Tiny Course Empire Podcast

Do you ever wonder what makes one small business owner more successful than another? Do they have better contacts? More education? Smarter ideas? Faster computers?

For more than a decade, I’ve been working with online business owners, first as a virtual assistant, then as an operations and marketing expert, and now as a course creator and coach. Here’s what I’ve learned.

Success doesn’t depend on who or what you know. It’s not about having the best ideas or more education or even creating better courses or products. Success is about you and your unique mix of personality traits.

That’s good news! It means you are in control of your success, not some outside force you may or may not have any influence over. And even if you think you don’t have these essential traits, it’s easy to get them.

That’s what we’re talking about in this week’s episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

What you’ll learn in this episode:

Resources mentioned:

If recent poll numbers are to be believed, as much as 86% of people surveyed claim to hate math.

They say it’s boring or they’re just not good at it. They think it’s too rigid and cold, or that the rules are too complicated. They’re frustrated with memorizing endless formulas.

The list of reasons people give for resisting math is long. Maybe some of them resonate with you. Maybe you even have your own reasons for avoiding it.

But love it or hate it, math skills are a must for entrepreneurs. You cannot successfully run a business without at least a basic understanding of concepts like profitability, income predictability, and conversion rates.

Math is what allows you to make good business decisions. I don’t know a single successful business owner who, when deciding whether to hire a contractor or buy a new piece of software or invest time in a new business venture, doesn’t first pull out a calculator to see if the numbers work.

Understanding which numbers matter and what to do with them is what this episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast is all about. Join me as I break down the basic math concepts every successful business owner needs. I promise, it’s a lot easier than you think.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

One of the best parts of Six-Figure Systems is the Q & A calls. Twice each month I get to chat with members and answer the questions at the top of their minds. I help them make better business decisions, brainstorm ideas, get past technical hurdles, and choose the right tools and resources to grow their business.

On this episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast, I’m sharing a few recent questions, because I know if one person is asking, there are many, many more who can also use the answer.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

What exactly does an online business owner do all day anyway? What should YOU be doing to grow your business?

That’s the question that came up recently on a Six-Figure Systems Q & A call, and honestly, it’s something I struggled with in the beginning. It’s something a lot of new (and even more established) solopreneurs wonder about, too.

The trouble is, there are so many things you could be doing, and it’s hard to know which ones are the most impactful. Not only that, but when you don’t know what you don’t know, you might worry that you’re missing out on some critical activities.

In this episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast, I’m breaking down how I spend my days (it’s probably not as exciting as you might imagine), and also helping you make better choices about where to invest your time, too.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

Here’s a hard truth new business owners sometimes struggle with:

You have to be seen if you want to be successful.

Once upon a time, when making money online was new and competition was nearly non-existent, you could start a blog, use a fake name and a fake photo (or none at all) and still attract traffic, fans, and cash.

As competition increased though, and buyers became more savvy (or maybe skeptical is a better word), it grew more and more difficult to hide behind a computer screen—at least if you wanted to earn a good living.

“Relationship marketing” was the buzzword. “Know, like, and trust” became so overused as to turn into a cliche.

But that’s exactly what it takes to be successful online these days. Relationships with real people we know, like, and trust. And you can’t build that without being visible.

In this episode of the Tiny Course Empire Podcast, we’re taking a look at what it means to be more visible online, some things that might hold you back, and how to choose a visibility path that works for you and your business goals.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

You’ve no doubt heard about some recent changes Apple and Google are making to their browsers and mobile devices. Maybe you’ve heard some scary things, like how those changes are bringing affiliate marketing to an end.

If your’e an affiliate marketer, or if you run an affiliate program, that might have you in a panic. Like most things though, these rumors have been blown out of proportion. Your affiliate commissions are safe—at least for now.

The truth is, the changes that Google and Apple have made are not aimed at affiliate marketers at all, but rather at advertisers who stalk you across the internet, showing unwanted ads that seem to know too much about you. You know the ones I’m talking about.

I’ve got all the details in this episode of The Tiny Course Empire Podcast, including how you can test your links and your tracking for yourself to put your mind at ease.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

Imagine being told your business—the one you’d put so much time, energy, and money into—was the worst performing franchise in the entire country.

Pretty disheartening, right? You might be tempted to just give it all up and go get a job.

Jono Petrohilos had a different plan. Instead of just giving up as many others might, he doubled down, determined to find a way to make it work.

Along the way, he found a whole new career as an online course creator. Today he runs a seven-figure business offering continuing education to personal trainers and fitness professionals worldwide. Jono also mentors other digital creators through his courses, free Facebook group, and with his podcast.

There are a ton of gold nuggets in this episode that you can use in your own online course business, so hit the play button and give it a listen.

Content is what drives your traffic. It brings in new subscribers and makes sales. If you’re a course creator or blogger, it’s also what you sell.

That makes content creation both the most important thing you can do as a business owner, and the most time consuming.

But what if it didn’t have to be?

What if you could publish more content while putting in fewer creation hours?

That’s what repurposing will do for you. In this week’s episode, we’re diving into the types of content that are ideal for repurposing, how to organize your content to make it easy, and how to reuse your content assets in a variety of ways.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

It’s pretty discouraging when you’ve worked really hard on a course or a product, and you launch it out into the world with lots of hope and excitement and then… crickets.

Maybe you make one or two sales—or maybe not even that many, but pretty soon you find yourself questioning everything about the course.

It’s the wrong topic for your audience. It’s not appealing enough. It’s the wrong time of year. Someone else just launched a similar product.

You might even be tempted to scrap the whole project and just start over.

I know that’s how I felt when it happened to me. But you know I’m all about problem solving and repeatable processes, so instead of scrapping what I knew to be a great product, I got to work fixing my key marketing piece – the sales page.

In this episode, I’m offering you a glimpse into one of my most popular courses and giving you the tools you need to rescue a low-converting sales page.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!

A customer asked me once if I thought I’d run out of course ideas one day. It can feel that way when you’re new, and sometimes even when you’ve been doing it for a while.

But the truth is, there are endless ideas out there. You just have to know where to find them.

In this episode of the Tiny Course Empire Podcast, I’m taking you behind the scenes as I research and brainstorm course topics. I’ll show you all the places I look for inspiration, and how you can use them, too.

Prefer a transcript? Here you go!