Andrea Olson started teaching infant potty training or elimination communication (EC for short) in 2011 and wrote her book that same year: Go Diaper Free (for 0-18 month babies). In 2015 she released her second book on a totally different subject: non-coercive potty training. This one is called The Tiny Potty Training Book and is for toddlers over 18 months in age.
Listen to this informative Publish. Promote. Profit. episode with Andrea Olson about building a potty training empire with a book.
Here are some of the beneficial topics covered on this week’s show:
– Why it’s important to test different price points when you write a book.
– How introducing funnels into your sales process can lead to lucrative success.
– Why you should ask your customers what they want, so you can sell them more.
– How a book helps you build long term relationships with your clients.
– Why writing a book is a great beginning to an effective sales funnel.
Connect with Andrea:
Links Mentioned:
tinyundies.com
godiaperfree.com
mamaworx.com
Rob Kosberg:
Hey welcome everybody. It’s Rob here from the Publish. Promote. Profit podcast, doing kind of a dual thing today. For those of you that don’t know, I’m writing a new book on using book funnels to grow your business. And I have a great guest today that has been doing some amazing things with her book. Andrea Olson is the Best Selling author of Go Diaper Free, The Tiny Potty Training Book, The Tiny Potty Board book, The Night Potty Board book, and Brave New Birth.
And I love what Andrea is doing with her books. Very, very amazing. She is the go-to person, if you want to get your child out of diapers by the time they’re walking and a slew of other things. In a minute, I’ll ask Andrea to tell us a little bit about her business, and then we’re going to dive into her book funnel, but she’s made it super simple for hundreds of thousands of parents worldwide to start their own babies as early as birth and getting trained and potty trained. She’s trained over 300 coaches for her community across the globe. She’s done amazing things. She’s built a multi-seven figure business on the back of her books and her content helping families to potty train their kids. So Andrea, awesome to have you here. Thanks so much for being on the podcast and being an example of doing amazing things with a book.
Andrea Olson:
Oh yeah. Thank you for having me.
Rob Kosberg:
Love it. Do me a favor. Let’s start out. Talk me if you could, for a minute about how long this has been going on, where it started and what it looks like today? Your whole kind of potty training business and empire.
Andrea Olson:
Yeah. Well, it started when I had my first baby and we were literally on food stamps, I ex had gotten laid off and I was like, “I’m not leaving this baby for anything.” So what would I do? Pay somebody to watch him while I go get some money and then maybe break even. So I did, I was listening to Pat Flynn’s podcast. It was on its 10th episode back then. And it was just a perfect timing, synchronicity where I learned about, oh, I could write an eBook and make a business out of this. And what would I do it on? So I was pottying him from birth. I had learned about this years before, and it was pretty hard to start. All the books out there were very difficult to follow. So, I decided to write a pamphlet that turned into an eBook and my first year I sold $45,000 of eBooks.
Rob Kosberg:
That’s amazing. And you didn’t know what you were doing, right? You just put it up on Amazon?
Andrea Olson:
Yeah. I didn’t even have it on Amazon yet to be honest, I did it all on my website. And it wasn’t even branded To Go Diaper Free. It was something else back then and it wasn’t nearly as, I mean, it’s just turned into, not only did I write the best book possible on the topic, like I researched it by asking everybody what their problems were, helping them with their problems. I literally made them what they needed and what I would’ve liked to have had, but I packaged it with an audio version because it’s for busy moms. So there was an audio book that it came with just from the very beginning and packaged it with support and a forum on PHPBB back before Facebook groups. And I also included a video library, so I wanted to charge more for it. And I have charged pretty much about the same since the beginning. Way more than a regular book would cost. And really over delivered on everything that was included with the book.
So, it’s always been a package deal, inseparable and just really all about the people’s success. That’s where my heart has always been and it’s in return been a huge success.
Rob Kosberg:
Well, congratulations. I love what you’re doing. Talk to me about that. You know, you said a minute ago that you’re charging more for the book than average. That’s the first thing I noticed. I went on Amazon, I looked it up. You’re charging like 38 bucks for the Kindle version, is that right? $37.95. And then you’re charging, I think 54 bucks for the soft cover. I was like, Andrea, go. So talk to me about like what that looks like, and you’re doing more than delivering the book to them. And so you’re in essence bundling other things and making the value of the book considerably more than even what you’re asking on Amazon.
