How to Succeed After Failing in Business (A Kajabi Review with Meg Burrage)

SUMMARY

Ever faced a setback that felt like the end? Meet Meg Burrage, a true testament to success after failure. Did you know that Meg transitioned from a failed venture to running a thriving online business, helping others navigate the digital landscape? Embrace failure as a stepping stone to success. Some tips from Meg's journey:

• Start small. Launching workshops or compact modules allows you to test your market, gain traction, and generate income before investing in more significant endeavors.
• Having the freedom to experiment with various concepts contribute to success. The ability to adapt and adjust your strategies allows for growth and innovation.
• Learning from failure, evaluate your skill set, offering services or coaching aligned with your expertise, and gradually progressing to more extensive projects.

TRANSCRIPT

Meg Burrage is anything but your typical entrepreneur. She transitioned from a failed venture into a series of thriving projects. Her family has relocated three times, yet her online success now affords her two months to settle back home in Australia.

Hello, everybody. My name is Meg Burrage, and I have been in the Kajabi space since about 2019. I consider myself a little bit of a Kajabi addict; it's become like my hobby now. I typically work with women, mostly. Sometimes the occasional man creeps into my calendar, but usually, I'm working with women to help them launch their online course. So, the technical side of learning Kajabi, the strategy, obviously, so that you're not just putting anything out there, and then also making your website look amazing. We've created a range of templates to do that as well.

You started learning Kajabi only in 2019?

Yeah, I started with Business By Design, so I joined James Wedmore's program, and I was trying to figure out what I was going to launch an online course on. While I was doing that, James said he suggested for a platform, Kajabi was great. I'd never heard of Kajabi, but I went and got it. That was the end of 2018, and I played around with Kajabi a lot while I was trying to figure out what I was going to put in an online course. During that time, I sort of decided I don't actually have anything to put in an online course. Like, I don't know what I'm going to create a course on, but I've got Kajabi now and I've got the skills, and I think I could help some people with this.

So, I sort of parked the idea of creating my own online training and pivoted to, 'I'm just going to help other people create their online program using this Kajabi tool.' And then from there, over the months, I realized that everyone I was helping had the same questions and needed the same training. So, I actually decided to create my online course on how to use Kajabi. That is how it started.

Is it a long course or a mini course?

eah, it started as a 12-week group coaching program, the Course Creators Incubator, that I used to run twice a year. Running a 12-week group coaching program is full-on. I was just exhausted, to be honest. Launching that twice a year. But through that process, I created this huge library of over like 150 step-by-step training videos that took people from 'I just got my Kajabi account' to 'I've created everything and launched it.' And I thought, 'Well, what can I do with this training?' Nowadays, I have the training available as just a subscription to the library where people could join for a month or as long as they need it and work through the content.

And then I took all of that training, and I was still working as a Kajabi specialist, and I thought, 'There's not enough good Kajabi specialists out there.' You know, there's a lot of horror stories in this industry, and people being ripped off and experts going M.I.A. I thought, 'You know, we need a higher caliber of specialist available.' And so, that was when I teamed up with Kimi Brown to create the Heart-Centered Apprentice program, which was where we train Kajabi specialists. So, I was able to use all of that training content I'd created over the last couple of years and sort of reposition it, I guess, to people who wanted to build a business as a Kajabi specialist.

Meg, you're very tech-y for you to be able to come up with those very nice templates. Are you into design or also into I.T.?

You know, I'm one of those generalist people. I mean, I'm actually not a designer by trade. I've got a pretty good eye for design, but I'm not a designer by background. I think my superpower really is in strategy, you know, the funnel strategy and helping people to think about how they're going to go about a launch and what style of funnel is going to best suit their launch, their program, their audience, and you know, just tactics really to make sure that once they've created their funnel and they're ready to launch their program, that it's actually going to convert. So, for me, I think of myself as a very tactical person.

You know, Meg, I remember that I got well, one of those things that I got is like your tutorial on how to come up with the sales funnel and the automation and like stop, pause, okay. So, I pause, and then I used—I still had the big TV that time, so you that big. So, it was really, really helpful for that. I did a webinar; it was the beginning really trying to know Kajabi.

