62: Brandi Good: How 4+ Years of Failures Led to Course Creation and Launch in Under 6 Months
My guest today on the Creator's MBA Podcast is Brandi Good. Brandi loves to systematize online business activities using tech, workflows, and automations - customized to the needs, comfort level, and budget of each business owner she works with. Her signature service, Systematize Your Biz, is designed to help you pandemic-proof your business by getting your courses and memberships online. Brandi is currently obsessed with Kajabi, morning coffee, and Star Wars.
Listen in to hear her best advice on tech integrations for your online course especially if you're just starting out.
Mentioned In This Episode
Transcript:
Speaker 1 (00:01):
Welcome to the Course Creator's MBA Podcast. I'm your host Destini Copp. And in this podcast, we're covering actionable tips to grow your online course business. Before I begin, I want to let you know that this episode is sponsored by my Course in a Box program, which helps you create your revenue generating course in less than a week. Course in a Box is on the AppSumo marketplace at a special deal. And the link for Course in a Box on AppSumo is in our show notes. And today we're in the middle of our course creator series where I'm chatting with ordinary course creators, just like you. We're talking about their journey in their online course business, how they got started, the challenges they've experienced and how they overcame them. These are real discussions with real people today. My special guest is Brandi good. Brandi helps women entrepreneurs, systemize, online business activities using tech workflows and automations customized to the needs, comfort level and budget of each business owner. She works with her signature service systemize. Your business is designed to help you pandemic proof your business by getting your courses and memberships online. Brandi is currently obsessed with Kajabi, her morning, coffee and star Wars. Randy, thanks so much for joining me today. I'm so excited to chat with you.
Speaker 2 (01:32):
Yeah, thanks for having me. I've been eagerly awaiting, entering the connect for so long. Yeah. And I love what you do. And I know a lot of people,
Speaker 1 (01:42):
The listeners here today always are looking for ways to improve their Tech. Automate their business, systemize their business in, you know, basically save time. So I'm excited to dig into this with you before I get into my specific questions that I have for you. Can you take a second and tell everybody a little bit more about what you do and how you help people?
Speaker 2 (02:13):
Right. So the way I explain it, a lot of the times is I kind of consider myself like a tech detective in a way. So you tell me as the business owner, what your goal is like, what you need to accomplish in your business. And maybe we'll talk about what technology or what tools or apps you have right now. And then I'll either, I'll take that information and I'll either figure out how to make, how to accomplish your goal with what you have right now. Or I might say, okay, you actually don't have the tools and the systems you need. So put these things in your business and then you can accomplish whatever that that goal is. And because yeah, that tech piece really, really trips people up. Like everyone knows, Oh, I want to create a course, Oh, I want to start a podcast.
Speaker 2 (03:03):
I want to do this. And in theory, it's, it's kind of simple, you know, like you record some audio, you record some video and you put it out there, but all those little tech steps in between to get it from concept to actually into the hands of other people, people get stuck so early in the process and then they just get frustrated and they never, they never get it done. So I'm trying to come in and like help them over that one hurdle so that they can actually do the thing they want to do without all of that frustration.
Speaker 1 (03:38):
And you mentioned that you are obsessed with Kajabi and I love Kajabi too. I use it for hosting my online courses. What do you like so much about Kajabi?
Speaker 2 (03:49):
So, yeah, like I use it for almost, almost everything in my business at this point. I signed up quite a long time ago and then just slowly started moving everything over to Kajabi. Cause like at first obviously it was for courses and then I was like, well, if I'm going to do a webinar, I can make that work with Kajabi. So I canceled my webinars subscription and then eventually my email service I'm like, this is starting to get expensive. I'm already paying for Kajabi. So I'll just move it over there. And then my website, my blog, everything just got moved over and I just, I love it because I find it very easy to use. Really user-friendly and I like how, because it is all those things work together. So to automate things is so much simpler. I rarely have to use like Zapier or, or Integra mat to make things work because everything is already in Kajabi and it just, it's, it's almost seamless for what I need to do. So that's the kind of two things, the user-friendly aspect. And then just that everything works together. Plus the, the customer support is like amazing. It's, top-notch, it's one of the best I've I've ever come across.
