Transcripts
The Women Conquer Business show is an educational, howto, women
Speaker:in business podcast that features stories, marketing news and real life
Speaker:experiences from fun and friendly hosts, Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney.
Speaker:Join us as we dive into the details so you can slay marketing overwhelm, streamline
Speaker:processes and amplify your impact.
Speaker:You'll learn strategies and tactics, leadership skills, and practical
Speaker:advice from successful women entrepreneurs to help you grow,
Speaker:nurture, and sustain your business.
Speaker:Hey.
Speaker:Hey.
Speaker:Hey, welcome.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:Welcome.
Speaker:It's Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney.
Speaker:Woohoo.
Speaker:We're here.
Speaker:Woohoo.
Speaker:For our Women Conquer Business.
Speaker:This week's show we're talking about create your course online best
Speaker:online course platforms for 2022.
Speaker:Yay.
Speaker:With the rise.
Speaker:Yay.
Speaker:With the rise of self-publishing and the success on platforms such
Speaker:as YouTube, blogging and podcasting.
Speaker:There's now a tremendous demand for online courses.
Speaker:And also last week, we talked about eCommerce in general and
Speaker:why eCommerce is so big by using online course creation platforms.
Speaker:Businesses can create courses to sell or use internally.
Speaker:So amazing.
Speaker:These platforms are a great way to promote your brand, business, products
Speaker:and services to increase revenue and attention and your audience,
Speaker:all kinds of things can happen.
Speaker:So this week we'll take a look at the top online course platforms for creating,
Speaker:hosting and selling your online course.
Speaker:And I have a confession to make.
Speaker:I belong to a lot of course platforms.
Speaker:I think it's part of my addiction to apps.
Speaker:The other thing that I wanna say is I can't even believe this.
Speaker:It is the 150th episode of the Women Conquer Business podcast.
Speaker:Yay.
Speaker:yeah, my friend, it's so funny.
Speaker:My friend, Betsy Carver years ago said you would be great on a podcast.
Speaker:I think you need to have one.
Speaker:And I was kinda like why, what?
Speaker:And now it's been like four years later and still here and crazy,
Speaker:and it was a Third Paddle podcast.
Speaker:Now it's the Women Conquer Business podcast.
Speaker:Now we're talking about changing the name again to Marketing How Tos, since
Speaker:that's exactly what we're doing here.
Speaker:It's gone through so many iterations if you were here four
Speaker:years ago and you're still here.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:And thank you.
Speaker:That's so awesome.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And so let's
Speaker:for applause for the whole thing
Speaker:thing I know.
Speaker:And it's so crazy.
Speaker:I oops.
Speaker:Like we could just play applause the whole time.
Speaker:Like I can perform to that.
Speaker:I have no, no issue with that.
Speaker:It's so funny because now this podcast is in the top 2.5% of all podcasts
Speaker:which is another like accomplishment.
Speaker:Now, why
Speaker:Can you tell me why?
Speaker:What is it?
Speaker:Because it's been around so long?
Speaker:Because you have so many episodes?
Speaker:Or is there more?
Speaker:To it than that?
Speaker:Listen notes has their own algorithm for that.
Speaker:If you go to listen notes.com, you can go.
Speaker:And that's one of the big search engines for shows.
Speaker:I think a lot of it has to do with longevity number of episodes.
Speaker:If you remember most podcasts go out after seven episodes.
Speaker:So pod fading is real.
Speaker:If you have the longevity, I think that's part of it.
Speaker:I think.
Speaker:Reviews, it's all kinds of stuff.
Speaker:They look at all of it.
Speaker:So it's just a cool thing to look at, or, when we started, I think we were top 5%.
Speaker:So just you and I doing this regularly, boosted it back up.
Speaker:I think when I quit before it was at like 3% and now it's at 2.5%.
Speaker:Certainly the people who are in the 0.5% are like, really big shows.
Speaker:That have a lot of support, corporate support, which we don't.
Speaker:So it's a pretty good little feather to be in the top 2.5% as a little indie podcast
Speaker:that kind of started off as this fun side gig , which is really what it was for me.
Speaker:I just like to talk.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's so it's kinda neat.
Speaker:It's a good way to.
Speaker:It's a good thing to do.
Speaker:It's a good way to get your voice heard.
Speaker:And if you're really interested in that, I really encourage people to explore it.
Speaker:Is it right for you?
Speaker:And I know Shelley would agree with me cuz that's what she helps
Speaker:people with and stuff that's right.
Speaker:It's once you've done it, you're like, oh, that was easy.
Speaker:I thought
Speaker:it was gonna be hard I wish we had that button, that was
Speaker:easy.
Speaker:oh, it was gonna be harder than that.
Speaker:No,
Speaker:pretty easy.
Speaker:I know it's not so bad.
Speaker:It's really easy.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So I am looking here and I see that you are closing a YouTube channel.
Speaker:What that is correct.
Speaker:Toby and I do a show on Wednesday evenings and we have been on a
Speaker:channel that we've been on since 2017, which started off as A Gypsies Kiss.
Speaker:And we talked about the Forrest Fenn treasure.
Speaker:And then in 2020, that treasure was found.
Speaker:So we talked about our own treasure.
Speaker:We wrote a book called A Gypsies Kiss, explained our, the story
Speaker:of where that name came from.
Speaker:And it's a true story from Toby's life.
Speaker:And then we had a treasure hunt along with it.
Speaker:Once that treasure was found, then we're floundering.
Speaker:What are we gonna do now?
Speaker:And we've been playing with that channel, trying to make a
Speaker:decision about what to do with it.
Speaker:While we finally made a decision we're gonna be doing travel logging, and
Speaker:mostly in New Mexico, Toby's bought a fish skiff boat inflatable that
Speaker:you can stand on, it's got chairs, it's a fishing boat, but it's small.
Speaker:And we're gonna take that out to different lakes in in New Mexico and check those
Speaker:places out and make videos about it.
Speaker:And that is going to go on a brand new channel.
Speaker:We are leaving the channel that had 6,300 subscribers because only 10 people
Speaker:were showing up for the shows anyway.
Speaker:So why not start over with just the people who are interested
Speaker:in what you're talking about?
Speaker:So last night we went on, we talked about, it's time for us to have a
Speaker:clean break from what we were doing before and start a brand new channel.
Speaker:To freshen up our algorithm, our audience everything about
Speaker:it's going to be fresh and new.
Speaker:It's called New Mexico day trips.
Speaker:Woo.
Speaker:And we're going to do our own travel vlogging.
Speaker:Talk about, boating on a budget.
Speaker:We're gonna talk about yeah.
Speaker:Fishing and going places in New Mexico.
Speaker:And then we're going to interview people from other places who are
Speaker:also doing travel vlogging so that's really can grow our audience in that
Speaker:way and grow the interest, you know of, oh, it's not just New Mexico.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:I see people who are in, traveling through other places and what
Speaker:they're doing and what's to do there.
Speaker:So
Speaker:it's look fun.
Speaker:I saw a picture of.
Speaker:All this boating stuff.
Speaker:Are you gonna be doing cool things like unboxings of all that and
Speaker:like talking through like putting all of those pieces together.
Speaker:I saw like a post.
Speaker:I can't remember if it was you or Toby about
Speaker:that.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Toby's been posting about it.
Speaker:He put out a video this week of all.
Speaker:He showed all the boxes in his garage.
Speaker:What's inside of them and how he's going to be putting this boat project together.
