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AMY PORTERFIELD: “I've helped build courses, I've launched courses, I've made millions of dollars for other people, so what is stopping me from taking my knowledge and making my own courses?” This is a quote from today's guest, Bevin Farrand, who has gone on to generate over forty-eight thousand dollars in course revenue. After unexpectedly losing her husband and the love of her life, Bevin decided it was time to stop living scared and start living fully. Get a pen and paper ready because in today's episode, Bevin is taking us behind the scenes into a framework she's created to help you also start living fully and finally do whatever your heart is calling you to do. This episode is unlike one I've ever done, so get ready to walk away inspired and ready to take action.
INTRO: I'm Amy Porterfield, and this is Online Marketing Made Easy.
AMY: Can I let you in on a secret? There's a little bit of a selfish reason I love hosting this podcast and creating digital courses, and it's because I get to meet and talk to people and students from all walks of life, people who are inspiring, who have been through loss and triumphs and who have been persistent and succeeded despite all odds, who have been through unfathomable challenges and are still standing. And I feel so blessed to get the chance to hear their stories and learn about their journey as they've gone through my course, and stories that they tell sometimes just bring me to tears. I mean, I've cried more often than not, hearing other people's stories of challenges and successes. And today is one of those opportunities. As I mentioned, my student Bevin is joining me today, and you are truly in for something magical.
This strong woman has used the challenges in her life to create a digital course that has provided for her and her children and has allowed her to share her passion and inspiration with others. Today, Bevin is taking us through part of her framework that will help you discover your why, your yes, and so much more to get you into action and start living boldly instead of on the sidelines of your life. She’ll also be sharing her story and how she came up with her course and something she's tweaked to make her same course convert at an even higher rate. I want you to write down what you can, or if you're walking or in the car listening, really think through the questions and steps that Bevin's going to take you through, and get ready to walk away from today's episode feeling fired up and grateful for the life you have and ready to get into action. Please help me welcome Bevin.
Well, hey, there, Bevin. Thanks so much for joining me today.
BEVIN FARRAND: Thank you for having me, Amy. I'm so excited to be here with you.
AMY: Well, I have been looking forward to this chat because it's been so fun to watch you create such a meaningful and successful business. And I'm really excited to get this chance to sit down with you so that you can tell your story. I think so many listening are going to be so inspired. So let's start at the beginning. You have a really powerful story. Would you mind sharing it?
BEVIN: I would love to.
So, it started in—it actually started before some people realized it did. So it started in May of 2019. So on Mother's Day, my husband, Mark, gave me four bottles of Bordeaux wine and a card written in French, and he didn't speak French, so that seemed weird. And he told me that he was going to take me to France for my fortieth birthday, which was in November. And it was going to be a whirlwind trip because we had two young children. We had a two-and-a-half-year old and a ten-month old. And so we were going to play on that for the next six months.
Well, two weeks later, I was laid off, and it was the third time I'd been laid off in my career, and it was totally unexpected. I thought I was going in for a promotion; I ended up getting laid off.
AMY: Oh, my gosh.
BEVIN: And so we—I mean, we were very much a two-income family, and we were walking. We live in the country, so we were walking out on our country road. And I said to Mark, “I don't want to look for another job. I am tired of putting my financial health in the hands of somebody else. I don't want to do it anymore. So I'm going to be an entrepreneur. I'm going to do what I've done for businesses, for clients, and I'm going to start building digital courses,” which is what I've done for other people for ten years. And so I said, “Okay. We're going to do proof of concept. I'm going to see if I can make five thousand dollars by the end of August. And if I can, then I feel like, okay, this is a viable business.” So I did. I think I made a thousand dollars in July, and then I made my five thousand by the end of August.
And we were—we’re such planners. Like, I said, “Okay. If I don't make another penny, we will run out of money on October 12.”
AMY: Oh, my gosh. You knew down to the penny.
BEVIN: Yeah. And I was, like, but the likelihood of me not making money is so slim.
AMY: And this is still 2019.
BEVIN: Still 2019.
AMY: Okay.
BEVIN: And so I did that. And then, I want to say September, I joined your bootcamp to do a digital course, because even though I'd done it for other people, I wanted to understand the real process. And then I joined DCA, and I remember talking to Mark and saying, “Look, I know this is a financial commitment. I know that this is—we're in a point where, like, really every penny counts. But I truly believe this is going to help me grow my business.” So I joined.
So, fast forward to November, and we were getting ready for the trip. Seemed totally crazy. We were going to be on the ground the same amount of time we were in planes because it was truly—like, we were going to Bordeaux, which required changes of planes. And I looked at Mark, and I said, “Why don't we go somewhere easier, like Paris?” And he was like, “Paris is a cop out,”—
AMY: Ohh.
BEVIN: —which no one has ever said, ever.
AMY: But I love it.
BEVIN: So we went. But even two days before, I said, “Is this too crazy? Should we not go?” And we were, like, no, we’re going to go.
We went. We had an amazing time. Great food, amazing wine. We reconnected with who we were as a couple before we got married, before we had kids. We were always such a good team, so it was such a good time for us to get back to that.
We came home. It was the week before Thanksgiving. So Mark had taken the whole week off work. We took our daughter to her first movie-theater show; we did stuff around the house; we got ready for Thanksgiving, which has always been my favorite holiday; we had Thanksgiving with our friends and family; and then the next morning, Mark just didn't wake up. He passed away in the middle of the night. We had no idea he was sick. He had undiagnosed heart disease. He weighed the same he did in high school, so there was no—it wasn't like he was overweight. There was no indication that this was going to happen. And all of a sudden, my life was truly flipped upside down.
AMY: I know some people are listening right now, and they're like, wait, wait, wait. What did you just say?
BEVIN: Right.
AMY: The day after Thanksgiving, you wake up, and you're—I feel like my heart's beating fast, and I know your story, but just to hear you say it now—you wake up in the morning, and your husband doesn't wake up.
BEVIN: Right, yeah.
AMY: And you have two little ones.
