Lifestyle Business School Stevie Dillon

How do you create an online course that sells right now?
The truth is that times have changed, and what worked even just a few years ago no longer does. 
The online course market is maturing, and with the growth many are starting to wonder:
"Are people still buying online courses?"
Here's my two cents: 
Yes they absolutely are, but it’s uneven at the moment.
Some people are killing it and some are finding it tough. 
If you're wondering how you can create an online course that sells right now, here are seven things to keep in mind. 

1. Cultivate Trust and Authority
2. Contracts Create Friction
3. Creating an Online Course That Sells Requires Transparency
4. New Offers Require Time in the Market
5. Positioning is Everything
6. Risk Reversal is Extra Helpful
7. Trust and an Irresistible Offer Are King and Queen Right Now


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In 2007, I spent six weeks in a hostel in the middle of Guatemala just “because”.

Truly, I’d never felt so free.

The two years prior had been spent working like a donkey, with good people but in a field I hated.

The endgame? Admission to the Supreme Course of Queensland as a lawyer.

It was an accolade I spent 7 years working towards..

Only to quit, 6-weeks to the day later.

And so, there I found myself in a computer shop in Puerto Escondido, Mexico, on a steaming April afternoon checking my emails when my brothers friend messaged us on Facebook.

“Wanna come visit?” – he wrote, “I’m just down the road in Guatemala!”

We looked at each other.

Of course we would. It wasn’t even a QUESTION.

We were free. The world was our oyster. And we could do anything, be anyone, go anywhere!

And so it came to be that I ended up spending the best, most carefree, most FUN 6-weeks of my life living out of a backpack in a dingy hostel dorm room in Antigua.

Acutely aware that I had opted out of life for a little minute, and feeling grateful as heck for it.

Five years later, I started my online business chasing that kind of freedom again.

And on the surface, the promise of it all felt..  intoxicating.

Time freedom – to work when I wanted!

Location freedom – to go back to Central America, or London, or ANYWHERE BUT HERE!

Financial freedom – to make more than a doctors wages working on the goddamn INTERNET!

I wanted it.

The sense of adventure.

The possibility.

The wonder that came from not knowing what would come next.

The Tuesday afternoons spent outside (and not in an air-conditioned cubicle)

ALL OF IT.

🍊 Rinse and Repeat has just been added to Lifestyle Business School!  This is the ultimate collection of every live launch and promotion under the sun. Join now for $149/m. 
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📝 Download our FREE 26 Page Expertise-Based Business Diagnostic:
Get clarity on what to work on first or next. Click here to get it for free.

🎓Join Lifestyle Business School:
Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot. Click here to join today.
📲 Instagram:
Follow Stevie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_

🍑 Rinse and Repeat has just been added to Lifestyle Business School!  This is the ultimate collection of every live launch and promotion under the sun. Join now for $149/m. 

I’ve had 17,400 Instagram followers for YEARS now.
Sure, it tracks up a bit.
Down a bit.
But overall, it HOVERS around that number 🛸
Same with my trusty email list.
A few subscribers up.. then a few down.. and repeat.
But, what can I REALLY expect?
I HAVEN’T TAKEN AUDIENCE GROWTH SERIOUSLY SINCE 2017.
In 2023 though, I changed my business model.
I gained clarity on my founder type and ditched the big, stressful business to to intentionally go back to my creator roots.
Here’s why:
In November 2022, I turned 40.
And let me tell YOU:
There’s something about turning 40 that puts everything into perspective.
It makes you realise that you are not, in fact, immortal.
That “later in life” has actually come WAY FASTER THAN YOU THOUGHT IT WOULD.
It helped me – in the best possible way –  to define my dreams and what I REALLY wanted to do with the increasingly limited time I have left.
Here’s what I realised in the process:
That I was really, really proud of what I’d achieved in the 7 years prior since I’d started my business.
.. Even though I was a late bloomer.
.. Even though I’d spent FAR TOO MUCH of my life *ahem my twenties into my early thirties* waiting for the weekend and losing myself in happy hour.
.. And even though I’d veered a little off course in building the wrong model for me.
With every misstep, I’d had the tenacity, courage and clarity to course correct and keep chasing after my dreams.
And ALSO?
I realised that I was in NO WAY DONE YET.
That in many ways, I was just getting started.
 And if YOUR dream is to build a lifestyle business, Lifestyle Business School is the thing I have personally built to help you get there.
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📝 Download our FREE 26 Page Expertise-Based Business Diagnostic:
Get clarity on what to work on first or next. Click here to get it for free.

