The Art of Selling Online Courses

Recent episodes

1. 275 How To Build A Membership That Members Never Cancel

   Jul 31, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Alicia Katz Pollock built something most course creators never think to build. She took QuickBooks training, a topic most people assume is dry and functional, and turned it into a tiered membership with over 50 courses, live community calls, a coaching program, five books, a podcast, and CPE accreditation that accounting firms actually require their staff to complete. Dominik sat down with Alicia to trace how that happened. She started with a single beginner bootcamp, then kept adding courses every time a client asked about something new. Banking feeds, reconciliation, payroll, sales tax. Eventually she had enough that selling them one at a time felt expensive for the buyer, so she built a membership instead. One thing Alicia said that stuck with Dominik: she fully expected members to stay one year and then leave once they'd worked through the curriculum. That didn't happen. People have been in the community for years, and when she asked why, the answer wasn't the 50 courses. It was the twice-monthly round-robin calls where members bring their real client problems and work through them together. There's also a fascinating section on the four years she spent earning NASBA accreditation for CPE credits, what it took, and how it eventually opened the door to selling seats directly to accounting firms. Alicia is honest, specific, and genuinely fun to listen to. I think you'll enjoy this one. Check out Alicia's work: 🌐 https://royalwise.com/

2. 274 10,000 New Email Subscribers Monthly From This One Technique

   Jul 28, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Milo Andreo built one of the biggest piano teaching businesses on the internet in Portuguese. Over a million subscribers, 26,000 students, a full course platform with a community, a music library, the works. Then he decided to do it all again, in English, from scratch. Two years in, his English channel Easy Fast Piano is already past 170,000 subscribers and 10,000 students. And he's running both at the same time, producing videos in two languages every single week. I had a great conversation with Milo about what that actually looks like. We got into his lead magnet system, where he creates a free PDF for every single video he publishes, which is now bringing in around 10,000 new email subscribers every month. We also talked about the difference between translating a business and actually adapting it, because Milo learned the hard way that the Brazilian market and the English-speaking market are not the same thing, even if the teaching content is identical. Milo also shared how he's using AI across pretty much every part of his business and personal life right now. His answer when I asked where he'd found it helpful was just, "Everything. You name it, I'm using." We also got into survey strategy, segmenting email lists by musical goals, and why long-form YouTube content converts to course buyers in a way that nothing else really matches. I think you'll enjoy this one. Check out Milo's work: 🌐 http://www.miloandreo.com 📸 http://instagram.com/@miloandreo ▶️ http://youtube.com/@miloandreo

3. 273 Coaches Told Her to Go High-Ticket. She Said No.

   Jul 24, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Lauren Bateman has 650,000 YouTube subscribers, nearly 900 videos, and over 58 million views teaching guitar to older beginners. She also survived cancer at 16, quit a pharmaceutical job in her twenties, opened a brick-and-mortar music school, and now runs the online side of her business with a small team of VAs and an editor. There is a lot going on. What I loved about this conversation was how clearly Lauren has thought about the trade-offs in her business. She knows exactly why she will not do high-ticket coaching, exactly what kind of life she is trying to protect, and exactly what kind of teaching lights her up. Not many course creators at her level are this honest about what they want and what they are willing to give up to get it. We also got into some real tactical detail. Lauren has two different sales pages with different headlines for different traffic sources, and she has the A/B testing data to explain why. I walked through what I think she could do to significantly increase revenue from her YouTube traffic, and she was genuinely open to testing it. The back-and-forth on email list strategy, lead magnets, and conversion rates was one of the more practical exchanges we have had on the show in a while. And then there is the personal side, which surprised me a bit. Lauren said she has spent 20 years working toward a specific goal, and she has reached it. Now she is working with a coach to figure out what comes next. That part of the conversation stuck with me. I think you will enjoy this one. Check out Lauren's work: 🌐 https://www.laurenbateman.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/thelaurenbateman/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/LaurenBateman

