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Episode 105: How to Become an Educator
184 Plays4 years ago
Today's guest is educator and fellow podcaster, Laylee Emadi, and we're talking about just that: education. We chat all about what it means to be an educator, discerning whether that's a business to start, and how to get started if you want to build an education business. Laylee is also the host of the “So Here's the Thing” Podcast so I take some time to ask her about podcasting.
For the show notes, go to https://daveyandkrista.com/btb-laylee-emadi-episode-105/
Recommended
Transcript
Formats for Teaching
00:00:05
Speaker
Not only knowing what you want to teach, but knowing the format that you want to teach it in. There are so many ways to educate in our world. It could be virtual, it could be online, it could be in-person events, it could be one-on-one, it could be small groups, you could be speaking. I mean, the list goes on and on. And to knowing the type of education that you're meant to exist in.
Building Creative Brands
00:00:29
Speaker
Welcome to the Brands at Book Show, where we help creative service-based businesses build their brands and find more clients. I'm your host, Davy Jones.
Education as a Business with Lely Amati
00:00:41
Speaker
Today's guest is educator and fellow podcaster Lely Amati, and we're talking about just that, education. We chat all about what it means to be an educator, discerning whether that's a business to start and how to get started if you want to build an education business. Lely's also the host of the So Here's the Thing podcast, so I take some time to ask her about podcasting too.
00:01:04
Speaker
Be sure to check out the show notes at DavyandChrista.com for the resources we mentioned during the episode. And I want to hear from you. Let me know what kind of content you'd like to see on the Brands That Book podcast as we tackle these next 100 episodes.
Engaging Listeners
00:01:16
Speaker
To leave your feedback, just send us a DM on Instagram at DavyandChrista. Now, on to the episode.
Becoming an Educator in the Creative Industry
00:01:27
Speaker
All right, we are back. Another episode of the Brands That Book podcast, and I am here with fellow podcaster, Laeli Ahmadi-Smith. Laeli Ahmadi, as probably everybody knows her. Laeli's here with me, and we're talking about education today, specifically becoming an educator and what that looks like in our industry. I think that this is just such an important topic to cover, and I really enjoyed the conversation we just had pre-recording, so I'm sure we'll get to all of that.
Naming the Podcast
00:01:53
Speaker
Laeli, I want to say, when you came out with your podcast,
00:01:56
Speaker
When you came out initially, so it's this, so here's the thing podcast. And I was like, that is such a good name for a podcast. I just thought, you know, of all the names, I feel like that is, there's got to be in the top five categories. So what I love about it is cause there's always a, so here's the thing, you know, like when you're asking a question like, and I just love the connotation of nuance of material that you're going to bring to people. So I just wanted to get that out of the way as we get started, but welcome.
00:02:23
Speaker
Thank you so much. And thank you for that compliment. Like, whoa, was not prepared. Yeah, the name was definitely the hardest part. I don't know if you feel that way about about brands that book, but like, it was really hard to name a podcast. And I was like, how can I imply that I'm going to be a little sassy and a little like, a little bit tough love with my audience. And I was like, you know what, I'm just gonna use my most commonly used phrase. And we're just gonna go ahead and, and put it out there for everyone to know that like, so here's the thing, I'm gonna be real with you about
Podcast Recording Tools
00:02:52
Speaker
it. So
00:02:53
Speaker
And I was telling you before this podcast started, so I record my podcast using Skype. And so I was just saying how I'm always embarrassed talking to other podcasters because there's definitely more podcast specific stuff out there. And I got a pretty good gear setup, but then I use Skype. And so there's like Zencaster out there, a lot of people use Zoom like you do, but I'm inviting people back on Skype and the amount of people who've gone on Skype and they're like,
00:03:22
Speaker
So, why are you using Skype? It's like, you know, you still have a MySpace account too. And so, that's embarrassing for me, but I'm glad we, you know, got that out of the way. No judgment. No judgment. You do whatever works, you know?
00:03:37
Speaker
Yeah, I appreciate that jury's still out on whether
From Teacher to Entrepreneur
00:03:40
Speaker
it works. But anyways, I want to jump into the content with you first, though, I don't want to skip over, you know, some of your background and, you know, what is it you do and how you got here and how you got, you know, started teaching about education in general. So give us your story.
00:03:55
Speaker
Yeah, I'm going to try to do this like in the most concise way as possible because we all know that creative entrepreneurs in general have like a winding, crazy stories. But I actually, I was a high school teacher for the majority of, well, I guess now it's, it's almost equal amounts of time being an entrepreneur and being a high school teacher at this point, but that was my career. I loved it. It was amazing. And I had this side gig of being a photographer and
00:04:22
Speaker
You know, unlike most photographers who I feel like you do the side gig thing and like your goal, your intention is to go full time and to quit your day job. And that was never my intention. Like I wanted to be a teacher. I loved teaching and I coached the dance team and in Texas, that's a big deal. So like, I loved what I did. I worked really hard to get there. And, but you know, things happen, life happens and my photography business started blooming and it was like awesome. And I loved it.
00:04:51
Speaker
And so I kind of got to the point where I had to make a choice between if I was going to jump all in to my business and quit teaching or vice versa, like go just be a hobby photographer and teach full time.
