57: Chelsea Clarke: Content Monetization Strategist, Investor and Business Broker

In this episode, you’ll hear Chelsea's journey about how she started in entrepreneurship through dropshipping and eventually made her way into the online course creation world after she saw an ad for a virtual summit with Teachable. After she attended every single session live, she was hooked because it seemed like she could combine all of the things she was interested in from the tech side of things to marketing and the creative side.

Chelsea then launched her first online course before she was "ready!" Listen in to hear how she has scaled her company HerPaperRoute past 6 figures through the strategic development of actionable online courses, a transformational virtual summit, and a high-touch VIP mastermind.

Mentioned In This Episode

Transcript:

Speaker 1 (00:01):

Welcome to the Course Creator's MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destini Copp. And 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. And the link for Course in a Box on AppSumo is in our show notes today, we're in the middle of our quarter 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. And my guest for today is Chelsea Clark. Chelsea is a content monetization strategists, investor, and business broker who helps creative business owners make sense of funnels and marketing so that they can tackle their wildest money goals. She scaled her company, her paper route pass six figures through the strategic development of actionable online courses, a transformational virtual summit, and a high touch VIP mastermind. She has a passion for sharing business growth hacking strategies and is on a mission to help creative entrepreneurs make more paper. Chelsea, thanks so much for joining me. I'm very excited about our conversation today.

Speaker 2 (01:45):

Thank you so much for having me. This is really exciting to get to be on your awesome show. So thank you.

Speaker 1 (01:52):

Yes. So I want the audience to know all about you. So can you take us back from the beginning and talk about your journey into online entrepreneurship and how you got into creating online courses?

Speaker 2 (02:07):

Oh, absolutely. Well, I went, actually, I went to university for digital marketing and I always kind of had a blog as a hobby for fun. On the side, I went into marketing through corporate marketing. I was working at a business brokerage. I worked for like nightclubs for planning events and I just didn't make the connection between my own online hobby and actual business for too long. So I was working way harder and not smarter. I was working by day in marketing by night. I was a bartender and I wanted to have my own business. So I started a drop shipping company and that's sort of how I got my start in entrepreneurship is through drop shipping. And what I was doing was I had built a website and drop shipping is when advertise products on your site that are for sale. You just have a picture and a buy button, but you don't actually hold that inventory.

Speaker 2 (03:07):

You don't actually have that item, but when someone buys it on your website, you go to your supplier, you order it, you put your customer's address in and the supplier ships it out directly to your customer. So that's what I was doing just right after university. And it was paying all right, but it wasn't really my passion. I was just sort of figuring out online business, figuring out Pinterest marketing, you know, all that sort of stuff that comes into lead generation and figuring out how to attract customers and build a sales funnel. And that's really what I focused on for some time, until I realized one day that the thing I really loved the most was teaching. I loved sharing what I was learning as I was learning it. I loved taking what I had learned in business school or sorry, marketing my marketing school and applying it to business training.

Speaker 2 (04:03):

And that's really when I noticed something clicked. So I'm going to say this was in 2017. I had just given birth to my baby and I was on maternity leave. And I didn't want to go back to my day job or my bartending job. You know, I didn't want to leave my baby in daycare. I had to figure something out. So I put the pressure on, and I remember one night I was sitting up like crying baby in my arms. And I just was so frustrated. I didn't know what I was going to do. And I kid you not. It was the next day I was scrolling on Facebook and I saw an ad for a summit that was going on all about how to start an online course. And so I signed up, I didn't know what I was getting myself into, but I thought all this could be cool.

Speaker 2 (04:53):

And I signed up and I attended live and I watched every single session. It was a virtual summit. So I was watching it from my couch. I was absolutely hooked on course creation. It just seemed like so much fun. It seemed like it could combine all of the things I was interested in from the tech side of things from marketing business, creative, it sort of could just really all come together. So I launched my first online course and I dove right into it before I was quote unquote, ready. I just jumped in. I started creating lessons. It was a drop shipping course because I had had some experience with that. So I created an online course on how to start a drop shipping business with Shopify. And I released it for free because sorry, losing my voice. I released it for free because my strategy was that I wanted to earn Shopify affiliate commissions.

