233 Your Plan B Is Killing Your Business

Send a text🔥 Looking for predictable revenue growth? Access our FREE 7-day roadmap to increase your income without paid ads or sales calls! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapSpencer Russell went from classroom teacher to building a business with over 5 million followers and 10,000 customers. In this episode, he shares why he believes your backup plan might actually be the thing holding you back from success.We get into the concept of Blue Ocean Strategy and how Spencer found a niche in the toddler reading space that nobody was tapping into. He talks about the moment he decided to quit his safe teaching job, even with a young kid at home, and why he believes that burning the bridge and going all in was the best decision he ever made. He shares both the spiritual and practical arguments for betting on yourself and how necessity became the fuel that drove him forward.We also dive into the future of online courses and why Spencer thinks the industry needs to evolve. He talks about protecting your business from AI, why community might be the most important differentiator going forward, and how he balances selling physical products alongside digital courses with a 50/50 revenue split.On the tactical side, Spencer walks us through his plan to use a quiz funnel that segments parents by their child's age and routes them into different webinars with tailored offers. We also talk about his email marketing challenges and what he is doing to fix them now that he has taken his business back after selling it to Love Every in 2024.🔗 Check out Spencer's work at https://toddlerscanread.com🔗 Find Spencer on YouTube, TikTok, Facebook and Instagram at  @toddlerscanread  .Thanks for listening and I will catch you in the next one.#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Want 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-magnetWhat happens when none of the careers in your industry feel right? Sahara Rose De Vore found herself in that exact spot. She had a degree in hospitality and tourism management, she'd traveled to over 84 countries, and yet nothing in the travel industry clicked for her. So she did something most people wouldn't even consider. She created an entirely new career path and built the world's first and only ICF accredited travel coach certification program around it.In this episode, Sahara shares how she went from broke college student to building the Travel Coach Network, a global community of over 750 certified travel coaches from more than 40 countries. We talk about how she educated a market that didn't know it needed her, how she generates sales through strategic price drops, and how adding a single deadline funnel to her email list brought in over $25K. We also dig into her surprisingly low ad spend, her experiments with Reddit ads, and what she'd focus on to grow her email list from 200 opt-ins a month to over 2,000 with the 70,000 monthly visitors she's already getting.If you're a course creator trying to figure out how to sell in a niche that you've had to explain to people, this one's for you.✈️ Check out The Travel Coach Network: https://thetravelcoachnetwork.com✈️ Follow Sahara Rose on social media: @sahararosethetravelcoach🧨 Check out The Dynamite Circle: dynamitecircle.comWant to 2-10x your email list size quickly? Download our FREE Double Your Email List Guide 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guide#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Struggling with low conversions? Grab our FREE checklist of 15 must-have elements to optimize your sales pages! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsMark Smith films birds in slow motion. That's his niche. Ospreys, eagles, hawks in ultra slow motion. And it's got him 980 million views on YouTube and 6 million followers across platforms.In this episode I sit down with Mark and we get into how he built this massive audience from one incredibly specific niche. He picked up a camera again at 40, almost didn't start YouTube because he thought nobody would care, and his son had to convince him to post his first video. That video got a thousand views overnight and the rest is history.We talk about why he compares himself to Bob Ross and how the best creators make things look possible for their audience. We get into why YouTube crushes every other platform for selling online courses and why short form content doesn't convert the same way. I also pull up one of his sales pages live on the call and walk through what's working and what's missing.Mark is honest about the fact that he'd rather be outside photographing wildlife than working on his email list or his funnels. His email list is only 2,500 people despite having millions of followers. He knows he's leaving money on the table and we dig into exactly where that money is and what he could do about it.If you're a course creator with a decent audience but you know your business side isn't keeping up with your content, this conversation will hit home.🦅 Check out Mark's YouTube channel! https://www.youtube.com/@MarkSmithphotography🎁 Want the free customer avatar course I mention during the episode? Drop me an email at [email protected] with "Customer Avatar" in the subject line and I'll send it over.

