DW169: Have Success with Online Courses with Tara Bryan

Do you have an online course but wish more people would go through it? Or are you thinking oh, I'd be so awesome to have some passive income by having a course online then this episode is for you.

You're listening to the dynamic women podcast. Each week you'll be inspired by our global community of women. They'll share with you tools and stories to help you be dynamic in every area of life. Here's your host award winning coach and the CEO and founder of dynamic women, Diane Rolston.

Hello lovely dynamic women and welcome to the dynamic women podcast. I am Diane Rolston, your host and today we have like the queen of online courses, creating them selling them, the lovely Tara Brian. Hey Tara.

Hello. Hi. Thanks for having me.

Yeah, it's so great to have you here. This is a topic that I love. And I know that it's something that entrepreneurs need, if they want to start to leverage their time better. So thank you for being here. Let me dive into your bio first because I think it's important that people know kind of where you've come from. And what kind of qualifies you as a dynamic woman expert to be here today. So Tara Brian teaches people like you how to create raving fans and lifelong customers through creating and selling online course experiences. And I want everyone to just click in here experiences. That's the key word here. With over 20 years of experience in the online course experience, design and build space, Tara has been honored to work with some of the largest brands in the US to create hundreds of courses that have helped businesses succeed and grow. She has consulted with companies on everything from onboarding to leadership development, and has been able to help her clients get massive results for their employees and their customers. So now she focuses focuses on helping entrepreneurs, small business owners, coaches and consultants just like you to create sticky and real results based online course experiences to grow and scale their business more than they could with traditional online one on one services. So good so much in there I want to talk about.But first, I just want to find out Tara, like how did you go from what you did before in corporate and jump into running your own business? Because a lot of the listeners, they are business owners, or they desire to be business owners? So what what kind of got you into that entrepreneurship space?

Yeah, that's a great question. So honestly, worked in corporate loved what I did had a huge passion for helping my customers, my internal customers. And, but I also sort of had this dream that I was going to start my own business, and I was going to be able to help more companies than just the one that I was working for. So it's always kind of in the back of my head. But I didn't really know how right I never really learned business and never really learned how to become an entrepreneur at that time. It was just, you know, take the traditional career path and do this, do that, but kind of always just had that little, that little spark of wanting to do something else. Or take it kind of to the next level. And, and like most people, I had an expertise, I had something I was super passionate about. I loved what I did. And and that's where it really started was Okay, well, how do I take what I'm doing and go on the road and kind of do it a little bit differently than the way that that I do showing up in corporate? Yeah, I will be honest, I had a little bit of that sort of the free spirit, I want to be my own boss kind of thing to along with that. A little bit of fire in that direction. But really, it was, you know, how do I make a bigger impact? How do I get out kind of in the world a little bit differently. And so I took a six month project, which was sort of my safety net to go from my cushy like really secure job to jumping off the cliff and be like, Well, I don't know what I'm, you know, I don't know how I'm going to monetize this. But I just know that I have a passion. I have some skills. And I'm really excited about moving forward. And so like all risk averse entrepreneurs, I was like, so how do I make this happen? Well, I take a six month gig. And interestingly enough part of part of that journey for me was I took the project and it was it was great. It allowed me to sort of get a sense for what does it look like in a different company? How do I set up some systems and some ways of working that that helped me kind of now move forward and have, you know, different different clients not just kind of the one project that I was moving on. But the interesting part about the journey is I gave my notice at my corporate job and then found out I was pregnant, and so I went, Oh, well that's interesting. The ball has already, you know, in motion, and I've already, you know, quit and then moving forward. And thank goodness because I don't think that if I would have known I was pregnant at the time that I did quit my job, I would have gone hadn't done it. But yeah, it was a blessing because it pushed me off the cliff. And then I had two babies. Yeah, I had two babies, I had, you know, an infant. And then I had a new business, which was all sorts of fun, but definitely shaped how I started, started the business at the time. And then, sort of the second piece of that is, during that six months, one of the things that I found was so interesting, is I thought it was gonna be this magical, you know, I can think we all kind of think it's gonna be this magical experience when you start your own business. And it's, you know, it's all gonna be rainbows and butterflies. And I realized that, like, literally part of the time that they were paying me was just to be sitting in the chair. And like, they're like, well, we don't really have anything for you to do yet. So if you could just like, you know, staple these things and make some copies or just like, sit here and hang out so we can pay, I was like, what, I did not leave my job for this, this is crazy business. And so it like those two events, I think really shaped the way that I started to build my agency, and then took it in from there built and built an actual agency after I took those baby, little baby steps. And, and that's how I got started. And and then went into freelancing, and then kind of building the business from there as we as we got bigger. And so that was my corporate my corporate to agency story in terms of how I did that.

What I love about it is that there's probably a listener out there that's like, oh, I have this desire to be my own boss and, and I want to help more people, and I want to do my business my own way, I got this little urge to do it. And you listen to the urge. And not everyone listens to the urge. I have clients who I've met 10 years after they had an urge. And they're like, finally, I am going to do this or I got fired. So now I can do this. But you left a very successful position, and dove in. But you also had that that bigger project to kind of move, move through without taking a full leap into the abyss least you had a bit of a paycheck. So that's a smart a smart way to do it. Other people might take a bridge job, which actually isn't connected to their business, and other people just dive right in. So I like hearing your approach to it because it gives people another option. So you realized in this six month project that you're like, this isn't really for me, either. And I'm going to start working with people. So what was the some of the first products or services that you offered when when you really went on your own?

Yeah, well, so it's all been around online learning. So I was a learning consultant, I was a learning manager, I did, you know, enterprise wide projects at a large corporation, because it was my passion. And I just loved what I was doing. And then the project I took wasn't it was an elearning project and online learning project. And then you know, so I stayed in the same expertise, but I added layers of how do I want to do it. And I think that the the that bridge, which in a six month was okay, this is what I know about how it works here. And this is what I feel like I could bring to the table for a broad, broader range of clients, how do I learn my systems? How do I find my voice within kind of defining this on my own? And that's sort of what that six months was. That's why I said like, I was like, wait a minute, why are you paying me to sit here? And you know, I'm not coming to your office unless I have something to do? And then and then that morphed into? Well, no, you're not actually paying me by the hour, you're paying me by a project. Right? So I was able to sort of find the balance with all of that in terms of how did I want to do it, because now I get to make the rules. Like I wanted to make the rules back when I was at corporate, but I was confined within that, that their rules. So I'm like, no, and then this project was they still had sort of these rules. And I was like, okay, so what happens when I get to make the rules, and I needed that transition point where like, I just needed to kind of learn myself, what, what rules I wanted to have. And then from there, I was able to take on, I think at that point, I probably moved to four or five clients at the same time, because I went from the sort of mindset of people value me for the time that I'm, you know, working with them or in their, you know, kind of face to face to, here's the value that I bring to the table in an outcome. And so I went from one to, you know, four and then was able to grow and scale from there. But I had to make that shift because otherwise, you're spending you're, you go from a full time job to a full time contract to Well, now I have to fill that that hole for the full time I better just sit at somebody's office. And that's not actually where you're providing value. I mean, everybody intuitively knows that but but I think that So that was the big transition, I think for me is just finding my voice with it. And that allowed me to not to hit the ground running really, and know how I wanted to do it. So this the the service, and the product that I create my team creates, hasn't really changed. It's evolved based on you know, more systems and you know, more clarity and how we can help people at scale. But my passion actually has been the same. I love helping people learn how to get results in the fastest way possible.

Yeah, I'm all about efficiency. So I'm glad you said that. But it's the passion, you kept falling the passion, and you were able to go from a job to packaging your expertise so that people the masses could buy it, how do you suggest other people look to package their expertise? Because they might be like my do this service? Or I, I teach this thing? But how do I actually package it in a way that people will buy it? So what are your tips on that?

