We’re joined by Matt Medeiros in this episode of the LMScast podcast where he talks with Chris Badgett from LifterLMS about the world of venture-backed businesses versus WordPress startups. Chris and Matt dive into multimedia formats, and how online course creators can leverage owning the customer experience to deliver learning results on any platform.

Democratization of online media platforms has been happening for many years with platforms like YouTube allowing you to create your own channel, upload videos, and create your own TV show or radio show. WordPress brings the ability to build websites to people who don’t know how to code their sites from scratch.

Matt shares a quote from Gary Vaynerchuk about how everyone should be thinking of themselves as a media company. For $50-$100 you can pick up a good microphone and do peer-to-peer interviews on various topics, and that experience, connections, and networking compounds not only in your skills, but also your reach and ability to produce content.

Matt attributes hundreds of thousands of dollars of agency business to his podcasting and the partnerships he made from his interviews. Podcasting isn’t just a great way to teach others, but also a way to build relationships with others in your industry or an industry you’d like to be in.

You can learn more about Matt Medeiros at MattReport.com. You can also head to Castos.com/PodcastGrader to take a short survey that will give you a score as to where you’re at in your podcasting journey, along with a checklist of how to run a great interview show. They also offer an opt-in to a private podcast that will give you a feel for what the industry of private podcasting is like to see if that may be something you can leverage as a part of your online course or membership platform. Thanks for joining us!

We’re joined by Groundhogg CEO Adrian Tobey in this episode of the LMScast podcast, where he talks about how he was able to create his certified partner program with LifterLMS to train his affiliates and industry partners who offer Groundhogg related services on the practices they employ and what standards they have to meet.

Infusionsoft is an example of a software product that developed a certified partner program early on in their business, and that helps contribute to a software product’s success. Both Chris and Adrian came out of the Infusionsoft community, and they have first-hand experience with how Infusionsoft developed that program to help onboard customers and build an ecosystem of professionals that can offer services for people that want the software, but who need help setting it up.

Throughout the ‘90s, Microsoft invested heavily in training software companies on how to use their products. Microsoft had this as a paid program, where agencies would pay to receive the training, and then the agencies would turn around and sell products to their clients and earn a commission based on their sales to clients.

There’s an interesting line for software companies around what is considered customer success and customer support and what is something customers would need to hire a third-party agency or freelancer to help implement. Adrian draws the line roughly when users are looking for the advanced implementation help that involves setting up complicated funnels with many steps for example, and that’s where an agency would be necessary to be hired in by the customer for more advanced help.

If you want to learn more about Groundhogg CRM and how you can use it to manage all your email contacts, automations, broadcasts, and email campaigns inside of your WordPress website instead of having to head to Infusionsoft, HubSpot, or ActiveCampaign where they host all your data on their servers and charge based on number of users, head to Groundhogg.io and check out what they have to offer.

We’re joined by Moeez from Cloudways in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett from LifterLMS. Chris and Moeez get into what makes Cloudways a good host for online course websites, and some distinguishing factors from competitors when it comes to websites that serve dynamic content with many concurrent users.

Every website owner needs a host, but not every website owner understands the entire hosting process. So Cloudways was made for people who want to relieve the burden of hosting their websites and letting Cloudways manage those things for them. The main distinction between Cloudways and other website hosts is Cloudways’ customer centric approach that helps them simplify the entire hosting process.

Features on Cloudways are built through a lot of research, and a lot of data gets studied and analyzed behind the scenes before a feature is taken live on the platform or in their product. Feedback from the community is a large building block for the offers Cloudways has come out with over the last 10 years.

Moeez shares the core differences between hosting platforms like Google Cloud, AWS, DigitalOcean, and Linode, along with who each solution serves best. If you’re a small blogger or startup online course website with around 1,000 to 1,500 visits per day, a DigitalOcean or Linode high-frequency server may be good enough for you, because it starts from $10-$13 per month, where you don’t need to be paying $30-$40 per month for a small website.

At Cloudways.com, you can learn more about how the Cloudways hosting platform can help you build your online course website on a budget and scale as students join your platform. They have a free area to book a demo where you can see the features Cloudways has to offer for your course or membership website. Thanks for joining us!

In this episode of the LMScast podcast, we’re joined by Adrian Nutiu, and he created a course marketplace using WordPress and LifterLMS. Adrian shares his journey from graduating with an accounting degree he didn’t end up using to the inspiration to start his own online education movement to democratize education the same way YouTube and other platforms have made providing information more accessible to the public.

Around 20 years ago after graduating with a degree in accounting, Adrian was intrinsically pulled towards the problems in the education industry, these days around discoverability and democratizing education online. This served as the inspiration for his platform MadBright (formerly Yumva) where experts can increase discoverability for their online courses in various industries.

