#199: Celebration + What It Takes to Be Successful Online

Welcome back to another episode of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to help you take action to get your online course done, whether it’s a signature course, a certification, a starter course, a live cohort, whatever you are building. I’m here to help you every single step of the way. And guess what?

We are on the verge of a huge milestone for this podcast. This is episode 199. We are one episode away from 200. And this tastes especially good if we’ve got our virtual champagne toast right now. If you’ve been listening, you know, I had to stop the podcast and then I went every other week and now we’re back to weekly and it feels, Oh, so good.

It feels like a big win. And I couldn’t be more proud of the different content that we’ve put out in this podcast and the guests that we’ve put on. And I want to thank you for listening in, especially if you’ve been with me for the entire journey, and maybe you’ve been listening to me on road trips. Some of you have shared you binge me because I know these are shorter episodes, so you listen to ten at a time or some of you’ve mentioned you listen to this podcast while you’re walking or running.

And if you’re running while listening to me, I don’t know how you do that either. Well, anyway, I just appreciate listening to my rants and my workshops, and I’m hoping that this podcast has changed your life in some way because I’m here, like I said at the beginning of this episode, to help you take action and not be afraid to move forward.

And I want that more than anything else. So thank you for listening. If you’ve been listening and haven’t left me a review, even if you just want to leave a five star review and a comment, that would be huge. I read every single one. They mean the world to me. And then finally, before we dive in officially, I would be remiss if I didn’t think my team for putting up with me each and every week.

David, Robyn and Cathleen. I got a small but amazing team and they are brilliant. They are efficient and they support me even if I have wild ideas. So I couldn’t be more lucky to have a great team. And now as we approach 200 episodes, I’ve been kind of looking back on what makes online creators successful. You know, with courses, workshops, memberships, sites and after 11 and a half years of building courses and launching programs, books, events, working with some of the biggest names in the industry, I’ve kind of nailed down three criteria that I think you need to have to be successful online, because I get that a lot.

I get that question a lot where a consultant will come to me or a coach and say, Hey, I’ve been a referral base, but what is it really going to take for me to get that steady stream of online leads? What what is the difference between somebody who puts money Sink’s money into something like this and doesn’t really see the ROI?

Why? And somebody who’s seeing that and building their business online, what’s the difference? And I want to talk about three criteria that I see and some of the lessons that I learned along the way to get there. Because when I started 11 and a half years ago, I didn’t know many of these things, right? I was just a gal coming out of corporate working for Tony Robbins and putting him on stage.

So I knew about doing videos and multimedia. I knew about events. I knew about content and courses, but I didn’t know how to build a business. So we’re talking here in this podcast, How to build a business, how to build up. I see it in every episode, how to build up the online based business of your dreams. And and there’s some criteria to that that I have learned along the way, and I wanted to share it today.

All right. Let’s dive in to celebrating 199, almost 200. And the first criteria I want to talk about is you’ve got to take the spotlight, aka, there’s no more hiding when it comes to building a successful business online. I should know, I was the queen of behind the scenes. So it started with Tony Robbins. And I had the best education a girl could ever have about learning how to support somebody for content courses, events, books.

And I was the behind the scenes gal. I would always hide when Tony was on camera or he was on a show. I would make sure to hide behind the curtain at the end of Unleash the Power Within, which is his first big event. He brings the staff on stage where he used to do this. I don’t know if they do this anymore, but they would bring the entire team on stage during circle of Life.

And then Forever Young. And it was this huge culmination of this three day event. And I would want to go up there not because I didn’t want to be with my team and live in that moment because I was like, I’m the behind the scenes gal. I don’t belong on stage. I really I literally said this to myself, I don’t belong on stage.

Then from there I worked with Amy Porterfield, B Amy Porterfield, and we were behind the stage with Tony Robbins and talk about somebody who went into the spotlight. Amy. Amy was behind the scenes for Tony, and then she knew she had to take the spotlight in order for her to make her $85 million and counting in courses. So I loved it, but I knew that my business wasn’t going to grow until I stepped out of behind the scenes and into the spotlight.

I knew that I was limiting myself by saying, I’m not the girl who doesn’t go on stage, right? So now I think I am that girl right? I do talk to people. I do have my own spotlight. We have an amazing business where we split between supporting others. We still do the behind the scenes stuff, but Easton is an amazing client.

Former NFL star, in-demand speaker, storyteller. We support Bo and all of his launches and love it. And then I also have a spotlight, this podcast. Speaking at events. Speaking at workshops. But I had I did realize I didn’t need to hide anymore. I couldn’t hide anymore. And this is great timing because my husband, Alex, who is my biggest fan and supporter, says to me, You know, you’re still thinking small.

