Episode 171 – Dr. Destini Copp

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Dr. Destini Copp  0:00  

So I think this is a great question. And I had to take a look on the inside to figure out really why I’m doing what I’m doing. And I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the legacy that I am looking to leave in the world, I’ve had a couple of different careers. But at the end of the day, there were things that I wanted to leave with everybody. And that is, going back to my business and kind of why I created it, I’m building my business. So I can either leave it to my kids if they’re wanting to take over. So that’s one opportunity for them. So that’s the legacy I’d like to leave for them, or sell it and give them the money. So I think from a driving force and why I’m doing what I’m doing today, outside of helping others, it’s just the legacy and the imprint that I want to leave on the world.

 

Richard Matthews  1:00  

Heroes are an inspiring group of people, every one of them from the larger than life comic book heroes you see on the big silver screen, the everyday heroes that let us live the privileged lives we do. Every hero has a story to tell, the doctor saving lives at your local hospital, the war veteran down the street, who risked his life for our freedom to the police officers, and the firefighters who risked their safety to ensure ours every hero is special and every story worth telling. But there was one class of heroes that I think is often ignored the entrepreneur, the creator, the producer, the ones who look at the problems in this world and think to themselves, you know what I can fix that I can help people I can make a difference. And they go out and do exactly that by creating a new product or introducing a new service. Some go on to change the world, others make a world of difference to their customers. Welcome to the Hero Show. Join us as we pull back the masks on the world’s finest hero preneurs and learn the secrets to their powers their success and their influence. So you can use those secrets to attract more sales, make more money, and experience more freedom in your business. I’m your host, Richard Matthews, and we are on in 3…2…1…

 

 

Richard Matthews  1:56  

Welcome back to the Hero Show. My name is Richard Matthews. And today I have the pleasure of having on the line Dr. Destini Copp. Are you their Destini? 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  2:04  

I am here.

 

Richard Matthews  2:06  

Awesome. So glad to have you here. So where are you calling in from today?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  2:11  

I am from Atlanta, Georgia in it is very, very hot here. We’re in the middle of summer and it is super hot. So I played tennis in it yesterday and about died.

 

Richard Matthews  2:25  

Yeah, for those of you following on our podcast, my wife and I are in South Carolina and it is just as hot here, man a couple of days here it’s only been in like the high 80s low 90s. But with the humidity, I feel like you have to bring your breathing spoon and that’s the spoon you used to scoop the air out and chew on it to breathe. Because it’s so humid. So what I want to do Destini is I want to go through a very quick introduction for people who don’t know who you are. And then we’ll just dive right into your story. So Dr. Destini Copp is the CEO of DestiniCopp.com. You’re the host of the course creators MBA podcast and the creator of the One Click MBA membership. So with that very quick introduction, what I want to start with is, what is it you’re known for? Who do you serve? And what do you do for them?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  3:15  

So Richard, thank you so much first of all, for having me, and I’m so excited to be here today. So here’s what I do in my business, we help entrepreneurs scale their digital product revenue with automated sales funnel so that they can reduce the reliance on services or freelance work. So a lot of the people that work with us, they’re freelancers, their service providers, or maybe they’re coaches who are doing one on one services. And they have gotten to a point in their business where they know that they can’t really scale it, there’s almost only so much time in a day. Or they may be in a position where they have clients that are coming to them or they’re having to turn them away. And they want to give them other options to work with them. So when I’m talking about digital products, what I’m talking about there is like an online course or a membership, so a virtual digital product that you can sell, that might be teaching them something. And I’ll give you an example of this and just give you an example of some clients and people that I’ve worked with, like for instance, somebody a social media manager, so they’re helping clients with their social media services, and maybe they’ve grown their business, maybe their retainers are getting a little expensive, maybe they’re charging like $2,000 a month and there are people that are coming to them that want to work with them, but aren’t quite ready to do that. So they have either an online course or a membership that they can offer them so they can learn while they’re kind of building their business if you would, and they might work with them in the future and hire them to do it for them. But right now they just aren’t ready yet. So that just gives you an example of some of the people that we work with.

 

Richard Matthews  5:05  

That’s awesome. Yeah, that’s actually one of the things that we do in our business is we help create courses and online products. And one of the things I always tell my clients is the people who hire you, they’re gonna pay for different levels of intimacy. So you might have a book that is a low level of intimacy that covers a certain set of your information and you might have an online course which is another one. So like the book is like the How-to manual, and then the course is a little more in-depth like it’s a tutorial training or workshop kind of thing. And then you have you’re done with you services, which is like coaching, where will coach you and will tell you how to do it, but you’ll do it yourself, you’ll have us there to sort of back you up. And then the highest level is the done for you services. And that’s usually the highest pay, but also the most work on your part. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  5:57  

Yeah, absolutely. 

 

Richard Matthews  5:58  

We do it that way which is really cool. So you help people with creating the actual courses? Or do you actually help them create all the way up to like the done with you and the done for you services as well?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  6:10  

So in our membership, which is where we’re focused on now, and I’ve done some of them, do it for you top services in the past, also, I’ve been a Facebook ad consultant. So we’ve done those done for your services, but we’re not offering those today. But basically, in our membership, what we do, we just help people, and they can get some, one on one text-based type coaching or come to our Zoom calls in the membership, we help them create end sale their digital products. So a large portion of what we do, quite frankly, is on the marketing side and helping them there.

