E29: How to build a following of buyers for your offer quickly (even if you have a tiny following)

Erin Austin: 00:00:00

Hello, ladies.

Erin Austin: 00:00:01

Welcome to the Hourly to Exit podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:00:04

Thank you so much for joining me today.

Erin Austin: 00:00:06

I am very excited for my guest, Molly Kaiser.

Erin Austin: 00:00:09

Welcome,

Erin Austin: 00:00:10

Molly.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:10

Hello, super excited to be chatting with you today.

Erin Austin: 00:00:13

Well, I am very excited as well.

Erin Austin: 00:00:16

when I found out about your expertise.

Erin Austin: 00:00:18

You know, what I love about this podcast, frankly, and having experts

Erin Austin: 00:00:22

on it, is like I get free coaching,

Erin Austin: 00:00:25

I get to ask all my questions that I have about these topics, and

Erin Austin: 00:00:30

then I'm sure what my questions are, also my audience's questions.

Erin Austin: 00:00:33

So it works out perfectly.

Erin Austin: 00:00:35

So first, I would like to let you introduce.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:39

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:39

Awesome.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:40

So thanks again for having me.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:41

Hello everyone.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:42

my name's Molly and I'm from Wisconsin.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:45

you can probably detect the accent, but I actually live in New Mexico

Molly Keyser: 00:00:48

and my business journey, I actually started out as a photographer

Molly Keyser: 00:00:52

and I was able to grow that from.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:55

81 cents in my pocket to a multiple six figure studio.

Molly Keyser: 00:00:58

And so other people started asking me how I did it.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:01

And that turned into me doing, coaching and workshops and

Molly Keyser: 00:01:05

things like that, which I loved.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:07

But I found myself trading just even more of my time for money.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:10

So I found out about online courses and I decided to take all that information.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:15

Put it into my own online course and kind of the rest is history.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:20

so it was very easy for me to fall in love with courses because I was able to gain

Molly Keyser: 00:01:24

My time back and also help a lot of people and, grow my wealth at the same time.

Erin Austin: 00:01:29

so do

Erin Austin: 00:01:30

you still work, uh, do you now only do courses or do you do one-on-one work?

Erin Austin: 00:01:34

How do you work with your clients?

Erin Austin: 00:01:35

Who are your clients and how do you work?

Erin Austin: 00:01:36

With them?

Molly Keyser: 00:01:37

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:37

Great question.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:38

So my ideal client is a service provider, like a one-on-one freelancer.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:44

I mean, I will work with men, but women are definitely like my ideal client.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:48

just because, you know, I was a freelancer trading my time

Molly Keyser: 00:01:50

for money with photography.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:51

But to answer your question, yes, I.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:53

100% do courses.

Molly Keyser: 00:01:55

Now, courses have been my full-time income since and I did a little bit

Molly Keyser: 00:02:00

of photography, but I have slowly transitioned out of it, because I

Molly Keyser: 00:02:03

just really love courses and helping people now turn their knowledge

Molly Keyser: 00:02:08

into their own online course

Erin Austin: 00:02:10

Now, I mean 20 15, 7 years ago, so things have changed

Erin Austin: 00:02:14

a lot technology-wise, I would imagine during that time in, terms

Erin Austin: 00:02:19

of being able to create, publish, distribute, monetize courses.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:24

Yes.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:25

I love this question.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:25

I actually haven't been asked this one yet, but I think

Molly Keyser: 00:02:28

this is a fantastic question.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:30

yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:30

So back when I, started courses in like 2014, which, kind of shows you it'd

Molly Keyser: 00:02:34

only took me really a year to make it my full-time, which was pretty cool.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:39

back then I remember like I had to learn HTML to hand code sections of my website.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:45

you know, I'm like the MySpace generation, so, I used to hand code like

Molly Keyser: 00:02:50

I marketed on MySpace back in the day.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:54

but yeah, so we had to like, hand code websites.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:56

It was a lot of WordPress.

Molly Keyser: 00:02:58

you know, I was using a software back then, which I think it still does exist

Molly Keyser: 00:03:01

today, called Entreport, which is great, but it's just, it's very robust and.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:05

There's just a lot more options now, and so I always love when

Molly Keyser: 00:03:08

people come to me and they're like, oh, I wanna have an online course,

Molly Keyser: 00:03:11

but I feel like I missed the boat.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:13

I feel like, it's gonna be so much harder now.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:16

And I actually feel and know because I've, started other courses along the way that

Molly Keyser: 00:03:22

it's easier now because the technology.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:26

Laughably easier , in my opinion.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:29

and also people actually know what an online course is now.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:32

Like back in the day, not only did I have to educate them about my

Molly Keyser: 00:03:35

actual course topic and like why they would wanna purchase it, but

Molly Keyser: 00:03:39

I also had to educate them on like, , what is a course how do I log in?

Molly Keyser: 00:03:42

You know, these are things that people didn't really understand back then.

Molly Keyser: 00:03:45

So, one other thing is if you want data to back up what I just said, if

Molly Keyser: 00:03:49

you Google, the e-learning industry, it'll show you that, analysts

Molly Keyser: 00:03:53

projected that the e-learning industry would hit, I believe it was like

Molly Keyser: 00:03:56

105 billion by 2015, and it did.

Molly Keyser: 00:04:00

And now they're projecting by, I believe it's twenty twenty four,

Molly Keyser: 00:04:02

three hundred and twenty 5 billion.

Molly Keyser: 00:04:05

And it just keeps skyrocketing.

Molly Keyser: 00:04:06

Like companies are even hiring people like me or anyone that has a course to come

Molly Keyser: 00:04:11

into their company and teach the course.

Molly Keyser: 00:04:13

Like there's just so many levels of opportunity now.

Erin Austin: 00:04:16

Absolutely.

Erin Austin: 00:04:17

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:04:17

I like to say that I was ahead of my time.

