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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
260 Stop Launching New Courses. Do This Instead.
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Get your tripwire product ideas here: ๐๐ผ https://datadrivenmarketing.co/tripwire
Natalia Rethmeyer had 80,000 YouTube subscribers and not a single person on her email list. No tripwire, no funnel, no strategy. Just videos going out every week into what felt like a void.
That's where Dominik sat down with her for this one, and what came out of it was one of the more honest conversations we've had on the show about what it actually takes to build something that lasts.
Natalia moved to Germany from Ukraine 12 years ago, couldn't speak the language despite three years of studying it, worked as a waitress while trying to get her masters, and eventually built Learn German Fast into a proper online course business with a team, a feedback system, and a list that grows by around 4,000 subscribers every month.
She doesn't chase trends. She hasn't launched a new product in years. And her revenue keeps growing anyway.
They get into how her email promotions actually work, why she sends around 20 emails in a two-week window and why it works, where her funnel has real gaps (Dominik is pretty direct about that), how she built a course with live teacher feedback that nobody else in her space was doing, and what she'd go back and tell herself if she could.
Her answer to that last one is not what you'd expect.
Dominik also pushes her on surveys, tripwires, order bumps, and the stuff most course creators avoid thinking about. She takes all of it in good spirit and it makes for a genuinely useful conversation.
I think you'll like this one.
Check out Natalia's work:
๐ https://learngermanfast.de/
๐ธ https://www.instagram.com/learn.german.fast/
โถ๏ธ https://www.youtube.com/c/LearnGermanFast
Slow Iteration Beats Constant Launches
SPEAKER_02We only change or add stuff once a year. I don't wanna have a customer that only buys one course and then never sign in again. You will reach wrong people if you tend to build products for a very wide audience and then it's basically for no
Welcome And Nataliaโs Unusual Approach
SPEAKER_02one. Wasted so many years on doing stuff without having any knowledge of anything about my Hello and welcome to the Art of Selling Online.
SPEAKER_00We are here to share weak strategies and secret facts on the top performance online course. My name is Roman Bradman and today's guest is Natalia website. Natalia is a German teacher and an entrepreneur who has helped hundreds of thousands of learners worldwide including German as the founder of Learn German Fast, including courses and educational content focused on real communication and confidence. Permission is to make learning German more practical, motivating, and accessible for everywhere. But her business is more interesting than that. Most creators in her state are launching new products every six months while she's still improving the same one. So what makes her credibility unfair is that she has lived it. She moved to Germany 12 years ago and learned the language the hard way. She knows where her students are stuck, but she got there herself, and that's the current engine of her teaching.
Freezing In Real Conversations
SPEAKER_00Natalia, welcome to the show.
SPEAKER_02Thanks for having me.
SPEAKER_00Of course. Before we talk about the business, I want to start with the part most teachers skip over. You moved to Germany 12 years ago. You've said before that you struggled with the language yourself, that you've been on the same side of this problem. Your students are on now. So I want to start there. So take me back to the first year. What was the hardest moment for you? And when did when did you start to feel like you could actually speak and not just understand?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so when I came to Germany, I could conjugate verbs. I knew a lot of grammar rules, but the moment a German person spoke to me, I just I froze. Nothing came out. And it was just so frustrating because at that time I have been studying German for like three years in my bachelor's in Ukraine. And I thought, my German is good. But then I came to Germany and I realized, oh my god, I know nothing. And it was so hard. It was like you know, facing the hard truth. And then uh I started to speak Denglish. We say Denglish in Germany, and it's a mix of English and German. So just trying to throw some words in an English sentence to at least try to speak German. And I think it took me a year to actually I know find some community, find friends, and start to practice German to have this safe space. Because I think usually this is the problem when people are stressed, they they will not speak. If you want to speak a language, you have to have this safe space, people who can support you, who are okay with you making mistakes and not knowing words. So it took me a while to actually build a community to find people and to start speaking.
