Pippin Williamson of AffiliateWP, Easy Digital Downloads, and Restrict Content Pro joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss learning, leadership, and entrepreneurship. Chris and Pippin talk about affiliate marketing, delegating responsibilities, and competition in business.

Pippin comes from a family that is very nature and technology-oriented, so as a kid he spent a lot of time outside, and he developed a passion for software development. He shares his story for how he made his way into the WordPress space and how he goes about building businesses and creating products.

Affiliate marketing is something that poses a challenge to many business owners. It is important to vet your affiliates carefully and lay out clear guidelines for what they can write about and advertise. Chris and Pippin talk about how affiliates contribute to your brand in a major way, so you should set up careful rules and make sure your affiliates don’t do things that will damage your company’s brand or image.

Delegation is key to success in most businesses. Many entrepreneurs and business owners have trouble delegating the responsibilities within their business. Pippin shares his experience with delegation and the process he went through when learning how to take a step back and let his employees handle tasks and situations that arise within a company.

Erin Flynn joins us on this episode of LMScast to discuss the key ingredients to building online courses, memberships, workshops, and communities online with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Chris and Erin discuss the value of guest experts and creating consumable content and community around your product or service.

While working as a web designer, Erin noticed her clients complaining about experiences they have had with web developers and designers in the past due to a lack of communication. Erin started a business helping web designers and developers with the business and communication aspect of the services they provided.

She created and compiled several email templates web designers can use to communicate with their clients when they are difficult to deal with. Chris and Erin talk about the different products and services Erin offers on ErinFlynn.com and how they can help you deal with bad clients and grow your business.

It is important to remember when building a course that the purpose of taking an online course is to develop a skill and/or solve a problem someone is facing. Erin emphasises how key it is to give your students a way to put the knowledge they’ve acquired into action. This results-driven approach makes it clear to your clients what they will get out of a given course.

Syed Balkhi of OptinMonster, WPBeginner, WPForms and so many more amazing products joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Chris and Syed talk in depth about building teams, sales funnels, and the power of pop ups on your WordPress website in this episode.

Syed is an online entrepreneur who has created awesome products that contribute in so many ways to WordPress creators. You have probably stumbled across and used his products at one time on someone’s website, or you may even use them yourself.

Building a strong team is important for the success of any business. Syed and Chris talk about what goes into hiring a great team and giving them the tools they need to succeed. It can be hard to figure out when to hire out someone to delegate work to when you are running your business online. At the start you will have to do a lot of, if not all of the work yourself, but it is important to delegate it out as soon as possible so you don’t end up resenting your work and then becoming burnt out.

Chris and Syed talk about creating sales funnels and how you can maximize the value you get from each of your customers. The easiest people to sell to are the people who already buy your products. Upselling and cross selling your customers to other products you offer can help to maximize your profits. One of the easiest ways to do this for membership site owners and course creators is to offer a more in-depth, personal training on a topic or a mastermind group.

Dre Armeda joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss his journey as an entrepreneur in the WordPress space. Chris and Dre talk about the key aspects of good online courses, and Dre shares his story and the transformational learning experience that Jiu-Jitsu has given him.

Dre Armeda is one of the founders of Sucuri which is an internet security company that provides protection from DDoS attacks, infected malware, search engine blacklisting, and more. Dre has worked in information security in the military and in a public energy company after he left the military. That is where he met his Sucuri business partner Daniel Cid.

It is important to be solution-minded when creating and positioning your online course, because most people are only problem aware, and when you present them with a solution to a problem rather than a product approach it will vastly increase your chance of selling to them. This also allows you as the creator to step into your customer’s shoes and really get a feel for their problems and have a better understanding of what problems they need solved.

Having hobbies and side passions in your life is important for keeping your mind sharp and for alleviating stress that can arise in your business life. Dre is really into Jiu-Jitsu in his free time. He got into it when his oldest daughter wanted to try it out, but she wanted Dre to do it with her. Practicing Jiu-Jitsu has helped Dre to improve his health and develop how he thinks in a more strategic manner. And it has changed his life in so many other ways, including what he eats and his demeanor in general.

Chris and Dre talk about all of this and more in this episode of LMScast. To learn more about Dre you can find him on Twitter @DreMeda, and head on over to Sucuri.net to learn more about the information security tech solution they provide.

Sherry Walling of ZenFounder joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss wellness as an education entrepreneur. Chris and Sherry talk about the different mental health risks associated with owning your own business and how to deal with the stresses and anxieties that arise.

Mental health and wellness are very important for business owners because they often live very chaotic and stressful lives. This mental health is often not heeded by entrepreneurs as it should be. Sherry Walling is one of the founders of ZenFounder, which is a Podcast that teaches you about mental health topics relevant to entrepreneurs.

ZenTribes are groups of six to eight entrepreneurs who meet every week for eight weeks and then once per month after that for six months. The groups are led by Sherry, and she works with the entrepreneurs to work out the stresses and wellness issues they face in their daily lives as business owners.

Being an entrepreneur poses many stresses, and it can be a lonely road. Building habits that get you outside of your work and your comfort zone is important for your mental health as an entrepreneur, because you can run a serious risk of burnout and diminishing creativity if you don’t replenish your mental resources and give your brain a break.

Chris and Sherry talk about all of this and much more in this episode of LMScast. You can also learn more about Sherry Walling by visiting ZenFounder.com.

Grant Weherley of Monetize My Expertise joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss professional online course production and the essential elements that shape an online course. Chris and Grant also talk about how specialization in your business can improve your ability to deliver strong results by focusing one or two key topics.

Grant Weherley is the founder of Monetize My Expertise. He works with individuals who have a vast amount of knowledge and expertise in a certain area to turn their knowledge into income. Monetize My Expertise is a course production company, so they create things like the lesson setup, quizzes, and more.

