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- [00:00]
Narrator/Announcer
For most people, the end of the year means food, presents, parties and New Year's resolutions, but for business owners, it can mean ugh, paperwork. When that fiscal year ends, you have to start thinking about taxes and separating the old year from the new year when it comes to record keeping. And bleh. If you don't have a practical system in place, this can be one big headache. Our tip for 2026 make the switch to Intuit QuickBooks because transforming your cash flow can help you transform your with QuickBooks Money Tools, your accounts payable and receivables are in sync in one powerful platform, which means you get clean, accurate books that update automatically. And there are fewer manual tasks like chasing down invoices and data entry. As a bonus, that also means less passwords to remember and apps to toggle through. QuickBooks Money tools will help you get paid faster, pay bills smarter, and even get access to funding when opportunities strike. Tax season is just around the Corner, and with QuickBooks Solutions, you'll be organized, confident and ready. Get control over your cash flow in 2026. Check out QuickBooks Money tools today. Learn more at QuickBooks.com money Again, that is QuickBooks.com money terms apply. Money Movement services are provided by Intuit Payments, Inc. Licensed as a Money Transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services.
- [01:30]
Nicole Lapin
I have started quite a few businesses over the years. Most of them have been extremely successful, but there are one or two that will just file under Learning Experience. But learning is always part of owning a business. There is just so much to know. That's why starting your business with Northwest Registered Agent can be a way to boost yourself up the learning curve. Northwest Registered Agent has been helping small business owners and entrepreneurs launch and grow businesses for nearly 30 years. They are the largest registered agent and LLC service in the US with over 1500 corporate guides. Real people who know your local laws and can help you and your business every step of the way. Northwest is your one stop business resource. Learn how to build a professional website, what annual filings your business needs to stay in good standing and simple explanations of complicated business laws. Build your business identity fast with Northwest Registered Agent and get access to thousands of free resources, forms and step by step guides without even creating an account. With Northwest, privacy is automatic. They never sell your data and all services are handled in house because privacy by default is their pledge to all customers. Don't wait. Protect your privacy, build your brand and get your complete business identity in just 10 clicks and 10 minutes. Visit northwestregisteredagent.com helpwantedfree and start building something amazing. Get more with Northwest registered agent@northwestregisteredagent.com helpwanted free. Some of my best employees have come from recommendations from Jason. But what happens when you don't have a Jason or Jason doesn't have someone to recommend? That's when you have to turn to hiring platforms where it can feel impossible to get your ad in front of the right candidates. If you're looking to build your own amazing team, Indeed is the platform I'd recommend. Stop struggling to get your job. Post even seen on other sites. Get matched with and hire quality candidates who can drive the results you need. Join the 3.3 million employers worldwide that use Indeed to connect with quality talent that fits their needs. Spend less time searching and more time actually interviewing candidates who check all your boxes. Less stress, less time, more results. Now with Indeed Sponsored Jobs and listeners of this show will get a $75 sponsored job credit to help get your job the premium status it deserves@ Indeed.com podcast, just go to Indeed.com podcast right now and support our show by saying you heard about Indee Indeed on this podcast. Indeed.com podcast terms and conditions apply. Hiring do it the Right Way with Indeed.
- [04:21]
Narrator/Announcer
This is Help Wanted, the show that tackles all the big work questions you cannot ask anyone else.
- [04:27]
Jason Pfeiffer
I'm Jason Pfeiffer, Editor in chief of
- [04:29]
Nicole Lapin
Entrepreneur Magazine, and I'm New York Times bestselling author and money expert expert Nicole Lapin.
- [04:33]
Jason Pfeiffer
The helpline is open
- [04:37]
Morgan Lavoy
the most popular product launch in the last couple of years wasn't chatgpt or even the latest iPhone. It was you.
