This Pop-Up Party Strategy Can Fill Your Online Course With High-Paying Students… Before You’ve Created One Piece Of Content!
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
So, you’re a coach or consultant ready to create and sell online courses…
So you can finally stop trading your time for money…
And start sharing your expertise with an unlimited number of clients instead of just a handful…
BUT –
You DON’T want to test just-another-funnel to fill your course…
You DON’T want to spend tens-of-thousands on expensive Facebook Ads…
You DON’T have a huge email list to sell to…
And you DON’T want to spend hours building a course, only to launch and find out no one wants it.
Believe me… I’ve been there.
And, like many many others, that desperation to find a simpler and more affordable way to sell my online courses led me to try many many different strategies and tactics
Some which earned me $37… others which exceeded $100,000… and everything else in between.
The best launch strategy I’ve discovered though?
A 5 Day Challenge.
Period.
Challenge are the simplest, fastest, and lowest risk launch strategy out there.
The challenge does the heavy lifting for you, so when it comes to opening your cart, you can avoid feeling sleazy or slimey (or let’s be real, like you’re begging for the sale)…
Because across the 5 days prior to the “sale”, you can show your market you can help them… by actually helping them! That’s a novel idea, right!?
You don’t need a massive following (or any following)…
You don’t need a lot of money to spend on ads…
And… here’s the real kicker…
You don’t even have to build your online course before you sell it through your challenge.
Yep, you read that right.
Want in?
Let’s get started…
Step #1: Plan Your Challenge
When it comes to running your own 5 Day Challenge, the obvious first question is…
What do I run a challenge about?!
There’s a few main criteria you want to hit in the planning phase:
- Is your challenge congruent with your online course? An obvious one, but you want to avoid offering a 5 day weight loss challenge before an online course about dog training.
- Does your challenge solve a real problem your market are facing right now?
- Does your challenge strike the perfect balance between too-much and not-enough? Your challenge needs to provide a real and tangible outcome… while still leaving them wanting more by Day 5.
As long as your challenge is created from your Genius Zone with those 3 things in mind… you’re set!
Step #2: Fill your challenge
This is arguably the most important, yet most intimidating piece of the puzzle…
How do you actually get new leads not only opting in to your challenge… but actually showing up every day and engaging in your content?
I recommend using a cocktail of approaches to get your challenge in front of your audience.
This is simply because some traffic strategies will draw in warmer traffic than others (and as a rule, the warmer the traffic are, the higher the conversions will be)… so avoid putting all your eggs in one basket.
Here’s my top 2 ways to fill your challenge:
- Facebook Ads
- And, Email Marketing
Fill Your Challenge Using Facebook Ads (Without Selling Your Soul To Zuckerberg)
Look, I understand how intimidating Facebook Ads can be…
That sting of pouring your hard-earned money into a holey bucket doesn’t fade fast.
But…
There’s a reason that 90 million small businesses use Facebook.
When your Facebook Ads work, they can be business (and life) changing! Even if your budget is thin, simply starting with $10 a day will get you rolling. That’s a sacrifice of 2 coffees… and with a 5-figure return from your challenge, you’ll be buzzed enough from that.
We’ve had over 3,000 new leads sign up to our challenges through Facebook Ads.
Pretty neat, huh!?
Want more help with Facebook Ads? Check out my 2020 Facebook Ad Tips here now.
Fill Your Challenge Using Emails @ Once
Whether you’ve got a list of 30 or 3,000, it’s time to dust off their email addresses and tell them about your challenge.
And let me address this before we get any further…
If you’re worried about seeming “spammy”, you need to remember one very important thing: the average person receives an average of 847 emails a week.
Your email isn’t special.
Ouch?
What I mean is, if you want to stand out, emailing once, twice, or even three times a month simply won’t cut it.
Plus, your challenge is packed with soooo much value, promises sooo much irresistible transformation, and is sooooo free…
It’s pretty unlikely you’ll seem “spammy” if you did up your emails to once, twice or even three times a week!
Okay, so we’ve got a topic for your challenge… and we’ve got a way to fill it affordably… now it’s time to actually run the thing, right?!
Step 3: Running your challenge (ironically, the least challenging part)
The challenge itself is really easy…
After people optin, you’ll want them to jump inside a Pop Up Party Facebook Group where all the action happens.
On Days 1 – 4, you’ll provide a daily “challenge” which includes some VERY simple activities for them to complete, plus you’ll create an amazing experience by jumping on to answer their questions live for 1 hour.
You can safely assume (if you’ve done things right), that your content from Days 1 – 4 will leave them feeling excited and empowered, BUT with a feeling that they need help moving forward…
And that’s why on Day 5 you’ll host a webinar, and introduce your online course offer.
Your days will look something like this:
Early Morning – Post your daily “challenge” in the group
Midday – Go LIVE in the group to answer questions and connect
Late afternoon – Send a daily “recap” and Top Win from the day.
Makes sense, right?
Now, in terms of what those “challenges” should be, it’s important to keep them simple. Your students should be able to accomplish them in a matter of minutes (NOT hours and especially not days).
That might be filling out a worksheet and posting a picture…
Completing a declaration…
Or recording a video of themselves doing a certain activity.
And last but not least…
Step 4: Sell Your Course BEFORE You’ve Built It
Yep, I’m making good on my promise earlier..
If you’re keen to build a challenge, but don’t actually have a course to sell at the end of it yet… don’t stress!
Just take a “Build It Backwards” approach to course creation instead!
My “Build-It-Backwards” approach has been my number one secret weapon in course creation…
And has led me to make millions in sales since I discovered it.
All you have to do is map out a basic outline of what you want to sell (AKA: your offer), then you want to go out and sell it on your Webinar.
Then, continue to build the program, using the invaluable feedback from your students to make it the perfect program.
So when you’re all done, you’ll have built a profitable and engaging online course that you can SELL again and again.
And while I know this is a touch unconventional…
It Means You Won’t Waste Your Most Valuable Resource… Your Time
This is a real ‘stack the odds’ in your favour’ kind of approach 😉
Best case scenario: your course is wildly popular on Day 5…
And you can build a truly life-changing course with the help of your students.
Or worst-case scenario: your course is a total flop, and doesn’t sell.
In that case, you can simply assess why it missed the mark, tweak and relaunch!
And maybe even find you enjoy the process…because you won’t have wasted hundreds of hours trying to sell something no one wants.
So…
Ready to plan your challenge?!
Atta girl!
At this point, you know a whole lot about what a challenge is, and why you need to run one like… yesterday…
But you also might have a few questions stopping you from running full-steam-ahead.
If that’s the case, then let’s chat about it!
You’re invited to join my Doers Inner Circle community, where you’ll get me, my entire team, and 2,000 other female entrepreneurs in your corner…
So you can not only receive even more in-depth training on how to sell your online course, build a coaching business, and get clients…
But you’ll receive quick answers and true support you need to actually get Doing!
Plus, for a limited time only, you can join for just $1 USD… yep, you read that right.
Click here to read all about that!
Had success with your own 5 Day Challenge? I’d love to hear from you! Let me know in the comments below.
Talk soon,
Xx
Grace
And The Reason Why Most Coaches Should Boycott The Platform Entirely
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
By: Grace Lever
Ad accounts shut down.
Cost Per Click rising fast.
Algorithm as unpredictable as me before my morning green tea.
