The Real Deal Digest Issue No. 35

Estimated read time: 3-4 minutes

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When I think about the amount of money I've spent on courses, communities, cohorts, and one-off workshops or challenges, I want to throw up in my mouth a little.

Not because they didn't provide insane value. Most of them ab-so-lutely did.

Because before you (thought you) could go to AI to get all your answers to anything your heart desires...

High-ticket courses were THE thing to grab if you wanted to up your game.

I'm not talking about just the content — I'm talking about the good people you met along the way.

After four years of investments that have hit WELL over 5 figures, I decided to finally sit down and add it all up. So if you're into this kind of thing (you like to see how people spend their money and the resulting ROI)... then let's get to it.

In this week's edition of The Real Deal Digest:

💲 The real numbers behind my high-ticket course investments... and whether or not they paid for themselves

👩‍💻 The cohort that has given me the biggest direct ROI to date (and gave me an edge that most creatives and service providers do NOT have)

👩‍🏫 An opportunity to get

The Copywriter Accelerator — $2,500

I met so many talented copywriters inside this program when I started my business in 2022, many of which have been on my podcast.

This cohort wasn't so much about learning how to write copy. It was more about how to stop calling yourself a freelancer and start calling yourself a business owner.

I learned how to create a proposal that didn't reek of newbie, how to build a signature offer I could point every prospect toward, and how to pick a niche (which, honestly, I haven't been very successful at! 😬).

But the coaching inside is what jump-started my business. There's no way I would have had the courage to charge what I did for a set of two 7-email welcome sequences if one of their coaches hadn't told me that "we're not a Costco, we're talented copywriters who own a freaking business, damnit!" 😛

That one conversation about pricing was worth the price of the program. I invoiced $3,000 I never would have asked for otherwise — and then later, I got to write for The Copywriter Club itself, which led to this:

A couple years later, Kira introduced me to Delia Monk, who I wrote for on and off for a year. That was around $12,450 in work, not to mention a whole lotta validation that I needed at the time (seriously — I was ready to throw in the towel for SO many reasons):

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Copy School + 10x Freelance School — $2,000

I wouldn't expect Joana Wiebe to charge any less than she does for these courses (and I grabbed both of these courses during Black Friday sales for $1,000 each — a TOTAL steal).

While I never had direct access to Joana herself, her years working with brands like Canva, Intuit, and Prezi is nothing to sneeze at. And the information she provides in Copy School has been referred to as the unofficial "ph.D. of copywriting."

The kicker: I can't trace a single client back to these sets of courses. But instead, I got the confidence that I could charge more for voice of customer research, messaging strategy, and genuine conversion copy (not just "words"). I swear I'd still be charging $250 for Facebook ad copy if I had never gone through her courses. 😬

So Copy School is what led me to Justin Blackman, the brand voice guy...

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Brand Voice Academy — $2,500

Justin's "Write More Personality-er" training gave me permission to break writing rules (and taught me ones I didn't know existed). So I went all in on his high-touch cohort, Brand Voice Academy, where every week I logged in to learn the nuance of brand voice in real time, how to build comprehensive brand voice guides, and — the part that mattered most for someone who struggles with sales — how to sell them.

Since finishing two years ago, I can directly trace about $10,750 in client work back to that cohort. That's four times what I paid for the course! Not bad, not bad.

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​Digital Course Academy — $2,500

Yep, I grabbed Amy Porterfield's infamous course in 2024.

Because I was an early buyer, her team mailed me a colorful, spiral-bound workbook. I had access to all the pre-recorded modules, where Amy walked me through that workbook from my laptop screen. And I had about three months of access to a WAY TOO LARGE Facebook group, where I did meet some nice people who started a (temporary) accountability group with me.
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(Shoutout to Brianna, who appears to be my #1 fan when it comes to my music marketing parodies on Instagram... 😂)

I never ended up building a course, by the way. I got about 20% of the way through that pretty li'l workbook, and realized there were SO many foundational pieces I didn't have yet. (Like an email list. 😬)

There was also no direct support from Amy and her team — unless I wanted to pay a lot extra, of course. 😉 Which is fine. That's their prerogative. 🤷🏼‍♀️

I also have zero clients or income that I can trace directly from it, however...

Porterfield's DCA pushed me to start this newsletter. That's a big win! It also pulled me further into Chanti Zak's world (she was a DCA affiliate) — who later hired me to write launch copy for her ultra-amazing program, KNOWN (affiliate link). She ended up booking me for two VIP Days, which at the time was around $2500 worth of work.

And through Chanti, I became good friends with several people in her community & circle, who told me about bundles that quickly doubled my email list.

(Oh, and btw – I first learned of Chanti through the aforementioned Copywriter Club, when she did a quiz funnel training. In 2022. See, it's all about community & connection! 🤗)
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So here's the math...

$9,500 in. $29,200 back that I can directly trace back to the work I got from the people I met within those courses or cohorts. Plus an established email list... that grew quickly from the resources I gathered from the people I met along the way.

BTW, these numbers do not include smaller-ticket communities I've joined plus lower-ticket offers (under $27 - $497) that I've bought. (I'll save that for another day?)

I also didn't include client work that may have been a few degrees removed from anyone I met in the course... nor did I include numbers from the REST of the client work I've done that I never would have charged appropriately for if it hadn't been for the real-life coaching I received and the knowledge I obtained.

Here's the part I didn't expect when I started adding up the math from these high-ticket courses & communities:

The majority of those dollars didn't come from what I learned in a video module or worksheet.

Most of it came through a person:

My TCA coach who gave me the confidence to charge 5x more than what I was going to.

Kira, who made one introduction that led to nearly a year of steady work.

Justin, helping me live on a call every week (who also gave his blessing on my brand voice training, How To Sound More Human-y and Less Chat GPT-y).

Chanti, who I met through course number one... and who hired me four years later.

And the two course with no humans in it? Those are the two with no direct receipt attached.

Interesting, eh?

So what kind of courses, cohorts, or challenges should you invest in?

I've been saying this for a while now 👉 REAL, LIVE group support is the difference between course completion and course calamity. Turns out it's also the main difference between a course you paid for and a course that pays you back — and then some. 🤷‍♀️

The courses & communities that don't offer real-time access to the course creator themselves are ones where I would still pause before investing anything into them — and that's because there comes a point in your career where you don't need any more knowledge. What you need is to get out of your own way. 😘 (And sometimes, a helping hand to tell you which way to go.)

Adding up all this math has had me thinking about what kind of offer I'd build for services providers, coaches, and creatives if I took the best parts of each one...

👉 Super high touch, like Justin's Brand Voice Academy.

👉 Encouragement and accountability included, like the Copywriter Accelerator.

👉 Just about everything I learned about messaging & marketing in Copy School and 10x Freelance School...

👉 And everything in between that I know about email marketing, high-converting websites, social media, podcasting, money mindset, human design, and how to find and pitch yourself to perfect-fit clients.

But more about that at another time. (Perhaps on Thursday? 😉)

In the meantime, reply back and tell me: what's the best course you invested in? (Or the worst... you can tell me, my lips are sealed. 🤐)

TTYL,

Rachael

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Rachael Johnson is a copywriter and creative strategist who started Rachael Johnson Creative LLC when she realized there was something more waiting for her outside of her music classroom. Even though the kiddos were cute and her teaching was impactful, it was time to help the adults find their voice just like she helped thousands of students. Now, she does it for women who are great at the work they do but their business feels either stalled or an old version of themselves. She also specializes in writing for herself in the third person because who are we kidding, this is Rachael typing this.
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