310 51% Growth in a Year Without Going Viral

Send us Fan MailStruggling with low conversions? Grab our FREE checklist of 15 must-have elements to optimize your sales pages! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsAnna Brick built her entire course business around one thing. Not a broad niche, not a category. One technique: flowers made out of wafer paper. And she did it on purpose.Dominik sat down with Anna to talk about how that decision came about, what it took to actually turn it into a business, and why the last two years nearly sent her in the wrong direction entirely. Anna has over 100,000 followers, more than 6,500 students around the world, and has never paid for an ad. But the part of this conversation that will probably stick with you has nothing to do with those numbers.Anna is one of the most clear-eyed people we've had on the show when it comes to the difference between building an audience and building a business. She talks about why she now sells in every single email she sends, three times a week, and why she thinks using the word "free" in your marketing trains people never to pay you. She also gets into her $9 thank you page offer, how she thinks about the first sale, and what happened when she spent two years trying to teach business strategy instead of wafer paper. Spoiler: her audience didn't want it, and going back felt like a relief.If you've been wondering whether you're spending too much time making your course better and not enough time selling it, Anna has a lot to say about that.Hope you enjoy this one as much as Dominik did.Check out Anna's work:🌐 https://floreacakes.com/📸 https://www.instagram.com/floreacakes/?hl=en▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@floreacakes

Send us Fan MailGrow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapPJ Wren celebrated her 50th birthday teaching a fitness class. Seven days later, she shut her studio down for good and never went back.That moment, March 2020, is where Over 50 Fitness really started. PJ had 32 years in the industry behind her, from rec center classes and home visits to cardiac rehab at St. Paul's Hospital to owning her own studio. But a lease technicality and a pandemic gave her an exit she didn't plan for, and she took it.Dominik sat down with PJ to talk through what she built from there: a subscription app for women over 50 who want to get strong, not just move more. They got into a lot of specifics, the 14-day onboarding sequence, why she removed 17,000 people from her email list and felt good about it, how she words a discount offer so it outperforms a straight percentage off, and why she limits promo codes to twice a year on purpose.What stuck with me most was her take on going viral. She's not against it exactly, but she's seen friends blow up and then watch it fall apart because the systems weren't there. Her line was simple: "Random workouts give you random results." She applies the same logic to growth.If you're building something in a specific niche and wondering how to hold members long-term, there's a lot here worth your time. I think you'll enjoy this one.Check out PJ's work:🌐 www.overfiftness.co📸 https://www.instagram.com/overfiftyfitness.co/▶️ https://www.facebook.com/overfiftyfitness.co🌐 www.fitnesswithpj.com▶️ https://www.youtube.com/fitnesswithpj📸 https://www.instagram.com/fitnesswithpj/📸 https://www.facebook.com/fitnesswithpj

Send us Fan MailGet your tripwire product ideas here: 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwireAli Nemati tried to get his nine-year-old nephew to give up. He handed him material he thought was far too complex, fully expecting the boy to get frustrated and walk away. Instead, the nephew nailed it. So did his eight-year-old sister. That moment quietly ended Ali's plan to build a training business for adults and started something he never intended: Software Academy, now one of the UK's most unusual academies for children.Dominik sat down with Ali to talk through the whole story. How a university lecturer ended up teaching kids game design, animation, and coding using the same professional tools used in actual studios. Why a parent asking for a simple letter pushed Ali to pursue formal accreditation through the UK's oldest awarding body, making Software Academy the only one of its kind in the country. And what it actually means for a student when a qualification is something a college will accept, not just a certificate you printed yourself.They also got into the business side: why Ali targets parents rather than children, why he thinks free PDFs have lost their power as lead magnets, how he structures his product ladder, and what he believes most course creators get badly wrong when they upsell. His take on hidden upsell tactics and what honest retention actually looks like is worth the listen on its own.If you sell courses and you've been thinking about what makes your offer genuinely different, I think this one will give you a lot to chew on.Check out Ali's work:🌐 https://www.softwareacademy.co.uk/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/alicodemakers/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@SoftwareAcademy

