4 ways online business gives you the ultimate freedom.

Welcome to The Empowered Edupreneur podcast. My name is Michelle Smith, 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 uplevel 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. So good to be chatting to you today as always. Today I want to talk about four ways online business gives you the ultimate freedom, because I talk about building a freedom filled business all the time. I'm always using the term freedom filled business. And I don't think people really understand how much freedom an online business can actually give you or why it gives you freedom.

I'm going to share four ways right now, and there are more ways than this, but I'm going to share four ways right now of why and how online business can give you the ultimate freedom and why I am so obsessed with online business. Why I love helping people build online businesses. 

So the first thing is automation. So automation means that you can automate a lot of things. And when you have an online business, you typically will use an all-in-one system. Sometimes you can use multiple tools and systems, but we use one all-in-one system to run our business on, launch our courses on host our courses on.

Accept payments, host my blog, host all sorts of things, right? Everything runs through this system. And part of this is an email autoresponder, which allows us to send emails, to broadcast emails to big lists and things like that. And send emails all the time, meaning like evergreen.

Whenever someone signs up for something, they will then get an email. And then this, this, this, this, this, all these chain of events would happen. And this is the power of automation that exists with online business. You can automate so much of your business. You can build out a funnel where someone can sign up to something on your website and based on them signing up to that thing, they will then get an email and then every X amount of days they will then get an email and this thing will just happen all the time while you sleep. 

So you can actually have this machine that is built for you so that when someone. Join something of yours. It just sets off a chain reaction of events and systems that can take place all whilst you sleep. This is the same with if you need someone to book a call with you, you can just send them a link.

They can then immediately click that link. It'll open up a calendar. They'll be able to find a slot that's open, book the slot that will immediately connect to their calendar and your calendar and put that in your calendar. It will also immediately send them a zoom link to the room. And that all happens automated.

So you don't have to do manual work. So much of what you can and should do in your online business can be automated. So that means when you can automate work, it means you're not sitting there doing work that is unnecessary, which frees you time. It also means that it's much more scalable because of the fact that you are not connecting these tasks and doing these things to your time.

You just build out the machine and then let it do its thing. Do the thing while you live your best life. And that's the same when you are even selling stuff. So you can even build out like an automated sales funnel that can sell products 24/7 while you sleep. Meaning you could be lying in bed and making money. 

That is freedom for you to be able to lie in bed and make money is freedom or sit on the couch and watch Netflix and have someone buy a program of yours or product of yours. That is freedom. That is magic. That's pretty much passive income, right? Which is absolutely insane and amazing. So automation is a big part of online business.

I feel like because of the nature of it being online and using online tools, you can automate a lot of it. Obviously there's lots of stuff that you can't automate, and obviously you need to still be building relationships with people and speaking to human beings. And you can't just create like automation for everything.

You still need to be a human being and talk to people. And create content and things like that. But in terms of where we're headed, like with AI and chat GPT and all these tools, eventually us creating content and doing things like that's going to become a lot easier because we're going to be able to have these tools to help us do it at a much faster rate as well.

Although I don't think we should be getting robots to replace us in terms of all the things that we're doing, because that's just not a vibe. But the tools that are coming out at the moment are so insane that things are going to become automated. Things that we are currently doing are going to become automated and possible to do.

We're going to be able to have our own AI assistant who can write our emails for us and write it according to our tone of voice and stuff like that. It's just going to become a bit of a different ball game. I feel like in the next 10 years, like I don't even know what it's going to look like, but it's crazy. It's really exciting to be a part of it as well. So that's number one. 

Number two is when you have an online business. You can work from anywhere in the world, and you can work with people from anywhere in the world, if that's what you want. You have no constraints of having to stay in the same place.

And for me, that's a big deal, because I really struggled with the whole idea of working in the classroom, or working in a classroom. One set area because I found it seriously mundane and boring for me, and I love traveling. I wanted to travel and work. And so it's one of the reasons why I even started my online business is because I just wanted to travel.

