The Way Millie Adrian Made $400K by Teaching Aspiring Social Media Influencers
Millie Adrian is on a mission to teach aspiring social media influencers how to make money on Instagram.
Her love for content creation began early; in 2008, she created her own YouTube channel with her young brother. The channel lasted for 9 years. "It was just for fun," she says. "We created funny videos, skits and mock-ups and tried out different ways to live our lives. ."
When she was offered a corporate job in her early twenties but she was not a fan of the creative way of making videos offered her. So it was that she decided to take on Instagram writing on the side of her regular 9-5. She advertised herself as a lifestyle blog and shared "anything and everything" uploading photos of food, fashion, travel, coffee, wine, books, and even her dog.
Her account, @itsmodernmillie, rapidly grew, and she was getting asked various questions from her fans. They wanted to know why she was expanding, how she took specific pictures as well as how she managed to get such a high level of engagement. In order to give her viewers the best possible answers, she decided to launch another YouTube channel. Soon, teaching about Instagram became her niche.
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"My YouTube was growing and then my Instagram began to expand and this created an entire snowball effect, aiding more people," she explains. "I was just going to see which platform took off before deciding to go with the platform that was successful. However, they all interacted naturally over a ."
In October of 2019 she resigned from her job at a corporate company and began to become full-time creator of content. Since, she's built an Instagram following of 117K, the YouTube channel has 246K followers, and- after launching online courses in 2021 -- enrolled 600 students, and earned more than $400,000 in revenue. "Next year, I'd like to reach seven figures,"" she says, beaming.
Here are the 10 ways she earned more than six figures during her first 16 months of selling her courses:
Skip ahead:
- She followed her gut
- She launched three different courses
- She carried out market research in order to find the right pricing
- She created her content in response to what her target audience would like to hear.
- She continues to improve the learning experience for her students.
- She was generous in sharing her expertise
- She designed a straightforward sales funnel
- She offered freebies for each course
- She fought off burnout
- She remains consistent
Her gut instinct was the one she followed
In her job, Adrian created content for Instagram as well as Youtube at weekends. This outlet began to reignite the spark of her creativity as she began to crave to have more time.
While she loved the 9-5 work schedule however, she noticed the "gut feeling" of knowing she was bound to go on. "I could not sleep as something inside of me was telling me that I was capable of dreaming higher," she shares. "I realized there was plenty more to offer me in the ."
She decided to quit once she was consistently making at least half of what she made at her work as a content creator for a company. "Everyone will have various non-negotiables to make for the shift," she says.
Once she achieved this target, she quit the job she was working in and joined the self-employment world on the 4th of October, 2019. With a hearty following and more time on her hands She decided the next step in her path was an online course creation.
She has launched three different courses
Presently, Adrian has three courses: The Modern Influencer, that is her most expensive course priced at $997 USD. Email List 101, which is her intermediate-ticket course costing $297 USD, and The Reels Roadmap which is her lowest ticket course with a price of $197 USD. All of her courses teach people how to grow as an online creator of content however, The Modern Influencer is her main focus.
The original plan for the Modern Influencer was a course she launched in June 2021 was initially launched as a 6-week group coaching call for $597. She then decided to turn the group course into a 3-month one-on-1 coaching offer. However, Adrian soon learned that she didn't have the capacity to teach hundreds of people one-on-one. Adrian decided to transform"The modern Influencer into a pre-recorded course instead.
In her search for the best online course hosting service the platform she chose was ; she'd taken a number of online courses and as a student, was among her top choices.
"From the student's perspective, it's the easiest way to learn and the most straightforward."
In addition to offering three courses, she also has additional materials available for sells during checkout in order to boost sales, like Pitch Email Templates, Pitch Slide Deck Template and Kit Guide for Media, Kit Guide, and 100+ Caption Ideas.
She carried out market research in order to find the right pricing
When it came to pricing The Modern Influencer the course, she performed market research; she wanted to know what other creators were charging for similar programs, and the content she created with theirs. "I studied what they were teaching, and what I was teaching more than," she says.
"I could never find a course that taught brands and Instagram collaborations, and mine brought the two in one," continues Adrian. "That's the way I learned to determine the appropriate price ."
Her content was created based on what her audience wanted
Adrian designed her courses, not based on the things she wanted to instruct and what programs were not available.
She asked her audience whether they had taken a course on Instagram as well as what they would have liked to know but didn't. Next, she created The Modern Influencer's syllabus by "brain-dumping" everything she knew onto sticky notes. "The table was full of sticky notes" she laughs.
She sorted the sticky notes beginning with A to Z. They covered everything necessary for someone to move from having no knowledge about Instagram to being a full-time creator of content. Every A to Z subject became modules, and additional sticky notes were turned into lessons. While she says that the course is mostly Instagram-focused, it's always evolving each year as she will add new lessons. Additionally, she's planning on the course expanding to include lessons on YouTube and TikTok as they're what their users are looking for.
Each of her classes is taught using a variety of mediums; she rotates between videos of her talking slideshows, slide presentations, and screen recordings. "It will depend on the content and the way I believe the students can best absorb the content," she says.
