THE PODCAST FOR ONLINE COURSE CREATORS GOING BIG!

Join business strategist Tina Tower as she explores how to build your empire by packaging your expertise into online courses, speaking, content, podcasting and credibility.

Tina has over 17 years of experience in starting, building and selling companies, she's a speaker, teacher, mama and world traveller.

She's unapologetic about living an intentionally big life and if you want too, this show is designed to show you many different options to help you gain clarity over YOUR version of awesome.

EPISODE HIGHLIGHTS

There's 4 main areas that you need to nail in order to build your online course business to its first 6 figures and beyond.

🚀 Crystal clear messaging & positioning - aka, the RIGHT content that speaks to the right people at the right time.

🚀 An irresistible offer - aka, product and pricing so darn GOOD your client’s just can’t refuse.

🚀 Quality content that resonates with your audience - aka, an easy and repeatable way to create copy that gets people IN your world and coming BACK for more.

🚀 Projecting, benchmarking, and mapping out what you want to make - aka, setting your income goals and creating a roadmap that will actually get you there.

In this episode I'll be sharing with you an overview of each one and if you want to go deeper in getting this done - join my FREE 4 DAY TRAINING > The Empire Accelerator where I'll share with you templates to use and tactics to bring these 4 areas to life.

Register at: https://www.tinatower.com/tinaweek 

Want more?

We have some incredible things happening at Her Empire Builder this year! If you are a course creator, you have to be a part of this incredible community. Jump on to herempirebuilder.com and check it out!

If you loved the episode, I would be so grateful if you shared it on insta or left a review! 

The only membership you need to grow your digital course business

Her Empire Builder is a combination of live sessions and pre-recorded content to help you get what you need, when you need it.

I know that you're the expert and you've got all of your subject knowledge nailed - now it's time to build the business behind your online course and stop being the worlds best kept secret. 

Show transcription

00:00:00 Hi, friend, and welcome to episode 204 of the Female Course Creator show. I am so happy to have you here with me today just so you can get the visual in your mind. I am recording this from inside my hotel room in Austin, Texas, where I have been at south by Southwest, which is one of the world's largest tech conferences. It's my 6th time of being here. Anyway, I'm not getting into south by Southwest in this episode. 

00:00:31 I just wanted to paint the picture of where I was and then I'm like, hang on, I'm getting carried away. I'm going to go straight into south by Southwest. So in a couple of weeks, I will drop an episode all about south by Southwest and all of the lessons that I've learned and all of the tech developments and all of the futurist talks and results and everything. That's coming from that because it is so interesting and mind blowing and just I've spent the last five days with ideas going off in my mind like fireworks, and it's just amazing. And I want to package it all and share it all with you in a couple of weeks. 

00:01:05 So I'm going to do that after her Her Empire Builder has had her launch and closed her doors. But right now, what I want to share in today's episode is the four things that you need to build a six figure business. Because what I find is for those who follow along with me for long enough, my mission is by 2025 to have 100 women through our program reach a million dollars in their online business. But what I find so often is that's a very big gap between where a lot of my clients are. It could be a big gap between where you are right now, where you're thinking, well, Tina, that sounds great, but let's not worry about a million dollars yet. 

00:01:48 How do I get my first hundred thousand dollars? And I see a lot of people start courses and so expert like, no one comes to me because they don't know what to do. I think if you don't know what course to create, then you definitely don't want to come to me yet. Go and do something else. People will come to me when they're like, I have this level of expertise. 

00:02:13 I have this level of knowledge that I know people want. How do I do that? That is when people start coming to me. If you're in the stage where you're like, I don't even know what I would make a course on, then I think you need to go back to that because that is a very hard journey. I do think that when you're starting a business and when you're starting a course  you do need to be called for it. 

00:02:38 So what I mean by that is the entrepreneurial world is so glamorized in the last kind of five years. It's tough out there and it doesn't matter how many you can't mindset your way or manifest your way to a good business. I mean, that definitely comes into play. Like, don't get me wrong. I think mindset and everything that goes on with knowing yourself and how to get yourself to thrive, how to understand yourself, all of that sort of thing is half of the deal. 