Erin Austin: 00:04:19

I mean, before we started recording, I mentioned my, misadventures

Erin Austin: 00:04:22

with, LinkedIn Live today and that I am a tech, Luddite and.

Erin Austin: 00:04:26

it was easily, I mean, you know, 10 years ago or something where I had, would have

Erin Austin: 00:04:30

ideas for things that I wanted to do online, but it was just so complicated.

Erin Austin: 00:04:33

Like, I mean, for me it was like, forget about it.

Erin Austin: 00:04:35

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:04:36

and so now I'm very excited that technology is caught up to my.

Erin Austin: 00:04:40

abilities, I think is the way I, I love it.

Erin Austin: 00:04:44

. . So, we're gonna talk about courses, course creation, So, tell me, does

Erin Austin: 00:04:49

everyone have a course in them?

Molly Keyser: 00:04:51

I love this question.

Molly Keyser: 00:04:52

yes.

Molly Keyser: 00:04:53

I wholeheartedly like this is kind of the thing that people tell me is my

Molly Keyser: 00:04:57

thing, is like helping someone kind of extract like what their course idea is.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:02

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:03

. And we do actually have like a freebie that will help you with that.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:05

If you go to our website, it's profitable courses.com.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:08

but I'll talk about it here regardless.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:10

Yep.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:11

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:11

yeah, so everyone has a profitable course idea inside of them, and your

Molly Keyser: 00:05:15

profitable course idea can actually be any idea, but you have to just position

Molly Keyser: 00:05:21

it in a way that will make it profitable.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:22

So I'll kind of break that down if you want me to.

Erin Austin: 00:05:25

Yeah, that would be great.

Erin Austin: 00:05:25

Yes.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:26

Okay, cool.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:27

So, How I found my first profitable course idea is, like I said, I was running my

Molly Keyser: 00:05:32

photography studio and you'd think it would've been pretty easy for someone

Molly Keyser: 00:05:37

to look and be like, oh, well duh, she should have a course on photography.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:40

You know?

Molly Keyser: 00:05:40

But for some reason, I think sometimes even when the course

Molly Keyser: 00:05:43

idea is so close to us, sometimes we still don't necessarily see it.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:47

So, like for me, at the time, I heard about courses.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:51

And I knew I could just transition like my workshop and that into a course, but I

Molly Keyser: 00:05:54

thought, well, maybe that's not the idea.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:56

Maybe I should do this idea or that idea.

Molly Keyser: 00:05:58

And so I decided to come up with a bunch of different ideas before I chose the

Molly Keyser: 00:06:02

one, which is what I recommend you to do.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:04

So what I did was I looked at past.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:07

things that I have accomplished, past things with my story.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:10

Like what are things that I've personally overcome?

Molly Keyser: 00:06:14

So, what I looked at in the past was way back in the day, I had like a

Molly Keyser: 00:06:17

very successful babysitting business.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:20

I was like, well, maybe I could teach like parents how to help their kids

Molly Keyser: 00:06:23

be like, successful babysitters.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:25

I'm like, okay, that's an idea.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:26

and then I looked at my passions.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:28

I'm like, okay, well I really like hiking, so maybe I could help women.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:31

that wanna get into hiking, but just don't know where to start.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:34

Like I could help them, hike their first trail or something like that.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:37

I really like painting.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:38

Maybe I could help someone, go from never having painted before to

Molly Keyser: 00:06:41

like painting something they would be proud to hang on their wall.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:44

So I basically just went down all these ideas based on my, passions, my

Molly Keyser: 00:06:48

knowledge, like past experiences, and everyone has that past experience.

Molly Keyser: 00:06:54

in them, you know?

Molly Keyser: 00:06:55

And the cool thing is for example, you don't have to be, say, a

Molly Keyser: 00:06:59

gardening expert featured on homes and gardens to teach someone how to

Molly Keyser: 00:07:04

start their very first home garden.

Molly Keyser: 00:07:06

I always tell my students, you know, you really only need to know like 10%

Molly Keyser: 00:07:09

more than who you're teaching, and . Another analogy I like to use is when

Molly Keyser: 00:07:14

I was in college, . I did drop out, but when I was in college, , I took

Molly Keyser: 00:07:19

this business class and my business professor, he was like telling us how

Molly Keyser: 00:07:24

to have a great business and I couldn't help but like giggle inside because

Molly Keyser: 00:07:28

he had never had a business before.

Molly Keyser: 00:07:30

And for me it's like I would rather learn from someone who has 10% more experience

Molly Keyser: 00:07:37

than me, than just a piece of paper.

Molly Keyser: 00:07:39

Now, nothing wrong with getting a college degree, but like I would

Molly Keyser: 00:07:42

rather learn from someone that.

Molly Keyser: 00:07:43

paper or not the experience, you know?

Molly Keyser: 00:07:47

and so like I said, just look back at your past history.

Molly Keyser: 00:07:50

What have you accomplished?

Molly Keyser: 00:07:52

What have you helped other people with?

Molly Keyser: 00:07:53

What are you passionate about?

Molly Keyser: 00:07:54

And then come up with a bunch of different ideas and then look at which

Molly Keyser: 00:07:58

one's gonna be the most fun, the most profitable, the easiest, and then choose

Molly Keyser: 00:08:01

the one course idea to start with.

Erin Austin: 00:08:03

Now, does any of this change when you are a B2B service provider?

Erin Austin: 00:08:08

So your current

Erin Austin: 00:08:09

clients are all corporations or other businesses?

Erin Austin: 00:08:13

how do we look at course creation differently versus the b2c?

