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301 You Can Make a Lot of Money by Just Breaking Even

from The Art of Selling Online Courses

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301 You Can Make a Lot of Money by Just Breaking Even

In this episode of the Art of Selling Online Courses, host John Ainsworth interviews Annalise Spiel, a Chinese medicine expert based in Brussels with more than 20 years of clinical experience. Annalise runs "Sparkle Your Vital Energy," offering a €59 master class, a free ebook, and a free 10-minute video aimed at busy professional women aged 35–55 who want simple, self-paced health habits. She spends €300–350 monthly on Meta ads and is currently breaking even, which John notes is a strong starting point. Her €10 guided meditation order bump is performing well. John reviews her sales page and suggests several tweaks: move the headline higher, use first-person call-to-action buttons, add a guarantee, include a transformation section, and add a sales video. He also recommends adding an upsell and possibly raising the order bump price, which could add roughly a third to revenue and improve ad scalability. Annalise explains her goal is to create self-paced online income to protect against income loss from illness or maternity leave, and to be seen as an expert online. She finds Instagram organic content easier than ads but struggles with doom-scrolling, so she uploads via Meta Edits and avoids the app afterward. She reflects that building an online business requires an invisible marketing system—funnels, emails, and backend offers—that Chinese medicine training never covered. John encourages her, noting that if she refines her funnel and scales ads, she has a real opportunity to grow.

