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Should I Create Online Courses to Expand My Brand and Business?
Episode 125 • 17th February 2022 • Women Conquer Business • Jen McFarland
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The Women Conquer Business Show is an educational how to

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women in business podcast that features stories, marketing news,

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and real life experiences from fun and friendly hosts.

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Jen McFarland and Shelley Carney join us as

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we dive into the details so you can slay marketing overwhelmed streamline

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processes and amplify your impact. You'll learn strategy,

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tactics, leadership skills, and practical advice from successful

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women entrepreneurs to help you grow, nurture, and sustain

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your business.

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Hey, you're in the right place. And it is a new week. It is

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a new week. This week we are talking about courses.

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So should I create a course to expand my brand and business?

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We're going to be talking about who should be producing courses and

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why and what the best methods are for building and selling courses.

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But before that hey there, Shelley.

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Hello. It's a crazy week. Crazy,

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crazy. As you can see, we're having lots of snow going on here in

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New Mexico, except that's a fake background.

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We are having snow over there out the window.

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It's a white day. White. I am in the last

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few hours of being in Boise, Idaho, my mom got back

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from Hawai. Boy, that was the shock of her life,

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coming back and seeing the cold weather. And it was really yesterday.

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And she was thinking, maybe I should just get back on that plane

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and go back, right?

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Yeah. We had a beautiful day on Tuesday, 70 degrees,

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and we were outside walking and riding bikes and enjoying the

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beautiful weather. And then it's snow everywhere. So crazy.

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Weather is crazy. So what

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else do you have going on? What do you have for breaking news?

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Oh, breaking news. This just in.

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Where's our breaking news? I think Toby took

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a little break. He took a break. We were supposed

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to have music. Boy, we're having a lot of production issues today,

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but that's okay. Breaking news. All right,

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breaking news. Toby is teaching photography classes

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on YouTube live. On YouTube on videotaro

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live. He's doing small set photography

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for product shots. Still life, book covers, social media posts

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and backgrounds. And today at 01:00, he's going to show

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you how to shoot this shot of this Valentine pendant.

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He's going to explain the lights, the equipment

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and settings and apertures, all of the information

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that you could need to understand how to do photography

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like this. It's going to be a weekly show. He'll talk

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about different kinds of photography every week. Right now, he's in a

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series on small set photography that includes backgrounds

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and little underlays floors and walls that they call who is

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this for? Who are the ideal people to be people who are interested

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in photography, learning photography, knowing more? Maybe you get a

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brand new camera. Like, we saw some people this week on a particular

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podcast we both enjoy and they're both getting new

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cameras and they're like, there's so many settings. I don't know how to do all

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this. If you're getting an indicator. Photography.

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It's a really great place to go and ask questions.

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If you really want to learn more about taking photographs of your

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personal products, say you make things like oils or soaps

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or something that you sell on etsy, and you want really high quality,

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professional looking photographs, you can learn to do that yourself.

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So, really great for those people. So today at 01:00 that's

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mountain Standard time That's Right. Then go check that out at Videotaro

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Live. That's on YouTube. And that is an example of a course.

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We're talking about courses. So you can do courses on YouTube,

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and there's a variety of ways that you can do that. We're going to talk

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about that in just a second. My breaking news is actually related to courses,

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and then it's going to lead the broader discussion about having courses.

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For those of you who have followed me,

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maybe for a while or know a little bit about me, I was an early

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adopter to a product called Member Vault. Member Vault is

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a course platform really based in Gamification. What gamification

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is. It's almost like when you are being

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rewarded for continuing to play. Basically.

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So it's a lot like Netflix for business owners

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who just want to create a lot of stuff and kind of keep people engaged

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and keep them on. You can give people points, and then if

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they earn enough points, they can upgrade into free products and all different

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kinds of things like that. It is a great platform for people who are just

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getting started with courses. Full disclosure I

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am a certified partner for member Vault. I'm also somebody

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who was a founding member. I was one of their founding 100,

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and I have paid a lifetime fee to

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have it. As I say this, understand that I know a lot about this product.

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I really believe in them. They're a married couple in Olympia,

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Washington, which is only like an hour and a half, maybe from

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where I live. I've just watched this company grow, and I've really enjoyed it.

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Now, one of the reasons that I was always able to

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really recommend member vault to people is

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their pricing structure. They have always had forever free program.

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It's something that they have offered since

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the beginning. So forever. If you had 100

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people or fewer, they may have recently lowered that to 50.

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But if you had 100 people or fewer, you had the full featured product,

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and you could use it for anything.

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You didn't have to have free products. And you could have it was like three

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products capped at 100 people. So imagine that you could do

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everything. So think about it like this. You could have a $500 a

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person per month product running on number

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vault. And as long as you had under 100 people, it would

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be free. So it was an amazing deal. The mistake I think that they

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made is that they called it forever free. When you call something forever free,

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People have expectations. We're going to put a pin in that here in a

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second. They also have amazing customer service and they have had

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this really amazing Facebook group with all these people singing their praises and

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they have been answering the call anytime people were asking

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for things, asking for features, talking to people about features, they were always there

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answering the bell. On February 14, this is the breaking news. On February 14

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member Vault announced that they were discontinuing the forever free plan.

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They were discontinuing the starter plan and the base plan unless you

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were already in it. What they're going to is a single plan

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at $99 per month, unless you were already in there.

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If you already had a paid plan, they will keep you at that paid

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plan for life.

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But not the free plan. They're not offering that anymore. The reason was, and I

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think that this is perfectly understandable, they weren't making money,

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it wasn't sustainable for their business. I assumed that they were spending a

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great deal of time in the Member Vault,

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collaborative in everywhere, really helping people

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through things and helping people grow their business. They weren't business consultants,

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they still aren't. They're trying to make money and sell a product.

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When they announced that they were getting rid of the Forever Free program, it's only

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three days ago. The flaming pitchforks have been out everywhere.

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In that Facebook group I just mentioned, you could have had a half

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million dollar business or a million dollar business running out of Member

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Vault for free and they're not making a dime.

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They don't even take anything off of like payments or anything. So all

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these people are just freaking out and everything. And the truth

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is, running a business costs money.

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If you are running something, like a course platform or

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anything, you need to make money. So what they're doing

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is they've decided that they want to have the best service, however they're defining

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it, and I think they're changing their services as well. They want

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to have up to 10,000 people paying

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so they want to cap their service at 10,000 people paying $99

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a month. That's what they figured out that they can do and what works for

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them. The lesson, I think, for many

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small business owners consultants is

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when you offer something for free, whether that is

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a Facebook group or Courses

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or a product, like in their case, they are a SaaS company,

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which means software as a service. They have made a

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very deliberate decision that they want to grow their business to

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a certain place. They are entirely self funded, so they don't have

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to raise a bunch of capital and they don't have to have all of the

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users all of the time. They've made a decision. The lesson in

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here is be very cautious before

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you start something for free, like a Facebook

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group where you're offering everything, because you do

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end up attracting a lot of tourists.

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People who are not buying a ticket to

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get your services, they're not hopping the bus all the way.

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They are buying into getting as much free stuff from you

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as they can. Then as soon as something changes,

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they're ready to burn you in effigy as quickly as

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they can burn it down. These are some of the kindest people

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I have ever seen. And people who have been in that collaborative

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for years are suddenly just turning on them.

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It wasn't just that they were helping people with courses. They are really

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great. Aaron Kelly and Mike Kelly, they run member vault is really

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great with email sequences. They were sending out swipe files to people.

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They were really guiding people who were starting their business through some

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really fundamental things. A swipe file would be like an entire sequence

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for how to attract people and keep people on your email list

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and get the email marketing going. They would work with people through Lead magnets.

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So offering something for free and getting people into your

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Member Vault but you could also use it if you had a website. Now all

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of a sudden, all of the people who are taking all of this information for

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free, who are getting everything for free, are turning their backs on them and saying,

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oh, you're terrible people. And some people are not using very nice words

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to describe the truth is they are running

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a business. They don't owe you anything for free.

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We could end this show tomorrow and we

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don't owe anybody anything. We don't

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we all are in this to make money and Member Vault

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is too inasmuch as there's a part of me that's heartbreaking

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because for really small business owners, it was always a great thing.

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If you weren't sure if you wanted a course, if you weren't sure

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if this was really for you, member Vault was a great place to start.

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You could start with Member Vault and you could get your feet wet. Like even

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you, Shelley, you said that you have a Member Vault but you haven't used it

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for a while. It's a place where you could have done that. And that is

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going away for me personally with the people that I work with. That's a

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little bit hard and I totally, completely understand

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it. I think that this is really the heart of the matter.

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When we talk about should you create a course, should you

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have a course or do any of these lessons, is this

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something that is right for your business?

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It's important to understand that creating courses requires

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resources, it requires time. It takes a

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great deal of effort. If you are bootstrapping

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and you need a platform to be free,

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yes, there are ways you can do that and understand that

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it's not elegant because having a course takes time

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and it takes effort. If you are stepping into that to really grow

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your brand, then you need to understand

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that, to really do it, or to do it up, where your brand is

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really maybe showing up, it's going to cost you money.

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There is no longer, as far as I know,

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a fully branded website out there that you can have because Member Vault is

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taking theirs away. I support that decision and I think there are a

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lot of people out there who are there's going to

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be a lot of gnashing of teeth. I've seen it before in other Facebook

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groups where people think that they've gotten something and they've found a great deal,

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then it gets pulled back and they're just not very forgiving it's

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in that online space. It really validated for me

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personally, as a business owner, why I have never had a Facebook group

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because I didn't want to just sit in there and be giving and giving and

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then if it ends, people tend to turn their backs on you. I think

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that is unfair and unfortunate. And it

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happens again and again and I'm sure you've seen it. Haven't you seen that,

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Shelley? Oh, absolutely. Toby and I used

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to have a product called Vidnami and they sold their

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business. They sold this wonderful product where

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you could just put in a short script and it would create a video

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for you. It would do voiceovers, it gave you music. It was

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amazing. You could have any length of video you wanted up to about three minutes,

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I think it was. And it happened very quickly. It was simple to use.

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Then they sold their business to GoDaddy and everybody was all up in

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arms about it. Some people had built their entire business based

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on this one product and they were just

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furious. What are we going to do now? What else is there? People started passing

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back and forth other pieces of software that they could use that had many

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of the features of Vietnam, but not all of them. Lumen Five is

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one of them that I use now for something similar.

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But people were just very angry. Why? How could you do this to me?

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This is their business. They could do whatever they want with it. They gave you

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notice, they told you what was happening, why it was happening, when it

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was happening, and what to do about it. They provided that kind of

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support and all you could do is attack them. That's exactly 100%. But not

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everybody, but some people. And then there are some people who are being pretty cheeky

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in the group. Like I said, I was one of the founding 100. There are

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a lot of people who bought Lifetime and there's somebody who posted

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a meme that was like, if you bought Lifetime, you'd be like and it's

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like a queen. There are people throwing shade at the people. They all say that

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they need it to be free and they didn't read because they're still offering.

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If you were on the free plan, they're still offering the $19 a

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month plan, which is still an incredible deal. It's very hard to

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find that even elsewhere we use Member Vault. When we

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had a membership for close to a year with the treasure hunting

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community, we would get together and do book study a couple of times

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on Zoom a week. We kept all of our resources in

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Member Vault. For them, it was just a real easy place for

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them to get those. Yeah,

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it's really great for that. I use it mostly now as a client portal,

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so I use it still. But it's not what we're using

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for Epiphany courses for a variety of reasons. That is something that we can

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talk about. So should we officially move into training?