Andrea Olson:
I am. And that’s the thing when I started, I had paperback books that talked about EC or elimination communication, what I teach. And I was so overwhelmed that I almost didn’t do it. So I genuinely believe that you need all of the multimedia parts in order to make it work and you really need the support. Now I trained these coaches that run my off Facebook forums and I have seen so much transformation with that packaged in that I’m never going to… I mean, I thought about taking that out and making it a regular book price, I’ve even experimented with it. Hey, what if I just charge $19 for this paperback? Because it’s like 300 pages. And like 12 bucks for my potty training book. I did that and I didn’t have as many sales like number of units sold and people were not finding success in implementing and I still included all the things. So the higher product point, the value, it’s actual value but it’s also implied value.
Rob Kosberg:
More sales, more success, more money. I love it. What could be better?
Andrea Olson:
And more changing the world. Like literally if I’m not getting to his many people then I’m not doing my job.
Rob Kosberg:
Andrea, talk me through this is more about the book funnel itself and how you’re using the book. So we’re starting at a very unusually high price for the book and you through testing really, really smart discovered that people are getting more success and more people are buying it at the high a price. Great. So there’s a note for everybody pay attention, test different price points, because believe it or not lower price doesn’t always sell more, often it will sell less and people won’t take action. So talk me through what happens in your entire funnel because you’re making seven figures, not just by selling books, but by leading people from the books to various upsell and other things they can get for success. So talk me through all of those pieces.
Andrea Olson:
Yeah. So introducing funnels to my business is definitely help me hit that seven figure mark, and then some, and it’s really kind of new for me. I had a lot of success just by regular old school, online marketing and stuff like whatever’s working now I would do it. So when I found out about Russell and ClickFunnels and all of that, I started to dive deep into it and transition everything and my average sale per customer, I can’t even remember what the acronym is for that LTV or something.
Rob Kosberg:
Or average order value, perhaps?
Andrea Olson:
Average order value has just skyrocketed because I’m doing this funnel. So the funnel basically is a free, easy start guide, which is a one page PDF. That gives them the basic positions. How do I know my baby needs to pee? Because those are the biggest questions. I just pay attention to what people ask me. What do you really want? And actually, I didn’t even have this as a freebie before I survey my audience all the time. Like what color underwear to make, like everything. I only make what they tell me they want. And I ask them, what freebie would you want or would like to have had? And I listed my easy start guide, but I’d never released it. And like 90% of people wanted that. So I was like, cool. Well, and then when I started using that as my freebie, it was… That’s another good tip like you got to test different freebies and see what people actually like. And then does it really seamlessly lead into your book or not?
And me, it does and recently I’ve just had an aha of like, okay, if you’re curious, you get the guide. And then if you’re serious about getting your child out of diapers by one or catching a pee in the potty today, which is our lingo, you’re going to get the book. And then a lot of people think they’re doing EC, but then they falter within a couple weeks. You find out that you actually need my book, come back and get it. So oftentimes there’s that freebie lead in and a while back, I didn’t have the freebie leading to anything. And my consultant was like-
Rob Kosberg:
It was just a freebie and add an email list kind of thing.
Andrea Olson:
And then it just says, thank you. And then my email would do the rest. And I’m like, my mentor went, oh, he couldn’t even talk for like five minutes. He’s like, “I cannot believe that you don’t have an offer or right after this. Because they’re giving you their email address it means they could potentially be a buyer like they’re qualified.” So, the book funnel itself is the eBook offer and at the top it says, download your easy start guide. You can get it right there and then step two is this is the answer for everything that you’re looking for. And then I go through all the different pieces that come together and make the value big because it is, and then offer the eBook. So, on the eBook checkout form, there’s a bump, the little check mark, $10 more, you get the paper back. I didn’t even have a paper back for five years when I started.
Rob Kosberg:
People want the paperback, right? I mean, what’s the percentage of people that take the $10 paperback?
