72: Whitney Lauritsen: Focus on Partnership and Don't Fall into the Comparison Trap
Whitney Lauritsen: Podcast Host, Social Media Advisor, Well-being Coach
My guest today is Whitney Lauritsen. Whitney is a podcast host, social media advisor, and well-being coach who shares lifestyle practices and product recommendations that improve the quality of body, mind, and planet. She explores mental health, mindful living, and sustainability on her podcast "This Might Get Uncomfortable.” She advises creative entrepreneurs with digital marketing that amplifies their passions.
Episode Highlights
From studying film production to blogging, Whitney reflects on her early beginnings creating videos to share with her audience
Her fascination with course creation led to experimenting with different ways to teach and tools to use; from newsletters, podcasts, evergreen sales funnels, to bundle sales and upselling
Learn how she explains how to stay in touch with the trends and be consistent in your business and not fall prey to “the comparison trap”
In this episode Whitney Lauritsen shares her journey and early beginnings as an online course creator and entrepreneur. She explains how her focus on partnership helped her gain the traction needed for success. With a focus on sponsorships, affiliate marketing, and bundle sales she walks through the steps she took to monetize her business.
Mentioned In This Episode
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Today, my special guest is Whitney Lauritsen. Whitney is a podcast host social media advisor, and wellbeing coach who shares lifestyle practices and product recommendations that improve the quality of the body, mind and planet. She explores mental health, mindful living and sustainability on "This Might Get Uncomfortable" podcast and advises creative entrepreneurs with digital marketing that amplifies their passions. Whitney, thank you so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to delve right into your story.
Speaker 2 (00:39):
I'm excited to discuss this with you too.
Speaker 1 (00:42):
So why don't you start at the beginning, wherever the beginning is for you and tell us a little bit more about your entrepreneur journey and how you got to where you are today.
Speaker 2 (00:54):
I always find this question so fascinating because I feel like each time I answer it, I dig a little bit deeper into the history and I surprise myself sometimes. The other day I was reflecting on my history with website design and I started doing that, I think around 2002 or 2003, that was because I was studying film production. And I thought that was going to be my career path. And I had a friend in film school who was blogging and I was like, huh, this is interesting. But nobody else I really knew was into blogging. It was such a rare thing back then, but I was very drawn to the web design element of it. So I actually started off using blogging platforms like Google had one and Tripod was another one that you could use for free to build sites. And I was very interested in using them for film production.
Speaker 2 (01:53):
I would put information about the short films I was working on, like my resume I used to use on there. I was using them for photos. And one of my sites actually that I found the other day was basically my own version of what Facebook and Instagram are now. And I was searching for a place to share my life and to connect with other people and post pictures and videos and audio. And back then uploading video and audio is not a common thing. So it was me just trying to figure out how do I make this happen? And I also remember asking around people in my film school, like, Hmm, how can I upload my videos to the web? And they would look at me funny, like, why would you want to do that? So naturally when platforms like Facebook, when Twitter and YouTube started to grow in popularity, I was very quick to jump on them.
Speaker 2 (02:50):
I think I got an on Facebook. Gosh, when would that be? Like maybe 2004 or five? And then Twitter. I remember getting on there in 2009 and then YouTube, probably in 2006 or seven, because of all these interests. And I know for sure YouTube started in 2005. So it was pretty early there. And because of my early interest in web design and social media, a lot of people started to ask me about it. They became more curious and that's what led to me creating my very first course that I recall. But now I've made so many online trainings that I actually don't even know. Absolutely for sure. When my first full length course was, I think that was in 2015 and I was teaching people how to use YouTube. So it's been a journey with lots of twists and turns.
Speaker 1 (03:47):
So, so when you started back into online, you know, 2002, 2003, did you, was it monetized or was this something you were just doing as a hobby?
Speaker 2 (04:03):
Well it was monitized in a sense that I was starting to use it, to put together resumes and portfolios. So one of the reasons that I wanted to put my content out there is to show people what I was capable of doing. So I remember putting together in film school or in the film world, you do a reel and this is like a example of your work. And I really wanted to turn that into something digital so that people might hire me. So it was monetized in my head, but because it wasn't that common, it also felt a little like weird to be doing it. And then when I actually got into blogging as a hobby and a bigger passion, which was in 2008, that's when I started to wonder, could I be doing this as work and not just a hobby? So it started off as a little side hustle and then that evolved into what's now my career.
