Insider Update: Time Travel, Teaching & Other Updates
As the last insider update was surprisingly popular, I was encouraged to make another one. I hope you find the ideas herein useful. Let me know what your most useful advice to your own former self would be!
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Glad to hear you still spin your wheels too Shane!
Well I mean...I’m glad I’m not the only one.
Haha, yeah... I know what you mean. :)
Love your content Shane! You said you did 5 webinars so far - I only know about 3; Implementation Machine, About Page, and Rapid Blog Post Implementation. Which am I missing? I don't want to miss a single webinar of yours since they're always overflowing with value!
There were 2 webinars I did for customers of my latest products. One for the focus & action customers (Forward Momentum) and one for the Course Craft audience (Easy Products).
More public webinars are coming soon. :)
I missed the Course Craft (Easy Product) webinar, even though I am following Course Craft, oh no! Is it possible to watch a replay?
Hi Jorunn,
The webinar is posted in the Course Craft Bonus Lessons area...since it's only for course Craft customers... ;-)
It was great! I’m sure you’ll get a lot out of it! :-)
Oh, super! I'll check it out.
Yep, like Karen mentioned, you can access it in the course itself. :)
Thanks, I will!
Hi, I could not attend second webinar and was waiting for replay, but I did not get any email with this possibility :-(.
Best wishes,
Thank you for the update. I believe I've seen all your webinars so far using the various webinar services. Out here, in the audience, it's easy to tell there are various short-comings (read, frustrations) with each service. What's great is to have a methodical comparison of them. So, thank you for that!
On the audience building course and the idea of getting stuck. Perhaps we can learn from the marketing geniuses at Nike (yep, the shoe company) --- "Just Do It" --- Seriously now; it'll be great and I (we) really, REALLY need it.
Kindest Regards - Randal
Thank you, Randal!
I could definitely just put together a course, but I'd not be happy with that. I want to outdo myself, if you will.
I have something going that will help between now and the time I release the course, though.
Fascinating tip you gave today Shane. It prompted some interesting thoughts... Thanks :-)
Glad to hear that!
Another exercise you could do maybe is create 1 or 2 “anonymous" blog, ie you could be Shane "yournothermaidname" or anything else that would not give a clue on Shane Melaugh. Then, maybe you could test some "how to build an audience from scratch" tricks, and remember the old times and see how far things have changed since. Well, just a thought…
Thank you, as usual. This back-in-time thinking will be really really helpful to me. A real pleasure listening to you sharing your thoughts, your doubts… and seeing your human side, not only the master-specialist-did-it-all (even if somehow you are that in your domain, Sir YodShane :))
Thank you, Corinne!
I could try something like that, yeah. It would be working pretty severely against my strengths if I couldn't do any content that reveals who I am (i.e. no video, audio or images of me). Since I specialize in a personal style of marketing, that would take away most of my most valuable tools. Granted, it would be an interesting challenge, but I'm not sure how useful the results would be. I'd rather do and teach what I'm best at.
Having said that, I believe I'll be able to do something like you suggest, but that's a bit further in the future.
@Corinne has a point.
Perhaps you @Shane should try to x10 (or whatever makes sense) your actual audience and see if the method works, with all the videos and personal marketing tools.
That could be as hard as building and audience from scratch.
rather than you try to do things yourself without all of your strengths now, maybe just coach a newbie through it. A case study of sorts.
If you decide that's a good idea and need a volunteer... I'm your man!
:-)
I teach a class at the local community college. Each term, I tell the students they are going to get material that can save them years of trial and error. I'm not sure any of them believe me. The human mantra is "I want to do it my way." My aim is to listen up and take the shortcuts.
Too true. Sometimes, we just have to make our own mistakes. But even then, it's good to make those mistakes and remember the words of those wiser than us. Helps us learn from them faster. :)
It's good to know that a seasoned entrepreneur is honest enough admit he spinning his wheels at times. I'm just starting out and feel like I'm doing that in every area...ESPECIALLY building an audience. There's so much noise on the Internet and I don't know how to break through it to find my tribe, without becoming more "white noise" that people will ignore.
Thanks for your comment!
We chose entrepreneurship, for some reason. I'm convinced it's one of the most difficult things to gain expertise at, because it's so multi faceted. It's like you have to build something and get results, without really being able to specialize - without being able to get really good at anything, because you're always doing more than one thing.
My entire entrepreneurial journey has been chaos and noise. Especially when compared to a narrow discipline like martial arts (the only other thing I invested a comparable amount of time in). It's crazy. But it's also worthwhile.
Hi Shane, my most useful pieces of advice as an old guy: (#1, by far): learn about time management (I learned that when I was about 28, after not being able to account for 4 weeks of my life on a 6-week vacation). Being careful with your time (your life) has a HUGE impact on your life. Even if you can't see a specific goal in the future, you can certainly spend your time on the right path in the present. (#2) Learn how to trade the stock market (stocks, options, futures, etc.) and survive. That will give you a life-long source of income while you do other things. (#3) Learn how to communicate. It's especially important for personal relationships, and it's almost a required skill for business success.
Thanks for sharing your thoughts, Kevin! Interesting points!
I would have started earlier as an entrepreneur. Thank you for all that you are doing. You are making the difference in my life.
Thank you very much, Richard!
No thank YOU sir.
Hi Shane,
Great messages today! :-)
Once again, your timing is impeccable! :D I was just thinking this morning (as I was planning out some new info products & related posts) how much I have learned in the last 2-3 years...
Much of that learning in my case has come in 2019...coincidentally -- ;-) -- when you released your 2 courses! LoL! (jk...no conicidence at all!)
I was quite stunned at just how far I have come, so your "...teach your younger self..." concept was perfect! :-)
That being said...however:
...Knowing that I am quite the rebellious solopreneur & student... ;-p
Sometimes you just have to have the intervening experiences in order to prove to your (younger) self that "you should have listened!"
As the saying goes: "There's no subsitute for life experience!" :-/
Looking forward to your new course on audience creation...no matter how long it takes! I know it will be awesome... :D
I know I sing your praises all the time, but not a day goes by that I don't use something from **both** of your courses! <3
(That also makes it hard -- for you -- to create new courses you have in mind...since you've already set the bar so high!)
My advice to my younger self would have been to believe in myself more! That would have been a gold mine...if I had only listenend! Self-doubt is crippling!
Thanks for all you do!
Thank you for your encouraging words, Karen!
Self doubt is a big obstacle, yes. And one that, in my experience, can only be overcome slowly, over a long period of time.
Hey Shane,
Re the webinars:
I hold tiny "webinars" in the form of group coachings twice a week and I have held large webinars about once a quarter (seriously, don't know how you crank them out so quickly ... you scare me. :-P )
I have also been on a few webinar based courses with up to over 200 participants. All of which - curiously now that I think of it - used Zoom meeting rooms (which can handle up to 1000 participants) not webinar providers.
So for me it was quite interesting to be in the other seat for all kinds of different webinar providers. It was a good test for me to see what I am missing out by being with Zoom.
My take away ( I think I have been to all of your webinars in this series) is:
1) Good audio/video is the most important. (And not being kicked out 20 times during one webinar)
2) I want to see the host and not just the slides. I also prefer it when I can see the other participants. Esp. when they ask questions. It makes it easier for me to keep my focus (ADS challenged) and feel engaged.
3) I prefer asking (audio) to typing questions in a chat box and being able to clarify quickly when there's a misunderstanding.
4) There is a benefit to using a service which most participants are already familiar with. It reduces the tech support during the webinar (in the chat and by the host) which is a horrible distraction.
5) Challenges to the host are secondary. Once you pick a service, you will figure it out and get used to it. Doesn't matter what it is.
I noticed this on the last call where you had challenges with zoom (which I have been using for three years (z-meetings not webinars, but still it seems very similar)) that I don't even think about anymore.