Speaker 2 (05:51):

And that course did really well. And you know, it wasn't a huge launch. I didn't have a big audience yet, but I was able to earn over about $700 a month from Shopify commissions. In some months, some months, it wasn't that high, but it balanced out to be about $500 a month. And I thought, Hey, this is pretty cool. My next course launch is going to be a paid course. It's going to be bigger and we're going to go all out. And so I just fell in love with course creation. That was my journey of how I came to be a course creator. And it is grown from there. It is now part of the overall plan in my business selling courses is an integral part of the business. And I earn 80% of my income from affiliate commission. So I know we'll dig into it destiny in a moment of monetizing, your course for me, one of the big things is having affiliate links in your online course, because then you're just, you're making more sales than just that initial course purchase. But course creation. My digital products are the second highest earner revenue stream in my business. So I love this conversation. I love what we're going to be diving into. And yeah, this is just so exciting. And

Speaker 1 (07:06):

That was a great story there. And I want to go in and dig into it a little bit more. So tell me when you graduated from the university.

Speaker 2 (07:17):

I graduated from university in 2007 and yeah, that was 2007. I was fresh out of school. I went right into my full-time waitressing job. I always had a weekend sort of job through school, but as soon as I was done school, I went right into it and I was like, okay, I have to figure out something else because waitressing, it does not pay very good. Anyone who's been a waitress knows.

Speaker 1 (07:42):

Yeah. So you graduated from university, you had this degree in digital marketing. When did you find your first full-time job?

Speaker 2 (07:50):

That's a great question. So I went through a ton of different jobs by taking on projects. So I was a freelancer for awhile. I would find a clients actually at the restaurant. So when I'm serving tables, people who are in restaurants, they're always asking their server. So what do you really do? You know, people, they see a young person working in a restaurant, they think she's got something else going on. You know, you're, you're an actress or, you know, you're doing something else. You're not just a waitress. And for sure, I did not want to just be a waitress. I was always interested in building websites and planning events and all that kind of marketing side of things. So I would just say, Oh, I build websites. And they would say, Oh, I need a website. So I was landing clients at the restaurant and that was a really great way to start building up my portfolio.

Speaker 1 (08:42):

That that's an interesting interesting story. I waited restaurants in college and during that time they are. And let me tell you, I just want everybody to know that was the hardest job I've ever had is waiting on tables. Amen. It is. It is not easy. So eventually you started this drop shipping business. What were you dropshipping? What are you, what were you selling at that point in time?

Speaker 2 (09:06):

I was selling clothing. So it was women's clothing and accessories. So sunglasses outfits, shirts, tops, bathing suits. I was drop shipping from a wholesale supplier in China. And when I was doing that, I led into another side of drop shipping, which is called drop servicing, where I would create a website that offered some sort of service, like SEO services or graphic design, social media. And then when a customer would purchase that service, I would go over to a place like Fiverr. I'd hire someone for five, $10 to perform the service and then deliver it to my client. So I was able to profit that way as well. So drop shipping and drop servicing at the time were both different revenue streams that was going well nowadays I don't do either because I'm all about passive income and of course income and that sort of thing, but drop shipping and drop servicing was a great way to get my feet wet into entrepreneurship.

Speaker 1 (10:07):

So I've been around for a while, but I've never heard of drop servicing. What were some challenges in that business?

Speaker 2 (10:15):

Yes. So in that type of business, things can of course go wrong. If the client doesn't like the work you are sort of hooped, you can go back to the person on Fiverr and ask for things to be changed or fixed revised. Most of the time it went well. I really only had a couple orders that went awry, but that's definitely something that could come up because if you're not the person actually doing the job, there's an element of control that is lost there. And for me, when I'm building websites, I'm doing it myself because I want that full control. And I want to be the, the main support there for my client. So in drop servicing, you're just losing that a little bit and you're, you're the, you're the middleman. So you lose that control.

