The Question: “Julie, how did you stay motivated in the beginning as a Digital Marketer and Online Business Owner when you hadn’t made a lot of money yet, and you were taking a big risk?”
Great question and whoever asked it…good work. I had to think and ponder and go allllll the way back to when things switched from “freelancer making $1-$2k a month” to full on Digital Marketing #Gangsta, I’d say this…
#1 — I doubled up
I didn’t just DECIDE one day, okay I’m going to charge $12k per funnel per client or I’m going to make $100k on a course. That’s the kinda sh*t guru’s with not enough of a conscience will tell you.
I continued to do less glamorous work. Things like graphics, PDFs, blog formatting, light web design, copy, etc. with some clients, while I bit off the bigger stuff slowly and one by one when the opportunity was right. I continued to have retainer clients, blog clients, etc. because I knew that until I became really good…I couldn’t just show up and say “Okay! I’m here and I’m charging five figures!” It allowed me to continue to generate revenue while going for the bigger fish.
And when it came to building a passive income type business (CYLL, courses and whatnot), I did everything by TESTING as often as possible. That meant being okay with less than perfect products. Being willing to put in the time and charge less for BETA. It meant listening to feedback and pivoting a lot. But what it means is I did not EVER make a course that did not sell.
Essentially the “test and go” way of building an online business is a way to reduce risk so you don’t spend a year holed up creating a monster course and then…crickets.
This is something I will be teaching in TDG because so many people learn this big elaborate launch plan and it just doesn’t work for all people in the real world.
#2 — I was driven by something other than money
For me, it was about my children. About financial provision for them. And then, as I continued to find my path, I became driven by the impact and results with other women and businesses that were looking to carve a space for themselves in the online world. It was never JUST about money. I didn’t wake up and say, “I want to make a ton of money…what should I do? Oh! I’ll be a DM!”
My children and my passion to see my clients and customers get results, pushed me through some of the darker days. And there are dark days as an entrepreneur. It’s typical, normal, and cyclical. Like the stock market.
#3 — If not DM, what then?
I knew that online business was a game of skill, strategy, and numbers. That I had chosen an industry that may change over time, but won’t away. It’s growing faster than many other so called “safe and stable” industries. Hell, I had a College state job (one of the safest of them all) and I found out six months after I left that they had eliminated my position entirely.
What’s so safe about a job that can kick you curbside at any moment? In my head, there became no plan B other than what I could build myself. Businesses need to advertise, and the Internet is here to stay. When I pictured it that way, I KNEW even when things were scary, that I had picked the right industry and I would not quit, no matter what.
I also wasn’t too high on my horse to just get out there, find problems, and fix them. I didn’t have the luxury of a lot of excess planning. And guys and gals – these skills took me FIVE YEARS to learn. Had I had a “Julie” in my life, that learning curve would have been shortened drastically.
#4 — Nothing would be lost
I took comfort in the fact that even if a course didn’t sell as strongly as I wanted, a client hated my design, or any of other possible failures, that each one…would make me a better Digital Marketer…and would stack on one another until I had the skills necessary to market virtually any kind of business on the Internet. Every time someone in the “real world” would get overwhelmed at how to do ads, funnels, web design, or email marketing, I’d realize…OMG…that’s not the hard part. Give me that! And they would be AMAZED. Like I had worked magic…and well…I kinda had. It’s a skill you can’t afford not to have in your back pocket.