Guest Speaker Series: From Facebook Community Builder to Entrepreneur Meet Chantelle Turner

Hey everybody, it's Tara Bryan and you are listening to the course building secrets podcast. Whether you're a coach or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give you practical real life tips that you can use today to build your online experiences that get results and create raving fans. Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people without adding more time or team to your business. If you're looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hey, everybody, today I have Chantelle Turner with me to talk about all things course building, and so wanted to just quickly introduce you to Chantal and then I'm going to turn it over to her to begin. So Chantal began her entrepreneurial journey. Shortly after having her first child, she was looking for a way to cover her daughter's medical bills and discovered network marketing. While she did quite well, early on using traditional methods, she quickly hit a plateau and began looking for ways to leverage the Internet and automation. During this time, she also was working hard to get her daughter's the medical services and support she needed due to complications at birth, she found ways to help her own daughter, she realized many other parents who whose kids have special needs, were not getting the support that they needed. With her learned internet and marketing skills, she founded her company stronger mama, or mommy, while building stronger mommy Chantal found and developed highly effective strategies that not only grew her group and brand, but revolutionize the way people grow and manage Facebook groups. Those who adapt these strategies into their own groups have seen a massive growth both in their following and sales. And you have then turned that into your new business and then also created a course out of that. So I'm super excited to welcome Chantal on today's call, and and really get your insights, Chantal on creating your course. So just to get us started, first of all, if there's anything you want to add to that, feel free. And then to get started, I want to just hear about your course creation journey. Specifically, what are some big has challenges or obstacles that you've had in creating your online course that you want to share with our audience?

Yes, well, first of all, thanks for inviting me to be on. And hopefully my journey will help some others avoid some of the pitfalls that I have landed in. But, um, as you mentioned, in my bio, when I first got started, I was literally just a special needs mom, my daughter actually had a stroke during birth. And so I was in corporate America, I had a great job, I was happily climbing the corporate ladder, and I had a really good insurance that did not cover about 50% of our medical bills. And so very quickly, we had this massive pile of medical debt, and I had to figure out a way to support an additional income. And I was working full time, my daughter needed a lot of my support as well. And my husband travels about 80% of the Year for his work. So she was already in daycare during the day, I was like how can I possibly get a second job, I will literally never see my child and she won't be able to get what she needs, I wouldn't be able to take her to therapy and all of that. And so I kind of landed in network marketing just as a way to start earning some income did okay and but wanted to grow and started looking on the internet. Now my discovered with was that there were other special needs parents just like me, who actually didn't know all of the things that I had discovered that I was using to help my daughter. And so I was getting all these resources and services for my child. And as I started to connect with other specialties, parents, I learned the biggest thing that they didn't have was a true community. There were Facebook groups online that had specialties parents in them. But there was a lot of negativity. Parents were like mean to each other. And I thought, gosh, there's so much out there in the world where we're already taking this beating. Why is it happening in this group of people that should all have the same pain points and understand each other and so I kind of founded stronger mommy as a way to help these parents get the resources and services they needed but also to build that community where they could feel supported and so I called it stronger monies that was my Facebook group. And in a way wanting to help them I thought okay, well I'll do an Ask campaign which is basically for those that don't know, it's exactly what it sounds like. You literally find you know, a large group of your ideal avatar, your your dream customers, and then you ask them what they need. Now, this can be good, but people are really bad about telling you what they actually want to buy. They'll tell you what they think they need. And so I did this Ask campaign I took a survey of about 150 Special Needs Moms. I said a lot of questions. But the two big ones were, what's the biggest thing that you feel you need help with right now? And what's the biggest thing that you already know now that you wish you had known sooner? And so out of that I got all these responses. And I grouped them together into what became six sections, six modules of a course, and a total of 38 videos that compiled up to be those modules. And then I looked through it and I go, Oh, my gosh, I have the answers to this, right. This is kind of enlightening. For me. I thought, okay, cool. I really do know what I'm doing. I have these answers that these people need. And I built a course, I spent all of this time and energy and effort and I recorded it all, on my iPhone. I taught myself how to edit in iMovie. I got background music, and title slides and all sorts of stuff. I built this course. And then I went over and I got Clickfunnels. And I learned how to build an entire membership site and an opt in page. And I did my very first video sales letter, which was awful, by the way, totally terrible. And, and I had had some ad knowledge, because that's what I had been learning on the internet was how to run ads. So I'm like, Cool. So I launched it. And my ads did really, really well. From a metric standpoint, as far as my often cost was super low. The engagement was really high 10 relevancy score, they looked good. But nobody was buying my course. And I was out there trying to sell all of the features of this course that I had built based off what people said they wanted. And then nobody wanted to buy it. And so for two plus years, because I had already invested all of his time and my own money and my own energy into building it, I tried to ram it down people's throats, because I was so committed to something that I already built. And so fast forward, here's where I hope you don't fail like I did. Don't do it that way. The second time around, I had all these people coming to me and what they wanted to know they were other entrepreneurs, and they wanted to know, Chantal, how did you build your Facebook group, because during this process, I had kind of accidentally built a Facebook group of about 3000, special needs parents, over 90% of all of my members were engaged, meaning that they commented they liked they posted, which is very rare to have such high engagement in your group. And I was building this massive following of people that knew liked and trusted me. And I was making sales because of that, not because of something else, but because they built that trust with me. And so people were asking, How did I do that? And eventually, as I was just sharing it with some friends trying to give them some insight, I had people come to me and say, Hey, can I buy your course? Well, there wasn't one, it didn't exist. And after several people asked if they could buy my course, I finally said yes. And I pulled a number out of it. But to be honest, I sold it. I quickly literally to one guy who asked I was like, give me 20 minutes to build you a page you can purchase from built it, sold it before it ever existed. And then went back and actually built a course. And today I'm more proud of that than anything I've ever done. I was so much more motivated to put in incredible time and energy and effort and work because people had already wanting to pay for what I had. And because of that I'm not shoving it down their throats, they're actually wanting to buy it. So you have the option. Go with option number two, it's way better. But that has been my journey.

