How To Make Money Online

Transcript:

 Hi, I'm Jen Kilbourne Obermeier -- and I am going to do a chat today that's going to be very casual just because I've been talking to a bunch of people, friends and family and my current students, people that I've coached with in the past about all kinds of things.

Tech questions, questions about my business, people getting kind of serious about launching an online aspect of their business that maybe they've been thinking about for a really long time, but now suddenly seems to be the time for them to move forward with it.

So hello to everyone who's saying hi!

I'm terrified first of all that I'm doing this today because I've never shared anything that I've done business wise with literally everyone in my network that I know.

So if you are here, definitely say hello.

I recognize everybody's names.

I think the other thing that's scary is I'm not exactly sure who's going to show up.

I am a business coach at Pro Organizer Studio, which is my business.

And that is a focus on professional organizers.

So I know that a lot of professional organizers are coming today.

But I also have a wide network in the business coaching world.

So some of my business coaching friends may show up.

And then also since I shared this with my, literally my friends and family on my personal Facebook page there could be some other interesting guests as well.

So hello.

And if we know each other and you're like, "I have not seen this girl in a hot minute."

Welcome to my office and the behind the scenes of my life.

So I'm going to definitely get started in our chat.

And most importantly, I would love to know if you --  And Cindy said I'm a godsend today.

Trust me, Cindy, I think I needed an additional outlet to just talk and share and get Q&A and just answer questions.

So I'm grateful that you guys wanted to listen.

So thank you so much.

I would love for you guys to share in the chat and even if you watch this on the replay, by the way, if you've never shown up to a live video before, this is how it works.

Hey Catherine if you have never done a live video before, if you are watching on the replay, you can still comment, pretend like you're still just talking to me.

I love that.

I'm very casual.

I still want to follow up and see your comments even later.

It doesn't have to be live.

See your comments later, respond to your questions and that kind of thing.

So tell me in the chat if you first of all, what brought you here today?

All right, so let me put that out there and tell me and if we don't know each other personally, how did you find me?

Are we connected through in a personal way, somebody that I know that you know shared this with you and said, "Hey, I actually know this girl."

Because that's kind of how I launched this out there today.

It's just like if there's anybody in my network who has ever had a question about doing an online business or kind of has ever wondered how exactly do people on the internet make money?

Because I believe that people fall in a lot of different camps when it comes to this subject because some people know nothing about it and they don't know why people are making millions of dollars off of YouTube.

They don't even understand how that works.

And so to them it's like this big weird world that only tech people or nerdy people are interested in which, yes, I am very nerdy, so we'll get that out of the way.

And I do really love this stuff.

So I think we're going to have people all the way from those who are like, "Hey, maybe I should learn how exactly people do make money on the internet."

So that could be you tell me if that's you or it could be all the way from you've been thinking and planning and wanting to launch some online product, a blog, a YouTube channel, an Amazon shop, and anything that only relies on an online platform for you to make money.

Maybe you've been thinking about that for a really long time or have even sort of dabbled in it, but you have not ever really gotten serious about how to move forward or you don't know what your next steps are.

That is also totally valid.

So I recognize it maybe a big range and my plan is to just show up and talk to you guys and do Q&A and answer questions and figure out topics that we want to talk more about.

Today is day two of my kids being out of school for at least two weeks.

And I believe longer.

So honestly I'll just keep scheduling these live chats and I'll kind of give a topic and I love you guys keep showing up and keep answering questions and figuring out if this is something you want to learn more about.


What I think is really valuable is to have someone who is not like this billionaire guru telling you, "Sure you can create an online business."

Because that makes it seem so out of reach and not attainable for the average person.

And what I realized that is valuable about my personal connections and people who are texting me and asking me about this stuff is that they know me and they know I am literally just an average normal person.

So if I can do it I promise the pathway is there for you.

And so I hope even from today that you walk away with some mindblowing insight or something that makes it easier for you to move forward.

Okay.

Scrolling down in the chat.

Angie.

Oh, okay.

Perfect.

So Angie says, "I'm part of your Pro Organizer Studio group. I haven't been very active and now I have extra time on my hands."

Yes.

So I figured there was going to be a lot of people like you out there, Angie.

So that's really exciting.

So I want to talk, I have many, many topic ideas.

Trust me, I'm going to write them down for our future days in the chat, but excuse me, one thing that I have never really shared on publicly is a little bit more about the behind the scenes of my business that I have now.

And so I want to share that story with you, not because I think I am great or don't I feel proud of myself?

I mean, yes, I do feel proud of myself.

However, it's not because my story is particularly -  I don't know what the word is.

I mean, I've made plenty of mistakes and as I posted in the description for this chat, I replaced a very average middle class, single person income with an online business.

And so I know that a lot of the information, if you go out there and you look on Pinterest or you are looking up YouTube personnel, people who tend to teach this stuff as a separate business, they tend to be people who have very, very sensational stories.

Like how I went from being broke to having a blog that makes $50,000 a month.

And that is honestly that I know for a fact is actually on the low end of what is possible.

But I think that what gets really, really overwhelming when you start researching these things or thinking about creating an online course is you're just like, you start reading about it and it gets really exciting and then you're just like, "This would never really work for me. I'm not the kind of person who can make that happen or can do this."

