Ways you're putting off $100k
How to make money while launching your online course
Are you silently, unknowingly sabotaging your success by sitting on a six-figure income while you work to bring your course’s vision to life?
The solo course creator’s journey is littered with missed opportunities if you’re not careful.
Even the most talented pros get shackled to taking projects they don’t really want, earning far less than they should… and never launching their course.
When I got started as a solo, I told myself I was building an agency. But I’d never worked at an agency before. Hell, I had never even stepped foot in one.
Turns out, you don’t need someone else’s on-the-job training to excel as a solo. You just have to want it.
Whether it's launching your course, reevaluating your pricing, or refining your business model, I want this year to see you stop procrastinating and start profiting. Not next year, this one.
Pricing and value perception
Learn your true value to maximize your money
Underpricing your course, your services or not offering strategic value is super common and affects how much you can make. It also skews your audience’s perception of you and what you’re capable of, for better or worse.
It’s also pretty easy to fix once you’re aware of it.
What you’re doing to put off six figs:
Underpricing
Impact of pricing too low: Directly affects your income and how your audience/clients perceive the value of your work.
Difficulty to overcome: Easy, just raise them. You should look around your market to see what experts in your field charge so you feel good about what you’re asking for and that someone’s willing to pay that amount. Otherwise this is a relatively straightforward adjustment. Just do it.
The ‘Freeployee’ trap
Impact of the trap: As you get your course off the ground, taking clients and becoming an order-taker is what I call the freeployee trap. It’s where you’re treated like an employee without the few benefits of being one. Besides stacked in the client’s favor, you limit your potential to offer higher level strategy that commands higher fees.
Difficulty to overcome: Moderate. Involves developing your expert skills and positioning yourself as a consultant and not a freelancer. Once achieved, you can significantly increase income.
Remember, underpricing undermines your perceived value.
Don’t put off: Own your role as an expert. Look around at other premium course creators and consultants in your space to understand the value of your offerings.
What are they offering for what price?
How are you the same?
How are you different?
Set prices that reflect your value, your particular expertise and the way you deliver it.
What’s at stake: Underpricing to sell your course or get hired is how you arrive at low pay, money problems, and burnout. Trust me, you’ll attract the wrong type of people instead of the ones you really want.
Next steps: Review your pricing strategies and consider how you can increase rates for future customers based on the value you deliver.
Offer product ladders and VIP days, get monthly retainers that command top rates that reflect your expertise.
Not only will you make more while qualifying your course, but you’ll build an audience who values your work more.
Choose a niche and then your business model
Niching-down with a Six-Figure Solo business model is a foundation for success
The secret to consistent, six-figure revenue: niching down. I know everyone’s saying it, and it’s annoying as hell.
But by strategically choosing your niche and refining your business model, you can finally focus on repeatable messaging that attracts a higher-ticket audience.
Choosing the right niche and aligning it to one of my six figure business models is the fastest, easiest pivot to more joy, less stress and a fat bank account.
What you’re doing to put off six figs:
Took a wrong turn. The Six-Figure Business Models are over here
Impact of the wrong business model: The wrong business model will keep you spinning on the hamster wheel and cap your earnings from the start. It's foundational to everything you do as a solo. If you’re living project to project and scrambling in between, it’s time for something different.
Difficulty to overcome: Easy but it depends on where you are now. Usually requires a paradigm shift and strategic planning but is highly feasible with the right guidance and mindset change.
Having the right business model is critical to defining how you’ll earn income and the type of audience you’ll serve while you get your course off the ground.
Don’t put off: Assess and/or adjust your current model to make sure it aligns with your strengths and what your audience really wants.
What’s at stake: Choosing the wrong model or a bad niche leads to wasted effort, limits to your income, and attracting the wrong audience. You risk becoming stagnate, complacent and unable to get off the gigwheel.
Next steps: Ask yourself… what will it take for your current business model and target market/niche to hit six figures over the next year? Will it? Can it?
Once you’ve assessed your model, if it's not inching you closer to a six-figure income, come to my “$100k Solos, YOLO!” workshop to learn the six-figure business models that worked for me.
Skill development
Upskill to solve expensive problems and accelerate your life
Continuous learning and professional development is what allows you to tackle the more complex challenges other course creators can’t. That’s how you get top dollar and stay ahead in a saturated online courses market.
Procrastinating on sharpening our skills in a saturated AI-driven market is a race to the bottom. Stop avoiding honing your craft, putting off training or taking courses that could directly affect your ability to deliver super valuable results.
What you’re doing to put off six figs:
Procrastinating your professional development
Impact of your procrastination: Directly influences the quality of work and your ability to solve complex, expensive problems for your audience. Stunts your growth and keeps you behind the other creators who have better opportunities because they’re bettering themselves.
