Hey family! How is everything going with you? Today’s episode is a solo show. I’m trying to do more of these so I can check in, especially as we all navigate how the pandemic is changing the landscape of our lives and businesses. It’s nice to be able to touch base with all of you. In this episode, I’ll chat about the COVID-19 situation, recap the big takeaways from recent interviews, discuss podcasting for your business, and dig into some lead generation tips. Make sure you stay tuned, because I also have a very exciting announcement that you don’t want to miss. Enjoy! Episode Quotes "If you're an online business owner, you were positioned to adapt better than if you have a brick and mortar business." "Podcasts are good for traffic, nurturing, and discoverability, but it's not great for lead generation." "Students do better when they have a community where they can connect and ask questions." Listen to Learn 01:07 - COVID-19’s impact on online course creators 04:15 - Recap of previous episodes 08:46 - Podcasting for your business 12:36 - Effective lead generation channels 16:01 - New and exciting things happening! Connect with Me JanelleAllen.com Follow Me on Twitter! Looking for the Transcript? Episode 127 Ready to start a podcast for your business? Learn how to start a podcast in three simple steps. No excuses! https://janelleallen.com/startyourshow
Hey family! How is everything going with you? Today’s episode is a solo show. I’m trying to do more of these so I can check in, especially as we all navigate how the pandemic is changing the landscape of our lives and businesses. It’s nice to be able to touch base with all of you.
In this episode, I’ll chat about the COVID-19 situation, recap the big takeaways from recent interviews, discuss podcasting for your business, and dig into some lead generation tips. Make sure you stay tuned, because I also have a very exciting announcement that you don’t want to miss.
Enjoy!
Episode Quotes
"If you're an online business owner, you were positioned to adapt better than if you have a brick and mortar business."
"Podcasts are good for traffic, nurturing, and discoverability, but it's not great for lead generation."
"Students do better when they have a community where they can connect and ask questions."
Listen to Learn
01:07 - COVID-19’s impact on online course creators
04:15 - Recap of previous episodes
08:46 - Podcasting for your business
12:36 - Effective lead generation channels
16:01 - New and exciting things happening!
Connect with Me
Looking for the Transcript?
Ready to start a podcast for your business?
Learn how to start a podcast in three simple steps. No excuses!
https://janelleallen.com/startyourshow
Janelle Allen: I will say if you are an online business owner, you were positioned to adapt better than a brick and mortar business. So for me, I definitely saw a slow down in course sales, but I saw an uptick in consulting requests. Everything from one-off consult calls to marketing strategy work, which I do for course creators and even requests for just course design, which I don't do anymore, but sometimes I will lend an eye that way. That definitely picked up.
Welcome to Level Up Your Course, where we pull back the curtain on what it takes to create learning that transforms lives. You will hear stories from business owners like you who share their success and their struggles. This is not where you come to hear passive income hints, friends. This is where you learn the truth about building a profitable learning platform. I am your host, Janelle Allen, and this is today's episode.
Hey family, how is everything going? So today is going to be a solo episode. I am trying to do a few more of these. They've been pretty well received, and it's nice to have a sort of check-in every month to just chat about business, entrepreneurship, what is going on in the world, all of that good stuff. And of course you and sharing some things that hopefully make your journey easier. So let's jump in. Today we're going to talk about a few things.
Are we tired of talking about the pandemic yet? I feel like we would be remiss, I would be remiss not to at least have a couple of statements about where things are. We'll do that very quickly and hop out of that and also talk about what's going on with the podcast, particularly just a recap on the last few episodes in case you missed them and then get into podcasting for your business if that's something you're thinking about, then I've got some news and updates to share with you. So let's jump in.
So it's officially, oh my goodness, almost two months since everything broke. Well, at least here in the US since COVID broke here in the US, so there's definitely been a lot of change, to say the least. And also just a recalibration, if you will. I know a lot of business owners who immediately had to figure out how to either pivot their business or their products. For me, I was in the middle of a product launch and instantly saw emails coming in and saying, hey, I would love to buy this course, but we're really trying to save right now because we don't know what's going to happen. So that thread of uncertainty definitely impacted a lot of business owners, but I will say if you are an online business owner, you were positioned to adapt better than a brick and mortar business.