Addressing the Educator Gap
00:05:05
Speaker
And so anyway, all that to say chose photography, but I really quickly realized like I miss the teaching element. So I started teaching how to use your camera, like intro to photography classes, working with the moms that I used to teach their kids, just kind of
00:05:19
Speaker
getting involved in Rising Tide, which I know that you were one of the co-founders of. And I realized I really loved teaching and giving back into the community in that way because my expertise was teaching. So that quickly escalated into like teaching other business owners. And so that's kind of how the path unfolded for me. And I just was a very natural progression. And it was really interesting to see how I could use my training
00:05:47
Speaker
as an educator in the actual education industry and apply it to the creative industry, which I'm sure we'll talk about at some point in this conversation, but the creative industry really lacks trained educators. I'm just going to put it out there and be completely blunt about it. There's no training, little to no training for just people who are really good at what they do. They're great at their craft, whether they're artists or photographers or copywriters or whatever they are.
00:06:17
Speaker
they want to teach other business owners, they want to help other business owners, but they don't know how to teach effectively. And when I saw that gap, I was like, okay, well, I've got to do something because we can't just let our industry kind of stay stuck in this cycle of like ineffective communication and ineffective education.
Teaching Creatives to Teach
00:06:36
Speaker
And so I started teaching other creatives how to teach
00:06:39
Speaker
and how to become mentors and how to become coaches and how to create curriculums for their courses and things like that. And then that eventually turned into my own course. So I hope I kept that as compact as possible is a long, I know. No need and I have some questions. One, just what?
00:06:57
Speaker
What do you think the connection is between teaching and I don't know if it's just the creative industry or entrepreneurship in general. Of course, this is part of my story as well, being a high school teacher and then joining Krista full-time in our photography business. I didn't have any intention really of going full-time with Krista, but it was working the quote-unquote nine to five and then shooting a wedding on Saturday. It was like, okay, I can't do this forever. But what do you think is that connection between teaching and entrepreneurship?
Teachers Turned Entrepreneurs
00:07:27
Speaker
I honestly think it's a couple. I put a lot of thought into this. I'm so glad you've asked this because nobody talks about this. I've thought about it a lot. And I think there's a couple of things. I think one, teachers in general are people, people. Like we want to be surrounded by people. We want to have interaction. We want to have good relationships and entrepreneurship at the core. I think a huge part of a successful entrepreneur is being able to build real relationships and grow and cultivate real relationships. And I think that,
00:07:55
Speaker
Teachers do that every year. I mean, I would get 150 new students a year and I'd have to create real relationships with them really quickly. And so I think that skill really translates well. I also think that I see the number of teachers who go full time into their business is a lot higher, I think, than other nine to fives. And I honestly think it's just because it's such a demanding job and you cannot do both for a long period of time. Like it's nearly impossible. It's so demanding.
00:08:23
Speaker
There's so much time that goes into your job as a teacher. It's not like your typical nine to five. Like I would open the school up and close the school down half the time when I was coaching. And I think a lot of people who do more than just classroom feel that way too. So those are a couple of reasons, but I think the biggest reason is just that people, we love to connect with other people and teachers and entrepreneurs really share that trait. I think really closely.
00:08:50
Speaker
Yeah, I would agree with all that. I just think that, you know, there's this aspect of problem solving to being a teacher where, yeah, sure, things are, you know, quote unquote defined by the curriculum, but not really, right? First of all, I mean, like to talk about moving goalposts, like every single year, there's a new initiative. And I mean, that whole side of things, at least to me as a teacher was a hot mess. So, you know, really came down to as a teacher,
00:09:12
Speaker
And I hear this from so many other teachers as well. You're going out and buying your own school supplies even beyond what the school's gonna provide you. So there's just a lot of problem solving there as well. And so I think going from being a teacher to being an entrepreneur makes a lot of sense.
Creatives in Education
00:09:28
Speaker
Here's what I'm seeing in terms of education in the creative industry specifically.
00:09:34
Speaker
And I'm going to use photographers as an example. I'm just going to say, I feel like photographers are particularly guilty of this. And no judgment here, but I think that what I typically see is this life cycle of somebody's maybe working in a nine to five, they start a business like a photography business, they really want to take their photography business full time, and they eventually do. So, okay, awesome.
00:10:00
Speaker
But then somewhere along the way of your taking your photography business full time you think that the the end of your career like or the level up of your career from being a photographer is then being an educator and you know.
00:10:15
Speaker
I would say that that's actually not necessarily the logical step. If you're a photographer and you want to take your career to the next step, there's all sorts of things that you can do, whether maybe it's getting published in certain publications or reaching a certain kind of stratosphere of photography. But basically, it would be something along the lines of being the best photographer that you can in the niche of photography that you work or niche
00:10:43
Speaker
I had somebody actually reach out to me, I think via DM. It's like, it's not niche, it's niche. I'm like, I'm- I think it's both. Yeah. I think you're fine. Anyways, not the point. Not the point. Here I am getting distracted. But point being is, but then they think, okay, well, all these other people are doing education and so I need to do education. And maybe I've only been doing this photography thing for a month, but I'm going to throw together this course.
00:11:08
Speaker
Also, to paint the picture of the mess that goes on, the course isn't quite as easy as people think. They see this course launch and they hear about people making five, six, seven figures on a launch and they're like, I can do that too. But then they realize, okay, well actually, building a course is a whole other business. Education is a whole other business.
