I've been following Don McAllister for many years. He's been on several of my favorite podcasts and he's been a pioneer in the Apple community with his online tutorial (aka, Screencasts). He was one of the first people that I learned was doing online training through his screencasts. In the interview Don shares how hard it was to get started "back in the day" and how easy it is today to get up and running.
Download The Bonus Audio: "Don McAllister's Top Productivity Tools" Click Here to Download
Podcast Notes:
- Don found something he was interested in and started
- He found a need and filled it
- He needs to be disciplined in his business to create balance
- He is good at learning the software’s key benefits and dispels them into videos that teach a beginner through pro
- It’s hard to get your voice heard for beginners. The key is to build an audience
Download The Bonus Audio: "Don McAllister's Top Productivity Tools" Click Here to Download
Find Don Here: ScreenCastsOnline.com
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Transcription:
Jeff Long: It's my goal in these interviews to bring you different people doing different things. We may talk to somebody in the university level that's doing e-learning in some capacity. We may talk to somebody that's doing some innovative online courses for artists. Then we have somebody like Don that's doing some really cool screencast type videos as well as he's taking this a step beyond that. We'll talk about his online university, his online magazine. So there's ways to once you create that content to use it in different places or to serve people in different ways beyond just maybe an online course or a screencast. Keep coming back. I want to make sure that you don't think that we're only going to be targeting a certain type of online course, but we're going to learn from the gamut because I think there are ways we can learn from every different type of person that's doing online courses and e-learning and screencasting. That's why I wanted to bring Don on the show here today. I know you'll learn a lot from him and I can't wait to hear what you learned from this interview. I want to alert you to something that I'll give you more information at the end of this podcast. But just a little teaser here. I asked Don something that I think you'll find really interesting. He has a big business. He does a lot of things, a lot of moving parts. I asked him what are some of the productivity tools that you use to run your business. I know you'll love his answers and you'll love his apps and his suggestions and actually put that in an extended audio version that you can download for free on the site. Go to onlinecoursecoach.com/Don to download that for free, and you can learn what productivity tools Don uses and I know you're going to find a lot of value in that. Go to the website, check it out. Again, I talk about it later in the podcast towards the end, but I wanted to make sure you got that information so you can get that bonus free audio. I could talk on and on about this interview, but let's just get into this interview with Don McAllister. All right, I'm here with Don McAllister of Screen Casts Online. Don, thanks so much for being on the show here. Don McAllister: Oh thanks for the invite Jeff. No really, I appreciate it. Jeff Long: Like I said off air I've been listening to you for many years, and I know that you actually got started around 2005, 2006 doing these online tutorials, screencasts. You were one of the first ones. Tell me a little bit about your background and how you got to the point of starting there in 2005. Don McAllister: Yeah, sure. Well to most people surprise it was actually 2005 that I first discovered the Mac, because before then I was actually a PC guy. I was working in corporate IT for many years and I'd lost my mojo. I used to really enjoy playing with computers. I've never really been exposed to Apple Macs before because in the UK where I'm based to be honest the penetration around that time and earlier was very limited. It was literally just high end design studios which have access to Apple gear. In the olden days I was a Windows guy, but I just lost interest in Windows. Then I stumbled across Steve Job's keynote. It must have been Macworld keynote in 2005. It was during that keynote I mean I had no idea what Apple was all about, no idea about what software they ran. In that particular keynote they covered iPhoto, iPhoto books, they covered some of the software. Then at the end of the keynote they actually introduced the Mac mini. As I went through the hour long presentation I was getting more and more interested in the things they're talking about. Then the Mac mini was launched and it seemed very affordable. I already had my keyboard, I had my monitor, so it seemed a fairly low risk investment to give it a try. It took a couple of months before they came to the UK. But when actually got the Mac mini I was hooked within a couple of days, actually started using the Apple. In the course of a couple of weeks I became an evangelist and I thought it was really, really good. It brought back the enjoyment of playing with computers and exploring and learning new stuff with computers. The genesis of how I started to do the Screen Casts was basically I wanted to show some of my relatives who also were thinking about getting the Mac, and one of them actually did. I wanted to show her how to do some of the basics. I created a few mini videos for them. That was the start. Round about 2005 as well podcasts had really just come onto the scene. I was quite interested in podcasts. I would start to follow a couple of podcasts and I quite fancied the idea of doing a podcast. My initial thought was to do like a Mac newbie type podcast, but when push came to shove I sat down, I got the domain name sorted out, I understood how RSS worked and everything, but when it came to press the button and start recording I just had nothing to ... It was weird. That was just going to be like an audio podcast. I shelved that. Then the realization that, "Well, hang on," once I've done those couple of videos I could actually ... It's digital media. I could distribute these videos as a podcast. That was the start of it really. I started just to push out a couple of screencasts as a weekly podcast and it snowballed from there. Jeff Long: Man, that's great. It reminds me how I got started with some teaching online stuff. Very similar to you I saw a need and there weren't really any training videos on this topic. I'm like, "Man, if I'm struggling with this I'm sure people who don't have as much experience or knowledge are just floundering without it." I think that's great. It's that finding a need. Don McAllister: Yeah, and also the technology. I mean I always enjoyed the technology. I've done a little bit of video production just on a hobby basis. But this was something new. This was doing the screen captures and using the iMovie at the time I think it was before I upgraded to Final Cut Pro and just learning how to put it together. Of course it's a whole ... Doing the screencast is something quite different because you're describing what you're seeing on screen, you are actually demonstrating stuff and talking at the same time. It can take a little bit of an act to get into it, but I really enjoyed it. The problem was in the early days. It took up so much time like a whole weekend to produce like a 15 minute 20 minute screencast because people sometimes don't appreciate just how much work goes into actually generating one of these online video tutorials. Jeff Long: Sure. Yeah, I know. I can attest to that. I think you brought up another good point of you wanted to start something, whether it's audio podcast, video podcast. You bought the domain name, you sat down to record that audio podcast. It sounds like you just, the excitement wasn't there, the passion, something wasn't there. Explain that. Why did you go away from that? It just feels like you weren't hitting the nail in the head? Don McAllister: Yeah, I think I just wasn't ... I'd focus too much on the technology and the backroom stuff without giving a lot of consideration as to what the content would be. When it came down to actually giving the content it wasn't quite there, so I had to in effect go back to the drawing board but I'd lost enthusiasm by that point. Jeff Long: I've done the exact same thing. To the listener, focus on the one thing you absolutely have to do. If you're like most of us, we have all these ideas and we want to start them all and we see people like Don who've had some great success, but if you're not passionate about it, or good at it, or interested in it it doesn't much how much money you eventually make. You're going to be miserable. Don McAllister: Oh yeah, yeah. No, it's got to ... It is, and especially in the early days a labor of love, because that initially it was a free podcast. All these hours I was putting in I was quite happy to just give away the content, and knowing that people were enjoying it and people were benefiting from it because I was getting feedback from people saying, "Hey, this is great," et cetera, et cetera. Jeff Long: So where are you right now? I know you create. Is it two episodes a week or is it more? Don McAllister: Yeah, no it's two episodes a week. I do. I started about probably 18 months, two years ago. I split it from just a single show each week to a separate Mac and iOS show. Although I say separate they are very much as time goes on becoming more and more intertwined. But I do 30, normally around about 30 minute Mac show and 15, 20 minutes iOS show each week. That goes out same time, normally on a Friday. Very occasionally I push it back to the Saturday but I try to keep it as regular as possible on the same day same time release. Jeff Long: Now since you create regular content each week, how do you brainstorm for topics? How do you find what's a legitimate video you want to do versus when you just through away or put on the shelf? Don McAllister: Yeah, the problem I have is that to do like half an hour's worth of content it needs to be something that you can delve into at a certain level. It has to be something that I'm particularly enamored with or something I enjoy using, and also something that I think by sharing it other people will get benefit from it. Now sometimes it's a struggle, sometimes I've got more stuff coming at me than I want to do with, so it's very fluctuary. I mean the last couple of months I'm pretty much restricted to doing the new versions of the operating system. We've had OS 10 Yosemite came out so that's a big piece of work. IOS 8 has come out as well. So probably the last two months have been really focused on those two updates. But then there's plenty, there's plenty of new Mac apps coming out. There's different types of topics as well that people like me to cover. I do take requests and suggestions from the audience as well. They get some input. But I don't plan too far ahead. It's very much two or three weeks maximum, unless I'm actually got an extended period of travel or something when I have to prepare lots of stuff in advance. But I try and keep it fairly contemporary, fairly up-to-date so that I can be very flexible so that if something comes out that I think is worthy of an immediate attention I can do that this week or next week. Jeff Long: What are some lessons you've learned along the way. I know that's such a broad topic or a broad question because so many directions you can go, but what are some key lessons you've learned about yourself, the process, or even your audience throughout these years? Don McAllister: I think one of the big things people always ask, because I work for myself, I work from home, I have my own setup, is to be disciplined really. Because I still although you could quite easily be very flexible about the hours that you work, I tend to have a very strict regime of a proper workday, a proper workspace. I do break that real occasionally by taking my laptop and watching the TV instead of working and stuff like that. I'm sure everyone does that. But just set up a regular regime and get into the work mindset. But it's very flexible because I am working from home and I do control my own destiny. I have more flexibility than I would have in a normal nine to five job. But again, you can't let that go too far. You have to discipline yourself to make sure, especially when you work into such a strict schedule of regular content each week, you have to be fairly disciplined and hit certain milestones throughout the week to make sure that the end product is available at the end of the week to the paying audience. Jeff Long: That I can definitely understand. I have some people I know that did come from the corporate environment and they're used to bosses and managers and people telling them what to do. Then they come into their own, they're their own boss or their clients are their own boss and it's hard for them. Discipline is a big deal. I'm glad you brought that up. Now I've heard some things about your screencast. Well let me back up. ScreenCasts Online is your main website. That's where you've been doing these screencasts for years and years and that's where you do these two shows. But now you have ScreenCasts Academy. What is it and why did you create ScreenCasts Academy? Don McAllister: Right. Well it's really a bit of an experiment. The issue that I have is that I'm producing all this regular content and the people who do sign up as members really enjoy it. But a membership type system or weekly content isn't for everybody. Some people just depend on [inaudible 00:12:55] which is fine. Some people religiously watch each show each week when it comes out. But some people aren't really although they may be interested in their Mac or their iPad or their iPhone they're not really that interested that they actually want to see 45 minutes worth of training material each week. The academy was really setup to see whether or not there would be some opportunities to repackage some of the training that I've already done in discreet modules, so that I mean the one that's currently on there is for the iWork suite of applications. It's a single purchase. You just buy that particular course and then you get access to that course and then there's no ongoing commitment. You've got access to that course for as long as you want. Then overtime I'm hoping to bring in