Success By The Thousands (Literally!)
Since first opening our doors in 2014, Elite Blog Academy®—and now ACTIVATE— has coached more than 12,000 students around the world. In that time, our students have seen incredible results, from creating 6 and 7-figure businesses, to securing major book deals, incredible brand partnerships, and national media coverage.
When our students do the work, they see the results. It’s that simple.
Read Jennifer’s Story
When the travel guide industry she was in began tanking, Jennifer Marx knew she had two options. She could either get a new, good-paying job outside the home, or she could find other, better work to do at home.
She did some major soul searching, and realized that she still loved writing and sharing information, and decided that starting a mom blog would be the best way to do just that.
She poured herself into blogging out from September to December of 2016, and gradually narrowed her focus from “all things mom related” to specifically DIY projects and crafts. She began to research ways to monetize blogs, how to improve my blog, and how to expand her reach.
And, while her traffic was growing, she still made almost nothing. Her best month, December, brought in $108.
So she dug deeper. Were other blogs making more money than this? How long did it take them to get there? What was the potential here?
In early 2017, she discovered Elite Blog Academy®. She had to put her tuition on a credit card because she was dead broke, but she was determined to make it work.
And she did.
One year after starting EBA®, Jennifer’s blog is now consistently earning upwards of $20,000 a month. Her traffic has grown from 10,000 page views to more than 230,000 page views a month, and she has added nearly 30,000 subscribers to her email list. She has launched her own products, mastered affiliate marketing, and created a business she loves, one that she knows will continue to grow.
Of her time at Elite Blog Academy®, Jennifer says:
“I honestly had no idea it was possible to earn this much from a blog back when I started. But I think I was successful because I looked to others who were doing it successfully and followed their advice, even when I thought it was a bit weird or was outside of my comfort zone.
I read every lesson in Elite Blog Academy® twice, watched every video carefully, and did EVERY assignment. I listened to those who had come before me, who were so willing to share. I just followed the framework. And it worked.”
From Broke to Booming
“Elite Blog Academy tuition was the BEST money I have ever spent.”
JENNIFER MARX
Read Rosemarie’s Story
Rosemarie Groner is a blogger at The Busy Budgeter who first registered for Elite Blog Academy® in the fall of 2014. At the time, she was a stay-at-home mom who spent her days running a small daycare from her home plus working two other part time jobs while she worked on her blog at night. She and her husband were desperately trying to pay off debt, pinching pennies everywhere they could, and she was literally running herself ragged.
When she found Elite Blog Academy®, she knew the comprehensive framework it provided was exactly what she needed to get on track, but it felt like a huge investment, one she wasn’t even sure they could really afford, given their precarious financial situation. But, at her husband’s encouragement, she resolved to take the class seriously and to do every single assignment in order, not moving ahead until each one was completed.
She started in phase one, with refining her message, and in the process, she determined with crystal clarity that her mission was to provide financial advice for people who were overwhelmed with life, and who struggle with time management.
From there she moved to step two and began growing her audience, and then, as her traffic started to take off, she was ready to transition into phase three and begin focusing on monetization.
And now, as she moves into phase four, building her business, she is equipped to refine and build upon this framework of success she has created for herself. She has a plan and she knows exactly what tasks to tackle every single day.
Speaking about the transformation she’s made over the past two years, Rosemarie explains:
“I was making $18/month from my small blog in September 2014 when I joined Elite Blog Academy®. By following the framework, I drastically increased every month and am now making more than $30,000 a month from my blog, and I understand how to sustain that income.
More importantly, my life is completely different. Before Elite Blog Academy®, I was running a day care of 4 kids, had 2 additional side hustles, and worked on the blog at night. I was exhausted! Now I work 20 hours a week, have financial freedom and a thriving business. EBA® completely changed my life.
When it comes to enrolling in EBA®, the ONLY question that should be in your mind is ‘am I committed to doing this?’ Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, it’s worth it. When you see what’s possible, it is such a small investment, and if you are committed to doing the work, you will see results.”
From Blog to Business
“EBA changed my life. Even if you are living paycheck to paycheck, it’s worth it.”