BEVIN: Two little ones: Johnathan was ten months old; Guinevere was almost three. And now I'm the sole financial provider. I'm an entrepreneur with a new, fledgling business and a solo mom, and without my best friend and my teammate, like, my biggest cheerleader. I remember when you and I met, I compared our relationship to yours and Hobie's.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: Like, it was so similar. Mark was my biggest cheerleader. He would go to networking events to introduce other people to me.
AMY: Oh, ah.
BEVIN: And so it was so crazy and devastating. And I remember I posted about a month later on Facebook, and I told that story. And I said at the end, I was like, I'm so glad we took this trip together, we took this adventure together, and whenever you’re faced with a choice, just take the damn trip. And that resonated with so many people, and they reached out to me. And I immediately, as soon as people started reaching out to me, I went and I bought the URL. I was like, I don't know what this is going to be, but this is something.
And so, I, then, had to look back at the hardest things that I've been through, which—you know, not just losing Mark. But I lost my dad to cancer when I was twenty-four. I lost my home in a house fire in 2010. I’ve been laid off three times. I've been very open about the fact that my kiddos are IVF babies, so going through several years of fertility treatments and a miscarriage. And then, also, at the things, the most amazing things, I've done: building a multi-six-figure business, having these amazing kiddos, building our dream home. Like, all these things.
And I said, what is it that I do differently than other people? Not better, but just differently. And that's where I came up with this DAMN framework, which I remember being in one of your groups, and somebody said, “Amy, I love that you never swear.” And so I just want you to know I'm going to say damn a lot, but it does mean something.
AMY: Okay. It does. And you can swear all you want. I interviewed Mel Robbins, and she dropped a few, and I was like, “It's all good. It's all good.” Believe me, in my personal life, I do. Ask Hobie any day. So it's all good.
BEVIN: Yeah.
AMY: And when she's saying damn, it's DAMN, and it means something. But I also love this concept of take the damn trip.
BEVIN: Yeah.
AMY: I mean, imagine if you and Mark decided to hold off on that trip.
BEVIN: Right, right.
AMY: It gives me chills.
BEVIN: Well, and it’s so many things. Like, I wrote my dad a letter the week he died. He had cancer, and we didn't know he was going to die when I went home. And I wrote him this letter while he was taking a nap, and I was going to mail it to him, and I decided instead to hand it to him. And I called him when I got back to Chicago—I was living in Chicago at the time—and he was like, “Thank you so much. This letter means so much to me. I love you very much.” And that's the last time I talked to him, because he passed away, like, two days later.
So I am all about—the N in DAMN is “now is the time,” so I am all about do the thing, right?
AMY: Do the thing.
BEVIN: Say the thing to people that you love, do the thing, do the damn thing.
So, I want to tell a little bit more of the progression of this story—
AMY: Please.
BEVIN: —because this is where you come into it a little bit.
AMY: Oh, okay. Okay.
BEVIN: So, that January—so when I joined DCA, one of the bonuses of who I joined through, I got to come out to San Diego to meet with our mutual friend Dana Malstaff, and you came to lunch with us.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: And two things. One thing that you don't know at all—nobody, hardly anybody knows—that was the day I made a huge shift in my business and in my path. So—
AMY: Oh, tell me about that.
BEVIN: Yeah. So part of the D is finding our yes in our why, and you and I are going to talk a little bit about that later in the show. But it was the first time I said out loud to people, like, not in my close circle, that one of my goals for growing my business was that I wanted to have a third child.
And so Mark and I had two IVF babies. We were sixty days away from starting another round of IVF to have our third kid. And I felt like it wasn't fair to lose that dream that same weekend.
And so—what? It would be ten months ago—
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: —I decided—well, before that, a year ago, I decided to move forward with IVF, with embryos that Mark and I had frozen before he passed away. And I have a five-week-old.
AMY: Oh, my gosh! This story gets more incredible!
BEVIN: I just had my daughter.
AMY: So you had a baby girl five weeks ago?
BEVIN: Yeah. Her name is Mirastella, which means miracle star, because she is truly a miracle.
AMY: Truly.
BEVIN: And she's amazing, and it is the wild, wild west here.
AMY: Do you see Mark in her?
BEVIN: Of course. It's so funny. It's so maddening. All three of my kids look just like Mark, which is fantastic. But I'm also like, why can't one of you look like me? I carried you. Why can’t you—
AMY: Right. It’s like, come on, now. Where's the loyalty?
BEVIN: Exactly.
And I used this same framework to make that decision, to decide to do it, and to stay present, and to know that now is the time, because I know it's a crazy idea. I mean, there's never a day it wasn't going to be crazy, right?
AMY: Right.
BEVIN: It wasn’t going to be like, oh, in five years, it'll totally make sense.
And the other thing you did, I just want to say, the other thing you did that day, I was doing a completely different business.
AMY: Okay. I want you to talk about that, because a lot of people listening, they know they need to transition their business. They know they need to change things up, but they're scared to do so. I made a huge transition two years into my business. I was doing one on one and said no more, and I started doing courses. So tell me, show us how the business transitioned into the DAMN framework that you use now. And just so you all, those are listening, we're going to get into that framework. She's going to help us understand it because it's going to help all of us. But show me the transition of your business.
BEVIN: Back when I got laid off and I started my business again, it was called Collaborate.Work, and it was a launch strategy and execution business. That's what I had been doing. It was to help people take their business from four to five figures, up to six and seven figures. And that's what I was doing when I met you.
And I just remember, because I was telling you about my lead magnet, and you were like, “Do you say it all the time?” I was like, “I don't. I never say it.” You’re like, “Girl! You got to say it! You got to tell people every time you're out there.” And I realized that part of why I didn't, because I wasn't passionate about it. It was good stuff. It was really good material. But it didn't light me up the way that the DAMN framework does.
And so I continued doing a lot of one-on-one work throughout 2020. I built a multi-six-figure business in 2020 even while grieving my husband, even in the middle of a pandemic. So I knew that the business worked, but at the end of 2020, I shared a story that the restaurant where Mark and I had met was closing down. I wanted to get the sign from that restaurant. It blew up. People were going crazy about it. I started the Take the Damn Trip group, and we sold T-shirts. We pre-sold T-shirts. The community, the Take the Damn Trip community, designed them. They say, “We're not promised tomorrow. #TaketheDamnTrip.” And we raised, like, six thousand dollars. And we got the sign—it's hanging on my front porch—
AMY: Oh, my gosh.
