LISA NUNAMAKER: “When I launched my course in February of this year, my goal was to have ten students. My final number was sixty-seven students, which is insane. I made over forty-four thousand dollars in that launch, which is, again, I can't even believe it. I launched the course again in June, and I had a much smaller class, mostly because of our industry. That's a whole other story. The landscape industry is busier in the summer. I learned my lesson. Smaller group. I had about twenty-three students, but still made about fifteen thousand dollars. So with the two of those classes together, I already made more than my annual salary at my full-time job, which is pretty exciting.”
INTRO: I’m Amy Porterfield, ex-corporate girl turned CEO of a multi-seven-figure business. But it wasn't all that long ago that I lacked the confidence, the budget, and the time to focus on growing my small-but-mighty business. Fast forward past many failed attempts and lessons learned, and you'll see the business I have today, one that changes lives and gives me more freedom than I ever thought possible, one that used to only exist as a daydream. I created the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast to give you simple, actionable, step-by-step strategies to help you do the same. If you're an ambitious entrepreneur, or one in the making, who's looking to create a business that makes an impact and a life you love, you're in the right place, friend. Let's get started.
AMY PORTERFIELD: Hey, there, friend. Welcome back to the Online Marketing Made Easy podcast.
Today we are getting into the final Myth Busters episode. But don't worry. I'll still be releasing Tuesday episodes. We're just going to go back to them being more personal, behind the scenes. I usually share every Tuesday what's working in my business; what's not working; what I'm struggling with; all the good, bad, and ugly of building a business. So next Tuesday, we'll go back to that.
But today we are going through our final Myth Buster. Now, if this is your first Myth Buster episode, basically, I've been sharing the five most-common reasons people hesitate or don't move forward with creating a digital course. And I've been sharing students’ stories, my students who have struggled with one of these myths and how they overcame the myth to get success with their digital course.
I'm on a mission to encourage and support as many people as possible in creating a digital-course business, because I've seen firsthand how life changing and business changing that can be. And I've seen it firsthand, of course, in my own business, but with thousands of my students as well.
So the five most-common reasons people don't create a digital course. Number one, “I don't have the time.” Number two, “I'm not credible enough. I need more education, more experience.” Number three, “My audience is way too small,” or “I don't have an email list.” Number four, “I don't have enough content to put into a digital course.” And finally, “It's too expensive to create a digital course,” or “I can't invest in a program to help me create a digital course. I don't have the money.” So that stops people in their tracks.
Now, first and foremost, I want you to know that while I understand that these concerns are valid—they feel very real. In fact, I've had every single one of these thoughts on my journey of creating my digital-course business—but I also know that they are myths. They are not true. They are excuses. And they are rooted out of fear. That I know, for sure, as well. And so over the last few weeks, I've addressed every single one of these myths on my podcast, but this is the last one I’m going to address: “It's too expensive to create a digital course,” or “I don't have the money to invest in creating a digital course.” And I want to talk about that.
In this episode, I'm sharing a story from one of my students who just might inspire you if you are hesitant to start a digital course due to financial concerns. Maybe you think it's too expensive. Or the fact that if you have a digital course you have to quit your job, which means you won't be making money from your job anymore, which is not true; you don't have to quit your job. Or maybe you're concerned that you won't get anybody to buy your course, so then, your return on investment isn't there. Like, I get it. These concerns pop up. It's very natural.
But my student, Lisa Nunamaker, has proven all of these things wrong. Lisa is a teacher who also had a side business for over ten years. Her business is called Paper Garden Workshop, and she teaches garden design and landscape graphics to budding designers around the world. When she first found out about my program Digital Course Academy from one of her friends, she was really excited about the opportunity to create something amazing, and her mind started racing with ideas of what she could create. But she admits that although she had a head full of ideas, she was concerned about the cost of investing in Digital Course Academy. It’s two thousand dollars. That's a lot of money, right? And she needed to make sure that if she took this leap of faith, if she invested her money in this program, that it would make sense financially for her and her partner.
So Lisa sat down, and she crunched the numbers. She realized that, “You know what? If I can sign up just ten students, ten students, then DCA would be well worth my investment.” And she then felt excited and courageous about going for it. But I love that, that she set a goal. “Look, if I can get ten students, I could make up my money of investing in the program and then some,” and she'll be golden.
So in February 2021, she enrolled in Digital Course Academy, and she launched her first digital course called Garden Graphics Tool Kit. And I love this part of the story: she launched even though her course wasn't totally finished yet. And she said that's very unlike her. And Lisa, I totally get it. You want it to be perfect. She said she had anxiety about launching something before it was done, but she knew she had to go for it.
And as a side note, in Digital Course Academy, I teach my students how to literally launch their course and make money before the actual course is finished. It's a strategy that I want you all to try. And so she followed my strategy, and she had amazing success.
So remember how she crunched the numbers and found that if she just enrolled ten people, she'd make up her Digital Course Academy investment? Which meant she has a course, she charges two hundred dollars for it, and if ten people buy it, she's already paid for Digital Course Academy. So, like, anything over that would be gravy for her. Well, are you ready for this?—if you're multitasking, come back to me. I'm going to blow your mind—she enrolled sixty-seven students and made a whopping forty-four thousand dollars in sales. What? I mean, come on. This is the stuff that I live for.
Now, if you do the math, you can tell that she did not charge two hundred dollars for her course. And this happens a lot when people get into my world. I teach you how to decide on the price of your course based on the results you're promising, the type of course you're creating, how you're positioning it. So she ended up charging more for her course because she knew it was worth more. She sold sixty-seven students into her course, with a whopping forty-four-thousand-dollars-plus in sales. That is incredible.