Speaker 1 (05:12):
And I have to agree with you on the customer support this. One of the reasons why I love it so much. I have not migrated my email subscribers over to Kajabi and we're taking a little bit of a tangent here, but I think a lot of the people listening to what we're discussing and interested in this I, I, so my email system, I use convert kit and I am not at a point yet where I'm, you know, feel comfortable moving that over to Kajabi. What do you typically tell your clients on that?
Speaker 2 (05:48):
Yeah, so I get a lot of questions specifically about email and like I did hold out on switching over to for a long time because I was using active campaign, which I love, love, love, love.
Speaker 1 (06:03):
Yeah. A lot of people I know, love it too. Yeah.
Speaker 2 (06:06):
Because the automations are so advanced, you can do so much with active campaign. But it, it got to the point where I was having to balance okay. The cost of active campaign because of course, as my list was growing, my price was going up. So balancing the cost of that with, okay. So what, what am I doing with active campaign that I actually can't do with Kajabi? And yeah, there were a couple of things that it's like, okay, I can't make this automation work as smoothly as, you know, as it, as it would have done or okay. I have to use zap for this one automation cause it won't trigger without it. So I had, like, I struggled with that for months actually just kind of going back and forth about what I was going to do. And finally I was like, because I, I kept watching the Kajabi roadmap and seeing, okay.
Speaker 2 (07:00):
They, they were planning on making improvements to email. Like there were some of the things that I wanted, like custom domain sending was a big one that they said it's coming, it's coming. So I did, I did make the switch even before that was that was out and just kind of dealt with the email as best as I could. And I'm happy I did it because it's switching email providers can be like it can be a real headache. So I'm glad that part is over. And it did make it easier for course, related email sending or funnel related email sends it really simplified that process since all that stuff was already in Kajabi. But yeah, every once in a while I'll think of, Oh, I could do some fancy automation where it like sends to people on a certain day of the week, or it only sends if this particular goal has been met. And it's like, well, I can't do that stuff with Kajabi. So that's too bad. But overall, like I wouldn't, I don't think I would switch back to something else at this point.
Speaker 1 (08:17):
So thanks for going into all those details there. And I know that you know, you took a little bit of a tangent there, so can you take a step back and walk us through your journey into entrepreneurship? You can go back as far as you want. How did you get into what you're doing today and how has your business kind of evolved over the years?
Speaker 2 (08:45):
Yeah, so it seems like quite a ride. So my business started in 2012, but I'm going to step back to 2008 for a second because I feel this is kind of where it started. So in 2008, my husband got really, really sick. And he, like, I nearly lost him at that point. And so when he finally was kind of stable and we were back home, I started to get, of course, like it was stressful because I was having to care for him and work at the same time. And I started to kind of look around and go, okay, I have this stressful situation at home. I have this stressful situation at work because work, I loved the work that I did. And actually it was a lot of tech work. So that stayed the same. But the place where I worked specifically, the department where I worked was very, very stressful.
Speaker 2 (09:44):
Was it like a nine to five type role? Yeah. Yeah. It was a nine to five. And because me and my husband, we actually met at work. We worked in the same department. So of course everyone at work was very, very understanding of my situation because of course they cared about him too. So, you know, when I needed a day off here and there, because we had, you know, doctor's appointments or he was having a really bad day and I needed to stay home, they were very understanding of that. So like, I was very, very lucky, but at the same time, the environment I was in at work was also toxic. So it was a weird mix. They were understanding, but there was also this like toxicity going on. So that just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And my husband's health wasn't really improving.
Speaker 2 (10:33):
He was kind of just slowly coasting downwards. And so it kind of just all got to a point. And it was actually years later where like my doctor was sitting me down and going, I'm writing you a note. You have to go on stress, leave. Like you can't keep going like this. And it was kind of like, Oh crap. Okay. So if even my doctor is telling me like things aren't right. That was like a big clue, even though I knew I knew something was wrong, but it was, I needed that like kind of authority figure to tell me something has to change. So I started doing some, like, I guess, like digging into what do I need, what do I want to do? What do I like to do? And you know, so of course, right away, I just start job hunting because it had never occurred to me before all of this that, Oh, I should, like, I should be an entrepreneur and start my own company.
