Package Up Your Expertise in Building an Impactful Business with Jason Van Orden

I think it's a good idea for any expert to have a portfolio of income streams. And that might be you do keynotes and you got your courses and your one on one. It might be that you do affiliate stuff as well, as, you know, you've got your workshops that you run for corporations. But you know, having a variety of ways, a pie chart, if you will have different income streams and the people that I know that are most successful as experts in their industry, they have a good portfolio, but it all starts getting very clear on who that person is how to get their attention, how to get them results, creating that system, and then you can reap repackage that and sell it in a variety of ways, in order to increase your impact and income.

Hey, Chuck here, and I'm so glad that you're listening to this episode. And I just want to take this quick moment right now to let you know about our free Collaborators Toolkit. And this episode is all about partnership and collaboration. And our guests share many resources, tools, and things that you can use to make collaboration and partnership easier in your business. So if you're looking for better ways to grow, and scale your business, through collaborations, and strategic partnerships, this free collaborators toolkit is going to contain the best resources from our workshops, as well as contributions from our guests. And these tools could be the missing link that you've been looking for. And they're going to help you to solve every day business challenges, and access, highly effective ideas that can help and grow your business exponentially. I know they've helped me and I know they're going to help you as well. And the best part about these tools is that they're completely free. And our gift to you for being a valued member of our community, and a subscriber to the show. So you can get access to all of the resources contained inside the collaborators toolkit today by visiting the website at WWW.collaboratorsunite.com/toolkit. That address again is www.collaboratorsunite.com/toolkit. Go ahead and register today get access to all the resources. And I'm going to see you on the inside. Now. Here's the episode.

Hello, everybody. And welcome back to the show, Chuck Anderson here. And we've got another amazing guest and another amazing topic here for you today. And look, so many of our audience members here are entrepreneurs, coaches, podcasters speakers, experts in some form or another. And you know, one of the nice things about being an expert, and speaking and sharing that expertise is that people want to learn it. And so if you've ever thought about packaging, your expertise, your content into an online course and generating a revenue stream from that, whether it be a side stream, or maybe even your main stream of content, making it your main business, then this is going to be a particularly interesting as pisode for you because we have an expert on building online courses. So we're really happy to have Jason Van orden here with us today. Jason, welcome to the show.

Hi, Chuck. It's great to be here. Thank you so much.

You know, and I'm really glad that you're here. And I know with our previous conversation about online courses, I mean, we both have a background in that mine more from creating and selling, not so much about teaching people how to sell online courses. But it's, it's something that, you know, I recognized very, very early on, I'd say about 2001 2002, where I created my first online course. And right there felt like this is the future, this is the future of where we can make money online is to take our expertise, take our information, package it up, teach it and sell it as an online course. So I love that. So so we're gonna dive deep into that today. So I think Jason a great place to start is, you know, tell tell everybody, you know who you are and what, what you do, and, you know, maybe a little bit about how you got into online courses. And we'll we'll take it from there.

