How I Went From Making $500 a Month in my Online Dance Business to 5-Figures!
By Erin Pride
I remember watching people talk about how they were making 5+ figures in their online dance businesses and for me, it felt so far away...
But today I dive into how I got here!
I had to get honest with myself, work with coaches, learn, implement, test, and try new things. I had to show up and do the right work! But, I am so grateful, and humble to the fact that this is a gift...
Not only monetarily, but the women that I get to work with each day helping grow the businesses that lean on their hearts, is a gift and a dream come true.
Do I still have work to do? Hell yes! Always...
Today, I'm going to share with you just how I did it, and the mistakes I made along the way...!
I want to first point out that although everybody does it in a different way, I just want to share with you some key things that really helped me grow my business. I know that's what you want to do, you want to grow your business and live your dream so I'm going to talk about what didn't work for me and what worked.
Let’s start from the beginning… What was I doing before I started shifting...
So when I was making $500 in my business a month that was the time when I was a coach for dance educators. I helped dance educators run successful classrooms. And I don't specifically think that my pivot had anything to do with the change in what I do because now I'm an online business coach for dance educators helping dance educators build online businesses.
I don't necessarily think it's that I changed what I did that helped me reach the impact goal and the financial goal that I wanted to reach, I think it's the steps that I took.
When I first started my business I had no coach. I had no idea how to run an online business. And I had a lot of ego in the way. I was like, "I am a smart girl. I can figure things out. I am resourceful." That's just the kind of person I am, I have no problem researching and figuring out how to do things. But that wasn't working for me. I didn't understand how to run an online business and I was getting so many different strategies from so many different people.
I was doing low investments like membership groups and although I even had a membership group, I found for my learning style, membership groups and things like that aren't the best because it's not one-on-one individualized attention and I learn best one-on-one with individualized attention and I just had to lean into that.
So at the time, I was making $500, I was doing the low investments not really committing and learning from one person…
My mistakes (and so you don’t make the same) were as follows:
- I was taking strategies left, right and center, and just trying different things.
- I wasn't consistent.
- I didn't understand what it meant to run an online business.
- I wasn’t clear on my ‘why’
- I wasn’t clear on my finances or prices
This then just took out all the joy of doing this work. I started an online business because I've always felt it in my heart that I wanted to do more and impact people and build something of my own and I really wanted to build something that would help me pay off my debt because I have a lot of student loan debt. I went to NYU for my master's in dance education and I have so much student loan debt so I really wanted something that was going to help me pay off my debt that wasn't a job that worked for somebody else.
We all start our business because we love it, well hopefully. Some people don't start out of fear but I'm not a fear-driven person. I believe that when there's something leaning on your heart you'll be given the tools to bring it to life.
When I started my business I had no clue what I was doing. I was trying to do it the cheapest way possible which is totally understandable. But with that, came limitations in my growth...
So that's everything I did wrong HAHA…
I just was showing up and that was a part of the journey and learning and I get that. But with that, I was making $500 a month and it came to a point where I was like, "Oh my gosh, this is taking up so much time in my life." I didn't understand how to manage my day-to-day tasks. I didn't understand what things would move the needle in my business. So it was really putting conflict on my relationship.
I was getting stressed out. I was just showing up and doing things but doing things without a roadmap to grow.
So, Pivoted…
What changed for me:
I pivoted and started really leaning into coaching dance educators on building an online business because I've always wanted to impact people. I've always wanted to help people pursue their dreams, and once I leaned into that I knew that I needed to invest at a higher level because I wanted results at a higher level.
So, I invested in Lindsay Nadler's mastermind. And in this mastermind, I learned so freaking much!! I can't even tell you how much I learned. But it wasn't about what I learned, it was also about the action I took.
Key Actions I took:
- So to move to $5K I got in a high ticket program with a coach that I really admired.
- I learned so many different strategies and I implemented these strategies in a way that worked for my business.
- I got really freaking crystal clear on my finances. I get scared of numbers and money because I create the story that I'm not good with money because I have had money challenges in the past. But I was in this group and we were able to speak about it freely and then I noticed that I wasn't the only person with these mindset blocks around money.
- And I got in front of my money and I learned how to really project my income and then when I project my income.
- I learned how to launch things and create offers that aligned with my income goal. I wasn't just creating things just to create them.
Other common mistakes…
I see so many people now pumping out different offers all the time, different things all the time. And what I really learned from my coach in this mastermind is no you need to do this strategically.
- What are your financial goals?
- What are your impact goals and how can we stack your offers to get there?
So that's what I started to do, build-out offers and programs that helped me reach my financial goal. And I did that by stacking my income and there's a whole worksheet and there's a whole thing that I do with my clients to help them understand how to stack their income but that was freedom for me.
Shifting my mindset...
The other thing that really helped me was my mindset shift around I am not for everybody and that is okay.
When I was launching Dancepreneur Academy many people signed up for the waitlist, I think it was like 14 people and I ended up getting four people in the program and I just had to keep telling myself that my program is not going to be for everybody right now and that's okay.
I just kept showing up and showing up and showing up and making connections in my DMs and I got four amazing women. We're on a freaking awesome journey. I share about it on my stories and we have a community and they were sharing today about just the breakthroughs they've been having. So that also helped me a lot!!
Key take-aways:
I stopped running my business like a hobby and it's a business!!
My business is a business. I used to do so many things for free. I didn't value my time. And now it is a business.
It was really hard for me to do that. I remember one of the hardest things for me was to put my prices on my discovery call. My discovery call is a free call where I get to know you, you get to know me, you talk about the roadblocks you're facing right now in your business and your goals and I listen and I let you know if I can help you and we decide if we're going to move forward.
**What's your ‘why’?
My why is because I want to pay off my debt and I want to be able to work for myself and have more time and I want to build a team that can support my business, all the things. So really get to know your why.
It's okay if your why is not always directly tied to impacting people. You want to impact people but you also want to do things for yourself and that's okay too!!
So that is my journey.
I hope you enjoyed this post and this resonated with you. I know you're trying to grow an online business that not only impacts people, that helps you reach your financial goal.
Xo Erin
Did you grab your spot in the Dance Boss Growth Free Coaching Hub? What are you waiting for?! Each month I am coming to you with a high-value FREE workshop to help you build a kick a** online dance business! CLICK HERE TO GRAB YOUR SPOT → http://bit.ly/dancebossgrowth
Erin teaches dancers how to make money using their gifts, embrace entrepreneurship, and build a sustainable online business. She is also the host of the Dance Boss Podcast. Erin is a Jersey girl all the way, graduated from Montclair State University with a B.F.A. in Dance and received her Masters in Dance Education from New York University. She began her coaching journey as a dance education coach, providing resources and training to help dance educators run more successful classrooms. Now, Erin helps dancers niche down, build an online business, and bring in additional revenue for them and their families. To learn more about Erin visit erindpride.com, and you can hang out with Erin on Instagram and Facebook.