What Millie Adrian Made $400K by Teaching Aspiring Social Media Influencers
Millie Adrian is on a task to train future social media influencers how to earn money from Instagram.
Her passion for creating content was first discovered at a young age. In 2008, she created a YouTube channel with her young brother. The channel lasted for nine years. "It was all fun," she says. "We made silly videos, skits, spoofs, and tested various ways to live our lives. ."
Once she landed a corporate job in her early twenties, she missed the creative opportunity that video-making gave her -- so they convinced her to give it a go Instagram blogging on the side of her work. She positioned herself as a lifestyle blogger , and shared "anything and everything" posting photos about fashion, food, travel and wine, coffee, books, and even her dog.
Her Instagram account @itsmodernmillie quickly increased in popularity and before long, she was receiving many questions by her followers. The followers wanted to learn about how she was growing, how she was taking specific photos and why she was getting the amount of interaction. In order to provide her fans with the most accurate answers possible, she decided to launch an additional YouTube channel. Soon, teaching about Instagram was her focus.
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"My YouTube began to expand as did my Instagram was growing and this created the whole effect of aiding more people," she explains. "I thought I would determine which one took off and then run with the platform that did well. They really interacted naturally over a ."
In the month of October she left her corporate job and became a full-time content creator. Since, she's built an Instagram following of 117K, a YouTube channel with 246K subscribers, and -following the launch of online classes in 2021, she enrolled 600 students, and earned more than $400,000 USD in sales. "Next year, I'd like to earn seven figures," she says beaming.
Here are 10 of the ways she made multiple six figures in her first 16 months of selling her courses:
Skip ahead:
- Her gut instinct was the one she followed
- She launched three courses
- She carried out market research to figure out the most appropriate pricing
- She created her content based on what her audience desired
- She continues to improve her students' experience
- She was generous with her knowledge
- The designer created a basic sales funnel
- The instructor offered freebies with each of the courses.
- She overcame burnout
- She is steady
She followed her gut
While working for her company, Adrian created content for Instagram as well as Youtube during the weekend. The outlet helped to revive her creative spirit, and she soon found herself craving more time for it.
Although she was content with her 9-5 job but she started to feel an unsettling "gut feeling" of knowing she was meant to go on. "I could not sleep as my inner voice told me I could dream bigger," she shares. "I realized there was plenty more to offer me in the ."
She decided to leave her job after she consistently made more than half the amount she made at her company job by creating content. "Everyone will be faced with various non-negotiables to make for the shift," she says.
After achieving this objective, she quit the job she was working in and joined the world of self-employment in October 4th, 2019. With an enthusiastic following and an abundance of time She decided the next step in her journey was creating an online course.
She has launched three different courses
In the present, Adrian has three courses: The Modern Influencer, which is her highest-ticket course priced at $997 USD. Email List 101, which is her middle-ticket course priced at $297 USD in addition to The Reels Roadmap which is her cheapest course at $97 USD. Each of her courses teaches students how to develop as an online content creator However, the Modern Influencer is the one she focuses on most.
At first, the company called The Modern Influencer that was launched in July 2021 -- was initially launched with a six-week coaching group call for $597. Then, she decided to convert the group program into a one-on-one, three-month coaching program. However, Adrian quickly realized that she didn't have the ability to train hundreds of individuals one-on-1. She decided to turn the modern Influencer into a pre-recorded course instead.
In her search for the best online platform for hosting courses She was attracted to ; she'd taken a number of online courses and as a student, was among her top choices.
"From students' perspective it's the simplest method of learning and easiest to master."
Along with offering three courses, she also offers extra resources that she offers at checkout for an up-sell to boost revenue, such as Pitch Email Templates, Pitch Slide Deck Template, Media Kit Guide, and 100+ Caption Ideas.
She carried out market research to determine the best price
For pricing the Modern Influencer the course, she performed market research. She wanted to know what other creators were charging for similar programs, and she compared her course to what they were offering. "I examined what other creators were teachingand then what I was teaching more of," she says.
"I couldn't discover a school that could teach both Instagram and brand collaborations. My course bundled the two together," continues Adrian. "That's the way I learned to determine the appropriate price ."
She developed her content in response to what her target audience would like to hear.
Adrian crafted her courses not based on the things she wanted to instruct however, she also considered what classes were lacking.
The audience was asked whether they have taken an Instagram-related course Instagram, and what information they wished they'd learned but didn't. In the next step, she designed The Modern Influencer's course by "brain-dumping" everything she was aware of on sticky notepads. "The table was full of sticky notes," she jokes.
She organized the sticky notes beginning with A to Z. They covered everything required for someone to go from knowing nothing about Instagram to becoming a full-time content creator. Each A to Z topic became modules, and additional sticky notes were turned into lessons. Though she states that the class is predominantly about Instagram, it's never ending and every year she is adding more and more lessons. In addition, she could see her adding more lessons to YouTube as well as TikTok, since they're what their users are wanting.