Speaker 1 (11:00):

So you did that for a few years. And then in 2017 you had your baby. Yes. And you knew you were on maternity leave and you didn't want to go back to the, the role and the job that you had there. So you decided to, you know, I'm going to do something different. Would you remember that virtual summit that you attended who ran that summit?

Speaker 2 (11:20):

Yes, it was put on by teachable.

Speaker 1 (11:23):

Okay. Yes. The one that teachable does that

Speaker 2 (11:25):

That's right. My lashes on teachable today, I started, I actually do have one course on teachable right now. When I launched my school, I launched it on teachable. I've now moved everything over to podia have everything under one roof there, but yeah, I launched on teachable. It was great. Teachable is an awesome platform.

Speaker 1 (11:45):

So how did you begin like that course creation process? Did you build your course and then go find people? Or did you build your audience? Tell us a little bit about that journey and how you went about it.

Speaker 2 (11:58):

So I started my course creation journey around the same time that I monetize my blog. So I had always had a blog as a hobby, but around the same time, I decided to get serious about it and monetize my blogs. So I was able to use the audience that I had been growing around my blog to then launch my course too. So a big focus for me when monetizing my blog was to grow my email list and to create lead magnets and have my sales funnel and nurturing and sending newsletters every week. And really just building my relationship with my audience through emails. So when I had my course launch ready, people were already used to seeing me in their inbox and they, a lot of them were actually wondering why I hadn't had a course before they were ready to buy. So that was a really nice thing that was exciting. And I didn't expect that, but if someone's listening and they say, Oh, well, I don't have an audience. Who's going to buy my course. You don't need to launch with an audience already because as you know, destiny, there's Facebook ads, there's, you know, Pinterest marketing, there's ways to find customers for your courses right on the day that you launch. So you don't have to launch with an audience, but it was definitely nice. It gave me a little jumpstart into it.

Speaker 1 (13:19):

Let me ask you this, the first course you said that you built was a drop shipping course. How did you come up with that idea? Did you ask the people that were on your email list? What did they need, or how did you decide, you know, this is what I'm going to start with.

Speaker 2 (13:34):

I just chose it because I had experience with it. So it was something that I had a personal interest in, and I had spent a few years running a drop shipping business myself. So I felt comfortable teaching about it. And that's not to say you can't teach something that you don't have tons of experience in because you, things can be researched and you can learn, and you can share your progress through your course as you're going. But I really wanted to launch with something that I felt I had a pretty good two feet to stand on with, with the niche. And, and that's why I chose drop shipping, but my passions really were more on the monetization side. So even though I launched the dropshipping course, I put it out for free. I got people just so they can get started. They could figure out how to use Shopify. Whereas my passion really was I wanted to show people the marketing side, the business side funnels how to monetize a blog, that sort of thing. So while I was developing my other courses, which I launched later on, I just had that first one out, generating some traffic so that while I was working on my other ones in the background, I was growing an audience that then could find out about my other courses once they were ready.

Speaker 1 (14:43):

And when did you launch this drop shipping course? You start, you went back and kind of started this or monetizing your blog around 2017. When did you actually get the course out there?

Speaker 2 (14:55):

You know, I put that drop shipping course out in under 30 days. So I decided I was going to start a course. I created it. And I actually, I was very strategic with it. Shopify has some free resources, so they had recorded some some videos that their affiliates could use and it was licensed that affiliates could use it however they wanted. So I was able to put those videos into my course and release it because it was a Shopify course. And so I, all I really had to do was just create a couple of my own lessons to share my own experience and then record my intros record, sort of how I use the dashboard. How are you Shopify? And then put it all together. So I was able to launch in under 30 days and nowadays I have more of a system for my launch. I, you know, I'll run ads, I'll create content, I'll write blog posts. But really when I was bootstrapping it in the beginning, I was able to do it in 30 days, just by getting up every day, recording what I needed to record uploading it to my course platform. I launched just by creating a blog post and sending some emails,

Speaker 1 (16:04):

Is this course still available? Or are you still promoting it today?