BEVIN: But then, we took all the other money, and we donated it to a friend's adoption fund, because that's their trip. That's the thing they are most passionate about. And so I created the Take the Damn Trip workshop course, which teaches people the DAMN framework. And it did okay. It didn't do great. And I realized I just, I was explaining this, I was kind of thinking about my journey over the past nine, ten months. It's because it was too general. And I was so resistant to niching down, because I know that this DAMN framework works. It changes your life.
AMY: Ooh, wait. Let me stop you. That's a big deal that you just said, and some people will really resonate with that. She believed in what she was teaching so very much, she knew it could help everybody, so she was resistant to niche down. But I know you since have, because that's how you get seen and heard in a noisy world online.
BEVIN: Yeah.
AMY: So what did you do with that? Even though you know this could help everyone, what did you do?
BEVIN: So I had to think about, well, what was I really known for? I was known for building successful businesses. I was known for helping people get specific and launch their courses and their businesses. So I now have a mastermind called Grow the Damn Business, because if you see something with the word damn in it, it’s probably me. Just throwing it out there.
AMY: Good to know, good to know.
BEVIN: So, I have a mastermind that is Grow the Damn Business, and I include all of the courses that I built for Collaborate.Work, because I had a bunch of mini courses. They get those as part of the mastermind. That was something I was like, oh, everything I've built has not been wasted; I’m able to still use it. And then the course that I'll be building after my maternity leave is Start the Damn Business, and that is to help people figure out what is the thing they want to focus on, and how do you apply this framework to building and growing it?
AMY: So fantastic.
BEVIN: And I know I can add more niches in the future, right? I know I can do that.
AMY: Of course. Of course. Such a great point.
Now, what kind of success have you seen since you've been niching down?
BEVIN: Oh, my gosh. Okay. So, like I said, the Take the Damn Trip, I sold, like, nine, and I was selling it for a very low price point. And so I made, like, a thousand dollars. And I tried to launch it again at a higher price point, and I didn't sell it. It just didn't—I mean, you talk about flop launches. Like, that one hurt.
So now that I have this mastermind, which is—I mean, it does include group coaching, right, so it's not completely hands-off digital course. But I've launched it twice. I've made, like, forty-seven thousand dollars—
AMY: Wow.
BEVIN: —off of those two. I mean, it’s a much higher price point. But what I saw was it's, first of all, it's just math. It's always just math. It's 1 to 4 percent conversion rate. That's what it is. So I had a hundred people join a challenge the first time I launched it, and three people bought. And it was a five-thousand-dollar course at the time. And I did that again, and I had eighty-five people join, and three people bought. And it was a seventy-five-hundred-dollar course at that time. And then I did a renewal from that first group and two out of three people renewed. So I actually think I've made more than the forty-seven-thousand dollars now. I think I've actually made close to sixty thousand. But I couldn't have started with a five-thousand-dollar course.
AMY: Yes. It's so true. The price point and what you're offering, it evolves. It evolves over time. That's what I love about masterminds and memberships and, of course, digital courses, because you get to evolve with your courses. You get to grow with them. You get to change the price when you think it's necessary and appropriate. So I love that you moved into that the way you did.
BEVIN: Well, and I, again, we're going to talk about this a little bit later, but I think there's three parts to your pricing, and it's the three Cs. I make everything so easy for me to remember.
AMY: My favorite, my favorite.
BEVIN: We’ve got the DAMN framework; there's four questions that spell TRIP; there's the three Cs. It's all so easy. So with pricing, there's Cost, there's Context, and there's Confidence. And so you can't just put a number out there. I mean, you can. You can pick any number you want. But what's the context around it? What does it include? And then do you have the confidence to say it? Because that's the other thing, and you've seen it when people start out doing webinars. When you don't have that confidence going into it, there's such a dramatic shift in the energy between teaching and selling—
AMY: Yes, yes.
BEVIN: —it sucks it out of the room. So you've got to have all three of those.
AMY: Oh, so true. I love that. I hope that really helps someone that was listening, because pricing is something that a lot of people get stuck with. And I talk a lot about that end part, that confidence. And you said it so perfectly, something about the transition from teaching to selling?
BEVIN: Yeah.
AMY: We've got to have that confidence moving into selling. So, okay. Good. I'm glad you brought that up, because it is something that a lot of my students struggle with.
Now, I want to pivot here, and I want to dive into workshopping part of your framework. But before we do that, can you briefly walk us through what the DAMN framework is so we can get a good understanding?
BEVIN: Absolutely. So D is Decide and Declare, and that is we have to pick our top priority because when everything is a priority, nothing is. And it doesn't matter. I mean, I did a challenge around starting a business, and one of my friends reached out and said, “Look, I've decided I don't want to start a business. I want to adopt a child.” I said, “Great. Go for that. Decide and declare what your top priority is.”
So we have to—this is the trick questions—we have to decide, are you willing to make it your top priority? Are you willing to resource it with time, energy, money? Is it inspiring? Is it something you're moving towards and that you're super excited about? And is it personal? Is it your dream or goal? So we have to decide our top priority. And this is where—this is where we're going to workshop the D more. We have to pick our yes and our why. And that's what we're going to workshop, so I'm not going to go into it too much.
AMY: Okay.
BEVIN: And then when we Declare, I'm not saying shout it from the social-media rooftops.
AMY: Okay.
