Three areas to focus on to hit $5k a month

Welcome to the Empowered Edupreneurs Podcast. My name is Michelle Smit, and I am an ex-teacher turned online business coach for Edupreneurs the owner of Digiteach and a six-figure entrepreneur. I am in love with empowering educators just like you to create freedom filled online businesses and lives they love.

If you are looking to up-level your skills, your finances, your mindset, and change the trajectory of your life as an educator in business, then you are in the right place. Think of this podcast as your weekly dose of business and mindset development to help unlock the infinite potential within you. To play bigger with your life and go after your dreams.

We are going to have so much fun together. So thank you so much for pushing play today. Now let's dive in.

Hello, hello, amazing one. Welcome back to The Empowered Edupreneur Podcast. I am pumped today because I just realized this is our 20th episode. It's our 20th episode anniversary and what a milestone. I am super proud of myself for the consistency that I have been able to achieve with this podcast.

Like with anything, adding in a new marketing habit into your business is new and you have to sort of like build that muscle of consistency in it. And I really wanted, like I set the intention when I'm doing this podcast, I really want to do one episode a week, and I just wanted to create that habit. And we have been able to do that all through December and all through launches and all that jazz.

And that is really cool. I'm really proud about that because it's more just a norm now. And that's the nice thing about your business tasks. They just become like habitual. So you just do it. It's not something that you have to think about.

You just put it in your schedule and you do it every week. And it's really cool when you get to that point. And I do feel like we have gotten to that point still figuring out the systems of it to make it a bit smoother, but in general we are like, I feel quite habitual about it and I'm proud about that.

And yeah, I must say if I compare the first episode to like, now, the first episode was much more, I like scripted it more. I put more like bullet. I actually more fully fleshed out the script. I knew what I was going to say because obviously when you're new at something, you get nervous and you're like, you don't really know.

You don't have the confidence, you know how it goes. But now I don't have the, I don't just, I don't script the thing. I just like set out basic bullet points and a structure just to keep me on track and I just kind of go and I just chat. And I feel like that is just showcasing the confidence that is growing through just doing the thing.

And this is what I always say, like if you want to build confidence in something. Just do the thing over and over again. Like repetition, take action. You don't really build confidence in something unless you do it and you build confidence that way. I think people get annoyed when I give them that answer, like, how do I build confidence?

I'm like, do the thing that you want to build confidence in and just do it rep eatedly and you'll build confidence. It's kind of an annoying answer, but it really works. This podcast is testament to that, you know, my first episode. Was more scripted, and now I'm just a little bit more casual and spontaneous.

And I got an email last week from someone listening to my podcast. Shout out to you. If you're listening now, I think you'll, you'll know. She mentioned that she had like a good laugh in the episode because I was just going on a, on a bit of a tangent and I was just like, So natural and open and like spontaneous I think is the word she used.

And she enjoyed it. And I thought that was cool because that's kind of what I would like this podcast to be. Obviously giving you value and not wasting your time, but just not being super scripted and just me, my natural vibe shining through. I think that's important. So yeah, I'm just celebrating the 20 episode milestone with you and Today I am coming to you with an episode on what, three areas to focus on for 5K a month, and five figure launches.

So I have been hitting between I would say $3,000 a month to like $15,000 a month. sometimes $20,000 a month. For the last two years, I would say. And every year I've been kind of doing it a bit differently. So there have been different strategies and there are a million ways to hit those numbers strategy wise.

What is important is that you find the right fit for your energy, your business model, your lifestyle. And all of that jazz, so it aligns with bigger cash months. Like it needs to fit your style of business. I think that's important, and this is where customized strategy does help, and that is why I'm launching my new offer, the Growth Accelerator.

It is a customized 12 week group coaching container helping educators in business scale to 5K months and five figure launches. It's not for the beginner in business who doesn't know their niche. You know, beginner things like what a lead magnet is and you know, a lead magnet funnel or freebie funnel. 

The people who are at that level. Definitely Digiteachers Biz Academy is the program for you because it is all of that in one. It takes people from zero to launched. So from nothing to launching and selling. That entails everything there. But the growth Accelerator now this is for the person who wants to go from, okay, they're launching, they have sold something before.