Speaker 2 (04:52):
So I absolutely learned how to monetize it and because I was doing that so early on, I just didn't have a lot of information about how to monetize back in 2000. Let's see. So I started my site in 2008. I probably wanted to monetize in 2009 or 2010. And back then the only avenues that were publicly discussed that I could find were advertising. So it was like, okay, how am I going to find advertisers to put on my website? But as I learned, the more I did my work, there were actually many, many ways to monetize. And that's where I slowly got into teaching online because I found that it was something that I really enjoyed to do, and it could be a phenomenal form of monetization.
Speaker 1 (05:40):
So when you looked at, in, you know, try to figure out how to monetize it through ads, were you making any money at it then? I know that was a big thing back then, but how much money were you actually making? Do you remember?
Speaker 2 (05:53):
Not much. I do remember the first person, there's actually a local business that was interested in advertising on my site because to your point, there weren't that many people doing things like this. So I had a big advantage of being one of very few people that was blogging consistently understood. It, knew how to do some web design. So I started to gather a lot of organic interests, but one thing I got very stuck on was how much to charge. So I don't know if that advertising deal ever really came through because we couldn't quite come to an agreement, I suppose. So that's when I started to look into some of the advertising websites where you can just, you know, put a code on your site and get a bunch of advertisers coming in. And I started to look further into all these different opportunities out there for monetization, because advertising felt a little confusing to me.
Speaker 1 (06:51):
And I, I know that a lot of people, when they were blogging, that's how they made a lot of their money or the majority of their money back then. I don't, I'm hearing. And I've never done that particular aspect of, you know, trying to monetize my business, but I'm hearing, that's not really working nowadays.
Speaker 2 (07:10):
You know, I don't spend that much time looking into that opportunity more. Now I have focused in the past five years or so. I'm more on sponsorships and affiliate deals, which I think are the main form of revenue for online content at the moment, aside from courses and creating your own products.
Speaker 1 (07:29):
So it was around if I recall you said that around 2015 is when you created your first YouTube course.
Speaker 2 (07:38):
So this is part of the digging into all the different things that I've done over the years.
Speaker 1 (07:45):
It's only been six years.
Speaker 2 (07:48):
Right. But I I'm, I don't know if I did something before that. I mean, that was like when I really got into it, because I remember digging into all the different elements of what it meant to put a course together with the advertising it, and again, figuring out the price, coming up with the platform I was going to use all of those factors. And a few years earlier I was working. I used to do a lot of personal assistant work or various assistant type jobs. And one of the people that I was working for was interested in course creation. So I actually got to learn through my job about how to develop a whole course from scratch, but at the time I wasn't interested in it. So that was probably like 2011. Let's say that I was starting to learn about courses, but not actually interested in starting my own.
Speaker 1 (08:46):
So when you first launched your first course, do you remember, was it on like your own WordPress platform with a plugin or, or, you know, Kajabi and teachable and think of it a real thing, then
Speaker 2 (08:59):
That's a great question too. I actually use Kajabi now. And I started using that. Let's see a few years ago, but I don't think I was using that in 2015. I think when I was creating this course in particular about YouTube, we might've used Zoom or something like this, but even Zoom as you know, was not even that big of a deal until like maybe the past two years. I mean, certainly the pandemic has shaped people's comfort level with Zoom a lot. So it also could have been Google I've been using Google Hangouts and all the different variations of that over the years. So we were using my, my, I was doing this course with a friend at the time and we were using some platform to record video to have live sessions. And we might've just been like emailing through MailChimp or something like that. That was something that I experienced experimented with a lot was really basic courses. And I noticed that a lot of my students didn't care. They wanted the live component component. That was a big thing. And they wanted a way to contact me, but they didn't need a fancy platform. So I don't think we were using one for that first course at all.
Speaker 1 (10:12):
Yeah. I mean, they were just wanting to learn from you and they were hungry for the knowledge. So where did you take it? Where did you take it from there?