BEVIN: Start small. When I decided to get pregnant the third time, I told three people. I have this small group of my girlfriends, and I said, “Look, I don't have Mark for this journey, so your job is to be a cheerleader. It is, ‘Hey, I had a blood test.’ ‘Yay!’ ‘I had an ultrasound.’ ‘That's great!’ That's your job.” And part of that is because when your idea is a fledgling little baby, telling a lot of people can erode that dream because they are not comfortable with it. And so it's the difference between permission and support. And we don't need permission to follow our dreams. You don't. Like, you’re grown up. You're not a second grader trying to get to the zoo. You don't need permission to follow your dreams. You can ask people for support, but it's a different energy, because if you're saying, “Hey, I'm thinking about building a digital course. What do you think?” or “I'm thinking about quitting my job. Do you think that I should?” or even like, “Hey, I'm thinking about getting back out there and dating. What are your thoughts on that?” that’s asking people for permission, and when you do that, they try it on for themselves.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: And if it's uncomfortable in any way, shape, or form, they start to eat away at that because they want to keep you safe, and they don't want to see you fail, and they don't want to have this implied responsibility for whether you're successful or not. So they'll be like, “Ooh, I don't know. In this economy, should you really quit your job?” or “During a pandemic, is that the time to build a course?” And so that's why we don't ask for permission; we want to ask for support. And the difference is, “Hey, I'm going to get pregnant with my third child. I would love your support. If you're not comfortable with that, that's totally okay. I'm going to do it anyway.” Their decision to support you or not is not going to impact your decision to go after your dreams.
AMY: Huge. That's huge.
BEVIN: Yeah. So, that’s D, Decide and Declare. So you can start increasing that circle of declare as you get more confident and comfortable, because there's a point where you want people to poke holes. You want people to say, “Ooh, that's great. But you need to think about niching down, maybe. Maybe you need to do what you’re resisting, or you need to think about your price,” and help you flesh things out, but not when it's an itty-bitty, tiny, baby dream.
AMY: Got it. Got it.
BEVIN: So then A is Attend Your Own Party, and that also has two parts. One is staying present in the moment is where we make our strongest decisions. So we create our experience through our thoughts. And when we are stuck in anxiety or worry, and we're thinking about the future or the past, we're not making the strongest decisions in the present. And so getting grounded back in our body, because our body can only ever be in one place, making a decision from that present moment is where you will make your decision. And then, you can pivot as needed, based on what's going on.
And the other part of A is staying on our own map and comparing ourselves to our journey, as opposed to me comparing myself to you and your business or comparing myself to somebody who's just starting out. We can always make ourselves feel better or worse, depending on who we compare ourselves to.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: So, staying on our own map, so that's A.
AMY: I love it. Okay. That's A.
BEVIN: And then M is Moments, Not Minutes, or meaningful moments. So this is we all, first of all, we all want to be part of something with significance, with meaning. That's why Take the Damn Trip took off so much, because it was significant. It is a true story about me losing the love of my life, which says, like, hey, we can't wait for the right day. But it's also something that supports my community, my Take the Damn Trip community, in going after their own big, bold, crazy dreams, whether that's writing a book or starting a business or whatever that is. So it has significance.
And the other part of it is we can't be everywhere at once. We have to choose. And I remember saying to Dana that day back in San Diego, “Oh, my gosh. I'm going to have three kids while I'm running a business. Am I going to be able to be there enough for them?” And she said to me, “Do you want to be there for the moments or the minutes?” I said, Oh, I want to be there for the moments.”
So when I built my business, I leave my desk every day at three o'clock to go pick my daughter up from preschool, and I come back at four, because she loves me picking her up, and she throws the door open and goes, like, “Mom!,” like she's never seen me before. “Mama! It’s so goo that you’re here!”
AMY: Best feeling ever.
BEVIN: Yes, it really is. And so that's the moment. I remember years ago, for Guinevere’s first day of preschool, Mark, the night before, he was like, he had to go to work. And I said, “That's fine. I'll send you pictures.” And he came back in the room, and he said, “You know what? I'm not going to make everybody happy tomorrow, so I'm going to choose to make my wife and my daughter happy because they're the most important people to me.” So he called his boss, and he said, “Can I come in ninety minutes late?” And he said, “Yeah, sure. No problem.” And he stayed home for preschool. We had our chocolate chip pancakes. We took our pictures. We dropped her off at school. So that was the moment, right? And so he chose that over the minutes.
AMY: So powerful.
BEVIN: Okay. And then N is Now is the Time. And again, there's two parts to it.
AMY: Of course there are.
BEVIN: I can’t just have one part, either. So the two things are, the first part is, the scariest place to be for any big idea is at the beginning, because the hardest place to be is standing still. So it's inertia, an object at rest tends to stay at rest, or even an object in motion tends to stay motion. If you're headed down a career path, it's likely you're just going to stay in motion unless something changes you. So that’s the scary part.
And so I teach what I call micro actions, which is the smallest action that you will actually take. And so too often we try to, we’re like, “I’m going to build a website.” Way too big, way too big of an idea. Go buy the URL, write the headline for the first page, pick a lead magnet, like, smallest possible action that you will actually take. If you're creating a lead magnet, write the headline, write the first paragraph, and that, over time, your momentum will build, and your smallest possible actions will become bigger.
Now mine, if I say I'm going to launch something, I write the first email.
AMY: Ooh, that's a good one.
BEVIN: Yeah. Years ago, it was write the subject line. Write, “Dear Friend.” Just open the Google Doc, right? Now it’s write the first email. Write the second email. And so your smallest possible actions will grow, but for now, make them tiny. And if you don't do it, then make them smaller.
And then the other part of the N, which we've talked about, is we are not promised tomorrow. So if there will never be a perfect day, why not today? I am so glad that I joined DCA when I did and started building my courses, because, like, my goal for 2020, before Mark passed away, was to make a business that if he wanted to quit his job, he could. He didn't have to. But if he wanted to, the financial burden was not going to be the reason he did it. So I'm so glad that I joined when I did, because I had already started the momentum down the path when Mark passed away. And if I was also trying—and he passed away in November. If in January I was like, “Okay. Now I have to start a business,” I wasn’t going to be in the mental space to be able to do that.
AMY: Right.
BEVIN: So we never know what's going to happen, so why not today?
AMY: Why not today? That is powerful. Why not today?
Okay. So this framework is incredible. And I mean, it goes without saying that how you got here makes it even more meaningful because you've lived it, you've experienced it. And so where do we start? Where do we start with this?
BEVIN: Okay. So we're going to start, we're going to focus on the D because we really don't have time to do all four.