Speaker 2 (16:08):

I'm not promoting it any more, but it is available. And it's funny because just today, someone sent me a message and they needed to get access to it. They had enrolled back in 2017 and they said, I just, I didn't have time then. And I want them in full in it today. So it was funny to be like years later. Oh yeah. Okay. You can get back in, you know, I've updated it since 2017, but it's not my focus anymore, but yes, if anyone is listening, it is available and you can enroll. It's on my website.

Speaker 1 (16:36):

I'm actually impressed. I remember they bought, I know.

Speaker 2 (16:39):

So surprised. So that's so funny that we're having this conversation today. It's like, yeah.

Speaker 1 (16:45):

So tell us, tell us about the other courses that you have out there and the, you know, you March the structure course, what did you do next?

Speaker 2 (16:53):

So after that I launched my blog monetization course because that was really the course that I got to put my passion into. So that's the one where I'm sharing, not just how to start a blog, but how to actually be strategic in how you monetize it in seven different ways. So we talk about ad revenue, affiliate marketing, and creating digital products. You know, all of the different ways that you can have different revenue streams generating income on your site so that you don't have to be at the wheel all the time. There's certain things that you can do to set up your website so that you can make sales at any time on autopilot. And so that's the blog monetization course. I launched that in 2017. It now, today is very different from what it looked like in 2017, because I update it every three months, it's getting new lessons and it has grown to be a very big course.

Speaker 2 (17:49):

And, you know, it's, it's kind of like your one-stop shop of anything you would need to know to create a profitable blog. And it's, it's something that's been so much fun to grow and just keep adding to over the years, it's really taken on a life of its own. And then I have other courses as well, where I teach email marketing. I have a sales funnel course. I have a specific course on how to create digital products. And I also have smaller ones like a Pinterest marketing course, how to get started promoting your business on Pinterest. So my courses are all related to support to supporting entrepreneurs. So whether you need to just start your website or you need to grow monetize a website, you already have there's these resources here to support you on that journey. And what I'm doing now this year is because my courses have sort of taken on a life of their own.

Speaker 2 (18:47):

And there's quite a few of them. Now I've put them all under one umbrella. You can still get them individually, but if you want to work with me in my group coaching program, that's how people are able to access all of the courses under one roof for unlimited access. And that's really actually something I wanted to mention for anyone who may be listening and they're thinking, Oh, I have so many courses now, how can I, you know, I feel like I have to do all of these launches. If you could somehow package them under your group coaching program, it can create sort of an evergreen funnel where people can still access all those resources that you have, but you're able to give them more one-on-one help. And that's really what I'm noticing nowadays is people don't want just to take an online course. Some people do, but so many people now they want that support.

Speaker 2 (19:35):

They want you, they want you to show up on a call once a month or once a week just to keep them on task. Cause we're also busy now. And as you know, destiny, like we, we all enroll in so many courses. I didn't see. They can end up sitting on a digital shelf, so to speak and getting dust. And we don't want that. We want to keep our students on task and focus and actually help them achieve their goals by actually completing the materials that we put so much hard work into it. We want to see the results from our students.

Speaker 1 (20:05):

And I think that's an excellent point. Chelsea, I do want to ask you a question. I want to go back to a comment you made earlier regarding affiliate commissions. Let's talk about that a little bit more. So how, you know, you have the course revenue and you have the affiliate commissions. Can you walk us through how that breaks out and how are you getting that affiliate revenue?

Speaker 2 (20:29):

Absolutely. So I think that any affiliate product that you want to promote, it should be something that's actually going to teach someone something, or someone just genuinely helps people. Because if you're trying to just make affiliate sales for the sake of making affiliate sales, it's going to be a lot harder to generate interest. That's just going to be a lot harder to actually make those sales. So whenever I'm creating a blog post or a course, or I'm talking about something on my podcast, I always make sure that the thing that I'm promoting is actually helpful. And the way that I am able to generate sales to it is I teach how to use that tool. So if it's a software, like let's say tailwind, I'm not just going to say go and buy tailwind because I like it. It's awesome. I'm going to show you a behind the scenes, like over the shoulder tutorial of myself, how I use tailwind, how tailwind is actually helping me to grow my business specifically what I do when I'm using tailwind.

Speaker 2 (21:31):

And that is what people are interested in so that they can really picture themselves using it and see the benefit. If you can give people a visual of how you actually use these affiliate tools that you're recommending, you're just going to make so many more sales. And like I had created that free drop shipping course to increase, to encourage sales to my affiliate Shopify link. That's just great content it's content that helps people. It gives people that quick win. It gets people started. And you know, that's something that you can sell evergreen. And like, like we said, it was created years ago and people are still enrolling in that. And I, it's not something that I focus on anymore, but that's the great thing about affiliate marketing is you create your content once and it becomes a source of passive income over time that you can generate sales years down the road.

Speaker 1 (22:20):

And, and those are some great, great tips there. Let, let me ask you this. You have all these courses that you've been talking about, the blog monetization course, the email marketing sales funnel course digital products. Tell us a little bit about your traffic strategies and how you're selling these. Are you doing live launches? Are you doing evergreen sales, a combination of both. Are you doing the group coaching? Like how are you packaging all this together and getting people to know about your courses and programs?

Speaker 2 (22:51):

I am a huge believer in evergreen. If you can create something evergreen. Oh my goodness. That is just where my focus has always been at. I don't necessarily do live launches once in a while. You will see me doing a workshop, but really I will like, I like to participate in virtual summit. So if I can do a joint venture with someone, that's a way that I get all of the word out about my courses. I'll go and I'll participate in virtual summits. Or I host my own virtual summit. I will do a co workshop with a brand. So some one like a convert kit, I've done co webinars with them where we're teaching how to use convert kit and you know, just sort of any way that I can get myself out there without having to ever do a sales call. That's always been my focus.

Speaker 2 (23:42):

So evergreen is really important. I like to ensure that my courses are available at any time. And I like to also in core make sure that my group coaching program can be enrolled at any time. Now this one, right now there's a wait list because we're, we're going to be doing a special launch for what's coming up in this season. But normally it isn't evergreen. People can enroll at any time. And what I've found is that really helps people because when you have a program or a course, it's only open for a specific amount of time. It requires that people are all met there at that one time. And for most people, that's just not possible. We all have so many things going on. People like to learn on demand. They like to be able to come back and you know, we have to meet them where they're at.

Speaker 2 (24:34):

So if you have your program, your course is evergreen. People can come in at any time and access your content and they don't have to just be there on launch day. Now that's not to say you can't do a live launch. I mean, we've all seen the success of people like Selena, Soo. She does a live launch for her program that is only open once a year for a few weeks. And that generates so much interest and that's really popular. So absolutely it's something that can be done and can be successful. But for me in my business, I really found my way with evergreen launches

Speaker 1 (25:07):

And Chelsea I'm right there with you. My business runs on evergreens. I definitely know that it can be done with live launches, but I just prefer the evergreen type model. Tell us a little bit about what you're willing to share in terms of numbers student numbers, revenue, numbers. What are you willing to

Speaker 2 (25:31):

That's here with us? Oh yeah. I'm, I'm happy to share anything. So my business now has grown. So last year in the pandemic, I was able to scale my company, her paper route, and I have a, her paper route is where I have my courses. And then I also have an online brokerage where I help content creators buy and sell online businesses. So like e-commerce sites, blogs, Amazon FBA. I've created a marketplace where content creators and investors can go and buy and sell small businesses. And that side of the business is@blogsforsale.co. So those two companies under one and last year I hit almost seven figures. I think it was about $900,000. And so the income from that is split between the marketplace. So the brokerage firm there, and then my, her paper route side, which is the courses, my affiliate links like affiliate marketing revenue, add revenue. And then, you know, that, that's the main thing. So courses and affiliate revenue are my main sources of income on the, her paper outside. So I hope that kind of made sense, but for student, we have 30,000 active enrolled students right now as of today.

