Why change to a subscription business model for your online courses?
Gretchen Wegner started 10 years ago as a private coach before she started her own business. She had a hard time sustaining herself with an hourly wage so she explored different marketing techniques and discovered that creating an online course for students allowed her to increase her clients and earn more money.
Gretchen’s business model is now structured with self-guided courses and a subscription option. She changed to this business model because she was exhausted with the marketing that came with launching a few course webinars per year.
Authenticity on camera:
Gretchen attracts clients by showing up as her true self on camera, whether that be in Youtube videos or in her courses. Find your own uniqueness and embody it in your work. Gretchen celebrates her imperfectness by only doing 1 take when she records a video and showing that true self to her audience.
When it comes to social media, Gretchen is thinking about utilizing Tik Tok as a marketing technique. Tik Tok easily reaches a large audience and by being her truest self on her Youtube videos, she would be able to take snippets from those Youtube videos.
The relationship between marketing, generosity, and curiosity:
Gretchen explores the relationship between marketing, generosity, and curiosity. Marketing can come with impulsive energy. It is important to connect, listen, and offer generously from the heart while also knowing your worth.
Ask for help! It should be such a part of our fluency that, when we have an idea or limitation, we go to someone else for advice or support. Normalizing asking for help would change the game for so many people.
Go to gretchenwegner.com/success for a free download of the 7 Do’s and 2 Dont’s of Success.
Sean McCormick 0:00 This week on Earn More Tutoring, I talk with Gretchen Wegner about her upcoming trip to Tanzania, the transition from seeing students to becoming a full time coach for her courses, and how asking for help will change the world. Gretchen Wegner 0:15 I don't have a producer, I don't have editors, I only do one take, I just decide that my first take is what the world gets to get. And it's good enough. It's not perfect. But my lens is an important one. And I could be perfect and give the world less of me or I could be imperfect and give the world more. Sean McCormick 0:38 All right, welcome to Earn More Tutoring. Our mission is to eradicate educator poverty. I'm Sean McCormick, the creator of the become an online executive function specialist course. My guest today is Gretchen Wegner. Welcome to the show. Gretchen. Gretchen Wegner 0:52 Hey, everyone. And Sean. Sean McCormick 0:54 It's so good to have you back as a repeat guest. This is I think you're my second repeat guest which I love. Yeah. And so tell us what's going on. I know you've got the courses. I saw recently in a post that you're kind of moving away from the direct service or coaching throughout the semester and more into your course creation. Give us some updates what's going on in Gretchen's world? Gretchen Wegner 1:17 Yeah, well, I maybe because I'm sure some of the listeners are new, maybe I'll give the cliffnotes version of my business history so that they can understand what's new in context. But I started off over 10 years ago now, as an academic coach, I was first hired as an independent contractor by a woman with her own business much like you have your own business, and then got really good at the job and started having requests and ended up leaving her business starting a business of my own, I ended up having a hard time making ends meet just by myself here in the Bay Area on an hourly wage. And so I started to investigate marketing strategies. And that led to investing over $30,000 Over three years and a high end marketing course. And through that process, started creating sometimes we need a course to be a container for our creativity, right. And so some things blossomed from that course, I never could have planned or didn't think I was trying to create, I just wanted to have more clients and be paid more. But instead, I ended up coming up with the name the anti boring approach to powerful studying. And that's when I turned that idea, that name and I was like what is that that popped into my brain. And as I started investigating what it was, it turned out to be an online course for students. And then as I put that on the internet, and also worked hard to get clients on the East Coast, I'm here in Pacific time as you are, because I didn't want to work as late in the day. So that forced me to go on the internet, which I hadn't done before. And then that forced me to RV people started finding my website. And so people started asking me for a training educators asked me to be trained in this anti boring approach thing. So I threw together a training. And at first, the training was just to help people start their own businesses. But then teachers started asking, but we want this too. And so you know, people just kept on making requests. And I kept on saying, Sure, and now or recently that my business looked like having several student clients. And I mean, this semester, I only have three, but you know, having up to eight student clients, and having a course called The Art of inspiring students, which is the course for educators. And it's also the prerequisite for the people who come into my business training, because I want anyone coming into the business to know my toolkit and to have a common language. So I now have two trainings, one called rocker coaching, which is a year long training for educators or people who've already established their own businesses, where we learn the anti boring toolkit and then more importantly, we connect and community together and pull out Tara hair out about students and parents and teachers and how do we be even more effective at so that's rock you're coaching. And then there's rock your biz, which are people who really do want some support to get their own private practice up off the ground and we still tear our hair out together in class in our in our trading calls. But we talked about the business side as well as the coaching and teaching side. So that's the nutshell, but it was too hard for me to put the time into the adult trainings. When I was consistently seeing students especially through the pandemic, students take a lot of time so I just finally had to say it's hard. I mean, my eyes always feel wet when I talk about it. I I just can't do one to one coaching right now I have to put all my energy into helping these training programs that people seem to really value to helping them bloom more...
Check out the full interview below!
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About the author:
Sean McCormick is a parent, husband and international executive function coach. He is the founder of Executive Function Specialists, an online coaching business which guides middle, high school, and college students in overcoming procrastination, disorganization and anxiety by teaching time management, prioritization and communication skills so they feel motivated, prepared, and empowered.
He has also spoken about executive function at prominent venues including the Association of Educational Therapists' National Conference, at the Athenian School and on the Qualified Tutors Podcast.
And last but not least, Sean has hosted over 50 episodes the Earn More Tutoring Podcast with a mission to eradicate educator poverty. The show recently surpassed 8,000 downloads.
Sean is regularly featured across media channels for his expertise on executive function, ADHD and special education.