Diversify Your Income - Part 1: What to Consider Before You Add New Income Streams with Dara Denney

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May 6

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Episode 845: Show Notes

Welcome to the first chapter in our four-part series on diversifying your income! In these episodes, I’ll be speaking with a range of creators, each of whom has successfully built their own businesses by sharing their expertise with the world.

For today’s conversation, I am joined by the wonderful Dara Denney, a performance creative expert who works with direct-to-consumer (DTC) eCommerce brands on their paid social advertising. More specifically, she creates video ads for some of your favorite brands! She is also a content creator and every week she launches an episode on her YouTube channel where she shares her insights on paid social advertising. She is currently the Director of Performance Creative at Thesis, a conversion rate optimization company.

Over the past year, Dara transitioned from agency work to consulting and launched her very first course. That initial launch earned over 50,000 dollars! Her journey is remarkable and inspiring, but that doesn’t mean she didn’t make her fair share of mistakes. Dara tells us about the many instances where she made the process more complicated than it needed to be, and what she would do differently the next time round. Tune in to learn how Dara created a business built on sharing her expertise and why she wishes she had started sooner!

To support your journey, I’ve built a one-day challenge to take you from idea concept to launch in just one day, so that you can confidently create your next (or first!) digital product. You can learn more and sign up for free right here!

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Why You Should Diversify Your Income

Let's talk about the benefits of adding a one-to-many offer to your lineup, like a digital product course or group coaching. The first main benefit is time. Sure, one-to-one services are great for quick profit and understanding client’s' needs, but they're limited by time. A digital product allows you to scale your knowledge infinitely, answering common questions once for many people. Plus, it's highly scalable without needing a big team.

Expanding beyond local clients was a game-changer for me, and I know it can be the same for you. With digital products, I've connected with over 36,000 clients worldwide, a scale impossible with one-to-one services. Digital products also helped me not be the bottleneck in my business. It allowed clients to access my expertise at their own pace, regardless of time zones. Additionally, digital products have a low barrier of entry for diversifying your income, especially compared to other investments like real estate, where upfront cash is essential.

Before diving in, there are a few important questions you should ask yourself. Why do you want to sell one-to-many? What's your motivation and purpose? For me, it was about sustainability after a life-altering event, but now it's about helping others achieve financial freedom. Ask yourself who your audience is, and how you can niche down to best serve them. Make sure that you align your offer with your existing services for better results. And don't forget the 'how'. Platforms like Teachable make hosting and selling courses easy. They've been my go-to for reliability and functionality — and I’ve tried a lot of different platforms!

Why Dara Started Her Business

Dara had always had a love of making content, and when the pandemic happened, it presented the perfect opportunity for her to take the plunge and start a YouTube channel. She started off by making content that she had desperately wanted to see when she was a junior digital marketer. It was by and large pretty basic things that she had found super daunting when she first entered the industry. Even in the early stages of her channel, she saw her videos resonate with a lot of people, which encouraged her to keep going.

For two to three years she remained consistent and showed up on YouTube once a week, and made TikToks every other day. After creating content for a while her earnings started increasing, thanks to getting more sponsorships and the interest and demand from her subscribers. She also started with consulting calls, which was a great way to connect with clients and give valuable advice. However, this soon became a huge burden on her time, and she simply could not keep up with demand. That’s when she began considering whether she should sell a course, something she had a fair bit of trepidation about!

How Dara Overcame Her Reservations

Even though Dara felt hesitant about selling courses, which is a feeling of trepidation that many people share, she decided to give it a try when she no longer had enough hours in the day to keep up with the demand for her consultation calls. And yet, starting a course transformed her business and her life! So why did she feel such trepidation when it came to starting a course, and how did she get over her reservations? The answer lies in the public perception of courses, from negative online chatter to the idea that people selling courses just want to make a quick buck.

What helped her overcome these negative ideas, is that her audience repeatedly asked that she put together a course! Other key factors also pushed her to start her course, like the fact that she was repeatedly answering the same questions on consulting calls. She started to feel that her clients would actually get far more value from her courses than the calls. So don’t let these preconceived notions hold you back! You can absolutely sell courses in a way that is legitimate and brings value to your clients and followers. And remember, you don’t need a ton of people, you just need to connect with the right people who want your product!