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English
Speaker 1 That's what I did the first 2-3 months when I started out, I was like, oh, and I'll just put like what €30 then sold like €160 and I sold literally 3 master classes. That was also it. There was no extra followers. There was nothing behind it. The whole invisible system behind it. It's so important coming from Chinese medicine where we don't learn about marketing. So we have content. I have content. I didn't know that there was this whole wall behind it that I didn't see. Speaker 2 And how's that going? Speaker 1 That's why it's literally break even like a one-on-one. I pay a bit, I get a bit. Speaker 2 You can make a lot of money by just breaking even with ads. Hello and welcome to the Art of selling online courses. We are here to share winning strategies and secret hacks from top performers in the online course industry. My name's John Ainsworth and today's guest is Annalise Spiel. Now, Annalise is a Chinese medicine expert based in Brussels with more than 20 years of clinical experience. Her whole path started with one trip back in 2, 2002, she was on a sabbatical in Laos. She got sick and she ended up at a Buddhist temple where someone gave her a 2 hour massage with tiger bomb and she walked out of there with her energy back and her curiosity switched on good. So she went and learned the real thing. She trained in Chinese massage in Brussels and Paris, spent time at a hospital in Yunnan, learned Mandarin and Kunming, did a five years bachelor's degree at Nanjing University of Chinese Medicine in China. And now she's the founder of Sparkled Your Vital Energy, where she takes something that most people find really complicated, ancient Chinese medicine, and turns into simple daily habits that busy professionals can actually use. She does on my master classes, ebooks, guided meditations, corporate keynote treats. Annalise, welcome to the show. Speaker 1 Thank you. Speaker 2 So talk us through who is your audience? Who are you helping with your your Instagram account and your courses and so on? Speaker 1 Yeah. So mainly my target is women between their 3555 or more specific 4555. Depends a bit on the on the topic that I'm offering in my master classes or my workshops. They're highly busy professionals. I'm in Brussels so language is an issue. So in I opted for people who could speak English. Yeah. If not, I have to do it either in Dutch or or in French. So I had to opt for something that was easier to understand. So that's more or less my target. People who are also these women, they're usually high achievers, perfectionists, they do everything career, family, or even if they don't have family life, they have very busy social life or they have it all together and technically they don't have time to really do some like a retreat or something. So they need something when, whenever they can follow a master class or they can come for acupuncture or they, it needs to be quick and easy, can't be ongoing, ongoing. They don't have time for that. So that's why I created the master class as well. Like if if you're on the aeroplane or if you're in a taxi and something goes wrong, then you have a quick guidance in my master class, that's all I created that. Speaker 2 Gotcha. OK. And so what's the options for people you've got the master class, is that is that paid or is that is that a free offering? What's the what's kind of entry point for people? Speaker 1 So entry point is so the master class spark your vital energy at home is paying. And the entry point is, well, there's an ebook, a free ebook. Recently I also made like a like a free 10 minute master class 10 hacks, 10 easy simple hacks to guard your vital mass energy. And that's free. And then we go from there to the master class. Gotcha. Or you go straight to the master class. Speaker 2 Yeah, sure. And how much? If people go to the master class, how much is? How much is that? Speaker 1 So the master class is €59 VAT included. Speaker 2 OK. OK. So that's kind of your low, your low ticket offer and then what's next if people like that, what's kind of next for them after that? Speaker 1 Not much. Speaker 2 Not much yet. OK, fine. That's all good. It's all good. All right. Speaker 1 So the whole idea, the whole idea basically was that you get my master class. So for people either because I'm an acupuncturist in Belgium as well, right? So I already have my, my, my people in my patients that I know. So for them it's more like an A + A plus plus next to the acupuncture they can go and they can go to. So they come back and so it's a coming on back. So for them it's like a nice to have for for new people. There is not really a new master class in the making. I am doing a lot of workshops. You can if you live in Belgium, you could you can also go and like I have a 2 hour one-on-one that I can about vital energy my. Speaker 2 Online or in person? Sorry. Speaker 1 So it's yeah. So it could be online, but then there is obviously no physical approach, no energy work done and no acupuncture obviously. So then it would be more about going in depth on about your, your, your holistic ways of how you sleep and how you eat and how you think, more mental things, breath work. So all things that could be done online for for people who would who actually want more, there is a retreat. So I am giving a retreat in September, my very first retreats. Speaker 2 Oh, exciting. Speaker 1 It is. Where are you doing it? In the South of France in Kakasun. Speaker 2 Terrible, awful place. For anyone in America who doesn't know, South of France is lovely. Gorgeous location. So. Speaker 1 So that's, that's, that's at the moment, that's where I am at because I'm also a mum with a young kid. So I, I have a lot ongoing. That's why I also created this master class, so I could be more online and have more time with my kid in