ROSEMARIE GRONER
Read Caroline’s Story
When she was in high school, Caroline Vencil had dreams of conquering the world by the time she was 25, including being the youngest-ever CEO of a Fortune 500 company.
And then she got pregnant at age 18, and everything changed.
Caroline and her husband struggled to make ends meet on his $17,000 a year salary, and she didn’t just shove her career aspirations under the rug, she threw all those big dreams out the window and instead threw herself into being a mom and a wife, and to saving money wherever she could.
But after three kids, she suddenly had a moment of revelation that this was not what she was meant for, and that there was something more she should be doing.
Ultimately she realized that she had a story that was worth sharing. decided that starting a blog would be the perfect way to share all her tips and advice, as well as help her earn extra money from home.
But as she soon found out, getting those people to show up wasn’t quite as easy as she thought it would be. For months, she barely slept as she worked day and night to try to gain some traction—to grow her traffic and generate revenue—with very little to show for all the effort she was putting in.
But then she discovered Elite Blog Academy®, and, as she puts it, “it was all over from there. I signed up and immediately knew it was the best thing I’ve ever spent money on.”
Within just 3 months of starting EBA®, Caroline was earning more than $1,000 a month, and one year later, she was earning more than $10,000 a month from her blog, a number that felt pretty insane, considering how little her family had lived on before.
Speaking of her journey over the past two years, Caroline says this:
“I had a story that people wanted to hear, I had something that was worth sharing, that was going to be helpful to people, I just never knew it. I was just over there wallowing in self-pity about ‘oh, I’m just a mom’—but no! There was a reason I went through all of that, and so being able to have my blog and find my voice and share that with people—it gave me so much purpose and meaning. Now I’m a better mom and a better wife because I found something that makes me happy to my core.
EBA® has changed everything, and it has taken me from hating my life as a mom to now being a business owner, and I just love every aspect of it.
The highlight of my entire life was being able to send in my legal documents to incorporate my business and create an actual company from my blog the day before I turned 25 as the CEO of my company.”
From Teen Mom to CEO
“I signed up and immediately knew it was the best thing I had ever spent money on.”
CAROLINE VENCIL
Read Talaat & Tai’s Story
Talaat and Tai McNeely were high school sweethearts who were total opposites in how they handled their money. But in their first year of marriage, they were determined to change that and paid off $30,000 to become debt-free.
They had just launched their brand, His and Her Money, to help other couples get on the same page financially and to experience the joys of financial freedom when they discovered Elite Blog Academy about three years ago. While Tai was nervous about investing in the course, Talaat told her, “we must invest in ourselves in order to reap a return.”
“When he said that, it brought comfort to me and I knew it was a sure thing for us to take the plunge,” Tai says.
She calls it the “best decision” they made.
However, their plans to make their way through the course got stalled by the demands of managing a household with three children. In spite of only making it through the first unit of Elite Blog Academy, their blog made $6,000 in its first year.
“To me, it was a sign,” Tai says. She knew they could be more profitable if they put in the work.
So they went back to square one and started the course over. Tai printed out worksheets and organized them in binders, highlighting and pouring over the material, piece by piece and step by step.
Talaat says that as content creators, their mindset was on their message and getting it out into the world, but “that’s only part of the equation.” His favorite part of EBA is how Ruth breaks down the technical side to make it more understandable. “We were able to take the lessons and put the things into place because of the way Ruth broke everything down and made it into very achievable steps along the way.”
After getting halfway through the course, their hard work began to pay off.
They made $30,000 in their second year, but the biggest benefit, they say, came in the way of media exposure. They began to get interviewed and featured in outlets like Entrepreneur magazine, Huffington Post, Fox News and more.
“I will never forget that moment,” Tai says. “That was a huge jump.”
In addition to their blog, the McNeelys, now known as “America’s #1 Money Couple,” have a book, podcast, and YouTube channel and are on track to hit 6-figures in revenue for the first time this year.
“We just really started to grow, and it came at a fast rate for us,” she says. “And we know without a shadow of a doubt we needed Elite Blog Academy to help us get there.”
