I've been asked over and over again about how I launch my online programs, so today I'm spilling the beans behind the $10,036.80 launch of my Brand, Build, Blog course (BBB: A branding & blogging course for holistic biz owners) to an email list of just 400 people. This course has since sold another $4,049.59, since it's an evergreen course and is available year round (numbers up to date as of Oct 11, 2016), bringing it's 8-month total to $14,086.39.

I'm going to break down the timeline of the course creation, launch timeline and sales, plus my secret weapon to creating this profitable online course.

I've often been asked how I come up with my ideas for online courses, and to tell you the truth, the idea for them usually comes to me fully formed in my head ... but only after years of developing my own personal skills and knowledge in the area that I'm going to teach and being able to break large concepts down into easy to understand steps.

For example, in 2014 I launched Mama Mojo, an 8-week online course for busy moms who want more energy, balanced hormones, and to calm their digestive systems. While the idea of the course hit me like a lightning bolt, it was based on my 6-month program that I took one-on-one nutrition clients through for 5 years before that. I guess you can say it was 5 years in the making. I knew the 6-month program worked, so I just translated it into an online version. That course went onto sell $11,114.90 with 2 launches spaced 6 months apart.

For BBB, I had been doing one-on-one Biz Strategy Sessions where people kept asking me about their websites. They didn't know how to design them, they needed help with the copy, and just generally wanted to know how to use SquareSpace better. This is where I started feeling that there was a need for this sort of information so I wouldn't have to waste my time repeating myself over and over again.

So, back in 2014 before I launched Mama Mojo (at least an entire year before BBB landed in my brain), I invested in a branding course that was the base of my $20,000 re-brand. A year after that, I invested in a different course that taught me branding AND website development. 4 months before the course idea came to me in late 2015, I had invested in a copywriting course. All of these courses taught valuable and needed lessons in a general sense, but nothing that was geared just towards holistic health practitioners.

There were no copy templates just for us, and unless a fellow holistic practitioner was really interested in design and web development like I was, it would be hard for most nutritionists or essential oil advocates to take the same courses and translate them into a finished profitable website. I knew there was a need, and so I took the best, most actionable concepts that I had learned from those 3 courses, added my own personal spin and experience with them after developing my own website on SquareSpace, and voila, Brand, Build, Blog was born in my head.

Then I just had to get it into a form for others to learn from and formally launch it. No biggie 😳.

Here's the timeline so you can follow along my course creation journey:

I get the question of "what email platform should I use in my business" at least once a week. When I first started, there was only a handful of email marketing software companies, but now the possibilities seem endless: Mailchimp, AWeber, MadMimi, Constant Contact GetResponse, ConvertKit, InfusionSoft, Ontraport ... and that doesn't even include the multi-tool platforms (that include extra robust shops and even online course hosting) like the New Kajabi and Shopify. How do you even know where to start?

You make an educated decision and move on. Seriously.

Whatever success you want to create, whatever feats you want to achieve, whatever dreams you want to make real, you can, and you don't have to do impossible, extraordinary things to make that happen. But you have to do SOMETHING. ~ Jeff Olson

You could debate until you're blue in the face which one to choose, but as in life and anything biz related, there won't be just one platform that will have everything you need all in one place and is the best at all of them. It doesn't exist.

One company might be better at getting through spam filters while another will give you the ability to create multiple lists and track clicks.

You've got to pick the one that ticks most of your boxes, then make it work for all it's worth.

However, if there's only one thing that you learn from this blog post, it's that you need to be growing an email list for the success of your business.

Whether you choose one of the companies I list below, or go with another completely different one, promise me that you at least HAVE an email list.

This is one of the top 3 mistakes I made in my first year as a Registered Holistic Nutritionist, and I don't want you to make the same one that I did.

It's summer right now, which means that everyone is out on their boat, at the beach, the cottage, out of town, visiting friends and families, having BBQ's, drinking bevvies on a patio, and taking the kids on day trips. All these people are your clients, and they're not interested in working on much right now. There are always seasons in life and in business, and summer is the season of slowing down. Try telling that to your bank account or your credit card company.

It's not just summer either. For us holistic health practitioners, depending on your niche, there's probably at least one other time of year when business is slow.

If you're a massage therapist, chiropractor, or naturopath, the two months before everyone needs to use up their benefits is insanely busy, but the two months after that are probably slower.

If you're an essential oil advocate, the busy times are September to December and March to June. The other months of the year aren't quite as hectic.

If you're a nutritionist, it depends on your niche. If your focus on weight loss, mid-November to the end of December is probably pretty dead, and then picks up in January and February when people realize they have a food hangover. If your focus is something else, you might find that you're busy up until mid-December, and then hit a lull until March when people come out of their winter hibernation.

The point is that there are at least 2 times during the year when you have the space and time to work on your business, not just in it.

You might not be selling a whack load of programs right now, but there are still tons of things you could be doing to build your business.

