Episode 1311: How to Build an Eight-Figure Education Business with Justin Montgomery

Your professional expertise could become a scalable asset that generates revenue without requiring more hours from you. In this episode of Sharkpreneur, Seth Greene interviews Justin Montgomery, Founder of The Elite Nurse Practitioner, who shares how he went from working as a nurse practitioner to building cash-based medical practices and an eight-figure online education company. He explains how professionals and entrepreneurs can turn specialized knowledge into continuing education courses, build an audience, and create a scalable marketing engine. Justin also reveals why valuable content, strategic outsourcing, and separating income from personal time are essential to building a business that supports financial and location independence. Key Takeaways: → Business ownership does not automatically create freedom if the owner must personally deliver the service. → Cash-based business models provide owners with greater control than those dependent on third-party payers. → Early failures can provide the experience and insight needed to build a successful, repeatable business model. → Building an audience before launching a course creates a stronger foundation for generating initial sales. → A scalable education business can create financial independence, location flexibility, and a lasting impact on customers and their families. Justin Allan Montgomery is the founder of The Elite Nurse Practitioner, a thriving business he launched in 2019 to teach nurse practitioners unique clinical and business skills, empowering them to start their own practices and break free from traditional work environments. With a background that includes a bachelor’s in biology and chemistry, a bachelor’s in nursing, and a Master of Science in nursing, Justin scaled his business to 7-figure annual revenue in just three years. By providing valuable content and addressing a major issue in his profession—lack of autonomy and underpayment—he built a scalable online course business that helped him achieve an 8-figure net worth. By working part-time while still seeing patients, he achieved financial independence before age 40, demonstrating the power of automation and passive income. Connect With Justin: Website: https://procoursestart.com/ Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/profile.php?id=61574146510784 LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/procoursestart/ YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/@ProCourseStart

• 0:00Speaker 00

  Welcome to the Sharkpreneur Podcast with Kevin Harrington and Seth Green. Kevin Harrington is the inventor of the infomercial, one of the original sharks from the hit TV show Shark Tank, and has generated over $5 billion in TV and digital direct response sales. Seth Green is the world's first trusted authority on cutting-edge direct response marketing, a bestselling author, and the only three-time marketer of the year nominee. On the podcast, Kevin and Seth interview sharkpreneurs who share straight talk on what it takes to explode your business.

• 0:38Speaker 01

  Forty-nine faces looked to him in triumph. Over the last 12 months, they had each taken turns and promoted his business for a week at a time, driving over $987,342 in revenue. What if you had a network of 50 centers of influence who promoted your business every week for a year? Grab your copy of the number one Amazon bestselling book, The Ultimate Guide to Growing Your Business with a Podcast. It's 33% off the Amazon price by going to ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Again, that website for 33% off the Amazon price is ultimatenpodcastbook.com. Welcome to the podcast. This is your host Seth Green. Today, I've got the good fortune with Justin Montgomery from Pro Course Start and the Elite Nurse Practitioner.

• 1:21Speaker 01

  I am super excited to talk to him about escaping the time for money trap, turning professional expertise into online continuing education, and building a scalable course business. Justin, thanks so much for joining us.

• 1:32Speaker 02

  Yeah, I appreciate having you having me on here.

• 1:36Speaker 01

  Our pleasure. So let's go back in time. You did not take the normal direct path into the online world. You started out as a nurse practitioner. Tell me a little bit about that journey.

• 1:47Speaker 02

  Yeah, so started as a nurse practitioner. You know, just like every other person going to college, going to school, you know, you're sold the idea of, you know, get a good job, get a degree, get a good job, that sort of thing. And so, you know, I didn't want to go down the path of getting a career where the future was questionable. So I got something that was licensed, right? You know, something I actually learned a skill. So I became a nurse practitioner, which is essentially like a physician's assistant, essentially. I could prescribe medication, diagnose, order tests, et cetera. So did that, started working in urgent care, working in the ER, that kind of a thing. And about five years in, I realized that this is the ceiling. I've hit it. There's nothing better for me. This is it. Like, I'm gonna make my $200,000 a year and, you know, put a smile on my face and just say, this is it.

• 2:32Speaker 02

  And I was just like, screw that. So, um, so I was like, I need to start a business. So I started some clinics, started some medical practices. Those did well. And then I took those skills and said, you know, hey, there's other nurse practitioners and doctors and stuff out there that don't know how to do this. So instead, I'm gonna, I'm gonna teach them how to start cash-based practices, not insurance-based practices. I wanted to niche it, cash-based alternative medicine practices. So, um, so that's what I did. So basically, I just started the Elite Nurse Practitioner and taught people how to create practices. And it turned into a eight-figure business in three years.