SPEAKER_00So most language uh teachers I've talked to come at this academically. So they studied uh linguistics, they got a degree, they teach what they were taught. You came at it as someone who needed to learn it to live, and that's really a different starting point. So, when did you decide to teach this for a living? Was there like a specific point or did you did it just sort of happen?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so my background is actually teaching. So I was I was studying German and Ukrainian languages in my bachelor, and I came to Germany to continue studying to do my master's in German. And like for me, you know, when you're 20, you're very naive. So I thought, I am good, I am gonna master it here. And then I realized, okay, no, I I didn't pass the exam. I had to get like C2 exams, so I didn't get past the exam. And I decided to take a gap year to study the language and then to continue with my master's. So for me, it was always the goal to teach German and to be a teacher, to help people. So, like after the gap year, I actually I had two gap years. I um I started my master's, so I did the exam, I got the C2 uh certificate, and I started to learn like to Okay, sorry. So I got my master's degree, and during that period, actually in my gap year, I was like, okay, I still have time. I am not working because basically when I came to Germany, I had bachelors in German language, but in Germany, nobody wanted to hire me as a teacher. So I was struggling to find a job as a teacher. I think because also my German was not good enough. Even after that year, it was okay, but it was not good enough to teach. So nobody was hiring me. I just I was working as a waitress and I had some free time. I was learning German, and I decided I'm gonna start a YouTube channel. It was also a naive idea, but I liked it. I like to perform, I like I like to be on the camera, and I was like, okay, we'll just try. So I I started to post videos and I posted two videos a week, which was so much. It was like a full-time job doing the video, editing everything by myself. But yeah, I had time. And then when I started my master's, I wanted to focus on my studying, on the university, so I didn't post a lot on YouTube. It was just like a little pause on YouTube, pause of two years, but still. Yeah, so I had this then master's degree, and after that, all of that language schools that I applied before, all of them wanted to hire me, and it was just the best feeling.
SPEAKER_00Well, that's like okay.
SPEAKER_02Well, this is good. And yeah, so I started to work full-time as a teacher and was a teacher for adults. I never worked in at school. It was always a language school for adults who came to Germany and wanted to learn German as a second language. And um during that period of time, I had also my YouTube channel, and you know, after the university, I was like, okay, now I have time, I have my full-time job, and I have this hobby, so I wanna do maybe more out of this hobby. And especially because I have this experience of learning the language myself, I understand my students, and it was like a perfect match, you know.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
SPEAKER_02So I just kept going with the YouTube channel.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. I'm glad it worked out for you very well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
A YouTube Strategy Without Virality
SPEAKER_00Earlier you said something I want to come back to. So you don't believe you need to chase trends or go viral. Most creators listening right now have heard the opposite advice for the last three years. So uh post every day, trust the algorithm, hack the trend. You've gone the other way and it worked. So what's the actual content strategy when you sit down to make a video? What's the rule you have been following so far? And how long does it take, like on average, for one of your videos to start paying off?
SPEAKER_02So basically, I learned it all hard way, really. My YouTube channel was not growing at all for years, and it was super frustrat frustrating, but I still I kept going. I was posting one video per week and just I hope that it will pay off. But and it did actually at some point, but I had to try so many different formats formats, I had to find my voice. So I don't even I have one video on my channel, maybe two, that are viral. But that's it. In the last what it's been almost 10 years, nine years of my YouTube channel. There is there are not many videos that are super viral, but still I have been able to build a business, to have customers, to have courses, and this is like you know, the best proof to me that you don't need to go viral viral. Also, you will reach the wrong people if you go viral. So I never I never analyzed one video and how it pays off. So usually it's a funn process. I post videos to reach my potential customers, and sure, we have different like buckets of forms or like different formats of videos that perform well or that I like. So usually it's like a video, like maybe a clickbait video, something that maybe reach more people, and there will be a grammar video that is not gonna be green on the day I post it, but on the long term, it's probably gonna bring me a lot of customers because this is a hot topic. This is a hard grammar topic, so people need it, and they will probably sign up for my newsletter. And there is another like packet of format, it's my vlogs and podcasts. So this is something I started a few years ago, just as a fun idea, and it also brings a lot of leads, maybe a bit less really buying leads as a grammar video, but this is something for my soul. I really love to travel, to take people with me, and I get so many nice comments and people love it. And it's also, you know, building a relationship with my community. They they see me in different situations, they see how I react react in real life, what I experience. So building the real relationship with the community is also a very important point, and it's probably a little bit hard if you just post grammar videos.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. That makes sense.
Lead Magnets That Build An Email List
SPEAKER_00So um what would you say? Where does YouTube hand the audience over to you? So at what point does a viewer become someone you actually own, like an email subscriber, a member or something? How do you get them on your email list or to buy a course?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, so we have pretty much in every video we have a lead magnet and people can download it. It's either a level test or they can have our like free cheat sheet. And if it's something specific, like a specific grammar video or like vocabulary video, we will have a cheat sheet to this topic.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. And how many email subscribers do you get per month this way?
SPEAKER_02Per month, uh around 4,000, depends on the months.
SPEAKER_00Wow, okay, that's amazing. Do you have like um sort of separate landing page where you added sort of benefits? How does that look like? Because 4,000 people per month is a really, really nice number.
SPEAKER_02Do you mean a tripwire or which one?
SPEAKER_00A landing page for the For the lead magnet? The lead magnet. Are you doing something special there? How does that look? Or you just ask for an email and that's it? Or do you even post some benefits or do you have a whole page for it?
SPEAKER_02So for the lead magnets, we use ConvertKit. And we create landing pages on ConvertKit and just send people on these pages so there is nothing special on the page. Like the funnel is built in the background after they sign up.
SPEAKER_00So you have a tripwire as well, as you mentioned?
SPEAKER_02We do, but maybe we can improve it because it doesn't actually make any revenue, or maybe just very little. I I don't know why, but we have three different tripwires, one for like $9.99, and this one is okay-ish. And the other two are I think they are online since two months, and we made two sales.
SPEAKER_00Okay, are they in any way connected to the lead magnet?
SPEAKER_02Because not really.
SPEAKER_00That might be a problem. Because the tripwire should also be like a paid next step for the lead magnet, the free lead magnets that they're getting. So um, if they downloaded the lead magnet for grammar as 10 ways to improve your grammar, a tripwire can be a paid version of that where you offer more of the things that will help them learn the grammar. If it's something else, if it's something totally different and they were actually here for the grammar, they're not going to buy. So um it definitely makes sense to uh connect it.
SPEAKER_02Here we can see a little problem in maybe in the infrastructure of my course system at the moment. Because, like, as you said in the beginning, I am not really on to building a lot of new products. So we don't have many products to offer. And on this tripwire products, we are offering two small courses that we have, and they are not always linked to the lead magnet. Therefore, that there is maybe a question to you like, is it really worth it to build a new product for the tripwire? Or is it like whatever, we just not not do anything for tripwire and concentrate on converting those leads over email marketing?
SPEAKER_00Tripwire is definitely something you should have, especially in your case where you're getting 4,000 people per month. We usually get conversion rates between 3 and 6% as a benchmark for the tripwire funnel. So that's leaving money on the table in your case. So I would definitely build something for the tripwires, but to make sense as a next step after the lead magnet that they're getting. So it doesn't have to be something like a whole course. It can be a PDF or a PDF vault, for example, with all of your PDFs from before that you shared as a lead magnet. Those usually work great that we have seen with other clients. But building something like this, something that's easy for you and easy to consume for your audience as well, definitely makes sense. Of course, you don't want to overwhelm them with a tripwire because then they are probably not gonna buy a course as a next step because you just gave them a whole bunch of stuff to work on with a tripwire. But again, it's something that they feel like, okay, like I really need this. This will definitely help me out. And it's a no-brainer offer, so it's really cheap. It's not something that they have to think about. But when you take the volume of people, so 4,000 people, and you get 3% to 6% of those people to buy, you're getting extra revenue for basically doing none of the work. So uh yeah, I would definitely build something.
SPEAKER_02That's a good advice.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. We can talk about that later on as
Designing A True Learning Ecosystem
SPEAKER_00well. Let's go inside the product, as we are kind of already here. So when you described what you do, you use the word that I want to underline here. So uh you call it an ecosystem and not a course, and you listed five things inside it: the structured paths, speaking training, community feedback, and regular updates. So I want to walk through what's actually inside that because most listeners hearing online course picture just a video library behind a paywall. So um let's start with the structured learning path. What does that mean inside uh Learn German Fast and what's the actual structure a student walks through?
SPEAKER_02So basically for me, coming from this teaching background was super important to combine all the all the parts of the learning the language, and these are reading, listening, speaking, writing. So like these are four parts that you need, and it's really hard to do it in an online course. Therefore, so my courses are a bit more expensive than a typical online language course because we offer so much feedback, but like for me it was important to have it, to have the feedback, to have the support so people actually make results, you know, they have results, they move forward. And also they buy the next product. So I don't want to have a customer that only buys one course and then never sign in again. Therefore, I was like super focused on building the course with all these parts, like they have reading, they have listening, and it looks like that. You have a first like module of the course, and in this module you will have all these four parts. They read and listen. This is like a passive part of learning a language. They would will read something, they will listen, they learn new vocabulary, they do exercises, and in the second part of this module, they will have to speak and write. The speaking practice is also something I'm super proud of. We built it like three years ago in my first V2 course, and nobody was was doing it in at least in the German market. It's like you speak alone, you know, shadowing technique, shadowing method. So basically you speak alone at home, but it's a video, so you shadow me or you shadow my colleague who is doing the audio. So the audio is not all me, it's just it's me and the other person. And this is how they practice speaking and writing, it's a writing exercise, and then we give feedback. So I have a small team of teachers, they uh check our emails every day and they give feedback to everyone. And it's always like one speaking exercise and one writing exercise per module. So in this case, if you actually are going everything step by step in the course through through the course, you will practice all four parts in every module.
SPEAKER_00Wow, that's nice.
Using Feedback And Surveys To Improve
SPEAKER_00So, how do you decide what to add to the ecosystem next? So uh is it more data-driven? Is it a gut feeling? Is it uh student feedback? What's the input for it?
SPEAKER_02Yeah, usually not usually, it's always student feedback. We we always we analyze a lot of YouTube comments. They are not our customers yet, but still, you know, you have to see what's going on on the market, what do people want to have, and then we basically analyze all of the comments on the platform because we have to give feedback anyways. So if there is something going on in the course infrastructure, in the course ecosystem, they we will know because like we we check everything every day, so we will know we have a group chat, and then yeah, basically we only change or add stuff once a year or something, and uh yeah, in one year there is a lot, like a lot on feedback that we can use and implement.
SPEAKER_00Have you tried sending out surveys as well to your audience? Probably just buyers, but just to get the feedback that way. They can always get something for free in return, like a PDF, something lead magnet of sort.
SPEAKER_01But you will get something because I think no, probably didn't.
SPEAKER_00Surveys we've seen that before, and basically we all we always do it with our clients. So we use surveys for building a customer avatar and a customer language document because you are able to get the most out of the answers that way. But we also send it after the promotions or when you just try to get any sort of feedback. Whether it's you have a new course, so you send out a survey where people can actually write and tell you like personally what they would like to change. Is there something else they would like inside? Also for building new courses, like what they would like to learn next. A lot of course creators go by the gut feeling. I'm glad that you're not, but most of them think like, yeah, I think they want to learn this, or I think they need this. Even if they do need some of that, they're going to buy what they want, not what you think they need and stuff.
SPEAKER_02So it's always I think there is a very thin balance between those. Because sometimes people have ideas where they think, oh my god, you don't need that.
SPEAKER_00It is, it is, but that's why it's great when you can offer them certain things. Because when someone asks me, for example, what would you like to learn? Like at that moment, I'm not sure. But if you give me a few pointers, like would you like to learn email marketing? Would you like to learn all about funnels? Would you like to learn advertising? Now I get some sort of ideas behind it, and I'm like, okay, yeah, I would like to learn advertising, for example. So you can always give them a few pointers and also give. Yeah, yeah. And also give like an open-ended question where they can actually write their own ideas and then you can filter out, yeah, okay, you don't need this, as you mentioned. But yeah, those all always tend to work great, so uh you can try those as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, service is a great idea.
SPEAKER_00Exactly.
Promotions That Respect Longer Decisions
SPEAKER_00But let's talk about maybe a more boring part of the business. How often do you do you send the dedicated email promotions to your list?
SPEAKER_02Just one more thing. I don't think there is a boring part of a business.
SPEAKER_00I'm glad to do it.
SPEAKER_02I love it so much what I do, and like I'm super happy with with my business, with my audience, with like everything I do, my team. So yeah, there are things that are maybe less excited, but I don't think I would be happy to be in front of the camera every day. So this would be boring at some point as well. Therefore, yeah, everything is exciting.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. I always say that stress comes when you're doing something that you don't like.
SPEAKER_01Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So uh when you're doing something that you do like, which is your your work that you're doing, even if you're working for 12 hours a day and stuff, it's not as hard as if you are doing something that you don't like.
SPEAKER_02Absolutely.
SPEAKER_00This is more of a passion in a way rather than something else.
SPEAKER_02And also, um, I don't know, maybe it's gonna be interesting for our audience here on the podcast. Because when I was working as a full-time teacher, I I loved the job as well. I had a lot of really cool students. I was working in different like companies as a teacher. So companies had international employees and they would invite me to teach them. It was not a group coaching or something, it was all like private one-on-one classes. And I had like executives, marketing directors, whatever, and they were very good educated, super cool people. So I loved the part working with people, but at some point I got so bored by the stuff I was teaching because it was all the same. Every year I was teaching the same topics, same grammar stuff. No, it was the first part and second part when I worked like full, full, full time from Monday to Sunday. I had classes the whole day. It was like my most successful months. I made 5,000 euros before taxes. So it was like max that I could earn as a teacher, and I couldn't work like that every month. So, you know, this was the month where I thought, okay, I have to do something different. I need more options to grow as a person, to grow as a, I don't know, employee maybe, or whatever, business owner. But yeah, that was kind of also hard.
SPEAKER_00And you also found a way to help more people.
SPEAKER_02Yeah.
SPEAKER_00So this way you were physically at a place teaching those people. But right now you have the whole internet, and basically people can learn from you online. So you are kind of helping even more people than you would do in the physical classes. Exactly.
SPEAKER_02Yeah. So to your question about the email marketing, we do promotions, I would say six months a year. So it's not every month. I usually try to split it like one month. It's a promotion, it's also most of the time a bit bigger one. I do a YouTube live stream, I will do more like reels on Instagram and stories, and then like a lot of emails. And then next month, it's like a value month. So I split it in like those two categories because like what I see in my niche or in my audience, they need time to make a decision to buy something. And I tried to do this like short three days promotions, and we almost didn't sell anything. And when I have two weeks promotion, then we actually do the revenue. Therefore, yeah. So usually it's like two weeks, the promotion, and then I will do like four weeks of value, value, value, and then I will offer something else.
SPEAKER_00And you also get 4,000 new people on your list who haven't seen any of the email promotions before, which also makes sense. Yeah, I would say that's perfect. So what what would you say what percentage of your list typically converts when you do this kind of promotions?
SPEAKER_02On the whole of the whole list?
SPEAKER_00Of the whole list, yeah. I mean the list that you're sending to. You will of course exclude previous buyers and stuff, but yeah.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, usually it will be around 3%, depending on the uh on the course. So if it's something more expensive, like a 400 euro course, it's maybe one and a half percent. But if it's like 99 euro product, then probably 3%.
SPEAKER_00Okay, these are actually really good conversion rates. How do your emails look like? Do you have like a warm-up period or do you go straight to the promo emails and how do you structure them?
SPEAKER_02Yes, usually there are warm-up emails, like but just pure value emails that I will send that are connected to the topic of the promotion. And yeah, then I usually do a live stream so people will get value in the live stream. And after that, we send a lot of emails. So this is something that I didn't do in the past, like maybe three years ago, I would send five emails in two weeks. So yeah, the sales were not good, but you know, you learn, you grow. So now I think it's at least 20 emails that I will send in two weeks. Because also people are in different time zones, so they would if I send it at eight in the morning, they will probably not even see it because there are so many other emails coming. And yeah, that's the structure.
SPEAKER_00This is great for a lot of course creators that are listening because a lot of them are always scared uh in terms of sending that many emails. A lot of them think like, oh my god, no, I'm gonna be boring. People are gonna unsubscribe. Who's gonna read all the 20 emails and stuff? But it's great that uh we actually have proof that it works. So even sending more emails.
SPEAKER_02Oh sorry.
SPEAKER_00No, no, no, no.
SPEAKER_02I'm so sorry.
SPEAKER_00No worries, no worries.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, but basically also not like if you see the number, like 40 usually it's 40% of the list that opens uh my emails. And sometimes, sure, if it's a promotion and a lot of emails, maybe it's 35 or 30, whatever. But these are not the same 40%. So it's everyday different people. Yes, sure, there is a percentage percentage of people who are the same, but usually these are different people who are opening your emails, and also different angles are maybe talking, not maybe, but different angles are talking to different people. So you are gonna probably convert better if you send more and talk about different things.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. And people are on your email list because they want to learn from you and they want to buy something from you. So you need to offer them the courses that you have and everything else that you're offering to them. And also for the unsubscribers that you're getting, it's better to clean your list that way because if they're not going to buy, then you basically don't need them. So they're making space for those people that actually want to learn from you and buy the courses from you. And yeah, you'll your revenue will also show it as well.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, I am never bothered if people unsubscribe.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. Especially as you're getting new people every month. So yeah. As long as you're in net positive, I think uh you're doing just fine.
unknownYeah.
SPEAKER_00And of course, during the promotional periods, everyone gets a bit higher unsubscribe rate, and that's perfectly normal. Also, if someone is listening and is is scared about that, that's perfectly fine.
SPEAKER_02But also we have to keep in mind that not people are learning and going through different phases, so maybe it's not relevant for them anymore. So it's totally fine. Like I unsubscribe on different newsletters as well because they are not relevant for me anymore. Therefore, yeah, I wouldn't think too much about that.
SPEAKER_00That's very well said. And maybe they learned everything there is. Maybe you teach them German so good that now they just don't need you anymore. And that's a healthy, healthy way of.
SPEAKER_02That's perfect as well.
SPEAKER_00So exactly.
Fixing Tripwires And Checkout Add-Ons
SPEAKER_00When somebody hits your checkout page, are you offering them anything else there, like an order bump or something?
SPEAKER_02So I do. There is an order bump, I would say, almost on every product. But I think there is again the same problem as with the tripwire. It's not always relevant. So we don't make money with that. There is an option to buy, but you probably don't need it, so you don't buy it.
SPEAKER_00Okay, that's I mean, everything that was said for the tripwire goes the same for the order bump. So we're not going to dive deeper into that, but definitely think about it as well.