From Debt to Financial Leaders
“Without a shadow of a doubt we needed Elite Blog Academy to get us there.”
TALAAT & TAI
Read Tasha’s Story
When Tasha started Elite Blog Academy® in 2014, she was a partner in her corporate law firm, where she defended medical professionals in big, multi-million dollar malpractice cases. She was also the mom to three-year old twin girls.To say she was busy and stressed out was an understatement!
She started her blog, Designer Trapped in a Lawyer’s Body, as a creative outlet, but she just didn’t feel like she had time to figure out all the ins and outs of blogging. She was interested in enrolling in EBA® because she thought it might be easier to let someone else do all the research and point her in the right direction, but she was worried about making such big investment into what was little more than a hobby at that point.
Of her time spent in EBA®, she says:
“I jumped into the course right away when I purchased it in September 2014. I immediately learned about creating awesome content, perfect pins and going back to optimize old content. Truly, I have never worked harder in my life, especially since I was still working full-time as a lawyer!
Blogging is HARD WORK. Results do not come for free and Elite Blog Academy® is not magic. It will not do anything for you if you don’t put the work in. But I put in the work in and within a year I had more than tripled my page views and was earning more than $10,000 a month through my blog.
On January 1, 2016, 16 months after starting Elite Blog Academy®, I gave up my partnership at my firm to blog full-time. I am now earning MORE than I was as a private practice attorney from my blog. My blog and income continue to grow and I don’t plan to slow down any time soon. And more importantly, I couldn’t be happier! As far as I am concerned, the sky is the limit!”
From Stressed Lawyer to Loving Life
“EBA is not magic, but magical things happen when you do the work.”
TASHA AGRUSO
Read David & John’s Story
When David Auten and John Schneider started their blog in 2012, their goal was to not have to work for anyone else so they could spend more time together. But they felt their writing wasn’t that good and they didn’t exactly know what their voice was. They knew they wanted to help the LGBT community but thought of their blog as a fun hobby that they hoped would eventually bring in income.
Going through EBA® helped them look at their blog as a business. They got crystal clear on who they were writing to, and the traffic and income followed. Their list grew 9x, their traffic doubled, and they’re now the number one personal finance blog and podcast for the LGBT community, and they’re having a blast while doing it.
From Aimless Hobby to Successful Brand
“You’ll be surprised at the results you make in just a couple of months.”
THE DEBT FREE GUYS
Read Ryan & Bridgett’s Story
We love Bridget and Ryan’s story because it shows how EBA can work for you, even if you aren’t a traditional blogger.
Bridget and Ryan are brick and mortar store owners, selling tack, saddles and western fashion, and they are SO enthusiastic about their small business. The only downside of being a small business in a small town is the lack of foot traffic, something they’ve been battling with almost since the beginning. So, in order to keep their doors open, they had to travel to trade shows across the country to showcase their products, taking a lot of time away from their family.
Fed up with the travel time and the lack of sales, Bridget decided to look into online retail. Every business conference she went to all told her the same thing – she really needed a blog to get her business out there. But there was one problem. She did not know a thing about blogging and never really considered herself a writer. But she knew that in order to reach her goals, she needed to tackle “this blogging thing.”
In 2017, she started her both her blog and EBA both. On January 1st of 2018 they decided to go ahead and launch their online shop. They surpassed that their first year’s goal of making $500 a month and sold $33,000 in physical products alone!
They credit their success to EBA, which taught them to use their blog to broaden their reach and let more people know about their store and about their family. People are now driving to visit their store BECAUSE of their blog – one drove as far as 12 hours! Even Ryan is on board. He realizes now that blogging is not just writing, posting, and social media. Customer service is a HUGE part of running a blog and a business and now he combines the two, helping people and solving problems, just like he’s been doing for years.
Ryan realized, “I don’t have to put my hands on every horse to fix them. I can do it over email or a phone call.” Blogging has single handedly saved this family and their small business from closing it’s doors and has transformed their storefront into a well-trafficked location both in person and online.
From Local Cowboys to Online Leaders
“I really like this EBA thing.”