Speaker 2 (11:35):
Like that was never something that seemed realistic. But the more I started job hunting, the more I realized, well, any other place that I go to, they're not going to be as understanding of my situation. They're not going to want to hire a brand new person who has to take off a day every week. Like it's just not going to work. And like, I'd have to start at the bottom somewhere. So then the money wouldn't be as good and it just wouldn't be as flexible. And it was like, well, what else can I do? And then I was like, okay, I guess I am going to start my own business. And once I, like, once that kind of occurred to me, it was terrifying, but it felt right because I realized, okay, so I have this stressful situation at home that I have very little control over, but if I'm, you know, working for myself, I have so much control.
Speaker 2 (12:33):
In fact, I'm completely in charge, which is also scary, but, you know, I could control my work environment. I can control who, who I choose to work with, whether it's clients or colleagues and that, you know, that just kind of snowballed. And within a few months I had quit my job and hung up my hung up my shingle. And then, yeah. And then it went from there. My business did evolve and change a lot from what, from what I initially launched. But it has, there's always been kind of this like techie thread all throughout. That just seems to be where, where I end up almost all of the time.
Speaker 1 (13:23):
So when you started out in 2012, what did you initially start doing? How, how were you getting paid? So
Speaker 2 (13:31):
I was doing, I was doing two things. So one, it was kind of a continuation of the nine to five job that I had been working, just doing it freelance, which was like business analysis, quality assurance, testing things like that. So still working with tech companies. So that was kind of a freelance consulting thing I had going. And then on the other side, serving a completely different market I was doing kind of like virtual assistant was only barely a term at that point. Most people had no idea what that was. So I didn't use that term, but essentially that's what I was doing. So helping people manage their social media profiles you know, formatting documents doing, doing stuff like that. So it was really VA work. And then so kind of admin kind of stuff or marketing admin. And then on the other hand, they had really intense tech and development work on the other side.
Speaker 2 (14:39):
So it was a little bit Jacqueline Hyde kind of felt. And of course, because I was doing these two really different, nobody understood what my business was or what I did so that that kind of propelled me into, I had to, I had to drop the tech stuff and I continued on with more of the VA work, but started to transform it more into marketing. So instead of just administrative work, it was more marketing assistance and really, really diving into social media because that was kind of booming at that point. And businesses were only just starting to like create Facebook pages and Pinterest was just invented and things like that. So that was kind of, I gravitated towards that because that seemed to be where the demand was. And
Speaker 1 (15:41):
Well, you thought in your clients at this point, were they finding you through the website or was it word of mouth?
Speaker 2 (15:48):
It was, it was a lot of word of mouth. I had joined a couple of business associations locally, so that was good. And, you know, got, go to networking events and things like that. So that was, it was really good. The only thing is that I found I was attracting other startup companies. And so the issue with that is like today, if I had a startup come to me and say, here's my budget, I can only do this. I could totally work with that. But when I was starting out to work with other startups and they're saying, I can only pay you like $50 a month. You know, I didn't really, I was just like, Ooh, a client. So I said, okay, sounds good. But it very quickly I realized that it's like, no, I need to start looking for like part of, part of anyone's ideal client avatar needs to be working with people who either who can afford or who see the value in what you're offering.
Speaker 2 (16:57):
So that that made me shift again. And so instead of doing the work for people, I just started training them because startups, they seem to be more willing to pay, to learn how to do a thing rather than to pay someone else to do it because of course the cost benefit to them is will they pay one time to learn it? And then they can do it themselves for free. So that actually shifting to kind of like a training teaching aspect that really skyrocketed my business. And that's where I, you know, things really started to boom for me and kind of where I learned to love like online training, online teaching, even though it wasn't formally courses, but I was doing a lot of like webinars and creating videos for people and doing, you know, video meetings or using, I think Skype for a while at the time. It seems so long ago when you talk about it, it's like
Speaker 1 (18:01):
Back in the day, tell us a little bit when this was, when were you making this transition from this service work where people were only wanting to pay a small amount to teaching them? It wasn't, you didn't put it in an online course at that point, but you were still teaching like an online course creator does. So what year was that? We would have been probably around 2014. So you've been in this for awhile.