They've had students, they know their niche. Their students have had some results. They are just wanting to scale up and. Create bigger cash months, bigger launches expand on their skills and really also very important step into their power. As being a business owner. So there's like a shift in energy from when you're like sort of first year in business you've made with some sales, but you're still kind of treating it like a side hustle.

Or maybe you were a teacher and you're still kind of identifying as a teacher, not a business owner. So there's a shift in energy that needs to take place where you really step into your power as a business owner and you really claim that space and you claim being an authority in your market and you start really.

Stepping into that level of you. So that is very important and that is going to be a focus in this program as well. So it'll be that. And then the other areas will be, and this is what this podcast is going to be on, are these three areas. 

Number one is audience growth, and that includes like nurturing and building up that no like and trust. Factor Number two is launching and selling. In other words, making offers. This can be through live launching. This can be through evergreen selling, whatever it looks like. Number three, stepping into your power. That CEO identity, that belief system that's aligned to 5K months and five figure launches and your energy.

Those are the three things we're focusing on in the Growth Accelerator, and it's what I'm going to be talking to you about today so we can flesh out each one of these things a bit further. So let's start with audience growth. Okay, now, If I look back on my business and all the years that I've been in business, audience growth has been a priority.

That includes not just social media followers, but specifically email list generating leads, getting people on your email list and building relationships with people. That is essential. I think I've made that pretty clear that I'm a big fan of having an email list and cultivating that and that being your greatest business asset.

In my opinion, that is your greatest business asset. And when it comes to having five figure launches and 5K months you want to be focusing on some sort of strategy in growing your audience. And nurturing and building that no like and trust factor. So it's not just enough to get someone on your email list and then sell something to them.

That doesn't really work, especially in 2023 where you know the landscape has changed, people are taking longer periods of time to make buying decisions. People are on email lists a lot longer before they invest and buy. They might need to go through multiple launches before they feel ready to buy. So it's definitely slowed down since five years ago when I started online business.

And what's become really important is building the community and sort of. Building that audience, that email list, and cultivating like a strong community, like a, that sense of community as well can go a long way. And building, cultivating trust, real trust in people and serving them, like helping them. In advance, giving them lots of touchpoints of value in advance before you sell something to them.

And so if you're wanting to hit five figure launches and 5K months, that needs to be a foundational thing that you are spending your energy on. So it needs to be at the top of your business tasks. List building and connecting. So whatever method you choose, it's very dependent on your style.

You can build your list with a freebie. You can build your list with trainings, free events, things like that. You can collaborate with people and build your list like that. There's so many different ways, but you need to find the way that works for you. And it can't be like a set, like a last minute thought.

It needs to. Very top of mind in your business. And then the way that you nurture is typically, you know, sending an email once a week with value connecting, maybe a podcast or a YouTube video or just a blog post, whatever method feels good to you, but you're, you're, you've got a system for lead generation and you've got a system.

like lead nurturing as well. They, they both need to be there. And if you're not focusing on that, then that's something that I recommend you do focus on and just start building that habit and setting up those systems in your business. So setting up those funnels, creating that freebie, that's really that juicy freebie, like put in the work, build that foundation so that you can just.

Promoting it and getting as many humans into your world as possible. So that is number one. Number two is launching and selling. Okay. When I say launching, this also just entails like evergreen stuff as well, which means that it's selling. You're not, it's not a live launch. It's like a consistent thing that you're selling all the time. An evergreen offer. 

And this is the thing, like if you wanting to hit 5K months or bigger launches or bigger cash months, really. Then you're going to have to sell more. You're going to have to go bigger in either your audience. So if you want bigger or launches, typically you want a bigger audience to go through your launch.

You want more eyeballs on your offer. So of course, lead generation is going to be directly connected to your launch numbers as well. And those bigger cash months is going to make a big difference. But other than that, you just need to make offers. So I think a lot of people miss it. It's such a simple thing, but just making offers to your people and making offers means like putting, putting something in front of them saying, you can buy this, right?

That needs to become like something you do. Either all the time, if you are wanting to really create consistency in sales, you can do that all the time. Or you have a system, an evergreen sales system where you send someone to some sort of training, and on that training you make an offer on that training, and then there's a link to buy or a link to book a call or whatever.