Speaker:And funny thing is we have another channel where a few years ago he
Speaker:put together a boat, a trailer for a different kind of boat, small little boat.
Speaker:And that was the number one and did a walk around of the whole
Speaker:thing the trailer and the boat.
Speaker:And that's the number, like the number one video on that channel and that
Speaker:channel's been around for 10 years.
Speaker:And that is like what everybody wanted to see.
Speaker:So we're like, okay, let's do
Speaker:that.
Speaker:And it, and for those of you who were listening, if you're not familiar with an
Speaker:unboxing, Shelley, do you wanna explain?
Speaker:what we mean by that?
Speaker:Basically it just, you get something in, from Amazon or wherever it comes in a
Speaker:box, you open up the box, you talk about what it is, how you're going to use it.
Speaker:People get excited because they live vicariously through you.
Speaker:And it's they just bought a boat.
Speaker:They get that same feeling.
Speaker:So they like to watch that with you.
Speaker:So all of which is to say, you can make videos about anything and
Speaker:people are gonna be interested in it.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:And there are entire channels that are just devoted to unboxing stuff.
Speaker:I it's interesting to me.
Speaker:I love that stuff.
Speaker:So there's channels for kids.
Speaker:Where people just open up toys, new toys, and new games for little kids
Speaker:and they play with them and that's it.
Speaker:And kids love that
Speaker:stuff.
Speaker:I'll be honest.
Speaker:I've thought about having.
Speaker:Weekly shows on my YouTube channel where I'm just going through talking about
Speaker:software since I test so much of it, I've actually thought about doing that.
Speaker:And then I'm like, oh, it just seems like a lot of work.
Speaker:But when you can just throw it in there here's what I, looked at this
Speaker:week and here's what I thought of it.
Speaker:Then it's not so
Speaker:much about, it's not so much.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So I think this sounds great.
Speaker:I love what you're saying, because I feel like you're excited about it.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I, it was time, we keep dragging these people along with us and
Speaker:they're, they don't wanna be there.
Speaker:We don't wanna be there, but they keep showing up.
Speaker:We're like, we're not gonna talk about that anymore.
Speaker:That's in the past now we're, we've got to move forward.
Speaker:And now that we've made that decision of what it is we're gonna be talking about.
Speaker:And that we're gonna be bringing people on who are also doing travel vlogging.
Speaker:And we actually have.
Speaker:A couple of people in mind.
Speaker:There's a woman called wonder hussy and she's got over a hundred
Speaker:thousand subscribers and she's been doing travel V blogging for
Speaker:years like close to 10 years maybe.
Speaker:And she's got a huge audience.
Speaker:We have interviewed her in the past and we'll bring, try to
Speaker:bring her on again and yeah.
Speaker:And share her insights.
Speaker:That's awesome.
Speaker:I know a few people that do different things, like one person
Speaker:who talks about different backpacks.
Speaker:For traveling and hiking and all that kind of thing.
Speaker:Yeah, there's just all kinds of, it's like very expansive.
Speaker:I'm feeling like this is very expansive.
Speaker:You have a lot.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's a, we're calling it day trips because we live right in the middle of New Mexico.
Speaker:So there's pretty, we can pretty much go anywhere in New Mexico and back in a day.
Speaker:If we go down to Las Cruces, that's a four hour drive, so we really
Speaker:gotta get up early if we wanted to do that, but we could make that happen.
Speaker:Pretty much anywhere in New Mexico, we could go there and
Speaker:back in one day, so trip.
Speaker:Oh, let me know when you go to truth or consequences, I might just
Speaker:show up and sit in a hot tub and
Speaker:talk to y'all there's there is a lot of hot Springs in New Mexico that.
Speaker:That people just don't realize that if they
Speaker:haven't been here.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It's I love New Mexico.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:Love it.
Speaker:What is it that you wanted me to talk about?
Speaker:Do you want me to talk about that?
Speaker:I bought new office supplies.
Speaker:Is that the, I
Speaker:don't think so.
Speaker:last week somebody told me they were gonna go drive some big, fancy, fast
Speaker:car rent.
Speaker:We talked about it, right?
Speaker:We talked about it last week.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:So last Thursday I talked about how I was, how my husband got me this gift of driving
Speaker:a Lamborghini and I was gonna go do that on Friday and I did it and it was awesome.
Speaker:It was everything that I expected.
Speaker:It would be, and more, it was a lamb Lamborghini hurricane, and we were
Speaker:at Portland international Speedway or Raceway PI R here in Portland, Oregon.
Speaker:And I had, so just to be clear, I go in, I register, I bought all of the things.
Speaker:So I have a video, I have pictures.
Speaker:My husband made fun of me, but no, what am I gonna do this again?
Speaker:So I went in and like I said, you can
Speaker:make a whole page in your website about it, and now you've got to go in it.
Speaker:I just needed like some time to process this experience, to be honest with you.
Speaker:So I, so we show up at, on the day and get all registered.
Speaker:And then the first thing is we have to go into this class and the class is
Speaker:like awesome and scary at the same time.
Speaker:It like really grounded me in the fact that I was about to drive a $250,000 car.
Speaker:Like you are like, kinda oh, like I can't afford to replace this thing.
Speaker:And they're like, if you hit a cone, if you hit, you know how, like on the side
Speaker:of a track that kind of rumble strips, if you hit a rumble strip, if you go
Speaker:into the grass, like you're gonna damage the car and you're gonna have to pay.
Speaker:And I was like, okay , I think my voice cracked, even at the time, and
Speaker:it had like all these rules and stuff.
Speaker:And I had bought more insurance because the, what came with the package was
Speaker:like a $6,000 deduct deductible.
Speaker:And I was like, yeah, no, I don't wanna pay that much.
Speaker:So I paid a little more so that it, the deductible went down to 2000,
Speaker:but I really, so it freaked me out.
Speaker:Like I didn't wanna pay for damaging this car.
Speaker:Realized when I walked up to the car, the reason why anything could damage it is
Speaker:it's like incredibly low to the ground.
Speaker:Like I drive a Mustang it's low to the ground.
Speaker:This was like, even, it was so low to the ground.
Speaker:I sit down.
Speaker:Oh.
Speaker:So then we waited in line.
Speaker:I didn't do, I sh which I should have.
Speaker:I just didn't understand everything on the website.
Speaker:They had a lead car package where you could ride with
Speaker:somebody and learn the track.
Speaker:But I was confused about what time and like how all that worked.
Speaker:So I didn't do that.
Speaker:So I'd never been to this Raceway before.
Speaker:I'd never driven a car like this before.
Speaker:So I get in, there's an instructor sitting next to me, but to be
Speaker:clear, this is not driver's ed.
Speaker:They do not have brake pedals or steering wheel over there.
Speaker:I'm driving the car, I'm working the pedals and on the race track they
Speaker:had cones and they were basically.
Speaker:If it's this color cone you need to break.
Speaker:If it's this color cone, you need to not break, so it's not accelerating.
Speaker:And then if it's a green cone, you get to go, and then there were all these hand
Speaker:signals that the instructor was giving me and all of, there's a lot going on.
Speaker:So the whole experience was like 10 minutes.
Speaker:But it was crazy and it was awesome.
Speaker:And so I'll admit that the first lap I'm driving, like a grandma, like I'm like
Speaker:I could hit, I could go off the road.
Speaker:And there's like on the video, which I bought, there's even one, one part where
Speaker:he's like the ice cream is melting.
Speaker:The cops are on your tail.
Speaker:And I can tell he is just come on.
Speaker:And you only get three laps.