- [04:44]
Nicole Lapin
Whether it's through something like a masterclass or even Instagram shops, more and more people are monetizing their skills through coaching,
- [04:51]
Morgan Lavoy
consulting or teaching classes. This can be a really smart way to make money doing what you're good at. And because it's all you, it could be something you do as a side hustle or your main hustle. You can scale it up as much or as little as you want. So yeah, this all sounds great until you get into that little detail of pricing. How do you put a price on yourself? That is the exact question that made
- [05:15]
Nicole Lapin
listener Kelsey call into the helpline.
- [05:17]
Morgan Lavoy
Here she is.
- [05:21]
Jason Pfeiffer
Kelsey, welcome to Help Wanted.
- [05:22]
Kelsey
Thank you so much. Happy to be here.
- [05:24]
Morgan Lavoy
Happy to have you.
- [05:25]
Jason Pfeiffer
So Kelsey, you wrote in with a question. Why don't you tell us what your question is?
- [05:30]
Kelsey
Absolutely. So I have been having a really tough time with pricing digital products, so I am a copywriter who also teaches courses for entrepreneurs and I also have a membership on how people can sell themselves without sounding salesy. And I've had that course for a few years now, as well as other products like templates and digital downloads. But I feel like the market has changed so much since I launched that course in 2020. And just people's attention spans are different, the economy is different, and I would really love guidance from you all on how to price digital products and services for the current market.
- [06:18]
Jason Pfeiffer
Perfect. So, Kelsey, Nicole and I know many things, but exactly what you're asking, we know someone who knows even more. His name is Matt. Matt, welcome to the show. Tell us who you are.
- [06:29]
Matt Gartland
Thrilled to be here, guys. Thank you, Kelsey, for the question. Matt, an entrepreneur. I run SPI Media, if anyone knows, it's smart, passive income and just generally trying to help a lot of startups and small business owners think about really important decisions so that they can become more profitable and sustainable over time.
- [06:47]
Jason Pfeiffer
So, Matt, that was great. Now please stand by because before we get to pricing, Nicole and I just want to know a little bit more about Kelsey and your background and how you got into this business and then we're going to get into your pricing.
- [07:00]
Kelsey
Absolutely. I launched my company in 2018, magic words, copywriting. That snowballed into realizing, wow, I only have so many hours in the day, I can only take so many one on one clients, but I want to help more people. So shout out. Matt, smart passive income brain went. I need to create a digital course because I want to reach more people. I want to more people sell themselves without feeling gross or sounding salesy. So I created my signature program copy class, which has now served over 8,000 students, which blows my mind every time I say it, and created essentially over the course of a few years this digital product suite. But what I've noticed both for myself and for my students is that 2023 is a different, different animal. And we don't know what we don't know. The best thing any entrepreneur can do is come to something with beginner's mind and say, okay, I feel that something is different, something is changing. The same tactics are no longer working. So what do I need to learn about how people are thinking about investing in themselves, investing in copywriting, investing in digital products so that I can connect with them rather than sell to them.
- [08:25]
Morgan Lavoy
I'd love to know from the data and from the signups that you've had, were those 8,000 students primarily over 2020 or what was that? The cliff?
- [08:35]
Kelsey
Great question. So the initial huge influx of the vast majority of students were from course bundles that I participated in in 2020 when I launched almost as like beta or data gathering. Because I wanted to know is this course going to be something that people want? What is the response going to be like, how do I shift the course? And it was just this flood of students. Since then it has been a very steady, almost, I would say, plateau. Like it's about 10 to 20 signups every launch and the price has increased over time to reflect the value of the course.
- [09:19]
Jason Pfeiffer
Okay. It feels unfair to carry on any longer without bringing Matt Gartland in because what you're describing is what he has experienced because Smart Passive Income, the brand that he runs, was a courses business and has transformed in part because of what you're saying there. So Matt, jump in here. What are you hearing?
