Jacques Hopkins [00:00:00]:
If you've ever felt like your online course business is just this close to feeling easy, but it still depends on you pushing the boulder up that hill every week, this episode is for you because the real goal isn't just hitting a big month, it's building something that keeps selling even when you're busy, when you're traveling, or honestly just living your life. So what does that actually look like in practice? How do you create marketing that keeps working without creating more work for you? Today you're going to hear from someone who's doing exactly that by doubling down on consistency, tightening their funnel, and building systems that make growth feel sustainable. And a quick note before we jump in, today's guest is one of the most popular guests that we've ever had on the show. The last time she was here was a little over 2 years ago, back in episode 205, and people are still bringing up that conversation. She's back with fresh lessons, bigger results, and more specifics you can steal. You're listening to The Online Course Show, where we bring you the insights and strategies to build a thriving online course business. I'm Jacques Hopkins, and over the past 13 years, I've built a successful online course business teaching piano that's brought in over $5 million, and I'm here to share the lessons I've learned along the way. Regular people are taking their knowledge and content, packaging it up in an online course, and they're making a living doing it.
Jacques Hopkins [00:01:20]:
But not everyone is successful with online courses. There's a right way and there's a wrong way, and I'm here to help course creators actually succeed with online courses. Hi, I'm Jacques Hopkins and this is the Online Course Show. All right, today's episode is a really good one because we're bringing back one of the most popular guests we've ever had. My guest is Lauren Bateman, and the last time she was on the show It was a little over 2 years ago, was episode 205 if you want to check that out. And I'm not exaggerating, I still hear listeners talk about that episode. And since then, Lauren has doubled her YouTube audience to over 600,000 subscribers, crossed 7 figures in annual revenue. And this is the part I love.
Jacques Hopkins [00:02:07]:
She did it without turning into just a content factory. And by the way, I don't know that I've mentioned this. She is in the guitar niche, so a non-money-making niche like me, and she has just blown up with her guitar courses. You're going to hear Lauren break down her batching system for publishing a high-quality YouTube video every week and how that's just about all she does in her business, how she's doing A/B tests that really, really drive results, like a simple headline change that boosted clicks by 20% and just made her more money from a headline change, and how she thinks about viral content versus content that is for the right buyers. If you want a business that's more stable, more predictable, and less dependent on you being on all the time, you're going to get a lot out of this conversation. Let's go ahead and jump in. Hi Lauren, welcome back to the Online Course Show.
Lauren Bateman [00:02:59]:
Hello, thanks for having me back.
Jacques Hopkins [00:03:01]:
It's been quite some time since you were last on, uh, the last episode you were on was quite well received. Love your story. Uh, it was about 2, 2 and a half years ago. Like what, what would you say are some of the things, if anything, has changed in your business since we last chatted over that timeframe?
Lauren Bateman [00:03:19]:
Yeah, I think kind of the biggest thing for me probably in the last couple years is we've been doing a lot more like refining work in terms of like doing some A/B testing on landing pages. Um, we started digging in more recently. I think I was doing Facebook ads the last time we talked, or I just started doing Facebook ads, and we're still doing that, but now we're kind of diving into Google Ads a little bit. Um, so for me, I'm trying to figure out the best ways to, to maximize my energy, so to speak. So in terms of like the YouTube front and the amount of work I'm doing is, is probably still the same. I'm not trying to increase my workload. Um, but I think we're just trying to do things more efficiently.
Jacques Hopkins [00:04:06]:
You obviously, you know your business way better than me. Uh, but from what I remember, Things don't look that much different on the outside than, than, than, than what I remember it, you know, you're st— it looks like you're still doing a, a video a week on YouTube. It looks like a lot of your, your branding is, is the same. And then going to your website, it looks your, your website looks very similar. It looks like the main free lead magnet you're trying to get people into the free course, still the same.
Lauren Bateman [00:04:33]:
Yep.
Jacques Hopkins [00:04:33]:
Right. So that's great. I mean, obviously things are working. You don't wanna mess those things up.
Lauren Bateman [00:04:38]:
Yeah.
Jacques Hopkins [00:04:38]:
That's amazing.
Lauren Bateman [00:04:40]:
Um, for—
Jacques Hopkins [00:04:40]:
on our last conversation, you mentioned not really doing many paid ads because you've tried them and hadn't had much success. So it's interesting that you're saying that you, you actually are doing paid ads. So let's go there next. What's working for you there?
Lauren Bateman [00:04:52]:
Yeah, so I think the last time we, we weren't able to get paid ads to work on a cold audience to purchase like the main course. Um, so we, I think back then, cuz a couple years ago we were testing doing it to the free course. Which seemed to work much better. Um, so basically not asking anyone anything. I think, you know, we have obviously like the little tripwire that's like, hey, you can buy this for $7, and then there's upsells. So like, we do make a lot of sales on the front end to kind of COVID the, the ad costs of getting people into that funnel. Um, but for us, that seems to be what's working better. And then just targeting to people with the course.
Lauren Bateman [00:05:39]:
Uh, but yeah, we could never get people to buy the course directly as a cold audience. It just, it just— we couldn't figure out that part of the puzzle. Um, but this way seems to work, work very well. And at least, you know, we're growing our mailing list, we're getting leads for very, very cheaply. Um, you know, somewhere in the range of like a dollar, sometimes less, sometimes more, depending on the time of year. Um, but yeah, so that's, that's the big foundation part of it.
Jacques Hopkins [00:06:09]:
Just for context, I mean, can you share roughly how much you're spending on ads, just so, so I know, like, how much of that your business, like, per day or per month, like, ballpark?
Lauren Bateman [00:06:17]:
Yeah, that's a great question. I feel on Facebook we're spending around like $3,000 to $4,000 a month, and then Google, we just started those back in December, so like we're kind of slowly ramping that up. So I think now we're probably at like $40, $50 a day. So what's that, 30 days, like $1,500 maybe on, on Google?
Jacques Hopkins [00:06:38]:
Pretty minimal. I mean, can— do you mind sharing ballpark what the business brings in in a month? Because I mean, it's, it's big numbers we're talking in terms of revenue.
Lauren Bateman [00:06:47]:
Yeah, I mean, it, it really depends. Like, let's say December, I think we were like 80 or 90 for last month. Um, so you know, those are, those are your big months, November, December. January, you know, we'll probably— I think we're already at $60,000 or we crossed that. Oh, I, I honestly haven't checked. And that's the fun part about this. And people are like, how much did you do? I'm like, I honestly haven't checked. But the last time I did check, which is around the 21st, I know we had just crossed over the $60,000 mark.
Lauren Bateman [00:07:15]:
So I wouldn't be surprised if we did in that $80,000 to $90,000 this month as well.
Jacques Hopkins [00:07:20]:
So right at, right at around a million dollars a year probably is about where you're at.
Lauren Bateman [00:07:27]:
Yeah, we did with basically with courses and, and like YouTube ad revenue last year, we did do over a million.