Speaker:So the first lab was really kinda like learning the track.
Speaker:The second time around.
Speaker:I'm going a little bit faster.
Speaker:We hit the straightaway.
Speaker:And he is come on sister.
Speaker:And I like hit the gas pedal as hard as I can like to the floor.
Speaker:And I got it up to 161 miles an hour.
Speaker:And I can tell you that in watching the video, and I remember
Speaker:screaming when I got up around 120 miles an hour, I just went woo.
Speaker:And I was like, like I had this look on my face of just yeah, like we're doing
Speaker:this, and I like and then it went and it, cuz the car is like incredibly smooth.
Speaker:It's amazing.
Speaker:What $250,000 in one car can do because the force of going that fast,
Speaker:I'd never gone obviously a hundred.
Speaker:I hadn't gone 120 before I've gone over a hundred before in Idaho.
Speaker:Shh.
Speaker:Don't tell mom and so on like country roads and stuff.
Speaker:But you know the car, like when I did it before the car was shaken, like
Speaker:everything felt like it was gonna fall apart just before I had my Mustang and.
Speaker:But when you go 160 miles an hour in a car, that's gonna go 202, which
Speaker:is how fast the Lamborghini can go.
Speaker:The car was not shaking, but my body was because the force of going that fast.
Speaker:And I can say that as he's saying, get off, there's a part in the video he's
Speaker:like saying, get off the gas that like, at that moment, like my eyes are shaking
Speaker:and like the track, everything is moving back and forths, very intense moment.
Speaker:And also very joyful for me.
Speaker:Like it was both, so it was awesome.
Speaker:Went like 120 at one point 160 at one point and a hundred and.
Speaker:110, 115 or something at another point.
Speaker:So it was pretty exciting, pretty invigorating afterwards.
Speaker:And John was there the whole time.
Speaker:He was just like RA it was very cool.
Speaker:And then afterwards, we went to this place.
Speaker:It's so cool.
Speaker:It's called the island cafe.
Speaker:And it, so it was almost like a whole vacation, cuz the island cafe is near
Speaker:the Raceway just in a, it's just a part of town we don't get to very often.
Speaker:So we went to the island cafe sat along the river.
Speaker:John had a beer, I had a pina colada we just pretended like we were on vacation.
Speaker:We were like right on the river where all these house like floating homes
Speaker:are and people driving by in boats and stuff, it was just really pleasant day.
Speaker:It was really amazing.
Speaker:I, if you like to drive fast go out and do it, they travel all over the country
Speaker:and they also do like things on the road.
Speaker:The regular road where you're not going that fast.
Speaker:So it's a really cool experience.
Speaker:I've told some people and I can tell they're like clutching the pearls.
Speaker:I'm like really nervous.
Speaker:So it's definitely something if it's your thing, like to do it, but
Speaker:otherwise you could probably skip it.
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:Fun.
Speaker:Really exciting.
Speaker:Super fun, especially just having recovered from my concussion and yeah,
Speaker:let's really put it to the test.
Speaker:So we have somebody who wants to know, are we talking about online course platform?
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Sorry.
Speaker:Yes, we got, I know, sorry.
Speaker:We got a little sidetracked.
Speaker:We are going talk that we had to talk about.
Speaker:That was so cool.
Speaker:Such a cool story.
Speaker:So let's slide into breaking news.
Speaker:It's really quick today.
Speaker:All right.
Speaker:Our friends over at near media are reporting that Yelp their new business
Speaker:stream is selling your business data.
Speaker:So if you've invested a lot of time, money and effort into Yelp, just know
Speaker:that they're also benefiting from that for years, I've told people don't, put
Speaker:your posts on, put, have a business profile on Yelp, but don't buy their ads.
Speaker:They've been largely seen as a scam.
Speaker:Now.
Speaker:We know that they're selling your business information.
Speaker:So if you're going to get a rise in spam emails and calls and things
Speaker:like that, it could be coming from.
Speaker:Yup.
Speaker:Wow.
Speaker:I've never I've never liked them.
Speaker:never liked
Speaker:them either.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So that's it for breaking news.
Speaker:Do you have anything Shelley?
Speaker:No.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Let's move into
Speaker:training.
Speaker:Let's move into training.
Speaker:So there you go.
Speaker:We are in fact gonna talk about online course platforms.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And here we are.
Speaker:Boom, boom.
Speaker:Let me see if I can present
Speaker:presenting Jen's
Speaker:slides, presenting my slides.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So before we talk about the specific platforms, just really
Speaker:briefly, we have Three winning strategies heading into this.
Speaker:So the first one is, oh, it's actually not, but there's a few compelling
Speaker:reasons for creating digital products.
Speaker:We're not gonna spend too much time on this because we did talk about
Speaker:e-commerce a little bit last week, but one of the reasons why people
Speaker:talk about doing courses so much is it takes you from a one to one
Speaker:client relationship into one to many.
Speaker:That means you can be talking to a lot of people all at the same time.
Speaker:And it's like leveraging your time a lot better.
Speaker:One of the other reasons is it's a passive income stream.
Speaker:People can buy your courses and you're not in front of them.
Speaker:You could be sleeping and earning money while you sleep.
Speaker:The third reason is it also creates a curated experience for your audience.
Speaker:So based on what they need, what they want, that's one of the
Speaker:reasons why you create courses.
Speaker:It's really important to do that.
Speaker:One of the other things to really consider as you're like going into this, it's like
Speaker:kind of the small online business dilemma.
Speaker:I also have like small business marketing dilemmas.
Speaker:But when you're gonna be creating a lot of online content, you have to realize, you
Speaker:have to think about how this balances out with maybe the rest of your business or
Speaker:with what it is that you like to create.
Speaker:Do you have the time, passion and patience for content creation?
Speaker:Because sometimes it takes a while , it's not necessarily free.
Speaker:Do you have the resources for things like a course platform, video and
Speaker:audio editing and then of course marketing and then the value.
Speaker:So do online courses and products add value to your business.
Speaker:And how soon do you need it?
Speaker:Sometimes people don't give themselves enough of an on ramp
Speaker:before needing the financing, the money from a course platform.
Speaker:And just understand that it can take a little bit of time before you
Speaker:start to generate a lot of serious.
Speaker:Money from it, depending on how big your audience is, how big your
Speaker:email list is and how aggressive you are about getting people into it.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:It's like any digital product.
Speaker:If you are doing it on your own, then you are responsible for selling it on
Speaker:your own, marketing it, getting it out into the world bringing people into it.
Speaker:If you want somebody else to do that for you, then put it up on
Speaker:somewhere like you to me and let them take care of all the marketing.
Speaker:And you just create course after course, you can do that too.
Speaker:Of course, they're going to give you a portion of the income from
Speaker:that because a lot of their.
Speaker:A lot of your money or a lot of the money that goes into places like TMY
Speaker:or Skillshare or one of those that has courses online, a course online
Speaker:platform, they do the marketing for you.
Speaker:They do.
Speaker:And you pay for that.
Speaker:every time they sell your course they get most of the money you'll get some of
Speaker:the money and that pays for your market.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:Another one is Maven that's getting a lot of talk around
Speaker:town and they do the same thing.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So they take a lot of the money and, but they're helping to advertise it.
Speaker:So that's the cool thing about Maven is they're actually teaching
Speaker:you about their platform as well.
Speaker:Which is neat okay.
Speaker:So the first strategy is to begin with the end in mind.
Speaker:And what I mean by that is how does it fit into your customer journey?
