Music Teachers: Expand Online

https://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

225: 5 Secrets to Teaching Music Online

Wed, 25 May 2022 10:30:17 +0000

In this episode, I highlight some of the most overlooked secrets that when utilized will help with successfully teaching music online.

Secret #1:

Audio is more important than video for the most part

Secret #2:

Teaching can be done in real time and asynchronously with both one on one students and groups

Secret #3:

Lesson plans are vital to getting the most out of teaching time

Secret #4:

You can use other people's content in your teaching as long as you do it right

Secret #5:

You don't need to amass a huge following on social media or YouTube to be successful at building an online music education business.

If you are thinking about expanding with courses, membership sites, group programs, workshops, so on and have questions about the tech and the strategy, please book a call with me by going to https://callwithjaime.com.

When it comes time to create a profitable, successful online music education business, it's a matter of building the right combination of offers. One-on-one lessons alone are not going to do it. One-on-one lessons plus A, B or C? Now we're starting to talk!

One-on-one lessons don't even need to have to ultimately be part of your online offering. You could do everything else online and just not even touch one-on-one lessons.

There are no rules, there are no boundaries, there is no permission required to expand online.

When you book your call at https://callwithjaime.com we’ll start manifesting and realizing how you're going to build and be successful with your online music education business.

Don't be a stranger, connect with me on Instagram and Facebook!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

224: Online Music Education; Reflections, Observations and Opportunities - a conversation with Sam Reti

Wed, 18 May 2022 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is far different than the regular episodes you’ll find on the feed, but I know it’s going to provide you with insight and value that will benefit your online music education business!

Sam Reti from Muzie.live invited me onto his platforms (FB group and YouTube channel) to debrief the Expand Online Summit, discuss what

If you didn’t catch the Expand Online Summit, here’s a coupon to grab the All-Access Pass for $100 off. This coupon (PODCAST224) expires on May 31, 2022. I mention providing a coupon to the members of the Muzie community and want to extend it to you as well. Click here to redeem.

Sam started the conversation off by asking me to share a bit of my story… So, in case you’re new to the podcast, I am including it here in the shownotes!

I am a technology strategist. I am not a music teacher. I am in awe of the music education space because the thing that differentiates music education from a lot of other spaces is the opportunity and the exploration and the creativity that you bring to your students. For me being able to put my tech stamp on that and to be able to make it so that you can do more of what you are amazing at!

For me, music education is kind of like the vertical that I chose to say “this is where I know tech can make a difference.”

We take the conversation into Muzie and into the music teaching landscape. There is a divide right now between the MUST BE IN PERSON and the I CAN DO AMAZING THINGS ONLINE. Sam and I are both in the online camp (imagine that!)

One big stumbling block for a lot of music teachers is the business side, which is something I make sure to address each year during the Expand Online Summit and we get into during the conversation as well. Business-savvy-ness is not taught in music school, even to the students who want to become teachers and studio owners. The focus always seems to be on the music… someway somehow this will get changed, and hopefully my products and services will become part of that solution!

My big thing this year with the summit was scaling beyond sessions! The question is really what else can we do? We don't have to just teach one on one lessons anymore because online gives us a new way of teaching.

It's a matter of shifting perspective… can I be a successful teacher if I am not doing X, Y or Z?

X: teaching in real time
Y: teaching in person
Z: teaching private (one-on-one)

If we're not real time, what does that mean? If we're not in person, what does that mean? If we're not one on one, what does that mean?

Because I think I'm not a music teacher, I come from the perspective that we can eliminate all three of those and still be a very successful music teacher.

This works when we make sure that we put the student and their journey and their musicality at the forefront of our courses and content and delivery. It doesn't matter what you're teaching. If you don't keep your student front of mind as you're creating it, then what's the point?

Keeping your student front of mind as we're building out online courses, is one of my biggest pillars that I work on with my clients. Constantly I’m probing with questions like

How is your student going to feel successful?
How is your student going to walk away from this time that they spent in front of the computer learning something that is foreign to them and feel good?

An online course is a way to get perpetual and passive income. It’s all about adding another vertical to your teaching. It also helps ideal prospective students realize that you’re the right teacher for them and absolutely elevates your private one-on-one lessons to a higher price point and exclusivity!

We then go on to talk about being location and time independent… be sure to listen to that part because I had a bit of a hard time pulling all the nuggets out without making these shownotes way too long!

In the online space, it’s super important to help people to say yes early and often!

Yes to your freebie
Yes to your low priced offer
Yes this is the right teacher for me
Yes I want to take this course
Yes Yes Yes!

I tout email marketing so so much and that was the topic of my talk during the summit last week. It is so crucial and a significant step to treating yourself more like a business owner than just a teacher.

There are pillars to developing your online business. Student facing, back-office, marketing/social media and mindset/psychology/motivation/inspiration.

To be successful, these need to be in balance. Focus on one, get it where it works for you and then move onto the next.

We then went down the rabbit hole of tech tools… which is sometimes fun and sometimes overwhelming. While I didn’t say this, I want to emphasize that you don’t need to evaluate every piece of software, just evaluate a few and make a decision. A decision is better than indecision and it doesn’t have to be permanent.

Honestly, one of the motivations I have for hosting the summit is to tap into and excite the audiences of my speakers. It's amazing to me how many disparate music education communities there are online. And I think because I'm not a music teacher, I can kind of come in and be friends with everybody. At least that's my goal is to be friends with everybody and be able to just help the whole industry elevate.

There is always going to be something new to learn or way to grow as a teacher. Sam said “we have sort of signed an agreement to always be learning … as soon as you stop learning, you stop teaching because you're not teaching the newest thing anymore.”

Fear is a topic we discussed. Fear around trying something new. Fear about falling behind. Fear about perception by others. Do what is best for you. Today and always!

Sam and I are both passionate about software (I think I said that already) so we go back to it again and again in this conversation. And Sam was able to strategically shift my love for all things code into something that is totally applicable to teaching… love that!

And we got back to the Expand Online Summit again… click here to buy the All-Access Pass if you missed it. Sam noted that the summit has evolved year over year. So I shared a bit about the way the world was and that I catered the content to what the attendees needed at that time. And right now, you need to see what options are available to scale beyond sessions!

The enrollment in the summit in 2021 was higher than the enrollment this year. BUT the engagement and number of hours of content viewed this year greatly surpassed the amount from last year – because the audience was right for the material and the time and place were setup for growth and opportunity!

I'm really excited to see where we take things next year. It's gonna be awesome!

Be sure to check out Muzie.live, look into the Online Music Course Accelerator and Book a Call with me!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

223: Online Music Education in 2022

Wed, 11 May 2022 10:30:00 +0000

There’s a first time for everything! I recorded this episode live during the Expand Online Summit yesterday. If you’re not currently attending the summit, click here to join us now!

This sessions also coincides with the upcoming webinar I’m doing with Brocha Kahan where you will Learn the 3 Steps To Creating and Selling an Online Music Course, click here to sign up for the free webinar.

Let’s get one thing clear, there are not currently enough high quality online music courses. There is plenty of opportunity for you to lay claim to your specific domain.

I do however believe that beginner or basic courses are not going to bring about the income and impact goals you’re probably seeking from your online course… so let’s get a bit more specific, shall we?

Just because you've always learned it one way or you've always taught it one way, it doesn't mean that there is a course out there that does the exact same thing. Online courses are really different from interactive lessons, because online courses are designed to be self-motivating and self-paced. Essentially they operate in a vacuum where there is no external factor helping students move along. We have to build some things into our courses that we may not have thought about when it comes to lessons.

I always say that an online course is far less about your content and it's more about the experience that you create. And I think that's the biggest difference between the courses that were out there before and courses that are out there and being created now and in the near future, is that they are experiential!

It's not just sitting down to watch something and hope we learn what is being taught. I want to have the opportunity for students to really feel connected to you as their music teacher. We don't want them to say “oh that was nice, next!” we want them to say “that was amazing! What else do you have?”

Another thing that I think is different now than it was before, because there was less opportunity to find courses that were teaching the thing that you wanted to learn, you just took whatever course it was. Now, as better, more proficient music teachers learn the fine art of online courses, we are now creating the course as another connection point between you and your online students.

Online courses in 2022 no longer need to be marketed to everybody, the niche can be super narrow.

When it comes to thinking about creating an online course, think about not necessarily what a gap in the marketplace is, because there's lots of places and that's often the concept that people give. But I like to help you find a place where you find extreme joy or a place that you find that your students always need assistance or support with.

These are often things that you find repetitive! Things that you tend to do with a lot of your students. Or something that you are so extremely passionate about and you haven't had time to work on consistently.

Thinking about your students is a great starting point for your online course.

What would make their music journey richer, stronger, more powerful? What would tie them into that more? Those are the kinds of things that we want to be adding into the online music education space and there is room for you to do it.

A reason I don’t recommend creating beginner courses is because those are the courses that are filling up Outschool and Udemy. Those teachers are “a dime a dozen” and you’re far better than that.

And also people who are just starting out don't know the difference between a great teacher and a good teacher and an average teacher and a poor teacher. You're a great teacher, you are looking to really create an evolution of your business, a new foundation of your business online.

If we create a course that is even one step or two steps beyond beginner or even intermediate advanced ~ that next level or the level after that you are opening up an opportunity for people to work with you in a way that improves their musicality. It improves everything that they are striving for.

When we create our courses, we are creating them with the students' results in mind. Nobody that I know is creating a course for the masses (quantity of students or money!) Every single music teacher that I work with and that I am motivated by and that I have the opportunity to connect with, they are creating their courses to create an impact. Yes income is important, but we are really motivated on the student's success and the student journey!.

The most valuable aspect of online courses is that we are in a position where we can create a course that allows your student to connect with you… even though it's asynchronous learning. They get to learn on their own time, but they feel connected to you and you care about their journey.

There are a lot of ways for us to make sure and to support our students moving forward into and through the course. According to Thinkific, on average, only 5 - 15% of students complete an online course. Check out this article.

You can separate yourself from the market by having a course that is singularly focused. Check out next week’s webinar where I discuss the bounded rule. Essentially it’s all about thinking more about the student and what they're trying to accomplish.

When you move into creating courses, you have to extrapolate what is most valuable from your 1-1 lessons and what will make the biggest impact. What will help that student progress without you right there in the room with them (or live on the screen.)

It is important for your online course students to be able to assess that they are successful, that they are going to be where they want to be every single step of the way. We want them to feel confident in the course and feel excited to come back and come back and come back.

I would say that the best courses are ones that are created entirely around the student. Where are they at? Where are they trying to go? How can we get them one step closer through every video, every handout, every audio, every quiz, every piece of material that we provide inside the course. How does that move them forward? And how does that allow them to feel confident that they are ready to move to the next level? S

o that is our podcast episode for today. I don't see any comments, but that's okay. I have had so much fun recording this episode with a live audience. So definitely if you enjoyed this, I am recording it and I am throwing it up on the feed with no editing, that feels so good. If you want me to do these again, please just reach out to me, let me know, Let me know that you enjoyed this. If you are listening to this in the feed and not signed up for the Expand Online Summit? What are you waiting for? Go to expandonlinesummit.com and you can jump on right in!

Quick links:

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

222: Behind The Scenes of the Expand Online Summit for Music Educators

Wed, 04 May 2022 10:30:00 +0000

Let’s go behind the scenes of the Expand Online Summit!

This is the third year that I am running the summit and be sure to go to expandonlinesummit.com and get yourself a free ticket which gives you access to the sessions for 48 hours. There is also the option to purchase extended access through April 30, 2023 right after you register.

My first task was to figure out how this summit is going to be different from last year's summit and from the summit before that. It came down to the state of the world.

When I did the first summit, it was 2020 and I had started sending out invites before the pandemic. But I recorded the very first session when my kids were already home because school had closed down. We were in a state of uncertainty and closures and unknowns. The sentiment of that summit was “you can do something online and be successful and you can do something to sustain yourself through the uncertainty that is coming.”

Last year, I really wanted to focus on doing better and putting down roots online so we weren't feeling like a fly-by-night operation anymore. We were really saying yes to online

For this year, I realized that the people who wanted to come to the summit this year have said yes to expanding online. It's not a matter of if they're expanding, but how they're expanding. And so I put the theme together of scaling beyond sessions. What can we do beyond flipping on the Webcam and getting out in front of the computer screen and teaching a lesson through videoconferencing. We gotta do better than that! It's 2022, the Internet has gotten faster, the tools have become more robust and so on and so on. S

Next for this year was sponsorship opportunities.

My summit is extremely focused; it is geared 100% towards music educators and I know that there are some amazing companies out there that cater to music education and helping music educators to do more, bigger, better, faster. I created some really great sponsorship packages which yielded four incredible sponsors.

Their sessions are not to be missed and the cool thing is that two of these sponsors signed up as sponsors after we had recorded their sessions. They said, you know what, I'm fully invested in this summit. I want to be a part of it, I want to promote it, I want to sponsor it and kind of just have a ringing endorsement.

One of the reasons I felt it was important to bring sponsors this year was to add a little bit more authority to the event. I want the Expand Online Summit to continue going on for years and years to come. I want to make it into the premier event for online music educators. That is my goal, that is where I want to take it and I feel like we are getting there now that we're in year three and we have solid sponsors and we've got great registration and all of that stuff,

Inviting Speakers

My first step this year was to look at the amazing folks who spoke on the summit previously. I then reached out to some of them and invited them back. Once I had my “yeses” I looked at the topics we were going to be able to cover and identified holes that I wanted to fill within the theme of scaling beyond sessions.

Then I reached out through Instagram and email with the ask. The best part is that some of the people that said yes to attend have never done summits before. They have great products, great services for music educators, but they just haven't played in this arena and I feel so privileged and honored that they said yes to participating in something that is so new and so different from anything that they've done before.

Recording and Producing the Summit Content

I recorded most of the sessions on Zencastr. A couple were recorded on zoom. Then I use Camtasia to edit and Vimeo to host. This is what takes the longest – from here I also pull together session highlights which I use to create the playbook (more on that later!)

I keep track of everything in a Google Spreadsheet although I actually prefer using Airtable, I just didn’t get organized with it this year.

Summit Buildout and Testing

The speakers provided free gifts for the attendees (with email signup) and/or discounts/offers/coupons for the All-Access Pass holders. It is my responsibility to make sure that the links they provide work and do what they are supposed to. This takes time but I need to make sure that whatever link someone provides me works and it delivers the content that they said, it's going to deliver and that that experience is on par with everything that I am putting together in the summit. It doesn't make me look good or make the attendees feel good or the speakers if I put a wrong link in or if things don't work smoothly. It is on me!

One of the discounts inside the All-Access Pass is 10% (that’s $600) off the Online Music Course Accelerator program that I run with Brocha Kahan. The All-Access Pass is as low as $67 and will go up to $297, so if that’s the only offer you take, you’re still ahead $303 :)

The total value of the All-Access Pass is over $3600!

Now onto the tech stack…

WordPress website
Deadline Funnels
ThriveCart
Learndash
Gravity Forms
ActiveCampaign
Tidio
Beaver Builder / Beaver Themer

That’s a lot but I’ll tell you that it was SO MUCH EASIER this year, because I already had so much in place and ready to use from last year… Especially the emails that I needed to write for my automations and swipe copy for the speakers to promote the summit.

Most of it just went so smooth. I didn't have to do that much and I am so thankful. I mean obviously there's still a ton of work but I didn't have to write a ton of copy from scratch.

I feel strongly that that is the reason why this year's summit is going to be even more successful because I didn't have to focus on those little details. I just had to go and plug and play and do the work, which is actually probably one of the reasons why I was so excited to record this episode for you!

Gamification and Engagement

The final elements of the summit that I feel is crucial to share about are the BINGO board and the Playbook.

The BINGO card makes it fun to show up and attend/participate in the summit. There are pre-recorded and live elements and the BINGO board is helping people get into it. And the Playbook is all about making the most of the content. I say this in several of the sessions – the summit is not for entertainment purposes alone, it’s a motivation, inspiration, education tool.

The Playbook helps to take the ideas from the sessions and make them real and tangible.

I am working to make the Expand Online Summit the premier event for music educators who are expanding online, creating online products and services.

This summit is part of the launch strategy for the 2nd round of the online music course accelerator which is starting later this month. If you are interested in creating an online course and you want strategy support, camaraderie and hands on assistance making that happen, the online music course accelerator is absolutely for you.

There's so much opportunity for music teachers to double down on what you're creating online. I wish you all the best, look forward to seeing you at the summit and connecting with you to see if OMCA is right for you and with that.

Hey, here’s my Instagram – send me a DM, okay?

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

221: All the benefits of private online lessons with Nate Lee

Wed, 27 Apr 2022 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is sponsored by Muzie.live

About our guest

Nate Lee is an International Bluegrass Music Association award-winning instrumentalist and renowned teacher of private lessons and music camps. A veteran performer, Nate has played with the best in bluegrass, including Alan Munde, Becky Buller, The Kentucky Colonels, David Grier, Irene Kelley, Town Mountain, and the Jim Hurst Trio.

Although Nate is in demand on stage and in the studio, his first love and finest skill is teaching. Teaching professionally since 2003, Nate has gained a loyal following of students who enjoy his comprehensive teaching methods and relaxed, encouraging demeanor. With an affinity for turning beginners into jammers, and jammers into professionals, Nate has developed a curriculum that teaches you to play well with others, and become the player you’ve always wanted to be!

In 2014, Nate took his teaching business online and has since become a leader in the online music teaching industry, developing new methods for teaching, marketing, and running a business. In 2021, Nate put his 19 years of music teaching experience into Lesson Business Blueprint, a course that helps musicians break into the online teaching world.

www.TheNateLee.com

www.PlayNately.com (pronounced “Nate - Lee” with emphasis on the first sylable. Here’s a video with the pronunciation https://youtu.be/RnFq8UoXzdo)

www.LessonBusiness.com

Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/lessonbusinessblueprint/ https://www.instagram.com/playnately/

Facebook - https://www.facebook.com/lessonbusiness/ https://www.facebook.com/playnately/

Conversation Highlights

Nate started teaching online in 2014 at the bequest of a student
How to set your online space up for student progress and a positive student-teacher relationship
How to make online lessons better than in person
You don’t need to teach the same way you learned, just as your music has evolved, so to can music education
Removing geography as a barrier to teaching the students who are a great fit for your personality and style
Structuring a teaching schedule that works for your students and yourself
How online teaching allows for other expansion opportunities
Building a waitlist
Cooperation and collaboration with other teachers

Connect with me

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/

Book a call: https://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

220: Motivation & Inspiration

Wed, 20 Apr 2022 10:30:00 +0000

Here’s a short, actionable and hopefully thought provoking episode for you today! I chose to discuss inspiration and motivation because those are largely the purpose and intention for the Expand Online Summit (which is coming up in just a few weeks!)

It’s all about inspiring you to take action on your dreams and your ambitions and giving you the motivation to get started even if you don't have everything figured out.

If you’re not on my email list, click here to sign up now so you can register for the summit as soon as registration comes out.

Internal Motivation

This is probably one of the hardest things for us to do… motivate ourselves internally without an external force. Some ways to be internally motivated are to provide yourself with your own rewards. Such as…

if I complete this then I get to do this
if I do this, then I am going to buy myself that

Internal motivation is when you provide the shiny object for yourself. We have to want it, whatever that thing is, it really just has to be important enough. It has to be something that you are striving for. I tend to think of it as something experiential, it's more the spa, the vacation, those kinds of things that you are rewarding yourself with!

I also believe that the clock is a good tool to use to motivate yourself.

if I get this done by two o'clock, then I can go for a walk
if I get this done before the kids are home from school, then I can play a game with them

It is your internal motivation that says if I do this in this amount of time, then perfect. I am off to the races and I'm able to do my reward.

External Motivation

External motivation is other people or other things motivating you. These can be your family and friends, these could be influencers, these could be coaches, this could be anything or anyone! They just need to be somebody else who dangles that carrot in front of you and you have to accomplish something in order to be able to actually get that carrot.

While I don't love fear of missing out as a motivator, FOMO can act as a motivator. If you see everybody else launching their courses and you're sitting there saying “I don't feel like it” ~ allow their enthusiasm to motivate you to do things that you don't necessarily feel comfortable with or that you don't feel ready for or that you're insecure about. Use other people's energy. That's really what external motivation is all about ~ using other people's energy to motivate yourself to do something that you know you need to do anyway.

Inspiration

Where can we get inspiration?

Nature
Nurturing
Reading
Watching YouTube / TV / Streaming

Getting inspired can take you far… but be sure that you don't look for inspiration from competitors or people who are doing the same type of work that you are!

Get inspired by things that are outside of business.

It's a lot easier to work in our business on the things that we're passionate about when we are inspired, which is why I think it's important not to spend too much time looking at what other people in our field are doing. It doesn't benefit you to see that someone else is launching a group program when that's what you want to do; put your blinders on to them.

Now, if you see a personal trainer that you follow or admire who is launching a group program, that's a great inspiration because you're like, oh well, they're just like me, they were doing private lessons and now they're doing something group and there's no conflict of interest, there's no oh they they're going to get all of my clients or things like that because they're in a different industry, they're in a different vertical, It makes it a lot easier.

Avoid trying to get inspired by people who you could see as competitors, even if they really aren't.

Now let’s wrap up with ths: It is possible to have the success that you are looking for!

That's what we look for with inspiration… looking at what others are doing to help fuel us and get us internally motivated. From there we can seek outside motivation (and accountability) to see this idea through.

Nothing that we do and create online lives in a vacuum. Everything is continuously building upon other things, whether they're your content, your products, your services, or other people's products, content and services, it's all an ecosystem. So when you add something new to this online space, you are elevating this online space and you are creating your own impact.

The only way that you're going to add something to that space is to be inspired and motivated and follow through. Follow through is the secret sauce to everything. It is the reason why there are people who have launched hundreds of courses and there are people who haven't even launched their first, even if they started on the exact same day!

Follow Through. Follow Through. Follow Through.

Make it a point to use that inspiration and that motivation to get something out into the world.

Connect with me! https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/ and book a free call https://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

219: Thinkific; the most powerful software to run your online music course!

Wed, 13 Apr 2022 10:30:00 +0000

Consider this podcast a ringing endorsement for Thinkific. It’s 2022 and the platform has grown in functionality and versatility since the last time we discussed Thinkific at length here.

Thinkific is the only tool that I recommend for online course delivery.

Thinkific is essentially a website that you can use to deliver an online course. There's so much more to it though and now the team over there has made it easier than ever to deliver your online course.

This episode is not discussing your course content but rather the mechanism for actually delivering that course content to your students.

The course builder.

The course builder allows you to build your courses with a variety of different types of lessons:

Video lessons
Audio lessons
Downloads
Text
Images
Quizzes
Surveys
Multimedia lessons (where you're embedding something from another website.)

For the most part video lessons, downloads, text-based lessons and maybe an audio lesson or two are going to help you build out your course content.

Inside the course builder, you have drag-n-drop functionality which makes it easy to move things around and reorganize your content once it's up there. You can always add more lessons even if your course is already published. And it reflects for your students in real time as you add or change things.

Also inside the course builder, we are able to set pricing. Pricing options include free, flat rate, subscription and split pay. And there is also the ability of doing more than one pricing option, such as pay in full or split pay.

And course content can be set to drip on a certain schedule, based on calendar date or days since enrollment.

Site Builder / Page Builder

This area of Thinkific was called site builder for a while and now it's called page builder and I tend to use them interchangeably.

This is where you get to build the sales page for your course.

We can build a really dynamic and beautiful sales pages which flow right into the purchase and enrollment all on the same platform. There are fewer widgets and whathaveyous this way.

Just like in the course builder, site builder or page builder has drag-n-drop functionality and it has a lot of modules that will make it easy for you to build an attractive and highly converting sales page.

This is super important as you scale your course offers… when the website/sales page is able to sell the course for you, then you have fewer steps to the sales process and ultimately have more students enrolling.

Also, just like in the course builder, anything that you do in the site builder or page builder will reflect immediately when you hit publish right onto your site.

Game Changers

The real power of Thinkific and the reason why I decided to talk about it today on the podcast is two things:

Thinkific Payments
Thinkific App Store

First Thinkific Payments

The Thinkific Payments are built upon Stripe and allows for a streamlined checkout.

The checkout process is simple and elegant which, as you know, is super important! We want to make the process of someone paying for our course as easy as possible.

In addition to making the buying process easier, we can now add upsells after the purchase… like coaching or a getting started call or a bonus course… the sky is the limit.

And we can also process refunds right inside of the admin portal rather than having to go over to stripe to process those refunds.

Second Thinkific App Store

This is a storefront where you can install add-on components to enhance your Thinkific school. There are integration type apps, like for ConvertKit, Hello Audio and Zapier. And there are functionality tools like Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel.

But the real gem of the Thinkific App Store is the 3rd party apps which enhance the student experience. I’m going to call out two of them – Peerboard and SuperPowerUps.

Peerboard creates a community experience (think Facebook Group) right inside your Thinkific school. Beautifully integrated.

SuperPowerUps take your student experience up ten notches (at least). With these, the student journey through your course has limitless potential!

If you’re thinking about creating a course soon, be sure to jump on the wait list for the Online Music Course Accelerator program that I run with Brocha. You can get on the waitlist here → https://onlinemusiccourseaccelerator.com

And let’s connect on Instagram → https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/ or via zoom → https://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

218: 3 Steps to Expanding your Music Studio Online!

Wed, 06 Apr 2022 10:30:00 +0000

What does it mean to scale beyond sessions?

It means that you’re doing something in your business that allows you to accomplish the goal of not only making money when you're working one on one privately with your students!

I’m throwing the links that I mention in the podcast right here…

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/
Book a Call: https://callwithjaime.com
Online Music Course Accelerator: https://onlinemusiccourseaccelerator.com
Join the Expand Online Email List: https://expandonlinenow.com

Here are the three steps that you need in order to scale beyond sessions…

Step 1 is to decide!

Making the decision to scale beyond sessions is the way that you're going to open the door and figure out how you are going to scale beyond sessions.

There is so much power in saying yes! Saying yes to this idea and giving yourself permission to explore what it would look like for yourself in your life and in your business.

What is keeping you from scaling beyond sessions? What is holding you back from making the decision to move forward?

Nobody is going to judge you…. They aren’t going to say that you’re not as good a music teacher as they thought because you don't offer private lessons all the time, or that you have diluted your business.

In fact, it's really the opposite. When you add other ways for people to learn with and from you in an online space, you are actually creating more opportunity. You are taking your one on one sessions and elevating their status within your business because those are your top end product and all these other things that you're adding in can potentially be extremely profitable for you and extremely affordable and accessible to the audience who is going to receive them.

You can't get there without deciding.

If you’re thinking “I can't do this” or “I can't commit to this because I don't know x or y or z” a quick reminder for you – it’s all figure-out-able!

There are a lot of people with the bits and pieces that you will be able to cobble together. You can do plenty of research on google or on youtube; you can hire a coach or consultant; you can take a course… There are a number of ways to go ahead and really truly scale, you just have to decide that you are going to invest in yourself.

You can be successful when you are all in! If you don't say Yes 100% when you make the decision, then you're gonna give yourself out and you're going to take the shortcuts or you're going to stop. But when you decide and you're all in, you will be successful!

Step two is to trust yourself.

Trust that you are the right person to bring something new to market. You are the right person to teach what you do in a new online manner.

There is no one right way to create an online product. You already excel at teaching. You already know what you're really good at and who you connect with and how you are able to help them accomplish whatever it is that they are working on. Now is the time for you to trust yourself.

Trusting yourself is easier said than done.

We can often sabotage ourselves.
We can often diminish our value.
We can often sidetrack ourselves.
We can do all of those things to derail our progress.

We made the decision to move beyond sessions. We trust ourselves that we can do it and that we have the tools that we have, the resources that we have, the capacity to do it.

Be careful of self doubt, it can absolutely stop you in your tracks. Don't doubt yourself too much… push through and trust that you are going to bring the right product to market in the right way.

Step 3 is to create deadlines.

I believe that the best way to have a product come to market is to set a realistic timeline and to give yourself rewards for meeting those deadlines.

Instead of merely saying “I want to create a course.” tell yourself instead “I want to create a course and pre launch it on X date, launch it fully on y date and have this many enrollments on Z date!”

That becomes tangible. And then reward yourself when you reach each milestone. Deadlines are not just those three things… everything in the process can have a deadline or a metric to work towards.

You can do this. You can scale beyond sessions. I believe in you. Let's make this happen.

When I say it's all a matter of deciding and trusting yourself and setting deadlines. I didn't talk about any of the hard work, Right? But these are the three things that you can keep coming back to time and time again, so that you actually accomplished the goal of whatever it is that you are creating, whatever you see and that vision that you have for yourself of how to get away from only offering sessions and doing something new online.

Decide, trust yourself and set yourself deadlines.

Now, the truth is, these are all well and good but external accountability and external decision making is almost as important. It is a lot easier to move beyond sessions when you have somebody outside of your business who is helping you along in the process. This is where I can (and would be honored to) come in and support you… jump on a call with me https://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

217: Video for Teaching, Broadcasting & Recording

Wed, 30 Mar 2022 10:30:00 +0000

A lot of questions have been coming up recently around video and broadcasting and recording and teaching! While I don’t have all the answers, and there truly is no one right answer, this episode should be used as a launching pad for determining your own video needs!

Let’s start with the first tool that comes to mind with online video…

Zoom.

Zoom is easy. People understand it nowadays, they know that it is there that they just click on a link and that they are able to access a live video conferencing environment. That's what Zoom is; Zoom allows for people to meet and do whatever it is that they want to do.

Zoom is not the best at audio quality, but it is far better than not being able to connect and see each other. In addition to that, Zoom has a recording feature, which makes it really nice to be able to record live meetings and live interactions.

In fact, you can also jump into your own zoom meeting and record it and use that video inside your courses. You can record your entire course on zoom and there's nothing wrong with it.

It's a great place to start. Now. If you want to get more specific for the different purposes of video content. We can go into other channels.

Live Online Music Teaching Platforms

Back in November, I did a deep dive series on four of the platforms that are designed for video conferencing for music lessons. They are designed to have a high fidelity, which makes the audio quality that much better. They are designed to foster the classroom feel or the lesson feel and they're really, truly best in class products!

These tools are Muzie, Musicology, Rock Out Loud Live, Blink Lessons and there's now Forte Lessons as well. Here’s the link to the founders series.

I would recommend checking these tools out and find the one that is right for you right now.

If you teach on Zoom, fine; if you teach on one of these other five platforms, fine; no problem!

Let's switch gears away from the live teaching to discuss broadcasting.

Broadcasting

Broadcasting is going live! Whether it be on instagram, Facebook or YouTube. It is doing something live, that is a one way push ~ a one way video interaction. (Technically you can bring someone else into your broadcast but that’s not exactly the point.)

With Instagram, you're gonna broadcast directly using the camera on your phone because Instagram is a mobile app.

With Facebook and YouTube, you can use the native app, whether it's on your phone or otherwise, or you can use a third party tool such as a StreamYard or OBS. (You can also use Zoom for this, although it puts a large Zoom logo on the broadcast!)

Browser-based broadcast tools

StreamYard and reStream (among others) are web based browser tools that allow you to do broadcasting. They are designed to give you more control and provide you with a better experience for those broadcasts than the native apps.

If your viewers leave comments, you can pop the comments up on the screen, you can put up your own lower thirds, you can put your own logo in and a few other bells and whistles that you can't do natively.

I personally use StreamYard to broadcast into the Expand Online Community and I go live inside the community every Monday at 10 AM Pacific.

OBS - Open Broadcast Software

OBS was designed for a number of different uses and most of it started with gaming, I believe.

OBS is free to download and open source, meaning it’s built by its community! Within the app, you can do whatever you want from adding multiple video cameras, multiple audio inputs, screen input and more. These all go into what are called scenes. A scene has a certain layout on the screen and you can toggle between multiple scenes during your broadcast.

OBS is a great too but it takes a little bit of time to set up and get comfortable with. I think that it is worth the time when you have time to start figuring it out. I would definitely set aside time and plan on not being productive during that time so that you can watch a lot of Youtube videos, you can learn how to use that software if you are interested in doing more broadcasting.

Recording for Courses and Social Media

When I think of recording, I think of videos that you upload to instagram, Youtube and Facebook as well as inside your courses or your membership sites or your group programs.

Essentially they are “produced videos.”

Recording the raw video content can be done with whatever camera, equipment and software you want.

The production comes from editing. I personally use Camtasia and many of my clients use iMovie. When I am creating direct to camera videos, I’ll record them right in Camtasia so that they are readily available for editing. I use Zencastr, which is a browser based recording tool, for recording interviews and panel conversations (like those that are in the Expand Online Summit!)

Did you enjoy this episode? I would love your feedback. Do you want more episodes like this? Do you want me to go deeper? Let’s connect!

https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/

https://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

216: Upleveling Mindset, Language & Actions

Wed, 23 Mar 2022 10:30:00 +0000

It’s time to talk seriously about what it looks like to UPLEVEL and feel motivated to move beyond what you’ve always done and INTO what you want to be doing!

Mindset

Our mindset is the way we look at things. We look at our business through a certain lens that defines

it's going to bring in this amount of money,
it's going to take this amount of work,
it's going to bring us this amount of joy,
it's going to cost this much energy,
it's going to do this or it's going to do this.

And by putting all these things together, we create a vision for what our business does.

Now, when we want to uplevel we have to push that vision… we have to say “Okay, instead of my business making $100 an hour, my business is going to make $150 an hour!” And then we have to explore how that feels and begin to own it.

We want to be able to push all of these little triggers inside our mindset so that we can develop a new vision for our business; one that allows for growth. We push and we prod and we allow ourselves to feel uncomfortable. The work is helping ourselves push through that uncomfortable so that that it doesn’t feel uncomfortable and instead becomes our operating manual.

It's okay to feel the push and the pull because often times when you have that money block or that roadblock or stumbling block, we might be inclined to pull ourselves back and stay static. We stay where we've been instead of pushing and extending our mind around this new normal that we are trying to create.

Most of the time when I'm working through mindset stuff with a client, it's a matter of not necessarily feeling comfortable as the authority. But you’re here reading these shownotes because you have been teaching in whatever shape you have been teaching for however long you have been teaching and you know your stuff. It's sometimes very hard to take control and take command of our authority ~ being that person, being that teacher, being the person who is going to create this course, deliver this course and execute on the promises that are laid out on the sales page.

I believe it is really important as we are upleveling is to own our authority, to own our craft, to own our expertise and push and push ourselves so that we can say YES to our growth!

Language

Language and words are funny. It’s what we use every day all day; we use it in writing, we use it in teaching, we use it in oral correspondence, we use it all the time!

I think that one of the nuances with upleveling our language is that we want to stay accessible but we also want to be able to command a greater level of authority. One of the simplest ways to uplevel our language is to change how we describe what we do…

Instead of being a piano teacher or a violin teacher or a music teacher, change it to I run a piano studio, I run a violin studio, I run a music studio.

Just by changing that language from being a teacher to running a studio or being a studio owner, we've been able to elevate the way that we speak about ourselves. Other ways that we can change the language include how we describe our lessons. Instead of them being half hour sessions or hourly sessions, we can start talking about monthly packages or monthly lesson packages. Again what we're doing here is elevating the language around what we do.

Even though you're doing the exact same thing, you're sharing it in a way where someone says, oh wow! instead of just okay.

Upleveling our language also involves what we have written down. Perhaps it's in the agreements that we have with our clients or with our students or with our families. These could be studio policies, payment policies, makeup policies, health policies, and so on. Go back through what you have written down and align the language with your new terminologies.

Also in the process of upleveling our language is how we present ourselves online. Where do you describe yourself (website, social profiles etc.)? How might you be able to use those words that you're using to uplevel your personal way of thinking about your business and the way that you have communicated in your writing here too?

If you're doing videos on Youtube or on instagram or on Tiktok or wherever ~ start using your new language (even if that feels a little bit uncomfortable right now) and embrace it and start using it where you're showing up online already. This is a place where you can flex your muscles because it's a low barrier, you’re already here!

Actions

I just gave you an example with the video stuff. We also want to be embracing this upleveling inside our lessons, inside our offers, by adding new offers and creating higher level packages! This is where you begin to expand and flex so that you are not reliant on just one source of income.

Maybe you add a group theory class that you run once a month… maybe you offer practice feedback or bonus community jam sessions… That’s taking action. It puts your new mindset and new language into practice.

You are stepping into greater things which will then allow you to continue to grow by doing small things. When you do small things and add new offers and take action on the ideas, you're further cementing your role, you're authoritative role, your studio owner role!

Now this gives you room to further step into online because you’ve upleveled and it fits, you don't feel like you're stepping into someone else's shoes. You don't feel that imposter syndrome. You don't feel unworthy to ask for that six month commitment. You feel excited about the opportunities that you're creating for other people.

That's really the key when we uplevel... We are creating greater opportunities for our students, for our community, for their future, their enjoyment and their appreciation of music.

Have feedback for me on this (or any podcast episode!)

https://CallwithJaime.com

https://instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/

https://callwithJaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

215: Why learning from a course works well for teachers

Wed, 16 Mar 2022 10:30:00 +0000

215: Why learning from a course works well for teachers

Do you like taking online courses? It’s truly amazing to see and hear the feedback and motivation from music teachers who complete online courses. These courses help with new concepts within their lessons and offerings, navigating online business, becoming a better boss or studio owner and so much more.

If you’re looking to expand online, let’s connect – Instagram, Facebook, Email or a Zoom call – they all work… and think about taking a few high quality online courses!

Being someone else’s student!

Quite simply the biggest benefit to this is that you know what you want to learn and there are teachers who are creating amazing courses focused on exactly that exact topic. So instead of signing up for a larger program that is bloated and might contain a lot of content that you don't actually need, taking a course that is very specific to what it is that you want to learn is going to make the whole process faster and easier and better for you.

Flipping the switch

It’s sometimes hard to go from being the teacher to being the student. A great place to start is to pay as much attention to the program that you have signed up for as you want your students to take when they take a program from you.

And then set your intention:

Why are you doing this?
What is the benefit to you?
What is the benefit to your business?
What is the benefit to your students?

When we're clear about why we are investing our time, money and energy into something, it is a lot easier to see the process through.

Then allocate the appropriate amount of time to do the course. Block off the time on your calendar for when you're going to go through each of the components of the course. Most of the time courses are going to involve going through the content from the course and doing practical to apply the concepts.

Being a great student in online courses is not just sitting and watching the instructor – so make sure that you set aside time for the practical application side of things. This will aid you to be really, really successful.

I believe that as a teacher, you also love to be a student. And with online courses, we have the ability to take the most niche micro concept and learn it from the best teacher on the concept, no matter where they are located and what time you’re ready to learn it. There is no need to fly somewhere to learn from them; it's not like you are taking a one-on-one program or paying by the hour.

When are you most motivated to learn? That’s when you can sit down and take your course!

Think about how you learn… do you learn orally? Do you learn visually? Are you better at typing up your notes or writing things down? Do you have a specific room in your house that is more conducive for learning? Are you going to learn better in your teaching space or is there another space where you're more likely to be a better student?

Set yourself up for success.

Give yourself the space to learn and apply what you are learning because then you will have become the best student that you possibly can for this teacher and for yourself, which in turn is going to help you be a better teacher for your students.

If you’re thinking about creating an online course of your own, then you have added to your own toolbox. So that you can build a successful course for your own students.

Being a student in someone else's course is a great way to test the waters, to test the platforms, to test the modality and all of that stuff so that you can then take all of it and do something inside your own business.

Being a really good student helps you become a really great teacher.

Online courses are a great way for you to continue your education without a lot of overhead and with a lot of ease and grace. I encourage you not to pack your schedule too thick. Give yourself some white space in order to really process what you're learning and give yourself the white space so that your students also get the best teacher possible.

I hope that this was a little bit of motivation and a little bit of inspiration for you!

Now, let me tell you a bit about the online course that I have coming out in the next couple weeks (this section will be updated when it’s available for purchase!)

The course will be covering starting your studio email list the right way, so that you attract the right leads and nurture them in a way that aligns with your goals and values. You will learn how to invite social media contacts to join your list, how to deliver a freebie, how to properly onboard a new subscriber, what nurturing is and what it isn’t and receive templates to get started in real time (that means you’re going to be TAKING ACTION while you go through the course!)

This course is coming soon, send me an email at jaime@techofbusiness.com and let me know you’re interested – I’ll add you to early access list!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

214: Nurturing Those Prospective Music Students

Wed, 09 Mar 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Let’s nurture your prospective students…

These are the people that you've connected with on social media. You've invited them to your email list, you've had conversations with them and they're not quite ready to sign up to learn with or from you.

The goal of nurturing is to make sure that you have done the groundwork so that you arethe first teacher that comes to mind for them when they are ready!

This goes way beyond sending studio updates via email, because let’s be honest, nobody outside of your studio families really cares about that! What we are looking for is to share value and to help the recipient get something out of your emails.

Nurturing is done both in automation and in broadcast messages.

Automations

The most common automation is an onboarding program welcome sequence. Someone signed up to receive whatever free download you are sharing and you deliver it via email. Then you send another two or three or four emails afterwards and that is the beginning of the nurturing. That is where you are giving them as much as you possibly can while making sure it still ties back to the freebie.

The idea here is that they start to believe that

they can do it
that you are a teacher that they can trust that you are a teacher that brings them success.

That is the initial phase of nurturing.

With any other initiative that you have, such as a webinar, a challenge, a master class or a workshop. Anything you offer where people sign up we want to nurture them in those options. I'm primarily talking about people who sign up for something that is free because it's a low cost of entry, right?

There's no cost, it's just time. Therefore they are more likely to not show up and do the work, which then means that it takes us a little bit longer to get them on board to get them into the flow of saying, “okay, yes, I am worthy and my music is worthy of taking the time to do xyz.”

And this will make it easier to nurture them into our sales conversation. ideally we want to make sure that they are really ready to purchase, really ready to invest in themselves and into their music.

When we have people sign up for our freebie or any of our events, we want to include some kind of nurture sequence that helps them say this provider, this music teacher is doing something out of the goodness of his or her heart that is going to give me value, whether I give them money or not. We want them to always feel like they're getting something of value. The nurture sequence and nurturing doesn't stop at the time of the event. There are emails before, during and afterwards.

The longer that a prospective student stays in your sphere and open your emails and takes the steps that you lay out inside of your emails, the more likely that they are going to keep you top of mind when they are ready to purchase.

If your webinar led to a product that they're not interested in, that's okay. That's where our broadcasts come in.

Broadcasts

Just because someone doesn't purchase on your conversion event doesn't mean that the nurturing of them was wasted. If they're opening your emails, you're still nurturing them, you can keep nurturing, keep motivating, keep inspiring every single step of the way.

Send broadcast messages on a weekly basis. I like creating those emails on the fly as opposed to batching or pre-writing them.

Broadcast messages can be structured any way you want. They can be long, they can be short, they can have bullet points, they can have paragraphs, they can have any structure you want. The idea with a broadcast message is to show up consistently in someone's inbox. “Oh, it's Thursday, there is an email from Jaime!”

Inside these messages we can send motivational content, inspirational content, informational content. We can also invite sales. We can invite for feedback. We can invite for a lot of things. The content of these broadcast messages is designed to help someone say, “oh yeah, that's right, I am interested in this!”

It's important to know the behavior of your audience, these people that one day are going to become students or sign up for your course or your workshop or your webinar or your master class or whatever it is that you are offering next, which is why it's beneficial to get to know how people actually are consuming your emails by looking at the open rates and things like that. Another thing that we can do based on sending out these automation as well as these broadcasts, is to cherry pick or hand pick people who have been regularly opening your emails and clicking on links and then connecting with them in another way.

Most of our nurturing is going to happen via email, through this constant stream of information that we're sending. But if you see that someone is opening every single one of your emails and that you’ve connected on Instagram, go ahead and send them a DM just to let them know that you see them! It’s another avenue to deepen the connection.

It's these little things that we can do because every single person on your email list is a person. They are not a machine, they are not a robot. They have feelings, they have lives, they have desires, they have passions, they are a full human being and when we treat them as that and we nurture them and build value into the relationship they are going to say yes!

It may take one week, it may take three years, but I can tell you you are more likely to get an eventual yes if you continue to nurture rather than just sending out promotional messages or messages that don't nurture their spirit and their soul.

That's what I've got for you today. I hope that you enjoyed this and are thinking about nurturing your future students today!

Be sure to connect with me.

https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/

https://instagram.com/jrdvoicestudio

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

213: Balance inside your zone of genius

Wed, 02 Mar 2022 11:30:00 +0000

I talk a lot about the zone of genius and about it being a place where your passions and your skill set collide! In this episode we discuss balancing your passion with your skill set so that you can spend more time in your zone of genius being productive.

Before we get there, I want to make sure that you know that you are in the right place. This podcast is for private music educators who are looking to expand online. You are looking to create group programming, membership sites, courses, collaborations, workshops, things that are delivered in the online space in a one to many capacity, meaning it's you as the teacher providing your knowledge and your teaching to a larger audience at one time. It can be asynchronous (meaning on their own time) or it can be live on camera in real time. Either way, this podcast is here to help you maximize your teaching potential through online means.

Why do I do this? Because I love technology and I love everything that it allows my clients, music teachers just like you, to provide to people interested in exploring and expanding their own musical knowledge and acumen. I am passionate about this because I know that the idea of expanding online is exciting but the technology can make it a little bit daunting! My entire reason for being is to take away those tech obstacles, those tech insecurities, the tech roadblocks so that you can truly deliver what you are meant to deliver.

If you are interested in working with me or you know, another music teacher who is looking to expand online, send them my way. Just go to https://callwithjaime.com and book a call. It's that easy.

Now, let's talk about passion and skill set and all this fun stuff inside the zone of genius.

Skill Set

This is what you are truly gifted and good at doing. It can be breaking down difficult concepts for beginner intermediate students, it can be explaining creativity, it can be teaching history or anything.

Where are you just so talented? It could be at building a curriculum or at teaching a lesson or at the physical “doing.” This is your skill set, this is your toolbox and it's really important for us to understand what's in our toolbox (and also what is not in our toolbox.)

What skills might you just not possess even though you are running an online business? I’d recommend making a list which might include things like:

video editing
creating a social media calendar
uploading videos to vimeo or to Youtube or to Thinkific or to wherever you are uploading videos
nurturing and writing emails and social media
the accounting side and reminding yourself to invoice clients
figuring out if a student is the right student for you!

Your skill set is yours. All these other things that you have to do in order to run a successful business, don't have to be in your skill set. You may have to work through them and do them but ultimately, we actually want to make sure that they are built in a way that they don't take over all of your creative energy!

The things that aren't in your zone of genius or in your skill set are actually things that we want to streamline and create systems and processes around so that they take up less time, which will allow us to spend more time with our skills with the things that we are really good at and then pairing that with what we are so so passionate about, which ultimately has us spending more time in our zone of genius.

Passion

So what is our passion? What drives us, what fuels us? What gets us excited to wake up in the morning? What is it that you could do, whether you were paid a penny, nothing or thousands of dollars to do?

What is it that is so intrinsically bound to your joy and enthusiasm? That’s passion!

Balance

And now we want to balance passion with our skill set inside of our zone of genius so that we are productive and can continue to create new products and opportunities for our students.

If we spend too much time in our passion, we can start a lot of projects, but they never see the light of day.
If we spend so much time working through our skills, we can have the most robust, but sometimes dry curriculum and content to share.

How do we create balance inside of our zone of genius? I do it in three parts (all time blocked.)

Passion Block

Give myself time blocks for sitting in my passion for coming up with all the ideas; for mulling over something or just getting caught up in the music or just getting caught up in the experience. Essentially just getting caught up in the joy and the opportunity.

Skill Set Block

Then we take another time block where we look at everything that we came up with when we were just thinking in our passion and feeling and moving and experiencing joy and asking myself what can I execute? What do I already know?

Sometimes we want to learn things, we want to do more, we want to increase our skills and there's a time for that for sure, and we'll get to that in a moment. But first we want to take what we can already do, what we already know how to do, how we can translate that and work through translating to create something out of that passion with the skills we already know.

Growth Block

And then the third part of creating this balance is investing time and energy, maybe money or resources to increase your skill set so that you can do more things.

We also want to explore some of those things that we think we might be passionate about, things that have piqued our curiosity allowing us to go deeper.

We want to spend time exploring what else we can be passionate about and exploring how else we can increase our skill set.

It's kind of a cyclical thing… If we spend too much time in our passion, coming up with thousands of ideas, but not enough time making sure that we are actually doing it with the skills that we already have, then we can feel like work has become out of reach because we're not balanced in our zone of genius.

If we are spending so much time creating things from our skill set, things that we know how to do that we can just rattle off but not spending time making sure that we are still passionate about what we are creating, we end up imbalanced.

Nobody wants to be imbalanced, we want to be rising, we want our zone of genius to be an expansive space.

When we work inside of our zone of genius, we always create new opportunities. We are not constrained by our passion, we are not constrained by our skill set, we are not constrained inside of our zone of genius.

We just have to make sure that when we do spend time in there that we are doing it in a way that it creates opportunity for us to expand for us to hone our skills for us to become more passionate so that we can then translate that outward into everything that we do in life and in business.

Balance doesn't mean 50-50 always and forever. It means ebb and flow and come back to neutral. It's not like you're going to stay static, you are growing, you are creating an opportunity for more!

Sometimes we forget. Sometimes we go so far one way or the other that we lose sight of our why. We lose sight of what brings us joy and we lose sight of what is easy. If we can do more that is easy and more that brings us joy, then we are winning every single day!

Connect with me: https://callwithjaime.com or Instagram or Facebook

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

212: 3 ways to formulate an online course idea!

Wed, 23 Feb 2022 11:30:00 +0000

In case you’re new here… I am taking a moment at the top of this episode to share a bit about me and what I’m all about!

I am a technology strategist who works primarily with music teachers, who are expanding into one-to-many programming. What this means is that you are a teacher who has offered lessons and sessions for years and are ready to take all of the knowledge that you have, all of the practical experience that you have and all of the insight that you have gleaned and convert that into something that you can offer to more students at one time! This could be through courses or a membership site, it could be group programming, it could be workshops, it could be any number of online mechanisms. The key is that you want to do something different. You want to expand in new ways and flex your muscles.

I also work with teachers who want to create resources for other teachers. So you don't have to necessarily expand online by doing more of what you've always done. You can take those practical approaches, those methodologies, everything that you've gleaned and create something that works for other teachers who haven't yet had those experiences. They haven't worked with your exact set of students and they don't have your exact set of insights.

I love working with music teachers because you create opportunities for others to tap into their creativity and into their zone of genius. That's what it's all about. Working more inside of your zone of genius. The zone of genius as I describe it, is the space where your passions and your skill set collide. I consider this an expansive space because when our passions increase, we have more opportunity to spend time in our zone of genius. When our skill set increases we have more to offer inside of our zone of genius! I want you to be spending time creating and impacting your students and the greater community.

That's me in a Nutshell; I work with my clients on creating pathways out of the 1-1 into the one to many. This includes everything from your website and your email marketing to structuring your courses and getting it all online. Every single part of this process comes together when we work on it as a cohesive unit.

If you are interested in any of that, be sure to click here: https://callwithjaime.com!

Let’s talk about 3 ways to formulate your online course idea.

#1 Taking the 30,000 ft view

That is looking at the landscape of the music industry or of your particular instrument or your particular modality and looking at it from that 30,000 ft view and seeing where there might be potholes or where there might already be skyscrapers and then honing in on those places that you know need improvement.

If you see from that 30,000 ft view that there are beautiful skyscrapers for miles, but then there is a hill that has been completely untouched, you want to develop that hill. It’s here when you look at that one spot inside this landscape that allows you to truly make an impact and build your own skyscraper.

This is looking at where there are gaps in the market; gaps in the online education space, because it becomes easy for us to fill those with something that's useful and needed.

#2 Look at your own teaching business

Ask yourself:

What do you teach most often?
What do you teach without prep?
What do you teach that you feel is so foundational and so critically important that every student needs to know it?
What do you teach that is so unique and revolutionary that you wish everybody knew?

This is the second place to look. Here we can review our own curriculums, look at how you teach, why you teach, where you teach, who you teach and tap into something that you feel so insanely passionate about. This is where you could create the most incredible course that would help any single person who is seeking whatever it is you want to create.

Here you are creating a superior course than anybody else and creating it out of your own track history, your own loves and your own teaching style. That is the secret sauce.

This is the most common way for people to create online courses – by tapping into something that they have done for days, weeks, months, years, decades with their students and then converting it into something that they can teach in a mainstream course manner.

By far, one of the most valuable aspects of this type of course is to focus on making it something that is done in a way that anyone can learn it. The way to do this is to imagine creating the course for five or 10 specific students and normalize the lessons so that all of them will find success. This will help you create a program that doesn't need you to be involved with each student.

#3 Look at the needs of your audience

This starts by truly identifying your ideal audience. Identify who you want to create the course for and then communicate with them. Take the time to understand where they are, what they are struggling with, why they're struggling with it and how you can fill the gap for them.

Here we’re saying “I want to work with this particular subset of musicians.” And I know that I can offer something, I don't know exactly what it is yet, but I want them to tell me

This is the method that allows you to build an audience while you're creating something for that very audience.

Start thinking outside the box to start thinking inside your zone of genius. I truly believe that every single music teacher has a course that they can deliver.

Now, if you are ready to get started begin with creating your own micro course (a four lesson course on a micro concept!)

You can fast track yourself by going to https://expandonlinenow.com/micro-course/ to grab my made-for-music-teacher micro-course templates.

I love being in conversation – Instagram – Facebook – Zoom Call.

You can do this, creating something online that has never been created for is within your wheelhouse!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

211: (Re-release) Tech does not create success

Wed, 16 Feb 2022 11:30:00 +0000

The internet is abuzz with programs and it is abuzz with opportunity.

And because of this, it is abundantly clear that your tech does not dictate your success. It's really important for us to remember that the success of our online programs is not hinged entirely on technology. It is not the critical piece that is going to bring everything into focus and into profits.

This is a re-release of Episode 171 (because as you hear, I’m a bit stuffy and I couldn’t record a full episode!)

I want to see you have online programs that fill your heart that give opportunity to your students, whether they're young or old, new or experienced. I really just know that this online space is a perfect medium for your education products.

The technology you use doesn't make a difference!

That's not to say that the tech isn't important. What I mean to say is that whatever technology you're using, that is not what's going to be the tipping point for the success or failure of your program.

The technology has a supporting role. A crucial one but it’s supporting!

Your material on the worst platform will do better than lousy material on the best platform, which really is to say that your content is what is going to determine the success of your program!

Your content is the reason for students showing up and taking your course and what is going to determine the success of your program is the way the student feels as they are going through the material.

We want them to have a really great experience with you before they sign up.
We want them to have a really great experience with you as they are signing up.
We want them to have a really great experience with you in the onboarding process.
If your program is something that they can start right away, we want them to have a really great experience inside the program.
If your program is something that has a specific start date and they may have signed up weeks beforehand, we want them to feel really warm and supported during the time between their sign up and the official start date.
Once we're inside the program, we want them to feel supported.
We want your students to have many wins every single time they sit down at the computer.
We want them to feel connected with you and be engaged and know that they are going to have another win tomorrow.
We want them to feel amazing when they are finished too!

Those are ingredients for your course to be successful. And it is super important to have the right tech at every step of the way. There are a lot of steps and a lot of tech to choose from.

When you have the right technology and the right outlook for using all of these pieces and creating this experience, you're absolutely going to be building success; success for your students as well as success for your program as a whole.

Here’s a metaphor for online course success… If someone comes in as a caterpillar and they go through their metamorphosis and come out as a butterfly, they are winning and your course is winning. If they come in as a caterpillar and are never able to cocoon themselves, how are they going to become a butterfly? It’s experiential learning at its finest!

If you're not building your technology base properly, you're going to be scrambling.

We always want to make sure that we're using the technology to support students efforts every single step of the way! That is my secret sauce. That is the piece that I will make sure works so perfectly so that you can show up with the content!

You can show up with the big smile and the warm embrace and the critique and the feedback and all of the pieces that they need in order to feel success from the material that they're learning and making those small wins… and the technology just works in the background.

When we've got the right tech in place, nobody thinks about the technology, nobody worries about how it's all going to come together! The technology conversation only comes to the surface as woes and not as whoa!

You know what I mean? It's only when there are problems that the technology is to blame. When things work right, nobody cares about your technology.

When we're creating online programs,

we want to make sure that our videos and audio are recorded at the best quality and that they are delivered in a way that looks professional.
we want to make sure that any sign ins and sign ups and payment processing are smooth.
we want to make sure that the navigation that happens within the program is logical and makes sense on a phone, on a tablet or, on a computer.
we want to make sure that whenever our students, our members, our clients are interacting with our programs that it's easy and straightforward.

The success of your online program is not hinged on the technology. It is absolutely the content and delivery and the wins along the way. But if you don't have the technology in place, it's not going to be possible to have all those little wins because there are too many things that are going to come up.

Your success is not hinged on the technology, but the technology makes the success easier to achieve!

My goal is to help you get what you want online with ease and grace and confidence. Remember this: tech is an opportunity to help you reach your own goals.

Tools mentioned in this episode:

Connect with me:

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

210: Offering an online product with Joslin Romphf Dennis

Wed, 09 Feb 2022 11:30:00 +0000

When you are sitting on something good and valuable for other music teachers — what do you do? Turn it into a digital product of course. And that example what Joslin Romphf Dennis has done.

If you recognize her name, that’s because she was a guest in episode 184!

I’m this episode, we discuss the next level of Joslin’s online expansion and so much more.

One theme that runs through this episode is that doneis better than perfect. It’s a hard pill to swallow because if you’re like Joslin then it’s probably not how you usually do stuff.

Even with her new digital download — Joslin’s didn’t think she would be ready until now or even next month because she felt that there's so much work to do. So instead of doing busy work and waiting until everything was perfect, she took the advice of a trusted advisor to just launch it and then if stuff needs to be fixed then you fix it.

So she launched. And it’s was good. It is still good!

What Joslin has created is called the singer's oral skills drill book for teachers. It is full of examples, musical examples written out for singing teachers specifically to help their students prepare their ear training skills.

Joslin modeled this after the royal conservatory of music syllabus for vocal practical exams, but it is 100% usable for preparing your students for choral auditions and other non-exam based opportunities.

This digital product was built toremedu one of those things that tends to fall through the cracks a little bit. Everyone seems busy working on repertoire and vocal technique and learning songs and learning assignments and things like that so that ear training tends to fall away unless you actually have something to prepare for like an exam!

Joslin built all of the levels from grade one to grade 10. Each level has level specific examples according to what is required by the RCM syllabus.

When this whole idea started, she was thinking “I'm the only teacher out there that doesn't want to build a dominant seventh chord in my head” and other material she would need to use. And this personal guide was started … and then what started to happen when Joslin was telling people about it and they were like, “can I have a copy?”

If you have created something that you use regularly in your studio, talk about it with your peers, you might be sitting on a diamond and not even know it.

Another thing is that Joslin didn’t set out to create this product, she was seeking an existing resource and there just wasn’t anything in the market that for her needs.

Think about it — How much easier is it for you to just have a sheet where there's like 80 Iterations of dominant and diminished seventh chords and you can just pick from them?

And so Joslin started to sort of just disseminate her little examples in little photocopies, because other teachers needed what she had created.

Joslin was 100% her first customer for this resource. And because she was confident in it, she was able to showcase it in such a way that other teachers wanted it. And now, she can sell it with even greater confidence to even more teachers who will use it for the benefit of their students.

This digital product is an entirely new vertical for Joslin’s business — providing something that is for other teachers and there is so much power in that! As a teacher you can put yourself squarely in their seat. You understand everything every nuance because you are them. Seriously, the best person for you to be creating, a course, a download, a workshop or whatever it is is you x number of months or years ago. Joslin loves this because “it's nice to be a contributor to the industry”.

Some of the nuances with creating a digital product:

Not infringing on others’ copyrights
Protecting your Intellectual Property
Collecting and remitting taxes
Staying in love with the product through the messy middle
Tackling the internal and external nay-sayers
Acknowledging your journey

What kept her going?

“This is something that people need because I needed it so badly and it did not exist.”

So… the selling side and the delivery side.

Joslin went with the built in functionality of her SquareSpace site to sell and deliver. You could use any number of tools for this — and I would be thrilled to talk about those with you. Book a call at https://callwithJaime.com

Joslin has several versions of her product — individual levels, bundled levels, everything and other combinations. She wanted to make sure her customers got what they wanted and needed and didn’t have digital dust collecting on irrelevant files!

Joslin isn’t done. She has some research to do for where and how to distribute these next. That’s phase 2. She had created the product and is validating it by getting sales. Passive sales - waking up in the morning and saying, oh, I got new money overnight!

Now it’s more marketing. More publicity. More validation. And the iterate. Improve deliver ability and conversion rate.

The digital product space is such an exciting vertical to be in right now, because there is always somebody new who's going to find your product and then if we can make it so that you are part of their core system and your product becomes something that they rely on, then you have a customer for life. And as much as teaching the student is what every single listener is all about, making sure that their students are successful as a business owner, there can be more verticals, you don't just have to offer lessons to students, that's why music studio or musics stores the stores that sell the instruments often bring in teachers because they're adding a second vertical.

Teachers who have an independent studio where the primary business — when you add a new vertical that’s when we go from being a teacher to being a business owner.

Joslin shared her business coach - Michelle Markwart Deveaux and the Speakeasy Cooperative as part of her support system and success journey. We don’t do this stuff in a vacuum. We are better in community and conversation. Remember that, always.

And you might pop into and out of communities throughout the process — some tech focused ones to get the product created, some marketing focused ones to launch, some industry specific and some general business. They all have a place and value.

If you are a music teacher and you have an idea for something like this and you make sure that it's not something that has necessarily been done to death or is a saturated item that you can literally do whatever you want. You don't need permission from anybody. You don't need anybody to tell you that it's okay to do it.

You just have to figure out how to do it. Don't be afraid to ask for help!

Here are a few ways to connect with Jaime and Joslin:

Jaime on Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/

Joslin on Instagram:

Joslin’s digital product:

http://jrdvoicestudio.com/the-singers-aural-skills-drill-book-for-teachers

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

209: Automating the Business Side of Music Ed with Eric Branner

Wed, 02 Feb 2022 11:30:00 +0000

A few links for you… then we’ll get to the good stuff…

Jaime’s Instagram @jaimeslutzky
The Expand Online Community
Book a free call with Jaime http://callwithjaime.com
Eric’s Instagram @getfons
Fons on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/getfons/
The Fons Family on Facebook
Try Fons

Okay, let's do it.

Eric is the CEO and founder of Fons.com – a business software for anybody who does appointments type business, or client type business. He’s a music teacher and a classical guitar player.

Where did his inspiration come from to create this software?

He attributes it to a lot of the pain points that he was experiencing in his own music studio. Fons is designed to run the business side of any kind of client or appointment-based business types, and was initially built for music teachers and music schools.

The hardest part for many music teachers is the business (aka money) side because of all the awkward conversations… Fons takes care of all the stuff that involves asking for money, automating payments, automating cancellation policies, etc. trying to make it as simple as possible for both the customer and the service provider alike. This ultimately allows the providers the time and energy to do more impactful work.

Fons put you in an empowering position instead of a needy position. It also creates a professional relationship that makes it simpler for the parents, who are often the ones that are paying for music lessons – it’s an understanding of the terms of services and billing, which leads to a great client and provider experience.

Eric also takes us through a bit of the user interface of Fons, including booking appointments, how that talks to billing, the agenda, video chat features, the marketplace, etc. There are some extremely incredible features with this software, and being that this was created by a music teacher, it’s multifaceted in a way that will set you up for success.

The Fons Family

Eric runs the vibrant Fons Family community on Facebook where people have connected from all over the country to help each other, share and test ideas. It’s a collaborative space where members aren’t afraid that someone is going to steal their idea or compete with them. And the reason for this supportive and encouraging space…?

There are not enough music teachers in this (and every) country!

You can carve your own space and do things in your own way, learn from others in the industry, get inspired, do things on your own, bounce things off of other people who are in a very similar vertical, but not necessarily doing exactly what you do.

We have so many opportunities at our fingertips in the online space.

Yet, we need to use the right tools for the task at hand…

With Fons, if you’re offering a service in real time, whether it's one on one or it's a group, you can build that billing, reminder, and scheduling process within the software – which is ultimately what Fons is designed to do.

Fons doesn’t try to do everything. It is a niche software tool that helps with scheduling and payments. It helps you run your studio with more efficiency than most other methods people are trying.

This is a must listen, I have only provided you with a short snippet of what we talked about here in these show notes.

Tell me, do you prefer long show notes or short ones? Message me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and I’d love to know what you learned or are inspired to do now that you’re done listening to the episode and reading through these notes :)

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

208: Success online with flute teacher Dr. Katherine Emeneth

Wed, 26 Jan 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Have you met Dr. Katherine Emeneth online or in person? She is the founder of KE Creative, a digital company that focuses on the business education and empowerment of classical musicians. She and her team coach classical musicians on how they can create a full time living by staying in the craft through understanding finances, learning music entrepreneurship skills, and how to effectively build a network. Katherine teaches privately through her studio, the Georgia Flute Academy, and enjoys performing with various ensembles in the southeast.

A few links for you:

Book a Call with Jaime http://callwithjaime.com
Connect with Jaime on Instagram https://www.Instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/
Connect with Jaime on Facebook https://m.me/jaimeslutzky/
Connect with Katherine on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/katherineemeneth/
Connect with Katherine on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/katherineemeneth
Classical Musicaneer FB Group https://www.facebook.com/groups/classicalmusicianeer
Katherine’s Website https://www.katherineemeneth.com/

Katherine is one of the OGs in the online music education space… she continues to provide in person lessons, play professionally AND has a thriving online business.

This should be a reminder that online business is viable for a lot of music teachers and that we don't have to stop doing one thing in order to do something else!

Katherine’s aha moment came from the realization that as long as she was playing, volunteering, and teaching flute, then that was all she really needed to make an impact on the world. She didn’t need a tenure position, like she had thought.

And one of her gifts is being able to get a music studio off the ground – she did it in her hometown and she’s done it again after moving. She’s become a pro at this… which is good because as she says: “My number one favorite thing is teaching kids.”

Katherine’s online course The Music Teacher’s Playbook is a 14-week class where she teaches people how to grow a successful private studio from nothing, just as she’s done. She’s been teaching this course live online for the past 6 years.

It's great that we have teachers like Katherine who are creating opportunities for other teachers to be able to follow in their footsteps… the business side of the music education space is one of the least taught and most needed aspects of the industry. (Check back next week for another great episode that touches on the business side too!)

And just like everything in business, Katherine has evolved what she offers online, how she shows up and her approach to working with her students. Katherine also shares with us some super helpful exercises and tips to get you thinking about why now is the right time to act on your ideas and get your online music course going – this part is a must-listen!

Can I make you think for a couple of minutes? You have so much talent and skills that are needed for the next generation of musicians and as next step for musicians already on their paths…

What are you the expert in? What topics are your students interested in? Draw up an outline – and act on it! Katherine says, “If you're ready to do it then just do it, just get it out there and see what happens because the longer it stays in your head then the more time you're allowing you to talk yourself out of doing it.”

Just as we need to act on the ideas, we also need to be okay with being uncomfortable putting ourselves “out there” online… Be exclusive and not inclusive, because you're not going to please everyone! And that's okay!

I’ll leave you here with the same statement that Katherine leaves on the podcast:

You can do whatever you want in your life. There are no rules. There are no boundaries. Whatever you think you were taught in school about, you can't do this until you do this or you can't charge this until you do that. That does not exist. That is not a thing. You create your own rules in your own endeavors and you decide what you're going to do based on what you want to do if you want to go for it and put something out there and you know, be vulnerable, then you should do that for sure. And I find that, you know, a lot of people don't put things out because they're scared of what other people will think. But my big advice for that is if you believe in it strongly enough, it doesn't even matter what other people think because you're 100% behind it. So do it anyway. Make it exclusive instead of inclusive.

Help me thank Katherine for her time by leaving a rating and review for this episode and sharing it with your flute and music teacher friends!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

207: Mighty Music Micro-Courses

Wed, 19 Jan 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Micro-courses are generally courses that take the student between 30 minutes and 2 hours to complete. It’s not a lecture, but rather a series of short and actionable teachings that lead to a specific result.

I am so passionate about micro courses is because you can get them done quickly, you can create them quickly and you can spend more time connecting with people who need this micro content!

Be sure to head over to https://expandonlinenow.com/micro-course/ and take a look at the resource I have for you there.

This episode was inspired by a Facebook live that I did inside the https://expandonlinecommunity.com on January 10th. In fact, the first part of the episode is some of the audio from that event.

Again, a micro-course is designed to help the student achieve one specific objective.

And the benefits are plenty:

they don't take you that long to create
there is an immediate ROI for the student
They are easy to recommend to others (hello raving fans!)

I’m guessing that your network on social media is full of other music teachers… and you can’t really market your lessons or teaching programs to them, right? But, you can absolutely use that network of teachers to get more students into your micro-course.

See, you can sell that by yourself all day every day to every one of your students, everyone who might want to become one of your, your students in the future and so on and so forth. You can also reach out into your network/community and let them know that you have this standalone course that would be very beneficial for them to introduce to their students before they start taking lessons or at a particular point on their student journey.

This micro-course becomes an avenue for partnerships and collaborations with other teachers!

I would bet that you have 3-5 hacks or techniques that you teach on a regular basis with 70-80% of your students that you could put into a small product like this.

When you do that, you are opening yourself up to being a greater member of the online music education community; you are opening yourself up for future collaborations.

These courses are not going to cost a lot of money for people to participate in or to go through somewhere from maybe $17 up to like $70 depending on what you're offering. But that's okay because this is just one micro-course, and you could have many! Imagine having a micro-course for $17 that has 10 people each month go through it, that’s an extra $2000+ each year… from a $17 course!

A micro-course must not need a lot of practice between the lessons. Instead it needs to be a quick build from one lesson to the next.

When we're structuring one of these micro courses, we want to make sure that there are sections or lessons, not just a big long lecture.

Break up the content into somewhere between three and five lessons.

the first lesson is going to set the stage and get them into the right frame of learning
the middle lessons are teaching the nuances or the relevant pieces of information so that they can figure out and say “yes, I'm making progress!”
the last lesson is tying it all together and creating a practical experience

People like to be entertained and a lot of people who watch informative educational videos on YouTube never implement what they watch. They never bring that into their lives. That's what we want to avoid and that's why I'm recommending a micro-course because we're packaging the information not just in a consumption way, but in an absorption way.

Micro-courses are extremely powerful as an online music educator building a multi-faceted education business.

you're going to have your free content and that could be anywhere on social media or on your blog or on YouTube.
micro-courses where people can learn something specific
longer courses, workshops, webinars and programs
one on one and mentorships etc.

We are layering in all the different ways that you can have an impact and help to contribute to all the vast resources of online music education. Your-micro course, if it's super specific and super tangible, has the potential to sell hundreds of units every single month.

Look at your own practice, how often do you look online for a new resource? See… there's a market here!

I encourage you to take action and create that micro course!

I look forward to connecting with you on Instagram or Facebook. Also, book a free call with me at http://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

206: How long does it take to create

Wed, 12 Jan 2022 11:30:00 +0000

Let’s get right to it… creating anything online is going to take time, but how much time do you want to dedicate to making your new online program a reality?

What it looks like is whatever you want it to look like.

There are no steadfast rules for how you create and what you create and how long it's going to take to create that new program. Somebody might sit down and create an entire course over a weekend while someone else who is equally talented and passionate might take six or eight months.

While there are no rules, there are some guidelines that I do strongly recommend.

#1 Create when you are in your Creative Zone

Don't try to force your program creation into open time slots where you are not at your most creative self. It’s counter-productive. There are a lot of other things you can do in that time, like balancing the books, but you want to be creating when you're most likely to produce something that feels amazing.

If you only have an hour of creative time every day, it may take you longer than someone who has eight hours a day for two straight weeks that they can feel in-the-zone!

It doesn't matter the speed at which you create your program, as long as the program that you are creating matches what your audience needs. And that brings us to the second point…

#2 Know the program audience

Knowing who your course is for is far more important than trying to create it quickly.

It is far better off to

do your market research
do a pre launch
get early adopters
build the program that is actually needed

When we rush the process of creation without an established buyer audience, we're throwing darts! I don't know about you, but throwing darts is not what I want to be doing with my future. I would much rather just walk down the sidewalk and know exactly the path that I'm on!

#3 Program creation includes a lot more than the content

It’s not just about how many modules and lessons, nor the software, the launch strategy and the delivery mechanism. All these need to be factored into the timeline!

Everything takes time. Even if you’re a wiz at creating the content, how does it take for you to get the content showtime ready? Even if you have an established audience, how much time do you need to prime them for the upcoming program launch? Even if you already have you tech, how long does it take to get it all working together (and tested?)

#4 We work faster when we work smarter

Make sure that you're allotting the right time to do the right work. This is not only the headspace and creative space we’ve talked about but also the right heart space and white space outside of creation.

The goal is to create a quality program, not to get overwhelmed by your new project. Don’t rush the process – no need to feel a crunch that is completely self-inflicted.

I'd rather see this program take four months for you to create and for you to come out at launch with so much energy and so much passion than for you to spend two weeks cramming it together then not have the energy to pour into the launch!

Like I said, how long does it take – it depends!

It absolutely depends on where you're at and what your goals are and how much of your schedule is filled. It's as simple as that.

There are a lot of ways for us to optimize our available time.

My clients are going to take somewhere between 6 and 12 weeks to create their programs. And most programs are going to be between 4 and 16 weeks or lessons or modules.

6-12 weeks is optimal because you want to give yourself enough time to do the non-creation elements of a successful program too. When you grab your calendar map out more time than you think for each part.

Program development
Content creation
Editing / production
Pre-launch / warming your audience
Launch

There is absolutely no point creating a course or workshop or membership or program if you don’t take the time to make sure that there are people who are waiting with open wallets to sign up.

That’s it – it takes as much time as you want, but needs to also take as much time as you need to be SUCCESSFUL!

OK, I’d love to get feedback from you on this episode, hit me up on Instagram or Facebook, book a call with me at http://callwithjaime.com

And, if you are interested in having a support and guidance through the Online Music Course Accelerator → https://onlinemusiccourseaccelerator.com is where you must go!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

205: Let's Jumpstart your Online Music Course

Wed, 05 Jan 2022 08:30:00 +0000

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

204: On Air Coaching with Ms. April Topic: Expanding the reach of your online courses

Wed, 29 Dec 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Ready for another On Air Coaching Call?

Great, today I have with me Ms. April, a voice, piano and theory teacher from Ontario Canada. I have a great affinity for Canadians because I am one! Although I’ve been living in the USA for my entire adult life!

Anyway, let’s get right into the coaching call highlights.

In March 2020 (doesn’t that sound like the start of every conversation lately???) April had to quickly shift from in person teaching to online teaching. And once she did, she realized that theory was something that just didn’t translate as well as the other parts of her lessons… which made her go down the course creation path.

April’s initial goal was to have her existing students continue with their theory. That's it. Just some courses that her students could use to learn the theory outside of lessons. Using the theory books that she was already teaching, she received permission from the publisher to record herself teaching the material week by week. This is what she sent to her students. It was a solution that worked for her and her students. She received fantastic feedback from parents too!

The feedback has led many parents to request that theory continue to be delivered via online courses instead of inside the lessons, whether online or in person!

What can you give to your current students in order to make it more successful for them in their own learning? That’s the first place that you can look to create an online course!

Now that April knows her courses are successful at teaching theory, she wants to go beyond her private student base… and now we’re getting into the coaching part of the call!

She has tried to be present online, on both Facebook and Instagram.
She has done some ads, but doesn’t want to be spending a whole lot of money with that without knowing if it’s really helping.
She is focusing on trying to get the word out, doing interactive posts, and sharing what she’s offering.
She realized that instead of just trying to outright sell her courses when people would inquire, that having a little bit of a conversation with them rather than just trying to sell it to them outright was a much more successful approach.

I asked her if she was interested in having a larger group of students go through the theory courses together, rather than independently which piqued her interest, for sure!

Which got us talking about launch events (how fun, right?)

That could be a challenge, a workshop, a webinar, etc. - or even an email sequence of some kind and get them to buy into your methods and your teaching style through some free introductory outlet. April and I chat about some ways to come up with that free content that is valuable to her audience, as well as ways to incentivize signing up right away.

April’s students are kids and therefore it’s really talking with and to the parents that is going to lead to courses being purchased.

You could do a webinar for parents - show them how getting their theory through video lessons is going to help their child be more successful, and show them exactly what their child is going to be going through in their online course. Show them that there's THIS potential.

And the other way that we determined that April could have more students using her theory courses is to collaborate with and partner with other music teachers who use the same collection of method and theory books. The thought being that if other teachers were not interested in creating their own theory courses, they could send their students to April’s courses and form a partnership with her.

This direction is something I really hope April pursues because it’s a winning one for all parties - April, the students and the other teachers.

As April continues to explore launch events, she’s going to want to evaluate the benefits of groups or cohorts going through a theory book at the same pace. It might include having monthly workshops or group zoom sessions to discuss a set of lessons. And it might come to a point where April has a few teachers that she works with who do those group lessons with her – these are the teachers who have all their students going through April’s theory courses while they teach the method books and practical elements.

There is really no limit online – right? We’re always expanding!

So, there’s the angle of going straight to the parents and the angle of working with other music teachers… but the fundamental elements don’t change: need to have some kind of launch event that will entice the other party to be open to the possibility of this format for their student/child.

“It's really the teachers that use the theory, it's not the parents that go out seeking theory lessons.“

Back to the launch events… we discuss the role of an email marketing platform (I recommend ConvertKit BTW) and April’s question specifically is “what would be the step by step that you would take in order to get them onto that list to then have that progression go through of the know like and trust email sequence?”

The two methods of having people join your email list are through some kind of freebie that you’re giving away or through the launch event.

For freebies…

I love when we can do a download that the parent can learn about the advantages of piano. Are you on the fence about piano lessons for your child? Here are some of the reasons why and here is an activity that you can do with your child to see if they're ready.

Any time that we can educate the parent and inform the parent and excite the parent where they can translate that into the conversation that they're having with their child. It's a winning situation.

When I'm working with people who work with adults, it's a little bit different because you want to make sure that whatever your freebie is is something that they can actually do. And in April’s case where the student is a child, you want to make sure that what you're bringing to the table is something that the parents feel confident in. It's that it's that trust factor.

We talk about linking social media posts with this type of content back to the freebie, instead of it staying in social media land.

For the email sequence, I recommend a 5 - 10 day sequence of 3 - 6 emails.

Here's your checklist
Something really simple that they can do with their child every day or every other day
Give them content in the same way that you’re going to deliver content inside your course (video content, audio, pdf etc.) - they need to really connect with you and your teaching style

Once the email sequence ends, send monthly emails to your list to keep the idea of piano lessons top of mind and for the parents to determine when/if their child is ready.

And once the once-a-month thing becomes doable, start sending emails more often. But no more than once a week, probably. And we want these to be educational not promotional :)

We wrap up the conversation with a bit more chatter about ConvertKit and using social media. If you’re interested in connecting with April, her Instagram account is @msaprilsmusicstudio and Facebook is https://www.facebook.com/msaprilsmusicstudio/.

Would you do other music teachers a huge favor and take a moment to leave a quick rating and review for the podcast? Share what you’ve been loving and insights or takeaways that you’ve had from this or other episodes.

Be sure to book that call with me http://callwithjaime.com/ and let’s connect on Instagram!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

203: On Air Coaching with Niccole Modell. Topic: Online Group Programs

Wed, 22 Dec 2021 11:30:00 +0000

It’s time for another on air coaching call. My guest for this session is Niccole Modell and she is delving into online group programming! And you probably already know, I love online group programming.

A bit about Niccole…

Niccole is a full time musician, teacher and performer. She has a teaching studio, and offers mostly one on one lessons. She is looking to expand and go into the world of virtual group classes since her days are currently full with private lessons. (It’s important to add, too, that Niccole doesn’t really have the space or a location for in-person groups right now.)

This shift from one-on-one to group feels a little intimidating, and she came on the call with the hope to get some ideas and a little confidence. At the time of this call, she was prepping for her first ever group class where students would be performing for each other in lieu of private lessons, with the hope that if it went well, she would be able to expand on that and maybe offer more of those in the future.

To help Niccole best, I needed to first know if she wanted to offer group programming for both piano and for flute, or start with one or the other? It’s best to be super clear, so that we can focus on realizing a goal that is realizable rather than trying something too lofty!

Niccole thought piano would be a good place to start because she has a lot more piano students than flute students right now.

With online group lessons or online group workshops or online group programs of any kind, our job is to help the students see how the group format is going to benefit them. Obviously, it's going to benefit you because you are able to work with more students in less time. But the benefit for the students can be a little bit trickier to demonstrate. It’s important that group programs don’t feel like a private lesson in a group setting.

In order to determine what can make a group lesson cohesive and uniting for the students, I asked Niccole to share some of what she is currently doing in her lessons to make it motivating and engaging for her students.

She likes to encourage her students to perform and gives them opportunities to perform and compete (if desired.) She also offers standardized testing every year for really motivated students, and keeps her lessons engaging with games and activities. She provides a well-rounded curriculum with exposure to A LOT of things (history, technique, improvising, repertoire, etc.) at all ages in order to provide value and the ultimate goal of creating a well-rounded musician.

These are the same thoughts that go into making a group environment fun and implactur.

An example: Group lesson on composition

Students work on their composition after some direction from you, the teacher. Once they are happy with it, they pass it to the next student who will get the opportunity to play it! Hearing your own music played by someone else has an even greater impact than playing your own composition. Everyone gets to be part of a collaborative experience.

Another example: looking at a historical piece

The music is not going to change and you need to repeat the lesson for every student. Instead, using it in a group setting allows the conversation, analysis and appreciation to go further. Perhaps bringing a set of students together on a monthly basis in lieu of their private lesson to discuss the piece would be a great way to get started with the online group programming model.

Then we get into logistics and practicality… like how to make it work across student levels or where students have gravitated towards different sub-disciplines. I like to think of it as catering the content to the age rather than the experience level. There are a lot of fun activities that 4-6 year olds enjoy whether they are playing Mozart or Twinkle-Twinkle!

While group lessons and group programming are the focus of our coaching session, the reason this is so appealing to Niccole is to help her balance her time (and regain some time) – is that something that you’re interested in as well… be sure to message me on Instagram or book a call at http://callwithjaime.com so we can quickly find a way to make that happen.

In addition to group lessons sprinkled into the private lesson schedule, I also share some thoughts on a full time group program using an entire 16 week curriculum. This works really well for 4-8 students who all start out at the same level and have a similar goal. You can take the best parts of your private lessons, the best things that you teach and the best methods that you teach and teach them in a group setting and then provide some level of asynchronous support.

Asynchronous support in my mind is where students can record a video or an audio file and send it to you… then you provide feedback via video and or audio. This is a great way of providing the personal touch so that students all advance individually all while the learning is done in a group environment!

As far as the group curriculum, well you have to hear what Niccole’s thoughts are on that! So honest and realistic about where she is at and what she wants to do next :)

With group programming, it's all about the journey.

We want to take our students to a specific place.
We want to take them somewhere so that they can see the trajectory of where they're going.

I think that's one of the big differences between programs and lessons… There's an end date which basically says this is when you're ready to take your test. This is when you have been taught the entire curriculum for this stage. Group programs can be as short at 4 weeks and I would recommend tapping them out at 16 weeks. Students are going to progress at their own rate and we don’t want to let the group get too far out of sync.

Here’s an idea for a short group program: teaching kids how to play a song on the piano for their moms for Mother's Day that you offer in April.

It doesn’t have to be an expert level group.
You're just taking them on a specific outcome journey.
You're giving them two or three songs that they can play for their mom on the piano for Mother's Day.

These are the kinds of ideas that I encouraged Niccole (and you!) to start embracing!

These groups can be an additional resource for students who are all gung ho and want to do more, but it can also be an introduction for new students because it's not a super long commitment.

The final thing we discuss during this coaching session is about Niccole’s group classes coming up next week (at the time of the recording and last week as of the time of the release of this episode!) She asked for ideas that she could use to supplement which would engage and excite her students.

improv games,
creating music together,
repeating back notes and adding on more (kind of like memory)
guessing a note games
Identify or dissect a song together.
And for the younger ones, sending over a coloring page so they can color in when they are listening to their peers.

When we give ourselves time to brainstorm without putting parameters or filters in, some great ideas come out. Then we can pluck the best ideas for the moment from that bin of ideas and implement them in our classes. And only at that point, we can figure out the logistics to make it happen.

Brainstorming and dreaming are part of every coaching relationship I’ve ever had, either as the coach or the coached. And I believe that this episode has given you a peek into how my coaching sessions go, so if you’re interested, head on over to http://callwithjaime.com and book a call. I’d love to hear from you and chat more about where you’re at on your journey!

As far as connecting Niccole, you can find her at www.niccolemodell.com.

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

202: On Air Coaching with Joellyn Andrews. Topic: Email List Building for Music Teachers

Wed, 15 Dec 2021 11:30:00 +0000

This is the first of several on-air coaching calls that I am airing this month.

Today's episode is circled around adding an email list to your studio, and Joellyn has graciously joined us to ask really pertinent questions. As you listen in to Joellyn’s questions, I want to invite you to think about how YOU are going to grow your studio and what the next online step is going to be.

One thing I mention in my conversation with Joellyn is ConvertKit, which I really recommend that you check out. (That’s my affiliate link)

And, as always, I love being in conversation with you. So any feedback that you have for me or for Joellyn, please share with me over on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky or feel free to send me a friend request at Jaime Slutzky on Facebook.

Now, for this coaching session where we talk about some of the considerations going into adding an email list to your studio.

Joellyn had posted in a Facebook group - about the whole idea of having an email list for her studio and after chiming in on the thread, I invited her to join me for this coaching session.

She has been working on marketing this year, but not seeing that turn into new students… it’s kinda just been “like a trickle.” So, she also started a Facebook group because that seemed like a new and fresh avenue. And other people were talking about it in regards to marketing- start a community. That hasn’t converted to students either… so this is where we start.

The Call To Action

What is Joellyn inviting group members to do once they start interacting with her content? How does she want her Facebook group and her email list to function together?

Part of this journey is really just trying to figure out how you want things to work and discover how you can best serve your audience.

Tweaking Joellyn’s approach and trying to get people onto her new email list is a starting point. It's really a matter of understanding what you're wanting to get out of that list and how you are going to serve the people on it. Everything that we do, if we don't create it for the benefit of the consumer, then it's going to fall flat.

Joellyn and I go on to chat about how to give people just enough in your unrestricted free content to want to provide you with their email address, and the importance of nurturing that audience by continuing to provide value and credibility to the content you share and what you have to offer.

I advise Joellyn that, with your email marketing strategy, it’s ok for you to give away a lot in there- just because you give the how doesn't mean that you give the energy that's going to help them put the how into practice.

“So I'm going to hold their hand really. It's like you can give away everything. But what they're paying for is for you to hold their hand through it.”

I asked Joellyn, when it comes to getting people interested in her email list, if she has any ideas as to what type of freebie or product that to give away. Her first reaction was no, but we talked it out. Thinking about quick wins that she’s getting in her interest-based piano lessons.

This also brought up the question of what type of people she would ideally like to work with? But then also, if the ideal client is working with children, the parents are your audience - so how do you tailor value toward them when it’s the child who is actually benefiting? Therefore what does the parent need to do in order to say, YES, my child's ready for piano lessons with Joellyn!

Joellyn had the best answer-

They need to see the results!

And YES, she is exactly right! You don’t necessarily need to give away something to DO, you can share results that will make the parents really appreciate the value of your lessons for their child. Something that the parents can see their kid's eyes lighting up, that's the kind of experience we want the parent to have for them to say, OK, I think I might try lessons.

The freebie is definitely important being that this email is the one that gets opened most often, but then we move into talking about ‘post-freebie mode’ where we switch into educating the parents into all the reasons why having their child in music classes and having their child learn is a value. We can remind them of the freebie and WHY they chose to sign up and get that, and then we go into a little bit more education and giving them the experience of what it looks like to work with a music teacher.

We talk all about email sequence and cadence, and I share with Joellyn some of my best recommendations as far as timing and how not to inundate your audience, but how to give them enough information that they are going to take action quickly while this is on their mind, because the longer that they're on your email list, the longer it may take for them to actually take action.

It’s also important to keep in mind that you want to do what is sustainable for you to make happen as a music teacher, but also that you can recycle your content rather than starting from scratch each time. And remember, the focus of your email should ultimately revolve around what is going to benefit your audience, especially at that moment they are reading it! Give people the opportunity to explore working with you, and then you can offer sales emails every once in a while.

Joellyn asks, what's the correct practice on asking people for their email addresses and properly adding them onto her list?

We talk about the incentive of the freebie, word of mouth advertising, current students being added, and really knowing that it’s permission-based and making sure people are giving us permission to email them.

Next, Joellyn asks about what services I recommend most often for email lists?

As mentioned earlier, I recommend ConvertKit most often. (My affiliate link again!) And remember, it doesn't cost anything more to go through someone's affiliate link than if you went straight to their website. It just means that they're going to pay me a percentage of what you pay on a monthly basis as a thank you for sending the client over.

My reason for Joellyn for going with ConvertKit is because of the price point and functionality. I really like the ease of use and I've been able to help a lot of other music teachers feel comfortable using the platform and I can't say that for some of the other platforms that are out there.They have landing pages and they have forms so you can actually have a landing page right on their site. It doesn't have to live on your website. You can actually have it right in there that you can send people to as well, which is always nice. One of the really nice things about ConvertKit and many of the other platforms that are out there is that you can write your emails in advance.

This brought up the follow up question of, could I ask permission through emails?

The short answer is yes, you could email them a landing page. As long as you get permission from them, you can add them. You really just don't want to add them blindly.

One of the last things that I touched on with Joellyn is when we grow an email list, the biggest advantage to us as the service provider is learning who the people are, who are on our email list. So you want to give people an opportunity to re-engage with you. We talk about fun ways to get the engagement going, and really making the opportunity for a two way conversation We are starting the email with the emails that go out the broadcast emails, but we're always looking to engage with people because the better that we engage with them, the more likely that we're going to create content that's going to be relevant to them and then they're going to become our customers.

I really loved this on air coaching session with Joellyn talking about all things related to email list building. Interested in being on the podcast for a coaching session like Joellyn? Be sure to reach out on Facebook at Jaime Slutzky or on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky.

And of course, if you would like to have a call with me off air, head on over to http://callwithjaime.com and book a call. I’d love to chat with you!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

201: Music Teacher Spotlight with Brocha Kahan

Wed, 08 Dec 2021 11:30:00 +0000

I am so excited to share Brocha’s story with you all. You’ll hear all about the trajectory of her music teaching and what she did before creating courses. If you’re a music teacher listening and looking for inspiration, this episode is for you!

Brocha started her journey as a piano teacher, as she says, “just a regular piano teacher teaching piano....and mostly just teaching my students for exams.” At the time, she was completely content with what she was doing, gave her best to every single lesson. She also acknowledges that doing those things and having had a studio really helped her to transition to her online course.

If you have a solid studio and you’re looking to fill in the gaps of your actual studio, creating a course is the next step. But you aren’t just limited to a course - you can make workshops, you can create a membership... they're also closely related. And this is exactly what Brocha did.

After having her first child, she was reluctant to go back to work. So, she managed to build her in-person studio to full-time. The only problem was she didn’t really know how to market it, and pretty much just winged it. She focused all of her time and energy on putting 100% into her lessons and making sure her students were happy.

Enter COVID. Brocha had wanted to go online for a few different reasons, but she knew she had to put herself out there in order to land students. So, she managed to work on her social media, and ultimately was able to get more students and run her own studio online. She didn’t start off full-time, but it was enough to get it going. She said “I literally had no idea about tech or websites. Nothing landing pages, nothing. Marketing, nothing. I literally just learned from scratch. Basically, I had a huge dream to do it.”

Brocha admits that she would have had much faster results than she did if she had found the right coach to help her on her journey of creating and marketing a successful online music course. But, she went ahead and taught herself, leading her to the system that she has in place now and that keeps getting her the sales she is getting now!

But let’s back track a bit… Brocha started learning some of the marketing techniques to be able to get online students. She got to a point where her online studio was good enough, but that was one on one lessons. She quickly realized that in order to be able to be there for her child’s bedtime, to be able to create her own schedule, one-on-one lessons wasn't going to cut it, and it wasn’t what she wanted to do forever.

She started looking for someone to help her go into the one to many model. So she created her own course. She started by thinking- What do my students really enjoy learning? What is missing in the music education space?

Now, Brocha has her course, and has also moved into coaching other music teachers. And hey, that’s why Brocha and I are working on these projects together!

Who doesn’t love an organic story like this one? Brocha was teaching in person, then the lockdown happened, she figured out how to get students who are willing to work with her online, figured out the whole marketing thing (and enjoyed it), found success with the marketing and with the course, and has created a framework to help other music teachers do what she herself has done. And of course, had a baby along the way, too. What a journey!

Brocha now offers social media and course creation coaching, with a primary focus on social media coaching. With her course and coaching, it really has allowed her to be home with her kids, who have so much of Mom when they get home from school.

“If you have a good studio, if you have a good basis for your studio, you're going to be able to do a lot. If you have a good basis for your social media and you have a good basis for quality people who follow you and can learn from you, then they're going to say yes.”

If you're listening or reading this in real time and you haven't signed up for our webinar this Thursday, December 9th, be sure to click the link to sign up: https://onlinemusiccourseaccelerator.com

If it's after the fact, definitely reach out to us on social media because we have every intention of running this again... over and over and over again.

The opportunity is limitless. The opportunity is absolutely limitless. I hope that you found Brocha’s story to be the source of inspiration and motivation you needed to take action on your dreams and goals.

As always, feel free to send me a message over on Instagram @jaimeslutzky or connect with me at http://callwithjaime.com

You can find Brocha over at @iambrocha on Instagram as well!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

200: ️Celebration 🎵 Mindset & Music Education 🎵

Wed, 01 Dec 2021 11:30:00 +0000

I am so excited to be in this space with you right now sharing episode 200!

This podcast has been a roller coaster and an adventure for sure! Back in episode 100, I changed the name of this podcast and changed the direction of my entire business. And by doing so it opened up doors and opportunities that I am eternally thankful for.

I love working with each and every one of my clients.

I love interacting with all of the podcast listeners, my followers on social media, members of the Expand Online Community and my email list. It has been an absolute joy reaching in and becoming part of the online music educator landscape.

As you know, I am not a music teacher, but that doesn't mean that I don't want to see this industry succeed online. I think that online is the perfect place to do so much more with music education.

Download the Make Money Teaching Music Online guide.

This episode is about mindset and online music education.

My Mindset

Sometimes I feel way out of my league and I have to reel myself back in and say to myself that music education chose me as a conduit to help you get where you need to go.

Having a positive mindset, for me, is combating the negative self talk.

I am not worthy,
Do I know enough?
Am I going to be taken seriously?
Can I really charge that?
Are these people going to believe that I can help them with the transformation or the opportunity that they want?
Do I have the skills?

These (and more) are all things that we kind of continually tell ourselves. They can break us down and keep us out of showing up.

Having a positive mindset allows us to show up for our people to show up for the people who want to engage with us on social media, through our podcast, through our emails and most importantly as students and clients.

My greatest mindset hack is to remind myself of my definition of the zone of genius:

the space where your skill set and your passion collide!

Okay, just visualize it. You've got skillset coming at us from the left and you've got passion coming at us from the right and they collide and what happens when two things that come together? They create an explosion!

It’s an expanse of space where we can spend more time. So the way that I see it, we have a really finite expertise and we have a finite passion and when we bring those together, our expertise can grow, our passion can grow and the product that they create together is even larger.

This keeps me so excited to have conversations with you. It fuels me to learn new things and to try new software and to help you accomplish something more and something new. That is my magic. That is what keeps me in the right headspace.

Another thing that I do regularly is to remind myself of the journey that I have been on from knowing that I just wanted to be home to raise my kids and to be mom first where work/business allowed me to do just that. As I worked with more and more clients, I was able to get super clear on what I do best. What fills me up the most and what I wanted to do more of it also allowed me to figure out what I wanted to do less of which I think is equally important.

These two things keep me in a positive headspace! They keep me wanting to show up every single week on the podcast, to show up every single week in your inbox, to show up every single week inside the Expand Online Community and for all the conversations that I get to have with you.

Your Mindset

First off -- you are so insanely lucky, you knew that you had a passion and a skill for the given instrument or instruments and modalities that you teach. You are an expert unto yourself.

There are not a lot of people who can do what you do and knowing that sets you up for success.

You already have experience. You already have successes. You have already done everything you need to to validate that what you're going to do next is going to be successful.

Yes, it's going to take work.
Yes, there are things that you're not gonna know.
But the sheer fact that you've done this before is enough to say, go!

You have what it takes to go forward and what you don't know or what you need assistance on can be learned. You can take courses, you can take programs, you can outsource, you can tinker and tinker and watch youtube videos and read blog posts.

When you're thinking this is not for me, it's too hard… think back to what I just said: You've done it before, you can do it again. You have what it takes to be successful.

The future of online music education

Coming out of the pandemic, more and more teachers are going to choose to stay online and reach a larger audience. I think there are going to be more online music programs, more online music courses and more online music group programs.

I see a teachers coming together and creating umbrella organizations where there is cross referrals between one program or another program or synergies between educators. In this vision, multiple teachers will work in collaboration, each having their own programs with links and paths through one anothers. And some collaborative programs too!

The final thing that I see coming is a greater level of higher music education online. Right now there are a lot of places for beginner knowledge and as we go up the experience, there are fewer and fewer places. As we get into the intermediate and advanced level programming, there is going to be more opportunity for you to take hold and to teach at a higher level at a deeper level.

So do I think that music education online is going great places. Absolutely. And do I think that you're going to get there. Yes, 100%!

Book a call with me, go to http://callwithjaime.com and let's talk about what you're going to accomplish in 2022 beyond. I would love to be part of your success story.

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

199: The Founders Series Wrap Up

Wed, 24 Nov 2021 11:30:00 +0000

This is the fifth and final episode of the incredible Founder Series.

Has the Founders series inspired you to take a look at any of the platforms we’ve been discussing? Please share your feedback as a review on Apple Podcasts or by sending me a DM over on Instagram!

My business is here to help you expand your music studio and music teaching business online. I know how much passion you have for music education and everything that I put out on the podcast, social media and in my broadcast emails is designed to inspire, motivate, and help you move forward.

I know that there is a lot of material, and a lot of things that you could be doing. Sometimes we just really can't do this alone -- that's really what I'm here for. I am here regardless of what phase of your online journey you are on -- from getting your first client or creating your first program, to leveling up and building out your own private empire!

This series was all about software to help you provide the best possible private lessons, which are, in my mind, the first major stepping stone towards being able to EXPAND. What you do in private lessons can be extrapolated and pulled out and put into a group format (online interactive group programs, online courses, online workshop series, single workshops, membership sites or anything that leverages the one to many business model!)

It’s all about your content being delivered to many people through a system.

If you have one-to-many programming on your vision board, then you are my kind of person and I’m thrilled you’ve been enjoying this series.

Let’s connect on a call- http://callwithjaime.com and if you haven't downloaded the Make Money Teaching Music Online guide, be sure to click here to download it now!

Now, to get to what you’re actually wanting to see… the questions!

What is one misconception about you or your software that you would like to refute.
Building a software solution involves a lot of little decisions and some big ones. I asked our founders to share about the architecture and some of the design decisions or technology decisions that they have used.
Then, because I know that software works best when it works well with others, we discuss integrations and API access.

In addition to the podcast series, I have pulled a ton of content together in a blog post that came out today. You can check it out here!

The sooner that you have a platform that you feel confident teaching with, the more opportunities you're going to bring to your students and into your studio.

And that's what I want for you, for your online studio to thrive now and well into the future.

Please share this podcast series with friends and other music teachers that you know will appreciate it -- and so will I! And so will our Founders!

Don't be a stranger - connect with me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and book a call with me using this link http://callwithjaime.com

And if you’re feeling inspired and you’re serious about making teaching music online your full-time gig, I have lots of ideas as to how you can Make Money Teaching Music Online, so be sure to download the guide now!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

198: Using the software - The Founders Series Session 4

Wed, 17 Nov 2021 11:30:00 +0000

This is our fourth and probably most anticipated episode in the Founders Series.

Many of your remaining questions about using these made-for-online-music-lessons software options will be answered in this episode.

SaaS products, or Software as a Service products, really do require a test drive to determine if they are going to work the way you want them to. It’s easy to look at them “on paper” but until we’ve sat down in front of the screen and interacted with them, it’s impossible to know exactly how you will jive with them. And that’s what today’s episode is all about… using the software and being part of their ecosystem.

Before we get into the episode, if you haven't downloaded the Make Money Teaching Music Online guide, be sure to click here to download it now!

The software founders in this series are:

Michael Grande with Rock Out Loud Live
Sam Reti with Muzie.Live
Rebecca Featherstone with Musicology
Eric DeGrove with Blink Session Music

To get started, we talk about $$$ Yup…

What is the monthly fee?
Do you have a free level, a free tier, or a free trial?
And what’s included in the different price options?

Then to give you a good idea as to what you need to effectively use the platforms and how to make the best experience for your students, we discuss hardware (computers, phones, tablets,etc.) and apps and browser settings.

Long ago were the days of computer stores where we pick up software in a box and load floppy discs into the drive to install the software onto our hard drives. Nowadays everything is instantly accessible through app stores and websites. And the same goes for customer support and community. So, I asked what that looks like -- because when you know you’re able to connect with other users and the founder in a way that matches your needs, it’s a compelling factor!

I know you’re looking at running the best possible online lessons for your students. And this leads right into the final question of this episode…

Other than the live lessons, what else can teachers and students do with your software?

This episode was probably the meatiest of this entire series -- I wouldn't be surprised if you want to listen to it more than once!

And I’m sure that you know another music teacher who wants to compare and contrast these software options. Will you do me, Rebecca, Eric, Mike and Sam a favor and click the share button inside your podcast app and to forward this episode to another music teacher?

I know that making the decision to buy into a new piece of software can be overwhelming and that’s truly the last thing I want to see. Reach out to me if you have any questions or would like clarification. And know this, you are in great hands with all of our Founders.

If you’re serious about making teaching music online your full time gig, I have lots of ideas as to how you can Make Money Teaching Music Online, so be sure to download the guide now!

Come back next week for our final episode in this series! And in the meantime, be sure to book a call with me at http://callwithjaime.com so we can chat about where you are on your music teacher journey. You can also find me on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky.

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

197: Knowing your software - The founders series session 3

Wed, 10 Nov 2021 11:30:00 +0000

This is our midway point in The Founders Series.

(If you haven’t listened to episodes 195 and 196 yet, I recommend jumping back to those before proceeding with today’s episode, they all kinda build on each other and I want you to be empowered to make the best choice for your online music lessons!)

As a reminder, our guests in this series are:

Michael Grande of Rock Out Loud Live
Sam Reti of Muzie.Live
Rebecca Featherstone of Musicology
Eric DeGrove of Blink Session Music

All of them have graciously given us so much insight already into how their software works to support the online music education community, especially your private lessons. Today, we’re diving a little bit more into the technical side so that you can begin to understand how software works and how to best take advantage of all the software updates.

The two questions I asked our founders today are:

How often does your software get updated?
Talk to me about the way you've overcome bandwidth issues to provide a great environment for lessons?

The first question covers the software update process --

How often do they update the software?
What goes into software updates?
How does that get delivered to you?... and so on and so forth.

The second question relates to how each software is overcoming bandwidth and latency issues that come from being online.

I want you to be able to offer the best lessons to your students and I believe that these software solutions are going to help you get there.

I chose this set of questions for this week because all we want is for our software to work and to make us shine, right? And by peeling back a little bit about how the software works, it's going to empower you be super confident that you are going to be comfortable bringing this software into your studio and introducing it to your students.

Be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app. You don’t want to miss next week’s episode in this Founders Series!

Are you ready to Make Money Teaching Music Online? Then be sure to download the guide by following this link.

I’d love the opportunity to chat with you if we haven’t already done so, so be sure to head on over to http://callwithjaime.com and book a call with me. You can also find me on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

196: Origins and Features - The Founders Series Session 2

Wed, 03 Nov 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This is the second episode in the Founders Series.

(Be sure to listen to all five episodes in order, to make the best choice for your online music lessons!)

Remember when you first listened to a podcast? That feeling of having so much opportunity to learn, be entertained, be informed and gain knowledge… you feel like you’re on top of the world. It’s kinda the same thing when you hear about a piece of software that was designed specifically for music teachers like you.

And I know, because I’ve seen it, as soon as we hear about one of these SaaS products, we are bound to hear about another and another and another… and soon, our heads are spinning. In this series, I’m taking you on a journey to not just understand what the tools can do for you and your students, but also to help you make the best choice based on what the software provides, the trajectory it’s on and some of the guiding principles.

Our guests in this series are:

Michael Grande of Rock Out Loud Live
Sam Reti of Muzie.Live
Rebecca Featherstone of Musicology
Eric DeGrove of Blink Session Music

In this episode, my guests will be sharing with you the why behind the software and some cool features that help to define their products.

I want you to come away from this episode with a better idea as to who Mike, Sam, Rebecca and Eric are and the passion they have for the music education industry.

This episode covers the following questions:

When did you start this company and developing this app/software?
Who was your software originally designed for?
Why did you decide to build this software?
What is the mission of your software?
What feature are you most known for?
What feature or features are you most proud of?
What feature or features have you added most recently?
How do you determine what features to add to your software?

Remember there is going to be a full detailed blog post at the end of this series which will include the answers in an easy to navigate format.

Be sure to hit the follow or subscribe button in your podcast app because next week we are continuing the conversation with a deep dive into making sure your lessons are as top notch as possible.

Are you ready to Make Money Teaching Music Online? Then be sure to download the guide by following this link.

I love chatting with my podcast listeners, so whether you’ve just started listening with this series or have been listening since episode 1, book a call with me at http://callwithjaime.com; I’m also over on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

195: The Founders Series; Introduction

Wed, 27 Oct 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is the Introduction to The Founders Series.

This is a series of five podcast episodes with the founders of Musicology, Muzie.live, Rock Out Loud Live, and Blink Session Music. This is going to be one of the most powerful series that I have ever done on the podcast -- I'm so excited that you are here to be a part of it.

Introduction

Sam Reti is the founder of Muzie.Live, an all in one virtual music studio allowing teachers to save time, stay organized and conduct a high quality online hybrid or in person music lessons.

Muzie.Live - Virtual Music Lesson Studio

Michael Grande is the creator of Rock Out Loud Live, the only United States patented virtual platform that captures the entire tonal range of any instrument. Rock Out Loud Live has high definition audio and near zero latency provides a teaching experience unmatched by any other platform.

RockOutLoud

Rebecca Featherstone is the CEO of Musicology, a peer to peer video conferencing platform that is built to empower the non power user with interactive and collaborative features, bringing down the barrier of the screen and engaging students, lessening teacher exhaustion, and breaking the barrier of online lessons and making it more like an in person lesson.

Musicology - Musicology

Eric DeGrove is the founder of Blink Session Music, a platform that exists to help you as a music teacher succeed in teaching lessons online, creating an easier time taking what you've done in person and transitioning that online. Knowing music teaching is more than just what happens online and that it's more than just that video conference, we take into consideration that it's also about what happens before and after the lesson- homework, appointment reminders, etc.

Blink Session Music - The Future of Music Lessons

About the Series

Any one of these software options can change your business. They give you the confidence that when you teach music lessons online you are giving the best product to your students. It’s all about setting them up for the success that they want out of lessons.

Sam, Mike, Eric and Rebecca have put your music studio at the forefront of the work they do daily on their apps and in their respective communities. They look at technology as an opportunity rather than a barrier so that you can be successful.

Whether you decide to look at Muzie, Rock Out Loud Live, Musicology, or Blink Session Music, my goal with these next four episodes is to bring you answers to some of the most important questions that you have about them and how they compare and contrast with each other.

Also forthcoming (at the end of the series) is a mega blog post that has all of the details that we discuss in a nice easy to read manner which will allow you to compare the solution side by side by side by side.

Why am I doing this series?

This series came about because I was seeing a lot of teachers, just like you, asking in all sorts of Facebook groups, what people are using to teach online? On every single one of these questions, I will see the exact same thing, over and over:

Zoom with the original audio setting.
tagging Sam saying use Muzie.live
tagging Mike saying use Rock Out Loud Live
tagging Rebecca saying use Musicology
mentioning Blink Session Music as the newest on the block.

And that does absolutely nothing for the original poster… they have a ton of options shared and no value given. I knew I had the right platform and angle to do something different.

This podcast is my response. This series and the blog post are going to become the go to resource to respond to those questions. And, at least quarterly, I’m planning on updating the blog post with the latest and greatest from these offers.

As you know, I’m not a music teacher. I’m a tech and strategy gal. I know that teaching a full docket of private clients online is the first milestone to moving onto group programs, courses and membership sites (which is what I focus on with my clients.)

This podcast series is something that is near and dear to my heart; I am so gracious that Mike, Eric, Sam, and Rebecca all said yes. They all agree with me that their respective software solutions stand on their own and it's time for there to be a definitive impartial comparison of them.

Be sure to hit the subscribe button in your podcast apps so that the rest of the series comes to you, and check out my brand new guide --> Make Money Teaching Music Online.

And, as always, don’t forget to book a call with me at http://callwithjaime.com and we can just jam on whatever is going on in your business. Or, find me on instagram @jaimeslutzky

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

194: On Social Media

Wed, 20 Oct 2021 10:30:00 +0000

When it comes to social media, it’s so easy to post things that don’t move your business forward and even easier to feel unsure of what to post. Let’s set the record straight with a few tried-and-true posts!

There’s so many trends and so many things going on on social media that I am officially breaking my silence and sharing a few tips on posting… this is going to be run!

If you’re wondering why I haven’t really talked about this before, it’s because I'm a techie and never let myself push too far outside of that box. Marketing felt so far outside… but I was wrong. I have thoughts and suggestions that are worth sharing (not to mention that I’ve been on social media longer than I have had my business and we’re already over a decade on that!)

Here are three things that every music teacher can and should post on social media on a weekly basis and a couple of things to avoid.

#1 Actionable Content

My favorite thing to post and this is actionable content. We want to post things that people can actually do and take action on.

Here’s some examples:

If you work with kids and you are marketing to their parents and your social media feed is for their parents, give them some fun activities that they can do with their kids and then in the caption for that post, make sure to tell them what you want them to do when they are taking that actionable content- post to their story and tag you in that where they're now sharing the action that they took with their child.
If you are working with adults, maybe the actionable content is to try a certain technique or to do something that allows them to test out actually play the instrument or try something that can then be shared back on their stories or on their Facebook page.

The idea with actionable content is to have people associate what they see from you in their feed as something joyful, fun, and exploratory that they can do in their music space. I have a client who does a really great job with this. She works with young children and so her feed is for the parents and she posts things that they can do with their kids in the car.

#2 Student Wins and Successes

You can and should post your students wins, your students success, your students testimonials, and reviews. These are great because they are putting your work in someone else's voice. This is where you go from being, “Oh that music teacher who posts on social media” to “Oh that music teacher that I want to work with...” because it's in someone else's words.

Think about it. How popular are Yelp, Google reviews, Podcast reviews and ratings. People want to hear what others have to say about you. When we can bring that into our feed, it just adds so much power to everything else that we are doing.

#3 Authority Posts

Make sure your posts are showcasing your authority. They should showcase that you really do care and that your business is thriving and growing. These are:

anecdotal things that might have happened in your studio
exploratory things that you are trying for yourself in your own music practice
opportunities for you to say I'm not just the teacher- I am always learning, I am always exploring, I am always doing, and I can teach to you.

We want people to look at you, not just as the piano teacher down the street, but the piano teacher who is constantly improving herself or himself to better their lessons to stay at the forefront of opportunity for their students to have successes unto themselves.

Let’s work to have people see you as THE piano teacher or THE guitar teacher or THE voice teacher!

Authority posts demonstrate that you know what you're talking about. We want people to know that you are truly an authority and that you're not just doing this out of rote practice.

OK, you knew it was coming...

I also want to note some things to avoid -- Don't shy away from sharing that you have openings or that you are offering a new program. Just make sure that we are not posting exclusively promotional content all the time.

We don't want people to always feel like when they see our stuff that we are expecting them to pull out their wallet, or give us their email address, or join something. Sprinkle in your promotional content because you are running a business and it has to happen. Make sure that your feeds don't feel overly promotional.

Avoid sharing too much of other people's content. Like I said, I want you to be seen as the go to, I want you to be seen as the authority. I want you to be known as the best choice for the people who you best want to serve.

When we post other people's content, we are essentially saying, here's somebody who knows something more than I do. When we do learn really cool things from other people, let's flip that around and say, “Okay, I learned this really cool technique…” and then you formulate that in a way that it becomes an authoritative post rather than just sharing someone else's content.

My goal with this episode was entirely to help you think about social media as a vehicle to grow and to extend yourself and to feel really good about interaction.

I love being on social media and seeing your posts. If we are not friends on Facebook, go ahead and send me a friend request at Jaime Slutzky. If you don't follow me on Instagram yet, go ahead and follow me @jaimeslutzky.

And of course, if you would like to have that call with me, head to http://callwithjaime.com and book a call. I’d love to chat with you!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

193: Talking the Business of Music and UMBS!

Wed, 13 Oct 2021 10:30:00 +0000

In this week’s episode, I have three amazing guests with me (all at once) to discuss something really special happening in January -- UMBS, The Ultimate Music Business Summit!

Find more info here: Ultimate Music Business Summit

Topics we discuss:

Their experiences with:All things that go into being a small business owner -- learning everything that goes into entrepreneurship, marketing, etc. Thinking “business-ly”
The mindset of applying business concepts to what we do as music teachers.
Finding value in our skill sets, pivoting, and knowing what you can offer your tribe
Shining a light on your products, services and offerings.
Charting their own journeys, but not having to do it alone!
The upcoming Ultimate Music Business Summit! This is the second one they’re hosting, and they’re planning to make it even better than last year, and more valuable for people, especially people like YOU who are building your businesses, teaching music, and working to serve your students really well and then ultimately to make more money doing that.
The major benefit and takeaways from attending the summit:Taking control of your own opportunities
Scaling your offerings and serving your audience in new and innovative ways.
Networking and collaborating and stepping out of your comfort zone and interacting for inspiration.
How can you use those connections to gain new opportunities.
The business mindset and thinking of yourself as a business (i.e. money mindset)
The business space of music -- how we can learn from each other no matter where you are in the process or what your niche is.
How musicians want to see other musicians succeed.
Learning from others and applying it to your own business when you have an open and eager mindset to learn.

We're not in a place where we have to stay still, especially with everything online!

To learn more about the summit and see the list of presenters, head on over to Ultimate Music Business Summit and if you give enter your email address right now, they will send you the five steps that's necessary to make money in music.

And our guests today graciously offered for you to shoot them an email and tell them what questions you have or what problems you're encountering in your business so that they can build this thing even better for you!

Arthur: portlandcomposer.com for the composing site, firespike.com for the web development site, and on social media @arthurbreur

Garrett: garretthope.com and theportfoliocomposer.com for the podcast.

Heidi: heidikaybegay.com and on social media @heidikaybegay

Today’s guests:

Dr. Heidi Kay Begay is a self-employed flutist, educator, podcaster, and non-profit organizer. Heidi is the creator and host of the Flute 360 podcast, which delivers educational content (to the modern-day flutist) through various platforms. Since 2018, the podcast has produced over 170 episodes, received over 56,000 downloads from 70 countries, and has obtained numerous corporate sponsorships. Heidi’s mission is to help musicians reach new heights so they can feel empowered, confident, and have a life they love on and off the stage! Please visit https://heidikaybegay.com for more information!

Arthur Breur (he/him) composes personalized, melodic music for live performance, for everything from solo instrument or voice, to full orchestra, concert band, and other large ensembles.

His compositional style was shaped by three primary influences growing up: a strong church choir program, the great classic film scores of the 1970s, and children’s television programs like Sesame Street and The Muppets.

Arthur is the Composer in Residence for the Tualatin Valley Symphony and the Tualatin Valley Community Band, and uses his role not just for his own music, but to promote the creation and performance of new music by other composers.

Over the more than 35 years he has been composing, he has written more than 150 individual pieces, including works for five weddings, two musicals, bar and bat mitzvahs, and numerous video and film productions.

In addition to composing, he owns and runs a web development company that he founded in 2001 and has published the novels of three authors.

Arthur Breur currently lives in Portland, Oregon with his husband, Brian.

Dr. Garrett Hope’s purpose is to use his God-given creativity and communication skills to entertain and enlighten, draw people together for a common cause, and to coach others to see new opportunities.

An award-winning composer of film and concert music, Garrett engages with performers and audiences to tell stories and create life-changing experiences. He loves working with educational ensembles, and especially values his work with students.

As a coach and public speaker, Garrett empowers people to see new opportunities and take courageous action. He does this by helping them identify and break through the beliefs that they hold about themselves that are preventing them from achieving their potential. He helps creatives build networks and make strategic business decisions so they can make a living doing what they love.

Garrett holds degrees from the University of Nebraska–Lincoln, the University of Northern Colorado, and Colorado Christian University. He is a native of Colorado, but currently lives in Nebraska with his wife and daughter.

For more information visit www.garretthope.com.

Of course, here’s the link to book a call with me as well http://callwithjaime.com and if you loved this episode and want more interviews like this, let me know!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

192: 3 Ways to Get Unstuck Fast!

Wed, 06 Oct 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Today I decided to bridge the conversation from email marketing into what we're talking about in next week’s episode, which is an amazing interview with three other people!

Before we get to that, as always I want to invite you to a quick call with me http://callwithjaime.com and let’s jam!

Were you feeling overwhelmed when I talked about email marketing and email list growth over these past few weeks? Some people reached out and said that they were, and others mentioned that it's just easier to keep doing the lessons they’re doing and to go back to in-person lessons because that's what families are asking for. Do you want to keep doing things in a way that other people are running your business for you?

I don't want that. I want you to be taking control of your business. I want you to say “no, I don't want to go back to in person” or “no, I am not teaching only one on one lessons.”

Instead, let’s hear what you WANT.

I want to teach a group program.
I want to have an online course.
I want to run cohorts through my course.
I want to present at a summit.

I want, I want, I want. The sky is the limit and you have the potential to take yourself there!

Nobody else has to tell you what to do, but you have to be willing to move.

I'm talking about getting unstuck from the easy.

The easy is doing things when people ask you to do them (i.e. doing lessons when it's convenient for your students)

The hard is saying I offer lessons on Mondays and Thursdays from 3 until 7, and if you can't fit into that time slot then you can be on my waitlist for when I open up additional times.

The easy is yeah sure we can do in-person lessons.

The hard or the difficult is no, my studio is now completely virtual so that I can teach you from anywhere and you can take your lesson from your grandma's.

It is so easy to get stuck in the easy, but I'm here to tell you that we don't have to be stuck in the easy. We can reach for the stars. We can hone in on what our dreams truly are and find a way forward. I've been stuck. Every single one of my clients has been stuck. I'm sure that you have or will be or are stuck right now.

I'm now going to share with you three ways to get yourself unstuck fast.

The first way is to change your perspective.

Sometimes it's really hard to see all the progress that we've made and all of the things that we have accomplished and our students have accomplished when we have so much that we actually want to do and that we're feeling stuck. But sometimes it's really good to just take a little bit of time to be grateful and to see how far we've come.

Working with students one-on-one? Take a look at their progress- it's going to inspire you!

Did you convert your entire studio from in-person to online and you're still working with students? You've got something huge to be grateful for!

You have a foundation that you can use to springboard into whatever comes next. It's about changing the way we look in the rear view mirror so that we can see all of the things that we have accomplished and done, which will give us a little bit of an humph and a drive to go forward.

The thing is you've got all of these people who trust you and know you and believe in you. They have put their trust and their music education goals and opportunities in your hands. It is a clear place to look and say, “I can do this, I don't have to stay where I currently am.” It's all about looking for opportunities to be grateful and to show gratitude. That shift in perspective of looking and feeling, it does so much for helping us get unstuck. It allows us to have nuggets of positivity and allows us to take a step forward or to double down on something that we were really wanting to work on, or really passionate about. It's about sending that email or picking up the phone and making a call to a person that we know will help us move forward.

Changing our perspective and having gratitude provides us with a window into what we can do next by looking behind, we can look forward. It's a great way to get unstuck because instead of saying “woe is me” or “I can't do this” or “this is hard” or “I don't know how or where am I going to get clients” -- we look and we say “I've done it before. I can do it again.” That is really the first way to help yourself get unstuck.

The second way that I recommend getting unstuck is to rewrite your vision and mission statements.

Here’s some thoughts to consider:

What are you here for?
What are you destined to do in all of this?
Why is this so important to you?

Your mission is what drives you and your vision is what you are working toward. I think of it as your mission is the gas in the car and your vision is the destination that you're taking the car. Wherever you're going on that adventure, that is your vision. The mission is what you put into the car to get yourself there.

Let's put this into perspective. Your mission is what you're going to do. It helps you accomplish your work and drives what you do with your students. It helps you identify the programs that you're going to create and the material you're going to produce for social media and for your email newsletters. Your mission drives your messaging. Now, the vision is a little bit further out. Your vision is what you're working toward.

What is it that you want your studio to look like in one year, two years, three years, five years, 15 years? Our vision is what we are striving for and where we want to be when we accomplish everything.

I like having both a short-term vision and a long-term vision. I did this recently, and the ones that I wrote down were ones for the end of this school year, so June of 2022. I wrote another vision statement for where I want to be in September of 2027. That's when Hayden leaves the house and starts college. So that's a big shift in our family and I really wanted to make sure that I keep that vision of where I want to be at that point, where I want the family to be, and where I want my business to be in the conversation and in the conscious flow of things. These are my big milestones right now, those are the things that are driving me.

You probably have a couple of those things for yourself. Think about where you want to go, think about your vision. You cannot stay still if you know where you're going. You're going to inevitably take steps toward that. They could be steps that you never even imagined before. But when we have our mission and vision, we have something that helps drive us and helps us get unstuck.

The third way to get ourselves unstuck fast is to make a small change in the way that we present ourselves and our offers online.

It could be any number of things:

using a new platform or a function of a platform that you're already using
increasing or decreasing the amount of content you produce
doing more direct messaging
doing more commenting
having more interaction in Facebook groups or whatever platform it is that you want to be a part of

It's a matter of making a small change -- Doing something different in the way that we show up and present ourselves and our businesses. That's really what it's all about, something different.

We don't have to move mountains to start making progress. It could be that you build three or four templates in Canva and you use those as your visuals on Instagram so that you start to develop a brand presence. There are lots of things you can be doing.

We get stuck for so many reasons. We get stuck because things are hard, and we get stuck because people pull us in directions that we don't necessarily want to go. We get stuck because we're following someone else's blueprint, and we get stuck because the money is there, even if happiness and joy aren't there. Or we get stuck because the money isn't there. You deserve to get unstuck. We have so many opportunities to grow and thrive and prosper online.

I have a BONUS tip for us and that is to put on your business owner hat. We're not going to be putting on our instructor hat or that teacher hat or that content creator hat... we're putting on our business owner hat.

When a business owner hat is on our head, we are thinking clearly, logically, and with dollars and cents and numbers and figures in mind. Sometimes when we look at things through that lens, we are able to help ourselves move forward because we clear away the emotion, we clear away the heart, we clear away the thoughts, and we just look at the facts.

Next week's podcast episode has a lot more about the business side of being a music educator, so make sure to come back for that!

Remember, getting unstuck is all about taking deliberate action, changing your perspective, being grateful, making small changes online, and rewriting your mission and vision statements. Those are things you can start RIGHT NOW.

I will be back next week with that interview and until then don't be a stranger reach out to me on social media, I'm @jaimeslutzky, and book that call with me at http://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

191: Your Email List Questions, Answered

Wed, 29 Sep 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Sometimes the best podcast episodes come from your questions! I am thrilled to bring this episode to you that includes me answering questions from the Expand Online community about email list growth, opt-ins, and more!

Have questions you want answered? Book a call with me: http://callwithjaime.com

Join the community let’s continue the conversation!

Let’s get into the questions:

First up there were a few questions about specific software tools.

Four tools I get asked about the most are ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, Flodesk, and MailerLite. I recommend most of my clients use ConvertKit. It’s a robust system that’s designed for creatives- a win-win situation. I recommend ConvertKit most often because of the integrations that it has with other tools. Integrations are vital versus the alternative of transferring content manually from one place to the next.

My second recommendation would be ActiveCampaign. This is what I personally use here at Expand Online. I use it because it has more automation and customer relationship management functionality. It’s a great solution but a bit harder to get started with. .

MailerLite and Flodesk- these have fewer integrations from what I can tell on a surface level. So I can't bring any real concrete information here as to why to use them, but I know that they are very popular and very effective

Whatever tool you decide to use, it's going to work if you put the effort in to get it organized and understand how it works, or hire somebody for a consult or to set it up for you.

These tools, Email marketing systems (EMS) are extremely powerful. When we use them anywhere beyond the surface level, they are going to have a really positive impact on your business.

Next question: how do I start an email list?

Start by setting up your EMS right. Don’t skimp out on setting the mailing address, from name and email address. Go through the tutorial — you’ll thank me later!

But I know that the real question was how do I get people to start signing up for my email list? Most of my clients, and my top recommendation, is through some kind of freebie. Your freebie can be just about anything. Here are some ideas:

it can be a downloadable
it can be an add on to something that you've got out there for free- an additional piece
it can be a quiz
it can be a challenge
it can be a virtual summit

You can put just about anything at the front end of your email list building mechanism. Do your best to offer something that is in line with what you are ultimately going to want to sell or invite people to through this email list. If you are creating an online course, get people learning from you as quickly as possible. If your goal is for them to do some kind of live program with you, learning from you plus personal/location related insight. .

We want to get that right off the top so that somebody can make an educated decision as to if they want to invest their energy in learning from you at this free level on your email list or if they're never going to be able to purchase for whatever reason. There is no need to nurture a non-start!

When we are building an email list and starting to attract people to our list, it is crucial for us to provide them something of value and something of interest. There's a lot of valuable things, but they're not always interesting and there are a lot of interesting things, but they're not always valuable.

It’s a different combination for each of us. The goal is figuring out what it is that you're best at providing and how you want to provide it.

Next, and I alluded to this a moment ago… how do we nurture subscribers?

Create an outline for your emails so that they follow the same general structure. This creates comfort in the inbox.

Start with something personal or share something that's going on with you and your students,
Share something of value,
Provide a call to action,
Sign off and let it be that.

Share something that they can relate to or aspire to, then something that they can take action on, then tell them what we want them to do next.

The call to action might be:

go check out a Facebook post
go check out an instagram
go to a Youtube video
sign up for a workshop or a demo class
reply to this email and let me know that you are liking this content or let me know what else you'd like me to share.

Remind your audience that this is a two way communication vehicle. They can reply to any message — we are simply creating opportunity for them to do so. Having a call to action in every one of your emails allows them to make the most of this relationship. That's how we nurture our subscribers -- provide them with value and help them to see themselves in the successes from our studio.

