😳 Start Your Own Business? Side Hustle? Launch Your Digital Course? Best Selling Author! #1 Ranked Podcast Host w/Teresa Heath-Wareing | Ep. 361

0:01What up? Welcome to Do This Not That, the podcast for marketers. I'm Jay Schwetelson. Let's dig into some tips and some randomness. We are back for Do This Not That podcast presented by Marigold. And I have somebody I've wanted on the show for a very long time. She's very cool. So who's here? We have Teresa Heath-Waring. Now, if you're in the UK, you know who she is because she's like the sixth Spice Girl. How many are there? Four or five? I don't know. But she's one of them. But what she is known for is really helping people to make their dreams come true from a business perspective, developing online businesses.

0:40She has courses of her own. She helps people. And by the way, she has an awesome podcast. Her podcast, Your Dream Business Podcast, she may not even know this. I looked it up, is ranked in the top 1 % of all podcasts in the world. It is incredible. She's spoken everywhere, TEDx, all over. She's a big deal. and we're going to break down today online businesses can you make your dreams come true teresa welcome to the show that was an amazing intro thank you jay i appreciate it massively well it's all true i'm excited you're here um all right so first off before we get started because i was trying to make sure i didn't butcher your name i didn't let you say my name we got started so now i want to see oh no can you say my name no if you get it wrong i'm ending this immediately right i'm a hundred percent gonna get it wrong i literally went online and tried to rehearse it and now my mind has can i blame the fact that i'm like a 45 year old woman and my mind say my first name then just do my first name jay i've got j got it perfect okay love it um i let you out easy all right thanks before you normally we skip over the boring part of what's your origin story how did you wind up doing all this because who cares but in your scenario um you have an inspiring story and it's also a story that i think leads into exactly what you do for a living and everybody that's listening out there you may be like well i don't want to start my own digital business i don't i i don't even know what that means but the truth of the matter is you a lot of people have side hustles now and this is an incredible side hustle and we're going to explore is this for everyone So Teresa, can you break down how did you become you?

2:23Okay, I'm going to keep it as short and succinct as I can be, which is not easy. So basically, I did a degree in marketing, I spent 10 years in marketing, working for other companies, I headed up corporate marketing at Land Rover, I did like teeny tiny marketing where I did it all. And I loved it. And I was a great employee, I never had any intention to work for myself, have my own business. and I joke that I went through a kind of early midlife crisis. So I was about early 30s and I just was going through a divorce and I had a four-year-old daughter and I was head of marketing for an agency and I loved it and I was good at it and I knew marketing inside out and I thought to myself, I need to change the role.

3:14Things weren't great, like it was fine but I was like, I'm going to move. I'm going to get a different job. So I handed my notice in and I gave them eight weeks notice. And I was thinking to myself, I'm going to find another job in eight weeks easy. I am good at what I do. Like I have a lot of marketing experience. I've done some good marketing jobs, forgetting that I live in Shropshire and it's fairly rural-ish and we just don't have massive businesses in and around here. So it was like, I basically thought to myself, okay, well, what other options have I got? And it was like my boss at the time said, you can leave because in my head, I had this thought of, well, what if I did this myself?

3:49I just worked at this agency. I'd bought in all this like business. What if I did my own company or did like marketing consultancy? She asked me to leave. I had one week in which to, well, in which I was being paid. And then my money stopped. I had no savings. I had no partner. I joked that I had no other money coming in. Like I have parents, but not rich ones. No, no one could subsidize me. And I had to bring in 1500 pounds a month just to keep the roof over my head and keep my daughter and I with heat and electric and that sort of thing. And I had no choice. I had to go out there and hustle.

4:26So within one week I had a brand. Luckily I was in this industry. So I had some friends who could whip me up a brand and a website. And I just went out and I just started offering marketing consultancies. And I like, I'm not a massive fan of the hustle thing, but I hustled. I had to, I had no choice. Like it was either that or I lose my house. And I just started putting myself out there and someone said to me, would you do social media for me? And I was like, yeah, okay. Gave them a price. And they were like, yeah, fine. Didn't even think about it. And I was like, God, what if I could get like eight more people to do this?