Erin Austin: 00:08:18

kind of courses.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:19

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:19

Interesting.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:20

my photography course was b2b, so I helped other photography businesses.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:25

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:25

and then I did have at one point, like a low carb course, so that was b2c.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:30

And I'm thinking

Molly Keyser: 00:08:31

in my head right now, like I can't really think of any differences.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:35

Are you thinking in terms of.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:37

Legal or like something else

Molly Keyser: 00:08:39

. Erin Austin: Well, yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:40

Well, uh, you're definitely the expert on that.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:43

That's not,

Molly Keyser: 00:08:43

I don't think anyone in my audience is a lawyer.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:46

I will say that . But, um, but yeah, just if they're thinking

Molly Keyser: 00:08:49

about instead of thinking about passions, maybe, you know, more focus

Molly Keyser: 00:08:54

or like how to market it.

Molly Keyser: 00:08:55

Or are you thinking like maybe how it's different to market it?

Molly Keyser: 00:08:58

Is that correct?

Erin Austin: 00:08:58

Like the way for them to think about like what ideas like

Erin Austin: 00:09:01

instead of being about their passions, maybe it's more and like the student

Erin Austin: 00:09:06

focus, like what do my clients need that I can bundle in a way and teach.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:10

Okay.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:10

Totally get it.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:11

Yes.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:12

Thank you for clarifying.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:13

So yeah, with any course idea, you always want to.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:17

, and that's what I said earlier, I was like, you can do any idea, but

Molly Keyser: 00:09:20

in order for it to be profitable, it's about how you position it.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:24

So whether it's B2B or b2c, you always wanna position it with the result in mind.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:29

So for example, my course is called Profitable Courses.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:32

So very short name and it's like, You know, the result, the

Molly Keyser: 00:09:35

result is you're gonna leave with a profitable course, right?

Molly Keyser: 00:09:38

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:38

. And so, I always have my students come up with their promised statements,

Molly Keyser: 00:09:42

which basically I'll just share an example instead of saying,

Molly Keyser: 00:09:46

like, I am a bookkeeper, or instead of saying, I have a course for bookkeeping.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:52

Okay, that's pretty vague.

Molly Keyser: 00:09:53

Maybe you could put that on Skillshare and charge like 19 bucks worth, right?

Molly Keyser: 00:09:57

But if you change that statement to say something like, Well, I help, lawyer

Molly Keyser: 00:10:02

business owners who sell contracts online for other online business owners

Molly Keyser: 00:10:08

how to better do their bookkeeping, to raise their profit margins.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:12

Now it's so specific with the result that you could charge, you know, 9 97 plus.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:16

so a great question.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:18

I whether it's B2B or b2c, I think it's no different.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:20

But either way, you have to make sure that you are clear on.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:24

The promise and the results because people aren't gonna buy, they're not gonna be

Molly Keyser: 00:10:28

like, wow, she has 13 modules, , right?

Molly Keyser: 00:10:31

People wanna buy knowing like I can get the results.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:34

She's promising as quickly and painlessly as possible.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:38

Like someone would rather take a.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:39

Like if I'm gonna teach you the same thing, they'd rather learn it

Molly Keyser: 00:10:42

in three modules than 13 modules.

Molly Keyser: 00:10:44

So,

Erin Austin: 00:10:45

oh, that is so true.

Erin Austin: 00:10:46

I'll say, I mean, I have looked at online course I'm sure everybody has

Erin Austin: 00:10:49

an online course, experie and Bad and, maybe several of both and I will say

Erin Austin: 00:10:54

I am allergic now to like, Dozens.

Erin Austin: 00:10:57

I'm like, I'm like, Nope, I'm out.

Erin Austin: 00:10:59

Like there's just no way I will do.

Erin Austin: 00:11:01

Cause I've never once completed one.

Erin Austin: 00:11:03

Right.

Erin Austin: 00:11:03

you go through that and you, you learn that lesson and

Molly Keyser: 00:11:06

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:06

People, people want, they wanna pay for the win.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:09

They wanna pay for the result.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:10

They don't wanna pay for like the work they're gonna have to do.

Erin Austin: 00:11:13

Exactly.

Erin Austin: 00:11:14

I don't remember who that's, that's crazy, isn't it?

Erin Austin: 00:11:17

Like

Molly Keyser: 00:11:18

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:18

I unfortunately can't remember the person who said the quote, so feel free to.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:22

share it with me, , whoever's listening to this but someone once

Molly Keyser: 00:11:25

said like, you wanna sell them the vacation and not the plane flight.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:29

Like you wanna sell them, you know, the results mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:33

and not like the work.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:34

It's gonna mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:35

, you know, they wanna do as little work as possible to get the results.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:38

So,

Erin Austin: 00:11:39

oh, that's, I like that.

Erin Austin: 00:11:40

Sell this

Erin Austin: 00:11:42

. That's perfect.

Erin Austin: 00:11:42

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:11:43

So, well you mentioned pricing, let's go there.

Erin Austin: 00:11:47

So we do see, Was it Skillshare for 19 bucks versus your own for 9 97?

Erin Austin: 00:11:53

Like

Erin Austin: 00:11:53

What is the difference between those two

Erin Austin: 00:11:55

courses?

Molly Keyser: 00:11:56

Oh, I love this.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:57

Okay.

Molly Keyser: 00:11:57

I know I'm saying that about every question, but you're a

Molly Keyser: 00:11:59

good interviewer, so great job.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:01

So with Skillshare, people a lot of times can say like, well, why

Molly Keyser: 00:12:05

can't I just learn it on Google?

Molly Keyser: 00:12:06

Or Why can't I just go YouTuber, Skillshare, or whatever.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:09

and the thing is that people will pay, like I said, for the result.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:13

They'll pay for how quickly and painlessly also, how much like

Molly Keyser: 00:12:17

support they're getting and how well organized the course is.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:21

. I could be very wrong here, but I personally have never had a friend say to

Molly Keyser: 00:12:24

me like, oh my God, I just took this $19 course from, you know, whatever website.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:29

There's a ton of websites that host like low priced courses, you know, and

Molly Keyser: 00:12:33

they're like, it changed my business.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:34

I made six figures.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:35

and again, it could happen.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:37

I've personally never experienced that.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:39

I've also never personally had someone say to me like, I watched this YouTube video.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:43

Now I have a seven figure business like

Molly Keyser: 00:12:46

Okay.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:46

difference is that again, people will pay for the results.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:50

So for example, like we have students in our course, you know,

Molly Keyser: 00:12:52

making tens of thousands of dollars within just a couple months.