Things are changing at Facebook, and if you’re doing things the “old” way…
You should probably boycott the platform now.
Because if you do fall into the trap of using it incorrectly, you’ll almost certainly be flushing tens of thousands of dollars down the drain…
And won’t ever attract the high paying clients you want 🙁
Okay…
It’s not all bad news.
Inside this blog post, I’m going to uncover the different approach I take to drive traffic to my coaching business so successfully…
That I can confidently spend over $400,000 every month on Facebook Ads.
But first, let me explain what happened when I discovered the gold nugget that was Facebook Paid Advertising a few years ago:
It was revolutionary at the time… it changed everything for me and my business.
Not only could I easily get my offer in front of my ideal clients in the click of a button…
But Facebook would help me do it in the most effective and profitable way possible! Jackpot.
I was flying high, spending $1 and making back $3.
My biggest victory came when I discovered the ultimate Facebook Ad Campaign (at the time)…
My webinar funnel.
That was how I got my first 5000 students in my coaching programs…
All off the back of Facebook advertising.
I was on top of the world… I thought I’d cracked the secret to sales that would see me through to retirement…
But very quickly I discovered that wasn’t the case.
The price for the ads started to rise, and my profits began to drop.
I was making less and less from my Facebook Ads, until one day, I slipped into the negatives!
I was losing money in a desperate attempt to make it, so I had no choice but to switch my webinar ads off.
I was at such a loss.
Why?
Well, I’d spent time as a digital marketing coach, helping other businesses attempt to make a return using other advertising platforms…
Google, SEO, AdWords, and all other sorts…
And I knew that Facebook had made those basically obsolete.
Through custom audiences, ad sets, and targeting options, you had access to two billion active Facebook users every single day!
Not to mention, you could pay cents instead of thousands for a shot at the top.
Facebook advertising was such a no-brainer for me.
I knew the platform was beyond powerful, but my reality didn’t look quite so good.
As I’d grown more and more excited about Facebook advertising, so had my competitors.
While my webinar funnel had been live, my competitors doubled, leaving me drowning in a much more saturated space than I’d originally ventured into.
I started to blame myself.
My Facebook ad copy isn’t good enough…
I’ve clearly stuffed up something on the back end, because I’m really not techy enough for this…
My offer just can’t compete – I’m not experienced enough at what I do…
My call to action isn’t exciting enough…
Before I threw in the towel though, I decided to reach out to some of the ‘experts’ I’d seen in the Facebook advertising and social media space.
They threw all sorts of suggestions at me:
Just write your copy differently, and then you’ll make a sale…
Run a traffic campaign and just send people to your website where they can buy…
Aim for video views, then you can build brand awareness for the long-game…
Spend some money on a photoshoot – it’s your images that are losing you money…
Focus on likes instead of sales, so you can build up a following to sell to.
Does this advice sound familiar to you at all!?
Well, believe me, I tried it all.
I tweaked my ads, I changed their focus, and I threw so much of my energy into trying to get my viewers onto my website, or to like my page…
But I still wasn’t seeing cash results – you know, the ones that matter.
All these tips and tricks were taking me more time to implement than I was actually spending coaching female entrepreneurs…
You know – what my business actually exists to do.
Everything brands were using… and all these strategies the gurus were teaching…
Well, it was all just very complicated.
Laughably complicated sometimes!
The strategy was weak, the copy was aggressive, and the offers were just really low value…
Buy my this, join my that, come to my thing.
So, that’s when I decided to take a different approach.
I was overcomplicating things too…I was selling low-ticket items, and being way too upfront with my offer.
You see, there’s a distinct difference between Facebook ads and other platforms like Google for example.
When your market Googles you, they’re actively looking for your solution to their problem.
They’re a hot audience, halfway through the buying process before they even arrive at your website.
So if someone’s typing in “yoga teacher, Sydney” into the search bar of Google…
Safe to say, they’re looking for a yoga teacher in Sydney.
So, your ad can ask them up front: want to do yoga in Sydney?
Where so many marketers go wrong (like I was too) is that they treat Facebook in this same way.
You see, what I realised is that Facebook is a much cooler audience.
They’re not looking for you – they’re just scrolling through pictures of their friends.
But, because they might love yoga, and live around the corner from your studio, your job will be to interrupt them. To stop that scroll.
And we have 2 choices: we can be like basically every other advertiser in our market, and go straight for the kill on Facebook too…
Or, we can take a different approach: a Give First approach.
The Give First approach means offering them something for free to start the conversation.
You know, like a downloadable, or a cheat sheet, or a 6-minute workout video they can do from home if you’re that yoga teacher, for example.
And then, you can carry them into the next part of the sale – gently!
Throughout this process I learned really quickly that Facebook is a fantastic platform to throw money at, and get no results (if you’re into that)…
Unless you ignore all that silly ‘guru’ advice out there about trying to get likes or website hits…
And focus instead on giving your prospects value before asking them to buy from you.
Stopping the scroll, remember?
When I realised this, I knew it was time to launch something fresh.
I jumped into Facebook Ads manager, and built a simple Facebook Ad campaign.
It looked like this:
- A Facebook ad with a call to action that sent them to…
- A “Give First” lead magnet, that on downloading took them to…
- A thank you page, that invited them into a consult.
Three steps was all it took…
To get back on top of the Facebook game.
I put this plan into action, and all of a sudden people started clicking my ads…
The opt-in costs weren’t amazing, but there were better than before…
And the cool thing was, I got a couple of consults right away!
They were still too expensive to justify, but they told me I was on the right path.
I tweaked my lead magnet and ad sets, relaunched the Facebook ad campaign…
And the cost dropped again!
All of a sudden, the flood gates opened.
Like clockwork, I watched as my ads started working – finally!
No matter how much I invested into them, I’d get a return like nothing I’d seen before.
And the best part of this great funnel was that it didn’t just work once…
But over and over again!
What a flipping dream, right?!
Talk about breakthrough!
In the space of 2 years, I’ve made $20 million just from these ads alone.
All because I was advertising the right offer – a high ticket, high-value offer…
In the right way – by first offering to give them value, like a downloadable cheat sheet!
Eventually, I’ve also been able to build up my backend to take risks with low-ticket sales too…
Like spending $50 to get $35 sale of a book, in order to draw in new very warm leads I can engage with later.
And most of my competitors out there in the marketing game can’t take these kind of risks, because they’ve never taken the time to build out their powerful Facebook Ad campaign properly…
Which makes me even more able to cut through my saturated market.
My 2020 prediction is:
At some point, the advertising costs are going to plateau, and while I don’t know when, I think it’ll be soon.
It’s simply going to become too expensive for people who don’t know how to run ads properly…
I watched first hand as the same thing happened with Google Ads – the price went up and up and up, until one day it stopped.
So, we’ve got a huge opportunity in front of us as female entrepreneurs, right?!
We can run scared with our competitors, turning to other means of advertising that might look cheaper for now, but inevitably have the same fate as those that have gone before them…
Which means kissing our market goodbye, right?
Because we’ll no longer have one of the most powerful platforms on our side to get our message in front of the right people.
Our leads won’t be nearly as qualified…
And our investment in advertising won’t be nearly as powerful.
Or, instead of running away…
We could run alongside Facebook instead, using it for what it’s worth, but doing so in a smart way that doesn’t burn a hole in our wallet.
I’m just one woman…
But my results speak for themselves.