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We're in training now.

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New sound effects. Oh my goodness.

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So we are in training. One of the things we have talked about

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is that I have a new business called Epiphany courses, which means I

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am for the most part full time course creator at

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this point, making business courses that we are selling.

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I was telling Shelley before the show, the first one, how to Find the

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Right Marketing Tools for Your Small Business is a book,

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an audiobook, and then also a course. They're all very short form,

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but what we're talking about today and I think that that was part of what

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led Shelley to think maybe we should talk about courses and whether

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building a course is right for your business. First question is who

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should be producing courses and why? A lot of

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people think that selling online courses is just a natural

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progression in your business. Like this is just the next thing that you

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should be doing. I want to caution people about

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shoulding all over yourself. What I mean by that is

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there's no shoulds. You don't have to do anything for

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people who do not like teaching. Don't create a

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course if you don't have a passion for walking

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people through things very slowly, for answering questions,

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for making decks, slide decks and

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sharing things with people, taking feedback and going through and

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doing that, don't do it. Period. Full stop.

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It's like having a Facebook group. Nobody has to have a Facebook group.

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Nobody has to have a course. That would be the first rung

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as far as I'm concerned in terms of who needs to have a course.

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If you are going around and teaching things like I have been for a

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few years, I've been teaching around the community, I'm like, I should really

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start monetizing these signature talks.

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I should be monetizing some of the work that I've done with audio

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lessons and selling it myself. So if it's a natural extension in

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that way, if you have a group, like a paid membership group

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and you're already doing maybe some sort of walkthroughs on different products,

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that's more of what I would call a natural extension into your business. So it's

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a good thing to have courses in terms of

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making courses, like, who should be doing it again?

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And we mentioned it a minute ago, I think it's a good idea to have

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courses if you have some sort of support system. So,

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like at Epiphany, we have Gail Bendert and myself and

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we have Caitlin. Caitlin is helping us with some marketing and some

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other tasks so that I can have more time to build these courses.

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So in terms of a production and she doesn't know it yet, but if

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Caitlin's watching, she's going to be helping with some of the course building

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as well. It takes time and it takes effort.

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So if you are not in a position to

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handle all of that, it may not be the time. So it's better if you

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have maybe a staff or a VA or somebody who can really

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help you with producing the classes. It helps if

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you've been teaching because then you are able to

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really answer questions and then your courses can be about

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the questions that you're answering over and over again. I think that really flows

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into how you decide what it is you're even going

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to teach. The best things to teach are the things that you're talking about again

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and again. Is that kind of what you found, Shelley? Yeah.

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When Toby and I first started doing live streaming on YouTube, we had

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a lot of people coming to us and asking, how do I start my own

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YouTube channel? How do I do the live streaming? What products

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do you use? So we created a course to

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answer all of those questions. We knew exactly what people needed.

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We could take them step by step through all the different sessions

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to get to what they wanted. A lot of people ended up taking

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that course because they see us doing

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it and they want to know how it's done. Yeah,

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absolutely. And if you're trying to decide what you're going

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to teach, or if you find yourself answering the same questions over and over again,

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it is a good idea to monetize that in some way or teach

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it, put it out on YouTube and teach it. Right. It is one of the

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things that you can do to really we've

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talked about SEO on here before, where SEO is really just customers

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asking questions and you're answering them. It's the same

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thing. How to videos and behind the scenes content are so

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huge for people that if you have something that

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you can share and you don't have to charge a lot of money for it,

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but you can charge a little bit, and then it does tend to get people

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into your pipeline. If you're a service provider now with Epiphany courses,

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it's a little bit different because that's our business, is creating all

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of this content and selling it. So we have a real workflow

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of making a course, making it into a book, making it into an audiobook,

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and we're not upselling people into anything. We are teaching

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people core things that they need for their business and then they can move on

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and do whatever else they want to do with their life.

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So it's a little bit different in terms of why we

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are creating courses and who we are selling them to.

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I think if anybody has any questions specifically about who

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should have a course, what platforms, things like that, please ask those

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now and let us know what your questions are so that we can be

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sure and answer them. In terms of how you

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do it, we've talked a little bit about who should be producing courses.

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If you have a strong passion for it, go ahead and make it.

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Don't let it stop you if you don't have a big audience, don't let it

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stop you if you don't have a big group, if you don't have a budget,

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guess what? You can do a lot. You can use private

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YouTube videos and give people access.

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You just need a way to get the word out and a way for you

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to say, okay, here's where it is. When people pay you,

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then you can send them a link to where they need to go. There are

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a lot of different ways of doing that. Just be creative and really think

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about what it is that you have to offer and how

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you can share that with the world. You can do that in so

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many different ways. Honestly, the first way is you talk to people

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in person or you have networking events and things

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on Zoom and maybe you record the Zoom call and then

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you can just sell it. A lot of people do that. It doesn't have

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to be a really specifically designed course,

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at least in the beginning.

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Then as it evolves, then you can talk about how do you

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design a course? And I think that as someone who has a lot of

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training experience, it was a big part of what I did.

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I know I've had such a varied background, but I was

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a teacher in Peace Corps when I lived in Kazakhstan, and then I

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was also corporate training was a big part of what I

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did. So we were designing software, bringing it out,

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doing all the specifications. Well, then we had to train the users on how to

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use the darn thing. So that was me. I would go out there

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I'm a little bit entertaining and I would go out there and have dog and

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pony shows and answer people's questions. So I have a lot of

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experience in how to design trainings and how to get people engaged

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and walk people through stuff. If you don't have that experience

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and you're designing your first course, it's always a good

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idea to run through it with somebody else and get feedback from

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somebody who's going to be really honest with you about what's really great and what's

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not really great. If you're using this to market your business from a

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marketing perspective, you want to make sure that you've got branding on point,

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that you're really walking people through it, that they understand what it is that you're

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selling or what's that next step. If you have a next step also

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in terms of designing the course, we are talking about like

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a beginning, middle and end. And you have to really think

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about what is it that they're going to get out of this course.