Molly Keyser: 00:12:55

And, you know, we've worked really hard to take our system that works

Molly Keyser: 00:12:59

for us and put it into the course.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:00

So it's like tried and true.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:02

and it also is taught every, video is like eight minutes or less.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:06

And people will pay for that.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:07

They pay for.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:08

The organization of it, because on YouTube I do teach a lot of course tips,

Molly Keyser: 00:13:12

but it's not laid out like a course.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:14

Like you can't just watch.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:15

I mean, there's hundreds of videos, right?

Molly Keyser: 00:13:18

and it would be harder to.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:19

Put it all together, like I obviously wanna share with my audience, like tips

Molly Keyser: 00:13:22

and show them, you know, that if they put into play what I'm sharing, it will

Molly Keyser: 00:13:25

help them so that they can trust me and hopefully want to take my full course.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:29

but yeah, I mean the main difference, like I said, is just with the lower

Molly Keyser: 00:13:32

price courses, typically it's like a bunch of stuff kind of thrown in and

Molly Keyser: 00:13:36

it's not laid out like a roadmap to get you the result that they're promising.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:40

And also, once you really do a course well, you'll start to get a lot

Molly Keyser: 00:13:44

of testimonials and that will also really help you, with the pricing.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:48

So to answer your question about pricing, I recommend that my students

Molly Keyser: 00:13:52

price anywhere between 2 97 and 1997.

Molly Keyser: 00:13:56

And the reason I do that, the reason I chose that range is because,

Molly Keyser: 00:13:59

first of all, I've done a lot of courses, , and I've tested it.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:03

And if you go lower than 2 97, Eventually, if you wanna scale,

Molly Keyser: 00:14:07

it becomes very hard to do so your profit margins are just too small.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:10

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:11

, unless you have some massive organic following.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:14

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:14

, which you don't have to have by the way.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:16

and then if you go above 1997, that typically will involve you

Molly Keyser: 00:14:21

doing high ticket sales and having a sales team to take those calls.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:25

So 2 97 and 1997 is really that sweet spot where you can sell.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:29

One to many and have a webinar and automate it, which everyone

Molly Keyser: 00:14:32

wants the automated passive income, which is incredible.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:36

and then when it comes down to choosing the price between those ranges, you

Molly Keyser: 00:14:40

really will base it based on the result.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:42

So, for example, if you have a course where you're gonna help someone make

Molly Keyser: 00:14:47

X amount of dollars and x amount of time, like let's say, Your course is

Molly Keyser: 00:14:51

set up to make someone, 9 97 in a month.

Molly Keyser: 00:14:54

Okay, so now that you know the range

Molly Keyser: 00:14:55

is 2 97 to 1997, I would recommend that you just pick the price in

Molly Keyser: 00:15:00

between that based on the result that your course is getting.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:04

So the result can be, money made, time saved, stress saved, any of those things.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:09

And then you would just base it based on that.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:11

And then you can mark it saying, you're gonna get this result in this amount

Molly Keyser: 00:15:14

of time, and then that way they know that they'll be willing to pay that.

Erin Austin: 00:15:17

Got it.

Erin Austin: 00:15:18

That makes a ton of sense.

Erin Austin: 00:15:19

I love that.

Erin Austin: 00:15:20

All right, so creating a course, pricing a course, arguably the easy part.

Erin Austin: 00:15:27

Building the audience to sell it to.

Erin Austin: 00:15:30

I think a lot of people struggle with.

Erin Austin: 00:15:33

And so what I've heard about courses is that you need to

Erin Austin: 00:15:36

have, like, it's a volume play.

Erin Austin: 00:15:38

You need to have a really big audience in order to create a course.

Erin Austin: 00:15:40

Otherwise, you know, it doesn't make sense.

Erin Austin: 00:15:43

So is this true?

Erin Austin: 00:15:44

How big of an audience do you need?

Erin Austin: 00:15:46

What do you need?

Molly Keyser: 00:15:47

I love that.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:48

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:48

So you don't actually really need that big of an audience, whether

Molly Keyser: 00:15:51

you have an audience or not.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:53

I still have all of my students build an audience of buyers

Molly Keyser: 00:15:56

separately, and all you need is 200.

Molly Keyser: 00:15:59

So you can grow those from scratch or you can like move them from.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:02

another social platform that you already have.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:05

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:05

. And just by having those 200, you know, I've used this method over and over.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:09

I call this my profitable course kickstart method, but just from those

Molly Keyser: 00:16:12

200, I was able to generate $17,000 in enrollments in 30 days with no ads.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:17

And countless amounts of my students have done way more than that.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:21

I've had students do $36,000 in 30 days.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:23

So, and that's just with A few hundred people.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:27

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:27

, it's more about the quality than the quantity of people.

Erin Austin: 00:16:32

Okay.

Erin Austin: 00:16:32

How do you know?

Erin Austin: 00:16:32

So let's say like I just hang out on LinkedIn and I have

Erin Austin: 00:16:37

an email newsletter list.

Erin Austin: 00:16:38

Like how do I know what the quality.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:41

Yeah, LinkedIn is perfect.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:43

So if you don't already have a following mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:46

, I recommend you start with a group.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:48

It can be a Facebook group or a LinkedIn group.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:50

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:16:51

. And if you do already have a following, you can use that platform or you can

Molly Keyser: 00:16:55

move those people into your group.

Erin Austin: 00:16:58

Tell me more.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:02

So for example, let's say you already, or like,

Molly Keyser: 00:17:06

tell me about your following.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:07

Maybe I can just sort of workshop you through it.

