kind of new field for them. These course creators because most of them come from the course creation industry or from, you know, like Jenna Kutcher does the Instagram course, but it's for photographers. So, I specialized in the tourism industry in these vacation, rental owners, small hotels, that kind of thing. And that course really kind of, it struggled obviously in the beginning, but has now grown and I've added more courses to my programs.
Speaker 1 (11:39):
So you started with services and you intentionally did that. And I would say that if I had to give some advice, which I think you recommended it too. That would be my advice for people who are just their online business, they know they want to do an online course in the future. Just start with the services. It gives you such great information about your ideal market, what they need, what they want and how you can help them, that you can eventually, you know, translate or emulate that into your online course offering.
Speaker 2 (12:19):
I was going to say, yeah, that's exactly right. It's you know, even with this business and having been working in it for a while, I didn't realize some of those pain points that I'm now able to speak to. I didn't realize, you know, I also didn't realize the age demographic and the tech issues that my perfect ICA deals with. And, and that was really important for me to figure out. And 100% led to my growth, both as a service provider. And also as a course creator,
Speaker 1 (12:55):
You mentioned that the Instagram course that you launched in 2018, struggled a little bit in the beginning. Can you tell me, you know, looking back on it, I'm sure you have some idea of why, and maybe some of the things that you would have done differently.
Speaker 2 (13:10):
I think the biggest reason is and at the time it was pricing, I was fairly unknown in the industry. I had been on one. I had been on one podcast with a vacation rental expert, and that was known in the field and talked about Instagram, but I didn't have the sales funnel set up at that time. So people would come to my website after hearing me and seeing the show notes on this podcast and want to work with me, but they didn't, you know, that whole entire sales funnel wasn't set up to get them on an email list and get them moving towards a purchase. It was more, I had a contact form on my site and they would contact me about help. And then that would lead to the service part rather than the course part. But I had a sales funnel.
Speaker 2 (14:07):
I just didn't think about putting it on my, the front page, like a splash page on my website. I had it as when I was doing my Facebook ads, et cetera, or when I was leading people to the Instagram course, I would share it. But, you know, again, big mistake, I didn't have the sales funnel set up on my homepage. So when people searched for me that, that, that sales page was there. And that was one of the first things I did when I realized that was, was changed that funnel at the time, I'm not promoting that particular course. So it's not on my front page of my website now, but I will, when I start promoting again.
Speaker 1 (14:44):
So let's dissect this a little bit because I think some of the people who may be listening maybe making the mistake, I think it's very common, you know, if they are so you're, you know, you're not alone, they're not alone, but tell me a little bit more and let's just break down the sales funnel, because I think it's important for people to understand how this actually works. So you are on a podcast and if you had to do it all over again today, you're on this major podcast. And I remember you being on this podcast cause you and I have known each other for years. And I remember this being such a big deal. So you were on this podcast, tell me what you would do differently and how you would set this up for that.
Speaker 2 (15:25):
So in the podcast, I just, I made the mistake of thinking that everybody was going to listen to the podcast and go immediately to where I mentioned on the podcast, my core sales page was and it actually, wasn't a core sales page. I had a lead magnet set up, which was a guide to using Instagram for the tourism industry. And it was a really great guide. It was like, you know, four or five pages. A perfect guide. And it was my website backslash I think IgE or something like that, Instagram and I'm mistake. I made the mistake of assuming people would actually go to that website or that link. And they didn't, they just Google search me Jodi Bourne. And so of course they came to the home page. So a sales funnel that way I had my sales funnel set up was just, you know, kind of the basic sales funnel, the course was one 99.
