318 Why Your Course Isn't Selling (It’s Not The Curriculum)

Send us Fan MailAdd 30% to your revenue with order bumps in 3 simple steps 🏅 https://funnels.datadrivenmarketing.co/order-bump-blueprintDan Munro spent years working with psychopathic criminal offenders before he ever became a coach. That background, learning exactly how manipulation works from people who do nothing else, shapes everything about the way he runs his business today.Dominik sat down with Dan to talk through a model that looks nothing like what most course creators are told to build. Dan emails his list less than once a month. He has worked with fewer than 300 one-to-one clients across thirteen years. He doesn't run sales calls. He doesn't pitch. And 40% of his revenue comes from clients who came back.What struck me reading through this conversation was how consistent Dan is. The same principle, radical honesty over short-term tactics, runs through his content, his free coaching sessions, his community on School, and the way he lets clients leave without trying to keep them. He's not just talking about integrity as a value, he's using it as a business strategy.He also tells the story of a single blog post that doubled his revenue overnight, and it's one of the clearest examples of what real specificity actually looks like in practice.If you've been wondering whether there's a version of this business that doesn't feel manipulative to run, Dan's a good person to listen to.Hope you enjoy this one as much as I did.Check out Dan's work:🌐 Brojo Community on Skool: https://www.skool.com/brojo-the-integrity-army-6491/about ▶️ Podcast: https://theinspirationallifestyle.com/podcast-2/ 🌐 Apply for a Free Trial Coaching Session: https://mrniceguy.coach/

Send us Fan MailStruggling with low conversions? Grab our FREE checklist of 15 must-have elements to optimize your sales pages! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsBernie Smith spent nearly 20 years being sent into the worst problems organizations had, the ones they'd half given up on, and fixing them. Manufacturing plants, banks, remote locations. The job that, as he puts it, you do for a few years before you find something more sustainable. What he kept noticing along the way was that the numbers people tracked were often the wrong ones entirely. And nobody had a reliable method for choosing better ones.So he built one. Then he wrote about it. Then he wrote about it again, roughly 20 times. Today he runs a KPI training business with books, self-paced courses, a 14-week certification program called KPI Black Belt, and a software tool he built using AI coding assistants that he believes would have cost high six or seven figures through traditional development.Dominik sat down with Bernie to talk through how all of it actually connects. The conversation got into why book buyers become some of the best leads you can have, how Bernie's course funnel grew organically into something so complex he had to map it on a whiteboard just to understand it himself, and why he deliberately made his flagship program harder and longer rather than shorter and easier.There's also a genuinely useful section near the end on how course creators can tell the difference between a real drop in sales and just a noisy week, using a technique called XMR charts that Bernie pulled straight from manufacturing.It's a different kind of episode. Bernie thinks in systems and it shows. I think you'll get a lot out of this one.Check out Bernie's work:📸 https://www.linkedin.com/in/berniesmith/🌐 https://kpiblackbelt.com🌐 https://madetomeasurekpis.com🌐 https://kpi.academy🌐 https://kpisprint.com

Send us Fan Mail15 sales page elements you can't afford to miss - free checklist 📝 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsMartin Hewlett plugged in a £25 USB microphone in his hypnotherapy clinic on the coast of North Devon, pressed record, and talked for ten minutes. No script. No launch plan. No ad budget. That little show has now been downloaded more than 10 million times across 158 countries.Dominik sat down with Martin to find out how a former paramedic in his fifties built one of the most quietly dominant podcasts in the anxiety and mental health space, and then turned it into a full product ecosystem including an online course and a self-coded app, all while temporarily losing his sight.What struck me most listening back was how differently Martin thinks about content. He is not creating episodes to point people toward a product. The content is the product. And because of that, every decision, from his unscripted single-take format to his obsessive approach to SEO and keyword research, serves a very specific purpose.He also talks honestly about the mistakes. Paying for YouTube promotions that flooded his channel with bot accounts and took two years of effort to recover from. Struggling to think like a business person when his entire identity was built around being a carer. Starting at 51 and still figuring it out at 62.There is a lot in this one that course creators underestimate, particularly around podcast SEO, building genuine audience engagement, and why you should never launch a new channel by telling your friends and family about it first.I think you'll get a lot from this one.Check out Martin's work:🌐 https://calminganxiety.org/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/marthewlett/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCVOMStYpe1bYUf71zN5-RiA 