4:57Like that would be my salary. So started off as that. And then wanted to make sure I was really good. Cause even though I had a degree in marketing and I'd worked 10 years, I felt like I needed more training, which is ridiculous. And I started finding the online space, right? So I remember Mari Smith back in the day, I was on a webinar and Mari was teaching Facebook and I was like, okay, I'm going to learn about this. And I remember Mari saying my name and my husband being like, what was that? Like, she's in another country and she's saying your name, like, because it was just such a weird concept.

5:32And I thought this online thing's really cool. And it was back in a day where it was like, hey, online business is super easy. You put up a course, people buy it, you end up being really rich. And I was like, maybe this is where I should be doing it. And also at this point, because by now I'd met my now husband and my daughter was still little. And I was like, I hadn't just got one client. I got 18 clients. And it was killing me. I was trying to do all this stuff. I'd been picked up for speaking. I was getting flown to the States to speak. The clients were getting upset. And I was like, what if I did this online thing?

6:06What if I put it all in. I started consulting other people to help them with their launches and then eventually created my own thing and sat on it for 12 months. I basically created a course and didn't sell it for 12 months because I was so terrified that what if I sold it and no one bought it? What if the person who teaches how to do launches can't do her own launch? What if someone actually buys it and goes, it's terrible and doesn't like what they've got? And then eventually I got some coaching and I got a bit help and I got over myself and I said to my husband, can I fire all my clients? And I built a six figure agency by this point.

6:45And he was very kind or deluded and went, yes, that's fine. And I fired my clients and went all in on the online stuff. Wow, that's very brave. Might have been stupid, but it worked out. So I won't say it was. So, all right, I have a bunch of questions about that. But the first one is, can you define when you say an online course that you made an online course and other people have online courses? What? Because a lot of people out there are like, wait a minute. I know a lot about photography. I'm really good at making salad. I like hiking. I can make a course about this. What does it mean to make an online course and sell an online course?

7:27So for me, the online course that I created was actually to do with content creation, because I had done a lot of stuff in the social media space. So I created, so basically I put all my knowledge into a course. So if someone would pay me to go and train their team or speak to them about something and tell them how to do it, I poured all that into a course where basically it was videos, it was text, it was like, this is what you do. And it wasn't massive. It wasn't huge. It was like fairly small-ish, but it was a really good succinct course of this is how you do it. And basically I'd created that and I just hadn't sold it.

8:02I just hadn't told anybody about it. I hadn't actually gone, hey, everyone, I've got this course and actually attempted to sell it. So it's all one thing doing it. And then it's a whole, and it's like, they are almost two different types of skillsets. Like you need the skillset of, I know what I'm talking about. And So if you're coming from a, I have an expertise and I am really good at this, and I want to be able to help more people at a different price point and share my knowledge further, then brilliant. I think the problem, not even the problem, but one of the issues comes where people go, hey, this online thing looks really cool.

8:40I could probably whip up a course and sell it. And then they're just trying to find a reason to sell a course rather than going, I'm really good at this thing. I'm already, I already have a proven business helping someone with it. Now I want to take it online. So if I'm listening to this, um, and I don't have a course yet and I have a regular, let's say marketing job. And I'm like, well, this sounds great to me because I've always had a passion for, let's say photography, making that up. Okay. But I don't want to give up my, my day job because, um, I need that to really pay the bills, but I would love to have a course on this thing, manage everybody's expectations, how much time and money legit like ballpark, even though we were off script, you probably aren't don't want to answer this, but too bad.

9:27How much time and money does it really take to get a course off the ground? Because you got a day job, a lot of people have day jobs. And then how much time and money does it take to actually turn it into something that's not just a piece of garbage that makes no money that just costs money? Yeah. So let's ignore the fact of like, there are lots of people out there helping you do this and you could pay for courses and coaching and all that sort of stuff. Just the systems, you are going to need something in order to actually put it out there. So you're going to need to record something potentially.

10:00You're going to need to create something. Like you can do that fairly cheap. You know, there's Canva and there's online things that you can just use to record yourself. It's not that actually now is a fairly low barrier to entry. even some of the tech. So I happen to use Kajabi, but you don't even have to do that. Like you could effectively have a community in a WhatsApp group and then do it through a Google drive. Like it doesn't, that actually doesn't have to take a lot. The thing for me is the time and effort you need to put into growing an audience, right? Because it comes back to, and this is why I love your stuff.