The doozy of a question: how do I use my email list for sales?

It's HARD to ask for the sale. It's HARD to put ourselves out there and face silence and rejection. But when we've nurtured and created relationships, we are inviting people to take a chance and to take the opportunity to elevate their skills and to explore working with us.

When it comes to asking for sales, I think that based on the type of programs that most of you are offering, it's actually asking for a consultation.

Music education is so personal. We probably aren't going to be sending people to a sales page without a conversation. Yes, you will have it in your arsenal but conversations often lead to higher conversions than sales pages alone.

It’s also important for me to talk about the content that helps someone to take action. We've talked about this already with respect to nurturing and providing an insane amount of value before asking for the sale.

What type of content that converts someone from merely opening your emails and reading them to clicking a link or clicking a button?

Do something unexpected, do something that helps them feel something. Surprise and delight. Make sure that your emails are really action oriented; give them something to do.

The thing about converting somebody from being on our list to becoming a student or a participant is going to vary widely. It's a lot of trial and error and there is no one quick answer. You're going to be far more successful when you send emails consistently and when you create opportunities for people to have a two way conversation with you.

Once your email list is at least 100 maybe 200 people on it -- start sending surveys. Not all the time, but one every few months. If you’ve provided value in your emails, your subscribers will be happy to answer your survey — and entice them with a giveaway or drawing.

For me, incentivizing is usually in the form of a strategy or breakthrough call. I like to do free calls -- that gets people to act. But it doesn't even have to be a call. They could get access to a private tutorial video that you have done that you've got unlisted on YouTube, they could get access to a cheat sheet or a practice guide or something else that you've created as a thank you for participating in the survey.

With our content, remember this, something that you do right now may work right away but it may not. It could work in three months. So don't give up on an idea just because it didn't work perfectly right now. Recycle it, do it again another time.

Your email list will return value to you when you are consistent. You have to be giving and you have to want genuine progress for the people who are on your list, whether they give you money or not, because that's how you are going to continue to grow and be seen as an authority.

As always, feel free to send me a message over on Instagram @jaimeslutzky or connect with me at http://callwithjaime.com

And don’t forget -- my email list workshop is coming up this Friday, October 1st! Sign up at https://expandonlinenow.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

190: Your email list is a gateway to opportunity

Wed, 22 Sep 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Email marketing is a subject that I covered in depth earlier on in the podcast… I would recommend after you listen to this episode that you head back to the series: https://techofbusiness.com/series/email-marketing/

The episodes are 58, 59, 60, 61, 62 and 63.

This episode is about using your email list in order to accomplish your online music studio goals.

It's not a matter of just having an email list, it's a matter of using that email list effectively…what it means for you and what it means for the recipients!

{Before we get into things… remember to book your free no-pitch call with me: http://callwithjaime.com)

A few definitions:

Email list is a list of email addresses (name, email address, and maybe some more info).
Email marketing is the mechanism for sending emails out.
EMS (email management system or email marketing system) is the tool that you're going to use to send your broadcast messages or your automations out to people who have said YES to your freebie or another product that you are offering.

Action Item: Using an EMS is pretty much required at this point. No more Gmail or Outlook. If you’re not signed up for an EMS, sign up for ConvertKit right now. Your business growth requires these people to opt-in to your email list to say “YES, I want to receive marketing promotional and informational emails from you.” You run a business, an online business, and this is a hard line -- use an EMS!

To help folks get onto your email list, reach out to them individually and say something like:

“Hey, I'm moving my email communication out of my inbox and into a service. Do I have your permission?”

“I have a brand new freebie! Click here to opt-in!”

Add a link or button for them to click, they enter their email address right into the form that's associated with your email marketing system, and BOOM! They’re in.

Now let’s talk about using your email list effectively.

Using EMS, we can store a lot more information about our students and about our prospects than just their name and email address. You can store things like:

what freebies they signed up for
what workshops they have signed up for
if they attended a trial class
if they are in a program
what instrument they play and
they're self-professed abilities
what desires they have
what goals they have

You name it, we can store it… seriously! Your EMS is a customer relationship database if you set it up that way, which is a whole lot more effective than just having names and email addresses and just sending out emails blind. We want to be smart about sending out emails.

There are three different types of emails that we send through our EMS:

Informational emails
Sales emails
Transactional emails.

Informational emails

These should be between 60 and 80% of the emails that you send. These are emails that are going to help them do more with their music study. This is also where we would send people to a YouTube video, something that's on IGTV, your Instagram feed, your Facebook group, or your Facebook page. You're sharing something in these emails that is for the entire benefit of the person who is receiving it. They are getting information from you. They are getting insight from you. They are gaining knowledge from your content.

The marketers call these value-add emails.

We want to be sending these emails regularly in order for people to have you as a constant presence in their lives. They can get the emails from you every single week or you could do them once a month. Having a regular schedule is a great way to make sure that we are getting the information out to them in a timely manner so that they continue to rely on you.

Whether someone is an active or past student or they're just on your list and haven't paid you a dime, we want them to feel like they have an investment with you so that they are receiving from you so that when it comes time for them to make a financial investment or double their efforts or whatever it might be, you are the first teacher that they are going to come to.

Use these informational emails to showcase what we know and how we can help people by actually helping them. These informational emails don't have to be long but they do have to be regular.

My recommendation is to send emails every single week. Pick a day and time of the week. (My emails to my list go out on Thursdays. There are very few occasions where I skip a week. If I'm not going to be working that day, I'll generally just schedule it ahead. That's up to you. If you’re not on my list, click here now to sign up)

Sales emails

These sales emails introduce our programs, letting people know that they can sign up for a workshop, a masterclass, lessons, a group program, or a membership site. I recommend keeping them to 20% or so of your regularly scheduled emails.

Remember, we are trying to foster a relationship through all those information emails. We don't have to have a huge number of sales emails -- we have their attention already. They know they're getting regular communication from us, which of course means that they are more likely to open your sales emails and more likely to act on them.

Whether an email recipient purchases or not, they're going to see these emails and the opportunities housed within. They might engage with you on social media, or through replying to your email or going to your sales page or whatever it might be.

We want to make sure that when we are sending emails to our email list, that they are ALWAYS talking to the person where they are right now.

This episode is being released right at the beginning of fall, right? So I want to make sure that any informational email that I send tomorrow or otherwise brings fall into the conversation.

Are the leaves changing color around you? I want people to say, “Oh yeah, she's not just creating these and sending out information for information sake. She actually cares about what's going on in my life.”

When we're communicating through our email list, we are writing one message and we're sending it to a lot of people. We have to be careful that we're not making it sound general and while also not making it so specific that people feel alienated because you're not including them in the conversation. We want to always make sure that when we're sending messages that we truly understand who is receiving them.

Whether you're using ConvertKit or ActiveCampaign or any other email marketing platform out there, you have the ability to send to segments of your population, segments of your email list.

Here’s what I mean…

If you are sending an informational email related to the piano, but you also teach voice, you can exclude all the people who have said, “I am only interested in your emails for voice.” You can send separate emails that week -- one that is specifically for piano and one that is specifically for voice. That way, you can make things very relevant to those separate populations. When we segment our list and send to a subset of our entire list, we can get more specific.

Another example...

Let's say that you’re tracking who is in your local area. You want to do a jam session in the park a mile from your house. Segment your list by all the people who live in a certain zip code or certain city and you'll be able to only send that to people who have the ability to actually be there. And then send an email to everybody else saying that you're doing this jam session and that you're recording to put on YouTube.

We are always working to build relationships through our email list.

We are building connections. We are taking people from “Oh, this freebie sounds interesting” to “I really like her style. I think I want to take lessons or take her course or join her next group program or this workshop that she's got coming up. Yeah, that sounds really great!”

Transactional emails

These can be emails with receipt of payment, a reminder of a call, access information, or log-in information. They can also be surveys or quizzes, or even asking for a testimonial. They can be an inquiry into progress, like a progress report. Transactional emails often lead from the one to many into one on one. So expect that when you send transactional emails from your EMS that you’ll be continuing the conversation in your inbox or on social media.

Remember this: Our email list is a vehicle to get in front of the people who have already said, “I think I might be interested.”

Now, before I let you go today… I have a couple more things to share with you.

There is no guarantee that someone's going to open that email right when they receive it. But if you're sending it first thing Monday morning, where are they at? What is going on in their lives? If you're sending it midday on Wednesdays, where are they at? How much time do they have to read it? What's going on in their life? Just be aware of how they're going to take that email. Are they reading it on their phone? Are they reading it on a computer? Are they reading it on a tablet?
There is no one right way to do this. Just like everything online, it's trial and error, and trial and trial and trial again. You're not going to figure this out just by listening to today's episode. You're not going to figure this out just by having 10 people on your email list.

Growing an email list, nurturing an email list, that's what it's all about. Once we've got people who are steadily joining our email list, feeling inspired and motivated by your informational content on a regular basis, the more likely we are going to be to grow our student base and be able to offer everything that you want to offer.

An email list is a gateway to opportunity.

What you do with it is going to directly impact your studio. If you're not sending informational emails to your list right now, make it an action item to start sending regular communications.

I know a lot of studio teachers want to know -- what is it that I should be sending in these emails? Think about things that you've been going over with your students. Generalize them enough so that they become relevant to a broader cross-section of the population.

A final thought: your emails do not have to be epic in length, they just have to have something of substance so that your recipients open them and get something tangible from them and then get excited when they see your name.

I love email list strategy… really ALL kinds of strategy! Send me a message over on Instagram @jaimeslutzky or connect me at http://callwithjaime.com and we can figure out how to proceed and help you with strategy on just about anything.

Don’t forget -- my email list workshop is coming up on October 1st! Sign up at https://expandonlinenow.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

189: The Thank You Page; Valuable Online Real Estate

Wed, 15 Sep 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is a follow up and continuation from last week where we talked about the landing page or sales page.

A landing page can be used for a free or paid opportunity, anything that is transaction-oriented. And the page that comes after that landing page, well, that’s valuable real estate, so let’s make the most of it!

If you want to discuss your specific landing page(s) and thank you page(s) or anything elsethen be sure to book a call with me at —> http://callwithjaime.com

Just as with everything else on your website, make sure to hang your hat at the door and step into the shoes of the people who are there on your website. In this case, the person who completed a transaction with you. They might have just signed up for your program, or signed up for your freebie, who has just signed up to have a call with you, or a lesson with you.

Let’s validate their decision to entrust their music education with you.

The top of this page is super simple… something like… “Congratulations! You're in!” or “You're confirmed!” or “The freebie is on its way!” But that’s the tip of the iceberg, there is so much more that we can do on this page to begin to foster a real, wholesome relationship.

We want to help our new student or subscriber get a win right away. Here are some ideas:

The thank you page for a freebie is best used not only to point them to their inbox for the download but also to take action. If we can keep them in our sphere a little bit longer, it can really impact the trajectory of the relationship.

Invite them to join your Facebook group if you have one!
Embed a YouTube video that compliments the freebie right here
Share your social media links and encourage them to follow you or share your freebie with their friends/network
Share a testimonial
Host a giveaway

The longer that we keep them on our site and tuned in to that feeling of excitement, the more likely they are going to keep coming back to us to progress with their studies. It's as simple as that.

In the best case, the thank you page from a freebie can immediately turn into a financial transaction -- it’s Thank you and Congratulations AND… something else :)

“That is awesome that you signed up for my freebie! Now before you even jump off of your browser and go and look at the freebie, here's something else that I am giving you...!”

There is a special kind of freebie that I want to call out real quick… virtual summits. They are completely free to attend and the thank you page after signing up for the free event is a sales page for the All Access Pass. It’s a rather long sales page most of the time, but with your freebies, it doesn’t have to.

Now, if you head to https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/ which is the freebie on my site, you’ll see that I offer a low-cost brainstorm session on the freebie thank you page. Instead of just downloading my freebie, I'm also giving you the opportunity to make an immediate connection with me.

You could do something similar- maybe on your freebie thank you page, you could have them sign up for a mini-course which essentially is a guided tour through the freebie. You don't even have to charge a lot of money, it’s the process of going from lead to paying student that we are working towards here.

On that thank you page, you've got plenty of real estate to be able to offer something else! And it’s going to set you apart from other teachers.

The sooner in our pipeline that we have someone make a purchase with us, the greater potential that they will continue to make purchases from us.

Now for the thank you page from purchases, what can we do here?

We want to make sure that people feel validated by what they see after they complete the transaction. We want them to feel excited about the purchase that they have just made.

A great thing to do- give new students a way to share their newest purchase on social media- whether it’s on Facebook or Twitter or via email.

And, because this is a paid product, we want to make sure that they know how to access their resources. If everything is coming via email, we let them know that everything is coming by email.

But we also want to say “this is what's coming via email-

You’re getting your login information via email,
you're getting immediate access to this…” and whatever else.

If they're able to get access without going to their email, we're making sure that they get to where they need to right away. We want to have a button that says CLICK HERE to access and so on.

Right after the purchase is the best time to keep their attention. It's just as simple as that. They're already in the throes of it- they're already signed up for your lessons, or already signed up for your program. Now they're like “Okay, this is validation. This is good! I'm excited! Jaime is taking care of me!”

As a professional, your time is valuable, so think about what you can offer for an additional purchase at this time. Usually try is is referred to as a bonus or incentive that they can take advantage of immediately. It can be anything from your own tools or resources.

Here are some ideas:

A toolkit of things to help them get started the right way as a $10 add-on
Offer them to pre-purchase private sessions with you at a discounted rate
- In your program you may have 30 minute sessions with you for $50, but if they buy them now, give them an option to get those for $40, so you give them a discount by paying for them in advance.

Without a doubt, video is premiere right now, so welcoming your new student with a warm video is something that shows you care. Showing them that you are truly here and ready for them and ready to help them on this journey. Walk them through your studio and give an introduction of who you are!

;Also, include that video inside the student portal or inside their dashboard or inside the course or program itself so that they can refer back to it at another time.)

Here’s the key-

After they've said YES to your program and given you money, you want them to walk away feeling glad, feeling excited, feeling ready to embark on this journey That thank you page has so much valuable real estate that we just need to make sure that we are totally taking advantage of it to create this synergy in this connection.

This is a great place to get them hooked into your Facebook group, a discord channel, a WhatsApp group, or Voxer. Make sure that whatever tools you're using you share with them right here so that they can get themselves set up. Yes, you will share them again in email or inside the program, especially during your live sessions

Now, if your students need to purchase items: reeds, strings, books, supplies… whatever it is they need, having links on this thank you page is REALLY helpful. They can just click on them and proceed. We want to make sure that we are providing them with pieces of the puzzle over and over again! The thank you page is just a great place to start putting that content.

As always, connect with me at —> http://callwithjaime.com and book a call with me or send me a message over on Instagram at @jaimeslutzky

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

188: Going from "I'm Interested" to "I'm In!"

Wed, 08 Sep 2021 10:30:00 +0000

What does it look like to take someone from “I’m interested to I’m in????”

The short answer is a great program landing page or sales page. This episode takes you through that page using the niche and positioning we talked about last week.

Before you get too far be sure to book your call with me —> http://callwithjaime.com

The page on your website that we are discussing is the information page to help someone make a decision. It should be a concise page where someone can learn about the exact program that you want them to sign up for.

Briefly, this page needs to contain all the details that you think are going to help them say, “yes” or help them say, “oh this isn't quite right, but I like this teacher” or “I need to learn something else first before I can come and actually succeed with this program”. Give enough information so that people can make a good decision about your program. It's okay for people to come to that page, read it and say, “no, this isn't right”. And if that’s the case, we also want them to open a conversation with us because only then can we help them get to a point where they are ready to enroll.

Think of it this way… your landing page also creates an opportunity to begin a relationship. A two way relationship. I talk about this on the podcast all the time, right? The Expand Online podcast is me coming to you in audio form and my request for you to set up a call using http://callwithjaime.com, that is the beginning of our two way relationship.

I’m not asking you to become a client, just to start a relationship with me. And that’s the same idea behind asking someone to connect with you even if they don’t think the program is perfect for them right now.

The landing page details

First, we have the headline. This is the title of what we are selling. It doesn’t have to be named something super fancy, straightforward titles work brilliantly.

Next, the description. This is a great time to revisit your positioning statement, you probably have a really good description hiding in the work you did last week!

Every single part of the landing page is designed for somebody to be like, “ah yeah, Jaime, you get me!” or “ah yeah, Jaime, I want to read more”.

Our third section is going to be details about the results that someone is going to get.

This program will teach you X, Y or Z.
This program will enable you to A, B or C.
This program is designed to help with X, Y or Z.

Essentially, it’s describing the nature of the program, but not the individual components. We want reactions like “oh yes, I could do this! Awesome!”

To further that excitement, our next step is for them to see themselves in the student base for this program. So we want to talk about:

Have you been struggling with this?
Are you aspiring to do that?
These are the things that you've accomplished already. Are you ready to do more?

Those kinds of statements where they can really see that, you know who they are and where they are on their journey.

Only once we believe that they know we have their goals in mind do we introduce them to the actual program details. Here’s where we give some logistics, like the program duration, live session dates and times, how feedback is provided and so on.

We want to make sure that it's nice and descriptive so they can say, “Yes, this can fit into my life”. But we don't want to go so granular at this point that you're going to be saying you're going to be submitting three assignments a week and you're going to be on video calls with me for two hours every single week and you're going to be doing this and you're gonna be doing that. That's too much.

Now we’re ready to introduce the price and a checkout button or a sign up button or a book consult call or info call or whatever your call to action is going to be. We want that right there tied next to the price.

At this point, they might be ready to buy. But if they aren’t the best course of action is to dispel their fears or their concerns about the program. We can kind of take the most common fears and provide a counter argument. Tell them a story about how you overcame your nerves or how another student conquered their fears or concerns as they began this journey.

Here’s an example:

Are you worried that you're not going to have a strong enough internet connection? That doesn’t need to be a concern because everything is going to be recorded and you'll be able to access it in bite-sized pieces that can work on even the weakest signal.

And the bottom of this section should be for them to book an info call with you, to address any additional fears or concerns. We don’t really want them to keep scrolling if they have doubts. Getting on the phone is best in that case!

But, if that was enough to keep them excited, let’s paint a beautiful picture sharing what it's going to be like on the other side of this program:

After you complete this program, you're going to be able to strum the guitar with confidence.
After you complete this program, you're going to be able to play a few songs with your friends.
After this program, you're going to be ready for the band.
After this program, you're going to be ready for that solo audition after this program.
You're going to be able to... whatever it is.

Music education is all about exploring creativity and their passion. This is their desire and nobody is forcing them to be looking at your sales page right now. Your program ss an experience that's going to help them grow as an artist. It's designed to fit into their lives and it's something that they are not going to regret. Get them excited!

Now it’s time to insert the price and checkout button or whatever your call to action is. Keep this simple and nearly identical to what’s above.

And our final section is a Frequently Asked Questions accordion which might include:

What day and time are the live sessions?
What kind of device do I need to access this?
How do I record my assignments?
What equipment do I need?
What supplies do I need?

I like to think of the FAQ as things that you won’t need to answer on consult calls. These are quick hits that help someone feel prepared to proceed -- and go from I'm interested to I'm in!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

187: Your niche and positioning!

Wed, 01 Sep 2021 10:30:00 +0000

The fact of the matter is parents want the absolute best lessons that they can get for their kids within their budget and their means. And the best way for them to know that you’re the perfect teacher for their kids is with niching and positioning.

Before we get to that, as always I want to invite you to a quick call with me http://callwithjaime.com :)

Let’s start off with a definition: a niche is the particular segment of the population that you are building your programs for. Your niche can really be anything... the narrower that you go, the more defined you can be seen as an expert in the industry.

Every business that is sitting on Main Street in your hometown, that is a niche business because they chose to set up shop on Main Street and by default, offline businesses niche by geography. In the online space we get to niche by other factors.

We can niche by:

the age of our students,
the specialty that we teach
the other things that our students might do.
anything really!

A niche is a way to separate yourself and define yourself.

What about you? Do you think that you could go narrower? The nice thing is, we don't have to stay in our niche forever. Say you choose to work with one particular instrument or you work with one particular age group, once you're established in your niche, then you can add another niche and you can grow that way. Essentially, you're adding verticals to your space.

It's a lot easier to market yourself as the person, the go-to-person online when you have carved out a niche.

Now, for positioning.

This is all about the language we use to express what it is that we do and how we can move a student through the process of where they are now to where they want to go. Positioning is all about making it really clear to someone that you are the educator for their child (or themselves.) Positioning is designed to help them say yes, this is exactly what I'm looking for! We want that feeling… we want someone to have an overwhelming sense of ease and confidence in us before they've ever had any opportunity to engage with us.

Statements like “I focus on this particular niche.” and “I provide this particular program which allows someone who's at this particular level to get to this particular goal.” are ideal positioning statements.

Exercise for you: Map out your positioning statement

I provide ___________________ (fill in the blank program) which allows ________________ (fill in the blank student/persona) who’s at _____________________ (fill in the blank ability/level) to get ________________ (fill in the blank goal).

This can also be called an “I help statement.”

I help (fill in the blank - person), do (fill in the blank - a thing) so that they can achieve (fill in the blank - something else.)

In my case, this is: I help music teachers build online group programs so that they can leverage their time and experience for greater profit and impact.

If you're a saxophone teacher and you are creating a group program helping saxophone players do more things in the band or getting ready for college or whatever it is, then you could have an I help statement that sounds something like this: I help saxophone players nail the band auditions so that they can win a solo or so that they can win a scholarship or so that they can fill in the blank!

If you are a piano teacher for young kids, you may have something like I help young children play their first tunes on the piano so that they want to take more piano lessons.

Once we have our “I help” statement, then we can create the language on our website that positions us as the expert we are. The I help statement is the precursor to what goes on to the website.

Because on the website, we’re talking about taking action and putting ourselves in the shoes of the visitor. They want to know how we help them… and it’s a perfect way to transition the “I help” into a program headline! Get ready for that solo, an eight week program for high school saxophone players to nail the audition and impress the band director.

That is so powerful and it really goes back to that “I help” statement. Since audition season isn't all year long, we will likely develop more than one “I help” statement within our niche. And the programs we create will be around nailing the auditions at first. And then maybe you move on to creating your portfolio and then you move on to something else. Everything is helping those saxophone players go from being part of the band to being someone who stands out. That's that positioning.

We're positioning ourselves as the expert, but we are also positioning our programs as having a specific result.

Positioning is so important.

With private lessons (which I know a lot of you have been doing and you're looking to get into offering group programs) we are taking a student along their journey. They are starting at a certain point (with us) and we're just taking them along the journey. We know that the end point of the journey is down the road and we know the road that they need to walk on is this one and we are taking them down.

With a group program, of any kind, instead of us taking them down the road, we are taking them to a specific rest stop or restaurant or milemarker -- a specific destination. Everybody who's in our program starts in one place and we get them to that specific destination. Even though that destination is not the end of the road, it is a specific destination that we can position our program to get them to.

Nobody is saying that you have to take your program participants all the way to the end of the road in eight weeks! We want to position our programs so that they have specific tangible results. If you take someone through an eight week program and you get them to the point where they have success, they have accomplished their goal... guess what? They're going to come back to you to get to that next goal, to get to that next route marker or rest stop or hotel or restaurant or however you want to describe this journey for them. They're going to keep coming back.

As your students ask for more from you, it becomes a process for you that as you create these programs, you're going to be able to layer them upon each other.

This is how we grow our studios from lessons into group programs. It starts by offering one program and mostly private lessons, and gradually shifts to more group and less private and so on.

All of this is to say when we niche down to become the expert in our domain and position ourselves so that it's clear what our goal is, each and every program that we create becomes an easy yes for our perfect students!

They're already 90% of the way there and ready to say yes because you've niche down and they know you're speaking right to them. You have positioned yourself as the expert and you have positioned your program so that it's a clear mile marker on their journey on that road.

Niching and positioning are two very important pieces in the online space. And if no matter when you’re listening or reading this, you are not too late to get started with narrowing your niche, working on that positioning statement nor creating your first group program.

Let’s connect on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and go ahead and book your http://callwithjaime.com call.

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

186: Do parents really want online Music Lessons?

Wed, 25 Aug 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This is a huge question going around in the online circles I frequent, and I thought it was something worth sharing on the podcast…

Whether schools are back in session in your community or are just about to head back, school and safety are on the forefront of everyone’s minds, particularly parents!

Before we get to the good stuff, I am going to pop http://callwithjaime.com in right here -- you know, it’s my favorite way of connecting with you and if we haven’t connected in a while or ever, grab a time on my calendar!

Now, do parents really want online lessons or online programs or to sign their kids up for an online course or a membership site or a portal?

What do parents really want for their kids’ music education? In the scheme of things, they would love for their kids to get the best education!

It doesn't matter how that education is delivered. Parents want whatever is best for their children; plain and simple… but there are absolutely other factors that go into it as well.

Parents may

have to juggle multiple kids’ schedules,
have to balance their kids schedules with their work schedule,
have to balance the programs that their kids are involved in between multiple households,
have traffic to contend with,
try to figure out programs based on costs, and
want and then there's money and then there's family time around the dinner table

There are a lot of factors that parents need to consider when they're signing their kids up for anything. The first and most important factor is the desire of the child (or the parent if the child is young.)

After that, it's all the other bits and pieces of how adding music lessons into their schedule impacts the rest of their days and weeks.

When people ask, do parents really want to sign their kids up for online lessons, online programs, online courses, online membership sites, online interaction with their teacher, the answer is not just a “yes” or a “no.” It’s “will it make my life easier”, “will I be able to have family dinners?” “will I be able to have two of my kids take classes at the same time.” Or in simplest terms -- What does it offer me selfishly as the parent??

What your online program does for the parent is crucial to getting them on board. Remember, parents want their kids to get the best education and experience. So we have to not only show them how this is going to help them in their lives, but also show how this is the right option for their children. When the benefits to the child and their musical education are insanely clear, it is so much easier for parents to say, yes to online programming.

Remember also that your program isn’t going to only have the student in front of the screen. They will not be staring at a camera or a screen the entire time. They need to have their hands on the instrument or need to be standing in a certain position. They are also going to be looking at music or at references and there are a lot of things that go into music education that are auditory and tactile and not just visual. And because they're not just visual, that means that we are not just using the screen!

Reassuring parents that their child is not just in front of a screen can go a long way. Parents want convenience and they also want excellence. They want their child to feel good. They want their child to love what they're doing.

So do parents really want online lessons? Maybe.

Now, do parents really want a lesson that helps their child accomplish their goals? Absolutely.

If that lesson comes in the format of an online program, then they're going to sign up. It's as simple as that.

Remember, we have to think the way the parent thinks…

I'm going to be able to have all of my kids around the table at dinner every night,
I am not going to be filling up my car with gas three times a week,
I am not going to be a chauffeur mom.

Another really common thing that parents want to see when it comes to online lessons is support from the teacher, even if it's not live and in real time. That's why I talk so much and believe so strongly in the feedback loop.

Parents will want to know how their kids are students interacting with the teacher and how the teacher interacts with the students. It is not just about putting out content and expecting children to learn what we want them to learn without being involved. Online programs are not passive and we need to make sure that the parents know that we are in it with them even if we're not in the same physical space.

Part of the reason why parents sign their kids up for programs is because they are interested in it. If we as the educator engage with the parent and not just think of them as the vehicle to get the student there, they are going to stay around longer. They are going to be excited about the investment they've made for their children and they are going to be part of the process!

So again, do parents really want online programming?

If you had asked me this question a year ago as we were on the brink of everybody starting school or almost everybody started school online. I don't know if my answer would be such a strong yes! But right now with most students going back to school in person, at least part time, they are able to socialize with people outside of their household through that school system, which makes it so that after school programs don’t need to fill that void, like last year.

In short, parents are absolutely on board with online programming if we showcase how it will benefit them and their student. If we can clearly communicate how this is a great use of their time and money and is going to help their child become more musical. It's a winning proposition :)

Be sure to connect with me on Instagram and book that http://callwithjaime.com

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

185: From Gig-less to Online Educator with Dr. Kathryn Parsley (August Teacher Series Episode 4)

Wed, 18 Aug 2021 10:30:00 +0000

The idea behind the teacher series is to showcase teachers who have already expanded online, what they’re doing, why they chose to make those decisions and all that fun stuff. This episode is with Dr. Kathryn Parsley. She came into online teaching when vocal performance opportunities dried up at the start of the pandemic.

I would love your feedback on this episode, so connect with me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and book a call with me http://callwithjaime.com

Let’s start off with Kathryn’s eloquent “elevator pitch”:

I am Dr. Kathryn Parsley, the practice coach and I helped classical and opera singers rewrite their inner critic beat “stupid singer syndrome” and learn to practice today for their amazing future career.

Kathryn’s zone of genius is helping singers learn to practice in a way that suits them best and she rattles off her “elevator pitch” with so much conviction and so much authority that people are just going to listen. They're going to say I believe you! I know that you are going to help me in the practice room.

Before we got into how Kathryn works, she shared a bit about her program itself to give context. It’s a hybrid program where there are one on one coaching as well as a set of videos to watch. She uses the videos to share the three pillars of practice room success through her Daily Singer Inner Circle program.

We wouldn't expect young baseball/softball/t-ball players to be running their own practices, usually a parent or team of parents is stepping in and coaching. Kathryn set out to provide the coach support for singers in much the same way.

Because Kathryn’s program combines one on one coaching sessions, emergency coaching calls and the built out curriculum, she’s created a very attractive offer. Most of the time, online coaches will have each of those offers as separate offers!

Kathryn wasn’t setting out to create an online program. But when she and other singers all lost their gigs and weren't sure what they were going to be able to do from home, she got resourceful. She was safe at home but was scared and didn't have an income. So like many others, she turned to the internet to figure out how to make money online. While there are many scams and such online, she found the ClickFunnels “One Funnel Away” challenge and went all in on it.

The challenge provided her with many ideas of what she could do online as a singer, as a voice teacher, as a voice coach. But the challenge doesn’t include the “How Tos” only the “Whats” and the “Whys”. This led to another search, and she came across Ben Nguyen (he was a speaker at the Expand Online Summit this year.) His program teaches musicians how to bring their voice lessons or music lessons or instrumental lessons online. And it was close enough to the ideas that she had planted through the challenge that she knew she could take his insight and adjust it to match her aspirations.

Key takeaway: Kathryn fully admitted that she didn’t know everything but that she took pieces of knowledge from several sources to create her dream online studio. It was not a passive action, it was deliberate and hard and required follow through.

And beyond that, she realized that that one program wasn't everything. Kathryn could have gone and hired a coach, an implementer, or a number of different people to accomplish this. She took the strategy of what do I need most right now, and found someone to help her fill in that blank and then continued forward.

Kathryn’s approach was anything but piecemeal. A piecemeal approach would have been more like, okay, I need to make money so I’m going to try teaching online. Okay, great, now I need to make more money and I'm going to make group program. Okay, great, now I'm burnt out, so I'm going to take away my group or I'm going to take away my one on one or things like that. There is no long term strategy for growth, impact and business. Instead, she set herself up so that she could be the authority from the get go! She made a splash onto the scene rather than just, dropping breadcrumbs. While neither method means failure or success, I would always recommend thinking 6 - 12 months into the future as you create that next thing.

The truth is, Kathryn already knew she wanted to create something that wouldn’t cause her to be burnt out on because that’s something she’s already experienced. You probably have too… so when expanding online, trying to stay ahead of the overwork and exhaustion is highly advisable.

Kathryn opened up about perception of singers versus the perception of instrumentalists. And it hurt. She has a doctorate for goodness sake! Speaking of which, her doctorate had a ton of work around sound memory and how that decays a different rate than tactile memory or visual memory. As a vocalist, there is no tactile or visual cues to compensate for the deterioration of sound memory… this lead to her ‘a-ha’ moment and realization that the practice room was the space to focus on.

Instrumentalists have the opportunity to see their teacher’s instrument as well as their own where vocalists cannot. Nobody can see their own vocal chords, right? Instrumentalists are required to touch their own instrument and often see their teacher touching their instrument as well. When instrumentalists walk into the practice room, they're pulling from tactile memory, visual memory as well as oral memory where singers are mostly only relying on oral memory. This means that they're having to be more creative instead of pulling from memory when practicing; and creativity is a brain energy “expensive” task!

By doing the hard work and identifying her place in the online landscape, as well as working with Ben, she has been able to line up what she offers with her students’ end goals. Kathryn is not talking to anybody who isn't already speaking her language. How incredible!

When you put out a good quality program that has a very targeted audience, you are going to attract the people that need this now and you're also going to build a network of peers of other teachers who are able to become your referral network. This is what it means to be part of a professional community. We are not always the right teacher for the people who come our way but when they see that we aren’t just in it for their money, but rather for their success, we both win.

How did people find out about your program, Kathryn?

While she was building a program (working with Ben -- who by the way has a great Facebook group https://www.facebook.com/groups/teachprivatelessons/) she was also watching what he was doing to grow his own business. So he coached her and also provided a path for her to follow. Ben focused on Facebook for marketing while the ClickFunnels One Funnel Away Challenge, she had identified that her ideal students were actually on Instagram… so she builup an audience on that platform. And so as to not fly blind, she worked with a brand coach that helped her with not only the visuals, but the non visuals behind the brand sge was building and whata she wanted to stand for. A one-two punch for cleaner and prettier to go along with engaging and persuasive.

Kathryn also built an online course as she was building the larger program and used online ads that she drove to a freebie (email opt-in) and then started a correspondence. It was really three different fronts the whole time.

Build a program
Be visible
Pay for marketing

Kathryn admits that her first freebie was actually quite terrible -- it was a pdf on helping singers survive social isolation. Nobody wanted it… that means it was terrible even though she thought it was great (lesson: follow the clues from the market, don’t get so invested in your content that you can’t see the signs!) If something you create goes gangbusters perfect; if it fals flat, oh well you iterate and you do something else.

Kathryn spun her wheels with a few other things before she got serious and started working with people who personally had success and were able to help others find success as well.

Another thing I want to highlight from this conversation is that Kathryn worked hard to get her messaging right. Not only for the audience but for herself. This allowed her to know who to talk to and identify those people easily. Messaging is part of niching down. It’s brutally hard to niche down. And online we need to niche ourselves to be able to stand out and attract our best fit students.

You can run a music school that taps into your talents and that taps into how you can make the biggest change for the person who is your student.

Kathryn’s parting words are:

I want to tell everybody that you do have the ability to niche down based on your preferences and that your audience exists. It's not just about serving them. True, it is, but it's about serving yourself. Making sure that the people that you are around are the people that you're able to help the most and truly leading into whatever it is, is your unfair advantage and your unique position. Your special way of thinking is more valuable than you think.

Connect with Kathryn

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the.daily.singer/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheDailySinger
Website: www.daily-singer.com

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/
Facebook: https://expandonlinecommunity.com
Book a call: http://callwithjaime.com
Hire me: https://techofbusiness.com/connect-call/

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

184: Teaching Outside Driving Distances with Joslin Romphf Dennis (August Teacher Series Episode 3)

Wed, 11 Aug 2021 10:30:00 +0000

August Teacher Series – Episode 3 with Joslin Romphf Dennis.

The idea behind the teacher series is to showcase teachers who have already expanded online, what they’re doing, why they chose to make those decisions and all that fun stuff. This episode is with Joslin Romphf Dennis, a voice teacher who is in the process of launching her first online group program.

I would love your feedback on this episode, so connect with me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and book a call with me http://callwithjaime.com

Joslin started teaching online, much like most of the online music teachers, in March of 2020, because of the global pandemic. She lives in British Columbia, Canada ( probably only 10 minutes from my brother and 25 minutes from my childhood home!)

Already looking at what we did in March 2020 she thinks “wow, we really did a thing, we made that happen and did it without a lot of the new stuff that's come out now and the amazing tools and resources that are available.” The online landscape has evolved so much since then, with niche software options (we get into what Joslin uses later) and adaptability and creativity.

Joslin really enjoys teaching online even though it was not something she ever thought about doing before it was thrust upon her. She is a classically trained teacher and (with a bit of music theater thrown in) where online was not considered optimal and most people, if they had a choice, wouldn't take it.

She is not ready to go back in person yet and is planning on staying online for the long term. To do this,she is keeping up with the tech as much as possible. There are a couple of new apps that she’s using in addition to Zoom. And she’s hoping to eventually move away from Zoom entirely. Not because it’s a bad product, but because it wasn’t built for what she’s using it for -- that’s really a key for me, I want to make sure we are using the best right tools for the tasks at hand!

The pandemic forced an educational revolution in the music education space. I think across the board but particularly with the preconceived notions of what makes a music lesson good :) We have been able to prove without a shadow of a doubt that music can be taught and received and improved upon without being required to be in the same physical space.

According to Joslin, the online space is magical ~ it's something that everybody (well, a large majority of people) has access to some kind of device that will allow them to interact online. She teaches people all over the world -- in Hong Kong, Montreal, California, Victoria, and all over the Vancouver area.

With her upcoming group program, she already has three students from different parts of BC and she knows she wouldn't be able to serve those kids if she wasn't online. Distance and travel time are completely eliminated online, the only thing we need to account for is timezone and internet speed.

You can have high quality voice instruction in the format of your choice, either 1-1 or in a group setting without leaving the comfort of your own home. And Joslin cannot stress enough how much more enjoyable her life is because she can teach without leaving the comfort of her home.

The tech behind her business

Joslin started her online teaching, like I mentioned above, on Zoom. Most people adapted to it quickly, there was a bit of hand holding at the beginning, but everybody jumped on it fairly easily. She uses Acuity Scheduling software for booking sessions which integrates with Zoom and sends reminders with those links -- super easy for the students.

For her students, she asks that they are on a laptop to gain access to the full feature set of Zoom and also have an external microphone to get the best quality sound, which enhances the lesson. High quality internet connection is a huge bonus as it reduces lag time and helps with creating a good classroom environment.

Joslin has recently started using the Musicology App. It’s an app available on iOS and through the Chrome browser. When she started using it she was absolutely blown away - this app was created for online music lessons and the experience is vastly superior to Zoom in terms of audio coming from both sides at the same time. With Zoom, it’s “call and repeat” but with Musicology Joslin was able to “play a melody line for one of my students for a songs and she was able to sing along with it and we could both hear each other and she could match the timing and she could match the rhythm!”

I think of performance musicians, Zoom is like a stage with a loudspeaker whereas Musicology and Muzie (and I’m sure there are other make-for-music-lessons apps) are like the proper microphones and amps and regulators and all the extras being built right in.

Just because you started on Zoom and your students are used to it, doesn't mean you have to stay on Zoom. It’s really just a matter of updating the link that you have in the acuity calendar and they click to the new platform. Your students will adapt when you share the new tool and all the benefits that come from it -- how does this tool benefit their lesson? They’ll come around :)

Another benefit of these apps is that they are made to make your job easier, they might have a metronome, a whiteboard, games, all with the desire and ability to collaborate and interact!

We don't have to go back to the way that it was, if it wasn't serving you. You can pivot and be totally online for your music teaching biz. Kids around the world are going back into the classroom, so they are getting that human connection from their classroom, so they don't need to get it from all of their extracurriculars as well. It's one of those things that when classroom education was being done remotely and they weren't getting that connection, it was hard to convince people hat the kids could still get a benefit from a music lesson online, but now that the kids are back in school and the parents are realizing they can avoid by having their extracurriculars back at home, they can have dinner going and not have to worry about the timer going off in order to get out of the house to go and pick up their kid from lesson.

Joslin has noticed that when we embrace slowing down that processing what is being taught can be really beneficial to the learning process. I think that one of the misconceptions about online is that you can pack as much as you possibly can into 60 minutes or 30 minutes or 45 minutes because you're there. In an in person classroom you're not teaching the full 30 minutes, 45 minutes, 60 minutes, you are chit chatting with the kids, you're letting them stretch, you are having them experience the work right? When we come online we need to bring those same pauses and those same experiential aspects into the online space.

The structure of lessons

Joslin is a talker, she is a storytelling teacher. That's how she is best able to convey information and truly connect with her students. So, the first five minutes is always going to be questions like:

How are you doing?
How is your week? W
What did you do this week?
What was fun?
What's your dog up to?

The transition from one activity to another has been lost somewhat in the online space. The time it would take on the drive from one place to another, gives you a chance to let go of the old thing that you were working on and focus on the new thing that you're going to do. It's essential for students to have that reset before diving into a new thing. We need to give our brains a chance to reset.

Then comes stretching and some warming up which leads into conversation around practice and what they want to achieve from the current lesson. It might be a “pick from this list” or it might be a freeform or open conversation. It depends on the individual student or if it’s a group lesson.

Lessons are fairly fluid in Joslin’s studio. She also includes listening labs. Sometimes they are listening to a particular song, or an artist or jumping on YouTube. Joslin’s goto video is Leontyne Price's farewell performance of Aida at the Met where she sings Oh Patria Mia. It’s from 1985 and not a great recording but it opens up conversation. Curated listening can be more valuable than just saying to a student, go listen to something on Youtube. It become a conversation and opens up the true heart and soul of the student, which makes the new material they are learning that much easier to absorb.

Group Classes

Joslin is a program with her students based on the Full Voice Curriculum by Nikki Loney. It’s completely new to her that she’s planning out her classes rather than just see where the lesson goes! It’s a weekly class over 11 weeks and 3 terms. They are going to work through the entire introductory workbook over the course of the year, wrapping up in the middle of June 2022.

Nikki Loney has many amazing resources, including songs, vocal studies and activities. Joslin is planning on laying out all the resources and creating her own custom structure for the classes. The price of the program includes the workbook, coloring sheets and activity sheets… she’s also made sure to be paid for her prep time!

Joslin also has two other classes, one for teens and young adults, the other is for adults. These are more social and give the opportunity to connect and sing from the living room. Something like an at home karaoke bar. These are a masterclass or workshop format where students present and get feedback, work a bit and interact with one another.

A bit about the benefits of Joslin’s big group program and how she conveys it to the parents.

It starts by focusing on how kids benefit from being around other kids who are doing the same thing as they are. They get a benefit from both the group activity itself, individual attention and time away from individual focus. Some kids are shy and don’t want to sing by themselves, so the group format lets them gain confidence and comfort. There is also a cost benefit and some kids are not able to maximize their time in a private lesson, because they might just not have the attention span for it, so the value of group is multifold.

In Joslin’s program students are going to use their body and voice. Body is for both percussion and movement. And she emphasizes the fun!

The barriers to online music lessons are probably between your own ears. The barriers to launching your group program are things that you think someone else is going to think! So, I say stop thinking and just get started. The world is big enough for everybody's offer.

Connect with Joslin:

Jrdvoicestudio.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jrdvoicestudio
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/JRDVoiceStudio

Connect with Jaime:

http://callwithjaime.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/expandonlinenow/
Expand Online Community on Facebook: https://expandonlinecommunity.com
Work with me: https://techofbusiness.com/offer/signature/

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

183: Teaching the Teachers with Dorla Aparicio (August Teacher Series Episode 2)

Wed, 04 Aug 2021 10:30:00 +0000

August Teacher Series – Episode 2 with Dorla Aparicio.

The idea behind the teacher series is to showcase teachers who have already expanded online, what they’re doing, why they chose to make those decisions and all that fun stuff. This episode is with Dorla Aparicio, a group piano teacher who is sharing her methods with other piano teachers through an online program!

I would love your feedback on this episode. This series and anything else you would like to share, so connect with me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and book a call with me http://callwithjaime.com

About Dorla

Dorla Aparicio is originally from Costa Rica and has lived in Texas for about 35 years. She has been teaching piano for about that same amount of time both privately and for a while at a local college in Fort Worth. Dorla greatly enjoys group piano lessons and has made that the focus of her studio.

Dorla’s online course is teaching other piano teachers how to effectively teach group piano lessons. They can either apply these principles to online or in person groups. Essentially, she took the methods that work for her in her studio and is teaching them to others -- this is one of the best ways to expand online, in my mind.

Deciding to teach the teachers

Group Piano has always been close to Dorla’s heart and it's still not as popular as she wishes it would be. It has benefits for the teachers like

manage their time better
be able to serve more students

The truth is, most piano teachers have students who are not on the track to become performers!

When other piano teachers were regularly asking Dorla about teaching group piano, with questions like

What method do I use?
How do I do it?
How do I handle this situation or that situation?

Dorla decided it was the right time to step out and teach the teachers.

Running group piano programs sounds so easy, on the surface, but the reality is that it's not always just going from one on one to group and there are a lot of things that have to go into the idea of offering this group programming that is different.

There were so many opportunities to empower teachers to make group piano successful. Things like addressing teacher and student pain points, making classes fun and engaging and, managing scheduling and expectations.

The structure of Dorla’s Group Piano Lessons

Dorla’s classes are multi level, with students from age 8 to 11 in one group and 11 to 14 in another. And they're all at different stages in their learning. There might be a brand new student playing along with one who has been playing for two or 3 years. The key is that they play the same song but at different levels. The classes make music together. Each student contributes to the overall music being created, no matter where they are at with theory and technique.

The beginner student sees where they can get to when they continue to work at it when they look at the more advanced student. The more advanced student sees how far they’ve come when they look at the beginner student. It’s built in motivation and inspiration and support.

Group Wins

According to Dorla, teachers have begun to realize that they don't need to do as much as we thought we needed to in order to teach groups or to get a group started!

You can have a group of four or 6 kids and work with them for an hour. And that is a huge investment of time for these six kids. But it's not six 1-hour classes, it’s one 1-hour lesson where you're creating the impact and helping these students. Also, the students get to the point where they know that they're going to show up because they've got friends in their group.

We have the opportunity to help these kids enjoy playing the instrument and getting better and having the desire to get to “move up” inside the group.

There are many intellectual skills that are enhanced by being in a safe community. The students are able to work as a team -- it truly is an amazing thing, not just for music! When these students take the principles from the music room out onto the sports field, at school or later on in life, they can speak up for themselves and hold their ground.

The positive peer pressure is such a good thing. Dorla has students that are very competitive and even though they don't show that in class, their parents told her this is the reason they practice {because they know when they come to class, if they have to play out loud, they want to make sure they know what they're doing!}

Having the foundation right

Not every music teacher should jump right into teaching other teachers their methods. It’s important to validate your method, that your curriculum or structure is organized enough so that other teachers can use it as the ground floor for their own programs

The teachers that are set to learn from you are going to put their own spin on what you provide to them.

Dorla got really good at what she was getting ready to teach others. She saw this multi-level piano group in her mind and crafted it inside her studio and put it down on paper. She used her students as guinea pigs and she made it work. In fact she has quite a few students that this is the only way that they've taken piano, they don't know what it is to have a private lesson.

That’s how she knew there was something very valuable here that she could share with teachers. And then because she’s a teacher at heart, building the curriculum is one of the things that she mostly did just for fun. And it was a debate between doing her PhD or offer her own course!

What was the worse that could happen, right?

Dorla’s course, The Piano Pyramid Academy, is setup as a framework. The framework provides a series of questions for teachers to answer to figure out how the method will work in their studio. There is music that the students in the Piano Pyramid Academy that Dorla wrote which her students can then use as they see fit.

The program includes her videos and the steps that she follows so that participants can then put that into practice at their studio and create their own unique program.

It's so important for teachers to stay true to ourselves. If you are a teacher and you know, that you do better working with students who have this feature or that asset or this family situation or anything else that you’re uniquely connected with you don't have to remove that and open it up to everyone. You can keep those, those things that you know, work best for you.

Group piano transcends just learning how to be play piano, it allows for learning to be an effective member of a group and so much more.

Perception

Both in her studio and in her teaching program, there is one vital topic that comes up -- how to share the value of group piano with the parents!

How do I convince the parents? We need to convince ourselves first that this is going to work. And then talk about this program in contrast with private lessons. Painting the picture of who each type of program is for -- be it for lifelong (or shortterm) fun and enjoyment of playing the piano and -- for either college auditions or festivals or competitions.

What if my child is too busy to practice? This is one of the beauties of group programming, as Dorla explains, when you make it fun, the students don’t feel like they have to practice. Students will because, like we already discussed, they place value on the relationship with the other students in the group. Some parents completely shy away from piano lessons because of the additional burden they feel associated with practice.

Being at your best! Parents know that they want the first lesson of your schedule because of potential fatigue -- each student in a group program is on an even playing field with your energy, total win for the families!

Some less pretty things about teaching online

It is harder to teach a group program in online space because you can't play together because even though tech is getting better there's always going to be lag. And there's always the potential for a weaker an internet connection than desired.

Not being in the same physical space is another consideration -- so allowing students idle chit chat time is really helpful to break the starkness of the screen.

Understanding who your audience is, understanding who your students are and they're driving force will help you to create a group environment where things can happen in a way that they need to happen. This will create the right balance of learning, performance, critique and joy. It’s about making music together -- as long as the students can hear something, even if they cannot hear everything, they are making music together!

One of Dorla’s favorite things about teaching online: With online I didn’t have to clean my studio for a long time because I was the only one here!

Access to online videos is easier online as is playing recorded music and sharing a digital keyboard. And Dorla believes that she was able to explain things in multiple ways through online that weren’t needed in person.

Get off the fence!!!

It is the right time to go for it because we're still living in this pandemic and people need things to do. But also as a teacher, this will make you grow and you know, doing things that are new are always, you know, a little scary. But once you do this, make it fun to start… like just having a party; just get together with your students once a month and have a party online.

Then next month, do it twice and maybe do a performance class and a party.

Then next time just do a game and get the students and yourself comfortable.

If it's a party, the technical stuff will not be as scary for you because you're all, they're just having fun. But once you get comfortable doing it, just keep going, keep going and in a year, if you've taken all these little steps, you'll be ready to stay online and you can do it. You can definitely do it!

Reach Dorla at dorla@missdorla.com or on Instagram at https://www.instagram.com/missdorla/ on Facebook at https://www.facebook.com/missdorla and join her group on Facebook https://www.facebook.com/groups/grouppianoteachers

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

182: Teaching Online with Stephanie Chevalier (August Teacher Series Episode 1)

Wed, 28 Jul 2021 10:30:44 +0000

August Teacher Series - Episode 1 with Stephanie Chevalier.

The idea behind the teacher series is to showcase teachers who have already expanded online, what they're doing, why they chose to make those decisions and all that fun stuff. This episode is with Stephanie Chevalier, who is doing some really cool things out of her home in Baltimore Maryland.

I would love your feedback on this episode, so connect with me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky and book a call with me http://callwithjaime.com

Stephanie is a piano teacher and voice teacher and a performer. She had her european opera debut in 1999 and sang for 10 years at the Kennedy Center with the Washington opera. She has taught at various music schools including Levine School of Music in DC and Charleston Academy of Music in Charleston, South Carolina. She lives in Baltimore, Maryland and teaches out of her home.

She has been on the online space for a while mainly because she had many students that were military and would go overseas or would leave and then come back and they wanted continuity.

Before Covid, she had students coming in and out of her home in groups and individually. Covid was the impetus to make the switch to fully online.

Stephanie’s Online Offers

She offers group classes as part of her private study program. The students come for one private lesson a week and then they come as a group. This is how it was structured in person before, but now it is all happening on zoom.

It's a program, it's not just one on one lessons, which is more than what students get in person. In most studios you just come for a lesson; especially with piano, you just come for a lesson, you leave and that's it. Whereas with Stephanie, students meet once a week as a group.

These groups are where they do theory, training, singing and performance. Each week, she rotates what she does with them. There's always something new and something fresh to do!

I love the fact that Stephanie understands the necessity and desire for one on one lessons and also appreciates and expresses how valuable the group programming is. I am all about the group programming! I think that that is such a huge, valuable component of what we can offer in the online space. That when you have the opportunity to provide your students instruction through multiple disciplines and in multiple environments, they're going to be a more well rounded student and be able to take their learnings further into their future.

And Stephanie’s second offer lhas evolved since it started last summer. She felt very strongly that students needed to have music all summer. Which started as doing a sing a song a day, for free online on Youtube every day. Five days a week she taught a song in a music concept, every morning it went about 20 minutes.

Stephanie is motivated by what music does in and for the brain. She stacked this on top of equality and having resources. In the fall, she continued on one day a week on Saturdays.

And now, a year later it has evolved into a Patreon page! With Patreon she is able to augment the YouTube classes with weekly group lessons — in piano, ukulele, voice and jam sessions.

Let’s talk about being resourceful

Stephanie has already mentioned zoom, YouTube and Patreon.

Next: the Marco Polo app. It’s a place where Stephanie uses rooms to allow people to come in and talk about your YouTube video or other content and stuff. The advancements in the app are pretty awesome. And it’s on your phone, which is a benefit for sure. We discuss other ways Stephanie uses Marco Polo with her private students as well.

Check out Marco Polo in the App Store or Google play.

Hello Audio - which is the tool and platform I use to house this podcast. It allows for private podcast feeds as well as my public podcast. So what I can do is if I had a student that only wanted asynchronous lessons and they wanted to listen to them from their phone, from their podcast app, I could put all of my recordings for them right there. These audio recordings will be a podcast feed and it would drop into their podcast app every single week or whatever cadence made sense and they're the only subscriber!

There is nothing that says that you have to use today, what you've always used, there is nothing to say that you can't try using something new.

With online, occupancy isn’t an issue, students bringing attitude into class doesn’t need to derail everyone and you can reach more students than in person, not just with respect to space but also geography.

We discuss a lot of the ways Stephanie is taking advantage of online tools. But even though she is “fully online” she will be doing a little bit of hybrid with the young ones once they're vaccinated.

Since the start of the pandemic, Stephanie’s student roster has increased by 50%. Which she attributes equally to word of mouth and doing something online on the regular. People got used to learning a song every Saturday morning! Even on the West Coast — super early for us out here.

It didn’t happen overnight. She went from a handful of people coming to the livestreams to a dozen to several dozen and more. And that doesn’t even factor in the people who watch the replay.

In her own words “But I have had to get really a lot better at telling people to sign up and this is where you find me because I just want to teach.”

BUSTED!

If you are listening or reading right now, I want you to know that you're not too late nor are you too early. You are right at the right time to make the investment in your future. Because just like Stephanie did, she started.

Stephanie has had great online success and over the past year and a half and I know that it's going to continue because she’s got her heart in it, and she’s got her mind in it and she wakes up every day with the expectation of providing value to her audience as well as her students.

Stephanie’s parting words:

Well, the one thing that I will say is, well, two things don't give up because, you know, I'm still plugging away at it. And the other thing is that you can do two things at once. You can continue to teach in person while you're building your online presence, it doesn't have to be all or nothing. And then when you get a certain amount online, you start switching or do what you need to do. But you can do two things at once. You know, you don't need to just quit your job and all of a sudden do everything online. I say, you know, switch a little bit gently. I love that. I think that is the best way to wrap up this episode.

Be sure to connect with Stephanie:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/charmcitymezzo/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/Patterson-Park-Piano-Voice-Studio-175140449173381
Website: https://chevaliermusique.musicteachershelper.com/
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCT2CX0_eXydxHRZxUQHrm-w
Patreon https://www.patreon.com/stephaniechevalier

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

181: Focus for online growth

Wed, 21 Jul 2021 10:30:24 +0000

181: Focus for online growth

Let’s talk about focus… focusing our efforts on the right things and keeping the blinders on, that is!

This conversation is about personal experience as well as experiences with past and present clients -- and no, I’m not calling you out... I am sharing the fact that this doesn't go away.

We all have priorities; we all have goals.

And I know that our driving force is student success, studio profitability and work life balance. It always is. We want to make sure our studio is doing what it needs to for ourselves, for our employees or contractors, for our patrons or students or clients.

It is often difficult to make sure that we're spending our time and focusing on the right thing. Let’s talk about focus in a few areas:

Being deliberate

It’s really hard to focus our efforts on a task if we are not clear about the reason for doing so. Here’s an example:

If you are working on growing your Instagram following and creating connections and engagement, but you don't know how that's going to increase your studio, get your students greater success and help with your work life balance, it’s going to be an absolute drain to pull out your phone and be present on Instagram.

We need to understand why, why are we spending time on instagram! In this case, it is so that we have more awareness for our studio, so that people can become interested in what it is that we offer. Which inturn becomes sales conversations to bring in new students, student success and creating that studio that we are envisioning for ourselves.

Keeping this vision front of mind, and being deliberate when on the platform is going to lead to success.

When we say every single time I'm going on Instagram I'm doing that so that I can bring in new students to my studio and for my current students to see that I am having success and that I am visible and that my studio is growing and that they are part of a movement!

What that also means is that when you are on Instagram, you are there with intention not scrolling and double tapping and then clicking on a hashtag and going down a rabbit hole… you're there with focus, you're there with a purpose! You know what you need to do

Mastering a platform

Let’s talk about mastering Instagram… as an example, but you can choose any platform you want for this.

Once you’ve made your choice of Instagram, don't dabble on LinkedIn, or start a Facebook group, or start a youtube channel or get on Tiktok. Stay on instagram until it is doing what you need to do or until you determine that it is the wrong platform.

It is so easy to have the idea of being everywhere… the misconception is that if I'm everywhere, people are obviously going to find me.

But unfortunately, it actually means that your message is being diluted and you're going to be forced to split your effort across the platforms instead of putting all your effort into a single one.

Staying focused on getting everything you can out of a social media platform before adding another one, that is really your top priority. Remember, you picked that platform to begin with because you believed it was where you could have the greatest impact, don't doubt your past self… know that you picked it and that it is going to serve you when you put the effort in.

We don't have to stay on just one platform forever. Mastery takes time, mastery takes effort and it's going to be faster and easier to master something when we avoid distractions, right?

Stick to your core offering

Focus on delivering the most valuable product/program you can and don’t worry about creating offers that don’t stick to your core expertise and where you truly shine.

Don’t go down the rabbit hole of creating more offers, more freebies, more products, more courses. Be the best at what you do and your audience will believe you.

We want to avoid bloating ours offer and getting to a point where we're diluting our genius. We all want to say yes as often as possible, but it's really important to stay focused on your core instrument and the best teaching that you can possibly do.

It's better to say no to something that doesn’t align with your core offer and provide a quality referral instead of diluting yourself.

Blind yourself to your competition

Competition is a driver for innovation. But if you spend too much time looking at what other teachers or coaches are doing, you're not spending your time growing your audience, growing your authority and being the best that you can be for your current and future students.

Competition is really important, it's important to see what other people are doing, but limit the competition voyeurism. It doesn't help you and it doesn't help the competitor and it definitely doesn't help your students and your studio.

We want to make sure that we are putting out the best product all the time. And it doesn't matter what someone else is doing because they have their own driving forces and those are unique from yours. Keeping your blinders on and staying focused on what you need to deliver is going to help you find the success you seek faster and with far less stress!

If you stay focused on your students and your studio and your goals, which you know, we've talked about throughout this entire episode, it is going to be far easier to attract the right students.

It doesn't matter what your competitors are broadcasting, they have different goals and metrics from you.

When you focus on being the best that you are and that you can be, you're going to just reap the benefits of that effort.

My goal on the podcast is always to provide you with inspiration, motivation and a pathway forward, I would say right now, it might be worth writing down a few of the guiding principles, a few of the underlying themes and reasons why your business exists and why you want to expand online and keep those at the forefront of your mind, keep those visibly in front of you when you sit down to work, focus on what you can control, focus on where you spend your time and where you invest, your energy.

Have you booked your free call with me yet? http://callwithjaime.com is where you do it :)

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

180: Mindset and Expanding Online

Wed, 14 Jul 2021 10:30:18 +0000

My goal is to help you see beyond the limits that you have set for yourself. When we're in a space of expansion, there is so much opportunity!

This podcast episode is split into two sections:

why we need a growth mindset as we are expanding online
how to create that growth mindset from wherever you are right now

Growth Mindset

By the official definition, a growth mindset “describes people who believe that their success depends on time and effort. People with a growth mindset feel that their skills and intelligence can be improved with effort and persistence. They embrace changes, persist through obstacles, learn from criticism and seek out inspiration in others successes.

So what does that mean?

It means that it's okay to fail.
It's okay to try something and not like it and say no, thank you.
It's okay to try something, have it exceed your expectations and then for you to double down on it.
It's okay to hire somebody and to decide that you actually really like the job that you hired them for and to move them around in your business or to say, you know what I really want to take this back.
It's okay to start with a piece of software and decide that that piece of software doesn't do what you needed to do and start with a new piece of software

Essentially with a growth mindset, we are always looking for the opportunity and the experience that comes along with it. Rather than what's called a closed mindset, which is staying where we're comfortable staying in the way things have always been done (staying in status quo.)

Why do we need a growth mindset when we are expanding online?

Quite simply, it's because everybody's online experience is different. Everybody finds success in different ways!

Some may have success ads.
Some might have wild success with social media.
Some might rock at blogging or podcasting

There are so many ways to create awareness for yourself that you don't know, I don't know and your next door neighbor doesn't know which one or two or three are going to be the winning combination for you and your business. You have to try -- you have to go all in on something -- knowing that the outcome may not be what you envision it to be.

And we also have to be comfortable putting things on the shelf for later. That one is tough because we have all the ideas, we want to implement everything right here right now!

In order to have a growth mindset we have to make sure that we have a forward progression and that it's not a scattered progression. We want to make sure that we are taking ourselves on a journey. We don't know if that road is going to go left, right, stay centered, maybe have a uTurn or two in it or switchbacks or things like that. We just need to be continually moving forward.

If we start too many things then we become scattered and we are suddenly putting ourselves in the middle of a maze, not sure which way the road really needs to go. With a growth mindset, we are being disciplined but being forward thinking, we are being cautious but thorough and we are being strategic without holding ourselves back!

We have to decide that we're going to start and follow through.

We also need to understand how to niche down and what that means for opportunities. When we expand online, the whole world is available to us and so we could really work with anybody who wants to learn from us.

When you are a generalist or you put yourself out there as “the teacher for everyone” nobody knows why they should choose you.

Niching is the necessity as well as the opportunity to narrow down exactly who we work with, how we work with them and what kind of results we are going to help our students achieve.

You don't have to create programs that span the spectrum from absolute beginner to absolute professional, you don't have to go that broad, you can go super specific.

An example I use regularly:

You are a fabulous piano teacher and the kids that you love teaching more than anything else are the lower elementary kids who are also involved in team sports. You become the piano teacher for kids who are athletic and have learned how to work as a team.

Talk about narrowing down who we’re working with right? It seems like we might be limiting ourselves, but niching down actually is part of the growth, it is part of the, “Hey, I'm putting my stake in the ground and creating this opportunity for this unique population.”

Once we niche, we can see how many more opportunities are truly out there.

Let’s get out of the fixed mindset!

You are able to make as much money as you want! You are so talented and have such a vast array of material that you can teach. You are not limited by what you've always done.

Let that sink in: You can do whatever you want. That fact alone is going to help you get out of the fixed mindset and into a growth mindset.

The quality of your teaching is going to improve when you work with a larger variety and cross section of the population. If you've always thought that the best teaching that you have ever done is in the one-on-one relationship, imagine the potential when you take what you've done with that student or five of those students and merge that together! You are going to create a better product to deliver to a group.

This exploration of taking the best parts of your individual lessons and processes and bringing them all together to create something that is more universal for your niche -- Boom, that is getting into that growth mindset!

Let’s look inward for a moment and see what is holding you back. Understanding where your weaknesses or flaws are allows you to exploit them. How can we turn a weakness or flaw into a positive and a growth opportunity???

An example:

Maybe that weakness or flaw is that you can't type!

I can't do online programming because I can't type. Think about how you can get around typing -- maybe you cou dictate or hire someone to take notes for you?

What can you do to get around the fact that you can't type?

Looking at our weaknesses and our flaws and exploiting them to become better -- that's what it's all about, that's how we get out of the fixed mindset and into the growth mindset!

Your business cannot look the same at the end of this year, as it did at the beginning of this year. The world is passing it by.

If you sit in that fixed mindset or closed mindset for too much longer, your opportunities are going to feel like they dry up. Remember this is the Expand Online podcast -- It's all about expansion and growth and opportunity! So, get started expanding and growing :)

I'd love to talk with you about the opportunities that are right at your fingertips. So click on the link http://callwithjaime.com and we'll get on a quick call.

Let’s chat about what you want to accomplish and how we can get you out of that fixed or closed mindset and into that growth mindset to make those dreams a reality!

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

179: Don't be afraid of X-Y-or-Z

Wed, 07 Jul 2021 10:30:26 +0000

My goal is to help you expand your music business online with group programs, courses, membership sites and now hybrid opportunities. I have recently added hybrid opportunities because more and more of my clients are finding that they want to have some level of in person augmented by online offerings. And so I've embraced it because it just makes sense.

If you are thinking about Expanding Online... do it with a safety net! Do it with a mentor, coach advisor, techie, whomever it might be. Your potential for success is far greater than you doing this alone.

If you haven’t yet, click http://callwithjaime.com to book a free call with me.

This episode is a mirroring effect; I am going back and forth between how I work with my clients (you and your peers) and how you work with your students -- it’s the same thought process and same iterations of business growth.

A scenario

Let’s suppose that you’re a piano teacher who has always taught in your home, your students come to your home and you teach them, they leave, they come back the next week. That was the way that you have operated your business for years.

Then of course, the pandemic, covid 19, hit us like a ton of bricks. And what did you do? The same as many other teachers and took what you were doing in person and threw it online using Zoom. You made a pivot!

Now, however, you can see that this isn't the absolute best way to help your students master what it is that you're teaching in your lessons. And you’re hanging out with me and see what I’m sharing -- the idea of the hybrid program or the online group program and even the online courses and membership sites.

So what’s holding you back from going for it? Usually being afraid of X, Y or Z.

Because you're afraid of X, Y or Z, instead of coming to me to work with me through the Mentorship program or the Incubator, you go and decide to follow someone else's guidebook.

This is usually an online course with modules on

how you set up your website
how you set up your marketing
how you set up your email list
how you attract new students

They're essentially taking you through their process for having done this transition from one on one through zoom to group programs or hybrid or a course or things like that.

The main reason why you go for that program is because it's cheaper. Let me say that a little bit louder is because it's cheaper and you are scared of X. Y or Z. I don't know what X, Y and Z are for you, but many of my clients who first went the route of following someone else's course is because they were afraid to invest in their growth.

It feels easier to spend a small amount of money in order to get that course rather than creating something that is completely in alignment with the way they want to do business. Or because they are concerned that they aren’t going to be able to put the time in. There’s no shortcut here, you have to put the time in whether you are doing the course or you're doing the interactive program. Another reason why people choose a course rather than an interactive program is because they are thinking too small. They are thinking about the next step, not the next six months, not the next 12 months, not the next three years.

This is a stopgap measure.

The emotions and decisions you’re making as you expand online are akin to those decisions that your families and students are making. It really doesn’t matter what you are teaching.

It probably sounds like “I am not sure I really want to take an online group program.... maybe I should just go to Udemy or skillshare or find a course that is being offered by a teacher online. I don't really need to have interaction with my teacher to be successful do I?”

As the teacher, you know how much more success your students are going to have if they have some level of interaction with you. I am the same way... I know that you're going to have more online success, easier online success if you work with someone in the space rather than buying a course and trying to apply it and squish your business into their container.

There are so many decisions we have to make and if you follow a course then you're going to have all those decisions made for you which don't factor in your style or the tech that you're already using or your methodology or anything. Whereas when you work with a mentor or coach, you get real live feedback.

I understand where you feel really strong and where you need more support.

When students make the decision between an online course to teach them piano basics or working in a group program to learn piano basics, they don't necessarily see how the two are going to benefit them differently. They don't see that the follow through is that much greater with the group program where there's accountability and interaction and things like that.

While I love, love, love online courses and I love love love love membership sites, it is not the first step. The first step for me with my clients is the online group program or a hybrid program.

I've thought about creating an online course… I've thought about it countless times and every single time I go down that road, I hit forks, I hit forks of, “oh, I should do this” or “I should do that.” or maybe “I'll take them down this path and give them the choice” and it becomes this convoluted mess that nobody is going to get their way through.

In online programs, we get to fulfill the needs of the individuals who make up that group and everybody wins. Everybody is able to learn that much more and feel that much more accomplished.

A declaration:

When we are working towards creating something new, we want to use the tools that are best suited for that new thing. And that generally means working 1-on-1 with a teacher or a mentor or a coach or being part of their online group program or their hybrid program.

This could be me talking with you (which it is) but it’s also you talking with your prospective student or family -- explaining to them why the online group program or the hybrid program is the next best step.

If you want to create a group program or a hybrid program of some kind, then working with someone who understands all the intricacies of going from one on one to group programming is going to help you far more than going and finding some random course just the same as your students are going to do far better taking a group program from you and having the program adapt slightly to the members of the group than they would if they were just to grab a piano course off the shelf.

Remember, go to http://callwithjaime.com and book your free call today.

Don't be afraid of X, Y or Z -- we can get through this together.

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

178: Asking the big little question of WHY!

Wed, 30 Jun 2021 10:30:00 +0000

We are just a day away from the second half of 2021 as of the time of this episode… and I have a big question for you…

Why?

Why are you doing your business the way that you are doing your business?
Why are you servicing your clients and your students the way that you are servicing your clients or students?
Why are you creating material for your students for your studio, the way that you are creating the material for your students and for your studio?
Why are you offering lessons when you offer lessons?
Why are you interacting with your students the way that you're interacting with your students?
Why are you taking payments the way that you are taking payments?
Why are you doing booking the way you're doing booking?

Why is your business operating the way it is right now, as we cross into the second half of 2021?

The question is, are we working smart?

Are we working in a way that our businesses are serving our core desires, our core feelings, our core mission?
Are we working the way we always have or the way we thought we're supposed to, or the way that someone else taught us?

Book a call with me: http://callwithjaime.com

What we're really doing here is thinking about:

How we can make our businesses run better?
How can our businesses support our dreams & our goals better?
How can we use our time better?
How can we achieve our goals for this year in a way that feels in alignment with our values?
How can we make the second half of this year or the next six months if you're listening in the future, the best they possibly can to align our business with our goals and have our business truly reflect why we continue down this path.

I want to challenge you to think about where we were 18 months ago as we were starting January of 2020.

We didn't know that there was going to be an educational revolution occurring over the forthcoming 18 months with so many opportunities online in order to just make ends meet

If you are like most of the listeners here and most of my clients online was a distant plan and now it's everywhere. It is what we do. It is how we work. It is how we want to continue to work.

I see this in facebook groups and communities and a part of all the time where music teachers were so resistant to teaching online and now I don't want to teach in person anymore!

A lot of things have changed for these teachers, but what they haven't changed and what you don't have to change is why you are in this business,

Why you do things the way you do can change, but why you are teaching the instrument or instruments or music or methodologies that you are teaching is for a greater purpose. It's for a greater purpose in your own life and in the lives of the students that you're teaching and that's really the point.

It doesn't matter how we get there, it matters that we are on the right path.

Why are you actually thinking about expanding online or why are you doubling down on your efforts to expand online?

How is being online going to be super amazing? How is what you've got on deck going to improve everything that you touch? It's not going to happen overnight, but if you create the right plan, if you put the right pieces in place and have a solid strategy for moving forward, you will get there.

Your business as we turn the page to 2022 can be in complete alignment with why you're in business.

You may not deliver lessons the way you currently deliver lessons,
You may not do billing the way that you currently do billing,
You may not do scheduling the way that you currently do scheduling,
You may not work with the same subset of students.

It all takes a little bit of planning, a little bit of goal setting and a little bit of grit.

We need to be disciplined enough to follow through on our hopes and dreams and wishes. Planning gets us there… I like half year planning at the end of June or beginning of July. And quarterly planning in late December or early January and then again in late March or early April.

I love hosting planning sessions and I’ve got them scheduled according to the timeline I just listed. If you’re reading this/listening in real time then click over to https://techofbusiness.thrivecart.com/2021-planning/ and sign up for the next half year planning session. If that one has passed, send me a DMs on Instagram or Facebook and I’ll make sure you’re one of the first to hear about the next planning session.

Get back to why you're doing this business, not why you're doing the things that you do in the business but why the business exists and what it's there to serve and how it can help you, your students, your family, your studio, your employees, everybody around you now and well into the future.

Why is such a little word! Just three letters! But it is the starting point to so many opportunities with exploring. We are here to expand online. Clearly understanding why you show up every single day for your students is a start, but there is so much more, so let’s take that WHY to conversation -- http://callwithjaime.com or if you think you need a bit longer https://techofbusiness.com/connect-call/

It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.

177: Have a productive summer

Wed, 23 Jun 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Have you felt it? There has been a noticable shift in the attitudes and outlook online over the past few weeks -- the shift from school to summer!

And I'm hearing from many of you the desire to be productive without being busy, desire to launch in the fall but not do a lot right now and most resounding, the desire to make money without teaching all day.

So, today let's talk about 3 ways to be productive this summer:

Work on your fall programming with earnest
Offer workshops and summer camps
Do Q3/Q4 planning

Fall Programming

Every program we offer goes through five phases:

Idea ~ Mode of Delivery ~ Tech Considerations ~ Creation ~ Launch.

This summer is a great time to work at your own pace with a focus on completing multiple phases.

Summer Workshops

I spoke about these at length on Episode 172 & Episdoe 173

This is a great opportunity for both you and your students to explore aspects of the music scene and education outside of traditional lessons or your regular style of teaching

Plan Q3/Q4

Being productive comes from having a plan, so if you don't have a plan for the final 6 months of the year, it's time to get a plan in place.

Usually a plan starts with a goal, be it financial, student enrollment, student retention, programming options, or whatever you want, having a goal to work against will keep you focused and on task.

Join me for the Q3/Q4 planning workshop https://techofbusiness.thrivecart.com/2021-planning/

During our time together we will determine your goal, create a roadmap, build success metrics and more. This two hour session is going to be so powerful!

You can be productive this summer without being busy. I believe in you.

As always, I'm happy to jump on a call with you: http://callwithjaime.com

176: The case against course marketplaces

Wed, 16 Jun 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is about the drawbacks of teaching through a marketplace website like Udemy or Skillshare rather than your own platform.

While I’m not meaning to, this may come across as a bit of a rant, my intention is to showcase the value of putting in the work to do your online studio right, from the beginning, or if you really want to use one of these marketplaces, to build in an exit strategy.

The number one reason people start teaching on these platforms is because they have a built in audience and creators believe that it’ll be easier to start making money when they don’t have to worry about marketing.

Udemy

Did you know that course creators who don’t do their own marketing only make 37% of the course fee on Udemy? It’s true… you’re paying 63% for marketing and promotion. For course sales that you promote, you retain 97%, which is obviously far better than 37%, right? But don’t forget, one of the biggest reasons creators start on Udemy is because they don’t want to market.

In addition to Udemy taking a huge percentage of your sales, courses on Udemy are ridiculously under valued. They are almost all slashed prices, down to somewhere between $15 and $30 from $60 - $300 on average.

An example

If you have a course that is listed at $200 and slashed to $20, you make $7.40 on every sale of this course that comes from the Udemy marketplace and $19.40 from every sale you make directly.

When you’re on your own platform, there are fees like credit card processing which is about the same 3% that Udemy takes plus the cost of the platform you use. But you can charge what the course is actually worth rather than discounting to meet the expectations of the clientele.

Assume your platform is the Thinkific pro plan, at $99/month and that we are able to generate 10 sales of our $200 course each month. That’s $2000, minus the $99 Thinkific fee and the $60 in payment processing fees. Which leaves you with an income of $1841.

Or on Udemy, with the price slashed to $20, we’re looking at $194 for that same 10 students. Let’s be optimistic and say that you’ve done a great job setting your course up and Udemy displays it prominently so that you are able to generate another 50 students from the marketplace… that works out to an additional $370. So your monthly income would be $564 which is one third of the income that you are able to generate for the same amount of effort on your own platform.

I truly want you to benefit from your online courses in as many ways as possible, but most importantly from the financial side. And I don’t believe that marketplaces are the best place to position yourself as an authority.

What we put into our marketing will come back to us. We will attract the best students when we build something that holds true to ourselves.

Skillshare

This is another marketplace but instead of the patrons of the site purchasing individual courses, the patrons become members and are granted access to all the courses on the site. From there, creators are paid based on percentages. It goes something like this… the site pools all the income into a pot and then takes a percentage of that to distribute to the creators, then from there the percentage each creator receives is based on the number of minutes people watched their content. So if the total pool of creator watched content is 10,000 minutes and your courses were watched for 500 minutes, then you will receive 5% of the creator pool.

I don’t even know how to guess actual numbers and potential income for Skillshare… but I do know that it’s hard to figure out how to have a profitable business when there are so many variables outside of your control.

Costs

The upfront costs of your own platform may be daunting, I hear that from clients all the time, but Thinkific has a free tier to get started with your first course on.

Once that’s income producing, you’ll have the funds to upgrade to a higher plan.

Student Communication

The other major drawback to marketplace sites is that you don’t actually have a student list. You are not able to market other courses or offers to your students on these platforms. Sure you can do some level of direct messaging, emailing and announcements, but there is no direct relationship between you and your students.

Exit Strategy

How do we stop relying on Udemy or Skillshare and start building our own email and prospective student list? The same way as any other online course creator… social media marketing, ads, podcasting, blogging, YouTube and so on. Now, I don’t know if you can insert anything into your Udemy or Skillshare course for students to follow you on social media or if that is against the terms of service. I know you can list your website and a few social media accounts on your profile, so that’s at least something you can start with right now. If you don’t have your profile completely built out, go there right after you finish listening to this episode.

The other question is why would someone who is currently paying for Skillshare or your slashed prices on Udemy want to come with you off the platform they are used to learning from you on?

The main reason someone will follow you off the platform is because of the potential growth. Say that your courses that aren’t on Udemy include a feedback loop or a monthly Q&A call, or accountability or personalized practice schedules, then you’re giving them a compelling reason to join you.

It’s really the value of the next step of the relationship. Think back to college, when we were in our 100-level classes, we were in large auditoriums with tons of students. The professor didn’t know our names and couldn’t match our work to our faces. Then we go to 200-level classes and build a stronger relationship with our professors and for that matter our peers. Then by 300 and 400- level classes, we select our classes based on the professors and classmates, not always the other way around.

It’s the same with online classes and programs, first we take what we are initially exposed to and then we invest in the teachings of a specific teacher. Your students will want to follow you, because you’ve made a compelling offer!

I would love to know your thoughts on this episode, it’s a break from what I usually bring to the show and your feedback helps me create the best content for you. Go to http://callwithjaime.com and book a time for us to chat.

Here's the link to get a free month of the Thinkific pro plan: https://techofbusiness.com/thinkific/

174: Launching Your Online Music Program with Katie Zaccardi and Bree Noble

Wed, 02 Jun 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Joining me for today's episode are Katie Zaccardi and Bree Noble. These two ladies have a great program that they are launching -- all about launching -- and they are all in on music education. I'm delighted to bring you this conversation here on the podcast.

Before I give you a rundown, be sure to sign up for their free challenge using either of these links: https://www.katiezaccardi.com/freechallenge or profitablemusician.com/freechallenge and take their quiz: https://www.katiezaccardi.com/quiz or https://profitablemusician.com/quiz (It's all about not having preferential treatment -- they take you to the exact same place, just one is Bree's link the other is Katie's!)

OK, so now that we got that out of the way, let's put a couple of highlights on the topics we discuss:

finding a way to get attention online for your program without being annoying and turning off potential students
building a runway that leads up to your program launch
what not to do in a pre-launch phase
how everyone who participates in your launch actually benefits (and remembers that) even if they don't purchase
split audiences - where your student is a child and the stakeholder is the parent
using the right language in your launch

I hope you got a lot of value out of this episode, Katie and Bree are amazing and their upcoming challenge looks awesome. Be sure to connect with them if you're at the launch stage -- if you're however still working to figure out what you are going to launch, that's where I come in -- click this link to book a connect call with me --> https://techofbusiness.com/connect-call/

173: Online Summer Programming for Adults and Teens

Wed, 26 May 2021 10:30:00 +0000

In this episode I share with you a couple of ways to engage and inspire your adult and teenage learners with programs that are complimentary to your traditional teaching style.

Your adult and teen learners whom you work with one on one are in a perfect position to jump into a group program, especially one this summer. I firmly believe that the vibe of summertime is different and really works well for introducing programs that are fun and collaborative.

Be sure to book a call with me: http://callwithjaime.com and hit the subscribe or follow button in your podcast app right now, so that you can receive all future episodes delivered automatically each week.

172: Online Music Summer Camp

Wed, 19 May 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Summertime is a great time to experiment with new teaching modalities. In this episode, we discuss building a week long summer camp for kids and tweens.

You'll hear one method to running this type of program and it'll spark ideas that work for your studio. Let's have some fun this summer with scavenger hunts, making music with homemade instruments, blending indoor and outdoor activities and stretching creativity to its limits.

If you can teach live online lessons, you can run a summer camp program this summer. So put your camp counselor (or camp director) hat on and let's have some fun!

Want to bounce some ideas off me --> http://callwithjaime.com

Next week will be part 2 of stretching your opportunities this summer where we'll focus on working with teens and adults!

Follow the podcast and leave a rating/review!

171: Tech doesn't create success

Wed, 12 May 2021 10:30:00 +0000

In this episode I share with you why I don't believe that tech will create success with your online program, course or membership site, and why the right tech is vital to the success of your online program, course or membership site!

Without the right tech in place, our programs aren't able to shine the way that they deserve, our students aren't able to easily navigate the program and success can become elusive.

I don't want that for you, which is why I am committed to making sure that you have the best right tech for your students and your needs. Book a call with me at http://callwithjaime.com and connect with me on Instagram (https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/) and on Facebook (https://m.me/jaimeslutzky/).

It's only when tech doesn't work the way it needs to that it becomes the topic of conversation -- let's keep the conversation about your amazing curriculum, teaching style and student wins!

Kindly, leave a review of the podcast in the app you're listening to this episode in, it would mean the world to me!

170: Should I host a virtual summit?

Wed, 05 May 2021 10:30:00 +0000

We're in the middle of the Expand Online Summit --> https://expandonlinesummit.com right now and I am bringing you an "in the moment" update wrapped nicely in the question of whether hosting a virtual summit makes sense for you and your business goals.

Be sure to book a call with me http://callwithjaime.com to discuss this podcast episode or anything else that is going on in your business!

These show notes are super short this week, because I'm all in on the summit but I'm planning on coming back in after the summit is over to flush them out more. Thanks for understanding ;)

169: Business Growth as a Summit Attendee

Wed, 28 Apr 2021 10:30:00 +0000

The 2nd Annual Expand Online Summit kicks off on Monday May 3rd, 2021. Register at https://expandonlinesummit.com

Attending a summit is supposed to benefit your business, so let's make sure that you get the most out of any and all summits that you attend.

Start by showing up with a game plan, know what sessions you want to take in, when they are available and when they expire. Know what your goal is -- are you there to connet with certain speakers, network with attendees, learn about a specific tool or methodology? Are you there to get inspiration or to simply be entertained?

Next, grab an accountability partner to go through the summit with you. This is a great way to make sure that you can bounce ideas off someone else and leverage the summit for mutual benefit.

Take in as much as you possibly can as far as the extras -- are there live sessions? a Facebook community? Clubhouse or Zoom calls? Make this summit as serious and important to your business as an industry conference you'd pay thousands of dollars to attend.

It's that important. If you don't value what is being presented and internalizing it for personal and business growth, why sign up?

And the final thing, go in expecting to purchase the All-Access Pass. When we put money on the line, we are far more likely to invest our time and get a return from the attendance. All-Access Passes often have other benefits as well, such as bonus sessions and gifts/discounts/promotions from the speakers.

In a nutshell: Get as much as you can out of a summit; it's a lot of work for the host/organizer and we want you to be thrilled with the decision to sign up.

Oh, and lastly, reach out to the host and the other speakers. The online space is all about community and collaboration. If you want to reach out to me, book a call at http://callwithjaime.com and be sure to sign up for the summit right now: https://expandonlinesummit.com

168: Being a great Virtual Summit Speaker

Wed, 21 Apr 2021 10:30:00 +0000

The Expand Online Summit is coming up from May 3 - May 7, 2021 and you can register at https://expandonlinesummit.com

This event is an annual weeklong free opportunity for Music Teachers who are creating new online programming to learn how to make those programs effective, impactful and income producing.

Now, for this episode of the Expand Online Podcast, I share with you how to become a great Virtual Summit Speaker.

In order to be a great summit speaker, you need to connect with summit hosts -- so building out social media to not only attract your students, but also to be noticed by peers, coaches, associates and mentors is important. And make connections -- outreach is totally fine, you don't have to sit back and hope that someone you admire will invite you onto their platform.

Once you are invited as a speaker, be a good communicator. Answer questions when they are asked, respond with content when requested and support the summit as best as you can.

The saying "A rising tide lifts all boats" is absolutely true in the virtual summit space -- the more each speaker puts into the summit promotion, the better it is for all the speakers.

I'd love to hear what your biggest takeaway from this episode is -- share on IG Stories and tag @jaimeslutzky.

Book a free call with me --> http://callwitjaime.com

167: The magic between Idea and Development

Wed, 14 Apr 2021 10:30:00 +0000

So, you've got a *brilliant* idea for a new online program, course, workshop or membership -- that's incredible! I'm betting you're just super excited to get to putting content together so that it can shine like you feel in your bones, right?

Well, NOT-SO-FAST... okay?

Between the idea and the development of that idea is a crucial step called VALIDATION.

In this episode, we talk all about validation -- and yeah, I know, you've heard it before -- but seriously, there is a time and place for development, but it's not before you make sure that the time you spend on that program, workshop, course or membership is time that will pay you back in the form of new revenue.

Validation includes knowing your audience, talking with your audience, making sure that your idea matches their desires.

You are in the business of providing opportunity for others to tap into their passion and creativity -- making sure that you are giving them what they desire will go a long way towards making sure that they will sign up and become *raving fans*.

In this episode, I shared that listening to episode 158 would be beneficial (for the success matrix). I also mentioned that the best way that this podcast and my programs work for you is to get on a free call with me --> http://callwithjaime.com

166: Pricing Your Online Music Lessons & Programs

Wed, 07 Apr 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is not focused on raising your prices. It is not focused on squeezing as much as you can out of your students and their parents. It's not even about actually setting prices!

In reality, this episode of the podcast is strictly about thinking about pricing your lessons and programs for the online space.

When we start or expand our online offerings, it's a perfect time to re-evaluate how we set our pricing.

In this episode, I share with you my thoughts on:

pricing group programs that highlight the actual deliverables
pricing one on one online lessons
pricing small group online lessons

The difference between group programs and small group lessons is the way that instruction is presented and the expectation that occurs inside live sessions. That is not the focus of this episode, and I didn't even bring it up while I was recording, but I thought it would be helpful in case you had that question -- have another questions for me? Send me a DM on Instagram or Facebook!

This episode was entirely inspired and crafted after a short Instagram DM conversation with a voice and piano teacher a few days ago.

And and upcoming episode can come out of a conversation that we have --> https://techofbusiness.com/connect-call/ (this is a 30-minute call the one that I list on the podcast is http://callwithjaime.com which lasts 10-minutes -- both are free!)

Do you know someone who is ready to launch a new online program? Be sure to share this episode with them so that they price the program to match the deliverables :)

165: Conversations with Listeners & Clients

Wed, 31 Mar 2021 10:30:00 +0000

Celebrate with me! This is the official 3rd Anniversary Episode of the Expand Online Podcast.

The podcast kicked off in April 2018 and since this is the last episode of March 2021, we're celebrating! Leave a rating and review in your favorite podcast app (the one you're listening in right now, or if it doesn't have a review system, head to iTunes!)

On this episode, I share takeaways from three conversations I've had recently.

A new podcast listener who is getting ready to launch a music program live for his students/audience
A client who is creating a series of online courses
A longtime listener who is ready to invite her email list members to join her online group program

Conversations like these make my heart sing. I love being in conversation with you -- the more I understand about you, your business and your ideal students, the better this podcast will be week in and week out.

Join me in conversation: http://callwithjaime.com

164: What if nobody buys my new program?

Wed, 24 Mar 2021 10:30:00 +0000

We've all been there -- waking up in a cold sweat after we've been on an adrenaline rush after a new *brilliant* idea has come to us.

The cold sweat is fear setting in, and impostor syndrome, and what-ifs -- this episode doesn't talk about any of that, rather it's all about how you can flip the script in your head to GUARANTEE that you'll have students in your next new program.

It's not about the sales page.
It's not about the price.
It's not about getting 100's of people to magically fall in love with you.
It's all about positioning.
It's all about understanding your students' needs, wants and desires.
It's all about making your offer irresistible.

And it just takes real conversations. With real people. Because we are in the business of providing an opportunity to REAL PEOPLE.

Go out and connect and create a program that showcases your expertise and provides a real tangible value to your students!

And just like you're going to connect with people for the sake of your future programs (even if they don't buy) -- same goes for me, I want to connect with you! http://callwithjaime.com

163: Promoting your programs with free content

Wed, 17 Mar 2021 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is inspired by my upcoming workshop:

Fast-track Your Pivot - Learn three business-changing secrets to create online group programs and scale your influence and profits.

I use free workshops, masterclasses and summits to provide opportunities to learn in real time, with your peers. These free offers are my way to help you determine if I'm the right partner to take you from idea through launch and beyond.

And the same principles I use are used by hundreds of online service providers -- and they can be used by you as well.

Go to https://expandonlinenow.com to sign up for the Workshop. If you're reading this after March 26th, 2021, go there anyway, because I'm going to make sure that it always has a registration to something (or a link to something else I'm offering.)

With online group programs in the arts education space, your free workshops will be helping your prospective students see that you're the right teacher for them and that they are ready for the program that you've got available.

Think about the things you wish you knew about the students who walk into a group program on the first day -- in person -- what do you wish you knew about them and that they knew about themselves? That's exactly what your free workshop, webinar, masterclass or challenge should cover.

And it leads really nicely into one on one calls -- speaking of which, go to http://callwithjaime.com to book a call with me :)

Have a great week and if there is anything you want me to cover on the podcast, I'm all ears, send me a DM on Instagram https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/

162: Creating Pre-Recorded Content for your Online Programs

Wed, 10 Mar 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Pre-recorded content is the lifeblood of effective online programs. This is where the teaching truly happens, because it's the fastest way to efficiently educate and inspire.

Pre-recorded content inside your programs breaks down the material so your students can understand it and implement it in their own practice.

When it comes to pre-recorded content, we are likely going to create a fair amount of material. In the episode I share with you two general approaches to creating content as well as two ways to get through the content. These are:

Creating material chronologically from the beginning to the end of the program
Creating material as it manifests itself into existence.

And then we can do either of these by recording, editing, producing and uploading each piece in its entirety or by batching the processes.

And the most common question I get is...

What software do I use to make these videos?

My go to video editing software is Camtasia --> https://techsmith.pxf.io/c/1240982/476732/5161 (affiliate link)

I recommend creating as many tracks as you need to so that you have full flexibility in the editing process. Another option is to use OBS which is open source software and provides you the ability to have one or more scenes for displaying multiple pieces of content. There are plugins/add ons for OBS that are for purchase.

I encourage you to check out both tools, Camtasia and OBS and see how they can work for your online programs.

And as always, I would love to be in conversation with you, please book a time at http://callwithjaime.com we can discuss your pre-recording setup or anything else that is on your mind!

161: Expanding beyond teaching with Andrea Miller

Wed, 03 Mar 2021 11:30:00 +0000

I sat down and chatted with the super smart piano teacher and business coach, Andrea Miller, to discuss how educators can expand online in ways other than teaching one-on-one or group programs.

While much of what is discussed on the podcast is about creating online programs, it's so important to look inward and see what excites you with your work and do more of that -- if you love creating curriculum, then do more of that (and sell it!)

There are no rules to how to expand online and there is no timeline, but Andrea and I strongly recommend doing something that is your zone of genius and make a decision on WHEN it's going to happen.

If you have questions for Andrea, you can reach her at https://www.musicstudiostartup.com/, on Facebook or on Instagram.

Let's get on a call, go to http://callwithjaime.com or send me a message on Instagram or Facebook!

160: Young Kids in your Online Studio - embracing the family

Wed, 24 Feb 2021 11:30:00 +0000

In this episode, I share how to engage with the parents of your young students and why this is so important to their success with your online programs.

We want to build bonds with our students and their parents for the benefit of progress and continuity. This starts with your website and goes through the registration process. It continues with effective and succinct communication throughout the program and forming a partnership with the parents.

Online is different than in person. Group programs are different than one-on-one. But neither is better, just different.

I encourage you to embrace a new culture as you expand online!

Book a call --> http://callwithjaime.com

159: Adult Student Success with your Group Programs

Wed, 17 Feb 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Adult learners come to the arts for a variety of reasons - realizing a lifelong dream, finding a new hobby, reconnecting to something they previously enjoyed and advancing their skills, among many.

Unlike children, adults have a plethora of responsibilities outside of our online programs. They work, have families and are responsible for household tasks. The best online group programs fit into this chaotic lifestyle, because of their flexibility and clear expectations.

In this episode, we go into a few strategies to help you set your adult learners up for success, including using gamification which we discussed in Episode 155 and using email or text automations.

With group programs, we want to make our students comfortable becoming part of the group and feel included in the group through interaction, engagement and office hours/live virtual sessions.

You are not responsible for your students success, you are responsible for setting them up for the best chance for success.

I encourage you to look at the culture of your studio and create an environment rich with encouragement and motivation. This will take your students a long way!

As always, I'm happy to discuss this or anything else going on with your online studio and programs. Simply go to http://callwithjaime.com or connect with me on Instagram or Facebook.

158: A Success Matrix for your Online Studio

Wed, 10 Feb 2021 11:30:00 +0000

How do you measure the success of your online efforts? It is through facts and figures, feelings and emotions, income and impact or some combination of these?

I believe that every single one of us is going to feel successful when there is a combination of what we can feel and what w can measure.

Everything that we do in our businesses will fall into one of four quadrants in the Success Matrix for Online Studios... These quadrants are:

Top Left: Not Measurable. Does not Evoke Feeling.
Top Right: Measurable. Does not Evoke Feeling.
Bottom Left: Not Measurable. Evokes Feelings.
Bottom Right: Measurable. Evokes Feelings.

For one studio, the act of receiving testimonials may be in the top right quadrant, it's a number but it doesn't make your heart sing whereas another studio may live for testimonials and doesn't actually measure how many come in!

Your success matrix is YOURS. Nobody needs to define it for you, but your staff needs to understand what it means to be successful.

Defining success is a step towards achieving it - if we don't know what we're striving for, success is going to be elusive. We'll think that we have it, only to turn around and realize that this "success" doesn't afford us what we desire.

I love bringing these episodes to you each week. And I love all the amazing conversations I'm having with listeners like you -- want to chat? http://callwithjaime.com

And with that, create your success matrix and do something that will help your studio thrive online this year and well into the future!

157: The perfect students for your online studio

Wed, 03 Feb 2021 11:30:00 +0000

There is one major difference between online and offline studios -- where students can and do come from. Offline, they come based on proximity and reputation whereas online, they come based on reputation and niche.

With online studios, generalists don't win - specialists do. But how do we know what we're specializing in and who our perfect students are?

Start by taking a closer look at the students you have most enjoyed working with and understand more about their drive and spirit. That's not enough though, the truth is, it's about introspection too -- we need to look at ourselves and make sure that we are creating a studio in line with our values, beliefs and passions.

The awesome thing about online studios is that you can specialize in ways that are just not possible in the brick and mortar space... so who are your perfect students? What do they care about? What do they value? How do they learn? Why are they signing up for your programs?

I would be happy to connect with you on this -- book a free call http://callwithjaime.com or send me a message on Instagram or Facebook.

156: A website gut check

Wed, 27 Jan 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Want an unbiased opinion of how your website feels to a visitor? For the first 5 people to send me a message on Instagram --> https://www.instagram.com/jaimeslutzky/ I'll do exactly that, take a video as I visit your website for the first time.

In this episode, we discuss the four most foundational pages of your website, why they are there and how you can make sure that they are doing their job! They are:

Contact
About
Services
Home

Your website needs to help your visitors go from *thinking about* to *taking action* and give them an easy way to become a client/student/customer :)

Questions, message me on Facebook or Instagram and of course you can book a http://callwithjaime.com anytime!

155: Making It Fun

Wed, 20 Jan 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Whether you teach kids or adults, gamification is a great tool to bring into your online programs.

Gamification is the concept where we encourage students to learn and apply what they learn to earn rewards. The two most popular forms of gamification with online programs are "B-I-N-G-O" style and points.

For "B-I-N-G-O" students work to complete 24 or 25 tasks that pertain to applying the knowledge they learn in the program, or tangential/fun tasks.

And for the points system, it's all about the PRIZE BOX at the end... prizes can vary from digital stickers and social media shout outs to physical trinkets and gift cards and books.

For kids, I often suggest a collective reward, so that they can develop community and all be working towards the same objective rather than it being a competition.

Have fun with gamification -- it can turn first time students into lifelong students and friends.

Want to talk gamification or your online program? Book a call at http://callwithjaime.com

154: An Easy Roadmap for your Online Program

Wed, 13 Jan 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Welcome to the Expand Online Podcast, I’m your host Jaime Slutzky; a lifelong techie taking bold action to help art and music educators create the online studios of their dreams. This is episode 154 and the focus is on creating a roadmap to get you from where you are right now to having your own online program launched and with students.

When we’re expanding online it’s so important to keep moving forward towards our goals, getting stuck is just not worth the extra effort it takes to pick up after a pause and so I want to provide you with the necessary nudge to stay in your lane and make steady progress. To do this, we are going to build a visual roadmap that you can reference daily.

When we’re creating this initial version of our roadmap, it doesn’t matter how detailed or how vague it is. It’s really all about seeing the next most logical step towards your goal.

I like to do this on a big piece of butcher block paper with a ton of colorful markers and sticky notes.

A good visual roadmap is going to have a number of milestones on it. These milestones can have different levels of importance and different levels of effort. The idea is that the roadmap will help us make continual progress because we don’t have to make decisions what to work on when we’re in the thick of it, we do that now and then just follow the journey we create for ourselves.

I think we should start off with an example…

Let’s call our sample teacher “Julie.” Julie is getting ready to teach how to paint your first portrait painting using acrylics on canvas. Right now, she has figured out that she wants to teach this as a three-part workshop via zoom with an additional work session between the three parts. Which means it will take place over 5 weeks.

And that’s as far as Julie has gotten to this point. She knows she wants to run this workshop several times a year, so she wants to create reusable content and also have some fresh content and interaction each time.

The milestones that Julie needs to write on her roadmap are, in no particular order:

Goal setting
Identify ideal students
Determine pre-requisites
Outline workshop sessions
Content draft
Content recording
Content production
LMS / Content repository
Purchase equipment
Purchase supplies
Payment processor setup
Decide on outreach and promotion/launch methods
Landing page/Sales page, if relevant
Zoom meeting setup
Create promotional material / social media marketing
Welcome and in workshop emails
Promotional emails, if relevant
Outreach and promotion

The order in which these appear on Julie’s roadmap doesn’t have to match the order I shared (and truthfully, I can probably come up with a number of other tasks that she would put on her roadmap, but those can come later)

The idea is for Julie (and you) to take the list and plot them on a sequential line in a logical order for you. You could draw a nice big, curved line or squiggly line or a ruler straight line to plot them on, it doesn’t matter… the idea is to get a roadmap down, so that you can confidently use this to help yourself progress.

Notice that I didn’t have Julie put dates on the milestones… there really are only two dates that need to be on this roadmap: today for the start and a launch date. The launch date can be anywhere from 2 – 12 weeks from now and most likely towards the latter part of that range. I want you to put a date that you feel is a bit scary but also achievable. We want to march along this roadmap, not race through it.

Now that you’ve got these points on your roadmap, it’s time to make that roadmap something you are excited to tack up on the wall and look at every day… so grab your markers and your sticky notes, it’s time to bring this roadmap to life!

I like to use different sizes of sticky notes and different colors too. Grab a sticky note or two and post it right under each of the milestones. These sticky notes can be used as you work to flush out ideas right there on the roadmap – if you suddenly get an idea for something on a milestone you’re not currently working on, you’ll be able to jot it down on the relevant sticky note and get back to the task at hand.

With your markers, create steppingstones between the milestones – I like to include a few rewards along the way… so between milestone 3 and milestone 4 there might be a simple “do a happy dance” or between milestone 6 and milestone 7 it might be get a fancy drink from Starbucks. (Incidentally, that’s one habit that I have completely abandoned during the pandemic – I used to sit at Starbucks and other coffee shops almost daily, and I haven’t even order to go coffee once since March!)

If when you look at your roadmap you know that there are some parts of that journey that you cannot do alone, like maybe deciding on your LMS, I would back up one or two milestones from there and add a little steppingstone that says “Book a call with Jaime to determine LMS.” Or if you’re looking at the launch method and realize that you’ve never done a launch like this before, back up 4 weeks or so before your promo launch date and add a steppingstone for outreach to a launch strategist or to binge listen to a podcast series or YouTube videos or otherwise to get yourself ready.

Plan on adding more steppingstones to your roadmap because things are always going to come up and nobody needs to do all this in a vacuum. We just don’t know what we don’t know when we’re starting on the journey. It’s really helpful to create space to add these steppingstones.

I didn’t really talk about how to use those color markers yet, so let’s do that now.

I like to write the milestones in black. Then draw a shape around them in a color (that generally matches the sticky notes associated with it). Then when I add steppingstones, I do them in the color of the milestone they are connected to.

Other people I know like the create uniformity on their roadmap, so each milestone is written in black and then they have four steppingstone placeholders in four different colors between one and the next to bring lots of color to the roadmap from the get-go.

How are you going to use color? Are you a curved line or straight-line road-mapper? How are you feeling about creating that online program now?

This exercise is something you can and should do as part of every new online program. If we go back to our sample teacher, Julie, let’s look back at her roadmap for a moment.

Let’s assume she listed them out in the exact order that I listed them earlier (and have in the shownotes) if she’s completed milestone 5 (content drafted) and absolutely cannot deal with starting on milestone 6 (content recording) what is she to do? She needs to get her recording done before she can start to produce it. But what if this is her roadblock… she has three options:

She can sit on her heels and not move forward with this project, which I obviously don’t recommend.
She can push through and record her content knowing that it’s likely not going to be as good as she wants it to be.
She can peek ahead on the roadmap and find some steppingstones for later projects to pull back in and fit between milestone 5 and milestone 6.

She can setup a call with me, or determine her promotion and launch methods… and by doing these steppingstone tasks it gives her breathing room for the big tasks but keeps her moving forward on the project.

A roadmap is a great vehicle to use when working with your mentor or coach. Add dates when you need to give yourself deadlines. Add steppingstones as often as you need to for forward progress. Make this visual a regular part of your program creation because it will remind you how much you have gotten done and prod you along to and through launch.

When you create your roadmap, pop it up on Instagram Stories and tag me @jaimeslutzky so I can see it.

And with that, check off “Listen to Episode 154 of the Expand Online Podcast” on your list because we’re wrapping up.

As you know, I love conversation, go to http://callwithjaime.com and book a complimentary connect call. I would love to know what you’re working on and what you would like more of on the podcast.

Have a great rest of your day and I’ll be back with a new episode next week!

153: Four benefits to scaling with online Group Programs

Wed, 06 Jan 2021 11:30:00 +0000

Happy New Year! This is the first episode of 2021 and I am delighted that you’re listening. In case we haven’t met, I’m Jaime Slutzky, a lifelong techie on a mission to make more art and music education programs available online with independent and private studio owners at the helm.

I’d love to chat with you and learn about you, as a listener of this podcast, just click over to http://callwithjaime.com and book a short 10-minute call with me.

This episode today is all about the immediate benefits you will realize when you make the leap from one-to-one into the realm of one-to-many program offers.

There are so many different types of programs you can setup and offer online, we’ve talked about them on prior episodes of the podcast, so scroll back in the podcast feed and have a listen. You have absolute permission (not that I need to be the one to give it) to choose your own path – the key thing though is to choose an adventure. Don’t sit and wait for someday. Because someday doesn’t ever come.

Your business is going to have immediate benefits when you switch from one-to-one exclusively and move into group programming.

In a nutshell these benefits are:

Developing a more well-rounded product that is suitable to many different learning styles and learners at the same time
Mindset shift from educator to entrepreneur
Become a better steward of our students’ journeys
Regain time for your own art, creativity and learning (not to mention leisure activities and family)

With one-to-one programming, everything you create is specifically tailored to that specific student. When your roster is full and you are “at capacity” the only way to expand further is with group programming. But it’s more than that, when you are “at capacity” you have in your tool box so many methods, strategies, descriptors and pathways to help your students achieve the objective of every given lesson and it’s a great time to meld those methods together to create a more complete product from which to teach.

Our first benefit is that we have a better and more optimal curriculum or syllabus for our students, even if the material isn’t created specifically for them.

Now, our second benefit is all about mindset. We talked about this last week on the podcast, so be sure to go back and listen if you haven’t had a chance to do so yet. Here we are shifting our mind from impacting students when they are directly in front of the screen with us to providing opportunity for growth at a studio level. It’s super exciting and the immediate benefit is that you can start to think bigger and beyond the tangible needs of your students!

When our students are no longer siloed by individual lessons a new dynamic and community is formed. The studio takes on a personality and everyone can grow from it. It’s the saying that the whole is greater than the sum of its parts – probably butchering that a bit, but you get the idea!

When we take a step back and see the whole, we are able to build additional opportunities for our students! Being an educator is never just about the lessons, it’s about the impact we create and the progress our students take. Now imagine how much greater an impact you’ll have when you are able to see your students collaborate and communicate with one another.

While I know that bringing on a new group program involves putting time in to create the material, once the program is underway there will be more whitespace in your schedule. And you can fill this time with leisure activities, creative endeavors, your own learning and so much more. You will have more time to pour into the whole rather than the individual.

Say YES to the opportunity that is in front of you – anyone can shift from one-to-one to group programming. The power of the one-to-many programs will strengthen your purpose. It’s time for you to realize one or more of the benefits I shared today.

Now, to kick off this year, I am going to challenge you to decide which of the four benefits and decide which one is the driving force for you. Then come into the Expand Online Community and share which one is driving you and why!

152: Mindset: Educator or Entrepreneur

Wed, 30 Dec 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Before we get all the way into the nitty gritty of the shownotes, here's the link to book a call with me: http://callwithjaime.com it's just a short 10 minute call that we do via zoom where we can talk about you, your business, your goals, your students and their goals. I just love getting to know you and hearing your passion!

Are you an educator or an entrepreneur?

And do you want to wear one hat, the other or both?

As an educator/teacher/instructor your primary goal is to instill the skills in your students so that they can gain a deeper understanding into the art they are studying. We are taking them by their hand and guiding them on this specific part of the journey.

Being an educator means taking the skills that you have acquired and use them to inspire, motivate and teach something new to your students. The modality and frequency of your work with your students doesn't matter -- it's simply that you're taking your knowledge and experience and helping them to learn something.

For a lot of educators, this is EVERYTHING! Having a place and platform to share your knowledge and positively impact your students. It's all about inspiration, motivation, seeing students have success.

There are a number of educators who want more than the hands on learning side of teaching. We see ourselves as a conduit for something even bigger than our own teaching. We are the ones who open studios, hire other teachers to work alongside us and project students' needs beyond the current content.

This is entrepreneurship!

When it comes to being an entrepreneur... it's about pushing the envelope, it's about thinking outside the classroom or the lesson and outside of the linear progression of our students. It's about going into the space of what else can I offer, how else can I impact and how can we create greater opportunity for our students when they are done working with us.

That's when you're thinking like an entrepreneur.

Entrepreneurs thrive inside their zone of genius. My definition of the zone of genius is where your skillset and talents collide. I think of it as an expansive space, the more time we spend in our zone of genius the more we can create, inspire, motivate and empower others. This is the sign of true entrepreneurship-- when we continue to pour into our passions and dig into our skillsets anything is possible!

Entrepreneurs are always looking at what's next (for good or for bad!)

Art and music educator-preneurs strive to create the studio that you wish existed when you were learning. You are creating a place that is immersive, personable, exploratory and supportive. And one studio is going to look different from the next -- one thing I can say for sure is that when we are wearing our entrepreneur hat, we are bubbling with ideas.

This episode is a mindset episode, not a tangible or tactile one is because there is a lot of work that has to go into our mindset in order to fully embrace entrepreneurship.

Dreaming and wishing and hoping for *that studio* is not enough to set it on it's path from your mind to reality. Unfortunately, the best of ideas can be derailed without a strong mind. We need to continuously say to ourselves "this is for the students" "this is for my employees" "this is for the person whose live is going to be impacted by my students' art" "this is bigger than myself."

These saying are going to help us keep going because it's {often} hard to build a studio from nothing -- and particularly so in the online space.

Offline - at least you have contractors and permits and proximity and foot traffic.

Online - we can hire our contractors from anywhere, our students can come from anywhere and there is no way to walk the streets between online businesses. While that can seem daunting, it doesn't have to.

We have the freedom to create something that is completely representative of our teaching style, our students' learning style and our hopes and dreams. Online entrepreneurship means taking one step and then another and then another. Building one bridge and then another. Creating connections across space and time.

Educators have fewer highs and lows. Entrepreneurs have more. We are wearing our big picture hat... so, yeah, I'm back to the two hats -- the educator hat and the entrepreneur hat. To be successful, we need to confidently wear each of them in turn.

It is a lot easier to be the educator. It is a lot safer to be the educator.

Even the I statements are easy:

I teach piano
I teach drawing
I teach vocal lessons
I teach guitar
I teach acrylic painting

As an online art entrepreneur the I statement are:

I have an online art education studio
I run an online music program
I have an online music collective
I run a virtual visual arts studio
I have online courses and programs for art students

Entrepreneur I statements are just a little bit more abstract because there are more facets to the offering. It's fun & exciting! And I hope this is where you want to take your teaching.

As we start putting the entrepreneur hat on more and more, because it's not a flip of a switch, look at what you're currently doing and the way you currently operate and offer your lessons/classes/programs.

Ask yourself: "What of this is going to work in my future studio?" and "What from here is going to need to change? What am I doing now that I'm going to have to change in order to make that studio become a reality?"

Change isn't easy but when we see what needs to change, we can make a plan and start working on that plan. It doesn't happen overnight but it can happen with deliberate action and a clear mind. When we have a vision, we have something to work towards!

The online entrepreneur journey is exciting and full of twists and turns. You don't need to suddenly decide never to wear the educator hat again -- it takes time. It's taken me a decade to go from freelancer to entrepreneur... in fact, when I started what I thought was my entrepreneur venture, I didn't know that I was actually becoming a freelancer.

Listen to my decade of ebbs and flows starting around 12:50 of the episode, it's better in the recording than anything I try to write here... know this, where you are is perfect for today. As you continue to work with your students, you'll chart your own course and carve away your true zone of genius.

You absolutely can create that unique online studio offering the exact type of programming to the exact subset of the world's students that you want to inspire and work with.

Don't forget to go to http://callwithjaime.com and book a connect call with me.

151: A Student Focused Culture for your Online Studio & Programming

Wed, 23 Dec 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Let's chat: http://callwithjaime.com

Creating a student focused culture online will look vastly different than the culture we create in brick & mortar studios on main street...

In person, we can post up pictures of our students performing, presenting, practicing, learning and demonstrating. There are images of recitals or gallery shows. Walking through your door makes it fairly easy for the students to see that they belong.

In the online space, we have to create that culture in a different way. There is no physical door and no physical walls to demonstrate our student focused culture.

The three places we can most easily showcase our student focused culture online is

Social Media
Inside our group programs, membership sites and courses
Your main website

On social media, we are able to showcase our students -- we can show their successes, their artwork in virtual galleries or video clips performing the music they have been working on and we can use these platforms (Instagram most specifically) to create that feeling of belonging. Students can see what others are doing and see themselves doing the same thing.

Social media is a really important component of creating the student focused culture. It helps your students see that they are part of something bigger than themselves. This doesn't come from posed images of your students, think outside the box -- go live with a student, share tech bloopers and virtual concerts.

Next, inside or programs, let's make sure to bring in real life examples and demonstrations with past students (or current students) rather than doing every demo yourself. Involve your students in the process and they will know that you value them. Allowing the opportunity for our students to become friends (or at least become friendly with one another.)

Fostering this sense of student focus and camaraderie can be built right into your program. Including forums and peer feedback, ice breakers and peer motivation all work towards this goal. And it helps your students feel supported and that their thoughts, opinions and work isn't taken out of context but contributes to the studio culture.

We want our students to feel that they are truly connected. We want them to feel good and excited for every live session and every time they return to the computer to learn from our recorded content and interact and engage with their peers.

The final place we want to highlight our student focused culture is on your studio's website. Here we want to do more than use stock photos and text. We want to create an immersive experience so that our students can truly picture themselves having success working with our online studio.

Much like someone can understand how a brick & mortar studio functions and who it caters to when they walk through the door, that's the same subconscious feeling we need to evoke through our website. Use colors that resonate with your students, feature student stories and testimonials prominently, cater the messaging to their core motivations.

That's all about the visuals and personality of the studio -- making it welcoming to the type of student you want to work with. Now, we also want to put the student's dreams and aspirations at the forefront of our culture.

This goes beyond just "you" as the studio owner and online instructor. Because in the online space, our student pool is global, and our students have the option of learning from any instructor anywhere in the world. Neither side is confined to location, time of day or distance.

What is your studio's mission? Is it student focused? (hint, it should be!)

This needs to be represented visually -- with colors that resonate with them, with language that pulls them in and so on.

Everything comes back to the student

It doesn't matter who you are if you can't showcase to your students what they are going to get out of working with you

150: A long view at life with an online program

Wed, 16 Dec 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Take the time to imagine, and dream, and create for where our businesses is going to be once we have successfully implemented our online program. This is a long range view. Some people may be "there" in 2 or 3 months but more than likely it's going to be a 2 or 3 year vantage point. We are going on this journey together -- because it's not enough to say "I want to expand online" or "I want to offer online programs" or "I want to engage with my students in a new and exciting way" -- but rather "when I go online" and "when I do this work" I am going to create a new reality for myself and my students and my business. My recommendation for this particular episode is to plan on listening to it twice. The first time just listen, then the second time through have a notebook with you and pause when necessary to write thoughts that come up and inspire or motivate you. These are the thoughts that are going to help you to create that vision!

What is your business going to look like once you have successfully implemented your online program?

Are you going to be able to travel more? (once Covid is over and we can actually travel)
Are you going to be able to visit with family?
Are you going to be able to do more with your own art and creativity?
Is your business going to be in a place where you can work from anywhere?
Are you going to be able to be more present for your kids? Or volunteer?
Is there a partnership or collaboration you would like to explore?

What is this program going to afford your future self? That person who is living in the reality that you're creating right now -- that's the person who's vision we are creating right now. There may be multiple reasons you want to expand online and create these programs... but identifying who you are and who you want to be in your business is the first major piece. When we understand that person we are working towards becoming, the rest of it can all fall into place. Another thing we need to do as we craft this vision is understand how our business fits into our future life. What do our daily, weekly and monthly schedules look like?

How much interaction will we have with our students?
How often are we creating content?
How often are we launching and bringing new students into our programs?

All of these factors build that vision. For example, if you have three launches each year, you'll know what amount of availability you will need to have for each group of students, for launching and so on on a monthly basis. We will easily be able to know how much effort you'll need for your students and launching on a cyclical basis. And this then helps us see if the vision we have for our future selves matches the goals of the online program as it fits within our lives. If there is a mismatch, then it's so so good that we are looking at this well in advance, so that we can adjust accordingly.

And then, we should think about the financials...

How much money do we want to be making each month and each year, while still keeping our prices where we feel comfortable. I don't want you to create the program you want to create, set the number of hours you want to work and then determine that the price needs to be a certain amount in order for everything to align -- but feel a huge disconnect between the price and where the students are at and "should be" paying. It's important to visioncast with a healthy dose of reality! We really don't want to price ourselves and our students out of our businesses. It's so important to feel confident about the program price tag so that you can continue to work with the students you want to work with and reach your time and priority goals that we have talked about so far. When it comes to looking at our future self, with our programs already created and running, it's time to tap into our emotions.

How do we feel about the program that we've created?
How do we feel about the impact we have on our students?
How do we feel about our marketing? Our referral engine? Our social media presense?
How do we feel about all those things?

If we are not thinking about ourselves and our feelings when we cast ourselves into the future and look in the rear view mirror... it can be hard to know if we are even on the right road. Your happiness and your joy mean the world to me. You don't need to create your online program to match what I think you could do. You need to create the online program that matches the goals and feelings that you have! Let's make sure that we are creating the right container so that your online program moves you towards your dreams and goals for your LIFE. Getting clear on this before talking with anyone outside the business (including your spouse or partner, parents and children!) Yes, they have a stake in the game, and it's a good idea for them to at least be in the car with us on this journey. In addition to your stakeholders, I would strongly suggest (ahem, work with me!) having someone who is not invested in the results be invested in you on this journey. This is a coach, a mentor, a strategist -- someone who will hold space and hold your vision with you. So that when things get tough or don't really go as you had predicted, they will be able to find the next step you need to take is to get you back on the right road. It is so hard to be our own coach. To be our own cheerleader. To be the one who corrects course for ourselves. And our family members are too close, which makes it hard for (most of them) to be in this role. I want you to feel like everything is possible as you go through this podcast episode. Create the vision and allow me to hold space for that vision:

philanthropy
free time with family
volunteering
paying for kids college in full
a retirement savings account
work-life balance
paying off the house
paying off the car
going on that trip
living the lifestyle that you want to live

that is why you are creating this online program. These aren't going to be a reality in the present; they are going to become a reality when we put our online program creation, implementation, launch and delivery into motion. And go through cycles with our students. And help our students learn and experience and tap into their creativity and emotions through our online programs. When we do what fills us up in our businesses through these online programs (that have far greater reach than anything one-on-one or local can) that long term vision, that goal, that place we see ourselves becomes achievable. It doesn't happen overnight and it does take work... putting in the time now that will afford us that long view we desire is what we're really after. Connect with me: Book a free call, on Instagram or on Facebook.

149: Why You? Why Me? Why Now?

Wed, 09 Dec 2020 11:30:00 +0000

December is a unique time of year. There is a lot of reflection, planning and thinking goes on this month. Which is why I believe now is the right time to look objectively at your Expand Online desires -- and ask the questions: Why you? Why me? Why now?

Why you're the right person to bring your online program into reality.
Why I'm perfectly poised to be on this journey with you.
Why now is the absolute best time for you to put your stake in the ground and say "Yes, I am ready to do this!"

Why you?

You are amazing. You have students who learn from you and go on to bring their art/music/creativity/expression of emotion into their daily lives. You have the credentials and the expertise to create your online program.

A core belief of mine: if we want to do something, nothing needs to stand in our way (not time, not tech, not resources, not naysayers.) If you want to impact your students and help them to tap into their creativity and their genius -- then you can do it!

There are so many different ways for us to build relationships with our students -- many of the online means do not revolve around only face-to-face one-to-one methods.

If your vision is larger than one-on-one lessons, you are the right person to bring that group program to life!

If you have an inkling of an idea, get started on it. One of the really awesome things about online programs is that they can be what you want them to be -- nobody can dictate to you how they are structured. The length, structure and format are all up to you! The principle to adhere to is that your programs need to be authentic to you, your methods, your teaching style, your students and their goals... that's it!

Now, why me?

You probably don't have anyone in your realm other than me who is as passionate about making sure that technology works for you and your business every single day. It is probably in my DNA to make technology, make software, work the way that it needs to for the individual.

Many other people who help art and music instructors create online programs do it in the form of "I did it this way so I'm going to teach you exactly how I did it and you're going to have raving success." And while that method works because they are proof that the software they used works in their space, it, in my opinion, is not the best approach because it has limitations.

When I work with you, through the Expand Online Incubator (click here to book an info call) my goal is to make sure that you have the best right tools to get your program launched and running methodically. It is on me to find the right tools to make that happen... you don't have to leave your zone of genius and spend endless hours researching tech and learning how to on YouTube. I'm going to balance ease of use, ease of setup and the financial side of things to make sure we are picking the right software tool for you!

It's not a cookie cutter approach. Just as you don't teach your students exactly the same way each time, I don't structure your online program the same way as the next client. I'm not willing for "make due" or "get it to 90%." The technology is supposed to help you accomplish your vision. It's not supposed to interfere or dictate the way that you do things in your program.

Tech should help you do things the way you want rather than the other way around.

Why now?

I believe that 2021 is the year of online group programs where the learning modules are succinct and easy to follow, where there is accountability among students and where there is ample access to the instructor in the form of group video calls as well as feedback and assignment loops.

It can be scary to decide to create an online program, especially if you've found your groove with virtual one-on-one lessons. But now is the time to create your program because we don't know what's coming next. Nobody could have predicted 2020 the way it's unfolded, we cannot predict 2021. We don't know how much longer it's going to be that we remain with shuttered studio doors, indoor mask requirements and so on.

Creating your online program now is a surefire way to make sure that your business is 2021 ready. How long have you been thinking about creating an online program? No need to sit on it any longer... you might have some new open pockets of time this month (because lessons are on hold for the holidays) -- let's fill those pockets of time with planning and execution for this program!

Think about your students and their learning and their goals. How can you create something that helps them stay excited about learning with you without the face-to-face endless video calls?

I like to say that we are going to move into a new phase of normal -- your online program has a perfect home in that new phase, no matter what happens with in person opportunities. Let's not put your program back on the shelf -- now is the right time to work on it and bring it to life for your students.

Book a call with me --> http://callwithjaime.com

Connect with Jaime on Instagram and Facebook

148 - Maximizing Online Tech for Art Instruction

Wed, 02 Dec 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Book a call with me --> http://callwithjaime.com

Remember, not all software is created equal and that's okay. The important thing is to learn how to maximize the effectiveness of software tools we do select and to fully integrate them with one another.

After you finish listening, give your software a litmus test:
- check and see how many of the features you are actually using
- how integrated it is with the other tools you are using

If you left it for someday -- today is your lucky day, you can tackle getting those last elements flushed out and linked up today, right?

There are some big named tools out there that tout that they can do everything and are truly an all in one solution. They may do one or two things really well but be mediocre for other things that you actually need in your business. Instead of putting all your tech into these massive tools, instead find and implement the best right tool for the task at hand.

Do we really need one tool to host our videos and do video transcription and pull the audio from our videos to put into a podcast feed? Probably not. Let's use the best tool to host our videos, be selective about building transcripts and use the best tool we can for that (sometimes the best tool is to hire a real human to do it from the get go instead of having a machine do it and then have a person review/edit!) and when it comes to the podcast feed -- well, if our videos are that good, we'll find the best podcast feed service to use!

We can often take these mammoth tools and break them apart into the components that we are going to use -- and that's really the point. Even if it seems overwhelming to use a lot of pieces of software, when we're able to jump into a software tool with a single objective, it is far easier to get in and out and back to serving our students.

For example -- it's super easy to say I'm going into ConvertKit to send an email to my list. No distraction by something that needs to get done in another part of the software!

Look at your software and ask:

what am I using it for?
what else can it do for me?

The more that the good pieces of software can do for you, the more you can leverage them and that they will make your overall business run smoother. Which means you'll have more time for your own creativity and being there for your students, which is truly the goal, right?

One of the biggest fears that artists and musicians have with online technology is getting the disparate tools to talk to one another. Many of our tools will have built in straightforward integrations with other mainstream tools. Equally so, it's not necessary that every piece of software talks with every other piece of software, only the ones that need to talk to one another get setup. Your payment processor, for example, needs to communicate with your content deliver, but it doesn't need to be connected with your task management tool.

A good way to tell if a connection should be created is to look at the tasks that are done manually daily, weekly, monthly, quarterly and annually and see if they can be automated by integrating the software tools. That's a quick way to get the right tools talking to each other.

The bottom line is -- get your software working to the fullest extent so that you can trust them and rely on them. This will give you more head space and more heart space for your art and your students.

Share this podcast episode with a friend using the sharing tool inside your podcast app.

Connect with me on Instagram or Facebook.

147 - The case against lifetime access

Wed, 25 Nov 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Welcome to the shownotes for this episode. Inside these notes, I'm sharing a summary of the episode.

When we set out to create online programs we have multiple goals that our program needs to meet -- an internal or personal goal, a financial or business growth goal and, a goal of creating the right program for helping our students reach their goals!

This session specifically discusses the topic of lifetime access to online program materials. It sounds so good on sales pages, but really, what does that mean? Basically, I believe it means that your students will have legal rights to accessing that material now and forever into the future. You can have some language around non-transferrable and so on, but the individual or organization that purchases the program retains access to the material included in the program.

Here's why I don't like lifetime access, we don't have crystal balls -- who knows what you're going to offer or do next in your business. You may not want to maintain that material after 3 or 6 months. And it doesn't matter if the content is even relevant in the future -- the access needs to be maintained.

When you have foundational content it's a better case for longer access!

I do not believe offering lifetime access benefits instructors nor your students.

From the instructor or creator side, it's completely on your dime to maintain the software for your students to be able to access when they see fit. What if you decide you don't want to pay the host for that content to be available anymore, then what? If you don't need to be paying for those platforms to service your current (paying) students, why should your business incur this unnecessary expense?

That's why the lifetime access feels like it benefits the student much more than the instructor, but does it really?

Before we get to the benefits, I want to mention that there is one small buyout option for you to get away from hosting the lifetime access -- you can offer your students the ability to download the content and store it themselves and then take it offline. This way you're fulfilling your promise to them that they will have access to the material forever, it's now on them to keep it safe and accessible for themselves. This is not ideal but the only option that is really available to us... and then what happens if they lose the content and come back to us?

There are some perceived benefits to providing lifetime access... and I'm going to debunk them!

it keeps my name (as instructor) top of mind. FALSE. Just because they have access to your content doesn't mean that they are going to come back to your social media or website or email list to buy another program. There are much better ways of keeping our students in our sphere which do help them feel like our next program will be an equally good fit.
I can come back to this when I have more time/more resources and don't need to rush through it (as a student). FALSE. How many times do we really go back to the resources we've got available to us? Probably not that many, and the same goes for our students, they have lofty goals of returning to the material but never manage to get there.

What can we do instead of lifetime access?

A membership site: access is available as long as membership is being paid for
Online programs: during program and 2 - 12 weeks post program completion or as long as they are a student in any of your programs
Self paced courses: set the course access duration for 60 days, 90 days, 3 months, 6 months or 1 year.

My rule of thumb on self paced course content access is twice the expected duration the program is going to take to complete. If your program has 4 modules and your expected duration is 1 month, give two months of access. If the program has 6 modules, give 12 weeks of access. Now, if you have a program where new material is released every other week for 10 weeks (so 5 weeks of content) 14 weeks of access is likely sufficient. It's not always necessary to completely double it, as long as the likelihood of completion in the available time is high.

An end date provides the students with a sense or urgency to tackle the material and reminders to stay consistent. A bonus is that our students get a deeper connection to us over that time because of the dedication to completion. It doesn't sit there and gather digital dust.

There is a lot of content that we create within our programs for our students. Think about how you want your students to access and rely on your content, that will help with structuring it and the length of access to it.

If you've been around the Expand Online Community for a while, you know that I hosted the Expand Online Summit in May 2020. I provided my summit All-Access Pass purchasers 1 year access to the material. I believed, and still do, that they were more likely to access the sessions immediately after purchasing or right before access terminates. I didn't want people to wait for someday to act on the ideas that came from watching the summit sessions. Urgency and expiration is a great motivator.