00:03:11 But that's it. It's half of the deal. You need the gumption, you need the grit, you need the strategy. You need to know, like, actually, what do you do physically next to get your dream to life? And so if you already know, right, this is what I'm really good at. 

00:03:30 This is what I've been doing, say, one on one, or in a corporate sense or something that

I've developed that I'm really, really good at, that I know I have a skill set that I can share with other people. Then welcome. This is for you. So what I find is a lot of people, they know their stuff. They have an amazing idea, but don't know what's going to lie on the other side. 

00:03:56 So maybe they're going like, will it work? Will I fail? Side note, yes, probably many times. And that may be comforting, it may not be comforting, but here's one of the biggest things when it comes to course creation is you need to look at failure in a completely different way. I mean, this is true for any business, but I know from running traditional business for 13 years, it's a lot slower in a way. 

00:04:27 Like, there's the rulebook, the guidebook, that's kind of done. Whereas the world of digital online marketing is changing all the time that we may have it all figured out right now. And the one thing that I know for sure is in six months it's going to be different. And so rather than looking like success and failure, it's looking at everything that you do. Every time you launch, every time you do a new sales page, every time you try a new webinar topic, every time you go live, every time you do a post on social media, whatever it is, it's just one big, constant curious experiment. 

00:05:01 It's just going, how can I connect with my clients? How can I serve? And all of that is going to be up to creativity and interpretation of the different technology that we're using at the time and the different avenues that we're using at the time. And that is constantly ebbing and flowing. And my main job is staying on top of that and ahead of the curve. 

00:05:20 So I can pass all of that on to my clients. But it is a massive concern of people when you're first starting out in going, well, what if I fail? And I'm here to say, like, accept that there's going to be different parts. You may do a launch that totally flops. I know I have. 

00:05:36 I know I've done a webinar where no one has showed up. I know. I started this podcast and for the first few weeks there was like 20 to 50 people tuning in and I was going, well, is this worth it? And the thing that happens is consistency plays such a massive part in that and doing the right things at the right time continuously. And so today that's what I'm going to get into with you is those four things that I know are going to make the biggest difference to your success in reaching your first six figures. 

00:07:35 So one thing that I want to start off with is the long game of business. One of the blessings of it that is very hard when you're going through it is online business moves really, really fast. So when you reach that beautiful success, that is completely inevitable if you do all of the things at the right time and you just keep going and persistent and change and evolve and adapt as your clients are giving you that feedback, your success is absolutely inevitable. But you've got to play the long game for that. So it's not getting six months in and going, well, I haven't become rich yet, so I'm out. 

00:08:20 Because that is what happens is there is a graveyard of people that get all excited, launch something, don't become instantly successful, become completely disheartened and give up. And so I want to let you know that like I said at the beginning, it's not as easy as it's sometimes depicted, but that's a good thing because it means that not everyone can do it. And if you have the staying power , then that is what's eventually going to go through. But one of the blessings to get back to that is it does go so fast. So in hindsight, it always feels like it went really fast.

00:08:57 So if you do, like, I have people through her Her Empire Builder that come in and they literally do everything that I talk about. They're like, I'm going to start my podcast, I'm going to do all my content. I'm going to send a weekly newsletter. I'm going to do live launches. I'm going to have evergreens. 

00:09:12 I'm going to have all of this sort of stuff going on. And they follow it and they do it all. And in a year, they've got these businesses that are turning over two, three, four, $500,000. And it's just incredible how you can go from zero to such a profitable, sustainable business in a short amount of time. But once you get there and you look back, it feels like a short amount of time when you're in it, it doesn't. 

00:09:38 So a lot of online business growth goes like a hockey stick kind of thing. So you kind of start and then you feel like you're dipping down before you take this beautiful rise. And it's hard not to get disheartened in that dip down, but the dip down is absolutely essential because what it does is gets you to really become a businesswoman. It gets you to really focus on the things that you need to do to get the results. So when you're in those hard parts and you're lik , I don't know where to go from here, what that does is hones your brain. 

