68: Emily Reagan: Digital Marketing Consultant, Implementer + Online Course Creator
Jill-of-all trades when it comes to digital marketing. Implementer, Digital Marketing Consultant & Online Course Creator, teaching the digital marketing skills needed to get hired online.
My guest today is Emily Reagan. She’s a mom of four, Air Force wife, and founder of the Digital Media VA Crash Course, where she teaches women the digital marketing skills to get hired online as an in-demand, highly sought-after Unicorn Virtual Assistant.
Episode Highlights
From PR Communications director to a Digital Marketing Consultant and Online Course Creator
How she built a referral community of digital marketers and virtual assistants using Facebook groups, a signature course, her podcast "Unicorns Unite”, and what she calls “her magical email list”
Attracting the right people by creating strategic content and building your brand
Emily shares her journey from busy stay-at-home mom, to digital media consultant, entrepreneur and now owner of a fully staffed Virtual Assistant (VA) Agency. Using her knowledge and experience as a VA, she started teaching her very smart, overeducated, underemployed, fellow military spouses and friends. This lead her to creating her signature course called The Unicorn VA Crash Course.
“A Unicorn VA you Ask?” Tune into this episode to learn what a Unicorn VA is and why businesses are seeking her out!
And Emily shares the #1 secret to a successful online course launch based on her experience in working with clients and in her own business.
Mentioned In This Episode
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
And today I have Emily Reagan with me. Emily is a Jill-of-all trades when it comes to digital marketing and techie skills, she has worked as a behind the scenes, digital media implementer, and virtual assistant for a decade for online business owner clients. She's a mama of four, air force, wife and founder of the Digital Media VA crash course where she teaches women, the digital marketing skills to get hired online as an in demand, highly sought after unicorn virtual assistant. Emily, thank you so much for joining me. I'm super excited to chat with you. I love what you've done with your business and very excited to hear more about it,
Speaker 2 (00:45):
Your journey. Hey, thank you so much for having me. It's always a pleasure and I love to share my story with other course creators.
Speaker 1 (00:52):
Well, why don't you take us back to whatever point where you kind of had this aha moment I need to, or I want to go into this online world. Can you tell us a little bit about how you got started in all this?
Speaker 2 (01:08):
Oh, of course. I love to share this story because I think we can all relate, especially those who are in the support role of businesses. And don't really picture themselves one day being like Insta famous and putting themselves out there. So I am a military spouse, as you said, and I can't deny that my resume shows it. I have moved so many times. I have never had a job longer than 18 months, and I even had a boss tell me, I knew I could get you for cheap because you're a military spouse. And it was a great job that I was getting, but it just, it was hard on my career moving all of the time. So I had an opportunity to start freelancing and I know you've had a lot of freelancers here on this show and it just kind of fell into my lap.
Speaker 2 (01:52):
I said, yes, not really knowing where it was going, but we were getting ready to PCS, which is a military term for move. And I had had my son and things just changed for me. I didn't want to start working at the time. I was a full-time job at the time I was in PR and marketing and communications, and I just couldn't see learning a new media market. And I decided to stay home with my son. I had already started working with this client. And then next thing I knew I'm like completely booked out because I like these skills are so in demand, business owners wanted to hire somebody who could help them a little bit with the tech, like have an eye for writing, have an eye for like website updates, writing emails. And I just kind of figured things out as they went and had several more kids.
Speaker 2 (02:40):
Now I have four and I was completely happy doing the work behind the scenes because for the first time ever, I could bring this job with me. I wasn't starting over. I wasn't starting over with low pay. Like nobody knew me or like 10 days of leave a year, you know? So it really worked with my lifestyle. And I had a client invite me to go to tribe live, actually Sue McLaren's tribe live. And I showed up there with no business cards. I had never really marketed myself. And this was the summer of 2018. My husband was getting ready to deploy. So I kind of had the hall pass and I picked, I picked a business conference and I hadn't attended anything like that in years, probably in a decade because I've been doing the mommy's stuff and I showed up to tribe live and I got inundated destiny.
Speaker 2 (03:34):
So many business owners were like, I need you. I need you. I need you. And I just had this aha moment that I could start teaching my very smart overeducated, underemployed fellow, military spouse, friends, mainly they were moms to do this work. I'm like this isn't rocket science. And so I decided I could be the middleman. I can start connecting them. And then I wasn't disappointing business owners by saying no, because I am a people pleaser. I mean, I want to help. And I have it in my heart, but this was the way to help my friends get in. So I started teaching them. I started first, I kind of had a micro agency at this point and through the training for my own team, I realized that was scalable. And so that is what birth, my course right there.