Speaker:Where at what touch points are they gonna come in and maybe
Speaker:have let fork in the road, right?
Speaker:Like you can either work with me one on one, or you can take this
Speaker:course, or maybe you work with people.
Speaker:And there's some things that you don't wanna work with people on
Speaker:one to one anymore, and they can go and investigate it deeper.
Speaker:And then come to you with questions as part of your consulting.
Speaker:There's so many different ways that you can take eCommerce courses,
Speaker:whatever online content you wanna sell.
Speaker:And you can like bridge that to what you're doing now.
Speaker:Or you can be like us.
Speaker:And we're trying to like work into maybe making this more of
Speaker:a centerpiece of our business.
Speaker:The other point is what will your students learn?
Speaker:A lot of times people get into trouble because they are like
Speaker:I just want to do something.
Speaker:So people are gonna hire me.
Speaker:And that's not really the right attitude.
Speaker:to go into this with you have to think about transformation.
Speaker:You have to consider where people are gonna be at the end, because it helps
Speaker:them navigate whether or not they wanna buy from you, whether they wanna do it.
Speaker:If, is, are they gonna get out of this?
Speaker:What they expect and what they want.
Speaker:It can't just be like a big sales pitch.
Speaker:A lot of people do that.
Speaker:I think it's a mistake.
Speaker:And then the third part is, how are you gonna get the word out?
Speaker:One of the things with epiphany courses.
Speaker:Is we realized we didn't wanna do huge marketing campaign
Speaker:after huge marketing campaign.
Speaker:We would rather just go all in with one fee and you get all of the courses
Speaker:rather than here's a course for $75.
Speaker:Here's a course for $450.
Speaker:And then having a huge ramp up for marketing, we'd rather be more rapid
Speaker:in what we create sell it at a slightly lower price and get the word out
Speaker:once about everything that we have.
Speaker:So you really have to think about your marketing after you make it.
Speaker:But you have to do it at the beginning, cuz it'll really
Speaker:help you be more successful.
Speaker:And I'm sure that's what you are doing with your stuff Shelley.
Speaker:The number one thing you wanna focus on for me is that what
Speaker:are, what's that transformation?
Speaker:What, and that is on your sales page.
Speaker:Here's what you're going to have, or know, or learn, or be able to do.
Speaker:Here's where you're going to be after you finish this course.
Speaker:And then you list those things out, for me, it was like, you'll be able to
Speaker:put out a live stream every week, like clockwork, you'll be able to put out a
Speaker:book, maybe two books every year, you'll be able, all of these things that.
Speaker:That are where they want to be and that they will get to when they finish
Speaker:your course, all of the information is super important to know before you
Speaker:even begin building the course and to put on your sales page to say, here is
Speaker:the transformation that you can expect.
Speaker:And part of it.
Speaker:So like getting back to Ruth, Anne's question about are you gonna
Speaker:discuss online course platforms before we even talk about platforms?
Speaker:We have to talk through a couple of things first, because the more,
Speaker:ahead of time, the better equipped yard to choose the right platform.
Speaker:So that's why, even though we've started talking about courses
Speaker:and platforms, we haven't gotten there yet because it's expensive.
Speaker:It takes a lot of time and you have to consider a lot of things before you do it.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And I know Shelley
Speaker:agrees with me.
Speaker:Oh, , you're gonna get sick to death of this course, by the time
Speaker:you finally get it up and running
Speaker:. So the second strategy is to be sure
Speaker:And you do this for a lot of different reasons, your course, and content
Speaker:are like hidden in plain sight.
Speaker:It means that a lot of the best courses and the most successful things that you
Speaker:can do are the questions that you're getting over and over again, there's
Speaker:so much that you can sell because other people don't know how to do it.
Speaker:So that's the first thing.
Speaker:If you don't know what you're gonna talk about, or if you're kind like
Speaker:I wanna talk about this, but I'm not sure that's one of the places to look.
Speaker:Those are the rock.
Speaker:right on earlier episodes.
Speaker:We've also talked about making things, SEO, friendly understand,
Speaker:test it out, look up on Google.
Speaker:Some of your course topics.
Speaker:See if it's phrased the way that you're phrasing it.
Speaker:See if people are asking those questions, who else has already
Speaker:answered those questions and are those answers good enough?
Speaker:How can you make your answer different?
Speaker:Those are all things that are important, cause I'll help you get traction
Speaker:in the long run through some SEO.
Speaker:The next part is be sure that you.
Speaker:Ask your audience, ask the people in front of you.
Speaker:I see that Ruth Anne smiled.
Speaker:So I know that she's still out there.
Speaker:Thank you so much.
Speaker:The third point is to ask your audience what it is that
Speaker:they need, ask your customers.
Speaker:You might not know what they need but you know how to answer their questions.
Speaker:So that's another strategy to really think of ahead of time.
Speaker:All of these strategies will help you get more sales out of the gate, and that's
Speaker:really what we wanna help you with.
Speaker:That's what we're trying to enable you to do.
Speaker:That's right.
Speaker:And a lot of times you're gonna, if you've already worked with clients and
Speaker:you, or you've just been in a place where people continue to come to you for a
Speaker:particular kind of help, then you know exactly what to put into your course.
Speaker:It's those things that people have the most trouble with the
Speaker:things that they're getting stuck.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:So the third strategy, I know people are usually like, Ugh, why does
Speaker:Jen always talk about planning?
Speaker:It is so important.
Speaker:it is
Speaker:It's so important.
Speaker:It's gonna save your life.
Speaker:I know Shelley agrees with me on this.
Speaker:But like online product development takes time.
Speaker:And it's so funny when I have taught this locally here in Portland and
Speaker:been on like eCommerce panels.
Speaker:And I talk about the digital this SI part of it creating digital products.
Speaker:And I had my colleague off to the side who makes physical products.
Speaker:My friend Celeste, who runs thunder pants, USA out of Portland, she read
Speaker:all of this and she read about all the strategies and she's oh my God, this
Speaker:is just like making a physical product.
Speaker:So you have to realize that what you're creating is just the products that you're
Speaker:buying in some ways it has to be useful.
Speaker:Like you have to plan it out and it takes a lot of time.
Speaker:So that means when we talk about it on the course side, we're talking
Speaker:about like your titles and topics, they have to be really well developed.
Speaker:You have to really be thinking about it.
Speaker:You have to create videos.
Speaker:You maybe you have handouts or a workbook.
Speaker:You also need some sort of sales page some sort of funnel to bring people
Speaker:in and let them know exactly what it is that they're gonna get out of it.
Speaker:You have to set up pricing, you have to build your decks.
Speaker:Maybe you have to do some sort of like product build and you might think it
Speaker:is not really one for a course, but.
Speaker:Sometimes you have to package things in certain ways to get interest.
Speaker:So you have to really think about, what this whole product is that
Speaker:you're presenting to somebody how are you going to sell it?
Speaker:And then after that it's like the marketing strategy and execution,
Speaker:and then the sales beyond that, are you gonna have affiliates?
Speaker:Are you going to have other people selling it on your behalf?
Speaker:What does that look like?
Speaker:How are you gonna get the word out?
Speaker:So this is all before before you pick a platform.
Speaker:And the reason for that is different platforms do different things well , and
Speaker:so depending on what it is that you want it to do and if Ruthanne is still
Speaker:watching, she may have some questions as we start going through stuff.
Speaker:And if you are watching or if you're listening at home be sure to email
Speaker:us at hello women, conquer biz.com.
Speaker:We can answer some questions.