Xx
Grace
The “One-Goal” Strategy to get more done in the first 90-days of 2020 than you have in years…
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely,
Grace here!
2020 is upon us…
And, if you’d like to make it your most profitable yet, then read this post because you’re about to discover…
My simple system that virtually guarantees any sales or client-getting resolutions you make will be achieved with little effort…
And fast too!
Oh, this even includes if you’ve set resolutions in the past and have failed them miserably (just like I did for many years).
Now, just before we get there…
I need to address something important.
You see, January is here…
And I’m sure your mind is starting to flood with all of the exciting things you want to achieve this year.
Like waking up every morning to new sales in your inbox…
Being packed to the wall with consults for excited prospects…
Able to travel overseas with your hubby or girlfriends and not worry about your business suffering as a result…
To have the time and money to take school holidays off and spend them with your kids…
And to have the ability to work with hundreds (even thousands) of people all around the world, every day.
Everything just seems so much more possible on January 1st, right?!
But I also know that feeling that comes right after this…
The one when you crash back to reality because the fear creeps in.
Fear of waking up in a week, a month, or a year and everything is still the same.
The fear of always having to deal with those same life-draining people who are dragging you down.
The fear of rejection thinking you’re not smart enough, rich enough, creative enough.
It’s this fear that is holding so many female entrepreneurs back and stops them from being able to enter 2020 with confidence.
They feel like they’re running on a treadmill, heading for a finish line that keeps getting moved further and further away.
Does this sound familiar?
Do you feel like you just need to keep going, or else your whole business will come crashing down?
If you stop to breathe, it’s all over.
If you feel like this, I get it…
It’s exhausting.
There really is nothing less motivating when it comes to starting strong in 2020 than this feeling.
Today, I want to share a story with you that I hope will give you confidence…
And help you see that there is a better way.
A few years ago, I was crying in my car on the side of the road in peak hour Sydney traffic.
I was totally defeated.
But now, I run a global 8-figure coaching and consulting business…
One that helps thousands of female entrepreneurs from around the world.
And I’m not afraid of a new year anymore because I’ve figured out a way to tackle it properly.
But back then, January 1st was my worst nightmare come true.
It meant another year of failed resolutions…
Another year of pushing through…
Another year of blindly hoping I’d finally get a break.
And that’s because I was living a very different life…
I was running an agency, consulting to businesses on all things online marketing and automation.
And it kinda sucked 🙁
You see, here’s the problem…
Although I was able to get to 7-figures a year in turnover…
(Which sounds great right?!)
I had to work 14 hours a day, 7 days a week, and never had a spare moment for my friends or family, let alone myself.
I was essentially just trading my time for money…
Which means I’d simply created a high paid job for myself that was way more stressful than a 9-5, with no chance of a balanced lifestyle.
I learned that it’s actually really easy to build a business that you hate…
To find yourself in a situation that has no profit, and just sucks your soul.
I knew I wasn’t fulfilling my true purpose…
I wanted to create a profitable, lifestyle business that meant I could impact hundreds of female entrepreneurs…
To equip them and empower them to get real results…
But I also didn’t want to sacrifice my life in the process.
I was forced to push my friends and family to the backburner of my priorities.
I didn’t have time for them because I was completely stuck in what I call…
Entrepreneurial Groundhog Day (EGD).
It’s an epidemic, and you might have experienced it yourself.
It’s where you’re working non-stop ALL THE TIME.
You find yourself up until 2 am in the morning trying to finish your work for the day…
It’s where you can’t even think about your never-ending to-do list without a knot in your gut.
And it gets worse…
Because EGD is unrelenting.
Your day starts all over again at 6am to the noise of that annoying alarm clock.
You jump straight onto your computer or you start replying to emails on your phone…
And you’re completely glued to your screen…
Typing all day long without ever feeling like you’re actually getting anything done.
For me, I was just trying to make people happy, put out fires and teach myself things…
Because there really was no one that I could turn to.
No-one else really got me.
It felt incredibly lonely 🙁
And at that point, I didn’t know how I was ever going to make it out of EGD.
I had notebooks overflowing with to-dos…
All the things I needed to accomplish in my business.
But every day I’d push them aside to fulfill those bigger priorities that came up.
Priorities like spending all day driving around Sydney to look after a small handful of clients…
And spending all night in my small, dark apartment, trying to fulfill their insane requests.
I’d covered my office wall with sticky-notes of goals I’d made at the start of the year…
Goals that really could change everything, if I ever got around to them.
But now they just seemed like unrealistic pipe-dreams in the face of everything else.
Months and months passed until one day…
I reached my breaking point.
I was sitting in bumper to bumper traffic after barely any sleep…
And I just snapped.
I pulled over and just sat in my car crying.
I had no idea how I was going to do another day of this, let alone another year.
And at that moment, I knew something had to change.
I wasn’t done with being an entrepreneur, but I was done with the way I was doing it.
My mentor used to always tell me “Success always leaves clues”.
So I pulled myself together and drove myself home.
I went straight into my office and pulled out the notebooks of to-dos gathering dust on my desk…
I tried to make a new plan…
Map out a better solution…
Sort out this to-do list.
But I couldn’t stop thinking, surely not everyone is struggling like I am, right?!
Business shouldn’t be this hard, should it?
I thought I was supposed to be goal-planning…
But this isn’t working.
It didn’t take long before I started to realize something…
At the time, it was so profound, but when I say it outloud now…
It’s just so obvious.
I did have time to accomplish all of these goals on my list.
I just needed to stop planning them, and start Doing them.
Sure, I’d covered my walls with ideas…
Filled my notebooks with to-do’s…
Made plan after plan on where I wanted to go…
But I’d never put the right steps in place to actually get there.
I’d spent every January hoping that this year would finally be the year something changes…
But 12 months later I’d feel like I’d achieved nothing.
Does this sound familiar to you, finishing up 2019?
Do you feel like you’re in the same position as you were last January?
Or worse still, like you’ve gone backward?
I totally know how you feel.
I really wanted to accomplish these goals.
I wasn’t trying to be lazy, or find the easy-way-out…
I really cared about growing my business.
But I couldn’t figure out how.
I didn’t have a roadmap to follow…
I didn’t have any accountability.
All I wanted was to help more female entrepreneurs to share their Genius Zone with the world…
But I’d been spending too much time dreaming and not enough time doing.
So I opened up to a brand new page in my notebook…
And I asked myself…
What is ONE thing I want to accomplish in the next 90 days?
Everything else can wait…
What is just one problem I need to solve in my business right now?
And which tasks are absolutely necessary for me to get to that point?
You see, all the advice out there was telling me that the busier I was, the more I’d accomplish.
The harder I hustled, the more goals I’d tick off.
But this goal-planning strategy flipped that on its head…
Instead of making miniscule progress on the hundreds of to-dos covering my walls…
Now I could narrow my focus in on just one thing.
When I ticked that off, I could move on to the next one.
And I could repeat this all throughout the year, and by the time I hit December, my business could look totally different.
If I built my goals around smaller milestones and bite-sized tasks…
I wouldn’t have to just hope that they’d get accomplished…
I would have a roadmap to follow that would take the guesswork out of things!
Can you see how game-changing this could be?
I followed this strategy for the first 90 days of that year, with one goal in mind…
Then, I spent another 90 days working on another goal, and another after that.
And guess what happened?