Next time, I'm actually going to give access for 6 months instead of a full year. Not because I think 12 months is too long, not because I'm trying to do a money grab or am stingy on paying for online content hosting, but because I think 12 months is too long to maintain momentum and take action.

The ultimate goal is for our students to access the material, learn from it, incorporate their learnings into daily and weekly routines and get what they really need out of the program.

We want them to say "Done, I've got this! What's next?"

When we give lifetime access, there is no sense of urgency and sometimes that means it never gets done.

This takes us to building cohorts of students going through courses together, to have group programming, to have expiration dates on content -- essentially having everything setup so that your students dedicates themselves to learning what it is that they chose to learn from you!

If you've already given lifetime access to your students, don't sweat it. If you can make it available for them to download, that works. Or if don't want them to download it, host the material on a free platform where it is being stored "as is."

Let's use this episode of the Expand Online Podcast as inspiration to re-ignite their passion for the program material they have available to them. You can change your mind -- use today to let them know that they have 3 more months to access the material and then access goes away. Give them reasons why you're removing the lifetime access. Using the positives of course, things like: "it doesn't make sense to sit on this forever, and I want you to succeed."

If you want to continue selling this program, switch it from lifetime to time limited access. That is totally in your right, and in the best interest of your student's success. When we have time limited access, we can offer a membership or extended access as a new sales opportunity. Your students will have clarity on how you work and you will no longer be holding the slack end of a rope.

Some people who didn't complete the program will decline the extension offer because they realize this isn't the right model for them. That's okay, we don't want people sitting out there with our content waiting for someday.

I really want you to stay top of mind for your students because of the progress they're making not because of an outstanding "TODO."

Let's make a pledge to one another that we will no longer offer lifetime access.

Remember, we are creating these programs for our students to find success, to get better, and to gain knowledge in their creative pursuits.

Book a free no pitch 10-minute phone call: http://callwithjaime.com

Join me on Instagram and Facebook!

146: Developing an effective online art program curriculum

Wed, 18 Nov 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Let's start these shownotes off with a bold statement:

I would bet that you're teaching lesson to lesson and not with a larger curriculum in mind...

Most people do that. And it works fairly well for interactive one-on-one or in-person programming, but doesn't quite cut it for online programs. When we work with a curriculum we are creating lessons that definitively take our students from point A to point B.

In the online space, we really need to be specific, because most of the time our leads (future students) come to us and experience our content and our messaging before they have any direct communication with us. When we present a strong curriculum, we create an opportunity for our students to see us and connect with us in these early stages of them exploring what it might be like to work with us.

And this goes for existing students who haven't worked in online group programs with us before... they need to see that we are prepared and ready. They already believe we can help them to get to Point B, and when we show this in our online content, it re-enforces the trust they have in us.

Once we know what we're teaching in our online program, every step we take to get from idea to launch is laid out for us. That curriculum provides us structure for social media content, email newsletter content, our sales page and our launch content.

Are your students seeking results? Or are they seeking the steps along the way?

Of course, they are looking to do something specific at the end of the program... this is their goal and we need to keep it front of mind when we're creating a program curriculum. We need to figure out the steps and lessons required to reach that goal. But equally important is factoring in where our students are at the beginning of the program and when they are seeking a program like ours.

Without a doubt, you, as the expert instructor, know the steps to get from start to finish for the program that you're looking to develop -- and that's exactly it, there's a start and an end!

The two methods that we can use to build our programs are:

work from the start and end points until the content meets in the middle
build specific lessons and then organize them

With the working from the ends method, I like to start with the very last lesson and think of this as the capstone of the program. Knowing the final chapter or piece of the curriculum we can then take a step backwards and say what is the next to last piece that needs to be taught or presented or otherwise.

In the second method, you decide specific lessons or topics that you want to teach and outline what that module will look like without factoring in any pre-requesites. Once a sufficient number of lessons are identified, they can then be sequenced into a logical manner. This method makes sure that every single lesson has the potential to stand alone while building off the prior lessons, as appropriate.

I believe we need to have a strong curriculum, a very clear understanding of the student journey and that it's clearly defined.

When we are building this online curriculum, we also have the advantage of knowing what modalities we can offer the educational content in -- from talking head and demonstrative videos, to audio, workbooks and handouts. And the different forms of assessments from quizzes and surveys to feedback loops and assignments. Then we get to the live sessions which again can be a host of formats from conversational to critique and from dynamic interactive or collaborative to demonstrative.

As we are outlining our curriculum, we can also take the time to jot down these modalities and create a more detailed execution plan.

With this curriculum, we now are able to determine how long the program is going to last, and the cadence of the release of new material.

To this point, we've built curriculum based on the end goal. Sometimes we'll want to build a curriculum that fits into a specific period of time. In this case, we can certainly use the earlier methods, but I also think that there is one final way to break this time-based curriculum down. And that's by saying "at the halfway point, this is where I want my students to be." This is just another method that you might find really appealing since we are specific about the number of lessons and specific goals or milestones within the program from the design stage.

When we have a finite number of lessons, we might need to move our starting criteria or end goals to match the progress we can actually make with our students in this amount of time. Or we could determine that we need more or less weeks to accomplish everything we want in this program.

Our students deserve to have the absolute best experience inside our programs. Which means, we always need to include a welcome module that they get immediate access to, regardless of how close to the official start date they sign up. And, if appropriate, bonus lessons and modules are a great thing to include at this stage because they help our students find their online groove with us early on.

Having a strong curriculum for every program you offer makes it easier for students to stay with us and participate in program after program after program. With this, we are providing them with the support they need to keep showing up and investing in their art.

Parting thought:

Think about the curriculum that you want to create and the experience you want your students to have when they work with you.

You're at the end of the shownotes which means you're all in on creating a great online program, right? So book a call with me to get those ideas flowing: http://callwithjaime.com and connect with me on Instagram or Facebook! I love connecting!

145: Online Group Art and Music Programs

Wed, 11 Nov 2020 11:30:00 +0000

On today's episode I discuss online group programs and why they are the best online format for art and music instruction online in 2021. I believe that your programs will be much more accessible for your students and much more profitable for you when done right.

Online group programs are a little bit of a misnomer because there are so many things that can fall into general label of "programs."

We are specifically talking about programs that are a hybrid of live interactive sessions and asynchronous pre-recorded material so that your students truly connect with you as their instructor and connect with your content to move their art form forward.

It is no longer enough to just create online courses anymore. The internet is saturated with them. And in order for us to have the impact that we seek, we need to have that human connection through the screen (which is 100% absolutely possible!)

While there are always two complimentary sides to a group program, the length of the program is completely up to you. I recommend a minimum of 4 weeks and a maximum of 12 or possibly 16 weeks. This is for logistics and feasibility. Not to mention goals.

We want to make sure that every single person who takes one of our online programs achieves their goals (when they put in the effort to show up and do the work.)

Now, let's discuss what goes into an online group program that is different than a membership site, or an online course or one-on-one private instruction.

A group program is exactly that... it is for multiple people to be going through the program together as a cohort. This allows for community to form, interaction to take place and for everybody to improve their skills all together.

The best group programs consist of pre-recorded content where you teach, handouts and exercises and assignments. We use all the best parts of online courses but then we go on top of that and layer on weekly or bi-weekly live sessions.

The live sessions are generally held over Zoom or Google Meet. The purpose of these sessions is to create that sense of community, to help correct (in real time) any issues, to observe your students, to create a sacred space for your students to practice and to perform for their peers. And, of course, to continually improve.

A group program in a nutshell is pre-recorded content with regular live touch base calls between the students and yourself. Most of the time group programs will also include some kind of forum so that students can connect with one another outside of the live sessions. Because, again, we want to make them feel connected to one another.

Online group programs are ideal for art and music education. Let's put it into perspective... When we teach one-on-one live sessions, whether in person or virtual, it is just the teacher and the student and it's generally an individual lesson without a clear trajectory. It's much more ebb and flow. Whereas with a group program, you, as the instructor, have created the trajectory - the journey - that your students are going to be on at the outset. We are able to march them through all the things that they need in order to achieve the goal. There is a whole lot more structure to group programs while still allowing for improvisation and the ability for things to bubble up that might not have been expected but are equally important to the journey and progress of our students.

With one-on-one we could end up taking a left turn and never righting ourselves.

Be sure to look back at episode 142 for a ton of information regarding membership sites. The goal of a membership site is continual education, continual improvement. It is pick and choose what you want to learn and when you want to learn it. Now in contrast to the group program, which is that trajectory of "from here to there" with specific goals in mind. While I believe that a membership program is fabulous, often times, students are going to have greater success when they have the group program and the structure and the cohort and the access to you.

Now, a group program versus an online course... a group program, in my opinion, is an augmentation of an online course. Whatever you can put into an online course, you can a more cohesive, more unified experience as a group program. Our content is going to live in an online course delivery platform, like Thinkific.

With an online course, it's self-paced, diy, when-I-have-time whereas a group program has structure -- with a start date, live sessions, check ins, a community and most of all, it helps your student get from point A to point B on a specific path.

I know that with music and with art... it is not a matter of just getting through all the content.

It is a matter of creating time to practice.
It is a matter of getting feedback and critiques.
It is creating space for analysis and reflection.

And these are super straightforward to include in online group programs.

Now, let's talk about enrolling your students. With an online group program, you have a deliberate sales cycle. When there is a start date, it's easy to see when the selling period is going to be. And then, once the program has started, you don't need to be in "sales mode" and you can be truly present with and for your students.

With courses, membership sites and even one-on-one our door is essentially always open, so we need to be wearing two hats -- our sales/marketing hat and our instructor/teacher hat. Now, wouldn't you rather wear one hat at a time as often as possible?

My philosophy is that it doesn't matter which mode of delivery you're going to use, you must go all in to get out what you seek. If you waiver, your students aren't going to know which way to proceed -- they won't know what the best option is for them. When you have just a single offer, you get to tell them the best way you believe for them to reach their goals.

All this is to say -- the year 2021 is right around the corner. And I think it is the year for online group programs in art and music to absolutely explode. I know that you have it in you to run successful online group programs. I would be honored to help you along the way. Go to http://callwithjaime.com and book a complimentary 10-minute power session with me. We will jam on whatever you're working on - strategy, tech or otherwise.

Connect with me on Instagram, Facebook and inside the Expand Online Community.

144: Blitz to Black Friday

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Blitz to Black Friday is happening on Instagram @jaimeslutzky every day at 1pm Pacific (4pm Eastern) from November 5 - November 25th.

During our time together we are going to create a valuable online course that you'll be able to launch over the Thanksgiving/Black Friday weekend. This course is going to set your students and clients up with everything they need to successfully learn online with you.

Tune in each day at 1pm Pacific on Instagram for your daily assignment and instructions. Recording will also be posted inside the Expand Online Community on Facebook.

Questions? Message me on Instagram or Facebook

143: Can I get it done in time?

Wed, 28 Oct 2020 10:30:00 +0000

With the "big holiday sales season" right around the corner, the question always comes -- can I get it done in time?

So that's what we're tackling!

Questions, join us inside the Expand Online Community or send me a message on Instagram or Facebook!

142: Thinking about starting a Membership Site?

Wed, 21 Oct 2020 10:30:00 +0000

I'm excited to share with you the basics and logistics of running a Membership Site.

Be sure to join the Expand Online Community

Connect with Jaime on Instagram and Facebook

Oh, and here's the link to Episode 139, all about LMS software!

141: Tech and the customer journey

Wed, 14 Oct 2020 10:30:00 +0000

The goal of your online tech tools is to give your students the best journey possible... in this episode, we discuss the relationship between the customer journey and the tech you use.

It's not good enough to have an amazing program, we want to treat our customers/students/clients/participants/members with an experience that surpasses expectations.

Be sure to join the Expand Online Community and connect with me on Instagram or Facebook!

140: Sending Emails Right for your Online Programs

Wed, 07 Oct 2020 10:30:00 +0000

In this episode, I share with you three powerful Email Marketing Systems with which you can communicate effectively about your online art or music education programs and with your students!

The SaaS (Software as a Service) are:

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide

Join the Expand Online Community on Facebook to surround yourself with other art and music instructors who are leveraging online programs to increase their impact and income!

Connect with Jaime

139: Choosing an LMS for your Online Programs

Wed, 30 Sep 2020 10:30:00 +0000

In this episode, I share with you four powerful Learning Management Systems upon which you can build out your online art or music education programs.

The SaaS (Software as a Service) are:

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide

Join the Expand Online Community on Facebook to surround yourself with other art and music instructors who are leveraging online programs to increase their impact and income!

Connect with Jaime

138: How do I really go online with Kimma Smith

Wed, 23 Sep 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Kimma Smith joins me this week on the podcast to share how if you want to teach online, you can. She really showcases that this is a place where anyone can thrive and create programs on their terms.

Join the Expand Online Community

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @jaimeslutzky

Connect with Kimma

Instagram: @kimma.smith.art
Website: https://kimmasmithart.com

137: 3 Factors That Can Derail You

Wed, 16 Sep 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Expand Online Community

Connect with Jaime on Instagram and Facebook

In this episode Jaime shares 3 factors that can derail you from getting your online program off the ground. Don't let these factors pivot your plans -- you can get through them when you have ongoing external support through the Expand Online Incubator!

136: Noteflight adds Composition to your Online Music School

Wed, 09 Sep 2020 10:30:00 +0000

John Mlynczak and Jaime Slutzky discuss how Noteflight works for teachers and private studio owners and instructors. It is a tool that provides a collaborative experience for educators and their students.

Noteflight also extends beyond the classroom and with Noteflight Marketplace becomes the Etsy of music compositions.

Check out these links:

Connect with Jaime on Instagram and Facebook

Join the Online Expansion Masterclass

About John Mlynczak: He offers an extensive range of experiences in music education and the music industry and is a frequent national clinician. Mr. Mlynczak is Managing Director of Noteflight, a Hal Leonard company, and Past-president of the Technology Institute of Music Educators. John also teaches online Graduate courses at VanderCook College and Boston University Online, and a Google Level-2 Certified Educator. Mr. Mlynczak is a passionate advocate for music education and technology, serving on the NAMM State Advocacy Coalition, the NAfME Advocacy Leadership Force, and is Advocacy Chairman for the Massachusetts Music Educators Association. Mr. Mlynczak holds degrees in music education, music performance, and educational leadership.

About Jaime Slutzky: She is a lifelong techie and helps in studio art and music instructors create profitable, sustainable and exciting online programs even if they are tech adverse. Using her signature Strategy, Support, and Tech methodology, she'll walk you through the process of taking what you already know and love in your in person classrooms and transforming it into a global online art education business

135: Online Works! Don't wait for Someday!

Wed, 02 Sep 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Online Education is not going anywhere -- don't get left behind because you're waiting for someday.

Someday has many shapes and forms and they are keeping you from your authentic self doing authentic things online. Someday may look like

When I have more time
When I have more money
When I know how to use the tech
When pigs fly
When I've exhausted all other options
When my grandson's best friend's wife is available to help me
When the stars align

Don't wait for someday, expand your business online now. Your future self and your students will thank you for being bold and being ahead of the curve.

Connect with the Expand Online Community on Facebook --> https://expandonlinecommunity.com

Join the Online Expansion Masterclass --> https://workshop.expandonlinecommunity.com

Connect with Jaime on Instagram and Facebook

134: Having Personality within Your Online Programs

Wed, 26 Aug 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Online Expansion Masterclass at https://workshop.expandonlinecommunity.com.

When we inject our personality into our online programs we create relationships for life. The skills that we teach are available all over the internet, but skill transfer alone doesn't equate to online business success. When your students connect with you on a visual and emotional level, they will remain in your programs and refer you to their friends.

Connect with me:

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

133: Hosting a Virtual Summer Festival with kate kayaian

Wed, 19 Aug 2020 10:30:00 +0000

In this conversation, Kate Kayaian and I discuss the Virtual Summer Cello Festival she ran for 7 weeks this summer.

Some of the Logistics include:

Facebook Group, as bulletin board
Daily live zoom session lasting 2 - 3 hours
Daily warm up in the morning
consistent microphones (everyone has the same hardware) - AKG lyra and had a test/setup day for students
FB Group "Rooms" for social time

At Summer Festivals, attendees have the opportunity to meet potential future teachers for their music programs at the college level, without summer festivals this year, a whole group of students were going to miss out on that opportunity.

Tools mentioned:

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

Connect with Kate

132: Choosing Success

Wed, 12 Aug 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Online Expansion Masterclass at https://workshop.expandonlinecommunity.com.

My goal is to provide you with succinct strategy, consistent & elevated support and tech support without overwhelm and today's episode is discussing choosing success.

3 specific things that contribute to choosing your success:

time
financials
gut intuition

Connect with me:

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

131: Playing to your Strengths Online with Jennifer Rosenfeld

Wed, 05 Aug 2020 10:30:00 +0000

In this episode, Jennifer Rosenfeld and I discuss the opportunities for growth, influence and income with expanding a classical music career online.

Several of the topics we cover are:

Divesting the income from the creativity
Getting online is not selling out
You don't need to be super tech savvy to have online success
Play to your strengths, you don't need to be everywhere and do everything
Overcoming perfectionism

Join the Expand Online Community on Facebook https://expandonlinecommunity.com

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

Connect with Jennifer

130: Teach Art Online Without In Person Experience

Wed, 29 Jul 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Expand Online Community

Attracting students to your online art classes and workshops is going to look and feel different that doing this same activity for a local in person workshop or class. In this episode, we discuss two approaches for bringing new students into your programs.

Connect with me:

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

129: On-Air Strategy Session with Emilia Bachelier

Wed, 22 Jul 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Expand Online Community on Facebook

Topics include:

what to post and where to post
the sales process
books and podcasts
expanding from social media
building an email list
using Instagram as a virtual gallery

Podcasts Mentioned:

The Abundant Artist
Art Marketing Online
Anything entrepreneurial mindset & selling art online

Emilia Bachelier is an abstract artist. Her mission is to create original abstract artwork that uplifts the mood, emanates colorful and positive vibes, and instills a surrounding that’s joyful for people looking to connect with beautiful art at home. She prides herself on possessing the creative ability to transport her happy place to ours.

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

Connect with Emilia

Instagram: @emiliabachelier
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/emiliabachelier
YouTube https://youtube.com/channel/UCfFWEVKaM0N3AIvU-uu86kg

128: Audioblog - Manifesting My Outcome

Wed, 15 Jul 2020 01:11:28 +0000

In this episode, I share how I lost my vision while in my final year of my Computer Science degree and how I pushed through the setback to graduate with honours (yes there's a "u" in there because I got my degree in Canada!)

Then I relate this to the curveball we were all thrown 4 months ago, in March 2020 when the COVID-19 pandemic shuttered doors and pushed everyone inside.

Please share this episode with people who need to hear it.

Connect with me:

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

127: Running Studio Music Classes Online

Wed, 08 Jul 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Episode Highlights

Danny owns two music schools in Orange County CA and was able to successfully pivot his lessons from in person to online -with only a 25-35% drop off.

We discuss how to make an online music lessons different in a way that people like it better.

Danny hosts the Music Lesson Business Academy Podcast and runs the membership site of the same name.

We discuss how some studios bemoan zoom/virtual programs but taking a page from yesteryear where big box put its head in the sand when online came to being, saying "nobody is going to do it that way" and pivoting gracefully.

When online learning experies are good they lead to in person connections.

And the key is to just start, experiment, find what works and double down on it

Tech Tools Discussed

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

Connect with Danny

Instagram @Dannythompson691967
Instagram @the_music_factory_oc
Website: www.musiclessonbusinessacademy.com
Podcast: https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/music-lesson-business-academy/id1298925652

126: A healthy dose of "You've Got This"

Wed, 01 Jul 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Sometimes we just need to hear "You've Got This" -- it's enough to keep us going.

In this episode Jaime shares 4 roadblocks and how to get through them so that you can create the online program you are working towards.

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

125: Online Group Music Programs with Michelle Rose

Wed, 24 Jun 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Michelle Rose is a full time music teacher at a 100% virtual school in North Carolina. In this conversation, we discuss teaching music classes online and the nuances that come with online art education.

Join the Online Expansion Masterclass - a free 5 day workshop right inside the Expand Online Community on Facebook

Topics include:

What an online school is and how to teach the arts online.
What the classroom looks and feels like.
How to run choir and group practices online.
Microphones & supplies.
Live and Pre-Recorded content.

Tools mentioned:

Michelle Rose teaches middle and high school general music and directs the extracurricular virtual band/orchestra and choir at North Carolina Virtual Academy. She is also the director of the International Music Education Summit Virtual Honor Band. Michelle holds a Bachelor's Degree in Music Education and Performance (flute) from Elon University and is currently pursuing a Master's in Music Education from The University of North Carolina Greensboro. She is a teacher-author and blogger at themusicalrose.com. Michelle has been a presenter at several conferences and has been a guest speaker for pre-service music teachers at colleges across the country. In her free time, she enjoys baking, sewing, and going on walks with her dog Tovy (short for Beethoven).

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

Connect with Michelle

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/the_musical_rose/
Website: https://themusicalrose.com

124: Online Self-Promotion The Right Way

Wed, 17 Jun 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Linked shared in this episode:

Episode highlights:

We need to get over the unflattering side of self-promotion and find a way to authentically share about ourselves, our missions, our programs and offers.
You are the best person to advocate online for your business, because you know it best.
The difference between me-marketing and we-marketing
Share from your heart and in a way that benefits the viewer or reader, the favor will return to you in spades.
Your credentials and accolades belong on your website (and in bios) not littering your social media posts.
Err on the side of giving away too much value.

123: No more starving artist with guest Whitney Uland

Wed, 10 Jun 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Expand Online Community on Facebook. This community is for artists of all disciplines who are looking to create supplemental or replacement incoming through online education means and online marketplaces.

This week Whitney Uland has joined me on the podcast to share how becoming a life coach has improved her acting and performance career.

Whitney is a life coach for actors, artists and creatives. Through her work, Whitney’s clients stop feeling stuck emotionally and in their careers and learn how to create more abundance, more happiness, and more results in their lives.

Highlights of the conversation include:

getting out of the mindset of being a struggling artist
how the narrative of "all or nothing" can be damaging to artists
utilizing your other talents, skills and interests will make you a better artist
you can be more free with your art when you're not relying on the final product to be your everything
identifying the underlying motivation for your art and expression
working in and out of our zone of genius
how being an artist positions you as an entrepreneur

Be sure to stay through the end of the episode, Whitney's advice to listeners is pure GOLD

Connect with Jaime

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

Connect with Whitney

122: Getting your first 100 non-local email subscribers

Wed, 03 Jun 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Episode Highlights

Growing your email list with these methods:

Downloadable Opt-In
Video Series Opt-In
Group Challenge
Quiz
Epic Report or Case Study

Links Mentioned

Connect with Me

121: What does your audience want you to teach?

Wed, 27 May 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Expand Online Community on Facebook: https://expandonlinecommunity.com

Do you know what do your followers want to learn from you??

It’s different for everyone but there are overarching themes which is exactly what we’re going to get into and this is how you’ll be able to figure out what online educational product you’re best suited to create for your followers.

So often I have potential clients come to me and say “I’m creating an online course that teaches whatever it is they want to teach and I need your help with getting it all working inside fill in the blank platform.” And I’m excited for them because they have a really great idea and it could land really well.

But I always challenge them, and I’m challenging you, do you know who is actually going to buy this program and learn from you in this way?

It’s all well and good to have the best fill in the blank program online but if it’s not what your audience is looking for, it’s never going to make the income you want and impact you desire.

So, we need to take a step back and make sure we’re really truly listening to our followers and fans to make sure we create what they want. We can give them what they need, but we need to sell them what they want… and the single best way to find out what they want is to ask them!

This is why I’m always asking you to connect with me in my Instagram DMs, reply to my emails and join the Expand Online Community on Facebook… because I want to be in conversation with you. I just made the community easier to join, just go to expandonlinecommunity.com (and yes, I have that linked up in the shownotes)

I absolutely want you to feel comfortable and confident when you’re in conversation with your audience which is what we’re going to dig into for the remainder of this episode.

Our audiences are made up of a lot of individual people. Not a collective. They are individuals and each person is there because you’ve attracted them in some way. Understanding what brought them in and what keeps them there is going to help so much in helping them see their future success by working with or learning from you.

Some audience members are going to be people you’ve connected with in real life, others are going to be there because you used an appropriate hashtag or because your bio matched their search. People might be popping up because you participated in a group program or were on a podcast or on a panel or virtual summit or did some other kind of exposure within the greater community.

While we want to continue to grow our audiences, it’s critical to our business success to serve the people who are currently here. The easiest way to gain insight is to ask for it.

Let’s talk social media; specifically Instagram. On this platform, Stories are where it’s at and the stickers make your stories so actionable.

Use the slider stickers -- you can ask a question to gauge interest and your audience can just slide it along.
Use the poll and quiz stickers where you can ask a question and your audience members can just pick from the options you provide.
Use the question sticker and get short feedback in your DMs.
Use fun emoji and gif stickers to point people to the DM and get into real conversation!

If you’re going to use the live feature of Instagram stories (which you absolutely should!) then prepare your audience that you’ll be going live. Share on your story. Share on your feed. Share on Facebook. Share in your emails. Help Instagram see that you want to have your audience connect with you on the platform -- make it an event!

It’s all well and good to push content out, but that’s not how we’re going to find out what your audience wants to learn from you. The only way to do that is to be in conversation with them. Which is why I am saying this -- it’s so much easier to just push content out and wait for people to see it, act on it and love it… but that’s not the way it works. We need to help our audience understand that we want them to engage with us and that we will reply.

One way I like to do that is to take screenshots of actual conversations and put them up on my story. I’ll just blur out or use a sticker to cover any information that I don’t think is appropriate to share publicly. But when you show people that you’re replying and really there, that will help them to connect with you on this platform.

So, there’s one way that you can gauge interest in your audience for the program idea that you have. Another way to ask your audience is within your emails.

If you don’t have an email list yet, what are you waiting for, it’s time to start growing one. This can totally be slow growth but start growing it and then use it for providing value. Provide as much value as you possibly can. The more you give, the more your audience will be able to see how working with you will truly elevate their skills and creativity. And when you’ve gained their trust and confidence, they’ll be more than willing to share with you what they want to learn from you!

While growing and using an email list can feel daunting, it’s one of the most critical pillars of expanding online. Without an email list, you’ll have a much harder time marketing and sharing about your online offers. Without an email list, you’ll be reliant on algorithms that are outside of your control -- and who would have ever thought that the word algorithm would ever become commonplace? I mean, it’s a term that I learned in my computer science lectures, not something that I expected anyone in the arts to ever need to know. Wow, so much has changed!

Now, I have a lot of thoughts about email list building outside of what I’ve just said, so we’ll make that the focus of next week’s episode. We also ran a 6 part email marketing series starting back in episode 58 about a year ago on the podcast. That was before I narrowed the focus to being of service to artists exclusively with the content (and when it was called the Tech of Business podcast) but the material we covered is absolutely relevant to you!

Let’s get back to asking your email list subscribers to better understand what they want to learn from you. These people have chosen to give you their email address in exchange for downloading a piece of free content from your website. They connected with you in some way, so now we need to know how to take them up a level and get excited about learning from you.

If it’s been a while since you emailed your list, this is a perfect opportunity to ask what they are looking for. You can have them reply via email or have them fill out a survey or form of some kind. Keep in mind that open ended questions will get less response than pick one or pick three type questions, which is why when I sent out surveys to the Expand Online Summit attendees, they were a mix of pick from the list and short answer questions. If I were creating your survey for you, I would probably list 3 - 5 things that you would like to teach and ask them to rank them in likelihood of wanting to take that class or workshop or course.

If you have been emailing your list regularly, then take a look at what emails get the most opens to see what type of content they are attracted to. You can also check out who opens your emails most often and do direct outreach to them. And just like with folks who don’t email regularly, you can ask for email replies or a survey.

Staying in conversation with your subscribers is a great way for them to feel invested in your offers and helps them see themselves having the results your programs deliver.

Thinking back to Ariane’s session on the Expand Online Summit, she created and continues to create what her audience is asking for. And that’s precisely why she’s had the success and opportunities that she’s had.

So those are two really great ways of asking your audience, now let’s switch to the overarching themes of your online programs… the themes are specific result programs, incremental improvement programs and exploratory programs.

Our specific results programs are those that promise a finished piece of work or the ability to do a specific skill. If you offer paint-and-sip soirees, then your specific results program is the finished piece of work that they will have at the end of the night. If you offer piano lessons, the specific result may be that they can play a certain piece.

The incremental improvement programs are those that take you from one specific level of proficiency to the next or teach a new technique or methodology to layer on top of what your student already knows. In my opinion, the best online art programs are these incremental improvement programs since there is a continual progression from one incremental program to the next. Here we can have our traditional level or grade progression or common terms like beginner, advanced, everything between them and I like to save mastery for the top level of our incremental programs.

And the exploratory programs are those where you throw caution to the wind and do something unconventional in the name of learning. So a piano teacher might explore percussion instruments and circle it back to piano playing improvements, or a still life painting instructor might explore landscape to understand how to bring some aspect of that technique into the creation of still life work, or an acting coach who generally works on the audition process might work with their students on script memorization tricks and techniques in order to give them something that will help in the audition process.

Here’s the thing though… without surveying your audience, you might not know what type of program you’re best suited to create for them. Are they wanting a specific short term result, or are they in this for lifetime or are they wanting to shake things up and love the way you think outside the box.

In truth, your entire lineup of online programs could be in just one of these styles, it doesn’t have to include all of them. It’s up to you to create what fuels you and serves the needs of your audience. The proof that you’ve created something that your audience wants is when they sign up for your programs. The proof that you’ve listened to their needs is when they sign up and pay you for your wisdom and expertise.

So, what questions do we need to ask and what should we infer from their interaction with you on social media?

Looking at the likes and comments on social media will help you see the type of content that resonates with your audience. If they are liking a lot of your content but not commenting, then you’re not quite there yet -- we want comments and engagement not just “oh that’s pretty” or “oh that’s cool.” And like I’ve said, invite conversation… ask questions!

Ask them how proficient they are with a specific skill or technique or strategy
Ask them to share their greatest frustration with a specific skill or technique or strategy
Ask them what they are working on (and even better, ask them to share behind the scenes in real time what they are working on)
Ask them what “level” they are at
Ask them would you rather questions
Ask them point blank if they would be interested in whatever it is that you would like to attend

And then follow up… get deeper and get to know what drove them to answer in the way they answered. And this is really the best part, it doesn’t really matter how they answered! If they answer no they don’t want the program you’re thinking about creating, then find out what program they do want. If they answer that they are frustrated with a technique ask them what they’ve tried so far to figure it out. If they answer highly proficient or a mastery level of something, ask them where they want to take their art next.

We will be able to create a much better product for our audience if we truly understand their wants, needs and desires.

And this is where it comes back to you -- what are your wants, needs and desires with respect to expanding your business online?

I have a lot of great stuff coming up on the podcast and inside the Expand Online Community on Facebook but I’m talking to each individual listener right now. If I could create a podcast episode answering your one most pressing question, what would that be? Send me a DM on Instagram, I’m @jaimeslutzky, I would love to know.

You have to be self-serving on social media, because you cannot serve your audience at the top level if you don’t know what they need…

Oh, and another thing that I get asked a lot when I go down this path with my clients is how do I know if they are actually going to buy whatever it is that we’re creating. The easiest way to get the proof that they are willing to put their money where their heart is, is with pre-selling. This is where you announce that your program is open for enrollment. Letting them know that it’s going to start in 4 or more weeks but that they can get the best price by enrolling now. This is a way to ensure that you’re creating for a live audience and that you get paid for your efforts.

In general, you only need to pre-sell your first online program. You can continue to survey your audience as you’re building out your products to make sure there is interest, but your previous successes will likely be enough for people to know that you’re going to take them to their objective.

So, let’s summarize -- ask lots of questions and get in one on one conversations with your audience. Understanding the difference between incremental learning programs, specific results programs and exploratory programs is going to help you tremendously with positioning and standing out from other online art instructors and their programs.

Your audience is in your audience because you brought them in. Knowing what they want from you will help every step of the way to create what they are needing.

Let’s use my social media and this podcast as a quick example and then I encourage you to start having more conversations with your audience…

Why do you show up and listen to this podcast? What are you hoping to learn? Is listening on a weekly basis bringing you closer to your goal of expanding your business online? What about inside the Expand Online Community on Facebook? How is watching my live streams in there moving you forward? How is engaging with me on Instagram creating trust between you and me? Are you getting closer to seeing how you can truly expand your business online (with or without working with me)?

That’s the thing, I’m putting this content out on the podcast, on social media and in my emails because I want you to know that you can do this. Yes, I would love to work with you to make it easy from a logistics and tech perspective, but I’m giving first… and I know that when I ask the right questions and develop the right offers, that the right people are going to take action. And the same goes for you -- when you put yourself in your audience’s shoes by having real conversations and getting their thoughts and feedback, you’re going to be able to serve at the highest level with your online offers.

Start asking questions. That’s your greatest opportunity.

And with that, I’m signing off. I’ll be back next week with an episode on growing your email list.

Go to https://expandonlinecommunity.com to join the conversation.

120: Transitioning to Teaching Art Online

Wed, 20 May 2020 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is all about doing something new and exciting online -- something that you’ve maybe been asked to do before but now is the time where you’re going to get over the fear and put your online product out there!

Yup, if you didn’t guess by the title of this episode, we’re talking about transitioning to teaching others online. And the same holds true no matter what you’re transitioning from. You could be transitioning from being a student or apprentice or creator or dabbler or professional there is a lot that goes into shifting our minds from creating a saleable product into teaching others to create in our style or using our methods.

And that’s exactly what we’re going to explore… everything that might go through your mind and how to come out the other side with a solid mindset that can take you through the 5 phases of an online product.

As you probably recall, the phases are idea, mode of delivery, tech, creation and launch. If online education is new to you, then it might be hard to see how you can translate something that brings you joy and income into something new that can bring at least as much joy and income in an entirely new way.

If you haven’t done so yet, be sure to download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide where we get into these 5 phases and more than that, help you see this expand online vision in your own business. Click here to download it now.

There are three things that I want to cover in today’s episode:

Why now is the best time to create an educational side to your business (no matter when “now” is)
The easiest way to create out of the gate success with online art instruction
The costs associated with online art instruction

Let’s start with the costs and move backwards up that list…

Have you heard the saying that you either pay for something with time or with money? Well the same holds true for expanding online. If you want to DIY everything, the money costs can be less than a couple hundred dollars and the time costs could be 40 or more hours.

If you’re anything like me, it’s probably going to be a hybrid of the two -- being willing to invest money into your new online business is going to reap benefits far faster than keeping your wallet closed. And you don’t want to throw money at things that are within your abilities… say for example you’re a visual artist, you probably don’t need to hire a graphic designer to create custom artwork for your education business, it would make far more sense to use your own art in this way. Or if you’re already really confident in front of a camera, use that skillset to create website videos.

The hard fast costs come from doing business online -- you’re going to have to invest in a few tools that may start out free but as your online education business grows, there will be fees associated with these tools. The tech tools will be

a place for people to find out what you’re offering, let’s call that your sales page
a place for people to sign up, let’s call that your checkout page
a place for running the classes or workshops, let’s call this your paid access portal
a mechanism for relaying important information to your students, let’s call that one your email marketing platform

There are hundreds of options available that will meet your needs for these and this is truly one of my favorite things to work on with my clients as we go through the Expand Online Mentorship and inside the Expand Online Incubator.

Those are my signature one-on-one program and group program respectively. You can find out more about them by going to my website https://techofbusiness.com/ and clicking on the work with me link at the top of the page.

The cost can be very low, I can even make a case for some tools that you can use indefinitely for free -- save for credit card processing fees… but the truth is, you’re going to outgrow the free tier because I know you’re an action taker!

So, in short, the cost of expanding online with an educational product is a balance between time and money for the infrastructure. The cost of creating your program is completely dependent on what it is you’re creating and what’s appropriate for that product. It would be disingenuous of me to put a price tag or estimated amount of time on this… but I do believe that program materials can be created in as little as a weekend and on average 3 - 5 weeks.

Now, let’s talk about the easiest way to create out of the gate success.

What seriously lights me up about my podcast listeners is that you already know your genius and have proof in happy consumers. You have people who have purchased what you offer and you’ve had conversation after conversation with your buyers. You have gotten to know why they want what you offer, how your art fits into their lives and what brings them joy.

Your buyers may not be the people who invest in your online program, but I bet they know someone who would love to do what you do. And that’s the thing… you don’t need a lot of people to invest initially, you just need people who are willing to commit to learning from you and see how what you are going to teach is going to help them create something new.

On the Expand Online Summit, about half the sessions were focused specifically related to finished products. In order to sell a finished product online, you need to make the product. When you’ve reached your creation limit you may want to bring on others who can also make your product… having an online program for them to take would be a surefire way to expand your business! This is particularly relevant to crafters and artisans.

Think about your business -- what is it that you create, what part of your process is predictable and repeatable? There is likely an online program opportunity in there… and the most likely people who are going to buy into that program are people who are inspired by your work on social media. These people who love your behind the scenes shots and video clips, they are going to love to learn from you.

It’s funny, isn’t it, your collectors or purchasers probably not going to buy your online educational products but they know people who would love them and your social media followers are not necessarily going to buy your finished work but absolutely love what you do and how you do it and are going to jump at the opportunity to learn from you.

You really only need 10 - 20 initial students or workshop attendees when you start. Because their testimonials and word of mouth and social media will expand your reach on every new iteration of your program.

Here’s a really important aspect of doing something new online -- the fewer the number of people you have access to when you’re selling initially, the more touch points you’re going to want to have with your students. So, a completely DIY course is not going to do nearly as well as a live group workshop when you’re launching to a small number of people.

The nice thing about this is though, you will be recording your workshop sessions and can repurpose them into a DIY course as word gets out about your talent as not only a product creator but also as an educator!

I love when this stuff can iterate upon itself -- so, suffice it to say, you already know everyone you need to know to fill the first round of your online program. And then it’s just a matter of selecting the right mode of delivery to exceed expectations and achieve fabulous results!

And finally, let’s talk about why now is the right time to dig in and do this…

Quite simply, you’re never going to be done learning and honing your skills but there are people who haven’t learned as much as you wanting to improve (or get started) in their own right.

And think about everyone you have learned from (or would like to learn from in the future) and look how much becoming a trainer has helped them grow as an artist.

Now look at your own business and imagine how being seen as a trainer, mentor or guide could do for your business.

Imagine what that could do for your product sales
Imagine what that could do for your income
Imagine what that could do for your creativity
Imagine what that could do for your free time

When you create an art education program you’re opening the door for your own growth and that of your future students. So why wouldn’t you start now?

At the time of this recording, I’m over two months into the stay at home orders here in Washington State due to the COVID-19 pandemic. And I know that there is a massive need for inspiration and creativity.

People aren’t going to craft fairs or farmers markets. They aren’t dining out nor window shopping. They aren’t going to the usual places your work is on display…. And this leaves you without your usual stream of income.

Sure, you could open up online sales of your work or an Etsy shop (both of which are great ideas and I think have a lot of merit) but an education product is going to solve a greater need in your community than the store will at this time.

Now, if you’re listening to this episode after the strict stay at home orders have gone away and shops are opening back up and your art sales have recovered, it’s still a great time to expand online with an art education product because it reaches your audience in a new and exciting way!

That’s really the gem here, when people know you for your final product and then find out that they can learn from you, they are going to take a chance. You are already someone they admire and someone that they trust, it’s an easy sell with your knowledge and methods!

I’m not talking about creating a 20 week course that costs them thousands of dollars, I’m talking about starting with something that is tangible for both of you. Like I said earlier, running a live workshop is a perfect first online art education product.

You really have what it takes to run online workshops.
You really have an audience waiting for your online programs.
Now really is the best time to start this process.

Look at what you do, how you do it and how that becomes something you can teach to someone else. Think about your audience, who are they, what interests them, what would they like to create if only they were shown how. Visualize what successfully teaching will feel like and the response from your students. Take action. Make a plan and start executing on it.

I’m here to support you in any way that I can, from working with you to figure out the best education product to start with, to guiding you through the journey. Send me a DM on Instagram @jaimeslutzky. Your time is now and I want to see you succeed in the online education space.

Next week, in episode 121 we’re going to talk more about your audience and understanding what they want from you other than buying your finished product.

And if you haven’t downloaded the Expand Online Getting Started Guide, click here now and get started expanding online!

119: Online Opportunities for Art Instruction & More

Wed, 13 May 2020 10:30:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime shares behind the scenes of the recent Expand Online Summit and the program that she launches on the heels of it.

Click here to learn more about the Expand Online Incubator

Click here to get a weekend pass for all 23 sessions of the Expand Online Summit

Click here to get the Expand Online Getting Started Guide

Connect with Jaime on Instagram, Facebook or via email.

118: Landing, Sales & Checkout Pages Defined

Wed, 06 May 2020 10:30:00 +0000

We’re at the halfway point of the Expand Online Summit and there is still a ton of time for you to learn from the experts to take action and put things in motion for your business. Click over to https://expandonlinesummit.com to register now!

Today’s episode is a peel back the layers type episode. We’re going to break down the differences between landing pages and sales pages and checkout pages. All these types of page have a critical role in your online art education business and I know that they can be confusing at times… so here we go :)

Let’s start at the beginning…

While a landing page can be defined as any page on your website that you drive traffic to, the specific definition of a landing page that I want to work with is that it’s a dedicated page on your website that has one unique goal -- to begin the process of inviting people to go deeper in a relationship with you.

The landing page isn’t going to have your normal website header -- the home, about, contact, services links -- rather it’s going to go straight into the page purpose.

This page is going to consist of a headline - what it is that you’re asking them to sign up for, an image or graphic to represent that ask, a short description or bullet points and a signup box for their name and email address.

That’s really about it for this page… it should be kept short and succinct so that it loads quickly, especially on mobile devices, and so that it doesn’t take a lot of brainpower to understand what it is that you’re trying to have a viewer do.

From here, we direct our new subscribers to a thank you page. I’m not going to go into too much detail about the thank you page. At its simplest level, we just want to let people know that we’ve received their email address and to check their inbox for an email with next steps and their access or download or whatever you are offering.

There is a lot more that can go on a thank you page, but to start with, this is all I recommend. Get something up and working and then tweak it… don’t try to get to 100% before starting to share.

There are a variety of tools that can be used for landing pages like this. Most email marketing platforms have built in landing pages which is the simplest way to get started. There are dedicated tools like LeadPages and Instapage. And a host of all in one platforms like ClickFunnels and Kartra that offer landing pages for simple and more involved funnels. Since I know my way around WordPress and have the tools to support me, I build landing pages right inside WordPress. You can see an example of one (and hey, while you’re there, sign up!) at https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct.

When it comes to building the landing page, the most important thing is to be in the mind of the viewer -- what enticed them to click over? What are they dealing with that you could be solving or helping them with? What do you need to put on this page to help them take the next action step and enter their name and email address?

In the Expand Online Summit, I gave each of my 22 speakers the opportunity to share a free gift for the attendees… so I saw a lot of different tools and formats of these types of pages as I was putting the summit together -- just one more reason to sign up, so that you can see how other artists are using landing pages in their businesses. Totally a secret benefit!

While I use the term landing page, you might also see them referred to as a squeeze page, capture page, a splash page, a lead magnet page, an opt-in page, a gift page, and a free offer page. They are essentially all the same thing!

But one thing they are not is sales pages and checkout pages, so let's move on, shall we?

Sales Pages

These may look similar to the landing page in so far as it doesn’t have your website header, but otherwise it’s completely a different type of page.

In my mind, and what I help my clients with, a sales page is a long form invitation to work with you or enroll in your online program. It takes your prospective buyer from being curious to being interested to making the purchase.

Think about the last time you bought an online course or program. What was on the sales page? How did it make you feel when you first got there and by the end of the sales page how were you feeling differently?

We want to take our prospective customer through a journey of emotions on this sales page. First we want them to know we have a program or course that will offer the solution to what they are looking for. Then we’re going to build trust that we understand their struggles or worries. And from there we’re going to go back and forth between sharing information about the course or program and helping them see why it’s a good fit for where they are at and what they are wanting to do next.

A sales page length ties directly to the investment in the product. If you’re asking someone to buy a seat at your online Paint and Sip workshop on Saturday night, the sales page can be far shorter than asking someone to join a 10-module course or a 12-week group program.

And another thing about sales pages, they need to be more robust the less your relationship is with the prospective client. So, if you’re bringing your offline work online to the same people you’ve worked with in person in the past, they are going to be far more likely to sign up for your online program with a short sales page than someone who has only ever had brief encounters with you online. That second person is going to need to be wooed with a longer sales page.

There are a few really great sales page and conversion copywriters available to help you create the right sales page for your new online opportunities. One that comes to mind is Jenn Robbins. She was a guest on the podcast in episode 92.

So, that’s really it about a sales page, it’s there to help your prospective customers get a better understanding of your course or membership or one-on-one service or group program. They are there to inspire others to take action and trust you to be part of their successes.

And, when someone says yes to trusting you, the next page they are going to go to is your checkout page. I really encourage you to create this as a separate page, rather than blending the checkout into the sales page -- and that’s for one specific reason -- retargeting. We’ll get to that in a moment, but first let’s define the checkout page.

The Checkout Page

The checkout page is where your prospect becomes your client. This is where they enter their credit card information or pay you through PayPal or whatever other online payment system you choose. The checkout process should be simple and streamlined. It is a transaction rather than an experience. It’s taking someone from trusting you to investing in you.

The more information you ask for on the checkout page (or the landing page for that matter) the lower the follow through rate will be. Think about it, do you need someone’s email address, yes. Do you need their first name, yes. Do you need their telephone number, probably not. Do you need their mailing address, only if you need to charge tax… What about their birthday and favorite flavor of ice cream… well, you see where I’m going.

Having the phone number or birthday or favorite flavor of ice cream are great things to extend the relationship and foster a greater sense of community but you don’t need those at time of purchase. You can send a new client questionnaire or similar form after the transaction. The checkout page has only one goal, to take them from prospect to customer.

The checkout page will either live external to your other tools, like on ThriveCart, or internal to the platform that you’re going to use to contain the program content. If it’s internal, they will get immediate access to the portal. If it’s external, there are a couple additional steps that will need to be taken, but those are outside the scope of this podcast episode.

After the transaction, your checkout page will redirect your new customer to a thank you page where you provide them instructions on how to access or what to do next.

And that’s about it -- we’re squared away with landing pages and sales pages and checkout pages.

Do you have any questions for me about these pages and how to get them going for your business? Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide and reply to any of my emails with your questions!

Have a great week -- next episode will be a recap of the 2020 Expand Online Summit.

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
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Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
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Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

117: Online Product Launches To Start Selling

Wed, 29 Apr 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Join the Expand Online Summit Today -- https://expandonlinesummit.com

The truth of the matter is that launching is hard… and I know because I’m in the middle of the biggest launch of my almost decade in online business!

If you’ve been listening to the podcast for a while, you know that registration is now open for the Expand Online Summit for Artists and that I would love for you to attend. Just click this link!

In my 5 phases of an online product framework, launch is the final stage. It’s what we’re working towards and it’s a massive milestone in your online ventures.

Without launching, we’re just throwing spaghetti at the virtual online wall and hoping someone is going to follow the strands to our product or program. And that’s not a well thought out strategy at all. But rest assured, launching doesn’t have to be big or scary. So breathe, you’ve got this.

Remember also that you’re not going to start launching before you’re ready to start launching. Your product is going to 100% be ready for people to check out and purchase.

Now, let’s list off the launch methods that I recommend in order of general ease.

Email
Webinar
Challenge
Jeff Walker’s Product Launch Formula - 3 Video Series
Virtual Summit

The easiest launch is just a simple email launch. The idea behind this launch is that you have the permission to send emails to several hundred past and potential customers and you build a series of emails to encourage them to look at your product sales page and purchase what you’re buying.

This is actually my preferred method of launching when I work with clients who are truly expanding online -- taking something they’ve been doing offline and morphing it into a product they can deliver online. Go back to episode 110 to see this model in action. The reason this does so well for this type of online expansion is because you already have a strong relationship with the email subscribers and they are overwhelmingly interested in what you do and offer.

With an email launch, you’ll want to have at least 3 emails in the “automation” “series” or “funnel” since people are busy and they might miss one or more of the emails. I also strongly encourage my clients to make sure their email system is smart and removes purchasers from the rest of the emails after they purchase. The last thing I want to see if selling to the already sold.

OK, so if emails alone aren’t going to do it for you, then the next launch method I suggest is a webinar launch. A webinar, or sometimes called a masterclass, is where instead of inviting people to go directly to the information page for your product or service, you invite them to sign up to attend a live online presentation. In this presentation it’s fundamental to provide significant value and develop a need within your attendees to close the loop by purchasing your offer. There aren’t any rules as far as format or length of the webinar, but I recommend providing a lot of high level value and practicing your pitch before you get there.

I also believe that launching with a webinar means that you invest in the right tools -- like proper webinar software, provide everyone who registers the ability to watch a replay of the webinar for a short replay window and create a sense of urgency with purchase bonuses.

A webinar style launch works really well when you are going beyond or deeper than what you’ve offered in your business to this point. You’ll want to use the webinar launch to help people understand what it is that you’re doing, why it matters and the benefit to them. Draw upon what you already know about your students or clients and help them see themselves being successful when they adopt the principles of whatever it is that you’re pitching.

Next up, the challenge. This one is super fun because it creates a huge amount of engagement and excitement. And the results that are achieved by participating are nearly unparalleled. With a challenge, you’ll want to make sure that community is a big part of the strategy. Peers are a great motivator and so is leading by example.

The most common type of challenge that I see doing well right now is one that is run inside a Facebook Group. Challenges can be as short as 3 days and most run 5 - 10 days. The shorter the challenge, the greater the ability for people to finish but the less invested they are in the process and the results.

With a challenge, the idea is that you walk participants through activities that are going to help them tackle whatever it is that you teach or coach them on. They will get tiny wins which will help them see how valuable your teaching and coaching will be to help them get the desired result.

Maybe you are a mixed media artist, and you’re going to teach a course on creating found object art. The challenge would then be to build a stockpile of potential items to use in art -- so on each day of the challenge, you give a prompt or visualization and your participants collect the objects that they will ultimately use in your course. If they don’t decide to buy your course, then they still have won, because they now have found objects to start exploring with. And if they do decide to join the course, you’ve got them well on their way to creating something completely new.

With a challenge, and a webinar actually, and the other launches that I’m going to get into, it’s most common to do a bit of promotion and invite people outside your immediate network to participate. This is how online reach and exposure grow. I’m not talking about paid advertising, I’m talking more about strategic online marketing. Using tools like Instagram, Facebook and Pinterest to attract people to your webinar or challenge from outside your immediate sphere. And always encouraging participants to invite their friends, family and peers. That’s how these become bigger and more beneficial to your business.

The next launch strategy is the Jeff Walker Product Launch Formula.

The PLF method is to have usually 3 pre-recorded videos that release over the course of a week and then the ability to purchase becomes available after the release of the videos. The videos are getting people energized and ready to buy when your cart is actually open. They are different from webinars in that they are shorter (usually 15 - 20 minutes) and feel more professional. You’re using them to build authority, trust, community and anticipation to state a few reasons for them. And they are chock full of free actionable content, much like a challenge is.

A PLF style launch works really well when you have a launch team… something that I haven’t talked about yet but will talk about as soon as I cover the virtual summit launch.

This is what I’m doing… I’m hosting a virtual summit to grow my authority, email list, podcast listenership and ultimately to launch my new group program, the Expand Online Incubator. I’ll have more to say about the Incubator on the podcast in two weeks.

So, what is a virtual summit and why is this the launch method that I chose. Well, to start a virtual summit is a collection of interviews and masterclasses with experts in their own right. They are all available for free consumption for a limited time -- my sessions are available for 48 hours each. The Expand Online Summit consists of 23 sessions and sessions are released each morning for 5 days.

The unique thing about the summit versus the other models is that it’s a marketing benefit to not just the host and their business, but also for every single one of the expert speakers. So, in this model, the summit attendees are members of each of our audiences. That’s 23 different people’s audiences -- and when done right, there is minimal overlap between the speakers’ audiences -- which makes for this to be one of the largest organic growth models.

I chose the summit for this exact reason -- I didn’t have a strong following in the creative and artists space and this is where I want to be. So I reached out to experts in this space and invited them to be experts on the summit. And that’s how I’ll have an audience to launch the incubator to.

For most of my clients, starting your launch with your established customer base and strategic partners is a much easier road to follow. Summits take at least 90 days to pull together and when you launch warm, that can be done in a few weeks or a month.

Now, that launch team that I mentioned a couple of minutes ago. A launch team is a curated group of friends and associates who can stand behind your authority and give social proof to your product or service. These are people who are willing to vouch for you and encourage people to sign up for your webinar or challenge or PLF style launch.

Your launch team doesn’t need to be compensated in any way, but I do love to see launch teams that have prizes and referral rewards. These don’t even have to be big, they just need to mean something.

So, there we have it, an overview of launching and if you haven’t signed up for the summit yet, what are you waiting for? Click Here Now!

Next week, I’ll be back with episode 118 in which I’ll be talking about sales pages and checkout pages.

Next week, we’re going to talk about Instagram and Facebook and how they play into gaining awareness of your business expanding online!

Download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide
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Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
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Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

116: Using Checklists, Journaling & Deadlines to Bring an Online Product to Market

Wed, 22 Apr 2020 10:30:00 +0000

If you haven't registered for the Expand Online Summit yet https://expandonlinesummit.com now -- the summit is live from May 4 - May 8, 2020.

The building blocks of every Expand Online journey revolve around checklists, journaling and deadlines... seriously, what big scary project have you ever tried to work on that didn't have checklists and deadlines?

It doesn’t matter if you’re doing an exact 1-to-1 translation of your past work into online work or doing something that looks dramatically different, when you expand online it’s so easy to let time and effort slip by.

And that’s why we need to set realistic deadlines.

Yup, we’re going straight to the hard stuff… there are 5 major deadlines that need dates in order to put something online, and unsurprisingly, these tie exactly to the 5 phases of an online product discussed in the Expand Online Getting Started Guide. You can always down load it at https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/ but in case you haven’t downloaded it yet, I’ll let you in on those right now. They are:

Idea
Mode of Delivery
Tech
Creation
Launch

And, not coincidentally, our deadlines correspond.

We need a deadline for when the idea needs to be formulated. A deadline for when the mode of delivery has been identified. A deadline for when the tech foundation has been identified and all accounts created. A deadline for when product creation is to be complete and a deadline for the launch period.

Between our deadlines, we use journaling and checklists to take us across the vast terrain that is between us and the next deadline.

I seriously love goal journaling -- this is where you don’t start with a blank sheet of paper in your journal each day but instead start with a sheet that has specific prompts to help you move towards your goals.

These don’t just work well with online projects, they are also hugely useful in the health and wellness space. Actually, I think the first one of these journals that I bought was in that space. But anyway, journals that have daily or weekly planning pages to help you identify what you’re working towards, give you space to write the most important steps for today or this week and additional space to jot ideas or feelings or struggles or triumphs are most often the best ones to be using when you’re in the process of doing something new or big.

These journals take the project and give you space to break down a daily action plan. Most journals of this type include a space to describe your top daily or weekly priority and break down how you’re going to keep that top of mind.

If you’re in the idea phase of your online product, then one day could have the top priority of brainstorm all the ways I could translate what I do offline into something that I could offer online. And the next day I could have the priority of splitting my brainstorm into three sublists. And the next day would be to take the “lights me up list” and rank the ideas… and so on. Each day marching you closer to the deadline of having your ONE IDEA.

Easily, the biggest phase of an online product is the creation phase. This phase has a lot of pieces that need to come together. I don’t want you to over deadline yourself, which is why we only have one creation phase deadline. But a goal or prompt journal is probably not going to get you through the creation phase alone.

So, we need to break it down further -- and that’s where our checklists come into play.

In my mind the easiest online product is a mini-course that is built entirely off an in-person workshop. You might have run this workshop as a 3 hour one-day workshop or as a weekend workshop that spans several hours each day. But most of the time, the workshop takes people from point A to point B in a short amount of time. We’re going to use this workshop as the example for building our checklists.

The first step in the creation process for this course is to take what we already do in our workshop and itemize it. Start with the beginning of the workshop and go through the end of the workshop. Think about the supplies, the lectures, the practical application, the nuances, everything that makes your workshop actually work. Then, add in what happens in the days and weeks leading up to the workshop and write those down. And, if relevant, do the same for what happens in the days and weeks after the workshop concludes.

This is your online product outline. It’s still messy but it’s out of your head and a puzzle that can be put together for online delivery and consumption.

And from there, we can start to make checklists of all the tasks we have to move the puzzle pieces around, build them out, connect them to one another and march ourselves towards the creation phase deadline.

I’m a big checklist gal, I would rather have a checklist that has 300 items on it and keep marching from that same checklist.

Other people I work with are small checklist folks, they prefer to have a checklist for all the video scripts they need to write, another checklist for recording videos, another for editing the videos and another for uploading the final videos to Vimeo or wherever they are storing the videos for their online course. And then more checklists for the other elements of the course, like written text, visuals, downloadables, promotional content and so on.

Still others prefer to have a checklist for each module or lesson or chapter of their program and have all the tasks tied to that module or lesson or chapter together in a single list.

And others prefer to have their checklists based on the tools they are using to implement the work, so one for Canva or Photoshop, one for ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit, another for Google Docs and so on.

All these approaches work, I find that checkmarks themselves give me enough of an endorphin boost to keep moving forward, whereas some people need to see a completed checklist to get that same endorphin boost! If you are a completed checklist kind of person, make sure to keep your lists succinct so that you can get to complete.

But no matter which checklist method you use, make sure you are using a tool that allows for additional items to be added to the bottom of the checklist or checklists.

Now, creating those checklists and seeing all the tasks laid out in front of us, it can sometimes feel overwhelming, which is why I tie checklists back with journaling. I can use my journal to say that I’m going to check off three video scripts and two emails or edit two videos or even write an intro paragraph for sections 1 and 2. This way all the empty boxes will be tackled in turn.

So, let’s recap for a moment before I get into a couple other examples.

First we use our five phases of an online product development cycle to create realistic but firm deadlines. Then we use goal journaling to keep focused on the result we are striving for and for bigger sections of the project we use checklists to track all the elements and to see progress.

Let’s back into the tech phase of the mini-course project we talked about a few minutes ago. In this phase we’re trying to figure out the exact tools we’re going to use to offer, fulfill and deliver our mini-course. This phase of the project also involves getting the tech ready to contain everything you create and have it ready to use in the launch.

This phase is one that is most likely outsourceable -- I do this for my clients in the Expand Online Mentorship program and many VA’s offer this type of research and implementation for their clients. The deadline for this phase is not the start of the creation phase, because those two phases can overlap, especially if there is a team working on getting this online product launched. That being said, I strongly believe that knowing all the online software tools that you’re going to be using before doing the big braindump. It’ll make it much easier to begin creating content and getting the tech to do its job when these two facets are done in this order.

Wow, that was an unexpected tangent. What I really wanted to actually say about the tech phase is that the main deadline is usually about 4 weeks before the deadline for the creation phase, as long as the creation phase is 6 weeks or more. And inside the tech phase, we have several objectives or goals. This is where we use our goal journal and checklists to keep us moving forward towards the ultimate deadline -- the day that we’re ready to launch our product to our ideal buyers.

While I believe that you can be successful with a short turnaround from idea to launch, most of my clients use a 90 day calendar for launching their online products. Each of the phases falls into that 90 day calendar. Rough breakdown would be:

Idea: 10 days
Mode of Delivery: 5 days
Tech: 30 days
Creation: 45 days
Launch: 15 days

There is overlap between the phases, generally mode of delivery starts about 3 days before the end of the idea phase. Tech starts 5 - 7 days before the creation phase. This gives us roughly 90 days.

You absolutely can expand your business online in a way that feels good to you. There is no need to rush the process, but it’s also important to stick with your timeline. Deadlines, journaling and checklists are the three tools that I’ve been using extensively with clients, and personally for the Expand Online Summit!

If you’re listening to this before May 8th, 2020 grab your free ticket to the Expand Online Summit at https://expandonlinesummit.com or if it’s after May 8th, download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide from https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/ and start making traction with moving some facet of your successful business online!

I’m here to help you and support you. Please reach out if you would like more information!

115: Prepping your Instagram and Facebook for your new online programs!

Wed, 15 Apr 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Before we get into this, if you’re listening or reading in real time, or anytime before May 4, 2020, I invite you to head over to ExpandOnlineSummit.com and sign up for the Expand Online Summit. It’s another completely free way for you to learn more about expanding your business online. The summit is going to be live from May 4 - May 8 and features over 20 artists, musicians, actors and coaches who work with artists, musicians, performers, singers and actors! The goal of the summit is simple: to help more creatives like you stop wishing and dreaming about doing something online and take action!

It’s a great compliment to what we do on a weekly basis here on the podcast. You’ll have the opportunity to watch 4 or 5 sessions each day and a vibrant community of artists to interact with on Facebook. Sessions run from 30 - 50 minutes and I’ll be providing you with the exact run times and topics inside the Expand Online Summit Playbook which is a workbook and guide book at the same time. The mission of the summit is to provide you with insight, strategy and support to turn your In-Person Art Career into an Online Scalable Business.

When you started your Instagram account and when you started your Facebook page, we were in a different time. You were thinking about showcasing your business to attract and motivate and inspire in your local community. You wanted to be top of mind when people were looking to learn a new skill, improve their art or craft and take their artistry to the next level. And, if you’re anything like most of my clients (and frankly me!) you didn’t really know how to inspire and captivate anyone on either platform.

But now, you’ve got a steady following and people are interacting with your posts… just in time for a big shake up!

One thing to keep in mind is that we’re talking about expanding your business online, not replacing your business with a new online business. You do not need to completely scrap what you’ve already got going on and you certainly do not need to create new profiles or pages. What a huge weight off our collective shoulders on that one.

That being said, there might need to be a few tweaks you’ll want to make to the profile and page info, and let’s get started there.

On Instagram, your bio is only 150 characters, so if you currently list your city and a couple of surrounding cities, I recommend cleaning it up so that people everywhere can relate.

Here’s an example:

Ceramics teacher in Redmond, WA. Serving Kirkland, Bellevue, Sammamish and beyond in our cottage ceramics studio. Class info at link below.

Change it to:

Ceramic teacher based in Redmond, WA. Serving local artists and beyond from our cottage ceramics studio and through our website. Click link for more.

Or another example:

Classically trained violinist teaching kids and adults in our studio or your home within the greater Seattle region (up to 40 miles). Contact via DM.

Change it to:

Classically trained violinist teaching kids and adults, in home (Seattle +/- 40miles), in studio and online. Contact via DM.

On Facebook, you have a similar number of characters for your Page Description. It’s 155 characters. I recommend keeping the Instagram bio and Facebook Page Description the same -- just makes it easier on you and keeps your brand consistent across platforms.

Profile Photo

If you are not using your picture as your profile photo on these platforms, it’s time to do so… people need to see your face and connect with you everywhere! Even if you aren’t branded under your name, your picture speaks volumes.

And on Facebook this is particularly useful if you ever accidentally reply to a comment with your personal profile instead of as your page (whoops, I just did that recently but because my images for both my page and my profile are from the same photo shoot, it was pretty obvious that I was one in the same.)

Content -- this is really what you’re here for, right?

Your images are designed to “stop the scroll”, your captions or descriptions are designed to draw people in and your micro call to action is designed to have them invest a little bit of themselves into your content.

So, let’s talk about the type of content that you’ve been creating to this point and how that might need to change or be refined going forward.

There are so many formulas to what type of content to put on social media, in general we can use these buckets -- informational, inspirational, anecdotal, promotional and miscellaneous.

Under informational, you’ll be sharing the type of work you create and help your students create.

For inspirational, you’ll be sharing student success stories, insights into how to do whatever it is that you teach even better and showcase pieces that your going to help your students re-create.

When it comes to anecdotal posts, this is where you’ve been sharing student or personal transformations, perseverance and overcoming obstacles or barriers. And in this type of post, you generally also call out the silver lining to the story.

Promotional posts are those that are inviting people to sign up for your programs, stopy by your studio, purchase your or students’ work and otherwise promote some kind of financial transaction.

And our miscellaneous posts are those that don’t fall into any of the other categories but that help to create a well rounded profile or page.

Now that you’re shifting your messaging to be less location specific, and feel just, well, different.

Informational posts need to extend beyond location and might swap out location specific terms like the name of your local mall or neighborhood park for more abstract terms like nature walks and big box stores (because those are found nationally/internationally)

Inspirational posts can reach across time and space, they can draw upon a weather or cultural event in another place. If it’s Cherry Blossom season in Washington D.C. but you’re in Minnesota and you’re still in the depths of winter, an inspirational post could draw upon the contrasts and how your style of art instruction helps people no matter what the season is outside create beautiful spring scenes. Just because you don’t have spring yet, doesn’t mean you can’t draw upon the springtime inspiration. That type of post wouldn’t work if you were just looking to reach people in Minnesota most of the time!

Anecdotal posts are super fun when you are able to draw upon online experiences as well as in person experiences. There are subtle and obvious differences between the two forms of interaction. And sometimes the best results come from the most unusual circumstances. When you’re just getting started shifting online, you might not have any distance teaching anecdotes but as you build your business these are going to come!

Promotional posts are actually the type of post that are going to change up the most, as you probably expected… These posts need to call out the reason why now is the best time for your new and returning students to jump into whatever it is that you’re offering. If you have always offered weekend workshops or evening classes, and now you’re offering that programming in a non-time dependent manner, then suddenly you can call out the fact that your new program can fit into any schedule without worrying about traffic, meals and carpools. If you are retaining a live component call out the fact that there is a live component which has all the benefits of in person workshops and classes but with the convenience of attending from anywhere.

A few other things to keep in mind as you’re expanding online…

Your biggest asset that puts you miles ahead of other aspiring online business owners is that you have an established customer base. The people who have been working with you locally are poised to be your first set of online students. Keeping them top of mind and understanding what’s going to motivate them to continue working with you on your new platform. So, when it comes to posting on social media, make sure that you address their fears and hopes.

And, just because you’re going online doesn’t mean that you are abandoning your local community -- make sure that your Instagram profile and Facebook page retain your local appeal. While we’re in the middle of the COVID-19 pandemic at the time of this recording, at some point in the future you will be able to go back to the studio and work with your students in person if you choose to do so.

So, to quickly recap, when you start setting your profiles up as you’re getting ready to expand online, you’ll want to tweak your bio, make sure that you have a good profile image and add depth to your content by keeping your local and loyal clients at the forefront of your messaging but make it accessible and available to a larger audience.

And with that, let’s call this episode a wrap. Again, sign up for the Expand Online Summit by clicking here. If you’re listening or reading this after May 10th, 2020 go there anyway, I’ll have something on that page to make sure that you have the tools you need to expand your art education business online!

114: Getting Online Ready; Transferring your Brand Online

Wed, 08 Apr 2020 10:30:00 +0000

In today’s episode, we’re talking about what it looks like to get online ready.

It really doesn’t matter what you’ve done online nor what you’re wanting to do, there is one underlying thread that needs to be succinct within your online presence… and that is what your business looks like visually.

And of course, I’m talking about images and fonts and colors. These are the visual representation of your brand. Equally important is the messaging of your brand.

What emotions does your brand evoke?
What type of person is attracted to your visuals?
Are you relatable?
Do the visuals match your level of experience?

Because you’re transitioning from an offline brand to an online brand, you will want to look at every aspect of your brand identity and make sure that it translates as well on the screen as it does in 3D.

Let’s start with your colors. In the printing world, they use CMYK to create color -- or in other words this model works by partially or entirely masking colors on a lighter, usually white, background. It is sometimes called subtractive because inks "subtract" the colors red, green and blue from white light.

In the online space, when we’re working with screens, we’re using RGB to create color -- and this is the process by which red, green, and blue light are added together in various ways to reproduce a broad array of colors. The name of the model comes from the initials of the three additive primary colors, red, green, and blue.

You might have also heard of Pantone colors which are color codes that stand for a specific shade. Basically, pantone is the standard language for colors and might be what you’ve looked at when picking paint colors. It’s not going to translate one-to-one for print nor one-to-one for screen so we’re not going to focus on it here.

If you’re currently using CMYK colors be sure to use a tool to see what the RGB version of that color looks like on several different devices and screens. You may want to adjust your colors in order to allow them to pop on screens. Our screens can display 16,777,216 different colors because each of Red, Green and Blue have 256 shades but CMYK cannot translate to each of those colors because it uses pigments instead of light. They are really different entities and it’s worth the time to translate your logo and brand colors into online equivalents.

And you do have the liberty to alter colors and shades as necessary to get the right look and feel online.

OK, now onto the fonts you use. Online we use written word everywhere from our websites to overlays on our graphics. In the offline space, using the default font for printouts that you give your students or instructions you send home with your artwork is usually fine. Those printouts aren’t going to live in association with your brand for the long term.

You might use a few fonts for signage inside your studio, your business card and flyers. And this is the aspect of your brand that you’ll be carrying forward online. In addition to the fonts themselves, there are font weights and variations to consider.

There are nine font weights - 100 which is “Thin” through 900 which is “Black” and everything in between. Normal is 400 and bold is 700. You’ll likely want to bring at least those two weights online and possibly one or two more. When it comes to variations, we’re talking about italic and small caps. I don’t usually see a lot of small caps but I do see italic… so we’re looking at somewhere from four to eight different looks for the exact same font.

And we haven’t even got into font size yet -- but don’t worry we’ll get there soon. Before that, a few thoughts on the number of fonts to use… two. Period. Only two fonts.

One is going to be your serif or sans-serif main text font and one is going to be your decorative font for emphasis and headlines. With fonts, I strongly recommend looking at the usage policy of the fonts you are already using -- some might have web use while others don’t. Be sure to use web fonts and follow the rules set forth by the font creator or font distributor.

The two font repositories that I use most often online are Google Fonts and Adobe Typekit. If your font doesn’t permit web use, look at these repositories to find something that you’re happy to use in your online visuals. If you’re unable to locate a font, then consider purchasing a new one that has web usage rights.

Now let’s talk about font size!!!

I recommend sticking with standard and consistent font sizing -- this means that as your website is being built out, you’ll want to define the font family, font size, font variant and font color for all the standard website building blocks, like headings and paragraphs and quotes and lists. Once it’s defined and you pick that website building block, you’ll be well on your way to have a consistent look online.

Feeling pretty good about this so far?

We’ve talked about translating your print and paint colors to online colors and fonts for written word.

So, now let’s discuss some of the parts of your brand that will likely be new to you now that you’re expanding online.

Yup, we’re talking imagery. These are not only your headshots and brand photographs but also the swishes and lines and symbols and icons that you use within your website and social media.

Are they hand drawn or computer drawn?
What is the line weight?
Are they modern or classic, frilly or simple?
How will they be used to stitch your online identity together?
Are they monochrome or colorful?
Are they formal or informal?

The first few questions were more about the swishes and lines and symbols and icons whereas the last few were about your photographs. My brand photos were taken in front of metal siding and I use the one with the siding as my profile picture but for my website and within social media graphics I removed the background on the pictures so that I could overlay them and have them stand out. So think about how you’re going to want to use photographs within your online visuals and make sure to keep your brand and its message top of mind when they are being taken.

The last thing I want is for you to have no images that you can use that match up with the rest of what you’re trying to do online.

Icons and symbols are a great way to break up content, I use bullet points regularly within my podcast episodes and I made the conscious choice to keep them simple. When I want to spruce up bullet points on sales pages or other pages, I’ll use aspects of my submark and the bright pattern you see on the podcast artwork.

My brand is vibrant and fun and not intimidating because I want to attract fun and spontaneous artists who are looking to do something online.

We haven’t talked about brand messaging in this episode precisely because this episode was about getting your brand online ready and I believe that focus needs to be on the graphics, fonts and colors. Making these decisions and crossing that off the list is going to make everything else you’re wanting to do in this growth stage that much easier -- you’ll have a basis from which to work!

I’m so excited to be on this journey with you. Thank you for tuning into the podcast each week. Have you downloaded the Expand Online Getting Started Guide yet? You can access it right here: https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/.

Next week, we’re going to talk about Instagram and Facebook and how they play into gaining awareness of your business expanding online!

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113: Release your fears, you belong online!

Wed, 01 Apr 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Today we’re talking about something that I know is top of mind for artists who suddenly found that according to the government your business is not an essential business and you cannot keep operating in the way that you have previously.

We’re talking about releasing fears of the unknown and the fear of how am I going to “make it.” These are real and you’re completely normal to have these fears… but part of the reason you’re listening to this podcast right now is to find your path forward and explore what it looks like to transition your business into a virtual one.

The good news is that at some point in the future, you’ll be able to go back to your studio and resume the methods that have got you to the success you already have. And the even better news is that by releasing your fears and adding an online branch to your business, you’ll be expanding your reach and creating something that can live long into the future.

Some of the fears that come up most often from my perspective are:

Fear of failure
Fear of success
Fear of overwhelm
Fear of technology
Fear of marketing
Fear of saying the wrong thing
Fear of not living up to promises
Fear of inadequacy

Those are some big fears… and most of them are never going to halt you in your tracks, you’re listening to this podcast right now and you are arming yourself with the tools to see the fears for what they are -- your ego protecting your soul.

Back in episode 100 we talked about mindset, mantras and affirmations. As we release our fears we will likely create new mantras and affirmations!

Starting at the top of the list I just rattled off, fear of failure. Or, in the case of expanding your business online, this is essentially the fear of not having anyone buy your online program and the fear of wasting your time and energy on a project that goes nowhere.

Let’s flip that -- you already have success. You already have people who have learned from you, worked with you and moved their own art forward by following your lead. They are not going to let you fail. Use them for support - lean on them and make sure that you address their biggest desire with your online program. And when you create what they are looking for, how can you fail them? It’s not going to be a waste of time or energy.

Another way to release the fear of failure is to create success milestones. You are successful when you decide on the idea for your online program. You are successful when you figure how you’re going to deliver this program. You are successful when you sign up for the required tech tools to make it happen. You are successful when you pull your program outline together. You are successful when you create the program content. You are successful long before you open the virtual doors on the program.

Fear is just your ego trying to protect your soul.

Now, let’s talk about fear of success. This is a big one… and it is all about the ‘what ifs’ -- what if I can’t have a one-to-one connection with each of my students, what if I make more money than I envisioned and lose sight of my mission, what if someone wants to interview me about my story, what if I get offered too many opportunities that I can’t keep up?

The short answer to this fear is that we always have the ability to say no. Seriously, you can grow at the rate you want to. If you want to have a one-to-one relationship with each student, then maybe you’ll need to cap your enrollment at 15 or 20 students at a time. Or you can build out a team of mentors so that someone on your team is having a one-to-one relationship with every student. This makes your offer scalable. If you start to lose sight of your mission, then give yourself permission to step back, go on a retreat, work with a coach, join a mastermind and help yourself find your way back to your mission. You could set up a scholarship fund to use some of your profits and pour them back into your mission. And as far as all those opportunities that might come up, use your mission and your values to determine if they are going to be a good fit. You can always say no.

Fear is just your ego trying to protect your soul.

Our next couple of fears are fear of overwhelm and fear of technology. I think these go hand in hand with each other. There are thousands of different ways to create an online program and it’s easy to get sucked into having to go fourteen layers deep or find yourself in paralysis sifting through all the different tools and permutations.

Release the fear of overwhelm by knowing that you can get help at every step of the way. Whether you have someone who already works with you to take on some of the arduous tasks or you hire a freelancer or you work with me in my 1-on-1 signature Expand Online Mentorship program. You have at your disposal an arsenal of ways to reduce your overwhelm.

And while we’re at it, let’s release the fear of technology. In episode 111, I shared with you 7 tools that you need. That’s it, only 7. And these are all tools that have extensive training and strong support attached to them. Just like with overwhelm, if you don’t want to figure it all out for yourself, you can easily work with someone who can set up the tech for you and help you feel confident using it for your online program.

Release the fears of overwhelm and technology --

these are nothing more than your ego trying to protect your soul.

It’s time now to release the fear of marketing and release the fear of saying the wrong thing. Fear of marketing is often fear of feeling like a used car salesman. You are going to release this fear easily because you are going to be marketing something that comes from deep within yourself and relies heavily on your experiences and past successes. It’s easy to talk about things that you’re passionate about and it’s easy to help people see how you are going to help them improve their art form when you talk from that space. Marketing is just sharing your message with people who need to hear it.

My philosophy is that when you expand your business online, your first marketing message is crafted for people you’ve already worked with or have a relationship with in person. It’s not like you’re going out to the whole world with your message and hope that the right people hear it. You’re going out to people who already believe in you and you’re giving them the opportunity to keep growing by working with you in a new way.

And, as for that fear of saying the wrong thing, most often I see this come up when my clients stare at a blank page on their computer and try to craft their sales page or content scripts. The best way to release this fear is to work from existing content. Take what you already have and massage it until it creates the message you want to create. You’re not going to write the wrong thing or craft the wrong message when you keep your people front of mind. I also believe that you can release the fear of saying the wrong thing by hiring a content writer or editor to work with you on your written word. Back in episode 92, I introduced you to Jenn Robbins. She’s a copywriter and she is amazing at helping craft the right message with words you feel good about.

Release the fear of saying the wrong thing by keeping yourself squarely in the head of the person who is receiving the message. Say what they need to hear and you’ll be well on your way.

Release the fears of marketing and messaging, remember it’s just your ego trying to protect your soul.

Our final fears that we’re going to work to release today are fear of not living up to your promises and fear of inadequacy. The best way I know how to release the fear of not living up to your promises is to map out your promises so that you can hit each one with 100% effort. So if you are creating a program that guarantees a 48 hour turnaround on something, then make sure that you set aside the right amount of time to meet the promise. If you don’t know how long something is going to take, then do it sooner and start tracking how long it actually takes. Then you can improve your systems and processes.

Another important aspect is to only promise what you know you can deliver. What I mean is that you shouldn’t promise that someone will be able to paint a piece of art and sell it for $1000 when they finish your course. You cannot guarantee that price point. You cannot guarantee that kind of result. So instead promise that they will complete a certain number of pieces of art. And let them know that past clients have had their work sell for $1000 or have had shows in certain prestigious locations. The promise is on the transformation not on results of the transformation.

If you are promising to show up live during your program, show up as you want to be seen. Make sure that you continue to be the professional that you are and avoid having interruptions from your side. And most importantly, if you cannot show up live anymore because of factors within your own environment, offer a substitute of greater or equal value. It’s okay to change your promises out for something that is worth more to the recipient. You’re human and your promises should reflect that.

The fear of inadequacy is similar to the fear of not living up to your promises. Another way to describe the fear of inadequacy is that of not being good enough. And it comes across like “I’ve only been honing this craft for 3 years, am I good enough to teach it?” or “What if people have questions I can’t answer?” or even “I’ve developed my own method and am excited to teach it but I don’t know what experience my students are going to come to me with, what if I can’t actually help them?”

Like I said earlier, you are a step above someone who hasn’t done anything in person before. You already know that you can teach and you have already answered hard questions and you already know enough about your students to assure yourself that you can help them move their art forward. Release the fear of inadequacy. You are amazing and powerful and inspirational and have your own unique way in the world, which is what people want to see and hear from you.

Remember, fear is your ego trying to protect your soul.

Release your fears by stringing together truths. Lean into mantras and affirmations to keep you going.

Fears are going to come up throughout this and every other journey you’re going to go on in your life. When you craft your own outcome you remain in the driver’s seat and can do amazing things.

I want you to succeed online. Click here to download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide. In it, you’ll learn how to put the right pieces in place to expand what you’ve been doing offline for years into this new and exciting online space.

As always, reach out to me on Instagram, I’m @jaimeslutzky if you have any questions. And if you know someone who could benefit from releasing their fears, send them this episode so they can have a listen.

Next week, I’ll be back with a very tangible episode all about your online look and feel.

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112: Celebrate your students when they complete online programs

Wed, 25 Mar 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Without a double, at some point in time your program is going to conclude and we want to celebrate the progress that our members have made during the time we’ve been working with them!

I am so passionate about the full experience for our online program participants that I want to take our time today to discuss some of my favorite ways to wrap up group programs and when students complete their courses.

Before we get there, I want to assure you that the online ship hasn’t sailed and left you behind -- Nope! you can do this and your exact right set of students or members or participants or whatever you want to call them are going to be there when you’re able to serve them online. Many of your existing or past clients are probably waiting for you to create what they need; they really aren’t looking for other instructors.

So, rest assured, what you’re inspired to create by working on expanding online is the right thing for you to be doing now.

There… that’s out of the way.

Remember the best resource to get started online is the Expand Online Getting Started Guide available at https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/

So, today, we’re talking about getting to the end of your program and how to make sure that you properly graduate and celebrate the participation of your members.

You know those last ten minutes of the final class in a series -- where we’re all saying “OK, nice work, good luck!” and then everyone packs up and leaves.

Well, that’s pretty much what we want to avoid in the online space -- mostly.

Sure, we want to give our students permission to pack up their things and go on to the next adventure or experience, but we also want to let them know we are proud of their accomplishments and that we would love to continue to support them on their journey. In the online space it’s so easy for people to get distracted by the next product or program that catches their eye, hello shiny object syndrome, so creating a graduation and clear end of program carries so much value.

We can do this in such a beautiful and impactful way.

So, first, let’s talk about online group programs where you meet weekly with your participants on Zoom and there is material for them to work on each week. The graduation date is clear -- it’s either your last zoom session or within a week of that call.

I love having the last call or a bonus call for graduation helping my members on the path that is best for them! This call is a celebration of the progress that everyone has made throughout the program as well as introducing members to next steps and how they can keep making progress either alone or with you.

When groups are 20 or fewer participants, I like to spend a bit of time talking about each participant, what their goals were when they joined the program and what their greatest accomplishment during the time together. Make it fun and joyous -- maybe even bring in conversation so that it’s not all “Jane wanted to do this and she did” and “Joe wanted to do that and he did too.”

It helps to continue to show that you are invested in their progress, their successes and their futures. It’s such an honor to be trusted with helping someone advance their passion, so of course we want to highlight how honored we are to have been able to work with them these past 6 or 8 or 12 weeks.

We do not want the graduation call to feel like a big huge pitch or promotion of our services. Our participants need to know what’s next but this is about celebrating them and creating a clear end to the program.

On this call, we’re going to cover logistics like when the Facebook group is going to close, how access to the program material may shift and when final feedback on assignments will be provided. This is also the time to ask your participants to complete your online program feedback form. Getting real time feedback, especially when you’re going to relaunch your program again, is absolutely invaluable. You might even want to take a few minutes during your graduation celebration for people to go fill it out while still on the call.

And testimonials -- we want testimonials from our students -- you can record them right there on the call. If you want video testimonials, you can just change your settings so that you see “speaker view” instead of “gallery view” and click the zoom record button. I’m happy to jump on your zoom call and help you figure this out the first time if you want me to -- that’s something I do for all my clients, I will do anything to help you make the tech work as easy as possible for you!

OK, so like I’ve said, our group graduation is really a celebration.

It’s about reaffirming their decision from weeks or months ago to spend the time and show up each week and work with you.

Most likely, you’re going to have people who failed to show up consistently or make the progress they wanted to make. Go back to episode 107 to refresh yourself on how to reach out and help these people come back into the fold. You’ll want to do your best effort to re-engage them long before the graduation call. And regardless of their success, if they do show up on the final call, make sure that they are also appreciated and acknowledged. Let’s always try to put a light and relaxed spin on it -- no need to call out that they didn’t hit their goals. There is a reason they showed up for this call and that’s important.

Now if you have an open/close course or a cohort going through the course together, you can do similar things with respect to a graduation ceremony.

It takes a lot for people to make their way all the way through a course, especially if it’s one that is dripped (or paced out) over several months. So consider adding a few other special details for graduation like:

Issue certificates
Send a personal message or email to the student when you receive notification that they have finished
Acknowledge their official completion inside your Facebook group or forum

With self-paced, independent study courses we often have fewer touch points with our students, so it’s potentially even more valuable to do this additional connection at the conclusion. It helps your students know that you care about them and have been monitoring their progress along the way.

Here are a few ideas on opportunities for people to continue to learn and grow from you…

If the program came with limited access to the material, then we can offer extended access for nominal fee
We can invite them to the next level program
We can offer a one time or on-going one-on-one experience
We can invite graduates to a higher level mastermind
We can allow graduates to participate in the next round of the program at a reduced fee
We can offer group moderation or mentorship opportunities to them so that they rise up as leaders within your community

In some cases, it might make sense to send a personalized or recommended road map to your participants. This way you can tailor the exact recommendation to them. There are people we would love to bring into a mastermind and others that we would rather see join the next level group program instead. It depends largely on what you’re offering, what you’re willing to offer and staying in tune with each individual person’s goals.

Celebrating completion and successes always feels good. It’s part of human nature to want the kudos and accolades! I hope this episode has inspired you to map out the end of your program with as much heart and thought as you do with the content and the delivery.

I wish you nothing but success with all your online products and courses and programs. I’m here to help you make this dream a reality. If you haven’t already, be sure to go to the shownotes and download the Expand Online Getting Started Guide and reach out on Instagram any time!

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111 - The best right tech for your online programs (and why it matters)

Wed, 18 Mar 2020 10:30:00 +0000

Now, more than ever, this is a topic that is being brought up by a lot of people. Before we get into the episode, I want to take a couple of minutes to let you know how I’m feeling about the Coronavirus and COVID-19. Not because we’re not inundated everywhere with this content, but because it’s fueling an online revolution and it’s got me fired up to get content like today’s scheduled episode out.

Last Wednesday, after my teenager was home from school but before my 11 year old’s day was over, the school district announced closure for the following day for at least two weeks. My husband had already been home for a week at this point and I was mostly trying to make heads or tails of our new normal. I actually really like having him at home. Both of us working, but conversations during the day being over food or breaks instead of text and FB messages.

When the schools announced the closure, we were prepared. We already had an inkling that this was going to happen and I was prepared to have the girls home while we continued to work. We would have more time together because our schedules were more in alignment (since nobody was leaving the house.) So, on the home and work fronts, things were good.

Over the weekend gymnastics for my younger daughter was cancelled and Monday morning dance for my older daughter was suspended as well. Perfect, the decision to go to these programs was taken out of our hands. But there has been something simmering beneath the surface of all this… and that is freedom. We have all lost our freedom to live and work as we wish. That’s really what has been taken from us, no matter the course of the virus spread. Our freedoms that we have taken for granted for as long as we’ve been alive have all but disappeared and we are at the mercy of others. And we had to decide how we were going to maintain our sense of self and self-worth.

And, truth be told, my sense of self disappeared for a bit.

Fortunately it’s coming back - thanks to leaning on my support system. One member of my support system said, and I quote, “you are serving!” and another said “Breathe… you are right where you need to be.” She went on to ask me to name three positive things about where I am right now -- and immediately I was able to respond “The work I’m doing, my family and I’m happy busy.”

The other way that I’ve been able to push myself through all the noise is reducing the time I spend on social media and instead having amazing conversations with experts on the upcoming Expand Online Summit which will be open for registration in mid-April and for viewing in May. If you want to be one of the firsts to register, make sure you’re on my email list by going to https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/ and downloading the free Expand Online Getting Started Guide.

I don’t know what the next days and weeks will bring. What I do know is that more and more people are looking to translate something they have previously done in person into something they can offer online. And this is my jam. I love helping you take your genius and get it online so that you can expand your impact and exceed your goals.

With that, let’s transition to the main topic of conversation today... Online program tech requirements.

In episode 110 we went really deep into migrating an in person class into an online group program and in prior weeks we’ve spent a lot of time focusing on . So, this week, we’re going to go technical, because as you know, that’s where I gravitate.

And because I know this is often the biggest question I get from listeners and social media followers - what do I need to do to start selling an online program?

The free guide that I mentioned a few moments ago - The Expand Online Getting Started Guide includes a section on the tech requirements for an online product. We’re going to use that as the basis of what you truly need.

First up: somewhere to share what we’re selling.

This is essentially a webpage. I didn’t say website, just a webpage. A webpage is a single page that shows the product that you’re selling, who it’s for, what it does, the price, dates and times if they are relevant and a button to initiate checkout.

That’s really it. When we boil it down to the must haves. We just need to have an online home to direct our offline clients to so that they can see what our online offer is (and ideally invest in their art by signing up!)

The next thing we need is a way to take payments.

There are two main online payment providers that I use for myself and with my clients. These are Stripe and PayPal. With PayPal you need to have a business account not a personal one. You don’t need the pro level and there is no fee to maintain the account.

Stripe will automatically transfer your money to your bank account about 3 days after the payment is received. PayPal holds your money until you request to transfer it to your bank account and then it takes about a day to complete the transfer.

On the checkout page of a website Stripe comes across as credit card fields right on the page whereas PayPal is a button that takes purchasers to PayPal to complete the payment. I read somewhere that offering both options increases purchase rate by up to 15%.

Our next tool is the home base for the product.

I strongly recommend using MemberVault to start off with. Their forever free plan allows you to have 50 users without paying them anything. It also has native integration with both Stripe and PayPal and can serve as the webpage that I mentioned earlier.

I’ve talked about MemberVault a fair amount on the podcast already and I’ll continue to do so simply because I know it’s a minimalist tool that can do so much heavy lifting. Episodes 43 - 47 were my 5-part MemberVault series. And they are absolutely worth a listen to get a good idea how MemberVault works.

Depending on the type of program you’ve created, you’ll use MemberVault in one of a few different ways.

If you’ve created an online group program, you’ll use it to share samples, worksheets and guides with your participants. They will be able to answer questions and give you feedback along the way.

If you’ve created an online course or membership site, you’ll provide the training content inside your MemberVault account as well.

If you’re creating any video content (which you should be -- and we’ll talk a whole lot more about that in a few weeks) then you’ll need to house the video content somewhere. My recommendation is a Vimeo Pro account, which costs $20/month but I can usually find a coupon code to reduce the fee. If you’re strapped for cash, you can use YouTube to house your videos to start with. But let me say this -- the Vimeo Pro experience is far better for our viewers than the YouTube embed.

The next set of tools are those that create community. Zoom and Facebook.

Zoom Pro is the tool you’ll be using to host the live components of your program. It is a video conferencing app and I use it on a daily basis.

And Facebook, oh Facebook. Hosting a Facebook group as part of your online program is almost a necessity these days because we’re all craving connection and this is the most robust connection platform available right now. So you’ll find that embracing a Facebook group will be invaluable as you expand online.

There’s one other absolutely critical tech tool that needs to be in place before you start selling your online group program, membership or courses -- and that’s an email marketing system.

I am a huge proponent of ActiveCampaign and if you don’t have an automated email system yet, it’s the one I most strongly recommend. It also ties in super well with MemberVault because that’s what they use for their business.

ActiveCampaign is going to be the tool you use to communicate with your participants -- you’ll use it to let them know that new content is available, you’ll use it to remind them of live sessions, you’ll use it to ask for testimonials and feedback. And, in time, you’ll use it as you expand your online following to nurture prospective clients who don’t know you from your local work.

So let’s recap: MemberVault , ActiveCampaign, Vimeo Pro, Stripe, PayPal, Zoom and Facebook. That’s seven tools. And for most of us, it’s 5 or 6 brand new tools.

I want to give you permission right now to not try to tackle all these tools at once. It can break you. You didn’t learn how to do what you do overnight, it took you years, multiple teachers and loads of trial and error. So let’s make this clear -- learning all the tools to make that a viable business doesn’t need to be done overnight either. You don’t need to become an expert at all the things to be successful...

And, I’m sure you’ve seen it too - out of virtually nowhere there are “experts” sharing how you can move your entire business online in a day and all this stuff -- well, I’m telling you that is not going to create the impact and success you seek. Doing everything at lightning speed really is not practical. Are you really ready to take everything you’ve done in your business and find an online equivalent overnight, then throw open the online doors and have clients immediately take you up on your offers.

That’s just not how it works, and that’s why it’s so helpful to know that you don’t need to implement all the tech all at once. And that you need to feel supported by the tech and comfortable using it, but mastery -- that does not need to be your focus.

I’m a technology strategist. It’s my job to help my clients find the best right tech to support their business goals online. The last thing I want you doing is getting bogged down by the tech, So while it is super important to have a strong tech foundation, and that’s why I listed 7 tools to use, it’s also super important to package your teaching in a way that will be best received by your students. Focus on the results you are helping your clients achieve and learn enough about the tools to use them effectively.

Time for my shameless plug -- you’ve made it to the end of the shownotes and I would love to work with you to implement your tech so that you can focus on the important stuff ~ your clients! To get started, send me an email at jaime@techofbusiness.com or reach out on Instagram @jaimeslutzky!

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110 - Building an online group program from your offline courses and workshops

Wed, 11 Mar 2020 10:30:00 +0000

It is my pleasure and honor to be here helping you find the right way for your business to expand online and to support you through the implementation and launch!

This episode is about group programs. Some people call these incubators, accelerators and masterminds but I prefer to use the more general term. Essentially what we are talking about is a program with a weekly online live session along with complimentary worksheets and exercises and possibly additional touch points. Most group programs also have a private Facebook group or online forum component.

Group programs can be run for anything and like last week’s episode one of the compelling features is accountability and establishing relationships between participants and with you as the leader, mentor, guide or facilitator -- whichever word you prefer to use.

The prep work for a group program is different than a course because so much of the work and teaching is done live. But that’s not to say that we don’t need to prep at all -- in fact, most group programs have at least as much prep as online courses do! The format of your group program can be anything from straight lectures to mastermind sessions and from coworking sessions to critique or feedback or presentations.

So let’s go into each of the formats I just listed.

Lectures

This is where you have a lesson planned out and you give it direct to camera and your members watch, learn and take notes if they want (or if you don’t provide summary documentation.) This may include live demonstrations or a slide deck and can also include playing of external videos or citing books and other sources or websites.

Lectures are a foundational element of most group programs because our members are looking to learn from us. But lectures sound so boring which is why I love tangible lectures which include plenty of showing and demonstration not just theory.

Mastermind sessions

A mastermind session involves members coming together with you as the leader to help breakthrough challenges. There are several formats to mastermind sessions and they revolve around soliciting and providing feedback, recommendations and support from other members of the program and the leader.

Q&A Sessions

Ask me anything or Q&A sessions are an open forum for group participants to get clarification, advice and feedback from the group leader or moderators. These sessions are different than mastermind sessions because they are usually more surface level and the responses are provided predominantly from you, as the group program creator and leader.

Coworking sessions

Coworking sessions are just what they sound like. These are sessions where group members all come with work in hand and spend the time together moving forward on the project or assignment at hand. In these sessions most participants work through the theory that was presented in an earlier lecture session.

Presentations

Presentations are usually provided by guest experts and follow a format of lecture plus Q&A. The idea of presentations is to add complementary information to the program that the leader knows will be of value to the participants but that the leader herself is not equipped to present.

Critique or Feedback Sessions

These sessions are insanely valuable around the middle of a group program and towards the end. These sessions involve taking in samples of the members’ work in progress and sharing feedback in a group format. I’ll give an example of this format in a little bit so that you can get a better understanding of using this type of session within your program!

Just like with an online course, group programs are far more engaging when there is a nice mix of formats and styles.

Let’s build a group program together right now on the podcast. We're going to build this online group program for a drawing teacher. She teaches a 4-week fruit bowl drawing class through her local community Parks & Recreation programs. She wants to take this class and turn it into an online group drawing program. For ease of conversation, let's call this drawing teacher Jo.

So, Jo wants to create this online program... instead of it being a 4-week program, let's make it an 8-week program and setup the weeks like this:

Week 1: lecture
Week 2: coworking session
Week 3: lecture
Week 4: mastermind
Week 5: lecture
Week 6: critique
Week 7: lecture
Week 8: Q&A

I probably wouldn’t bring in a presentation type session because 8-weeks is not long enough. But if the program were longer, we could bring that in as early as week 7.

There would be four lectures which correspond to the content Jo presents in her current class, a coworking session to facilitate, and both a critique and Q&A session to create structure for.

We're gently skipping around the normal online product development framework and focusing specifically on the creation phase.

Jo will generate a list of resources the members will want to have at their disposal for each session. This will include pens, pencils and markers, blank or colored paper, possibly the recommended amount of work space and lighting considerations. I would probably also include instructions to download zoom onto whatever device you’re going to use and to use earbuds or headphones. At this time the structure of the program will also be presented to the group members and the Facebook group will be created so participants can get to know each other.

For the lecture sessions, we're taking a lot of what Jo's already created for her Parks & Recreation class and whittling it down to the most important elements. Because there is no hands on application where Jo can walk the room, the style of the lecture will be different. Jo will still have her members do some drawing during the lectures and assign them specific tasks to do between lectures.

We also have an alternate style class between lectures so that the material from each lecture can be used by the group members and they can continue to come together to make progress and connect.

The purpose of the coworking session being in week 2 is to allow members to get adequate time drawing at the early stage of the program which will help them to keep showing up and making progress on their drawing. On the heels of this session, Jo will probably encourage her participants to jump into the Facebook group and post their progress. (In the creation phase, it's really helpful to create a post and prompt calendar for that group.)

I’m going to throw myself into the student shoes for a moment here, while discussing the mastermind portion. Let’s say that I have attended all three sessions so far, shared my work from the coworking session in the Facebook group but cannot figure out how to work through one of the parts of the lesson that took place in week 3. I have stopped in my tracks a bit because I don’t feel like I can get the right flow of my hand holding my flare pen and that I am starting to tell myself that I’ll never be able to draw anything good. I come to the mastermind session feeling defeated but when it's my turn to be in the hot seat, Jo encourages me to share what's holding me back. She asks where my successes have been and what I'm struggling with. I modestly show her what I’ve drawn so far and my page of scratched out versions of the assignment from last week. She asks the group members if they have any thoughts or observations for me. And once my peers start sharing with me that they found this trick or that strategy to hold the pen in a different way, or that they come to group lectures in their kitchen but sit in their sunroom to apply the work, it relaxes me and I am then able to come up with a plan to complete the current assignment and promise to post it in the group by the end of the week.

Masterminds are all about helping one another move forward. During the creation phase, Jo will look back on the encouragement and advice she gives to students in her offline class, and have those ready to boost up her online students. It’s quite likely that more than one participant will be having similar struggles and the collective advice is invaluable.

OK… so let’s structure Jo's critique session that’ll be taking place in week 6.

This is a much more formal session than the mastermind session. Critique work is required to be submitted at least 72 hours before the session. And the critique work consists of three works from the program:

A sample of work completed specifically from the first lecture
A sample of work completed specifically from the second lecture
A sample of work in progress from the third lecture

Jo will then go through and create a slidedeck with all the presented work and make notes as to what to highlight and feedback to provide to each member. She will provide suggestions for making your drawings more uniquely yours and help with more ease and flow. This is created on the fly during the program and knowing the structure is going to make it an easy task for Jo to tackle along the way.

We want our members to feel accomplished and excited to keep drawing. The feedback needs to be authentic and presented in a positive light. We are here to inspire and motivate, this is not the time or place to tear down a member or tell them that they haven’t improved at all. Be kind and be helpful.

And for the final session, my best advice to Jo would be to be prepared to respond on the fly! Questions can be submitted in advance or asked live on the call. This session is designed to give members additional tools and suggestions to keep drawing and keep creating. Questions that come up during the Q&A session might be everything from reviewing some basics to additional resource recommendations.

The Facebook group will be a place for ongoing feedback and encouragement. Jo should set expectations at the outset of the program and plan on being in there on a daily basis, prompt members regularly with new ways to connect, engage and share their drawing. If she doesn’t want to use a tool like MemberVault to house lectures, samples or instructions, the Facebook group Learning Units will be where content will be housed. While this is not my preference, because it makes it super difficult to run the same group program over and over again, it’s an option and worth mentioning here.

We ran pretty deep through that group program for Jo and I hope you understand how an offline class can be converted into a group program! It's true...

Anything that you teach in workshop format offline can be converted into a group program.
Anything that you teach online as a course can be converted into a group program.
Online group programs can be converted into online courses.

The key with anything we create is that we get better and better at creating the content, presenting the content and always tying the content to the goal. You can do this and I would be honored to help you through the process. Go to https://techofbusiness.com/online-product/ to get started.

And with that… wishing you a massively successful week and I’ll be back next week with another episode where we get into the tech needed to run group programs and course cohorts. I alluded to a couple of the tools here -- Zoom, Facebook and MemberVault and we’ll get into how to make sure you make the best tech choices for your students and their successes next week!

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109: Augment your student success rate with cohorts!

Wed, 04 Mar 2020 11:30:00 +0000

First off… a quick definition for you… a cohort is simply a group or company of people. In terms of online courses, a cohort is a group of course participants who start the course at the same time and are guided through the content. A cohort helps participants actually accomplish what they buy the course to help them with. Because, as we’ve been discussing lately, it’s not enough for us to put out really good content, we need to help our students move through the content.

And a cohort is a great way to really create the impact you seek.

As you know, the two most popular methods of having online courses are evergreen and open cart/close cart. The evergreen course is always being marketed whereas the open cart/close cart has launch cycles. Running a cohort works with both methods but there are obvious differences in the way a cohort needs to be presented.

A cohort is super easy to implement with an open cart/close cart launch method. Because in this method, we only have the doors open for a short amount of time and the students are all going to be starting right after the window closes or right after they sign up. And your cohort students will easily be at the same point within the course by default, whether they choose to purchase on day 1 or day 10 of your open cart.

For courses with an open cart/close cart launch, most of the time introductory information or lessons are provided immediately and the course officially starts after the cart is closed. So the content release schedule is consistent across students. And our cohort students are on the exact same release schedule as the other students… Not only does this make things easier for you and your cohort students but it makes it possible to sell the cohort as an add-on once the course is already up and running.

Remember, your cohort is designed to help the students get through the material. So, our cohorts need to have contact points -- like a community forum or private Facebook group, zoom calls, additional opportunities for feedback. I think that the cohort should sell itself!

Now, with an evergreen course, your students have the ability to start at any time. And you want them to get started as soon as they purchase without sitting around waiting for their cohort to start… So how exactly do we make a cohort work with an evergreen course?

Some of this will depend on the number of students you have signup on a weekly and monthly basis. If you have 5 new students a week and you want to have 10 students in every cohort, then you might form your cohort every 6 - 8 weeks. This does mean that your cohort students may be at different spots within the course, but you can normalize this within the cohort progression and accountability plan.

When my clients and I determine that a cohort makes sense for their evergreen course, we list that information on the sales page, but don’t sell it directly, except in the 10 days before the cohort starts. For students that purchase during non-cohort sales periods, we sell the cohort after the fact, via personal outreach, internal announcements and other touchpoints. The advantages of the cohort community often outweigh the DIY approach and I find that when positioned correctly, you can have 25% or more existing students sign up for the cohort program.

So, we’ve covered inviting students into cohorts for both evergreen and open cart/close cart courses. But what does it mean to run a cohort… let’s really think about that right now.

Running a cohort means that you need to get inside the head of your student to understand how they need to be supported.

Do they need touchpoints on multiple channels?
Do they need checklists?
Do they need accountability and check ins?
Do they get busy and take time away from their learning for other life tasks?
o they want positive reinforcement from you?
How much community and social interaction is the right amount for them to stay on track without being another distraction?
What is the delta between where they start and where your course takes them?

We want to support and guide and inspire our cohort students. We don’t want our engagement to take them sideways or away from the course material.

Let’s assume you have an 8-week, 6-chapter course.

The course material is released on day 1 of week 1, week 2, week 3, week 5, week 6 and week 7.
Weeks 4 and 8 are integration or implementation weeks.
There is a forum or private Facebook group for cohort members to connect.
Each week has a recommended exercise that is submitted to you for feedback and a suggested exercise that is shared in the community.
Monthly cohort zoom calls are scheduled in week 1 and week 5.
Peer feedback and critique is encouraged in the forum or private Facebook group.

This is the bare minimum of a successful cohort. Accountability and support are what separate cohorts from DIY courses.

I like to encourage my clients to go above the bare minimum with surprise and delights. This could be by

Sending a kudos email.
Shout-out in your private Facebook group.
Shout-out on your public social media.
Create accountability partnerships through observation.
Bonus calls or going live in your Facebook group to address specific questions that are coming in.
Bringing guest experts into the Facebook group or to give masterclasses that are tangentially connected to the goal of your course.
Introducing your students to peers or mentors that you are acquainted with.

The idea is that you treat your cohort students with grace and joy, so that they get as much out of the experience as possible.

It’s inevitable, even within a cohort, for students to fall behind and because of the atmosphere we create with our cohort, it’s so much easier to bring that student back into the fold. It might mean outreach in less conventional formats -- like a Facebook or Instagram DM or even a text message or phone call.

I love being able to give that personal and individualized attention to cohort students because they have provided me with a mechanism to do so.

A question that comes up a lot with respect to cohorts is pricing the cohort against the standard version of the course. I believe that your course needs to cost at least $297 to even consider a cohort. If a course costs less than $297, there is not enough room to move within the proper order of magnitude to get to a cohort price that reflects the additional work.

Let’s say our 8-week, 6-chapter course has a price tag of $297… actually let’s do $300 for easier math. Our bare minimum cohort requirements mean working an extra 3 hours per week for those 8 weeks. So 24 extra hours. If your cohort has 10 students in it, that’s an extra 2.4 hours per student. Let’s round that up to 3 hours per student for all the bonuses that we include. If your hourly rate is $150/hour, then you’re giving each student an additional $450 of value for being in the cohort. And since we don’t charge our hourly rates for packages, let’s drop that price down to $100/hour so an additional $300. Can you charge $600 for the cohort version of the course… of course you can, but it’s a much bigger hurdle because you’re now asking the student to invest twice as much in the course than the material costs. So, if instead, the course was $497, then we’re offering $497 or $797 which has a smaller order of magnitude.

I like to price cohorts between $250 and $400 more than the stand-alone version of the course and make sure that it is in alignment with the stand-alone version.

Oh, and for evergreen courses, I recommend that the cohort be a flat fee and no different if it’s bundled into the course (during the 10 days leading up to the start) or sold after the fact to enrolled students.

Let’s wrap this episode up with a few more things to consider when you’re weighing the opportunity of adding a cohort to your course or changing things up so that a cohort is a viable option for your students.

Don’t introduce a cohort if you haven’t validated your course. You’ll want to make sure that you’ve had at least 50 people purchase your course and completion surveys submitted by at least 8 students.

When you notice that students stop making progress on a specific section, consider modifications to that section before saying that a cohort is going to fix it. Because the material needs to be strong enough for a DIYer to be successful.

You may run multiple different courses and your students might elect to purchase more than one at a time. Limit cohort enrollment to a single course. So if you have more than one course with a cohort option, make sure that students understand that they can only be in a single cohort at any one time.

Make decisions as to how to wrap up your cohort. We’re going to be talking about this one a lot more in a couple of weeks.

And finally, it’s okay to ask for help. Invite past students to become cohort or community moderators. Understand what is manageable for you and get support to make sure that you deliver a consistent and wonderful experience for your students.

Thank you so much for hanging out with me for the Expand Online podcast today -- would you leave a rating and review in Apple Podcasts so that other artistic professionals know that this podcast is designed to help them create a sustainable and enjoyable online revenue stream.

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108: The truth about online course pricing and perceived value.

Wed, 26 Feb 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Over the past few episodes, we’ve been getting into the nitty gritty of online courses - from if this is the right online product for you, to administration and supporting your students… but what we haven’t talked about yet and what I’ve been saving up for in this episode is pricing and value.

These are two separate topics for sure, the price of your online course and the value one receives from the course can be completely disconnected (like you could give away a course for free and it be life changing or you could charge a fortune for your course and it not help your student at all) -- but what we really want is for the price to reflect the value and the value to be seen within the price.
Pricing structures

There are multiple ways to price a course, I’m going to go through the most common ways here.

Flat rate. Your students pay 100% of the course price up front before gaining access.
Installments. Your students pay a percentage of the course price each month for a certain number of months.
Free trial + flat rate or installment. Just as it sounds, you give free access to the course for a certain number of days and then roll the student into either a pay in full or installment plan.
Paid trial + flat rate or installment. Instead of a free trial, you charge a nominal amount, like $1, $5 or $10 for access to the trial and then after the trial period ends, the student rolls into an installment plan or pays the balance in full.
Pay what you want. This is where you let your students decide how much the program is worth to them and they pay that amount to gain access to the course.

Essentially, your prospective students are going to subconsciously tie their expected results to the price tag. So it’s our job as we determine our prices and create our offer pages to help those prospects come to the “yes I need this” decision!

The value of your course is in the transformation that you’re set to create for your student should they follow your course material and take action every step of the way.

In addition to the transformation, the perceived value will be developed by the student and likely include:

Course structure
Course content format
Community
Interaction with you as the instructor
Schedule requirements
Intermediate milestones
Practical Application
Cost
Discounts
Testimonials and Reviews
Additional expenses to incur (such as purchasing supplies)

A course can be priced at $49 and check all the boxes for a student. Or a course can be priced at $997 and check all the boxes for the same student. But the $49 course and the $997 course are not going to have the same value proposition. Your student would expect to get quick wins on a smaller scale with a $49 course than they would with a $997 course.

If your course helps a student get from knowing nothing about playing the piano to being able to play a Mozart Sonata then the value is super high. It’s a huge feat to learn the piano and tackle a classic piece of work. Figuring out how to price this course is essential to having students come on board.

If you price this course too low then your prospective student isn’t going to take you seriously -- because the stated transformation has a far greater value than price tag indicates to the student. If you price this course too high, then you’re going to hit an investment threshold by your students… not everyone has the ability to spend hundreds or thousands of dollars on a course.

This is also where payment plans come into effect.

Most payment plans cost slightly more over the pay in full option. Usually somewhere between 5 - 15% higher. This is an easily justifiable surcharge because it’s of benefit to your student, has higher costs and higher risk on your side. The costs are the cost of doing business but the higher risk comes from students receiving training or material before they have fully paid for them.

Which now creates a wrinkle in the administration side of things… what happens when a credit card payment fails or your student cancels their payment plan. We’ll talk about the options a bit later but for right now, the entire purpose of a payment plan is to help your student balance the cost of your course with the reality of their own life.

My 13 year old daughter dances. She takes 3 classes - ballet, jazz and contemporary. The studio offered us three different payment options, pay in full, pay quarterly or pay monthly. We chose monthly payments not because they were the cheapest option, but because they were the best fit for our family. Paying for the year in full was too much of a financial burden and the quarterly payments weren’t enough of a savings so it made sense to do monthly.

But that’s a full year commitment with a huge reward in the form of the recital at the end of the commitment. And should I fail to make my payments, the studio can simply take my daughter out of the recital.

Most of our online courses have a shorter run time; 6 - 12 weeks is standard. And many courses are completely self-paced and can be completed in as little as a weekend. So while payment plans are nice, they aren’t always necessary.

I like my clients to price their courses between $147 and $997. I feel like these are good price points for courses to be profitable, students to see the value and enough of an investment for students to follow through.

We’ve already talked a lot about student follow through so we’re not going to dwell on that here -- just go back in the podcast to last week’s episode 107 where we discussed multiple avenues to support your students for ideas on supporting your students and for them to realize the value they place on the course.

The value that the students place on your course will determine if they purchase it and how far they get through it. As the instructor, it’s not you who gets to dictate the value of your course… but that’s not to say that we can’t influence the value assessment.

And it starts with course structure ~ or the way that content and experience is delivered. Things like… Is it all available at once or is it dripped over time or is it progressive where each module is available immediately after the preceding module has been completed. Are there quizzes and assignments and work to be done or is it education only without a practical component. Each of these decisions has to be made for a logical reason and then communicated to help prospective students build the course value for themselves.

A course that consists of videos and worksheets and assignments is going to have a different perceived value than a course that consists of text-based lessons and different than one that has downloadable audio lessons to learn on the go. There’s nothing to say that a text-based only lesson is going to have a lower value than one that has all the bells and whistles, but I can assure you that your students are going to feel more connection with you and the course material if they hear your voice and see your face.

And speaking of that -- real time interaction with you can make or break the value proposition. If your students have access to you even if they aren’t in the same part of the world that can be huge! This access can be in the form of your Facebook community, live Q&A sessions on Zoom, personalized messages or critiques created with Loom videos or just from your phone.

Knowing that you have access to a judgement free and warm environment increases the value ~ and here we are again supporting our students. The greater the opportunity for support the greater the perceived value.

You have to provide the clues so that your prospective student can come to their own value determination. And this is one of the reasons why there are copywriters who specialize in course sales pages -- they understand how to take what you’re promising in your course and translate it into the words that can help your prospective students become your active students. And people like me to help you create a succinct digital strategy to make sure that you don’t go down a rabbit hole that you don’t need to go down.

I said it before, I like courses priced between $147 and $997 but that’s still a huge range. And your course isn’t the only expense that your student is going to incur as they embark on your course.

What supplies or equipment are they going to have to purchase or rent to complete your course? The cost of the supplies or equipment has to be in alignment with the price of the course. If your course is $147 and the supplies and equipment is also $147 then the value of the course needs to be at least double the price tag!

If you’re teaching something that can help your student in their business, then generally speaking your course price can be higher than something that provides only personal value. But this isn’t a steadfast rule. It really comes back to the value proposition.

So let’s talk a bit more about pricing psychology… and I mean coupons, discounts and slashed prices. The online space is overrun by discounts and coupons and price slashes… for both products and services, so should you issue coupons, provide discounts and slash your prices?

Well… would you do that in your offline business?

Do you offer your students a discount if they enroll in more than one of your classes?
Do you have coupons available for the general public?
Do you have an advertised price that is higher or different than the actual price you charge?

You’re at a distinct advantage over course creators who do not currently have an offline model to leverage. You can follow your already established guidelines and translate them online.

The one big difference that you’ll want to consider is that online courses might not take up as much of your time as offline courses do, once they are in motion. Which might help you justify a lower price than your offline course might command.

And let’s talk about slashing prices -- because I threw that term out without much context. What I mean here is that you list the “retail price” of your course at $997 and then put a slash through that and say for a limited time the course is $200 off and only $797. This is a gimmick but it works because it is an anchor to the value.

Go back to episode 77 with Melina Palmer to learn more about behavioral patterns of our students.

The price of your course is one data point on the perceived value matrix that our students construct. It’s not the only piece nor do I believe it’s the most important. And you know what? The nice thing about online courses is that there is no requirement to keep things static. You can close the doors on your course and revamp it so that it’s got more perceived value and then increase the price, or close the doors and break it into several smaller courses and charge less.

I promised earlier on that I would talk a couple of minutes about what to do if a student stops paying their payment plan. There are two sides: what to do about the money you’re owed and what to do about the student’s access to the course content.

On the money side… Start by reaching out to the student, let them know their most recent payment failed and ask them to update their credit card. Sometimes people forget to update their credit cards when the expiration date passes or the cards get reissued. Sometimes I suggest providing an alternate method for paying the balance in full instead of trying to get the existing subscription back online. Most of the time these cases need to be handled on a case by case basis.

On the content access side… non-payment means that access to the course content, community, email communication, live interactions should all cease. It’s imperative to include this information in your course terms of service so that you avoid objections from delinquent students.

One of the reasons why some people don’t do payment plans is because they don’t want to deal with the non-payment issues. And that’s up to you.

Finally, before we wrap up, let’s talk a couple of moments about the other couple of payment methods I mentioned at the outset -- that is free or paid trials and pay what you want.

Trial periods are really good if you can provide a ton of value at the start of the course because that content can act as mechanism in your sales flow. Trial users can be soft-sold while increasing the know-like-trust factor for them to fully invest in the course.

With a trial period, we don’t want to give away the entire course and then for the prospective student to decide not to purchase. So a limited trial should include enough to showcase your expertise and how you work and how you transform your students! A trial is just that, something to whet their appetite for more.

Now the pay what you want option was popular a couple of years ago, but is less so right now (but that could change again.) The idea here is that you know your value and your worth, and you want your course to be accessible to as many people as possible. You’re willing to use this course as a lead gen tool and are less concerned about a personal financial upside. I don’t really like this model because almost every student will give the course a lower perceived value and will get less out of the course than if the published price was exactly what they paid.
Or put another way -- in general your pay what you want students will pay less than ½ the perceived value. A course with a perceived value of $200 would garner less than $100 on a pay what you want model whereas a $200 perceived value could have a published price of $125 or $147 and get an equal number of sales.

Whoa… I think I might have thrown a lot more into this conversation than I initially thought I would! I knew I was passionate about perceived value and pricing but had no idea this much would pour out of me!

Take a few nuggets from this episode and continue the conversation with me over on Instagram or in the Expand Online community which you can access by going to https://techofbusiness.com/community.

Next week, we’re going to continue the conversation about courses with a specific lens on running your course with cohorts (because we both know that students have a better chance of showing up and succeeding when they are surrounded by their peers!)

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Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
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107- Multiple avenues to support your students throughout your course

Wed, 19 Feb 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Supporting your students as their online course instructor is part of why you’re creating your online course, right? So in today’s episode we’re getting into how that support manifests itself and how you can create the best experience for your students.

In my opinion, it’s not enough to provide content access, we must provide other classroom experiences even for virtual classrooms.

A formal classroom comes with expectations; students know what is expected of them when they arrive, how they should act and processes for when they leave. We need to create that same level of expectation online. It’s something that separates your course from lesser courses online.

We accomplish this with a multi-pronged approach.

The first approach I’m going to discuss is your Facebook group ~ I bet you thought I was going to jump into email or the intro unit inside your course material, didn’t you?

But the warmth and clear guidelines of your Facebook group (or other online discussion forum) is both easier to understand and relate back to the physical classroom or studio and easier to implement.

When someone signs up for your classes, be it online or offline, holding the door open for them and welcoming them inside is an important gesture. In the online space this means that it needs to be super easy for them to access and interact in your Facebook group.

The privacy settings of a Facebook group is really what I’m talking about here.

Your group Privacy should be set to Private, which means that the posts are only visible to members of the group. The Hide Group setting should be set to Visible so that your students can request access to the group. If this setting is set to Hidden, then it’s not going to be easy for people to be granted access to the group.

To keep member approval issues to a minimum, Facebook gives you the ability to upload a file of users to automatically approve via email address and ask membership questions. I love the file upload but it doesn’t work 100% because it’s a manual process and sometimes people use different email addresses for courses than they do for their Facebook profile. And I also love membership questions because they are a super easy way to quickly validate purchase. The questions can be checkboxes, radio buttons or written answers. So I usually just give a keyword in the welcome email that they select from a set of options via the radio buttons.

And I set expectations. I let my students know that Facebook Group membership approval is performed periodically throughout the day and guaranteed to be done at 8pm Pacific each evening (or whatever cadence feels right to you.) This has worked out the best all around for my clients and also what I personally do.

So at 8pm, I upload the csv of everyone who has purchased and then go through the pending requests to validate the rest of the people who are requesting access. For another time, I can go into addressing requests from non-purchasers. But I think we should leave this side of things here.

If you would like support for this part of your course, book a strategy session with me at https://techofbusiness.com/strategy/ and we can get everything setup including the process for creating that csv for automatic approvals.

Next up… let’s chat about the rules of your Facebook group. This includes posting rules, group expectations and repercussions for violations.

It sucks to have to include repercussions since we’re all adults, but it needs to be said. Nobody wants to continuously police or monitor students’ activities and we definitely do not want to see students being disrespected or made to feel uncomfortable by other students in our community.

So, that’s what rules are for… We’re going to want to include things like:

How the group posts are structured
What types of posts are allowed
- Text only
- Images
- Videos
Can a student go live in the group
Is self-promotion allowed
Are there daily or weekly group comment threads
Whether or not vulgar language is allowed
Off-topic threads
How to ask for feedback from instructor, moderator and/or peers
Private messaging rules
How to report abuse or violations

Rules aren’t designed to be don’t don’t don’t and I think the best method for creating group rules is to have 2 or 3 do’s or positive rules for every don’t or negative one.

Another thing to always include is the support contact form link. I prefer this over an email address (which you can use if you really want) because you can provide structure to the support message. And, if you have multiple people who take care of support, it’s super helpful to either have a group inbox for these messages or use system routing to send messages to the appropriate person based on the nature of the message. What’s more, this is the perfect way to help yourself not get inundated with Facebook messages for course support.

We want our Facebook group to be active and vibrant ~ if you see a question get asked multiple times, throw it into an FAQ that is accessible both in the group and in the course content platform. Your FAQ is going to be a living document.

And while we’re at it, I know that it’s much easier to create the active and vibrant atmosphere in a course focused Facebook group when everyone starts at the same time. Your group might sustain that vibrancy on its own, or more likely, the activity level will start to dwindle as the course progresses because of student distraction or priority shifts. So, as the course creator and group facilitator it’s crucial that we remain seen and visible inside the group.

I recommend:

Going live on a schedule
Going live spontaneously
Post Ask Me Anything threads
Post Kudos threads
Post Feedback threads
Like and comment on every post from your students
Invite your students to be accountable to one another through accountability partner matching or accountability threads

And with that, you’re going to be well on your way to helping your students feel personally and collectively supported. Let’s move onto, dum, dum, dum… emails!

There is actually only one email that needs to be sent to our students, but I recommend, depending on the exact style and structure of your course, 2 - 4 emails per module or chapter or week or other logical breakpoint.

The one required email includes content access - so Thinkific of MemberVault for most of my clients, expectations and best practices, Facebook group information and how to get more support.

Yes, we are using our welcome email as an upsell into a mentorship, cohort, one-on-one or other method of helping our students succeed. I’m going to talk more about pricing and course value next week, so just like before, this is mostly a high level conversation here on the podcast, but for your unique situation, I would love to help craft a unique strategy that makes sense for you, your business, your lifestyle and that of your students. A strategy call is the best way to do that: https://techofbusiness.com/strategy/

So, other than using the welcome email for selling, we really want to help our new student start the program that they have just paid for. And to do this, our welcome email needs to come out right after the payment is received… and this is where we’re going to make sure that we have ActiveCampaign or ConvertKit integrated with our payment system.

That way, the payment system can trigger the welcome to the course sequence of emails… and don’t worry, I set this up for clients all the time!

Seriously, I love being the techie behind your online product successes -- which is one of the main reasons I started this podcast nearly two years ago -- so that I could showcase all the ways that you can and others have had success online and then help you get there.

Now, the 2-4 emails per week or chapter or module, what do I want you to include in those?

The more that we can create the feeling of one-to-one conversation with our students, the more they will feel connected to us which in turn helps them make progress on the course material and reach out when they need help.

When there is a strong connection between the course delivery platform and the email marketing platform, we can have automated emails go out to our students.

Automated emails can be triggered when modules and chapters and units are completed.
Automated emails can also be setup to go out if a student hasn’t made progress in a certain amount of time.
Automated emails can go out every Sunday or Thursday or whatever day you want.
Automated emails can go out a certain number of hours or days after a unit is completed.

The reason why tying emails to course progress is so important is because we are reaching our students in a second location on their computers. They are not going to always be on our course website, but they are going to regularly check their emails.

When you’re just getting started on tying your course with email, I would recommend just setting up two email automations -- the first for when someone has completed a chapter or module to introduce them to the next one and the second for when someone hasn’t made progress on the course in 4 - 7 days.

In these emails we’re inviting conversation. We want them to reply back to the email or to post in the Facebook group or to complete the contact form that we talked about earlier. We want our students to know that we’re wanting them to find success through our course.

There are 3 more ways that we can support our students:

Inside our course
Virtual online office hours
Public praise through social media, your weekly newsletter, posters in your studio or otherwise

Inside our course, this will be done with quizzes, surveys and assignments. When a student participates in these, they are essentially opening the door for a deeper conversation. When it comes to assignments, we should always provide feedback, not just a pass/fail. And the same for quizzes, we can address their incorrect responses with positive feedback and invite conversation.

The responses to survey questions are invaluable. We gain insight into how students perceive and use the information we present in the lessons and can adapt and respond as necessary. Survey responses also help us iterate our courses so that the next cohort or set of students has an even better experience.

Virtual office hours will take place in a zoom meeting room. You’ll setup the date and time and communicate the link to your students. They can submit their questions in advance or hop on and ask them live. The recording from office hours can then be uploaded into your course platform and into your Facebook group. This is another opportunity to email your students.

Once an office hours session is complete, I also go the extra step of pulling out each question and answer into written and succinct form so that you can build a catalog of Q&A and also see what additional training or bonuses you can deliver.

Oh my, we didn’t even talk about bonuses as a way to support our students… but that can be huge too. Surprising them with a personal note, personal outreach, alternative methods and other tangential or complimentary content will help them find success!

And the last one ~ everyone likes to be acknowledged for their hard work. It’s easy for an elementary school art teacher to hang their students’ creations on the wall but we can’t do that with your students who are all over the country or around the world. Instead, we use the virtual walls of Instagram, Facebook, Twitter, Our Blogs, Our Newsletters, Pinterest and whatever other fancy tools we have at our disposal.

I recommend getting students’ permission before sharing their name and work or tagging them. I generally do this at the outset of the course so that they can truly be surprised and delighted when it happens. Usually asking for this permission is in the second or third email that I send them after they purchase, not the welcome email because it’s a nice to have, not a must have!

The success of your course lies in the success of your students. Supporting them, encouraging them and rewarding them are going to have ongoing benefits for you, your business, your students and their newfound skill.

I would love to know your biggest takeaway and what you’re going to do next for your online course. Send me a DM on Instagram, I’m @jaimeslutzky, and let me know or tag me in you Instagram Stories!

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106: How to efficiently deliver and administer your online course

Wed, 12 Feb 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Today's topic is probably the one that I get into the most with my clients as we get beyond content creation and they know that the vision is going to become a reality… we’re discussing what is needed to effectively administer and deliver your online course.

Often the easiest part of an online course is the content – it’s really everything else that goes into the course that feels daunting. And that’s because it’s new and different and most course creators don’t have a strategist or mentor or adviser to help them get from idea to active selling.

And that’s really what we’re going to break down in this episode.

Part 1: Delivery

There are dozens of different tools that are designed to fulfill the delivery. And truly, the exact set of tools you choose will work and it could look different than someone else who is listening to this podcast right now. There is no one right set of tools. It’s more important to know what content we need to deliver and when we get to the second half of this episode, we’ll focus on tools more… Course delivery consists of content delivery, encouragement delivery, feedback delivery and over-delivery.

If you’ve listened to the podcast for any length of time, you know how much I love to overdeliver… but I really should talk about the other facets of delivery first.

Content delivery.

This is where your actual course material is presented to your students. Course content is best delivered in a methodical, organized and logical manner. The first thing I have most of my clients do is to put their course outline into their course delivery platform of choice. This might be a WordPress site with a learning management plugin, an all-in-one platform that provides a course delivery mechanism or a dedicated course delivery platform. Once you have your outline in place, then it’s time to look at that outline and figure out how you’d like to guide and support your students through that outline.

Are you going to give them the ability to jump around the material?
Are you going to require them to finish everything in order.
Perhaps you’ll have sections of content that they can do in whatever order makes sense to them and then they can move on by passing a quiz or completing a survey.

I like to have a good idea how people are going to progress through the outline so that I can identify where I might want to send encouragement emails, offer my feedback on their progress or otherwise.

