KEY TAKEAWAYS COVERED IN THE PODCAST

• If you notice that you have key processes that you’re working through with all of your clients and customers, you need to think about whether or not you can turn them into a course.
• You need to take a look at what you’re doing offline to turn them into an online programme. Not only will it save you time, but it will allow you to help more people.
• Courses can be a great way to convert customers into one-on-one clients.
• The basics that you need when it comes to creating your courses are Zoom to record videos, Canva to create worksheets and slides, Mailchimp to guide people through your funnel and then a platform to build your course.
• Try to keep it as simple as you possibly can. You don’t want to overwhelm your course members.
• Hobby courses are becoming really popular, is this something you can do?
• If you have lots of topics to cover, don’t put it into one big course. Instead, create lots of smaller, actionable courses.
• If you are in an industry that regularly changes, creating a course that is easy to change is important.
• If you sell a product, don’t write off doing a course. You can teach people how to make your product, or how to run a successful business.
• People will be buying your course because of YOU and your experience.
• You need to allow 3-6 months before you start making a profit from your course.

THE ONE THING YOU NEED TO REMEMBER ABOVE ALL ELSE…

One of the most important things you need to consider when it comes to an online course is that it needs to be really actionable. Every time you communicate with your course members, there needs to be an action they can take.

Kerrie's flagship Launch a 6 figure course mastermind starts again Monday 5th August. You can sign up here and use the coupon code THW for a 50% discount on the one off fee making it an amazing £645 for the year. https://t4s.site/profitableonlinecourse/august-mastermind-thw/.

HIGHLIGHTS YOU SIMPLY CAN'T MISS

• Introducing Kerrie – 05:24
• The Basics of Creating an Online Course – 15:00
• What Are the Best Platforms for Courses – 20:40
• Business #1: Devon Baeza - 27:00
• Business #2: Lagina Masala - 34:30
• Business #3: Violets Digital – 44:11
• Business #4: Felt n Fings 51:55

LINKS TO RESOURCES MENTIONED IN TODAY'S EPISODE

• Callie and Mike Episode
• Zoom
• Canva
• Mailchimp
• Infusionsoft
• Kajabi
• Drip
• Devon Baeza
• Lagina Masala
• Violets Digital
• Felt n Fings
• Kerrie’s Facebook
• Kerrie’s Twitter
• Kerrie’s LinkedIn
• Kerrie’s Website
• Sign Up To Kerrie’ Six Figure Course Mastermind Here

Transcript below

Hello, and a really warm welcome to this week's episode of the podcast. I hope you've had a great start to your week. Now, I'm jumping straight in on this episode because honestly I loved it. It was so good. It was a different format, but it was brilliant. So let me explain.

In today's episode I'm interviewing [Carrie Rycroft 00:00:55]. Carrie was introduced to me via a friend because one thing that's really interesting is I don't often interview lots of people from the UK or locally to me. Because lots of the people that I admire and look at and learn from who I want to bring to you, my audience, tend to be American or from not around here. There don't tend to be many people who do what I do where I currently live.

And what was really fascinating was I was out for dinner with a friend the other week and she said to me, "Do you know what, Teresa, I went to this talk and there was this amazing woman there who teaches people how to do courses online." And I was like, okay, that's really interesting, I don't hear too many local people doing that. And she said, "What was the best thing about it was, during her talk she actually said, 'Who thinks they can't have a online course? Who thinks that their business is not, what's the word, that doesn't suit it, or that's not something they can do in their business?'" And people put their hands up and she picked one person, and that person said what they did, and she said, "Okay, by the end of today, we would come up with a plan, come up with an idea, and start your online course, and you'll start marketing it." And literally just did it there and then.

It was amazing and my friend was like, "She was unbelievable, it was great." And I was like, that's a real skill. Because actually there are some businesses that are super easy to do online products for. So if you're in the knowledge industry, if you're a coach, anything like that. When you're teaching, then it's easy. You can take anything online, and I'm doing the same. And it's great. It's a brilliant way in which I can teach more people and have more, what's the word, more impact without having to physically be sat in front of people. So it's an amazing way that we can learn and teach now. And I do a lot of stuff online in terms of how I learn.

So anyway, got in touch with Carrie. Really lovely lady. We hit it off straight away, had a really good chat. And we decided great, let's do a podcast episode. And Carrie came up with the most amazing idea that wouldn't it be good if we did something similar on the episode, i.e. I ask my audience, I ask you guys, do you think that you can't do an online course? Or do you want to do an online course and don't where to start? And if that's the case, then get in touch. That's exactly what I did. I was over on Instagram, I was doing Stories, I posted it everywhere. And I asked you guys to get in touch if you thought that was the case.

And we had a number of people get in touch. We had quite a few different ones to look at and we chose four different people who do different businesses. One is actually a physical product. Another one is a teaching product. And there's a couple of others. But we basically did an interview ... We did a bit of an interview at the beginning, but we basically did an interview based on these people and these businesses and we talk about how they can turn their business into an online product.