Erin Austin: 00:17:09

Yeah, so, on LinkedIn I have, I guess around 2000 followers.

Erin Austin: 00:17:16

I haven't looked at connections.

Erin Austin: 00:17:17

I guess

Erin Austin: 00:17:18

I can look at that too, but

Molly Keyser: 00:17:18

Do you have a LinkedIn group?

Erin Austin: 00:17:20

No, but I have a business page that doesn't really do anything.

Erin Austin: 00:17:24

So it was just Erin Austin, and.

Erin Austin: 00:17:27

there are groups that I'm a member of, but it's not, you know, LinkedIn

Erin Austin: 00:17:30

isn't really much like Facebook, like the groups, there's not a lot

Erin Austin: 00:17:33

of activity happening in the group.

Erin Austin: 00:17:35

They're pretty Okay.

Erin Austin: 00:17:36

Dead zones.

Erin Austin: 00:17:37

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:38

Okay.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:38

So if you don't already have a Facebook group, then I would

Molly Keyser: 00:17:42

recommend starting one, and I know everyone's like, , Facebook's

Molly Keyser: 00:17:46

dead, blah, blah, blah, not dead.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:49

and I'm not saying you're gonna go on there forever.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:52

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:52

, this is just gonna be your platform to grow those 200 quickly

Molly Keyser: 00:17:55

to start making money quickly.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:57

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:17:57

. And then you're gonna move to more of like a long-term platform.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:00

So it could be YouTube, Instagram slash TikTok, LinkedIn,

Molly Keyser: 00:18:03

you know, whatever that is.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:04

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:05

. But, in order to do the kickstart and like get those sales really quickly.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:09

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:09

, like I said, whether you have a following or not.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:11

You're gonna start that group and you're going to get people into it, so, , if

Molly Keyser: 00:18:15

you already have a following, it's easy because you can promote, you know?

Molly Keyser: 00:18:19

to tell people to go into the group.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:20

If you don't already have a following, it's still easy, but here's what you're

Molly Keyser: 00:18:24

gonna do, . So what you do is you start the group and you name it based

Molly Keyser: 00:18:28

on a community that your ideal client would want to be part of, because

Molly Keyser: 00:18:32

that's the big thing, like mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:33

, people don't just wanna join a group that's like, come by my thing.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:37

It's not how groups work.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:39

, right?

Molly Keyser: 00:18:39

People wanna be part of a community of other people like them trying to, get

Molly Keyser: 00:18:43

the same result that they want to get.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:45

And so if you have friends on Facebook, You can look through that list and

Molly Keyser: 00:18:49

say like, okay, well which of these people do I think are ideal clients?

Molly Keyser: 00:18:51

And invite them to your group.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:53

Otherwise you can go into other groups, start adding value, you know, connecting,

Molly Keyser: 00:18:58

networking, making friends with people.

Molly Keyser: 00:18:59

You can friend them.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:00

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:01

and then invite them into your group.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:02

And once you get to 50, which you should be able to do in

Molly Keyser: 00:19:05

just like one to two days.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:07

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:07

, um, once you get to 50, is that one five or 50?

Molly Keyser: 00:19:10

55, 0, 50.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:11

Ok, thanks.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:12

Yep.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:12

So once you get to 50, you.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:14

Can do what I call a group grow.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:16

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:17

. So what that is is where you do like a giveaway.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:19

So you can choose a prize, whether it's like a one-on-one

Molly Keyser: 00:19:22

with you or something else.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:23

And basically you'll say like, Hey, you know, invite your

Molly Keyser: 00:19:27

friends and make sure you specify that they're your ideal client.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:31

And whoever invites the most people wins the prize and

Molly Keyser: 00:19:33

then your group will explode.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:36

. Erin Austin: Hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:36

How interesting.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:38

that's all I did to get to 200 . Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:19:40

Couple times.

Erin Austin: 00:19:42

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:19:42

That's interesting because Facebook, I mean, I have my

Erin Austin: 00:19:45

own private, Facebook, profile.

Erin Austin: 00:19:47

I don't have a business one there.

Erin Austin: 00:19:49

And when I am in Facebook groups, I do have some that are business based, but

Erin Austin: 00:19:54

they're on Facebook like, you know, a podcast or something that I follow.

Erin Austin: 00:19:58

They have a Facebook group.

Erin Austin: 00:20:00

and so yeah, so even though I don't hang out there for business,

Erin Austin: 00:20:04

I guess we all kind of have yeah, some kind of footprint off

Erin Austin: 00:20:08

Facebook.

Erin Austin: 00:20:09

I'm sorry, yeah, because unfortunately LinkedIn.

Erin Austin: 00:20:15

Groups and it's just not where they put their focus.

Erin Austin: 00:20:18

really, it's about the human and, creating your kind of personal brand.

Erin Austin: 00:20:23

I think that's what they call it actually, you know, your personal brand there.

Erin Austin: 00:20:26

so yeah, you probably would that group idea probably need to be done somewhere

Erin Austin: 00:20:29

else other than, than on LinkedIn?

Erin Austin: 00:20:31

I get

Erin Austin: 00:20:31

it.

Erin Austin: 00:20:32

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:32

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:32

I mean, I've had students do it on both with success, but I definitely.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:36

, Facebook is easier and then you can pivot somewhere else.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:39

. Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:40

. Erin Austin: Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:41

. So you've

Molly Keyser: 00:20:41

had clients who've successfully made LinkedIn groups and.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:45

use the rapid growth strategy on

Molly Keyser: 00:20:49

LinkedIn.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:49

Yeah, they just use the exact same strategy there as well.