When we put ourselves into the shoes of our students without getting sucked into the content itself, it’s much easier to create our administration plan. We can always add more administration as the course gets closer to launch. The key here is to identify when and how we’re going to give our students the material they need to succeed and take action.

Another part of course delivery is complimentary or tangential delivery mechanisms.

What are we providing via email?
Is content being presented in multiple formats?
What is downloadable versus streaming only?
Are there any other platforms that we are going to use within the course delivery. (this one is really asking if you’re going to do Zoom calls or Facebook Lives inside a group for your students to host Q&A sessions or office hours.)

I would really love to do a deep dive Q&A type episode on course delivery – what questions do you have? Send them over to me on Instagram @jaimeslutzky or via email to jaime@techofbusiness.com – and if you would like to have your voice on air, send them over as an audio file 😊

Feedback, encouragement and over-delivery and what the heck I mean by them!

I was speaking with my friend Dana, she’s in LA and loves the idea of potentially learning from teachers in other parts of the country… but her biggest hesitation of not being in studio with her teacher is how to get the hands on and one-on-one feedback about her work in progress. And that’s really where I started to dig deep into how to do effective feedback with an online course.

I have come up with several mechanisms –

An online community or forum where feedback can be provided by peers, mentors and instructors
A structure for uploading work in progress within the framework of the course
Unstructured but readily available upload functionality for students to use on their schedule

And of course, there is also the option to do a combination of the three. It somewhat depends on the topic of instruction and the type of work the students are creating. Ariane Cap that I interviewed back in the fall teaches the bass in her online course. She needs her students to be able to send her audio and video files for feedback. Whereas Mr. Mo who I also interviewed around the same time helps artists become storyboard artists – and he needs to see what his students are creating, so they need to be able to upload images and graphics.

Once the material is uploaded, how are you as the instructor going to provide feedback… it might be audio or video or image or text. And here again, this is why we want to define feedback delivery before students are begging for it!

Encouragement delivery is equally important. We want our students to continue to make their way through the content and it’s so easy for them to get sidetracked by life and shifting priorities. Knowing the most likely points where your students are going to appreciate “keep it going” type messages and “you did it” type messages. “You did it” messages help your students see that you care and that you are watching their progress where as “keep it going” messages might be the difference between someone putting your course on the backburner and pushing through a difficult module!

How good does it feel to know well in advance what sticking points will likely arise for your students and already have a plan for getting them through them?

And those times when we plan to over-deliver – well, those are giving bonus material that will help the student or a personal message or otherwise helping them get more out of their purchase. One or maybe two bonuses is all your students need to convert them into lifelong clients. One thing that makes over-delivery different than feedback and encouragement delivery is that you can have a pool of potential bonuses and pull them out on a student to student basis. One student might get a bonus lesson or bonus course based on the progress they have made in this course or another student might get a discount code for a one-on-one call with you because they are getting confused by a methodology or strategy that you are presenting.

I hope you can see how delivery and timing are important facets to administering your online course!

Course administration

Let’s get into the second part of this episode which is the actual administration of the students, the platform and course progress.

I know, I know, you want me to tell you what platform to use. But I’m not going to. If you’re starting completely from scratch with absolutely nothing online yet, then we’ll evaluate Thinkific and MemberVault to determine which one of those is the best starting point for you. Those links are to podcast mini-series I did on each of these platforms. I generally recommend these two platforms above others because they check all the boxes for what you are going to want and need. They both are great for content delivery and integrate well with ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign which are my preferred email marketing platforms.

We need there to be a strong integration between the course content platform and the email marketing platform to be able to implement the delivery administration!

So, those are four platforms for you to start looking at.

Another reason I tend towards Thinkific and MemberVault is because those platforms have user password management functionality built in. If a student has the login url but cannot remember their password, it’s straightforward for students to be able to reset their password without involving you. This is a major headache we can absolutely avoid – you’re welcome!

Active administration means taking time each day or each week to review student progress or lack thereof, posing discussion questions in your Facebook group or other online forum, answering content and technology related questions, finding and patching holes, offering workarounds or advanced techniques. But most of all it’s a matter of making sure that you are visible – because the people who buy and enjoy your first course are far more likely to buy your next course and recommend you to their friends and family.

I personally like to have the tools in place to make it super easy to spot what I need to spot regarding student progress. While built in tools inside platforms work really well, I’ve found that spreadsheets often work that much better. Sometimes it’s just a matter of asking the platform to output a CSV file with student progress on it, other times I use Zapier to pull and organize the content for me.

When you’re just starting to administer your course, especially if your enrollment is people you already have a relationship with, it’s sometimes super challenging to push yourself to do it the way you developed in your systems and processes.

But it’s so worth it – when we put the foundations in right, it’s so much easier to grow and iterate. I cannot wait to see what you do with your courses and I’m totally open to answering any questions you have about administering your course or anything else related to getting your courses online! Just send me a message over on Instagram – I just changed my username to @jaimeslutzky ~ it would be amazing if you could send me a quick DM letting me know you saw the change!

I look forward to hearing about all your online successes. Thanks for listening and reading these notes! And I love getting to know podcast listeners, so connect with me on any of the platforms listed here:

Download the Online Product Phases
Instagram: @jaimeslutzky
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Contact Page: https://techofbusiness.com/contact/

105: Is an online course right for me?

Wed, 05 Feb 2020 11:30:00 +0000

I'm excited to get into this episode because it hits me so close to home... I have been working with entrepreneurs and business owners since 2010 to create the exact right tech stack to support their online business goals.

My heart swells with pride when my clients hit the “go live” button on whatever project we are working on. It’s not just about go live, it’s really about creating the right online product for both my clients and their audience.

Not every business owner who wants to have an online revenue source is going to go about it the same way and there is no one right way. Today, we’re going to determine if an online course is right for you!!

There are a lot of offline instructors and coaches who could create and sell online courses. But just because you could, should you? I have seen that the success of online course launches has less to do with what you teach and more to do with who you are as a person and how you present yourself to the world.

And what’s more, launching an online course can be done in a number of different ways and again this comes down to they type of person you are. Super quick, you could launch your online course with a webinar or a virtual summit or a challenge or a mini-course or through a podcast or through ads or with a launch team (those are the most common ones) so while you’re thinking about online courses, I recommend you also think about what launch method you resonate the most with as well. You’re just going to gravitate towards one more than others.

So, now, one more preface – I’m not a therapist or an intuitive or anything else that makes me an expert in identifying traits in people… this is all anecdotal from working with clients for nearly a decade.

Migrating existing one-on-one or in-person teaching into an online format doesn’t have a uniform and single method of translation. What I mean is that it’s not just a matter of taking your lesson plan or outline, creating a few videos to teach the lessons and poof, putting them online for someone else to purchase and learn from. It’s more of an art than a science… what works for one type of course creator has no chance of working for another course creator. And the courses that teach you how to create courses do not have a 100% success rate because nobody can say for sure what your unique audience is going to want from you and how they are going to do their best work from your teachings.

One of my favorite ways to explain the difference between online and offline instruction is that you simply cannot walk around the classroom or studio and watch over our students as they work through the material and translate that into practice. And that’s really the crux of the matter – how do we translate the human connection into a virtual space?

Let’s take a closer look at this…

If your primary teaching style is intuitive with a loose outline or lesson plan then it’s super helpful realize this about yourself and to figure out how to be intuitive while being at a distance from your students. And it might make sense to teach your online courses live rather than pre-recorded. This then goes into the launch method and whether your course is going to be open cart/close cart or evergreen enrollment.

If instead your primary teaching style is to follow a lesson plan, give your students time to implement and then review their work and provide feedback, the more traditional online course delivery model can work well for you. This would also lend itself to an evergreen promotion and enrollment.

Now, if you’re all about progress over perfection, then one aspect of an online course that you’ll want to take into consideration is how to help your students carve the time out on a daily or weekly basis to keep moving forward. The fact that your students show up and put in the effort is going to help them find success more than being tested or quizzed or required to submit their assignments. And with this model, there is a lot that you’ll want to consider outside of the course content so that you keep your students’ attention. We talked about this a bunch with Acuity Scheduling last week. If you haven’t listened to that episode yet, when you’re finished with this one, just scroll one back to episode 104 and have a listen!

Here’s the truth about today’s episode – I think that everyone has it in them to create and deliver an online course. For your course to be successful in your eyes, it needs to feel good to you. Your students will only be responsive to the course if you show up as yourself. Be authentic and don’t feel the need to copy anyone else!

Let’s go into other ways to know that you’re ready to put together your first (or next) online course!

You’re the perfect person to develop an online course if you’ve taught the methods you’d teach in your online course at least twice in the past and want to teach them again.
You’re the perfect person to develop an online course if you have people asking you for an online course!
You’re the perfect person to develop an online course if you have proven teaching methods and a desire to reach outside your geographic region.
You’re the perfect person to develop an online course if you’ve been wanting to diversify your income.
You’re the perfect person to develop an online course if you’re listening to this podcast right now – no, seriously I bet in a short conversation we can come up with a really great outline for what you could teach with excellence and confidence in an online manner.

Assuming that you’re going to create an online course, let’s talk about how to make sure creating that course falls in line with the rest of your business and your life. Because the last thing we want is for you to put all your energy into creating it and have used none of your energy for any of the other facets of an online course being successful.

Online courses differ from offline courses in three specific ways that we’ll want to address and for the purpose of this part of the episode, we’re talking specifically about arts instruction – visual arts, photography, performance and music.

In the offline space, you can teach in your own studio or through a studio or community center or organization whereas online you’re going to be doing it completely on your own without location boundaries. This means that your students can be all ages, all abilities and just about anywhere in the world. And this matters because your messaging and delivery need to match their needs and goals.

In an offline environment, you can easily speak to your student after class to help them get the most out of the class they are taking or you can move them to a different class during the session. This aspect of learning and observing our students looks vastly different online but is as important here as anywhere.

And in an online environment we can actually measure a whole lot more than we can offline. I mean, we can see how much of a video a student watches, we can see what lessons they open, we can see what emails they open, we can see them showing up to office hours and a whole bunch of other bits of information – that information is not measurable in the same way offline… so it really makes sense to setup systems and processes to track everything so that next time you launch this course or offer something new, you’ll be able to use that tangible data in meaningful ways.

So, getting back to the initial question of the episode – is an online course right for me?

Yes. Yes. Yes.

Take a methodical approach.
Surround yourself with others who are on the same path.
Seek outside support from me or another coach or strategist.
Create something that feels good in your soul, flows with your style and methods and that you feel confident you can continue to love and nurture in its own right.

An online course is not something I recommend for businesses just starting out. You need to already have expertise and a track record and an audience.

If you don’t have those yet, then sure, put the online course in the side burner for 4 – 6 months as you build these other facets. Your online course can do amazing things for you personally and professionally. I seriously love seeing my clients take their offline tactics and build something new online. So, there you have it – it’s time to stop thinking your online course is coming someday and start looking inward and put the date on the calendar.

This episode was designed to get your wheels spinning and to help you see that your dream is possible. If you would like support, strategy or guidance from me, send me a quick DM on Instagram (I’m @techofbusiness) and we can figure out our best next steps.

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104: The purpose of scheduling software within online course sales and delivery

Wed, 29 Jan 2020 11:30:00 +0000

I believe that scheduling software systems like Acuity Scheduling and Calendly (among others) is an absolute requirement for online course creators.

You’re doubting me, I know it – when I proposed this topic to my friends they thought I was nuts to insist so passionately about this!

Because, well, you’re setting up your online course so that you can leverage your time and offer your brilliance in a one-to-many capacity. That’s a great mission, it frees you up to work on your own art expression, hone new skills and become an even better ambassador for your craft.

But, the reason you’re setting up your online course doesn’t help your students get the success or knowledge they seek. Your objective has many folds and one of them is most certainly helping your students complete the program they purchase, enjoy the process and share your courses with others.

And, your online scheduling tool will certainly help with those objectives and has a direct line to increased profits – so that’s good enough right? We can stop the episode right here and you’ll go to https://techofbusiness.com/acuity/ to signup for Acuity Scheduling! Or maybe not – but hopefully by the end of the episode you’ll agree with me that the benefits of online scheduling are in complete alignment with your goals.

Let’s break down your course takers into 4 groups:

Interested but not purchased
New purchaser
Active participant
Lagging participant

And for good measure, let’s add a 5^th group: graduate!

Your scheduling software is going to help you with course takers in each of these segments.

First up, our “interested but not purchased group.”

This is a really important group of people to nurture – they’ve given you some indication that what you’re offering is something they are seeking. They may have signed up for a free module from your course or attends your Facebook Lives regularly or your webinar or opens your sales emails or whatever other tool you use to help people find out about your courses.

When people get so close to signing up but don’t do it, getting them on a call can be really effective. You could offer a strategy call (either full price or discounted) in your nurture sequence and link to a set of open slots on your calendar inside your scheduling app. Or you could host public Q&A sessions and have people register for them through Acuity -- I love this strategy because there can be a limited number of seats and that’s evident when people click over. This provides a sense of scarcity and exclusivity.

There are a ton of ways to leverage one-on-one and group calls during your sales process and the last thing that you’ll want to do is to try to figure out how to schedule them manually.

Acuity Scheduling takes into account time zones so your prospective student can schedule in their time zone even if it’s different than yours!

Having Acuity or another scheduling tool in your tech stack allows you to offer bonus calls and tiers for your courses. It would be far more time consuming and negate some of the benefits of one-to-many courses if all bonuses and scheduling was not automated.

Many course creators I work with host office hours or other group calls as part of the base tier. So how can we improve upon that and help our almost-students say yes – well, by going beyond the basic and offer a higher level of access to us! And I like to just provide a private scheduling link to my higher level purchasers – they get 10 sessions or 6 sessions or 3 sessions or whatever and they can schedule time on my calendar. It’s a huge benefit to your business and to their success in the program.

A bonus I like to offer is a finite number of reduced price one-on-one sessions and because Acuity can schedule, take payments and have coupons, it’s an ideal platform for this type of bonus.

In a nutshell, having some way for potential students to see that they can have a higher level of access to you is a huge incentive for them to say “YES.”

Now, for your people who just bought your course, you want to make sure they get started right away and get some quick wins. Offering all students a 10 or 15 minute kick-off call or a new students only group call once a week is a brilliant strategy – it’s all about over delivering at this point. They didn’t sign up for it, it’s just something you throw in as a hidden bonus.

This call might be the difference between them asking for a refund and becoming your unicorn student… seriously. It can have that much of an impact!

Not convinced that you need scheduling software for this? Well, it’s all about setting things up to make your business as easy as possible and free you up to do what you do best, right? So if you like scheduling and the high touch approach, I’m sure you could make a case for doing scheduling without software but know that it might mean you’ll be having calls outside of your desired time blocks, on days you’d rather be doing non-client focused work and accidentally booking calls with clients on your birthday! (OK, so I didn’t accidentally book a client call on my birthday but I did have someone request to book a podcast interview on my birthday last summer ~ fortunately I had scheduling software in place so it was evident that I wasn’t available that day!)

I mentioned for your new purchaser the benefit of quick wins and over delivering. This is the same for your students who are making steady progress. These are generally the people who skate through without much notice… most course creators don’t spend much time on their “good students” because the good students just proceed… but what if you have a scheduling tool that makes it easy to do more for your good students? Something that shows them that you see them and their progress and want to reward the milestones. It could be a free call for them to provide you with a video testimonial or feedback on the course, or it could be an invite-only Q&A session or anything else that gets you onto their calendar and invites them to show up for themselves!

It’s imperative to be connected with your students on multiple levels. So, if you’re using a community forum or online group of some kind, that’s a great base level. And providing access to you in a structured way through scheduling software makes the connections that much easier to manage and helps us also look extremely professional!

That’s actually one of my favorite reasons for using scheduling software – the perception that you take your business seriously. And, in case you’re wondering, there are several functions within Acuity that make it so that your entire schedule isn’t open for appointments. These include setting default availability for different types of appointments, blocking off time before and after appointments, presenting only a percentage of your available openings to someone booking time and more options that I truly cannot remember off the top of my head.

Let’s get back to these good students for a moment – without making an effort to connect with them on a personal level, the relationship might be a one time purchase, but helping them see that you care and notice that they are delving in and learning, that can take things to a whole new level.

And there is no ceiling on what we can offer and do for our students.

Now, for our course participants who seem to fall behind, stop or don’t even start, we can use high touch to bring them into the fold and help them get an ROI on their investment. If you’ve offered a refund window of say 30 days, you might see an uptick in refund requests at the end of the window from this segment of your purchasers because they truly haven’t taken any action and will place the blame on you.

So, helping them through the refund window to get a quick win or two is huge in avoiding refunds or disgruntled purchasers. When courses are sold in an open cart/closed cart method it’s pretty easy to pack a whole lot of value inside the refund window to keep people making traction but when your course registration is evergreen or always available, it’s still important to find a way to make an impact and help your students catch up and feel good about their purchases – enter the scheduling software once again!

Here, however, unlike any of the other groups we’ve discussed, it’s super important to make sure that there is no fee associated with any offers we present. My favorite offer to this group, which can be offered to anyone in the course, is to have co-learning sessions.

Essentially, that’s a 60- or 90-minute group booking on Acuity that will end up being a zoom call where everyone goes through the course at their own pace. They can ask questions in the chat and you can facilitate conversation at the beginning and take breaks and even break your participants into small group conversations. The idea here is to provide the environment where they can effectively get stuff done.

I actually do this with a group of women once a month to work on our businesses… we all do our own thing for 25 minutes then come back together to regroup then have at it again. We do it for 2 hours.

Once your refund window has expired, that doesn’t mean we should take the money and not care about our students’ course completion. Limited time bonus calls are a great way to re-incentivize your ghosted students. Think of it as a way to help these students get back on track.

I have a client who offers fitness programs online. She always leaves a buffer in the course content so that if people can’t fit in their workout or meditation or whatever, they have time to catch up and there is no shaming them. You don’t need to be in fitness to help people get back on track!

Our final bonus group of students is those people who complete the course they purchased. We want to have something to offer them after they complete. It might be a free success session where they share with you the takeaways and what they’ve learned and applied in their life. Or it could be upselling them into a virtual group program or one-on-one coaching/mentorship with you.

When we go from in studio to online, there are barriers that fall away like place and time but new barriers arise – those are accountability, focus and follow through. Having Acuity scheduling or another online scheduling tool will help you with these persistent barriers and help you truly connect with your students.

So, have I convinced you? Jump into the Expand Online Community which you can get into at https://techofbusiness.com/community/ or by sending me a DM on Instagram, I’m @techofbusiness.

Download the Online Product Phases
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

103: Take Action ~ your quick tech review in under 30 minutes!

Wed, 22 Jan 2020 11:30:00 +0000

This episode is completely actionable and these actions should take you less than 30 minutes to complete.

There are a few things that you can do in your business to make things SO. MUCH. EASIER. And that’s what we’re tackling today.

I have worked with businesses anywhere from “I’m going to start a business” to having a sizeable online following and revenue in the 6 figures. And regardless of where my client is at when we start working together, my first step is to make sure the foundations are present and working.

The foundations are 5 areas that need to be dialed in. We went in depth on these in episode 71 and to remind you they are:

Your online home
Email marketing and/or customer relationship management
A mechanism for delivering free and paid content
A checkout or payment system
Scheduling software

I’d love for you to go back to episode 71 to hear a bit more about why I think these are the foundation pieces of every online business. Today all you’re going to do is categorize the tools that you’ve thought about using, have signed up for and are actively paying for.

Grab a sheet of paper and make four columns. Label them:

Tool Name / Foundation Area / Status / Investment

Now, go through all the tools you have in your toolbox and write them down in the first column.

Once you’ve finished that, go back to the top and assign each tool to the foundation area to which it belongs. If you’re unsure, think about what it does for your business and either write second tier or extends functionality – maybe it’s a tool like ConvertBox which is a more complex tool and doesn’t fall into the foundation areas I mentioned. This tool is extremely powerful and integrates with several other tools. I would just write “second tier” and move on down my list.

If a tool crosses more than one foundation area, like Acuity which can do scheduling and take payments, write both.

In the third column we’re going to list the status of that product in our businesses. You can either rate on a scale from 0 – 10 where 0 is not using the tool and 10 is using the tool regularly in the business or you can do this column with words such as “interested” “partially implemented” “fully functional” “need to replace” “need to improve” and so on. Either way, the goal of this column is to show how much you rely on the tool right now

Another thing that you can do with this column is to give it two scores, the first is present and the second is where you want this tool to be in 3 months.

In the priority column, we’re going to list the investment in terms of time and money. Just as with the last column, we will want to track a couple of things here… How much time have you invested and how much money have you invested. And then once you’ve listed those, you’ll also estimate how much more time and money you’ll be investing into this tool in the next 3 months.

Once this sheet of paper is complete, you’ll have a really good idea as to how ready you are to expand online.

Let’s take a look at what that really means with a couple of real examples.

First example is a ceramics studio. The studio just upgraded to using Square for their payment processing and product sales. They have a website that lists the address, hours and classes. People call the studio to sign up for classes and workshops. Inside the studio student registration is done with pen and paper and includes the option to sign up for promotional and informational emails. All this information is then entered manually into an excel spreadsheet. When the studio sends promotional emails, they use webmail provided by their website host. I would say that this studio is very much the most basic formula.

Of the five foundational elements for an online business, they have a mechanism for online payments (Square) and a website as their online home. Therefore, we know that at a minimum they’ll need an email marketing or customer relationship management system, a content delivery system and a scheduling tool.

If the owner has thought about any of those pieces, those would be on their quick listing, otherwise that’s the next thing that will need to be tackled.

Since this business has a lean online footprint, the owner was able to complete all columns of the sheet right away. It was easy to list the foundational area, status and investment for the tools that are already in place.

This list will change over time and I recommend that it’s revised a minimum of every 3 months – especially because we have investment and status metrics projected out 3 months.

Now, let’s flip over to another example. This one is an artist who sells their work at shows and online through a virtual storefront. She rents space at an art studio on a monthly basis for her own creation and teaches several courses and workshops there. She takes payment for these courses and workshops through the virtual storefront that she initially setup for selling her creations.

Now that she’s ready to offer her courses and workshops online, we’re going to run through the tools and create her quick hit list.

For the foundational areas, we’re good regarding an online home, a payment processor, and email marketing. And she’s given those all a confident status. So, the two pieces she still needs are the content delivery and scheduling.

Next week we’re going to be discussing why I believe scheduling software is a requirement for online courses and workshops and why I strongly recommend using Acuity Scheduling.

But for now, please trust me in saying that it’s a requirement.

This artist spends a lot of time interacting with other course creators and has a few content delivery platforms and systems listed on her quick hit list as potential tools to use. She hasn’t invested any money in them and only taken a cursory look at each of them. So they are all on equal footing which is a perfect place to be when thinking about expanding online.

I would guess that our ceramics studio owner is at least 3 months away from opening the doors to the online course and workshop space whereas our artist could likely get this new revenue stream up in as few as 3 weeks, just based on where they each are with regards to their tech quick hits sheet.

I encourage you to start tracking tools in your business. Even if your online products aren’t coming in the next 6 months, the sooner you create your tech quick hits list, the easier it’s going to be to take the plunge.

And it’s so much fun to take the plunge.

So, do yourself a favor and sit down with a piece of paper, split it into the four columns Tool Name / Foundation Area / Status / Investment and write down tools you’re actively using, tools you’ve signed up for and tools you’re interested in exploring.

I also love seeing a list of tools that you’ve considered but rejected or stopped using to make sure to not waste time in the tech stack development.

Let me leave you with this – expanding your business online is a fun and rewarding experience. It’s amazing how much impact you can make outside of your geographical area and there is no one right way to do the online product thing. Give yourself grace and space and time. It’s a lot like starting a new business, but you’ve already got experiences to learn and grow from.

So, whether you want to figure it all out on your own and lean on this podcast and other online resources or you want to work in a collaborative and supportive manner with a strategist (like me) or a coach, you can take what you do offline and create an online version that matches your vision!

Thanks for listening and reading these notes! And I love getting to know podcast listeners, so connect with me on any of the platforms listed here:

Download the Online Product Phases
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

102: Knowing when an online product idea is worth pursuing and why validation is key.

Wed, 15 Jan 2020 11:30:00 +0000

It's super important to make sure you have a solid online product idea before you start to create it. This episode highlights several ways to perform product validation (and this comes WAY before pre-selling!!)

Connect with Jaime and share your feedback:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/techofbusiness/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourbiztech/
Expand Online Community: https://techofbusiness.com/community/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

101: A blank canvas for creating your online product.

Wed, 08 Jan 2020 11:30:00 +0000

So, you’re ready to expand online? Awesome!!!

And I’m sure you have thousands of thoughts running through your head as to how to make that a reality. This is an exciting time and I’m so glad you’re here. The Expand Online podcast is hosted by Jaime Slutzky and its mission is to help you see what’s possible for your business in the online space and to help you take the steps needed to make those possibilities a reality!

Your business is already successful in your community and it’s time to remove location barriers and provide your brilliance and unique approach to a corner of the massive online audience.

This episode goes into starting in the right place in order to quickly and smoothly expand online.

The right place is visioning and idea generation…

That is figuring out what you want to actually create and who you are creating this online product for.

Are you wanting to create an extension of your offline/in-studio business or are you wanting to create an entry level or advanced level opportunity that leads in or out of your studio offerings?
Are you wanting to work with your current student base in a new online way or are you wanting to branch out beyond your current market?
Are you wanting to have direct and regular contact with the individuals who purchase your online product or are you more interested in as-is product delivery or is your vision to have students at multiple levels of engagement?

In a nutshell, the first phase should consist of three prongs:

what you’re creating
who you’re creating it for
how your purchasers are supported and engaged with once

Once you have vision clarity then it’s time to get your idea outlined to see the bits and pieces that will need to come together in the creation process.

When in the visioning phase, we truly have a blank canvas for idea generation. As we start to develop our online product, knowing the what and the who are critical. The how that I just mentioned is a tangent of the who, because the level of contact between you and your purchasers is intrinsically tied to who they are and what they need to feel supported and accomplish their goal.

That’s really the big thing here -- we want to create an online product that helps our purchaser accomplish something.

And frankly, one of the reasons why I recently pivoted the audience of this podcast to focus more tightly on serving the needs of arts instructors is because I love supporting others who in turn bring more joy and fun to their students, clients and customers.

If you start with anything other than this, the online product creation journey is going to be far more difficult. I have a downloadable for you that goes through the phases as I see them with online products. You can grab that at https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/

I thought about making this a super short episode, but then the episode wouldn't provide the value that I strive to provide… So, let’s look at why starting with the vision and idea is so much better than starting elsewhere!

Once we dip our toes into each of the other phases of online product development we will come back to why I believe the idea and vision is paramount to the initial successes of your online product.

First up, type of product.

If, instead of the vision, you start with the type of product you’re going to create, then you’ll find that your idea and vision will be boxed into the group program or online course or membership site or downloadable workbook or other container that you want to create.

What if after deciding on a product type you can’t come up with a product idea that fits into that container? But you’ve already decided on the container, you’ll face internal resistance, self doubt and other kinds of nasties battling for which is better…

Is your idea so good that you should give up on the type of product you want to create?
Is your product type stitched to your heart and you throw away good product ideas because they don’t work with the type of product you envision creating?

This is why we want a blank canvas when in the idea and visioning phase!

Next, the tech.

Now, often successful artists who are leaning into having online products do so under the guidance of a coach or mentor. And all of us who provide guidance and support and strategy have our favorites when it comes to the technology needs for online products.

Your coach or mentor might have their “blueprint” which outlines the entire tech stack before you even start exploring ideas!

I certainly have my favorite tech tools but I don’t have one singular tech stack that I recommend to everyone. Your product idea should dictate the tech used not the other way around.

There are a ton of fabulous tools and many of them will work equally well to bring your online product to the point of sale. Just as the type of product shouldn’t dictate the idea, the tech should also not dictate the flow of ideas.

Our third non-starter is the creation process

Ok, this one should be fairly obvious -- developing an online product should not start with creating the actual product! If we start here without a clear vision and idea and before we know the online product container then how on earth is this product going to see the light of day?

Two quick examples --

Let’s say you’re a photographer and you want to create an online product. So you start flushing out your lightroom presets so that you can sell them. Who are you selling them to - parents? Amateur photogs? Professional photogs? And what is the end user’s proficiency level with Adobe Lightroom? And where are you going to house the presets? And What is the purpose of selling and buying these - in your business and for your purchasers? Instead of starting to flush out the lightroom presets, the starting point should be to flush out why and to whom you’re selling the presets. And then figure out what support the purchasers are going to need… once those things are accomplished, you can dabble in the creation process while flushing out the delivery container and the tech. The idea and vision is truly the cornerstone to the product. Have you heard the saying “sell them what they want, give them what they need?” -- that’s really what we’re talking about here.

Our second example is a musician who teaches one on one piano lessons on the side. The one on one lessons have blown up and in order to double down on your own growth as a musician, you’re looking to create an online product to serve your students in a one to many capacity. So, you create lesson plans and instructional videos that your students could choose to purchase instead of working one on one with you. This product has a lot of online potential, but without identifying the vision and flushing out the idea, the lesson plans might collect digital dust instead of helping your students improve their piano playing. Just like the prior example, it’s vital to identify who the product is for, what support they are going to need to find success with your product and how they are most likely to best use the product.

Sure, those lesson plans and lightroom presets will have a place in a final online product, so if you’ve started on your product creation with the creation itself, don’t throw it away! Instead, take a step back and do the visioning and idea work ahead of moving forward with more creation!

And, if you need help with any of this, please send me a quick message on Instagram, I’m @techofbusiness or send me an email at jaime@techofbusiness.com.

The final non-starting point is the marketing and promotion.

Often you’ll hear people talking about pre-selling an online product (I mean episode 98 was all about pre-selling.) This is a great method for seeing if your product has an audience and people who are willing to buy… but how can we start with marketing and promotion before we even have a vision and idea?

We can’t. So, I’m going to leave this phase of the online product development process here. Marketing and promotion must come after the idea is fleshed out enough that you can speak clearly about it. Nobody wants to read a sales page that says “I’m building something really cool, send me $100 and I’ll give it to you when it’s done” right?

Enough about the phases that we don’t want to start with, let’s get back to the vision and idea to wrap things up.

My strong recommendation is to start with a simple product that helps the purchaser create a victory in their life. Using that as the framework for a brainstorming session does not mean that your signature online program doesn’t make it onto the blank canvas just that it might not make it to the first product creation.

I also recommend not mapping out your first 10 products before you sell your first product and get feedback… in fact, our next episode is going to be all about getting feedback and buy in for your online product idea.

Again, the download that goes through all the phases we discussed is available at https://techofbusiness.com/onlineproduct/

Do you know another artist who is thinking about expanding online this year? Share this episode with them directly inside your podcast app. In general, you’ll be able to do this from the show summary screen. Often you’ll click on the ellipses (three little dots) to open a tray with the share option. Thank you for sharing. My mission, as I mentioned at the top of the episode, is to help artists see what’s possible in the online space and to help make those possibilities a reality!

Thanks for listening and reading these notes! And I love getting to know podcast listeners, so connect with me on any of the platforms listed here:

Download the Online Product Phases
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
The Expand Online Community on Facebook
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Episode 100: The mindset taking you from hands-on to online

Wed, 01 Jan 2020 11:30:00 +0000

Your online business success is my goal and focus.

Tech of Business is what I do, but your desire to Expand Online is what brought you to this podcast, right?

You are a professional with an offline hands-on business and are super excited about the idea of adding supplemental or replacement income through an online product.

An online product:

online courses
membership sites
group programs
distance teaching that meet via Zoom video conferencing (with or without material provided online)
physical or downloadable products with online marketplaces

There are several phases of online product development and my sweet spot is in the tech… but there is so much more than the tech that goes into successful online products.

This episode focuses on the mindset that is needed to venture online when you already have offline successes.

Regardless of the reason for wanting to create an online product, work in the online space takes a different mindset than in person work. There are probably a stack of questions swirling around in your head:

Do I know enough to create this online product?
Do people want to engage with me in this way?
How am I going to get this product created?
Is my business taking over my life?
Can I really do something online?
I’m starting from nothing, how do I start to get traction?

And the list goes on -- if you have other mindset questions, post them over in the Expand Online Facebook group which you can access here.

The bigger question isn’t what questions are swirling around in your head, but what to do to get through these thoughts so that you can expand online and fulfill this desire.

Our brains play tricks on us, big time, to keep us in our safe zone. It’s easy to stay where we are, but our hearts itch for expansion and growth. People, especially entrepreneurs, do not do a good job sitting sit and stagnating. So, we need to equip ourselves with the tools to conquer the naysayer in our minds.

You have enough knowledge to expand online.
You are worthy of having people pay to learn and be inspired by you.
You can do this.
You can expand online and maintain a sense of self.
You have insight and knowledge and passion to attract followers, subscribers and customers.
You will feel empowered by creating something from nothing.

I’m extremely analytical and it took me a long time to realize that these are affirmations. All an affirmation is, is to state that something is true and real. I can get behind that… just as art is in the eye of the beholder, affirmations are also real and true when you’re willing to let them be real and true.

Some of the affirmations that I say on a regular basis are:

My ideas are worth exploring.
There are people who need to hear my message.
I am creative and can create beautiful things.
I will guide, support and assist 100 artists in 2020 bring their online product to market.

That last one is critical -- telling myself on a daily basis that my work and effort has a tangible result this year will make it so.

Expanding your business online doesn’t have to be monumental… it can be a slow start and build over time. It’s all about putting one foot in front of the other and taking the journey. And it’s far easier to tackle little mindset road bumps than it is to put all the roadblocks in place before identifying the start line. Our paths always twist and turn and often take unexpected detours. Which is part of the fun -- with an online product we can do more experimentation too!

Other than affirmations and mantras, another great way to set your mindset right is to plan in reflection points. Let me explain…

If you know that every Friday afternoon you have set aside 20 - 30 minutes to reflect on the progress you’ve made that week, you’ll add tangibility and that in turn helps you stay in the right mindset.

Let’s say we’re creating an online course and are growing our Instagram following so that when the course is ready for market (or pre-launch) we have a pathway to go down. Then our weekly reflection point will include taking a look at both the course creation process as well as the Instagram growth and engagement. Tracking makes me feel successful. I used to just fly by the seat of my pants when it came to Instagram but once I setup a plan to truly watch what I’m doing on Instagram, it became so much more apparent that my efforts there are being validated.

And the same goes for reflecting on the development of the online course -- there are times when course creation puts us in the weeds, reflecting on how far we’ve come is a great way to pull us out. I have struggled with wanting to put too much into my courses and needing to pull back… in fact, I have a course that is called Guided Tech Setup that is in soft-launch right now and in that course, I considered throwing in the towel several times.
I knew what I wanted to create and why and for whom. But getting off the start line and outlining it took me a while. I kept letting my monkey brain tell me that my clients would rather just hire me to do this work and what’s the point. But when I got to my Friday reflection period and saw that I pushed through and created an outline, it became easier to see the course being complete. Then I began writing scripts and lessons and downloadable material.

And suddenly, a large part of me just wanted to wing it! It took me a bit to realize that was my brain trying to keep me safe -- it was saying, if you wing it, you will get this done faster. But faster wasn’t my goal, quality was my goal. Giving my customers a quality product that would help them with their online program was my goal. And that couldn’t be rushed.

I had to change from “this is hard” to “this is worth the effort.”
And the same goes for each new online product that I create.
And the same goes for each new online product that you create.
It cannot be created in a vacuum. The right mindset and opportunities to correct course helps us to create the best possible product for our customers every step of the way.

My mentors and coaches have told me that even if you get through this mindset piece for this project, it’s going to come back in another form for the next project.

Pushing through and being objective are my natural defences against mindset woes. I am getting better at repeating affirmations and making them visible.

It’s January 1st and if you’re anything like me, you’re getting inundated with noisy messages about starting this year on the right foot and planning and productivity and streamlining and setting goals and a whole lot of messages that can wear down your defences.

I want you to know that you can do this. You can expand your business online in 2020. You have something that your future customers are craving.

Expanding online is the next logical step for you -- and I am thrilled to be part of your support system to make this a reality.
Let’s do this together!

Join me in the Expand Online: Strategy, Support and Tech Facebook group today!

099: Doing the Pre-Work for Online Product Success

Wed, 18 Dec 2019 11:30:00 +0000

In this episode we’re going through the pre-work steps how to get your online product to the point of creation.

That is -- everything that I think needs to be figured out before writing a single video script or writing a single line of sales copy or creating a single graphic.

In short, this is developing the promise.

Your online product is going to deliver on a promise. And every aspect of the product, whether it’s a course, membership site, group program, distance learning or other type of online product, needs to work towards delivering on that promise.

Let's use an example to illustrate how to develop the promise.

Let’s say your online program is going to help someone keep their paint brushes in good working shape for twice as long as the average lifespan of a paint brush in under 15 minutes.

There is value to this program -- your students are going to save money by not having to purchase new brushes as often and being able to sit down and paint whenever they feel compelled (because their equipment is ready to use.) This is the promise.
The promise is the BECAUSE not the HOW.

Or put another way -- nobody really wants to wrap up every painting session with a cleaning session. That’s not a strong selling proposition. They want to be able to start every painting session with clean brushes that are ready to use. So we need to use the angle of what they want instead of what they don’t as the premise of the promise we are delivering.

Now, let me jump in here and say I know next to nothing about painting but I’m inspired by artists and this felt like a good example to use right now…

Our promise needs to encompass the benefit of being able to sit right down and get to the joy of the craft. Our promise is that “When you finish this program you’ll be proficient at keeping your paint brushes in tip top shape so that they are ready every time you sit down at the easel.”

That’s compelling!

Here’s another take, factoring in the time element. We said it earlier that we’re going to make the brushes last twice as long as average. And that it’s going to take less than 15 minutes.

Our promise might include the aspect of saving time and money on supplies. “When you finish this program your art supply runs will be less frequent, saving you time which can immediately be used to create more art.” Or “when you finish this program your art cleanup will fast, efficient and a joy instead of a burden.”

Get the idea? And once we get the promise down, it’s so much easier to pull everything together from the content and messaging to the tech and marketing.

Here at Tech of Business, we love helping our clients deliver their promises... actually, we are on a mission to help our clients over-deliver their promises…

When your students take your course and feel that you’ve lived up to the promise, they’ll be happy. When you over-deliver and wow them, then they will spread the word about your online products and shout your name from the rooftops. That’s the power of delivering… but I digress.

This post is about understanding what needs to be in place outside of the tech and the content.

First up: time allocation.

Once you have customers who purchase your online product, you need to have time to service them.

And this means that there are going to need to be adjustments to your weekly schedule. Are you going to commit to a forum or a Facebook group, weekly office hours or guaranteed email responses. All those options will compound the benefits of the product but they take time out of your day. You can choose to reduce your in studio time to block that out for online students. Or you can carve it outside of free time. But it needs to be figured out before getting to the creation.

Next: team.

Who is going to work with you and support this project. Are you doing it solo from conceptualization all the way down or are you hiring a videographer or a copywriter or a tech company (ahem, you know this is what we do here at the Tech of Business, right?) or are you going to have a long-term contractor, assistant or team member working on it with you.

Finally: education.

And, if this is your first online product what do you need to learn before you can launch this product? Do you want to hire a strategist or mentor or a coach or a consultant? Do you want to take a course or attend a workshop?

And the ugly truth -- do you have the money and time for the pre-work, creation and marketing to make it a success?

Jumping to creating the online product is my favorite place to go -- but there is so much that goes into having a successful online product, and I'll bet since you've read this far, you know that the pre-work and understanding what you’re promising is going to have compound benefits.

We’re right on the cusp of a new year, as of the time of the release of this episode, and I know you’ll be itching to create and spread your wings. I’m right there with you -- let’s just make sure we’re doing it right from the get go.

BTW, I recently talked on the podcast about launching messy -- and I am good with that but launching messy doesn’t mean launching unprepared.

And the same goes with creating -- pre-work and a constant reminder of the promise you want to make to your customers is task #1.

098: TECH for Online Program Pre-Launch

Wed, 11 Dec 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Today we are breaking down what it means to pre-launch or pre-sell your online program. We’re going to break down what needs to be in place for the pre-launch to be successful and the factors to consider when using this launch method.

Pre-launching or pre-selling an online program essentially means that you create your sales page and start receiving payments before the program content is complete. There are two primary reasons why businesses choose the pre-sell method which are:

To validate the idea
To raise funds to produce the product

And because there is an investment on the customer side of things, more often than not, pre-selling an online product requires one or more of these customer sets:

An established customer base asking for the product
Loyal followers on social media
Direct outreach to potential customers

And there are other customer bases too -- but for now, these are the most likely who will be up for buying your online product before it’s complete.

For the rest of this episode, I assume that you know where your initial customers are going to come from and the work required to get them to the sales page… let’s get to what needs to be setup and what can wait.

The final action our customers are going to take is to go through the checkout process. Therefore, this is the most important element to have setup properly when you’re pre-selling. The checkout cart that I most highly recommend is ThriveCart… Episode 82 of the podcast was a deep dive into this robust platform.

For our purposes today, ThriveCart is where our customers are going to pay for this new online product.

They are going to be presented with the checkout page which you’ll want to fully build out. This includes:

A well defined product name
Price and payment options
A list of “what’s included”
An image or graphic representing the product
Your terms of service and refund policy

It doesn’t have to be complicated, it just has to be complete. And if you don’t know the full extent of what will be included in your product yet, ...and more! always works well.

After your customers pay for this pre-launch product, they will be directed to the thank you for purchasing page or another page of your choice. This page is likely the second most important pre-launch asset you can have.

This is where we set expectations, double down on our commitment to product creation and let them know how much we value them. This page is where you reassure your new customer that their success with this program is your utmost priority. I like to throw a video on this page because it adds a personal touch.

Right on the heels of the thank you page, there needs to also be a thank you email in addition to the payment receipt. They could be done as one single email customizing the ThriveCart receipt email or as two separate ones with the latter coming from your email marketing system.

I like to do two emails -- ever so slightly customizing the ThriveCart one and then sending a more complete one from ActiveCampaign. So, yes, you will need to make sure that your cart is properly connected with your email marketing platform. And this is because we’ll be using that as the mechanism for keeping our pre-sell customers in the know as far as the progress of the program they have purchased.
So far: we have a place for our customers to purchase the product, a thank you page, a thank you email and hooked the purchase into our email marketing system.

But for most of us, that’s not enough -- we need a sales page to help our customers see that this product is truly right for them at this stage in their life or business. The sales page is kinda like a cover letter on a resume. The resume can stand for itself but the cover letter gives the resume context and warmth.

It’s the same thing with the sales page.

Your sales page can be more simplified at the pre-launch stage than it will be during your public launch. The key elements of the sales page are the same as the checkout page, but usually it’s going to be more aesthetically pleasing.

I have three questions for you to ask yourself that can help you figure out if you need a sales page or just a checkout page:

Is my customer interacting with me during the sales process? If so, then you might not need one. If they are not, then you probably want one.
Is my audience already used to buying things online? If so, then your checkout page might be enough because they understand the process. If they are not, then the more we can warm them up to the idea of an online product, the more likely they will be to follow through and make the purchase.
Is this product more than $100? If so, then a sales page is highly recommended. If it’s more than $500 then a sales page is absolutely necessary.

So, do we need anything else?

Well… not to make the sale but to efficiently create the product that we are preselling, then yes, we’ll want to have a few other tactical pieces in order.

The first is how we are going to ultimately deliver the online program.

If it’s a live video session based program, then we’ll be using Zoom to deliver it. And it’s time to get your Zoom Pro account squared away.
If it’s an online membership program or an online course, know what platform you’ll be using. I recommend either Thinkific or MemberVault… and if you want to know more about those platforms, I did mini-series on each of them earlier this year on the podcast.
If it’s a done with you or done for you type product, again, you’ll want to make sure you know how this program will be delivered.
If it’s being delivered via email, then your email marketing system is soon going to be your best friend!

The bottom line on this is that it’s super important that you’re clear how the product is being delivered so that you can refer to that in your language on the sales page, checkout page, thank you page and emails.

Next, what type of content are you going to be including in this program? Is it going to be video content? Is it going to be printable PDFs? Is it going to be fill-in-able PDFs? Is it going to be audio files?

What tools are you going to use to create the content? Does your chosen delivery platform include a mechanism for storing that content or do you need to source out Vimeo PRO or a cloud storage location?

One other thing that I would highly recommend getting in place is your pixels -- this is going to vastly help your public marketing phase so the sooner you have your Facebook pixel installed in all the right places the happier your marketing team will be. This is most critical if you have an in person or offline established customer base that you want to start doing online business with.

And then we get into the bells and whistles side of things. What else can you throw into your online product to wow your customers, help them progress through the program and win? While it’s not necessary to have all this stuff figured out at the presale stage, it’s super helpful and can streamline the decisions that are coming next.

Are you wondering what doesn’t need to be in place since I’ve talked so much about what does need to be there…

You don’t need to have all your content created.
And you don’t need to have all your emails written.
And you don’t need to have your public launch marketing plan in place.
And you don’t need to have your customer service automated or a chat bot.
And you don’t need to even create your entire online product before letting your pre-launch or pre-sell customers gain access to the product.

What I mean by the last bullet point is that if you’re doing an online course or online membership, you can be two or three weeks ahead of your audience so that they get access to Week 1 content while you’re working on Week 4 content.

At this stage, your customers are going to people that already know you, already trust you and truly believe that you’re going to serve them right. Making the purchase experience smooth should be the primary focus.

I would love to support you during your pre-launch. Join us in the Expand Online Facebook group which you can access by going to techofbusiness.com/community/

And if you want any assistance with ThriveCart or any of the other tools we mentioned here, use any of the links below to get in touch!

Connect with Jaime:

Learn about the Five Phases of an Online Product
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

097: Using Tech Strategically with Susan Boles

Wed, 04 Dec 2019 11:30:00 +0000

If you haven't yet downloaded the brand new freebie that I announced on the podcast last week, be sure to do that by clicking here.

Today's episode is with Break The Ceiling host Susan Boles. She owns Scale Spark, where she works as an outsourced CFO and Growth Advisor for agencies, consultants, and other service businesses. Susan crosses her CFO role with a tech expertise (and you can see how we just clicked!) to help her clients have hit or are nearing a growth ceiling.

Susan's clients are a lot like many of the listeners of this podcast... They have leads coming in and know what they're doing, but they have hit a capacity ceiling. It's either either impending burn out and kill themselves with work, or that they want to grow their business in a different way.

She likes to say that she doesn’t fix the problems of growth. And she doesn’t solve for growth. She solves the problems of growth. So when you're growing, there are all of these operational problems that come up.

As business owners, we want to grow and scale and do more. Then we turn around and somehow have four or five, six tons of things on our backs. So we need to take a step back and create processes.

I think it's really hard to optimize something that you don't have a process" - Susan Boles

Processes allow us to be more efficient and outsource with ease and grace. And in creating those processes, we maximize the effectiveness of our tech tools.

Remember -- when you outsource, you hire someone who is able to execute on your vision -- they aren't setup to create the process, streamline the tools or make strategic decisions.

There is no one magic tool to make your business work better. I always say to implement the best right tool for the task at hand. So if you start adding tech too early, it just adds to the overwhelm.

If you buy a tool without really thinking through what you're going to use it for, how you're going to use it, and how it's going to fit with all the other tools you're using, it can really screw you. Because now you're paying for this other tool that isn't doing what you needed to do. And you also feel overwhelmed, because you've just added the thing to your to do list that says go set up x, y, z tool.

It's a vicious cycle.

Susan believes technology is one of those kind of last 10% aspects of business. It's the last mile of the optimizing and streamlining your systems. Technology is the last trigger to pull but that's because it's really that powerful.

Especially when it comes to automation and being able to actually hand stuff off to technology. And this takes us to having a viable strategy for how you're going to use a given piece of sofware before you can recognize its value.

When someone comes to me as says they want to implement a given tool, I almost always ask a lot of questions -- they need to be READY. Even if it is the right tool, if they are not ready for it, I will give them homework to complete before we get started.

I had someone come to me not that long ago, asking me to set up the backend integration between Thinkific and his email marketing system. And I asked why? His answer was because he needed it set up. That wasn't the right answer. So I told him "you have to create your course and you've got to understand who your audience is and figure out your marketing message. Once you get to that point, then sure, I can set up this last 10% so that all of your systems can be working together.”

Sure, tech might be the answer -- but what's the question? What problem are we solving? Are they congruent in size?

Susan has seen a lot of people think that technology is magical.

They have this impression, and she gets this a lot with her clients, they just need a project management system and that's going to fix all of their problems. The reality is there are so many questions that you have to answer before you get to that point of evaluating the potential tools. Do you even need a project management system and do you need the biggest one with the bells and whistles?

There's so many questions to ask there. She always likes to ask them why they are doing that. And you have to ask why a whole bunch of times before you get to the point where that technology piece even comes into play.

What is the true problem that we are solving? Where are we trying to go? And what are we creating?

It's so important to know the answers to these questions... I used to have a freebie on this website that included the question "Are you looking at this piece of technology as a foundation or as a crutch?" Or, in other words -- Is this a bandaid type fix or a tool you intend to rest your business on?

Even with the right tech and the right SOPs, it's important to hire the right help for the task at hand. Proficiency in a tool and the right hourly rate are great potentials for outsourcing. The key with a successful VA is that they do the job you want them to do in the way that you want it done. A VA is just someone who works for you and is not physically in your office!

Susan and I both understand that our clients come to us and make most their decisions when they are operating in emergency mode.

So when you come in and you are overwhelmed, and you are at your last straw and you don't know where to go, it's so easy to just pull a trigger and make it a crutch of desperately grasping for anything that will make the problem better. Making decisions in emergency mode is a very different mode of making decisions than thinking about the long term vision of your business and how the system function behind the scenes (not to mention what kind of business you want to grow!)

Laying those foundational pieces, be that process or technology or team members, whatever those foundations are. You should be stopping, taking a breath, and then making a decision that is based off of your plan for growth, not off of putting a bandaid on the issue.

A lot of tech decisions come in a place of overwhelm or stopping the bleeding or in the space of just make it work. But, there's something about taking that step back, and bringing in an outside advisor, and looking at things from a non emotional state. This is where I chose to take the conversation with Susan --> Just taking that step back and looking at some of the strategies to being objective rather than emotional.

Susan's favorite question is: “Why are you doing it that way?”-- there's a real value in having an outside person, come in and force you to explain why you made the choices that you made Often the choice that was made was made because that's the way we've always done it or because that's the way it was done my old industry. Susan likes to tell the story of a client she was working with on her billing.And she asked why her client chose to bill the way that she did.

Objectively, Susan saw that this was causing issues in them being able to really harness the power of automation inside their project management system. The answer was because the person who started the company had come out of the television industry. And that's how they build in television. And that was really the answer to why they made the decision that they did. <-- there was absolutely no basis with their current business.

People will say, “When I started the company, I thought that I had to do it this way. You know, I thought I had to bill hourly because that's how people bill. I didn't realize there were other options.”

There is a series on Susan's Break the Ceiling podcast about making default decisions. Subscribe to it if you haven't -- they are great conversations. Sometimes early on something is started and you may not even realize that you are actually making a decision. But this can have a huge impact down the road on what kind of business you actually have, how it operates and the systemization opportunities.

Susan gives the example of working with clients in POST PAY... or they pay after the work is complete. Post pay versus paying upfront for the work creates an entire workflow that you now have to figure out how to manage and administer and potentially how to automate.

you have to track time
you have to track materials
you have to have the methodology to turn that into an invoice that you then send to them
you also have to track them down later on to get them to pay the invoice

A very simple decision at the beginning to say, “Hey, I work on a project basis. Pay me up front. The End." Your customer clicks the button, pays the money, and it's done. That's the end of the process.

This is so often a decision that you didn't even consciously make, but it can have a really big impact on how much you're trying to administrate, automate, and streamline.

Expanding on this -- if you continue with POST PAY and want to outsource all of your billing to somebody else, now there might be upwards of six systems in place in order to make sure that your invoices get created and paid and that your team member can do their job.

Now for the good news: There's nothing that we have in our businesses that can't change.

I did this... earlier this year I decided that instead of doing split pay for my projects, if they were under a certain dollar amount, the only option was 100% pay up front. I understand that some of my bigger projects, the ones that are getting close to five figure or beyond, there's probably a reason why split pay still makes sense. But projects that are on a much smaller scale and that take far less time, it doesn't benefit me to set them up as split pay. Both payments would often hit my clients' credit cards in the same billing cycle, so there isn't a benefit to them! And I don't have to worry about the client running off with $200 that they never paid me.

There's nothing that says that you have to keep things the way they are. That goes for billing. That goes for the tech tools that you're using. And it goes with where you're hosting your website, or where you buy your domain names. Everything can change if there is a business benefit to doing so.

But changing for the sake of change adds to the overwhelm that we were already talking about. So don't just say, “Oh, well, Jaime and Susan said…”. We don't want change for change sake. We want to be changed for benefit.

Oy -- it was just Black Friday, Small Business Saturday and Cyber Monday -- we got a lot of buy buy buy messages this weekend about new tools in the online marketing and online business space. We feel compelled to try them out and invest in them.

Susan and I can both attest that implementing any new tool, even if it's a simple one, still has work that goes into it. There gotta be a thought process and a plan. It needs to integrate with the rest of your system and have a clear purpose!

And even if it's not overwhelming, it still takes time to do it.

So, I repeat --> If you don't have a really good business case behind why you're doing something, then there is no value in doing that right now.

But it's not a bad thing to be open to opportunity to say? “Oh, what else is out there?” Something might be that silver bullet that truly optimizes your processes and optimizes your workflows. So, it's always a balance -- of time and money and energy and functionality.

And even if you're not adding a new tool to your toolbox right now -- we both recommend doing a tech audit and a process audit!

Susan likens it to giving herself the opportunity to see if there's anything that changed within the tools she's using. Are there new features that have come out to make her life easier? to eliminate a redundant tool (that wasn't redundant before the cloud software tool was updated.)

And you could be saving money by eliminating tools.

And you can increase efficiencies by using all facets of a given tool.

An outside perspective

This is why an external audit (like the Tech Tool Audit --> https://techofbusiness.com/audit/) is so beneficial. Having someone who is not personally invested ask the questions and look objectively is your best next move. I'll ask questions that you are then forced to answer. Sometimes it's really hard to do that for yourself. It’s hard to ask yourself questions about why you're doing things.

Another approach that Susan suggests is to block out an hour on the calendar. It doesn't have to be a week or a month. You can sit down for an hour and say, ”Okay, great. What piece of software do I want to look at? What one little piece of my system could I make better?”

And it's great if you don't have SOPs (processes written down) to do this as a matter of course. Because it might suddenly appear that there is an automation available like using Zapier to make things even more efficient!

When it's written down, you don't have to remember. And you don't have to use that brain space that says, “What are the steps I have to remember to do again?” Sometimes just slowing down and focus on one thing has compound benefits over the years and months to come.

If you can break it down into little pieces, and then just tackle that one tiny piece, that one task that you never have to remember it again.

Susan's absolute favorite automation right now is from a calendly appointment, she has a zap that does all her new client setup on Google Drive. It might have taken her an hour or less, and then she never has to do it again. That one half hour that you spent setting that up, can mean that you save 15 hours this year, not doing that again. What could you do with that freed up time?

Sure, it doesn't have to be Zapier... it could be that you outsource the task to an assistant to every time a calendly comes in, that it's a new client, that they do A, B, C all the way down through Z. But you can't automate or outsource what you haven't documented and the more that you document the more you feel in control. And the less you feel like, “Oh, I have to find this crutch. I have to find this band aid.”

The real power is in making that decision one time, deciding what that process is one time. And that actually frees you up to spend your time doing creative fun things, and not trying to remember what order you need to do things right in.

This opens up real power in terms of creativity, for Susan. By offloading that out of your brain and just making the decision once, you open yourself up to space to create and imagine.

If you don't like the term system or process -- call it dance steps or something creative!

If you are a choreographer, it can be totally thought of as the dance steps to make my business run. Put your own unique name on it. It doesn't have to follow anybody else's rules.

Susan’s takeaway

If there is one takeaway, it would be that systems and processes don't have to be scary. They can be simple like a checklist. And if you can just make decisions one time and then use that decision over and over again, that is really the key to being able to scale your capacity. Because you don't have to make that decision over and over again. You're not using that same brainpower. And you have made the decision one time and then you can just use that and move your brain into other more high value things.

I encourage you to check out her podcast. And if you haven't joined the Expand Online Facebook group yet, you can get there by going to techofbusiness.com/community.

Connect with Jaime:

Expand Online Freebie: Five Phases of an Online Product Workbook
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Susan:

Website: www.scalespark.co
Podcast: Break the Ceiling

Expand Online - FOR Artists

Wed, 27 Nov 2019 11:00:00 +0000

Last week on Instagram, I started using #expandonline as a hashtag in my posts... This episode goes along with the start of that hashtag and who this podcast is truly for...

Let's start with expand online.

That's what I help my clients do.

I help you expand your business online. Note that I didn't say "start their business the right way with the right tech and the right processes and systems" and all of that.... nope it's EXPAND Online.

This means I work with men and women who already have a business that is thriving and that they love. And it's time to expand and do something new... We all started our businesses for a reason and no part of the plan is to stagnate.

Expanding an active, real in person business online is a great way to keep from stagnation.

The episode title indicated this, and I'm calling it out -- the niche and the #expandonline initiative is for artists because this is an audience that I feel truly has gifts for the world that need to expand beyond their local communities. This is artistic professionals who teach their craft.

I have worked with musicians.
And I have worked with artists.
I have worked with photographers.
And I have worked with many other artistic professionals who want to do something online.
And these are my people.

These are the people who I get out of bed every morning and say, “How can I serve them?”

I chose to double down on this and say that that's what I'm here for. That's who I'm here to help. And that's who I'm here to take the tech burdens and the tech obstacles out of their space.

Artistic professionals are creative. So sitting in front of a computer for hours on end trying to figure out how to make a shopping cart or an email marketing system or a website work is a waste of their time.

That's what I'm here for. I'm here to help you #expandonline and take away all of your tech headaches.

It is so exciting to finally be here.

And I have a brand new gift for you -- I'm breaking down the five phases of an online product in an easy to use downloadable file.

This is an overview of what steps -- what phases -- that product needs to go through before it's in the hands of your next customer.

What if you want to refer to your customers as clients or students or members?

Totally just using "customers" as a placeholder -- the term you're going to use depends on the type of product that you are creating.

For example, if you're a composer and you've created some sheet music, your online product may be a one time downloadable purchase. Let's set up a Shopify store or a shop on another platform.

Or, maybe you are a choreographer and you want to teach people how to properly stretch. An online course would be the perfect container for this content and your customers will be your students.

Or, maybe you want to get together with all the other musicians in your town and put together a membership program where you get all sorts of different instruments or different styles and a multidisciplinary learning environment. We would then create a membership where people from all around the world could access the resources that are rich in your community. There are so many ways to go.

The underlying theme is that we are going to expand your business online!

There are a variety of reasons why an artist may choose to get into teaching or instruction. And there are also many reasons why you may choose to expand online and let's give you three of those right now.

Your studio is maxed out. You cannot take on any more students, because there's only so many hours in the day. There's only so many hours that the students are actually available to invest time in their art. So expanding your business allows you to serve many students in the online space through courses or virtual lessons.
You've maxed out your local community. You've got to a point where everybody in your town has taken them. And maybe they know somebody three towns over who wants to take your class, but can't drive in and physically be at your studio. So by expanding online, you're really opening up the opportunity to have more students, more people that you work with in that variety.
Reduce number of hours worked. Leveraging the online space allows you to stop working so many hours. When you expand online, you open the doors to some level of passive income. Passive income is elusive, and is not truly passive. We will get into that a whole lot more.

By bringing your business online or an element of your business (a passion of yours or a subset of your business) online and expanding in that way, you make it so that you can touch more people's artistic hearts than you would be able to if you're simply trading time for money.

I am so so excited about expanding online and bringing the online space to the artistic community and making it so that your art style gains a larger audience.

Now here's the dirty truth: I don't even know who I'm going to be attracting with this message!

I don't know who you are yet!
I want to know what you teach and what your passions are.
I want to know why you create art.
How can I help you expand online?

Click here to get an email where you can download the five phases of an online product workbook. When you do, you'll get an email from me with the link to download... and go beyond downloading and reply to that email!

Let me know how I can support you through the podcast through emails through the Facebook group, which also is called Expand Online.

And if you haven't yet -- join the Expand Online : Strategy, Support and TECH community which you can access at techofbusiness.com/community. I'll be able to let you right on in.

You can ask your questions and meet other professionals. I am just so inspired by your gift to the world. It is my wish that together we get that to your next phase of clients. Get that to your online audience.

And a final note...

I have seen so many amazing art instructors, art teachers, choreographers, musicians, and culinary artists. And I have seen so much beautiful art on Instagram. I've seen so many instructional videos on YouTube. Those are pathways to profit. Those are not the profit generation sources themselves. So if you have a strong YouTube presence or have a strong Instagram presence, that is a fabulous foundation to help you successfully expand online.

Connect with Jaime:

Expand Online Freebie: Five Phases of an Online Product Workbook
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

095: Outsourcing to TECH for a Boost in Productivity with Amber De La Garza

Wed, 20 Nov 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Today on the podcast I'm sharing with you a conversation I had recently with none other than Amber De La Garza, the productivity specialist. Amber is the host of Productivity Straight Talk and she lives in Las Vegas, Nevada. I love going to Las Vegas! Yet every single time I go to Las Vegas, Amber is busy. So let's put our good magic together and hope that next time I go to Las Vegas, I will have the opportunity to see Amber in person again. It's been a year since I last saw her and I cannot wait to catch up.

Before I go off on talking about my friendship with Amber, I want to make sure that you know that we have a full transcript of this episode at techofbusiness.com/095/ so that you don't have to sit there and take notes.

I was starting to pull out some of the highlights of this episode. And my notes themselves got longer than I wanted. I decided to scrap that and just point you towards the show notes because that's where you're going to get all the juicy nuggets and make sure that you don't miss anything that Amber has to say.

Now let's get into this episode and you are going to be blown away.

I wanted to bring Amber on to the podcast to share kind of where technology and outsourcing help with productivity. This is something that people come to me all the time with. They're like, “Okay, so I want to use this new tool.” And my first question is, why? Why do you want to use this tool? And if the answer is, “So that I can be more productive.” I start to look and see if Amber has something in her podcast vault that I can send them to. That's really the true reason why I wanted to bring Amber on today.

Tech and the relationship of productivity can be kind of a gray area.

Amber was really excited to really define how they meet and how do they actually serve each other. Amber thinks that there are a lot of people just jump to, “If I get the right program or the right app or the right this or this, it makes me productive.” Because of this she was really excited to talk about how it actually does help us be more productive.

I think that even myself, and probably Amber too, we've implemented technology, and it's made us less productive, either short term or long term. There are a lot of different variables. Sometimes it's even get a piece of tech working and have someone on your team do it or have someone get that piece of tech working and bring it back to you ready to go.

So I realized that we never really said what Amber’s podcast is and what she is actually a genius at.

Amber De La Garza is the productivity specialist. She specializes in productivity for small business owners. And she does that in many different ways. One of them is the podcast she has called “Productivity Straight Talk.” She is also a coach. So she offers group coaching programs, one on one coaching, and she also speaks and trains. So just about any method or modality of sharing the message of why productivity is so important for businesses in our lives, she;s just sharing all the good stuff.

So let’s talk about when someone says that they want to be more productive. Where do you start with them? Do you start with asking what their day looks like? Do you start with what does their tech look like?
Where do you start with that part of the conversation?

Amber shared this great example. Let’s say she has someone on a discovery call, and they're like, “Oh, I don't know where to start with you. I'm not quite sure.” She makes sure that they're on the same page with how they define productivity. Because if they don't define it the same way, then Amber says that she’s not the right person or coach for them. So the very first place she starts is to define it.
So how does Amber define productivity?

According to Amber…

“Productivity is simply when we are investing our best time into our best activities. And that's really, really important because you didn't hear me say an organized desk or color coded calendar or file folders that are completely alphabetical and organized and every paper has a place. I also didn't mention tech. I didn't mention programs. I didn't mention the next project management program. It's with investing your best time into your best activities.” - Amber De La Garza

Now, when we say things like, “I don't have enough time, there's never enough time to do those important activities like sales, marketing and visibility, and getting out there and letting people know what you can do servicing your clients.” Then that's you need to be focused on figuring out how can you be more effective and efficient by using tech.

How can you be more organized and efficient by being organized, so that you reclaim that time to now focus and show up your best as the business owner?

That means doing the things that actually create revenue for your business. So that's how it's all tied in. And yes, we talk about tech and apps and an organization, but those are tools you use to leverage your time so that you show up your best in your business.

I love that because there is never a good tech tool that costs you time, energy, or whatever it might cost you that is going to stay in your business if it's not giving you that time back.

So when I'm thinking of how to get more time out of the day, that's really where structuring your day and structuring how you're using the technology is important. Simple things like what time is my project management tool going to let me know that things are due. Are they due at two o'clock in the morning? Or are they due at seven o'clock in the morning? Are they do at 10 o'clock at night?

Amber can definitely speak to why you may want to use one of those or another based on your most productive time and most productive efforts.

Amber thinks that when technology is leveraged correctly, it's actually like a silent employee. One that doesn't talk back and it's working for you behind the scenes. There is an investment, but the investment means you're getting a return on that. So if you create or set up a project management program, that when you put in information it now organizes it and spits it back to you, it now becomes kind of like your boss or your executive assistant. And your calendar can the same thing. You can have your calendar do notifications and say, “Hey, it's time to transition you're going on a podcast.” Or “Hey, this project is due or this task is due.”

If you have systems with through automation and technology that you trust that are set up, then you actually create bandwidth space in your head to really focus on CEO things like a bigger vision. You aren’t necessarily focusing on what's next on the task list. And so that's how Amber sees that it can be very beneficial if you're looking at setting up the tech, you want to make sure that it can actually feed back information to you in a way that you trust.

Oftentimes they're more organized than you, too.

So say you’re leveraging a project management tool. They're consistent. You set it up once. And you put in the information correct. They're consistently showing up for you. And that can almost be better than you can count on employees sometimes. So that's why Amber sees that tech is a really, really cool thing.
I do love the idea of outsourcing to your technology. I think that's a really valuable thought process. If you give this tech tool something and it's outsource properly, it's going to give you back what you need.

So one of the pillars that Amber teaches is how to leverage through people. Her method “The Stop Method.” And that's how to leverage yourself, your time, organization, and people. What's interesting is that if you are not the tech person, if you're pulling your hair out dreading it, pushing that project off, it's never getting done, or you simply don't understand it, then that is not a hat that I believe you should be wearing. Because now you're stealing that time of when you're wearing that hat for time from when you could be really doing things that are going to move your business.

So when Amber looks at building a dream team, she thinks it includes not just employees, but also independent contractors and such.

You're using them for project based things like getting website up. Or maybe you're not a graphic designer and you need new business cards. You could probably do that, but it's probably going to take you three times as long.
Another big place that Amber thinks a lot of business owners need help in is setting up systems.

Either their brain doesn't think that way or they're just plain not good at tech. That’s totally possible. And then it's a project. You're set up and now you get to utilize the benefits of that tech after somebody, like me, is serving it up and figuring it out. Working out the bugs and the kinks.

To me, this made really good sense. So what I heard Amber say, is that just because you may not be, as a business owner, the most technology savvy person, that doesn't mean you can't still outsource good things to tech. It just means that the project of bringing that tech on is something that you will probably hire an independent contractor or me or things like that into the business.

Amber shared that even if you are good at tech, you should think about outsourcing it if that's not the primary way that you make money and serve your business.

For example, Amber loves tech. She’s that person that is watching videos about Ontraport or the next new website thing. That's what she would actually do in her spare time for fun. But at the end of the day, she brought in an entrepreneur consultant. Because at the end of the day, it takes a lot of time, energy, and focus and it's not the best use of her time to grow her business.

What she has, because she understands it, is an ability to be really clear about what she wants the program to do. And so she thinks that it's also beneficial for people that do get it. If you get it, that's cool. You can probably more clearly state what you want the program app or tech to do. But sometimes, you just have to get out of the way and let someone that that's their zone of genius to do so that you're reclaiming time. The time you need to do the things that only you can do. So if you don't have a sales person in your company, you're doing sales. That's not something you can project-based outsource, but you can outsource tech setup.

I say that all the time that tech is outsourceable.

Why not leverage that ability so that you can do something that is in your zone of genius? So that you can spend time on something that only you can do. If you as the business owner, get fired up getting on Facebook Lives, then get on more Facebook Lives. And dedicate the time that you would have had to spend to set up whatever that system is, or whatever that processes are to do what drives your business.

Amber says to look at like real dollars and time.

She shared that if it’s not in her zone of genius it may take her two times as long as I do to set something up. So it's going to take her 20 hours. And it's going to take me 10 hours. So her question to herself as the business owner would be, what impact would 20 hours of my time be, in my business elsewhere?

You can literally lay that over a networking event or a conference, whatever your marketing visibility is, or 20 hours of sales conversations. Could you not massively get a return on that investment versus 20 hours of tech set up? So we're not just looking at a trade of time and money. We're looking at opportunity costs. That 20 hours that you're spending, trying to figure out the tech and the frustration, is an opportunity cost of you not being elsewhere in your business that needs you and only you as a small business owner.

We build our businesses to feel good about what we do.

Amber shared that she doesn’t know about you, the listener. But if tech is not your thing, then her guess is you're showing up and when you're done, you're frustrated and your mindset is altered. And while maybe you physically put in 20 hours, did it really take 30? Because you're just done with the day and so frustrated. What energy was depleted from doing something that was not in your zone of genius, versus showing up doing the things that light you up, which may be serving your clients?

I’d like to lay on top of that as well, the cost of the outsourcing.

So if it's something that I'm estimating is going to cost you $1,000 to do. So that's $1,000 out of your pocket. If it was going to take you 20 hours to accomplish it. You have to then look and say “Okay, Is 20 hours worth more? Or is $1,000 worth more?” But then, adding back in what Amber said, it's not necessarily just 20 hours. It's the energy! It’s the 30 hours that she's talking about here. So all of a sudden, this $1000 outflow looks on the balance scales against all these other things that you could be doing in your business that are both positive and negative. And most of the time, the outsourcing opportunity far outweighs trying to do it yourself.

Amber thinks that's the conversation about should we outsource? Should we not outsource? But she thinks more of that conversation is, should I even incorporate tech automation?

That's where she would say, “Do we incorporate automation and what's the return on investment?” How much time is it going to save you or your team? For example, let's just say you had a CRM system set up, and now it's telling you when to follow up with people. Whereas by yourself, you were inconsistent at best.

But now that you have a system telling you when to consistently follow up, how many more deals could you close because of the tech? That's the value of using these apps, programs, automation, and tech. How does it let you show up your best, consistently in the business? Which again, full circle is being your most productive self.
I just loved the way that we brought this back to why you want to look at how you spend your time in your business!

How are you spending things like your energy in your business?

One of the things that I know is that oftentimes the learning side of a new process, a new system, a new tool, we will let that scope creep. We will let that time creep instead of stopping work at two o'clock, so I can go pick up the kids. Because of course, driving takes 25 minutes. But that's another story altogether.

I'm going to say, “Okay, I have to stop now. But oh, I'll watch that YouTube video later.” And suddenly you dig into your family time and you dig into other times, because you're trying to learn something that is not beneficial to getting that next client. You're working on something that's not within your zone of genius! And you're not spending the best time on the best work.

When Amber defines productivity, the investing your best time into your best activities, those activities for her and how she defines them for her clients is in four buckets.

It doesn't matter your industry. Where you're at, as a small business owner and small businesses under 50 employees, and your most productive activities are either supervising or being in these four buckets. Bucket number one is marketing and visibility. And bucket number two is sales. Bucket number three is servicing your clients. And bucket number four is leadership.

So as you're building your business, you're going to be spending more time leadership because you can eventually outsource servicing your clients, sales, and marketing. But the core of having your business profitable, will fall under one of those four buckets.

Now, where does tech fall into?

Tech can help us be better in one of those four buckets. But when we're learning the tech and in the videos, and we're actively trying to put this tech together, that falls under the other bucket. It is a way of actively procrastinating, but calling ourselves busy. We’re thinking that we're being productive as a business owner if this is not our zone of genius.

Amber shared for me this is not true. This would literally land under servicing my clients. So an investment in learning something is like sharpening my saw so that I can serve my clients. But for coaches, financial advisors, marketers, or whatever type of the business, that's not their zone of genius. So we can solve this like hamsters like, “Oh, but we're busy. But I'm moving the ball forward.” Yes, but it's not what your business needs from you the most to make the biggest impact.

I really like that. What does your business need the most from you to make the biggest impact? That is beautiful.

That is most likely a quote that someone has just read somewhere on social media because it was good! That other bucket is a dangerous, dangerous place. But it is so, so necessary. It's also very for us to not always be on. And if we can be in that other bucket sometimes I think that makes good sense.

The other bucket is absolutely relevant.

Like you need to pay your bills. And you need your balance sheet. If you don't have a bookkeeper, you're balancing your checkbook. There's really real things!. Honestly, my strategies are for people running real businesses. The truth is that when you put on your tech hat, you're probably your janitor too. And you're the CEO, the marketer, and the salesperson.

That's when smoothness feels super, super overwhelming. So in the context of this episode, we’re talking where would that tech fall under and it's the other bucket. Now, you certainly can learn it sometimes. Amber said that she didn't want to make any false statements here. She still does tech in her business. But big projects, she outsources. So the other bucket is a necessity. It can't be at the expense of showing up in your first four buckets. And that's the thing is like it.

Amber shared with her model, the fifth bucket, the other bucket, is important.

We need a time and place for that. But we’re approaching our businesses as we're showing up in that other bucket instead of the first four buckets. That's when businesses are not profitable. You're picking a paycheck. That's when immense frustration comes in. And so that's why I like separating the two.
What I was thinking about just there is that things that you are doing in the other bucket, especially in the tech when you're doing that, is going to bleed into your being a better leader.

It's going to bleed into doing better in your visibility and marketing. And it is going to help you service your customers better. It's going to help you close more sales. So there is definitely value. This is just one of the reasons why I really wanted to bring Amber on to the podcast. To help people get the perspective of how can we use our time to the best benefit of our business. I feel like we're really kind of covering that.

Tech is going to definitely help. It doesn't matter what tool it is if it's the right tool for your business, right now.

Amber shared that It's not the shiny object that you thought was going to fix a problem. She wants to get really, really clear about that. It has got to be like let's do some work. You need to research about this. It needs to be the right program for your need, not what your business bestie said they're using. You just want to jump and now you're jumping ship and adding another tech to your to your business.

We don't add tech because it's a nice garnish because it's going to give us fuel.

I feel like we've just really covered the advantages of using tech and outsourcing and making it so that your business just does more. Amber shared that her business is a small business. And they use quite a bit of tech. There's a lot behind the scenes that they use and they have some favorites.
Every once in a while, something new will come on the market. Amber share that she is not a first adopter. She lets it get tried. She shared that she really has to have a pain point to do a switch in mher business because she does see the opportunity of cost, of switching. And so she just wants to be always cognizant of not switch, switch, switch every time something new hits the market.

I firmly believe that is absolutely the fastest way to have tech make you go out of business is by doing that constant switching.

Another other thing that Amber wanted to share is sometimes there's too much tech. And what that means is you have gone on a tech buying binge. You're just buying it all because you like this feature or this feature. And you didn't take the time to audit which you already had. Most likely, some of the tech you have already has the features because maybe they got upgraded or they didn't have that feature when you first bought that.

Then what happens is it becomes really heavy. It becomes really, really complicated. You're paying more in subscriptions than you need to be paying. So Amber thinks that is a huge benefit in either having someone on your team or someone you're outsourcing to that, just letting you know, like, “Hey, did you know this could do this? Or did you know that I'm looking at the whole ecosystem of your tech and making sure it's as effective and efficient as possible.” is really beneficial.

Then it’s important to take the time to actually read those emails that come in that says there is a new feature on a program you already use.

Because that's often a goal. That means you don't need to do the search of what's this new program out on the market. You may already have it at your fingertips. But you just didn't read that email or see that announcement.

Similar to that is, if you get that announcement and you read it and you say, “Hey, this means I can throw out this other system because I don't need this other system anymore.” That's a really good time to say, “Okay, we're going to implement this new system, this new tool within the system we're already using and be able to get rid of another tool.” That's a huge piece of all of this.

Nobody needs to have a virtual store room full of software tools and monthly subscriptions.

Yes, our businesses don't need it. Even tech lovers like me, who can make it all work together and make it so that it doesn't feel so heavy and so big and so bloated. It still could be so heavy, so big and so bloated. So don't go there. And if you are trying to figure out how to streamline that, figure out where your pain point is. Are you not productive enough because you haven't used this tool efficiently? Then maybe Ambers got some resources for you.

If you just need a tech audit, come to me! Ask me to help you out with it. This is why we are in business. It’s why we have podcasts. This is why we are visible in this medium because we want to help you.

Amber says it can be a total rabbit hole to go down and figure out what this feature is and is it compatible with other tools.

Amber calls a tech audit Frankensteining your text together. You add this one. Then a little while later, you add another one, and then you add another one and, and then you're frustrated with it because something's not talking to something or it doesn't work.

And really, you haven't stopped to take an audit of it. And when you do that, there's so many benefits. You get your time back, things work better. And it’s more efficient. You're probably paying less in subscriptions or however you're paying for your tech. So Amber can see a tech audit to be very, very beneficial.
This was such a fun conversation with Amber.

As I said at the beginning, there are so many nuggets in this episode. We talked about outsourcing your tech. And we talked about figuring out how to be productive by using your best time for the best activities. We talked about what tools you can use to make this flow so much easier. Such amazing insight from a true professional. Be sure to head over to her website, the link is below so that you can grab her freebie to make sure that you are being as productive as possible.

Now my one action step for you.

If you have been looking at using tech more effectively in your business, let's set up a tech audit. Let's look at the tech that you're using and how it is helping you be more productive. Just go to techofbusiness.com/audit, and you'll be able to book your audit right there.

I will be back next week with another solo episode. I cannot wait to share this one with you. Thanks for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also check out the show notes and learn more about me at techofbusiness.com. I'll see you next week.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Amber:

Website: https://www.theproductivityspecialist.com
Instagram: @Amber_de la Garza.
Freebie: https://www.theproductivityspecialist.com/techofbusiness

094: Mobile Keeps Business Moving

Wed, 13 Nov 2019 11:30:00 +0000

This is Episode 94. Today, again, it's just you, me, and the microphones. So please, please please let me know if you like this format. I’d love to know if you prefer these or prefer interviews or coaching type strategy sessions. Without your feedback, I'm going to go off of the latest feedback from whoever came before you right now. People tell me to just educate, educate, educate and that's what I'm trying to do.

So today's episode is really inspired by my own business.

I've shifted using my tech tools to be able to be more mobile available. And when I say mobile available, I mean that I still primarily do my work at my desk with my laptop, which is connected to a nice big huge screen with a separate mouse and separate keyboard. So I have two screens, and that's where I do most of my work.

Then, there's also the times where I take my laptop with me and I go sit at a coffee shop or the library, or I go and sit somewhere that I don't necessarily even need WiFi. And in those times, I sit in front of just the laptop and don't use the external mouse or external keyboard. Maybe I'll use the mouse depending on what I'm doing. But I never take my keyboard with me. That was a long way of saying that my laptop is very portable.

My laptop is the crutch of what I use for my business. And on my laptop, I have a variety of tools.

Most of the tools that I use, I use within my Chrome browser. So I use Slack for communication within my team. And I use Trello for project management. I use GSuirte, so I use my Google Mail for my inbox. And I use Google Docs and Google Sheets for spreadsheets and documents and things like that.

What I have found is that sometimes when I'm out, I just don't want to get out my laptop.

And I am so glad that those tools that I just shared with you, Slack, Trello, all of the Google Suite products, all have apps that I can use on my phone and continue to be productive to move my business forward and continue to work even if I haven't pulled out the laptop. But in the past week or so, I have been really watching my daughter at gymnastics, rather than going to a coffee shop. And balancing the laptop on my lap while I'm watching gymnastics isn't always the most convenient.

So I've gone to my phone.

I can easily use Trello from my phone. I've been using that for several years it feels like, but I've been using Trello on my phone pretty regularly to stay in touch with client projects and other things like that. I use Slack pretty regularly on my phone as well so that I can communicate with my team.

But what I hadn't done is writing or a lot of spreadsheets.

So I hadn't really explored the value of Google Docs and Google Sheets from the perspective of using them on my phone. I am working on a brand new funnel, a new summit, and a bunch of other new stuff that I cannot wait to share with you. And these are the things that I worked on from my phone. It was so amazing that I could just sit there, write my emails for the funnel, and then go and look up and see my daughter flipping and doing whatever she was doing at the time, and then look back down and write something else.

So what I have done is, I have created myself a little bit of a system as to how I use Google Docs, in particular, to actually create an entire flow.

It's really funny because most of the time when I work with clients, they will provide me with a Google Doc that they're cutting writer has created with all of the copy. It's got a beautiful table of contents, headings, and it's really clear and really easy for me to navigate as the tech implementer, getting those pieces into the software where it needs to be.

But I had never been the creator of those. And when I went to Google Docs to create this for myself, I had started it on my laptop. So I had started the Table of Contents by using the different headings. And I went to my phone and said, “Okay, so how do I create headings?”. It was so, so easy! You just scroll down a little bit and you get a menu bar at the top, you click a button, and you have all sorts of options for formatting. I was won over by that.

And it's so funny because here I am such a tech nerd and someone who wants to just make technology work for myself and for my clients and for anybody who's listening, and I had resisted using Google Docs on my phone. I was worried that I wasn't going to be able to do enough. I took a step back. And I opened up the application and saw what I was able to do. So again, that just won me over. So I'm really, really excited about the potential for drafting content from my phone. And I hope that you are too. Just because you run a business doesn't mean that you can't do a huge amount of work or pre work from your phone.

I'm going to go back to Trello a little bit.

Trello is a very different experience on the phone versus on the desktop. On the phone, you obviously have much less real estate. So they've consolidated things. And things are in a few different spots. When I was first using Trello on my phone, I would use it just to kind of see what had been sent over. But I wouldn't actually make a whole lot of action or do a whole lot of work with the Trello board with the project and moving pieces forward, because I just felt that it wasn't as intuitive.
I would go back to the browser version in Chrome and look at it on my screen with my laptop open and I would do the work there. Even simple things like moving a card. Now, I'm at the point where it's not a matter of just moving a card that I do only on the computer. I actually do everything, I’ll set up brand new boards for clients. I will create checklists and copy this from that and all sorts of other really functional things that helped me move my business forward. And I'll do that from my phone.

I'm going to talk about one more thing that I do on my phone that I actually prefer to do on my phone than on the desktop or on the browser version.

That is to process the promotional emails. So you know, we all sign up for newsletters and information and things like that coming from email. And I've mentioned it before on the podcast that I generally read through my emails when I'm on my phone. I love how the Gmail app works where all you have to do is swipe to get rid of something to delete it. I am subscribed to a lot of newsletters. Which is a good thing because I like to stay on top of things for my own business for my clients businesses.

But sometimes there are emails that come in that are wrap up emails that I don't need to read. Or there's emails that come in that are in conjunction with a podcast. And I've actually listened to that podcast and I don't need to read it. So I can easily swipe them away. I find that that is a very effective way of staying on top of those promotional update emails and not feeling like they're bogging me down. And I find that it's actually faster to do it on my phone versus on the desktop browser.

Another application that I just started using on my phone is my Adobe Acrobat Reader.

I pay for Adobe Acrobat so that I could have signing and a few other functions on there. And I connected the app with my Adobe account. Now I have access to all of the documents that I send out for signature right there on my phone. I'm able to easily check the status of things or reset or add on or things like that. So that's another app that I never really thought was going to be practical to us from my phone. But I embraced it. And I am so so glad that I did.

That brings me to apps that may not work as well as you'd like them to.

I use Photoshop pretty regularly on my laptop. And I use it for creating artwork and for editing things that I need to put on websites. A lot of times they use it for resizing images. There are Photoshop apps that are available for the phone. I don't use any of those because I haven't found a way to translate what I do on my phone with those pictures or graphics into something that is tangible.

I'd rather take a time block, use Photoshop on that time block, and do it on my laptop. It's just one of those things that sometimes the apps work really, really well and I wanted to share with you that not every app is going to do something and help you move your business forward.

We're getting close to Thanksgiving, Black Friday, and the holiday season. You know, Christmas and New Year's is right on our doorstep. I would encourage you to understand and embrace the business of this time of year and look at the apps that you use on your browser or on your laptop or on your desktop and say, “Which one of these can I leverage the mobile version of, so that I can be productive in times that I just can't get my laptop out?”

I encourage you to play with it. See where you can go! Definitely hit me up on Instagram and let me know what you're using. You know what snap a picture of your screen when you're using one of these apps and tag me in your story. I would love that. Hit me up, I am @Techofbusiness.

I will be back with an interview next week.

So if you are interested in more interviews, let me know. If you love these solo episodes where I share just how I do my business, how clients do their business, or how to use a specific software tool, let me know that as well.

Thank you so much for being part of the Tech of Business community. If you haven't already joined us inside the Facebook group, which you can access at techofbusiness.com/community join us now. There we talk all about expanding your business.

Thanks for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also check out the show notes and learn more about me at techofbusiness.com. I'll see you next week.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

093: It's Okay to Launch Messy

Wed, 06 Nov 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Welcome to this week’s episode of the Tech of Business Podcast. This is Episode 93. Today, it's just me, you, and the mic. I would love, love, love to get your feedback on this episode. So if there's anything that I say that sparks any interest, please hit me up on Instagram. I'm @techofbusiness or join our Facebook group Expand Online: Strategy, Support, and Tech.

So with that, let's just get right into what I was hoping to bring up today.

We are in November. November is a time for both chaos and planning. There are a lot of people right now who are doing big things for Black Friday and the Thanksgiving weekend. They may be launching something big. Or they may be just putting feelers out there and launching something new even if it isn't big. There are other people who are simply letting this be a season of growth, exploration, and development. And they are planning on launching their next big initiative in the new year. So whether you are in the first camp or the second camp, I want to make sure that you know tech’s role in your launch.

Last week we talked about funnels with Jenn Robbins and that was such a fun episode.

I am so glad that that episode came right before this episode today, because we talked about what you really need in a funnel. Now we're talking about what you really need in a launch and what you don't need. I'm going to say this because it's true. You can launch messy. And you can launch incomplete. You can launch with tech issues. And you can launch knowing that you still have work to do.

So just because everything isn't perfect yet, doesn't mean you have to push back that date. It just means that you have to know what you know and know where you need to double down on your efforts in order to fulfill your obligation and commitment to your audience, clients, students, and whomever they may be.

What you do need with a launch is to make sure that your systems are sound.

The last thing I want to see and the last thing you want to experience is a tech break. Something not working right. So let's say that someone buying something on ThriveCart. And you set it up so that they get their access. You use Zapier and you go to your Active Campaign, and all of the setup works. But the refund doesn't work. And all of a sudden, you've got like 40 people asking for refunds. And they can't get their money back. Or if they do get their money back, you haven't revoked their access. Those are the kinds of things that we want to prevent.

Of course, we want to prevent refunds to begin with, so that might not be the best example. But the idea is that when you launch, knowing what you're trying to accomplish is going to help you way, way more than stressing over every detail. It’s okay if all the pieces aren't necessarily in place yet. It’s important to know the road map, the trajectory, what tech tools are being touched at each step, and the process.

So I think the best way to approach this is to relate it to a situation. Let's talk about that Black Friday launch, Cyber Monday launch, or even your January 1st launch.

So let's say that you have a date that you know you want to launch. What do you need to have ready to go prior to that launch? You need to have the sales page or the information page. And you need to have that page hooked up to your email opt in or to your payment processor. So we need to have that page functioning. It needs to do its job. And it can't break! Someone can't put their information in and then not be moved forward through the system and through the processes.

So generally speaking, it means that you're going to be able to take their payments, add them to your email list, give them access to whatever they purchase, and present them with a next steps page or a thank you page. And generally speaking, a “Thank You” page is also a next step page. So it's kind of one in the same from there.

It's a matter of making sure that they flow through all the bits and pieces. So in general, what that means is, if you're Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or January 1 launch, it starts an email sequence for them. They're going to get one email a day for seven days. Then they're going to get one email a month for the next eight months. And then what you need to have in place in order to make sure that you are fully present for them. Probably those first seven emails.

But do you need to have the email that goes out month two? No, not necessarily you need to have a date on your calendar to say I am going to load in emails for months two, three and four on this date. That way, you don't have to have everything done in that email automation. But you do know when you are going to get it done. So it's all about planning, it really truly is.

Oftentimes, you're going to launch your courses, and they're not going to necessarily be complete yet.

And in this case, it's like your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or January 1 is going to give them access to modules one and two. Then they are going to get access to Module three, four, and five each week thereafter. So you're going to get two modules on day one. Week two, you're going to get Module three. And week three, you're going to get Module four, and so on and so forth.

And in that case, it's similar to the email sequences. What needs to be done to reduce your stress as the course creator, the entrepreneur, the professional, or the expert? And what do you need to have created prior to the launch? You need to have Module one and Module two and probably be in post production of Module three. And when I say post production, that means you've recorded your videos and you've created your PDFs. They're not necessarily uploaded into Thinkific or MemberVault yet. But you know that's coming.

You don't necessarily have to have everything recorded, branded and finalized when you launch.

It's true that the more you can have done in advance, the easier it is for you to stay present. But it's also true that the more you are present, the better you can create the courses. So if you get feedback from people for Module one, Module two, and you're working on Module five, then Module five is going to be better than it would have been had you created it before you started getting feedback. So just think about that a little bit, you don't have to launch complete.

Another thing is that it's okay to have mistakes in your content.

Let me say that again! When you launch a product or a service, or something that people are digesting, it is OKAY for there to be a broken link, for your audio to not quite hit the right pitch or tone, or for there to be a missing PDF. Now, with that being said, doing that on purpose isn't good, but it is okay.

One of the reasons why I like this so much is because it actually invites conversation. If someone is looking for a PDF that you referred to in a video, but they can't find it in your content. What are they going to do? Are they going to say, “Oh, well, whatever Jamie just doesn't know what she's doing.”?. The short answer is no. They're going to reach out to me and say, “Hey, Jamie. I'm looking for this PDF, and I can't find it.”

At which point, I can over deliver.

I can say, “Hey, you know what? I forgot to upload it. Here you go. And by the way, thank you so much for bringing this to my attention. Can I jump on a call with you for 15 minutes and do ABC or walk you through the PDF myself?” It gives me the change to over deliver and make it so that they get an added benefit. But it's okay to have mistakes in your product.

The last thing I want to mention with this whole launch strategy is that if you want to launch on Black Friday or Cyber Monday or January 1st, and you are burning the midnight oil, nobody is going to know if you actually wanted to launch on that date.

So if you want to launch and be part of the buzz, but you know that it's going to break your back to do so, push out your launch. Take advantage of the fact that you're launching in off-season. If you were thinking about launching on Thanksgiving weekend and you're like, “I can't get there. But I can launch before Christmas still, I can launch on December 10, or 11th.”

Take advantage of the fact that you're launching on December 10 or 11th. You can say, “With all the buzz about Black Friday and Cyber Monday, I didn't want to get caught in the noise.” And take advantage of the fact that you weren't able to accomplish what you wanted to accomplish without feeling guilty about not hitting those goals. Because your audience, clients, and students want what you have to offer. And if you haven't told them that you're offering it, it's no big deal to make that happen.

Now if you have told them that you have an amazing Black Friday special or a Cyber Monday special or that you're doing something really cool for the new year, then by all means, launch, extra messy. Launch and say that the start date of whatever it is, is two weeks out and then give a bonus for people who buy right away. Give them a kickoff webinar where they get a special kickoff Q and A session or a bonus Q and A session that they can access when the content is available.

My entire reason for coming on the podcast talking about launching messy today is because so many people want to launch and want to have a really good buzz at this time of year.

And I want that for you. But your business is not hindering on one day. It is hindering on your integrity, on your confidence, on your expertise, and by making sure that you continue to keep those values at the forefront. Your launch is going to be successful for your business no matter when you do it.

I absolutely positively love to make sure that the tech that goes into launches is seamless so that you do not have to worry about your cart being connected to your email being connected to the access. This is something that I do all the time. It is one of my absolute favorite things to do.

And you know what, it's so funny when I started talking about launching messy, I wasn't planning on putting any kind of offer into this podcast episode.

But I have a really cool half day and full day process that I go through to set ThriveCart up for my clients. And what that means is that after you sign up for ThriveCart, all you need to do is go to techofbusiness.com/thrivecartsetup. Then after that, I will go in and get your Black Friday, Cyber Monday, or January 1st launch tech in place so that when someone clicks “Buy now”, it takes them to their ThriveCart.

The cart looks beautiful. And the cart works. This cart is integrated with your content delivery system. It is integrated with your email marketing system. It is fully integrated with the tools that you are already using. So I firmly believe ThriveCart is the way to go for this. And I know that it is one of those pieces of the puzzle that will make it easier for you to feel confident about launching messy!

Seriously and truly, I want to see your business succeed. I want to see you reach more people with your unique skills, your unique gifts, and for you to have the impact that you want by expanding online. So launch messy, use Thrivecart, and have me set it up for you. We can totally do that by you going to t echofbusiness.com/thrivecartsetup.

With that, I'm going to wrap this up.

I hope that this has inspired you to think about what you might want to launch and know that you can do it. Have a fantastic rest of your day, and I will be back with another episode next week. Thanks for listening to the tech of business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also check out the show notes and learn more about me at techofbusiness.com.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

092: How Tech Plays Into Copywriting and Funnels

Wed, 30 Oct 2019 10:30:00 +0000

On today’s episode, I am speaking with Jenn Robbins. I am so excited to have her on the show to share, from her perspective, how tech plays into copywriting and funnels. Jenn Robbins is a conversion copywriter. She supports mostly establishment business owners with high converting websites and sales funnels because she found that funnels can be a super important part of any business.

We’re talking primarily about a sales funnel. A sales funnel is the journey you take your customers through to have them learn your business. They learn what it’s about, why they should care, and how you can benefit them as a business owner.

Jenn is an expert in all things copy and funnels. The reason why I really wanted to bring a copywriter onto the podcast at this point in the year is because so many of you are getting ready to launch in 2020. It’s just around the corner! And I know that there are launches and new opportunities coming. I thought that it was a great time to talk about the relationship between the tech you are using and the words that are being written for that technology.

The words that you have on your screen may look different depending on what tool you are using.

You may end up wanting to create long form copy where it’s page after page. Or you may want to create short form copy. And sometimes, the tech tool you are using will dictate that. Other times, your copywriter or whatever you are selling may be what dictates that.

So let’s get into today’s episode. I cannot wait for you to give us your takeaways and feedback in the Facebook Group. The Tech of Business Facebook Group has recently been renamed. It is now Expand Online: Strategy, Support, and Tech. And as always you can still get to the community by going to techofbusiness.com/community.

Jenn’s view on the importance of funnels.

A lot of people she knows, including herself, rely on referrals. Those can sometimes dry up.

But if you have a funnel in place then you have leads coming in. That means you're not having to go out and search in Facebook groups and try to get people to tag you in things.

You have people actually coming in as leads on a regular basis. If you have a funnel, you're able to kind of keep your business going. Jenn went on to add that most of the women she works with are moms. They have families! And they rely on their business for an income. So funnels are an important part of that. I think that everybody needs to have at least one funnel if they want to make online business connections.

So let's talk about what Jenn’s definition of a funnel is.

Jenn shared that a funnel is basically an automated customer journey. It's your way of moving them from just kind of seeing you around to becoming a client. That can look a lot of different ways. And most people have some sort of community already, but they have some sort of funnel in place. That may be sending people a Facebook message and then they send them random messages along the way. And then they get them on a call that technically is part of a funnel. But actually, automating it is usually a little bit more complicated, but it's essential to actually keep things moving in your business.

I totally agree with this. But by us saying automated, we really mean using tech tools. Which is why it makes sense for us to be talking about this now on the Tech of Business podcast. So the automated tools that Jenn as a copywriter and a conversion and funnel strategist matter. It's not like Jenn can just say, “Okay, here you go, here's some amazing copy. Now have fun.” Jenn as a copywriter needs to know what tools are currently in play. She also needs to know what tools the client might be interested in working with and what they may have decided they don’t want to even touch.

So let's talk a little bit about the tools that Jenn sees online business owners using.

A lot of her clients work within ClickFunnels. Jenn shared that's kind of the gold standard. It's not necessarily her favorite, but it is one of the most popular tools out there because it has landing pages. It has templates already set up for you. So it has landing pages, sales pages, and all the steps are there if you want to just go buy a template.

And then you have some sort of email marketing system. There’s MailChimp (which she doesn’t love), Active Campaign, or Convert Kit. ActiveCampaign and Covertkit tend to work better for funnels, in Jenn’s eyes, because they have more automation options. I actually set up Jenn’s email marketing system for her.

Jenn shared that there is usually some sort of website people use. Squarespace or WordPress are popular ones. There's always Wix. There's so many out there. Jenn shared that that can be very overwhelming. Especially because she’s not a tech expert. She writes the copy. But as I said, she needs to know what her clients have in place because that can limit what she does. She needs to know what their capabilities are before she writes a whole bunch of different options and take people through different parts of the funnel that they can't actually do.

Let’s unpack here for a minute.

I wanted to spend a little bit of time on this because you, as the audience, may be saying, “Okay, I'm going to go with ClickFunnels. Or I am going to go with a WordPress website.” Then you may come to someone like Jenn and say, “Okay, help me set this up.” And Jenn may only be giving you the words and not the other stuff.

So I asked Jenn when it comes to ClickFunnels, what kind of questions does she ask her clients to figure out how deep they're going to go into ClickFunnels and if they're going to use the pre-made templates?

Jenn shared that she hasn’t always asked them in the past. Sometimes it’s just made assumptions. Especially if it's a larger business, she kind of assumes that they have a tech person in place. So they have something that's going to go in and they can have the capabilities for it.

But if you're working with more of a solo printer, and you're not really sure, it's helpful to know where they're at. Are they using a free plan? Do they only have seven pages available> She shared that you would be surprised, when you get in ClickFunnels, how many pages you use for a basic funnel. Because you have to have one like a landing page and a “Thank you” page and a sales page. And if you want to do a tripwire, they're all of these different ways you can go and it adds up very quickly.

She also shared you want to know like what integrates with ClickFunnels because not everything talks well to each other.

Again, this is something that as a copywriter, she hasn’t always been aware of as she got into more, looking into funnels, and actually helping people implement a little bit more. She shared that she doesn’t love implementing the tech tool anymore. And that's why she thinks you need a tech person like me to come in and do that.

As a copywriter, she knows how funnels should work. But she doesn't always know how to make sure it all talks to each other. And oftentimes the client doesn't either. Sometimes you need that third party to come in and be like, “Okay, look, you actually can do it this way. We can do it this way instead.“ And sometimes the copy or maybe even the strategy has to be adjusted a little bit based on that.

I think that makes a lot of sense. What I'm hearing Jenn say is that your copy can dictate what tech to use. If you are restricting your tech, then you have to let whoever is writing your copy know these restrictions. This is so that your customers and your leads can navigate through the process as appropriately as possible.

I think that it’s important for you, as an entrepreneur, to understand the flow of traffic and that your copywriter is on the same page as you.

Because if your copywriter, for example, says. “Okay, we're going to do a landing page and a thank you page and the sales page and a tripwire and this, that, and whatever else.” And then you look at them like they're green in the face, then you're not going to have the kind of success that either of you want.

So it’s important to make sure that you are on the same page that you're like, “Yes, all I want is the very simple process to get someone on a phone call.” Or you say, “All I want is to get someone into my automated 20 email sequence.” Knowing what you want and working with your copywriter on the strategy to get there is really where the genius lies in outsourcing and bringing in people who are experts in their domain. It's also a lot more fun, as an entrepreneur, when you know that your tech, your words, and your systems are all flowing together to help support your business.

Jenn doesn’t want people to be afraid of funnels.

She knows it can get a little intimidating. Especially as I talked about all the different options. Jenn shared that if you don't have a funnel, you can start very simply. You don't have to sign up for $200 a month ClickFunnels account. She said that it can be as simple as a landing page. And if you use MailChimp, you can actually do it on MailChimp. It may not be as pretty, but you can have that landing page, link them to your email list, and give a thank you page if your only goal is to get them on your email list. That's a pretty simple thing to do.

We can also make a little more complicated.

Jenn personally uses ThriveCart on WordPress. So she can build my own landing pages. Then they connect to ActiveCampaign. And then she has an automation in there. That was still more complicated trying to make everything talk to each other because she has a couple other things happening at the same time.

But you can keep it very, very simple. It doesn't have to be scary. And it doesn't have to be expensive to start out with at all. It can be as easy as you want to make it. But if you're worried about that, then talk about that with your copywriter, or whoever you're hiring. If they come in and they're like, “Okay, we can do all of this stuff.” And if that's not what you want, then tell them that.

Jenn shared that the way to start is to keep it simple.

She thinks that everybody should have at least one funnel. She calls it the White Rabbit funnel. Because it's what kind of leads you down that rabbit hole of your business. But that's basically just some sort of offer, which is on a landing page, and then an email sequence with the final offer that could go to the landing page or could just be in the email. That is a very simple funnel and that would not take you spending hundreds of dollars on ClickFunnels to do that.

I totally, totally agree with that. I’m curious to know if there are any kind of buzzwords that are relevant right now? Are there any terms or different ways of communicating on your landing pages at the start of your funnel that Jenn has seen that are effective for most of her clients or for a lot of her clients?

Jenn shared that you need to make it as custom as you can make it for your audience. She shared that some people tend to go a little too general to bring people in. And that works sometimes to be honest. But if you're talking to everybody, nobody's gonna listen. You have to really narrow it in. For example Jenn works with established business owners, which is still kind of general, right? But she has a general funnel that brings people in. It's a quiz and they go through an email sequence.

Right now, she’s in the process of duplicating that and making it just for photographers because she did a podcast for photographers. So she’s customizing it so that it’s speaking just to them. And that's going to probably convert a lot higher than her general one because it's just talking to them. She’s going to be specific about what they need in their funnel along the way. So that's not really a buzzword but getting as specific as you can is important.

Marketing that is getting push-back.

There's a big push back against bro marketing right now. Bro marketing is ads that you always see the guy on the Lambo who is flashing the money and that's usually leading you through some ClickFunnels offer. It’s not something that is associated with the offer necessarily, but it's a tripwire and upsell and upsell and a down sell. There's like 45 different parts of the funnel. And it feels very disingenuous. At this point, they probably rented that Lamborghini. And they took a loan out for the cash and then took it back to the bank.

Jenn is seeing a lot more of a push towards empathy marketing.

So more like connecting with people. It's more about building relationships, as opposed to just kind of throwing something up and pushing people through a funnel. You want to kind of customize the language. The big thing she has found is that you need to make sure you're talking to your audience.

Jenn shared that a lot of people, especially if they write their own copy, everything is in the “I” voice. It's like, “This is my business. I do this. And I do that. I grew up in this place. And I wanted to do this.” So it’s basically just their story without telling the audience why they should care.

Jenn shared that if you're going to say you're open for business, tell us what you do and why we should care. Because as humans, we're kind of inherently selfish. We want to know what's in it for us, especially if I'm going to be hiring you.

So maybe on that land page, you're telling us kind of who you are and why we should care and then doing some sort of relevant offer. People don't seem to care as much about like a free checklist or a basic PDF anymore. We're kind of getting a lot more marketing savvy. You need to be a little more on your game. Maybe it's a video that goes with the checklist. Maybe it's a challenge to something that's not just a PDF you created in Canva, download it, and give me your email address. That just doesn't work anymore.

Now I have to say that if someone is a successful entrepreneur, working offline, and they want to come online, they have that expertise that they can showcase.

If you are someone who has had so much offline business, you may be able to get away with something a little bit more general. Why? Because you are coming at this from a different angle. The audience that you are attracting may not be as familiar with the bro marketing or with all the PDFs and those types of things. So making sure that you understand who you're trying to attract.

Jenn and I, we work with a broad spectrum of different entrepreneurs.

They may have seen 40 different PDFs that they could download. They may have only seen two. So we want to make sure that whatever we create is relevant and makes sense for the audience that we are trying to attract. And in our case, the quiz for Jenn, that just seems to make sense. For me, people want nuts and bolts. They want checklists. They want to say, “Oh, okay, I'm doing it right. I’ve got the right tech tools”. So it's relevant for me to create a PDF that takes someone through things. So just because, in general, PDFs aren't enough, that doesn't mean that PDF might not work for you.

Jenn agrees that it totally depends on who you're trying to reach. It also matters what your PDF is. If we're talking about an in depth checklist or something or something like “Five Ways to Increase Your Audience”, that’s way too broad. If you're getting specific, absolutely.

A lot of people think you have to recreate the wheel every time.

Jenn shared let’s say you have a checklist PDF. And maybe you have one of those that she just mentioned that isn't great. You don't have to get rid of that funnel entirely. Duplicate it and then just come up with a new offer. And you can leave both of them up and test to see which one is more effective.

So maybe you have that checklist. Maybe you have a video instead that is just walking them through and then you have that checklist at the end. But you can definitely re-purpose what you have and just see what what works for you. Because a lot of this is testing and seeing what actually works. Your business is always changing. And your audience is changing. The tech is changing. And the entire marketing world is changing. So it's just constantly a test of what's working, what's not, and making adjustments along the way.

But you don't have to just like scrap everything and start over if anything Jenn has shared hit a nerve. So just say what you have and then keep going. It's okay. It's always okay to look at things every quarter probably, see where your numbers are at, and see if you want to make adjustments.

I think that there's a lot of validity in that. You created your opt- in and your landing page for a reason.

Go back to the reason why you created it and say, “How can I double down on creating even more value with this landing page? With this copy? And with this freebie? What else can I do to make this version to version 4 of that?”

I really like that approach. Because I know sometimes I will start working with a client and they say, “Yeah, I've got these three PDFs and they kind of all work. But I think we should start something new.” So before we even get a chance to evaluate how one of them may work or how to do split testing, they've gone and decided that they're going to do something completely different. And there may not be a reason to do that.

I want to go back to like words on the page. What you need to be thinking about.

This may get a little technical, but we're going to try and keep it at a high level. But aesthetics wise, when a copywriter provides a Google Doc with text in it. Obviously, as a copywriter, you've got a few ideas of how you want it to look on the screen. So I asked Jenn to talk a little bit about when to use different fancy fonts or different fancy colors or font weights and things like that as you're interpreting whatever copy might be received from a copywriter?Jenn shared that she’ll start with email first because that's kind of easiest.

Don't make anything fancy with email.

Jenn feels like the fancier you get, the more likely it is that it ends up in spam or just doesn't get delivered. So don't use fancy fonts because sometimes it doesn't come through right. There was a coach who was a pretty like high end coach. And her emails were coming in. But Jenn shared that she couldn't read them on her phone, because she was using this MC script font that wasn't just wasn't coming through on iPhones. So she'd written this whole launch sequence that nobody could read.

So just keep emails as simple as possible. Use some photos, use some gifs, and make it fun, but don't do too much because people don't care, honestly. They're going to read it. And most the time they're reading it on their phones anyways. Some of that really fun stuff just makes it come through wonky when you're reading it on your phone. So keep email simple.

Now, landing pages.

Jenn is a big believer that she doesn’t think design is as important because you can have a beautiful design, but if you don't have the words, nobody's going to buy anything. But design is important. Because if you have words and it's just thrown up there, it's still not going to convert.

Jenn shared that she has known some people who have used a Google Doc as a sales page. But even within that Google Doc, they've formatted it properly. They have headings. So you do have to make sure you're calling out certain things. Your header should have some sort of something that stands out. It doesn't have to be a bright color..

It should be talking about who they are and what they want. She actually just did a review earlier this week on a landing page for somebody. And she reworked the headline and it got better. But you want to kind of look to the future and think, “Why should people care?”

A lot of times people are like, “I’m introducing this free offer!” Well, why do I care about this free offer? So “This free offer will help you do x” is a better headline. We want to understand. Jenn shared that a lot of people will come to that page, and if it doesn’t get them right away, they're clicking out. They don't care. So grab them in there.

So let’s talk about the design through the page.

Jenn shared that you want the words to kind of flow. You don't want everything center text if you're having like long, long sections. For example the “who it's for and who it's not for” sections can be a little longer. Make sure everything is like left aligned, because it's much easier to read. If you're doing everything centered, your eyes can go cross trying to read like paragraph at a time. Bullet points are helpful. But don't do only bullet points.

It's a lot about breaking the copy up. If you have a couple of paragraphs and bullet points. You have some fun images. But it's just making sure that you're hitting all of the points that they need like your “overcoming objections”. Even if we're talking about an opt in page, people still want to care. They still want to know why they should download it because people are a little more precious about their emails. At least their emails that they actually check.

Jenn shared that she has one that she uses for free offers that she doesn’t really check. She just does it to get the free 10% off on the website, or whatever it is. So if you want a legitimate email address that people care about, you need to tell them why they should care through the copy, and then use the design to make them actually go through and hit the button.

This made me think of one question about the button text.

I don't know why this came up. As Jenn was going through the design through the page I found myself wondering if there are any words that work really well on button text that she has seen to get those opt ins, to get people actually starting out? Is there a specific kind of language or colors or whatever it might be? I just it just kind of came to me. And if it came to me, it probably came to you, the audience, too.

Jenn shared that button text is super important.

That's what's actually going to get people to click. So having “Enroll now” or “Sign up now”, nobody's going to click on that unless they really want to buy it already. WHY? Because that's not enticing! Jenn shared a way to increase conversions is to use “I” language. Use phrases like “I'm ready to buy” or “Sign me up”. She shared that she can’t remember the exact statistic, but it's like at least 75% higher if you just have something that is empowering, like, “Sign me up!” It just feels a little different.

And then so that we're making it related to the offer. So using something like “I'm ready to increase my conversions” or “I'm ready to get my tech handled” is a better way to phrase it. You want to use something that describes what they're going to be getting. Then that depends on how big the button is and how much space you have. But give them something that they're going to get in that button. Jenn said to just use something that makes it a little more empowering because the basic “Buy now, Buy now” is a little done at this point.

This made me think of some landing and sales pages that have a button that then bring up the opt-in box versus having the name and address with a button that is submitting the form. So submitting a form that is the procedural technical language. Don't ever, ever, ever use the word “submit”. That's my personal thing. If I see submit on there, then I'm like, “Oh, someone didn't change defaults.”

I asked Jenn if she could speak a little bit about which way she likes to see things. Whether she likes to have the form there and then the button to send the information in? Or if she prefers to have a button that tells someone to take action, which then brings them to the form itself?

Jenn shared that she likes to have everything on one page. She shared that she feels like the more pop ups you have, the more you try to get someone off that main page, the more likely you are to lose them. Even if it's a pop up that shouldn't be affected by pop up blockers. You never know. Just having a basic like little form on your website. Or like the old bar, the opt in bar, which is like name and email address, click here. She just thinks that tends to work better. You tend to not have as much space, but she thinks it works better.

We’ve covered so much in this session.

Jenn has talked about understanding how your copy and your tech relate to one another. And we've talked about, how to format the copy. We've also talked a lot about language and a few other things like that. I asked Jenn if there was something else that she was dying to get out and make sure that we actually included in this episode where we’re talking about entrepreneurs using effective copy and funnels to drive their business.

Jenn said the last thing she wanted to say is that she’s a big believer in the rule of one when it comes to writing copy.

I learned that from Joanna Wiebe with CopyHackers. It’s that you have one goal. So your landing page shouldn't be just another page on your website. Or if it is, it shouldn't have the navigation bar at the top. There should only be one option for that landing page. And that's signing up for whatever you're offering. That goes for sales pages as well. There's one goal. There's multiple buttons, but it's all the same thing, same goal, and that goes for emails as well. Your email shouldn't have like, follow me on Facebook, buy this offer, and sign up for a call. It should say to find me on Facebook. And then another email that says sign up for a call. Then another email that says to buy this offer. If you ask people to do too much at once, they won't do anything. So kind of follow the rule of one when it comes to making offers or having someone to do something.

I love that! That is so succinct and it makes it easier for you as the entrepreneur or for you when asking your copywriter to create something to do something with a single solitary goal.

Jenn and I recorded this audio about 3 to 4 weeks ago. And I’m glad that I had the opportunity to listen to it again as I was completing the outro for the podcast. It gave me so many actionable nuggets. And I hope it gave you a few too. I love what Jenn suggested in our curve ball on the podcast. So over in the Facebook group Expand Online: Strategy, Support, and Tech, let’s talk about what our offers are and be able to work backwards into the copy and into the tech so that we can get more people taking up our offers.

I want to thank Jenn so much for coming on the Tech of Business podcast today. If you have any thoughts on this episode please reach out to me on Instagram. I’m @techofbusiness. I love having conversations with you about the podcast episodes.

Thank you for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also learn more about me at techofbusiness.com.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Jenn:

Website: https://www.jennrobbins.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/TheJennRobbins/
Instagram: @thejennrobbins

091: The Lifetime Value of Online Tools with Theresa Baretta

Wed, 23 Oct 2019 10:30:00 +0000

On today’s episode I’m talking with Theresa Baretta. Theresa is the CEO of Loop Link. Loop Link is an operations management coachsulting firm. Loop Link provides integration and implementation services to creative agencies.

Theresa and I met through a, now, mutual client where I was hired to do a tech implementation. Theresa had come up with the strategy of what we were going to do and needed to find someone who could actually implement it. And my name percolated to the top of the list. The next thing she knew, I had implemented it. And I had a new “systems friend” in the process.

So let's talk a little bit about what Theresa does for her clients, how that integrates technology in their businesses, and just makes their businesses run the way it needs to.

Theresa was excited about this subject. Because oftentimes, it's not something where it's like, “Oh, you're this and people connect with that.” As we are growing in this online space, new things, new services, and new capabilities are being provided every single day. And so how Theresa likes to describe it is that she actually serves her clients through providing them with fractional leadership.

So she doesn’t come in as just a consultant or a service provider.

She comes in as a strategic partner with them, where she is working with them in the depth of their business. So she goes really deep with them in their business and understanding what their goals are. She helps them understand their aspirations, the vision of the business, and really synthesize that into a project plan and a strategy where we can achieve them effectively and efficiently in the most profitable way.

Along that journey, they put out a lot of prayers and figure out how to make sure it doesn't happen again, or minimize that cycle. Because as we continue to grow, there's always going to be new fires that we have to approach. And so that drives Theresa towards, “How does tech women do a lot of all of this?”

Theresa likes to consider herself as a techie.

She does a lot of research on tech tools in her free time. And she thinks that's one of the attractive reasons why her clients hire her on is that she loves getting into the thick of understanding how specific tools function and whether or not it would be a really good match for her clients and their business models. She often finds that being the matchmaker of it all is fun! It's fun in that sense, because then they know, what would be the lifetime value of that tool that matches with their business.

I really like that term, the lifetime value of that tool. So let's let's bring that into practicality. Because I don't like to keep things theoretical on the podcast, I want someone to be able to say, “Oh my goodness, Jamie and Theresa were talking about the lifetime value of a tool. I think that this tool or that tool might be reaching the expiration date in my own business.”

So let's dig into that. When you say the lifetime value of a tool, how do you classify, characterize, and utilize that in decision making?

Theresa shared that when they get started on this journey, they typically like to understand what are some of our biggest goals? So for example, if one of the biggest goals is to double your profits, how are you going to get there? What kind of tech tools or software platforms methodologies will get you there?

She shared that they often can just “ad hoc” a bunch of platforms together by building the bridge through, for example, Zapier. Or do we go with a platform where it does have the higher price tag, but it's going to carry us through the storm into where we want to go?

So for example, let's talk about like a bigger tool with a bigger price tag such as Salesforce or a more business management type of tool.

Now, with those types of tools, they often have a higher price tag on a monthly basis or even an annual basis. And sometimes we might get frightened of how much that tool really costs. But we take a look at how much that tool actually contributes to our efficiency, performance, or knowledge transfer. And we look at our ability to react quickly or even be able to proactively plan. Those all add towards the lifetime value of that tool.

So typically, I always like to put the benchmark of any tool that we take on at a three year plan.

Because in the first year, there's going to be lots of waves. There's lots of trials. And there's lots of kinks to work out before you really start optimizing on that tool.

Then you start seeing the major effect of that tool by year two where you're running sufficiently with it.

You're running efficiently. And it's making you profit as well. It's contributing to your bottom line. So in year two you start optimizing and really working in alignment with that tool, You're fine tuning and everyone is on board. And everyone is optimizing that tool so you're going to see that reflected in your bottom line.

Now in year three, depending on how fast you have scaled your business, you may have found that you're starting to outgrow that too.

Or maybe that you might need to go on to the enterprise level or that next level up for that tool. If not, you might have to start evaluating whether or not that tool will carry you through to the next three years or even five years.

Sometimes you can stretch its lifetime value to year five before you need to switch over.

But typically, large organizations, that's how they work. In order to really maximize their investment into that tool. They want to be able to at least reach that five year mark with that tool before they consider another month or tool to carry them through to the next five years.

So I really like this concept of lifetime value of a tool and it goes into even when you're deciding on a tool.

You can say, “Okay, I am going to commit to this tool for three years. I'm not going to commit to this on a month to month basis.” Because you have to put your brain in the right mindset of how is this tool going to serve my business and help me toward whatever goal you have. For example, if you're trying to double your profits, and the tool costs 10% of what your profits are right now, you don't have to double your profits. You have to double plus that extra 10% that tool cost you. Why? Because you have to realize that you're really only going to get to 90% in order when you're implementing this tool.

Let's think about a simple, relatively inexpensive tool like Zapier.

Zapier has three or five zaps that you can do for free. I can't remember at the moment, but I think it's five. But it's five linear tools. And you can do those zaps for free. The cost of that tool, the lifetime, that tool will last and it'll do what it needs to. But it's not doing very much for your business. It's not going to help you towards your massive goal. It's more of a crutch.

So when you go and you say, “Okay, I'm moving to Zapier at the starter level.” All of a sudden you're taking money out of your business on a month to month or annual basis. And you're saying this is now a valuable asset. It's no longer a crutch. It is a fundamental component of your business. You’re going to have this tool lift some weight in the business.

Then you get to figure out if that piece of technology, if Zapier or whatever other tool you might be looking at, is going to stand the test of time of those three years.

Year one might be making all your zaps and seeing which ones work and which ones don't. You may be turning this one on and turning that one off and all sorts of things like that. Or you may be tweaking them as they go through. Then in year two, you might be saying, “Hey, this is smooth sailing.”

And then by the time you get to year three, you will keep bumping up against the upper limit of the number of zaps you can do. You will then have the choice of, “Do I upgrade from the starter level to the next level and pay Zapier more so that I can increase my efficiency? So I can increase the power of this tool or not?” Theresa shared that Zapier is definitely one of those prime examples. The point is to think about how far do you want to take something before you realize that it's no longer serving you as well.

Another way to think of Zapier.

Let's say that you're using Zapier in the free version. You could set up three different zaps that act on the same trigger to do three things. Or you could set up one zap on the paid version that does all three of those things nice and succinctly. I think that for the growth of anyone's business, that going into the paid model, where you have fewer processes and more efficiencies just make sense. That may be justification unto itself.

So I feel like that's really the power of having this right hand gal or a director of operations in your business.

They can see how things work to make your business run,. As opposed to, I want to do this as the business owner. Or this tool looks great or so-and- so is using this tool, maybe we should be using it to as well.

Theresa shared that one of the biggest powers that she always love doing and providing to her clients is the evaluation of those tools. And really understanding if it does really match up with where the objectives are. And if profit is a huge matter to you and your organization, then you may not want to have a high subscription with the fancy tool. You may instead like going with a tool that may not be as well known, but serves the same purpose.

Theresa shared that her work can fulfill in other ways as well. So for example, ThriveCart or SpamCart. That's a great one. WordPress or Thinkific or Teachable? Each of those have a unique functionality, but it just really depends on what is your unique functionality is. And does it marry up together?

I was having this conversation with a new client recently.

He's local here in the Seattle area. I was just having a conversation with him a few days ago. And we were talking about whether we get his WordPress site back to working in the way that it needs to or we move over to Thinkific. And I did exactly that kind of analysis.

I said, “Okay. If we put X amount of money into getting whatever is working, working. And then we have these ongoing expenses of your Thinkific on a monthly or annual basis. Your plugins or themes on WordPress on a monthly or annual basis or a one time fee.”

Basically, we listed them all out.

We said that, there is going to be an expense to get things working no matter what. Put that in your left column and put them in your right column. Then there's the ongoing expenses. And if you look at that three year time frame of your ongoing expenses, and your initial startup and everything else, and you tally at the bottom, if the two products can work the same and deliver the same functionality to your end user, then the bottom line is what you need to look at.

And we determined with this particular client that they own enough software licenses, that the WordPress solution even though it's going to cost more upfront for me to get everything working, was a better financial decision for their business than to move everything over to Thinkific. Why? Because the startup cost was just that much higher.

So it's really kind of fun to be able to step out of the “I want to create” and “I want to deliver” and actually look at what is the best choice for the profitability of this business. Theresa shared that there are tools that will contribute to that. And it's just about, again, going back and slowing down this process. It’s about really evaluating, how much it will be contributing to the bottom line. And it’s about knowing the tool’s own lifetime value.

I asked Theresa, “So when you have an initial conversation with a new client, and they’re thinking about bringing you into your into their business, what kind of decisions do you make about their business to say yes, I can really, truly help them?”

Theresa shared she thinks, oftentimes, one of the key connection points, apart from Tech, lies in the processes and systems that they have either existing or non existent in their business. She thinks typically that is what will contribute to whether or not she finds that there's a good fit for them to work together.

And one of the biggest drivers is the willingness to let go.

As we grow and scale our business baby, it's really hard for us to let go or to fully trust in, in in your hire or someone who you're going to be bringing on board. Because no one else can do it as great as you can for sure because you've done it for so long. It's about trusting and easing into the process, handing it off, and believing that it will still deliver upon what your expectations are. And it’s about being able to get it done in that way.

That's how you scale. You can't do everything yourself forever. Unless you want to stay a baby business. And some people do. There's no question that some people want to stay a busy, baby business. And they want to stay in control of everything. That is completely fine. But if you're ready to move up into to go to bigger things, it’s time to look at the systems and processes that you have in place or don't have in place.

I asked Theresa, "Are you saying that if someone has absolutely no systems in place that you may still come in if they have the willingness? And also on that note, what kinds of systems would you hope to see when someone is reaching out to you?"

Theresa share that it depends if they came through as a referral. And if, as bad as it sounds, there's a way to save them with systems. Because obviously at the point when they get connected, they're in massive overwhelm and everything is in their head. That is the biggest key! It's in their head! And whether or not they will have the time to sit together and really extract all that from their head.

Theresa said that if she sees that those those key parameters are in place, then she might be open to taking them on. But typically, she would like to see that in any organizations that she comes into, that they at least have some existing processes in place.

So for example, on the intake process, or a client fulfillment process, because she’s not here to make you sales.

Theresa shared that she’s here to be able to help you from the inside out. She said that they start with making sure that you're able to holistically run in efficient operations, which in turn, will be able to support you with your sales. Though, as long as you have those components in place, and that you have a good sales process in place so that you can focus on your your sales process and she’ll focus on your operations process. That's how they make a winning team.

I'm just thinking practicality as people are listening right now. And they're saying, “Well, yeah, most of my systems are in my head because they're just for me.” Where do they start? Where do you start getting those systems out of your head?

If you are thinking, “Yeah, in like six months, I'm going to be ready. I’m going to want a Director of Operations.” Where can you start now to make things easier when you're ready to bring that person on?

Theresa said that she thinks the best thing to start is the plot. The best place to start is actually in your fulfillment processes. Because anytime that you are bringing on a new team member, it typically wouldn't be for sales, unless you have a really high sales initiative.

But typically, what you would want to do is make recordings and write down short step by step notes. Record them in bullet points on what it is that you do on a day to day basis. And if you have already started feeling the growing pains, the best thing to do is just to start with the high level map, as well in understanding which components make up your business.

So for example, let’s talk about sales.

If you are in the coaching industry, then you would have a coaching structure in place. Scheduling, calendars, and communications, are the components that make up the fulfillment process. So it's just about understanding what efforts are being put into where.

And I think that makes really good sense. And then of course, we're going to come back to the tech. Because everybody is using tech in some way. Whether they're using tech and resisting it or using tech and embracing it. It's still a big, big, big component of things. So when I'm talking to a business about the tech that they're using, and all of a sudden, I come up with six or eight different tech tools that they didn't even think about on the forefront of their mind. In order to get a punch list of all the different things you touch, I usually ask things like:

What tabs are open in your Google browser or in your browser?
Where do you store this?
What are you using on your computer? And what applications are being used?
Where do you store that?

And some people talk about creating ideal weeks/months and tracking all of your business related productivity.

That's not what this podcast is about. This podcast is about the nuts and bolts. And so by doing those exercises that are for other purposes, but just tracking. So you will say, “Okay, I touched Thinkific from 9am to 4pm every single day.” Well, that is a tool that you need to make sure that anybody that you bring on, and that your Director of Operations that you bring on, can feel confident and comfortable with.

Or you might have documented 18 tools that you touch in a single day and say, “Oh my goodness, I think the first thing that my Director of Operations needs to do is help me reduce the number of tools.” So just because some of those systems and processes come from other sources doesn't mean that they're still not practical for bringing on a Director of Operations or streamlining and systematizing your tools.

I don't even know where I was going with that. But I know Theresa and I are both here nodding yes, yes, yes.

Theresa shared that in her discovery calls, as well as her deep dive sessions, they will go through and list out the tech tools that makes up their business operations. And about 80 to 90% of the time, they uncover other tools that they unknowingly or subconsciously use that they don't even know that they use. For example, Calendly or even Outlook. Some of the hidden tools that she’s seen is both Dropbox and Google Drive. They just say, “I just store it.” But if you're touching it, if it's holding a component of your business like documents or any business related items, it is a part of your toolbox.

So everybody's toolbox is really, really big.

And we don't even realize how big it is. It's just one of those things. And it's okay. There's no shame in that. If someone were to ask me or challenge me to tell them every single tool that I use on a daily or weekly basis, I think they'd get tired before they finish the end of the list. It's completely okay as long as you're not using three different tools for the same functionality. That's where you can have efficiency improvements. And that's where we go back to that lifetime value of a tool.

It might go a little something like this. “Okay, well, I always use Dropbox, but now I have to pay for Dropbox. But I have GSuite. Why don't I leverage GSuite and the file structure and file systems in there?” Do not pay for Dropbox and GSuite.

Those are efficiencies that I'm sure Theresa finds ways to make those things work all the time.

She shared that she thinks one of the conditions that she always has with her clients, and it's a transparent conversation, is that any recommendations that she makes, there's always a 360 view to it. And there's a reason why that recommendation is being made. Hopefully, as a knowledgeable business owner, you're going to be able to make those decisions.

And sometimes, as hard as it is, because we have those overlapping tools because there's a function or a feature of it that we really enjoy. Sometimes it's about sacrificing that for the efficiency of your business and for the profitability at the end of the day.

