Our Key Starter Plan For Course Creators For 2024
Start your course creation journey with our Key Starter Plan for 2024. Unlock essential tools and resources for success.
Are you a course creator looking to surpass all expectations in 2024? Look no further! Our comprehensive video outlines the ultimate plan for achieving unparalleled success in course creation. From cutting-edge marketing tactics to advanced content development techniques, this is a must-watch for anyone serious about taking their courses to new heights. Take charge of your future by watching the video today.
#1 – The Offer – what will be the outcome for somebody signing up for your course that you semi-guarantee?
#2 – Targeting – Your marketing is targeted at the right group of students.
#3 – Messaging – The copy for your website truly resonates with your target audience. Too many people concentrate on the look and UX layout of the course and lesson templates and little on what is essential: the copy of the main landing pages of your website.
#4 – Lead Generation – YouTube, LinkedIn, Udemy, Guest podcasting, and organic SEO.
#5 – Business Processes – onboarding, questionnaires, membership, and planning.
#6 – Team – What you should be concentrating on and what you should off-board as quickly as possible.
[00:00:17.170] – Kurt von Ahnen
Welcome back, folks, to the Membership Machine Show. This is episode 62. I’ve got my returning special guest. I’ve got Kurt. He’s feeling a bit worse today, folks. He’s been partying, the dirty devil, on the whiskey last night. So be gentle with him, audience, because he’s been a brave show and still turning up. In this show, we’re going to be talking about the key, have you got a how-to plan for your course in 2024? People, we all do it, folks. We all vacillate. I was talking to somebody yesterday who’s been thinking about doing their course for the past three years. Got a fantastic idea, and I think they’ll be very successful. But they’re looking at all the options and everything in the most minute detail, which is understandable, folks. But in the end, you just got to pull the trigger. But you’ve also got to have a plan. And this is what we’re going to be discussing in this show. So, Kurt, would you like to introduce yourself to the new listeners and followers?
[00:01:32.420] – Jonathan Denwood
Sure thing, Jonathan. My name is Kurt von Ahnen. I own a company called Maillana No Mas. We focus primarily on membership and learning websites, and I also have a podcast by the name of Maillana No Mas.
[00:01:43.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
That’s fantastic. Before we go into the main content of this great show, I’ve got a couple of messages from our major sponsors. We will be back in a few moments, folks.
[00:03:49.310] – Kurt von Ahnen
So let’s start off with number one, I’ll put it the offer. And the way I see this, Kurt, it’s a bit like the foundations of a house. If you don’t build good foundations, if you don’t work out the why, who this is targeted to, and what result they’re going to get from doing your course, I think you’re not going for… Let’s be truthful about this, Kurt. The online course business, I was looking at some research at the end of 2005. They’re looking at $360 billion being around courses and online education. So there’s an enormous market there, but a lot of the broad subjects are saturated. So you’re going to have the micro niche. You’re going to have to find your niche. But then you’re going to have to work on your offer, which I see as the foundation of your house. And if too many people miss this bit, and it’s all understandable, they get sucked into all the technology. Are they going to use WordPress or Are they going to use a SaaS platform? And they look at a thousand YouTube videos, podcasts, whatever. They listen to this, and they don’t do the work on the offer.
[00:05:28.410] – Kurt von Ahnen
Am I rabbiting on, Or do you think there’s some substance to what I’ve just outlined?
[00:05:35.050] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s understanding what the offer is from the purchaser’s standpoint that I think so many people missed the target. I was guilty of this myself, Jonathan. I made a killer training site. I was proud of it. It was a good piece of work. But my copy, my advertising, and my approach were not selling what my customer was really looking for. Even though it would have been the result, I didn’t sell that result. So my offer was messed up. So you have to know what’s the result that your training is going to give them. Instead of telling them how excellent your training is, you need to tell them what the outcome is to expect when they complete the training.
