I nearly closed my business (that now makes millions per year) - Part 1
People often ask me about how I went from working as a designer to creating my online content platform for designers, so in this post I’m sharing Part 1 of that story with you (because I started writing the post and then realised the story was actually quite long…so Part 2 coming tomorrow!)
It’s a long story and has some winding roads…so stick with me because it all comes together in the end…:)
As with all my ‘this is my story’ type posts I really write these to document my own journey.
I always hope they will be helpful to others but they are mostly something I share to just keep a record and document my thoughts over time - so definitely DM me on Instagram and let me know if you get through the full post! I’ll be very impressed LOL!
NB: This is a repost from over on my personal blog so a few of you may have read this earlier in the year. As I remerge my brands I’m in the process of bringing all my content back over to this site so it’s all in one place :)
OK LET’S START BACK A FEW YEARS…
It was around 2017 when I first started thinking about creating an online course.
At the time I had no idea what the course might be about but I assumed something to do with interior design or renovation.
At that point I had been working for around 6 years as an interior designer 1:1 with clients and my time was fully booked up with client work. This had been my dream when I left my corporate career to follow my passion for interior design and I had now built a business, completely from scratch, doing something I loved and being around for my kids and working the hours I wanted.
[you can find read more about that story here if you’re interested]
But the problem with 1:1 client work was that it was still tied to my time. I was being paid by clients to work on their design projects. But as soon as my time was maxed out my income was maxed out as well.
And that had started to happen.
I was making over 6 figures a year from my interior design business but I couldn’t take on any more work as my time was completely booked up.
So I had a few choices for what to do next:
just be happy with my fully booked business and continue with things as they were (but I’m an ambitious person so I did want to do more)
scale my business by hiring junior designers and other employees so I could take on more design projects (but I have never wanted employees so this wasn’t an option for me)
scale my business online (so the amount of money I was making wasn’t tied directly to the hours I was working)
I knew that the third option was the one for me and that I wanted to try and scale my business online somehow.
I was also OBSESSED with online business.
Whenever I could I would listen to podcasts or audio books about building an online business and how to do it. I loved everything about it and couldn’t get enough of the topic.
“I THINK I’M MEANT TO BE DOING SOMETHING BIGGER”
At the same time I would often say to Paul (my husband), that I felt like I was meant to be doing something “bigger” with my life. That I was capable of doing more and having a bigger impact.
I didn’t quite know how to express what I meant to him as I didn’t really know what I meant myself - but I just knew that my interior design business wasn’t all that I had to contribute to the world.
Paul thinks very much like I do - he’s very entrepreneurial and has a real growth mindset and ‘can-do’ attitude about life. But despite this, when I said I felt like I was meant to be doing something more with my life he would say things like:
“Most people don’t become Elon Musk”
“Your business is doing really well, you don’t need to do more - most people would dream of having a 6-figure design business”
He wasn’t trying to be negative or say that I couldn’t do anything more, he was simply trying to say that most people don’t do something amazing or spectacular with their life or career. They just work hard and they make a difference in their little part of the world.
But I still wanted to do more and help more people and share more of what I knew. I couldn’t shake that feeling.
AND I KNEW AN ONLINE COURSE WAS GOING TO BE THE ANSWER TO THAT.
As I saw it, building an online content platform was a way that I could do three things that were important to me:
work to my own schedule and not be tied to 1:1 client work to make a living (so I could be flexible with my kids’ schedule and also because I rebel against having things in my diary!)
help and motivate people to do more with their life (especially women and mothers) by sharing stuff I’ve learned during my somewhat unusual career path and via some of the quite challenging circumstances life has thrown my way
earn an income in a way that doesn’t require me to be physically present (i.e. make money while I sleep!).
So I knew this was the answer I was looking for but despite this I continued to procrastinate and over think my online course options and obsess over online business content for YEARS after I first decided I wanted to try and do something.
I bought domain names, I thought of so many course ideas, I planned out the courses…I did everything except actually MAKE A COURSE!
OVERTHINKING AND FEAR
What was really happening over these years of ‘thinking and planning’ was this:
I was overthinking everything instead of taking action on something and seeing what happened
I was completely in fear and had huge imposter syndrome - e.g. even though I had been working with clients for many years on renovating their homes I didn’t think I really knew anything about renovating that I could teach others???
I wasn’t exactly clear what I should create a course about and didn’t know how to work out what to make it on.
By early 2019 I had been thinking about all of this for so long that I had got into a massive business rut.
I had also stopped enjoying my 1:1 design client work. Although I had some lovely clients who I really enjoyed working with, I also had some awful ones who just a pain to work with.
This post may resonate with some of you - and I definitely had way too many of these types of clients:
So I had stopped taking on new projects.
Which meant I now wasn’t bringing in as much revenue.
Which then made me feel bad about myself as well.
Overall I had started to feel quite depressed about everything.
MY NEW BUSINESS IDEA…
But then in early 2019 I had a new idea for a brand new business that was getting me excited.