00:11:28
Speaker
And then what ends up dropping sort of by the wayside is the photography business that was up and running and good and supporting you. All of a sudden you're like, okay, now I'm not getting as many inquiries anymore. Well, why? Well, because you're focusing really on a whole nother business with a whole different audience. And that's what you're sharing about on Instagram.
00:11:44
Speaker
So, that's a little bit of the mess that I perceive and I just want to state from the outset that I think this is true of both of us. Neither of us are trying to say that, oh, only certain people can be educators or we're not trying to discourage anybody from becoming an educator. But I would say just from the outset, I would want to ask the question, why do you want to be an educator? Is it because
00:12:09
Speaker
you know, so and so in your town is becoming a, you know, quote unquote becoming an educator and she's done it for less time than you, you know, so you just feel like, okay, well, I should do it.
Motivations for Educating
00:12:20
Speaker
Or is it because you have a heart for education? So anyways, stepping down off my soapbox, I'm kicking over to you just can you give us a little idea of one, I would love to hear any feedback you have on that. And two, just kind of what we mean by like, what does it mean to be an educator?
00:12:37
Speaker
Okay, well, I could probably leave right now because I agree 100% with everything you said. I was literally like nodding profusely over here, but I truly agree. I mean, I think that we see in our, and using photography as an example, we really do see people think that being an educator or being a speaker or being on a stage or having some kind of title associated with their name beyond photographer is like the end goal or it is.
00:13:07
Speaker
Like the thing that determines their success. And I, I spent a lot of time thinking like, why is that? And I really do just think that it's, we see the people we look up to doing something and we think that's what we need to do. And it's really hard, I think for us as people to differentiate that like.
00:13:24
Speaker
That's just a completely different path. It's a completely different career. I mean, they might still be educators and speakers and photographers. But like you said, I mean, they're splitting their focus. So the fact of the matter is they probably have
00:13:39
Speaker
had a lot of success in their photography career. And then they've put that on hold or, or, you know, put it back significantly. Yeah, exactly. In order to kind of grow the education side of their business. And so I think people just don't even think about that. We just see what we think is success. And we try to chase that. And I think a huge
00:14:01
Speaker
mindset shift needs to start happening in the industry of it's okay not to be an educator. And this is coming from someone who I make part of my living teaching educators. I want people who should be educators to learn how to do it well, but I also want people to be self-aware and know that that's not the natural step.
00:14:22
Speaker
There are so, like you said, there are so many other ways. So I just, I totally agree with that. I think being an educator in the industry is a lot of things. I mean, I think it can happen in a lot of different ways too. And I think that a lot of times one huge misconception that happens is we think you have to be on a stage. And I, in particular, I see this in obviously the creative realm of like, you go to conferences, you see speakers, you want to be the speaker.
00:14:46
Speaker
And I would just challenge anybody who's listening to this conversation to think why. Like why do I want that? Do I want it because it's going to boost my ego? Do I want it because I think it's good publicity? And if so, maybe dig a little deeper into that why. Like you mentioned,
00:15:04
Speaker
Do you have the heart of a teacher? Do you want to help people? Maybe you want to make extra money. That's fine. That's a good. I am not against that reasoning whatsoever. You want to make money? Who doesn't want to make money? We all need to live. Girls got to eat. Yeah, that's fine.
00:15:21
Speaker
it's not a quick money situation. So I would just also challenge you to think like, okay, you've got to have both of those things. You have to want to help people and you can want to make money, but
Education as a Business
00:15:30
Speaker
you also have to have the time. So there's just so much that goes into it. But I definitely agree that, that it is a hundred percent, I think like a miscommunication kind of mark where you think like, okay, that's the end all be all goal. Cause once you add educator speaker, whatever it is to your mentor, coach, whatever it is to your title,
00:15:50
Speaker
You're now starting a second business and remember how long it took you to start your first business. It's going to take you that long to grow the second business. So just, I think I would just encourage people to like think through like your why and, and really what you're committing to. Cause it is a commitment.
00:16:06
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And I think back to Krista and I's photography business. And, you know, I think that I remember like becoming aware of the education craze there, you know, and all of a sudden, like every, you know, there's photographers are making lead magnets for each other and stuff like that. And almost being there's this sense of panic or anxiety of like, Oh, well, should we be doing that? And then, you know, this solace in
00:16:29
Speaker
No, we actually don't have to because when you really start thinking about, okay, so who's hiring you right now? If you start an education business, they may or may not care about that. I would say even when we were starting Rising Tide Society, the amount of our couples that were aware of that, very few actually.
00:16:48
Speaker
far few. I mean, for us, we're like, oh, you know, everybody, like kind of everybody in the creative industry knows about this, right? So why wouldn't, but yeah, very few of our couples knew about it. And that wasn't a factor in whether they booked us or not, right? And a whole totally different audience. And so a lot of that was really eye opening and good because you know, when back when we were photographers, we didn't have any, any desire necessarily. And Chris has always been this way to, you know, to be speaking or to be, you know, selling courses and things like that. And those are all things that
00:17:16
Speaker
we've ended up doing, you know, fortunately. But again, I just emphasize to people, because we built so many websites for people who are like, oh, and I want to add an education tab to my website. And it's like, okay, and I don't ever want to discourage somebody from doing that. But I just I always try to make it very clear. Okay, so like, how are we going to promote this on your website, because you're trying to reach a very high end bride right now.