🎓Join Lifestyle Business School:
Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot. Click here to join today.
📲 Instagram:
Follow Stevie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_

I don’t care about leaving money on the table. 
I don’t care about “maximising” my revenue” or getting the “most” out of every day. 
Here’s what I do care about: 
Spend Tuesday mornings at a 10am Pilates class. Stuffing around making labels for my new spice racks just because. Googling cool new hair-dos for my little girl. Sitting on the floor with her at 2pm on a Friday, playing hairdressers.
I care about travel. I care so much about travel. I care about renting a month-long Airbnb in Norway just because. And getting a van, and traveling around the English countryside stopping at every cute pub along the way. I care about driving down the California coast. Showing my kids Hearst Castle. Visiting Old Town Ibiza, and sipping Sangria at 10pm on a hot August evening. 
I care about feeling free – really, truly free. Waking up on a Monday and relishing the week ahead. Spending the morning sitting in a cafe, writing for three hours over two half-strength cappuccinos. And never again sitting in  an air-conditioned cubicle with no natural sunlight, taking orders from a girl called Samantha and waiting for Friday. 
I care about life. 
And living it, unconventionally and messily.
And having fun. 
And being the poster girl for living free. 
And above all? 
After building a $2.5m business to the ground in the name of wild alignment, NOT sacrificing all of that at the altar of some arbitrary revenue goal that won’t even give me more of what I want. 
That’s why I have the business I (now) do. 
And the values I (now) have. 
And it’s why I’m now so passionate about sharing with others my ethos for building a simple, highly profitable one-person + a tiny team style business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot ®

In this week's podcast, I'll be sharing with you the Seven Commandments of Building a Business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot.


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For Expertise-Based Founders ready to engineer a lifestyle business that passes the Monday Morning test with flying colours. Get one actionable step each day, and then weekly thereafter. Subscribe here.

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📝 Download our FREE 26 Page Expertise-Based Business Diagnostic:
Get clarity on what to work on first or next. Click here to get it for free.

🎓Join Lifestyle Business School:
Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot. Click here to join today.
📲 Instagram:
Follow Stevie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_

In the past two years, I have gone from three full time team members..
To me, one part time contractor.
The result of scaling DOWN my team?
My business went from 40% profit margins on a good month.. To 80%, always.
I halved my revenue.. But took home WAY more profit.
And I felt lighter, happier and more fulfilled than I had in years, with my days spent working on the things that truly light me up.
Two years on, things looked so very different..
It feels like a dream.
The no-team dream.
Systems Over Team

So, what changed?
And specifically, what ENABLED me to re-build my business A One-Woman Show Working 5-Hour Days With 80% Profit Margins?

Here’s the cliff notes:
From a business model perspective, I moved to a model that felt far more aligned.
It required fewer moving parts, fewer offers and fewer resources.
And I started prioritising systems over team.

It looks like this:
✔️ A Simple Model: One of the most overlooked “secrets” to an elegant business is simplicity. More offers, more work. I worked on refining my business model and offer suite to be simple.
✔️ Increased Leverage: I built offers that leverage my time by packaging my Intellectual Property into scalable offers that were divorced from my time (and didn’t require big team to run).
✔️ And Systems BEFORE Team: Rather than hiring FIRST, I worked to systemise as much of my business as possible, so that my time is now leveraged by processes, automations and tools instead of another set of hands.

Together, those three things, once achieved, are a little thing called Operational Elegance –  and it has changed my (business) life.
Operations doesn’t sound sexy.
But truly, it is the thing that has set me free.
I want other people to experience it, and it’s why I have dedicated my entire business mission since 2022 to help others achieve the same.

If you resonate with this mission?  Lifestyle Business School is for you. 
Want more?

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For Expertise-Based Founders ready to engineer a lifestyle business that passes the Monday Morning test with flying colours. Get one actionable step each day, and then weekly thereafter. Subscribe here.

🎧 Subscribe to the Podcast:
With 1m downloads, make sure you hit the follow/subscribe button right now.

📝 Download our FREE 26 Page Expertise-Based Business Diagnostic:
Get clarity on what to work on first or next. Click here to get it for free.

🎓Join Lifestyle Business School:
Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot. Click here to join today.
📲 Instagram:
Follow Stevie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_

📫 BRAND NEW! Subscribe to the NEW Lifestyle Business School newsletter here. 

In December last year I phased out my primary (only) offer in my business in the name of business model re-alignment. And, in many ways, I'm starting again. I'm in a messy creation phase right now.  So, a few days ago, I started documenting the journey of re-building my business.

This podcast shares more of that process, including behind the scenes insights. 

BRAND NEW! The Lifestyle Business School newsletter where I'll also be sharing how I do the work, test and experiment and inch forward step by step in my business.

If you want to follow me in this journey,  subscribe to my newsletter and share it with others too!
Want more?

📫 Subscribe to the Newsletter:
For Expertise-Based Founders ready to engineer a lifestyle business that passes the Monday Morning test with flying colours. Get one actionable step each day, and then weekly thereafter. Subscribe here.

🎧 Subscribe to the Podcast:
With 1m downloads, make sure you hit the follow/subscribe button right now.

📝 Download our FREE 26 Page Expertise-Based Business Diagnostic:
Get clarity on what to work on first or next. Click here to get it for free.

🎓Join Lifestyle Business School:
Get the complete Operating System for starting or growing an expertise-based online business to the Lifestyle Business Sweet Spot. Click here to join today.
📲 Instagram:
Follow Stevie on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/steviedillon_