- [09:41]
Matt Gartland
Everything that Kelsey is saying is very personal in terms of. Yeah. Our journey at spi in terms of my friends that are creators as well. Entrepreneurs with little small essentially media companies. Right. And thinking about how we are creating different content products at different price points. I can concur at least bigger picture with Kelsey's observations going into the pandemic. Certainly post pandemic. The headwinds that we have faced ourselves and have had to adapt to in terms of how, how, you know, customer demand has been changing and what that demand then means when we do zero back in on how do we decide upon pricing strategies, not just the tactics of pricing or do I end up price and a 9 versus a 7 and some of that stuff. Right. But, but truly, how are we using pricing as a language to talk about value, to try to connect with them in a market based relationship? There's both a science side of this, there's a lot of math, but there's an art of it as well that even probably marries up quite nicely with copywriting. Because how do you position that inside of a proposition? Right.
- [10:45]
Morgan Lavoy
I think there's something very beautifully meta about this too. And I think it's important to just note that shrinks have shrinks, doctors have doctors, trainers have trainers. You're teaching other people. You're learning from Matt, who has been in this game for a really long time. So I love that. I would love to get a little granular too to sort of double click on the science part. And just if you could go through the numbers for us, like what is the pricing, what has the evolution been?
- [11:15]
Kelsey
Sure. So Copyclass used to be the only digital product that I offered and at the launch it was 297. It is a three and a half hour total course, four modules broken into different areas of copywriting designed for non writers. So the launch was 297, but in the bundles it was extremely, extremely discounted. The majority of the influx of the first wave of customers got it at an insane discount. Through the years, about every six to nine months I would do a relaunch where I would raise the price. The price is now 997 and the course has been updated for the current marketplace. It is like a completely redone rebranded course, but it went from 297 to 997. In the three years since I launched. I have also added products at different sort of pricing tiers. So there's this mid tier pricing which is more of templates and like mini courses that aren't that big signature program. And the pricing of those falls somewhere around, around like between 1 and $300. And then there is the low tier, like low price commitment products which are my membership, like a monthly membership where people just get a piece of prerecorded content every month that helps them move forward in their business. And then $7 it's going to be. Right now it's 47, it's recently launched.
- [13:01]
Morgan Lavoy
What's up with the 7?
- [13:03]
Kelsey
That's another question that I had. And actually I think was it Matt or Jason who said, you know, there's that science of ending it in a seven or ending it in a nine. That was something that a business coach told me years ago, like ending things in seven. Psychologically you get more sales so that's why it's ending in seven. But you know, I, that's just the data that I have gotten. If there's new data, lay it on me. For sure. Yes. So there's low, mid and high priced digital products. It's like a digital product suite in addition to the one on one freelance work that I do.
- [13:37]
Jason Pfeiffer
That's really helpful also because I'm sure somebody listening to this right now like fell off a couch as soon as you said that you raised this price from 297 to 997. Do people still buy it at a volume at 997? Because that is magic. If you could just take a price and jack it up and people will pay you more money. That sounds like the greatest thing in the world. Tell us about that.
- [13:59]
Kelsey
Sure. So I, when I launched it, I let the entire Internet know this is launch pric. This is not going to be around forever. This is like I'm trying to learn from my students on how this is going to Be adjusted. If you get in now, you'll have access for life. But this is going the way which of course created a sense of urgency which resulted in sales and the raising of the price. Again, this has happened over the course of three years and the course has grown shifted, adjusted. There's now a live teaching element. So the program itself has expanded. That said, I do not think I will raise it above 997 because of again just the feeling that I'm getting in the current market. I believe it's capped out for this program. The other thing that I see is there are courses that I have invested in and taken that have cost double that, that I don't think are as good as my course. I'm, you know, sorry to be a little conceited but like you gotta believe in your own course is great. Like the program is effing great and I believe in it.
- [15:14]
Jason Pfeiffer
So at least 997.
- [15:17]
Kelsey
Yeah, like at least. So I take both who am I trying to reach and like what is the realistic price point that I can deliver? Like I'm giving them this value. But I'm also mindful that most of the people taking this are small business owners or entrepreneurs who are, who have a small team or it's just them.
