What if I told you that the #1 way that course creators sabotage their success has nothing to do with sales and marketing?
Most course creators believe the reason why they aren’t getting the results they want is because they are terrible at sales or need help with marketing…
…and there is some truth to that!
Sales and marketing are critical to your success, but there’s also an important skill that impacts your ability to improve your sales and marketing as well as every other aspect of your business.
Without this skill, you may experience some success, but it won’t last long…you may reach your initial goals, but not the bigger ones that follow…you may have the best sales and marketing strategy in the world to follow, but it will be difficult to implement.
So, what is this mystery skill that ALL successful Course Creators have?
In today’s episode, you’ll learn exactly what it is and how NOT having it is completely sabotaging your success.
Let’s get started.
My name is Caitlin Bacher, CEO of Scale With Success®, and I’m on a mission to help course creators all over the world grow their business in a way that is profitable and scalable. I’m sharing revealing insights about what it really takes to scale an online course business to millions of dollars per year. Join me here to discover the tough decisions I’ve had to make, the biggest failures I’ve had to bounce back from, and the learnings that emerged every step of the way. I’m so grateful that I have the chance to tell you everything right here on Scale With Success®: The Podcast. Let’s get started.
There is one skill that many course creators actively avoid developing. It’s not sales and marketing, but it certainly impacts your sales and marketing. In fact this skill is SO powerful that NOT having it will make sustainable success nearly impossible.
So, what is this secret skill?
The #1 skill that successful course creators have is managing their emotions – and it’s also the #1 way course creators sabotage their success.
The ability to effectively manage your emotions when things don’t go as expected is absolutely key if you’re looking to scale to seven figures in revenue.
Why? Because in business, things frequently don’t go as expected – ESPECIALLY if you’re trying to grow – and if you’re growing fast the only thing you CAN expect is that things WON’T go as expected.
Scaling a business to your first 6- and then 7-figures is frustrating, scary, embarrassing, and confusing. It’s also exciting, challenging, and incredibly rewarding.
I’m gonna share something super vulnerable with you because if you do feel like growth is scary – I don’t want you to feel alone.
Once the Profitable Sales Engine™ that I built for my own business started gaining momentum, things were happening FAST. I went from making $10k/mo to over $100k/mo in less than a year.
The money was coming in fast and furious and I had never experienced anything like it before. At first it was exciting, but that excitement quickly turned to terror. At a time when what most people would imagine being the best thing ever – I felt alone, terrified, and completely unequipped to handle the new level of success and visibility I was gaining.
The old fear of “Will I ever make money?” was replaced with, “What if I stop making money?”
The overwhelming feeling that everything could disappear in an instant weighed heavily on my mind – and there wasn’t really anyone I could talk to about it. What was I going to say to my friends and family – poor me, I’m making all this money and I’m scared it’s going to go away??
It was at that point that I realized WHY scaling to millions was so difficult – it wasn’t because of the new tech I had to learn or the sales and marketing strategies I had to implement – scaling to millions was hard because I had no clue how to manage my emotions.
To be honest, I had ways of coping with stress – but, none of them were healthy.
I had to learn how to manage my emotions – in front of my family, my team, and millions of people on the internet watching me year after year.
It was messy, awkward, clumsy, embarrassing – but despite all of that I kept moving forward.
I became grateful for mistakes – because they were evidence I was learning.
I became grateful for things breaking – because it meant I was growing.
I became grateful for confusion and frustration – because I knew it meant a big breakthrough was coming.
So, the big question is HOW DO YOU DO IT? How do you break free from a lifetime of mental conditioning that teaches you that change is scary and uncertainty is dangerous? How do you learn to effectively manage your emotions and get better at doing it over time so that you can finally reach that next level of success?
Well, I’m going to give you three concrete things that really helped me and you’re welcome to give them a try. But, before I do I want you to know that the goal is not to be “perfect” at managing your emotions – I mean, I’m better than I used to be, but it’s still something I actively work on every day. It’s actually impossible to be “perfect” at anything, so you can just throw that word right in the garbage can. The truth is that each level of success will require you to improve your ability to manage your emotions because things don’t get easier – you just get better.