Speaker:Were you just waving?
Speaker:What are you doing?
Speaker:No,
Speaker:I have a question I wanted you to explain what is a deck?
Speaker:Is that your slides?
Speaker:What is a deck?
Speaker:Yeah, slide deck.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Slides.
Speaker:Your PowerPoint.
Speaker:Cause actually personally I start with the title and topic, but that's
Speaker:the second thing I do is the slides.
Speaker:So
Speaker:yeah.
Speaker:It's not necessarily in any sort of order.
Speaker:That's why it confused
Speaker:me.
Speaker:I'm like, wait a minute.
Speaker:Where, what is that?
Speaker:am I building a deck on the house?
Speaker:What's what is a
Speaker:deck?
Speaker:Yeah, no, it's a, yeah.
Speaker:It could be, I don't, I don't know.
Speaker:If that's your course.
Speaker:Sure.
Speaker:But and this is just a laundry list, so you have a lot to think about and if you
Speaker:already have a platform, certainly the platform, whatever you make next time, it
Speaker:just goes, it just feeds into all of that.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:So let's start, I think this next one is where you're gonna talk about yeah.
Speaker:Your favorite course platform.
Speaker:Shelley.
Speaker:So let's
Speaker:start there.
Speaker:Let me first address what I look for in a platform.
Speaker:Number one, it needs to be easy to organize.
Speaker:I have to be able to understand it and work with it in a
Speaker:in a user friendly manner.
Speaker:It has to make sense.
Speaker:And you don't have, I can't be keep going back and forth and into other,
Speaker:pages and other places and you, oh, I've tried some things that make
Speaker:you do that and it makes you crazy.
Speaker:So it's gotta be easy to organize.
Speaker:It's gotta accept video, audio, text, and images for your course
Speaker:so that you have all those options.
Speaker:Maybe you want to give people a video.
Speaker:They can watch, they can sit down at their desk and watch, but you also
Speaker:wanna give them a downloadable audio.
Speaker:So if they wanna go, listen to it while they're walking around and
Speaker:doing things or in their car, you can give them a downloadable audio.
Speaker:So they can have that as another option.
Speaker:You wanna have link learning management tools that give you that back and
Speaker:forth with your students so that if they get stuck, they have questions.
Speaker:They don't.
Speaker:They don't understand or they're in some way, unsure or maybe
Speaker:afraid of doing something.
Speaker:For instance, in my course, we recommend specific equipment to have
Speaker:in your home for live streaming.
Speaker:This is a sticking point for some people, cuz they're afraid to buy equipment
Speaker:and then have it be the wrong thing.
Speaker:So at that point we wanna have a lot of conversation and maybe even a call with
Speaker:them, a video call so that we can assure them that they're getting the right thing.
Speaker:So have that learning management tool to know where people are getting stuck and
Speaker:to be able to insert that help at that point, you wanna payment integration
Speaker:so that when people are ready to buy your course, they can ease easy.
Speaker:Boom, I bought it and then let's get started.
Speaker:So you gotta have that payment integration for them.
Speaker:And then you want a landing and sales page integration so that you can have
Speaker:that funnel where you bring them to that landing page, that sales page, and
Speaker:then they get started and then they buy and then they move into those things.
Speaker:So those are the things that I want into see in a platform.
Speaker:And if I don't see them, that means I'm gonna have to cobble things
Speaker:together and I'm not good at that.
Speaker:I don't have time for that.
Speaker:And it.
Speaker:It slows everything down when you have to cobble stuff together.
Speaker:So I'm not a fan of that.
Speaker:The only
Speaker:thing that I would add to this is, so it has to be easy to organize.
Speaker:It has to be easy for you to use the best platform.
Speaker:And I think Shelley and I have talked about this before is the one that you use.
Speaker:That's true.
Speaker:So even if we're gonna give you options, like you have to test them out.
Speaker:The other thing I would say is be sure to do things as a student.
Speaker:Is it.
Speaker:So I'm not, I don't wanna spend a lot of time, like hating on products,
Speaker:but like some people just say like Kartra, for example, is a really good
Speaker:all in one platform, but have you ever taken a class as a student in
Speaker:Kartra I have bought classes on Kartra.
Speaker:I hate the experience as a student.
Speaker:It's awful.
Speaker:It's not easy to use.
Speaker:I get confused about what I am supposed to do.
Speaker:So that's an example of easy for you, not easy for your students.
Speaker:And Ruth has a question.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:Is the landing sales page hosted to the web or is it specific to the platform?
Speaker:It depends.
Speaker:I would say so if you are using I, if you're using and you can speak to
Speaker:za, cause I know that's what you're using, but if you're using teachable
Speaker:or podium or think if Kajabi, certainly they all have landing
Speaker:pages or sales pages included in it.
Speaker:And pod teachable.
Speaker:A lot of them also include all of the emails on the back end.
Speaker:So if you wanna send out like drip emails, as people go
Speaker:through a course it will do that.
Speaker:Not all platforms do it.
Speaker:So you could also work your landing and sales pages through if you're
Speaker:already using something like a, click funnels or lead pages or something
Speaker:else, you could do it that way for ease of use when you're getting started.
Speaker:It's nice to have it as part of the platform that you're using.
Speaker:It's all kind of personal preference at that point.
Speaker:Very good.
Speaker:My favorite course platform and I have gone through several I've tried T me.
Speaker:I've tried teachable.
Speaker:I've tried member vault.
Speaker:I've tried product.
Speaker:I know I've tried.
Speaker:Oh gosh.
Speaker:Now I'm forgetting the name of it.
Speaker:It was the coaching one.
Speaker:Oh yeah.
Speaker:Up coach up coach.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And then I settled on VAA.
Speaker:The reason I like VAA is it has all the integration of all the different things.
Speaker:You can create a website, you can create a landing page, you can create a funnel.
Speaker:You can bring in the email list and an email from there.
Speaker:You can put your course in there.
Speaker:You can have a membership if you want.
Speaker:You can have at CRM there's so many different things integrated into it.
Speaker:But one of the things that I like the most is you can purchase it.
Speaker:Never, paying a monthly fee like you do with some of these like teachable.
Speaker:So I, I prefer that as well, if it's at all possible to purchase the online course
Speaker:platform product and then, and you mean outright, you have it don't have to fake
Speaker:payments, right?
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:For example, you bought VAA on app Sumo.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:I have a member vault account because I was one of their founding 100 members.
Speaker:I never have to pay for it again.
Speaker:If you have an opportunity for a really good platform, That you
Speaker:find, and you can buy it outright.
Speaker:It is good because you don't have to, you don't have that ongoing cost of the
Speaker:platform, plus the fees that people take off of the top of any payments plus,
Speaker:it can be really expensive and that's what we mean about the ongoing costs.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And all of that.
Speaker:Do you have a is your za at a place where we can look at it
Speaker:or not yet?
Speaker:Not really.
Speaker:Not yet.
Speaker:I haven't published because I don't have the videos done yet.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:I've got everything, but the videos done I'm saving those for
Speaker:the last, because I'm still, I was still tweaking the curriculum.
Speaker:Every time I would do another show or I would work on something else, I would go,
Speaker:oh, I need to add that to my curriculum.
Speaker:So I wanted to make sure my curriculum was at a point where it was set in
Speaker:stone before I started doing the videos.
Speaker:And and actually setting it into stone.
Speaker:absolutely.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:Okay, that makes sense.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Do you have any other favorite platforms you wanted to talk about?
Speaker:And one of the things that za does as well is it will accept a video.