Yeah, so the the advice that I always give people is look for the clues of how you do it differently than other people. And, and so, so you and I may both do the same thing, we both we both may be experts in this one thing. But there are things about the way that you show up that the way that you help people either naturally, or because of your experience that are different than somebody else doing it. And so one of the best ways to kind of figure out what you're unique, sort of sort of the unique way that you show up in the world is to push against other people who are doing things similar, not copy them. Right, but pushing it like, Why do I what do I feel about this? It's a little bit different how, you know, what do I like about that? And what's a little bit different in my approach, and how I do that, then once you've done that you kind of established Well, I have a unique methodology for how I teach this, right? Like, there are a million people who are teaching online courses, I have a unique way of doing that. But you have to find that within sort of the pattern of what everybody is doing, you have to find your unique lens, because nobody wants to have the same cookie cutter solutions to things but there's really a framework that that is in every industry, every industry has sort of the rules of engagement. You don't want to go and say, Well, I'm gonna use different rules of engagement. You use the rules of engagement, but you say, how do I show up? How do I teach it? What's my unique way that I make things happen, that I can help other people have the fastest path to results? Because I'm qualified to give that to them? So that's the very first thing that I tell people, then the second thing is define your framework, like define the path? How do you help people go from here to here? And then what's the path that you take them on? I guarantee it's different than someone else? I'll give you I'll give you actually a quick story. I'm working with two clients right now both of them have the same topic. It's fascinating. I'm like, how did this happen? I have no idea. Yeah, both of them have the same topic, they serve a different customer. And so you would think that their paths would be exactly the same, because they're teaching exactly the same starting point and outcome and the path that they get there. But the way that they're teaching it is slightly different to the path is similar. Like there's an order to how somebody goes from point A to point B, but the way they're teaching is different. And the the approach that they're using is different. And they're they're serving different people. And so the the voice that they're using the examples, how they're bringing that person into the experience is totally different, because they're different avatars. And so that's why two people can exist in the same space with the same topic and both be successful.

Hmm. So key thing is, first, to be able to package your expertise is to look at how you differ from others, and the kind of unique special sauce that you have that has you stand out. And so listeners, I hope you're writing this down, and then Tara's saying...

Can I just make a quick clarification point around that because I think that as you're summarizing that there's like one key thing is that most people who are starting an online courses are starting to package their expertise, think that people are coming to them for their information, and further knowledge. And the challenge with that is there's this thing called Google, like, go to Google and get all of that information. So it's not about because that's the other thing. Well, why would people pay me they could just go watch a YouTube video or they could just go to Google. It's not about the information. It's how you bring your special sauce. It's how you package it in a way that helps somebody become successful faster than going going out and going down the rabbit hole of all the things so just want to clarify that because that's a super important piece is you have to push against other people to find what your secret sauce is, but it's never going to be just you giving information.

Yeah, yeah, very true. But it also takes time and reflection and sometimes bringing someone else like you and your team to be able to see what the difference is. Because when we're so it's I love the Les Brown quote, right? When you're in the frame, you can't see the picture. And so you sometimes need someone else to look into your business and to say, actually, now I see your special thing is this. And then Oh, great, and then creating that framework around it, and being able to really make that your own branded to your company. Those are two really great tips. Now, a lot of people do online courses, and a lot of people do in person courses. So what has the whole like, what has you believing in online courses? Maybe more. So then, let's get in a room. And let's learn something.

Yes, which is, this is my favorite topics. Because it's all online for me all day, every day. And here's why there's a couple of different things from from the business owners perspective, it is an amazing way to leverage your time and expertise, and have people be able to experience what you have to offer in a way that scalable for you. You cannot, I don't care who you are, you cannot go and do classroom or in person training 365 days of the year, But you can package your course you package your expertise, and put it out there. So somebody can consume it 365 days of the year, and they are super happy, and you are super happy. So from your perspective, it is a really solid way to either use it as a way to grow your business, right? So you could use it on a front end to help people get started and give them kind of the basics. And then you send them to something that's more one on one or something that's more group where you're kind of giving them all the basics. One of the things that that I'm very passionate about is have you ever seen the movie 50 First dates? By Drew Barrymore.