the weekends and on vacation days and so on. Speaker 2 Makes total sense. And how are you driving people into it? The moment where do people find out about your master class? You're running some ads, right? And you've got Instagram as which what's kind of the main traffic source for it? Speaker 1 So at the moment, well, there is there's the online traffic source, which is on Instagram, little bit on Facebook because it's Meta, we can do both at the same time, little bit on LinkedIn. But just organic wise, yeah. Because I don't have I well, it's not, I don't have it because I don't want to put in too much money yet. So I don't have Google Ads yet. So that's, that's, that's maybe another thought for end of August. See how that goes. Yeah, at the moment, that's it. So I haven't really done anything e-mail wise, newsletter wise, because I, I just couldn't figure out how I could obtain the emails as a health provider because I have emails, but people they didn't send their consent. GDPR wise to actually have it used for more not commercial purpose, but more like other things than just booking an appointment with me. So that's why I have the the 10 minute free master class now. So I do that with my mail blue account. So there's an e-mail funnel and collector behind that. So that's also more ongoing, but it's an ongoing thing because yeah, I have to figure that out. Speaker 2 So you're sending people from the ads through to the opt in for the ebook, is that correct? Speaker 1 So technically speaking, there are ads that go directly to my paid master class. Speaker 2 OK. Speaker 1 With plug and pay and then there is also the the free everything that is free. So the ebook, there's an ad for free for ebook or if there's the ad for the 10 minute video, then that goes to the funnel e-mail and that e-mail goes to the master class. So there's a one, I think there's 3 emails that go out and the third e-mail also mentions them. All of the class. Speaker 2 Got it. OK, cool. And then how much she's spending at the moment on ads a month? Speaker 1 So on ads, let's say about 300 and €350 a month. Speaker 2 OK, OK, cool. And how's that going? Is that like making a profit? Is that like break even? Are you losing a little bit a month? What's where you at with that? Speaker 1 Ads wide, it's literally break even, break even. So it's like a one-on-one. So it's I like, I pay a bit, I get a bit. Speaker 2 Yeah, but you know what, it's like the you can make a lot of money by just breaking even with ads because once you've got a back end funnel and other things to sell them, then you make all the profit on the back end, all the profit from the e-mail list and they're all people who've paid money up front. So that's like, that's a good start. Not everyone manages to get to to break Even so quickly. So that's cool. So then I saw from your sales page that you've got an order bump, which I love. That's fantastic. Most people haven't got one of those. So you've got your bonus, the guided meditation for an extra €10. How's that doing? Are many people taking that up? Speaker 1 So that's that's up since May. And I have to say it's actually working. People actually buy it. Yeah. It's I, I, it was, yeah, it was my, I have a marketeer. So he is, he's the one who's guiding me through it. Great. Because for me, this is definitely an out of my comfort zone situation. Yeah, yeah. But yeah. So people actually like it and they buy it. Yeah. So that's that's really working very well. Yeah. So or going even lower priced even though it could be higher priced, but it is really working and I prefer it is selling than not selling. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And then do you have an upsell after that after they've bought the master classes or anything else them to buy on the confirmation page? Speaker 1 No, OK. Speaker 2 Is there anything that you could sell at that place? Is there anything, because you've said you don't have that many other offers, like is there anything that you could offer there that maybe for like €100, maybe €200 that kind of price point? Speaker 1 It would have to be something online again, right? Because if ideally, because what I see is that most of my most of the people who are buying now, they're in Poland, which may be for bigger countries, it's not so far. But for small countries, Poland is a different country. So people don't come across the border that fund that much. I am not sure yet. I could probably give another do another master class or a one-on-one conversation, like an actual face to face conversation going more into depth about why they think that they're needing, they, what they had, why they need, why did sell, why they sorry about why they they bought the, the master class and why they had the need to sparkle their, their vital energy so that I could do like a one-on-one. That would be like €100 a one hour, €100 upsell. Speaker 2 Yeah, that's so my experience with order bumps, upsells. Is an order bump a good solid order bump that has the right kind of fit? Is it about the right kind of price point? You can probably get from like a 30 to 60% conversion rate on it, as in 30 to 60% of people who buy the product will also buy the order bump, but the price of it tends to be kind of low, right? So it's in your case €10, but you know, you could maybe go as high as 20 or 30 or something like that with this, with an order bump, with an upsell, you can charge as much or more than the main product and the conversion rate will tend to be about 10 to 20, maybe 25%. So that's the kind of range you're looking at and it'll vary depending on how much more expensive it is, how good of a fit it is, how good your copy is and design and lots of other things, right? But that's the kind of range you can look at. So each of those can add about another 6th to your revenue. So between them you've added another third. And if you get towards the top end of it, then you've maybe added another half. So you've got the order bump already. I think you can probably have something there that's a little more expensive than than the €10 if you can find something else that would fit. And if you add an upsell as well, because all of these things add up, it makes the, the, the return on ad spend because if each person spends a little bit more than it just makes everything else add up more. And then you don't, oh cool, I'm making a bit of a profit. Let me increase my ad spend. Let me keep kind of scaling this up. So I think those two things would would help like tweaking the order bump to see what can you find that maybe, maybe you could charge a little more than €10 for 20 or 30, be better and then and then add an upsell. And then the other thing that I'm seeing, I'm just kind of having a little look at your sales page. I'm just going to share screen. If you're watching this on YouTube, obviously you will see this. Otherwise, I'm going to do my best to describe everything we've got kind of going on here so that you know what's happening, right? So we're on the sales page for the Sparkle, your vital energy master class. Is this the right version? Is this like similar to that? OK, cool rate. So few things you could tweak straight away that are going to help improve your conversion rate on this sales page. First of all, you've got a really good headline. Understand why you're exhausted and how to fix it. So it's benefit based. It might not be the perfect headline, but it's solid. So that's really good. But what you don't need is to have so much space up towards the top here, dedicated to like the branding side of things. What we could do is move that up so the headline is more front and centre 'cause we want the headline to be the first thing people read. And at the moment, the first thing that's kind of your eyes drawn to is this sparkle. Reconnect your vital energy. So let's move that down to just a small bit of branding, move the headline up, make it bigger and then have a sub headline that kind of explains that benefit in more detail than the headline does because it can be slightly smaller text and so it could be slightly longer. OK, so this is just for everybody listening. This is a dog training course and the headline is your puppy's training plan solved in 10 minutes a day. So that's the the benefit that they're getting is going to be solved quickly. They're getting the training plan out of it. So it's like trying to explain to people what they're going to get. That's the headline. The the call to action button says I'm in. Let's make puppy life easier. So the reason this is written in the first person when everything else is written, you talking to the audience. This one is written for them as if they're saying it themselves is because this is where they're taking action. The rest of the sales page, they're reading it, they're passive. They're just taking information from you, but the button is them. They've decided to take action and then this is them doing it. So it's better when that's written as them saying it. I always find this difficult or awkward to explain, but hopefully that makes sense. So we want something in that kind of in the first person. So if we go back here. Speaker 1 Yes, I want to sparkle. Speaker 2 Great, cool. So what we'd also want there is to actually at the point when you're saying that, that you know, you're taking them to that next step is you want them, you want that to take them straight through to the checkout page. Whereas this at the moment, if you click this, it just scrolls down the page a little bit. So that doesn't really do much good. That won't be what people are expecting. And we want to have the what the price is and we want to have the guarantee written underneath here as well. So underneath the button you'll see here it says secure checkout, instant digital delivery, 30 day money back guarantee, lifetime access to course content. So it's like you're just at the point of decision reassuring people that everything is fine and you're showing. You'll see here as well. We've got the discount. We've got $407.00 worth of puppy training yours today for just $197.00. So it's like that's making it obvious to them they're getting great value and then the buttons in the first person and then you've got like the fact that it's all going to be fine as a guarantee secure check out all of this kind of thing. So if you change that, that's going to help. So there's a great news, right? You're already breaking even without having made all of these refinements and tweaks and whatever on the sales. But if you start to make these, it'll they'll all add up and, and between all of them, you're going to find that like you're getting a better return and then it's going to be easier. OK, so next thing we've got now you're doing everything right. So why do you still feel this exhausted? You got as a sub headline, this is really good. What you've done here is you've started with the problem that they're experiencing. A lot of people when they're selling something, they're so in the product that they talk about, you're going to get this and you're going to get this and you're going to get this and you're going to get this. But people don't care about all the things they're going to get. They they care about solving a problem. So you want to start with the problem that they've got and explain to them that you understand that problem. That's exactly what you've done. So this is, this is great work here. So for everybody just listening, it says you wake up tired even after a full night's sleep. You drag yourself through the afternoon relying on coffee just to function. Your hormones feel completely unpredictable and irritable one day, tearful the next. You've tried supplements, yoga challenges, detox