00:17:39
Speaker
And we can do that, but then if you start mixing in photography into that hero spot of your homepage and now you're trying to speak to photographers, can you see how somebody might land on your website and think, oh, maybe this isn't quite for me or this person seems like maybe they're a jack of all trades or whatever.
Steps to Start an Education Business
00:17:56
Speaker
So, it requires a little bit of finesse in order to do that and you should just always realize the trade-off of, okay, now you're – like you said, now you're splitting your effort. This is a whole new business.
00:18:06
Speaker
So, you know, I guess I want to jump into, I think we've warned people. I mean, unless you had, do you have anything else? So I feel like we've warned people of some of the things that they should think about before becoming an educator. Yeah. And again, I don't want to discourage people, but now I'm sitting there. I'm like, I, for the last 10 minutes, I've just been basically saying like, Hey, think twice about it.
00:18:27
Speaker
Yeah, think twice about it. But like, honestly, this is not, like you mentioned, I think you gave a really good disclaimer of like, nobody here is saying don't do it. Like no one is saying run for the hills, don't do it. It's a very worthy thing to aspire to if it's meant for you. So just, I think this disclaimer is really important because I just don't think people talk about it enough. So yeah, definitely don't, we're not trying to say don't do it, but maybe think it through.
00:18:49
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. And I think that people just think they can make a lot of money really quickly doing it. And that I think, I mean, maybe there's that, you know, sort of once in a while case where somebody launches something and all of a sudden it goes really well. And it's like, wow. But I think more times than not, like you suggested, remember, I liked what you said about, remember how long it took you to build your first business. You know, that's the kind of effort and hustles that's going to go into building this quote unquote, passive business, which you know,
00:19:19
Speaker
you know, no business it turns out is really all that passive, especially in the building phase. So now, okay, turning the corner officially, what should people know when trying to become an educator? So for people who are like, yeah, I think that this is, they're on the path of, you know, discerning whether this is right for them and just maybe a business to start. What are some things that might give away like, okay, yeah, this is right for me.
00:19:48
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think you want to know a couple of things. One, you want to know what it is that you're wanting to teach on. I think that a huge common misconception is that, what I see at least, I don't know if you see this as well, but when people are like, oh, I'm mentoring now, I'm a mentor. And that doesn't really mean much. Like there's no concrete subject area or content area that they're teaching on. They're just mentoring on anything and everything. And quite frankly, nobody knows everything and anything. So you can't just kind of like,
00:20:18
Speaker
Well, you can, but you probably shouldn't just put yourself out there and say, I can mentor you on anything like I'll be your I'll be your guide through entrepreneurship. And like, yeah, that could last like maybe like a couple of sessions, you could give some overall feedback. But at the end of the day, the transformation of your student is going to be really minuscule at that point, like it's not going to be anything worth writing home about. And then maybe like a little progress in a lot of areas versus a lot of progress in few areas.
00:20:44
Speaker
Exactly. And so I think that's one thing you want to be aware of if you're starting to kind of delve and like dip your toe into education. But the other thing I would say is not only knowing what you want to teach, but knowing the format that you want to teach it in. There are so many ways to educate in our world. Like it could be virtual, it could be online, could be in-person events, could be one-on-one, could be small groups, you could be speaking. I mean, the list goes on and on.
00:21:09
Speaker
and to knowing the type of education that you're meant to exist in. And of course, every professional educator, everybody who's been in education for a while knows that you will have to touch on probably every single part, every single type of education at some point, but you should also probably have an idea of where you're best suited and put most of your efforts there. I know that I even made this mistake when I started. I was coaching on specific items and then
00:21:37
Speaker
I had an in-person workshop and I was speaking and I was doing my retreat and it was just like a lot.
Finding Your Educational Niche
00:21:44
Speaker
And when you do a lot of things, I think it's just A, you spread yourself a little too thin and B, I don't know that you ever really get the transformation that you're aiming for. And so I just think that knowing what you should teach and knowing how you should teach it are like, that's like my magic recipe. Like that's the one thing that I think if people can find those two things and find where those two things combine well,
00:22:05
Speaker
they're going to set themselves up for success in the education realm. Yeah. And I would agree with all that. I mean, I think that word that you're using, that transformation is important. You want to make sure that people have a transformation and that's going to make it so much easier to find new clients and find new people to sell to is when you can very specifically go to other people and say, see, you know, I took this person from point A to point B or V, who knows?
00:22:29
Speaker
or Z, you know, and you see exactly the transformation that they experienced, right? And so
00:22:37
Speaker
I think that occasionally when we try to cover all of the different things, there's not really a ton to show off. You're like, well, this person learned a lot, but there's not that one thing. I mean, I think for another business of mine, Till Agency or paid advertising agency, one of the things that we had to figure out early on was like, we could do so, like the skill set of our team is very expansive. And not to brag on our team or anything, but well, okay, I'm gonna just brag on my team.
00:23:05
Speaker
But yeah, it's expansive. But we knew that if we tried to do everything, if we just went to somebody and said, hey, yeah, we can do anything for you, then there's all these decisions that are necessary for people to make. Point being, not to get into all that, we knew that, you know, with Facebook ads in particular, that we could deliver a very tangible result.