 

Richard Matthews  6:45  

So that is probably my favorite part of the whole core sales process. What are some of your biggest wins for people on teaching them once they’ve got a course? And they’ve got it up and they’re ready to actually make sales? What are some of the things that you recommend they do first?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  7:01  

Yeah, so I’m a huge fan of what we call automated or evergreen or selling on autopilot type sales funnels, I don’t know Richard, what you do in your particular business. But in my business, what I teach my clients is, you need to have an evergreen sales funnel setup. And some of the people that are listening here, might not know what I’m talking about. So I just want to explain it a little bit more. In my business, I do a live launch once a year. I only do it once a year and it’s a virtual summit and I do a live launch. And that’s when at the end of that virtual summit. I present all of the attendees who come to that virtual summit, they come into it live with our offer but only do that once a year because it’s a ton of work, quite frankly, I’m doing a summit in September. And I’ve already been working on it in that we’re recording right now in July. It’s at least two months to prepare for it. But with the Evergreen or automated sales funnels, this is something that you have running in the back of your business. So somebody comes to your website, and on your website, you might have some sort of lead magnet might be a recorded webinar, I like to use mini-courses for my evergreen sales funnels just because that’s what my clients or customers or students like. But there are different ways you can set it up. But let’s just say you’re doing a recorded webinar, they come to your website, you offer this free training that they’re going to love, there is exactly what they’re looking for. They watch the recorded training and then at the end of it, you give them the opportunity. If you like this, you can take this a step further. I have this awesome course for you. And then you have some follow-up sales, retargeting emails that you’re sending out to them until your cart closes. And that’s what I mean about an automated or evergreen sales funnel versus that live launch, like what I’m doing in September, which is the virtual summit.

 

Richard Matthews  9:02  

And then how do you drive people to them? So if someone’s new and they get their recorded stuff put together, get their first mini-course up, they get emails and everything put up? How do you recommend that they actually start getting people in front of that? Do they do Facebook ads or coming in and doing podcasts circle like what we’re doing right now or?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  9:24  

That’s a great question. And it’s something that a lot of people struggle with. I mean,  getting traffic and getting eyeballs on our products and services and lead magnets that we’re offering is difficult because most of us are in crowded markets. I’ve talked to very few people that aren’t in a very crowded market. So in my business, I teach my clients is you need to use several different levers. I have placed a huge amount of focus on SEO and building my website and driving traffic To my website. Now, this took time, it wasn’t something that I just want to clarify for folks, it wasn’t something that happened overnight. I did blogging to really drive that traffic to my website. And now, after I’ve been doing it for several years now, that goes, I think the first blog post I launched probably about four or five years ago. Now the majority of my traffic that’s coming to my website is organic traffic. So they’re going to Google or find me on Google, and they’re coming to my traffic that way. Other ways that I recommend is doing kind of what we’re doing now is getting on other people’s podcasts. And the podcast host gives you the opportunity, at the end, you can tell people where they can find you. So that’s a great way to drive traffic to your website, obviously, you can promote your lead magnets on social media and get people from that way. I don’t personally use YouTube, but I know a lot of my clients and people that we’ve worked with, they’ve used YouTube, and YouTube is absolutely working for them as an organic strategy. You also asked about Facebook and Instagram ads, and they can work. I’ve been a Facebook ads consultant in the past. So I understand Facebook and Instagram ads intimately, for the majority of folks out there, they’re going to need to hire somebody to help them with that because it changes so much. There are so many nuances there. It’s just I don’t really recommend the normal person, the one at that alone. So that’s just something to consider. And I will tell you that I don’t run Facebook and Instagram ads in my business constantly. But for my live launch, I absolutely will run Facebook and Instagram ads to get people into that summit just to let people know that we’re having the summit, because, that’s one of the best ways to get the word out there. So I absolutely will do that for that event. But I don’t run Facebook and Instagram ads in my business on a continual basis. It’s mostly organic strategies that I’m focused on doing just like what we’re doing today, but mostly driving traffic to my website.

 

Richard Matthews  12:19  

Yeah, I always tell our clients that you have to have the three B’s, which are buy, borrow and build. Because you essentially have to have an audience. So you’d have three options, you got a buying an audience, which is Facebook ads, or YouTube ads, where you’re like, hey, there’s the audience, Facebook has an audience so you can buy access to that audience. You can borrow an audience, that’s what you’re doing today, you’re borrowing my audience. There are also JV partnerships. And there are other ways that you borrow someone else’s existing audience, you could do guest blogging, there are lots of different ways in the borrow audience category. And the most time-consuming one is to build an audience. And you can do that by doing your blogging and building up the SEO traffic or starting your own podcast with a YouTube show and building the audience of your time. And I always recommend you do something in all three of those categories.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  13:08  

And to your point, that virtual summit that I’m doing in September, I’m having all these speakers come to it. So borrowing their audience, too, because the hope is that they’ll promote it too out and invite their audience to that. So I think that’s a great way to borrow other people’s audiences.

 

Richard Matthews  13:28  

Yeah, so that’s my simplified version of all your different options, that’s buy, borrow or build. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  13:34  

I love it. I love how you position that. So that was great. 

 

Richard Matthews  13:38  

Awesome. So every good comic book hero has an origin story, it’s a thing that made them into the hero they are today and we want to hear that story. Were you born a hero or were you bit by a radioactive spider that made you want to get into building and selling courses? Or do you start a job and eventually become an entrepreneur, basically, we want to know where you came from?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  13:58  

So I love this question. And I will tell you, I don’t feel like I’m a hero. So I’m just gonna go ahead and throw that out there. But I will tell you a little bit about my origin story. So I graduated from Clemson University with an accounting degree. I only worked in accounting and finance for a hot minute to be honest with you, because I absolutely hated it. And then I found marketing. So I started working in corporate marketing and absolutely loved it. I loved everything about marketing, I love building services and products and taking them to the marketplace and everything that you do in marketing, but I worked in a Fortune 50 company, made my way from an Assistant Product Manager all the way up to a director of marketing had a team that was working for me, and I was young then really, really young. And I was working a ton of hours and I got burned out. And this is when they were going through a merger and asked if I could have one of the packages and one of the separate packages and they said yes, we’ll give it to you. I wasn’t in one of the groups that said, you’re going to get it, I proactively went out and got it. I took a year off from working because I was so burned out. And I really wanted to take a step back and figure out what in the world do I want to do with my life. And at that point in time, this is when online education and teaching online was just starting out. This was back in 2005. So this was a long time ago in retrospect. This was new, and what I liked about it, I’m sorry?

 

Richard Matthews  15:34  

I think that’s not there yet at that age. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  15:37  

For sure, I mean, nobody really knew about it, then.