In summary: The top criteria pertain to the particpants' experience. Everything else is "figureoutable".
And I am convinced that the service I am with beats all the tested ones hands down, so far. So that was a nice confirmation for me.
***
My advice to my younger (entrepreneurial) self: Keep it simple!!!!! I made things so complicated (and wasted sooooo much time) trying to cover any possible eventuality that I could think of.
....
I think regarding biz advice: there's a ton of stuff to get people from zero to "10". But then after you reach the first big plateau there's not so much info available, i.e how to get from 10 to 50 ...
Take care, Ann.
Great feedback, thank you!
I agree about the importance of good audio and video. If people are struggling to see and hear, everything else is pointless. Zoom is good in that regard, but it's really more of a meeting solution than a webinar solution. And although I agree that you can get used to the UI, I personally really dislike the "flying blind" thing where I have no representation of what my audience is seeing.
The "keep it simple" advice is something I also needed. And still need. And still ignore, apparently. Future Shane is shaking his head.
But you do. There's a green frame around what your audience sees.
I think I prefer the more personal vibe the meeting set-up gives. Even if there are more than 200 participants ...
I was recently on a three week course - 1 hour group call every day with more than 200 people. It felt like a big family & friends gathering. We learned a lot and it was very enjoyable. But I suppose that is just a matter of personal preference.
Future Ann waves at Future Shane and joins the head shakers club ... :-D
Oh yeah, I did see the green frame in later testing. During the webinar, it never showed up...
@Ann,
"I noticed this on the last call where you had challenges with zoom "
I couldn't make it this time, unfortunately. So far the replay doesn't see to be out there to watch, or is it?
Thanks, paxpa :)
Replays of the last 2 webinars are currently being turned into (free) Thrive University courses. Coming soon. :)
Good to know, thanks, Shane!
Hey Paxpa ... we all missed ya. :-D
Hi @Ann,
da muss ich doch glatt ein "Like" voten :-)
PS: I was actually really frustrated, that I couldn't make it :(.
Hopefully next time again!
paxpa
:-D
Ja, superschade. Wir sehen dich im nächsten Webinar, gell? :-D <3
Haja :) - Jedenfalls wenn ich es rechtzeitig mitkriege und es einrichten kann.
If I had the information that I have received from you before; maybe I wouldn't have burned over $10K with no ROI. Thanks for the good info.
We live and learn. Go make those $10K back. :)
Have you ever considered taking a "novice" and walking *them* through a test of building an audience to see what works and what doesn't?
I have, yes. I think this would be great in many ways. But it's difficult to find a good candidate for this and it also adds to the total time needed to create the course. It may be something to do for "version 2" of the course, so as to not delay it for too long.
What would be your criteria for a "good candidate"? What could that candidate do that would help offset that additional time needed to create the course?
I just love this info Shane because it is the truth and the result of much thought and soul searching. Being able to avoid even some of the mistakes is pure gold. Thanks to you, I have a plethora of ideas buzzing around and I look forward to courses which are extremely fecund.
Thank you, Sherwood! I'm happy to hear that.
Audience building is such a hard and evasive task that it´s hard to draw breath when I think about it.
The scope is so big, that it´s hard to imagine a single course could bring in that result. Perhaps it can set the student in an ¨approximately right path¨, and that will be precious enough. 80% rule, right?
By the by, only 3 platforms left to test? :( What are we going to do with the void live-Shane will leave?
Keep at it Shane. If anyone can do it, fluff free, it´s you.
I won't stop doing webinars altogether. Just not 2 a week anymore. :D
Hi Shane, My advice to myself would be a bit of a cliche but true nonetheless - Don’t give in to doubt.
Interesting. And in what way would you have to bring this message to your former self, to make it stick?
I’ve added a step in TinyGain to review these positive thoughts before starting each day. I’m really enjoying your morning routine idea.
Shane, I have a chicken and egg issue...