some more courses like OS 10 Yosemite and the iOS 8 stuff that I've just completed, bring them into the ScreenCasts Online Academy as a separate purchasable product. It's really to target those people that don't want the ongoing commitment of a membership but would still like to have the occasional chunk of training for specific topics. Jeff Long: That's great. I love that you're trying new things, trying different things and listening to your audience because that's who you're serving as well. Don McAllister: Oh yeah, yeah, yeah. Jeff Long: You want to make them happy. Don McAllister: Yeah. The problem being though that it's a very small production. Although I do have people helping me on the post production side now, it's still, it's very much I do the bulk of the work, so it's quite difficult to keep the weekly stuff going and to experiment with other things. But it's been fun. I've been using WordPress to set up the site and a few plug ins and using Vimeo to distribute some of this, the videos. Again, I like that sort of thing. I like to try new things and to keep abreast of what's going on. Jeff Long: Don, would you consider yourself an educator, a technologist, or something completely different? Don McAllister: That's a good question actually. I don't know really. I suppose a bit of everything. I don't think I could pigeonhole myself into one particular area. But, yeah, probably more. I don't know. I do keep abreast of what's going on. I mean I do as well as the training stuff I do, guest post on various podcasts, what I pontificate or do a bit of punditry. I quite enjoy that now and again. It's a bit of everything, but the ScreenCasts Online is my main focus. I suppose really if you have to pin me down with something I suppose it would be an educator. Jeff Long: That's interesting. Maybe an "technologycator". Don McAllister: Yeah. Jeff Long: Whatever the combination of technology and educator. The reason I ask that question is because that was one of the things I was drawn to, one of the reasons I wanted to bring you in is because I do look at you as an educator. As I told you before we recorded I've been listening to you for years. I love all the Mac based podcast you've been on and it's fantastic. But like you said, the core part of who you are and who your business is is this education screencast which is great. Don McAllister: I always get some good comments from people. It always fascinates me that there is no typical audience member. I have people who are elderly, I have people who are brand new to the Mac, I have real Mac heads who've been Mac users for many more years than I have been. Yet, each one seems to be able to take what they need from the screencast. It might be someone's been using an application that I'm covering. They might have been using it for three or four years. Yet, they will still take the time to sit down and watch the screencast and they will feedback that, "Hey, I use the application all the time, but I found at least three four different things that you brought up that I hadn't appreciated," which is great. That's the sort of thing I'm trying to do. I'm trying to ... Because they're only short. They're only short screencasts. They're not like lynda.com or something where you have like six hour tutorials on the pro apps. These are half hour tightly produced really. I don't really waffle too much. At least I don't think so. I do sit down and work out the structure of what I want to cover. It might run on for two or three episodes if it's particularly complex application, but I just want to pull out the nuggets of interest that people might have to give them a base level of knowledge and also a level of confidence so they can go ahead and explore the application further. But invariably these little snippets or these little gold nuggets pop out and people latch onto them and appreciate that. Jeff Long: I think that's definitely a skill to quickly consume how a product or a software works and then dispel it into language that people can understand and get value from. Don McAllister: Yeah. Very much so because that's one of ... People often ask, "You know what, how do you know all this software to the level that you seem to know it?" The truth is I don't really until I actually sit down and start working at how I'm actually going to cover that week's topic. At which point I probably go into it in more depth than someone would normally do. But that's the benefit. I do some of the heavy lifting and then people that watch the screencast can get the benefits of that. But I am able to go in and within half a day pull apart an app and understand how it works and then formulate in my head how I would put some of these topics across to people. Jeff Long: What advice would you give to somebody who just wants to maybe start out creating a course or ... ? Not that they want to copy you, but you're doing a good job. You're one of the industry leaders. There is such a growing market. What advice would you say to somebody that's thinking about this, or maybe they already have a course and they want to up their game? Don McAllister: It's really difficult. I mean when I started the landscape was quite different now in that there weren't that many sources of tutorials that you could get on the internet. Whereas now you've only got to go to YouTube and you'll see tons and tons and tons of stuff. There's lots of vendors now who have set up shop and selling courses at such and such. I think the difficult thing for people now is to get their voice heard, is to really just make themselves visible to people. I don't particularly know what the answer is, but I think that's the major problem for people these days. Obviously you've got your social media and stuff like that, but it's really hard to get the word out basically. Jeff Long: It kind of boils down to what Michael Hyatt talks about in his book "Platform". The tagline of his book is how to get noticed in a noisy world. It is about building your platform, whether it's through social media or blogging or whatever that system is that's the key. Whenever I talk to beginners that are wanting to create courses and teach people and help people, that's one of the key things we talk about, is the marketing and what's your platform. Because it's easy to look at you and be like, "Wow, Don's doing a fantastic job. I want to be just like him." Well you know how much hard work ... Don McAllister: Oh yeah. It's taken eight years to build it up to where it is. In the early days I couldn't survive with just the membership system. I had to do other things as well. That's probably another thing that I learned early on is trying to do multiple things at the same time. I did some sponsorship arrangements with vendors of popular applications. Now people didn't know me but they knew the app and then I did the tutorial for that app, and it was on their website and people started to get to know me that way. I do not so much for my show but I might actually do a commission screencast for a software vendor, and again, they would put that on their site and that would bring people back to me. It's a bit of a long haul to be honest. I mean certainly don't expect overnight success on this sort