Dara’s First Launch

When it came to the promotion of her first launch, Dara was inclined to be pretty low-key about it, keeping it tucked away in her link tree or briefly mentioning it in consulting calls. But she also took some more proactive steps, including creating a trailer on her YouTube channel and engaging her 2000-person email list to follow their journey leading up to the launch. This strategy not only garnered interest but also provided valuable feedback from potential customers! She discovered that the course appealed more to agencies seeking training modules for their employees, rather than small business owners or individuals, which helped her adjust the pricing and tailor the course content accordingly.

In another stroke of brilliance, Dara decided to further involve her audience in the behind-the-scenes process by sharing the course outline via Google Docs, inviting comments and feedback. This interactive approach highlighted the strong interest from agency professionals, empowering her to make the necessary course adjustments. Additionally, Dara hosted a live session where she filmed a module, allowing participants to get an authentic view of the process, including all her silly mistakes and retakes!

Don’t Create Your Course on Hard Mode

While Dara created her first course on hard mode, you certainly don’t need to! She was super strict with herself, setting herself a tight deadline, and resigning from her full-time job on June 30, 2023, with plans to launch the course on July 26. With only about 45 days to develop the course, she tackled everything from conceptualizing to filming, editing, and uploading it onto Teachable. Determined to handle the entire process solo to ensure a clear return on investment, Dara opted not to hire any assistance, even though she typically had an editor for her YouTube videos. She even invested in new equipment to showcase the course's quality, seeking feedback from her audience along the way.

However, the pressure she put on herself led to burnout, exacerbated by financial stress and fears of failure. Following the course launch, Dara took a break from content creation to grapple with her new identity as a creator. Despite the challenges, she emerged from the experience with valuable insights, planning to evolve the course into a cohort-based format to provide more engagement and keep the content fresh and up-to-date!

How Teachable Can Support You

The prospect of starting a course and the many steps you need to take might seem overwhelming, but with a little bit of support, it can actually be super manageable. When Dara began putting together her first launch she tried every platform, but ultimately decided to go with Teachable for several reasons. Firstly, she had prior positive experiences as a student on Teachable, having taken courses from creators she admired, like Melissa Griffin. Familiarity and trust were crucial factors in her decision. Additionally, Dara appreciated the platform's user-friendly interface, both for herself as the instructor and for her students. Even though she had a super tight timeline, and was managing everything solo, Teachable gave her the additional support she needed to deliver valuable content to her audience!

Quote This

“Push through any weird, negative connotations you might have about courses, because – it can and will change your life.”

— @DenneyDara

Highlights

Why You Should Diversify Your Income [0:01:49]
Why Dara Started Her Business [0:22:53]
How Dara Overcame Her Reservations About Selling Courses [0:30:31]
Dara’s First Launch [0:36:41]
Don’t Create Your Course on Hard Mode [0:46:29]
How Teachable Can Support You [0:53:39]

OUR GUEST:

Dara Denney

Dara is a humanitarian turned advertiser: she has spent the last 6 years managing growth and creative teams agency-side. She started making YouTube videos during the pandemic as a way to career hack, and within 6 months of starting her channel she was able to take her yearly salary from $85k to $145k. In July 2023, she made the jump to full time creator. She currently makes content for advertising professionals and small business owners who want to use Meta Ads to grow their businesses.

OUR HOST:

Abagail Pumphrey

Abagail on Instagram

Boss Project on Instagram | Facebook

Abagail Pumphrey, the Co-Founder & CEO of Boss Project, has been a driving force in the creative entrepreneur industry since 2015. With a passion for empowering service-based business owners around the globe, she became internet-famous after the launch of the transformative training, "Trello for Business." This innovative system revitalized the operations of over 10,000 business owners, making a significant impact on the online business landscape.

Under Abagail's leadership, Boss Project has been featured in prestigious publications such as Forbes, Marie Claire, INC, and HuffPost. Her twice-weekly podcast, The Strategy Hour, is a staple in the business community, continuously topping Business and Management Charts on Apple with millions of listeners from around the world.

Abagail's superpower lies in her ability to break down complex concepts into easy-to-implement, duplicatable systems. As an expert in online sales and a data-driven strategist, she has turned a layoff into a 7-figure work-from-home business. Abagail's mission to help more female founders become financially free, without letting their businesses take over their lives, continues to inspire and guide entrepreneurs on their path to success.