Adrian highlights some of the reasons he decided to go with WordPress versus a hosted platform or a platform coded from scratch. WordPress has a high level of customizability and is built on PHP code, which is very popular amongst freelancers. That makes hiring out development work affordable, compared to coding a platform from scratch. WordPress also can be a budget solution for those looking to get started on a low budget and with more customization options than typical getting started LMS solutions like Thinkific that are priced around $100 per month and don’t offer the same customization options.

UpJourney is Adrian’s platform where he hosts guest posts and insights from industry experts around various topics from a results-oriented standpoint. Similar to MadBright as a directory for courses, UpJourney works as a blog that sources good information on popular questions.

To learn more about Adrian Nutiu and his platforms, check out MadBright.com and UpJourney.com. You can also connect with him via email at [email protected].

We have a repeat guest on this LMScast Vito Peleg from WP FeedBack, which is an awesome tool for allowing your clients to easily give you feedback on websites you’re building for them as a freelancer or agency offering website development services through WordPress.

Much like LifterLMS, WP FeedBack is a software company providing products to freelancers who build websites for clients to help make their communication and building process with clients more seamless.

Educating customers on how to use a software tool is a challenge that many companies in the software as a service space face. Vito ran interviews with customers and realized many of them are using the product the same way they were when they initially signed up, meaning that most of them were unaware of the new features WP Feedback had added since they signed up.

Vito and his team brainstormed around how they could inform their customer base of the new features they’ve developed without spamming them with emails or notifications on their dashboard of the product. They eventually decided that training videos with tutorials and reasoning behind the features would be the best way to offer that library of education around features. Adding those videos on their website through an online course via LifterLMS would be a great way they could track the progress of users throughout the material, where that’s not an option with something like a YouTube playlist.

Vito also shares more insights on how an LMS tool can help serve software companies in educating their customers and reducing churn rates by increasing product activation and product knowledge in the community.

Be sure to head over to WPFeedBack.co to learn more about how you can supercharge your ability to communicate more effectively with clients, save time, and increase your profit margins on WordPress sites you build for others.

Learn about the journey to creating profitable online courses and membership sites with Pete McPherson in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett from LifterLMS. Pete describes the failures he’s faced along the way to reaching success with his business DoYouEvenBlog.com. He now shares his insights and understanding of online business with others through his YouTube channel, podcast, and courses.

Learning from failure is something many people talk about in online business, but rarely something people actually put into practice. That’s why Pete loves covering failure, and how he and the people he knows change their approach after failing.

Most online course creators or membership site owners will fail the first time they launch, but that doesn't mean you should abandon it completely. It means you should analyze, learn, optimize, iterate, and make it better for next time.

It’s important to have a healthy relationship with failure, especially if you’re going to build up multiple streams of income. Because you’re not going to be building just one thing. You’re going to build lots of things, which amplifies the amount of failure you have to get through in order to get businesses, courses, and other projects to stick and be successful. Pete says he has failed around 30 to 40 times on projects in the last 3 years.

If you have an audience online or run a membership website, there’s an interesting trend Pete refers to as the 90-10-1 rule where approximately 90% of your audience is lurking and not interacting with your content, but following posts. Then 10% of users actually interact with posts. And the final 1% create posts and ask questions.

You can learn more about Pete McPherson at DoYouEvenBlog.com. He has links to his other projects there, such as his popular Elementor course, so if you’re interested in learning Elementor as a page builder for your WordPress blog or LifterLMS site, check that out. Thanks for joining us!

We’re joined by Paul Tobey in this LMScast where he talks with Chris Badgett from LifterLMS about how course creators can go live fast by implementing out of the box strategies to develop your product and brand. He shares his story and insights as a serial entrepreneur and course creator for how you can make your products a success.

Paul does a wide range of things, and he has many businesses reflecting the different aspects of areas in his realm of expertise:

Jazzmentl.com where he teaches people advanced jazz piano lessons.

TrainingBusinessPros.com where he teaches people the best strategies for training employees and clients from topics ranging from digital marketing to corporate training.

ThatsAmbitious.com where he has business strategy courses about SEO, Facebook ads, and presentation skills.

Paul graduated from university where he learned how to play, improvise, and write music. He made a living as a piano player performing on the Arcadia record label out of New York City and performed music for 23 years in 17 countries. He had released 8 albums, but in the aftermath of 9/11 he lost his record contract, and at age 42 lost his house. Paul and his wife moved in with Paul’s parents for a few months, eventually buying a house in Brantford, Ontario where he started rebuilding his life as a sales trainer.

Paul shares a lot of great tips in this episode. One insight is how information itself doesn't solve problems, but step-by-step instruction is really key to solving problems. And making sure those instructions are followed correctly.