Speaker 2 (18:30):
Hm. Yeah. Yeah. Cause the training that just seemed to resonate more with people. And I do like training. I like, like just passing my knowledge on to other people and I, I enjoyed it. So I did it. I did that. I did that way for quite a few years, just, you know, holding webinars and workshops and things like that. And, and that, that it worked really well for my business. It just, it got to the point where I felt I was losing that flexibility that I needed when I first started my business, because if I was doing all of these scheduled events, basically now I was, you know, if my husband had an appointment or if we, and at that point, his primary doctors were in a different city. So we had to travel eight hours for most of his doctor appointments.
Speaker 2 (19:27):
Oh my God. If I, you know, like if he suddenly we had to go see the doctor and I had a workshop or something scheduled, it was like, Oh, what do we do? And so that started to cause me some stress, just the idea of, Oh, having a cancel, having to reschedule on people. So I switched, I switched all my training to be online only so I can see it. Like I started slowly creeping towards online courses. So at least if we were doing it online and I was going to be in another city, like in a waiting room somewhere, technically we could still have our meeting because all I needed was my laptop and some headphones. So yeah, it just kept, kept creeping that way. Like I can see it's so clear now I can see, okay, this is where I was heading. But in the moment I really felt like I just kept, kept switching and I felt like people are gonna think I'm just constantly, flip-flopping what I'm doing in my business. But it was kind of a natural progression towards where I am now. Yeah.
Speaker 1 (20:31):
Yeah. I don't see it as flip-flopping at all. What I see is you are responding to not only your needs, right? Because you got into this business for that flexibility, but you were also helping your clients and delivering what they need. So when you started doing the live workshops webinars, how were you getting paid for them? Was it a, an event where you had to go to a facility to deliver that workshop and people would pay like $20 or $50 or a hundred dollars, whatever to come see you or to come to that workshop.
Speaker 2 (21:06):
So for like the webinars webinars, well, I guess the webinars that I put on were always free. Cause I was just using those for list building and selling. If someone else wanted me to delay like say, deliver a webinar for their organization. Yeah. Then we would just work out a cost based on like, I didn't have, I didn't have a set price. I don't think at the, at that time it would have even occurred to me because I was, I was creating presentations very reactively. So, you know, I was basically creating a brand new presentation for whoever needed it so much work. But yeah, so I would just negotiate with each person that hired me. And generally it was based on, you know, where they a corporation or a nonprofit and, and how big they were and maybe how many people were going to attend.
Speaker 2 (22:02):
And generally at that, at that time, it was funny because most of the time, what would happen is that I would be on, on camera, but they would all be in person in like a little banquet room or something watching me on a big screen. And, you know, someone would have to, I would have one person like sending me the questions from the audience or they'd have a little like microphone set up. So if someone had a question they would go up and ask, so I could hear, so it was, you know, at the time I was like, Oh, this is great to think about it now. It seems kind of funny. It's like, well, why isn't just everyone on their computer. But so that, I know that that's how life was back then. Yeah, exactly.
Speaker 2 (22:49):
Yeah. So I was just this big head up on a screen talking at people. So I know D I totally depended on the organization. Some of them, you know, they, it didn't matter to them one way or the other and that, but I do know that some were like, Oh, it would have been so much better if you were here in person. And I'm like, yeah, well, sorry, you knew, like I explained that when you booked it, I wouldn't be there in person. And thank goodness because sometimes I would have had to cancel. So it kind of, yeah, just,
Speaker 1 (23:25):
This was happening lot between 2014 and you know, maybe here recently, right. When did you decide to pivot into online courses? Do you remember what that date was?
Speaker 2 (23:41):
I don't remember the date if I could go back and figure it out, but it was kind of starting, I was starting to think about it all throughout that time, but it just seemed like such a big undertaking. Because I just didn't understand all of the steps behind it. So I was like, this is how my clients feel today. They're like, Oh, I want to do this thing. But it seems so big and overwhelming that I'm just not going to do it. So I cause like I was doing webinars and I'm like, okay, I'm doing these for list building. And somebody was like, well on your webinars, you should really be selling. And I was like, Oh, that's, that's a good idea. And then just right around the same time I came across Amy Porterfield. And so of course she, like her whole thing is okay, you look, you list, build, you do webinars, you sell a course.