[00:06:20.890] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. So you got to do some basic market research, basically, folks, but it’s not war and peace. First of all, you got to… It’s like we’ve mentioned this in other shows. It’s best to build what is called a persona. What is your ideal student? Who is your ideal client? And what are you going to offer that individual in a particular niche that you have knowledge in? And what are you going to offer that individual? What is going to be the outcome? If And by building that persona, that ideal individual, you then got a much clearer, clearer, and focused object where you can build your core structure. Because it’s not just the quality of the video, the platform you’re utilizing. It’s, are they going to get an outcome? And does the outcome really matter to the target student, the target persona, because if they don’t care, you haven’t got a viable business. What’s your reaction to that, Kurt?
[00:07:42.090] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, you’ve nailed one piece of it there. And the one thing I just want to articulate is a lot of cases, you develop a course and your student, the person directly taking the course, isn’t even the customer. That’s the part to think of. Are you selling this to a company that’s going to mandate Are you trading for staff? Are you selling this to a medical association that’s going to mandate that members of that association have to complete that training? If that’s the case, remember that your offer is not targeted at that student. Your offer is targeted above the student at that next level that’s making the purchase. It’s really understanding what your offer specifically is, who it’s going to benefit, and thinking about where that cash flow is going to come from so that you can design the offer for the source of the revenue.
[00:08:35.080] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah, I’ll just give you an insight. We have a quite a broad and growing band of entrepreneurs and associations and all sorts of organizations that we work with folks. But in the smaller entrepreneur niche, and we have many that host with WP Tonic, a couple of… No, it’s a pattern, but it’s not exclusively. Some of the most successful individuals with us are around certification and about continuous education because they’re a particular niche. The individuals in it have to maintain certification and have to do a certain amount of training, which they have to keep a record of, and if challenged, have to prove that they’ve done a certain amount of hours per year. And that’s a market It there. And like I say, we’ve got a few individuals that done really well. But the reason why I’m bringing it up, listeners and viewers, is it’s easier to build a course. These people found it easier because there’s a endpoint. There’s a clear definition of the benefit that the student is going to get for doing the course. It’s black and white. You provide training that will allow them that you either you have to have the training checked over by a third party body or you have to meet some criteria, your training.
[00:10:11.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
And then when you provide it, there’s normally a state or national or industry body that has to give the tick on your training, whatever. But it’s clear-cut. After you’ve gone over that hurdle, the outcome is pretty clear, and that’s why it’s easier. But you can mimic that, but you got to have a clear process. What’s your response, Kurt?
[00:10:35.920] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. Again, I really do the research to try and figure out where my money and revenue is going to come from. At the end of the day, you want to share your ideas, you want to be an artist, you want all these cool things. But at the end of the day, we’re still a business and we have to figure, where is this cash flow going to come from? And then from that, that’s how I gear the offer.
[00:11:00.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
On to the next thing, which is targeting. We’ve just done the offer, which is the ground research, the why. Also, looking at the right platform. I’m not going to delude you. There is quite a few balls that you’re going to have to juggle here, folks. Now, having a great partner like WP Tonic really helps you build it on WordPress because that’s one of the reasons why people look at other solutions, because there’s an enormous broad of options with WordPress, which is great because it means that you’re not going to be trapped on a platform that no longer meets your business needs. As your membership grows and your requirements become more focused on giving the solution to your students, you can get in trapped. You’re not going to have that. But the problem with WordPress is that there’s so many options to start off with. Finding a really great partner like WP Tonic solves that problem. So let’s go on to targeting. Now, it overlaps to some extent with the offer, but the offer is about what is the outcome, what your course, just having a load of video and you got all this knowledge inside you and you just out in the course, that ain’t going to work.
[00:12:28.170] – Kurt von Ahnen
Because that That doesn’t get an end result. And if there’s no end result, these people aren’t going to recommend your course to other people. You’re not going to get any testimonials. No matter how cheap the initial course price is. If they don’t get anything out of it, they’re not going to be happy. It’s just that simple. Where the targeting, we touched that with building a persona, your ideal student. But But too many people build a really great course when we look at it. It’s fantastic. Even the website, but they never really were. It’s too broad the subject. They’re put in And they’ve taken almost a year to two years, and they’ve built multiple courses out. And it’s ever-ending. It’s like they got a starter course, a middle course. It’s all great stuff. But it’s too It’s too broad. The target is too broad. It’s too competitive. It’s not niche-ified. That’s the word I created, listeners. I still love it, niche-ified. It rolls off. So many words do not roll off my tongue, but the ones I create do. But they don’t really focus on that ideal student, and they don’t niche, and it’s too broad, and it just gets swamped.
