LMScast with Chris Badgett

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Alex Standiford from Siren Affiliates, explains how AI-powered vibe coding can be used by non-developers, entrepreneurs, and course designers to create their own internal business tools, apps, and solutions without the requirement for traditional programming knowledge. Drawing on his more than ten years of expertise in software development, Alex argues that although AI makes coding more accessible, the proper foundations and development methods are necessary to produce dependable, scalable, and maintainable solutions.

He talks about typical issues including managing more complicated projects, technical debt, inconsistent AI-generated code, and losing context during lengthy coding sessions. In order to assist users in organizing their projects, reviewing AI-generated code, and avoiding typical development errors, he emphasizes the significance of coding patterns, such as adapter, factory, and registry patterns, as well as version control with Git and GitHub. Additionally, Alex provides real-world examples of how AI may be used to create bespoke dashboards, internet integrations, automatic podcast discovery systems, interactive product experiences, and internal business tools.

While highlighting the benefits of leveraging WordPress to create unique solutions through plugins and pre-existing connections, he describes how technologies like Docker, Railroad, DigitalOcean, and Vercel can facilitate the development and deployment process. He also talks about how his own job has changed from writing code to overseeing several development projects at once, coordinating AI agents, and evaluating their work.

Alex hopes to assist non-technical entrepreneurs in transforming their ideas into useful, dependable, and maintainable products with his new course, Vibe Coding Products for Scrappy Founders. He also expresses confidence about the future of open-source software like WordPress, outlining how AI makes these platforms even more beneficial for company owners looking to establish and expand their enterprises.

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Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show 

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a good friend. He’s back on the show. It’s Alex Standiford. You can find him at sirenaffiliates.com. We’re gonna get into his course, which you can find at novatori.us, so that… The name of the business there is Novatorius, so novatori.us.

But first, Alex, welcome back on the show. 

Alex Standiford: Hey, Chris. I’m really excited to be here. It’s always– I always have a lot of fun on this show and always enjoy our conversations. I always look forward to it. 

Chris Badgett: Absolutely. And you’ve got a new course, which you’re really hitting something that the market desperately needs.

It’s called Vibe Coding Products for Scrappy Founders. Yeah. And, the w- the way I like to think about that is there’s just this crushing demand for people who are starting to build apps, non-developers, and, you can get far with AI, but you s- you need some help, and you need to do it the right way, and you don’t know what you don’t know.

So tell us the story of why you created Vibe Coding Products for Scrappy Founders, which, as of this recording, it’s about to launch. It hasn’t launched yet. Yep. But tell us about the course. Like, where… What’s the genesis of it? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. The big thing is I I’m a product guy. I’ve been building products, I’ve been building s- solutions for, most of my career, and I realized that with AI, as it’s really taken off in this past year particularly I’m seeing a lot of people building things who haven’t had access to that before, right?

Who aren’t programmers, who don’t know how to do it or never had the education or took the time to learn how to do it, and they’re leveraging AI to build these entire products. And, but what I noticed was a lot of people… I was seeing a lot of problems. I was seeing a lot of commonalities where people were either, one, building something for themselves and weren’t really that worried about it ever actually becoming anything serious that other people would need to use or whatever.

And that’s fine. That’s a great use case for just vibe coding and not really worrying about the consequences ’cause it’s, as long as it isn’t something that somebody’s business or whatever depends on, it’s probably fine. But then I saw… I was seeing a lot of other people, especially in entrepreneurial circles and stuff like that, were building their products, intending to sell them.

And that’s a whole different thing because there’s no end to the coding, right? You don’t build something and then it’s done. It’s you build it, and then you’re adding new features, or you’re adding new capabilities, or people are running into all these different edge cases or all these other problems, and you have to maintain that code long term.

And AI, from my personal experience, is very good at writing code. It is not very good at writing consistent code that is architecturally sound. So in other words, that is something that can be maintained long term. And what I was seeing on a lot of subreddits and forums and conversations is that people were building these things and they would get 90% of the way there, and that last 10%, they couldn’t seem to get it right.

And it just seemed like everything was just falling apart and everything felt wobbly and kind of shaky, and people were feeling really frustrated by that. And then of course, there were other people talking about, running out of their usage limit or working like 20 hours in a single day because they felt like they couldn’t stop, because if they walked away from the chat, it would lose all of its context and now they have to figure out – they, they’re afraid that they’ll lose progress on where they are, the goal of this course is to combine my, decade plus of experience as a programmer and my knowledge in writing code and working with AI into something that is approachable for a non-developer, a non-technical person, to be able to sit down and learn how to build and maintain their products and help them get those products launched so that they’re able to actually make something that’s maintainable so they can get their business off the ground, and then probably eventually be able to offload that to a programmer and have the programmer be able to actually, work with it and not look at it and go, “Oh my gosh, we have to rebuild this whole thing 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome.

And for the course creators out there, or if you’re running an agency and you’re of the more non-developer variety, one of the things I’m noticing in the market is courses by themselves are no longer enough. If you’re a course creator and you haven’t thought about it, maybe your course is gonna solve some kind of problem, and your course is mostly delivering information.

Today, information is getting disrupted by AI tools, where people go to AI to learn. So it’s like course plus. Yeah. If you’re gonna offer a course, what else? Are you gonna give community? Are you gonna give worksheets, templates, coaching? What else are you gonna add to that?

And sometimes people would really benefit from an app that helps them get the result promised in the marketing of the course. So if I was, teaching something like real estate sales and targeting real estate agents, I might also give them an app that helps with cold outreach or some kind of custom real estate agent CRM sales app thing.

Yeah. And I could– But as a non-technical founder, that person could Vibe Code that, and now they’re not just teaching sales techniques, they’re giving a tool that will help the learner implement what they learn. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. And what’s interesting is it doesn’t even necessarily have to be a product, right? So the way it’s framed right now on the site is Vibe Coding products for scrappy founders.

But a lot of the stuff that I’ve been building has been around tooling and automations for my company to make it run more autonomously. For example one of the things that I’ve built was a tool that allows me to find podcasts to be on automatically, and it brings them to me and it sends it to me as a a list of recommendations or whatever for me to reach out to.

That, that is an internal tool that I’m using all the time and I’m making good use of. If you have the ability to work with AI and you can have a conversation with it to be able to build this stuff sustainably- It’s just generally a really good skill even if you’re not trying to build a product, right?

Because it allow– It just opens so many doors especially if you’re, budget conscious and there’s a few different tools that you don’t necessarily wanna, wanna pay for. I’m not saying you should go out there and build your own LMS or your own CMS or CRM or any of that stuff.

By all means, stick to what’s out there now. But maybe you create something that allows you to automatically connect one of those systems into your, an internal system or something like that, just to help take some of that friction off. I’ve seen a lot of a lot of, a c- of several of my clients, in fact, have already started doing that where they’re, they’re building out their own custom dashboards for their sales teams and stuff like that just because they can 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, I think those internal tools, we have so many dashboards and things now at Lifter, it’s awesome.

Yeah. And you’re right the internal tooling is super helpful. And you mentioned something which I think I’ve seen a pattern of, which is for somebody’s first tool, if you’re like, “What internal tool should I build?” Something that delivers I think of it a newsletter to yourself.

Alex Standiford: Yeah, 

Chris Badgett: a listening station. What- so that you can stay up to speed on what’s going on in your industry or across your, the key topics you need to be abreast on to just stay current and like a personal newsletter. Yeah. That could be a great first project, but what other kind of good first projects for internal tooling would you recommend?

Alex Standiford: Yeah. Obviously, like you just said, that’s a big one because you can find a lot of leads, you can find a lot of opportunities with that. So it’s really powerful in that regard. Another tool that we’ve built internally is a simple automation on our website, right? So we have several different extensions and customizations that we’ve made on our website that extends what it’s able to do.

Like for example our site now for these courses is using Lifter, of course, but it’s using it headlessly, which is a technical detail that doesn’t necessarily matter a lot here, but the point is we built that. That website I built was essentially vibe coded. It was built, steered by me, directed by me, but I didn’t write any of the code.

I had a system write that code for me based on, several weeks of iterating through design and stuff like that. But the the integration, for example, with Lifter, I have it set up to where it automatically connects with it, it uses it for access, it uses it for the purchase. Actually, we’re using WooCommerce on the back end as well, so it’s using the Lifter WooCommerce connection.

But then on top of that, it’s also leveraging Siren, which is my affiliate program product. But we have our own email system that we use, right? So that email system isn’t using like SendGrid or any- or Gmail or anything like that. We are using something that was way less expensive than what we were finding, and for us specifically, there was enough value to create an integration that allowed us to be able to work with that.

That’s not for everybody, right? Obviously, different people are gonna have different things there. It could depend on their kind of situation. But you could create more dynamic webpage demos, for example. So that’s been a big one for me, is I’ve been able to go a lot further on creating, Better web pages in general that are more interactive, that feel more like a team of 20 people did it instead of just me, right?

With animations and things like that. So that’s another big one that comes to mind for me, is just being able to promote your product better. 

Chris Badgett: Can you explain the concept of headless WordPress or headless LifterLMS? My understanding is it’s… I’ve, as a non-developer, I’ve always tried to figure it out, but I think my current understanding is the back end is powered by WordPress, but the front end website is not.

Is that- Yeah … what it is? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. Basically it s- disconnects the front end of the website, what is displayed and presented, with the back end of the website, which is where, all the database queries, purchase orders, and all those details happen. And there’s a million different ways- 

Chris Badgett: Is that a static, is that a static site then, on the front?

Alex Standiford: Mine is, yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. And there’s a million different ways that you can approach that, right? Some people are using WordPress fully, CMS, all of its CMS capabilities, and having it generate statically. Some people are using a blend. I’m using a blend, ’cause it’s faster for my team and myself to be able to just generate the content with AI directly as files instead of using WordPress’s block editor today.

Or at least whenever we built it. That’s already, even that has changed in the last six months. I’m not e- don’t even necessarily think of that as a recommendation that you should do it that way. It just happened to be, with my background as a web developer, I’ve always preferred headless when I can, because it allows me to be it allows me to use WordPress when it makes sense, but if there’s a different service or somewhere else that I need to connect to that isn’t WordPress it just makes it a little bit easier in general.

That’s the real benefit of it. It adds, and it adds a fair bit of overhead, obviously, but most of that overhead’s been mitigated by AI. And AI’s really good at writing React code, which is a specific type of code that is very common on headless websites. And I just found that it was able, I was able, for my workflow with how much AI coding I’m doing I was able to leverage it headlessly more effectively than I was going through WordPress in the process.

That’s awesome. So for me, really it’s less about… I selected that workflow specifically because it was most compatible with how I work, right? If I was a person who preferred the block editor instead of being a programmer or any of that stuff I would probably have not gone headless. In fact, my own personal website isn’t headless right now for that very reason.

Chris Badgett: Let’s talk about your course a little more. There’s key pro- AI is super exciting, but- Yeah … when you start building an app for the public or for an internal tool, you kinda, in my experience, I’m thinking of a couple main problems. One is, as it gets complex, it’s really fun in the beginning, but then it starts getting complex and you lose context or, it gets really expensive ’cause it’s looking at everything all the time, and there’s that.

Alex Standiford: Yep. 

Chris Badgett: And then there’s versioning. Like- Yes … to a non-GitHub user, they don’t really understand the importance of versioning. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And then the other one is just working on parts and I think you used the word scaffolding. 

Alex Standiford: Yes, 

Chris Badgett: scaffolding. So kinda, and that’s what you’re doing, is you’re taking, like, decades plus of developer experience and helping- Yeah

the vibe coder “Hey, we still need these fundamental software development things.” Like- Yeah … what are some of those problems and what are some of the solutions? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. Basically what I’ve done you’re on the right track there for sure, is I’ve taken my decades plus of experience in coding and, working with big teams, small teams, everything in between, and said, “These are the things that you still need.

These are still the pillars of what, modern software development, with or without AI, you need to have. And here are the things that you probably don’t need.” So the, the biggest problem that I see with it is I call it like the Jenga effect. Jenga? ‘Cause that’s how it feels.

As you’re building, you’re it’s like you’re pulling out a block from the bottom and you’re sticking it on top, and it gets bigger and bigger, but inevi- but it becomes less stable as it grows. So that is what it feels like to build with AI, right? And the big thing that I wanna do is I help people make sure that they keep their foundation stable as they’re growing, right?

It’s almost like you’re able to take blocks from a different set and stack them on top and not give those up in the process. And developers call it technical debt, but basically it’s, things are becoming progressively less stable over time because we have taken shortcuts or we made decisions in the past that are incompatible with where we’re at now.

And that is the biggest problem, and what’s funny is that happens way faster with AI that is being steered by somebody who isn’t aware or hasn’t experienced the consequences of a bad coding decision, right? A, an experienced programmer can look at code. I’m at a spot where I’ll watch the AI agent working, and I’ll see code just flash on the screen for a second, and that’s all I need.

I see it for a second, I go, “Whoa, whoa, that smells funny. That’s a code smell. Stop. What are you doing? That’s… Stop. We need to…” But a non-developer doesn’t have that, right? They don’t have that experience, they don’t have that context. So a big part of my course is about helping them create the guardrails and put them on a setup that protects them from that as much as possible.

Chris Badgett: That’s really cool. And then there’s the re- code review is like a thing- yeah … where you develop something, but then you don’t just cross your fingers and hope it works. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: So how does a non-developer do code review on code they didn’t actually write? 

Alex Standiford: Yep. All of this leads to the concept of patterns, right?

One of the big things that I teach, the biggest pieces of this course, is a series of coding patterns. And you can think of these as almost like templates, right? That are not a specific programming language. They’re… Any language can apply these patterns, and you’re basically saying, for example, one of them is an adapter pattern, right?

And it’s saying, whenever you have a thing and it needs to become a different thing, you need a third thing in the middle that adapts those things together so they can connect and work, right? And that’s, that term is adapter, right? And then there’s other ones like factory and registry, and there’s several.

I think I have at least eight or 10, somewhere around in there. But these are all of the patterns that I have basically settled on where every problem I’ve ever run into from a programming perspective in web in my realm can be solved by a combination of these patterns. And the reason why patterns are so important is because it gives you a common language with the AI agent, right?

So instead of saying… Instead of looking at every line of code, you’re looking at the patterns. You’re talking to them in terms of patterns. You’re saying, “Okay, so here’s what I need. Here’s what we’re doing.” In my head, what are… You can ask the AI agent how do you propose that we build this?” Now, if you ask an AI agent that without the context, that language, right?

It would come back to you, and it would spit out a response. And to a non-technical person, that’s not gonna be easy to understand. But if you tell it, “How are we gonna build this? Here are the patterns that you’re allowed to use. Help me figure out how we’re gonna do this,” and then you’re able to have a discourse with it where it speaks to you in terms of patterns, and you’re able to say that doesn’t seem like that’s the right pattern.

I wonder if we should use this one,” or, “Why did you s- not select this?” It lets you have that conversation, and then whenever you’ve already talked about all that and you understand the patterns on how it’s gonna be built, now everything you need to build is effectively broken into small pieces, right?

Because now it’s like, okay, so we can now take this and break it into pieces because we know what patterns we’re gonna do, so we know what how that code is gonna be orchestrated, and we have a very clear way to break it into smaller pieces. So with that- Now you’re able to review that code in those small pieces, one piece at a time, and you’re also able to understand what that pattern is.

So you can take a look at it and you can say, “Okay, that looks like what that pattern is supposed to do. That matches my expectations.” Even if you don’t necessarily understand what every line of code is. And general- genuinely or generally a lot of the code review becomes less necessary because you are loading up front with that, right?

So most of it is just saying, did the AI agent use what we planned, or did it, go off the rails and do something weird? And usually that’s a quick two to three-minute glance. You look over, you go, “Yep, that looks like an adapter. Okay, as long as the test passed, let’s move on.”

And then of course, that process all happens in a version control system such as Git, which we can touch on that a little bit next. 

Chris Badgett: Before we go to Git- Yeah … since I’m learning for free here and getting a ton of value here- Yeah. What is a factory pattern? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. So a factory pattern is basically i- imagine a factory, right? It produces widgets or a specific thing, right? So imagine a factory that does one thing. It’s spitting out sprockets all day, right? That’s effectively what that pattern is. It is a thing that produces one single type of thing. It might be able to create different ones with different num- like, different numbers of teeth or different diameters or things like that.

The shape of the thing it produces might be different. But generally, you look at them and you can go, “Oh yeah, these are all sprockets,” right? That’s how a factory works in real life usually. So that’s what a factory pattern does. So it says, it accepts inputs different things, different details on what it needs to know in order to be able to produce whatever it needs to produce, and then its output is the, the thing it needs to produce.

So it could be like, in a, in programming terms, that could be like a user factory. Maybe you have users on your product. Most products do, in fact. So you might have a user object, right? A thing that represents a user on your product, and a factory is the thing that helps you create that user object.

But what’s interesting is you could have multiple factories, right? So you might have one that is specifically for creating users from a LifterLMS plugin, right? So maybe I’m creating something that’s extending Lifter, and it’s also something that’s extending Siren, right? My product. You might have a factory that generates a user through a LifterLMS course person or a, a course creator or a customer, and that’s one factory, right?

It’s generating LifterLMS user factory, right? So it’s creating those users. And then you could turn right around and have the same thing from a Siren side, where it’s like Siren user factory, where it takes a collaborator in Siren and it generates it out as like a user. So those factories can do that one thing really well.

And since they’re both the same type of thing, then you can switch them out throughout your code and say, “Oh, for this one we need to use this factory instead of this one.” They’re all generating the same user object, but how they get there is different. 

Chris Badgett: So I know one big thing that a lot of people do with vibe coding is creating reports of some kind.

So would you have a report factory of sorts that’s- Yeah … it could be a different kind of report, but they all go through the same factory with similar output or whatever? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah, absolutely. So like an export of a CSV. So there could be a CSV factory that generates the CSV file whenever it’s being exported, or a PDF factory that generates it from a PDF, right?

It’s a single thing. It’s one job is to produce an out- an output like that. Exactly. 

Chris Badgett: And what’s… What happens when you don’t standardize these patterns? So- Like, how do people get off the rails with AI?

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Alex Standiford: Yeah. Th- and this is exactly why that is… That specific thing is important because now you’ve created one thing that does that one thing, and you can reuse that factory anywhere in your code.

But without that, what AI would do is it may not know that you’ve already created a way to generate users from LifterLMS, right? It may not know that, and it would just go, “Oh, okay. I need to go get the user from LifterLMS.” And this isn’t just AI, this is programmers, too. This is why we start… This is why whenever I’m, when I’ve wo- like at bigger companies that I’ve worked at, this is why we, as developers, as a team of developers, we speak in terms of patterns first because of this exact same thing.

So for example, they might say, or your AI agent might go, “Oh, I need to go get a user from Lifter,” right? And it will go, and it’ll get it, and it’ll create it, and it’ll write that code, and then three months later, you come back and you say, “Okay. I have this different thing of code, and it needs to create a user, too.”

So AI may not know or find that code where you’ve already solved this problem once, and it’ll do it again. So now you’ve got two different versions that are creating a user from LifterLMS or something like that, and they’re slightly different, or they’re slightly adjusted. And this is how you end up with those weird inconsistencies on your site where it’s like this thing created the user without any problem, but this thing over here for some reason doesn’t work.

Why is it not working here, but it works fine here? And it’s usually because of something like this, where the code has been created multiple times and there was some drift, or there was a bug that was solved in one and it wasn’t solved in the other one. So now the bug keeps on coming back in different places because you have to play Whac-A-Mole with all the different spots where that bug appears.

If you put it in a factory, it centralizes it all in one spot. So now that bug, you know it’s in that one factory, and you fix it there, and it’ll fix it everywhere 

Chris Badgett: I wanna give a specific example. As we’re talking, I’m thinking about Lifter users. A good internal tool you could create, particularly if you’re scaling, is you might have other coaches or tutors that work in your organization, and you may want some kind of custom app that you use internally.

Okay, this user ins- enrolled in the course, and you kinda create clients underneath these coaches or tutors, and it’s like this kinda separate thing that you manage your specific coaching or tutoring workflow. Yeah. That’s an example of a custom app you could build. 

Alex Standiford: And it’s funny you bring that up because that is a lot of the work.

So just real quick context for the listeners. Siren Affiliates is my is my product to manage and help people grow their businesses using incentive programs. And one of the challenges of my own product is it can build any kind of incentive program you can imagine, right? Anything from an affiliate program to you can have a course creator platform.

We did a video previously on how to create a clone of Udemy using LifterLMS Ninja Forms, and Siren, right? And Siren was able to keep track of how much money you owed to all of the course creators on your own platform-shaped course website, right? But the problem is that dashboard for that specific experience is absolutely gonna be tailored to that site, right?

I, as a product maker of Siren, would never be able to get that detailed because what you need from an experience standpoint is so custom to what you want that I will have trouble creating something that is as polished as you probably want it to be. And I think that’s what you’re getting at here, Chris, where it’s like, that front-end experience f- that, the user experience from that course, from the, the, the educator experience there, is absolutely something that is a great fit for this kind of thing, right?

Because you’re now able to create that extra polish on your website that allows your customers to be able to work with it. So in my case I have a customer who I’m working with who, who has this… They built this entire– they’ve effectively vibe coded this entire dashboard for a national p- pharmaceutical company that is selling, that has a sales teams and regions and all this stuff, and they used Siren’s system to, they use the engine behind Siren to make it work, but they aren’t touching my interface.

They built their entire, own entire interface on top of it, and it just connects to everything over the API. And it’s really, it’s actually really awesome. I’m actually a little jealous ’cause I would really like to have an opportunity to build something like that for Siren. But but it was really cool to see that.

But that’s a really good example of something that is such a good fit for this 

Chris Badgett: You mentioned Git. You didn’t say GitHub. And this whole thing of versioning control, and I think with the explosion of vibe coding- Yeah … there’s a lot of people starting to create GitHub accounts. But give us a general education on versioning Git versus GitHub and what, how it actually works and how to think about it for the, vibe coder that’s a non-developer.

Alex Standiford: Yeah. Git is– You can think of Git as, at its most basic level, the goal and purpose of it for a vibe coder, for somebody in this, in their situation, is to make sure that you always have an idea, or is to make sure that you always have a way to roll back to a previous version of your code if you need to, or to go back and look at what it was in the past.

Basically it’s history. It gives you a history of your whatever you’re pushing up there. So generally, that’s code, but it could be really anything text-based. It’s gen- it’s, agnostic in that way. It can be whatever you need. But the, at its base, that’s its core fundamental value and why it’s important, especially with AI, because if you’re ha- if you’re working with it and it made a whole bunch of changes to your code on your computer and you’re like, “Oh man, this is way off I just need to start over.”

If you don’t have Git or you weren’t using Git, you might not be able to, right? ‘Cause it’s been just changing files on your computer all day, and how do you revert? How do you get it back? You can ask the AI, “Can you put it back?” It’ll try, but it’ll probably make more mistakes and you’ll never quite get it back to where it was.

But if you’re using Git and your AI agent is, properly committing, in other words, adding updates to it and add- creating snapshots of your code frequently enough or at the right times you’ll be able to say, “This is really not working. Can we just roll this, can we roll it back to where we started this morning?”

And then the AI agent can roll it back 100% confidently without it needing to guess at what it’s doing. At the most basic level that’s the, the key thing. There’s also some other things, like it helps you with reviewing code a little bit because you can you can set it up to where it shows you the difference between where it was this morning and where it is now, and it’ll– and you can use GitHub or some other system like that to look at the difference between what it looks like now and what it looked like then.

And it’ll show you here’s all the code lines that were added, here’s everything that was removed. So you can get a really clear before and after picture and be able to understand what’s going on. 

Chris Badgett: Did you lay the foundational pieces for like what a beginner vibe coder needs? So for example, we’re talking about Git.

G- let’s say somebody like builds an app and they’re inside, ChatGPT or Claude Code or something like that. But you actually have to publish it somewhere. It may need a database. It may need a way to notify you or something like that. What… If you could just give a beginner vibe coder the essential stack of tools besides the AI tool, what do they need for an app?

When let’s say it’s internal, but it needs to be public-facing, like people at different computers need to be able to use it. 

Alex Standiford: There’s obviously many ways to approach that, but the simplest way to put it is they need a host, which is essentially somebody else’s computer that you’re borrowing, right?

And that computer is optimized. Not just some dude in the basement or whatever. It’s like an actual company that has a server, right? But you need a host to host that whatever your code is. In the 

Chris Badgett: cloud, essentially. 

Alex Standiford: In the cloud, yes, exactly. Yeah. You need a host for that. You need a way to get the code onto that host, which actually GitHub, which is which is essentially Git.

It is Git, but it’s like a service that allows you to give you… It gives you a UI in the browser. It lets you push code onto a server, their server, so that it doesn’t get lost or anything like that and stuff like that. So you definitely need that, but you need a way to push the code to your server consistently and securely.

You need backups, a way to be able to back up your stuff automatically, which most hosts provide. You need a way to be able to run the system on your own machine separately from on a server, so that you can build it, test it, work with it safely, create a s- basically a sandbox environment where you can tinker and figure out what’s going on.

And essentially those are the key pieces. It’s really those four pieces at minimum. Depending on what language your system is written in that might be… If you’re on WordPress and you’re building a WordPress, you could, that could just be a WordPress plugin, and what’s, this is what’s great about WordPress, is it collapses all of that into its own ecosystem.

That has been, been WordPress’s calling card. One of its best, most powerful things is it takes all of those four individual things and it just makes it a, a simple thing, right? So from a WordPress perspective, if you’re building a WordPress plugin, it’s literally- you would build the plugin locally.

You’d probably use something like Local by Flywheel or some other local w- WordPress development tool that basically sets up the environment for you locally. You would build the plugin in that local environment with your AI agent, and then whenever you’re done, you would ask the AI agent to zip it up, or you would ask…

Honestly, you probably should ask the AI agent to create a script that will zip it up for you, and then you can just upload it manually onto your site and update it to the next version, just like any other WordPress plugin. And then all of a sudden you have that whole stack. It’s all there and, taken care of.

But if you’re not on WordPress, then the process obviously is gonna be different depending on what you’re what host or provider you’re using. But all of them generally have pretty good workflows, and they’re all very motivated to make it compatible with AI. More often than not, you’re able to pretty safely just push to your deployment envir- your server without too much trouble.

Chris Badgett: Most apps collect some kind of data. So is the database, is that something that the host usually provides? Or how does- Yeah … how does one think about storing of the data? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. I one… It, again, that one depends on the tool and it also depends on the app, right? Some apps can get by without a database, but you’re right, 9 times out of 10 you probably want a database.

So they all have the ability to do it to provide you with a database to be able to save your stuff to at varying levels of complexity, right? One of them, for example, that I’ve worked with that’s not WordPress is Railway. They have a… They treat each piece as its own little container almost.

So you have the, your actual app, and then you have your database, and then you have, maybe the front end of the site or whatever, and they’re all s- three separate concepts and you’re able to configure backups and all that stuff directly through there. But again, if you’re on WordPress, you get the backups, you get the hosting, you get all that stuff for free.

If you’re looking, if you are building with Lifter and we’re talking in terms of vibe coding something that extends your WordPress website you’re probably just building a WordPress plugin or extending or modifying your theme, which the benefit of that, of course, is you’re getting the backups for free.

C- not for free, but almost all hosts provide backups these days. That’s pretty much a standard thing for WordPress. You’re getting, the, the database is just a part of it, right? Plus an, a database schema that already exists, so you don’t have to design the whole database yourself.

It’s already built. You’re just using what’s in WordPress most of the time. And you also have a pretty clear process for deploying that feels very natural to anybody who is WordPress users, ’cause ultimately your plugin just becomes a zip file that you just upload onto your site, and then you can upload it on staging or a staging site to test it or whatever.

But all of that stuff is very familiar to a WordPress user, so it’s, if I was vibe coding a product as a course creator, which I guess, I kinda am I would be leaning on, I would be leaning on WordPress where I can, building plugins and building things like that. A lot of my internal tools are just WordPress plugins 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome.

And just a quick related question, if somebody’s building an internal tool and it’s not on WordPress, what do you recommend for a host? And then you also me- recommended needing something for local development. Yeah. What would you recommend for those two? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah, so 

Chris Badgett: the- ‘Cause we all know that this audience will know WordPress hosting very well.

Yeah. But do you just still use the same one, or do you use DigitalOcean or something different? What’s vibe coder beginner friendly?

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Alex Standiford: Yeah. I’m really liking Railway right now. Yeah … it’s been, it’s just… It has everything I need. It’s affordable. It scales without me needing to mess with it.

I think DigitalOcean is really good as well. I have a couple things that I’m running on DigitalOcean, but it’s a little more hands-off than Railway is. I… railway holds your hand a little more and kinda makes that process a little bit easier. And to be honest I haven’t really interacted with the interface in Railway at all.

Very little, because my AI agent just did it, right? Because Railway has- It’s 

Chris Badgett: connected, 

Alex Standiford: right? Yeah. It has a, it has its own, command line interface that the AI agent is able to work with. I just authenti- I just get logged in, I get it set up, and then I’m like, “Okay, go do,” go make the site…

Go make this exist on Railway.” And it just does, right? Not saying you can’t do that with DigitalOcean and other things like that, but I just, I’ve really been enjoying that. Railway is particularly good with PHP, which of course is where most of my code is… Most of my code is written in PHP because of my background in WordPress.

Siren’s in PHP. I have a framework that I have called PHP Nomad which obviously is built very AI agentic friendly. It implements all these patterns that I talk about in the course. It can be used to build WordPress plugins. It can be used to build non-WordPress plugins. It can be used to be built, to build things that works both as a WordPress plugin and not.

In fact, that’s what Siren is, right? Siren has two different editions. It has the self-hosted edition, which is the WordPress plugin, and then it has the SaaS version, which is for people to log in and create the account. The software is the same between the two of them. It’s just using PHP Nomad, and it’s converting between WordPress and non-WordPress.

And guess what? A lot of that stuff are using adapters to adapt it to and from those different places. But Railway’s really good. If you’re talking in terms of JavaScript or something like that I use Vercel for a lot of my front-end stuff. Very easy. Very friendly for getting deployed and getting it out the door.

Those are great starting points. I could get into the details of why you might wanna move away from something like that in the future, but honestly, it’s kinda like buying your first guitar. It’s like you don’t know what you don’t know. Just buy a guitar and play until you realize what you miss, what you wish you had, and then that’s how you know 

Chris Badgett: What about local development?

What’s the difference between using the Claude desktop app locally on your computer versus local development of another kind? 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. So that line is starting to blur more and more as time goes on. Okay. But right now the, the Claude desktop app generally feels more like a, an assist- not just Claude, but also ChatGPT’s assistant.

They– It feels more like an assistant that can kinda help you do things on your computer, right? It can open your web browser and click through stuff and do things like that. But Claude Code and Codex, which are the two primary ones that I think most, most people are using right now at least,

Chris Badgett: Cursor’s another one, right?

Alex Standiford: Cursor’s another one, yeah. I don’t even use an ID- a code editor anymore. I’m just using my terminal, and I’m just working directly inside of it from there. But that’s, that’s a, just a personal preference thing. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with using Cursor or any kind of code editor.

The way I’m designing the course is it’s around the essentials and the fundamentals on how your… It’s about your relationship with the AI more than anything. I try to avoid getting too in the thick of those different tools. But most of the stuff that I’m doing these days, I’m just using Docker.

I’m using Docker containers and Docker Compose, which I woul, to be honest, because three years ago I would’ve never in a million years said to somebody who’s never written code, “Go use Docker.” But now here we are, because AI is able to use it. It just solves so many of those problems, because what it– So many problems, ’cause what it does is it basically creates like a bubble in your computer, like a container in your computer, and it installs everything it needs inside of that container, like p- all the dependencies that your software might need for your hosting environment and all this.

It installs them all in this nice little, this little bubble, this container, and it just works. You don’t have to install all this stuff on your computer that’s special for that software. It’s all installed inside of that container. And what’s really amazing about that is then once you do that, you can now, whenever the time comes to get that on your server or on your host, you just take, you just have it use Docker too, and it uses the same container configuration.

So now you don’t have to figure out how to manually install all the dependencies on that system. You just install Docker. You say, “Here’s the file that you need to set up this system. Go use it.” And it just does it 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah, it’s so much easier. 

Chris Badgett: And one more question for you. I know we’re over.

Do you have a few more minutes? 

Alex Standiford: I’ve got nothing but time, Chris. 

Chris Badgett: We’ve been talking a lot about the, the beginner vibe coder, but you yourself as an advanced developer, I think people are curious, and I’ve seen this pattern where some of the best developers I know say things like you said before we started recording, where you haven’t personally written a line of code since January.

Alex Standiford: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: So how do you get there a- as a more advanced developer, and what does that mean, and what do you… just tell us about that transition, ’cause that’s a big change in society- … in the world of software development. 

Alex Standiford: Yes. I remember the ex- yeah I was dealing with an existential crisis in the month of December of last year.

Yes, I really was. And it’s,

Chris Badgett: So you’re more of an orchestrator now than a developer. 

Alex Standiford: Abs- 100%. Yeah. But- it’s orchestration, it’s review. The biggest challenge has been switching- As programmers, we are trained and the environment around us is built to protect deep work, our deep work. We are trained and our brains get wired, have been wired to go deep on a problem, be deep in the woods.

We like it there. We’re comfortable there. That’s why whenever you talk to a programmer, they always inevitably start talking about the trees, even though you’re looking at the forest. You know what I mean? Because they like it. That’s where they’re comfortable. That’s where they’re cozy. Everything about a developer’s experience is that.

And if you look at company infrastructures and setups and software companies, they’ve built the entire company around protecting the developer’s ability to do that as much as possible. And that that has largely gone away. That’s been the biggest challenge for me is I am no longer going really deep on one problem like I used to anymore.

I am going a little deep, deep enough, but still needed to be able to know when I need to pay attention and go deeper on different things. But I’m doing it concurrently across multiple things. It feels like I’m spinning plates, right? Or I’m juggling. And that is not something that I personally…

That was a strength of mine because I was a developer. And before I was a developer, I was a mechanical engineer for a decade before that, and it was the same exact thing. It was leave me alone, I’m creating a 3D model, I’m not gonna be available for four hours, and I just wanna turn on my music, jam to some heavy metal, and just make something, right?

And that’s largely gone, which genuinely is painful. That really hurts. It sucks because it was so satisfying to get to build, right? There was a lot of art in that, right? And, but so the biggest shift for me professionally though, aside from the existential crises and all the other things that come with, you know, why am I here?

Why am I a developer? What is my role in this world professionally now that this agent can do something that takes me months and, a day? And a lot of that has become learning how to context switch better, right? That’s been a muscle I’ve had to train and work on. And to be honest, it’s a muscle that I’ve really needed to work on in general as an entrepreneur, as a founder, as a business owner.

You’re wearing hats all day, you’re changing hats all day. Programmers aren’t typically that great at that. And that’s been the biggest change for me professionally is learning how to do that. It’s helping me in other areas as a result, but that, that was a pretty painful transition. I remember just…

even still now, I will just end my day utterly exhausted compared to what I was before because context switching is expensive. And, your brain has to get rewired to learn how to do that 

Chris Badgett: So it’s kinda like as a pure developer in the old world, you’re a specialist, and now you’re having to figure out how to be a generalist and then orchestrate all these s- plates at the same time.

Alex Standiford: Yes, exactly. 

Chris Badgett: But, you’re smiling now so I’m gonna- Yeah … ask, like, how did you solve the existential crisis? Like, how did you cross the chasm? 

Alex Standiford: As I was spinning plates, I realized that the problem I’m facing right now is I’m spinning plates. It the, the problem just kinda elevated to another tier, so now any of my technical stuff from a developer standpoint is being poured into…

my outlet for that is being poured into, how can I orchestrate these systems to run more effectively these AI systems? How can I push that envelope to where they are not forcing me to context switch so much, where they are doing things and going longer without needing me, where I’m able to figure out where I am essential and where I’m maybe not so essential and how to make sure that whenever I do need to be in that flow state, that the flow state is still preserved at the right time.

And honestly, a lot of those challenges are the spirit of this course, right? Because that’s a lot of the stuff I’m talking about is, how I overcame spinning those plates and feeling tired and feeling exhausted and getting frustrated with it being 90% of the way there and working till way past 5:00 because I’m afraid of stopping because I don’t wanna lose my context or what’s in my head.

Those, a lot of those problems aren’t new. It’s just they’re… All the shakeup is making them appear in new ways. The, a lot of the, a lot of the work in this course has been, is very technical in nature because it is me showing and teaching, “Here’s how I’ve overcome this. Here’s how I’ve been able to minimize my own context switching, and here’s how I’ve been able to make sure that, AI is working reliably, and here’s where I’m at right now.”

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I feel like we’re in a, what I call a WordPress moment. Yeah. So I’m not a developer, but when WordPress came around, I could build websites and s- web applications for people, and got bigger and started incorporating real developers and designers and things into the team. But now with vibe coding it’s that same moment just like WordPress was for me.

Oh, I can build a website. Now I can build apps- 

Alex Standiford: Yep … 

Chris Badgett: and do development essentially without necessarily needing to understand every single character and line of code. Yeah. That’s what WordPress did for me in 2008 or whatever it was. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. And it’s funny you say that. I actually think that a lot of people in the WordPress space have gravitated to AI pretty fast.

I feel like a lot of the people I’m following on Twitter, a lot of my friends and a lot of people I’ve known for a long time have really stepped into AI pretty quick. They were all for it, excited about it, and I genuinely believe it’s because they recognize that pattern, right? I certainly do.

I saw it, and I see it in the same way. I see this as a WordPress moment. I see this as a, I told myself even back whenever I first saw AI, like the first moment, I r- you- I remember the day I used ChatGPT in like 2021 or 2022, I can’t remember exactly what year, but I used it and I was like, “Oh, this is it.”

This is that once every few decades disruption that, And I was a little late in WordPress. I didn’t really come in until 2014, 2015, and there was a lot of things that were already established. I told myself, I was like, “I am not gonna be late to this party.” I am, I m- I know where this is going.

I know how this is gonna work, and I know how it’s gonna play out broadly just ’cause I’ve already seen it. I watched it happen right in front of me, and I’m like, “I’m gonna be on the front end of this wave for sure.” 

Chris Badgett: Let’s put a little hope and optimism out in the world, ’cause- 

Alex Standiford: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: I see some…

there’s some… I’m not talking about AI doomerism- Yeah … or WordPress. What I’m more talking about is oh, WordPress is dead, or websites are dead. Yeah. The whole economy’s gonna be agents or whatever, but- Yeah … I see it like WordPress is awesome because- Yeah … and it’s still…

It’s just saying email is dead or SEO is dead. Those things aren’t dead, but it’s changing, and there’s more things around at the party. But WordPress is open source, which means that, AI can see all the code in every WordPress plugin or theme or in WordPress core that’s ever been written.

That’s a pretty cool thing. Yeah. And by the way, there’s a lot of smart people like Alex and many others in this community that love this stuff. There’s this whole community. It’s not like a small closed company. But give us some WordPress optimism. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah. So I always in general, I just always bet on open source.

Even with AI, I’m still betting big on open models, like open source models and stuff like that because I think that they’re the future in the same way that I believe WordPress was the future whenever it first came out, right? And but I think that in terms of WordPress specifically, there’s a couple things there.

One if you think back to what I was just talking about, all the de- deployment flows and all the different ways you can do that, right? It’s pretty tough to beat, or you could just upload a plugin. You know what I mean? That’s incredible to me. And w- AI has definitely made working with WordPress easier.

I’m not working in it nearly as much as I used to, as much as with it. WordPress is still in my stack, and that’s another factor. I– After everything I’ve just told you, all my capabilities, I have not written a single line of code myself, but by driving and steering AI, I have written probably a decade’s worth of code this year so far that I’m using, that I have access to.

It is… i’m not even exaggerating at all when I say that is how much more code I’m writing, right? I am that far ahead, and in spite of that, I’m still using WordPress for large pieces of my site. I’m still using it for my backend, for my Novatorius website. I’m still using it, I’m still using Lifter to manage engage, like the access controls, courses, and all that stuff.

I’m still using eCommerce. I’m still using WooCommerce for that. And that’s… it may not be the way I work with it has changed drastically, right? I don’t work inside of the block editor like I did a few years back necessarily because I found that six months ago, whenever I built my sites, which, in AI terms was an eternity I was faster at cr- producing content without the block editor.

But that doesn’t mean that’s the case now. I don’t even know, to be honest. I guess I did build a site earlier this year with- for a client where we did a lot of AI stuff, building custom blocks and stuff like that. So it’s all still there, and it’s all still relevant and still good. There’s still huge companies that are still absolutely leveraging WordPress.

And there’s no even just like Gravity Forms, for example, is another one, or Ninja Forms or the forms plugins. They have so many integrations. They’ve already solved this problem, and if you’re using something like WordPress and you’re integrating with what’s already in WordPress, you’re still solving that same problem that WordPress initially solved for people, which was, I don’t have to write as much code.

And that has always been a big benefit for WordPress, and I think that the people who are saying WordPress is completely dead because I can write and maintain more code than I’ve ever been able to write and maintain are filling the wrong bucket, is kinda how I think about it. And what I mean by that is there was a vacuum in my availability as a programmer, right?

Because all of a sudden, I don’t need to review as much. I don’t need to write as much. This whole thing that I was having to do evaporated literally overnight, all of what do you do with that time? I personally don’t wanna just write more code. I have all these other things that have been holding me back because I’ve been writing too much code.

I don’t know, finding some customers, doing a little more marketing, getting on podcasts doing the things that I know I should be doing, but I don’t have time to do it ’cause I was too busy writing code. And I think that WordPress still solves a lot of that because it makes it to where you’re able to still get the same solutions and build those customizations without needing to reinvent everything in the process.

That’s still true today in WordPress, and just because the price of that is cheaper than ever doesn’t mean that the cost of maintaining that long term is as cheap as you think it is. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. That’s Alex Standiford. Go check out Siren Affiliates. It’s not just an affiliate platform, it does all kinds of partnerships.

Go check out pa- past episodes I’ve done with Alex on Siren. Go check out our YouTube video on how to build a Udemy clone with LifterLMS and Siren. By the way, if you’re… connect your AI tools and you feed it the transcript of that video about how to build a YouTube or sorry, a Udemy clone your AI tool’s gonna help you do that even faster, which is Alex’s point about accelerating speed and freeing up time to do more things.

And go check out his course. That’s at novatori.us, so Novatorius? 

Alex Standiford: Yep. 

Chris Badgett: And I wanna thank you for coming on the show, Alex. I can’t wait to see where you are in a year. It’s probably gonna be six months or even three months, we’re gonna do this again- Yeah … and the world will have changed again. 

Alex Standiford: No kidding.

Chris Badgett: But thanks for coming on. Any final words for the folks out there, or how to connect and how to get involved? And by the way, I just wanna say, Alex, one of the ways he was able to cross the chasm from developer to orchestrator is he’s always been an entrepreneur, so he’s always been spinning a lot of plates.

But now he can spin more plates. 

Alex Standiford: Yes. Yes, absolutely. That was a big thing. Yeah, I guess the only other thing that I might wanna add there is just just keep going. Things are off right now, and information is really in a weird spot. Even with my, the course that I’m launching it’s…

a lot of the information on that course is oftentimes things that can be done discovered or figured out through AI with a little bit of time. But to me, it’s all about being a curator, right? I’m curating good content and I’m bringing it together, and that is the fun- fundamental value that I think my course has, and I think that in terms of courses and course content in general, that still is true.

And information has always been accessible to us ever since the internet has been a thing, and don’t get discouraged by that and just, be a good curator and provide the right kind of content, and I think, if you find the right audience it’ll it’ll grow. 

Chris Badgett: So if you’re getting into vibe coding, put Alex Standiford in your corner.

He’s an excellent developer, but he’s also a great teacher and guide. So thanks for coming on the show, Alex, we really appreciate it. 

Alex Standiford: Yeah, thanks Chris.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Dr. Scott describes how he used LifterLMS to transform his expertise as a college chemistry professor into a profitable online learning company called Learn with Dr. Scott. He describes how, in order to have control over his website, courses, fees, and the entire student experience, he began with phone tutoring, switched to Zoom lessons, and ultimately built his own WordPress-based platform in 2019.

His approach to teaching is based on simplifying and making difficult science understandable. His classes employ mastery-based learning, in which pupils continue to study until they fully comprehend the material. Students do printed worksheets with pen and paper, accompanied by theoretical teachings and thorough walkthrough videos, rather than using automated quizzes or multiple-choice exams. In order to allow pupils to concentrate on truly comprehending science, he purposefully reduces difficult math.

Scott’s success was largely attributed to his discovery of the homeschool market. At first, his classes were designed to prepare students for college, but he was asked to develop scientific courses by homeschooling families. He came to the conclusion that parents required a well-structured curriculum without having to devote hundreds of hours to its creation and administration. His marketing strategy evolved into this: parents simply need to spend a few minutes per week ensuring their children are following the course, while Scott provides the curriculum, worksheets, explanations, and structure. He also discusses how he came up with his pricing and business plan.

He provides an economical $20/month subscription with unlimited access but no personal assistance, alongside higher-priced courses costing about $300–$400 that include lifelong access, grading, email support, and Zoom help. Over time, he discovered that families preferred the low-cost, flexible, self-directed option to traditional teacher-supported online education. His experience with AI and seasonality is among the most fascinating aspects.

Strong sales around September, some activity in January and February when families switched curriculum, and very little activity in May were the typical cycles of his homeschool company. However, he discovered that this trend altered very rapidly. Despite doing almost no marketing during that time, he observed purchases in May and July, and he thinks AI systems may have begun driving more people to his website.

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Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Dr. Scott Beaver. You can find him at learnwithdrscott.com. Scott teaches hard sciences, I believe Spanish, meditation, and some other things. He’s a prolific course creator and provides a lot of value to homeschooling families as well as even college people who are behind on some of their chemistry and other things.

But first, welcome to the show S- Scott. 

Dr. Scott: Thanks, Chris. Nice to be here. 

Chris Badgett: I’m really excited to get into it with you. From my research, you started using LifterLMS in 2019. I know you were a college professor, and you ended up on a beach, and you really made- … a major change in your life. Tell us what happened.

Dr. Scott: Yeah, I was as Chris said, I was a, a college chemistry professor among other things. I decided to maybe take a month off and hang out on a remote beach in Mexico, and it was kinda time to maybe get back to work or something like that. And this was, like, 10 years ago. Somebody, a parent called me, asked if I could do basically a tutoring lesson on the telephone, which I had never done before.

And I said okay. Sounds, sounds, sounds fun.” I did it, and then it it occurred to me to use Zoom video conferencing to have classes online. And I was I was doing that for some years, picking up a lot of students. And it was getting to the point that I was spending more time with files, like sending kids videos, sending kids worksheets, checking emails.

I had… I was like, “Man I have a kind of a heavy lifting problem here with all these files.” And I started searching for different LMSs, and I really wanted something I could build my own website and have control over the thing, as opposed to, just using a platform where you end up at the mercy of the platform.

And I saw LifterLMS. It integrates real, real easy with WordPress. And yeah, it’s been quite a few years, and I’ve been quite, quite a happy quite a happy LifterLMS user since then. So 

Chris Badgett: that’s- That’s awesome … that’s just- Was that your first introduction to WordPress, or had you already been playing around with that?

Dr. Scott: That was also my first introduction to WordPress. The first website I’ve had a lot of web building experience. I guess when I was in when I was in graduate school, I was building just HTML, PHP websites, kinda, may- maybe kinda nerdy, but there was no no, no WordPress, no nothing, just kinda code.

And then, yeah, a lot had happened in the years. I hadn’t done anything web-oriented for probably 10, 15 years or so and started getting into WordPress about that time. So yeah, Learn with Dr. Scott was the first first WordPress implementation that I did. 

Chris Badgett: Did you find it easy to get started with because you already had the background in PHP and everything else?

Dr. Scott: Yeah, I thought it was incredibly easy. I was, dreading coding another website and, it was… I thought it was gonna take forever, and then I realized that the technology had kinda come to the point that it was sorta drag and drop and a lot easier to sorta develop products without having to worry about the actual website development.

More or less just kinda works, and if not there’s a plugin that solves that problem.

Chris Badgett: So tell us about your teaching method. What are the courses like? And I think you have something where the, the students do a self-evaluation- 

… 

Chris Badgett: Be- before you come back. Tell us how that works. 

Dr. Scott: Yeah. So the idea is basically to have the world’s easiest science classes that at the same time are rigorous.

And a lot of people think that rigorous means it has to be difficult or complex. It’s just kinda… It’s more about the structure of the thing, how one thing builds on another so that students can get basically experience learning how to create structure for themselves.

That’s the key skill I see that helps people have success in college- … understanding the format of a course, how it’s structured, learning how to learn. And then I do… As, as far as the website goes, it’s basically what’s called mastery-based grading, which just means that you go through the material, you just keep working at it till you get 100% 100% of the knowledge.

And as, as far as structuring things, I kinda have it structured a little bit like an old school college classroom where you had lecture and recitation. So during the lecture, there’s basically an hour of videos that are explaining things theoretically, and then they the learners get a worksheet that they print out and, work through with a pen and paper to get the hand-eye coordinated hand-eye coordination emphasized ’cause I, I think it, does a lot for helping develop the brain.

And then there’s basically a second set of videos where I’ve pointed the camera down. You tend to be looking at my paper in my hand with my pen writing out the answers and explaining every detail of everything so that I, basically do questions by email and telephone, but get very few questions from parents ’cause it’s complete.

It has the theoretical side of things, it has the practical side of things, and it basically kinda helps learners learn how they learn, some people like to hear the theory and figure out their process. Some people just learn by copying, that was traditionally Maybe considered a no-no in the education world, but the fact of the matter is a lot of, we’re, our mind is built to mimic what we see.

It’s obviously like a first step kind of copying until you get comfortable with it and then taking off on your own. But the idea is basically to kinda give learners that spectrum between theory and practice and find, the optimal point for them because everybody just learns differently and it’s, it’s important to find a, an online course that matches your learning style.

That’s the most important thing to me. And maybe just to point out too, so that’s the, the, the, the company is called Easy Hard Science, so that’s kind of the hard science aspect of it. It’s, quote, “rigorous,” it lets students find their learning style. And then the easy part of it is I made basically science courses with very little math in them.

We work with the numbers zero through nine so that everything can be counted on the on the fingers. So there’s no no like advanced math. That’s kind of a major stumbling block for a lot of people is that they wanna take a science course and then it ends up just being a bunch of math problems and neither the math nor the science gets learned.

So it’s it’s a nice easy format for people that, maybe don’t wanna end up being career scientists. They wanna get some science, but don’t need all the hardcore math. And then that kind of opened up a door to another market segment as well is like younger gifted learners, which I was one.

When I was young, I was taken out of the regular classroom and put in like the advanced classroom, and there’s a lot of, younger learners that have a lot of interest in science but they’re not ready for the math yet. So it’s it’s nice for the younger gifted populations, as well as those that just want a rigorous science background, without all the struggling through the math.

Chris Badgett: You mentioned a lot already, but the question is how do you make people fall in love with science? You’ve mentioned different learning styles, like theory, practice, copying. 

You mentioned removing the math part, which tends to hang people up. But what else do you do to just make it fun and enjoyable?

And yeah that’s the emphasis- I’m sure it’s really 

Dr. Scott: satisfying … is having a fun class, being interactive, with the learners when we’re on, when we’re on Zoom. And basically just bringing my personal story into the lessons as well, showing people what I’ve managed to do with science.

I’ve done a lot of hardcore scientific things, but also just, kind of globe trekking, setting up websites at the beach. Oh, y- you give people a, a look into the, the personal life and what’s what’s possible with teaching. A lot of people have this sort of very sort of static, rigid classroom in their mind, and that’s, that, it doesn’t have to be that way.

There’s a lot more to be, a lot more to be had, fun to be had with education 

Chris Badgett: Did you kinda deliberately target homeschoolers somewhat? Or did that just emerge as “Oh, I have a lot of homeschool families interested”?

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Dr. Scott: Yeah that actually just emerged. I was kinda mostly focusing on like college prep because I was I was a college chemistry professor.

I taught I taught some classes at c- community colleges that was like a chemistry, like pre-college course that we forced students to take it, but it was too preliminary. It didn’t actually count for credit. So I was basically kinda helping people like kinda save a year getting into college, being up to speed.

And then I started having homeschooling groups sorta ask me if I could put courses together for them, and then I started going more so in the homeschooling direction ’cause it was fun working with with the younger learners that really had an interest in science. And, as, as, as, as opposed to, to kinda elaborate on the last question about making people fall in love with science, it’s a little bit of little bit of a job with the older learners to kinda connect with them.

But the younger gifted learners just had this appetite, this love for science, and it was it was a vacuum to fill. So it made made my life really easy having such a motivated motivated group of families to work with. 

Chris Badgett: How do you, if somebody else is like a professor or a teacher and they’re interested in your journey- 

What’s your experience and advice for selling chemistry to like non-chemists, like to, to the parents? ‘Cause it’s one thing if like the student buys, but I’m imagining the parent buys often. So h- that sounds like a little tr- tricky to make happen. How did you do it? What advice do you have? 

Dr. Scott: Yeah. It’s very interesting that you said that because the, the product’s for kids, but we’re marketing to parents.

That was definitely a major optimization point that took some years to figure out. But ba- basically what I what I promise the parents is, I want five minutes of your time every week. If you spend five minutes to set a schedule, give the kids a block of time to work with, you don’t have to actually check the work, you don’t have to get involved in the nitty-gritty details of the periodic table or some chemistry reaction.

Just see that they’re working, see that they have the worksheet, see that the information flows. Usually people kind of email in the work every week and, basically take five minutes of responsibility and everything’s just gonna, just gonna happen. So it’s selling the possibility of an autopilot button to the parents.

A lot of them, as you probably know, is homeschooling parents. Some, some homeschooling parents put together the whole curriculum and they spend all summer looking for, looking for materials and it’s maybe doable, up to about middle school or something. But a- asking a parent to put together like a chemistry course or a biology course or, anything quote rigorous where one lesson builds on the next, it becomes more than a year’s work to put together a year’s worth of schooling.

So ba- basically saving, saving tons of time and having a really high quality outcome in terms of motivated kids learning the material. 

Chris Badgett: How about your pricing and bundling journey? It’s kinda hard to figure that, all that out I imagine. Do you know how many courses you have total right now?

And what have you figured out from a business model, pricing, bundle kind of strategy? 

Dr. Scott: Yeah. That’s a really good question. I’ve made a lot of courses over the years. Some that worked, some that didn’t work. Pro- probably like many course creators, I didn’t realize that, making the course is half the work and selling the course is the other half of the work.

So I was little too heavy in the course creating the first few years till I found the balance. But we basically have on the website now there, there’s three chemistry courses which could presumably be kinda like two years of high school chemistry. There’s a couple biology courses that are a year of high school biology.

There’s a couple of physics courses That are a year of high school physics, and basically parents use these for credit logging on their high school transcript as well is the other selling point to parents. Save time, get credit. And then there’s two algebra courses, Algebra 1 and Algebra 2 that kind of have algebra compressed into a half year.

So maybe not exactly for credit, but getting math done really quick. So we’re kinda, kinda focusing on like for-credit college prep things that younger gifted learners could work could use to, to to get ahead in school. And we kinda, ended up settling on two price points.

I do a monthly membership for $20 that’s unlimited access and also unsupported, so they can take as many classes as they want, and it’s basically like the parents are doing the grading, and there’s answer keys and explainer videos, like I said, that, nobody really gets stuck. And then there’s a course purchase where they can purchase the two years of chemistry, the one year of physics, the one year of biology.

Prices are between about $300 to $400, and that you keep the course for life. The whole family can use it, and it includes my grading services and questions by email and Zoom. It’s interesting because that was back when we started this before the pandemic, that was the, the preferred option.

People wanted a real teacher. They wanted grading. They wanted somebody to ask for questions. They wanted somebody to hold their hand, getting to class on the first day. And things have changed a lot. The, the, the online education market, especially for, kind of formal education is maybe saturated a little bit.

I had the advantage of being early before the pandemic. I think when COVID struck, there was, all of a sudden 100,000 school teachers that wanted to do the same thing. And I don’t know what, what happened. Maybe the market just kinda, k- saturated. I think people were kinda…

Families were maybe a little tired of having all these teachers. They just wanted the product, just wanted it as streamlined and flexible as possible. So we do mostly the kind of unsupported $20 a month membership. So I think that’s what I ended up doing. I’ve got the bottom and the top of the market.

It’s like the same class, just unsupported on your own for a low price. And then, for people that want like the personal support and tutoring and everything, there’s like a one-time, one-time price between 300 to $400 for a year of courses. 

Chris Badgett: You also have a thing or a stance where I think you don’t do multiple choice quizzes.

Dr. Scott: Do you? No. So it’s all it’s all literal worksheets. Yeah. The kids get a PDF and they print it out, and yeah, I want to em- emphasize the hand-eye coordination. So there’s no no, no sort of automated testing whatsoever. It’s all sort of old school worksheets meant to work with a pen or pencil.

Chris Badgett: Can you tell us about that moment from doing the telephone tutoring to realizing, “I think I’m gonna make it. I think I’m gonna actually have a- … online teaching career here”? Yeah. Did you ever, did you have doubts or it just kinda worked? 

Dr. Scott: Oh there, there was a lot of doubt.

Yeah, I had this I had this the phone call and I realized, I was traveling. I think I was at some, some remote beach in Mexico, and they maybe sent me $100, which was, enough to survive another week on tropical beaches. And that, that was when the light bulb clicked.

I was like this could work.” And then I started I started using some other platforms to teach Zoom classes. But I didn’t… Like I said, I wanted to have a situation where I could have control of the situation and build my own website, and I started investigating learning management systems WordPress plugins or WordPress itself.

Kinda decided that WordPress and a WordPress plugin were the way to go. And I guess it, it probably would’ve been, like, December 2019, because I remember things being closed down over the holiday break, and I was like, “Am I gonna do this? Am I gonna not do this? Am I gonna do this? Am I gonna not do this?”

And I had to, Fir- first step was to buy the domain. 20 bucks to buy the Learn with Dr. Scott domain, do- dot learnwithdrscott.com domain. And I was on the fence and waiting and thinking and, “Do I really wanna do this?” “It’s gonna be a lot of work once I start. I’m not gonna start unless I commit to it.”

And I think it was I think it was, like, Christmas Eve of 2019 that I must have finally bought the domain and got started. So it was, like, a Christmas, New Year’s gift to myself, a whole new life. And then I would have I don’t quite remember. But you guys do a free it, it’s free to install the LifterLMS, so I think I, I installed it and started setting up the chemistry courses.

And I was actually selling Through other platforms and just using the LifterLMS, giving them like a voucher to, to, for support to download videos and worksheets and everything. But then, within that first year, making the decision to really have my own platform with my own payment system and everything.

So that’s probably about the time that I went on the books, putting the Stripe and the, the PayPal plugin. It, probably about six months or so afterwards that I made the decision to to start it. So yeah, it’s, o- owning a small business is fun. I’ve done this a few times, but it’s it’s always a rollercoaster.

Do 

Chris Badgett: you have extreme seasonality with like school, like the times that people buy courses? Like what does that seasonality look like if you have it?

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Dr. Scott: Yeah. Very extreme- 

Chris Badgett: Yeah … 

Dr. Scott: seasonality. Ba- basically, it starts right about now between about September 15th and October 15th or so is when the, the homeschooling community gets started.

So as far as like just having the membership for unsupported the, the $20 a month membership. It’s like right about now that everything gets started. Now I start planning in March, six months ahead for the school year that’s gonna land in September, and then usually over the summer some more serious families, trickle in for the for, for the bundles of supported classes at the higher price point that I was telling you about.

So there’s usually like a little bit of movement in June and July of people preparing for September. All the people that are really starting school now start, and then sales usually dip off until about January or February, the second semester. A lot of people realizing that they’ve got like halfway through the school year with a curriculum doesn’t work, so they’re switching gears midstream.

So we get a lot of that in sort of January, February. And then, things are pretty, pretty dead in May. Everybody wants to be done. Everybody wants to be done with school, and then sometimes we do like summer session. It’s sort of June and July as well. So it’s been extremely cy- cyclical for 10 years that I’ve been doing this.

Until interestingly, this, this very interesting question, Chris, it maybe corresponds to another question. I don’t know if you’re gonna mention anything about AI or not, but I noticed last year the second half of the cycle completely killed by the AI. I got no… had no, no sales in, in, in January, February like normal.

And I noticed the online education industry was taking a nosedive in general. A lot of parents, you know, just using AI ’cause it’s free, as opposed to buying an online course And then in May and June and July, I started getting sales this year. Never happened before. I haven’t done anything different.

I don’t market this time of year. It’s not, it’s not even worth wasting a breath on usually trying to sell a chemistry course in May. So my assumption is that the AI likes the website and it’s sending me traffic ’cause I have no, no sort of increased traffic through social media or organic search or anything.

So yeah kinda went down and then up again. So we’ll see. I’ve been on- I’ve been 10 years of the school year cycle, and it seems like the AI is gonna start to dominate the traffic that I’m receiving, and I have no, no idea what sort of cycle it’s gonna be, but so far it’s been completely the opposite of what I have seen for the last 10 years.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome, and that’s interesting how parents and students may be turning to AI tutoring or whatever, but at the end of the day, AI is now referring you more, which is like super interesting. That’s cool. 

Dr. Scott: Exactly. 

Chris Badgett: Tell us more about the desire to own the platform. I’m sure there’s a lot of platforms you can teach on.

Myself, even at Lifter, I f- my first course was on Udemy. It wasn’t on WordPress. Oh. But, like why was it important to you to have your own website that you could customize and control? 

Dr. Scott: I’ve- Seen a lot of these things come and go. My, my understanding is a lot of platforms are really friendly.

They get lots of customers, lots of clients, lots of users coming in, and then they change the rules overnight to make it difficult and less profitable for the- Yeah … course creators. It’s a business. So one I wanted to avoid that. Two, is just a matter of basic quality control.

Yeah. One of these one of these platforms I was working on teaching Zoom classes, their sales point was that the teachers are always nice to the kids. Okay. They didn’t allow teachers to have rules- Okay … in the classroom, and it was complete chaos. Nothing that I would, wanna have my name associated with.

So it’s just a combination of quality control and business. So it, it takes longer to develop your own platform, but I really don’t understand how people do it not having any sort of control. 

Chris Badgett: Obviously I 100% agree with you.

What, what would you say… Like, how do you get customers? You mentioned AI s- recommending you more. 

Do you have some people coming from YouTube or is it referrals? What’s your strongest method for getting customers? 

Dr. Scott: For 10 years it was all SEO. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Dr. Scott: So I got really into SEO.

Basically we have the, the webpage sorta has a homepage and it has a list of all the courses for sale that are kinda the two main pages. And I probably made 500 SEO-oriented pages picking a science topic and, picking a keyword. Basically having a free worksheet.

So that- Okay … that was traditionally a big thing before video-based learning is that parents were looking for worksheets to occupy their kids’ time. So I basically used SEO to give away free worksheets and then, you can buy the course to save the time to have me Do it for you and bundle everything.

So a lot of SEO and then a lot of word of mouth. Recently the AI, and I go- gonna have to admit I’ve never had any luck whatsoever with any sort of social media. So- 

Chris Badgett: But you can’t do it all. Like- 

Dr. Scott: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: some people are good at paid ads, some people are good at content like you are. Some people are really good at social.

It’s hard to be all things, right? 

Dr. Scott: Yeah, so con- content and website 

Chris Badgett: You branched out a little bit. I think you have some Spanish courses, some art courses, meditation. Tell us about the broadening scope. 

Dr. Scott: Yeah. So I was, as I mentioned, I was a college chemistry professor, so step one was just having some chemistry courses on the website.

It was the- the not-too-technical chemistry was really popular, so I made a biology and a physics course, and then we started, This- this was a few years ago when we had more live classes on Zoom. We we had art classes, web design classes Spanish classes as well. So we were at the time kinda developing to be, have more like an arts and science program, being a host sc- being a whole school.

That, as I mentioned, that- that’s kinda, we- we don’t do the live classes anymore, so we’ve kinda backed off on, on the Spanish and the art. And I’ve had an interest in meditation for maybe 20 or 25 years or so, and people tend to tell me my voice works pretty well for meditation, having a calming video.

So that’s the, that’s- that’s the next step. My, my spot here in downtown Oaxaca is called Medium. We have some art. This- this is actually a type of art called a cyanotype. It’s a type of blue sunlight-sensitive dye that was used for blueprints. We- we developed this technology here and have different art technologies and teach classes here as well as we have some meditation in this spot called Medium.

And Medium was kinda reference to medium of art, but also like a quantum physics reference to the the fabric of the universe itself. 

Chris Badgett: Fun. If you could go back in time to the Scott on the telephone and the tutoring, is there what mistakes would you help yourself avoid, or what advice would you give to a younger education entrepreneur version of yourself?

Dr. Scott: Yeah. I, I had heard of SEO and kinda waited- 

Chris Badgett: Yeah … 

Dr. Scott: a year to start learning about it. I was very focused on creating lots of small courses. I kinda mentioned this earlier, but would’ve been would- would- would- would’ve been more strategic to just make one course and focus a year On marketing it. So I maybe, may- maybe lost a year or two not focusing on the marketing of the course creation.

So that, that’s one. Just know it’s half and half. Most teachers are pretty good at teaching. Most teachers don’t have that much sales and marketing experience. I tend to repeat that a few times ’cause it doesn’t always sink in. Teachers think, “Oh, it’s a good class. It’ll sell.” No it won’t.

You have to… you do have to sell it. And what was I gonna say? So second, there was a second thing I was thinking of here. What was the question again? Things I would’ve done differently. Like 

Chris Badgett: mistakes to avoid or just opportunities to chase sooner. 

Dr. Scott: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: So I would- That you would tell your earlier self

Dr. Scott: Aha. I would’ve got into marketing earlier. I also would’ve told myself to just do it like three years before I even ended up in that tropical remote beach situation with nothing to do. The one thing I tell people always ask me how have you managed to succeed in education?

It’s a tough thing to make money at.” And it’s just consistency. You just- Yeah … have to pick something and do it. It’s gonna take you 1,000 hours to get good at it, 10,000 hours to really master it is part of my philosophy, thinking and planning in terms of 1,000 and 10,000 hour chunks.

But basically, yeah, just to get, do it, be consistent, pick it and spend an hour a day on it for the next couple years and focus on marketing and selling, not just creating courses. 

Chris Badgett: You have like a reach in terms of international? Do people come from all over the place or is there kinda concentrations of where your learners or families or customers come from?

Dr. Scott: We’re mostly US and Canada- Okay … these days. Pro- probably about, eh, probably about 90/10 split US and Canada. I had mentioned a few times, the, the timing of the pandemic was pretty critical to all this- Yeah … ’cause I was at that beach and I wanted to do something with kind of online marketing, working remotely, and lots of friends were like, “Oh, you should do real estate or sell, Forex,” but I want- I wanted to do something that I knew how to do and and and chemistry was it.

And I was having pretty good success, picking up families here and there, but then the pandemic came and like virtually overnight I had 1,000 students because their- 

Chris Badgett: Wow … 

Dr. Scott: schools were closed. And we had we had people from basically every English-speaking country in the world.

It was very tricky, picking times that the teachers could teach in the American continents for the Australians and, you know- … there, there were- we started, there was this, this girl that like wouldn’t turn the lights on. It was dark. 

Chris Badgett: Oh. 

Dr. Scott: Eventually her parents said it’s 4:00 AM in the morning in Australia ’cause your class is 4:00 PM in the United States,” and I was like, oh, we need to we need to start planning around the clock a little bit more.

So that was it. It was very cool during the pandemic. We’d always start class asking hey, what time it is?” And we’d have, people rattle off five, six different time zones from around the world. But it’s kinda shrunk back to the core sorta US, Canadian audiences these days.

The, the, the school standards, for what it’s worth, are, aligned with US and Canada. 

Chris Badgett: Nice. What would you say is the major kind of transformation or benefit or impact that’s happening? Obviously you’ve, you help a lot of people, which is very fulfilling. 

You li- you h- you’re in a beautiful art studio and living in Mexico.

What is that transformation? Is it… I think of it as freedom, like your own personal freedom. But how do you see it? 

Dr. Scott: I was just gonna say freedom. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Dr. Scott: Yeah. It’s real true freedom. Like I said own- owning a small business is a rollercoaster.

Sometimes the money’s good, sometimes it’s not, but you’re in control of your situation. You can do what you want. And I’ve done all done all sorts of interesting things that relate to online education, lots of stuff that doesn’t relate to online education. But yeah, it’s just really brought a lot of freedom and a lot of joy.

Little bit of stress when things don’t work out. But we just we just recalibrate every year. It’s an online business and things move fast, but it’s, I just, I love it. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. That’s Dr. Scott. You can find him at learnwithdrscott.com. Thank you for coming on the show, and thank you for being a shining example of what I call a education entrepreneur.

So helping people unlock freedom like you have in your life and helping others and sending out all these positive ripples in the world is what lights me up. So thank you so much for coming on, and thank you so much for telling your story. 

Dr. Scott: Thanks, Chris. It was a real pleasure.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS.com/gift. Go to LifterLMS.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Josh Dailey and Aaron Edwards talk about how DocsBot has developed into a potent AI platform for agencies, companies, support teams, and course developers. According to Aaron, companies may develop AI assistants who can offer assistance via websites, Slack, WhatsApp, Help Scout, and other channels by using DocsBot to train AI agents on a company’s websites, manuals, support tickets, videos, PDFs, audio, and other information.

The use of DocsBot as an AI instructor for online courses is a primary emphasis. According to Josh, instructors may include data from a variety of sources, such as websites, podcasts, YouTube videos, PDFs, and course materials. In order to make the AI more tailored for students, Aaron also shows how DocsBot may link to LifterLMS to get course progress and other user-specific data.

They also talk about the distinction between AI that can act and AI that only responds to inquiries. DocsBot may be able to extract bills, assist with billing, make appointments, gather leads, and establish connections with other business systems. According to Aaron, companies may also develop internal bots for staff members, keeping confidential data and resources apart from helpers that interact with the public. Josh emphasizes the potential for agencies to employ DocsBot to create AI assistants and instructors for customers on a large scale.

Josh emphasizes the potential for agencies to employ DocsBot to create AI assistants and instructors for customers on a large scale. Before deploying a bot, agencies may test it against frequently asked client inquiries using DocsBot’s tools and MCP connection. He highlights that by managing the deployment, testing, and continuous improvement for customers, agencies may bring value. He highlights that by managing the deployment, testing, and continuous improvement for customers, agencies may bring value.

Lastly, Josh and Aaron stress that AI does not have to take the place of human assistance. Customers can escalate questions to a person as needed, although DocsBot can manage repetitive queries. They also talk about selecting more trustworthy data, such up-to-date software code over out-of-date documentation, and managing which sources an AI agent utilizes.

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Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by some special guests. They’re back on the show. It’s Aaron Edwards and Josh Daly from docspot.ai. We’re gonna nerd out on AI for course creators people building internal training, for the agency professionals out there loo- looking to provide more value to their clients, for e-learning websites.

But first, welcome to the show, Aaron and Josh. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Thanks for having us. 

Josh Dailey: Yeah. Thanks. Always enjoy being with you, Chris. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. It’s f- it’s fun to catch up. About two years ago, when DocSpot started or closer to the start, whenever it was you guys have done a lot since then. So for those that haven’t heard of DocSpot, what does it do today?

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Essentially, it allows you… And the, kind of the name is a misnomer. Like DocSpot, really it’s like a bot trained off your docs, is what it is. And so we were one of the first companies that allowed you to create a AI agent that’s trained on your website, your documentation now your past support tickets, videos, almost any kind of content that your company has, and create kind of that company knowledge brain that’s used for customer support primarily.

You can deploy that as a chat widget on your website or merge it into your app using our APIs or connect with lots of different channels like Slack, Messenger, WhatsApp, things like that and provide those kind of AI agents that can help your customers 

Chris Badgett: So what’s like an example from some of your users?

No matter whatever they are, whether it’s a WordPress product company or like how’s it look out in the wild if somebody wants to see it? And I know it’s on your site too, but who- … who else is using it? Who, who else is using it? What are they doing? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. We have a lot of WordPress product companies, so a lot of big ones that you know are using us to help provide support.

Sometimes it’s like tier one, like front-facing support, like a chat on a website. Sometimes it’s just attached to their help desk, so it’s helping their team by drafting answers that they just approve and send, or maybe edit. And it’s kind of a surf- self-learning leap like that. But as far as like customers, we have…

It’s been really hard for us to figure out who to target because, we have all these like corporations in Japan, like probably 20% of our customers are Japanese. We have the State Bank of Venezuela. We have all kinds of things, telecom companies. Manufacturers, that’s a big one.

If they have a lot of like catalogs with tons of parts and things like that that can be really complex to answer questions for the customers or their sales team, and so they’ll use us for that as well. So pretty much any business that has any kind of incoming support load, they can help relieve a lot of that using AI with DocSpot.

Chris Badgett: Which is like almost all businesses, which is awesome and why I understand it’s hard to target ’cause people use it in all kinds of different ways. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, 

Chris Badgett: exactly. And it’s very different from putting just a chat widget on your site to connect people to people. It’s actually trained and available 24/7 without needing a break.