Yeah, sure. So, my name is Jason. I live in Brooklyn, and I am a business strategist for coaches and consultants. And I specifically like working with them at that point where they're feeling limited by doing only one on one services. And so they're looking for that way to reach more people and make a bigger impact and earn more income. So I help them like I said, package up and more leveraged way their expertise so they can help more of those people that they're uniquely position to serve. And my experience with courses goes way back to the early 2000s. Like us want to tell a quick story because it's, it's an interesting, illustrative illustrative of, of I think how entrepreneurial journeys often go. And I think like many who ended up in entrepreneurial path, at one point, they're stuck doing something like this is not for me, I need more freedom and stuff. I was an engineer for a few years, I was like, this isn't cutting it, I can't work for somebody else. And so I jumped out of that cold turkey actually didn't have much of a good idea what I was going to do, I dove into some real estate investing, because I'd been reading Rich Dad Poor Dad at the time, and he talked a lot about real estate investing, right. And it wasn't actually a great fit for me. But you know, taking that bold move definitely moved me towards some important breadcrumbs that moved me forward. And one of my real estate investing mentors, he was teaching seminars at the time for other real estate investors, like, Look at this guy, he's he's selling his expertise, making just as much money as he does with his real estate investing as well. This seems really cool. So I started watching observing what he was doing eventually, like, you know what, I think I'm going to do something like this. And at that time, what I found myself actually doing more of than investing was consulting, my investing associates on marketing, I had learned a lot about marketing at that point, I had been in bands for several years back in the 90s. And that's where I learned how to market and that actually enjoyed marketing. And they just kept picking my brain about that. So I'm like, you know, what, I'm doing a seminar about direct marketing for real estate investors to help them find leads. And that was my first experience with that, that was back in 2004. And believing that I was actually not online, it was through the mail that I was I was mailing sequences out like three, mailing sequence, a three piece mailing sequence out, and I filled that room with 25. People, me that $8,000 And it's just as big light bulb in my head. I'm like, You know what, I love teaching and I found a way to do it, where I can get paid well, I knew I didn't want to go into academia, because I was just gonna end up in a bureaucracy that wasn't gonna make me happy anymore as well. So here, I was, like, Okay, this is this is promising. And I knew enough to record it. So I had these I was burning it to CDs at the time and printing out the notes and slides as a binder and actually mailing it to people. And soon enough, I was online looking for ways to sell this course. And it was in forums and things like that, because there was no YouTube, no podcasting, no social media or anything yet at the time, I was like, answer questions in forums and hope people in the bio, my byline saw I had a course and they click and buy it. Well, I was looking for new ways at the time to sell my course online. And the word podcasting showed up in the newsletters as January 2005. At the time, like, what is this podcasting thing? So I googled it. And Google tried to correct me because Google actually didn't know what podcasting was yet either. Like, did you mean, fly casting, as I know, I'm not a fisherman. And I'm actually looking for this thing called podcasting. And I eventually found some really geeky blog posts, it was like the information at the time was like a bunch of geeks like they just found their uncle's ham radio or something in the garage. And so now they're like talking about the RSS, mp3 enclosures. And it was, you know, it was far too complicated for more most people time to get into, but I'm like, this is cool. This is great. Like the musician, and you knew how to do the audio. The teacher in me was really excited. The marketer and business person's like, I think there's something here, I want to be the business podcasting guy. And one reason is I tell the stories, I know this about creative collaborations. And this is where that comes in. One of my most important ones comes in at that time that I made that decision to become like the business podcasting guy in 2005. I was like, I better launch a couple of podcasts. And so one of them was with a friend of mine. And we were just get on the phone. He was selling on eBay, I was doing my consulting and selling my courses and like hey to guys, talking about how we got out of the nine to five and are making money on the internet. And this was actually, the first ever podcast about internet business. And online marketing was called Internet Business mastery. And we were just doing it for fun. But next thing we knew, we started growing this audience and it got a little bigger, got a little bigger. And suddenly, we're a top 10 Business Show. And we've got this audience who start asking us, how do we learn actually, in the your shows great, it's inspiring that we pick up tips, but how do we actually learn a to z how to do what you did. And so then that's when the next light bulb went off, and like Okay, time to start making some more courses. And this time, we're doing it online so that anybody anywhere can easily access it. And, again, there weren't the right tools at the time, whatever. But we just kind of figured it out like hand coding HTML pages, it was a it was a nightmare, but we made some money on it. And next thing I knew that was my full time business with this educational company for beginning entrepreneurs just trying to get started and so doubled down on that business over the next 10 years helped a lot of people find their niche, start a business find new freedom and purpose in life. And it was very fulfilling until it wasn't so in 2015 I was getting antsy. I think probably a lot of entrepreneurs do and I stepped away from that business. Despite all the success I had. And despite having this top business show for so many years, I just I needed to branch out. And so did a little soul searching, tried a lot of new things, did some consulting, figure things out. And that led me to what I do today. Because as I looked back at that business, I figured out, you know, I just need to get away from kind of this business opportunity, hey, you can make money online and escape your job. It's just getting too noisy and obnoxious for me. But what I really love doing was when I got an opportunity to work with people who they came with a message or an, you know, a methodology or a story and like, I gotta get this out in the world, there are people who need to hear this. And so that's what I want decided I wanted to double down, I was like, how do I help people reach more of those that are uniquely positioned to serve. And because I've done so much with courses at that point, I'm like, You know what, I really believe that online courses is such a great way to convey that expertise, and to find that crowd who can benefit from whatever your unique combination is of experience and perspective and your story and your vision, your values and the way that you convey the information that you do. So that's where I focus now is I work with coaches and consultants who are doing great work, getting good results for the clients, but maybe feeling a little limited by the one to one business model. And they're looking for that way to rise to the next level of income and impact. And so that's where I come in, and I help them launch, create and launch their online courses, as well as all the marketing systems to keep those courses filled with prospects, because it's a little different to keep your roster full of higher paying clients. But now it's like, hey, now I've got these courses, I gotta keep, you know, regular steady stream of prospects coming into. So that's how I came to do what it is that I do today, and why I believe so much in online courses, because I believe it's such a great way for all the myriad of people out there with wonderful things to share to make an impact in the world.