I think that is so, so relevant.

And everybody can kind of take away from this episode, something that they can go and look at and see if they can improve and systematized a little bit more or reduce redundancies just a little bit more. I could have probably sat there and talk with Theresa forever, but I want to respect the audience's time and make sure that they keep this podcast episode actionable for them. Below you will find ways that you can connect with Theresa and her team. Theresa does have a free package to help you with your journey to systematization with her SOP bundle that you can download and start your journey today if you are looking to actually hire six months down the road.

I want to thank Theresa for coming on the Tech of Business podcast. Thank you for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also learn more about me at techofbusiness.com.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Theresa:

Virtual Coffee Chats
Website: https://www.looplinc.com
Free Package: Standard Operations Bundle
Facebook: Loop Link Coachsulting with Theresa Baretta
Instagram: LoopCoachsulting

090: Facing a Fear...and No, It's Not TECH

Wed, 16 Oct 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This is Episode 90. I cannot believe we're going to hit 100 episodes by the end of this year. I want to say “Thank you” for your continued support, your messages, and your enthusiasm, especially on the series that we just wrapped up last week all about Thinkific.

If you haven't gone and listened to that series, I encourage you to do so. Not because I think that everybody needs to be using Thinkific or needs to have an online membership or online courses. But because the feedback that I have received on that series has just warmed my heart. What I have been hearing is that the passion that each of my guests brought to their interview has helped the listeners and you, my audience, the Tech of Business audience, understand the potential that this online community and online business truly can have and is having in your business.

So today's episode is one of those that I'm just talking straight to the mic.

I actually have no notes. And I'm going to name this episode afterwards. So you actually know the name of the episode before I do because I haven't written it yet. I'm recording this episode on Friday, just a few days before it drops on the 16th. So I'm recording it on the 11th and it is coming out on the 16th.

On Wednesday of this week, it was the Jewish holiday called Yom Kippur.

Yom Kippur is the Day of Atonement. But beyond just atoning for our sins, I truly use it as a day of reflection. Yom Kippur really is the end of the time of reflection in the Jewish calendar. And I find that most of my reflection truly happens on Yom Kippur.

And I thought a lot about where I was taking this podcast. And where I see so much value in bringing tech to the masses and making it so that this is accessible and relevant to you. In that reflection, I realized that without truly having conversations with you, the listeners of the tech of business podcast, it is very, very difficult for me to just create content for the sake of creating content. It's not resonating as much as I would like it to. And I have to make a change. I have been doing a lot of work on pivoting and niching down and really finding who the audience of the tech of businesses is.

And I'm super, super excited to say that I know exactly who I'm speaking to right now.

I've known for some time that technology is difficult for people in a lot of different environments. And that what I can provide to entrepreneurs is a safety net, and a rope and a ladder at all of those things at the same time. But that wasn't enough.

The tech that I put together really helps you as the business owner make money online. I know that sounds so crazy. And what we do together, what I do with my clients, is put together the building blocks that are required to deliver what it is that you are meant to deliver. The audience of the Tech of Business podcast and the people that I am speaking to, right now, are people who are different.

This is not your first foray. You did not start your business as an online business. And you started your business out of a passion out of something that you are truly gifted at. Then you brought that to market. And you have had success with it. Congratulations, because not everybody can take their passion and translate that into a successful business. But you have succeeded in doing that.

You didn't start your business online. You started your business on the ground. And that's the first point of differentiation that I have made when I went to say who the Tech of Business is truly for. So this is for people who have had offline success and are looking at online as the next frontier. It’s going to be their next place of doing business.

But I found out that that wasn't good enough.

I needed to hone in on what your unique gifts are and how I can use technology to support those gifts and help you to broadcast them louder and more clearly. Tech of business is such a general statement. It could be talking about hardware. Or it could be talking about marketing tools. It could be talking about all sorts of things that frankly, I don't care a whole lot about.

But what I do care about is making it so that your voice can be amplified.

And the way that we amplify your voice is by delivering your lead magnets on time, having the appropriate trip wires, making the right offer at the right time, and delivering on your promises. I think that more often than not, if we can do those three things right, we are creating an audience for life. We can have the right opt in. And we can have the right tripwire/ We can have the right product. If we can deliver on all of those, then you can have an audience for life.

Now, here's the thing.

I have been scared to death to niche down. And I have been scared for years probably even though back in 2011. I started focusing on fitness professionals. That was out of alignment. But that's for another episode. I tried to niche down before and that didn't work because I had a disconnect with the niche. Not anymore.

Now I understand that you are here listening to the Tech of Business podcast, because you want technology to help you broadcast your message reach more people. You want to take your passion and your genius to a larger audience. I know that I can help you get there. I know that, in my heart of hearts, you wouldn't be listening right now if you didn't have a message to share.

So I want to hear from you.

I truly, truly do. I would love to do a call with you. It is a no obligation call. All you have to do is go to callwithjamie.com and book a call with me. I am actually going to open that up. Normally, I just do those calls on Thursdays. But I am also going to have those calls available on the 22nd 23rd 24th and 25th of this month. So that entire week, other than the Monday because I am volunteering at a field trip.

But if you go to callwithjamie.com, you will see availability for booking a call with me. And on that call, I'm going to ask you three questions. So if you would prefer, you can go ahead and just send me an email to jamie@techofbusiness.com with the answers to these three questions.

What is your passion and how have you put that passion into your business?
If nothing we're standing in your way, what would you do in your business next?
What is standing in your way?

Again, I am just so curious.

I want to make sure that I am providing the best value to you. So if you can answer those three questions via email, that'd be cool. If you would rather get on a call with me go to callwithjamie.com and book your 10 minute call to answer those three questions. I cannot wait to hear them.

As I said earlier, I've done a lot of reflection this month, and we're only halfway through. I know that the rest of 2019 is going to be honing in on helping you do more with the technology that you have. It’s going to include helping you to do more with the technology you're curious about. And absolutely, truly do more to broadcast your brilliance.

So thank you so much for listening today.

I truly appreciate you coming on this journey with me. Next week, we're going to have another conversation that I have recently had that I think you're going to just love. And I'm going to kind of go back and forth between conversations and solo episodes. If there is a tech tool that you would like me to discuss on the podcast that you're just wondering about, please let me know again, I'm always on Instagram. I'm @techofbusiness.

And thank you for sharing the podcast and for all the feedback you've given. Thanks for listening to the tech of business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also learn more about me at techofbusiness.com. I'll see you next week.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

089: A Practical Conversation about Thinkific with Co-Founder Miranda Lievers (Thinkific Series #6 of 6)

Wed, 09 Oct 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This is Episode 89. It is our wrap up episode of the Thinkific series. Today I am joined by Miranda Lievers. She is the COO and co-founder of Thinkific. What better way to wrap up this series, then for us to have a conversation with someone who's been there since the beginning. Miranda has seen this platform grow from not even being a platform to being one of the leaders in course delivery online for entrepreneurs and small businesses.

This is a very, very practical episode. We don't talk about jargon. We don't talk about tech all that much. Miranda is all about the operations, usability, and the metrics. And really, she just wants to see people being successful with their online course endeavors. So with that, let's get into this episode with Miranda.

I want to take a second to thank Miranda for doing this interview as she is on maternity leave. I really truly appreciate it. And I love the fact that she can have flexible maternity leave working.

So the reason why I wanted to have her on in this wrap up episode is because of her experience.

Obviously with Thinkific, Miranda has been there since the beginning. And she’s watched the platform evolve. She’s watched the type of course creator and Thinkific user evolve. And I think that it's going to give a lot of perspective to all the conversations that we have had as part of this series.

So before we get into this conversation, let’s learn more about who Miranda is and what her role is at Thinkific. Miranda Lievers is the COO and co-founder of Thinkific. She has been at Thinkific since the early days when they were a baby SAS platform. Just about five years ago, they launched as a SAS company.

I have actually visited the Thinkific offices that they are currently in. I also visited what I think was called the bunker. The bunker was the old super startup office that literally was like a warehouse with no windows. Miranda shared that now they are in “a real all grown up office.

I asked Miranda to go back to not necessarily the beginning, but when they realizes that this platform was going to take off.

Miranda shared a brief history of Thinkific just to give context. She said that Greg Smith, CEO, was originally teaching LSAT classes in person, just over a decade ago. So he was teaching every Saturday out at UBC. And he was wanting to bring more content to his students. So he originally created a blog.

And then shortly thereafter, wrote to his brother to help him build what was an early version of his online course before there was a platform like Thinkific. He found that, all the sudden, he was able to teach people on their schedules all over the place and not just as in person audience. And that was quite exciting.

What was happening, though, other people were coming to him. They were coming to him not just to take his course, but to ask him for help launching their own courses online. And that was sort of the very, very early spark of building out this platform. So pre SAS company, the team started to build some software, started to create and launch other people's courses for them, and realized that there was no way that they could create, market, and sell other people's courses for them. They really had way more demand and needed to create a product that allowed people to do that on their own.

And that was right around the time that Miranda met Greg.

Just as they were pivoting to a SAS company and allowing people to get going on their own. And that was in the fall of 2014. Miranda shared that she remembers the very first time that she pulled a report and took a look at some data. And a customer, who she had never talked to, had signed up on their own, got their course loaded, and was actually making money. That customer had never even needed to talk to us.

In the early days, there was still a lot of hand holding because their software was really early. But she remembers, the first time that she thought, “Whoa! Somebody really did it. They signed up, loaded their course, got students, made money, and they're off to the races without us having to do it for them.” Because we had built software that allowed them to do that.

And that was quite a moment at Thinkific.

Every day there were more and more people signing up and getting going. They’ve always had a real focus on great customer support. And they were doing all of that early on themselves. But more and more, they were finding that people didn't even need to talk to us. They were able to just get off to the races and do their thing.

I can only imagine that Miranda was like, “Okay, so who is this? Who on our team created this fake user?” That would have been the first thought that went on in my mind. Miranda shared that she didn’t remember doing support for them. She even asked Greg if he knew who user was. So it a cool realization for sure.

So was it in that moment that Miranda realized that they had something?

Miranda shared that she remembers when she first met Greg which was sort of right before the transition to a SAS company. So they had been building some courses manually on their own, and then she met him. She said that before working with Greg, she was a small business person. She’s been involved in technology and small business for years.

She’s done lots of consulting with small business owners. Her joke was always that small business owners don't know that they need consultants until it's too late. And typically they can’t afford consultants. So she thought:

“I love small business. But I want to find a way to help small business owners, that's different than just sort of this one to one consulting.”- Miranda Lievers

So when she met Greg, she just saw the potential before there were customers. And before people were able to do it on their own. But she just saw the potential for this platform to be able to help small business owners get their businesses growing with online courses in a way that she really felt like could take off and could help people do that. It could help small business owners around the globe. And so she had sort of seen the potential. But it wasn't until they saw people actually doing it, like that first example, where she knew that there wasn’t just potential was there, but they were actually starting to help people achieve what they're wanting to achieve.

It makes so much sense to me that there are SAS companies like Thinkific out there that provide platforms for other entrepreneurs to use.

And I love this model. I love being in the thick of it. And I find that it's one of those things, with Thinkific, you could look just like that first client did. You can go in, load your content, go through whatever you need to go through to get everything hooked up, and sell your product. Or you could work with a consultant or you could work with the team there at Thinkific. Or you could work with a third party. There's plenty of us experts listed. There's a lot of different ways of getting to sale number one.

Because there are so many ways of getting to sale number one, what does Miranda find is the most common trajectory for someone who is just getting started?

Miranda said that typical Thinkific customers are coming to them having already monetized an expertise in some way. So they might be doing consulting, coaching, or speaking themselves. They might have written a book or a blog. But they're getting revenue. So in some way they've monetized this content or this expertise that they have. But they haven't necessarily created and launched an online course.

So this question almost twofold. Miranda said, “It’s more like, how do I see most people who are successfully getting Started? And how do I see people getting tripped up getting started?”

The good news is she can answer both. The people who she sees who dive in and actually sort of take the wrong path and get a little bit tripped up are the people that think that they need to make everything perfect. They think they need to create the biggest, baddest course that they've ever seen before they even open the doors. And that's where she sees people getting a little bit tripped up when they kind of dive in.

They go into this rabbit hole of building like a massive course with tons of content. We’re talking funnels, multiple pages, bundles of courses, and all of this crazy stuff. They're trying to open the doors with everything perfect. And they can get caught in the whirlwind and not come out.

What Miranda recommends people to do, and when she sees people who are really successful out of the gate, is to go small, rip off the band aid, build the mini course first, get the doors open, and start to get their feet wet in terms of getting clients. She tells people:

“It's always a good idea to do a small mini course first because inevitably, like anything in life, once you do it one time, you're going to come up with a list of the 20 things you're going to do differently the second time that you do that.”-Miranda Lievers

So that’s exactly what she encourages people to do. She tells them to rip off the band aid course first, get your feet wet, figure out what you know, what's what's working, and what's not. And then you can iterate on your next versions.

I think that is definitely a good strategy.

And I think that a lot of the listeners right now have something that they could put into a mini course or a small course to get going and start using the platform. They definitely could be putting in what needs to be put in in order to prove that they can do online courses. You may be the best speaker or he may be the best author, but if you can't translate that into a way that your students are going to appreciate it, learn it, use it, and refer you to others, then you may not be the best course creator.

Miranda shared that she thinks that going through all the motions at least once and getting something out there is important.

So you've got a landing page out there. You probably are collecting leads. And you've got emails, students, and so on and so forth, that can really help you identify where the biggest holes are in your sort of end to end process. It is about figuring out where the bucket is leaky.

It may actually be that your content is actually doing a really good job of moving your students through to completion, but it may be that your conversion rate off your landing page is actually where you've got a problem. And maybe you need to dig in there. Or you might find that it’s quite easy to sell to your audience and you're getting students into your course, but they're really struggling to complete it. So having having something up as soon as possible helps you to identify where you need to focus your efforts next. Because otherwise, you're just trying to make an assumption about where the weakest parts of this business are. And you don't necessarily know until you've got things up and running.

I totally agree with that because a lot of us who have smaller audiences, because we're in a niche or a small town, may be very effective in online marketing and be able to get people in the door. But once they get in the door, they don't know what to do next. Or we could be really good at putting that course together. And it could reach beyond the proximity of our niche or our small community, but we haven't explored the avenues of marketing to a larger audience. So there are a lot of different variables in there.

So at what point is Miranda finding that people themselves find success?

Is it with their first sale? Or is it with their 10th sale? Is it when they cross the five figure mark income? What is it that has somebody coming to your support team there and saying that they’re ?

Miranda shared that she is such a data geek. So they actually just welcomed a brand new data scientists to their data team.. Miranda made sure to go over and say hello, because she’s so excited to have somebody else on that team. She finds that she’sthe biggest internal client of our data team because she’s constantly asking, “Have we dug into this? What about this? How do we trend? How's this trending over time?”

So they've looked at customer success in a lot of different ways and trying to figure out things what is that tipping point, both quantitatively and qualitatively. So obviously, there's what are people telling them, but then also what the data telling them in terms of when people seem to really get it. Miranda shared that it's actually a different number than she thought it would have been.

What they’ve actually found looking at the data is, it's actually in the five to 10 student range is where things start to tip.

And in digging into that further, they found as soon as people that you don't know, start buying your course, even that very first stranger who pays you for your online course is such a big aha moment for their customers. That is when they think that this is actually working. So if they find that as soon as you start to get outside of the “friends and family are buying my course” stage, that’s the tipping point.The first time that strangers are starting to pay you for that knowledge and that online course, that's when things start to really sort of get going.

That is so cool because it's mirroring what the Thinkific story. It is similar to the, “Oh my gosh, one person did this on their own. They've paid us and they're successful! This really can and is working” moment Miranda had. .

Now, one of the things that I love so much about Thinkific is the connections that Thinkific has to the other tech tools that people are using.

An example would be their email marketing. It allows you to put your Google tracking in your facebook pixel and all sorts of other pieces that keep getting added and added over time. I asked Miranda if there some that she’s finding are gems that people are just digging into and loving using.

Miranda had a bit of a different way to answer my question.

She shared that there’s definitely different platforms that people are choosing where they want to move their online course to and their platforms that are more closed in terms of sort of being more like an all in one. And then there's a platform that's like Thinkific that is a little bit more open.

So they've got an API. They’ve got external integrations. And that's quite intentional. Because at the end of the day, we recognize that they can build the core of our of our business around online courses and they can build what the majority of people want to need. But every business is a little bit different. Every business model is a little bit different. And every industry is a little bit different. So they want to allow the broadest range of customers to be able to use and get value out of Thinkific.

They can't be, at their core, everything to everybody and solve every need.

It'd be impossible to anticipate what every single need is. So one of the things that that really focused on is building their platform and their core functionality. So the online course engine to be really good at everything else. Where you can do basic email marketing through Thinkific, but as soon as you start to get into more complex needs, and as your business is growing, we want to integrate with the best of the best in tools across the range.

So whether that is being able to add those those pixels, so you can do your your ad recognition. Or best in class email tools, funnels, or landing pages. Miranda shared that they are actually just about to launch their Shopify app, which will be quite imminent. So their goal is always to integrate with best in class tools, so that people can expand their businesses without them trying to be something that they’re not.

When referring to my question about the tools that people are using that hit home for them, she shared that, it really depends a little bit on the business.

She said they know that probably the greatest number of people are using an email platform in addition to Thinkific because that just makes sense. We all know that we want to be communicating and marketing to that list, especially as it grows and you can do that. When you're getting started, you don't need to integrate with an email tool. But that is one of the things that people tend to integrate with first. And some examples are Active Campaign, Convert Kit, or MailChimp. But the tool gets into the sort of the specifics of what it is that you're looking to do, and what is the right tool for you. But I would say that emails are the first one that we tend to see.

That's something that I do a ton of integration with.

I mean, I was just having a call with a client yesterday. They were a Thinkific a client and we were going through the motions of, “Okay, so this is what it looks like when you integrate with MailChimp. This is what it looks like when you integrate with Active Campaign. And you have to make the decision.” I shared the advantages and disadvantages of both. There are definitely advantages and disadvantages on both platforms. And then there's other things that you can do. I know I've talked about it quite at length.

And I know in one of the interviews in this series, I talked about Zapier. I might have talked about it in two of the interviews, because I just love Zapier. And the integration that we've got between Thinkific and Zapier allows so much flexibility and so much control, depending of course, on what level of thinking that you are at which is kind of why I brought that up. Because it was a really good segue into the growth add on to the pro plan out there at Thinkific. The pricing is pretty standard pricing, but what you get with the growth package really elevates the potential of this platform as a foundational platform within your tech stack.

And I really want to kind of dig in a little bit into not just the thought of should people be adding on the growth package, but why you might want to add on the growth package? Because for most people at some point in time, they will. Why you might want to add on the growth package?

Miranda share that with any size company, they’ve really analyzed their pricing and tried to strike that balance between wanting to help especially small businesses who are a new business owners get started, but they also want to make sure that the can continue to support them as their businesses grow and scale. Thinkific’s growth package was one of the biggest ways that they’ve been able to do that.

So the growth package essentially has all of Thinkfiic’s core features available on their basic plan.

Then, as you as you move up in plans, you basically get access to features that tend to help you as you have more and more customers. So the kinds of things that you need, as you grow, as opposed to necessarily need right off the bat.

So the kinds of things that growth offers on top of a regular plans for customers are things like groups. You can start to sell into cohorts. And this starts to really apply when you have instructors who've got the same course, but they want to sell to things like organizations. And then the organization is going to want to be able to pull a report on all of their employees and how they're progressing through their course material, for example. So again, not the kind of thing that we see most people doing on day one. But as successful course creators are getting more and more customers, especially some of those big groups, that's a really valuable feature.

Back to the idea of customer contact and email, they get into bulk email.

So on their growth plan, you can send bulk emails out to segments of your customers. Miranda shared that that was quite fun, because you can do things like quickly send an email to everybody who's enrolled in a certain course, but who hasn't completed it. Or you can set all sorts of fine tuned segmentation on those emails. This can be really valuable when you're dealing with a bigger group of students. And similarly, you can even pull reports on very hyper focus segments of your users.

An example of this would be that I want to see everybody that's enrolled in this course and that course, but hasn't purchased this course. And so now I might custom market to that group of people or give them a promotion or a deal.

They’ve got a public API. And that is a word that most people don't even know what it means.

And it's basically technical speak for the back end infrastructure that allows two tools to talk to each other. So most of their customers never need to know about that. Most of their customers interact with an API via something like Zapier, which is an integration that they have that allows you to easily set up integrations between their platform and like hundreds of others. But if you've got a technical background or a developer on your team, you want something super custom. It's the API and their web hooks are the technical ways that allow you to interact with that data.

Thinkific’s growth plan also offers things like the Zapier connection. And some of their advanced integrations with things like Infusionsoft, Active Campaign, and Beryllium that allows you to import and bulk enroll students as well.

They were quite intentional about setting up their pricing so that you don't need those things to get started. Those are all features that apply when you're scaling and when you're really growing. So they actually encourage people to choose growth, when they're actually setting up. It's free for your first hundred students. So it's like you get all the benefit of getting to play with some of those advanced features and you don't have to pay for them. And you don't pay until you've got more than 100 students. Then it's just 10 cents per student per month. So it's really very accessible.

And those are the kinds of features that allow you to grow and scale. Generally, alongside your business growing and scaling, in which case, the added very small incremental cost is negligible anyway, because you're already growing your business.

Because there's an additional expense for this, that's why it's designed for growth.

Your revenue absorbs the additional cost because of your growth. Your revenue pays for the functionality that you're looking at. And so I'm sitting here saying to myself, how are we going to make sure that we get the absolute best wrap up of this series out there on the airwaves so that it can just like put a beautiful statue or beautiful monument saying that this is what Thinkific is all about and that they can go to techofbusiness.com/thinkific, which is my affiliate link, and get started. What is it that says, “yes I’m ready to start an online course” or “yes, I’m ready to invest the time required to work on an online course and get it to market?

Miranda said that she really believes that the future of business and education is changing and it's converging. When you take education and you superpower it with business you create this unstoppable force for change. We know that entrepreneurs and business owners have amazing knowledge and expertise. And when they can translate that into online courses and help other people transform their lives whether that is with skills and knowledge that helped them in their career, or their own business, or even just as a hobby, or helps them achieve personal goals, that we're really having an impact on students and people worldwide.

So, back to the, you know, like, “Can I do it? Should I do it?”

Miranda’s answer is always going to be, “Today! Yes!”. She is constantly humbled and surprised at the incredible courses that she’s seen people create, who probably just like you, never thought that they had something worth teaching. And they probably never thought that they would be able to achieve what they have built for themselves in their own families, but also for the students whose lives that they're able to impact.

And what she’s seen is just humbling and incredible. So she encourages people to rip off the band aid. And don't die trying to create the “everything you ever needed to know massive course” that's going to take you months to do. Just think about today, what is one small way for you to dip your toes in and create content that allows you to teach somebody else something that you know? And start that ball rolling of building online education for you and your audience. And get going.

I think that it's a perfect way for us to wrap things up by saying, find something that you can create content around that people are going to be interested in purchasing.

We didn't say that people are going to be interested in purchasing because you're on Thinkific. Or because you're using Active Campaign. Because you're using this tool or that tool. Your content is the most important thing and having it positioned in a way that it's going to provide value to your leads, prospects, and customers and for them to have an impact for it to change their lives, their businesses, and their families. That is the goal of online education! For it to change and empower the end user and we're just using vehicles. Thinkific is a vehicle for that.

As I share before, the link for getting your free month of Thinkific pro plane is techofbusiness.com/thinkific. Yeah, so it's just we're on Thank you so much for hanging out with me for this Thinkific series here on the podcast. If you know someone who is thinking about doing an online course or that you know would do amazing with an online course, send them to this entire series. You can get to the series by going to techofbusiness.com/series/Thinkific.

Again, thank you so much for being part of the tech business community. If you have any questions for me whatsoever, hit me up over on Instagram. I'm @techofbusiness. I will see you next week.

Thanks for listening to the tech of business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also learn more about me at techofbusiness.com.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
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Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

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088: Thinkific...Creating an Online Course Playground with Dana Malstaff, Founder of Boss Moms (Thinkific Series #5 of 6)

Mon, 07 Oct 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today’s episode, number 88, is with none other than Dana Malstaff of Boss Moms. I knew about Dana years ago. And I followed her along her journey as she really built an empire which I think has transcended even her greatest expectations. Dana is no longer using Thinkific, but she's still advocates for Thinkific for her members and her community.

I think that this conversation showcases the power of Thinkific to help your business do more online. That's why I really wanted to include Dana in this Thinkific series because she brings so much value to the airwaves. She brings so much value to her community. In this episode, she brings so much value to the conversation about thinking about online courses and using tools to get the job done.

Let's get into this conversation with Dana.

This is going to be such an insightful conversation for our listeners, because Dana has a wealth of experience on Thinkific and with course platforms. I'm just excited to bring Dana’s expertise in today. So if you don't know who Dana is, she runs the massively successful Boss Moms business. It’s a whole business complete with trademarks. But the online community is just the place that has so vibrantly in organically grown on its own. Boss Moms everywhere are taking over the world.

Dana has a podcast and a community. She has a Facebook community. And a membership. She has run courses and done launches. Specifically, of course, since this is part of the Thinkific series, we're going to talk about what she has done on Thinkific in the past and how it's helped her to grow to where she is today.

Dana didn't start on Thinkific.

As a matter of fact, we aren’t actually sure if Thinkific was around when Dana got started. She remembers buying her first WordPress plugin. It was like a WP course and she was giving membership levels. And she was going in the back end trying to figure out how to give people access and doing different things. Then she had to figure out how people could pay her. As you can see there were a lot of steps and things to do on the back end of her business to make it work.

Then one day I Thinkific reached out to her.

They said, “Hey, would you be interested in coming on and having a chat with us?” Dana agreed to this conversation with Thinkific. She was just getting started and she didn't have a big community yet. Thinkifc got Dana on a call and they were walking her through what their program was. Of course she wanted to try it.

Just a side note, Dana knows a lot of people at Thinkific. They often will get on the phone and chat. They talk about like what her audience needs. And she always recommends Thinkific because it is one of the best places to start. Why? Because you don't have to worry about all the things. It's just one place that they make as easy as humanly possible for you to put something out to the world.

So all of Dana’s opt-ins are on Thinkific.

In Thinkific, you’ll find all the coursework, onboarding processes for her group coaching program, etc. According to Dana, they work brilliantly! Dana tells people that’s it’s one thing to have a plugin that is free. But with Thinkific, it would take her a fraction of the time to get something up and running and going in Thinkific than anywhere else. Time is money!

Dana can remember having a 4 hour course of content that she had recorded that she needed to get up into Thinkific. And it only took her 30 minutes to get it in Thinkific and running. If she would have done that anywhere else, it would have taken her 8 to 10 hours. And that time that was saved is time she can spend on marketing, which is what actually brings me money. So it's like Thinkific saves you money.

I think that's a brilliant way of saying it.

I frequently tell people to use a hosted platform where there is support. Because if you run into trouble, and you are Thinkific customer, you can email them, contact them, and even call them and they make it so easy. Whereas, if you're using some of the other platform, whether they're hosted or not hosted, you don't necessarily have that. Oor you have everything piecemeal everything. Which if you don't have someone like me on your team, who can take care of those things, then all of a sudden you're going down 234 rabbit holes.

One of the reasons why I love Thinkfic so much is because it gets your content out there. It gets you selling. And it gets you proving your concept. It gets you to the point where you can double down on re-recording those videos so they look more professional. You can double down on community engagement. And you can double down on those other things. Because this big huge boulder is not in your way of all the tech and all the needing to do everything else.

Dana often finds in business that most people spend 80% of their time making content and trying to make the thing they think is going to sell. When you should be spending 80% of your time marketing and 20% of the time doing content creation. Most real successful people spend 80% of their time getting people to know they exist and to buy their stuff. Thinkific helps you get you into that space.

Let's talk a little bit about what Dana has used Thinkific for and about the trajectory of when she moved over to Thinkific after that phone call.

I was curious about Dana’s move to Thinkific. I wanted to know if there was one course that was a flagship course. Or if she had lots of mini courses. So I was curious what that structure looked like and the student trajectory for her members within her programs.

So one of the first things they needed to do was move in their opt in.

They had a really popular opt in for Trello, which showed people basically how they use Trello as a project management/workflow tool for their business. This opt in was created because they found that time management seemed to be one of the biggest issues for moms and moms who wanted to be Boss Moms.

So they wanted to show their subscribers, “Well, here's how we understand our time, here's how we manage our time and how we make time. And how this can actually help you get a virtual assistant or somebody even quicker because it's all in one place.” They had a lot of success with that.

Originally it was a video that they on a landing page.

And then they had timestamps for it that would allow the subscriber to jump to certain points in the video to see what they wanted to see. That worked for a long time. But they wanted to up that experience. So we put it into Thinkific and made it an actual course. It was an actual opt in course.

Here is where it made it possible for Dana to see metrics such as places that everybody was stopping and make adjustments to the course as it was needed. This allowed her to be able to add in what they would need to do next, which would be a call with Dana. And that call to me would lead to one on one clients or people joining her academy program.

Before Dana really had a ton of coursework, she had a group coaching program.

And so what they would do is every time they would do training for different topics for their group coaching program, they would take those and put them in as coursework into Thinkific. They just started to make Thinkific this sort repository of content. So that as they were getting people into the Academy, they would just use Thinkific, create a bundle, and say, “Oh, here's your Academy bundle. You get access to all of the content that we've made.”

That content was just recordings of trainings they’d done with past members. But it added the sense of value because it was good training. It wasn't necessarily outlined out but it was good training. And Thinkific allowed them to give them this login to this page that all of a sudden had all these things on it. It made their subscribers feel like they were getting so much content which was a good thing.

I mean, we all want to feel really special and awesome.

And so from there, they started to evaluate what their academy members were actually using. They started to get into flash sales. So when they saw that everybody's really loving this piece on how to price yourself, they would take that and turn that into an actual mini course. And then they would flash sale the course in Thinkific and just give people access to that one course.

Then that started to build up. And all of a sudden, they had enough content of real courses that they had made and turned it into what they call the “Boss Mom Vault”. That then turned into a membership site. It just it all kind of built up along the way.

So, let's unpack that a little bit.

Because if someone is just getting started in their niche putting online training on or they've got it on there, it’s important that they realize some of the things that Dana did. Dana went in and realized that she had content and was really being used. So she knew they needed to tighten it up and make it into an actual course instead of just a recording of something else.

I was curious to know what the decision points were on that. And how she determined that she should go with a video that had certain “watched through” rates or completion rates. I wanted to know what some of the deciding factors were when it came to deciding what would become an actual online course.

It was all about the feedback.

Dana shared they were definitely looking at who was actually completing something. And then to be honest, a lot of it was just feedback. So they would create a feedback loop for every piece of content they made. Then they consistently asked for more feedback. They asked things like what people thought of the program. And they asked what people wanted more of within their program. This allowed people to tell them exactly what they loved and what they didn’t like so much.

So because they were able to hear what these people had to say and see what actions they were actually taking, they could identify what things were kind of a big deal for people. Dana would tell people…

“Whenever you're trying to figure out decisions to make, don't give yourself 18 metrics. Figure out the simplest two or three things that you're going to base your decision on because you don't want to stymie your ability to make a decision. You want to facilitate your ability to make a decision.” - Dana Malstaff"

Dana loves Thinkific because they keep getting better.

They will actually help talk you through how you're outlining your course. They'll give you a template of how to think through what content should go where. Before they had that, they would go in take a look at what the training is that they gave. And then they would figure out the logical, high level milestones of this training. They would break out a project and then look at those. And then within those, they would figure out what the main teaching points were.

And so each of those would become their modules. Then within those there are “chapters” as they would say. And then their lessons would go in each of those. Then we break it up into something that actually felt like, like a course. And then obviously, it's much easier because in what we were doing before, there's like one video training. Once they broke it up into a course that they could really see where people were starting to interact and react to things.

But even then, keep your metrics simple.

I think even the simplest metric that I know of is not even looking at what people are doing, but it’s looking at the percentage of people who get to your feedback page and respond to it. If you get 50 people get into your feedback page and 10% of them respond, that's telling you something different than versus if 50 people got there and 43 of them respond. You know that even that the silence is something worth noting just as much as the responses.

I think that that was that's such a brilliant way of taking what you're already doing, putting it online, and testing it out by running it through your audience so that they can tell you what they want. I know we were talking before we hit record about some of the courses that I could be creating. And I think it's really funny because Dana just said just hit record when you're doing stuff and you'll see what you come up with.

And I think that that was a really brilliant piece of advice that I didn't even expect to get from Dana while we were doing our pre- recording chat. But I've been thinking about it since she said that I'm like, “Yeah, if I just record my screen as I'm doing work in a One on One 1:1 capacity for a client and I do that for two weeks, three weeks, or a month. All of a sudden, I'm going to have a significant amount of information of things that I can build a course on I know people need, because I did it.”

Dana share that that’s so true.

She’s been having this discussion a lot lately because she has a good friend who's writing a marketing book. And there’s this idea of people who want to be experts in something. They want to be the coach, the consultant, the influencer. And they have an agency or whatever and we're all trying to build ourselves to get a little slice of the pie in this in this online space. But one of the things that we feel is that we have to know the exact everything. We have to know that it has to all fit together in this beautiful box and has to look all perfect in order for us to sell it and be an expert. As if us continually getting better is some implication that we weren't good enough before.

And the thing that people have to realize about courses, Dana has a disclaimer on everything she sells.

And that disclaimer says that she reserves the right to make it better. She reserves the right that this is probably going to get better in the next round. Because she continues to get better and the next round. It doesn't mean that what you just got wasn't great. It just means it's going to probably get better. And she wants people to be shameless about that. She wants you to get your hands dirty. And she wants you to get in there and just do it.

She got a course that was actually kind of a bonus to something she had bought that was on Instagram stories.

When she went in to that bonus,she literally got access to a Dropbox folder with a zoom audio recording and a download. And she was like, “Wow, this is this is ghetto. Okay, all right.” But is was great content though. It was a two hour webinar. And if the person who created it would have waited to make that when he had all the time, all of the resources, all of the knowledge to take that and break it up perfectly and make it all perfect then Dana wouldn't have reaped the benefit of now thinking about stories in a different way.

As a result, Dana had this one aha moment I had about insist stories that forever changed the way she looked at them.

And that would make it worth the course. Everybody thinks that you have to add value to every moment and every second that's in there. You just need to give somebody one thing that changes the trajectory of how they believe, how they think, how they look at something, how they do something. That's where that value lies. You don't need a million aha moments. You just need the one aha moment and you're not sure where that's going to be for different people.

So she wants people to just go out and start making something.

And then reserve the right to make it better because the longer you wait to have time to make it perfect, the longer you are depriving your audience of having good knowledge that they might want to actually learn from you, instead of learning it from somebody else. Recognize that some people just want to hear it from you. They want to hear your perspective. That's what they want. They don't need it to be from somebody else. Stop waiting!

And I think that's a great way of thinking about online courses is just get it going.

You don't have to do an alpha and then beta and then launch. You can just get it out there. Let your community know that is there. And if you don't have as big a community, then you are going to get yourself more time, like Dan was saying, to do the marketing and to get eyeballs on it.

And if you reserve the right for it to be better in six months, then anybody who's coming in and gets it at this great lower price at this earlier time when you're still working through the pieces, they're just going to reap additional benefits. And you're going to get street cred, as silly as that sounds. If someone gets some one nugget and learns one thing new that they can now implement in their own business or their own life, they're going to remember that. They're going to remember you!

Dana shared that there's just such a wealth of knowledge. We all want to be learning and improving. People can't do that if you're keeping it to yourself. And I firmly agree with that.

Let’s get back to Thinkific and talk about bundles.

Thinkifc is really good for bundles. Dana shared her experience with bundles in Thinkific. She shared that you can create individual little courses or pieces of content. You can create something as easy as one PDF that subscribers can download. And then you have a choice that you can make a its page for people to be able to get a bundle of content.

So you might have a “Get More” sales bundle or a “Market Yourself” bundle. You can even create a “Ultimate Marketing” bundle which could be five pieces of content that you put together. And they get this bundle of content.

Dana used this Thinkific series to illustrate her point.

She said that I could take this series and put the podcast episodes as a bundle. She said each one could be its own little course on whatever topic. And I could ask each of my guests to give me a piece of free content that I could have in there. I could include the transcript, a workbook, and feedback from me of the lessons they learned and how to implement the tech the guests talked about. And then I could sell a “How to Use Thinkific to Launch Your First Course” bundle that I would sell through Thinkific.

And what I think is the power of bundles is that, with Thinkific, it doesn't mean that you're done.

If I did what Dana was saying about doing a Thinkific course with this series and in three months, I bring on another podcast guest and they, without my knowledge, drop a ton of value about Thinkific, I can make that into another course and throw it inside that bundle. It's not being sold separately. It would just be a part of that bundle.

And everybody who signed up for that bundle automatically gets access to any new courses that you add versus if I had done this podcast series as a course by itself and had the six interviews as individual modules inside that one single course someone might get to 100% and never come back because they're finished. But if we continue to add content to the bundle, then they have new courses that are at zero percent.

It gives a perception of value.

And Dana also thinks it gives you more flexibility to do other things. The reason she likes bundles is because you can pull apart and play. And when we talk about one of the huge benefits of the reasons why I love Thinkific so much is because it cuts the time it took her to actually get a course up and going.

Dana shared this amazing piece of knowledge.

She said that what you have to realize about business is that it is all about testing. It's about market research. The 80/20 rule applies for business. Which means 80% of what you do isn't going to work. Nobody's going to care about that post. Or nobody's going to buy that thing. But 20% is going to flourish. And the successful entrepreneurs are the ones that see what the 20% is. And they run with it.

So Thinkific cuts all of this time out so that it allows you to play and test and see what's working without having all of this tech and all of this stuff. So that every time you put something out, it feels like you're building a coliseum. It doesn't have to be like that. It can be simple and easy so that you can test and market to figure things out, and then you scale up.

And then you put more time and resources into making that thing to the next level.

And then you decide which one you're going to put all your energy into and what you want to be known for. But the thing is it gives you a sense of play. It gives you the ability to play, test, and figure things out without all the pressure. Dana thinks that's where a lot of the success is able to happen.

I love that the word “playground: that kept coming to my mind as she saying this.

Thinkific is really a playground. It’s a playground that you get to showcase your expertise. You get to be that cool kid on the monkey bars, doing all those fun things every single day as you're developing what you want to do there.

Dana shared so, so much in a short amount of time. She truly was a wealth of knowledge. How many nuggets did you take away from this episode? I would love to hear about it. So hit me up on Instagram. I am @techofbusiness. I look forward to wrapping up this Thinkific series with you in just a couple days with Thinkific co founder Miranda Lievers.

And until then, I hope you started to think about how you can take your intellectual property and your passion and converted into an online course. If you have any questions about Thinkific whatsoever let me know! And to get a free month of the pro plan of Thinkific go to techofbusiness.com/thinkific.

Thanks for listening to the tech of business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast or wherever you download your favorite shows.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Dana:

Website: Boss Moms
Podcast: Boss Moms Podcast
FB Group: Boss Moms
Instagram: @danamalstaff

087: Agency Skills Packaged in a Self Service Course with Brady Dahmer (Thinkific Series #4 of 6)

Wed, 02 Oct 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today is episode 4 of our 6 part Thinkific series. And I am so excited to be having this conversation with Brady Dahmer as part of the Thinkific mini series. I am excited to dig into how and why he’s using Thinkific. And also what his personal insights are and how those can translate into someone who is thinking about launching a course, online workshops, or online membership.

But before we jump right in to all these questions, let’s learn a little bit about Brady Dahmer.

Brady is a branding expert. And right now, he’s using the Thinkific platform with the course he created called”The Brand Primer”. This course is a bunch of workshops and tools designed to help companies brand themselves better. So it's downloadable, very digestible content that somebody could do with a company over the course of a lunch hour. It's comprised of fun and easy execute type of exercises with some actual results at the end of it.

This all comes from his background experience working with companies on their branding.

Brady runs a branding and communications company. They're always trying to find ways to mine the experience of their clients. So he, for instance,He’s always looking at things like how the sales team talks to their clients. When customer service is fielding calls, what are the top calls? Are these types of things touch points? What are the “brand pieces” of a company?

These are all important things to consider because each company is individual. So it’s important to know how we get to mine each one of those for each individual company. As a result of this type of thinking, they’ve been in this 10 year span of trying to develop a bunch of questions, to talk to all the thought leaders, and all the people who have direct contact with either clients or consumers of their products. So in that we kind of developed our own our own intellectual property, our own sort of way of doing things.

If you've ever heard of like Myers Briggs, the psychoanalytic tool, you know they ask you a bunch of questions that are multiple choice. So Brady’s system is very much like that.

They started developing these kinds of questions and tools to help companies explain and share they're learning experience and knowledge. These kinds of questions and tools designed to not threaten them or make it feel too complicated because they don't speak marketing or branding speak. Or at least they think they don’t. In reality, they're doing it every day. So Brady wanted to find tools to mine it, help them share, and basically be a translator of what they're doing every day to grow and expand their company.

I love how Brady is taking what he and his people do as an agency and branding company and converting that into something that is self service and easily digestible. From an online standpoint, that is brilliant.

But how long did it take for Brady to determine that he wanted to do an online course and online workshops? And from the point in time when you actually said, “I want to do this”, where did it take you?

Brady shared it was probably at least around 12 to 14 months. So as an agency, they are involved with a couple clients a month. And one of our clients said,

“Hey, this is really valuable, why aren't you selling this? Why are you writing a book and having other people share? Why are you sharing what you've learned and how you built these things?”

They were just blown away by our process because they never experienced anything like that before. So we understood that we had some really valuable intellectual property. And because we, as designers and creators who love design, were thinking that we love seeing a big problem and trying to find ways to interpret it. We love trying to find a really elegant solution to come up with the answer. So over the course of about 10 years, they really worked on those questions, They worked on the interaction of how to mine this data from companies.

So they had a 10 year research document. And they also understood that they had some really interesting and unique intellectual property.

So when Brady says it took about 12 to 14 months to come to the conclusion that the Thinkific platform was right for this, he didn't really know it was out there. He talked to a bunch of people about knowing how to share what they knew, while not losing it. On top of that, Brady wasn't really big on wanting to write a book because that defeated the purpose of having quick and digestible content that he wanted to be really accessible for everybody.

He started to examine all the platforms that are out there.

And of course, people are like, :”Oh, no, you should give that away for free!” And you know that there's a lot of these people online are saying, :Oh, just give a little bit away for free and bring them in and, and sell the full thing.” But Brady felt that part of this whole thing is that you have to experience the whole package or the whole workshop. Because if you are just answering one question, the workshop doesn't share with you the end result of what could happen, right?

So as they started to go down different roads to try to determine how to make this work.

He met up with Rob at Thinkific and basically asked what the platform does and how they could leverage this amazing intellectual property. Brady shared information with him and they had a really great meeting. He shared with Rob the journey they went through, where their value was, and where thought they could bring value to people. And Rob shared with Brady what what they could do with Thinkific.

Brady shared that he thought it was one of those perfect matches, where they could create these little bite size workshops on a platform and still kind of retain a lot of their intellectual property and brand. So building this on the platform is a whole other story, because obviously, it was a whole new language for the. But by doing so, they were able to still retain the genius and their intellectual property, and but share it and be recognized for it. So that's really why they love this platform.

This course and this workshop and all of this online content that Brady is now selling through the platform is a part of the business. But it's not the entire business.

Because of this I’m curious about how Brady is positioning his online assets that are “purchase this and do it yourself” products in the context of his larger business of offering branding services and doing the agency work. I wanted to know how he is positioning this component within all of the agency.

Brady shared that once they learned that they had something really interesting, they could teach it. So it's the agency has kind of taken a little bit of a backseat so they could create this larger piece that we could share and build for people. Again, Brady shared that they are an agency that loves a design thinking of solving big problems.

So the problem that they’re really trying to solve is for companies to understand their brand value.

They want companies to understand what learning experience and knowledge they have that they don't know how to leverage or they haven't thought about leveraging in any way. So for Brady’s company, it is about helping companies and entrepreneurs understand what the competitiveness is in the marketplace and then being able to push the buttons and levers to know what works and how to be more significant and distinctive in their respective audience or in their in their market.

So for Brady and his team, this was a really exciting and very complicated thing to try. They were focusing a lot of their stuff into this. And it also led them down the road of also producing more content and educational content as well. So Thinkific, as much as it is the workshops, it's also now blossomed into doing research papers. Because in certain areas, to build out a podcast, all these other sorts of things that will then lead to helping people get more out of understanding the value of the brand and the marketplace better.

It’s sort of funny. Back in the day, before we had the internet, everybody kind of like stayed in their lane.

And they didn't really look left or right. And nowadays, we look left and say, “Oh my goodness, look how many things we can do.” The reality is if we go left and then we decide to go left knowing that we could always go back to the straight line, go back to our agency, go back to our freelancing, or go back to our one on one if that's where we want to go.

But when you make the decision to put something new out there and let it guide you, there's some power in that. That never used to be the case. And now that we have all these online tools that makes it just that much easier.

As Brady mentioned, a whole other can of worms is the whole putting content into Thinkific and getting the workshop set up the way that you want them to. Let's dig a little bit into that.

For Brady, it was about presentation of content, not the platform itself . And the Thinkific platform has been super easy for them. Brady keeps on explaining to people as the Shopify of online courses. So if you've got your cloud, you got the written and visual content, you can build something like immediate, and you can launch it tomorrow.

Part of creating this course for them was the hours it took to create the written and visual content. Brady shared that if you have that content ready to go, it's just a matter of click and drag. It was amazing to him how easy the Thinkific platform was to use. Their biggest underestimate was the amount of the amount of content that we wanted to create and produce. There was so much more that they felt they needed to create to accomplish their goal. So they had a lot more work to do.

It all depends on what you're presenting.

But for Brady and his team, it was kind of a factor of 10. Sometimes where they thought they'd spend an hour on, it would be actually be 10 hours. That was their biggest issues. They wanted to produce the highest level of content because they’re talking about brands. And they want to inspire people by that high level of content as well. So they painted themselves a little bit into that corner of being a branding company. So producing something around branding, it had to be top quality. Everything had to be very well written and the visuals had to be top quality. They spent a lot of time on all of it just to make it right so they could inspire people. That was their mission.

So the Thinkific platform made it easy for Brady and his team to put the content out there. But creating content, it has to be within your wheelhouse. You have to be able to know what you want to say, how you want to say it, and present in a way that is on brand but also relevant and accessible.

It's a given that you want your brand and your business to be seen.

And for Brady, this was something that he had to keep on brand because that’s what his business was about. Another example would be, if you do one on one services and you don't have the high tech mic, all the cameras and lighting, and don't have scripts and a teleprompter, that doesn't mean that you can't still create a great course if those things aren't required for your own business and for you to be viewed in the perfect light for your business.

When people see me in person and on video, they generally see the weight rack behind me and Donald Duck. Those are on brand for me because people know me. I keep my personal brand part of everything so that wouldn't be off putting. But if I was speaking to a corporate environment, I may have to change the focus a little bit and not have that same aesthetic.

So just because it may have taken a lot longer to create the content that Brady wanted for their courses doesn't mean that that's going to be a roadblock for other people. And Brady said that the platform that he chose, Thinkific, isn't a roadblock and isn't a hard place to produce content.

It's about being authentic to your brand and inspiring.

So for Brady and his company, they’re presenting a brand, with a certain look and feel of that brand, that you won't notice for like the last 20 years or so with an agency. So it had to live up to their agency standards. Because all of their clients and suppliers, their network, and community is seeing that. So they not only had set the bar high, but they also wanted to make sure that they went up and above it to inspire and drive confidence. But it doesn't have to be that way for you. You just need authentic to your own voice. It’s about whatever matches your personality and what you are that’s key.

I've had a number of people come to me saying Masterclass is what they are striving for. And it's funny because some of them they're striving for the aesthetics of the website. Others are striving for the way that the videos are shot. And there are like miles between those two things. So it’s important to understand what you want to create and what part of what you are seeing you want to emulate. Because there's not a single business out there that is doing everything 100% right. You don't have to do even 10% of what that business that you're seeing is doing for you to be personally successful.

So when Brady looked at masterclass and thought that they wanted something along those lines as far as presentation, where did he go down that road?

Brady shared that he feels that the idea of perfection is usually what destroys most projects. It's also the procrastinator of many projects because perfection will just be nothing. You'll never really be happy but what you did. Look at the analogy that Masterclass was their Everest. But when climbing Everest, there's also living at base camp. So they worked back and determined what the really key,important things that didn’t need to be perfect. They had to determine what they were going to spend their time making perfect and then what were all the other things that don't need to be as perfect. Because we they wanted to get this done.

So maybe their videos aren't as good as they want to be. But they spent more time building up the workshops so that the outcome or experience of the workshop excels. And when somebody's gone through this workshop it doesn’t matter that the videos aren’t perfect because their experience of that workshop was amazing. So learning to know what's important to your audience is really key. So you can do things any number of ways. But it's about what you're trying to communicate and what you want to leave people with.

Brady gave a great example concerning Masterclass.

He related it to movies. He shared that you also have to understand that like when they have people like Martin Scorsese, he's not sitting there for free. There's a lot of money in the budget. Masterclass is like watching a Hollywood blockbuster movie. But not everybody needs to t do that to tell their story. In relation, you look at a movie like The Blair Witch Project and what is was able to achieve on a small budget.

It all boils down to communicating. It’s about being authentic and using what you have, really sharing it and, and be able to understand where your like minded people are. And it’s about understanding what your leverage points are. Understand your uniqueness that you want to share. When you have less, you're more willing to be creative about how you're going to present it and do it.

Brady shared that with Masterclass, it looked as though they were given a bunch of money to do what they wanted.

You can definitely tell like it was well produced sort of piece. It didn't seem like there's a limit to the budget based on who they have. But, Brady shared he’s watched more online YouTube videos than any of a Masterclass series just because it feels more authentic and he got to learn a lot quicker. There's a different vibe to it, where he doesn’t feel as though he needs to sit, watch, and pay attention.

So for Brady, they explained that even their clients to just look at the low hanging fruit. They want them to identify what they really want to communicate. And they want them to know what they really want people to get out of whatever experience that they’re trying to create around their brand. Then it’s time to build. Start there and then work outwards. If it's going to take you six months, just don't try to rush it, but just be really authentic to who you are. and produce a great experience with a great product for somebody.

I think that is the most relevant part of all of this is.. creating what you are a genius at.

What is your secret sauce? And what is your intellectual property? How can you package that in a way that it doesn't diminish from what your personal high end offer might be, but being able to distribute it to a larger volume of people? That's what online courses are all about! It's not about I'm using this tool or that tool. It's more about what you are able to help people solve! What problem are you solving for people? And how are they going to find success with what you're, what you're providing? It’s more about the delivery of that! It’s so important to know what is the bare minimum to do that and then keep on building on top of that. So that's the key to all of this. And we can iterate and reiterate it again.

As you can see there's no right answer to doing business. It's just a matter of continually moving forward and pushing the needle to keep moving. Brady has opened our eyes to so many opportunities and everything else. If you haven’t listened to the first 3 episodes of this series you can find them here.

Be sure if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app. And episode 5 of this series will drop next Monday. We’re going to be talking to Dana Malstaff, founder of Boss Moms! Thanks for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Brady:

Website: www.thebrandprimer.com.
Email: Brady@G
LinkedIn: The Brand Primer
Facebook Group: The Brand Primer

086: A Course to Answer the "Can You Teach Me" Question with Mr. Mo (Thinkific Series #3 of 6)

Mon, 30 Sep 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This is episode #3 of our 6 part Thinkific series. So far we have talked with Rob Balasbas who works for Thinkific. And Ariane Cap who had an established course that she brought over to Thinkific utilizing the platform for what she needed. If you haven’t listened to those episodes you can find them here.

Today we are talking with Mr. Mo. Mr. Mo uses Thinkific to share his storyboard class online. To him, it's a great platform, because it really takes away all the coding and technology. Why is this important? Mr. Mo says it’s important because it allows you to focus 100% on creating content and adding value to your students.

Let’s back up a little bit.

Mr. Mo was born in Korea, grew up in Argentina, and now he’s living in Los Angeles. He’s been working as a storyboard artist in the entertainment business for 14 years. So then when you are in this field for that long, you meet aspiring artists. Often they come to you and they have questions. They want some guidance.

And of course, Mr. Mo is more than happy to help them all. But his time is limited. Like everyone else, he only has 24 hours a day. So then the best way to help everyone was to create an online course. And he says the experience so far has been phenomenal.

So he basically took what people were asking him for on the street, in coffee shops, and in a place of work and translated it into something that he could sell online.

And I think that's great. It makes it so tangible. So because he knew he wanted to create the ability to teach in a “one to many” setting because he didn’t have hundreds of thousands of hours that he could give to each individual person.

So why did he choose to share his knowledge in such a competitive industry?

Mo shared that he really believes in adding value. And also, the whole fact of secrecy, he thinks it's fading really quickly because of information is so accessible. Also story-boarding itself is a major and also a department that not many artists know. So he wanted to get the word out and let aspiring artists know that there is such an industry. And there is actually need for good artists to come on board and help with the production.

So then he thinks it's a win-win deal for everyone. Even production studios win here because the demand for original content is growing so fast. They will need more and more artists to be available. And Mo cannot do all the storyboard work himself. He needs people and talented artists to. I'm sure the entertainment business also needs them. This is why it’s a win win situation.

Doesn’t that kind of thinking just speak to Mr. Mo’s integrity? And it also speaks to how he is a part of the production system. And he’s not just one person in there. It's interesting to me that he can then watch his students as they develop their own story-boarding and their own craft. It definitely gives Mo the opportunity to find students that really has a knack for this craft. He’s kind of like a talent agent at some level.

So how does Mr.Mo interact with, inspire, and help his students beyond the classroom? Beyond the course?

Mr. Mo shared that once they sign up, he has a private Facebook page where he’s always in touch with his students. Because he believes keeping himself accountable. So he lets his students know that he’s there watching them. He’s not stalking them, but he’s watching their progress.

Every once in a while he will reach out to them privately. He will ask them personal questions. Because the beauty of teaching online is that you're able to connect with people that are the other side of the world, right? And Mr. Mo shared that it's been an amazing experience to see them grow and learn from him. So he wants to make sure that they get their ROI, because they're purchasing the course. They're putting their trust in him. He wants to make sure that they get their return.

The most important thing that I think for course creators to do is to provide an environment for their students to succeed.

It's not good enough to just put out fabulous content, if you haven't created and foster that environment for them to feel like they can truly get it, master it and use it. If you don’t create the right environment then you're not doing your “full job” as a course creator.

Teaching online really taught Mr. Mo to care for students on a much deeper level. This is his first online course and the interaction that I have with his students and to see them grow brings so much joy. He really enjoys what he’s doing at this point.

As I said before, the most important thing is making sure that you're living up to your promise to your students that they were going to learn this from your course. How does Mo help them make sure that they realize that they are getting that value?

For Mo, this is where Thinkific comes in because they have really amazing automation system for course creators. Which is awesome because it means you don't have to be hands on all the time with repetitive tasks. It's always great to automate. So this is one of the functions of Thinkific that he uses. His students get a weekly reminder of the progress. And if they’re not making progress, they get a reminder to help them really keep moving forward. Mo would like to thank Thinkific for these automations. I’m sure there are lots of others who echo that sentiment.

The function that Mo is talking about is the built in reminders that you can either turn on or turn off inside. It is turned on by default. It's perfect. But I was curious if Mo has any external email solution that he uses to compliment things. Or does he just keep it as simple as possible, using as much as possible from inside Thinkific?

Mo shared that at this very moment, everything is done with Thinkific. If he does send them an email it is just through Gmail. He is utilizing direct messaging on Facebook as well. He makes sure to become friends with all his students on Facebook. He likes to keep it personal. At the end of the day, he’s creating an online course and then it selling online, but he’s dealing with real people. So for him, building a relationship is very important.

I have to say I love that. I think this is a really great approach to making this make sense for him and his students and cultivating that knowledge and culture of we're all doing this. We all can leverage each other and we can learn new techniques. He’s saying to his students, “I can learn from you just as much as you're learning from me.” And anytime that your students might have a question, that may prompt a revision of a module. It may prompt a bonus video or different things like that. So having that really tangible connection with his students makes great sense.

I was curious to know, since this is his one online platform, how did people start finding his course? And how is he actually getting it out there that this course is available?

The way this course got started was through pre-sale. Actually Rob and the people at Thinkific suggested that Mo should do a pre-sale. It would allow him to make sure that there was a demand. So he got the word out through his social media. On his Instagram account he has about 12k followers. Mo shared that the people that follow him do so not because of his travels or anything like that, but because either they like his words or they want to one point become a storyboard artist. So he really used his current social media to reach out to his followers and tell them about the course.

Also he has a good friend in Taiwan out of all places. And he shared earlier, relationships are very important to him. This friend was introduced to him through an online course. It's funny how life works. You just meet random people. And this guy happens to be an art teacher in Taiwan. So he was the one that actually promoted Mo’s course to his students. There are a lot of students in Taiwan that are actually taking his course.

You see the way Mo promotes his course is very organic.

It is through his social media is, through people that he knows, and through new people that he’s going to meet in the future. He does also have an affiliate program. But he does have certain criteria to be an affiliate. Mo always like to work with either teachers or people that are the educational site.

I love that way Mo promotes his course is organic. It's using an influencer market. Mo knows that teachers and art students are the types of people who would be most interested in this medium. So it doesn't make sense for Mo to go and necessarily buy paid advertising to be able to hit men in their 40s who are sick of their 9 to 5 job. That doesn't make sense, because they aren't the ones who are passionate about art and getting it out there.

I love the fact that Mo is using his personal Instagram. Anytime that there's fun Instagram feeds to watch. It's just it's a really great way of doing it. And I think that that's the best way to make sure that you've got traction. The last thing I wanted to hear was for Mo to say, “Oh, yeah, I had a couple of people asked me at the coffee shop, if I could create a course for them. So I created it. It took six months for somebody to be interested.” I love that he went the pre-sale approach.

And let's talk a little bit about that.

Story-boarding usually is done for either movies or commercials or video games. So then, he created a very short intro video of what he was going to teach and who he was is and added the link for the pre-sale. That's the approach that he used. He uploaded it on Facebook and Instagram. And he got people's interest.

He shared that he feels the reason that happened was because the people that follow him already enjoyed his artwork. It was also a great way to test the market and see if the demand was actually there.

I wanted to know if Mo had any thresholds that he was tracking to figure out that he was going to go through and actually create the course. Was it the number of click throughs? Or maybe the number of purchasers? How did he know after doing the pre-sale that this was really truly viable?

So for Mo, if he promises something, he was going to deliver no matter what. So if he said he was going to pre-sell and if even one student will sign up, then he’ll really put his heart into it and make it happen. But in reality, life is life. You have bills that need to get paid and such. So in the back of his head, he had a number that he needed to reach for him to dedicate his time for at least two months to create a course. But like I said, even if one student would sign up, Mo shares that he thinks he would have created it. But it would have taken longer to do so because he couldn’t take 2 months off to create the course for just one person.

Mo actually took a couple months off to create the course. Because story-boarding is actually a freelance job unless you are working for a production company. He was able to take about two months “off” to create his course. So essentially he took two months to freelance for himself and really create a course and make sure that he would set the level that he was happy with.

Mo has been selling the course for about a month now.

So we recorded this in August. So by the time this episode is live, it has been under his belt for about two months. I figured that he had been on the platform a lot longer. Just because when I look at what Mo has on there, it looks so professional. It looks like Mo is all in and that this is top notch. And I know that Thinkific makes some of those things easy. But Mo also had to spend the time to make it right.

So what's the feedback that Mo is getting from his students? Are they getting stumped on anything? Has he modified anything since he launched?

Mo hasn’t modified anything. But some of the students are still going through the modules. He noticed that everybody has their own life. People are busy nowadays. So he understands that some students take longer. And some students have already finished and the last homework is actually creating a portfolio.

In that homework assignment, he gave them a realistic deadline. He told them they could take about a month to finish the last assignment. So he has students that are really putting the time and effort to create their own portfolio.

When those portfolios are finished and the students have officially wrapped up the course, what are they poised to do next? Are they going to come back to Mo for something more? Are they going to be able to submit for freelance jobs? What's next for them? How is Mo helping them see that vision?

The way that Mo is doing it is whenever they are finished with the portfolio, they can send it to him directly. He will go over the portfolio and review with them. And he told him in advance that we have to be critical at some of the illustrations. So don't take it don't take personal. That's the nature of the business. If you want to become a professional artist, you really have to learn to not take anything personal. Whatever the directors or producers are saying is towards the illustration is not towards you.

Mo thinks that's the first homework for them to pass. They have to send him their portfolio, and he'll give them direct feedback. And we keep on improving it until he reaches a point that he’s happy and they're happy. And once they have reached that point, he gives them an email list of where they can send their works for consideration.

The way that Mo has created this course and is hand holding his students through it is really helping them. It’s literally a career launch. And it really truly has that much power. I think that that's phenomenal. And really shows the power of an online course.

We didn't spend a whole lot of time digging into the nitty gritty of Thinkfic because that's not the point of this conversation. But I wanted to know what Mo’s favorite part of the Thinkific platform has been as he has been putting this course together.

For Mo, it was how easy it is to create a module. And how easy is to rearrange things. He likes the fact that you can choose either to go with video or with text or both or PDF. There are so many different options for customizing your course. Your imagination is the limit. Mo likes how easy the model creation has been set up.

**If anybody is interested in Mo’s course, it looks like there are a few preview units in the first module where people can actually go through and see kind of what Mo has created inside those modules. I cannot wait to get feedback on this podcast episode from the Tech of Business listeners and for them to be able to connect with Mo and to learn more about story boarding.

Be sure if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app. And episode 4 of this series will drop on Wednesday. We’re going to be talking to another user of Thinkific! Thanks for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Mr. Mo:

Instagram: @iam.mr.mo
Facebook: Mr. Mo
Website: www.iammrmo.com

085: Teaching the Bass Online with Ariane Cap (Thinkific Series #2 of 6)

Wed, 25 Sep 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This is our second episode in the 6 part series all about Thinkific. Thinkific is a hosted learning management system. And if you haven't already listened to the first episode in this series, it was with Rob Balasabas who is one of the employees at Thinkific. He gives a fantastic overview of the platform.

Today's episode is with bassist Ariane cap. Ariane teaches how to play the bass. It is absolutely imperative how she's using the platform and how we've extended the platform. Why do I say this? Because I have actually worked with her on her Thinkific course and other pieces of her business. And what's most important in this episode, if I do say so myself, is how Ari took the platform and made her own decisions. Her story is fabulous. It is inspiring!

I am so so excited to kind of share Ari’s Thinkific journey with the audience as part of this series. As I said before, I have worked with Ari on her Thinkific course and other aspects of her business. She shared this, “It's fun to be on the podcast with you. And you've been a big part of my success.” At the time of recording this podcast it had been at least a year since we had worked together. It has been about a year and a half since Ari and I first started working on her Thinkific site together.

But before we go any further, I’d like for you to get to know a little more about Ari.

Ari is a bass player. She’s a musician, a performer, and composer. She has been teaching for a very long time as well. She loves being an educator. And she loves working with people. Ever since technology hit the scene, she’s been exploring ways of integrating that into the work she does.

It all started with a book that she wrote and self published in 2015, that became very successful.

And on the heels of that she noticed, especially if you do something so visual, like learning an instrument, that it's really helpful to have video. So the first thing she did with the book was she created about 900 videos that explained some of the concepts that she had in the book. And she put those on YouTube. She thought to herself, “Well, everybody who is looking at those videos, that’s somebody who's already interested in my material and is aware of me.”

She also had the advantage that she was a fairly well known player.

A lot of people in the scene knew her already. She also had the chance to study with some very well known bass players such as Victor Wooten and such. So a lot of people were already aware of her or knew the name.

But she thought, “Well, if all these people are looking at looking at my videos for the book, maybe there's more I can do.” And she started getting videos from people who said, “You know, your book is really great, but it would be so great to have some support going through it. Or can you show me some examples.”

And she knows from teaching all her students for so many years, one on one, that there's this plethora of exercises that she could put them through, that would lend themselves really well for a course.

So she thought, “Well, I got the book, and I got the 89 free videos that go with the book. And people keep asking for more. So why don't I put together a course?” She went on to explain,

“And you know how it is when you have to self motivate yourself to do something. For example, the book, I wrote the book on writing retreats, because it takes a ton of discipline to get yourself to sit down and actually do this. So I really had to force myself to do that. And I knew that psychology worked for me, because I would do writing retreats one week, every month, or whatever it took, until I had it done. So I thought I'll do the same thing for a course.”- Ariane Cap

And so she started with just giving herself a deadline, put out a PayPal link, and told people there will be this course.

She told them it'll start on this and this date. She woke up the next morning to surprisingly large amount of money in the bank by doing that, putting it out there.

At the same time, she had started to do blogging. She had started to do some seminars with some other educators who were kind enough to see talent or meet me and liked what she did. They invited her into their platforms and encouraged her to go forward with what I you know, she was sort of had a loose concept of wanting to do. They were all very encouraging. And that made a huge difference.

So she woke up that morning and had all this money in the bank. And she thought, “Wow, I haven't even created that course yet. But I have a deadline. So now I have to!” And so it ensued. She had about two months and half of that month was figuring out the tech and back end. And she didn't know anything about Thinkific. She didn't know anything about much at all except a little WordPress because that is how she did her blog.

But then she decided she wanted to do the course on HER OWN platform.

She created this very in depth, huge 20 years course that really goes in depth. And she just wanted over deliver and give people a ton of value. She was excited because it was all fresh and new. And she just wanted to go all in. And it turned into so much more work than she could have ever imagined.

Then the tech was buggy and the launch went wrong, because the coupons weren't right. And the email got clogged up. Everything that could go wrong went wrong. So it was an extremely emotional and stressful period. But to make a long story short, the course did become a huge success. And lots of people signed up.

She also had this idea that she didn't want to give them all the content at once. She wanted to drip out the content so that people didn’t jump ahead. Why? Because she knew how people learn. And I know how technology can either enhance that or how technology can slow that learning down and become an obstacle because technology lends itself to distraction. We know that from social media.

She wanted to make sure she did what she could to keep people focused on the material. And so that's how she approached it.

So she wanted the content to be addressed. And she wanted to come in every week. She wanted to go through the books. And she wanted to instruct her students to read those pages, watch those free videos, and then here are seven more areas where you can learn. She wanted it to be all nicely structured. There were these options and it worked really surprisingly well.

Ari shared that course creators are being told to keep it simple at first and make a short course. And that's probably all good advice. Especially when she think about about her mental state back then. But she would also say that if you have a vision, and if you know what works then listen to that. She had a pretty good hunch this drip once a week would work. And so she followed that gut instinct and sent the tech to do what sheI needed to do. And it worked really, really well.

She was super thrilled.

And she had the course up for about two years on my her website. It was basically a membership plugin that she used. Ari shard that thing that's always so surprising, for course creators, is when you create something and you put it out, you think you're done right now I'm going to lean back. That's just customer email. It's like that's just the beginning. Because then things start going wrong. And the payment portal doesn't connect and installment payments don't work.

And after about a year and a half, she saw that she was outgrowing my own platform. It was also slowing down my her website because it was huge. The course had so many videos/ They were all hosted on Vimeo, but still there was so much content on there. She figured she needed to move.

And then she started looking for a different platform.

And I looked at a lot of them. She looked at Kajabi. And she looked at a Teachable. She looked in depth. And she kept cycling back to Thinkific because they had a bulk import. That was huge for her, because she had so many videos. She didn't want to have to do these all manually. So she liked the bulk import, the layout, and the customer service. And she found somebody who could help me. And that process alone took about six months because the course was so big.

She still kept it running on the old platform during that time. She kept telling people that new stuff was coming. And another thing was she wanted to have the ability to bookmark videos. She wanted people to be able to see what they had already seen. She wanted them to be able to slow down or speed up videos. And she wanted quizzes. The ability to have these things was a big one for her that I couldn't do on my membership site.

And then she also wanted to do trainings as a coach.

She wanted to bring in some coaching. Thinkific has this option where you can put in modules. And then so she would use that really heavily. You could get reward emails when you finish a module. Or you would get reminders to login and things like that. So that was all stuff that Thinkific could do and she couldn't do. She really wanted all the discussions as well. And that's when she moved.

And as she was moving to Thinkific and that's when I came on the scene and had more ideas. Thinkific and their customer support is wonderful. When Ari wondered about certain things she may be able to do on the platform they said, “Well, you know, you could, but you probably have to know code.” And while she was pretty good at learning things, coding was always the one place she drew the line.

So I was on one of the few on one of the sites of a recommended tech personnel. And that vetted everybody very carefully and then Ari decided to work with me because it seemed I had the most to do with technology. Ari contacted me and I came up with even more ideas. I was like, “Well, you could actually put all this and then you can do that.” So in Ari’s eyes I had exactly the right ideas for her . So that's when we started collaborating.

I have to say I love this story.

Seriously, I really love the story, because what Ari just said is that she came to the platform with something fully developed. And there were places that it was stretching her and her team beyond what felt comfortable/ She didn’t want them to have to deal with failed payments. And she didn't have to deal with lost passwords and things of that nature. So she used that framework in mind as she was looking for a platform. And to sweeten the pot, the bulk import was important. It was so important.

So it doesn't really matter if you've never created a course before or if you've got a full blown course. You find different reasons to gravitate to one platform or another. And so now that Ari is on Thinkific she’s doing all these other things.

I know that one of the projects that she and I worked on was developing this whole drip schedule.

We had to make it so that it made sense because what she wanted to do wasn't natively available within Thinkific. So we then we had bed. Yeah, I remember that. Oh, my goodness. So what we did is we took her 20 modules course and created 20 courses.That's right, we created 20 courses so that we would be able to do the drip in the way that she wanted it to be able to drip it. We also did a few other bits and pieces.

I built a Zapier. I did all sorts of Zapier stuff/ I integrated her with Convert Kit so that everything worked smoothly with that. And then she was able to import all of her users over. Everyone was able to kind of come in where they needed to be. So if people were brand new purchasers, they'd come into module one. If they already had the content, we've made it available so that was an easy transition for them. We had to just do some digging in behind the scenes to make some of that stuff work.

Not everybody is going to draw the line at no coding, some people may draw the line earlier on.

There are going to be people that say, “I don't want to configure this thing. And I just want to create my content.” That’s really pretty cool. But for Ari, in this journey of creating all these online resources, she all in. She likes to use scheduling for her one on one teaching. And she uses zoom. She now has a three camera set up which allows her to show people where her fingers are and all that. But she never thought how much the technology would,in some ways, lead her into thinking

“Oh, it's possible to integrate this with this? Well, that would mean that while they are studying their technique, we could give them a little video here. It’s just that the power of the technology for the user experience does something I had never really thought about...how much this can make or break the students sticking with the content.” - Ariane Cap

Here is why Ari thinks that Thinkific is so great.

There are ways to easily find things very quickly/ You can now you can mark what you've already watched. And you can easily see because her content is so huge. Think about it in terms of a book. We use a book marker or fold over a page corner to mark where we leave off. Ari and her students are able to do something similar to this inside Thinkific. They are able to easily go back to content they have seen if they get stuck. And they are able to pick up right where they left off. All while Ari can see where people are inside of these courses. It has been really helpful.

Ari and I also integrated the forums for her course.

This was something that Ari came to me saying, “I'd really love to have a forum. I'm having a cohort.” At the beginning of 2019, Ari was going to have a cohort of new users who were going to go through her course. They were all going to start at the same time. And she wanted to have a place for them to communicate with each other, to talk to her, to submit their assignments, etc . So we determined the best option was to do a standalone forum.

So we built a forum on her hosting company. It was just on another sub-domain. So she had her Thinkific sub-domain and her forums on another sub-domain. With the magic of Zapier, when someone signs up for Thinkific, we automatically created them a user inside your forum. All they had to do was set up a password. So we didn't go all the way to single sign on, which is a functionality that is a higher level entity. But we made it so that it was super easy. All they had to do was go in and add a password and then get started.

The whole idea of a forum and a place for people to communicate outside of the course is huge.

I know even just recently over the summer, one of my friends and a past guest on the podcast actually asked what helps people get through their courses. And I think that's it! Community and forums and a place to connect is absolutely 100%, one of those facets!

So why did Ari decide to go with a forum?

Around the New Year, everybody's talking about New Year's resolutions. And she knows so many people sign up for courses and go in there with the best intentions. But she does know that also from what she does or learned as a coach, is that it usually works until the second week of January. And then we fall off the wagon. But research shows us that we have a much higher success rate, if we have peer support and accountability. We have more success if we know people are watching us.

And she just kept thinking about how she could help people through this course.

Here’s another thing that's great about thinking big. Ari can spy on her students. She can see how much they're doing. And because she knew that it was going to be easier for them if they had support since they had this fresh new year energy. So she thought, “Why don't I create a version of the course, everybody who signs up between today and in three weeks will be added to this cohort, and you will be going through the course together.”

This version of the course would be automated and really low key. Because if you ask too much, people are going to drop off. So we made it really really low key. People in this version of the course would have one week to pick an assignment that they really like. And then they would have one week to practice it. Then on that next Sunday, they were going to submit it as a video.

And that's another thing I helped her with.

Because recording a video, putting it in an iPhone, getting it on a computer and then uploading it in a Dropbox is a headache, right? I helped Ari implement this one click Record right into the browser. Every other week, they're submitting their homework. And we have a wonderful YouTube that's hidden from the world. So maybe we can get in there and see those submissions. And we can see what people are doing. We can even give them feedback.

But this whole idea of accountability, that's where the forum was so great!

Because in the forum with everybody, all their peers are watching, we're going to to commit and say, “I'm going to do exercise number three, and maybe number five is I get to it.” And then on Sunday, they have to submit that. They can submit it privately or that can submitted for everybody to see and critique and cheer them on. But it has just made a huge difference.

And Ari had a lot of people to drop off of this version of the course which is to be expected. That's just normal human nature. But Ari had a diehard group of people who were sticking with it. A group of people who were panicking if they're a day late. And a group of people who are submitting and improving. Ari shared that it's just such a joy to see they're working hard. And it's just amazing to see their success. That was in beta. And at the time of this recording we're in August. So they've been at it since January. For Ari that is just amazing.

Ari and her students also do monthly Q and A's.

W alsoe do special cohort Q and A's. In the forum, they have all these questions floating about the bustling energy. And it's fantastic. And on the morning of this recording, she invited everybody into the forum. So the forum is now public. It has public places, but it also has cohort places. And those are private. This is for the cohort only.

This first round was in beta, but she’s definitely going to be offering this again and maybe make small groups so that people really start getting to know each other. And the energy in there is just phenomenal. So she couldn't be more pleased! She and her students do it like a 20 unit course. They do it every other week. So that's 40 weeks! Ari is a music teacher. She knows she can make a difference in 40 weeks. Nobody wants to talk about 40 weeks They want something that they can play like a hero in a weekend or maybe a 12 week course. But 40 weeks? She knows that she can do a before and after assessment with those people that is mind blowing.
I want the listeners to hear this right now. If you know your audience, and you know what you can do, there is no limit!

You don't have to have “Learn How to Build a Website in a Weekend” course. That's a course that I have never been interested in creating. But the idea of, learn how to play the bass so that you can actually jam and feel confident and have expert eyes on your fingering. But it's gonna take you this full year. It's going to be a one year process. You set your New Year's resolution, and next year, you're going to have achieved it if you stick to the plan. There's no reason not to go big if it makes sense with what you offer and how you offer it.

Let’s talk about using the Thinkific platform vs.a membership site on WordPress.

Ari was importing over the course. And she was just looking at all these different types of lessons that were there. At first when she imported it over, she would have the videos and some text embedded in the same lesson. But then she changed that because she really wanted to know how much people are watching the videos, where they drop off, and if they do drop off what she can do to tweak that. And that’s something you can only do if you put the video as a separate lesson. So she rearranged the course so many times. And have we mentioned that her course is huge? That's 20 units.

Ari is now offering confidence courses and training course. And she’s about to release core principles, which is a new course. She also has lots more in the pipeline. She loves the Thinkific platform because now she has the learning curve done. And it's just easy peasy as far as Thinkific is concerned.

Ari was definitely surprised at how many things you can do.

For example, with the quizzes, she can put 50 questions in there and she can tell Thinkific to only give that students 10 of them. To Ari this is awesome because then she can tell her students that they can do it again and they will get different questions.

Ari was also suprise by how you upload files.

She liked how Thinkific integrates, because she has a lot of booklets, sound files, and extra PDFs that come with the lessons. So she can bundle those together and it's a one click download at the end. And then you have the whole thing.

She liked how you can integrate the sound files.

For Ari they look really pretty. She just puts a SoundCloud link in there and it gets the player. She says that it looks really posh. It makes her old course look pretty shabby. Ari said it was all scroll city. You would have to scroll forever to find stuff. And you had to always go into different tabs.

I can really appreciate that! That just gave a really good visual the audience right now.

Because you know, that's the thing about sharing about these technology platforms, in this podcast capacity. You don't have the visual to go along with it. So I think that really helped everybody kind of get a really good idea of what it is with Thinkific and what I really wanted to do with this series. I think Ari is really helping to do that. Ari helped showcase how powerful it is, when you're using a hosted platform that has so much support.

You're not just buying a hosting platform. And you're not just buying a blank slate. You're buying a blank slate that you can do anything you want to do on it with an entire support system and an entire development team. These people want to help you succeed. That's really what you're getting with Thinkific.

And that's why I love having clients on Thinkific as often as possible. Not every client makes sense for Thinkific. And we go through the one on one process to make sure that it is truly the right platform for them. But Ari has really shown and highlighted the power of choosing the hosted platform. And I really appreciate that it wasn't even prompted.

This is where Ari tells us even MORE about what she likes about Thinkific.

She also likes all these integrations that Thinkific has set up. For example, she can use one tool and then go into Convert Kit. And Thinkific also helps you with the marketing. She shared one fun example of Thinkific helped her with marketing.

She likes to do early birds. And she likes to do specials. This is especially true when she is building a course. It's helpful to have an idea up front about how interested are people going to be in that sort of thing. So she likes to do early bird pricing. There is a coupon that she gave people and they could use it and get 50% off or something.

She was thinking that when they would purchase, there would be a small icon indicating the person has a coupon. And they would have to click that and then put the coupon code in. Of course, what happens the first day? Half of her people didn't see the coupon! She was getting angry emails!. So she went to Thinkific and asked for help in making that icon bigger! And they actually said don't, because it's about your course, it's not about the coupon. People are just overlooking that field. So what ended up happening was that I just took a little screenshot and made a big pink arrow and showed people what they needed to do. She refunded everybody who overlooked it.

What Ari just highlighted there is the fact that Thinkific cares!

They really truly cared about what you were putting out there. I have some clients who have lower priced courses. hey have $10- $30 courses and they have coupons that they want people to use the coupon. So for a couple of my clients, we made it so that that link wasn't hidden. We made it so that the coupon code field was visible. And we made it so that there was a field you didn't even have to click them. And then on some of these clients, we even went so far as that “enter coupon code ABC XYZ here” to get the current price. Those are the kinds of things that you can do.

But I love the fact that Thinkific explained to Ari the rationale and they helped you do even better in your students eyes. Because then instead of just making it bigger for then to see, Ari took a picture of this icon and showed them that you are going the extra mile for them by showing them what they need to do. And that immediately put you in their good books. And then they already see that she cares about them. Then they are more apt to see what she's providing in this course.

This has been so insightful.

Next week in episode 3 and 4 of this series, I have two really interesting interviews for you. They are with newer users of the Thinkific platform. So Ari was a great story of how someone's used the platform successfully. Next week, we're going to talk with two people who are using the platform for the very first time and don't necessarily know everything that's going to come, It’s a really great place. If you are thinking about starting with the platform, you have to listen to these episodes so that you can see yourself in their shoes.

Be sure if you haven't yet, subscribe to the podcast in your podcast app. And episodes 3 and 4 of this series will drop next week. Thanks for listening to the Tech of Business podcast. If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcasts, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Ari:

Website: Ari's Bass Blog
Facebook: Ariane Cap
Musician Website: Arianecap.com

To listen to the first episode in this series "Your Student Experience in Online Courses with Rob Balasabas" click here.

084: Your Student Experience with Online Courses with Rob Balasabas (Thinkific Series #1 of 6)

Mon, 23 Sep 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This episode has been a long time coming! I am super excited for us to be kicking off the Thinkific mini series here on the podcast. Today we’re speaking with Rob Balasabas who is a Social Media and Community Strategist with Thinkific. He is the first episode in a six part mini series where I’m going to be speaking with more people in the Thinkific network including employees and super users!

I really felt that it would be beneficial to start this series off with a member of the Thinkific team up there in Vancouver. And Rob and I are always in contact because I am so connected with the Thinkific community. I just felt that he was a perfect person to bring on to just kind of talk a lot about what the platform is. And also what the platform can do and how it can help entrepreneurs and business owners deliver their courses.

At its core, Thinkific is an online course platform.

Rob says that Thinkific tries to make it as easy as possible for people of all types of business deliver their online content to their audiences. From solopreneurs to entrepreneurs. From small brands and teams and businesses to enterprise or mid market companies. Thinkific want to helps people in business to build their online courses, their training programs, and then their memberships.

According to Rob, If you dig into it a little bit deeper, you'll learn that it's much more than that. There are people behind it. And that's what Thinkific tries to really focus on. It's not just the people that are creating the courses. Rob says, “We love them.” They are the ones that are paying for the subscriptions and they keep the lights on.

But Thinkific also really cares about is their students, right? So the people that are purchasing or taking their courses. So Thinkific wants to make sure that the experiences for their students and their members are really good. It's seamless and smooth. And so then, that in turn, really helps their course creators succeed. If their students are having a really easy time consuming the content, that helps their course creators succeed that much more.

If you go to the Thinkific website, you'll see a lot of their course creators there. You'll also meet a lot of their team members there. So Thinkific tries to really humanize this tech company that's been built.

I think that's a really good way of describing Thinkific. There is definitely a human side to this tech company.

I've had the opportunity to have one-on-one conversations with a good handful of the Thinkific employees. Those conversations have taken place both in person and over a video call. To me that has been an incredible, incredible thing to help me to help the Tech of Business audience determine if Thinkific is the right platform for them.

There are different levels of how you can use Thinkific, but let's start kind of at the beginning.

If someone's brand new and they want to come in at the base level, they're coming in and they can create a couple of courses. Then they can sell them. It's all FREE to get started and it's out of the box. It works. You don't actually have to use anything else. I wanted to discuss what functionality is built in to that base level.

Thinkific does have a free plan. It literally costs $0 million per month. On this base level, you can create up to three courses, which is plenty for most. Most people create one or two flagship courses. You can also have an unlimited amount of students. So you can have as many students take your course and it’s still free. And the big thing is that you can integrate directly with Stripe or PayPal to accept payments. This means you can make money and sell your courses and not to have to pay us anything.

On this base level, you'll have all the things that you would need in that free plan to launch your course. It would include all the video hosting. So if you want to upload as many videos as you like, you can do that on this free plan. You can use all of the different lesson types, quizzes, presentations, and audio lessons. THIS IS ALL INCLUDED IN THE FREE PLAN! Thinkific has made it so easy for everyone to get started.

When a business is growing and starting to evolve it’s so important to have a tool that you can use, continue to learn more, and use over time.

I think that that helps lower the barrier to entry to try out Thinkific. And what I also think is very beneficial is when someone signs up as a student in your free school or all the way up at any level, there are some emails that can be automatically sent right on sign up. They can be sent on a weekly basis reminding people of their course that they've purchased and that they are signed up for.

There are different things that are kind of built into the system to help that student of yours succeed. That keeps us as course creators, as entrepreneurs, out of the customer service, password reset, those types of functionality. The fact that Thinkific has made it so easy and useful for even base users might be one of the many reasons as to why someone would think this is one of the things that makes Thinkific better and different than other course platforms.

Rob shared there's all the different features when it comes to course platforms.

Everyone has their own feature that they may want for their course. And everyone’s needs may be a little bit different. But he thinks what really draws people in, and if you go to their Facebook group, you'll see the support is just outstanding! So that's something that they as a company really tries to stand behind.

Rob shared that the platform is great. They have a ton of developers working around the clock, launching tons of features. I know this to be true because I’ve spoken to and met a ton of them in person when I had the pleasure of visiting the Thinkific offices in Vancouver. The platform is great, but the people behind it are incredible. Rob shared with me a rule that they have in their office. That rule is that they need to answer every email, every day that comes in. So there's nothing that goes over to the next day, over 24 hours.

“All of our team members, we do emails, like we'll reply to emails. It's just baked into our culture, baked into our calendar. So there is a portion of my week where I actually dive into customer emails and replying to emails and things like that.”- Rob Balasabas

And their Facebook group is just very supportive. They have a toll free number.

So I think the thing that a lot of people will come to is that they really like that support. So having that support, that's really like the one main advantage that Thinkific is really very proud about over other platforms out there. If you are an entrepreneur, you know how important it is to have a support system that you can reach out to when you are trying to accomplish a task and something happens.

During this Thinkific series you’re going to get conversations that I'm going to have with course creators who are using the platform effectively. I've got some great ones lined up. I'm so excited for you guys to listen to those and to enjoy those stories. But there's more that the platform can offer! These types of things take place in the next couple of tiers.

Once you're using a platform, you want to use as much of it as possible. One of the things that oftentimes people come to me for is they want to integrate Thinkific with their email marketing provider that they're already using. That's something that happens quite often. Or they want to get update status and they want to be notified in ways or get action information in other ways.

So when I'm talking email marketing integrations, I'm talking Zapier's integrations. So those are probably the two big things that people come to me for. I asked Rob if those are the ones that he generally sees people wanting to implement first? Or where did people put touch points and interactions between Thinkific and their other online tools?

According to Rob, the Zapier integration is a really key piece with a lot of the course creators because it opens up the doors to whatever they're already using.

That’s something that as the company and as a platform, as a team, we really are not in the business of trying to build everything for everyone. So we're not building a CRM. We're not able to build an email automation tool because there's already really great ones out there. So what we've decided to do instead is make it very easy to integrate with those existing tools that our customers are already using. So a lot of those tools, we have direct integrations with. The ones that we don't, we leverage with Zapier. (THIS IS WHERE I HELP WITH THINKIFIC!)

Rob shares that he finds that that's really one of first things that people want to do once they've figured out how Thinkific works. So the thought process is deciding that this is the platform you’re going to use. They then learn how to upload and build courses. Then they think, “Now how do I communicate with my customers, my list,my database? How do I an offer later? How do I segment them?”

This is where they start trying to see if Thinkific has direct integrations for the tools they are using. However, they may be using tools or apps in their business that don’t have direct integrations. This is where Zapier can come into play. If you're very technical and understand how Zapier works, Thinkific has ZAPs that will enroll students and unenroll them and other different zaps that it works really smoothly.

So this is how it works.

In Zapier you've got triggers zaps, which means that when something happens on Thinkific, it triggers Zapier to do an action. And you have actions, which means something happens outside of Thinkific and it sends information into Thinkific. So it's a two way street. That is one of those pieces that you don't have to know as the entrepreneur how to make that work. You just have to know that that functionality exists. That if you want to do your sales outside of Thinkific, you can get your students enrolled. If you want to enroll people and have them pay inside Thinkific, but you want to update your database, your CRM, your email list, you can do that. It's a matter of just knowing that those are the options that are available.

Let’s talk course development, course tools, and structuring courses.

There are so many ways that people can deliver their course content and structure their courses with modules and lessons. I want to kind of paint a picture of what it looks like in Thinkific as you're putting together a course. But also what the student experience is when they are taking that class, when they are taking that course.

The student experience something that Thinkific focuses on a lot. Some of the things that they really look at include how students can progress through the courses as easily as possible. The more the students consume of a particular course, the better for the course creator, right? So that's a completion rate.

“So the higher the completion rate, the better it is for the course because then the students are getting the most value from that course. This then leads to referrals, which then leads to them purchasing other courses that a course creator is also selling down the road. It improves their community. If they have a community, then there's good sentiment about the course inside the community.” - Rob Balasabas

So Thinkific looks at that very closely. Because of this they create a ton of different things. Thinkific is ALWAYS updating. They've just updated the way that the student experience looks. Then there's so many different ways to structure a course. Some courses are very long. And some courses are short. Some courses are stand alone courses. And some of them are bundles. It really depends on what that course creator is teaching and who their students are. It depends on what kind of course it is and what space they're in. But in general, they've tried to build in little future features in their course platforms like prerequisites and assignments. These are those little things that will give that experience of almost like being in a classroom.

So inside this Thinkific course, you're going to give information. You're going to teach them something maybe through a video, a presentation, or PDF.Then you can use an assignment to make them do something. You are going to make the students take that information they just learned and go and create, for example, that Instagram account. Then put that link to the Instagram account here. Or their assignment may be to optimize their LinkedIn profile. Then they would take a picture of it and upload it to an assignment lesson.

And then the course creator can kind of see these things and evaluate them. They can then give their students feedback and either pass or fail. Then the student can move on to the next lesson. So it's just like being at school. That feedback is really important. And so that assignments feature has been a really popular one with a lot of Thinkific’s course creators.

So when you're thinking about creating a course and you're thinking, “Well, I don't want to force people to go linear.” Guess what? You don't have to.

This prerequisite is an option that doesn't even have to exist. You could just have everything open. And all the work for any one module could be contained in a single lesson. It could be a downloadable PDF, a video, and some questions to ponder. And that could be it for that particular lesson. So it really depends on how you want to structure things. The nice thing is that when you get really good at understanding how your student is going to progress through a course, you can go back and restructure things. You can be like, “I want to move module four to module two because I'm finding that that would be a better progression.”

Course creation in Thinkific is drag and drop. I think everybody at this point in time knows that drag and drop means it's pretty easy to go in and move things around. And it’s really nice that everything is drag and drop.

When it comes to creating the course content there are so many options. There are:
- Video modules
- Text modules
- The assignment module
- Audio modules
- Downloadable modules
- Quizzes
- Surveys
- Multimedia modules (which is an interesting one, but I would say don't start with that one.)
- Exams
There's so much functionality that you can build into this. And what’s more is that Thinkific acts as your video host. Excuse me while I geek out for a minute, but THAT IS HUGE.

When it comes to hosting video, generally speaking, you have an expense associated with hosting video for business. Whether you're using Vimeo Pro, Wistia, or you're using some of the other up and coming video hosts that are designed for business videos, you are going to have to pay for those. With Thinkific your videos are included. The videos that you have on your landing pages and the videos that you have inside your course modules, those are available to be hosted at no additional charge. So that is definitely a value add for sure

I love that. I think that this kind of helps complete the experience because there is an aesthetic to having a video that was designed to look right inside this platform. And because I think if Thinkific took the time to host the videos, they're also taking the time to make sure that those videos that are hosted in a way to look good in your course. And I think that that's their thought process of keeping it relevant, keeping your students top of mind, keeping your experience top of mind as of course creator, as the entrepreneur who is investing their time, resources, and energy into Thinkific as a tool.

This is something that they've spent quite a bit of time on, not just showing up on like desktop, but also on mobile. Those things seem really easy when you are a student and it helps courses fit into your life. It shows up perfectly.They have optimized it for literally every single type of dimension and size.

Then as a course grader, there’s more to it than just uploading your videos. You can also customize the thumbnail if you like. So it looks nice. You can upload your post captions. You can also change the appearance of the play bar. So you can even brand the play bar to the color of your brand or you can remove the bar completely so that people can fast forward. And then if you'd like, you can also see the analytics. This means you can see things like the number of plays and how much of the video has been watched.

Data is something that drives business. We all know this. Anytime that you know more about what's happening with your content, with your online presence, with your courses, with your students, anytime you know more information, then you're better off.

It's not just watching how far have people watch the videos. You can also go in and you can drill down into individual users to see when did they sign up. Also, you can see when they signed up. And how far have they gotten in the course. You can find out what they have done? You have a lot of details that you can drill into so that if somebody paid $1,000 for your course and didn't get past the intro module, it may be an opportunity to reach out to them and say, “Hey, what's going on? How can I help you?” So having that data available right inside the dashboard, right inside the users area, is very, very helpful and beneficial.

Data is really important.

This is why Thinkific has already integrated Google Analytics and all those things. If you want to dig even deeper, they have an integration with Mixpanel, which gives you way more data that actually happens inside of your course. This because Google Analytics can't get data from inside your course because it's a private space. But Mixpanel can so you can see how much time your student has spent on particular lessons and what they clicked on.

So we've got Mixpanel for data. And we've got Brillium for the exams. What other integrations does Thinkific have?

Well, Accredible is a for certificates! For payments, there are integrations with Stripe and PayPal directly. Also with payments, if you have a membership site, Thinkific has a direct integration with a tool Stunning. With Stunning, Thinkific will help retrieve any failed payments for any subscriptions you have. So if you're a membership site owner, this is a really cool integration. Some other integrations include:
- Zapier
- Infusionsoft
- Facebook Pixel
- Segment.io
- MailChimp
- Constant Contact
- ConvertKit
- Aweber
- ActiveCampaign
- Disqus
- Sumo
Sumo is a pretty interesting marketing tool. It helps you create buttons that pop up on your landing page when somebody's, for example, going to exit your landing page. This button will pop up and prompt them not to leave yet and then offer that person some type of promo to keep them or at least get them to opt in.

Other than humanizing a tech company, what is it that helps potential Thinkific course creators get over that hurdle and make the decision to go in on the platform?

As far as features, there's really two types of people. There's the people that are just starting up and they don't really know what the potential is yet because they've never built a course. So the fact that Thinkific has a free plan and in that free plan they can have unlimited students is key. They can also accept payments. It's very low barrier. That's a really big key for people that are just starting up.

Then you have the other type of people who are already quite established. If they're migrating, say from another platform, then they just love the service. They love the service and the ease of use. Thinkific is able to migrate their tools. They have a team that will help those established business owners migrate all their students as well. So then they're able to manage even at scale. So Thinkific is able to help people that are just starting out and the people that are scaling because we have features to do so such as groups.

Groups is where they can group together different groups of people or different groups companies or clients. So let's say that Rob has a course on LinkedIn. And he has a group that he’s working with inside Microsoft and then another group that he’s working with inside Apple, And he puts them all on the same course, but then they are segmented into groups within that course and all of the reporting is all segmented. Established course creators love that. It's just really easy for them. It doesn't take them a whole bunch of time to manage their courses. They like that there is higher tier plans.

I think that there is something for everyone with a platform like this.

I mean you don't have to spend money to get the product that you want. But you have to understand what that product is going to be able to do for you and for your business. In a nutshell, Thinkific is going to help you deliver your courses in a streamlined, organized manner. And it's as simple as that. There's a lot of bells and whistles you can add to your Thinkific course. Take it back to being able to deliver and teach so that your students get the success that they are looking for. So that they see you as the expert, as the”Go To”, as the person who is going to help them take that next step in their business journey or in their social space.

Coming up on the series, we've got all sorts of different types of industries.

We've got someone who's helping people to a certain type of business. And then we've got people who are learning an instrument. How different can you get? One's totally professional and another one is a passion. It goes to show you can host any kind of course.

Most of the people who listen to the podcast are business owners. You may be listening right now and say, “No, I don't have a course in me, but I know my neighbor, she makes the best quilts. And she wants to teach people how to make quilts.” It could be just the perfect thing for you right there.

What advice or recommendations would Rob give to someone who's saying, “I think I want to create a course. I want to deliver something pretty awesome to my community”?

His advice is really leverage the team that's in place at Thinkific. They really do try to make sure that they are available. Not just by email, but also like inside our Facebook group and inside their community, and by phone. His advice is just to jump in. Know that when you jump in with Thinkific that you will have support. There's going to be resources. And there's going to be a community of other course creators that have gone through or maybe going through exactly what you are going through, trying to understand and learn this platform, and really understand the space of online marketing.

Inside Thinkific’s Facebook group, they don't just talk about online courses.

They're talking about other types of tools that you may or may not use or want to use in your business. So Rob says to just jump in. They have a free plan. So they’ve tried to do the work of removing that barrier of cost and finances. They did that so you can just jump in start creating. They even have templates you can use. There's experts like ME that you can also reach out to. They are in their Facebook group and are there to support you and answer any questions and help out. Know you're not alone when you come into this.

Thinkific has some incredible success stories.

He’s heard so many awesome ones. And they aren’t just from people selling business knowledge. They are from people who are just sharing what they love to do. And they do it for free! But now they get to do it and they have built a business around it.

Rob shared a story of a friend of his, Mo. Mo loves to draw and so now he's teaching people how to draw and be hired as a storyboard artist. And there's another lady in San Francisco who is teaching people how to stitch. She just loves to stitch and make like quilts. She launched and then did like a five figure launch in a matter of a couple of weeks. It's a really interesting time where somebody can just document what they already love to do and create a step by step, and then get to build a business around it. It's, it's really amazing. So

So you may be saying, “Jaime, how do I get to Thinkific?” You are going to go to techofbusiness.com/thinkific. That is my affiliate link. That is how I can let Rob and everybody over at Thinkific know that this series was a success. So be sure to use techofbusiness.com/Thinkific. Using this link also gets you some bonuses

Connect with Jaime:
- Instagram: @techofbusiness
- Twitter: @techofbusiness
- Facebook: @yourbiztech
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
- Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Connect with Rob/Thinkific:
- Facebook Group- Thinkific Studio
- Facebook- Thinkific
- Instagram: @thinkific
- YouTube: Thinkific Tutorials
als

083: 5 Ways to Make Zoom Work for Your Business

Wed, 18 Sep 2019 10:30:00 +0000

I want to start by saying “Thank you” to everyone who sent me public and private feedback on last week's episode, all about Thrivecart. If you haven't listened to that episode yet, I encourage you to do so. There are so many little nuggets in there that can be relevant to just about every single business based on the feedback I received. Today, I have for you another episode where I am going completely off the cuff, completely unscripted, and this time we're talking about Zoom. Zoom is a cloud recording, video conferencing webinar platform.Today I’m going to give you 5 ways to make Zoom work well for your business.

The first way to make Zoom work really well for your business is to integrate it.

I have Zoom integrated with both Acuity scheduling and with my G suite calendar. What that allows me to do is create a one-to-one relationship between the Zoom meetings that I have on my calendar and Zoom activity that is sitting inside the Zoom application. This will do the same thing for you and/or an assistant who is scheduling things for you All I need to do when I'm on my Google calendar is to click “Make this a Zoom Meeting” and then I just hit the schedule. I get to send out an invitation to the person that I'm making the meeting with, which makes it really easy to create appointments on the fly.

I like to pair that with the fact that I have Zoom integrated with Acuity scheduling. So when I send someone an Acuity scheduling link, dynamically on the back end of acuity scheduling, I have it set up so that it creates a Zoom event as well. Again, this makes it so that there is a one-to-one relationship. It makes it so that when you go into Zoom to start a session, you know exactly what you're scheduling.

Essentially what this means is that instead of it saying “Jamie's Personal Meeting Room” for every appointment when it's recorded, it'll say, for example, “Jamie and Elizabeth”. With this integration it will say whatever you set it up as in Acuity or in your G Suite Calendar. So it makes it much, much easier. So again, the first way to make Zoom work for your business is to integrate Zoom with your calendaring systems so that there is a nice tie in between them.

The second thing that I think will make Zoom work so much better in your business is to have Zoom set to auto record.

The last thing you want is to get into a really amazing conversation with a client or a lead and start wrapping things up or figuring out you forgot to hit record. It doesn't take a lot of extra space to record and then delete. Rather than not having it, it's a security blanket. There's no reason not to set Zoom to auto record again. If it's something that you know you do not want to record, as soon as you jump on, just hit stop recording and you don't record that session.

And with that, part two of section two is when to use local recording and when to use cloud recording.

For me personally, I set up all of my recording to be local recording cause it's easier for me to manage and maintain. However, cloud recording is so, so practical and so functional. Why? Because you can share those sessions easily with the attendees without having to wait and upload to Dropbox or Google Drive.. I like to use the Zoom Cloud Recording feature when I know I want to share that content that I have recorded temporarily inside of Zoom so that someone else can download it and use it, but I don't plan on keeping it long term. That's how I differentiate it.

I have my local storage for things that I want to keep or that I want to produce or I want to use in some way, shape or form. I record this podcast locally. There's no need for someone else to have access to that recording. So there's no reason for it to be sitting on the cloud. Whereas, if I am having a meeting with a client and we're doing a wrap up call, I would love to have that recorded in the cloud so that all I have to do is provide them with the linkso they can download it. This is a way I can keep the transfer of knowledge easy and I have less manual work to do.

The third way that I believe you can make Zoom works super well for your business is to take advantage of the ability to add and remove the Zoom Webinar feature.

Zoom is a cloud meeting platform, which means that when everybody comes onto a cloud meeting, they all kind of show up in that Brady bunch style, so you're going to have all the little windows. I'm seeing all the pretty faces of everybody who is there. Zoom also has a webinar feature which looks different.

You're going to be on as a host. That means there's going to be a chat module and you can bring on a co host, someone else on video, but everybody who is attending is only a viewer. They are only watching. They're only able to type in comments and things like that. This means they're not actually on camera. So they can't interrupt the flow.

Zoom Webinar is a very effective tool to disseminate information in a webinar style.

You can simulcast it into your Facebook group, onto your Facebook page, over onto YouTube or wherever it might be that you can do with Zoom Webinar. You cannot do that with Zoom Meeting. But the purpose of Zoom Webinar versus Zoom Meeting is different. I like the fact that if you are in launch mode, webinar mode, or teaching to the masses mode you can use a webinar feature. It just polishes things up that much more. And if you're not using it, turn it off. It is a month-to-month subscription. You can turn it on for one month and have it off for three. Then when you're ready, you can launch it again.

So we've covered the difference between Zoom meeting versus Zoom webinar. We have covered when to do use local recording versus cloud recording. And we have talked about how to integrate Zoom with your calendar and scheduling apps. Now I am going to jump straight over to the Zoom website. I am going to call out a few things that I see here. And this is the fourth thing that we're going to talk about.

Let’s talk about what needs to be set and then forgotten about through the Zoom.us website interface.

I am on the Zoom website. I am under admin and I might be under account settings. What I like to think of as this section is “The set it and forget it section.” You're going to set this information once and probably never have to go back in. If you have someone setting up your tech for you (which I highly recommend), they will probably set this up for you and you'll never even know about it. It is where you can set how people enter your meetings. The type of things you will set up here is:
- Whether participants video is on or off
- If the microphone is muted or not.
- Whether sessions require passwords and who can join
- If participants can join before the host
These are just a few of the things that you can set up here. And on this screen, you're also going to set up your basic and advanced in meeting elements. So if you're going to use encryption, turn it on. You will set up if you're going to allow chat, and private chats and auto saving of chats. And if what people are allowed to send. Are people allowed to send files or not?

You can even set it up to allow as a host to have a co host, which can be very beneficial if you really are both going to be hosting the event. If you've got that on a regular basis, set it up so that you have that opportunity when you are inside the app. The idea here is to set up the functionality of the app once and never have to really go back in there. Inside this page you also have the ability to create breakout rooms, do remote support, and do HD video. You also have the ability to set up far end video control and a number of other things that you just have to think about once.

This is the kind of thing that we do in a Tech Breakthrough Session. If you want to set up Zoom, let's set it up right and then you don't have to worry about it again.

So then there's two last sections here. There's the email notifications in the admin options and these are basically, I just say if Zoom is going to send you emails, let them send you emails. If they get annoying, we can turn them off and the admin options basically just leave them as default. I wouldn't even worry about them.

Before we leave this account settings page, there is a second tab and a third tab.

The second one is on the recording elements and the third one is on the telephone. I am going to ignore telephone because you're going to want to take advantage of using Zoom Meetings through the computer. The basic settings under recording are to enable almost everything for recording because you want to be able to go back to whatever you need. It just makes it easier. Generally, I have almost all of my check boxes, checked and enabled. I would recommend that for you as well.

Now for the fifth and final way to make Zoom work really well for you, it's a matter of us understanding of you, understanding what exists inside the app itself.

There are four buttons on the home screen which are pretty self explanatory. There is also a “gears” button. This is kind of where I wanted to hang out with you for a couple of minutes. The “gears” inside the app are not 100% the same as what we just set through the website. We still have general options. And we still have video options, audio options, chat options, all sorts of things like that. The idea here is again to set it and forget it. But you have to set both the website and the application settings.

As I said already, I am more than happy to do this with you. If Zoom is something that you want to use effectively and not say, “Oh, I wish I had done it better”, let's set up a time to talk about it.

We'll be able to get it so that your Zoom is optimal for your business. This means it will be optimal for the type of business that you have for how you do your calendaring, your scheduling, your automations. And in that regard, for determining what to record locally versus in the cloud. Of course, we will make sure it’s optimal for making sure that you are using Zoom Webinar when you should be using Zoom Webinar.

It's only $40 a month to do it and again it's on a month to month basis. So there's no reason to say, “Oh, I'll just make the Zoom Meeting work and I'll just mute people and you know, turn off their cameras or whatever”. Don't stress yourself out with trying to make something that might be a little bit less expensive, work in your business. Use the best, right tool for your business in the exact right time. This is why I encourage you to consider getting it set up properly from the start.

I really hope that this overview of Zoom has been helpful, has been functional, and has been enjoyable for you.

I know it has been for me! And I look forward to helping you tackle more with your technology as we move into, believe it or not, Q four of 2019! I am also super, super excited that the next three weeks of the podcast are going to be another series! Make sure you come back on Monday! Or if you're listening in the future you'll see that there are six episodes all dedicated to this series.

I cannot wait to share the series with you and before we go, do yourself a favor, reach out to me on Instagram and ask me a tech question. You never know. I might do an entire podcast episode about it just for you. I would love to hear what you are working on, working with, and working through when it comes to tech.

If you enjoyed the show, please subscribe, share, rate, and review on Apple podcast, Stitcher Radio, Overcast, or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also check out the show notes and learn more about me techofbusiness.com.

Connect with Jaime:
- Instagram: @techofbusiness
- Twitter: @techofbusiness
- Facebook: @yourbiztech
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
- Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
s.com

082: ThriveCart and Online Revenue [Deep Dive]

Wed, 11 Sep 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today we're talking about a certain software tool. It’s a tool that I have brought up on the podcast numerous times before. And it’s also one that I use consistently, regularly, and enthusiastically with my clients. We are talking about ThriveCart.

ThriveCart is more than just a mechanism to get paid. It is a vehicle that you can use to make it easier for your prospective clients, your students, and/or your members. How? It allows them to take the leap and trust you and buy your product or service, course, membership site, group program, whatever it is that you are selling.

I am so passionate about ThriveCart that I have set up a Day Rate and a Half Day Rate to get ThriveCart working for you in your business. What we do in this Day Rate or Half Day Rate, depending on your business, I will take your ThriveCart from initially purchased all the way to being completely set up with all of your systems. Full details on this will be at the end of this episode.

I want you to think right now, "Does ThriveCart make sense for my business?" As I said at the very outset, it is a mechanism for taking payment. So the first thing that you're going to want to do when you get into ThriveCart is to connect up all the back end. So you're going to want to connect up PayPal if you're going to use PayPal. You're going to want to connect up Stripe if you're going to use Stripe. And once you have both of those set up, realistically, you can set up a product and sell it. Honestly and truly, that's not what ThriveCart does best, but at its base level, that's all you need.

So let's get into a little bit more of what you can do with ThriveCart and why I recommend using this stand alone tech tool rather than the integrated payment processing in any number of the other tools that you're using.

ThriveCart allows you to entice your user to do that much more. They offer a couple of different ways to augment the sale. The first one is what's called a “bump offer” and the other one is called “the upsell”. And the upsell has a sister called “the down sell”. But what's the difference between a bump offer and an upsell? This is a question that so many people have when they are putting together their products in ThriveCart.

The bump offer is presented to your customer before they make their initial payment. The upsell is presented to your customer after they have made the initial purchase.

So let's put it this way, if you have $100 product, a bump offer is something that's going to increase that initial customer value. I recommend no more than 25% of the initial product value depending on your price point. So if it's a hundred dollars $25 would be 25% of the initial customer value. Depending on what you're offering, you could probably go up to 35% or 40% of that initial product so that instead of that first purchase that someone makes being $100 it may be a $125 or $140.

Now with an upsell, this is saying to someone, “You bought my $100 product, but I think that you are going to have more success with that product if instead of buying that product by itself, you join this membership or you add on one on one calls with me or you join this.” Essentially, the upsell is augmenting. The truth is with an upsell you can make that two, three, ten times the price of the initial purchase that someone had because of the perceived and real value that you are providing with that upsell.

There are two major differences between the “bump offer” and “the upsell”.

The first one is when is this offer presented to your customer? Is it presented before the initial transaction or after the initial transaction? And the second one is what is the value of this offer as it pertains to that customer purchasing the initial product? If it's a small upsell, again like 25% percent of the initial purchase, then it probably makes sense as a bump offer. But if it's a multiple, then it is most likely an upsell.

As I mentioned before, an upsell has a sister called a down sell.

So after you present your upsell opportunity to your new customer, they have the option of saying yes or no. They actually have an option to even walk away. But assuming that they actually click the button and say, “No thank you”, this is when we get to present them with a down sell. A down sell is still on top of the initial product, but it is in lieu of that upsell.

If your upsell was three coaching calls, your down sell may be a Voxer access to you for a month. There is still an intrinsic value. It is still going to help that person more than buying your course alone, but it costs them less. They are still getting an additional value and additional motivation for continuing through and doing whatever it is that they have just purchased.

A down sell is “version two” of the upsell. It is still trying to help your customers get the most value out of this transaction. It is not quite as expensive as the original upsell option. This is a really good summary of the purchase process. You can actually have up to five upsells and down sells on a cart in ThriveCart. However, most of the time you're probably good with one or two. I wouldn't go down to five unless you are a really high end power user and you know your audience is going to just keep buying and buying and buying. Sometimes setting up the upsell/downsell and bump offers can be a bit time consuming. I recommend outsourcing the implementation of your ThriveCart to someone who is familiar with the tool...like me!

ThriveCart is not just about the purchasing of your product. It's about all the power that ThriveCart gives you as the business owner on the back end.

What ThriveCart allows you to do after the purchase or within the purchase is they connect that purchase to where the person needs to be going. So if someone's buying a course, you can either directly or indirectly connect to your course platform. Directly means using one of the integration tools that is built into ThriveCart indirectly is using Zapier. You can connect to fulfillment services, so if you have a physical product that you will need to deliver to them, you can use ThriveCart as the front end and then connect them to the fulfillment service. Most importantly, for most of the clients that I work with, ThriveCart connects them into your email marketing system. You know me, I love talking about your email marketing system.

The way that ThriveCart connects in is dependent on which system you are using, but essentially there are a huge number of conditions that happen on ThriveCart that ThriveCart can send over to your email marketing system.

Obviously when someone buys the product initially, we're going to want to send them over, set a tag saying that they have now purchased a certain product. If they have been refunded, we want to make sure that we remove them from the product. And guess what? We can do that directly with ThriveCart as well during our setup.

In some cases you may want to add a second tag. So let's say that someone canceled their product and you wanted to know that they had previously purchased that product, you're going to use both. You are going to remove the existing purchase product and add a tag saying that they had been refunded that second product.

Other tags that I generally set up for my clients revolve around recurring payments or subscriptions. So if someone's payment fails, what kind of setup do we want to have so that we can reach out to them? And are we removing their access? We have to make sure that whenever there's something that happens that involves the payment, that it falls all the way through our different systems.

The tagging feature inside of ThriveCart makes it really flexible. It makes it so that you have less manual work. You don't have to go in and check things. Literally, you can be sure and trust that if you want to send out an email to everyone who took advantage of your upsell, then you have that information. You don't have to go in and manually move things over from ThriveCart to your email marketing system. As you can see when you get into implementing ThriveCart to its full ability, it can start to get a bit detailed. I recommend outsourcing this task to someone who is familiar with this system...ahem...ME!

For most of my clients, I will set up somewhere between 5 and 12 automations on the heels of a product inside of ThriveCart.

There is no rule as to how many is good, bad, or indifferent. You just need to get it working right and don't worry about creating too many scenarios. It does mean more work up front initially setting up and making sure that all those tags lead where you need them to. But it is so, so worth it!

We have now covered your purchase, your bump, your upsells, and down sells, connecting to whatever system needs to be connected to. I really want to talk about affiliates.

I love the way that ThriveCart has created the affiliate system. What they've done is they've created a mechanism for you to determine how your affiliates are going to be able to promote your product. Are they promoting the main product? Will they be getting a commission on the bump? Are they getting commissions on “the upsells” and “down sells”? Will the affiliate links be tracked with first cookie or last cookie? First cookie means the first person who's linked got clicked gets the attribution even if someone clicks on three or four other people's links before the purchases made. Last cookie is whoever is the last link that got clicked gets credit for the sale.

With affiliates, you have so many options. Ideally, you want to make it as easy as possible on you. ThriveCart does this by hooking up to PayPal to pay out your affiliates. Even if you take transactions through Stripe only, PayPal is still the recommended tool that ThriveCart uses for paying out your affiliates. You can't actually do that with Stripe at this point in time. So that's kind of a nonstarter.

This is the best and most efficient way of doing it. You can set the interval. Sometimes you may want to set your affiliates to be paid immediately. Others you may want to have a wait period. So if you have a refund policy, you only want to pay your affiliates after that refund policy has elapsed. Others are more along the lines of they want to pay the affiliate for any upsells that come down the road. So they want to keep the affiliate bucket kind of open so that you only have to pay your affiliate once instead of several times.

So there's a lot that can go into this affiliate process and I love the fact that it is so granular. You can just go at a very simple level saying all of my affiliates get 50% of everything that they send over to me. Also, you can even set it to manually pay out your affiliates. You don't have to use PayPal. I do recommend it though. Once again, when it comes to setting up this feature of ThriveCart, it’s important to know it can get tricky. I recommend outsourcing this type of task to someone familiar with the tool like the Tech of Business agency.

So we've covered your bump offers. We've covered your upsells and down sells. And we've covered your connections to other online systems. We've also covered affiliates. The last and probably most important element of ThriveCart that I want to cover on this episode is what that cart actually looks like for your customer.

What you're able to do with ThriveCart is to create a very succinct, one page checkout that looks pretty on desktops and mobile browsers. It is very streamlined. The most important information is right there for them. I like to have a header at the top of the cart, which is either going to be your logo or the product name. Then we go straight into their form fields where they put in their name and their email address and whatever other fields that you want to collect. We have a checkbox for terms of service. Also we have a few other optional fields we can include. We have our payment options, they are just done via radio buttons. Then we've got our credit card checkout and we have our complete transaction. That's the main column.

There is a second column on this page, which is a nice narrow sidebar, which usually includes some kind of box shot or an image that can” portray the product that they're actually buying. And then you can include things like:

list of features
testimonials
coupon codes

It just sits there. It's just easy to use,and access. Your bump offer is going to sit in that first main column. It's going to be right by the credit card fields so that it's very easy for somebody to see if they click the “check box”, what their total changes to, and that's it on that page.

Once someone completes their transaction, you can send them to a custom page on your website or you can use the built in thank you page that ThriveCart has.

I generally use the built in thank you page on thrive cart because it's succinct. It's faster and it is all that someone needs because most of the time the next directions that they are going to get are via email.

One final thing about this checkout process.

ThriveCart has really truly thought of everything. They have a full section where you can link up all of your tracking codes. You can link up Google analytics, Facebook pixels, and Pinterest pixels if you want them, because there is a custom script section in all sorts of different places. Truly ThriveCart can help you sell your first product or your hundredth product. You can sell one product a month or one product every three minutes.

This checkout process just works. I encourage you to check out ThriveCart today. They actually use their own system to pay their affiliates. The way that they have their affiliates set up is immediate. If you go and purchase ThriveCart right now using techofbusiness.com/ThriveCart I will get a notification from them saying that I have a new affiliate sale. Also I will get a PayPal transaction issued to me where I get immediate payout of my commission.

I love that there's something about instant gratification. I think that ThriveCart is a valuable tool for just about every business owner.

That leads us back to the Day Rate for getting ThriveCart set up for you in your business. What we do is have a call prior to the day or half day I spend with you. During this call, we map out on that call exactly how ThriveCart is going to work for you in your business. Then you provide the access. On the day we agreed to do this, I will spend the whole day with you from 9 AM -2PM PDT getting ThriveCart completely implemented for you. If your business is such that you only need a half day it will be a 3 hour stretch of time. If you are interested in having me set up ThriveCart for you head over to techofbusiness.com/work-with-me and you will find information on this service there.

If you have questions about how ThriveCart can work in your business, please reach out to me on Instagram. I would love to have this conversation with you. If you know someone who is contemplating ThriveCart or looking for checkout options for their business, send them this podcast episode. I would truly appreciate it. I know that it will help them make the best decision for their business. If you would like to figure out if ThriveCart is what you need in your business, let’s do a Tech Audit and see is and where it can fit in your business!

If you enjoyed this episode, please subscribe, share rate, and review on Apple podcast, Stitcher radio, overcast or wherever you download your favorite shows. You can also check out the show notes and learn more about me by visiting my website.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

081: Business Systems and a Virtual Summit with Marissa Stone

Wed, 04 Sep 2019 10:30:00 +0000

As I announced here on the podcast a few episodes back, I’m currently putting together a Virtual Summit specifically focused on the aspects of online business that you’ve been craving… Stay tuned to the Podcast and the Facebook Page for all the details --- we’ll be live in March 2020.

There is a lot that goes into virtual summits and online business as a whole. There are systems that need to be examined in order to make sure we are doing what’s right for our business. We also need to make sure we have the best, right tools in place to make everything go smoothly. This episode with Marissa Stone covers The Business Systems and a Virtual Summit, her favorite non-tech business system, and all the fun, behind-the-scenes stuff that makes online business possible and less stressed.

I conveniently am releasing today’s episode now so that you can easily head over and sign up… click here to register!

As you’ll see, this summit consists of episodes with amazing speakers, including myself, and it is also giving back in a way that is in complete alignment with Marissa. So if you're listening in real time be sure to enroll in her virtual summit today.

About the Summit

So… about The 2019 Premier International Women's Business Systems Virtual Summit... During this summit, you will get to learn all about the systems that the speakers are using to systematize and scale their businesses. This summit has over 60 speakers! It also has five tracks, so you can literally go into this summit and handpick exactly what you need to know in order to get to the next level inside your business.

This summit is for female entrepreneurs who are in different places in their businesses. They may just be starting out. They may be trying to hit that next income level or trying to close that next big client. There may be women who are trying to really scale up in their businesses. This summit has speakers from across the globe. It provides the opportunity to hop in and get “just in time” education for what you're trying to accomplish right now.

My session on the summit is about the tech stack and the tech stack framework. It is a great compliment to episode 34 on the tech stack framework. And be sure to jump in and listen to our conversation because it looks at the tech stack from a different angle.

It's different than me just talking into the mic. And you know, Marissa definitely pulled out some nuggets from me. I know she's done it with a lot of the other speakers as well. Things that we present one-on-one straight to the mic or straight to the camera come across differently when it's in a conversation at a virtual summit. Which is why I love virtual summits! And I think that bringing that conversation to the screen makes so much sense.

One of the most interesting things Marissa finds as a summit host is about the people. She has speakers this year who have been following and attending the summit for years. Now their businesses are at a place where they feel confident coming forward and being one of the speakers. How amazing is that?

This summit is changing the way that these women are running their businesses. It’s changing how they're systematizing their businesses. This summit is changing how they're scaling. Which is awesome because this summit is all about empowering women.

One great thing about this year's summit is it now has a mission. Marissa and her team are working behind the scenes to support women coming out of domestic violence.

There is going to be a brand new Academy opening up. It's called AWIHS Academy. AWIHS stands for “a walk in her shoes”. It is designed to support those women who are trying to get away from an abusive situation. This academy is designed to teach them the skills that they're going to need. It’s going to teach them how to develop the mindset that they're going to need to start a business. This academy will also teach them some of those soft skills, as well as the hard skills, that they're going to need in order to get back on their feet. This year 50% of our proceeds of everything we sell are going to be funneled into the AWIHS Academy.

When I read that Marissa was doing this summit with this was kind of the mission, I knew I had to promote this summit! It's a reason to share the summit and know that whatever you do as an attendee is going to have a downstream effect on someone who doesn't necessarily need to know anything about business systems. They just need someone to help them show them the way.

I think that that's really a cool tie in because that's what systems do. That's what technology does!

We are showing a way, with the summit, with this podcast, with kind of everything that we do...we're showing people a way to do more in their business. And Marissa has translated that mission from business into something that is a personal passion and personal drive.

She’s helping everybody who is attending feel like they're doing more than just self serving, helping their business, helping their clients, and growing. This makes the summit different. It sets this summit apart from every other summit you know. Every woman that comes in contact with the summit is empowered in some way. It’s empowering for someone to see someone like themselves doing something and succeeding.

I think that that's one of those big things with technology and actually with just business in general is that, you know, when you see someone and you can see yourself in their shoes or in their place doing the same motions, it's empowering, inspiring, and motivating. Let me tell you, I've had my tech shoes on for longer than I'd like to admit. I mean I chose to get a degree in computer science in the 1990s. I was one of 6 women in the class. I think there is still some kind of stigma attached to women in tech or business in general. So I think it’s great that there is such an empowering message behind Marissa’s summit.

Take A Fresh Look

Marissa recommends that everyone take a fresh look and really work to identify their real clients. You guys have heard this 10 bazillion times. Until you really slow down and identify your real clients, you are not going to know how to market to them. You aren’t going to know how to reach out to them and how to provide them your product or services.

One of the courses Marissa teaches inside her own business is called “Master Your Marketing”. In this course she teaches people to really dive into who their real clients are. She’s had women do complete “about faces” in that course because they realize that what they thought was their real client...actually wasn't. She has also had women realize that there was a group that they didn't want to work with.

The other side of really identifying who your client is includes really going through the customer journey.

The customer journey is the journey that you take your client through from prospect to raving fan. For example, when you think about Starbucks, you walk in the door and you get in line to order. You pay and then you move over to pick up your drink. When they call your name, you go over to the little station and perhaps add a few things to it. You may sit down and jump on the wifi and meet with somebody or you may simply leave. But that is Starbucks customer journey.

So what you need to do with your own company is think through all the steps that your client or prospect is going to go through in order to make that journey start to finish inside your company. And one of the things that you need to think about is the customer journey map. What does that look like? This isn't even high tech. You sit down and draw it out.

One of the things that Marissa always does with her clients is she always makes sure no matter where they're at in my customer journey, I am using things that I call support and resource pieces. Those are supplemental materials that are going to scaffold them through the process.

I just want to go back to that Starbucks analogy for a moment because I want people to think about what happens when you get in that line before you place your order. You walk past the chips. Then you walk past the bottled beverages and the bakery case. There are the cute, little cups and trinkets. Those are things that may entice you. You might end up buying everything right then. Or you may just go to the counter and buy your drink and leave and think, “But next time... “ And so Starbucks is also planting the seed for next time.

So when it comes to your journey, you can plant seeds for that client that may not bear fruit for two, three, four months or even years for that matter. You have to understand the customer journey. And even though it doesn't have anything to do with the technology, knowing what you want to accomplish helps you pave the way for finding the right tech tools to use at each step of that client journey.

It’s Okay to Break the Rules

I will say that knowing the traditional funnel is helpful only so that you can understand why it doesn't necessarily work for your business. Go ahead and learn about the funnel process and why people like it and why it was effective far more so than it is nowadays. And then you'll be able to see where it breaks down for your client, prospect, customer, or your offer.

Let's just put my business on the table here. I provide tech solutions across the board. I am tool agnostic. That's why we don't talk about all the different tech tools all the time. So I mean it is really more about how you can solve your customer’s problem and help them get the results that they want. I can't take you down the path of joining my email sequence, learning these five steps, then buying this course because I offer a one-on-one customized service. So the funnel concept, while it's a great concept and a lot of people have made a lot of money creating things using that funnel concept... it's okay to break the rules.

The Original Funnel

What a lot of people don’t realize is that the original sales funnel was invented in 1898 by a door to door insurance salesman. The four steps are build awareness, create interest, create desire, and then the customer takes action.

But what a lot of people don't realize is that first moment of building awareness can come from anywhere these days. It can come from a social media post, this podcast, a networking event, etc. Marissa says that's why you need to make sure that you understand your real client! More importantly, you know where they're hanging out. So the touchpoints are on those platforms for when they are looking for whatever it is you provide. Which totally makes sense!

The customer also needs to feel comfortable with that touchpoint. They also need to feel comfortable with the NEXT WAY you are going to interact with them. That could happen a number of different ways. Because of this, you have to put the right tech tools in place and spend your time and energy using the ones that communicate and make the most sense for that person.

Bottom line, mapping out your customer’s journey and knowing what their next step is crucial to having a successful business.

You need to know what their next step is and help them take it once they have already completed certain steps of their journey. Having the right tech in place to do that is extremely important. It all starts with mapping out the customer journey.

Going Back to the Summit

Marissa’s summit is a great microcosm of this “customer journey” aspect. The people who are going to be interested and signing up for her summit have a specific need right now. If Marissa fulfills that need, whatever that “just in time” learning that they need, from three of her speakers then they're going to trust that she’s going to be able to fulfill their next need. I don't know what that next need is for them, but that's the thought process that you have to go through. The tech is almost irrelevant.

The ability to take that person on the journey and have the tech be able to support that is what truly matters. That's why I always support someone using a certain system, but they have to actually use it. It also has to support what their trying to accomplish.

Four Crucial Components For a Customer Journey Map

So the first thing you're going to need is an inventory of your resources and how they will plug into the different areas where someone will come into a touch point. The reason you want that inventory of resources is because most people already have an arsenal of of supplemental resources. They just don't realize it. By listing those resources out and knowing exactly what's in your toolbox, it helps you to make sure that you've got something at each touch point where you know your real clients are hanging out.

Then you want to sit down and actually design the model, right?

Once you know how people enter into and leave your business, then you want to actually add your touch points to your model. Where are those spots that your prospect or client is going to struggle? There is no rule that everybody needs to be 100% happy the entire time they're working with you. But if they're not 100% happy, what can you do to help? The goal is their success route. Adding those touchpoints in those places where you are going to be able to scaffold people and what resources you have to plug in is crucial to really getting an idea of what your customer journey map can look like.

Then you need to implement it and sit back and listen.

And you don't just listen for the sake of listening! You need to listen to gather feedback! You're going to learn so much by simply implementing your first model and then listening to what people are saying. You'll identify so many things by listening to this feedback! You don't just need to provide the supplemental material if they're struggling, you also want to enjoy the moment when it finally clicks and the light bulb goes off. You want to enjoy when you know they've accomplished the goal and they're empowered.

As Marissa was walking through this particular journey it made me think of an online course.

One of the things that I share with a lot of my clients as we're putting together their courses is those touch points. For example, if I haven't received progress from this customer after X number of days, I shoot them off an email. It can be all automated. And that's where the tools, systems, and processes all come in.