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-magnetBen Settle has been selling online since 2002. He runs a physical print newsletter called Email Players, prices some of his books above a thousand dollars, and has a sales page that actively tries to talk you out of buying. Dominik sat down with him to find out why any of that works.What came out of the conversation surprised me. Ben's whole approach to email is built around one idea: proximity. The more often you show up in someone's inbox, the more they trust you, the more they remember you, and eventually, the more they buy from you. He's been sending daily emails for years and makes no apologies for it. His argument against mailing twice a month is hard to argue with: if people don't remember who you are, they hit spam. And at that point, you've done it to yourself.He also talks through something most course creators never consider: the difference between a buyer and a customer. A buyer purchases once. A customer makes a habit of buying from you. His whole business is built around creating the second kind, which is partly why his sales page tells unqualified people to leave.There's also a genuinely interesting section on where he thinks the AI wave is heading, and why he thinks right now is actually the moment to double down on relationships rather than automation.If you're emailing your list twice a month and wondering why sales feel inconsistent, this one is worth your time.Check out Ben's work:🌐 http://www.bensettle.com/

Send us Fan MailGrow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapFreddie Fernandez spent 31 years at Miami Fire Rescue, retiring as a deputy fire chief overseeing 14 stations, 150 people per shift, and 250 emergency calls a day. Then he built a course business. No ads. No launches. No algorithm. Just word of mouth, challenge coins in the mail, and a $925 product that has reached 500 agencies across 47 states.Dominik sat down with Freddie to figure out how that actually works.What came out of the conversation surprised me. Freddie started teaching at 22 by volunteering to cover a canceled class for 30 veteran firefighters, with less than 24 hours' notice, on a topic he hadn't fully mastered yet. That same instinct, just jump in and figure it out, runs through everything he's built since.His product ladder is worth paying attention to. He walks people into the right package based on timeline and need, not price. He'll actively steer someone away from his most expensive option if it's not what they need. And he thinks that's exactly why customers keep coming back, and why they send their colleagues.His take on discovery calls is something I've been thinking about since we recorded this. He spends the first part of every call asking questions, not pitching. He says if you listen first, you can sell later, but only what they actually asked for.Freddie also talked about refilming his entire course library in 2023, ten years after the originals, because he felt the material was getting stale. That kind of honesty about your own product is rare.I think you'll enjoy this one.Check out Freddie's work:🌐 https://www.fireassessmentcenterprep.com/📸 https://www.instagram.com/fireassessmentcenterprep▶️https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCiCoJql6gw_KGQ7ZIS4fHfQ

Send us Fan Mail15 sales page elements you can't afford to miss - free checklist 📝 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsYogi Aaron built a retreat center in the Costa Rican jungle, wrote a book called Stop Stretching, and developed a method that says conventional yoga is actually hurting people. That contrarian position came from a personal crisis: in his mid-40s, after decades of aggressive stretching, he was told he needed spinal fusion surgery.John sat down with Aaron to talk about how he turned that moment into a business — Blue Osa Yoga Retreat and Spa, a teacher training program he's scaling toward $500K a year, two books, a podcast, and an audience of over 160,000 on YouTube.What made this conversation interesting was how candid Aaron was about what isn't working. He openly shared that around 80% of people who book sales calls don't show up. He talked about pulling back from online courses because he believes people want in-person experiences more than ever. And he made a pretty strong case that if you're going to spend money on ads, remarketing is where to put it, because some of his customers follow him for five years before booking.There's a lot in here about long nurture cycles, hybrid course models, Facebook and Google ad strategy, and what it actually takes to run a location-based business around a contrarian idea. Aaron is thoughtful, funny, and genuinely not trying to be anyone else in his space.I think you'll enjoy this one.Check out Aaron's work:🌐 https://www.yogiaaron.com/ & https://www.theyogi.club/ & https://www.blueosa.com/ 📸 https://instagram.com/yogi_aaron ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@yogiaaron 

Send us Fan Mail2-10x your email list size in just 3 steps 📩 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guideFinbar Horgan spent nearly seven years playing solo acoustic gigs up to seven nights a week in Edinburgh before he ever tried to sell a coaching program. No studio setup. No microphone. Just his phone, a Zoom account, and a free School community he ran for four months without charging anyone a penny.Dominik sat down with Finbar to talk through how he built the Pro Gig Academy from scratch, starting with zero audience and an 800-subscriber YouTube channel, and growing it to 5,000 community members and 19,000 people on his email list. They got into the real mechanics of it: how his funnel actually works, why most of his serious buyers never join the free community at all, what finally pushed him to quit gigging full-time and go all in on coaching, and why he set up a separate YouTube channel just for testimonials.There's a moment in this conversation where Finbar talks about showing up on discovery calls and having people say, "You don't need to pitch me, when can we start?" He explains exactly how he got there, and it has nothing to do with clever sales scripts.He's also refreshingly honest about what isn't working yet, including how uncomfortable he still finds selling through email and why he spent five months after his March launch not promoting anything at all.I think you'll like this one.Check out Finbar's work:🌐 https://www.skool.com/@finbar-horgan-5856📸 https://www.instagram.com/finbarhorganmusic/▶️ https://www.youtube.com/c/FinbarHorgan