I’m challenging myself to create video content but I’m terrible, so I spend all day shooting and editing. This is taking me away from writing articles, which would benefit my site (I put both writing articles and creating videos in the top/right quadrant).
I know these days people would much rather watch a 5-minute video than reading 2000 words. And, if I can learn to present on video, I can sell courses.
Would you recommend I persevere with learning video presenting at the expense of writing articles?
I'd really appreciate your thoughts. Thanks, Anthony
Hi Anthony, being 60 I am having same issue. My advice is to look long term. I am going to do lots of videos as it is my product so I have to work through the hassles. But as with anything if you stick at it long enough and do it a few times it will become easy. You will get better at it promise. I am. I didn't give up even when I used blue screen (it worked better at instant editing in OBS then green screen) and then figured out that I had blue eyes and the white zombie eyeball look does not look good unless auditioning for a part in the "Walking Dead". Takeway, cried lots, maxed out credit card to buy a canon camera as for my lighting the expensive webcam was not strong enough to work with green screen. Then had to buy a wider green screen as camera angle was wider and then still have to go in and edit green screen manually as does not work perfectly in OBS.Then I have no room without glass walls so can only shoot at night time when no external lights interfere. So stick with it at least you haven't turned into a zombi yet.
Thanks Nadine, your reply made me smile because I can completely sympathise with you! We'll get there in the end!
I think as adults we forget how hard it is to learn something new and we expect to be able to do it straight away because we have forgotten what it is like to learn but just remember that if you started to learn the piano now you would be struggling with chopsticks but in 2 year's time you will be playing Beethoven.
If you're already good at writing, 80/20 it. Maximize efficiency so you can continue doing some writing, while spending minimal time on it.
And maximize the volume of your output on video because that's going to help you run up that learning curve and get to a point where you make decent content in a reasonable amount of time as soon as possible.
Thanks, Shane. I reckon I could get a 1000 YouTube followers by just uploading my bloopers showreel!
I have hours of footage of me looking vacantly into the camera while in my mind I'm screaming' bento box, bento box'! :)
Both your courses offered very good value for money I believe.
A lot of people in several groups are raving about Crowdcast for webinars with large live audiences (+1000) if you want to check it out.
Speaking of audience building, I've heard from some of the celebrities who have audiences in millions that I represented being their corporate lawyer, that they first look where their audience hangs out, then they decide on which media they are more talented, skilled and more true to their deep selves (writing, audio, video or live).
They only focus on one media they are good at and present their content and offers it on the platforms where their type of audience hangs out and they repurpose from there for other media types.
They focus on how they can help a specific audience solve a particular problem that keeps them up at night or reach a goal they daydream about.
It seems that they have all also well managed to scale using the power of leverage other people audience or platforms, using some sort of strategic partnerships with other people who have offers that complement theirs.
So if someone's audience is writers for example. They would probably these days hang out at Medium. If his talent, skill and true to him is expressing himself in writing (as a type of media) then he would write there and build relationships with other writers or bloggers to guest blog on their platforms.
Most of them also chose a large audience that is in millions, who speak English, self identify, happy to be grouped together and has a spectrum from newbie amateur to a seasoned expert.
They usually also use ads once they have a proof of concept about their offering and messaging to put more gasoline to the fire if they had their first flame burning.
I've seen several clients of mine growing their audience in a few years from 0 to a few million followers using this exact formula.
Would be happy to elaborate more with you on this if you need any help brainstorming.
Wishing you the best of luck with your new course and looking forward to your webinar platform testing results.
Have a great week Shane! Cheers
Thank you for sharing from your experience! It's interesting that even for building an audience in the millions, it seems that narrowing one's focus is key.
No problem with pleasure!
Yeah exactly focus is key.
What also seemed very surprising to me that some of them especially artists and bloggers are almost broke though they have these large audiences in millions.
They somehow weren't able to monetize. They could hardly sell anything. Then they start to be everywhere which also doesn't solve the problem.
Some others start to change their messaging or offer or just move from a hot audience to a larger warm or cold audience, which doesn't make sense because if they can't close their hot audience it will be even harder to close the cold ones even with ads.
