LMScast

Educator and podcast host Joe Casabona joins us again on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to share some great insights for online course builders and entrepreneurs. Chris and Joe dive into several topics in this episode from the five hats problem to the expert’s curse and finding sponsors.

Joe focuses on solving the problems that students have as the metric for success, rather than course completion rates. He measures those metrics by reaching out to students during various points in the course and asking how it is going and what projects learners are working on that the course can help them with.

Creators tend to try and hide their mistakes when creating educational content by editing errors out. While it may seem like having occasional errors in your video can severely damage your credibility as an expert, it can actually add more relatability to your videos. Your students are likely going to stumble along the way, and if they see you stumble and figure it out live it can help them to feel less discouraged when something unexpected happens to them.

Gathering sponsorships for your content can be a great opportunity for podcasts or courses to help boost your budget or act as an income generator in itself. Joe shares his method and some tips for reaching out to businesses about sponsorships. One effective method Joe has found is reaching out to companies that his guests mentioned in the episode. This gives the business a nice opportunity for some cross promotion if it comes up naturally in conversation.

To learn more about Joe Casabona, be sure to head to Casabona.org and CreatorCourses.com to see Joe’s courses on all different facets of the WordPress ecosystem. You can connect with Joe on Twitter and most social platforms at @jCasabona. Thanks for tuning in to this episode of LMScast!

Kathy Zant from the Wordfence security plugin for WordPress joins us in this episode of the LMScast podcast to discuss ways online course creators and membership site owners can secure their sites to protect from hacking. Chris and Kathy cover why security is important for WordPress and some strategies hackers are currently using.

Wordfence is a security plugin for WordPress. One of the key features of Wordfence is the firewall that is going to look at traffic coming to your site and analyze whether it is malicious activity, and can block that activity from coming to your site. The premium Wordfence security plugin also has a real-time blacklist that can help block traffic coming to your site that has been identified to be malicious on someone else’s site that is using Wordfence.

WordPress sites are a large target for hacking online, because so many sites online are built on WordPress. This means that hacking tools are more advanced with finding vulnerabilities in WordPress. Kathy speaks to the importance of updating your themes and plugins as that is one common way bots can get into your site.

There are many things that hackers can do with your site once it is broken into. It is common for hackers to place an affiliate cookie on your visitors’ browsers when they view your site, so when your visitors purchase a product from an online marketplace such as Amazon, the hacker makes some illegitimate commissions on the sale. With cryptocurrencies becoming more popular in the past few years, they can use your computer to help mine for cryptocurrencies without your permission.

The free Wordfence plugin walks you through how to get set up with making your site more secure and informs you if there are any malicious files currently on your site. If you want to learn more about WordPress security and Kathy Zant, be sure to head to Wordfence.com and Zant.com. You can also connect with Kathy on Twitter at @KathyZant

In this episode of LMScast, Ali Mathis and Chris Badgett discuss what the new WooCommerce 2.0 for LifterLMS brings to the platform, and why you may want to consider using WooCommerce for your LifterLMS site. Ali and Chris talk about the tradeoffs and what separates WooCommerce from the other LifterLMS payment gateways.

We do not recommend using WooCommerce for your LifterLMS site unless you are looking to sell physical products with your courses or memberships, you are looking to integrate a cart system, you need a payment gateway that will work for your country that is not offered by LifterLMS, or you want to have a multi-vendor setup.

The new WooCommerce 2.0 from LifterLMS allows you to now associate individual access plans with WooCommerce products or product variations. You can also now have one-time payment products that expire after a certain period of time without using WooSubscriptions. You do need to use WooSubscriptions if you are wanting to do recurring payments with your LifterLMS courses or memberships.

The LifterLMS WooCommerce extension 2.0 was in beta for three months before its official launch. Chris and Ali talk about the LifterLMS beta testing group and how you can get involved with that if you want to help test and provide input for the development of the products LifterLMS releases.

Many LifterLMS users are interested in creating a course marketplace that allows instructors to sign up and create courses. Chris talks about the WooCommerce multi-vendor and how you can use that to help tie that marketplace together. With tools like WooCommerce, LifterLMS, the Astra theme, and a page builder, you can create great looking course marketplace sites.

WooCommerce is one of the largest eCommerce systems on the internet. We encourage you to go check out the WooCommerce extension for LifterLMS in our store. You can purchase it for $99 a la carte or it is included in both the Universe and Infinity Bundle. Thanks for joining us in this episode of LMScast!