Well, I love everything about that story. And there's so many parallels. I mean, I spent time touring with the Rich Dad, Poor Dad seminars here in Canada. And again, same thing, you know, real estate wasn't for me, but you know, he always talked about, you know, creating assets that pay you regular income. And that is something that online courses has done, for me. And so, and then, and then everything that led to that. And one thing that really stood out to me is the fact that people were coming to you asking for, hey, how do I do this? You know, and teach? Can you teach me how to do this. And that's a great clue. And it's a clue that I didn't really pick up on when I created my first online course. Because what I did was I grabbed grabbed an idea. And I thought what could I teach on all teach on this, created a program spent six months developing and perfecting the curriculum, recording all of these videos, only to find that it was probably the most difficult course to sell out of everything I've ever sold. And it was, you know, again, learning that look for the clues, like what are people asking for? And so, so I really pick up on that, because it's something that it's a clue, like, hey, when people are asking for something, give it to. Right, right, and you find a way to sell it to them. So. So one follow up to the is what are you noticing in terms of the people that you're working with? Like, you know, who is building an online course? Right for? And, you know, what should they be kind of looking for? If they're kind of deciding, like, you know, should I? Should I transition into an online course and make this my full time thing? Or should I just add this to what I'm already doing? You know, what, where does someone look or start when they're trying to determine if this is a path for them or not?

Yeah. So here's what I tell people is terms of criteria to know whether or not you are in a good place to create an online course. So if you're somebody who already has a, you know, at least a decent idea of who your your intended audiences who you do your best work with, and you have some experience with getting results for that audience, then really, you're in a pretty good place to, to create an online course now, does that mean you should necessarily do it? Well, that's really up to some people, they're perfectly happy doing their one on one services, and they've got their set of clients, and that's where they thrive. And that's all they want to do. And that's, that's perfect, that's great. I'm a big proponent of like, create the business model that's gonna make you happy and be fulfilling for you. But there are a lot of people that who get into this because they're like, I really want to make a difference in the world. I want to help as many people as I can, and maybe even like, they reach a plateau in their income and they realize, you know, there's a maximum to how much of my time I can sell. You know, it kind of goes back to that Rich Dad thing to go ahead and talk that right. It's like, if you're an employee, or self employed, you're selling your time and that's not an asset that can grow. But if you create something that is more leveraged, With your time and your resources was a now you have something that can scale. And so if you're feeling those limitations, maybe you are maxed out on clients, maybe a little burned out on doing just one to one or you just like, You know what I would like to diversify the ways in which I help people, then that's a good moment, start thinking about it. And it's not just about creating that asset in the course. But there's so many one of the reasons I love helping coaches and consultants with that specifically is, it really forces you to get more specific about who your intended audience is, you really got to be even more compelling and clear about your messaging, the way to reach that bigger audience, helps you get even clearer in like, well, here's what I want to bring to the world. Here's where I stand apart, here's what's going to be really different about my process. It's a good moment to codify or standardize, here's how you get results for people rather than going from this place where you're, you're offering a lot of customized solutions, which gets exhausting and is no way to scale a business. Now you have to go like, No, this is the way A to A to Z, that I walk somebody from where they're at to where they want to go. And this is why my process is different. And when you do that, not only do you have an asset now that you can scale bigger, but also, it's going to make you more of an authority in your market, just like writing a book president for instance, right? It's good credibility market. Well, if you have that online course, same thing it proves it's like, you know, what, I know how to get results, I thought through how to do this, and I found a system that's can be duplicated, replicated, that can apply to a variety people and get the same results. And so if any of that right there resonates with those criteria fit in then so listening, that's it. Yeah, you know, it's a good time to consider adding that in and I'd say, you know, it's not that you have to dive in and say, I'm just a course creator. Now, I think it's a good idea for any expert to have a portfolio of income streams. And that might be you do keynotes, and you got your courses and your one on one. It might be that you do affiliate stuff, as well, as, you know, you've got your workshops that you run for corporations, but you know, having a variety of ways, a pie chart, if you will, of different income streams and the people that I know that are most successful as experts in their industry, they have a good portfolio, but it all starts getting very clear on who that person is how to get their attention, how to get them results, creating that system, and then you can rip repackage that and sell it in a variety of ways. In order to increase your impact and income.