What I see smart marketers do is when their hot audiences in a niche start to dry up or stagnate, they move to other hot audiences in other niches rather than trying to go after a larger warm or cold audience.
A good example would be R. Brunson, selling Clickfunnels moving from the hot audience in a niche to other hot audience in different niches (like affiliates, to course designers, to MLM, to bloggers, to writers, to agencies) though his product is exactly the same. He just changes the audience, offer and messaging.
This made me realize that what Russ Henneberry of DigitalMarketer once stressed in one of their mastery courses was so true!
He said though we're trying to exponentially grow our audiences in millions, our business model in most cases is not of a publisher, most of us are rather online businesses selling info or digital products. We shouldn't act as a publisher business because we are not.
Hearing this made me realize that content and audience have to be geared toward products, conversions and sales. Content should be placed somewhere on the sales funnel. Either awareness, subscription, acquisition or monetization not just to increase an audience who is not engaged as a potential buyer or prospect.
One shouldn't be going after vanity metrics of just growing an audience or engagement that really doesn't serve a business purpose other than ego or fame!
I totally agree with this and I've seen many of the issues you describe as well. This is one of the pitfalls of vanity metrics. If we aim simply to get more traffic, more views, more followers etc. we build a highly inefficient business.
A great example of this, in my own field of experience, is YouTube: there are many YouTubers with large audiences who struggle to make ends meet. When ad revenue went down, they were in trouble and now they have to combine ad revenue with sponsorship deals and Patreon to make up for it. And then there's me: if I publish a few videos on productivity on my tiny little channel, it can translate into thousands of dollars, because it connects to an online course funnel. The difference in "marketing power" between my little audience and some audiences of hundreds of thousands or millions is absurd.
That's so right and absolutely true.
This exactly what I love about your courses and Thrive. It gives you total control over your platform.
I hate themes or editors that may end up with a bunch of code that's good for nothing.
People don't pay attention to the problem of not having their own platform.
On the other hand, it's funny how when your message target one audience, you get it and additionally it may resonate with other people too who may be outside that audience, who you can still sell to if it makes business sense.
However, if your messaging targets both from the beginning you probably won't get either of them.
Sorry for the long message. I wanted to share my 2 cents with you because I really appreciate your feedback and all the great value you're offering through your platforms.
Also very proud of you and the large impact you're having online from our little Switzerland!
A small country with a large impact! Love it :)
You rock!
keep it up. Best of luck.
Cheers man!
@Mohamadino,
it is interesting to read that even those with an audience in millions (are the followers maybe bought = fakes?) not necessarily can live on that. Do you have also insights on those who can very well live on their online existence, and what is the essence of their success?
greetings, paxpa
Hi paxpa,
I suspect those insights are generally related to "creating an audience of true fans" like Shane has done with both ActiveGrowth & Thrive...
As is often said... "The devil is in the details!" ;-) LoL!
How to do this...
Hopefully Shane's "audience-creation" course will address all of that! :D (Hopefully it's something that can be systematized! :-o Not an easy ask, I'm sure!)
@Karen,
"not an easy (t)ask" - yes, indeed :)
Hey Paxpa,
Thank you for your comment and interesting question!
The followers are not necessarily fake but they don't represent their ideal customers or prospects.
Shane is a perfect living example. As he mentioned, one is better off with a smaller audience that is engaged and represents your ideal customers, buyers or prospects rather than a larger audience that is not engaged and doesn't represent your ideal customers or prospects.
There is no one formula for making money though. However, it's important to identify who are your ideal clients or audience.
To create content that targets and helps this specific group solve a specific problem or achieve a specific goal.
This content as Shane mentioned shouldn't be published haphazardly just for the sake of publishing and growing an audience, but rather as part of a sales process or funnel.
Content that is designed to leads to sales.
A blog post or video or ad that leads to an opt-in to capture contact or emails that leads to small ticket sale that turns them into customers then maybe upselling them some higher tickets for monetization.
