How I Made $12,252 Selling Google Sheets With A Friend 🚀
In the image above, you’ll see me in the middle coordinating a meetup for Course Creators at Social Media Marketing World Conference located in San Diego. This conference has by far been one of my favorites for make online friends and meet new business owners.
Three years ago, I was neck-deep in adoption paperwork, balancing growing my business with The Course Consultant, and making new friends.
Networking without the pantyhose, perfect slicked bun, and good food? Count me in! To this day, I still have friends that I have connected with from these conferences.
As a self-proclaimed “extroverted - introvert”, I knew that in order to make this business work - I needed to talk to more people. So talk - I did.
Over several days of networking, my voice was hoarse, my feet oh so sweaty, and my eyeliner runny. I may or may not have collapsed in my hotel room each night, hid underneath the covers, and tried to ground myself just to keep up with all those extroverties!
The hustle was real. But I knew in order to make this work I’d have to speak to people about who I was, what I did, and how I could help them or someone they knew.
My point?
More conversations = more money!
Here’s what that journey taught me, and what I wish I could go back and tell myself (and maybe you, too):
In today’s age, content is your resume
What resume’s lack in innovation, content makes up for in personality and heart. I found it easier to convert prospective buyers into clients when I paired it with high-converting content. So, every time I pitched a client - every question they asked, every problem I encountered, I made a YouTube video - blog post, or even a checklist.
As I continued to help course creators, I saw a big problem.
YOU need more eyes on your content.
More video views for your YouTube channel, more peeps grabbing your freebies, more cool folks joining your challenges, listening to your podcasts, trying out your memberships, or group programs…
So I made every effort to create content that set me apart and do the selling for me.
My first podcast episode - my audio was a TRAIN wreck.
My first livestream video, my background lighting was so so bad!
My first blog post wasn’t even optimized for SEO!
1. Collaboration beats competition every time
So I kept on sucking - and every post - sucked less. And now it’s less cringe-worthy. More - “It’s giving me money vibes.”
I started to realize other people I was connected with online were also selling courses. In fact, Jono from the Course Creator Community Podcast reached out to me - I thought he was pitching me - be on his show. Turns out he is a really cool dude who’s got a million dollar course - and has an awesome accent. ♥️ I was on his podcast and realized that this wasn’t a competition. This was an awesome OPPORTUNITY to mutually grow our audiences. We met in person and he treated me and one other person out for lunch. It was a really good meal by the way.
So - I thought I’d take this collaboration idea and run with it.
If I could create something meaningful for other people’s podcasts - wouldn’t it be cool to collaborate with another business owner and create a digital product?
Enter my friend Danielle!
Danielle from The Thought Card and I met while swapping on each other’s podcast. I’ve had several podcasts over the years including The Course Consultant Show. We decided to stay in touch and for whatever reason - we just seemed to click.
You ever meet that person and for some unexplicable reason, you feel at home with them?
That was Danielle for me - and ever since our first meetup at FinCon, we’ve stayed connected occasionally chatting over DM’s while we built up our audiences and personal brands.
One year, I wanted to start making more digital products - and I decided on a whim to talk to Danielle about jointly creating something for our mutual audiences helping people create and plan out their podcast episodes.
I told Danielle, “I have something perfect for your audience! It’s basically the same thing I use to plan my podcasts and I’ve used it for my business and how I help delegate to my Virtual Assistant. I think people will really find it useful and simple to use.”
I had spent A CRAP ton of time teaching myself how to publish a podcast episode and optimize it for our social media and my website. She’d spent years researching the best way to optimize podcasts, promote them, and grow an engaged and loyal audience of podcasters.
So we teamed up - and Your Podcast Planners was born!
At first, we thought we’d make only a few hundred dollars from promoting our digital product - which at the time was a simple Google Sheet.
Our first year, we made nearly $4k jointly promoting a $17 digital product
One idea, one collaboration, and one messy launch later, we’d earned $4k selling a simple tool—which we sold just once that year. No fancy software. No big ad budget. Just us, an idea, and a shared vision.
We planned our promotion in advance - Sharing google doc email swipe files, canva graphics, and reel videos - we mapped out a quick launch timeline just in time for the holidays.
We split our promotional efforts - Me with my speciality in tech setup, promotion graphic design, and copywriting. Her with marketing to her email list, recording livestreams, and recording short form videos.
Each year, we analyzed our results - and co-created a new Podcast Planner for the following year.
With our joint efforts, our small digital product was outgrowing our personal brands. And we knew we needed to create something just for folks that we starting podcasts and wanting to grow them THE right way. With the tools, systems, and checklists to get in front of more audience members. So, we launched an entire shop!
Here’s what I learned (and what I wish I’d known sooner):
Teaming up with someone who shared my values and audience gave us twice the ideas and momentum. Alone, we might’ve talked ourselves out of launching.
Together, we pushed forward.
2. Simple Solutions Sell
People don’t want complexity—they want clarity. That’s why our humble Google Sheet worked: it solved a specific problem. Don’t overthink it; start with something simple that genuinely helps.
There were people intrigued about our products and we filled a valuable hole in the market! Sometimes the best solutions aren’t flashy - they’re just really simple and easy to use.
3. Get Messy! Done is Better than Perfect
Our first launch wasn’t perfect. It wasn’t even pretty. But it worked because we showed up and shipped it. You don’t need flawless—you need finished.
We used Thrivecart to build out our first product - in fact, I don’t even think we had a salespage! Eventually we created a full product suite on a separate domain, but first it started as a simple landing page on my website. The best resources were templates created from content I already had.
4. Build Community
Revenue flows from relationships. We leaned into conversations, listened to our audience, and created something they felt connected to.
This isn’t just about money. For me, it’s a mission: helping others build freedom, balance, and financial independence through digital products. If I can do it, so can you.
Ready to take your first step? I’m excited to introduce The Monetized Creator, a paid newsletter where I’ll share actionable strategies to help you grow your audience and revenue—whether you’re launching your first product or booking virtual speaking opportunities to help you get seen, get heard, and get paid doing what you love.
These include opportunities perfect for online business owners like service providers, coaches, consultants, and course creators wanting to get in front of new audiences without google searching, Facebook group scrolling, or spending weeks hearing crickets from email pitches that never get read. Grow your audience to build your business - all powered by collaboration.
.