AMY: Right.
BEVIN: So with the D, we have to get clear on our why and our yes, because it becomes so much easier to bring our big, bold, crazy dream to life when we do that. So the why will get you through the hard times, and there's going to be hard times. But when you know your why, it's easier to cross those rocky periods. And the yes makes it clear what we want to go after. Because whenever we decide something, there is a yes and there's implied noes. So me being here today talking to you, I said a whole bunch of unsaid noes, right? I'm not taking a nap, I'm not with my kids, I'm not—but that's okay because this was my important yes. So when we know our yes, the noes becomes so much easier.
So when you're thinking about your yes, what is it, if we're talking about a business—like, we'll stick with that—when you're thinking about your yes, what is it that you could talk about all day, every day for the rest of your life, or the next couple years? Right? That was me we talked about. I didn't want to talk about spreadsheets anymore. That's why I wasn't talking about Collaborate.Work enough. I could talk about the DAMN framework all day, every day. I do. I mean, it comes up in conversation all the time.
AMY: I want to mention something that I just realized as I'm promoting Digital Course Academy this time, something that came to me that you just said reminded me of it. And that is you said what's something that you could talk about all day, any time? And for you, it's the DAMN framework. For me, it's digital courses. But what I realize, and this might help somebody, is that I'm not obsessed with digital courses. I'm obsessed with what digital courses can do for your business and your life.
BEVIN: Exactly.
AMY: I'm obsessed with what happens from whatever I'm teaching. So you might not be totally obsessed or passionate about the exact thing you're teaching, but you have to feel so excited about what that thing leads to. That's another way to look at it.
BEVIN: Yeah. I just got chills. I mean, that's it. Like, your yes, I really don't think is actually digital courses. Sorry. Sorry to burst your bubble.
AMY: Right. I agree now. I would have, like, a year ago, I’d been like what? Shut your mouth. But I get it now.
BEVIN: You would have ended the recording.
AMY: Edit this out, Kylie.
BEVIN: Right. But when you think, when we go deeper, and you say you want to help people change their lives through the medium of digital courses, you want to help people have more financial security through digital courses, it's not just about creating a digital course. It's about a life that you're helping people create.
AMY: Yes, yes, yes.
BEVIN: And that's the feeling right there, what you just—like, the yes, that’s it. When I talk about the DAMN framework, I'm like, it's the things that you're like, “Damn, yes.”
AMY: Okay. That’s so good, because I’m often am like, “Damn, it’s so good.” Like, that’s when you know.
BEVIN: That’s when you know.
Okay. So that is how—and again, it shifts, right? Like, you started. You wanted to leave working with Tony Robbins and work with clients one on one. That was your yes. And then you were like, this isn't really it, and so you shifted. And it may shift again at some point. Who knows, right?
So then your why is why do you want that? Why? And get really specific on as many details as you want. So for me, I wanted to build a business while also being the mama that I wanted to be to my kiddos, which meant I didn't want to work eighty hours a week. I wanted to be able to leave at three and pick my daughter up at preschool. I want to be done at dinner time.
So when I started, I was…first of all, I was single without kids.
AMY: Right, right.
BEVIN: But I would work till 2:00 a.m. because I’d get messages from my clients out in the West Coast at 2:00 a.m., and I would work. I would go to networking events every night until 11:00. I would do all those things. That's not what I want now. So we get really specific. I want to be able to take my kids, eventually, when they're little older, to a different country every summer and have them learn the language. So I never want to worry about whether to get an appetizer or a dessert at dinner. I want my business to thrive so that it can support the life that I want, which means I have child care. So I plan for that when I do my forecasting for my business. And I want to share my message because I know it's life changing with as many people as possible.
So, I want to ask you, what is your why? Why do you do it?
AMY: Mm. It’s such a great question, and I'm going to answer why I do it, and I want all of you who are listening to just say out loud, if you can, where you are, what your why is. But this is so weird timing. But this morning I was talking to a friend. Her name is Elizabeth Benton. She has a great podcast called Primal Potential. And she was saying that—I've been struggling with this one area of my life. And she said, “You have to have enough reasons why you want it, like more than one reason why you want it, and you've got to remind yourself every day of those reasons so that you continue down the path.”
BEVIN: Right.
AMY: And I thought that was so powerful. And that's exactly what you're saying. You just listed all of these reasons why. And I could do the same. Like you said, I started out with, I didn't want to be told what to do, when to do it, how to do it, or where to do it by a boss.
BEVIN: Right, right.
AMY: I just did not want that. And that pulled me through. That right there, four reasons—what to do, when to do, how to do it, or where to do it—four reasons pulled me through for probably the first two years of my business. But then from there, when I started to evolve and started to learn more and understand the potential of what I was creating, then it became, I wanted to support our family if Hobie was working or not. I wanted to create a lifestyle where I did not have to worry about how much money was in the bank and if we were going to be okay. I wanted that safety.
And then it evolved into, I wanted to help as many people as possible leave something behind that no longer served them and move toward more freedom in their lifestyle, whatever that meant for them. So today I get up because I think about that woman in the cubicle that she's at a nine-to-five job. Hates it. Knows she's made for more, but has no idea what to do about it. I want to find a way to get in her earbuds through my podcast, or she stumbles upon a video and all of a sudden she's like, “Wait a second. There's another world out there?” Like, that's what I live for these days.
BEVIN: Yeah. And I should have mentioned, if people listening go to takethedamntrip.com/amy, and I have a workbook that walks you through this as we're talking.
AMY: Oh, cool.
BEVIN: So pause it, you can go, come back, and where you can brainstorm your why and your yes, and like I said, get so specific. And maybe some of the whys that you and I just mentioned seem so extravagant to people. It's your why.
AMY: Yeah.
BEVIN: And that's the thing. We talked about you don't need people's permission. Maybe somebody’s why right now is just, I want to make an extra thousand dollars a month so that we can go on vacation this year, or whatever it is. We can pay off our car, or I want to make an extra—I want to make twenty-five hundred dollars a month because that will replace my salary and I can move towards leaving my job. Whatever your why is, it's yours. That's the personal part, right? That's the part that is yours and not anybody else's.
