• Who: Kate Bagoy
• Website: sixfigurefreelancers.com
• Course Topic: Building a freelancing business
• Interesting Stats: 10K followers on Instagram

Who are you and what course have you created?

My name is Kate Bagoy and I am the founder and creator of sixfigurefreelancers.com.

What market does your online course serve?

The Six-Figure Freelancer course is designed for corporate burnouts who are ready to create a business for themselves. I walk folks through how to create a service-based business they can run from the beach or anywhere! With this program, we focus on building the foundational brand, business strategy, and mindset for running a 6-figure micro business & landing their first high-value client. So many new freelancers and consultants struggle to get traction and play the feast-or-famine game. With these programs, I aim to change that narrative.

What’s the biggest benefit of taking your course?

The course gives you practical tools for getting started with your business but first, we tackle mindset. Mindset is the biggest thing holding people back from achieving success. In the course, we break down those barriers so there is no limit to what you can achieve.

How did you get into the market?

This idea came about as a direct result of all of the failures I encountered along my journey. I spent YEARS and nearly $100,000 on education (a master’s degree), training and wasted marketing spend trying to figure out how to build a simple small business I could run from home without working constantly.

After so much pain, I finally learned there was a much easier way to do things. I was able to quit my last day job 5 years ago and travel the world. I’ve created this course so that other folks don’t have to go through the same ups and downs as I did!

Why did you decide to create an online course in the first place?

I was in Bali a few years ago and met a gal who was burnout at her corporate job but didn’t have any idea how she could turn her expertise into a business she could run online. As I was explaining to her what I’d done and how I operated my freelance business, something sparked – there were tons of other people like Alice – and like myself – who had amazing skills they could use to grow a business, but were scared and overwhelmed at the “HOW.” It occurred to me that I could help simplify their journey, and the idea for Six-Figure Freelancers was born.

Did you have any moments of doubt before you created/launched it?

Oh dear lord, yes! I still struggle with this!! IMHO, anyone who tells you building any sort of business or creating a course is easy is lying to get you to buy into something. It’s not easy… even if you’re building something simple, even if you know exactly what to do, it’s scary and can be overwhelming at times.

There is a lot of mindset work involved to feel good enough, stay focused, put yourself out there marketing your programs or services, hire help… it really never ends. And for people like myself – who experienced childhood abuse or grew up poor to middle class – we struggle even more with confidence, the mindset around worthiness, and the ability to earn money.

If so what made you turn it around and do it anyway?

My mission in life is to help more people live lives by design and not default. I suffered for a long time… going through a long cycle of depression, self-hatred, alcoholism, and burnout. I had a lot of inner turmoil stemming from childhood garbage and became an “achiever” in an effort to win approval and feel worthy. My entire life I just pushed and pushed to achieve and I’m stubborn AF so I always figure it out… But it often has taken me 10x longer than it needs to and I want to help people get what they want faster. I wanted to help people escape the cycle of burnout and small business hustle struggle.

What’s your online course like?

It’s a combination of video and written exercises. Unlike a traditional course, Six Figure Freelancers is a program of action – more of an implementation guide, really. There are mostly short live-action videos (me talking to the camera) that cover the concepts or goals for the lesson, then a written activity to follow. This might be doing research on the target market, might be creating a simple webpage, or doing some mindset work where we uncover what’s really keeping us from taking the action we need to take.

How long did it take you to create your course?

I pre-sold my course to about 30 people, then taught it live, releasing a new module (3-5 videos and lessons) per week for 10 weeks. I followed the framework outlined in Dan Norris’s “The 7-Day Startup in terms of planning. Once all the modules were completed, I refined the exercises, put together a nicer learning portal, and started working on the long-term marketing plan.

Tell us a little about the process of launching your course and getting your first sale(s).

I had been traveling with Remote Year when the idea came to me, and I signed up to do a “7-Day Startup” challenge with some fellow travelers. Then I did some research, created a simple sales page, and started promoting the hell out of it to everyone I knew. I played with pricing, I played with sending people direct to checkout or having sales calls, I harassed people asking them to share, I posted constantly on social media, tried to ads… It all felt so uncomfortable! But I managed to get about 30 people to pay me for the program. From concept to launch was about 4 weeks total and was exhausting… but so worth it once I got to help those people build their business foundations.

Do you have a lead magnet?

I have a ridiculous amount of lead magnets – this is part of the challenges of being a creative person. I have some cheat sheets and a productivity kit, a quiz that leads to a free training video, that leads to an email sequence and a webinar invite… we are currently in the process of trying to streamline out offers and systems. The quiz and free training seem to perform the best in terms of growing our list.

What’s the traffic strategy that works best for you?

In the beginning, almost everything I did was organic via social and email / direct reach out to friends. Then we moved to Linkedin as primary lead gen, and Facebook ads. But we got banned from FB ads and have been focusing on SEO, Pinterest, and Google PPC, which not only bring us the most qualified clients but is also the long-term win.

Currently, we get more than 70% of our traffic from organic searches & referrals, 10% PPC and Pinterest, Facebook, Linkedin & Instagram bringing in the remaining 30% of our traffic.

Social media is a huge growth driver for most coaching and course-based businesses but as an introvert, I really don’t enjoy being on social media so we’re on a slower growth plan, and that’s okay. I went into business for freedom, with the intention of running a lifestyle business, and to help people.

I’ve found that live videos and IG stories are the best for social conversions – people like to be a voyeur in the lives of others – but I don’t want to live my life on social media, so I’ve found other ways to drive traffic that are more in alignment with my personal goals as a founder. My team manages my social accounts and I pop in with personal videos periodically.