Speaker 2 (10:20):
So many directions I've became really fascinated with course creation and wanting to develop all different ways to teach. So I experimented with doing purely live. I experimented with doing text only. I experimented with doing evergreen all of these different tools out there. I, I became incredibly intrigued. So I started creating little courses, short courses. Sometimes I would do like a one day training and then turn that into something evergreen. And it's really fascinated me over the years. And now I have two courses that are, that I actively promote, but all, almost all of the courses that I've made are still available to purchase evergreen, but I haven't found that people continue to purchase, which has been kind of a fascinating element of course creation. Cause I remember when I was really deep into studying them, it seems like evergreen was the way to go because Hey would make complete sense if you're going to spend all this time. And of course, then you could just put it up and people will find it and purchase it. And that's one thing I haven't really found to be true. And something that I've noticed about the whole monetization side of being a digital creator in general, is that a lot of the tips that I would learn would work for some people, what wouldn't necessarily work for me and having an evergreen course was never as easy as other people positioned it as in my experience.
Speaker 1 (11:56):
Yeah. And I, I definitely think people can relate to what you're saying there. I think what makes, or in my experience, what I have found with evergreen sales funnels, you still have to have some major traffic strategies going through that funnel to convert the sale. So how are you selling your two courses that you're actively promoting?
Speaker 2 (12:19):
Well, one thing that, so these two courses also are I'm doing with somebody else, which I really enjoy. Sometimes it's nice to do it on my own because then I don't have to worry about somebody else's opinion say that it's so nice to have somebody else involved with the process because I don't have to do it all on my own and creating courses and marketing them can be so much work. That's the other thing I am surprised by anytime that I've launched a new course, I have this moment of, wow, I forgot how long this takes. I think I sat down once and calculated it and it took me at least 40 hours to create a course. And when you really break down all of the time investment that goes into it, it's, it's a lot. And of course spreading that over a few weeks or so I launched a new course that I'm not actively promoting, but the most recent course I made was in 2020.
Speaker 2 (13:17):
And that also I did with, with another friend and then the two courses that I'm referencing now, which are called Wellness Warrior Training and the Consistency Code I did with my podcast cohost. And so our podcast is one avenue in which we have promoted that we promote it through our newsletter. We have it up on our website. We've tried promoting it in blog posts. You know, it's something that we kind of keep in the back of our head a lot. We found actually the place where we generate the most income annually is when we're part of what are called bundle sales. Is this something that other people have talked about on the show? Or should I go into more detail?
Speaker 1 (13:57):
Well, let's definitely talk about it because I would say that it's been one of my biggest traffic strategies as a way to get people in my courses. So let's expand upon them.
Speaker 2 (14:10):
Great! Yeah. It's interesting because I feel like bundle sales have become a really big recently. I've been participating in them with my courses for maybe four or five years now. And I was approached, I do a lot of work in, in the vegan lifestyle world and there's a lot of vegan content, creators, bloggers, influencers that, that type. And they're often looking to make money. Many of them have an ebook as a form of monetization. So typically on a bundle sale, they, they will gather together some ebook creators to sell them all together at a discounted price. Usually it's like $50 and you get X amount of eBooks and they value like a thousand dollars or $2,000. And the person only has to pay $50 when they buy it. So it's a great deal. And usually some decent exposure, although I have some different opinions on that, what I started to experiment with is not just to sell eBooks, which I have a few, but to put my courses in to, to see how that would do.
Speaker 2 (15:18):
And certainly most of my courses are at least a hundred dollars typically. Now they've started to average 200, 400, et cetera. And I would put them in there just to see, especially during those times where they weren't so stagnant to see what would happen. If I partnered with, in some cases, 50 other people who were promoting this bundle sale to their audience, in reaching millions of people. I wouldn't usually make a ton of money, but I would get lots of traffic, lots of awareness. I would get some testimonials and it would generate some money as kind of like the little side effect. The other thing that I've used these bundle sales for is growing my email list. So a few years ago, I got a little savvy about this and require that if somebody wants to enroll in my course through a bundle sale, they just have to enter their email address to get access. And this is where I found so much benefit because it drastically grew my email address through just a week of promoting through a sale with, you know, 50 other collaborators. And I would get thousands of new people on my email list, which could help grow my entire business and bring in some revenue for my course as well.