00:10:13 It gets you to laser, like, focus and go and get that in and go, all right, what is most important and where am I spending my time that is actually making no difference to my bottom line or to my customer experience that I'm going to cut out. And you've got to kind of get really strict and really disciplined on yourself, your time, your money, to really level that business up. And if you're willing to do that, oh, my gosh, you're going to fly. Okay, so the four things to ensure that you don't have crickets for too long when you launch out into the world. There are four core action steps. 

00:10:50 Now for these. I'm running a free training as part of the launch for her Her Empire Builder at the end of March. So if you want to register for that, it is free. It is the first time I am doing this training, so I have put together these four things and I'm going over them with you today briefly so that you can really work out. Okay, this is something that you can get value from, but also, if you want to go a little bit deeper, sign up for the free training so you can register for that @Tinaweek.com. 

00:11:24 We spent ages trying to figure out what short URL to give it. And so this is like a side note tip is I always like short URLs for free trainings, webinars, anything like that. Because if you do say like the URL is Tinatower.com, Tinaweek that is much harder to remember than Tinaweek.com. But also the free training is called Her Empire Builder. So it would make sense for me to call it Her Empire Builder  right? 

00:11:53 But I haven't. So don't type that in. Maybe I'll get that and redirect that too, but I haven't done that one because the word accelerator is not easy to spell and so you've always got to find a short URL that's easy to spell, easy to say. So it's not ambiguous when you're talking about it on podcasts or on lives and easy for people to remember and type in. So just a side note there, whenever you're doing something that is like a lead magnet or a hook that you can share to get that URL and then forward it to the landing page. 

00:12:27 So if you want to sign up for the free training, go to Tinaweek.com. It's going to be amazing. I mean ,I know, right ? I'm going to say that, but it really is the best free training I have ever put together. It is so comprehensive but also simple to follow with key things, templates. 

00:12:47 So I've got some Canva templates to use, some worksheets like it's just going to be a whole lot of fun. At the time of recording this, there's already about 300 people that have registered, so I'm imagining about 100 of those are going to show up live and I hope that one of them is you. So go to Tinaweek.com if you want to register for that. But in a nutshell, let me go over it with you. So the first one, actually, I'll give you the four and then I'll go into each one. 

00:13:14 So what we've got for the four is crystal clear messaging. So branding, creating your magnetic brand in there, your irresistible offer, you becoming the content queen and more mapping, more money. Now let me explain what I mean by each of those. So the first one is your magnetic brand. In going, do you have your messaging ,right? 

00:13:36 And when a lot of people hear brand, they think of logos, right? Logos, fonts, colors, and don't get me wrong, logos, fonts and colors have a lot to do with the brand. If you have seen mine, if you're not just a podcast listener, but you actually engage with my work beyond female course creator show, hi friend . But you know that I have quite a lot of color and movement in my brand. I have a lot of Palm Springs, I have a lot of different things going on in there that means it's recognizable. 

00:14:08 And when you know you've cut through properly on your brand, I can't even tell you how many times a week, I get sent rainbow things, palm tree things, bright things  beautiful things from people that go, I saw this Senate, reminded me of you. And that is when I know I've done a really good job of branding. And so that is what we're talking about is how do you get crystal clear messaging so that all of your potential clients know what you do? And this is something that I know sounds so simple, but I have worked with clients, many clients, where I can work with them for a few months and I go, yeah, but I still don't know what you do. Like, I know that this is the overarching thing, but I can't recommend you to someone else because if someone else is saying, Tina, I need help with DA DA DA DA DA, I don't know, like, exactly what you do to be able to say, oh, this is the person for you, let me hook you up together. 

00:15:05 And so we look at that in terms of what is your brand messaging, is it crystal clear? What parts of yourself are you sharing that can help to illuminate that brand? So for me, when people look at my brand, it's coming into that color, coming into that tropical, beautiful water, palm trees, like such a beautiful association. I've chosen for mine to keep my private life pretty private. There's not much I share about my husband and my kids. 

00:15:36 I never show the inside of my home. You don't have to bear all. And so we'll be going through how to get your messaging right, what your pillars are going to be that you're going to show, and some practical tips for you to become the go to person in your industry that potential clients get told about again and again and again by other people going, oh, you're in this industry. You've got to work with this person. Because that is what it's not all about. 