Yeah they just had it when I got my nails done, they had it playing in there the other day, so I got a refresher

See that's perfect. So here's the thing is most often as small business owners, or even I don't care I mean, you could be a six, seven figure business owner, one of the biggest areas that people struggle in terms of profitability is repeating, like recreating the wheel every single time repeating yourself every single time, like how many clients have you had one on one clients, or even if you're doing a classroom training, you're literally like it, you're just repeating the same thing over and over again, if you could package that, then you're able to add efficiencies, you're able to, you know, make the time that you have count, right? Even if it's just like, here are the basics, go do this so that I can answer really juicy, wonderful questions, and help solve really awesome problems, because you've already had kind of this piece here. And so it leverages your time. So that's on the on the actual business owner, you know, kind of course creator standpoint of things is in, you know, I could go on for days or all the benefits and how wonderful it is. But Diane is like going to cut me off. So I can't do that. On the other side. Yeah, he is from the learners perspective. And here's the thing is that people want to learn when they need it, they do not want to learn when they don't need it, right. And they don't want to be forced to be in a room have, like, you know, so say it's like three days of training, and you only use like a slice of that training at that time. Because you need the rest, you need to apply it later on. Online learning is fabulous, because it allows people to to learn and take action and learn and take action on their own time doesn't have to be on your time, it doesn't have to be, you know, they don't have to, you know, they can go through it whenever it makes sense for them. So at the core, just like from a basic learner perspective, it's an amazing way for people to be able to get what they need when they need it. And so that's just at the core. I mean, again, like I can go on for days of why it's so beneficial. But but when you when you're able to give somebody an experience of like the fastest path to get from point A to point B in a way that they can consume it, whatever that looks like for you online, is that then they're able to become successful, they're able to get to that goal so much faster. And you know, everybody's a little bit different. I may go through an entire course, and get everything that I need in, you know, a day's time. Right? I may go through it all and I'm good and I can move on. You may want to go through that same course slower, because you want to take more notes, you want to apply it you want to think about this piece and reflect and connect with other people and do this, do this part and then move forward. The beauty of you packaging your expertise is that you get to show up for them when they need it. Yeah, one of my favorite stories is when I first got started so what's funny is I've been building online courses, you know, since I was an in even before their computers, but but I've been doing this forever and I had that moment that everybody starts to have when they've built an online course but I was at a conference, a man came up to me and he's like, Oh my gosh, what you taught me this morning, changed my business, I was able to apply it right away. I like literally just made a huge sale, blah, blah, blah, you made such an impact on me. Thank you so much. And I said, I didn't talk to you this morning. And he's like, Oh, you're right. You're right. I watched your video in your training class that you had this morning. And it made such an impact to me. And I went, he didn't even think about the fact that he was not with me live, it didn't matter. Because for him, he's still having a relationship with me, even if we are not live face to face. Yeah. And that was like such a powerful moment. Because I was like it this isn't about me, and having to show up face to face with people like I can do that all day long if I want to, this is about the impact that I make for my students to allow them to become successful. And I can do that is a virtual version of myself.

Yeah. So listeners are you catching on here, if you are a business owner, it's not about you. It's about the result for your client. And I can see that when you focus on that. It just, it can have such great results. And a couple things that just made that I thought of when you were talking about people going through things at their own pace, it also is what your client came to you all the knowledge they already came to you with. And I and for sometimes when I go to and trainers are speak very slow drives me nuts. And it's very technical. And I don't understand I want them to speak at that slow pace. But I was watching something last night. Course an online course I was watching, I watched it two speed, double speed because the person talks slow. And the content was so detailed and basic that that and if sometimes I go to the first in person thing, or it's live online, and I know that the trainer is like this, I actually will leave. And I will wait until the recording comes up and and watch it one and a half speed or two speed. Because that's and I love to giving that option to the clients. However, it is a well known fact that not every client will finish a course.

7% of people actually do not finish the course.

Okay, so that's bad for many reasons, retention one of them. So can you tell us like how do you help your clients? Or how do you suggest my listeners solve that problem? Because people won't buy something else from you if they don't have a result?

