Hi there ??‍♀️

Welcome the Biggest Mistakes I have made as a Blogger and Business Owner that no one share on the internet.. (haha, a little exagerrated here- of course there’s bloggers that shared about this  but this blogpost is based on my personal experience)

If you are fairly new this blog,

My name is Anys Nadhilah or you can call me Dr Anys! I am a full time medical practitioner, a future mom and a very passionate digital business owner! 

I love making passive income and make money while I sleep through digital products. My mission is to help women, bloggers, solopreneurs, new coaches, course creators build their dream online business with SO MUCH ease, fun and flow.

During writing this blogpost, I had night shift work as a training medical doctor where I work from 8pm till 1pm the next day (Its a 17 hours shift guys).

My normal daily shift as a training doctor was from 7am till 9pm (14 hours per day)  … I have 2 night shifts every week, and one off day in a week.. This was basically my work schedule as a training doctor in Malaysia.. 

Despite being very busy, during my free time , I like to create new digital products for my shop or consume content via blog or Youtube.

Today while consuming blog articles, I stumbled upon  https://outofthe925.com/ by David Woutersen.. His pins particularly is this one https://pin.it/h4h7DSs

The last advice in that video pin was a shocker and has give a big realization and clarity to me..

Check out the pins here -> https://pin.it/h4h7DSs

I feel numb for a while solely because it has made me realize the biggest mistakes that I have committed for the span of 3 years.. from 2019-2021

(no wonder I moved no where)

Well, thanks God I am not commiting a crime in case you wondered but I have made this huge mistakes that I don’t want you to do the same as a blogger or a someone who want to start an online business.

If you want to know what were those mistakes, continue read on..

I’m going to list down the mistakes that have I made as a blogger and a business owner down below so that you can learn from it and avoid these mistakes..

MISTAKE #1: TRY TO CREATE A COURSE TOO EARLY

When I think of this mistake back, I feel mad of  those videos and courses that I consumed for the past three years on how to create an online course.

Personally I feel like those who are selling courses on ‘How to Create An Online Course Business’  doesn’t specify who are really fit to start online course business.

Everybody believes that everybody can create a course, but the fact is that not EVERYBODY can create a course…

I was too naive and too fool to think that I can create a course where  I don’t have the skills and capability to create a course yet.

These has costed me 1 year of not blogging for free, create content for my blog and build an email list first. I am too focus trying to learn how to create a course which led me in a wrong tunnel.

First thing first , why I want to create online course instead being a free blogger?

Online course business is a very profitable and high margin profit business. Imagine making impact on other people lives while making such a high income that is good enough to pay your bills , have a great vacation and buy anything you like for yourself and your family..

Best thing is you get to live on your own term and be your own boss. This is what I want. Freedom.. 

The reason why I was trapped here because I guess a lot of people said ‘course route’ is easy money-making route and is like get rich fast scheme (which is not 100% true).

As someone who want to start a business myself, I am hooked! Well the fact is, it takes lotttt of efforts,brainstorming and knowledge to get a course launch successfully..

Having said that , I also do not aware and don’t have the exposure that blogging business is also very profitable. I don’t know why would I choose the ‘course route’ instead of ‘blogging route’ which is easier and less pressure.

I also have read mutiple blogs that have generated 5k-30k per month . Can you believe that they don’t even have a course and they basically don’t bother about it.

Plus, I  a lot of missing puzzles.

The missing puzzles are

  • Don’t know what niche I am in.
  • Don’t know what I am an expert about.
  • Not good with informational content creation

As you can see, there is a lot of missing puzzles here and if you are really interested in creating a course, best advice that I can give to you is you should really nailed your niche, experties,content creation and get a coach or a course that would teach you step by step.

Pro tips for someone who still want to create a course

I suggest you to do list down all the things that you are good at and what you can teach others. You can brainstorm  your own techniques or methods on achieving something that you knowledgable about.

You don’t have to have all figure out, especially on a systems , tech and everything.

And also you don’t have to get all the content of your courses figured out.  

The  point of making courses is to help others to achieve what you have achieved because there are someone in the world who are just lower than you, which means they need your strategy, your content, your teaching to improve and level it up.

But remember, if you did not have the puzzles that I am missing above, forget about creating a course, start a blog instead!

MISTAKE #2: DO NOT HAVE SPECIFIC NICHE

Deciding a niche is really difficult for me in the early days because I have this syndrome called as SOS – ‘ Shiny Object Syndrome’.

I am not trying to start a niche-specific blog first so that I know what I love and what I can to talk about for hour.

Instead I am trying to create a course where I don’t really have the niche clarity, skills,experience and the quality it needed to create a course plus I try to teach something that I haven’t gotten any result yet. Confusing right?

Pro Niche Tips –

You need to know what topics do you interested and what topics that you can talk for an hour.

What topics that you can teach or share without cramping your head out and without referring to a notes or books, to know exactly that is your niche..

MISTAKES #3 TOO MUCH SELF-PRESSURE

I can’t deny that I have this perfectionist disease that attacks at random time. I just want the best out of the best.

So, if I were to start a blog and create a course, I want to create one that has best quality, best content and the one that will exceptionally help others make transformation.

Therefore, I force myself and put too much pressure looking for content, trying to create a full fledged course and because I try to teach something that I haven’t gotten any result yet, I plan to learn and memorize those lessons before I teach it to other which has costed me severe overwhelmed and burn out. Due to this, I have taken months off, detaching myself from the online business world. Major loss.. 