RYAN & BRIDGETT LIGGETT
Read David’s Story
In 2016, David and his wife Meg found themselves in the same situation as a lot of young couples—drowning in debt from student loans, and trying to figure out some way to pay them off so that they’d be ready to start a family.
A music teacher by day, and a realtor on the nights and weekends, David was committed to doing whatever he could to get ahead.
He started his blog, Finance Superhero, as a place to share the tips and tricks he was learning, and for him it was just supposed to be a fun hobby and creative outlet—one that might also be able to earn a little bit of money along the way.
He spent the next few months trying to learn what he could about growing his traffic and monetizing, but for the most part, he felt like he was just spinning his wheels, and not making all that much progress.
Nine months into this new hobby, David hit the wall. He was feeling particularly unfulfilled in his day job, and he was frustrated that his blog didn’t seem to be the answer to everything he was searching for. He was ready to throw in the towel.
And then, just as he was about to quit, he discovered Elite Blog Academy®.
According to David, it was one of the best decisions he’s ever made.
He says, “Immediately after beginning Elite Blog Academy® I realized a number of things that were entirely wrong with the approach that I had been taking, and in just a few weeks’ time, I totally revolutionized the way I was writing my content, marketing my content, and overall creating a long-term strategic plan to develop my blog into a business.”
By his third month of EBA®, his page views had increased dramatically, from 2,000 a month when he started to more than 50,000 page views a month, and he had his first 4-figure revenue month, which to David, felt like a huge breakthrough. He realized then that Elite Blog Academy® was the answer.
One year after starting EBA®, his once-hobby blog is consistently earning several thousand dollars a month, and his traffic has continued to increase, despite the fact that he only has 2-3 hours a week to devote to blogging.
Now when David looks to the future, he feels excitement instead of dread. He and his wife are now debt free, and expecting their first child. Best of all, he has a solid plan in place to escape the hustle and create the business of his dreams.
From Hobby Blogger to Blogging Hero
“Thanks to EBA®, I can spend my time doing the right things in the right order at the right time in order to continue moving my business forward.”
DAVID CAHILL
Read Jennifer’s Story
Jennifer Roskamp started her blog, The Intentional Mom, in 2015 because, as a busy homeschooling mom of 7 kids (soon to be 8), she wanted a creative outlet, and she also liked the idea of possibly being able to earn a little extra money on the side to supplement her family’s income.
She had no idea that less than a year later, she would find herself in a position of being the primary breadwinner when her husband unexpectedly left his job in order to go back to school full time.
At first she was scared, but then she realized that Elite Blog Academy® had already given her all the tools she needed to support her family—she just needed to put them into action. She continued growing her audience, developed a loyal following on Periscope, and began creating the books and products that she knew her audience was looking for.
Of her experience with EBA®, Jennifer says:
“I started EBA® within a few months of beginning to blog because I wanted to start off on the right foot. I had no idea that only a few months later, I would need to use my blog to support my family. But I wasn’t scared because I had a plan to follow — step-by-step — instead of aimlessly wandering, and it gave me the confidence I needed to keep moving forward.
I learned how to grow my audience, build a brand, market myself, create products, start earning money, and fulfill my business goals, and I was able to revisit the steps any time I needed to.
Every day I ask myself what I can do to build my business, and then I just throw spaghetti at the wall to see what sticks. When I figure that out, I alter it slightly and then do it again. I honestly think this would have been too scary to me to try had I not had the overall plan and steps that EBA® provides.
If you are wanting to start a blog and are looking to earn any kind of income from it, the money you invest in this course will more than pay for the course many times over. It’s just a matter of taking the leap!”
From Newbie to Bread Winner
“I honestly think this would have been too scary to me to try had I not had the overall plan and steps that EBA® provides.”
JENNIFER ROSKAMP
Read Timberley & Andre’s Story
Timberley and Andre Gray started their blog, Living Our Priorities, in 2014, a solid 2 years before joining EBA. But it wasn’t until they joined EBA that they realized how many gaps they had in their knowledge when it came to blogging. “We wish we knew about EBA much sooner. It would have saved us time and money had we done it right the first time.” They paid 3 times the cost of EBA doing it wrong and making needed fixes.