Send a text🔥 Need better results from your email campaigns? Get our FREE templates and see the difference with two proven email strategies! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/templatesWhat would you do if you had no audience, an email list of 50 people, and zero courses to sell?That's exactly where Trevor Dimoff was when he decided to figure out how to sell a course before he'd even built one. He talked to 50 people, listened to their problems, came up with a solution, and pitched it back to the same people he'd interviewed. The result was $2,000 in pre-sales for a course that didn't exist yet.In this episode Trevor walks through his entire process step by step. How he found people to talk to, what questions he asked, the three things he did during every call that made the pre-sell possible later, and how he delivered the pilot course live on Zoom. He's also really honest about what went wrong after that and why he lost momentum trying to scale too fast.If you're just getting started or thinking about launching something new, this is a really practical episode. Trevor doesn't sugarcoat anything and the lessons from his mistakes are just as useful as the wins.🔗 Check out Trevor's work: https://trevordimoff.com🔗 https://trevordimoff.com/aosoc🔗 If you'd like to connect with Trevor or to ask him questions about having research conversations you can contact him at: https://trevordimoff.com/aosocTrevor would like to thank Jacques Hopkins, the Online Course Guy and his Online Course Show podcast. Jacques interviewed Trevor on episode 90: https://theonlinecourseguy.comTrevor learned the process he used for market research and course creation from: Danny Iny, founder of Mirasee, where he helps online teachers and coaches monetize their gifts: https://mirasee.com#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Looking for predictable revenue growth? Access our FREE 7-day roadmap to increase your income without paid ads or sales calls! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapJori Chisholm has been teaching bagpipes online since 2003… before YouTube even existed. He was literally the first person to ever teach a bagpipe lesson on a webcam. Fast forward to today and he's running bagpipelessons.com, reaching students in 30 countries, and last year he hit 3.2 million views on Meta and 320,000 on YouTube.The wild part? He wasn't even trying to hit those numbers. His strategy was simple… post one short video every single day. And it worked.In this episode we dig into how Jori built a thriving course business in one of the smallest niches you can imagine. We talk about why he has courses AND a membership AND physical products, how he uses his email list to actually drive sales, and why he thinks AI is going to wipe out a lot of generic information-only courses but won't touch businesses built on real personal connection and trust.Whether you're in a tiny niche or a massive one, there's a lot to learn from someone who's been doing this successfully for 25 years.#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🎵 Check out Jori's work at https://bagpipelessons.com🎵 Jori's YouTube channel:  https://youtube.com/bagpipelessons🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapHere's something I hear all the time... course creators telling me they feel weird about selling. They got into this to teach, not to become marketers.Kerstin Cable gets it. She's been at this since 2013, runs a language learning business, has recorded over 240 podcast episodes, and recently started AI Language Club. When I asked her about marketing, she literally said "but John, we're not marketers." And honestly, that's what makes this conversation so good.We dig into why selling courses has gotten harder post-COVID, whether social media is even worth the effort anymore, and how Kerstin promotes her stuff without feeling sleazy about it.Her approach is dead simple. Talk about what you know, then make an offer. That's it. But the way she explains it actually made something click for me.We also talk about the mindset stuff, why so many of us hold back from promoting our own work, and what changes when you reconnect with what you actually believe about your course.#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketingConnect with Kerstin:🔗 https://fluentlanguage.co.uk🔗 https://AILanguageClub.com🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Looking for predictable revenue growth? Access our FREE 7-day roadmap to increase your income without paid ads or sales calls! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapAlison Ellis has made over $650K selling online courses to florists over the last 10 years. She's got 10,000+ students enrolled in her programs and literally built her office from the course revenue.But here's the thing.. a lot of the "proven" strategies just didn't work for her audience.Tripwire funnels? Didn't convert. Webinars? People signed up but didn't show. High-pressure countdown timers? Her audience doesn't respond to urgency the same way.Why? Because florists are creatives. They got into flowers because they love flowers, not because they love marketing. They'll spend $5K on a fancy design workshop but hesitate on a $500 business course.In this episode we dig into what actually works when you're selling to people who don't think like marketers. How Alison went from making YouTube videos she didn't think anyone watched.. to $9K in her first five weeks.. to building a course business that's been running for a decade.We talk about her Flower Math course, her $1,500 Art of Good Business program, her Patreon membership, the in-person workshop she runs in Vermont, and what she's changing this year to get more sales.If you sell to creatives, coaches, artists, or anyone who's not naturally business-minded.. this one's for you.🔗 Check out Alison's website at https://realflowerbusiness.com🌸 Find Alison on Instagram and YouTube at @realflowerbusiness