Andrea Olson:
I don’t think it’s the majority. I think it’s about 40%. So we’ve got moms here. We want instant gratification, instant download and honestly most of them want-
Rob Kosberg:
But you give them both, right? You give them if they-
Andrea Olson:
I give them both. Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. But for an extra 10 bucks you got 40%-
Andrea Olson:
Can you hold a book though, while you’re breastfeeding?
Rob Kosberg:
Probably not.
Andrea Olson:
That’s the question. You can’t. You really can’t, you can much more easily hold your phone or a tablet and then you can easily search for what you need. So I really resisted having a paperback for a long time, but it has increased sales a lot. And I could check for the exact number on what percent get the bump. But the cool thing is that after they buy the book digital or paperback, they’re going to be offered the gear bundle.
Rob Kosberg:
Let me mention one thing about the bump because you said something interesting just now you said you for a long time resisted even offering, even having a paperback. And yet some large percentage, 40% is not the majority, but 40% of thousands of people giving an extra $10 is no small amount of money. And I guess the lesson more than anything is we need to give people the modality that they want. Whether that’s digital, soft cover, even hard cover and of course, audio book, et cetera. So we may resist it, but give people the option to get what they want. And sales will increase, profit will increase et cetera.
Andrea Olson:
And they’ll collect them. Oh, it’s fine. They’ll collect them too. They’ll want every single format, they’ll want the course that is kind of like what’s in your book already because they want to immerse. And I have some people who have bought literally everything I’ve ever put out because they just want more of me and more of all the formats. So like I will buy the Kindle and the paperback and the audio book of the same book because I’m a busy mom and I’m like, okay, I might be able to listen to it this day and then pick it up at bedtime this day. So yeah, I recently got on a ACX on audible because my old audio book, wasn’t up to par I guess for their sound requirements. And that has gotten me a lot of exposure. You don’t make a lot off of audio books. I think it’s like a dollar or something terrible per sale, but then you get so many more customers and I get a lot of people into my funnels, through what I say in the audio book and the PDF that’s included. So that’s another topic, but I try to make sure that all my formats lead to other things.
Rob Kosberg:
Yes. To your next steps, to your funnel.
Andrea Olson:
Yeah. And it’s not contrived or marketing like gross salesy stuff. It’s actually like the legit next step. So after we buy the book, we’re going to want to get the gear that we need. So there are newborn potties that are very specialty, very short mini potties. I have all of these wonderful products that literally came organically from the needs of my customers over the last 11 years. We can’t find small underwear like this six month underwear. It’s so tiny. This is at tinyundies.com, my other business is just all the supplemental tools for what you learn in the book. So on the first one time offer the first upsell after you get the book is the gear bundle and it’s like 40% off for just the essentials. You need a pack of underwear, a potty, a wet dry pad, all these things that only I know that you need.
And I do know that you need it. Like you literally need this. Yeah. So you can’t just instantly have all these products if you’re just starting out. But again, I asked my customers what they wanted and I built with just the undies first and then I added training pants. Then I added potties and over the last five years, tinyundies has done eight times as much as Go Diaper Free.
Rob Kosberg:
Unbelievable.
Andrea Olson:
So, this combination of that and my podcast and my YouTube and like getting everybody into the book, then that leads to so much more. And then they’re in it till five T they’ve got five year olds in my underwear and that’s a good long term relationship. And then they have more babies so I’m just trying to cover all the bases. And it has literally it’s taken 11 years, but the first five years was only the eBook, and it was a simpler business to run as well. And I made good money, so that’s bump offer. Yeah.
Rob Kosberg:
What is the price point of your bump offer?
Andrea Olson:
It’s $50.
Rob Kosberg:
Okay. That’s pretty valuable.
Andrea Olson:
So, I wanted to make it… For me that’s screaming deal. It’s really valuable because it should be $80. Like if you go to tinyundies you’re going to have to spend $80. So that’s really, and I have two options, so there’s zero to six months and seven to 18 months. And I really made it simple and I have a video that says, this is what you need and why you need it. Because I’m definitely that sort of straightforward. That’s how I talk to people. I’m a leader and I’m just like, trust me I’m the expert and you do this. So that’s OTO one. So 50 bucks, we have-
Rob Kosberg:
Do you have any idea on the take rate?