Yeah, that's awesome. All right. So I have lots and lots of nuggets out of that, first of all, so tell me a little bit about when you decided to make the leap from corporate like you're not in corporate anymore, right?

Yes. So um, so as I said, I did pretty well in network marketing, which is rare, but I really kind of actually leveraged the internet. And funny enough, I leveraged Facebook groups, which is what I teach now, well before I realized it's what I was doing. But I really started to connect to other people online because as a special needs mom, I couldn't just get out there and like, Go meet people or have home parties. If you're in network marketing, you know what I mean? wasn't gonna work for me. And so I started to connect with people online. I've always been good at just networking. I love to communicate with humans. And so I connected and built that. And eventually it built it actually up to where it was generating about the same income that my full time corporate job was. But to get to my full time corporate job, which I actually I love my boss, I loved what I did. But I was commuting about three hours round trip a day, and putting my daughter in daycare, literally from six o'clock in the morning until six o'clock at night. Open close. I never saw my husband, I felt like I never saw my child. And I was burnt out from the drive. And I thought, gosh, I've replaced my income from that. I'm in just a few hours of my day, I had used that extra income over two years to pay off all of that $100,000 worth of medical debt that we had accumulated. So now we had paid that off. I thought you know what, I don't need the corporate position anymore. And so in December of 2016, right around the time that I was really kind of getting into the swing of things with stronger mommy and starting to develop that business as well. And with a steady stream of income from network marketing, I decided to leave my corporate job actually gave them a four month notice because I loved my boss and I was like, Hey, I'm leaving, like find a replacement. Train them up. I'm going but I'm adds been. So what? 16 1718 It's been almost three years of being home full time. Um, I can't imagine going back. I absolutely love

it. Yeah, that's very cool. I love that. Well, and that's the power, right. That's the power of finding something that not only you're passionate about, but that, that you can turn into a business. So that's super cool. I love I love hearing that. So the other thing that I wanted to just talk about briefly is the two different approaches that you use to create a course. So one of the ways that we teach in learn Academy is build your beta first, right, so sell it and then build it. And and that's what it sounds like you did for the second run around is that when, you know, when you have an audience of people who want to purchase what you have to offer, build it with them, right? So do you know sell it and then build the course, versus building all of your assets ahead of time, and then hoping that it sells is such a powerful lesson for so many people? Talk to me a little bit about the differences. Did you have any? Any stumbling blocks with sort of, you know, getting your sales page out there selling the course and then building it with people who wanted to take it? Or was Did it feel pretty freeing to be able to do it that way?