Send a text🔥 Need better results from your email campaigns? Get our FREE templates and see the difference with two proven email strategies! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/templatesAiko Hemingway is an English pronunciation coach who went from around 4,000 YouTube subscribers to over 11,000 in about a year. One video drove most of that growth.In this episode we talk about how she researched what was working for other creators in her niche and made her own take on a high-performing topic. We also get into why her attempt to repeat that success with a similar video did not work.We discuss the tension between making content that gets views versus content that converts into paying customers. Aiko has found that her broader videos get more views but her specific pronunciation content converts better. Most course creators deal with this same challenge.We also cover how she went from targeting everyone to working specifically with Japanese company executives and professional singers. When she said everyone is welcome she got zero clients. When she niched down she started making sales.There is a good section on the mental blocks around selling. Aiko has three courses she has never promoted to her list because of self-worth issues. We talk through how to get past that using a problem-agitation-solution email format.She also shares how she landed a TEDx talk after years of future journaling and practicing at Toastmasters.🔗 Connect with Aiko at https://aikohemingway.com🔗 English pronunciation coaching: http://hatsuonkyosei.com#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Need better results from your email campaigns? Get our FREE templates and see the difference with two proven email strategies! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/templatesErika Quest started her online course business with just 167 email addresses scraped from her hard drive. Within a year, she had built a six-figure side hustle. Today she has around 5,000 people on her email list and 3,000 of them are paying customers. That ratio is absolutely wild.In this episode of The Art of Selling Online Courses, Erika shares how she built her platform Level Up Movement in the fitness and Pilates education space. What makes her approach different is her focus on high-touch customer service and relationship marketing. She actually responds personally to customers instead of relying on bots and automations for everything. Her philosophy is simple but powerful: loyalty is a relationship.We also talk about her business model of selling other people's courses. She finds experts in her industry, produces all the marketing and delivery, and splits the revenue with them. Her 2026 calendar is already fully booked with talent. All of this growth has happened organically with no paid advertising.Erika runs three promotions a month and hosts monthly live workshops she calls Claster Minds. She went from 20-30 attendees when she started to nearly 200 ticket sales for her most recent event.If you have been thinking about starting an online course business but feel like you are not expert enough or do not have a big audience yet, this conversation will show you what is possible when you just get started.🔗 Connect with Erika at https://levelupmvmt.com🔗 Connect with Erika on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/erikaquest#onlinecourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

Send a text🔥 Add 30% to your revenue with order bumps in 3 simple steps 🏅 https://funnels.datadrivenmarketing.co/order-bump-blueprintKate Bee has helped over 4,000 women quit drinking through her online course The Sober School. In this episode we get into how she built her business, what's working in her funnel right now, and why 52% of her students go on to join her membership.Kate started out as a BBC journalist and began writing an anonymous blog about her own journey with alcohol. That turned into a coaching business that now helps women stop drinking without the shame, labels, or deprivation that often comes with traditional approaches.We talk about her lead magnet the Wine O'Clock Survival Guide and why it works so well for her audience. We get into her £47 mini course called the Sober Reset and how 12% of those buyers convert to her main programme Getting Unstuck. And we discuss why her students stick around in her membership the Stay Sober Club.Kate also shares how she thinks about selling transformation instead of information, why she focuses on making her students feel truly seen, and how she's built a community on Mighty Networks that people genuinely don't want to leave.🔗 Check out Kate's work at https://thesoberschool.com 🔗 Follow her on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/thesoberschool#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing🤝  Get In TouchIf you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.