of thing. You need to, and again, I think if you're looking at selling your content online you need to have or you need to demonstrate integrity and reliability and consistency. You always got to produce good stuff, but it's always got to be there where people expect it. It is a hard slog but overtime if your stuff is good enough you get there. Jeff Long: It's like everything else in life that you do, the things that are worthwhile take time and you got to build, take some momentum. Was just talking with somebody today and we are saying that those overnight successes we love to idolize, well they're rarely overnight successes. They just like decided to look at you and be like, "Oh, that Don McAllister, he's an overnight success." You would look at him and say, "No, absolutely not. It's been a long, long road." Don McAllister: Yeah. It's hard work as well. I mean I used to work in corporate IT. I did my dues, I worked hard there. But when I left the work level shut up. But it's a different sort of work. It's more enjoyable. You're doing it for yourself, you're doing work that you enjoy so it doesn't really feel like work. In fact in some instances you have to back off a bit because you're probably working too much. Jeff Long: I can relate to that exactly. I love what I do. It's the best. In fact it's funny. I was going through Twitter on Friday afternoon. You see people oh can't wait, TGIF, can't wait until the weekend. I'm like, "Oh man, the weekend's coming." Like, "I've so many more things I want to do." Obviously I love my family, my kids, but I love what I do. It's a blessing. It's a true blessing. Where do you see online courses going in the future? Are we at the beginning, the middle? Are we oversaturated, undersaturated? Or how do you see this landscape of online training and online courses? Don McAllister: Yeah, that's another good one. I wouldn't say we're reaching saturation but there is so much stuff out there. It takes a lot to get picked up on I think. I think one of the reasons why I think I've been so successful or been able to prolong what I've been doing is building up an audience who like the stuff that I do and like the way that I do it. So I think a lot of for a want of a better term personal branding or people with a certain way of teaching I think there's plenty of scope for more and more of those people to be in the marketplace and to find their niche and provide content for their niche. That's certainly not saturated. I think there's lots and lots of potential. The different subject areas as well. I mean my particular subject area it's always surprised me that in the eight years, I thought initially well I'd start doing this and then there'd be half a dozen other people doing the same thing and it would be a battle. Not really happened to be honest. I mean there's the big boys, there's Lynda as I mentioned before and a couple of other larger organizations, but there's no real other single shop guys doing a similar thing or that I I'm aware of anyone. I'm sure there are, but it's not in my space anyway. People have tried but they've fallen by the wayside. Jeff Long: You mentioned a couple of minutes ago that you structured some interesting deals with different vendors where you would create a screencast and they would sponsor it. Have you found that a lot of companies are receptive to that? Because I like structuring business deals creatively, and that's a creative idea. Was it hard to pitch that? Or was it a no-brainer for them? Don McAllister: It was, it was pretty much a no-brainer because of the benefits they got out of it, because in the early days, I mean to be honest I don't do it that often now, it's very rare because I've built the membership to a level whereby the membership sustains the business, so I don't have to do sponsorships or stuff like that or commission screencasts. I can focus on my main day job now. But what I found was that the hard pitch was that initially nobody knew who I was so that was quite difficult. But by doing a training video they could sponsor a training video. It'd be half an hour worth of content. They could use it on their website. That's what their top five support issues that they have. I'd work those into the screencast so that they could point people to the screencast to sort a majority of these support issues out. They could use it for marketing if they wanted to, they could use it for customers training. It's so many benefits to them that I think in most cases it really was a no-brainer for them. Jeff Long: We do a similar thing with some of our corporate clients where in essence they're hiring us as a creative agency or a media marketing company, because yeah, the benefits are there. By creating these video tutorials it is a no-brainer. But is just interesting to know who gets it. I'm sure a few of them maybe don't, who knows. But those aren't the ones you want to work with anyway. But yes. Don McAllister: That's right. The big problem initially that I found, and I still haven't gotten the answer to, is pricing as well, how to price your services or how to price your content. Very very difficult because obviously you don't want to undersell it. But again, if you get the pricing wrong it puts a lot of people off, especially with the app economy now with apps pushing prices of apps down, things like that. It gets very complex really. In the early days it was horrendous. I just didn't have a clue how to pitch it properly. Jeff Long: Don where can people find out more about you online or your websites or on social media? Don McAllister: Well the best place to go the main site is screencastsonline.com. That's where the main membership site is. There are links from there to the ScreenCasts Online Academy. If you want to go directly there that's screencastsonlineacademy.com. I also have a monthly magazine as well. I repurpose the monthly tutorials in the form of an iPad and iPhone magazine. That's at ScreenCasts Online Monthly Mag. That's in the newsstand. If you want to find me on Twitter it's @DonMcAllister. That's probably about it. Really I am only Twitter for like virtual water cooler during the day. Jeff Long: Well Don, thanks so much for being on the show here. I could've gone on a lot longer but I want to respect your time and get you out of here. But thank you so much for being on the show. Don McAllister: I enjoyed it. Thanks for the invite. Jeff Long: There you go. I knew you would love that interview. Man, I had a great time talking with him. I know that if you've got half as much out of it as I did you're going to walk away from this podcast really excited. I also have something really cool for you just as a gift, as a thank you. If you go to onlinecoursecoach.com/Don you'll be taken to the podcast page for this episode and you can download a free extended audio part where I ask Don what his favorite productivity tools are, because Don does a lot of things with his screencast and magazine and online university and all of these things. What are some tools that keep him going, that keep him productive, that keep him streamline, especially with the team that he has. He goes into depth with those tools. Go to onlinecoursecoach.com/Don to get that free audio.