4. 272 My Free Content Is Why My Course Sells

   Jul 21, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Gabriel lost his job. While applying for new ones and getting rejected, he started teaching Spanish online and writing short stories for his students. The feedback was so good he thought, why not share this with the world? Eighteen months later, his site Fluent with Stories is pulling in 250,000 visitors a month through SEO, adding close to 2,000 new email subscribers every month, and his debut A1 Spanish course launched to testimonials most creators would genuinely envy. And he's been taking it seriously for all of five months. I sat down with Gabriel to talk through how he built all of this, what's driving the SEO traffic, how Amazon KDP became an unexpected lead generation engine, and where the gaps still are in his funnel. We also got into the tripwire conversation, single vs double opt-in, and why his sales page is missing the one section that could make a real difference to conversions. Gabriel is one of those guests where you're just rooting for him the whole way through. He's humble, he listens to his audience, he builds what they ask for, and he has a genuinely different product in a very crowded niche. The bit where he talks about his readers begging to support him before the course even existed, that one stuck with me. If you're early in building your course business and wondering whether the fundamentals actually work, this one is for you. I think you'll really enjoy it. Check out Gabriel's work: 🌐 http://www.fluentwithstories.com

5. 271 Why 170 Followers Was Enough to Sell My Course

   Jul 17, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Jeff Alipio had 170 followers when he launched his first course. Most of them were friends and family. He sold to nearly 500 students anyway, almost all of them complete strangers. Dominik sat down with Jeff, a Philippines-based video editor and course creator with over 15 years in the industry, to talk about how he pulled that off, and why he thinks the obsession with follower count is one of the biggest traps course creators fall into. What came through clearly in this conversation is how simply Jeff thinks about audience quality versus audience size. He makes the point that a million followers who came to you for prank videos are not going to buy your video editing course, and he built his entire growth strategy around that idea. Facebook ads, targeted tightly, finding the specific people who actually wanted what he was selling. Jeff also talked through what he teaches inside Video Made Easy, his course for Filipino freelancers starting from zero. It goes well beyond editing basics. There are modules on storytelling, personal branding, profile optimization, and a freelancer mindset section about building a career that AI cannot easily displace. The end of the conversation got practical. Jeff's advice for anyone who has the skills but hasn't launched yet: stop waiting for the perfect course and start with what you already know. The overthinking is the thing that's actually slowing you down. Check out Jeff's work: 🌐 https://jefalipio.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/jef_alipio/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@jeffreyfernandoalipio7209

6. 270 How I Fund My Boat Business With Online Courses

   Jul 14, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail I sat down with Dan Lee, a self-taught wooden boat builder based in the Cotswolds, who turned a lifelong obsession into a full-time business, funded almost entirely by online courses he runs from a farm workshop. It's a genuinely great story. Dan started building model boats at eight and full-size ones at seventeen. When COVID hit and his previous business, making tree-shaped bookcases, looked like it was going to collapse overnight, he decided to go all in on something he'd always wanted to do. He built a website, started modernising old wooden boat plans using CAD and CNC technology, created his first online course on varnishing, and never really looked back. What I found fascinating talking to Dan is how clearly he's thought about why online teaching actually works better than in-person for hands-on crafts. The camera angles, the controlled lighting, the ability to overlay animations showing wet edges drying in real time. It's not a compromise on the in-person experience, it's genuinely better for teaching the foundations. We also got pretty honest about where Dan's business has room to grow. He's doing well with Facebook ads and his courses are covering his workshop overheads, but his email list is sitting mostly untouched. We talked through what that could mean if he actually started using it properly, and the numbers are exciting. If you're building a course business around a physical craft or a niche skill, I think you'll get a lot from this one. Check out Dan's work: 🌐 http://www.danleeboatbuilding.co.uk 📸 https://www.instagram.com/danleeboatbuilding ▶️ https://www.instagram.com/danleeboatbuilding

