I've had a passion for working with speakers since high school. While I'm not a professional speaker, I know that creating an online course can add tremendous value to the back of the room sales for any speaker. I had the privilege of talking with Jane Atkinson of The Wealthy Speaker University. Jane shares some of her success tips to creating an online course for her audience of speakers, but she also shares the times she learned what didn't work for her audience.
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Jane Atkinson's Bio
Jane Atkinson has been helping speakers catapult their businesses for over 20 years. As a former speaker’s agent, she has represented numerous speakers, celebrities and best-selling authors. Today, Jane coaches some of the industry's hottest stars, who have vaulted to the top 3% of the field. Her clients are the who’s who…. Executive VP’s of Fortune 100 companies, Editors-in-Chief of Top Magazines, Bestselling Authors, Adventurers, Ivy League Professors and regular everyday people who have a strong message.
Questions asked to Jane Atkinson during The Online Course Coach Podcast interview
- What is it about working with speakers that first intrigued you over 20 years ago? (did you admire their success, their impact, or something else?)
- What are some ways that you have helped speakers succeed through your materials (books, coaching, courses, etc)?
- Why did you create WealthySpeakerU? (did you find you were reaching your capacity in how many you could help at once, or wanted more leverage...or something entirely different?)
- Give us a peak behind the scenes at how you created the course. (not just the nuts and bolts, but something that other online course creators would find intriguing)
- Tell me how your beta release went and what you learned from your audience?
- Why did you chose the course formats including course content, coaching calls, Facebook group, etc. (was it an easy choice to include these or were there other items you thought about including?)
- Do you offer a Facebook community in your course?
- What is a tip that you can offer to the listener who has an online course?
- What are the productivity tools you use in your business and online courses?
- Where can people learn more about you and WealthySpeakerU?
The Online Course Coach Podcast Show Notes
- She helps speakers create products they can sell so they can speak less and make more
- She created the Wealthy Speaker U course to avoid trading time for money
- Her goal was to leverage what the speaker knows
- Jane used surveys to learn what her audience wanted and they told her that they wanted the course
- She saw a Facebook ad that said something like “Is your calendar full without adding more time"
- They use a hybrid course with teaching online and doing some live training
- There were too many people, the course was too cheap and it was a problem so the first course didn’t go well
- She made a mistake with her evergreen webinar that her students bonded and she wasn’t live during her webinars. From now she’ll be live
- While she can use Facebook ads, she learned that she had to sell the course herself and not rely on ads
- Jane knows her list and audience are her best customers
- The price point has to be inexpensive so people will sign up
- A tip is to have a platform, ask what they want and serve them
- An online course is an evolution
- She uses an online calendar to schedule meetings to systematize her business
Get the free bonus audio interview where Jane shares her top marketing strategies for selling her online course. Click to Download the Bonus Audio
I've been using LearnDash on several projects over the years, so I wanted to get the founder on the podcast to talk. In this week's Online Course Coach Podcast, Justin Ferriman talks about what this LMS plugin is, what markets can benefit from it and some good marketing strategies. I like this LMS for its flexibility, quiz features, gamification (badges, points, leaderboard, etc) and that they are constantly coming out with new features. I'm using LearnDash on a current project which will have 5 full video-based courses on it and we'll be adding more courses in the future.
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Bio of Justin Ferriman of the LearnDash LMS Plugin
Podcast Questions Asked of Justin Ferriman
- What is your background?
- How did you came up with Learn Dash?
- Please give a brief overview of what LD does. (not the best way I asked this…cut out the first part of the question)
- What industries can LearnDash be best used in?
- What's one of the most creative uses for LearnDash that you've seen?
- what's a success story that you can share of someone that used LearnDash?
- What are your tips for making elearning courses?
- What are your tips for marketing courses?
- Where you are going with LearnDash in the future?
- Where do you think eLearning is going in the future?
- What are you most proud of with LD?
- Where can people learn more about you?
The Online Course Coach Podcast Show Notes
- Justin started as a consultant and doing eLearning setup and creation
- In corporate training it’s hard to make the eLearning courses engaging and interactive
- He wanted a WordPress based solution for an LMS but didn’t find any
- At the start, it was small and he educated people on what an LMS is and why someone should use it
- They launched in 2013 and they haven’t looked back
- LearnDash is used in colleges and universities but also in industries like bloggers, certification agencies, digitalmarketer.com, medical training, etc.