Well, I definitely learned a lot in two years of trying to force the stronger mommy course down people's throats, right? Because I was always trying to okay, they didn't buy it, why didn't they buy it? Let me improve the sales page. Let me do a better video, let me do a webinar. And I was testing all of these different things. But I never really stuck with one thing long enough. And I was so committed to having to recoup the the the monetary investment that I had made, but also like, the emotional and personal time investment that I have made like to me, I was like, Oh, I had worked so hard on this, they have to buy it. And so Oh, I think a lot of that tension came into the sale, right? So I was always trying to like force them to buy something. And when I stepped back and did it the other way and had people coming to me saying hey, can I buy this? Not only was there no tension? No, I wasn't I didn't have it. It didn't exist. So I wasn't trying to force anything down anybody's throat, people were saying, This is what I want from you. And I literally said, hey, I can deliver on that. Sure. Here's how to buy it. And so I had I had understood the skills of what to build as far as the sales page and how to build it and all of that, could it be better 100 times it could be better, like it can always get better. And but I built something it was quick. It was easy. It was efficient. And it worked. And then when it came time to build the course, I simply built what they said they wanted, like they literally said, Can you teach me these things? How you I can and I was able to do that. And has I built it actually the first time when I sold it, but like early on as beta. And I recorded the course. And it wasn't great. It was good. The information was good. But it wasn't super high quality. I was just trying to deliver on what I had sold, and had some people that had a lot of success with it. So it worked. But I was like, once I was getting more and more people in I thought okay, now I can go back and really structure it. How does it need to be organized? What what gaps are people falling into? And I'm always improving it, I'm always adding things. And you know, just to just to make it even better for the people that are continually coming saying, Hey, can I buy this from you? That's awesome.

I love the the description that you have, it just was easy, right? Because people are asking for it. So it's easy for you to deliver it versus just that, that resistance that almost that negative energy that you had from trying to sell it. Just two totally different approaches and ways to do it. So I love them. They were

fun. It was and it still is it is still so much more fun. I get a lot more satisfaction when somebody comes into that and buys it because I don't feel like I worked super hard for that sale. Came it I swam, you know, downstream it was just easy and fun. And I think that that's by far the better way to do it. If you have the toys, do it that way, you'll have a lot more success that I owe a lot more fun.

Yeah. Awesome. Very cool. So when you touch me a little bit about your course you can you just tell me a little bit about what it's what it's about. But then how do you ensure that your learner's are getting those results? You've said that people you know have come in and they've gotten the results. And so you know that that you're doing, you know, the right, the right things right and getting them to success. But what does that look like? How are you ensuring that your learner's are, you know, finishing the course and then also getting the results that you want them to get?