Bloggers call it a content upgrade.
So for example, I'm a corporate lawyer who specializes in helping online businesses. I'm better off with a group of ten online companies' owners that each pays me a few thousand dollars a month regularly than having a thousand online entrepreneurs in a group who hardly need legal help that they would be happy to pay a few thousand dollars a month for.
That's why it's important to focus.
Entrepreneurs normally are afraid of narrowing down, because they think it closes the door for the types of clients you don't target.
Surprisingly when you close seven doors to focus on one. Once you open that one, it will lead to over much more than seven at the other side.
That's the power of specialization, deep work and building your skills as an expert in a specific field that Shane mentions.
It's important to decide what you want to be known for, which one client you're after and what specific problem or objective you help them with.
This will help you focus on metrics that really matter to you and move the needle in your business rather than going after what's called vanity metrics that only feed your ego and fame but not your wallet.
Wishing you best of luck Paxpa!
Cheers
@Mohamadino,
thanks for your very differentiated reply!
paxpa
Thank you for all the webinars, each one of them had a nugget of gold in it for me. I didn't like the platform you had the 'about page' webinar on, bad sound, no slides, I can't wait for the replay.
My younger self would have saved a lot of time and money if I had your course craft course and the building an audience course back then.
On the flip side, I feel my younger self had more confidence than my now-self. Back then I jumped into opportunities and I took action more quickly. These days I second guess myself so much more and don't ship enough.
Thanks for your feedback, Conny!
Good point - we can sometimes learn something from our former selves, too.
I have done webinars with experts and can show you cool stuff if you wish
Can you elaborate on "cool stuff"?
Hi Shane,
Yes, I was shown how to do it in a very prescriptive way with a really good template as a guide. Apparently the new way is not to spend 30 minutes talking about yourself and all the things you have done. People want teaching and want the information that you promised so you introduce yourself for no more than 5 minutes and then tell people explicitly 3 things that you will teach them. Each time you teach you do a story, how to do it/teach the material and how they can use it now immediately in their lives. So it needs to be really practical. I can send you my webinar powerpoint for you to see what I mean if you wish.
Well Shane, once again thank you for sharing. It was timely because I am stuck at the moment. I am so close to launching my Mindful Communication Course but unsure if I have everything in place. It's good to know that you still experience 'stuckness'. :)
Hi Alan,
I'm happy to know that this helped you and came at a good time.
Thank you very much for your valuble content! I'm just starting online with my coaching business. I would be lost without all the valuable info I have about Thrive Themes and active growth. Furthermore, I appreciate your honest way out of the ordinary. Thanks and warm regards Joya
That's great to hear, thank you!
Thanks, Shane! There's so much that would have helped my younger self. I think its a great way to approach the content style.
Glad you found this useful, Hugh!
Hey Shane, as I am mulling things over, you know what I would love: If you were willing to do a coached mastermind. (Hell, I'd love to hire you as a biz coach, but you are probably waaaaayyyy too busy for that and I suspect it may not be your "Thing")
So the mastermind would be a group of people with a regular office hour with you every other week or so (so we have time to implement) around certain topics.
I found your sales page and video reviews incredibly helpful. And those were not even mine.
For example: A lot of us are struggling with conversion. We get the traffic, but conversion sucks. In theory we kinda sorta know what we need to do. But in practice it just isn't working.
So a coached mastermind would dissect eg a landing page or whatever and we'd work for 4-6 weeks on getting our conversions going. Instead of thinking or debating WWSD (What would Shane do?) we could hear directly from you.
And this way we could work through a host of topics over the year.
Really drilling down into the details (much more than is possible in a course) and fixing whatever our weaknesses around certain topics are.
I understand that you are probably too busy for this kind of thing ... but a solopreneur can dream, right? :-)
Thanks for your suggestion!