Speaker 2 (24:38):
And you know, so I started following her and it really hit home that it's like, yeah, that that's a model for my business. That makes sense to me that I would like to have a, and that fits fits better with the lifestyle and the schedule I'm trying to create. So all throughout this time, I kept trying to work towards that. And, you know, I would launch like a mini course here and there, but I wasn't really doing the marketing piece of it. So technically I had all the steps down for making the course and publishing it, but the whole, the whole funnel of it and marketing, it just kept kind of falling to the wayside. And as that as like, kind of kept doing that, kept getting frustrated by that. Actually I ended up podcast episode a little while ago on my own podcast where I talked about like this the course and how really, it took me five years from when I first decided to launch an online course to when I actually got it launched.
Speaker 2 (25:50):
So I was trying things out the whole time. And while I was kind of trying those things out, my biz, the way I was making money was to, can you continue doing like these workshops or one-on-one training or, and then even started getting into some coaching and consulting for people. And that was still like that one-on-one I need to have a time blocked in my calendar to do this. So I knew, okay. At some point I am going to have to let this go, but I just kept doing it while I kind of very, very slowly, very, very slowly worked on my whole journey as a course creator.
Speaker 1 (26:32):
So we, we were speaking before we started recording here. And you mentioned that you ran your, your first beta launch this past fall. Can you tell the audience a little bit how that went and what you learned from going through that process?
Speaker 2 (26:49):
Sure. Yeah. So last year I, I had a goal that I was going to launch this course, I'd come up with an idea and it really resonated. And other people seemed excited. So I'm like, okay, this is the year I'm going to launch it. And of course, then the pandemic happened and I got sidetracked a bit, but I still, I thought this is the perfect time to launch it because this is the topic was about how to figure out the tech for your online course. And because so many people are creating courses right now as like an additional revenue stream or transferring their in-person offerings to online, like this is in demand. I have to get this launched this year. And I kept because I'm a little bit of a perfectionist. So of course, any excuse to delay because it's like, Oh, I don't have this video done.
Speaker 2 (27:44):
Or, Oh, I haven't finalized the name of this module yet. So things kept getting delayed and delayed and delayed. And finally it was, I think like maybe the first week in October. And I realized because it's, it was an eight week course. If I didn't have this launched on November 1st, then no one was going to sign up because they were going to be doing the end of the course during Christmas. So I'm like, it has to end by December 24th at the latest. So I have to launch it November 1st. Otherwise I'm going to have to wait until the next year. So I just said, okay, let's, let's do it. I was not, not prepared at all. So I ended up, I ended up launching it with no promotional. I did have the copy for the sales page written, but there was no sales page designed. So my sales page essentially was a Google doc that I made public.
Speaker 2 (28:50):
So that was my sales page. So there was like no pictures on it. I didn't have any examples of what the course looked like because the content wasn't done, the course wasn't set up. I didn't have anything to show people and I hadn't prepared any social media posts or Facebook lives or webinars. I just was like, I have to get this out there and see what happens. So I decided to promote it. It was, it was a beta course. I decided to call it a pilot program. And I did that just because so many beta courses out there, the expectation, as soon as you see the word beta that it's free and I did want to make some money on it. So called it a pilot program with special, basically special pricing. And my target was to get six people. That's all I wanted. Because I wanted to, I wanted to make sure that I got like six perfect, perfect students, because since this was a beta, it was going to be so important that the feedback that I got from those people was going to be really, really relevant so that I could make the right changes.
Speaker 2 (30:11):
Because I've tried to run beta things before. And when you get the wrong people giving you feedback, it's just a giant waste of time for you and for them. So my, my goal was I only need six people, but they have to be perfect. So I set up a whole application process. People had to apply and fill out a questionnaire, and then I had to approve them because I wanted to vet people and deny anyone who, who didn't seem right. So in the end, kind of what happened is I had five people, one backed out because she misunderstood and thought it was free program. So I ended up with four people, which I was happy with at that point, because I had no, no real marketing plan. And I'm like, well, I got four out of six. So, and did you get them from your email list or where did they come from?