Molly Keyser: 00:20:53

And I've been testing the same, like, not the group group, but I've been

Molly Keyser: 00:20:57

testing the same scripts and strategies for the groups on Instagram and TikTok.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:02

And although they do work.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:04

, those platforms just take longer to grow.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:07

And that's why like if you don't already have an audience of buyers

Molly Keyser: 00:21:10

for your course, Facebook groups is still the fastest way to just get

Molly Keyser: 00:21:15

that initial following of buyers and then you can go somewhere else

Molly Keyser: 00:21:17

that's more long, long-term play.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:20

so if you are someone that has in your head like, well, I hate Facebook,

Molly Keyser: 00:21:24

Well then just like utilize it to your advantage until it's gone.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:27

You know what I mean?

Molly Keyser: 00:21:27

Like Right, you know, so, and there's still 2 billion active users

Molly Keyser: 00:21:31

a month on it, which is, insane.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:33

A crap ton of people.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:36

. Erin Austin: So now,

Molly Keyser: 00:21:40

now what percentage of your audience will buy your course?

Molly Keyser: 00:21:44

I mean, on average, like what

Molly Keyser: 00:21:45

are the,

Molly Keyser: 00:21:45

Hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:46

Great.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:46

okay, so I have this in my course, so hopefully I.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:49

just saying it from recollection here, but I believe it's five to 10% of

Molly Keyser: 00:21:54

the group will purchase and I give my students like scripts and everything.

Molly Keyser: 00:21:58

Basically what they do is once they've grown the group, I have these scripts

Molly Keyser: 00:22:02

that they post called interest posts, that will get people raising their

Molly Keyser: 00:22:05

hand, being like, oh, I'm interested, I want more information on this.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:08

Like, you're never gonna cold message people.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:09

I would never recommend that.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:11

Right.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:11

people are just gonna essentially like send an emoji raise their hand, so to.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:15

And then you're gonna be able to have a conversation with them and see if

Molly Keyser: 00:22:18

they're a good fit just through the dms.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:19

So you don't have to, do sales calls, nothing like that.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:22

And don't even have to build your email list yet.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:24

I do teach how to build the email list, but we do things in steps and waves

Molly Keyser: 00:22:28

so that you start making money faster.

Erin Austin: 00:22:30

Gotcha.

Erin Austin: 00:22:31

So are you nurturing them inside the group then?

Erin Austin: 00:22:33

Like how are.

Erin Austin: 00:22:34

Keeping them in the group.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:36

I'm sorry, say that again?

Erin Austin: 00:22:37

Are you nurturing them in the group?

Molly Keyser: 00:22:39

Oh,

Molly Keyser: 00:22:39

absolutely.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:40

So, I always recommend that you come up with like five different types

Molly Keyser: 00:22:43

of categories of nurture things.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:45

You know, it can be like educational, it can be quotes, it can be engagement

Molly Keyser: 00:22:48

posts, you know, whatever it is.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:50

and then I use a tool called Smarter Cue to automate everything.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:53

So it actually evergreens all of your content.

Molly Keyser: 00:22:56

It's not like Buffer where you just schedule it once and then

Molly Keyser: 00:22:59

it goes out and it's gone.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:00

Right.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:01

You make buckets of content that recycle over and over to Evergreen all the posts

Molly Keyser: 00:23:06

in your group, which is pretty cool.

Erin Austin: 00:23:08

Hmm.

Erin Austin: 00:23:08

I've never heard of that one before.

Erin Austin: 00:23:09

Okay.

Erin Austin: 00:23:10

So I'll look at that.

Erin Austin: 00:23:11

All right.

Erin Austin: 00:23:12

Well that is very helpful because it makes it sound doable, which honestly it

Erin Austin: 00:23:18

has never seemed doable to me.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:19

Oh, good.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:20

I'm so glad to hear that.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:21

Thank yes.

Erin Austin: 00:23:22

So what trends are you seeing in the course space?

Molly Keyser: 00:23:27

Ooh, good one.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:28

Let's think about this.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:30

Well, I do think that.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:34

Although technology is easier, there obviously are more people doing courses,

Molly Keyser: 00:23:37

which is not necessarily a bad thing, like I said, it more people are now

Molly Keyser: 00:23:41

educated about courses, but I think that it does mean that the average person

Molly Keyser: 00:23:46

probably has taken a course and whether they had a good experience or not, like

Molly Keyser: 00:23:50

I said, you know, you need to make sure your course gets them a result quickly.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:54

Isn't cumbersome, inflated, you know what I mean?

Molly Keyser: 00:23:58

Because people will look at that.

Molly Keyser: 00:23:59

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:00

, they're not just looking at, oh, it's a course, I'm gonna buy it.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:02

They're looking at the result they're gonna get, you know?

Erin Austin: 00:24:05

Right.

Erin Austin: 00:24:06

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:24:07

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:24:07

Definitely.

Erin Austin: 00:24:08

I think we all have a responsibility in some ways to rehabilitate.

Erin Austin: 00:24:12

Some of the bad name that some courses have, you know,

Erin Austin: 00:24:14

some of the old one currently.

Erin Austin: 00:24:16

Um,

Molly Keyser: 00:24:16

yeah, I'm trying to think of other trends.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:18

I would say as far as building a following, I would not

Molly Keyser: 00:24:22

sleep on TikTok like mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:25

, TikTok is so easy to grow on, in my opinion.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:28

And you can kind of create a funnel to move people from TikTok to Instagram

Molly Keyser: 00:24:32

and then kind of sell on there.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:35

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:35

as your long term.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:36

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:37

yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:38

Have you seen any trends as someone who's, you know, purchased courses?

Molly Keyser: 00:24:42

? Erin Austin: Yeah, just that

Molly Keyser: 00:24:44

Just the things that you discussed that people have

Molly Keyser: 00:24:46

become very savvy about, courses.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:48

and they're using, you know, more discernment when they're buying and

Molly Keyser: 00:24:53

their time is super precious and they definitely, they definitely less is more.