SPEAKER_02I had an uh offer, maybe it's interesting also for someone. Um, a few years ago, I was like testing to offer my full course for the full price. It's 400 euros, and then as an upsell, so after they paid, after the checkout, they paid, and then there was an offer 50% off for the next level. And it was like only 200 years. You paid 400 already for the big course, and then the next level was only 200, and it actually worked really good. We had, I would say, maybe 1% of the conversion rate, which is better than zero as we have now. So, but we changed a little bit the the offer on the main page on the landing page. So now they have uh one course on the landing page. So if you want to buy B1, you can book B1, or you can book B1 plus B2 and have like a discount on that. And it's like better offer, so people usually buy two courses right away. As it would be an order bump, but yeah, it's a package offer. And therefore, I stopped offering the upsell, but um and also price, you know, 50% off for the whole course. It was a little bit risky, you know. If people write a lot of things, so do a lot of writing practice, then we have to use our manpower to give them feedback and all that stuff. Therefore, yeah, I wanted to experiment a little bit, and I would say now this option with buying two courses on the landing page is working well as as as well as the other one would say.
SPEAKER_00Okay, okay, that's perfect. As long as it's working, that's perfectly fine.
The Hidden Cost Of Long-Term Growth
SPEAKER_00So um let's step out of this strategy for a minute. So we started this conversation with you arriving in Germany 12 years ago, not being able to speak the language. So 12 years on, you have taught hundreds of thousands of people. That's a really, really long road. So um, what has building this cost you that people don't see?
SPEAKER_02I think the hardest part were these first five years. Because I like to tell the story that it took me uh I think seven or I think six years. I don't remember uh clearly, but I think six years to reach 100,000 subscribers. It's so long and it was so frustrating, and then it took me one year to get to 200,000 and I think like another maybe seven months or something to get to 300,000. Therefore, like after 100,000 it was better, but it's not because I got the silver button or whatever, it was because I found my voice. You know, it took me just too long, or maybe not too long, just long to find what I want to teach, how I want to teach. Like I used to think that doing vlogs on YouTube, like it's wrong. Not on YouTube, just German learning vlogs are wrong. You have to be a talking head video, you have to do a talking head video to be a teacher on YouTube, but it's not. And if people like my vlogs, why why wouldn't I do it? And you know, these things, it took me time, and this is probably what what it costed. I look too much what other people do. I wanted to copy them, I don't know, to repeat what they did, and this is not the way. Everyone has his own way to grow on YouTube, to build a business. Sure, you can get inspiration, but you have to focus on your like inner voice, your own way on YouTube. And it was, I think, probably like if we talk philosophically, that was really frustrating. And I'm super happy I didn't give up because like I thought so many times it's not working, I'm not getting any views, I'm not getting any comments, and I didn't even build my email list. I had 70 or 80,000 subscribers, and I had zero people on my email list. I didn't have an email list, so I started way later. I was just doing it, not really knowing what I am doing, but I wanted to have more subscribers. And then there was like a shift. Okay, what actually, what is the goal of all of this? And it all, you know, like work out worked out together.
SPEAKER_00Exactly. That's a cool story, and it goes like when you actually plant a seed and you do not see any progress, it's not growing yet. Like, so you're watering, you're just trusting the process. Yeah, and with when it comes out, it just blooms. And that's that's what happens to you when you hit 100,000 subscribers.
SPEAKER_02I would say also about the financial part, because it's also a cost about people don't really talk about that, you know, that it's it's not for free completely, because also you need an editor if you or you have enough time to learn it yourself. But usually, yeah, you have to have good sound, you have to have a good camera, and you need an editor who can actually edit what you are thinking in your head, how it look how it should look. So there was like a lot of money that I put in the channel for years, and I made like 20 or 50 euros a month from ad revenue, so basically nothing. But yeah, as you said, I was trusting the process, and at some point, maybe this was also helpful helpful for me. I decided I will do one year YouTube really constantly. Every Sunday I had a video and it was for one year, and like for me, I created a plan how I do it. I did a research, like what topics are important. I you maybe it was more like a business, you know. I started to analyze stuff, I started to do a research to analyze my videos or other videos, and then I did it dedicatedly for for the whole year. And after that year it like all started to pick up.