What online course platform are you using?

Currently, we’re using Kajabi, but we will likely be moving back to WordPress with MemberPress or similar for our new portal.

Kajabi is the All-In-One Course Platform

Kajabi is one of the top online course platforms used by successful course creators interviewed on coursemethod.com. Kajabi includes email marketing and other tools that make it easy to run your entire business from their platform.

• Price Range: $149 to $399/month
• Most Popular Plan: Growth Plan at $199/month
• Annual Discount: Yes, take 20% off!
• Free Trial: Get a 14-day free trial (credit card required)

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Do you like it?

Yes and no. The LMS is great, but the marketing tools leave much to be desired so we’re essentially paying double to use about ¼ of what we need (as all our marketing and sales are done elsewhere).

Are there any features you wish it had?

I wish they had a basic plan that was just the LMS with as many products as you need. We don’t use the marketing functions at all and it’s a lot of overkill for what we really need. We were also really hopeful about the membership function they launched last year, but it’s a bit disappointing.

What made you decide to use your chosen platform over others?

Our first portal was created with WordPress and a plugin. We moved to Kajabi to give our users some nice features – like a mobile app and a nice LMS, and we thought we’d use their marketing systems and be able to streamline. Unfortunately, that didn’t work out as well, so we’re likely going to be moving back to WordPress so we have more control & flexibility and we can streamline some systems.

What other tools do you use to run your online course business?

We use Ontraport for landing pages, forms & email marketing, Thrivecart for checkout & affiliate management, Kajbi for the LMS, and Zapier to integrate everything. We use WiserNotify & Endorsal for social proof and love Bonjoro for new customer engagement.

What books or training programs have you found useful on your journey to a successful business owner that others might find valuable too?

I always recommend The 7-Day Startup by Dan Norris for anyone thinking of starting a course specifically, as well as finding a good business coach. Having a mentor who’s done what you want to do really helps, and as entrepreneurs, it can be really lonely – so find a coach or a community that you align with.

Do you have any big mistakes you’ve made along the way that you’d be willing to share?

I’m not sure there is enough time to go over all the mistakes I have made in my business(es). But I would say my top mistakes have been:

1. Overthinking / Overcomplicating everything and making things harder than they need to be.
2. Taking advice from people who are not my ideal client or my mentor (this will destroy your confidence wicked fast).
3. Changing my mind and jumping from idea to idea, never being consistent with my marketing.
4. Not taking enough time to rest and relax, learning to a chronic cycle of burnout.
5. Waiting until I feel ready / the time is “right”.

The truth is, you will almost never feel ready to do anything – you’ve just gotta get up off your butt and take action if you want to build your business. And keep doing that consistently.

Please share some idea of revenue.

My primary revenue still comes from my private coaching programs, so it’s a little hard to say here. We’ve been working on an evergreen funnel for a while and still haven’t gotten things where we’d like and are constantly testing new strategies. The first program launch I did bring in about $5000 at beta pricing. Our last real launch brought in about $25,000. Earlier this year we partnered with AppSumo for a massive COVID relief effort, cutting the enrollment cost by 99.5%. We made less than $20K out of the deal but helped over 1000 build their foundation.

Please tell us a little about what the money you’ve earned from your course has done for you.

The money I’ve earned from my course is a mere fraction of my earnings. I’m still relatively new to this online program game and we haven’t sorted everything out yet. But it supplements my full-time coaching practice, which means I can work fewer hours, take only soul-mate clients, and still help a lot of people. I currently work about 25-hours per week on average, earn over 6-figures, and am able to travel full-time. In fact, I built my entire coaching practice and online program while traveling nomadically in 25 countries.

In addition to revenue are there any numbers you would like to share?

I worked my buns off to get to 10K followers on Instagram because I wanted that “swipe up” feature! I hired someone to do engagement for me 3-5 hours per day and we posted 2-3 times per day. We hit 10k in 6-months.

Before we got banned from Facebook ads, we had a simple funnel to an opt-in page for free training that grew our list rapidly and got us to 5k email subscribers. We’ve since pivoted a bit and culled our list – now we’re focused more on organic traffic from Google and Pinterest.

What has creating your course done for you personally?

I’m super proud of what we’ve built and the successes my clients have had. I’d have to say the top thing for me is fulfillment. I’m also excited about the future. Now that we’ve proven the effectiveness of the program we are working on the long-term revenue and growth plan and fully intend to be running a multi-million dollar business within a year or two. I’d say that it’s given me fulfillment and the foundation for a scalable business that helps a lot of people.

Do you have a story of a transformation from any of your clients?

I have one client who I love to tell stories about. He came to me without a business plan, a service to offer, or really any sort of plan. He’d be blogging and making YouTube videos for a year but no money. He was still a full-time employee and just didn’t know how to get started or what he wanted to offer.

Less than 3 months later – after going through the Six Figure Freelancers Framework – he’d gotten so much clarity that he sent out over $700K in proposals, landed an $80K contract, and left his full-time job to focus on the business.

Amazing things happen when you have clarity, confidence, and support.

What advice do you have for people just starting out?

Keep. It. Simple. And consistent.

There is no shortage of people online that will tell you what to do and “exactly” how to grow your business / launch your product / drive traffic, etc. It’s overwhelming, and if you try to listen to them all, you can destroy your business.

In hindsight, I wish I had stuck with:

1. ONE core offer
2. Just ONE core message
3. ONE core client persona
4. ONE core traffic source
5. And ONE simple funnel

A few years into the business and we’re in the middle of trying to simplify everything and it’s a mess!

Learn More about Kate Bagoy of sixfigurefreelancers.com:

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