[00:14:02.760] – Kurt von Ahnen
And one of the ways you can do that is to do some vast basic market research. Who are the influencers in your niche? What are they talking about? Write down the problems that they cover, what feedback they get. In the WordPress space, folks, a great niche would be page builders. And there’s a number of individuals that have built courses, and they have multiple individuals in the WordPress space have built six-figure businesses offering courses about page builders. There’s just endless discussion, argument, drama, purchasing. It’s endless in the WordPress space. If you want to build a YouTube channel, just talk about page builders constantly, and you’ll be okay. I could build a massive business. I just can’t do it, folks, because I’m not that interested, to be truthful about it. But that’s just the example. The other thing is go to Amazon and look at book reviews about your subject and have a look at what the people found good about the books, what they didn’t find good about the books. There’s It’s also loads of Facebook forums. Just don’t jump on then. Just be God gave you two ears and just one mouth for a reason.
[00:15:41.260] – Kurt von Ahnen
I know that’s ironic that I’m saying that because I just wrap it on and on and on. Kurt is a bit fragile, and he’s just happy to nod, and I’m rambling on. But I think it’s justified because there’s not been a more your easier way of doing your research and then writing your copy and targeting your website to the right niche people. And if you do that, you’re going to get… You don’t even need a big audience to start off with. You just need to get the will moving and you need to get a first batch of students in so you get some income in. That will make an enormous difference to your attitude to your motivation and what you’re prepared to do with your membership business. What do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:16:38.590] – Jonathan Denwood
The targeting is so important, Jonathan. I think of it like this way. If you wanted to If you’re going to make a business course for finance, and you say, I’m going to have a business course in finance, okay, who are you going to target that to? Because that’s a huge market. If you were going to go into the general market of just business finance, you’d be up against, quick in and quick books and all these monsters that could make content that are recognizable. Then you say, Okay, well, I’m going to do smaller businesses. Okay, smaller what businesses? Then you say, Well, smaller independent businesses, not franchises. Okay, well, now you’re nicheing down. Then maybe you get into, I love botanicals, so maybe I’m going to work with small businesses that sell plants. Then you go, okay, well, what are the unique vertical topics with a retail store that sells plants. Then now you’ve specialized. Then you can jump on, like Jonathan said, jump on, look up some groups with botanical stores, flowers, Our stores, things like that, local nurseries. You’ll be amazed how deep that is. We’re not trying to build the next Facebook. You’re just looking to start out.
[00:17:59.460] – Jonathan Denwood
10 paying customers, 20 BAN customers, 30 BAN customers. And so you pick a market that is finite enough that you can market directly to it and get some result, but big enough that it’s going to generate some revenue.
[00:18:12.490] – Kurt von Ahnen
Yeah. Number three, and these are linked, they’re all overlapping, is that if you work on your offer, the outcome, you worked on your targeting, who is your avatar? Who’s your persona? Who’s the ideal student? And you’ve done that, the messaging will become a lot more easier. And don’t get me wrong, I’m a digital snob when it comes to UX design. I did my master Master’s degree as a mature student long, long time ago at the University of the London School of Print and Design. And they were UX snobs, and I’m a UX snob. Having a good-looking website, having the layout of your courses, but so many people that we help folks, me and Kerr and the rest of my team, they go off big ways too early about all this, and they take it too far, too quick. What you should be concentrating And I’ve learnt this the hard way in my own business, because Kurt knows that to say that I concentrate on the copy of the website, of the homepage, and I’m always looking at it and I’m always talking about it, aren’t I, Kurt? Is that you You’ve got to concentrate on your copy, on the written messaging, supported by images, because if you do any graphic training, the reason why images are important is not it to look nice, is that we can process image messaging much quicker than the written message.