- [15:39]
Jason Pfeiffer
You know, some people will just say the price of something is what people are willing to pay for it. But Matt, you have priced many a product and also know how to structure exactly these kinds of things. So what are you hearing? Diagnose what Kelsey just said.
- [15:53]
Matt Gartland
A lot of what Kelsey is doing is great. So for to play back to just a little bit, you have what I would call or in do call a value stream. So from the sounds of it, you have tier structures, right? Or if you close your eyes and kind of visualize just almost like columns, low, medium, high, or even beyond three. It doesn't have to be three. And then so much about pricing, like you don't price products individually, you price them in context of your other offerings. And then the juxtaposition of the independent products, you know, from low to high, high to low, helps to inform the perceived value in terms of your branch reputation, in terms of your addressable market.
- [16:30]
Jason Pfeiffer
Right.
- [16:30]
Matt Gartland
The whole is greater than some of its parts. So the fact that it sounds like you have some version of that right now is fantastic. A lot of people that come to SPI that come to me even personally and ask these sorts of questions, they're trying to make individual decisions in a vacuum around like, hey, what should I price for this one course, right? Or this one new membership experience, or this one new coaching program, right? And they're. They're not seeing the forest from the trees.
- [16:53]
Jason Pfeiffer
I just also want to point out, as people are thinking about pricing and how strange in a way it is to talk about pricing of these particular products, because to be clear, this is a digital course that Kelsey made once. There is no cost of goods here every time somebody orders it. Kelsey does not have to assemble something with new materials that she purchased and then like box it up in a garage. This is just profit once you recouped whatever expense it was to put this thing together. So pricing, this is really just about understanding a market and nothing more, because there's no cost of goods to cover here. You're selling air, you're selling ideas, you're selling an experience. So. But. But Matt is. Matt is raising a finger, which means that I've said something that is only partially correct.
- [17:38]
Matt Gartland
I will say mostly correct, but. But I would submit that in an additive way, there is an asterisk here, and it fits into maybe larger market forces. So at an individual product level, especially with a DIY course, you're almost infinite profitability there. At a unit economic level, however, and here's the asterisk, a lot of us are attempting to reinvest in our business, right, to think about new product creation, to think about, you know, development of the next thing. So some of that profit, you know, will need to be reinvested as a cost back into other things. Kelsey has even said at least once you have redone the course or reinvested and updated it, right? Or three times even.
- [18:14]
Kelsey
Yes.
- [18:14]
Matt Gartland
So I, I submit here that there's a bit of a yes, and there's other costs. You know, a common question that I get from, you know, a whole spectrum of different entrepreneurs across different market segments is like, how much should I pay myself? Right? And then, you know, a lot of us that are working for ourselves, we want to make more over time. So how do I even think about paying myself more? Like, so costs change. Your budgets should, in fact grow if you want to pay yourself more. And then understanding that whole cost structure so that the pricing not just of, say, a DIY product, but your whole product catalog. And then as you might be doing sales discounts, bundling of some of these additional, you know, sales strategies and even tactics, right? To just generate volume of revenue, how much are you potentially undermine or cutting into that profit margin? If you don't have any bearing or loose bearing on your cost structures, you run the risk of putting yourself negative. Right. Even if your gross margin, even if that's really high, like you got to be careful, you know, in terms of some of that discounting or other sales strategies. If you don't have a command on, on your cost structures.
- [19:11]
Jason Pfeiffer
Kelsey, do you, do you pay yourself a set amount? How do you handle that?
- [19:16]
Kelsey
Yes, so I reinvest everything into a business account and then I pay myself a salary from that account.
- [19:25]
Morgan Lavoy
A regular salary. Like a monthly salary?
- [19:27]
Kelsey
Yes, like a monthly salary, yes. And here's another piece of the puzzle that I don't know if this is relevant or not, but for in the middle of those three years of building this, in the middle of that, I actually had a full time job as a content director for a influencer marketing platform. And during that time I did not run any major, you know, promos, launches, but I have more recently sort of relaunched into this being my only source of income. And that just started in January. So I'm about six months into really making this my full time only source of income.