These goals quickly started becoming realities.
The same dreams that I’d been pushing down in my to-do list for months (sometimes even years)…
All of a sudden, they were accomplished.
I built up an email list of strong, committed prospects who valued me, liked me, and trusted me…
And I could say goodbye to those soul-sucking clients dragging me all around the city to keep them happy.
I started making real money selling-out online courses and coaching online…
(I’m talking multiple 7-figures in sales…)
And by the end of that 90-days, I was waking up every morning with new payment notifications in my inbox.
Most powerfully of all though…
I was able to streamline and scale my entire business through automating all those time-consuming todo’s…
So now I had more time to be creative with new products and offers…
I had more energy to spend time with my husband and my friends…
And I finally had my weekends back (and my 2ams!).
When I started doing the right things in the right order…
I escaped my Entrepreneurial Groundhog Day!
I was able to monetize my Genius Zone in a profitable, scalable way…
And now I make 5-times what I was making before, with much higher profit margins…
I work far fewer hours, and have way more freedom to do what I love…
And I get to impact tens of thousands of people (instead of just hundreds).
This goal-setting strategy can be game-changing for you too…
If you’re a female entrepreneur ready to draw a line in the sand and make 2020 your most profitable yet.
Imagine feeling full of clarity, direction, and confidence stepping into this year?
Imagine not worrying about getting side-tracked, or wasting time doing the wrong things?
Imagine escaping from your own Entrepreneurial Groundhog Day without having to just throw in the towel altogether?
Sounds amazing, right!?
You just need to do the right things in the right order.
You need a simple roadmap to follow to help you get on track before that overwhelm starts to creep in.
Because here’s the truth…
We are all in charge of the next 12 months of our business.
We are the ones who are responsible for our success.
You’re not here to be mediocre or satisfactory…
You’re here to change the lives of your clients with your unique Genius Zone, right?!
Don’t get me wrong, I know that this whole entrepreneurship thing can be pretty darn terrifying.
So many female entrepreneurs are held back by thoughts like…
I’m not strong enough.
I’m not techy enough.
I’m not experienced enough.
I’m not rich enough.
I’m not creative enough.
And I get it, I really do.
I know what it’s like to be desperate and exhausted…
I’ve been sleep deprived, trying to make an offer perfect…
I’ve been in $100,000 worth of credit card debt from starting my business from scratch…
I’ve had hundreds, (probably thousands) of emails or funnels or Facebook ads fail…
I’ve been rejected more times than I could ever count.
For the record, I once made a mistake so huge in a business that I had over 500 kids, adults and grandparents throwing cupcakes at the back of my head.
I’m not even joking.
And yes, this was a low point 😉
But like me, at these moments…
Whatever they might look like for you (though, hopefully not anything like that cupcake one)…
You’ve got to make the same courageous decision that every successful female entrepreneur has to make regularly and say:
It’s worth it. I’m going to do it anyway.
You feel the fear, and then you do it anyway.
A doing attitude and massive imperfect action will be your anthems for 2020 if you’re going to make it a success.
Do you know what I think?
I think 2020 is your year.
It’s your year to see real growth in your coaching, consulting and professional services business.
It’s your year to perfect the art of work-life balance.
It’s your year to blow your own darned mind 😉
But you’ve got to be a Doer, not a dreamer if you want that to happen.
So many communities and training (particularly the female-centric ones), are all about dreaming and inspiring, and butterflies, and fluffy puppies…
But I’m convinced that breakthrough comes when we actually get things done, not fluffy puppies 😉
You and I need to lead the charge…
We need to make fearless, courageous, and confident entrepreneurship the norm for women everywhere, right?!
Let’s do this…
Xx
Grace Lever
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Darl,
Buckle up because I’m about to show you some really cool things when it comes to filling your online course.
E-Learning is a $165 billion dollar industry and today there are a zillion courses to choose from.
Just type in a topic and the word ‘course’ into Google and see what comes up.
Today you can learn to trade on the stock market, cure a range of ailments, deep sea dive, calmly put a fussing baby to sleep, create a million dollar brand or turn your pipedream into startup…
All without going to college, attending a night class or even leaving your living room.
Course creation has exploded but before you start thinking that you’re too late to the party…STOP.
E-learning is just getting warmed up and there is still a massive piece of the course creation pie to claim.
The good news too is that you are encoded with a unique Genius Zone that shows people the way out of their most painful frustrations.
And what makes it so special that it comes from you…no one else has the blend of knowledge, skill and experience that you do.
The key is pulling that knowledge out of your head and arranging it in a way that’s simple to consume.
However…what the current state of the course creation industry shows, is that you have to get super specific in what you teach, and who you are teaching to.
While there’s still enormous opportunity, course creation is already a cluttered market, and the only way to stand out is to niche down.
So whether you’re showing how to cook gluten-free vegan food or build a riad in Morocco, the key is to get super specific and…
Use what I call a ‘Build It Backwards’ approach to filling your course…
Where you launch it before it’s completely finished.
Ever since I stumbled upon this controversial approach, I use it to fill every single course I create.
In fact I’ve broken $20 million in course sales since applying it.
But it wasn’t always like this.
My first course that I spent months mapping out and creating completely flopped.
It made just $37, barely enough to buy a wine and a burger at my local bar.
And the truth is creating a course from start to finish then selling it DOES NOT WORK.
You might make a handful of sales, but there’s a better way to fill your course without wasting time or money that I felt compelled to show you today.
And, what I’m about to show you is a little controversial, and a lot of the gurus out here aren’t telling you this kind of stuff.
I don’t know whether it’s because people keep these things secret or they just don’t know any other way.
But I want to tell you the honest truth when it comes to filling a course…
Because when I first started I did a lot of things the wrong way around and as a result, wasted a lot of time and money.
I learnt this Build It Backwards approach completely by accident when I sold a course before I even made it.
I was running a workshop and the offers I had weren’t selling, so I quickly presented this new course idea to the room.
I had to practically pick my jaw up off the floor when 70% of the room came up and joined my non-existant course.
I then had to deliver, right?
I told them I was so excited to have them inside and that I’d be sending an email in the next three business days.
It was a Thursday, which left the weekend.
So I put my tail up and pumped out this course out super quickly.
Sidenote: Today I have a strategy to create courses like clockwork. You can find it here.
What I learned from that point, is that I need to build every course this way.
But a lot of people out there still spend too much time building their course from start to finish, then push it out.
And I get it. It’s scary putting yourself out there. What if it flops? What if no one buys it? What if you get rejected?
But, do you know what’s even worse?
Spending months, even years creating a course only to launch it and hear crickets.
And realising that you can’t fill it because you slightly misread your market…
Or because you spent so long creating it, they moved on to the next thing.
So this is what I recommend you do.
Build the first module; the first two at the most.
You only need the first module to launch, but if you want to be really safe and you’re a little bit nervous, then you can do the first two.
Once the first two modules are done, launch it…and start making money.
The great news is, if your course idea doesn’t stick then you know you’ve missed the mark and you can refund the few students who joined.
You haven’t just spend months creating a whole course that won’t sell, and you can pivot, repackage it and push it out again.
Next, you will want to fill your course and the way I recommend doing this is to first calculate your freedom metric.
This is the monthly turnover of sales where all your bills are covered and you can start to breathe a little.
$20,000 per month is where most of my students start.