Molly Keyser: 00:24:57

That's definitely been my,

Molly Keyser: 00:24:59

yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:00

I would also say too, Having payment options is good, especially, you know,

Molly Keyser: 00:25:04

a lot of people are saying we're in a recession or going into a recession.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:08

and, you know, I'm not like an analyst of that, but , right.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:12

Um, I would say give people options, you know, because maybe they want

Molly Keyser: 00:25:15

to pivot from their job or they've lost their job or whatever it is.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:19

Whoever your ideal customer is, Maybe they want options, you

Molly Keyser: 00:25:21

know, so paying full payment plan.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:23

but then PayPal credit is a great one or some kind of Hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:27

Option like that.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:28

And the reason I like PayPal credit is because it gives your

Molly Keyser: 00:25:31

customers six months interest free.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:34

Oh, okay.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:35

Because I don't necessarily, love the idea of like, know, I know that

Molly Keyser: 00:25:38

my course, if my student does it will get them making money in way

Molly Keyser: 00:25:42

more than like before six months

Molly Keyser: 00:25:44

Right.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:44

So I feel comfortable recommending that, you know, I don't wanna see my students

Molly Keyser: 00:25:48

going into debt and hurting, you know?

Molly Keyser: 00:25:50

Right.

Molly Keyser: 00:25:50

but I would say trending wise, I do see a lot of people offering, PayPal,

Molly Keyser: 00:25:54

credit, things like that, and just giving your consumer like option so

Molly Keyser: 00:25:57

they could choose what works best for.

Erin Austin: 00:25:59

That's great.

Erin Austin: 00:26:00

I like that

Erin Austin: 00:26:00

too.

Erin Austin: 00:26:01

So this is the Hourly to Exit podcast.

Erin Austin: 00:26:04

You know, we talk about building a scalable and saleable business, and so

Erin Austin: 00:26:10

part of that is having exclusivity in our business through our intellectual

Erin Austin: 00:26:13

property or through our positioning, as well as decoupling our founder.

Erin Austin: 00:26:19

Income from their time creating a business that is independent from the owner.

Erin Austin: 00:26:24

And so when we look at courses and course creation, how does

Erin Austin: 00:26:28

that fit into that hourly to exit

Erin Austin: 00:26:31

journey?

Molly Keyser: 00:26:32

Okay.

Molly Keyser: 00:26:32

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:26:32

So how does someone transition from their job to a course?

Erin Austin: 00:26:37

Well, how about, we look at courses?

Erin Austin: 00:26:40

Do they help us separate our time from our income?

Erin Austin: 00:26:44

Mm-hmm.

Erin Austin: 00:26:44

, does it help us scale, bring, leveraging our businesses and create assets?

Molly Keyser: 00:26:49

All of the

Molly Keyser: 00:26:50

above.

Molly Keyser: 00:26:51

, yes.

Erin Austin: 00:26:52

leading

Erin Austin: 00:26:52

the witness.

Erin Austin: 00:26:52

Yes.

Erin Austin: 00:26:54

. Molly Keyser: But yeah, so, you

Erin Austin: 00:26:57

I loved it and it was great, but I just couldn't picture myself.

Erin Austin: 00:27:00

trading my time for money forever.

Erin Austin: 00:27:02

I couldn't picture myself as like a 60 year old lady, with like a 20

Erin Austin: 00:27:06

pound camera around my head, like climbing a ladder to get the shot.

Erin Austin: 00:27:09

Like, I just couldn't picture that.

Erin Austin: 00:27:11

Although, like, obviously I, I could do that . But, yeah, so for me it

Erin Austin: 00:27:16

was more about like time freedom.

Erin Austin: 00:27:18

You know, I wanted to be able to have the.

Erin Austin: 00:27:21

I wanted to be able to have the choice of like what I do with

Erin Austin: 00:27:24

my time and not be tied to that.

Erin Austin: 00:27:27

So not only like the growing old vision, keep in mind I

Erin Austin: 00:27:30

was like 20 when I had that.

Erin Austin: 00:27:31

So obviously sixties, not old . But for me it was more like, I would

Erin Austin: 00:27:36

have, shoots that would get booked like a year in advance.

Erin Austin: 00:27:39

And so I would kind of be like tied into a contract and that kind of

Erin Austin: 00:27:42

gave me anxiety of like, well, I'm not really in control of my time.

Erin Austin: 00:27:45

And I think a lot of freelancers can probably relate to that.

Erin Austin: 00:27:48

Or people with nine to fives.

Erin Austin: 00:27:49

Mm-hmm.

Erin Austin: 00:27:50

. So for me it was the white space on the calendar, , and also the scalability.

Erin Austin: 00:27:55

it would've been extremely hard for me to reach seven figures as a photographer.

Erin Austin: 00:28:00

It's been done, but statistically it's very a low stat.

Erin Austin: 00:28:03

Mm-hmm.

Erin Austin: 00:28:04

and.

Erin Austin: 00:28:05

know, I think it only took me three or four years.

Erin Austin: 00:28:08

I had, my first year I made $200,000 with my first course, and then it

Erin Austin: 00:28:11

just pretty much doubled from there.

Erin Austin: 00:28:13

And so, let's see.

Erin Austin: 00:28:15

Yeah, it took me between three and four years to hit seven figures.

Erin Austin: 00:28:18

and most of those years we had 80% profit margin with our course.

Erin Austin: 00:28:21

So not only was it like I got my time back, it was scalable.

Erin Austin: 00:28:25

Like the profit merchants were incredible.

Erin Austin: 00:28:27

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:28:27

I mean, that's why I'm just such an advocate for courses

Erin Austin: 00:28:29

and I love them so much.

Erin Austin: 00:28:31

I wanna be able to sleep in.

Erin Austin: 00:28:33

every morning, like I never set an alarm and I wanna be able to choose

Erin Austin: 00:28:37

like what I do when I do it and really be passionate about what I do.

Erin Austin: 00:28:41

I could go on forever, but that's kind of the gist.

