The Art of Selling Online Courses

220 How I make $70,000 a month as a PIANO TEACHER

• John Ainsworth • Season 1 • Episode 220

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Ashlee Young went from teaching 20 hours of private piano lessons a week to making over $70,000 a month with her online course business. And she did it by showing up just once a week to teach a single live class.

In this episode, Ashlee shares exactly how she's scaling with ads, why she's phasing out her high-ticket program, and the mindset shifts that allowed her to charge $3,597 for her coaching program without feeling weird about it.

She sends promotional emails two to three times a week and does a full promotion every single month. Most course creators I talk to are terrified of annoying their audience, but Ashlee's take on this is refreshing. She genuinely believes that not telling people about your courses is doing them a disservice.

We also dig into her ads strategy. She's getting 20 to 30 new customers a day, with 60% of people adding her order bump and 25% taking at least one upsell. Those numbers are right at the top end of what we typically see, especially for cold traffic.

If you've been sitting on the fence about running ads, doing more email promotions, or charging higher prices, this episode will give you the push you need.

#OnlineCourses #SalesFunnels #CourseCreators #DigitalMarketing

🎹 Connect with Ashlee:
🔗 YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/ashleeyoungmusicstudio 
🔗 Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/ashleeyoungmusicstudio/
🔗 Website: https://www.ashleejyoung.com/

🤝  Get In Touch
If you'd like to talk more about how you can grow your course business, email me at john@datadrivenmarketing.

SPEAKER_01:

You're missing out on piles of cash. You're just missing out on so much easy money, and I don't mean that in like a shallow way. I've been teaching like 20 hours of private lessons a week and transitioned out of that and showed up once a week to teach one live class and was making way more money. If you don't believe in your business and if you don't believe in your solution, who's going to? Anyone that's further ahead than you, they don't have a magic key. They just never stopped. They just never stopped and they did more of the work after giving me like 20 to 30 new customers a day. Like 60% of the people added the order bump. And then like 25% of people added at least one up.

SPEAKER_00:

Whoa, Ashley! Hello, and welcome to the Art of Selling Online Courses. We're here to share winning strategies and speaker hats to top performers in the online course industry. My name's John Antwerp. Today's guest is Ashley Young. Now, Ashley is a pianist, a content and course creator who started her own online business in 2021 after teaching private piano lessons in college courses for her whole adult life. If she really believes in working smarter, not harder. She's getting over 100,000 views a month on YouTube. She's hit over$70,000 a month in revenue and is on track to do over a million in 2026. And today we're going to be talking about what's working for her, how she's scaling with ads, the high-ticket program that she's selling, and more. Ashley, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.

SPEAKER_00:

So talk us through a little bit. Uh, who are you helping and what are you helping them with?

SPEAKER_01:

Sure. So I help adult piano players who are what I call serious hobby players. So they're not beginners. They've either had lessons as kids and they're coming back to it later in life, or they're retired and they are, you know, really, really into the idea of learning how to play the piano. And I help teach them how to practice, smarter, not harder, so that they can reach that higher level of like musical expression that they all so deeply desire. Um, but a lot of them don't realize that they're practicing incorrectly. And so that's where I focus.

SPEAKER_00:

Are they mostly retired?

SPEAKER_01:

Mostly retired. Yeah. My audience is like 65 plus mostly.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of our clients, and nearly everybody in the music space, all of their clients are like at that retiree kind of age. And it's fascinating. So we had Jack on a little while ago who teaches banjo, and everybody he's teaching is retired. And then we had Nate, who you know, and I think everybody he's teaching is retired, and it's just like it goes on and on and on. I had a friend who was um teaching blues guitar, blues guitar mastery, uh, Tom. And he he said when you look to his testimonials page, because it would always have a photo and then the testimonial, yeah. It's just like every single person looked the same because they're teaching blues guitar in America, so everyone had grey hair in a ponytail receding with a goatee beard.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's great.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, so you're teaching them how to practice the right way. And is that a piano-specific thing, or is it like a music thing that you're kind of uh is it broader?

SPEAKER_01:

You know, it is a little broader. My vehicle is piano, but I really try to explain things from like how your brain actually processes music. And I my my audience is mostly classical players at this point. I do have a few jazz players and a few people that are doing things like trying to learn how to play chords, but it's mostly classical, and there's just a lot that goes into it. A lot about the learning process, about creating good habits, about setting a goal and then knowing how to like create these little bite-sized steps that will get you to that goal. And so there's definitely a broader application. And my clients always say, like, what you've taught me actually has helped me become more organized at work or with my with my grandkids or outside of piano. But it is, you know, it all it is all piano at this point.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you know Christopher Sutton from Musical You? I feel like you guys should probably be in touch and talk. So he teaches musicality. Okay. He teaches people how to be able to play in a way that is like uh playing by ear, being able to learn more easily. He's had people on who are like um experts in in brain development and like the way that the the brain learns things. So not just around music, but then how do you apply those learnings from the scientific research in the music space? And I I feel like there just seems to be some crossovers. I did a podcast episode with him a long time ago. Let me find the uh episode number. Yeah, but um he's a good friend of mine who lives quite close in in London and is very, very smart. Okay. Um great with funnels, great with the uh marketing as well. It's episode 14. Oh my god, very early on. Yeah. I think we're on the back. Um but yeah, check that out and then and then uh if you want me to connect to you, then I'll uh I'll I'll hook you guys up.