I'm indeed very reluctant to do coaching or masterminds or anything like that. The main reason for this is opportunity cost. There are already too many things I dearly want to do, but can't (yet) because I'm constrained to 24 hours per day (curse this mortal coil). If I'm going to do something that's not a top life goal for me, I'm only going to do it if it adds significantly to my income. And I think that just doesn't work out favorably.
To be clear: I think it could be fun to do some group coaching for sure. But it would cost time. And I think it would be too expensive to be worth it for my coachees if it were expensive enough to be worth it for me.
Yeah ... I totally get it. <3
I know you just said you wouldn't want to spend time coaching, but I can't help but think some kind of lightly coached group would serve a lot of purposes here. For you to determine the best combination of approaches to build an audience, you'll need a great set of case studies with good metrics, ideally including a number of common starting scenarios (content expert with no marketing chops, charismatic but crappy product, have extra resources vs none, etc).
I know I'm not alone in saying I would certainly would take on the strategy you personally recommended for me based on the position I'm in and my strengths and run hard with it for the next xx months, while reporting back all the metrics and implementation & mindset details you would need to analyze the best strategies. A coached group would give you the data to judge what exactly moves the needle in different scenarios and a testbed to try new techniques in, and it would solve the firehose/overwhelm problem for us (where we're trying to do 20 things and don't know how to prioritize them yet).
Maybe it could be managed by someone else besides you personally? Just a thought :)
Yes! I too would sign up for the Guinea-Pig Brigade!
Niel Patel did an experiment with his audience to check some SEO hypothesis.
It´s here:
https://neilpatel.com/blog/rank-new-content/?utm_source=email&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=email
Yeah...the things you can do with your own team! Significant experiment & labor intensive with the control group & all of the various individual SEO factors... Also labor intensive just managing a “test” like this... :-o
I like Ann's and Kendra's suggestions and would sign up for the Guinea-Pig Brigade as well :-) or for whatever field research program you decided to do Shane.
Thanks for this Shane. I signed up for the Rapid Blog Post webinar but wasn't able to attend due to a last-minute constraint - is there a replay available? I didn't receive a notification of one.
A replay of it will be made available this week. I had to re-record it due to some technical issues.
Re the webinars : webinarjam and zoom both gave a great experience for me .
Webinarninja and ClickMeeting were both pretty awful on video drop outs and sound.
On the younger self issue -- this has made me remember that when I was learning, I asked lots of questions, including many that the teachers couldn't answer or wouldn't answer (you'll learn that later when you've more experience).
But I needed to know the answer when the question occurred to me. So I found my own answers through independent research.
Now my dilemma is to decide how much to teach the students and how much to hold back (until they've got more experience !).
Thanks for your feedback!
It's maybe more of a question of teaching vs. guiding students to find the answers. Which is more difficult to do online than in person, I think.
Like others have said it's great to have this insiders view. It's encouraging to know that others, even experts, struggle at times.
I think the thing I would tell my younger self that would be most valuable is the value of having a good mentor or coach. It's pretty easy these days, via the internet, to learn virtually any talent or skill. But, proper implementation of a newly learned skill requires some experience. Having a coach or mentor that can fine tune plans based on newly learned skills saves immense amounts of time and resources.
Very true!
Wow, thank you! To ask myself this question: "would this be useful for a younger/less experienced version of myself" is a really useful way to do quality control of content before releasing it. I'll try to keep that in mind as I work my way through Course Craft.
And I look forward to when you have completed your research on which webinar software is the best. The last one (Rapid blogging) sucked. We could not see what you were trying to show us, it really wasn't optimal. So I hope you find a better one for the next webinar (which I will watch regardless).
Thanks again. I truly value all your teaching. My website and blog is so much better from following your advice.
Yeah, the last test webinar was a technical disaster. I guess that was bound to happen while testing through all the options. :)
It's OK. I admire your tenacity, and commitment. I'm sure you'll find a webinat platform that is stellar, eventually!
At least the content is great, even though the platform was not. It would be worse if it was the other way around.