I know now I'm repeating myself now, but I think it bears repeating.

I literally just want to be a source of information so that you guys know that it's possible -- not because I'm making $50,000 a month (like far from it).

So there are a lot of different ways that people really, truly are making money online though.

And if making a little bit of extra side income through a blog, a YouTube channel, even having a way that people come to you for online coaching or consulting that doesn't depend on you traveling to them.

If you are in a position right now where that in itself would be life changing and you don't need to manifest hundreds of thousands of dollars out of the air right now, then this is perfect because I can give you the information so that you can sort of make a plan to start working on it.

Knowing that it's realistic and not believing like that, if you didn't get those sensational results, that you're a failure because that is absolutely not true.

Okay, so I'm going to keep up with the chat.

If you guys do have questions as we go, let me know.

I'm going to sort of reintroduce myself one more time because like I said, not everybody is coming to me from the same place, but my here's my background.

Almost six years ago, I started a local service business where I live in Greenville, South Carolina.

And it was a professional organizing business.

Now if you are not familiar with what professional organizers do, it literally means yes, there's people who will come to your house and help you declutter and organize your stuff.

Kind of like Marie Kondo or what have you.

I know that's kind of the popular mainstream idea of what that is like.

So yeah, so I was doing that.

Oh, I'm trying to shorten it, keep this story very, very short.

I was doing that.

And doing other multiple side hustles on top of it at the same time.

Got kind of burned out so to speak, of that organizing business being my main full time job and then having other side jobs on the side.

And so I decided to just flip it.

And then for a while I had a full time day job and I was doing organizing on nights and weekends.

So in my infinite wisdom, here's what happened more or less in a nutshell is this would have been a couple of years after I had started the organizing business, I was working with clients.

I was very quiet about that side of my life because I don't really know why, but I wasn't real big on social media necessarily or really at all with my organizing business.

But at some point I realized that I could not shut up about how well that business was working, but I was only talking about it with my friends and family.

Now, this is a really important point because I want you to go ahead and note this for yourself.

What are the things that you are talking to everybody you know about whether you're getting paid to do it or not?


Because those are the things that other people may be interested in.

Maybe your friends and family are interested but you have an audience of people.

And if you take nothing else away from this today, no matter how obscure your interests are or your knowledge is because it is a lot about, it's about what you know.

But we're going to talk to you about, you can create an online business just out of something you're interested in.

You do not have to be a 25-year veteran expert, super masters level in what you are teaching or creating or sharing online.

And yes, you can still monetize something extremely well even if it doesn't come directly from your educational background necessarily or even your current career.

So let me get that out of the way.

So where was I?

Okay.

So I realized I could not shut up about talking about this stuff.

And so I thought, why don't I share this with other people who are looking to start an organizing business?

Because one, yeah, they'd be way more interested than my friends and family.

And two, I knew for a fact because I consider myself like a professional Googler that none of this stuff that I was talking about that I felt really passionate about was out there.

So it was almost like a scenario where I kind of had this set of knowledge or information that I could say, here's exactly what I wish I would've had when I started in that business.

And in your scenario, you might want to think about, here's what I wish I had known when I had my first kid.


Here's what I wish I would've known when I launched a career in this certain industry or when I got into flipping houses.

I'm really trying to expand whatever it is that you're into right now.

There is going to be a market of people who would like to learn what your secrets are and save themselves a crap load of time.

So that in itself, if you're asking yourself, what do I even have that people would pay for?

Those are the kinds of things that you want to get your wheels turning about.

And like I said in our future days of chats and content that I want to keep sharing on this page, I want to keep talking about that.

How do you figure out what your idea even is?

How do you figure out where the value is in what you're putting together and what you're putting out there?

And then of course, how do you make money from it?

So we'll get into that in much more depth.

Here's another part of my story that I think is kind of poignant right now is that there were --  Excuse me, I just keep hydrating because I can talk a blue streak.

Even though I had this idea, I had this idea of creating a resource for professional organizers that was just focused on the business side.

I had, in fact if you rewind even further, I had registered a website domain name for this idea an entire year before I did anything with it, which I still find very interesting.

But I just said I had been sitting on it for a while and even when I got kind of serious about moving forward with it, and this is another reason why I just want to be a free resource and support for you right now is even once I got serious-ish about it, I still almost scrapped this idea 100 times.

Because I kept running into reasons that one, it was just stupid.

Two, I was like, well, if anybody that I know finds out about this, they'll be like --  I think I was really concerned about like judgment.

But again, remember that six years ago when I was doing my actual business, I wasn't really sharing that on social media either.

So essentially what I'm saying is I consider myself a very private person.

So I was working on this idea alone for a really long time and I'm talking about months, not years and years.

I was working on this idea by myself and so therefore I kept almost talking myself out of doing it because I was like, "Well, nobody's going to know if I just scrap it."

But for many reasons one of which is that I just believe that I had a very strong driving reason why I had to put this out there.

And that I think is what is really significant now is because I'm not a --  What's the word?

Not forecasting or predicting or I'm not a fortune teller, but I believe there's going to be reasons if not for the short-term that you are like, okay, how do I shift gears in my career no matter what it is, no matter who you are listening to me right now?

It's not just about the short-term of how do I shift gears and help work with clients online or offer some sort of eBook or product or something.