Yes, so that's actually an area I've struggled a bit with, to be honest. And so my course it's all about organic traffic strategies, organic leads from Facebook, organic is free. So we didn't go run an ad. We drove them to purchase our thing or to find out about us and through strategies that actually attract our dream clients to us and that's what the course does. It shows you how to start your very own Facebook group, or how to fix one if you have an existing one that is total crickets, and really how to structure it, how to bring in dream clients and be very selective about who's coming in how to connect with those people, and then actually turn them into buyers and not just buyers but raving fans, people that when somebody is looking for what you do, they will shout your name is the person that is the solution to that problem. And so that's really what the course does. And I early on had a couple people go through one Genie Atkinson went through it, and he he kind of, he's the perfect student in a way. So so many people don't implement, right, they learn, but they don't implement. And he actually went through and he implemented every single thing. And then in less than 30 days drove 300 people to his group all organically in a brand new niche that he wasn't jumping into at the time and sold over $12,000 worth of a course that he was getting ready to build. And so it worked. It worked great. And a lot of people have gone through the content now. And I'm actually this is something I'm working on, it's still relatively new I launched in July. So um, you know, a lot of people have gone through the content, but they're, they're hitting these like, implementation blocks, right? They're like, Oh, well, I have 500 Other things on my plate that I have to do before I drive traffic. And so one of the things that I've done to work on getting people to just implement is I started a new group, where I literally do like, I would almost call it pre training. And there's five videos that I'm dropping in there for free. And it's just little tiny pieces of actionable things they have to do. So it's like day one, let's talk about who you're going after who's your niche. And I'm sure you talk about this all the time, what you do in creating the course, we can't create anything until we know who it's for, who are we serving. And so we deep dive into the who. And then day two is literally Okay, here's how to physically set it up. Day three is how do we drive members to get into our group? How do we find those people to come in. And then day four, and day five are all about the sales process. So I'm finding that I'm having a lot more success by making that small piece on the front end. And where people have not too much. So the course itself, the full course, is a lot of videos, they're all short, five to 10 minutes, they're all actionable steps you can do. But I think people like binge, the content, and then don't go implement. And for me, I don't really get a lot of satisfaction out of the purchase of the course I get satisfaction out of your results. And so I'm doing it this way and breaking it up into a smaller piece that people kind of can really go and implement and then having the group aspect. And if I were to do it again, I would definitely do it this way. And there's like this slightly competitive environment that's happening inside the group, where people are like, Oh, my God, Sally just went and implemented, I better get my stuff together and go do it too. And that group mentality is really driving people forward. And so I'm seeing a lot more success and results for that. So I'm excited to see as they transition into the full course what will happen now that they already have that momentum. So I thought of it kind of like a drug dealer, I wanted to give them a little bit of a taste. Get them addicted to having their dream customers come and find them and then go Oh, my God, I need more. I

need more. Yeah. So are you structuring your course where you launch it? And then you have a group of people taking it at the same time? or can people just registered at any point in time?

So right now, people can just come in at any point in time. And there's no true live element from me. And this is all I mean, I'm still on this journey of learning. And I think, I think sometimes we forget that when somebody has success, it doesn't. It's like, on the surface, we look like a calm, little serene duck. But underneath, we're like, total nuts peddling. Right? And so that's how I am I'm like, oh, okay, that's not working, I need to fix it, I need to tweak it, I need to change it. And so right now, they're they can come in at any time, they can start whenever they do have a private Facebook group that I am active in to answer questions and to help but there's no live element, there's no accountability. And so that's one of the things I'm looking at adding is, is doing like a weekly zoom call, where we are kind of going through it together and actually launching the course in segments. So hey, it's opening, get started, we're all going to go through it together and then closing it and opening it. And a because that urgency does help people purchase sorry, it helps the commitment level on the purchase side. But I think it also helps the commitment level when you have the accountability and you have people going through it at the same time, which is what's happening inside my mini course right now. That I think that's where the results are coming from is that everybody's at the same starting point. And they feel driven for because the next piece of content is coming and they have to catch up.

Yeah, I love I love that. And I love that you're saying not only that it may help engagement to have people kind of go through it together which which helps helps people kind of stay stay involved. But I also love that what you're saying about you know, this is an iterative process, right? It's not like you put it out there and forget it. It's you're constantly in there, adjusting it and adding and tweaking and looking at what's working and not working and, and making those changes as you go. Because it because it's a living and breathing thing, right? It's it's not something that you're just setting and, and forgetting. So I love that I think that's a really good tip for people is, you know that's part of the process is is really being able to dial in what's working and change it based on your learners and the results that they're getting or the results that you want them to get that maybe they're not getting there yet. And how do you increase that level of engagement?