SPEAKER_01:

I love that. Thanks.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So that's what you've been teaching. Is that what you were teaching when you were doing lessons in person?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes and no. I mean, I've always when you're teaching in person, and you know, my background is largely in private one-on-one lessons, the the scope of the work is very comprehensive. It's like we're gonna do basically anything that it takes to get you to the point that you can play a piece or a few pieces, you know, musically, correctly, all of that kind of stuff. And so I would say that my philosophy on how to get there has always been the same. But in taking that philosophy and actually having to distill it down to like frameworks for courses, um, there's been a lot of refinement and a lot of simplification that's happened in order to streamline it so that I could teach it in a way that was asynchronous and essentially not hand holding, you know, because in private lessons it's easy to really hand hold someone because you're seeing them every week, versus here's a course, go have success with it on your own.

SPEAKER_00:

One of the things that I found when when we made our own course for teaching our systems around email marketing and funnels, it forced us to get clearer on exactly what to do and what situation, so that we could explain it, which then made us better at actually building the funnels. And I was fascinated. I wasn't expecting that part at all. Because you can get away with kind of some of the chaos in your own head, because you can do it. But when you absolutely have to boil it down so that someone else can understand it when you're not even necessarily there to answer their questions, then it meant you had to be so super absolutely clear that then you're clearer in your own head, and then you can do the thing better. And I'm actually going in the same process again now. Like, I think that was a few years ago we made that course. And so now I'm writing a book, and I'm like, oh, I have to be even clearer in the book than I have to than I can be in the course. And it's like, oh, okay. And as I'm going through and writing it all up, I'm like, oh my god, this is the I I but what about in this? Would you do it always like that? Or is it sometimes like this, and sometimes like, oh god, and I have to go back to the team and check with them what exactly how are you doing it, how's it gonna work here, and to try and run it's it's a fascinating experiment in like how do you become clear on something. So it's really interesting hearing you say that you'd experienced that when you'd, you know, made the courses yourself.

SPEAKER_01:

Oh yeah, absolutely. And I feel like I'm still experiencing it, right? Like every time I go to create a new course, I am trying to refine like what is the simplest possible way that I could teach this. And there's this quote that I love who I originally heard it from Maria Wendt, who's a big person in like the online course low ticket. Yeah. And she was saying there's like a quote that has more to do with graphic design. But the quote is something to the effect of, you know, that it's a really good design, not when nothing more can be added, but when nothing more can be taken away. And and her whole point is like make it as simple as possible. Say it in as few words as possible. And I've really found that to be effective with my online courses, not in the sense that I want to be stingy or don't want to provide information, but in in the way that I want to give the students the win that they asked for. And how can I give them that win that they asked for? That how can I solve the problem they're trying to solve without further confusing them by including information that they don't necessarily need to solve that problem?

SPEAKER_00:

So what's worked for you with taking that kind of a uh a concept and then building up YouTube or YouTube's your main traffic source, right? Yeah. Or is it ads now? I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, it's kind of shifting to ads, like as we are speaking this month, this last month. But yes, it has historically been YouTube from the past of my business.

SPEAKER_00:

So what's are you doing like a once a week long form video on YouTube? Okay, cool. What's um what kind of videos are you making that are working for you there?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, so a lot of the videos that do really well are the videos that promise the type of result that will get people a quick win in a short amount of time. Um and so that's kind of like my main tutorial format. And I have a couple of other formats that I experiment with that don't get as many views, but I do them because my subscribers love them. Um, but that is my main bread and butter that brings in the new people and that keeps the current subscribers happy and that really delivers like a big bang for their buck.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice. And is that search-based or discovery-based videos mostly?

SPEAKER_01:

Um a little bit of both, but a lot of search-based.

SPEAKER_00:

A lot of search-based. Interesting. Search-based views are like seem to be worth so much more than discovery-based, because the people have got intent already before they get there, and then they're more likely to like follow through and watch them. And I've not got many um search-based videos on my YouTube channel, but the ones that I do, like they're still going, just years later. Yes. People are coming and finding it and watching. I'm like, that video is terrible. I made that eight years ago. What are you watching that for? You know, and I'm like, but it still gets views all the time because it appears higher up in the in the search ranking.

SPEAKER_01:

I have one video that's like I I think it's it's driven I don't even know how many subscribers at this point it's brought me, but it consistently is like my highest performing videos, and it's like three years old. I'm like, what is going on? I keep, you know, remaking it slightly different, and those ones do well too, but that one, original one, is the one.

SPEAKER_00:

Do you know Jack Hopkins?

SPEAKER_01:

Uh yes. Well, I don't know him, I know of him. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Oh, okay, cool. So he's been on the podcast a few times, and and he was telling me how he's um one of his videos is about half of the traffic he's ever got. And he's like, for calculating from a financial point of view, he's like his business would be like a half or two-thirds the size if he hadn't had that one video. Yeah. And he's trying to recreate it and he's like, you never quite create, you know, it's the magic again of that one particular video. Fascinating, isn't it?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, definitely.