It's a it's a great opportunity, like you say to add, though, you know, additional stream of income, it doesn't have to become your main thing doesn't mean you quit doing everything else you're doing. But but you can transition transition into that for sure. So, so let's say, you know, someone is thinking, Okay, I'm maxed out on one on one, I've tried group programs, or whatever, but I think I really want to create a course, you know, what should be their first step? Like? How do they determine what their course, should be about? And the natural question they're going to ask is like, will it sell? Like, will I be able to sell this?

Yeah, love, love these questions. So in terms of what course to create, a lot of times people think, Okay, I'm gonna choose a topic that my course will be about, it'd be about digital photography, or yoga or whatever, right? And that's the one question to be asking, the first question you absolutely have to ask is, who is this course for? Who am I making it for? And that may be the same that you do as who you work with one on one and maybe a subset of that it may be a new audience that you're trying to bring in as you expand into a new market. But you got to be very specific about who that person is. So that's number one. thing. Number two is you got to know well, what are the outcomes that that person wants to reach? Right? So it's not about learning digital photography, it's like, Why do they want to learn digital photography is not about yoga, it's what outcomes is mindfulness and stress relief? Is it flexibility? You know, maybe you decide, hey, I'm going to do yoga course, for people who are gonna look, I'm over 40. Now you get to that point, your body's not what it used to be, I can see the path into my 50s and 60s, like maybe I want to stay flexible and limber and not get injured as I get older. That would you know, that's a different course than the mindfulness and stress. So who's it for? And what are the outcomes because that's what people are buying is the outcome is the transformation, the relief from from pains and symptoms, it's a new options and possibilities that open up to them. It's the fulfillment of fundamental needs that are motivating them in life right now. So if you get those two things down, you're on the path to a profitable course. So those are the first two questions to ask now, will it sell? Well, if you've got those two things down, you're on the right path to profitable will it sell but here's the key. And so often, I've made the same mistake that you said where it's like, Hey, I have this idea for a course I spend months planning it out and creating content and everything and then bring it to the market hoping people will buy and maybe it doesn't sell as well, or I've even sold the course wants that my dad was the only one that bought it. I mean, look, I've made all the mistakes. Here's what I've made, and it's a piece of my process that I think really sets sets my process apart and that is I've adapted Did Design Thinking principles and customer discovery principles? This is what companies like Amazon and other big startups that you know that make apps and stuff. They know how to go into the market, ask the right questions really pull out of that information, here's the holes in what people are looking for, here's the certain you've got to understand here's where they're at and how they describe their current circumstances, here's where they'd like to be. And the language they use to describe those outcomes. Here's the gap between where they're at where they want to go both as they perceive the gap, as well as what you see that they're missing in terms of skills or mindset, or whatever the case might be. And the more that you really understand and can paint that picture. That's how you know if you are into something that people will buy is not because you go to the market and say, hey, I want to make a yoga course, to help you stay flexible and not, you know, injury free as you get older. But you ask them like, hey, when you when you've done yoga before, why have you done that? Why is it important to you? What have you tried? What didn't work for you? What do you wish was different? And the better you understand their experience, and then you can read the tea leaves, so to speak as the expert, you go, okay, Ah, I see what is needed in the marketplace. And if you do that customer discovery properly, and it's not even that complicated of a process, we're talking half a dozen to 10 interviews with the right people asking the right questions can illuminate very quickly, what the course should be, what the messaging should be, where to find the people, what kind of marketing all those things and then launch a pilot, that's one of the key things is like, get something to market quickly. None of this, okay, we're going to create content for six months, we're gonna make a whole portal and a fancy thing. It's like, No, I've sold $3,000 courses that were nothing more than a Google Drive folder, and a zoom link. That's it, you know, an email, like that was the 3000 people were paying for the outcome, they were happy to go through this pilot because they wanted the results. But I was able to, in a matter of three weeks, bring it to market make $15,000 This is a few years ago, and incidentally, it was a advanced kind of an advanced podcasting course I was selling, because people were asking me about that. How did you make money with that podcast all those years. And so I was like, Great, I'm gonna make a course about that. But I got it to the market quickly. In fact, I sold it before I even created it. And then once I had people signed up on my cool, I mean, I had enough of an idea of what it was going to be that I could tell them what to expect. And they could go yes, this is something I need. And I want. And then I kind of CO created along with them. That first cohort of people, I took it through and I just taught it live. And then I turned it into digital files and other things and had the nicer setup for the website and whatever. Like once you know that it's something people want, you run that pilots like now, you can double down, just tweak things a little bit based on what you learned. And now you can turn it into an income stream. So those are some of the key things to do. And keep in mind in order to not release a course to crickets, or spend months avoiding it. Because you're afraid that nobody will buy it's like if you know what to do, you absolutely can make a course with confidence, knowing that the market wants it.