Speaker 2 (31:06):
So they kind of came from all over. So I emailed from my email campaigns, I got three, three of those people from social media. I didn't get anyone directly, but I know that two of the people that signed up through email, we also we've connected on social media. So they were seeing it in both places. They just ultimately clicked on the email link. But then the other two people were from like personal outreach. Basically, I started just reaching out to people I knew who are there might be interested or who had indicated in the past, they were interested in potentially taking the course. And then also to some business contacts that I wasn't really intending them to be the students, but I was like, here's what I'm doing. If you know anyone who might be a good fit, please pass the information on.
Speaker 2 (32:09):
And then I had two people sign up right away through that link. I didn't expect them at all. And then of course the one she's the one that misunderstood and so ended up not taking the course. But yeah, so for not, not really having a plan, I think I probably sent the most emails was really, really interesting when I was looking at my stats because my very first email campaign I sent out, I sent it only to people who had indicated they might be interested in online courses. And I thought, Oh, I'm going to get my six people from this group. It'll be no problem. I like kept telling myself and I was super confident and I got no one from that group of people. And those were like my hot leads. So I got a little bit discouraged and said, well, I guess I might as well just in case email, the rest of my list to see if any of them, you know, maybe they're interested in courses now. They just weren't before. And that's how I got the other three people. So it was a little bit, counter-intuitive how that worked out for me because I thought, well, I'm going to get people from this first, this first email campaign of hot leads and the stats were good. Like the open rate and the click through rate was amazing on that campaign, but no conversions. So
Speaker 1 (33:42):
It, you, so you launched this beta in October and it was an eight week course. And I'm assuming at the end you got feedback from the people who participated in it. Tell, tell the audience, and I know you plan on relaunching it later this year or not relaunching, but launching doing an official launch later this year, what are you going to do different
Speaker 2 (34:03):
Differently? Yeah. So I, I got lucky. They really, the students really, really enjoyed the course actual course content itself. There were, there's only going to be a few things that I need to tweak, which was awesome because we all know how much work that is. It's like, Oh yeah, I could rerecord that video. But when it comes down to doing it, it seems like so much work. But in terms of the marketing and the promotion of it, that's where I have to do so much more work. Because the people in the end, the people who signed up the students were people that I kind of already had a relationship with. So they knew me. So anyone who, you know, doesn't know me or just kind of maybe saw my name in passing, I need to do a lot of, a lot more work to warm those people up.
Speaker 2 (34:58):
So yeah, like I definitely want to get my sales page designed. So that that's on my to-do list. I'm, I'm looking for a designer right now. And like the copy has been looked over by copywriter, so that parts could we just need, we just need the design and then to come up with actual promotional content to warm people up. So all of that, you know, social media posts look at the emails I sent out and kind of take the ones that seem to be getting the most clicks and make a new a campaign and think about what I want to do to, to sell the course, because of course, traditionally you would do a webinar and then you would sell the course on your webinars. That's kind of like what has been working for so long. These days now there's just more and more options.
Speaker 2 (35:58):
So I haven't decided I have to kind of work out what makes most sense for me and my audience and what I'm doing, because it isn't going to be a webinar. Is it going to be some sort of summit, because I know that is getting popular now for, for selling courses or some sort of challenge. Cause that's a big one too. So yeah. I have to sit down and really think about and focus on, okay, what is going to be my promotional plan? What, what journey do I want my people to go through to get to this course, what's going to make the most sense. And on top of that, what am I going to talk about in that, in all that promotion, that's going to lead them up to the course. So that's just that big piece, that marketing piece upfront, that's the work I'm going to have to put in this time. Otherwise I'll just have a launch it again and maybe I'll get five people, which in the end I wouldn't be happy with, but I do want to have that whole promotional part set up because the course doesn't feel complete without that piece. And of course, eventually I want to turn it evergreen. So you absolutely have to have that initial funnel set up in order to make it evergreen.