Speaker 1 (04:26):
So let, let me, first of all, I want to go back to that comment that, that your former manager made about because you were in the military spouse that he could get you for cheap. I've never heard that before. What was the rationale for that? Just because you were moving around so much.
Speaker 2 (04:41):
Yeah. Cause when you're starting over, no one knows, no one knows who you are. I was still in my twenties at that time, but he saw the wealth of experience I had had from moving and this crazy resume of mine. It looks like I'm disloyal. It looks like I'm just going to quit a job. But he, he actually meant it as a comp compliment. He saw that, Hey, you've done all of these jobs. And I see the advantage of that and other people don't, but he also knew, I mean, it was a non-profit. He also knew that I wasn't going to waltz into like the corporate space in that city. You know, no one knew who I was. And what's funny is that resume is now an advantage in the online space because it's given me such a breadth of skills that are in demand, online, everything from video editing to, I worked with HGTV for a little while doing their scripts. I, you know, helped with conferences. I've done journalism, like jobs, a TV news jobs. And he saw it as an advantage. He just didn't quite say it so nicely.
Speaker 1 (05:49):
Yeah. And hearing you tell me that I'm like, yeah, he, yeah. I think he probably could have worded that a different way, but we all understand what he was saying there. So you started as a freelancer. How long did you work as a freelancer until you went to this conference where you had that aha moment?
Speaker 2 (06:10):
So I wasn't at max capacity. I am very privileged. My husband's in the military. So this job was not supporting me. You know, I didn't have to have a full-time income. I didn't need benefits. So I was doing the mom thing. I was working at nap time. Weekends were a big time for me to work, especially in the morning I was working in the evening. I was doing a lot of Pinterest marketing. So it's stuff you can work ahead on. And I did that for a good let's. See, I got that first job right. When my son was born, 2009 is when I first took on my first Facebook client. And so, and I was doing PR for him as well. So I was never maxed out, but I had been doing that. And every time my clients said like, Hey, do you know anything about this? I would just say yes and learn because I realized quickly they didn't want to go out and find somebody new. It's so much easier to keep it. In-House and I love learning obviously like the growth mindset has paid off for me. And yeah. So I just kept saying yes to projects that would help me not really knowing the online formula that we all are very well have now. And that served me well.
Speaker 1 (07:22):
So between 2009 and 2018, you were working with clients, not fully booked because you obviously, you have four, four kids at home. So you had had your hands full there. So you went to this conference in, in 2018, where you, what was the rationale to go this conference? Was it to figure out what you wanted to do? Was it to grow your business or were you just doing it because you had that hall pass because you were about, and again, I'll let her husband was about to be deployed
Speaker 2 (07:52):
A little bit of all of it. The conference was in Toronto. So that was like very alluring to me. I wanted to, I mean, I really cared about my clients and their business. And I went with Wendy Baton and she's one of Stu McLaren success stories. She launched a membership. I was her right hand woman when it happened. And so he uses her story a lot in marketing and she was going to be talking on stage, her husband backed out. So she had this extra ticket and I had a couple other clients who were in Stu's world. And I just thought, I'm going to go learn everything I can and not actually sign up, which was great because this conference was just a regurgitation of his material. And then, you know, a whole bunch of selling, but it was great. Like the people at tribe were fun.
Speaker 2 (08:36):
And so fun networking. Like I did not think I would like it as much, but I really, I had gotten a bonus from another client and I turned around and booked the airfare and the hotel for Toronto, totally splurged. I had a hotel room with this like shower in the middle of the room. It was so bizarre. And I stayed at purposely at a hotel away from the conference. So I could have a little bit of a mom reprieve, but I ha, like I said, I hadn't mentioned this, this conference in awhile. So it was kind of a big deal. It was kind of like all of those factors,
Speaker 1 (09:08):
You know, and as moms, sometimes we have to just take that break too.
Speaker 2 (09:12):
Right. We like multitask don't we, if we can like turn anything in a mom time, we do.
Speaker 1 (09:18):
Absolutely. Absolutely. And what, you know, to your point, and I love what you said there about the conference. And one of the biggest benefits I have found by going to events like that is the networking and meeting people like, like we're meeting each other here virtually, but actually going there and meeting people. I've Iive that's what I like about conferences like that.