Then, depending on where your course is priced, calculate how many spots you have to sell to reach your freedom matric.
It could be 540 mini courses valued at $27.
Or 20 high-ticket courses valued at $1,000.
Or 4 high-ticket courses with one-to-one coaching added in, valued at $5000.
I delve more into course price points and what to include in each price bracket here.
Then, start filling your course using some free and low-cost traffic strategies.
While today we spend millions on Facebook Ads to get students into my programs, I’m still a fan of free and low-cost traffic strategies that got the ball rolling on my first successful course.
That course went on to make $5 million from very little upfront investment.
Posting value-adding comments into those groups to establish credibility and trust, before eventually befriending the people inside and bringing them over to your page.
(Note: you do this before you launch your course to first build up a following).
And of course low cost advertising starting from as little as $5-$10 per day.
(I delve deeper into my free traffic strategies here.)
As students come into your course, you just have to stay a week in front of them in creating and drip-releasing the modules to them…
All the while garnering their feedback to let you keep refining the content so it covers exactly what your market craves.
So there you have it in a nutshell; powerful yet very simple stuff.
I’m so glad you could jump in today and get a glimpse into this controversial way to sell and fill your online course.
Let me know what successes you’ve had in putting your Genius Zone out into the world.
xx
Grace
Want more free traffic strategies to fill your course? Get access to this PLUS my proven Course Creation Blueprint to take you from idea phase to launch day at my upcoming Course Creation Virtual Workshop this week. Secure your seat for just $47 USD now!
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely Lady,
And in this quick post, we’re going to share with you 5 surprising ways to rapidly increase your online course sales… without a big following.
After a decade of creating over dozens of courses, which to date have generated over $21m dollars and hosted 50,000 students…
We’ve picked up hack or two to fill our own courses for free.
Hacks that are actually free, too.
(Sometimes ‘free’ comes at the “low” price of hundreds, but these are actually free 😉
It’s all about leveraging your own personal distribution network…
HUH?!
Well, you see, Starbucks is so successful and sells so much coffee because they have invested in developing their own distribution network.
It’s no accident that they position their stores where they do.
They choose the street corners with the highest traffic, right?!
This is how they get “eyeballs” on their offer (which is their coffee, of course)..
By identifying where their market are most present, and putting themselves smack bang in the middle.
Ummm… So What Does Starbucks Have To Do With Your Online Course?
Well, as coaches, consultants, and course creators, we need to develop and leverage our own distribution network…
Aka. We need to find where our market are most present, and put our own steaming hot, but less caffeinated offer in front of them.
How do we do this?
Well, whether you know it or not, you probably already have your own distribution network set up…
You’re just not tapping into it.
If you’re not already using these free mediums and distribution networks…
You’re probably wasting thousands of dollars trying to get your offer in front of a few.
But that’s the power of your personal distribution network:
It’s Full Of People Who Already Know You, Like You, And Trust You…
Who will be excited to purchase your course…
Without you having to spend a dollar!
Let me show you how I teach my students to fill their course with these types of students, using their own organic distribution network.
Emailing your prospects, whether they’re cold or hot, using some simple and short engagement strategies is a really effective approach, but…
My Favourite Way To Draw In That Traffic Is Through Harnessing The Power Of Facebook
(And Here Are 5 Surprising Ways You Can Leverage Your Personal Distribution Network On Facebook)
#1: Using Facebook Groups
Join Facebook Groups specific to your niche…
And start connecting with your ideal clients there.
This will be a prime space for you to share value to your market…
By commenting…
Sharing posts…
Liking posts…
And establishing yourself as an expert.
Finding these groups is simple:
Just type in something of interest to your prospects, OR something that describes them…
Eg. “Female Entrepreneurs”, or “Mums In Melbourne”, or “Divorce Support Group”, or “Dog Trainers” etc.
Join as many groups as you can… and get connecting.
#2: Add New Friends
Add anyone who engages in you in those Facebook Groups…
Aka: if they like, comment, or share on your content…
Add them as a new friend 🙂
Worst case scenario? They decline.
Best case scenario? You have a hot new lead and potential dream client!
#3: Harnessing Facebook Messenger
The next surprising step is to engage those new friends through Facebook Messenger.
Now…
You don’t want to go straight to the jugular here in terms of the sale…
“HEY FRIEND, buy from me, buy from me, buy from me!”
That’ll send them packing (or blocking) pretty quick.
You want to use Messenger instead to start a conversation with your clients…
To find out what their needs are…
And to see if your online course could help them with those needs.
Then, you simply invite them to join the course through a consult, or send them straight to the sales page to register.
Simple, personal, and powerful.
#4: Make Your Facebook Profile POP
When those new friends you add accept your request…
They’ll most likely check out your Facebook Profile to find out who you are.
So it’s really important that you’ve established a professional, credible reputation.
It’s not hard to do this though…
All you need to do is start making really value-adding posts on your personal profile.
This is such a powerful way to position yourself as an authority to everyone who follows you, right?!
The posts should be:
Leadership Posts…
Case studies of clients you’ve worked with…
Testimonials, and…
Call to Actions (ie. selling your online course 🙂
I’d recommend posting 3 times a week… 1st, a leadership post. 2nd, a case study. 3rd, a value-adding call-to-action…
Like a free consult, in which you can teach your market something valuable, and then sell your course.
You can hide these posts from your friends and family if you’re worried about spamming them too…
And similarly, you can hide your photos of your kids and pets from potential clients.
Just Google “How To Make Facebook Friends Lists” and you’ll find what you need 🙂
#5: Go Live On Facebook!
If you want to take things to the next level, I highly recommend Facebook Lives too.
Your network will see you as an even greater authority, and they’ll get to know you, like you and trust you quicker.
I love boosting these presentations with another one of Facebook’s tools, which really ramps up my consult booking and course sales 🙂
So, rather than spending millions on property to create a distribution network, like Starbucks…
You can manufacture yours for free, and still get instant exposure to hundreds of thousands of eyeballs…
By tapping into the social media assets that are probably sitting in your back pocket right now.
Exciting, right?!
All of these simple tips and tricks will really bridge that gap between you and your clients…
Practically leading them by the hand to your irresistible high-ticket course offer!
Can You See How Powerful This Would Be For Your Business?
And can you see how you already have that personal distribution network I talked about?
You just need to tap into it…
And you don’t need to spend thousands!
You don’t even have to spend cents…
You just need some tried and true free traffic strategies to start filling your course (and your bank account!).
Exciting right?!
Let me know if you try out any of these hot hacks…
Xx
Grace
Want more free traffic strategies to fill your course? Get access to this PLUS my proven Course Creation Blueprint to take you from idea phase to launch day at my upcoming Course Creation Virtual Workshop this week. Secure your seat for just $47 USD now!
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely,
Welcome to this blog where we’re going to blitz everything to know about course creation in a snapshot.
Well…almost everything…course creation is constantly evolving.
However, there are a few key tenants to successful course creation and if you grasp these…
I promise it’s going to be so much easier to unpack the Genius Zone in your head…And wrap it up into your own stunning and successful course.
So, grab a pen, paper, close the door and turn off all distractions.
That includes your phone and social media!
I’m going to hold your hand and walk through this.
What I want to do right now is to set the scene.
I need to get your head in the game when it comes to creating an online course.
There are some myths. There are some mindset blocks.
There are some things that rule people out of this space, and I guess, particularly as female entrepreneurs, we limit our opportunities.
