*Note: This article was originally published on Medium for CourseCraft – 7/28/2020
As part of our series highlighting successful, inspirational, and just downright awesome CourseCraft creators, we virtually sat down with Wendy Porter, a Business Coach and Social Media expert with 15 years of experience in her field creating, running, and operating multi-million dollar businesses. In addition to being a top creator here on CourseCraft, Wendy also runs Crowned For Success, and is a contributing writer for Huffington Post, Thrive Global, Bossbabe, and serves on the Forbes Coaches Council.
Join us as we learn what makes Wendy tick, what drives her professionally, and why she utilizes CourseCraft to bring her heart-centered business online.
Wendy Porter has been a business-minded leader from a very young age, and like many ambitious women, she was often unfairly labeled as “bossy”, where men are more commonly afforded the words “entrepreneurial” or “self-assured” to describe their go-getter attitudes. Forming a dance crew at 10-years-old and charging neighborhood kids for her shows was nothing short of entrepreneurial in our opinion.
It’s no surprise then, that her number one inspiration for how to run her business and achieve her goals has always been Oprah Winfrey. Wendy explains exactly what it is about Oprah that inspires her in her own life:
She’s just an incredible human being that has such a big heart and a great soul. She has accomplished so much in her life and has overcome so much hardship. She works at being the best version of herself every single day. Where most people get comfortable with the status quo.
Just as her idol Oprah is known as a philanthropic force worldwide, Wendy also places an emphasis on making sure her business consistently practices giving back to the community.
Wendy makes a point that her business is a heart-centered one. What does that mean exactly? She explains that to her, “it means giving back and paying it forward”.
We give 10% of our proceeds to non-profits that specialize in equality, women’s and girls' education, and domestic violence awareness. We are actually building our own non-profit as we speak. We give scholarships for every single course we have. And we also have a “pay it forward fund” where we give a percentage of all of the sales from our most popular program and let those funds accumulate and then pay them out to our clients who may be in need of them. We’ve given funds to clients who have experienced hardships around the holidays, who have a child and needed help with burial expenses, who lost a spouse and needed help or who’ve lost a job due to COVID and needed some temporary help with rent. Having a heart-centered business means putting people’s hearts first before profits.
You do not need to be ruthless or completely selfish to become successful, and Wendy is an excellent example of that fact. She firmly believes that “Sales doesn’t have to slimy or scary.” Her love of people not only makes her great at what she does, but it encourages her every day to be an ethical businesswoman, that puts those people first.
Wendy’s favorite part of bringing her business online is that she is able to see a direct impact of her teaching on people's lives, through the frequent comments she receives from her students. She shares that “it’s the most rewarding feeling to know that a course that you created can have such a profound impact on someone’s life.”
Making the transition to online courses wasn’t initially all smooth sailing. Wendy describes her self as “very tech-challenged”, and needed to find an easy way to get her content out there. When she finally tried out CourseCraft she was relieved by its simplicity.
While it’s simple, it’s beautiful and professional in appearance. I tried using Kajabi and Teachable and other systems and I was left feeling frustrated and it was just too cumbersome to learn. Which meant it was too time-consuming. Coursecraft is fast and easy to use!
Bringing her business online has dramatically impacted Wendy’s quality of life. Before, she was rarely able to see her three kids and was regularly working 12 hour days. Now, with the freedom to work from anywhere, she has the opportunity to take family beach vacations.
Now that Wendy is a master at online courses and managing her online business, we asked her what her number one piece of advice is for others looking to follow her suit.
Start before you’re ready! We often want to start when we THINK we have everything together but that can quickly turn into excuses to never start at all because we let fear and self-sabotage take over. When you start before you’re ready, you get rid of the excuses. It doesn’t have to be perfect, you just have to start
So what’s next for Wendy Porter? She’s working on her second book, continuing to build her non-profit, and continuing to provide inspiration to women all over the world through her e-courses.
You can check out Wendy’s CourseCraft courses, find her on Instagram, Facebook, and Twitter.
If you’re looking to share tips and chat with fellow online course creators, be sure to join our Creative Online Course Makers Facebook group. You can also follow CourseCraft news and updates on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.