 

Richard Matthews  15:41  

There’s no Facebook, there’s no YouTube, there’s no Twitter, like none of the things people are familiar with existed now.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  15:47  

Exactly, so people didn’t know what teaching online was. And I got a job teaching online. teaching online courses basically teaching through an online course, at a university, I was teaching marketing, because at that point in time, I had my MBA with a concentration in marketing. So I qualified to do that. But the other thing is, I really enjoy helping people. And that’s another reason why I went to go teach at the university level. And I did that for a lot of years. I started as an adjunct faculty member, and I worked at a bunch of different positions from a program director to an assistant dean and my last position there was an Associate Vice Chancellor of Academic Affairs, but I just felt like something was missing in my life. And all these years, I’d always wanted to start my own business. Now, we’re fast forward now right to 2018. So I did that for quite some time. And, 2018 was different than back in 2005. Now, you’ve had all the social media out there. Now you’ve had website builders, like Squarespace. It just made it a lot easier for people to start their online businesses, it is so much easier to get started online than it was in early 2000. And it was just about, I really wanted a new challenge in my life. And I wanted to do something different. And that’s when I stepped out and said, you know what, I’m going to take my marketing skills, I’m going to take my teaching online skills and creating online courses, because by this time I’ve created like, over 300 courses, but this time, so I took all of those skills and kind of bundled them up into the business and offers that I have today.

 

Richard Matthews  17:34  

That’s really cool. So the first thing I want to talk about is the whole concept of not being a hero that you mentioned at the beginning. And I want to touch on that real quick, cuz it’s actually the reason why this show exists. I’ve always told people that this show doesn’t exist for my audience. I’m glad they listened. But the show exists for my guests. And the reason is, we’ve sort of grown culturally with this whole idea that entrepreneurship is equivalent to the villains, and you can literally pick up any kids TV show, doesn’t matter what it is. And the villain is always some variation of the entrepreneur who’s pouring oil on the poor docks for money. Or some variation thereof. And so we sort of grew up with that cultural mentality that entrepreneurship is the bad guy, right? The entrepreneurs, business owners, the tycoons or whatever, they’re the bad guys, and the thing we have to sort of overcome and ourselves as we become entrepreneurs to learn that profit isn’t evil. And that it’s okay to build a business and be successful. Because the reality is entrepreneurs are what makes the world go round. Every product that you and I touch and feel and work. The chair you’re sitting on the desk, your computers on are all handled at some point by an entrepreneur who made those things a reality. So my whole purpose for this show is to help entrepreneurs understand that, hey, you’re actually the unsung heroes of the world. So my first thought is that you are absolutely a hero. Because you bring your value to the world. You’re teaching, taking your years of experience and skills and perspective, and helping other people change their lives. That’s what heroes do.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  19:21  

Now that you put it that way, I do feel a little bit more like a hero. And you’re right. I think we as entrepreneurs need to really understand the value that we’re bringing into the marketplace and that we’re helping other people whether we’re creating products, like what you just mentioned everything in the office here, or just helping them achieve their dreams. So I thank you for saying that.

 

Richard Matthews  19:45  

Yes, that’s the whole purpose of the show. That’s why we call it the Hero Show. And we talked entrepreneurs because most of our other categories of heroes are recognized, the doctors and the frontline workers, military veterans and the police and the firefighters, we all rightly call them heroes. And then we have this one category that everyone sort of looks at and feels are villains. And of course, you can have someone who’s a villain in any of those categories. But the overwhelming majority of human beings, the human spirit are the heroes. So anyway, that’s my first thing. The second thing I wanted to point out was like 2005 to be building courses online is just insane. So to put that in perspective for people who are watching 2004 and five, that’s the year the computers switch from using floppy disks to USB sticks. That’s two years before the first smartphone from Apple. And it sort of predates WordPress, and it predates Facebook and YouTube and all sorts of other things. So like, if you were building online courses, back then. That’s an insane level of experience you have.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  20:53  

Yeah, I mean, really, nobody knew about it back then. They were like you’re teaching online? They looked at me like I had two heads, honestly.

 

Richard Matthews  21:03  

Just out of curiosity, even cameras back then were ridiculously expensive. Were you doing video courses? Or was it just like slide presentations? What were you doing back in that time for online courses? How has that sort of changed?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  21:15  

I mean, that’s a great question. So back then it really just was slides, honestly, you just didn’t have the bandwidth. Zoom really wasn’t a thing. By fancy, it was difficult to get on calls and do presentations like that a lot of it was text-based. So you basically give students an assignment, you might have a slide presentation to go over it, and you’d give them some reading and their textbook and you would go back and forth in the online classroom via text. So it was very different from what the students are doing today online and what we do today in our online courses.

 

Richard Matthews  21:55  

Yeah, I was just starting college in 2005. And I remember, because I was into professional videography and photography stuff, then. And the couple of lights that I have sitting up here, they’re like credit card size or the size of my phone. And they’re like LED lights. To give something like that in 2005 would have cost like two or three grand each, for a couple of lights like that. And I just bought these two lights for 150 bucks. And I tell people, you’re in the golden age of business right now, because everyone has broadbands. And everyone has access to tools like Zoom, Zoom is not the only one. There’s a lot of places that do things like this. And this professional camera setup that I’ve got set up here cost me less than two grand. And you can have a really professional set up and look like high-dollar sort of production stuff for very little money. And you can compete on all the same level services, like Google Docs and Google Drive are used by Fortune 500 companies, and it’s free. It’s just insane what you can do today.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  22:57  

You know, and just to put it in perspective for you, because I’ve wanted to start my own business a long time before I did, but it wasn’t easy to set up a website in the early 2000s. And if you didn’t have a lot of coding experience, which I did not, that was not my area of expertise. You had to hire somebody to do it. And it was a lot of money. We’re talking 20, 30 $50,000. So it is nothing like it is today, nothing.