Speaker 2 (16:23):
So it was a shorter funnel. I didn't have to do as much marketing behind the scenes, but so that came to the lead magnet page. They downloaded the lead magnet. It immediately sent them to a sales page. On that sales page, I gave them access to the very first video of my course, which was kind of a general overview of Instagram and how to use it for this industry. And then they could either buy from the sales page if they didn't. I walked them through about a three email sales funnel where I tried to convince them to get into the course, the people who didn't get into the course for whatever reason, decided not to buy. I moved them into a smaller sales funnel, which was a webinar funnel where we did I did a one hour mini class. What I found out was because of this industry is so you know, and I'm not trying to sound bad, but most of the people, by the time they have a vacation rental or a vacation rental business to market, that's a hefty investment.
Speaker 2 (17:30):
So they've already, for the most part, had a career they're in their early to late fifties and older. And so this was all new tech. Whereas at this point I was teaching strategy. I didn't realize that these folks needed the tech. They wanted to see how create a profile. They wanted to see exactly how to add an image, all of those things that I kind of discounted as they already know that, but they didn't so I redid my course talked about, so basically what I was doing is I was speaking above their heads, thinking they were ready for this particular lesson. And I learned that from doing that webinar, I learned that because I would ask for feedback and they would say, you know, this is all great, but I don't even know how to do this. Many people didn't even know that Instagram was an app that they had to use on their phones. So, you know, it just, it just led, as I said, just working with people and trying new things and starting that kind of led to the changes that I made it made in the course and in the sales funnel.
Speaker 1 (18:35):
And I think that's a big lesson for all of us that what we launched with initially, and we think we have the perfect sales funnel. It might not be so perfect. So you have to talk to your people, you have to look at the data and you have to figure out what tweaks to make.
Speaker 2 (18:51):
That's right. I mean, I'm redoing that course right now. The first time I did it was in June and July of 2018. I hope to launch the newer version of it by the end of this month. Although now it's looking like it may be the first of next month. And because there's these, these routine questions that people have been asking when they get into the course. So I had to now obviously Instagram has changed a lot and added tons of new features since then the stories and now the reels and guides. But, so that was easy to update. You know, I just added a couple of new videos, but this is strategy. These are strategy questions. So now I've kind of come full circle. The people taking the course have now learned the systems. They've learned how to do the things, the how tos, and now they're coming back and asking those strategy questions.
Speaker 2 (19:46):
Now they've figured out that, you know, Oh, this isn't as easy as it looks, just adding photos. How do I change that to get actual bookings? And so that's the modules that I've been adding is, you know, using different techniques to get to the bookings. And I also use this so I also have a group coaching course, which is live coaching. And part of that is this bonus of getting the Instagram course as part of that experience. So that's where a lot more of these strategy lessons have come from is realizing as I speak with my group coaching clients and in this group coaching program that they're ready for the strategy, you know, they have already taken the courses, they've already done some of these things. They're ready to learn the next, the next level.
Speaker 1 (20:36):
So I know, and I want to, I want to talk about a little bit about your services, kind of the break down. I know that a lot of your, not a lot, but I know that a good amount of your revenue comes from your websites, where you're building websites for these vacation rental and property owners and you're completely booked out for months and months a month. So there's a huge demand there for you. And I know you're in the process of growing that and outsourcing and hiring people to help you with that. And I know that you have some other income streams. Can you talk about a little bit about your revenue for your business, where the revenue's coming from and where you see that changing in 2021?
Speaker 2 (21:19):
Yes, because I think 2021, as I mentioned to you before is I'm hoping fingers crossed that this is my year not to say I haven't been successful in growing my business because I have.
Speaker 1 (21:31):
You certainly have, so don't discount that.
Speaker 2 (21:34):
And I'm not at all because you know, there's not everybody can have a successful online business, as you know, it is much more difficult in a lot of ways than, than people think. And that's why I tell everybody the first thing you do when you are looking for any kind of online business is take some classes, you know, invest in your own education through some of these, you know, like you have that great course on the course creation part of it. But you know, there's other, like I mentioned, I took a $2,000 WordPress course because I knew that there was issues with WordPress that I needed to know before I could call myself a website designer. So you know, those investments that you make are just so, so, so beneficial. But the services, yes, as you mentioned, my website design, I am very, very proud of the websites I've done.