Pro Tips –

Never ever put too much pressure to yourself. Sometimes minimum viable is the best way to get started. Always create a plan first before start doing something for your business.. 

MISTAKES #4 THE BELIEVE SYSTEM AND THE QUALITIES

Wrong believe system is very dangerous.

I believe blogging would takes years to make money. I believe I only can earn income from my blog via advertising.  I BELIEVE I can create a course in one month without any skills and experiences.I believe I can launch a course and generate thousands dollar per month without any audience..

Let me tell you , these are a bad believe system..

Well just like other people said that everybody can be a course instructor.

(I repeat here : Not everybody can be a course creator and instructor within just a blink of an eye…). Teachers went to college to get a teaching degree for a reason. Text-books existed for a reason..

So you  definitely need an experience, skills, and the qualities to become a  course creator otherwise it will be a very difficult pathway for you..

In case you are wondering, the qualities needed are

  • Experience
  • Some Tech Knowledge
  • Content and materials
  • Teaching skills

Because of I had this false believe, it had stray me away from blogging properly. So I ended up not creating a blogpost for almost 1 year..

Pro Tips –

If you are not making daily sales or you are stuck at certain income level,pull out a paper and start assessing your believe system.. 

MISTAKES #5 NOT BEING VISIBLE

Because of the mistake that trying to create a course a little too early without nail down my niche and build an audience first , it makes me delay of being visible to the world.

For three years I was been invisible, and this is really sad, because I wasted three years of my time trying to do something that was not legit for me thus I kept pivoting every other months.

I try to create a course about something then pivot then decide not to.

Hence, everything left hanging and not completed,. I spend my money on a lot of resources that I feel were going to help me in creating a course and coaching programme but in the end, it just a waste..

So how can you be visible?

Answer : Blogging! Blog more ,  visible more.. or use social media. Personally I love Tiktok 😉 Tiktok has helped scale my business to 6 figure. 

MISTAKES #6 TRYING TO TEACH SOMETHING I DON’T KNOW YET

Imagine you want to start a cooking class when you never cook before.. That is how I’ve tried to blog and teach a course topic that I’m not even know of. I just have this believe that I can teach others when I read one chapter ahead of others.

Why I try to teach a topic that I don’t know about? It is because I know that topic is money-making topics , so I try to create a course on that topics (Shiny Object Syndrome). This is the biggest, biggest mistakes I ever did.

It is true that you can teach others when  you read one chapter ahead but it just not applicable on everything and to everyone , especially a beginner like me..

MISTAKES #7 NOT FOCUS ON MARKETING

Marketing is VITAL in any type of business.

Even though you have the greatest product or content in the world, you’re not able to sell it if you do not market it and nobody see it.

Learn marketing more for sake of your business.

Pro Tips –

Just focus on one marketing platform first to see a massive growth. Either Pinterest,Tiktok, Instagram, Facebook or Linked in, just pick 1-2 and really harness it for the first 3 months of your business. 

MISTAKE #8: NOT BUILDING AN AUDIENCE FIRST & not making impact for free.

Well , you would realized by now that building an audience is very important as a blogger or as a business owner.. 

You can build your audience through

-Blogging
-Email subscribers
-Facebook group
-Facebook fan page..
-Pinterest
-Instagram
-Twitter
-Linkedin
-Clubhouse

Generally I can conclude that my overall mistakes is not start be a serious blogger,create consistent content and build an audience first..

MISTAKE #9 NOT CREATING HELPFUL POST

Lastly, I have a blog before that I created and blogging since secondary school. That blog has 4k subscribers with a total of 1million+ pageviews. That is because back then, I was consistently drive traffic to my blog via blogwalking which means visit for visit.

I realize that even back then, I was not as successful as other top bloggers who had way more followers and way more blog views .

Why? that was because I was not creating a helpful content like guides, tips, checklists, and click-worthy content..

TURNING POINTS

Today during writing this post, was a huge turning point for me.  I feel frustrated to those people who introduce me to create my own course a little too early, instead of being visible first.,

I could just start be a blogger first..

I feel like if I start being a blogger 3 years back, I would have created more content in my blog, sharing beneficial contents and then start creating mini courses when I’ve gained more clarity of what my niche is and what ther people want from me..

Well in the span of three years, I barely be visible anywhere. I am not visible on Facebook, Pinterest, LinkedIn, and even blog, I just have Instagram account and Youtube channel that I no longer post content and barely make any income.

but thankfully,

While I was consuming those courses, I sustain my digital product shop on Etsy and that was where my most side income came in.

At least I achieve something..

I have my own Etsy shop where I sells digital products since late 2019 .I’ve created a small movement while consuming those courses,I create Canva templates and business toolkits.

I now able to earn $500 to $1,000 per month from those digital products.

CONCLUSION

The pins that I stumbled today has become an eye opening. View it here in case you haven’t -> https://pin.it/h4h7DSs

You should focus on being visible either  creating content on your blog first or on your Instagrams, YouTube, LinkedIn podcast, or everywhere.

Before you create a course,create content for free.

Yes, this is not the money making activities, but you need to do this first for a least 3 months to figure out what you really love about and what you can talk easily for an hour..

These are my biggest mistakes that I have made as a business owner and a newbie blogger. I hope you learn a lot from this post and can resonate with certain points.

Thankfully, even though I have made these mistakes over the span of a few years, I have created multiple digital products to sell on my website and on Etsy.. 

If you still haven’t figure out your passion that can turn into a profitable business, download this free workbook to nail down your passion and niche and develop your own empire..