So I think you're going to really find this episode useful because for me it was the most practical suggestions. It was really, really hands on, put her money where her mouth is, tell these people how they can do it online. Some great ideas, some great tips and strategies in terms of getting started and how to come up with it. And again, a bit like when I did the episode with Callie and Mike, the Membership Guys, which I'll link to in these show notes just in case you didn't catch that one. Really honest, really down to earth, none of the kind of get rich quick, I'm going to teach you how to do a course in three hours and you're going to make a million. None of that. It's just really straightforward, cool advice. And she's a smart lady. She's been doing this for awhile.

So I really think you're going to enjoy this episode and I think you're going to get a whole lot from it. Even if you're not considering doing something online, I still think you're going to get a whole lot of good value from this episode. There was lots of great marketing tips.

Also, the other thing I'd like you to let me know, is what do you think of the more interactiveness of the episodes? I love the fact that I can feature the people and I can shout out all the businesses and obviously let you guys know about amazing other businesses out there. And I'd like to feature you guys more. So let me know whether you enjoy this style and whether you think I should do more of this in the future. I would love to hear.

Anyway, let's get on with today's episode. And here's the interview.

Introducing Kerrie

I am super excited today to welcome the very lovely Carrie to the podcast. Thank you so much for coming on. How are you doing?

I'm really good thank you. And thank you for having me. I'm really excited to be here as well. It's going to be fun.

My pleasure. And do you know what? This is so odd, because I interview so many American people, just because there's lots of people in our industry who are from America that know really good stuff and I want them on the podcast, it's actually really odd when I hear a British accent. And it's not been that long since I've ... In fact, I've interviewed a few people who aren't from the States recently. So you're kind of the third person recently, which is unusual. It's really odd to hear this British accent coming back to me.

Branching out.

Yeah, into my own country. It's really odd, isn't it? Really odd.

Anyway, thank you so much for coming on the podcast. We've had such fun planning this podcast. And I am super excited about it because we're mixing it up a little bit. We're doing a few things differently and we're going to be doing a bit of practical side, which I think is going to be wonderful. I'm really excited about it.

But before we dive into that, let's just give my audience a bit of an overview of who you are, and how you got to do what you're doing now.

Absolutely. Such a long story of how I got to do what I'm doing now, but I started off a few years ago running a social media agency. I was a single mum with four children and I had left my ex husband, I had lost a big business that I'd been building up for years, and I kind of started again with a social media agency. Which, on the one hand was really good because it was my own business and it gave me a bit of flexibility and it allowed me to not have to go into an office 9 to 5, which is really difficult when you've got small humans relying on you.

But I really quickly realised actually, it was almost like having ten bosses rather than having one boss because doing social media for clients, as you well know through the agency side of things, it was only me working in the business so it required me being in front of my laptop 9 to 5 and then some all day everyday. It wasn't quit as flexible as I wanted in terms of being able to drop the kids off at school and pick them up and go to sports days and everything else.

And there was this gap between Christmas and New Year where they'd gone to their dad's for the first time in a long while, and I sort of had a really stern word with myself and said all right, okay, you have ten days on your own, just you and the dog on the sofa. What are you going to do? Are you going to carry on learning about how hard this is and how difficult it is and how you're not able to have the lifestyle that you want? Or are you going to get on and do something about it?

So in my mind, my two options were either I'm going to sit on the sofa for ten days and watch Netflix and cry and eat chocolate, which-

Good option.

Or actually maybe I could look at creating some kind of online course in my business. Because I'd taken a few online courses, and I'd joined a few online boot camps, and I was quite sold on the fact that oh this is interesting, and this is an interesting way to be a customer, and it would be great to have this as part of my business. But I had no clue what I was doing. So I chose that options rather than the Netflix and the chocolate.

Well done, well done.

And over that ten days I built a How to Manage Your Own Social Media online course for people who either couldn't afford to work with me, or who I didn't want to work with for whatever reason. And I put it out there in that, it's a real dead gap between Christmas and New Year when everybody is just doing nothing. I managed to make two thousand pounds in that gap by selling ... I mean, it was a really rough course. I look back at it now I'm like, oh okay, let's not look too closely at how that was put together.

But that made me sit back and go, okay, well that was hard work building it, but actually I've now got that that I can sell forever and that feels like such a nice way to make two thousand pounds rather than taking on four new five hundred pounds clients, or whatever it was. So that about three or four years ago, and I've gradually ... I spent a couple of years transitioning all of my stuff over to online because the more online courses I built for myself, clients started to say to me, "How did you do that?" Or "What did you use, and what software, and how did you set that up, and how do you know what to do?" And I just then fell into starting to do it for other people. And now that's what I do. I build online courses for people, or I teach people how to do it themselves. And it's amazing.