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And you begin with the end in mind to a certain degree,

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like what's the delta? So if somebody comes in,

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where are they at when they come in? And then if they complete

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the whole course, where are they going to be at the end? And that's what

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you have to think about, is it? Why are people going

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to be taking this course? What are we trying to accomplish? And then

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how are we going to get there? And so when you think about designing your

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courses, that's really what you need to be thinking about is what journey

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am I taking people on? Why is that journey important

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to them? And I know that a lot of this sounds like marketing speak,

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right? But it's not.

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Because if you think about where it is that

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you want people to go and you're answering the questions every step of the way

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and you design your course in that way, then guess what? When you do get

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to the point where you have to sell the thing, it's really easy

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because basically you're walking people through that

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progression and you're giving people exactly what they want. And then when

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you go to write your sales copy or whatever and talk to people about it,

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it's a lot easier because you're really focused on I have seen this

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problem, XYZ problem, as a service provider,

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as somebody who's delivering specific goods and services,

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and I am going to deliver you this change.

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And that is exactly what your course is about. And so

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that is why it's so important to think about where it is

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that you're taking people. What is that journey and how is

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it that they are going to be impacted by having

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gone through the whole experience with you. And so that's how you

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design the course. And you can do that with a deck. Like I love

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to design my decks in Canva. That's how

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I do it. Everybody does it a little bit differently, but I need pretty things,

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so I like to make pretty things and do it. And then I

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just take decks from when I go and speak in public and I

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adapt them for people who aren't there to ask me questions and

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I try to answer the questions that I often get in

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the deck. So I'm answering the questions that I expect.

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And then that's why you revise courses

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later. It changes and it evolves as

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you do it. So a lot of courses aren't just set and forget it is

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a whole process for creating it.

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One of the things that I can recommend to people is

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if you decide you probably want to do a course,

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that there are a lot of pieces of software and applications out

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there that are available and they have tutorial videos

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that will walk you through how to create a course, what you should include.

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Toby and I created a couple of courses on Udemy and they also

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have a whole tutorial that you can go through and learn how to do

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all of these things. So if you think, I would think I want to

-->:

do it, but I don't know. You go into some of these products and

-->:

go through their tutorials and it will inform you. And then you'll say

-->:

I don't have that kind of time, or I don't have that kind of technology

-->:

experience, or I don't think I can do this, or I don't want to do

-->:

this, or you'll say I could do that, I do that

-->:

all the time. That's easy. So it will inform you and

-->:

help you to understand what's involved and if it's something that you really

-->:

want to do. For those of you who don't know, Udemy is a

-->:

place where you can host your courses. They will

-->:

facilitate it. There's also, I think Skillshare is another one that will do

-->:

it. There are a few different places where you can do that.

-->:

And you are able to put your course up there

-->:

and sell it. And then you get a percentage of that. So you're paying in

-->:

so that they can sell it. And they have their own cash

-->:

register, like all of it. So you don't have to deal with it as much,

-->:

but you don't get 100% of it. And that's how you pay them to host

-->:

it for you. Yeah, that's how you pay for it. They take a commission.

-->:

There's really low tech ways where you're not paying anybody to host it. And then

-->:

the second tier, which is where you can have somebody else hosting it,

-->:

and then there's the entire self hosted phase. A lot of

-->:

people, I really am a big believer in using platforms that you own.

-->:

However, sometimes there are some real advantages to using something like a

-->:

Udemy because you may be able to find new people that you haven't had

-->:

before. And that's what we have found. So I have been doing kind of a

-->:

hybrid of that where we have hosted the

-->:

how to Plan Your Podcast. It's the ultimate podcast planning guide

-->:

on AppSumo. We priced it super low

-->:

so that we could build an email list and we have learned and met

-->:

so many new people through there. We've gotten a lot of subscribers. It's been really

-->:

great. So we have a base of people who are interested in what it is

-->:

that we are creating and selling. We also have people that we can email to

-->:

AppSumo takes a percentage of. It. But then we get the

-->:

people on our platform and they can go through and engage with our

-->:

courses using our platform. The platform we're using for Epiphany

-->:

is Teachable. And that's because we can have multiple different instructors,

-->:

multiple different BIOS. As it evolves, then we'll be able to do

-->:

like author splits and it'll be really good for that.

-->:

There are a lot of really great platforms out there. Like Podia is one

-->:

that I really like. It's good for solo brands. Member vault is really

-->:

great. There's so many different course platforms out there thinkific

-->:

is good. One of the really popular

-->:

ones that I actually do not recommend is Kajabi and that's

-->:

because they have such severe limits on what you can do.

-->:

It's three products and it's something like $150 and

-->:

I'm like that's just too much. A lot of people are going to outgrow that

-->:

they have such severe limits. I think that's the case with any marketing

-->:

tool that you're looking at is you need to really be aware of

-->:

what the limitations are so that you can then

-->:

engage with that product, and it can last you for more than

-->:

a few months or a couple of years, because then the next tier of Kajabi

-->:

is really expensive. And if you're not selling enough courses

-->:

to even cover Kajabi, it's really not worth your time. Yeah,

-->:

I agree. We actually recently got

-->:

Marble, which was offered on AppSumo, and I'm still

-->:

learning it. But it's something that you can use to just get started with

-->:

simple courses, even free things that you want to just bring people in and run

-->:

them through. Here's how to work with us or here's why you might

-->:

want to work with us. Little courses that are just introductory like

-->:

that. I hadn't seen marble. You know how I'm a

-->:

big fan of AppSumo. If courses are going to be a huge part of your

-->:

business, probably don't buy it out on AppSumo because

-->:

those tend to come and go a lot. So you want to be really careful

-->:

about having something super core to your business. But if you're playing around with courses

-->:

and you want to learn about it, they had one for a while called Guru

-->:

Can and that one has turned out to be a really good platform.