Speaker 2 (09:37):
I did not really think about it like that because I just had not been promoting myself. I didn't need to, I was getting, I was turning down clients all the time. I didn't even have an Instagram. I didn't even have a website. I just kind of went and it makes me sound kind of dumb, but, you know, I just never needed to do that. And when I was there in person, it was so powerful. So like be around people who could speak my language and it was just, it was just amazing.
Speaker 1 (10:05):
So you were at this conference and you had this aha moment. And tell me a bit, again, a little bit more about what you were feeling and what happened after you went home. What actions did you take?
Speaker 2 (10:17):
I was terrified and I had already helped my clients like start transitioning their talent online. I've really been kind of married to the DIY space. A lot of my clients have been furniture, painters and designers, and I've helped them kind of monetize their talent with blogs, affiliate programs and digital products. Right. So I knew the steps I'd been implementing the steps. And my first thing I did destiny was I'm going to be honest with you. I had a glass of wine in my hotel room. I put on a face mask and I did my first Facebook live and it was terrifying and I've deleted it. I wish I had it up, but I, I did a Facebook live and announced what I was going to do. Cause I figured like if I'm going to commit, I'm going to commit. I'm going to do the scary thing. Cause I knew the power of Facebook live. Right. You're supposed to do that all the time. Right. It's better for the algorithm. And I just thought like, I'm going to hold myself accountable by announcing it. It was the scariest thing I've ever done.
Speaker 1 (11:18):
You don't have it anymore. You got to keep that on your Facebook.
Speaker 2 (11:22):
Can't remember if I started, like, I can't remember. I must have had a Facebook page or I might've just started my group somewhere around that time. I, I can't quite remember the, the order, but right after that I set up a website. I just set up a quick one. I didn't like fuss about it. I just got one going, I got my Facebook group going and I just started showing up weekly and it was painful at the beginning because nobody was there. Right? Think we all from zero, nobody was there. But I did it because I knew the power of consistency. I helped my clients show up consistently and I had to do it for myself.
Speaker 1 (12:01):
So you set up your website, you've set up a Facebook group. And I think that Facebook groups are powerful when you're just starting out and building your audience. So I love what you did there, where you doing any type of content marketing, like blogging or podcasting at that time
Speaker 2 (12:18):
Around there, I started blogging because I also, I love organic traffic. I love SEO. So I started getting that going just to kind of, you know, show off my reputation. I was very uncomfortable talking about myself, sharing my knowledge came easy, but doing it in a way that like benefited my business. Like I just hadn't done that before. So I loved, I love to plan content. Like the newspaper editor in me, like loves to have a plan and story ideas and whatnot. So I did that. And then on the same time I was documenting what I was doing with my clients and I was doing it with loom. I started super simple. I used a loom and just kind of recorded myself, doing the things I do for clients. So I could start to assemble that in a course. And so that was about six months of doing those and trying to get organized with my content. I do not have a teacher background. I am not a curriculum specialist, but I also knew how I had gotten results. What I do weekly for clients. Like what are the steps I get there? And I just kind of mapped it out.
Speaker 1 (13:25):
Okay. So it was six months you were showing up in this group, you were blogging. When did you start monetizing this in terms of helping other other individuals become VAs, which is what you did today?
Speaker 2 (13:43):
Yeah. So, you know, six months into that, we're talking January, 2019, I did a beta launch and I just did it. I just did it. And I, I had things together. I was a couple of weeks ahead of the content. One of the key moments for me was just investing in my tech and I paid for that annual tech. And that was a big chunk of money, but it was to me like a commitment to show that I was serious about this business. I did a beta launch with that Facebook group. I think I had an email list of about 66, zero, like not huge because remember in this time it has been deployed. So I'm like struggling with life and I'm still doing like client work. And I had 60 people by and I gave a stupid low price. If I went back in time, I would not do that because I did get people who were not invested.
Speaker 2 (14:36):
I mean, we kind of know the role of pricing there. You know, people who are serious will pay more and then they will finish. But I got just enough people to have success and I paid for Kajabi for the year. So I think I made about $1,200 and my price you're going to laugh with $67. And this was a signature course. And I know you talked about your signature course and going all in, like, this is a comprehensive course, but I knew I was a nobody. I needed to start. And I knew the power of like getting success with just a few and I could, you know, roll that snowball from there. And I did.