diets, but nothing really sticks. Deep down you're afraid this is what life just feels like now. So you're showing empathy with where they are right now. Great. That's fantastic. OK. And then so you've got like, explaining why other stuff doesn't work and then you're introducing your programme. So that's great. This button, again, I would have the same button through the whole page. So whatever 1 button is saying, just order them. So this one says enrol this course today. I would change that to yes, I want my sparkle back or whatever the right kind of choices for that button. OK. And then we've got a DIY online course from ambitious women who refuse to let exhaustion win. And here's what you learn. Start feeling the difference. I think if you improve the design of this page as well can just make it look more professional and you can even use AI to help with some of that. There were some AI page designers that you might be able to use to to help improve the design with this. If you've not got the, you know, money for designer or you've not got the skill yourself on that and that's going to that's going to help because some of the stuff it's just the spacing isn't quite right. The layout isn't quite right is anything that's if you drink ads, any kind of reason for someone to go, I'm not kind of sure you lose them. If they're coming from Instagram or from your e-mail list or something like that, then they know you already, you've got more leeway. But when it's from ads, you kind of got to kind of dial everything in so people feel just like, Oh yes, this is exactly right in all ways. Oh, this is good. Underneath the button here you've got the price, you've got the discount and you've got that one time payment, lifetime access, no subscription. You don't have to guarantee here, but that's got a lot of that's the right kind of thing to have underneath the underneath the button, you've got testimonial. Great. I'd put more lots of testimonials if you can. We've got a section meeting you great. Love it saying who it's for. You deserve to feel like yourself again. That's good. We've got more testimonials down here. This is excellent. OK. I'd have a section as well. That's like a transformation. Like, how is their life going to be a day, a week, a month, three months, six months after this has happened? What? Because you know, right, you've seen that in all of the people that you've worked with, how much better their life is. They haven't seen that, so they kind of can't imagine what that's going to be like. She started out with the pain and the agitating that and saying that you've got the solution. But somewhere on this page we want to have a section that says this is how your life is going to be. This is kind of showing them a hopeful future. I would put there isn't a guarantee that I'm seeing on the page. I'd put a guarantee for definite, whether that's seven days, 14 days. I'd normally do 30. I've got a friend who does 365 day guarantee. He's like he said, it didn't really make much difference to the number of refunds. If someone's going to refund, they'll refund quite quickly. But it made people feel like, oh, I've got time here to go through and do this. 3030 is a solid number to kind of go with. I'd figure out if there's anything in the course that is currently that that isn't essential to the course, but it's real nice to have that you could extract as a bonus because when people see, oh, I'm getting this and I'm getting these three bonuses as well, that feels really good to people. Even if it's the same content. Or if you've got anything else you could put in as a bonus, then that'll that'll help as well. I love to make, this is a bit advanced, but I love to make bonuses that deal with objections. So you've got the main course delivers all of the value that they need. And then they might say, yeah, but I'm not got enough time. So you're like, but don't worry, we have this quick start guide or we've got the 5 minutes a day version of this. Or here is something that's going to make it possible for you to plan in where in your day you're going to fit it in or whatever it is, right? Something that addresses the time thing. And then they might be like, I don't know, I don't think this will work for me because X reason in your, in your niche, whatever, whatever your objections are. And then you find something that you can give them that addresses that objection and those that's, that's this is advanced. So this isn't essential to go to straight away. But if you do that, that then deals with some of those objections and makes people feel great because they're getting all this extra value from it. I think if you made all of those changes, all of those tweaks, the design, the headline, the sub headline, Oh, and put a sales video like a kind of summarising the page, just you talking through it, only like 10% of people will watch it, but for that 10%, the video works really well. If you have that as well, if you remind me afterwards, then I'll send you through like a script for VSLS because it's like I can give you just like here's the structure rather than trying to figure that out from scratch. If you did all of that, I think you would see this page convert much better through to the checkout page. I think your checkout page is actually really good. You've got testimonials on it, you've got a reminder of what's included in there. You've got picture of you and the product on the different on a laptop, on a phone, on an iPad. You've got a simple checkout form. You've got different ways to pay, you've got an order bump. I would add the I would add the guarantee onto this page as well with a big badge showing 30 day money back guarantee. So that helps kind of increase conversions, but the check up page generally is actually really strong. I think if you made those changes and you had an upsell, you would