00:23:22
Speaker
And I'm so glad that we focused in on that because it made it so much easier in talking to other people who potentially needed that. Like, hey, listen, here's a case study. This is a business that's very similar to your business. And look, we were able to get results. So I think that there's a lot of value there. One question I would have is just in getting started though, how can people get started in a way that maybe doesn't commit them
Launching Educational Initiatives
00:23:47
Speaker
to
00:23:47
Speaker
Like an in-person workshop, for instance, or a conference. Because selling that out, if you decided tomorrow I'm getting an education, I'm launching a workshop. I think for very few people, could they just sell out that day one, right? Unless they're pivoting, they're taking an audience from somewhere else, right? So how do people even just get started in this thing we're calling education?
00:24:10
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I would say putting out some really good free content is one way to get started and it's a great way to get feedback from your audience. So like putting out educational blog posts, getting on a couple podcasts that are a good fit for what it is that you want to teach and then seeing what the response is like. I think one other big misstep is that people just start putting out what they think they're best at. And yeah, you probably know that you're good at a lot of things, but you don't know what people want to learn from you until they tell you what they want to learn from you.
00:24:41
Speaker
So I think putting out some free education, starting with the one-on-one, I always advise, even if somebody's like, I just want to speak on a stage, I'm like, well, you should probably start with a one-on-one. And I think my students get so sick of hearing me say this, I'm like a broken record, but you can really, truly never get the feedback that you would get sitting one-on-one with somebody in any other capacity. Like an audience is not going to tell you specifically the things that somebody would tell you face-to-face in an intimate setting. So starting one-on-one,
00:25:12
Speaker
And I would also caution anybody, like probably don't take money for the first one-on-one you do. Like let's get some practice in there, putting out free content and seeing what people really want to learn from you and seeing how they respond to the education that you're putting out.
Starting with One-on-One Teaching
00:25:27
Speaker
Yeah, I'm really glad you say that because I feel like I tell people something similar where like, hey, if you want to go and you want to teach a course on this, it's probably good to teach a single person this and see how it goes. And you might find that they don't actually need help with 90% of what you thought they might need help with, but there's a certain 10% in there that you want to expand on.
00:25:47
Speaker
And so I think that's so valuable, those one-on-ones. And you can always find one person who'd be willing to sit down with you and learn something, right? And so there's not that pressure of, okay, I'm trying to sell out a workshop, and then you don't start by being like, okay, well, I had this workshop and it was 15 seats, but I sold three, and then figuring out what to do from there. So I really appreciate that. That is one of the first steps that you tell people as well.
00:26:18
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. I mean, that whole concept of like trying to sell out seats to things, it is like one of the hardest things in the world. And if you're not prepared for that, for that feeling, it can really quickly just derail you as an educator, I think. So if you've decided you want to be an educator is something you're really passionate about, you think you've got what it takes, and then you immediately jump into trying to sell things and it doesn't go well. I mean, the implications could be so negative. So I'm, I'm, I appreciate you bringing that up because I think that that is something that,
00:26:47
Speaker
We just again, a lot of people try to mimic what they see. And that's something that I would just discourage you from doing. You know, it's just like, you see something work for someone else and you think surely it should work for me
Organizing Events and Workshops
00:26:58
Speaker
too. And that's just not how the world works. Yeah, absolutely. And you're typically seeing like,
00:27:03
Speaker
a business where the flywheels have started moving. And there's all this work. And again, going back to what you're saying, educational blog posts and whether that's in the form of written content or video content or podcast or whatever it might be, and then doing the hard work of pitching other people and realizing that a lot of people are going to say no, especially if you're just getting started. But that a couple of people will probably say yes and getting things going from there. And I'm talking to a friend of mine who has a relatively new business and he was wondering like,
00:27:32
Speaker
you know, how do you get basically how do you get the wheels turning and I'm like, you have to keep manually it's like you're pushing the car, you know, like one of those old school, you know, cars that you see and at some point, the wheels will just know you'll stop pushing and the wheels will keep turning, but you put a whole heck of a lot of effort in early on and I think, you know, the people who
00:27:53
Speaker
you know, really seem to have it dialed in, I think have done, they put out a ton of bad content to get to, you know, the stuff that's resonating with people. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, I think about like how many times I failed, how many times I put up probably really subpar content. You know, even with the podcast, it's like I would, I really don't want to listen to my first few episodes. I'm sure they were awful. Like, you know, and that's the thing that people don't see. And that's the thing that people don't see about
00:28:23
Speaker
any of their the people they look up to on stages is like they got on stage because you know five ten years ago they were doing what you're doing so like i think it's just really easy to jump the gun and i think when you do that when you try to skip steps that's when things go wrong and sometimes it's hard to like bounce back from that.
00:28:41
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. So do you have any advice for people who are, you know, they've started out one on one, they feel like they've, I don't know, maybe figured out like, Oh, everybody I talked to one on one, this is where I, I seem to have the biggest impact. And this seems to be a need. What's kind of the next step from there? I mean, I think knowing if you knew what you were going to teach, like, let's say they totally are like, okay, this is what my audience wants. These are what my students want. I want I'm seeing transformations happen.