 

Richard Matthews  23:23  

Yeah, I just wanted to put that in perspective for people because if you were doing it in 2005, you sort of watched the entire birth of the modern internet. And we’re doing all that. So that’s really cool. So what I want to talk about in light of all of that is your superpowers. So every iconic hero has a superpower, whether that’s a fancy flying suit or the ability to call down Thunder from the sky, or super strength. In the real world, heroes have a skill or set of skills that they were either born with, or developed over time, and it helps you to slay the villains in your client’s lives, so to speak. And the way I like to frame it for people is if you look at all the skills that you’ve developed over your life, you probably have a common thread that ties all of them together. The one thing you’re like, hey, you know what all those skills are sort of tied back to this one thing and that one thing is probably where your superpower is. So with that kind of framing, what do you think your superpower is in this whole world of building digital courses and helping people create an online stream of income?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  24:19  

So, this is very difficult for me because, again, I don’t feel like I have a lot of superpowers, but I’m gonna go with what you’re saying. I would say that something I was born with, I don’t know if you’ve ever done like the Myers Briggs personality test. Have you ever done that? 

 

Richard Matthews  24:39  

I have, yeah.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  24:39  

Okay, so I am an INTJ. And supposedly it’s a rare personality to have, especially for women only, like 0.8% of women are INTJ’s. So when they describe an INTJ I’m like, Oh my gosh, that is so me, that is exactly like I am. And INTJ’s are just very strategic in their thinking in terms of thinking about their life, thinking about their business, they’re always like, 5, 10 years out, they know exactly what they want to achieve. And they put together a plan to get there. And that is, that is one thing I would say, I have done throughout all of my careers. And in terms of every single career that I’ve been in, I’ve had goals, and here’s what I’m gonna do to get there, here’s what I need to learn to get there, or here’s the skills that I need to develop to get there. And that’s one of the things that I’ve done. And whether it was working in the corporate marketing world that I worked in, or working in the online education that I did, or even entrepreneurship, and I will say that the past four or five years that I’ve been in entrepreneurship has probably been one of the most challenging, there’s a lot of new skills that I needed to learn. So I identify them, and went out and did that. So I would say my superpower is something that I’ve been born with, but also something that I’ve been very deliberate, and making sure that I was able to achieve my goals.

 

Richard Matthews  26:23  

Yeah, that’s really cool. So I wanted to point out, in 2005, or six, I was in college. And we’re talking about the beginning of the internet, one of the things that sort of became a thing then was the very beginning of online dating. And I remember eHarmony had come out. And eHarmony was offering free personality tests, if you got on their dating site, I had no interest in getting on their dating site, but I wanted their pre personality tests. So I went through eHarmoney personality tests and the Myers and Briggs thing. And I remember getting my report back from going through the praecipe and it was like 180 questions, and it took a couple of days to go through all of it back then. So I went through the whole personality test and mine is similar I think it was like EMTJ, I can’t remember because it was like 10 or 15 years ago. But I went through the thing, and it popped up and they were like, your personality is in point 02 percent of the population. It’s incredibly rare. And they were like, we’re sorry, we can’t help you. You can’t have a profile on eHarmony.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  27:24  

Oh, that is hilarious. So if it’s an ENTJ that’s the same thing as an INTJ, except you’re an extrovert, I’m an introvert. But the one thing about ENTJ’s is they make great leaders in organizations. So do INTJ’s but ENTJ’s are a little bit more extroverted. I have a touch of an extroverts ism in there, but that is so funny that they said I couldn’t help you. And the reason why they said that just so you know supposably. Now I’ve been married for 27 years, but supposedly, ENTJ and INTJ have troubles with personal relationships. And they have partly troubles with their marriages. I don’t know. Go figure. I haven’t really seen it in my life.

 

Richard Matthews  28:10  

My wife and I have been married for 12 years now. We have four kids, we travel full time. It hasn’t been too bad. But yeah, that was the thing that was my sort of connection to that INTJ story, I remember they told me I couldn’t have a relationship on eHarmony, which I thought was hilarious. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  28:30  

That is so funny. 

 

Richard Matthews  28:32  

I totally get the strategic thinking, I always tell my superpower is always sort of fallen into seeing systems behind things. Like most people see the surface of the world and I see the system’s like how they work below it. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  28:43  

Yeah. This one too. That’s what I do. 

 

Richard Matthews  28:47  

Yeah, you can see how things work, which is difficult to explain to someone else who doesn’t see that way. So it does a lot of things like I have the ability to pick up skills quickly because of that. And it’s helped me build good business systems and other things. And what’s interesting is, I actually think, if I were to take the personality test again, I would probably come out as an introvert. But I have learned to be extroverted from basically mimicking extroverted characteristics. Because I think you have to be extroverted to interact with people. So anyways, really fascinating stuff particularly with figuring out what your superpower is because I know for me, it wasn’t until I really honed in on what my skill was, that I was able to build a business around that, that was able to grow because when you sort of build things that are not in your area of your zone of genius, so to speak, it’s always a struggle. When you build stuff that’s really around your skillset. It sort of sets you free.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  29:54  

I love that. 

 

Richard Matthews  29:56  

So what I want to talk about is the flip side of your superpower. Which is of course, your fatal flaw. Just like every Superman has his kryptonite, or Wonder Woman can’t remove her bracelets of victory without going mad. You probably have a flaw that’s held you back in your business, something that you struggled with, for me, there’s a couple of things I struggled with perfectionism for a long time. Because I was like, I can always tweak it just a little bit more, make it a little bit better. And the problem is, is that I never shipped anything, which means I was not creating anything. And I learned pretty early on that perfectionism is the lowest standard you can hold yourself to because you’re not actually creating anything. And then another one that I struggled with for a long time was self-care. And it mostly presented as you know, like, not having good boundaries with my clients, and answering the phone at all hours of the night, and always being on and not really taking time for myself. So those are some things that really set my business back and learning to rectify those helps fix a lot of my stuff and let it grow. So hopefully, for you sharing this will help our listeners learn a little bit from your experience, what do you think your fatal flaw is?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  31:04  

