This post is a series of posts (Read post #1 here and post #2 here) in the #MyStartupStory movement. We’ll be sharing the real life experiences of becoming an entrepreneur and helping you create your brand and website copy. Learn more here.

Here’s where I started. I knew I wanted to teach and I wanted to quit my job.  So I decided I was going to create a course. In the spirit of taking risk and making the leap (with limited time), I decided to not actually create the course until someone bought it. So that way I wouldn’t waste time. I mean who was really going to buy it anyways, right? I just had about 100 people in my network and on my email list so why not throw it out there and see what happened.

How I Made My First Sale Online

So I came out with a plan to launch the Get Unstuck course with some pretty ugly colors. I am glad my branding and creativity has changed so we don’t have promotions like this anymore, but who cares what it looks like. The fact was I was taking action, moving forward with baby steps, getting over my fears, finding the time and putting my work out into the world!! Following my dreams with Classy Career Girl’s Get Unstuck Course!

So Classy Career Girl was on a mission to help women become successful, happy and balanced and she sent out this little email to about 100 people hoping to make her first sale. Here’s the thing, I did this in the morning before I went to my day job. I would wake up one hour before I had to go to work every day and work on my dream business. So it probably was sent out at about 6am in the morning and then I rushed off to make sure someone’s powerpoint colors matched on a slide deck, you know the things consultants did (not what I thought a consultant would do).

So the sign-up link to the course was buried in the email. I think I was hoping no one would buy because I hadn’t created the course yet.  It was in like the 4^th paragraph. Hidden. So I am sitting at my cubicle. Bored. Checking my email and seeing what’s happening in the blog world. Kind of forgetting I even sent that email that morning.

And then I see this notification of payment received from my friends over at Paypal.  I was like ready to jump up and down. The first sale I swear is the hardest but after that I was on fire because I knew I was going to make it happen. I was useless at work for the rest of the day but who cares. I had to make this course! HOLY CRAP!!! This girl on another continent bought something I hadn’t even created yet! So let me tell you, I got in action and starting putting it together. There were four fabulous students in my first Get Unstuck course. I charged $97 a piece and that’s where I made my first sale just like you can too.

What Happened Next: After The First Sale

Of course, I wasn’t going to make a living on just that so here’s the key. I didn’t stop there, I kept improving the course and tweaking it with what we learned from surveys and doing more individual coaching with my clients. Then, turn it into a 90-day group coaching program.

And today what that little course has turned into Love Your Career formula membership community. In 2015, we completely revamped the course so it is now Love Your Career Formula 2.0 which I am so incredibly proud of. It is a membership site with hundreds of members around the world and I get to help women determine what their ideal career fit is and help them land their dream job step-by-step.

Here’s the thing. It’s not easy. You know that. That’s why you are here. No easy button to becoming an entrepreneur. But, it is easier when you have a mentor and guide telling you what to do and that is when my business changed almost overnight.

When I started getting coached, and invested in myself and my business. I started learning from someone who knew how to do things quicker, easier and better than me and that’s when my business quickly transformed into a self-supporting business that now supports my entire family and a team.

And Here We Are Today

Today, I can’t get enough about learning about business, marketing, social media, business coaching, time management, personal growth and development.  Even though I have an MBA I am constantly reading something new and teaching myself how to grow businesses and help others. I grew my business from the ground up but realized I still wanted to help teach and train so now what I do is help other women do exactly what I did. Now I teach other women how to ditch their day jobs and transition into their dream businesses.

I am truly OBSESSED with all things business, blogging and online marketing! And that is your benefit because you get to soak up all my knowledge in Corporate Rescue Plan.  Our content on Classycareergirl.com impacts over 135,000 women per month with 500,000 page views per month with very little advertising dollars. I share these traffic stats with you today not to brag but because there are so many “coaches” online and you really have to uncover who is really practicing what they preach.

If that doesn’t show how obsessed I am with learning and teaching about getting web traffic, I also LOVE social media. You can find us growing rapidly on every account with thousands of fans. 17,000 Pinterest followers, 12,000 Facebook fans and over 100,000 views on Youtube.

 

Behind the Scenes at Classy Career Girl Now

Just to be 100% transparent with you, this is our company, Classy Career Girl International LLC.

First and foremost, we are a digital media company and an online brand with daily career and inspirational articles for women. We work with advertisers and have partnerships with other companies. Classy Career Girl is our brand and that is where people find out about us and what we do. Now, we could just stop there and rely 100% on advertising and partnerships. But, in 2012 I decided I wanted to make more of an impact and not rely on other people/advertisers to make my money as a blogger. So….we branched out.

We now have eight online courses running automatically and we have two membership sites. We also have physical products we are working on coming soon as well. So all that to say, I don’t run high-level masterminds and I have no funnels leading into coaching. My goal in sharing this is to be transparent and to tell you that we don’t just teach this, but we are in the trenches doing it over and over again throughout the Classy Career Girl brand.

You see I am at the point of self-growth and development where I know what I love doing. I know my strengths and I put all my attention into doing what I want to do, what inspires me and that’s it.

Our mission is to help 2,000 women launch their dream careers and businesses by 2018.

This is me being totally transparent with you.

This post is a series of posts in the #MyStartupStory movement. We’ll be sharing the real life experiences of starting a business and helping you create your brand and website copy. Learn more here.