In today’s LMScast Chris Badgett talks with Sebastian Cazacu about product management and project management for education entrepreneurs. Sebastian is a project management consultant and trainer who expanded into the online courses business a few years ago. His expertise in project management can help as you’re planning and strategizing your online courses.

Many people get confused when they think about product management versus project management. Managing the product means actually to manage the business, because the product is the value generation engine in your business. So whenever you say product management, it means you're managing all aspects of your business involving the product, starting with envisioning, creating, and selling the product, and also delivering and supporting the product. All these aspects are related to the product as the core part of your business. And for an education entrepreneur, the product is their course or education product.

Project management means to manage the work that you need to do in order to achieve various objectives as you advance your business. When you're executing a project, the result of that project will be the product.

When applying a product management versus project management approach, it’s important for education entrepreneurs to establish a product life cycle. The first phase is to clearly strategize your product into something you can create an action plan for. The second phase is to experiment and test your assumptions about your product. The third phase is growing your business and improving your processes.

Education entrepreneurs should consider which learning management system they’re going to use before finalizing their online course strategy, because their choice of LMS will also help shape their product through the tools and features available in the LMS.

Our LifterLMS course development platform has built-in features to let you engage with students, combine courses together into a certification program, and offer a free sample lesson as part of the course marketing strategy

You can get more information about Sebastian’s planning guide to help education entrepreneurs make better choices as they strategize their business at EducationProjectRoadmap.com.

Sharing your passion and expertise is key to keeping your students motivated and engaged. In this LMScast, Tim Cooper of eCourseDomination.com joins Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett for an in-depth discussion of engagement and online learning tools and strategies.

Tools like Blab and Periscope give your courses an in-person feel with features like live video and direct interaction, Q&A, and feedback. You can see if students understand your lectures or are having difficulty, which is especially helpful for students with language barriers or cognitive challenges. With these tools your courses will have presence and a level of accountability not easily achieved through text and graphic content alone.

Engagement tools make introductory courses more attractive by showcasing your knowledge, personality and teaching style. Students can really connect with you and will be more likely to take your fee-based courses. These tools are also great for interviews.

As an instructor your purpose is to help your students achieve the learning objectives they signed up with you to reach without losing interest or momentum. Engagement is vital to keeping them in process, and dynamic tools like Blab and Periscope give you one more teaching method to cover multiple learning styles.

Make sure your courses are personal, interactive, and fun in ways that other courses don’t offer. Our LifterLMS course development platform has content integration built in so you can include these interactive tools for engagement and online learning easily and intuitively.

Building online courses requires attention to details of design, marketing, and delivery, but it’s even more important that you have a vision for what you want your business to become. In this LMScast episode with Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett you’ll learn how to connect online courses together for increased income and impact.

You may already have a list of potential courses in mind or in the works that you want to create, but have you thought about ways to interrelate them? Sure, you’ve projected on beginner, intermediate, and advanced course sets, but most students satisfy their curiosity with the first course in a subject. However, they might be excited about related but attractively different courses.

Buyer psychology indicates that people don’t want to buy multiples of one item, but they will purchase sets of complimentary items. This type of upsell works with learning opportunities as well. A package deal of complimentary courses can be very attractive to a customer in the mood to purchase.

It’s amazingly easy to incorporate basic business and promotional strategies into your online course listings with a course development platform like LifterLMS, because automation and presentation capabilities are built in and ready to use.

Learning how to connect online courses together for increased income and impact will enhance your student experience and expand your business. The LifterLMS course development platform lets you discover and leverage the power of your full potential.

When you offer online courses through your own WordPress LMS site, you get to keep the majority of that revenue. But there are advantages to offering some of your content on large online course marketplaces as well. In this LMScast Joshua Millage and Chris Badgett explain how you can leverage online course marketplaces to drive traffic to your own WordPress LMS.

Online course marketplaces like Udemy have audiences that may be different and larger than yours, so you can reach more people when you leverage their systems for lead generation. One way to leverage an online course marketplace to drive traffic to your own LMS site is to offer your beginner’s course on their site, but to keep your more advanced courses on your own site. This strategy lets you keep the bulk of what you’re teaching on your own site where you own and control the content, and you can charge a premium for it and keep the majority of that revenue.

Be sure to read the fine print in the terms and conditions of the online course marketplace you use so that you stay within their restrictions.

You can increase engagement with your students on your own site in ways you can’t on online course marketplace platforms. On your own site you can use a LMS plugin like LifterLMS to utilize gamification in your courses and to send automated emails and drip content.

If you already have online course content on your own WP LMS site using a plugin like LifterLMS, you can easily put together a course in a marketplace like Udemy to start getting more leads and driving traffic to your own site.

Success in online course development depends on knowing what students want and providing that experience. This LMScast episode with Joshua Millage and Christopher Badgett details how to create with the customer in mind by thinking beyond your own ideas and seeing from their perspective.

In designing your courses you need to think about who you are serving, what you are solving and how your approach will be different. The most important aspect is to know your customers, and the best place to start is by segmenting your market. This allows you to drill down from the general market to an individual end-user persona. From here you can determine what kind of student will be interested in your courses, their lifestyle and interests, and whether you can actually make a profit from this market.

Your best research will come from finding your interest group and talking with them. Get their feedback and preferences, listen to them with an open mind, and start building rapport. Base your course design and innovation on what you learn from your target audience.

Beyond that, look at what other edupreneurs are doing and take notes on what is working for them – and what isn’t. Base your initial course offerings on your findings, then project on how you want to see your business grow.