I love that last one about creating a pilot program. And if I dial the clock back to when I developed my first course where I spent six months, making PowerPoint slides, making recordings, and at that time, uploading videos and streaming them online was very, very tough thing to do. And we don't have the technology that we had, that we have now you couldn't just upload it to Google Drive really wasn't a thing. It wasn't a thing. And I spent six months doing that and had difficulty selling it. And that's where a valuable lesson was learned. And that is oh, okay, come up with the outline, sell it first, make sure people will buy this and then create it. So I love that idea of creating the pilot program. And in a way you're actually collaborating with your students to give them a product that they ultimately want. And I think that transitions well into our theme, which is collaboration. I want to chat with you about that a little bit. And I'm sure people are wondering like, okay, you know, what are the steps? How do I learn more about how to create an online course, and we're gonna make sure that we we share that with them as well. But, Jason, I want to ask you, just because our theme is collaboration and partnership, how has that played a role in? I would say two things. One is the development of your online courses, but also your business journey overall. has, you know, have you embraced collaboration and partnership and how has that played a role?

Yeah, well, one of the first things that comes to mind goes back to that podcast, internet business mastery that launched in 2005. You know, I had my eye on something that was promising and it did start making me money like the business podcasting guy and I got a book deal and some speaking gigs and stuff, but it was this little project on the side with my friend just starting a podcast because like I Skyped him one day, he's like, Have you heard of podcasting? He's like, no, what did you know? I told him about it. And then like one of us said the magic words like let's do one right? We had no idea if anyone who didn't want to listen to it. We just knew Hey, we like chatting. Let's let's record these and let's get them out there. Let's just try this out. And it was this. It was you This this idea, this thing, a little project, maybe we would have done a handful and then it just wouldn't have worked out. But in this case, next thing we knew we started getting an audience, right. And so I've always taken that away. I mean, partnerships can be so valuable when you find the right person and the right way to collaborate with them. Now, you know, I wouldn't say go dive into a partnership agreement, and then investing all kinds of money together. So the find if you find somebody that you think you might vibe with and want to do something with great find a little thing that you can do together to try out like, how do you how do you complement each other? And how is this idea feel like it has some legs, and then you can take it from there, if it looks like things really have promised. So that's one of the biggest examples that comes to mind is that it launched a business that was successful in my whole living and career for a decade or more there, right. But then, since then, in terms of courses and things like that, I love I mean, sure, I love teaching myself nothing, but whenever I can, I also love featuring the expertise of others, because I have limitations to what I know, like, Look, I know where my strengths are, I know what my expertise and experience is. But you know, if if I've got students who are asking about well, what about intellectual property and trademarking and, you know, legal aspects of copywriting and, and those kinds of things? Well, okay, great. I know, a good lawyer I can bring in to talk to my students about that, for instance, right. And there's so many great experts that would love to when you've got, you know, targeted audience of people who have bought something from you, there are other experts who want to get in front of those buyers and put their expertise out there in case those people that are interested in following and investing in what they offer as well. So those are a couple of the ways that it's really played a part in my journey along the way.

