The Jilly Academy: My Overall Experience
One question that I often get asked is if the Jilly Academy is worth taking. So instead of individually answering every direct message I get, I figured, why not write a full, in-depth blog post on my experience with the academy, course-by-course?! If you aren’t familiar, The Jilly Academy is a set of 3 business courses created by Jillian Harris on how to create your business, create content online for your business & expanding your business; and since I’m a huge Jilly fan, I often get asked about my experience with those courses. So, let’s jump into it!
Course One: The Brand Strategy
In case you missed it, I did a full recap of this portion of the Jilly Academy when I first finished it back in 2021! You can read that here. But I have to say, after having completed all of the courses now, I can honestly say this is the one that I found the most useful for myself personally. It really helps you to think of your business as just that — a business. As someone who writes creates content, it can be hard to look at what you do as a “business”; to me, I’m just doing some fun stuff that I sometimes can get paid for! But this course reframed the way I look at not only what I do but myself, and where I want this little blog of mine to go.
Course Two: The Content Creator
I have heard many, many people say that course two was the best and that they learned the most, but… in my case, this was one of the least helpful courses. Now, that all being said; I need to preface this with the fact that I am a graphic designer, by trade, and I’m lucky enough to not only be married to a professional photographer, but also have a professional photographer bestie. In fact, she took the photo of me just above this paragraph! I’ve definitely got a more “creative advantage” over someone else who’s never picked up a DSLR camera, or opened up Adobe Illustrator before. This all being said, I do think this would be the course that if you could only take one, I’d recommend you take!
Course Three: The Growth Accelerator
Last, but certainly not least, is the third course in the academy – the growth accelerator. For me personally, this one was hard to get through. It’s definitely more of your HR, business-talk (think hiring, Human Resources, taxes… that kind of stuff!), and I have a bit of hard time absorbing this kind of information. Additionally, my business isn’t at this point yet, and that’s okay! I’m still glad I signed up for the academy, and did this course because now when and if I’m ever lucky enough to grow this business and hire one day, I’ll have these courses to look back on & re-do.
Overall, I don’t regret spending the money on taking these courses (+ they’re a tax write off!), and I feel confident that I learned a lot in taking the Jilly Academy. I definitely think the courses do lean a bit more towards an influencer/content creator type business, but given that this is a set of courses created by an influencer/content creator, I think that’s to be expected. If you took the Jilly Academy, let me know your thoughts in the comments below!