Speaker:If I make a video, a course video, a training video, it will
Speaker:accept up to one gigabyte video.
Speaker:And I've found that if I am recording at seven 20 P on stream yard I can do up, 30,
Speaker:40 minutes and still not get to that one gig limit so I can embed, or I can upload
Speaker:my videos, my original video into the course platform where a lot of these, they
Speaker:require you to have it hosted somewhere like on YouTube or Vimeo VI or somewhere.
Speaker:And then embed the code.
Speaker:And so they are out there.
Speaker:So somebody could actually stumble across the course video in that way.
Speaker:They all za also offers you the opportunity to do that.
Speaker:If you want to do it that way if you'd already had your videos up on
Speaker:YouTube and you wanted to create a course with them they give you that
Speaker:ability, but you can also just upload them directly into the platform.
Speaker:So I kinda like that about it.
Speaker:I think it's really cool.
Speaker:And I'm so glad that you found something that that works and
Speaker:it's at VAA vaa.com V O N z.com.
Speaker:It is an all in one platform.
Speaker:I think that, it, whenever you do an all in one platform, that's when you
Speaker:really have to do your due diligence, like you did up coach, and it wasn't an
Speaker:all in one platform that worked for you.
Speaker:You did your due diligence on za, and it really works for you.
Speaker:My recommendation for everybody out there is if you're looking at a Kartra a Kajabi
Speaker:Avanza there's a whole, even podia to an extent is an all in one, always know
Speaker:that you have to give up something like it's never good at all of the things.
Speaker:So the upside is it's all in one place.
Speaker:It's super easy for you, the entrepreneur to navigate it, you can
Speaker:learn it like the back of your hand and it'll will be seamless for you.
Speaker:It'll be great.
Speaker:The downside is someday you might wanna do something a little different
Speaker:and it might not be able to do it.
Speaker:It's just a risk, but there's risk in everything.
Speaker:Nothing is gonna be absolutely perfect.
Speaker:So as long as we just have awareness of that, Then it, then we just go
Speaker:and do it, for example, when I talk about what I am doing for epiphany
Speaker:courses, it's not anything that I'm recommending today because we have such
Speaker:a different thing that we are doing over there that makes it different.
Speaker:So yeah.
Speaker:Are there any other platforms you wanted to share before you take a drink?
Speaker:? Jen and I both really like heartbeat,
Speaker:of the students and peer to peer.
Speaker:And then of course, appearing there in there is the instructor, but also is
Speaker:a friend who can talk people through things and keep them from getting stuck.
Speaker:And you can also use heartbeat in as Entry level free place.
Speaker:And then you can talk, talk to them about taking the course and adding that on.
Speaker:And then in heartbeat you can add on a member group just for those people
Speaker:who are in the course and and you can give them that special treatment in
Speaker:there.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And we're using heartbeat for something a little different.
Speaker:But yeah, I think it's great.
Speaker:I love how you're gonna use it.
Speaker:I think it's perfect.
Speaker:And heartbeat, I love because it's super well supported.
Speaker:And no matter what platform you choose, make sure this is, these
Speaker:are like, some of this is like basic software buying here, right?
Speaker:Go in, test out the product, test out customer service.
Speaker:If they're not gonna answer your questions when you're on a free trial,
Speaker:imagine what it's gonna be like when you.
Speaker:Paying for it.
Speaker:Like it can be worse.
Speaker:So make sure you go in, try it, see what customer service is gonna be
Speaker:like, read reviews, not just the ones that are like, Hey, this super awesome
Speaker:murderer like that are affiliate links.
Speaker:Get in the weeds, read the ones that are negative to and it
Speaker:helps you make these decisions.
Speaker:So my course platforms are a little bit different.
Speaker:Part of it's cuz I have an app addiction that we've talked about many times.
Speaker:So if you are a non-technical entrepreneur and you wanna have a website, but
Speaker:you don't need like a super heavy duty learning management system.
Speaker:And by that, something that tracks how far into each lesson people are going.
Speaker:All of the things that Shelley just talked about, about the back and forth.
Speaker:Squarespace has now become a, like a great place where you can have premium content.
Speaker:You can have membership, you can sell and pay, have paid newsletters, have.
Speaker:Paid courses, digital downloads.
Speaker:It's great for podcasting.
Speaker:And then they also have bought acuity.
Speaker:So you can do all of rescheduling through there.
Speaker:You can do all of that for two to $300 a year.
Speaker:So if you're low budget, not a lot of techy skills and you don't
Speaker:need again, the heavy lifting of a full learning management system.
Speaker:This is a good option for you.
Speaker:This is also a good, like I'm gonna do everything.
Speaker:I'm gonna try out courses.
Speaker:I need a website anyway, and then if my courses get too technical or too
Speaker:hard, or I need more out of them, you can always spin off to a course
Speaker:platform like a, like teachable, VAA, Thinkific, something like that.
Speaker:So this is a good starter option.
Speaker:And they're really beautiful.
Speaker:Other starter.
Speaker:Starter platforms that you could use forever.
Speaker:These are like, cuz I'm a big believer of starter course platforms
Speaker:that can be your forever home.
Speaker:If you have no budget, gum road is a good option.
Speaker:It's free forever, but they charge transaction fees based on sales.
Speaker:So gum road, you can sell anything.
Speaker:It's great for creators.
Speaker:But you may have to charge a little more so that your take home is better.
Speaker:And then the more you sell the lower their fees are.
Speaker:So you have to think about it, right?
Speaker:Like you may not pay.
Speaker:$150 a month for something like a gum road.
Speaker:But if your course is like $6,000 and they're taking 9% off of that, you're
Speaker:actually paying more for a platform like gum road or T me or Maven, whatever it is.
Speaker:But gum road is a good place to start.
Speaker:It's yeah.
Speaker:And they do courses, they do all kinds of things.
Speaker:It's just more robust than like a Patreon or something like that.
Speaker:The next level.
Speaker:And I have used this platform.
Speaker:I enjoyed it.
Speaker:I found it a little limiting but it's podium and it is, if you
Speaker:are one person, you're not gonna have a lot of different teachers.
Speaker:And you're not very technical podium is a great option, $33 a month to start.
Speaker:And then it goes up from there.
Speaker:There's no transaction fees.
Speaker:It includes email marketing email for your courses.
Speaker:Not a CRM, so it's not, it's different than za Zas.
Speaker:Good for coaches Poya is good for coaches slash content creator type
Speaker:it's just a little bit different.
Speaker:The websites are nice.
Speaker:It does a website, but like Kajabi.
Speaker:You don't really want your whole website on there, cuz it
Speaker:doesn't, it's not as flexible for a website, not as great of SEO.
Speaker:But they do have, it is a nice user interface.
Speaker:As a student.
Speaker:It's great to use.
Speaker:It can be very clean.
Speaker:I have clients on podium.
Speaker:They love it.
Speaker:Probably the best full featured LM, learning management system that
Speaker:you can grow into is think if it's way more flexible than teachable.
Speaker:You can integrate a lot more things with it.
Speaker:It is in general of the big behemoth learning management systems.
Speaker:It's really good, but it also gets really expensive, really fast.
Speaker:So it, to get all of the full features, it's $150 a month, but unlike Kajabi,
Speaker:which starts at $150 a month, , you can grow into it to an enterprise
Speaker:grade level and you top out at that $150 a month for the best business
Speaker:tools that they have to offer.
Speaker:Okay.
Speaker:Anything you got?