-->:

I think that's continuing to grow. There's one out there now, I can't remember.

-->:

It's not Marble, it's a different one that will aigenerated

-->:

courses. So you can give it like a topic and it starts to really

-->:

put all of that together. So there's all kinds of platforms out there. There's all

-->:

these different ways that you can slice and dice it.

-->:

But I just highly recommend that you don't get a platform that is so expensive

-->:

that you have to really hustle to sell enough to make it work.

-->:

And I know that Kajabi says we can also be your website and

-->:

we can be your email marketing. The email marketing is somewhat limited.

-->:

The website is okay, but terrible for SEO. There are just so many

-->:

things, so many factors before you put all of your eggs in, like an

-->:

all in one basket that you really have to consider if you're using

-->:

it for your business, it's a lot different than if you're using

-->:

it just for courses. There are some platforms that are

-->:

really great for courses, and they're maybe not as great as your

-->:

website, but if something like Kajabi is so expensive,

-->:

a lot of people tend to just, I'm just going to do everything there.

-->:

I'm just going to bite the bullet. And so you don't have to have a

-->:

website that costs $250 a month. That's ridiculous.

-->:

For most business owners, that doesn't make any sense. So you

-->:

really have to really think about in terms of

-->:

the platform, this is really about what are you going to grow into,

-->:

what makes the most sense, what is cost effective for

-->:

us, and how can we really grow into

-->:

it over the long haul? For many people, you could just start with some private

-->:

YouTube videos, get a sense of whether or not you like it.

-->:

Maybe even have small group paid events where you

-->:

just start testing out what it's like to have webinars and

-->:

train people using video and get a lot of feedback on whether or not you

-->:

really enjoy teaching and whether or not people are really responding to

-->:

what you're teaching and how you're teaching it. That's what

-->:

I think. Get your feet wet, get your feet wet. Get out there and do

-->:

it. And I think commit to Kajabi or some big before you

-->:

commit to something really huge. And the same thing like with that's just

-->:

the case with anything. There's so many right ways to do it.

-->:

And I think a lot of people say, I'll do courses when I can afford

-->:

Kajabi, or I'll do courses when this or that. And the truth is,

-->:

just start, just do it, and then

-->:

it's all going to be okay. You don't want to put a huge investment

-->:

in if it's not something that you even enjoy

-->:

or something that you're even going to want to do. That's my two cent worth.

-->:

A lot of people have this trail of tears, all these

-->:

places that are just like abandoned projects and things like that.

-->:

Don't overstress yourself on too many projects. Don't overburden yourself

-->:

with too much of a heavy lift in terms of finance.

-->:

Test it out. Figure out if it's really what you want to do. Because promoting

-->:

and selling a course, it's a lot of work you have to

-->:

plan out. What does that marketing campaign look like? How many touch points

-->:

are we going to do? How are we going to get the word out to

-->:

people? Are we doing things with Facebook ads or Google ads?

-->:

How are we going to find the people who need

-->:

the course the most and entice them to buy it.

-->:

So it takes a lot of effort to

-->:

really see this thing through. And if you're

-->:

not in it for all of the facets,

-->:

then it's best to know that right away before

-->:

you've made a huge financial investment or time investment.

-->:

100%. Yeah. I have to say that through Epiphany

-->:

courses, we've found that this takes a lot more time than I had thought.

-->:

I'm going to have to go home and update my little dry erase

-->:

board where I put my goals and what I'm going to do in Q One

-->:

and what I'm going to do. And I have to go back and have to

-->:

reframe some of those goals. Because after going through

-->:

this whole process of what it's going to take to get all of this

-->:

product out, even though these are things that I've taught for years,

-->:

I'm like, oh, okay, I need to reframe and refocus.

-->:

Continuing to scale back some of the consulting services that I

-->:

offer, ramping up more speaking engagements and things like that so

-->:

that I can clear the mental space to do courses.

-->:

And now I know it takes longer than I thought. And this is not it's

-->:

not that. Just that I have to build the whole thing and I'm holding onto

-->:

it. It's more no, I'm the brain. I've got to do a brain dump and

-->:

make it into a course. And that's the thing. It takes a

-->:

lot of time and effort and it's not mentioned to discourage you.

-->:

It's more to say, this is really what it is.

-->:

If you want to do a good job at it and it's something

-->:

that you really value, then it does take a

-->:

little bit more time than just throwing something up there.

-->:

And then what did somebody call that spray and pray.

-->:

You just put a bunch of stuff out there and then pray that somebody gets

-->:

it. And when it comes to courses, it takes enough time

-->:

that you really do need to be focused in on

-->:

if this is for you. Because it does take things like a marketing

-->:

plan, and it takes understanding the delta of what

-->:

it is that you're trying to get out of it, not only as

-->:

a business owner yourself, but your students. What are they

-->:

going to get out of it? Yeah, something that we learned through

-->:

the process of doing courses ourselves and doing YouTube videos weekly

-->:

is save your evergreen content for your courses.

-->:

If it's something that's going to be changing a lot, like, oh,

-->:

here's a new app and it's breaking news and this is

-->:

changing. If that's happening, put it in your YouTube content

-->:

because people expect things to change. When it's

-->:

a YouTube show, you don't go back three years ago to find out

-->:

information and expect it to still be relevant today.

-->:

You look for stuff that's come out this week and this month

-->:

and this year first to find those relevant

-->:

pieces of information that are still true, but with the course.

-->:

You want to have your evergreen information. And their marketing

-->:

principles, they don't change. They're always the same. Certain things

-->:

are always going to be the way they are

-->:

building a business, always going to need the same fundamentals,

-->:

those sorts of things that are evergreen, that's what you want to make

-->:

sure to include as your building blocks for a course.