I have a mainly online based business, so I have a running list of things that I could be working on at any time of the year. Website updates and changes, pics for social media, completing the online course that I just purchased, recording a new webinar, truly the list could go on forever.

You might be just starting a website and realizing that you can use it as your master marketing machine year-round. You might have several social media platforms going that you know you aren't using to their fullest.

You can totally use this down-time to make shit happen in your business and bring in new clients  for the next 6 months, but you can't just try things willy nilly.

When you look on someone's Facebook timeline, Instagram feed, Pinterest boards, or website that draws you in and makes you want to click around, what's the thing that stands out the most? Amazing photos. When you're searching high and low for a website template to use, what usually attracts you to one over the other? The amazing, colourful photos they use in the preview template (nevermind the fact that the photos aren't yours ... they're just so pretty!). You might be building your first website, re-branding an old one, or changing businesses completely, but there's one thing you're going to need: a professional photo shoot.

My first photo shoot was done by a local photographer friend in late 2011. I picked out 3 different outfits, did my hair and makeup myself (it's kind of painful to see that I was growing out a pixie cut, worse time for a photoshoot ever!), and baked some cupcakes that I was going to ice during the shoot.

Wait, what? Why would a holistic nutritionist be icing cupcakes in photos for her website?

Well, they were gluten free, soy free, vegan cupcakes with a homemade buttercream icing, and my new website was called lovewhatyoueat.ca. I was going to focus on people with food allergies (like me!), and teach them that no matter what they could eat, they should be able to love what they eat.

The idea was a good one (or so I thought), but anyone seeing those pictures would have thought I was a home baker or something. See?

So, you've done all the right things in your business. You picked a niche, branded your business, built a kick-ass website, started your email list, are blogging on the regular, and sharing your value-packed content on social media. You know that list building is the top thing you need to be doing to have regular new clients or to get ready to launch your next (maybe even your first!) online course.

You're so proud of yourself for sticking to a plan and doing all. the. things that you see other successful online peeps doing!

But when you log into your email software, your list isn't growing very fast. All you hear is proverbial crickets. What a huge letdown! So what are you doing wrong? Turns out, nothing, it's just that people need a little more incentive nowadays to opt into your email list.

When I started designing this website, I wanted it to feel like me. How many of you had also said that before diving into colours, fonts, photo shoots, and writing your about page?! One of the ways that I infused a little bit more of me in this place that I call my digi-home is by putting my actual, hand-written signature on it, and I (surprisingly) get a lot of questions on how to make a digital signature.

Read more to get step-by-step video tutorial on how to make a digital signature by using just the camera on your phone and Canva.

I'm going to do something that most other business owners don't do, and share my real income numbers from every year of my business, up to and including the time of writing this.

Why don't more business owners/coaches do this? Because, frankly, it's terrifying to think that a whole bunch of my ideal clients (i.e. you reading this right now) will see my real numbers, know that I'm not running a 6 figure nutrition practice, and immediately dismiss all the knowledge I have about running a "successful on the outside" holistic business.

Well, screw that, you need to see these numbers and the timeline so that I can show you what I was actually doing in my business, and what happened to my income because of it. There are some really good lessons hidden in these numbers, and I think you deserve to see them, even if *I* am terrified of showing them to you.

By now, you probably know how much I love a great self development book. Books that are full of life hacks, how to get your mind out of the abundance gutter, and to overall just get better.

For me, one of my major mindset hurdles that is complete BS is the following belief:

I have to be busy & stressed to make money.

100%, complete bullshit.

For me, this mindset comes from a combination of society and media (think about how many movies or online articles feature high powered executives who work 80 hours a week and try to play the big business game but it ultimately destroys their life), books like "I don't know how she does it", and my mother (sorry, Mom, I love you!). My mom kicks ass, and worked 40+ hours a week while balancing two very active kids who were in multiple sports while trying to keep her house spotless with a not overly domestic husband (sorry, Dad, I love you!). Now that I'm a mom, I have no idea how she did it without going crazy. It's easy to see where this deeply held belief of mine came from.

So when I saw the book "I Know How She Does It: How Successful Women make the Most of Their Time" by Laura Vanderkam at the bookstore, it was calling my name so damn loud that I couldn't not buy it.

Plus, after getting outside of my comfort zone (aka hiding behind my computer) and travelling across the country to meet some of my essential oil team members plus other holistic health practitioners in person, I'm developing a bigger picture view of how other people get shit done (or don't).

If you're anything like me, when someone asks me how I am, my default answer is "busy". Everyone is busy. Your kids are busy. Your parents are busy. Your damn dog is busy.

It's almost like a badge of honour. Like if you're not busy, you're lazy, and no kick-ass, take-charge woman wants to be perceived as lazy. Over your dead body, which is probably dead because you were so busy, but at least it socially acceptable right?

But guess what, here's a #truthbomb for you that's just one of the gems I've taken from Laura's book: