ATTENTION: FOUNDERS & CEOs OF EDUCATION COMPANIES
What does it take to grow an education company to $75m revenue (at 40% net profit) in 5 years?
Because that’s exactly what we did…
Here are the highlights:
Again, all of that was achieved in 5 years from a standing start.
So, it’s been quite the rocket ship.
So how did we do it?
There are the usual suspects…
A great niche. Hard work. Good timing. And a pinch of luck.
But those are the fundamentals. The “table stakes”.
Plenty of successful businesses have those, but never achieve significant success.
There’s almost always so much more behind growing 8 and 9-figure businesses.
So we reflected on what propelled us to those dizzy heights.
And we extracted the lessons.
We’ve shared those lessons and principles below.
A word of caution though.
If you’re looking for a “silver bullet”, you won’t find it here.
Similarly, if you’re looking for a “shortcut to success”, you won’t find it here either.
Some of the lessons below are simple. But none are easy.
Outsized success rarely comes from anything easy.
Implementing the principles below took insane hard work. And time. And patience.
But were they worth it?
Absolutely!
So let’s dive in…
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When we first launched, we could have offered general business education.
“How to start a business”
“Learn how to grow your online business”
“Online business growth secrets”
And so on.
But we didn’t do that…
We got specific. VERY specific.
We offered education in a sub-niche of business – eCommerce.
BUT…
We didn’t stop there.
We “niched-down” further.
We focused on one eCommerce platform – Amazon.
BUT (you get where this is going)…
We initially targeted our marketing almost exclusively in Australia.
That’s niche enough, right?
NOPE.
We then targeted only people over 30, who were also interested in entrepreneurship.
NOW were we done?
Almost…
We had one final (SUPER important) filter.
We had a Zoom call with EVERY SINGLE person who was ready to join our program.
In fact, one of the company founders (Joe Olejnik) did the first 600 of these half-hour calls himself.
Why do these calls?
To make sure they could afford the course.
To make sure they could afford to start an Amazon business.
But most importantly…
To make sure they were an outstanding fit for our student community (more on that below).
So, most educators say something like, “We teach people how to start a business”.
Here’s what we said instead…
“We help aspiring and existing entrepreneurs over the age of 30 in Australia start their own business or side hustle selling physical products on Amazon. We only work with people who are financially stable, and who are an excellent fit for our world-class student community.”
See how much more specific that is?
Here’s why that’s so powerful…
Every day, we woke up and knew EXACTLY who we were trying to find and market to.
EXACTLY what targeting we should use in organic marketing and on paid ad platforms to find them.
What media they consumed.
What was important to them.
How they spoke.
And so much more.
It made marketing easier.
It made copywriting easier.
It made selling easier.
It made producing educational content easier.
Being clear about who we were selling to made EVERYTHING easier.
All while watching other educators burn out (with nothing to show for it).
Why?
Because they were trying to sell to everyone.
For us, being specific when choosing our market was a key ingredient in our success.
But it wasn’t the only one.
There was another critical success factor…
One of the most important principles in business.
Some say THE most important.
The people we were marketing to were HUNGRY for what we were offering.
They knew eCommerce was a huge global opportunity.
They knew Amazon was an incredible vehicle to hitch their wagon to.
But they were frustrated with the lack of quality education on how to sell products on Amazon.
So we stepped in and satisfied that hunger for them.
The lesson?
When you combine a great product offering…
With a highly-specific, super-hungry crowd…
You become unstoppable.
“Version 2.0” of our flagship academy course was EPIC.
200+ training videos.
Filmed on professional sound stages in our own production studio.
Custom-coded Learning Management System (LMS).
Professional course design to provide a remarkable student learning environment and experience for students.
But was our first version like that?
Absolutely not.
From a video production standpoint, it was basic.
But the training content itself was QUALITY.
It gave our students the exact knowledge they needed to succeed.
Step-by-step. No bells and whistles.
Despite the humble presentation, the reviews for our course were GLOWING.
That should always be the focus. The quality of the product. Solving real problems for your customers.
You can always get fancy later, when you’re ready to scale.
But a great product isn’t enough.
You need to nail your pricing too.
During our first year, we struggled to convert sales. Despite having a truly excellent product.
We would generate great leads. Nurture them. Provide a ton of value. Then make a compelling pitch.
The result?
Crickets. Zilch. Nada.
We hosted marketing webinars for hundreds of prospects, and made precisely zero sales.
What would a lot of people do in that situation?
Drop the price?
But we didn’t do that. We did the exact opposite.
We RAISED our price (by a lot).
And the sales rolled in.
You see, pricing is more than just what you charge your customers.
It’s a SIGNAL.
It tells prospective customers how much you value your OWN product.
Because if YOU don’t value it, your potential customers sure won’t.
Now, you can’t just slap an expensive price tag on a crappy product and hope it sells.
And of course there will eventually be an upper limit to what you can charge before your conversion rate drops too far.
But most great products and services could be priced higher than they are.
It’s one of the most powerful experiments you can perform in your business.
But there’s one more strategic lever you can pull that will strap a rocket booster to your business growth.
Once we nailed our price, and the sales were streaming in, we found ourselves with a sizeable student base.
After running a deep-dive customer survey & questionnaire, the results came back loud and clear…
They LOVED our course and they LOVED our private online community.
But some of them wanted MORE.
They wanted 1-on-1 coaching. Weekly group calls. Mastermind matching. Tools to accelerate their success.
It would have been easy to say “We don’t offer those” and simply focus on our core product.
But we wanted to serve our student community as fully as possible.
So we took a deep breath, and launched our 2nd product offering.
Our high-ticket coaching program.
This new product gave our members exactly what they wanted… a cohort-based learning program and live group training events.
And because we were tapping into demand that was already there, the launch was a runaway success.
And it set the platform for our growth for years to come…
How?
Successfully launching our 2nd product did two things…
Both involved a very powerful term in business - Lifetime Value (LTV).
LTV is the amount of value (profit) that your average customer will deliver to you over the period of time they work with you.
When we launched our high-ticket offer, we INCREASED our LTV. By a lot.
And because we launched the product to our whole student base, we also ACCELERATED that LTV.
We earned that value much EARLIER than if we had waited.
The result?
A huge injection of cash just when we were ready to deploy it to scale the business.
And that’s exactly what we did.
Over the following 18 months, we 10x’d our revenue.
That’s 10 times growth. In a year and a half!
That’s the power of nailing your product / pricing mix.
Although we invested heavily in our world-class educational products, that wasn’t our absolute top priority.
Hmmm…so what was our #1 priority?
The experience our students had as they worked with us.
At every step along the way, from very first contact, to welcoming them to our high-end coaching program, we went above and beyond to make our students feel truly special.
We thought deeply about the full student experience, and carefully crafted a nurturing and empowering customer journey.
We provided a 1-on-1 welcome call to every single student. This ‘cost’ us $100,000’s every year. (That was unheard of in the industry at the time).
We proactively refunded any applicants that weren’t an ideal fit for our customer community. This ‘cost’ us $1,000,000’s every year. (Again, unheard of in the industry at the time).
We communicated with clarity and warmth at every step.
We curated a thriving, supportive community of over 10,000 like-minded entrepreneurs and regularly ran a variety of community engagement programs.
We held magical events with no expense spared that were for students only, costing us $1,000,000’s every year. (Yet again, unheard of in the industry at the time).
We made each and every student feel welcome, valued, respected and cared for.
So many businesses are relentlessly product-focused.
They put thousands upon thousands of hours and dollars into crafting their perfect product.
But not once do they put themselves in the shoes of their customers and ask, “What would make this a truly joyful experience?”
It’s a cardinal sin in business. And an all-too-common one.
Of course, your students want quality information and educational resources.
But that’s not the reason they’ll write you an epic, heartfelt review.
That’s not the reason they’ll glowingly recommend your business to their friends & family.
That’s not the primary reason they will buy more of your products in the future.
They will do all those things because of how you make them feel.
For the experience that you give them.
Ignore that at your own peril.
When we first launched, there was an almost-universal approach to marketing in the online education industry.
Promise big results. Promise fast results. Promise easy results.
So what did we do?
The exact opposite.
We told our prospective students that their initial results would be humble.
And take time.
And involves a lot of hard work.
We even went so far to say they may not be successful on their first product launch.
At the time, some education industry veterans said we were crazy.
That no one would buy.
But they did buy…
In DROVES.
Why?
Because we looked and sounded totally different than almost every other online educator in the marketplace.
And we applied this same ‘No B.S.’ principle at every opportunity.
When we ran our high-ticket mastermind events, we created dossiers on every attendee.
Then we provided them to all our team members so they would know our students well before they even arrived.
When we spoke at the same event as Tony Robbins, we engaged a professional cartoonist to create an amazing caricature of him at the event as a gift.
When we ran our multi-day live events (circa $2 million budget / 2,000+ attendees) they became must-attend for our students.
These ‘eCommerce Seller Summits’ recognized the business achievements of our students from around the world.
At first, we hosted these events for hundreds of our students.
Then the word spread and it quickly became thousands.
We engaged South American dance troupes, caricature portrait artists and speed painters to enrich the event.
We hired world-class event photographers & videographers to capture the magic.
They were keynoted by iconic business, sports, and public personalities.
Speakers included John Howard (former Prime Minister of Australia) and Ita Buttrose (Chair of the ABC).
We attracted many other high-profile entrepreneurs and business speakers including best-selling author, Seth Godin.
Sporting luminaries also keynoted including John Bertram (skipper of America’s Cup winner), Robert De Castella (world champion marathon runner) and Dustin Poirier (UFC Champion).
We worked tirelessly to be remarkable in all that we did.
As a result, we developed an outstanding reputation within our student community for delivering high-quality, engaging business training, coaching and events.
This in turn allowed our team to connect with our students on a deep, emotional level.
That’s the power of being a ‘Purple Cow’ (as put forward by the famous business author, Seth Godin).
Because if you’re driving in the countryside, and you see brown cow after brown cow after brown cow…
And then imagine you see a purple cow.
What would happen?
You stop. You remark. You pay attention. You look closer.
And in a world that is becoming noisier and noisier by the day, if you can capture people’s attention even for a moment, you’ve won half the battle.
From the very beginning of our business, strategic partnerships formed another cornerstone of our success.
It started with the company founders.
We each brought complementary skill sets to the table.
If one was strong in producing training content, the other was strong at driving marketing initiatives.
If one was strong at finding great talent, the other was strong at nurturing that talent and fostering an elite team culture.
If one was focused on speed of execution, the other was focused on thoughtful analysis and strategic planning.
Much like Warren Buffet and Charlie Munger.
Almost nobody on planet Earth has a complete business skill set, with no gaps.
Everybody has weaknesses.
If you’re going it alone, those weaknesses can slow down (or completely block) your success.
That’s why partnerships are so powerful.
They fill in the capability gaps.
They neutralize weaknesses.
And they set a rock-solid foundation for entrepreneurial success.
But it’s not just co-owners who benefit from the power of partnerships in business.
Because great partners come in many forms.
If recruited well, your team members become like partners too (more on team below).
And external parties can become some of your highest-value partners in business.
As our business grew and matured, we became better at spotting our capability gaps.
And we always asked the question, “How can we best fill this gap?”
Sometimes the answer was to recruit an outstanding internal team member.
In other instances the answer was to invite our very top performing students to join our coaching team panel.
But often, the answer was, “Let’s find a world-class external partner that is an expert in their field”.
We became experts in recruiting, onboarding and managing these specialist contractors and agencies.
This also allowed us to rapidly complete major projects.
Professional website builds. CRM data migrations. Our corporate rebrand. Marketing collateral design.
All done by the best in their field.
When we decided to host our next 2,500 attendee in-person Student Summit, we knew bringing-in outside expertise was the right move.
This was despite already developing extensive event management experience across multiple events.
Ticket marketing, keynote speaker management & contract negotiations, public speaking coaching and running student awards ceremonies.
We’d done it all.
But we wanted it to be our best event experience yet.
So Steve Olejnik swung into action. He searched high & low for the right event management company.
After an extensive interview process, we engaged the very best-of-the-best to assist us in running that event.
This event management company had run huge events for Microsoft, Salesforce, Virgin and other massive companies.
They had the track record which proved they could deliver.
And as we worked together on the event, they operated far more like partners than contractors.
They approached the 3-day business summit like it was THEIR event, just as much as ours.
The result?
Flawless execution of a multi-million dollar business event.
This put our attendee satisfaction score in the top 1% of similar events worldwide.
That’s the insane power of the right partner, in the right area of your business, at the right time.
The founding partners of the business drove our initial success.
We fostered the spark of an idea into a good (but relatively small) business.
But we didn’t transform it into an exceptional, world-class, global business just by ourselves.
We did it with a team. But not just any team.
You see, in the early days of our business, we did EVERYTHING.
Content. Coaching. Marketing. Tech. Customer Support. The works.
But there came a point when there was simply too much to do.
We couldn’t do it all ourselves anymore.
It was hard to let go at first, but bit-by-bit we “replaced ourselves”.
We found portions of our daily tasks that we could carve off and delegate.
From there we went on a hiring blitz.
The team spanned marketing, sales, videography, photography, copywriting, tech, customer success, and C-suite roles.
We hired dedicated team members for social media management, JV/affiliate partner management, and even event management.
We also became experts at coach recruitment & management by identifying top-performing students and inviting them to join our coaching team.
All this recruiting freed us up to work on scaling the business.
And here’s the crazy thing…
Almost always, the team member we delegated each function to did it BETTER than we ever did.
But that didn’t happen by accident.
For each role we conducted a wide-ranging and vigorous recruiting process.
We turned a lot of good people away, because they were not the perfect fit.
But as soon as we brought the right person on board, Joe Olejnik led the charge to ensure our onboarding, training and culture was exceptional.
And unlike many companies, the professional development didn’t stop once they were onboard.
Upskilling, cross-skilling, executive team coaching and a heavy focus on team collaboration best-practices.
All of these formed a staple in every-day-life for the team.
As a result, we built a crack team of 50+ A-players who all continually excelled at their roles.
A team that would frequently deliver remarkable project outcomes with little input from the leadership team.
And despite being a remote team located across 6 continents, they treated the business like it was their own.
How did we achieve this?
Because of our relentless pursuit of excellence in recruiting, onboarding and training the very best operators.
There are plenty of nice, little businesses in the world run solely by their owners.
But the world-beating companies? The businesses that achieve extraordinary things?
They all have amazing teams.
So invest in yours.
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When we first considered launching our high-end coaching program, we didn't know exactly what we should include.
We had ideas.
We took inspiration from others.
But we didn’t REALLY know.
So over the first few (smaller) student cohorts, we tested a lot of things.
We tested different variations of private coaching, group coaching and cohort-based training.
We experimented with our online content, training resources, events and a whole lot more.
We observed.
We measured.
And we spent a lot of time with our coaching clients and our team of professional trainers.
Asking lots of questions.
And listening deeply to their responses.
And over time, as each new cohort progressed, we got clearer on what worked and what didn’t.
So by the time of our 8th student cohort intake, we knew exactly what should be in the program.
What our members would want.
And most importantly…
What would give them the best chance of success!
We approached other key areas of the business in exactly the same way.
Marketing, paid advertising, media production, email broadcasts.
Test. Learn. Adapt. Re-test. Learn. Adapt. Repeat.
That’s what proper business testing does. It brings clarity and confidence.
The renowned business author, Jim Collins, has an outstanding testing framework.
“BB Gun. BB Gun. BB Gun. Cannon.”
What does that mean?
In every area of your business, you should test. A lot.
Only the most arrogant (and usually unsuccessful) business owners think they have every answer ahead of time, every time.
The wisest (and most successful) entrepreneurs recognize that a single test is worth a thousand expert opinions.
They get clear on what they want to achieve.
Then generate many ideas for how to get there.
Then they find a way to test as many as possible, in a short timeframe, and at a low cost.
And they look deeply at the resulting data.
Those are the “BB Guns.”
And when they see which test (or tests) were successful?
BOOM!
They bring out the ‘Cannon’.
So many business owners hit hurdles and ask the question, “What should I do now?”
They are setting themselves up for failure.
Because it’s the wrong question.
What’s the right question?
“How can I quickly and inexpensively test many different potential solutions to this problem?”
Default to that question, and you’ll find business problem-solving a whole lot more effective.
It’s this type of strategic thinking that helped us grow from $0 to $75m revenue in 5 years.
It’s what helped us create the world's most successful Amazon ecommerce education course (as measured by revenue generated by its student community).
It’s what helped us generate $5m in sales selling from stage via a single 47 minute platform pitch.
And it’s how we were able to spin-out a number of other related businesses and support them as their primary source of new customers.
Even though we were obsessively focused on producing the “world’s best training”, we knew that was only half the equation.
We realized that we could have the best business education programs in the world, but if no one knew about it, we wouldn't have a business.
We needed to get the word out.
We needed marketing.
From day 1, we made marketing a core priority in Reliable Education.
When we first started, we didn’t have the resources to pursue lots of different marketing channels.
It would have spread us too thin.
So we chose one marketing channel to start with – joint venture partners (aka affiliates).
We chose affiliates because we had existing relationships with audience-holders.
In other words, we started with what we already had. Instead of “forcing” a channel where we didn’t have a good head start in.
We crafted the affiliate program, negotiated the JV terms and ensured proper lead attribution to each promotional partner.
Only once we successfully nailed our affiliate marketing strategies did we move on to developing other channels.
And our next channel was one of the most consistently underrated marketing channels of all.
Email.
You see, through our affiliate partners, we were now building a sizable email list.
And we knew that this was our best source of new students.
So we focused on delivering truly valuable and engaging content to our email list.
We shared entrepreneurial advice. eCommerce news. Wins from our students. And a lot more.
Our subscribers actually LOOKED FORWARD to receiving emails from us (imagine that).
All in all, we sent over 100m emails (yes, that’s ‘million’).
As a result we earned our stripes in email database management, email deliverability & analytics.
An astounding number of businesses underestimate the power of engaging properly with their email list.
They neglect their list and don’t send any emails at all following the initial autoresponder email.
‘Welcome, and thanks for signing up’ is often the extent of thought they’ve put into it.
Or worse…
They neglect (read: abuse) their list by using it purely for ‘email marketing’ by relentlessly sending promo email after promo email.
All huge mistakes.
Take any business on Earth, and there’s a better-than-even chance that the “lowest hanging fruit” in their business will be found in their email list.
Yet it wasn’t just valuable email content and copywriting that we invested in.
We were early to recognise and capitalize on another important digital marketing 'megatrend' that is only now coming into full swing.
Video.
We produced literally thousands of videos during our growth. 3307 videos to be exact.
In the early days, we scripted, shot and edited all the marketing videos ourselves.
But always with that same fundamental focus.
”How can we provide genuinely great content for our audience?”
We recognized that great content builds trust, nurtures relationships and adds value.
It engages. It educates. It entertains. It connects.
But we saw most businesses lacked all four of these elements when creating content. Especially video content.
The personal touch was nowhere to be seen. It was too polished. Too staged. Too boring.
There’s no heart, no soul, no connection.
Instead, we became obsessed with creating video content that was authentic, relatable and resonated with our audience.
We did this with videos that shared real experiences, told interesting stories and provided valuable lessons.
We also took viewers behind-the-scenes of our business with the camera.
They got to know us on a personal level.
And, although we always led with value, we would also show our ‘irreverent’ side too by weaving humor into much of the content.
Not only did this boost engagement and ‘humanize’ us.
It also meant we were having a lot of fun creating these videos.
Did it work? You bet!
As we grew, we invested more and more into our video scripting, video production and video post-production.
We hired 2 full-time videographers.
We hired a full-time video editor.
We built a high-end video production facility at our company HQ with multiple soundstages.
We invested $100,000’s every year into creating world-class video training content.
And we even spent a month traveling around the USA with one of our videographers filming an epic free video marketing series for our audience.
It wasn’t just the valuable content within these videos that built trust with our prospective customers.
It also signaled to them our commitment to quality and excellence.
But no matter which marketing channels we pursued, there was a constant, critical ingredient.
Social proof.
Nothing else in marketing comes close to the power of social proof.
Features, benefits, advantages, process, discounts, endorsements.
They all pale in comparison to real results from real customers.
And because our students loved us, they also loved TALKING about us.
So we collected MOUNTAINS of positive social proof, testimonials and case studies from our students.
And used it heavily in our marketing efforts.
Ok, a quick recap on our state-of-play.
We had product/market fit, loads of social proof, a world-class team and cash-in-the-bank.
Now we were ready for the ‘rocket booster’ equivalent of marketing…
Paid traffic.
Scaling paid traffic deserves a separate deep-dive post just on its own (like this one).
There’s so many hard-won lessons to share.
But in short, using the exact same testing methods…
We successfully ran paid adverts across the major platforms including Google, Youtube, Facebook and Instagram.
Let’s just say we got paid traffic working so well that our company credit card got an absolute beating - up to $300,000 per month.
We tested a bunch of other marketing channels too.
This included magazine placements, content marketing platforms, conferences, book launches, podcasts, sponsorships.
They say the best learning comes from doing.
We left no stone unturned running marketing experiments and tests.
Sales Funnel design. Landing page optimization. Sales pitch strategy, prep & practice.
World-class marketing collaterals. Marketing data & analytics. Competitor research.
The list went on.
There’s not much we didn’t test and run experiments on.
But eventually what all that gave us was access to proven targeted marketing placed in front of our ideal customers 24/7 and at a global scale.
So many business owners buy into the notion that, “If you build a better mousetrap, the world will beat a path to your door.”
Nothing could be further from the truth.
Especially in this day and age.
If you aspire to grow your company, then every day, you should wake up and ask yourself…
“What can I test today to help reach and deeply engage with the people who will most benefit from what I am offering?”
As we grew, our revenue per employee hit $1m.
That is ELITE.
How did we achieve this?
Systems and technology.
In the early days, we did almost everything manually.
Multiple team members logged into a single customer support inbox.
We wrote each support response from scratch.
We managed our projects with post-it notes and emails.
Despite the scrappiness, we made it all work.
But…
There came a time when even our A-player team members needed a better approach.
We needed something to help wrangle and tame the complexity.
So we built systems.
We started with the basics.
For example, copying standard responses to common support questions into Google Docs.
Then copying and pasting them into email replies so we didn’t need to respond from scratch each time.
From there, we set up automated sequences to answer these by way of video and email.
We incorporated this ‘knowledge-base’ into our automated sales funnel emails.
We also linked to specific ‘articles’ out of that knowledge-base when replying back to individual leads on a specific query.
The entire team was then thrown-down a challenge by Joe Olejnik.
To identify all other recurring questions or challenges anywhere in the business and feed these in to iron out all major ‘friction points’.
From here we built standard operating procedures and customer support systems relentlessly for 18 months straight.
Every. Single. Day.
These systems were critical in allowing us to achieve streamlined scale but without scaling any of the friction & frustrations.
Other systems included formulating a standard script and important questions for our new student onboarding calls.
These onboarding & approval calls helped maintain the caliber of the student community.
They also provided valuable insights as to why customers had made the decision to purchase our program and how we could best serve them.
We also designed a smooth and streamlined process for scripting, producing and editing all our marketing videos.
And from there we captured countless other standard operating procedures (SOP’s) across the business.
We were obsessed.
And it wasn’t just each time something broke or a customer had a poor experience.
We also documented positive activities like proven marketing strategies and customer satisfaction initiatives.
This meant they weren't reliant on a single team member's memory and could be rolled-out (and improved upon further) again and again.
The result?
A massive increase in efficiency AND profitability.
This set the platform for rapid business growth.
In fact, as an example we did this so successfully that within a single year…
We went from manually bringing on 1 new student every 3 days.
To effortlessly onboarding over 1,000 full-paying students in a 5-week period.
And as we started hitting that ‘hockey-stick’ growth phase, we looked to the other major efficiency lever…
Technology.
In every area of business there are now so many opportunities for technology to create efficiencies and automate recurring activities.
Steve Olejnik worked with the leadership team to find and test tech, SaaS and software solutions that would support our growth.
When our support volume became too much for G Suite and Google Docs to handle, we implemented a world-leading customer support SaaS solution.
With this we could tag inbound enquiries to specific team members.
We could also add notes behind the scenes to these emails.
This provided a clear history and background for support tickets that needed to be escalated or referenced in the future.
As a result, our customer support workload dropped 30%... OVERNIGHT.
From there Steve worked with a number of our in-house and external tech specialists and quickly built out our ‘full tech stack’.
SaaS solutions such as Asana, Stripe, Slack, Front, Loom, Infusionsoft, WooCommerce / Shopify, Zapier, PlusThis, Thinkific, Memberium, Circle and many other tools proved worthy investments.
These collectively provided us with operational efficiencies, competitive advantages, quality education and world-class community management.
From there we deployed cutting-edge marketing automation, live streaming, virtual events, automated webinars, advanced data analytics and a whole lot more.
The rocket ship of growth (and profits) then really kicked into gear…
And it all enabled us to become one of the fastest growing private education companies on the planet.
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The principles and lessons drawn from decades in business feature prominently in how we build, run and scale companies.
However, there are also many important lessons adopted from an extensive list of business books we’ve studied over the years.
We credit many of the learnings in these books with our success in growing our business education company.
A prime example…
‘The One Thing: The Surprisingly Simple Truth Behind Extraordinary Results’
Co-authored by Gary Keller and Jay Papasan, this must-read book has over 20,000 reviews on Amazon at a 4.5 star rating.
It has also featured on many bestseller lists including The New York Times and The Wall Street Journal.
So we’re not alone in being fans of its key principles.
The core premise of the book…
There is immense value in simplifying your workload by prioritizing the single most important activity in any given project.
This can be achieved by asking yourself the "Focusing Question"...
"What's the ONE THING I can do so that by doing it everything else will be easier or unnecessary?"
As Keller points out, “Not everything matters equally, and success isn’t a game won by whoever does the most. Yet that is exactly how most play on a daily basis.”
This has direct parallels with The 80/20 Rule (otherwise known as the Pareto Principle) which states ‘80 percent of the results come from 20 percent of the activities’.
Interestingly, Joe Olejnik discovered this was also a recurring pattern when speaking with many of the fellow winners at the ClickFunnels awards ceremony.
Being curious he asked the winners about their ‘needle-moving’ success factors.
Again and again he heard the same things…
Singular focus.
One business.
One product.
One channel.
Don’t get distracted by other opportunities and shiny objects.
Learn to say “No”. A lot.
Know that all great things take time, there is no easy path.
Most things won’t work initially. You will need to test and try many things and learn as you go.
You will want to give up. You will want to walk away.
Keep tweaking, keep testing, keep trying.
Don’t stop until you find product-market fit.
Then dominate that ONE THING.
Become the world's-best at selling that one thing BEFORE expanding into other products.
If you give 100% of yourself each day to that formula you will find a way to succeed.
Reflecting on the journey of building a $75million education company from scratch, this was exactly what we did.
There were long days. There were sleepless nights. There was an obsessive focus on excellence.
But it was only once we had successfully created massive momentum in the business did we lift our gaze.
In short, focus on one thing. Learn from your mistakes. Don’t give up. Master your craft.
Then…drive it hard.
11. WE ROLLED WITH THE PUNCHES
As any successful entrepreneur will tell you, business growth is DEFINITELY NOT a straight line.
Sure, our business growth curve was pointing the right way….up like a hockey stick.
But we had our fair share of ‘curve balls’ too.
Navigating major challenges and crisis management is something that comes par with the course as any business scales.
It’s inevitable.
No matter the planning.
No matter the systems.
No matter the caliber of the team.
There’s no way to completely avoid hitting brick walls.
Forget everything you ever heard about easy paths to business success.
There is no script, template, or system that will work perfectly when growing a company.
You will need to embrace uncertainty, discomfort…and sometimes major set-backs when building a multi-million dollar business.
The lessons learned from these then become the building blocks for what it takes to become a truly great business.
And the more challenges you are willing to endure, the more you will find competitors fall by the way-side.
Why?
Because they are simply not willing to go through the same pain.
So what’s the best way to prepare for this uncertainty and inevitable set-backs?
Stick your head in the sand perhaps? No!
The best way is to accept from the outset that you will metaphorically get ‘punched in the face’.
So when a crisis does happen (and it will) you’re mentally prepared to weather the storms.
Perhaps the biggest crisis we navigated through was as COVID was first hitting.
We had a 3-day live event only days away as the virus struck.
This event would fill-up Australia’s GCCEC (Gold Coast Convention and Exhibition Centre) with thousands of our students from around the globe.
12 months in the making. A total of $9M dollars in costs and potential earnings was on the line.
We’d developed event marketing strategies, tools, team and playbooks to run highly successful education-based business events.
We’d developed a comprehensive risk assessment as part of our event management planning.
We’d locked-in our event run-sheet, keynote speakers, event entertainment, food & beverage orders and student award ceremony.
We’d even filmed a mini-course on public speaking for each of our first-time speakers to watch.
All of these were refined from the lessons learned from our previous student events & conferences.
The goal for the event each year - create an unforgettable learning, networking and entertainment experience for our attendees.
And each year the team sought to surpass the benchmark set by the previous year's event.
We were ready to put on the best show yet.
But then at the very last moment with only 9 days to go, the announcement came from our Prime Minister…
“No events or gatherings with more than 500 people”
What. The. F@%k!
How was the company going to survive this?
All 2500 tickets sold-out for this 3-day extravaganza months prior.
$700,000 in attendee meals had been ordered.
Full-time event staff, international flights for our team, accommodation. The list went on.
All the bells and whistles that our summit attendees had come to expect.
But as each day went on, we saw more and more of our intricate plans collapsing around us.
The world was shutting down (rapidly) before our eyes.
Flights were canceled, travel was made illegal, restaurants & shops were closed.
In the blink of an eye, #stayhome became the new normal.
The weight of disappointment, uncertainty and powerlessness was indescribable.
Disappointment for our students, as well as for our team who had put their hearts and souls into this event planning.
Uncertainty around the health of our families, our friends and our livelihoods.
Powerlessness over the seemingly sealed fate of our event.
With only a few days to go it felt like the fate of this year’s Summit was beyond our control.
So, what were we to do?
The answer:
The same thing that all successful entrepreneurs do when faced with a crisis.
Roll up the sleeves, find a solution and pivot…quickly.
Practicing what we preach to our students, the team didn’t waste time complaining about the hand we’d been dealt.
We hatched a plan.
We would live-stream the event. A virtual summit.
This was unheard of in the industry at the time.
Because our students couldn’t come to the Summit, we brought the Summit to them.
The technical requirements to do the live broadcast and logistical changes to make this sudden switch were mind-boggling.
Would it work? We didn’t know.
But we were going to give it a red-hot shot.
Headed-up by Steve Olejnik, our crisis management skills and technical capabilities were pushed, pulled, stretched and forged in fire.
Remember that all this was against the backdrop of an ever-changing global crisis.
Oh and also remembering, everyone was locked-down at home binging Netflix.
This resulted in a massive surge on internet bandwidth infrastructure (critical for the stability of our live-stream broadcast).
Not great!
The task before us was immense.
One wrong step and that would have been the end of the company.
Instead of feeling daunted by what lay before us, we drew strength from each other and our events tagline, #StrongerTogether.
Serendipitously, this hashtag was chosen months before the pandemic hit.
We threw everything we had at making such a monumental pivot in such a short time.
We worked full-throttle to redefine and rebuild what we had been working on for so long.
No stone was left unturned in our mission to deliver a truly inspiring, albeit very different, student-only Summit.
The big day arrived. We pushed the button. We held our breath…and we went LIVE.
Success!
Students showed up in droves.
Our first Virtual Summit brought 1000’s of our students together…all from the safety of their own homes.
This was not only to support us but because they yearned for human interaction at a time of extreme uncertainty, chaos and isolation.
Alongside the event’s live stream, we gave students the ability to connect and interact via our private online community.
This simulcast of the event gave them an instant sense of connection and community.
At the end of the 3-day livestream we received over 4,700 positive comments in the dedicated event thread.
The feelings and emotions were palpable.
Joy, relief, gratitude and immense fulfillment - they were all there.
With the support and love of our student community.
And with a superhuman effort from all our team.
We had achieved the impossible.
And in-time we discovered something else interesting…
The success of this online event birthed the skills and experience that allowed us to do more virtual events.
You see, there’s a reason that only 1% succeed.
Too many people give up as soon as the going gets tough.
So be patient. Stay positive. Play the long game.
Remember that with each ‘set-back’ comes experience.
And with every new experience comes knowledge & skills you didn’t have before.
Use that as fuel knowing that you can now handle similar situations if it ever rises again.
So, if you want to be successful…
Remember to ‘roll with the punches’ whenever adversity strikes.
Or as Rocky Balboa (Sylvester Stallone) put it:
“The world ain't all sunshine and rainbows. It will beat you to your knees if you let it. But it ain't about how hard you hit. It's about how hard you can get hit and keep moving forward. How much you can take and keep moving forward. You gotta be willing to take the hits. That’s how winning is done”
Obviously business is an excellent vehicle to make money.
However, we also believe businesses can do good and make money at the same time.
So, from the outset we set an ambitious goal.
Something that was much more meaningful than just our own financial business metrics.
What was it?
To create a positive, profound and permanent impact on 1,000 people less fortunate than ourselves.
To achieve this we started donating to charitable causes from day 1 of the business.
How exactly did we do this?
Well, for every student that joined our course, we would put some of those profits towards doing good in the world.
In total we’re proud to have given more than $1,000,000 in charitable donations.
This includes…
$500,000 donated to the John Fawcett Foundation (JFF) to help restore sight to thousands of people with curable blindness.
$275 000 of that went towards building a state-of-the-art mobile eye surgery hospital.
These funds were donated jointly between the company and our student community.
Upon completion, that mobile surgery was handed over to the JFF team.
The opening ceremony for it was an auspicious occasion held in Java, Indonesia.
It was attended by 100’s of Indonesias along with Joe Olejnik, a number of other team members and over 50 of our students.
During its operational life, that mobile clinic will restore sight to over 30,000 needlessly blind people.
Another of our initiatives was providing interest-free micro-loans to third-world female entrepreneurs via Kiva.org
In total we provided $600,000 to 17,000 women across 73 of the poorest countries in the world.
Once paid back, the funds were then re-lent to other aspiring female entrepreneurs…
And so the cycle of giving went on and on.
There were so many special moments we experienced because of our commitment to giving.
These included…
Watching a blind parent see their children for the first time since they were born.
Receiving a heart-felt message from a mother in Somalia that has been able to start a business to support her family.
Helping an Australian woman exposed to domestic violence build a better life for herself and her children.
Or buying a new wheelchair for a young lady struck down by a sudden, debilitating illness.
The deep sense of fulfillment that comes from these brings a whole new level of meaning and drive to business.
Interestingly, over the years we found the more we gave the more success we seemed to find in business.
So perhaps you’re just starting out in business?
Or maybe you’ve built a thriving global enterprise?