Speaker 1 (15:12):
So you said you had 60 people on your email list. How many were in your group or do you even remember that
Speaker 2 (15:19):
20 actually buy okay.
Speaker 1 (15:21):
20 people bought. Gotcha. Okay. Yeah. All right. So it sounds like you were able to get some testimonials from that and some feedback from your beta clients.
Speaker 2 (15:32):
Yes, I was. I did that and it also gave me a way to, it gave me the information and feedback. I needed to make some updates. And by then I realized like my tech was not good enough. Those loom videos I did were not good enough. And so I needed to refill and things and just do a better job. So I did that and I did a really quiet, soft launch going into that summer and just opened it to a few people who'd been asking. I don't even think I track the revenue from that. I did, I have slowly like increased it every time. So people had that sense of urgency and they saw that I was serious. Every time I launched, I upped their price and we are getting ready to move that summer. So I just quietly let some people in. And then I went all in with my first real big launch that fall. So October, 2019, I did the webinar EFA.
Speaker 1 (16:31):
Did you do a Facebook ads to fill it up? Yeah, I did
Speaker 2 (16:35):
Just starting, so I didn't have any like data about my audiences, but I started with Facebook as to kind of get an idea, but nothing like crazy. I mean, my budget was tiny and I made, I made about 7,000, probably got about the same like 20 people, but that was just a big moment for me to do the webinar, to do it in a way that was authentic to me in a way, like my webinar really taught you know, and I had room to improve in my speaking skills, like my messaging and my marketing. So it was all part of the, I dunno, part of the journey, part of the lessons of live launching. So that one went well. I thought I was pretty happy with that
Speaker 1 (17:16):
And this just so everybody listening knows that this is your signature course. This is your I believe you call it the unicorn VA crash course. It's your signature course that you use to train VAs.
Speaker 2 (17:28):
Yes. Yeah. I didn't even mention my course, but yeah, it teaches like, Oh my gosh, there's like nine modules. I went all in with a signature thing. We start with SEO and we walk all the way through helping clients with email marketing, affiliate marketing. We do social media, we do YouTube it's blogging. So it's just teaching the tech skills behind that work because I found so many business owners go through a chorus or get a coach. They have the strategy, they just need help implementing it. And they want somebody who gets it. So I'm like, okay, I'll just give them everything. And then from here they can kind of pick and choose and have the resources to come back to. So somebody who hadn't worked in a while or somebody who didn't necessarily have a marketing degree could get up to speed really quick and be able to do the work
Speaker 1 (18:16):
Well. What I like about what you're doing is I know a lot of us are going to places like Upwork and Fiverr and picking people. You know, this person has you know, experience in Kajabi or this person has experienced in convert kit or this person can help me with blogging and SEO, but you're really teaching them how to do everything. So somebody has one point of contact for their business.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Yeah. I found that such a sore spot for business owners because usually we all start out. We're a solo premier and we're looking for that first hire. Yes. Sometimes we do need that specialized person. We need a Facebook ad. This person, we might need like a coder. We go to Upwork or freelance for that. Right. But a lot of times we just need a teammate. We need a sidekick. And that's what I had been doing for years with my clients. And they just needed somebody to knock out the task and there could be a couple admin things on there, but it was mainly digital marketing tasks. It was online marketing tasks, like the weekly content, the emails, the social media, and just having somebody who can help you and understand your business, but be in it for the longterm. And yes, you can, you can hire the specialist, you can go overseas. But what I found was the state side VA who can be like, just take your business seriously and love your business and be a, what am I trying to say here? And just dedicated, like, that's what people really wanted. You know, that's what they wanted on their team, especially if are going to grow their business. Long-Term
Speaker 1 (19:49):
And I know there's going to be people listening here. They're like, you know, that's absolutely what I need. So we'll make sure that they know how to you know, to get to your website. Because one of the things that you also do is you have a place on your website where people can come hire folks that you've trained through your course.
Speaker 2 (20:08):
Yes. I bought the website, hire a unicorn.com and I just have a form on there. So business owners can fill out their top priorities. It's totally low key. Like I said, this is good for your first hire. And there's tons of ways. Like you can always post your job in Facebook groups. You can build it out on your website, but sometimes that's just takes a lot of work or you're going to be inundated, especially if you post in like a Facebook group where there's 40,000 VAs, but you don't, they're all like admin and that's not quite what you want. So I found a way to streamline it. I don't charge the business owners anything. And right now I kind of make it a, a perk to being in my program and just kind of helping these, you know, rock stars who are quick and smart and hungry and eager and get those first jobs.