Speaker 1 (26:50):

Very good. And thank you for sharing that with us. I know sometimes the numbers people are like, Oh, I don't feel comfortable sharing them, so, Oh yeah. I'm comfortable sharing them

Speaker 2 (26:59):

This week. It's funny. I am doing my taxes, so I don't have the exact summary number, but that, that's, that's what we're looking at for, for 2020. Yeah.

Speaker 1 (27:10):

So Chelsea, let me ask you this. What do you see as next steps for your businesses in 2021? You can talk about the, you know, what you're doing with the the marketplace or your online course business

Speaker 2 (27:24):

This year, I'm really focusing on content creation. So I've updated all of my courses and I'm launching three new courses this year, and that's really a big focus for me. I've hired some really awesome teammates to join my team, to build out our affiliate program. So I have an affiliate team that promotes my courses. And I think anyone listening, if you are thinking of a way to generate more sales to your courses, by all means, have an affiliate team. And this is something that is, has always been in my company, but really I'm building out my affiliate team this year and creating more resources for them so that it's easier for them to promote. And that comes down to creating graphics and writing swipe files, having affiliate promotions. So when we have a new course coming out, we get the affiliate team excited and we offer a top sales bonus.

Speaker 2 (28:21):

So that's something too, we will have a top three sellers, there'll be cash prizes, we'll have a leader board. You know, it's, it just kind of generate some fun on the affiliate team and it really makes people excited to want to participate. So that's something that I'm really focusing on. And then on the brokerage side, it is growing faster than I had anticipated. So I'm hiring more help on that side as well. And we're just finding that we're reaching all new audiences and we're, we have some really awesome blogs on the site right now that are available. And it's just exciting to, to see what's happening because my whole reason for getting started is I wanted to help people grow their business. I wanted to share the marketing and business experience that I had and strategies that I thought might be able to help someone else.

Speaker 2 (29:15):

And it's really grown massively. And it's just, it's so cool to see all these content creators who are either going through my courses or just sort of going through the blog and then they are now wanting to sell their blogs too. So they're developing their site, they're monetizing it with affiliate links and they're growing it with their own, you know, evergreen strategies. And then they want to sell it our investors, which is just, it it's really cool because before I started that side of the business, I was seeing people in Facebook groups getting so frustrated saying, Oh, I've been blogging for a year. I'm not making any money what's going on. I'm just going to give up. And then we would come in and say, Hey, like if you just could monetize it a little bit better, there are people that will actually be interested in buying your site.

Speaker 2 (30:03):

If your site has some traffic coming in, you have some really cool digital products. We have a lot of sites actually that focus on online course creators. So if your blog can sell with an online course, that is a really valuable asset. So that's something to consider too. You don't have to give up if maybe your passions change, where you just want to focus on different other projects, you don't have to just let the business that you've started dying out. You can just sell it to someone else and move on and take that income that you've earned from the sale and put it towards the next thing that you want to work on.

Speaker 1 (30:39):

I love what you just said there. I love the business model that you've created with that, with the buying and selling of the website. I did want to ask you a question about your affiliate team. How did you find the affiliates and w what did you do to make sure that they were right for your business?

Speaker 2 (30:57):

I love that question. That's so important. And everyone that I have brought onto the team, I would say 80% are students, people who have taken my courses, people who have been in my Facebook group, who are on my email list, who have engaged, who have written blog posts about the courses that we have and people who I've worked with through like virtual summits, like we were talking about, I've seen people who are just sort of connected with, and I've been like, Hey, do you want to do a joint venture? I'll promote your course. You promote mine. It's really been a relationship based model for finding great people. And in, in any online course that I have at the end, I always have it. Thank you model at the module at the end, thanking people for their time. And I let them know, Hey, if you enjoyed this course, come and join our affiliate team. You can earn X amount. It's a lot of fun, and that's a great way to get people to sign up as well, because they're fresh. They've just taken your course. They've hopefully had some great results so far. That's the exact people that you want to have on your team. Talking about sharing their love of your course or the people who have taken it.

Speaker 1 (32:09):

Those are some great tips there. And I have one last closing question for you. What advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there?