- Tips to make an online course - Start planning your course with Word, PowerPoint or other basic software to get the outline
- The marketing strategy depends on your industry and online course. Create your course and have beta testers who can review it and give you feedback.
- He contributed to blogs, elearning sites, and more to build his brand and list
- They did a pre-launch which gave him the early adopters
- MOOCS are becoming the next big thing and will be the industry standard
To learn more about LearnDash and it's features and benefits, click here.
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While the term Instructional Design may seem too intimidating for many online course creators, it's important to know what it is and it can improve the quality of your courses and eLearning projects. Anna Sabramowicz shares her experience in this field and how important it is to get the student's feedback throughout the project. This will help you create a better course, learn the pain points of why they purchased your online course and help you build a community around your course. I had a lot of fun with Anna on the Online Course Coach Podcast and her engaging personality comes through in the interview. It was my goal to find someone to bring on the podcast to talk about Instructional Design in simple and easy to understand terms, and she did just that. I work with a lot of people who don't consider the learning process that a student will take and what all the student will learn throughout the course. It's easy to breeze through the course creation process and packing the course with all the knowledge you have. But, it might be more important to step back and determine the few things that the student wants to learn. The best way to do this is through beta testing your course with your ideal student base. The more feedback you get throughout the process of course creation, the better your course will be. This process works similar to the Lean Startup model and can be applied to your online course and eLearning projects.
Anna Sabramowicz's Bio
Anna Sa•bra•mo•wicz is the founder of ElearnerEngaged, an boutique elearning studio, responsible for award winning scenario based learning like "Broken Co-worker: Interactive eLearning Scenario." She published her own online course on learner centered instructional design, Skillagents.com, which has been described as “eating a box of chocolates”. Anna makes no claims to be a technology expert, but loves to empathize with the learners’ experience. Oddly enough, her advocacy for learner centered design and results driven education—where training time really matters—has made her a complete contrarian.
The Online Course Coach Podcast Questions
- What is your background?
- How did you get started in creating online courses?
- What is instructional design?
- What are some things you can do in the Instructional Design phase of the course creation process?
- How important is instructional design to creating online courses?
- How can a beta student help improve the course for the instructor?
- What are some things an entrepreneur should keep in mind with instructional design in their own courses?
- What are some struggles you've had along your career in regards to online courses?
- What are some successes you’ve had along your career in regards to online courses?
- What are some marketing strategies that you've had that's worked?
- What is Skill Agents and what does it provide?
- onlinecoursecoach.com/skillagents
Show notes from the interview with Anna Sabramowicz
- She started out as a school teacher and moved to adult education
- Anna worked in the corporate world first
- She has worked with Rubbermaid and other Fortune 500 companies
- Most people don’t know what Instruction Design is and it’s a fairly new concept in online educational
- Ask the student why they are taking this course…it’s a good way to hear their motivation
- Use reflection within a course. Ask deep questions to the student throughout the course to get them to think deeply about the subject they are learning
- Offer your course to a group of people to review your course and give you feedback
- Ask: how are you using the material in your life?
- She uses her Youtube channel as her best form of marketing
- Use coupon code “coursecoach” for online course for 40% off! by going to onlinecoursecoach.com/skillagents to learn more about her online course
One of the things that many people struggle with are not just creating the course material, but how to put it online for their students to access it. While some people have the technical expertise to create their own website and sell the course through it, others want an easy solution, and that's what Ruzuku does. Abe Crystal talks about this platform, how it got started and why you may want to consider using it. Abe offers some solid advice on how to best market your online course and recommends similar strategies as to what I recommend, so pay attention to those in the interview.
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Abe Crystal Bio:
Abe Crystal, Ph.D. is a co-founder of Ruzuku. Ruzuku’s online platform makes it ridiculously easy for you to create your own online course or coaching program. Ruzuku has hosted over 10,000 courses serving over 80,000 students around the world. Abe specializes in learning design and user experience research, and earned his Ph.D. in human-computer interaction at UNC-Chapel Hill.
Podcast questions I asked Abe Crystal:
- what is your background in eLearning?
- why did you create Ruzuku?
- why do your users choose Ruzuku over your competitors?
- what are some trends you've seen in eLearning?
- where do you see eLearning going in the future?
- what are some of the best marketing strategies?
- If someone wants to get started with Ruzuku, where can they go?
