How our business won a 5-star yacht trip through the Greek Isles.

Welcome to The Empowered Edupreneur 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 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. It is wonderful to be chatting to you. I hope you're doing so well. So before I dive into this podcast, I would like to remind you that I'm hosting a free live masterclass. It's my Quadruple Your Teaching Income Through Launching Courses masterclass, and it is going to happen. I don't know when you're listening to this podcast or what, but it's happening this week.

So it's Thursday, the 30th of May, and it is going to be awesome. I do a live masterclass every couple of months only, and I'm going to be sharing how you can launch your course so you can skyrocket your sales, fill it up with dreamy students, I call it Quadruple Your Teaching Income masterclass because you can literally quadruple your income.

You can make so much money through launching a course it's life changing and the system that I'm going to be sharing with you is something that I've been, doing for years and years. It's helped me make hundreds of thousands of dollars in course sales and impact hundreds of people around the world.

I think I've had 1,500 people come into my courses online from all over the world. And so that is the power of digital courses, digital group programs. And also of launching. So launching is the act of getting it out into the world with hype and excitement. So people actually know about it and actually want to buy it.

And it's all well and good having a course, but if you don't know how to launch it, many people aren't even going to know that course exists. And so launching is just a skill that I think every business owner needs to know. And also everyone who wants to make their own money online needs to know.

And it's something that I have done for many, many years and know a lot about. And it's basically my speciality. And so, I would love to invite you to that masterclass. It's going to be around 90 minutes. I'm going to do a Q&A I'm offering my signature program, The Digiteachers Biz Academy.

On it, a special offer that you won't see anywhere else for a period of time only. So if you have been thinking about it, on the fence, wanting to potentially dive in. This is your sign to get involved. So just sign up for the free masterclass. You'll find the link underneath this episode or on Instagram, or just message me if you can't find it. And yeah, I'm super excited to see you there. 

So what am I jamming about today? So on Instagram, on my stories, I mentioned that me and Mike and Digiteach basically won a five star yacht trip through the Greek isles and. Everyone was like, how did you do that? People were confused. They were like how did that happen?

How does your business win that? It sounds very strange. So it piqued some interest. And then I asked if anyone wanted to hear more about it. And people were like, yes, we want to know about it. Here we are recording this podcast. And I'm sharing this behind the scenes story, which I think is amazing because it's probably one of my greater manifestation stories.

I've got a lot of good manifestation stories. I basically manifest pretty much everything I want. In its own time. Sometimes it's not according to my timeline, but I do happen to just create everything I want, which is pretty bad ass. And I think that belief really serves me because I really truly believe that. I do just manifest all the things that I want, which is awesome.

But this story is awesome and it's very dear to my heart. It means a lot to me and it was a turning point in my life, to say the least. So let me rewind back. So we're back in 2018. And at this point I had immigrated to the Netherlands around April or so for love. For Mike, that's the only reason I came.

And yeah, at that point I had come across, literally in the same month or just before I had flown to the Netherlands. I'd come across a mentor his Facebook ad. And he was talking about having an online business and he was traveling Thailand and living his best life.

And at this point I was an online teacher, so I was just teaching English online and I was teaching a lot of classes, every day just to make ends meet. Especially when I moved to the Netherlands where the cost of living was a lot higher than what it was in Vietnam, where I was before. 

And I found this online business thing. I'd never heard about it before. And I was like, this is interesting. I didn't know this was a thing I had always wanted to work online and travel the world. I wanted to be a digital nomad and he was digital nomading. And I was like, this is interesting. So I went down his funnel, which I didn't know was a funnel at the time, but I went down the online journey, and I ended up signing up to a webinar.

And he had this amazing offer that I then signed up to. And this was the first time I'd ever done anything at all that had anything to do with business. I had no desire to have a business. I'd never thought of it before until I found this whole world. And I signed up to his offer and it was like a three month challenge. There was a challenge that was built into his offer. 

So his offer included business training. Specifically around launching digital products. And he included as part of his offer a challenge. And the prize of the challenge was to win an amazing all inclusive trip to wherever the options were.

