I nearly closed my business (that now makes millions per year) - Part 2
Today I’m sharing Part 2 of a story I started yesterday about how I first launched my online courses business and how I nearly closed down my business 2 weeks before my first course launch!
You can read Part 1 here first if you haven’t already.
QUICK RECAP
So yesterday I finished the story at the point where I had just seeded the idea of my SketchUp course to my community to see if they might be interested.
And the resounding response from them was YES!!!!
At this point I was about a month away from my trip to Toronto (Canada) which I had already paid for but now felt really guilty about.
The reason for the trip was to attend an in-person conference about online business and I was feeling really guilty about going on the trip when I didn’t even have an online business that was making money yet!
I think this guilt stemmed from feelings I’d had for a long time about being insecure about the fact that I wasn’t financially independent and relied heavily on my husbands’ financial support, which just never sat right with me (that’s a whole other story!).
So I felt guilty about paying for the trip, despite the fact I had paid for it myself from my own business because in some ways I felt that I didn’t really deserve to spend that sort of money on something so self-indulgent.
On top of that, me being away for a week was going to make things really difficult for Paul as he had to then juggle the boys and school etc. on top of his busy job. All for me to essentially go on a junket overseas!
Perhaps some of you know what I mean with these feelings - or maybe it’s just me!! :) Anyway #mumguilt had kicked in.
So the motivation to try and get some kind of online product created and sold was quite high because of all of these feelings. And on top of that I didn’t want to be standing at networking events all the way over in Canada and people asking me what my course/membership was about and having to say “I don’t have one yet”. Seems like a strange thing to get worried about - but the over-thinker and over-achiever in me has a lot of strange stuff going on in my head!! LOL!
SO BACK TO THE STORY…
So after people started showing interest in a SketchUp course I thought - let me try out this idea and see if people really do want it.
People saying they are interested in the course was one thing - but would they actually pay for the course if it really existed?
So I spent a few days outlining what the new proposed course would look like and getting a sales page made so I could tell them what it would be about and how it would all work.
I wanted to gauge genuine interest in the course (i.e. via actual sales) before I got too far into the course creation process.
And then I shut my eyes and hit publish on an Instagram post and email to my community to see what would happen. 🫣🫣
My goal was to get 10 students in the course…I thought that would be unbelievable as a start for my first ever course.
HERE’S THE INSTAGRAM POST I PUT UP
And an hour or so after the post went up the most unbelievable thing happened - I got a notification in my email that someone had just bought the course!!!
And then not long after that another sale!
I forgot to take a screenshot of the first sale that came in as I was so excited about what was happening and then the second one came in quickly after it - but here is the screen shot after the second sale that I took to show my husband (who was at work at the time) as I simply couldn’t believe what was happening!
I ALSO NOW PANICKED A LITTLE BIT AS WELL
Because paying students now meant that in the next month or so I had to get a really high-quality course delivered to them and it was barely started!
So this started a month of intensive work on getting the course made for my brand new, paying students.
It was scary, fun, exhilarating and stressful.
But I was having THE BEST time. I was creating something that I knew people wanted and was enjoying every second of the course creation process. I was completely in my element and realised how much I loved teaching and creating the best experience possible for my students.
ON TOP OF THAT EVERY DAY NEW SALES KEPT COMING IN.
It was so exciting and I just honestly couldn’t believe it!
I also got better at taking screen shots of the revenue climbing up :)
I also kept putting up more posts about the course and off the back of those posts more sales kept coming in.
Along the way I decided that making the course itself wasn’t hard enough to do in a month LOL - so I decided to also create some special welcome packages to send out to the students in the mail when they first started.
I have no idea what I was thinking!!!
Because this meant I had to then create all the extra content for the packs, get all the stuff printed and then get everything packed up as well! I had never tried to do any of that before and I completely underestimated how much time all of this would take or how to get stuff printed and packed in time.
I had to recruit my entire family to help me pack up the welcome packs ready to send as I was running out of time to get everything finished.
I also underestimated how many people would sign up so had to keep getting more and more stuff printed off.
It seems so funny now in hindsight - but at the time it was SO stressful!!
Here’s a few pics of the boys helping me with the packs in the few days leading up to the course launch.
LAUNCH DAY! 🥳🥳
Then on the 19th August 2019, about a month after I had seeded the idea of the course to my community it was officially launch day!
I dressed up in a silly outfit and hosted a ‘Welcome Ceremony’ online with my new students (I was terrified doing this by the way - but you have to push yourself to do things that scare you if you want to grow as a person and business owner!).
My students were excited to start and I was excited to share the content with them.
MY GOAL HAD BEEN TO ENROL 10 STUDENTS IN THE COURSE…
And in the end I had 123 founding students in that initial launch of the course.
And - more mind blowingly - I had made nearly $40,000 on the launch of a course that only existed as an idea in my head just a month or so before.
SO WHAT ABOUT CANADA??
So did I end up going to Toronto?
Yes!!! And I had an amazing time.
I even treated myself by upgrading my flight to business class :) I had never flown business class before and I felt so proud of myself that I had been able to legitimately pay for a business class ticket off the back of something I had created and sold completely on my own. It was very surreal and I was really proud of myself!
(Excuse the stupid photo of me on the plane but it was sent to Paul without any intention of me ever publicly sharing it later on as part of a blog post haha!)
While I was at the conference I also had the opportunity to meet Amy Porterfield, who was someone who had really inspired me to create an online course in the first place and someone who I really admired. There were lots of fun moments about that trip.
Plus - when I met people at the networking events I was able to tell them I had just had a $40,000 launch for my first ever online course :) Another proud moment.
THE START OF A LIFE CHANGING RIDE!
And that’s the story of how my online courses business and content platform for designers got started.
I haven’t thought about a lot of the details of that story for years now so it’s been fun to think back to where it all started only a few short years ago.
I have since created so many other online courses for my community including a second (intermediate) SketchUp course. as well as heaps of business courses + templates for designers and architects and also a program where I teach people who to create their own profitable online course.
My courses have gone on to make multi-millions of dollars in only a handful of years and I now have more than 7000 students enrolled across all the courses I offer (as of the time of writing this).
More importantly than that - I have learned of so many stories of students from my courses who have used the information I’ve shared with them to make massive changes to their own lives and businesses - something I wasn’t expecting at all.
I regularly review the student stories from my SketchUp courses to just remind me how lucky I am to be part of such an amazing community of people.
A few years ago my online courses business also allowed Paul to ‘retire’ from his corporate job.
He now works with me in the business and is also living his best life sitting on start-up boards, creating a YouTube channel and doing Jiu-Jitsu each day.
I also no longer need to feel guilty about being reliant on his income, which is something that gives me a lot of self-confidence and pride :)
My business has completely changed my life and the life of our family and it all started by taking a leap of faith with that one launch of my SketchUp course.
THE NEXT CHAPTER…
And so that’s pretty much it for how I went from working as an interior designer to creating this online content platform for other designers and architects.
As of writing this post I’m planning out the next phase of this platform.
After many years of growth it’s time to push myself out of my comfort zone once again and take the platform to the next level. There’s so much content that I wish existed in our industry and I’ve got so many ideas for what is possible.
I know that if I create things I would enjoy and wish existed in the world then there will be others who enjoy it as well. So in 2023 my aim has been to take this platform to even bigger heights and share more content that will help and inspire designers on their business (and life!) journeys.
It’s been fun reliving the journey of where all of this started for me so thanks for indulging me and reading all the way to here :) Remember to DM me on IG if you got this far - I would love to hear from you!
Catch you in my next post :)
Clare x
Dr Clare Le Roy
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