10:36The email list is like the most important thing. Like if you have no audience, you don't have an online business. It is, and I hate saying it's a numbers game because it makes me sound like I don't care about the people and I genuinely do. But if you don't have an audience, you don't have an online business. So it's not like the whole point of having an online business is it's one to many. It's one to a larger number. But if you don't have that larger number to begin with, or you don't have an audience, then that's what's going to be hard. And I think what happens is people put more time and effort into creating the thing than they do into building the audience.

11:13Whereas I've had people come to me and work with me that have huge audiences and creating something for them. Oh, man, easy. Like give me someone with a massive audience any day and I can help them create something and they could sell it easily. It's the person who has all the passion and all the thing and they create the thing and they love it and they spend all the time and they make it beautiful and they do all these things. but they have no audience, it's literally going to do nothing. Like if you've got no one to buy it, it's the equivalent of having a billboard in the desert. It's not going to work.

11:43Well, I think this is very sobering. I think it's very important because you're 100 % right. I even see that with podcasts, right? I make the best episodes, the best content, but you have no one to tell about it. Nobody's going to listen. No one's going to find it. It's a lot of effort for like crickets. So are you saying if you have no audience that a digital course, creating one, an online business is not for you? Or are you saying the first step is go ahead and somehow build that audience? And by the way, how do you build that audience? How do you do that? So it's not that I wouldn't do the course if you don't have an audience.

12:19I would just be very realistic that the chances of you selling it, full stop, or to many people is gonna be low. I would start, so if you have a passion in something, I would start by creating content. about that thing. So if you love photography, then start an Instagram account about photography. If you love, so I'm a bit of a weirdo geek that I love homesteading stuff. Like I grow my own vegetables. I'm obsessed. Like, and one day, if I ever have time, I might start off an Instagram account about me growing vegetables and talking about it. So if you can start to create an audience about that, then that's kind of one of the first things I would do.

12:55Like if you have the passion to create content with no expectation, then that is a really good place to start. Because if you've created a course and you're trying to fight really hard to sell it, that's going to be impossible. Whereas if you have the passion to just show up and create content because you love it, then brilliant. The next step is becoming a go-to person in your industry. In an ideal world, the people who are the most successful in the online space, and it can be any online space. I have got tutors, I've got nutritionists, I've got people who are artists, like I've got all sorts of businesses.

13:31But it's they are the go to people. They are the people that when someone's looking for a speaker, someone's looking for a podcast guest, someone's looking for someone to write an article or interview, they're the people they think of. So that has been very strategic for me. And I don't think I knew how strategic I was being in the early days, but now it's strategic. So it is really strategic of how many podcasts can I get on? How many stages can I speak on? How do I put myself first? I am one of the things I did when I started my podcast, my very first guest. So I did 20 episodes solo, 20 ish episodes solo.

14:08My very first guest was Pat Flynn. And people are like, how the hell? And my second guest was Amy Portfield. And people were like, how the hell, when you had no guest experience, my podcast was tiny. Like, how did you get them? I busted my backside. I actually, you won't believe this, I sent them a video message on Instagram. Now I had already met Pat. I'd spoke at an event that he'd spoke at. So he at least knew who I was. And again, I had met Amy once at an event. She was speaking. I was just a guest, but I went and said hi. I sent them a video message on Instagram saying that I wanted to meet them for a coffee and could I take them for a coffee and I am going to fly five and a half thousand miles to take them for a coffee will you meet me well they kind of couldn't say no could they because like if someone's willing to fly to the other side of the world so I did and the idea was I would just meet them I'd have a coffee I would because I just thought I'd really like to like sit and have a conversation with them.

15:08And then if it went well, when I came back to the UK, I would ask them to be on the podcast. As it was, both of them, I met them separately, almost verbatim. They talked about the podcast, asked how I was getting on with it, said, am I going to do interviews? And I said, I am, but I'm really nervous about reaching out. And both of them said completely separately, if I'm on your list, I'll do it. And that's how they were my first two guests. So like, you've got to do some things that kind of step you out of your comfort zone, because then once I got them, well, the rest is history. Like it was easy because I had the two biggest people in my space.