Just in the immediate sense, I don't really think it's even just about that.

I honestly think that a lot of people might get really serious about their online business now because they don't ever want to be in a situation again where they kind of got caught with the need to go out and physically be with people or be in a certain place in order to make money.

So I've been reflecting a lot over the past few days, not to pat myself on the back by any means because it's not to say that am I concerned that my business could certainly drop during this time.

But what I do know is that I have a mechanism and we're going to talk much more about this.

I have a mechanism for new people still continuing to find me because even if they're not going to spend money on my services or my course that I teach or one on one coaching or even if they're not going to spend any money right now.

I have all of this content out there that people can find and they're still coming into my world and I still have ways to continue nurturing them so that when the time is right that I can still be that resource for them.

And then of course, not to mention if they do want to spend money right now, they can.

There is the online, the internet has not shut down and it's not quarantined.

I mean, I'm not being silly by saying that it's pretty significant like there is this whole other area of our lives where yeah, it's not exactly as normal.

But there's nothing stopping somebody from emailing back and forth with me getting on, we can do one-on-one Skype calls, they can buy my online product and start learning.

It's a business course so they can start learning right away.

So what I'm kind of amazed by is that I'm grateful.

I guess that my big come to Jesus moment in terms of like I have to have a business that I can do anywhere.

And my reasons for that were maybe some are maybe kind of personal, but others are sort of shallow.

I don't like leaving my house.

I love having friends all over the place and I love traveling, but I don't really like going out and about every single day.

I kind of like being nested.

I'm very much a home body, so that in itself was like a dream come true for me.

So I think just over the past few days I've realized I'm grateful that I had that.

Not while it wasn't, I don't consider it an emergency situation at that time it was like I'm thankful that I put myself in a situation that I have what I have today.


So with all that being said, I feel like there might be multiple reasons why someone would be kind of starting to take their ideas seriously finally, or just learning about it finally like how do people even make money online?

And I can share just anecdotally my father who I hope ends up listening to this, even if he's not on right now, his name is Ed.

Gosh, dad.

He's 75.

He is still working because his work and his passion and his purpose are very all interrelated.

But the majority, if not all of what he does requires him to travel and to speak in churches and in other public speaking environments.

And essentially his whole entire schedule for the rest of the year has been canceled.

And he wasn't really ready to retire yet.

And so that's frustrating in itself.

Not only financially, but sort of like, "What do I do now?

How do I share like how do I reach more people?

Or how do I reach the people that, not necessarily even more people, but how do I reach my people who know me and love me and follow me, but how do I connect with them in a new way?"


So funny enough, I've actually told you guys I like to talk people's ears off about things that I'm passionate about.

And another thing that I've been passionate about over the last three years is the amazement I guess, that I have for what the power of the internet really is.

So I'm pretty sure I had a conversation with my dad and in the past couple of years it was like, well, you guys should --  And it's him and some of his friends that are his colleagues and that he's really close with and they make music and they sing.

And so they're cool set of people.

And I said, "Well, you guys can have a podcast, you guys should have a YouTube channel and then people can tune in and watch you."


I told my dad, I said, "You need to be doing Facebook live videos."

Because that's exactly how I started my business.

And I promise you I'm getting to that story because I kind of want to give you the overview of how all of that started.

So I've been telling him these things, but it wasn't until about 48 hours ago, he called me and he's like, "Do you think I could have this set up within a week?" And I said, "Yeah."

And once, I think he and his I don't know if they're calling themselves business partners or just friends, they're collaborating on a new podcast/video show type of thing.

I think that once I kind of just helped them, not necessarily doing the tech tutorials themselves, but just kind of helping them see here's how you create it.

Here's how you create it.

Here's how you share it.

Here's how you get people who are already a part of, I mean, they're kind of combining their networks together in order to make this happen and to continue serving those people.


During this time when there may not be public gatherings or there may not be the opportunity to do live events, which is how they get paid.

I mean, that's their entire business.

So they're both in the same boat.

I think once I kind of broke down like, here's what you guys have to do, here's some ways to make it amazing, but here's the only things that you need to get started.

And it's just kind of like, then they're off and running.

So I kind of had the feeling in addition to some other conversations that I've been having that I'm like, "Well, there might be a lot of other people are in that scenario. So I think I don't want to keep that information to myself."

Okay.

So let me talk really quickly about, and we'll go into more detail in like I said in future videos.

How I went from being desperate to having the online business that I didn't have to go anywhere or see anybody in person.

I was desperate to have that.

Now how did I get to that?

Now, couple of things.

So let me start with the end game because everybody, as you're thinking about how to implement this for you, first of all, please know in advance there's 100 different options.

And you don't probably need to spend months researching those options.

Like you probably will be able to quickly narrow things down to a few things just based on what you're good at.

And then go from there in terms of what is the easiest thing for you to get going?

What are the resources you have available and what you actually enjoy.

So let me start with the end goal.

The end goal is how you are going to make money from the platform that you're going to create.

And the way that my business makes money is I sell an online program which is a course that I created in its entirety and trademarked and all that stuff.

So I created that still.

Like the initial launch was kind of a basic version of that.

And then over the past three and a half years, I've continued to improve upon it and add to it.

And then it has become sort of this official trademarks, very fancy.