100%? Yeah, it's one of the biggest issues that people have when they build online courses is that they expect that everybody's gonna just automatically get results. And what happens in reality is if people start and they're really excited, and they finish, if they finish, only 3% finish, if they finish, they're super excited. But guess what happens? Like when they actually are going through the process? Right? Yeah, we call it we call it control the dip, because it's like, oh, I have to learn, I have to do the work. Oh, wait, this is this is hard, I have to expend to my brain calories. Because learning is not a passive activity. Right? If you want to actually get results, you have to actually do something, you can't just, it doesn't happen by osmosis. And I think that that's the challenge that we have, as course creators. It's challenged we have as consumers of courses, because, you know, I don't know, maybe you guys have experienced this in the past, but have you ever bought a book and and you don't actually read the book, but because you have the book, you feel like you've solved the problem, right? You're like, oh,

this is chapter.And I'm like, I know.

Like, I'm good. But that's what happens. Right? And that's the same thing with a course is that people think, well, I bought it now I've solved my problem, which in reality, we know that that actually isn't the case. But people people get to that place in the dip, and then they're like, Oh, I just too hard I'm out. So what we want to do is we want to actually create an experience that controls that dip, that is what when it becomes your course becomes impactful. Because it's not about information, it's not about content, it is about being able to get them from point A to point B. So a couple of things that we do first of all, I'm going to throw out just like a pro tip, or this is like a secret, probably 80% of your content is not needed in your course. Probably 80% Why they say I say that everybody goes home. Why though? Because most of the time it was 100% It's too much always. But most of the time what we're doing is we're trying to teach them from our point of expertise. We are not looking at where they fall in the the expert conundrum right in in that like actual you know, like you're at a level 10 They're to level two, they may only need to get to a level three. They don't need to be at a level 10 but we we have this need to try and give them everything and and the other thing is you know you you listen to marketing gurus and they're like give value like more better Now people are going to feel like the more they have the more value it's going to be right? Like supersize it no like this. That's not the value, the value is, how fast can you get them from point A to point B, so they get their problem solved, or they get to that result, it's not about the content or the information you're giving them. So one of the examples I always give, do you ski you're in Canada, do you ski?

I ski not well, but ski

the analogy I always give is, so say you're learning how to downhill ski for the very first time. And you're going up the chairlift and on the right hand side of you is someone who is your coach. And you know, they're coaching you through like, Okay, here's how you start, here's how you stop, here's how we kind of meander down the mountain, this is what it's gonna look like, you're gonna go here, and you're gonna get down to the bottom. Great, right? You have that person. And then on the other side, you have another coach, and this coach is telling you about the history of skiing, and how all of your ski equipment works. And all of the amazing resorts that are out there and why they're all perfect and blah blah and the Olympics in 1981, and how to do how to do Mote like, yeah, how to do moguls how to do things, and you get to the top of the mountain after chairlift and you're staring down this cliff, and you're like, I, how am I not going to end up in the hospital? Like, I just know what I need right now to make sure that I can go from where I am down that hill without killing myself, you need to know about the pizza and the French fries. And if you're my skiers, you know what that's right. Okay, it's the is stop and French fries is go, it's all you really need to know at the moment where you're trying to solve that particular problem. And so often, we're like that coach on the left, who's like, let me give you all the things in there, like, I just need to make sure I'm not gonna end up in the hospital. And so that's why 80% of the content is not needed at that time. Now, that doesn't mean it's not important. And it doesn't need to be somewhere later on. But I will be ready for moguls when I have gotten down and I've gotten some reps and I've gotten some practice, right. I'm not going to be ready for moguls right now. So I don't even need to know that they exist, because well, hopefully you're not in Mogul Hill on your very first time going down. Yeah, right. But But my point is, that's where people start to fall off in your course number one is there's too much i I'm like overwhelmed. I don't need to know all the things, I need to know the history and the kitchen sink about everything. And we have a tendency to do that. Because we want to share, we want everybody to know exactly what our thing is. And so that's the very first thing is cut out, like have one goal. Yeah, in each of your lessons or your modules, whatever you call them have one goal that you're trying to help them achieve to get to the next step. Hold the fire hose them. Yes, sir. Yes, and, and so you know, I always say like, get it all out of your head. However you need to do that post it notes, you know, some sort of tool, get it all over your head, and then start to simplify like pull it all away, pull 80% of it out, you don't need it. And and again, then it's comes about you if you want to teach all the things it, then it's about you and it's not about that person anymore, because they only need that little slice of it. Yeah, then the next thing that's super important is when the difference between when you're with somebody in person teaching or doing one on one services, you actually can see their facial expressions, you can see if they're confused, you can see if they're bored, you can see if they're like, I don't have any idea what you're talking about, you can see that when you're creating an online course you cannot see that. And so you have to anticipate all of that, as you're creating your course. Most of the time, people don't even think about that. And so the the other thing to control the dip is when are they going to get stuck along the path? When is that going to happen? And then you're like, oh, you know what, I know that this is going to be a hard part. I'm going to put something here that helps them jump over that hurdle. And then you know what I'm going to do, I'm going to recognize the fact that they jumped over that hurdle that's going to keep them moving on the path that's going to start controlling the dip is because you're anticipating when you because you kind of know intuitively in your process. Oh yeah, this is where they usually drop off.