AMY: I love that. So true. So true.
BEVIN: And so then, once you have that, once you have your yes and your why, and like I said, get as specific as possible, then just distill it down to an easy-to-say-and-remember statement. And so mine is, I want to share the DAMN message with as many people as possible through as many avenues as possible to create a business and life that both supports and inspires my family. That's mine. Now, when I say that, I know it means take my kids on vacations to different countries. It means be able to stay in our dream home. It means, like last night, I treated my sister to a really nice dinner out. I know that that's what it means. But it's just easy to say when you're having those rough times. Like, okay. Why am I doing this again?
AMY: Yeah. Say yours again. Say it one more time.
BEVIN: So, I want to share the DAMN message with as many people as possible through as many ways as possible in order to build a business and a life that both supports and inspires my family.
AMY: Oh, that's beautiful.
BEVIN: So I want my daughter to see me building a business from our home that I can also be in her life. I don't have to go away every day for ten hours a day.
AMY: It's powerful. I love that it's packed with so many reasons behind it. But you've got this one statement that kind of unlocks all of them because you know what they are. So are you suggesting that we all have that one statement we create that kind of is that powerful catalyst for all of us?
BEVIN: Yeah, totally. And again, it's, like, do it with everything. When you were talking to Elizabeth about whatever area of your life it is. Like for me, I'm about to test whether this framework works on health and fitness.
AMY: That was the one I was talking to her about.
BEVIN: Yeah. Because it is, like, you and I are so similar in so many ways, where I'm like, I would really like to get back to my goal weight. I don't really care enough to do anything about it.
AMY: That’s what she said. I was telling her that I've gained weight for over the last year, and I'm so disappointed in myself, and she's like, you have to start listing all the reasons. And in this situation, she said it can't be just to lose weight, because there's all these other reasons why you want to eat to soothe your feelings and your emotions and all of that. So she was saying, like, you can't just have one reason, because it's going to be overpowered so easily. And I think that works in every area of our life.
BEVIN: Yeah. So, yeah. I mean, I'm just giving myself another couple of weeks on maternity leave, but like, I'm going to get specific, and I know that some of it is losing weight and some of it is being in better shape and some of it is, frankly, I want to look a certain way—
AMY: Yeah.
BEVIN: —which people are like, “Oh, that's vain.” It's like, that's my reason.
AMY: That’s mine.
BEVIN: I don’t care.
AMY: Yeah. Like, don't touch it. It can be whatever I want it to be. And I love that.
BEVIN: But it's also, I got to tell you, the other reason I really want to do it is it's the one goal I haven't reached in my life.
AMY: Ooh, you like a good challenge.
BEVIN: I do! I do! And I’m like, I’ve made money, I’ve built a business, I have these kids, I had an amazing relationship. Man, why can’t I just do this one thing that is actually probably more in my control than any of the others?
AMY: Yes. That’s a really good why, though, is that one thing I haven’t conquered.
BEVIN: Yeah.
AMY: And I love that. It's so fun to—I think we all should sit down, and I will very much be doing this is—it’s so weird that Elizabeth recommended it, now you are in literally the same day to me—but I will be sitting down and brainstorming all of my reasons why, for the different things I want in my life, not just my health, but there's other things I want to reach, other goals I have. I think this is so powerful.
BEVIN: Yeah. So this is why I say it does work in any area. And by the way, when I see you in Nashville in a couple of weeks, I'm going to ask you—
AMY: Please do.
BEVIN: —what your statement is.
AMY: Okay. I love it. I love it.
BEVIN: But it worked when I—like I said, I used this when I decided to get pregnant. I decided that I was going to make it my top priority. I was going to put resources behind it. I was inspired by it. It was my goal. I declared it. I started with a small group, and then I started moving out. I said to my doctor, I said, “Look,” because he had been through it with all three of my pregnancies now. And he was like, “Are you sure?” And I said, “Look, I am giving myself permission to attend my own party.” He probably looked at me crazy. Like, I don't know what that means. I said, “I’m staying present in the moment. And literally up until the moment that you do the transfer, I am giving myself permission to stop,” which, also, he was like, “So I'm going to pencil you in for this procedure?” And that was it. And I said, “I'm choosing meaning. This is something Mark and I were doing together, and it is one of my dreams. And it is, now is the time. Why wait for the perfect day that will never exist?”
So, yeah. Health, finances, relationships. Like, why do you want to be in a relationship? It's not just I want to meet somebody. It's I want to have that support. I want to have somebody to go on adventures with. I want to have somebody to bounce ideas off of or to support me during difficult times. What's your why?
So, okay. So that is the first part of it. And the other part I want to talk to you about today is specific to business and courses, which is when we think about what we want to create, what our business is going to be, there's four things to consider. And like we said, it's a dance, right? Like, you can pick any entry point that you want here, and it might shift as things evolve. So it's who, what, how, and how much?
So there are some people in your audience who know who they want to serve. They want to serve moms going through fertility, or women going through fertility issues. They want to serve teachers in third grade. They're very specific about who it is that they want to serve.
I know what I want to do. I want to teach the DAMN framework. And like I said, at first I didn't care who it was for. Now I realize that 95 percent of my audience is women, most of them are moms, who want to create amazing things for themselves and their kids. So my what is the DAMN framework.
Then we talk about how. How do you want to reach them? Do you want to do one on one? Do you want to do digital courses? Do you want to do masterminds? Whatever it is.
And then how much do you want to charge? And so I had a client. He wanted to teach. I mean, he started out wanting to teach broke college students, which I don't recommend ever picking something where the qualifier is broke.
AMY: Agree, agree.
BEVIN: They have to have the willingness and the ability to pay. That is actually a very important thing.
AMY: Mm-hmm.
BEVIN: But he wanted to teach young college students sort of the methods to become an entrepreneur eventually. He wanted to do it through digital courses, and he wanted to charge like three hundred dollars and up. Well, broke college students, (a) they don't even pay for courses right now because they can just Google it all. But they certainly weren't going to pay three hundred dollars and up. And when they said it, they were like, “I'd rather just do one-on-one work.” It didn't check any of the boxes that he wanted. So I said, “You have to pick your focal point. You have to start somewhere.”