Speaker 2 (22:30):
I'm also very proud of the service I provide because I'm not just a, you know, here's, here's a website and I made it for you. I really get to know their business. I write much of the copy for their sites. Because again, they're not familiar with search engine optimization. They're not familiar with copywriting in general and how to create kind of a sales experience within their listing description of their property. So I do all of that. I really get to know my clients. I get to a lot of times they're not branded at all. So sometimes I helped them name their rentals or their business. I help them name their properties. I helped them determine some of these brand keys and everything. So I really get into the business part. And I think I'm appreciated for that. I also offer, as I mentioned, the social media setup services, I don't do routine social media management.
Speaker 2 (23:27):
It's just really, because they're in, you know, so many specific destinations, it would just really be unreasonable for them to pay me, to learn and research all of these destinations. You know, it would each, each industry, each business would be a different place. So I can't really manage, but I do teach them. And that's one of the reasons, you know, I have this course is I teach them how to manage and I'll work with them in a, in a kind of a coaching consulting basis, as long as they need me to, to help them with that content part of it and then I also do some, you know, what's called vacation rental specific services. I consult with them on providing the best guest experience hospitality. I helped them get off of the listing sites. I'll also help put people on listing sites because you know, you still have to diversify your marketing's still have to be on listing sites until you've gotten that, you know, 100% booking capability.
Speaker 2 (24:28):
But so all of those vacation rental specific services I offer as well. And then you know, there's, there's just so much in this industry that I could be doing. It's a huge growing industry. And one of my favorite services that I do offer is blogging. I love the content marketing aspect of learning about areas and doing some research, keyword research and blogging for them. That's really second to websites. That's my favorite thing. And you have your group coaching program that you offer? Yes. So that came out of you know, people wanting to learn the systems. You know, as I mentioned, this book, direct movement has grown so much. Next week on February 3rd is book direct day. I think it's the fourth day, which is the day, you know, hosts, educate their guests and educate the public about what it means and why they should be booking direct.
Speaker 2 (25:29):
So that's a huge thing, but there are steps to this and, you know, every kind of marketer or agency has their own different steps system, but they're all basically the same. And so people that are in this industry are learning. They have to do these steps. They have to be on social media, they have to have a website. So because of that, they're realizing, you know, wait a minute, I have a website, but now what, how do I get people to go to my website? And so that's where they started coming to me in an individual consulting basis, just one-to-one, which of course is a, is an expensive service. And so I found that many of them with just one or two properties, weren't able to afford that one-to-one thing. And so just as my own wanting to help people, I decided to create this group coaching. So it's less expensive for them to work with me in this capacity to learn these things, give them access to all of the videos and all of that, so that they kind of get the best of both worlds. I get eight weeks with me where I'm teaching them directly. They can ask questions. They also get the courses to use later on if they, if they need to refer back to anything. So,
Speaker 1 (26:48):
And I love how you're bundling in your courses with the group coaching programs. So you're helping them so they don't get stuck, but they also have your courses if they ever need to reference it at a future time.
Speaker 2 (27:00):
That's right. And, and so I have a mini course on blogging, a mini course on email marketing, a mini the Instagram course, which I wouldn't consider a mini course. It's it's a pretty pretty big course for them, but the mini courses are what I consider just bonuses. I haven't started selling those directly yet but I plan to, like I said, I think this is my year. I plan to get those up and running as a separate purchase later, because there are people that understand social media marketing, but may not understand how to email, do email marketing and you know how to do, you know, so that those courses I am adding. And that's also, as, you know, I'm, I'm a pretty giving person not to say that not every, every service provider is, but I really want people to be able to learn and do this on their own.