Like, here's what I'm known for kind of product.

But when you really, really break that down though, when you really break it down, what I was doing was I was collecting information out of my own head and literally off of my computer in my files of okay, if I were going to break this down for myself --


So I created this course in 2016 and I was thinking if I were talking to myself in 2014 because I know for a fact that this information is not put together in the way that I would've wanted to consume it out there right now.

So if I were going to create that ideal product, just for myself, I honestly think my initial ideal customer was just like me, my past self.

And I just broke down like, what is it that I would need to teach myself or what would I be looking for and how quickly could I help my past self get through it so that I'd got to the most important things I needed to know?

And it being a business course feeling as confident as possible and making as much money as possible.

It kind of like thinking about it from their point of view.

That's really important.

So if you --  Hang on, let me hydrate again.


And when you're thinking about how you were going to make money from an online thing, what I really want to say is that there's probably hundreds of different ways that are easier than what I did.

So you don't have to figure out what am I going to be a guru at and what do I have just laying around in my brain and in my computer files that is trademarkable or just so special?

That does not have to be the route that you go.

But what I do want to say though about that route is that it didn't start out being that way.

It was literally just an outline that I kept flushing out and fleshing out and fleshing out.

And then you create a learning experience.

So you create modules and you create resources that go along with it and all that.


So we can talk about that in different video.

But here's some light that I want to shed on the course or the information product industry.

The way that I would sum this up is I think what you'll find is that there are a lot of people who will sell you a course about how to create a course.

And you don't necessarily have to do that.

I never took a course about creating a course.

I did take other courses, so I was familiar with the experience that I wanted to create for other people.

But there will be people who are like, "You need to charge what you're worth.

And you launched this program, you need to create a $250 course or a $1000 course or a $5,000 course and then continue to raise the price and raise the price because it's all about -- "


Anyway, I've had people, I've had very smart business mentors and coaches tell me that I need to raise the price of my program.

But at this point I'm like, that's not really what I'm in it for.

I don't want to just continue making it less and less and less available.

It's at a very comfortable price point so that to me that for this very specific niche that I'm in --  Oh gosh, I need to be taking notes because we need to talk about niches.

For this very specific niche that I'm in, I want it to be a no-brainer because it is so specific to what my audience is going through and it gives a very specific experience and therefore result.

Now there are easier ways to do this, especially if you are not creating something that is for so specific and niche.


And now let me use --  Excuse me, I keep hiccuping.

Let me use professional --  I'm going to try not to only use organizing examples but that's because that's who I know a lot of people are here live right now.

That's the easiest thing to do.

So what I've often said is that there's probably, there's way more money in teaching people how to organize their house than there is to teach people how to become professional organizers.

The world of who I talked to is so tiny.

It is almost crazy to me sometimes.

Because if I was truly in this for the money, I know I'd do something completely different.

So for you guys who have a true passion and ability to coach and teach people how to organize and give resources about that and do videos about that and give tutorials about that.

The far better thing to do would be to aim your content at the audience for that kind of content is literally in the millions when you consider worldwide that there's no limit, there is no limit to who can find you, who can follow you, who can learn from you.


And so when I say it could be a lot easier.

You don't even have to sell them a course about organizing.

You can have a blog about organizing where you just share content that's on your heart.

You can share projects that you're doing in your own home.

And then your monetization or that end goal like I said, you kind of have to know what angle you're going for.

Your end goal can be something as simple as a $7 ebook or affiliate links for organizing books, organizing products like that kind of thing.

What you're doing there is going for just mass quantity.

And monetizing it in a very different way where you're not really asking them to buy into this huge life transforming product.


And that is what I believe.

Like, if you're going to be a course creator online I mean, I don't consider myself a guru, but if you're that good and you're selling a product that you are bumping up the price over and over and over again because you are the best in your field and I want to be the best in my field too, trust me.

But if you do that way, then you are serving a smaller group of people and you are committing to getting comfortable with being on video and sharing very personally so that people can get to know you and trust you.

And you can focus on a much smaller group of people, get to know them, be doing one on one coaching with them, like that type of thing.


But if you're not really ready to put a check mark and sign away your identity as a person and say, "This is what I do and this is really high-end course or coaching service that I sell."

If you're not really ready to commit in that way, don't say --  Sorry.

I'm going to be preaching a little bit.

Don't say, "Well then I'm not going to do an online business or I don't really have any business doing an online coaching or online course or product until maybe five years down the road or 10 years down the road or whatever."

And that is what I hear so often with the people that I do one on one coaching with in Pro Organizer Studio with professional organizers, they are usually coming to me because they kind of have this one-day bucket list idea for something that they want to do.


And they want to talk to me about it, but then they're not really like, "Okay, I'm going to like schedule it and make it happen this quarter."

They're not really thinking about it.

And so that's what I would really to say is that there are ways for you to sort of dabble in some other things that still will make you money or even really good money that are not about you becoming the next Marie Kondo.

Sorry, that reference might be super specific if you don't know who she is, but obviously for those of you who do, she's a celebrity organizer and that can be that celebrity guru path or you can do something that's just as simple as a YouTube channel that is focused on organizing tips, makeovers, people love that stuff.


And this is what I encourage you to do when you're starting to think about the things that you love and genuinely would be willing to talk about no matter what.