And, you know, one of the obvious ways to look for a partnership or collaboration as people that you already know, and I love the fact that, you know, you, one of your collaboration stories here is that you started this podcast with a friend. And you know, it's someone that you know, it's someone that you trust, hopefully you balance each other off so that you're not, you have strengths, they have strengths, and those complement each other. And sometimes that works really well. And so it's like, what does everybody bring to the table so that we can, we can do this. And what I heard was, look, podcasting is new, nobody really knew what it was, in fact, you guys didn't even really know what it was. But together, let's figure this thing out. And that reminds me of how I got started in affiliate marketing, because it was a friend of mine who basically said the same thing. We had no idea what we were doing. But we worked together, and we figured it out. If we had done that alone, I have to ask, would I have actually done it? Would I have actually followed through? It's kind of like when you go to the gym with a buddy, right? And it's that accountability partner? Because it's so easy not to go to the gym? And the same thing, would you what do you think, what do you think you would have done the podcast by yourself? Or did it happen? Because you collaborated with a friend?

Yeah, I mean, it's a really interesting question. I definitely, you know, I, the business podcasting expert brand was getting legs for me. And that was me doing that on my own. But it was this other thing with my friend that really took off. You know, and maybe there's a world in which I would have continued down down that path. But certainly one of the things we learned early on was okay, here are my strengths. And here are your strengths. And there's two of us with, you know, smart people with ideas, bringing those ideas to the table and thinking at a high level about this project. So I think just necessarily, it's going to accelerate the process and you're going to end up doing things you wouldn't have done otherwise, just because they're things you wouldn't have thought of. But also, I mean, we both know that a lot of podcasters who stopped podcasting, they like get in there, they're all excited, they record half a dozen to 10 episodes, and they're like, Wow, this is a lot of work or number of reasons, and they stop. But we kept showing up for each other and recording because we kept setting appointments to record our conversations. And so, you know, certainly I think that did play a role in sticking to it. And, you know, I think when it comes to podcasting, and it all formats for shows, but one of the things I think people really liked about our show was there was a rapport between us the back and forth the way we interacted the way we joke around with each other, you know, he tells stories, and I was a little more of a teacher and you know, so we complemented in that way and it was, you know, it's hard to say but I'm pretty sure that was part of the, for lack of a better word, secret sauce that people latched on to when it came to our show.

Yeah, I love that. And you know, so much of, of being an entrepreneur and being a business owner is that journey, we try things sometimes those things work. Sometimes they don't, I always find it easier to work with somebody versus working alone. And, you know, that's, you know, we're obviously pro collaboration, pro partnership here, but it's cool to hear your story about I love stories about when two people come together. or, or more, come together and create something cool. That really affects others. And it sounds like that's what you guys did. And like I said, you know, so much, so much of this journey of being a business owner is, you know, we, we learn, we grow. In fact, one of my mentors used to say to me that your business can only grow to the extent that you do. And so there's, there's, there's learning for ourselves as we're growing our business. So So, as I have my guests here, I always want to check in and just see like, a little bit about what your personal growth journey has been. And you know, for me, having a mentor was amazing. And, you know, so did you have any mentors or people that you followed that were very influential in maybe even getting you started? Or just sending you down the right path?

