"As a special education teacher for almost 20 years, and a freelance illustrator for the last 12 years, my idea of creating a unique brand of decodable books for beginners had floundered for the last decade. I would dabble at creating new stories and new artwork with the idea of getting them into the hands of children in order to prevent any unnecessary special education diagnoses for “learning disabilities"" in reading, but the teaching life didn’t agree with the entrepreneur life as easily as I thought it might.
I knew what MY need was for creating these books, but I could not get myself motivated to keep going with this project since I didn’t have a clue about how to make money with it and most other tasks were easier to complete. In the Fall of 2022, I was binge-watching YouTube business mentors, daily filling my brain with bits of info I hoped would be useful. As I was YouTubing, I would make playlists of videos that I would like to watch again to practice caricature drawing and facial expressions. I had never seen Marisa before October 2022, and found her making so many facial expressions that I “hearted” a few of her videos because they were an illustrator’s dream reference. Thanks, Youtube, for feeding me more content like that. I had already spent the last two or three weeks attending other people’s free webinars, so I also signed up for her webinar series, which eventually led to the Experience Product MasterClass.
I probably shouldn’t have signed up. I didn’t have the money. I never use a credit card if money isn’t in the bank. I couldn’t afford the $2500, so I had to choose the payment plan. I knew I was a good student, and I told myself I would just have to follow the directions and I would get the refund at least. Thank God the money came in when I needed to make the payments, but I agonized over the offer, and finally chatted with Coach Debra just before the doors closed for the year.
I believed that Marisa/EPM could help me get my product off the ground, and that when it happened, it was going to be worth much more than the price of this class, so I signed up.
Once inside EPM, I was excited and scared at the same time. My bank account was on the line. This HAD to work. I didn’t want to tell anybody about it, but when I did speak to others, I told them I just signed up for a business class.
EPM gave me an audience to speak with, listen to, direct me, and give me so much more than I have been able to entertain yet. But mostly, it gave me deadlines for taking actions. I have never been a consistent action-taker on projects. I get started, get involved, then leave the finishing for sometime later, if at all. This was not going to happen with my chosen project. The other projects would have to wait (some more). Coach Kanu gave me some early insight to just work on my books instead of doing the course, but I had a hard time believing her. I did both, and I have both. I like the books, and I’ll like “teaching” the course even better when I turn it into a series of videos. Who knows how much further I would be towards a 1:many product if I had simply taken her advice, though? I may be in the minority of EPM customers, in that I would rather get AWAY from teaching than run towards it, since I get to do plenty of that already.
I missed my first launch date. After that, I could NEVER imagine it coming until I stumbled upon Coach Emily’s script for the “Best Kept Secret” post. It surprised me that people actually responded to MY post within hours! Then I got nervous that I was going to have to show up and do what I was saying. My usual self would have let things cool off at this point, but Emily’s directions were clear: get them on the phone today. Thanks, Emily! I had so much more work to do to get ready, but I had to crash through it. I got two sales from four people on my first zoom call, and another one a few days later from the replay. With a grand total of $261 in sales and a new business checking account, it hardly feels worth sharing, but I have done something way out of my comfort zone in every possible way, so I definitely learned to trust the process and go for it. My next group is scheduled to begin on 2/2/23, and I have 2 people currently rsvp to the free info session/ “benefits” session.
I still have lots of advice to apply about Chatterboxing, but I can say that being steeped in the mindset of Chatterboxing is helping me actually make those steps and lose my excuses. I will say that it is hard to make sales “conversations” with my main targets during a normal workday at a different job, though. When I finally get some school district curriculum coordinator on the line, I will be so much closer to “making my money back, and a whole lot more.” I am using the project tracking document for sales calls and records, and have placed a few calls out of state, most notably to Hawaii, which I can easily call after work hours for me, since I am four hours ahead of them. The possibility of getting this kind of client is making me do all the final technical steps required to be able to actually provide my product to a big customer. Thank you, Marisa Murgatroyd and EPM crew!
p.s. I can’t resist sharing this little YouTube clip. You’ve probably seen it before, but I didn’t remember that my grandmother used to say “Heaven’s to Murgatroyd!” When I told my parents your last name, they immediately said that. I looked it up, and here is Snagglepuss with the famous line: https://tinyurl.com/3eehz3jx Enjoy!"