This is the hard part that they have to put through.

This is when it gets hard. Yeah. Yeah.

What do you what do you do to help them to get through that

The course creators or their learners?

How do you help the

learners to get through that hard part?

So that's when you are that's when you're putting in an inactivity, that's when you're putting in maybe a coaching call, that's when you're putting in some type of communication, right? Like you can send them an email. You can check in with them. You can give them an assignment you can give them a worksheet, you can give them some tool like a lot of times people will have cheat sheets and tools. It's a great way to you're giving them something to fill out that helps them conceptualize or practice or get an example of that to keep moving. So there's a million different ways depending upon like, of course, how hands on and how hands off you want to be. But instead of like, randomly showing up, or having weekly calls, in terms of if you're doing kind of a hybrid experience, make the calls count. When you get to this place, you get to have a call with me, like, that's a huge incentive for somebody to get through that is unlocks something new, right? Like, if you get through this, then you and I get to get on a phone call, and we're gonna walk through it, I'm gonna give you feedback, right? So there's a million different ideas based on your appetite for if you want it all automated, or if you want to sprinkle in some time. And again, it goes back to that. When do you want to show up for your people? You want to have those juicy, valuable conversations, not like show up on a call and be like, what questions does everyone have? And nobody has any questions? And you're like, Well, this is kind of waste of time.

Well, it's funny, I was part of a program. And let's say, the Wednesday morning 9am, the content came out. And then like three hours later was the call. Well, I hadn't had time to go through the content at all. So I was like, this is a waste of a call and majority of the people hadn't gone through it all. Yeah. And so that

And they end up reteaching it in the call, because nobody has any questions, right? So they're like, Well, let me give you an summary or whatever.

That was my feedback To the course, I'm like, You need to give us a few days just to do the content before the call, because that call was waste. And then every following call was a little bit of a waste to because the call happened three hours after the content my life. But why are you doing this, like do the next week, if anything, that's how I do mine, like the content comes out, let's say on a Wednesday, the calls are Tuesday, and the next content comes out the Wednesday, so they've got time to work through it time to have problems and time to reach out. So I want to we do you do have a gift for everyone here, which is amazing. But before we get to that, I just want to a quick, just have a, you know, a quick rundown of gamification, because people think of video games, but they might not understand gamifying a course. And they might not be on a platform that allows them to gamify. So they go out whenever so can you speak to a little a little bit about gamification?