So, I don’t personally think it’s a fatal flaw. But I think if you would ask my husband, he would say absolutely, this is your fatal. And that is I am definitely a workaholic. And I always have been, and this is one of the reasons why I’ve gotten burned out in several of the careers that I just mentioned to you. And one of the reasons why I ended up leaving is I just kind of felt like I basically just threw my life energy and effort into that role, that position, that job. And it came to a breaking point someday and said, you know what, I can’t do this anymore. And that’s one of the reasons why I made a shift in my life and my core values that I have in my business today and in my life of freedom and flexibility. And that’s also one of the reasons quite frankly, that I love having digital products and courses in my business because it does give me more not complete freedom and flexibility. You still have to do work, but it gives me a little bit more of that freedom and flexibility. But I have learned over time to put boundaries right around my work and cut the computer off at a certain time or not work all the time on the weekends. I do all I do work on the weekends, just quite frankly, if you want if I’m being quite honest here, I absolutely love working, I don’t have to work, but I love, love working. And I love the challenge. I love the intellectual challenge of working. And I don’t know what I would do with my life. If I didn’t work, I would probably watch more TV. And I don’t want to do that. But definitely being a workaholic, in working myself to that complete burnout is definitely something that I consciously tried to stay away from now.

 

Richard Matthews  32:56  

I have two thoughts for you on that, one of them is a trick that I use in my own life. It’s basically having psychological barriers to specific things. And the way is like I always forget to brush my teeth in the morning. Like I take a shower every morning, but like the toothbrushes out by the sink or not I always forget to do it. But I never forget to take a shower. But the moment that I take the toothbrush from the sink and put it in the shower, I never forget. So it’s just setting your life up in ways that you don’t have a barrier to success. And so one of the things that I recently started doing with my computer for the whole same workaholic reason because I have the ability to work way into the night and ignore my wife and kids and everything because I’m like, I got to get this project done is your computer has a feature where you can tell it to turn itself off at a certain time. So I got my computer set to turn off at 8 pm. Most of the time. I’m off way before that. Because I’ve got my stuff done. I got my systems down pretty good. I’m generally off before then. But what happens is at eight o’clock, two pops up. It’s like, hey, in 60 seconds, I’m shutting down. And you have to actively tell it, no, don’t shut down, I’m doing something. So it’s one of those things that it just pops up. And it’ll tell you like, hey, you’re getting into the late at night you have to make a conscious decision. Am I going to keep working into the night? Or am I going to take a step back? It’s just little tiny psychological barriers like that, that you can either set up to keep you from doing something or help you do something. And for me, I have little things like that set up all over the place to help me deal with my own psychosis, I guess, for being a bit of a workaholic. The second part of that is a mindset shift that I had to give myself for a long time and I call it giving yourself permission to play. And this goes into the whole entrepreneurs and heroic thing is that I’ve always grew up with this idea that recreation was a reward that you gave yourself for doing a good job. That once I’ve accomplished the thing, then I can have recreation. I can do whatever the fun is and play. And the problem with entrepreneurs, particularly people who are dedicated workaholics, like ourselves, is we’re never there. I’ve never accomplished the thing, to the point, we’re like, okay, I’m done now and now I can go play. It never happens, because there’s always like, Oh, I could do this, I could do another thing. I could create another project, there’s always something else, especially the whole strategic planning, you got the next 10 years of your life planned out, you’re like, I know, I’m getting that place to get to, and I’m not there yet. And when you get there, you’re going to have another 10 years planned out so it’s never there. And so the whole idea of giving yourself permission to play is realizing that recreation is not a reward for a job well done, but a requirement to do a good job. So I always tell myself, and then other people on the show that, hey, you should take the time to take your dog for a walk, or to go kayaking with the kids or whatever it is that you do, do those things first. And then you come to your work, refreshed and creative and ready to do great work. So that’s my admonishment for someone else who suffers the same thing that I do.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  36:22  

I love that I loved all those tips. Those were great tips. 

 

Richard Matthews  36:27  

So I want to talk then about your common enemy. Every superhero has their arch-nemesis, it’s the thing that they constantly have to fight against in their world. In the world of business, it takes a lot of forms. But generally speaking, we put it in the context of your clients, the people that hire you either go through your courses or join your memberships. And it’s a mindset or a flaw that they have, that you constantly have to fight to overcome so that they can actually get the results that came to you for it. And if you had a magic wand and the moment they hit that checkout button on your course, we can just bop them on the head and not have to deal with that arch-nemesis, what would that be in your business?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  37:08  

So, something that I would say that people struggle with, is really just selling. Putting the offer out there. And they’re worried about what if people don’t buy? Or what if they don’t like what I have to offer? And I think all of us, even myself included, can have those feelings occasionally. And I think what you got to move forward or move past if you would, is put the offer out there, you’re gonna get feedback, no matter what if people love it, or if they are giving you feedback, you can always go back and tweak it. If your sales funnel isn’t converting, or if people aren’t buying, you can go out there and tweak it, but you’re not going to know what to do until you put it out in the world and start getting that feedback, I can tell you that I have changed lead magnets over time. And quite frankly, you need to no matter what even if you have a very, very high performing lead magnet because things get old, or things change in the industry. So I’ve had many different lead magnets over time, I’ve made changes to my sales funnels, I made changes to my products, I actually launched my new membership this year, based on a strategic change that I was making in my business and how I wanted to work with my customers and clients and students. But you have to put things out there. So you have the opportunity to move your business forward. Because if you’re not putting them out there in the world, you’re not going to know what to do.

 

Richard Matthews  38:51  

Yeah, it’s like a variation of that perfectionism thing. A fear that people aren’t going to respond well. And I know it also comes out as a whole fear of selling because like selling is this negative thing. I’m not sure why people have a negative perception of selling. We sell everything all the time, right? 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  39:11  

Yes. 