- [20:04]
Matt Gartland
Well, congratulations. That's a milestone. Like that's, that's a big accomplishment and feat. You're very much in the next phase. So kudos. That's fantastic.
- [20:12]
Morgan Lavoy
Do you know like approximately or if you feel comfortable telling us approximately what your accounts payable are or approximately what you're selling so we understand like what the burn is.
- [20:21]
Kelsey
Yes. It is costing me a about, I would say like 700amonth to run my business. As far as vendors, fixed costs. As far as what I make monthly, it's extremely variable because the course, like the big money making course copy class launches twice a year. And those launches right now, like the most recent launch I believe made 15,000 and it has made anywhere between like 8 to 20,000 when I launched it. Over the course of the entire time that I've had it, looking at my numbers, over the course of three years, it has total made 60 grand for three years.
- [21:15]
Matt Gartland
Okay, that's very helpful. And again, congrats. Those are not small numbers. There's a couple interesting things that a lot of us in this space are contending with. Again, kind of post pandemic and where we see market forces going. You talk about kind of the big swings like the launch model, right. Over years past and we used to do that a ton. Right. And would have just major spikes right. In revenue generation and then lulls and then you really have to be good at your just fiscal management so that you're not cratering in between those, those big spikes. So there's increasingly a shift away from the one time product sale. Right. More into recurring revenue models. It brings that much more predictability right. Into a small business, especially one that is bootstrapped. And what we are seeing at SPI is not only is that an attractive thing for us as entrepreneurs, but it aligns with what consumers seem to want, which is a connection. Not one time opportunities to learn a thing.
- [22:11]
Jason Pfeiffer
Right.
- [22:11]
Matt Gartland
But really an ongoing, more truly interconnected kind of relationship. Right. And the technology advancements with platforms, with our ability to message in that way, we can adapt some of these learning experiences away from like DIY and we can actually have now integrated learning experiences. That's what we've done at spi, pivoted our whole model. And I know others are, you know, doing a lot of that as well. We started to turn that big boat because it's not easy, at least for us to, because we had so much momentum in one direction back in 2019, even before the pandemic hit. So we just got lucky that we were working in this direction before the pandemic hit. And then the pandemic hit and then like we had a thing in our pipeline ready to go. You know, that was almost done and we launched it in July of 2020.
- [22:57]
Kelsey
Are you speaking specifically about memberships as a product type?
- [23:01]
Matt Gartland
Yes, that's memberships. The prevailing focal point of interest of demand is about the peer to peer connections, about applying what you're learning, getting feedback, having safer spaces to test out copywri skills. Right. And I mean, and your, your skill is fantastic for this, right. People can test this, can submit a sample, copywriting can get feedback not just from you, but the power of a private network to be very clearly distinguished from a public social network. You know, there's increased disinterest in just doing things public social all the time. You know, people are craving fewer relationships or having a thousand memberships, right. Choosing one or two, you know, of a concentration point, having deeper levels of trust not just with the creator, but with the peer group that they are as into. Right. So yes, that's memberships. There's other forms. Cohort based courses is a wholly different product type. It kind of sits somewhere in between DIY education as a standalone learn on your own time sort of experience and full on kind of community powered course. You know, cohort based courses. You are in a peer group together, but it is temporary and it would be on you as the creator to define that when you could do this for your copywriting course, it's baselined as the DIY at 999. Going back to that relative context of how we can have a conversation through language, you know, using pricing. Okay, that's 997, but my cohort version, it's the same curriculum. Right. But we're going to do it together and we're going to do that across a four week period now. And we're going to do that in a cohort style. That's 3,000. Right. And then that's relatively juxtaposed against a very successful DIY product. So. But it is increasingly interesting to see these patterns of what, what people are giving emphasis to in terms of that demand, that the formal, like economic term for this is price elasticity. And it kind of boils down super quickly to this. It's like is, is your market seeing your product as a luxury or as a necessity? The more that you can position, not your whole product suite.