Will you be part of the learning revolution? It's been happening for several years and will only increase! There is a growing need for creating online courses. These could range from software tutorials, corporate training, language courses or a myriad of other topics. In this podcast, I talk about reasons of why you should be creating online courses, training materials, eLearning websites and other content to help teach and train your target audience.
For additional content and to read a related blog post, see, Why you need to be creating online courses.
Transcript from the Podcast:
I want to talk about why should you be creating or even considering creating an online course. You might hear from the gurus, and I put that in quote, that everyone should consider or everyone should be making an online course. While I don't necessarily think that, I have a future episode coming out called "Why You Shouldn't Be Creating Online Courses," but why should you consider it. One thing is 45% of students are taking online courses and will become expectant of online learning. As you think about the future, students will become increasingly expectant of, hey, do you have an online course or can I take this online, or even how can I take this on my phone. Just the fact that that's becoming the norm is something you should think about. Whether you own or work at a large company, whether you're a solo entrepreneur, be thinking of how can you systematize your knowledge into a course. How can you teach something and build a course? How can you show somebody and build a course? You get the idea. That is one of the main reasons why you should consider making your own online course. What all is involved in an online training course? There's a lot of different ways you can go about it. We'll be talking about this in future weeks. What are the components to making an online course? Here are some of the options of things you can do. You can make it as easy as creating a password protected website where you release monthly content and you charge for it. That could be all that you do. People are making a good living at doing just that. If you have a business with maybe employees, it makes sense you could even teach your customers how to use your product. We've done that before. You can demonstrate a skill that you take for granted. This is one of the key things. We all take for granted the knowledge that we have. I think sometimes, man, everybody knows how to do amazing video production, or everyone knows how to build a website or create a learning management system or learning styles and how to teach. Not everybody does. That's one of the reasons for this podcast. I want to encourage you, what are some of the things that you have a skill in, that you have expertise, that you have knowledge, that you have training, that you have anything, and how could you put that in an online course? It could be as simple as how to do your email more effectively, or have to be more effective, or how to use a certain piece of software, or fix your car. I could use that one. There are a lot of different courses you could create just based on your own background, education, and expertise. Like I said, you could show how to use a piece of software. You could do a screencast of a website and walk through that. I've done that many times both for paid courses that I've released as well as just my own clients. You can create a membership system to allow different access levels of content you give people over time. You can even drip it over time. Maybe person A comes into your site and buys your course and they can access one module per week over the course of eight weeks. Then when person B comes in in two weeks, they go through that same step. They go through the first module; it takes them a week. Then once that week is elapsed they can go onto the second module. You can drip it over time. We'll go into that in depth here in an upcoming episode. Another thing you could do to create online courses is create a podcast where you tell people how to do something and create a website where you teach them in detail. That sound familiar? That's what I'm doing here. Yeah, it's for free, but that's one of the things you can do is have a podcast and release content. You could blog. Then once you get an audience, they might ask you are there specific things you can help them with. That is another way of building online courses, is finding a need and trying to fill people's needs. Because, I've found that nobody likes to sell. I don't like to sell. It's not something that most people think is fun, even honorable. But when you think about it, you shouldn't be selling. I think you should be solving people's needs. They will give you their money gladly. Be thinking of that, how you could create a course, what problems you can solve, what solutions you can give. That might tell you what kind of course you can make. Another reason why you should think about creating online courses is because they're flexible. By putting your training materials online you make it easy for students, for customer, employees, and clients to access your courses on their time. I've talked with a lot of companies over the years and this has kind of blown their mind. They think, oh man, we got to bring a trainer in, maybe friendly him in from across the country, or somebody internally. We've got to sit everybody down in our conference room. We've got to train them all. Then think, man, if everybody's in the training room, who's doing work on the floor, or who's on the sales floor, or the production floor, or whatever. If you put this online you can have a password protected learning center or you can put it internally in your portal. Then students can access it over time. Students can learn when they want to. Maybe they're just available in the morning, or during work hours, or late at night. You're not going to be wanting to teach people at midnight but they can login and access that content whenever they want. Students can learn where they want to. This is a cool thing, and this is one of the things when I do some coaching and consulting with companies or entrepreneurs, is you can really expand your reach. Right now I'm working with a medical training company. They were based locally but they want to expand nationwide. We're able to put their courses that are in-person courses, we're able to put those online, creating this massive e-learning system. They can sell that online. We've talked with other training companies that are the same way. They have boring PowerPoint slides and boring training, and we're able to help them put it online, use video, use a lot of multimedia. That way, students can learn wherever they want to. By having your training online you open the door to teaching and serving more people. You can get more students and you can make money wherever you are and wherever they are. That opens the door to selling your course not just nationwide here in the United States, but worldwide. We'll talk about that in a future episode and what that means. That is truly exploding. I just