Jacques Hopkins [00:07:33]:
Yeah.
Lauren Bateman [00:07:34]:
Yeah.
Jacques Hopkins [00:07:34]:
Well, yeah. And that's an— that's another thing that like on the surface has changed is last time we talked, you were at about 300,000 subscribers on YouTube. Now you're up over 600,000. Uh, it's crazy what consistency does for you. It's amazing. Have you, have you spit out a video per week? You know, since the last time we talked?
Lauren Bateman [00:07:53]:
Yeah, I'm still doing a video a week, um, and I think we do like one short a week just because like we're doing that, um, because you know YouTube likes you to use their, their features and functions. I'm not a huge fan of like short-form content because I really feel like the relationships are built in the long-form content, but I put them out there just to, you know, have at least one short. I also don't really want short subscribers. I really want the long— you know, the long-form content subscriber is worth so much more than a short-form person.
Jacques Hopkins [00:08:28]:
So what motivates you to keep going on YouTube? Because— and obviously I'm not recommending you stop, but like, if you did stop, I bet you would make just about as much money this year as otherwise. Why do you keep going?
Lauren Bateman [00:08:43]:
Fortunately, you know, yes, I have the back catalog, so I do think it would, it would sustain itself a bit. Um, it's, it's just one of the best free marketing tools out there. Um, and I think if you know your person very well— and I guess that's like strategy-wise maybe where we've shifted in the last couple, or at least me mentally with YouTube, because obviously all of us get obsessed with like the million view videos and, you know, 600,000 subscribers, that's amazing. But like when I talk to people, like I have coaching clients that I work with and I tell them, I'm like, I would rather have 100,000 subscribers and have them be like all my ideal real person than like 600,000 random subscribers. Um, because it gets to a point, you know, and you can, you can look at my videos, you can look at anyone else's videos— Justin Guitar, Marty Guitar— we're talking people have millions of subscribers. And it gets to a point where you put out a video and it's like, on average, your videos are going to get 10,000 to 20,000 views. Like, even if you have a million subscribers, because half of those subscribers are— they're basically dead because they joined and you ended up not being the right person for it. Like, they saw one video that they really liked, but they weren't like the ideal person.
Lauren Bateman [00:09:54]:
So it's great to have these giant subscriber counts on YouTube. It makes you feel good as a creator. I mean, it's a scorecard, it's telling you how well you are, um, but really for me it's been focusing more on like the core audience that I'm trying to serve. So like even when I'm putting song videos out, like, I'm I'm not trying to put out the million-view video. Like, it— if it happens, it happens. That's great. I'll, I'll never say no to a video that goes over a million views. Um, but I, I want people who— I want to attract the people that are like the music that I like to teach.
Lauren Bateman [00:10:29]:
So it makes it fun for me because that's the hard part. I mean, what is it now, 2006? So like, I've been at this 9 years now. So after you do something, yeah. They call it like the 12-year itch for like entrepreneurs. It's like, it should be more like, you know, the 10-year itch. And like, you do something long enough and you start asking yourself like, okay, well, what's next? Like, you want new and exciting things to keep it, to keep it fun for you. So as a, as a creator, that's the hard thing. How do you keep it fun for you? So I'm like, well, I'm gonna start doing some more like '80s, '90s songs.
Lauren Bateman [00:11:03]:
So my demographic now is aging You know, I've been doing this for a decade now, so my, my demographic has now aged a decade. So, you know, the '80s and '90s are becoming more relevant where I was doing the '60s and '70s, you know, for the last 10 years.
Jacques Hopkins [00:11:20]:
I'm a big fan of systems, um, and it sounds— I don't— I'd imagine you have a pretty good YouTube system set up at this point. I, I don't know that you could be as consistent and be doing as well on YouTube if you didn't have good systems in place. So would you mind sharing with us roughly what your system looks like for getting a high-quality YouTube video— video out every single week?
Lauren Bateman [00:11:43]:
Yeah. So for me, I, I'm a huge fan of batch recording. Um, so typically like the month before, I will be like, how many videos do I need for next month? So February, I think it's 4 weeks. So I'm like, I need 4 videos. So I'll— beginning of January, I'll plan out like What are videos I'm going to do? And at this point, I've been at it for so long too that sometimes I'll go into my back catalog and be like, what's a video that I feel is very relevant, um, that I maybe haven't done in 4 or 5 years that I need to redo? So for example, um, one example in a video— because I do use like vidIQ and stuff because I also like— I still want to put out videos that people are searching for but obviously are still relevant to what I'm doing. So for example, um, a couple weeks ago I was searching through and it was a video on how to change the strings on an acoustic guitar, which, which has like so much search right now. And I'm like, oh, I was like, I've done that video, but I did it like 5 years ago. I'm like, I should probably redo that video.
Lauren Bateman [00:12:42]:
One, because it does get a lot of search volume. Two, it's, it's relevant to my channel. Yes, I've already done that video, but as videos age, they lose their— they use their relevance. They're probably still getting some views, but if you can revive an old video, it, it's worth doing that. So for me, at this point, I'm kind of like redoing older content that I feel, one, needs to be redone, you know, that maybe I did 4 or 5 years ago that I haven't done in a while. And then I'm just, I'm just researching songs, being like, oh, what's a good song that I think my audience would like, or even that I would like? So for example, um, I had a student recital over the weekend and, and someone did a cranberry song and I was like, oh, I should do more. I should do a cranberry song. So like sometimes I'll just write notes and be like, I like that song.
Lauren Bateman [00:13:29]:
I don't care what the statistics are on it. I enjoy the song. So that means I'm gonna enjoy teaching it. So then I'll be like, okay, I'm gonna do, you know, I don't know if it was Linger by the Cranberries. I'm like, I haven't done that as a lesson. Let me write that down. And then what I do is I just make a list of songs that I wanna do. Sometimes I'll pull from the back catalog, um, But right now I'm trying to like dive more into the '80s and '90s.
Lauren Bateman [00:13:50]:
So I'm like, oh, I can do a bunch of fun new songs for me.
Jacques Hopkins [00:13:58]:
I have tried before to do what you're talking about, like looking at what's been successful, maybe, maybe see if it needs to be an update. And I, I did it one time and it was a bad idea. I have the, the most popular video that I've done is called Learn Piano in 4 Minutes. And I— kid, I made it like 8 years ago. Okay. And it's got over 3 million views. And because it was so old, I was like, and like, I look at it and like, I cringe. I'm like, gosh, I, I had no idea what I was doing back then.
Jacques Hopkins [00:14:25]:
Right? So I'm like, I can make this so much better. So I just, I made, you know, I made it again, but way, way better. And what I did was I linked to the new one from the old one. Like I put it in the pinned comment, I put in the description. Um,, and it not only didn't perform like anywhere near as well, but then it started affecting the performance of the old one because I had like linked to it and I was, I guess, just sending bad signals. So that was an example of that not, not, not being a great idea.