SPEAKER_00:

So you've been trying out more stuff with ads. Now, I was just recording an episode earlier today with somebody who was talking about how how few people, where YouTube is their main traffic, ever transition over to ads? Because it's a different mindset, it's a different kind of way of approaching things, and not many people managed to kind of bridge the gap with that. You are doing. When did you start working on ads?

SPEAKER_01:

Um, so I started dabbling with ads, honestly, probably way back in like 2023, 2024. And just, you know, like here,$5 a day, here,$5 a day here, kind of trying to figure it out and trying to see if I could dip my toes in. But I really went all in on ads earlier this year. I think I started in April committing to spending like$50 a day on ads. And I took a course from Maria Wendt, who I mentioned, and her course was she was so convicted in the fact that, like, if you are willing to just accept the identity of being the type of business owner that runs ads now and don't stop, you will figure it out, right? Like you'll be able to test it, you'll be able to figure it out. And that has really proven to be true for me. But it was terrifying because I was spending$50 a day at a time when I felt like, you know, I don't like that's a lot of money. That was a lot of money, money, especially when my um my other overall expenses were relatively low in comparison.

SPEAKER_00:

So what's what what did you figure out? How did you how did you figure that out? What did you run ads to? What's your what's your front end?

SPEAKER_01:

So it took a lot of testing. Um I started with a I'm like, I can get as detailed or as overview as you want, but I'll go a little more detailed and then you can start. Yeah, yeah, no, please. Two in the weeds. I started with an offer that was called 50 piano lessons for$50. And it was a bundle of like some of the replays of live classes that I've taught, and each one had like a targeted lesson. And I started with that one, it was great. The ad spend was$50 a day. So I was always breaking even and I was utilizing upsells and order bumps and things like that. But those ads were never super profitable. I was always breaking even, but I wasn't very profitable. And then I started getting some customer service issues of like, this isn't a course, this is replays of things, and inherently the value seemed lower because of that, um, especially for cold traffic who, you know, didn't know me and wasn't aware of me. And so I decided to pull that and try running ads to a different course that I had. And what's what's wild is that my strategy here was I always copy what's working well organically. And I think that that is something that people don't realize with ads, is like you can start throwing money at something you've never sold, but it's just gonna take you more money to figure it out. And so I had a reel on Instagram that took off and went viral. And it was for a course called Read Music 10 times faster, where I break down how to recognize musical patterns. And so that reel went viral. And I was like, let me try just taking this reel and turning it into an ad. And I did, and all of a sudden that funnel also converted much better. So, like 60% of the people added the order bump, and then like 25% of people added at least one upsell. Yeah. And so it's like a very profitable. What? Yes.

SPEAKER_00:

Like I've had hard.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

But like very, very rarely, and not with cold, yeah, not with normally cold. And 25% is actually above what I'll uh you regularly see it. And so to have both of them, and you're saying people are taking more than one upsell, it's like that's fantastic.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. And so because it had already worked organically, I took it and turned it into an ad. And what was fascinating is the cold traffic, like it still did very, very well. And so those conversion rates stayed the same. And it's it was a$97 course. And so on the sales page, it said it's actually a$297 course, but I had like promoted it for$97. And so I tried just running that to ads. There's no like deadline funnel, there's no timers, there's no coupon code. It's literally just it says$297 and it's crossed out and it says$97. And so it works really well. And because I was spending$50 a day, my profit all of a sudden was like two to four return on ad spend because one course sale was$97. And then people were adding the order bump and the upsell. And so that's when I was like, okay, I can scale. Like this, I can scale because now I have some money to play with because it was so profitable.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. And what did you scale it to? Or what have you scaled it to so far?

SPEAKER_01:

So the what's worked well for scaling that one has actually just been more creatives. So I have like 20, uh, 20 creatives, right, that are all at$50 a day. I've been able to duplicate and double the budget on a couple of them, but really it's just been more creatives. And with that course, what works really well is interest-based targeting. Now, what's fascinating is with my okay, which was a surprise because I started with it with look-alikes. That's what the course recommends is look-alikes usually do better. And then with my other course that I've recently started to put on ads and start to scale, what works better is look-alike audience, which is very fascinating because it's it that sh goes to show like that experimentation is necessary. And just because something works for one product, that doesn't necessarily mean it will work for another.

SPEAKER_00:

There's a friend of mine. I'm trying to I I I've asked him many times to come on the podcast. I don't think he ever has. I'm just searching through to see if I can find his name in the no, his name's Matisse, and he's selling these parenting courses, and they do it solely with ads. And he told me once, I forget the number, he told me though, how many creatives they run, and then the number was breath like breathtaking. It's like, how? How are you thinking? How are you coming up with that many to test? And he said for him, about 90% of them will be just like, eh, whatever. 10% or 9%, I suppose, uh do well, are good, and then 1% will just absolutely smoke it. And he's like, I still don't know which one it's gonna be. We just have to do a lot of volume to get there.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And it's fascinating because I think also, especially I remember earlier on in my course creation journey, you're looking to people that have done it and you're taking what they say as kind of like the word of God. Like you're like, you know, really following the directions, which I think is great because we all need mentors, and that's how I've gotten where I am, is like following, you know, the people that have done it. And I think we all have to keep in mind that you have to experiment a little bit. Like being a business owner is experimentation. Like you're a little inventor and you have to put on your uh your um, you know, seeing eyeglass and like look at stuff and see what's working and copy yourself too. Like when you find something that's working, do more of that for yourself, whether or not a coach is telling you to. I think copying myself with what's working and also being open to experimenting is very helpful, especially when it comes to ads.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I've definitely struggled with that before. I'm just like, oh, but this person's the expert. I need to listen to them. But I'm this thing's working over here, yeah, but it doesn't fit with what they've said. So just you just keep doing it the way and it's like, no, no, no, no. If it works, do that. Do even if you don't understand why, even if nobody else understands why, even if it doesn't make any sense that it would work, if it works, do more of that. Figure it out, you know. Um okay, this is fascinating. So you've got how many different creatives running now? Do you say 20?

SPEAKER_01:

I think I have about 20 for the one, and then I've just started running ads to them, so I think I have like four or five, and I'm really trying to scale that this month.

SPEAKER_00:

Are they all on five hundred uh what was it, the number?

SPEAKER_01:

Fifty dollars a day.

SPEAKER_00:

Fifty dollars a day. Okay. So what's that? A thousand-ish? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Well, actually, it it with I think I've turned it's about seven fifty a day on the first course, and then I'm my goal is to get the next one to that same number.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, okay. And those are bringing in a good amount of profit at the front end.

SPEAKER_01:

Like, I'm consistently getting two to three ROAs.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow.

SPEAKER_01:

Occasionally like four, but like, you know, after the test of time, it's like two to two to three ROAs. And I'm I'm a little bit more strict with my ads than other people recommend. I will turn them off if they go under 1.5 ROAS because I want my ads to remain very profitable. And I'm willing to do more testing of creative. Um well, just because right now.

SPEAKER_00:

You're getting one more than a pound out of a dollar or whatever. And it's just like, what's wrong with that? Why are you turning them off?

SPEAKER_01:

I you know, honestly, I'm like, I just want them to be more profitable. If I'm gonna do work to turn them off, I just want to be making more money. And so I don't want to be just breaking even. Like I want them to be that profitable because then I have more to invest in more of what works, you know, and more money to experiment with and all that kind of stuff.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. I disagree, but uh, you're the one who's making two to four H for us. So it's like, you know, it's hard to totally disagree with your uh what's working for you. Okay, cool. Now, one of the things that you're doing, as I understand it, is you've got a high ticket program as well. Is that right?

SPEAKER_01:

I, you know, I do, and I'm it's like this is the year I'm phasing it out. So that program will end in June of 2026, which was like a terrifying choice to make because my high ticket program until this year was how I made all my money. It was my bread and butter, really. I had one course and one year.

SPEAKER_00:

So let's go through that then. Let's unpick that one. Because most how expensive was it?

SPEAKER_01:

So at the the last time I sold it for the full price of like a full year of access, they got a year of access to live classes with me once a week and like a whole training vault and you know, my curriculum and all of that. And it was$3,597.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So that is that is pretty high ticket. How were you selling it? Was it sales call, webinar, email uh sales page? What was the approach?

SPEAKER_01:

A lit it was a little bit of a hybrid of a sales page and a um and live and sales calls, but all per uh like the precursor to that was a four-day live event, kind of in a challenge style format where I would get people to sign up for this live event. I would teach, we would get them huge breakthroughs, I would kind of introduce the method. And then at the end of those four days, they got an invitation to join the program via, you know, of course, like emails. And then also they had an option to book a sales call if they felt like they needed that before they joined.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So when you introduced that and you started selling stuff for$3,597, were you absolutely delighted at the time? Because that was like a good amount of money you must have been getting in.

SPEAKER_01:

I worked my way up. Yeah. I actually started like in spring of 2022, I started like a$97 a month membership. And it was actually all of the same stuff, but a little less refined and less uh beautiful on the back end. Um as I got started with that, I was realizing, you know, I was getting a few members each month, but I was like, if I want to transition myself out of teaching one-on-one lessons and trading my time for money, right? Where I show up and I teach one hour and I get paid X amount for one hour, this isn't gonna get me there as fast as I want. And right at that time, I hooked up with a coach who was all about high ticket. And she was like, What are you doing? You know, my background, I have a master's degree in piano performance and I've competed and taught a lot. And she was like, You can absolutely be charging high ticket prices. Like, think about how much someone pays you for a private lesson. Just turn that into like this group format. And so I started at 2000 and then raised the price to 2500 and then 3,000 and 3,500. So it took a little while. Like I would raise the price like every three or four months. It took a little while to get there, but it was terrifying at first. I had never sold, I had to overcome like a lot of my own money mindset things and a lot of my own mindset work about being paid that much and feeling like it was worth it and not feeling like I had to hustle so much because I was charging that much. Yeah, it took a lot to wrap my brain around. But once I did, you know, the sky was the limit.

SPEAKER_00:

When it was at 2,000, how much did you make that first time you did it at that price? Do you remember?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I do. I I got two people to join. Yeah, two people to join when I opened enrollment. So I made$4,000.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

It was a big, I mean, I was like, darn it, you know, darn it, darn it. It was like I got two people to enroll, and then three months later, I got three people to enroll, and then three people to enroll. And then I think the next one was 20 people to enroll. Oh it was a big jump as I learned and as I got better at pitching, and as I got better at feeling confident selling something that cost that much, it was a huge jump once I got over all that.

SPEAKER_00:

Wow. That is a that's a very big jump in one go. It wasn't gradual. I mean, at least the results weren't gradual in terms of.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. I mean, it felt like it was gradual because I had launched it some like three times before it went to that 20 enrollment. But also the YouTube channel had grown a fair amount because I think in that time I also went from 5,000 subscribers to like 25,000 subscribers. And so my audience also grew a lot. And so that time when I launched 20, I also had closer to like a thousand people that had signed up for the live uh experience, whereas before I was getting a couple hundred. So all of the numbers jumped, so it made a lot of sense.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, that does make sense. Yeah, I think that high ticket is a really good idea for people in a couple of different situations in the course space. One is if you are if you've got a smaller audience and you need the money in order to not have a day job, for example. You know, then it's like you with a small audience, you can still sell five thousand dollar, ten thousand dollar programs and then have enough money that you're like, oh, okay, well, this is gonna get me through, so now I can focus full-time on you know my YouTube channel and whatever else. And yes, you've now got to deliver the the training uh sessions for that those high-ticket people. But you're doing it in your own business and your own niche, and you're able to use that stuff for other things in your business, whatever, instead of whatever your day job might have been before that.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly. And that's what I used it for. You know, I had been teaching like 20 hours of private lessons a week and transitioned out of that and showed up once a week to teach one live class. Right. And was making way more money. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Fantastic. The other place I think it I I see in someone's kind of business journey that it really makes sense is they've already built up a big audience, they've maybe got a team, they've got uh money coming in every month from their low-ticket courses. And it's like at that point, it gets to be a thing that you can put on top because you've now got the resources you can hire someone, you've got somebody else on your team maybe who can manage the process of the coach. You don't even do the coaching yourself at that point, you get other people doing it. And so if anyone listening is interested in either of those approaches, I did an episode with uh Jack from Banjo Skills. Um, I'll find the episode number. And he took the approach of the um uh episode 172. He took the approach of he had relatively low money coming in, a few thousand a month, something like that, and he did a high-ticket offer to his customers, like it's his existing customers who are already buying from him, already know him, did sales calls and sold stuff like five thousand dollars for I think it was a year's access, and then he's kind of made it five thousand dollars, but now for six months access or for every other week, or something kind of like that, with you know, the individual people. And then another one is um do you know who Scott Devine is, runs Scott's bass lessons?

SPEAKER_01:

No.

SPEAKER_00:

It's like a big I mean I know that you're not uh in the the base space, but like he's uh he's got like a I don't know, five million subscribers on YouTube or something, something like that. I forget exactly, quite big. Um, episode 117. And what he did, and I think he talks about this in that episode, is he was talking to the guy I mentioned before, Christopher Sutton. And Christopher had one of these high-ticket programs. Uh was selling us a program for ten thousand dollars for coaching on their existing stuff. So just taking people through one-on-one through their existing program.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay.

SPEAKER_00:

And Scott hears about this from Christopher on the phone. He immediately hangs up the phone, he goes and he wakes up his wife, and he says, I'm gonna launch a high-ticket coaching program. And I don't know how it's gonna work, but it's gonna cost ten thousand dollars. And his wife's like, That's nice, dear. Can I go back to sleep now? And a month later he launches it. And Scott is like, he's kind of a business genius, but he's very chaotic. Everything's kind of all over the place. So he's like, I don't know how we're doing this, but we're making it happen. Right. And uh they launched it a month later, and they do, I think, like a million dollars a year from it. Wow. And he doesn't coach it, he doesn't, he's not involved in it, somebody else runs it, he doesn't do the selling of it, whatever. And it's like, oh my god, there's other times when it's like, no, no, you need to be head down on making courses, on building the YouTube channel. This isn't the right extra thing to do. But I think those two situations for definite, it's a it's a really good fit.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Um okay. So what made you decide to cut it? Is it the fact that it was your time each week and now you're making enough money from the ads and other things?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, essentially that. And actually the the decision, what's funny is I feel like as a business owner, I've always had to kind of make the choice before I'm ready to make the choice. So I decided back in June of 2025 that that would be the last time that I offered a year access to the program because I'm just I'm just I'm kind of tired. I love showing up and showing up for those live classes truly does give me energy. I love my clients, they are incredible and they always make me smile and it's like inspiring to see how hard they work. And I'm at this point where, you know, I have a six-year-old daughter, life is getting busier. I love being creative. I love creating courses, I love creating content. And so I want to just be able to focus 100% on that and not like have to have something on my calendar each week that I have to show up for. And so I made the choice before the revenue made a lot of good sense, right? But for me, once I made that choice, it's like all of a sudden I had to make the revenue make sense in order to support that choice. And um, and so that's kind of what's happened. And then I had to be like, okay, if I'm not, if this program is not my bread and butter anymore, how do I have to optimize? How do I have to get on point with the selling of the courses organically and kind of not quote unquote like quote unquote passively, right? Like, you know, making it a little bit more automated so that that can actually create the business I want, which is creating courses, creating content, and not showing up to teach live unless I decide to run like a six-week program. And to your point, I think as my audience grows, I might eventually do something again where it's like a high-ticket, you know, six-week program or something like that. But that'll be in a few years.

