Founders Christel, Chandelle and Michelle. Poolside Happy Hour rose and photos at Founders Residence.
Building a community is priority #1
Hi {{first_name}} ,
When I first started building my online presence as an educational leader, I had no idea I was supposed to validate my offer before launching it into the virtual ether that at the time was Instagram.
I launched my first course called Adulting 101 in 2021, still makes me cringe… Spent 3 months building it, shared it with my audience (I thought a few thousand followers was plenty) and all I got was crickets.
Even when I offered the course for free, I couldn’t get people to participate consistently and I was ready to drop out of my own course.
I stopped developing courses, or any digital products for that matter, and spent two years building my first two online communities, Bliss House and One Click Creator, while learning the fundamentals of community design.
My first sale was a high ticket offer
Besides offering a monthly membership to my community, at the time on Mighty Networks, I had no other offer. No other way to earn income for sharing my expertise and knowledge everyday for free with high value, live content.
Until one day someone came to me and wanted to learn how to do what I was doing:
Grow an online community and earning monthly revenue through premium subscriptions.
At the time there was no AI. No ChatGPT to help me write a proposal and put together a solid project plan in minutes. No AI-partner to tell me I was undercharging. But $1000 for a 3 month project felt like a lot of money after getting excited over a $22/month membership subscription.
It wasn’t until I sold my first 3 offers back to back, that I realized I should probably be charging more for the time I was spending and the building/designing I was doing. I also started learning more about “High Ticket” offers on YouTube University and the business model has been locked in ever sense.
Why ownership is so important
I didn’t stay on Mighty Networks for long because the platform became too much to maintain. I kept 100% of my community members though because I was able to export their emails and take them with me.
Had I relied solely on social media to keep in touch with my community, that I had spent years nurturing and engaging, I would have lost touch with most of them.
To this day, I have people reaching out to me through my newsletters saying they met me on Clubhouse back in 2023. They’ve been subscribed to me this whole time.
My best (high ticket) clients come from my newsletter
I see my email list as my community and my newsletter as my main form of direct communication with them.
I don’t get DMs from people saying “I’m ready to work with you.” Never happens.
What I get are replies to the 4th, or 40th, newsletter they’ve receive saying they are ready.
This is ideal.
No lengthy sales process.
No trying to convince someone that you are the person to help take them to the next level.
Just a raised hand and my fixed attention.
The teacher in me loves this because as they say
When the student is ready, the master will appear.
For more on this topic, check out my latest post:
⭐ Sponsor Spotlight: Revenue Ronin, Founder Justin “Results” French ⭐
Not only is Justin one of my first Founders for my 3rd online community, EduCreators, he’s been my marketing and sales coach for 2 years. He has sponsored multiple endeavors of mine, including my most recent pre-launch event Founders Residence.
He’s a husband, father, and all around solid man of God. Join his newsletter here to get golden nuggets of revenue wisdom. Check out his signature offer here.
The Founder Revenue Series
Tomorrow at 10:30amEST, we begin part 1 of the new Founder Revenue Series, celebrating the launch of our new community launch platform for the Bliss House Community: Beauty & Brains. Get a sneak peek of the site and our early Founders and Sponsors here.
Bliss House Media is on a mission to help founders grow revenue, visibility and authority through owned media and curated experiences.
The beta version of our Community Launch Platform features:
Dynamic directories with Founder & Sponsor profiles to make connecting before and after events easy
Experiences platform where community members can host experiences to grow their community or launch new offers
Every Founder will have a custom branded Digital Headquarters (personal brand landing page). For instance, christelguillen.com Their fans and clients can leave testimonials and leads can learn more about offerings.
Every Founder will also have a Signature Offer Page. A custom landing page just for their high ticket offer, designed to convert.
Use code BHFOUNDER to build with us. Register here.
Hope to see you there!
“May you be beautiful, may you be blessed” - Gloria