And let's totally switch topics and not talk about organizing.

Go look on YouTube and Pinterest.

These are the two really important places to go because this is where people go and search for things.

They don't only search on Google, they're searching videos on YouTube.

And then any niche that has to do with women essentially.

Go look on Pinterest for the content that's on there and see which ones, like what gets shared a lot, what gets saved a lot.

What blogs have huge followings?

You can see that by going on their Instagram, going on their Facebook page.

By the way, I totally realized that for some of you guys listening that some of the stuff I just said, you were like, "Whoa, how do I do that?"


If that's true, let me know.

This is a no dumb questions scenario, so I will definitely answer any questions you have and follow up.

I think another great whole topic should be how to do some simple kind of market research on your niche.

Okay.

So you may not have even realized up until this very moment that there are people who create massive amounts of content and they put it on a blog or they put it on YouTube.

And they don't ever sell their followers a single thing.

They are literally making all their money from affiliate links for other people's products.

I think most people, maybe most people are probably familiar with the idea of Amazon affiliate links.

It's very simple for anybody, literally anybody can apply to become one.

You don't have to prove a single thing.


And what you would do then, I mean theoretically is you could have this blog that you're just sharing everything, you're just sharing all of your content.

You're teaching them how to do it.

You're not selling them a course on how to do it because you, like I said, you don't necessarily want to become like that guru or anything.

You're just like, "I just want a website that a lot of people want to come to you because there's awesome content on there."

So that's how people make money is Amazon affiliate links or not only Amazon, but that's just an example.

Affiliate links and then at a certain level people do make really serious money on ad revenue on their blogs.

Now, for some of you that idea sounds annoying because when you go on a blog and let's say you're looking up recipes because we all have experienced this, when you go on a blog and you clicked through from Pinterest and there's 16 ads in your face because you're trying to read the recipe.


Well, that's why that is how or why those people make all of that free content is because what they're selling is not to you.

They're selling all the attention and traffic and page views that there awesome blog with awesome recipes, they're selling the attention that your blog gets to those companies.

So if something that you have ever thought about or maybe you've never even been aware of is just doing blogging.

Anything that's like food and cooking, home decor blogs that this is how they make a lot of money.

Because once you're getting up to 100,000 page views a month you can just see literally enable these ad networks and then somebody else manages it, and all you do is post content and the more traffic you can drive to your website, the better.


And there's, like I said, there's a lot of ways to do that, but I just kind of want you to understand the mechanics of how that works is there literally sort of like, what's the word?

They're leveraging all of the attention that they've brought to their blog by posting really good content.

And making money is not passive.

I honestly do not believe there is any such thing as something that is passive really.

At least not at first.

I have heard stories of people, actually I know at least a few people personally have done this, where they spend a lot of time up front creating a blog that is really good.

That's very detailed like has a lot of content that is in a very specific niche.


And the entire purpose of that blog will be to drive people to their Amazon links.

Or like I said maybe some ad networks if there's enough traffic to warrant that.

They spend a lot of time up front doing that, but then they don't continue to add to it long-term.

So they have it continually promoted on Pinterest.

You have YouTube videos that are always being seen and shared.

I mean they just continue, like they enable systems.

They may not do it themselves.

They continue to promote all of that initial output of content via social media and other means.


So that would probably be the most passive income that you could get.

But the things that I have done have definitely not fallen in that category.

I honestly do not think I have had, I've had some time off for sure.

But I haven't stopped working.

Once you do have an online business and you can work all the time and social media is part of your job, you don't really ever get time off or it becomes very, very hard to break your old habits.

So, all right, so just to summarize so far, there's no real passive income, so that's not going to happen, but you can absolutely create a website or even on --  All right.

Save that.

We're going to bookmark that for another time and we're going to talk about all the ways that your platform should connect with each other because you don't want to only have a YouTube channel or just only have a Facebook page or only even have a website.


You have to understand how all those things connect with each other and how the flow of like people's attention works.

So we'll save that for another video.

All right.

So going back to my story, let me know if there's something else that I just trailed off on and didn't follow up.

So I decided that I was going to create a course, I started talking about this 20 minutes ago.

I said I was going to create a course because one I was extremely naive and just thought like, "Oh, I don't know, I'll just make this thing."

And I'm like, "Maybe some people will buy it."

If you would've told me three and a half years ago that this would become my full-time job, I would have been shocked.


I think I would've been excited, excited for sure.

I mean for, absolutely.

There's so much that I did not know ahead of time that I have learned in the process.

But I would've never, I just didn't really realize the scale, and this is another point I want you guys to take away, is if you know something works for you and in you share and you're able to teach it to somebody else.

I think that's a critical part too and this is true, whether it's a product like a course that you're selling or whether you decide like I will essentially create an online course and I'm talking to anybody who is listening.

I know I have a lot of people in my coaching network that are very --  Really important different people who are very good at what they do.


So you don't even have to create a program out of your knowledge.

You can decide I'm going to create the program, but I'll just put all the videos on YouTube and tell people like, here's the order that you should go in.

And just give it to them for free.

So this is true whether you're selling it as a product or whether you're giving it to them for free, you have to be able to sort of see the patterns in what worked for you and then be able to teach it to somebody else.

Okay.