Andrea Olson:
I think it’s 40 something percent. I can get you my updated numbers, but it’s high. It’s great.
Rob Kosberg:
I’m going to get your numbers and I’m going to post them. They’ll, of course be a part of the book and all of that. But thank you.
Andrea Olson:
Yeah, definitely.
Rob Kosberg:
I mean that is incredibly high, 40% on a $50 one-time offer is very, very high, but we’ll get the exact numbers also. Thank you.
Andrea Olson:
You’re welcome. And I want to pull those out the OTOs out and make them a separate offer. I haven’t even done that yet and they’ll be slightly high, but inside the book funnel they’re… I mean, it’s such an uncomfortable price for me that that was where I had to go. But I’m still making a small profit and they’re getting exposed to my products where they can be in those products for five years.
So, it’s very valuable. And then the next OTO, I don’t have any down sell from that. The next, well actually I do, if you do or don’t accept it, you go to the one-time offer number two. And this is the final offer. I just keep the funnel really simple and it’s a course bundle. So it’s the ultimate course bundle and I believe right now it’s $2.97. Of course I have a smaller percentage that takes it. I’ll get you the numbers, but it’s a one digit percent. Which is to be expected with a very high bump.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah. And it’s all digit, right? So there’s no cost of fulfilling it.
Andrea Olson:
There’s no cost of fulfilling it. I do have some coaches that I pay think 10 hours a week to run the forums and support in the courses. But yeah, they’re kind of a set it and forget it kind of thing. So you get all of my courses that you’ll need for the whole lifespan of your baby with all of this. And it is unique from the book I made it on purpose like it kind of is similar, but I didn’t just read the book. I wanted to make sure this was unique and seven of the courses are deep dives into problems that I surveyed my audience. Know that they have problems with this, this, this, and this like nighttime and this. And so they’re going to be able to use that as needed. It’s like a collection and with that one, I’ll get you the numbers on that.
But then that’s the end and then we go to the thank you page and I’m about to offer a continuity program. We’re just finalizing the sales page. So for, I think it’s going to be $37 a month, they get me in a private Zoom group or private, it’s a small Zoom group once a month, which you can’t get me anymore. I’m not on the forums. I’m not available. I can’t do consults anymore. I just don’t want to or have the time. But they’ll also get three other coaches. So once a week they’re going to have a virtual meeting where they get to come in and ask questions. And then we’re going to give them some other stuff, like a swag box and yeah it’s the potty tribe. We’re going to have like a really cool thing for that. So, that’s going to appear on my thank you page.
And then you go into the members area, and you instantly get all the things you just bought, your underwear and potties are delivered. You’ve got, I want to equip everybody but at the same time like this funnel is so powerful and we’re just starting to run ads to it too. So I feel like I’m a little behind versus other people in our group but at the same time, I’m so thrilled because this is the way to scale. I’ve built it this far and then this is the key to scaling based all on the book.
Rob Kosberg:
Well, you shared, you didn’t say it on the podcast, but you told me beforehand, how many hours a day are you focusing on your business and have grown it to seven figures and multiple seven figures? Shock everybody with that.
Andrea Olson:
You won’t believe me when I tell you. Okay. Back when I only had an eBook, I worked three hours a week. I would do one blog post a week. And then, so it was like the four hour work week. That was my goal and I had one child.
Rob Kosberg:
Well, you didn’t like the work that much.
Andrea Olson:
I didn’t even work four hours a week and I had one child so in the last 11 years, I’ve birthed five more baby or four more babies, so I have five and I worked three hours a day at the most. And that is five days a week so 15 hours a week now I’m working 20 hours a week but you know, really like-
Rob Kosberg:
You’re really going crazy now, Andrea, you need to settle down.