Speaker 1 (20:58):
So thank you for that. I took a little bit of a tangent there. So in fall of October of 29, 2019, you launched your course, you did the webinar thing you made about $7,000. You even did the Facebook ad thing, which is, you know, a big leap of faith. I know for many, yeah. Where did you take it from there? So going
Speaker 2 (21:18):
into the second launch was exciting. And by then I had proof of concept, you know, more so than the beta launch. And it was all about refinement. I've been constantly growing my email list and I went into my next launch and I think it was like end of January, February. And that is when I had that amazing launch that like for me, I ended up making $24,000 in that launch and I had a good number of students. I can't remember the number of students because each time I raised the price. So it's just not like simple math, but I just remember feeling on fire. Cause like, this is what I need. I have opportunities for VA's to get work and I needed more I needed more students, right. So I did the whole webinar thing there. I'm trying to remember what I did different.
Speaker 2 (22:12):
At that point, I had started building a quiz funnel, but I don't think I had it done in time for that, for that webinar. But it was just all about refinement for that one. My list had grown, I was starting to develop a name for myself. And the funniest thing is during that live launch, I think it was like a 10 day. It might've been a 14 day open cart is like way too long. But when I opened it, I had planned a bonus. I planned an early bird bonus and not one person bought it destiny. It was awful. And I was just panicking. I was just panicking, like, no one's going to buy it. And like all of the things I had gone through with my clients and like soothing them and being their therapist in their launch, like I needed that. Luckily I had a team, but it was terrifying to like open the cart and have crickets.
Speaker 2 (23:03):
And I found that that really long cart open window, everybody bought at the end. You know, usually you have a spike at the beginning, a slump in the middle, and then you have a spike at a bigger spike at the end. And for that lunch, everybody bought at the end. So that was made me kind of think like, well, how can I make the bonus enticing or how can I like prep? My wait-list better. Like there was a lot of ideas like happening with that, but I was just glad it ended with the numbers that it did. And then at that point I had done more Facebook ads. I think I ended up getting like 1200 people into my webinars with Facebook ads, which was just my first real experience trying to scale those. So that was exciting. So
Speaker 1 (23:46):
Based on your experience there, would you say that maybe a one-week cart open period would be better?
Speaker 2 (23:53):
Oh, for sure. I mean, it does matter when the cart closes, like what day of the week that is. And of course, like just getting clarity on who your buyer is. I've kind of had this problem where I can serve a lot of people and I wasn't quite sure who I was talking to at the beginning. Like, am I talking to military spouses? Are women starting second careers who want to update their skills? Or is this moms? I think that I was a little bit kind of all over the place in the beginning. And then not knowing like when to host my webinars when people could actually attend them. Like all of that was like kind of trial for that launch to figure out what works and just keeping track of like, okay, what emails did well, what webinars had better attendance and show up rates and conversion rates. And it was this part of, you know, the learning, the learning journey.
Speaker 1 (24:44):
And this was all in January of 2020. And obviously we know what happened, you know, a couple months down the road from that. How, what else happened in your business last year?
Speaker 2 (24:55):
Oh, the, you know, that COVID pretty much ruined my launch plans. I ended up being at home with four kids, which is something I never planned on. I had just gotten the sweet taste of freedom for the first time ever. I had all kids in school or daycare and I did not have to drive because at this point we had moved and there was a bus and I, I had it so good. I didn't even know it for what, like five months there and then COVID happened. And that was hard, but actually demand went up. Business owners were hiring, moving online and I, but I just didn't really have the capacity to launch with four kids home. And, you know, by then no one was in school. No one's in daycare and it stayed that way through the fall. So I try to, I had an April launch plan.
Speaker 2 (25:45):
I was trying to launch three to four, four times a year. I had goals to get six figures and I ended up kind of doing this weird launch in June where I opened the doors and I had just left him open. And I got, I think I made about 20,000, got, got some students in, but I found out that I had attracted some of the wrong people. And I think that this was a good marketing lesson and I needed to learn it then before, late in, early on. But there is, I guess I don't want to get too deep into this, but you have to watch your brand voice. And when I'm talking about working online and making money online, there can be a tendency to attract the desperate, right? It can, there can be a tendency to attract the wrong person. And I had a couple people in my, my, my course that summer, who I would never refer to clients and I was terrified what that would mean to my reputation.