We don’t realize that there are diamonds in our own backyard when it comes to turning what’s in our head into a profitable online course.
So first things first. I need you to know that there are people spending money learning your Genius Zone this minute.
In fact, e-learning, last I checked, was worth $165 billion.
This includes business and personal development in a whole range of niches.
So whether you’re a parenting coach or a social media consultant…
Or you’re really great at gardening or teaching people how to write books…
Whatever it is that you show people to do, there’s a market out there paying money to learn that online.
These people out there who genuinely need you; they’ve got a problem because they don’t have your Genius Zone.
Which is why you need to put it out into the world.
You are the person who can solve that problem and get paid incredibly well doing it.
If we break this down, just to give you perspective, over $3,300 is spent online each second on online courses.
So it’s time to get your part of this pie.
And this number is growing dramatically; like 15% to 20% a year.
You can get into this space and you don’t have to know heaps of tech.
You don’t have to have heaps of money in the bank.
You don’t even have to have a Kylie Jenner-level following to get a piece of this multi-billion dollar industry.
The power of this online course space is that it can take you and your business from working exclusively and forever in a one-to-one environment…
And take you to working in a one-to-many business model.
You do the work once and it’s done.
So whether you’ve got one student in your course or 10,000, the workload of the content remains the same…
And that’s my whole mission and focus as a female entrepreneur – to uncap time by automating.
Of course, once you build this course and you’ve got that one-to-many element, the world opens up.
You’ve freed up your most valuable asset; time, that’s decreasing every moment you are breathing on this planet.
You will also have more freedom with money.
You’ve removed the cap on your earnings potential and, you have the freedom to be based anywhere.
When I started building online courses, I was able to leave the hustle and bustle of Sydney because it was really stressful for me to live in that city.
I found it really busy and intense and I’m more of a country girl. I love the hills lifestyle. I love to slow things down.
So only when I’d created my course was I able to pick up from the big smoke, pick my favorite place in the country to live and move there.
It was a really important part of my freedom.
So, at this point you might be starting to imagine what could be possible if you had a whole new-found freedom in time, money and location for you and your family.
Now I want you to particularly pay attention to the money aspect of creating a course.
A course is not a side hustle. It’s not a side project or a hobby. It’s an asset and I need you to start thinking of your course in this way.
What you’re doing is building an asset that will end up becoming worth more than a lot of people’s homes. That’s huge.
My very first course that I started selling at workshops made just $37 and that was because I did it completely wrong.
So, I’m going to save you all that trial and error.
(And sobbing on the kitchen floor.)
Then came my second course (which is officially my first, as I burnt that $37 disaster from my mind).
I started selling that course at workshops and it sold so well that it ended up generating over $1 million dollars in its first 12 months.
The second course I built made its first million in 90 days.
Would you like to learn how to do that?
This is really mind blowing stuff and I don’t want to keep it all to myself.
I remember hearing the pings every time a course sale came through my phone.
I had to turn them off ‘cause it was pinging too much.
Course creation has totally transformed my business, which is why I’m so glad you are here.
Are you seeing the power of this? Pretty cool, right?
So when it comes to money, you are building an asset.
I want you to recognize too that when you’re building a course, there are a number of different types of courses, or different ways you can use courses in your business.
In fact there are 5 different ways of using a course.
The first way is using it as a tripwire. A ‘tripwire course’ could be priced anywhere from $1 to $37.
(Actually, I hate the word tripwire and just feel it’s negative! I like to call them ‘front door offers’ instead.)
So this is where you’re creating a super mini course, like something that’s maybe got 3 ‘how-to’ videos.
Simple.
You can charge a dollar up to $37 for that easily, right?
And that’s a great way to build that first customer trust and have that initial transaction that can hopefully turn into a lifelong relationship.
So that first type of course the $37 model.
You’ve then got courses from $37 to that $297 mark, right?
I call these ones ‘mini-courses’ or ‘front door’ courses.
Next level up are your main online programs. These start at the $500 price point all the way up to $2,000.
This is where you’ve got a 6-8 module online program where people are working through it, and often in those online programs there might even be group calls.
So you could have this more as a group coaching program where you might have a call a week for everyone to jump into.
Next level up from that is a one-on-one offer, through to high-end masterminds.
One-on-one offers start anywhere from $2K, and it’s where you have a 6-8 module course supplemented with a one-on-one coaching component.
And this goes through to a high-end mastermind, where you charge anywhere up to $100K.
You have to be pretty good at what you do to charge a $100K, but it’s easier to do a $2K, $5K or $10K mastermind.
I’ve got lots of girlies in my community who are smashing courses at all of these levels.
So, if you’ve already got a one-on-one coaching program, why not supplement that with your course?
Do you see the power of that?
Where your clients have access to an online training portal they can move through in their own time…
I use this approach in most of the one-on-one offers I run; in fact we use a course portal to supplement almost everything we offer.
Then finally you’ve got a membership program that provides continuity.
This is where the money is coming in, month after month.
Where the glory starts to happen.
Membership programs can range anywhere from $17 up to $297 a month – that kind of price point.
You’ve got to have a good program, however, you’re not having to work so hard every month for the sale.
So these are the five different types of courses.
I love the two middle ones – creating a program and either doing some group calls with it and pricing it around the $500 to $2000 point…
(I’ve done lots of $1,000 to $2,000 courses like that.)
Then, I love being able to add on a one-on-one call, maybe every second week over six weeks.
And that’s where you can charge a really premium price.
You can use the same course portal as you do for lower ticket offers; you just have to market it differently.
So can you see how you’re taking the content in the portal and breaking it down into different types of offers at different price points?
This means that no matter where people are in their journey, you have a solution for everyone at every level.
I hope you’ve found this super valuable.
Already, you’re starting to think like a seven-figure entrepreneur, and that’s exactly how you need to be thinking to tap into this $165 billion dollar e-learning industry. 🙂
xx
Grace
Are you curious what kind of questions 6-figure female entrepreneurs are asking their mentors? Do you want to avoid simply being a spectator, and truly make the most out of your mentor? Download my free resource for 40 more questions you should be asking your mentor now.
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely,
Grace here!
And I’m pretty sure you have more fun with a little sparkle in your life…
Or at least that’s the message I got from one of the members of my Diamond Doers Mastermind after our Expert Days event last week.
She was bang on too… we DID have a lot more fun! And not only at our #ShineBrightLikeADiamond themed cocktail party either 😉
Because my mind of fun? Well that looks sort of like this:
An entire room of smart-working women choosing to build the kind of business they want to work in.
It looks like women celebrating each other, and building each other up.
It looks like being coachable, and having the humility to hear the hard truths…
So we can learn from our mistakes, and be better than before, right?!
Okay, it also looks like drinking signature cocktails, and dancing all night around my patio in sequin ballgowns, but maybe that’s just me 😉
Listen up: if you think the women that hustle the hardest, go the farthest… you’re mistaken.
It’s finding a mentor to keep you accountable, celebrating the good, learning from the mistakes, and staying coachable… those are the markers of the women who “make it”.
My Diamond Doers girlies above are proof of that…
But you can be too.
Are you curious what kind of questions 6-figure female entrepreneurs are asking their mentors? Download my free resource for 40 more questions you should be asking your mentor now.