Either way, it’s worth considering how you could incorporate social giving into your business.
A business that not only makes money but also does good at the same time.
Imagine that!
The results above speak for themselves.
You can see we built an incredibly successful education business.
This also included a world-class brand and deep trust within our student community.
Did we get it right 100% of the time? Absolutely not.
But whenever it did go wrong we always took the time to learn and improve.
Below you can read what just a few of our students have to say about the company we built.
How about your company…how are you creating raving fans like these?
"When I came into the lounge early in the year to find my wife watching an online summit by your company, I thought....what Amway Tupperware pyramid bullshit is she watching now? I gave it 5 minutes. Then I was hooked, I had to keep watching. I was not in a good space, I was unhappy at work, I felt like my family hated me, I was a grumpy bastard. Because of watching your virtual summit I have: changed my life, got into a better routine, launched my business and couldn't be happier. I want to thank you for saving my life, saving my relationship with my family, sticking a rocket up my back-side and making me a better person. I hope you realize the huge impact you are having on those you touch!” Andrew
“Hey Joe, I’ve been meaning to message you and thank you for everything you created. It’s made a huge difference to our lives and I’m sure we wouldn’t have achieved the sales we have without the course materials and community. For a quick update, John and I hit $115k last month. We are currently on around $900,000USD for the rolling 12 months. With a bit of luck we are hoping to hit $1,000,000 by October. We are in an awesome mastermind full of your students that are all achieving great results. We couldn’t have done it without you. I also really enjoyed the few times we got to catch-up in person. Thanks again for everything” Jake & John.
“I'm on the edge of my seat...I started the course in February. We went live on November 8th and am blown away...we are currently achieving just over $1000USD / day by selling an average 40 units per day. We are already ranked on page 1. Today was huge milestone selling 174 unit today which is just over $4,500USD in 1 day and the other big milestone is surpassing $10K USD for the month and we've been trading for just 17 days. I've done the sums and that works out to be $500,000 AUD per year and the best part about that is we have only just launched. We are just blown away - my arms are sore from pinching myself. Thank you for the opportunity.” Wade
“I wanted to send you a big thank you. Because of your amazing program, the incredible coaches and the huge amount of useful materials, I launched a product on Amazon a month ago and in my first month I had 23K sales. The work you do and the way you do it is changing peoples’ lives. Thank you!” Naomi
“I still pinch myself that I found Reliable Education. It has truly changed my life. Only today I had a huge opportunity arise, off the Amazon platform, that would never have happened had I not been selling my product on Amazon USA. Once again thanks a million. These successes are closely linked to you guys and the wonderful work you do. No need to reply to this message but please have a beer for me at some stage.” Ben
“We wanted to let you know how life-changing the recent student event was for our family. The struggles we've had in business - NOBODY in 15 years has managed to convey even a fraction of the knowledge we took away with us. Suddenly what seemed daunting, depressing and impossible has become manageable - exciting even! We had felt we were the kind of people who'd never be more than a 'Mum & Dad' business. 3 days has completely changed that. THANK YOU!!” Peter
“Very thankful to the whole team for making it possible for me and many many others. You made me believe in myself even when I didn’t. Since day one I know I can trust the team, the materials, and this wonderful community and told myself that I’d get there eventually. Joining your course is by the far the most adventurous, most fulfilling thing I’ve done in my life. I can’t thank you enough for that.” Monica
"We would like to thank you from the bottom of our hearts for the course and your world class vision to empower others. Teaching us how to fish in the big wide world. Just wanted to let you know the course has been invaluable to us. You have given so many people hope to follow their dreams and the knowhow to do so. Thank you!” Sue & Kylie
"This community has helped turn me into the person I am today. It’s far more than an online course. It never occurred to me that business could be used to create good and that lessons you learn along the way are there to be shared. Thank you!” - Matt
“Thanks to this course I have been able to leave my job as a senior account manager at an advertising agency. My business grew to beyond $50,000/month in sales within the first year and I haven't looked back. What you guys teach works. The way that this course is structured helps you keep momentum toward reaching your goal. No BS - just solid business training.” John
“You guys are amazing with what you have achieved. It’s been an honour to study your course, and join all the other like minded people online. Cheers and bless you”. Anita
"We have learnt so much from you guys not only from a business point of view but also the way you think and feel about helping people” Henry and Mandy
So there you have it.
Hopefully you got value from this case study?
Throughout our career we’ve also had the honor of working with a range of other leading companies.
We’re incredibly proud of the work we’ve done with them and the results produced for them.
So, given what we’ve achieved in business, particularly in the education space, we want to do the same for your company.
We have a very clear process and promise…
In short, we partner with education companies to double their monthly revenue in 12 months
How do we achieve that?
Well, we only work with companies who we are 100% confident we can help grow.
With over $100m in growth revenue on the books across the companies we’ve worked with, we've seen and done it all.
Student growth, program design, marketing, sales, operations, community management, team recruitment and everything in between.
We've learned all the valuable lessons along the way, so you don't have to.
Now it's time to supercharge your companys’ growth!
How much revenue could you add to your business?
Book your call now and let's find out.
We’re looking forward to connecting, getting to know you and learning about your business.
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