Speaker:Yeah, I just, I don't, if you can avoid a monthly payment
Speaker:that, that's my favorite.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I think it just depends on, yeah, it just depends on what it is that you want,
Speaker:and then if we go into more advanced, I feel like we have to answer all of the
Speaker:questions that I anticipate people having.
Speaker:Advanced platforms.
Speaker:So member vault, when I joined member vault, I got it.
Speaker:I'm a founding 100 member.
Speaker:I have, I can show you my member vault right here.
Speaker:And this is the, if you go to courses dot women, conquer biz.com, it's.
Speaker:This is what it looks like.
Speaker:I have a little promo to the podcast.
Speaker:I have a lot of they're really big on.
Speaker:Celebrations and like getting people in with gamifications.
Speaker:So it means as people finish things, you get engagement points, those
Speaker:engagement points, you can then say, when somebody goes through so many lessons,
Speaker:they get a free course or they get.
Speaker:Whatever it is that you decide that they get that's the basis of it.
Speaker:They've now made it much more robust than when I first joined as a founding member.
Speaker:But if you go in here, like there's an automation station there's a button
Speaker:here where if you wanna schedule a consult with me, you can, and then
Speaker:I only have three courses up here.
Speaker:It's really pretty basic.
Speaker:Because I do work with people who are on member vault and so full
Speaker:disclosure, I'm one of their consultants.
Speaker:So that's really what the thrust of what this is here for member vault used
Speaker:to have a really robust, free plan.
Speaker:And in the last few months they made some business changes.
Speaker:And so now they are all in one plan at $99 a month.
Speaker:Now I think that's great for them.
Speaker:I love what they have, what they are doing with their business.
Speaker:They have a lot of support.
Speaker:The downside of that is not everybody can do an entry point at nine $99 a month.
Speaker:So they're making a business decision about who it is that they wanna help.
Speaker:It's a wonderful company, very supportive and really great, but it's
Speaker:expensive for many people at that price.
Speaker:If you wanna have a learning management, if you wanna, if you have a WordPress
Speaker:website and you wanna have a full meal deal on your WordPress website, there
Speaker:are a couple things about that one.
Speaker:It is phenomenally flexible.
Speaker:You could probably upload a chicken into WordPress and sell it if you wanted to.
Speaker:I don't know.
Speaker:We'll have to talk to my friend Bridget Willard about that.
Speaker:She's the one working on the chicken farm, not me, but I will say, and it's
Speaker:great for SEO, but it's very technical.
Speaker:Sometimes when you add things like learn dash or some of these other
Speaker:learning management systems to WordPress, you have to really, again,
Speaker:think about the user experience.
Speaker:Are you sending somebody to the back end of a WordPress website
Speaker:so that then they figure out which course they're gonna take.
Speaker:So you don't really wanna do that.
Speaker:Cuz WordPress is a turnoff to a lot of people.
Speaker:If they're not very technical and I've taken courses from people and
Speaker:somehow I end up like in this weird am I an admin of this website?
Speaker:kind of place.
Speaker:And I don't like being in there.
Speaker:But you can spend the money for an access ally and it is fully featured
Speaker:wonderful membership platform, but it's, you're paying for it.
Speaker:I mean it's 82 to $208 a month for access ally plus the cost
Speaker:of your WordPress website.
Speaker:Super technical to set up.
Speaker:If you don't know WordPress you're probably gonna have to have a developer
Speaker:to help and then access ally from what.
Speaker:Read and heard from colleagues is really good for, with helping
Speaker:you on that end too, but you probably need some help with them.
Speaker:And then the last of the courses I wanna talk about today is Kajabi.
Speaker:Cuz everybody asks me about Kajabi as an entry point course platform.
Speaker:I don't really like it for that.
Speaker:Like I know people who got into Kajabi like years and years ago when it was
Speaker:super affordable and less featured.
Speaker:It's great for coaches.
Speaker:I know Brendan Burchard talks about it all the time.
Speaker:He's part owner.
Speaker:So bear that in mind, if you do it, he's getting affiliate and he also owns it.
Speaker:Bear that in mind, it's not a website replacement.
Speaker:I work with people who put, went all in on Kajabi, terrible for SEO, not
Speaker:the best, like all in one website platform, cuz you're giving up a lot.
Speaker:I don't necessarily like it if you're getting in and it's not just the $150
Speaker:a month part it's that there are a lot of limitations at $150 for Kajabi
Speaker:that don't exist on other platforms.
Speaker:Podia, think if it VAA what I'm doing on ghost, like all these things, I can't
Speaker:make as much stuff as I want and sell it.
Speaker:I can test it out and see what people respond to on Kajabi.
Speaker:That's not really the case.
Speaker:You have a limited number of products at all levels.
Speaker:I believe.
Speaker:Maybe if you go to 3 99 a month, you can make as many courses as you want.
Speaker:You have a limited number of people which most people aren't gonna bump up
Speaker:against the limited number of emails you can send out all these limitations.
Speaker:make it really hard to test things out.
Speaker:If you have an established audience, if you have courses that you've been running
Speaker:for a long time, You can, it's a great platform when it's established, you
Speaker:can take your audience with you there.
Speaker:Kajabi is great.
Speaker:If you have something settled and you have people to support you and help you with
Speaker:Kajabi it is somewhat easy, but it's not the easiest course platform to work with.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:And I think it's got that whole big name, coach thing going for it.
Speaker:Like you said, Brendan Bouchard James Wedmore.
Speaker:These are people who own stock in it and they promote it.
Speaker:So it sounds really good because it's coming from somebody you like to
Speaker:hear from one of these influencers, but when, like you said, it's very
Speaker:expensive and it does limit you in ways that other platforms don't.
Speaker:Exactly.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:It, and.
Speaker:And it's fine.
Speaker:You just have to know, I just know a lot of people who've made the leap and
Speaker:then been like, oh, this part isn't as easy, like I had a client move
Speaker:off of Squarespace, move to Kajabi.
Speaker:Get off of convert kit and then go back on convert kit, cuz the
Speaker:email wasn't gonna do enough.
Speaker:So you know it's hard.
Speaker:You have to really think about your business goals, how much you're willing to
Speaker:give up of how, of the way you do things.
Speaker:So to speak.
Speaker:like how much you willing to give up in order to be on this platform.
Speaker:Because again, with all in ones, there's some give and take you just have to decide
Speaker:what it is that you're willing to do.
Speaker:I have full disclosure.
Speaker:I have a teachable website as well.
Speaker:We have a funnel right now going through app Sumo.
Speaker:We have a product on app Sumo.
Speaker:They hit teachable.
Speaker:Teachable was great because we could bulk upload coupons
Speaker:and send people through there.
Speaker:But this is how I learned that I don't really like teachable we're
Speaker:gonna let that subscription go.
Speaker:When we decided to let go of app Sumo the app Sumo offer that we have is for
Speaker:this ultimate podcast planning checklist.
Speaker:It's been a great feeder for building our email list.
Speaker:So we're not quite ready to give it up.
Speaker:What we are ultimately using on epiphany courses is a little bit different.
Speaker:So I create a lot of content.
Speaker:I've had this show for four years.
Speaker:I teach digital marketing all over the region.
Speaker:and I have audio lessons that are on another platform that
Speaker:I make passive income from.
Speaker:We talked about that a couple weeks ago.
Speaker:So I have a ghost website where I can put all of my long form blog posts and one
Speaker:hour sprint courses, cuz that's most of what epiphany courses is or like short
Speaker:courses that can send people on their way.
Speaker:So this is an example of what it looks like.