Tell us about the training. Because a well-trained, AI, it needs a lot of context, so there’s like web pages, maybe other information. How do you kinda get DocSpot trained up? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Josh, tell us what you can train it with. 

Josh Dailey: I’ll do my best, and you guys can jump in where you want as well. But really so the, the elephant in the room kind of conversation that we get from a lot of people about DocSpot is, “Why don’t I just build my own agents at this point?”

We’re to a spot in AI where people can self-code things, and everybody’s talking about vibe coding and releasing new things. But some really big differences and where we see people still going like, “Oh we need a solution like DocSpot,” is people who have knowledge spread across multiple different platforms.

And so the amount of things that you can connect with now in DocSpot that early on might have just been like a website and a few sources, we have over 30 native sources that we’ve built in. Your web content, whole YouTube channel videos for off of YouTube or other videos that you wanna upload it, we’ll do all the transcribing and pull in all of that kind of stuff, supports TSV files, which would be really big for things like a, a online course.

People who are using online courses often are wanting to do media sources. Your audio type files, PDFs. When Aaron was talking about the manufacturing-type sites that use it we do both basic PDF extraction and advanced PDF extraction, so it maintains the structure- Yeah … images tables, all of that kind of data can be maintained.

And then some of the funner ones that we have too are like- Because it’s primarily customer support would be your help desk. Help Scout, Zendesk, Zoho Desk, like all of these different platforms we’re able to connect into as training sources, and they can update automatically. So this has been the if you’ve been in around AI or unless you’re living under a rock, at this point the, the real thing is that it’s not that companies don’t have a lot of knowledge already available, it’s that it’s spread across a lot of sources, and how are you aggregating and pulling all of that information together?

My personal favorite things that’s taken place more recently is we’ve added a skill builder that allows you to connect into a lot more sources than just what we have natively on the site. So now it’s moved from just whatever we can natively provide and how fast we can churn them out to whatever our customers can dream up.

And Aaron could talk a little bit about this because it’s super fun to, to play with and use. But it literally is spinning up a coding agent into the cloud and writing the code for custom integrations to be built back into the widget so it can access and provide answers based off of external information.

Chris Badgett: How does that work, Aaron? 

Aaron Edwards: Imagine, let’s say, you’re making a bot for your course, right? You’re using Lifter to power it. And Lifter I assume you guys have some APIs. Yeah. Yeah, or exposed endpoints and stuff within WordPress. So you can just tell our skill builder, “Hey, I have this online course using Lifter for LMS.

I want you to build the query live, like course status and maybe the progress and membership information about the person who’s chatting with the bot.” And so you just tell it, and it would build all that using its internal coding agent essentially, and create that integration for you. And then it would just say, “Hey.

All right. Create the WordPress app password. Here’s the link to get it, and paste it in here.” And then it’ll be able to do that live. Create those kind of like live integrations, and they can be just like informational. It can be connecting to some external data source, such as LifterLMS.

And it can be scoped to the specific user who’s chatting with the bot. So it’ll check that they’re logged in with the widget, check what their WordPress user ID is or whatever, and then from that, it’s able to look up information only about that user or perform actions in their course, whatever it may be that you want it to do.

Chris Badgett: That’s amazing. In the e-learning space, one of the things that is like the holy grail is having an AI tutor. But spoiler alert, it’s already here with DocSpot. You just have to get it and set it up- … because there’s a lot of things that, like you mentioned, the data in multiple sources. If a subject matter expert is teaching on a topic, sure, they’ve done their best to make the gr- a great course, and maybe those videos are on YouTube or Vimeo or something else.

So there’s like transcript data, there’s probably PDFs and other things in the media library. They may have a separate YouTube channel that they’ve been building for 10 years with all kinds of helpful data for the tutor. They could have a long-running podcast. They could have a blog somewhere else. And so to really try to represent the human expert, the data’s gonna be spread all over the place, and DocSpot is ready to grab all that in.

So for, let’s say somebody non-technical is watching or listening and they’re like, “Hey, a AI tutor sounds really good. I’ve got the YouTube channel, the podcast, my course videos, and a blog somewhere else,” how would they get started? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Essentially you just on, in our dashboard, that we have common connectors for all those kind of things, so for web, crawling websites uploading document files, PDFs, whatever it may be if you’re using that in the course we are able to support. Also this is good for LMS type stuff is audio and video. So if you have like those files that you’re using in the course, you can just add those and we use AI to transcribe them and add it to the bot’s training.

And if it’s YouTube, we’ll actually preserve like the timestamps and everything. So when it answers a user’s question it’s actually able to provide like the timestamp where it got that information. And we do actually have a feature where it could link directly to that timestamp so they could play that in the video, whatever it may be.

Chris Badgett: What about scale? Like for example, you mentioned like a manufacturing company, they may have a ton of products with a ton of instructional PDFs. So like- … for example, it’s one thing if your website has 100 pages on it, including lessons and things, or you have 100 YouTube videos.

But what if somebody’s scaled out and they have 20,000 pages on their website and just like tons and tons of source material? 

How does DocSpot work at scale? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, we handle that pretty well. We do have plenty of people that have that many like website pages and stuff.

So you could just point, like for example, your site map to it, and so every week or whatever, it’s recrawling the site and it’s finding those new blog posts or content that you’ve added to add to your bot. All that kind of stuff. And now we have a new we have a full MCP server, and we have a agent within our dashboard, which has access to that same MCP server without needing any technical know-how, and so that’s the best way we’ve found to manage this stuff now, is don’t learn a new interface. Don’t learn how like the software works. Just drop it in your cloud or your Codex or whatever, and then say, “Hey, I need this AI agent that does this for me,” and then it will go figure out all your data sources, figure out the best way to train it upload and add all that information to your agent, and configure it to work for you.

Josh Dailey: Yeah. I think something that when you say a beginner who doesn’t, may not know how to do this stuff, I think they’re … When you start talking about all the sources that it can connect to and all the information that’s spread out across all these places, it b- gets really overwhelming fast. Like you’re like, “Oh, I’m never gonna be able to figure this out.

It feels like such a big task and a big lift.” And when we get asked “How quickly do you think I could have a bot up and running for my site?” And we’re … Literally within a- an hour you could be deployed and running something that probably is really knowledgeable and more knowledgeable than most people about the topic and the information that you’re providing.

Even faster than that, if you wanted to, you can be in the environment testing right away. The longest part of the experience is really, like people wanna refine that answer, the way that it’s answering and that kind of stuff. And we find people more reluctant about the, Wanting it to be able to answer more accurately more questions faster than we do about actually being able to get to deployment.

So within 24 hours generally if somebody’s working with us to deploy, we already have a bot that was created and ready for them to start testing, and then it’s, that human time where they’re doing their own testing that takes the most time in getting it to production. 

Chris Badgett: That makes sense. Like, when you work with AI, you It’s not just like everything’s a one shot, you gotta refine it. Yeah. So for example, let’s say somebody had an old blog post but there’s a newer one that has more updated information, and the bot references the old one. You can refine it and be like, “Hey, ignore that old post or whatever.”

What’s that called? Are those rules or, It’s not r- personality. What are those kind of fine-tuning you’re talking about?

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Aaron Edwards: yeah, there’s different kind of ways. So we give you full access to the instructions to where you can add kind of behavioral kind of instructions or maybe the way it handles your sources, like the way it prioritizes them and searches through them.

That can be easily added to the instructions for those kind of things. Another common use case is you’ll look at those chat logs. You’ll see, like, how the bot’s responding to your users, and then you can just go in, you can click “I’d like to revise this answer.” And just right there you can just type in the new answer or adjust it, and that kind of goes, recycles back into your bot training so it knows better how to answer those similar questions in the future.

And then we also have AI agents built into our platform. So if you’re, like, wondering why did the AI answer this way, or I didn’t want it to answer that way, you can just click analyze and that will spin up a full agent with access to everything, and it’s specifically trained on how to analyze and improve the responses.

So it’s gonna look out and see is there a problem in the instructions? Is there a problem in your training data, like the sources, like a conflict like you mentioned? Or is there… You’re just missing the training data to be able to answer this, and it’s able to identify that and actually fix it for you.

Chris Badgett: In terms of public-facing versus having it be, like, a, a resource internally to the company, like an employee, a digital employee that helps with- … training or onboarding, can you do both a public-facing bot and a internal bot for the team? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, that’s a very common use case. You can create, depending on your plan, you can create any number of them, and they can be trained on different content or the same content, and they can have different rules and different tools.

So often we’ll see the sales team or even the support team have a, a internal one that’s maybe trained on similar set of docs, but also private docs and information, and it may be connected via MCP to their internal tools, like their help desk or their billing system of record or whatever.

So they’re able … The AI bot is able to do more than just answer the questions. It’s able to actually do actions, like deal with billing issues and things like that. And that can be scoped to a private bot that’s only deployed, for example, in their Slack or something like that. 

Chris Badgett: So for example, if you wanted to automate a refund process, you could.

And it would be human hands-off if you were happy with it and good to go. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. No, and we have built-in integrations for Stripe and EDD and Freemius and WooCommerce and things like that. So you can just add one click or add your API key, and then it’s able to do some of those common billing actions that users ask for.

Chris Badgett: Wow, that’s really cool. And explain again, you k- you did, but I just want it to be clear for people out there watching and listening, the difference between answers and actions. 

Josh Dailey: Yeah. So in the early stages of AI it did a really good job when you would ask a question of agents. They would come back and provide an answer to you, but it usually gave you a list of tasks that you had to perform, and it’d be like, “All right, here’s your next steps.

Go do one, two, three, four, five, and then you’ll be a millionaire at the end of it.” That kind of output kind of thing that it would tell you to do. But it couldn’t go in and then perform those actions because it didn’t have access to your computer, it didn’t have access to the information that it needed to actually go in and do the whatever that one, two, three, four was.

Now, with an action, when you ask it to do something, it can actually check, do I have the skill or the tool that I need to go out and perform that behavior so that the customer doesn’t have to think about it and do that? So if I come in and I say, “I wanna get my invoice,” instead of saying, “Here’s your account.

Go- click on that, it’ll take you over to your account page, find this link, and then you’ll be able to download your invoice,” now we can actually say, “Oh, I have access to their account information in Stripe, and I can generate that invoice right inside the widget with a clickable link so that they can download that, never have to leave the conversation that they’re in.”

… Another one that we have common use case would be scheduling an appointment and somebody would say, “Hey, I wanna meet with your team.” Instead of saying, “All right, here’s the Contact Us form or the link to Calendly or TidyCal,” we can actually display your TidyCal, Calendly, cal.com right inside of the widget.

They select their time and date, and then they say, “All right, now we have context and awareness of the schedule and are able to make sure that you have a date and time that meets your requirements.” So those are some examples of actions that now have become easier over the last couple years.

I would even s- argue probably within the last six months or so where that became a natural thing for us to say, “Oh, look at my email,” where before it couldn’t do that, and perform those actions before y- for you. 

Chris Badgett: … Tell us more about, like, where the bot lives, ’cause it’s not just on the website.

You mentioned as an example the same bot could be in internally in the company Slack- … or is it, am I correct, it could be sitting in your Help Scout as an example drafting replies that you can review as a human in the loop and then send it? A- Yeah … tell us about those locations. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Mind if I share my screen?

We’ll see. 

Chris Badgett: Go for it. Here, let me pull it up. 

Aaron Edwards: See that. Yeah, you pull it up. 

Chris Badgett: All right. 

Aaron Edwards: So here’s kind of a bot. As we were talking, I actually had a AI agent spin this up for us. And this is essentially what did it train with. It pulled in your LifterLMS quick start course so just to see what it looked like training from a course and a little bit on the website.

But you can deploy that bot in a lot of different ways. So we have our chat widget which that’s easy to just copy and paste code. Share links, so you can have a chat page that looks like this where it’s just a public URL that you can share with your users. You can connect your phone when we get into voice agents.

Slack, we have a native Slack app and a Teams one coming soon. Facebook Messenger if you wanted to reply to incoming messages to your business. WhatsApp, Telegram Help Scout if you wanna hel- connect it to your help desk to write draft replies to your users. A lot of different ways and channels to deploy it.

But voice is a fun one for sure. That’s something that we launched about a month or two ago, and so actually I’m excited. OpenAI today, they released their new live voice model. I don’t know if you’ve seen the ads with the grandmas that are, like, talking to it. 

Chris Badgett: Haven’t 

Aaron Edwards: seen 

Chris Badgett: it yet. 

Aaron Edwards: Okay.

They’ve been pushing those everywhere. I’ve been seeing them online and streaming and stuff, but essentially it’s the first voice model that’s agentic that al- allows it to talk and hear at the same time, so there’s no, like- 

Chris Badgett: Latency … 

Aaron Edwards: turn… Yeah, no latency, no turn-based detection. If you’re translating, for example, it can speak in the language it’s translating to as you’re talking to it.

There’s no turns which is pretty amazing. So I’m looking forward to integrating that, but we’re already using the previous generation model, which is only a few months old, which is their real-time API. And that is essentially the same thing as voice tokens in, voice tokens out. There’s no turning it to text and then back to audio step that most voice agents have, so it gives you a really natural conversation that you can have with users 

Chris Badgett: This is so cool.

And I’m somewhat of a Power AI user, and the idea of trying to build all this ourselves internally is- … even as a power user is complicated, and you guys are just there ready to roll with all these connections and everything. 

Aaron Edwards: Yep, that’s the idea. 

Chris Badgett: In terms of voice, like I, just for me personally, where I really wanna get into voice, I haven’t done it yet, I’ve d- I’ve tested some things, but is for sales, like pre-sales basically.

If somebody wanted to set up a 24/7 voice agent bot that- … was trained on the product, the offering, you know, all that, the, where sales… ‘Cause a lot of people don’t necessarily wanna get on the phone or have time, or they’re scared of sales. But if a bot can do it for you 24/7 in any language on Earth, why not?

Yeah. So how would somebody set that up? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, it’s the same process that we have. So you’re just adding your sources however you wanna train it. And then we do have separate voice instructions. So we’ve found that the way your bot behaves in a chat widget is very different than how you want it to behave, like, when you’re talking to it via voice.

And we have some templates that we’ll start up, and it’ll build that out for you, and then you can edit it from there. So for example we made this like a tutor, like we were talking about before the call. So it’s to act like a tutor and help users and things like that. And you can also add actions and things to your voice agent.

So we support all the same actions like web search, MCP servers, skills. If you wanna add a skill for it to do a specific task, like we talked about billing. Lead collection, you can add lead collection fields there. And we have a full form kind of builder. So you can say, “Okay, I want it to collect their phone number this text area about this,” or whatever.

And so it’s actually able to depending on if it’s voice in the widget, it’ll show you that form to fill out, or if it’s over a phone it’s gonna actually interview the user to collect the details it needs. And if it’s phone, you can also do things like call transferring, so have it transfer to your human phone number, right?

After it acts as a receptionist kind of thing. You can even put rules for when it’s okay to transfer you and even an availability schedule if you’re, like, a business that has certain hours. You only want it to transfer during business hours to that phone. So that’s some of the initial tools that we’ve added to our voice agents.

But it’s pretty user-friendly and simple, and our agent kind of sets it all up for you during the onboarding. 

Chris Badgett: In terms of the voice, in my investigation, one of the places I got hung up, and I understand the widget idea. It’s like kind of a web view of the voice. But then if somebody- … wants to connect a phone number even if it’s their cellphone number, or do they need to go to Twilio or something and buy- a number? How- Yeah … do you get to the actual there’s a phone number that peop- some people are used to calling phone numbers. 

I would say people are more used to calling phone numbers than interacting with voice agent widgets- 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, on a 

Chris Badgett: website … at least today. Exactly, 

Aaron Edwards: yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Like, how do you get the phone number connected?

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. So we support right now, we support Twilio, like you mentioned, so you can purchase a phone number there. I think it’s like a dollar or two per month. Or you can forward phone numbers there, so if you have just your cell phone number, and you can turn on call forwarding, it forwards to there, and then we answer the Twilio number.

So I can see I have some numbers here that I bought. This one’s available because we made it for WordCamp US specific or this one is assigned to another bot, and so I just click assign to the bot, and now it’s gonna start responding to that phone number. Or if you have a business phone most business phones or PBNs, they support, it’s a standard called SIP, and essentially you just follow these instructions to put in the specific address, and then it will redirect any calls to that address essentially.

So we try to make it as user-friendly as possible. 

Chris Badgett: And a question which may be a feature request, I apologize. Is is WhatsApp an option if you wanted a WhatsApp number? Or if- 

Yeah 

Aaron Edwards: That’s a good question. I don’t know. I, we support WhatsApp via chat, and you can also send audio or image messages that way, and the bot will respond, but it’s gonna respond in that same text-based format.

D- WhatsApp phone number, I think it’s the s- same kind of thing, like a business phone number. I’m not sure if they allow forwarding or things like that. 

Chris Badgett: The reason I ask is, whenever I leave the United States, I realize that the rest of the world uses WhatsApp. And also you get around the long-distance calling fees or whatever.

So it’s just- Yeah … it’s just something I’ve been trying to figure out- … on my own. 

Josh Dailey: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: In term- in terms of the bots let’s say we want a sales bot, a tutor, a customer support bot, and a bot for our team. Is it better to just use one bot and let make sure it knows where it is? Or are we building four different bots which f- on the same account?

Or how do, what would you recommend there? Yeah. 

Aaron Edwards: I think it’s gonna depend on if it needs separate rules and instructions if it needs access to specific data that’s maybe restricted between audiences or certain tools that it’s connected to, whether that’s a skill or API or MCP or whatever.

That’s what’s gonna determine it. So you can have one for example we do allow if you create one bot for customer support, you can have different voice instructions for that channel. You can have different instructions for when it’s responding via help desk versus chat. But it’s still the kind of the same underlying core training information and stuff.

But we make it really easy to create multiples, and you can even copy it to create a copy of that bot with the same training content and everything like that. And you can adjust the settings and permissions of each one individually. 

Chris Badgett: Awesome. And then for an agency that’s building LMS sites for clients- 

Like as an example, like WordPress has an MCP, LifterLMS has 100 MCP end- endpoints that you can do stuff with. And let’s say we’re like a high volume agency and we’re doing tons of sites and getting lots of new clients, how could we leverage DocSpot as an agency? Are we like Slacking with our bot and it’s spinning up sites and building stuff?

Or what’s possible for the agency?

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Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Josh? 

Josh Dailey: Yeah. So this is actually one of my favorite ways to interact with DocSpot right now is we have our own admin MCP for DocSpot, so you can connect it into your coding agents, the places that you work from, however, wherever you wanna connect that into.

And then you could pretty much do anything that the operator can do that we have built in. So if you’re like, “Oh, I don’t know enough about MCPs, and that scares me,” you could just talk to the widget on the bottom. But if you’re talking about as an agency, I’m wanting to spin up bots, essentially you could just connect to the MCP for DocSpot and say, “Hey, I want to build a tutor like Aaron did for this customer over here.

Here’s some links that are really important to train off of. Here’s the sources we wanna train off of,” and give it those instructions. Then it will go out and do the work and perform that, that work for you and you don’t have to go in and do it. And then like I said, then that becomes more of an exercise around testing.

I will say we’ve got a really good case study on our site right now about, about this kind of what’s the best way to perform the, the, the tests. We’re building in a feature called Evals that’s coming out pretty soon. But the– essentially, the best mode is to come up with 50, 100 common questions that you’re trying to resolve, and then to feed those in.

And you can use something like Claude using your MCP connection to do that, say, “These are the questions you have to answer. Tell us how you would answer these.” It comes back and shows you. And if you say, “Oh, only 70% of these are getting right. I need these other questions to be changed. How can we perform that thing?”

Then you can keep running that same set of eval questions back through your system so that you have a baseline to function from, and then a way to improve the messaging. And we have essentially our customer said, “We made DocSpot earn its place on our support team.” We didn’t just release it, and we had it run through two months of rigorous testing against that, and it had to perform at, I think it was 80% or better before they would actually deploy it for themselves to, to utilize it on their live site.

And so that’s some of the stuff where an agency becomes highly valuable Where a lot of end users are saying, “Hey, I don’t even want to think about this.” It’s we heard this for years and years around website builders and, block editors and all that stuff. It’s like everybody’s just going to go build their own sites now.

Nobody’s going to use an agency anymore. 

And it would really quickly became, oh, everybody’s still going to need an agency because they don’t want to build websites. They want to run their business, and they want to take care of the physical pr- products and the needs for the, the customers, right?

And so it’s the same with this AI stuff is going I know I could probably go do this myself, but I need an agency because they are experts in this. They’re going to be able to do it faster. They’re going to be able to run the evaluations that I need and do the implementations. And so as a partner to our agencies, like as DocSpot, we think agencies are the mode for mass distribution and adoption of this agentic stuff.

It’s really important because they have the client relationships. So we’re trying to make our tooling as valuable to agencies as possible. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, and that’s what- Hope that 

Josh Dailey: answered your question. 

Chris Badgett: That does. Yeah. And that’s what agencies have always done. Like they lead- Yeah … and then bring the clients along.

Yeah. And the client’s usually really busy and doesn’t want to become AI expert or coder- … or whatever. Yeah. 

Aaron Edwards: That hasn’t changed. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah it hasn’t changed at all. And I just wanna put it out there to somebody listening or watching, if you figure out how to build just a workflow and a process for spinning up AI tutors for a WordPress LMS website, that could be a huge business.

And for multiple agencies. It’s not just somebody might do well there. Tons of agencies could do well by solving the AI tutor situation with DocSpot, and then, going after the market of all the people that are already using these LMSs, not just Lifter in the WordPress space. That would be a huge opportunity, which is gonna help the students have higher completion rates, and- 

The, the site owner sell more. There’s just so much. You could- Yeah … then char- charge more if it comes with tutoring. It’s infinite opportunity there. 

Josh Dailey: We are working with quite a few education institutions, which is a huge value side of why people still use a DocSpot security. I think we covered that a little earlier.

But they don’t wanna deal with HIPAA, SOC 2, GDPR, all of those things that, that we- Accessibility … take administration and security risk away from the organizations to do that. And so 100% on board with you, Chris. If there’s somebody out there right now watching that wants to do that- … and wants to partner with us, we do have a partner program that we’ve put in place that we’d love to chat more with you about the implementation process of that.

But we could be a foundational layer. We’ve taken that kind of in two, two approaches. One is you can resell the service, like on our business plan, is to buy it and just pack a few different people on there, and you can separate out so that none of the other people can see none of your c- clients could see the other person’s bots, et cetera.

But then we also have our partner program where we do a, a pretty generous referral commission as well. So they could just set it up and spin out agents for for their customers, and then we’ll handle, help with kind of the support side and be more of a partner to them. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. When it comes to let’s say a human handoff, like where a we’re using DocSpot as a sales agent, but it’s doing the qualification step, and whatever happens, like there’s enough budget or the right person’s on the phone, it’s transfers it to a live human during business hours or whatever.

How would you do that qualification piece, train the bot to make sure the person’s a fit, then transfer to the live e- human? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Honestly, I don’t know that, so I just type it into our agent in the dashboard and say, “Hey, this is what looks like a good customer and not.” Change the qualification based on that, and I’ll just let it decide that for me.

That, that may be a cheater answer. But,

Chris Badgett: But that is the answer … we- 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: that is the answer ’cause you can just … if you don’t have all the pieces, just describe- Yeah … the solution you want. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. And we do have a template as, like lead qualification. And so essentially this is a workflow that we’ve done to where it first like asks the user their business website or about their business, right?

And then it actually is able to use our search tool, so it’s using search behind the scenes to actually get context about that business. And then based on your criteria, it can use that context to judge whether or not they qualify. And if they do, then it’s able to pull up the, their booking calendar to book like a call or submit the lead via the lead submission tool, that kind of thing.

And that can all happen over a phone channel. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Hopefully you can’t hear it, but there’s somebody with a chainsaw outside, so I’m gonna close my windows in a second. But I’m gonna queue up with a question while I close the windows, which is I know people get excited about this stuff, but then they feel overwhelmed about getting started.

What’s the best way and like first action steps to come into the DocSpot universe?

Aaron Edwards: Yeah, Josh? 

Josh Dailey: Yeah, I can go with that question. We actually try to make that super easy. If you go to our website, and we’re set up to be able to self-serve your plan. You just pick the plan that you want to be on. If you’re coming to us with a business, from a business, you can actually do a 14-day technical evaluation trial or f- for free, and so it will give you access to the business plan, and you can use all our features without paying a dime.

You just have to put your credit card information in to validate, to help us validate, like your organization. But we won’t charge that, and then if you cancel before the 14-day trial ends, then you obviously we’re not gonna charge you, and you- there’s no refund or anything necessary at that point.

So we make it really easy to get started for free and just test this stuff out and would encourage anybody to do that because we think it sells itself. As soon as people start playing with this stuff, they’re like, “Oh, this is a lot easier than what I thought it was gonna be.” The one other thing I was gonna add about the lead kind of qualification pieces, we do have…

I think you’re asking the hot topic questions, Chris. I don’t know if you intentionally are doing that, but it is the number one thing that people are concerned with is I don’t want my customer to get caught in a loop where they have to just keep talking to AI, and how do I make sure they have a way out of that?

So human escalation is a massive, important thing to us. We’re not believers at this point anyway that AI’s taking over every role in customer support. There’s still need for human support and it just, the repetitive questions that we get over and over, like billing, what you mentioned is a massive percent of questions that come through.

So if AI can answer that effectively, then you don’t need to. But for pre-sales, we also have not just that qualification one, we have what we call lead capture in there, and you can set it up so that your agent has a– We have a full form builder, and you might already have your form on your site somewhere.

You can just copy that information and say, “Hey, build me this form that shows up in the widget so they don’t have to go to somewhere else on my site.” And when they start the chat, say, “Hey, I wanna capture some information about you ’cause I– if we get disconnected, I wanna be able to follow up.” And that could be the first thing they see in there.

Or if you say I don’t wanna scare them away by trying to capture information. I want them to be able to chat with us you can select to not have that form appear until right before escalate, human escalation. Say “Hey, before I escalate you or connect you with one of our human representatives, can you provide your email address so that if we’re unable to assist you right now, we can help you later?”

And that has become a really valuable sales pre-sales kind of tool for a lot of our customers, so I think that’s the approach we’re taking at this point. 

Chris Badgett: Very cool. And this is a technical question, I’m probably gonna mess it up asking it, but as an example if I’m using DocSpot and I have somebody asking support on my website, I may have trained it on everything Lifter, but it’s running into a core WordPress issue.

Does it have the ChatGPT or Claude or whatever the large language models know a lot about WordPress? Or is it- 

Josh Dailey: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: so there’s like the information we trained it on, and then there’s this like huge amount of content in the large language- Yep … models. How do we think through But of course sometime- like as a tutor, we want the tutor to be w- like, just focused on our material and not necessarily surfacing- Yeah

Wikipedia answers and stuff like that. So how’s- 

… 

Chris Badgett: Where’s the line of just the huge public data versus your private training? 

Josh Dailey: Yeah. By default, we’re pretty tight with that, so like it’s not going to go out and search the broader web. But we built in the option to expand that out, so you can actually enable specific websites or other knowledge sources that are public sources that you could connect in.

The WordPress ex- WordPress example is a great example because because there’s so much public information about WordPress as an open source project that you could say, oh, if somebody asks… If I’m a, a WordPress plugin and I want general WordPress knowledge to be able to help provide an answer, you could connect that as a source, the public documentation as a source, and then say, “Go search this if they ask for this, this question.”

Yeah. And you can actually narrow or expand depending on what you’re trying to achieve on the site. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Or in your instructions you can relax its restrictions on only answering from your sources and saying, “Hey, if the question is about WordPress, it’s okay to answer based on your general knowledge, as long as you tell them to check that information is accurate,” or something along those lines.

And so you can relax the restrictions that are there to prevent hallucination for things, maybe your product, that the AI models have not been trained on very well and don’t know the facts, you know? 

Chris Badgett: And a question on I’m sure there’s probably a GitHub integration maybe.

For example, this would just be a question for a software company, which I imagine are definitely early adopters of DocSpot ’cause they’re- 

… 

Chris Badgett: Technical, is if we’re integrated with GitHub, and the agent can see all the code that we’ve written that runs our app and let’s say we have– we also trained it on our documentation.

A- and as it happens with software companies, sometimes the documentation gets out of date or stale- … or even might have some errors in it. 

How do we… I guess we’re looking at the response and seeing if, oh, that’s not quite right, and then we train it. But how does it… I’m just thinking about if you have two sources- Yeah

like past Help Scout tickets, it’s training on our docs, and the code in GitHub, and maybe those aren’t always lined up. There might be some conflicts. How does it- … how do we work through that to optimize it over time? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Ultimately I think code is probably, for a software company, code is the greatest source of truth, right?

And docs maybe log behind lag behind that. And so we do have a GitHub live search integration, so you can connect to your GitHub repo and then… And this is especially good for open source software. So if it’s closed source, you probably don’t want users to be able to prompt inject and get them to print off the code to you,

but if it’s an open source thing and that code’s open anyway, then it’s fine. So it can actually go and search GitHub to read the code itself and answer questions based on how it’s actually built. And then in your instructions, you can have those priorities. If sources conflict Help Scout or code is the most accurate, and then Help Scout is the second at most, and then our docs are third most, or whatever it may be.

You can add kind of those things to help it judge responses or even provide caveats to users 

Chris Badgett: This is awesome. I’ve really enjoyed this, Aaron and Josh. I know as kind of AI tech people, we’re ahead of the curve, but I feel here comes everybody. We may be in the top 1% of AI users- 

But as the other 95 or 99% starts catching up, DocsBot, in my opinion, is just gonna take off when people get it, and you remove all that friction of where a regular non-technical business owner or whoever can just get going and leverage all these capabilities. It’s so impressive what you’ve built. 

Aaron Edwards: Oh, thanks.

Josh Dailey: Really appreciate it, yeah. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Thanks for coming on the show. That’s docsbot.ai. If you have any questions, just talk to the DocsBot, agent. But of course- … I don’t know. I’ll leave it with you guys to close it out. If somebody’s super excited, they can talk to the, the DocsBot on docsbot.ai, but- how else can they, get their questions answered and figured out how to move forward? 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. You can talk to the agent on our site, and that can forward you to us if you need to. And we do– if you’re an agency or you’re you have clients of your own, and you’re looking to maybe add these kind of AI tutors or things to your courses we would love to talk with you and give you a demo and show you what’s possible there.

So please reach out to us. 

Josh Dailey: And social channels, Aaron and I are both pretty active on X. So I’m @JoshDailey, Aaron is @UglyRobot, and for LinkedIn, you can just search our names. But Josh Dailey is my last name is D-A-I-L-E-Y, which is right down here somewhere. So you could see that, but that’s the spelling of it.

But yeah, so if you wanna DM us or talk to us that way as well we’re pretty available. 

Chris Badgett: Thank you for coming back- Yeah … on the show. We’re definitely gonna need to do it again in about a year. As you said the past six months, a lot has changed. I can only imagine the next 12 months of where we’re gonna be at.

Yeah. Yeah. So- 

Aaron Edwards: For 

Chris Badgett: sure … thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it. 

Aaron Edwards: Yeah. Thank you. 

Josh Dailey: Right on. Thanks, Chris.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS.com/gift. Go to LifterLMS.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Jeremiah Jones describes how he turned his years of in-person notary teaching into an online learning platform by leveraging WordPress and LifterLMS to create EZ Notary Class, a California-based online notary training and certification company.

JJ started EZ Notary Class in 2020 during COVID after working for years as a notary and instructing notary programs. His goal was to provide a more economical and useful substitute for costly notary programs, emphasizing not just passing the California state test but also teaching students how to carry out official duties in realistic settings. WooCommerce enabled him to sell tangible goods like notary stamps, journals, supplies, and insurance, while LifterLMS enabled him to provide the video course, monitor student progress, and issue certificates.

Customer experience and experiential learning are key components of JJ’s methodology. His training shows how to correctly notarize papers, confirm identity, finish paperwork, and use notary supplies rather than just imparting knowledge from government manuals. Students can retake the course for a period of two years, and they are given sample documents to print and fill out while following along with the courses. According to JJ, this strategy has contributed to the program’s 97.5% exam success record. Additionally, he established the company as a one-stop shop for aspiring notaries, including insurance, supplies, training, and individualized customer service.

From the things they receive to the emails they receive, he stresses that every customer connection should seem purposeful and beneficial. JJ also describes how he employed customer-focused growth and cautious marketing to expand the company. He started off with a modest budget for Google Ads and only increased it when the ads produced successful sales.

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You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Chris Badgett: Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. It’s JJ Jones. Or JJ actually. It’s JJ. 

Jeremiah Jones: It’s fine, yeah. 

Chris Badgett: JJ. 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: From easynotaryclass.com. JJ has built an exceptional notary training platform for their certification in California and with over 30,000 students, so it’s pretty awesome.

And I can’t wait to get into it with you and learn about your story and what you built. Sure. And welcome to the show. 

Jeremiah Jones: Thank you very much. Happy to be here. 

Chris Badgett: Let’s start with the journey. I know you worked in fast food. I think you were a notary for 20 years, or you’ve been in this industry for 20 years, a long time.

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And- 

Jeremiah Jones: A long time ago when we start- I started this journey, yeah … 

Chris Badgett: and now you’ve built an education company in your niche in the space of notary. Tell us about- … the journey of how you got to here. 

Jeremiah Jones: It was… It did start with me becoming a notary, which was the best thing I ever did yeah, because I was, working in fast food and different, jobs and that kind of thing.

I, not to disparage the, the jobs or people who work in the jobs, but it definitely… I definitely wanted to make a little bit more money. And and I found out about becoming a notary through a family friend, and it was just like okay, that sounds like it’s pretty easy to do, and it doesn’t cost much to get a license.”

In California, the demand is… The de- demand’s always really high in California for notaries. So I said why not give it a shot?” And then I did, and I wound up doing that for several years. I was doing notarizations for home loans, and I was doing notarizations for other types of real estate documents and that kind of thing.

And it worked out really well. And the thing about being a notary is… Look, here, I don’t know how to say this. Nobody wakes up one day or nobody dreams one day, “One day, I’m gonna become a notary,” it’s not… even when I tell people, that what I do, or it’s just it sounds a little bit boring on the surface.

But I’m okay with that because it’s an essential need, and those essential needs can make a lot of money because it- it’s something that people… Everybody needs to get something notarized at some point. And especially in California with all the property, there’s always demand. It’s something that wor- that it was easy to do and was easy to scale, and I was able to build up a good clientele.

And I was just doing that for a long time. And I had also been, Had a, a little bit of a foray into teaching. Not like anything like this, but I was teaching like these, these other kind of classes, and found out about teaching classes and got into that and started to, ’cause I thought it’d be really fun to teach the notary stuff. And then so I started actually teaching notary classes, and I did that for a very long time. And I taught a lot of people. And then in 2020, actually it was right around during COVID, is when I decided to take what I had been doing for all that time with teaching classes and do it in, under my own company.

And that’s when I created easynotaryclass.com because I wanted to create… I knew what the ind- I knew what notaries needed I knew where I was when I first got a license. I knew that there are a lot of companies, there’s a really big brand, they’re like the number one in the nation, and they were just way too expensive.

And I thought there were other resources out there that were just trying to take money from notaries is really was my point of view. And I also knew that they weren’t really providing notaries with the skills necessary to actually turn it into a career. And so I thought, “I can do that,” like I know how to do that.

I know how to teach that. I know how to teach people not just how to become a notary, but how to turn being a California notary into either a side gig or a full-time career, ’cause I got a lot of people who took my program, and, they’re now notaries f- and they just do it on the side, on the weekend.

And then some notaries, they do it full time. And and I knew how to teach that. What I didn’t know was necessarily the technical aspect of it. I didn’t know really how to cr- create a website, actually. I didn’t really understand how to host the videos. I didn’t understand… I knew I could make a video, but I didn’t know how to host them.

I didn’t know how to, check lessons or anything like that. And so when I was first putting it all together, I was just kinda, this is before ChatGPT, so I was just like on YouTube trying to figure this out. And then through the research, eventually I found LifterLMS, and I was like, “Okay, this is good,” because now I don’t really have to worry about that part.

I can just make the videos and post them, and then let LifterLMS handle all the stuff that I don’t… to this day, I still don’t know how you guys do what you do. I don’t know how it works. So I just know that somebody watches a lesson, and they get the credit, and they get their certificate, and that’s what matters to me.

And that’s good, ’cause then I can focus on the other aspects of my business, which is helping my customer turn their dream of turn, becoming a notary into reality. 

Chris Badgett: So what’s the the training? Is it is it kinda two things from my understanding, you help somebody initially become a notary, and then you keep them certified, which is called a commission in your case.

Is that right? Is- Yeah … so what’s on offer exactly? 

Jeremiah Jones: So to become a notary in California, you really have to do two things. You gotta take the class. It’s a six-hour class. And and then you have to take a test. So we don’t handle the test. The state does the test. We handle the class, and that was the part that I had always done.

I had always taught notary classes in person, and then when I went online and made easynotaryclass.com, I said, “Okay, I’m gonna turn it into a video course. You can watch at your own pace.” And then, 

Chris Badgett: So that’s like test prep, is that right? Like it’s preparing- It’s sort 

Jeremiah Jones: of- … 

Chris Badgett: for the exam? 

Jeremiah Jones: Test prep is part of it, right?

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Jeremiah Jones: Because that’s the end of the course. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Jeremiah Jones: The, the bulk of the course is really everything about being a notary. So it’s how, what is a notary? How do you actually notarize documents? How do when you have your stamp, how do you stamp a document correctly?

All the different… what do the documents mean? How to fill the documents out, that kind of stuff. And it’s really how to actually be a notary and perform your notary duties. And then from that you’ll be tested. But n- now there’s a second, there’s a second part at the end where we like go through, okay, now you know this information, now you’re gonna take a test.

That’s where a lot of people get scared. So I have a special test prep focus on how to get through this test. But the test really covers all that, like notary procedure information. So in a sense, yes, my class teaches them how to be a notary and then preps them for the test so that then they go and take the state exam and they pass.

We have a 97.5% pass rate, so I’m, I feel really good about that. And and then they be- they get their notary license. Yeah. And then there’s more things too, like for instance th- there’s a couple other things like you wanna actually buy your stamp, and your book, and your, and insurance and stuff like that.

And we sell all of that too. But the initial offering is, yeah, the $79 for the class. And we have a bonus class, which is how to then notarize loan documents specifically. And what I like about that is we are the only notary class that offers that for free. Every other notary class, they charge a couple hundred bucks or whatever.

All of our competitors do. And I can tell you that I go into way more detail in our class than they do. And our class is it’s included for 79. So we try to, I try to keep everything as absolutely cost-effective as possible. ‘Cause that was the goal, the mission from day one was to make the most affordable notary class possible for what you’re getting.

Chris Badgett: I think I saw on your website somewhere you said something like you took every online California notary class so that- 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: your customer doesn’t have to. And then when you say 97% completion rate, what was the gap or the, the optimization you put in to have such high success rates? Well- And you also mentioned earlier a lot of notary things online felt like a money grab of some sort 

Jeremiah Jones: they are.

I can tell you what my, a lot of my competitors do. A lot of my competitors are, what they’ll do is there’s a book, there’s a… I don’t have it with me, but the, the state, they have this little booklet, and it’s the notary, like a book of notary law, okay? And it reads about as exciting as you would imagine.

It’s, like, all government code, and it’s… if you can’t fall asleep, that’s all the melatonin you need. Just read your notary book from the state. And what some of my competitors have done is they just take the text from that course- And they put it on the website, and they charge people whatever they charge, 20, 30 bucks.

And then you open up the course, and it’s really just text from the handbook with a timer, a six-hour countdown timer, and then you’re supposed to read that in six hours. So to me, that’s a money grab. That’s… You’re not teaching anything. I wanted something where we… I really teach you how to do it.

I really wanted to teach you how to put your stamp on a document, how to fill… We show you the documents. We show you how to fill it out. We show you how to actually take ID. It’s not as simple as you think because there are certain parts of the ID that you have to be aware of that you can only know if you see about, if we show you in, in the picture.

And and the other part-and-part is out- physically filling the documents out. So I have, as part of the program, I give you all the sample documents so you can print those out and follow along with the program. So you’re filling the, the documents out while you’re watching us do it, me do it in the class.

And that’s really important because you don’t just get some vague academic, explanation, from a government handbook. You’re actually getting an e- an experiential, learning activity so that you can really cement this. So you’re not just understanding notary law for the sake of notary law, you’re understanding how to actually be a notary and how to actually notarize things.

And, sure, my competitors will sell a course for 20 bucks. And I can’t possibly compete with $20. I try to price it as much as I can, so mine is $79. But the difference is you’re actually learning, and you’re actually gonna get prepared for the test, and that’s why we have such a high pass rate.

I say we guarantee you pass the test or get your money back, and I stand by that. And I think this year I’ve only refunded two people that’s not bad. And so I think the thing about… that makes what we do different, it’s one of the reasons why we consistently have only five-star reviews on Trustpilot.

If you look at the review, it’s just five-star, five-star, five-star, five-star. And it’s because of the amount of care that we put into it. And then there’s the customer service aspect of it, like I said, I have a really large competitor. They’re the national brand. And I’ve had people call me and they say, “Look I’ve, I went o- I called them and I was on the phone for, I was on hold for an hour.

When I call you guys, you pick up the phone.” And that’s part of being a small family business where we can give that kind of an attention to our customers so that they can really, be a partner with you as you’re moving forward in your, in your notary your notary goals.

Achieving your notary goals. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I love the focus on experience, not just information and practice. Yeah. Getting people taking action and stuff like that. That’s awesome. But- 

Jeremiah Jones: It’s a big deal because, it’s y- we all been in… let’s just take college, for example. We’ve all been in a college course where, you’ve got a teacher that drones on and you’re just, y- and then you walk out of there and you don’t remember it.

Or book reading, yeah. For instance, I’m one of those kinds of people that I don’t retain a lot from what I read. So if I if I’m reading something like, whether it’s like a, a self-help kind of a book or e- or if, especially if it’s like a technical, manual or whatever.

If I’m reading it, my retention is gonna be pretty low, but if I’m… And if you’re just watching it too, right? Your retention is higher. But if you’re watching it and you’re experiencing it- Doing it … at the same time- Yeah … your retention’s really solid. And that’s what I mean by I knew I could do this.

I knew I could create the most superior product on the market. Nobody beats me. The national brand, I get so many people that come to my class and they chase, they say, “I took the n- the big national course. It’s $200, and it was so boring I was falling asleep, and I learned nothing.” So I get that question.

I get that a lot, too. Nobody can beat our course. It is the best notary course on the internet. And I’m very proud of it. It, not just on the internet, a- anywhere. And I even think it’s better than the w- courses I was teaching online. I m- I’m sorry, the courses I was teaching in person.

Because when I was teaching classes in person, here’s the other part of it. Is that when you teach a class in person, once the instructor says something once, that’s it’s gone forever. You never get to hear it again. But we give access to our class, to our students for a long enough ti- two years actually.

So you can go back and re-watch it and and re- go through the information again. Some of my students, they’ll watch the class a couple of times before they take their test to really get that information, cemented in there. So yeah, all those kinds of things. There was a lot of forethought that was put into the class.

It took almost a year to make the whole thing. And and but then here was the problem. I knew I could make the… This is going back to what we were just saying with you guys. I knew I could make the class and make the videos, which took forever, but then when those videos were done and I had that six-hour-long course, I was like, “Okay, now what?”

How do I put this online, and how do I turn this into a course that records student progress and everything else? And that, s- brings me back to LifterLMS. 

Chris Badgett: On the technology front, had you already had experience with WordPress, or was this your first thing? ‘Cause it I think in the history, you bought a $1 demo site from us in 2020 or something like that to try it out.

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Jeremiah Jones: Did I? I didn’t know that. It’s funny. 

Chris Badgett: And then, … pretty quickly I think- Sounds 

Jeremiah Jones: like something I would do. Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: in 12 hours, you bought the Infinity Bundle, which was our top plan, and you moved forward. But, like, when you’re starting to set this up, and you’re doing WordPress, and you’re doing LifterLMS, and you’re figuring out video hosting, was this all new to you at that time, or had you had some experience in some of those things?

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah, it was mostly new to me. I knew a little bit about WordPress because I had helped somebody create a website before, but it was really archaic, and it was just basic posts, that kind of thing. I really didn’t know. I didn’t know anything about WooCommerce. I didn’t know anything about integrations.

I… The other thing is, to me, graphic design’s really important, so I’m really involved in the look of everything, and I didn’t really know how to do that at first until I found Elementor, which worked out great at the time, and I wound up making everything in Elementor. I’ve sw- I’ve since actually switched to Gutenberg, but it’s the same.

Because Gutenberg wasn’t out at that time. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Jeremiah Jones: So Gutenberg gives me a little bit more control than Elementor did, but at that time, Elementor was really good because I can control the look of everything. But again, I know, to answer your larger question, I really didn’t know. I had no actual idea what I was doing.

I actually had no idea what I was doing. That’s the truth. So 

Chris Badgett: how’d you do it? How’d you figure it out? And I’m just saying, I, I’ve done a lot of these- 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: and this is a common pattern I see, is people will, they just refuse to not try and keep going and learn and try to get help. 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah. I think that’s that’s something that my fiancée makes fun of me for it sometimes.

I think it’s one of those things where there’s a book about entrepreneurship, and I think the book, the title of the book is Ready, Fire, Aim. Ready, Fire, 

Chris Badgett: Aim. Yeah. 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah, Ready, Fire, Aim. Yeah. And I think that’s pretty much how I operate. Or there was someb- someone else that talked about a true entrepreneur is Somebody who jumps off of a cliff and figures out how to make an airplane on the way down.

And I was like, that kind of exactly exemplifies how it is. And I just knew that I would figure it out. And so with this course, it was, I di- I didn’t know what I was doing at all. And then I started going into YouTube and just re- watching everything that I could reading everything I could. Just I didn’t really outsource.

I got, I hired a couple of people that helped me put a few things together. But for the most part, I try to do everything on my own. And I don’t know, I just, I did it. But I’m still doing that. There’s stuff that we’re doing right now with the course that, you know, stuff that I wanna do that I have no idea how we’re gonna do it, but we’ll just figure it out.

I don’t know. I, the knowledge is out there. I, I know I can find the knowledge, and it’s one of those things where I feel like if you don’t try, if you just wait until you’re ready, it, I found that was more of an excuse to procrastinate because of fear. And I’ve always been more afraid I’ve always been more afraid of not trying than of failing.

Failing is never really been something I’ve been really afraid of. Not trying has been something I’ve been really afraid of. So I think that’s the balance, right? I’m more driven by, than s- saying I didn’t give it a shot. 

Chris Badgett: You’re an entrepreneur through and through. Yeah. That’s that’s awesome.

You also introduce some complexity in the sense that you’re like a one-stop shop. You have training seals, journals, kits. One of your students said that they passed the exam, received their package from the secreta- Secretary of State, and ordered their bond and supplies from you, and they didn’t have to worry about getting scammed.

So not only are you. Yeah … doing training, you have retail and shipping, which is, I’m assuming, why you’re using WooCommerce. So tell us about- 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: that. 

Jeremiah Jones: I think I I started using WooCommerce actually from the beginning. That was just what was available to me. And then but I needed to… Oh, no, actually you’re right.

That’s why, I think that’s why I started to do it, ’cause I wasn’t using WooCommerce at first. I was using some other gateway, but it doesn’t matter. So yeah, I wanted to start selling physical products, so that’s when we really, I really ramped up on the WooCommerce. There’s another thing I didn’t know to do.

I didn’t know anything about physical products. I didn’t know about fulfillment. I didn’t know how to make a label and pay shipping and, I have no clue about that stuff. I didn’t even know where I was gonna get the stamps, and then, but I knew I wanted to make something really superior, so so I made everything custom in-house.

Like the book that we sell which, it’s over there. But the book that we sell, yeah, I don’t have it here, but it’s okay. The, we have this notary journal and I knew it was out there, because I had a notary journal because I was a notary, and I knew what was wrong with them. I knew what could’ve been better.

So I designed my own journal. Had no idea what I was doing. I just designed it in Illustrator, and then found a company to, print them and ordered 500 and just gonna, kinda cross my finger, hope that people would buy it. And then and then I found a stamp manufacturer, whi- which was a little bit easier, because I knew who made the best stamps, and then was able to work that out.

But I didn’t know how to make a stamp. You have to p- just so you know, like there’s this big machine that you have to purchase, and then you get blank stamps, and then you create each stamp individually. It’s a really laborious process, and then create each stamp, and it flashes this laser.

It’s a whole thing. And I didn’t know any of that. But I knew that w- we could figure it out. That’s, was the whole end thing about WooCommerce integration, and then that was a whole thing, and then shipping, and then collecting sales tax, and then paying the sales tax. And so all that was totally brand new to me.

But it wound up being a little bit easier than I thought it was gonna be. I still have, there’s still It’s still not that easy. Like fulfillment is its own thing. Actually, just an hour ago, we were talking about somebody who their package was lost in the mail, and it’s just a, it’s a headache.

And obviously you want to make sure every customer gets their, their deliverables. So you want to, and, but it’s okay. We’re going to send another package. It’s not a big deal, but unfortunately I got to eat that cost. But for the most part, we have a pretty streamlined system. People order the supply, they, or they get the class, they’ll order their supplies.

And then we’ll put in those fulfillments for them and send them out. The other aspect is the insurance. I wanted to offer that because I knew that insurance was really expensive. A lot of our, a lot of our competitors sold insurance, but really high prices. I knew that I wasn’t able to legally sell insurance because I was not an insurance broker or, or anything like that.

So I just started researching. I called pretty much all around the country looking for insurance companies that would partner with me to make for the cheapest price. And I found a company and they’re great. They’re Swift Bonds and I, they’re great people, but I mostly chose them because they also have the cheapest notary insurance possible.

It’s like $38. So I said, okay, great. That’s perfect. So then we set up a partnership program where we sell their insurance through our website. And then that way I know that my customers are getting the best insurance at the cheapest price. So I’ve always tried to, that’s what I mean. Like between the insurance and like the book and all those little touch points for our customer, I, my goal has always been making each of those touch points as premium as possible, because you can, Even an e-, as even as something as simple as an email.

You can, what we my fiancée and I work together. We’re, she’s actually doing emails right now. And, when the email comes in, we are very intentional with the way that we are communicating with our customers, y- you will not find a very cut-and-paste customer support style answer, if, Mary sends us an email, that response is gonna, starting with “Hi, Mary!” Exclamation mark. “How you been?” We are trying to create every single touchpoint we have with a customer, whether it’s through a product or through a communication, is trying to enhance that customer’s experience.

Because every single one of those touchpoints creates an overall picture of their opinion of our customer. And then hopefully that gets passed down through word of mouth. And, and then of course the customer’s average, lifetime value as they, stay retained with us and renew their notary license with us.

So we’re always trying to create the best experience possible for everybody that comes through our program. 

Chris Badgett: That’s amazing. I have this saying that you wanna put your customer at the center of your business, not your product. And you obviously do that, ’cause you’re like- Yes … “Oh they need training, but they also need the stamps, and the journal, and insurance, and to feel well taken care of in their experience.”

So it totally makes sense to me why this is working well. And in terms of the business model they pay once, but then they need to come back to renew or get more supplies. So- 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: how does it work in notary? Do they have to recertify every year, every three years, or how does that work?

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Jeremiah Jones: So they recertify every four years.

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Jeremiah Jones: And, we try to make that really easy for them. It’s not like- with our particular product, it’s not I don’t know, like a hand cream or something that you order once a month. You know what I mean? So we’re not getting… And we don’t have a subscription. That’s the other thing.

A lot of our other cust- a lot of our other competitors, they’ll have some sort of a subscription model that, you know, $20 a month for something. And I’ve always really been hesitant to do that because I don’t really… I only offer things that I know are gonna add a tremendous amount of value.

We’ve talked about it, like some sort of a subscription model for support or whatever, but I… And we might do in the future, but I, only if I know that we can provide the most value for the dollar. So as far as a business model we’re, primarily focused on, new people who wanna become notaries.

And then when they get their license, we put them through our program and give them all the tools they need, whether it’s supplies, insurance, whatever. And then, we probably more than likely won’t see you again for another four years, unless you need something, just give me an e- an email and I’ll help you out with something.

But more than likely, you should be good for the next four years, and then we’ll see you then 

Chris Badgett: If there’s somebody in another industry, like I’ve seen this movie many times before where you were a practicing notary, and you got into education, and then you got into- Yeah … scaling education online.

But then there’s all these state requirements and things like that. Do you like, when you think about ex- expansion, do you think about getting more of the California share, trying to figure out how to get into other states? ‘Cause there’s notaries in all 50 states in the US 

Jeremiah Jones: yeah. So- 

Chris Badgett: But they all have different rules, right?

So how do you even think about that? They do. Yeah. 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah, they do. Part of it is a balance between wanting to expand and really being able to capture the market at affordable price, right? So the, the customer acquisition cost is really, that’s really what it comes down to. So I can expand, for instance, into, Nevada, but if it costs me more to acquire a customer than the cost of afford- than I would charge for an affordable class, I’m not gonna go into a state and start charging $200 to acquire, for a class.

That being, so I o- right now we’re focusing on, if I focus mainly on California and how we can reach as many people as we can for, the best price. And the reality is, as far as the metrics I’ve seen, we’re number two in California next to the national brand. As far as the amount of customers that are signing up and the amount of c- we’re capturing something like, from what I understood when the, the numbers are shown to me, we’re capturing 25% of all of California’s notaries every month.

That’s pretty exceptional when our largest competitor is a giant mul- multimillion-dollar company that, spans all 50 states. And, we’re a team of three. So I’m pretty, pretty proud of that. Now that being said, we have tested going into the state of Texas. Texas is a different animal though, because like you said, that every state is different.

So for interest for for instance, in Texas there’s no state requirement to take the kind of class we’re teaching. Whereas like in California, in order to become a notary, you actually have to take a class legally a state-certified class like ours. If you want to become a notary in Texas, that’s not a requirement.

So it’s a different, sell. In, in Texas, I have to say, when I, when we’re advertising, I have to say, “Hey, if you wanna be a notary, I can teach you how best to become a notary and how best to notarize documents. But you’re not compelled to purchase this course in order to be a notary.”

And so just based on that alone, it’s gonna cost more to acquire that customer. And so be- because of that it’s going into each state is a little bit more difficult and requires very precise calculation on cost per acquisition and, how we can scale. So our plan definitely is to go into the Texas expansion again 100%.

We have the, the Texas books all ready to go, but I wanna make sure we do that without spending too much money on advertising. Speaking of getting clients I would imagine there’s a lot of different things. I’m sure you have some SEO and articles and content and pages and Google search. There’s paid acquisition through ads.

Chris Badgett: I imagine with a business like yours with 97% success rates and just a top-shelf customer experience, word of mouth and referrals is a big part of it, ’cause notaries talk to other notaries, I’m guessing. But like- Yeah … how do you how do you get clients? Like- What’s the, How do we get 

Jeremiah Jones: clients? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, like what’s the method that seems to work?

‘Cause I think it’s a really inspiring story if you’re going up against a national brand and you’ve got 25% of the market. The somebody would wonder “Hey I’m in this other medical niche or legal niche, there’s a big national brand or another trade.” Like, how, what would you advise them to do to, get clients starting from zero?

I guess you were already teaching in person, so you already had a reputation and there, but- 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah, but that reputation didn’t translate. It didn’t scale- Okay … to this at all. Because when I did it all on my own, on a brand-new company with a company that nobody had ever heard of before. I designed the logo, at home on my computer.

And and so any reputation I had didn’t matter because, the random person who wants to become a notary on a Thursday doesn’t know who I am, that they were taking my course. So they’re just gonna Google how to become a notary. They’re gonna Google notary class. Yeah. I knew… What the one advantage I div- I did have was that I knew- I knew how big the market was, and I knew how much I could acquire.

I knew what success looked like. So I was able to set a metric for myself in terms of okay, this is how many customers on average I think we can acquire a day and in order to be profitable. And so I knew I had that North Star. And so going into, It kinda goes back to the customer, ’cause I- everything’s focused back on the customer, and that is trying to understand their psychology.

So if somebody wants to become a notary, what are they gonna do? They’re gonna go on Google, and especially, five years ago, they’re gonna go on Google. Now they might go to ChatGPT, which is not bad, ’cause we show up in ChatGPT every day. But I knew they were gonna go to Google. So I knew I had to have a very well-optimized site for SEO.

And I I didn’t know how to do that, by the way. And I knew I had to run Google Ads and I didn’t know how to do that either. But somehow I got a Google Ads account set up, and I figured, okay, if my price was $79, if I, What was my metric? I think I put $100 in on the first day. So if I spend $100 today, and I get two sales, then I’ll spend $100 and f- $150 the next day.

And that’s actually exactly what happened. And so I started- I was always… Like I never went into this saying, “Oh, I’m just gonna invest a bunch of money, go into debt, and then hopefully make it up at the end.” I wanted to stay net positive the entire step. I wasn’t ready to, risk it.

So maybe that’s, maybe another entrepreneur would, and they’d, throw in $200,000 into it and whatever, but I wasn’t ready to do that. I wanted to step this in very carefully. So we started with a very small ad budget and then just stepped it up, and stepped it up, and stepped it up. And always making sure, were we, by the day, the week month, quarter, year, were we profitable from in, going from the Google Ads?

Chris Badgett: Very cool. 

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah. And that’s, eventually that scales over time, and it scaled pretty quickly, by the way ’cause Google Ads will love to spend your money. So it scales pretty quickly. 

Chris Badgett: That’s like product market fit. You just see it. If the ad works on the first try for 100, a hun- 100 in, 150 out that’s awesome.

Jeremiah Jones: Yeah. That worked. That worked really well. That, now here’s the thing, though. That’s one aspect of it. The other aspect of it, like the Google Ads aspect is really important. Then the next part of it that’s re-

Really important is cut-off rule. And if you don’t ha- Hang on, give me one second here. We are about to lose charge. Shoot

Okay, one second. If you’re there- Sorry about this, Chris. 

Chris Badgett: It’s okay. 

JJ: Cut this part

Chris Badgett: My internet went down yesterday, so I know it- 

Jeremiah Jones: Sorry … 

Chris Badgett: it happens. Yeah. 

Jeremiah Jones: All right. All right. Yeah, sorry. I just didn’t realize what my charge was.

Chris Badgett: All good 

Jeremiah Jones: Anyway yeah. With Google Bus Step, the other part of it was customer referrals. Yeah. So the thing about customer referrals is they only exist because you’re creating a great customer experience. So I knew that from day one that we just had to create the best customer experience possible in order to get those referrals And now here’s the thing though, I will say ‘Cause you’re at in a different industry.

And I think it was identifying the types of customers that you have available to you. Because the customer that I just talked about, which is the customer who is googling becoming a notary that’s a warm lead. That’s somebody who wants to become a notary, and so they go on Google and they like, “I wanna become a notary,” and they’re ready to go.

They’re a higher intent purchase. They wanna become a notary, and that’s why they found you. So the other customer is the kind of person who doesn’t know much about being a notary. They’ve never really researched being a notary. And that’s a completely different customer because i- in some of the cases, they don’t even know what a notary is.

And those customers we’ve been finding on social media. Oh … I started to post TikTok and Instagram videos. And to be honest, I didn’t think it was gonna do very well. I’m like, “Who’s gonna watch a video of this bald guy talking about being a notary?” And we’ve got, like n- like 900,000 views, a million views, 800,000 views.

Wow. Some of our views I just looked the other one. I pulled up TikTok before this call, and this one is almost at a million views, and I just posted it not that long ago. The interest is there. And that really changed the game for us because now we’re targeting people who, again, let’s face it, nobody, you know, wakes up in the morning and says they wanna become a notary.

The reason why you w- wanna become a notary is because you can make extra money. And so we’re advertising this message of look, you can actually, like what I did, you can go from fast food and start to be a notary, start to notarize documents and, make money. And that is really resonating on social media.

And I it doesn’t surprise me because the thing about being a notary is you’re starting your own business. And I don’t know any business in the world that you can start for $79. Yeah. So giving people that option of… ‘Cause I have a lot of people who are, they don’t necessarily have the same opportunities as other people.

I have a lot of people that are under-educated. I have a lot of people that are coming from all kinds of different financial situations. And, they don’t necessarily have a master’s degree or, I don’t have a master’s degree, but they don’t have the credentials it would take that, it would take somebody that they would normally traditionally think to get a high-paying job or just even to make extra money.

But they don’t necessarily wanna work fast food. They don’t wanna drive for Uber Eats. They don’t wanna drive for Postmates. If this is an option to them that they may not have thought about, they’re already searching for different side hustles or whatever. Here’s something different that not everybody’s doing.

And so when I started posting on social media, I was very surprised. When our first video got like 150,000 views, I was like, “No.” And then we got 500,000 views, and I’m like, “Okay.” And then we’ve just been going up from there. And that’s been really great because we’ve been able to, like I said, we’ve been able to capture the attention of a completely different customer than we’ve ever have captured before.

Because there, it’s always been warm leads on Google, people that already knew they wanted to be a notary. And so now we’re capturing a whole different avatar, and we have some more expansion ideas on that whole department because it’s worked so well, so we’re really excited about that. 

Chris Badgett: I love that.

That’s awesome. The the idea of the top of the funnel where it’s not just people who are already looking for your solution. The, creating marketing for people that aren’t even aware. They’re problem aware. Like they want- … a different job or side income or more flexibility or whatever.

But just exposing them to the notary option that’s awesome, and that’s a huge top of funnel play, which is very cool. I’m really excited for you that it really hit- Thanks … on social media. And the power of TikTok- Yeah … and the way the algorithm works there where it gives everybody an equal chance to get eyeballs, and you happen to be talking about something that, is in the mind of people looking for different career paths and things.

It’s awesome. And the other thing I gotta say is it’s really fulfilling when I get… I just got this message yesterday, an email, and it was a really long email. I was like, w- I was like, “Oh, my God, is this a customer complaint? What is it?” And then I read it, and it turns out, no, it was a customer talking about how this course changed their life.

Jeremiah Jones: And and that she actually signed up with our course years ago. And just completely turned things around for her, and she’s now a full-time notary. And she really just wrote an email to say thank you, and that really, that really means a lot. It tells you that what we’re doing is the right thing because- Like I said, I knew that there was a better way.

I knew that there, that other companies were more interested in taking money from prospective notaries than actually helping people become notaries. And I knew that we could really help people in that situation. A lot of my customers are in a tough financial situation. That’s why they wanna become notaries.

They say, “I want to do something to make extra money, but I don’t know what that is.” And we present this solution to them, and the best part that makes me feel good is that we present them this solution for the best price possible. It’s a… See that it really ha- does have an impact for people means a lot to me.

Chris Badgett: JJ, thank you for being a shining example of a education entrepreneur, and you’re not just, selling training and supplies, you’re actually creating a transformation. You’re helping people find a new career and become a better version of themselves or get in a better financial position, like that long email that you got where you literally changed somebody’s life at an affordable pri- price, $79- Right

while caring a lot about their experience throughout their entire journey. It’s, that’s awesome. So my hat’s off to you. 

Jeremiah Jones: Thank you very much. 

Chris Badgett: So that’s JJ at eznotaryclass.com. Check it out. And again, JJ, thanks for coming on the show. Thank you for sharing your story, and keep up the amazing work. 

Jeremiah Jones: Thank you, Chris.

Appreciate it.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode

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Richard Dunbavand describes how MDR Training first offered in-person training for the heavily regulated transport sector in the UK, where drivers, transport managers, and company owners must meet certain requirements in order to be compliant. When classroom instruction ceased during COVID-19, it was the most significant turning event. After one of his trainers found LifterLMS through a YouTube video, Richard swiftly transferred the instruction online.

He taught himself WordPress and LifterLMS and created the complete training portal on his own, despite the first learning curve being difficult. Approximately 15–20% of the UK transport management training market is served by MDR Training, which now has about 5,000 students on the platform with 200–300 new students enrolling every month.

The significance of assignments, tests, active learning, and teacher feedback is a central topic in Richard’s narrative. MDR Training incorporates multiple-choice tests, case studies, homework, and hand graded assignments with live classroom and Zoom instruction, as opposed to just recording class sessions and posting them online. Through the LMS, tutors may receive student contributions, evaluate them, offer comments, reset tasks, and keep track of students’ progress. According to Richard, the first-time pass percentage for their self-study students is less than 25%, whereas the rate for students who receive classroom or online teacher supervision is about 86%.

Additionally, Richard describes how LifterLMS has enabled MDR Training to grow outside the confines of traditional classroom settings. They can now train over 150 individuals each month in online sessions, with students coming from Saudi Arabia, Nepal, and all throughout Europe, as opposed to just a few people in a classroom. Assignments, tests, reports, alerts, certifications, cohorts, and the Sky Pilot theme are among the features that have grown to be crucial components of their operations. He especially appreciates reporting as it enables the staff to spot pupils who are struggling or falling behind and take action before the final test.

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Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Richard Dunbavand from MDR Training in the UK, which is compliance training in the transport industry. Richard has been using LifterLMS for a while. It’s really cool what he’s done. He’s self-taught himself WordPress and LifterLMS, and made a really interesting training company that’s very needed in his industry.

Richard, welcome to the show. 

Richard Dunbavand : Chris, hi. Thanks for having me on. And you didn’t hash my surname quite as badly as I expected you to, so that’s good. 

Chris Badgett: I had a little bit of practice. 

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah. But yeah. Well- No, thanks for having me on. 

Chris Badgett: You’re at mdrtrainingportal.com. And- Great … tell us we, LMS we’re always around three letter anacronyms.

What is MDR stand for? And just tell us, like what a transport manager, CPC, and all these things are. Give us the context- Sure … of the type of training you do and what it is. Yeah. 

Richard Dunbavand : No worries at all. So MDR isn’t very exciting, I’m afraid. So originally, we were a recruitment agency years and years ago, and the recruitment agen- agency was called Midlands Driver Recruitment, MDR.

We set up a training arm of the recruitment company, and the logical thing was to call it MDR. Sadly, what we didn’t realize is there’s a medical qualification called Medical Devices Regulation. So initially, my SEO was borked because everybody was searching- Ah … was searching for that, but thought we were a medical devices company.

It’s not the best in the world, but so we specialize in transport training. Okay, so in the UK it’s a highly regulated industry whether that be the driver, the transport manager, the business owner, whatever it may be. And it’s very easy to fall foul of that compliance, in which case you lose your license, you lose your ability to drive, ability to run your business.

So we’ve set up a, a range of courses to help people stay compliant and stay abreast of the rules. The, the biggest course is our Transport Manager CPC. It’s the equivalent, and I don’t know what the equivalent would be in the US, but it’s the equivalent of an A level- Sort of between college and university, which is tough for guys. Most people who sit our course, the average age is roughly 40. A lot haven’t been at school for a long time, haven’t learnt for a long time, and some of them haven’t been in front of a computer for a long time. So it’s interesting. But we were del- w- we delivered classroom courses originally.

People would come to us within an hour or two’s travel time. They’d come to our classroom, and that would be about, about as far as we could grow. COVID hit. As with a lot of provider, training providers, the world stopped. It got to… It was a bank holiday here, so it would’ve been mid-March, and Kevin and I sat and had a conversation, and it was, “We’ve got nothing left,” so I cobbled together an online course and we put it out there. Not using LifterLMS, just something we did ourself. Cobbled it together and that was the beginning, we picked up Lifter– When did we pick up Lifter? So one of the trainers actually watched one of your YouTube videos.

Watched the video, and he said, “Look,” “we should have a look at this.” So I did. We took a trial. I think it was a £1 trial or something along those lines. Took… Oh, the dollar trial, sorry. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Richard Dunbavand : Took the dollar trial. I looked at it, panicked, thought, “I’ve got no idea what I’m doing here.”

But slowly, over the last Three years. We’ve built a portal and a, a, a product or a group of produ- products that we hold about 15, 20% of the UK market for transport management. So it’s going well. Lifter was key to that because with any learning, the only way you can confirm that you understand something is by practicing it, and the courses that we do, they’re exam- there’s exams at the end. So they would do case study exams, written answers or assignments using your plugin term, multiple choice quizzes. Again, quizzes is perfect. So it’s grown from there. I, I think we’ve got just shy of 5,000 students on the portal at the moment, and it’s growing. We, there’s 2 or 300 joining us each month, so it’s positive. We’re getting there slowly. 

Chris Badgett: Wow that’s awesome. And tell us take us back to the beginning. I think this started around 2007, if I’m correct. 

Richard Dunbavand : The 

Chris Badgett: business? 

Richard Dunbavand : And- Yep, yep … 

Chris Badgett: and you had- So that was-

like real classrooms as well. And that’s what COVID threw a, a challenge towards. 

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: We, we- But like how did it begin? 

Richard Dunbavand : We were, like I say, we were a recruitment agent first, so we were supplying drivers to companies, and then the EU brought in a a regulation that every driver had to do a day of training every five years.

One, a day, a year, every five years. So f- five days over five years. And initially we thought, well- If we get our drivers trained, they’re more saleable, they’re trained, they’re qualified, they’re good to go. So we started doing that, and that was classroom. We were hiring rooms, we were hiring village halls, we were hiring whatever we were doing which isn’t really scalable.

Y- it isn’t scalable. You could, you … how many people can you fit in a classroom? 20, and that was about as far as we could grow. And then somebody approached me, one of our customers approached me and said, “Can you do transport management?” Being a salesman, I said, “Yes,” without actually knowing what it was.

So w- within three months, we had to scrabble together and put a course together, get our approvals, get the regulations up which we did. And we ended up with three people on the first course, and two out of the three passed, so we had a 66% pass rate, which compared to the national average of 40, we were in the sort of upper echelons of what we’re doing, and it’s just grown from there.

Like I say, we now have around about 150, 160 people a month sit their exams. And then there’s all the courses that come off the back of it. They have to do refresher courses. Business owners have to do awareness courses, and it’s just grown from there. And again, every course has got its space on the portal.

The testing’s done through there. They’re accessing their course material, course notes. We’ve created … We- audio files have been fantastic for us, because people can listen to that in the car. You listen to a live session with a tutor, and then on your way home, you press the but- press the go button, play it through your car And you get it back.

So we’ve… it’s exciting at the minute. It’s ever so exciting, i’m still waiting for the wave to crash, because that’s, I’m mildly pessimistic, but, it doesn’t seem to be going at the moment. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And you do things a little differently. Sometimes, particularly in a COVID situation, people try to film the classroom and then just b- basically- digitize everything, but you do something different, where… I’m g- what I wanna get a sense of is, like, all the different ways you make content or training, and then- Okay. Yeah … what your team looks like. So for example, y- you do live training, virtual Zoom, or some kind of- Yeah … meeting training. Yeah.

And then you have tutors, and then you do assessments with LifterLMS. What’s the stack? 

Richard Dunbavand : Okay, so how it works is, So we still run classroom courses as well, so we’ve got a team of tutors, trainers, who a- who are delivering the courses on a day-to-day basis. Whether that be in the class over Zoom.

We have quite a few distance learning students as well, so I guess you’d call it a, almost like a correspondence course, where they get feed- fed back again through the portal. So they go from, once they’ve had their tutoring, whether that be in the class or whatever we then set them homework to do.

We set them multiple choice c- practice papers. We set them case studies, which are long-form answers. And all that’s done through the portal. It’s, they the great thing about this is they can submit a piece of work, whether that be right or wrong or whatever, it’s submitted.

The tutor gets it, so the tutor that’s taught them will then get their homework, he’ll get their homework, and he’s able to mark it. He’s able to feed it back to them. He’s able to get them to redo it if they’ve, if they’re making mistakes. But the, the feedback is so important, and that’s the how people learn is by doing, you can t- you can talk to somebody until they’re blue in the face, but until they’re practicing, until they’re making mistakes, because you make mistakes, that’s how you get better. And that’s what this has enabled us to do, it’s enabled us to, each block of sessions we can test it. We know that they’ve understood what they’ve been taught, and they can apply what they’ve been taught into an exam.

And that’s the key. 

Chris Badgett: So the tutors, how do they give the feedback? 

Richard Dunbavand : That’s all done through the portal. So they’ll receive an- receive the assignment. We’ve not twiddled with the plugin in any way, shape, or form. Chris Badgett will do his case study on driver scheduling. That will come through to Richard.

I’ll get an email. I’m able to go… I click a link in the email, it takes me straight to the portal. I can review what they’ve put. I can tell them whether it’s good, bad or horrible, and then we can work from there. Do they need to do it again? I can reset it. They can do it again. Have they got the, the required marks?

If they have, then we can move to the next. It’s that engagement that’s key because we do sell one of the courses, which is a straight home study course. You buy the course material, it’s about 130 pound. You buy the course material, you’re on your own. You get access to the multi-choice through the portal.

But the case studies, you’re on your own. The pass rate between that, the first time pass between a, a, a self-study course and our classroom or the online course, self-study is less than 25% of the people that buy it go on and pass and become a transport manager. With the classroom and online, it’s 86% because we’re supporting them.

We can see what they’re doing. If you study on your own, you don’t know you’re ready for an exam until you sit the exam, and invariably you find out you ain’t, but using this system that we’ve got here, we can… We’ve got the engagement with the students that we can get them to a position where they understand they’ve seen everything that the examiners can throw at them, they’ve made those mistakes and it’s like I said earlier, mistakes are key because that’s how you learn. 

Chris Badgett: That’s really awesome. It shows the power of feedback loops. Absolutely. Like self-study is great, but you’re gonna do a lot better with tutoring and feedback and, getting busy with assignments and case studies and things like 

Richard Dunbavand : that.

There’s no comparison, Chris. There’s no, there’s no comparison at, at all. So yeah, it’s, What we’ve got it’s working, always needs tinkering, always needs a bit of playing with, and we can always evolve a little bit, but w- we’re getting there slowly. We’ve got we’ve got a, a, a new person that’s joined us, and she’s really taking on the creation of these assignments, which is fantastic because, again, it means the more we can offer people, the more they can see, the more they can physically do through the portal, the better they’re gonna be. 

Chris Badgett: That’s fantastic. Take us back to the the moment where you were… you decided to go with LifterLMS and WordPress.

And I’m also super 

Richard Dunbavand : fascinated- I prefer not to ’cause it was hellish. 

Chris Badgett: Why was it hellish? I’m curious. Is it 

Richard Dunbavand : because of- it wasn’t. That’s not true. Oh, okay. So it, One of the trainers, Brad, he watched one of you guys vid- YouTube videos. It popped up in a, I think… I, it was… we’d been talking about e-learning.

We were using… I forget who we were using before, but we were using somebody and it was very basic. Very basic. And anyway, Brad showed me this video. I thought, “I like the look of that,” obviously, you had a fully-fledged system with, bells, whistles. I thought, “That must be easy,” so we took a trial. And I forget the length of the trial and I knew nothing about WordPress, I knew nothing about LifterLMS, I knew nothing about plugins, anything. So it blew my mind, it literally blew my mind initially. But watching, picking up YouTube videos, picking up, things that I read online, you slowly start to get an understanding of how to build.

The… When you guys changed to the… I forget the new tem- the new theme that came out. Is it- Skypilot … Skypilot? Yeah. Skypilot. Yeah. Fanta- absolute game changer because it just… Everything felt easier. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah.

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Richard Dunbavand : Everything felt easier. And again, that could just be because I was learning more as I was going, but that, when that came out, all of a sudden the site looked more like how I wanted it to, I felt like I could, it, it… we could match it to the brand, we could match it to how we want it to be. So yeah, it was… I say hellish, it was great fun, I made a huge amount of mistakes. I deleted courses by mistake. I lost quizzes. But that’s part of it, and it’s…

I can look back now and say it was fun. My gray hairs wouldn’t agree with me, but, so yeah it took- It probably took about three months of prep to get us, to get to the position where we had a course that we could put out to people, we the, there was there were enough quizzes, there’s enough assignments, and we knew what to do with those assignments.

Yeah it’s … If, i- if anybody’s curious about anything I’d definitely, I’d say have a go, because what’s the worst that can happen? The worst that, the the it changed our business completely,

Chris Badgett: it sounds like it took you about 90 days to really kinda give yourself permission to learn and figure it out.

It’s not like- Yeah … it just, you understand it all in the first day. It takes a while. 

Richard Dunbavand : No, there’s a the, the learning curve from, just for WordPress itself was quite steep, yeah. I was used to, I’d used Squarespace and Wix, and the, as website builders before.

I’d never had any sort of contact with, a plugin system or that sort of daunting back end when you see a dashboard that none of it makes a huge amount of sense. So y- I, you just have to play. You have to play with things. The good thing about- W- WordPress, Lifter and so on, you can’t really break it.

Yes, you can make mistakes. Yes, you can delete things, but everything’s recoverable. Play with it, and y- if I can do it, most people can do it. 

Chris Badgett: That’s what I would say If in terms of like building the site, not doing the tutoring and reviews and things like that, is that all you or is there somebody else on your team or did you get outside help or it’s all- 

Richard Dunbavand : No

Richard 

Chris Badgett: right here? 

Richard Dunbavand : I do no tu- I do no tutoring at all. Yeah. I’ve never done it. I I’ve jumped into one or two courses especially during COVID when, all the staff were furloughed and, or off or whatever. And it never goes well. I’m much better doing this, doing a…

i’m a salesman and a self-taught web person, yeah. But no, we’ve got a team of trainers, so we’ve got six, six people that train for us now. I do all the building with the site, with the LMS because that’s it’s become my favorite thing to do strangely. 

Chris Badgett: I can totally relate- ’cause when- … when I first got into WordPress, which was a long time ago it was around 2008, which is ancient, but I became… I wasn’t trying to, but I became obsessed in the best way. “This is fun. This is really fun.” “And by the way, I’m building something very useful that helps a lot of people.”

That’s- 

Richard Dunbavand : Mass- massively. And it is rewarding. You see these guys come through this course, and a lot of time, a long, a lot of the time, for us particularly or for this industry, if these people don’t pass this, their business is gone. They can’t operate without it. We’re kinda keeping people going, which is, it’s a good feeling.

It’s a great feeling. And you’re right about WordPress. You’re always looking at it going, “Can I make it better? If I do this, will this help? If I add this, will this help?” And it’s almost addictive in a way. Yeah … in a good way. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. That’s awesome. Is there what, which parts of the LifterLMS tech do you find the most useful or that has the most impact?

I’ve heard you mention just the core LMS system, of course. For sure. Then you’ve mentioned assignments quizzes- … and then the Sky Pilot theme. Is there any other area features or any of our other add-ons that you find essential? 

Richard Dunbavand : Some that I’m playing with at the moment.

I’m just starting to play with the new new events. I, I- Yeah … haven’t got my head around it yet. That because at the minute we send out a list of Zoom links to people. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Richard Dunbavand : Bit messy. It’s messy. What I want is, for each module that we’ve put together on the portal, each module there’s a link there, so that’s gonna take some toying with. Certificate generation, that’s one of them. We use that a lot, because for the smaller courses, they’ll they get a certificate at the end of it. It’s a case of click a button, you get a thumbs up notification, you’ve completed a course, download your certificate.

It’s done, it’s templated, it’s tidy. I really like that. What else do we use in there? Obviously, payment gateways are a, an essential part, but for us the biggest thing by a country mile is the testing ability, I still have got lots to play with, do- 

Chris Badgett: Are you primarily doing multiple choice and then when you say assignments, are they doing the essays or uploading PDFs or what are  they doing? 

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Richard Dunbavand : It, I use the essay template, for want of a better word. So they will be asked a question. So I type out the question. I don’t know schedule a driver’s time, driving time from point A to point B.

There’s a basic schedule, and then they’ll be t- they’ll be typing that out through there. And that, and again I’ve tried to structure it in the framework that I can. I’ve tried to structure it to match their final exams, because there’s no point in me giving them practice work to do without it looking and feeling like the final exam that they’re gonna sit.

So yeah, they’re key. Trying to think which other elements that I use. They’ve probably just become natural to use now. I don’t really think about what, which, which ones I’m using. You know- 

Chris Badgett: It sounds like you’re using the notifications somebody submits something- Absolutely

you click the link, you go right to it. That’s- Yeah … a feature. You’re probably using the reporting a little bit just to check in on people. 

Richard Dunbavand : Reporting is essential because- Yeah … if, so on a Monday the trainers will walk into several hundred assignment submissions, the multiple choice or the the quizzes, they’re all self-marked, as which is, again, that’s another great thing. It’ll give them feedback at the end. It’ll tell them what they’ve got right, what they’ve got wrong. We can give them pointers. But with the assignments, we have to mark it by hand because- If a system couldn’t mark it because you’re asking somebody to translate their understanding onto a paper, so you could get 15 different answers to the same question.

So with the system, the tutor gets, or the, the trainers get emails to say, “Chris Budget has submitted his financial management case study. Richard has submitted his,” whatever it might be, case study. You can literally click a link in your email, it opens up this, opens up the reporting tab, and you can see their submission.

You can mark it, you can grade it, you can feed it back. And like I said, Eddie, that feedback’s key. So yeah, reporting is really important. Y- without it we’d be stuck. I I with the, a system that we used before, we tried people submitting PDFs to us, and it took away from what we needed.

You know what I mean? I can see s- I can see how that can work, if it is a very structured thing. But that engagement on the site, it works for us 

Chris Badgett: You sound a lot like me, where you fall in love with technology, and you’re, like, a self-directed learner. But it sounds like you, you also have trainers that need to log into the LMS- 

Richard Dunbavand : Yes

Chris Badgett: who may or may not- And 

Richard Dunbavand : that’s fun sometimes. 

Chris Badgett: Who may or may not be as technical or enjoy it as much as you do. Like, how do you help onboard your team into using the system? 

Richard Dunbavand : I give them as little access as possible. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Richard Dunbavand : No but in all seriousness, yeah. The guys with WordPress, and again, this is something that I discovered after a while that you can, you can give d- people different account levels, account access, and so on.

The, the trainers have an instructor-level access, which means they can see what they need to see. We’ve actually white labeled this. Eh, they used it for about six or eight months, but it didn’t work for them. But I white labeled our portal for a, a training company that we’d worked with before, and was able to give their trainers the training to be able to use it, and it doesn’t take long.

For somebody as an instructor, an- as an instructor to use this system, it’s a piece of cake because it is email, click in it, click a link in an email, answer what you need to do, click submit, you’re done. So they don’t need to have any real technical know-how. Barring the training that I’ll give them, which like I say when we did it for the other company, probably took me two hours to get them to a position where they could mark their own work, they could gauge their students’ progress.

That’s the other key thing as well. With this, you can see Chris Badgett has only done 1% of the course. I can know then, I can say, “Oi, come on, you need to be getting on, you need to be doing this stuff.” Or you can see who’s engaging, who’s struggling. Y- and you can pick those people up, or you can spend some extra time with those people to make sure they understand it.

So yeah, reporting’s key, and we’d be nowhere without it. 

Chris Badgett: And that’s the difference too between the 25% completion rate on the self-study versus the 85% when a tutor or a trainer is looking at it and helping people get unstuck and learn from their mistakes. Absolutely. 

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah, ab- absolutely, because it’s adult education, a- and as I said at the beginning, some of the guys that come to this course, they may have driven a truck for the last 40 years and haven’t been to school for 52 years. What- whatever it may be, different… Everybody’s different. Everybody needs a certain level of massaging to get to the right position.

Some people, reasonably hands-off. You can let them run with it. As long as you’re telling them what they’re doing right and wrong, they’re good. Other people, they struggle, and that’s, it’s part of the job, it’s part of adult education. It’s getting people to a level where they can get this qualification that they need, yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Do you have a sense… people like you and I we’re gonna do most of our work on a laptop or desktop computer. Do you know if the students, are they mostly on laptops and things, or are they taking classes on the phone or on the iPad or whatever? 

Richard Dunbavand : I try and dissuade them from using a phone.

You can, th- they can do multiple choices fine. If they’re using LifterLMS, do that on your phone. In fact, it’s a great thing you do. You’re having your lunch, you can have a sandwich and you can do a multiple choice, we try and stipulate that the… And again, because we’re trying to replicate the final exams, you’re on a laptop, you’re on a PC, you’re on a m- whatever it might be.

And it- the system’s scalable enough that you can, you could, they could do a case study online or on their mobile phone or on the cell or what- whatever you guys got, a mobile phone. They could do a case study on there, but it doesn’t give them the same- experience as their exam.

So I try and d- I try and dissuade it, but for the most part, yeah, you’re in front of a computer, you’re in front of a laptop with a webcam, with a microphone, and they’re able to access this as they go. But with, like I say, with the courses, the basic courses where it’s just multiple choice, mobile phone’s perfect.

You can log in, you can see it, they get their feedback, everybody’s happy. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I wanted to dig into an area, like the reason we built LifterLMS, like our core thing we’re trying to create is impact, income, and freedom. And what I mean by that is freedom is like creative freedom.

That’s you. That’s somebody who loves messing around with technology and- … creating automation and scaling a business. And you get to- … work from wherever and, … do, do your thing. It sounds like there’s a lot of impact. I think you said something like 5,000 students and 20%- … of the industry in the UK maybe.

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And then- 15, 

Richard Dunbavand : 20, yeah … 

Chris Badgett: income i- is interesting ’cause it’s it sounds like once you get a customer, they have to come back for refreshers over time. So that’s like a very sustainable way of doing business. Absolutely. But maybe unpack more income impact, freedom types of things. I- Like what have you achieved there?

Richard Dunbavand : There is… if you take where we were- What would it be? Four years ago. Pre-COVID. Let’s go pre-COVID, ’cause that seems to be… It’s like AD to BC, that, that’s the change. But pre-COVID we had small classroom, we had, we could hire places, but we were so limited on what we could do.

We were limited by volume, we were limited by everything, we were limited by everything. Fast-forward to now, and that, obviously there was income expectations for that, you could only have, let’s say you could only have 10 people in a classroom, you earn the equivalent of what 10 people do.

Now I can have 150 people over online sessions, in a ve- in… We do three times that. It… So we used to do 10 people in a classroom once every quarter. Very little, but now we’ve got 150 every month. I’ve got a, a lady with- in Nepal studying with us. I’ve got two guys working on the NOOM project here in Saudi, or were working on the NOOM project in Saudi.

You we have a lot of guys, European guys, because they can come to the UK. Online training has enabled us to do that, because it doesn’t matter where you are, you can sit in front of a computer, like you and I are now, we’re halfway across the world, but this works as a training medium, it’s, it ju- it’s opened so many borders. Financially, for us, there’s no com- it’s worked really well. We’d be… I’d be in a much smaller room if I was still doing the classroom. 

Chris Badgett: And on the impact front, you, you’re creating careers for people, which is a very satisfying thing to do, right?

Sure. That’s gotta feel fulfilling to help somebody get an awesome job and maintain their job and grow. That’s pretty cool. 

Richard Dunbavand : And that’s the key, it is… the industry that we work in, or the industry that we train in is hugely run by compliance. Because- The, the reason is you’ve got people in a large truck, which who knows what can happen in a large truck, things can happen, things can go wrong. So there are a huge amount of rules, regulations that these guys have got to adhere to. Now, most people come into this, a bit like I did coming into LifterLMS and WordPress. I didn’t really have a clue. I knew what I needed to achieve, but didn’t really know how to do it.

We can give the guys the structure, the scaffolding that they need to be able to go from one truck to three trucks to 10 trucks, and it is it is satisfying, if you get feedback from… or the trainers get feedback at the end of the courses and, it’s pass or fail.

They’re happy with the service that they’ve had, they’re happy with the resources that we’ve provided them. Yeah, it feels good. It feels good. 

Chris Badgett: And there’s only so much that Richard can do, so you have a team. At a- … for a training company, compliance company of this size- 

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: how would you just…

There’s you and there’s trainers. Is there anybody else, like- 

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah … what’s- So we’ve got ad- so we’ve got admin teams as… We’ve got admin guys as well who are, sending out course material, who are doing the, everything that comes at the back end of the course. Obviously the accounts and so on.

So it’s… we’re taking on one or two members of staff a year, which considering we were a team of three for 12 years, it it’s, we, it’s enabling us to grow. It’s enabling us to keep moving forward and offer more courses, w- we’re always looking at the next, what can be the next addition to this, it has to be transport-related ’cause that’s what we’re known for, but what’s next? And being able… This level of growth is enabling us to take on more people, take on more trainers, take on more students. Whatever it might be. It’s a good snowball to be in. 

Chris Badgett: What what advice would you give somebody else who’s in a regulated trade industry and they’re ki- they’re in the classroom situation and they’re looking to figure out online?

What would you recommend based on your experience of figuring all this out? 

Richard Dunbavand : Just do it. Yeah. Just do it. It’s as si- it’s as simple as that. Don’t sit on your hands, it’s, it is the difference between, as I said a minute ago, the difference between a semi-regular class of five or six people to, innumerable numbers of people on courses, you know.

You’ve, obviously, your infrastructure’s gotta grow with you. But the, there was only Kevin and I, during COVID when we started doing the started doing the online courses, I was delivering them really badly. But we needed to have something, because that’s the way it wa- And we, we put it together and it just it gets easier, it’s really daunting, but get in there, get your hands, get your hands mucky with WordPress. Get your hands mucky with Lifter. There’s so many… You guys are brilliant for YouTube videos, Feature Fridays, those types of things that come out. When you’re sitting there scratching your head thinking, “I haven’t got the foggiest what I’m doing here,” I can put something in- into YouTube and your face pops up, and all of a sudden, 10 minutes later, I’ve got that little bit of direction.

So yeah, don’t be scared of it. Get into it. Get into it because the rewards are there. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And you mentioned earlier, I think, you may have done, you don’t do a lot of customization outside of what the tools do, but maybe you’ve done some custom things. Yeah, 

Richard Dunbavand : sure. Sure. Have you done 

Chris Badgett: any mods, modifications 

Richard Dunbavand : or anything?

I have. Yeah. We’ve done quite- Yeah, tell us about those … They’re a- and it’s becoming more and more. Mostly so the, the biggest one is and it’s a follow-on from the assignments, but so what I took is I took a, an exam paper and created that as a, a standalone plugin that the guys…

And again, along the assignments route, but they were able to do that, and it mimics the it mimics that online exam. A lot of stuff that we’ve modded is really to enable me to link students with the CRS that we u- CMS that we use, with the notification systems that we use. There’s so much you can do with it.

And that’s one of the great things about WordPress that I never knew was how much you can… Y- you can do what you want with it, you can create pretty much anything, as long as you’ve got- A vague idea or support or whatever it might be, but barring the core, nothing…

We’ve not really modded barring looks, the you- how we brand things, the core is the core. Any modifications that we’ve done are to to build on that core, to build it, to enable me to know who’s doing courses who’s contributing, who’s not, to enable me to bill people properly, because a lot of ours, although you can purchase through LifterLMS obviously and purchase through the website, a lot of… Because it’s a relatively expensive course, people wanna talk about it first, so people will ring me up, “I, I wanna do this course,” and sometimes it’s a two, three-week process to get them to that position.

So I can then go to the, go to Lifter. We’ve got cohorts of stu- oh, cohorts is something that I didn’t mention earlier that’s essential. Okay. The Lifter cohort. So we have a master 

Chris Badgett: class, 

Richard Dunbavand : for want of a better word, okay, and then each month or each course, I’m creating cohorts from that.

The beauty of that is it just copies what you’ve got there and puts in… It puts a new month on it, so you know you’re putting the right students in the right place. And that, co- cohorts is fantastic. But it just… Yeah, the ability to mod and to add extra things is, it’s great.

It’s nice to have,

Chris Badgett: a question for you. S- sometimes people in the compliance niche or continuing education niche are practitioners who are looking at a second act in their career where they wanna move from being practitioner to building an education company, and- 

… 

Chris Badgett: So since you guys were already doing in-classroom training, you were approved by whatever the transport governing body- is. 

Richard Dunbavand : Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Could you give some general advice if somebody’s just stepping into it without that approval yet? Like, how do you become an approved provider in general? What’s some general advice there? 

Richard Dunbavand : Obviously, my, my experience is UK-based, but in the UK, so it starts with, for us specifically, you’ve got two.

You’ve got two main bodies that we need to be approved by. One is the exam board themselves it’s called the Chartered Institute of Logistics and Transport. And again, approval is daunting, it’s another thing that people look at and think, “I don’t know whether I can do this,” “i don’t know whether I’ve got that.

Have I got the structure in place? Have I got this? Have I got that?” What you’ve gotta remember is these people will help you, they want your money, ultimately. They want you to pay to be able to get that approval, so they will support you. And it, for us the, the transport industry, the DVSA y- the, m- most people are terrified of them because, they rule the roost.

They are the rule makers, and if you break the rules, they will come down on you like a ton of bricks. But ultimately, these guys do not… They’re not there to take your license away. They’re not there to stop a training company p- training, they’re there to support you to make the industry better.

So again, don’t be afraid. There are… there’s so much support available to people to enable you to get where you want to be that just do it,

Chris Badgett: I love your attitude, Richard. My last question for you is d- are you using AI at all these days? And if so- Yeah.

Yep … what are you using and what do you do with it 

Richard Dunbavand : in your- So- … training company? I I use Claude. Yeah. I use Claude, and I use Claude a lot. It’s become… One, it saves me a huge amount of time. Huge amount of time. I don’t use it for course creation as such, because I l- we need to do that, yeah. We need to do that. We need to know what we… I don’t feel I get enough from it. But if I wanted, like the modding we talked about- Yeah … I c- I can ask Claude to create, help me create a plugin. I know what I want, but I haven’t got the skills to do it. So I say to Claude do this.”

And what would either take me several hundred pounds through Fiverr and, places like that to get a custom mod done or many months of me banging my head against the wall trying to work, trying to learn JavaScript. I can just say to Claude, “This is what I want to achieve. This is why I want to achieve it, and this is how I want to achieve it.”

And, it can… It reads, it takes information from what you guys have created. It uses that, so everything… It links everything together. It’s incredibly clever. Incredibly clever, and I think if you are gonna get involved in this sort of thing, don’t be afraid of that either.

Because, although although there’s a lot of fears with AI, what’s it gonna do next? Are we all gonna have a job? Are we all gonna do this? And A- AI can only be as good as the person that’s controlling it, the person that’s telling it what it wants to achieve. So use it. It’s a huge time-saving tool, 

Chris Badgett: yeah. That’s awesome. Good on you. Thank you, Richard, for being a shining example of a education- I 

Richard Dunbavand : don’t know about shining. I’m getting a bit old for that. 

Chris Badgett: You’re doing amazing, and it’s, I just love the story. You just have a like a nothing’s gonna stop you, no fear, just learn on the go attitude, which is awesome.

That’s what it’s all about. But again- Yeah … thank you for being a shining example of- No worries at all … what we make LifterLMS for. And I’m so glad it’s been able to have the impact for you and the business and everything that it has. 

Richard Dunbavand : I genuinely think that without it, we wouldn’t have been anywhere near where we are, so it’s key. It, it really is key. And I’m ever so grateful that, And I’m glad I found you. I’m glad I f- I’m glad Brad found that video on YouTube, ’cause it made a huge difference,

Chris Badgett: that’s Richard Dunbavand. And that’s at- Oh, then … ndrtrainingportal.com. Thank you so much for coming on the show, Richard.

We really appreciate it. 

Richard Dunbavand : No worries at all. Good luck, everyone.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS.com/gift. Go to LifterLMS.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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According to Brian Casel, AI is changing how company owners develop software, produce content, and manage their companies. He talks about how incorporating AI into everything from software development and strategic planning to writing, design, and content production helped him become more “AI native.” Brian talks about his experiments with AI agents, such as creating a virtual company where a chief-of-staff agent manages specialist agents for product creation, expansion, and upkeep throughout his companies.

By fusing AI’s engineering capabilities with their current subject expertise, he thinks AI is also opening up new chances for non-technical entrepreneurs to create their own software. Brian now concentrates on product strategy, architecture, user experience, processes, and verification rather than developing code by hand, with AI agents handling the majority of the execution. He is investigating new methods for entrepreneurs to become AI native, automate their processes, and produce more autonomously through Builder Methods and solutions like Flywrite and Mimeo.

His main point is that AI is transforming the way businesses are constructed and enabling a small, highly skilled team or even a single entrepreneur to achieve significantly more than previously. It is not just a tool for speeding up old labor.

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. He’s back on the show. It’s Brian Casel. Brian is a prolific creator, software entrepreneur, designer, teacher, community builder. He does it all. You can find Brian over at briancasel.com, buildermethods.com mimeohq.com, Flyright, and many other places.

We’re gonna get in it, into it, but first, welcome back on the show, Brian. 

Brian Casel: Hey, Chris. Yeah, great to connect with you again. I don’t remember how many times I came on your show here. It’s been at least two or three over the years? 

Chris Badgett: This is probably three or four, something like that. Okay. And we’ve known each- Yeah

other for a long time. Yeah. And I do wanna say Brian’s YouTube channel is one of my favorite YouTube channels. Can you tell us what it is, how to find you and your approach to making videos? 

Brian Casel: Yeah, thanks. It’s been really interesting c- because I just took a little bit of a breather on the YouTube channel o- just in the last three or four weeks, but I’m trying to get back on it this week and record something.

But yeah, the, the YouTube chan- youtube/briancasel. I’ve been talking about AI and, building with AI, and also just how myself and others are adopting AI in e- everything we do. What I like to call, like, becoming AI native, because it really is in literally every type of work that I do at this point, from building software, to creating content, to even strategic thinking and planning designing, writing, all that kind of stuff I’m doing it with AI in, in the process. And obviously, we’re living through this time right now where it’s extremely rapid change and new stuff is dropping all the time.

The models and the harnesses and the products are getting so much better so fast. Literally just within the last six to eight months, things got so much better. And that’s a lot of rapid change, and we’re used to fast change in our industry, but not like this. This is a new level, and I think a lot of people are trying to deal with that, and it can be scary. It can be exciting. It, there’s a lot of anxiety out there, and I’m trying to… What I’m trying to do is just tr- identify workflows and mental models and patterns and business systems for how we can start to adopt things and change how we work, I think- And it’s been fun but also hard, especially on the YouTube channel where things change so fast. Literally a, a video that I published a month ago can easily go out of date that fast,

Chris Badgett: I think your channel is really cool. It… I look up to you.

We all… I bet you do, too. You feel like you’re behind. Everybody feels like they’re behind in AI, but I actually look to Brian as a leader and, in the early days of what’s OpenClaw, what’s… How do we think about agents? And you had this awesome video or how to use Claude to do this, and I look to you to for me to see what’s next and to shorten my learning curve, and it’s been extremely helpful.

Yeah. And one thing I saw on your channel, I was looking at your views and I saw that, They’re all over the place … oh, I need to make some more con- content about Claude, and put the giant splash on the thumbnail, and those videos get three, four times the normal views. Little things like that.

Brian Casel: Man, it is it is quite a game that the YouTube- Yeah … the YouTube thing. It’s, and I… And I’ve learned a ton. I’ve only really been serious about it for about a year and a half now. The channel went from almost nothing, like 1,000 or two subscribers. I think it’s o- over 70K right now.

It’s, it’s good, but it’s not massive. But I learned a lot. It… And that happened over a 12-month period. At least in this space of AI one of the things that I found as you… If you look at the views on a bunch of videos of mine from the past within the s- the last six months, some of them are…

went crazy. I did one on OpenClaude. Did over 800K views, and then I’ve done a bunch on around Claude Code, done a bunch on, on other stuff, and they… And a lot of… These days, a lot of my videos are back down to Earth, around five, 10K views. And I did find that, like, when I… When I’m chasing the news, when I do videos about something that is new, especially if I hit it within the n- the first week or two or three of it being around, the video is gonna go crazy.

Yeah. It’s gonna do… it’s just gonna catch that wave, but at the same time it falls off a cliff, like, two weeks later. Yeah. And I f- I found that added a lot of pressure for me. Number one, I always felt like I’m on this treadmill that I have to get… I have to, first of all, even have systems for me to stay ahead of it and research the industry, and then know get familiarized with stuff fast enough so that I can then record a video and then figure out my whole editing and production process to get it out within two days, hopefully before Claude Code or Cursor or whoever drops the next thing and the thing becomes out of date.

And that was just a, a treadmill that I got a little burnt out on. But then I also found that that game didn’t really send the best leads and traffic to my business. And so in the, in my more recent videos, like, in the last month or two- I’m trying not to chase the, the news stuff, although I’m still interested in new things.

But I’m just trying to teach. I’m just trying to be helpful and and take lessons that I’m, and patterns that I’m learning and share them. Even if it’s not gonna ride some wave. Hopefully, it’s a little bit more evergreen and a little bit more future-proof. And that … It’s lower views in general, but I think it, it brings better quality people into Builder Methods, 

Chris Badgett: totally. Totally. And your videos are so useful and refreshing. It’s not like how to make a million dollars in a week with Grok Bot. You show actual “Oh, this is how I use this. This is how I set this up. This is my strategy. This is how I work around this issue,” or whatever. It’s super refreshing in all the AI hype content out there.

Yeah. 

Brian Casel: That will probably be my next video, though. Like something about- Sure it 

Chris Badgett: will … 

Brian Casel: maybe not that title, but I am playing with … I’m going down deep in the rabbit hole with Grok Bot right now, so I’m gonna do something about what I’m learning there. There, there are a few patterns that I’m noticing, 

Chris Badgett: it’s … I’m overly simplifying it, but in my experience in watching the market, there’s like ChatGPT and OpenAI started it, then Anthropic and Claude, everybody got all up into that. We have an agent named Maurice that’s all Claude powered and all that. And now Grok Bot’s on the scene.

So I think that’s what’s going on. But it’s just interesting. So what- Yeah … on, on the Grok Bot front, I actually haven’t played with it yet. It’s on my list, but I keep hearing it’s the way it should work, and it’s so much more intuitive and all this. What do you love about Grok Bot, or how do you think about it?

Brian Casel: Yeah, I’m still very new to it, just a few days in, so I’m still setting it up and experimenting a little bit. But yeah, it is a lot easier and just a better overall product. The … It … So y- folks should think about it in comparison to OpenClaw or Hermes, whatever they s- however they pronounce that.

So it’s like those, it’s like a, a bot. The main difference is that it is hosted on on Cursor’s cloud infrastructure. So as soon as you fire up GroqBot, like it already has its own computer. And it’s persistent too so it can like save stuff to its computer. It is powered by Groq’s model which can be good or bad.

It has… they must have some sort of special sauce in the harness that makes it be a little bit more like helpful and proactive, and it helps and it does stuff. One of the patterns that I’m do- A lot of people are like excited about it, but also you’re seeing a lot of people tweet about like how they burn through their usage credits- Yeah

Very fast. And I know that like they, they’ve been, changing up the plans and the usage limits and stuff a lot lately. But one thing that I’m doing with it is like I’m not really burning through the usage at all because I’m not having GroqBot do a lot of the work. I’m using GroqBot as the orchestrator.

So if it’s like coding or design work or even like writing now I’m also playing around with this, this tool called Amp Amp Code for at… It’s like an alternative to Cursor or or one of these. And I’m having GroqBot just delegate to Amp. You can do the same thing with Cursor as well.

So in that way it’s like whenever… So I’ll chat with GroqBot, it’s like, “I wanna build this new feature in my app,” and then it’ll go and spin up the cloud coding agent and do it and then get back to me. And I have a much more complex process where I’ll, spec out a product a, and feature and whatnot.

But that’s the idea is I kinda wanna like delegate to the bot and then the bot will go use whatever tools or agents on my behalf and then get back to me. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: What do you think about org chart design for AI agents? So as an example, like it’s one thing just to get your own business second brain agent going, but then explain the value of sub-agents and having a chief of staff or orchestrator on top.

Brian Casel: Yeah. And this is also like a new pattern with GroqBot. ‘Cause I previously, I had OpenClaw at first, and then I switched to Hermes. But with those, I just had the one bot for everything. And I didn’t really use it in like a large scale way. It was… Like, I had Hermes just running in the background and doing some like maintenance tasks for me.

But yeah, with GroqBot, what a lot of people are doing and what I’m doing is, like I, I do have a chief of staff bot that’s like my primary go-to person, bot that I talk to. And I’ve been experimenting with different team str- like organization structures, right? So right now what I have is for each of my products, so I have Builder Methods, and then I have Flywrite, and Mimeo, and Clarityflow.

And so for each one of those products, I have a head of that product bot, and I have a growth bot which will be in charge of running like growth experiments for that product, and then I have a maintainer bot, so any sort of recurring, like admin work that needs to happen for that product. So it’s like those three.

Like that’s like a pod for each product, and each of them technically reports up to the chief of staff. Or if I say “Eh, I want to build a new feature on Flywrite this week,” I’ll say that to the chief of staff, and then the chief of staff will delegate it down to that head of product.

But I… that’s actually what my project is this week, is like figuring out those operations and who hands the baton off to who, and how do w- where do we document stuff, and how do we have the bots run different projects, whether it’s like building out features or running like growth experiments.

‘Cause o- one of my goals with this is like it, it’s easy to get i- like into the weeds of redesigning and playing with all these new, fun tools and stuff, but like what’s the point? Why even play with it? And for me, the big goal f- of mine right now is to move from- Being like, I feel like I’ve been very like one-to-one with Claude or, whatever agent I happen to be working with.

I’m usually only doing like one thread, maybe two or three- Yeah … in a couple different tabs, but like my brain can’t handle more than that. 

But my thought with GrokBot is if I could develop an actual team operation very similar to how I would build a real team of humans I c- we can be running on multiple cylinders multiple bots doing multiple things all the time if I have reporting structures and bots are running on their own loops and things.

That’s the goal is to make it… is to actually s- try to scale the team and I’m ki- I’m getting a little obsessed with this idea of building a company of one now. I’ve- Yeah … histor- historically I’ve built real teams, but like I, I kinda like working solo now. I wanna see how far I can get with actually scaling in a way.

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Chris Badgett: So the… It makes sense with three different business products to have the context not all mixed together. ‘Cause they d- they’re different products. But so do each of the sub-agents, like the growth agent, the maintainer, do they have different skills repositories, or they all, they just know when to pull a skill from the main one?

Th- or how does that work? 

Brian Casel: The way that I’m setting it up right now is they share the same skills. Yeah. Because I only have a, a small handful of like core skills that they’re all gonna use, right? So like- 

Chris Badgett: Yeah … 

Brian Casel: like today I’m developing my product development skill. It’s actually like a set of two or three skills for like planning a new feature, and then building it, and then reviewing it, and Q&A-ing and that’s a skill that will happen on Builder Methods, that will happen on Mimeo, that’ll happen on Flywrite.

So all of those bots should be able to use the same process,

Chris Badgett: and then, but some of them have their own skills that aren’t cross- 

Brian Casel: Yeah, a few, but yeah, the- so I do have skills that are built into specific repos. Okay … so if there is something that is specific to the Mimeo…

okay, so like for Flywrite I do have a couple of skills that are specific to pushing out a new feature update on Flywrite, like like releasing a- Yeah … a new feature, deploying it and pushing it out to customers. That’s very specific to Flywrite’s code base and how we do it there. So that is a skill that lives inside of the Flywrite repos not like part of the global skills.

And and so then it’s just available there,

Chris Badgett: that’s awesome. And what have you been able to automate that you would have thought three years ago would have been impossible using AI agents? 

Brian Casel: Everything. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah.

Brian Casel: It’s… And dude, like you, I try to explain this to my fr- friends and family like normies in the world- Yeah

who are not in the tech industry, and I don’t know how else to explain it. Everything about how we work has changed, like 100%. It’s yeah, okay, we still do podcasts. That basically looks the same. But like- Yeah … everything else about how we write and code and design and ship, it’s all different now, at least it is for me. I don’t write code anymore, like I don’t write a single line. I, I’m in, I’m very involved in architecture. I’ll plan stuff and I’ll… And I’m still obsessed with UI and UX, but even that I’m giving my rev- re- my revisions to the coding agent to have them change it, content is- I create a lot of content obviously with YouTube, and I write a newsletter and stuff, but it’s always, it always starts with a raw brain dump, and then I have an agent write the draft for me. Yeah. And then I tighten it up a little bit,

Chris Badgett: yeah. It’s am- it’s amazing. Do you, when you work with your your GroqBot set up, are you only ever talking to the chief of staff, or do you sometimes go direct to a sub-agent?

Brian Casel: I’m still working this out, but I think I will be talking to most of the… both the chief of staff and the head of products. So it’s like, “Okay, this week let’s build a new feature in Flyright,” and I’ll probably just kick that off with the chief of staff. Then the chief of staff will get the head of Flyright involved, and then the, the skill has Fly- has that Flyright head starting to do the things, get the process going, all right. Still working out those logistics, but I think I do want them all talking to each other, and I saw a thing the other day that I haven’t implemented this, but the idea of having the, the bots have their own stand-up meeting. Oh, yeah. And and report and I don’t know document what, what happens, yeah. I’m like, I’m still, like, experimenting and really interested in all these different patterns, and we’ll see what actually sticks,

Chris Badgett: yeah, the one-person business thing has always been a thing, but now it’s supercharged with AI. Tell us about there’s this idea that if you vibe code a product or a feature and you don’t actually know how it works or whatever it could be dangerous.

But you’re here as a developer saying, “I don’t write code anymore, and everything’s fine.” Like, how is it fine? 

Brian Casel: Okay, so I know this is a hot topic for a lot of people. There are two camps. There are the technical people who are, like, career developers or builders and they’ve had to transition from writing code to using coding agents, and then there are the non-technical business owners who are just discovering how to build their own tools for the very first time.

They’re… These people are gaining superpowers that they’ve never had. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Brian Casel: I’m– I, I love both of the- those groups, and I think that it’s an incredibly exciting time for both of those groups. I guess I’ll speak to the technical people first, which is if you’ve been around and you’ve been hand coding your code base forever yeah it could feel hard to let go and let go of that trust, especially if you’ve ha- if you’ve had a bad experience w-with, you know agents writing sloppy code.

That can turn a lot of engineers off and cause them to say “Nope, didn’t like it. I’m gonna shut the door on Cloud Code or Codex or whatever it is, and I’m… It’s not for me.” I… i’m sorry if you’re a professional in this industry. That type of attitude may fly a year or two ago. It doesn’t fly in 2026.

It… If you wanna do real work in the real professional world you have to get on board. That– Whether you like to hear that or not that’s how things are built now. But the other misconception if you have been a a skeptic of using AI- y- that, that could also cause you to fall behind the technical on like having the technical chops of managing coding agents.

You can go deep technically with managing coding agents, and we should. We sh- i- if you don’t trust the code, it’s your job now as a professional engineer to design the skills and the processes and the verification loops and the QA checks and the prompt techniques and the training material for how you want your agents to do things predictably so that you can not only have one single agent do it, but there are actual professional teams now that are scaling to a single engineer managing like 50 agents at the same time, and we– like that doesn’t mean 50 tabs across your screen where you have to go through and QA check each one. It’s actually engineering systems that can self-check and verify and actually ship like 50 PRs a day. And like that’s extreme and I’m not even there yet myself, but there are teams doing that, and that’s where it’s going. So it’s like the sooner that you can start to really embrace and lean into buil- becoming like a more agentic engineer I think the better, I just wanted to speak to the non-techni- like the, the business owners, ’cause I see a lot of these people come into Builder Methods where, guy runs a dental practice or a law firm or like an accounting firm or something, and they wanna build their own practice management software for their own office because all the off-the-shelf SaaS tools are either too expensive or they don’t quite fit the way that their business operates, or their industry has some special needs, or they do sales a certain special way.

They have superpowers now, and yeah, they don’t have the engineering product design experience that a seasoned SaaS founder or entrepreneur builder will have, of course not. So in that sense, we are at an advantage if we choose to use it. But, a lot of those people, th- they have the domain expertise that we don’t have.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Brian Casel: The, the dental practice owner knows the nuances, the, the actual workflows, and the actual pain points that a dentist and their admins are dealing with that we will never even know. Y- we can interview customers all we want, but we won’t really get it unless you’re actually in that industry, and they know it.

And and to me, building software is learnable now. The… You don’t have to learn how to code. You do need to learn the process. You do need to learn patterns. I teach some of that in Builder Methods, but And you won’t be the world’s best engineer, but you can build a simple tool for you and your office to use.

That’s totally possible now,

Chris Badgett: so let me give you a specific example. I know actually in the LifterLMS ecosystem some dental office training platforms for hygienists in various roles at a dental practice. Quite a lot, some large LMS’s in that niche. 

And I’ve always said that you should put your customer at the center of your business, not your product, which means okay, maybe you’re a course creator and a trainer, but these, dental office owners would also benefit from other tools like perhaps software.

So are you saying that today an entrepreneurial dental business practice owner who’s getting into the training game, and they do all their training and continuing ed training and everything, could also add a dental practice management software with their own unique angle to their offer? It’s possible without a developer?

I know you’re saying it’s one thing to use it internally for your own unique bespoke company, but are we entering a period where, a product-minded person who’s an entrepreneur in whatever niche could actually build software even if they’re not a developer and commercialize it? 

Brian Casel: I think so, yeah.

I mean- Yeah … I I think they’re s- probably still the mi- minority. Most of those types of people in my experience, they’re really just more in- interested in building their own internal tools. But there are some that I’ve met that are entrepreneurial and they’re also at an advantage there too.

They have distribution. They know their industry. They know people. They know influencers. They, maybe they are influencers in their industry,

Chris Badgett: yeah. 

Brian Casel: You and me come from the software, SaaS, WordPress entrepreneurial circles, and we know the classic thing in our world is yeah, you can build a SaaS, but can you market it?

And and that’s always the hardest thing is getting that distribution, and it… theoretically you would like to be able to build a… for me, like to build a tool for some foreign industry that I’m not a part of, but it’s gonna be such an uphill battle for me to sell that tool to- HVAC companies, if I’m not an HVAC operator and I don’t know anybody in the industry.

But there are people who do. And look, the vast majority of HVAC owners or construction firm owners, yeah, they’re not gonna get their hands dirty with software. They’re not interested, of course, it’s probably 99% of the world and I’m not saying they’re all gonna go out and start using Claude Code tomorrow.

But there are some, like they come into my world, and they’re like they- they’ve heard about this thing called Claude Code or Codex. They heard about it on CNBC or one of these, and they start googling. They start open up- o- opening up ChatGPT, and all of a sudden a, a weekend goes by and they’re down the rabbit hole and they’re building actual tools.

And again, like they’re not… That, that person is like the minority, but like they’re… Once you start to learn a little bit, you learn a little bit more, and you l- learn a little bit more and then it’s that’s, th- that person is dangerous. They can… In a good way, like they’ve got connect- And also, like I, a lot of these people have resources.

Like they run really successful businesses. They’ve got cash. They’ve got marketing chops. They are systems minded, they just haven’t written code before, but you don’t have to write it code anymore, so you know.

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Chris Badgett: So correct me if I’m wrong, but I think back in the day you built something called Restaurant Engine- Yep

which was a, a website as a service for restaurants. But I think what you’re saying is like a restaurant entrepreneur who’s wanting to get in the software game today with AI without being an engineer could potentially build a better restaurant platform because they have all that knowledge, connection, resources.

Brian Casel: In my opinion, yes, but not most restaurant owners. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. A, 

Brian Casel: a very special breed. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Brian Casel: But someone who is a little bit technically minded and curious and motivated they can absolutely build and launch and get customers in a way that was not even remotely possible for them to do j- just a couple of years ago.

I was speaking to a dental practice owner two months ago, and he said that two years ago he paid $800,000 to- Yeah … a, a software development firm to build a dental practice management software- … that di- that didn’t end up working. And then here he is in my system, he paid a couple of hundred bucks to, to learn Claude Code with some people and and he’s this works so much better,” a- again, like I don’t wanna like- Paint the picture that every single small business non-technical person in the world is gonna start doing this tomorrow, but they are there. There, there’s a certain subset of people who are curious and technical enough to be dangerous, 

Chris Badgett: you know what I think it is? This is a huge gap in my opinion in the education market, which is, I would call it the art of product. You can go to school for engineering or design or business, but product is the least understood discipline. But there are those people, like you say, it’s one in 1,000 dental practice owners or whatever, who might have that product DNA.

They just need to develop- Yeah … the skills around that, and the engineering- I- … piece can help, AI can help with that. AI can help with, the business side and prospecting and all kinds of things. But product is you can’t go to college and get a master’s in product. 

Brian Casel: Y- yeah, you’re right. I think, and there’s different elements of being good at product, right?

Yeah. W- the part that I think they are really good at, I, and I th- I call them domain experts, right? Yeah. Your den- your dental practice owner or some- someone like that. They’re really good at the domain expertise, so they really know the pain points and the things that are expensive that they are trying to solve, and that is

We can be really good product designers. We can r- we can create great interfaces. We know the patterns of how to build software. So we might be good at that side of product, but to really understand your end customer and really know how to solve their problem better than anyone else can figure out that is probably worth more.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Brian Casel: But also I would say that w- while that person definitely has the capability to go from zero to one or call it zero to 100 first customers w- without much help beyond AI- Yeah … yeah, at a certain point if you’re getting customers coming in every day you are probably gonna need to team up with a technical person or someone to make this thing real, I would say.

If your business is scaling to lots of customers, you’re definitely gonna need some sort of engineering help to, handle servers and whatnot and and may- and maybe redesign the, the interface and stuff. But validating a, a new product is totally possible now, 

Chris Badgett: tell us about Builder Methods. I’ve watched you build that over the years, and you’ve got the workshops, the tools, the training, the community. What’s it all about, and who’s a good fit for it? 

Brian Casel: Yeah, Builder Methods r- is really only one year in now a little bit more than one year, and it- it’s gone through a few iterations, and I’m, and right now I’m working through what, what year two is gonna look like.

But it has some training in there. I, I did a couple of big courses. One is called Become the Builder, which is aimed at hel- at helping non-technical business owners learn how to learn just enough to be able to build a real piece of software without needing to learn how to code. That’s the idea b- with behind the builder or Become the Builder.

And then the second flagship course that I just recently launched is called Become AI Native, which is… which gets into writing agent skills and us- weaving AI into your workflow. Not necessarily building software, but just anything you do, whether it’s sales or content creation or, bookkeeping.

You can create agent skills to start to help you automate and scale that side of the business as well. That’s like the training side. But yeah, we’ve got a really great community of other AI, interested AI-pilled builders of all types. Some are very technical, some are non-technical.

That’s been a wide range. One thing I’m learning, I know that you’re in the, education space and LMS space and I think going forward, especially in my space with AI, I think I’m gonna be getting a, a little bit away from doing these big training courses and leaning back into these workshops.

And I did a f- a lot of workshops a few months ago. I wanna bring it back because they’re much more timely, right? I’m overhauling the way that I build now. I’m getting into cloud agents now. That’s like a new thing. And I kinda wanna do a workshop on my updated process for how I build stuff in fall of 2026, right?

And then I’ll… I wanna– So the way that model has worked with Builder Methods is the workshop itself might be low price, like 50 bucks, and then you have the option to upgrade into becoming an annual member of Builder Methods, which, gives you access to all the workshops, gives you access to all the training, the community.

And I’m releasing th- these tools. Whether I have a bunch of free open source skills and tools and frameworks, and then I’m developing these new paid software products, but, members get discounts on those as well. 

Chris Badgett: That is awesome. And does the what are the advantages and disadvantages?

You’ve talked about it already, but a non-technical versus a technical member I think it’s really awesome you have both, but are they both doing equally as well? 

Brian Casel: It’s been a… it’s been, like, because I’ve shifted my focus on, it started out a year ago really focused on the technical builders, like the- Yeah

the actual software engineers, how to adopt Claude code and stuff like that. And then in the last couple of months I started to shift focus toward those non-technical people, and so now we have a pretty healthy mix, and it’s pretty cool. We… There’s a Discord community in there and it’s been pretty cool to see the, the more technical folks helping the non-technical folks understand ba- obviously, I’m in there every day answering questions too, but so that’s been fun and I’m still figuring out right now what, h- what is what are the most valuable things and where should I focus the framing of it all. I think, more technical people really just come for the community and to talk shop with other builders who are really interested in adopting AI.

And the non-technical people, they do engage in the community, but they’re here to learn and really upgrade their skills and unlock things that they were not able to do before. So that’s been interesting.

Chris Badgett: And one of the things that I know makes you a great teacher is you practice what you preach.

You’re learning on the ground. So tell us about Flywrite and Mimeo HQ. 

Brian Casel: Yeah, and that’s why I want to get back into these workshops, is like I, I feel like every couple of months I have something new that I’ve learned just from my actual work that it didn’t make it into the last course so I just wanna do a workshop on it.

So yeah, Flywrite was something that came out of my work every day. I think I mentioned that I’m not really writing code anymore, and a lot of professional engineers are not really writing code, and that has resulted in most of today’s coding tools Moving away from the IDE, the editor, right?

So today’s agentic coding tools are really just focused on speaking to agents, and you have a list of a- of agent chats that are going on. And most, most of these newer tools are either pushing the file list, like your list of files and being able to read and edit your actual files, they’re either pushing it off to the side, or some of these tools don’t even have it.

You’re just talking to agents, which is great if you’re working on software. Yeah. And I use tools like that where I’m … I don’t need to look at the files anymore. I’m just either in the terminal or in an agent chat of some kind. That’s great, but the other half of what I do is content.

I’m writing newsletters I’m writing scripts for YouTube videos I’m, creating courses and stuff. And that stuff I do need to put my hands in the file and draft and edit stuff. I still use, agents to help me draft stuff, but I still wanna hand edit and highlight and comment on and stuff like that.

And so- 

Chris Badgett: So it’s like Google Docs’ benefit of- K- … collaboration. 

Brian Casel: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Brian Casel: A- and it’s c- it’s also it’s more like a traditional software IDE, except the markdown editor is really nice really nice formatting and you can completely customize the fonts and the sizes and how markdown files are presented.

But then it has, the big thing is that it has a built-in terminal. Yeah. So with the terminal you can run Claude Code or Codex or, any, any coding agent right there integrated with your markdown files. Whereas again, like if you’re in like something like Cursor or VS Code or one of these, you can look at your markdown files, but it looks like code.

At least Flywrite gives you like a really nice readable customizable editor. Or there’s always like markdown tool- note taking apps like Obsidian or any of these, but they don’t really have the built-in coding or the built-in agent to help you draft and stuff, so this brings those together, 

Chris Badgett: I love it. As a non-technical, like as a non-engineer myself, I’ve recently gotten into VS Code with our agent and stuff, and I know exactly what you’re talking about. For me, when I see the markdown, I’m converting things to PDF way more than I should- … just so that I can- Just 

Brian Casel: so you can read it, right?

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Brian Casel: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And get a feel for what it’s actually gonna look and stuff like that, but that’s super cool. Tell us about Mimeo HQ. 

Brian Casel: Yeah, this is a new, newer one. I’m just starting to open the doors to it right now, but I’m using it myself. It’s email marketing software.

So if you use, Kit or A- or Active Campaign or, any of the many other email marketing software, like some of them are really great. A- and they’ve been around a long time, and they can do a lot of things. And for the mo- for most people, I think that they’re still gonna be a good fit.

What I got a little frustrated with has been, and I’ve used them all two things is obviously the, the cost. As your list of email subscribers grows, your monthly bill for your email marketing software or CRM, whatever you call it, is just gonna get really expensive. But more importantly for me, it’s been just more and more difficult to run the automations and the flows for how I want to communicate with my customers through email.

I’m not talking about one-to-one, like this isn’t like a Gmail alternative. This is like drip campaigns automated sequences to nurture new people in the list, get them into my workshops, get them into my products and things like that, send out my we- my weekly broadcast newsletter. I wanted my

More and more, m- more tools in my business, I just wanna own them and self-host them and have the code base so that I can run them with my agents. So now everything I do with email can run through my agents. I can have them draft up and send email newsletters. I can have them design a really complex automation sequence for people.

They’re plugged into my whole account and it just makes it really easy. And the nice thing about Mimeo is that you can purchase it, download it, self-host it, and you just plug in your own sender. So it works with Postmark or Resend or Amazon SES. And so you do pay for those to send out emails, but it’s much more cost-effective than paying for that through your own provider.

And it’s a little bit more, like- It works if you are good at emailing, which means if you’re sending quality emails to people who have actually subscribed to you and you’re not spamming people, then it’s not, quote-unquote, dangerous to have your own resend or your own postmark sending your emails.

As, as long as you have a quality list of people who’ve subscribed and they expect your emails, then deliverability is great. I my deliverability is up since moving to Memeo. ‘Cause that’s the other thing about sending through these big providers, right? The Kits and the and the Active Campaigns and all these.

They’re gonna put all these accounts on these big sending pools. We know that Chris sends high-quality emails to his audience, but the next customer or the next account that’s on the same s- Is a spammer they’re a spammer, and so then your list deliverability suffers from that, so I like to kinda… I think we’re seeing this in general. Most tools we’re now gonna get into this phase of unbundling, yeah. And I think Memeo is one example of that,

Chris Badgett: that’s 

Brian Casel: awesome. That’s really what I’m interested in now.

Like, all the tools I’m doing now, it’s not just about replacing the SaaS subscriptions. It’s like I just wanna unbundle stuff and Take it back in-house and have my, me and my agents run our own operations,

Chris Badgett: it kind of rhymes with WordPress, like the whole- Yeah … thing of owning versus renting and,

Brian Casel: Totally.

Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: infinite customizability and open source and all that. 

Brian Casel: Exactly, yeah. I 

Chris Badgett: agree. That’s very cool. Brian, it’s awesome to catch up. You’re a prolific builder, and it’s so cool. And I’m serious, man I learn… I keep an eye on your YouTube channel, ’cause I’m like, “You’re ahead of me.” And I’m like, “All right here’s what’s coming next.”

And you’re such a great teacher, and you don’t skip essential parts in what you talk about. For Builder Methods, how should somebody listening to this get started? You have a newsletter, you’ve got some workshops. Like, how should they dip their toe in the water of Builder Methods?

Brian Casel: Yeah, if you’re, if any of this resonated, come over to buildermethods.com, and there are two free workshops there that you’ll see. One is on building apps and one is about becoming AI native. And both of those are, like, hour-long free trainings. It gives you my best current ideas on that kind of stuff.

So that’s a good place to start. And yeah, the, the YouTube channel is great. You can see what I’ve been sharing over there as well, so yeah. Well- and Chris, thank, thanks again for having me on. I’m such a fan of yours as well. And you’ve been doing this, for so many years.

It’s awesome to see Lifter continuing to thrive and adapt in these new, th- this new era. And anytime you have a podcast going for 13 years it’s like, man, that’s impressive. 

Chris Badgett: Thanks. I appreciate it. One final just bonus question. If somebo- Because I get this question a lot, and I would actually, in my mind, I’m like what would Brian Casel do?”

If somebody wants to get started with a AI agent today, would you recommend just getting ’em started with GroqBot today? This is August 31st, 2026,

Brian Casel: yeah. Yeah, so this might change by September, ’26. But the, okay, like it, it really depends on where what your starting point is.

Grok Bot is good to dabble with if you really wanna get into the bot team- teammate thing. But if you’re totally new to really using AI in any real way, I would really just more encourage you to move away from just… ‘Cause there’s a lot of people in the world who are just using ChatGPT as like a Google replacement.

Yeah. That’s fine. That’s a good start, but you’re not really using it in a real way. Yeah … and what I mean by that is yeah, pay the 20 bucks, get a pro account, ’cause that’ll give you the latest models, much smarter than whatever they give you for free, and start to u- start to use it for real tasks.

If you need to write something this week create something, or I- my favorite thing is to use it as a thought strategic partner. I do deep planning with with multiple, chatbots. You could start to use it in more real useful ways. That- that’s the big thing. And then you can get into, like, how do I actually incorporate this into my operation and with Grok Bots or, whatever other tools are out there.

But yeah, move away from being just a dabbler and make like a fun game and start doing some real work with it. You’ll be amazed. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. That’s Brian Casel, buildermethods.com. We’re gonna have to do this in a year ’cause I know so much has changed- … will have changed in the next year, and it’s- I’m sure, 

Brian Casel: yeah

Chris Badgett: moving exponentially, so it’ll be interesting to see where we land. But thanks so much again, Brian, for coming back on the show. We really appreciate it. 

Brian Casel: Yeah. Thanks, Chris.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Josh Hall describes how he developed Web Designer Pro into a platform for business education that aids web designers in starting, expanding, and scaling their companies. He describes how he provides courses, community, coaching, and a high-level mastermind to members at three distinct stages builders, growers, and scalers. Understanding people’s actual pain spots, assisting them in moving through various stages, and fostering an atmosphere where members feel understood and supported are key components of effective coaching and community building, according to a main subject of the discussion.

Josh also discusses the importance of in-person events and community development. He describes how ProCon grew from a tiny get-together to an annual gathering where web designers can network, learn, have fun, and form sincere connections. He places a strong emphasis on starting off simply, allowing for impromptu interactions, and fostering an environment that values independence, diligence, and having fun. He provides examples of members who, just by meeting in person, were able to find business prospects, collaborations, and deeper friendships.

Coaching and overcoming impostor syndrome is another important subject. According to Josh, a coach does not always have to be more skilled than the person they are mentoring. Rather, a skilled coach can recognize issues, pinpoint blind spots, learn from past mistakes, and expedite a person’s progress.

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You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Chris Badgett: Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest, he’s back on the show, it’s my friend Josh Hall. I think this might be his third appearance. Josh runs Web Designer Pro. You can find that at webdesignerpro.com. A fun story, I think the first time I ever did my own migration of one WordPress site to somewhere else, I followed Josh’s video click by click, and then figured that out as a non-developer myself.

But I’ve gotten to know Josh over the years, and he serves some of the people that we are and that we work with, which is people who build websites for clients, web design, web designers, website agencies. His whole focus is on web designer professionals. Welcome back to the show, Josh. 

Josh Hall: Ah, it is so good to see you again, Chris.

I didn’t know that you watched that video, which funny enough, is my n- most popular YouTube video on my channel, which is how to manually migrate WordPress for when inevitably a plugin breaks or times out, so who knew? I did that video, it’s 20 minutes. I just ripped it out, put it together. I had no idea that was gonna be the number one video on my channel.

I think there’s well over a half million views now on that. 

Chris Badgett: As a marketer, whenever I need to fix something on my house, I’m like, “Oh how do I change this part of a toilet or fix this?” And you go to this YouTube channel of somebody with just holding their phone and it’s got 10 million views.

You did that for something in the WordPress ecosystem. Yeah. It’s so cool. It’s so cool.

Josh Hall: It’s funny too because I am not a super techy guy, but I think that’s what helped in that case, is usually when you learn from developers, it’s “Oh my God, that was so over my head. I don’t know what he said.”

But I’m a simple dude, and I just explained it in the simplistic way that I understood it, and it just happened to work. That actually taught me a lot with how to teach, is like I don’t need to teach like an expert, I just teach like I do it, for better or for worse, so 

Chris Badgett: Problem and pain, n- not, I don’t like seeing people in pain, but as a marketer or product creator or offer creator, you really need to know a pain.

Yeah. And in marketing, you have permission to spread your wings a little bit like you did with okay, I’m gonna show people how to migrate a site. Oh, wow, you found like a massive pain point that millions of people all over the earth are trying to figure out and there’s just not enough good content on that, and you just nailed it.

Josh Hall: You know what my second biggest… This wasn’t a v- it is a video, but the blog post gets way more traffic than the video, and it is How to create a circle on p- the program preview on Mac. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. 

Josh Hall: It’s like niche. Like the most hyper, like here’s how to do this. So yeah, you just, obviously that wasn’t ideal for the strategy of bringing people into Web Designer Pro long term, but hey good use case, so yeah.

Chris Badgett: Good numbers on YouTube. Let’s start there. Let’s stay on pain since we’re talking about pain. And again, I love pain, but only when I can solve it. When you look at the Web Designer Pro, you have courses, coaching, and community for your type of person I look at pain like there’s like a main pain, and then under that there’s like a family of related pains.

And it doesn’t always have to be that structure, but what is the main pain that Web Designer Pro aims to solve, and what are the cluster of other pain points? 

Josh Hall: So I would group them into three different pains. Okay. So in Web Designer Pro, this has taken a lot of years of refinement, by the way. So you had mentioned before we hit live that my site is super clear and concise right now.

That is years of hard work to get to this point. But we’ve identified that there’s really three buckets of members: builders, growers, and scalers. The builders are the folks who are just that. They’re building their web design agency. They may be new or they may be in their first couple years of business.

They really need mostly the courses first, and then some community support, and then different levels of coaching, but I don’t really wanna one-on-one privately coach people who are, like, just trying to figure out how to get clients. So I would bucket them as the builders. They, their biggest pain point is, yeah, just really getting their business off the ground and actually just building a business, truthfully.

So again, my, my courses are kinda well-suited for that. The growers are the next bucket. Those are the folks who are generally making, 50, 60, 70 grand, and most of them wanna get to a six-figure range. They maybe have a side hustle or their business is growing. Most likely they’re like me and they accidentally started a business.

They didn’t know what they were getting into, just like most web designers, and now they’re like, “Oh, my gosh. This is getting serious, so I wanna be a professional. I’m growing, but I can’t manage this growth.” So their biggest pain point is typically things like offers, price point, and really just solidifying what they have and get clarity on where they wanna go.

And a little bit of coaching can help them, but often what helps them mostly is community support. So the Web Designer Pro community is really an ideal fit for them. And then there’s the scalers. That’s the third piece, which is these are the folks who are at a six or multi six-figure level.

They’ve built an incredible business, and now they’re at the point where the business is running them and they’re not running their business. And I’ve learned that at this stage of my coaching career I’ve become a better and better coach for folks at this level who really just wanna get time and freedom back.

So those three categories are really where now Web Designer Pro can meet them where they are. And that’s really helped, having the courses, community, and coaching, ’cause I can say, “Look, if you’re a beginner or you’re in your first couple years of business and you just, you need clients and you’re trying to figure out your offers, tr- start with the courses.

That’ll get to, get you to the point where you’re ready to be a grower and come into the community, and we’ll help you get to six figures, and then I will personally guide you much more intensively when you are at six figures and ready to scale that beyond.” So that’s kinda where we landed. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome.

I love it too ’cause it’s a little bit counter to the advice of “Oh you should just create your offer for scalers, people that are already successful,” and all this. But you think more fourth dimensionally through time. Yeah. And in theory, somebody could come in and start as a builder, then a grower, and then a scaler, and you’ve got a customer for years.

I 

Josh Hall: mean- Oh, dude, we have members- Yeah … who have literally gone through the entire ladder in two or three years. And I think- That’s awesome … and they’re some of our best ca- Actually, I’m wearing this shirt from Alexia, who designed … who is on retainer with me now for her agency. She designed our in-person event swag this year.

She’s one of our rockstar members. She is in year two, not even … She just passed full-time in her business one year. She’s already on track for six figures this year. And, if I were only serving the people at a higher end level, which there’s a world where that’s perfect for certain people, but I kinda, I like it, man.

I like … If I can find a rockstar who is, who I can tell is gonna do it, then I wanna be able to give them the path to success and succeed. But interestingly enough, like I’m gonna start doing some community building coaching, and on that side of things, because it’s more of a soon-to-be passion project, I am gonna start high level.

And I will- I just don’t have the time or bandwidth to create a whole nother business for beginners. So on that front, I will start high-ticket coaching, high-level coaching, just with a few. But for Web Designer Pro, I love having all three. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: There’s a really good lesson in there. I think people get really kinda confused with the customer avatar or ideal customer profile thing.

And it sounds like with you, Did you say her name was Alexa? 

Josh Hall: Alexia. 

Chris Badgett: Alexia. The best customer avatar is somebody you actually know and worked with. So I don’t know if she’s like the ideal, and maybe it’s an amalgamation of several people like that. But just because Alexia may be like one of your favorite ideal members, went through the full thing in two years, and got super successful, and is now a brand evangelist, you…

It doesn’t mean everybody’s gonna be like that. You’re gonna pick up some scalers who are… just need help, they’re maxed out, or just a pure beginner who maybe doesn’t make it all the way to the scaling stage or… So y- you don’t have to… I think people get confused, like no, everybody in here is not an identical twin, but, the perfect fit- Yeah

is somebody like Alexia or whatever. 

Josh Hall: And that’s a great point, Chris. ‘Cause I think when you think about either a course or a community or a coaching program, or all three together in my case, I think you need to think about, like, where are they gonna go after they hit a certain level? So if you have a really tight customer avatar and they grow past your program, then the question would be do they graduate and is the goal for them to move on to something else or do you wanna have some sort of platform that helps them continue to grow?

And that’s really what I’ve turned Web Designer Pro into, which is if you’re brand new but you’re a freaking rock star you’re welcome on in. And we don’t have a application process, but it’s just worked out well to where the folks who are gonna succeed just naturally graduate up to the community tier when they’re ready on their terms.

But I had some members who have told me in the past “I kinda got to the scaler level and now I wondered, what’s next? What’s after that?” Actually, really funny, right before this, I had a podcast interview with one of my members who actually started as a grower. He was stuck at a couple years at the 70 to 80K range per year, and he just couldn’t quite, quite get to six figures.

And he told me he wanted to bust through the floor to see a new ceiling. Yeah. And that’s why he joined Pro. And I was like, “That’s really cool,” ’cause that’s not verbiage that I came up with, but enough podcast interviews and success stories and clarity in our offer made him feel like, “Yeah I’m ready to be a scaler now.”

So yeah I, it’s… and it’s not for everybody. I think if you have a really clear avatar and it’s just a point A to point B, that’s probably more of a course and a cohort, I would guess. Whereas a community, yeah I like … I really like having the full experience, the full journey.

That’s kinda what I’m catering to, which is not easy, and it has evolved to get to this place. And I think for anyone who checked out some of our first conversations I actually started as just a one-time, one-off course creator. And I didn’t have an offer for coaching or for, any sort of growth past that.

But that was fine for then, but now this is my full-time deal. I am 100% a coach and a community builder. So yeah, I wanted to have those next level offers for them. 

Chris Badgett: Since we’re talking about the people you serve, or the avatar, whatever web designers, you’re a web designer, I was a web designer. I know a lot of web designers.

I really like web designers. And I, you… I feel like you can’t do what you’ve done if you don’t love your customer. And you’re almost like… I heard a great coach once say, they believe in you more than you believe in yourself, and it’s not hyperbole, it’s literally true. 

Josh Hall: Yeah.

Chris Badgett: And they’re, like, helping you uncover blocks. But what do 

Josh Hall: you think- Can I- 

Chris Badgett: Go ahead. 

Josh Hall: Real quick on that, Chris, just before I forget it. This was early on, first year of Web Designer Pro back in 2020. But I had a member, Jacob, I’ll never forget him he was just… He was struggling. He a lot of personal stuff going on at the same time, but he was such a good developer and such a good designer.

And we worked together for a while, and he went from basically ha- making no income the first half of the year. And then all of a sudden he got, I think it was like a $17,000 build. Yeah. And then he got a bunch of other wins off that. And I reme- I’ll never forget this. He sent me a video literally in tears, and he said, “I just needed someone to believe in me.”

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: And that was just it really is a testament to what you said. Yeah, when you go through it and you know the journey, you have not a fake belief, it’s like a, “Listen, I know you can do this” kind of thing. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s super powerful. And it’s no surprise you had that story because, you have longevity.

You’ve been around for a long time. You can feel it in your brand, and even in your energy on this podcast. But what are some of the things that make web designers special? I’ll rattle off a few and pass it over to you. And I’m speaking as a web designer, like former agency guy. I think we can all relate to this where, the client hires you to build a website, and then by the end you feel like the CEO.

They’re asking you for business advice advice about services you don’t even offer, doing business strategy with you. So basically the way I think about that is web designers are, like, some of the most helpful, caring people on the planet. There’s a dark side to that, which is they can be taken advantage of.

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And, do things like where the client expectations are too high, or they don’t pay the invoice, or I don’t know. Just so there is a, a dark side to it, but the great bright side is these people are so smart, so creative, so helpful, good listeners, and good collaborators. It’s a special crop of people in the world.

Josh Hall: I could not agree more. Yeah. I love web designers. And I think- Yeah. What makes web designers so awesome? I think a lot of it is if you think about web design there’s an element of creativity and craftsmanship that goes into it that you don’t see in a lot of other industries. If you’re gonna be a realtor, I don’t know if realtors think

And nothing against realtors. We need them. I love my realtor. She’s freaking awesome. But I don’t know if they think about their work as a craftsman. I don’t know if they’re like … I don’t know if they’re thinking about the work they do like that, whereas web designers, we do. We really care about our work.

Really good web designers end up s- using that same energy for their clients and really caring about their clients and their results, which is gonna impact their work, and becomes a win-win. I think there’s a lot of … I think there’s craft and creativity in web design that is unique for web designers compared to other industries.

I also think the personality type of that lends itself to being, like, unique people. When I think about most web designers, and I found this, I know we’ll probably talk about our in-person event, but oh, I’m getting chills just thinking about ProCon, our in-person event, because it’s … It reminds me of, and other members have said this, it’s like the coolest people in your high school that are all chill and down to earth, no ego, no weird jock preppiness, or, you know no bullies.

There’s just, … It’s just … Imagine if you had a school of just all really cool people. And yes, there’s differences. There’s uniqueness. Yeah. With web designers, you’re gonna get some introversion. You’re gonna get some oddities. You’re gonna get some nerds. You’re g- you’re gonna get all the things.

But and you’re gonna get some partiers. I fall a little more into that camp. But it is, … You don’t get the, like … You don’t get as many corporate pe- Yeah. I think that’s what it is. You don’t get as much mainstream- Yeah … corporate genericness. You get, yeah, unique creativity and a lot of yeah, just a lot of cool people.

So I think all those things make web designers different, and that’s … I absolutely love serving web designers. Yes, I was a web designer for a decade, so I know the pain points. I remember vividly all the big challenges that I have, so it’s easy for me to speak on those, and I have the real-world experience of the, the literal scars and hairline receding before I made that manual migration video to prove it.

But yeah those are just a few. I could probably take a whole hour talking why I love web designers, but those are a few that come to mind. 

Chris Badgett: I love the saying about community when you’re designing it, but also when you’re just creating a, an offer for a certain type of person, the vibe you want them to experience, like, when they first show up to your ProCon in-person event, or even a Zoom meeting, or even social media group, or where- wherever you’re hanging out, is there’s this feeling called finding the others.

And that’s what it feels like when- I don’t know. As a web designers, there’s a limit to how much your non-web design friends or your partner wanna hear you talk about JPEGs and pixels and responsive design and marketing automation and white space or whatever. It’s but when you find yourself in the company of all these other weirdos who are weird in exactly the same way you are, it’s the feeling of finding the others, which is so cool and you design community aspect, not just content.

So- Yeah … tell us about how you shape that. ‘Cause I feel like between courses, coaching, and community design is the least well understood. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: So what’s your- Yeah, 

Josh Hall: it’s true. Yeah. And it’s, and it can be really hard too, just because… and it will evolve, I will say. Web Designer Pro is a continual i- innovate- it’s continual innovation, continual, not change, but definitely e- evolving.

And I think overall the biggest thing I learned with setting the culture, I guess I would… Would you call it culture- Yeah … of community? I think- Yeah. And 

Chris Badgett: it starts with the culture of the founder.

Josh Hall: That’s- 

Chris Badgett: Yeah … that’s how it starts, but then it takes on a life of its own. 

Josh Hall: That is so true.

Your vibe attracts your tribe. That, I think that may be, like, the most important quote when it comes to being a community builder of some sorts. And yeah, I’m pretty clear and up front about, I don’t have a mission statement or values per se, but in my podcast, which is my number one attractor to Web Designer Pro, is that, the f- the tagline of my podcast, The Web Design Business podcast, is helping you build your web design business that gives you freedom and a lifestyle you love.

So that right there, and I end up using that for the tagline and heading for Web Designer Pro, because I really want people to come in who are, yes, driven, and they’re down to hustle a little bit and to work hard. We are hard workers. We know this isn’t easy. We are gonna work our asses off, but we’re gonna have fun doing it, and we’re doing it for freedom.

And freedom may look like me. I’ve got three kids, I have a daughter with special needs. I don’t wanna work generally more than 30 to 35 hours a week. Definitely no more than 40 unless I’m in a hustle season. And I’ve attracted a lot of people who are freedom-based entrepreneurs. Those people tend to be super cool.

Yeah. I did have one member I remember a couple years ago join, and he was a kind of a bro hustler, and he just said, “I wanna… I don’t have any experience in this, but I wanna build a seven-figure agency this year.” And I’m like I’m not a good fit for you, dude. I think you should go to f- find another offer.

This is not who I serve.” So yeah it’s interesting, I think from a po- it’s alm- almost like positioning. You gotta… To get the right culture in a community, you need to make sure you’re positioned to attract the right people. So I would actually, before thinking about culture, think about positioning on who are you attracting?

Where are you attracting? What does your messaging look like? What are your channels on where you’re getting people? There’s a reason that I don’t play the social media game. My social media following is piddly compared to other people in my space, but I just made a million dollars with my community in five and a half years, and the culture is incredible.

And I’m… I have the most freedom-based schedule around it, and that is a very intentional design to where I’d rather work with a couple hundred people in the main community areas and have the pricing be according to what my family needs to take home and, be able to have other avenues for revenue.

But yeah, the, the culture is freedom. Work hard, make money, have fun, freedom. Maybe there’s my new tagline, but that’s kinda… That’s what I’ve learned. And before we even get into community design of the spaces and the other things, it’s like I think those are the most important things to really think through first 

Chris Badgett: I love that.

You probably agree with me here, but I f- one of the things I feel is super AI-proof is YouTube and podcasts, which you do both of those. People pr- particularly for educational content, they don’t wanna watch AI generated videos. B- and the same for listening, going on a run or washing the dishes they wanna hear Josh Hall, not a AI robot ElevenLabs voice for an hour or whatever.

But let’s dial it back to community. Tell us about the in-person event. That’s a … In WordPress as an example, I went to something called CaboPress that Chris Lema put on a long time ago, and that was my first time as a web designer getting out from behind my computer. I’d never been to a WordPress WordCamp or anything.

I might’ve been to one WordPress meetup. Yeah. And I got on a plane, I flew to Mexico, and I had this experience of meeting, finding the others, and I was like … And it, my current business partner, my lead developer, all met around that conference, which I went back to multiple years in a row. Yeah. And it was small.

It was only 30, 40 people there. It wasn’t a giant conference. But anyways, you designed ProCon. Why’d you do it? How’d you do it? How did it work out? 

Josh Hall: I always knew I wanted to do an in-person event just ’cause similarly I had some experiences both at WordCamps and other web design meetups where I’m like, “Oh my God, this is incredible,” to, like you said, to not have to burden my family and my wife with the, security issues of WordPress or whatever it was awesome to just, yeah to meet your tribe, to be with your people who understand you and are moving in a similar direction.

And so when I started Web Designer Pro in 2020, important context here is that I had already had courses. I had at that point over 1,000 students in my one-off courses, and Web Designer Pro really started as a coaching community, so courses were not in it at first. But I did not … I basically built it on the side and just got used to building online community in a intensive way, a more, like, true online community, not a big Facebook group, and in coaching.

I really wanted to get- Good with community and coaching before I did an in-person event be- and quite frankly, I’ve heard so many horror stories about how costly in-person stuff is. And it is. It is. It’s not, especially if you’re gonna bring, in our case, 40 to 50 people into Columbus, Ohio, there’s a lot of planning and cost that goes along with that.

So I really wasn’t in a place to be able to do an official event the first few years really. But in 2023, so three years into building Web Designer Pro, and then eventually putting courses, community coaching all together there was a WordCamp in Washington, DC, 2023. I think you were at that one, right?

We just didn’t- I 

Chris Badgett: was. 

Josh Hall: Unfortunately, we did not meet, which is an absolute shame. How the hell have we not met in person? 

Chris Badgett: I don’t know. That is- Are you going to WordCamp Europe? I’ll be in Spain.

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Josh Hall: No. 

Chris Badgett: In the spring, I think. 

Josh Hall: Man, one day. Hopefully US we can get together, or maybe I’ll have you come to ProCon next year.

Yeah. That would be real fun. Yeah. But but we did, what we did essentially was a meetup. We did a Web Designer Pro meetup at WordCamp, and there was, I think, 9 or 10 of us that were there attending WordCamp, and we tacked on a private dinner together. And we basic- That was really the only thing that was structured, was just a dinner.

A bunch of us went out afterwards, we went to a few bars, and then everyone was meeting up sporadically around that, and it was incredible. Yeah. It was like some of these people h- were founding members. We’ve been working together for three years, some of us. Some of them were students of mine from previous to that.

And I remember one member, Sandy, told me her story again just about in tears about how she was literally walking into this agency or somebody she was working with to say, “I’m done with web design. I can’t stand it.” And this person was like before you quit, have you tried this c- tool called Divi?”

And then she looked up Divi tutorials, and I had just started my YouTube channel doing Divi tutorials, and then eventually she took my course, became a founding member of Pro. She’s still in Pro today. Wow. Literally a decade later, Chris. An incredible story. And she told me that, and I was like

First of all, so I was like, “Why didn’t you ever tell me that? How have you not told me? That’s incredible.” But, you get these interactions, and you hear the stories, and you really … You, as one of our members said about ProCon, you go from 2D to 3D when you meet in person. Yeah. So that experience completely solidified the deal for me that okay, we are, we’re not just gonna go to a WordCamp and do a meetup.

We are gonna do an event. Ended up taking a couple years from that until I, we got to the place where I was, like, really ready to go for it. And in 2025, we did our first event. And we had, at that point, I think we had 30, 30 to 35 members all together with a couple plus ones and sponsors, and it was it was almost like a religious experience for myself and so many members of Pro, because at that point it was a lot of firsts.

The second round that we just did the event a few months ago, in a lot of ways it felt like a reunion because so many people from the first round came there. But the first one had a unique feeling because it was, like, the first, and it… Neither one was better than the other. In some ways I enjoyed the first year more than the second, in some ways I enjoyed the second more than the first.

But it was the first time where there was a dedicated Web Designer Pro large group of 30-plus people, and there is a feeling when somebody travels somewhere for your thing. Or in our case everyone felt like they were basically just going to meet their friends. So it was incredible. It was remarkable.

And then this, the second year we just did it here in the spring of 2026, and it was even better from a standpoint of we learned a lot in the first year, leveled up a lot with just making things better all around from merch and swag to event coordination and even things like how to use Circle, which is what com- what Web Designer Pro is run on, how to put the, the event group chat at the top of the app when we’re live at the event so people don’t need to scroll down to the bottom.

Little things like that were really improved upon and and now I’m like, I’m so an in-person event guy. And there, it just, it gives you a buzz that carries over for months. I’m still buzzing literally thinking about so many of the, the conversations I had with that many people. We all blew our voices out, which is awesome, and the really cool thing is we had four girls who stayed with each other the first event.

They stayed at an Airbnb instead of the hotel I would have never paired those four up. I would have never thought. They’re all on different stages in business. I actually didn’t know if their personalities would connect or clash. And they ha- they still have a group chat with each other to this day, two years later, and they are, like, super close.

They even have a pretend podcast that they they joked about starting together. In person just opens up this whole other level of connection, for sure growth and possibilities, inspiration, encouragement, and as a community builder, retention. So of course there’s a, the big pull on that is yes it’s costly, and my motto is even if I break even, that’s cool.

I know it’s gonna be worthwhile long term for our community. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: I’m not a very left brain guy. I can do left brain stuff, but r- the u- it’s a left brain concept that there’s equity in relationships. It’s not about making money from the event, it’s about building relationships, not just to you, but between each other at the thing.

I wanna unpack everything you said just like, ’cause I’ve seen this movie before when people design communities, and you mentioned so many good best practices. The first thing you mentioned is when you understand your avatar you know that oh a lot of my people are gonna be at this WordCamp.

So you tag on to an event that’s already happening. They already have plane tickets, and you get comfortable with it. You test the waters. I’m assuming you might have bought dinner or maybe everybody chipped in or something. I don’t know. But you- 

Josh Hall: I, the only, yeah, the only thing I paid for on that one was dinner.

Yeah, exactly. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: I would recommend everyone start out like that if you can, just because, yeah, it’s, it is i- I think the worst thing that you could do is try to go too big and too fast. And then, like I’m not gonna say the creator, but I have a friend who was involved w- with this big entrepreneur who did this huge event.

On the outside it looked amazing. It was like this first big event for this, this well-known entrepreneur. They lost like almost 100 grand on that event. And of course, I knew I wasn’t gonna be at that level where there’s 2,000 or 3,000 people, but I was certainly not at the point financially where I could even lose really any money.

So yeah, start small. I l- I love the meetup first approach. Keep it… Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Next thing you did, which I’ve seen a lot, and people have some, I don’t know if it’s imposter syndrome or what, but it’s keep it simple. My first event, they’re gonna fly to me. You said Columbus, Ohio, which is where you live. I’ve seen people do this in rural Canada, and they’re like, “Nobody’s gonna…”

People fly from other continents, sometimes. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And it’s, So that’s a pro tip. Any pro tips about your first one by your hometown? I think there’s a airport near you. There’s probably hotels that already have infrastructure for group rates, and conference rooms, and audio/video, or whatever.

But any of those kind of tips? 

Josh Hall: Yeah. All, all those things were factored in. It’s one reason why I took a couple years to really think through it. And I did create… One thing that was really helpful as well is I actually put almost a little mini mastermind to- almost like an event mastermind together of a couple colleagues I know.

You’ve spoke with Shannon Mattern, right? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. So she’s local to me. We’re in a mastermind together, and I knew that she did an event for her high-level group. Different, very different, because they go to a beach and do it that way. But she had a lot of good insight about these are the things to think about, factor in.

She’s like, “Food is always three times more expensive than you think.” So there was all that stuff that was really helpful. And yeah, as far as thinking through the event, I’m really fortunate, because Columbus, Ohio is freaking awesome. Have you ever been to Columbus? 

Chris Badgett: I have not. 

Josh Hall: So- Columbus is kinda like a mini Chicago, mini Austin to where it is, it’s a big city, but it is absolutely super manageable to get around.

And yeah, the airport’s super close by. There’s plenty of hotels downtown. There’s also, in walking distance, plenty of things to do right downtown by the hotel that I chose for our event space. So there’s we have a minor league baseball team. We have the Blue Jackets, the NHL team. We have a minor league soccer team, and they’re all right there in this little district.

I wanted a place originally where ideally people could go, and they could never have to Uber if they- Yeah, that’s smart … they really didn’t want to. So Columbus just happened to be, fortunately a really good fit for that. Now, there’s other ways to build an event out that’s a little more rural, depending on what it looks like.

Or in like Shannon’s case, more of like a retreat that is- … specific to maybe a couple groups or a smaller group that’s sharing a house or something like that. But I knew I knew I wanted to have those few things in mind, which was I wanted a space that had a decent size event space. Not huge, not like a hall, but like a decent event space that had catering options.

And our baseball team is an incredible stadium, and they have a bunch of suites there. So I knew, I thought about wanted to do that. I wanted to have some sort of social component that wasn’t just “Hey, everyone. Show up here and let’s get to work.” I really, I wanted… And I, actually the event structure just for context was technically on the books, Friday night is the baseball game, group social.

It’s covered in your ticket. Food and the suite is covered. And then Saturday, full day workshop. So 10:00 to 4:00 officially with lunch that’s catered in between there, and then a private dinner for all of us. So their ticket covers those three main things, and that’s the programming of the event.

But as you probably well know and anyone else who goes to event, most of my favorite things happened in and outside of that, which were the meetups, the people coming early- You know, we have a really good time for the folks who are the night crew. We did karaoke. This last time, six of us were out till 3:00 AM just ’cause

I’ve got three kids, I never get to do that, so my wife and I were with a few members, and we were literally getting pizza at 3:30 in the morning. It was freaking awesome. So it was a mix of professional workshop, but also casual social, and also completely, off the cuff, if you come early, awesome, we’ll try to meet up, kind of thing.

I think I derailed m- us from the question, but that wa- that was the structure of the event and why Columbus was a really good fit. 

Chris Badgett: That’s perfect. That’s perfect. The next thing, you didn’t say it explicitly, but I’m pretty sure it worked this way, is you didn’t try to do all that you just said and carry all the presentation.

For example- Yeah … you had Sh- Shannon help with just figuring out event, like … So it’s not a solo act. Yeah. And then I think you probably had other experts facilitating things or giving talks or whatever. So tell us a little bit 

Josh Hall: about that. Yeah. Yeah, it was actually, the first year was, like, so easy on my part, ’cause I literally, I p- I prepared some slides for the speakers, and then my end of the first event was really just to be the emcee.

Okay. Yeah. It was so easy for me because, yeah I basic- we did put a frame on the actual workshop, but the first year was the, the frame of a revenue boost. So I was like, “I want people to come here and feel like they’re leaving with some really good ideas and strategies to boost their revenue.”

So yeah, we had Shannon did a talk on pricing. My friend Jason Gracia has the most productized model on web design, so he spoke. He actually did a mock sales call, and I was his … And we did not rehearse this, but I just, I was his mock client. I wore a mustache, and- … my name was Jim Shorts, and it, that was really fun.

And he just took us through his sales process, and we were all mouth agape mind blown with how he does that. We had one of our speakers speak. So it was really cool. That first year was a little more like that. One thing … And then I did a live Q&A coaching session at the end of that first year.

But one thing I did hear back with feedback from the first group was they really wanted more time to implement some stuff live and have some breakout sessions. It was really just a lot of live workshops stacked on each other. So the second year, we only did a few live workshops, and then we spent quite a bit of time with a big extended breakout session, where each table were their own little mastermind groups, and we would kick off with a topic, and then dig into that per group.

It wa- I’m excited for this next one in 2027 because I really wanna learn more about that and do breakout groups and little mastermind stuff better. It was really good. I felt like it was a little just loosey-goosey. Which ended up being fine, but I know we could tighten that up and make that a better experience for all the members.

So that’s what I’m personally looking forward to learning more about, and I’m actually going to an event. I’m a part of Jay Clouse’s community, The Lab. Which is like Web Designer Pro, but just for creators. They’re doing an event actually in Columbus now- Okay … the month before. So I’m an attendee there.

I’m gonna buy a ticket and go to that event, mainly to learn and just be an observer about how they do that event, ’cause I know they do the breakout groups really well. So I’m actually gonna learn from that and immediately apply it to our community the, the month after. So I’m looking forward to that.

But yeah, to your point, yeah, it was… You know me I really viewed it as like I’m… People learn from me enough in the courses, in the podcast, everything else. Here, I wanna be connection, community builder, and emcee, basically. I’m not the star of the show at ProCon. It’s the people. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome.

Josh Hall: And- Another- Oh, sorry. Go ahead. The last thing that we did this year was my wife actually joined us for a live Q&A, ’cause everyone has been wanting my wife to come on the podcast for years. Just not… She is, does not like the, the light on her, the camera on her. Yeah. But I figured, let’s just make it the most intimidating thing and just bring her up and do the live Q&A in front of 40-some people, but it was awesome. It was really cool to do that. 

Chris Badgett: Very cool. Another thing you said was, like, the reunion element. Yeah. Typically, I see something like, I don’t know, maybe 50% retention, 50% new year over year in a c- community. And then you have on the extreme end, like you mentioned, somebody who’s been there for eight years or 10 years or whatever, like a lifer.

And then you h- you might have somebody who tries it once, but then there’s this, like, fat middle of people that keep coming back or do a… They treat it like, a master’s degree. “I’m gonna give this community two years of my life,” and, you get some repeats. And then those people who return to the event make your job easier ’cause they’re like, “Oh yeah, Josh is gonna do this.

Then we’re gonna go here. Oh, bathroom’s over here. Breakout things. This is how the mastermind’s gonna work.” And it’s m- it just becomes a organic group of people that are actually helping lead your event. 

Josh Hall: Yeah, it is. Even the second year I’m s- I’m… It’s so fun, and I’m so curious about year to year what it’s gonna evolve to be, just because- Yeah, like I don’t really wanna make too many changes honestly.

In fact, one of our members when we were leaving last year, he was like, “Same time, same place, same everything next year?” And I was like, “Everyone else sound good?” Everyone was like, “Hell yeah.” We wanna just ke- we just wanna do that more. But at the same time I don’t want it to be like the same old thing every time.

So my, my big goal though and the cool thing about an in-person event as is like it’s the connections you make and the conversations you have that you just have no idea were gonna happen that- Yeah … that are the, like the, the really cool thing. You can program as much as you want, but I have learned to basically I wanna leave room for connection and leave room for spontaneous.

So that’s why like our official event is social Friday night, workshop on Saturday, private dinner. Anything around that is free game. I’ll let you know where I’ll be downtown, what restaurants or bars we’ll be at. But we had member, like we had some members this year go candle making together- Okay … on Friday during the day.

That wasn’t planned. It was just like six or seven members were like, “Hey, you guys wanna do that?” And they found it and did it. I think it’s important when it comes to structuring event to, to not have it overly structured. Otherwise, there’s no room for, I don’t wanna say no room for fun, but there’s no room for like spontaneity or genuine, something fresh and new, which is kinda hard to come by for a lot of business owners. We’re used to doing the same stuff over and over, the same call schedule or the same thing. So it’s really, it’s life-giving in so many ways to get in person and have experiences that still think about months and years later in many cases.

Chris Badgett: My next thing I wanted to highlight that you mentioned is people have the experience of meeting their friends. Like- … either their online friends and going three-dimensional or just a new person they’ve never even heard of before. For a really good event, I almost feel guilty when I’m going.

Around my family, I’m like, “Yeah, I’m going to a business conference.” And I know it- I’m packing my swimming suit. I’m looking at the things in the area. “Oh, maybe I’ll find some people who like to run. We’ll go for a run over here.” It’s a learning thing. It’s a business thing.

But a really well-done event, it’s kind of a party, however you wanna define that. Yeah. It’s… But with business benefit, too. 

Josh Hall: One of our- 

Chris Badgett: Go ahead.

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Josh Hall: Oh, dude. One of our members said, “I had no idea.” And she came from a lot of corporate work. She’s like, “I had no idea that a business conference could be fun.”

And it i- obviously, the… With ProCon specifically, it would’ve been hard to not be fun, just ’cause most of us know each other, in a lot of cases very well. Not all the time. We had a lot of members who didn’t know anyone. And there, there are people I found out who are complete ghosts in the community but are still paying.

And I’m like, “I can’t believe they’re still paying for this. They have not logged in, or they’re not…” But they come to the in-person stuff. 

Chris Badgett: Oh, 

Josh Hall: yeah. And it means so much to so many people. So yeah I just… Really the only quote-unquote, work was just the live trainings. But even those we tried to make lighthearted and as fun as possible.

And one thing I did learn with keeping the fun of it is if you are in we’re working, we’re thinking, we’re strategy it doesn’t mean that those things can’t have a light element and some fun. Case in point, for our sponsors this year, we had three sponsors that were there in person. Hans from Termageddon, Sam, one of our members who has his own SEO academy, and 17hats, which is the platform that I use for invoicing and contracting.

Their guy, Jeb, who has been in both events and is now basically a web designer pro, he was there. And Jeb has a huge beard. Ma- Yeah … civil War style beard. And so for this, we did a live sponsor panel this year, and it was so much fun. The questions, it was so much more fun than I could’ve ever imagined.

The questions that people were hitting them with, it was just so great. Who knew that a sponsor session could be fun? But we really… I tried hard to have lighthearted questions. And I was like, “How would you explain Termageddon to a five-year-old?” Yeah. And Hans, on the fly, had to think about how he would do that.

But then I also got their baby pictures, and we did a guess this baby sponsor. And Jebs had a massive beard on his baby picture. Like, when we did that live, it got a huge appl- it was a huge for us. We did a lot of those things to try to make the whole event just nonstop fun.

And then, yeah. There, to me There’s nothing better, and this is just my personal thing, there’s nothing better than being at a pack- not, maybe not a fully packed, but a busy bar that’s like a hole in the wall place downtown in Columbus talking about how we build a six or multi six figure business.

Yeah. That to me is like my happy place if I’m doing… And that’s what happened. One of our members, Mike, we were there till like midnight, and we were just talk- It was, usually at midnight at a bar things are getting sloppy or questionable or, you got some questionable folks coming in, but we were just having a blast and it was as wholesome as you could possibly be at midnight at a bar, and I just loved it.

You know- Yeah … we, on that note real quick, we did, I did try to say we are gonna go to bars,” largely because with a group of 30 to 40 people who may or may not meet randomly, we can’t go to a coffee shop and maybe have 30 people there. We need to have a place that literally has space to grow if people are gonna come.

So we are gonna hang out at a lot of bars, but I made really clear that there is no pressure to drink whatsoever. For folks who don’t drink, it is no problem at all. There will be no pressure. There’s no judgment. We, there’s a lot of us who will be drinking, but it’s not gonna get out of control.

We’re gonna have fun, but there’s no pressure to be around that. So I try to make that really clear for folks who don’t feel comfortable in the bar scene. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that is good. And now I can tell just from your website and like I was on your community page, and it said, Something about safe space or whatever.

Yeah. But that’s part of what you do as a community builder, is you create the container and you want everybody to feel comfortable. And I just wanna mention, Josh and I haven’t met in person, and we’re podcasters, so it may not be obvious, but I am a card-carrying extreme introvert. But so I didn’t think events were for me, but when I started going, particularly to the smaller ones, like 20 to 30.

I think to, in my view 30 is the sweet spot. Yeah. But there’s some great 200-person events and stuff, and I go to the giant multi-thousand conferences too, but it’s different. Like, when you go to that 30-person thing where everybody holds the value of, in your case freedom at the top, it’s just gonna be so much fun.

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And the the other thing I just wanna mention is it’s not just about your brand or you or whatever. I’ve seen business partnerships, I’ve seen couples and marriages. Oh. Like- 

Josh Hall: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: I forget the statistic, and this is changing with the generations, but it’s something like one out of four people meet their spouse at work, or that’s what it used to be.

But if you’re a web designer working in your home office or the coffee shop- 

Josh Hall: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: you may only have a couple events like this a year, but that’s at work for you, and you may actually meet the love of your life, your new best friend, a business partner, a mastermind group, and that’s just part of the value you’re creating.

And- Yeah … and it’s cool. Yeah. I’m sure you have a story of hey, these two people connected in this way, and now they refer business to each other or 

Josh Hall: whatever. Oh, left and right. Yeah. Laur- lot from the in-person events that we’ve done so far. Yeah, we actually … I don’t think we’ve had any couples form, no relationships that I know of, but we did have Sam, who I mentioned, who was one of our sponsors, he has an SEO agency, web design agency, and a a little brother community for Web Designer Pro, which is one of our partners, called Local SEO Academy.

He’d actually be a great fit for your show if you want a introduction- Yeah … to him, Chris. I’m … He probably would love to chat with you. But so he has a little brother community to ours, and he really needed help with the operations of his SEO business. And at the first ProCon, we have another member, Eleanor, who’s pretty quiet.

She’s very introverted. I had no idea that she was, like, a master operator. Okay. And she struggles with doing the marketing and going to the events, and she’s also a stay-at-home mom and only has a certain amount of hours to work. Who knew it? They go, we do ProCon the first year.

Three months later, she’s on his team page, and she is now full-time in his agency, and they have destroyed together in the best way. Yeah. And it’s just, yeah, I would have never known that. I’ve been able to matchmake in some ways and foster a lot of connections in Pro virtually.

But yeah, I l- I’m there in person, and I’m looking around and seeing everyone chatting, and I’m always wondering “I wonder what that conversation is, or what that conversation is.” You just never know where something’s gonna lead, which is just so cool. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. This is like a master class in community building, and you’re such a natural at it.

It’s, And I know, I’m sure you had your bumps and hiccups in figuring it all out, but it’s so valuable. And again, it’s the least misunderstood. ‘Cause we think about courses, we got content, maybe quizzes, certificates, things like that. Coaching, you come with your problems, I’m gonna help you.

But community, like this stuff we’re talking about, is more amorphous and squishy and hard to define, like what it is we’re actually doing online or in person or on a Zoom call. Yeah. But it’s all a community. 

Josh Hall: And I would say for the introversion thing, like the introvert thing like you said, I totally agree.

Now, I am much more extroverted. However, I’ve been in plenty and I did networking for almost a decade. I remember feeling very nervous to speak- Yeah … and being very nervous to go to a 200-person event. I’m like, “I maybe all know a couple people and I’m gonna cling to them.” Despite being fairly extroverted I’m certainly not someone who’s gonna go with people, a group of people I don’t know or feel comfortable with, and be like, “Hey, I’m Joss, this is this.”

So when you go to a place where even if it’s 30, 40, 50 people, but like you said, they are you, they are your people, it is so much easier. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Josh Hall: And there’s just a natural, like you can just be yourself. If you’re introverted- You let the mask 

Chris Badgett: down. The mask comes down … 

Josh Hall: yeah. That’s where like you can talk nerdy, and you can talk about DNS struggles and, robots.txt file issues with people who understand you, versus going to the networking group that’s, chiropractors and real estate agents and whatever, which I still recommend.

But it is, it’s like you can… Yeah, you can let your guard down. You can be yourself. And then it’s funny, one of, one of our m- one of the most introverted people at this last round, Veronica, super quiet, super timid, was real… Like I couldn’t believe she came in person. Like good for her for getting out of her comfort zone.

Night two, she is singing karaoke. Someone who didn’t, like barely say two sentences the whole couple days before that, was so comfortable by the end that she was doing karaoke. And yeah, it was just so cool. So cool,

Chris Badgett: the other thing I just wanna mention here is a nuance, and it really makes sense for web designers.

Sometimes we go to events to get clients, to get new business. Which puts a kind of pressure on you. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: But you’re not going here to sell or, be professional. You’re being professional, but you’re not… You’re, it’s very different just hanging out with your peers- Yeah … and learning as a learning community, which is really cool.

Josh Hall: That is it. And that’s what’s cool is like you don’t go into it thinking like, “I’m gonna make a business partner,” or- No … “I’m gonna, make a referral partner.” No, it’s like- some, depending on how active people in Pro are, they’re gonna go there and they’re already gonna know people and they’re gonna have a rapport.

And, there’s naturally gonna be a few groups of people who already are working together, so they’re gonna talk a lot. But if you go there with the intention of, yeah there’s even… There’s no pressure to serve or sell. There’s no pressure for anything. You just go to- Yeah

learn and connect and hang, and that’s where you never know where things are gonna lead. Actually, one of our members, Dylan, who is very introverted, super struggles to get out to get clients, the majority of his revenue this year has come from white labeling with other Pro members, and the majority of those opportunities came from ProCon.

So it took- Yeah … him being in person with a bunch of people and having conversations where they were like, “Oh, shoot yeah, I can use you,” and, have you, “Have you help me with this?” And he’s really he’s trending upwards with having that opportunity after meeting people in person as an extreme introvert, and he would be the first to say he is.

Yeah, it’s, yeah, so cool. So you gotta give- I think- Events need… You gotta give the people the space, though. That’s certainly, that’s the goal 

Chris Badgett: Well, tell us about your new program. 

Josh Hall: So the, the newer thing that I actually launched at the end of this ProCon event was our mastermind. Our Web Designer Pro specific mastermind.

It’s our highest tier offer. It is for the folks who, like I mentioned earlier, especially for the scalers who are scaling at a six and multi-six figure level. They may have a studio or a small team. And then the question becomes are they too advanced for Pro? And that’s really… I can only go to a certain level with my experience and my comfort with coaching.

But at the same time, I … There, there was a glaring need for folks who get to that point. They want more Josh, they want more one-on-one coaching calls, and they want a private space with other Pro members that is not gonna actually be heard by other Pro members. 

So the way we do our coaching calls right now is those coaching calls get repurposed for our pri-

We have a private Pro podcast app, or like a Pro podcast feed. So everyone who has a Pro member profile is gonna hear the coaching calls. Confidential stuff is not gonna be ideal in that scenario. So this is the opportunity for folks to, yeah, have that confidential private group that’s really intensive, and it’s our most intensive coaching offer.

So I technically have four tiers now. There’s courses. The new price point for the courses, I’m actually about to move to a quarterly pricing. I’m not sure when this is gonna come out. At the time of recording this, it sits monthly at 49, but I’ve realized I really want people to commit at least three months, at least in the, even in the courses, just to better serve them and really encourage them to go as far and as fast as they can, and then up- upgrade to community when they’re ready.

So that’s one change we’re gonna make on the courses side. The community currently is 99 a month. And then the coaching tier, which gives folks DM access for coaching to me, and a one annual, like, one-on-one private call now just moved to 3,000 a year. That’s the current price points, and then the mastermind is a $10,000 a year deal because that’s private group, bi-weekly call, or calls every two weeks with just our private group, and it gives people a quarterly one-on-one with me for the most intensive coaching.

And we’re really drilling into numbers, team, profit, delegation, leadership, all those things. So it’s been cool to kinda… to grow and flex the coaching muscle at that level ’cause I’ve learned a lot from those folks. And I found in myself a level of high coaching that I didn’t really know that I had.

But it took a lot of people telling me “Josh, how the hell do you not have a 10K or 20K program?” And yeah, I just was finally like, “Screw it, I’m gonna do it.” And we’re kinda building it together in a lot of ways, but it’s a group of five, five pro members who joined the first round, so there’s six of us all together- together, and it’s been freaking awesome.

We’re like four months into it now. 

Chris Badgett: I think web designers specifically suffer from this issue where we’re so close to our strengths, we don’t see it. I know that you’re an incredible coach. I’ve watched you invest in being coached yourself- … with i- in your own development, which you learn a lot from working with a high-quality coach as well.

And you’ve been communicating for decade plus like you investing- Absolutely … and figuring out this whole thing. It’s a no… It’s not a surprise to me. But I’m just highlighting that- Yeah … it’s such a thing with online education or courses, coaching, and community, when you’re so close to your strengths, you have a massive blind spot.

Josh Hall: I als- I’ll- And tell me this, Chris, do you feel like in any sort of coaching capacity… It feels weird because I feel like I’ve, I’m ripping off my coaches ’cause I’m using their lines sometimes. 

Chris Badgett: And- No, it’s, I’ve heard it called R&D. So that’s rob and duplicate, which sounds bad. But- That’s true … this is what we do.

Yeah. Like, when you write a book, “Oh, yeah, this person said this. I’m gonna marry that idea with this idea,” it’s just part of… That’s what we do. It’s when you go to school, you borrow ideas- Yeah … and you build on them, and you move them forward, and sometimes you quote. And if you remember that you can give credit where credit is due.

Like I don’t remember who said finding the others. But if I could remember who that was, I would’ve probably mentioned like, “Oh, there’s this great quote- Yeah … by this person.” 

Josh Hall: Abraham Lincoln. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Okay. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. All quotes lead back to Abe. Yep. 

Chris Badgett: Probably. 

Josh Hall: Probably … but I think about often, yeah, the reason I mention that is es- especially at this level of coaching, ’cause if there’s if there’s coaching that I’m doing from a capacity of helping people out with their pricing and their offers and building recurring revenue and client generation and referrals, I largely base that off of my experience.

Although now I’m in a really unique position to where I am like, this sounds super douchey, but I’m like 100x more powerful as a coach now because not only do I have my experience, but I have the experience of my CEO, Eric, who bought my agency, and I’m a consultant for them, and hundreds of pro members who I’ve coached.

So I can literally be like, “Ooh you would learn a lot from this model that this guy did. I’d recommend doing this from what I learned, but I also see this working over here.” And then suddenly they just save maybe two years of hardship by one little DM conversation. So that’s a… That feels different than sometimes at this high level coaching.

I do often think about- more intensive coaching learning that I’ve had that I do replicate. I think about James Schramko- Yeah … who we know. Yeah. And I coached with him for four, four or five years. And I remember it was actually on my… Actually, funny enough, this was on my podcast that he challenged me with this idea, but I asked him about the people who have trouble scaling and delegating, and he said, “Do you ever, have they ever eaten at a restaurant?”

And I was like, “Yeah, probably.” He’s like, “Then they can scale, delegate and scale. They did it at the restaurant. They paid someone to cook the food and, they ordered it.” And I was like, “Oh, I never thought about it like that.” So sometimes it’s those little easy analogies that, yeah, that, can go a long way and can be replicated.

So I’m leaning into it now. I’m leaning… Like every line I’ve ever read or heard- Yeah … I’m like absolutely using, but. 

Chris Badgett: And I’ll give credit, R&D, Robin Duplicate, is a Dan Martell-ism, who I- Oh, okay … coached under for a while. And then there’s another old one that hopefully helps you out there listening or watching, which Josh mentioned, is as a subject matter expert, this is Brendon Burchard from old school internet marketing time, but he was talking about how you don’t always have to be the role model.

You can be the researcher. And I know you’re really good at research. You’ve watched the people, like you’re watching in your community or watching in the industry, but we all get hung up in that we have to be like… It’s our, it’s, I don’t know if it’s our ego or what it is, but it’s like you can be a great coach.

You don’t have to be Tony Robbins to help somebody with personal development, 

Josh Hall: and I really, I thought about this when I… This was a big challenge for me when I thought about selling my agency because I knew I wanted to online educate full-time and just go for it. I just, I can only run r- run one business at a time.

I was like, in my mind, I’m like if I’m not building websites, how am I gonna teach people to build a website business?” Now yes, I had a decade of experience, but what I’ve realized in that time is I’m actually way more, again, e- l- I guess I’m way more qualified and even a better fit for so many people at different levels because I have my experience and like I just said, the experience of all these other hundreds of people, and I can spot gaps faster than I’d say just about anybody as a web design business coach, which is like- Yeah

my official role i- in Pro. And one thing I’ve learned too is we were just talking about this recently. Actually, a few coaching members I’ve talked to about transparently, how is my coaching still helping you at this level? And one thing I’ve realized is if you look at any professional athlete, everybody at the top has a coach, and none of those coaches can do what the athlete does.

Chris Badgett: Yes. 

Josh Hall: But what is the… like this is probably I’m preaching to the choir here, but like the coach spots stuff that the athlete doesn’t see. The coach is watching. The coach is getting like honest feedback that they’re not gonna share with anyone else, and the coach is able to give like really targeted advice that can go such a long way based off of just maybe one little conversation or one call.

Yeah. I’ve definitely learned that and felt even more … i’ve rarely had any, like, imposter syndrome feelings as a coach, but I have had the subtle seasons of doubt of “Man, I haven’t built a website for a client in eight years. Who am I to teach these people?” I’m like h- yeah, who am I?”

I run the web- number one web design podcast in the world. Pro, I’m teaching people. I’ve literally helped people build six and multi six figure businesses. Some of them have made literally several million dollars in lifetime revenue since coaching with me. So I’m more than qualified to be a voice of reason and a guide, even though I’m not doing that work right now 

Chris Badgett: 100%.

And I know we’re a little bit over. I just wanted to get one more question while- 

Josh Hall: Oh, sure … 

Chris Badgett: while I had Josh Hall on, on- 

Josh Hall: Real quick, Chris, while you’re asking the question, I’m just gonna close this door. Our kids just- Yeah … came in before one of ’em busted. I’m just gonna close my door real quick. Yeah. I’m listening.

No problem. 

Chris Badgett: Okay. The, the question is that there’s a lot of fear in the web designer, web design agency space right now. Some people, it’s like some people are struggling, business is drying up. It’s harder to get clients. And the other side, there’s people that are killing it as agency.

We’ve got AI on the scene creating a lot of just noise, distraction, but also useful tools and maybe just lightning round style, like what’s two to five things that the, the web designers that are doing great these days are doing either differently or continuing to do what’s always worked?

What sets them apart from the ones that are struggling these days? 

Josh Hall: The … Here’s the good news. The stuff that worked a decade ago is what’s working today in 2026 even better in many ways. I really do think that … A- and I do agree. I’ve absolutely seen this with Pro too, where people are either struggling mightily or absolutely crushing it, and there are some differences.

Some of the differences are the people who are crushing it may have already established business, and they’ve already got clients, and they’re just building off of that and doubling down on that or adding more high level services. But at the same time, there are people who are new who are crushing it too.

I think one of the, the dangers, one of the, the two to five things is this idea of AI and this, and all the different things you can do. Distraction is- Yeah … destroying people. It is- Yeah … destroying … I th- I think about how many people, and I know at some capacity you gotta have time to learn and experiment and play around, particularly with AI or any other platform.

But at the same time, I’m wondering when I hear some people say I can’t find any clients,” but they’re tinkering around with all these different platforms, and they don’t really have a clear offer, and they’re just doing busy work basically. They haven’t joined a networking group. They haven’t done anything to sell.

They haven’t reached out to their personal and professional network. I’m like, if you didn’t, if you didn’t distract yourself with all this stuff and you actually did the stuff that is gonna get you in front of people, I guarantee you wouldn’t be in this position. And if we work on your offer and your pricing, that’s it.

Leads, offer, pricing. There’s, there it is. There’s the three things: leads, offer, pricing. Those are like, it’s the basics of business. And I really think that whether it’s being on social media, whether it’s tinkering out with AI, I think you really do have to master traction. ‘Cause the word distraction is, means it’s just, it’s pulling you away from something else.

You need, I think now more than ever, to be like, you gotta have a vision, you have to have a goal where you wanna get, and this is vague, but you really need to just put the blinders on and do less social media, do less tinker around with AI. And depending on where people are at, I know, there’s a time and place for all that, but that’s kinda what I’ve seen, honestly, man.

If I could boil it down to anything, the people who are killing it, they are just doubling down on what is working, which luckily is 3 to 6,000… for websites, for web designers, 3 to $6,000 websites, $99 hosting and maintenance plans with a fallback plan of 59 bucks or 49 bucks ideally, and then usually some sort of growth service for clients who want more than just a website and hosting.

That may be SEO, that may be strategy, it may be content, it may be social media, it may be branding, it may be design. And any amount of services in that framework, in my course, my business course, which is Inside Pro, I have a framework that’s build, support, grow, and there it is, friends. You don’t even need to pay for the course to implement that.

Obviously there’s a lot more to it, but that’s what’s working, those things right there. First, first six and multi six figure businesses, and then you get to a point where you start to scale a little bit, start to get some help, and that’s when the freedom really takes off 

Chris Badgett: That is awesome.

So you out there listening or watching, go check out webdesignerpro.com. Check out Josh’s podcast, the Web Design Business podcast. Did I say that correctly? 

Josh Hall: Yeah, Web Design Business. Yep. 

Chris Badgett: Yep. And put him in your corner. This is it’s Josh, but it’s also a community. And yeah, I just… I can’t say enough great things about you, and, I wish I had…

I wish you existed when I started building websites for clients in 2010. 

Josh Hall: Yeah. ‘

Chris Badgett: Cause I was just shooting in the dark. And then once you surround yourself with good coaching and courses and community it’s a 10X change- 

Josh Hall: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: at least. 

