Everything is Teachable Podcast Review: Ep. 4 — Teri Ijeoma, Invest with Teri
We’re back again with another Teachable Podcast rundown! This time it’s all about stocks with Teri Ijeoma from Invest with Teri.
In December 2018, Teri started her first online course, teaching people how to supplement their income by trading stocks, just like she had. Within 8 months, Teri had her first 6 figure sales month. Pretty impressive! Especially as just a few years ago, Teri was an assistant principal earning $60,000 a year.
So, how did she do it?
Teri Ijeoma — Her Journey
Growing up, Teri dreamed of being an Architect. That quickly changed due to a field trip to the Chicago Stock Exchange where she saw people left right and centre trading stocks and making money. She went home with the idea firmly locked in her head that she would become one of these people. But there was an issue, no one around her knew anything about stocks. There was no one to teach her how to get into trading, let alone how to trade to make a profit.
Teri studied business in college and interned on Wall Street. However, it wasn’t until the housing crash in 2010 that actually she started investing for herself. When teaching herself how to trade didn’t work out, Teri decided to take classes, including some online courses! That combined with the knowledge she taught herself, resulted in her creating her own trading plan.
Teri challenged herself to replace her income as a school teacher by earning $300 a day trading stocks. First, she set a target of $100 a day, then $200. Teri stated that by setting herself smaller targets, the overall goal of $300 a day didn’t seem as daunting. A tip she’s followed throughout her Teachable journey… But we’ll get to that. It took Teri a year to achieve her ultimate goal of earning $300 a day, being able to finally quit her job. Teri described the relief and happiness she felt. To be able to earn money in a stress-free way and use that money to travel the world was a dream come true, with the added benefit of now earning over $1000 a day through trading stocks.
Teri’s friends began to question her about how she was able to afford to travel and when Teri explained it was through trading stocks, they begged her to teach them what she knew. Fed up with meeting for coffee and explaining her method individually, Teri decided to set up a class so that she could teach everyone who wanted to know about stocks. Her friends loved it and begged for another class and secretly, Teri enjoyed the feeling she got whilst teaching her friends new skills. She loved seeing her students grasp the logic and becoming more and more comfortable and confident trading stocks. Her classes were a hit all over the world, wherever she travelled, they loved her content.
Teri and Teachable
Initially, when Teri heard about online classes, she wasn’t interested. She loved seeing the faces of her students light up whilst she taught and she was worried she wouldn’t get the same joy out of teaching if it was online, a common concern.
In the end, the need for her course all around the world meant that she decided to give online teaching a try. Still, Teri was concerned that even though a number of people were asking for this course, no one would commit and she would be left with an online course with no students. After being influenced by another Teachable course creator, Teri decided to announce she was creating a course and open enrollment…Before she created the course. This allowed her to see if anyone would sign up before spending time actually creating any content, and if anyone did sign up and things didn’t go as planned, she would simply refund their money. Pretty smart! This resulted in 2 people signing up for her first course. This was enough of a push for her to start her Teachable journey.
This led to an unexpected outcome, Teri actually enjoyed online teaching. She worked around the fact that she wasn’t teaching in-person to see the students learning by using Zoom for live video seminars. She explained that she asks students to give a thumbs up if they are understanding her content, giving her the same feeling she had when teaching in person. These video seminars also give the added benefit that they can be accessed from anywhere around the world. Another bonus about online teaching for Teri was that her students became so engrossed with her, she would be asked to organise meetups around the world, fulfilling her love of travel and meeting new people all at the same time.
How has life changed for Teri?
When asked this question Teri described her life now in one word — amazing. Teri loves the community aspect of her course. She loves meeting up with her students and hearing their needs and feedback. Another (pretty huge) benefit of her Teachable course is that she is now earning 6 figures a month.. and she reached this milestone in less than a year!! Not bad! Not only this, but she loves seeing her students making money and benefitting from the course too.
Teri’s Top Tips
- Announce your course first and open enrollment before creating any content. If no one signs up, you will know theres not a need for your course or theres an issue with your marketing before spending your valuable time creating the actual course. If people do sign up, this will give you a push to create content… and if it doesn’t work out, you can always refund peoples’ money. There’s no reason not to!
- Set yourself small targets so the main goal doesn’t seem as daunting. Congratulate yourself when you meet these targets
- Don’t undersell your course. Sell it for what it’s worth. If you will be changing peoples’ financial position in a positive way due to your course, you deserve to be paid for your knowledge.
- Make your students affiliates. The best marketing is word of mouth. Your students can reach people that you would never be able to communicate with, give them every reason to promote your course.
- Streamline your course constantly. Add new content, always ask for feedback and keep improving. Teri compliments Teachable for the fact it’s so easy to add and remove content, so there’s no reason not to do it!
- Fill a need. If your course fills a need, then with the correct marketing, it will be in demand.
We think that’s some pretty good advice from Teri, no wonder she’s done so well! If you need any more tips and tricks, click for your Teachable Audit today.
We wish Teri all the luck in the world for any future endeavours. We’re sure she will make a success of anything she pursues!