Also, I want to take a moment to give a quick plug for good, old-fashioned medical care. There is a big difference between “managing your emotions” in business and needing real medical help. Get medical help if you think you need it. I am not a medical professional and this is not medical advice. What I am saying is that if you think there’s the slightest chance you may need medical help, it’s your responsibility to seek help for that. I’ve met more and more women over the years who were misdiagnosed with anxiety when they were younger, only to find out later it was something else. There is so much more information available now and if you struggled to be properly diagnosed earlier in life – don’t give up hope. Our bodies, brains, and hormones change so much from giving birth to menopause, to everything in between and there may actually be a medical reason that you’ve been struggling and you deserve to get the care you need.
Ok, back to my 3 “go to” strategies for managing my emotions when things get hard.
1. I ask myself, “What is the outcome I’m looking to create?”
I can’t emphasize enough just how much this question has helped me get out of some really dark situations. Anytime I begin to feel like I’m stuck I ask myself this question. Getting clear on the outcome I want to create helps me do 3 things:
- It forces me to look at the big picture and quit getting bogged down in details that don’t matter.
- It helps me better describe what I want to achieve to others so they can give me the support I need.
- It triggers the problem solving part of my brain and I can more easily see solutions that weren’t initially visible to me.
When I first started asking myself this question, it didn’t feel natural at all. In fact, I had to write post-it notes and stick them all over the place to help me remember. I mean, my thoughts could really spiral and I knew if I wanted to make asking myself this question a habit – I needed A LOT of reminders.
This question also helps me in my relationships with others. If I’m ever confused with what someone is asking about, I frequently ask them, “What’s the outcome you’re looking to create here?” Then we’re BOTH out of the weeds and into possibility.
2. I strengthened my nervous system.
This is where things start to get a little weird, but I swear it works. Get a big bowl and fill it with ice water. Then put your whole face in it for 5-sec. Plunging my face in the water gives my brain a TOTAL RESET. It feels like my entire internal operating system is getting a reboot.
I learned about this trick on TikTok, but there is real science behind it. The feeling of ice water on your face activates your parasympathetic nervous system, which slows down your heart rate and triggers a feeling of relaxation.
When I’m calm, I can see clearly. The problem becomes less obscured and the root cause easier to identify. I feel more creative and open to new solutions and most importantly I make better decisions. A little stress can be a good thing when it comes to solving problems, but when you are flooded with emotion – nobody’s solving anything.
The best part about the ice water is that you can make this part of your daily routine, strengthening your nervous system overtime. It’s kind of like flossing your teeth, only colder.
3. I reframed my relationship with problems.
There was a time in my life when the more frustrated I became with solving a problem, the harder I pushed myself to solve it. I thought if I didn’t push myself to solve it right then and there, I would never solve it. Let me just say this approach, literally never worked and I have no clue why I hung onto it for so long.
I don’t know about you, but the best ideas come to me when I’m NOT actively trying to solve the problem – when I’m on a walk, when I’m reading a book, or when I’m journaling about a completely different topic.
Most of the day to day problems we experience in business don’t actually need to be solved instantaneously, which is a good thing because like I said before, the faster your business is growing, the more frequently problems are rising to the surface.
I used to make my problems mean that something was wrong with ME – that I wasn’t a good enough CEO – and that they should be solved as quickly as possible before anyone else realized that I wasn’t perfect.
Needless to say, that worldview wasn’t exactly helping me grow my business, it was keeping me stuck, scared, and ashamed.
I chose to reframe what it meant to be a CEO who experienced problems in a way that felt encouraging, creative, and left me inspired to take action. Why? Because THAT was the outcome I was looking to create.
So, here’s what I came up with for myself.
Problems are a sign that I am about to learn something new and uncover a new secret about my business that I never knew existed. It’s an opportunity to get better at managing my emotions. I see myself as someone who has the courage to move forward even when the path ahead is clouded with uncertainty.
To recap, here are 3 things you can do to improve your ability to manage your emotions (aside from medical care if you think you need that):
1) Ask yourself, “What is the outcome I’m looking to create?”
2) Strengthen your nervous system.
3) Reframe your relationship with problems.
I appreciate you being here and tune in next week for another episode of Scale With Success® – The Podcast.
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