Speaker 1 (16:37):
So did you have, once they got on your email list, did you have some type of followup sequence that we, how did you kind of walk them down the buyer's journey into your other products or services?
Speaker 2 (16:50):
It's been an ongoing thing, and this is actually fairly recent that my, my business partner and I started doing this, I would say in the past year or so, we actually participated in more bundle sales than ever in this past year. So I think it was towards the end of 2020. We were in two or three. And then we're actually about to do another one. And we were shocked at how many people were getting on our list. So since that time we have been tweaking our welcome series, but our big focus for those people is they're there to get a course. So we have a whole series that we bring them through with the online course. Now the one downside to participating in a bundle sale that I've found is that a lot of people sign up for things just to have them, but might not actually put them into use.
Speaker 2 (17:42):
And so we are really working on in our email sequence, how can we show them the value, keep them engaged and make sure that they actually want to be on our list. And they want our product because to going back to the basics of this bundle sale, you might get 2000 people who are enrolling in your course, which is for us, a lot of people. And not everybody, I would say maybe like 10% of them are actually going to put in the work in the course. A lot of them sign up just because they want to get their money's worth with this bundle sale. Right? So they're probably getting 50 eBooks and courses and all that stuff and they sign up and then they don't actually go through the course and get the value. So one thing that we've been working on is nurturing them through the email sequence, really giving them values that they stay on our email list so that hopefully they go through the course, they can become a testimonial. We can use that testimonial on our website for you know, helping other people understand what the value of our courses, and then hopefully spreading via word of mouth because these people recognize that we're someone that is adding value to their life and they can trust us. I'm a big fan of that know, like, and trust element of being an online creator.
Speaker 1 (19:03):
So thank you for sharing that. I always love to hear what's working for other people. I can tell you. And for everybody listening, bundles have definitely worked for participating in bundles. Exactly the way you described it. Whitney, I've worked for me. I've done one this year and I have two other schedule. So you know, that's something for people to go out and explore. I'm just curious, how did you find the creators or I don't know who you partnered with for your bundles, but how did you find them?
Speaker 2 (19:35):
Well, they found me actually. I think I've never actually applied for them. It's a huge part of networking. So on my own, as I mentioned earlier, I've been on social media since at least 2009. I usually attribute that to the beginning of when I started building all of this. And over all those years, I've connected with so many other social media personalities. And so that's typically how the bundle sales that I've been part of have worked, but also SEO has helped a lot. So having the many, many years of a website and building up SEO, naturally some of the bundle sales have found me through that. And they'll type in things like vegan course creator or wellness course creator, and I'll pop up on that list and then they invite me to be part of the sale.
Speaker 1 (20:25):
So what other products, I'm curious as to what other either products or services you have as upsells, once people come through your bundle,
Speaker 2 (20:34):
That's something we're really working on right now. We, meaning me and my podcast cohost Jason, because we recognize one of the harder things about the bundles is that since they are low price, it's hard for us to justify some of the, the involvement. So going back to the, the way a bundle sale works is typically there's all of these different people. Let's say 50 people that are, are promoting it with their products, but you only get paid if you bring the commission or you, if you bring the sale. So you're getting a commission, just like an affiliate program would work. So you might be getting thousands of people enrolling in your course, but maybe you only bring in 20 or a hundred or whatever you get paid based on them. And so that's been an interesting part of the course creation process because we have a lot of customer service to deal with.
Speaker 2 (21:33):
And we've had to anticipate our time involvement, answering email questions, for example, troubleshooting log-ins, et cetera. And then thinking about the elements of our course, that we would typically invest a lot of time in. So let's just say one of our courses would be $400, but they're getting it for $50 when they buy it through the bundle sale. You know, it's hard for us to justify we're making $350 less than we typically would with that course. And if they have a lot of needs and they want a lot of hands-on attention. So that's where the upsells have come in. And for this next round of bundle sale, my Jason and I have created an upsell for it so that they get the basic course, they get the information, they get the structure for, I think in this case it is $50 to buy, but if they would like to have more hands-on attention from us, they want our us to hold them accountable, to check in.
Speaker 2 (22:29):
We're going to have a live video angle of it, kind of the, the group support. That's an upsell. And that way we can justify the time that we're spending on it, but also focus on the people that actually are going to put in the work to give, like everybody access to the same thing when they might not even be paying full attention and, and spending a lot of time and energy on it is not quite fair to us as course creators. So I think upsells can really help people that want more of the premium access.
Speaker 1 (23:05):
I love that. I love how you're thinking through how to make these sales funnels work for you. And they're not easy. I mean, I've tested, you know, various things and some things work and some things did not. So right. Can you tell me a little bit about what numbers you're seeing coming through your sales funnel and maybe some of the conversions, and to give me a little bit of an idea of that?
Speaker 2 (23:29):
Well, it really depends, you know, with bundle sales, I wish I, each one has been a little bit different. We have actually been examining the marketing methods that work for us. So once we launched our podcast in 2019, we started to see like, okay, we have a very dedicated podcast audience. Can we advertise to them through the show? And we were actually surprised that thus far, that hasn't really converted that well. So we set up, I think, a special coupon code and a link that they could use. And we put it in our podcast show notes. We mentioned it verbally on the show. And so far that hasn't brought in a lot of traffic, which is interesting, cause we have a very dedicated audience and a decent listenership there. Then we started experimenting with the typical social media platforms, emphasizing Instagram. We found that even though we reach tens of thousands of people.
Speaker 2 (24:29):
So, so for context, I have, we basically together have three different Instagram accounts. I have my own account, my, my co-host has his own account. And then we have one specifically for our brand and podcast and the brands and podcast account is about 1300 people. But our individual accounts combined, I think is like 50,000. So we experimented with doing in-feed posts like pictures or videos. And those didn't really convert that well either, even though we were reaching thousands of people and very active in audiences, what, what, what has been working on Instagram is Instagram stories. So we noticed that if we are promoting our course through Instagram stories, people were more likely to buy. So during this upcoming bundle sale, we're going to try that there. So for conversion, I would say it's probably still like 1% of people that are buying. I think that's kind of typical.
Speaker 2 (25:30):
But for some reason it was about that interactivity of an Instagram story that I think makes people more likely. We also experimented with live videos on Instagram. And I think also on Facebook and those didn't do so well either, which was fascinating to us. So it's been a big experiment in terms of social media marketing. We might be reaching 50 plus thousand people, but sometimes that never converts. And the other place that we typically see the most conversion is through our email newsletter list. We are currently at around 5,000 subscribers there. And a lot of them though have come from other bundles sales. So it's tricky to sell to them sometimes. So it's like you kind of start to break down your whole audience. And then it becomes really tough to see the actual numbers because there's so many variables. And I would say if I had to pick a number, I would say we convert at around 1%, the standard industry rate.
Speaker 2 (26:35):
So maybe we would make 50 sales or so through our email list, but sometimes it's 20 sales. But as I mentioned earlier, sometimes the sales don't matter so much because we're growing our list and we're creating more of a dedicated audience. What serves us in a lot of different ways. So for us as podcast hosts, we're also very interested in getting more people to listen to our show so that we can have more monetization opportunities down the line. So as long as people are signing up for our newsletter list, that tends to mean the most to us. And that's one of the big reasons that we do these bundle sales. If we can get thousands of new people in a week on our mailing list, that's a huge win for us.
Speaker 1 (27:18):
And the way I looked at it, I think the last bundle I did, I had like 1,873 new email subscribers or something like that, kind of similar, I think to the numbers you were seeing if I had to pay for them from a Facebook ad, I mean, my Facebook ad cost per lead is around $7. Yours is probably a lot lower just because of the space you're in that I mean, that's a, that's a lot of money. So I considered that to be a huge, huge win. And I liked what you said, or I found it interesting about the comment you said about the Instagram stories. Now I'm making the assumption that that was organic stories that you were doing not paid advertising. Correct? Correct. That is, that is very interesting. So I, you know, and I've heard this from other folks and I kind of see it with my own behavior on Instagram is that when I go to Instagram, I go to stories. I don't go to my feed.
Speaker 2 (28:13):
Oh yeah.