So I'm curious. Like, where would you start? If I was like, okay, do you want to do who, what, how, or how much? What's your most important piece?
AMY: Is there a right or wrong answer here?
BEVIN: No, no, no, no. Totally not.
AMY: Okay. So the what would be what I would focus on.
BEVIN: Okay. Yeah, exactly. Like, right now for you what’s most important is teaching digital courses. Not just how to create them with DCA, but then how to actually grow your business through Momentum.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: Right? So that’ the what. And I think your who, like your ICA worksheet is truly one of the best. I send people to it all the time.
AMY: Oh, I love that.
BEVIN: And it's funny because that's like when I know my yes, I know my zone of genius. That's what Gay Hendricks calls it in The Big Leap. And so I sent—people will come to me and say, “Will you help me build a course?” I'm like, “I will not. I will not do that.” Even though I'm good at it, and I've done it—I truly, I sent a client to DCA. I said, “Come back after you've taken DCA, and I'll help you launch it.”
AMY: Ah, best compliment ever.
BEVIN: But you're just going to spend too much money hiring me to do it for you. Like, just go take DCA, come back with a solid course, and then we'll go for it. So that's the what.
Yeah. I think that's great that you know what it is that you want to teach. What are you an expert in? What do you want to talk about for the next five to ten years?
And so then we talk about how. How do we want to teach it? You started out one to one, now you teach digital courses, but you have a live component to your course.
AMY: Yes, yes.
BEVIN: When you do DCA, you’re live so much during—
AMY: Four days a week for ten weeks.
BEVIN: I mean, it's a lot. You get a lot of Amy, which is great.
AMY: You do. You better be ready for it, my friends who join.
BEVIN: It’s so true. And then with Momentum, you have a membership, but with Momentum it's not as much you, right? You go live once or twice a month—
AMY: Right.
BEVIN: —and then there’s templates and there's Q&As and there's other trainings. So that's the how.
I actually really love the mastermind because I like working with a group and I like that live component. I have digital courses. I will continue to add those. So that's the how. And like you said, it's both, what methods do you enjoy, and what is your audience telling you that they want?
AMY: Yes. Great. Great point, that I think the two definitely need to be married.
BEVIN: Right. And however, if the audience you have picked is telling you they want something you don't enjoy, then maybe you need to shift your audience a little bit.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: That's why I say this is a dance. It's not, oh, I go who, what, how, how much. It's like, no, it all has to work together.
AMY: It truly does. I mean, this is powerful. I love that we went deep into the first part of the framework because, obviously, it's where it all starts. But some people are listening right now.
BEVIN: Oh, there's one more part I got to do on those four questions, Amy.
AMY: What? Tell me.
BEVIN: One more part.
AMY: Okay. Tell me.
BEVIN: It’s the how much. And we touched on it earlier, right? It's the Cost, Context, and Confidence because people will say, “Okay. I'm going to charge four ninety seven,” but there's no context behind it, right? So you've got to say, you can either pick cost or context to start. And it's like, “Okay. I'm going to charge four ninety seven. What does a four-ninety-seven course or product look like?” So it's what needs to be included, what's too much? Or if people aren't buying it at four ninety seven and you feel like, “Okay. Now I'm going to create a ninety-seven-dollar course,” what does that look like? They will not be the same.
AMY: True.
BEVIN: So you can create smaller things along the way, and then as you increase your price, it's either because you have more confidence in it or you're adding more things. Like, my mastermind includes so much more than my course, so that's why it costs more money. You get more of my attention. You get more of my courses, all the things.
And then the confidence we talked about. You’ve got to be comfortable saying it. And if you don't know what that is, I tell people to pick a number that they're really used to saying, like your address or your last four digits of your phone number. So if people are like, “I don't know what to do. My address is 2565.” I would say, “Okay. What does a two-thousand-five-hundred-sixty-five-dollar course look like? What would I have to include in it?”
AMY: Cool exercise.
BEVIN: Because so much of it is just getting used to saying it. Money’s just a number. We just attach too much emotion to it. So if you don't know what you want it to be—I played this with a group, and this poor woman had a five-digit address.
AMY: Oh, gosh.
BEVIN: She was like, “I don't know. What would a twelve-thousand-dollar-five-hundred course include?”
AMY: I was thinking, “Ooh, I’m lucky. Mine’s just three numbers. That’s easier.”
BEVIN: Right, exactly. Exactly.
Okay. So that’s the four. So now I hope you remember what question you were just going to ask me, since I interrupted you.
AMY: Okay. No, that was good. I almost cut you off on the fourth part, which is important.
So I was thinking, someone's thinking about this framework, and we really got into the first part of it. But what would you say to people who are on the fence for doing something really scary but exciting right now? They want to do it, but they are not moving forward with it. What would you say to them?
BEVIN: Oh, that's such a good question. Okay. So this is something I've been saying a lot recently because it's so true, and that is, we never know what's going to happen to ourselves, to the people we love, to anyone. And that's not a reason to live scared, but it is a reason to live fully. So if something were to happen, do you—like, we regret the things we didn't do, not the things we did, right? When you look back over the last five years of your life, you don't regret taking that risk. And I don't even know, like taking the risk and going on that vacation or taking that risk and starting a project that maybe didn't work out the way you wanted, because you learned. You learned something. But you probably regret something you didn't do.
AMY: For sure. I think we all have that.
BEVIN: Yeah. So if that's going to be the case, then why not give it a try? And I'm big on, okay, well, what would have to happen to make this a no brainer? So if I'm joining something—I just talked to my sister about this last night. I love speaking. I love public speaking. I really want it to be a big part of my business going forward. And so I'm thinking about joining this bootcamp for public speaking. And I said to my sister, “It’s not cheap.” And I said, “But I have to book two presentations to pay for it.”
AMY: I love breaking down the math.