So for me, I definitely saw a slow down in course sales, but I saw an uptick in consulting requests. Everything from one-off consult calls to marketing strategy work, which I do for course creators and even requests for just course design, which I don't do anymore, but sometimes I will lend an eye that way. That definitely picked up. I don't know what that was about. I guess people had more time, although that just feels false, right? I didn't have any more time. I feel like I've been busier during this time, and part of that is my own fault. I would definitely take the responsibility. I just don't know how to sit still.
So that's definitely me because I don't have kids, so I can't blame it on that. I know a lot of parents really are just struggling right now to balance everything. So shout out to you parents out there. I don't know how you do it, but thanks for doing it. Thanks for fighting the good fight. So that's where we're at. It's weird because I feel like it's almost- not normal, but we have adapted. I was talking with a few people and just said, it's so strange how you would think that a lot of us would still be in shock as a society, but what I'm seeing here, especially here in Chicago, when it got sunny, and the weather turned, it's like nothing. Nothing major. Which is crazy because you still have people who are struggling. You have people who are getting sick, you know, we're walking around the streets in masks.
I don't know. It's a bit surreal, and I think that's all I'm going to say about that. But here's the thing, when COVID broke here in the US, the podcast was on hiatus, and I decided to bring it back a month early because everyone's at home, right? It just makes sense. And one of the things that we've started to do if you've been a long time listener is more conversations around marketing—so not just talking about how do you create your courses. There's so many interviews I've been doing on how to create a course. It's time to really level up and talk about marketing because I know a lot of people out there who are listening, and maybe you've been a long time listener, and for whatever reason, you haven't put your course out there yet. What I've observed is there's a lot of fear and nervousness and just simply not knowing where to start when it comes to marketing.
So that's something that I wanted to bring in after coming back after COVID because marketing is always timely, but just how do you market during a pandemic? And I actually wrote about this so we will talk a little bit about that later, but just to recap, if you have not listened to the last few episodes, some great, great stuff. I had an episode with Alex Hillman, where we talked about community and pivoting your business during a pandemic, what are some things that you want to think about, why community is so important and is it really the thing that will get you through. I had a great conversation with Stephanie Taylor over at Rent to Rent Success about her business. She and her sister run a business where they are in the real estate industry. Checking in with Stephanie, she just mentioned, yes, they've definitely been impacted, but I know that they've been doing a lot more workshops and education to help people feel secure in still investing in real estate, which, there's a lot of uncertainty. A great conversation with Reuven Lerner, so if you haven't checked that episode out, that's episode 125. Reuven is a Python consultant and trainer. We had a conversation about how he took his in-person training business because he used to fly around, and I say used to because when COVID broke, he doesn't do that anymore, but he would fly around to his clients' offices. So he was a corporate trainer for Python, and that's how he would deliver his workshops. It's a great interview, so please check it out because Reuven talks about how he decided to start teaching online a few years back, and if it wasn't for doing that, he would have not been in a position for his business to survive when everything broke.
Doing that initial setting up of his courses allowed him to go back to his clients and say, I know we're not doing the in-person thing right now, but I've been teaching online, and here's how we can continue to get your people the training that they need. So it's a great interview—so much insight. Thank you, Reuven, again for that episode, been getting a lot of love for that one.
And then lastly, I had a conversation with Tara McMullin. Tara has been on the show before. Actually, she was on the show before the name changed, before she got married, and this episode was great because she has completely changed her business model since the last time she was on the show. She's all in on podcasting. In fact, she has What Works, which is a podcast as well as a business network, and she also has a podcast production company that she runs, I believe, with her husband. So we talked about podcasting as a brand-building tool, and we're going to get into that a little bit later. That's a recap of the most recent episode. So if you haven't checked those out, after this one or even right now, head over there and listen to one of those episodes.
I want to come back to podcasting. Like I said, I had a great conversation with Tara. We really got into her thoughts on podcasting as a business tool. Now, one of the things that Tara said that I thought was so interesting is that podcasting is not a great traffic lead gen tool. And I have to say some of that I agree with just looking at my pod, looking at this show, here are my thoughts on podcasting as a way to grow your business. In my opinion, podcasts are good for traffic; they're also great for nurturing, which is what Tara feels, she says people who are listening to her podcast are already engaged with her. I have found a mix of both for my podcast. I found that having a podcast helps me to find listeners who did not know about me. And so in that way, it's good for discoverability, but that doesn't always convert to subscribers. So it's not great for lead generation. Now I'm going to have an asterisk there and say that's largely because, well, I shouldn't say for everyone, but I know for me, when I first started podcasting, I didn't have a strategy in place to convert listeners to subscribers, and I'm still not always the best about it, right? But once I did, and I'll talk about what I did in a second. Once I started getting more strategic about it because when I first started podcasting guys, I just wanted to podcast.