So whatever the strategy is, you are wanting to be making offers to people. You don't want people to be like wondering how they can work with you. And I, I can be guilty of this because, but it's just because of my style. So I have for a long time just done live launching, which means that I am not really consistently selling stuff all the time.

I am just opening and closing for enrollment a couple of times a year. And I have big launches, meaning I put a lot of energy into the launch. It's got a long runway. It's like a three month thing and I have big launches as a result of that. I have, you know, 30, 40, 50, 60 K launches, and then I don't feel the need to be selling all the time, right? 

And that's one strategy of doing it. If you want to go bigger on your live launches and that's better for your energy, then do that. But maybe you're desiring to layer into more consistency in there. And that means that you need to make offers more like repeatedly to the people that are coming into your world.

And so an evergreen sales system, and this is something I will dive into in the Growth Accelerator and Evergreen sales system that is selling your offer on autopilot. Is that thing now, I will just say selling things evergreen with like an evergreen webinar, evergreen training, whatever, evergreen mini course, where at the end of that you are selling your program.

This is not a strategy that I recommend for people who've just started, and it's interesting because when you just start business and you're doing a launch immediately after your first launch, you're like cool, I now want to turn this evergreen, but once when you're turning something evergreen, you're going to have to, before you're turning that offer evergreen and selling it all the time, you're really going to have to live, launch it a few times to test it.

This is what I recommend, is testing it through live, launching it. Getting the conversions up and then only turning it evergreen. Otherwise you're going to have a bit of, a little bit more challenge Selling it evergreen and the evergreen can be a bit more challenging. Like live launching is actually the easier way to sell something.

And that's why I always teach people in the beginning of business, learn how to live launch something. Build those skills and once you've got an offer that is converting that you know that works, the curriculum is getting people results, you've run people through it, you can then turn it Evergreen. You can then focus on that new strategy.

But don't, if you are listening now and you haven't even live launched, stick with that. Stick to the strategy of live launching, build up. Skill set that is required and run your offer to people, like run people through your offer live, improve your product. Once that's done, you can start moving on to a new strategy, which.

Evergreen is a great option, and that's what we did. We live launched our first program, which was $379. The first time we did it was only $120, but then we moved it to $379 and we live launched that thing four times or five times with a video series launch. After that, we then did webinar launches and then we took one of the best performing webinar launches. 

We repurposed that into an evergreen training and we sold that course on autopilot. And I must say it took about three months of. Like focus to get that evergreen funnel intact and in place and like converting. It was a three month at least process, but once it was intact, I remember we went to, we went on holiday to Italy, we went to Lake Como, and we, we had put this, this evergreen funnel in place for the first time that was selling this $379 offer on repeat to people. 

And we were driving ads to the training and then at the back, on the back end of that training was our offer and that people could buy it. And we ended up like making 5K to 10 K months just. From that funnel, and that was a revelation To go from live launching to having something sell all the time was an incredible feeling.

The only thing is it's not completely passive. So if you're thinking it's completely passive, it's not. You're going to have to be looking at your Facebook ads to tweak it. And as ads are going up and costs are going up, that causes your profit of your funnel to decrease.

So you're going to have to navigate the Facebook ads and the traffic piece of that puzzle, but as long as you have like a funnel that converts people and you know your sales conversions, you can sort of reverse engineer that. But yeah, that was a whole tangent on that. But basically you need to, if you're wanting to hit 5K months or five figure launches, you need to be live launching or doing some evergreen selling. 

And it does help with when you're wanting to hit 5k months and five figure launches. It really helps to not be selling dirt cheap products. So we were able to hit five to 10 months with a $379 product. It worked. It was a very good dynamic and it was a good price point for the people.

And yeah it worked, right? So you definitely can but you just need more quantity of people going through your stuff. You need more traffic, you need more eyeballs on your stuff. And if you've got a very small audience, it's hard. So that's when increasing prices really helps. And this is just something that comes with confidence, but increasing your prices and that makes a big difference, especially you've got a small audience.

It also forces you to get better at articulating your value and selling. It like expands you, it stretches you. And I think that is a good thing. I had a big price increase jump from $379 to 997, and that was terrifying. And then I did it again from 997 to 1997. And that was a big stretch and it was terrifying.