Speaker 1 (28:15):
And I'm hearing that from other folks too. And actually I actually had I think this was in I think her name was, this was in Meredith Noble's podcasts that I did just a few weeks ago. And she said that for her Instagram account, what they did for their business, she has a partner that she works with also, they don't do any feed posts. They basically put kind of a you know, one of those, I can't even remember what you call them right now, but it could be, you know, they have some posts, they are on their Instagram feed, but they only focus on stories for Instagram.
Speaker 2 (28:51):
I mean, that makes so much sense. And it's fascinating because of the algorithm changes, you know, and I would spend all this time developing the perfect feed post, which is either going to be an image that I might want to edit or, or find the perfect photo for it, but then write the caption and do the hashtag research and all of that, which would take a lot of time versus a story which can take just a matter of 15 seconds. So the, the energy that you put into something can often be a lot less, but you got to get a lot more out of it. And I think everybody wants that in the long run. Have
Speaker 1 (29:27):
You done anything with Instagram reels yet?
Speaker 2 (29:30):
Oh, yes. And we have not used a, it wasn't really around as much or as strongly the last time we promoted our course, but Instagram reels is something I'm incredibly passionate about, mainly because I'm a huge advocate for Tik Tok. Although I haven't found a ton of success with my course or podcast account on Tik Tok yet. I think that the influence that TikTok has had on Instagram with Instagram reels is remarkable. And it's truly amazing how many people you can reach that way. But the tricky part of that is people don't typically want to be advertised to. You have to find very organic and or subtle ways to talk about your products. And I think that's where the challenge is and something that I'm constantly reflecting on, especially when it comes to promoting my courses. So I typically look at, if you can lead with the value of something, then people will lean in and start to trust you more.
Speaker 2 (30:34):
And then they might be open to purchasing something. So it often takes a lead-up time, you know, and especially when it comes to something time-sensitive like a bundle sale, you need to plan in advance with something like Instagram reels, it's different from stories which typically involve hopping onto the camera for 15 seconds and sharing something, or maybe uploading a, a very simple video with Instagram reels though. And Tik TOK, you need to spend a little bit more time curating them in most cases. And I really think that doing them as a series will work well. So just like you would with a welcome series or any sort of email sequence, you can do that on Instagram reels with video. And speaking of which, you can also integrate your video into your email. You can embed it or you can have a link to it. And that way you're driving more traffic to a platform like Instagram reels, but you're also serving your email audience with a more visual medium.
Speaker 1 (31:34):
I love that. And I love that tip that you just provided. What, what do you see? What do you and your partner see as next steps for you in 2021?
Speaker 2 (31:44):
I love this question. I am well, you know, right now for us as, as podcast hosts, that is just such a huge focus for us. And we see ourselves continuing to be very consistent with it. Because as you know, a lot of times you can't predict what's going to happen. And social media is changing so much marketing in general, content creation is shifting. And for us, it's about being consistent with what's working and then being consistent with experimenting and know that one thing will not work forever. And I've noticed this throughout all the years that I've been on social media and been creating all these different offerings, as some things just work really, really well, but you can't put all your eggs in that basket. You need to keep something else in the back burner and be ready to swap it out. I think noticing the trends, typically word gets out very quickly about things and platforms like Instagram will put out a new element of their platform like Instagram reels, for example, and then they want you to use it.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
And that's typically why you can get a lot of organic reach with it. Just like with live videos, when they've come out and platforms, you can get so much traction because it's a new feature. But once a lot of people start using that feature, it becomes very diluted. And then the algorithm will shift to something else. So you kind of have to be on your toes if you want that organic reach, but it also helps to try out something consistently. So for me, that's typically spending six months to a year, doubling down on something, experimenting with it, evaluating it and not giving up on it because sometimes you don't hit it very quickly. You don't go viral, you don't get massive success, but I've learned the hard way about giving up too soon. And I can't tell you how many times this has happened to me, where I think, wow, if only I'd stuck with one thing for longer, I probably would have seen more success. So basically we're going to stick with our podcast. I just crossed about a year and a half Mark. We really are going to be invested for many years, hopefully. And then I think just continuing to promote our courses instead of creating a new one is a good path for us.