Once you have verified that one or two or three people can get the same results that you got, that's when you have to realize, and I think that this was a critical mistake for me, is that I didn't really realize that that was a business, that was already a business.

And now it's just a matter of improving it, scaling it, growing it, supporting it, bringing in the right people to help.

For sure.

Because at this point, I don't do all this on my own.

I mean, I launched it on my own.


So as you're going along in your journey, this is true.

Let's say that you start making YouTube videos and people start commenting and saying, "Wow, that was amazing.

Or I tried that and it worked."

You make a blog and people are like, I followed your recipe and it was amazing.

It was delicious.

The first 10 people who validate your idea.

Now you may not have made any real money yet, but that's when you should be like I think I have stumbled onto something.

I have something here because obviously people were searching for and found it.


And two, it obviously works and they connected with the way that I taught it or maybe the way that I --  I'm trying to incorporate too many things here.

I've got the food blog idea going in my head.

I'm like, okay, maybe they resonate with your style of nutrition and how you feed your family and the way that you create your recipes.

All right.

They're not the only person, you're going to tell yourself, you're like, "It was just five people or it was just 10 people."

Well those, I promise you, you did not have the only 10 people that are ever going to be interested in your mind essentially, no matter what format you put it in, they are not going to be the only 10 people.


There's a lot more like them.

So that's when you need to realize that you have sort of your own piece of --  Here's how I visualize it.

The internet is sort of invisible real estate that is almost infinite.

And once you figure out that you have a piece of it and that is something different and it's something that is able to be grown and duplicated and you can figure out how to bring more people to it, then that piece of real estate continues to grow and grow and grow.

So one thing I will say about my business at this point is that even though I didn't know the path that I was going when I started that at some point I really doubled down and said, well, I want to be so dominant at what I do in my industry and known for what I am great at because I'm not great at everything, but I want to be so good at what I do that the eventuality of people finding me and wanting to work with me or at least continuing to listen to my free content.


I do a podcast now and I have and early on in my business, I did a lot of video content literally exactly like this one.

I just, I want them to be a part of like, if they're a professional organizer, I want them to be aware of my business and either be a paying customer or be willing to just love the content that we have shared over the years so much that they would refer somebody to us.

Because I don't need everybody in the world's money.

But what I do want is to be very solid in that invisible real estate, if that makes any sense.

Hang on I'm jumping around here.

I'm jumping around here.


The other thing that is interesting about what I look back at what I have done is I've put like --  Some people would invest in 10 different pieces of real estate.

I've literally invested everything like time, energy, money, blood, sweat and tears all into this ONE thing.

And, but the thing that I --  What's the word?

The investment that I've grown with that is that I have the knowledge of how to do that again and I also have the knowledge of how to help people do it.

And even though my official niche is just professional organizers.

Behind the scenes, I have also worked with people and coached people who are growing massive online businesses and I know how to speak that language and give value.

So I can either help people do it themselves or I could do it myself again.


So that gives me a security because I have put like, I've really gone a distance with learning about this one business instead of just kind of dabbling in 10 different things.

So when you're thinking about your pros and cons, maybe you want to kind of think about that.

You can pick a small niche or something very specific like gluten free baking for people who were born in the summer.

I mean, that's really not a good niche, but you know what I'm saying?

If you were that kind of person and you knew that people were searching for that content and you became that person, you could rise to the top of that niche instantly.

And you could go all in on that business and see how far it takes you or you could sort of go, "Okay, well I got that thing off and running and it's making a little bit of money.

Now I could do the same thing in this other place and get it it off and running."


So honestly the internet is the perfect place for people who are ADHD or we'll call them multi-passionate.

Like myself, I totally relate.

That you can literally expand infinitely on is working for you and what you're good at.

So if you realize that you love blogging and you hate talking to people, you start one blog, the benefit is not that you started that one blog.

The benefit is that you take all of the learning from that one blog and you start another one and another one and another one.

And then soon you have this empire of websites, which are real estate essentially, or that's the physical equivalent of that real estate.

Not physical, visible.

That's the visible thing that you can see that's the internet real estate that I was talking about where you have just people streaming in all the time.


Now whether you're selling them a product or you're selling other companies their attention or you're driving them to somebody else's product and getting commission off of that off Amazon.

I'm just kind of touching on some of the basic ways that you make money, but I just kind of want you guys to understand how this works and does it seem right now, like for the next two to four weeks you should learn all about blogging?

Does it seem like a necessarily a productive thing to do?

Because you could be working on your business.

I mean you could be working on your business, which of course if you have one already then sure.

But let's say I'm talking to you and you are working from home or not working at all right now, and you have the time.

And it's like, "Well what should I do with myself?"


If you've learned how to blog right now and by the end of the year you had made $1,000 from it and I'm just completely low-balling because I don't ever want to be one of those people who's like, "Well you could make $30,000 in a day."

Because that's a lot of pressure.

But if you had the knowledge of how to do that by the end of the year, then don't you think that in the future you could repeat that process and or continue to build that one thing?

And if you're doing something like we were talking about earlier where you just spend a lot of time up front creating the content and optimizing it for people who are searching for it.

If you do that upfront and then that content continues to make money long-term without you adding to it, then I think you'd be pretty happy with yourself in the future.


All right.

I'm going to wrap up my business story, I promise.