7. 269 60 Million Views Teaching Tapping

   Jul 10, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Looking for predictable revenue growth? Access our FREE 7-day roadmap to increase your income without paid ads or sales calls! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmap Brad Yates has 425,000 YouTube subscribers and 60 million views, built over nearly two decades. He has never once sat down to plan a content strategy. I had a genuinely fun conversation with Brad for this episode. He started out as an actor, trained as a hypnotherapist when his first child was on the way, stumbled into EFT tapping through a workshop, and then one day thought it would be cool to put a guided tapping video on YouTube. He uploaded it, figured he was done, and came back six months later with another idea. That's basically how the whole channel was built. What struck me most was how clearly Brad has thought about what he actually wants from his life and business, and how little he's willing to compromise on that. He talked about limiting the number of emails his marketing team sends, refusing to redo popular videos just because they performed well, and turning down tactics he knows would probably make him more money because they don't feel right. He quoted Bowie on why the mid-80s were the worst period of his career. It all hung together in a way that felt unusually honest for a business conversation. We also got into his product lineup, his two memberships, his evergreen programs, and a new platinum lifetime membership he recently launched. If you're curious how someone builds a real business almost entirely on free content and genuine purpose, Brad is a great example. I think you'll enjoy this one. Check out Brad's work: 🌐 https:///www.tapwithbrad.com ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@UCiHZMZejDS4RIxDdBwoie9A

8. 268 This Video Alone Paid Me $60,000

   Jul 7, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Need better results from your email campaigns? Get our FREE templates and see the difference with two proven email strategies! 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/templates Dr. Andrea Furlan is one of Canada's top pain physicians, a full professor at the University of Toronto, and a senior scientist at the country's largest hospital. She's also a YouTuber with over 830,000 subscribers and 78 million views, which her colleagues definitely did not see coming. When Andrea started her channel in 2019, she wasn't chasing subscribers. She just didn't have enough time in appointments to teach her patients everything they needed to know. So she started recording it. Her colleagues thought it was a strange move for a serious physician. She did it anyway. In this conversation, John sits down with Andrea to talk about how she built that audience, what she's learned about YouTube after 240 long-form videos, and where her business is headed. One shoulder exercise video she filmed in her home during the pandemic, hair a mess by the end of a full day of recording, has now crossed ten million views and generated over $60,000 in ad revenue on its own. They also get into the practical side of things: how Andrea runs two separate email lists for patients and healthcare professionals, how she uses AI to help develop scripts and thumbnail ideas, and the funnel advice John shares live on camera for growing her healthcare professional list faster. Andrea is thoughtful, generous with what she's learned, and genuinely funny. If you're a course creator who came from a professional background and wondered whether your credentials could translate into an audience, this one is worth your time. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Check out Andrea's work: 🌐 https://www.doctorandreafurlan.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/dr.andrea.furlan ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@DrAndreaFurlan

9. 267 From a €5 Ebook to €7,500 Coaching

   Jul 6, 2026

   Send us Fan Mail Timotej Bonifer grew up in Slovenia, never studied English formally, and now coaches entrepreneurs around the world to sound like native speakers. His secret? Twelve years on a microphone playing video games. The same habit that probably worried his parents turned out to be the thing that built his entire career. Dominik sat down with Timotej to talk about how he built Flip English, what it actually takes to turn an obsession into a business, and why he genuinely believes non-native speakers make better English teachers than the natives do. That last one tends to annoy people. Timotej makes a pretty good case for it. They also get into the real stuff, the Facebook ads that do the heavy lifting, a Black Friday email disaster that tanked his deliverability for a year, why his School community experiments mostly flopped, how he went from doing every sales call himself to building a team of ten coaches, and the moment he raised his price to seven and a half thousand euros and a client just said yes without blinking. There's a lot of honesty in this one. Timotej doesn't sugarcoat what went wrong, and his advice to his younger self, the kid with the headset on streaming to a few hundred people on Twitch, is just two words: sell earlier. If you're building a course or coaching business and thinking about where to focus your energy, I think you'll find something useful here. Check out Timotej's work: 🌐 https://timotejbonifer.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/timotejbonifer/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@timotejbonifer