Speaker 2 (27:53):
I'm passionate about the industry and helping people. And so that's why I just feel like if they're going to spend, you know, whatever with me, for the group coaching that I can provide those bonuses that really, you know, once they take that group coaching and, and do those mini courses, they are going to be successful. 90%, 95% of them are going to be successful. And the ones that aren't, I typically tell that to them in the beginning. So, you know, like if you have a vacation rental in Orlando, the chances of you ever getting any direct bookings from your website, or just, you know, almost non-existence because of that competition. I mean, look, Disney world is there. So, you know, there's thousands upon thousands of vacation rentals there. So starting a new business and a new website, there would just be, you know, not conducive to booking direct. Now they can still reach out to their, you know, previous guests and, and that kind of thing. But you know what I mean? You know what I mean?
Speaker 1 (28:59):
I do understand it would be harder for them to build a website. It's just more of a longer-term strategy, right? You got all that,
Speaker 2 (29:06):
It's a years long strategy. And so I tell them that upfront, you know, as much as I'd love to help you. I learned that lesson from helping trying to help a lady in a one-to-one business with in Maui. And, you know, I just realized this was really going to be difficult in a long-term thing for her. And I guess we worked together for about four months. And so, again, going back to that, my original statement, knowing your target market and knowing how you can help them. And so now I know my target market is not in Hawaii because those people just need, you know, they need to be able to afford a service provider that can work with them, you know, all the time.
Speaker 1 (29:53):
So Jodi, tell me, where do you see your business going in 2021? Do you see the online course part growing? Do you see your services growing? What are you, what are your plans for this year?
Speaker 2 (30:06):
My plans are actually to grow both. Like I mentioned, I'm getting those mini courses together. The email marketing blogging then I have the Instagram, I'm also going to be doing a Facebook group, a marketing course, which is a huge thing and a Pinterest course. So, and these are all just basic level courses. Again, they don't go into the strategy because you can get the strategy from the group coaching course. So I'm definitely growing that side of my business, but also on the service side, I just have realized that people are willing to pay me for my expertise rather than try to learn it on their own. And I've been working with businesses with more properties, luxury properties, so they're more expensive and, and really working with what I refer to as vacation rental investors. So an investor is somebody different than someone that has two or three rentals and is growing a business. And investor is somebody that has five to 15 rentals and they're growing their business. And so there's a difference there because of the amount of income they're able to generate. And then I'm also started working more with small property management companies who are managing properties for others in their area. And they are also, you know, you should typically have between 15 and 50 properties that they're managing. And so again, they have more income to work with me. One-To-One
Speaker 1 (31:41):
So what I'm hearing from all of that is you're definitely growing your business. You're not going to be able to do all of this by yourself. Where are you hiring people? What are you doing?
Speaker 2 (31:52):
I hired a great, great, great VA in March who was working part time and we've been able to grow her work. She was completely new to online marketing. And so she's learning a lot of these skills that are going to help her. She's a photographer, so they're helping her with her business, but also she has really, really become more interested in the vacation rental business as well. And, and so, you know, hopefully she won't leave me and start her own agency eventually, but she's, she's been a great help. And then this year, because again, I'm taking on more clients and that's my big goal. And last year, and the year before was trying to do one website every six weeks. And this year, my goal is to do two websites a month. So that's a big shift for me and I have to have support in that.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
So I'm hiring, I've just kind of working with and testing a couple of different agencies who can help me with that beginning setup of the site. So that's, you know, setting up the WordPress, making sure everything is optimized on the front end, doing a lot of those tech things that I just, you know, simply are very time consuming, but then I get to focus on the stuff that I love, the fun, which is working with the clients, getting to know their business and designing the site itself. Also, you know, writing the copy. Like I mentioned, I love the blogging. And so typically when I'm working with a client, I'll try to convince them to at least start with four to six blog posts on the site. And so I get to do that kind of fun stuff, and then leave that what I call the tech nightmare to another service provider that I can contract out.