00:29:11
Speaker
Then you want to decide what kind of education you want to offer. So let's say you want to come out with an online course. From there, you'd kind of want to dig into expanding on whatever it is you were teaching one-on-one to meet the needs of your potential students, I think. And of course, this advice differs depending on where you want to end up. So if you want to do an online course, then you'd obviously have to build out that content. But if you wanted to speak on it, you probably wouldn't have to build it out as much because you'd have 20 to
00:29:39
Speaker
90 minutes, depending on where you're speaking and what you're speaking on and building out a talk in
Marketing Through Success Stories
00:29:45
Speaker
that. So I think from there, it's just kind of niching down on where you want to end up. And if you want to stay on the one-on-one path, then that's great. You've already got that covered and you know that that's going well.
00:29:57
Speaker
So I think just doubling down on that and letting your, this is the biggest thing, is letting your current clients, like the people that you've helped get from point A to point B, letting them market for you, letting them do the referral process for you. Because we all know as entrepreneurs, there is no marketing as good as word of mouth. There's never going to be anything that replaces referrals. So letting that kind of unfold for you in that space is I think a really good next step as well and encouraging them to do so like in strategic ways.
00:30:27
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. What are some of the ways that you would encourage people to spread the word for you? And I think occasionally people fall under the trap of, you know, they do one on one on one, it goes really well. And they're like, why isn't this person, why isn't this person telling all their friends about me, you know, and it's kind of sitting there waiting for, you know, the next opportunity to come along.
00:30:45
Speaker
Yeah. I mean, I actually, I see this like no matter what, if you're just like a creative and people say this all the time too, like, I shot this wedding. It was amazing. Why isn't she talking about me? People are not going to do things unless you really ask them. And I think that there are ways that you can ask them that are not like gross or like, you know, awkward. You can literally ask them for reviews. You can ask them for testimonials. Would I have like a whole like automated survey that goes out at the end of my coaching client experience and at the end it like,
00:31:15
Speaker
There's a part that says like, can I use this for marketing purposes, blah, blah, blah, you know, and then just asking and following up with them. A huge thing I teach about in the Academy in my creative entrepreneur, or well, that's not the title of my course in my creative educator Academy. One thing I teach on is follow up and how important it is to follow up. And I think that if you are genuinely following up with your students to see where they've progressed.
00:31:39
Speaker
two, then it's really easy to, in addition, ask for referrals or ask for references or ask for reviews. But yeah, to sum it up, don't be afraid to actually have that conversation. Because in general, they might have a great experience with you. But I mean, at the end of the day, people are probably only thinking about themselves. They're not really thinking about you as a coach. They're thinking about their own success. And it's kind of on you to reframe that and ask for their help in a kind manner.
00:32:07
Speaker
Yeah. And it's so funny because I mean, I definitely feel that a little bit, you know, that like, Oh, you know, can I ask anything, you know, but think about in like your daily life, how many businesses ask you for feedback or input or whatever, you know, every software solution that I use, every app that I use, at some point, I'll get that pop up that's like on a scale of one to 10 or zero to 10. Like, how would you recommend and you send a note? I mean, people are asking for that kind of stuff all the time. And I think
00:32:33
Speaker
I've never been to a restaurant where if I've had a good experience and they ask for a review of some sort, I've never been offended by that because I had a good experience and if I didn't, typically, I don't leave any review at all. But point being is, I think it's a lot more normal for people to ask that question. It just can be awkward. You just have to get over you feeling awkward about asking it.
00:32:55
Speaker
Yeah. And there's ways to like cushion that. I mean, I, when I send out, if I am in need of extra like testimonials or reviews, sometimes I'll send out an email to all my course students and I'm like, Hey, have you guys experienced any wins lately? And in addition, do you have any feedback on the course content? Like, is there anything that I can improve? And I think in that way, you're setting them up to really think about what they experience because they want to help give you areas of improvement and they also want to share their wins. And so just
00:33:24
Speaker
just framing it in a way that you're comfortable with.
00:33:26
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And giving people a reason to share. So like even like when we design a website for somebody, for instance, like when they get to launch, we give them a whole suite of graphics that they can use to share, you know, with the scrolling website and stuff like that. And it typically, you know, I mean, obviously the people that we are working with are not designers or typically they're not, they might be another kind of designer, like a, you know, paper goods or, you know, something like that, or brand designer, even we've done websites for, but most people can't create those graphics themselves, or it would be a chore to do so.
00:33:55
Speaker
So it's very easy for them to take that and use those graphics to share about their website launch and us and so on. So giving people a reason to share certainly makes it a lot easier, but especially for service-based business, wouldn't be scared just to ask and then tell people exactly what they should do, such as going to a certain spot to leave a review. But
00:34:16
Speaker
Anyways, digressing. As far as, you know, trajectory goes within education, do you find that people, you know, from the one on one here, do you find that people have like an easier path when they go from one on one to small group coaching than to online course or some path like that? Or is it really sort of different for all your students?
00:34:39
Speaker
I do think it's different for everyone. I think that the perceived easy path would be from the smallest unit of human interaction to the largest. But I actually, ironically enough, like I've seen students take that path and not
00:34:55
Speaker
flourish as much as if they would have just like gone straight to what they were meant to do. And I've seen, I've seen the opposite as well. There are so many people who get on a stage. They think their, their goal is to be like a keynote speaker somewhere and they get their first keynote speaking experience and they hate it. And they realize like, this is not my jam and vice versa. I see people on the one-on-one and they're like, I can't do this. Like I can't care this much about one person. Like I know that sounds awful, but you really do get so invested in your students.
