Level Up Your Course Podcast With Janelle Allen: Create Online Courses That Change Lives

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! Today’s guest is Susan Stripling, award-winning wedding photographer and co-founder of The Wedding School, an online business school for wedding photographers. This episode is especially valuable for anyone who is curious about workshops, CreativeLive and how to build an online school—not just a course. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn: • Susan's story: how she became a photographer on a whim • How Susan transitioned from live workshops to online courses (PLUS, what she was super afraid of) • Why Susan chose CreativeLive to get her start with online courses (and why she eventually went out on her own) • Just-in-Time Learning: what it is and why it works for The Wedding School • How knowing your learner’s journey affects your course content • How Susan marketed and launched The Wedding School, from soft launch to live event • Why you should launch to your loyal fans first • Why you shouldn’t ask your customers how much they’ll pay for your online course •

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! Today’s guest is Joshua Millage, co-founder of LifterLMS. This episode is especially valuable for anyone who wants to learn more about Wordpress LMS plugins. It's also great if you're having a hard time choosing between an LMS plugin or an LMS platform like Teachable. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn: • How Joshua got his start in online education • What an LMS plugin is (and the top 2 reasons to use one) • The pros and cons of using an LMS plugin for your online course • The differences between Wordpress LMS plugins, LMS themes, and LMS platforms • Membership plugins vs online course plugins • How LifterLMS simplifies your LMS plugin options • The mission behind LifterLMS’s decision to go open source • Why pen and paper is the best technology References and Tools that Joshua Mentions: • LifterLMS• Codeable• WPCurve• Twitter handle: @lifterlms Thanks for Listening! If you enjoyed this episode, please consider leaving an honest review for The Zen Courses

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! My guest today is Caitlin Pyle of ProofreadAnywhere.com. Caitlin is a professional transcript proofreader and blogger who teaches people how to escape the 9 to 5 and start a career proofreading anywhere. In this episode, Caitlin shares her tumultuous journey from being a bad employee to working as a personal trainer to FINALLY becoming an entrepreneur and launching her successful online course, Transcript Proofreading. This episode is especially valuable for anyone who has struggled with limiting beliefs. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn: • How Caitlin got her start as a transcript proofreader • How getting fired helped her gain the courage to be an entrepreneur • How her ebook helped her decide to create an online course • How she created Transcript Proofreading • Why she has five pricing tiers (and the reason someone would buy each tier) • Her strategy for testing students to make sure they’re actually learning • Why she believes a course should be tre

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! Today’s guest is Alison Crosthwait. Ali is a psychotherapist and the founder of The Good Therapists, a therapy blog. Later this month (April), Ali's launching her first online course, The Therapy School, a course to help people in therapy deepen their practice & understand how therapy works. This episode is a special one because Ali is also a former client. She hired me to help her create her first online course. In this episode, she shares what she thought she knew and what she learned along the way. Enjoy! "I was so naive. I didn’t think [creating a course] was going to be that hard. I knew it would be a lot of work […] but I can handle that. But I really had no idea of everything involved in creating an online course." --Ali In This Episode, You'll Learn:• Why she left a corporate career in finance to become a therapist• Why she decided to create a new model for how we understand therapy• How she designed her course to deal with boundaries,

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! Today’s guest is Tara Gentile. Tara is the founder of Quiet Power Strategy and taragentile.com. This episode is especially valuable for anyone who struggles with building and audience and knowing what their audience wants to learn. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• How getting turned down for a promotion fueled her start as an entrepreneur• Why she shut down her niche site to create a personal brand• Why she pivoted from 1-on-1 consulting to create her first course• The changes and trends in online courses since 2010, when Tara started teaching online• How offering services can set your online course up for success• Her experience teaching online courses via Creative Live• Strategies Tara uses to understand her audience at a deep level, so she can create better solutions for them• Why you should stop making ideal client profiles (and what to do instead)• How to use social media to research your audience’s problems References and Tools that Tara Mentions

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! My guest today is Brent Weaver from uGurus.com. Brent is the co-founder of uGurus, an online business school for web professionals. They create online courses, mentor programs and other online learning products to help web professionals lead better lives. In this episode, Brent shares the story behind uGurus and how they created their flagship online learning program, $10k Bootcamp. This episode is especially valuable for anyone with expertise in an area who wants to transition from services to products. It’s also perfect for small business owners with a team who want to add online courses to their business model. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• Chickens, side-hustles and why you shouldn't play Monopoly with Brent• How uGurus went from a side project to a full-time business• Why self-paced courses are limiting• The one metric that matters (hint: it’s not just sales)• Why you should do customer development before you teach• How he created $10k Bootcamp