Podcast Notes:
- His background isn’t originally in eLearning but in user experience
- He wants to help learn and grow
- Ruzuku is a platform that pulls all the technical aspects together and makes it easy
- http://pcosdiva.com/ is a good example of a good online course that has a niche audience and is able to serve the community with an online course, which is built on the Ruzuku platform
- Build an audience, find a need, listen to what they want to learn and then build the course
- Create a pilot or beta phase of the course where people can test out the course
- Use LinkedIn to promote the course
- If you have an audience, it’s much easier
- Start by building a fan base of 1000 fans, as outlined by Kevin Kelly of Wired Magazine. http://kk.org/thetechnium/1000-true-fans/
- A 4 week live-course with is easier to run versus an evergreen course and it gets more engagement and sales (generally speaking)
- Ruzuku allows the teacher to add text, video and audio and let’s the teacher not have to worry about the technology side of building a course
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I had the privilege of attending FinCon in Charlotte, North Carolina recently. And while this conference is primarily for those in the financial industry, I loved attending. I share my thoughts and takeaways. I also was able to interview 6 people at FinCon who have online courses or membership sites and they gave a favorite tip and tool that they use in their online courses.
What I loved about attending FinCon
- It is the most well run conference I’ve attended
- Everyone is willing and wanting to help
- It’s a great place to meet awesome people
- I got to listen to and meet people like Pat Flynn, Jeff Goins, Noah Kagen of AppSumo, Chase Reeves of Fizzle, and learn from many other awesome speakers.
- The organizer actually recommended to skip the sessions and network the entire time
- I was glad to see many people are creating online courses and got to interview a few of them for this podcast and I lined up some people you may know, with large audiences to talk about their successes with their online courses
- I was amazed at how many people want to create an online course and I was inundated with questions about the tech, strategies and marketing of online courses. I plan on addressing these questions in coming podcasts…so subscribe to the podcast and stay tuned
Register to win a *FREE FinCon 2016 ticket
Registration is simple and the more you share it out, the more chances you have to win! I would be honored if you were my guest to FinCon 2016.
The 5 types of online courses that you may want to consider
While there are many different types of courses that you can create for your audience (I like to call them students), these 5 items below are some options I like to start off with when I'm coaching someone who wants to create an online course. I go more in depth in the podcast, so listen and think if one of these would work well for your students.
- Email driven course where they sign up and get dripped content over time.
- A short self study online course that focusses on one area from start to finish. The benefit is that it’s short and actionable. People are willing to pay for a short course that solves one problem.
- A screencast walkthrough of software, presentation or other content.
- A video driven course with you on camera, powerpoint slides, pdf downloads, Facebook private group, monthly webinars. Include multiple tiers with more items added to the course with each increased paid tier.
- A certification course - create content where students walk through the course, get help from you, are awarded points and badges for each module they complete and are awarded with a certificate at the end.
Tips and Tools for Online Course and Membership Site Creators from FinCon
Brian Mikes
Brian is a serial Entrepreneur. He loves to start, run, and invest in small businesses. With experience in online marketing, sales, and corporate finance, he wears many hats! Currently, he runs Hyperion Financial Group, an online financial publishing company. He also sits on the Board of Betwext.com, a cutting edge text message platform for small business. Brian also invests in and consults with small businesses in a number of different industries. You can reach Brian here.
Kirk Du Plessis
Gabby Wallace
Steph Halligan
Steph Halligan is the entrepreneurial cartoonist behind Art To Self. She's also the creator of You Deserve More, a 7-day course to help freelancers and entrepreneurs charge what they’re worth. Get her free 6-lesson mini course and free scripts for raising your rates at YouDeserveMore.co
David Stein
David Stein is host of Money For the Rest of Us, a weekly personal finance show. He also runs the Money For the Rest of Us Hub, an online educational platform on money, how it works, and how to invest it. Previously, he was Chief Investment Strategist and Chief Portfolio Strategist at Fund Evaluation Group, a $35 billion institutional investment advisor. At FEG he co-lead the 20 person research team and managed assets for endowments, foundations and financial planners. You can find him at www.moneyfortherestofus.net or on Twitter @jdstein
Deacon Hayes
wellkeptwallet.com *In order to win the FinCon 2016 ticket, you must be a new attender to FinCon.Free ticket contest only covers the cost of one ticket to the 2016 FinCon conference and not travel, meals, or other expenses.