Find a balance between envisioning what you want to build and learning how to create with the customer in mind. Our LifterLMS course development platform will help you develop your courses based on these principles.

This LMScast episode will tell you how to create an online certification program, reasons to target niche markets, and how to ensure your certification courses offer real value. The global eLearning market is a virtually untapped opportunity, especially for niche interest areas. Your expertise and passion can reach a world of people who need to learn what you can teach them.

There are several approaches you can take for your certification programs. If you are an expert in your subject or skillset, then you can establish your own certification for that area of interest. If your company sells a product that requires special expertise, the company can offer certification for its products and services. Or if you have a high level of competence in a product that another company offers, you may develop a certification program for their product or service, get it approved by their governing body, and present it to their users.

The LifterLMS WordPress plugin is a versatile and robust platform for building certification programs using traditional linear progression, or related elective courses, to meet specified certification goals. And with the new Course Tracks feature you can group courses into curriculums and automate delivery of achievement markers and certificates of completion as students meet course requirements.

As you determine how to create an online certification program, remember that your students are your primary focus. Whatever approach to certification you choose, your success depends on the value your courses provide through delivering a quality learning experience and final proof of competency.

You want to make sure your great course content is not diminished by bad delivery. This LMScast episode outlines three course blueprints for modern instructional design that works. We also tell you how to take advantage of our free mini course in design structure.

First, let’s define instructional design as the structure in which you build your eLearning environment to successfully progress students from their current level of understanding to a higher point of expertise.

You want to choose the right instructional blueprint for your course content according to your subject matter and the best way to present it. There are three basic blueprints: behavioral change, learning a process, and referencing information.

Behavioral training teaches students to achieve a goal by changing their behavior. Learning a process employs step-by-step tutorials on how to perform a task. Reference information is an in-depth study of a subject area.

Joshua Millage has created a free mini course to show you how to build your courses based on these three instructional designs. Just text message the subject “courseblueprint” to address 33444. You will be asked to enter your email address. We’ll then send you a link to the introductory course video.

Remember, our LifterLMS development platform is designed to allow you to build your courses using these three course blueprints for modern instructional design that works.

If you are evaluating LMS platforms for building online courses, you need to listen to this LMScast episode about learning management integrations vs. built-in features and how they apply to building online courses.

Features are built into a platform and thus are immediately compatible with that system. They provide a functional foundation but can limit your scalability, since they are built into the software. Integrations are add-on applications that connect your system to other platforms to expand your capabilities. They provide flexibility for growth and expansion.

It’s important for you to know what you want to do as you look at options for building your online courses. Our LifterLMS WordPress plugin is designed so users can create basic courses that work with existing features or freely customize the platform however they choose. We include basic features to get you started quickly and integrations to allow connectivity with other powerful systems, including progressive new applications.

The LifterLMS team also works with the open source community for development, upgrades, and support, especially for commerce options, extensions, and theme frameworks. Much like WordPress, LifterLMS is designed to help you address your needs for accessibility, scalability, and flexibility between learning management integrations versus built-in features as your eLearning environment expands. You can try a demo of LifterLMS at demo.lifterlms.com and see for yourself what it can do for you.

This LMScast episode outlines the top 3 mistakes eLearning entrepreneurs make and ways you can avoid them. This applies to both new and seasoned edupreneurs.

The biggest problem most people have is with time lost to struggling with obstacles. Trying to figure things out on your own wastes valuable time, energy, and resources. Looking ahead to eliminate those obstacles from the start is the best approach. Make sure you have a market for the courses you want to present, then choose a turnkey system like our LifterLMS WordPress plugin for your course development.

The next greatest problem is over complexity, and it’s a common pitfall with the seemingly infinite capabilities and options that current course building platforms offer. Plan ahead to include only the most necessary elements required to deliver the core information you want to present. Keeping your courses simple and to the point ensures a learning experience your students will enjoy.

Finally, trying to do it all alone is frustrating, time consuming, and completely unnecessary when you can simply ask for guidance from others who have already solved the same problems. With the LifterLMS platform you get simple instructional tutorials and videos, plus support from our software development team. Seeking help will get you through the course building process quickly and painlessly.

The LifterLMS team is dedicated to changing the way eLearning is done. We want to help you avoid the top 3 mistakes eLearning entrepreneurs make and support you in achieving edupreneurial success. Try a demo of the LifterLMS course development platform at demo.LifterLMS.com and see for yourself what it can do for you.

This LMScast episode outlines the ways current growth cycles of exponentially advancing technologies in learning management systems relate to you in developing your online courses. These concepts are based on those outlined by Peter Diamandis and Steven Kotler in their book, BOLD, and apply to technology as well as business.

The classic business innovation life cycle includes stages of implementation from innovators to early adopters, early majority, and latecomers. Exponentially growing technology follows the same patterns through digitalization, disruption, deception, demonetization, dematerialization and democratization.

Technology becomes exponential through digitalization. This disruptive technology lets you build an educational system online, which dematerializes and democratizes global access to learning. It demonetizes eLearning, too, as you only need a web host, WordPress, and a learning management system to create, market, and sell your courses.

The initial hype of deception delays adoption for many people, but eLearning has proven to be effective and profitable. The online course environment also fulfills the need for connection and communication more powerfully than ever before, as social media platforms like Twitter have shown.

Online learning management systems offer you the opportunity to create and shape the quality learning experience you want for your students, and to profit from sharing your knowledge and expertise.

The LifterLMS course development platform is designed to help you build your courses based on the growth cycles of exponentially advancing technologies in learning management systems. Try a demo of LifterLMS at Demo.LifterLMS.com and see for yourself what it can do for you.