But that's a touch point that can be dynamic. Yet it's so fundamental. It's not like you want to send out and email every Sunday that just tells people their progress on the course. If you send something like “Hey, I noticed that you haven't progressed in the course in the past five days, you look like you're stuck on module three right?” Don't you think that they are going to be like, “Whoa”?

Or conversely, as you're listening and paying attention, you've noticed that 40% of people take three days on module three and take only one day on module four. So during the time that they're struggling through module three, you have more touch points. You can send them personalized,encouraging messages or even offer help if they are stuck. So if your course is sitting on a course platform, send these types of messages through email or send it with your chat widget. It allows you to interact with them during their journey.

The Maturity Model

This is something that Marissa has her clients do. The maturity model actually allows the client to measure their own level of involvement and success at the task at hand. So before they jump on the coaching call with Marissa or they interact in the Facebook group, she encourages them to fill out their maturity models. Why? Because what they realize is the maturity model is set up to rate their success. This is something they never show to Marissa! It's literally between them and their own progress inside the course.

It's a great tool to allow them to check in with themselves. Then Marissa schedules posts and emails as she should. She sends out messages to help hold her people accountable. But when she implemented that maturity model, it really helped because they could truly see it for themselves. They could see the success they were or weren’t having in the course. She designed these models for each section inside her course so that each step of the way they are being supported. Because let’s face it...Systems sometimes aren't easy.

As you can tell this was such a phenomenal conversation with Marissa. There is so much packed into this podcast episode. I did not expect us to go this deep into so many different topics. All I knew was that I wanted to make sure I shared Marissa and her brilliance with the Tech of Business audience so that they would be interested in maybe learning one new thing from the summit coming up. But she shared so, so, so much more.

If you want to enroll for Marissa’s summit you can do so by clicking here. It’s going to be an amazing summit and I hope to “see” you there!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Marissa:

Twitter: @systems_lounge
Instagram: @thesystemslounge
Facebook: The Systems Lounge

080: Community Questions: Answered!

Wed, 28 Aug 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Have you ever heard of crowd-sourcing? I’m willing to bet you have at least seen it. You are in a group on social media and you see people asking questions about different things. It might be tech related, business related, or sometimes even something like time management related. Well today I’m going to do something a little bit different.

I am going COMPLETELY unscripted. I’m going to be answering some of the questions that I have seen pop up on social media and in my inbox. So if you have a question for me DEFINITELY send an email over to me at jaime@techofbusiness.com. You can also hit me up on Instagram and Facebook. If you would like to share your podcast episode ideas or topics you’d like to hear me cover, you go to https://callwithjaime.com to book a short call.

What is the difference between a WordPress based solution and a hosted solution?

I get this question all the time. Basically in the form of “what platform/plugin should I use?”. We all know how many options there are out there for us to choose from when it comes to online tools. What I want to explain as I answer this question is why you may use a certain tool over another.

First of all, the difference between the hosted solution and the WordPress based solution is exactly what I mentioned above. WordPress based solutions are addons that you can do directly inside your self hosted WordPress site. So if you are hosting on A2 hosting or through Tech of Business Hosting Environment and you have WordPress based site you can add your add on right there within the WordPress site. The nice thing about this is that it is all self contained. It’s all in one place and you don’t have to remember a million passwords.

The downside of this is that everything that is built on WordPress needs to be tweaked… a lot.

It needs to be updated and modernized etc. So because of this, you can have a small idea turn into a MASSIVE amount of work. This is precisely why I love the hosted solutions.

You know me, I love a hosted solution. If you remember, a while back, I did a series on MemberVault. And coming up in September I have a series on Thinkific coming out. What these tools, as well as numerous others, provide a structure for you to be able to put your content in and then drive traffic to it. This is an out of the box ready to use tool. There are also cases where there are hosted solutions for your website including Wix, Squarespace, and Weebly. They give you fewer directions to go with your website.

“When you use a WordPress based solution you are giving yourself a carte blanche. Whereas when you are using a hosted solution, you put yourself in a box. That box is a good thing because it means you are going to spend more time on your content, your community, and your marketing than you are in making the tech work for you! That’s my job! I love making the tech work for you.”- Jaime Slutzky

When you do something on WordPress, you have to bend the solution to make it work for you. Whereas, when you use a hosted solution, they provide the walls and you get to build everything inside those walls. So if you have any questions about this or have specific questions about your business, please shoot me an email and ask away.

How do I deliver large amounts of content to my clients?

Now...I love this question because there are SO many different options. You can use a cloud storage solution like Dropbox, Google Drive or OneDrive. These options give people access to a folder where they can then go in and download the content. They have access to everything you want them to have access to. This is the quickest and easiest way of delivering a large amount of content. You DO NOT want to be delivering a large amount of content via email.

Another option is to upload these files directly to your own WordPress website. This uses your WordPress website as a repository for content where you could just have download links on a blog post or a password protected page.

There are two issues I see with this option. The first issue with this is it’s possible that your WordPress solution doesn’t have a large enough upload size for the content you want to deliver. The other issue is structure. You need to make it so the content makes sense and it’s structure properly. This can be hard to do when you use your WordPress site. This can also happen with a Cloud Storage solution.

So I recommend using a hosted platform. Sound familiar? I recommend using MemberVault.

What you can do with MemberVault is that you can leverage their “box” to be able to deliver the content that you need to deliver. If someone purchases something from you which grants them automatic access you put them in MemberVault and then send them an email with a link and instructions on what to do next. It makes it easy to deliver your content. Another advantage is that they are in your new environment and they can potentially do a whole lot more.

I like using the hosted solutions for delivering content because you can enhance the experience. It’s all about the customer experience. If you just give someone a cloud storage link where they can download things there is NO relationship building in that process. If you are using a hosted solution, there IS relationship building in the process. And building a relationship with your customers is so important.

The last question I want to address has to deal with freebies and your email list. What can you do to streamline your list that has become a mess?

This is such a great question because we all come up with new ways to attract and engage our audience. Sometimes, we have freebies sitting out there that just aren’t as relevant anymore, but we never cleared it out.

There was this EBook that I wrote when I was building websites for fitness professionals. I had it sitting out there for years. And there were a lot of people that were downloading that book and getting on my list. Is what I do now relevant to them? Possibly! But there would be such a disconnect if I reached out to those people and said, “Hey, where are you at with your online course?”. They would be confused.

So I had to find a way to clean up my list and streamline things.

The first thing I do is recommend that you catalog all the ways that people can get on your list. Once you do this, if you determine that there are 3 that don’t make sense anymore, create an exit campaign.

An exit campaign is a 3 or 4 email sequence to let them know that the focus of your business has shifted. Then you tell them what you offer and allow them the opportunity to re-engage with you on the things that are relevant now. You have made a logical transition from what was old to what is now relevant.

The second part of this “clean-up” is to take that freebie opt-in page. But don’t just take it down and send people to a 404 page. Take that page down and send people to a page that tells them that the freebie they were looking for is no longer available and here is something that you can download now that may help your business.

The third piece of this is something that I did and that was to throw everything into my subscriber hub on MemberVault. What I love about the subscriber hub on MemberVault (you can access mine here) is that you can take ALL your freebies and throw them in there. Why is this important? Because whenever I am promoting a freebie of mine, I can send a person to this subscriber hub and they can essentially see all the things I have created. They will see things I may not even be promoting anymore. This makes it so your subscribers have MORE.

So let’s recap:

Stop the bleeding- determine the things that are no longer relevant and remove it.
Cleaning up your list- allowing people who opted in through those no longer relevant freebies the opportunity to re-engage with what is relevant or get off your list.
Consolidate- all your freebies need to go into one place so that people can access them even if you aren’t promoting a certain freebie it’s still available and easy to find along with the freebies you ARE promoting.

There you have it. Three of your questions that I was about to answer in this forum. I’d like to know if this is something you would like for me to do this again sometime soon. Hit me up on social media. Instagram is a good place to find me. Or you can send me an email at jaime@techofbusiness.com.

I have a little something to share with you. September is going to be an AMAZING month for the Tech of Business podcast. I have an entire series on Thinkific heading your way as well as a couple other episodes.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

079: How Tech, Content, and Data Work Together [Deep Dive]

Wed, 21 Aug 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Did you know that there is a relationship between your tech, data, and content? They all work together. We’re going to jump into the relationship between your tech, data and content.

To start, let’s define our terms today…
- Tech: the tools we use to display, transact, and store.
- Data: the content we create, use, and store about leads and clients and partners.
- Content: text, images, graphics, and videos for lead, client and partner consumption.
Did you know that during initial tech setup, a lot of how your content is going to look and data is going to be stored is defined? This is why it’s so important when you are implementing tech to make sure you implement it to its fullest capacity.

Whereas, the content aesthetics are usually straightforward to add to any given tool because they are stored in a brand guide. The brand guide highlights font families, font weights, colors, and the visual style.

Data meanwhile is not usually quite as structured – some of this will be dictated by the software tool we’re using and other will come from conventions that we’ve adopted along the way.

I could probably sum up this entire episode by saying that we need to have a living document to keep our data storage plan as organized as the brand guide!

But there is so much more to this conversation that it’s time to get into it! When we’re setting up a new software tool, both your brand guide and your data storage plan will help this tool be as effective as possible as soon as possible.

The data side of setup and the content side of setup can be done independently and I generally recommend having all your content ready to go, but then actually do the data configuration before the content loading.

Let’s walk through this with a couple of examples… surprise surprise, I’m going to start with an example using ThriveCart.

I’ve said it before, it’s just a fantastic tool and is perfectly suited for case studies since it touches so many elements of both content and data! When we’re setting up ThriveCart for the first time, we need to connect it with our other tools – specifically our paid access portal and our email marketing provider.

ThriveCart is a forward facing tool, so you don’t have to go through a ton of setup before you can start creating the checkout page and taking payments! Seriously, you get started on your checkout nearly straight away! Which is precisely why it’s beneficial to have your content already figured out.

In this case, the content is going to consist of:
- Logo for the top of the cart
- Video or Image for the cart sidebar
- Product Features – as bullet points
- One or two testimonials
- eading For Thank you page
- Thank you page video
- Text for Thank you page
But even more important than the content in this case is the data… what data are you collecting? How are you storing it? What systems need what pieces? And so on…

ThriveCart connects with your payment processor – Stripe, PayPal and/or Authorize.net, but it doesn’t store sensitive financial data. That’s kept with the actual processor. What it does retain is the customer lifetime value along with their purchases and subscriptions.

The payment processors retain payment card data and other stuff that doesn’t belong outside their platform. I strongly suggest that we don’t do anything with the sensitive data. But the other data that ThriveCart collects and creates, like:
- Name
- Email address
- Product, order number
- Purchase price, order date
- Which payment processor was used
- Associated affiliate
- And I’m sure I’m missing a ton
That data, most likely doesn’t need to live in ThriveCart alone. It needs to be pushed to our internal business management utilities.

We already have a good example of this. We push the purchaser name and email address to our email marketing system to welcome our new customer to their product, deliver their product, and additional value. And we push this information to any other system that they are now getting access to as a result of the transaction. But there are still more things we can do!

What other tools are you using online? What data generated by ThriveCart would improve your usability of that tool? Think about your financial systems and your CRM. Anything that can be setup once and just work reduces the amount of manual processes you’ll need to do now and into the future.

All this to mean that when a transaction or action is performed in one tool, it can generally be synchronized with other tools within your tech stack.

But, without some planning we might have just created a monster! It’s not good enough to push data from one system to another without factoring in what that new system is going to do with the data.

Again, let’s go back to ThriveCart pushing data to ActiveCampaign.

It’s fine that it pushes the name and email address of our new customer, but it would be a lot more beneficial for a clear roadmap of how that user is going to be treated once the data is pushed over to ActiveCampaign. Are they going to be added to tags? Lists? Automations? And if you’re using the CRM side of ActiveCampaign, is their purchase moving them through a deal or starting a new deal for them?And who is doing the data manipulation work? ThriveCart or ActiveCampaign?

We can trigger an ActiveCampaign automation from the ThriveCart purchase which could then add a series of tags, possibly send them emails, possibly add them to the CRM functionality, or add a note to their account and so on.

My general rule of thumb here is to push as little as possible and leverage as much as possible with the native system.

So while ThriveCart could add tags, remove tags, add to automations, and remove from automations, I prefer to have ThriveCart do less. I prefer to have ThriveCart just add someone to the automation and for the automation to take care of all the nuances inside that platform.

Let’s look at another tool – this time it’s MemberVault because Mike has added a huge function that pushes data to the nth degree.

In MemberVault, they have actions that can trigger data collection on ActiveCampaign or in your email marketing platform of choice. But whoa, I’m getting ahead of myself (again) let’s start with you going to https://techofbusiness.com/mv/ and signing up for a forever free account.

This account allows you to have up to 50 subscribers or purchasers at no charge. At this level, and all levels, we’re able to create courses and memberships and freebies and the whole binge and buy marketplace. And like ThriveCart, we’re able to get started loading our content in quite early on. Right out of the box the platform works—and adding your branding elements from the style guide will make it “yours” in no time. Content in this case is broken into three distinct sections:
- Product Information- this includes product name, description and a graphic
- Your welcome message- this is displayed to purchasers or signups on the main course delivery page
- A teaser message- this gives a preview of the product and acts as the sales or landing page copy
- Modules and their associated lessons- these can consist of text, graphics, videos, downloads and anything else that you can think of embedding. Modules also have a short and a long description.
There is a lot of content that goes into putting something together on MemberVault, so in most cases, I find that the best way to start a MemberVault project is to have a high level understanding of what you want to use it for and wireframe it. Use dummy content and placeholders to get the structure in place without getting bogged down with content creation.
This is all so that we can get to the vast amount of data and what to do with it.

There are two sides of the data that I want to discuss within the context of this episode.

The first is the gem that Mike recently (like two months ago) revealed. And that is the actions. This is where MemberVault can push a VAST amount of data over to ActiveCampaign or your email marketing provider of choice when your users do a number of things in your MemberVault. Seriously this list is everything!

Here are just a few actions that I have personally implemented:
- Creates account
- First logs in
- Added to free product
- Views teaser content for a specific product
- Added to paid product
Here are the others:

PRODUCT SPECIFIC
- Added to product
- Purchased product
- Unlocked product
- View teaser content
- Ghosts on a product
- Completes Product
- Star user on a product
- Completes Lesson
- Earns X Product EP
- Completes Module
- Unlocks Module
- Passes Quiz
- Fails Quiz
That’s seriously a lot of data that we can generate about our MemberVault users! While more data is great, making sure we make the most of it is even better.

Some of the actions are only relevant if you have bonus content that people unlock when they earn EP. That’s short for Experience Points and it’s a way to gamify maintaining progress through the material.

The data available on the MemberVault admin dashboard is robust and sometimes more relevant to a business than pushing all that data over to the EMS. So while I love data and connecting tools, it’s also prudent to not go overboard!

Before I jump into the other data collection element of MemberVault that is pure genius, I want to highlight the fact that both MemberVault and ThriveCart have great dashboards. And so does ActiveCampaign. So does your CRM. And so does nearly every tech tool that we use these days – so when it comes to reviewing your data and making decisions based on the data, it matters less where that data resides and more that it provides the insight you need.Don’t get hung up on making every piece of data fit into one tidy dashboard if you can glean segments of your data from multiple dashboard.

OK, mini-rant over… I just don’t want to be creating custom dashboards to hold all your data when there are a lot more exciting things we could be working on.

Now, back to that brilliant data I was talking about – it’s EP, or engagement points.

Points are earned by users who access the content and progress through the products. They get points when they mark a lesson as complete and points for completing a module and points for viewing lessons. This means the more someone is on your platform and working through your material, the more they get rewarded.

We can use EPs to unlock bonus material and trigger email automations. EP leaderboards can be public within your MemberVault for all your users to see. Or they can be internal functions only. The public EPs are great motivators in gamification.

This EP data should remain in MemberVault – since it’s mostly irrelevant outside the platform. Even when it triggers automations, it does this through adding a tag in ActiveCampaign, not by sending the EP value over to ActiveCampaign.

I’ve spent my life working with computers. I believe that we’re in the best place we’ve ever been with tools that can bend to our every whim, the ability to create vast amounts of content and collect and insane amount of data.

“Your content, if not structured, does nothing for your audience. Your data, if not handled appropriately, won’t give you the insight into how to move things forward towards your goals.”- Jaime Slutzky

We all want to do new and bigger things in our businesses. And the tech we invest our time, money, and energy into can create a strong foundation upon which our content can do its job and data can give us the insight we need.

While none of us hesitate to hire an accountant, lawyer or real estate agent when they are needed in our businesses, we also should not hesitate in hiring an expert to help us remove our tech blinders. Here at Tech of Business it is my mission to help your tech do the most it can for you – together we can empower you with a deeper understanding at the relationship between your tech, your content and your data. This is done in one or two TECH BREAKTHROUGH sessions.

Let’s get you and your tech and your data working towards that next big goal with eyes wide open!

Connect with Jaime:
- Instagram: @techofbusiness
- Twitter: @techofbusiness
- Facebook: @yourbiztech
- LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
- Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

078: The STIGMA of Outsourcing Your TECH [Deep Dive]

Wed, 14 Aug 2019 10:30:00 +0000

I have to say I’m SO excited about today’s episode. This podcast is a result of a lot of thinking that I have been doing.I have to say...I know there are so many things that might stand in your way of outsourcing your tech. You may some assumptions about what happens with you get out of the realm of DIY and into the realm of Done-For-You. BUT… are those assumptions true? Today we’re going to debunk the stigma of outsourcing your tech and other aspects of your business.

Here’s the thing, all business to business service providers provide a service that could technically be done yourself. Whether it’s your copywriter, your graphic designer, your bookkeeper, your executive assistant or your ads manager. You could technically do these tasks on your own. These are all roles that we could technically do ourselves, BUT for the benefit of our clients, our sanity, and the health of our businesses we outsource them. It’s even easy to justify outsourcing building your initial website or setting up your email marketing platform. So WHY do we find it so much more difficult to outsource the implementation of a new tech tool?

I think it boils down to the marketing messages from the companies that create these tools!

And while I firmly believe that their tools will make your business run better and have more profit, it’s sometimes hard to know if implementing that tool is going to take you a reasonable or unreasonable amount of time. And then if it’s going to be truly an asset in your business for you to know the intricacies of that piece of software or just simply know how to make the most of it.

Which camp were you in when you last added a new piece of technology to your tech stack? Was it the “I’m sure it’s not that tough…” or “I’ll just get the bare minimum done and outsource the full implementation later” or was it “I am going to hire an expert to get this done right the first time?”

Really think about those questions. Read them carefully! If it was the last one, then kudos to you! You fully understand that the best place for you to spend your time in your business is on only what you can do. And by embracing that, you have equipped yourself with the greatest tool any business owner can have – self-worth! Seriously, that’s a bold statement – your self-worth is so much more valuable than a DIY badge or learning something outside of your wheelhouse because you’re not sure how to outsource it.

Well… that’s really what we’re talking about today! How in the world do you outsource implementing tech so that it can truly work for you?

**I’m going to use ThriveCart as an example again because it’s just a really good piece of software and is extremely relatable to this conversation.

This particular tool is not one that most entrepreneurs implement at the outset of their business because it’s usually more than what they need. So it’s truly an “add to the tech stack” software. The ultimate goal when implementing ThriveCart is to have a fully built out checkout process which may include affiliates, bump offers, upsells and downsells, and integrations with other tools like course platforms, membership sites, email marketing platforms, fulfillment services and others.

The platform is relatively easy to use once you know your way around. It’s one of those platforms that is extremely beneficial to outsource and get setup right the first time. At the same time, there are a lot of nuances to it – depending on what other online tools you’re using.

I just recently learned that ThriveCart when integrated with Infusionsoft passes all purchase data over so that the purchases can be tracked in the CRM. I haven’t found that in the documentation anywhere. However, now that I know it, I’m able to draw on that knowledge to make it easier to ask the right questions during setup and configuration.

Similarly, since ThriveCart has native integrations with some tools and relies on Zapier for other integrations, sometimes adding ThriveCart isn’t just adding ThriveCart. It’s also getting Zapier working properly to fully implement the desired functionality. And this opens up a whole new subset of learning opportunities, there are, at the time of this recording, 25 ThriveCart triggers in Zapier!

Let’s ask ourselves, is it beneficial to the sustainability and profitability of your business to be able to setup ThriveCart yourself? Or, would it be a better use of your resources (both time and money) to outsource the initial implementation and setup?

I’m not saying that when we outsource a new tech tool setup and initial implementation that means we can never DIY the tool. In fact, many times when I do this type of setup for my clients, I include documentation, walk-through videos, and use cases and strategies for using the tools themselves going forward.

When we’re bringing on a new software tool, it’s often in conjunction with a new initiative or project.

And that’s just one more reason that outsourcing the tech has so much value. It gives you the space and conserves your energy so that you can be fully present for your audience, students, tribe or what-have-you. I find that most of the stigma around outsourcing tech implementation comes down to perception. By perception, I mean the perception you may have of yourself. Things like:

How are people going to trust me for 6-months of coaching if I can’t even implement ThriveCart?
How is it going to look to my peers when they find out that I didn’t build my own website?
What happens if I don’t know how to reset a student’s password on Thinkific? Is that student going to cancel their membership?

Let’s turn those questions around and make you look like a Rockstar!

How awesome is it that I can fully support my coaching clients and know that their payments and related communications within the backend of my systems is all flowing beautifully?
How amazing is it that my website looks so professional and completely reflects my core desires and core offers?
I’m so lucky that I have a reliable platform that makes it easy for my students to be successful and manage their own account!

There is power in outsourcing your tech implementation.

In fact, there is so much power in outsourcing your tech, my entire business is built upon it – and I love it. Even if you’re not worried what someone else might think, there are other stigmas that go along with outsourcing tech implementation. It’s time to dispel those now!

One of them is feeling confident in your technology.

Without knowing a tool intimately and having had lots of contact with support, watching hours of YouTube videos, being active in the private FB group for the tool, how is it that you’re going to trust this particular tool to truly do everything the sales page said it did?

Oy!… there, a bit of Yiddish for ya! I don’t pull that out very often, but this one is super easy to dispel. Those gray hairs and sleepless nights aren’t going to give you any greater amount of confidence in the tool. In fact, they have the potential to make you weary of your decision to use a given platform.

I had a client last year who wanted to build out her membership site on Thinkific. While she could have used the bundle function and built the membership site and maybe gotten into the LIQUID programming to pull elements out to make the site fully envelop her vision, she likely would have spent a lot of time and energy going back and forth with the support desk. She also would have gotten a minimum viable solution that she would be okay with opening up for her audience. Instead, she chose to trust the software and trust her team to make sure that the platform would then in turn support her students. This created a better experience across the board! And my client was able to develop significantly more content for promotion and the membership site than she would have had she been DIY’ing it.

What membership site would you rather be a part of? One that was cobbled together by a coach who had to split her energy between the content and the build out or one that was outsourced to an expert and where the coach was able to dedicate far more time and energy to the content and your experience in their program?

Another stigma that goes along with outsourcing is the whole “I should be able to figure this out” stigma.

OK, so yes, you’re a freakin’ brilliant business owner who delivers amazing results to your clients, but really? What evidence do you have that you should be able to figure this out? This can go one of two ways.

On the one hand, you might see a lot of people who seem to be just like you who are using the software. It may appear that they all did it themselves, but who’s to say that is true? Or that their business didn’t suffer because they spent so much time on implementation? Or that you have the same skillset as they do?

On the other hand, there’s the marketing and the tutorials that make it seem like anyone can pick it up. But then we get back to if it’s truly the best use of your resources.
There are a lot of things that experts can do that even the most gifted DIYer will never be as successful with.

At the top of the episode, I said that there is less stigma that goes with outsourcing CREATIVE aspects of business like graphics and copywriting. There is also less stigma in outsourcing FUNCTIONAL aspects of business like bookkeeping. But that there is more stigma around outsourcing something that is sold as easy-to-use, plug-and-play and for-everyone.

I’m going to wrap this episode up with a reality question that comes up a lot in people’s minds when they are trying to justify to themselves that it’s okay to hire someone to just do it for you. Are you ready?

Imagine having a tool that would take you 30 - 40 hours to implement including the actual implementation, the research required, and trial and error. And that you have 10 work hours available in the next week to complete this task. hTe remaining time would carve out of non-work time blocks.

Next imagine that you charge $200/hour when working one-on-one with your clients, for simple math purposes. This means that if you could fill those 10 hours this week, you could bring in $2000.

What if I charged $2000 for this exact work? And I could complete the job in the timeline you need it complete. Think about it:

Wouldn’t you rather save the 20 – 30 hours of non-work time that you would need to cut into?
Wouldn’t you rather spend the 10 hours serving your clients and working in your zone of genius rather than scouring support tutorials?
What if you could increase your hourly rate to $300/hour? Why? Because you’ve continued to hone your unique gifts and increase the value that you bring to your clients? (Because frankly, you’re not getting distracted by the new tech implementation rabbit hole!)
What if you just stopped getting in your own way?

And there we have it! Let’s put an end to the stigma of outsourcing tech implementation in your business and let your brilliance shine!

Know someone who needs this message today? Share this episode with them directly from your podcast app or send them to https://techofbusiness.com/078/ !

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

077: Mindset, Your Brain, and Online Sales Tactics with Melina Palmer

Wed, 07 Aug 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Have you ever launched a product and said to yourself, “I really hope someone buys this.”? I think we all have at some point in time. Wouldn’t it be great if you could understand the thought processes your customers have when they are deciding whether or not to buy your product or service? I think we could all benefit from learning a little bit about mindset, your brain, and online sales tactics. I was so excited to have a conversation with Melina Palmer about these exact things!

Melina Palmer has a background in branding and marketing. She worked in this for a decade. She decided to go back to school to get her Master’s Degree in Behavioral Economics. You may be saying, “What is that?” Melina explains that behavior economics is the psychology of how people make buying decisions. Melina specializes in how the brain works when making choices.

She then works with businesses to help them understand the way the brain actually works. And the way it works typically isn’t the way YOU THINK it would or should be. This helps business owners create better messaging to communicate with potential buyers to produce more leads that then turn into conversions. Talk about an amazing piece of information to know as an entrepreneur.

We spend so much time on the Tech of Business podcast talking about different ways you can engage with your customers. We talk about different ways to use technology to do more with your customers and for them to entice them. But I really feel like we need to understand the way the brain works on a deeper level when they are receiving this messaging.

So...what should we be thinking about when we are putting together our lead magnets, sales pages, etc?

“It’s really easy to come up with the right answer to the wrong question. But if you want to be effective, hitting the right people, and making a difference, changing the world with your business, it’s important to make sure you’re answering the right questions and solving the right problem.”- Melina Palmer

There is alot more work that needs to be done on the front end to achieve this. In order to do this, you need to know a few important things like:

Know who you are talking to.
What you are trying to say.
Communicate what you want people to do.

This is kind of an “everything matters” approach to things. I mentioned this in a podcast a while back about when someone is scrolling on their phone and clicking the button on their phone, how nice is it to the customer that you can send them an email letting them know that YOU KNOW they are on their phone so you are limiting the amount of copy there is to read???

It’s important to understand the intention of the platform you’re using.

This means you need to understand not only what it was designed to do, but also what mind frame your potential customer might be in when they are using it. You also need to understand the goals are actually reasonable.

Let’s take Instagram for example. It’s very image and video driven. Melina has a few people she likes to watch on Instagram. But although she likes to watch them, she would never visit their website. So when you are deciding on the platform you are going to use you need to get in the mindset of your potential customer is doing on the platform then you can say “OK what do I WANT them to do when they look at my post on instagram?”

You have to understand their mindset! It’s important to know what you want them to do to take and the next most logical step on their customer journey. Think about it in terms of an actual trip in a car. You don’t have to say you are driving from Seattle to Miami, but rather Seattle to Olympia. You know you are just going South FIRST, then you continue to add the next piece and the next piece. It’s the same thing with the online trajectory.

But...why would someone want to do a challenge vs. a download?

A benefit in doing a challenge like a 5 day challenge is setting up the consistency that creates a habit in the mindset of your potential customers. Being there on a regular basis creates a mindset piece that becomes a habit. This is impactful assuming that the thing you are trying to sell them after the fact is also in some sort of engagement with you on a regular basis. If you are selling them something after the challenge that is the complete opposite, it may be harder to make the sell. So you can see where in some cases a challenge would be WONDERFUL and in others not so much.

You have to understand the brain makes associations that are incredibly literal in a lot of ways. Example would be font sizes on price tags. So when something is on sale the original price is marked out and the new price is in bigger font. A test was done where that was reversed and the new price was put in the smaller font and a lot more people bought in this circumstance because our brains make the association of small font, small price. Isn’t this incredible???

When you think about when you hear the word Apple, your brain thinks about everything is knows associated with apples. Everything from computers and phones to the color red to oranges. That’s all happening in your brain at once. Understanding what associations may come up in someone’s brain and how you want to lead them down the path is important when you are trying to promote your business or product. Okay my brain is literally going boom boom boom right now. Talk about mind blown!

Dialing into fonts

When we get to the end of a challenge or email sequence, and it’s time to make the sale of the product you will convert more by putting the “discount price” in the smaller font than the original price. Melina says not to put the new price in red because our brains are conditioned that red means stop. Whereas, the color green is much more friendly of wanting to buy. The font size can make a difference and you definitely want to LEAD with the bigger price first. The brain will latch onto that bigger price first and then move up or down from there. This is called anchoring and adjustment.

“What you lead with absolutely shapes the perception that somebody has in their experience with you.”- Melina Palmer

There are so many studies out there about anchoring and adjustment. Melina was once speaking to a group of female coaches. She was wearing a blingy necklace at this event. She asked the women to think about the last two digits of their social security number. She then asked them to estimate how much her necklace costs. It was then she told them that someone with a higher two digits like 8-9 would value the necklace higher than someone who had 1-2 at the end. Then a lady raises her hand and said that her last two digits were 8-9 and she immediately thought the necklace was worth $89 then she realized what that amount was and adjusted her estimate to $65. It’s just another example of how our brains make associations without us even realizing it.

Where is your buyer before they see your sales page? What are they doing? Are they going through your material and you are able to guide them through things? Or are they cluttered on Facebook or Instagram and your sales page is an aside they happen to click?

This is something that is going to make a big difference in their mental state and what their brain is going to let them do. It’s really important to pick who you are targeting too when you are setting up your advertisements. This could be limited on some mediums like YouTube.

Why would someone want to leverage social vs avoid social?

The human brain is mostly run by our subconscious. Our subconscious brain has actually been shown to make about 99% of our decisions. So it’s really running the show. Your subconscious is filtering through about 11 million bits per second. Whereas, your conscious can only filter about 40 bits per second. How’s that science for you? This means that things “you think” you’ll remember you actually probably won’t.

The benefit of being part of a social channel is that Facebook will REMIND you that people are posting in a group that you are in. It will send notifications that remind you when things are going on in the group and it reminds you that you are a part of that group.

Sometimes when we actually want to “learn” something you need more focus. This means you may want to be off the social forum and into a private forum. Sometimes it’s really hard to convince our audience to come along on that journey with us. But if you keep the mindset that you know people are busy and they just forget because it’s human nature, then you know you need to remind them. We have to get out of our own mindset of being a bother or a nag. You need to be putting out something that is thoughtful and helpful to create direct contact with people who wanted to engage with you. Basically you need to remind them of it much like the social channels do. This could be done via email.

This is why email marketing is such a valuable tool. You can send out emails once a day, once a week, emails based on activity… it really depends on what your goals are with that content. You have to keep yourself and your content top of mind without being an irritant. You need to set the expectation with your audience of what you might be sending them especially if you are expecting to make a shift in how often you are going to communicate with them. Prepping people for communication is important.

If you are thinking that you want to make a shift in my business and I want to do it in a way that is going to be beneficial in my audience, if you want to have a conversation with me then have a conversation with me. If there is something that is triggering your thinking that you could do better with something then let’s put it on the roadmap and have a conversation about it.

Must have Tips

It’s really important when you are using technology and automated systems to not think about what’s best for you, but rather what’s best for the person receiving it. What’s the value to them? You need to be framing your messaging to convey that you have thought about what’s best for THEM not YOU!

There are so many pieces of technology that we are trying to be a part of these days and so many people have fallen into the trap of having their tech set up in a way that is ME, ME, ME. A great example of this is when you follow someone on twitter and you get an automated direct message to follow that person on all the other channels. That automated message doesn’t make anyone feel special. This makes most people want to unfollow immediately!

Thinking about THEM (the people receiving your message) matters the most.

The online space is a very noisy space. We are all unique with our own unique gifts. And we are going to attract the best, right people for us. So we want to give those people the ability to actually find us and connect with us. If we are just part of the noise it’s never going to happen. It’s so beneficial to take a step back when you are creating something and ask some advisors to look at things from their perspective. You have to realize that what you THINK might be best...may not actually be best. The good thing about that is you can tweak things until you do get the winning combination.

Automations can be very helpful. Automations that ask open ended questions can inspire people to reply back and engage with you. You can ask questions like “What coffee shop do you like to co work at?”. What would you say to someone when you are actually talking to them face to face? Think about this when you are setting up an automation.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Melina:

Podcast: The Brainy Business
Website: https://www.thebrainybusiness.com
Instagram: @thebrainybiz
Facebook: The Brainy Biz

076: Behind the Scenes PEEK at Tech for Your Virtual Summit [DEEP DIVE]

Wed, 31 Jul 2019 10:30:00 +0000

We’ve had a couple other episodes on Virtual Summits. So for today, I want to break down the tech you’ll want to get working together to have a fully functioning summit.

**A quick clarification before we get into the tech. There are a few schools of thought on what makes a summit!. So for the purposes of this conversation, we’re talking about pre-recorded interview or lecture style summits. Those that are consumed on a website (rather than Facebook or YouTube). And that are free to attend for a limited time. These summits also always offer an extended access to the summit content through an All-Access Pass or other aptly named purchasable digital entity. And communication with your summit attendees will be done through an EMS and a closed Facebook group.

We’re going to start with the end in mind – all summits need to lead the attendees somewhere.

It is vitally important to know the customer journey. Are you going to send your attendees to a course? A membership? A group program? A done-for-you service? There are so many places that we lead our summit attendees to. It’s super helpful to know what’s next! And as long as what’s next includes some kind of content delivery, it’ll make it way easier to figure out how and where to set up the paid access portal.

Your paid access portal is the first platform you’ll want to nail down. It may be a WordPress site with an LMS or membership plugin. Possibly could be a stand-alone platform like Thinkific or MemberVault. The exact solution is something you and your team (and me!) will want to discuss. We'll want to make sure that all the I’s are dotted and T’s are crossed. It’s important to pick a platform that has the ability to grow with your business vision.

Once that platform has been determined, other decisions will be far easier to make… these decisions include the checkout or cart functionality and affiliate management utility. Other decisions also include whether or not you’ll need or want to use Zapier. And, of course, updates to your EMS or other tools that are in your tech stack that aren’t quite up for the job of supporting your virtual summit vision.

I strongly recommend using the best, right tool for each given task.

My personal favorite checkout tool is called ThriveCart. I like ThriveCart because it is a stand alone utility that takes care of affiliate details and selling your product. It also has integrations with a number of other tools that can be used to deliver the goods. And it also consolidates all the common payment tools. As of the time of this recording these are PayPal, Stripe, Apply Pay, G Pay and Authorize.net. This puts your consumer in the best buying position by lowering the purchase barrier.

The best affiliate management systems put the affiliate as close to the point of sale as possible. So while there might be an affiliate system close to your content delivery, a better affiliate system is one that is intrinsically tied to the payment.

There is a lot more that ThriveCart can do, but that’s not the purpose of this episode – if you have payment functionality already then it’s likely that will work for your summit as well.

We now know the tools we are going to use to deliver the extended access, get paid for it and where our affiliates will be tracked. So let’s get to the free summit! This is where your tech needs to be super solid! It’s the first interaction many of your attendees are going to have with you and your brand and your business.

If we were building your business from scratch with this summit, it would be pretty cut and dry what tools to use. And I have those available in a nifty download you can get here by scrolling to the bottom of the page! But since you’ve already got a tech stack to contend with, let’s not add more clutter that is going to need to be cleaned up later.

Hosting a summit might be a great time to clean out some of the tech tools that you are using to streamline your systems...take your EMS for example.

This is one component of your tech stack and virtual summit that needs to be in tip top shape! WHY? So that it can do a lot of heavy lifting. If you’re using a system that doesn’t have tagging capabilities or isn’t well organized it’s time to clean that thing up.

Your EMS is going to be responsible for keeping your summit attendees excited as the summit approaches. It will also provide links to the summit content during the event. And guide your attendees through whatever you’ve got on the heels of the summit.

One of the reasons I like EMSs that have tagging is because it is a great built in organization structure. And less pre-cleanup is required to add your summit into the fold. It’s just a matter of creating a series of tags that correspond to the different parts of the summit and different ways that your attendees and purchasers interact with your emailed content.

Let me dig in a bit more! The more data you have about a given summit attendee, the better off you will be to help the exact right people find their way to the exact right next step with you.

With ActiveCampaign (and probably other systems, but I’m most familiar with AC) there is site tracking available. With this functionality, you can actually see which attendees have visited which pages on your summit website! This is super powerful, especially if we’re agile in our approach to summit communication. It’s far easier to start a conversation with an attendee when you know what has piqued their interest! Not to mention, that it’s crucial for a great experience to not sell to the already sold!

If someone has purchased the extended access, it is crucial to stop including them in the summit upsell emails. Instead, the communication needs to switch to nurturing the relationship and helping them to use the content that they have purchased.

I’ve worked on summits using ActiveCampaign, ConvertKit, AWeber, Mailchimp and Infusionsoft… they all work. So if you’re using one of those tools and using it effectively, your summit can be run with that tool. If you think that you might need to cleanup already, I strongly recommend doing the cleanup before you start adding your summit to this tool. And if you don’t feel confident that your EMS is going to support your summit vision, let’s chat and we’ll figure out the next best EMS step for you to take.

Before we go too much further, my biggest frustration with some of the EMSs out there is that the automations aren’t as flexible as summit hosts’ visions.

It’s a give and take. For example, ActiveCampaign may take 15 minutes to get your emails out to your entire list. It’s super helpful to know that and not plan on sending emails “at the time the summit launches” but send them “we’re live within the hour.” The rest of the system on ActiveCampaign is so good, that I’m willing to compromise on this little annoyance. All the EMSs have something that is going to go in the negative column on a pro-con list, but in general, if you have a system that is working – stick with it!

OK… I’ve probably exhausted your listening desires around the EMS, so let’s move on.

My friend and past podcast guest Mark Wade has a great software tool called Virtual Summits Software. It’s a robust tool that puts your summit content at the forefront and takes care of a lot of the tech so that you don’t need to hire a team. It’s certainly a viable option, but it’s not the tool that I use with my clients. Mostly because my clients are wanting more customization than what is available in Mark’s software.

Instead, my go to is to build out your summit on a WordPress website using the Beaver Builder page builder. A stand alone WordPress website is the strong recommendation here… let me explain.

Whether your main business website is on WordPress or not, the flexibility of WordPress makes hosting a summit so much easier than any of the hosted platforms. And stand alone means that your summit is the only thing that lives within that WordPress installation – no blog, no services page, no nothing. So it’s completely “clean” and poised to present your summit content without distraction.

And a page builder – that’s mostly because it’s so much easier to use the page builder to create the summit pages exactly how you want. Other than Beaver Builder, you might be considering Thrive Architect or Divi. I strongly prefer Architect over Divi but again, if you are used to a certain page builder, use it. These are suggestions and my preferences not a mandate!

The next most important tool you’re going to need is your video host.

For this, there is basically one feasible option – that is Vimeo Pro. At the Pro level you can use their platform for business. And at the free and plus levels it’s against the terms of service to use videos in that way.

The question I often get at this suggestion is whether or not YouTube is a viable option. Viable, yes, recommended no. And that’s because the playback experience is better with Vimeo. There are always new services coming up and a quick search of “Video Hosting Providers” will give you some idea of other options that are out there. But for the price and value, I believe you’re not going to do wrong with Vimeo Pro!

And with that – we have covered all you need to host a virtual summit – WordPress for the summit website and session pages, Vimeo Pro for your video hosting, an EMS, a checkout mechanism and a paid content portal.

Of course, there are far more things that go into hosting a virtual summit than just the right tech tools. And that brings us right back up to the top of the episode where we dove into what’s coming after the summit and positioning everything within that light.

I see so many mentors and coaches and gurus tout summits as a great list building tool. And they are! But none of us are building a list for a vanity metric. We are building our lists to grow our businesses! And that’s the exact reason why positioning and summit topic matter so much.

I’m floating around a virtual summit idea for Tech of Business to host in early 2020. While I have so many ideas as to what I could do with the summit...none of them matter if I don’t know what I want to provide to attendees after the summit wraps up. And for that, I have work to do! I know exactly what the offer is, but I haven’t created it yet. I’ve proven it with one-on-one services! Before I can invest everything I need to into the summit, I need to first invest in translating the one-on-one service into the new form that makes sense to come on the heels of the summit.

Because I know what I’m going to be offering, I am at the start of the cycle. I can pick a platform to house the new offer and that lays the foundation for how I’m going to implement the summit.

My new offer is going to be housed on MemberVault and sold directly through ThriveCart. I want to be able to leverage the robustness of ThriveCart for affiliates and upsells and downsells and bumps and all that jazz (but that is totally for another podcast episode!)

With that piece of the puzzle in place, I know that I’m going to be selling the summit extended access through ThriveCart and housing the content inside MemberVault. It feels so good to be 6+ months away from the summit launch and already have an understanding of how it’s going to come together.

Another piece that I can feel confident about is that I’ll continue to use ActiveCampaign for the summit – and looking at my ActiveCampaign account, there is some cleanup I’d like to do before we get to summit promotion. I’ll put that on the calendar so that it is complete long before the number of hours I need to dedicate to the summit increases.

And I could go on and on about the tech foundation for the summit that I’m gearing up to hosting – I’ll be sharing this process as I move through it, including all the tech and systems and processes that I use along the way.

I love virtual summits and what they can do for businesses. And I sincerely hope this episode is something that you’ve also enjoyed. I hope you will come back to when you start to get an inkling that it’s time to host your own virtual summit.

I’m here for you – getting the exact right tech in place for your business goals!

Next week, we’ve got a super fun conversation coming onto the podcast and as always connect with me on Instagram (I’m @techofbusiness) and book your http://callwithjaime.com to let me know what else you’d like to hear on the podcast!

075: [Deep Dive] An Accidental New Offering That I'm Thrilled About

Wed, 24 Jul 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Sure this is a podcast about the tech of business but so much of what we need to work through is the strategies in the business – the tech fulfills the strategy not the other way around.

And that leads into my new offering and why it came to being in the way that it did.

As of about 10 days ago as of the time of this release, I started selling website hosting. So, over on the resources page at https://techofbusiness.com/resources/ you’ll now see three options for hosting instead of just two.

The two that were there before I started hosting were WP Engine and A2Hosting. They are both affiliate links and are great for those of you who want to keep things streamlined and not have any “middle men” or “middle women”. But what was lacking and the need I realized was that I was perfectly poised to fill for many of my clients was that of taking something else off their plates.

I’ve spent a lot of time in different hosting platforms, both the two I mentioned above as well as SiteGround, Bluehost, Cloudways, GoDaddy and a ton of others since I started working with WordPress sites back in 2010.

And one thing I’ve noticed is that as much as they want things to be easy, it’s just not the smoothest of places for a business owner to hang out. There are a lot of subtleties and complexities at the same time.

How are you supposed to educate yourself on hosting and how to do things without relying on your good friends Google and YouTube? And how do you know you’re getting advice you can trust and not advice being touted because of some back end affiliate program.

Frankly, you don’t – and for a long time, I wished there was a better way to help my clients feel confident that their hosting platform would support them.

Oh shoot… I jumped right into this rabbit hole without any context. Let’s take a step back and then we’ll get back into the accidental new product I’m selling and why I think it’s perfect for many of my clients!

The lack of context is that domains and hosting and IP addresses and such are a bunch of buzzwords that most people don’t fully grasp. So, let’s imagine the internet as a super long street with thousands of apartments on each block. OK, let’s look at one block on that street.

This block consists of a bunch of apartment buildings owned by A2Hosting. They bought the land and built the apartment buildings. Some of the apartments have wide beautiful views while others are just studio apartments. Some have snazzy elevators others are only accessible via the stairs. All the apartments have a security guard that you can employ, if you want. Each of the apartments are available for rent and, depending on how much you’re willing to spend you’ll get your apartment and it’s access.

Renting the apartment is like buying hosting.

Renting an apartment alone is never going to get your Amazon Deliveries and it’s not going to be a comfortable place to live.
For that, you need to announce to the powers that be your address. And in the online world, this comes about through your domain name. But it’s not quite that simple.

Buying your domain name without hooking it up to your host is like having the placard for your mailbox but not affixing it to your mailbox.

We need to affix the placard. And that is done by setting your domain to use the address of the hosting platform. There are a few ways to do this but that’s beyond the scope of this story, so I’ll leave that as tech-magic.

So now we have our domain pointing to our apartment and we can now get deliveries. But what about if you want to have a party? You can’t do that if there is nothing inside your apartment – and that’s where we begin to setup our website and our email addresses and our membership site and all that jazz.

And that IP Address… it’s the address of your apartment building. Even if your apartment building has a fancy name, it still has a physical address… that’s what the IP address is.

OK… I hope you haven’t tuned me out – and that you got some insight into what hosting and domains and ip addresses are all about. It’ll help so much as we move into why I now offer hosting to my clients.

But before we get there… one critical piece of the story is that of the optional security guard. He or she works to make sure that your apartment is as safe as possible. That’s the goal of an SSL certificate for your website.

There are paid SSL certificates which are important for financial transactions. Then there are free SSL certificates which are much more like the security guard. The most popular free SSL certificate that I’m aware of right now is one provided by a company called Let’s Encrypt.

And this free SSL certificate is one of the reasons I started providing hosting. I wanted to make it easy for my clients to have access to the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate… and my hosting does this automatically as soon as the domain is pointing to the hosting.

But that’s not the only or main reason I started offering hosting… the main reason I am doing this is because it is frankly way easier for me and my clients to get started on their projects. And I am 100% confident in providing the hosting that they need.

My reseller hosting is through A2Hosting. I actually purchased the reseller level of hosting back in November 2018 with the hopes of bringing hosting into my business shortly thereafter. But I didn’t have a compelling need to do it. So it sat… that is until a little over 2 weeks ago when I realized that one of my clients was a perfect candidate for my reseller package.

This client has hired me to build out her website and provide ongoing support and maintenance. It’s that last part that indicated to me that providing my own hosting would be a logical and mutually beneficial step for both of us.

She was 100% on board and within a few days, I had it up and ready for her to purchase.

I have another client who recently moved her primary site from Weebly to another provider. She hired me to setup redirection from the old Weebly links to the corresponding pages on her new platform. She also hired me to setup a blog.

I was giddy because I knew my hosting offering would be perfect for her. She’s already successful in her business. She doesn’t have the time or desire to deal with the technology side of things. She and I are in the process of setting up a longer term working relationship. This is so that we can continue to optimize her online platform and grow her business.

All her Weebly links were under an SSL and accessed via https://. herefore we needed the new host to offer SSL as well. If we tried to do this with hosting from a provider that doesn’t have Let’s Encrypt then she wouldn’t be able to do the redirections which would cause her google traffic to plummet.

And because she’s not taking credit cards on her site the Let’s Encrypt SSL certificate is adequate. If I have a client who is going to take credit cards natively on their site, I would still recommend they purchase an external SSL certificate. We can go into that conversation if you want! Hit me up on Instagram I’m @techofbusiness if that’s of interest to you.

For years I’ve offered A2Hosting and WP Engine as hosting options for my clients. So, what’s changed? Why do I now believe that I can offer better hosting to help you accomplish the tasks at hand?

The shift was that I learned more about you! I learned more about what matters most in your business! And I found a way to deliver a better product.

In the past when I’ve suggested hosting, I left the door open for you to find someone else who could give an alternate suggestion. And this would just make you confused.

If you already have hosting and we start working together, I’m not going to force or even gently suggest we migrate you over to Tech of Business website hosting. Why? Because we never need to do something with our tech if it’s not fixing a major problem or positioning us to reach a new goal or milestone. If your hosting is working– then by all means, stick with it like glue. It’s a PITA to change hosts.

But, if we start working together and there is something intrinsically not working in your tech stack, we’re going to figure out how to get out of that mess. We will get where we need to be. And that may include jumping into the Tech of Business hosting plan.

Our hosting plan is built on the A2Hosting servers and comes with the reliability that I have trusted since I moved over a couple of years ago. I’m confident that your needs will be met and that this is a quality foundational tool for your business.

If you have questions about hosting or want to see if Tech of Business hosting is right for you, head over to https://techofbusiness.com/hosting and fill out the form. I will get straight back to you. Hosting is only available by application.

And with that, let’s wrap this episode up with saying that it’s 100% okay to go all in on a rabbit hole if you have a pretty good idea where it’s going.

That’s what I did when I brought hosting into my offerings. I knew it would be successful and I knew I wanted to make things easier for my clients. I was fairly certain that the reseller package that I’m on with A2Hosting was going to be a great option for fulfilling the requirement.

Was offering hosting a must have part of my business… certainly not. But it was a necessary part of my business that became apparent recently.

Do you have a new goal or project in the wings? Or are you wondering if your current tech is ready to support that new initiative? Let’s do a Tech Audit and help you make some concrete decisions and lay a clear path for your tech stack.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

074: [Deep Dive] How Do You Know When You've Outgrown Your Current Way of Using Tech?

Wed, 17 Jul 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is covering an important topic: how to know when you’ve outgrown the way you’re currently using the technology in your business.

What I mean is, when we start our online businesses, we made some technology decisions to get started. And as we ebb and flow and grow and change, those tools might no longer be a good fit – and this episode is going to help you figure out how you can look at your tech stack, or lets be honest, your tech pile, and figure out the golden gems and the deadweight.

It’s not only important to know when the time is to look at your tech, but also what to do about it.

This episode, as well as many other deep dive episodes that come out just after I’ve been on vacation, came from a trend that I notice on social media. I spend way,way more time scrolling social media when I’m sitting by the pool than I do when I’m working on client projects!

And with that endless scroll, what I get to see is a lot of people asking questions about this tool or that tool. We covered that topic in Episode 38. That one was all about the better way to source tech. This time my scroll found me seeing people over and over trying to piece things back together to create a cohesive tech solution for their business. They looked almost scared to throw a tool away that is no longer serving them and instead push harder to find a way to make it continue to make sense.

These really awesome entrepreneurs are looking to over-complicate and quick-fix it rather than to look at the root of the stress and tackle it head on. It’s okay to say “I have outgrown this piece of technology” or “This tool is no longer serving my business goals” or even “This tool has changed too much since I started using it and I’m done!”

When to evaluate

There isn’t one time that is perfect for every business to evaluate how the tech is supporting them. Some business owners do it more often than they need to and might miss subtle changes while others don’t do it often enough and turn a blind eye.

The short answer for most of my clients and the businesses that I work with is to look at things on a quarterly basis. I recommend you create this as a task in your quarterly CEO date… and if you don’t have one of those on the calendar, you have full permission to step away from your business and look at how it is running on a regular basis.

CEO dates are not just about forecasting and planning and dreaming they are also about making sure that your business is setup for growth and opportunity… your tech stack eval is certainly part of that side of the day.

I bet as you’re listening to this episode right now, you have a few tools that are needling at you saying “yup – you’ve caught me, I don’t serve you the way I used to.” Start with those, they are the easiest ones – and you don’t even need to wait for a CEO date to tackle them. What you’ll want to look at with these tools, and all tools for that matter, is ask yourself the following questions:

Why did I originally add this tool to my tech stack?
What do I want this tool to do now?
Do I use other tools that could also perform that function?
What role is this tool performing in my business today?
Is this tool a silo or is it well integrated?
How much effort (both time and money) would it require to replace this tool?

Let’s take a look at two examples.

The first example demonstrates what I see most often as the catalyst for starting to look at whether or not you’ve outgrown the tech in your business… you get an inkling that something might work better.

So here we have a coach who started her email list on MailChimp and is now feeling the need to move to ActiveCampaign. She may truly have outgrown MailChimp or she might be seeing a lot of her peers moving to ActiveCampaign and doesn’t want to be left behind. Or, she could just not have optimized her MailChimp for it to support her business growth.

So, let’s go through those 6 questions:

She originally added Mailchimp to her tech stack because she wanted to grow a list and send broadcast emails.
She wants MailChimp to help her list members become clients through email automations based on action they take in MemberVault.
There isn’t any other EMS in her tech stack right now. So, no she doesn’t have a different tool that she could leverage.
Right now MailChimp is where she sends weekly messages to her list and contains a welcome series.
Mailchimp is reasonably well integrated. It is connected with MemberVault, so all her new MemberVault subscribers also end up in MailChimp and she has a signup form sits on her website.
Now, for the effort required… because her Mailchimp account is integrated with
MemberVault, she not only has to do the migration of her list and welcome series, she also needs to change out all her MemberVault actions to connect with the new service instead of with MailChimp. When it comes to spending time or spending money side of effort required: it’s worth looking at whether the new service provider provides migration services for the main task and then DIY or outsource the rest. I recommend outsourcing whenever possible because you don’t need to be bogged down by the nitty gritty details.

So, where does that leave our coach? Is she at the point where it makes sense for her to throw MailChimp out and move over to ActiveCampaign?

The answer for me is that it’s not entirely clear yet – which means she probably hasn’t completely outgrown Mailchimp. But the truth is that now might be the best time to migrate. Based on her objectives and business goals, now might be the right time to make the major shift because it would be way more difficult in 3-6 months with the growth she’s seeing.

Having an inkling that it’s time to make a tech decision is enough of a reason to evaluate that particular tech tool but it’s also a great opportunity to delve deeper into your tech stack and see if there are other systems or tools that can be cleaned up at the same time.

Sheesh… this would be a perfect time to remind you of the Tech of Business Tech Audit…

The Tech Audit is a two part process. The first is that you and I get on a zoom call together. We discuss the tech that runs your business. I’ll ask you lots of questions to make sure I get a thorough look at what makes up the tech that supports your business. From there, I’ll create a tangible report for you in which I’ll identify tech gaps that are currently being filled by manual processes, tools that are redundant or aren’t strong enough to support your business and where to double down. It’s like a quick fix to making sense of tech and its role in your business.

I’m finding it quite funny that this episode led us to the Tech Audit so swiftly! But I guess it makes sense because it’s so easy to pile more and more onto any system or process without clearing away the necessary space for the tool to do its job the best that it can.

So, let’s get to our second example…

This time we have a professional who has developed and is actively selling courses and a membership site. Her clients and students have multiple ways to connect with her and multiple logins to access different products and services. And every day it’s getting more and more complicated. She’s getting more customer service questions than student assistance questions. At her next CEO date with herself, she’s made it a priority to list out the tools that she uses to run her business. She has to figure out how to make things easier.

Phew… that’s a lot. Where in this tech mess does she start? She can’t just ask herself the 6 questions that I mentioned earlier. Why? Because she doesn’t know what tool to look at first! The pain she is experiencing is mostly to do with client facing and client touching tools. These are largely the set of tools I described at length in Episode 71. So, that’s where she is going to start.

If this were a guided exercise, I would tell her to take out a sheet of lined paper. Then I would have her draw a vertical line about 1/3 of the way across the page. Then, I would have her draw a horizontal line every 8 lines on the page. And repeat this until she has 6 pages complete… and this will give room for 18 tools to be listed out, 3 on each page. In the box on the left side of the vertical line, she’ll write the tool or piece of software. Then on the lines in the right side, she’ll answer each of the 6 questions from above.

A tech landscape will begin to appear. This will undoubtedly make it easier to determine if there is something that she’s outgrown. Most of us use far more tools than we realize. When you’re doing this exercise for the first time, look at the tools that are installed on your computer. Also look at those that you use in your browser. Be sure to check back in your bank and credit card statements for the tools that you pay for annually, but haven’t opened or looked at recently.

**I have a great download for you that goes really nicely with this episode – it’s the Tech Impact Workbook. You can find an opt-in for it right on the homepage of https://techofbusiness.com.

Boiling back to the initial question we posed at the top of the episode. How do you know when you’ve outgrown your current way of using TECH?

The fastest way of knowing that you’ve outgrown your current way of using a tech tool is to catch yourself in the act. What I mean to say is that when you find yourself following a process that used to be 6 steps but is now 20 steps, pause, and note that there might be a better way if you start at the beginning.

Another way is the avoidance principle. Whereby you know you “should” be doing something but you keep avoiding it because of this or that. That probably means that you’ve outgrown the way you do that task whether it’s the task itself or the tools that you have setup.

And finally, the best way I know for you to identify that you’ve outgrown the current way you’re using tech is because something breaks. Which means you or a member of your team is constantly on clean up or doing too many manual processes.

My passion is to make tech easier so that it supports your business goals.

Every business goes through growing pains, outgrows tools and has to restack the tech stack on occasion. The Tech of Business is here to help you through those growing pains. We are here to help you find the best right tool for the next stage of your business and implement it so that you can keep on keeping on. And we are here for ongoing support of your tech stack.

Both the Tech Audit that I mentioned earlier and the Tech Intensive are great ways to push forward with your business goals. They help you to know that your tech is there to support you. Go to the Work With Me page on the Tech of Business Website to learn more about each of them.

I seriously cannot wait to work with you!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

073: The Selling Staircase Launch Strategy with Nikki Rausch

Wed, 10 Jul 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Are you ready to take control over your sales process? Yes -- then today’s episode is going to give you a boost in that direction!

Meet Nikki Rausch! And she is Your Sales Maven. She is a sales coach, an author, and a speaker. Entrepreneurs hire her to teach them how to sell their product in an authentic way so that they are able to build rapport and relationships with their leads and build their client roster.

The sales process is a critical component of being an entrepreneur. Having an online presence is only good if you can get people to sign up and take action!. If customers only get to the point of being interested and never sign up and invest their time and money in your product then you aren’t doing everything you can to grow your business.

Nikki believes, by having a sales coach and learning how to have sales conversations, it equips you to convert your prospects to customers.

As a Sales Coach, Nikki has plenty of tools at her disposal to begin sales conversations. The one that I’m most interested in this episode is the one she used for The Selling Staircase book launch. This strategy allows people to:

Start learning from Nikki at a low price point
Get inspired by learning from Nikki
And then go up and up and up in her offers

The sales strategy for The Selling Staircase was to create ambassadors in the marketplace for the book, a launch team of supporters, who are willing to step up and promote the book into the marketplace.

Nikki and her launch team are using social media, swipe files, podcasts, email marketing and Amazon Reviews as the principal tools to create immediate buzz around the book. She didn’t use this method for either of her first two books, but her community and brand awareness afforded her this new method of book launch! It’s been important to Nikki for her launch team to know she is with them every step of the way.

The beauty of a launch team makes Nikki’s book more visible and easier to find in the marketplace. This makes it possible to find her book faster. People can see it’s also more than just Nikki sharing about her book.

When you are writing a book, it's so important to visualize the outcome... What do you want to happen as a result of putting your book out into the world?

If you are writing a book, you are creating a way for people to have a low price entry point so that they can be exposed to your work and learn from you. It allows someone who isn’t ready to or not able to step into a one on one coaching situation to still learn and be engaged in content.

“This idea of people being engaged in the content is social proof. That’s why I’m building this launch team.”- Nikki Rausch

With this “social proof”...the goal was to have 50 or more people who have already written a review on Amazon on launch! Every member of the launch team gained early (discounted) access to The Selling Staircase.. They will have read the book. Also, they will be engaged in the content. AND they will be able to talk intelligently about:

What is in the book.
How others can use it.
Why they would promote it to other people.

A book launch team is like running a beta group for your course or group program… If you already have a large community of followers then you could be ready for this strategy yourself!

Think about it this way. When you are doing a beta launch of your group, the people who join are most likely the most loyal people in your community. They are the best right people to be inside your beta -- they are willing to give of themselves to see your success and they are more likely to make it all the way through your content (because they already know-like-and-trust you and your process!) Therefore, they can be a true ambassador.

Beta launching is something that Nikki absolutely loves. She beta launched a membership platform and courses. And, even before wrote this book, she was teaching about the content. She then did a webinar and 6 part video series on YouTube. She did all these things to beta her content before she put it into a book form. Nikki wanted to make sure that it was going to resonate with her audience and it allowed for adjustments before she wrote the book. She used online tech tools as stepping stones inside this process of writing her book!

So, let’s talk about the book…

The full name of the book is The Selling Staircase: Mastering the Art of Relationship Selling. According to Nikki, oftentimes, we learn about filling a sales funnel. People don’t know how to get people from the funnel to the point where they exchange dollars. The idea of the selling staircase is about how to get people from the sales funnel and move them step by step to the end goal.

It’s 5 easy steps that help entrepreneurs identify if the person is not an ideal client or ideal client who you then need to move through the process. It teaches them what to say and do to move a client to the next step. Ideally it’s for someone that struggle with the idea of sales.

Think about it this way...You have a lead magnet...Then someone downloads the lead magnet and gets on your list and starts going through your email sequence. There are times you may want to pick someone out of that process based on the activity they are doing.

You want to be able to take someone out of a possibly elongated process if they are doing the work because you want to be able to reach out to them and help them step by step through the process.

Always be looking for and picking clients who are ready.

There are lots of ways for people to stay engaged with your work like listening to your podcast or reading your newsletter. Look for people who are ready to take the next step because they won’t just pop out to you. You are going to have to identify them and then engage them in some way to make it easy for them to have more engagement with you.

This strategy works for more than just one on one services. It works for selling higher priced services/products as well. When you are selling a product or service you have to:

Meet the customer wherever they are at
Extend a hand
AND HELP THEM

But how do you get someone to pop out….

Simple: Issue Invitations! People like to be invited -- even if we aren’t actually ready to pop out and take that next step, it feels great to be invited. Make it SUPER clear and easy to work with you. The easiest way to do this is to actually issue an invitation.

“If you make it hard for the client to understand that you are PERSONALLY inviting them to something, they often won’t take the next step.”- Nikki Rausch

Think about it this way. When we are writing something and sending it out to our community we write it as if they are going to be reading it as a big, collective community...but they aren’t. They are reading it as each individual person. When you are issuing an invitation, it needs to be written to them as if it was JUST written to just one person.

A really simple tip to stop writing like you are writing to your community as a whole is to stop using “Hey Guys” or “Hi Everyone”. Your audience members are not reading it as everyone reading together… they are reading it individually so make it feel personal.

I was practically jumping up and down when Nikki was talking about this -- I see it all the time!.

I also see people who use a personalization function at the start of an email to their community and it seems much more personal, but then everything else in the message is written very generally. On the podcast, we have talked at length about learning who your audience is... when someone takes an action in an email by clicking a link to answer a question, it allows you to segment your list down so you can send multiple versions of an email to best suit the different segments.

Segmenting helps make your emails more relevant and personal… here’s an example.

Most of the time when I’m reading newsletters that I’ve signed up for … I read them on my phone while I’m at gymnastics. So if Nikki sent me an email and asked me to click here if i’m reading on my mobile phone and I click that button the next time she sends me an email she can say “Hey! I know you are on the go so I’m going to keep this short and sweet…”.

How relevant is that kind of information to have? As a recipient of that, it tells me that Nikki really gets me! She wants something more for me and ultimately I’ll be more likely to open more of her emails and take more action!

“Anytime you can personalize and make the message feel really relevant to THAT reader, you are speaking right to the heart of somebody.”- Nikki Rausch

When you write and email and you make the recipient feel like they are just one of many it’s not enticing. It makes your audience feel like you really don’t care about them as one person. This goes back to a principle in Nikki’s book...

“The relationship always comes before the sale.”-Nikki Rausch

You have to put the relationship first and start talking to people like you are having real conversations. This is how you master the art of relationship selling. Stop talking AT people and start talking WITH people.

Another great topic that Nikki covers is reducing the number of “I” statements.

When you are writing something and putting it out into social media, think about it being read by another person. Stop using a bunch of “I” statements except for when you are talking about something you personally did. Things like “I think you might like” or “I created this downloadable” or even “I want you to listen to this”

When you really want to engage someone in a conversation, it needs to be “you” statements because they are reading it from their perspective. Use things like “You’re invited” or “You are somebody I would love to connect with”. This has a different message to the reader than saying “I want this for you!” People don’t care what you want, they care about what they want!

Effective messaging often includes asking questions and helping someone see the other side. Then there are breadcrumbs to lead them back to you as the service provider.

“When you ask people questions, their brains give them an answer. Now whether take action and respond to you is something else.” -Nikki Rausch

Nikki recently sent out an email to her list that asked a question. She was amazed at how many people responded to this question. So then she took it a step further and sent them all an individual video that offered them some training. Not everybody watched the videos and responded. But those that did, responded and said they couldn’t believe she did that for them! Because they took the time to engage with her, she took the time to personalize and engage back. This is how you start conversations and move people off of social media and your list!

WOW! This is such a testament to the process, but also understanding the mindset and buying signals!

Back to Nikki’s Launch team for The Selling Staircase: you don’t have to promise them something big for people to want to be involved.

When Nikki was forming her launch team she used a Google Doc and asked people to fill out an application. The application was really focused around them and made sure that it was something that made sense for them and that they would have time for it. The advantage to them of being on the launch team is they:

Get early access to the book.
Exclusive community.
Get access to Nikki for the 6-week book launch promotion

Nikki planned some fun stuff for the launch team. There were both big and little prizes. Most of the people on the launch team just wanted the access to the content in the book. They purchased the book for $0.99 whereas everyone else will pay a higher price for it. They only reason she is charging them $0.99 is so that the reviews on Amazon show as verified buyers -- gives a whole lot more validity to the reviews! Go check them out now → https://tinyurl.com/SellingStaircaseBook .

Members of the launch team were told that they can engage and participate as little or as much as they want. They can purchase the book and leave a review and that’s it. Or have Nikki on their podcast and promote it on your social media and all kinds of other things. Nikki and her team have done everything they could do to make it super easy for the launch team to promote this book.

If you want to launch something and you have the community to support you, think about creating ambassadors or a launch team of your own!!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Nikki:

Website: https://www.yoursalesmaven.com
Free Ebook: https://www.yoursalesmaven.com/ebook
Email: nikki@yoursalesmaven.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yoursalesmaven
Facebook: @NikkiRausch

072: [Deep Dive] 5 Tech Tools That Aren't Hype-Worthy in Your Business

Wed, 03 Jul 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Last week, we talked about 5 tools that create the foundation of any online service business.

Today we’re talking about 5 more tools that many people use but that are absolutely not necessary to your success! This episode is going to be extremely valuable for you if you’re feeling FOMO as you get more integrated into the online service provider community.

The first tool we’re discussing is landing page software.

Landing page software gained huge traction when leadpages came on the map. These tools make it quite easy to build a freebie opt-in or webinar registration. There are decent templates available and they integrate with many of the email marketing providers.

So, why don’t you need this tool? Well, quite simply it’s because website builders are way more robust than they used to be. And many of the email marketing platforms also have great forms for opting in for freebies and webinars.

I would always recommend using WordPress + Beaver Builder or another page builder tool over a page builder tool. It’s also a less expensive option as it doesn't require a recurring expense.

Our second tool is those all in one products that do landing pages, sales pages, checkout, content delivery, A/B testing, funnels, memberships and more.

These systems are well marketed and have great followings. They work, let’s get that right, so why exactly do I not recommend them?
My philosophy is to use the best right tool for the job. Because these tools do so much it is difficult for them to be the best at exactly what you are looking to accomplish online in your business. These tools put emphasis on what the developers or marketers determine is “most important.” If you were a brand new business owner, then these tools could give you an initial boost. But from everything I’ve seen most businesses outgrow the all-in-one products and move towards the best right fit products.

"When building your online tech stack finding the best tools that you can implement fully is the approach I recommend adopting."-Jaime Slutzky

I truly believe that there is not one tool that is a magic bullet – so that’s probably a lot of what makes me distrust all in one products!

In last week’s episode, our second tool was an EMS, or email marketing system. The system that I often see the online gurus say is “better than” an EMS is chatbot tools. So, instead of growing a list of email subscribers you grow a list of Facebook users within your chatbot.

I will say this until I’m blue in the face! A chatbot will not replace an email list anytime soon. When clients come to me asking me to implement a chatbot strategy they have developed...my first response is to look at and optimize their email marketing strategy.

A chatbot can bring clients out of the woodwork, no doubt. Chat bots are on this list of tools that you truly don’t need because there are other equally effective techniques with less overhead and maintenance that can help your potential clients pull the trigger and engage in your services.

I put chatbots in the nice to have category. The businesses that I’m seeing doing really well with chatbots are those that have gone through the growing pains of setting up their tech stack and are ready to add a layer of connection. I guess what I’m saying here is that chat bots are not a base level tool – they are more of a growth level tool and it’s crucial to have your base and its support system before you start the growth layer.

Tools four and five are customer service tools and proposal creation software.

I am talking about them together because, depending on your type of business, you’ll probably be far more interested in implementing one of these over the other.

Businesses that come to me looking for customer service tools are often providing a one-to-many service like course creators and membership site owners or they are online shops with customizable features. Businesses that come to me looking for proposal creation software are most often consultants, designers and freelancers.

Customer service tools.

As a consumer, I’m a huge fan of these and I use them quite regularly. I used them recently when we bought the custom kippot for Camryn’s Bat Mitzvah. I had a number of questions and the shop owner had installed the tawk.to customer service agent onto his website. This was a convenient way for me to get my questions answered – truth is though, I would have happily sent him over an email if there wasn’t a widget on the site.

And that’s kinda the point – it’s again a nice to have rather than a crucial piece of software for running your business. There are a lot of variations of customer service tools but as long as you’re clearly listing your email address, and in some cases phone number, on your website, these tools are only really effective at scale. I also believe that having a customer service tool alone isn’t going to benefit you as much as having it tied to your CRM in some way.

Which incidentally leads me to the proposal creation software… this is another nice to have and not critical component of any one business.

I have been in business for over 8 years and I have sent out hundreds of proposals. Each proposal is better than the last because I now have a repository of proposals, language and, pricing structures that I can use when I’m creating them… and I’m sure you’re in the same boat (that is, if your business is one that sends proposals, but I digress.)

Proposal creation software makes creating proposals super easy after you have created that repository of language and pricing snippets. This software often tracks sending, allows for signatures and often integrates with your CRM, Project Management and payment processing tools. Everything that we can automate in our businesses where there is a tangible benefit should be automated.

Here’s the nugget as to why I do not believe proposal creation software is a necessary tool for most businesses 🡪 you have to go in and create the proposal regardless and most of the time you’ll be able to pull up a past proposal and your snippets and pull something together with minimal inconvenience. The software just isn’t doing quite enough for most of my clients and the businesses I’ve had the opportunity to work in to justify the overhead.

So, there we have it five tools that you think you might need in order to operate a thriving online business but truly can do without.

Again these are: landing page software, all in one funnel and sales tools, chat bots, customer service tools and proposal creation software.
I would love to know if you agree with this list – pop over to Instagram, I’m @techofbusiness and share your thoughts.

And, I want to thank all of you who have booked Tech Audits with me recently – I love helping you gain clarity on how tech can truly support your biggest hopes and dreams in your business. Hop over to https://techofbusiness.com/audit/ to book an audit for your business and we’ll see what tech is working for you, what tech is weighing you down and most of all how to leverage tech more in your business.

Do you have a friend or business associate struggling with one or more of the tools I’ve shared in this episode? Click on the share button in your podcast app right now and give them permission to put that tool back on the shelf and look for an alternative solution to help them accomplish their objective!

Connect with me:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

071: The Top 5 Tech Tools Online Service Providers Need In Their Business

Wed, 26 Jun 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today’s episode is one of those foundational episodes. We’re discussing the 5 most important online tools you need in your business.

These are tools that your business couldn’t run without. These are fundamentals… and they are where proficiency is required because they will be touched on a regular basis.

The first of these tools is your online home – that is your website.

This website must live on it’s own domain but can either be self-hosted WordPress or a hosted solution like Squarespace, Wix, Weebly or even a builder through your hosting platform. It doesn’t really matter how your website is constructed. What matters that you have a consistent and reliable home base which can be the central hub for all the other online spokes. Your website can do a lot for you, but regardless of where things are at with regards to SEO and content marketing, having a place to call home online is super important.

If you’re not on a self-hosted WordPress website and want to delve into SEO and Content Marketing, make a plan to migrate your site in the next 6 – 12 months. The migration will boost your ability to leverage those techniques. But the key is to have the online home base first. It is extremely difficult to run an online business without an online home!

The next tool that your business requires is an EMS.

(We just did a series on email marketing so if you haven’t listened to that, scroll back in your podcast app to episodes 58 – 63.)

An EMS is an email address collection tool and a vehicle for sending out emails. Somewhere on your website, you’ll have a simple form which allows a website visitor to sign up for a freebie or opt-in gift in exchange for providing you with their email address. The exact regulations as far as what you can do with that email address are beyond the scope of this episode. Be sure to check out the CAN/SPAM act and the EU GDPR regulations to make sure your email collection and usage are compliant.

When looking for and researching an email marketing platform, or any piece of software really, it’s not about evaluating the cost versus benefits as your business resides today. It’s super important to put yourself 6 – 12 months down the road to figure out what to invest your time, energy and money in right now.

So, while there is nothing inherently wrong with any one system you choose, the idea here is that you want a solution that won’t be in need of replacement too soon nor will it be something you cannot fully utilize for eons. My top recommendations are on the resources page at https://techofbusiness.com/resources/ .

The two EMS listed there are ConvertKit and ActiveCampaign. Both these solutions will work for you at the get go and be able to support your vision as your business blossoms.

Our third tool is more a family of tools because the exact tool you use is going to differ greatly based on the type of business that you run. This family of tools is your content delivery mechanism.

If you are supplying your clients with a full blown membership experience, you’ll want to use a content delivery tool that provides the membership experience. If you are delivering a course, then a course delivery platform will do well. Now, if you are providing worksheets that go along with your one-on-one work or small group program, you might not need any fancy to deliver them… you could choose to use your website or a cloud storage location. Or you could, use the entry level version of a hosted platform like MemberVault or Thinkific. The important thing here is to know that you have a home for all the content that you want to deliver to your clients (and for that matter to your leads as well.)

Do you know what? Back in episode 28 with Amanda Thebe, we discussed meeting your clients where they are, tech wise. And for that Amanda chose her content delivery tool to be email. She knew that the best chance for her clients to be successful with her program was for it to show up in their inbox every week.

"When choosing a content delivery tool – be realistic with your time and energy and that of your audience as well. I believe that using MemberVault or Thinkific for content delivery is not going to steer you wrong." - Jaime Slutzky"

Right on the heels of delivering content we need to discuss is a mechanism for taking payments. We can’t exactly deliver our products if we can’t sell them!

The two most popular flavors of online payments are Stripe and PayPal. And the biggest difference between the two options is how the transaction is processed.

With PayPal you’ll have payment buttons on your website that will direct your client over to the PayPal website to perform the transaction and then PayPal will send them back to your website once complete. The entire payment process resides within the PayPal website and therefore your business will not be in contact with the client’s sensitive payment information. PayPal has become an industry standard. A PayPal business account is free to open and you are charged a fee, based on the amount of the transaction, for using this service.

Stripe has approached online payments differently. In this case, Stripe transactions happen “in line” on your website. There is no transfer of the client from your website to the Stripe system and back. What this means for us, is that it is now our responsibility to own and maintain the appropriate online security protocols.

I love Stripe because it allows us to have our clients remain in our environment throughout the transaction. Stripe is also free to setup and they charge a fee just like PayPal does. In general, the Stripe fee is slightly lower than PayPal but because there is the overhead of security, they are pretty much as wash.

If you’ve selected a tool like MemberVault or Thinkific, they have direct integrations with PayPal and Stripe. Their integration with Stripe is likely what you’ll see as “native” and what I would use. This is how the online infrastructure of your business can get exponentially complicated – suddenly we’re using MemberVault or Thinkific for both content delivery and brokering our payment processing. And seriously, this is one of the primary reasons I recommend having a tech stack diagram. It’s important to know where things live and how they interact with one another.

Let’s boil this tool down to its lowest common denominator. Let’s make it easy for your clients to make their payments! Simple as that – staying out of the payment process is going to help you immensely. If your clients can “self-serve” this side of things you can focus on over-delivering what they have purchased!

The final tool that I recommend all online service providers implement is scheduling software.

For this, my top pick is Acuity Scheduling.
I have three reasons for recommending scheduling software:

When you’re in online business you’ll have the opportunity to have clients in other time zones. Scheduling software takes this into account. Your clients will be able to easily see your calendar in their time zone and make appropriate decisions.
Scheduling software makes it so much easier to nail down a time that works for both you and your client.
Before our clients become clients, we often offer discovery calls or other such “good fit” calls. It's great to be able to publish this availability on your website, on social media and in your emails. You never know where your next client is going to come from. Making it super easy for them to raise their hand and say that they are interested in working with you should be a primary motivation.

And a bonus reason for having scheduling software – there are built in reminder emails in most of these systems which greatly reduces the number of no-shows!

With these five tools – website, email marketing, content delivery, payment and scheduling, you have everything you need to run a successful and profitable business.

Are you looking for more success? More profit? More organization, systems and structure within your online tech tools? Well then, let’s book your Tech Audit today. During our 55-minute session we’ll get into all the tools that you have in place and get your tech foundation squared away. Just go to https://techofbusiness.com/audit/ to get started.

"Everything we implement online for our businesses sets us up for future success."- Jaime Slutzky

If you’re listening in real time, it’s summertime here in the Northern Hemisphere! AND we’re officially halfway through 2019! There are a few things I want you to think about:

What do you want to accomplish in the next 6 months?
Do you have tech that isn’t supporting that vision?
Are you missing a fundamental tool or do you have extra online hoops that need to be eliminated to make things easier for you, your clients and your team?

Start with your website and email marketing. Once those pieces are functionally working better then move on to streamlining your content delivery, payment processing and scheduling needs. And be sure to tune in to next week’s episode. I’m going to debunk 5 tools that people think they need but in reality are unnecessarily going to over-complicate things!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Book Your Tech Audit

070: Creating Your Online Classroom with Lindsay Padilla

Wed, 19 Jun 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Have you ever thought about creating and teaching an online course, but thought it was just too much to take on? Or that there would be so much involved that you just couldn’t do it? Today we are talking with Dr. Lindsay Padilla the mastermind behind the Build a Better Beta Program. Lindsay’s program is all about creating a simple Beta course with minimal tech.

Let’s get into it!

Rather than starting with something new, Lindsay built her business from the in person classroom as a sociology professor at a community college.She recognized that entrepreneurs weren’t sure how to teach, organize content, and what technology that they needed in order to be able to deliver content.

This led her to create her signature “Build a Better Beta” program. It’s all about how to launch a course as quickly/easily as possible with as little tech as possible. She is excited to help people who have been sitting on courses too long because of all the things they thought they had to have ready in order to launch their program.

You grow your course based on the feedback. From the beta, not from what you think someone else wants to learn. You just need to put the idea out there and work collaboratively and iteratively with your first set of students.

When someone comes to me and says, “Jaime, we need to get this out there.” My first response is to ask them how many phases that is launch. We need to get phase 1 out of the way as quickly as possible so we can learn:

what our students actually want
where they get hung up
where we need to expand and evolve

It’s funny, I never realized it before but as Lindsay pointed out, most of the time courses created by marketers are basically textbooks. That is, they are material but they are not true learning experiences and don’t reside in a construct for completion and implementation.

“I believe courses are true learning experiences.”- Lindsay Padilla

Lindsay wants to change this perception and create an actual learning environment similar to what you would get in a college course. In this space, there are multiple factors including the textbook. She’s reframing the idea of what it means to TEACH a course. If she gave you a textbook and said go learn this and then she tested you in a couple weeks how good would you do if all you had was a textbook?

As you heard, Lindsay called me out on using the term “Minimum Viable Product” because it’s a software development term. A better beta is more like a minimum awesome course. What makes it awesome is that it’s an intimate co-creative experience. Lindsay’s program teaches her students to not pre record anything or pick a platform until you have live taught in a workshop setting because it helps you to really show up for the people that pay for your expertise.

This gives you the most flexibility and allows you to truly listen to your students in a LIVE setting. You are allowed to charge money for this kind of experience. Phase one should really only be how can I get my students from point A to point B.

You and your expertise are what is valuable NOT how fancy your graphics are. It’s truly about you and your students.

We all know there are so many tech options out there for virtual courses. Most of the ones the gurus are using are going to work. But you can get stuck in the weeds with this little detail of which platform they should be on.

I see people crowdsourcing on social media all the time... asking things like what platform they should be on.
This is where I pop in and say, “Can we have a conversation about this?” If I know where someone wants to be in 6 months to a year I can easily suggest 2-3 pieces of software to help them get there. But if I’m one comment in a thread of 400 comments, my value isn’t demonstrated.
Those people are no more clear than when they asked the question in the group.

What is the fastest way to get someone from “what they want” to “seeing the result”?

In this online space, a lot of our validation comes from outside. The issue with this is that it puts doubt in the minds of people who really do have information that they could teach -- they ask themselves questions like am I qualified enough?

Lindsay has found that her customers are largely already very credible. Therefore, the thing that is truly going to move their business forward is starting to serve people.

Lindsay and I both see would-be online creators put tiny decisions like choosing a platform in their way just so they can avoid the real true hard work of putting yourself out there and selling something. People are trying to avoid rejection.

Predictably, the biggest fear is often that nobody is going to buy your course. Which leads to a mindset spiral.. If someone doesn’t buy our course then the knowledge we are offering isn’t valuable.

It’s not possible to avoid these fears. But we do need minimize the emotional/mental toll regarding the results. And then we can realize that this result is not connected to what we actually know and our value. We are literally JUST testing out a product. If no one buys your course,your material is likely not the issue. It’s likely the marketing message not the content!!

The mindset of running a beta is that you are collecting data.

If you sit around deciding which platform to use then you never collect that data. Time is money. You just need to start teaching... that’s where the value is.

Let’s go back to the textbook reference. The teachers who teach classes are excellent teachers because they are teaching what they know and they are using the textbook as a reference. I could write your textbook and you could teach and we could not ever have any contact. But you might be far more successful than I am at TEACHING the material because you have made a connection with your audience. You have sold them into your philosophy on how to interpret this material.

This is something that sticks out to me. I work in the back end of a lot of courses making sure that everything fits together so the content is delivered correctly and on schedule.

Technology can either enhance or ruin good teaching because it is the tool to create the experience.

When Lindsay is recommending tools for her students she keeps it as minimum as possible. She tends to recommend things like:

Google Docs- workbooks, lesson planning, being able to edit the doc live on the fly when something comes to you. Using Google Docs creates flexibility in the first stages.
Zoom Pro- making sure you can record a video and be a workshop style thing when delivering content. Getting the package that allows you to livestream is great if you can do it.

“If the textbook is the content you are creating, then Facebook is the classroom where they can talk to each other and get to know you a little better.”- Lindsay Padilla

Lindsay likes to stream the workshops directly into the Facebook group for a beta course. This way there is no need to worry about recording video and uploading and details like that. Another benefit is that some students can’t attend a Zoom event because of their internet or download situation but can easily (and often LOVE) attending on Facebook. And this also allows the Facebook post to house the session comments. That opens up engagement! Everything that Lindsay teaches in Build a Better Beta is designed to make it easy for students/clients to have success and help you improve on your initial ideas.

Yup -- we’re going there → One of the messiest aspects of online courses is collecting payment. In the early days of “Build a Better Beta” before moving to MemberVault, Lindsay taught people to use a Paypal.Me link. But when it came to setting up a payment plan or subscription, it got a little messy.

Then she started working with MemberVault. This platform does some really great things. AND all of the premium features are available for you to use up to 50 members.
I ran a full series on MemberVault which you can access here.

Most of Lindsay’s students Beta programs are less than 50 people. Membervault has been such a game changer because of all the integrations it allows. It also allows you to create payment plans for people who need that and you just send them a link. It’s so easy!

I was seriously blown away when Lindsay dropped this brilliance on the podcast. This use of MemberVault is genius. She teaches her students to use one element of MemberVault and not worry about the other {amazing} features. This doesn’t differ from one of my core values → keeping a very streamlined tech stack. That means keeping as few pieces of tech as possible. It’s also important to implement everything you possibly can with that system.

What Lindsay is telling her students to do in phase one is to focus on and implement:

the payments
work on your relationships
teaching
what makes value

Then once that phase is done, if your clients wanted this course off Facebook you put your content into MemberVault because they are already using it for their payments.

I am not saying you have to implement everything in a system all at once. Rather, it’s more that have to exhaust that piece of software until it no longer serves you. I really like the fact Lindsay does a stair step approach when it comes to MemberVault like you would do with any other piece of software.

Zoom - A powerful low cost solution

Zoom is a very powerful tool. Zoom Webinar is the addon that allows you to livestream into Facebook. A Zoom meeting cannot be streamed, but a Zoom Webinar can. Using this addon, you are streamlining it for the user without adding a lot of complexity for the teacher. It does take the price of the tool from $15 a month to $55 a month.

Zoom makes it really easy to remove this addon when you are done with your beta and add it back in when you’re ready to do another round of webinars or run your course again. . Most Beta program for Lindsey’s students are about 6-8 weeks long.

Lindsay will ask her clients, “Is it worth investing $80 so you don’t have to do all the downloading, uploading, and allowing students to live attend?” For Lindsay it is because she knows the time it takes to do all those things.

Lindsay teaches people to organize their Facebook group by units and modules.

Facebook becomes the true classroom. It will have the workshop that she taught live, the Q&A session she did separately, and maybe some relevant posts from her students all in one place. Live streaming your course into Facebook allows you organize your content so that someone can come in and quickly get the material they need. It’s saving her time to spend the $80 and she can turn it off really easily.

“Paying for ease of use in tech...you are buying back your time.”- Lindsay Padilla

There is a whole component that Facebook has added to their groups that Lindsay is taking advantage of to make it easier for her students. She is using a Facebook Group in a way that allows the modules.

Facebook has become a great tool to recreate a classroom online without a huge amount of overhead. Lindsay just told the entire Tech of Business audience that they can launch a course and spend around $200. What a way to just get started! Maybe it’s time for me to create a course!

Connect With Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Lindsay:

Website: https://www.lindsaympadilla.com (might be under construction still)
Instagram: @drlindsaypadilla
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/drlindsaypadilla/

069: [Deep Dive] New Tech Tool...DIY or Outsource?

Wed, 12 Jun 2019 10:30:00 +0000

So here you are… You have decided to bring on a new piece of tech or software tool. Naturally, the next step is getting it fully set up integrated. Are you going to DIY it? Or should you outsource the implementation of the new tool?

For the sake of presenting a scenario, I’m going to use the tool ThriveCart throughout this episode. ThriveCart is a tool I use extensively with my clients. It is a stand alone shopping cart.

And you have decided that you want to use ThriveCart to sell whatever it is that you offer to your customers. You have purchased ThriveCart and now it’s time to set it up. So, you log into your account and see all the tabs. Quickly, you realize it’s going to take lots of work to get it set up.

Are you going to DIY it? Or are you going the DFY route?

Essentially, it’s a decision on whether to spend time or money on implementing that new piece of software. Because I know that YOUR TIME is valuable I believe that DIYing the implementation of a new piece of technology is not the right course of action. My goal is to support your business so I want you to be able to spend more time in your zone of genius...not in figuring out what pieces connect where and how and when! That’s not the best use of your time! A better use of time, resources, and money may be to say, “Okay... We are using ThriveCart then hire someone to implement all the different pieces of the puzzle”

Let’s look at this scenario from the DIY aspect.

Sign up for ThriveCart.
Log into your account
Peruse the help documents
Join the Facebook group so that you are able to ask questions

And, as you go through this process, you are essentially going back and forth between implementing the technology and asking questions or looking up issues in the help files. THIS TAKES A LOT OF YOUR VALUABLE TIME! But you finally cobble it all together and you have a system that works….maybe.

There is always more you can do with a piece of software than JUST the bare minimum. You can get it working and it will do its job, but maybe it doesn’t have everything it needs. In the case of ThriveCart, it’s not straightforward to inject your branding and your fonts. It might just not feel right to you. But, you have exhausted the limits you can actually do yourself. It can be your shopping cart, but it’s not complete.

"When you DIY you’re leaving 30% of the functionality and features of that tool on the table because it’s just too hard to get to 100%." - Jaime Slutzky

Let me ask you this. When is the last time something completely clicked with you and you got it to 100% implemented? Outsourcing becomes a factor when you know you WANT to implement this new technology, but it’s not in your zone of genius. Or when you don’t have anyone on your team that implement it for you.

Your time is far too valuable to be spent going through the help files trying to figure out how to implement this new technology in the best, right way. So... that is when you decide to outsource to someone like the Tech of Business Agency to implement a tool such as ThriveCart into our tech stack.

How do you know if your business is ready to outsource this new tech implementation? Well, let’s talk about it! There are a few perimeters like:

Get crystal clear on the objective of this new piece of technology. You need to know exactly what this new piece of technology is going to do for you and what you want it to do for your customers.
Get clear on what else needs to happen. You need to understand what you want done with your customer on the backend of your system.

- If you were to outsource, for example, adding ThriveCart to your online structure, I will guide you through this process by asking questions like:
  - Where does this person need to go after purchasing?
  - What automations do we need to trigger?
  - Which tool do they need access to?
  - What do you want to see happen in your backend systems and processes?

Understand your Pixels. Pixels matter. There is upcoming series on pixels and I will link back to this episode when it is released.<.=/li>

When you are implementing a new piece of software into your tech stack there are always the same questions. What...

problem is this tool solving?
is this tool doing for my business and my customers?
is this tool replacing in my existing tech stack?

Evaluate your current tech stack when you add a new tool ← this is critically important. Are you adding a new tool or are you going to add the new tool and then remove an older tool?

Remember: deciding to outsource the implementation of a new piece of technology, you are buying your time back. Instead of focusing on making sure all the pieces of the puzzle fit together, you can spend more time in your promotions, content creation, and working in your business with your customers/clients helping them to get the results they seek. All these things are so IMPORTANT to the SUCCESS of your business.

Tech is outsourceable.

If you don’t have all the answers to the parameters I gave you earlier, it doesn’t mean you aren’t ready to outsource. It means that the outsourcing is going to require a little bit of back and forth. But I LOVE doing a little bit of back and forth. I really enjoy making sure that your tech is at 100% implemented so that you don’t have straggling components. It's my job to avoid leaving bits and pieces to do later. When you outsource you are securing a complete package.

Another really great aspect of outsourcing is that your project is a singular focus for the implementer. I’m not trying to do all the aspects of your business it means I JUST get to implement this new piece of technology from A to Z and hand it back to you.

A quick aside… When I’m implementing a tool like ThriveCart, part of that implementation is to connect it to the payment processors (stripe/Paypal). My internal processes put this task back on my clients. This is a decision I made a long time ago and it keeps things clean. I bring this up because I want you to be aware that even when you hire someone to “do it for you” there may be touchpoints that will require your time and effort.

Everything else in ThriveCart implementation just requires me to be provided access. I will give you a list of accounts that I need access to such as:

Email marketing system
Zapier account
Membership portal
Course platform

In the beginning stages of Done for You, I’m doing systems integration (the boring stuff.) I’m not trying to do more than one thing at a time. After integration is complete, then I get to work on the specifics…

Now, on the flip side… in the DIY approach, I often see it flow like this with ThriveCart:

Start setting up your product.
Realize you need to connect it to ActiveCampaign
Connect to ActiveCampaign
Work on the checkout page
Write copy
Realize you need to setup the integration between ThriveCart and Zapier or your content delivery platform
Setup the connection
Go back into the ThriveCart setup process… and the cycle continues and continues.

This whole process makes you go back and forth between the product and the integration.

I know online tech. It doesn’t matter if we are talking about ThriveCart or another system...there is a BEST, RIGHT way to implement a new piece of technology just like there is a BEST, RIGHT piece of technology for you at every stage of your business. Outsourcing means that it’s a more streamlined process to get from A to Z than it is when you are DIYing your implementation.

DIYing = cobbling it together. Outsourcing = completing a circle. You are buying a complete product. In this online space there is so much opportunity to DIY and even in my own business it is compelling to DIY everything but just because I can... it doesn’t mean I should.

For example: It’s better for me to record a podcast episode than for me to put together my own social media campaigns. I could put them together, but it’s not a good use of my time. I don’t get as good ROI. It’s the same for you. Think about the ROI, both financial and time, when it comes to bringing on a new piece of technology.

Ask yourself questions like:

Are you saving time and spending money?
Or, are you saving money by spending time?
What's the most easy way to make sure you are getting the best ROI on that new piece of technology?
Is it going to help support your goals and objectives?

The goal of this episode is to show you the difference between DIY and DONE FOR YOU! New technology is a great way to experiment with the DONE FOR YOU aspect when you have been DIYing for so long. I would be honored to do it for you and allow you to spend more time in your zone of genius.

If you are ready to implement a new piece of technology, bring me along for the ride! To bring me along for your ride all you need to do is:

Click here to Work with Me
Select from the options or you can just fill out the form at the bottom

We will find the best way for Tech of Business to support your objectives.

A Tech Intensive is what you’ll want for bringing on a new piece of technology. This will allow us to bring it into all the folds of your business so that you can keep going, reach for the stars, achieve your goals, and know that the tech is there to support you.

I cannot wait to work with you and help you achieve your goals. You can reach out to me on Instagram and we’ll have a conversation about how Tech of Business can help you.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

068: The Online Landscape in 2019 with Jessica Wayman

Wed, 05 Jun 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Guess what? You’re like everyone else who is reading these shownotes and has listened to the podcast … you’ve bought into courses, masterminds, and programs that are delivered in an online capacity. There is a lot of overhead that goes into using those courses and full taking advantage of everything you want to learn when you are running a business. Let’s break it all down!

"The world online with online business is really changing and people have so much information and it can become very overwhelming." - Jessica Wayman

We start our conversation off with talking about online courses… There is just so much to consume and often we don’t get through everything that we purchase or want to spend our time on for one reason or another. Maybe we just want to learn all the things so we buy all the courses!

Jessica is a professional student. She went through 50 online courses in a very short amount of time. And by doing so, she realized she had TOO MUCH information to consume.

She now leads a mastermind for people who have what she calls course addiction; it’s called Course Rehab. This mastermind uses a 12 step process, which she pulled from her background in mental health. The steps are designed to help you get out of your own way.

"Fear of success can be kind of scary." -Jessica Wayman

As a listener or reader you may be creating a course and you are now wondering if you are just adding to the “noise”.

Relax, I work with a lot of course creators and as long as you are really clear on who your target audience is, you have a better chance of THEM accepting and completing the course. We’re talking about the big mass marketed courses here. These are the ones I find that aren’t targeted enough for people to fully take action on.

Jessica has learned a lot about courses and teaching from her friend and teacher, Lindsay Padilla. Lindsay’s program is called Build a Better Beta and helped Jessica learn how to build a better course. Lindsey teaches a system that allows you to create your course in a way that isn’t overwhelming. It helps you to go through the process so you don’t just start it and end it. ** Lindsay will be on the podcast later this month, so we’ll link that up here when it’s live!

"Courses are valuable, but you have to be able to time block and get through them on a schedule, make it part of your job to learn, and then implement!" -Jessica Wayman

Here’s a link to Lindsay’s masterclass: http://omg.lindsaympadilla.com/optin

Now, don’t let the technology get in your way on creating or consuming a course.
If you are signed up for a course and you lost your password, send a note. There is no shame in that. I would rather send a password reset link 17 times and have my student find success than for them to never log in and never attempt to learn what they wanted.

Getting into the psychology of it all, there are so many reasons why people by courses.

There is a thirst for knowledge.
There is a drive to keep up with what other entrepreneurs are doing.
There is a fear of missing out.
There is a desire of wanting to become more and create more impact.

A lot of courses might be teaching you how to grow your business. People are really developing their own college education in a way by purchasing these courses as long as they get through the course and complete them.

"Most entrepreneurs have really big goals and courses are there to support them in developing themselves personally as well as professionally." -Jessica Wayman

Keep your course goals in mind… If you are taking a course and your desired outcome is just having completed it your mindset will be completely different than if your desired outcome is to implement this piece of software the way your “guru” does.

There are people out there who think they are going to get the same results that those gurus got JUST by purchasing their course. What you need to keep in mind is what they want their major outcome to be, who they are serving, and what they are looking to get out of the course.

"The main key to keep in mind is that the world is full of information, but it’s what you do it that matters." - Jessica Wayman

If you are just sitting on information, then you are sitting on a legacy of something you could create that helps someone else create a bigger and better life. You are sitting knowledge and knowledge is power! You have to be able to do something with it!

That brings us back to why this podcast exists. I created this podcast to help YOU take the next step. Whether we’re talking about a piece of software, methodology, or organization, it’s about making progress to leave/make a legacy.

It’s so important to treat your business LIKE A REAL BUSINESS. Here are Jessica’s Top Tips:

Keep your business organized. You need to categorize things before you can make a decision. This applies to email, contracts, files, etc. You need to be able to be the CEO of your business. It’s important to setup SOPs for when you grow and bring someone new in to help you work your business. This takes away any gray areas of how things should be done.
We can’t be everything to everyone. We need to find ways to make our lives easier. We have to learn how to create boundaries for ourselves. Then you can develop a team and they know their roles. This will free up time for you to work on furthering your business. If you are looking for an incredible VA, hire someone from Priority VA.
Know what you can delegate and what you can do yourself. Know what is a good use of your time.

This is why we have service providers. When you outsource in your business, make sure you are going to the right person for your needs. Jessica urges you to come to me to the tech she says, “She’s really really good!” Thank you, Jessica.

When it comes to organizing your computer content -- there are both the online/cloud storage locations (as we discussed in episode 011) and there are the files on your computer.

Cloud storage, like Google Drive, is especially helpful when you are working with active team members. This is a good place for your SOPs to live. As they change, they will directly change in that Google Drive. Your freebies in pdf form, photos for social media that don’t need to be accessible to your team, these things may live in Dropbox, since that’s more of a storage container than a living document holder.
Living documents are more easily accessed through Google Drive. Google Drive= collaboration.

As business owners, we opt-in to freebies and get downloads fairly regularly. With email opt-ins this can fill up pretty quickly. Organizing these into folders and assigning a freebie to the correct label will help you. If you get to the point you have 7000 emails just archive them and then start fresh. Create the folders so that it works for you, but DON’T keep all those freebies in your inbox.

There are resources for handling your email if you can’t. Inbox Done and all they do is email. If you find yourself so overwhelmed with email this may be a good option. A good rule of thumb to follow is:

Stop opting in to everything. You’re going to see a lot of repeats out there in the online space.
Unsubscribe from lists that you aren’t reading. It is flooding your email and actually doesn’t help the business ave you on their list.

A great tool for Gmail is Unroll me. Jessica mentioned this at the tail end of the conversation.

These shownotes touch on the high points of the conversation. I encourage you to listen -- there is a lot we covered and I would hate for you to miss out!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Jessica:

Instagram: @powerofbrilliance
Website: https://www.jessicawayman.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jessicawaymancoach

067: Demystifying CRMs - Managing Lead and Client Touch Points with Sara Kappler

Wed, 29 May 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today, I’m talking with Sara Kappler of Sara Kappler Consulting. Sara is all about systems and tools to help your business with the back end -- KPI dashboards and CRMs. As a software consultant, she helps business select and implement technology to help them grow.

Just as my business has evolved, so has Sara’s -- the pain point she saw over and over was keeping track of where her clients were with new leads and with clients. Sara found an opportunity to delve into CRM software -- CRM is the acronym for Customer Relationship Management -- at last count, Sara knows of over 600 different CRM options!

Sara focuses on helping the business and team members have the tools they need to help them be productive and have metrics and insight into the business and sales processes. I brought Sara onto the podcast because my audience has been asking about CRMs and I needed to bring on an expert.

According to Sara, any business that has more than 30 customers could benefit from a CRM. It’s businesses that are interacting with their customers repeatedly not necessarily a one and done kind of communication. It’s relationships that you are building. It’s continuing service that they are providing with their customers. Most people who come to Sara are using Excel, or Trello to keep track of leads and clients. Some aren’t using anything to keep track of their interactions with their customers (and that’s totally okay, start where you are and iterate!) They are struggling to put together a complete picture from the customer perspective. What Sara means by this is looking at things like:

When were they last contacted?
What has been said to them?
What questions did they ask?
What were the answers?

When businesses are just a one man show 30 customers can be handled in their head most times. But when the business starts to grow and the team grows, then people quickly realize the need for a CRM so that everyone can be on the same page when the business owner starts to delegate client work.

Whether you are using Excel, Trello, or good old fashioned paper and pen, you are doing something. It’s much easier to move into a structured system when you are already doing SOMETHING. If you don’t have anything going yet then it’s a matter of asking yourself what your pipe dream is and ask yourself what you want to see at the end of the day with the work you have done.

"I’m a big believer in starting with the end in mind." -Sara Kappler

The number one thing Sara finds her clients wanting is to follow up consistently. And when consistency falters, that’s when CRM conversations start. You want some kind of system behind the scenes that will help you stay on track with your communications with your customers. Some of these things include:

Celebrating client anniversaries
Birthdays
Special Promotions

Sara’s customers usually know they want things like better follow up with the customers. They usually have some kind of idea about sales and number of clients KPI. Most of the time though, they don’t know what they don’t know. It’s not until you get into the CRM and see the possibilities that the light bulb goes off and they start to think I can’t believe I haven’t been doing this before. There are KPIs that people don’t even realize they should be tracking for their business like:

How long is the sales process?
How long on average does it take for you to respond to a customer inquiry?

KPI is the acronym for Key Performance Indicators, which simply means something that you are measuring in your business. So in the case of what I do and see, it’s something like email open rates or number of sign ups for a webinar. The KPIs that Sara is referring to are ones that are internal to your business.

I was curious -- when starting with a CRM…

Let’s say someone has 7 active clients, 3 of them are in a group program and 4 are 1:1 in different stages. Do you go historical on those 7 clients or do you go forward with everyone after those 7 clients when setting up a CRM? Sara believes you should always try to go back to track. There two most important things are:

Referral source- Where did this client come from? One of the most insightful things you can see from CRMs is where your clients are coming from. Tracking this is going to save you time later and make the whole system much more insightful because it’s really the base for your ROI the most elusive KPI out there.
When did they purchase something from you? What kind of service/product was it?

You should try to go back and look at your current clients and try to fill in the blanks. You then would track these things with every new client going forward. The more you track the more you’ll get out of your CRM.

There are different ways you can use a CRM. The CRM you use will depend on the types of tools you are using. If you are living in your email and you are communicating with your clients through email then you absolutely have to get a CRM that has an Two Way Email Sync. It will pull the information from your email into your CRM automatically. The same goes for if you are having phone conversations. Some CRMs have excellent phone integrations in them so it will log the calls that you are making in the CRM platform for you. Automatic touchpoint logging is critical. If you are using any kind of automation form, you have to set those up to feed directly in to your CRM.

Other ways to feed people into your CRM include a business card scanner. There are apps that come with your CRM that will scan business cards from an event and put that information in the right place so you don’t have manually enter that. You have to look at the business in question, look at the systems they are using, look at the processes they are using, and you try to automate it as much as possible. You look for a CRM that plays well with the tools you are already using.

I wanted to include an update on Voxer communicating with a CRM system. Voxer communication doesn't have any means out of the software yet... but you can push from your CRM to Voxer, which means that if you want to post a note to Voxer for a client, you can do so inside your CRM, connect the CRM and Voxer within Zapier and send that message to the client... logging the client response is, however, a manual process.

At this point in the conversation, I turned back to discussing the Tech Stack Framework -- we have a whole episode on it which you can listen to here: ***TECH STACK FRAMEWORK***

A CRM is most often going to sit at the base level of your tech stack. (Recall: you want to make sure your tech stack is solid.) And because it's a base tool, fully implementing the CRM so that it can serve your business as much as possible is the ultimate goal. Be sure to select a tool that "plays nice" with your other tools.

CRMs have two main components. One is contacts which we have already talked about. The other is pipelines which is your process. These are usually called deals and they address things like what are people purchasing from you. On that side of things there is a ton of automation. CRMs will integrate with your quickbooks and different payment processing systems and anytime someone makes a purchase from you, that information should be feeding into your CRM automatically.

Ideally, once you do the initial set up, you should be going into your CRM daily, looking at the dashboard, using it to see who you need to follow up with, but all this information you are looking at should be transferring into the CRM automatically. Even if you don’t have complete integrations, if you know the shortcuts so you aren’t copying and pasting, that’s the next best thing.

Think about when you go to the doctor, the first thing they always ask you is if your insurance or address has changed. Why are they always asking that? Because they are working out of a CRM. Their whole staff has been trained to do this because someone somewhere figured out that this is the best way to make sure they are getting the money for the services they are billing out. Every business is like this! There is one question that can be asked, it’s something upstream, something manual, that will really add value to the way the business is running.

Sara has several favorite CRMs. They are:

Trello- great for small business
Copper CRM- best integration with GSuite
Pipedrive- this is good for a business with a lot of forms. Good for high volume business and will integrate with your phone.
HatchBuck- this one is good for a business that is managing email and exchange with existing clients, but also have an online business component.

Sara finds that with most CRMs it’s the initial setup that is important and then quarterly check ins to make sure everything is moving smoothly. Your dashboards are only going to be as good as the data. If you don’t set your tools up in a way that it’s going to benefit you it’s like throwing everything straight in the trash. So instead of doing this, use something that is going to help you move forward and make smarter decisions.

If you are noticing that it is taking 17 interactions with someone to get them to buy a $300 products and it’s taking 12 interactions with someone to get them to buy a $3000 product. This is telling you a lot of information. But if you don’t have a CRM that allows you to track this information then you don’t know how effective everything else has been. Without having data, it’s hard to know things like:

If you should spend more time on your smaller offers/bigger offers.
How many touch points you have.
The frequency of touch points.

There are a million different things you are going to learn about your business if you start tracking these things.

Personally, my tracking system isn’t very good. So I’m calling that out now so that maybe in 6-8 months Sara can come back on the podcast and we can look at what I’ve learned :)

I’d love to see you embrace a CRM -- and Sara offers a CRM matchmaking service specifically to help you find a CRM based on your tools. If you are DIY kind of person, then do your research. It’s not a marriage. CRMs have free trials and monthly license fees, so if you start one and it doesn’t work you can try another.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Sara:

Website: www.sarakappler.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/sarakapplerconsulting/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/sarakapplerconsulting/

066: Picking Tools That Stand the Test of Time with Kronda Adair

Wed, 22 May 2019 10:30:00 +0000

I met today’s guest, Kronda, online a couple of weeks ago. She had reached out to me because we use a lot of the same tools and philosophy and said “we just have to meet!” Almost immediately after we got on a zoom call, I knew I wanted to have her be a guest on the podcast.

Kronda is a web developer turned marketer. She helps service based business owners learn to use content marketing to sell their services.

Kronda and I share the same root in our business journey because we were both developers.

I transitioned to integration and systems.
Kronda shifted her focus to content.

It’s so neat how we both started in the same place, but ended up in different places.

Nobody’s business is a straight line from “I want to start a business” to “I’m doing what I love and providing my audience exactly what they need.”

Kronda’s journey:

Developing WordPress websites for clients.
Maintenance of websites (to try to create recurring income.)
Niche down to marketing focused websites (because there her clients would understand how to market the website!)
Content marketing, training and instruction.

The evolution came about as she realized that the websites she had built for her clients weren’t actually helping their businesses! Simply because they didn’t know how to use their website as a marketing tool!

“Content marketing is huge right now! It’s basically television!” Kronda explains, “you watch television because it’s entertaining, but people make television to sell you stuff. That’s really all we are doing just in a different medium and on a different scale.”

About 3 months ago, Kronda transitioned into teaching content marketing to business owners.

It’s a winning business model for her. Not only does she remain in the digital space, using the knowledge that she has acquired to help others, but she works with business owners who are engaged and want to learn. They WANT to understand it even if they are going to hire it out.

I can totally relate to this… When I put systems in place for my clients within a project, I am creating a blueprint for them to use again in the future. It’s not a once and done solution.

A lot of people KNOW they should be creating content (text, video, images) for their business. The problem is they don’t know what to create and having a strategy behind their content. This is where Kronda gives them a framework that is based on their customer journey.

It’s so important that business owners realize that their customers are 100% on a journey.

This journey consists of

not knowing about them
becoming aware of them
discovering their problem
discovering the solution to the problem
purchasing.

So now that you know that information, it makes content creation easier because you can see what people need to learn about your business in each stage of this journey.

A great way to think about creating content is, as Kronda suggests, think about what mistakes your market is making... When she thinks about the mistakes people are making and what’s keeping them up at night it gives her plenty to write about.

As business owners we tend to talk about the things we know about. But what we actually need to be doing is talk about what our future clients need to know.

In the end you are selling something that is solving their problem.

What you do and how you do it are less important than “Are you going to solve my problem?” It’s all about putting your target market in the center of a bullseye and focusing on what they NEED rather than the what and the how.

Even though Kronda has transitioned into content marketing she still advocates for certain tools because the content still has to reach people somehow! And while our content distribution channels are varied, at the core, Kronda and I believe that your website is at the core.

As I mentioned in the conversation, Kronda and I have developed a very similar WordPress tech stack… we both page builders, themes and plugins we like because these are the things that we have found to make it the easiest to get content out into the world.

Kronda made a significant pivot in the way she makes her income. But did not make a pivot in the way she provides value. I know there are a lot of listeners on their own journeys and making their own pivots in their business. You shouldn’t throw everything away when you make a pivot. You can pivot and still provide value in the same area of expertise!

"When we are creating content, we aren’t just creating it for today. We are creating it for our future self as well.” -Jaime Slutzky"

"I want to be able to answer virtually any question with a link." -Kronda Adair"

There are so many ways to tackle online business. Kronda’s pagebuilder of choice is Beaver Builder. Her landing page builder has of choice is Thrive Architect. I use Beaver Builder for both websites and landing pages solely because I want to have fewer tools.

There are so many conversion tools available with Thrive Architect that allow Kronda to test different pages. I was curious to know how she came to these tools… short answer, Facebook groups and online communities!

Beaver Builder is one of the first tools that she used that actually worked and was easy to use. It’s also easy to teach people to use. The great thing about Beaver Builder and Thrive Architect is that if you decide to switch to something else it leaves you the html that is very portable to take somewhere else.

I just want to take a second to explain what we mean by shortcodes versus html... Whenever you uninstall the Beaver Builder and Thrive Architect all the content that you have added in to your site defaults back to normal, readable html not broken shortcodes. These plugins are modular and don’t leave a nasty footprint of having to go in and do cleanup on your code.

Another program I know that often has messy clean up involved is Google docs. When you are writing something in Google docs and you copy and paste it into WordPress it’s actually copying extra html markup which doesn’t usually cause a problem but it’s not the best thing either.

This is just an example of something I have noticed because I am on the back end of stuff. I’m sharing this because when your developer gives you a piece of advice we aren’t giving it to you just on aesthetic reasons alone.

Kronda has lots of articles about these exact subjects. Another article she has is about premium plugins. We discussed the benefits of premium versus free plugins and how we tackle who purchases what and why!

One thing she was adamant about was educating her clients on were the things that their site runs on. She would make sure they knew what was making their site run and that if they parted ways what things were going to become the client’s responsibility. So that it’s not a shock for them if they part ways and they are now responsible for the plugin payments.

When you buy a premium plugin, you are buying because you are paying people to support the product, to keep it running, to keep developing, to keep the bugs out, to make it better, and to ultimately make your site work better and do more for you. These premium plugins give you access to a team a developers that are creating a really good product rather than hiring a single developer to do what you need TODAY. Tomorrow you may need something different.

We could have spent a lot longer going deeper on WordPress, but that doesn’t benefit you, the listener (reader!) So we switched topics to touch on a few other facets of content creation that are relevant!

First: File Organization

Kronda believes organization is so important. She has a video solely on organizing your files. If you think about when you go to create content or go to use it and it takes you 5-10 minutes to locate it -- you have just wasted precious time. Using a program like Dropbox or Google Drive allows you to create an organized system of where you can keep your files and you know where they are. This allows you, or your VA, to put their hands on these files whenever you need to.

Second: Video Creation

Kronda uses ScreenFlow for making screen casts of things that she is doing on her laptop and she wants to show how she does a particular process. Loom and CloudApp also do this things if you don’t have a Mac. Evernote, Google Docs, and Bear are great for text. She uses a Blue Yeti Mic for podcasts.

But she also encourages people not to get too caught up in the tools especially in the beginning. It’s more important in the beginning that you are actually creating the content. You can grow into getting as fancy as you want with tools. But there are alot of tools of there that are free and easy to use when you are just starting out.

And finally… my two cents :)
The WordPress editor makes it easy to do elegant text formatting (using either the classic editor or gutenberg, the new editor).

Take advantage of the bold, italic, underline, blockquote and headings buttons… They are very simple to use and make things easier for your consumer to read.

No matter where you are in your business, tt’s worth spending time just making your text more enjoyable for your consumer to read… if they enjoy reading it they are going to share, comment, and interact with you.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Kronda:

Website: https://www.karveldigital.com
Tools minicourse: https://www.karveldigital.com/tools
Instagram: @karveldigital
Twitter: @karveldigital
Facebook: Karvel Digital

065: [On Air Client] Tech Tool Audit with Danielle Hayden

Wed, 15 May 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This episode is the first of its kind on the podcast -- an ON AIR TECH TOOL AUDIT.

I am SO excited to share with you this REAL tech audit that I did with Kickstart Accounting’s co-owner Danielle Hayden. Danielle graciously accepted my invitation to expose the technology she’s using in her business so that we can find the hidden gems and where she can double down on her efforts. This is so she can do that much more with the technology that she is already using OR how to switch things up so that she is using technology to support her business goals that much more.

If you are interested in a Tech Audit for your business please visit https://techofbusiness.com/audit

If you think a Tech Audit might be a great step for you -- or if you’re not entirely sure… download the freebie that will help you start putting the pieces in place and looking at your tech objectively. You can get that by going to https://techofbusiness.com/impact

This is going to be a bit of a peek behind the curtains of how I love to work with my clients and why a tech tool audit makes so much sense as a starting point in our conversation. As already mentioned, Danielle Hayden is co-owner of Kickstart Accounting. They are a bookkeeping service for entrepreneurs. They help their clients take their accounting understanding to the next level. From startup to 7-figure entrepreneurs, the methodology of their business is the same… that is help entrepreneurs:

understand their accounting processes
make sure everything is working together
get them set up with an accounting system
take bookkeeping off their plate
send financial statements at the end of the month
MAKE SURE their clients UNDERSTAND those financial statements

They did realize that not everybody is able to commit to a monthly service after 5 years in business or the people they talk to aren’t understanding their financial statements. So… they are writing a book series that walks the entrepreneur through a weekly goal and then a daily actionable task to help them put together the processes behind their business so that they can become more profitable and really understand their financials with confidence.

This is a great time for us to be doing this Tech Audit because Kickstart Accounting is on the brink of doing something new. Some of the tech tools they have used to this point in their service based one-on-one business may not translate quite as well to offering this planner and series of product they are creating. These two business models are completely different so it’s important that we get their tech in order.

The sales cycle is different.

The way they communicate with people is different.

The amount of people they are able to help is larger.

All these things mean it’s time to make sure they are using the correct tech to optimize their business.

Current Tech in Place...

Currently on the Kickstart Accounting website customers have two options when they are connecting with the business. They can reach out with just sending them an email through their email portal. Or they can take a quick 8-10 question quiz called “Are You Ready for An Accountant?”. It’s a google form, which as Danielle mentions, is not very sophisticated and simply emails the information to Danielle.

Once Danielle receives an email inquiry, she will reply and invite the entrepreneur to set up a call. This is completely manual. There is no integration between emailing Danielle and email marketing or a CRM.

For the new profit planner, the plan is to distribute the first 7 days of the planner as an opt-in.

At this point in the conversation, I was ready to dig far in and uncover the actual tech that the business is using… the Kickstart Accounting website is on Squarespace.

Danielle has mostly used the built in list building tools and admits that they are not integrated with her EMS (email marketing system.) This includes setting up a Squarespace hosted email nurture sequence that can be accessed through her Financial Goal Setting Worksheet.

As I said, she has something there -- it’s not as refined or as efficient as it could be, but having something there is better than nothing and a great place to start from.

“Everybody starts where they start, and we always get to grow.” -Jaime Slutzky

Switching up their Email Marketing Platform...

Kickstart Accounting currently sends out a monthly newsletter via MailChimp. That is separate from the SquareSpace automated email that goes out when they get the worksheet freebie. As this is already a disjointed process and the Profit Planner is coming out, Danielle is looking at changing everything over to ActiveCampaign.

You know me...I LOVE ACTIVECAMPAIGN. ActiveCampaign is definitely a great option.

This is something that I typically include in the report I send to clients at the end of the Tech Audit...

To start the process, start getting new leads from the Squarespace website into ActiveCampaign. Even before they take their existing list off of MailChimp and put it into ActiveCampaign.

It’s paramount whenever someone is entering your mailing list that you get them to the right spot so that you are not doing work twice.

In my report I would put it as a task to set up that link from their SquareSpace website into ActiveCampaign and creating the “Welcome Sequence” according to that insight. And similarly with the new planner where people can opt in and get that 7 days worth of a planner, if you are looking at switching, I would recommend going ahead and getting that set up the new provider even before you do any of the backend work.

SquareSpace/ActiveCampaign sync

There are integrations within many systems that allow entrepreneurs to accomplish things like getting the ActiveCampaign form onto the SquareSpace websites and doing the back end integration.

What I recommend for Danielle is to get people tagged appropriately within ActiveCampaign from the outset. It takes a bit of planning, so grab the whiteboard and draw out the flow… and from there you can visually see the tagging and automations and synchronization that is needed.

Seriously… I told Danielle to get the good old fashioned paper and pen and draw out the journey that someone is going to be on from opt in to completion.

In addition to the visual, it will also be a roadmap for your automations of the journeys there are so you can create the emails and create the right touch points.

As I mentioned… I provide my Tech Tool Audit clients with a detailed PDF report upon which they can move forward with their tech. Our time together is helping me to understand and dig into what you as the entrepreneur are using and where to guide your tech needs.

When she gets an email after first contact...

Danielle works instead of automation at the moment.

She calls the customer.
She does sent a Calendly link to have them schedule the call.
She does have a few tools to help her remember who she needs to follow up with.
She’s not using anything sophisticated as a CRM to monitor this.
She is using Boomerang within her gmail.
She sets up conditions to help her follow up with who she needs to.

While this is certainly not where Danielle wants to be, it’s where she is and the system is WORKING… so there is no REQUIREMENT that she changes ANYTHING.

If Danielle chooses, she can take the advice from the report and put it on the back burner to look at in 3 months or 6 months.

But… Danielle has found a few issues with this system she has created:

She sometimes forgets to set her reminders.
She doesn’t have a good idea of where her leads are coming from.
She doesn’t always know who is not following back up with her and why not.
She is trying to keep track of everybody in a Google Doc.

This means it might be time to start using something else. And that doesn’t mean she needs a full blown CRM and a team of 12 to manage it for her.

It might be as simple as creating a system to use the notes section in ActiveCampaign. Here Danielle can write updates for herself and even tag users for internal purposes. I would likely include in her report an outline of how to use ActiveCampaign a mini-CRM. I would go into what it means to setup automations that are solely for the business (and not actually sending emails to the subscribers/users.)

While I do not know the inner workings of her business, by supplying the tech options, it allows Danielle to figure out how she can best work with the tool.

She will be able to keep notes about leads in one place. And she’ll be able to find her groove with tracking leads. And then it leads to less for her to do and remember to do so she can go in and do the work that only she can do -- and leave the automation to the work that computers can!

Side note: When you are doing multiple opt-ins, there are tools like Zapier come in. This allows you to have multiple opt-ins, but then in your backend it’s more streamlined. Zapier allows you to get the information in the same place no matter which way they opt-in. We are trying to avoid future overwhelm by talking about these tech issues now.

Zapier is out of scope for where Danielle needs to be right now. So I recommended to her to leave this be for the moment.

What online vehicle is she using to sell the planner…

The Planner is going to have a separate WordPress website. She is currently debating as to whether to build out the sales component with Shopify or with WooCommerce. She is trying to determine which one would be the best fit. She then wants to use ActiveCampaign as the email provider for the planners.

I told her that the nice thing about WooCommerce is everything sits inside your WordPress website and if you only have one or two items for sale it’s pretty easy to keep it consolidated. The challenge with WooCommerce is that you are spending time in WordPress and you have to design and develop all the pages yourself.

With Shopify, you have a store. You put your name and products on it and you integrate it with your website. There is significantly less manual setup with Shopify. But once the manual setup is done they basically operate the same. The big difference to think about here is...Are you going to be paying Shopify? Or are you going to be paying for the addons you need in WordPress for WooCommerce.

I have done it both ways. I wouldn’t say that one is better than the other. At this point in time, it’s important that whoever is running this part of your business is comfortable with whatever option they choose to do this portion of their business.

Being a numbers person, it’s going to be important to Danielle to understand all the ins and outs of the business and the cost of this part of her business.

Danielle indicated that she also wants to be able to reach out to her planner purchasers. It’s more than just selling a product and collecting money for it. She genuinely wants to help the people who need the help.

Reporting between WooCommerce and Shopify…

I have not really used the reports in either of these systems, my role is usually around the tech setup rather than the operations side. So, I would probably do a couple google searches on this topic and include the results of which in the report.

My recommendation to Danielle is that I like to keep as few systems in place as possible. So I would say if you can get WooCommerce set up and running then do it because it’s one less system that you have to be touching and in and doing work in. Then linking it to ActiveCampaign for tagging and follow up.

The automation for the planner is quite straightforward --

Opt-in for 7 day freebie? → send through an automation that hits them daily and encourages the purchase
Purchases the first planner? → send through an automation that helps them use the planner

Another aspect of the planner flow for Danielle is a Facebook group. She would like to be able to tag group members in ActiveCampaign… so I said “go for it”.

For Danielle, if a purchaser doesn’t join the Facebook group, it might indicate that she wants to send them extra emails so that they get all the goodies that are loaded into the Facebook group. This is something that could be valuable information because there may be someone who isn’t all about Facebook who isn’t getting any of the tips and tricks so you may need to create an automation to email it to those types of people. The more we know about the activities and habits of our audience, the more we can meet them where they are at.

There is a paid Chrome plugin you can use called Group Funnels which can automate extracting your group member data and importing it into ActiveCampaign (via Zapier). I think it’s more than necessary for Danielle at this stage. The best way I see controlling a new Facebook Group is to set expectations -- You go in and say we’re going to approve members every Wednesday. So then you know your process of what you are going to go do every Wednesday.

With a Facebook Group, you don’t have to approve the moment they ask. Set expectations and stick to it. Just make it part of your workflow. This is something that I love about email automation. You are easily and clearly be able to set expectations. As an entrepreneur, it’s so important to set expectations.

Group Funnels

Any other tools being used in business…

It’s important to me that during our Tech Tool Audit we don’t just talk about the tools that my clients think are most important or what comes top of mind… so I generally circle back to as many tools as possible within the conversation.

Dropbox is being used for their engagement letters. This is how they send engagement letters and information to new clients. So in terms of a process, someone goes on the website, fills out the quiz, she sets up call with them by using the Calendly link, she talks to them, and they decide they want to move forward. At this point she sends them an engagement letter via Docusign. Once the engagement letter comes back to her, she sets them up with a Dropbox file so that is where they share all of the client’s documents that way everyone has access to that file. This and email is the current ways of communication with their clients. This is a completely manual process.

In this case, manual is completely fine. There is no automation that really makes a whole lot of sense. It’s not removing a huge level of complexity. Even if you had an automation, you still would have to go into that folder and assign permissions to people. That’s an automation that is not necessary.

Asana is used for project management. So when a new client signs, Danielle let’s that bookkeeper know they have a new client. She also gives them access in Quickbooks. Then she goes into Asana and set up tasks for that specific client. They make this a recurring project in Asana. This is a pretty automated system. But there is one piece in Asana that is manual in the case that someone needs to be “caught up”. This has to be added manually.

One thing I would recommend that when Danielle sends out the Docusign, that she go ahead and create the template in Asana for them. You don’t have to automate everything just to make it more effective.

For Danielle, we realize that the biggest place for her to add automations is on that front end with the leads and tracking.

When I’m doing a Tech Audit with a client we typically touch on this side of things, but we may also touch on things like social media or backend systems. For the purposes of this podcast and the listener, we have really highlighted how this Tech Audit works.

Then I turned the tables on Danielle and asked her what questions she had for me

Her first question was what comes next after the Tech Tool Audit?

I create the report and deliver it via Adobe within 72 hours. Inside the report you have immediate, midterm, and long term recommendations. I always provide a proposal for me to come and do the first set of tasks to see the biggest benefit from the audit. My intention is to ride the momentum of insight and still allow my client to continue doing what they need to do. It allows the integrations to be done so that the client doesn’t lose any days on the current work they have going on.

From there, we would decide if it makes sense for me to stay on with you and help you through those midterm and long term suggestions. This is sometimes done as a fixed price project or as an ongoing monthly retainer. My goal is always to support you and your business goals and to make sure that that tech you rely on will be there to do the heavy lifting. It’s important for you to spend more time in YOUR zone of genius and for your tech to support you.

We clarified things further -- One of the tasks on Danielle’s immediate needs would be to get all her opt-ins setup to go to ActiveCampaign. I would do the tech to make that happen and build out the automations. I would then provide Danielle with a list of emails that she would need to write the copy for -- and then I would get them in place.

I can also then help you understand the reports in ActiveCampaign so you understand the open rates, click rates, etc. on each email that is going out. This is where people are getting stuck. Looking at the open rates between emails in the automation helps you determine if you need to adjust your content based on consumer behavior.

I loved Danielle’s final question… she asked if there were any tools I wouldn’t work with.

Wow, that caught me off guard and I had to think before I answered -- I am very tool agnostic. I have worked with so many tools and I can’t think of any one tool that I would say “NO” to.

However, If I find that a tool isn’t taking us where we need to be, then those are reasons I would suggest moving off one tool and on to another that does provide everything that you need.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Danielle:

064: Content Repurposing (and tech to ease the process) with Steph Roberts

Wed, 08 May 2019 10:30:00 +0000

I am really excited to bring this content to the Tech of Business audience because I know that every single person listening or reading right now has created a piece of content at some point in time and it’s just sitting there not doing as much as it could. Today we are talking to Stephani Roberts. She is a Digital Content & Visibility Strategist and podcast host. So often, we create content and then we let it sit for whatever reason and then the content that we created has been sitting there not doing enough for you. I love the idea of having a strategy behind using that content.

The best starting point…

Look at your own tech and content that you have shared and dig for the gold. Look for the things that you shared that got the best reaction and use that again. You know that this type of content clicked with people. So, for instance, when you have a FB Live Video or a podcast, starting with a transcript is a really good thing to do. The reason for this is because a transcript can help you spin content out of that audio and repurpose it.