- [24:59]
Jason Pfeiffer
Right.
- [24:59]
Matt Gartland
Because you're going to have different things across this value stream. Right. Which one do you care maybe about the most? Which one is the real revenue driver for your business model? Okay. Does your audience see this thing more as a necessity? If true, you can change your price and demand shouldn't change as much, right?
- [25:16]
Jason Pfeiffer
Yeah.
- [25:17]
Matt Gartland
You know, so long as you're doing the work inside of a membership to continually kind of earn that value and that trust, you know, then that membership hopefully, you know, stays intact. Like that, that subscriber, that member in your community won't churn a cohort based course. You know, to me is, could be a really interesting thing to pilot even.
- [25:36]
Morgan Lavoy
Right.
- [25:36]
Matt Gartland
Or to even survey your, your existing students. Like you could even go to them and ask like, would a more guided experience through this curriculum be of real value? Traditionally with a DIY course you can expect, I mean, if you're lucky, 10 completion rates, you know, that's probably high, right. I have seen statistics coming from the cohort based community world of 50, 60, 70% completion rates because of that interconnected peer group, because they have access to you. Right. And that's a very valuable thing. That's something that even folks with a cohort based course product use in their own marketing, right. You know, in their copywritings to say, like, look, if you choose to go this way, engage with me. Yes, it's a higher price, but you're going to get that much more value out of it. Because I know that you're going to be that much more likely to actually learn and apply and complete, you know, this, this training program. Right.
- [26:29]
Jason Pfeiffer
You have to know what kind of problem you're solving before you can come up with a solution. You know, it's funny, all that makes me want to circle back to Kelsey because at the very beginning of this, even though ostensibly this conversation just started because you had a question about pricing, but then very quickly spiraled into a question about the entire model you knew going into it because it was part of what you built into your question, that something. There's a problem somewhere. There's a problem somewhere because you're seeing a shift in consumer behavior, even though you can see through the people who you help and because of your own expertise that, like, the things that you're teaching are that the value of that hasn't changed. So something else is changing. So I wonder if hearing all this and seeing the different ways from that, that you could be teaching this stuff or creating different experiences and also how that adds so much value that people are willing to double or triple how much they're willing to pay for it. If that has gotten you thinking about bigger changes to make.
- [27:33]
Kelsey
Yeah, absolutely. The newest offer that I have is a monthly membership because I had this hunch of exactly what Matt was describing of people wanting more accountability and actually more handholding through the writing of the copy. And something that I saw in my most recent launch of the program was that the live component, the live call, which I call over the shoulder writing, where someone would come to me with their project and I would actually share my screen, actually write in real time, and they could see how a professional copywriter would change the words. That was the most popular piece of the newest launch of the course.
- [28:12]
Narrator/Announcer
Stick around. Help wanted. We'll be right back. For most people, the end of the year means food, presents, parties and New Year's resolutions. But for business owners, it can mean paperwork. When that fiscal year ends, you have to start thinking about taxes and separating the old year from the new year when it comes to record keeping and. And bleh. If you don't have a practical system in place, this can be one big headache. Our tip for 2026, make the switch to Intuit QuickBooks, because transforming your cash flow can help you transform your business. With QuickBooks Money Tools, your accounts payable and receivables are in sync in one powerful platform, which means you get clean, accurate books that update automatically. And then there are fewer manual tasks like chasing down invoices and data entry. As a bonus, that also means less passwords to remember and apps to toggle through. QuickBooks Money tools will help you get paid faster, pay bills smarter, and even get Access to funding when opportunities strike. Tax season is just around the Corner. And with QuickBooks Money Solutions, you'll be organized, confident and ready. Get control over your cash flow in 2026. Check out QuickBooks Money tools today. Learn more at QuickBooks.com money Again, that is QuickBooks.com money terms apply. Money movement services are provided by Intuit Payments Inc. Licensed as a money transmitter by the New York State Department of Financial Services. Welcome back to Help Wanted. Let's get to it.