[00:20:14.780] – Kurt von Ahnen
We are visual animals, and we process image much more quicker than the process of reading text and then getting the message that’s in the text. That’s why it combining images with text is so powerful. But the written copy is going to be really important. Your homepage, your About Us page, and some of the other pages about what the actual course offers. It doesn’t have to be war and peace. That’s the other thing. It’s very similar to the course, Kurt, is that people think people that not used to writing copy or don’t understand the basic principles, they tend to write much too much. It’s not about writing too much, it’s about writing stuff and then editing, editing, editing, and editing some more and creating the message down to the core so it can be consumed the quickest. What was your response, Kurt?
[00:21:29.570] – Jonathan Denwood
Kind of twofold, Jonathan. When I look at someone that’s fairly new to WordPress or new with a dynamic site, whether it’s e-commerce, membership, or e-learning, you’re trying to get the user to make a journey through the site. You’re trying to get them to take action in the site. It’s different than a one-pager or a template website. You’re trying to get them to go somewhere. To me, to your point, people put way too many words, way too many paragraphs, way too much copy, especially on the introductory pages. I think people are much better served with less content, variations in font, and then making sure that that call to action, that’s our fancy way of saying, getting the customer to click a button somewhere, making sure that that is plain and easy to see and that it walks your customer, your student, to whatever that next step is. I always tell people, I had a customer recently make a really good course. Then when I went to their homepage, I was like, So how does the student find the course?
[00:22:43.230] – Kurt von Ahnen
What is the course about? What is the benefit I’m going to get by giving you money to do this course? And what outcome am I going to get from doing this course? What problem? And that’s why you need to do the other steps that we’ve just discussed, because you need to know what the offer is. And then you need to know your niche avatar and how it’s going to… And that will help with the messaging about… But if you don’t do the first two steps, you’re not going to get the third step right.
[00:23:19.020] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, and you’re not going to sell a course by sneaking it in on people. You got to be upfront about it. When you visit a website and the front page is all about us, about this, about. And it’s not promoting the course, which is the bread and butter of your product.
[00:23:34.960] – Kurt von Ahnen
So let’s do it. We got a couple more minutes before we go into the second half. Listen, Kurt’s recently done a fantastic LinkedIn course, which he is in the process. He’s written it, it’s up, you can purchase it. And also, I think I’m correct, is you’re in the process of publishing it to UniMe. Am I correct about that? It’s a fantastic Fantastic 101 introduction. And I suggested to Kurt that he should publish it to you and me because I did a little course on there and it was very good. But obviously, I’ve seen some of Kurt’s, and Kurt is a massive user of LinkedIn. And by the way, you can utilize LinkedIn. It’s a great way of building their initial audience for your niche course. If it’s a professional-aimed professional course at a certain level, LinkedIn is a great resource in building contacts and then putting content on about your course and promoting your course. So, Kurt, let’s do it. What problem does the course solve?
[00:25:00.670] – Jonathan Denwood
The problem that my course solves for people on LinkedIn is I help them simplify the communication process and the connection process so that people want to talk to them instead of run from them.
[00:25:14.480] – Kurt von Ahnen
Who’s it aimed at, the target? Who is the ideal person that will get the most benefit?
[00:25:20.920] – Jonathan Denwood
Largely entrepreneurs and executive types.
[00:25:25.980] – Kurt von Ahnen
Right. Have you worked out what may your message in your core catchphrase and your core text, your first paragraph of text on the Uname page will be? Have you sensed about what trigger words that you’re going to be utilizing in that first paragraph or the tagline on your Uname course?
[00:25:51.360] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah, the one that’s sticking out to me is, grow your LinkedIn connections without intimidation.
