Since publishing my first blog in 2005, I have witnessed many fellow bloggers rise to internet stardom and entrepreneurship. In those early days, there was a lot of genuine passion and an infectious sense of excitement and possibility: “Can I really make a living doing something I love?”.
However, it didn’t take long before the shady marketers spotted opportunities for big money and started selling us their 6-figure ‘secrets’, and we all know how much that has influenced and diluted our entrepreneurial landscape.
Not too long ago, I was once again reminded of The Hustle because of an inquiry I received about business mentoring and coaching programs. There have been quite a few of these lately. In this instance, the inquirer said she adored my business and life and asked if I could teach her my ‘secrets.’ It was a lovely email, but, erm, you know, there are no blooming secrets.
Nonetheless, this made me ponder how I, too, am following a familiar path:
I started as a web designer doing 1:1 work and eventually added eCourses to my business. I stopped doing 1:1 work to focus full-time on teaching my craft. However, I did not end up here because I had some big plan at the beginning whereby I identified a need in the market and then created products and ‘secret’ formulas for success around this need so that I could eventually sit back and enjoy the passive income that would come rolling in.
There is nothing passive about running a successful online business, and I am where I am today for three simple reasons: I love web design, I love teaching, and I work hard.
My decision to change my business model from 1:1 web design to online education was based on two realities I came face-to-face with:
I realized that I wanted to remain a solo operator. I have never had ambitions to grow into an agency or hire out parts of my creative work, I like being a Company of One. I get help with things like bookkeeping and accounting. I have successfully collaborated with other professionals in areas not my core skills, such as copywriting or graphic design. But when it comes to my web design work, I have not had the greatest experiences in contracting that out, partly because of creative differences but because, as an HSP, I found managing the triangle of client-me-contractor too energetically draining.
I could no longer manage both 1:1 work and my eCourses without either getting help or compromising the high quality of my services and products. As each area of my business grew I ran out of time to handle it all as one person. I love web design, but my heart has always been in teaching. Even before I started my own business, I used to facilitate corporate training sessions and run private self-development workshops. By the end of 2018 – after more than three years of doing both – my eCourse revenues had overtaken my web design income, and I felt ready to leap to full-time teaching.
Here is the thing: I am at a point where I could start selling the ‘secrets’ to my six-figure business, polish up my marketing, and begin shifting the focus from sharing my tools and teaching a craft to promoting the lifestyle of the freedom-loving online entrepreneur.
Lifestyle sells. Secrets sell. Both are very powerful marketing tools. But are they my marketing tools? I think not.
Do I believe that they are effective tools? Absolutely. If you create a lifestyle desire amongst your audience and instil that with a sense of lack and urgency, and if you have no qualms about bombarding people with a series of high-noise emails promising your ‘secret sauce’ during your well-planned course launches and keep feeding your hungry audience with frequent how-to blogs and monthly income reports then you can make a lot of money. THIS kind of marketing is the ‘secret’ formula to the hustler’s success. Eventually, it becomes all about the numbers: the large mailing list, the numerous blog posts that attract traffic to your site, and the high sign-up rates for the courses you need to support your business model and reputation. It works.
But it’s not how I work. Numbers matter, but that’s not what I’m all about. I’m about the substance. I go deep, not wide.
People often say that I overdeliver in my courses and that they are blown away by the quality and depth of my content and support. It’s important to me to share valuable knowledge and provide excellent tools and service, and I enjoy personal interactions with my students and watching them figure things out and thrive.
I will never lure you in by preying on your unhappiness with your current situation or dangling the lifestyle carrot before you. If you enjoy creative work and want to learn how to run a calm business, then I will teach you everything I know, and this, in turn, may very well change or improve your life.
I will never sell you my secrets because thereareno secrets to my success, only strategies, skills, and, yes, hard work. You bring your passion, and I will give you the tools to turn what you love into a profitable business run with heart and integrity.