Speaker 2 (33:46):
So I think that's going to be very, very helpful for my business growth. And then also I'm just gonna, I'm just, you know, possibly going to hire somebody on the, to help me manage my own social media. So I'm marketing more because that's you know, one of the biggest things as a solopreneur is, you know, this constant struggle of where do I spend my time today? Do I spend my time on client work? Which is the way I'm making money. Do I spend my time creating a course or working on my course, which may not be generating direct income right now, but hopefully is an investment into my future, or do I spend money or my time marketing myself, you know, going out and finding those podcasts to speak, speak on pitching a speaking engagement to someone, a blogging for my own website, doing my own social media.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
It's those, those typical struggles, you know, it doesn't matter how much you're making those struggles are always there until you can find the help that you need to grow. You can't grow without, you know, you cannot grow without getting help. And, and there's other things you can't grow without that we've talked about before and I'm glad to share absolutely. Well, you can't grow without a lead magnet. You definitely we have to have something on your website that generates leads that you can put into an email system and follow up with people on. It's just, it is the best way to, to, to get those customers. Just remember, even if you're getting people that aren't interested in your services, you're learning something about them just by seeing what, which lead magnets they download. I have my system up where I can see when they download it.
Speaker 2 (35:40):
I ask questions of them after, you know, two or three days of the follow-up series, if they've downloaded it yet, what they thought of it, et cetera. So you're learning that. And then also, I fully believe you can't succeed without using Facebook and Instagram advertising. It's every time I run ads, I learned more and more about my business. I learned more and more about my customers. I had a mentor that told me one time, there's no such thing as failure in marketing. And I truly believe that. And the reason is because when you fail, you've learned and you've learned how to implement better strategies. You've learned how to optimize your own marketing. So Facebook ads for one thing as I said, having a lead magnet for another thing, and as you know, I'm a huge proponent of Google analytics. I'm a huge proponent of understanding, you know, what those people are doing when they get to your website, what pages they're visiting, what they're, you know, what they're looking at and maybe ignoring if they're not spending time on a certain page, then how do I make that page better? So all of that, and that's, you know, one of the things that I focused on in December was optimizing my own website to make sure that, you know, my customers were spending more time on the site.
Speaker 1 (36:59):
And I love what you just said. There, there is no failure in marketing, right?
Speaker 2 (37:05):
There's not, there's not in, you know, you and I have, like you said, I've known each other for a long time. I've cried to you many times, many occasions and why Destini, why? And it's just you know, it is, it is, it is a gamble to start an online business. And I hate to say that because I want to encourage people to do it, but it is, you know, you have to, as I mentioned, invest in your own understanding of, of what I call the game. It's, this is a game. And sure there are the people that are making, you know, millions a year selling an online course, but there's people like me who, you know, I've tripled my income since, since the beginning of 2019. So in 2019I expected to go into the year you know, at about the same income I had made in 2018. And I had met that goal with the in four months. I had met that goal. I had a wonderful opportunity to speak at a vacation rental marketing what do they call it?
Speaker 1 (38:15):
Conference yes.
Speaker 2 (38:17):
Conference in early February of that year. And I just got so much from that conference, as far as the networking and, you know, my business exploded. I had 10 websites on the books and tons of clients. And at that point, the Instagram course was exploding as well. So this year, you know, I'm, I'm hoping to do a quarter of a million dollars. And, you know, in 2018, I made about 40,000, which was barely enough to, you know, and, and of course, there's all the expenses associated with opening your own business and running your own business. But $250,000 is a pretty good, you know, it's pretty good.
Speaker 1 (39:03):
I think there's a great income. And a lot of people out there would love to have that income from their online business. Jodi, what last minute of advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?
Speaker 2 (39:20):
Well, one thing I wanted to mention about that, the sales part of it about the 250,000, that that's a goal, that's a, that's a pie in the sky goal, but I've learned that pie in the sky goals kind of help motivate me. You know, I look, I have a piece of paper on the wall right behind me that says 250,000 equals. And it has broken down into what that equals. It's either, you know, this many websites, this many core sales, this many new clients, all these things that I just kind of scratched out. If I don't make that my other huge pie in the sky goal is to be able to do this and also have time for myself and my family. I've put my. Kids are adults but I've put myself kind of last for several years as I've grown this business.