Yep, I would love to. So first of all, gamification is just adding game like elements to your online programs, or, you know, whatever you're doing, I mean, you can add gamification to anything. It's not actually like, you don't have to be a gamer. You don't have to, like know, the inner workings of all the tech and how all of the things work in order to do gamification. So I like to say that because I'm not a gamer, you know, and so I think that people say, Well, I'm not a gamer, I don't, I don't know any of that I'm out, right. And really, all it is, is how you're going to reward and recognize your people for taking action or not taking action throughout your program. And that's really all it is, at its essence, is you look at the journey of of somebody who's you know, they purchase, and then they they achieve the result? What are the steps in between that you want to reward and recognize them for taking more maybe, maybe not reward them take things away? When they're not doing the things that you want them to do?

Oh, what would you take away

so you can, you can do timed elements and they get they like lose content, they lose a template, different things like it's called the Blackhat strategy, right? So it's, you know, you've got the positive spin on things, and then you'd have the negative spins. But, but so like, an example would be if, if you like I said before, like, if you do this thing, then you unlocks the ability for you to maybe buy something like with points or, or coins. Yeah, and so if you don't do something within a certain amount of time, you could take the coins away, or you could take the points away. So it takes them longer to get to where you want them to go. So something like that. But again, like I said, there's very simple techniques. And then of course, there's the ninja crazy techniques that are out there. I won't, I won't talk about those necessarily, but it's really, when do you want to reward them, you want to reward them for making the commitment to come into your program and solve their problem. You want to reward them for finishing, right? Like Good job, right? I mean, you can go anywhere from an email that says you're awesome, good job, you did it to, you know, having an award or having a ceremony or you know, sending him swag. I mean, there's a million different ways you can recognize them taking action, super simple, to more complex. Mm hmm. The Ninja part about this, though, is rewarding, meaningful action. One of the things there's a there's a influencer out there and she literally has a course where she's got like 250 badges. So every single little thing that you do you get a badge for Well, as you can imagine,

like whatever this means nothing

It doesn't Yeah, it doesn't mean anything because you're like, Oh, I, you know, I filled out this thing I get a badge woo, you know, so meaningful action, which is why it's not really that complicated because you in your course, you may have like maybe four or five different places where you're recognizing them for meaningful action. And, and so it's really just mapping that out in terms of when do you want to do that, that's how simple it can be, is just really looking at that. Now, of course, there's a million different ways to look at it and make it more complicated and automate it and do all the things. But at the core, it's really about, you know, naturally, when do you want to show up and give them a pat on the back for doing a good job? But when when is it important to do that? As far as the tech and the various tools that are out there, one of the key things that I always teach people is it's not about the tech. None of this is about the tech. And if you are in a place where you're trying to find some sort of tool that fits your needs, please, please, please, if nothing else out of today, write down what you need before you go out and look for a tool.You laugh, but I'm serious like people are like, in fact, it's funny. It's somebody in my coaching group the other day, who was like, Yeah, I want to have Sue when I found a really cool app. So I bought it and gave it to my team. And I think that they can use it. And then my team came back to me and said that, like, why did you buy this, like we can't use this has nothing to do with what we're building. And I was like, why like, but it's the mentality of this has cool little bells and whistles, I better get it because it's the next best thing. And then you run around in circles trying to find tech map it out. First, your tech will do what you want it to do. If you map it out first, and then think about what you need to have happen, then you can find the right tool, or you can see how your tool either will do it or not do it. So you can make an actual strategic business decision, instead of just getting stuck into the thing. So often people will open up and everybody has done this before, you think about opening up a PowerPoint deck to do a presentation and you go to that white screen. And all of a sudden, your brain just like, like melts, you're just like what I do with this white screen. And then you have to build a presentation, it's so much harder to not like build out kind of how you want to do the structure before you go to that white screen. Because there's just something about going into a tool before you have a plan. It you're just your brain just sort of melts. I don't know, maybe it's just me. But like, then what happens is it's sort of this hot mess of stuff, because there's no plan ahead of time people forget all the time.