Speaker 1 (34:02):
I love that. And I think I like what you said about finding something and sticking with it because it does take consistency. You've been doing this for a while. You have a ton of experience in online being an online entrepreneur, what advice do you have for other course, creators and entrepreneurs out there
Speaker 2 (34:25):
In addition to being consistent and also staying on top of things that would lead me to one tip is to not do it on your own. As I said, it's really helped me to have a partner, whether it's just in a course or in a bigger capacity like me and my business partner, Jason, we run a number of things together under a business. Having somebody else with you, either as a creator and a promoter, you could have affiliate partners, for example, that's another partnership or you could, and, or I should say, having an assistant of some sort to support you because all of this takes a lot of time and energy. And each of us of course has different strong suits. You might be a phenomenal teacher, trainer, coach consultant, but maybe social media isn't your strong suit. Hire somebody that makes a world of a difference versus trying to constantly scramble.
Speaker 2 (35:21):
If there's such a big difference between creating something and marketing it. And I've kind of forced myself to learn marketing. I enjoy elements of marketing, but sometimes it gets really frustrating. And I just want to show up and teach. I don't want to have to do all of these things. So whether your business partner and assistant a consultant, somebody to really guide you through and do the research for you. This, I am a social media advisor for small business owners and businesses in all different sizes. And I've noticed most of them hire me because they don't want to have to stay on top of the trends. They don't want to know what's going on and what's shifting. They want to experiment, but they need someone to guide them through it. That's usually where I come in and I love doing that for other people. It's actually harder to do for myself sometimes.
Speaker 2 (36:10):
So I've hired an assistant to support me. So even you can have a strong suit, but you still might not want to put the work in. So that's tip number one is to get focused on partnerships. I mentioned briefly having affiliates for your course, I think is amazing too. If somebody is going to actively promote you to their email list, to their social media, to their friends, that can be huge. You can get a lot of traction that way. So developing those relationships, promoting each other's offers can be incredible. And we talked about consistency, but the last tip, I would say the third tip in addition to the partnerships and consistency is to not fall too far into the comparison trap. I think it's really helpful to hear other people's stories and hear their numbers, see their successes. But sometimes we get caught up in that for better, for worse.
Speaker 2 (37:02):
And I used to get so down on myself because I was comparing my numbers to other people's and I would follow these strategies. And I would see these formulas for, for online course success. Even in the bundle sales, it's been hard because some of the sales that I participate in have leaderboards, and they're like, Oh, so-and-so's made this many commissions. I mean, it is jaw dropping. How much some people make from bundle sales. I'm not sure if you've seen this to Destiny, but like, I cannot even believe how much some of these people make and it's partially inspiring, but partially I'll fall into this place of wow, like what are they doing? How did they make this work? And I've gone down this path of trying to overanalyze and I'll sign up for their email newsletters and I'll pick them apart. Like, okay, what, what words are they using? What format, how consistent are they sending them? And I think all of that is great, but not if it leads you to feeling bad about your results
Speaker 1 (38:05):
And I love what you said there about not following into that comparison trap. I think a lot of us in the online world have a tendency to do that. And I definitely know what you're saying about those leadership leader boards. I just took turn them off, you know? So that was some great advice, Whitney, where can people find you?
Speaker 2 (38:30):
I'm pretty easy to find because I've my SEO. If you just, if you, my name Whitney Lauritsen whatever search engine you use, you will find me and my, my website is Whitney Lauritsen.com, which has lists of my courses. It has a link to my podcast, my social media, my email. And if you need anything in particular, please send me an email or a direct message on a platform like Instagram, I will respond. I'm happy to share more. And I'm really in this to support other people. It brings me a lot of joy. So I'm not just here to promote my products. I really love and, and find great value in connecting with other people that has been one of the greatest joys of being a content creator. So I hope that you, the listener reach out and Destiny, I hope that you keep in touch because I love what you're doing. I think it's so important. And it's podcasts like this that have really supported my journey as a course creator over the years. So thank you for the work that you do.
Speaker 1 (39:29):
Thank you. And thank you, Whitney, for being on the show. I know I loved your story and hearing about everything that you've been working on for many, many years. I mean, you've been doing this for a while and you had a lot of great advice for everybody, so thank you.
Speaker 2 (39:45):
You're absolutely welcome.