Creator Stories:
Online Business Coaching and Storytelling: How Pam Obasa Built Her 6-Figure Business
Pam Obasa, also known as "Story-Telling Queen" is a mom of two, business coach, and founder of a 6-figure online business.
She uses Heights Platform to host the Lucrative Lady Academy, a collection of online courses, coaching programs and memberships where she coaches women to kickstart their businesses with storytelling and sales.
From Drama Actress to 6-Figure Business Coach
Pam started her career as a trained actress after attending drama school. Acting on a stage taught Pam the art of storytelling and helped her become confident in public speaking and talking to a camera.
When Pam was fresh out of drama school and looking for an acting job, little did she know that in a few years down the line she would become a successful business owner of a 6-figure online coaching business.
So how did a drama actress transition to online coaching?
The idea came to Pam after noticing a webinar online. At the moment, she was going through a tough time in her life and had just experienced a stillbirth.
That is when she joined an online webinar, back when nobody knew about online events yet and the online business scene was not as popular as today. Attending the webinar was an eye-opening moment for Pam. She started to understand the power of online businesses and the potential of reaching an international audience.
"I saw something online called a webinar. I didn't know what it was. I signed up and I thought - What is this webinar? - This was years ago, obviously. And I was just amazed because I bought the product. I instantly realized that the person who ran the webinar was in the United States. I was in London, and I bought something from her. Is this something that I could possibly do as well?"
Purchasing and attending the webinar made Pam realize that there was a huge potential for information shared online. She began to wonder if starting an online business was a good choice for her.
Could skills that she learned in drama school be transferred to an online business?
Being a trained actress, Pam had a gift for storytelling and speaking confidently to a camera. Skills that are extremely useful in any business, especially online coaching.
"I'm a trained actress, I came out of drama school, I'm good at presentation, I'm good in front of the camera, could I possibly create something? How do I transfer the skills that I developed on stage? And so that's how my business started, essentially. And I started by teaching people how to use storytelling to sell online."
In an online environment, there was a demand for her skills of storytelling. While it was harder to find people interested in learning storytelling in her local area, Pam could reach thousands of customers online.
That's when she decided to create an online course and started to run live webinars.
"So I started by live-streaming back when the Facebook algorithm was really favorable. I would have hundreds of people turn up from all over the world."
When Pam started working online, she had one goal in mind: help other business owners convert better with the use of storytelling. She had great storytelling skills, but poor technical knowledge. And as many course creators out there, initially she experienced self-doubt.
"I'm thinking, what do they want from me? What am I saying? I have no idea what I had. And from there, people started to reach out to me and ask me, can you teach me how to tell stories? Can you teach me how to convert on my webinar? And I was like, I just found out what a webinar is! And people just kept asking."
Receiving validation from people online made Pam understand that there was a huge demand for her knowledge, that she could actually start a profitable business teaching people how to maximize sales through storytelling.
From that point onwards, she started coaching people online by organizing one-on-one calls with them. And soon after that, she got her first client: an entrepreneur who was running webinars to promote his business but needed help with his conversions.
“The very first person I worked with was running webinars, and he didn't convert at all. So the first thing I did was throw the webinar out. And I just said, we're just going to tell stories. That's all we're going to do. His very first webinar after that had a 3% conversion rate, which is pretty good for a cold audience.”
The success of her first coaching client was what gave Pam confidence to really pursue this business. After this milestone, she kept coaching more and more clients and helping them increase their conversion rates with the power of storytelling.
"And it just kept working. And I just kept doing it."
From this, Pam's business evolved to the 6-figure online coaching business of today, the Lucrative Lady. Today she has almost 3000 students enrolled in her program, more than 100 courses including a membership site, bundles and digital products.
Tech and Tools May Break My Bones
Pam's success of today did not come easy. As with any other business, you are likely to encounter a few challenges down the road. In Pam's case, it was mastering technology and online sales.
"Tech was a massive challenge for me. I'm the woman who would call my husband and go - can you please turn on the TV for me? With tech, it was just like speaking a whole different language."
Running an online business means using and mastering a whole variety of different software and tools on a daily basis. The best way to learn? Trial and error.
Pam not only created an extremely successful business from scratch, but she also managed to master technology and get over her fears.
Technology is a huge part of her business: Pam has to look for the best software for her personal use and teach them to her coaching clients as well. This is why today she is always on the lookout for the best and simplest tech tools out there, that can help other women achieve success with a quick learning curve.
The need of finding the best and easiest tool to use was one of the reasons why Pam decided to adopt Heights Platform for her business.
"When I'm looking at what tools to use, or what tech to use, I'm always looking at how simple it is. How easy is it to use? How easy is it for the woman in her 40s, or the woman who has children running around her and she doesn't have hours and hours to grasp this tool? And how can I help them in that journey? So that was one of my biggest challenges and something that I'm really proud of that I'm able to successfully teach others."
A Closer Look into Pam's Courses
Today the Lucrative Lady counts almost 3000 students enrolled in the program, more than 100 courses in total divided into bundles, a membership site and digital products. Pam also offers individual coaching sessions and a mastermind.
Those are really high numbers, so how does Pam organize her content?
The courses inside the Lucrative Lady are structured in 7 different product offerings. These product offerings are organized according to her value ladder and can be accessed through a series of sales funnel pages that drive new customers to a specific product offering, tailored to the customers' needs.
If you are not familiar with what a value ladder is, imagine a collection of products you are selling. The value ladder is a way to organize the products from most accessible and least valuable, to most expensive and most valuable.
Depending which the stage of the buyer journey they are in, potential customers will be guided towards a different product offering that fits their expectations, purchasing power and goals.
To learn all about how value ladders work and how to create your own, check out this article from our blog: The Value Ladder - How to Improve Online Course Sales by Segmenting Your Audience and Product Offering
How the Lucrative Lady Attracts Clients
3000 is a lot of students. So how did "Storytelling Queen" Pam manage to attract so many clients to her business?
The answer is not a simple one. Pam uses a variety of tools and mediums to attract her clients.
She is very active on YouTube and other social media and runs Facebook ads to initially attract new clients. Once a potential customer enters her value ladder, they are moved through a series of funnels and landing pages that direct them to the offer that is right for them.
Her main target market is women who are looking to start their own online business or need help with conversions and want to improve their sales with storytelling techniques.
"I tend not to lead people to a website, I lead them to a specific place or to a specific landing page. And then, of course, there are massive funnels behind that. And they just go through that journey. And they move from step to step."
Regarding her marketing strategy, Pam prefers to communicate to her audience using videos and storytelling. In her copy, videos, social media ads, marketing emails etc... she always uses an honest voice, a voice that comes from the heart. Over the years and through trial and error, Pam learned how to communicate to her audience effectively, in a direct way that resonates with them and encourages them to respond.
"My marketing is very close to the heart. If you read my emails, it's so honest. I don't write like a typical marketer, I write from a very, very honest place. I'm not just spouting data, or facts or things that I've read. So when it comes to marketing, I use a lot of videos, I use a lot of storytelling, I use a lot of anecdotes, to really make sure that my teaching style is unique."
Another strategy that Pam likes to use is pre-selling her online courses. Pre-selling means putting an online course up for sale before it is even finished. In other words, you are creating a landing page for the future course, promoting it and potentially offering a discounted early-bird rate, with the goal of validating your idea and making sure that there is a demand.
If you want to learn more about pre-selling online courses, check out this article from our blog: How to Pre-Sell Your Online Course and Profit Before the Launch
