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Learn How This Intern Banks $165K/Month Selling Canva Templates to Realtors! - A Detailed Case Study
Introduction
Meet Haley Ingram, the mastermind behind Coffee and Contracts, the go-to marketing toolkit designed specifically for real estate professionals.
Coffee and Contracts is a subscription-based platform that offers real estate professionals a wealth of social media marketing tools, including Instagram content calendars, story templates, captions, blog posts, video scripts, reel templates, and so much more. To ensure that members reap maximum benefits, the platform also provides comprehensive training and support to help them effectively utilize the tools and boost their social media presence.
Within a short span of two years, Coffee and Contracts has aided more than 7,000 real estate professionals in crushing it with their Instagram marketing.
The Back Story
Back in 2017, when Haley was still a college student, she kicked off her career as an intern at a real estate company. She got a glimpse of how these real estate pros built their businesses, and dude, she wanted a piece of that. So, she hustled to earn her real estate license while still in college, and when graduation day came, she was all set to dive headfirst into the real estate scene.
But let’s be real, starting a business is no joke.
Things were a bit tough at the beginning. Her business was growing, but not as fast as she’d hoped. To make ends meet, she was pulling double duty, working as a bartender. In any spare time she had, she was busy making cool marketing stuff on Canva. This sparked some bright ideas for promoting her business on social media.
Week after week, she was posting about Tampa Bay’s real estate scene on her Instagram account. Two months in, the leads began to show up.
Soon, other agents in her area saw her Instagram and started asking her for help. So, she began managing their social media, earning a bit more cash on the side.
But juggling bartending and managing multiple Instagram accounts was taking its toll on Haley. She knew she needed a change, so she left the bartending gig and scored a regular day job doing marketing for a medical clinic. Even with her new job, she kept helping other agents with their social media and started an Etsy shop to sell Canva templates.
That’s when she met a personal trainer who had switched from one-on-one training to a subscription service. The trainer was offering a weekly workout plan for a lower price and was using a Facebook group to build a community among her clients. And just like that, Haley had her Eureka moment – she could do the exact same thing with her clients!
So, she started building Coffee and Contracts, squeezing in the work between her clinic job and in her free time. She didn’t really know how to start a membership-based business, but she was ready to learn. After about three months of planning and working hard, Coffee and Contracts was up and ready!
The Business Launch
When Haley launched Coffee & Contracts, she wasn’t sure if people would be interested in it. She started by creating an Instagram to promote her Etsy products and was pleasantly surprised when the page started to grow naturally and people started engaging with it. This encouraged her to keep pursuing this path.
Initially, she set up three membership levels: $9/month, $14/month, and $19/month. But the first few people who signed up all went for the $19/month option. Seeing this, she quickly adjusted and made the entire membership one level at $19/month for all the perks. As the membership began to grow, she started receiving feedback from members, which helped shape the monthly offerings.
Within just two weeks, Coffee and Contracts went from zero to 14 paying members.
In the following 30 days, that number jumped to 92.
By the 70th day, word of mouth had spread among real estate agents, and Haley found herself with a whopping 170 new members in her paid community.
At first, she was providing different templates and marketing materials each month, but she soon noticed that members were particularly fond of content calendars with captions. So, she decided to make this her main monthly offering.
As the content included in the membership kept growing, and its value increased, she decided to raise the price to $34/month in February of 2020. Then, she increased the prices again in January 2021 to $54/month.
The Growth Formula
Since Haley launched her business, she’s been able to keep it growing about 5% each month. Most of the people finding out about her stuff are hearing about it from Instagram and word-of-mouth, or from affiliates.
Right from the get-go, Haley was all about Instagram. Since she’s selling templates for agents to use on Instagram, it made sense. One big reason she started Coffee & Contracts was because she saw how simple it was to get noticed by potential real estate clients on Instagram. Unlike paid ads, you don’t have to go head-to-head with big companies on Instagram. Plus, it’s a great way to show off what you’re about and connect with people. That builds trust way faster than just using paid ads.