Jonathan Denwood of WP-Tonic joins us on this episode of the LMScast podcast to discuss how you can avoid technology hassles with your self hosted WordPress LMS website with Chris Badget of LifterLMS. Chris and Jonathan dive into various tech tips you can employ to optimize your LifterLMS site, and they discuss Jonathan’s turnkey solution that takes care of the whole setup for you and provides you with awesome tools to run your online course company.

WordPress is similar to a Swiss Army Knife in that it can accommodate a lot of different setups. The disadvantage with WordPress as an all-in-one solution is that it has a reputation for being slow, so optimization of your site is important for speed and user experience. Chris and Jonathan talk about various things you can do to speed up your site, along with plugins and themes they recommend.

There are a lot of moving pieces that come with a fully functional online course or membership site. Jonathan’s WP-Tonic Turnkey Solution is meant to provide you with everything you need to get off the ground with the best breed of plugins, themes, and hosting options available on the market today.

Integrating with a customer relationship manager (CRM) is a large step for an online course business. WP Fusion is a software that allows you to integrate your WordPress website with 24 different CRM options from ActiveCampaign to Infusionsoft and Ontraport, so be sure to check them out as well. It is a piece of tech that both Chris and Jonathan endorse.

Once you are finished with this LMScast episode, be sure to visit Jonathan’s site at WP-Tonic.com and you can find his turnkey solution for LifterLMS that includes Beaver Builder Pro, image compression by ShortPixel, hosting on the Google Cloud platform, 24 hour security via WebARX, WP Fusion, and all kinds of other tools that will get your site up and running, so you can start educating and earning online.

The course whisperer Cindy Nicholson joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss best practices and tips for creating course content that people will buy and get results from. Cindy and Chris dive into all aspects of course building, from laying out your curriculum to targeting your students with a solid marketing plan.

The behavior change course is one of the most popular and most effective courses if done correctly. Cindy gives some tips on how you can make engaging content that gets your students results. Chris and Cindy talk about some of the most common mistakes course builders make and how you can avoid them.

Understanding the difference between a consumer and a learner is important for teaching online. Consumers are typically looking for entertainment or interesting information, where learners tend to have a specific goal they are trying to achieve. With that in mind you can formulate your content to have call to actions and exercises that can help your students to use what they have learned.

The single biggest mistake Cindy sees with course creation in general is that teachers give their students a large amount of information without much direction on what to do or how to apply the content to produce relevant results. We refer to that as the resource course, and it can have a lot of cool information. But most students are looking to achieve a result when they purchase a course, so it is important to focus on delivering that result.

Occasionally course creators will start out with a suite of courses where they are offering 3-10 courses on their site when they first start selling. This strategy can work, but it is harder to pull off. We recommend that you start out with one flagship course and improve that over time until the point where there is a need for a second course.

To learn more about Cindy Nicholson be sure to head to TheCourseWhisperer.co

Rebecca Undem joins us in this episode of the LMScast podcast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss how you can build communities and strong support networks from rural areas. Chris and Rebecca dive into all kinds of strategies and best practices for online course creators who experience isolation.

Rebecca shares her journey of returning to the rural area she grew up in, and how she created the Small Town Survival Kit to help moms when they are in those times when you’re feeling lonely, isolated, misunderstood, and frustrated.

In the work that Rebecca does, she reminds people that the size of your life doesn’t have to be determined by the size of the town that you live in. With the online technology available today you don’t have to be limited by the limits that are present in your immediate environment.

Being an education entrepreneur can be isolating, especially if you are an online entrepreneur in a small town where there are not any local events or Meetups of individuals who truly understand where you are at from a business perspective.

A lot of programs online are about finding a shortcut to do something. Getting in shape and making money are two topics where this happens a lot. In order to run a program like that you have to keep up a facade, and it doesn’t come across as genuine. Rebecca feels that a lot of course creators start by thinking about what they can do that people will like rather than building their brand about being the most authentic you can be.

You can find Rebecca’s Survival Kit at RebeccaUndem.com/survival-kit. She also has a book called How Mommy Got Her Groove Back that tells the story of how Rebecca learned to embrace the ‘not plan’ and deal with the chaos that arises during parenthood.

Jason Hsiao from Animoto joins us on this episode of the LMScast podcast to share insights on doing video marketing on social media for course creators and membership site owners. Chris and Jason dive into topics from engagement to creating targeted campaigns for Facebook.

Jason shares how it is important to focus on engaging your audience within the first few seconds of your video. Keeping your content short and using captions is also important for letting your audience know what you want them to do and keeping their attention for as long as possible.

