SDH 463: Turning Your Zone of Genius Into A Highly Profitable Online Course with Megan Harrison

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Hello friends! Welcome back to another podcast episode. This week I’m excited to welcome Megan Harrison to the podcast. Megan is the founder of a digital online agency that offers training courses and online workshops. She helps digital entrepreneurs scale their businesses by turning their zone of genius into highly profitable online courses. Megan has worked with some of the world's top leaders such as Tony Robbins and Dean Graziosi. In the past year, her client’s programs have impacted 10’s of 1000’s of lives and generated over $65 million in revenue.

When Megan first started her journey roughly eight years ago she specialized in marketing, automation, and a little bit of website design. It continued to morph over the next few years and eventually made the switch to online courses, membership sites, and digital products.

Megan lives by the ‘riches were in the niches’ and believes it reigns true for her and her business. She became a specialist and expert in her niche and is continuously striving to dig deeper into that.

Looking Back

Megan’s first job was actually in hospital administration where she worked after college. She loved it and having studied pre-med in college, it was a great fit for her business minded-self. After about 5 years it had started to become more monotonous than what she really wanted with her life and decided it was time to start something on her own. After attending a Tony Robbins event (her story really does come full circle) she gave herself six months to start a business.

Megan actually found one of her old journals and reflected on those early ‘plans’ and also her backup plans. Things like babysitting, dog sitting, resume writing, and other odd jobs. Almost exactly six months later she put in her resignation.

“I think when you declare something and you make a decision early, like on a deep level, it goes into your subconscious. The universe starts to align to help you get there and to reach whatever that decision was that you made.”

Her original business was much more social media-focused than it is now, running contests, etc. But it wasn’t what she was passionate about. When she signed up for a $2,000 Marie Forleo course she realized that not only had she just paid Marie Forleo $2,000 for a course but 1000’s of others did as well. It signaled in her that it could be a very lucrative business and saw a huge opportunity for growth.

Creating the Black Card Experience

It wasn’t until a few years later that Megan got ‘the call’ from Tony Robbins' team to work with them on creating a course (she still has those Zoom calls saved!). They had seen the work Megan had done with others, such as Ryan Levesque with The Ask Method Masterclass and they explained that they wanted to be able to provide their clients with a ‘black card experience’. This included aesthetics and an overall WOW factor to each piece. With so many people in the online course space, very few offer what Megan does, which is taking courses off of traditional platforms like Thinkific and building premium-level course design development. These individuals usually have already had several successful courses across traditional platforms (think Thinkific, Teachable, or Kajabi) and are now ready to take it to the next level, building it on WordPress with a high focus on user experience.

What does the Black Card Experience look like? Think of even the smallest details. The user experience, not just navigating through content but engaging with each piece of the course experience. Megan teaches course creators how to integrate different systems and platforms into the membership site and brings everything together, without using a cookie-cutter course template.

“The world is your oyster, when you're creating it [on] WordPress, with the design system.”

Another thing Megan’s company does differently, and extremely well, is they continuously overdeliver, reserving the most bespoke experiences and websites for her highest level clients.

Megan is extremely passionate about her business and her clients. She loves coaching, teaching, and having courses, but she also loves public speaking. On the agency side, she is passionate about actually working hands-on with clients. This also makes Megan highly unique and much more valuable since she is excellent at getting her hands dirty, working in the trenches with her clients.

Something else that keeps Megan motivated is to always have multiple things in motion. She is very multifaceted in that it really helps her stay motivated.

“It can be really easy to be told that you should do only the one thing that's the scalable thing, because you're going to make more money. Whereas sometimes it's not about some of those factors. It's more about, what do I want holistically for what I do on a daily basis.”

Two of the most common pitfalls Megan sees when building their course are:

People wanting to know exactly what each piece of the puzzle looks like before they even start
Creating the course content before the outline (pro-tip: create your outline first, content second)

Megan’s Results Centered Training Formula:

Where are your customers right now
What are you promising to deliver/solve for them
What do your customers need to do to get to that end result
What do your customers need to know to get to that end result
Use action igniters (worksheets/ templates/ swipe files/ etc.), engagement amplifiers (social learning, building communities)

Want to connect with Megan and learn more about what her business offers? Check out her website, subscribe to her YouTube channel, or connect with her on Facebook or Instagram (@megankharrison).

Until next time, keep doing it your way!

Insights:

“Megan lives by the ‘riches were in the niches’ and believes it reigns true for her and her business.”
“With so many people in the online course space, very few offer what Megan does, which is taking courses off of traditional platforms like Thinkific and building premium-level course design development.”
“Another thing Megan’s company does differently, and extremely well, is they continuously overdeliver, reserving the most bespoke experiences and websites for her highest level clients.”