• 3:09Speaker 01

  That is ridiculous. Congratulations on that journey. So you did it yourself. You started, most nurse practitioners would probably be content, six-figure salary, worked for 40 years, maxed out my 401K, et cetera. What was the hunger? I gotta go back. I gotta ask, like, what was the hunger that made you say, that's not enough for me? I want something bigger.

• 3:31Speaker 02

  Because I don't like working.

• 3:34Speaker 01

  Okay.

• 3:35Speaker 02

  I don't like, I don't like working. I mean, I don't like, I don't like, I don't like being stuck somewhere for eight hours, 10 hours, 12 hours, whatever, right? Like, I just don't like it. Like, I'm not designed for a nine-to-five, Monday through Friday, or working three or four 12-hour shifts. You know, I'm just, I'm not designed for, I'm not designed to be told what to do. So that's essentially what it was for me. And like, I realized I needed financial independence because I want to live the life. I want to live my life on my terms. I want to be location independent. I want to do what I want to do. And I can't do that if I'm working.

• 4:11Speaker 01

  Understand. Okay, so as a nurse practitioner, you were working in someone else's business. How did you make the leap to starting your own and figuring out how the heck? Because doing the thing is different than being a business owner of a business that does the thing. Talk to me about that leap.

• 4:30Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, um, you know, I wanted to use the skills that I had, right? I don't want to reinvent the wheel. So I was like, let's start, you know, I'm gonna start a practice. I don't want to deal with insurance because when you deal with health insurance, a third party's in control of the money, right? So it's, it's not your business. It's the insurance company's business. That's just the way it works. Whoever's in control of the money has the power. So, although I'm not gonna do that. So I just started a practice, cash-based practice. I had no clue what I was doing at all. This was way before ChatGPT and Gemini and stuff, right? So it was back in 2017. And I just, I don't know, man. I looked up some stuff online. I tried to find what I could find. If I couldn't find an answer, I just said, well, if there's not an answer to this question, then it must be right.

• 5:15Speaker 02

  If I can't find something that says I can't do this, then it must be legal. So I just kinda, I just did it. So like, I just started these practices and lots of failures. The first one, the first one was a failure. It failed. The second one was okay. The third one was all right. The fourth one was, you know, is where I hit it. Um, and so, yeah, so I mean, I, you know, I did learn along the way. And by the third or fourth year into it, I was, I was pretty good at it.

• 5:40Speaker 01

  Awesome. So a lot of people, again, next generation of, okay, so I started businesses and they, I finally figured out something that worked, would have been happy with that, might have just opened more locations. Um, what inspired you to say, hey, even this that I achieved, there's more to it? Where did that come from?

• 6:00Speaker 02

  Yeah, so it was still work. I was self-employed. I wasn't an entrepreneur. I was self-employed, you know? I mean, I was still the product. I was still the service. I still had to show up and see patients. So I wasn't location independent, and it wasn't generating the kind of money that I was wanting, right? Like, I was wanting five, six figures a month profit. And those businesses simply just weren't doing that. And I realized in about three or four years that I can't scale this thing to the point where it's spinning off $100,000 a month without hiring a bunch of people, increasing my liability, increasing my risk, increasing the, you know, and decreasing the margins, right? To scale a practice, a medical practice, to a million-dollar-a-year-profit business?

• 6:45Speaker 02

  People don't realize what that takes. It takes a lot of employees, takes other providers, it takes, it's, and you're lucky if you break 30% margin, which is still pretty good compared to most businesses. But still, I wanted something that was higher. I wanted something that was passive, partially passive. I wanted something that worked for me and something that I could scale. And so at that point, I was like, yeah, I'm doing okay here, but this is still not what I want. So I was like, I need to figure out something else. And that's when I figured it out.

• 7:13Speaker 01

  Okay, so you built multiple successful businesses at that point, then decided to go teach other people how to do the same thing. Talk to me about the online education journey where you were launching the Elite Nurse Practitioner program.