- [29:52]
Morgan Lavoy
Thank you, Kelsey, for sharing your numbers. I'm the numbers lady and I and I want to dig into these a little bit bit more. If you brought in $60,000 of revenue, doing some back of the napkin math, and you have 8,000 customers, that's seven bucks on average a person. So, Matt, do you think there's too many pricing tiers? It sounds like the concentration is more toward the lower end. Should she focus on that entry point?
- [30:22]
Kelsey
I would love to shed a little bit more light on those numbers just to make sure that the answer is, is as relevant as can be. The majority of those 8,000 people, I would say almost 7,000 of them were in those initial bundles where it was a really, really low entry price point. Like I mean, in a, you know, a bundle of a hundred courses. And mine was included. So just to sort of put that context in there as well as far as like cost per customer or revenue per customer.
- [30:54]
Morgan Lavoy
No, that's really helpful information. But it still sounds like it's concentrated in the entry point, price point. So should she double down on that and really go all in on the entry point versus spreading out the marketing time or the organic marketing on all the price points? Because it sounds like she's really doing well on the lower side of the, the pricing tier.
- [31:22]
Matt Gartland
Yeah. Especially with that additive context, Kelsey, that the, the majority, seven on eight of the students came in at that bundle price, which if I recall was like a 297, you know, kind of in its original form, then it suggests to me the997 might, might be too high, especially if we step out of that one individual price point. And again, look at the entire spectrum. Right. That entire value stream. If you considered strategically like, like chess, like two moves together. If you moved down the DIY price point to something even, like say even half of that. Right. If that just as a, as a hypothesis here. Right. If you move that down at the same time, you introduced a cohort based course version of that at say even 2000. Right. You know, which is a 4x multiple on value off of say like a 500ish or you know, 497 price point for a DIY. To me that does a couple things. One is at least in again my broader view of the market, there is a lot of downward pressure on pricing for a DIY education. We don't even sell DIY products. We used to, but we don't sell them anymore at that altitude. Two is then like doing that could generate more demand because kind of more broadly speaking, DIY education is becoming more of a luxury to go back to price elasticity. It's become something that isn't as critical to someone's learning journey. Right. To try to learn a skill. And therefore pricing is more sensitive to like their choice to buy a thing. Right. So the connective tissue, the peer group, those sorts of elements. However, even that over the shoulder writing, love that. Absolutely. That's fantastic. You know, speaks more to then potentially what is truly a necessity. People want to learn in that way. So launching a again a cohort based version of that same thing, the curriculum is the same, it's just the experience is different. Right?
- [33:12]
Kelsey
Yeah.
- [33:12]
Matt Gartland
And doing those in in combination could be a really interesting strategy.
- [33:17]
Kelsey
Yeah, I love that. That's extremely valuable advice and honestly makes me excited to dig into it and see how I can adjust what I already have to fit this new model.
- [33:30]
Morgan Lavoy
And I guess that brings up a question we should have asked out of the gate, I think are there revenue goals that you have? Because you mentioned that you watched other courses and yours are the best, obviously. But you know, there's one thing to have completion rates for the sake of building community and whatnot. But if you're really just in it for the revenue, you kind of don't care about completion rates. And the fact of the matter is probably nobody else is watching classes to the end, yours or otherwise. So it sounds like you're not only optimizing for revenue, so it'd be good to understand exactly what those goals are so we could help clearly back into them.
- [34:11]
Kelsey
Yeah, absolutely. I think that my answer is wanting to build a business that supports my life goals, not just my revenue goals. But of course revenue goals are a huge part of the life goals. So right now my revenue goal is to be making 5050 from recurring revenue, which is this digital product suite, courses, membership templates, digital products, and my one on one copywriting work, which is currently two thirds and I want to get it to 5050 by the end of the year while not sacrificing any of the revenue that I'm currently Making monthly and then moving from there. I would like the recurring revenue to take over having to do these one on one freelance projects more and more as time goes on because time for money. I love connecting with people in a one on one capacity, but. But the capacity is very limited. Right. There's only so many hours that you can help people in the week. So I actually am very excited about this idea of cohort based courses sort of being a happy medium of the two. Taking the product that I've already made and already invested a lot in and know is really valuable that people love and introducing new elements that do have more of me, for lack of a better way of putting it, more of a real time expertise element. Access, as you said, access and connection. Like starting to add more of that into what I've already built over time, which is this digital product suite that hopefully will continue to increase as far as revenue.
