I had a course-production binge over the last few weeks and actually finished, tested, and low-key launched my productivity course, Beyond Productivity.

It feels so good to have a paid evergreen product available!

Considering my promotion was VERY minimal, I’m very happy with the results so far.

I talk about my un-scary approach to launching evergreen products, how it works really well for me with my time constraints, and why a stepped approach to launching might be good for you.

I also missed something RATHER OBVIOUS that a subscriber was kind enough to point out to me so I could fix it. It happens! 😳😆

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Resources mentioned

I mention the following resources in this episode.

Some of these links are affiliate links, meaning I will receive a commission if you purchase via that link (thanks!) – see my disclosure here.

Beyond Productivity – my first paid course in this business!

Thrivecart – fantastic shopping cart software with advanced but easy to use features like upsells and bump offers to boost your sales easily. Also includes free course hosting in Learn+.

Tara Reid – hosted the Freebie Fest, which is sadly over. BUT you can check out her awesome range of business freebies right here.

Business Idea Review – inside my free Business Idea Blitz course.

Transcript

Hello there, everyone! I’m Kelly Kotanidis, and welcome to Online Business from Scratch, where I’m taking you behind the scenes as I build my new online business from scratch to a full-time income while making sure it’s a great fit for my travelling homeschooling life. I’ll be walking you through everything I do and why, so you can follow along and build your own flexible online business quickly and efficiently.

This is the update for day 176 of my new online business, 16 days on from my last update, and that’s because normal life here has been pretty full-on. We’ve had events like our homeschool Sports Carnival, which had over 160 kids participate, so that was a big day. But I was mostly busy because I finished, tested, and launched my productivity course.

Like I mentioned in the last episode, I’m participating in a freebie bundle at the moment, where Tara Reed has collected over 100 of the best free business resources online and collated them into a searchable database for people. My Business Idea Blitz passed the test and was included, so I wanted the productivity course finished so I could make a tripwire. That’s a limited-time sale that people will see after they sign up for the free course.

So, I did that. I finished the course, had three people who have done Business Idea Reviews review the course for me, so they got free access, and I edited according to their feedback.

Then, I made the tripwire sales page. This is really easy in ThriveCart—I can set up a checkout page, put a timer on it, and when the timer expires, they’re redirected to another page of my choice. That timer is individual for each person who sees it.

I had already set up a separate sign-up page for the Business Idea Blitz just for the Freebie Fest, so I’ll be able to track the results and see how many signups I get. I’m taking notes as well so I can publish a post detailing the actual stats from the upcoming bundles and other stuff like that I’m participating in, so that you can see what I’ve done, how I’ve leveraged it, and what the actual results are for me in terms of these bundles—like how many new signups I get and how many sales. Are these bundles actually worth doing, really? I think that’ll be really valuable for you, but it’s also going to be really valuable for me too.

Then, because I had the course finished—or I should say mostly finished, because once again, I haven’t done the supplementary videos yet—I launched it to my email list. I just sent a single email with a half-price coupon attached because it is a low-priced course. That sale hasn’t finished yet, but I’ve already sold 11 from that one email, so I’m pretty stoked with that. That’s a 9% conversion rate so far for people who have viewed the checkout, and I’ve only sent one email. The course isn’t even linked on my site yet, so unless you have the link to the sales page, you don’t know it exists.

I currently have plans to send another two emails, pretty low-key because it’s a low-ticket product. Then, I’ll do the videos, put it all up publicly on the page, and it will be half-price in another bundle in about two weeks. I’ll add it as a tripwire to the standard Business Idea Blitz sign-up form, and I will put it in the email sequence that comes after that. I’ll put it in an email in the evergreen email sequence, and after that, I’ll probably do a live workshop about the topic and use that as another promo opportunity. You can see there are a lot of different ways I can keep layering on the whole promo and sharing and marketing of that course.

So, I definitely launch early. A lot of people want all of these things done first before they launch—they want to have absolutely everything in place and working perfectly, and then they tell the world about it after their months of work. And I’m like, what for? I just want to get it out there ASAP because once it’s out there, you can continue to improve and refine it, and then slowly layer on the promo. You don’t have to have a huge launch where you’re everywhere and trying to reach everyone. When it’s an evergreen product, you can do it in stages.

Now I think of it, that should probably be a blog post or even a product all on its own about low-key launching in stages because it is much less terrifying, and you just cut out all the procrastination opportunities of, “Oh, I can’t launch yet! I don’t have a series of 10 completely finished emails, plus a six-week pre-launch sequence planned, plus weeks of bombarding people on every social platform, plus an affiliate program, plus pop-ups on my site… Oh, I could add Facebook ads…” and you get the picture. You could put off launching for months and months doing all of that, and it then puts so much more pressure on you to make the launch a huge success because it’s your one chance—you’ve poured everything into it, so you’d better make huge money, right?

