Tiny Course Empire Podcast

If you find that asking people to buy what you’ve created feels a little icky, you’re not alone. Many of us have negative feelings about sales, and the people who make their living at it. After all, who hasn’t bumped into a pushy appliance salesman who just would not take no for an answer? Those unpleasant experiences often lead to discomfort when we’re on the other side of the desk, asking potent...

If I could offer you one piece of advice about starting an online business, it would be this: Don’t wait to create your first digital product. Sure, there are loads of ways you can make money from an online business. You can be a coach, or a freelance writer, or an affiliate marketer, or build websites or publish a Substack or write a blog. I even know of one couple who hunt for scorpions and tara...

If I’m being honest, building your mailing list is the easy part. Staying in touch with those subscribers is much more difficult. Not in the tactical sense, but in the week-after-week practicality of it. It’s oh-so-easy to let another week slide by without sending an email to your list. Before you know it, they haven’t heard from you in months, or maybe even years. Believe me, I know. I’ve been th...

The single most important asset you have in your business is your mailing list. It’s more valuable than your followers on TikTok, more useful than a Facebook group, and more secure than the best SEO strategy. So why do so many of us wait so long to build one—especially when it’s as easy as this? Today we’re laying out a step-by-step plan you can follow to get your first lead magnet online and coll...

Quick, what’s the most important thing you should be focusing on right now to build your business? Is it traffic? Starting an email list? Creating a product? Branding? Website? Keywords? Something else? Or maybe all of that, plus a dozen more “must do” projects. If that big pile of unfinished, disorganized ideas is weighing you down and causing you to rethink you goal of even starting a business,...

Branding concerns, tech troubles, clients to serve, a team to manage, email to answer, and don’t forget life, family, and laundry, too. Our list of things to do is long and seemingly endless. Oh, and somewhere in there, you’re supposed to be creating content. Blog posts, podcast episodes, opt-in offers, emails, and don’t forget courses and digital products to sell. It’s a lot, I know, and it leave...

You can’t focus on anything. You’re frustrated and out of sorts. Stress levels have peaked, and your to-do list gets longer every day. Welcome to the land of overwhelm, where small business owners like you and me work long hours without accomplishing anything, and where every new idea results in feeling even more stuck. It’s not a fun place to be, but there is hope. You can overcome the over...

Overthinking. If you’re like me, that’s what you do when have a great idea for a new course, but you’re anxious about putting it out there for the world to see. Suddenly you’re filled with questions. What if you don’t know enough about the subject you want to teach? What if you get lost in a sea of others all talking about the same thing? What if what you make doesn’t live up to your own (ridiculo...

Decision matrices, SWOT analysis, pros and cons lists, cost/benefit analysis… there are a multitude of tools you can use to make decisions in your business. Whether you’re deciding on a new product line to create, a new marketing strategy to try, or even a new business model to explore, there’s no end to the advice you’ll hear on how to choose the right path. But what I&#82...

There are a lot of confusing terms in the online marketing space, and maybe one of the worst offenders is “funnel.” It means a lot of different things depending on who you ask and what their particular business model is. Just to add to the confusion, it also goes by many different names. In this episode of the Tiny Course Empire Podcast, we’re taking a look at funnels. You’ll learn what they are,...

We’ve all been there. A great looking new software solution comes along and promises to solve all our business problems. It will help us make more money, land more clients, create more content. What’s more, everyone is talking about it, and many of them are making the move, too. You’re tempted. Who wouldn’t be? But how can you tell if this is a good move to make, or if it’s just another distractio...

Imagine having a beautifully organized home, a thriving business, healthy relationships with your family and friends, and a fit, healthy body, too. Sound like a pipe dream? It might if you listen to those who say it’s impossible to be successful in so many things, like Randi Zuckerberg claims. She says that you must choose only three areas of life in which you can thrive. All the rest? They’ll suf...