So every year he would change the options of where this trip could be. So the one year it was Bali and it was all inclusive trip to Bali. Then in the year that I came in and did it the options were Morocco, Greece, and Iceland. So there's three options and you can choose which kind of adventure you want to go on.

And he was all about like adventure and, creating these amazing experiences. This was the kind of challenge in the competition. He was going to give you training. And he also had a system that you could use to build out all your online business stuff. So he actually has his own software that he has developed.

And he wants you to use the software to build out your offers and your courses and all of that stuff and host all of the funnels and the pages, everything on the software. Then he wants you to launch your stuff. This is how you win. You have to get the most amount of sales, essentially. And the person who wins, wins the challenge.

And so that's the, in a nutshell what the competition is about. Over a three month period, the person who gets the most sales into their business in whatever shape or form. Whatever digital product that you're selling, whether it's a thousand dollars or 10, it's the same points in a sale.

And the person that gets the most points over that three month period will win the challenge. I didn't really think that I could ever win this thing, but it was a great incentive for me. I must say it really did help me push myself a bit more and it gave it like was dangling, something really exciting and shiny in front of me.

And I was like, you know what? That sounds amazing. And I was so keen on Greece. It had always been, at that point, one of the top of my bucket list to visit. And I'm obsessed with islands. So it was a good driving force. Now picture this. I am straight out of Vietnam. Now immigrated to the Netherlands.

I'm an online teacher. I am basically super broke. I'd spent all my money immigrating to the Netherlands, which was no cheap thing. And yeah, I had no skills in terms of business. So I didn't know anything about online business. I didn't know anything about marketing. I did not know much about sales. 

Although I had worked in sales on a cruise ship before I had traveled the world and cruise ships, and I was a photographer and I had to sell a lot on cruise ships. And I was very good at it naturally. So it was just a natural thing that I knew how to do. I didn't know any skills or strategy with it. I just knew how to connect with human beings and sell stuff. 

That I had at least done in my life. But yeah I was literally this bright eyed, bushy tailed hippie girl. I still had all my hippie clothing from Asia because I just literally went down that backpacker route. I was just optimistic and wanting, I was hungry. I was hungry for something else.

I was not happy teaching English online all day, every day. And I felt really limited from it. But it was what I knew how to do. I could really do it well. And I did well in my company and I got promoted a couple of times, and then I was hired as a recruiter. And so, I really climbed the ranks on that.

So I was good at what I was doing, but I didn't love it. Like I didn't want to do it for the rest of my life. It was great for a period of time, but it wasn't my whole future. So I knew I needed to find something. And I was like, you know what? Let me just try this thing out. It seems fun. What is there to lose?

I'm going to just invest and I'm going to just do it. And basically from the moment I joined that program, it was from zero to launch four months. So when I think about that now, given that I help people launch. And I work with people, especially educators in business, and I help them launch their products.

Four months is a very, very short timeline to go from zero to launching. And I didn't have any business skills. So it's not like I already owned a business and I was teaching in my own business and then just added a course to my offer suite. Like I had zero business. So from zero to launch, I had to build this business. 

And I decided to do this thing, but then Mike got interested into it and he was fascinated by the whole thing. So he just started to do the training with me. So every day he would come home and we would sit on the couch and we'd watch the training videos and then we'd just work.

We just worked so hard. I've never worked so hard. I really have never worked so hard and it was gruelling. It was such a learning curve. Everything was foreign to me. I knew nothing about all of it. And I was learning everything at once. So I was learning about course creation. I was learning about business strategy.

I was learning about building out funnels and pages and copywriting and Facebook advertising and marketing and messaging. Everything was happening at one moment and I was just deeply Immersed in it. We were both very hungry for change. And I think that's what kept us going, despite how difficult it was.

Mike was already working like a 40 hour work week. Then he would come home and then we would work on Digiteach together. It was seriously tough. But we were so hungry for it because the reality for us was our relationship actually depended on it. Because I didn't actually want to move to the Netherlands and live in the Netherlands.

And I wanted to travel. I wanted to live somewhere else. And I knew that if this business could take off, we could create more freedom in our lives to live somewhere else. Mike potentially come to South Africa or whatever it looked like at that time. 

At that point I didn't have options. I was not very skilled in things and I didn't have a lot of money. But I had time. So I had that piece of the puzzle. I did have time because I didn't work 40 hours a week. I worked like 28 hours a week. So I did have time. 

So that's why we took it so seriously. And that's why we really like. Went for it. And in those four months, it was pretty gruelling. Then we launched the first course and it was a hundred and something dollars at that point.

But then we increased the price to 376. And it was a course helping people become online ESL teachers. My first business name and the brand was digiteachESL. That's what the first, logo was and the name of the business. Because I was helping people become online ESL teachers, because that's what I knew how to do.

I knew how to do it. I was very good at it. And I knew how to help someone get hired because I was a recruiter. I was recruiting people. So I had that skill. And I was like, you know what, let me just help people get hired into ESL jobs. And then I built out this four week course.

And by the way, we sold and launched the course before we built it, which is the advice I always give. So we launched the thing. I didn't think people were going to buy the thing, but then seven people bought it. Shock and horror.

I was like, what the hell? It was the craziest experience of my life. That human beings that I did not know on the internet went and bought something that wasn't even built yet, but was created out of my mind. From a skill that I had, which was at that time online ESL teaching. And we made like 850 bucks and it was like, OMG.

I had not made profit. I had definitely been far from profit, but the fact that someone bought it, holy cow, this thing can work. If you want to hear more of how we continued and launching and stuff, you must come to the masterclass because I do talk about that as well. Because we kept relaunching and refining and things like that. 

And the results did become amazing eventually, but it wasn't like one of those first launch knock it out of the park, best ever things like it wasn't like that. We actually had to work, we launched and we fumbled. It was a mess. There's a lot of mistakes. If I look back on it, it's very cringe worthy. 

All of it from like everything, the branding, the slides, everything's cringeworthy. The quality of my recording for my course, not good. Everything was not great. But still we did it and we learned and then we kept learning. So at this point I was very involved in the community of this challenge because we had this big community of people who are building businesses and trying to win this challenge. 

And so there was this really exciting community and I was very involved in the community and making friends. My mentor obviously saw some potential in me because I was just showing up to all the calls. I was doing all the work I was studying all the time.

I was eating, breathing, sleeping this thing. I was just immersed completely. I started doing self help books. I started reading all the time I stopped watching the news. I completely changed. I hardly had any friends in the Netherlands so I didn't have much distraction. I just really went all in. And I think he saw potential because he often was telling me how to improve, just straight up mentoring me and watching my stuff and always being excited when I like sold something.

And that felt exciting to me. I felt, oh my gosh, even though I haven't got good results. This person sees something in me, I don't really see it in myself, but I feel like I'm addicted to it and I'm so energized by it. Let me just keep following the energy. And then we launched again and it was within this window.

I think this was now the third launch because now we had moved into every year he had the challenge. So the first year. We didn't win the challenge. I don't remember who did. I actually think it was a South African lady who had a baking course and she was doing these awesome cakes and she was teaching people how to do cakes and she had an amazing launch and she won from what I remember. But then the next year I re-entered the challenge and I launched for, I think it was the third launch or whatever, and I had refined, refined, refined, and in that launch, it was like a $15,000 launch.

So at that point, for context, I was making like 20 something thousand dollars a year with online teaching. 24,000. So it was like $2,000 a month. So in this launch, which was a five day course launch, I made $15,000 and I had I don't know, 40 something students by this course. Firstly, that was life changing in itself because I was like, holy cow.

What just happened, I nearly made my entire year's salary in a few days. But what happened is that we had the best launch in that period of time. And we had the most sales and there was this awesome leaderboard where you could see everyone where they were at in the challenge, like who is winning, you could see all the top 10 people.

And basically we were at the top and then there was someone else who was just behind us and we were like, oh my gosh. And I remember it was coming right to the end of the challenge where it was like the final day or final week. And we were so close with this other person. I remember I was in Belgium and my parents were visiting me and I was like, we have to win.

We're so close. We're so close to winning. So then I decided to just build out something really quick and simple. It was a $20 call or something. That I was going to then sell to my current students who had bought my course. And I sold it just on a call with them to see if anyone wanted to have a private exam prep call where I would do like exam prep with them.

And it was cheap. It wasn't expensive at all. And I just offered it. And then a lot of people wanted it. And then they kept buying it. And that just kept giving us more points. And that was just such a strategic move because I knew I needed to sell something very fast and quickly to get points. And then we ended up winning and it was out of this world. 

I couldn't believe it. And so then my mentor, he did this whole announcement online and he spoke about everything. And I just remember that moment. And he announced that we had won and we could decide where we want to go between Iceland, Morocco, and Greece. 

And I remember me and Mike were just like, absolutely out of this world excited. We had worked so hard for so long. At this point, it had been just over a year and a bit, maybe of just absolutely immersing ourselves in business and launching and just stumbling and falling and making mistakes and it being hard, very hard.

It was the biggest growth spurt of my life that I can remember to this date. I don't remember school as much, but in terms of university, nothing touch sides like this was real life training for business. I was in the arena. I was going live. I was doing things that were deeply uncomfortable. I had such a fear of public speaking, yet I was getting in front of people on camera, selling something to them, pitching something. 

It was terrifying and very hard. And I overcame so many fears to do it. And yeah, I remember winning it and me and Mike, I just remember it so clearly. It was literally tears falling down my face of just absolute disbelief. Because to be honest, I never knew I could do much. I didn't think I had much skills.

I didn't have belief in myself. I didn't have the confidence. I didn't think that I had much value to give to the world. That was where I was at that point. But when I had done this thing and it had worked and I had won this thing. It signified so much more in me that I was capable of. And that will always stay with me.

I will always remember that feeling of just believing in myself and having people believe in me before I could believe in myself. So my mentor believed in me and before I even saw my own potential. Mike believed in me before I saw my own potential. And that made such a difference because then I started to believe myself.

And when I started to believe myself, my confidence grew. And when I confidence grew, I could sell and launch much more easily. And the results just skyrocketed. And it all started because someone believed in me. And that's why I'm very passionate about mentorship and believing in people. 

Even when they think they're complete failures and they suck at whatever. I've been there. I sucked. I sucked a lot. And then I got better because I never gave up and I kept working at it and I kept pushing myself and I just was so committed to my dream of earning an income online that I wasn't willing to let anything stop me. 

And it was crazy. So we ended up winning this thing and it was turning point, because after that, I realized that I was passionate about business and I was passionate about mentorship and I was passionate about making money and helping people make money. So that then moved me into my current business now, which is helping educators and teaching business owners make money, sell courses, launch and grow an online business that frees them.

Because that's exactly what I did. That's literally the path that I was walking. I've walked it intimately. I've been in the trenches. I've been in the struggle. I've been in the pain. And I've also experienced absolutely magic from it. Freedom and more money than I thought I could ever make.

And my life just changed. That was a turning point in everything. That you'll look back on your life and you'll remember events that changed you. That was an event or a time that changed me, but in such a profound way. And also in such a positive way, like I was just put on a whole different trajectory.

I was going one way in life, which was nowhere at that point. I had no goals, no visions, no idea what I wanted to do with my life. I was lost. I just wanted to party. And I did, and it was fun, but I had nothing for my future in terms of what I wanted. And then I was like, this is what I want. This is what I'm passionate about.

And I realized I'm super ambitious. I'm super driven. I'm hardworking. I've got grit. And those are the character traits that you need to be successful. Doesn't matter if you don't have the skill. If you've got those character traits, then you are going to be much more successful because you're going to work at it and work it and work it until you develop the skill. 

And that is what is required when you're wanting to grow an online business and make your own money. You're going to have to learn skills. That's just what needs to happen. And that's why I find it really great to help educators because I was a online teacher and I had no skills at that point, obviously I had skills in teaching, but I didn't have business skills and then so many people think they can't do it.

But then I'm like, just listen to my story. Just listen to the story. If I can do it, you can do it. And that's very deeply entrenched in my psyche because I remember those days and I remember the struggle and I see people go through that expansion and struggle. In Digiteachers Biz Academy. Obviously it's not all hard slug, but there is going to be challenge, and there is going to be expansion, and it is going to push you to your edge. And you've got to be willing to go there, because that's where the magic lies, and that's where the success lies, it doesn't lie in your comfort zone. It lies on the edge, where you've pushed yourself. And it's not comfortable, but it's deeply fulfilling.  