• 7:24Speaker 02

  Yeah, so, um, so I took my, you know, my skills, my knowledge, my information. I said, okay, how can I leverage this? So I, I started a blog, basically. It just started off as a blog, that's it. You know, 2019, I think is when, September 2019 is when I started that. I was a blog, started writing articles. And I really didn't have any kind of plan whatsoever. I don't believe in business plans. So I've never had one in my entire life. So I just said, you know, I'm just gonna create an article, I'll just write articles and whatever, we'll see what happens. Started writing articles. Six months into it, I'm building this following. I got this audience, I got people subscribing to the email list and stuff. People follow me on Facebook and whatnot. And I was like, okay, I have an audience here of a couple thousand people now, a couple, you know,

• 8:09Speaker 02

  mostly just nurse practitioners. And I was like, how can I monetize this now? I was like, this is, I'm building something here. So I was like, you know, I know how to open up a men's health clinic, men's health testosterone replacement therapy clinics. I know how to open those up because I had, I had a couple at that point. And I was like, I'm gonna create a course, not, not a live course. I don't want, I don't want live courses. That requires my, that requires work, right? So it requires my time. So, so I recorded an evergreen product course, a pre-recorded course on how to start a men's health clinic. It was about five hours long, straight to the point. This is what you need to know to have a sort of men's health clinic. Created it, launched it to my audience. I didn't advertise it at all. I just literally launched it to the audience that I built over the last six months. And I made $50,000 bucks in seven days.

• 8:53Speaker 02

  And I was like, okay, wait a second here. This is, this is something I can scale now. I mean, I just made 50 grand in seven days for, you know, 30 hours of work that I put into making this course. It's like, okay, now I'm gonna scale this. So basically, what I did at that point was, was I saw the money, I just, I saw the money, created a new course every single month for three years, basically, after that. Yeah.

• 9:16Speaker 01

  That is absolutely incredible. So again, you could have been content with I'm creating courses and that's working and now I've got relatively passive income. So what inspired you then to say, I'm going to take this to yet another level and I'm going to teach other people how to do the same thing?

• 9:32Speaker 02

  Yeah. So about three years into that business, you know, we're printing off 250, $300,000 a month at 90% margin. And it was literally just me and two virtual assistants. That's it. So, you know, one owner, so just insane margins, insane money. I was able to pay off all my debt and everything within a year. I paid my house off pay. I mean, I just completely debt free and I just started saving my money up. And I guess the third year into it, I was like, this is starting to turn into a job now. I don't like, I'm, this isn't fun anymore. This isn't just a little side thing. Like this is actually turning into a real full-fledged business now. Right? I hired an operations director and I'm like,

• 10:16Speaker 02

  okay, this is actually, this is a real business now. This is a real, this is a real thing. And I was like, you know, I don't, I'm bored. Basically, I, I have business ADHD. I have about a three-year lifespan for most businesses. And so about three years into it, I was like, that was just, let's sell this, move on to the next project. So scaled to the point, had a pretty amazing exit event that could have allowed me to just completely retire. But I mean, I'm 39 at the time. I mean, I could retire and be fine. My, my, my kids will be fine too, kind of a thing. And so, um, yeah. So I, so that's what happened. And about a year and a half, two years into my sabbatical, so to speak, I just started getting bored. You can only fishing golf and stuff so much. So I kind of got bored. And so I

• 11:00Speaker 02

  was like, you know, I'm sitting on, I'm sitting on some skills right here. I was able to grow and scale a continuing education course business. You know, a medical continuing education course business. I was able to do this. Not many people have done this in the world. I'll say I'm really, I'm sitting on some skills right here. I really should share this to the world. So I started Pro Core Start. And so that's where I'm at right now, teaching people how to basically start a medical continuing education course business. So, yeah.

• 11:27Speaker 01

  Okay. So what if, so the majority of our listeners are business owners or entrepreneurs. What if they're not in the medical space? Does what you're doing still apply? Do the principles still work?

• 11:37Speaker 02

  100% because all you have to do is contract out the people to do the medical education for you. Right? The thing about, I mean, with the elite nurse practitioner, I personally only created about seven of those 50 courses. I contracted out the rest. I just found other nurse practitioners, doctors, et cetera, to do the courses for me. I'd pay him 10,000 bucks or whatever, and then they'd sign over the rights and I owned the course. They had no idea I was making $500,000 off of it. Right? And so basically, I, yeah. So if you are, if you are an entrepreneur out there, start the business itself, create the idea, build the infrastructure, get the marketing engine in place. Because at the end of the day, all a continuing education course business is, is a marketing business. It's literally it.

• 12:20Speaker 02

  You just got to build an audience and know how to market it. The product itself is easy. You can hire people, you can hire NPs, nurse practitioners, physician assistants, doctors, chiropractors, whatever. You can hire these people, pay them 10, 15, 20,000 bucks to make a six-hour-long course for you. They sign over the rights. It's yours now. You can do whatever you want with it. Now it's just a marketing play. Yeah. So absolutely, anyone can do it.

• 12:43Speaker 01

  So what are the biggest mistakes or biggest challenges people run into when trying to start an online continuing education business?