see like a solid, really solid increase in conversions and then you'll be able to go right now I'm going to scale the ads a little bit further. Is that that was a lot. So two things. One, was that helpful? And two, does that all make sense or have you got any kind of questions about any of? Speaker 1 It yeah, it's very, very, very helpful. Yeah, because basically one someone's doing this for me. So thank you. Speaker 2 Pass the recording along if you like, yeah. Speaker 1 And and yeah, so so but yeah, it's it's it's and also it's a lot with plug and pay. So it's a pre formatted way of, of, of of doing it. So I think we can definitely do all these add, Add all the things that that you just said. I think it's very valuable. Yeah, yeah. The hardest part for me is always thinking at, like you said in the beginning is also for me very hard to not think about my product, but about what, what does my patient, what does my client want? How does he think and what does he want to hear? But that's yeah. Speaker 2 Oh, it's so hard. It's so hard. Yeah. This is like, I, I find it difficult, like trying to think, well, wait a minute, not what do I want to say or what do I know is important, but what is it that the other person is thinking? And it's like it's not easy, you know, but it's but it's essential, you know, that's kind of that is sales, you know, trying to look at it from the other person's point of view and, and help them go on that journey. So yeah, if you find it difficult, that's just because it's difficult. That's fine. Speaker 1 Yeah, I I find that making 45 seconds Instagram small videos is helping. It's like elevator pitching all the time. Speaker 2 OK, OK. Speaker 1 So it's like going to the BNI and just having 30 seconds of convincing people why they need to come to see you. Yeah. Speaker 2 So what's the what's the kind of goal for you with this? Where do you want to get the online stuff to? Are you trying to reduce the amount of time you're spending doing in person sessions? Is this on the side? Like what's the kind of what do you want to get? Speaker 1 To. So the main starting point was to have to have a solution to my, my, my everlasting question is like what if I get sick and I can't do my one on ones anymore? What if I am going because, well, I've had maternity leave three months, I've had some medical issues also six weeks, etcetera, etcetera. That's a lot of time when you work on one-on-one with patients, acupuncture, I call them patients because I don't call them clients. So and and then you always have to like after that you have to like work like double the amount to just overcome 1 1/2 month of income loss. And I for me working online gives me an answer to that because I also wanted to do something online that was pre recorded so that people could be self-paced and that I would not be needed live. So for that was the initial thing. So for that, I'm already very happy that I created all that. And yeah, those steps are already made. Now second step would be I also would like to be more more seen as an expert in this field. I know that I am an expert in my field because I'm doing this job already for but one-on-one, not online. So it would be fun to have a better turnover and see that people are actually finding the way to to do this, to go to my Instagram and have my master classes. And yeah, so I would really like to work more on that and maybe do like more retreats with people or give more workshops about. It could also be online workshops, yeah. Speaker 2 Nice. OK, that's a lot of things. So I'm trying to think my way through OK. Speaker 1 Yeah, I, I thought I said I just set the the goal very high and then, you know, if I set it low, then nothing comes of it. If I set it high, then I give myself enough challenge to go on the way. It's also doesn't have to be within the next year. Let me be very clear about it. It's. Speaker 2 Right, right, right. Speaker 1 I'm like a DSL. I have a lot of thoughts and I go in the beginning it goes slow and I have to feel comfortable and then but I keep going. Speaker 2 OK, OK, cool. What do you think in terms of like driving traffic? Where do you think at the moment you're going to put more effort into Instagram or the ads because each of them is a lot of work? Speaker 1 Yeah, it's a lot of work. Also the ads. Well, for me, making the ads is more work because, yeah, making one good video takes me like 2 to 4 hours. Yeah, also because I'm, I'm not used to it and I and making Instagram videos is fun because they're short and I can just, I don't need to have the right amount of light or I don't need to have I there. It can be a little bit off, right? It doesn't need to be yeah, that perfect. So at the moment I would say less work would be Instagram. Yeah, that would be like just organic flow would be easier because I could, I am there's there's a lot of thoughts and I can just do it. Like along the way it's just my Instagram account and me or we have a very difficult relationship together. Speaker 2 OK, what does that mean? Speaker 1 It means that if I'm on Instagram I have difficulties. After I put my stuff online I have difficulties not scrolling, doom scrolling. Speaker 2 Yeah, I found that earlier, right. So I was going to your Instagram account, go check out your, your videos and your how, how you've been running it. And I think it must have been like at least three or 4 minutes of me doing something else after I'd opened Instagram and I was like, what, what was I doing here? What was I? I was like, oh, for God's sake. They're just so good at getting you to scroll and run through stuff. So it's like, ah, OK, OK, I need to be more more disciplined with this, but OK. So is there a way around that then of like, you know, you create the videos but you're not the one uploading it or you upload it through some tool where you don't go onto Instagram