10. 266 Meet the Violin Teacher Behind 9,000,000 YouTube Views

    Jun 30, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail 📨 Get your lead magnet ideas here: https://funnels.datadrivenmarketing.co/8-highest-converting-lead-magnets-a Most people who build a 122,000-subscriber YouTube channel and help over 20,000 students learn an instrument have figured out marketing. Beth Blackerby hasn't. And somehow it still worked. Beth is the founder of Violin Lab, one of the very first structured online violin curricula on the internet, launched before "online course" was even a phrase people used. She started in 2007 because she noticed that adults learn the violin completely differently from children, and almost nobody was teaching to them. So she built something from scratch with no playbook, no subscription model to copy, and no real marketing strategy. In this conversation with John, they talk through how her tiered membership works, from $35 a month for full curriculum access to $95 a month for weekly personal video feedback. They get into why she built loyalty pricing that dropped members down to $10 a month over time, what made her vibrato video the one that changed everything, and why she hid a marketing trick inside one of her most popular videos that had people emailing her every single day. John also walks Beth through what an email funnel could look like built on top of everything she's already created, and it's one of those conversations where you can hear someone seeing a whole new layer of possibility for the first time. Beth also talks about the in-person workshops she's been running since 2012, including one at a music retreat outside London, and why playing together in a room is something no online forum can replace. She's warm, honest, and genuinely funny. I think you'll enjoy this one. Check out Beth's work: 🌐 https://violinlab.com/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@violinlab

11. 265 Here's How I Hit $100K/Mo With 0 Sales Calls

    Jun 26, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Scott Gardiner does around $100K a month and has never taken a single sales call. No closers, no discovery Zooms, no objection handling. Every offer is evergreen, bought at whatever hour suits the buyer, while Scott is somewhere else entirely. He helps men whose marriages are falling apart, guys whose partners have already said they're done. And he got into it the hard way. Six years ago his own wife told him she was done. Dominik sat down with Scott to hear the full story, from being made redundant during COVID, spending $15,000 on a mentor he could barely afford, grinding through a fitness offer with four offshore setters and $2,000 a week in ads, to the moment his wife said she couldn't do it anymore, and how that sent him in a completely different direction. They got into a lot of the practical stuff too. Why Scott thinks sales calls are only necessary if your offer is unconvincing. How he uses a $7 sprint course to feed his weekly subscription. The difference between problem-aware and solution-aware buyers, and why so many creators are building audiences full of the wrong one. What his email strategy actually looks like, three to five times a week, workshops, loom videos, and a document with payment at the end of a survey. And his kitchen table test for anyone thinking about launching something new. Scott is one of those guests who has clearly thought hard about all of this, and is honest about the mistakes along the way. I think you'll get a lot out of this one. Check out Scott's work: 🌐 https://elevatedman.com.au/q 📸 https://www.instagram.com/iamscottgardiner/

12. 264 You Don't Need New Courses. Sell What You Have.

    Jun 23, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Most productivity coaches tell you to do more. Carl Pullein built a business teaching people to do less, and better. And it's working to the tune of around $300,000 a year. I sat down with Carl recently and really enjoyed this one. He's a British productivity coach based in Seoul, South Korea, with over 150,000 YouTube subscribers, 17 million views, and an email list of 25,000 to 30,000 people. He built all of it over ten years, one video a week, around two proprietary frameworks he developed himself. We talked about who he's actually helping, how his business breaks down between courses and coaching, and what's driven his growth. But honestly the most interesting part of the conversation was watching Carl work through some things in real time. He knew he was leaving money on the table with his YouTube promotions and his email list growth, and we got into the specifics of what he could change and why it would make such a difference. He's also thinking bigger. He wants $500,000 this year and $10 million by 2030, and he's got a clear idea of how corporate training fits into that picture. Carl's a thoughtful guy who's built something real, and he's genuinely honest about where he's been too relaxed and what he's going to do about it. That combination makes for a great conversation. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Check out Carl's work: 🌐 http://www.carlpullein.com ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@Carl_Pullein