You see, across our Mastermind Event last week, where 20 of my highest level clients gathered in my teams HQ…
I noticed some common questions being asked of myself, and my Expert team.
Questions that made US think what we’d reply with…
Questions that made my clients get the kind of answers they’d need to have confidence moving forward in their own businesses.
Yep, these are the kind of questions these high-level women with 6-figure coaching businesses were asking of their mentors…
So they could make the most of the Experts around them.
And if you’d like to join the ranks of women like these, why not ask the same questions of YOUR business mentors too…
So you can avoid simply being a spectator to successful people, but start harnessing their Genius Zones to transform your business too.
18 questions 6-figure female entrepreneurs ask their mentors:
- What do you wish you had known before taking your first leadership-based role?
- How did you learn to embrace risk-taking? And how do you know when it’s worth taking the risk?
- I tried to delegate a task last week, and it didn’t work. What steps would you take for it to work better next time?
- What do you think my strengths are and which ones do you think I need to exercise more?
- How would you describe me to others if they asked?
- What would you do if you were me in this situation?
- How can I become more assertive in my consult calls?
- Do you have any quick tips for re-energizing an overworked team?
- Can you recommend a book or resource for dealing with difficult conversations?
- What can you recommend for dealing with nerves on camera?
- What are the top things I should know about copywriting/Instagram/Facebook ads/consult calls/online courses/graphic design/event planning (or whatever your Mentor’s top strength is)?
- What’s the best piece of advice you’ve ever received from a mentor of your own?
- What little things do you do every day to look after your own health and avoid burn out?
- How do you balance work and life? What kinds of things do you talk to your husband/wife about in terms of business?
- What’s your biggest motivator in business?
- How do you divide your time throughout the day?
- What do you wish you’d done differently with your first hires?
- Do you have a goal setting approach that works?
To see 40 more questions like these, click here to download my resource for FREE.
Do you want to avoid simply being a spectator, and truly make the most out of your mentor? Download my free resource for 40 more questions you should be asking your mentor now.
What’s the best piece of advice you’ve received from a business mentor?
Add a comment below and let me know.
Xx
Grace
Taking the right steps in your business is key to longevity and success. Find out what they are and why skipping them is actually more expensive and can take longer! Then, if you would like support and accountability so you know that you are working in the right stage of your business, join my Doers Inner Circle on a $47 Trial today!
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely,
I believe there are three steps or stages in the evolution of a coach or consultant…
Three steps from start-up to a fully-fledged, seven or eight-figure business.
And that not following them can be a much longer and steeper climb to the top.
If there was a time when you put too much on your plate, only to disappoint yourself when you fell short of your goals and expectations…
Or if you are continually looking sideways and comparing…
I want you to know it’s not your fault.
It’s so easy to get pulled into scrolling the highlight reel that is social media…
Where life looks brighter, fresher and faster.
But remember it’s just that…a highlight reel.
I sometimes catch myself comparing, but I know my time is better spent looking beyond.
When I do competitor research, I’m in and I’m out. I keep it short and sweet.
And I want you to consider this too:
Falling short of your goals and expectations – whether they’re financial, collaboration, distribution or comparison based…
Or if you simply fall short of the number followers eyeballing your content…
(Remembering that what really counts is engagement…:-)
Then this is what you should know.
We are all in different stages of business and taking the right steps, in the right order, is key to longevity and success.
So you might be in stage 1, and comparing yourself to someone in stage 3.
It’s like comparing apples and oranges!
And where you are is relative.
Without taking the right steps, I would have burned out (and who knows, maybe packed up!) a long time ago.
I would have lost faith in myself and in my business simply because I didn’t follow the right steps in the right order.
(And for the record, I’ve failed, reset and restarted multiple times. I truly believe success knowing how and when to pivot.)
The truth is, there is a way to grow your business, and skipping stages or trying to do #allthethings isn’t just expensive, it actually takes longer.
Trust me, I see it every single day.
And, what I’m about to tell you is a little controversial.
Because every day it appears that successful businesses are just thrown together, balls against the wall and just somehow magically come together.
But I honestly believe there is a map to follow, where you have to do the right things in the right order.
I’m not saying you can’t jump steps, but if you do it will be more expensive, take longer and feel harder.
And if you’re anything like me, you want to make growing your dream as achievable as possible.
So, Lovely Lady, these are the three stages in the evolution of a coach or consultant.
Face-Face / 1:1 – This is the front line where you are hands-on in serving individual clients, and you might have 10 of them.
Like an interior designer doing interior design, or a health coach stepping into a gym or a kitchen to coach.
You can command a higher rate because of the personalised service you are providing and it’s also the perfect time to gather testimonials, reviews and build a firm client base.
Online 1:1 – This is exactly like the first step, except without the face-to-face.
So you’re serving at least 10 clients, you’ve basically established the foundation and trust, and at this point you can start to remove geographical limits.
You pull yourself from the front line and you’re doing consults using a platform like Zoom.
At this point you might also start thinking about putting your knowledge into a course that students can pick up and implement 24/7.
1:Many – This is where you start coaching groups.
You start uncapping your time and scaling with multiple online courses that run 24/7.
Your business keeps ticking even while you rest, and even while you’re taking that laptop-free holidays in the Bahamas 🙂
So, if you’re in startup and expecting to launch a course in weeks, slow down!
It’s not the right time yet.
You could do all three of these stages in as quickly as a year.
But I promise you, if you sit in each stage and nail it, you will have the foundation to move into the next stage so much quicker.
I find that 90% of the time, the women who burn out have skipped a stage and in most cases they just can’t figure out what went wrong.
I tell these women to come back a step for four to six months and once they’re in that stage and making money, it’s so much easier to transition to the next.
It’s kinda like when you want to get a university degree, right?
You don’t just show up at the Dean’s office and get that piece of paper because you’re committed.
Nope! You go to the classes. Do the groundwork. Practice your craft and then prove you are good.
And then once you pass, you get that piece of paper to step up to the next level…
That seven to eight-figure business in the 1:Many stage 🙂
So Lovely Lady…
If you think you have to pack everything in, and start where you want to be, it’s time to recalibrate your expectations.
If you would like support and accountability so you know that you are working in the right stage of your business, join my Doers Inner Circle on a $47 Trial today!
xx
Grace
Are you wanting to grow your business… but the thought of hiring a huge team terrifies the heck out of you? Check out this blog post to reveal how automation allowed me to grow an 8-figure team with only a small, loyal team. Then, check out how you can get ongoing support and accountability to do the same, by joining my Doers Inner Circle on a $47 Trial.
From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely,
If you’re feeling burnt out by 2019…
And worried that you’ll only become more trapped, exhausted, and stressed come 2020…
Then this is a post you NEED to hear.
You see, I learnt the really-hard way that…
We will never accidentally just stumble upon a 6- or 7-figure business.
Especially not a business that respects your lifestyle…
Brings you joy every day you work in it…
And allows you to make a significant impact on the world.
Businesses like these don’t just happen… They are designed to be this way.
Designed by intentional, smart-working women…
Women with a roadmap, and accountability…
Not women who are overwhelmed and overworked like I was.
I hit rock bottom about 18 months ago.
For me, that meant chronic disease 🙁
I’d spent a decade as an entrepreneur, building “successful” businesses over and over again…
(I say “successful” in quotations, because while they were “successful” for my bank account, they were NOT for my life.)