-->:

Oh, 100%. And in my field,

-->:

I'm finding that to be quite impossible. And that's been part of the problem

-->:

with had some starts and stops on some courses. And the reason

-->:

for that is we have in terms of digital

-->:

marketing, it used to be that I could teach that it was like out of

-->:

the box. I'd go in and update some things because the fundamentals

-->:

of Digital Marketing 101, that wasn't

-->:

changing weekly. And now since COVID with

-->:

everybody being home, everybody buyer behaviors,

-->:

consumer behaviors have changed so incredibly at such a rapid

-->:

pace. How apps are delivering services or what they're offering,

-->:

all of that is changing at such a rapid pace that we're

-->:

having to update content a lot more often than we used to so that

-->:

we can serve our people the best. And that is something that I have

-->:

to think about, and I think it's certainly something that business owners really need to

-->:

consider is how often

-->:

are you willing to change this? And it really is about the evergreen

-->:

content to the extent possible. And then for

-->:

me, I'm thinking about having just making sure that the things that

-->:

I think are likely to change, having them separate so

-->:

I can just upload a new video. And it's not

-->:

like a huge commitment. So you have to be strategic

-->:

about what it is that you think is likely to change because otherwise

-->:

you're making courses the same course over and over again and

-->:

you don't have time for that. That's right. So like, for instance,

-->:

if Jen was teaching something and then she wanted to talk

-->:

about, here are the apps you should be looking at to make that

-->:

work. That should be a separate video that she could change out because apps

-->:

change a lot, all those things that she knows are going to be changing

-->:

in the next twelve months, then that's a separate piece. And you

-->:

keep your videos short anyways because people can only sit

-->:

for so long before they need to do something else, but keep

-->:

them under five minutes or less. And then when you

-->:

have to go in and change that out, it's not such a big deal because

-->:

you're like, okay, these apps have changed, let me go in and change that one

-->:

video, keep it updated.

-->:

Yeah. And that's been the challenge, is fundamentally

-->:

how businesses deliver services are changing. That never used to be the

-->:

case. It used to be you could just talk about different apps for

-->:

how you connect everything. Now in my

-->:

field, it's changing fundamentally, but for most people, that's not the case for

-->:

most people, it is squirrel away the things that are likely

-->:

to change, like which apps do you want to use and then the rest of

-->:

it you can keep it in and it's interesting. So yeah, five minutes

-->:

or less, that's really a common video length. I've taken other courses that are

-->:

much longer and I find that I have to pause them and continue

-->:

later because I get distracted and busy.

-->:

So you really want to pay attention to that you want to think about.

-->:

And that's one of the things that I like about Member Vault, although they are

-->:

starting to add it into other course platforms,

-->:

is how are you going to have people finish or do you not even care

-->:

about that? Because a lot of people don't finish a course.

-->:

So you have to really think about how long

-->:

you want to retain somebody, what that looks like for you,

-->:

and then that will help. Maybe don't put all the goodies

-->:

at the end because maybe they're not going to get that far.

-->:

But you want to really think about how you weave things in to try

-->:

and keep people engaged. Engagement is a really big part

-->:

of selling courses and giving them those wins,

-->:

those immediate wins. As soon as they get on and do the first introductory video,

-->:

they should accomplish something. They need to feel

-->:

like, oh, I filled out this card or I wrote down

-->:

the name of my first idea or something. They have to have

-->:

some kind of win to keep them going, to keep them engaged.

-->:

Absolutely. So do you have any mistakes that you've

-->:

made that people should avoid, that you can think of? Don't we all make mistakes

-->:

all the time? I think that in terms of

-->:

mistakes, I would say that I don't even know if I would call it

-->:

a mistake. Understand that if you are

-->:

paying a platform, whether it is Podia,

-->:

teachable, Member Vaults, whatever,

-->:

really thoroughly understand things like the limits, the limitations

-->:

of it, what it can and can't do, and a

-->:

lot of people will say you should just go with WordPress. There's some downsides

-->:

to that as well. That's highly technical and the back end doesn't necessarily

-->:

look as good for your users, so you have to think about that as well.

-->:

So you really want to think about, before you choose a platform,

-->:

what it is that you want your users to

-->:

get out of it, what kind of experience they're going to have, what is it

-->:

that you want to get out of it. And the reason why is it is

-->:

really hard to change. I don't know if I could call it a mistake or

-->:

not, but I had chosen Podia and

-->:

I really liked it. And then I shifted my

-->:

business. We created Epiphany. I got Podia for my own business

-->:

and I bought it for the year. And that was the mistake was

-->:

I bought it for the year and then before I ever even created

-->:

a course and sold it, I had to shift onto a different platform

-->:

that could handle AppSumo better, that could handle multiple

-->:

teachers and all kinds of revenue splits and things like that.

-->:

So to the extent that you can plan

-->:

out what it is that you have on tap, like whether it is do

-->:

you want a platform that hosts the videos there so you don't have to have

-->:

a vimeo or what is it that you want it to do?

-->:

How easy and all inclusive do you want it to be? Because it's hard to

-->:

move. And that was the mistake I made. I had gotten

-->:

a lot of my stuff up from Member Vault into Podia and

-->:

then before I could even get it out, I had to undo that and put

-->:

it somewhere else. And that was really hard. And I

-->:

would say that's a mistake that do this with intentionality,

-->:

take your time, maybe don't buy it for a year like

-->:

I do to save a little bit of money,

-->:

make sure that it's the right investment because courses can

-->:

take a lot of time and a lot of effort. Yeah,

-->:

I suppose we tried it out on Unemie just because

-->:

we didn't want to have to market it other than just say,

-->:

this exists, go check it out. But again, you don't make very much

-->:

money because Undeme is always putting their courses on sale.

-->:

So a lot of times you're making $3

-->:

if somebody even finds your course and there's so many there that

-->:

it can get lost very easily. On the other side of that is

-->:

doing it yourself on a platform like Thinkific or Teachable

-->:

or one of these, and then you have the responsibility of

-->:

letting people know it's there, selling it, getting people to

-->:

go there to sign up and then really holding their hand as

-->:

they move through the course. You have

-->:

to make that determination of what? Are you just want to

-->:

put it out there and forget it, or do you want to babysit everybody?

-->:

Not only babysit everybody. Do you want to answer all the questions if

-->:

somebody has technical issues? Do you want to answer the technical questions if there's

-->:

a lot to it? And you have to think about it. And that's why in

-->:

terms of who should be producing courses,

-->:

it really is about the phase of your business really should dictate which

-->:

of the ways that you decide it. And that's the thing about you. To me,

-->:

they're selling courses like 90% off all the time and I was like,

-->:

I'm not going to do that. I want more

-->:

control over pricing. And for Epiphany, certainly we wouldn't do that because

-->:

we want to have our own different teachers

-->:

out there. We want to look at it a lot differently. Udemy really doesn't work

-->:

for what we're trying to accomplish on Epiphany because we

-->:

want to have several different courses with several different teachers we are not a

-->:

competitor for Udemy, but it's similar.

-->:

We are vetting people at a much higher level before

-->:

they're ever allowed to come on and sell courses on the platform.

-->:

So it does take a lot of time and it

-->:

does take a lot of effort and it's really important to look through all

-->:

of that so you can avoid some of the pitfalls. I took a class in

-->:

the last year that was all private YouTube videos and they were amazing.

-->:

Like the class itself was amazing and it was all handled through

-->:

email marketing and sending me reminders and getting things to me.

-->:

It was a really great course experience and it was all done.

-->:

Like I said, she did it for free.

-->:

She's selling it through her email platform and through

-->:

her website and talking to people in Facebook groups and the

-->:

delivery of the course, that's all for her. Yeah, she doesn't have

-->:

to pay YouTube anything. The downside of that is all the YouTube

-->:

ads and all of the distraction of being on that casino

-->:

that we know of as YouTube, there's upsides and downsides to everything.

-->:

Let's talk about Epiphany courses and what that is and what

-->:

you're doing with it. Tell us about that. Yeah, so Epiphany courses,

-->:

it is short, I won't even say necessarily short

-->:

form, but courses that are an hour or less geared toward decision

-->:

makers within organizations. We're really targeting businesses in

-->:

the first five or so years of their business.

-->:

There are just so many questions that come up for people and what

-->:

we're doing is creating courses that are standalone courses,

-->:

meaning you're going to get everything that you need out of them within

-->:

that hour long course or less. We want to

-->:

really make them an hour or less and also it's not

-->:

selling you or branching you into something bigger or different.

-->:

So these are, again, if you have questions

-->:

on a certain topic, we're just going to give people that quick hit

-->:

and then hopefully you enjoy it and you'll come

-->:

back and tell your friends about it. These aren't like we're

-->:

going to send you through a whole path and then you're not going to get

-->:

answers and then you have to buy the next course

-->:

or pay for a big marketing package from me or somebody

-->:

else. And that's the difference is the secret sauce. We know that

-->:

business owners don't have 16 hours to consume

-->:

content about how to choose marketing tools or what do I need to have

-->:

on my website or any of the things that come up in the first few

-->:

years of business. We are giving people the answers right

-->:

away so that they can do it. Right now we only have a couple of

-->:

courses up and they're both about podcasting. We're working a lot on different

-->:

marketing courses. That's the stuff that I've been teaching all around the

-->:

state and the price point is going to

-->:

vary based on what people are expected to get out of it the

-->:

long term of their business. But these aren't going to be like

-->:

$5,000 courses or anything like that because they're so

-->:

short. Yeah, but the impact can be very great if

-->:

you do the time to invest in your own business because

-->:

what the courses are really like. Okay, here's what you need to do to really

-->:

improve in this area or that area.

-->:

They're quick, practical coaching sessions to really

-->:

help people get through stuff. Excellent. And you are hosted on

-->:

Thinkific, did you say? No, we're on teachable.

-->:

Teachable website. The website is on WordPress.

-->:

We have a pretty prolific blog right now. And then

-->:

we're hosted on Teachable. And yeah,

-->:

it's been really great so far. We've had a great experience.

-->:

Awesome. Okay. And for those

-->:

of you who are considering doing a course, but you don't have the technology

-->:

know how and you want somebody to just take over the production

-->:

of it for you, we can do that at Agkmediastudio. Just go

-->:

to Agkmedia studio and reach out to us and

-->:

we're happy to do all the production for you. And then you'll just

-->:

take all that material. It all belongs to you. We just the production

-->:

people. You take it all and you put it up into, for instance,

-->:

Teachable or one of those types of products and you have a course.

-->:

That's right, yeah. Awesome. So that's

-->:

all about courses. That's right. I feel like we covered a

-->:

lot. I think, so I didn't see any

-->:

questions, so we must have answered everything. But if you do

-->:

have questions and you're watching this later, after it's no longer live,

-->:

make sure you put those in the comments on the video or

-->:

just reach out on the website.

-->:

Womenconquerbiz.com. That's right.

-->:

And then in the show notes for the podcast, we also have links for

-->:

how to reach out to us as well. So tweak of the

-->:

week. Tweak of the week.

-->:

Tweak of the week. Something that Toby

-->:

and I discovered this week is called Podpage. Takes your

-->:

podcast RSS feed and creates

-->:

a website with it. Basically, it's really super quick,

-->:

which is fun, and it gives you a bunch of different layouts

-->:

that you can choose from. And then after you've chosen layout, you can still

-->:

further personalize it however

-->:

you want to do it. We have been able to add our

-->:

podcast, our blog, and our YouTube videos into one place,

-->:

along with you can fill out a little interest form

-->:

to get our free download and you get added to our email list and

-->:

you get a free download. It shows our tweets and

-->:

our Facebook posts. So that keeps rolling.