Speaker:If you have something really basic, you don't need a full
Speaker:learning management platform.
Speaker:This is an example of just saying, okay, I have a video, I have some lessons.
Speaker:This is what it can look like for somebody else.
Speaker:Yes, I do.
Speaker:so you can have a lot of fun with it, right?
Speaker:So you don't need to have a full, we run our landing pages through ghost.
Speaker:We do all kinds of stuff.
Speaker:We don't have a full learning management system for these one hour
Speaker:sprint courses, then we're using heartbeat as our online community.
Speaker:And if you go to the end of any lesson, it says, do you wanna
Speaker:talk about this lesson more?
Speaker:Here's our, join the community conversation.
Speaker:If you click on that, it sends you to heartbeat.
Speaker:In heartbeat, we have threads where people can communicate, you can
Speaker:hop on a call with somebody else.
Speaker:We have our social hour, we have our kind of governing documents.
Speaker:Progress logs around stories and goals and things like that.
Speaker:So we're using heartbeat a little bit differently.
Speaker:And then as I said before, I have a lot of courses up on a, on another
Speaker:platform that are audio only.
Speaker:So we are also using a mobile app called sound wise that people can
Speaker:use and get courses they can get.
Speaker:They can get all audio only courses.
Speaker:They can download handouts from there.
Speaker:And then they can engage in conversation also from the sound wise app.
Speaker:So that's how we've sliced and diced.
Speaker:It I'm, as you can tell, I have multiple platforms, but I'm
Speaker:very comfortable doing that.
Speaker:And everybody is a little bit different.
Speaker:Yes.
Speaker:And it took you a long time to get to
Speaker:this place.
Speaker:It did.
Speaker:Cuz like I said, I've got a couple other platforms, so yeah.
Speaker:That's how I do it.
Speaker:Do you have anything else to add?
Speaker:Does anybody have any questions out there?
Speaker:I know that people are watching.
Speaker:I don't have anything else to add to course creation
Speaker:other than it's a good feeder.
Speaker:For bringing people into a membership group like heartbeat.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:I look for I actually put courses in the middle.
Speaker:You bring people into the community and into the free community, show
Speaker:them the courses and then put them into a premium part of the
Speaker:community if they're in the course.
Speaker:So that's how I kind of structure.
Speaker:Absolutely.
Speaker:And for me like for me, like the podcast is top of the funnel.
Speaker:And then I have different stops along the way.
Speaker:And epiphany is really creative for people who can't afford ongoing one one-to-one
Speaker:services with me, cuz they're not.
Speaker:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker:It's not even a bridge back to working with me as an individual.
Speaker:It's a it's its own container.
Speaker:What do you have?
Speaker:What you got?
Speaker:Oh,
Speaker:I would like to talk about my group.
Speaker:It's it's new.
Speaker:It just opened.
Speaker:It's free.
Speaker:It's for content creators, video makers, live streamers, podcasters,
Speaker:speakers, bloggers, writers, coaches, trainers, artists, performers, anybody
Speaker:who's putting content out into the world should join and it's free.
Speaker:And PE we are specifically geared towards people over age 50 people who need a
Speaker:little bit more help with technology, part of it because we didn't grow
Speaker:up with cell phones and computers.
Speaker:So we understand that because we ourselves are over actually.
Speaker:I'm getting close to 60 now and Toby's 73.
Speaker:So we're older people and we understand the needs of older people
Speaker:and that's who we want in there.
Speaker:Also lifelong learners, people who want to learn things and are ready
Speaker:to do the work to make that happen.
Speaker:If you're interested in joining that free group, it's at group dot AGK media.studio,
Speaker:and we'd love to have you in there.
Speaker:Or if somebody, maybe you're a parent or an uncle or somebody in your life who
Speaker:is older and is into content creation or wants to be send them our way.
Speaker:And we're, we'd be really happy to have.
Speaker:And I'll probably be there even though I have to say I don't qualify.
Speaker:That's okay.
Speaker:I'm not 50 yet, so that's okay.
Speaker:We don't hold it against anybody.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Don't it against me expect that you are going to be patient with those people
Speaker:who are over of course, that age.
Speaker:Geez.
Speaker:So if you like this lesson, once we got past the driving of a fast
Speaker:car, which is still my favorite part of this episode, I think.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:I have a marketing self-assessment if you go to send fox.com/wcb
Speaker:you can you add that to the chat?
Speaker:I've
Speaker:got two many right now.
Speaker:I got it.
Speaker:Oh, okay.
Speaker:If you go to cent.com/wcb, you can get a free marketing.
Speaker:Self-assessment, it's a checklist where you can go through and look at your
Speaker:marketing, what you have up there.
Speaker:Now it's also a good guide.
Speaker:If you're just getting started to figure out the different pieces that
Speaker:you need, it will subscribe you to my marketing newsletter and it would be
Speaker:super awesome if you were on there.
Speaker:So that's all that I have.
Speaker:Should we let's skip ahead.
Speaker:Let's skip ahead.
Speaker:PLA is gonna take too long.
Speaker:I have this app that I love called Placid, but I knew today
Speaker:it would take a long time.
Speaker:So let's, we're gonna skip do that was a premature music thing.
Speaker:We'll skip tweaks of the week and now we're gonna do
Speaker:one more time.
Speaker:Inspirational moment.
Speaker:Today's conservative ideas were once controversial cutting edge and innovative.
Speaker:This is why we can't be afraid to experiment with new ideas.
Speaker:So what path can I blaze today?
Speaker:We need to know when to let go of what is no longer working like our old news
Speaker:and views channel, and find a new way to reach our goals like through our
Speaker:new channel of in New Mexico day trips.
Speaker:So you can't be afraid to let go.
Speaker:I have, we've got 6,000 subscribers on that channel, but they, we no longer
Speaker:put relevant content out for the people who, we're with us back then.
Speaker:So it was time to let that go and start something new.
Speaker:And when you start something new there's a new energy.
Speaker:There is there's an excitement, so don't be afraid to let go of what's
Speaker:not working and start something new.
Speaker:Yeah, I,
Speaker:that resonates so much with me.
Speaker:I'm going through a lot of changes in my own life, in my own business.
Speaker:And it, with every new thing, there's something that you're typically letting
Speaker:go of, or your ship is too full, which is also happening to me right now.
Speaker:But there is usually when you go through a major shift, there's
Speaker:also a death that happens, yes.
Speaker:Whether it's, you gotta close one
Speaker:door to open a new one.
Speaker:exactly.
Speaker:And I think that for me I've, I will admit I've been grieving a lot of
Speaker:the changes and what's happening, whether it's shifts in my business.
Speaker:As many of I lost my dad.
Speaker:We're not even two years ago, so I've been going through a lot
Speaker:of that type of grief as well.
Speaker:So it is hard to blaze those new trails.
Speaker:And I wanna just encourage everybody to
Speaker:keep going.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:Don't be afraid to make it happen because it brings its own special
Speaker:energy when you start something new.
Speaker:Yeah.
Speaker:All thank
Speaker:you.
Speaker:Have a great week, everybody.
Speaker:Thank you for joining the women conquer business podcast, hosted by
Speaker:Shelley Carney and Jen McFarland.
Speaker:Please subscribe and leave a comment or question regarding your most challenging
Speaker:content creation or business problem.
Speaker:Then share this podcast with family and friends so they can find the support
Speaker:they need to expand their brand and share their message with the world.
Speaker:Check the show notes for links to valuable resources and come back again next week.