Lauren Bateman [00:14:56]:
And yeah, and sometimes like I've redone videos that have done well and they've done well again. Like, uh, you know, I've had examples where, where I, you know, I had a video that did over a million and I redid it and the next time it got 3 million. And then I redid it again and, you know, got 100,000. Like, again, you— I always tell people, because like, you know, there's a lot of gurus out there who have tips on how to make a perfect video, and it's like, if we all knew what we were doing, we'd all have videos over a million views. But it, it's really dependent on— it's not the algorithm, it's really the person watching on the other end. Because if the person— doesn't matter how good your video is or how good the old video was, if the timing of that video does not hit properly and does not get shown to the right audience in the right amount of time, YouTube's going to kill the video. So it's like, maybe, maybe you put that video— the first video got released in September, which was a good time of year, and the next time you put it out, you know, in March, which was the wrong timing. But, you know, it's, it's just like there's so many factors that go into what makes a video perform well versus not.
Lauren Bateman [00:16:04]:
And I know everyone, and I got caught up with it too. It's like you're chasing this algorithm, you're chasing this algorithm, and it's like the only people you have to please is your audience. So if you're pleasing your audience, even if your, your videos are only getting 10,000 views, you're getting that video in front of 10,000 of the right people.
Jacques Hopkins [00:16:22]:
Let's continue with your YouTube process. You men— you mentioned being a big fan of, uh, uh, bashing. So like we're recording this late January, so I'm— so does that mean at this point you've got all your February videos scheduled, ready to go?
Lauren Bateman [00:16:35]:
Um, so he's editing them now. Yeah. So basically January's all posted and scheduled. Um, so now he's probably gonna this week edit most of the videos I did for February. So probably by the end of this week I'll have February scheduled out.
Jacques Hopkins [00:16:49]:
And then beginning of February you will start working on March's videos. So what, what does that look like a little bit? You, you, do you have a list of ideas that you go pick, you know, let's say March, let's just say hypothetically it's got 5 videos. You gotta, you gotta make 5 videos. Walk me through like, I— 5 ideas and then how those— and how you end up recording those. What's your process? Do you script everything out?
Lauren Bateman [00:17:09]:
What does it look like? Yeah, so let's take the videos that— some of the videos I did for February. So one of them, um, was With or Without You by U2. Um, I already knew I had an old chord chart, so usually if I'm doing a song, I'll just go write up a quick chord chart. For it. This song, I, I had one, but I went back, I watched the video, make sure I— you know, because I'm like, what's the strumming pattern? Because there really isn't. It's all bass line for that. So I like teaching those songs to people to be like, how can I show someone how you can take something that doesn't have a ton of guitar and play it? So I'm like, okay, let me write out— so that I kind of have a full script because I have the chord chart, but I don't write out like everything I'm gonna say. So for that song, it's like I have my chord diagrams, um, you know, how my intro— and at the end I'll just be like, what's— when people finish this video, what's the video I'm gonna send them to next? Like, what's the call to action at the end of the video? So that's probably the only thing on a song lesson that I will prep in terms of script, because me as a teacher, if I have the chord chart, I'll just— I literally will just wing the lesson because I obviously I've written out the chord chart, I know the song, it's easy for me to teach.
Lauren Bateman [00:18:17]:
Um, and then one of the other ones I did was how to, how to bend strings on a guitar. It was a lesson that I had actually never done before, and when I was just looking in vidIQ, it looked like something people were asking. Sometimes I'll put in like, you know, beginner guitar lessons, and I'll see what questions people are searching for, and I'm like, oh, I actually haven't done a video on that. So I wrote that down, and then, you know, I did another video on what's the best Guitar strings for an acoustic, you know. So I was like, okay, so, so for those, I just, I just write out bullet points. I'm like, what's the intro going to be? You know, what's the outro? Is it a call to action to another video or is it going to be called to action to a course? So neither of those were course. I basically sent them someplace else to another video on YouTube, but I just kind of script out like, what are the points I'm going to talk about? So for like the string video, I'm like, I have to talk about the pros and cons of using light, very thin strings versus using thick strings. Like, how does that impact the sound? How does that impact the playability? What are my recommendations? What do I like to use? Why do I like to use them? You know, so just different options for strings for people, um, so that they could understand, like, how do I go about choosing a set of strings for my guitar? So I'll have, like, you know, maybe 2 or 3 bullet points that I'm going to talk about And then again, I've taught this a million times.
Lauren Bateman [00:19:39]:
So for me, I just kind of ad-lib what I'm going to say. So I'm very good at— I don't want to say the wing it approach. I'm better with just like, here's the bullet points, here's what you have to talk about. And then— but I'm not a fan of like writing out every single, every single word, every single line. I just want the outline of what I'm going to say. And then I go teach. And for me to film— so say I did those 4 videos, maybe it was Maybe it was an hour of filming because some of those videos were shorter. They like, you know, maybe 6 or 7 minute video.
Lauren Bateman [00:20:08]:
So maybe it was like hour, hour and a half of filming, you know, half hour of setup. So maybe I filmed for 2 hours and it's like, I'm done now for next month, which is for me is a relief because you're like, whoo. Um, so that's kind of like how I do the long form. Now the short form, you know, we're doing songs and stuff. So I'll sit down and I will go through my list of songs. That I've taught, you know, we have a Monday.com board and I say which songs haven't, you know, do I have a, a video for that I've taught a lesson but I don't have a short to go with it? And then I'll go and record 12 of them at the same time. So basically I'm doing 3 months in a session. Cuz again, for me it's about, great, now I don't have to worry about this for 3 months.
Jacques Hopkins [00:20:50]:
Do you put—
Lauren Bateman [00:20:51]:
so once you— text them with me and is like, hey, I only got a couple songs left, can you record another batch of songs?
Jacques Hopkins [00:20:56]:
And it's like, yep, I can do that. Beyond planning the videos and then recording them, like, do you have any other involvement or do other people take care of that? You mentioned the video editor already, but we still need to make a thumbnail and, and a description and actually upload it and schedule it. Are you doing any of those pieces?
Lauren Bateman [00:21:14]:
The editor's doing most of that. I will review it. So sometimes there's like, oh, I don't like the way that thumbnail looks, and then I'll go in and redo it. But I'm saying probably 90% of the time what he's doing is is great. So again, if it's not broken, don't fix it. Um, but sometimes I'll give him feedback and be like, oh, the font on this one, like this thumbnail, the font's very small. Could you make it a little bit bigger? And, um, and sometimes like if I'm recording, because I will tell him, hey, I'm gonna do a couple— because in the beginning of the recording I do my thumbnail, you know, I just like, I do a still frame at the beginning of the video and, and I'll tell him in the video, hey, I'd like to do an A/B test on a couple thumbnails for this one. And I tell him what my idea is, and then I do the two freeze frames, whatever they're supposed to be.
Lauren Bateman [00:21:57]:
I'll be like, okay, this first one I want to use the wide video, I'll pose. This next one I want to use the close-up video of my hand, and let's A/B test the wide video versus the close-up. And then he'll set up the A/B test in YouTube, and then we just pick whichever one wins.
