How Shelby Left Her Job and Built a 6-Figure Business in Just 3 Years

Shelby DeVore is the founder of Farminence, a website and community that helps people become more self-sufficient through raising livestock, gardening, and preserving foods.

Formerly a biology and agriculture teacher, Shelby loved what she was teaching but was getting burnt out with her job. She wanted a way to share her love of homesteading while also making the kind of salary she deserved. So, she created her own teaching programs and products and began selling them online.

Average opt-in rate of 70% | $100,000 in revenue from 1 event

Today, Shelby’s online business is thriving. In addition to her digital products, her virtual summits attract thousands of prospective homesteaders and she’s been featured in Homes & Garden and USA Today.

Shelby’s story

Shelby grew up on a small hobby farm. She fell in love with animals early in life, and much of her childhood was spent helping in the garden and riding horses. So, when it came time to go to university she decided to follow her passion and pursue a degree in animal and dairy science.

After finishing her schooling, Shelby moved back home and started working at her local high school. She taught biology and became the school’s sole agriculture teacher, which included animal science, greenhouse management, and teaching kids how to grow crops from seeds.

Shelby enjoyed teaching her students about agriculture, but the hours, stress, and lack of pay began to wear on her. So, she started thinking of other ways she could share this knowledge with the world.

“I really liked what I was teaching, I felt like it was really important and people need to know this. I thought ‘How can I do this in a way where I’m not going to be working myself to death and I can actually make some money.’”

Starting her own business

Shelby wanted to build her own business, but she didn’t know exactly where to start. Like most new entrepreneurs, she began with a blog where she shared agriculture and homesteading advice.

Over time the blog attracted a loyal following. Better yet, people were actually engaging with the posts and asking questions. This showed Shelby that there was an audience for her content and people were actively looking for the information she was providing.

“I was getting a ton of questions from people, and a lot of the questions were geared towards the same topics. I remembered something I heard on a podcast once that said if you get asked the same question three times you should turn that into a product. And as these repetitive questions kept rolling in I started thinking that people would pay to get this help.”

She began testing out smaller products and slowly but surely started seeing results. In fact, she believed in her business so much that in December 2019 she quit her job as a teacher to work on it full-time.

New levels of success

The early days of Shelby’s business were filled with learning curves and small wins. She was an expert in her field and knew how to teach her subject matter, but she didn’t have a business background or any experience with digital marketing. However, through dedication and hard work her business began to grow.

Shelby began building her email list and releasing new products to her audience. One of her first product launches made her $1,200 with an email list of just 500 people. That number was nowhere near where she eventually wanted to get to, but it was proof that there was a market for her products.

“I knew there was a lot of potential here, so I decided to go for it. I didn’t have a whole lot to lose, just my salary from teaching, so I thought if I could just make what I’m making teaching and work less I would be a lot happier.”

Over time her income began to grow. It wasn’t long before her business revenue reached and then exceeded her previous salary. Shelby’s product catalog has grown to 28, and she’s now one of the go-to resources for anyone looking to get into raising animals or growing their own produce.

Becoming an industry leader

After a few years in business, Shelby was looking for even more ways to bring value to her audience. While her homesteading knowledge spans a wide variety of topics, she knew there were other creators and educators out there that could help her audience grow their skills even further.

So, in 2021 Shelby launched her first-ever Homestead Livestock Summit. The event included a total of 37 presentations on gardening and livestock and was so successful that it’s now become an annual occurrence that attracts over 10,000 people.

Shelby’s summits have helped bring the agriculture community together and solidified her as a leading voice in the homesteading space.

Challenges

When Shelby first launched her business she didn’t have a lot of experience with digital marketing. This led to some issues when she started launching her products and courses.

Early on, she was using WordPress and Elementor to build her landing pages. Unfortunately, the software proved to be complicated and she was never able to get her pages to look exactly how she wanted them to.

What she really needed was a quick and easy way to build and customize landing pages that didn’t require any coding or technical knowledge.

How Leadpages helped

When Shelby looked around at her fellow online entrepreneurs, she noticed a lot of the most successful businesses were using Leadpages. She decided to try the software for herself and immediately noticed some key improvements over the other tools she had used.

Easy to use (even for complete beginners)

Leadpages simplifies the web design process. All Shelby had to do was choose her professionally-designed template, edit it with the Drag & Drop Builder, and then click publish. After struggling with other tools for so long she picked up Leadpages fast and was building new pages in no time.

Plenty of ways to customize

Shelby wanted all her pages to represent her brand, so she was thrilled to discover how easy it was to customize and brand her pages. She could drag and drop elements into place, upload her logo and images, and save her brand colors in her account to use for future pages.

Faster publishing

Leadpage’s user-friendly interface allowed Shelby to publish new pages faster than ever. Even better, the duplication feature meant that once she had a page that converted well she could simply duplicate it and tweak it for her future campaigns.

Results

70% average conversion rate on her opt-in pages

A big part of Shelby’s business is growing her email list, and she does this by offering lead magnets (free downloadable content) on her opt-in pages. Between Leadpages’ conversion-optimized templates and the value she provides her audience, these pages regularly convert at a 70% rate or better.

$100,000 from a single virtual event

Shelby’s most recent virtual event exceeded all expectations, generating $100,000 in revenue. The summit’s entire sales funnel was built using Leadpages.

What’s next for Shelby?

Shelby sees massive growth potential with her business and anticipates her revenue jumping to seven figures within 18 months. She plans to achieve this by continuing to create valuable courses and resources for homesteaders and building out a membership program for those who are looking for regular guidance and advice.

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