Speaker 1 (37:18):
And I like all the options that you mentioned there, the virtual summit, the webinar, the five day challenge, I've done them all, just like, you know, and they all work. One of the reasons why I like the virtual summits is you can, you know, you can find prospects right from your speakers promoting. Right. I love the webinar option. And the reason why I love the webinar option is so it's very easy to evergreen and I'm a huge funnel of evergreen funnels and that are huge fan of evergreen funnels. And then of course, five day challenges definitely work well. So I love all those options that you're exploring there. Can you tell us what, you know, you have this launch also coming up, but what else do you have going on in your business or what are your plans or next steps in 2021?
Speaker 2 (38:08):
Right. So my next it's kind of funny. I feel like my next step in 2021 is to actually start 2021, because like I said before, originally I had planned the public launch of this course. It was going to happen in this first quarter. Like I was targeting like mid February to start the promotion and to have the course launch publicly in March. But in January my mom got sick and she's still in the hospital right now as the time that we're recording. So this is 10 weeks later. And so I've basically, I haven't been working like I've been in my business maybe 5%, thank God. I have an amazing team that they are just picked up the Slack and they're kind of running my business for me right now. So I've, I've lost the whole quarter, so I have to sit down and I have to look at what I planned out for the year and kind of rejig it because now I'm working with nine months instead of 12 months. And knowing that I still want to launch my course, but now it's probably going to be in the fall instead of, of looking at Q3 instead of Q1 and okay, what do I have to move around? What do I have to push to next year? What can I just drop if there's anything? Yeah. I'm just redo my plan for the whole year to figure out, okay, what are the most important things that are going to help me get this course launched this year?
Speaker 1 (39:39):
What you're experiencing is so very normal. You know, things happen, life happens and you know, it, you just have to deal with the unexpected. The closing question I have with you is what advice do you have for other online course creators or entrepreneurs out there based on your experience in doing this for
Speaker 2 (39:59):
Many, many years, right? So this is something like I knew I talked about this a lot, but it wasn't until the students in my course were like, this was my biggest takeaway. And I'm so glad you said this because it like eased my stress, but I'm always talking about use the tools that you already have and you already know. So instead of feeling the pressure to go out and buy or subscribe to whatever, like new shiny thing that some expert is using, look at your existing tech and tools and apps and subscriptions, and just see if you can make it work with what you've already got, because I've showed people how to create an online course using nothing, but like their Google apps, like just use Gmail and drive on your calendar. You can make a course with that, like from that all the way up to, okay, you need Kajabi and you need all this other stuff, all this other fancy stuff to integrate.
Speaker 2 (41:00):
So when, especially when you're starting out and you you're either not comfortable with tech, or maybe you're even just short on time just use what you've got, because those are the tools that you already know how to use, and you just have to see how they can fit together. And in the end, and this is kind of the logic behind how I did my, my beta course is right now, it's more important just to get it out there into people's hands than to have all the fancy tech and you know, fun experiences. And, Oh, you click this and a little, the screen lights up and goes, congrats. Like you can, you can get there eventually, but you don't need to start with that. So just use the tools that you have and get it out into people's hands. And then as you make money or as you get more confident, then you start to invest in, in fancier things, but you don't have to do that right off the bat.
Speaker 1 (42:00):
And I love what you're saying there. One of the tools that I've been using recently and fairly recently for recording online course videos is Canva. So creating the presentation in Canva and also recording in Canva, it is super, super simple. Yep. Yep. Brandi can you let people know where they can find you?
Speaker 2 (42:23):
So my website is BLGbusiness.com and I'm also @BLGbusiness on like Facebook, Instagram, Pinterest. So I've tried to keep that consistent across social media. And I I like to post tips and tools, like I kind of still want to teach, but just in short form on social media and just, you know, give people a little heads up about, Oh, here's a fun tool I found, or this thing will save you time. I'm just trying to always, always be valuable to people and posting things that are going to make their business lives better.
Speaker 1 (43:06):
And thank you. And I will make sure that those links are in the show notes. So people know exactly where they can find you course creators. Thank you so much for joining us today. If you have any questions about course in a box, which is offered on AppSumo, please reach out to me on LinkedIn or DM me on Instagram. I hope you enjoyed this episode with Brandi and would love for you to rate and review the podcast on Apple podcast or your favorite podcast platform and show us some love there. Have a great rest of your day. Bye for now.