And I launched imperfectly, right. I mean, I set a date, I wasn't really ready for that date when it came around. But I was like I committed Let's go. And and I knew that there were going to be things that I needed to change that I was going to have to be adaptable to. And my goal is to serve every single person who purchases from me at the absolute highest level. And so I'm committed to help those people get their results. However, that happens. As long as they're committed to get the results for themselves, they're going to be no matter what you do, they're going to be some people that are just happy to buy something and never implement it. And that's fine. But for the people that are saying, okay, cool. Here's where I'm stuck. Here's why I'm not going as forward. And I'm always trying to learn and tweak contests and stuff. I think it should be a living and breathing thing, like you said, and I think it's okay to say, Hey, I messed up, I am one of those people that is happy to be raw and real and honest, because it's really exhausting to be the perfect version of yourself all the time. And I just do not have that kind of energy commitment. So I wasn't me. And so I'm okay saying, Hey, here's where I messed up, here's where I think we're failing, here's how I'm going to fix it. They committed to me by purchasing, so I'm committed to them by doing what I need to right now to help them have success, even if that means that I'm extending myself a little bit more than I might down the road, right. So once it's perfect, and people are going through it, and they don't need me as much cool, then I can kind of step back. But for now, in the early moments of a launch and getting started, I think you do have to put in the extra effort on your end and say, Hey, I'm not perfect, but I'm going to be here, I'm going to show up, and I'm going to help you as best I can until we're perfect together.

Yeah, that's awesome. And I think that, you know, just even even when you were saying like, you know what, I sold it and I gotta deliver it right. So even if you're not ready, you're taking imperfect action. And that's so important, because so often people will wait, and wait and wait and wait to launch until it's perfect. And, and what happens then is most of the time they don't launch, right. So imperfect action is so important. And then to change it and update it and really see what's working and what's not working. So that's awesome. All right, cool. So what are your biggest tips for someone who wants to build and sell their own online course? What would you say? Like, give me like one or two, like super critical nuggets that that helped you be successful?

Yeah, so I'd say one of the biggest things that has helped with my success. Um, in both cases, even with stronger mommy, even in building that course, ahead of time, I'm one of the big things was having an audience to ask, right, knowing who my dream customer was, and then being able to actually have them help me build something. And it's, it's what I've done, it's, you know, the driving the traffic and all of that, like, it's very hard to sell something if you have no audience to sell it to. And it's hard to build something if you don't know who you're actually building it for. And so getting ultra clear on who you serve on on who that dream customer is, what their hopes, their dreams, their desires are, and how your thing fulfills that and is really important. But for me, it was also kind of, it's been this like Inception piece right? Of I teach how to grow and scale Facebook groups and turn and monetize them. But through that, and building my own group, I was able to actually attract only those dream clients, and then literally find out from them what they need, and use their words. So this is where it's super helpful is having no audience whether it's in a group, or you're tracking those people in another way online, on your profile, connect with those people that are your dream customers, and find out what words they use, how do they talk, how do they speak? How do they interact online, you want to deliver your course, and everything that you do in a manner that resonates with your dream customer. So the way that I learn, and is typically the way that I teach, I learned in very short, small segments and bite sized pieces. And I like engaging videos and so I work hard to deliver that inside my course. But that's also the people I'm trying to attract attracting people that consume content the way that I deliver it. If you're somebody that delivers content, in longer chunks with lots of checklists and you're you you prefer to have and you know, slides and things like that, that make sure your your audience those dream customers, make sure that's how they learn. And those are the people you're attracting think that's what's really important. Otherwise, there's this kind of juxtaposition of like, you've got these learners coming in, but they don't learn the way you teach. And so they're not actually gaining that information and they're not able to implemented. Yeah, that's

a super good point. So for the people who are listening, who either have a passion or an expertise, that they are super excited to build a course around, or those people who have mainly built up their framework or they're following or whatever offline, what is your biggest sort of tip for them in terms of building their online course? Is it starting by building your audience? And then building a course? Or is it starting to build the course? Or find people online? Who want to purchase the course? Right, so we're gonna do our beta? And then build an audience after that? What? Give me some insight into that, and especially based on your expertise, as someone who build organic groups?

