Million Dollar Micro Business - Tina Tower

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an online course business can be a daunting challenge. I wrote this book both as a practical guide to the whole demanding, exhilarating journey and to try to allay the sense of overwhelm that may be holding you back from going for it. You may choose to work through each chapter, implementing each step as you go, but I recommend you do a full power read first, then, with a clearer understanding of the whole process, come back to put into action each step sequentially as you build up your momentum for the big launch.

      I'm a systems girl and love to use good frameworks to make life easier. You, dear reader, can freely access all the beautiful digital resources to support each part of the book at milliondollarmicrobusiness.com. Lastly, a word on terms: You'll find that course participants are variously described as students, clients, customers, even members. I use these terms more or less interchangeably. Given that most people I work with are super-qualified professionals, referring to them (accurately enough) as students often sounds wrong. Once they have signed up for a course, I generally think of them as clients.

      I recommend you read this book from cover to cover for an overview then use it as a practical handbook, so that by the last page you're well on your way to your first million dollars in online course sales.

      I believe everyone has a skill they can package into an online course. You have skills and expertise that other people will want to access for themselves. In sharing your knowledge and skills, teaching others in short, easily digestible lessons, you will embrace the new way of doing business as an online digital course creator and educator. Now let's dive in and I'll show you how.

Part I How it begins

      Often it's not coming up with an idea for your first digital course product that's the challenge; it's choosing just one. People I work with constantly tell me about all the different, sometimes overlapping courses they're going to create. I've shared my first steps already, so you know I started three completely different businesses while trying to discover what I really wanted to do. But I gained traction only when I finally picked just one, starting small and allowing it to grow and evolve.

      You've picked up this book, which means you're already interested in online courses and have probably been looking around at them. Maybe you've listened to some podcasts and heard some success stories too. My goal with this book is to persuade you that it's possible to create a million dollar business based on your existing expertise and to show you how to put it all together, ready to launch it out into the world. But I don't want to give you a bum steer. I don't want you to think that when you go live with your gorgeous new website the dollars will come rolling in so thick and fast you won't be able to count them.

      Overnight success is possible, but my gosh it's rare. What a digital business does is it allows you to scale and leverage, and it absolutely accelerates your success, enabling you to reach your goals way faster than anything you'll see in a traditional business.

      A digital business gains traction and compounds fast. When you first launch, people who don't buy will at least know about you. Thanks to social media, word spreads rapidly, so, from your first year's performance, if you maintain consistency and keep showing up and adding value for your audience, you'll continue to grow month on month.

      If you're looking at how to begin, my advice is to start with what you know. Ask friends and family, ‘What do you think I'm best at?’ If you're going with what you already know, your credibility in that area is probably already established.

      So start small. Your business, like the chapters that follow, won't stay small for long!

      What follows may trigger some resistance, because if you’ve never put yourself out into the world before in a big way, man oh man it can be scary! Building a digital business through content marketing and a personal brand is the most effective way to accelerate your growth and reach your goals faster.

      ‘Online’ can prompt the misconception that the transaction isn't as personal as shopping in a traditional bricks-and-mortar business. Actually it's more personal. In order to buy from you, your prospective client needs to:

       know you

       like you

       trust you.

      We all feel like we're not good enough in some way. Everyone is unique, but having hang-ups is far from unique. So rather than let it stop you, embrace what makes you uniquely you. This shift in perception can sometimes take time. I know that when I first became a franchisor I had an idea in my head of what a professional woman looked like and decided that was the image I should project. So I marched into Portmans womenswear store and bought a suit and some terribly uncomfortable high heels and practised being more ‘professional’. Thankfully, gone are the days when we needed to ‘look the part’. That was the old way of doing business. You're now more likely to find the wannabes in designer clothes and the successful ones in jeans and a t-shirt.

      A few years ago, after a long day of speaking on stage, I went to the end-of-conference social event to chat with the participants, but soon had to excuse myself and go home. I wasn't overtired or feeling unwell; the problem was my feet were killing me! Trying to look the part meant suffering excruciating pain. I would never show up for an event in flat shoes because I thought it looked disrespectful, and I didn't want the organiser to think I didn't care enough to ‘dress up’. But that night I vowed that henceforth I would always wear clothes I was comfortable in. Now I wear an array of gorgeous flat shoes that I can literally bounce around the stage in and have standing conversations for as long as I like! Embracing who you are and what clothes you're comfortable in will always help you perform better. You may love high heels — all power to you (and your feet). Just go with what's right for you.

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