SPEAKER_00Nice. If you could go back to year one, Natalia, so moving to Germany, no plan, no business, what would you tell her?
SPEAKER_01Huh.
SPEAKER_00Another interesting question.
SPEAKER_02No, it's it's yeah, because the typical answer is yeah, just do your thing, keep going, don't give up. But I would actually say learn more about marketing. Because I wasted so many years on doing stuff without having any knowledge, anything about marketing. So I would actually say, Yeah, you're a great teacher, but go buy all the books, courses, whatever, to learn more about online marketing, about emails. Imagine I would start my email list right away. I would have a lead magnet right away. I would build a little small course right away. I could may could have made some money from the beginning to maybe pay my editor and not waste five years, invest money in YouTube channel and not have like any return on that. Therefore, yeah, I would actually tell her learn a bit more.
SPEAKER_00Perfect. Two
Advice For Beginners And Plateaus
SPEAKER_00quick ones before we wrap. So I'm going to ask you about two specific people in our audience. The first one is somebody who has the expertise. They could be teaching this for a living, but they haven't launched anything yet. What's one thing you'd tell them to focus on in the first 90 days? Except learning marketing.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, Prov we have a great offer. Just think about your offer. What do you offer? And not only a product, but also who is the person, like who is your avatar? Who are you talking to? Because like people tend to build products for a very wide audience, and then it's basically for no one. So it's better to really know who are you talking who you are talking to and have a like no-brainer offer.
SPEAKER_00Agreed. Definitely agreed. The second person is somebody who's been at this for a few years. They've got students, they've got revenue, but it's plateaued. They're stuck. So what's the question you'd want them to ask themselves? What would you say?
SPEAKER_02So what I would do, I don't know the question, but what I would just do, I would take everything I have, all the numbers, all the data from your email list, from your sales, anything you have, and put it all in Claude. I work so much with Claude at the moment. So therefore I would just put it all in Claude and say, hey, I want to go to to have a breakthrough. I I don't know where the problem is. Help me. You are my uh you're my coach, you are my online marketing expert. And and just yeah, do the whole day claude brain brainstorming and find uh what's wrong in your business. Or maybe a lot of times there is nothing wrong, like particularly. You have to fix a lot of small things. And if this is the case in your business, then just take a year and focus on one thing at a time and then see if you get better.
SPEAKER_00Nice, Natalia. This has been a really good episode. I really enjoyed it. Thank you, Victoria. Thank you very much. You have given us the practitioners' perspective on the language teaching, the compound, content philosophy, the ecosystem module, and the speaking first curriculum that frankly the rest of the industry should be paying attention to. So,
Where To Find Natalia And Next ัะปััs
SPEAKER_00for people uh listening who want to find more of you, where should they go?
SPEAKER_02Just vip vip uh.learngermanfast.de. So it's very easy, learngermanfast.de. Or you can follow me on YouTube and Instagram.
SPEAKER_00Perfect, thank you very much. Before we sign off, two episodes from the back catalog that are going to extend what we just talked about. If this conversation lits you up, start with these. So the first one is episode 170 with Timothy Moser, who built a multi-million dollar Spanish core business. If Natalia's content uh compound model resonated, Timothy is the parallel case study. He took the same ecosystem style thinking and built a different language empire. The second one is episode uh 207 with Jock Hopkins. He has built a $4 million piano course business, and most of it came from a single YouTube video that's still earning eight years later. Natalia, thank you, thank you so much. This has been excellent.
SPEAKER_02Thank you, Chu.
SPEAKER_00Thank you. My name is Dominic, and this has been the Art of Selling Online Courses. See you in the next episode.