Speaker 2 (26:45):
And they were very helpless and I'm not trying to talk bad here, but it was a big aha moment for me in my messaging. I ended up having to let a couple of those students go. I just gave him a refund and I asked them to leave. And that was heartbreaking for me. Like I just want everyone to be happy and get along and learn and get hired and like, you know, frolic in the meadow and have a good life, but I needed to change my messaging. So that's been my big growth. And coming into that fall, I really worked on that. I worked on having a voice that was more authority, less of something that would attract the downtrodden. And this is a whole thing in copywriting. This is a whole thing. You're like, you have to watch your tone and how you say things.
Speaker 2 (27:34):
And I just needed to get very, very laser focused with how I talked about my program, the results it would get, because it's not overnight success. It's not a get rich scheme. You can't sign up and expect to have clients and be booked out in a week. That's just not how it worked. So when I did my next fall launch in 2020, I didn't quite get the numbers I wanted. I think I got about 18 students that by now my, my signature courses, a thousand it's nine 97. So it was worth it to me. I am attracting people who are better fit, who get results, who actually take on clients when they're done with the program. Like they have the confidence, they have the tenacity, the desire, you know, the drive and all of that. So that was a huge lesson to learn. Oh my goodness.
Speaker 2 (28:23):
And I had a mentor, tell me, you have a psychographics problem instead of demographics, psychographics. And I had to kind of go down a rabbit hole about that, but it's attracting the person with the right mindset and for my business to do well. I need to have good referrals. Like if somebody goes to hire a unicorn.com and wants to interview a couple of my students, like I need them to be good at what they do. And so I'm like one, I really want to take my business to it. Accreditation, when I can get, I need some time to do that, but that would be my end goal so I can protect my reputation and make sure my, my students are like top quality.
Speaker 1 (29:09):
I love that you shared that with us. I think that's an important lesson for all of us, those students that weren't the perfect fit for your program. How did you find out about them? Were they expressing their concerns to you? Did it come out in like a Facebook group that you had for your students? How did that all come about
Speaker 2 (29:31):
All of that, all of that. And thank you. I've never actually shared this story before and it's very vulnerable, but I want to be transparent about it because it is part of the, like getting your messaging right. And it leads everything else. It leads our emails and our sales pages and our Facebook lives and everything. And I had a couple of students who, and I'm not pushy, but I think they were vocal in the Facebook group. They weren't just kind of whiny and they needed so much handholding and there was no way I could ever refer them. And I felt guilty about that. And I don't want if they're spending their last dime on my course, like that's not good. And a couple of them were creating drama out of nothing. And I'm like, I'm really focused on having a community that is supports each other.
Speaker 2 (30:21):
My vision is a referral community and already this happens like inside my group, freelancers are passing on work, passing on referrals or hiring each other with due to their specializations. And I want this community of abundance and not scarcity. So if there is a job in there and we know so-and-so is a better fit, we want to encourage her and not have this competitive ruthless Facebook groups. So when we do post a job, we only have four apply no more than four, because I don't want the business owner to be inundated. And I want them to remember, like, there's lots of work. I mean, we're getting tons of job leads, but I want them to think of themselves as a business owner, working for the clients. They want not taking jobs out of desperation because that's not good for anyone in the end. So there was some drama there. Another big key destiny was I was getting a lot of BMS and I needed some boundaries there as a course creator. And I just, they just needed so much attention to front me. And I just, it just became very obvious pretty quickly. And there were some warning flags, like in a webinar, sometimes you can tell by the chat. And like, I think I, I just got smarter. I got a lot smarter.
Speaker 1 (31:35):
Interesting. okay. So you had your launch in the fall and you had, you had, you had a good response there. What is your business look like in 2021? Or where are you going to take it this next year?
Speaker 2 (31:51):
Well, I have to tell you that the military spouse who never made more than 40,000 a year hit six figures. Yes. Even with COVID. I mean, I still do client work too, but I still hit that. So that felt, that was a really important number for me to hit psychologically, just because of my career pauses that I've had. And you know, some of that that happened in the past, but I've been doing some client work and 2021 has been about me laying the tracks. I needed to get organized. I needed to grow my own team. I hired two people from my own group. Someone is managing my YouTube and helping me edit videos. You know, things I could do that I needed to pull myself out of. I hired someone from my Facebook community to help manage that because I have asked to have a back-end membership.