13. 263 Why Email Beats YouTube for Course Sales

    Jun 19, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Alex Dunitz has built one of the top Italian language learning channels on YouTube. 266,000 subscribers, nearly 30 million views, a custom app with gamification, private lessons, group courses, books, webinars, trips to Italy. The whole thing. And yet, when I sat down with him, the first thing that struck me was how much opportunity he was sitting on without fully realising it. Alex is brilliant at what he does. His co-host Marta Cappellini spends around eight hours preparing a single ten-minute video. They have a genuine teaching philosophy, a real community, students who argue with them about lost points on the app. The product is genuinely good. But like so many course creators I talk to, the gap between what they've built and what they're earning is bigger than it needs to be. We talk about how Passione Italiana grew from a local adult college side hustle into a global brand, why Marta was such a turning point for the channel, and what Alex calls the "euro drop" moment, his version of the penny dropping when a student finally gets it. We also get into the gamification system he's built on his website, including a points and ranking structure where students can rise from peasant all the way to emperor using Roman coins called Sesterzi. Genuinely fun stuff. Then I put on my consultant hat for a bit and we have an honest conversation about funnels, email lists, and why pointing YouTube viewers at every product at once might be the thing holding the revenue back. Alex takes it well. Better than well, actually. I think you'll enjoy this one. Check out Alex's work: 🌐 https://www.passione-italiana.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/passioneitaliana.official/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@UC8gGkW17A_kbDCVNGvzGMrw

14. 262 How to Build a Tripwire From Your Main Offer

    Jun 16, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Get your tripwire product ideas here: 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwire Derek Callan has been coaching business English for over 22 years, has clocked more than 10,000 hours of in-company training, and has built a YouTube channel with 250,000 subscribers and nearly 10 million views. He is, by any measure, someone who knows his stuff. So what I really wanted to get into with him was the messier side of the journey, figuring out who your real customer is, what they actually want to buy, and how to build a funnel that lines up from first click to paid client. Derek recently launched a high-ticket one-to-one coaching programme targeting professionals who freeze under pressure, presentations, meetings, the calls that matter. He sold out his founding five spots from a small segment of his email list. We talked through where to go from there, how to price it, and a specific idea around selling a paid assessment as a tripwire that leads cleanly into the main programme. We also got into what he learned from our Instant Course Sales programme, why mindset is the biggest barrier in language learning, and what it actually looks like to try to align your YouTube content, your lead magnets, and your offers when you have several courses running at once. Derek is genuinely great to talk to. Warm, thoughtful, honest about what is and isn't working. And the bit near the end about asking his wife to summarise the podcast for him... I will say no more. You will enjoy that part. Check out Derek's work: 🌐 https://www.derekcallan.com/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@derekcallan-englishforpros