[00:25:57.320] – Kurt von Ahnen
How does it? I’m trying I quite like that. You’re not going to get it right the first time, folks. You’re going to have to think, leave it, go back, get some feedback from people. You’ll be constantly at it, folks. But This is just a quick thing. I’ll put Kurt on the spot there a little bit. I didn’t pre-warn him, but I think it was educational because giving a quick demo of some of the things, I think it makes the whole what I’ve been talking about in the first half of the show much clearer. Thanks for that, Kurt. I think we’re going to go for our break now, folks, and we will be back in a few moments. This podcast episode is brought to you by Lifter LMS, the leading learning management system solution for WordPress. If you or your client are creating any online course, training-based membership website or any type of eLearning project, project, Lifter LMS, is the most secure, stable, well-supported solution on the market. Go to lifterlms. Com and save 20% at checkout with coupon code podcast20. That’s podcast20. That’s CAST 2:0. Enjoy the rest of your show. We’re coming back, folks.
[00:27:20.950] – Kurt von Ahnen
Just want to point out, why don’t you join the Membership Machine Show WP Tonic YouTube channel and sign up? We I’ve got loads of videos there. It’s a free resource on publishing almost every week, almost everyday video content that will help you build a great membership site and also educate you a little bit about WordPress and some of the best tools and all sorts of things. It’s a great resource. So let’s go on. I think lead generation, it’s a volume game, folks, to some extent. You need That’s why if you niche, it’s not going to be so difficult because you’re not going to need such a volume of people. Because otherwise, if it’s broad, you need a very, very large audience for your YouTube channel, for your website. It’s just a numbers game But the great thing is the ability to generate interest and the platforms out there that enable you. I’ve just listed YouTube is obviously a big driver to your website and to your course offering. The more you’ve niche and done the previous work that we’ve outlined, more your YouTube channel, the content. You need to… And if you’ve done the prior research and you found out a list of problems and you’ve chosen a few problems, your initial course, this is the other thing, which I probably didn’t mention in the first half of the show, folks, is for your first course, do not try and solve every problem under the sun.
[00:29:25.410] – Kurt von Ahnen
I’m not saying it should be a beginner’s course because it It depends on the knowledge value you’re offering. But probably the beginner area or the low intermediary is probably a better place for you to start on your course journey. Just look your initial course because this is a new thing for you. It’s totally achievable and you can get great success. And the opportunities are still out there, folks. If you do the things we outlined in the first half of the show, I’m not saying you could be guaranteed, but you’ll be in the top 10 % of people. So your chances of getting success are going to be a lot better than all the people that didn’t listen to this. But, so try and do a minimum viable course and then get a list of the problem that you’ve gathered. Your initial course might only answer one or two of them, but you got a great list that will then give you structure about what your YouTube video is going to be about. So you just touch on a problem solution, and you can say, well, I’m offering it all free on YouTube. No, you’re not.
[00:30:51.810] – Kurt von Ahnen
You just offer, you just give a certain amount of information, and you point out the problem and give a few tips and outlines. But the deep core mentorship, group discussion, all everything else that you can combine in the membership can only be offered in a membership. So don’t be scared about that, because I’ve had people say that to me. Linkedin, I’ve just touched upon that in research. It’s just a great way of promoting your course on LinkedIn. Sign up for Kurt’s course. You know me. I think this is what Kirk’s doing. I think it’s a great way. Going on guest podcasting as a guest, great way. Something I need to get on a bit more, but I’ve been churning out so much content on the website, on the YouTube channel. I think you would agree that I’ve been a bit of an animal lately, haven’t I? I’ve been churning out a lot of stuff, haven’t I?
[00:31:55.630] – Jonathan Denwood
Tons of content. Tons of content.
[00:31:57.810] – Kurt von Ahnen
Your SEO It is important. I wouldn’t touch upon that initially. I think it’s something that you can do at a certain later stage. You got the fundamentals, correct. Utilizing WordPress will help with that enormously because it’s very SEO friendly, search engine optimization, folks. Paid advertisement has it, but I would get that initial group of students in first before I would… Even if I had the budget or I had the exposure to utilize paid advertising, I would always do a first course and get my initial students in because you learn so much. What’s your response to some of the things I’ve just outlined, Kurt?
