Diversify Your Income - Part 2: How to Leverage Where You’re At Instead of Starting Over with Shakeemah Smith

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May 13

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Episode 847: Show Notes

Today we get into part two of our four-part series on diversifying your income! Joining us is solo traveler turned travel expert, Shakeemah Smith. In 2015, she created her course, Travel Like a Bawse, and since then, she has taught over 2000 women in eleven countries how to master the art of solo travel. Even though her professional background wasn’t in the travel industry, she was able to pull from personal experiences to give people the knowledge they were craving.

Each and every one of us has a huge opportunity to take the experiences we've had in our lives, be it personal or professional, and transform that knowledge into something teachable that people are eager to learn. Creating digital products may feel like starting over, but it’s important to remember that we all carry with us the wisdom and experiences that brought us to this point. I want you to take a step back and think about what got you to where you are today. What lessons have you learned? What would you do differently if starting anew? What would you skip? Chances are, you’ll find you have a lot more knowledge than you think.

Join me today as I talk with Shakeemah about how she took her knowledge and built a thriving business from it. Discover how Shakeemah approached the shift in her career, not as a total overhaul, but as a starting point to build on all the knowledge and experience she already had!

To support your journey, I’ve built a one-day challenge to take you from idea concept to launch in just one day, so that you can confidently create your next (or first!) digital product. You can learn more and sign up for free right here!

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From Investigator to Traveler, to Course Creator

Before Shakeemah started online, she had been an investigator for a solid fifteen years. In fact, she had had no intention of deviating from her nine-to-five routine, especially considering the four-year commitment she owed her employers since they had sponsored her Master’s. And yet, her journey toward digital product creation was surprisingly organic.

A fervent traveler, she found herself in Amsterdam on her birthday, stranded after a disagreement with a friend during vacation. This left her determined to explore the world solo, and she began documenting her travels on Instagram. Soon, other women reached out. They were inspired by her solo adventures but were concerned over safety as women traveling alone.

While her audience started as a super intimate group back in 2017, it quickly grew. Soon she was offering advice to more and more women on an individual basis and so she decided to collect all the information they would need in one place and start a course!

Evolving Your Digital Products

While online courses are an excellent way to reach more people, it gets a bit tricky when you’re getting requests from folks internationally, some of whom live in vastly different time zones. That’s where digital products can be super useful. For Shakeemah, she started creating digital products after needing to teach someone in London. They had to navigate a six-hour time difference, and finding a time that worked was impossible! That’s when she built her first digital product.

Her digital product journey started with an ebook. After about a year she added coaching as a service, after which the courses came into play, bringing with it more depth, including community building.

What Happened When The Pandemic Hit

When the COVID-19 pandemic hit, none of us knew what to expect. Yet, despite Shakeemah’s initial concerns about dwindling income due to travel restrictions, she found herself earning approximately 1.3 million during the crisis. The lockdown prompted many followers to recognize the value of her expertise, seizing the opportunity to acquire knowledge, so that they could be well-informed once they were able to travel. This surge in demand not only sustained her business but also propelled it to unprecedented heights!

The pandemic also helped her make a smooth transition from her nine-to-five job to becoming an entrepreneur full-time. She set herself the goal of saving $100,000 before she would consider leaving her job, and remarkably, four months into the pandemic, she reached her goal!

Unpredictability and The Challenges of Entrepreneurship

While Shakeemah has achieved a lot of success, entrepreneurship has not been without its struggles. She didn’t have prior experience with running a business, so she was navigating a lot of new terrain, like bookkeeping, tax changes, and other logistical challenges. The lack of financial predictability also posed a significant challenge. In one month she might earn $72,000 from a single webinar, but the following month might only bring in a fraction of that. There is no guarantee of consistent revenue. Despite the high highs and low lows of entrepreneurship, she still finds it totally worthwhile.

Why You Have What It Takes To Succeed

In her full-time work, Shakeemah had been a child protective investigator, which meant doing forensic interviews. When Shakeemah first jumped into her traveling business full-time, she thought she was making a clean departure from her life as an investigator. But the skills she learned in that job actually served her exceptionally well in her new endeavors!

As a forensic investigator interviewing children, she had learned to approach every situation with an open mind. She had active listening skills and was open to other people’s cultures. So although it may seem like two wildly different careers, there was a surprising transfer of skills that has served her in the long run!

Similarly, Shakeemah has gone on to grow and evolve as an entrepreneur. Each time she starts a new business she grows her skills and she draws on her knowledge to make better decisions and create something new with confidence!

How to Leverage Where You Are At Instead of Starting Over

Often when we face a setback, we imagine we need to rethink everything, when actually that’s the opposite of what we should do. That’s what happened to Shakeemah when a course she created earned less than she had hoped.

The course was successful, generating $279,000, but it didn’t quite meet her expectations. Instead of starting over and abandoning it, she improved on that course, drawing on surveys and customer feedback. When she launched a new and improved version a year later it earned her $850,000! If she had given up or gone in a completely new direction, she would never have achieved that!

With all the information she got from her feedback and surveys, she was able to market her new and improved course, focusing on key customer pain points. It allowed her to hone in on the pressing needs of her audience, and communicate that she could help with what they really needed!

Quote This

“If you really want to be able to service the world, you can't move like a mom and pop. You have to move like big business.”

— @passportabuser

Highlights

From Investigator to Traveler, to Course Creator [0:03:55]
Evolving Your Digital Products [0:07:02]
What Happened When The Pandemic Hit [0:11:52]
Unpredictability and The Challenges of Entrepreneurship [0:16:34]
Why You Have What It Takes To Succeed [0:19:37]
How to Leverage Where You Are At Instead of Starting Over [0:24:23]

OUR GUEST:

Shakeemah Smith

Travel Like a Bawse: Website | Instagram | X

Shakeemah Smith is a solo traveler turned travel expert. She has taught her signature course, Travel Like a Bawse, to over 2000 women in eleven countries, helping them to master the art of solo travel.

OUR HOST:

Abagail Pumphrey

Abagail on Instagram

Boss Project on Instagram | Facebook

Abagail Pumphrey, the Co-Founder & CEO of Boss Project, has been a driving force in the creative entrepreneur industry since 2015. With a passion for empowering service-based business owners around the globe, she became internet-famous after the launch of the transformative training, "Trello for Business." This innovative system revitalized the operations of over 10,000 business owners, making a significant impact on the online business landscape.

Under Abagail's leadership, Boss Project has been featured in prestigious publications such as Forbes, Marie Claire, INC, and HuffPost. Her twice-weekly podcast, The Strategy Hour, is a staple in the business community, continuously topping Business and Management Charts on Apple with millions of listeners from around the world.

Abagail's superpower lies in her ability to break down complex concepts into easy-to-implement, duplicatable systems. As an expert in online sales and a data-driven strategist, she has turned a layoff into a 7-figure work-from-home business. Abagail's mission to help more female founders become financially free, without letting their businesses take over their lives, continues to inspire and guide entrepreneurs on their path to success.