Welcome to another episode of The Zen Courses Show! My guest today is Emmy Wu from emmywu.com. Emmy is a videographer and editor who helps online entrepreneurs create amazing, heart-centered launch videos that get results. In this interview, you’ll learn how she successfully launched her course, Craft to Camera—even with a small list, the wrong price and stage fright. Plus, she shares some tips for making stellar launch videos. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• What kept her going after she quit her job to become an entrepreneur• Why it’s so important to tell your story• Why video should be part of your launch strategy• How her course, Craft to Camera, helps you tell your story on camera• Why you don’t need a huge list to launch your online course• The pros and cons of using Google Hangouts in your course• How pivoting and re-pricing helped her overcome an unsuccessful launch• What positioning is and how it helps your course launch• Tips for improving your launch videos Links and Resources Mentioned:• Em

My guest on this episode is Rob Walling. Rob is the founder of Drip, an Email Service Provider that specializes in marketing automation. He's also a pioneer in the online course world, having built his first course, The Micropreneur Academy, in 2009. In this episode, you'll learn Rob’s story and how Drip can help you create email courses, grow your list and improve your marketing. In This Episode, You'll Learn:• Why he waited to launch his first course, The Micropreneur Academy• If working as a consultant prepared him to create products• The approach Rob took to launch his course during a time when online courses weren’t popular• The top 3 things Rob learned about creating online courses• Why you may not need to build your whole course all at once• Why building an email list is critical to your sales and success• How his frustration with Mailchimp led to creating Drip• How Drip is different from Mailchimp and ConvertKit• Why Drip thinks email courses are so valuable (and helps you set one up)• How Drip helps

Have you ever done something so well that people start asking you to teach them? My guest today has. Jim Breese started off as an AirBnB host and did so well that he began teaching others. At LearnAirBnB.com, he and his team teach AirBnB hosts how to be successful in an ever-competitive market. In this episode, Jim shares his entrepreneurial beginnings and how LearnAirbnb came to be, plus all the things he’s learned along the way that can help you with your course. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• How Jim transitioned from being an Airbnb host to teaching other hosts online• Why not to wait until you feel like you’re an expert to teach• How the team validated the need for their course before they made it• The strategies they used to grow their audience• The pros and cons of using Udemy for your course• How to discover the real reason customers want to take your course, so you know how to market it• The essential tools to learn when you’re bootstrapping development of your course• Why they use WP Coursew

Thinking about launching a membership site? It can be a lot of work. And Steph Crowder knows all about it. Steph manages the membership community of Fizzle, a training site for online entrepreneurs. In this episode, we discuss strategies for managing members, motivation and growth in your membership site. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• The pros and cons of having a membership site.• Why Steph left her great job at Groupon to become an entrepreneur• How she managed the fear and challenges of running a side-hustle while working full-time• The one shift in perspective that will help you succeed in your side-hustle• How much work it takes to run a membership site.• What Steph's average day of member support looks like• How to approach hiring moderators for your community• Strategies to help motivate members• The key to getting past fear• The tools the Fizzle team uses to manage their community• How to emphasize action in your membership community Links to References and Tools that Steph Mentioned:• Fizzle

My guest today is Jody Padar from NewVision CPA Group. She’s here to talk about pricing, because it’s a hot button topic for a lot of people. If you sell online courses, you have a business. In this episode, we discuss how important pricing is for your business, how to price based on your costs, and how to use value-based pricing to take it to the next level. And we promise not to get too geeky. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• Why she’s known as The Radical CPA• How pricing can help you have a more profitable AND less-stressful business.• The key numbers every business owner should know about their business…and how to calculate them• Four steps to figuring out your pricing, based on cost• What the heck a gross margin is! (Hint: it’s tied to your profits.)• Two ways to build profit into your course pricing.• How to figure out how many sales you need to make to recoup your costs• Why trading time for money is limiting you. (And what to do instead.)• Why flat-rate pricing means you could charge more.• Wha

My guest today is Caleb Wojcik from DIY Video Guy. If you’ve ever struggled to make videos by yourself, Caleb is your guy. In this episode, we chat about his journey from employee to entrepreneur. We also dig into his process for making videos for his two courses. Plus, you know I had to ask Caleb to share some equipment tips. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• Why Caleb decided to leave his personal finance career to become an online entrepreneur.• How to relax on camera• Essential questions to ask before shooting a video for your course• How to make more engaging talking head videos• Why you should make shorter videos for your course• Strategies for staying on topic in your videos• What he does before he creates any course content• How to make better screen recordings• Where to start if you’ve never recorded videos before• Microphone recommendations for great audio• Why he believes in feedback and course updates References Mentioned in This Episode:• DIYVideoGuy website • Course #1: DIY Video Production

My guest today is Brennan Dunn from doubleyourfreelancing.com. Brennan teaches freelancers how to get more clients, grow their business and develop systems. His two signature courses are Double Your Freelancing Rate and Double You Freelancing Clients. Today, we’ll dive in to his story and why he created his online courses. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• His scariest moment of entrepreneurship• Star Wars vs Star Trek: where Brennan stands• How his childhood influenced his decision to become an entrepreneur• How listening to people’s questions influenced every product he’s ever made• Why courses are more transformative than ebooks• Why he converted his first digital product into a course (and what he added to make it actionable)• His struggle with doubt and how he overcame it• The worst thing you can do when you create your online course• Mistakes he made with his first launch of Double Your Freelancing Clients wasn’t successful—and how he fixed them• Why content and access are not enough• Strategies fo

