218 Meet The Woman Who Built a 4M Followers Course Business

Send us a text🔥 2-10x your email list size in just 3 steps 📩 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guideToday I'm talking with Hadar Shemesh, an online entrepreneur and English teacher with over 4 million followers across her platforms. She's built an incredible business teaching English to international speakers, and in this episode she's sharing what's actually working right now in the online course world.We dig into something Hadar calls the "trust recession" - why people are so much more hesitant to buy online courses than they were a few years ago, and what you need to do about it. She explains why she believes courses that only offer content are becoming irrelevant, and why coaching and community have become essential if you want people to actually get results.Hadar also shares how she's built her business almost entirely through organic content since 2015, why 60-70% of her sales come from email, and what she's learned about the difference between YouTube subscribers and Instagram followers when it comes to actually buying. We also talk about live launches versus evergreen, why webinars still convert like crazy, and a simple tweak you can make to your confirmation pages that gets 70% of people to respond to surveys.If you're finding it harder to sell courses than it used to be, this episode will show you what's changed and how to adapt.🔗 Check out Hadar's website: https://hadarshemesh.com🔗 Check out Hadar's YouTube channel and podcast: https://www.youtube.com/@hadar.shemesh

Send us 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/templatesEveryone keeps telling me that course sales are dying. AI is killing everything. The good times are over.I just looked at our Black Friday results and I have to respectfully disagree.In this episode, I sit down with Josip Belina, our funnel strategy lead who has helped our clients make tens of millions of dollars over the past eight or nine years. Out of about 20 campaigns we ran, 75% of our clients had their best month ever. Combined, they made over $800K in November alone.A guitar teacher went from $25K a month to $165K. A piano teacher expected $30K and hit $70K. A language learning client went from $13K to nearly $58K.But here's why I really wanted to record this episode. Most course creators completely ignore January. That's a mistake. Your New Year New You campaign could be your second best promo of the year, maybe even your best if you're launching something new.Josip breaks down exactly when to send your emails in January 2026, the promo structure that works, and something most creators miss entirely. If you've got existing customers who already bought your main offer, that revenue could be 50% or more of your total promo. You're probably leaving serious money on the table.If you think your course business has peaked, watch this and see what's actually possible.🔥 Add 30% to your revenue with order bumps in 3 simple steps 🏅 https://funnels.datadrivenmarketing.co/order-bump-blueprint🔥 15 sales page elements you can't afford to miss - free checklist 📝 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elements

Send us a text🔥 Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapCaleb Ulku went from making $5K a month from his course community to hitting a 7-figure run rate in just 7 months. And he did it with only 27,000 YouTube subscribers.What makes this even more interesting is how unconventional his approach is. He doesn't have a traditional email list funnel. Instead, he sends people directly from YouTube to a $27/month School community. No free lead magnet, no nurture sequence. Just YouTube doing the heavy lifting.In this episode, Caleb shares how ChatGPT 3.5 completely changed his business direction overnight. He saw what was coming with AI overviews and made the call to pivot his entire SEO agency from informational queries to local SEO within a day. That decisiveness is a theme throughout this conversation.We dig into his YouTube content strategy, how he uses Claude to write scripts (and why the AI keeps making the same frustrating mistake), and his two-tier School community model where 20% of people who join at $27 end up upgrading to his $197 pro membership.One thing Caleb said that really stuck with me: "A subject matter expert can replace a team of interns with AI, but an intern cannot replace a subject matter expert." If you're using AI in your business, that's worth thinking about.🌐 Check out Caleb's YouTube channel: https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@calebulku⁩  🌐 Check out Caleb's website: https://calebulku.com

Send us a text🔥 Download the $100 Million Offer Workbook Template and my completed version: https://datadrivenmarketing.co/millionWhat would you do if your course sales dropped 40-50% from their peak?Most course creators would double down on what's always worked. More launches, better funnels, new lead magnets. Lydia did something completely different. She canceled all her courses and replaced them with an AI product.The result? Her biggest launch ever. Three times bigger than anything she'd done before.In this episode, Lydia shares exactly how she built this AI mentor, why her customers love it more than her courses, and what this might mean for the future of online education. Whether you're thinking about adding AI to your business or just curious about where things are headed, this conversation will give you a lot to think about.Lydia is a polyglot who's learned nine languages on her own and has helped over 22,000 students do the same. Her TED Talk has been viewed more than 19 million times.👩‍🏫 Connect with Lýdia Hric Machová:🔗 Check out her TED Talk: https://www.ted.com/talks/lydia_machova_the_secrets_of_learning_a_new_language  🔗 https://languagementoring.com 🔗 https://facebook.com/languagementoring 🔗 https://instagram.com/languagementoring 🔗 Sales page of the AI mentor (in Slovak): https://jazykovymentoring.sk/kurzy/almi/ 