Because I don't want these videos to be hours and hours, but like I said, I'm going to be back tomorrow and every after that for the near future.

Okay.

Veronica, I do see your question.

I'm going to get to that in just a second and that's perfect because it ties in with my story.

So I said I was going to make a course and I pieced together, I mean I had my own content, but I was kind of like, "Okay, I've taken some courses and this is how I know it looks, that I want it to look good, here's the experience I want them to have."

And then I research like I listened to free podcasts, I looked up articles on Pinterest and other blogs about how to do this and that, how to create the course itself and how do I get people to opt into an email list?


How do I sell the thing?

Again, we can get to all that later.

I pieced together free information -- if you know where to look you don't have to buy a course on how to do this.

Because I would rather just talk and then like get you guys going.

But anyway, side note so I pieced it all together and got that initial version out and then I continued to improve it in the future.

So that's another big takeaway.

I don't want you guys to feel like you don't have to have this perfect product, just to get started.

I think the biggest thing you could do is just get started on whatever it is.

If you're a coach and you're like, "I don't have online platforms bringing me clients."

Or if you're a professional organizer and you are wanting to do virtual organizing, that's kind of similar to just straight up coaching.


So thinking about the types of content that people would be looking for before they would be hiring you and those are the things you really want to brainstorm and like get into a plan.

We'll talk about a content plan on another day.

So I created this course and I swear to you, I mean I think people spend years making courses and I just had a fire lit inside me that was probably nothing short of insanity.

Because I don't know if you guys are familiar with like remember the Twilight series from forever ago now?

But anyway, the author Stephenie Meyer, there were all these interviews with her was she just sat down and wrote the thing, she barely slept and it took her three weeks or four weeks just to write all of the Twilight novels.


That is how I felt when I was making this course because I just, it was like, I have to get this out of me and if it helps just one person, good.

But I was putting into a --  What's the word?

An externalized format, all the things that I could not stop talking about over and over and over again.

And I'm like, "Well, why don't I record myself saying this?

Why don't I make a tutorial of how to do this?" And that kind of thing.

So that is how the momentum on that got started.

And now what it is today I would like to think is a pretty awesome, pretty amazing program and experience and has a great reputation.

But when I was getting started, it was literally just a brain storm.

So that's how it got started.


And then how did I find people who were interested in this, given that I had never really been super active on social media before?

Well, here's what I did because the very last thing I wanted to do is what I'm doing right now, which is talking on Facebook to where anybody that I know would see me and so I was like, "Okay, don't want that to happen."

So I created a private Facebook group, which I would think most people who are listening to this would be familiar with those since we're on Facebook.

But in a private group.

In a private group you can do videos live videos like this one that you can only see if you are a member of that group.

So that was my method.

So I made a public commitment, which is a great way to motivate yourself because it will be very scary to go back and say, "Oh, just kidding.

I'm not really doing this.

But whatever."


I started posting in this group and there was nobody in it, but I said every Tuesday at 9:00 PM Eastern, I will be live in this group talking and doing Q&A.

Kind of, I mean very similar to what I'm doing right now.

Like I said but it was not visible to the world, could not be shared outside the group.

So you had to join the group in order to see the videos.

Now how did I get people to join the group?

Well, I would do the video and then I would download it and then upload it to YouTube.

And like I said, this is a totally from scratch YouTube channel.

So nobody was already subscribed.

I didn't have any email lists people to send it to.


I just uploaded the video to YouTube and put a description of here are all the topics that we discuss and gave it a good title of like for example, my very first video ever was what is a professional organizer?

I mean, because that was just like square one, right?

So when people type into YouTube, what is a professional organizer?

My video would show up and there are obviously other videos on that topic, but when people would watch my video replay and I didn't spend a lot of time, I didn't edit them at all because I didn't have time.

Like I said, I was doing a million other things.

So I just posted those replays to YouTube.

And then the call to action was always come and join the free Facebook group for the next live chat so that you can participate and ask your questions.


And have it be live versus watching a replay on YouTube.

So YouTube is where I put it out there so that people who are searching for it can find it.

And then they would come into the the Facebook group and then we would do the live chat at 9:00 PM on Tuesdays.

Still a very fond memory time in my life.

Because I was scared as hell to the videos.

I was just drinking wine and doing Q&A and we were just having fun.

And then afterwards, day after I download that video, I put it up on YouTube.

And so just the content sort of built itself that way.

And did I know what I was going to talk about every time?

Hell, no.

I was getting questions and ideas kind of like I'm doing right now where I'm just verbally processing and I'm like, "Oh that would be a good topic for a whole nother day."


So I'll kind of loosely plan the content and then take Q&A as I grew.

Now, that was a long time ago.

I do all of that video content is still on YouTube and people still find it.

And people still come into that.

What's the word I was trying to describe earlier?

It's kind of like I want them to just come into our world.

I'm not trying to sell them anything through that content, but it's like if you want to learn more, you can do this, this or this like we now have a podcast.

And I do podcasts instead of doing the weekly live videos, but we even post the podcast on the YouTube channel and again, it's just kind of all cross promoting this content that just lives out there.

Now that it's out there, it's just out there.


I guess theoretically if I wanted to just stop creating content for this business and start another one, which by the way, I'm not, I'm not stopping, but I'm just saying theoretically, I think that Pro Organizer Studio could continue to live on without us constantly putting out new content all the time.