00:35:23
Speaker
And not everybody's made for one-on-one, just like not everybody's made to be a counselor versus a teacher. So there's just, I think there's just a lot of self-awareness that has to happen in order for you to carve out the path that's best suited for you.
00:35:38
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. And do you find that with the students that you coach that pricing becomes an issue?
Pricing Educational Services
00:35:46
Speaker
Because I see that as well. So maybe you offer something for free the first time or two. And I always tell people the goal is to get the testimonial. But once you have some social proof, stop giving away stuff for free. Because that's going to be one of the biggest factors in somebody booking or buying or whatever.
00:36:03
Speaker
but then we do this thing of like, okay, well, I've been doing this for X amount of months and so now my content is worth X instead of saying, okay, this is the transformation that I'm offering people and this is what it's worth. So how do you coach people through pricing and making sure they don't get themselves into a cycle where they have to do 10 one-on-one sessions a day for the rest of their life just to put food on the table?
00:36:27
Speaker
Oh my gosh, this is such a big topic for us. And I would say that it's so common for people to get stuck in that trap. I call it like the coffee shop trap, like the coffee shop trap of, Oh, can I pick your brain over coffee? I'll treat you to a cup of coffee. And like, you can tell me everything about your business. And at first it's exciting and people are really into it. And then you're like, Oh my gosh, I cannot waste one more hour on this. Like I'm, I got to pay my bills, you know?
00:36:52
Speaker
So I definitely think that once you have enough experience and to me, there's not like a set number of that. I really think like you mentioned, it's about are you seeing your education take root and are you seeing it actually like impact somebody's life and business? And if so, then okay, it's time to start charging. Now pricing in itself is such a mess. I mean, it is such a mess in this industry because it's so inconsistent. It's inconsistent from the top down and from like this, the larger scale,
00:37:22
Speaker
educational offerings all the way down. The creative industry, I'm just going to call us all out right now. We are one of the only industries that doesn't pay our speakers at conferences that are charging a lot of money for their attendees. It's ridiculous. I mean, it's not hard math. If you look at what people are charging their attendees and you look at what they're paying their speakers, or in this case, not paying their speakers,
00:37:47
Speaker
there's a disconnect and there's a problem. Whereas other industries, I actually coach my students who want to be speakers, you need to get out of the creative industry if you want to make money. Yeah, I mean, especially the creative industry in which we're referring to, you know, and there might be sort of a larger creative industry out there, but certainly the one that I think we both have in mind, it is not uncommon to be a quote unquote keynote and to make, Oh, well, we're going to promote you on our social media feeds, you know,
00:38:13
Speaker
Oh, but by the way, could you could you email your list, you know, the sell tickets? So I agree. I mean, like I think speaker like you have to be very strategic about how you want to go about your speaking career. It's probably not in our sliver of the industry for sure.
00:38:29
Speaker
Yeah, and I mean, there are, of course, there are pros and cons. And like, it does depend on where you want to go with it. So if you're wanting to grow your name, grow your reputation, grow your credibility, yeah, it's worth it. It's worth not getting paid, you know, thousands on thousands to go to a speaking event, go to conference and network in that way. And so there's value in it. I'm definitely not saying there's not value. But I'd say,
00:38:53
Speaker
In the world of pricing, it makes it really difficult because if you're not seeing your expertise be valued from what you view as the top, it makes it really difficult to value yourself when it comes to one-on-one workshops, retreats, whatever. I struggled with this. I think we all would be kidding ourselves if we didn't say at one point we struggled with pricing.
00:39:18
Speaker
I definitely undercharged for years on, on coaching and mentoring. Cause I was like, Oh, they can't, I can't charge them more than this. Like that's, it's not, it's not worth it, blah, blah, blah. And that was just kind of misinformation. You have to kind of look at, I look at a couple of things when it comes to pricing, but if I was going to give my best tip, like my biggest tip, and again, I, people could come for me on this, but I don't mind. I really feel like it depends on who you're teaching and where they're trying to go.
00:39:46
Speaker
I don't feel right charging thousands to a photographer who is just starting out in family photography, but now that I work with educators and I know that my education will teach them how to make thousands on thousands, I don't mind that my course is $1,200. $1,200 will pay itself back tenfold within a few months if they do it right. I think it just comes down to knowing the value of your education and knowing
00:40:13
Speaker
where your students are going to go with it afterwards and how much they're going to be able to make back and how many times.
00:40:19
Speaker
Sure. Yeah, and the pricing conversation is so complex, but something that every business, and even businesses who are successful, I think, as a planner or whatever, they move to education and they think like, for whatever reason, it's like something they have to sort out again. And maybe in some ways, I could see it being a little more challenging for people because they feel like maybe it's not as tangible as something like photography or another type of business out there.
00:40:49
Speaker
Is there anything else that I haven't asked you about education that we really need to cover? Off the top of my head, I can't really think of anything. I feel like we took a lot of tangents in a great way. I feel good about it. I mean, we could talk about this forever, but I think just the major points, I feel like we touched on pretty well. I would just, again, encourage anybody who's wanting to get into it to really delve into kind of like the why of it. And from there, just kind of see
00:41:18
Speaker
how much their education is actually helping somebody and make changes based off of that. Yeah, yeah. And before you go, I want to ask about podcasting. Is that okay? Can we change it? I always want to ask fellow podcasters different questions and I just want to know as we wrap up here, what's been like the most enjoyable or surprising aspect of having a podcast? Oh, that's a great question. I love my podcast. I think the most
00:41:44
Speaker
surprising and enjoyable thing is that how much I love it. I really started it kind of on a whim. It was I guess a year and a half ago. I just was like, I have really great conversations with people and I wish I could share these conversations because I feel like they're going to be helpful to someone. And then in that time, I felt like
00:42:02
Speaker
Okay, that someone maybe it'll be like 10 people and it'll be fine. It'll be fine. And seeing how much value my listeners take away and they follow up and they actually tell me how much value comes from it. That's been the most surprising part for sure.