I’ve watched students, clients, friends, and colleagues struggle with digital product creation—sometimes taking months or even years to create a single product. When you’re just getting started and not earning much (or anything) yet, that’s a bad spot to be in. It might be keeping you stuck in a day job you hate. It might erode your excitement about being in business at all. It d...

What you’ll learn in this episode: Two things I don’t use for list-building. I’m going to start testing one of them soon, though. What I consider to be my most important list-building strategy (they’re all important, but this one is a must have, and I’ll tell you why). One strategy I’m considering that has me feeling quite a bit out of my comfort zone (and I’ll...

There are almost as many ways to make money online as there are people in the world who are doing it. In this episode, I’m going to break down six popular online business models, including what it takes to get started, the profit potential for each, and how to know which one is the right fit for you. Plus, we’ll talk about how to combine business models to create multiple streams of in...

It’s not a secret that organic reach on Facebook, Instagram and others is at an all time low. What’s worse, even if you’ve mastered a platform or two, it seems as if every week or so, there’s yet another algorithm update that threatens to destroy all the work you’ve put into it. Pinterest users are even feeling the pinch. The platform is often referred to as a search...

I always thought that having a big team was the key to success online. That it would let me make more money and (more importantly) spend more time doing what I really love to do. Turns out, the size of your team has little to do with your success. In this episode, I’m giving you the scoop on how my thinking has changed, and why I prefer to run a tiny business with as few team members as possible....

Sooner or later, every email marketer finds themselves in a tricky situation. It’s been weeks, maybe even months since you sent your last email, and your list has grown a bit cold. Maybe life got in the way. Maybe your business changed. Maybe you simply ran out of things to say. Regardless of the reason for your absence, it’s time to re-engage your cold email list, but where do you even start? Wha...

If you give away a lot of information on your blog or podcast or YouTube channel, do you run the risk of diluting your sales? Will people just continue to learn for free and never pay you for your courses or coaching or services? That’s a worry that many small business owners face, and it sometimes causes them to play small, saving all the “best ideas” for their paid products. What they don’t know...

First it was supply chain disruptions that sent prices skyrocketing for everything from cars to toilet paper. Then inflation joined the party and drove prices even higher. Chickens across the US got sick, and suddenly eggs were the most expensive breakfast food you could buy (assuming you could even find them). Now, you might not be selling cars or toilet paper or eggs, but all of this economic we...

It’s true that the economy right now is a bit topsy-turvy. Inflation continues to rise, making the cost of everything from a loaf of bread to a new car more costly than it was a year ago. Small business owners—even those who aren’t selling bread or cars—are feeling the pinch. Every week I hear from clients, customers, and friends who say their sales are down, their expenses are up, and they’re beg...

I remember the first webinar I ever watched about starting an online business. It was about niche blogs, and how to find an SEO-friendly domain, research a few keywords, write a few blog posts, and insert Google Adsense ads and Amazon affiliate links. I was fascinated, and the whole process made perfect sense to me. Until I actually sat down to create the first blog, and I realized it’s just not a...

Every good email marketer knows you have to nurture your new subscribers, right? But what if it turns out the whole “nurturing” thing has morphed into something it was never meant to be? What if instead of building stronger relationships, you’re actually hurting them by trying so hard to “add value” that you forget to sell to them at all? That’s what I’m a...

One of the best skills any small business owner can develop is to pay attention to what others do. There are valuable lessons to be learned, both on and offline, if you just know where to look. This week as I walked my dog, considered selling putting our house up for sale, and unsuccessfully tried to make a purchase online, I saw several things that could be improved in my own business—and maybe y...

Everywhere you turn today, people are talking about AI and how it’s making business so much easier. And it is, to a point. Unfortunately, there’s a subset of people who are taking it a step further, and claiming that tools such as ChatGPT can replace you. They can write your content, create your lead magnets and products, handle your customer service, build your website… everything. Just click a b...