Whereas I’m more like, “Cool, I finished the course. Well, nearly, ’cause I’m going to add more stuff to it, but it’s ready for people to do, so I’ll send an email about it.” And awesome! I’ve already sold 11 at half price, and I’ve made $150. Go me! Now, let’s do multiple rounds of improvement and promo and really build on this because it is so much less stressful, and it means the income is coming in sooner. Procrastination and putting it off are hugely reduced. I just have to get it done.

And, as always happens when I already feel pretty loaded up with tasks, as soon as I realized I was in for a very busy week finishing the course and I was looking at my planner thinking, “Man, I’m going to have to be really disciplined and focused this week to get all of this done,” two people bought business reviews just to add more to my plate. So, I also completed two more business reviews. But I’m still really enjoying these. I think I’ve done about 10 so far, and they’re interesting and challenging, and they get me thinking and researching. The people who buy them have all been absolutely wonderful. They’ve all been really friendly and thoughtful, and it feels more like I’m having a bit of a chat with a friend rather than delivering a paid business product.

However, as I’ve said previously, they are definitely not sustainable at the current price. I probably spend three hours on each one, but I knew this would be the case. They’ve been for my learning and experimentation, and they were something I was reasonably sure I could consistently do well, but I wanted to test them out first. Now that the feedback has been consistently very good, and I’ve got some experience, I am going to consider raising the prices. So, that’s something for me to think about over the next few weeks.

I have been asked by a few people who have had reviews if I can continue coaching or mentoring them—to develop a longer one-to-one package for them. But I’m still reluctant to do that because I know I tend to go all in and over-deliver and feel a really big responsibility to people, so I think it would just stress me out too much. One-to-one work does tend to do that to me.

So, I haven’t completely written off the idea, but I would need to be able to have some very strict boundaries in place. That’s just for myself, really. The people who have done the reviews have all been really respectful of my time, and no one has tried to push for more. But that’s something else for me to think of—if I’m getting asked for this service, is there a way I could do it sustainably without having meltdowns and burnout? So, maybe a small group coaching membership, a small mastermind with set hours each month, something like that. I don’t know. I’ll keep thinking.

But in the end, I think I probably enjoy courses and workshops a lot more, and I think it shows in the delivery too. So, we’re all probably better off if I do what I really love.

Now, I’m still having my nursing quandary. I’ve done two interviews for the Disability Clinical Educator position. I haven’t heard back with a yes or a no, but they’ve asked me to do the psychometric testing, to get my Working with Children Card, and my other relevant checks done. They’ve asked me how many days I can work, which days I want, and when I can start. So overall, it’s looking pretty positive. I’m kind of getting swept along, and my husband keeps saying, “Well, will you take it if you get it?” And I’m like, “I don’t know. Don’t ask me to make a decision!” Because I’m loving my business right now, but I also feel like the job is a great opportunity. It’s exactly what I enjoy doing, and it’s kind of my last-ditch try at nursing. So, I’m very torn. So, I’m just ignoring the decision, basically, which is really adult of me, and it’s driving my husband up the wall. So, sorry about that, husband.

And for one more little business thing that I did—I got an email in reply to my Beyond Productivity course, and it said, “Great! I want to buy this, but how do I log into the free course? I can never find it on your site.” And I realized it was because I hadn’t actually put it there! So, I now have a login link in the header bar, and I thanked that person for pointing it out to me because that was an oversight on my part.

These things happen—there are so many moving parts, it is really, really easy to miss bits here and there. So, don’t beat yourself up if you do this. I think that having a really open, friendly attitude with your audience helps because then they feel safe, and that you’ll welcome their feedback because it is honestly the best feedback you will get. It’s from actual users of your site, your products, your services, who see it from that perspective. And it’s almost impossible to see your own stuff from that user perspective.

So, I always welcome that sort of feedback, even if it often points out something I really should have noticed but haven’t. If you do notice anything like that while you’re using my site, my products, anything—please feel free to let me know. I would really appreciate it.

So, before you go, I haven’t asked in a while—if you’re enjoying the podcast, can you please give it a five-star review in Apple Podcasts or Spotify? Or both, if you’re feeling really generous! The podcast is growing steadily all by itself, but ratings and reviews help to give it that little boost in visibility, that boost of social proof that yes, people do listen to this and like it.

So, thank you very much if you take a few moments to give me those five stars—I really appreciate it. I know it’s a bit tricky in Apple—I’ve had a few people message to say, “Look, I’m trying, but I can’t work it out.” I think it’s a little different on different devices, but if you open the Apple Podcasts app, find the show Online Business from Scratch (not an individual episode, the whole show), then scroll all the way down to Ratings and Reviews and click on Write a Review—that should work. Again, thank you so much if you take a few minutes to do that—it really does help me, and I really do appreciate it. You are awesome.

Thank you for listening, and I will be back next time with the latest update. I will see you then!

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