Sarah Titus: From Homeless To $3,000,000 Selling Printables

Welcome to the Scaling Success Stories series!

If you’re new to this series, I ask online entrepreneurs questions regarding growing and scaling their business.

This is the series description:

You can get your fill of online business tips by reading the other interviews on the Scaling Success Stories page.

Interview with Sarah Titus from SarahTitus.com

It was my pleasure interviewing Sarah Titus of SarahTitus.com, a popular blog and Shopify store that helps single mothers quit working and stay with their kids if that’s what they want to. Once living in a homeless shelter with $30,000 of debt after her ex-husband left her, Sarah made online business, and, specifically, eCommerce work for her.

Check out what Sarah had to say to my questions!

1. Why did you start an online business and how does your passion still drive your business’ growth today?

I was sitting there making a good living selling on eBay. Paying my bills as a single mom, working from home and being there for my kids, but in my heart, I felt like I wasn’t really helping people.

I wasn’t making a difference in the world.

So, I began praying for God to USE ME.

He convicted me to start a blog and so I did.

Not knowing anything about blogging but just wanting to help every mom stay home with her kids as I’ve been doing has been my passion since day 1. It’s something I still hold near and dear to my heart. Whether I’m blogging, creating printables, or selling courses on how to have a Million Dollar Shop, it all stems from that.

2. At what point did you realize that your business was “taking off” and that you could really make money from it?

I started making money in my first year of blogging.

I was making an unheard of $10k/month at the time. The next year, it was $23k/month, and it snowballed from there. When I opened up my Shopify store to sell printables, the first month I made $52,060.

Quickly I started making nearly $3 million/year in my store.

Next, I opened up a Teachable account and started creating courses on how to create printables and how to create a Million Dollar Shop. My first 2 weeks on Teachable, I made $97k and my first three months on Teachable, I made $304k.

Going from this girl none of my friends or family believed in, I was able to shut them up within a year. It was pretty quickly I realized I was onto something, and I’ve been on fire ever since. 😊

3.  At what point did you realize you were living the life you wanted to?

Before I started blogging. I was married for 14 years and out of the blue, my ex-husband started having some mid-life crisis or something and went off and started having affair after affair.

He got physically violent and the kids and I ended up in a homeless shelter.

Determined to not let them lose their mom too as they had already lost their dad, I started selling on eBay more. Made a job out of it.

As I was selling on eBay, at home with my kids and living pretty well off on only $18k/year, I knew I was living the life I wanted to and anything more was just about genuinely helping people.

But going from $18k/year to $3 million/year is a big deal.

Here’s the thing…

I don’t live the life I want MORE now than I did then.

Money doesn’t make me happy. Serving others does.

Serving is my spiritual gift. It’s ingrained in everything I am. Without serving others, I can’t possibly live the life I want and blogging has paved the way for me to do that! 😊

4. One of the biggest fears of outsourcing is trusting the people you hire to run your business the way you would. How did you overcome this and where did you find the right freelancers and employees to help you grow your business?

Straight up…

I hired the right people.

At first, I hired the wrong people, and they damaged my business and still to this day, I’ve lost a lot of money and ground because those people destroyed that part of my business.

It’s done well to remind me that I need people on my team that care just as much about serving others as I do and take personal stock in the vision of what my company does.

It’s not just a job with my team. It’s a hunger to love others and serve Christ through others.

Finding the right people for me has come through my own audience. They know me and my vision the best and I only hire from within my own audience now.

5. A common myth is that as you grow and scale your business, you have to sell your soul to make money, especially when you venture into paid advertising. How do you debunk this myth in your business?

LOL.

Well…to date, I haven’t DONE paid advertising! 😊

Not that I won’t someday, but if I can’t make money on my OWN terms, I don’t wanna do it.

That’s the beauty of being your own boss. YOU DECIDE!!!

I’ve stayed true to who I am, now for 5 years, and I don’t plan on changing that now. I think anyone can do this with the right convictions and always remembering why they do what they do.

6. Why do you think most people fail to grow their businesses and what advice would you offer them to keep pushing, despite all the setbacks?

They focus too much on what everyone else was doing.

People are always shocked to hear that I didn’t take my first blogging course until I had been making well over $10k/month.

I’m not knocking courses.

I’m knocking those that care too much about what others are doing and jump on a bandwagon. They look around what everyone else is doing and chase “shiny,” instead of staying in their own lane.

Leaders get in there and figure things out. “The buck stops here” mentality.

It’s MY job to make this work, not a course, another blogger, a friend, my husband, or anyone else. It’s MINE!