Send us Fan MailWant to 2-10x your email list size quickly? Download our FREE Lead Magnet Guide and increase your email list size by 2-10x, simply by following our proven step-by-step guide 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/lead-magnetAnzhelika Tauba used to research cancer immunology. While she was still working in the lab, she grew her dog's Instagram to 45,000 followers, by accident. That led her to quit science, work at two startups, and eventually build a personal branding agency that works with founders, keynote speakers, and retiring Olympic athletes.Dominik sat down with Anzhelika to dig into why a better course does not automatically mean more sales. Her answer is blunt: people are not buying your curriculum, they are buying you. She had a client sign up for her program without even asking what was in it. "You're offering something, I'm there," is what they said.She walks through her three-part framework, positioning, proof, and origin story, and explains why imposter syndrome is the single biggest thing that keeps experts invisible. She also makes a strong case against content pillars, arguing they fragment your expertise and make it nearly impossible to stay consistent. Her alternative is what she calls the solar system model, one topic at the center, every piece of content just a different angle on the same thing.She went from 2,000 to 5,000 LinkedIn followers in a few months using that approach, posting once or twice a day, no ads, no gimmicks.There is a lot in this one that will make course creators rethink how they are showing up online. I think you'll enjoy it.Check out Anzhelika's work:🌐 https://www.linkedin.com/in/anzhelika-tauber/📸 https://www.instagram.com/anzhelika.tauber/

Send us Fan MailWant to 2-10x your email list size quickly? Download our FREE Double Your Email List Guide 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guideTaylor Boone spent 25 years as a commercial photographer and director working with seven and eight figure brands and big ad agencies. She had a full career. And then she walked away from it to teach the one thing she kept watching every client skip.Dominik sat down with Taylor to talk about brand messaging, not logos or color palettes, but the layer underneath where people decide in the first seven seconds whether something is for them. Taylor calls it the "who, what, and why," and the conversation gets specific fast. She walks through what happened when a client finally nailed their ideal customer, why AI is making distinct brand thinking more valuable rather than less, and how she uses her "triple seven" framework to think about buyer attention and follow-up timing.A few things Taylor said that stuck with me: that most businesses don't have a niche problem, they have a point of view problem. That AI content is making people scroll faster, not slower, because everything is starting to look and sound the same. And that going back to the people who already bought from you is often the most overlooked growth move a creator can make.She also talked honestly about her own visibility struggle, spending 25 years behind the camera and then suddenly having to be the face of the brand. That part of the conversation is worth staying for.If you work with online courses or any kind of digital product and you've ever felt like your message isn't quite landing, I think you'll get a lot out of this one.Check out Taylor's work:🌐 https://www.taylorboone.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/1taylorboone/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@1TaylorBoone 

Send us Fan MailGet your tripwire product ideas here: 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwire Michael Gaeta got an email from Teachable in December 2022 congratulating him for being in the top 0.1% of course creators on their platform, having sold over a million dollars in courses. Two months later, they told him his school was being shut down in 48 hours.Dominik sat down with Michael, a natural health practitioner and educator based in Boulder, Colorado, who has been treating patients for 36 years and teaching other practitioners for 33. He runs a clinic and an online school with more than 70 courses, and his flagship functional medicine certification program has been running since 2012 at around $8,000 a year.What struck me most about this conversation was how honest Michael was about where he's been getting it wrong. He's been launching a new course nearly every month this year, and when Dominik pushed back on that, Michael said, right there in the conversation, that he's changing course for next year. Fewer launches, more focus on the flagship. It's not often you hear someone recalibrate their strategy in real time.He also talks about why reputation has driven more of his growth than any marketing tactic, how he structures affiliate deals with co-teachers, and what it actually cost him when Teachable pulled the plug on his entire school. That last story alone is worth the listen if you host your courses on any major platform.I think you'll find a lot in this one worth sitting with.Check out Michael's work:🌐 https://michaelgaeta.com/📸https://x.com/gaetainstitute📸 https://www.facebook.com/gaetainstitute📫 https://t.me/gaetainstitute📸 https://www.instagram.com/gaetainstitute/▶️ https://vimeo.com/thegaetainstitute▶️ https://www.youtube.com/GaetaCommunications▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@gaetainstitute🌐 https://rumble.com/user/GaetaInstitute🌐 https://mewe.com/i/michaelgaeta🌐 https://substack.com/@gaetainstitute