It's a lot; there's so many things that you need to know in your online business, and it's impossible to know it all on day one. So, it's just something that has to evolve over time. And with my students, I'm just always encouraging them to experiment and iterate because, you know, it's very, very rare that people have overnight success with this stuff. So, you really, you know, even to see any results that are, you know, good, you really got to give yourself like 12 months of chipping away at it. You know, and I think in this industry, it is so common to be a little bit misled into how easy it's going to be to go and create and launch and sell an online program. And usually, for most people, it is not like that.

I wanted to hear your story of how you could combine family life, prioritizing the kids and the family movements over your business.

Having this online business has enabled us to move to various places. I mean, I started the business in Australia, and my husband is Dutch, and we got three little kids. And we decided, 'Oh, let's move to the Netherlands for a little while to be closer to his family.' So, we came over here in 2020, and we're not very good with winter and cold. So, we decided last winter that we would go and try living in the Caribbean. So, we went to Anguila, Caribbean island, which for the first six weeks was really good. But then we were like, 'Oh, actually, I can't handle an island for any longer.' We were in the end; we were there for like four months. And it's great for a holiday, but to live on a little paradise idyllic island where the internet is a bit touch-and-go, and you know, you don't get an office; you got to work from home, and the kids are there, and it's just like, 'Oh, no. This is good for a holiday, but not to live.' So, I'm glad we ticked it off the list.

But then we decided actually the Netherlands was not that bad, so we came back here a month early. We're in the process of moving back to Australia finally. We came over here with a two-year plan, and we are now coming up to year three. We have booked tickets home, and we will be back in Perth at the end of January. I'm very excited to be finally moving back to Australia.

You're going back to the summer right? Isn't January in Australia a summer month?

It's going to be super hot, and I'm going to be ready for it. It's the middle of winter here, and I'm going to be freezing and miserable.

I thought you were calling from Australia.

We're not there yet, so I've already started packing my boxes three months in advance. I'm very excited. Culturally, the Netherlands is so different, so it's been good for a while, but I'm ready to go home.

Does your husband understand your online business? Is he very supportive?

He's very supportive because it's a successful online business you know the business that I had before was not successful so he was not supportive of that. He doesn't fully understand the online space, digital marketing, or funnels, but he knows I help people launch online courses. I thought about employing him to run Facebook ads at one point, but he lasted one day, and I had to fire him because he was hopeless. He just didn't really grasp it so that's fine. It's good to have separate interests so that you know we have something to talk about over dinner. We're not doing the same thing every day.

And your children like the idea that Mom's always there for them?

I'm sure they appreciate the flexibility. We do also have a nanny, so she's been with us since we were in Australia. We've had her for about four years. Sadly, when we go back to Australia, she is probably not going to come with us. So, you know, it's going to be a very difficult time of separation for them. She's really become like part of the family, and it's going to be difficult for her as well. It's going to be super sad. But, you know, so they sort of have two moms. I think of it like that, you know, like my schedule is very flexible, but they probably get more of her than they get of me. And, you know, she's the one who picks them up from school. Definitely not a super mom. And, and I love to work. You know, I find it difficult to not open my laptop on the weekend and muck around with somebody's website, you know, and work on something that, you know, I've had an idea for, you know. So, my kids see me working a lot, and, uh, that's something I'm, something I'm trying to work on. Avic, that I, you know, separate work and home life, life, and give them more of my attention.

Those are realities.

I mean, I do have the flexibility to go to those things as long as it's like in my calendar in advance, you know. If my child tells me or asks me to come to something that's on tomorrow, then the chances are I can't make it, you know. And as long as somebody tells me in advance, and it's pretty flexible. And I'm just, you know, thinking I've got to put all of 2024's school holidays into my calendar and like not book anything during that time, you know, block it out now before people start to put things in there, um, and before I start to like accidentally plan launches and things during school holidays, you know. But it's great to be able to just work the schedule that you want and the months that you want. And, you know, it is a really, um, great opportunity, I think, that this industry affords us.

Yes, that's a good intention to put the children's the school holiday. Sometimes they really take a lot of time. /p>

I've already got this crazy to-do list to do between now and Christmas because I plan to take all of January in February off. You, we're going to be moving in January, and in February, I don't know like where we'll be living or what my office situation going to be like, and we got to send the kids into a new school. And I just thought, you know, I just want to take two months off in my business. So I'm just working like a crazy person for the next couple of months to get all the action items done. And then I can just sit back and relax.