Jacques Hopkins [00:22:14]:
Do you have anybody else on your team?
Lauren Bateman [00:22:17]:
Um, yes, I have admins, so mostly Uh, customer service admins. I have a couple VAs that, that work with me. Um, I do have a student of mine now that's helping me with some marketing that just started within like the last couple months, which has been super helpful because usually, um, you know, for emails and stuff, I'm writing all my own copy and all that stuff. So it's nice to have someone else on the team that has like a marketing brain. And then obviously I have my ad person who does my ad stuff, and then I have, um, another person who does A/B testing. So these aren't employees, these are all like hired out contractors. Um, I'm a big fan of hiring people who specialize in certain things instead of me having 600 employees. Um, cause I have a brick and mortar business where I have like 20 employees.
Lauren Bateman [00:23:04]:
And let me tell you, managing people's no fun. I want who— I want people who can manage themselves and come to me with the ideas instead of me being like, so what are we gonna work on this month? You know? Um, that to me is invaluable and I'm willing to pay for that.
Jacques Hopkins [00:23:22]:
What— I'm, I'm glad you mentioned the brick and mortar business. That's one thing I, I wanted to ask you, see if you still had that. Mm-hmm. Um, so like, what, what do— what are you working on besides creating content? Like, are you still teaching at the brick and mortar? Like, and then with the online business, what else are you doing besides creating content?
Lauren Bateman [00:23:39]:
Yeah, so I do have, um, two brick and mortar music schools in the Boston area. Um, I'm mostly just managing those. I don't teach there anymore. I haven't taught there privately probably since— probably since 2018 or '19 was the last time I taught. Um, so mostly just been managing on that side. And then, you know, I have like my real estate stuff that, that I do. Um, I'm now working on kind of getting into physical products. I just developed a guitar strap that's being manufactured.
Lauren Bateman [00:24:13]:
So that might be a new frontier for me, um, but yeah, so I, I kind of have my hands in a lot— in a lot of things. So because when you look at that, you're like, okay, yeah, she filmed for 2 hours and she has her content done for the month, like, what does she do with the rest of her time? Um, so those are all the things I fill my time with.
Jacques Hopkins [00:24:32]:
So as far as the online course business goes, I mean, you really are not spending very much time in it anymore.
Lauren Bateman [00:24:40]:
No, I'm just kind of doing the usual, what I need to do. I'm doing my YouTube content. I do have a community that I maybe do one or two lives a month, um, but it was like, you know, I know we talked before I got on here, there was a giant snowstorm the last two days. I've been like digging out of snow. I didn't do any work the last two days. I think I might have just checked in with email real quick, but, um And that's— I was telling— it was funny, I was telling my wife this morning, I was like, it's really great that I have the job that I have because I literally, like, when did we have time the last 2 days to do work? We didn't. Um, so yeah, it's, it's nice that, you know, I work a few hours. I, I would say I actually work more on the brick and mortar business than I do in the online business.
Jacques Hopkins [00:25:24]:
It's like 4-hour work week in, in, in reality here, you know, 7-figure business working a few hours a week.
Lauren Bateman [00:25:30]:
Yeah, it wasn't always like that, but yeah, I think I finally got it to a point where it's, it's very manageable that I could only work, you know, maybe 1 or 2 hours a day and really maintain what's happening.
Jacques Hopkins [00:25:42]:
I think the last— you, you just mentioned the community. The last time we talked, I think that was kind of a new thing for you and for the business.
Lauren Bateman [00:25:49]:
Mm-hmm.
Jacques Hopkins [00:25:49]:
Uh, it's still around, obviously. A, are you still using Kajabi for that? And then B, like, it, it's, how's it going? It's, it's, um, It's something that you're obviously glad that you implemented.
Lauren Bateman [00:26:02]:
Yeah. Uh, it's still in Kajabi. Yep. So we're using the, I mean, the Kajabi communities. I, I just wanted to get things off of Facebook one, you know, cuz copyright issues with music and they don't know how to take a joke. So like, you know, I was, I was getting threatened to be, be banned from like my own group. So I'm just like, okay, I'm just gonna take this off of, off of Facebook. Which is tough because I know people are still like, hands down, Facebook is still the, the king of groups and like, that's just where people are.
Jacques Hopkins [00:26:31]:
Well, especially like we, we established last time, both of us have quite older audiences. So especially for, you know, 50, 60 plus, absolutely, yes.
Lauren Bateman [00:26:40]:
Yeah. So to get them to do anything else besides Facebook is, is tricky, but we have a pretty good community going. And like I say, I, we do like the Q&A sessions in there, so they get more than just like, why should I join this versus just watching your, you know, your YouTube videos? Um, so we kind of give them some bonus lesson stuff in there. Um, and I think it's, you know, it's going well. We give people who sign up for my course like free 3 months, which is nice because it kind of exposes them to other people who are just like them. Um, I, I haven't looked at the numbers to be like, oh, how are we doing? But I know that's something in like 2026 we want to focus on, like making that better because it really is like, if you're like, oh, if you wanted to walk away from YouTube, what would you do? And it's like, I'd focus on my community because that's, that's a subscription that's recurring. Um, so I'd focus on something like that. About how many active members do you have and what's the price point of it? So hard to know the exact number because we do so many trials for people who hop in.
Lauren Bateman [00:27:45]:
I think there's probably about 700 or 800 active members. I just don't know how many of those are actually paying.
Jacques Hopkins [00:27:55]:
Yeah, that's—
Lauren Bateman [00:27:55]:
you know, Black Friday was November. Yeah. And, you know, we sell probably like 300 Black Friday courses. So all those people got free access, you know, for a certain number of time. So those people are obviously in that. But I, you know, It's definitely a 6-figure income every year. That much I can, I can confirm. Um, and that's the question.
Lauren Bateman [00:28:19]:
It's like, oh, can we grow that to maybe a multiple 6-figure income? Because I find like most people will stick around for like a year. They may renew, they may not. Um, I think that's just, you know, the music learning space. So that's the tricky part with subscriptions is figuring out like how do we get people to renew for that second year? Like what can we do to make things better for them?
Jacques Hopkins [00:28:41]:
Is anybody joining the community without having bought a course, or is it always people that buy the course?
Lauren Bateman [00:28:46]:
Nope, there's some people like they don't want a course but they want a community. What's the price? Um, so it is $197 for the year, or, um, I think it's like $35 a month. So we make it— we really prompt people to buy for the year.
Jacques Hopkins [00:29:05]:
And so when I— if I go buy one of your courses, I will get 3 months free of the community. Am I automatically going to be charged after 3 months, or do you have to convince people to actually join at that point?
Lauren Bateman [00:29:16]:
Yeah, we have— we send out an email that's like, hey, your subscription, you know, red flag on your account, you're going to lose access to this. If you want it, you can buy it for $197 a year, you know. And if you don't want it, that's okay too. But if you want that extra support, that extra help, then you can sign on for $197 for the year.
Jacques Hopkins [00:29:40]:
All right, quick break from the conversation with Lauren, because if you're listening to this and you're thinking, okay, I want my business to feel more consistent and less chaotic, then I wanna point you to Next Level Coaching. Next Level Coaching is my coaching program for established course creators. You're already selling a course, but you're ready to stop guessing and start building a business that scales. With clarity. Inside, we work on the stuff that actually moves the needle: a clean, compelling offer, a funnel that makes sense and works, marketing that you can repeat, and systems that make growth sustainable. So if you're ready to tighten the bolts, increase conversions, and build something that doesn't rely on last-minute launches, Next Level is for you. Check it out by going to oc.show/nextlevel. All right, back to this great conversation with the one and only Lauren Bateman.
Jacques Hopkins [00:30:26]:
Walk us through how the majority— so, so jumping away from the community, just like to courses, how are the majority of sales happening? Is it, is it YouTube to free course to signing up through an email funnel, or what, what is it?
Lauren Bateman [00:30:45]:
Yeah, it's very hard to track accurately, um, but my, my biggest sales funnel is through my website, uh, so basically the, the biggest— I'd probably say at least half a million is just my beginner guitar program. Like, people are buying my 7-level guitar system. That's, that's by far the biggest seller, okay? That is my flagship course. That's what everyone wants. And I— we sell that for $297. Um, we were doing price testing on that to see if we could go a little bit higher. And when that 2 becomes a 3 It just psychologically changes things for people. Like it did when we tried this 3 years ago and we're like, oh, maybe 3 years later it'll be worth $397.
Lauren Bateman [00:31:28]:
Now there's something about $297 that's a magic price point. Um, and, and we literally just A/B tested it again and it was like, nope, $297 is like, that's the point. Um, so that is definitely the biggest leader. Um, do we get people who come through from the crash course? We do. We do get a significant number of people, but I do think the majority is— and this is based on a survey that we send out and people in the community when they introduce themselves— the number of people who mention YouTube as a factor in them buying is probably 90% of people. And that's why I still do one video a week, because, because literally it, it is free marketing. People are getting to know you as a person. They're getting to know your personality.
Lauren Bateman [00:32:12]:
They're seeing your teaching for free. So they already know this person teaches in a way that I understand. So if I buy her course, that'll probably also work. So I would say 80 to 90% of sales is generated through YouTube.
Jacques Hopkins [00:32:31]:
You've mentioned A/B testing a few times now. Can, can you— that's something I wish I was better at. Um, when you say A/B testing, are you doing like tried and true A/B testing where we're sending half the traffic here, half the traffic there, or are you doing it more like, okay, well, this month we're doing it this way, next month we'll do it, we'll do it that way, and then we'll compare?
Lauren Bateman [00:32:49]:
So this is why I hired someone who does real A/B testing. So, um, some things are just straight up A/B tests, like, hey, if we change the headline to this, like, we found— we changed one of my headlines on one of the landing pages and it actually increased the people clicking the button to go to the check-through by like 20%. Like we were getting 20% just by changing the headline. We were getting 20% more people to actually click over to the offer. So that was like just a straight-up test. And we maybe had like, you know, we put 3 or 4 headlines at the top. Um, we tried then putting that headline over because I have different sales funnels for like the YouTube funnel. Um, it didn't work on the YouTube funnel.
Lauren Bateman [00:33:31]:
So it's just like, so, you know, we, we are doing headline testing Hey, what if we change the tech— the button text here? Hey, you know, you get a lot of traffic on this page of your website. Let's see where is the best place to send them. Do we send them to the crash course first? Do we send them to your course first? Um, what's the best— after people buy the 7-level, what's the next best offer for them to upsell to? We'll A/B test— we'll split test your email list. We'll send half the list this offer, half the list this offer, and we'll see which one performs better. Um, so we're doing a lot. There's some stuff that is nitty gritty and I wish I knew more of the, the technicality of it. Um, but there is some stuff that's straight up like, hey, let's, let's just change the text on the button and see if it makes people click more.
Jacques Hopkins [00:34:19]:
What software are you using to do proper split tests? Is it in Kajabi or using something else?
Lauren Bateman [00:34:24]:
Kajabi, I'm sorry, is horrible for A/B testing. Yeah. We're using VWO. And, and we're just using the free version. Like, the free version is powerful enough, but it's called VWO. Um, I have no affiliation with them, no affiliate link or anything, but just vwo.com. And it is a split testing software, um, that you can set up on your sites and you can run. There is a lot of setup.
Lauren Bateman [00:34:48]:
I did not do the setup. That's why, again, I said I hired someone who knew what they were doing, um, to really just Dive in, you know, cuz he went into my Kajabi data, which is very hard to pull information from Kajabi. And he was like, these are the people who are buying. These are the people that are not. He's like, when you get a lead into your crash force course funnel, this is how much they are worth. So for every dollar you spend, you are making $4. Was basically like the math. So he is like, every time you put a dollar into your ad machine right now, it's making you an additional $4.
Jacques Hopkins [00:35:22]:
Mm. So why not spend more than you're spending?
Lauren Bateman [00:35:25]:
We're working on that. But obviously with, you know, you will get to a point where, you know, with, with Google, you can't just go from $50 a day to $200 a day. You have to, you do have to gradually build it over time, um, to not, you know, ruin your, your metrics and all your analytics that went into it. But obviously e— even with Facebook and stuff, you get to an equilibrium point where, you know, you're paying a dollar and you're getting a dollar back. Is that still worth it? You know, so right now it's working really well and we're trying to— because like I said, we just started Google last month, like literally just before Christmas, but it's looking very promising. Um, so we're hoping we can continue to increase that and obviously increase revenue, um, because that doesn't cost me any effort at time. It's just increasing how much we're spending.
Jacques Hopkins [00:36:19]:
Yeah. Are you satisfied with Kajabi overall?
Lauren Bateman [00:36:23]:
Overall, I've been happy with Kajabi. I've been with them since 2020, and I know there's like a lot of things like people are upset because like, oh, the price is going up, and it's like, well, everything's going up, um, you know. And if you don't have $100 a month to invest in your business, you probably shouldn't be in business to start with. Like, that was, you know, um, I don't think people understand that the concept of investing. Now, I know there's other things that have come out, like there's GoHighLevel, which for me GoHighLevel, like I've tried— I tried it with some things. It's, it's just too high-tech for me. Mm-hmm. There's a lot more you can do with it, but I— it just doesn't work with my brain.
Lauren Bateman [00:36:59]:
And I prefer, you know, I prefer to keep everything in one system as much as possible because then now, now you're paying thousands of dollars to have 500 different softwares to, to do your job. And for me, simplicity really is better. I've done some courses in school. I have— I have nothing against it, meaning I've been enrollment. I, I've enrolled in courses that are held through a school. So I think you just have to find the system that works best for you. But I've been, I've been very happy with Kajabi for the last 6 years, and I know there's things that have changed in a good way, and there's things sometimes they go backwards. Um, and I know they just did another rebrand after doing a rebrand like maybe 1 or 2 years ago.
Lauren Bateman [00:37:41]:
Um, so, you know, their business too, they're figuring things out. But overall, I, I've been very happy with Kajabi. It makes my job easy. And until it gets to the point where it's not allowing me to do my job, then maybe I would consider something else. But it— if it's— again, if it's not broke, don't fix it.
Jacques Hopkins [00:37:57]:
What, like, are you using everything that it's available to you? Like the email list, is that what you— is that where you send emails out?
Lauren Bateman [00:38:03]:
Yep, yep, I use it for my emails. So all email promotion is done through that. All my forms, you know, for people to sign up for, um, you know, the crash course and the follow-up emails, that all goes through Kajabi. Courses go through Kajabi, uh, checkout is in Kajabi. All of my landing pages are in Kajabi. We A/B tested that, uh, 'cause we used to have landing pages on my website and we had landing pages on Kajabi and Kajabi outperforms my WordPress website. So we just now send everything over to Kajabi.
Jacques Hopkins [00:38:34]:
How big is your email list?
Lauren Bateman [00:38:38]:
The active list, meaning like within— they've checked an email, they clicked on an email last 90 days is like 12 or 13,000 people. The whole— I just had to delete a bunch of people because it, it messaged me and was like, you're running out of contacts. And I don't know how many contacts I get on, like maybe 200,000 on the pro level or something. But I'm like, okay, let me go and find the people who haven't purchased anything that have been inactive. Like they haven't done anything with email in like almost a year. Um, I know you can upgrade and like increase the, the number of contacts, but I'm like, if someone unsubscribed or someone like marked us as spam, they don't need to be on the email list.
Jacques Hopkins [00:39:15]:
We can just get rid of them. I'm surprised your email list isn't bigger. I, I mean, with over 600,000 subs, uh, a million dollar a year business, uh, email list of 12 or 13,000. Why do you think it's not bigger? And I mean, no disrespect there. Yeah. I mean, maybe it's just a matter of you keeping it really clean.
Lauren Bateman [00:39:38]:
Yeah. I— so like I said, I only average— I, I only consider the active mailing list, like your last 0 to 90 days. I only consider that. My mailing list is over 100,000 people, but I don't advertise to those 100,000 people because with marketing, if you, if you spam people's emails, you're— that's people like, how come my emails are ending up in promotions, how come my emails are ending up in spam? I'm like, because you're sending a bunch of emails to people who aren't opening your emails. And that is the number one signal to Gmail that this is, this is spam, this is promotion, people aren't reading it. That's how your stuff gets in promotion. So if anyone goes past that 90 days— and we tested this, I did this even with Black Friday, and we might have talked about this 2 years ago, um, I, I kind of did my own A/B test where I sent out my Black Friday emails to people who were in that 0 to 90 day time period. And then I sent out the same emails to the people, the passive email list, people who haven't— who've interacted within the last 91 to 180 days.
Lauren Bateman [00:40:42]:
The active list sold over 200 sales. I think the passive list, we sold 5 or 6 products. And I'm like, so why? I'm not— can you make sales on that list? Absolutely. But for me, I'm always like, where can you get the most bang for your buck? So for me, I just focus on the active email list. So even though my email list probably has over 100,000 people, there's only 13,000 that I consider relevant.
Jacques Hopkins [00:41:11]:
That's good. I think my question probably came across a little disrespectful and I didn't mean it that way, but, but your answer that came out of it was really, really good.
Lauren Bateman [00:41:19]:
So nice job. No, it could— it be bigger. You know, again, I, I don't do a lot of promotion on YouTube to get people to like opt into the free course. Like, I, I think I do more to get people to buy the course. Um, I know people who are much better on YouTube at getting people into op— free opt-ins. I probably could do 100% a better job on that. I would say the ads are doing most of the work on getting people into the email list.
Jacques Hopkins [00:41:49]:
So you, you're running the, almost the entire business on Kajabi. You do have a WordPress website. I mean, is there any other— you, you mentioned the split testing software, but do you really need any other softwares or anything else you find critical to your business, uh, software-wise?
Lauren Bateman [00:42:03]:
No, I, I know for our Crash Course funnel, like we use Deadline Funnels so that it could have the countdown that is triggered based on when that person comes in. That is the only other thing. I think that we have. So basically, yeah, Kajabi is doing everything. My, my main website is in WordPress and people ask me that all the time. Like, why is your site not in Kajabi? I'm like, because Kajabi did not exist when I started my website. Like, I've had laurenbateman.com since 2008 or 2009. So it's like these things did not exist when I had my website.
Lauren Bateman [00:42:38]:
So my website was just always— I always had laurenbateman.com. I never transferred it. To Kajabi. Um, so for me, that's why I have a separate website. I also think WordPress, because I was big on SEO and stuff, like, I think— do think WordPress in general is better for search engine optimization. But hands down, Kajabi is better for selling and hosting courses. Like, that's where I think it shines, and that's where I think you should use, use Kajabi. If you're trying to save money and you have to do your website through Kajabi, hey, there's nothing wrong with it.
Lauren Bateman [00:43:09]:
Um, just know that it is, it is limited compared to something like WordPress. Um, and I'm trying to think, yeah, there's nothing else that we really use.
Jacques Hopkins [00:43:18]:
I mean, that's my business is set up very similarly. We have, uh, we have a WordPress website for pianoin21days.com and then the majority of everything else is, is there in Kajabi with the exception of the email list for a couple of reasons. We have the email list on ActiveCampaign because It's been there since 2016, which is way before I was on Kajabi. Yep. And two is I never, I never loved Kajabi's features and maybe it's, that's 'cause I got spoiled by ActiveCampaign. Mm-hmm. But their prices are going up too. I mean, I'm, I'm paying over $400 a month for ActiveCampaign.
Jacques Hopkins [00:43:52]:
Yeah. So this software is really, really ramping up. Yeah. Um, you mentioned Deadline Funnel. Mm-hmm. So you're using that. You have a free— you basically have a free course funnel set up so people can go to your website, sign up for the free crash course. And I'm glad you mentioned Deadline Funnel.
Jacques Hopkins [00:44:09]:
I obviously use it as well. Big fan. And my question would be like, what is going away, right? Why are you using Deadline Funnel? It's evergreen urgency so that something is going away. So it, it, it, it makes people want to buy now because it's not gonna be available tomorrow. What is that thing that's going away for you?
Lauren Bateman [00:44:29]:
Yeah, so for us it's like a number of bonus, um, workshops is what it is. So it's like, hey, we're gonna include these workshops that we usually don't include for absolutely free, valued at X number of dollars, um, and those will go away tonight. Um, and, and I just think too, I don't really think it matters what the offer is. I, I just think when people see that countdown timer, it changes the psychology of the funnel. Versus not having it. When people see a countdown timer, they feel pressure. Like, I have people, they'll just buy because the countdown timer is getting— they're like, I don't know, they don't even know what they bought. They're just like, I know it was running out, so I bought it.
Lauren Bateman [00:45:11]:
What did they— because I'll get emails from people be like, what did I buy? Like, what's included in what I bought? And it's like, well, didn't you read the offer before you clicked the buy button? And I— so I just think having that countdown changes the psychology of the funnel. For those FOMO people, the people who have fear of missing out, like, oh, I got to get this now. And yes, when the funnel goes away, it, it's a different— you're like, they don't get those workshops. It's a slightly different offer. I know in the past we talked about, you know, a discount versus, versus bonuses, and discounts tend to work better. And that's something where I think we're going to A/B test in 2026. Like, is there a different upfront offer that we can have That is very different than what the, the downsell becomes.
Jacques Hopkins [00:46:03]:
Absolutely. All right. So next, let's talk about something that is obviously much more prevalent than it was last time we talked. Yeah. And it, it hasn't come up yet, but, but AI, like how are you using AI in your business, if at all?
Lauren Bateman [00:46:18]:
Yeah. Um, I wish I could say I use it more. Um, I really don't know, at least in the guitar business. I probably use it more in the brick-and-mortar business. Um, I, I basically, with the help of, you know, ChatGPT, I learned how to do my own Google Ads for my brick-and-mortar business. I was paying people, I kind of understood the basics, but I really wanted to get into the mechanics of it. So it— in terms of like analytics and analyzing things, I use ChatGPT a lot, but I don't have it writing courses for me. I don't have it writing content.
Lauren Bateman [00:46:53]:
Sometimes, like, for example, I'll go in if I need content ideas for shorts. Like, I know I was doing stuff for the music school and I was like, can you write me 100 questions that new parents would ask about music lessons? And then, and then I was like, could you write me out now 100 questions that adults would ask that are starting music lessons? And basically I took those, those both of those sheets and I made videos for each of those 100 things. And that's the short content we're using on our, um, music school. So, so that's how I use it. Like, because for like content ideas, you could just be like, okay, this is what I do. Could you give me some thoughts on some like hot topics? Like, if I'm a guitar teacher, could you give me the top 20 topics that are really hot right now that I can make content about? So that I think is ways that that people could use it, especially if they're just getting started and they're having trouble coming up with, with content ideas. I think ChatGPT is really good at that. Um, you can have it write marketing and sales copy.
Lauren Bateman [00:47:56]:
Um, I just think you do need a human to go over that before you just copy and paste. Um, so it is good for that, but I, I'm, I'm honestly not using it the way a lot of people are. Like, I know my editor uses AI to make photos because I'll see them pop up in, in like the YouTube videos. I was like, that's a cool video. I'm like, did you use AI? And he's like, yeah, you know. So, so he's using it more, more than I am. But, um, but yeah, I probably could be better about it.
Jacques Hopkins [00:48:24]:
I'm just not. I'm sure a lot of people see your success in this space and come to you for advice, and I know you do do some business coaching, um, for those looking to more get started with an online course business in whatever niche, you know, whatever knowledge they have. How would you say your advice to those people has maybe changed over the past couple of years, if at all?
Lauren Bateman [00:48:48]:
I don't think for people getting started the advice is— it changes much because the, the bottom line, and you know, the bottom line of, of any business is having the persistence and dedication and the consistency to keep doing. Things even when you might not be seeing the results right away, because that's the hardest. There is so much backend in setting up a business that you might not see the fruits of that labor for like a year. It doesn't mean what you're doing right now isn't working, it's just not working right now, but a year from now it might be amazing. Like, if you had told me, you know, 10 years ago I was going to make a million dollars teaching guitar online, I would be like, no, you're crazy. Like, No way. But it didn't start that way. So I still think the advice for, for anyone getting started is one, find the topic that you're truly passionate about and, and just teach people how to do that and show up once a week on YouTube.
Lauren Bateman [00:49:51]:
Cuz the number of people, like even when I coach people and they're like, oh, I did one video last month. I'm like, one video a month is not gonna cut it. That's not consistent. That's not going to give you that back catalog that I talked about earlier. I'm like, I have a giant back catalog now that if I wanted to take 2 or 3 months off, like you said, I could take 2 or 3 months off and it would impact my business zero at this point. And I can confirm that because I've taken months off. I usually take August off now, you know, and I don't do anything. Um, so, but to get there, you have to put a lot of effort in consistency.
Lauren Bateman [00:50:25]:
So that's still the advice I tell people. I'm like, find something that you love, teach what you love, because if you do that, people will feel that energy. You know, if you take— teach something you don't like just because you're going to make money, like, people feel that. The energy is totally different. So do what you like and just be consistent about it and understand that it takes time.
Jacques Hopkins [00:50:47]:
What would be the first thing or two to start doing Is it, is it the YouTube?
Lauren Bateman [00:50:54]:
I would say YouTube. Yeah. Yeah. Again, cuz like I say, it's, it's the best free marketing tool out there. You know, you can do shorts, you can do reels on Instagram, but after like 24, 48 hours, they're usually dead. You know, I still have videos I did 8 years ago. They're not getting hundreds and hundreds of views like they used to, but I'm sure you have old videos that are still getting you views. Every day.
Lauren Bateman [00:51:20]:
I don't have any videos on Instagram, right, like 3 months old that are still getting me views. Like, like, it just dies that quickly. Um, and the other thing I think people, um, leave out of the equation, particularly with YouTube, is make— having a website that is a catalog of your work. Because for me people have an opportunity to find my videos on YouTube. They also have an opportunity to find my videos on my website. So my website basically helps to feed YouTube. So I think that's a big thing. Like, people post a video and I'm like, okay, so you posted a video on the best strings for guitar.
Lauren Bateman [00:52:06]:
Not everyone has time to watch a video, so why don't you put an article on your website that's about the best strings for an acoustic guitar You embed your YouTube video on the page and that's where we have AI help us out. We'll upload. So I do, I guess I did teach my team to do one AI thing and that is we use, um, what is it called? I'm looking at it right here. Is it Glasp? I think that's the, it's like a Chrome extension and it can basically, you can copy and paste the, um, the text from your video. And we load it into AI and it's— and we say, write an article, you know, write an article that's 500 to 1,000 words about this video. And then what we do is we put the video on the website, we put the article on the website, and now we have two pieces of content from that one content. That is a piece that I think— it's a lot of work though, and that's why people— most people miss that. Um, and that comes from my background in building websites years ago.
Lauren Bateman [00:53:05]:
Like, I, I know AI's coming through, like, websites are still powerful. I know what's it— Russell Brunson's like, the website is dead. The website is not dead. I had 100,000 unique visitors to my website last month. It's not dead. People are still searching and they're, they're looking for information. Um, so that is a huge— you can do YouTube and a website together, you will have much faster success than if you did either of them by themselves.