Editor’s note: Tracie Fobes had something similar to say in her interview about how you shouldn’t let what others do dictate what you do. I think it’s so true and Sarah’s answer reinforces that.

When I started this interview series, I wanted to do something that no one else was doing. I didn’t take a course on how to launch an interview series. I figured it out the hard way. Now, people are asking me how I did it! Don’t underestimate the power of your will and sheer determination to figure something out. 

7. How important has niching down been (no matter how hard it hurts) to your business’ growth and profitability?

Dunno. I’ve never niched down. 😊

If anything, I’ve niched UP.

I started with saving money, and now I teach a lot of different things on my blog, from recipes to printables, to saving money, to organizing, to where to find the best fonts, and everything in between. I’m not a one-faceted person and neither will my blog.

8. What do you attribute your success to and how do you explain it? Do you think the same strategies will help you reach your next monetization goals? Why or why not?

#1–God.

He’s the reason behind why I do EVERYTHING I do.

He gives me a love for the people and I serve them. It’s all for Him and of Him. Without Him, I am nothing. With that said, He has guided me since college. I’ve gotten some pretty prestigious jobs.

I started eCommerce when I was 17 and that carried over to today. So many things in my life that He led me to and I didn’t have a clue at the time were all culminating in like this giant pot, so that when I started blogging, I knew what to do.

When I started my store, I knew what to do. When I started teaching courses, I knew what to do. I will always be prepared because I have over 21 years of experience going into all this.

I don’t have monetization goals currently.

$3 million/year is PLENTY! More, my goal right now is that I wanna move back to Oregon and buy a house there. I’m working toward that next dream. Money isn’t the goal. A lifestyle is. Oregon is more serene and peaceful than where I’m at now.

It’s all hustle and bustle here and I hate it.

9. To scale, you really need to have a systemized business. What steps have you taken to build those systems and how do you optimize them?

I spent a year and a half of my blogging career, before I started Shopify, setting up and streamlining systems.

I simply started looking for things that I did more than once. Then, tried to figure out how I could automate them.

Was it blocking email addresses so I stop seeing them?

Yes.

Was it switching my personal email from Yahoo to Gmail so I can set up automatic filters for me?

Yes. It’s like getting free help.

Was it creating canned messages for an assistant to send out things on my behalf?

Yes.

All those tasks add up. Systematize them and you’ll have a much more peaceful online business!

Before I started building my courses empire, I literally worked 9-10 hours a week, my assistants worked 7-10 hours a week, and I make $3 million/year. It didn’t happen overnight, but it was well worth all the structure and systems I set up.

10.  If you could speak face-to-face with yourself when you first started your business, what pearls of wisdom would you impart?

Don’t worry about what anyone else in the world thinks.

If you wanna fly to the moon, who’s to stop you?

Whatever you want to do in life, go for it full throttle.

Let nothing and no one stop you and don’t stop until you’re proud and until you’ve accomplished everything you want to accomplish.

You have one life, use it up. Make it count for yourself, those around you, and the world.

About Sarah Titus

After being homeless, this single stay-at-home mom wouldn’t let anything stop her from going after her dreams. Now, Sarah Titus makes $3 million/year online working part-time. She is most known for her ability to save money, completely rock sales in a Shopify store, and create beautiful printables that help moms organize the chaos in their lives.

Interested in Learning From Sarah?

Sarah’s flagship course, Million Dollar Shop, teaches you how to set up a profitable Shopify store to go with your blog.

If you don’t believe it’s possible, just take a look at her Shopify revenue chart.

It’s designed for bloggers who want to diversify their revenue with a Shopify store.

The best part of this course is that she shows you how to do this all organically. 

That’s right…

There’s no paid advertising involved in this course.

It’s possible to make thousands of dollars per month passively on your site on autopilot.

And, Sarah teaches you what the elements to a proper Shopify store are.

Let me tell you, she really does know what she’s talking about. She’s the Shopify queen!

This course leaves the nonsense behind and tells you whatt you need to know to succeed. After all, Sarah has been in the eCommerce business for over 20 years. She knows what’s up!

She’s even helped me with ideas to create a Shopify store on a new freelance site I’m building 🙂

Purchase Million Dollar Shop Today!

Conclusion

Thanks for participating in my series, Sarah!

As you can tell, it’s NOT EASY growing and scaling an online business, but there are some things you can do to aid you in the process.

Inspired by Sarah Titus?

Now, it’s your turn!

I assembled the Scaling Blueprint to show you how to…

• Outsource Effectively
• Systemize Your Business
• Shatter Your Revenue Goals

After working with six-figure and seven-figure clients, I know the difference between how they function.

Let me help you start scaling successfully.

Get My FREE Blueprint!

Cheers to future success!