Plus, her content is completely pre-recorded and has no live portion except for occasionally, a Q&A that she organizes in her Facebook group.
She continually improves the experience of her students
Her Facebook group is where The Modern Influencer students are joined. Members have lifetime access to the group and it gives them a place where they are able to ask them questions about content creation.
Aside from the group on Facebook and the Facebook group, she's been playing about with various ways to keep people engaged within The Modern Influencer; she's currently considering creating a Modern Influencer certification that shows that they've completed the course and are recognized as an influencer. Additionally, she'd like to connect those who've completed the certification to brand deals with a PR checklist. "I do not want to become an agency, but I just wish to assist people in taking an opportunity to move on," she says.
Also, she would like to give her students the chance to become affiliates for the class, which means that Adrian will offer students a portion of the course price by referring other individuals. "Those are just some suggestions we're exploring, and we want to have an established plan for next year's course," she elaborates.
She was helpful with her knowledge
Her followers are young influencers, or that is, people who create content and want to be the face of their online brand.
"I do not work with companies or anyone who isn't looking to get into the spotlight, because a lot of my strategies is how to create an emotional connection with your audience on camera," she declares.
Like her students, creating Adrian's fan base required stepping outside of her comfortable zone yet, as she puts it, "you don't grow from places of comfort."
She claims she developed her followers by making herself available for studying. "For quite a while, I was taking those free webinars and analyzing how other people's activities were being done," she says. "I immediately saw transformation when I started buying online classes that could provide me with the outcomes I was looking for. ."
Her top tip for helping content creators grow their reputation is to give away the information they wish to impart She strongly believes that creators shouldn't be the gatekeepers of information.
"Don't hold back what you know, give away the knowledge you have.Once I said , 'no way' and just started teaching everything I had learned without any intention to get paid, my audience found me."
She designed a straightforward sales funnel
Instead of being intimidated by elaborate sales funnels, Adrian decided to keep his sales funnels simple.
In the months leading up to when she started The Modern Influencer, she made a waitlist with the Google form. Then, she posted the information on her website and all of her social media channels. When she finally launched the course, she was greeted by many people waiting for her confirmation email.
The course creators should stay clear of funnels that scare the audience. Instead, she advises that they create a simple funnel like a waitlist so that they are able to create leads and get people eager to buy their courses once it's launched.
She offered freebies for every course
The sales funnel of Adrian is more comprehensive and she offers free resources which correspond with each of her courses. "When people download the freebie , or interacts with it, they'll be put into an email automation that will then upsell them by sending them emails" she explains.
For The Modern Influencer, she has a 60-minute webinar which will teach the 100-day Instagram strategy -- i.e. all the steps needed in order to get 10,000 followers and earn $1,000 in just 100 days. When they've completed the training program, people are upsold the program.
In The Email List 101 course, she has a free 10-page PDF that shows individuals how to begin, grow and serve an email list. In addition, for The Reels Roadmap course, she has a freebie that teaches people how to increase views, draw attention to themselves, and get their reels to go viral.
She overcame burnout
Even though Adrian's enterprise has been growing quickly however, it also came with the cost of her mental wellbeing.
While she worked hard to get her dream job however, she was caught up in an over-working pattern. "I worked every waking hour of every morning," the woman says.
After suffering from anxiety attacks and burnouts over a period of time following the first time she launched her course, she decided to hire an assistant to manage the back end of her enterprise. "If I'm not making content, my business dies," she explains.
Now, she has the position of a digital business administrator and funnel strategist. She also has an engagement and community specialist and a virtual assistant video editors, a brand collaborations manager and an SEO specialist, and a Pinterest manager. With the help of a team she's been able create more personal and professional boundaries around self-care. What's the outcome? A greater freedom to concentrate on content creation instead of getting lost in the details. "I've been forced to discover a lot about myself to not hit those tipping points again," she says.
She stays constant
One of the key aspects that Adrian learned throughout her experience in creating contentas well as her burnout experiences -was that it's a marathon not a sprint. She recommends that other creators adopt this approach, as well, particularly in getting rid of burnout and building an enterprise that will last.
"You're in it for the long haul," she explains. "You do not need to be seeing the results immediately or require immediate gratification."
In actual fact, she suggests creators to work on their company every day, in tiny chunks. "It isn't necessary to have everything be done at the same time," she adds. "This is the long game. If this is what you want to do, get 1% better every single day. When you focus on it one piece at a time and over three years you're going to see so much more success than anybody attempted to achieve everything at the same time. ."
So far, her most notable accomplishment is obtaining the YouTube Play Button -- an honor given to one of YouTube's top-rated channels. "It was a full circle moment of my journey," she recalls with a smile. "I want to go back in time and say to 12 year old Millie that the dreams she had in her heart might come true. ."
Another thing she wishes that she had the time and tell herself was to be a believer in the process. To other aspiring online creators, she recommends that they concentrate on the benefits which result from slow and regular growth. "Don't focus on the time it takes to complete your work," she advises.
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