Yeah. And if anyone is out there sitting there going, well, I don't know what I need. And I don't know how to map it out. That's something that yeah, that's something that you can do for them. So they don't even have to think about it, they'll just answer a few questions. And I started my very first course, was on one of my pages on my website, and I had to upload every week, the new video on there for every new course. And every new, like group of students that went through had to upload the next one, upload the next one, and have it password protected. And I went from there to other platforms, but I didn't know what I needed until I did it. Right, because I didn't have someone like you to walk me through it. So it's nice to know that some you know, you can just one stop shop here. i This is what I want to do. This is my passion. How do I package it? How do I make the course? And what do I need? What tech do I need, you probably save people a lot of money by having the right tech the first time

100% Because you if you get the foundation, right, then everything from the foundation becomes just you're just putting more or you know, more courses into it. You're growing your your business, and you're not like just kind of recreating things every time and trying to figure out how it all works. And so yeah, so we really spent some time teaching the foundation and then what are the right tools based on your requirements. And just really looking at that and simplifying the process. Because it doesn't have to be hard. It doesn't have to be stressful, but it's getting that kind of the the mechanics, right? Of what what that looks like. But But I always say don't worry about the tech because if you can map out what you want to have happened, then the tech will follow the tech will show up for you. It will work how it is how it's supposed to. Yeah,

that's great. Now I bet my listeners are sitting here going. Okay, the gift, what's the gift? So Tara tell what's the gift? Yeah, so

I have a free training. That's the three biggest mistakes that people make when they're creating their online courses. And it's sort of the cornerstone of a lot of the things that I've been talking about today. Because what I what what I don't want people to do it's like you're saying like waste the time of, you know, you get you get people in who are excited about your course don't waste those people right by trying to figure it out with them. We do a beta we want we want to teach the course live to real people to test everything and make sure it's all dialed In but there's, there's a, an approach that gets gives your people confidence that so they become your raving fans, they don't they don't go, she's just putting this together on the fly, right. And so so that's what this, this training gives you sort of looking at those key pieces, the tech being one of them, right, like, make the mistake of spending, I was talking to somebody the other day, and he was like, in order for me to get this tech stack that this other person was recommending it was like $700 a month in like 10 different tools, and they're just getting started in this space. And I'm like dickless, like, that's bad advice, right? Like, you start simple. And then you go, and you know, when you don't, because here's, here's the reality, just just like last little point, is, when you have five, maybe 10 People who are in your program, you can do what you did, right? Like put it up and do the thing. But when you want to put 100 people in, or even 50 people in 100 people in 1000 people in 2000 people in you've got to have that dialed in

and automated so you're not 100 emails with login details, you have something that doesnt

Like, but that's what that's the but that's the thing is I think, you know, so many times people come to me, and they're like, Well, I have to give them all their login details and then put them put their names in the system, and then send them money. I'm like, no, no, all that's taken care of for you. Your job is to show up and get results for your people. Your job is not to do all these squirrely things. Yeah. So that training helps with that.

Great. Well, you gave us your last message here too, which is, which I'm seeing is around like, well, first of all, in the show notes, we're gonna have the link so that everyone can go and grab your gift. And that was generous of you. Thank you for that. But yeah, the thing being that you really have to have some strategy going into this because it's not just about I want to teach this to people, it's you need to sell this to people. So I we could go on for hours and hours. But the fun thing is that right after this, I'm actually going to teach one of my programs. That's the first time I'm running it. So I'm running it live. So I'm so happy to hear that the expert says run it live first, because that's what I'm doing right now. Yeah, time. So thank you, Tara, for sharing with us your knowledge, your expertise and your great stories to give us some examples of how things can work for us. So, you know, listeners, whether you have courses, or you want to be a Course Builder, I really suggest that you check out what Tara has to offer. She got a couple of websites that will also be in the show notes. So you can see, you know how you can reach out to her how you can maybe use her and her team services because as I read in her bio, you really want to have sticky real results based course experiences for your clients so that you can not only help them with their results, but build your bottom line. Right. So thanks again, Tara for being with us here today. For you listeners, make sure you hit subscribe, share this with a friend who you think needs to build their own course. If you haven't yet written a review, we'd love to hear it. And when you do, send us a snapshot, a screenshot of it to team at Diane rolston.com With your mailing address so we can send you something a little bit special. Maybe I just gamified that did I tell you there's so until next time everyone to stay dynamic. Bye.