Speaker 2 (32:48):
So after you go through the chorus, like I have like an elite program there. And so I have three Facebook groups. So that's one of the things I teach is how to be a good community manager. So I hired someone there. So I think COVID has really showed me that I needed to get even more off my plate so that when I do do my next live launch, hopefully, you know, it does well. And I'm when I start to see these higher numbers, like I can handle it because I couldn't handle it with like a team of just two or three. So I'm doing that, laying those foundations some really unsexy things like switching my ESP was like, painful need to do it. I need to get things in line. And we're also working on like evergreen webinar funnel, which is really close to being done. So, and I'm also one thing I didn't tell you ahead of time is I'm, I'm working with a lawyer to trademark programs to start to be able to license things and to build wealth in that capacity as well. And so all of this, like stuff is going on and it's very painful for me because I probably tell, like, I like to take action. I like to jump in. I like to do the work, but I know that to grow successful business, I need to get some things in order on the backend.
Speaker 1 (34:04):
So when you say you're working with a lawyer to license, it is it, will it be a course that other people can basically white label and sell it on their own? Or how, how are you setting that up?
Speaker 2 (34:16):
Yeah. You know, we're still kind of working through some of that, but basically having this, that type of program that we can share with other business owners as well, to be able to get their teams up to speed. It's a little bit of that. I also have my course on terrain. They just launched a platform where they sell courses that are vetted. I don't know if you know about them, but I got my course on there. I had my first sale there, so that's already like kind of licensed through them. So that's kind of cool. It's kind of like trying to be like you dummy, except for they're like vetted courses that they've gone through and approved. So mine's on there. So that's kind of cool, but yeah, the lawyer and I are just trying to find what parts of my business I can pull myself out of and have it be repeatable for somebody else.
Speaker 1 (35:12):
I love that. And thank you for sharing that. I have one last question for you, Emily, what advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there? You've been doing this for a while. You have really good success. What would you say to them
Speaker 2 (35:31):
Now? I have seen it both ways like as a client working on launches and working with the creators and in my own course, and the magic is an email list. I've seen way too many people try to launch a membership or a course without having that list of the right people, not the wrong people, the right people there. And it just doesn't happen overnight. And there's a lot of list-building that needs to be happening to set yourself up and we need to manage expectations. And so many people think I'll just build it and they'll come. And it just doesn't work like that. And even I caught myself kind of thinking that because we're hearing these like six figure launch stories, but the best thing you can do to set yourself up for success is be seeding that launch, growing your email list, giving them those freebies that really attract the right person and the right person who's willing to pay for more information and make sure your list is healthy. Okay.
Speaker 1 (36:29):
That's some great advice. The other thing I want to ask you, you mentioned that other website where your courses on, tell us again what that is, because I want to make sure that that link is in the show notes for folks too
Speaker 2 (36:42):
Yeah, It’s Terrain.io but Terrain. My friend and mom runs it. She's a copywriter. And she gets so frustrated at these big wig courses. I'm not going to name any names that are like cost thousands of dollars and don't deliver. And she put together this platform, this tech platform. So the little guy can get seen and found and discovered the person who has a good course that actually delivers. And you, you're in this world. So you know that not everybody finishes the course, like it's staggering stats there about people who actually get through courses that are actually set up right. And deliver. And terrain has been all about vetting courses and building a platform of like good ones.
Speaker 1 (37:37):
Definitely I'll go and check that out. I'm not familiar with that one, but it sounds, it sounds fantastic. Emily, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (37:45):
I would love to connect with anyone on Instagram. I finally started, my Instagram took me a while, but I'm having the most fun over there at @emilyreaganpr. And then I also have a free Facebook group. I have business owners in there. I have a lot of freelancers in there you can just search on Facebook and find me there. And I'd love to have you in the group. I also have a podcast, unicorns unites, and we talk about different freelancers stories. And then I have episodes where I'm talking about things that will help somebody getting started or help raising their rates and things like that.
Speaker 1 (38:19):
Emily, thank you so much for joining us today. We loved hearing about your story and I wish you the best in the rest of the year in 2020.
Speaker 2 (38:28):
You too. Destiny. Thanks so much for having me