[00:32:50.800] – Jonathan Denwood
You’re touching on all of them, which is good. I mean, obviously, having a presence on YouTube, LinkedIn, Facebook, Twitter, X, all those things make sense. But it goes back to that overlap you were talking about. Where is your target audience and who have you targeted and where do they hang out the most? For instance, my target audience is CEOs, C-suite executives, things like that. I’m very active in LinkedIn. That’s where those people hang out. There’s a lot of… Going to a speakers, authors, and coaches lane. There’s a lot of speakers, authors, and coaches, and groups, and all kinds of pages inside Facebook for that thing. Trying to identify where your target audience is helps with this. Then the last thing I wanted to say was these numbers don’t have to be huge. I joke around about it. I’ve been on YouTube for years, hundreds of videos, and I’ve got, I think I’m up to 78 now, 78 subscribers. So, no, go look up my channel and then link and subscribe. But I only have 78 subscribers. But I get business from it. I get referrals from it. When I go to WordCamp, people come up to me and go, Hey, aren’t you the Manana Nomas guy?
[00:34:12.040] – Jonathan Denwood
I’ve been watching your videos for years. Right when you think it’s not working, it’s working. There’s things happening. You have to be cognizant that it is a lead magnet. It’s a lead generation tool. But you don’t have to. You don’t have to be some famous TikTokeer with a million followers to market yourself. You just need to get out there and have a message and promote it.
[00:34:38.540] – Kurt von Ahnen
When it comes to YouTube, though, folks, it’s like everything. You do knowing about the title, the title of your video, the thumbnail, these are important things. There’s a couple of really inexpensive tools. One that I use is YouTube Buddy. It’s not that expensive. I pay it yearly, and that will give you research You can utilize it for research about… It’s a Chrome or Firefox extension after you purchase it, and it gives you insights about how competitive the YouTube video title is the meta description and the tags. You can put tags. Tags used to be really important when it came to YouTube videos. They no longer so much, but the thumbnail and the title and the description is really important. Utilizing one of these tools and spending a little bit of time and energy on it will help your videos. But you don’t need the enormous amount. That’s why… Because you’re aiming at a niche audience. So if you’ve done your prior work, even though you’re not getting tens of thousands of people subscribing to your channel, it still will have enormous enormous benefit because the purpose is for people to get to know you, to see you as somebody knows about your subject for them to go to your website.
[00:36:09.620] – Kurt von Ahnen
The offer resonates with them because you’ve done all the previous work that we’ve outlined in this show, and then they buy your course. There are a few steps to this, folks, but it’s not jet science, but you need a plan of action, and this is why I thought this show would be really useful. I’ll call to you, folks. Business process. Do you have an onboarding process? Have you written out a series of email that gives them information? Especially your initial students, can you offer them some inducement to fill in a quick questionnaire so you can get some formal feedback about the course? Because it’s going to be invaluable. The people that fill in the questionnaire, you might then contact them to have a Zoom with them, offer them a one-to-one coaching half hour as part of it, and ask so you can record it so you can get more feedback about the course, the strong points, the bad points, because you’re not going to hit it out of the park with your first course. You’re probably going to have to adapt that. And then that feedback will definitely help with your next course. So that’s why it’s important important.
[00:37:30.740] – Kurt von Ahnen
Having a plan on what’s going to happen after the first initial course, what do you reckon, Kurt?
[00:37:41.530] – Jonathan Denwood
People assume that because they signed into a platform, the platform is going to do all this automatically or that there’s an easy button. And there is no easy button. You can hire people to help you with this stuff if you really don’t want to do it.
[00:37:56.910] – Kurt von Ahnen
Act WB tonic.
[00:37:58.770] – Jonathan Denwood
Act WB tonic, Absolutely. But people say, Well, what do you mean onboarding? I mean, if you think about things, you’re going to have some way that your website is going to send messages out to students. If you have a new URL, you’re not going to have domain authority yet. Different email things might put it to the spam box. One piece of onboarding is, hey, this is how you whitelist our email to make sure you continue to get our messages. That’s just one message that you put out right away. It’s all part of this process, folks. You got to think it through, not from your perspective, but from the student’s perspective. I make quick little videos, tutorials, like a 40-second, just a 40-second run-through. Hey, welcome to the site. It’s great that you’re here. Then it’s a screen share that says, When you first sign in, you’ll see a website that looks like this. This is where you click to go to your courses. This is where you click to see your account. This is where you click to change your phone number, blah, blah, blah. Then, Welcome again, and we’ll see you soon. That’s it.