 

Richard Matthews  39:12  

Sell my wife on why she should marry me and sell my wife on why we should have kids. Those kinds of things and I know, for me, one of the things that helped was going back to the whole heroic mindset that if you have something to sell, the receiving payment for the thing you’re selling is the benefit is not the purpose. The purpose is the transmission of value from you to the other person. And you’re going to improve their life in some way. And they’re willing to pay for that improvement to solve that problem. And I know it’s the same transaction. But when you understand the purpose of it, it helps overcome that fear of like I don’t want to sell because you’re not selling you’re helping someone solve a problem. And any good salesperson, that’s what they’re doing. They’re helping someone else solve a problem. And for me, that helped my mindset is figuring that out, and then learning to do that myself. And then it is more likely to actually go out and do the things we were talking about, put the offer out. Because you’re like, hey, the longer I wait, the less people I can help. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  40:25  

That’s true. So true. 

 

Richard Matthews  40:30  

So if your common enemy is what we just talked about, the flip side then of your common enemy which is what you fight against, your driving force is what you fight for. Just like Spider-Man fights to save New York or Batman fights to save Gotham, or Google fights to index and categorize all the world’s information. What is it that you fight for in your business, your mission, so to speak?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  40:53  

So I think this is a great question. And I really had to take a look on the inside to figure out why I’m doing what I’m doing. And I think at the end of the day, it comes down to the legacy that I am looking to leave in the world, I’ve had a couple of different careers. But at the end of the day, there were things that I wanted to leave with everybody. And that is going back to my business and kind of why I created it. I’m building my business so I can either leave it to my kids if they’re wanting to take over. So that’s one opportunity for them. So that’s the legacy I’d like to leave for them, or, sell it in, give them the money. So I think from a driving force and why I’m doing what I’m doing today, outside of helping others, it’s just the legacy and the imprint that I want to leave on the world.

Richard Matthews  41:52  

Yeah, I love that. One of the reasons I build my business, do a lot of the things as you mentioned earlier, freedom and flexibility. I have something in my own life, I call this the five freedoms, and the five freedoms are spiritual freedom, political freedom, financial freedom, time freedom, location freedom. And so those are the ones that I’m interested in. And one of the things that I talk about all the time is the reason I want those is because I want to be available for my children, as much as possible. So I’ve been at home full time since my son was about six months old, he’s going to be turning 12 this year. And he’s only just recently started to realize he’s like, hey, you’re home a lot more than my friend’s parents. And like, yeah, it’s like, I have four kids, I’ve never missed the first step, never missed the first word, never missed any of that stuff. I’m always here for it. And to your point, I tell people my kids are messages to times and places I never see. So I want to have as much influence on them as I can, right, and be worthy of that influence. So that’s really the legacy that I want to leave. And that’s why I build the business the way that I do and why love the decisions I make. So anyways, the whole point being I think we’re in the same boat.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  43:12  

Absolutely. I mean, one of the reasons why I went to work online and teach online at the university professor when I did that back in 2005 is I could do it out of my house. That was one of the jobs back then that you could do out of your house, which working out of your house back then was a no, like, people didn’t do it. So I commend you on what you did. I made that conscious decision to leave a very high-paying corporate marketing job to be at home with my kids, I also have a career but also be at home and not miss all this stuff that you just mentioned.

 

Richard Matthews  43:47  

Yeah, I gave up a six-figure marketing position to run my business to be at home, and it’s one of those decisions that everyone else told me was insane. God bless my wife, she was like, you want to do it, do it. 

 

Dr. Destini Copp  44:02  

She is a brave woman. 

 

Richard Matthews  44:05  

Yes, she is but we’ve done a lot of things like that, everything from quitting a six-figure job to moving into an RV and traveling around the country while we take our business with us. And yeah, it’s one of those things, you realize that a lot of people don’t take action on the things they want to do, because they’re afraid of the bad results. And the reality is most of the time, the bad results aren’t going to happen. And you’re probably the best things are not gonna happen either. But it’s going to be somewhere solidly in the middle. And it’s worth the risk. So that’s where we’re at. I want to move on and talk a little bit about some practical things for the show. Every superhero has their tool belt with awesome gadgets like batarangs or web slingers or a magical hammer that they can spin and fly with. We want to talk about the top one or two tools you couldn’t live without to do what you do. It could be anything from your notepad, your calendar to your marketing tools, something to use for your product delivery, anything that you think is essential to getting your job done on a day-to-day basis.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  45:08  

Okay, so I would say there are so many of them, it’s hard for me to pick just a couple, because a lot of the systems that I’m using in my business, I have used them to set up those systems and processes, that you have mentioned. But I would say that Kajabi is definitely a tool I could not live without, in my business, I don’t use it for all the things that Kajabi can be used for, like, I don’t use it for my email, and I don’t use it for my website, which it absolutely could be used for those things. But I do use it to deliver my online courses and my membership and I absolutely love it. It’s a great system, it’s very user-friendly. For my students, I’ve never had anybody come to me and say, I can’t find this, or  I’m having troubles with Kajabi. It’s just very intuitive for them, it’s easy for me as an online course creator just to create new products to be able to sell them and give them out in the world. So I would say that that’s a tool that I could not live without, it’s been a game-changer for me. But there are other tools out there that are similar. There’s a lot of online course platforms that work also. But that’s just the one that I use.

 

Richard Matthews  46:30  

Yeah, I think we use LearnDash on WordPress, but they all do their job. And it’s amazing too because I’ve been doing online courses for a long time as well. And if you watch all of these platforms sort of mature and become to the point now like we were talking earlier, it’s like the golden age of business, anyone who wants to get a course creator platform, you can pretty much pick any one of them, it’ll be great. And it’s less about your access to tools now and more about your ability to put together content that’s going to help someone else. And that’s the only thing that shouldn’t hold you back is that you should actually have content that can help people. And that’s where someone like you can come in and help them create that course and get something together and know what they should actually be teaching. Because a lot of the technical stuff nowadays is taken care of for you.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  47:19  

And that’s a good point. As you mentioned, there are tons of other options out there, Kajabi is not the only one. And they all work and I’ve used quite a few of them for our clients Podia, Thinkabit, Teachable, and they’re all great platforms.