Every time you increase your price, like it's going to feel scary, but I must say it's one of the best ways to increase profitability in your business is just increasing your prices as well. It's really simple. You just increase the price. You just have to get confident behind that new price, right? 

So, yeah, that's the other thing. Launching, selling, making offers. There's many ways of doing it. There's many strategies out there, but you need to find one and you need to focus on one. So don't. Don't complicate your business, don't complicate your life. Don't have 10 evergreen funnels and a trip wire funnel.

And don't create complexity. Just keep it simple. And I think this is a really key thing like. Keep your business simple. Have an offer. Have a main offer that like 80% of your income business revenues coming in from that offer. Focus your energy on honing down on that, like get better at selling it.

Focus on one strategy for a period of time to give you momentum to allow for that compound effect to kick in. If you are chopping and changing and you're doing one strategy one month, another strategy, the other. You've got like a million different funnels that are like complicated. You're just going to burn yourself out.

So really keep it simple. I'm all about simplicity. I take it so far with simplicity to the point where I honestly have been selling one offer for like three years. And maybe people think that's boring, but honestly, I really believe that you need to give yourself enough time to. Build momentum. You need to give your offer enough time to build momentum.

You need to get, you need to start that compound effect, that just daily compound effect of it getting better. And it really does work. There'll be a point where it's just, and you're not starting from scratch. The whole thing of starting from scratch takes you back to square one. You're building on what you currently have and you're improving in your tweaking, and I feel like it's a lot easier to hit the 5K month when you're doing that instead of chopping and changing and changing, like focus.

It's actually, and I think this is key, your business isn't meant to be this exciting. Rollercoaster what you really want. Yes, you want to feel excited and energy in it, but you don't want like to get into a point where you, you've got something that's sold and now you're just feeling bored and you just feel like changing it up because you're bored.

That is what I see and it doesn't help because sometimes you need to do the mundane stuff in order to hit the bigger cash months. Like sometimes you need to be in control of that and not just go on impulses to follow energy but to just commit to something for a period of time and commit to it not being like overly exciting.

I mean, selling one offer for three years, you eventually do get tired of selling it, but it works. It sells easily. And so to restart and change things up. It means that you're, you're, you're starting from scratch again, especially with strategy and stuff. So there is a balance. There's a balance between listening to your energy and your intuition and what feels good to you, but also realizing that your business isn't meant to be this overly exciting rollercoaster where you're constantly feeling that excitement.

That happens and you must roll with it. But then also the mundane, repetitive stuff like content creation and relaunching an offer over and over. That stuff goes a long way. And I see people. They, they don't allow themselves for that. And so they're hitting the 5K month or the five figure launches becomes like, pushed down the line. They don't, they don't achieve it because they're chopping and changing.

The third thing, and as you know I've been talking about this a lot, is your identity, your belief system, the thoughts that you have, the way you perceive yourself in relation to the world your energy. That is important. 

When you start business, you are lacking in so many ways in terms of an identity, a business owner identity and a belief system, and, and like the energy is just not there. In that first year, you're not confident. You're doing things that are deeply uncomfortable. You've never done pretty much everything you're launching and you have no idea what you're doing.

There isn't that, like confidence, that energy that exudes. So the first year at business is actually one of the hardest because you're facing your resistance continuously. You're going up against yourself continuously. You're trying to make money When you are on a belief system level, probably not even not even believing you can make money.

And so you really have to work on that. When you start making money and you want to grow to 5K months or 10 K months, it's like a new level, new devil. The identity and the version of yourself who was able to make that $1,000 a month, whatever. Their needs are different to the person who makes the 5K month, the person who makes the 30 K month, they're like different versions of you.

And you need to work. And that's why the work never ends because no matter at what point you reach in your business, you've got to do some work on your beliefs and your thoughts and your energy because every time you increase your goalpost, say you want to, you hit 5K months, then you want to hit 10 K months.

You need to then align your identity and belief system and all of that two to 10 K months, meaning you are fully on board with. Like you believe in yourself that you can do it, and it takes time to adopt new beliefs. It takes time for your identity to shift. But basically in a nutshell, what got you to here is not what's going to get you to there.

You actually have to evolve internally to make that happen. And when it comes to making more, your identity to your belief system. Your energy is so important. And that needs to be an area to focus on because if you're working on your internal stuff, you're working on your confidence, you're working on if you are like launching something and you keep saying, oh, no one's going to buy this, this isn't a good offer, you know, I'm crap.