15. 261 How AI Is Crushing YouTube Traffic

    Jun 12, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Want to 2-10x your email list size quickly? Download our FREE Double Your Email List Guide 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guide There's a guitar teacher in Colombia who has nearly 600,000 YouTube subscribers, has taught over 70,000 students, and is personally answering WhatsApp messages from every new student himself. And that last part is completely intentional. I sat down with Miguel Martinez, founder of ClasesDeGuitarra.com.co, to talk about what's actually happening to online course businesses right now, especially in the education space. Miguel has been doing this since 2012 and he's seen a lot change, but nothing like the last 12 months. YouTube reach for his channel has dropped to around 500 views in the first 48 hours of posting. The same video on Facebook? 20,000 to 30,000 views. So he adapted. What I found really refreshing about Miguel is his philosophy around AI. Instead of trying to automate everything, he's doing the opposite. Weekly live classes, personal WhatsApp replies, a lean email list he cleans every three months so only engaged readers stay on it. He genuinely believes the answer to AI is to be more human, and he's building his entire business around that idea. We also got into TikTok, which is working for him in ways most course creators never figure out, including a smart insight about why you won't see TikTok showing up in your referral analytics even when it's driving real traffic. Miguel's market is Latin America, his courses top out at $79, and he's making this work on his own terms. It's a really different perspective from most guests we have on, and I think that's exactly why it's worth your time. Hope you enjoy it. Check out Miguel's work: 🌐 https://clasesdeguitarra.com.co/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/clasesdeguitarracomco/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/clasesdeguitarracomco

16. 260 Stop Launching New Courses. Do This Instead.

    Jun 9, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Get your tripwire product ideas here: 👉🏼 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwire Natalia Rethmeyer had 80,000 YouTube subscribers and not a single person on her email list. No tripwire, no funnel, no strategy. Just videos going out every week into what felt like a void. That's where Dominik sat down with her for this one, and what came out of it was one of the more honest conversations we've had on the show about what it actually takes to build something that lasts. Natalia moved to Germany from Ukraine 12 years ago, couldn't speak the language despite three years of studying it, worked as a waitress while trying to get her masters, and eventually built Learn German Fast into a proper online course business with a team, a feedback system, and a list that grows by around 4,000 subscribers every month. She doesn't chase trends. She hasn't launched a new product in years. And her revenue keeps growing anyway. They get into how her email promotions actually work, why she sends around 20 emails in a two-week window and why it works, where her funnel has real gaps (Dominik is pretty direct about that), how she built a course with live teacher feedback that nobody else in her space was doing, and what she'd go back and tell herself if she could. Her answer to that last one is not what you'd expect. Dominik also pushes her on surveys, tripwires, order bumps, and the stuff most course creators avoid thinking about. She takes all of it in good spirit and it makes for a genuinely useful conversation. I think you'll like this one. Check out Natalia's work: 🌐 https://learngermanfast.de/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/learn.german.fast/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/c/LearnGermanFast

17. 259 Make Something Once, Sell It Forever

    Jun 5, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail 2-10x your email list size in just 3 steps 📩 https://datadrivenmarketing.co/guide Abbie Emmons built a YouTube channel closing in on 600,000 subscribers, 7,000 students across her courses, a Patreon membership she 10x'd in six months, and a traditionally published book on the way. And she teaches people how to write novels. In this episode, I sit down with Abbie to pull apart how she actually built and runs her business. We get into the move from Patreon to her own membership site, why she prices and sells courses both inside and outside the membership, and how she turned $3 templates into a surprisingly meaningful revenue stream by simply deciding to stop giving them away for free. One moment that really stood out was Abbie describing how a single quiz video brought in around a THOUSAND new email subscribers. We also get honest about something a lot of creators struggle with. Abbie openly says her courses "kind of sit dormant" when she isn't actively promoting them, and the two of them dig into why that happens and what to do about it. I walk through the problem-agitation-solution email framework we use to give creators a real reason to talk about their courses, not just when something new launches. If you're building a creator-led course business and you've ever felt weird about promoting what you've made, this one's for you. Check out Abbie's work: 🌐 http://www.abbieemmonsauthor.com 📸 http://www.instagram.com/makeyourstorymatter ▶️ http://www.youtube.com/abbieemmons

18. 258 Why Shorts Get Views but Don't Make Money

    Jun 2, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Grow your course revenue up to 30% in 7 days - no paid ads, no sales calls 📈https://datadrivenmarketing.co/roadmap Ross Rosenberg has 38 million YouTube views, over 200,000 books sold in 12 languages, and a podcast in the top 2% globally. Ross is one of the world's leading voices on codependency and narcissistic abuse. He founded the Self-Love Recovery Institute back in 2013 and has been building his audience online ever since, mostly by figuring things out as he went, which is both the charm and the challenge of his story. We talked about how a throwaway tip at a dinner party got him onto YouTube before almost anyone else in his field. We got into why the shift from long-form to short-form content nearly crushed his business model, and what he's doing differently now to rebuild. He was refreshingly candid about a marketing company he hired that sent him clickbait scripts he flatly refused to follow, why his curated 10,000-person email list carries a 30 to 40 percent open rate, and what he's trying to get in place before he steps back at 67. Ross isn't your typical "here's the funnel that made me a million dollars" guest. He's someone who built something genuinely significant, navigated a slowdown with honesty, and is still pushing forward on his own terms. I found his perspective really refreshing. Hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Check out Ross's work: 🌐 https://www.selfloverecovery.com 📸 https://www.instagram.com/rossrosenberg_slri/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/rossrosenberg

19. 257 Stop Chasing Trends. Build What You Believe In

    May 26, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Eddie van Dongen spent years doing what most musicians dream of. Touring Europe, playing 200-show theater runs, recording, performing. And then COVID hit, and overnight there was nothing. No gigs, no income, no plan. That moment forced him to ask a question he'd never had to ask before: what would it look like to actually build a business, not just be a freelancer hoping the phone rings? Eddie is a professional drummer from Rotterdam, endorsed by major brands and featured on Dutch national TV. But what makes his story genuinely interesting is how he got from that COVID wake-up call to running Eddie's Drum Academy, an online platform built around a completely different way of teaching drums. Not fill packs, not lick libraries, but a creative framework that teaches drummers how to think. In this conversation, Eddie and I got into a lot. His burnout at music college and how studying meditation changed not just his playing but his whole approach to business. Why he believes you have to be okay with being ignored if you're building something real. His Meta ads funnel selling a 37-euro ebook with a 2.5 to 3.5 ROAS. How his order bumps are converting around 40%. And what he's working toward next. He's honest, thoughtful, and clearly someone who built this from scratch with no marketing background. I think you'll really enjoy this one. Check out Eddie's work: 🌐 https://eddiesdrumacademy.com/ 📸 https://www.instagram.com/eddievandongendrums/ ▶️ https://www.youtube.com/ ⁨@eddievandongendrums⁩

20. 256 How I Built a 6-Figure Online Business (20 Hours/Week)

    May 22, 2026

    Send us Fan Mail Gillian Perkins runs a multi-six-figure online business, has over 700,000 YouTube subscribers, and works fewer than 20 hours a week. She's also a homeschool mum of six. If you've ever wondered whether that kind of setup is actually possible, this episode is a pretty good answer. John sat down with Gillian to talk through how she structures her courses and cohorts, why she's stopped running tripwire funnels with her organic audience, and why she actually leads with her most expensive product first. That last one goes against most funnel advice you'll hear, and her reasoning for it is worth listening to carefully. They also get into webinars, which Gillian is pretty blunt about. She says 10% conversion is her standard, and anything under that feels like a flop to her. She breaks down exactly which price points make sense for webinars and which ones don't, which is genuinely useful if you're trying to figure out where they fit in your own business. There's also a great section on how she found and hired her integrator, how she thinks about building a small team without losing her lifestyle, and why shrinking her team actually made the business more enjoyable and sometimes more profitable. Gillian has been making videos about online business since 2017 and has clearly thought carefully about how to build something sustainable. A lot of what she shares here is quietly counterintuitive. I think you'll get a lot out of this one. Check out Gillian's work: 🌐 https://gillianperkins.com 🌐 https://creatorfasttrack.com 🌐 https://startupsociety.com 📸 https://instagram.com/gillianperkinsonline/ ▶️ https://youtube.com/gillianperkinsonline/