00:16:07 Facebook ads and massive saturation. It doesn't matter how big your business is. So much of business comes from word of mouth referrals. Like, so much at the level that I'm at now  So we of bounce around 1.61.8 million a year currently. 

00:16:26 And still so much of our business is word of mouth. So much of it comes from someone coming to me and say, I was referred by my friend Mel because I was talking to her and saying I wanted to get into online courses. And she was like, oh, well, if that's what you want to do, the only person you need to talk to is Tina Tower. So much comes from that. And so it's how to make you that go to person in your industry so that everything else is easier. 

00:16:53 Okay. The second thing is your irresistible offer. So what we'll be going through in the training is your ascension model, what that can look like for you. And there's no one way is right. There's different variations. 

00:17:07 But I'm going to show you just one way in the training that is the most common that you can start with. And then once what I like to do is go just follow the full system until you kind of get to that critical mass. Like that first hundred thousand is definitely the hardest. Once you get past that 100 and 5200 thousand, it does become a lot easier and you can start to really it and go, well, what if I go over here? What if I go over there? 

00:17:32 What if I double down on this niche instead of this niche? You can get to know yourself a little bit more, but if you follow just one pathway at the start, it gets you there really quickly and you don't have to kind of faff about trying all of these different things. So what we want to do is package your expertise in a way that gets your clients to be like, hell yeah, that's a no brainer for me. I see that. I can see the value, I can see my perception in it. 

00:17:59 I can see it's possible for me, this is what I want to do and I'm going to jump all in. So that is what we're going to kind of go through is how to organize your products in your ascension model so that you can build trust, credibility and authority and create a business for you that's going to give you the impact and the lifestyle that you desire. Because not all offers are created equal. So you may want to just start with an eight week course  You may want to live launch. 

00:18:33 You may want to have it evergreen. You may want to have a membership. You may want to go low cost, you may want to go high cost. So there's a lot of different variations and in between. And really what happens is when you get your niche, right, when you get known as that go to expert in your industry, then you get that offer dialed in as well and that just goes like click. 

00:18:59 It's kind of like when you get these four things. Like imagine the safe wheel running around like I'm imagining Italian Job Charlie's Theron sitting there looking all fabulous with her gloves doing the safe and she's like, okay, there's a combination, there's a combination. And then you get all four of these things and it just goes click and it opens and there is your safe full of gold, right? That is very much what this is. Sometimes you need different iterations, sometimes you have to try different things and then you get it and it just goes click. 

00:19:28 And it is so much better. I mean, for me, her Her Empire Builder was that click. So I started an online business in 2018, was my first launch in 2017. I was kind of just dabbling in it. I had a membership called Scale Up that was literally my private coaching clients. 

00:19:48 And I had, like, a Master class altogether and like a networking session all together for my private coaching clients coming together on Kajabi. And that was how I started. And then in 2018, I started my first course launch. So by 2020 was when I did her Her Empire Builder. So three years after I started my Kajabi site, so it did take me a while to get onto that winner chicken dinner. 

00:20:13 I got onto her Her Empire Builder. And the main reason that I did that was because that's what people were asking for. Now, this is like a little side note, but it'll give you some reference to offers as well, is when I created Her Her Empire Builder as an offer, I was told by a lot of people that are in the industry that it wouldn't work because it was too much. So the trend at the time, and still largely is, is to teach one thing. So be the go to person for video messaging or Instagram reels or that one very niche line. 

00:20:50 And what I wanted to do with Her Her Empire Builder was be like, this is the last thing that you need. This is the only program that you need as a female course creator, and you're going to get everything. And people are like, that's going to be way too overwhelming. People aren't going to want to do it because people just want what they want when they want it. And I'm like, yeah, this is how I can give people what they want when they want it. 

00:21:13 And there are different times that I do know that my offer does overwhelm people, but I love being able to give everything that a course creator needs all in one program and package, and not just with me. Like, I do one Master Class in the month, but then I bring in the best people in those little small niches in the world to come into the program and share that with my members. We do Mindset sessions, we do Facebook ads, we do Kajabi. We do everything that a course creator needs. And on paper, it shouldn't work because it goes against what a lot of people say. 