Stay with me here because this bit is a little long - but there’s a purpose to sharing it with you! :)
By way of background to this, I am an ex-classical musician and played the oboe to a high level in my teens and during my university years. I practised about 3-4 hours day, went to the Conservatorium High School (the music high school in Sydney), did a Bachelor of Music and even went on a scholarship to London to study for my Masters degree at the Royal College of Music.
So it’s safe to say I took music quite seriously for nearly 2 decades and knew a thing or two about it…!
Now I was a Mum and my boys had just started learning music.
Caleb, my eldest, was learning the trumpet and Archie, my youngest, who was only 5 at the time, had started learning the violin.
I was having HUGE problems getting them to practice without sitting with them myself or motivating them with some kind of reward system.
I had always had fights about practice with my own parents growing up, especially when I was young and before I motivated myself as a teenager.
But because I understood music and the importance of consistent practice routines, I was also watching my boys progress with their music faster than their peers. I knew that the secret to progress as a young child learning music is just to do some practice each day.
But most parents had no idea how to help their kids with music practice, nor did they understand how important this part of their musical journey was.
I could see how many parents were paying thousands of dollars for music lessons and instruments that was basically being wasted as the kids weren’t going anywhere with it - because they never did any practice!
So I had this idea of creating a fun club for kids called ‘The Music Practice Club’.
I was really passionate about the idea and went all in on it. And I felt like it was the answer to all my business problems.
To help me create the club, which was effectively going to be a membership site for kids learning music, I signed up to an online program called ‘Tribe’ which is run by Stu McLaren and is all about how to create your own membership program.
I worked through the program diligently and created all the basic materials and outline for my brand new club. I even paid a few thousand dollars to set up a new business and establish it all legally.
I was ALL IN on the idea.
Below you can see just a few pieces of the collateral I created at the time. I even hired an artist to design ‘characters’ for me that I would use in my club - like fun musical instruments and monkeys in ninja suits playing instruments, who would represent the ‘ninja progression system’ that kids would work through as they did more and more practice.
I was really excited :)
I NEARLY CLOSED THE LITTLE DESIGN CORNER
I was so obsessed and committed to my idea of The Music Practice Club and so over everything that was happening in my design business that I nearly closed down The Little Design Corner.
I had always felt it was important to go ‘all in’ on one idea and I felt that by having both businesses I was going to be distracted and not make either work well.
So one day, when I was feeling particularly fed up, I almost deleted my TLDC Instagram - I literally nearly shut the whole thing down.
But Paul wisely told me to just keep it all open for a little while longer until I had got my new music club more established.
WHAT FINALLY GOT MY BUTT IN GEAR….
So this was all going on for a few months and then the opportunity came to attend a conference in Canada, run by Stu McLaren as part of the Tribe program I had joined.
I love in person conferences as they are always so inspiring and I was excited about the chance to go to Canada and see it all live. So I bought a plane ticket and booked a hotel.
BUT THEN I FELT REALLY BAD…
I hadn’t been earning much money in my business for months now as I had stopped taking on new 1:1 design clients.
I had enough money saved up in my business to pay for my flights and accomodation in Toronto but I felt guilty that I was travelling all the way to a conference in Canada and I hadn’t even launched a paid membership program myself yet!
It all felt very overly indulgent and I had a lot of (female mother!) guilt about it all.
PEOPLE STARTED ASKING ME ABOUT SKETCHUP
While all of this was going on with The Music Practice Club development I had also been sporadically trying out some new types of content on my design Instagram account @thelittledesigncorner
In particular I had been sharing more examples of my client design projects and drawings I had created for my clients using SketchUp.
And people were liking it! In fact I was getting more and more questions from people asking about what program I was using to create these drawings and whether I could teach them how to do this.
I knew how much fun SketchUp was and how much I loved using it. Plus it had been instrumental to me in being able to offer an excellent service to my design clients. I had also planned out lots of our home renovations with it as well.
And when I was learning SketchUp myself I found there was a real lack of training available that was focused on nice interior design projects.
There were quite a few online courses that were already teaching SketchUp but they were very generic and basic and didn’t really help get people to where I felt they needed to be to use it professionally in an interior design setting. Plus the design side was horrible - so I felt there was a gap in the market.
SO ONE DAY IT SUDDENLY DAWNED ON ME…..
What if I made an online course teaching people how to use SketchUp specifically for interior design purposes? I wonder if they would be interested in that?
So I started asking my TLDC community (which by the way wasn’t all that big at the time) about whether they might find a course on how to use SketchUp helpful. And the resounding response from them was YES!!!!
In the back of my mind I also knew that if I got the course launched and sold before I went to Canada that I wouldn’t feel quite guilty attending a conference about online business without actually having an online business to show for it!
MORE IN PART 2 TOMORROW :)
And that’s where I am going to leave the story here for Part 1 (Netflix cliff hanger style LOL!).
In the second part of the post I’ll share how I ended up launching my first ever SketchUp course and blowing my goals out of the water by making nearly $40,000 with that initial launch.
Also - just for the record…after you find out what happened when you read the post tomorrow, you won’t be surprised to hear that The Music Practice Club got put on the side burner and I never ended up doing anything with that.
But I do actually still think that’s quite a good idea - so who knows, one day in the future maybe I will still create it! :)
Thanks for reading and catch you in Part 2 :)
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
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