itself or something like that, I don't know. Speaker 1 So I what I do now is I upload it on the meta edits, I make it there. I don't make it from scratch anymore on on Instagram itself. And then I just upload it and then I don't look at it for like a day. Speaker 2 OK, great. Sounds much better. Yeah, these things put that to try us, aren't they? I, I just I some people ask me sometimes that there's some of you a TikTok video and I'm like, I'm not downloading TikTok. Like Instagram and YouTube are already bad enough. If I download TikTok, I know I'll enjoy it and then and then I'll be frustrated. It's like, let me just never ever download it in the first place. And then it's like, I don't have this. I don't have this issue to kind of deal with. Speaker 1 OK my Chinese friends they said I should I should put I did everything on red notes like red note in English and I was like how? Not sure if I want another thing to. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, yeah. One H is different, right. So H1 is. Speaker 1 Different. Speaker 2 So if you try to get good at 3 at once, I think it's almost impossible. Speaker 1 Yeah, and and not if it's not getting if I don't. The thing is also like, this is not like my, my, my full time job is not this. Yeah, the so, so so that's also one of the things that we recently discussed by Mark T and me. It's like, yeah, if this is not my full time job, but it is demanding quite, quite a like maybe like a part time job. So I also have to like review that, which with, with with, yeah, the more videos I post, the more full time it gets. Speaker 2 Yeah, yeah, absolutely. There's a big challenge with this kind of thing, like how to balance everything, how to get started with it, When do you work on each of the different elements of it, how many channels to work on? I think everybody really struggles with this. Like, even once someone's got a big audience, then they're like, well, now what do I do? Do I hire a team of people to help me with these other bits, or do I keep doing everything myself to keep the profits up? And like, how do I learn enough about the marketing side of things? Because once you build an audience, you build courses. That doesn't mean that you make sales. Speaker 1 You. Speaker 2 Know yeah, all difficult, challenging things but if you do manage to figure it all out and get through it then you have this incredible life on the other side where it's like all right everything I'm making all this money and I have low expenses and I'm doing the thing that I love and I'm helping all these people and I get to do it from anywhere and it's like oh that was worth it. Yes, yeah, 100%. Let's let's do this, you know, But no, it's my friend. Each ma says to me, these challenges are just there to keep the riffraff out. It's like you don't want, you don't want everybody being able to do it, do you? Because then there wouldn't be, there wouldn't be enough value in it has to be something that stops everyone else from getting through, but not us. We get through it, you know, but not everybody else. Speaker 1 It also makes me appreciate a lot more people that I see on Instagram Who, who, who after a while, I just, I can just see who's who's doing it professionally and who's doing it just a little bit on the side. And, and, and yeah, that that also gives me more like spark to, to go that way of the more professional way because you see that what they're selling, they're actually selling because, yeah, I would like to buy it. So I would like to buy that product. I would like to buy that course and then, yeah, as long as they advertise enough, then I will buy it in the end. So it does work. But it does make you realise that there is a certain professionalism about it that you need to discover in the beginning that you think, oh, I'm just going to put this on Instagram and let's go and see how it will grow organically. That's what I did the first 2-3 months when I started out. And yeah, I had, I was like, oh, and I'll just put like what, €30 and then yeah, I, I, I, I literally sell, sold. I, I, I then sold like €160 and I sold literally like three thing, three master classes. But like, you know, that was also it, there was no extra followers. There were no, no, like there was nothing behind it. So it really needs to be, yeah, the whole, the whole system behind the whole invisible system behind it is so important. But that coming from like Chinese medicine where we don't learn about marketing. Speaker 2 Yeah. Speaker 1 Yeah. So that's. Yeah. So we have content. I have content. It's just I don't know, or I didn't know that. Yeah, there was this whole wall behind it that I didn't see. Speaker 2 Elise, if people want to go check you out, where should they? Where should they go? Speaker 1 They can go to either Instagram I'm Elise Spiel. I'm a linked spiel in English to Instagram or either my LinkedIn. If they want to do it more professionally, the same spiel or to sparkle your vital energy.com, which is the website where everything is also more together, put together at the moment, that's more where you can find me. Speaker 2 Perfect. And Lisa, I love what you're doing. It's great to see you at this kind of stage in your journey when you're getting going with all of this. Massive best of luck to you with this. And I think you've got something here. I think if you're already breaking, even, if you keep refining and tweaking and, and going with this, then you've got a chance of getting those ads kind of scaled up a bit more. And then if you feel the back end behind it, then you can make revenue from all of these buyers on the back end. So fingers crossed for you and and best of luck. Speaker 1 Thank you very much and thank you for inviting me. Speaker 2 As always, dear listener, thanks so much for listening. Really, really appreciate you guys and we'll see you next time.