The tool that Stephani likes for transcripts is called Sonix. They do transcripts, but their tool allows you to select the text that you want visually and save it out as audio. Which is cool because you can do this without even opening your editing tool. So basically you upload your audio and then transcribe it and it’s tying the transcription to the timestamps in the audio and you can just highlight the words on the screen and then save that as an audio clip. This tool is great for if you want to offer up a click of an upcoming show or an end of season “highlights” reel. The quality is a bit more compressed but for promo purposes it just doesn’t get much better than that.

Video content repurposing…

It depends on who your audience is and what you are trying to achieve. For instance, if you are doing an interview, you can take the highlights and you can trim that down and save it at a promo video. You can take the audio and transcribe it out and then use Sonix to make audio clips. Steph mentioned the Headliner App. You can make a headliner which is an audio visualizers with the graphic behind it and are super popular on Instagram. You can even use them on FB, Linkedin, and Twitter.

"Audio is great with visuals because you can use text as well to underscore what you are saying." - Stephani Roberts

So if you are a coach or expert, you have a phrase that totally underscores what your strategy is that you want to be known for you can pull whatever statement you want out of the transcript and make it into a visualizer. This is a way to promote yourself!

If you are a course creator pull something out of your course and use it as a promo. You can use highlights to promote yourself. If you aren’t using video or audio...try it out! I know when it comes to video sometimes people don’t like seeing themselves on camera first. You can even use the voice recorder on your phone and get audio that way when you are feeling inspired. And that you can email it to yourself to use. Using visualizers is a different way of sharing and getting attention from people when they are scrolling. Video is loved on every single platform.

Tools that help you repurpose content…

Stephani uses repurpose.io to repurpose FB Lives or videos/audios. Repurpose.io then looks for content that goes out and you can tell them to push it over to your youtube channel. This tool will take an audio and send it over to your YouTube with a still image. This tool is pretty powerful. The downside is that if you have a good strategy for YouTube you may have to fight with it to put your own keywords and such in.

***update: I tested out Repurpose.io with last week's episode: https://youtu.be/QPVKjHw-e5E

I also was able to edit the description to bring in some keywords so we need to address the fact that you can go in and edit the description and tags from within YouTube <-- this is the thing that I said I'd test out on the episode

Getting out there and being seen AKA Visibility strategies…

Most of us just stick to one or two channels and they don’t spread their wings and explore the other social channels. There could be people there that could use their services. Stephani tries to take people OUT of the FB and Instagram only world and tries to get them to figure who they are and who their ideal clients are and where they are hanging out. So really just thinking through all the places they could be and then have them appear on those “other” platforms so it helps them with their SEO and also aligns them with their brand. You appear to own the niche that you are claiming to be an expert.

Quote card more than just a quote...

Stephani likes static images for example like a quote card. The are powerful for branding. They get a sense of who you are. That alone is pretty weak. So Steph thinks you definitely need to add hashtags on Instagram and Twitter. You also need to write a little micro post about that quote. Pinterest is another place where people LOVE quotes.

I feel this logic gives us permission to quote ourselves and share it. It allows us to share our OWN insight from conversations we are having about certain subjects. Steph says don’t feel bad about shining the light on myself. It’s a win all around when we post things like this.

"Technology is always in a supportive role to your content, your brand and your customers. It will always be supporting your best effort." -Jaime Slutzky

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Stephani:

Instagram: @amplifyyourself
Website: www.stephaniroberts.com

Software Mentioned in this Episode

063: Beyond The Broadcast Deep Dive [Email Marketing Series #6 of 6]

Wed, 01 May 2019 10:30:00 +0000

This is our sixth and final episode in the Email Marketing series on the Tech of Business podcast. I’m your host Jaime Slutzky and today it’s just me and the mic, wrapping up the conversation to make sure that you have all the tools in your arsenal to make the advice and conversations relevant and actionable.

Let’s talk about tackling segmentation and tagging your subscribers so that you can increase the effectiveness of your email marketing efforts.

The very first and easiest group to segment and identify are the people who you’re currently doing one-on-one work with. They are your VIP clients. And right on the heels of that group are other clients or purchasers… these are your group participants, course or membership site purchasers or those who have bought a digital product from you and currently have access to the material they purchased.

Start by looking at these people. How would you characterize them? What term do you use to talk about them with your mentor or coach? That’s the term that you’ll want to be able to use inside your email marketing platform to describe them.

The next group of people who are easiest to segment is your past clients and those who previously had access to material (but don’t any longer.) This group of people might have several subsections depending on the type of business you run – because some might be potential repeat clients whereas others might not.

We’ll get into a couple of sample businesses later in the episode and dig into the differences here.

The next segment that may or may not be easy to setup is to split your leads by the way they entered into email list to begin with. Freebies and webinars and challenges and consults and every other possible way that someone could choose to be on your list are great for growing a list of interested people, but if we don’t capture why they subscribed, it’s hard to make an offer that is relevant to them.

Now would be a really good time to update the active lead sources… so if you have an ongoing webinar or freebie, go into the intake process and also insert the segmentation for all new leads.

I’ll show you what I mean – over at https://techofbusiness.com/freebie/email-sequence/ you can sign up for one of my freebies. This particular freebie provides you access to the PDF inside my MemberVault account and will take you through a series of emails. At the final stage of those emails, my automation tags you such that you’re ready to receive emails as part of my most general full list. I also at that time make sure it’s clear that I know you’ve received this particular freebie.

So, why is this important?

Well… let’s say that I’m going to be a guest expert on a podcast or a virtual summit or a webinar talking specifically about the tech that this freebie discusses, there is a far greater likelihood that it would be of interest to you than it would to someone who chose to subscribe to my email list from a very different option. So, I might send a special email to this segment that explains how my appearance and the content that I share has a direct correlation to the freebie that you downloaded. The rest of my email list will likely get a less specific version of the email. The idea here is that you’ll know that I’m speaking directly to you and that will make it more likely that you’ll take action!

[bctt tweet="And that’s the power of segmenting – sending the best most relevant emails to the people who are most likely to take action on them." username="techofbusiness"]

So, we’ve talked about creating segments for your current clients, past clients and leads based on the way they got onto your email list… but what if you don’t have enough data to create these types of segments?

We can segment our audience based on their behavior.

That is to say, our audiences leave breadcrumbs as they interact with us. Opening emails. Clicking links. Looking at pages on your website. Replying to emails. Joining our Facebook groups. Engaging with us on social media.

These are all pieces that we can use to build our segments further… some of this may be a manual process, some may be entirely automated…

And manual isn’t bad – I use a manual process as my clients move through my done for you services. It’s far easier to add a task to my task list (automatically) every time I take payment and manually jump into ActiveCampaign to update the appropriate tags.

Sometimes it’s a matter of figuring out what’s important to you and how you’ll best be able to serve the individuals in your audience.

For many of my clients, the best segments based on behavior are viewing certain pages of the website…

That is to say, if someone looks at the work with me page several times, they are more likely interested in working with you.

Or if someone looks at blog posts all revolving around a specific topic, that topic is of interest to them, so they are more likely to be interested in an opportunity that also addresses that specific topic.

Of course, the ability to know the pages that people are viewing isn’t always easy – it depends on some back end systems… ActiveCampaign has site tracking and some of the other email marketing systems do as well.

Site tracking only works if you’re able to add a cookie to your subscribers’ browser. This is done by them clicking on a link in an email – and as with any cookies, it’s not perfect (we hold different cookies on each device and with each browser within those devices) but it’s a good guess. And a good guess is better than no information at all.

I mentioned earlier that user activity on social media is a way to segment things out – if you go live regularly on your Facebook page, encouraging people to comment or give an emotion on the live is a great way to see who shows up. You can then make a notation inside your EMS that these people hang out on Facebook… so next time you plan on going live, give them a heads up via email…. It’s about completing the circle.

Let’s talk in the Tech of Business Community about other segments that are proving useful in your business or that you would like to explore. The community can be accessed at https://techofbusiness.com/community/

The final way to delve into segmenting is to ask your audience…

Give this or that options inside emails, ask them to complete a quick survey, encourage the click and get to know your audience. The more you know about your audience, from geography and family structure to business goals and zone of genius, the more likely you’ll be able to help each individual in your audience get the most out of interacting with you and your business.

Last episode, episode 62 with Ramon Darling, focused on using email to enhance the experience for your customers. I want to get into that more now.

For every online purchase that a customer or client makes – it’s not good enough to just send them a receipt and the product. This is the best time to over deliver and wow that new client.

I’ve recommended this before, but it’s worth repeating – sending access and receipt information is two separate emails – one goes to the accounting department, the other goes to the user. They may be the same person, but they might not – your new client’s workflow might have them automatically forwarding those purchase receipts to their bookkeeper or accountant – mixing login or access information in that email can cause confusion.

But that’s not entirely what I wanted to talk about just now – nope, I want to showcase successful ways I’ve seen service providers and infopreneurs over-deliver in their very first on-boarding email.

And for that, it’s slightly different depending on the type of product or service you’re selling. I put these into four categories.

Category 1: Client has purchased an online course or a group program ahead of the start date
Category 2: Client has purchased a fully available self-guided course or membership site access.
Category 3: Client has purchased a guided course (usually using drip features)
Category 4: Client has purchased done-for-you or done-with-you services

For all the categories, the very first email should set expectations. Outline exactly how often they will hear from you and where they will hear from you – be it via email, inside a facebook group, via voxer or any other type of messaging system or in a standalone utility such as on their student dashboard or user portal of some kind.

In this email, provide instructions for access to the community, content or resources as well as clearly define how they are to communicate with you. By listing out this information you’ll make it super clear and be able to hold boundaries.

When a client is in category 1 and waiting for the start date, you’ll want to get them used to opening your emails and taking some kind of action. The easiest action to have someone do is to reply to the email and answer a question.

When a client is in category 4 and needs to get on your schedule, make this easy for them… use a scheduling software tool that allows them to pick a time that works. I personally use Acuity Scheduling which you can look at by going to https://techofbusiness.com/acuity/ . Also at this time it’s really prudent to remind them of your turnaround time and any delay clauses that they have agreed to.

For clients in category 2 or category 3, they are mostly self-guided but you want to make sure that they know that you’re silently by their side. So, I recommend a series of emails that promote getting started and keep going.

At the end of the day, regardless of the category, regularly hitting the inbox and helping your client achieve the results that they are seeking is the best course of action.

So, if it’s three emails in the first week and then one email a week until they complete, then that’s what you do. If it’s one email to kick things off and emails every other week to check in, then go for it.

Another great feature of email marketing systems is that you can give your client options on how frequently they hear from you in regards to this particular purchase.

And don’t rely solely on automated emails – I love the idea of sending a personal message to a client when they hit a milestone or a roadblock on their journey… you can use automation to trigger a notification to yourself for this.

I feel like I’m talking in circles, so let’s use a couple of concrete examples to fully comprehend these ideas.

The first example is for a live multi-week course. The cart opens about 1 week before the course starts. There is material to consume on a course delivery platform and live sessions held via zoom that the client can attend.

Let’s talk tagging… we can tag anyone who visits the sales page with “Visited SP course XYZ” and then anyone who purchases will get the tag “Client course XYZ” they may also get “Active Client” and you’ll want to remove any tags that might be used to target them further. Nobody wants to be sold to when they’ve already purchased.

Once they are a client in that course, you’ll be sending them access information and expectations. Then every couple of days between the purchase date and course launch date, you’ll send them emails that help them get excited – might be a bit of pre-work or a special welcome video or something that asks what they hope to get out of the course… the idea is to help them carve out time to get their full results.

Then you’ll continue to communicate with them via email and however else you’ve setup communication (I’d say this is probably in a Facebook group!)

And after the course wraps up… a couple more touch points to see how you can help them further and of course to close the loop. It’s nice when there is a nice little bow tied up at the end of the offering.

Our second example is a course that gets dripped each week for 6 weeks. It’s a completely stand-alone, self-paced course. In this case, the tagging is similar to the last example, we’ll want to tag people who look at the sales page and purchase the course – and clean up any tags so that we don’t market this same course to them again. I also recommend tying the course progress to tags within your email marketing system to help encourage them to keep going.

I like to start the emails for this type of product and client with an email a day for the first 3 days. Then skip a couple of days and send an email the day before the next module is dripped and an email two days after that next module is dripped. From there, I continue with an email the day each new module is dripped until all content is delivered.

In these emails, if you’re tracking progress, you can call out “I see you’ve competed everything to this point… “ or “I see that you haven’t finished module X, is there something I can help you with…” or even “I noticed that you’ve been watching the videos but not doing the exercises, how can I help you…” – see the power in tracking their progress?

And once the client has all the content, keep touching base with them to help them keep going and get to completion. Just because you’ve finished dripping, doesn’t mean that you can’t still help them achieve their goal, even if it takes a little longer!

Our third example is for done-for-you services. I’ll use a bookkeeper as an example for this one. The role of the bookkeeper is to make sure that your financial records are kept up to date. And possibly to highlight anomalies in your spending or income. So, where does email marketing come in to enhance the experience? It’s certainly not used to send updates and status reports – but there is a role for sure.

A bookkeeper would go a long way to keeping their client happy by sending automated emails one or two days before they go in and reconcile a given period – asking if there are any specific things to look out for or any special considerations worth noting. It might be helpful to send out a reminder to clients that quarterly taxes are due. This is above and beyond the general newsletter style emails – giving a more personalized touch to the one-on-one clients.

How can you use email marketing to enhance the experience your clients have with you and your business? I’m sure you’ll find a few nuggets that are going to help you stand out.

Email marketing is a fabulous tool – but it’s only as good as the work that goes into it. When you don’t have a system to keep it organized, it can become another weight on your shoulders instead of highlight of your day.

While many businesses that I work with use email marketing, no two businesses work with the tool in the exact same way… which is why I believe that hitting the reset button and bringing in an expert and outside perspective is a valuable exercise for your business.

If you’re interested in learning how you can work with me to make your email marketing platform work harder for you, DM me on Instagram, I’m @techofbusiness. Or head over to https://techofbusiness.com/work-with-me/.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

062: Leveraging Email Marketing AFTER the Purchase [Email Marketing Series #5 of 6]

Mon, 29 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Beyond the Broadcast- Doing More with Email Marketing

Welcome the 5th episode of our 6 part series on Email Marketing. This is the final interview with an expert from one of the email marketing companies in this series. We are talking with Ramon Darling from Keap. In this conversation with Ramon we discuss things that help to bring forward the power of email marketing and using email throughout the customer journey. Specifically, we’re talking about after the purchase.

Typically entrepreneurs don’t plan for after the purchase because once you take payment and somebody becomes a customer the customer experience often times will be less than perfect because you have exhausted all of your efforts just getting the customer. What happens once you take payment is the actual customer experience on their side. Everything up to that point was YOUR effort to make them a customer.

"When you think about customer experience don’t think about it as a seller… think about it from the perspective of the buyer." -Ramon Darling

Email marketing up until the purchase is self serving. It is for your business. We are talking about my sweet spot here. I love the customer journey and we are over delivering on our promises. This is when the customer sees their journey.

Ramon talks about the customer journey using a Foreigner song “I Want to Know What Love Is”. He says the lyrics of the chorus of that song really explains the customer experience when you break it down into the four groups of suspects, prospects, opportunities, and customers.

A suspect says: “I WANT TO KNOW WHAT LOVE IS.”
They go out and search for a solution.

They become a prospect when they say “I WANT YOU TO SHOW ME”.
This might be the CTA. When you deliver something to them they want to see themselves in the solution.

So you customize your approach and deliver on that expectation this is “I WANT TO FEEL WHAT LOVE IS”. This means they want to be brought into the experience and feel how it works for them.

They become a customer when they say, “I KNOW YOU CAN SHOW ME.” The whole experience has informed their purchasing decision. So this is where you need to make them feel the love and deliver on the central proposition.

"The customer experience is leveraging all of the unique things you did throughout the journey in the marketing portion of the acquisition and figuring out how to leverage those same tools to create an amazing customer experience." - Ramon Darling

This leads to people saying great things about you and thus generating more sales. Some parts of that experience comes with whatever tool you are using to deliver your content. This is one aspect of it. What you have landing in their inbox after the purchase is a very big piece of the experience you are providing them.

Different Types of Emails to Send After the Purchase

Story lines- 5 fundamental elements of any story include:

Exposition
Rising Action
Climax
Falling Action
Resolution

The climax is the actual purchase. The rising action is all the promises you are making. So the falling action is the beginning of the customer journey. The first thing you want to do is recap everything you promised and insure people know exactly what they bought. This is a common failing of business. We tend to think that since we have communicated for a while that people know what they bought. But there is so much emotion that goes into purchasing so we need to clearly state now that you have bought here is what you have purchased and here is how you can expect to receive what you purchased and clearly let them know the next steps. People should always feel like they understand what the transformation is.

"If you can in the very beginning talk about their mini journey and what success looks like you’re making that experience real for the buyer." -Ramon Darling

Connecting on a Personal Level

Ramon says if they can connect with this on a personal level, they’ll not only be engaged in the process but they’ll also want to talk about it. This the most important thing. Be clear on what you sold and what the transformation looks like. Let your customers know the expectations so that it helps set them up for success through what they have purchased.

Not every buyer is the same. It’s important to know the different types of people you are working with. There may be some people out there who don’t want to see video content. This is when it comes in handy to have a transcript of that video content. If you can distill from your video content what exactly it is you are delivering you can drive people back to the content. You don’t want to put all your eggs in one basket because if you do that you’re leaving an opportunity on the table.

An interesting example of this is the TEDtalks podcast. I will listen to those and if I’m interested in what I hear, then I will go back and watch the actual video of that TEDtalk. When it comes to learning your customer and how they consume content make sure you’re open to providing your content in the way that they want. The only way you are going to learn this about them is to communicate with them.

You don’t want to create an “overwhelm” with your content. For example, if you have a course and each of your videos is an hour long...break those videos up into more courses. You need to create a sense of winning because if people feel like they are losing or not progressing they are going to give up on the course and say it’s not for them. You can use automation to kind of push people along in your course to insure that they get to the end of it. This speaks to the transformational process. Plan for people to not complete your course so that when they start to fall off you reach out to them and help them succeed. This helps you connect on a personal level.

If you think about people when they make New Year’s resolutions. Providing accountability for your customer is never really a bad thing. We use accountability in the form of calendars and reminders.

[bctt tweet="“If you can gamify the experience for the consumer and deliver accountability the way that they expect you’re once again creating this feeling of tremendous satisfaction for your consumer.”- Ramon Darling" username="@techofbusiness"]

Ramon gave an example of a partner that he works with. He explained that they have a system for delivering their content that is not just about leveraging the technology and the consumer experience, but also about creating a repeatable, predictable experience internally.

So when they deliver the first module/course, they set into motion a series of tasks that based on the course content and based on the expectations in the course. Then, based on that, the internal representative who is attached to that customer also is pinged with a task. Three days in a row they are supposed to send out a unique message that is clearly not automated. Automation is great, but there also needs to be a human experience attached to your content delivery. You don’t want to use technology in its entirety because you want to create a concierge experience for your customer. Make sure people feel connected to you on a human level.

When Do You Know…

You have to have a strategy that forms a plan. A plan allows you to allocate resources. Resources allow you to execute. And then you measure the experience as a user. And then you measure the consumer experience. You tie those two things together and it informs that strategy all the way back up the line to the beginning of the process.

Whenever you build something with these elements, you need to have an expectation of the outcome. But more importantly you need to have an expectation of when the transformation occurs. You need to be able to say once you deliver a customer will be able to recognize value in X amount of time.

As an entrepreneur, you have to reach out to consumers and say, “Now that you have completed your course and you’ve achieved X and we need to measure your satisfaction.” Ramon is not a fan of the customer surveys you get at the end of a phone call. They don’t collect enough info from the consumer to identify where there is room for improved.

By the time you get to the end of a course, you should have a system in place to send to your consumer that talks about the most important elements of the course and if people consumed, understood the outcome, and were able to achieve it. You need to be able to understand that and deliver that. You have to collect information from your consumers because people want to tell you things. These things they tell you can even generate a new revenue stream for you.

I actually set up callwithjaime.com to be available for people to talk to me about what they want out of the podcast and what they are struggling with in regard to technology. This is pre-consumer, but it helps me to identify what my audience wants to learn about.

Talking Simple Tactics

If you are a service based business that is consultative then offer people an additional consult at the end of the course. You can then turn what was just a course content into a 1:1 retainer that is perpetual and recurring. There is a real opportunity there. Sometimes people want to spend more money to have direct access. You have to give them the opportunity to do that. Never make assumptions about financial opportunity.

Do the things that people expect. Deliver discount offers to purchase more products. People are conditioned to purchase things at certain times. Follow the conditioning.

Sending Messages After the Purchase

Ramon says everything we have talked about can be delivered through emails. Because email marketing is so omnipresent, there are so many cool plugins that will allow you to do really unique things leveraging the email marketing. There is this cool thing called picsnippets. It’s a really cool thing that makes people smile. This is leveraging your tools.

If you are automating the follow up to deliver the emails, but you have a tool that tells you how much of the video someone watched you can use that for all the downstream communication. This information could allow you to downsell to other products instead of having someone quit you altogether. Campaigns should feel like little mini experiences that you can tie together.

People live through emails. You need to think about the cadence of your messaging. You need to be able track not only the open rates but also the click rates. Then modify your communication based on that data. This is still relevant in the customer experience. Customers need to be looked at as lifetime value not the one time purchase. Tailoring additional sales based on the information they provide you is paramount.

It’s so vital to have an actual strategy when you are using email to communicate with all the prospects and customers that you have. It’s something you are going to be working in for the length of your business.

You need to collect testimonials from your customers. People want to give them to you. You just have to ask for them. Think about it as Amazon. Do you check the testimonials when you go to buy something on Amazon? OF COURSE YOU DO! There is something more genuine about someone else telling the story of what you do. Just ask people if you can take a testimonial of their experience and then leverage it.

"Just make sure that you are leveraging email marketing to create a personalized experience that makes people feel really warm and fuzzy inside." - Ramon Darling

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Ramon:

Twitter: @KeapGrowing
FB: @keap
IG: @keap
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/company/keap-growing/
https://keap.com/

061: Creative Email Marketing with Emma [Email Marketing Series #4 of 6]

Wed, 24 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Beyond The Broadcast- Doing more with email marketing

Today we are tackling the 4th episode of our 6 part series. We are talking with Tyler Sutton with the email marketing company Emma. Emma creates beautiful emails. Emma registered on my radar about 10 years ago, which in internet years is a long time! There is so much that Emma is doing that is effective, compelling, and pushing the needle forward. The experience that Tyler brings with him to this conversation is all about what you can do with email marketing regardless of the platform.

All About Emma

Since about 2003, Emma has evolved with online marketing just as everything online evolves. The initiative behind the platform itself was to create a really user friendly tool to conduct email marketing to help you reach your audience. One thing stressed from the beginning was the user friendliness of it. They wanted to make it easy to get your content into email. They created emails that are appealing and professional which makes them feel like they come with some authority.

Type of Clients That Work with Emma

Emma works with users across all industry from sports teams to restaurants to small businesses and even retail. With their most recent release of the Emma HQ platform they have seen a lot of great use out of restaurants or more franchise based businesses. They can break down all the franchises into sub accounts and have them still under one umbrella. Emma really welcomes every industry.

Let’s Talk Sub Accounts

A key concept in email marketing is being able to personalize it and create a relationship. From a sub account/franchise model you would want to do that with each location. With this functionality there are separate sub accounts. Each sub account may present itself as a different location, franchise locations or separate but connected entities. Inside the EmmaHQ sub accounts can create their own mailings, manage their lists, look at their response data, and even set up automation. This allows them to have accounts for each location without data crossing over into another. You can keep everything separate so subscribers who signed up to receive information from that location are getting emails only concerning things at the location they signed up for. It allows you to keep better organized and stay in compliance.

Each sub account requires an opt in to help you stay in compliance. Each sub account is counted separately; all campaigns and audiences are linked only to that sub account. It kinda doesn't matter who pays the bill, there is no sharing across accounts. On the HQ level you there is access to sub account analytics, and the ability to create account wide templates can then be shared down to the sub accounts.

Even if you might have 2 people under the same brand, they are going to want to communicate with their subscribers differently. But when there is something going on like maybe an Open House HQ can send that template to both people and it creates uniformity of the brand even though the accounts are separate. The HQ platform helps for any business that is expanding in from a location to a franchise level.

Emma’s Take on Automation

People love automation because it takes some work off their plate on an ongoing basis.

"In terms of automation, it really is a cornerstone in email marketing. I feel like people are catching onto that a little bit more."- Tyler Sutton

Tyler comes across people every now and then who aren’t using automation and they do have a big gap in their email marketing. The philosophy Emma has regarding automation is, “How do you leverage that tool in whatever way you are using it?” How do you leverage that tool to create a more personalized experience for your subscriber? Is it a welcome email or birthday email? Is it setting up a mailing that sends off if a subscriber clicks on a specific link? How are you going to set up automation to further that personalized experience for your subscriber?

I think that click automations are crucial and I love doing things date specific.

What kind of automations are Emma users creating?

They are using Click automation in really creative ways. Tyler goes into discussing something a coffee shop brand he worked with did. They were releasing a new holiday drink in the first part of December. So in September they sent a mailing out announcing that in December they would be releasing this new drink. Further, they had a CTA at the bottom that said “remind me closer to December. “ When people clicked the link it set up the mailing already to send out to them closer to the launch of the drink.

Tyler thinks that people are getting more creative with their content even in some of the more common workflows.

"EVERYBODY SHOULD HAVE A WELCOME EMAIL REGARDLESS OF YOUR BRAND."- Tyler Sutton.

He was working with an NFL team and they were trying think about how they could make this an experience a subscriber would appreciate. Their experience was labeled “Welcome to the Team.” So right when they signed up, their subscriber got their first email with a coupon code for their team store with a graphic that said “welcome to the team.” As the series went on over the next couple of weeks, it was about finding ways to connect with the team and the final step of that was season tickets. They went from welcome to the team to let’s gear up to let’s connect and then finally be a part of action with season tickets. They got really creative with how they told a story through that welcome series.

What’s the Right Number?

Tyler says the number of emails you need to create in a series depends on what you are trying to accomplish in a welcome email/series. The question you have to ask is “What’s the content that you have? And what content is going to be the most valuable to present?” If you can deliver that content in one email then do it in one email. With the NFL team they had so much different content that they had that they were using to tell their story across a longer time. If you combined all that they had into one email it would have been a lot of noise going on. The amount of content you have and the goal that you have regarding the nurture series determines how many emails that you need to send out.

Branish Logic

There are two things Tyler encourages you to think about. Email marketing is all about delivering relevant content so think about these things:

Consider your audience- In Emma we have segments that are dynamic. This means as customers data changes people may move in or out of certain workflows.
Branish logic- As you send out mailings you can insert "choose your own adventure" types of links. In Emma, you can set up automations that allows people to choose their own way through your content with links to click. So you can choose to send someone through the rest of the automation if they click yes and if they click no you can maybe send them another type of content.

Being able to understand who your audience is and what makes sense for them is so important. Being able to give them the opportunity to choose their path through your content may give you greater interaction with said subscriber. The welcome series is a great opportunity to collect more information from your subscriber so that you can customize their experience. It really goes a long way to help you build a long term relationship with subscribers.

Inside the Emma Platform

Emma has every tool imaginable that you can think of to get started. The whole app is broken down into 5 tabs. You have the homepage that provides some overall analytics for your overall account and on the last few emails you’ve sent. You have the audience tab where you can manage lists and segments. They have forms platform as well. They have an area for creating content like the drag and drop editor. And they even have an area for testing. They have an analytics platform. They also have the automation platform.

Let’s Talk Split Testing…

Tyler says you should always be A/B testing whether is subject line or content because it’s going to help you understand your subscribers better. You can ask them in the welcome series, but what do their actions tell you as well? In terms of open rates, test the subject line. In terms of content, there is a slew of items you can be testing that will help you drive your clicks with different layout options. It helps you optimize and make educated decisions based on what your tests tell you.

Thresholds for Tests…

If you have a list of 5000 contacts, then you can take around 20% of your list and still have a good test group. If you have less than 5000 contacts then Tyler recommends just splitting your audience in half. You would send version A to half and version B to the other half. That’s going to give you a good opportunity to have a more increased sample size. Your list size isn’t an excuse to do or not do A/B testing.

Split test every email so that you can see what is going on with your subscribers. You should be doing testing to find trends that will help you increase your engagements. What Tyler is saying we want to hit our audience so that they feel appreciated and they WANT to receive your email. Even if you aren’t using the A/B testing tools, you can still test things from a manual perspective by looking at your analytics and identifying what’s working and what’s not working.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Tyler/Emma:

www.myemma.com
Webinar on May 14th: Influencer Marketing

060: Evolving Email Marketing Strategy with AWeber [Email Marketing Series #3 of 6]

Mon, 22 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Beyond The Broadcast - The Email Marketing Series

This is the third episode of our 6 part series on Email Marketing. Chris Vasquez from AWeber and I had a great conversation and I’m thrilled to bring this conversation to you!

Chris loves to have fun with email ~ yup… he thinks there is a noticeable effect on your engagement rates when you are true and authentic to yourself and have a little fun doing it. Chris is the Director of Products at AWeber. He started on the design team and migrated to products at the beginning of last year. Chris’ role is to work with other product managers to make sure they are listening to their customers and the market, identifying the problems they have, and then building solutions to those problems.

AWeber, started as an email service provider 20 years ago, and they do the same thing today… help their clients deliver emails. It was one of the first EMS (Email Marketing Systems) to build in auto responders. This functionality came out of customer service. The customers asked for it, so the team found a way to make it happen.

It’s really important to AWeber that their tools are easy to use, and when a customer has a problem that there is someone there who can answer a chat or email right away. One the reasons I really wanted to include AWeber in this series is their longevity in the market. AWeber is doing some really cool things with autoresponders, adding new functionality, and listening to the requests of their audience.

Types of things customer base asks for

Chris was so quick to answer this question -- some users are always asking for automations to be simpler and others are asking for them to be more powerful. The duality of this request moved Aweber to add tags/tagging to the platform. At the outset, AWeber was solely a list based platform. With customer service at the core of the business model, evolution was necessary and the dev team created and implemented a solution to their request!

AWeber, along with other platforms are seeing the need to understand subscribers’ behavior. This leads to tagging on click, tagging on open, clicks and opens triggering automations and so on.

Another frequent customer request has been for more content creation tools. There is a segment of their client base who build from curated content. They curate a list of articles and then add editorial content at the beginning and the end. And voila - a new mobile app called Curate was built to aid these clients to more easily get their curated articles into the newsletter -- remove interim processes (store in Evernote, Google Sheets, Email, etc.). Curate becomes one of the “shareable” locations on your phone. Curate does some formatting and is definitely a unique advantage for AWeber. A way to be on the go and still be productive.

AWeber is a fun platform for users because…

As with any online service, the benefit to your business is only there when you actually use the product. With this in mind, a pillar of the platform is ease of use. Curate is an example of this. Blog Broadcasts is another automation that is extremely powerful and easy to use.

There is a divide in the marketplace - are subscriber counts vanity metrics or are they milestones? With AWeber, they let their clients decide -- you can easily be notified of new subscribers. As a company with a 20 year history, they have found that when they notify their customers of [new subscribers and milestones] it is an opportunity to celebrate. And sometimes the simple acts can make they different between continuing on or giving up. AWeber definitely feels it’s important to celebrate these things.

AWeber knows that you know your audience better than they do. But they want you to be able to create real, authentic content that is representative of you. And then they want to help you celebrate your milestones as you grow your list.

I love these notifications. But I don’t want them front and center all the time… so what I’ve done in my inbox is created a rule so that all of those can go into a separate folder. They skip the inbox but are available for me to review and see progress. We are so accustomed to being in our inboxes. Notifications is something that I want to make sure is customizable in the platform I’m using.

I asked Chris “Why should a listener take a look at AWeber?”

He came up with three reasons....

Customer support: Both in terms of our customer solutions team who are in the same building as the people who actually built the product. They are amazing at helping with technical support, but they are also there to help you with strategy. They are always available to brainstorm with you if you have ideas. They are also really deeply connected with our product teams. They bring information from customer solutions to our product team to help AWeber address issues that might help their customer base. They are also available 24/7.

Second is deliverability. Aweber owns their email sending infrastructure and they maintain it. They maintain relationships directly with internet service providers. We have complete control on their sending infrastructure. This means they don’t have to go through a middle person to get issues resolved regarding sending issues.

Ease of use. We want a platform that is easy and friendly for people to use. So they focus on making all the aspectings of email marketing easy to use for anyone. We have more complex technologies too. We approach new feature development as we want to make it as simple as possible. We have split testing feature and the feedback we have gotten is that it’s really easy to use.

One of the reasons why this series exists is because email marketing is more than just sending emails. Email marketing is creating engagement with the person on the receiving end of the email. It is having them have a vested interest in what your saying. You want them to engage with you. There is a lot of strategy that goes into email marketing.

What is working in AWeber

Automations within messages that progressively help you profile your audience. When it comes to educating your audience it’s helpful to know where someone is at in their journey with you. Being able to customize your emails based on information your audience gives in say a small survey you put in your welcome email, you allows you funnel them through different automations that you may have. This is called click automations. They are seeing an increasing amount of people using this tactic.

Depending on the size of your list, always be testing. You should always be testing. This is the difference between thinking something and knowing something. If you have a couple thousand subscribers you should always be testing. You can definitely test if you have a smaller list, but the smaller the list the higher the potential that the results might just be skewed.

Chris tests every time he sends out a newsletter. And through his testing, he has really honed in on a great send time. It’s not necessarily his best open rate, but it is his best click rate. And that’s important -- he knew what he wanted the outcome of his test to be… testing is not just a matter of pitting this time or day against another, but why?

There are so many different things that you can test. One that I do frequently for my clients is the plain URL vs. CLICK HERE type of clickable links. Things I have found is there are some people who don’t trust a “CLICK HERE”. So they would rather copy and paste the whole link from the email into their browser.

Send time and opens

When testing Chris encourages you to always stick with your control like a regular date/time that your are sending and then start testing variations of this. Whenever possible always use a split testing feature when you do these tests. Doing testing like this will lead to more traction right out of your emails.

We have to go where our audience is and testing a great way to figure that out!

If you’re ready for your email marketing and online tools to do more for you in your business, it’s time for a Tech Tool Audit → https://techofbusiness.com/audit/

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Chris:

AWeber
Search for AWeber Curate in Google/IPhone app stores
Twitter: @Clickpop

059: Marketing Automation with ActiveCampaign [Email Marketing Series #2 of 6]

Wed, 17 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

It’s Episode #2 of the 6 part series we are doing on Email Marketing. Today we are talking with Kelly O’Connell. She is the Principal Product Manager for ActiveCampaign.

ActiveCampaign is a marketing automation software platform that started as an email marketing platform and quickly moved into automation focusing on segmentation and optimizing customer journeys. They focus on small/medium size businesses.

My first introduction to ActiveCampaign was years ago at a time when it offered more than what my clients needed. But now… it is what I use and is what I highly recommend. We use it in virtual summits automation because there is so much power in that. ActiveCampaign is one of the ones at the top of my list because you can use it as simple or more in depth as you like. There are alot of great tools out there, but it’s important to find one that works with you.

Segmentation within your list with ActiveCampaign

Everyone has gotten used to that batch and blast mindset where you send a message out to a large list of people. This is still incredibly valuable in many ways. But...

"Your message is going to resonate more, get more engagement, and you are going to convert more if your messaging is really relevant, personal, and targeted."-Kelly O’Connell

That doesn’t just mean “Hey, FIRSTNAME” you have to go a little deeper. When approaching your messaging you have to figure out things like what are they doing, not doing, how are they engaging with you, what are their interests, what do you know about them?

Using all of that to segment and say this group of people is a little different than that group will help you figure out how to position your messaging and CTAs that will resonate more with them because you are speaking to them directly. It will make them more inclined to take action and continue moving through your funnel.

There is a lot that happens after someone converts passed their first purchase. You have to make sure that you keep providing an optimized journey passed their first purchase. If you treat someone right after they get their first purchase they are more likely to send people to that offer, complete the work, and then come back for more.

Strategies for After First Purchase

Someone that comes in and downloads a freebie then purchases the first product that next product that we nurture them to may be completely different person to person. It’s not always a clear path or same path for each person. We have to think about all of the things we know about that person to lead them along the funnel. One thing you can do after purchase is ASK FOR FEEDBACK! KEEP THE CONVERSATION GOING!

It’s important to help people see the value in what they just purchase and nurture them to adopt that. Do you know that they have used it, consumed it, completed it? Knowing these things will help you keep the conversation going.

This is something that is a difference between big and small businesses. Big businesses are tracking you all over the internet and blasting you with sales. With a smaller business, you have the ability to nurture the relationship you have with people.

Reasoning behind site tracking

Site tracking is one of those things that goes overlooked a few times. We’ve gotten so used to knowing what people click on and where they open and using that as behavioral segmentation capability. There are people that come to our website every day and consume information, but this shows they are curious. So you can track every page and you can see how many times they have looked at these pages. How far into your sight are they getting? This is an early indicator of what they are interested in. This allows you to create a more targeted welcome message when they do give you their email.

Automations/segmentations recommended to start with to learn about people on their list

Start with a welcome series. That’s not just an auto-responder message. This is a TRUE nurture series. This is the most engaged they are going to be with you. You use this opportunity to get more information about them. The other big thing you need to do is include a “human touch”. This is starting a human relationship by using an automation by encouraging someone to email you back during the welcome series.

We have recipes, prebuilt automations, that you can import into your account a few are built around email engagement. So you can see how often are they opening and clicking and how long has it been since they have done that. In 3 months, this gives you an idea of the engagement with your list.

All you have to do is go into automations and you click start a new automation and there are a on of them in there. It takes you through prompts to help you use the work that ActiveCampaign has done and put it in your business quickly and efficiently. Find out who your engaged list members are. More information is more information! ActiveCampaign also has event tracking that can show you things like how far did someone get into your video.

When we do Virtual Summits, we use this event tracking on the videos for the Summit. This tracking information tells us how to nurture people who are participating in the summit.

Being able to find ways to make your automation move into your interactive is like a super power in email marketing.

Backend in ActiveCampaign

Automation often concentrates on the content delivery to contact which it’s great for, but sometimes you want to know if something happened that might set you up for success later. You have the ability to have it send you an email when something has happened. As a result you are able to engage more with them and create more of that human touch in automation.

ActiveCampaign has the ability for you to send an email directly to someone from ActiveCampaign. This means the emails will be better timed. And the ability to send directly to someone from ActiveCampaign means you don’t have to lose tools, but still allow you to connect one-on-one with a contact. It provides a new way for you to contact outside of their automation. ActiveCampaign does have a chrome extension that will bring all of your contact info from gmail into your chrome extension to work in ActiveCampaign.

Biggest Benefit of Fully Embracing Automation of ActiveCampaign

It allows you to grow. Not everything has to be perfectly done right away. Having infrastructure in place gives you data so that when it comes time you can start branching off. It allows you to think think through things like if this person goes this way then I can offer them this. It allows you to grow what you offer your clientbase. Putting the first steps in automation allows you to easily think through what’s working and what’s not and be able to easily make changes.

ActiveCampaign affiliate link
https://techofbusiness.com/activecampaign

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with ActiveCampaign:

058: Email Marketing Strategy & Segmentation with Sarah Anderson [Email Marketing Series #1 of 6]

Mon, 15 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Our new series Beyond the Broadcast: Email Marketing Expanded, begins with this episode all about using your email marketing system more effectively in your business, we’ve got a conversation with Sarah Anderson. She is an email marketing strategist. This is a perfect start to the series (and even better than I had hoped!)

Also in this series, I sit down with representatives from several email marketing service providers. And, just as with the MemberVault series, I’ll wrap up the series with a deep dive episode in which we’ll break down everything from the interviews into an action plan for your business. This action plan is going to work for you no matter where you are in your email marketing strategy. We’ll make it easy, fun and effective!

Email marketing is a tool that every business can use and leverage month in and month out. Email marketing is the tool that lands emails into someone else’s inbox. Our inbox is often the most portable part of our businesses (and lives!) as it’s very easy to scroll through our inbox on our phone. So in a sense, a person’s email is with them all the time and right at their fingertips. This is why we want to be showing up consistently in their inbox.

Sarah Anderson works with her clients on both their email strategy and the words themselves as a copywriter. She works with coaches, course creators, and consultants who are ready to sell more with their email list and really leverage their email lists. She loves working on sales copy, launches, evergreen funnels, and even nurture sequences.

Let’s start at the beginning of the relationship.

That is a nurture or welcome sequence. We, as business owners, should take initiative and nurture the relationship with people who has just joined your email list. Sarah says that “the nurture sequence is your chance to make friends with the person who has just joined your email list.”

New subscribers are excited and need to be treated a little differently than the rest of your email list. You want to use a nurture sequence to introduce them to your brand, who you are, what you do, and how you can really help them. This sets them up for working with you down the line.

There are so many ideas out there of what makes sense regarding frequency of emails. For frequency of nurture sequences, Sarah likes to email a little more frequently in the beginning (like everyday or every other day) and then slowly put more time in between emails. One sequence you’ll see often is the Fibonacci sequence for email sequencing. They get the freebie email on Day 1 then continue with the series -- another email on Day 1, Day 2, Day 3, then Day 5… doing this sequence it gradually spaces out the emails until they get to the point of your newsletter. In the beginning, you want to get your subscriber used to open your emails “strike while the iron is hot” and get to know them and get in there when they are the most interested. (in case you're interested, here's a link to Fibonacci sequence)

Nurture sequence vs. Segmenting

“Segmenting is really about getting the right email to the right person at the right time.” - Sarah Anderson

You don’t want someone who just signed up for your email sequence getting emails about your launch. But someone who went to your webinar and has been clicking on your emails IS who you want to get that launch email.

Sarah uses and suggests creating a newsletter segment -- the people who are best suited to newsletters or broadcast message -- this is generally people who completes the welcome sequence. They will be tagged in your email marketing system to be included in the newsletter segment.

One email in Sarah’s nurture sequence is what she calls a self segmenting email. She sends an email that says “Hey, can you tell me which best describes you?” She’ll give them a few things to click and once they click that link it will track them. And those clickable links can be based on whatever it is your tracking like where they are in their business, what their goals are, what type of business they are in. This helps you see who is on your list and you can use that data to make your emails that much more effective.

Segmenting is not usually a manual process -- your systems can take care of adding the right tags and moving people around to the correct segments. It’s simply a tool that allows you to send focused emails to the most likely action takers.

There are other ways to use your segments within your email strategy.

One that both Sarah and I love is during a launch series (which has a lot of emails about that product or service) include a link in that email that says “I don’t want to hear about this anymore”. This allows your subscriber choose their adventure with your emails and let them guide the emails they get. If you are just getting started with segmenting, just start with a few segments. There are so many different ways to use segmenting, don’t get overwhelmed just start with one or two differentiators and grow when the time is right.

Segmenting results in more of your audience liking and interactive with your emails.

The longer someone stays on your list and likes your emails, the more likely they are to eventually purchase from you. Understanding what they want from your emails is paramount to creating that relationship.

Another sequence that Sarah speaks about on this episode is that of an Evergreen Sequence. This is a hybrid of sorts between a nurture sequence and sales sequence. It’s always out there working for you. If you are not sending regular emails that’s where you can still use email marketing to build authority and purchases.

So, do you want to create a forever sequence that can go on and on and nurture people for months? OR… do you want to create a short sales sequence that you put people in where you start with the regular nurture sequence and then you offer them something like a webinar that is leading into a launch? You are offering them value, but then also offering a way for them to work with you so to speak. Sarah recommends doing regular emails but she can see why people don’t want to do it. It is a big commitment. This where you have to look at strategy long term.

There are ways that you can include “sales” aspects in every email. Like for instance, in the footer of Sarah’s emails, there is an “interested in working with me” link that people can click. So that goes out in every email weather it’s sales or nurture or launch or informative.

Sarah and I agree that Email Marketing is a pillar in online business today. You can succeed with email marketing. It can even help focus your week as far as what you are sharing in other aspects of your business like social media and on a podcast.

Benefits of Sending Regular Emails

The primary benefit of consistency is it’s building trust with your subscribers. It helps your audience see that you show up and makes them feel like if they hire you that you aren’t just going to take their money and then disappear. As a business owner, you want to be the top of your subscribers mind for the service that you offer. Building trust is a long term thing. If you can’t start with weekly, start monthly. Start where you are and keep going.

There is a lot of content that goes into emails. Download Sarah’s “Welcome Sequence Roadmap” freebie which contains five emails for your nurture sequence.

Sarah encourages her clients and audience to do something a little extra in your welcome email. You’re using your nurture sequence to build a relationship with your new subscribers and have it lead to a one on one conversations with them.

What to look for In Email Service Providers

Option to do segmenting easy with link triggers.
Include the option for plain text emails where the format can be changed easily and doesn’t have to be fancy with lots of design (think less graphics, more an email to your mom).
Easily integrate or create forms and landing pages, it’s nice to be able to do that within the service but some service providers you need to do that in another tool.

I believe that you can make just about any email marketing platform work in your business. Sure, there is a learning curve and there are different levels of email marketing systems. But, depending on your needs, you’ll find your soulmate tool. As a business owner, you have to understand your business and message so well that email marketing will allow you to connect with the one person that is receiving your email. You want to connect with every one person on your list on a individual basis. Giving a personality to every one person on your list creates the opportunity to connect and feel like they are a part of your community. This is what helps them see that you genuinely care, have a personality and aren’t just in it for the money.

A Tip: Self Selection Before a Major Launch

What if you haven’t done any segmenting yet? Try a pre launch sequence.

This sequence will do a bit of pre-warming and get both you and your audience ready for what’s coming next. Essentially, offer an insane amount of value and tease the upcoming launch. Invite people to opt back in for the upcoming offer.

This strategy allows you to see how many subscribers are interested in different aspects of your business and types of content. They’ll be ready to act on the major launch. If this step is skipped, open rates and conversion rates might be lower and people may not realize that this opportunity is perfect for them!

Have a new product? You can also use self selection as part of a beta launch for that new product as a way of testing it!

Providing people with the power to say “yes” makes your emails more effective!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Sarah:

057: Infopreneurship, ClickFunnels, Virtual Summits and More with Bailey Richert

Wed, 10 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today, we're taking with infopreneur extraordinaire Bailey Richert. Bailey is the host of the Infopreneur Summit, a ClickFunnels user (and affiliate) and was a speaker at the most recent Funnel Hacking Live. She is a wealth of knowledge!

What is being an infopreneur all about? It’s about how you can take what you know so well that you are extremely confident packaging it into something new and delivering it online!.

Bailey helps people who want to share their life experience, passion, and knowledge with others. They do this online in a way that also makes money primarily through information products and services. Hence the term “INFOpreneur”.

So if you are creating courses or have a membership site and YOU are creating the content for it...then you are an INFOpreneur. One of the cool things about infopreneurship is that it is such a versatile business model. Infopreneurs can be service providers and vice versa. Being an infopreneur can be just part of your business. It doesn’t necessarily have to be your WHOLE business.

"People should consider how they can leverage information products and services in their own business to help their bottom line."- Bailey Richert

Some people go into business and seek out infopreneurship from the outset. To do this you have to get clear on your messaging, who it is you want to serve, and how you want to serve them. Infopreneurs are most often personal brands, doing business under their own name to position themselves as the expert. Bailey often sees with new infopreneurs is they have difficulty separating their business brand from their personal life.

One of the biggest mistakes she see people make is starting their business based on all the things that interest them. This is the quickest way to failure because people don’t know what “box” to put you in and that’s what they are looking for...the box in which you belong. Instead, as the infopreneur it's our job to choose the box for them. We need to select the box that we want to be in and narrow down that focus before other people decide where we belong.

Knowing who you want to find you and who you want to refer you and what you want to be known for is paramount. The great thing about infopreneurship is that you can create info products in almost any niche. Bailey is leading the Infopreneur Summit this month.

This is the fourth year she is hosting this event… In 2016, she launched the first summit. She grew her email list, brought in income, built a network of influencers, and gained credibility as a Summit Host. She immediately turned around after the first one and said I know I can do better. The second time she did the summit she was about to QUADRUPLE their results from the first summit. So she said THIS IS IT! THIS IS MY THING!

Bailey is clear on her positioning. The Infopreneur summit is for the beginning and budding infopreneurs. That is: someone who has learned about infopreneurship, but hasn’t taken any steps yet. They are interested in learning more about what it’s all about. OR… they have taken some initial steps, they are committed to this idea that they want to be an infopreneur and they are looking to learn from the experts who are doing well in this online world.

Day 1 of the summit is all about business foundations.
Day 2 is about your online presence which includes social media.
Day 3 is about revenue stream.
Day 4 is about sales, marketing, and scaling.

The speakers are covering a wide variety of topics. They are going to get into the nitty gritty of all of the these topics. Bailey tries to keep things actionable. She wants to give you the exact strategies you need to make your business successful. She runs her summit the same way. There is so much opportunity in this summit for online business owners. One topic I really wanted to bring up on this episode is Clickfunnels.

Bailey has been using it in her business since 2015. Bailey describes Clickfunnels as a full marketing suite. It allows you to create leadpages, landing pages, and full sales funnels with order forms, upsales, downsells, order confirmation pages, membership sites and more. She uses Clickfunnels for everything!

She is using it for her Virtual Summit funnel. Because she can clone the previous funnel and tweak it, she feels this year's Infopreneur summit funnel is the best it’s ever been. Cloning means you can make a copy. There is also a share feature in Clickfunnels which allows a funnel or pages to be copied from one account to another #powerful.

Bailey was a speaker at the most recent Funnel Hacking Live conference where she spoke about Virtual Summits. The Clickfunnels community is diverse. At FHL attendees self select their skills, business and focus with ribbons on the name tag #sosmart. You can use Clickfunnels to sell products in any niche and in any business. Going to live events is a fabulous way of connecting with people you may never meet otherwise, even if you're in the same online community. This conference uses the software as the common denominator.

For Bailey, Clickfunnels is ideal for housing virtual summits because it’s not actually about the summit event. The most important part of your summit is your funnel! This is because your funnel is where you are getting people on your email list that’s also where you are going to be selling your all access pass and other products. When you use Clickfunnels, it lends itself to all the info products and services you might want to sell on the heels of the event. Marketing and technology intersect so deeply.

Without technology, your marketing doesn’t have any legs. Without marketing, your technology doesn’t have any purpose. They really go hand in hand. When you have a tool that allows you that can help you leverage both, that’s where the sweet spot is. When it comes to determining what you can be creating to bring yourself into the infopreneur space you have to consider where you are in your business.

One thing Bailey sees is Infopreneurs who are relatively new, whether they have been in business for a while or not, the first thing that say/do is “I need an online course.” Bailey loves online courses, but there are lots of things that need to be considered before launching a course such as current audience size and audience. This is one of the reasons she recommends doing a Virtual Summit.

A Virtual Summit can be lots of things. It’s not just a revenue stream. It’s also a lead generation events, an authority building event, and a community building event whereas a course is JUST a revenue stream. You can use a Virtual Summit to LAUNCH a course to that new warm or hot audience that has been created by the Virtual Summit. But to have a successful summit you have to know where you are trying to take your audience and what you want to teach them as an infopreneur.

When talking about if a Virtual Summit is right for you, Bailey says you need to ask yourself “Is this something you are committed to promoting over the long term?” You can’t just put something up on your website and expect it to just produce well for you if you aren’t doing something to market and drive traffic that product. If you are a service based business you might have to get into a different mindset. You have to think about “How am I going to continually bring attention to this product? Is it going to be through an affiliate programs, Facebook Ads, a new organic traffic strategy, etc?”

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Bailey:

Website: www.baileyrichert.com
Email: contact@baileyrichert.com
Infopreneur Summit: https://techofbusiness.com/infopreneur/

056: Over-Deliver Your Promises [Deep Dive]

Wed, 03 Apr 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today we’re celebrating!!! It’s the episode that I’ve been dreaming about and envisioning for weeks and weeks… it’s our 1 year anniversary episode!

With this episode, we’re wrapping up the first year of the Tech of Business podcast and I am thrilled that you’ve been part of the journey thus far.

As I said, I’ve been dreaming about this episode for weeks… I wasn’t sure if I wanted it to be a “call in your questions” type episode or playing snippets from the past episodes type episode, if it should be a reflection and looking forward episode or a solo down and dirty tactical episode. There is so much that I love about bringing practical tech conversations to you each week… it was really tough to decide.

But I did… and what I’m about to share with you is going to open your eyes to the opportunities that are right under your nose. These ten ways to over deliver your online promises are going to blow you away!

But before we get there, I’d like to ask you a couple of favors -- as this is the anniversary episode!

First -- I’ve poured everything I can into this episode and I would love for you to share it with 3 friends or associates who have online businesses or an online component of their business.

It’s super easy to share, you can send them the link https://techofbusiness.com/056/ or click on the share icon in your podcast app. The share icon might be hidden behind ellipses – and seriously, if you want to share the episode and aren’t sure how, just DM me on Instagram, I’m @techofbusiness 😊

Second – leave a review of the podcast on your favorite podcast app or on the Tech of Business Facebook Page

And third – book a call with me so that I can continue to make this podcast as relevant to you as possible! Just go to https://callwithjaime.com and select a time. These calls are 15 minutes long on Thursdays.

Now…. Let’s get into the ten ways to over deliver your online promises!

{musical interlude}

#10: Use your email marketing platform to immediately deliver your promise and set expectations

The best impression you can give someone is to deliver the promise you’ve made. If you’re asking someone to opt-in for a freebie, webinar, virtual summit, masterclass or other no-cost way to learn from you, they are providing you with their email address. Use it immediately – truth is they are expecting that and we have trained ourselves to link entering information in a form to going to our inboxes to receive whatever was promised.

Don’t get me wrong, thank you for giving me your email address type pages are super important as well. And I want to take a couple moments to talk about the best things to put on that page in a moment but suffice it to say that you’re not going to create a true connection with that new subscriber or attendee without using email – so start the relationship right by sending your promise via email.

When it comes to delivering a paid product, depending on how your systems are configured and what the promise is, you may provide them with immediate access or a button on the thank you page that gives the access. Or there may be additional steps either they or you need to take in order to deliver what they have purchased. The more we can deliver immediately without the need to go back to the inbox, the better. It’s a far better user experience to stay in the web browser than have to jump over to the inbox – when you’ve just bought something.

Think about product based businesses for a moment, when you buy something from them online, could you imagine not having a page with your confirmation number and delivery information right after the transaction completes? Well, it’s the same thing with delivering your online services and digital products.

In this case what we send via email completes the experience and provides a great backup for the information from the purchase confirmation page. I like to send a welcome to the program email which includes all relevant links that we already included on the thank you for your purchase page. I also like there to be a separate email that contains the receipt, refund policy and terms of use. I like that to be a separate email so that it can go to a “different department” – think of bigger businesses, the receipts need to go to Accounting whereas the product needs to be delivered to the appropriate party. Separating these is beneficial for the recipient.

Now looping back on the thank you for giving me your email address page from the free offers – this page is one of my favorite pages to create because it gives your new subscriber instructions and can set expectations.

When you’re giving away a downloadable of some kind (rather than a “show up online” activity) the thank you page will include instructions for going to the inbox, white labeling your email address, clicking the link to download the item -and this is important- praise them for taking action. In some cases there might be reason to present an offer on this page as well, but that’s beyond what I wanted to cover in today’s episode, if you ask for it, I’ll slate that into the podcast in the coming months… so DM me on Instagram @techofbusiness!

Now, when you’re giving away something that requires the registrant to show up online or watch a limited time replay, the thank you page is a fabulous place to insert an “add to your calendar” button offer text reminders and let them know that you’ll be sending over some pre-work to their email address so that they can get the most out of this online event.

And then, we loop back over to the email and with that, here’s #9 on our list to over deliver your online promises

#9: Set expectations via email and ask for feedback consistently and regularly

The email that is going to receive the greatest number of opens out of any that you send to a subscriber is the very first one where they receive their freebie or access.

So, set expectations in this email – they are far more likely to read it. Let people know that you send emails once a week, where they can connect with you on social, how to unsubscribe and what will happen if they do unsubscribe. Point them to your website or where they can learn more about you and your business.

And one of the expectations that you will want to set, most likely, is that you love engaging and connecting and receiving feedback. Let them know that you like to get feedback via email or via your Facebook page or LinkedIn or otherwise.

Similarly, with the initial email for a show-up-live event, we want to set expectations… let them know the frequency of future emails leading up to the event and what it looks like after the event concludes.

Jumping right off the expectations and feedback, we’re into #8 which is

#8: Create a freebie email sequence that helps them get more out of the freebie, creates a tangible connection between your name in their inbox and the results they seek and, gets them ready for your future emails including pitch emails

When someone opts into your email list they are still what we call “cold” and that’s where the warming or welcome series comes in. Before dumping them right into your weekly emails and pitching your offers, now is the best time to help them get the most out of what they have subscribed to. This person, they asked for you to send them the information, the greatest gift you can give them is assistance with getting the results they seek.

I have an ideal freebie email sequence that you can access by going to https://techofbusiness.com/freebie/email-sequence/ Let’s break that down for a PDF download.

Here’s the sequence

Deliver the freebie immediately and set expectations as in #9
At 9am the next day, at least 4 hours after subscription but no more than 23 hours after subscription, send another email that augments the information in the first email
Wait for 2 days and check to see if either of the first two emails have been opened
If so, send another follow up
Wait for 3 days, send another follow up
Wait an additional 5 days and send a final follow up
Add a tag that indicates they are an active subscriber if they have opened any of the three emails in this branch and wrap things up
If they didn’t open either of the first two emails, we send them to the possibly inactive route which includes sending a recap of the freebie plus first follow up email
At this point, we hold that new subscriber until they take some action or it’s been 30 days since they subscribed.

There are a few other breakouts within the sequence but I’m not going to get into them here – I’d love for you to see the graphic I have waiting for you in the freebie at https://techofbusiness.com/freebie/email-sequence/ and, I know that was quite technical and not necessarily easy to follow by my voice, so I’ll break it down in common words.

Our freebie opt-in sequence is 5 emails long that warms them up to us and our business and provides them with prompts to do the work that was contained in the freebie. If they get through enough of the content we know that they are warm enough to get our broadcast emails and offer emails. If they haven’t done enough with our emails, then we want to give them time and space (30 days) to get through the content and keep them out of our regular sequence… the idea being the more engaged subscribers we have opening our emails, the better our business is going to resonate and grow.

Your email freebie sequence can be started at any time, so if you don’t have one yet, not to worry, I’m so excited to share the one above with you!

Onto our seventh way to over deliver…

#7: Create a personal connection, use triggers in your email marketing to highlight the stand out participants and wow them with a personal email

Tagging your subscribers based on actions they take and having distinct segments is a great way to double down on your most loyal subscribers.

In ActiveCampaign, I have some automations setup that simply notify me what my subscribers are doing… if someone visits one of a number of pages on my website, then I get an email letting me know to pay a bit closer attention to that person and what else they might be doing. I have triggers for when people take certain activities in my promise delivery platforms (both Thinkific and MemberVault) so that I can send a personal email letting them know I noticed them taking massive action, ask for feedback, or offer to guide them through.

I am actually thinking about adding another automation that would trigger if someone visits a certain page and doesn’t hit another page after a certain number of days – this may indicate that I need to tweak my delivery method. It shows that something isn’t working as smooth as it could.

Did I have all this setup last year when I launched the podcast? Of course not! I’ve been growing and iterating and doubling down on what’s working. I’ve also been watching other entrepreneurs and brands to see what they’re doing.

We’re not in a place where things run on auto-pilot, we’re in a place where we need tech and connection to be intertwined… which is why I highlighted MemberVault back in episode 43 – 47. They are all about relationship marketing – and a very successful tool to build a true relationship with your subscriber. There is way more than just a name and email address involved!!

Next, we’re going to take our over-delivering out of email and…

#6: Invite social media connections

If you’re anything like me, then you have a love-hate relationship with your inbox. And you’re probably far more likely to see a message pop up on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter or LinkedIn… so invite your subscribers to connect with you on social media. Ask engaging questions, invite engagement and do your best to showcase wins that your subscribers get from engaging with your content.

We’re all so busy, that it’s easy to be a lurker – to see and not to interact and engage. Your best next client is not going to come from the ether… they are watching and thinking and watching some more. Give them a chance to pull themselves out of the shadows and into your line of sight.

If you’re resonating with this episode, take a picture right now and post it on Instagram and tag @techofbusiness! Let me know where you’re listening and what’s coming up for you. Let’s have a conversation and let me see you!

See what I did there? That was my attempt to engage with you on social media – I know you want to, so unless you’re driving, snap that picture and tag me on Instagram!

Speaking of social media… one of the really cool things that it opens up for us is

#5: Gamification

What is gamification you ask? It’s a way to entice your purchasers and subscribers to complete the actions that they set out to complete when they signed up or purchased your offer.

It’s about getting points or bonuses or credits… there are hundreds of ways to gamify and entice users to do more. And it can be done by playing against yourself or against others.

For the purposes of this podcast, I like self-imposed gamification – unlocking bonus content and perks for hitting certain milestones with the free or paid content. If you’re running a challenge and someone completes all their homework by the end of the challenge they could unlock a discount for your signature offer that comes on the heels of the challenge.

Or if you’ve got a self-directed course or membership site, gamification can be used to unlock bonus content, a call with you or a group experience.

Gamification works well to augment what they are already expecting. It’s a great way to over deliver and wow your audience!

Let’s switch gears for a moment and touch on the fourth way to over-deliver.

#4: Use as few tools as possible and keep it as simple as possible to deliver your promises

While it seems obvious at first, let’s break it down…

Use one tool to deliver all your emails
Use one tool to house all your content
Use one tool to take payments
Limit the number of passwords, lock codes and unnecessary hoops for your users to fully use what you’ve promised them
Have a system for fast customer service

My rule of thumb is to stick with one tool until it no longer does what you need it to. And if a tool that you bring in can “do more” determine if you’re going to use all features of that tool or stick with using it only to fill the need you sought it for.

Okay, that seems like another mouthful… so, let’s talk about Thinkific a bit. It can take payments and do affiliate management, and send welcome and reminder emails and deliver your courses… but if you are already using ThriveCart for your payment processing and affiliate management, does it make sense for your business for you to start using that part of the Thinkific system? And what about welcome an reminder emails? If you’ve already got ActiveCampaign working, is it better to flush out ActiveCampaign to take care of those course related emails or is it better to use the built-in system.

I can probably make a case for both situations, so if you’re wondering which way to go with your unique tech stack, reach out to me, okay? As I’ve already said I’m @techofbusiness on Instagram!!

#3: Use segmentation in your email marketing system to keep content relevant and avoid selling to the already sold

This is a biggie… we have so many systems that we use to navigate things online, and the more systems we add the more likelihood there is to get your list out of sync. Keeping our lists in sync helps our audience feel appreciated by only receiving relevant emails. This means that if you’re in promotion mode for a product or service that you’ve already delivered before, it’s really effective to exclude anyone who has already attended, purchased or subscribed.

Now, this doesn’t mean that you can’t resend that information to the people who already opted in for this particular offer, especially if you’re going to give them the opportunity to join in on the next round or otherwise. But it’s way more effective to lead with “since you already came to xyz, I wanted to let you know that for no additional cost, I would love to see you in the next round.” Or something like that.

Segmenting your list doesn’t have to be hard or arduous… it’s even something that can be done after the fact, if you didn’t get everything squared away… might take a bit of time but when we’ve been delivering content and products and services online for several years, it’s likely that we can augment our segmentation.

I don’t think there are ever too many tags that we can apply to a subscriber. I’d rather see that someone bought product A, looked at product B, attended webinar C and so on than to just know that they are an active subscriber.

That being said, there also comes a time to consolidate tags. If, for example, you’re running an evergreen webinar and have individual tags for each week of the webinar, there comes a point in time when it doesn’t make sense to keep all the individual tags but rather consolidate them all to a single watch-evergreen-webinar tag. This can actually be setup to run automatically with many tools or even if you’re not able to do that, most email marketing platforms are going to make it easy to filter on tags and you can add the new tag and remove the old tag (or have your assistant take care of this.)

I’m giddy when it comes to making your email marketing platform work well – and when you go through the email sequence that I mentioned earlier, the one that you can access over at https://techofbusiness.com/freebie/email-sequence/ you’ll see that I offer an email marketing system tune up!

The next way to over deliver on your promises is to

#2: Do something live and in real time

Yup – making a big deal about going live and your subscribers having access to you in real time is a huge way to over deliver. Whether you make it public on your Facebook page, using Instagram Stories or host something exclusive for your community or paid members, going live and doing activities in real time will raise your credibility with your community.

When we show up and do the unexpected, people take notice. They share with their friends and associates. And the most amazing thing about going live these days is that it’s completely acceptable to do it from your phone!

And if you think back to last week’s conversation with Michael Marcial, he is famous for dropping live audio messages in Facebook Messenger – combining #2 and #6 on this list. So completely effective and no complicated tech to deal with.

And to wrap our list of top 10 ways to over deliver your promises

#1: Be authentically you within your tech tools

Always, always, always!! It doesn’t matter if you’re using the most complicated set of tools that can do 100,000 things for you or four simple tools… when you show up to deliver and over deliver, showing up as yourself is vital.

If you sign up for the freebie that I talked about in this episode you then received something that totally didn’t sound like I wrote it – there would be a disconnect. It would be a turn off and you might not know if it’s the “podcast Jaime” or the “email Jaime” that is going to show up to your Tech Audit or other project that we work on together.

Rest assured… the “podcast Jaime” is the real Jaime… even my 12 year old daughter Camryn said to me as she was reading over my shoulders as I was writing out the show notes for this episode, that she cannot believe that I write in the exact same way that I talk!

I told her that it’s vital for me to just be me and not try to impersonate someone I admire. Their methods work for them, my methods work for me, and to you, listening right now, make sure that your methods work for you!

At this very moment of the episode I can hear whispers from around the globe… but Jaime, how can I over-deliver when the tech is so overwhelming? My first response is to BREATHE. Always breathe. And then think about what you’re promising. What’s one tiny thing you can do to make things just a little bit easier for your subscriber or purchaser. Start there.

Or pick just one of the 10 ways that I mentioned in this episode… and focus on helping your client, subscriber, customer or audience get a bit closer to their objective.

It doesn’t have to be hard. I don’t want it to be hard… which is why I tried my best to keep tech out of this conversation. Frankly, your business doesn’t need you to be fully involved in the technology that runs it. You don’t need to understand the email freebie delivery that I mentioned in #8 and that you’re going to download… you just need to know that you’ll be able to use it to augment the experience for your subscriber.

That’s the truth. The tech tools we use to deliver and over-deliver are just tools… the power of those is tools is the outcomes that your subscribers, customers, clients and audience receive when you use the tools as a conduit for delivery.

And with that… our first anniversary episode is a wrap.

Can you think of one person who’s email list you’re on right now who could do more to deliver what you want or need from them by adopting one or more of the ten ways we talked about in this episode? Do them a favor and grab the link to this episode from your podcast app and email it to them right now. It’s so simple and both of you are going to win!

Thank you for being part of the Tech of Business community this year and I cannot wait to kick off year two of the podcast with you!

055: Building Personal Relationships with Facebook as a Base Tool with Michael Marcial

Wed, 27 Mar 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Today we are talking with Michael Marcial. Michael is the creator of the 5 Figure Workweek which is a Facebook based mastermind community with about 3400 members. He created this community because he knew there were other people out there, like him, who were looking to make a deeper impact while making money. His mastermind does not have a deep tech stack. He likes to keep things simple and uses Facebook as a base tool for his business.

Michael believes in a people first approach and goes about it by fostering personal connections. Everything he highlights his ability to connect with people. There are four things he relies on in his business and which he knows that his brand also needs to capture. They are:

Understanding who he is
Understanding that they are the type of people he works with
Understanding what he can offer them
Understanding the result he can deliver by them working with him.

This deep understanding has allowed him to identify the technology needed in his business to support these pillars. He doesn’t need tools that overcomplicate. He doesn’t need tons of landing pages or funnels. Earlier this month, he ran an in person mastermind with nothing more than a paypal link → because he built his PERSONAL brand and made PERSONAL connections.

I haven’t forgotten that the very first audio message that I received in Facebook messenger was from Michael. And there was something about that audio message, adding his voice to the message, that made it so much easier to connect with the message and him. Michael uses the tech he NEEDS not what someone else tells him to use.

“We follow tactics. We follow the little tic-tac-toe information that some guru or influencer gives us. And what I have noticed in my own journey in going from dead broke to figuring a few things out and really applying and taking bigger actions towards what I felt was right, I gained a confidence in that. And in my own self confidence is really where people start to say WHOA WHAT ARE YOU DOING?”- Michael Marcial

In his own self confidence it started working even though it was different. He started to notice a shift in the type of people he was talking to. They were movers and shakers and innovators. He became peers with these people and people HE was FOLLOWING.

One thing that he noticed was many of them showed up well with their online presence and branding but they didn’t really have the results they were showcasing. If we aren’t getting the same results with our own program, aren’t we just leading our followers to failure?

Michael uses tech as SUPPORT for his VISION. The 5 Figure Workweek is a PAID Facebook community that grows through affiliates. When Michael realised that an affiliate program was the perfect way to grow the 5 Figure Workweek, it was time to find a tool that resonated with him and that accomplished this one task… And this brought him to ClickFunnels where he implemented the affiliate management constructs.

In growing his mastermind community, the connections he was making was on Facebook, Instagram, and LinkedIn. He knew he was not going to be able to keep that up so he created the Facebook Group so it could be all in one place. He also knew if we was going to GROW he couldn’t do it alone. So he created a something that took care of his people AND helped him to grow!

The ClickFunnels “funnel” that his affiliates send people to is simply three pages: a welcome page, a registration page, and a thank you page. That’s it. He doesn’t use emails and ads and noise -- he relies on his core belief that the MOST IMPORTANT thing to do is to CONNECT with people.

“Technology supports the vision, not the other way around.”- Michael Marcial

For Michael, connection, authenticity, and keeping it simple is what he needs to do so that he can deliver what it is he wants to deliver to his people. He loves the format and vibe his mastermind has created because people are sharing things they are doing that are working and things that aren’t working so everyone can learn from each other. They do interviews and Q&A sessions. He wants to equip his people to reach more of their people to provide more of their genius.

Michael is also very transparent is what he is doing. He’s always showing his hand so to speak. An example of this is his Facebook Live videos where he has a format to each of this videos so that people know what he talking about and what they can expect at the end if he has something to offer them. It lets people know, once they get used to that format, that if they see he’s live and they have missed a few minutes that they can really jump in at any time. It’s not salesy or spammy, it’s genuine.

Don’t go live just to be going live. Go live with intention, connection, and purpose. Know your people and know what will serve them and your capacity to deliver on that. If you continually put yourself in the shoes of your ideal client, if you really KNOW them, you can speak to that and offer amazing services, products, offers, etc. in ways that no one else can.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Michael:

5 figure Workweek: https://techofbusiness.com/5figure/
Michael on FB: https://www.facebook.com/MichaelJMarcial
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/michaelmarcial6/
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mimarcial/

054: Online Membership Communities with Freedym's Jose Aviles.

Wed, 20 Mar 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Jose Aviles started out as a mechanical engineer. He did project management in corporate America for about 10 years. The entrepreneur lifestyle was what he always longed for. Corporate America was not conducive to the lifestyle he wanted. He tried several different entrepreneurial ventures, but never focused until he found Ryan Lee.

Under guidance from Ryan, he jumped into a niche that interested him and ran several summits which were successful and quickly led to his membership site in the prepper space. And then, last year, he purchased Freedym.com from Ryan with a business partner. Freedym is an incredible repository of content for entrepreneurs.

Jose belonged to certain membership sites and he was satisfied with them. He liked the idea of not having to sell a launch. He liked the idea of a steady stream of income. With summits, he was having to constantly focus on the next launch. At the end of the month you were always starting from zero. With membership sites, it is more a steady increase, flow of consistent income.

“People are less interested in owning stuff. They are more interested in having access to stuff.”-Jose Aviles

Jose noticed we had more success in selling a membership to have access to a larger library of content at a lower price, than selling them something very specific for a much higher price. When you are adding new content to a membership site, it’s a great way to spike your membership. But when you are adding new content to a course there are a lot more questions surrounding it. Are we creating version 2 of the course? What happens with version 1 clients?

People like to access. Giving access vs giving lifetime is something worth considering. Netflix and Amazon is a good way to look at this. You pay to have access to movies rather than buy the physical movies.

In Jose’s prepper site that he created, they do weekly content in the form of video. It includes a Facebook group that members gain access to. In fact, it seems like the community is actually more important to the members than the website itself.

Jose was able to buy Freedym.com by connecting with Ryan. One thing that made Jose stand out is that he was a doer. Ryan would give him advice and then he would actually do them. That separated Jose from others and Ryan somewhat took him under his wing and connected with him. Jose did the work and it has paid off.

Buying an established business in the online space

Jose says to hire a good bookkeeper! You have to look at numbers when purchasing even in the online space. He already had the benefit of running a membership site… which made it easier to purchase Freedym.com. The numbers always have to work out for you before you make a decision to purchase. Knowing the numbers and WHAT NUMBERS TO TRACK is paramount.

Freedym.com originally was setup to be the Netflix for entrepreneurs and that’s what it is. You can go in and find trainings on basically any aspect of entrepreneurial life. There is going to be a shift to add trainings on taking action. But there isn’t just content, but they also have a community. The community is a space where people can go to ask questions and communicate with other entrepreneurs. There is a great value in that community space.

From the tech perspective when Jose took ownership of Freedym, there is a lot of things that went into the transfer. What made the transfer hard was the amount of content. Basically the transfer was just reassigning ownership, but what made it difficult was learning “what talked to what” and “what made this work”. The easy part were all the systems didn’t have a lot of special code.

Jose’s vision for Freedym to keep it at the forefront of the members’ minds includes keeping the same level of quality of content but also include an A to Z aspect. We want to remove the excuse of not going through with what you have learned. We want to create action!

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Get on a call with Jaime by going to https://callwithjaime.com

Connect with Jose:

Website: www.freedym.com
Email: jose@freedym.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/freedymfan/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/freedym/

053: Keeping It Simple... Finding Tech That Works For You with Teresa McCloy

Wed, 13 Mar 2019 10:30:00 +0000

Episode 53:

Today we’re talking with Teresa McCloy. She uses tech in several aspects of her business as a coach. There are lots of ways entrepreneurs use tech in their business without even realizing it. I think that there is a misconception as to what is considered technology and what is considered a tool. Once we master using a tool, maybe we don’t consider it technology because it is something that has just become a part of our day or a tool in our toolbox.

“What am I learning that I need to know? What do I really just want to trust an expert who knows that technology to run it and do and give me the end product?”- Teresa McCloy

Teresa says it’s very important when considering technology we have to decide if it’s the best use of your time. What are the things that are good for you to do vs. what is good for you to hire out so you can better utilize your time?
She uses Kajabi for courses, Canva for graphics, Nozbe for task management, Dropbox for storage, and Wordpress for Website. Once you get your system together, they all just become tools in our business that we just don’t even thing anything about.

In relation to the Tech Stack Framework, these types of tools like Kajabi and Wordpress fall into Base Tools. While Canva, Dropbox, and Nozbe fall into Support Tools. It’s a lot easier to swap out a tool that is sitting in the support tools or growth tools level than a base tool because your base tools is what you have to have to run your business. It’s so important to know where your tools sit in the framework!

Why did Teresa choose Nozbe? Teresa uses Nozbe because the ability to take a project that she’s working on and put all of its tasks in there. She will put her project in for the 90 day project and then she starts doing a brain dump into the software. Then you can go in and input due dates and numbers, but you can also make notes. You can also assign the tasks to a team member and you can comment back and forth about these tasks/project. This keeps these types of conversation out of email.

Nozbe will also create a daily task list once you have 2 or 3 projects in there. Nozbe is very clean and just visually appealing to Teresa. We have to use task management tools that are visually appealing to us. There is a lot of value to having one dashboard for the whole team vs. 2-4 different views of the projects then have to prioritize outside of the project management tool. Nozbe is free for up to 5 projects.

Teresa encourages clients to stick with software for 90 days before they decide if it’s for them or not. And instead of comparing this to that, go all in on one tool to see if it’s right for you. If it doesn’t then move on to another tool.

As a coach, Teresa also uses Zoom. It is a great tool to have conversations with her clients and she really loves it.

Teresa’s tech fear. She’s having to dive into new technology because she’s getting ready to launch her own podcast. There were so many different options for her to choose from it was really intimidating to her.

“All the decisions around bringing in a new marketing tool, new way of doing business... I had forgotten how much energy it takes to choose the software/technology side of things.”

Just because you want to bring on something new, doesn’t mean it’s going to just be the flip of a switch. There is a method to bringing on new tech. Any project you take on has little intricate details that you need to pay attention to. What does it take to actually get from the “I want to” thought and the project coming to fruition? These are things you have to consider.

Decision fatigue-so many decisions to make about the project can feel exhausting.

Technology becomes a tool in your tool belt when you feel comfortable with it and you have the support you need. It can also bring you so many opportunities. From Zoom calls to podcasts, technology is our friend and we can use it to our advantage.

NO matter where we are in our business, there is someone a step ahead of you that you can lean on, but there is also someone behind you that may need to lean on you.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Get on a call with Jaime by going to callwithjaime.com

Connect with Teresa:

Website: www.teresamccloy.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/CoachTeresaM/
Instagram: teresa.mccloy
The Enneagram In Your REALIFE podcast https://teresamccloy.com/podcast/

052: Streamline Tools to Increase the Bottom Line with Kerryn Hewson

Wed, 06 Mar 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Today we are talking with Kerryn Hewson. This episode is centered on streamlining your tools to increase the bottom line. It’s a perfect compliment to the last few episodes. We’re talking about systems, tools, and automations that transcends the actual tech that is required to run businesses.

Kerryn is from New Zealand and she is a productivity and system strategist. She helps mompreneurs to simplify, streamline, automate, and outsource their business activities to get more time freedom for the things that matter most. It’s so easy to overcomplicate things so we must simplify and streamline.

Simplification- don’t do something that doesn’t need to be done. Over time we seem to accumulate things that we are doing and the tools we are using to do those things. We don’t often look back and say what are we really using. Doing a tech audit to see what tech tools you are actually using could actually help you to simply and save some money. A tech audit could be something very effective to help you simplify.

You can schedule a tech audit with me by going to https://techofbusiness.vipmembervault.com/user/courses/view/10

As you may recall from prior episodes, my definition of zone of genius is when your passion and your skill sets collide. It’s an expansive space. You’re not in a constricted space. You’re in a space where you want to spend more time and continue to expand.

Kerryn’s definition of zone of genius- Getting really clear on the vision of your business. Ask yourself, “If I was only doing the stuff that I loved in my business, what would I do be doing?”

It’s not just about what you are good at. You can be good at something you don’t necessarily like doing. What can you do day in and day out that makes you excited about your business? Start here for zone of genius. This also gives you a good place to start with the bigger vision for your business.

First thing she does get people to do during simplification is to talk AT her and she becomes the filter of that information. Once she knows what they are doing then she asks how do you do that. By doing this she starts to see all the tools they use to accomplish all the things they need to do in their business. This helps them to see everything in a map that is laid out for them and they see things they don’t need to be doing. So now they start to think how do they consolidate it. It’s at this point, you can figure out what you want/need to outsource. But you must know how/why you are doing it. This process helps with those questions.

One of the things she looks at is using as few tools as possible for as much stuff. Much of the time this means knowing what new features have come out on tools you are already using. These new features could replace another tool you are using all together. One of her big things is that systems have to personalized and customized to you.

“You need to know how you want to work first before you, then, set up a tool. Otherwise, you are adopting a tool and taking on a generic process.”- Kerryn Hewson

You do have to compromise with tools. But you can compromise in a positive, proactive way when you know how you want to work and what it means for your business. Generally, it ends up being 1 or 2 big tools that do most of the work, then filling in the gaps with other smaller tools.

Kerryn says she needs to update my owns systems to stay on top of the latest and greatest which in turn helps her clients.

“Systems need to support you taking action.”- Kerryn Hewson

Crowdsourcing or asking people what tools they are using is a good way to get a short list of tools you can possibly use. Make sure you also ask follow up questions to clarify what they love about it and why so you can tie is back to what you are wanting to do.

Episode #38 Crowdsourcing your tech tools https://techofbusiness.com/038/

There are tools systems and processes that we can put in place that are directly impacting the different aspects of business. Generally you can automate something cheaper than you can outsource. But there are certain things like admin support and content creation are things that can be outsourced. Things like creating social media graphics can’t be automated. Putting the creative together cannot be automated. Sometimes getting out of the automation and outsourcing some things creates an extra touch with a client and helps to create a bond because you are taking that extra step out of the automation. Automate to free yourself up so you can really show up for people.

Connect with Jaime:

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
Get on a call with Jaime by going to www.callwithjaime.com

Connect with Kerryn Hewson:

Instagram: @kerrynhewson
Website: www.kerrynhewson.com

There are things we know we need to do for our businesses and we don’t do them because it’s big and scary for us to do. If there was a tool that makes it easier for us to do those things, it would be a magical tool.

051: Using Systems to Reduce Business-Related Anxiety with Wendy Breakstone

Wed, 27 Feb 2019 11:30:00 +0000

The underlying theme of today’s episode is that tech doesn’t need to evoke negative emotions. Ideally, we want tech and systems to help us run our businesses better (rather than run the other way!)

Wendy’s passion and mission is to help people create simple systems and strategies for online success. She came to entrepreneurship as a way out of and through an anxiety ridden period in her life. This is why she works predominantly with those of us who deal with business-related anxiety, stress and overwhelm.

Systems help to reduce anxiety. Systems allow for flow and ease and grace.

Wendy defines a system as:
“A lot of little pieces sewn together in a particular order that can be done on a recurring basis.”

And systems, aren’t just tech systems – we each have a system for how we brush our teeth in the morning!

“You can start small and scale as needed. It’s not an all or nothing game when you’re dealing with tech systems.” – Wendy Breakstone

I steered the conversation towards the online entrepreneur, since that is who Wendy and I both tend to work with. And especially someone who has already put a lot of pieces in place but doesn’t necessarily have a succinct order to the steps and still feels anxiety about the system.

The first step is to take a step back and assess the situation. Most of the time we’ve over-complicated things and in this stage, we want to remove a step or two which results in a simplification and more confidence.

Do you fear that you’re not tech savvy? Perhaps you’ve put a system in place that is too complicated for your needs. It’s possible that you followed a guru or guide that suggested a set of tools that don’t exactly match your needs. Wendy believes that its important to use the best tools for the best outcome.

As you tackle breaking down the tech in your business and building systems – it should feel like a major accomplishment every time a new system is developed.

Removing the business-related anxiety and turning that into confidence will extend the confidence you have in your work with clients.

Resetting systems isn’t always a matter of elimination, there are times where enhancements are used to complete the system and for confidence to set in.

One of Wendy’s favorite things to experience when she’s working with a client over zoom is the look in their eyes when they go “Oh, I didn’t realize it was that easy!”

I say it’s because we come in with an outside perspective!

If you struggle with anxiety, you may create a big goal but then your brain gets in its own way trying to figure out how to get from where you are to that big goal.

The plan for success system: creating building block objectives that link together to reach your bigger objectives. What you’ve done is break it down and set strategies around the objectives and then the actions around the strategies.

Whoa, time to get out of the theoretical and into the tangible

Let’s talk about Sara. She’s building a health coaching business. At present, she has no systems in place. Wendy realizes the fastest way to get to Sara’s first goal (which is getting clients) is to setup her online scheduling. There are several decisions that need ot be made:

Determine the types of meetings or appointments you’re going to have with clients
Determine how to manage client information (Wendy recommends Asana, you could use Trello, a Google Sheet, a Word Document or any other tool at your disposal)

And then, once Sara has a new client sign up for a meeting, she knows exactly what steps to take:

Scheduler à Onboarding Form à Follow up/intro communication à get client management tool ready

Now, let’s talk about Jill… she is a fitness instructor. She has a super clear idea what she wants to create but has absolutely no idea how to get beyond the idea.

The vehicle selected to house the program is MemberVault. Jill sets up her 8-week program inside MemberVault. The beautiful thing about using MemberVault for Jill is that she’s able to launch the program again and again. The effort required to “hit reset” is minimal.

The program consists of the course in MemberVault, email automation and new cohort Facebook groups for each time she runs an 8-week cycle.

The key is to create systems that you feel good working in and that are repeatable.

It doesn’t do anyone any good to create the most elaborate system that is not repeatable!

“If you simplify, success follows!” – Wendy Breakstone

It doesn’t matter whether you have several tools in your tech stack that work seamlessly together as a system or if your system is far more manual, such as writing a daily to-do list… that’s the system you follow for your best results.

Creating systems doesn’t mean everything needs to be automated.

For tools to work together, it doesn’t mean that they need to be automated and sync up at every end point.

When it comes to automation, look at where a system needs to start (or the trigger action) and see if that starting point can be automated as far as setting up other entities in your system

Both Wendy and I use scheduling software that triggers activity in ActiveCampaign and in our project management tools.

“You have to commit your time to still manage the system” – Wendy Breakstone

Systems are a commitment. The reason people fall off is because people stop using the system. Now, if the system doesn’t work, then it needs to be changed but in general system still require effort and work. But they are simple and will absolutely help release your anxiety.

Systems are just structures into which your business functions reside.

Think about one system that is giving you a little bit of stress or anxiety. Take a step back, look at what you’re trying to accomplish, and smooth out a few of the wrinkles.

Take back your power!

Wendy recommends to actually write (yes pen and paper!) exactly what you’re doing in that system. You may realize where the complications lie or that it’s not as complicated as your mind was making it.

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.co

Connect with Wendy

Website: https://wendybreakstone.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/thescalableceo
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/wendybreakstone/
Free Video Training: https://wendybreakstone.com/free-training/

050: Strategy Wins Every Time with Casey Gromer

Wed, 20 Feb 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Today’s guest is Casey Gromer. She is a VMO and I knew that I had to bring her onto the podcast to talk about the complementary nature of marketing and tech and how strategy in both arenas can have exponential results in your business.

Casey focuses on marketing strategy rather than going to implementation first – which means we’re not talking about Facebook ads, email funnels or whatnot here!

You cannot start your business with tech in isolation or with marketing in isolation. A much better and faster approach is to have clear goals and work with strategists or experts to build a roadmap towards that goal.

When clients come to us, they are so ready to do things. But before you can do things, you need to be clear on your mission and vision. Then create some long term goals. And, before you start doing, it’s crucial to understand your ideal buyer – not just the high level picture but going deeper into the actual persona.

Once you understand this person, it’ll be far easier to figure out how to reach that type of person

What information are they seeking?
What help are they looking for?
Where are they getting this information?

And what does their journey look like? From the time they are first exposed to you and your business through the purchase. And beyond the purchase, how do they stay engaged with you post purchase.

"Nowadays you can’t market without the technology. And the technology does nothing for your business without a marketing plan" -- Jaime Slutzky

Casey sited a marketing publication that reports the number of different marketing technologies at over 6500! And they fall into 50 different categories… no wonder tech and marketing make heads spin 😊

A scenario Casey sees business owners fall into is that they determine they need a specific type of tool, so they research it. If you don’t know why you are implementing the tool, what you need this tool to do for your business, where implementing this segment might take your business, it becomes really hard to choose the right tool and implement it to meet your needs.

This results in letting your technology drive your strategy and your plan!

The tools have so much power and so much built in, when someone goes all in without a clear plan it becomes super easy to dig the wrong hole. Your tools are only going to benefit your business if they solve the problem, fill the need or extend the potential within your business.

“One of the reasons people choose to use marketing technologies in their businesses is to save them time.”

Time is one of our most limited resources, so when you’re looking at implementing a marketing strategy or system, it’s important to make sure that you have the resources to support and fully utilize it.

Now, when time isn’t the resource that you can spend, you will be bringing someone on to run that tool. The tool then becomes a vehicle to grow your business rather than something else that takes time away from your core business.

Fill in the blank… I’m going to implement this piece of technology ______. I want to make it so that the prospective client does the following with me ____________.

For example:

I am going to implement ActiveCampaign into my business. I want to make it so that the person who subscribes to my email list gets emails, learns about me, understands my low priced offer and gets into a live conversation with me in the next 60 days.

This gives you a very succinct strategy for that tool or software.

“If your marketing team and your technology team are not talking to each other, you are missing out on incredible value there. The marketing team needs to understand the capabilities of the technology and the technology team needs to understand the objective.” – Casey Gromer

The key here is to make sure that the separate teams are not stepping on one another. Anytime you have systems and processes and automation that are handled by more than one person or team, there ought to be an overarching document or standard operating procedures. This will allow disparate team members to work cohesively within a tool or platform.

Your tech team needs to know the tags and nitty gritty of operations inside the tool. The marketing team needs to know that when they are sending people to a landing page, that the Facebook pixel fires and if they sign up, they get the right series of emails or access or pixeled in a certain way.

Switching back to the strategy and how that feeds into tech…

The strategy is largely based on budget and resources. Implementation of whatever strategy is developed costs time or money or both.

If you are on a lower budget, the strategy will involve less tech and the tools will be more user friendly (so that you can DIY it!)

If you have a higher budget, building a strategy that can be implemented by a freelancer, consultant or agency is the direction that Casey suggests. This may include more tech components strung together or more tailored/customized solutions.

It all comes back to how are you going to serve your audience and client best – and this is why marketing and tech overlap so deeply in the online business space.

Casey’s Book “A fresh wave of Marketing” is available on Amazon. She suggests using the book to outline your marketing strategy. It takes you through her framework in about 14 chapters. Super tangible and effective.

If you’re thinking about writing a book, be sure to head back to episode – with Laura Petersen!

Boiling this conversation down to key takeaways:

Don’t put your tech before everything else
There are lots of different ways to accomplish the same goal in marketing. Understanding the strategy before making your tech selection will guide the best choice
Stay focused on the one tool or strategy that you can implement that is going to bring you the most value

Be sure to look at the marketing avenue and effort required – strategies that involve constantly changing landscapes can be harder or a longer road to results than others.

“If you start your business thinking strategically, you are going to grow faster and more efficiently than if you start with action!” – Casey Gromer

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Casey:

Website: WaveMarketing.net
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/caseygromervmo/
A Fresh Wave of Marketing: https://www.amazon.com/Fresh-Wave-Marketing-Intentional-Visionary/dp/1729123023/

049: Trello for projects of all sizes with Natalie Gingrich

Wed, 13 Feb 2019 11:30:00 +0000

A couple quick notes, exclusively for reading in your podcast app:

I want to make sure that I’m creating the best podcast episodes for you where you’re at in your business and where you want to take things, so please go to https://callwithjaime.com to book a short call where you’ll get to share whatever you want with me and I’ll just be taking notes.
If you want to get your tech in order, I would love to do a top-to-bottom tech audit with you. Ping me wherever we are connected, and I’ll send over the link. Tech audits are a great way regain control and confidence in your tech and most of the time we’ll be able to save you money on monthly expenses!

This conversation, with Natalie Gingrich has a Trello heavy focus because Nat is a project manager and her clients hire her to help them accomplish their projects – and Trello is a fantastic tool for project management… when setup right and adopted by all parties, as we’ll get into in the episode.

Nat describes herself as not doing the tech or being behind the tech, she is 100% over the tech. It’s truly a great way to look at her role – she’s staying in her lane and driving the projects as they need to be driven without getting into the weeds.

The primary tool that Nat uses in her business is, like I said before, Trello – and she uses it not only for project management but also with her team for communication. She uses the alerts function inside Trello to see where people are communicating. The team structure and SOP is that you tag someone when you need to connect with them, and you follow cards or boards when you need to be kept apprised of the going-ons.

Nat loves Trello because it’s visual and beautiful. It’s inviting for her to spend time in the tool.

Dissecting Trello

A Board: The container – can be used for one idea, one thought or one project. This is a named entity, so that you can easily find this board among all the other boards in your Trello account. Our sample board is : Podcast

A Column: Another container that contains a theme of the overall board. Each column will have headings. For our sample this might be : Logistics

A Card: An individual container for a single aspect or thought or requirement for the theme of the column that resides in the overall board. And each card will have the aspect that needs to be addressed. For the sample it will be things like : Podcast Name, Podcast Host, etc.

Trello comes from the Kanban Method, which is a process developed by engineers at Toyota way back in the day when they were going from design to production. The Trello engineers were using sticky notes on a wall under the headings of “What do we need to do”, “What is being done” and “What is being completed.” And those smart engineers saw this as something that could be translated to the screen and help many other businesses with workflows and processes.

Learn more about the KANBAN METHOD

Let’s get super practical… your first step with a new project is likely going to be a brainstorming session – where all the thoughts end up on sticky notes (either the real paper kind or a single column in Trello) and then we’re going to try to clean it up.

The first clean up step is to categorize things into LIKE…whether it’s like steps or phase – remember, you get to choose how you will put this Trello board together.

“I get to know how they think, how they process, how they compartmentalize things and it does overall change the function of the board.” – Natalie Gingrich

Throughout the episode, Nat and I have been building a Trello board for a podcast launch… so let’s get back to that.

Our cards are in nice, well labelled columns.

For the work to be done, we will assign a card to an individual on the team and give that card a due date. The project manager (or task assigner) can write additional notes. Within each card, team members can communicate back and forth. And, if there is an asset that is created within the constructs of this task, that file can be inserted directly onto the card – or linked out to a cloud storage repository where the file is uploaded.)

Once the work on that card is done, we’ll move it to another column that contains all the completed tasks. Nat suggests Completed or Done and then goes on to say or you could call that column something creative like Celebrate! We’re done with this! This column shows us what has been achieved.

There is also the ability to archive a card – this is particularly useful for something that turns out to not be relevant to the project. If work has been done and it’s complete, it’s far better to have a column that contains the completed card rather than throwing the card into the archive abyss.

Here’s a Nat HACK – If she cannot see all the cards in a column on her big monitor, she’ll compartmentalize a bit further so that she can!

Continuing with our example… we’ve got the podcast launched and now we need to create our episodes – in Trello you can actually copy a card or a column from one board to another. So, we could copy our entire branding column from the pre-launch board to our active podcast production board. Nat terms this as a workflow board more than a project board, as it’s something we’re going to repeat episode after episode for the duration of the podcast.

“Your board for getting the project started could look vastly different than the board that represents the workflow for getting subsequent content released”

Within the workflow board, Natalie recommends keeping everything pertinent to that entity within the card… and she even went on to share how easily Trello can integrate with other online tools, like Dropbox.

Of course, this put me on a well-loved tangent – integration between components. I call it “adding pointers between entities.” A project management tool is the perfect hub for containing these pointers because it helps you run an efficient business!

Trello has the ability to work for projects and workflows in a lot of businesses and in your personal life! I asked Nat to get super concrete to help you see opportunities where Trello might be a good option.

Nat used to rely on linear functionality – to do lists, checklists and such, but the aesthetics of Trello opened her up to trying it… and she tried it first in her personal life. Once she got that board working well, she didn’t have to go back and re-work it – she actually still uses that same board!

The personal board consists of housework, store returns, things that needed doing, household projects, calls to make, errands and computer tasks.

She also uses Trello as her planner. She looks at it each evening as she wraps up her day. Because she knows when she can schedule personal time, she then is able to move cards from their column to the today column. From there, she’ll be productive in her personal work block and be able to move those cards to the complete column and make room for new today tasks!

Let’s extrapolate out beyond the single board. Natalie rounds out the conversation explaining that she can easily see what is assigned and actively being worked on by her team members, because of the expectation of everything having assigned team members and due dates.

Want to see how Natalie gets things going in Trello for her clients, go to https://nataliegingrich.com/productiveweek/ which is a fantastic tutorial!

And finally, it wouldn’t be a complete Trello conversation without talking about the Trello app… Nat and I are both moms of gymnasts (and she adds complexity because her son is also an athlete). She uses the app extensively while waiting at practice, and it does everything she wants and needs, except that she cannot copy a link from one card and paste it on another. And because she is generally on her phone as she is transitioning from the work day to the mom day, that personal board gets a lot of use on her phone!

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Natalie

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/nataliegingrichpm/

And with that… I look forward to speaking you on a "Call with Jaime" -- https://callwithjaime.com and seeing you in the tech of business community on Facebook!

048: Connecting knowing and doing takes TINY LEAPS with Gregg Clunis

Wed, 06 Feb 2019 11:30:00 +0000

I'm thrilled to introduce you to Gregg Clunis, the host of the Tiny Leaps, Big Dreams podcast and author of the book of the same name.

We're talking about this episode and all the other episodes as well as answering your tech questions in the the Tech of Business Community on Facebook.

Gregg is gracious – it's evident in his first words he uttered, it was that of thank yous to both me and the listeners... that really set the mood for the rest of the conversation.

Having a background in audio engineering lent well to starting his business helping others use podcasts as their content medium. This made it easy for him to focus on the marketing and develop some processes which he now teaches. And only after helping others, did Gregg launch his own podcast – which was about 3 years ago.

If you were to get on a call with Gregg, he'd probably give away a lot of insight, which is part of the reason we connect so well – I love sharing what I know in a way that you can take action on it as well. It's like, he shares what he knows, people take what they need and they go far. In fact his agency is setup to take his clients after they cannot go further on their own, rather than being setup as a

Sometimes people just need a nudge in the right direction.

One thing he shares is that people are able to learn so much. Here’s an example:

You are listening to this podcast because you are trying to utilize tech in your business and you may be overwhelmed. The first thing you need to do is just start. Do that first small step without hesitation such as maybe purchasing the software or filling out your profile. -- Gregg Clunis

"Everything is figureoutable" --Jaime

Nothing is final. You don’t have to go all in on something and never look away. If it doesn’t work for you then pivot and find another way that works for you.

I believe that people can choose technology for numerous reasons such as:

Create a “silo” effect where you don’t need this particular tech to integrate with any other tech.
Tech that integrates with ABC but not with XYZ.
Full integration with all systems.

Gregg is in the camp where he's truly a founder, not a scale-er. He tends to create the silo effect. Then once it is bringing in revenue, that money is used to bring on an expert, like me, to handle the integration and buildout.

For Gregg, the variable as to when to bring on the expert usually comes down to time.

Gregg has a great membership-site type course called The Lab. Once a month, as a community, they vote on what we would like to learn about. After doing a members only masterclass, he goes on to create a 2 week group challenge that everyone participates in. The goal is to bridge the gap between learning something and acting on it. Create the habit of knowing and now doing.

Gregg went with Thinkific to host his course because he liked the way the courses get structured in the back end. It made more sense for the once a month chapter approach.

“Knowing why you are putting something out there is the entire reason why you should put something out there.”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Gregg

Searching for his podcast Tiny Leaps, Big Changes
@greggclunis on Instagram
His book Tiny Leaps, Big Change
You can get a free chapter of the book by going to www.tinyleapsbook.com

047: [DEEP DIVE] - Changing the way we build online relationships (MemberVault Series #5 of 5)

Wed, 30 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Welcome to the Tech of Business, I’m your host Jaime Slutzky and this is the fifth and final episode in the MemberVault mini-series. Today’s episode is going to just be me and the mic.

As you’ve noticed over the past two weeks, MemberVault is a powerhouse vehicle for relationship marketing, engagement and content delivery.

Episode 43 was with MemberVault co-founder Mike Kelly, we then followed this with power users and MemberVault fans Jaclyn Mellone in Episode 44, Jenni Waldrop In Episode 45 and Jereshia Hawk in Episode 46. Today to wrap up the series, I’ve split the episode into three segments:

What to consider when looking to add MemberVault to your tech stack
The Golden Hamster and other built in goodies
Use cases outside of how Jaclyn, Jenni and Jereshia are currently using MemberVault .

Then we’ll wrap up. Remember, I am an affiliate for MemberVault and would appreciate you using this link https://techofbusiness.com/mv/ to sign up for your MemberVault account. It doesn’t cost you anything extra to use the affiliate link, but it does show me that you’re appreciating this podcast!

Let’s get into segment 1… what to consider when looking at MemberVault for your tech stack

I think there are three types of businesses that can benefit from getting started with MemberVault .

The first, is a business has created two or more lead magnets, freebies, challenges or other gift in exchange for email address type products. For you, MemberVault creates an easy way to deliver and keep your freebies organized rather than having them spread across your WordPress media library, free or paid cloud storage locations or within an email marketing provider repository.

As discussed with Mike, this will make it easy for your list of prospective clients to access the gifts without hunting through their inbox and on their own schedule. You’ll also be able to re-engage and invigorate your list with every new freebie you create as your business evolves and you refine your message.

This is exactly how I started the Tech of Business vault – by placing all the freebies that I have created in the pass couple of years into the Subscriber Hub. I would love for you to check those freebies out at https://techofbusiness.com/vault/.

The second type of business that can benefit from getting started with MemberVault is a business providing one-on-one services or small group programs where there are materials to distribute. Just like the freebie content, your paid program content needs a reliable home for your clients to easily access from anywhere. I think this is a particularly good option because your clients don’t have to necessarily go through the content sequentially but do need reliable access. It’s super convenient for them to log into a single portal and the added benefit is that you can “check in on their status” with the insane amount of logging and data provided.

I offer two one-on-one services that I run through my MemberVault … a Tech Audit and my Tech Tamer Intensive. For each of these services, I use MemberVault'squizzes to understand my clients’ desired outcome from our work together and the modules to provide them with downloadable instructions, walk through videos, checklists and guides.

And the third business that would benefit from looking at MemberVault is one where you have a course, workshop, membership site or other high volume of content that you want to deliver to a lot of people and build a relationship with those people.

This is what Jereshia, Jenni and Jaclyn all do. They all provide high touch with their self-directed courses and programs which leads to higher completion rates, greater success and more referrals.

No matter where you are at in business, I could likely find a case for you to use MemberVault … but that’s not the point of this episode nor the entire mini-series.

If you have systems that are working in the area of content delivery and client engagement, then don’t look at MemberVault right now. If you’re in need of a tool to help with proposals or bookkeeping, onboarding, customer service or webinars – then this isn’t the platform to look at right now.

It’s totally fun to play with new tools, I get it – but I want to encourage you to stay in your zone of genius and focus on your highest value activities.

If you do decide to grab a MemberVault account from https://techofbusiness.com/mv/ then I also strongly recommend following the amazing resources and guidance provided by the MemberVault team in the Home Base and join the MemberVault Collective where you’ll have access to Mike and Erin.

Now, speaking of Mike and Erin – let’s get into the second segment of this deep dive into MemberVault . The Golden Hamster and other goodies.

The Golden Hamster is essentially an incentive for getting your MemberVault account up and functioning in your business within the first 10 days of signing up for your account. You can do the work for the Golden Hamster on the free account – but beyond bragging rights the biggest bonus to the award is the boost that it gives the Base paid tier.

This boost increases the number of subscribers you can have in your account from 1000 to 2500. That’s huge for anyone who is working to grow their an engaged list and create true relationships.

The Golden Hamster course is a beautiful demonstration of MemberVault itself. It takes you through the process of setting up your MemberVault with one or more paid offers, the freebie library which is generally referred to as the Subscriber Hub and adding users into the system. That third module shows just how easy it is to integrate with an email marketing provider.

MemberVault , as you know from the other episodes in this series, is huge into ActiveCampaign as their primary email marketing platform – and quite possibly one of the reasons I took a second look at MemberVault when I was looking at doing a series like this in the first place. I’ve been using ActiveCampaign myself and with many of my clients for over 2 years now. And I thoroughly enjoyed the experience of getting the two systems working together.

Maybe that’s the geek in me, maybe not. But regardless, if you don’t want to get all the bells and whistles working together when you start out with MemberVault, that’s okay – and if you want to outsource it, I’m happy to chat… in fact, the best way to chat with me is to go to my MemberVault at https://techofbusiness.com/vault/ and book a tech breakthrough session.

But I digress… this segment of the episode is on my experience with MemberVault as a creator on the platform as well as a user inside the MemberVault home base. So, let’s get back to it. The data, oh the data – so much information.

For each subscriber, you have the ability to see what they’ve clicked on, which modules they’ve completed and the answers to their questions.

And as of yesterday, you can also directly reply to the quiz questions via email. (Yes, I seriously waited until the last minute to record this episode because Mike is constantly working on the product and I didn’t want anything to be outdated!)

There is a section on the main admin dashboard that shows your sales, hot leads and warm leads and with the integration with ActiveCampaign , it also shows what tag has been assigned to the user in your ActiveCampaign .

So essentially, if someone has the tag membervault_teaser_10 I know that they have looked at the Tech Audit product. I could then run an automation that triggers on that tag being added to a user… it might simply be to send me an email letting me know to look into their account and connect with them outside of automation… or it could be to send them through a warming automation that shows the successes of people who have gone through the Tech Audit and let them know how other clients have been able to move their business forward after a cleanup. It’s not about a hard sale, it’s about knowing where your next sale might come from.

Another area I spent a lot of time working in when I was setting up the Tech of Business vault was of course the product section itself.

I would recommend starting outside MemberVault and getting all your content organized before heading in to get everything loaded up.

There are five different types of products that we can house inside MemberVault and I have tried out three of them: Regular, Date Dripped and Bonus. The other two are Progressive and Timed Dripped.

The Regular product is almost always what you’ll want to use. I can see some use cases for Progressive which requires each module and lesson to be completed before the next is unlocked. This is a super helpful product type for courses that build upon themselves. And I’m seriously giddy about the Bonus modules – these ones are unlocked when a user hits a certain number of EPs.

My reason for frowning a tad on the Date Dripped and Timed Dripped product types is not because they aren’t effective but because they have the potential to halt the progress of the enrolled student.

This is also something that differentiates the MemberVault relationship-based method from most other online delivery channels I’ve worked in… so I guess what I’m saying is that if you’re determined to do a drip content based program, you’ll be missing out on some of the biggest benefits of the MemberVault methodology and there are likely other platforms that will suit your needs better.

I’ve said it on this series and in a lot of other places – I am tool agnostic. It doesn’t matter to me if you use MemberVault or ActiveCampaign or any of the other tools that me or my guests mention. What does matter is that you use the best right tool for your business and your clients and that you use it to the best of its ability.

Let’s get back to setting up a product and the next decision I had to make – how to grant access to my products.

So, for free products, like the Subscriber Hub, it’s just an email opt-in form that gets configured within MemberVault – no need for a separate landing page program or complicated set of steps to get someone from another system through your email provider into MemberVault .

And for paid products, MemberVault connects with PayPal and Stripe (I use Stripe exclusively) to make it super easy to get paid right in the platform. This is what I use for the Tech Tamer Intensive, Tech Audit, and Virtual Summit Workbook – it’s so cool, the payments show up on my dashboard too.

Office Hours is a free offer that I have setup through Acuity so instead of using the built in form or the payment portal, I use the Link option that allows office hours attendees to signup and also get the necessary reminders. There really isn’t anything inside MemberVault that is needed for this, so I’m just taking advantage of the Binge and Buy marketplace to make it visible to my subscribers.

And similarly, the Tech Breakthrough sessions that I offer do not have anything that needs to be provided to my clients inside MemberVault so right now, I have that setup as a Link that goes to Acuity as well. Acuity is also linked with my Stripe account and I can see myself moving the breakthrough sessions into MemberVault in the coming months. I think there are some distinct advantages to doing so… which I’ll be sure to announce in an email when the change is made.

The rest of the product setup is so well documented by Erin in the MemberVault Home Base that it’s not a good use of your time or mine for me to go through more of it here. Let’s wrap this segment up with this: There is a lot that can be added to a product but without adding your product there is nothing that you can add – getting started is the best next step.

The final segment of this episode is a few use cases I’ve seen or come up with recently that are outside of what Jenni, Jaclyn and Jereshia.

The first of which is one of my favorite topics – virtual summits. It’s come up in the MemberVault Collective a few times that people are interested in running their virtual summit inside MemberVault .

This is a really interesting scenario because between MemberVault and ActiveCampaign content can release and expire automatically and seamlessly because there are actually no links other than to the MemberVault user dashboard. In all other Virtual Summit cases that I’ve worked on, either we do things manually at session launch or expiration or we have to build extra pages to avoid broken links.

Using MemberVault for a virtual summit would be fantastic – especially if you’re looking for an all in one solution that transitions people into a paid offer that you also host on the platform.

Another use case is to simply broker the financial side of your coaching business. Sure… there are a lot of shopping cart systems out there but the unique advantage to MemberVault for just doing the shopping cart is that it’s easy for a subscriber to access their billing history and update their credit card if needed. In this case, you will likely not have a Binge and Buy Marketplace but rather than all your products go through a WordPress website or landing page tools.

Or we can flip that around to something quite similar to what Jenni does where the only content on your MemberVault is the Subscriber Hub and all the other products are just shells that lead to landing pages and shopping carts housed off the platform. This to me is the best first step if you could not imagine doing what Jereshia did and grab your calendar and move everything around to fully implement and integrate MemberVault in a matter of days.

Mike said it in our first episode, MemberVault acts as an extension of your email list. And with all the tagging that MemberVault does inside ActiveCampaign , there are millions of ways to wow your audience, increase engagement and build honest relationships with your subscribers.

I truly hope you have gotten a lot out of this MemberVault series. It’s been a blast digging deep into the platform with and for you.

When I decided to do this series, I had only had a couple of Facebook Messenger chats with Mike, on non-MemberVault topics and hadn’t even signed up for a free tier account yet. I could have done this first series on a more “established” platform but instead I went with my gut and brought something new and groundbreaking to the podcast space.

Now – I have stacks of ideas as to what to bring to the podcast in the coming weeks and months, but I want to hear from you…

Do you want more series on newer, up and coming software or do you want to have me dig into some of the bigger players?

Do you know someone doing really cool things online, rocking a certain platform or would be a great fit for a tech breakthrough episode on the podcast?

What is keeping you up at night? Have you found your soul mate software and want to jam on about it?

I really want to hear from you – go to https://callwithjaime.com and book a 10-minute call with me. On that call, you’ll have the chance to let me know what tech you want discussed on the podcast, what’s working really well for you and what you’d like to hear more of. I’d love to know how you best translate what you hear into action in your business and whatever else you want to share.

Before I sign off, I want to remind you that the Tech of Business affiliate link for MemberVault is https://techofbusiness.com/mv/ and you can check out the Tech of Business Subscriber Hub at https://techofbusiness.com/vault/

046: Data powered rewards, perks and bonuses with Jereshia Hawk (MemberVault Series #4 of 5)

Mon, 28 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Jereshia is an income strategist, business coach, course creator and the host of the podcast Jereshia Said. She primarily works with underperforming coaches, consultants and freelancers find a simple way to sell higher ticket services online.

“0’s and 1’s run through my blood but ice cream is a better shampoo!” – Jaime Slutzky

Jereshia’s business has evolved. The services she now uses MemberVault for weren’t packaged in this manner when she started out. First she offered them as one-on-one, then transitioned it into a group program and eventually she turned it into a course.

A core value for Jereshia is personalized relationships – so while she looked at different course delivery tools, she continued to lack insight on where people were getting stuck, having success, hitting roadblocks. She was looking for a system where she could gamify the process for them as users.

Did you know, that only about 10% of course purchasers actually complete the course they buy? That was an insane statistic for Jereshia and she didn’t want that for her own course. She has a 60-70% course completion rate.

"How can we leverage technology to support us and maintain a high success rate for our students? Not just in the course completion but also in the results.” –Jereshia Hawk

She heard about MemberVault during this struggle at an in-person mastermind event after explaining her desires – gamification and personal connection!

Jereshia was a quick adopter, she got all her content over to the platform in 2-3 days (hello action taker!)

In the past, education as a whole was show up, listen to a teacher or professor and then you leave. Now, with technology and access, people’s expectations are increasing. We have to do more as educators and course creators than just show up and deliver our piece.

Transparency is another of Jereshia’s core values. And this presents itself as making sure people understand what is required to get the results that they are looking to experience.

Jereshia is a very competitive person and she likes to know where she stacks up – which brings us perfectly to the gamification aspect of MemberVault. The EP board inside MemberVault clearly shows how many points you’ve earned based on how much effort you’ve put in by showing up, doing the content, completing the module! Her students haven’t just greatly appreciated not just seeing how much more is left to go but also how they are doing versus the other people in the program in a fun & motivational way.

Jereshia uses EP to unlock bonuses. There are four or five bonuses that are included in the program, but they are not accessible until you actually do the work.

“They know the bonuses exist, but they don’t know when they are going to get released. I think that suspense is kinda fun for them too…” – Jereshia Hawk

She’s also throwing in completely unexpected one-on-one calls over the duration of the program. These are awarded based on engagement in the Facebook group, work inside the program and helpfulness.

MemberVault makes it easy for her to reward people for putting in the effort and doing the work along the way. She’s in this education space not solely for the number of courses sold but truly for the results her students get in their businesses by implementing her strategies.

Everybody who is taking an online course is taking it in isolation. There isn’t a physical classroom to go to and meet your peers. So, by creating a Facebook group or using the EP board, there is built in motivation for making progress.

Remember back in elementary school when you use to get stars for completing tasks? It’s the same idea – an adult version of getting a gold star and being rewarded for it.

MemberVault helps Jereshia, as the course creator, reward you along your journey through her program. In addition to the EP boards, bonus or complimentary courses or modules can be unlocked along the way.

Switching gears, I am curious how Jereshia is finding the integration between MemberVault and ActiveCampaign – she went all in on ActiveCampaign in that blitz switch she made as soon as she found MemberVault.

And now, because of the data that is available inside MemberVault, they are able to anticipate pain points and struggles and leverage the ActiveCampaign integrations to tackle that. It goes both ways, emails for completions as well as emails for when someone ghosts or becomes a slacker to re-engage.

What’s more, because of the care that is provided with these systems they have gotten a lot more word of mouth referrals to their program. Nobody feels like a transaction – there are a ton of human touches along the way.

When referrals go up, conversions increase and outbound marketing costs are lowered, which allows more investment in content creation and human interaction.

"Our relationship doesn’t end after the transaction!” – Jereshia Hawk"

I think that MemberVault is a disruptor in the online learning space. One of the values of finding the right tool for your business is to go 100% all in. There are a lot of software options and companies that will take your money – when you go all in on a tool, then you’re pushing that money as far as possible to work for you.

This is not to say that everyone needs to clear their calendar and move everything over to a new tool like Jereshia did, but it does mean that we should exhaust all facets of the tools we are using before we look to bring in a different option.

Or in other words, when you find a perfect-down-to-the-core tool for you and your business, placing this on the base layer of your tech stack blueprint and shuffling things around so that it is fully optimized and integrated should be your primary objective.

At this point in the conversation, I feel it’s important to highlight Jereshia’s clientele and what they are seeking. She says they are making less than 6-figures, have less than 1000 people on their email list and have generally gone down the traditional online service provider journey… where they start by offering a low price offer and have a complicated funnel and progressively move their leads from one product to the next until they are finally able to offer the high ticket sweet-spot offer.

This type of journey is exactly what Jereshia did herself as she was looking to leave her full time job – in her first 10 or so months she earned about $6000 and was completely burned out. So she flipped the funnel – and began to lead with her high ticket $1500 - $2000 product and she focused on a minimum viable audience.

POP Method:

Pick one Person
Pick one Problem
Package one Process

Who is that one person I can solve a real problem for, earn a realistic sum of money and actually make a real difference in their life (instead of simply pacifying their issue.)

Her method involves live video and sales calls. No website, no complicated funnels, no ads.

There is a symbiotic relationship between how Jereshia supports her students and how MemberVault supports Jereshia’s efforts.

With MemberVault, you have freedom of choice with how you want to build relationships with your students. You can do it in a course, with one-on-one services or through growing a list.

Jereshia is big on simplicity… not to be confused with easy. Things need to be simple to get the ball rolling so that you have cash flow in order to do other things.

MemberVault has a really strong core – Mike and Erin know what their secret sauce is – and then they have built in a ton of flexibility for their users to create the experience they want.

“If you’re the service provider or course creator who really cares more about serving than selling, then MemberVault is the platform for you.” – Jereshia Hawk

This is a core theme that you see among the users of the platform. They (including Jereshia, Jaclyn, Jenni and me!) really do have a heart for service. And so do Mike and Erin – they are in the MemberVault Collective regularly and take such an intentional approach to getting feedback from their users.

The feature that Jereshia loves most about MemberVault is exactly that – the way that Mike and Erin build the software is to create what their users need, not tell their users what they are going to get. Jereshia equates it to all the users having a seat at the table and helping to co-create the product.

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Jereshia

Website: https://www.jereshiahawk.com/
Facebook Group: https://www.facebook.com/groups/goalgettermember/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/jereshiahawk/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jereshiahawk/
Podcast: Jereshia Said

045: Software to Entice Engagement with Jenni Waldrop (MemberVault Series 3 of 5)

Wed, 23 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Remember back in Episode 43 with Mike Kelly, he mentioned that one of the most impressive accounts on MemberVault was a gal who teaches others how to be successful with Etsy shops?

Well… this episode is with that gal – Jenni Waldrop!

Jenni started her Etsy shop to try to make enough money so that she could quit her miserable job (the one where your boss treats you badly for doing good work!) It was more to create enough side income to quit the terrible job and give herself space to find a new one – but as you’ll see as you continue reading, the story unfolded quite differently.

In just 6 months, her Etsy sales outpaced the corporate job and she quit. Instead of taking time and finding a new job, she continued to build out her Etsy shop and build out Amazon shops and other online shopping spaces. From there, people wanted to know how she was doing it all with so much success.

Fast forward to where she is now:

Successful Etsy shop
A very active blog
A membership program

All this in just 4 years and as she says “Life is substantially better!”

Before we get into Jenni’s MemberVault, we discuss how she landing on Etsy…

Her background is actually in web design and logically, she decided to try that as a side-hustle. But when she wasn’t getting any traction, she realized that it was because she didn’t know how to drive traffic for a business that was just getting started…. With this, she said to herself “If I don’t know how to get an audience, what if I started somewhere where the audience was built in?”

She put her web design business on Etsy! And the business took off… so much so that within 3 months she was working 80 hour weeks and had to shut it down.

From there, she switched to physical products so that her sales were not tied directly to her time. The goal was to build up her savings account so she could leave her corporate job quickly.

Introducing Fuzzy and Birch a shop with Anti-Inspirational Gear! The whole idea came out of her job – the beautiful inspirational quotes on Instagram were just not working for her – don’t you just love innovation and taking ideas into your own hands?

Now it’s time to get to the meat of this conversation – the way Jenni is using MemberVault.

Jenni’s MemberVault traffic comes from Etsy, Pinterest and Google for the most part – and they end up on a freebie opt-in page which acts as the doorway to MemberVault. Using automation, Jenni is able to deliver a login username and password to her email signups and this gives them access to the freebie they signed up for and from there they can view her whole Binge And Buy marketplace.

On MemberVault she has been able to consolidate all her free content (which prior to this was scattered everywhere!)

It’s all geared towards Etsy sellers. There are three core free programs and with these free programs subscribers can access what they want and need for their own success.

Jenni points out that before MemberVault her subscribers may opt-in for more than one of these programs and then they would get two series of emails that would overlap and bump up against each other. This lead to rough edges and a less than optimal experience for both Jenni and her new subscriber.

Just like last episode with Jaclyn, Jenni is using the data to know which content is most likely to convert into purchases.

Jenni hosts two of her paid offers in MemberVault.

The first of which is an Etsy productivity planner. This product is a lower entry point and a great way for people who just find out about Jenni and her brand feel comfortable. She admits that not all businesses need a product that are less than $20, but for her audience it is a great balance between price and value and brand authority.

The second product is a Bonus where she shows people how she went from $1000 to $4500 a month on Etsy. This product is a bit of a teaser… when someone clicks on this they will be taken to a sales page for her membership program.

With Jenni’s offers, she is demonstrating that she understands her audience and what their needs are. Etsy shops are often started as a side-hustle and when someone is in some kind of transition and is looking to bring in additional funds for their family.

“When you’re starting a side-hustle, the likelihood that you’ve ever invested in your business before is low. So when people come to me, I’m their very first experience with entrepreneurship.” – Jenni Waldrop

Jenni’s freebie programs are mini-courses. One is an Etsy traffic bootcamp which teaches people how to word their items, call their items and do the right things to get more traffic. The next one is The Ultimate Guide to Etsy which is essentially a huge article that they divided up into 8 segments. The final product is an Etsy Critique Challenge which is a self-critique.

They all used to be 5-day email challenges but Jenni was finding that the engagement would drop off – just as Mike mentioned in episode 43 (the first episode in the MemberVault series.)

If your email inbox is anything like mine or Jenni’s you know that a 5-day challenge is bound to get lost in the inbox and there is no guarantee of engagement. With MemberVault as the repository for the content, they are no longer seeing the drop off.

Inside the mini-courses, participants get access to all the material at once instead of in a drip format and the engagement went through the roof.

Jenni has a product called Product Boot Camp which users get access to one day after they sign into MemberVault for the first time. The purpose of this new content is to keep the engagement up and remind them the vault is there.

“… it’s been working so beautifully, we haven’t really felt a need to optimize it further.” – Jenny Waldrop

“You don’t need to continue to iterate if something is working!” –Jaime Slutzky

Lately, Jenni has been doing what she’s calling Etsy Experiments where she tries something out inside her own Etsy shop (the ideas come from her students or subscribers asking her to try it out!) Now that the Fuzzy and Birch Etsy shop isn’t her primary income, it’s a great playground for experiments. If something fails, then great, now everyone knows. She uses MemberVault to host the videos for these experiments and gives everyone one- or two-days worth of access to these videos. These videos are teasers to the paid membership. It goes to show the value of the membership, where this type of content is always being added and provided to members.

And just like Jaclyn, Jenni is able to track the interest, participation and such with all the user data inside MemberVault. This is a double win, the data allows her to improve her product faster by truly understanding what resonates with the audience PLUS the content is a great marketing vehicle.

Jenni hosts the membership site on a WordPress because they have some features that are incompatible with just about every platform. It is completely custom so that it can evolve to what it needs to do without constraints. This is her one-and-only program and it was worth it to house it somewhere with completely free reign. Jenni was inspired to go down this path when she looked at people like Marie Forleo.

“I have one place where I can watch all my leads {MemberVault} so all my people who are watching my free stuff. And one place where I can watch all my people who are paid.” –Jenni Waldrop

With systems like MemberVault, you get the best of the best for it’s core function. For Jenni’s membership, the best right tool was a tool that gave her 100% freedom to do exactly what she wanted, which is why she divides up her leads and her members onto the two platforms – best of both worlds!

Going back to Jenni’s vault and the limited time content, here’s how she teases and then delivers that information to her subscribers:

On Monday: Email announcing the present and what it’s going to be about and what they are going to see. And let them know the present will only be available for 48 hours. She provides a link for them to mark their calendar as to when it’s going to be available (using AddEvent)

On Wednesday: Email announcing the present is now available. She includes the MemberVault login link. And she reminds them it’s limited time and to go nuts and watch it!

Based on activity in MemberVault, Jenni has the ability for them to get into the sales sequence in advance of the limited time access ending.

Jenni, like Jaclyn, uses a waitlist for her membership. In Jenni’s case it converts at nearly 5x over her full mailing list.

And Jenni uses two different sequences for the general list and the waitlist – because she knows the waitlist will convert that much better.

The membership launches are systematic at this point with the first email being templated and then the “goods” including the experiment and email are the only actual work! And the best part, she’s giving people what they want during this process – which entices them even more.

Erin from MemberVault personally convinced Jenni to switch from ConvertKit to ActiveCampaign. The level of detail that is available because of the ActiveCampaign and MemberVault integration is what won Jenni over.

As an aside, Mike has been working very hard to do more integration with more email providers, so if you’re interested in MemberVault but using an email tool other than ActiveCampaign, know that you don’t necessarily need to move to take advantage of the data that MemberVault provides to email marketing accounts.

When Jenni moved to ActiveCampaign, she did it long after she had decided on MemberVault. She didn’t do everything all at once. Nor did she do it in haste (it took Erin 2 weeks to convince her!) And, she determined that MemberVault was to be a base tool in her tech stack and that any new system she brought in had to work well with this software.

“I’m just really happy not having to constantly create free content anymore, to be honest!” – Jenni Waldrop

Jenni gushes about the emails that Erin Kelly creates for the MemberVault email distribution. She looks forward to them, seriously!

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com
MemberVault: https://techofbusiness.vipmembervault.com/teaser

Connect with Jenni

MemberVault :https://fuzzyandbirch.vipmembervault.com/teaser
Blog: https://blog.fuzzyandbirch.com
Etsy: https://www.etsy.com/shop/fuzzyandbirch
Etsy Productivity Planner
YouTube: https://www.youtube.com/c/FuzzyBirch
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/fuzzyandbirch

044: Tech for Strong Relationships with Jaclyn Mellone (MemberVault Series #2 of 5)

Mon, 21 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

Jaclyn is the host of the Go-To Gal podcast and as she says she “Helps Experts Build Profitable Personal Brands” – She works with her clients on marketing, mindset and strategy.

My first question for Jaclyn was “Why did you end up jumping into the MemberVault camp and what are you using MemberVault for?”

I love her candor – she got started with MemberVault and it took a good 3 or 4 months before she actually took full advantage of the software. For Jaclyn, MemberVault is far more than a course or membership platform – see, she’s really big on relationship marketing.

Jaclyn doesn’t use every aspect of MemberVault -- she continues to use ClickFunnels for her landing pages. For her, ClickFunnels offers key aesthetic, metrics and functionality that didn’t seem necessary to replace – they are working for her, so when she brought MemberVault in as a tool, it was not to replace ClickFunnels (which is a tool that is working in her business.)

That being said, she found ClickFunnels was not an ideal place to host her course and membership content – in her words “It was just always clunky and confusing for the end user.”

So again, she loves it for landing pages but needed a different tool for content delivery.

“If something’s working for you, don’t drop it just because Jaclyn and I are talking about something else. Just add this information that we’re sharing to your repository of if something’s not working maybe I’ll consider!” – Jaime Slutzky, Episode #44 Tech of Business Podcast

During her tool exploration she looked at Thinkific – it did exactly what it was supposed to do, but nothing more. She was kinda neutral and not all in on the software – it was just not the right tool for her and her audience. And she just didn’t think it was a WOW beyond what she could get with ClickFunnels…

And then we got back to talking about MemberVault and on first impression, she likes that she was able to brand it – pretty and cohesive are important to her and great user experience. At first it was just a better solution – and she hadn’t even “geeked out” on the back end yet!

Her first step, as MemberVault founders Mike and Erin recommend, was to put all her freebies into a subscriber hub which she calls “Free Goodies” – instead of having a bunch of dropbox links and random info in emails, it seemed just so much more functional and cohesive. Then she added just one paid course. This was the start to her MemberVault – visitors can see and access her free goodies and see the paid offer too!

The beauty is that just with the front end functionality, Jaclyn felt she was getting enough value out of the software… and then, whoa, she got into all the back end stuff.

“It can be overwhelming! With every new platform, it can do so much doesn’t mean we have to have it do all those things.”

Fast forward to present and Jaclyn has fully integrated MemberVault into her business and see it as a “Living, breathing representation of her email list.” She’s able to see what they are interested in, what they are actually doing… She asks them questions and is getting answers (a dream to hear from your subscribers!). All this boils down to just having more DATA.

In terms of relationship marketing:

“I feel like I’m able to make the right offers to the right people. And not just be blindly promoting things and just shouting!” – Jaclyn Mellone

She has the ability to customize her offers and feels good about what she is doing. This approach also allows her to have more offers going at the same time because she is not making all the offers to the whole list.