00:42:17
Speaker
having people bring up like specific episodes and specific takeaways is like the world's most rewarding thing. And I love that it's free. Like I know that sounds, I just am talking about like value yourself and have pricing, but like I crave being able to educate. I want to be able to meet people where they are. And like, that was a really big thing for me to want to do is to create a space where it's like, you can get all of this content for free. You don't have to pay a cent, you know? And so just, I think it's been really enjoyable to see people's
00:42:44
Speaker
response and people's takeaway and the value that they're getting from it.
00:42:48
Speaker
Yeah, for sure. I think podcasting is one of like, I mean, it's more ubiquitous now than it was certainly 10 years ago, but compared to blogging, there's room to play, you know? And I always tell people that they're like, you know, I feel like a few conversations recently, it's like, oh, I feel like everybody has a podcast now. I'm like, no, that's not true. You know, like, go Google the amount of blogs out there compared to the amount of podcasts, you know? So I think it's just such a good space. I mean, you have to be like a
00:43:18
Speaker
Maybe you have to be a certain kind of person to do it and I don't mean anything like oh you have to be very special to do it. That's not what I'm suggesting at all. I guess to like I always say I'm gonna get do more video and I never do video and I just feel like naturally that's not you know, I'm like I'm in it right now. I'm in just like an old lacrosse tee and Jim shorts, you know and do you doing a video? I feel like I'd have to
00:43:41
Speaker
put on real clothes and all that. So point being is maybe you're not comfortable speaking. And I know that was one of the hardest things for me getting started was if I had to edit my own podcast, I've said this repeated on this podcast, it would never get published because
00:43:56
Speaker
I just can't go back and listen to myself. I want to, I want to, you know, edit out every single um, you know, which would mean I cut out a quarter of my episode. Yeah. So it's, it's just, or, you know, that's the, you know, is the other, the other thing I do often. But anyways, always interested in, in hearing the perspective of another podcaster.
00:44:14
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, I think it's so much fun. I love having the podcast. And I will say, I agree that I think it really does, again, we could really combine the two things we're talking about here, but knowing what you're good at and knowing what people respond to best from you. I do not enjoy writing blogs. My podcast really took the place of my blog. If you go to my blog, it's podcast episodes followed by just stacks on stacks of podcast episodes and then one written blog in the middle there.
00:44:44
Speaker
just knowing where you're best. And then I have some friends who are incredible writers and who are like, I could never talk to somebody for an hour comfortably. And I'm like, oh, I could talk to you for like six hours. Let's keep talking. Yeah, I find podcasting and writing are still my two favorite. And one day podcast listeners, I'll start doing more video, maybe after this move that's coming up.
00:45:08
Speaker
Hey, embrace that lacrosse shirt, gym short. Look, maybe that's like, it's relatable. It's good. That's right. Maybe I just need it. That's what you're going to get. It's kind of like that, me saying niche and whatever else. Lately, I really appreciate you taking the time to chat with us today about this topic. I think it's an important one. I hope that what people walk away with is that there's just more discernment I think that needs to go into this. If you're using this to validate your status as a photographer, just know
00:45:37
Speaker
that, you know, look at the best photographers in the world or some of your favorite photographers. A lot of them will probably not be educators and that's okay because they're really, really good photographers or, you know, insert whatever it is that you do here. At the same time though, lately you have resources to help people kind of go through this process and get started with education. So tell us a little bit about where we can find that and potentially sign up.
00:46:03
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. You can actually just go to the creativeeducatoracademy.com or to lelemati.com. And I've got a ton of resources on there for educators who are up and coming and even honestly establish educators who just want to up level what they're teaching. We talk a lot about the how to teach more than anything else. And I think that that's obviously like the foundation that we all need in order to be able to actually give really impactful and effective education to our students. So
00:46:32
Speaker
Yeah, I mean, we've got, I actually have a free class, like a free masterclass available on there. It's a replay of a live I did. So even if you don't want to sign up for the course, if you want to see if that kind of helps clarify things for you, you can go check that out at the creative educator academy.com.
00:46:50
Speaker
And I will say that like the how to teach is such an, it's a skill that people need to learn, you know, and I, I, there's a lot of talented people and I know this even from coaching, you know, players, for instance, who are super talented, but they're not good coaches because coaching is not the same as playing. Right. So being able to understand what it is that you do and then articulate it is different than being able to do it. So I just want to throw that out there for people. It sounds like a great resource. We will of course have links to all of that in the show notes. And lately, thank you again for taking the time to chat with us.
00:47:20
Speaker
Yeah, absolutely. Thank you. Thanks for tuning in to the Brands That Book Show. If you enjoyed this episode, please consider subscribing and leaving a review in iTunes. For show notes and other resources, head on over to devianchrista.com.
00:47:43
Speaker
you