Difficulty to Overcome: High. Involves learning new things that you can integrate into what you offer. It helps when you to actually want to learn and apply new things in your category.
Skill development is how you stay competitive and offer high-dollar solutions to high-ticket audience.
Don’t put off: Prioritizing learning new things to open you up to new opportunities.
What’s at stake: Satisfaction with the status-quo will have you falling behind other course creators and lose any discernible competitive advantage.
Without learning new things you won’t be able to evolve with the problems your audience face, how you solve them or showcase any advanced skills.
Next Steps: What are your customers asking for that you turn away? What’s adjacent to your offer that you can make a system out of?
Find resources, courses, or mentorship opportunities from top-tier pros in your field, discipline or methods.
Punching up a weight class or two is how you grow.
Efficiency and process optimization
Systems that scale your online course business
The blueprint for excellence begins with efficient processes that eliminate time-wasting so you can focus on high-impact work and growing your solo empire.
Doing everything yourself obviously limits scaling opportunities. Not if you have the right systems though.
A lack of systems and processes means more time spent on menial, non-essential tasks that contribute to your profit-suck.
What you’re doing to put off six figs:
Systematic chaos
Impact of chaos: Inefficiencies and disorganization cuts you off at the knees and severely affects customer satisfaction.
Difficulty to Overcome: Low to Moderate. Implementing systems and processes requires some effort upfront but pays dividends in efficiency and scalability.
The perpetual DIY trap
Impact of DIY traps: Wastes valuable time that could be better spent on high-value tasks or things you enjoy.
Difficulty to Overcome: Low to Moderate. Delegation and automation are key solutions here.
Efficient processes and systems are the backbone of every online courses business.
Don’t put this off: Implement the tools and systems that automate repetitive tasks.
What’s at Stake: Wasted time on low-value tasks and limited ability to take on more or better projects. Burnout, decreased customer satisfaction, and missed opportunities for growth.
Next Steps: Audit your current workflows and identify opportunities for automation or outsourcing. A streamlined, efficient business that maximizes your time and income potential prioritizes efficiency, leveraging tools and delegation to free up time for higher-value work.
Need an efficient, learnable, profitable system? Check out my “Pitch?! Please. Get Paid to Become and Expert and Never Write another Proposal again”
Customer relationships and positioning
Attract premium customers with the right positioning
“Take a position or get positioned” and “Who are you, to whom and why should they give a damn.” These are the things I tell my B2B clients, but they work for us too.
By attracting strategic partnerships and precisely targeting your ideal customers, you get more stability and satisfaction on your way to scalable success.
Failure to accurately identify and attract an ideal, high-paying audience keeps you tethered to less than ideal customers you wish you weren’t. Here again, the lack of strategic customer management can reduce you to a trapped freeployee.
What you’re doing to put off six figs:
Client clinginess
Impact of not letting go of bad-fit clients: Holds you back from attracting a bigger, better, more enthusiastic audience. Dependency on a few clients can be risky.
Difficulty to overcome: Moderate. Requires building a predictable pipeline and marketing strategy but crucial for stabilizing your income.
Not precision targeting
Impact of being a generalist: Affects the ability to attract ideal, high-paying audience. These people want experts, not generalists.
Difficulty to Overcome: Moderate. Requires niche market research and tailored marketing but greatly improves the customer experience and project results.
Building and maintaining healthy client relationships are crucial for long-term success and avoiding the "freeployee" trap.
Don’t put this off: Establish your expertise with your current clients or replace them. Position yourself as a strategic partner, not just a service provider.
What’s at Stake: Becoming over-reliant on a few clients or stuck in low-paying, high-demand work results in income instability, feeling stresses, and never getting your course off the ground.
Next Steps: Evaluate your current client relationships and identify any that need restructuring or ending. Success comes from clients that respect your expertise and pay accordingly.
Proactively manage client relationships to position yourself as their strategic partner.
Got a clingy client you want to see kick rocks? I have a workshop called “Fired Up!” on firing bad-fit, under-performing and underpaying clients so you can make room for better projects and bigger budgets.
On your way to $100k
Don't let another opportunity pass you by. If you're ready to shift gears toward financial freedom, then it's time to take action.
Six figures is easer than you think when you use battle-tested strategies I’ve laid out before you, from maximizing your pricing to optimizing your systems.
Use them like I did to take control of solo business now—click here to learn which of my upcoming classes, live mini workshops & courses, and my six-figure VIP accelerators will finally transform your skills into profitable freedom.
Classes … Free
Live Six-Figure workshops & mini courses … $10 - $47 usd
Six-figure Accelerator Cohorts … Price Varies