For starting off with video marketing Jason recommends Facebook, because it has the largest user base and offers the most advanced tools in terms of allowing you to target a specific audience that is likely to be interested in your content. It is also very easy to get started with Facebook ads, as you can start testing results for only $20 if you have a highly targeted campaign.

Many entrepreneurs are self-conscious about creating content when they first start off. Making mistakes can actually improve your content as it makes it more human, and thus more relatable for consumers. Jason and Chris talk about how embracing your imperfections can work to your advantage.

Entrepreneurs often find themselves discouraged by the low number of views they get on videos when first starting out, but focusing on creating high-quality content will ensure that in time the quantity of views will catch up.

To learn more about Jason Hsiao and the Animoto software, head to Animoto.com and check out what they have going on over there!

Author and learning design expert Julie Dirksen shares some amazing tips and strategies for course creators in this information-packed episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Julie and Chris talk about everything from building high impact courses and getting lasting results, to effective coaching strategies for education entrepreneurs.

Developing proficiency to the point of unconscious competence is something Julie talks about in her book. It is the ultimate form of learning something. When you can automatically do something without thinking about it you have developed unconscious competence. Many people experience this when driving home from work on a route they’ve driven a lot where they sort of black out and enter autonomous mode, but they end up making it home without any problems.

Chris highlights the four blueprints that most courses fall into: behavior change, learning a process, resource course, and the case study course. Julie shares the main gaps that are present in learning and how you can address each one to help your students achieve their desired outcome.

Just conveying a piece of information is unlikely to change the behaviors of your listeners. Julie refers to this in her book as the information gap, meaning that what is holding your students back is a lack of information. However this is rarely the case. Smoking is harmful to the body, but informing a smoker of that is unlikely to change their behavior.

To learn more about Julie you can visit DesignBetterLearning.com and UsableLearning.com. Be sure to check out her book Design For How People Learn. It is available on Amazon, and Julie has a thriving Facebook group of individuals discussing the concepts in the book and more. You can also connect with Julie on Twitter at @UsableLearning.

CEO of 3 Hellos Robin Harris joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of the LifterLMS team to discuss how you can navigate the digital ecosystem, presell products, and the problems that occur with a culture of free services. Robin and Chris dive into the importance of how you structure your sales funnel and communicate with prospects within that funnel.

The real genius of the internet is not so much the information that is available; it is the connection to people across the world that is truly valuable. Chris and Robin talk about honing in on your core topics when building courses and how that can serve you greatly when building up a community online.

As a course creator, it is important to be in touch with what your audience’s needs in order to really serve them. Chris and Robin talk about the concept of expert syndrome and techno babble. Those terms both refer to an expert talking over the head of the student to the point that the students can’t understand. Connecting with your community can really help you validate your idea and get a grasp on what your potential customers know about what you plan on teaching.

Many people think of their sales funnel as their website, but the sales funnel comprises much more than just your website. Robin dives into the power of starting a conversation on Facebook and ending it on your blog as a great top of your sales funnel. You want to speak to your customers where they are at in your funnel rather than constantly pressuring them to purchase.

You can find out more about Robin Harris at 3Hellos.com, and you can find her on Twitter at @RobinMHarris21 and on Facebook and LinkedIn as well.

Thomas Levy and Chris Badgett of LifterLMS review the CaboPress business mastermind conference in this episode of the LMScast podcast. CaboPress is hosted in Cabo San Lucas, Mexico, and is organized by entrepreneur Chris Lema. Thomas and Chris have been to the conference four times now and are here today to share what makes it one of the best WordPress business conferences.

Many online business owners spend most, if not all, of their time working online. Networking, building connections, and strategizing about the business are all important aspects to success that tend to lie offline. CaboPress takes place at a five-star resort, and every aspect of the trip from lodging to food is covered. All you have to do is purchase a ticket to CaboPress and a plane ticket to get down there.

Events like CaboPress are a great place to get feedback and learn about metrics other companies measure. Chris and Thomas share what they do in order to get the most value out of conferences. One thing Chris does to prepare is doing research on individuals who will be at the Conference, so he knows a little about what they do before they meet.

The LMScast podcast is a great example of what Chris does to extend the value and connections of the conference by interviewing individuals he meets. Thomas had not come to CaboPress with a problem he wanted to learn how to solve, but in conversation he learned about issues that were paining him or preventing him from doing the best work that he had not considered before.

If you are interested in learning more about CaboPress, head over to CaboPress.com. After you’re done there, head to LifterLMS.com to learn more about new developments and how you can use LifterLMS to build online courses and membership sites. Thanks for joining us!