Podcast Summary

Key Points:

  1. Annalise Spiel is a Chinese medicine expert in Brussels with over 20 years of clinical experience who created the "Sparkle Your Vital Energy" master class for busy professional women aged 35–55.
  2. Her main offer is a €59 master class, supported by a free ebook and a free 10-minute video as entry points, with a €10 guided meditation order bump that is converting well.
  3. She spends €300–350 per month on Meta ads (Instagram, Facebook, and some LinkedIn) and is currently breaking even, which the host notes is a solid starting position.
  4. The host identifies several sales page improvements
  5. Adding an upsell and increasing the order bump price could add roughly a third to revenue, improving return on ad spend and making it easier to scale.
  6. Annalise's goal is to build a self-paced online income stream to protect against income loss from illness or leave, and to be recognized as an expert in her field.
  7. She finds Instagram organic content easier than ads but struggles with doom-scrolling, so she now uploads via Meta Edits and avoids checking the app for a day.
  8. She learned that a full invisible marketing system—funnels, email sequences, and backend offers—is essential, something not taught in Chinese medicine.

Summary:

In this episode of the Art of Selling Online Courses, host John Ainsworth interviews Annalise Spiel, a Chinese medicine expert based in Brussels with more than 20 years of clinical experience. Annalise runs "Sparkle Your Vital Energy," offering a €59 master class, a free ebook, and a free 10-minute video aimed at busy professional women aged 35–55 who want simple, self-paced health habits.

She spends €300–350 monthly on Meta ads and is currently breaking even, which John notes is a strong starting point. Her €10 guided meditation order bump is performing well. John reviews her sales page and suggests several tweaks: move the headline higher, use first-person call-to-action buttons, add a guarantee, include a transformation section, and add a sales video. He also recommends adding an upsell and possibly raising the order bump price, which could add roughly a third to revenue and improve ad scalability.

Annalise explains her goal is to create self-paced online income to protect against income loss from illness or maternity leave, and to be seen as an expert online. She finds Instagram organic content easier than ads but struggles with doom-scrolling, so she uploads via Meta Edits and avoids the app afterward. She reflects that building an online business requires an invisible marketing system—funnels, emails, and backend offers—that Chinese medicine training never covered. John encourages her, noting that if she refines her funnel and scales ads, she has a real opportunity to grow.

FAQs

Because as a health provider she only collected their emails for appointment booking, not for marketing, so GDPR consent rules prevent her from using them for commercial purposes. This is why she built a free 10-minute master class with an email funnel to collect new consented leads.

She offers a free ebook and a free 10-minute master class covering 10 simple hacks for vital energy. Ads for these free offers drive people into an email funnel, and the third email in the sequence mentions the paid master class.

She chose English because Brussels is multilingual, and offering the course in one language makes it easier for people to understand and for her to reach a broader audience without having to create separate Dutch and French versions.

An order bump is a low-priced add-on offered at checkout (like Annalise's €10 guided meditation) and typically converts at 30-60%. An upsell is a higher-priced offer after purchase (often €100 or more) and typically converts at 10-25%.

Because the rest of the sales page is written as the seller talking to the reader, but the button is the moment the reader takes action. Writing it in the first person makes it feel like the reader is saying it themselves, which improves conversions.

It's a section showing how the customer's life will improve a day, week, month, or six months after using the product. The host recommends it because customers can't imagine their future benefits on their own, so showing a hopeful future helps them commit.

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