All of these like hardcore. Like low energy vibes that is going to come through in your marketing. It's going to come through in your launch and it's going to affect the sales and the reality of how much money you make. And so you do want to start inside and then work from there. And it isn't an overnight thing when it comes to this.

It's through creating awareness, being conscious of your stories, your beliefs, and sort of slowly shifting them, adopting new ones that are in alignment with the 5K months. So you really want to get to a point where you feel and believe that 5K a month is a no-brainer. It's inevitable. It's a matter of time.

If it hasn't happened yet, it is going to happen. It is literally just a matter of time. And that energy goes a hell of a long way because you take action from a different space and you start on a frequency level emitting out that vibe. And that starts reflecting back to you in your life and you start seeing results and you stop fighting against yourself the whole time.

So that I really am passionate about, and that is why I believe that you need to focus on that as well to be hitting any amount of money. 5k 10 k, a hundred K a million. It all requires a new version of you that exists with a more evolved belief system that you've adopted and an energy as a result.

So the three key areas that I believe you need to focus on, Let's repeat audience growth and nurturing. Launching and selling, in other words, making offers to people and your identity, your belief system, your thoughts, your energy. That is like what you infuse into your business. You infuse that in your marketing, your offers, your emails.

You infuse that and it goes a long way. Like launching something with confidence and knowing that it's a badass offer is going to go a lot further for you than going into a launch and being like, oh, this is such a crap offer. Like, no one's going to buy this. I can't make 5K a month.

Like, who am I to make 5K a month? I'm not worthy of that. Like all these hardcore thoughts that are so not in service of you are going to affect how you show up. And so we really need to take control of that and we need to shift it and we need to be like, we need to be patient because that's not an overnight thing and it's something that requires work.

Okay, so this is the jam for the Growth accelerator. I'm diving into all sorts of stuff. We have a wait list available, which is going to have the full offer reveal, so freaking exciting. So if you want to see that, then you got to get on the wait list. The doors open on the 28th of February at 10:00 AM Central European time.

If you're on the wait list, you will get first invite. At the presale price and a chance to grab one of the three epic early bird bonuses, so the first three people who join the Growth Accelerator will not get, will get not only one but two, one-on-one calls with our Facebook ads manager. For organic marketing or Facebook advertising support to grow your audience online and increase your leads your impact and your sales.

Of course, this is an amazing bonus to have two calls with our ads manager and he can support you in organic content creation, video content. He's going to help you map out your entire content strategy or the Facebook advertising strategy vibes. And it's one-on-one, so that's amazing.

So if you're on the wait list, then you will get the first invite and the first three people who join the growth accelerator will get that juicy bonus. So you'll see the wait list under this episode somewhere. Definitely get on it. And I'm so freaking excited. This offer has been inside of me for like a year.

It hasn't been the right time, and I didn't have the capacity last year to do it, but now it is a bursting out of me like a flood. Like it's just flooding me, flooding my system. It's like I'm eating, breathing just this offer at the moment because it's so exciting. So this is a big deal. First thing I'm selling again after focusing on DBA for so long, but I have just so excited to work with these, these educators and business and have advanced business conversations and really expand in a group capacity.

I think it's going to be magical. All right, so I hope this was helpful for. Focus on those three areas. Find ways that suit you in each one that suits your energy and your style. And yeah, 5K months, 10 K months are not a pipe dream. They are possible. I thought they weren't back in the day, but I can tell you they are very much possible and available to you.

And yeah, I'm so excited to support you if you join the, the Growth Accelerator. So excited to support you in that process. Alrighty, I hope you have a beautiful day and I will chat to you next week. Bye. 

Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I am so excited to announce that the wait list is open for the Growth Accelerator.

This is my 12 week advanced business coaching container, helping Edupreneurs scale to 5K months and multiple five figure launches using the power of intentional strategy with potent energy. The doors open soon, and if you're on the wait list, you will receive the first invite with access to the presale price and the amazing early bird bonus.

Head to my website at digitieach.biz and get on the wait list or click the link underneath this episode and get signed up. I appreciate you so much, and I can't wait to connect with you in the next episode. 

In the meantime, go create a business and life you love.