I was now four years into my current business, working with other female entrepreneurs…
And it was really starting to gain traction.
I was serving a market I loved, and seeing my clients experience real transformations daily…
But in the meantime, my:
- Marriage was crumbling…
- Friendships were dissolving…
- Family were distancing themselves from me…
- And my own personal health and wellbeing were deteriorating day by day.
I didn’t realise how far gone I was… until it was too late.
Because as a business owner, it’s all on your shoulders, right?
The vision, growth, and direction of your business…
It’s all on you.
And as the head and heart of our business, we need to be the strongest part of it…
But I did not feel strong in the slightest.
Actually, I felt like the tiniest bump would make me crumble into a thousand pieces.
Does that sound familiar in your business and life too? Do you feel like the weak link, instead of the strongest tie holding it all together?
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Sure, I’d had tough times in my business before this season…
Times when I’d wondered, “How is this going to be sustainable?! How can I do this for another day, let alone another decade?!”
But 18 months ago it all came to a head, and I ended up in a hospital with no choice but to stop.
I was so confused… totally lost.
I didn’t have answers.
I’d taken everything I’d learnt from the past decade, and used it to grow a business that I thought would work.
But it wasn’t working.
I had the systems in place to create a lasting business…
I thought systems = success?!
My business was automated…
It was streamlined…
It was impacting hundreds of women across the country…
So why was I sitting in this hospital bed, wearing an unflattering gown and compression socks, IV-deep in burn out?!
Those compression socks were the catalyst for realising something pretty profound though:
You see, while I thought that it was all about the systems that were in place…
(And don’t get me wrong, there is a time and place for systems!)
I realised that building a lasting business was so, so, soooo much deeper than that.
Beyond creating a strong business, I needed to make sure that I, as a female entrepreneur, was built to last as well.
I was working too hard in all the wrong things…
I was neglecting my own well being for the sake of a sale…
I was carrying the weight of every stress, and every mistake myself…
I was never not working in some capacity… 12 hour days… checking emails at the dinner table… sending invoices during date night…
And I had no support built around me to catch me when I (inevitably) fell down.
I knew I needed to start rebuilding myself in a sustainable way, so I could be the strongest part of my business again.
I basically ‘audited’ my entire life, which was humbling… and slightly depressing.
I focussed in on EVERY part of it…
My health, finances, relationships, marriage, business, my fun-times, my faith, my philanthropy, my hobbies and passions…
And was able to identify exactly what was being neglected…
Then, piece by piece, I was able to take a practical Doing attitude to strengthen those parts back up.
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I quickly realised that my one-woman-band approach wasn’t doing me any favours.
Without a team, I’d just created a job for myself 🙁
Sure, I could work in my PJ’s and skip the commute…
But also left me personally responsible for every dollar of income my business generated.
I want a day off? I don’t make money.
I want a holiday? I don’t make money.
I end up in hospital? I don’t make money.
That was not a business or a lifestyle that was built to last…
So I set aside my fear, and built a team around me instead.
The audit also made me realise just how toxic the support systems I had around me were…
So I began to become extra-intentional when it came to my circle of influence.
I stopped talking business with the people who were judgemental, sceptical and unsupportive.
I started surrounding myself with people at a higher level than me…
People who could pull me up to bigger and better things…
Instead of people who took it as their personal responsibility to “keep me humble” 😉
More and more…
The picture of my dream-lifestyle became increasingly vivid in my mind…
And I was able to design a business that integrated with my dream-life, instead of the other way around!
Note, I’m not talking about work-life balance here.
Balance isn’t a thing, in case you’re still striving for it.
No one actually feels like their work and their life is perfectly balanced…
It’s about work-life integration.
That’s a beautiful place to be… When your life and business connect and strengthen each other… that’s a beautiful thing.
Creating this lifestyle business took time…
And the dreaming and planning for a better life came easier than actually putting in the work to build it up…
But it’s 18 months later, and I would never want to go back.
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Now, my marriage is stronger than it has ever been… and I’m a better wife than I’ve ever been before as well…
My responsibilities as a sister, daughter, and friend are being met, so my friendships are richer as a result…
My health is better, now I’ve learnt how to not only manage, but eliminate stress…
I’m freed up to pour more love and care into being an auntie…
And beyond that, I’ve been freed up to start fostering the most gorgeous little delight as well.
All of this, by intentionally designing a life I love.
And my business?
It’s bigger than ever.
In the last 12 months alone, my numbers have more-than-doubled… and yet, I haven’t experienced any more stress or pain as a result!
It’s calmer, smarter, and more profitable than ever before…
Because I redesigned it to be a business that is built to last.
I’m not saying that to brag… I’m saying that so you can see that building a profitable, lifestyle business doesn’t just happen.
What happens are stressful, obsessive, overdone, life-draining businesses.
They appear overnight…
But creating a lifestyle business you actually enjoy has to be done by design.
And that actually has more to do with YOU as a female entrepreneur than anything, or anyone else…
Because making sure you’re built to last too… well, that’s the most important part.
Xx
Grace
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From The Desk Of Grace Lever
Aldgate, South Australia
Hey Lovely,
What I feel the most as a business owner who has 14 million tasks, 26 staff, another business in the pipeline and family who lives over the place…
Is that time is ticking.
I think it’s a vibe and a stress point we’re all feeling at the moment!
And time is the resource that I value the most.
Because unlike money, it’s the one thing that I can’t replenish, make back or buy.
But…I don’t think that lack of time is a valid excuse for not showing up anymore.
Because from experience, we mostly run out of time when it’s not valued right.
If reading this is making you think ‘But Grace, how many more tasks can I possibly fit into my day?!’, just hear me out for a second.
It’s said that every single person in the world has the same 24 hours.
But I want you to stop believing you have the same 24 hours as Beyonce…
(Or whoever else’s name is on that inspirational quote card 🙂
Beyonce doesn’t have the same bunch of tasks on her plate that you do.
As much as she might achieve in a day; run the world and do it looking like a glamazon…
Running a business can sometimes feel like you are carrying the world on your shoulders.
(And it can feel like a lonely place under all that weight too.)
So instead of trying to pack everything into 24 hours, there’s a much smarter way to fit the most into each day.
Where you’re not crushed under all the doing.
And it starts with a truth bomb, so stick with me 🙂
It might just cast a new light on the way you plan and organise each day from this moment on.
If you don’t financially know what your time is worth, you can’t respect it.
And you will get stuck in a vortex of tasks that you shouldn’t be doing, at the cost of your goals.
Lovely Lady, these are my top tips for respecting your time, and packing the most into each day.
- Figure out your financial goal – i.e. $5K per week.
- Divide that by the number of hours you want to spend working – i.e. 24 per week. You’ve just calculated your hourly rate.
- Pull up that rate before you do any task. Because if you can pay someone less, then you’ve just freed yourself up to tasks that are worth thousands of dollars.
To put it into context, the CEO of McDonalds isn’t flipping burgers – not that there’s anything wrong with that, but his high-value tasks are worth thousands of dollars an hour.
When I began a business, I started outsourcing tasks on Fiverr and Freelancer early on.
And my matra today is ‘I will only do what I can only do’.
It mentality switches up everything.
So next time you pick up a task, ask yourself if it’s automatable. 90% of business tasks are.
And ask yourself if it’s worth your hourly rate.
If not, outsource it, delegate it and start freeing up hours in your day.
xx
Grace