Send us a text🔥 Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapWhat if you could build a six-figure course business while keeping your full-time job... and only working on it 1-2 hours a day?That's exactly what Michael Kilkelly has done with Arch Smarter, his course business helping architects and engineers work smarter, not harder.But here's what makes Michael's story different. He actually did it backwards. He spent 10 years working for himself as a consultant, built up his course business, and then took a full-time job. Most people are trying to do the opposite.In this episode, Michael shares why having a day job actually makes his courses better, how he cut his course setup time from two weeks down to 10 minutes, and his "less is more" philosophy for 2026. We also get into how he survived massive layoffs early in his career by teaching himself a skill that made him irreplaceable.If you've ever wondered whether you can build a real course business without quitting your job, this one's for you.🧑‍💻 Check out Michael's website: https://archsmarter.com

Send us a text🔥 Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmapThis week I'm chatting with Phillip Henry, an award-winning slide guitar player who has performed at Hyde Park, the Royal Albert Hall, and toured all over the world. He's now teaching slide guitar online and has built a fantastic community around his niche.Phil is one of those teachers who makes something that feels mysterious and out of reach totally accessible. He told me he has a hundred percent success rate with his students, and after talking with him I can see why.In this episode we talk about finding a niche inside a massive market, growing a Facebook group, the transition away from sales calls, and whether your pricing reflects what you're actually delivering.If you've ever wondered whether you're charging enough for your course or coaching, this one's for you.🎸 Check out Phillip's work:🔗 https://www.youtube.com/@UCA-Vhff-ng4NDrlUAQoQDTg 🔗 https://www.instagram.com/phillip.henry/🔗 https://philhenrymusic.com/

Send us a text🔥 Want a free funnel review? Email me at [email protected] with "free funnel review" in the subject line. Laura Spaulding has 1.5 million YouTube subscribers, over 4 million on TikTok, and a million on Instagram. She's had videos hit 14 million views in less than a week. And she's built a business selling courses and $45K coaching programs teaching people how to start crime scene cleaning businesses.In this episode, Laura and I dig into what's actually working for her right now and what isn't. We talk about the surprising difference between YouTube and TikTok when it comes to generating revenue. She shares the simple approach to video titles that's helped her content go viral. And we get into some of the gaps in her funnel that are leaving money on the table.If you've built an audience on social media but you're not seeing the sales you expected, this conversation will give you a lot to think about.🔍 Check out Laura:Laura's YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@UCv6ycrTS6JXAEfs5dFZfijg Laura's website: https://lauraspalding.comLaura's courses: https://crimescenecleaningtraining.com

Send us a text🔥 Struggling with low conversions? Grab our FREE checklist of 15 must-have elements to optimize your sales pages! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/elementsAsiya Miart has 1.9 million YouTube subscribers and has made over $1 million selling courses through her channel. But here's what surprised me most: some of her best performing videos made zero sales.In this episode, Asiya reveals how she figured out which videos actually drive revenue and which ones just drive views. She explains the two types of videos every course creator needs to understand and how she strategically moves viewers from one to the other. This simple shift helped her triple her revenue from the same number of views.We also do something a bit different in this one. I pull up Asiya's sales page live and walk through what's working and what could be improved. If you've ever wondered what a sales page review looks like in practice, you'll find this useful.Asiya now helps other entrepreneurs grow their YouTube channels strategically. If you want to learn more about her approach, check out her case study on her website.📚 Asiya's Case Study “from Zero to $1M Using YouTube”: https://asiyamiart.com/case-study/🔗 Connect with Asiya on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/asiya-miart/🔗 Check out Asiya's YouTube channeL: https://www.youtube.com/@asiyamiart

Send us a text🔥 Want the free KPI tracking module I mentioned? Email me at [email protected] with "KPI tracking" in the subject lineStefano started teaching Italian online as a side hustle when he was 18. No formal experience, no fancy credentials. Now he's got 280,000 YouTube subscribers and over 4,000 paying customers.What's interesting is how he did it. He barely touches Instagram or TikTok. Posts maybe once every two weeks just to keep the pages alive. Instead, he's doubled his email leads in the last year while keeping his views roughly the same.In this episode, Stefano breaks down why short-form content hasn't worked for him, how he thinks about lead magnets differently than most course creators, and why he puts 60% of his effort into free content.If you're wondering whether you're wasting time on the wrong platforms, this one's for you.🌐 Check out Stefano's work:🌐 https://teacherstefano.com/🌐 https://teacherstefano.com/podcast🌐 https://www.youtube.com/@teacherstefanoGet your free resources for course creators: 🔗 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/resources#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 us a textHeath Adams, better known as The Cyber Mentor, built an 8-figure training business and sold it. In this episode, he shares how he did it starting from scratch with no sales team, no ad spend, and just pure organic content.We talk about how he grew 50% year over year, why he believes authenticity beats algorithm hacks, and how he scaled from a one-person operation to 30 employees before the acquisition. Heath also gets into why he focused on one channel first, how he structures his email promotions, and what he's learned about pricing from selling everything from $30 subscriptions to $2,500 live trainings.If you're building a course or training business and want to know what it actually takes to scale to 8 figures, this one's worth your time.🌐 Check out Heath's work at https://academy.tcm-sec.com🔍 Follow Heath on LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/heathadams/ 🔍 Follow The Cyber Mentor on YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/thecybermentorIf you enjoyed this episode, subscribe and leave a comment letting me know your biggest takeaway. And if you want help growing your own course business, check out what we do at Data Driven Marketing - https://datadrivenmarketing.coSee you next week.