Chris and Grant talk in depth about the four essential aspects of course building. The first being expertise or knowledge on a given subject. Second is the course production, which is how the course is laid out, put together, and taught. Third is the technology behind the course creation, for example: LifterLMS, video editing software, cameras, etc. Last but not least is the marketing that goes into the course.

Grant shares the process they use over at Monetize My Expertise to create courses with their clients. Most people only possess one or two of the fours aspects of course building, but it is important to recognize which skills you have and what skills you need to acquire, or find someone else who has them.

Chris and Grant create the comparison of course building to construction. Building a course is like building a house - you may know exactly what you want it to look like, but unless you’re an architect, you will not be able to build it alone.

Chris Badgett and Ali Mathis of the LifterLMS team join us on this episode of LMScast to discuss the combination of course quality, speed to market, and low stress that comes with the LifterLMS Done For You service and LifterLMS Expert program.

The LifterLMS Done For You service was recently re-launched, and it is back and better than ever. The LifterLMS Done For You service is a service where the LifterLMS team essentially builds your course website for you and inserts a course filled with filler information. Then all that is left for you to do is fill in the blanks with your knowledge and expertise, install a payment gateway, and get the word out!

One of the most crucial aspects of an online course is the design and production, and sadly this is the aspect most easily overlooked. It is often not enough to be an expert in an area to make an online course. You also have to know how to format and teach the course, and with an ever changing industry such as the internet you have to be on the cutting edge. This is where the LifterLMS Done For You service and the LifterLMS Expert program work their magic.

The LifterLMS Experts program is a network of online course creators and WordPress experts who know LifterLMS like the back of their hand. These experts can help you out with any problems you have, whether it is adding a payment gateway or modifying detailed aspects of the LifterLMS Launchpad theme.

Chris and Ali also talk about the different packages associated with the LifterLMS Done For You service. These packages are known as the Universe Bundle and the Infinity Bundle. They discuss these in depth in this episode, and you can head over to the LifterLMS.com website to learn more about these package deals.

Brand strategist and teacher at Minnesota State University Moorhead Katie Ellenberger joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to discuss how you can achieve great design for your business and create a powerful brand. Chris and Katie talk about a lot of topics regarding brand design that are relevant to course creators and business owners.

Katie works as a creative brand strategist at Spark27 Creative. She works with companies to develop their brand and craft creative marketing strategies. Katie also works as a teacher at Minnesota State University Moorhead where she teaches branding.

There are many things to take into consideration when building your website and business as far as branding is concerned. Chris and Katie talk about a lot of these aspects including color schemes, working with designers, getting in touch with you key message, and more.

A lot of people don’t launch their business, course, or membership site because they are afraid that it isn’t perfect and that will be their undoing. This is not actually the case most of the time, because companies will see further development as time goes on. So it is nearly impossible to have a perfect idea to start with. Chris and Katie discuss some different strategies you can use to build your ideas into a business, such as mind mapping as a strategy to avoid linear thinking.

Phil Derksen of WP Simple Pay joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. Chris and Phil talk about WP Simple Pay and how you can use it to test out your ideas for products and services on a basic WordPress website. They also talk about all of the unique functionality of WP Simple Pay.

Phil Derksen is the founder of WP Simple Pay, and it is a WordPress plugin designed to create fast checkout on your WordPress website. The payment aspect of WP Simple Pay is facilitated through Stripe, which is a system used to encrypt and collect credit and debit card payments online.

The great thing about WP Simple Pay and Stripe is that Stripe takes all of the sensitive information the customer puts in, and they are responsible for the privacy of the credit card numbers. Stripe also can translate the currency and language of your payment gateway in case your site didn’t already do that. With over 135 currencies, Stripe allows you to accept credit card payments from almost anyone in the world.

Chris and Phil talk about all of the different ways you can use WP Simple Pay to set up a checkout without having to deal with setting up shopping carts. You can create monthly subscriptions, one-time payments, payments for a certain period of time, and more.

You can also use a basic WordPress website with WP Simple Pay to validate your ideas before diving all in and creating a whole product around it. Chris and Phil talk about the importance of validating your ideas with service-based products or live events before creating a course around it. You can also use WP Simple Pay to cross-sell or upsell your current customers to your other products and services.

Mendel Kurland of GoDaddy and Camp Press joins us on this episode of LMScast with Chris Badgett of LifterLMS to talk about how to design events and leverage in-person Meetups for community building and training. Mendel shares his story of how he created Hiking with Geeks and Camp Press.

Hiking with Geeks is a Meetup for people who are in the technology space. People generally will meet at a hiking trail and hike for a few hours and network with one another. It is an inclusive, free activity that is meant to help people in the technology space bond and build relationships out of their normal context. Hiking with Geeks currently has around 17,000 members and roughly 10 to 50 people show up at each event.

Camp Press is another company Mendel started with the purpose of getting out from behind the computer and networking with other entrepreneurs. Camp Press is a longer excursion where a group of people go on a trip together for three or four days in a camping setting. Camp Press is usually a teamwork oriented bonding experience for the people involved.

Disconnecting from your normal life and routine can help to clear your mind and alleviate stress as well. Mendel specifically hosts Camp Press events at campgrounds where there is limited or no WiFi connection to force a focus on what is happening at the event. Mendel also creates a casual feel with the camps so you can kick a ball around, read a book, or relax around the fire. This also allows people to open up in the setting with their own interests.

Chris and Mendel discuss some tips for course creators, like how you should focus on your customer at every point in the development process, because they are the ones benefiting from the product so it is important to keep their best interest in mind at all times.

Mendel works at GoDaddy, and he is very passionate about GoDaddy’s products and services. You can check out what he and his team are working on at GoDaddy.com/pro.