I honestly love podcasting as a medium. It's the one thing that I've stuck with. I've tried a lot of different things, and I just love podcasting, but you have to be strategic about it, and I just wanted to just interview people, and my strategy has grown over the years. So just to recap, if you're thinking about podcasting, in my opinion, it is good for discoverability, being on iTunes, having your podcast show up with other podcasts in your market definitely will help people to find you. Especially if you have reviews and you have several episodes, and you're interviewing people who have a large following so that when they're promoting it, you're going to get people who didn't know about you. That doesn't always convert to subscribers, though. What I have found is that people will listen, and then they may or may not decide to sign up for your email list, which is ultimately what we are looking for with an online business, right?
The strategy for that is if you want to get more subscribers, then you need to have a call to action in your episode so you can have a specific lead magnet. Claire Pelletreau does a great job with this. She has one lead magnet that she's always pushing one or two that she's always pushing in her podcast, and it just fits the podcast. She talks about Facebook ads, she talks about business, she talks numbers, people know that she specializes in Facebook ads. Her lead magnet is an email course on Facebook ads, and she has a specific URL that she gives people, and that is a strategy that works. I've done similar things with my podcast lead pages. You can actually give out a number for people to opt-in on, so you just have to be strategic, you can get it to work. However, I will say that when it comes to lead generation, other mediums work better.
So what I mean by that is YouTube. YouTube is great for discoverability and lead generation. I have just started exploring YouTube, but many of my clients have used YouTube to grow six-figure businesses with a very small number of subscribers because they have a specific strategy, and they have a call to action for each video. And that has worked because it's just you building so much trust when you're sharing tactics and strategies. And just being a human being on YouTube, right? So YouTube is great. Guest posting is great. Guest posting is something that I have done in the past, and I don't do it so much anymore because it can be a little bit time consuming. You definitely have to have a strategic approach. But when I first started blogging years ago, I did. A good guest post can net you a thousand subscribers with one post.
If you target your pitches and do your best work, you can easily get several hundred, if not thousands of subscribers. So guest posting is another great way to get leads. And then, ads are great, right? Everyone talks about using ads. I haven't run a lot of ads, but I do know clients who do. Google ads, Facebook ads, those are the main two mediums. I don't hear a lot about LinkedIn, YouTube, or Instagram ads. Ads, definitely, will get your leads up as well. So podcasting, good for traffic, good for brand-building, nurturing existing subscribers, good for discoverability, especially if you're interviewing high profile guests, not the best for lead generation when you compare it to other ways to do that. All right. Those are my thoughts on podcasting. If you want to launch a podcast and you are not sure how to get your show started, I have put together an article to help you launch your podcast in a weekend.
Just head over to janelleallen.com/startyourshow. Once again, janelleallen.com/startyourshow, and you will see my guide on how to get your podcast up and running in one weekend. I promise you; you can do it. The biggest thing is having a microphone. Sometimes you gotta wait for shipping for that. Well, we're in the house right now so, so you definitely would have to do that, but I will share the microphones that I like. I will share some tips on how to get started very quickly, and then I'll share some more pro tips with you. There's some apps where you can get set up really quickly, and then there's some apps that you want to put a little bit more time in.
All right, so that is everything that you're going to need to start your podcast. So no excuses. I don't want to hear Janelle, I've been thinking. No, stop thinking. Do it. The instructions are there—janelleallen.com/startyourshow.
All right, so let's get into news. There are a few updates. If you're on my email list, these will sound familiar, but if you're not on the list, it's the first time you're hearing it. So hint, get on the list. All right, so a couple of key things. This whole pandemic situation has really made me do a lot of introspection, and what I have decided is to make a pivot to a completely new business model. This has really been coming for a long time, and I'm not going to give everything away because I am going to be sharing it with my list first, but I will say this, I am making a pivot to a community-centered business model. So right now, my business is really focused on courses and consulting, and the consulting is going to stay, but the courses are really going to be secondary to community.