Andrea Olson:
I know I’m so overloaded, but I also, I homeschool too. So two days a week I homeschool and I found them a school so I’m able to work a little bit more because of this hybrid school I found. But I really want to be involved with my kids’ lives. It goes back to the very first, when I wrote my eBook like I don’t want to be away from my baby. I feel like as the mom, I should be in their lives and really involved from the very beginning and that shouldn’t change like send them off to school. So I’m able to stick with my values for my family. I’m also recently divorced. Last year I hardly worked at all because it was my divorce year. And I was still able to grow my business. Because of the way I set it up and because of the way these funnels… I mean, I’ve always had funnels but never to this level.
So, this is something that for anybody who’s busy in life, but also like just as a mom to be able to do all of this and be with my kids and not burn out on all the things like working half time being with my kids the rest of the time, that’s my dream life. And then I also get to travel. I get to do whatever I want. I can take off a month. We met in the airport. Yes, yes. And it’s not like I traveled a lot without my kids until last year. But last year, you know, I got a little more serious about scaling my business and I’m starting to be able to go to these things. Because as a mom, you can’t really go to a lot of things, but I’m starting to branch out and take that next step. And for me too, it’s like I’m building generational wealth for my children and that’s my next goal. So, all based on one book and one eBook no less so and we’re also, I’m getting it translated into all these other languages.
Rob Kosberg:
Heck yeah. Oh, my God.
Andrea Olson:
Oh, it’s so fun. We’ve got French and German and Spanish done.
Rob Kosberg:
Yeah, don’t forget Spanish.
Andrea Olson:
Spanish is huge. Yeah. And then, by giving all my support items along with that has been a little complicated. But I’ve got my coach team. So I’ve also got my army of people spreading the word about this. So I feel like we’re going to dominate the world soon and get the potty training age down and have some fun doing it.
Rob Kosberg:
Obviously, Andrea and I are in Inner Circle together Russell’s group. And so it’s really, really cool to see you integrating the funnel stuff with the book and what it’s meant. And obviously working 20 hours a week, which allows you to dedicate your time to your children, which they need it. These are the formative years and I have older and I can tell you know, once they hit about 18, I got three boys, your time with them will greatly diminish. So I congratulate you, you’re doing the right thing and building a multi-seven figure business doing it. So super, super congrats on it.
Andrea Olson:
Thank you so much.
Rob Kosberg:
Any, how about we give like where people can kind of take next steps, learn a little bit about you, maybe go to the funnel, let’s give a couple of links for that. And then of course we’re going to share this and get the word out for both Go Diaper Free and for anyone that wants to learn about the funnel stuff.
Andrea Olson:
Yeah. Wonderful. So godiaperfree.com and tinyundies.com. Those are the main websites you can kind of see how everything’s structured. The beginning of the funnel, which would be godiaperfree.com/start. So that’s where you’ll see the easy start guide and you can do that and you can kind of check out my funnel. I am actually going to start teaching. I tried this three years ago and I was like, it was a beta test, and it did well, but like teaching moms how to set up a business like mine at mamaworx.com. So that is going to relaunch this year in 2022 and it is going to be a way bigger, more intensive program where you get coaching from me. How to start a passive business and home make and raise your babies while doing all the things. Because I am literally doing all the things myself. There’s a way to do it and to build a business like mine so you can stay with your kids.
Rob Kosberg:
You did it.
Andrea Olson:
MamaWorx. I did it. And now I’m teaching it. I started teaching it three years ago and it’s been really fun, but I’m like, okay, this year is the new program year. It’s really time to step into being that mentor for other moms. Because I’m living the dream life and I want that for everybody else who wants it. So, that’s MamaWorx, mamaworx.com for that one. But yeah, so you can see the funnels there at tinyundies.com doesn’t even really have much of funnels yet. But my book funnels are literally the bread and butter. That’s where everybody gets started with my products. I’m so glad to be here sharing about that and then there’s just like endless opportunity for other products you add after your book, if you choose to do that yeah. That you can also integrate funnels into that and that’s what I’m working with my team on right now.
Rob Kosberg:
Thanks for sharing all this stuff on the podcast and on video. And I know I’m going to get funnel links and data and thank you for just your generosity in sharing this stuff with people. So can’t wait to hear more about MamaWorx when it launches. I know I’ll hear all about it. So thank you again.