 

Richard Matthews  47:36  

The deciding factor for whether or not your course is going to be successful is your marketing, which you mentioned. And whether or not you actually deliver the result, you promise. And so those are the two things if you say hey, I can help you teach your kids how to brush your teeth, and they go through the course and they can’t get the skill. They’ve got a problem. But those are the two things if you can deliver on your promise, and you can get that message out to the right people with your marketing, then all the rest of the stuff is so far like nowadays, it’s almost too easy. 

 

Richard Matthews  48:13  

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Richard Matthews  49:44  

So I want to talk a little bit about your own personal heroes, every hero has their mentors just like Frodo had Gandalf or Luke had Obi Wan Kenobi or Robert Kiyosaki and his Rich Dad or even Spider Man had his Uncle Ben. I want to talk about some of your own heroes. Were they real-life mentors, peers who are a couple of years ahead of you, maybe speakers or authors, and how important were they to what you’ve accomplished so far?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  50:08  

So, one of the things that I attribute a lot of my success to in business, and I feel like I’ve had several different careers that have been successful. So I have always found people, whether it was when I was working in corporate marketing or working in online education at the university level, I always found people that I could talk to, we could just go to lunch, we could meet weekly with or talk after, maybe even talk on the weekends, and we could bounce ideas off of I could ask some questions. And this is just somebody who really knew the situation, really knew me what I was going through. And we could just talk through things. And that helps me even today, in my online business, my entrepreneurship business, I have what I call business best friends that sometimes we just text back and forth with one of them, I meet with them religiously for an hour a week, we just talk about what’s going on in our respective businesses is somebody I can send a short email to or a text to say, I found this or this just happened, what do you think I was thinking about doing this? Do you think I’m on the right track? And that I think has been one of the biggest contributing factors to my success is having that business best friend.

 

Richard Matthews  51:41  

Yeah, I called them my running partners, it’s someone you’re running on the same path with. You like to go to the same place kind of thing. But we both run business and people in my life the same way, I run all my stuff by them because it helps keep you sane. Just like you said. We have a weekly meeting. We get together every Thursday for an hour, we just talk about where we’re all at, our goal, what’s going on. I think it’s the thing that a lot of entrepreneurs, especially if you’re a solopreneur, desperately need to have people like that in your circle to help you grow and keep going. And help you deal with a lot of blind spots when you couldn’t see yourself.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  52:25  

Yes, absolutely. I mean, they’ll tell you if you’re going down the wrong path, or if you’re doing something wrong, or something that you know, I might rethink that. So I recommend that everybody has somebody that they can turn to or maybe multiple people that they can turn to and ask those types of questions.

 

Richard Matthews  52:47  

It’s really helpful for something I call expert blindness. Expert blindness is when you know something so well, you don’t see your own internal decisions. It’s like a martial arts master, Bruce Lee, doing ping pong. He’s like, he does not think about that stuff. And he just knows how to do it. And when you’re an expert in your space, and you’re putting something together a lot of times, particularly in your space, you’re keeping a lot of new things. You don’t always remember to explain the internal decisions that are happening faster than you can do things when you bring someone else who is not in that space to look at your stuff. Like, that doesn’t make any sense. People like, Oh, that’s because that was made on the fly because it’s second nature to me. Anyways, yeah, having a running partner is really good for helping with expert blindness, It’s helping you get things accomplished.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  53:44  

 I love that. I love that Richard. 

 

Richard Matthews  53:50  

The next thing I want to talk about then is your guiding principles. One of the things that make heroes heroic is that they live by a code, for instance, Batman never kills his enemies, he only ever puts them in Arkham Asylum. So as we wrap up the interview, I want to talk about the top one or two principles you use in your life that you couldn’t live without and you wish you knew when you first started out.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  54:13  

So we’ve talked about this a little bit, but I think it’s important for us to reiterate a little bit clearer. When I was working in the corporate world, I did that for several years before I went into online, higher education. I knew that what I had and what I was doing at that point in time was not sustainable. It wasn’t how I wanted to raise my kids when I left corporate marketing. My kids were young. I want to say they were like two and five or something, they were definitely young. My oldest was just starting elementary school and I took a step back and said, This is not what I want to do. I want to have more freedom and flexibility in my life. And I would say, from that point forward, that’s when I made a conscious decision that any job or any role that I was going to take on was going to give me freedom and flexibility. And I did have that when I worked in online higher education, I had that freedom and flexibility, I was working out of my house. And when I left there and went into online entrepreneurship, that was also some of my core values that freedom and flexibility and being able to control my own time. Now, obviously, I have some issues with that, because we’ve talked about my workaholic ness. But at the end of the day, I want to work when I want to work, if I want to take off in the middle of the day to go play a tennis match, which is what I did yesterday, I want to be able to do that. If I want to take off to go to one of my kid’s sporting events or go to something after school, I want to be able to do that. And I don’t want a job to be the reason why I can’t do what I want to do in my life. So those are my core values. The other thing that I would say is a core value that I have in my online business in particular is what I would refer to as ethical marketing. I really dislike or have a dislike, for pressure-filled marketing and these kinds of bro marketing tactics, which I’m sure some of your listeners have experienced in the past with artificial deadlines and pressure feel you got to buy this today, you got to buy this $2,000 product today, or it’s going up, it’s doubling in price to $4,000 tomorrow. I have a strong dislike for them. And that’s not something I do in my business. And I don’t teach it with my students.