Speaker 2 (40:15):
And so this is the year that even though I want to grow financially, I also want to invest in myself. And so if I don't meet that financial goal, but I'm able to spend more time with my husband on the weekends or I'm able to spend time in the evenings, walking my dog or reading. You know, that would be because, you know, I'll be honest that there's weeks that I work 65 hours. So not working 65 hours. Sounds like a great thing to me. And so I'm looking forward to meeting one or both of those goals in 2021. So
Speaker 1 (40:57):
I want to unpack a little bit about what you said there, because I really liked what you said about your $250,000 goal. And I don't think it's upon the sky because I know where you are and as we talk every week and it's definitely not upon the sky, so don't discount it. But I like what you said about breaking it down to saying, it means this many website, this many courses, because that, that really quantifies how you're going to get there.
Speaker 2 (41:27):
Yep. It turns it into a real thing rather than just, Oh, I'm going to do this. It's kind of like saying, Oh, I'm going to lose 50 pounds this year. I don't know how I'm just going to do it. Instead of saying, I'm going to lose 50 pounds this year, because I'm going to walk every day because I'm going to, you know, eat more vegetables, et cetera, et cetera. So it just, it just kind of breaks it down. I can look at it and then it also helped me realize I can't do that. I there's no, no conceivable way. You know, my average website price is, you know, $2,800. There's no conceivable way I can do 90 websites in a year. There's just no way even with help, I couldn't do that. And because of that, you know, that customer interaction that I want. You know, I can't just farm these sites out to people who don't care about the customer. So I really was able to go, okay, well, if I add this and you know, do that, and of course that 250,000 is not profit it's income. And so I'm going to have to increase my Facebook advertising budget. I'm going to have to increase my contract labor budget, but I'm not going to have to increase them. You know, I will still make substantial amount of that revenue if I'm able to, to meet that goal. But that's, that's the goal I've set for myself and I can see it coming true.
Speaker 1 (42:59):
And also like what you said about more me time, because I think above anything, right. That's important. We can't continue to work it, you know, I'm sure there's people out there doing this. You can't continue to work 60 plus hours a week. It's just not sustainable. You have to be able to balance between work family and just relaxation book reading, like you mentioned, or taking your dog on a walk. So I think that's a very good goal in a good tip to leave everybody with. Yeah. Can you tell people where they can find you?
Speaker 2 (43:37):
Yeah. My it's Jodi Bourne jodibourne.com is my website. I am born is spelled like Jason Bourne as I jokingly referred to as my older brother, which isn't true because borne is my married name, but people still find it funny. I am jodibourne.com. And heyjodibourne on Instagram. I'm not sure how if I'm there, but you can find me on my, on my,website and search for me all over the place. If you want to, I know most of your listeners may not be vacation rental owners, but they may know somebody who is so definitely send anybody to me that wants more information about this growing and you know, investing in it is just it's, it's really, it's really one of the best investments you can make if you're not doing an online business, is, is a vacation rental buying a vacation rental if you're serious about it. But,so I love it.
Speaker 1 (44:49):
It's my list. So,I do know it's on your list in like two years, so I'm saving up.
Speaker 2 (44:55):
Yeah, yeah. And if you can book it, you know, even if you're just starting out, when a book on Airbnb, you can make some money. So 'm hoping my husband and I own 20 acres and we're hoping to be able to build a couple of cabins on that in the next few years. For my me time, one of the reasons, but also as an investment into our retirement
Speaker 1 (45:22):
Course, creators, thanks so much for joining us today. And Jodi, thank you for joining me. I loved your story. I love telling your story, and I know that you're going to do great things this upcoming year. If you guys have any questions about Course in a Box, which is offered on AppSumo, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or DM me on Facebook or Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We'd love for you to rate and review the podcast on iTunes or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.