• 12:51Speaker 02

  I think the biggest challenge is, is building that audience and actually selling the product. I think that's the big, I think it's just like, you know, any other business, really, right? It's like, how do I sell this thing? The product itself is not difficult. Getting the accreditation for the continuing education, this stuff is not hard. It's, if you know the process, it's easy. It's just, it's, it's marketing the thing. Right? It's understanding, how do I put this in front of the faces of this profession that I'm targeting? And how do I convince them that this is what they need? You know, there's a lot of continuing education courses out there. There's a lot of them. So you have to figure out, how do I separate my, separate myself from that noise? And ultimately, it comes down to just creating something that's very, very valuable, something that actually teaches

• 13:34Speaker 02

  people something they want to learn, not something they're just taking so they can check a box to get their continued education credit or hours, they can get their, renew their license. Right? You don't want to do that. You could do that if you want. But you teach something valuable, they're actually paying for the information and they get the continued education credits. If you do that, it's really a lot easier to do that.

• 13:54Speaker 01

  Given your evolution, I got to ask, what's next?

• 13:59Speaker 02

  Yeah. So I'm gonna, I'm gonna keep going with Pro Core Start. I'm really, really enjoying this. I have no plans on actually selling this one. I think I'm just going to see me kind of my long-term baby that, you know, it kind of helps me just live off of the income sort of a thing and help people do it. I mean, I've already helped, you know, a couple dozen people do it. A couple of those people have scaled up to a million-dollar business already. And so, uh, so yeah, I just really enjoy helping people, mentoring people. And I think that's kind of what I'm going to continue to do. I think it's just a, it's a fun thing. I mean, I got a couple of little projects that I'm working on right now, utilizing some AI stuff in the medical space. So I got a few projects going right now, but this is kind of what I'm going to be focused on for a while.

• 14:37Speaker 01

  You've helped so many people and created so many jobs and so many businesses. The ripple effect has got to be huge. What's your biggest challenge now?

• 14:45Speaker 02

  Yeah. Uh, my biggest challenge right now is just figuring out what to do with my time, to be honest with you. You know, I mean, I, I understand how to build these online businesses that work for you. And so the initial build-out phase is, is the fun part for me. That's the challenge. And then once the thing's operational, that's kind of where it's like, okay, well, now the thing's just running itself. Well, what do I do with my time? So basically, right now with me, I'm just figuring out how to be at peace with it, you know, be at peace with myself and be present. That's what I'm trying to learn how to do.

• 15:16Speaker 01

  Beautiful. Uh, your passion is obvious. What do you like best about what you're doing?

• 15:21Speaker 02

  Uh, like I said, helping people build, helping people build legacy. Like I've really, I've, I've, I have helped, I couldn't tell you how many people through the elite nurse practitioner, how many people start their own practices and how many people start their continued education course businesses. I've, I mean, I've helped thousands of people. And to see these people, like when I'm at a conference speaking, when they come up to me and shake my hand and say, you know, dude, what you taught me literally changed my life and my family's life. I want to thank you. Like that right there, it's priceless.

• 15:49Speaker 01

  Amen to that. Well, we know your time is incredibly valuable. We greatly appreciate you spending some of it with us. For our folks watching and listening, who want to learn more, maybe want to get into the continuing education course business, where is the best place for them to go to learn more about you and Pro Core Start?

• 16:03Speaker 02

  Yep. Yep. www.procoursestart.com. Uh, we have a mastermind option. We also have our own course hosting software that has an education module in it that will actually teach you how to start your own continued education course business in addition to providing you the software and everything that you need to host your courses. Uh, so those are the two options that we have right now. So you just go to procoursestart.com, check those out. If you have any questions, just email me. It's [email protected] and I'll be the one that answers it.

• 16:28Speaker 01

  That's absolutely incredible. That goes back to that time issue. We greatly appreciate you hanging out with us. This has been Seth Green with Justin Montgomery at procoursestart.com. Justin, thanks again for spending some time with us.

• 16:38Speaker 02

  Appreciate it, Seth.

• 16:39Speaker 01

  Thank you, everybody, for watching or listening. We'll talk to you or see you next time.

• 16:43Speaker 03

  Why do so many businesses struggle while others seem to explode overnight? Do you wish you had the secret to this type of exponential growth? Now, I've scaled more than 20 businesses to over $100 million. And it's not just luck. In my new book with Mark Tim, Mentor to Millions, you'll learn the repeatable framework I use in all my business ventures for massive success. Order at kevinmentor.com and get over $1,000 in bonuses. Head to kevinmentor.com.