Speaker 2 (32:21):

I would say when you are, even if you're just getting started with your course, I know how overwhelming it can feel like you feel like you have so much to do. Creating courses is a big job. You don't have to do it all alone. When I started my first course, I was doing as a solo preneur, and I really was doing every single thing alone. When I look back, I would have saved so much time that actually would have saved me so much money. Had I just hired a virtual assistant, you know, hired someone to help out with video editing, that sort of thing. So we don't have to take on everything ourselves. I would say, sit down, get a spreadsheet, like a Google sheet, write out everything that you do in your business. If you're creating a course, every single task that you need to do, and then color code it, make it like if it's something that you don't need to do, it could be delegated, make it red.

Speaker 2 (33:16):

If it's something that you're not sure, maybe somebody could, could take it on, make it orange. If it's something that you love to do, you, it's part of your whole process. You want to be the only one who does that task, make it green, split that up. And then when you look at it, you're going to see that you probably have a very clear job description that you could put out to hire someone to come and do everything in that orange category, everything in that red category and free up your time to just focus on the things that you really want to do. When I started doing that, I had so much clarity. I was able to feel so much more creative. I could just focus on actually creating the course content, like shooting videos and writing lessons, and actually being creative and feeling that energy because I knew that all of the admin tasks weren't on my plate anymore.

Speaker 2 (34:08):

So if you can look at that and do that, that is some advice I would give. And I'd also just lastly, say no, that it doesn't have to happen overnight. It shouldn't happen overnight success. As a course, creator is something that you build up on and you work on over time and it'll grow over the years. Yes, it's, it's so exciting to think that we might go viral and have overnight success, but really longevity should be the goal. And having your funnels set up and ready to catch all of those people when they do start coming. What I mean by that is in every blog post that you have, you have a sign up form so that people can get your freebie so that they can sign up on your list. And then you have some sort of welcome sequence that they're receiving once they've signed up so that they can learn about the paid products and things that you offer.

Speaker 2 (34:58):

And so that they can learn about you. And you can show them that you can help them and solve their pain points and that you are the authority, you know, your stuff. You're just building that relationship. And over time, those are going to be the people who want to support you for years to come at any time you put out a new course, those people that you've nurtured over the years are going to be the ones who are going to be the most excited to want to get involved, to want to promote it, to want to buy it and want to join your affiliate team and recommend it to their audience. So play the long game as a course creator. That would be my, my biggest advice. I love that Chelsea. And can you tell people where they can find you?

Speaker 2 (35:39):

Sure. Well, thank you again so much for having me on this course on this podcast. I love this conversation because yeah, of course creation is so exciting and fun and rewarding. Yes. It's a lot of work, but it's so much fun. So thank you for having me. You guys, you can find me at herpaperroute.com. If you head on over there, I have a free toolkit of resources to help you as an entrepreneur, to help support you in the marketing and funnels side of your business, whether you are a course creator or any type of entrepreneur, there are certain resources there that I can just help you to boost your income with. And that's at her paper.com. It is free. And my courses are there too. If you're interested in checking that out, and if you are on the other side, you're thinking, Hey, I might want to sell my business, or I might want to buy a business.

Speaker 2 (36:29):

You can find me at blogsforsale.co. And that's where we have all of our listings, where you can just go and look and see what's available. You can actually see the income that a blog is making, or a,ua course platform is making, and you can see where the traffic is coming from, and you can reach out to our brokers there and we can get you more information, but yet that's where you can find me. And thank you again so much destiny for having me on. I love getting to chat with you about this kind of stuff.

Speaker 1 (36:55):

Oh, it's been my pleasure. And I'm going to make sure that all of those links are in the show notes. So people know where to find you. Thank you so much course creators. Thanks for joining us today. If you have any questions about Course in a Box, which is offered on AppSumo, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or DM me on Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode. We'd love for you to rate and review the podcast on Apple podcasts or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day and bye for now.

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58: Chelsea Baldwin: Freelance Writer to Serious Business Owner + Course Creator

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56: Ronii Bartle: Data Focused Marketer and Serial Entrepreneur + Course Creator