saw a stat the other day that said for the first time YouTube views are I think more on mobile devices than on computers. You also, if you look at the stats on worldwide usage of YouTube, I believe worldwide accounts for more video views on YouTube than just the United States. If you're worldwide you're probably like duh, there's more people worldwide. Well, sometimes in the United States people think that we're the center of the universe. I've traveled overseas many times. I've been to five continents. I've been to all 50 states here. You know what? We're not the center of the universe. I'll be the first one to admit that. The world is a great place, and if you can open up your training to the world, you can help more people and you can earn more money. Thirdly, online learning is flexible, and students can learn how they want to. Some people have unique learning styles and they can't just listen in the classroom. They can't sit still or they can't effectively learn in a controlled classroom environment. By having the training online the student can learn at their own pace. They can go back and review the material as many times as they wish so they're not locked into the pace of what the teacher is going through. They can even submit questions depending on how your e-learning portal is built. They can submit questions to the teacher. There are some different ways you can do even live chats or forums or different things like that. I really think that online learning is flexible because a student can learn when they want, where they want, and how they want. I think those three things are key ingredients of why this online learning space is just exploding. I also want you to think mobile. We talked about that a little bit. 13% of students report taking class notes on their smartphone and 33% report using tablets for work, for research, for taking notes. We really need to take mobile seriously. If you've been into any classroom, whether it's high school, college, etc., you'll see that students have their laptops open, their phones, their tablets. Some are writing, sure, but this mobile thing is taking over, so don't underestimate that. We'll be talking in future episodes on mobile-based learning. How do you do that, what are some of the best strategies for that, and how do you optimize your website or your e-learning portal for that type of strategy. Here are some considerations as you create your online training. If mobile is a big deal, which it should be a consideration, don't have small text, because it's so hard to read on a mobile device. If it's small on your computer screen, it's going to be tiny and maybe unreadable on a mobile device. If you have videos in your course, make sure the videos are easy to see on a small screen. If you have text on the video, make sure that's easy to see. It's easy to fall into the trap of just putting small fonts and really thin fonts on your videos or on your e-learning courses. If you're designing this with a mobile-first mentality you need to be thinking through these thoughts. Some other things with thinking mobile-first is you need to construct your courses so they're easy to take in bite-size chunks. I'll be talking with Kevin Gerrior in a future episode. He is a master at thinking mobile training. Some people call it m-learning, m-training, mobile training. Whatever terminology you want to assign to it, you need to be thinking as far as the learning environment, the learning experience for your student, and how that will happen online. Construct your courses so they're easy to take in bite-size chunks. Make sure your website, if that's where the e-learning course is, is responsive, which means your site automatically adapts to mobile, phones, tablets, or computer screens. I keep saying we'll be talking about this in future episode because this is one of the early episodes and we have a lot to cover. We'll be talking about responsive websites, what they mean, why they're important, and even how to utilize them in your online training. Lastly, with this whole mobile thought, don't underestimate the importance and growth of the mobile and tablet market. It's really booming. It's really exploding, so don't sweep that under the rug. Another reason why you should be creating online courses is if you have experience, if you have knowledge, it's a great way to teach the next generation. You might think, man, I've been doing this for decades. What if you could teach somebody in college or somebody just starting their career? Imagine the hassles you could save them, headaches you could save. They could go further and faster with the knowledge you give them. You can probably charge a premium for that. That's the great thing. I'm an entrepreneur. I'm not just an educator. Yes, I love education, I love technology, I love video and web and e-learning, but I'm also an entrepreneur. I like feeding my family. I like that whole aspect. I like the creativity of being an entrepreneur and how to craft an expertise and a story together in an online course. Be thinking of that. In future episodes we'll talk about that, but be thinking what do you have that's valuable, what experience you have, what knowledge do you have, and how could that translate into an online course. What thoughts do you have? What questions do you have? What are you struggling with and what do you want to learn? Because I have a whole list of topics we'll be covering, guests we'll be bringing on the show. But what burning topics do you have? What are you struggling with and how can we progress, how can we learn, how can we grow together in this journey? Shoot me an email at jeff@onlinecoursecoach.com and let me know how I can help. Let me know what problems you're having. Even let me know what you think of the show, how we can make it better as we move forward. Thanks for listening to the Online Course Coach Podcast.
Welcome to The Online Course Coach Podcast. In this initial podcast, I want to give some background on who I am, why the podcast exists and where we're going. I believe that technology and the web have opened doors for us to teach and train like never before.
What is The Online Course Coach Podcast?
This podcast will be a resource for people to learn more about why they should consider creating online courses, eLearning portals and even membership sites. I'll be interviewing people that are doing innovative things in this space. My goal is that we can learn from other industry leaders to see why they create their course, some tips and tricks they've learned as well as what issues they've had to overcome. I'll also share my tips on creating a successful online course.
Who is Jeff Long?
- He's the host of this podcast
- A proud father and husband
- Son of parents that have been lifelong teachers
- A teacher at heart who loves entrepreneurship, media and using technology to improve learning
- Has been to 50 States and 4 continents (look out Australia and Antarctica...I'm coming for you!
Podcast Transcription:
In this podcast, I'll be talking about what this podcast is all about and what's in it for you.