All of her courses are presented in various formats; she switches between video clips of her talks slideshows, slide presentations, and screen recordings. "It will depend on the content and the way I believe the students is most likely to absorb the material," she says.
Plus, her content is entirely pre-recorded, with no live portion except for occasionally, a Q&A which she holds on her Facebook page.
She is constantly improving her students' experiences
Her Facebook group is the place where The Modern Influencer students are included. Members have lifetime access to the group, and it provides a platform in which they are able to ask them questions on content creation.
Apart from the group on Facebook She's also played around with a few methods to ensure that people are engaged with The Modern Influencer; she's currently considering developing the Modern Influencer certification that shows that they've completed the course and have been certified as influencers. Additionally, she'd like to help connect people who've earned the course to get brand-related deals on a PR list. "I am not looking to become an agency, but I just would like to help people take an opportunity to move on," she says.
Additionally, she wants to offer her students the chance to be affiliates of the class, which means that Adrian will pay students a share of tuition cost by referring people. "Those are just a couple of suggestions we're exploring, and we'd like to develop an established plan for next year's course," she elaborates.
She was generous with her expertise
Her audience is aspiring influencers, or in other words, content creators who want to be the face of their online brand.
"I do not work with companies or anybody who doesn't want to appear on camera since a large portion of the techniques I employ is how to create a personal connection with your viewers on camera" she declares.
As with her students, making Adrian's public audience a reality required her to step beyond her comfortable zone but, as she puts it, "you don't grow from areas of comfort."
She claims she developed her audience through making herself available for studying. "For quite a while I attended free webinars, and I was studying what other people were doing," she says. "I immediately saw transformation as I began purchasing online courses that would give me the results I wanted ."
Her number one tip to assist content creators in building their fan base is to share what they want to teach; she strongly believes that creators should avoid being gatekeepers of information.
"Don't hold back what you know, share the information you have.Once I said , 'no way to the side' and began teaching everything I had learned without any goal of earning money, my audience found me."
She designed a straightforward sales funnel
Rather than getting intimidated by sales funnels with fancy designs, Adrian decided to keep it easy.
A few months before she started The Modern Influencer, she set up a waitlist on the Google form. Then, she posted the URL on her site as well as all her social media platforms. Then, once she launched the course, she was greeted by an enthusiastic audience who were waiting for her emails.
She recommends that course creators stay clear of funnels that scare the audience. Instead, she advises that they create a simple funnel like waitlists so they will make leads and ensure that they have customers ready to buy their course once it's launched.
She gave away freebies to every course
Now, Adrian's sales funnel is now a bit more elaborate and includes free materials which correspond with each of her courses. "When somebody downloads that freebie or engages with the content, they're then inserted into an email automation which will eventually upsell them by sending them emails" she says.
For the Modern Influencer, she offers a webinar of 60 minutes which teaches the 100-day Instagram strategy -that is i.e. all the steps needed to reach 10,000 followers and make $1000 in just 100 days. When they've completed the free course, participants are sold the course.
With her Email List 101 course, it's a no-cost, ten-page download that teaches individuals how to begin growing and maintaining an email list. Then, for The Reels Roadmap course, the course is free and helps people increase views, draw attention to themselves, and help their reels go viral.
She fought off burnout
Even though Adrian's enterprise has grown rapidly, it came at an expense: her mental health.
While she worked hard to get her dream job but she fell into the pattern of working too much. "I did my best to be at work every hour of every morning," she says.
Following a series of panic attacks and burnouts throughout the months following her first course launch, she decided to hire a team to help her manage the back end of her business. "If I'm not making the content for my company, it dies," she explains.
Today, she's the position of a digital business administrator and funnel strategist. She also has an engagement and community specialist, a virtual assistant, video editors and a brand collaborations specialist and an SEO specialist, and a Pinterest manager. With the help of a team she's been able to set more personal and professional limits on taking care of herself. What's the result? The freedom to focus on content creation instead of becoming a weed. "I've had to learn many things about myself in order to not hit the tipping point again," she says.
She stays steady
One of the biggest aspects that Adrian learned throughout her journey of creating content -as well as her burnout experiences -the fact that this is a marathon not a sprint. She suggests other creators follow this same approach too, especially when it comes to getting rid of burnout and building a business with longevity.
"You're doing this for the long run," she explains. "You do not need to be seeing the results immediately or require instant gratification."
In fact, she advises creators to work on their businesses every day in small chunks. "It does not have to happen at once," she adds. "This is the long game. If this is something you want to do, get 1% better every day. If you take it one piece at a time, in three years, you'll see many more successes than anyone attempted to achieve it all at once ."
So far, her most notable accomplishment is obtaining the YouTube Play Button -- an award given to one of the most popular YouTube channels. "It was the most complete experience in my life" she recalls, smiling. "I want to return in time to say to 12 year old Millie that those hopes that she had in her head might come true. ."
Another thing she wished that she had the time to remind herself to believe in the process. To other aspiring online creators She suggests that they concentrate on the benefits of slow, regular growth. "Don't think about how long it's taking you," she advises.
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