So now it's really going to be community-based with access to the courses, instead of a course centered business with some consulting if you need additional help. Why did I make this decision? Again, not going to give the whole story, but I will say this. What I know, and I've talked about this, Alex and I talked about this a little bit. I've talked about it on past episodes. What I know, what I've observed in my own courses and in the courses of others, is that students do better when they have a community where they can connect and ask questions. I know for me, when I first started out as an online entrepreneur, I joined an online community called Fizzle. It was run back then by Corbett Barr; he is the founder. He still is the founder. He's still there with Fizzle. It was Corbett Barr, Chase Reeves, Steph Crowder -actually it was Caleb Wojcik who was part of that initial founding group for Fizzle, rather.
So I joined Fizzle right at the beginning. I was a big fan and still am a big fan of Corbett's work. I think that he puts his heart into everything that he does, and I knew that I wanted to be an entrepreneur. I didn't know anyone in my family or friend circle who wanted to do what I did. So I knew that I needed people. I needed people to bounce ideas off of. I needed examples of how to do things, how to grow a business. I needed mentorship and support. Fizzle was instrumental in me getting started. Fizzle is where I met my first mastermind group members, so I formed a mastermind group with a few people who were in Fizzle. And it's also where I was able to start generating revenue. With Fizzle, what I learned there actually helped me to create my first product. This was like a defunct blog, but I created a guide on interviewing and podcasting, and that was my first product. Then when I launched Zen courses, I actually launched Zen courses as a result of getting a lot of questions from people who were creating courses. Many of those people were in Fizzle. So community was impactful for me, and I really sat down and thought about how community is so important, I like to say it's the X factor, so it just makes sense, right? It just makes sense, and it is the missing component in my business. So I sat down, and I said, how can we fix this to really focus on community, so people don't have to be alone as they're working on their thing? Personally, outside of recognizing that students do better when they have community. I have personally been feeling unfulfilled with just selling self-paced courses because I liked that connection. I'm not saying I need to connect all the time. I gotta have my space too. But that feedback and connection with seeing people get it, answering questions, everything that happens inside of community just feels so much better than selling a self-paced course and someone buys it and they go off, and you never know if they did the thing. That feeling just grates for me. Some people are cool with that. Some people would love to sell self-paced courses and never care whether or not people did the thing. But for me, it really irks me. It really just gets under my skin when I log into Thinkific, and I see someone bought the course, and it wasn't a small amount of money, and they still haven't done the thing. So what I have found is when there's community, it pushes people to do the work.
So that is really the motivation. And also, I should say that I've also been inspired by Tara McMullin's pivot. She recently, well I say recently, I think it's been a year or two now that she stopped selling information products and went to a community-centered model. And inside of that community, she has training and conferences and all types of great stuff. So more to come. There's definitely work being done, and I'll be sharing more ideas about what that community will look like. But I'm going to wrap up by saying this going forward. So this is going to launch this summer. And going forward, the only way to get access to my courses and I'd say 99% of my workshops are going to be within the community. It's going to be members only content. I'm really excited about that. I haven't been this excited in a while.
I’m still doing the consulting, but a huge emphasis on community so that you can start your thing or grow your thing, level up your thing, whatever your thing is that you want to do, the community will be a place to do it. It's going to be for creators who are focused on teaching and entrepreneurship. That's the big news. That is the big news. And hop on my email list. If you would like to stay up to date, you can just head to the site janelleallen.com. There's a number of places you can opt-in for the list. Hop on the email list because when I send out the invites, they're going out to everyone on the list first, so that is the episode for today. I hope that you've enjoyed it. Let me know if you like these solo episodes or if you want me to stop doing them? I don't know. Let me know what you think, but we're going to be doing a few more of these over the next few weeks, specifically digging into growth strategies. So stay tuned for the next episode. We're going to talk about some specific strategies to grow your business and really give you some tactical things that you can do, and you can take away. All right, that is my time. I am out of here. Once more, head over to janelleallen.com opt into the list. If you want to get that guide on how to start your podcast, go over to janelleallen.com/startyourshow, and you can find everything you need to get your podcast launched in a weekend.
All right, my friends, that is my time. Remember, before you can level up your course, you must first level up your mind. As always, thank you for hanging out with me for another great episode. I do not take it for granted. I am Janelle Allen, and this has been Level up your Course. Peace.