But Lisa wasn't quite done. She went on to launch the course a second time, which I teach you how to do. I don't want you to just create this course and launch it once. I want you to launch it over and over and over again. So she launched it again, generated another twenty thousand dollars, and she quickly found that her students wanted more. So she decided to start a membership on the back end of her course, something a lot of my students do over time, and she generated another eight thousand eight hundred dollars.
So let's just hear a little bit from Lisa about how this all unfolded for her.
LISA: So a year ago was when I joined DCA, and the main thing that was holding me back at the time was the cost. I wasn't sure if I should make such a big investment. But with some number crunching, my partner and I decided it was well worth the investment. All I had to do was get ten students, and I felt very confident that I could do that. So I took the plunge, and it was worth every minute, every penny.
When I joined DCA last fall, my email list was at forty-five hundred people, and that list had grown slowly and organically over the last ten years. Basically, the main reason why it happened is that a writing agent suggested to me many years ago to make my book proposal at the time, make it a lead magnet so I could grow my platform. It was the best advice I ever got.
The biggest takeaways I got from DCA, number one is that my course did not have to be created, nor did it have to be perfect, to publish it. That was awesome. The other thing was that I loved creating my course while I was in the class. That was a big, big, big sell because I've taken many classes, but this is the first class I’ve ever taken where I came out of the class with something impactful that I could actually use.
This course, also, finally gave me the skills that I needed to fulfill my dreams as an entrepreneur. Even though I'm still working full time, I do teach full time, so it's a pretty flexible schedule. The fact that I can now start to build this business on the side is amazing. So DCA started to give me those tools that I needed to create and start and, finally, like, flame that dream so I can keep going. It really gave me the momentum and propelled me forward.
When I launched my course in February of this year, my goal was to have ten students. My final number was sixty-seven students, which is insane. I made over forty-four thousand dollars in that launch, which is, again, I can't even believe it. I launched the course again in June, and I had a much smaller class, mostly because of our industry. That's a whole other story. The landscape industry is busier in the summer. I learned my lesson. Smaller group. I had about twenty-three students, but still made about fifteen thousand dollars. So with the two of those classes together, I already made more than my annual salary at my full-time job, which is pretty exciting. So now I know I can keep going and building this, which is just awesome.
My first class was so awesome. They wanted to stick together, so we also created a membership. And so now I have a back-end membership that also has generated about another eight thousand dollars so far. And I have ideas for additional memberships I would love to do.
AMY: So you may be wondering how much money you could make off a digital course. And I always love to walk my students through their course profit potential, similar to what Lisa did to give her the confidence that she needed to take that leap and enroll in Digital Course Academy. So if you want a deep dive into how to find your course profit potential, I want you to listen to episode 596. So amyporterfield.com/596. And the title of the episode is “What's Your Digital-Course Profit Potential?” And I'll walk you through it.
But just to give you a quick example, you start to think about how much money you want to make. So with Lisa, she's like, “If I could just make two thousand dollars and cover the cost of DCA, I'm good.” But maybe you want to shoot for a little higher. Like, “I would really like to make ten thousand dollars.” So let's say you wanted to make ten thousand dollars, and you charge five hundred dollars for your course. That means twenty people, twenty people, need to sign up, and you just made ten thousand dollars. Like, that is incredible. Twenty people is very doable when you follow a model, when you have a plan, when you're growing your audience while you're creating your course. Very doable.
So if you want to run your own course math, go to amyporterfield.com/596. My goal is to help my students get their ROI back as quickly as possible. That’s important to me no matter what your financial situation is. So if you're thinking, “Ah, it's so expensive to create a course,” number one, Digital Course Academy, yes, it’s two thousand dollars. Yes, we offer a payment plan. And we only offer it once a year, so time is running out if you want to get into the program.
But what I'll tell you is that investing in Digital Course Academy and learning how to use technology and software and different tools that will not break the bank so that when you create your digital course you're going to do it in the simplest way so that you do not have to invest a lot of money, that's part of what I teach. My goal is to save you as much money as possible. And most of my students who get into Digital Course Academy do not have a bunch of money to throw at this. They are on very tight budgets. So we're going to create your course in a way that will not break the bank, that will be using free tools so that you don't have to invest a lot in order to make a lot with your course.
And here's one more thing I want to mention. You can absolutely go on this journey alone. But there is so much power in investing and learning from someone who has gone before you, who has been in the trenches and knows what works and what doesn't, someone who's willing to lay out the entire framework and teach you step by step instead of you hunting and pecking all around the web, trying to pull the pieces together, not even knowing if you're learning from someone who has had success. My sweet friend, it will take you so much longer if you try to do this alone. Trust me. I've seen and heard this time and time again. My students wish that they had enrolled in Digital Course Academy sooner. So let me be your guide.
If you're listening to this in real time, Digital Course Academy is officially open for a limited time. You can create a business beyond your wildest dreams, and you can do this from scratch. I will virtually hold your hand through the process, step by step. And who knows? Lisa was able to blow her goal out of the water. I want that for you as well. I believe in you. I know that you can have an amazing digital course. You probably already have a few ideas, and if not, I can help you come up with the best idea to get started.
To learn more about Digital Course Academy and enroll before the doors close on September 28, head to amyporterfield.com/enroll. That’s amyporterfield.com/enroll. I hope to see you there.
Thanks so much for hanging out with me, and I will see you on Thursday for more entrepreneurial goodness. Bye for now.