- [35:53]
Morgan Lavoy
And that's awesome to have more of you. The problem with that is that it's hard to to scale that. But if you don't want to scale that, then we shouldn't optimize for that. Matt, I know you've trying to figure out how to scale personalities too, and this is a recurring issue in this course game. If you were the CEO of Kelsey's company, what would you do next in terms of pricing?
- [36:14]
Matt Gartland
What I would do next is maybe even ask and just survey, you know, how your students want to continue to learn from you. Right. Because there's one thing to try to just always be acquiring new customers and the whole other thing is how do I continue to serve an existing customer base? Right. So there are ways that you could potentially explore beyond just the one course instead of curriculum that you have beyond the one to one service work that you also have as a part of your model, could that inform another course? Right. Not just taking the course you have today and turning it into the cohort based course version of that, but is there a second curriculum that you could develop and you're serving existing customers. Right. That can be a way, you know, from like a CEO standpoint to do more product development that is informed and validated before you even spend an hour of time or a dollar of budget you know, to build. You want to keep serving those customers because it's faster. Right. You don't have to take as much time, you don't have to potentially worry about new customer acquisition methods. Right. So as a CEO, especially with the traction you have and a lot of great success, I would strongly consider that especially maybe over the Next six months. As you think about changing and evolving, which I think is fantastic as a goal, that revenue composition, which would be the nerdy term for it, and shifting more into a 50, 50 sort of blend. Fantastic. So I, I'd start there and time box that for like, I think six months and be at that, at that threshold by the end of the year. So that you could have not only a better revenue composition set going into the new year, but also potentially another product. Right. That you're selling.
- [37:54]
Morgan Lavoy
How does that sound? Kelsey?
- [37:56]
Kelsey
That sounds wonderful. I love the idea of using six months, giving yourself like an end time to accomplish the goal. I think it is always, I mean, copywriter 101, you want to interview people and hear what they actually want. And also bringing in Jason's earlier point of that moment where something is hitting all of a sudden and you're like, okay, I gotta sit up and pay attention. Is there a way that I can use that information to create either potentially a new format of something I already have to make it more exciting to people or create potentially an entirely new product? So that is my homework and I'm really nerdily excited to dive in.
- [38:42]
Jason Pfeiffer
That's so exciting. Well, both of you, Matt Garland, SBI Media Spar Passive Income. Thank you for joining us.
- [38:49]
Matt Gartland
Us, my pleasure.
- [38:50]
Jason Pfeiffer
And Kelsey, foremost, magic words, copywriting. Thank you for joining us. We were going to charge you 297 for all the knowledge on the show, but I think we're raising it to 9.97 because it was so good. Really appreciate you being here.
- [39:03]
Narrator/Announcer
Help Wanted is a production of Money News Network.
- [39:06]
Jason Pfeiffer
Help Wanted is hosted by me, Jason
- [39:08]
Nicole Lapin
Pfeiffer and me, Nicole Lapin.
- [39:10]
Morgan Lavoy
Our executive producer is Morgan Lavoy. Do you want some help? Email our helpline at Help wantedoneynews Network for the chance to have some of your questions answered on the show. And follow us on Instagram at Money News and TikTokoneyNewsNetwork for exclusive content and to see our beautiful faces. Maybe a little dance.
- [39:28]
Jason Pfeiffer
Oh, I didn't sign up for that.
- [39:29]
Morgan Lavoy
All right, well, talk to you soon.
- [39:47]
Jason Pfeiffer
Sa.