00:21:52 Like in inverted commas, I've got, like, the little fingers up should do. But this is where it comes to creating your irresistible offer, is that it has to be right for you. And so for me, what I wanted was a membership because I wanted to create community. I didn't want to do a course and have people go through, have no idea who people were, have people meet me on the street and go, oh, I did your course last year and go, Great. Never seen your name before. 

00:22:17 That's not what I wanted. I wanted to be able to create this beautiful community where people connect together, where people cheer each other on, where people grow, where people can get what they want when they want. Because I believe my customer is sophisticated and smart, and I think that if you need to work on webinars right now, you can go in and get the webinars. If you need to work on social media, you can go get social media. I think that you can do better than just like an eight week linear course  

00:22:44 So that is why I have her Her Empire Builder. But once I got that offer out there, because I knew it was what my market wanted, because I knew my clients well, and I was like, this is the solution that they need. And I was able to package that in a way that was like, my program isn't cheap, it's $444 a month, but you can use that to create a business of multiple six figures. So in terms of value, return, amazing. So once I got that out there, it clicked. 

00:23:17 Our first launch, my goal was to get ten people in it and we got 32. And that for me, was when I knew we've got onto this irresistible offer. We've been able to create what is right for me and for my perfect client. And so that's what we'll be going through on day two of the training, which, of course, you can register at Tinaweek.com, but that's what we're going through is what is going to be an irresistible offer for you and your clients that you can come out of the gates with. That's going to take you from zero to multiple six figures. 

00:23:49 And that's the one that you're going to focus on in the beginning. And this is what I'm going to tell you. So I've just told you a little bit of my background story there. What you start with will inevitably change and flow. And so it's not getting stuck in this holding pattern of, I've started with this, this is my only thing, and I have to stick to it no matter what. 

00:24:07 One of the best things about being a business owner is we can be agile. You can change as your goals change, you can change as your market goals change. So it's a fine line between giving up if an offer isn't working straight away and refining that. So you don't want to just try something, throw it out, try another thing, throw it out. But you have the power to change all the time. 

00:24:28 And what you start with will be different to what you have, like, two, three years in, so you can know that as well. And then we've got day three is the content queen. So when it comes to content, I love content. I mean, I have built my business on content. I'm not a Facebook ads expert. 

00:24:48 I am an organic marketer. I build my business through connection, marketing and relationships. And now that is so much easier. I mean, everything that I've just learned in the last few days at south by Southwest and all of the developments of AI that are coming in, it's getting easier for consumers to use it at the moment. You still need to have a little bit of tech background and know the right things to type in in order to get the good results out of it. 

00:25:14 So I'll be sharing those latest things inside the training so that you can get the most out of AI to help repurpose the content. That you do have to come up with ideas to be that content generating machine that is going to produce results for you. So the big takeaway from that is that seven day repeatable content plan. Because I see very often people have all of the intentions of creating content but get stuck in going, well, I just don't know what the right thing is to put out. And so we're going to very much solve that for you because content is key. 

00:25:50 You want to be the content queen and so I'll be showing you the easy way to do that and then day four is the one that I'll be honest, I put this one in there. I know it's people's least favorite and I know it's the least favorite because I've tested and measured a lot of things but I have no interest in vanity metrics. None. There's a saying that I love that revenue is for vanity, profit is for sanity and I say it all the time because revenue does not mean shit. There are people that I know that have create businesses and make two $3 million a year. 

00:26:33 Their profit is terrible. They're spending so much money on ads and various things and they don't even know where their money is going because the cash flow is so good that they don't worry about running the business. I think one of the best blessings that I have ever had in my life is that I was broke for a sustainable amount of time. And I know that sounds crazy and believe me I would not have liked to be broke for such a sustainable amount of time but what it did was it made me really good with money so I never waste a minute or a dollar. There's two things that I protect fiercely and what we're going to be going through on day four is setting your income goals and the roadmap to actually getting there.

00:27:19 Because you may think, well I want to run a $200,000 a year business but how do you actually create that? What sort of office stack are you going to need to make that happen and what does that look like for you? So if you do a business that's 200,000 a year you're going to get paid about $80,000 a year. And so I think a lot of people don't do the math on that. So we're going to go through I've got some really easy to use beautiful color coded spreadsheets and I'm going to show you how you can learn my insider secrets to setting and achieving your. 