You need to step outside of who you’ve been. You need to continue to evolve and get bigger. So wherever you are, if there’s something that’s the equivalent of I don’t belong on stage is for you. What is that talk about? Tony Robbins stuff, right? What does that negative belief that you’ve installed that’s keeping you down or keeping your business smaller, then you need to install a new belief and stop hiding.

And trust me, I was the queen of hiding. Right? So I want you to install a new belief. I want you to tell yourself a new story and. And then go big and pick your spotlight. And one more note on this. I know grabbing the spotlight can be scary. That’s why I didn’t do it for so many years.

Right? Taking that first step can be scary, but success doesn’t come from waiting. It comes from pressing go. And I’ve told this story before. Megan Helmsley, our donkey fair friend from holistic moves. I’ll link to her show in the show notes and how, and she just sent me an audio text on this saying, Hey, I was just thinking back to when I was sitting in my trailer and I didn’t know when to launch my course and I texted you and you said you’re doing it tomorrow.

And then she did it. She press go. She took the plunge and she never looked back. And then she’s telling me she’s making six figures from her online course. If you listen to that episode, you can hear all the amazing updates that have happened to Megan because she took the spotlight because she decided that she wasn’t going to hide in her trailer anymore.

So the difference between those who succeed and make real money is they press go and they step out in front. They don’t just talk about it. All right. The second criteria that I’ve been thinking about just over my 11 plus years in entrepreneurship is the taking risk part of entrepreneurship and, of course, creation and not being afraid to fail.

Success favors the bold. You’ve heard this before. The best creators don’t just launch by the way. They experiment, they pivot, and they fail. Let’s be honest, they fail. I was just onboarding a new client the other day and I was asking, okay, let me in on some of the evolution of your business. What have you tried before? They were joking around.

Oh, no, we’ve never tried anything before. Of course they have. They’re entrepreneurs. They understand that they’re going to invest money in, say, a workshop that might not work, but then a certification course that might make them money. So we’re all afraid to fail. But if we don’t step outside of our comfort zone, we’re not going to reap the rewards.

I love to tell this story about where the six week accelerator comes from, and that’s I used to do it live. It’s evergreen now you can take it. It’s a self-paced course where we work together for six weeks. You get your starter course out to market. And the genesis of that course is Bo Eason, who’s an incredible business strategist.

All link to her episode in the show notes. She said to me, A pandemic is happening because it would just hit. She said, People don’t need coaching over a year, 18 months. They just need to get their courses out there and they need to get their courses out there. Now you need to put something together where people get their courses out in like 6 to 8 weeks.

And she was right. I launched a six week accelerator to help people get their course out there quickly because that was the time. That’s what people needed. And she was right and it was risky and it was bold and it’s been a huge success for our business. But I was scared, of course, like, could I do this? Could I teach it live?

Could I get them across the finish line in six weeks? And now we’ve had we’ve done it multiple times with so many different students. Megan Helmsley I just mentioned, she’s a great example who who got her course out there and continues to make money. So ask yourself where maybe are you playing it safe? Where do you have to get bold and get uncomfortable?

What have you been sitting on? Maybe waiting for the right time and there is no such thing as the right time to get out there. All right. Third and final criteria for I think the most successful creators online is they surround themselves with the best people who you surround yourself with matters. Tony Robbins talks about this all the time.

You can’t choose your family, but you can choose your peers. Surround yourself with the best peers. People who challenge you, inspire you, push you to grow. I didn’t value this as much in the beginning, but now I understand how important it is to partner and surround yourself with the best in the world. And if somebody is bringing you down, by the way, and I’m not trying to be cruel right now, I’m just saying if somebody is not empowering you, maybe they shouldn’t be in that inner circle with you.

And by the way, who’s in my inner circle? Megan O’Leary. So I haven’t talked much about conversion copywriting playbook or opening it up soon. And I’m working with the greatest copywriter in the world, Megan O’Leary, Not just because she’s the greatest copywriter, but because she’s generous and smart. And she makes me better, a better human, a better course creator, a better teacher, a better trainer.

So I surround myself with O’Leary’s or I try to because that raises my game. I mention Bo Eason, she pushes me every time and she coaches me. You need that in order to constantly raise your game. So who can you partner with? Who can you collaborate with and build your business and really who has a stake in you and is invested in you.

So again, who do you need a partner with this year? It may be Who do you need to let go of? All right, there you have it. Three criteria for, I think successful online creators. Grab the spotlight, stop hiding and press. Go to take risks. Success favors the bold and three. Surround yourself with the right people, collaborators who will push you forward.

I hope this resonated with you. It’s been an honor showing up for you each week, and I can’t wait for the next 200 episodes until next time. Go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.