Yeah, sure. I mean, I mentioned that mentor when I was in real estate investing, and I found him initially as a real estate investing mentor, but he really ended up being my information marketing, which is what we called it back then mentor, like, package up your expertise. And so so that was a key, you know, if nothing else, I got that from from him like that set me on the path that I on, on today, you know, and then after that, there were, I can't remember specifically, I was devouring as much as I could about internet marketing at the time. So there were all kinds of, you know, a lot of them I don't know, they're, they're still around doing various things. But I don't know if people even know their names. I don't know if I remember all their names that I learned from but another one that made a significant impact. This is several years later, as internet business mastery was growing. And we kind of reached the point where like, you know, we really, we need some we, there's always this point, we need an outside perspective, you know, somebody with different experience or more experience, right. And I was at a conference once where I saw a gentleman by the name of Dan Sullivan, he has a company called strategic coach, he's written a bunch of books that people might be familiar with. And that really impacted me for a number of reasons. I mean, for one, like he had a lot of great frameworks about entrepreneurship that really just opened up my mind, it got me to finally start delegating, and outsourcing more, you know, helped us restructure our business model to make it even more scalable. One of the key things I learned from him was he there's a book that he and some of his other colleagues collaborated on called unique ability, I think they have a 2.0 version now. And that was huge, because that was me really learning, it's like, you know, what, I'm gonna have the most success, if I figure out where I shine the most, right, create the greatest value, where I experienced the greatest growth, what others can really depend on me for in my circles and in the world. And, and really focus as much as I can my activities within the business on those things and get the other things off of my plate. So that's one way that I really benefited from dental events, experience and expertise. But also, on a meta level, just looking at his company, like he's a guy with all these great ideas about entrepreneurship creates these fantastic frameworks. And he's like, big idea guy, but it was his wife, the operations person and all these other people, then then, you know, help to turn that into a company where now they've got coaches who are certified in and teach all over the world, like those methodologies, right? So based on one guy's thought leadership, or initially this very scalable company was born. And it's something I think about a lot ever since is how do you create scalable thought leadership, when if you are the source of the ideas, you're naturally going to very easily be a bottleneck? And so how do you create a company then that can have a global perspective, global impact when you are that source of the idea? So I often look at that company for ideas and inspiration about how to structure my own. And my own vision is at least partially motivated or inspired by Strategic Coach, for instance. So there's a couple examples of people on the way that have impacted me.

Yeah, I love Dan Sullivan. I was blown away the first time I met Dan, and I look at him as just being a great curriculum creator.

Yeah.

And you mentioned the frameworks, I mean, the frameworks as the foundation of that curriculum, but then taking it so much further. And that is actually creating output as he's teaching it. And this whole idea that he had a worksheet for everything.

Yeah.

And, and so his style of teaching was, you know, fill in the blanks and, you know, create your plan. And it's something that I've modeled my curriculum creation after because I want people to have an output at the end and have a plan or have something that they can put into practice and and then, like you mentioned, like the way he's turned to that company's scalable, great model to look at and study. How do you take something as a car coach, coaching people one on one, turn this into a framework, turn this into a system. And then can you then train others to go and deliver this system? Dan, you know, there's a there's, there's only a handful of people who've done that successfully. Dan is one that's done it in a huge, huge way. So I didn't know you were gonna say Dan Sullivan. But I mean, it was, it was really cool, because he really stands out to me as well. And someone I learned from, and I don't often give him credit for being one of my mentors. But certainly I've learned a lot from him, as well as,

Likewise, the way he does his curriculum based on frameworks. And then I noticed he made these frameworks I would refer back to over and over again, and ever since going through that program and seeing that, like, that's how I'm making my programs from now on, I want it to be stuff that people can reference and want to use over and over to get very clear output, you know, for ideating, or planning or whatever the case of deciding of. And so, yeah, and it's, I'm a big proponent of our teaching. When I help people make their curriculum, it's like, look, it's got to be based on frameworks for so many reasons. And definitely Dan was, was where I first learned about the power of doing that.

Yeah, amazing, amazing. Well, and so, adding to this books have been a big part of the journey as well. There's so much great information and knowledge packed into books, one of Dan's books, who not how is one that I really love, especially with my theme of collaboration and partnerships, because it's not about how do you do something, but who can help you to do that thing? And that was a game changer for me. So, you know, while we're on the subject, what would you consider to be your must read book?

Yeah, I mean, I mentioned one that I'm a big fan of which is unique ability, which is Dan and some of his colleagues, but the one I grabbed off my shelf, knowing you were going to ask this question is similar. And it's, it's not a book in the sense that you're going to read the entire book. It's called StrengthsFinder 2.0. And it's made by the Gallup organization. And what this is, is it's actually you read the first couple chapters, which just talked about the importance of focusing on your strengths. I mean, in life career, it's not necessarily just for our entrepreneurs, it's actually for anyone, although I have probably given or used this book, more than anything in my programs, because of the insights that it offers people about how they show up best in the world, and then applying that to your business to your courses to everything you do is incredibly powerful. And so you read those first couple chapters, then you take an assessment, you know, the books like I don't know, probably 12 or $15, some something that gives you a code to take the assessment online. And then out of 30 strengths until you hear your top five in this order right here. And then there's a chapter for all of the 30 strengths, you just read the five that are your your top ones, and it's just chock full of like, here are things to do more of here are the things to avoid, and you're going to read that thing to go like, okay, no wonder, no wonder I'm so frustrated. And this is one part of my business or no wonder I light up all the time whenever I do X thing. And so it makes it so much easier to make decisions or an analyze your business and see how you might want to change things or what to get off your plate as soon as absolutely possible. So this is one that I often have clients do, and then we use that as we're working together on their strategy and different parts of their business. So StrengthsFinder 2.0. That's, that's the book that I would recommend.