Hi Shane, I’ll bare all to help you relate to the beginners online [hero's] journey
Back in 2013, I hated my job & life and stumbled upon a Youtube training, about on online marketing. Instantly I knew this perfect for me and would change my life! I had no tech or skills on how, or what to do, but I had my ‘why’.
Luckily the person in the Youtube clip taught me two important lessons.
1. Own your platform - Wordpress/audience
2. Solve a problem in a growth market and have an offer that converts!
However, this raised the stakes in my expectation and I was starting from scratch. No skills, no topic, no ideas. I started anyway and practised, failed, and felt like a complete fraud.
Like many people, I followed too many so-called gurus, hungry for knowledge. Plus I kept looking at what others were doing, and the comparisonitis was crippling. Three sites that never got off the ground later... I still had my ‘WHY’, and I didn’t give up and so glad I've stayed on the journey.
Because looking back ~ [only part time] I’ve taught myself WordPress, improved my writing skills ~ narrowed the niche ~ created my authentic, unique content that excites me ~ decided which business model will work best for me. HUGE!
Sounds good right!
But, I’m still at the baseline, but SO close! A few days off launching my new site, working on a live course then online thanks to Course Craft #excited.
Next is my audience to build. Awesome! What an opportunity!
If you were to ask me what would I tell my [green] self!
1. Spend more time working on your vision than time on the internet.
2. Choose one person in each sector to follow, buy from, join membership [whatever] and more importantly influenced you! Someone whom you trust and respect (and understands conversion) EXAMPLE One person in each niche for Writing skills - Social media- Email marketing - Business strategy - WP Tech- Freelance/Soloprenure/Entrepreneur -Team building - Blogging Skills - Branding /Storytelling BECAUSE no one person can teach you it all.
3. Learn by doing and benchmark your success - you are learning more than you realise.
4. Only invest money and or time in what you [almost] have the skill to implement in the next 6 months EXAMPLE forget trying to figure out sophisticated CRM if you don’t have an audience or funnel - use free Mailchimp. Apply this to all tech, tools and training.
5. Get over your damn self and have a go!
START - Publishing like no one is watching - (because it’s the truth!)
STOP - Over thinking, perfectionism, second-guessing myself - just do it.
CONTINUE - Experimenting, it’s never finished and it all changes anyway!
6. It is a journey, and we're all hero's
Thank You, Shane, for being one of the most important trusted advisors I have followed, I'm so grateful and so much more confident in what I'm doing.
Sorry about the length, but I've compressed 6 years into this journey.
Next week, I will be participating in one Building Your Audience virtual conference (community/network members only event). Members are mostly experienced purpose-driven entrepreneurs (some with teams/employees). The conference aims to dive into ‘’finding your people and making an impact’’ and will look at different approaches to audience-building. These approaches are structured around 4 big themes: 1) Brand, 2) Messaging, 3) Building a Platform (with diversity + inclusion in mind) and 4) Using visual language (to catch eyes/steal hearts).
For solopreneurs and those just getting started it’s a big picture approach. I still wanted to share it to contribute to the thinking process about the system for your online course, Shane.
Some ideas on approaches/strategies to include in the course:
Webinars: I hope webinars will be only one of the strategies and not the backbone of the course.
Videos: It could be interesting/useful to explore full potential of videos for audience building, including some creative and unexpected ways/styles of using it, since videos seem to be here to stay for the long-term.
Newsletter: I remember that you talked about ‘’Newsletter as a service’’ in one of your old blog posts. I really liked the idea and somewhere in the comments encouraged you to explore it further. It could be extremely relevant now for your audience building course.
Quizzes: I didn’t use yet the Thrive Themes Quiz Builder but would like to explore it. I’ve heard from some entrepreneurs that quizzes could work extremely well for list building for years e.g. if it is designed like a ‘’personality type’’ kind of quiz. Again, closer look at this ThriveThemes product with an eye on audience building might offer new ideas both for strengthening the product and for using it for the online course on audience building.
I hope this is useful. And, I take this opportunity to thank you for your leadership, insights, humanity and generosity.