Jacques Hopkins [00:53:36]:
I'm gonna ask you for some advice, if that's okay, for, for my Piano in 21 Days channel. You know, I started it 13 years ago, and I mentioned this earlier, but I have a video I made 8 years ago that's my best performing video, and it does still get over 500 views per day. Yeah. So I mean, the vast majority of people finding me are still like through that video I made 8 years ago when I, you know, when I had black hair and I was in my early 30s and, um, didn't know what I was doing. But I will say this, how popular that video is still today is a little bit demotivating to continue to make new content because everything I do never performs as well as that video. And so at this point, honestly, I haven't made a new video in like 2 years for Piano in 21 Days on my YouTube channel. And like, we just crossed over the 100,000 subscriber mark. Yeah, I have, I have so —so much, uh, fewer videos in total than you do.
Jacques Hopkins [00:54:33]:
You've been so ridiculously more consistent than me. But it wouldn't—they wouldn't let me get the, like, plaque, the 100,000 plaque yet, because you have to have uploaded a video in the past, like, 6 months to qualify. So my, my question—my question is, like, how do I stay motivated when I know most likely nothing will live up to how successful that video has been?
Lauren Bateman [00:54:59]:
I— and this is, this is what I, I talked about earlier and kind of like the change in my strategy. And it's like, you know, once you have one of those videos that gets a million views, you want all of your videos to get a million because trust me, if I have a video that's doing that well, I'm selling a lot of courses. Like, I'm like, why are courses selling so much? Like, I, I think that's why we did over a million last year because I had a few videos that were doing really, really well. Okay, our January is much slower this year compared to— we did six figures in January last year and I was— I've never done that before. Um, but it was cause I had a couple of videos that were doing really well. They were great videos for my audience and they really were fueling sales. So that's the up and downside of YouTube is that when those videos fade, you have to have something else that comes in and replaces it. So we get addicted to having those like gushers that when we put out a video and it only gets 5,000 views, we're like, oh, well, that wasn't worth— that wasn't worth doing.
Lauren Bateman [00:55:52]:
But. I always show fit people, um, when I coach them. There's a video on my channel, I think it's gonna have over 4 million views now probably, and I, I show them the demographics on it. So I'm like, here's a video, it's got 4 million views, that's wonderful, probably got like 100,000 of my subscribers who came from this video alone. And I said, but let's look at the demographics. And when we look at the demographics, I would say 90% of it is under the age of 30. Now, you've interviewed me before, that is not my demographic at all. So great, it was shown to 4 million people, but only 10% of them were the people I wanted to see that video.
Lauren Bateman [00:56:33]:
So basically that video could have gotten 400,000 and I— it would have been a better video. And that's the disconnect, because we get so obsessed with like the big numbers that me, I'm like, I'd rather get— I'd rather only You know, I'd rather do this cranberries video. I'm gonna do cranberries by the Lingers. Who's— Linger by cranberries. Who's gonna watch that? Men aren't gonna watch that. Men really aren't into the cranberries the way— but women are. Women are. And I love my, my women players.
Lauren Bateman [00:57:05]:
And it's gonna probably be people my age in their 40s, maybe late 30s. So I'm like, that's the people I want. So maybe only 5,000 people are gonna watch that video, but it's 5,000 of the right people cuz those are the people who are going to be more likely to buy my program. And, and that's the hard disconnect. When you, when you get started, we get obsessed with those gushers and going viral, but not understanding that going viral sometimes hurts your brand more than it helps it. And that's why I said earlier in this, when we started, I said I'd rather have 100,000 subscribers knowing that every one of them was my demographic versus having like a half a million of them be dead subscribers.
Jacques Hopkins [00:57:48]:
That is great advice. Thank you so much.
Lauren Bateman [00:57:51]:
Appreciate that. Yeah. And I— it's just, you know, psychologically it's hard because you're just like, I want another one of those 4 million. But we don't know. I told you, I don't know what video is going to be my next million view video. It could be the video I don't expect at all. You don't know, I don't know. But we— there's one guarantee: we will never have another one if we don't put out any more content.
Jacques Hopkins [00:58:14]:
Mm, so true, so true.
Lauren Bateman [00:58:16]:
That's the only guarantee. And that's— it's just like, you make the content. If you get a winner, awesome, you got lucky, awesome. Whatever you did in that video, it just hit. It was the right time, it was the right people, it was just right. Um, and if you put out another video and it only gets 5,000 views, at least it's the right 5,000 people.
Jacques Hopkins [00:58:38]:
What do you think the next 2, 2 and a half years looks like for you in this business?
Lauren Bateman [00:58:44]:
That's so tough. Yeah, it's really hard cuz like, like I said, I'm getting to the point being like, what is my next stage? What's my next evolution in this business? So, um, recently I have actually been getting back into a little teaching. So I, I do these intensive programs now where people can sign up for like 10 weeks of lessons with me and I, I teach like you know, 30 people at a time. So it's not like I'm teaching one-on-two or one-on-three. I'm like, I'm, I'm signing up, trying to sign up at least 30 people for, for these classes. And, um, you know, it's like $500 for 10 weeks. So you sign up 30 people, hey, that's $15,000 to, to teach a class for 10 weeks. That, that works out pretty good.
Lauren Bateman [00:59:26]:
Um, so that's what I've been doing a bit more because I, you know, it's that question like What do you do? Like, what happens if YouTube stops? What happens if the— if YouTube shuts down? Like, what do I do from that point, you know? So I'm just like, okay, what are things that I would enjoy doing? I really do enjoy teaching and I enjoy the community, um, so I'm trying to reconnect with people. So that's kind of the change I've made most recently, is being like, okay, maybe I can do some teaching with people who really want Um, so that's kind of the next evolution of making things fun for me. Um, but I don't know, I honestly don't know what YouTube holds in the next few years, but I'm just gonna keep consistently making that one video a week until I decide it's not working anymore, and then I'll stop. But as long as it's working, I, I'll keep doing it.
Jacques Hopkins [01:00:21]:
Amazing. Lauren, it was great to catch up. Uh, you're, you're obviously still absolutely killing it. Thank you so much for joining me again and for sharing everything you did.
Lauren Bateman [01:00:29]:
Absolutely. No, thanks for having me. I appreciate it.
Jacques Hopkins [01:00:33]:
All right. That was Laura Bateman. And a lot of this episode comes down to one big idea: growth gets way easier when you stop trying to do more and start making what you're already doing work better. A couple of highlights worth taking with you. Consistency compounds, especially when your content feeds a simple and proven funnel. And just simple proven systems overall. Small A/B testing improvements can create surprisingly big lifts over time, and chasing viral is overrated if it pulls you away from the audience who actually buys. If you want the show notes for today's episode, including the links and resources that we mentioned, you can head to oc.show/277.
Jacques Hopkins [01:01:14]:
And if you're ready to build the next version of your course business with better systems, better messaging, and a more predictable path to sales, then check out Next Level Coaching over at oc.show/nextlevel. Thanks again for listening, and don't forget to take action on what you've heard here today. I'm rooting for you.