Erin Austin: 00:28:44

That's great job for courses I've.

Erin Austin: 00:28:50

so

Erin Austin: 00:28:51

this is, a very meta podcast where, I talk to women about building

Erin Austin: 00:28:56

businesses that they can sell someday.

Erin Austin: 00:28:58

I am a woman who's building a business that I hope to sell someday.

Erin Austin: 00:29:02

Yeah.

Erin Austin: 00:29:02

You are a woman with an expertise-based business.

Erin Austin: 00:29:05

Are you planning to sell your business

Erin Austin: 00:29:06

someday?

Molly Keyser: 00:29:07

Ah, good question.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:08

Hmm, , how much time do we have lunch?

Molly Keyser: 00:29:14

? So I talked about my photography course and I don't actually

Molly Keyser: 00:29:18

have that course anymore.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:19

I did it for like seven years.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:22

And long, long story short, when Covid hit, I knew that I would essentially

Molly Keyser: 00:29:27

need to redo pretty much everything because we employed all 100% women.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:32

aside from my husband and.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:35

when Covid hit, you know, people lost their daycare, they lost their nannies.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:38

Like we had a lot of employees, you know, they couldn't work for us anymore.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:42

And the photographers weren't able to take shoots because of covid, all these things.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:47

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:47

and over those years I have actually always wanted to teach courses, so

Molly Keyser: 00:29:50

I just chose personally to pivot.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:52

100% full-time into.

Molly Keyser: 00:29:54

My course now profitable courses, but a lot of people have asked me, you

Molly Keyser: 00:29:57

know, why didn't you sell that company

Molly Keyser: 00:30:00

So for me, first of all, it was never my plan, so therefore it was not planned.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:06

. Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:06

So, you know, it's hard to sell a company if that's not like your plan from day one.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:10

I think that that's really smart that you're already talking about that.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:13

So number one, We didn't really have a plan in place for that.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:16

number two, I was the face of the company.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:19

And in order to sell your company, you do really need to be able

Molly Keyser: 00:30:21

to transition out of that.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:22

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:23

and I could do a whole episode on that.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:26

But, number three, you need to have a buyer.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:28

And my course was specifically to help photographers transition

Molly Keyser: 00:30:32

into bir photography, which is like the niches of niche.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:37

Ah.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:37

and most of the people in the photography industry that

Molly Keyser: 00:30:40

purchase other businesses are men.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:42

And I did reach out to them, but, they even said, they're like,

Molly Keyser: 00:30:46

I'm not interested in boudoir.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:46

Like, I don't understand it.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:48

Like, so you need to have all these components, you know, you

Molly Keyser: 00:30:51

need to have sellable business.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:53

And first, and also like if your employees don't have daycare, they

Molly Keyser: 00:30:56

don't have chocolate, they leave.

Molly Keyser: 00:30:58

Then if you don't have the employees that run the company, then you

Molly Keyser: 00:31:00

don't have a company anymore.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:02

, right?

Molly Keyser: 00:31:02

So I think that's great that you talk about that with people

Molly Keyser: 00:31:04

right away because you really need to have that exit strategy.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:09

Yes.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:09

So for this company, I am mean more strategic about it, but I don't

Molly Keyser: 00:31:14

actually have a plan to sell it.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:15

Like This is my baby.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:17

Like the thing I've been wanting to do forever, , and I love it so much

Molly Keyser: 00:31:21

and like I just see myself doing this.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:23

Mm-hmm.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:24

for the rest of time.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:28

. Erin Austin: Well, I

Molly Keyser: 00:31:29

like to say it's fine for your business to be your baby, but like

Molly Keyser: 00:31:32

real babies, we raise them to grow up and be independent sometime.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:38

That's good.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:38

That is a win.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:39

That's not

Molly Keyser: 00:31:40

a.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:41

So, yeah, just

Molly Keyser: 00:31:42

Oh, absolutely.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:43

I think it's just a decision, you know?

Molly Keyser: 00:31:44

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:44

Like especially if it's a personal brand, you have to decide Like

Molly Keyser: 00:31:47

are you gonna remove yourself as the face of the company, you know?

Molly Keyser: 00:31:50

Yes.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:51

But I absolutely agree with you a hundred percent.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:53

Awesome,

Molly Keyser: 00:31:54

. Erin Austin: Well, this

Molly Keyser: 00:31:55

So as we wrap up, first of all, you mention.

Molly Keyser: 00:31:59

a freebie earlier.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:00

So tell us about that and then let us know where we can find you.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:04

Okay?

Molly Keyser: 00:32:05

Yeah.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:05

If you go to profitable courses.com, we do have a freebie to help

Molly Keyser: 00:32:08

you find Your course, your profitable course idea, your niche.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:11

I do also have a class if you prefer to take like an on-demand workshop.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:15

I teach you how to find the profitable course idea, also how to create your

Molly Keyser: 00:32:19

curriculum for the course and also how to, start profiting from it in 30 days.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:25

And that's profitable courses.com/class.

Erin Austin: 00:32:29

Awesome.

Erin Austin: 00:32:29

And you're on all.

Erin Austin: 00:32:31

Socials

Molly Keyser: 00:32:31

socials?

Molly Keyser: 00:32:32

Yeah, I would say I'm mostly on, I mean, my Facebook group has,

Molly Keyser: 00:32:36

in just a couple years, we have over like 6,500 people in it.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:41

it's one-on-one to passive income , so you could check that out.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:45

And then I will, I do spend a lot of my time on, Instagram as well.

Molly Keyser: 00:32:48

And that's at Molly m Kaiser.

Erin Austin: 00:32:51

Awesome.

Erin Austin: 00:32:52

Well, thank you again.

Erin Austin: 00:32:53

It has been wonderful to be here.

Erin Austin: 00:32:55

Thank you for sharing your wisdom with us and again, thank

Erin Austin: 00:32:58

you so much.