At ThatsAmbitious.com, you can learn more about the training courses Paul offers, and he has a membership there as well that includes all the courses on his site covering all aspects he has gone through in his businesses to create 3 successful online course websites along with other businesses in the training space. You can also use code LIFTERLMS for 50% off your first month (fully refundable within the first 30 days). Thanks for joining us!

We dive into the journey from 3 years to building 5 online courses and a successful membership site with Becky and Jeremy Launder in this LMScast. Becky has a background working with direct sellers, MLM, Network Marketing Professionals, and anyone who sells products they didn’t create, which is similar to how we have affiliate marketing in the online software space.

Jeremy worked more on the technical side, working in systems development. He worked as an electrical engineer in the aerospace and defense industry for 15 years, and that helped with architecting the training business they’ve now had since 2017.

While Becky and Jeremy’s site ModernDirectSeller.com started in 2017, they didn’t monetize their site by adding a paid membership until October of 2019. They were hosting free resources for people around the direct selling niche for over a year before adding in the monetization aspect via a LifterLMS membership.

One great way to test demand, and how Becky decided what videos to make, was when she heard more than 3 people ask a question, she would make a YouTube video and write a blog post on that topic. Then they put together a five course series with 35 lessons that are in-depth around different aspects of direct selling.

Each lesson on ModernDirectSeller.com is 10-15 minutes each, so they’re not super long and are meant to be done in bite-sized chunks. Becky also wrote a short book called 52 Tips on How to Build a Thriving Direct Sales Business. There are five chapters, and the course follows the same framework as the book.

You can learn more about Becky, Jeremy, and the membership and courses they have for direct sellers at ModernDirectSeller.com. And you can also find them on Facebook, Instagram, and YouTube at Modern Direct Seller. Thanks for joining us!

Learn about how to create high quality websites using Divi and WordPress with Keegan Lanier in this episode of the LMScast podcast where he and Chris Badgett from LifterLMS dive into how you can build side hustle recurring revenue in WordPress as a white-label service and create cash flow with online courses.

The Addicted to WordPress podcast started out as a sort of Divi news podcast where Keegan would review and go over the features in upcoming releases of Divi, as they were doing a lot of innovation at the time and releasing new features almost every week. From there it evolved into more content around mastering the Divi theme, WordPress in general, and next level business tips.

Keegan started his podcast on Anchor.fm instead of building a full site himself from the start. This is the same way LifterLMS got started, selling a plugin for WordPress, but we were selling through Leadpages, as it was easier to spin up a quick eCommerce site with Leadpages at the time in 2014. We can get so wrapped up in the solutions we create, that we forget to look at ideas around what could best solve the problem, which may be a third-party platform for a time. Every project is a work in progress, so you don’t have to always go for the final model from the start.

Offering a white-label service to other businesses is a great way to dip your toes into the freelance/agency business. Keegan shares an expert tip that you can build a list of agencies you like and respect, and then email those agencies asking to pick their brain on the tools they use for delivering services and invoicing. You’ll get a jump start in your freelance practice for the best path to go with. You’ll also build the relationship, so if that agency doesn’t want to take on a project, they may pass that lead on to you.

Check out Keegan’s course at Academy.KeeganLanierMedia.com, his website building agency at RefinedCreative.com, and his Addicted to WordPress podcast on Apple Podcasts. You can also find him on Twitter at @KeeganLanier Thanks for joining us!

Elearning authoring tools expert and developer Pankaj Agrawal shares how you can use LifterLMS with SCORM, xAPI, and LRS content to support your LMS website in this episode of the LMScast podcast. Most course creators work with video, audio, text, and images as their main media formats for learning. But as you’ll learn in this episode, there are many other options out there for interactive content you can connect to LifterLMS via GrassBlade xAPI.

You may have heard of the GrassBlade xAPI tool on the LifterLMS store or in the community, but GrassBlade is an ecosystem of separate products and features that allow you to host advanced eLearning content inside WordPress. Articulate and Captivate are tools that allow you to make interactive videos and download them as zip files. Then you can use GrassBlade to upload that to WordPress.

Then with the GrassBlade tool, you can add that content into LifterLMS courses and lessons and have quizzes embedded from your eLearning authoring platform inside your xAPI content. Then that data can be found in the LifterLMS reporting system.

There are a few advantages to using a third-party system to host your eLearning content and porting that in via GrassBlade xAPI. One of those is that you can more easily migrate in the future if you change LMS platforms. Your content would still be the same format with less copying and pasting work for changing platforms. Another advantage is the ability to set progress triggers in a more intricate way. You can mark a lesson as complete after a student has completed a certain number of slides or a certain percentage on a quiz within your iSpring or Articulate content.

You can learn more about eLearning authoring tools, LRS systems, and xAPI at NextSoftwareSolutions.com. And be sure to follow them on Facebook and LinkedIn as well. Thanks for joining us!