Wow. Wow, for a couple of reasons. Number one, I love everything you just said, and it makes me want to go and check out that book. I've never heard of it before. And so it's definitely getting added to my must read list because I you know, I've done unique ability work with Dan, but it would be really interesting to read that book and compare and just, you know, I'm always looking for those kind of insights. So that's cool. And also, no one on my show has ever recommended that book before. So which is probably why I've heard of it also. So good. Well, I most the time when I asked the question, the book that gets recommended is something I've heard of, or I've read, but this is, this is one of those unique cases where it's neither and so

I do have given you something you absolutely.

So we're, you know, for the benefit of our listeners, we'll make sure we link to it in the show notes and, and I'm gonna definitely go check that out. So Jason, that was a that was pretty cool. And I really, really liked that. So listen, I know, you know, we've we've covered a lot of ground today. And you've been super generous with your time and your information and everything like that. And it's my sincere hope that our audience feels inspired to if they're not already inspired to create an online course to at least look into it. Is this something that could be Something that is your next move in your business and so, so I would highly encourage you, if that's where you're at, is to connect with Jason, and he's got some great programs we're gonna link, we're gonna put all his links in the show notes here, so you know where to connect them. So, Jason, what would you recommend if people want to learn more or? Or even just take this on? What should their next step be? And we'll make sure all the links are, are down below here.

Yeah, absolutely. So I've got a downloadable case study that talks about how I helped one of my clients get a course to market very quickly, I read it wrote like a story. So it's, you know, it's easy to read, you can really find yourself in it. And but it also gives you even more of goes further on what we talked about here about the steps and the important aspects of what it takes to get a course to market very, very quickly. So I prepared that case study, you can find that at a URL - leanlaunchmethod.download, and it's sent to your email, and then send that over to you. And it's a great read. And of course, that also gets you on my newsletter, I put all my latest, greatest content there as well. So that's what I would recommend people check out if they want to find out more information about what I do.

Awesome. Well, we'll make sure all the links are here. And we highly recommend that you do connect with Jason and download that case study. And you never know what what your next move or what you'll be inspired to do next will be and both of us, obviously very huge fans of have online courses, it's been a big part of my business. It's it's been a big part of your business as well. And I have seen businesses just transformed by adding that business model to what they're doing. So, so amazing content. Jason, I know we could do hours of this and probably teach full day workshops on it. But maybe that that maybe next time maybe maybe we do that. Sure. And if you would like us to do that, let us know. So we'll we'll just drop that hand. But thank you so much for your time and your generosity today. And to our audience, thank you for tuning in, do connect with Jason, and download that case study. And just before we sign off, Jason, if you were to leave our audience with just one final word of wisdom or piece of advice, what would you tell him?

Yeah, it'd be this. It's like, look, it's no secret, there are a lot of problems in the world to solve. And, you know, 2030 years ago, we were looking to and beholden to people have access to big media and organizations and governments and stuff to solve it to, like, tell you to basically come up with the solutions and leaving thoughts about these things. The internet changed all that. And the cool thing is now we're gonna have a groundswell of ideas. And there are people out there who need to benefit from your ideas. And I think it's the collection of all of us, standing up using the internet to share our voices, whether through podcasting through courses or whatever. It's like, look, we can really elevate the world and solve a lot of problems. If by sharing our own voice, our own story, our own experience. So just want to encourage anybody who's who's wondering or thinking like, Do I really have something to share that's different from anybody else? And I would say yes, absolutely. So don't hesitate to get it out there.

Well said Great words to end this episode on. Thank you, Jason, thank you to our audience. And look, everyone go and check out Jason's case study and and see if building an online course is right for you. And in the meantime, make sure you tune into our next amazing episode, we'll bring you even more content that will help you to build your business and keep moving forward keeping awesome in the pursuit of your big dream and your mission. Never ever, ever give up and we'll see you in the next one.