SPEAKER_00:

An interesting though, there are there is multiple ways of doing high-ticket offers. You could do, right, we're gonna do a two-day masterclass.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

We're gonna do uh workshop on this particular topic, we're going to do something in person, you know, if you fancy it. You know, that might be the antithesis of most online course creators to actually turn up in person. But we had someone on a while ago who they do two retreats a year and uh charging thousands and thousands of dollars for for people for it. So, okay. So we've had uh we're gonna talk through the high ticket program, the the the way that you're running the ads. What are you doing in terms of your um promoting your courses to your existing email list now? How often are you running promotions to them? Um, how does that kind of work for you?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, that's a great, so that's a great question. I I pitch a lot more than I think a lot of people are comfortable with. Um I email people I do, I send what I call like nurture soft pitch emails, which is essentially like what I consider to be a nurture email, but there's always gonna be a pitch in there somewhere. It it's not gonna be like a hard pitch, like here's this course, you should buy it, but it's going to be me telling a story of me overcoming something or of a student overcoming something. There's gonna be a lesson in there, and then there's going to be some sort of like PS if you feel stuck here, this is the resource to help you. Um, and so I do that two to three times a week, regularly, to my email list. And then I am usually doing one promotion a month. So whether that's like launching a new course or relaunching with a new bonus, like an old course or something like that. And then I mean my Instagram page is just direct pitches all the time. Like that's I don't really do nurture content, I do direct pitching all the time, and it's actually served me very well on Instagram. So I know a lot of people have a lot of opinions about that, but it works for me.

SPEAKER_00:

Cool, okay. Yeah. I'd love it if you could talk to just imagine somebody in the audience who's listening to this podcast right now, and they they do email promotions three times a year. They do Black Friday, and then whenever they're launching a new course, and then if they've got all their old courses, they never re-promote them apart from on Black Friday, that's the only time. So the rest of the year, there's like nine months when they're not doing any promotion of any course. They're also probably not doing the soft pictures either. People just go to their website and buy. Could you talk to that person and and try? And if you're listening, please listen to Ashley right now. Because it breaks my heart. Listen to Ashley and just like, what would you what can you say to them to maybe get them to why is it working for you? What can you say to them to get them to start doing monthly promotions?

SPEAKER_01:

Yes. Oh, I love this question. And if you're not watching the video, I'm like hands over my eyes because I just you're missing out on piles of cash. Like that, you're just missing out on so much easy money. And I don't mean that in like a shallow way. I consider my email list to be like one of the most special places of my business because these people have given me their email address. And, you know, we all know, like if I'm getting emails from a company, I love that company. I do love that. And I'm willing to sit through all their promotions that I don't care about because I love them and I know that eventually they will send me a promotion that I'm on board with. And so it's very, I think it's a special relationship with my email subscribers. And so I do cherish that and I have a lot of respect for them. And because they know, like, and trust me, it's so easy to sell to them, right? It's like, it's so easy to make money. And I don't, I don't take that lightly and I don't do it in an unethical way. But what you have and what you are creating truly does solve a problem if you've done it correctly. And I think it's a disservice to not let people know that you can help them solve that problem. Why, why did you go to the trouble to get them on your email list if you're not going to tell them what you do and if you're not going to offer to help them? You know? And I sorry, the the objection that I hear often, because I I talk to, I used to do business coaching and I talk to a lot of business owner friends, is like, I feel, you know, shady about sending these emails or I feel scam spammy, like I'm sending all these emails. And I say, first of all, like, get over that. How can you send an email that you're really proud of? How can you send an email that's like, you know, this is delivering value and I know it's going to brighten someone's day? And if I read this email, I'd be like, wow, thank you. And there's a pitch in it, you know? And I think if you don't know how to do that, that is an area worth exploring and probably one of the most profitable things you could explore in your business.

SPEAKER_00:

I love that. I love that.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay, good.

SPEAKER_00:

I uh I give talks about this sometimes or or you know, make videos, whatever. And I'm just like, everybody thinks that there's just two options. It's either be spammy and salesy or be a good person and pure and honest and send no emails promoting anything. And it's like, that's what in like if you walk down the high street and you go, what should we have for dinner? It's not like is it Chinese or Indian? You know, it's not like is it French or Italian? There's a hundred options. There's all these places you could go. Why on earth would you start believing there's only two things that you could do? Send bad emails or send no emails. It's like, yeah, send good emails.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. And one of the one of the best ways that I got over this was engaging people. So I would always end my emails with like, did this resonate with you? Hit reply and let me know. Or have you ever experienced this? Reply and let me know. I would love to hear from you. And I get so many replies where people like heartfelt, like share their life stories with me. Um, and then I do, I do take the time sometimes to respond, and sometimes I can't get to all of them. But it's it's a dialogue. It's not always just me being like, buy this course, buy this course. I'm sending things that I would like to read. I'm sending things with the intention of brightening someone's day and also letting them know how I can help them. And and that, those shifts like really, really helped me.

