about what I do. The most fun I've ever had in business has been this, right now. Building my program Her Empire Builder and seeing so many women package their expertise, step into their light and share their gifts with the world totally gets me all giddy. I want to thank my beautiful members who have trusted me to guide them and then done the work to elevate their success. You're all kinds of awesome and an inspiration to so many around you.
Thank you to Wiley for pulling this beauty together. In all honesty, most of the work is going to come once the book is sent to print, but I thank you for believing that I could write something worthy of printing and worldwide domination. You guys, when I said ‘I want this book to be this decade's The 4-hour Work Week’ they didn't even laugh at me. Not while I was on the zoom screen anyway ;) Thanks Lucy Raymond, Frankie Tarquinio and Chris Shorten for all of your handwork up to this point.
Thanks to Jem Bates for editing my words and making me sound more witty than I am. If you giggle in this book, chances are it's because Jem tweaked my words to make them funnier and smarter.
I wanted this book to be incredibly useful and not just theoretical. To add some personality and inspiration, I wanted to include some Success Stories from my favourite course creators. It was a little harder than I thought with gate keepers, but I eventually got there! Thank you so much to James Wedmore, Kayse Morris, Clint Salter, Tracy Harris and Denise Duffield-Thomas for so openly sharing your journey and for all of the fabulous work you inject into our world.
Thank you to Kenny Reuter, Jonathon Cronstedt, Allie Fernando and everyone at Kajabi for what you've created and the support that you have provided throughout my course creating and the creation of this book. It's rare that a software company has such personality and customer connection and I love you for it.
Thank you to those who have taught me what I know, some of you I actually know, and some don't even know I exist. It's amazing the incredible people who have helped me through courses, podcasts and content that don't even realise their impact (it's also what I want you to remember when you're creating your content!). Thank you to Amy Porterfield, Jasmine Star, Colin Boyd, Brendon Burchard, Jill Stanton, Jenna Kutcher, Chalene Johnson, Aaron Mac and James Wedmore for all of your gifts to the world that have helped me to figure out and grow in this wonderful world of online digital products.
Above all else, I want to thank you. I wrote this book for you and if you're reading these words, you've picked it up and cracked open the cover. Thank you for taking a punt on this book and thank you for believing in yourself enough to entertain the idea that you can create your own Million Dollar Micro Business. It's totally yours for the taking and I'm cheering you on every step of the way.
introduction
That day I sat looking out at the blue ocean spread out before me, reflecting on my past 10 years in business and how much had changed. I was just a couple of months into a round-the-world trip with my family, and we were staying on the island of Ko Lanta in Thailand.
I was having my first proper go at this online course thing I had seen people try. With a background in franchising and a work ethic based on the creed ‘while they sleep, I work’, I didn't quite believe the hype. And yet, in business I am a curious experimenter. I want to know how things work and the levers to pull to get different results. For this new game, I was still figuring out what the levers actually were.
I had given myself 10 days to write, record and market my new eight-week online course. Of course, it was only possible because I didn't know what I didn't know. Now, having launched courses over and over again, I know the parts I was missing and how ‘amateur hour’ this first effort was.
But was it actually? In that 10 days in Thailand I had created and sold my course to 11 people. A small number? Yes. But 11 people had purchased a course for $997, or six monthly payments of $199. I knew I was offering spectacular value. I knew they would be able to take the lessons from it and earn back that money multiple times. I also knew that now I had created the course I could sell it many times over. See, putting together an online course is laborious, but once it's done it can be sold again and again and again.
That was when I knew that a million dollar micro business was actually possible. It was the moment I fell in love with this new way of doing business, and knew I would be sharing everything I had learned to help other highly skilled but overworked people to package their expertise and sell it at scale.
I am certain that you have acquired knowledge and skills that are practical and useful, and that you have your own unique spin on them that could help other people acquire the skills and knowledge you have. In this book I want to help you wrap that neatly with a bow into a simple online course so you too can have your moment of staring into space and thinking, ‘Holy guacamole, this actually works!’
The way we consume education, like the way we do business, is constantly changing and evolving. Recent technological advances have greatly facilitated the business of online education. Information on any topic you could possibly want to know about is at the tip of your fingers, courtesy of Google and YouTube, but it's often delivered in a disjointed, unmediated flood, like drinking from a fire hydrant. Professionally created online courses provide a linear learning experience that allows the client to define and seek out their desired transformation and access a complete start-to-finish, step-by-step guide. The goal of an online course is to guide a client from where they are to where they want to be in the simplest, most cost-effective and timely way.
I began my further education at university, where I studied Organisational Learning. At the end of my first year I was advised that I wasn't cut out for the corporate world (how right he was!), so I transferred to a degree in primary teaching. I love education. I love learning and teaching, and I knew I had found my calling. Though I have never taught in a classroom, I have been a teacher all my life.
In my second year of studying education I launched my first business, a toy store and tutoring centre on the main street of the suburb where I lived. It was a traditional business in every sense of the word. Business hours were 9 am to 5 pm six days a week and 10 am to 4 pm on Sunday. I employed 17 staff, bought stock from wholesale suppliers, included a mark-up that allowed us to stay competitive, and added value with our custom gift wrapping and branded bags. It was respectable, busy and stressful — all the things expected of a traditional, bricks-and-mortar retail- and service-based mixed business. Four years into it, my first child entered the world.
I went through what a lot of women go through when they have children, beginning with that moment when we realise that the life we had before is no longer going to work for us. I had to figure out how I could operate a business I absolutely loved, maintain my financial independence, satisfy the ambition that burned inside me and be the mum I always dreamed of being.
The possibilities for scaling were sparse. Traditional businesses usually see two avenues for growth: work more hours or hire more staff. Neither option was very attractive to me. So I took the curriculum I had created for our tutoring centre and licensed it so other teachers could use it in their own tutoring centres. I then closed my beloved store so I could stay at home with my babies and grow a business around their sleep times. The combination of my love of learning and personal development and my ambition was never going to allow me to keep it slow and steady.
Now, at 37, I have identified a pattern: in everything I do, every plan I make, I seek to escalate, to realise its full potential, and I will help everyone I come into contact with to do the same.
After two years of licensing, I opened our first franchised tutoring centre. I finally experienced the scalability of business!
I imagined I would have franchisees open and operate the centres while I stayed home with my children, a win–win for everyone. But