Anyways, that is literally the story, the full story. And this was years ago, right? So this was in 2019 when we won and we haven't yet gone on the trip because COVID happened. We were meant to go on the trip in 2020, but then the whole world became a shit show.

And shut down for two years. Can you believe it that we lived through that? And it just couldn't happen. We just couldn't travel. And it's been, I don't know, like four or five years now. And we are going, the flights are booked. It's end of July. We're going on a yacht. We're going on a yacht with the other winner, who's also a Dutch lady.

And we're going to go to the Cyclades. So we're going to go to Naxos, Paros, all of those islands. It's all inclusive, the whole thing, everything. And it's out of this world. It's my paradise. It's Greece, people. This is like my dream. I've never won anything before. And to win this has been really life changing and just amazing.

And I'm so excited to go. And what's more exciting is my sister is going to come visit us in Greece. So once we get off the yacht, my sister is going to have flown in and it's going to be her birthday, and then we're going to spend another eight days with her in Greece. So I'm spending like, I don't know, two and a half weeks in Greece in July.

So that's pretty crazy. That was a manifestation that I wanted to win. Eventually I knew I wanted to win and I thought I could win at the beginning. I didn't think I could win, but then I started to think, hmm, maybe I can win this. And then I was like, you know what? I'm going to do it. And I remember having a vision board and sticking up all the things that I wanted right in front of where I would wake up.

I would put post it notes on my mirror just to remind me. I did everything. I changed my passwords to the amount of money that I wanted to make. And I was like, just immersing myself. Everywhere I put my energy was to grow my business and make money. And that's why it happened pretty fast. That's why within two years, we were making six figures. 

For me that's a fast timeline. Some people do it in six months and that's insane. Some people take longer and that's totally fine. Everyone's on their own journey, right? But the key is not to stop, not to quit, not to give up. Because that's the only way that you fail is if you stop.

Otherwise, if you keep going, I believe you'll eventually get there. Because I did. So I hope this was an inspiring story to you. It was super cool to share it again and also revisit it in my brain. Yeah. What a time. What a time to be alive. So grateful my past self did all of that, even though it was hard and tough.

I thank my past self all the time, because had I not done that, I wouldn't be living the life that I'm living now. I just get to choose when I want to work. I don't have to teach all day, every day. I can go on holiday when I want. I'm my own boss. I can make money even while I'm chilling on the couch.

People are learning from me all the time through my courses. I've got my dream cats that I've always wanted. We're going to eventually move to Portugal, which is the dream for us. And all of the things me and Mike wanted are coming true. That's pretty cool. Talk about manifestation. Anyways, just keep going guys.

I hope this inspired you just keep putting one foot in front of the other. Find mentorship, honestly, find mentorship. That's the other thing that changed the game for me is having a mentor who believed in me. It really makes a difference. All right, just a reminder to get involved in my masterclass, my Quadruple Your Teaching Income Masterclass, you can sign up it's happening this week.

It's free. It's live. It's going to be amazing. And I'm offering something special. Firstly, a free course to those who are there live. It's a Course Creation Course, a mini course helping you with the tech overwhelm around creating courses. So that's going to happen to those who are there live.

And then I'm also offering a special offer into DBA, which will only be available for 72 hours. So if you're there, you'll be able to see it and you'll be able to learn exactly how I teach launching and see if it resonates with you. See if it's something you want to learn how to do. So you can expand yourself and make the kind of money and impact that you really desire. 

All right. So I hope you have an amazing week and I'll chat to you again next week. 

Bye.

 Thank you so much for listening to today's episode. I have some exciting news for those of you who are wanting to learn more about how you can launch a course or group program online and fill it with dreamy students.

I'm hosting my free Quadruple Your Teaching Income Through Launching Courses, masterclass soon. I'm going to share my four-step launch success system that will help you launch any offer online and fill it immediately.

 It is a life changing system that has helped me make hundreds of thousands of dollars online, as well as change the lives of many of my students. This masterclass is free. It's going to be live. There's just one session and there are limited spots in the virtual room. Click the link below to join us. 

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.