-->:

And so when we're doing a live stream and we're live

-->:

on our Facebook or our Twitter, it picks it up and

-->:

it shows it on our site. And there's

-->:

our videos that come from our YouTube channel,

-->:

which is of course, how we start our podcast. And you

-->:

can see it shows whatever you need.

-->:

It shows where we are hosted on the different podcast players.

-->:

We have our blog. We have an about page,

-->:

which we put our company information there that we talk

-->:

about what we do as a company and how to get started with us

-->:

on our About Page. Helpful stuff there. That all you have

-->:

to do is just plug things in and you don't have to put a lot

-->:

of thought into it. Is this replacing your AGK media

-->:

studio? We are in the process of deciding that we're

-->:

going to see how this performs. They have told us that they

-->:

work really hard to provide excellent SEO for your

-->:

brand and your podcast. So we're going to see how it performs over the

-->:

next few months and then make that decision about do we need any other

-->:

kind of a website or is this going to be what

-->:

we want? Yeah, I think it's great,

-->:

especially for people who have a show and they really want to have a place

-->:

to keep their show. I'll be curious to see how it works as

-->:

a whole business website. Tend to think it's probably not

-->:

robust enough for most business owners to really

-->:

use it as the whole site, but so much of what you and Toby

-->:

do really is a spin off of these shows that

-->:

you're doing. It might work really well for you.

-->:

The devil's in the details, as they say.

-->:

And a lot of these things are things that I do have

-->:

on the current website and some of them are like, oh wow, I never thought

-->:

of doing that before. There's a guest form. If people want to

-->:

be a guest on our show, they can go there, fill that out.

-->:

It's got its own release right there that

-->:

they provide, which is a wonderful release. We read through it and

-->:

it's like, this is perfect. We don't even anything more than this.

-->:

And then it gives you the opportunity

-->:

to build an email list, to build a

-->:

guest profile list. It's really thoughtful

-->:

and wonderful for podcast producers.

-->:

No, I think it's perfect for shows. And it's interesting

-->:

because we use Captivate for the Women Conquer Business show as

-->:

the host and they've started building in podcast guests.

-->:

I think everybody's trying to help us solve that problem.

-->:

It doesn't seem like a problem, like having guests, but it is a lot

-->:

to manage and so it looks like they're really trying to help with Podpage.

-->:

I'm not familiar with this product at all, so we'll just have to wait

-->:

and see. We'll just have to see. It's fairly

-->:

new and they do have an affiliate program which we're going to get

-->:

in on because we're excited about it right now. We're talking about it on all

-->:

our shows. Use our affiliate link and we'll get an additional kickback

-->:

and it doesn't cost you any extra. We'll make sure to include that in the

-->:

show notes. So if anybody is interested in checking that out and using our affiliate

-->:

link. You're welcome to do that. Cool.

-->:

That's awesome. So I think we're about ready to close. So what

-->:

do you have for your inspirational

-->:

nugget? Inspirational nugget time. Okay.

-->:

Magical inspiration. I was going through my daily stoic

-->:

book today and also taking a look at my

-->:

goals. And you spoke about your goals as well. For goals

-->:

on my board, I like to include things that I have done or

-->:

I am currently doing so that I can say,

-->:

oh, yeah, promoting my Women in Podcasting book. I'm doing that.

-->:

I'm making that happen. I'm in the middle of it, and I'm

-->:

proud of myself, and I'm doing great. And that gets me right in the moment

-->:

as to say I am proud, I am satisfied, I'm doing well.

-->:

I'm happy. If all you have for your goals is things

-->:

you haven't yet accomplished. Oh, here's a weight goal,

-->:

an ideal weight goal that I want to

-->:

hit. I'm not there yet. So that could be like future

-->:

B is going, oh, I'm not there yet. Anxiety and worry

-->:

and dissatisfaction, basically. So I like to

-->:

have a mix of both so that if I'm feeling dissatisfied by,

-->:

I'm not anywhere near my weight goal, but I'm working on it every day,

-->:

but I am doing these other things, and I'm in the middle of it,

-->:

so I can be proud and satisfied with what I'm doing.

-->:

So I suggest that to people to make sure that you include those

-->:

things that you're already doing every day that

-->:

are getting you closer to those bigger goals. Absolutely. You have

-->:

to have some way to feel good about everything that you're

-->:

doing or you're not going to do it. It's true. Yeah. I think I've

-->:

mentioned before, I'm still reading Atomic Habits. I love it because it's really

-->:

about doing the little things and having that dedication, and it

-->:

always adds up to something big, and I really believe that.

-->:

So I think that what Shelley's talking about is 100%

-->:

spot on. It helps you reduce anxiety to feel good in

-->:

the moment. Yes. And you can only

-->:

feel proud and happy and joyful in this moment. If you're thinking

-->:

about the future or you're thinking about the past, you're not going to be

-->:

proud and happy and joyful. You're going to feel either anxious or regretful.

-->:

Yeah. Think about things you're doing right now and how they're going to pay off

-->:

in the future. Yeah. All right.

-->:

Like watching this video right off because you

-->:

learned all this stuff today about listening to the show. That's so awesome.

-->:

All right, everybody, you have a really great week, and thank you for being

-->:

there. Thank you so much. See you next for being here.

-->:

That's right. And we'll see you next week, or we'll be in your ears next

-->:

week. Bye.

-->:

Thank you for joining the Women Conquer Business podcast hosted

-->:

by Shelley Carney and Jen McFarland. Please subscribe.

-->:

And leave a comment or question regarding your most challenging content

-->:

creation or business problem. Then share this podcast with

-->:

family and friends so they can find the support they need to expand their brand

-->:

and share their message with the world. Check the notes for links

-->:

to valuable resources and come back again next week.

-->:

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