Intro Voiceover: Welcome to the Online Course Coach Podcast, brought to you by Truefocusmedia.com. Whether you're beginner or expert, this is the podcast for the latest in online course creation tips, news, interviews and ideas. Here's your coach, Jeff Long.
Welcome to the show. My name is Jeff Long, and I'm so excited to be starting this podcast. In this first episode, I want to talk a little bit about what this podcast is about, what's the purpose, why am I starting it, and really what do you gain from it, because that's what I want to do. I want to give you great content, I want to help you along your journey as you're learning about creating your may be your first online course or may be making your existing online courses better, or if you're in a company, how to utilize online courses, eLearning portals or anything like that. That's really the purpose of this podcast.
Here are couple things we'll be talking about in the future and upcoming podcast is, we'll be doing interviews, and this is really why one of the reasons why I'm excited about this podcast. Because I'm an inquisitive person, I also like to be motivated and I like to learn from other people, and I'm assuming you do as well. I'll be finding just top people, kind of at the top of their game doing innovative things with eLearning, online training, online course creation, etc., and this will range from people doing this online only to large companies doing this, to blended learning, even some universities.
I have 50 or 60 people already in the queue that I'm going to be bringing to you, but if you have people that you have found, that you know, or that you see online or in person, send them my way. Let me know how they can provide value through this podcast, because I'm looking to have conversations with industry leaders just to see what they're doing and how they're doing it and to pass that along with you.
I'll be talking about some hot topics, what's going on in the industry, because the whole industry whether you call it online course creation or eLearning or online training or whatever, it's a pretty robust sector and it's only growing bigger. As I'm recording these podcasts and getting all the prep work together, I'm just seeing this whole, I don't know, a sphere exploding. We're going to have to find may be a common term because there are so many different terms, whether it's eLearning, online courses, you have LMSs, you have CMSs, you have all these different things, a SCORM. We'll be talking about all of this and how it applies to online courses.
I'll also be giving you some tips, some tricks, and some things that I've found in my own business. As I work with clients and projects and online courses, I have learned a lot and I'll be passing those on to you.
Then, lastly I might even get into some tutorials, giving you some step-by-step walkthroughs of how to take your online courses to the next level. Every podcast will be slightly different. Some might be mainly interview driven, some might be just myself talking about different hot topics or tips or giving you tutorials. That's a little bit of what to expect from the direction of the podcast.
Let me talk about myself for a little bit if I may, just to give my background so you know who I am, where I'm coming from, and my experience. My parents are both lifelong teachers and educators. They worked in the ... They've both been teachers, educators their entire life, and it's been some I've respected my whole life, but I can remember growing up.
When I was kid in a school, I'll be honest, I didn't really like being in school. I'll be sitting there, learning, or more often than not, goofing around thinking, man, my parents, they must be a little crazy because they're teachers, so they're in school while school is in session and then they come home and they're grading papers. They're thinking about classes and they're prepping for classes and they're always thinking about teaching. They never get a break.
Unfortunately, teachers aren't the best paid profession here in the United States, and I think that should change but that's just a reality. As I'm growing up, I'm thinking why would anyone be a teacher. You know like that seems kind of like a bum deal, but the older I got I found myself just naturally teaching and training and that led into my career. It started in college. I took a lot of classes on teaching, on public speaking, on building curriculum, and so that background has helped me tremendously. I'll share that more in the future, but that's kind of my education.
Once I graduated and got my degree, I actually had a job where I did some corporate training with one of the big-box stores, one of the big-box home improvement stores, so you're probably thinking, there's probably two, may be three nationwide big-box stores like that. I was able to go nationwide, also into Canada. I think I did a lot of the Canadian stores, I got to go to Hawaii, Alaska, and everywhere in the US. It was a blast.
I did corporate training. I taught everybody from the store owner or the store manager, all the way on down to the janitor. Everybody in the store I did training. I did some computer setup and some consulting, and it was amazing. I did that for several years, I loved it.
I love to travel. I love people. I love being in new places. Some people get sick of the airports and the travel, that wasn't me. I loved it, and it was fantastic. That prepared me for corporate training and just what's all involved.
Then, around that time is when I started a video production, web design and eLearning company. The backbone of that was video production. That was kind of our core service that we provided, so that was all the way back in 2003, and yeah we've worked with customers and clients including Zig Ziglar and Dan Miller and just some national companies as well as some small local companies on how to create online courses as well as courses that are internally based.
I've had a blast. I've worked nationwide, I've got into travel through that. In fact, as I record this, next week I'll be in Florida doing some video work, and I've gotten to go to Nashville quite a few times, do some video work with some awesome people, as well as some other states that I'll talk about later. That's a little bit about my background, is I love teaching and training, but I didn't think I wanted to be in a school, but yet I found myself teaching, training for our clients, and I created quite a few online courses throughout those years, even before lot of people were doing this.
Now, yeah, there's a lot of people doing this, and I want to be the hub. I want to be the resource to help you get your online courses either up or improve, and I was doing that years ago even before lot of people were doing that. We've done a lot of various eLearning projects for clients. I've created multiple online courses over the years, and so that's a little bit about me.
Now, as far as the guests, I talked about this a little bit at the beginning. I want to bring on a lot of guests, and like I said I have 50-60 plus people kind of in the queue that I want to talk to, and the reason for that is I want those to be more conversational rather than just me kind of being an instructor and leading that in instruction time. I want to talk about stories from various industries, so we'll be talking to people that are doing this for colleges and universities.