[00:38:59.390] – Jonathan Denwood
It’s a quick video, but it gets sent as part of the onboarding process, and it helps build that relationship virtually with the student and cement you more in so it becomes more sticky. You want your people to stay with you. You don’t want that churn to happen.
[00:39:16.580] – Kurt von Ahnen
The other thing is when you get that with WP Tonic, the next thing is, what I mean is you need a team trying to do… Obviously, if you got any resources, and the great thing at WP Tonic, we have a lot of people that start small, grow, and we get involved. They like our support, our attitude, and we help them on their journey, and we become They’re a partner. They don’t have to utilize us. They can just host with us, and they get enormous value from that. But we’re in building a long term relationship with our clientele and helping them on their journey because their success is But you’re going to need a team at some stage. Now, obviously, a lot of this you’re going to have to be doing on your own or utilizing WP tonic. Then you’ll probably be a mixture of us helping you with some internal staff, which you will be… When you get to a certain size, try to do it all, it just isn’t possible, folks. You can automate. And I love optimization when it’s utilized in the proper scenario. But I don’t like There are a few people out there that promote optimization that will solve all business problems.
[00:40:55.590] – Kurt von Ahnen
People are buying to a course to a certain extent Because they want access to you. Obviously, you do that through mastermind and one-to-one coaching on all the other scenarios that we outline on this podcast and on the YouTube channel. But you can’t do it all. When you get over, let’s say you get into 100, 200, 300 active students, Trying to develop the next course, trying to keep the website maintained, getting everything these multiple balls, it just becomes too much too quick. So your main aim is get the revenue up to a certain stage where WP tonic can be involved a bit more and you can hire one or two internal people to help you part-time in the running of the business?
[00:41:57.990] – Jonathan Denwood
What do you reckon, Kurt? It sounds really silly sometimes, Jonathan, but if you just build your business, your course business, with the mindset that it is a business. For instance, your website might be abc. Com. Then you say, Okay, well, I’m going to have an info at abc. Com. I’m going to have a support at abc. Com. And then as your business grows, just having a part-time or a contract person that you can forward that support at email address to so that you don’t have to burden yourself with, I forgot my password. Can you reset my password? My credit card was turned down by PayPal. If those emails went somewhere else, and then you as the course creator were able to focus on getting that next course done or being on the next podcast to promote your product, that’s such a weight off your shoulders. And just find those little things that you can begin to offload. And as it continues to grow and spoil up, maybe those contract positions turn into real positions.
[00:43:04.090] – Kurt von Ahnen
It’s about balance, folks. I think balance is the hardest thing for us to assume. It’s not getting something about the minutiae about how your lesson course looks when somebody signs up. You need to worry about that when you’re getting feedback that Changing things there would provide a more engaging and enjoyable experience. That’s when you need to aim your focus. It would help if you focused on understanding your ideal student, your core offering, and all the things we’ve outlined. It’s knowing that You love WordPress, and you need to understand your platform’s fundamentals. You are the owner of the business. It’s a bit like a car. Some people love working in vehicles. Now, Kurt is an expert. He loves all things that have an engine in it. I’m not. I like driving. I enjoy driving. The idea of something A machine driving for me has no appeal because I like driving. But I’m not somebody that maintains their car. I go to a garage to have that. But I do know how an engine works, check the oil and water and probably know more about engines.
[00:44:59.150] – Kurt von Ahnen
I watch mechanic shows and people stripping engines to switch off, even though I do not want to do it. I find it interesting. I have a problem switching off at the best of times. It’s just a way for me to watch something. I can watch an expert, and I enjoy it. So it’s knowing the balance that you have to know about things, folks, but you don’t have to become an expert because that is not where you’re going to make your revenue. That’s not the skill that will make you get the outcome you’re looking for for yourself and your family. Is this making any sense, Gert, or am I waffling?