The thing is, Timberley and Andre knew that they had good content, but it wasn’t until EBA that they received a roadmap and super detailed instructions on how to get people TO their content. You see, when they first started they barely had any traffic to their blog and what they did have was from social media. With EBA, they have been able to grow their traffic by over 80%, grow their email list over 60%, and their favorite transformation was taking their organic traffic from 1% to 40% – that was the tangible evidence they needed to prove that their hardwork was paying off and that the framework EBA teaches really does drive results. Timberley and Andre’s dream is to be able to focus full time on their ministry and their blog and EBA has put them within arms reach of that reality.
From Fighting to Full Time Ministry
“We wish we knew about EBA much sooner. It would have saved us time and money had we done it right the first time.”
TIMBERLEY & ANDRE
Read Stephanie’s Story
Stephanie is a travel blogger and photographer that focuses on helping her readers discover new destinations. Although, She didn’t know anything about blogging before beginning, she soon realized that it had all of her favorite things rolled into one: writing, marketing, photography, etc. and she realized that she wanted to try and find a way to make it work. It wasn’t until joining EBA that she learned where to even begin blogging.
EBA gave her a road-map to follow, one that she knew would lead her towards success. When asked if EBA was worth the money, Stephanie tells us that for her it was some of the best money she has ever spent because “you have to spend money to make money.” While we may not always appreciate that phrase, it is true. In blogging, you have to pay for your domain name, your hosting, your email service, etc. – and EBA teaches you how to use each of those tools. Without that direction and clarity it can be all too easy to become frustrated and quit.
In addition to a solid framework, EBA has given Stephanie a community of support, she knows where to turn if she needs a question answered or just a little encouragement. But, even if she wasn’t making money blogging, Stephanie says that the one of the biggest rewards from blogging is when people stop her on the street in her town and let her know that her writing has made a difference for them.
From Lost to Travel Blogger
“If you want to make your blog a success, it is worth the money”
STEPHANIE MILLER
Read Melissa’s Story
When Melissa, of Our Happy Hive, was starting out, she knew absolutely nothing about blogging and was intimidated by the tech side of it. That’s when she researched EBA. Melissa says that EBA “felt low risk to enroll because it was solid information and was backed by dozens of seasoned bloggers she followed.”
After enrolling and following the framework, she’s seen her own blog grow, she is now even more of an EBA believer. One of her favorite things about this course is the community that you instantly become a part of. She loves that you are connected to staff, current students, alumni, and experienced bloggers, who all chime in when available to provide support, advice, encouragement, and answers. With so much information out there about blogging, it’s hard to know which tips to implement and which are a waste of time.
And, she loves that EBA removes the worry of wasted time and overwhelm of information, and instead provides a trustworthy curriculum based off of Ruth’s own experience and success.
From Beginner to Growing Blog
“Since I signed up, EBA has been like a compass whereas before I always felt lost”
MELISSA JAMES
Read Pam’s Story
Before EBA, Pam worked as a therapist in a private firm and she loved what she was doing. But, when her and her husband started talking about retirement and their goals and desire to travel, Pam realized that her current career was limited them. So, she started researching about blogging and decided that was definitely the way she wanted go, even though she’d never blogged before. In the beginning of her blogging journey (like many of our students), she was feeling a little bit lost. She wasn’t sure where to begin or what to do first.
But, EBA changed all that. She realized that there was a solid pathway or roadmap to success laid out in front of her. So, she put in the hard work and it paid off. Through blogging, she now has the opportunity to not only start earning passive income and to also incorporate aspects of her job as a therpaist that she loved. Pam says that while it can be easy to look at the numbers and decide that EBA is too large of an investment, it’s an investment that saves so much time and money!
“The knowledge that you get through EBA, especially right from the beginning of your blog, puts you way ahead of the game.” Now as a blogger, Pam has time to do things that she wants to do – like care for her grandson 5 days a week – something that she holds very dear to her heart and would not have been possible without blogging and EBA. This has really opened the doors to her husband and herself to live the life that they want to live.
From Therapist to Full Time Blogger
“If you want your life to look different than it does today, EBA can give you that freedom”
PAM GRICE