Amy Porterfield has made over $100 million from selling courses online. She has created many courses to teach others how to monetize their skills and expertise. Her Digital Course Academy is a high-ticket coaching program that teaches you how to sell 6-7 figure courses. She has helped over 50,000 students create and sell courses.
Reviews for Amy Porterfield are mixed. Many criticize her for her previous involvement with Tony Robbins and MLM schemes. The student reviews for her courses are mostly positive, with many finding them helpful. Criticism point to the pushy sales tactics and upsells.
In this article you will learn all about Amy and what people say about her. I will also review her Digital Course Academy program and other courses. Lastly, you'll find out if selling an online course is profitable and what other online businesses can you invest in.
Who Is Amy Porterfield?
Amy Porterfield is an online marketing expert and educator who is renowned for her digital marketing courses. She has built a reputation for delivering high-quality, actionable training to thousands of students worldwide. Before establishing her own business, Amy gained valuable experience working in marketing for several corporations. She worked as the marketing coordinator for Harley-Davidson, where she mastered her marketing skills.
Based in Nashville, Tennessee, Amy was originally from Carlsbad, California. She has a degree in communications and marketing from UC Santa Barbara. Amy has a lot of experience working in marketing and sales. She worked as the assistant director of telemarketing for UCSB Development and the distributor relations sales manager for ABC-CLIO. She also worked twice for the Dream Foundation and as the director of content development for Tony Robbins. Amy started creating and selling her courses in 2009.
How Amy Porterfield's "First Ten" Strategy Generated $40,000 Revenue For Her Students
How Amy Achieved $40K Revenue
What is the "First Ten" Strategy?
The "First Ten" strategy is a method designed for entrepreneurs to validate their digital course ideas before fully launching them into new courses. Through this strategy, the course creator engages with a small group of students called the "first ten", by enrolling them at a discounted rate. In return, the course creator learns from the students and improves the course before its full launching.
This approach reduces risk and losses while allowing for course refinement based on the target customers' initial feedback.
What's not mentioned in the video: Launching an online course or a business is not easy. In fact, 18% of businesses fail in their first year and this number goes up to 50% by the fifth year. Although Amy's strategy is a good way to refine and improve courses before fully launching them, there's still no guarantee of profitability.
What Do People Say About Amy Porterfield?
Reviews for Amy Porterfield's programs, especially the Digital Course Academy, are mostly positive. However, reviews of Amy Porterfield overall are mixed. Many point out her history with Tony Robbins and involvement in MLM as a red flag. They also criticize the hard upsells into high-ticket programs. There are several Reddit threads that talk about Amy and her red flags. As these are mostly opinions, take them with a grain of salt.
What to Expect From Digital Course Academy?
In Amy Porterfield's Digital Course Academy, you can expect a comprehensive step-by-step guide to creating, marketing, and launching a successful online course. The course includes the 9-module core training and access to the Facebook group, Tech Library, The Q&A Vault, and other resources. You also get several bonus training modules.
Digital Course Academy Modules
What Are the Digital Course Academy Reviews?
Kathie Owen, a corporate wellness coach, wrote on her blog why she did not recommend Amy Porterfield’s Digital Course Academy. Kathie joined DCA in March 2021, hoping to learn about online course creation. However, her experience turned out to be disappointing, leading her to retract her previous recommendations to friends.
Kathie explains how the course material is outdated. She also expressed her disapproval of the pushy sales tactics used by Amy and her team. The upsells and hidden costs were also a disappointment. While criticizing what she was as an unethical practice, she did have some positive feedback. Kathie praised the accountability pod where members could give and get support.
Rachel Harrison-Sund is a KDP course creator who recommends Amy's Digital Course Academy. She found the course very helpful and praised it for its detail and organization. She also liked the tutorials for all the tech tools needed, which makes things much easier. Rachel also pointed out the benefit of the weekly Q&As, Facebook group, and even a Q&A vault.
What she found challenging was managing the coursework along with personal and business responsibilities. Since the coursework is released weekly, not everyone could keep pace.
Sara Avant Stover is a Certified Internal Family Systems (IFS) Practitioner who took Amy's Digital Course Academy. She found it to be an extremely valuable resource for creating and launching online courses. Sara praised the high-quality content and the supportive community in the Facebook group. She also liked the student-only podcast and extensive tech tutorials. These resources helped her significantly develop her own course and improved her business strategies.
Sara felt that some of Amy Porterfield's sales techniques were too aggressive and didn't align with her more introverted, sensitive personality. She managed this by adapting the strategies to better suit her style and needs.
Is Digital Course Academy Worth It?
Digital Course Academy is worth it if you are a professional with skills that you can monetize. Online education is one of the fastest growing industry estimated to have a market volume of $279.3 billion by 2029. Digital Course Academy gives you what you need to get started with creating and selling your first courses.
What Is Amy Porterfield’s List Builders Society?
Amy Porterfield’s List Builders Society is a 5-week list building course. It teaches you the method that Amy used to grow her email list from 0 to over 400,000. The core training comes in 3 modules. You also get access to monthly Q&A calls for 1 year.
During the duration of the course, you will have access to the tech library, resource library, bonus courses, and more. You will have lifetime access to the 3-module training. Paying in full also gets you the How To Get Started With Paid Ads To Grow Your List course. List Builders Society costs $497 or 3 payments of $179/month. It comes with a 60-day refund policy with conditions.
What Is Amy Porterfield’s Systems That Scale?
Amy Porterfield’s Systems That Scale is a 4-week business systems course. It teaches you how to establish a solid business foundation by streamlining the day-to-day operations. The core training comes in 4 modules.
There are also some bonuses, including the tools you’ll need to hire a team. Systems That Scale costs $297 or 3 payments of $117/month. It comes with a 30-day money-back guarantee.
Is Selling Digital Courses Worth It?
Selling a digital course is worth it to earn extra income out of your expertise. You can sell your course on platforms like Udemy and Teachable for free or for a small subscription fee. However, you will not earn 6-7 figures selling a course this way. Trying to earn 6-7 figures like Amy Porterfield means a lot of marketing.
That said, selling courses for extra income can be worth your time. You only need to create your course and keep it updated. Selling on platforms means that you can still have visibility without doing marketing. As everything is online, you don’t have to worry about fulfillment or any other issues that come with physical products. If you have any expertise, consider creating a course as a side online business.
Why Online Business Is Popular
Online business is popular because of the low startup costs compared to brick and mortar businesses. Selling your products or services online also allows you to reach a wider customer base. The convenience to both the business and customers is clear. Scaling online businesses is also easier and less risky compared to traditional business models. An online business often creates wealth faster in 2024.
My Preferred Online Business Model That Creates Passive Income
Local lead generation is my preferred online business model for creating passive income. As a type of digital real estate business, it has low starting and operating costs. It costs as little as $500 in initial investment to start and $30 a month to maintain. It works by creating a site and ranking it on Google using SEO tactics. You then rent this site out to local businesses for as much as $500 to $3,000 a month. There is no need to spend money on running ads and you keep 100% of the profits. You only need to update your sites if the ranking goes down because of updates or new competition. Other than that, a site can stay ranked for years earning you stable hands-free income.
One of the best advantages of local lead generation over other online businesses is its scalability. You simply need to repeat the process of rank and rent. There is no increase in spending, hence no added risks. There is no limit to how many sites you can rank and rent, leading to a virtually infinite earning potential. These are only a few reasons local lead generation is my number 1 business model for achieving time and financial freedom.
