Notes from Chris

Episode 1092

A self-proclaimed mild-mannered librarian, Sami Gardner had a bit of a quarter-life crisis that shook everything up. She went from working in the library to working in a homeless center—after she shaved her head and got really into tarot.

She knew she wanted to keep working with organizations that helped people, so after the library and the homeless center, she shifted to working for an AIDS Foundation.

But she was still feeling restless, and had to do some soul-searching to figure out what was missing. One day, it hit her. As someone who had always dreamed of getting out of her hometown, she had only made it thirty minutes up the highway.

That same day she started looking for an online job that would make a difference in people’s lives, but give her more flexibility to start traveling. Sami ended up working for an online school that offers user experience and web development courses for adults. Her new full-time gig was a Senior Career Specialist, which meant that she got to help students with resumes, portfolios, and networking.

This also allowed her the freedom to hit the road, as long as she was able to email and Skype with her students. Within the first few months of her starting with the company, they asked her to create a course on cover letters and resume writing. It became one of the most popular courses that the school offered, making over a million dollars in revenue over the first six months.

But like so many online gigs, Sami quickly found that she would need to do something else to supplement her monthly income.

And since she already knew she could create an entire course that people would want to buy with her expertise, she wondered “Why am I earning all this money for someone else, and not for myself?”

She started with what she calls the “low-hanging fruit,” reaching out to her network to see if anyone would be interested in hiring her on a freelance basis to help them move their own careers forward.

Most of her initial consulting work was rewriting resumes and helping her clients to navigate professional networks like LinkedIn. Even with this focus, she made a cardinal mistake the first time she tried to scale her freelance career coaching business: she followed what other people told her about building a brand, instead of asking if it really worked for her.

Feeling frustrated while struggling to find leads, she decided to get serious and try some ideas of her own. She invested in an online course and set up a new brand called Career Kickstart Academy. After she had built the website, she created a short guide as an email incentive to grow her list, so that she could start marketing outside her network.

Still unsure what the best method would be for attracting new traffic to the site, she set up a twelve-month challenge for herself. Each month, she would launch something new, to see what reactions and feedback she got. Sami tested a podcast, an online summit, new courses, and any product or media that her competitors had as well. Some things flopped, like her first online course, and other things found traction, like her podcast.

After all that work finding her ideal clients and developing her brand while staying true to herself, Sami made an extra $25,000 during her twelve months of experiments. She still works in her online job with the career school, and has implemented more revenue streams into her business. This way, she always has income coming in the pipeline, and doesn’t panic when there are slow seasons with any of them. She also recently started publishing fiction on Kindle.

Now traveling frequently while helping people kickstart the career of their dreams, she’s definitely brought herself more than thirty minutes up the highway from the life she used to know.

 

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  MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE:

• Learn more about Sami at her personal website, SamiGarnder .net and her coaching site, Career Kickstart Academy.

  SEE ALSO:

• Job Recruiter Helps LinkedIn Connections with Resumes: With a full-time job and a family of four to support, this job recruiter applies the skills he uses every day to earn additional money on the side.
• New Mother Gives Life To Self-Care Coaching Business: In need of some routine before returning to her job as an Ultrasound Technician, a new mother creates a side business focused on self-care coaching.
• Charismatic Coaching Duo Earns $50,000/Month: These two friends knew that charisma and confidence were important to success—but the success they create goes far beyond their wildest imaginations. They begin by selling $10 ebooks, and now sell $600 courses every single day.

Inspiration is good; inspiration combined with action is better. Now get back to work!

Yours in the revolution,

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