Yeah, so I think, you know, a lot of times, we tend to think that the offline strategies are different than the online strategies, but it's actually pretty much the same. So I always tell people, like, the way that you should show up online should be the way that you would show up at a party. So you don't show up at a party that somebody is hosting you like, Oh, my God, I've arrived, I'm here, I have all this really amazing stuff you probably want to buy from me, because I'm fabulous. And I'm fantastic. And everything that I do is bold. You would never show up at a friend's house like that. Like, it's just rude. And everyone would ignore you and probably kick you out. Instead, you show up at a party and you're like, oh, my gosh, it's so nice to meet you. What do you do? How's it going? And you have a conversation with people and you connect with them. And so somehow we get online, right? We in person, we're really good at being relatable human beings, most of us, we're good at being relatable human beings, and not being total like asshats, we show up online, we change that. And all of a sudden, we show up online, and we post and we're like, oh, wait, did this amazing thing today? Oh, my God, I'm so perfect. Oh, I have this thing you have to buy? Ooh, look, check me out. And it's all me. Nobody cares. So change the conversation hat like especially especially my specialty is Facebook. Facebook is a story based engagement platform people show up there. Because they like stories, they like to see what's going on. Okay. So if you want to talk about you tell a story. Engage. People don't just show up and be like, Oh, my God, I have this amazing thing you have to buy. And in your story related to how it's beneficial for them. What's the benefit for the person reading it, every single line of your posts should go towards the next line, it should be driving that copy forward that content forward, and getting somebody going, Oh, my gosh, I could do this too. This would work for me. Now I've got to reach out and connect. So focus on the engagement side, everything that I do on Facebook is all engagement based. How do I get somebody to engage with me if we can have a conversation, I can push you towards the next thing I need from you for you to have success with me. I can't do that if we never actually have a conversation. So it's just like you would have a conversation with somebody in real life. To have that conversation online. Even if you're making a post. Make it conversational. Get people to have a conversation with you. And then get them to comment, send them a message, reach out connect, don't be salesy. Just be a human being connect with that other person. And eventually they're going to tell you exactly what they want exactly what they need. And they'll be so excited to buy it from you. Because they already know you. They already like you. They already trust you.

Mm hmm. Yep. That's great. Awesome. Cool. So um, what is like one tool or book or resource that you would recommend to someone who's getting started down this path of creating and launching their online courses?

How to Win Friends and Influence People have become like my entrepreneur Bible. It's book, um, I read it a very long time ago. And I've read it over and over and over and over and over again. And it's something that I realized actually do already. But it was like, Do you ever do something but you don't recognize that you you're doing it, and then somebody calls it out, you're like, Oh, my God, I do it. And then you're way better doing it, because now you realize you're doing it, right. So how to win friends and influence people, if I could break that entire book down into a couple of sentences for you. It's literally how to put what you want, in terms of what someone else wants. So they feel like they're getting a win, but really, you win. That's it. It's so simple. And it works in every aspect of your life. If you are in like, I've been in huge lines for for medical scans, let's say for my daughter, and all of a sudden were at the front of the line because I was nice to the person doing the intake because I had a conversation with them, because I connected them with them and treated them like a human being and and made it a win for them. I need their day. So then they wanted to reciprocate. And so I mean, I think it's the same thing when you're building a course it's the same thing when you're attracting clients to your course. It's literally what do they need? And how do I make this thing exactly what they want and need that fulfills them, where I also get fulfillment out of it, you should never put you first. And so I would say like, there's probably a ton of tools out there and a ton of books and all sorts of really great things. But for me, that's been the foundation of everything that I've done conversationalists. Usually, it's what's helped to build and be an attractive character and build my attraction to people is just understanding how to win friends and influence people.

Yeah. That's awesome. Very cool. All right. So thank you so much for your time today. I appreciate it immensely. I think this is going to be a super valuable interview for people who are building courses. And also, you know, wanting to create more engagement with their groups. And if listeners want to know more about you and your course and what you're up to, where should they go?

Yeah, so you can find me on Facebook Chantal page turner, like I'm a real page turner in a book. And I've got four to six chapters in different books coming out in the next couple of months. So now you'll remember me, I've embraced the name, I'm married into it, but I'm a I'm Chantel page turner. And so you can find me there also, not yet. notable.com. So not yet notable is my brand where I help you actually understand that organic traffic side to Facebook, building a highly engaged Facebook group of your dream customer so you can find out exactly what you want and then deliver it and actually sell to them before it's ever built. So and not yet notable. COMM is all about helping you become the notable leader in your niche, the person that people are shouting from the rooftops that you are the go to person in your thing. And that's how you can find me.

Awesome. Very cool. Thank you so much. I appreciate it. Have a great day.

Thank you for having me on.