Sure, she’s run paid ads here and there, but she digs the results from organic reach more. When people learn about her and her service by following on Instagram, they tend to stick around longer than folks who find her through ads. The reason for her Instagram growth? Using the right hashtags, chatting with potential customers, and sharing valuable content.
- Affiliates
Here’s the cool thing about the real estate biz: agents love to lend each other a hand. They’re all about networking and sharing what’s worked for them. They’ve got teams they want solid agents to join, and they can send each other referrals, so networking and building relationships is a big deal. Because of that, word-of-mouth has been a mega source of business for Coffee & Contracts.
When she was just getting started, Haley reached out to several real estate agents who were killing it on Instagram. She hooked them up with free accounts and gave them coupon codes so they’d get a cut when they promoted Coffee & Contracts. Not only did this bring a lot more people her way, but it also helped to spread the word about her business in the early days.
The Current Affairs of the Business
According to Haley, currently, Coffee & Contracts is earning an impressive $165,000 each month with an extremely high-profit margin of 95%.
With her business being primarily digital, Haley keeps operations streamlined and cost-effective. She maintains minimal overhead costs and her team is mostly made up of contractors.
At present, Coffee & Contracts are focusing on enhancing their members’ experience and brainstorming new product ideas. They also dedicate a lot of time to generating content for their Instagram.
Their primary goal is to be the first name that pops into people’s minds when they think of real estate marketing ideas, tools, and templates. If you glance at their Instagram, you’ll see they’re continually sharing content that their audience finds very useful. They offer new marketing ideas every week. Their Instagram following has grown by 17.4% in the past 90 days. The key to their success on Instagram is that they rarely, if ever, promote their product directly. Instead, they provide useful content. This encourages people to stick around and hit the follow button. Eventually, they sign up because they think, “If they’re giving all of this away for free, there must be even better content in the membership!
A Step by Step Process to Replicate The Sma Business
Remember this phrase like the back of your hand: ‘Riches are in the niches.’ I can’t stress this enough; having a laser-focused niche can be your golden ticket to success in business.
Why?
Because the more specific your target, the more your marketing will resonate, and the more money you’ll pull in.
Haley chose to offer Canva templates to real estate agents. You could provide similar templates to fitness influencers, chiropractors, or roofers. you can ofer short video editing services to dentists. The key is specificity.
Remember, the more specific you are, the better. You can even zero in on your niche by offering your products and services to people only in your local area, like offering social media management to real estate agents in your local area.
You get the idea; choose your niche, be specific, brainstorm, do your research. and you’re ready for the next step
Before selling any service, test it on yourself first. If you’re planning to offer Canva templates for chiropractors, then build an Instagram fan page where you share chiropractic advice using your templates. This serves as proof that your stuff works.
in our MOTCR system course, we talk about proof, and here’s what you need to understand.
A marketing message without PROOF is nothing more than a string of claims. Proof is what transforms typical claims into believable facts.
Having proof in your marketing isn’t just crucial… it’s critical.
Why?
Because people don’t trust you. They don’t trust marketing.
But here’s the thing: They desperately want to believe the promises you’re making.
Why?
Because they desperately want to solve the problem they are facing. So it’s your job to convince them.
How?
wit proof lots of it.
So Building a fan page or personal brand using your product serves as the best type of proof. In Haley’s case, she grew her own real estate Instagram account using her Canva templates. Seeing her success, people wanted a piece of it.
Now you’ve defined your target audience, crafted your offer, and have your demonstration ready. It’s time to start connecting with potential clients. If you’ve developed a solid fan page or personal brand, start by sharing your offer with your followers. You can cold DM potential clients or even use ads. If you follow the strategy outlined here, you should have a robust page with a following, so organic reach should be enough to hook those first few clients.
Once you secure those initial clients, collaborate with them to provide the best product/service you can. Seek their input for improvements.
Provide affiliate deals to your current clients and keep growing your demonstration page. Rinse and repeat.
I know that this sounds a bit overly simplistic, but believe me. With hard work, persistence, and consistency, I guarantee you, success will have no other option but to submit to your determination.