00:28:00 Most ambitious income goals without losing your marbles kind of thing. So I'm going to show you how you can plug those numbers in, what sort of expenses you'll be looking at for different levels of business. Because expenses are different for everybody depending on what you want to outsource. So say you're no good at tech, you're going to have to get some tech outsourced. Say you're no good at something else, you're going to have to get that outsourced. 

00:28:24 So you get to plug in like what your expenses are going to be. But what I want you to be able to know is what's your bottom line, what is your profit, how much do you need in order to reach your goals? Are you the breadwinner of the family and you need to earn a certain amount in order to pay the mortgage and feed your kids? Are you doing this because you want to earn say 100,000 a year? And if you want to earn 100,000 a year, how much top line revenue do you need to produce in your business in order to be able to do that? 

00:28:54 And I see so many people never do the maths on that and so I'm going to be giving that to you for free in this training so that you can plug that in. And then once you've got that there and you're like, okay, so I know in order to reach my income goals I need to earn 250,000 a year or whatever it is in top line revenue. Then it's going completion backwards and working out all right . What sort of offers do you need to be able to do in order to reach that? Are you going to double down on the one offer? 

00:29:22 Are you going to have the whole Ascension model there, and you're going to have three or four different offers. Then how often are you going to need to launch them? When you launch them, and then this is where you come into her Her Empire Builder to work out all of this. More like next level sophisticated ##isticated stuff is then when you launch them, how much do you have to do in order to launch them? So what do you need to do in each launch and say you need 20 people in your launch how many people do you then need on your list? 

00:29:48 How many people do you then need in your free training? How many people do you need to show up to your webinar? How many calls do you need to make? So all of it is a numbers game and once you really understand your numbers and see it all in black and white on a spreadsheet, it takes the angst away because it's really like, okay, I know what needs to be done. Then. 

00:30:09 This is where at the beginning where I said mindset, this is where that comes in. So the first thing is figuring out what do you actually need to do, then it's figuring out how do you get yourself to do the things you need to do. And if you know, you know. Because it's one thing to figure out what it is, and I don't want you to ever gloss over that because you always need a map. Like, I am so thankful for Google Maps. 

00:30:37 I even walk all around Austin. I've just come from Palm Springs. I use Google Maps on a daily basis because it gets me from where I am to where I want to go without wandering around blocks and streets and getting lost. I want you to get there quickly. I want you to be able to go. 

00:30:53 This is my goal. This is what I want to be able to create. And I know this is what success looks like for me on both a monetary side of things and also a lifestyle side of things. This is where I want and then it's my job to be able to inside her Her Empire Builder to give you all of those tools to go, all right, this is how you can make it happen. This is the marketing plan. 

00:31:13 This is how you do your offers. This is how you do your webinars. This is how you do everything inside that online business in order to get you there. But then you, and only you can figure out how do you actually get yourself to do those things? And once you unlock that and you get yourself to be in a position where you allow yourself to thrive, oh, my gosh, you are freaking unstoppable. 

00:31:38 So that is my goal. It's where I want to get you to. Okay, so that is the four things that I believe you need to get to your first six figures is your magnetic brand, your irresistible offer, your really great repeatable content, and knowing your numbers so that you can refine them and adapt and change along the way to get there faster with your own roadmap. So if you want to join me and I'll show you how to do all of that, go to Tinaweek.com and register for that, and I will see you on the inside. But even if you're not joining me for that, hopefully this gave you enough value and enough things to kind of think and percolate on as you go about your course journey. 

00:32:21 Have the most beautiful day. This episode was brought to you by my Signature Group coaching program, her Her Empire Builder the Best Online Education for Female course creators in the world. Check it out @Tinatower.com. Along with so many free resources to help you get building your empire and seeing those results that you deserve. If you loved this episode, please don't keep it a secret. 

00:32:47 Share it with a friend on social media and tag me at Tina Tower and give it a review. It really help us to be able to bring you bigger and better content as we grow, have the most beautiful day. I'm Tina Tower and I'm cheering you on all the way.