[September 2015. Boise, Idaho.]
Russell Brunson called my name.
I got to my feet.
It was Day 1 of his Inner Circle mastermind.
20 heavy hitters.
(More accurately: 19 heavy hitters… and me. Little old Olly, with an 18-month-old blog, a couple o’ courses and a whole lotta dreams. I didn’t know my arse from my elbow, and it showed.)
Anyway, I walked to the front of the room.
It was my turn – I only had 20 minutes and the clock was ticking.
I asked the group what I should do next to grow my business.
Someone asked: “How big’s your list?”
(You know which size they’re really thinking about when they ask that question, but whatever.)
I said about 10,000.
They continued:
“You should start a high-ticket coaching programme.”
I asked why.
“Well, our list is 10,000 too and we make $150k/mth.”
I was floored.
I was making about $5k/mth with the same sized list.
I couldn’t even count to 150k, let alone conceive of making it.
Then, someone from the sidelines chimed in…
“Yeah, but you guys are selling real estate investing. Olly’s teaching languages. It’s a very different niche.”
The original person thought for a second, and then said:
“Yeah, I suppose so.”
We went round the table.
Next idea:
“You need to find a way to charge $10k for something!”
I’d never even considered that.
(I sold $97 courses at the time.)
The guy continued:
“Selling high ticket is SO much easier!”
Made sense.
Thing is…
I wanted to help as many people as possible learn languages.
With my courses.
I loved my courses.
I didn’t want to sell high ticket coaching.
But I didn’t have the experience to push back, so I nodded and agreed.
(I even went off and tried to create a 10k product. Didn’t go well. That’s a story for another day.)
Next person told me how to grow my business:
“You should teach people to make money with their hobbies, like you’re doing!”
I paused.
Sure. I could…
But that’s not why I was there in the mastermind.
I wanted to grow my language business.
The chap elaborated:
“You’ll find everything so much easier when you help people make money themselves.”
Couldn’t argue with the logic.
.
.
.
Walking home that night, I reflected on what I’d heard.
And the only conclusion I could come to was…
Does this stuff only work if I’m teaching people to make money, or charging $10k for something?
.
.
.
[Fast-forward 5 years.]
I’ve built a $10m online education business.
Doing precisely NONE of the things suggested in that mastermind group.
I wonder what would’ve happened if I’d paid attention to them.
StoryLearning would’ve never existed.
The millions of people I’ve helped would’ve never found us.
The 1.5 million books I’ve sold would never make it past the printers.
My team members, who get to earn a living working with their passion… would not be.
Of course, with the benefit of experience, it’s apparent to me what was going on in that mastermind.
These people had absolutely no idea how to build a B2C online education business at scale.
And that’s fine.
They were all lovely people.
Just not the right people.
Or rather…
I was in the wrong room.
It was on me.
It was on me to put myself in the right room, full of entrepreneurs who were ahead of me in the game of building an online education business…
Teaching the thing they love (not “making money”)
Prioritising lifestyle (not hustle culture)
Caring about helping students succeed (not just the bottom line)
I didn’t have that room back then, in 2015.
It probably didn’t exist.
Namaste,
Olly