SPEAKER_00:

What's next for you? You're doing, oh no, no, actually, I want to go back a sec. How did you reach that approach, that attitude that you've got towards sending email promotions? Was there a time when you felt nervous about being spammy and salesy? And if so, how did you what was your journey that took you through to to where you are now?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I think it has a lot to do with overcoming my own limiting beliefs about making money and about talking about money. And I think that for me, starting with high ticket was a perfect thing for my journey because I just like dove right into the deep end there of charging people so much money that I really had to work on that mindset. Um, but I think when it comes to sending emails and letting people know that you can help them, I think as a business owner, if you don't believe in your business and if you don't believe in your solution, who's going to? Right? Like I have to be so convicted and I have to create products that I know work so well that I will shout it from the rooftops all day that this course will help will help you. And if it won't, I will give you your money back, right? Because I truly believe in it that much. And I think if you feel that way about your product, there remember that as you're writing the emails, right? And don't assume that you are making someone's day worse. Go into it with like, how can I spin this in a way where I feel good about it and where I think they're gonna feel good about it too? And it's just, it's a practice, I think. It's a practice and a muscle that you have to work out a little bit. And then it gets easier and easier and easier. But I think starting with that limiting belief switch of questioning yourself, like, is this going to ruin someone's day? Is someone going to think I'm annoying? Or could I write it in a way where maybe they laugh or maybe they actually smile? And and why would that be a problem then if I also let them know how I can help them? One of the comments I get often, not often, one of the comments I get occasionally is people will tell me that I'm spammy or people will tell me, like, you pitch too much. And it's often, you know, older men that will email me and say what they think about the way that I pitch or the way that I sell, or I'm too aggressive. And I just laugh because it's like, you know, here in the United States, someone will think nothing about going to spend money at Walmart and they're, you know, who, where is that money going versus supporting like a sing a single mom course creator on YouTube? And it's just funny. Like people have their ideas about money, but that's not for me to figure out for them. I know what my beliefs are and I know that I'm not spammy and I believe in what I'm selling. And so I think first believe that about yourself and then just practice.

SPEAKER_00:

What did you do when you had to work on those mindset issues, maybe back when you started studying the high ticket program? What did you do to work on that? Was it other was it talking to other people who were doing it? Was it like uh sitting down journaling? Like how did you go through that process yourself?

SPEAKER_01:

Oh, that's a good question. So there were two um two books that were really helpful for me. And then also, I'll give you one other thing that I did, which is kind of funny, but maybe it'll resonate with some of the people in your audience. So one of the books was um, oh, I never remember the name of the books, but it's gay Hendrix, and it's the book that's all about is it called the Big Leap?

SPEAKER_00:

The one that's all about um He does have a book called Is it gay, is gay man or woman?

SPEAKER_01:

I don't I'm another book, but I don't know.

SPEAKER_00:

I never I read, I don't know.

SPEAKER_01:

But it's the book that talks about how there's basically like the four the limiting beliefs of of that are going to prevent you from being successful. And it's like what like I'm gonna lose my community. My family's going to think something other of me and they're going to abandon me. Like those types of beliefs. And that book was insanely helpful. I can get you the actual name if you want to put it in the show notes after this episode. Um, and then another book is it was by Amanda Francis, and this book is a vibe. I always like give a little caveat when I recommend it. And it's called Rich as, I don't know how your your podcast works, but it's the F word, Rich as Rich as F word. Yeah, Rich as fuck. Okay. Um and that her book We are pro-swearing on this podcast.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay, right.

SPEAKER_01:

Rich as fuck. And her book is, it's a manifestation book, so it's a little woo, but she has these journaling questions that like just get to the root of it. It's like, what were the first memories that you have about money? What was the first thing you remember someone ever telling you about money? What is your definition of wealth? You know, what do you think quote unquote makes a rich person? And she really just makes you like go through and look at your money beliefs. And she says that money is a relationship, just like a relationship with a significant other or your child or a friendship. And if you don't ever work on that relationship, your subconscious is running the show. And so those two books were helpful. And then this one I feel a little self-conscious about sharing because I don't know your listeners, but um, I did a lot of money affirmations. Like I just did honestly, I would take my daughter to school and I would turn on this podcast, I think it was called like money affirmations podcast. And he just had like hours of like, money is easy, making money can be simple, money is not a bad thing, like just really rewriting those beliefs that I think we all unfortunately have because of the world that we live in, that we that can go unchecked if we don't actually look at them and actually question ourselves on them. So those were the things that were very effective for me.

SPEAKER_00:

What was it that allowed you to think, oh, I've got a block here. I'm going to go get these books and read. Is that the kind of have you done a lot of self-development work before? Yes. Is that something that's come from okay, you have, you've done it.

SPEAKER_01:

Decades of therapy.

unknown:

Okay.