My guest today is Carmen Spagnola from carmenspagnola.com. Carmen is a clinical hypnotherapist and entrepreneur who has two online courses, The Numinous School and True Prosperity. In this episode, Carmen shares how she bounced back from bankruptcy and depression to create a successful online business. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• How bankruptcy inspired her to change her approach to entrepreneurship• How she merged her spiritual and working self online• How a shift in perspective allowed her to follow her intuition and quit her job• How she merged her spiritual and working self online• Why it’s important to ask your fans what they want• How she’s working to eliminate anxiety around money• The two launch approaches she used with each course• Why she decided to use Teachery for her course instead of Wordpress LMS plugins• The first thing to think about before you create your course• How the Critical Impact Rating helps you organize your course content• The Five Moments in your online course and what

Today’s guest is Breanne Dyck from mynameisbreanne.com. Breanne is an expert in using psychology and adult learning principles to craft remarkable learning experiences. In this episode she shares a ton of valuable info on how to create remarkable online courses and why they're the key to growing your product-based business. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• What it takes to make a remarkable online course• The next level of online courses, according to Breanne• Why technology is not the problem with your course• How to use adult learning strategies to make better online courses• Why it’s critical to define your course participant before you make your course• The problem with creating customer avatars• How to clearly define your perfect participant• Why your learner’s journey is so important to structuring your course• The one question you should ask yourself about your customer before you create a course• The three R’s for your business and why they’re the key to growth Links Mentioned in This Episode:•

It's the last episode of 2015! In this episode, I share the exciting things coming up in 2016 and a look back at some of the personal things that were going on behind the scenes in 2015. Plus, a few surprises, including an ending full of highlights from this year. Enjoy! To stay up to date with the new things coming in 2016, get on The Zen Courses mailing list. You'll also get free updates, plus my email series, 5 Types of Online Courses. Just head over to zencourses.co/newsletter to sign up!  

It's the holidays! Time for food, family and Netflix! In this episode, you'll hear a recap of popular episodes and some of the interviews you can expect for 2016. And...if you need help planning your online course, listen until the end to find out how to let me know what you're struggling with.

Today’s guest is Brendan Hufford from hustleheart.co. Brendan is father, husband, full-time teacher, entrepreneur, podcaster AND online course creator. Whew! In this episode, Brendan shares his entrepreneurial journey as a side-project specialist and why he decided to create online courses. Enjoy! In This Episode, You'll Learn:• How Brendan formed a Jiu-Jitsu e-commerce company• Why he loves being an entrepreneur on the side• His inexcusable reason for drinking crappy coffee• Why he thinks work-life balance is BS• How he created a profitable course without having a blog• The pricing strategy he used to launch his course• Why he loves creating Minimal Viable Products (MVPs) and believes business is about experimentation• How he used surveys to pick his next course topic• The wins and challenges of running a live course versus a self-paced course (he’s done both)• Why he doesn’t like drip content in his courses• Why you should iterate and update your course over time Links Mentioned in This Episode:• OK Kimonos

Today’s guest is Maya Gaddie from mayagaddie.com. Maya is a fellow online course creator who helps entrepreneurs launch their online classes. In this episode, Maya shares how getting laid off and taking a sabbatical kickstarted her entrepreneurial life. Plus, we dig into her online course and learn her tips for course creators. In This Episode, You'll Learn:• How Maya transitioned from corporate sales to online entrepreneurship• Why she left fancy cars, a high salary and her PhD program and leapt into entrepreneurship.• How living and teaching in Ghana changed her perspective on life and entrepreneurship• Why it’s never too early to start creating revenue• Why starting small actually gives you more power and freedom• How Maya started selling courses with only 50 people on her list• What key marketing strategies Maya used to get her first customers• How you can test your audience’s engagement with your ideas• Why launching is so challenging for us…and what to do about it• The learning elements that are essenti

Today’s guest is Sarah Selecky, an author and entrepreneur. In this episode, Sarah gives us a peek insider her course, Story is a State of Mind. Plus, she shares strategies for teaching a creative process. If you want to create a course focused on creativity, process and transformation this episode is for you. In This Episode, You'll Learn: What the heck sprezzatura means! Sarah’s first business (hint: Nancy Drew) The adjustments Sarah made to her in-person course to teach it online How she uses themes and colors to organize her course How she uses linear thinking and creative loops to encourage progress How she pushed through the frustration of not knowing anything about technology (or how to use her camera!) to create her first course. How to guide your students through their struggle and fear (and why struggle is good) How she got prize winning author Margaret Atwood to be a guest teacher in her course Her tips on writing for instruction and engagement The secret to balancing the need for creative space w