I wanted to be a nomad for a long time. And that's the magic of. Having an online business and selling information-based products, digital products, courses, things like that is you can do it from anywhere in the world, as long as you have the internet and you can do it from home, you can stay home with your children, you can literally choose how you spend your day. 

You can wake up and have a slow morning if you wanted to and only do the work in the afternoon if you wanted to. Or you can be one of those night owls who only wants to work at night. So you can work whenever you want, however you want. And you get to choose essentially who you work with as well, which is pretty, pretty insanely I don't really know what other option would give you that level of freedom. When you're your own boss of a company, you typically have to go into the company and you have to do certain things in that space.

Whereas when you're the boss of your own online business, you basically can just move countries every few months, if you wanted to. Which is what a lot of people do. So that is pretty liberating. If you love travel and having extreme flexibility, then yeah, online business is just a no brainer for that.

The third thing is when you have an online business often you are selling digital or information-based products. Which are like courses, group programs, bundles, eBooks, like kind of digital products like that, memberships. Which are all inherently scalable, which means you have no limit to the number of people who can buy that product.

There is no ceiling and They're not connected to your time. A lot of these things are not connected to your time. So you build out the product once. Yes, it takes time to build out the product, of course. But then you just keep selling it and it just can sell even while you sleep if you set it up like that.

So it's almost like when a singer or a writer. Let's say a singer, spends a lot of time creating a music record and then, spends a year building out their new record and then launches it. And then for the next, I don't know how many years they will be making royalties off that music for years and years and years to come.

So it's like an asset that you build. That then generates you income for years to come and digital and information-based products are the assets of online business. Obviously you can sell your services as well, like coaching, but there is more of a time for money model in that. And although it's really great and you can do it high-ticket and you can do all sorts of things to make it really worthwhile or profitable, things like that, that give you freedom.

But actual courses with curriculum, information-based products that aren't connected to your time are just the most freeing things ever. They're scalable, people can buy them all the time, and you can have as many people in your course as you want. You don't need to limit yourself to, X amount of people because you only have X amount of hours in the week.

And that is freedom. Imagine not having a cap on how much money you could make because really in online business, you've got people having seven figure launches. Meaning they're making a million dollars in a single launch. I've seen eight figure business owners in the online business space, making that amount through this model of selling predominantly it's information-based products and high-ticket stuff. But high-ticket coaching. 

And yeah, I don't really know any other model that would allow you to make that much and have it not correlate to your time. Of course, you're working and stuff, but they've got a team of people doing all the things that they don't like anyway. They're just working on the stuff that they do like, which is typically coaching teaching, hosting events.

That's often their zone of genius. And then everyone else is just doing all the other stuff. And then the income is just unlimited. I don't know where else you would have such an unlimited level of income. And that's something that you can build yourself. I always thought in order to make more money, you have to work a million times harder. 

But when it comes to online business and making more money, often it's not working harder. It's just working smarter. And you end up working less, but making more ultimately, and impacting more. That doesn't mean just because you're working less doesn't mean you're not impacting people. 

You've just learned how to package your knowledge into a program that can really help people get a result. And that's the thing that you sell instead of selling your time. And this is what I help educators and teaching business owners do is create digital courses, group programs, information-based products, memberships, things that are scalable.

That are not connected to your time, that will allow you to make more whilst working less. And how freeing does that sound? Sign me up!  

And the fourth thing allows for semi passive income. And I could say passive income, because I must say a lot of the time when you get to a certain point, when you've got a product that is selling, and you've got a sales process that is working, and then you just set it up evergreen, meaning it happens all the time.

You can just be walking on the beach and making money. Like you could literally go out and spend the whole day with your kids and make money. This last weekend, I think it was a couple of weekends ago I went to Amsterdam had an amazing weekend and had a bunch of students join DBA and I was making money whilst I was living my best life.

And of course I did certain things to create that result, it's from working. It's from actively working at it for years. But once you create a program or a product that's great. And you figure out how to sell it. Then you set it up as like a evergreen sales system that sells all the time. You can make passive income. 

