I’m finding more and more clients open to starting their online business offline. Yes, the freedom that comes with building an online business is second-to-none, but often, it’s easier to gain traction right in your home town (really!).

Betsy Ogden, who already had a thriving business call Upper Valley Pilates, came to me wanting to build out her online brand, The Art of Going Gray. I immediately saw the potential for this to be a lucrative, freedom-driven brand, as well as for Betsy to be a media darling.

But without hustling her way from sale to sale, how could she launch an online offering? Well, the key was starting offline. Read her story below.

The Art of Going Gray Case Study

Betsy Ogden, Pilates Gone GrayI had been reading Tara’s work for a while and liked her no-nonsense, outside the box approach to building businesses. I had been encouraged by another coach to offer 1:1 Pilates training to women over 50 via Skype. In my heart I knew it was not what I wanted to do but more importantly, it didn’t seem to ring a bell for my potential clients. And when I launched the program it landed with a thud.

For the life of me I couldn’t see my way to another option.

Enter Tara and 10ThousandFeet. By moving step by step through the Customer Perspective Process and Business Model Review, I was able to see that my business model as it stood, offered no option for growth. The turning point for me was to finally declare the one thing I wanted to work on for 2014, my Chief Initiative. It rolled out of me easily because of the work I did in 10ThousandFeet. Finally, I was able to envision a business model that would leverage and layer my business offerings in a way that served my Chief Initiative and felt right for me.

It had never occurred to me to use my strong bricks and mortar presence in my community to test a potential online offering. But with Tara’s help I stepped outside of the proverbial box and created The Pilates Gone Gray 6-Week Fitness Challenge. The response was amazing!

I sold out with a solid sales page (Tara helped create) and a very bare bones launch. The attendees were spot on my ideal clients. The success of this workshop has given me confidence that I am on the right track and can move forward and create a successful online offering.

My next step is to create an offering that logically brings my clients into the workshop and then another offering that will allow them to continue beyond the workshop on their own. It was a stroke of ‘Tara genius’ that allowed me to see the potential that lay right in front of me in my bricks and mortar business, and to realize how extremely lucky I have been to have the option to beta test my ideas before putting them online.

Betsy went from idea to sold-out in less than 45 days, all by leveraging what was already in front of her. I can’t wait to see the program evolve into a signature online brand. Find Betsy and The Art of Going Gray right here.

And if you’re ready for similar support in taking your idea to “sold out,” click here to learn more about 10ThousandFeet.