 

Richard Matthews  57:06  

Yeah absolutely, there are lots of ways you can use scarcity in your business without using high-pressure tactics. One of the things that I tell people in that space is what you’re doing with people as you’re helping them along that journey. The example I use, say you have someone who wants to go from LA to New York, your marketing pieces, maybe it’s your mini-course, or your workshop where you used to sell the course, like, hey, what I’m going to do is I’m going to teach you how to go from LA to Las Vegas, and they’re gonna walk with the course knowing exactly how to get to Las Vegas, they’re gonna walk away with value, or they going to walk away with a new skill they didn’t have before. And so regardless of whether or not they buy from you, they walk away with value. And then your offer is really simple. And offers like I just showed you how to get from LA to Las Vegas, if you want to continue this journey, go all the way to New York, I’ve got this course or this service, or the other thing, whatever it is a mastermind group, that we help you go from Las Vegas to New York and you could learn to do that journey on your own. Right? People have done it, people have made it from Las Vegas to New York without any help. If you want a tour guide, if you want help, we can help shortcut that process. It’s a very congruent sales tactic, people can make that connection in their head like yep, I know I can do this on my own, I know I could figure that out. But I would like to buy that shortcut. Essentially, what you’re doing is you’re selling time and discounts. Almost like first graders are selling time at a discount. So you’re shortcutting people for their ability to pick up skills and pick up other things. Now, as opposed to putting years of your life into figuring out how to do something. You’ve been doing online course creation for 20 years, just about and they could do that they could put 20 years in and get as good as you, or they can hire you in six weeks, get the result they want.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  59:13  

Absolutely and as we’ve been talking about evergreen or automated sales funnels today and I’m okay with deadlines, right? And this price is going to be good until X date and then afterward it’s going to be X amount, maybe $200 more or whatever. And that’s okay because people do need an incentive to purchase and move forward. And you could do some of the strategies that you mentioned there too, but, artificial deadlines and lying to people and putting pressure on them. That’s just not one of my core values.

 

Richard Matthews  59:49  

Yeah, so it’s honest ethical marketing. And that’s one of those things to get back to like people are afraid when they see bad examples of entrepreneurship and they see the actual villains out there that are doing things they don’t like or sit well with them. They think I don’t want to be. I don’t want to offer my value to the world, I don’t want to be like that. And you realize that they see people who are successful and the successful realities that we know however you want.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  1:00:19  

Absolutely. 

 

Richard Matthews  1:00:21  

You could run with your core values or guiding principles and still be successful because you’re a great example. So thank you so much, that is basically a wrap on our interview, Destini. But I do have one thing I finished all of my interviews. I call it the hero’s challenge. I do this to basically help get access to new stories that I might not find on my own because not everyone is out looking to be on podcasts. So the question is simple, do you have someone in your life or in your network that you think has a cool entrepreneurial story, who are they? First names are fine and why do you think they should come and share their story on our show. First person that comes to mind for you.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  1:00:58  

Okay, so there are so many people I could offer up to you because I’ve done a lot of interviews too on my own podcast, but one that really just comes to my mind. Her name is Abbey Ashley, she started off as a virtual assistant. I think her husband was in the military if I remember correctly, and I might be getting that wrong. But her husband was in the military and moved around a lot. So she needed a job that she could do remotely. So she started off as a virtual assistant. And she did that for some time. And then she had other people asking her, how do I become a virtual assistant. So she turned that into an online course. And she also offers membership, in conjunction with that. I think her online course covers and teaches people how to be virtual assistants. And then her membership has some training in there that virtual assistants need to be successful in their role. So maybe she’s teaching them some type of software or different types of software and stuff. But she today has a multi seven-figure business, I think the last time I talked to her, she was on track to make $4 million this year, just by turning her skills from being a virtual assistant and then teaching other people how to be a virtual assistant. So she has a very powerful business story. I so much enjoy talking with her on my podcast, to her podcast interview, as we’re recording right now and it has not aired. I think I have it coming up in August on mine. And she definitely has a very inspiring story.

 

Richard Matthews  1:02:41  

That’s awesome, we will reach out later and see if we could have an introduction. Thank you for that. So in comic books, there’s always the crowd of people who are clapping and cheering for the acts of heroism for their work. So as we close are analogous to that is where can people find you if they want your help? Where can they light up the bat signal so to speak, and say, hey, you know what Destini, I’d love your help to build a course of my own and get into this business, where can they do that? And I think more important is the right type of people to reach out and actually light up that bat signal?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  1:03:10  

Yeah, I’ll give you two ways to find me and learn more about me. One is the Course Creators MBA podcast. So on the podcast, we tell inspirational journey stories of other people who have started or added online courses or memberships to their business and the kind of journey they took to get there. So if you’re wanting some more information about stories, in entrepreneur stories, definitely check that out. My website is DestiniCopp.com that is spelled with an I at the end instead of a Y. So Destini Copp, like a policeman, but with two P’s. And going back to your question about who might be interested in reaching out to us, we work with people who are like freelancers or service providers, or maybe their coaches who are doing services. And they are wanting to scale their business with digital products like an online course or a membership.

 

Richard Matthews  1:04:06  

Awesome, I can definitely vouch for that, who is getting into that world. So if you’re in that space, you’re looking like hey, I think I could build a digital course. I have clients who had millions of dollars in that space. And it’s definitely worth the effort. So take the time to reach out to Destini and to her podcast, the links to that are in the description below this show. And Destini, thank you so much for coming to the show. I really appreciate getting to hear your story. Do you have any final words of wisdom for our audience, before I hit this stop record button?

 

Dr. Destini Copp  1:04:37  

The one thing I would say is depending on where they are in their entrepreneurial journey, especially if they’re kind of just starting out or just maybe even a couple of years into it, don’t give up because the building blocks that you are making today in your business will benefit you several years down the road. For instance, I know we talked about it a little bit today, but some of the blogs and the SEO type work that I did several years ago is definitely paying off in my business. If I hadn’t planted those bricks, if you would those foundational bricks, then I would not have been reaping the benefits that I’m reaping today. And if you feel like nobody’s watching you, or you feel like you’re putting your stuff out in the world and nobody’s listening. I can guarantee you they are, you just don’t know it.

 

Richard Matthews  1:05:27  

Yeah absolutely, I tell people all the time, don’t vastly underestimate what we can accomplish in 10 years. We think som ewhere really quick and secure and it happens and then we give up. Just put in the effort consistently for 10 years, you’ll be amazed how quickly you can achieve success. So never give up.

 

Dr. Destini Copp  1:06:01  

Richard, thank you so much for having me. I had such a great time here today.