So your income is not correlated to the time you put in anymore. Yes, you have to put an upfront time to get to that point. Everything that you need to do is active. You need to actively create that income. And then eventually you get to a point in your online business where you can turn things automated and evergreen.

And that's when you start making passive income. And for me personally, I feel such freedom to know that I can be living my life doing what I want to do, whatever it may be, and I can still make money. I don't have to be glued to my screen. I don't have to be sitting in classes teaching all day. I don't have to be trading my time for money. 

I do work in my business. I basically work about five hours a day, four to five hours a day, every day during the week. And then I don't work weekends. So I'm looking at about 20 to 25 hours a week. And then that's it. But for me, I love my business. I love working. I don't want to just sit on my butt and do nothing.

But for me, that's like a part time job. That's half the amount of time people work in a normal job. And I can also make money when I'm not working. So I can go on holiday and I can make money. And other online businesses can do the same thing. And this is why I'm passionate about online business, because I do believe that it gives you the ultimate freedom. 

And I don't think it's for everyone. I'll always say that. It's not for everyone. But for the few people that it's for it's an absolute no brainer. It's completely freeing. Yes, you can work yourself to the bone. Yes, you can burn out. Yes, all of these things can happen. But that's your responsibility.

You need to know how to manage yourself and stop yourself from hustle culture and grinding out all the time and working for the sake of working. That's, on us. That's our responsibility. If you have that awareness and you can create a business, an online business that you love, that is sustainable, that's selling pro programs that you're passionate about, that's impacting people, that's got good price points, that's giving you profit and all of these things. And you learn how to sell and market and you learn the skills, then you are basically winning the ticket to freedom. 

And it will change the rest of your life when you are able to do this, because there's no better feeling than being able to walk on the beach or sleep in on a Monday morning and know that you are still making money. You are still impacting people and your business is still able to grow and you can work from anywhere in the world.

Like I moved between South Africa, the Netherlands all the time. I can spend months in South Africa, seeing my family. There's no other opportunity that would allow me to do that. So those are the four ways that online business gives you the ultimate freedom. Automation, you can work from anywhere in the world.

Digital information-based products are super scalable. There's no like limitation or no ceiling to your income. And it can move towards semi passive income. And it can become pretty darn passive. Eventually when you have a few team members doing certain things and you just selling this course on like an automated evergreen way.

It can become pretty damn passive. That's what I wanted to share with you today. If you've ever been on the fence and you've thought, why does Michelle always speak about this freedom business? What makes it so freeing? That is my answer. And I hope it inspired you or made you think, hey, maybe this is something for you. 

And if you already have an online business and you've tasted the sweet nectar of freedom, then I'm so excited for you. I'm so happy for you. Once we taste it, we don't want to ever go back, right? And if you haven't yet tasted that sweet nectar of freedom, you might just be in the season of grind where you're doing the work, you're putting in the reps, you're doing the work, just hold on, keep going. Don't stop. 

Eventually you're going to make it through that season of business that you're in, and you're going to start to see the freedom and taste the magic of having a course or a program that can sell all the time, impact people and make money from everywhere in the world. Alrighty. So I hope you enjoyed this episode and I will chat to you again next week.

Bye!

  Thanks so much for listening to today's episode. If you are a teaching business owner, freelance teacher, or online teacher, and you are interested in creating a digital course or group program to scale your income and impact without teaching more hours, then I have just the thing for you. 

Grab my Free Scalable Digital Course Roadmap, and it will walk you through the six steps of turning your one on one classes into a scalable offer that frees you from the teacher burnout trap, creating scalable courses and programs have allowed me to 10 X my hourly rates hit six figures in my business and impact hundreds and hundreds of people around the world without having to be actively teaching all day. If this is what you desire. Grab my guide in the show notes and let me help you. 

I appreciate you so much. I can't wait to connect with you in the next episode. In the meantime, go create a business and life you love.