Send us Fan MailAdd 30% to your revenue with order bumps in 3 simple steps 🏅 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/order-bumpsCourtney once sold a Christmas tree on Facebook Marketplace. Eight months pregnant, dragging trees out of her photography studio, a stranger asked if she could learn photography. Courtney handed her a discount code, and walked away having sold a course. That story says everything about how she sells.Dominik sat down with Courtney, a professional family photographer in Australia who runs two businesses side by side: Blury Photography, where she shoots newborns and families, and Mum Nostalgia, where she teaches moms to photograph their own kids. She has a signature course, a brand new mini course, a podcast, three lead magnets, and a welcome email sequence. She is also studying psychology, and has small children at home.What makes Courtney's approach unusual is that she deliberately uses her in-person photography business to sell her online courses, and it works because the trust is already there. She talked about why that matters, how she structures her two courses at very different price points, and what happened when she first launched and spent money on ads expecting the students to roll in.She also shared something I thought was refreshing: she genuinely does not believe passive income is passive. Her words on that are worth hearing directly.I think you'll like this one.Check out Courtney's work:Instagram: www.instagram.com/mamastalgiaThe Art of Childhood Podcast: https://open.spotify.com/show/2GSRPWsWlBqCxuPKcgwOsdSnap Mini-Course (learn photography from your phone): www.mamastalgia.co/snapDon’t Say Cheese (learn photography on your big girl camera): www.mamastalgia.co/dontsaycheeseUse code ONLINE30 for 30% off either course.

Send us Fan Mail15 sales page elements you can't afford to miss - free checklist 📝 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsJulie Posluns started with a dog that lunged at children and bit skateboarders. That sent her back to university to study behavioral ecology. Then a black kitten turned up at her back door, started joining the dog training sessions, and Cat School was born.John sat down with Julie to trace the whole journey: from her first Instagram post about cat tricks catching fire on The Dodo, to building a YouTube channel with 88,000 subscribers, to creating a membership structured like an actual school with five grades, badges, and graduation.What makes Julie's story different from most course creators is the physical product sitting at the center of her business. She sells a clicker training kit on Amazon, with a QR code inside that leads to a free course, which feeds into the paid membership. It started because she said yes to a conference booth with nothing to sell, ordered tools to a hotel room in the States, and showed up with brown paper bags. It grew from there.Julie is genuinely candid in this one. She talks openly about the gap between her free course and her paid membership, why she's invested more in the product than the school lately, and the capacity problem she hasn't fully solved yet. She also goes deep on something most course creators never think about: how the science of animal training and the science of teaching humans are, in her words, exactly the same.It's a warm, honest conversation and Julie is great. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did.Check out Julie's work:🌐 https://www.catschool.co📸 http://instagram.com/cat.school▶️ http://youtube.com/catschool

Send us Fan MailStruggling with low conversions? Grab our FREE checklist of 15 must-have elements to optimize your sales pages! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsJessica Russo Scherr holds a Fulbright Award, teaches Visual Art at one of the best international schools in Frankfurt, and somehow alongside all of that has built a gel plate printmaking course business that took around 2,000 students through her courses after launching in November 2024. She had no idea what gel plate printing was three or four years ago.I talked with Jessica about how she got there and what the business actually looks like day to day. She runs five course launches a year and near-weekly live webinars where up to a thousand people show up to watch her demonstrate for 45 minutes, before she makes a short pitch and opens the floor for questions. She told me the webinars are some of the steadiest income she has, and that even selling two courses in a session feels like time well spent.We also got into something she was honest about: she went in thinking this would be passive income. It has not been. It has required real, sustained work. And yet she has no plans to leave her teaching job, partly because she loves it, partly because she has a seven-sink art studio in Frankfurt and that, apparently, is non-negotiable.Toward the end we worked through her email list growth, where I think there is a significant gap between what she is doing now and what is possible, and brainstormed what a lead magnet could look like for her niche.I think you'll like this one.Check out Jessica's work:🌐 https://www.bluelavaart.com/📸 https://www.instagram.com/bluelavaart▶️ TikTok: https://www.tiktok.com/@bluelavaart▶️ YouTube:https://www.youtube.com/bluelavaart🌐 Newsletter: https://www.bluelavaartacademy.com/newsletter-form