I recently put a question up on my Instagram story asking what questions you have about our company and I got a ton of questions!! Some were basic, like what do you do and how do you make money, others were a bit more complicated. So, I thought I would take a podcast episode today and answer all those questions.
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20 Most Common Questions We Receive About Our Company, Classy Career Girl
1. How did you start Classy Career Girl? Read Why I Started My Blog
2. How do you earn money? Mostly through membership sites, group coaching, and online courses. We also do affiliate marketing and partner with brands. Recently we launched our first physical product, our planner.
3. Are you hiring? Not now, but if we do we will post a job description on blog.
4. How did you get investors if any? No, we’ve made an intentional decision not to seek outside investment or take out business loans. We are a 100% cash flow business.
5. What income streams do you have and what work best? Membership and subscription sites worked the best. Learn more about our membership site secrets here.
6. How did you get started? What did you do first in your business?
Blog/hobby on side of day job. Started doing coaching with my best friend and roommate for free. Eventually, I created my first online course, Get Unstuck Bootcamp in 2011 with four people.
7. Do you do 1-1 coaching?, No but I have a group coaching program that’s the best way to get personalized coaching.
8. How do you manage your finances in your business? We follow the guidelines of book Profit First. We pay ourselves first. We don’t take on debt. We don’t have unnecessary expenses. We are extremely frugal. We invest back into our business.
9. How did you manage to scale up your blog into a business?*
First, I stayed consistent with weekly blog posts and answering questions. Second, I started to really understand where my market was getting stuck and how I could help. Third, I created an online course to help solve that problem.
What worked well early one was having options at different price points – self-study, group coaching, and individual coaching. Also, doing a ton of free sales conversations each week.
*Starting a business is such a huge topic, I created an entire FREE workshop around it called The Freedom Workshop. Sign up now at www.corporaterescueplan.com/freedom
10. Did you invest in ads? I didn’t do FB ads until 2014, almost five years into my journey. Ads did help us scale because I already knew my market so well. I knew how to grow my email list organically, and I had a lot of clarity on the problem that I could solve.
11. What is it like to work with your hubby? It’s awesome. We make a great team. It’s not always easy and can be stressful at times, but the benefit of having the freedom to make our own schedule completely outweighs any difficult times. We were also married for eight years before we decided to go into business together. So we knew each other really well.
12. Who coached you to help you build your business? Who is your mentor?
Two great business coaches I worked with in the beginning were Sue Painter and Joy Chudacoff. I was part of Ali Brown’s Elevate program years ago. Amy Porterfield’s course helped me get started on FB ads in 2014, which was extremely helpful (she doesn’t offer that course anymore. And most recently I’ve taken Stu Mclaren’s TRIBE course three times and every year it’s grown our business more and more. The course will be reopening again in April. You can learn more here: www.classycareergirl.com/membershipsecrets
13. How did you market yourself to get people to sign up for sales calls?
I put the word out everywhere. I put the call signup link on social media, blog posts, emails, my email signature, I messaged all my contacts on LinkedIn and asked for referrals. I did webinars and gave the sign-up link at the end (and didn’t sell anything). I also told people at networking events.
14. Are you paid for your posts? Occasionally we will do sponsored posts where brands will pay for us to post about their products on social media or our blog. It has to be the right fit though and we usually say no. We only did two sponsorship posts in 2018, and we get daily requests.
15. Did you start online or face to face first? I started in person first and found it easier to do market research and really develop my systems in person before moving online. We did a lot of phone conversations and phone coaching before taking our programs online.
16. How do you receive money? What tools do you use? Easiest – PayPal. That’s how we started, and we still accept paypal today. Eventually, you’ll want a shopping cart such as Square, Woo Commerce, Stripe, 1shoppingcart, and Infusionsoft.
17. How did you make the decision to quit your job? In 2014 my decision was based on the fact that I did as much as I could on the side for years. I had clients. I knew my idea would work. I solved a problem, and my business was starting to grow steadily but I needed more time to really grow it.
18. Please describe in a few words what you really do for a living? I help women find career fulfillment.
19. Is it scary to take the risk of quitting your 9-5? Sort of, but not really. While I was a consultant, I saw many people get laid off. By the end, I didn’t feel “secure.” (Especially when my female boss who just had twins got fired and with government shutdowns we never were secure.)
20. Did you save up before you quit your job? Yes! My husband and I paid off our debt first and then had a six months savings when I quit after maternity leave. He quit his day job three months later to join me in the business!