[00:45:56.890] – Jonathan Denwood
I sure hope it is. As you were talking about working on cars, I was thinking to myself, that social media video where they go, Hey, how do you know how to do all these things? The guy goes, Because I grew up poor. We couldn’t afford to have people fix stuff. But I’m thinking about the overall story arc of today’s show. You’re right; there’s a lot of blending in the topics, but it’s essential that you keep them separate.
[00:46:27.800] – Kurt von Ahnen
You absolutely- It was my benefit because if I just went, it would give some framework to this discussion. It’s gone much better than I thought because we have offered some… Yeah, I think it was mostly me because it has given structure. There is overlap, but I’m not sure if I had the structure to this podcast, I would waffle on, wouldn’t I?
[00:46:50.420] – Jonathan Denwood
Yeah. There are new people who listen. People listen to us who already have their course and their way. Maybe they’re already going in a different direction, and they’re like, these guys don’t know what they’re talking about. And to them, I say sorry. But to the new folks, this is gold stuff. This is gold. I mean, when I was, I was a corporate trainer for a long time. And so I was used to the corporate mentality of, we will build it, and people will have to take it. And when you leave, and you become an entrepreneur from that corporate mindset, and you go, okay, well, I’m going to make a course, and people are going to take it. That’s not true. Everything that Jonathan put in this outline is right. You have to get your offer right. Who are you benefiting? What is the benefit? And how will they receive that benefit? It’s got to be in your offer. Then, you have to target that offer to the exact right people, and you have to make sure that the messaging matches them. I have a vast power sports background, but I also work in the marine industry with boats.
[00:47:53.560] – Jonathan Denwood
You don’t want to start calling things like Motorcycle parts, marine parts, and Motorcycle parts. These are one of those audiences who will hang you out to dry if you screw that up if you get the phrasing wrong. You want to ensure that your targeting and messaging match those people. If you get overly dependent on AI, those are the mistakes that AI will make. You have to edit your AI content if you’re using AI to create content. Then the lead magnet stuff, Jonathan, is enormous. Because, like I said earlier, you will point out the YouTube stuff and all the details with YouTube, and it’s all there. But people get so hung up and think they must get that little silver plaque with the YouTube play button behind their head. That’s just not true. You just need was lovely, but it means nothing to the bottom line. No, you just got to get your message out.
[00:48:46.930] – Kurt von Ahnen
It usually means you can make a reasonable income from just what YouTube gives you. But we are talking about people that are utilizing these platforms. These platforms, you do not own, folks. These platforms can change what they’re looking for. They’re in business, you’re in business. You have a business relationship with these platforms. That’s how you should look at it. It’s like subcontractors, people you colleagues you work with, whatever. But you do not want to build your business on somebody else’s platform. You want to use it to promote your platform, not use it. And the more I think about digital ownership, digital sovereignty is essential because so many people I’ve seen on a platform and the platform goes away or the target audience changes and you no longer fit it, you, and what you’re offering on their platform no longer fit into the ideal client they’re looking for blah, blah, blah. I think we’ll wrap it out, folks, because I think I’ve waffled on. No, but I say to myself, I think this has some real value. What do you want us to cover, folks? You’re being a bit silent.
[00:50:18.640] – Kurt von Ahnen
The figures are going up. More people are listening to this. Please give us some feedback about what you would like. All you to do that, you have to do is go to YouTube, the WP-Tonic YouTube channel. I’m considering spinning off the Membership Machine show on its YouTube channel, but it’s more work. But you can go to the WP-Tonic channel and find the whole video of this podcast there, plus a load of other resources. Or you can join our Facebook group. Kirk and I are on there, and we’re going to be hopefully doing more stuff with the Facebook group. We’ve got some great guests coming up, plus Kirk is helping me. We will be back next week, folks. We’ll see you soon. Bye.
[00:51:18.920] – Jonathan Denwood
Thanks for listening to the Membership Machine Show. Remember to subscribe so you don’t miss any future episodes, and leave a rating to support the show.
[00:51:27.350] – Kurt von Ahnen
Until next time.
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