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah. Yeah.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01:

Lots of self-development work and lots of just like, I think as a teacher, I always I like to teach by asking questions. And so I do ask myself a fair amount of questions about the beliefs that I have. I've had to, I've had a lifetime where a lot of my life in childhood and in adult life didn't go according to the plan. And so questioning the stories that I tell myself about those events, questioning the beliefs that That I made out of those circumstances and just always being willing to question my own reality, I think has served me very well as a business owner. And question and one of my favorite question to ask friends and myself is is that true? Right? And that works with the emails. Like if I send this email, people are gonna think I'm icky. Is that true? Maybe a couple, but maybe 98% of them won't, you know, and just always asking myself, is that actually true? Or is there a different thought I could choose? We can't choose the way we feel, but we can choose our thoughts, which absolutely influence our actions and the way that we feel.

SPEAKER_00:

Okay. So step one, decades of therapy. Step two, read the big leap. Amanda Amanda Francis's book, uh what was it called? Rich as fuck. Rich as fuck. Rich as fuck. And then Money Affirmations Podcast.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Step three, uh, send email promotions every month.

SPEAKER_01:

Exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

Step four, rich.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, exactly. Have a great successful business. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I like to say to people it's like that selling course uh course creative businesses, if you've especially already built the audience, you've already got the expertise, and you've already made the courses. It's it's not easy, and there's a lot of details to it, but it's reasonably straightforward. It is month one, you need to first of all you do your customer avatar, set up your KPI tracking, that kind of fundamental stuff. But then you're going to uh write an email promotion, promoting one of your courses, you're gonna build a great sales page with all 15 elements of a high-performing sales page, you're gonna make a great checkout page, you're gonna set up your order bump, you're gonna set up your upsell, and you're gonna send that out. And the next month, you're gonna do the same thing again. And you you just repeat till rich. Yeah. You just exactly do it a bit better each time and just keep doing it. And it's like, that's it. If you build the audience, you build the email list, you send the email promotions, you make the good causes, people like them. It's like that's the business.

SPEAKER_01:

Yep. And I think a lot of people think there's like a magic formula, but that isn't the magic formula, it's so simple. The magic formula is don't stop. Don't be half in, like, be all in and commit that you're not gonna stop until you get there. And I really truly believe, I think it I used to listen to the Rachel Hollis podcast, and she would always say this, but it's like anyone that's further ahead than you, they don't have a magic key. They just never stopped. They just never stopped and they did more of what worked. And I think if everybody can go all in and like not be like, I'm I think I'm gonna try, just do it, commit to it, be like, I am all in until this works, you'll figure it out.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice. Nice. All right. What's next for you? You want to scale to a million next year, right? You're scaling the ads. Is the ads the main focus? Is it like, well, it's even with the YouTube? Like, what's the what's next for you? What's your plan?

SPEAKER_01:

You know what? That's a great question. I was actually just thinking about this this morning because I always in my business, I do go towards the most profitable thing. Not in a squirrely way where I'm always being distracted, but this is the very first time in my business where things have shifted and YouTube is not my main source source of revenue anymore. It still is bringing me a lot of new clients, but ads are getting me like 20 to 30 new customers a day. And so I think the shift, I will probably continue to do both for at least to collect some more data for at least a little bit longer. And then likely I will absolutely be scaling ads more in 2026 because that is working. So that will be one of my main focuses. And YouTube might take the second seat, whereas this year it's been, you know, YouTube was the first seat and ads were the second seat. I think that will slightly shift for 2026.

SPEAKER_00:

Nice. Nice both working.

SPEAKER_01:

So I'm gonna keep doing more of that until the end of time.

SPEAKER_00:

Exactly. Yeah. Ashley, I love this. I love what you're doing in the business. I love your attitude. I love the uh the result of decades of therapy. Um if people want to go check you out and they want to see what you're doing on your YouTube channel and and everything else, or uh just wherever online you want to point people to, where should people go?

SPEAKER_01:

Yeah, I'm Ashley Young Music Music Studio on YouTube and Instagram. So if you want to like get in touch and message me, Instagram would be a better place for that. But if you want to kind of see what I do and see how I teach, YouTube would be great for that. Um and then I have my website as well that we can link. It's AshleyJYoung.com, and that's where I have. If people want to look at my courses and all the offerings that I've created, um that is there, and you can read and learn a little more about me.

SPEAKER_00:

So it was Ashley A-S-H-L-E-E. Ashley Young Music Studio, and that was on YouTube, that's on Facebook, that's on Instagram, and then Ashleyjyoung.com is the website.

SPEAKER_01:

Yes, and Ashley with Tweees, exactly.

SPEAKER_00:

And if you want to go check out those podcast episodes that I mentioned before, the one with Scott Devine is 117, the one with Christopher Sutton is episode 14, and the one with Jack from Banjo Skills that I mentioned was 172. Uh the books were uh The Big Leap, right? From I think so.

SPEAKER_01:

Let me just go.

unknown:

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00:

Wicked. Amazing. As always, thanks so much for listening. Ashley, thanks again so much for coming on. Really, really appreciate it.

SPEAKER_01:

Thank you for having me.