The offers may be made through email automation based on their MemberVault activity, or when it makes sense to do so, she does personal invites.

One of her favorite “funnels” is a webinar to personal invites. Jaclyn takes us through an example in her business – the course called Best Month Ever!

It’s a 2 week live course that she sold for $99.

The promotion for the course was just to her email list and she hosted the entire thing inside MemberVault . With the data available, she was able to see who the most active participants were and who the less active people were. From there, she and her team were able to nudge the less active people along to make sure they were getting the most out of it.

It was a high energy two weeks.
50% of course participants posted in the group that they had their best month ever.
With the course being hosted in MemberVault the course participants could see Jaclyn’s other offerings (some clicked all of them, others clicked one or two)
At the end of the course, Jaclyn asked what their next goal was – responses to this question were logged in MemberVault and helped Jaclyn see how her upcoming offers could fit with the student’s objectives.

Between the answer to the question, their participation and, what they clicked on inside MemberVault, Jaclyn was able to provide customized best offers for the most likely clients.

Note: this is not all automated, but that’s what makes this so special.

“In the online world, it’s so easy to use technology to its fullest extent and take the human experience out of it. But when you’re really helping people… when you’re able to take technology and layer that with personalization… that’s when your conversions go through the roof.” – Jaclyn Mellone

The data in MemberVault gave Jaclyn a preview of what her business could look like based on the action of subscribers and course purchaser!

If instead of using the data, at the conclusion of the 2 week course Jaclyn had said to her purchasers “you can join this membership or you can join this group coaching or we can work together one on one.” Most people wouldn’t know what to do and they probably wouldn’t pick anything!

Human psychology says that people won’t pick anything if they aren’t guided. People want to be told the next step.

For Jaclyn, it made sense to promote the membership to everyone and guide others towards group coaching and still others towards one-on-one. She knows that her membership is great for gals who want to stick with one-on-one work whereas her group coaching is geared towards those that want to switch to a one-to-many model. Having the click data as well as the response to her final course question gave Jaclyn the information she needed to provide next steps.

As far as the one-on-one personal outreach – that came mostly from who actually clicked to learn more. Anyone can get value from one-on-one work with a coach or mentor, those that self-selected were more likely to already be thinking about it!

Bringing the conversation back to the present, when you go to Jaclyn’s MemberVault : https://jaclynmellone.vipmembervault.com/teaser today after you finish reading, you’ll find:

Free Goodies: both those that have dedicated landing pages and those that are more subtle, such as ones mentioned on the Go to Gal podcast.
Best Month Ever: the course we discussed above is available as evergreen, so you can start it today (and also have access to the next live run!)
Go To Gal Membership: There may be immediate access or a wait list, depending on what else is going on in Jaclyn’s business
Group Coaching Program Application
One-on-one Application

MemberVault is a tool for building a relationship with your customers not just about giving them your content.

People are much more likely to continue to work with you when you’ve not only helped them with your content (information) but also given them a hand to hold on the journey.

Here’s why Jaclyn would suggest MemberVault to her peers, students and other coaches:

You can try out all the features for free
1. container for freebies without the need for sophisticated landing pages
2. house bonuses for offline offers (such as bonuses for their book)
3. simple landing page and payment processor for One-on-One services
It’s all about relationship marketing
1. Learning how and what your subscribers are doing inside MemberVault helps you learn what might be of interest to them
2. Personal outreach

I don’t often include the “bonus question” in the episode show notes, but I really love Jaclyn’s ideas and know that they are a great way to wrap up this post.

I asked Jaclyn what she’d like to see in MemberVault that she doesn’t see yet – she would like to see more opportunity for communication. Especially around the quiz answers. Inside MemberVault you can easily see a response to a question but there is no mechanism to respond or take that feedback further inside MemberVault .

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Jaclyn

MemberVault : http://jaclynmellone.com/goodies/
Website: http://jaclynmellone.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaclynmellone/
Instagram: jaclyn_mellone
Instagram: go.to.gal

043: Software for Successful Relationship Marketing (MemberVault Series #5 of 5)

Wed, 16 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

MemberVault is a game changer in the relationship marketing and content delivery space.

This first episode is with co-founder Mike Kelly, who is the developer (his wife Erin was an OBM who was looking for a solution for a client and shared with him what she wanted to use – he said “I might be able to create that!)

The need in the market can best be described as follows:

Online service providers put out a lead magnet of some kind, they get on your email list and then when you are in “launch mode” you get your entire email list to whatever funnel software and they buy or they don’t buy. Everything feels really disconnected.

Lead Magnets are delivered and stored in one place.
Hangout is in another.
Paid products are in another place

And there is no visibility into what people are actually doing with your content… who is going through it? Where did they fall off? Does anyone actually care about your other offers outside of the free?

MemberVault brings your free content and paid content together and it is essentially an extension of your email list.

Mike describes MemberVault as a deconstructed funnel where people can pick and choose from free and paid offers, they call it the Binge And Buy Marketplace.

88% of people who went in to get the freebie that they opted in for will click into your paid offers and at least check them out!

That’s a lot more potential buyers on your offers than you’d get by emailing the freebie!

Now regardless of the type of buyer you have attracted (a quick adopter or a slow adopter) the availability of your products and services is ready for them when they are ready – sending them back to the MemberVault Subscriber Hub regularly is going to help move the needle.

I want to directly quote Mike here:

“The real power is, Jaime, we’re tracking everything that happens! Because they’re logged into MemberVault , we can track everything that they do.”

This allows you as the content creator to know what content they’re engaging with, what is resonating, where drop off is, who is looking at the paid offers!

There are so many nuggets in this episode, I probably should have had it word-for-word transcribed… here’s another great quote from Mike:

“There’s a lot of fence sitters. And what’s really interesting is those fence sitters are silent. They don’t email you to have you talk them into it…”

TALK ME INTO IT – Said nobody EVER

With the data knowing that they are sitting on the fence and looking at your content, you can use the integration with your email marketing platform (like ActiveCampaign) to send them an enticing email prodding them along the path to become a paying client.

Inside your MemberVault not only can you put online consumable content like text, images and video, there is also room to insert downloadable documents and ASK Questions.

Every action that someone takes inside MemberVault is tracked and can be viewable in their profile. They also get a numerical value based on the activity and whether you use automation or manual processes, you have valuable data to know who to reach out to to help them get off the fence.

Here’s an example of how a 5-day free challenge would look using MemberVault :

Challenge landing page and signup can live on your main WordPress website
Signup is done through a form on your WordPress website that links into ActiveCampaign
ActiveCampaign has a trigger to add the user to the associated product on MemberVault
Challenge content is delivered inside MemberVault
Each challenge participant will receive a score as they progress through the challenge

As the challenge host, you’ll be able to look at the participant level and reach out to the most engaged!

At this point, Mike goes into describing the user log in great detail. And this is where the platform really sets itself apart as a relationship marketing platform. Inside the user log you can see everything that user has ever done inside your MemberVault – and every question they have answered to really be able to personalize outreach and grow the relationship.

The sweet spot of MemberVault is creating a deep and authentic relationship with those people who are engaging with your content.

My next question for Mike was “Who was MemberVault built for and who are you finding are your most loyal clients?”

MemberVault actually started as a course platform but Mike and Erin pivoted to this entirely different model because they originally build it with openness and flexibility inside.

Most successful MemberVault accounts are digital content or service providers. Mike said that the most successful account right now is Jenni Waldrop who is coming up in this mini-series next week. (I’ll link to that right here once the episode is live!)

The digital accompaniment to Mike Michalowicz’s book Clockwork is on MemberVault . Sign up for that here: https://clockwork.life/signup.html

Inside the Clockwork MemberVault they have free content and a live group program. They constantly have new leads and regularly fill the program based on the value provided in the free content, brand reputation and of course the book itself.

The flow here is book – free digital content – upsell into group program.

Another way to look at the Binge and Buy market place with a freebie entry point is that it’s like a store giving away free popcorn to everyone who comes in the store. Some people may come in for the popcorn and leave, but a number of people who would never have come into the store eat their popcorn and walk around to see what the store actually sells! And they’re like “I’m really glad the popcorn got me into this store!”

I took the analogy further – the next time that person pops microwave popcorn at home they will recall the experience at the store and it will remind them to go back to the store. This is the recall scenario and bringing this back to the MemberVault space – when that person opts into something new that you’ve created and lands back in your MemberVault and is even more enamored with your products and will dig deeper into the other opportunities you present inside there.

MemberVault is an extension of your email list and a simple reminder inside your emails (rather than pitching or launching all the time) is to redirect them back to your MemberVault .

MemberVault helps you keep the conversation going. Someone may not access your content for weeks or months after opting-in but then will have a flurry of activity inside there and become a paying client.

The unique advantage of putting all your free content into MemberVault is that you are able to sell a lot more passively because your free content gets people in and your paid offers sit alongside them.

“You want them to engage with your free content.” – Mike Kelly, MemberVault Co-Founder

The concept behind MemberVault makes me as a user feel warm. I am thrilled to poke around and see what is there. You are inviting me into the space rather than sending me something that may never see outside of my inbox.

A great story to show the value of meeting your new subscriber where they are and not over-complicating:

Mike was looking to get into shape. Found a website with a trainer he was interested in buying a course, guidance or support from. But there was no way to directly work with him – instead the only thing was to sign up for his 5-day workout package. So he signed up. Day 1 received a video and he liked it. Next day he got the email but it didn’t come at a good time, so he saved it for later and managed to find time to watch it. He’s starting to lose touch, by Day 3 saved it but never went back to it. Day 4 and Day 5 emails were deleted straight away – he was done, it wasn’t taking him on the journey he was looking for back on Day 1. Then on Day 6 he got a congratulations for finishing the 5 day challenge… the wallet was open on Day 1 but by Day 6 he was over it and had found another option.

Instead, if that trainer was using MemberVault , Mike would see the 5 day challenge, the other ways to work with the trainer and other free or low cost options. Even if the content is dripped inside MemberVault there is a carrot sitting there waiting for him at the end of the challenge.

“The first impression that you give someone is paramount.” – Jaime Slutzky, host Tech of Business podcast

TLDR;

MemberVault allows you as the business owner:

To be able to connect and engage with your audience
To nurture your list, by giving them gift after gift after gift each time you add something new to your MemberVault
To get passive sales and hot leads

With the free tier of MemberVault all features are unlocked as well as access to the MemberVault Collaborative and training resources. The only limit is 50 people.

042: Success! Taking small steps creates huge success with Anna Lundberg

Wed, 09 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

No matter where you are with using online tools in your business, I'm thrilled you're checking out the shownotes for Episode 42 with Anna Lundberg. The underlying principle of what she shared was small steps in the right direction can create an amazing business.

Anna Lundberg is a coach that helps people transition their thinking regarding work. Her focus is on moving from the traditional corporate structure to working from home. Anna has a background in marketing… she worked for Procter & Gamble for and over her time there became a digital expert. She was the techie in a non-techie world. And when she’s in the tech world she is known as the marketing person. With her own business -- it all has kind of merged together.

Anna’s technology transformation has been something that has been very gradual. One step at a time she has learned and evolved in the tech that she has in her business.

All the tools, websites, and systems we are using right now evolve as well. What there is now is WAY different that what it was 5 years ago.

There comes a point when your business grows that it’s better to outsource things like adding plugins and such.

Outsource maintenance to your website. Once it become systematic and standard then outsource that so you can move on to strategizing.

Websites Mentioned

https://www.rev.com: An on-demand service which gets your audio or video transcribed. It's only $1/minute of recorded audio and produces really good transcriptions that can be used for many things, including captions and subtitles on your social media videos!

https://www.scheduleonce.com/ A software solution which allows easy calendar management. It takes the back and forth emails out of scheduling calls, meetings, work sessions and more. One of the differentiating factors with ScheduleOnce is that you can require the other person to pick three available time slots on your schedule and you get to decide which one of those is the best fit for your business and flow.

When it came time for Anna to launch a membership site, she did so inside her WordPress website. She chose to use Amazon S3 (Cloud Storage) to house all her membership site assets. I freakin' love this -- and went on to discuss the bandwidth benefit of NOT housing your heavy content within your WordPress and web host.

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Anna

Website: onestepoutside.com
Podcast: Reimagining Success
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/onestepoutside/
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/annaselundberg/

Remember: Things are so different now than they were in 2013. Anna recommends defining what success looks like for you. Then begin to inform yourself and then tentatively start taking steps to achieve that success.

041: [Deep Dive] Affiliates Being One and Having Them in your Business

Wed, 02 Jan 2019 11:30:00 +0000

This episode is a Deep Dive and we’re going to talk about affiliates… everything from the tech I recommend using with your own affiliate products to when, if and why to become an affiliate for another product or service.

Let’s start with a definition… according to Wikipedia:

Affiliate marketing is a type of performance-based marketing in which a business rewards one or more affiliates for each visitor or customer brought by the affiliate's own marketing efforts.

Or in other words,

Affiliate marketing is when a product or service is sold by other businesses, marketers or entities for a portion of proceeds or other compensation.

Affiliate marketing is one way to extend the potential reach of your product or service outside your immediate sphere of influence. I am a huge proponent of affiliate marketing when it’s done right, because then it’s a win-win-win situation.

On the resources page, you’ll find a number of recommended tools. Most of the links on that page are affiliate links, which means that if you were to click on one, the back-end systems will track you as having come through my link and should you elect to purchase that software, service or product, I will be financially compensated by the company.

Many of the virtual summits that I run with my clients include an aspect of affiliate marketing – because it’s a win-win-win. Generally, the affiliate opportunity is extended to the speakers as a form of compensation for sharing their time and knowledge. The summit host extends his or her reach into the audience of the speakers and the speaker receives financial compensation. The third win comes for the purchaser from the speaker’s audience, because they are signaling to the summit host that this speaker is providing value.

So… how does all this affiliate tracking and stuff work?

I’m so glad you asked – affiliate marketing is done through link tracking and within the browser using cookies. Cookies are tiny bits of code that sit inside your browser and transmit information from a webpage back to another website or service. These tiny bits of code don’t impact the browsing experience, they are designed to provide information back to the website owner.

Cookies are used everywhere, not just in affiliate marketing and tracking. But because they are browser based there are hoops that people can jump through to avoid having the cookies attached to their activity. There is actually nothing that can be done to prevent this, so affiliate marketing and other cookie tracking systems are at the mercy of best practice.

A couple more things to know about cookies before we move back to affiliate marketing – since they are browser based, they don’t cross from one browser to the next (like Safari to Chrome) and they don’t transfer between devices which means you can have the same cookie in your phone browser and your laptop browser and they will report independently.

This cookie shortcoming is the primary reason that people don’t always trust their affiliate numbers… which is also the reason why good affiliate tracking systems use link tracking as well.

The best way to describe link tracking is that it’s the origination url for the cookie. Let’s look at an example.

Back in 2017 when I ran the Biz BFF Summit, I extended the affiliate opportunity to my speakers. If they chose to become affiliates, they signed up on my system and in turn, they were provided with a special and unique link to share the summit. Anytime this link was used, my affiliate tracking system tracked that click back to my affiliate, and then went on to set a cookie on the clicker’s browser.

My affiliates were able to put their unique link in emails, on social media, in advertising and so on. They were also able to create branded links using pretty links or shortened links using a service like bit.ly.

I look for affiliate systems that use both the link tracking and cookie methods.

If you’re interested in setting up an affiliate program, we can do that in a Tech Strategy session.

We’ve scratched the surface of affiliate management technology… now let’s discuss the different types of technology that can help you with affiliate programs.

There are four models that I’m familiar with:

Third Party Shopping Cart Systems like ThriveCart
Affiliate interface within your Stand-Alone SaaS product, like Thinkific or ClickFunnels
WordPress plugin model, the most popular one of these is AffiliateWP
Affiliate Marketing Networks like ShareASale and CJ Affliates or Commission Junction as they were previously known

For your business, I would recommend using either a third party shopping cart system or the affiliate interface built into your store or content delivery platform.

The key is to make sure that your affiliate piece is tied directly into the payment piece… so depending on where and how you take payments right now, that will change up how you might add affiliates into the mix.

We want to keep our affiliates as close to our point of sale as possible, for simplicity and accuracy sake. If these are disparate systems then more manual processes will be required to issue affiliate commissions and to track everything, and since this is something new, it’s best to start with the simple!

There is one decision that needs to be made when setting up your affiliate system and that’s whether to pay on “FIRST CLICK” or “LAST CLICK”. Which essentially asked the question, do you pay the first person who piqued a purchasers interest to learn more about your product or service or do you pay the last person – this is the one who gave the final nudge for your new client to actually make the purchase.

For virtual summits, I recommend first click, because that incentivises speakers to send out their promotional material earlier. And in the summit model, we’re sending traffic to a free summit and then giving them the opportunity to purchase extended access.

For higher ticket items, such as courses or membership sites, I usually recommend last cookie because in many cases there is a greater amount of work required by your affiliates to get to the sale. We can discuss the pros and cons as we put together your affiliate system – both can and do work, it’s all about making sure that your affiliates feel cared for and appreciated.

One caveat -- Not every product or service is a good product or service to setup with affiliates. And not all products or services need to have the same arrangement with affiliates.

Affiliate marketing can be very expensive – and in my opinion should never be used for one-to-one services or services that have a one-on-one component. It’s just too hard to generate the right amount of income from one-on-one services when you’re giving an affiliate a percentage off the top. This is different than a referral fee, which can be a great marketing channel – but that conversation is for another time.

I am excited and happy to discuss setting up your affiliate systems and programs, but I encourage you to work with a marketing professional to determine what offerings you have are best suited for different types of promotions.

The other side of affiliate marketing is being the marketer.

... as in promotion of someone else’s product with the intention of receiving compensation. On the resources page, I mostly list software and tools that I am an affiliate for. I try to keep the list concise because it doesn’t benefit either of us for me to promote conflicting products. So, while there are other SaaS companies that I think are right for some clients, I want to keep my references page clean.

I’ve said it many times on this podcast and with clients, I’m very tool agnostic. I have my favorites and those are mostly what you’ll find on the resources page.

I always strive to implement the best tool for you and your business now and into the future. That’s why I did an entire episode on Zapier last week – and they don’t even have an affiliate program available.

When it comes to affiliate marketing, the number one thing we must always remember to do is to fully disclose any relationships we undertake. So, you’ll see on the resources page that I have disclosed that many of the links on that page are affiliate links.

Affiliate links can be used inside email as well as on website pages or anywhere else you can share a link… it’s important to consistently and regularly disclose that you may be compensated.

I think it’s pretty easy for you to understand how, when and why I use affiliate links within my business – quite simply, if I’m already recommending a product and they offer to pay me for leads I send to them then it’s advantageous to me to setup the relationship.

There are affiliate opportunities that make sense in just about every industry. I challenge you to come up with 3 possible affiliations that would benefit your business and your audience. Share those in the Tech of Business community on Facebook which you can access from https://techofbusiness.com/community/

As always, I have a reason for creating episodes on the podcast – in episode 38 we discussed why crowd sourcing your tech might not be the best way to get tech recommendations and to lean on your trusted adviser and inner circle instead. And affiliate relationships are part of the reason this is extra important. Both from the side of not wanting to get recommendations based solely on compensation for the recommender and for making sure that compensation does occur for the people who you rely on for advice and recommendations.

My top three affiliate relationships are Thinkific, ActiveCampaign and A2 Hosting. When I share these services with you, and you choose to sign up for them, I sincerely hope you will thank me for the recommendation by clicking through my unique affiliate link.

Sure, I like the compensation, and have an affiliate revenue goal each year, but the other reason I appreciate your clicking through from my link is to show the service provider that I’m a valuable affiliate.

Let’s wrap up with this...

Affiliate marketing’s distinct advantage is that it is built on trust between the marketer and their audience. The product or service being promoted benefits from this high level of trust.

As you get into affiliate marketing, remember that it’s all about trust. Pick products or services that you can get 100% behind and share those authentically and enthusiastically and regularly!

And in your business, if you have products you’d like to setup with affiliates, be sure to know what types of audiences you want to reach and find the best affiliates to partner with.

And, when new tech needs arise in your business, please reach out to me as your trusted tech adviser and together we will find the best right tech for your business – whether affiliate relationship or not.

Have a great rest of your day and I’ll see you inside the Tech of Business Community!

040: [Deep Dive] Zapier: The Single Best Way to Un-Silo-Ify Your Tools

Wed, 26 Dec 2018 11:30:00 +0000

This deep dive episode is all about Zapier.

In episode 34, when I presented the Tech Stack Framework. I talked about un-silo-ifying your tools. Zapier is one of the mechanisms by which we can accomplish this goal.

Zapier acts as a broker or middle man between your different online tools… And it's smart too.

Zaps can be super simple, connecting one tool to another. Examples of this are

When someone books a call with you via acuity scheduling, add them to your Active Campaign email list
When someone buys your Thinkific course send yourself a text message
When someone finishes a Thinkific chapter, update a user field in Mailchimp

There are two sides to each of these zaps, the trigger and the action....

In each of these cases, the trigger is initiated by a human, interacting with a system that you are using in your business. And the action automatically does something else within your systems.

It helps to streamline processes so that your tools work better together. Zapier interacts with your systems through what is called the API – the Application Program Interface. But we're not going all technical... so let's move on ;)

The nice thing about Zapier is that it gets to know all that crazy computer speak and presents it to users as intuitive actionable steps.

In the first draft of this episode, here’s where I was going to, probably painfully, take you through setting up a zap so that you could see all the magic of Zapier. But on second thought (after a fantastic night sleep!) I reminded myself that you don’t need the nitty gritty on the podcast.

My job on the podcast is to help you understand how a tool may or may not fit into your business and help you determine how to bring it into the fold.

Let’s look at where Zapier fits on the tech stack framework and then we’ll get back into more business-advancing tactics that Zapier is perfectly suited for.

Zapier fits in the second layer of the pyramid – the support layer. Tools on this layer support your base tools to help your business run smoother. Sure, our businesses can run without Zapier but when setup properly it will free up time and money that is currently being spent on administrative tasks and parlay that effort into higher value and revenue generating activities.

I recommend investing in Zapier. The starter level allows you to have 20 automations running at any time and these can be more robust and complicated than the examples I gave above. Instead of a single action based on the trigger, there could be several actions and filters applied.

My favorite demonstration of this is extending our first example from earlier “When someone books a call with you via acuity scheduling, add them to your Active Campaign email list.”

Instead of stopping at adding them to Active Campaign, we can continue along and (2) create a task in Trello that reminds us to send a follow up email one day after the call. It could then go on to (3) setup your note taking tool so that it is ready for the call and (4) start a proposal inside Panda Doc. And a final Zapier action could be to (5) add a card in Trello for your VA to do whatever pre-work might be required.

See there are so many things that the one Acuity event can trigger – and this is really just scratching the surface.

A couple of points I want to make about that hypothetical zap…

I prefer to set follow up tasks in your project management tool as an actionable task rather than setting up an appointment directly on the calendar (which is totally an option too.) Because, I like to keep the calendar setup for work blocks and open appointments by adding this reminder email action to the calendar, it makes that tool a tad messier.
This same process could be used with other software, this was just an example
The key to a successful multi-part zap is proper setup of the individual systems

Zapier has a couple of built in functions that are the main reason I recommend paying for the tool instead of using the free level (which I don’t think I mentioned, restricts you to one trigger à one action zaps).

The two built in functions that I use regularly are:

Delay
Filter

Delay allows an action to be taken after a certain amount of time. I used this when I wanted to give a second Thinkific course as a gift to a client 3 days after they purchased the original course. The key of course is to put the delay after all the immediate actions.

Filter is a way to make it so that some events that trigger a particular zap make it to a given action. Let’s say that you have a trigger that is based upon a new line being added to a Google Sheet. You want to add each instance of that into Trello but only those that have a score of 100 or are going to trigger a text message to you as well. The filter would be placed after the Trello action and then the text message would only proceed after the filter was tested. Rows in your Google Sheet will all get over to Trello but only some will have a text message sent to you.

Every business could benefit from Zapier… perhaps your systems do not have a direct integration, or the integration through Zapier is more robust and works better for your needs.

Some of the benefits to Zapier, particularly when we invoke sequences beyond the if this then that are:

More immediate results
Minimizes mistakes caused by manual work
Keeps the right people involved at each step of the process
Creates a stronger connection between the disparate elements of your tech stack
Keeps all integrations in one place
Makes it outsourceable

On the Starter level of Zapier, your triggers are set to be checked every 15 minutes. But if you know a trigger was hit, you can run them manually.

While I think anyone can get into Zapier and start automating things. I implore you to look at your business to see if this is a good next step for you to take on yourself.

Zapier is one of the core tools I use with my clients during our Tech Stack Blueprint work. It makes the process of understanding your tools to create a strong tech foundation that much easier. We create the roadmap upon which you can confidently expand your business.

While each business is different, in general, I will setup a zap that takes your email marketing platform to the next level. It may be like above where we add people who sign up for an information session with you to your email list, or it may be connecting your webinar or seminar software back to emails. And if you’re already using a direct integration between a tool and your email marketing system, we may remove the direct integration so that we can do a multi-step process through Zapier.

There are three takeaways from this episode…

Zapier is a tool to un-silo-ify your tools
Think outside the box when you’re working with a Zapier professional to truly maximize the throughput of the tool
The tech we use in our businesses is there to support us, if you don’t think you can do it alone, ask for help from a trusted adviser

Most of my clients don’t need to know what I have setup for them in Zapier.

And that’s the truth about building a solid tech foundation – you as the business owner are able to dream and create and inspire and make a difference – your tech is there to make sure that your dream take shape, your creations and inspiration reach their target audience and you have a place to make a difference from.

Take a few moments to think about and look at your tech. Give yourself a few minutes to uncover how it makes you feel. Then send me an email jaime@techofbusiness.com to start a new tech-confident chapter of your business! With tech-confidence comes greater freedom, the ability to make more money and impact more people with your products and services.

I cannot wait to work with you. We’ll follow the Tech Stack Framework together and give Zapier a rightful home in the support layer of your Tech Stack Blueprint. Email me at jaime@techofbusiness.com to get started.

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

039: Rapidly scaling your business via Facebook with Carissa Hill

Wed, 19 Dec 2018 11:30:00 +0000

My guest today is Carissa Hill and we discuss finding the right platform by which you can radically grow your business. Carissa is a lifelong entrepreneur from Australia.

Her first successful business was a spray tanning and hair extension business. She started it at age 21 and by the time she was 25 she had quite an impressive business.

She grew the whole business using Facebook marketing and a basic html website. After building this business, she realized when she talked to people they wanted to know how she built her business so she started coaching. Then people wanted to know how she built the coaching business so now she teaches about that.

Why Facebook to grow local business?

When she started her business, Facebook didn’t exist yet, she used MySpace! Carissa used it because she loved connecting with people.

“I don’t see it as a tool for business, but rather for connecting with like minded people.”

She likes to use platforms that I actually like to use. I stick to what I enjoy using as do my ideal clients. Using a platform you don’t enjoy will suck all the joy out of what you are doing.

Golden nugget: enjoy what you are using and doing to grow your business. If you don’t enjoy it find something that you do.

How do you get started creating connections with potential ideal clients?

It starts with being that real authentic person. You can’t allow someone to form a connection with you if you are not being yourself. You can to show that you are a real person not just a business. A lot of businesses are afraid of showing that real side of who you are. There is something to be said about being an individual vs. business entity. People want to connect with people not businesses. Without personality, depth, emotion, it makes it hard for people to connect with your business.

What type of content do you like to create? Why do you like that content? How do you create it? Not just the tools but also the thought process…

I love live videos. I really love being able to connect with live videos. I have always used videos, but I love the live videos. It saves times, it forces me to be a little more vulnerable and authentic. It forces me to have a conversation with people in real time. It’s more about having a conversation with people rather than just being on a video.

The ability to go back to a video if you aren’t in a place to watch it live. It’s nice to be able to go back and watch it when you can. There is a FOMO element to live videos.

Do you go live direct on your phone or computer? 3rd party software?

Most of the time I use my iPhone or Mevo camera that live streams that makes it looked like an edited tv show but it’s live. When interviewing people i tend to use Live TV.

Check out the Mevo: https://getmevo.com/

When you work with our clients globally what is it that they are looking to accomplish?

I specialize in rapid business growth. The majority of what people come to me for is help with Facebookadvertising. I help them with improving their online branding, understanding their audience, creating content their audience wants from them, and then help them with the copywriting and such to target their ideal clients.

I do all my business through Facebook. I teach people to do what I do.

Here’s a Facebook ad, people comment on it, you have a conversation, and they either buy or don’t buy.

A lot of the time it’s based around changing their mindset and way of thinking.

Do you still work with local business or more online entrepreneurs?

Work with both right now. In kind of a transition where I’m teaching more about how I built my Facebook and launching in it.

Remember -- The audience is not just online entrepreneurs and I want to make sure that everyone in the audience sees the value of using Facebook to grow. There are so many ways of learning a business and so many business types.

What are your best tactics for getting started having more content rich online presence on Facebook? Do you have top tips? Or starter tips for video content?

I listen to questions people ask me and I will make a video answering those questions. Whether it’s from my group or someone else’s group. I can do a video or content post about this on my page. I’m helping people with what they want help with which leads to engagement. I’ll even do a video on “what not to do” type of things when I see something I feel strongly about.

Any other tips?

Because it is putting you on camera, the energy that you put into it is important too. You have to have a little strategy for having intention with what you are putting out there. Positive energy is important. People will get what you put into it.

What do you think is the tell tale sign of someone having a bad day on video?

There’s only ever been one or two I have deleted. It’s been when I’ve been doing it for the sake of doing it. There isn’t an intention or for entertainment I’ve just done it to say I’ve done it. You can feel it when you are open and honest with yourself. If you feel cringe-worthy when you watch it then you should probably delete it.

How do you get so much done?

Repurposing content is amazing! Mostly my support team does the communication sales chats. I do have a bot hooked up that sends them a link for my free ebook. Adds them to email list etc. I try to repurpose as much as possible.

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Carissa

Facebook Group: Coffee with Carissa
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/carissahillcoach
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/carissahillofficial/
Website: www.carissahill.com.au

038: [Deep Dive] The better way to source new tech for your business

Wed, 12 Dec 2018 11:30:00 +0000

Do you use social media to get advice or recommendations from friends, colleagues, acquaintances or groups of like minded business owners?

I see it every day… People will post a question asking for recommendations for service providers and for software or tools.

There are two topics of discussion here, let's break down the software or tools question first.

Let's say it says : “What software should I use for courses?”

Such a simple question… And there will be a myriad of answers. Some top picks that will be in the list are Thinkific, Kajabi, MemberVault, Teachable and the list will then go on to include WordPress plugins like Lifter LMS and Wishlist Member and it will go further and someone will suggest using email marketing to deliver the content. All valid answers… But...

Here's the biggest concern I have with this approach: the people who are responding may not know anything about you, your business, your zone of genius or your style of work.

People who respond with their recommendations are doing the best that they can and have the best of intentions. It's simply that without looking at you tech stack, goals, team and creation style, there is no way of knowing which one will be best for you, your team and your audience.

Crowd-sourcing can only take us so far. The rest of the way to making a decision takes effort from you.

What if, instead of the crowd sourcing approach, you had a reliable adviser who could do all the leg work for you.

The results of this approach are measurable. It all saves time… And time is something we cannot create more of. There will be no need to sift through the responses and determine which tools to evaluate further. No need to do cost-value analysis. And no need to look at how each new tool may or may not fit into your existing tech stack.

But Jaime, I don't have a trusted tech adviser…

I beg to differ… You're listening to the tech of business podcast and are a member of the tech of business community, so I'm you're unofficial adviser!

To work with me in an official way, let's get a tech breakthrough session on the calendar… Go to https://techofbusiness.com/work-with-me/ and click on the Tech Breakthrough button.

Let's put this in perspective... would you ever

ask a florist to design your kitchen?
ask your bookkeeper to design your website?
rely on my best friend’s opinion on the layout of your office matter at all?

So why then does their opinion matter when it comes to the tech that you use in your business?

Those are quite abstract, so let’s flip that on its side to make it a bit more relevant and we’ll ask the question again…

What if your florist just worked with a store front designer, would you then feel confident asking them to help you design your kitchen?
What if your bookkeeper used to build websites?
What about if my best friend was your exact avatar?

Would that change how their opinions are taken? Perhaps they would -- but wouldn’t it be far better to ask them privately. You’ll be sure to get their opinion and have an actual conversation with them.

And that is what makes it different than the crowd-sourcing I’ve seen so much lately.

I’m not bashing the crowd-sourcers nor the crowd giving the feedback, I’m showing that there is a better way. It’s faster, has a great success rate and higher ROI.

Let’s look at the second version of this question… “Who do you recommend as a business coach?”

Whoa! That's quite a tough question to answer on a social media post. I could probably list 10 different coaches in answer to that question, because I love connecting with business coaches. But which one or two to tag or mention on your post… Well, I'd have to dig into what I think you need in your business and cross reference that with my favorite coaches. What if my assumptions are wrong? What if you need a life coach or branding expert instead of a business coach?

See how quickly a crowd-sourcing question can lead us all astray?

I said it earlier, don't get me wrong… Asking for recommendations and suggestions is FABULOUS. It's more a matter of asking trusted advisers rather than opening up a door to everyone else's experiences and opinions.

So, when is crowd-sourcing a good option? In this versus that scenarios like, “I've narrowed my course platform down to two options (A) and (B). What is your least favorite thing about each of them? And please do not provide any alternatives, I'm too far down the evaluation to add any new options.”

In this case, asking for the shortcomings of both options will help you figure out if there is a big issue you might have overlooked.

My friends Amber Hawley and Maelisa Hall host the My Biz Bestie podcast. On episode 33 (season 3, episode 1) they share the 6 areas of your life that create your business support system. Here's the link to that episode: The 6 Areas of Your Life That Create Your Business Support System #33

What I love so much about what Amber an Maelisa have done is that they break down in order of importance who we are best asking advice from. These six are yourself, your biz bestie, your inner circle, your team, your loved ones and your community.

So instead of going to the outer ring of our support system first and ask for recommendations from social media, start from the core and work your way out. I suspect that most beneficial suggestions and feedback will come from your biz bestie or your inner circle.

Amber and Maelisa describe the inner circle as

The inner circle could be people in a mastermind, mentors, collaborators, or simply people you are close to. Your inner circle is a group of people that you share your wins with and they have seen the progress that you have made in your business.

I'd be honored to be part of your inner circle. Engage with me in the tech of business community, send me an email to Jaime@techofbusiness.com, comment on my Instagram posts (I'm @techofbusiness)

And when you want to make it official, book a tech strategy session! From time to time I also host office hours and open online chats on my schedule. I always send announcements for those to my email subscribers (click here to subscribe: https://techofbusiness.com/quickcheck/)

Thank you for hanging out with me on the tech of business podcast. Please share this episode with a friend who is looking at tech and would appreciate a fresh perspective!

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

037: Laura Petersen reveals the TECH to become an Amazon Bestseller

Wed, 05 Dec 2018 11:30:00 +0000

Laura Petersen (as she says with 3 “e”s) is our guest today. She has a system that helps entrepreneurs ethically and strategically write, self-publish, launch, and leverage a bestselling book.

Laura is a wealth of information and I'm guessing that "Write a Book" might end up on your goals after listening to this episode!

Join the Tech of Business Community!

Topics Discussed

The lead domino of business publicity: writing a book
Using Amazon as a research tool
The benefit of hitting #1 on Amazon (outside of the pretty screenshot)
The logistics for getting your book up on Amazon

Key Takeaways

There are subcategories (beneath business, marketing or your umbrella category) that are very relevant to your niche and those are the categories where it’s manageable to hit #1 bestseller and be proud of doing so.
Select the subcategory where the #1 ranked book has a lower OVERALL Kindle ranking because it’s a less competitive category. This means you’ll likely need fewer sales to hit #1 than you would in a more competitive category.

Websites & Tools Mentioned in this episode

KDPSpy
Google Productivity Suite (Docs, Sheets, etc)
Scrivener

Episode Quotes

“Any best seller list is possible to hit, it just depends on how much money you want to invest in marketing to make that happen.” – Laura Petersen

“Use the best right tool for what you’re doing.” – Jaime Slutzky

“A book is just another medium that allows us to share our knowledge with somebody a couple steps behind us.” – Laura Petersen

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Laura

Website: Copy That Pops
Books: Copywriting for Podcasters & Permission to Write a Brand Building Book
Instagram: LaptopLaura
Facebook: LaptopLaura

036: TECH for Managing Cash Flow with Katherine Pomerantz

Wed, 28 Nov 2018 11:30:00 +0000

Katherine is a money gal. She is also an artist and host of the forthcoming podcast called “Pivot don’t Quit it” I’ll link to the podcast when it’s live (psssst, Katherine interviewed me and we recorded a bonus for today’s episode that I’ll share once the podcast is live!)

Topics Discussed

Tech to invest in (both time and money wise)
The cash flow process in the business
- Documenting expenses
- Invoicing and Getting paid
- Reporting
- Bill Pay
Finding the best right tool for each segment of the cash flow process, unique to your business needs
Understanding the cash cycle in your business so that bills are paid when money is available.

Key Takeaways

Investing in tech can save you time. So investing your time in tech must benefit the future time savings.
Managing money well is the key to a profitable business staying in business. Profit without cash flow management can cause bankruptcy.
There is a tech stack we can build that make accounting and money more efficient.
Start not only tracking what needs to be paid, but when it needs to be paid.
Drill down and determine what the one most important mission critical thing is for your business in every step of the cash flow process. This will create your tech stack wish list.

Websites Mentioned in this episode

Episode Quotes

“It’s almost never about the money. It’s more about is it accomplishing its mission critical task? Is it doing what it really needs to do? Is it actually saving you time? If it’s doing those things… I don’t care what it costs, let’s pay for it if it’s actually helping!” – Katherine Pomerantz

“What actually matters is if you have cash on hand to pay your bills.” – Katherine Pomerantz

“A client or customer has zero obligation to pay you until they’ve been invoiced.” – Katherine Pomerantz

“For me, I prefer to add things to the system when we need them, and take them out when we don’t” – Katherine Pomerantz

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Katherine

Facebook: @thebookkeepingartist
Website: www.bookkeepingartist.com

035: [Tech Breakthrough] Tech for On-Boarding Clients

Wed, 21 Nov 2018 11:30:00 +0000

Last week, I unveiled the Tech Stack Framework and today we’re going to run the Tech of Business through the framework. I mentioned near the end of last week’s episode that the framework can and likely should be gone through multiple times.

I value your time and thank you for taking the time to listen and share each and every podcast episode. As I looked at the tools I use, it became clear that the most advantageous part of my tech stack for us to dig into is my client on-boarding process. This is the exact set of tools and processes that we go through in the early stages of working together.

Now, let’s get started!

I attract clients to my business through my Thinkific Experts listing (https://experts.thinkific.com/courses/jaime-slutzky), this podcast, my websites, being a guest on podcasts and web shows, organic social media and referrals and recommendations.

Once you think you might want to work with me, we’ll have a conversation so that we can vet one another and discuss the potential relationship.

From there, I put together a proposal and send it off. And once it’s signed, we move into payment and project setup….

Whoa, that’s a lot of steps to go through before getting to our on-boarding!

In fact, because there are so many steps, I am going to sidetrack slightly from the on-boarding tech to drop the tech used in this pre-client phase. Here the goal is to be hired after an initial outreach… that initial outreach may be via social media, email or an intake form on my website.

Once I determine that the initial request is within my expertise and availability, I will send you an Acuity Scheduling calendar scheduling link. I have several scheduling links that I may send. The only difference between them is the title that goes on the appointment to make it perfectly clear to both of us what we are going to be discussing.

I have integrated Acuity Scheduling with my Google Calendar so that I have accurate availability listed. Acuity also sends confirmation and reminder emails to both you and me. Inside those emails is a zoom link for the conversation.

After our conversation, I will create a custom proposal, using one of several templates that I store in Word 365. I use the Adobe Acrobat conversion tool to turn the Word document into a PDF which I then send over for approval and signature using Adobe Documents with Track and Sign.

I’ve used several different signing tools in the past and chose Adobe Acrobat DC a couple of years ago because it offers additional functionality that is relevant in my business. Many business owners I know who do one on one services will use more of an all-in-one system like 17 Hats or Dubsado.

Okay, back to our flow… once you sign the document, Adobe notifies me and I create your invoice in Wave Apps. I use Wave to also send the invoice to you, rather than going back into my primary email system to send it along. On the Wave dashboard I’m able to see the status of your invoice.

Oh, and I anticipate changing my accounting and invoicing system before the end of the year. I’m looking at QuickBooks and looking into reducing the amount of steps involved before we even engage in the client on-boarding.

Right now – there is minimal automation in this process even though I go through it multiple times each week.

To recap, the tools I use are:

Gravity Forms on my websites
Facebook messenger
Outlook 365 (for email)
Acuity Scheduling
Google Calendar
Zoom
Word 365
Adobe Acrobat DC
Wave Apps

Let’s pull out the Tech Stack Framework. The entire pre-client phase sits within the larger tech stack blueprint, but the Tech Stack Framework can certainly be used in isolation on this small section of my business. So you and I are the stakeholders and as I mentioned earlier, the goal is to enter into a client relationship.

Moving into the pyramid, the base layer tools are Acuity Scheduling, Zoom and Adobe Acrobat DC. And moving up a layer, the support layer tools will make those base tools work better. All the other tools fall into the support layer. There is nothing at the growth layer because it is a one-to-one relationship.

Yay… we’re finally at client on-boarding!

The stakeholders here are the same as they were in the early stage, you and me.

The goal is to set us up for a successful working relationship. Note please, that there is nothing about the actual work, just the setup process so that we are poised to work efficiently together.

To work efficiently together, I’ve determined that we need to have a means for asynchronous communication, a way to organize documents, images, videos, brand assets and other collateral, a secure method for sharing passwords or generating unique passwords, task management and milestone tracking. And depending on the duration and complexity of the project, we often also have real time communication needs.

I primarily use Basecamp for project management and if no other preference is supplied by you, then that’s what we will use. I am willing and able to use Trello or Asana. If we elect to use one of those tools, we will also use Slack.

Basecamp is one of our Base tools. It supplies the structure for asynchronous communication, content and asset collection, task management and milestone tracking. I suggest you setup LastPass for password management and sharing. Depending on the project we’re undertaking I will need you to provide some passwords to me and I may be creating passwords for you. Using LastPass allows the sharing of them to be done securely. I’ve got an upcoming episode on LastPass – I haven’t recorded it yet, so if you have any specific questions email me jaime@techofbusiness.com or post them in the Tech of Business Community on Facebook.

In Basecamp, the campfire is an ongoing stream of consciousness communication tool. There are not breakpoints. It is ideally suited for banter or conversation that will result in creation of new tasks, action items or milestones. I liken this to text messages, WhatsApp, or direct messages within social media platforms.

Basecamp messages are a great way to contain a topic to an isolated stream. They are used to discuss multiple tasks simultaneously or to discuss a single topic that will become a To Do List or task. Our Basecamp messages are akin to email threads but are kept inside the project and not in the inbox! I do not work with clients via email – it’s just not the best place for us to hang out.

The main feature of Basecamp is the To Do Lists with their associated tasks. This is where work is tracked and marked as complete. Tasks can be assigned to individuals, given start and end dates. Each task and to do list can be commented on and contain a discussion. All tasks with dates on them will also appear on the timeline, so that we have a visual representation of the project.

And, Basecamp also has a repository for file uploads. It has sub-folders and revision history. It’s a great feature… but sometimes, all the built in tools in Basecamp create redundant processes as we overlap our businesses for our new relationship. And this is an ideal time to move into the next layer of the Tech Stack Framework.

As you recall, the next layer is the Support layer. These are the tools that we are going to use to make our goal (to work efficiently together) even more achievable. These will include your primary cloud storage tool, Google Drive (which is my primary cloud storage tool), Acuity Scheduling, and Zoom, depending on the complexity of the project.

Let’s go back to the redundant processes I mentioned a few moments ago. If we were to upload all documents natively to Basecamp, then we would be introducing manual steps of downloading docs and images and such before uploading them. Which is why it’s so awesome that we can post full cloud storage locations inside Basecamp or paste urls from a tool into the relevant place in Basecamp. This is how we augment the functionality while reducing redundant processes.

Most communication between us will be asynchronous. We don’t need to have back and forth real time communication to complete tasks or projects. But sometimes, it makes sense to meet on zoom to make decisions, strategize or otherwise make real time progress. And for this, I open up my schedule via Acuity. I provide you with a unique link exactly for our project, so that it restricts the number of appointments we have and so on. The idea isn’t that I want to limit your access to me, it’s that from my years of working with clients, I find that it’s far better to have text-based communication for the “paper-trail”. Makes it easier to turn action items into tasks and track their progress.

I think we’re done with the support layer. So, let’s move onto the growth layer. Here again, my goal is to continue to make things as easy as possible. And I will use Zapier to keep all our tech tools talking to one another if they don’t talk to each other natively. That means adding things like our Acuity Appointments to the Basecamp schedule or otherwise keeping our disparate tools connected without manual processes. I’d rather set things up right at the outset and know that you and I are both confident that we have the right tools in place for supporting our efforts.

The final step of the on-boarding process is to document how, when and why to use each of the tools. We’ve gone into that in quite a bit of detail here in this episode. In a client on-board process, I’d likely use Zoom to walk you through the process and we would record the session and upload it to Basecamp. Or, if we didn’t feel that a real time walk through was needed, I’d record a walk through for you.

So there we have it. We’ve gone through the Tech Stack Framework for my client on-boarding process. And I hope you can now see how the framework can be applied one segment at a time so that when we complete the work, you’ve got a beautiful and functional tech stack blueprint.

This segment of my blueprint makes it super easy for me to know every step of the on-boarding process… and now, I have to invite you to go through this process with me!

Let’s create your tech stack blueprint and bring clarity to the tech in your business.

A lot of podcasts that I’ve been listening to lately have been talking about the financial health of our businesses. And that’s to be expected at this time of year, when spending in our personal lives increases and we start to set our sights on the new year.

This is also the time to talk about the tech health of our businesses – which is part of the reason I have been focusing on the Tech Stack Framework this week and last. I’m opening up a small number of Virtual CTO client spots in December and if you’re interested in going through the Framework, now is a great time to book a consultation call with me.

Best way to book a call is to click on the Virtual CTO button on https://techofbusiness.com/work-with-me/

Thank you so much for hanging out with me on the Tech of Business podcast today. Let’s connect in the Tech of Business Community on Facebook which you can get to at https://techofbusiness.com/community/. I cannot wait to hear what resonated most with you from today’s episode!

034 - [Deep Dive] The Tech Stack Framework

Wed, 14 Nov 2018 08:30:00 +0000

Today we’re digging into the Tech Stack Framework. I developed this framework as part of my Virtual CTO services – we’ll get into those more later in this episode.

In 2010, when I first started out building WordPress websites for clients, I knew I wanted to put together a website that would support their business. Trouble was, I was also just starting out and didn’t have a deep understanding of the online infrastructure required to support their businesses. This left me feeling quite accomplished with the website I delivered but anxious that I hadn’t met the actual needs that we were trying to fill.

So, I went on and dug into my intuition to make sure I firmly understood what else is needed online to truly support a business. And I dabbled – I dabbled in Facebook Ads. I dabbled in copywriting. I dabbled in email marketing. I dabbled in landing pages and funnels and membership site and online courses. As I dabbled, I took copious notes (mostly in my head) as to what was a fad, what had serious potential and what was going to stand the test of time.

I have easily been in 50 or more different software services for myself and for clients. These run from tools for hosting your business website and email marketing to content creation, planning, scheduling and delivery tools. And from calendaring, scheduling and event tools to shopping carts and online accounting software.

And because many software founders care deeply about the impact that their product has for their clients, we have tons of great tools – something for everyone!

I have my preferences, for sure, but my philosophy is that my role is to meet you where you’re at to create a supportive foundation for your business goals. If something is working, we don’t need to change it for change sake alone. But if something is causing headaches, not providing enough value or otherwise impeding business growth, then it’s time to circle back on that tool or system and determine how to correct course.

This brings us to the tech stack. This is a term I’ve adopted to encompass all the online systems and tools that a business uses to operate. It includes client-facing systems, back-office systems, content creation systems, marketing systems and lead-generation systems. I love a good tech stack… but without a framework a tech stack is only as good as the individual components – the framework addresses the critical thinking piece called “How does this all fit together and allow tech to support your business goals.”

The Tech Stack Framework is a process by which we can make the most of the systems and tools in your business.

Here is the framework:

The framework is a pyramid. The pyramid sits on a pedestal which represent the different audiences that interact with your business. These audiences are those internal to your business, your clients and the public.

Our audiences are people not tech tools, which is why they are not part of the pyramid. But they are a necessary entity to the checks and balances of the systems and tools we use in our businesses.

The base on the pyramid is called Base Tools. Base tools include those primary functions that allow us to showcase what we do, sell our products and services and deliver them to our customers and clients.

The layer on our pyramid is Support Tools. It contains the systems and tools that integrate with the base tools to allow them to work together, do more and drive your business towards your goals. At this level, we focus on tools and systems that allow us to create, manage and track.

The next layer contains our Growth Tools. These are the tools that help us to have systems around storage, visibility and learning.

Above this layer is a thin layer called Document. Our document layer is directly beneath the capstone because without it the tools in the Base, Support and Growth layers do not fully describe the landscape upon which business goals are realized.

And, this means that the pinnacle of the pyramid is your business goals! Without a well-documented, strong foundation it is going to be far more difficult to fully integrate online business initiatives.

Let’s take an example of the framework in action. This is a sample client, let’s call her Jenny, who delivers online training. She is a hybrid of four of my clients from the past year.

First, we identify the stakeholders we are going to evaluate our tools for. For Jenny it’s her blog readers, newsletter subscribers, social media followers, her students and herself.

Her base tools consist of Instagram, Facebook, Stripe, Thinkific, WordPress and ActiveCampaign.

Once we identify Jenny’s tools, we need to elaborate to be clear exactly how that tool is being used.

Instagram and Facebook are where Jenny shows up to the public, along with her ActiveCampaign emails and WordPress website which contains her blog. She interacts with her students on Facebook, via ActiveCampaign and provides content inside Thinkific. Stripe is her payment processor and integrates with Thinkific. Thinkific also integrates with ActiveCampaign so that her student list on the email system matches her student list on Thinkific.

Often there are overlapping uses of tools and within your tech stack blueprint, and this is perfect. It reduces the number of tools in use. In fact, you can reduce your tools by finding tools that overlap in functionality which is often done at every layer of the pyramid.

Now for WordPress we list out other details such as where it’s hosted, where the domain is registered, what theme we’re using, what plugins we’re using and how the WordPress website interconnects with the other base tools.

I believe that it’s important to get as granular as possible during the early phases of working with the framework, it’ll make the process of adding new systems or tools to your tech stack and tech stack blueprint far easier! And, knowing how the systems and tools connect, will make it far easier for someone else to work in your business and support your goals and initiatives.

Let me ask you -- If you were to hire someone tomorrow, would you know how to get them on board with your tech stack? If not, let’s have a tech strategy session to get you started! As always, strategy sessions are available at https://techofbusiness.com/strategy-session/

OK… with these components alone, we’ve got a business! Jenny is now able to let people know she has online courses, give people a way to purchase and then access the courses.

But that’s not enough to create a thriving business, so let’s move up to the next layer of the framework. The tools on the support layer do not add functionality unto themselves, they add support to the tools in the base layer.

For Jenny we have a significant amount of content creation so the tools she uses are Camtasia, Canva and Google Docs. These tools clearly support the tools that provide value to the stakeholders.

Also within the support layer we add our project management tool: Trello, password manager: LastPass and QuickBooks for accounting.

As we work through each layer of the Tech Stack Framework highlighting the connection between tools on adjacent layers will take your tech stack diagram from a list of tools to a usable and living blueprint.

Moving to the growth layer, we are exposing the tools that support creation, management and tracking, which as we’ve already mentioned support our base tools that allow us to sell, deliver and showcase our products and services.

The growth layer is the most cluttered ring and often where more and more tools are plugged in as a business grows. For Jenny’s business our primary growth tool is creating a feedback loop, so we have Typeform on this layer. We also list Google Drive on this layer as it is her central cloud storage location. Go back to episode 11 https://techofbusiness.com/011/ for a rundown of cloud storage options.

Just as we did for the tools at each of the other layers, listing out the name of the tool is not going to make it very usable. For Typeform we list out how it connects to Google Drive and ActiveCampaign. And for Google Drive we list out the file structure and hierarchy. We take the time to describe how these tools are used to support the elements on the layer below. This is what makes our tech stack blueprint a working document.

Jenny also has Google Tag Manager, Google Analytics and Facebook Pixel on this layer. These are going to allow her to expand her reach, understand her traffic and so much more.

One of the keys to the Tech Stack Framework and blueprint is that it positions you to think toward your goals and initiatives. I encourage you to link your tools together as closely as possible, either using integrated tools within the software or using Zapier. It’s incredible the automations that we can build… but that conversation is for another day, and another episode…

When we work together, with me as your virtual CTO, we will work through the Tech Stack Framework several times. We may work through it solely for your internal stakeholders or for your paying stakeholders. We may skip some of the forward-thinking steps. We may even work through it as a checks and balance for a new project or initiative. The idea being that our framework helps to make sure that the tech stack blueprint accurately reflects the tech we are using in our businesses. And each subsequent iteration helps the blueprint become more fully developed.

Now, I didn’t leave out the last layer of the pyramid – I just saved documentation for last!

The documentation layer is like the icing on a cake – it really completes the tech stack visual. Documentation consists of the plain language version of the tools and how they connect as well as a changelog.

The changelog is what gets updated when anything is added, changed or removed in the tech stack. Even when a new system or tool is being tested, I believe that it needs to go onto the blueprint – you may just fall in love with the tool and we don’t want to forget to document it!

I recommend having a directory in your primary cloud storage location and call it __Documentation__ with two underlines on either side. This will make sure it’s the first folder in view when viewing alphabetically.

There are several ways that we can work together to create your tech stack blueprint and beyond.

As I mentioned in the intro, the Tech Stack Framework is the first step when bringing me into your business as your Virtual CTO. The Tech Stack Framework can also be worked through in an intensive VIP day. VIP days are available both in person and virtually.

All packages are listed on https://techofbusiness.com/work-with-me/ and it would be my absolute pleasure to jump on a quick call with you to determine the best package for you and your business goals.

No matter your current online footprint, adopting the Tech Stack Framework will help you create a strong foundation.

As I was discussing tech stacks with business owners just like you, the most common fear that came up was “I just don’t know what I don’t know” followed quickly by “I’m worried that I’m going to break something.”

Let’s nip that in the bud and give you the freedom to feel confident that your tech is supporting your business. It’s all about ease and flow!

Thank you so much for hanging out with me on the Tech of Business podcast today. Please head into the Tech of Business Community on Facebook by going to https://techofbusiness.com/community/ and ask your questions about the Tech Stack Framework. There is a dedicated thread to today’s episode, number 34.

033: Online tools that do more than advertised with Jared Warner

Wed, 07 Nov 2018 08:30:00 +0000

Jared Warner is a marketing guy, the creator of the Entrepreneurship Growth Formula, an international best-selling author, speaker and host of the Get Found Radio Podcast.

Topics Discussed

Where Jared recommends starting a brand-new online business in 2018
Word-cloud software & websites
The software he uses with his clients and team
Subdomains for redirection

Key Takeaways

Don’t try to create solutions for your ideal customers until you’ve interacted with them and find out if they actually want what you think they do.
Use Amazon as a research tool for understanding the gaps in the market place for your customer. Paste reviews into a word-cloud software to help percolate the top. These are terms that might be really good for your marketing material.
Sometimes tools work different on different devices. Creating different workflows on the website versus inside the phone app may improve productivity or effectiveness of the software.
If things are falling through the cracks in your business, it may be time to search for a software solution to fill the cracks and improve workflow.

Websites Mentioned in this episode

com
Basecamp
Active Collab
Slack
Acuity Scheduling

Episode Quotes

“No tech, no business.” – Jared Warner

“…they’ve spilled their guts online. They’ve told you why they’ve bought it, what they like, what they didn’t like. “ – Jared Warner

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Jared

LinkedIn: https://linkedin.123getfound.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/jaredppc
Podcast: http://getfoundradio.com/
Book: From the Ashes of Failure

032: Helping Facebook help you with Facebook Marketing Specialist, Meg Brunson

Wed, 31 Oct 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Meg is a former Facebook employee who now offers done for you Facebook marketing services. She transitioned from working on the platform to working in the platform so that other business owners could stay in their own zone of genius (not to mention that she has four daughters that she is now present and available for!)

Topics Discussed

Having success on the Facebook platform
Standard Facebook Events and Custom Conversions
Google Tag Manager

Key Takeaways

The number one element that we need to effectively use the Facebook platform for our businesses is the Facebook pixel. It will allow you to do three main things:
- Track analytical data on your Facebook ads
- Optimize your Facebook ads
- Retarget audiences
The tracking code will be place on the page immediately after the desired action is taken. If someone is purchasing a product, the purchase event will go on the thank you page for that product.
Google Tag Manager allows you to have a dashboard to manage all your tracking events for your site in one single place rather than having to add unique event codes throughout your site.
Inside Tag Manager, you’ll be able to
- Create a Tag (names: 30 seconds on a page, button click, etc.)
- Input the Standard Facebook Event code inside the tag
- Set a trigger (ie: when Tag Manager should fire that event to Facebook)

Episode Quotes

“You need to look at it as your funnel. You want to track people at every step of the funnel… Really itemize each step of that funnel.” – Meg Brunson

“Just about anything that you would need to install code on your website for… Google Tag Manager can handle it!” – Meg Brunson

Be sure to listen to the end of the conversation to hear how we round out the trifecta of knowledge that Meg shares.

Watch this video to see how easy it is to add new Facebook tracking events into Google Tag Manager

https://youtu.be/NJPRk4-pLmw

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Meg

Website: https://megbrunson.com
Marketing Website: https://eieiomarketing.com
Instagram: @themegbrunson
Facebook: @themegbrunson

031: Beyond scheduling needs; how Shannon Crow built a relationship with Schedulicity

Wed, 24 Oct 2018 07:30:00 +0000

I invited Shannon onto the podcast to talk about Schedulicity and how she uses it in her businesses. We took that and ran with it. Towards the end of the episode we did a mini-tech breakthrough session because Shannon was really interested in my perspective on something that was tripping her up.

Topics Discussed

Online Scheduling Software: Schedulicity
Using the online chat or means of contacting your software provider
Mini Tech Breakthrough – switching from MailChimp to ActiveCampaign
Using Slack in conjunction with a Trello workflow for podcast production and release

Key Takeaways

Understand what you need your software to do. In Shannon’s case, partial payments and credit card holds were critical to taking up a spot in a workshop or class.
Investing in relationships, even with software providers and their support staff, can do great things for your business. In Shannon’s case, it landed her a podcast sponsor!
When adding new software or systems to your business, take a look at what you have and take a look at what you want. Try to hit a couple items on your want list and see how it goes. Don’t expect your entire wish list to transpire all at once by making one software change.

Episode Quotes

“Shannon, you have a podcast sponsor because you took the time to say ‘I wish’” – Jaime Slutzky

“They will routinely call me to have me sign up... and I ask them ‘Can you Beat Free’” – Shannon Crow

Other Tech of Business episodes mentioned:

Check out Schedulicity

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
Facebook: @yourbiztech
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Shannon

Website: https://theconnectedyogateacher.com
Instagram: @shannoncrowyoga
Facebook Page: @theconnectedyogateacher
Facebook Group for Yoga Teachers: The Connected Yoga Teacher Group

030: [Deep Dive] Choosing a Platform for your Next Online Project

Wed, 17 Oct 2018 07:30:00 +0000

This is a deep dive episode all about choosing a tech platform for your next project.

First a caveat: it is my belief is that most business owners do not need to focus on choosing the tech platform by themselves.

It’s far better for you as the business owner to get completely clear on the project vision and goals.

Then after that’s in place, the right tech platform will reveal itself… most likely by working with your tech team!

To give this episode context, I'm speaking about the platform decisions that I used with two of my recent clients, Greg and Claire.

Greg and Claire are at completely different stages of their businesses, but both came to me to build out a membership site for them. In fact, both of them came to me to build out membership sites using Thinkific. But only one of them ended up on Thinkific.

To understand why I steered Greg away from Thinkific and welcomes Claire’s Thinkific membership site with open arms, let’s discuss what goes into making a tech decision.

I alluded to this earlier – clarity on the project vision and goals.

Claire: She has built an online following and has a proven track record with her audience. She was looking for a new way to organize her content so that her members could pick and choose the content that they wanted to consume. And she was putting the content into courses with one or more lessons. The sheer fact that the content was going to be organized in courses with lessons lends itself ideally to a learning management platform.

But, was Thinkific the *right* learning management platform for Claire and her members?

For that, Claire told me that she has experience on Thinkific and wanted to use the platform. She had seen other membership sites on the platform and believed that it would suit her and her members well.

I didn’t have to figure out the platform with her because the evidence was clear that this would work.

Greg: He is brand new to his online business and started his YouTube channel shortly before our first call. He explained to me the vision for the membership site – almost entirely video content that would be released on a periodic schedule. Some of the videos would be available for public consumption while others were to be restricted to members.

I took pause – there was no mention of courses or lessons in his description. One checkmark in the column of “something other than Thinkific” and then we went on further into how his audience was going to purchase and consume the content.

His content is designed to be consumed on a regular basis, coming back week after week to grow and learn from him. There is no completion. It’s constant improvement. Another check in the column of “something other than Thinkific.”

And then he mentioned a website that he liked the flow of and when we took a look at that membership site, it was clear that Thinkific was not the direction that would be suit his goals.

The answer for him was most likely a WordPress website with a membership plugin. Before suggesting WordPress, I feel it is my due diligence to make sure that my client is ready to take on the administration of the website.

With WordPress, there needs to be structures in place to keep the site safe, secure and updated. That’s for another episode!

Greg was open to learning whatever was needed to start growing his business – and just this past week, we launched his WordPress based membership site!

Knowing your audience and their objectives with becoming a member has everything to do with finding the right tech tool.

If Claire’s audience wasn’t comfortable with picking and choosing courses from her array of content, then the structure inside the membership site may look vastly different. Claire and I built out a “START HERE” page which explains to her members how to navigate and best use the site.

In Greg’s case, we are using WordPress’s categories and tags to help with the organization and structure. We are giving his members many ways of searching the site for specifically what they are hoping to learn.

The platform itself isn’t the only thing to think about when choosing the platform, because as I’m sure you’ve realized we don’t operate each section of our businesses in isolation.

Your chosen platform needs to integrate with other tools that you use within your business.

It’s best to check for compatibility and interoperability.

Imagine this – you’ve chosen a tech solution for a given project and only come to find out that there is no way to get information out of that piece of tech into your primary communication system.

Do we move forward with the new tech or is this a breaking point that causes us to look at a new solution?

Claire uses Infusionsoft. There is a direct push of information from Thinkific to Infusionsoft available and we implemented that. This allows Claire to have a clear way to contact her members using the system that she’s already used to contacting them with.

On the other hand, Greg chose MailChimp for his email marketing. Both the Membership plugin we’re using on his WordPress site is able to do the necessary push. This is important.

I recommend using a platform decision matrix.

Click here to download your platform decision matrix

On the matrix, you'll insert the name of each tech platform in the first column and then based on your research, give a value for each of the columns, multiply it out and whichever scores the highest is likely the best platform for this project.

Each element in the matrix will get a value from 1 – 5.

VALUE SCALE

Functionality (5)

Integrations (4)

Internal Ease of Use (3)

External Ease of Use (3)

Quality of Support and Documentation (2)

Price (2)

1	Does not meet requirements	No integrations	Not sure how to get started and if I’ll be able to maintain it	Very complicated	No available support or documentation	Too expensive
2	Almost meets requirements	Integrates with a few pieces of software that I use	Initially looks complicated but I’ll get the hang of it	A little complicated	Some support or documentation	Stretches me a tad and may need additional software.
3	Far exceeds requirements	Integrates with most software that I use	Can get started on it right away but might have a couple stumbling blocks	Straightforward	Extensive support or documentation	Stretches me a tad.
4	Meets requirements	Integrates with everything I use	Anticipate minimal issues	Totally doable	Extensive support and documentation	Perfect. May need additional software.
5	Exceeds requirements	Integrates with everything I use and a ton more that I may consider	Straightforward for me and my team to use now and into the future	Very easy	Onboarding support	Perfect

Here is the completed matrix for Greg's project:

If you’ve got a project on deck and are looking for a tech platform, click here to do a one time tech strategy call with me.

Tech strategy sessions are unique to the time and place you’re in… and the best way to work with me to get you through a specific tech struggle. I’ve also had clients come to me for tech strategy sessions with a laundry list of current struggles, we work through that list and so much more.

029: Real Impact with Larry Roberts

Wed, 10 Oct 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Topics Discussed

Podcasting and Larry’s Book 1+1=Podcast
Scheduling tweets
Paying attention to the real impact rather than vanity metrics

Key Takeaways

With whatever you do, you want to keep it accessible and you want to want to actually do the thing.
During the content production, create your social media posts simultaneously so that they are ready to go when the content is released. Larry does this with his podcast editing!
A podcast doesn’t need to run for an extensive amount of time.

Speaker Quotes

“A podcast is nothing more than a vehicle for your voice.”

“With a podcast they [your audience] get to hear your voice, they get to hear your expertise on the subject matter!”

Be sure to take a listen to Larry and I on his podcast Readily Random!

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Larry Roberts

Email: larry@readilyrandom.com
Website: https://readilyrandom.com
Book: 1+1=Podcast
Facebook Profile: https://www.facebook.com/larrynroberts
Facebook Page: https://www.facebook.com/readilyrandom/

028: Meet your Audience Where They're at with Amanda Thebe

Wed, 03 Oct 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Topics Discussed

Amanda’s Podcast – Fit N Chips
Being at the mercy of the social media algorithms
The tech that Amanda is using to deliver her 6-month Menopause Hacks

Key Takeaways

If you can take away just one single nugget from a podcast episode, it’s a podcast to come back to
As a business professional using social media to engage with clients and potential clients, where do you draw the line on sharing? Your clients and prospective clients are busy as it is, and it’s important to set clear expectations as to when and how your message will be communicated (this can also change over time!)
Learn how your audience wants to receive paid content from you and build it so that they will find success in it

Speaker Quotes

“My first focus [for the beta] was content related. And now I’m looking at how I’m delivering [the course.]”

“I’ve started a snowball and it’s going to keep going. That’s the way that I look at this.”

“If you want good clients that want to stay with you, you have to build the connection… and then you have to be prepared to do the work!”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Amanda Thebe

Website: https://fitnchips.com
Instagram: https://instagram.com/fitnchips/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/fitnchips/

027: [Deep Dive] Tech tools for team communication

Wed, 26 Sep 2018 07:30:00 +0000

This is a deep dive episode of the Tech of Business podcast. and we're talking about internal team communication tools. This came up over the weekend in a Facebook group that I’m a part of, and I decided to jostle the release schedule around to share this information today.

The question that was posed in the Facebook group revolved around internal communication and collaboration tools. Some that were mentioned include Slack, Trello, Asana, Google Docs Voxer and Email and Facebook Messenger. That’s a lot of tools, and in this episode, I’m going to share my thoughts on how to best select and utilize internal team tools.

First up, I would like to convince you that email is never the right tool for internal communications. Even the big companies use other chat or messenger tools over clogging up inboxes.

I think that email is a necessary evil. It has become for many of us a dumping ground for promotions from other entrepreneurs and businesses, automated updates from service providers and social media and project management tools, and calendar reminders and so much more. The best way to run an email inbox is to have a lot of structure and rules around it – I firmly believe that it’s not the place where team communication and tracking should reside.

There, we got that out of the way.

Now, that that’s done, there are several facets to the original question that we need to disentangle.

A team, regardless of shape or size needs to have a place to:

Run client and internal projects
Easily chat with other team members
Understand where to store, retrieve and search company documents

For storing, retrieving and searching company documents, I’d encourage you to go back to Episode 11 in which we discussed Cloud Storage.

In that episode I explained the benefits of using cloud storage in business and some of the best ways to structure your content. Let’s go into a bit more detail on the content as it pertains to internal team documents.

These documents may include your operations manual, checklists, guides, timecards, company policy and so on. While other documents will be templates and outlines that will be completed during the course of business, working with clients.

Files that are reference only, should be stored as read-only to avoid accidental modifications. For my own sake, I keep a working copy of these documents locally on my computer, but you could use an alternate cloud storage location. This way, the only time that I’m touching the master document is to replace it with a more updated version.

Now, files that will be the starting point of a new client onboarding or new project may vary substantially based on the type of business that you have. For these files, I recommend having read only templates available and a procedure for setting up shared files for client projects. As the business owner, it’s up to you to figure out what set of these files need to be stored for the team and which ones are only needed for the team member responsible.

These two forms of internal documentation go hand in hand – policies and procedures are set in place so that the relevant team member or members knows how to do the job according to specification and templates, including fillable workflows and checklists, complete the consistency circle. Everyone is working from the same rules and we, as the entrepreneur or business owner is easily able to maintain a grasp on the files that are in use.

If your business is like mine, you may also have files, processes and procedures that you want to make available to your clients as you work through the project together. Those files are best to be shared inside your project management tool of choice… so let’s talk about project tracking and project management tools.

The two most common free options for project management are Trello and Asana.

Your chosen project management tool will be where a project actually lives. Inside here you’ll be able to list off a series of steps that need to be performed, assign the task to a team member and have conversation about the progress of each step or task directly inside the task manager.

There are a ton of ways to setup project management tools. Some projects may only be done once while others could be completed on a quarterly, monthly or daily basis. And still others will include client interaction and involvement.

I have found the best way to use any project management tool is to, just like with files, create templates which can be mirrored for each instance or cycle.

Don’t let the idea of creating templates scare you – the way I generally do this is to run the process through on a live project and then once it’s complete, mirror it and generalize it. This way you’re cutting down on the setup and giving yourself a framework for building out your project management.

Once a project or board or task is mirrored it can then be assigned to a team member, given a completion date and personalized for the specific project with client-specific information.

I am inside my project management tools on a daily basis communicating with my team and with my clients. I love that we can have simultaneous conversations relating to different tasks. Let’s say that you and I are building out a Thinkific-based membership site together. We could be talking about the color scheme on one task and the landing page layout on another and yet another task could be discussing the member dashboard. These would be three separate conversations between the same parties, yet each one stands alone… when one of them is complete, we don’t need to circle back on that topic, the back and forth progress of that task doesn’t get mixed in with other conversations relating to other parts of the project. And everything sits in a nice tidy box…

Or so we wish… it’s very difficult for our brains to compartmentalize conversations to the task at hand. So instead of flipping to the relevant task someone will undoubtably write a comment, share insight or ask a question on the wrong thread or task… It takes more time and energy to post those thought fragments in tiny sections across the multitude of tasks and slowly, if not nipped in the bud, managing the project becomes a nightmare.

The best way I’ve found for nipping something like this in the bud is to take the comment that was written in the wrong place and copy it to the correct place and then reply to it there. And doing this without making any mention of it on the original or wrong thread… because any additional off-topic content on that thread negates the corrective action.

To put it simply – as the entrepreneur or business owner, it’s our responsibility to adhere to our systems and processes. Lead by example, don’t make an example out of people.

Well then, you might be wondering “Jaime, where then is the best place to have conversations regarding content posted in the wrong thread or otherwise interact outside of the tasks at hand?”

And that my friend is through another tool, which allows asynchronous communication. This can be with Voxer or Facebook Messenger or Slack.

While I don’t personally recommend text message for asynchronous communication, that might also be the right tool for you. I would stay away from Facebook Messenger for team communication because it will help you stay off Facebook during work sessions and while I love Voxer for quick voice memos, I recommend trying Slack for your async communication.

The type of content that is best suited for Slack are quick check ins, decision making updates, inquiries on availability, SOS type urgent outreach and potentially a space to brain dump future projects or do a stream of consciousness rambling surrounding an activity in a current project.

And just like with cloud storage and project management, async communication tools can get disorganized and scattered if there aren’t systems and processes to pull them together.

Structure seems to really be the subtheme for today’s episode!

We talked about structure for file storage, let’s now talk about structure as it pertains to Slack… The first step with Slack is to setup your team workspace. Inside the workspace there are public and private channels and the ability to direct message other workspace members.

Your workspace is created with two channels: general and random as well as a direct message agent called slackbot. From there, I generally create a public channel for each client. I believe this is better than one for each project, because even if you’re working on several projects for the same client, the conversation about the client is generally independent of the project or task at hand – and any communication that is directly related to a project or task belongs in the project management tool not Slack.

I also create channels for company announcements, suggestions, help desk and so on. Each channel and direct message thread is a continuous stream of messages which can include attachments.

The distinct advantage of Slack sitting outside of project management is that it helps move through projects or internal tasks without each message being tied to a specific deliverable.

On the other hand, sometimes conversations in Slack need to be tied to a specific task and then it becomes a matter of moving the conversation back from Slack into Trello or Asana.

This doesn’t need to be automatic… I recommend simply noting that it needs to be moved by using hashtags at the point where the move needs to take place. The tag I use is #transfer and then list the project that it needs to be transferred to.

Then once a week or according to your needs and schedule, go back through Slack and copy the necessary text over!

My top tips for Slack are:

Use a separate channel for each client not each project
Create a culture of consistency and required check ins
Use tags to help with searching through the streams

We’ve already covered a lot in this episode let’s recap what we have discussed so far.

Internal team communication requires structure, systems and processes. Each member of the team should be provided with the best chance for success by understanding how and when to use each tool. The file structure in Google Drive is for templates, guides and manuals. The boards in Trello or projects in Asana are for client and internal projects and consist of tasks with due dates and deliverables. The channels in Slack are for dialog and check ins.

This is all quite theoretical in nature, so let’s dig into a real example – this podcast.

Each week a new podcast is released. It’s a recurring project for me and my team.

The first step of each podcast episode is either scheduling an interview or deciding on the topic for a deep dive session. As soon as that step is initiated, our template for podcast production is used.

Inside the template is each step that needs to be taken to get a podcast episode released. These include record the episode, create artwork, write show notes, edit episode, create mp3 file, upload to libsyn and so on. Files associated with the episode are uploaded into the project management tool, not into Google Drive – because they are specific to that project. However, the podcast intro, outro and interlude music sits in Google Drive since those are team resource files.

Each task is assigned a due date, based on the order in which it needs to be completed so that we release on time.

Most communication for the podcast release occurs on the tasks and we rarely need to use Slack. But the types of things that come up in Slack are suggestions for changing the sequence of episodes since that is outside of the podcast episode release and thoughts on episode takeaways during editing, since Slack is a faster means of communication for our team.

You could take this general idea from podcast releases and apply it to internal projects in your business such as sending your weekly emails, publishing blog posts, creating YouTube videos or getting the content ready for a Facebook Live.

Even if your team is only you and one other part time virtual assistant, creating a foundation of how and where and when to communicate will begin to build team culture, develop realistic expectations, empower your team members and give framework for growth.

Thank you for hanging out with me today for this deep dive episode on the Tech of Business podcast. I have loved sharing about internal team communication. I would encourage you to sign up for a Slack workspace today and start building consistent communication channels.

Inviting tech to the table is powerful and you don’t need to do it alone. I’m here to help you make the process easier and efficient. Book a tech strategy session with me. We’ll get on a call together and setup your internal communication tools and create a structure that is exactly right for you and your business!

026: Systems and Software with Marina Darlow

Wed, 19 Sep 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Topics Discussed

Who needs systems and project management
The types of systems you need for day to day operations
The real money leaks in your business

Key Takeaways

Think about what you have to offer the world – in Marina’s case this is how she thinks
It’s 100% awesome to be able to disregard a tool if it doesn’t match your needs even if other people speak highly of it

Speaker Quote

“Play to your strengths. And build the systems around your strengths.”

Website and tools mentioned in this episode

Wrike
Gantt Charts
Asana
Trello
Basecamp
Smart Sheets
MS Project
Infusionsoft

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Marina Darlow

Podcast: https://systemsmeethumanity.com
Website: https://vision-framework.com
Twitter: https://www.twitter.com/VisionFramework/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/VisionFramework/

025: Keeping conflict out of communication with Amanda Semenoff

Wed, 12 Sep 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Picking up right where last week’s session with Micah Larsen left off, this episode, with Amanda Semenoff, talks about tech in conflict and conflict resolution – which comes back to communication.

Topics Discussed

Tech as it pertains to being the conflict and part of the conflict resolution
Setting parameters around and expectations within technology choices for communication
Chat bots, to help conversations and interaction at the outset of communication
Voice recognition, Cortana, Siri and Alexa

Key Takeaways

When we communicate asynchronously (such as in email), one party will give what they believe is important and the reply expanding and questioning on that and it becomes an iterative loop. It could be replying 15 or more times to get to the core of the substance. If that communication transitioned faster to voice and interactive conversation the duration of the communication would be much shorter and more succinct.
Use tools that meet the needs of the clients that come in the door. It doesn’t make sense to introduce systems or tools that will not be adopted or maintained in client interaction.

Speaker Quotes

“To be able to connect in real time [at a distance] over the internet gives us the incredible ability to work in ways that we haven’t been able to in the past. It is a real game changer.”

“If I’m going to be working with somebody a lot on a project, I like to do a video or an in person [conversation] and then move to email. Because then I know that we at least have all the ground work laid out.”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Amanda Semenoff

024: Effective Persuasion in business with Micah Larsen

Wed, 05 Sep 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Most of us as business owners started our venture because we love our modality and want to share it with others. We likely didn't start our businesses to coerce people to buy from us or hire us. And that's exactly where Micah's research can step in and help us all -- in this episode Micah demonstrates how communication and persuasion work hand in hand in business.

Topics Discussed

The way people communicate through technology (Micah refers to technology as the “mediator”)
The rules of business communication and the emotional context of messages
Choosing one form of video communication over another for different settings and what’s going on in the background of video conferences
Micah’s Persuasion Algorithm
Technology in Persuasion Science (hint, it’s science fiction coming to reality… at a theater near you!)

Key Takeaways

Emojis, Emoticons and GIFs help deliver the emotional context of a message, but are not generally used in business and therefore we need to learn how to communicate with persuasion
Media Richness Theory brings in all the senses to communication. Can we obtain visual cues? Proximity cues? Auditory cues? It’s a spectrum and it’s generally best to find the richest medium to persuasively carry your message.
Being a credible authority figure (somebody with a lot of expertise & trustworthiness) makes it far easier to influence your audience

Speaker Quotes

“When we argue a little against our own interests and self-exterminate, the people around us think ‘this person really wants the best for me and the best outcome for everyone.’”

“Persuasion is not sales. It’s understanding how the brain works to hack our thinking and give people a shortcut without making them feel like they are being railroaded.”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Micah Larsen

Website: https://apiscommunicationscience.com
Email: micah@apiscommunicationscience.com
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/apiscommscience/
Twitter: https://twitter.com/apiscommscience
Instagram: https://instagram.com/apiscommscience/

023 - A simple tech stack and strategic implementation with Eli Natoli

Wed, 29 Aug 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Topics Discussed

Lead Generation Tools (psst, Eli's top pick is ConvertKit which I think is pretty awesome, I generally recommend ActiveCampaign)
Website and Course Delivery Platforms
Content Marketing

Key Takeaways

With ConvertKit you can easily add tags to users based on activity directly in the email – signups for webinars and such without having to use a secondary tool to piecemeal it together.
When you purchase a WordPress theme from a premium marketplace rather than using a free theme, your purchase comes with support and ongoing development/updates
Content is only going to move your business forward if it’s created strategically. You don’t need a ton of content on multiple channels, rather, your content should support and lead prospects to your offer (the product or service that you’re selling.)
When trying to figure out the type of content you’re going to create, look at how your audience is going to want to consume that content and then take action on it.
Approaching content marketing as one human helping another human, you will automatically know the platforms and tools to focus on.

Speaker Quotes

“If you really want to build that business, if you want to grow your business, you have got to know how to do good content marketing.”

“Every time they [your prospects] interact with your content and they have those little wins, their confidence in themselves goes up… and you’re also building their confidence in you, that you are the person that can get them there.”

Eli's course Invisible to Influencer is currently in enrollment. The link to check it out is https://techofbusiness.com/eli-natoli-course/

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Eli Natoli

Website: https://elinatoli.com
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/elinatoli/
Twitter: http://twitter.com/elinatoli
Facebook: http://buildgrowthrive.club/
Invisible to Influencer course: https://techofbusiness.com/eli-natoli-course/
Service First Framework book: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B07C1917Z5

022 - TECH for seeing and measuring funnels with Mikael Dia

Wed, 22 Aug 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Mikael and his team created funnelytics to solve the problem of:

mapping the funnel on the whiteboard
translating the whiteboard funnel into software tools
read and understand Google Analytics to determine what is actually happening with the funnel

The idea was to migrate the mapping from the whiteboard to a digital canvas and see the numbers directly on the canvas. This visual allows marketers to see the path that people are taking, conversions from one step to the next, where people are dropping off. And this became funnelytics!

When does a business need a marketing funnel?

Once your business has the following:

proof of concept
actual purchasers
nailing your messaging
done with conversations and one-to-one interaction

Then once you know

this is the offer
this is what we sell
this is who it serves
this is how it helps them
this is the problem that it solves

That's when you should think about having a marketing funnel

Key Takeaways

A funnel is a linear process and has the ability to be quantitatively analyzed.
It is the process by which you take random strangers on the internet and getting them to take the action (purchase) that you present to them.
Your funnel is not complete when someone fills out the form on your website or sets up a phone call with you. That is not true, the end goal is them turning into a customer or client. Keep going!
A funnel doesn’t have to be online, but it does start with marketing something
Looking at analytics can be intimidating. It is hard to translate the numbers and graphs into understanding what is going on with your website.

Speaker Quote

“A funnel removes option for the user. Website pages in the funnel rarely have navigation bars that take the user away from the objective.”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Mikael Dia

Website: io
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mikael.dia
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mikaeldia/

021: [Deep Dive] Funnel Tech Requirements

Wed, 15 Aug 2018 07:30:00 +0000

The term funnel is thrown around quite a lot in the online space and it is the process by which businesses gain trust and earn clients.

The top of the funnel is a geared towards a large pool of potential clients and each step of the funnel moves some potential clients into your paid client sphere or allows them to drop off.

Let’s consider each step in a funnel as a conversion. The first step of the funnel, before anyone ever enters is awareness – this could be in the form of referrals, interviews, content marketing, articles, social media or paid advertising to name a few.

Once someone is aware of your business they may enter the top of the funnel by signing up for your email list in exchange for

a checklist or
a worksheet or
a challenge or
a webinar link or
a virtual summit ticket or
anything else that has value and is easy to distribute

The top of your funnel could even be

subscribing to your podcast or
joining your Facebook group, LinkedIn group,
conversing with your Facebook page via messenger or
Slack channel.

These methods will be discussed in a future episode. Later in today’s episode we’ll discuss the top of funnel tech that is based around email address exchange.

Near the top of your funnel are also small products or one time services, booking a consultation or limited or trial access to a membership site.

People who “convert” at the earlier stages are more likely to see all that your business can offer and then invest in more products and services with you.

Marketing specialists and strategists focus on helping businesses get more people into the top of the funnel and guide them swiftly towards a product or service.

Next week’s episode of the Tech of Business podcast is with Mikael Dia who started funnelytics.io which is a software tool to visually map and understand funnels in your business… which is part of the reason we’re doing a deep dive into funnels today (I kinda wanted to make sure that next week’s episode had relevance for you!)

The power of a funnel is to nudge your audience to the next level.

I know that this works because I’ve seen it work on myself.

Let’s take my friend Amber De La Garza and her podcast Productivity Straight Talk. I was listening to episode 59: Email Inbox Insanity: How to Tame it Then Maintain It – anyway, I was listening to her episode where she shared her 5 simple email decisions and mentioned that on the shownotes there is a download called “5 Simple Email Decisions Desktop Sign” that I could actually print out and put on my desk – so that every time I head into my inbox I will know exactly how to tackle the new items.

She hooked me on that one, and I went to her shownotes, downloaded and printed out the sign and posted it on my desk.

Amber’s freebie is the top of a funnel. From there, I could decide that I need a productivity coach or to purchase something else from her. While I already trusted her insight, the download renewed my trust and puts her top of mind. Every day when I sit down to tackle my inbox, I have a reminder of that trust.

At present, I’m sitting in Amber’s funnel – excited to see where she takes me next.

OK, so now it’s time to talk about the technology that goes into the top of the funnel.

As I said before, for today, we’re going to focus on email address exchange for top of funnel and it consists of three facets:

Opt-in or Landing page
Email marketing system
Delivery

The opt-in or landing page is simply the name provided to the page that describes the value exchange. It includes the email collection form which ties it to the email marketing system.

This page can be created using a dedicated landing page system like LeadPages, ClickFunnels, Kartra, Instapage or any number of page builders for WordPress. This page looks different than a regular website page to the visitor because it only has one action (to take advantage of the offer) and it doesn’t include navigation or other distracting elements.

When building your opt-in pages, you’ll want to make sure that they work well on all screen sizes.

While you may not be ready to jump into Facebook ads or understanding the analytics and conversion of this page, I highly recommend adding the Facebook pixel and Google analytics code to this page.

[I told myself that I wasn’t going to go all technical, and that might have been a bit technical. So, if you’re using a dedicated landing page system, there is likely a location within the dashboard to add these snippets. It’s important, but don’t let this stop you from creating the top of your funnel. If you would like to get this setup, head over https://techofbusiness.com/work-with-me/ to schedule a one time tech strategy session to get you on the right track.]

Once someone completes the form on your opt-in page, their email address is entered into your email marketing system. For the user, you’ll want to direct them to the next page of the funnel, which is often a thank you page that lists next steps. Sometimes the freebie will be delivered right on the thank you page, other times it will be delivered via email.

In the email marketing system, we’ll set it up to send that new user a series of one or more emails that deliver the freebie and provide additional value. This may include a full on automatic sequence, if you’ve flushed out your funnel already, or it might just be the gift and then adding them to your general distribution email

Please note: there are different laws and rules regarding sending promotional, informational and marketing emails. Be sure that you’re crossing your T’s and dotting your I’s in the eyes of the law. And if you need a lawyer, my guest from Episode #2, Jamie Lieberman is fantastic – you can connect with her at https://hashtag-legal.com.

I usually recommend delivering the freebie via email, rather than on the thank you page. This is because the more information we have about a user the better – by delivering the freebie via email, we can make sure that they open the email with the download in it and also see that they’ve clicked on the link to receive the item.

Regardless of the size of your freebie, from a one-page PDF to a multi-week summit, email will be the main vehicle for guiding your new lead in your funnel.

In the virtual summit space, the funnel is guiding the attendee to purchase the extended summit series.

The opt-in page for a virtual summit is often a longer form invitation with multiple opportunities to opt-in for a free ticket to the summit. These are positioned strategically down the page, so that as soon as the website visitor is on board with the summit concept, they don’t have to hunt for the sign up form.

The thank you page for a virtual summit will provide instructions to check your inbox for important summit information and may include a number of links – ranging from sharing the summit on social media to purchasing the summit series at a deep discount. Because the user has multiple options for what to do at this point, this page is not generally considered part of the funnel.

The time between signup for the summit and the summit kick-off date is called the pre-summit series. And this series has one goal: to entice the lead to purchase the summit series.

It’s important to mix in valuable content with the purchase opportunity or you might turn off your lead before they even get to day 1. This is why Facebook groups and content rich emails are also important elements to the funnel.

And good tracking is important too – because we don’t want to be selling to someone who has already bought.

Let’s bring this back to the funnel – to know if a funnel is working, we want to understand the numbers.

How many people are landing on our opt-in page.
How many people are signing up
How many people are opening our email
How many people are taking the next step (and the next, and the next, and purchasing something from us.)

If you’re running ads, then the Facebook Ads manager will be a great place to grab these numbers. Your email marketing system will provide hints. And regardless of the source of your traffic, Google Analytics and Google Tag Manager are great tools to help gain insight into how people are interacting with the funnel.

Today is the best day to setup the tech side of tracking systems. This will start collecting data for you, even if you’re not looking at it yet. Your future marketing department will thank you!

And come back next week when we talk with Mikael of Funnelytics who has a marketing background. The week after I sit down and talk marketing technology with Eli Natoli who is a growth mentor for coaches and entrepreneurs.

We’re in this together – I’d love to know what tech you’re rocking or exploring for your funnels. Come join us in the Tech of Business Community on Facebook at https://techofbusiness.com/community/

If you would like to email me, I can be reached at jaime@techofbusiness.com.

020: [TECH BREAKTHROUGH] WordPress & Libsyn with Leanne Kabat

Wed, 08 Aug 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode, I chat with Leanne Kabat about the WordPress / Libsyn integration that I use for the Tech of Business in order to help her move forward with the MamaConnects podcast.

Here are the steps that we discuss:

Record interview / episode
Edit episode, write shownotes or takeaways
Save episode as MP3
Upload episode to Libsyn
Provide Libsyn with shownotes, title and other relevant podcast details
Schedule episode for release at given date/time
Grab libsyn embed code
Start post on WordPress
In text mode, paste the embed code from Libsyn
Switch to Visual mode and enter shownotes
Set post categories & tags
Create artwork in Photoshop - 3 formats, episode artwork, Facebook, square
Upload episode artwork as featured image
Upload Facebook artwork to Yoast SEO social tab --> Facebook
Schedule post for release at same time/date as libsyn

Also mentioned on this episode:

Linktr.ee: Linktree is a free tool for optimising your Instagram traffic by providing an interface to have more than one link in your bio

Setup shortlinks using a redirection plugin so that this episode can be found at https://techofbusiness.com/020/

About Libsyn

Liberated Syndication (libsyn) pioneered the system to host and publish podcasts in 2004. And since then has grown to the largest leading podcast network with over 2.6 billion downloads in 2014. Libsyn hosts over 25,000 shows with 44 million monthly audience members.

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Leanne

Instagram: mamaconnects
Twitter: MamaCon4U
Facebook: MamaConUS
Website: www.mamaconnects.com

019 - Tech isn't always the answer, with Allen Vaysberg

Wed, 01 Aug 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode Jaime and Allen discuss:

Using technology in employee wellness and experiences
Why he creates memes and his process for creating and delivering them
- Locate photo at depositphotos.com
- Use PicMonkey.com to merge image with the proper words
- Deliver meme via social media or email marketing
Creating content in a way that the audience is seeking
Making connections with the right people and for the right purposes

Key Takeaways

SEAMLESS is an acronym which reminds you of the eight things to do daily:
- get plenty of Sleep (quality, uninterrupted sleep of at least seven hours)
- Eat a balanced diet and drink lots of fresh water
- Be Active for at least 30 minutes (activity doesn’t mean lift every day)
- Meditate (nine minutes per day is a good start and you can do it!)
- Love others, Love yourself and Insert something you Love into every day
- Expand your horizons to continue growing (learn something new every day)
- reduce your Stress (don’t manage it — eliminate it!)
- get plenty of Sunshine & fresh airDo something that you love everyday, no matter how long you have to do so.
We all can use the same general set of tools and create results that resonate with our audiences. Just because a tool is free or low cost, doesn’t necessarily relate to how practical and functional it is in your business.
Go into your creative efforts with the intention to serve, not necessarily to just make money. The product will turn out better and the results will be more in line with your values. “See the cake for what is instead of what you think it ought to be.”

Speaker Quote

“Stay pure with your intention. And as part of the process [if your intention is pure] you’re helping people. And in that help, they could use more of your service which helps them, you and the universe.” – Allen Vaysberg

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Allen Vaysberg

Courses: https://courses.allenvaysberg.com
Website: thenewlovetriangle.com
Twitter: https://twitter.com/AllenInspirer
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/inspirer
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/avaysberg/
Free gift: https://allenvaysberg.lpages.co/the-new-love-triangle-giveaway-sg/

018 - [Deep Dive] Your Zone of Genius & My 41st Birthday

Wed, 25 Jul 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Today is my 41^st birthday!

I had to make this a special episode. When I first realized that I would be releasing an episode on my birthday, I thought about sharing my tech stack with you and why I chose certain pieces of technology to complete my unique business puzzle… but then I thought that your business is different than mine, so how would an episode like that actually benefit you?

It might showcase a few elements or techniques that you hadn’t realized before but not much more than that… so I pivoted this birthday episode towards something that I hope you’ll sink your teeth into.

My goal, coming to you each week by way of this podcast, is to help lay the technology path that allows your business to grow for you to spend more time operating inside your zone of genius. And most episodes are designed to stand alone so that you can move forward on that path.

Sometimes you’ll use the podcast a bit like a choose your own adventure – find what you’re looking for and implement it and then come back for more when you’re ready. Other times you and I will create a deeper relationship growing week over week while building the tech stack and foundation for you and your business.

Last week was the start of a shift in the focus of the podcast, from here on out… I’m going to make sure that each episode is geared towards you and your results – no need to share software and technology simply for the sake of talking about software and technology… there needs to be a compelling reason for you to invest precious time, money and energy into improving, simplifying or augmenting your tech stack.

Whether you’ve been listening since the start, found the podcast through a search or a friend’s recommendation – thank you for your listenership. I appreciate you and would love to connect further with you… so, officially starting today, I invite you to join the Tech of Business Community on Facebook. You can access the group by going to https://techofbusiness.com/community/

I’m excited to welcome you to the group – and will you invite friends along so that for my 41^st birthday there will be at least 41 members by the end of the month?

Today’s episode is digging into and finding your zone of genius.

From there, we’re going to explore how inviting tech to have a seat the table can allow you to spend more time working within your zone of genius.

The zone of genius is a term that gets thrown around a lot and most definitions are something like this…

A venn diagram with three overlapping circles representing expertise, passion, market demand
The overlap between expertise, passion and market demand is the sweet spot or zone of genius

I don't love that definition because it feels like the zone of genius is a contained space

Instead, I came up with the zone of genius as where your expertise or skills AND passion collide

The zone of genius becomes an expanding space. The more time we spend in our zone of genius, the bigger the impact it can have.

As part of my entrepreneurial journey, I spent a number of years in personal training and fitness.

I've known for years that my passion is in helping others, so when I decided to become a personal trainer, I was working within my passion. However, I had a lot of limiting beliefs about being an expert in fitness and training. I didn't step onto the gym floor with my best foot forward because I believed that other trainers were more qualified to help the patrons achieve their goals. I was not working in my expertise.

This resulted in my energy being drained, my stress level increasing and me not feeling fulfilled. I knew it was not sustainable and that when I switched my focus away from fitness and back towards computers, software and technology I was able to find my zone of genius.

And just the same way as my switching my focus back to tech strategy and software implementation, the same holds true for this podcast… I was not working in my zone of genius the way that I produced the first 16 episodes. I’m not saying that I’m not proud of them, because I am and I had great conversations that shed light on tech that other businesses are using to grow and thrive, but because I wasn’t fully working in my zone of genius to share those stories.

Going forward, you’ll find that I’m going to pop into the episodes more regularly with tidbits, suggestions, hindsight and so on, to make them all actionable and valuable to each and every one of you.

Now, let me help you clear the fog away by showing how inviting tech to the table in your business will allow you to spend more time in your personal zone of genius.

Businesses these days are easier than ever to start. And from the start, you’ve made tech decisions. These decisions could be big like investing in Infusionsoft, Thinkific or ClickFunnels or they could be small like adding the ability to do Zoom calls with your clients.

But, does the actual software or tool you ultimately decide on actually matter?

Doesn’t it matter more that the software is setup fully and operates in a way that moves your business forward and allows you to spend more time creating or doing work in your zone of genius.

A lot of tech and SaaS – or software as a service – companies rely on fancy sales pages and video sales letters to convince us that we can do it with a techie on our staff. And there are so many great choices when it comes to software to help our businesses.

When I started working with my chiropractor in 2016, she was pretty low tech. Scheduling involved a lot of text messages back and forth and payment was done with a square device on her phone.

Sometime in the past few months, she decided to invite tech to the table to do more for her it was to streamline processes in her business. And then, she had a massive choice to make – invest in a system that was designed specifically for the health care space, or invest in a system that was robust, flexible and mainstream.

The mainstream answer would have been to adopt something like Acuity Scheduling or Calendly. And then for payments, she would have integrated with Stripe which can get you setup as a healthcare provider so that you can accept HSA cards.

Instead, she chose to go with Jane App which is full practice management software. This one piece of technology allows her to do the manual processes she was doing before as well as keep electronic patient records. If she were doing insurance billing it would make that far easier as well. She invited the best right tech for her business to allow her more time to work with her patients and have the systems in place to support her.

In my chiropractor’s case, she chose to invest in a system that not only replaced the manual processes she was looking to automate but to further streamline her business.

And that’s what tech can do for you.

I want to leave you with one final thought for today – As the Chief Executive Officer, you are the visionary for your company. From there, you’ll bring in additional decision makers in the form of your COO – chief operating officer, CFO – chief financial officer, CTO – chief technology officer and CMO – chief marketing officer.

017 - [Deep Dive] Evaluating Software

Wed, 18 Jul 2018 07:30:00 +0000

This is a deep dive episode of the Tech of Business podcast! Today we're showcasing a couple of key tech decisions I’ve made with my clients recently. The goal of today’s episode is to understand a bit more the role of software decisions in business.

Last week, Sam and I were in Las Vegas on vacation since our girls were away at summer camp. While we were there, I went live on Facebook once from the pool deck… and this livestream was titled “Tech itself isn’t sexy… but what you can do with a great tech stack is…”

And we’re continuing that conversation right now…

In general, I’m tool agnostic... I’ll work with just about any software service that has come across my desk even if I believe that there is a better option out there.

Everything that tech can do for businesses (and hobbyists and non-profits) is incredible…

In isolation the tech itself is just not fun to explore and implement. It’s a chore and something that most folks would rather outsource and say “Just tell me the best option for xyz…”

That’s really what I mean by tech being so “un-sexy.”

When I come to you with the exact right piece of technology for the next phase of your business, the idea of new technology is sure to evoke some aspirations and optimism. And a second later, for most businesses, there is also a distinct dread or lack of emotion which comes from knowing that there will be a learning curve, immediate outflow of cash and likely integration issues when it comes to fully bringing this new tool into the fold.

And, whether you’re a solo entrepreneur, have a small team, run an agency or are getting ready to franchise your operations… similar issues creep in.

This is a time where I don’t believe the 80-20 rule applies. There is a distinct advantage to fully implementing the new tech rather than getting minimum viable functionality out of it. Because the sexy part comes in the last 20%.

Let’s dig into a couple of recent clients of mine and how we made tech decisions that are right for their business now and to carry the required amount of weight into the next chapter of your business.

Both the client stories are revolving around taking payments – because we all like to make it easy for our clients and customers to buy from us.

My client Jen has a thriving Thinkific site. She has dozens of courses on the platform, is offering completion and continuing education certificates on some of the courses and has recently brought on additional instructors. She also has some of the courses available for affiliate promotions.

Initially, the built-in payment system on Thinkific was all she needed. But as she built out the school, she felt that her needs may have outgrown the system and we began to look at additional payment portals and mechanisms for managing the greatest needs.

Let’s break it down.

Jen’s students need to be able to purchase her courses
Jen needs to pay her instructors when each of their courses is purchased. This will be at one of two rates, depending on if the student purchased through the instructor link or not.
Jen needs to identify affiliate-initiated transactions since compensation agreements are in place with influential parties in her industry.
Jen needs to have split pay and recurring payment options available and where the student can manage their credit card on file
Jen needs this to be easy since she doesn’t have a full-time accounting department

Both Jen and I are familiar with ThriveCart which looked like a great option for providing the functionality that Jen was seeking…

And I go crazy for setting up integrations and finding the best right solution, selfishly I wanted ThriveCart to be the right solution for Jen because it would mean a ton of the work that I love to do.

But we cannot jump into tech blindly, so we weighed the benefits and drawbacks of the built in Thinkific payment system against ThriveCart with the specific lens on ease of use for Jen and her team.

I really wanted ThriveCart to be the right solution for her, because I imagined so many other things we could do – including upsells, downsells and add-ons. But when we put our heads to the problem that we were solving, the answer became apparent that using the built in Thinkific solution was a better option for selling the vast majority of her Thinkific courses.

ThriveCart sounds sexy… it’s a great interface and creates an enjoyable payment experience but in truth it’s simply a mechanism for taking payments and managing affiliates. And when we looked at it, what we really needed was something that did that job without a lot of overhead for Jen and her team.

Had we implemented ThriveCart fully, more work would be required for every new course, every new affiliate and every new instructor.

So, we put ThriveCart on the shelf. And it’s a huge weight lifted off both of our shoulders. The upsides of ThriveCart do not outweigh the costs of implementing and maintaining it for Jen’s core business.

In Jen’s case, the rationale for looking at ThriveCart was a bit of shiny object and possibly FOMO but as you’ll see with the next client story, the simple and straightforward payment processing inside Thinkific is no necessarily enough to fulfill the requirements.

This next client is Stephanie. She and her company are in Canada and need to charge tax on top of course prices. We wanted to find a sexy solution that included a magic button to charge the exact right amount of tax and track it seamlessly. But there isn’t a magic button and the solution was totally not sexy – we cobbled together a solution that would help their team sell their courses and report tax right, every single time.

The solution we came up with is to use Thinkific for course delivery with Zapier for student enrollment. Student purchases are done directly on their WordPress website using a custom plugin that I wrote. This plugin uses Stripe for payment processing and overlays Taxamo for tax calculation. And the Taxamo transaction became the Zapier trigger to enroll the student.

Here is a diagram of the components and how they work together:

It’s a lot of moving parts and while each component has a specific job, and this is what I mean when I say that tech isn’t sexy. Nobody likes to run or support a many step process unless there is no alternative.

Just as with Jen, Stephanie and I didn’t come to this solution lightly. We evaluated Taxamo against other tax-charging tools and determined that for her needs, Taxamo was best.

At the outset both Stephanie and I knew that we would be able to create a solution that would meet the goals and provide the desired purchase and enrollment experience.

I had hoped it would take fewer hops across the web and far fewer hours to setup, but when we flipped the virtual switch and started processing live customer transactions, there was nothing better!

There are a large number of software solutions that can work to help you with compliance, streamlining and automation. The key point that I hope you take away from today’s conversation is to clearly identify why you are looking to add a new piece of software to your tech stack and also understand how to determine if it is the next right choice for you and your business goals.

Are you looking at bringing in a new software or tool to your business?

I invite you to book a tech strategy session with me. It’s at https://techofbusiness.com/strategy-session/ Together we’ll be able to determine how, when and if to add to your tech stack.

Comment below and let me know if you'd like more episodes like this one, what tech decisions you're making and how I can help your business grow through software and technology.

016 - Live Streaming to Heartwork Connections with Maritza Parra

Wed, 11 Jul 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode Jaime and Maritza discuss:

How to showcase heartwork journaling
The camera angles Maritza and her team use for the live streams
- Talking Head View
- Overhead view of head of art table, brushes and her hands
The basis of the Heartwork Journaling book
Repurposing live stream content
The team required for a live stream show

Key Takeaways

Maritza’s overhead camera is sitting on a traditional boom microphone arm but rigged to hold a webcam
You can glean a lot of valuable insights and tools from other industries, not just by watching but also reaching out. Maritza watched a ton of cooking videos and demos and reached out to the hosts to find the best software and tools to create her own live stream setup.
Create a private Facebook group and broadcast into that to get your systems dialed in
Live streaming has brought Maritza and her upcoming book closer to her community. She now loves to hang out on her Facebook page, has offers from her community to help with her book tour and much more.

On rehearsing for live streaming:

“When it was time for the live stream, I was on fire and I had a real thorough knowledge of the lesson and what it could do for people. We’d already done the brainstorming!”

And

“As teachers, we’ve got blind spots and so if you haven’t rehearsed it and haven’t had somebody else who is not an expert look at it, you’re not going to know where your blind spots are. And you’re not going to be able to give a really incredible presentation that flows.”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Maritza Parra

015 - [Tech Breakthrough] Hannah Smolinski

Wed, 04 Jul 2018 07:30:00 +0000

Tech breakthrough sessions are advantageous to both the guest and the Tech of Business audience. We do something concrete for you in your business and the audience come away with an option to implement something similar in theirs.

Tech struggle is:

In her words, Hannah explains the barrier that she’s having: I really need help getting my lead magnets into people’s hands. I have some excel worksheets and an ebook that are designed to help people run their businesses more efficiently and successfully.

Hannah uses DRIP as her email marketing platform.

Solution

Use the email marketing platforms built in list registration form
First email that goes out will include the lead magnet. If it’s less than 1 MB in size, feel free to include it directly in the email, otherwise host the digital file elsewhere (dropbox, Google Drive, Amazon Web Services, your website, etc.) and link to it from your email.
Include a couple of usage nuggets in the first email. Then clearly inside the email state the next action – in Hannah’s case it’s “I’ll be back tomorrow with a video walkthrough on how to use this spreadsheet.”
Set your document with “READ ONLY” permissions so that they need to download it before using it.

Bonus question –
Is there any benefit to hosting lead magnets on my website to get them back to the website?

The lead magnet is going to be consumed in isolation, which is why it doesn’t need to sit on your website. You do want people to come back to your website to consume additional content and to engage with you.

The 1 MB threshold that I mention above is because most people check their email on their phone and depending on what your file is, it might not make sense to them to actually view it on the phone. This also helps your email to download and open faster on mobile devices and reduces inbox bloat.

The strategy we are implementing here is to put a lot of breadcrumbs in place. First there are the people who come to the website and download the file, they see you in their inbox and then they see you on YouTube. Simultaneously, we have people who find you on YouTube and then to the website and then to the inbox.

The type of lead magnet you use will depend on what paid offer you want to ultimately guide the user towards. If it’s a course (DIY) then using a DIY worksheet is great alignment. If it’s coaching or consulting, an eBook might be the better option.

In the on-boarding sequence, dropping into the inbox every 2-3 days for a couple of weeks will help you to establish yourself as credible and help your new subscriber get a quick win that they will remember you for.

Think about your audience as you’re putting together email automations. Does your subscriber want to read your emails on the weekends? In the evenings? First thing Monday morning? All this is programmable within your EMS.

Episodes mentioned in this podcast: Episode #3: [Deep Dive] Email Marketing

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Hannah Smolinski

Website: http://www.brightenupfinancial.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/BrightenUpFinancial/

014 - [Deep Dive] Thinkific & Online Courses

Wed, 27 Jun 2018 07:30:00 +0000

This is a deep dive episode of the Tech of Business podcast.

Today we’re digging into the platform many of my clients use to deliver content to their customers ~ Thinkific!

This is the first deep dive episode where I’m sharing a specific software solution rather than a concept or methodology alone. But it would be a mistake if we didn’t first discuss the tech challenge that Thinkific was created to solve ~ delivering online courses.

Online learning has been around for about two decades and in the past few years has become a vehicle for business owners outside of academics to teach what they are most passionate about and have learned themselves.

And as we go deep on all things Thinkific, we’re going to break through the 3 biggest barriers I see potential course creators face so that you can see how building an online course can grow your business.

Let’s start out with the biggest non-tech barrier: figuring out what problem your course is going to solve for your customers.

Take a look at your business right now – what is it that you’re helping your clients accomplish?

Are you helping them to establish habits?
Are you helping them with an aspect of their business?
Are you helping them learn a new skill or concept?
Are you training or coaching them on something you’ve already learned yourself?
Are you providing a professional service?
Are you an author or product creator or distributor or agent?

Looking at your own business successes is the most logical place to start an online course. Something that you already do well will lend itself nicely to a course.

When I first started on Thinkific, almost exactly 2 years ago, I created a course that taught virtual assistants and DIYers how to create a quiz on their website using Gravity Forms that acted as a lead magnet. I was doing this task regularly for my clients and was considering opening a virtual assistant agency. Obviously I didn’t take that path, but the point of this aside is that I took something that I knew really well and built a course around that.

And I know you can too… take a few minutes after you’re finished listening to this episode and brainstorm 3-5 problems that you help your clients overcome. These will be processes that you’ve nailed in your business that you can walk through from top to bottom without much hesitation. And just like that, we’ve got potential courses!

Now that we’ve got that on the sideburner, let’s turn our focus to the tech barriers I see most often and how Thinkific is poised to help you smash through them!

The first tech barrier is in committing to a new software tool and increasing your tech footprint.

There are many options for course delivery, it’s fairly obvious that my recommendation is currently Thinkific. And it has been for a couple of years already. I also had a conversation with one of the developers there earlier this month and what they’ve got on the horizon is further solidifying my alliance with Thinkific.

So, let’s talk about Thinkific for a few minutes then we’ll come to the final tech barrier…

Thinkific, in their words, is a software platform that enables both individuals and businesses to create, market, sell, and deliver online courses on their own website.

And in my words, Thinkific is a course delivery platform where just about anyone can create a course on just about anything and wholly own their intellectual property.

On Thinkific you own your intellectual property ~ Thinkific has made the decision to silo their course creators which means that your leads and students will only ever see your content when they visit your school.

Thinkific recently launched their new site builder, which is a tool that makes it super easy to create attractive landing pages for your courses. There are three base “themes” and several “styles” available within each theme which you, as the course creator, can further customize with colors and fonts, imagery and text.

These site builder landing pages are designed to look good on computers, tablets and mobile phones. Many of these recent enhancements came about from feedback from their user base of over 25,000 business owners and course creators.

Many of my clients who use Thinkific do their own work on the platform. They don’t need a developer or techie on hand to get their courses created and launched. This is actually one of the reasons I love Thinkific so much – because I can come in, do what is needed and then get out and let my clients continue on.

In addition to protecting your course content from unauthorized users, you can also protect non-course related pages. Pages that are outside your course might be links to office hours zoom calls, discount codes for additional courses, partner offers or other student benefits and announcements.

Thinkific has also taken care of your students by providing reminder emails, forgot password logic and the ability to issue certificates. These all make it easy to keep your courses self-contained.

Everything within your Thinkific site is self-contained but that’s not to say that it cannot communicate with other online entities. And this brings us to our other tech-barrier: integration and setup.

This question is usually phrased as: “How can I connect or use XYZ with Thinkific?” where XYZ is:

Payment processing
Email Marketing
Facebook or Google tracking
Even your WordPress website might fall into this question

Fortunately, the Thinkific development team has created an integration panel within the dashboard that allows you to connect to many of the popular tools and services. These include a simple place to connect your Thinkific account with Stripe and Payment, several popular email marketing platforms and even insert your Facebook pixel.

In addition, Thinkific has an integration with Zapier that allows two way connect-ability between them and the most popular services on the web.

Some of the reasons why running online courses as part of your business strategy makes sense.

Online courses fall into the one-to-many realm. Your course can be taken by many people simultaneously without more effort from you. As a course creator, you design and implement your course at the outset and then can continue to provide it as an option to people now and into the future. This is what many call Passive Income.

This style of learning is perfect for the DIYer in your audience. Your course may consist of video lessons, audio downloads, checklists, worksheets, quizzes and whatever else you determine will help your audience achieve their goal. Your audience will be able to complete the course on their timeline and schedule!

Your expertise, experience and knowledge are just some of the reason your clients choose to work with. Leaning into this knowledge and creating a course that showcases your expertise will provide concrete value to the course taker will further elevate you in their mind.

Courses allow a service provider to be more accessible to their newer audience members. It’s part of the customer journey:

free content
subscribe to your gated content
buy your course
book a call
join your workshop or join your program
become a success story and tout your praise to everyone we know who may benefit from what you offer.

There we have it… let’s wrap this conversation up with the question I get asked most often: “Why do I need Thinkific if I already have a WordPress site that can host a course?”

I used to think that way too – but what I realized is that in order for us to leverage systems for what they do best, we need to embrace them. Would you ever ask a chef to create a meal using with a swiss army knife and a single pan? It’s not that they wouldn’t be able to succeed, it’s that they are not the most logical tools to create that meal. It benefits the chef to have several cooking dishes, knives and other utensils and it benefits you because the chef will create a higher caliber meal that they can feel good about.

I’d rather see you put your time, energy and passion into the course content and not into making WordPress bend and flex and frustrate you along the way.

I hope you’ve found this deep dive episode of the Tech of Business podcast helpful and exciting. Please share it with a friend or colleague.

Claim a free month of the Thinkific business plan.

013 - Fun TECH with Jeffrey Harry

Wed, 20 Jun 2018 07:00:00 +0000

In this episode Jaime and Jeffrey discuss:

Using Technology to connect a distributed workforce
Leveraging FUN to solve real problems
The science of creativity

Key Takeaways

Use virtual coffee hours to do pomodoros together when working in separate states.
Play can help you tackle common office-related struggles.
Even when you're in the business of fun, it's still important to find new ways to infuse fun even for the trainers!

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Play Well TEKnologies

Website: Play-Well TEKnologies
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/PlayWellTEK
Instagram: https://instagram.com/playwellteknologies
YouTube: http://www.youtube.com/user/playwellteknologies
Twitter: https://twitter.com/PlayWell_TEK

012 - Franchise-forward TECH solutions with Lisa Druxman

Wed, 13 Jun 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode Jaime and Lisa discuss:

Women finding their strength in motherhood
A turnkey business from both a structure and tech perspective including
- A micro-website which is templatized and branded
- A class check-in system and sales program which can be operated from a phone or iPad
- Email campaign program with templates and sample text
- Workplace by Facebook for franchisor to franchisee communication and franchisee to franchisee as well
- Absorb LMS for online training
The Empowered Mama podcast

Key Takeaways

It’s often hard to know when to make changes in your tech footprint, especially when it’s affecting 300+ franchisees all over the country
Online training and certification wasn’t possible when the franchise started but with advances in technology, this is now an option for new franchisees to expand their fitness knowledge
100% of franchisees and instructors were on Facebook. They were filling their own need so, Lisa and her team removed forums and external communication channels in favor of Workplace by Facebook. Everyone already used and felt comfortable with the platform and it set the corporate team up for success with supporting the franchisees.
Moms are raising the next generation of leaders and that starts with taking care of themselves.

Speaker Quote

“You have to know who your audience is and what’s going to fit best into their lifestyle” – Lisa Druxman

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Lisa Druxman

Podcast: https://www.lisadruxman.com/podcast/
Websites: Fit4Mom and Lisa Druxman
Instagram: @lisadruxman
Twitter: @LisaDruxman
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/lisadruxman

011 - [Deep Dive] Using Cloud Storage Effectively in your Business

Wed, 06 Jun 2018 07:30:00 +0000

This is a deep dive episode of the Tech of Business podcast.

The three most popular cloud storage locations I use with my clients and hear rumblings about are Dropbox, Google Drive and OneDrive.

In general terms, these products provide file storage and access independent of the device. In other words: you can access your files from your phone, your computer, your tablet, other people’s devices and anywhere you can get internet access.

The trick to using them effectively lies in creating systems and processes around who/what/when and where.

Cloud storage is an inexpensive and beneficial tool for businesses of any size, including solo businesses.

Having a good cloud storage process will allow you to:

Expand your storage limits without purchasing additional hardware
Create a file backup system
Share files without clogging email inboxes
Collaborate on projects, documents and presentations
Work from multiple locations and with different devices

All three tools have free and paid tiers. There is a lot we can do at the free level, so let’s keep expenses low and workflow high.

Tip #1: Platform Decision

When I share with my clients, teammates and vendors, I select the cloud storage we use.
When clients and vendors want to share files with me, I let them decide which platform we will use.

Here are the steps I recommend for implementing cloud storage organization

Decide on your primary cloud storage platform
Create five top level folders
- Personal
- Business – Backups
- Business – Development
- Business - Client Facing
- Business - Public Facing
Store files directly in each of these folders or refine further by platform/vendor/client/service.

The key is to create a system so that when you bring a new member onto your team, get hired by a new client or take on a new initiative, it’ll be easy to store and retrieve your crucial files.

Tip #2: Sharing Options

Between you and a team member who is creating content: equal rights to upload, delete and modify files
Between you and a team member who is viewing content: share folder or file in read only mode. This will help keep files intact and avoid errors.
Between you and clients or you and vendors: equal rights or read only, depending on roles (same as above)

Automation and Synchronization

Automatically back up certain folders on your local computer to the cloud
Automatically having website backups stored in the cloud
Using the native app to keep a folder on your local computer in sync with the version that is in the cloud
- Which files and folders you want to be able to access when you're working offline?
- Which files and folders update regularly and need to be shared?

There are so many uses of cloud storage solutions in business (and life!) I’m curious to know how you’re using it to stay ahead of your competition and keep moving your business forward. Head over to the show notes at https://techofbusiness.com/011/ and share how you use cloud storage!

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

010 - Using Apps in Business with Betsy Furler

Wed, 30 May 2018 08:30:00 +0000

In this episode Jaime and Betsy discuss:

Betsy’s love of apps, which started when the iPod touch came out
Evaluating software or apps to determine “is it me” or “is it the software”
The value of strong product lies in it being intuitive and easy to use while still having videos, tutorials, FAQs and support available as well
Your App Lady podcast

Key Takeaways

When you’re looking at a piece of software or an app, it may just not work for you, even if it’s a good tool
Great graphics, font size and amount of text. They indicate the developer’s attention to detail and knowing their audience.
Do not use color to portray all of the meaning. This is forcing the product to rely on a single mode of communication.

“If someone develops an app or a piece of software or a website keeping in mind the user that’s going to have the most difficulty, then it’s going to be fantastic for everyone!” – Betsy Furler

“If that tool doesn’t work for you. It’s okay. You might be able to find something that is better for your brain.”

Connect with Jaime

Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Betsy

Website: yourapplady.com
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/yourapplady/
Twitter: @betsyfurler
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/yourapplady/

009: Tech Breakthrough with Geraldine Carter

Wed, 23 May 2018 08:30:00 +0000

Geraldine’s tech struggle is:

In her coaching practice, she relies on technology to get paid, do intake and schedule calls with her clients. And it just doesn’t run smoothly on the backside. She says it’s a bit clunky and pieces fall through the cracks.

The user flow is not always so clear: her clients might miss clicking a link or miss a field on a form and meeting details might not make it onto the calendar.

What she wants

Super simple, crystal clear user flow that walks her clients through exactly what they need to do – schedule, pay, answer a series of questions and get the meeting (when and where) on their calendar. Also automate confirmation and reminder emails.
Benefits
- Geraldine will spend much less time “finagling and finessing”
- Her clients will have a clean and clear on boarding process

Tools she is presently using

Calendly
PayPal
MailChimp
Wave Accounting

Solution

From Calendly or PayPal, setup Zapier to pull them over to MailChimp to take Geraldine out of the emailing process
Send Typeform link in email from MailChimp then integrate Typeform with Zapier to go back to MailChimp and notify them that they are all squared away
Create additional fields in MailChimp to track the Typeform completion and strategy session date

Brand new client comes to your website à Clicks Button to go to Calendly to book session à Find date/time and complete Calendly booking form à Directed to PayPal for payment à Receive email from Calendly, receive email from Mailchimp saying welcome and fill out Typeform

New client completes Typeform à Receive email from Mailchimp saying thank you

Gotcha: Prevent sending reminder emails after session already happens

Bonus question – Can PayPal integrate with Wave? Or can we bypass PayPal and do everything in Wave?

Solution

PayPal integrates with Wave and imports each transaction as both the payment and the transaction fee
If we remove PayPal and have Calendly trigger Wave to send an invoice, we’re removing one system and a whole lot of time doing reconciliation

Zapier is a service that sits between software services. Zapier is in the business of making the API from difference services speak to one another without needing to hire a developer. Here is a demo of Zapier working between Acuity and Wave to create an invoice automatically.

“While I can sort of muddle my way through and figure things out on my own. I probably spent 3 hours setting it all up and cohesive yesterday, which part of me likes doing, because I like to solve problems. But it’s not my zone of genius and what I need to be doing is what I do best: Coaching women who have bigger plans for making the world a better place." ~Geraldine Carter

Connect with Jaime

Website: http://www.virtualsummittech.com
Instagram: @techofbusiness
Twitter: @techofbusiness
LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/
Email: jaime@techofbusiness.com

Connect with Geraldine Carter

Website: http://focusedbizcoaching.com/
Twitter: @geraldinecarter
Instagram: @12geraldine406
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/focusedbusinesscoaching2/

008: Lisa Woodruff - Business growth through hiring TECH

Wed, 16 May 2018 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime and Lisa Woodruff discuss:

You can use tech in your business even if it is not a tech business.
What are the differences between WordPress and RainMaker?
What technology will be best for your company and when?

Key Takeaways:

Technology is a great way to delegate.
Look at tech like you are hiring an employee.
Sometimes it helps to hire a technology consultant.
Technology can help you expand your business beyond your initial reach.

"In place of hiring people, I was ready to hire people, I hired systems." — Lisa Woodruff

Connect with Lisa Woodruff:

Twitter: @organize365

Facebook: @Organize365

Website: Organize365.com

Instagram: Organize365

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Show Notes: http://www.techofbusiness.com

Website: http://www.virtualsummittech.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/

Email: jaime@virtualsummitTECH.com

Show notes by show producer: Danielle Taylor

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

007: Deep Dive- Let's Talk about Virtual Summits

Wed, 09 May 2018 08:00:00 +0000

Virtual Summits

In this episode, Jaime discusses:

What is a virtual summit?
The types of technology used in a virtual summit.
The most important steps to creating a virtual summit.
How your summit will create a path for your future success.

Key Takeaways:

Virtual summits are based around a single mission or topic.
Every business can benefit from hosting a virtual summit.
When you create a virtual summit start with the end in mind.
Virtual summits can be used as a launching pad.

"Your return of investment with technology is limitless." — Jaime Slutzky

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Podcast: http://www.techofbusiness.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/

Show notes by show producer: Danielle Taylor

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

006: Mark Wade - Strengthening Your Business' Posture for Success

Wed, 02 May 2018 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime and Mark Wade discuss:

What is Hustle and Scale
How Mark brought technology in to help fix people's postures
The virtual summit space
Tech that brought Mark success

Key Takeaways:

Mark was a pioneer in healthcare online courses because at the time, the majority thought medical curriculum couldn't be legitimately taught through the internet
Pro tip: Don't be afraid to embrace and try what's new with software! That mindset will give you more opportunities to be successful sooner
Many Chat is a software that allows you to do what email marketing does, but through Facebook Messenger
Mark's tech toolbox - Facebook ads, Zoom, ECamm, Rev.com, SaneBox, Buffer

"One of main reasons behind my thought process [for the American Posture Institute] was that I wanted these courses — the teaching, the education, the certifications — to be 100 percent online." — Mark Wade

About Mark Wade: After transition from a brick and mortar business in the health industry to the online world, Mark created the number one leading brand for Posture Correction Education (American Posture Institute), using virtual summits to create his multi-million dollar business. Recognizing how powerful virtual summits are, yet knowing how difficult they can be to run, Mark went on to build the first and only software used to host a virtual summit (Virtual Summit Software), now making it easier than ever before to host a summit. Now Mark is helping Side Hustlers and Scalers grow their online business by creating successful online platforms. Mark has also created a number-one hit podcast in iTunes, as well as hosts a waiting-list only mastermind called Puerto Rico Masterminds with top industry experts.

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Podcast: http://www.techofbusiness.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/

Connect with Mark Wade:

Twitter: @VirtualSummits

Website: http://hustleandscale.com/

Virtual Summit Software: https://virtualsummits.com/

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/hustleandscale/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/HustleAndScale/

Show notes by show producer: Anna Nygren

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

005: Amanda Brotman- Expressing an Affinity Toward the Arts in a Digital Space

Wed, 25 Apr 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime and Amanda Brotman discuss:

What tech Amanda uses to create her brand
The behind-the-scenes of good social media posts
Making technological switches
Tech with the business to track business and creative design

Key Takeaways:

Photos that Amanda posts on Instagram range from a quick iPhone photo to a well-planned photoshoot
Google suite and Photoshop are used consistently to run Amanda's business
One piece of tech that Amanda can't live without is… her Apple Photo Stream

"Instagram seems to be where it's at in the fashion industry." — Amanda Brotman

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Podcast: http://www.techofbusiness.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/

Connect with Amanda Brotman:

Website: https://amandapearl.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/AmandaPearlCollection/

Twitter: https://twitter.com/AmandaPearly

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/amandapearl/

Show notes by show producer: Anna Nygren

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

004: Bob Beresh- Developing Your Photographic Skills in the Right Light

Wed, 18 Apr 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime and Bob Beresh discuss:

The tools of creative image-making
Tech tools that Bob uses to create the final product
Advances in technology
Time is money

Key Takeaways:

As far as shoot technology goes, as long as you're using the right tool at the right time, that's the right technology
The best part of the ever-increasing power of software is the speed with which things can get done
Check out the color checker passport and Photo Mechanic
Everything is subjective when it comes to art, but learning the correct look of a properly exposed photo is important to understand as a trained photographer

"A lot of it comes down to workflow — how do I get the images I capture on location into the computer, how do I manipulate them within the various software and then deliver it to the client." — Bob Beresh

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Podcast: http://www.techofbusiness.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/

Connect with Bob Beresh:

Website: http://www.bobbereshstudio.com

Instagram: @bobberesh

Show notes by show producer: Anna Nygren

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

003: A Deep Dive Into Email Marketing

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 08:00:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime discusses:

How we're defining email marketing
The capacity with which you can use email marketing
Getting you email campaigns set up
The benefit of incentives

Key Takeaways:

Email marketing is an opt-in type of service which means that in order for you to use the system, the person who is receiving the email must have given you consent
You, as a business owner, can stand out from your competition by creating engagement and loyal fans with your email marketing -- the best emails are ones that educate and inspire
A great place to start is with Aweber, ConvertKit, or ActiveCampaign
When you share stories and how you work, it helps people connect - which is the whole point of email marketing

"The best emails are ones that educate and inspire. " — Jaime Slutzky

Links for this Episode:

Aweber http://simplyjaime.com/aweber

ConvertKit http://simplyjaime.com/convertkit

ActiveCampaign http://simplyjaime.com/activecampaign

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Website: http://www.techofbusiness.com

Website: http://www.virtualsummittech.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/

Email: jaime@virtualsummitTECH.com

Show notes by show producer: Anna Nygren

Audio production by Turnkey Podcast Productions. You're the expert. Your podcast will prove it.

002: Jamie Lieberman- Lawyering up in the Influencer Market

Wed, 11 Apr 2018 07:30:00 +0000

In this episode, Jaime and Jamie Lieberman discuss:

What Hashtag Legal is
The type of work that Hashtag Legal does
Being fully virtual
Bringing in new technology

Key Takeaways:

Influencer marketers are people with an online presence (on YouTube, Instagram, etc.) that connect with brands for marketing purposes
Voxer is an awesome app that functions like a walkie talkie and allows the users to have a "streaming consciousness" conversation style
When things start to fall through the cracks, that's when you need to take a look at integrating a new tool
Trello and Evernote are the two programs that Jamie and her partner use for organizing virtually

"Hashtag Legal is a law firm that specializes in business in the influencer marketer space, businesses with a digital presence, creatives and service professionals. " — Jamie Lieberman

Connect with Jaime Slutzky:

Podcast: http://www.techofbusiness.com

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/jaimeslutzky/