15:42So you've got to be, you've got to really have some, I guess, guts really, but just to put yourself out there and you've got to go, look, I know what I'm talking about, even when it's scary to do that. I will tell you, I couldn't agree more. The number one lesson I think in business is getting comfortable being uncomfortable. And I'm the same way. I believe everybody is reachable. i believe there's not a human being on earth when i had less than 500 connections i was like i'm going to connect with everybody meet them talk to them i don't care what it takes and to your point that's that's it it doesn't even matter if you want to start a digital course or if you want to get a promotion you want to get a new job you want to get a girlfriend or a boyfriend or whatever you're into you gotta you gotta walk up to that person you gotta do the thing so i love that i love that vibe i have one other question before we wrap up here when you talk about audience you know you talk about an email list i get that is are what is building up a social media following the equivalent of building an audience or is that really not going to do it i mean it's great and it's a great place to start but the very first thing that i like building that email list is literally day zero like if you put something on social media if you start to create an account because you love photography or you love cooking or whatever it might be like and you have any inkling you might want to turn this into a business then the very first thing I would do is say get them on an email list like get them on a lead magnet like have something that takes them off social onto your own list because we all know that like people just don't see our stuff and even with there are some really good strategies with launching around ads at the moment but that's costing money and you need to do that.

17:27Whereas you can have a great community and a great audience, but even if someone comes to me with a huge audience, the very next thing I'm going to do is get them to make sure they're on an email list because it's just not going to work as well. They're just not going to see it. They're not going to take the actions and we want them to be in the, you know, and you'll know this and I certainly don't need to say this, but like in the action of receiving emails and interacting with those emails, because you just can't, we all know that there are people we follow on social media that we don't see their stuff because for whatever reason it just doesn't get served so for me if you've even got an inkling i want to turn this into something then and and view it view for me the way i view my email list is it's just another bit of content so like i actually write my emails first and then i take my content from my emails i shove it on social or i take what i've written in an email and i use that as a social media post because I don't really love doing social if I'm honest anymore.

18:22But the list is like, when it comes to growing and building an online business, every data we look at is from your email list. So it's not like, so when I look at stats of what you can expect to get in a launch, I don't take it from your Instagram following or your LinkedIn or your YouTube. I take your email list. And normally on an email list, we want someone to move to a launch list. And the launch list is like someone who signed up for the webinar or signed up for a challenge or signed up for something and roughly between 15 and 30 percent of your email list if they sign up for your launch list that's awesome but then roughly only one to eight percent of that launch list are going to buy from you so if you have a hundred people on your email list and you've got 15 percent of them sign up to your launch list, that's literally 15 people.

19:11And if 1 % of them buy, that's kind of not even one. Well, it's about one person, I guess, because you'd have to round it. So that's the kind of sobering. No, it's good. It's good to be a realist. I love it. And I think that's super, super important. That's why I love your stuff. And that's why everybody needs to go and follow you. A few things. Teresa's podcast, I'm putting the show notes. It is awesome. Your dream business podcast. You need to follow it, listen to it. I'm not just saying that. It's legit great. Teresa, where else can people follow you? We'll put in the show notes and find you and all that stuff.

19:45Thank you. So having a name like Teresa Heath-Waring, as you will well know, when you have an unusual name, you're easy to find. So you can go to TeresaHeathWaring.com and find out more there. And in terms of social media, my most favorite of all the least is instagram so if you're on there please come and give me a follow all right i'm going to spell it for everybody it's teresa t-e-r-e-s-a space heath h-e-a-t-h-dash wearing w-a-r-e-i-n-g we'll put in the show notes you are awesome you are the fifth spice girl or sixth i don't know which one but i appreciate you being here thank you so much jake it's been a pleasure to be on You did it.

20:25You made it to the end. Nice. But the party's not over. Subscribe to make sure you get the latest episode each week for more actionable tips and a little chaos from today's top marketers. And hook us up with a five-star review if this wasn't the worst podcast of all time. Lastly, if you want access to the best virtual marketing events that are also 100 % free, visit guruevents.com so you can hear from the world's top marketers like Damon John, Martha Stewart, and me. GuruEvents.com. Check it out.