Allie Bjerk went from a designer to learning the ins and outs of the online learning industry.
Listen to how she overcame imposter syndrome and the importance of keeping a personal connection with your followers.
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Working in Online Learning
After taking five years of college, Allie landed a job with an online learning company. Then, she took a two-week class from online experts before getting hired for her career.
Allie then decided to go into business for herself; however, she was underbidding work and then had a significant setback when a client charged back a $6000 project because she wanted to see more people come to her website.
Building Her First Business
Building a funnel for herself that sold a valuable product Allie offered, she built in an order bump for clients to add additional products to their cart. “I ended up making 10 K in the first two weeks from launching this funnel and I scaled it very quickly by month three; profiting $90,000 a month.”
In addition to giving her the income she needed, this marketing idea also completely re-framed her vision of operating her business. “Instead of being client to client, I was selling products and getting passive income.” Since she didn’t have to create deliverables for clients anymore, she could build her own business and scale her product.
How Allie Overcame Imposter Syndrome
“I have had imposter syndrome at different points and it will come back up in different ways,” says Allie. “If you can bring that into the light, look at it and know there’s some part of me that actually really gets enjoyment out of struggling.”
She says she had to talk herself out of imposter syndrome and change her mindset to move on and build her business.
Selling is Serving
Serving as selling is an important concept you’ll need to understand when you’re in business for yourself. If they’re not buying from you, they’re going to buy the same service from someone else who probably isn’t as good as you. I’ve seen that time and time again on sales calls with people. They usually tell me they want to join, but they just bought another product that is not as good, but now they are committed to the inferior quality product.
Giving Yourself Permission to Be Successful
We tend to have this mind-fuck going around that we aren’t good enough, don’t deserve to make money. Allie and I agree that we need to permit ourselves to be ourselves. We are unique, multifaceted humans that need to pull that together and show up as ourselves.
When you show up as yourself, you’ll attract more ideal clients. “Even if you’re selling automated products, people will see your authentic self come through.” Your energy comes through in your copy, ads, and images.
“Once you can own yourself, marketing becomes much easier. It takes time, work, and acceptance before you can get to that point of marketing your messaging.”
Keep Your Funnels Simple, Silly!
One of the common threads I’m finding is business owners getting sold into a program about Facebook ads. If you’re getting started on your entrepreneurship journey, don’t buy ads until you have an income flowing.
Allie is a believer in a minimal viable product. “How do you get a product to the market and get proof that people even want it? I think a lot of people start with the creation instead of the clarity and messaging or who it’s for, and that alignment piece before knowing if their product is viable.”
“The biggest advice I can give is don’t create anything until it’s already sold. If you can, pre-sell, even if it’s a coaching package.”
She also recommends not shying away from one-on-one early on because you get value from those one-on-one conversations. “Even if it’s a free strategy call that you’re giving people, you’re hearing their questions, what’s working well, what’s not working for them.”
Creating Client Connection
Allie stresses the importance of connecting with clients online.
“I answer all of my own Instagram messages. I have a chat on my website – I don’t want to lose touch with my followers.”
She doesn’t recommend that a team member handle your comments because you’ll lose valuable input for developing your products.
Resources that are mentioned or add value to this episode: