.jpg)
The Art of Selling Online Courses
The Art of Selling Online Courses is all about online courses.
The goal of this podcast is to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. We are interviewing successful business owners, asking them questions on how they got to the point where they are right now, and checking how their ideas can help you improve your online course!
The Art of Selling Online Courses
201 Here’s How I Built a $20,000/Month Coaching Business
🔥 Work With Me - https://datadrivenmarketing.co/done-for-you
In this episode, you'll hear how Hugo Ortega transformed from a burned out materials engineer in Houston to a world-traveling superyacht captain who now runs a $20,000 per month coaching business.
Hugo reveals why he chose to build a high-ticket one-on-one coaching model instead of traditional online courses, charging over $2,000 per student while maintaining a 90% job placement rate. He explains his contrarian approach to course creation and why he believes you need to work harder on your course business than you ever did at your day job.
You'll discover how Hugo used Russell Brunson's Perfect Webinar formula to transform his sales process, spending six months crafting a webinar that now consistently converts prospects into high-paying clients. He breaks down his exact pricing strategy, starting at $500 and scaling to $2,500, and shares how he built his "concierge model" that creates premium value for students.
🔗 Connect with Hugo at https://www.superyachtsundayschool.com/ or
🔗 Follow @superyachtsundayschool on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/superyachtsundayschool/
#OnlineCourses #CourseCreation #Entrepreneurship #DigitalNomad #Yachting #CoachingBusiness #RussellBrunson #PerfectWebinar #OnlineBusiness #CourseCreator
I really didn't like what I was doing. I didn't care for the work, didn't care for the people. I felt very kind of jaded with the nine to five and the standard life that everyone had hyped it up so much and said that that's what we gotta do. I met this guy that had the coolest job I ever heard of. I was like, I need to do this. And that's what I did. So I just got back home and I started getting into the swing of it. We have 30,000 in tip money. We're gonna go travel Bali. I started selling courses in basically in 2023. Right now we're probably sitting between 10 and 20 per month on five figures.
SPEAKER_01:Hello and welcome to the Art of Selling Online Courses. We are here to get winning strategies at top performers in the online course industry. My name is Giantworth, and today's guest is you Ortega. Now you transformed his life from a burned-out materials engineer in Houston to a world-traveling super yacht captain, and now he helps others to do the same as well. So he left his corporate career to backpack the world and a chance encounter in Myanmar, introduced him to the super yacht industry, where he worked his way from complete beginner to licensed 500-ton captain in just eight years. And since launching in 2022, Hugo's coached 250 students more with a 90% job placement rate with a personalized system of one-on-one coaching, EV optimization, and career support. He's featured on Bravo's below deck. He's got 68,000 social media followers and he's become the go-to mentor for escaping the night of five, building an adventurous career on the high seas. Hugo, welcome to the show. Thank you, John. Thanks for having me. What an intro. Were you featured on I saw on your website on Tim Ferris as well? Was that like on the four-hour workweek blog or?
SPEAKER_00:No, no. So I was adjusting the logo. That was from the template that I had. Uh he's featured my mentor, but not me, no. But okay, that's my goal. That'd be cool, man, wouldn't it? Yes.
SPEAKER_01:So I kind of covered it there, but takes into a little bit more detail. Like who do you help and what do you help them with?
SPEAKER_00:I basically work with um anyone who's uh I like to call them travel misfits or people that are having that wonderlust bug. Um it spans a ton of different people and age ranges, but I'd say probably between 20 years old all the way up to 50, some people are having a career change and some people are getting fresh out of school, but they know that whatever they're doing, they don't like it. They want something else and they wanted to have travel. And I basically open the door for them to realize, like, hey, you know, there's a billion different careers out there that you could do, but there's one where you make a lot of money and you're traveling in a really cool and unique way, and I can help you get there.
SPEAKER_01:Sweet. That's funny when you uh mentioned us talking about Tim Ferris. It's like nearly everybody who I know who runs their own business, the the the order of steps was read four-hour work week, quit, started business, quit job, traveled the world. And it's like nearly all of my friends, that's that's their thing, right? And I've got people running multi-million dollar businesses who all they just at some point, 2008 onwards, they read that book and they went off and started like traveling. And a lot of them are travel misfits, you know, just like I just could I gotta keep moving, I've got to keep going places. What was it that got you started? Why did you um what how did you end up with that that uh chance encounter in Myanmar?
SPEAKER_00:Well, it it's it's really funny you say that because that book did trigger my um my entrepreneurship journey, and I'll talk about that in a little bit. But when I was working um previously, my old life, I was an engineer. Um, you know, my parents are immigrants to the US. I grew up in in the Bronx at first, and I I knew I wanted to get out of that kind of lifestyle. So I knew that university is kind of the quick hack or the the you know the the path well traveled. You do that, and you know you're gonna at least be guaranteed a certain amount of money, a certain amount of stability, and a good life. So I did that and I studied engineering, and it didn't take very long for me to realize that that wasn't my passion, that was my calling. I really didn't like what I was doing, I didn't care for the work, didn't care for the people, and I, you know, I was kind of I felt very kind of jaded with uh the nine to five and the standard life that everyone had hyped it up so much and said that that's what we got to do, the house, the picket fans, the dog, the girlfriend. And I um I never subscribed to- I don't like picket fences. And and thankfully, I was um I always had a travel bug within me. I had done small trips, and I I think a year before that, right after graduation, I had done a small trip to Thailand. But, you know, seeing so many people online, read reading Tim Ferriss's book and all these things, I was like, there's so many people that make a life work archetyped while traveling. So I was like, let me just take a trip, because that's very um kind of spontaneous for me. And being an engineer, you know, I was very like by the book. And I was like, I'll figure it out as I go. And I took this one-year backpacking trip and I went through Eastern Europe, I finally got to Southeast Asia, and I kept looking at the clock. I'm like, shit, I've got a few months left. I still haven't figured out my life. And that was when I was in Myanmar that I met um, I met this guy that had the coolest job I ever heard of. He was a yachty, he was a deck hand that worked in the Mediterranean in the summers and in the Caribbean in the winters, and his phone grid was just beautiful, crystal blue waters, hanging out in the coolest ports, these luxury super yachts that I never even knew that boats could look that beautiful. And honestly, the more I started talking to him, um, the more kind of I realized that he had no background in in boating and in what is it, in like being, you know, overly on the water, any crazy experience that would have made me think that that was why he was doing it. He had also been a university graduate, he had also been jaded with his life, and he he told me, Hey, yeah, if you were to want to travel the world and do this, like it's really easy. I'll teach you how to do it, and it's XYZ. And I started traveling with him. We were on a trip for about three months, and during that time, I kept meeting more and more yacht crew because his friends would all meet up, and that's why it kept seeming seeming alluring because they're like, Oh, yeah, we take six months off between jobs, or we, you know, we just left a boat, we have 30,000 in tip money, we're gonna go travel Bali. And you know, the wheels just started ticking. And I was like, shit, like you can make a lot of money. They've going to beautiful places, they're traveling when they're working, they're traveling when they're not, they're always on jet skis, they're always in the water, they've got beautiful tans. I was like, I need to do this, and um, that's what I did. So I just um got back home and I started getting into the swing of it.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. So do you still work on yachts? Do you do you still captain, or are you just like, this is your saying courses, this is your full-time gig now?
SPEAKER_00:So I started selling courses in basically in 2023. In 2022, I was doing more like consultation type services, and I went almost two years straight. Well, I did some temporary work in the meantime, but I kind of just did just the course thing for two years. And then as you mentioned before, below deck kind of pulled me in and I was like, well, that's that's an opportunity I'm not gonna miss. So I did that. And then after that, I also kind of stumbled into a captain position, which I'm currently doing now. And, you know, I got the business to a point that I felt comfortable being able to juggle both. I think I've always been someone who chases novel ideas and then also likes to overload my plate. So it works really well. But I think at the position I'm at now, I'm probably only going to focus on temporary work and kind of doing freelance contracts because that's one of the good things about yachting, that you don't always have to be full-time on a yacht. You don't have to be there 365 days. So, because I have so much experience over the years, I can kind of archetype a life that works with this and then also just take breaks where I'm majority on land and just come back to yachts because you know, I at the end of the day, it's still a really cool lifestyle. I don't want to close the door completely. And I also feel like it makes it more um authentic and believable because you still see me going back and forth between it. Like if my content switches to just like, you know, hotel rooms and stuff, like I'll be able to keep the momentum, but people eventually are gonna go, does this guy even do this anymore?
SPEAKER_01:Do you still travel when you're working on the course business, or do you then stop in one place and kind of head down on that?
SPEAKER_00:So I've been traveling since I started the course business. So when I first launched, I went to Vietnam. Uh, cost of living and you know, geographical arbitrage, I was like, well, if I'm gonna be limiting how much money I make, me and my girlfriend, we work on the business together. We just went to Vietnam and I basically spent two years hopping about different parts of Southeast Asia. Vietnam, Thailand, a little bit of Indonesia. And I found, you know, it made it so one, we could stretch the money a lot further, and two, we could still have a really good quality of life, even if we were only making, you know, a few five, a few thousand dollars a month or you know, up to five figures. As you know, ten thousand dollars a month, yeah, once you take out expenses in Southeast Asia you can still be a sultan. But if you go back to, I don't know, South Florida where I was living, I mean, I'd be probably on the street.
SPEAKER_01:So you've said work, you should work harder at your course business than you ever did for your day job. Why do you think that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I think looking at social media and everything now, I feel like everyone wants to be a coach. Everyone's selling a course about courses or coaching about coaching. And it's gotten to the point that I think everyone thought or or understood that it was just very simple to do this. Like, hey, you know, launch up a website on Kajabi or Circle or whatever and you go ahead, point people towards it and start selling something. And I just don't subscribe to the idea that it's that simple and passive. I mean, you could if you're trying to sell, I guess, a$1 product, but then at the end of that didn't know it's gonna buy because it's not worth anything. So I think if a lot of the gurus and coaches out there knew that it was going to be a harder slog, especially at the beginning at least, than whatever they were doing before, then we'd at least weed out some people that don't deserve to be doing this. Because coaching is just that, right? You're actually hand holding and working directly with someone. It's not just pumping them to a squeeze page or a landing page and then going, like, okay, see you, like I'm off in Bali, I'm gonna go surf for nine hours a day and never talk to anyone. Like if you're promising something like that, then it has to follow through with uh with the promise. And I think that when you you well, you know very well the the marketing, the fulfillment, the uh planning, the you know, putting everything together, especially at the beginning, you're wearing so many hats. Like you have to work hard, you have to learn because it's it's so different from everything we've done. We're teaching someone to do the thing we're doing or what we know about, but all the things around that that require us to sell it, it's a completely new skill set.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I think that you said particularly at the beginning a few times there, and I like totally agree. It's like getting these kind of businesses going is not easy. But what then you get it up and going and you can have this incredible lifestyle. What I see with some people is that they get to the point when they're making enough money and they're just like, all drive is gone. And I'm like, oh keep a bit, you know, like keep keep pushing a bit, like yeah, have the nice life, but then just at least keep trying to build the audience and like make new courses and whatever. Because who knows, the market might change, right? And the nice life might go away. And it's like, well, just at least keep pushing hard enough to be kind of getting somewhere with it. Um but yeah, getting going. Like I've got a friend, uh he gets quite a lot of shout outs actually in the podcast because like I see him like every week, and so I kind of have seen his journey in the beginning. He's been on the podcast, Jack. It was the episode around uh banjo skills, and his first year has just been like, oh, it's all learning new skills, it's all a slog, it's all difficult. It's all like numbers are all small, but uh he's like, I don't know, a year and a half in, something like that, and he's now at the point where I was like, Okay, this is now paying his lifestyle. He can't do anything luxurious, but it's like and he doesn't need to worry about about going back to doing what he was doing before. And it's like, oh, that's cool, because then if he makes as he does the same thing, he makes more money and it grows and it grows and it grows and it becomes fantastic, you know. But getting going, I see why people don't make it through sometimes because it's like it's it's there's a lot to do to get to a point where it's actually pays as much money as just doing a job.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah. And I I think I see that even in my space, I've seen people pop up and then they get discouraged and then they leave. But I think that's also the nature of people, right? Like everyone over underestimates how much time and effort's gonna take to do something. That's why everyone starts a DIY project and then they vastly overestimate their skills, and then when they get down to it, they're like, Yeah, screw this, because no one likes being uncomfortable. So naturally, I think the course business is gonna have the same thing because you're gonna see people just follow the same trends they always do. But yeah, I think the the prevalence of social media makes everyone feel like, oh, I can do that, and they can't.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. So where's your when you've been building your audience, where's your main audience? Is that Instagram?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, my main driver right now is Instagram. So right there, I think currently uh we have about 73,000 followers. So the 68 was probably from when we first started talking. Um, and then we've gotten to that. We're slowly spreading onto the other channels, but I also follow the the idea that once you got something nailed down, then spread, because if you're gonna spread yourself too thin, then it's not worth spreading at that point. So that's kind of where we're at now, starting to repurpose and move everything outwards. Nice. And what are you at in terms of email list? How big have you got that? I'm somewhere between 13 and 15,000 right now. So I think probably around 14,000 is a safe number.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, cool. Now you've said you aren't doing things right till you get hate mail. Why is that?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I just what I mean is um when you get big enough, then you start getting noticed by people, and then you get people that are jealous, or people that are like, well, why is this person doing that? Like I've I've consider myself a guru and I'm not doing that. So I think all that stuff comes once you finally get enough visibility. So what I meant was that's when I knew that I was a I was doing it right. When I was getting people that were jealous, or people saying, like, oh, like, why are you why do you get to be the guru? Oh, because I'm the one who took the risk, or you just sat here and kept doing your job, right? So I think inherently, you know, it's a numbers game. Let's say if you get 0.01% hate mail, then once you get that first one, you're like, oh, I'm finally big enough, I've got an audience.
SPEAKER_01:There's this site that um I came across once where people would take marketing courses, buy them, uh like download it and then upload it, and so you could just get access to all these marketing courses with like for almost no money. And a friend of mine, I I uh told me that his course had been added onto that site, and he was like, I was quite pleased. I was beat I was I was successful enough that people were like, Oh, his course is worth taking, we should add that onto the site now, you know. They got famous enough. I was like, I quite like that. That's quite a good kind of framing of it, you know, get honored by it. Yeah, that's funny. So, what's the um the plan with email? Do you send a lot of content emails? Do you send out promotions to people? Like, how do you use email?
SPEAKER_00:Well, to be honest, I've got a few funnels that are built in, like especially around freebies and uh some of them around certain holidays, but I need to get better at just sending like broadcast emails on a regular cadence, um, because obviously that's that's a big part of how you can connect with the audience. So, right now, like when you sign up for freebies, or I've got some pretty intricate trees that they drive drive you from one to the other, and then eventually they dump you into the big holding tank. And that that um at that point I'll send emails sporadically, I'll do promotions as well. But I just I do I do know I need to get better at that. It's just um I just need to systematize that a little bit better so it's not just because you know how it is, if it's something that you have to think about, go and do, you're so much less likely to do it. Whereas when you have a system that's like, hey, I do this on this day always, or I'm gonna bulk do it on this day, then it's a lot easier. So that that's what I'm moving into too.
SPEAKER_01:I've got a group coaching program, and we used to have uh client in there who was make who's doing fantastically well. She was making absolute bank with it. Uh and yet she said to us that if it wasn't for the fact that she knew she was gonna be coming on those group coaching calls, she wouldn't have been sending out the email promotion every month because she would have been like, Oh, I'll put it off because of this or that. And it's like, but every time you send one, you make like fifty thousand dollars. But and yet she still would have put it off if she hadn't had that kind of system and accountability and knowing I need I'm gonna turn up on the call and I'm gonna be expected to have prepared the the emails by that point, and if I haven't done it, I'll feel silly. And I thought that was like fascinating, you know, it's a kind of human psychology thing.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, I think yeah, I definitely something like that would be helpful. It's it's funny because email is like um it's such a like I think I always say thorn on my side. Sometimes I get really caught up with how marketing isn't exactly the way you think it would be, right? Like emails, there's a certain science and strategy because if you give too much, people tune out. If you do it, the you know, like what you want to do directly, hey, um, XYZ. But if you don't present it in the nice wrapper, like, you know, the the amount of people that trail off and everything changes. So sometimes it just gripes me. I'm like, I've got so many success stories and so many things I can teach and say and do in email that I just need to um bite the bullet and play with it and do it rather than um kind of Yeah, and like email promotions is where there's about 80% of the revenue is in the course business from my experience.
SPEAKER_01:So if you're if you're not doing the email promotions regularly and you're still doing well, then that's a good sign that you could be doing way better if you do email promotions regularly.
SPEAKER_00:Well, it was funny because uh a couple weeks ago I was like, well, I'm gonna raise prices, and I was like, I've never done raise price sequence, so I was just like, let me just blast it and do it. And I had really good results, and I was like, man, I I should be doing more email stuff because I that that that was such a great week. And I was like, um, I'm sleeping on this, but it's good, it's good to learn the lesson now, right? It's never too late.
SPEAKER_01:Doing price raises is one of my favorite email promotions because it does better than almost anything else in terms of doing discounts. Because when you do a discount, people are like, oh, probably that discount will come back around again. When you do a price raise, you're saying the price is going from this amount to this higher amount and it's never going back. So it might go back to that lower amount with a discount. I suppose that's possible. But people don't think that when they're like, oh my God, this is a real urgency. I must take action now. Yeah. So you tend to get really good conversion rates on those. I love that.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah. Well, at least the funnel's there now, and I plan to probably raise by another 500 within the next couple months. So I'll just basically, at least now this time it's already set up and I'll just feed people straight there.
SPEAKER_01:So how much is your course? Do you have just one or is it multiple ones?
SPEAKER_00:So right now the course is on the website for it's$14.97.
SPEAKER_01:Sorry. I clicked on your sales page and you started talking.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it should be it's$14.97 normal price. And then if you go through the webinar, it's$9.97. So I'll move, I'll be moving that up to$19.97 full price, probably$14.97 through the webinar. And I think even the ultimate will be the last time, I'll probably have it live on the course page, like the full price version be$24.97, just to make that$14.97 through the webinar look more appetizing and maybe occasional pumps to$19.97 in the webinar. You know, I'll test it and see what what works. I mean, it's funny because when I first started, I think I mean it was$2.97 when I first started, right? Because you have to verify the product and it's gotten better and stuff, but it's just funny to see at first you're so scared to raise pricing, and now I'm like, let's raise it more, you know, like well, one of the things that I love there is that you're doing a webinar.
SPEAKER_01:That that's your that's one of your main funnels because webinars are fantastic for being able to sell courses at a higher price point. What system did you go through to create the webinar? Did you use Russell Brunson's work or how did you do that?
SPEAKER_00:So I did a combination of using so Russell Brunson with which he bases his off, I think the guy's name is what, Jeremy Flanagan or something like that. The basic one to me. That's that's what it is. See the names, it's hard because Russell's name always pops up. But um, I read both those books that played into it, and then building my offer, uh, a bit of Russell Brunson stuff and also Alex Ramosy's hundred million dollar offers played into you know that that psychology. It's so good. And then Russell Oh, I was just gonna say Russell Brunson also, he he works with a chick named Nicole Jones, and she does um I think she sells a course now, it's called Offer Secrets, but she has a webinar where she basically also talks about how you can frame and pitch the offer at the end, and her principles are really good and really uh coincide and work well with Russell Brunson. So that also played into it.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. Yeah, so I've gone through a lot of I went through a lot of training from Russell Brunson and Jason Fladley and somewhere they've done it together. The two of them have like done the training together. And so the story as I understand it is that Russell's was based on he would go to seminars in person a lot, and he at first wasn't using any of these tactics, and then he gradually added them in one at a time. This is at least the way he tells it. He might be telling it for like entertainment value more than you know, historical accuracy. But like each time he'd go, he'd see another seminar and someone would do a technique, he's like, Oh, I should add that in. And then he'd add that technique in as well, and then he'd go, Oh, that technique's really good, and he'd add that one in as well. Keep building, keep building, until he got the perfect webinar system. And I suspect Jason, I don't know, may have done the same kind of thing, but he's got a slightly different angle, hasn't he? Like Jason's got his four techniques or something, and Russell Brons talks about three secrets, and they're very similar, they're kind of slightly different, you know. How long did it take you to create that webinar when you did that? Did you like do it live a bunch of times? Did you just work and work and work and then record it? How did it go?
SPEAKER_00:I'd say the first time I did it, well, the whole project itself probably took me way longer than it needed to. You know, I I think because you first you om and R about it, you overthink it, you write it, you rip it up, you write it again. So I think that first edition of the webinar was probably like a six-month process. Because at the time I didn't really have the course yet, so I was building that too, which now we I know I could have done that a little bit differently. Build it after you sell it, but you know, anyway, that was my journey. So I did that first one, put it live, and it was working. And then I started doing it live as well. Um, not to the extent that Russell promotes. He always says do it for a year every week. Didn't do it to that extent. I probably did it somewhere between 10 and 15 times. I noticed things I wanted to improve, things that were good, things that I wanted to throw out. And then I created my second version, which that probably took me a couple months, just again, rewrites and all of that. And then I've been writing with that. Then I started doing a few more lives. I probably did it for so this is probably over the course of a year now. You've seen I've I've done probably like I'm on version like 2.3 after doing probably somewhere over 20 lives. And now I even have what I want to do for the next one. And again, I'm kicking and umming and Ring because I don't want to sit and do it, but I need to. So that that's that's on my agenda now to do the the newer, most perfect and best one. So then I can kind of leave that alone. But I mean, I've probably had shh this last one's probably been almost a year now that it that it's been going, maybe nine months, eight months.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. Nice. And what's the way that you drive traffic to that? Is that all from Instagram? Is it Instagram plus you promote it via email regularly? Do you do ads? Like how do you get people out on there?
SPEAKER_00:So right now I do it through Instagram, right? Uh I use a many chat sequence. Uh if you comment this, then I'll send you my free training. Um, I promote it everywhere that I have links, right? So even on my LinkedIn, on my Facebook, everywhere you'll see that the link that you can get is that. I've got a Facebook group where again that gets thrown around and promoted as well every now and then. And on email, what I what I'm starting to do is just to have like on when it's like a broadcast email at the bottom, it'll have like a footer and it's just like, hey, if you want to work on yacht, free training, whatever. Um, if you want to work with me directly, click here, right? Like just basically put that on the footer of all those syndicated emails, so then at least it's regularly getting in front of people. But the um a lot of people's first step is that webinar, or if they go with any of my other free um free guides or checklists or whatever, the sequences will drive them through a series of emails and then it will ultimately lead them down the webinar chain. And then after that, they'll go into the general tank.
SPEAKER_01:And do you repromote the webinar to your main email list at all?
SPEAKER_00:When there's been changes, yes. But that would that's something I should I should do more often. That's that's that's what we're working on.
SPEAKER_01:That is, I think it's one of the the easiest tweaks to make when you've got a great webinar funnel, is just to remember you can just promote it again to the same email list, even to the people who've been on the webinar before. Oh, forgotten it, you know.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, well, sorry, I I do do that in a way. So basically every three, I think it's every three months, or I can't remember if it's so it's either every two, three months, I think, they'll get re put into the webinar sequence. So it'll it'll walk them through the emails saying it'll, you know, it'll warm them up again, it'll tell the a little story, it'll push webinar, push webinar, push webinar, and then it will be the open card sequence. So that does happen on a regular basis, yes. Nice. That's awesome.
SPEAKER_01:And where are you at revenue-wise at the moment? Like what kind of uh what's your like average month right now?
SPEAKER_00:Right now we're probably sitting between 10 and 20 per month um on five figures. Uh our peak was 25, but then when I started doing like below deck and working, I kind of like obviously split my vision. Um, and then I slowed down on social media so as we started ramping back up. So we're we're that's that's my goal to bring it back to 20 and then grow it onwards from that.
SPEAKER_01:And do you ever do any higher ticket offers on top of it, like you know, where you someone could get more coaching from you as well or anything like that?
SPEAKER_00:What I was toying with for a bit um was basically trying to do a package where you could come and work directly like with me on my yacht and then basically do that, like maybe like an intensive for like a week or two and then um move that out. It was just so hard to schedule because our like our lifestyle and with yachts, everything's so up in the air. Like I'd like to, my goal is if I can get on a boat that's like just sitting and I know it's sitting there, then I can start doing that, right? But when everything's like on a tip of a hat, um I can't really do the in-person. But I think the in-person would be great because then I could really like uh, you know, they'd they'd walk away with a job experience, with a reference letter, with like having seen and done everything from me, and that that's obviously the highest ticket you can do. Um, but I'm in I'm trying to think of something on the in-between, but then I realize the lowest hanging fruit, raise the price of my own thing, and then find out where I can put something in the middle.
SPEAKER_01:What's the the process you mentioned that you had done coaching and that you were reviewing people's CV? Is that still part of the package now, or is that is that not included anymore?
SPEAKER_00:No, that's still part of the package. So there I kind of have like a roadmap, and before before they move and before they relocate and start looking for work, there's a there's a module where it's all about building their CV, the reference letters and all of that. And what they'll do is they'll they'll basically create it. I have the templates, they'll plug and play all their information, they'll upload it into our community, and I'll just do a loom where I basically talking head and I go through and I dissect it. Sometimes I just really go hard at it, depends what they need. And then they'll take that, they'll redo it, and then basically we usually take between two and three takes. The first one is usually where I do that intensive video, and then if the other ones I can just give like a text or voice note explaining what they need to do, I'll do that. And and that's how we handle that side of it.
SPEAKER_01:So do you have any anything that you offer as an upsell at the moment? If someone buys the course for whatever it is,$14.97, I think you said it is at the moment, then can they can they pay you any more money, or is that as much as they're allowed to pay you at that point?
SPEAKER_00:Well, right now, yeah, that's that's a good question. And I'm always looking for things to add to that. So right now they can also add for me to do their CV forum. So if they pay an extra, either they could pay$2.99 at that order bump, or then if they don't buy it there, it's it becomes$3.99 at the next page as an upsell. Um, they can do that. And if they do that, then then basically I'll do it for them, and you know, it's it's easy enough for me and my team to take care of that. I did try towing with, and it probably just wasn't, you know, I didn't either have enough traffic going through it or I needed to perfect it some. I tried doing like a upsell that was a weekly, kind of like making more like a weekly intensive where I'd meet with you. We um like I do I would do some live training, and like I think like twice a month I'd get on a call with you and kind of like really make sure to make it more accountable, more in your face, more like you can't fail. Um, but again, I didn't have anyone, any takers on that. Well, I I did have one, and then they they I think they ended up abandoning because that not not because of me, just because they changed their plans with yachting. So I do have that in there. Um I it's not still being pushed to the people as an upsell. I think I probably need to refine it a little bit better, maybe explain it better, have a better sales video. But that was something I was trying to do because it seemed like low-hanging fruit, it just meant literally giving you more accountability.
SPEAKER_01:It it seems like a good fit. Sometimes what seems like a good fit turns out not to be, but like that's surprising because that does feel like a really good uh obvious kind of upsell to have in terms of you the same stuff but just coaching that goes with it. Interesting. What's the vision for you? Where do you want to get to with the with your business over the next kind of year?
SPEAKER_00:Over the next year, I'd want to grow it more. Like we talked about raising prices. Um, and I I have a lot of stuff that I already basically what I want to set it up to be is that you come in, right? You get the coaching with possibly the higher tier coaching. Um, that drives you to become Yakru. Um, once you become Yakru, what what I want to add as like uh one of the bonuses is basically that gives you 12 months free, uh or like six months free maybe in our community, right? Because everyone that becomes an alum is now dumped into this giant community. And I'm I'm working into building the right, basically uh polling them and I'm getting a lot of feedback on what they need for the next step, right? So once you're in that community, then it'll be whether you want to work on deck, become a captain, maybe become a stew, basically have paths for that. So then people can kind of stay recurring and then they can pay to get like coaching in those branches, is what I'm thinking. So that way people get dumped in. If they just want to be like a passive member now of the community, keep seeing jobs, etc., that'll be one thing. And if they want coaching directly into the path that they're trying to go into, that'll be similar but hopefully higher price than what they just did. Um, I'm also right now doing a lot of um I'm I'm getting my last captain courses or my last captain certification. So right now I'm like absorbing a bunch of info, taking courses, and I've realized that even for that, like if you're at the point that I was maybe three years ago and you want to become a captain, there's a lot of money there because there's a lot of prep and materials and things you need to do to get ready for it. And that would be good to also make it one of the branches, right? So maybe it's like there's the community for everyone that's an alum of us. And then if there's a lot of y'all crew that want to come in, um, and I'm just trying to create enough value that people can come in that weren't at the beginning, but now they're wanting to be part of the community and then continue to get coaching. I really want to handle I I feel like once I unlock that piece, everything will make sense. Because I have a lot of people that are basically waiting outside going, how can you help me? And I just need to archetype and draw at the whole thing so I can continue to do so in an efficient way that doesn't obviously blow up the first thing or detail the second thing.
SPEAKER_01:Do you think there's a lot of demand for the stuff around becoming a captain? Like, is that a big enough section of your market?
SPEAKER_00:Hmm. That's I mean, that'd be something to test. So I wouldn't go crazy without um verifying first, but I know my niche is in like super yachting. I love it.
SPEAKER_01:I only hire, I pretty much only hire engineers in my business. Because this is like this is the mindset that like we've got a mechanical engineer, a computer engineer, a biome, oh biomedical scientist. So that one doesn't exactly fit, but it's not too far off. Like my background was in mathematics. It's like everybody is the business is called data-driven marketing. And it's like there's just a certain way of thinking that like engineers have. So sorry, I I interrupted, but that's just what you no, no, it's good.
SPEAKER_00:It's it I think that's what people always ask me, you know, do you regret doing engineering? And I think look, just because I'm not sitting behind a desk doing engineering work doesn't mean that those principles and that mindset doesn't help me every day in what I do. And I I do agree, like what you said, it really helps with the business. My coach also uh he does courses, but he's also a mechanical engineer. So I think proof's in the pudding on that. Um, going back to what you said, it's interesting because I know my industry has a lot of need for it, but you asked, does my audience? And and that would be a good thing to pull and see because I don't know how many captains are looking for that from me now, but I know that they're looking elsewhere because I know that uh as one myself, we have very limited resources in this industry. We have very limited ways of finding out certain things. And that that's also goes into the ethos of why I do this whole thing. I want to connect crew and use technology technology to leverage community, education, entertainment, because even though we're this big luxury thing, you know, super yachts, and you think, whoa, there's so much money that's floating around there, there must be, you know, that some of that might might be making its way into the crew and their services and how they better themselves, but really there's not. So um kind of on uncharted ground there. So that that'll be something to test.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah. I really like the way you're thinking about that. That it's it's like this is your you're thinking of the directions you could go, but you're gonna check, you're gonna verify, you're gonna test and see is like, is this something people actually want before you know spending six months building it or whatever it might take? I don't know. What's kind of getting in the way at the moment? What's stopping you from reaching any of your goals?
SPEAKER_00:That's a good point. Um probably myself, I'd say. Like, you know, certain things I'm build building building better systems, I think. I think manpower always leads into it, right? So I'm getting um like things that I don't want to do anymore, right? Like I don't want to cross post and move things about and everything, but I'm trying to finish putting together good systems so then my VAs will do it. Um again, email is something that I need to set systematize a bit better so I actually do it. Because, you know, I being already spread so thin, um, I need to make sure that I'm not just trying to throw darts, but that I'm actually very thoughtful and mindful with my time. So I've built a lot of good systems and made sure that most of the most of the business that I don't need to be in is get is running around me or without me. And I'm working on perfecting that. And I want to make do a better job of doing that with the content. Because I think that's the biggest thing right now is traffic, right? The system works, everything works perfectly. The funnel, the the course, the guaranteed the results, everything's good. Just about getting more people in there. How do you do it? By having better systems of how you make content. So I just got a video editor very recently, so I need to start pumping through stuff through that funnel, and then just make sure that I get my VA to start moving things across to all the other platforms and again just sprinkle some fairy dust and then count the money, right?
SPEAKER_01:So, how big's your team now? You've got you've got a VA, you work with your girlfriend, you've got uh a video editor, maybe freelance now. Is there anybody else?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, so it's uh me and my girlfriend. We're um we work together. I've got like like you said, I've got a uh graphic design slash content VA, I call her. Um, and then I also have my video editor. Both of them are freelance, so basically however much work I give them, that's how much they charge. And that's basically it. I also have like um if you you remember from four-hour work week, like uh you can get one of those agencies. I think I have like brickwork and all those. Like I have one that I have on a low hour basis for just like data entry and in random tasks that I'm I don't want to do myself, but I'm not gonna assign to the content or video editor. So they'll do a lot of that grunt work, and that's where we're at right now.
SPEAKER_01:Okay, cool. And how is that working out for you? Obviously, you you're out in in Southeast Asia still?
SPEAKER_00:Well, I just stepped off of of Alpha Super Yacht right now. So I'm in actually I'm in Medellin, I'm in Colombia. We took a week to just really unwind. Yeah, beautiful. The land of eternal spring, right? Yeah, that's what they told me. I didn't know the weather's amazing here.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, I haven't been, but I keep hearing about it from friends. There's like uh lot of friends of mine who are uh based down there. So what's the next step then? Let's think. You've talked us through, gotta you've just hired this video editor, you're gonna start making more content, you want to create these systems. Is this all do you feel like this is all on the right track, or do you feel like all there's some bits where you are you gonna manage all of this, or is it like still uh this is kind of the plan, but you don't know if it's all doable? How are you feeling about it?
SPEAKER_00:No, I feel good. I mean it's it's definitely doable. It's um it's just I just need to separate myself from the other things I was doing, right? Like the captain thing took it takes a lot of time. If if anyone was wondering, it takes a lot of time. And um, you know, running this business takes time, and and it just was about not splitting my time um ultimately that much. And then with the below deck stuff recently that we just finished uh airing our our season finale, that also took time, right? That also had podcasts and appearances and things that were going with that. So I think I've I've just kind of been in a holding pattern where, you know, juggling a few different plates, and now it's just let me just finish what I need to do, finish getting the marketing systems up, um, start feeding the editor. That way I can be more at the top running what's gonna happen with the content rather than feeling like every day we're like, what are we doing again? Because it with everything else in the business, it's systematized. Like if you buy, I don't need I don't need to touch you until you we're showing up to your first call, right? Everything runs. And that's how everything else needs to run. Now I don't have to I don't go in one day and go, okay, like who hasn't gotten their email with their CV check? No, no, like that all runs. So just making sure that the content feels exactly the same is gonna make it so the system can then be better and then I can kind of focus my energy on uh everything else.
SPEAKER_01:Nice. That sounds great. I love it. One of the things that you'd mentioned is you want to do more regular emails and broadcast Seinfeld emails, as Russell Brunson says. Can you tell everybody about Seinfeld emails and like what those are and why Russell's recommending those?
SPEAKER_00:Sure. So if I um if anyone's wondering where this comes from, it's from the first book that Russell put out in his Secrets trilogy. It's Dot Comsecrets. And in this one, um, this is before he talks about the webinar, before everything, he talks about the importance of emails, which some people think that, oh, you know, now with social media and with DMs and IMs and all this stuff, like we don't need to do emails, right? And what he argues and what everyone knows is that we own well, technically we use an email service provider, but we own that traffic, right? That's where people, that their info is ours, everything there is ours, we send when we want, we do what we want, like no one can really take that away unless you stop paying the bills. Whereas with Mark Zuckerberg's kingdom and everywhere else, you know, you're subject to a shadow ban or a blacklist or a hack, and then suddenly, you know, your whole business is up in flames. So everyone always needs to move their traffic into their email list to make sure that they can always reach their people if they need to. You're always gonna have a drop-off, right? I have set, like I mentioned, 73,000 are on Instagram, 13,000, 14,000 are on emails. But you get better and better at driving people to the email. And then once they're there, it's about giving them combinations of value emails, but Seinfeld emails particularly are the concept of, you know, you can watch one episode of Seinfeld and you get what you need. It was funny, it was entertaining, whatever, and it doesn't exactly tie into the next one. Um, and and you can watch a bunch of them back to back and they're great and they're entertaining and whatever. And the idea is that you can send daily emails and um every well, sometimes it's snippets of your life, sometimes it's lessons, sometimes it's, you know, something about whatever happened, but tying it back to your business, right? It could be, and Russell's brilliant at it because he can go get a cup of coffee and suddenly have some insight on how that has to do with click funnels. And he'll come back and tell some story about getting his cup of coffee, and while he was waiting in line, this thing happened, and that's why you shouldn't wait ever, and your life can change in one moment and blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. And you're entertained, and then you're suddenly like, shit, I need to do this. And might have butchered that a little bit, but that's the concept. Finding things in your life that people can find you entertaining, that they can find that you're human, they can kind of assimilate with you, and then you're also driving that back to the business. Because if you're just hitting someone on the head with like buy, buy, buy, or hey, today we're doing a sale. Uh oh, this is so much better than my competitor, or that you just end up sounding like those 90s commercials at night, like buy now, call now, call now. But if you follow that kind of thing, then you're organically making yourself likable, people are continuing to trust you, to see you every day, and that's the thing. You know, you see the person every day consistently coming, coming, coming, then you're gonna be like, Well, what's behind the paywall if they're giving me this much out here? You feel like that I I that's kind of what I remember. Um, a little bit of paraphrasing on my end. Let me know if I missed anything.
SPEAKER_01:No, that's great. I like it. Uh yeah. If anybody hasn't read uh any of Russell Bronson's books and is like consider this or whatever, they are excellent. Like dot com secrets is absolutely fantastic and a really entertaining read as well. Like he's he's kind of short and to the point and gets on with it. And um expert if you want to do uh a webinar, expert secrets is fantastic. That really breaks it down. I did my first webinar, like building around uh the perfect webinar system from Russell Bronson, following one chapter of dot com secrets, and then he came out with a whole book that he breaks the whole thing down in much more detail. So that's fantastic. Loved I've gone through his webinar that he did for ClickFunnels, uh, it's up on YouTube many times because it's such a masterclass in how to do one of the webinars that he's talking about. And you can kind of once you know how it works, you're like, oh, he's doing this thing here and that thing there, and he's like, Oh, but that's clever, that was nicely done, wasn't it? That's really good. So um, and I'm a massive webinar fan. I think webinars is one of the the best marketing funnels that you can use. It's like absolutely fantastic. A lot of people don't do it, and we don't always encourage people to do it because I've I've seen the drop-off rate in terms of actually getting it built. Because, like you said, it was like six months' work to build your first one. It's like, whoo, that's a commitment, and not everyone's ready to do that. Whereas email promotions people can do more more easily. But if you're selling someone higher ticket like you are, then it's it's it's stonking for it. Absolutely fantastic.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, definitely.
SPEAKER_01:Have you read Traffic Seekers as well? I haven't I've got it on my shelf and I I feel bad because I've been raving to everybody about the other books and I haven't read it, but I haven't read it. Have you?
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, yeah, it's good. Um, I think the first time I read it was probably very early in my business, but really good concepts there too. I mean, it's nothing out of this world, but just again, Russell has a way of telling you the things you need to do in an order that makes sense. And he has a way of like how he talks about approaching bigger people in your niche or approaching, you know, slant businesses that could also help with your business. And all the things he starts talking about are um they're really good and they're very practical. It's about creating your Dream 100 or 100 places that you'd like your stuff featured on, and you go from there, right? You can have a hundred podcasts, a hundred Instagram accounts, a hundred whatever. And then how do we go about doing that? And he kind of deconstructs and and makes a system for it.
SPEAKER_01:Yeah, Dream 100's are really we use that approach. Originally, at least as far as I know, it's from a guy called Chet Holmes, who Russell Brunson had learned it from. Russell popularized it a lot more. Chet Chet passed away a number of years ago. But um, I watched some training from him that was it looked like it was, I don't know, filmed in Indiana in the early 90s or something. It's the style of the hotel room that it was in. I was like, oh my goodness, that is a that is a look you guys have got there. But um, yeah, like targeting the exact perfect people that you wanted. Like uh I I really, really wanted to be on um Pat Flynn's Smart Passive Income podcast. And so I just would reach out to him like every every few months and invite him on my podcast. And eventually he had a book that was coming out, and then he said yes to coming on. And then when he came on at the end of it, I said to him, you know, is there anything I could do for you? And he's like, Oh, why don't you come on my podcast? And I'm like, what a great idea, Pat. I love and then I was like, that's not enough though. I think I can do more to help these guys. So then I'd like started doing funnel reviews for um for their funnel. And then I got in touch with them, so now I talk with like their CEO and and um their marketing team, what have you, and give them feedback. And I'm doing a webinar for the audience in in November because I'm like, this is cool, this is exactly who I should be in front of. So it's like, what do I need to do to like just make friends and help until eventually they you know kind of get a chance to be in front of their audience? So that was that was part of our kind of um Dream 100 uh model that we were running.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, brilliant.
SPEAKER_01:Well, I I'm gonna stop there. I really, really appreciate your time coming on the podcast. I don't want to overstay my welcome. If someone wants to go check out your your webinar, they want to go check you out, where should they go?
SPEAKER_00:So if anyone's interested in yachting and they want to travel the world, get paid to do it, superyardsundayschool.com. You're gonna see in the top right corner there's a free masterclass that's my webinar, you can come check it out. And if also you're just someone who loves Russell Brunson's work and seeing what other proteges are trying to do, then perfect. It follows the perfect webinar format. And then if you want to learn more about it without having to sit through a webinar, then come check us out on Instagram. That's where we post all our content. What it's like to be what it's like to be crew, what it's like to travel the world, follow my journey along the way. And um, that'll also inevitably lead you down the various freebies and also webinar as well. So whichever way you want, come follow us on Instagram and come see what that life's like.
SPEAKER_01:So that was super yachtsundayschool.com or Instagram.com slash super yachtsunday school.
SPEAKER_00:Yeah, and for anyone that's wondering, remember, yacht is Y-A-C-H-T. It's a former Dutch word. People always want to say yacht. It's super yacht.
SPEAKER_01:Beautiful. Thank you, everybody, as always, so much for listening. Uh really appreciate you guys. And Hugo, thanks so much for coming on. Really, really appreciate your time. Thank you, John. Appreciate it. Pleasure talking to you.