Send us Fan MailGrow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapBibby Gignilliat stopped painting at 12 after a critical art teacher left a mark that took decades to fade. She went on to build Parties That Cook, a mobile cooking events company that ran across four cities and grossed over a million dollars a year. Then someone called it a lifestyle business, and she realized she had no lifestyle left.So she signed up for a painting class. She was, by her own admission, the worst one in the room. That was her starting point.This episode with Dominik covers the whole journey: how Bibby went from a hundred square feet of studio space to a fifteen-hundred square foot Sausalito studio, how COVID pushed her online in 2020 with around 150 sign-ups on day one, and how she now has 3,000 people through her online programs. We talked about why she gives away around 80% of her content for free on Instagram, how she structures her self-paced courses to generate passive income, and what she'd tell any skilled person who has never taught online before.The piece that stuck with me most was her answer on what to do when you feel stuck as a course creator. She said the more you change yourself, the more your class will change. Simple, but it lands differently when you hear the context behind it.I think you'll enjoy this one.Check out Bibby's work:🌐 https://bibbyart.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/bibbygart/ 📸 https://www.pinterest.com/bibbygart/

Send us Fan MailLooking for predictable revenue growth? Access our FREE 7-day roadmap to increase your income without paid ads or sales calls! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapLouise De Masi is one of the most-followed watercolour teachers online. Nearly 3,000 Patreon students, 184,000 YouTube subscribers, 70,000 monthly views, and a blog pulling close to 300,000 visits a year. And she hasn't uploaded a full YouTube video in almost two years.I sat down with Louise and her business partner Dom to talk about how they built all of that, and what they're doing next.Louise started on Skillshare after a cold email, having spent years as a primary school teacher and full-time artist. She never set out to build a course business. She just started sharing how she paints, and people kept showing up. Dom came on board to handle everything behind the scenes, from SEO to funnels, so Louise could focus entirely on teaching.What struck me most was how deliberately they've avoided being aggressive about sales. Their newsletters are almost entirely informational. The promotional links are, as Dom put it, "very, very hidden." And yet the business keeps growing. We talked about what that's left on the table, and I walked them through how a different approach to email could work without compromising what makes their audience trust them.We also got into their long-term vision, a searchable database of Louise's 300-plus classes, guest teachers, and eventually a business the next generation can take over.I think you'll enjoy this one.Check out Louise's work:🌐 https://www.louisedemasi.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/louisedemasi/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@LouiseDeMasi

Send us Fan MailStruggling with low conversions? Grab our FREE checklist of 15 must-have elements to optimize your sales pages! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsJeremy Siskind has won international jazz piano competitions, played on Arturo Sandoval's record, and written more than 20 instructional books. He also has 34,000 YouTube subscribers, around 5,000 people on his email list, and personally writes to every single customer who buys a book from his website.Dominik sat down with Jeremy to find out how someone builds a real course business without a viral moment, without a big launch, and without ever feeling like they're chasing attention.What came out of that conversation surprised me. Jeremy makes a strong case that you cannot teach well online until you have taught in person first, because the room reveals things a screen never will. He talked about posture, rhythm, the questions students ask when they feel safe enough to admit confusion. None of that shows up in your analytics.He also talked about his "sloppy first draft" approach to creating, why he thinks beginners are the most underserved and most important audience in almost any field, and how he treats the third-party platforms he teaches on as breadcrumbs that lead people back to him.And the thing about emailing every buyer personally? He explains exactly what that looks like and why some of those people end up staying connected to him for years.If you've been wondering whether you need to be louder or more strategic online to grow, Jeremy's answer is worth hearing.Hope you enjoy this one as much as Dominik did.Check out Jeremy's work:🌐 http://www.jeremysiskind.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/jsiskind2 ▶️ http://www.youtube.com/JeremySiskind/ 

Send us Fan MailJanette Karaca has two million followers and built one of the biggest English learning brands online. She also came to believe that creating more courses was making things worse, not better, for her students.Dominik sat down with Janette to dig into how she got there. She started from a pretty unlikely place — she used to hate English. She failed an audition for a publishing company's YouTube channel, went home frustrated, and her husband suggested she just start her own channel instead. That became English Era.What's interesting about Janette's story isn't the audience size. It's what she noticed after building it. Year after year, the same comments kept appearing: "I know English but I can't speak it." "I freeze." "I'm scared people will judge me." And she realised she kept responding by making more courses, which gave people more content to consume passively, which was exactly the problem she was trying to solve.So she stopped. She pivoted away from launches, narrowed her audience to a very specific type of learner, and started building toward something that actually made people use the English they already had.She's honest about what she wishes she'd understood sooner, and her thinking on the difference between followers and buyers is worth sitting with if you have a large audience that isn't converting the way you expected.I think you'll find this one genuinely useful.Check out Janette's work:Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_englisheraFacebook: https://www.facebook.com/englisherafb/YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/ENGLISHERATikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@the_englishera