So if that's something that resonates with where you are, what you want to do, maybe crazy idea, but bear with me.

Maybe for the next 30 days or six weeks or however long, God forbid, however long we are supposed to be staying home.

What if you just show up on Facebook like I'm doing right now and talk to your people about your things?

No matter what that is.

Whether you're my dad who he has an audience and he's basically like a Christian Jimmy Buffett figure.


Because I think people would like to see that, I think they would really like your personality and your sense of humor versus just doing Facebook posts.

But anyway, let's go in another direction.

Maybe you're a coach and you're like, "I've not had the time to sit down and write blog posts or I have all these ideas but I really need to sit down and do good writing."

That alone right there will block you from ever getting started.

And one of the reasons why I have so much content that I do today is because I did not overly polish any videos that I did in the beginning.

I even had some of those videos from early on transcribed and I've used that content in multiple other ways because it was easier for me to just get it out of my head at the beginning.

And then figure it out later.


I could have, and you guys, you guys could do this easily.

You could create enough content that afterwards you could have it all transcribed and then hire somebody else to create it into a book and you sell that on Amazon as a business.

Now that, again, that's a whole other topic we haven't really talked about, but that would be a business like you are now an author.

You don't have to sit down and write your autobiography or this amazing piece of literature to sell a book on Amazon.

If people are interested in the topic and you have grown an audience of people who are watching your content, whether it's live videos or YouTube videos or whatever.

Then that proves that there would be a market also for that information in book form in addition to your audience online who would probably buy it in book form just so that they had another way to consume it.


I really hope that this is sparking some ideas for you guys.

We have just hit one hour.

So I'm trying to think if there's anything else that I have left out about sort of the very basics of my story.

And some very basics about how do people really make money from a stranger on the internet.

And if you guys are listening now, if you're listening now and you're having an aha moment, if you're willing to share, please put in the comment in this video because I would love to hear it and trust me, I have time right now is your reply to your comments.

And I would very much enjoy that because this is kind of my thing.

Okay.

Veronica asked a question earlier I'm going to answer and then I'll try to wrap it up and look forward to hearing.


I'll be back tomorrow for sure.

Face to face.

Veronica said, "What is the difference between coaching and consulting and what qualifications are needed for either?" Okay.

So this is a really, really great question.

I have a very educated answer for you too because I just last year I was in a professional business coaching certification program through the University of Texas, grad school level.

The kind of thing, excuse me.

And consulting is basically when you're telling somebody what to do or when you're giving them ideas for what to do.

You're consulting.

But everything that I'm telling you right now is consulting.

And a lot of people do get those things mixed up because coaching is probably not as well understood as it should be except for certified coaches.


I'm in the final process of getting that certification.

And so it's definitely interesting because I don't even think I knew what I was getting into when I did that, but I'm super glad I did it.

Coaching is much more about the person is kind of how we'll explain that.

Maybe one of my classmates from UTD will comment in the chat too about the difference but in coaching, you do not give people the answers like literally ever.

If you're making suggestions, if you are leading the conversation or are asking leading questions, like a leading question would be like, "Don't you think that blah, blah, blah?" Because that inclines people to want to say yes.

Or to agree with you.

If you are ever in charge or doing the work, you are not doing true coaching.


Now still with that being said, Veronica, there is not actually a certification that are --  You asked about qualifications but there's not a certification that you have to have to sell either one or to make money doing either one.

You can be a coach in nearly any area or you can call yourself a coach in nearly any area.

If you were like let's say your business is you're out there flipping houses or you're out there you have a network of Airbnbs and you can call yourself a specialty like Airbnb business coach or house flipping coach, I don't know, renovations.

Anyway.

I'm sure there's a more official term for that.

So that actually could be another way that you stand out in a field if you want to make money just working with people one-on-one.

And then as far as consulting, you could call yourself a consultant, especially if you want to do just sort of one-off work in a particular field like Veronica, if you want to be a consultant for businesses who want to organize their systems and admin stuff.


Like you could consult on that, not stay there and do the work.

And that would be like a consulting gig versus an admin job or even an organizing job.

So organizing consultants would be people who literally come in and tell you like, "Here's the DIY plan or here are my recommendations."

But they're not physically staying there."

And organizing with you, de-cluttering with you, that kind of thing.

Okay.

Rachel said her wheels are turning and that gives me life.

That is all I was hoping for today is just that somebody had one of those mind blown moments.

And that I somehow made it seem easier than it was an hour ago.

Okay.

Well, like I said, this is not the end.

This is only the beginning.

So please let me know what your questions are.


I'm going to try to remember all the things that I said: Hey, let's do another video on that.

But until then I'm here and I don't know, leave me comments.

I just want to from you guys and even just tell me what are you up to over the next two to four weeks, what's on your plate?

What do you feel like you could work on business wise that would help you?

Or even if, like I said, you're somewhere kind of in between with my mini networks of people that I shared this with initially.

If you're like, "I've never met you before, but can I just see your YouTube channel that you're talking about?"

I'll try to leave you guys some links just to kind of follow up on this so that it doesn't seem like I'm leaving you hanging.

Appreciate you guys and I'll see you tomorrow. Bye!