We'll be talking to people that are small business owners and entrepreneurs that had an idea, they had an expertise, they put in online course together, and they're helping a lot of people and making a decent income as well. That excites me. In fact, I'm really excited to be doing this episode. I just got off the phone with one of our corporate clients, and we're talking about how do we streamline their online training. They already have a system in place, but the system they have is clunky, it is not efficient, and so we might try to revamp their whole system, do it locally first, take it nationwide, and that really excites me because I'm a trainer at heart and I want to help people. I love helping, serving, and assisting, and that helps me do that.
A couple things I need from you. Give me your feedback. What questions do you have about this whole online learning space, these online courses, these eLearning things, that you might have heard about, learning management systems? What questions do you have and how can I help you?
Shoot me an email, jeff@truefocusmedia.com and let me know how I can help you. I'll have a different email set up here in the future, and that's where you can email me what questions you have. What are you struggling with and what are you looking to get out of this podcast?
It's my goal to have these podcast come out on a weekly basis and so that'll be my goal, but also let me know, hey, would you like more or less. Would you like every two weeks a new podcast? I'd love to hear your thoughts because I want this to be for you. Sure, I can talk all day long about this. I'm excited about it. I'm passionate about it, but what do you want to learn from this episode?
I really struggled with the name for this podcast, because I wanted it to be about this whole eLearning, online course creation thing, and then what am I? Am I a coach, a consultant, or what is this podcast? I came up with the Online Course Coach Podcast. It is my goal to help you, to coach you, to help you improve your courses and to take them to the next level.
Shoot me an email, let me know what questions you have, how I can help you, and what struggles you have. We'll go through this together on the Online Course Coach Podcast.
Cory is serving and teaching what many would call the most challenging group of customers...artists. In this interview Cory talks about how he got started and finding out to best serve his audience. What happens when the market you want to serve and teach seems like a group that “can’t afford” you? In this podcast episode Cory Huff of The Abundant Artist shares his journey. Since he narrowed down his target market, he was able to craft training courses that helped artists, rather than focus on a wider market, and this has led to his success. Cory worked at an Internet marketing company and that helped give him the knowledge and experience of how to properly market online. He stumbled into working with artists as he blogged and answered questions that they submitted when they signed up for his email list.
Download The Bonus Audio: “Cory Huff’s Advice On How To Take Your Course To The Next Level”
Gory gave a great piece of advice: Ask your email subscribers what they are struggling with and you’ll get insights into how to better serve them and possibly create online courses based on their needs. Another reason for his success is that he interviews other artists on his podcast. This helps him connect with successful artists, pick their brain and get insights into how to better help and serve the artist community. Cory talks about how the stigma of how all artists are “staring artists”, but it’s actually not the case. While some are just getting started and are struggling, there are many artists that are very successful. This is much like any entrepreneur in that some struggle while others thrive. The key for any artist is to learn the business, marketing and sales side of their industry. He even talks about a customer of his that is deaf and took his course. She learned that she didn’t have to rely on transitional forms of selling but could market and promote online. She figured out that online marketing works for his life, selling ebooks which led to art sales and having success. This has led to her successfully growing her business. Selling art is an entrepreneurial endeavor just like starting a business While it took some time, Cory learned that having courses that are 10-15 minutes and have an assignment at the end that the student can take action. Having short segments keep the students engaged and give them a sense of accomplishment when they go through several at one sitting. And giving them homework allows the student to actually practice what they have learned. It’s easy to want a fast result and think that watching video based training alone will result in mastering the material. But, it’s key to give your students something to practice. This is why teachers for centuries have given homework to their students. It’s not just to give us busy work (although sometimes it feels like that’s what they’re doing) but to help reinforce the course content.
Here are a few of the questions that Cory Huff answered:
- What is your background?
- What is your view of Internet Marketing as an industry?
- How did you get started working with artists?
- Why is it hard for artists to sell online?
- How do you teach artists to dispel the starving artist myth?
- What are some struggles you see with taking the class vs engaging in the material and truly learning from it
- What system are you using to sell and distribute your courses?
- What are some marketing strategies that you've had to find other artists that's worked well?
- Where can people find you and connect with you?
- Bonus Audio - What are your strategies for ultimate success with your sales and effectiveness of your courses?
A synopsis of some of the topics Cory covered:
- Worked at internet marketing company
- Stumbled into working with artists by blogging
- He interviewed other successful people in the industry and posted them on his blog
- Artists that love art but don’t have a business background or they aren’t extroverted
- He helped Angela Lion. She is deaf and took his course. She figured out that online marketing works for his life, selling ebooks which led to art sales and having success
- Selling art is an entrepreneurial endeavor just like starting a business
- Has 10-15 minutes of instruction with action at the end to help them solidify the content
Action Steps: Leave your feedback in the comments on what action steps you will be taking…and then go do it!
- If you are starting out, what are some ways that you can start to build a following? You may want to look into blogging, podcasting, creating videos or some other way to create content and build an audience.
- Put something in your email confirmation, auto responder or send out a quick email asking your audience what they are struggling with.
- How can you incorporate homework, practice material into your courses? (hint, after reading this…go take action and implement it into your courses!)