That's good that with the online business, you can afford two months off. And really I think it's good for mental health because going to be stressful changing again, you know, doing so many things at the same time. So good luck in this stressful pre-Christmas rush.

Thank you.

What can you consider as your breakthrough in online business?

For me, you know, when I, I joined James Wedmore's Business by Design. So that was one of the first things that was really like the catalyst for the whole online journey. And then the second thing that I did was I took on a business coach and explained to him, you know, I was pregnant and I really wanted to build my online business while I was on maternity leaves so that I didn't have to go back to this horrible corporate job that I hated. And I said, look, I want to create an online course, and, you know, I'm ready to do this. And one of the best pieces of advice, I mean, obviously, it's not advised for everyone, but it worked well for me, was he said, Meg, if you really want to, like, create a business during maternity leave that pays you as much as your corporate job so that you don't have to go back to corporate, just put your online course idea to one side. Have a look at your skill set and either offer done-for-you services that are in line with your skill set or coaching. And, you know, come back to the online course when the financial pressure is off because that is, like, slow to grow. So the done-for-you services and coaching, you know, one-on-one style coaching will quickly add up to that corporate salary. And then you can quit your job. And then you can think about the online course. And so I did what he said, and it was the best decision ever.

What for you is the most valuable feature of Kajabi?

There's two, actually. Firstly, it's the community and the support structure and the customer service that comes with the platform because I think, I mean, there's so many platforms out there to choose from, and they all do basically the same thing, you know. But there's like something about that Kajabi support structure which I just haven't found anywhere else. And I just think that's worth the subscription cost alone, you know. Just the ideas you get from the community and the encouragement and the brainstorming to help you grow your program. Um, and then I think the second thing that I just love about Kajabi and the reason I would never go anywhere else is just the usability of it, you know. It's just, it's not one specific feature, but it's how they have built the platform to be so intuitive, you know. And I've gone and tried, like, a number of other things, Kartra, ClickFunnels, you know, go high level, like all the things, but I just keep coming back to there is no platform like Kajabi that is pretty quick to grasp if you're given a little bit of training, and you know, and then just makes it so easy to run with, you know. As a, as a service provider, I've often thought about, like, building websites for people on another platform as well, you know, like on ClickFunnels. And then the reason that I didn't do it was I thought, well, when I give it back to the client, they're not going to be able to work this platform by themselves, you know. But the nice thing about Kajabi is you can create something for someone and hand it over, and with a little bit of training, they're good to go.

Can you tell us one success story from a client who's really not techy but in the end really found that Kajabi is manageable?

I've got a client that I started with an Australian, um, couple, and they have, like, a certification for therapists. I started with them; they were one of my first clients in 2019-2020, and they were running these, like, live group coaching programs. They were finding it, like, it was, it was doing quite well, you know. It was an expensive high-ticket program, and they were making, you know, $30,000 a month with this program. But they were finding it, like, really exhausting, and so they decided to just move their whole live model to evergreen. People can sign up at any old time and work through the program at their own pace. They just have, like, a monthly call where people can come along and ask questions if they want to. They put quite a lot of money, money into ads, um, to advertise it on Facebook and LinkedIn. But I was interviewing, um, Melissa on my podcast the other week, and she said, "Oh, Meg, we've just done our biggest month of all time." And I was like, "How much?" She said $200,000. I was like, "What? $200,000 in Evergreen sales in a single month." So these success stories are so inspiring.

What advice would you give to others looking to start their online business?

Start with something small rather than spending months and months trying to create, like, your signature course of 12 modules. You know, put together, like, a couple of little workshops, you know, or a little four-module spotlight course or something where you can, like, test your market and start to get some, some traction and some money in the door before you go and work on something huge.

What motivates you to continue creating and sharing content through Kajabi?

I'm motivated by how creative I get to be in the online space, you know. I just love working in this online industry, creating programs, creating templates, coaching. You get the freedom to create whatever you want, you know. I love that side of the business where you come up with what someone might think is a crazy idea, and then you get to actually, like, bring it to life. And there's no one telling you that you can't do it.