BEVIN: Yeah. It's like what would really have to happen to make this a no brainer? Because we think about big ideas, and we're like, ugh, way too scary. But if it's just a number, it's like, yeah, what would have to happen, but it’s also, okay, again, go back to those micro actions. What's the smallest step you could actually take to move you in that direction? If you're not ready to quit your job, that's fine. But what's the smallest step you can take to start moving you that way? Because what happens is people say, “I'm going to quit my job in two years,” and then they wait one year and eleven months before they actually start doing something towards it.
AMY: Yes.
BEVIN: Instead, just start now. Open a savings account. This is something I do with my clients all time. They want to quit their jobs, which means they're not going to get any kind of severance package, probably. So open a savings account, name it Severance Package, and start just putting some money into it. It doesn't matter where the money comes from. It can just be from your paycheck, and you're going to put a hundred dollars a week into it. It can be from a side hustle that you're doing, whether that's a digital course or whatever. And you're just putting money into it until you get to a number that you're comfortable with, whether that's three months or six months of your salary. And now you know you can quit your job at any time because you have created a severance package.
AMY: I love just this idea of taking action and getting resourceful like that.
BEVIN: Yeah. Because then, again, it's the same thing I said to Mark on the country road. If I don't make another penny going forward, we run out of money on October 12th. It's like, if you don't make a penny going forward, you have six months of resources. But the likelihood at what—what are you going to do? Just sit on your chair and not do anything?
AMY: Right.
BEVIN: No, you're not going to do that.
AMY: The likelihood of that is very slim. So it's like worst-case scenario.
BEVIN: Yeah. Worst-case scenario, you have six months of resources. If you get to five months and you haven't made that, whatever benchmark it is, you're going to get resourceful and you're going to say, “Okay, look. I'm going to take on a part-time job, or I'm going to do something.” But again, if you do that, if you decided to go all in on something, you now have forty hours a week to build a business—
AMY: Yeah.
BEVIN: —not five hours. So, yeah. So that's what I would say. I would say live fully and start with micro actions.
AMY: Micro actions. Yes, indeed. Those are powerful. They move you forward in all the right ways.
Okay. So, Bevin, first of all, thank you so much for being here. This has been such a delight. But here's the cool thing. Bevin and I will be going live next week with a group of other course creators during my live stream. Bevin's actually coming to Nashville on Monday, September 27, from 1:00 to 3:00 p.m. Pacific Standard Time. And we'll be talking about how she successfully launched digital courses and how that led to her lifestyle, so we're going to be getting into courses even more. So if you love this and you want to join us with even more course creators, go to amyporterfield.com/livestream. Amyporterfield.com/livestream. You can get all the details. It's very fun. I only do it once a year. I bring my students in person, this time in Nashville. We're going to have a great time.
BEVIN: I cannot wait. I'm bringing the whole crazy crew.
AMY: Oh, my gosh!
BEVIN: They're not coming to the live stream. They're not coming to the live stream.
AMY: Okay. But maybe, maybe, maybe they could make an appearance at the end so I can see these babies? I mean, think about it, okay? Think about it. How fun. I love that.
BEVIN: My daughter, my older daughter, would, like—she loves it. She’s been on set with me a couple times, and she would just be like, “This is so cool.”
AMY: She's an entrepreneur in the making.
BEVIN: She is, for sure.
AMY: Okay. You're going to need to bring her by.
BEVIN: Okay.
AMY: So, thank you so much for this. And tell everybody where they can find out more about you.
BEVIN: Thank you. First of all, thank you for having me.
AMY: Of course.
BEVIN: I adore you. You know that.
AMY: Likewise.
BEVIN: But I love talking to you. I love sharing this message. I'm so glad your audience is getting to hear it.
So, you can find out more about me at takethedamntrip.com. That's kind of the hub for everything. From there, you can join the Facebook community. You can get a T-shirt. You can, I don't even know what else is there right now. I did a summit, Take the Damn Trip summit. You can get those recordings. And then, like I said, if you go to takethedamntrip.com/amy, you can get the worksheet that walks you through what we workshopped today and a meditation that I have that kind of helps you get in the right headspace to do the brainstorming.
AMY: Wonderful. Obviously, Scout is in the background—
BEVIN: I love it.
AMY: —getting very excited about all of this. So, geez, every single time.
Thank you, again, Bevin. Love you dearly. I love your story. Thank you for sharing it. And I can't wait to see you soon.
BEVIN: Thank you.
AMY: So there you have it. I've heard Bevin's story before. In fact, when we met in San Diego, it was just months since her husband died. I don't even know if it was two months since he had passed. And hearing this story, not even two years later, it feels like a lifetime ago, it still gets me every single time. And I think when we hear stories about other people's losses and, of course, their triumphs, which is so inspiring, but when you hear about another person's loss, you instantly turn inward. And, hopefully, you did what I did, and I thought, “I am so grateful for the loved ones I have around me, and I need to love up on them even more and tell them that I love them and take that damn trip and do all those damn things that will make those moments, not just the minutes.” And I'm taking so much from this episode, but that was one thing that really stuck with me.
And just remember, no matter what you want to do, you don't have to go at it alone. If you're scared and excited, if you want to do it and haven't started, you can do it with somebody else. And I think that part is so important.
So, of course, I teach digital courses, and right now we are talking a lot about Digital Course Academy because the doors are officially open. And if you have had a digital course on your heart and been thinking about it a lot, now is literally the best time to put that into motion. So again, at the time that this episode goes live, doors are open, and they won't be open for a long time.
So maybe you're still at your nine-to-five job, and you're just looking for that exit plan; or maybe you've been pouring your heart into your side hustle, and you're ready to take it to the next level; maybe you’re running yourself empty, trading time for dollars, and you want to move to a different business model; no matter where you are, a digital course can offer you lifestyle freedom like nothing else can. I've experienced it firsthand. Bevin has experienced it, and so many of my students. So now is the time. This is your sign. Come and join me inside of Digital Course Academy. Take the leap and know you're going to land on both feet. The doors close next Tuesday, September 28, 2021. So head to amyporterfield.com/enroll, and let's create that damn course together.
Thanks so much for joining me. I'll see you next week, same time, same place. Bye for now.
