Tiny Course Empire Podcast

If you find that asking people to buy what you’ve created feels a little icky, you’re not alone.

Many of us have negative feelings about sales, and the people who make their living at it. After all, who hasn’t bumped into a pushy appliance salesman who just would not take no for an answer?

Those unpleasant experiences often lead to discomfort when we’re on the other side of the desk, asking potential customers to hand over a credit card to buy something we’ve created.

That means writing emails, hopping on a discovery call, or even writing a sales page is something we’d rather avoid.

Here’s the problem, though. When you’re in business for yourself, it’s your job to sell what you create. That’s the only way you’re going to get paid.

The good news is, even if you don’t enjoy sales, you can still craft a compelling sales page. All you have to do is follow a simple three-step process.

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If I could offer you one piece of advice about starting an online business, it would be this:

Don’t wait to create your first digital product.

Sure, there are loads of ways you can make money from an online business. You can be a coach, or a freelance writer, or an affiliate marketer, or build websites or publish a Substack or write a blog.

I even know of one couple who hunt for scorpions and tarantulas on their property that they then sell online. #onlyinarizona

Clearly, you have a lot of options. But when it comes to leverage, digital products offer the most flexibility and potential for growth.

They’re what building a Tiny Course Empire is all about.

Here’s the kicker though. Getting started can feel hard. It can look overwhelming. It can come with a lot of self-imposed pressure to get it just right. And that’s the kind of thinking that will keep you stuck right where you’re at.

I’ve watched brilliant people with solid skills spend years creating and then updating a “signature course,” while never quite getting to the launch pad, because it’s never good enough. It’s never done, at least in their eyes.

There’s a better, more achievable approach, and that’s to create a simple digital product. Nothing fancy here. Just a solution your audience needs, in a format they can use, at a price they can afford.

It really doesn’t get any easier. I’ll walk you through how to do it in this episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast.

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If I’m being honest, building your mailing list is the easy part. Staying in touch with those subscribers is much more difficult. Not in the tactical sense, but in the week-after-week practicality of it.

It’s oh-so-easy to let another week slide by without sending an email to your list. Before you know it, they haven’t heard from you in months, or maybe even years. Believe me, I know. I’ve been there.

Sometimes you feel like you don’t have anything useful to write. Sometimes you tell yourself you don’t have time. That next week will be better. Sometimes you worry that you’re just cluttering up your subscribers’ inboxes for no good reason.

The problem with that line of thinking is that it leads to even more email procrastination. Even more self-applied pressure to do just the right thing, the perfect thing.

But if you instead create a repeatable email system that’s easy to follow and quick to complete, you’ll find it’s a simple task to keep in touch with your subscribers, and build those relationships, too.

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The single most important asset you have in your business is your mailing list. It’s more valuable than your followers on TikTok, more useful than a Facebook group, and more secure than the best SEO strategy.

So why do so many of us wait so long to build one—especially when it’s as easy as this?

Today we’re laying out a step-by-step plan you can follow to get your first lead magnet online and collecting email addresses. I’ll give you my top recommendations for useful offers you can create, the tools to use, and my three must-follow rules for creating a great lead magnet.

When you’re all done (and don’t worry, this won’t take you more than a couple of hours, tops) I’ll show you exactly how to start promoting your new lead magnet.

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Quick, what’s the most important thing you should be focusing on right now to build your business?

Is it traffic? Starting an email list? Creating a product? Branding? Website? Keywords? Something else?

Or maybe all of that, plus a dozen more “must do” projects.

If that big pile of unfinished, disorganized ideas is weighing you down and causing you to rethink you goal of even starting a business, this episode and those that follow in this series are for you.

Grab a notebook and a pen, sit back, and get ready to find your focus and nail those first critical steps towards a sustainable, profitable online business. You’ve got this.

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Branding concerns, tech troubles, clients to serve, a team to manage, email to answer, and don’t forget life, family, and laundry, too. Our list of things to do is long and seemingly endless.

Oh, and somewhere in there, you’re supposed to be creating content. Blog posts, podcast episodes, opt-in offers, emails, and don’t forget courses and digital products to sell.

It’s a lot, I know, and it leaves most of us looking for ways we can lessen the workload.

Enter PLR, or private label rights content. These pre-written (and in some cases, pre-designed or even pre-recorded), rebrandable products promise to slash your content creation time while maintaining your quality standards, but do they really? And how can you use content that’s sold to hundreds of people and not sound like everyone else in the process?

We’ll find out on this week’s episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast.

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You can’t focus on anything. You’re frustrated and out of sorts. Stress levels have peaked, and your to-do list gets longer every day.

Welcome to the land of overwhelm, where small business owners like you and me work long hours without accomplishing anything, and where every new idea results in feeling even more stuck. It’s not a fun place to be, but there is hope. You can overcome the overwhelm, but first, you have to recognize it for what it is.

That’s what we’re talking about today.

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Overthinking. If you’re like me, that’s what you do when have a great idea for a new course, but you’re anxious about putting it out there for the world to see. Suddenly you’re filled with questions.

What if you don’t know enough about the subject you want to teach?

What if you get lost in a sea of others all talking about the same thing?

What if what you make doesn’t live up to your own (ridiculously) high standards?

Just who do you think you are, anyway?

Creators in every niche can find these and other questions on endless repeat in our minds. If we’re not careful, they’ll kill our confidence and shatter our dreams.

On this episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast, I’ll give you a new way to think about these and other confidence-crushers, and I’ll share my personal struggle as well.

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Decision matrices, SWOT analysis, pros and cons lists, cost/benefit analysis… there are a multitude of tools you can use to make decisions in your business.

Whether you’re deciding on a new product line to create, a new marketing strategy to try, or even a new business model to explore, there’s no end to the advice you’ll hear on how to choose the right path.

But what I’ve found is that one simple question is more important than everything else, and it’s often the one we never bother to ask.

In this episode of the Tiny Course Empire podcast, I’m giving you the question I ask all my clients whenever they’re making a decision. It will help you decide, too.

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There are a lot of confusing terms in the online marketing space, and maybe one of the worst offenders is “funnel.”

It means a lot of different things depending on who you ask and what their particular business model is. Just to add to the confusion, it also goes by many different names.

In this episode of the Tiny Course Empire Podcast, we’re taking a look at funnels. You’ll learn what they are, how they’re used, and I’ll answer the big question: do you even need a funnel at all?

Listen in to find out!

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