I love it. And I love your story because your story and my story are kind of similar, other than the multiple of children. I just have the one and no husband, and you had four, which holy moly, man. That is no mean feat, is it?

No. And they've all got their additional challenges. My youngest has got a heart condition, so we're on the waiting list for heart surgery. We're in and out of hospital all the time. And my boy has some mental health issues. I had to homeschool him for two years. So it's not a nice, calm, quiet, easy home life. So having my own regular, repeatable income has just been a game changer for me.

I can imagine.

Knowing the bills are paid. Like on the first month, knowing that I've got enough money coming in that month to pay all my bills and everything and some left over, just changed everything for me.

Yeah. That's the whole idea. People start a business thinking I want a business because I'm going to be free and I'm going to manage my own time. And I totally agree, going from having one boss to then having clients just multiplies your bosses. And it does make that a challenge.

But also, I've never worked as hard as I work now. Don't get me wrong, I love what I do, and therefore it doesn't feel like I'm working as such. And also I'm in a privileged position where my daughter disappears every other week and goes to her dad's so I get to be mum and then I get to have downtime and do work.

But to have that recurring income when you have so much more going on in your life is just phenomenal, isn't it? Such, such a great thing.

It made a massive difference to me. Two years ago was when I really appreciated it the most because I took eight months off doing any kind of proper work, as in any consulting or any one on one coaching, because my son was quite ill and his mental health issues. And I took eight months off completely, and all I had was my online courses that were running. And knowing that I could do that and didn't have to make the really difficult decision of I know he needs the help and support and I have to take him to all of his appointments, and I'm homeschooling him ... We had a big court case going on and I need to go and see all of the court appointed people who have to talk to him. If I'd have had to work 9 to 5 to pay my rent and pay my bills, that would've been such a horrible decision to make. It just made it much easier because I could say, right, well I'll scale back on all the consulting and I'll scale back on the coaching and I'll just rely on my online courses for eight months.

And it's amazing to be able to do that. Somebody said I was really lucky, and that kind of offended me because I was like, I'm not lucky. I've worked my butt off to get to this. But I think fortunate is probably the right word rather than lucky.

Yeah. You looked at your options and chose one, and that option happened to work really perfectly for the situation that you found yourself in. And we all hope that we don't find ourselves in situations where we have to take lots of time off work or we have things at home that are going to take over your entire life. Because there's not many people who are in the fortunate position who could then just go, I'm going to stop working, or take time off work, or whatever, because we can't afford to. You've got to keep earning money. If that's not a reason enough to make you want to look at an online course, I don't know what is.

Something I say to women all the time when I speak on stage and when I talk in front of large groups, I tend to say everybody here in the audience, all of your women, you have your own business and you work really hard at your business, is there anybody here who doesn't have somebody who they look after? Either a husband, or a parent, or children, or a partner. Every single person in the audience, usually about 99% of the people, will put their hand up and say I look after somebody else. And the next question, does your business look after you the same way? And they're all like-

No.

If any one of them had to take a month off, their business would just wait and just sit there and go, oh okay that's fine I won't do anything for this month while you're not working. I'll just wait for you to come back. And I think it's really important as women, we have something set up so that our business is providing. It's a two way street, it's not just for us working in the business and then having invoices paid for it. It's about setting the business up so that it works on its own and it supports you. That's what I'm really passionate about.

Yeah, absolutely. And like you said, I think to have that option ... I've known actually some business people, they were women, took things like summer off because summer is hell trying to find childcare for one child let alone four. It's a nightmare. And they took the summer off. And it's not just the fact of you're sitting down and stepping out of the business for that time. All the cumulative work you've done in building your brand and building your awareness, all that time just basically falls off the edge of a cliff. And it's like you're having to start again. So the minute you then go, oh okay I'm back to work now, it's like oh let's go day one again from starting this business. Because that's what it's going to feel like. I love that.

For people listening, let's just talk briefly about really what the basics we mean by creating an online course and why obviously they want to look at it, other than the fact that you gave these brilliant ideas already.

The Basics of Creating an Online Course

I really believe that any business could benefit from having an online course. And that's something that I'm quite vocal about. I nag people quite a lot. It's very easy to describe kind of from a coach or consultant point of view. We'll start there.

If you're a coach and you work for people, either one to one or in a group setting, most of the time you'll have a process that you take those people through. Like a signature style, whether you know it is your programme, whether you've fleshed out to be this is my signature programme, or not. You will have a process that you take people through. So somebody comes to you, if you're a health coach, somebody comes to you and wants to improve their health, you'll have five or six different things that you will work through with them. And working with them one to one is great, but if you can take those steps and if you can take those things that you do with them face to face and turn them into an online product where they're delivered through videos and worksheets and questions and a Facebook group and group coaching calls, it frees up so much more of your time.

It's looking at how do you do things offline, how do you do things ... If I came to you and sat down in front of you and said, can you help me achieve this goal, what would you do? And it's looking at those steps and then it's turning those into an online...