Josh Hall: Oh, for sure. Yeah, you go so much further faster when you have, yeah, courses, community coaching.

That’s the biggie. It’s like an athlete sticking with the athlete analogy, but, successful athletes have cheerleaders cheering them on. They have teammates who are right there with them, and then they have a coach who’s challenging them and getting them to that next level, and that’s the, a visual that I have for pro members is you need cheerleaders, you need teammates, and you need a coach.

By the way, I should mention too, I have a brand-new email list that I’ve just opened up that is specific to community builders. Oh. It’s completely free. Joshhall.co/community will get you there. And yeah, that is specific for community builders. I’m gonna start, I’m dipping my toe into sharing a little more about community building and, as I mentioned earlier, eventually here I’m gonna have an offer to coach at a higher level to start for community folks.

But eventually I could foresee, not a full Web Designer Pro brand, but some… I just love talk- obviously I love talking about community, so I wanna help more folks in that realm where I can with the time that I have available. So yeah, that’s free. Totally free to sign up for, joshhall.co/community if you wanna check it out.

Chris Badgett: Josh, thank you so much for coming. I can’t wait to catch up a year from now and see what you’ve done, see where you’re at. 

Josh Hall: Hopefully I’ll see you in, hopefully I’ll see you in about six months at ProCon 2027. 

Chris Badgett: Nice. That’s 

Josh Hall: just seven months if you wanna… We can talk about that. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah.

LifterLMS would like to sponsor. We could- Dude … we could look at that. 

Josh Hall: Freaking heck yeah, man. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Thanks for coming on. I really appreciate it, and we’re definitely gonna have to do it again sometime. 

Josh Hall: All right, Chris. Thanks, man.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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Chris Badgett discusses his own experience running WordPress for almost 20 years and how LifterLMS’s hosting requirements changed as the business expanded. He starts out by talking about his early experiences learning WordPress and creating websites for customers using Bluehost and GoDaddy. He then talks about how LifterLMS grew into a bigger and more complicated company by going through Media Temple, Amazon Web Services, WP Engine, Pagely, and finally Rocket.net.

According to Chris, an online education company’s hosting needs increase along with its traffic, customers, WooCommerce transactions, LMS activity, subscriptions, and dynamic material, all of which put increasing demands on the website. He highlights that selecting a host is more than just picking the quickest server or the cheapest package; for companies that rely on their websites, dependable infrastructure, scalability, security, and particularly excellent human assistance are essential.

His encounters with hosting issues also inspired LifterLMS to provide a specialized hosting solution for LMS developers, assisting them in avoiding the typical issues brought on by inadequate or improperly configured hosting. Additionally, Chris shows why specialist hosting may be beneficial for firms operating complicated LMS and e-commerce websites and identifies a number of hosting companies that LifterLMS users have had great experiences with.

He talks about LifterLMS’s all-in-one strategy, dedication to customer service, and ongoing ties to the larger WordPress ecosystem. In the end, Chris’s message is that outgrowing your web host may indicate that your company is doing well, and that an online education company may enhance performance, conversions, dependability, and scalability with the correct hosting environment.

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Also visit the creators of the LMScast podcast over at LifterLMS, the world’s leading most customizable learning management system software for WordPress. Create courses, coaching programs, online schools, and more with LifterLMS.

Browse more recent episodes of the LMScast podcast here or explore the entire back catalog since 2014.

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You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name is Chris Badgett, and in this episode, we’re gonna go deep into WordPress hosting, my personal journey, my company journey at LifterLMS. And the goal of this episode is to share our story and share how we think about hosting, because it ends up being, like, a big issue when you’re building an online business, an online presence, an online education company So first off, I just wanna say no matter where you are with hosting, or maybe you don’t even have web hosting yet, not all hosts fit for the scale that you’re at.

So it’s important to kinda realize what you’re buying, what’s included, and I’m not just gonna talk in generalities here. I’m gonna get into a lot of specifics about WordPress hosting. So what was my very first w- web host? So this was probably around 2008. I was teaching myself WordPress by watching videos on YouTube, and I probably went with whatever I saw in those early YouTube tutorial videos, and I ended up on Bluehost.

So back in the day, like before 2010 there were affiliates that made a lot of money recommending different web hosts, and they would teach things like how to build a WordPress website from scratch, and then you need to click on their link and get a discount on your hosting or whatever. So that was like the heyday of affiliate income from hosting.

I’m sure there’s still affiliates that make good money from hosting, but back then, the recommendation that I received was to go to Bluehost. And the cool thing about Bluehost, just like GoDaddy, is I could buy a domain name and I could get started with WordPress right away. At that time it was harder.

There was something called, I believe, Softaculous that would help you install WordPress on the host. This is before the managed WordPress hosting companies that we know and love today. But that was my f- very first hosting experience with Bluehost, and honestly, I was just completely blown away that I could create a message or create a webpage and put it online without being a developer, and that’s where- when I really fell in love with WordPress back around that 2008 period.

I still have that Bluehost account today. Most of my domain names are actually over there, and That’s where I got started. Bluehost is a great starter host. There’s good people that work at that company. So back then it was like Bluehost and GoDaddy were the main players in town, at least for people getting into WordPress.

So that’s how I got started. I did a lot with Bluehost. If I got a client when I was a solo freelancer, I would recommend Bluehost and get them set up there. A lot of people had already bought a domain name on GoDaddy, and GoDaddy had great marketing. They probably have the best domain name buying experience.

And, I ended up working with GoDaddy a lot with my clients, and GoDaddy had like a cheaper price point that people could really get in and build their first website where they j- just needed a domain name and some hosting that would get the job done. So that’s kind of the origin. If you talk to anybody who’s been around for a while there’s…

you’ll hear those names, Bluehost and GoDaddy, come up a lot. They’re good companies. There’s g- they’re good people that work there. And I’m gonna talk a little bit more about GoDaddy later. In my personal journey, by the way, later, I ended up getting hosting at WP Engine, just for my personal sites, not my company sites.

And the thing I loved about WP Engine was how easy it was to just get started with WordPress. Their staging site features for testing and running updates and stuff was really good. Jason Cohen, the entrepreneur behind who founded the WP Engine, is a super smart dude, by the way. He just released a book.

I’m blanking on the title right now, but I would definitely check it out. Jason Cohen is a really smart, savvy, helpful entrepreneur, so go check that out but then getting into my agency years. So I used to have an agency called Badgett Media. That’s how I started, making money with client projects.

And I would build sites for people, so a lot of those went on Bluehost and GoDaddy. And then– or the client already had some hosting and, I would just work with whatever they had, which is super interesting because the, the– I’ve spent, so much time in this space, almost two decades.

You think you know all the web hosts that are out there, particularly in the early days, but there’s actually so many. It’s not like there was just GoDaddy or Bluehost. There’s so many and, different parts of the world and different things. The hosting industry is super complex. Some are super focused on WordPress, some are not focused on WordPress at all.

Some will just host anything. So there’s just such a huge variety. It can be really overwhelming and hard to choose, particularly if you’re not that educated in hosting. And, my challenge, whi-which I know a lot of people have, is you start looking at these hosting websites and their pricing pages, and they start talking about CPUs, RAM, PHP workers, and things like that, and you’re just like, “I don’t know.

I just want a web host that’s fast, has good support, and is gonna have my back if I ever need some kind of help or something like that.” But as my agency evolved, I merged my agency with another agency called Codebox, and that was the beginning of me as an agency moving into some bigger, more complex projects.

Codebox is the parent company that I own. LifterLMS is actually a brand under Codebox. LifterLMS is also our sole focus. That’s what we do under the Codebox brand. But when we operated Codebox as an agency, at that time, we started doing all of our web hosting on a company called Media Temple. So this is around 2012, 2013 era, 2014.

And Media T- Temple was like an up-and-coming just awesome web host that we used at the time. Eventually, Media Temple was acquired by GoDaddy, and and then that evolved from there, which I’ll talk about in a little bit. But when LifterLMS first started, if you don’t know I’m a really customer-centric entrepreneur.

I don’t put my business or desire for profit or making money at the center of my business. I actually put my customer at the center of my business at LifterLMS. That’s the s- literally the secret to success is maniacal, obsessive, consistent focus on your customer, not your needs as a business. So anyways, in the early days of LifterLMS, when we first launched it in October of 2014, I believe it was we didn’t even use WordPress to launch the product.

We used a landing page service called Leadpages. There was an entrepreneur behind that named Clay Collins. It was really cool and innovative at the time, but all we had for the first launch of LifterLMS was a couple of landing pages, like a homepage and a pricing page and some Buy Now buttons. And then we actually facilitated, on our launch of LifterLMS, I think we had a separate WooCommerce website on Media Temple that would, process the transaction using WooCommerce and then we developed our own licensing system that we still use today to manage the software licenses and using WooCommerce subscriptions and so on.

But anyways, the whole marketing site of the first LifterLMS web presence was literally a Leadpages template that I just went in and modified, the text and the images and built the pricing table and so on. So th- our first marketing site wasn’t even hosted by WordPress, it was hope- hosted by a Leadpages SaaS or software as a service solution.

Clay Collins sold Leadpages. I forget exactly how it went, but I think there’s a company in- based out of Mexico that owns Leadpages today. It’s still alive and well. But anyways, from there we then just pushed everything together onto our WordPress site on Media Temple And, had our WooCommerce store and WooSubscriptions for the software licenses, and started building pages directly inside WordPress.

We launched our blog, we launched the podcast, and just started managing all that from our WordPress website on Media Temple and various subdomains. When we started, we had the podcast and the blog on subdomains just so it didn’t get too complicated with, WordPress and WooCommerce, WordPress and podcast software, and then WordPress and all the stuff going on with the blogging system.

Since then, by the way, we’ve consolidated many of those sites into one. We still use subdomains for different things, like the podcast is still on a subdomain. We run our academy powered by LifterLMS on a subdomain as well. But anyways, so we’re evolving. We outgrew what Media Temple was capable of.

So then we spent about a year running our own servers. So we took matters into our own hands. We got a Amazon Web Services, box. But, this thing happens when you’re running technology is like it’s hard enough to run the website, but now you’re also gonna be responsible for the servers.

We went on to Upwork or oDesk or one of those platforms and found a systems administrator to free up our time for development on the software itself, not our hosting infrastructure. And we tried Amazon Web Services for a while, AWS as it’s known. It was good, but there was a lot of black boxes in terms of working with our sys admin.

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We weren’t really learning anything. We had a single point of failure in terms of if our sys admin’s not there and our development team is really focused on building software for WordPress, not hosting infrastructure, it was just too much. So then we started shopping around for another host.

We decided to go with WP Engine for the lifterlms.com website and all of our subdomain. We stayed with WP Engine for a long time, and it was great. Like I said, the way they do staging sites and, you know, some of the innovation that went into just making WordPress easier to work with at the hosting layer, while also having quality support, our time with WP Engine was great At the time, WP Engine was really innovating.

They even started doing some hosted solutions. So they had a LifterLMS hosted solution for course creators who sign up for WP Engine, and they could click a button and have an LMS ready to go. That was cool. WP Engine ended up discontinuing that, unfortunately, and we started having problems with WP Engine in terms of sometimes, like the images on our site would start disappearing for no reason, and we couldn’t figure it out.

It’s something called a CDN or a content delivery network. Was just having problems and we would work with it, then it would get resolved, then the problem would come back, and so on. So we started looking around again for another web host At that time we decided to go with Pagely.

So after talking to Matt Medeiros, who’s known in the WordPress community, he worked in sales at Pagely. He’s also a friend. He’s also a LifterLMS course creator. And we had gone to the Pagely conference called Pressnomics at least one or a couple times at that point. And, we switched, we made the move to Pagely, which was awesome.

We ended up staying approximately eight years with Pagely. About halfway through that journey, Pagely was actually acquired by GoDaddy, and we decided just to stay. A lot of the team was there, the service continued, the tech support tickets got answered quickly, and so on. And then the, the– whether it was the weekend or a weird time, no matter what, like, when you send a support ticket to Pagely, they’re on it.

They’re on it quickly. They have a lot of great services in terms of just, protecting you from a security standpoint and that kind of thing, and it was great. We had a really great run with Pagely. Towards the end of our time with Pagely, which as of this recording was somewhat recently in the past several months, we noticed we’d like our website to be a little faster, not just on the front end, but when we’re doing things in the back end of WordPress and so on, on the a- admin pages.

So we started shopping around and looking around again and ultimately we looked at a lot of different things, and we decided to go with Rocket.net. So again, hosting is, for us, not just a commodity. It’s an important part of our infrastructure. LifterLMS throughout this time is growing. We’re getting more traffic, more demand.

Our websites are getting heavier. We have more customers, more users, more people filling out forms, signing up for things. We’re powering our own LifterLMS academy, which has tons and tons of people on it every day. The dynamic content that our websites are serving, whether it’s a WooCommerce store or it’s a learning management system powered by LifterLMS, it’s just getting heavier and heavier, and we needed a more performant hosting experience So we signed up with Rocket, not right away.

We started doing some tests and and then we– Their, rocket.net recommended some simulated traffic tools and things that we could really put it through the wringer, was a copy of our site with simulated traffic. And what we found is it was at least twice as fast as what we were on before, which we were happy with.

Of course, you never know until your live website is on there. But we did that. The Cloudflare enterprise tier that’s included with their package was working well. So we decided to stay with that, and we’ve been on rocket.net for a while. So it was just– And it was going good. It was like, oh my gosh, this is a lot faster.

Everybody on the team could see it. In web hosting, the amount of time it takes for a page to load can have a dramatic impact on your conversion rate. So you want things like your homepage, your pricing page, your checkout experience to be super fast, and we noticed that with rocket.net And again, we’re human beings duct taping the internet together to make our online businesses work.

And I had met some of the Rocket.net team like Ben Ga- Ga- Gabler, I believe his last name is, the founder. Chad, who was on his team, we’d met at many WordPress events, and I just had a good feeling about the company. The thing I like the most about Rocket, besides the huge speed increase, is the support.

Now, we had really good support at Pagely, and I liked it. It was awesome. They’re always good. They always– You know, you had that feeling when you’re talking to ’em that they know where you’re at in terms of experience. So like developers got involved immediately in tickets and things like that at Pagely, which was awesome.

At Rocket, they took it to the next level. They basically understand their customer. Remember I was talking about a customer-centric business, and one of the things all of us WordPress companies use is Slack, the instant messaging and team communication tool. So Rocket immediately invited us to a shared Slack channel, and I watched our lead developer, Brian Hogg running tests and working through migration issues, setup issues, configuration issues, and the Rocket.net team, again, not just one person, that was the lesson from Amazon Web Services and having a cis admin, was on it.

They’re– were working things out with the migration, optimizing configurations, running tests, getting us where we wanna be in terms of automated updates for some things, but not other things, for some sites, not other sites, and all of that. And it’s just a super smooth experience ’cause we’re not just buying hosting infrastructure and, paying for speed at scale.

We want high quality human support that’s really good. And we’ve been around the block a bit, so our demands and our expectations, I should say, are high. And Rocket so far has delivered on all of that So that enterprise support in a Slack channel, again, we’re on the Rocket.net Enterprise plan, so that’s where we get those high levels of support and speed and resources and all that.

But it’s been good. It’s not like a ticket queue for support. It’s like a human relationship and a team that’s there ready to roll and has your back. So that’s Rocket.net, where we are today. And I should also mention, we still do s-self-host a lot. We have a lot of properties on DigitalOcean, as an example, which these are custom infrastructure, internal resources for us.

For example, I’ll highlight two things we put on DigitalOcean. One is our sandbox sites. So you may have heard of the famous LifterLMS dollar demo, and what that is anybody can come to LifterLMS.com, click on the demo link. We have different types of demos, but one of those demos is a sandbox demo, which means anybody for a dollar can buy a website for 30 days that has LifterLMS with all of our software installed from our Infinity Bundle plan, which is our, all of our add-ons, core, everything, and it also has demo content.

And we actually have three different demo sites that people can buy. One’s more for an expert business somebody who’s teaching what they know, making money with what they know. The other one is more of a school setup, and then the other one is more for a business internal training setup, where a business is training their employees or franchisees, like an internal LMS.

So anyways, that sandbox environment lives on DigitalOcean. We also use that sandbox environment for testing our own software. When we’re creating marketing content, like many of the videos or tutorials that you’ve seen, our team is using a copy of one of our templated demo sites, and we spin that up in our sandbox for tutorial content.

Or if we have a partner that’s integrating with LifterLMS, and they’re testing their integration, we’ll give them a free sandbox environment where they can test their integration and so on. So that’s like a purpose-built our own just kind of infrastructure, hosting infrastructure on top of DigitalOcean that we use The other thing we have on DigitalOcean is a server instance for our AI agent.

The primary agent is called Maurice. Maurice is named after the St- Steve Miller Band song called “The Joker.” You know where it says — I’m not gonna sing because I’m not a great singer, but there’s a line in there called, “Some people call me Maurice.” Maurice, the space cowboy, that is, our brand character for our AI agent.

Maurice is super powerful. I should do a whole episode about what Maurice does. It’s been a huge unlock for our team. And Maurice is, for example, is available locally in my instance of VS Code. Maurice is available to our team in Slack. Maurice is available in the cloud on DigitalOcean, and so on. We have lots of plans and ideas happening there in terms of leveraging agents who have extreme context to help us all do our work that we do at LifterLMS, and so on.

So I’ll do a, a separate episode about that. This episode is about hosting, but again, our AI agent, that’s not really meant for managed WordPress hosting. That is a purpose-built infrastructure that we do on DigitalOcean So the last piece to mention is the hosting offer that we’re developing at LifterLMS.

So since version one of LifterLMS, our stance has not changed in that we are the most comprehensive all-in-one solution for education entrepreneurs online, while also leveraging the benefits and the ecosystem of WordPress. So what do I mean by all-in-one? So LifterLMS made a splash when it launched in 2014 and combined several things together.

The four primary things it combined together are a learning management system, that’s a given, so that’s things like creating courses, projects, progress tracking, student accounts reporting management tools for managing learners, and grading and things like that. So that’s the LMS piece. But we also added the e-commerce piece.

So from day one, LifterLMS had its own e-commerce system with Stripe, PayPal. We also have an optional integration with WooCommerce. We also integrate with Authorize.net. So that’s the e-commerce piece. Then there’s membership. So a lot of people were patching together membership plugins, e-commerce plugins, LMS plugins to make it work.

From day one, we said none of that. We will integrate with all those other tools, but our user just wants to be able to do what they can do with one tool. So we included memberships, so content protection protecting content outside of courses, bundling courses together, selling access via memberships.

All that has been built inside LifterLMS from day one. And the fourth piece was the engagement piece And by engagement, things like certifications, achievement badges, behavior-based emails that are dynamic, that can be triggered based on behavior in the LMS. All of this engagement stuff we built directly into LifterLMS itself.

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So that’s what I mean by all-in-one. But just to continue on that story that has been going for 12 years, a lot of people ask us “Hey, where should we host our site?” We’re known for our support. See, at LifterLMS, we don’t treat support as a cost center. We treat it as a feature of the product. So you’re gonna get high-quality human support and it’s really good.

And we do things that nobody else does, like live calls with our top users. If you have the Universe bundle or the Infinity bundle or a lifetime license, you can come on live weekly Zoom calls and get help. We call that office hours. We also do live calls and live streams for all our customers, all our free users, and all our prospects that people can attend.

So that is another piece where we go above and beyond and provide exceptional support. But besides that, people constantly ask us for hosting recommendations, and that’s why we put together the LifterLMS recommended resources page, which at the top has the hosting recommendations, which I’ll talk about in a little bit.

But people have been asking us for a long time to do hosting ourselves and deliver that value. And the cool thing about the hosting industry is it has evolved a lot. If you look at companies like Cloudflare, DigitalOcean, all the managed WordPress hosts and the things they do to help agencies and other types of users deliver hosting, it’s really interesting.

It’s never been easier. I think back to the beginning when I’m messing around with Bluehost and Softaculous or whatever it was called, and I was trying to understand this landing page on the WordPress website called the famous five-minute install. We’ve come a long way, and all those things are great, and it’s awesome how technology Continues to evolve and be more user-friendly.

We’re doing so much, like I mentioned, our AI agents LifterLMS MCP already exists, so the AI agents, you can just chat with your website and do things in WordPress, in LifterLMS, and the other plugins you’re using. The LifterLMS MCP is phenomenal. I just am doing testing right now on 100 new endpoints for the API and the MCP for LifterLMS, which we’ll cover in another episode.

Not just across LifterLMS core, but our add-ons so that, LifterLMS is going agentic, which is really interesting and fascinating and fun and scary and exciting all at the same time. But anyways, on the hosting level, we’re put- putting together a hosting package for people who want the same high-quality support, the same kind of speed, and just a phenomenal WordPress hosting experience that just fades into the background.

And if you wanna teach online or do any kind of educational ad- adventure, whether that’s selling courses or memberships for money, or you’re a nonprofit training a community or a team, or you’re a big business and you’re doing internal training Or you’re doing continuing education as a business, we wanna make the hosting piece easy ’cause we see a lot of people struggle.

Unfortunately, a lot of our customer support is actually related to a business being on a hosting that is underpowered for what they need, or that is just not set up for complex sites like e-commerce and learning management systems, which require more resources. So we’re building that. Go to lifterlms.com/hosting.

Fill out the form there. We’ll be in touch with you if you’re interested in getting the same great service, speed, and quality products like you’ve come to know and love from LifterLMS. So go to lifterlms.com/hosting, check it out, fill out the form. And I also just wanna mention, hosting is a strange thing in that there’s probably 1,000 web hosts out there.

Correct me if I’m wrong. It could be more. It could be, like, 10,000. I don’t know. But the thing is you just need the web hosting that’s right for you. I would still recommend my very first host Bluehost. If you’re just getting started go start on Bluehost. They have really affordable plans.

Go start on GoDaddy, and so on. But over time, what we’ve done at LifterLMS, based on our experience and the experience Of our users, ’cause they tell us when they love a host. So if somebody’s happy where they are, we wanna know about it, and we’re gonna recommend that host. So I’m just gonna read off some other web hosts that we love that our users also recommend.

So one of those is TangibleXP, which has specialized LMS hosting, high traffic, and lots of concurrent user systems in place. It’s a super high-quality focused web host. Gabriel and the team at TangibleXP are awesome. Another one is called Levamo. They launched a couple years ago under the name RapidCloud.

These are the founders of BuddyBoss, who pivoted into hosting after they sold BuddyBoss, and they had– they saw the same thing I see. So building an online community with lots of dynamic content. Their users had challenges, and their support queue was full of not necessarily BuddyBoss-related issues, but hosting issues.

So they wanted to solve that in their next act, and they built Levamo for tools like LifterLMS, BuddyBoss, and WooCommerce. So check them out. Another high-quality host is Convesio, which has auto-scaling for high-traffic LMS sites I was talking to a customer once who was, like, in our suppor- support queue.

It got escalated up to me. “Hey, this guy’s not happy, super successful. He’s been around for a while, and he’s just having trouble.” And I looked at it and I’m like, I’m looking at the ticket history and everything. I’m like, “This gu- this person is on the wrong host.” So I, I, He had already been sent to our recommended resources page, and he was, like, at its w- at his wits’ end of “Dude, I’m gonna have to stop using LifterLMS.”

I’m like, “You’re not having challenges with LifterLMS. You have hosting challenges.” And I did something I normally don’t do, which is I made a specific recommendation and from our hosting recommended resources, ’cause he had already checked it out and he was just feeling lost. And I was like, “Look, I know Tom, the founder of Convesio.

Would you like me to make an introduction?” And this is what’s wild. I, He’s like, “Yes.” And so I made an email introduction to Tom at Convesio, and I went to sleep. The next morning, I woke up, and Tom had already had a call with this frustrated LifterLMS customer who was on hosting that wasn’t a, a good fit.

They had already migrated the site over. Things were working. The client was super happy. Everybody’s happy, and that person is still a awesome LifterLMS user and is super happy on Convesio The next one is Presidium, which is a high-quality host out of Greece, I believe is where they’re located. I’ve met many of their crew at a WordCamp Europe in Athens.

Great company. They’re at that level like Convesio and Levamo and stuff. They’re awesome, so check them out. There’s also a niche host called MemberHost, which h- is carved out a niche in the membership site and LMS niche. The team over there is awesome. They’re super helpful.

They have a lot of high-traffic sites with a lot of demands for concurrent users and dynamic pages and all that stuff. Another one is WP Tonic, which is a great managed LMS host. It’s like a website as a service as well. They have agency options. One of the cool things they do is they bundle in plugin licenses.

So when you sign up with WP Tonic, you get access to things like LifterLMS and all the add-ons. You get access to Fluent CRM, WP Fusion all kinds of kit that an LMS site creator needs. It’s included in the hosting plan. They’re– So that’s a, a great take. Cloudways is another solid managed WordPress host you can check out.

InstaWP has some cool one-click LifterLMS setup and w-

Pretty, pretty neat model for just making it easy to get started while also having high-quality hosting. I also wanna give a hat tip to Pressable for WordPress professionals So check those guys out. GridPane, Patrick and the team over at GridPane is awesome, and they’re more for agencies and people with lots of sites and stuff.

GridPane is super cool, super high quality. Kinsta is another great one. Kinsta’s, in that managed WordPress tier. We have a lot of happy LifterLMS users on Kinsta. Roger and the team over there are awesome. And I also just wanna highlight Hostinger. So Hostinger has some of the most affordable hosting available online in the WordPress space.

And I know a lot of people who are validating, just getting started, wanna keep the cost at a absolute minimum. Hostinger has some really affordable plans. LifterLMS works on there, so go check them out. I also wanna mention our good friends Jason and Kim Coleman over at Paid Memberships Pro. If you’re using Paid Memberships Pro, they have their own hosting as well, which is awesome.

I’ve watched them build that. I’ve watched their customers succeed with that, and that’s incredible ’cause they’re, like, super focused, like Lifter is, on building a solut- a hosting solution that is absolutely 100% perfect for membership sites. We’re doing it for LMS, which also includes membership sites over at Lifter.

So go check out Paid Memberships Pro hosting And I’m sure I missed somebody, by the way. And I’ve been around, I’ve worked with a lot of web hosts. All of them, do care about their customers, but the challenge that happens is like the WordPress theme industry. One of the things I love about our theme, Sky Pilot, the only modern WordPress LMS theme with exclusive focus on LMS, is the focus.

For example, I also love themes like Astra and Kadence, but these are multipurpose themes. They’re designed to work with many different integrations and different use cases, e-commerce sites, brochure sites, massage therapists, restaurants. They’re multipurpose, which is cool. But in the hosting industry, that’s what happens, is a hosting company wants to get as many sites as possible, whereas the hosting we’re building at LifterLMS is all about we’re not trying to get as many sites as possible.

We’re just trying to help our core customer be successful, remove pain points, help them scale, help increase their conversions, make sure they have fast websites, and make sure that the hosting is 100% with blinders on, exclusively focused on the needs of the LMS creator. And that’s the kind of thing that a general web host just can’t do because they have fractured focus So that’s my story.

That’s a journey through hosting WordPress many years. Like our– I’ve shared our personal business story at LifterLMS, and how we’ve been through kinda six different chapters of hosting, and now we’re building our own. So I hope that’s helpful. I would love to hear from you, your experience with hosting, the hosting you love.

Again, our mission at LifterLMS is to be an all-in-one solution for learning management system and the LMS entrepreneur, but we still appreciate value and put effort into our community. So there’s not just one good web host. For example, we integrate with WooCommerce even though we have our own e-commerce system.

We recommend achievement badge solutions and gamification solutions even though we have our own. So that’s the beauty of WordPress is you have all these tools that you can kinda integrate together and it just depends on what’s best for you. So it’s kinda two games we’re playing here. One is to be an all-in-one solution while also being a stand-up member in the community that does integrations really well and encouraging those partnerships and that, that value that exists within the WordPress community ’cause the power of WordPress is not just the software.

The software is awesome. We love it, but the real value in WordPress is the community. It’s, tens of thousands u- or it might even be hundreds of thousands of entrepreneurs that are all working around same platform. You can’t do that at a single company. Like I mentioned Leadpages at the beginning.

They’re that’s just one company. There is no Leadpages ecosystem like what we have in WordPress. So that’s my journey with hosting. I hope you found this helpful. I’d love to hear your comments, feedbacks, hear your experience with hosting and check out LifterLMS hosting. Keep an eye on it. That’s at lifterlms.com/hosting.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Go to lifterlms.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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According to Chris Badgett, artificial intelligence is changing online education, but this does not negate the value of coaches, course designers, and education companies. Since students can now readily obtain material using ChatGPT, Claude, Google, YouTube, and other AI technologies, the value of merely packing content into a course is diminishing.

The true value, according to Chris, is in the human element: personal experience, professional advice, curation, feedback, accountability, community, and the capacity to assist students in truly achieving the desired outcomes. Course designers should concentrate on developing a learning experience that incorporates their own expertise, narratives, tried-and-true techniques, and viewpoint rather than attempting to compete with AI by offering more material. Chris also stresses that rather than entirely replacing educators, AI should be utilized to supplement and improve their work. He presents the 10-80-10 concept, according to which humans first supply context and expertise, AI takes care of most of the job, and humans then evaluate, modify, and contribute the last layer of knowledge and experience. In his opinion, human engagement is particularly crucial for community interactions, coaching, grading, and feedback.

While AI may help with certain activities, humans still need to be involved to give context, emotional intelligence, and intuition. Because students want to engage with real people and gain knowledge from shared experiences, Chris also emphasizes the increasing significance of cohort-based learning, live events, coaching, and communities. In the end, his message is that information by itself is no longer the product; rather, it is the human experience that surrounds that knowledge. Instead of taking the human element out of education, AI and automation could help businesses grow that experience.

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You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show

Hello and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m Chris Badgett, and in this episode, we’re gonna talk about why students pay you when AI is free. So essentially, what we’re gonna get into here today is how to use AI correctly in your business and why you, the human, is super important, and the parts of what you do as a human being is not disruptable by AI as a course creator, as a coach, as somebody running an education company.

So one thing that’s important to get in your mindset is that students or your learners have the same AI tools that you do. So they could have gotten the information for free, but why would somebody sign up with you? We’ve heard this argument before “Why would I create a course about X if that information is free on YouTube?”

But AI has increased the challenge with this problem. So what is it that is actually happening so that you as a human provide value on top of just knowledge and information? We’re gonna dive deep into that in this episode. By the way, I am not anti-AI. I think AI is a powerful tool to augment and help you, but there are certain things that just cannot be handed off to AI, and if you do, you’re making a critical mistake So where we’re at in the timeline of things, if you’ve heard of the book by Tim Ferriss called The 4-Hour Workweek, that came out about 17 years ago or something like that, and it was basically about automating and outsourcing your life so that you as a human only have to work four hours a week.

That’s cool. I’m a big fan of automation and delegation and, building a business that’s not dependent on you, the human. But this… the point of this episode is all about the value that you as a human, as a course creator, as a coach, as an education company entrepreneur bring to the table. The challenge is that AI tempts you to hand off the teaching itself and that’s not what you wanna do.

You can do a lot with AI, and I’m not saying you shouldn’t, but it’s not oh, I have a perfect PhD-level employee that can just do my job as a course creator or as a coach for me. So again, this is not against AI. It’s just how to think about the position of the human as a teacher, a coach, as a education entrepreneur, and what you should not give to AI tools like Claude or ChatGPT.

So the reality is with a lot of online courses information products as they’re known, like courses as an example, if it’s just pure information, that model is dying, and the demand is essentially done for that because, at first it was hard to find the information, then search engines made it easier, and then you can find stuff on YouTube.

But even when YouTube came out, why did so many course creators and coach-type professionals remain successful? And we’ll get into that in a little bit, but these services are super helpful, but they’re not a replacement for you as a human being, and you have to use the tools correctly in order to maintain your value in the market.

So let’s talk about the value stack. There’s many layers to the value stack. We have information, like if your course is just informational, that kind of course business is dying because we can find it in a Google search, we can find it on YouTube, we can ask ChatGPT, Claude, Perplexity, Grok, whatever tool we’re using, and just get information.

So information, i.e. information products, is not what we’re selling today if we want to be successful. Of course, you need to include information in the stack, but that’s not the whole story. So the next piece is what I call curation. So in a world of infinite information, ChatGPT never sleeps, YouTube never sleeps, Google Search never sleeps, the value comes from curating and finding the most effective, important content, helpful information, and so on.

So that curation is a very human thing that you can do to add more value to your information product, your course, your membership, your coaching program. ‘Cause it’s not about knowing everything you can about a car problem as an example. It’s about which bolt to turn at the right time, how, and as, in as few steps as possible.

We mentioned the four-hour workweek earlier. I just wanna give a highlight to Tim Ferriss. He’s a great guy, great thinker, love the book, and he has this concept called minimum effective dose. So the minimum effective dose is when it comes to information- What’s the minimum amount of information I can give in my course, my coaching program, or my membership to deliver the result to the learner as quickly as possible?

And that minimum effective dose, we have to look behind that and look at the m- mechanisms and mechanics behind that. What makes minimum effective dose possible is high-quality curation. So one of the things as a subject matter expert that you have to get good at is knowing your space, curating, looking at all the information, and distilling it down to the minimum effective information that achieves the result that you promise in your marketing.

So the other thing that’s really valuable that AI can’t do as well as a human is provide feedback. So if you’re running a course and you have quizzes and assessments, or you’re running a coaching program and you send your client out to do some actions and do something that you recommend They’re gonna need feedback on the performance of whatever it is they do.

Now, it’s true you can use tool, tools like WP Vibe to help grade your quizzes and assignments and things like that, but I always recommend a human in the loop to r- if AI’s helping with the feedback, the human needs to come in with the human emotional living brain and pro- edit that stuff and provide valuable feedback from intuition and experience and context that creator has as a human being in the space.

So the other thing is accountability and, belonging. If you build a community, if community is part of what you do in your educational product the idea of just having an AI agent drop in and, moderate your community and answer questions, that’s cool, that’s interesting, but that’s not what people are signing up for.

They don’t wanna just join a community of robots. They wanna interact with real human beings, other people in the cohort or in the community, and just hear their lived experience and ideas. ‘Cause if they just wanted AI input, the thing that people aren’t thinking about is they can get that now. They can just go to ChatGPT or Claude or whatever and get feedback.

They’re paying you for human feedback. So that’s what it’s all about in terms of some of the high-level concepts. But let’s dig in a little deeper. So AI has no stake in the results of your learners. AI and the way AI works is it’s pr- processing information, it’s trying to be helpful, it’s predicting the next word or trying to answer a question to the best of its ability based on the training, but it does not understand the emotional value of humans interacting with other humans, trying to help other humans.

An AI cannot be disappointed. It cannot be proud. It loses nothing if the learner quits. It’s just there in the system trying to pr- provide in- helpful information given the context that it has access to. So the way I think about this is you have what’s known as a customer avatar or your ideal learner profile, and when they are In your course or in your membership or in your coaching program they need you.

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They need you, the human. They’re not signing up to get advice from AI. In fact, they already have probably tried that before they came to you. So they want you, the human. It doesn’t mean that you- the AI is not helpful to your ideal customer avatar or profile. It just means that the reason they’re joining your course or your coaching program or your training-based membership site is that they want some real human lived experience, feedback, and input The other thing that’s really foundational to all of this is what I call the human knowledge dump, which we go over in how to create an online course with AI.

It’s a free course we have on the LifterLMS Academy. You should check it out. But that’s a very intentional step, and just to describe what it is, if you try to create a course outline with AI, or you try to create course content with AI, even if it’s as simple as text-based lessons, it will do a good job.

But if you don’t inject your human knowledge as an individual, I call that the human knowledge dump, you’re just getting the mass market large language model, or LLM, output to that area of content, whether that’s a lesson or whatever. So the human knowledge dump, when you’re creating a course as an example, or you’re training an AI to help you with your coaching, is you have to inject your own life experience, your own stories, your own favorite resources, even if they’re not your own, that you look to for guidance when you’re trying to help another human being.

That human knowledge dump step is really the most time-consuming part of working with AI. So if you’re working with AI and you’re trying to get something done, if you just say, “Create me a course about X,” or, “Create me saved responses for these types of challenges my coaching clients have,” and you don’t interject all of your existing experience and references and stories and whatnot, the AI is just gonna give generic examples, which may be helpful to a level.

But remember, there’s only one you. People are signing up for not just information, but access to you. Now, it’s true, you can train AI to be a little more helpful and have more context on your proven playbooks, methodologies, resources, and all of that But this kind of tacit knowledge is something that AI just does not have.

So the human should, build the course outline, should build the playbooks for working with coaching clients. And AI can draft and be helpful and fill in holes, I call it gaps, but what you wanna do is actually, put a lot of yourself in the product. Now, you can do some of that by getting yourself and providing more context into AI, but when you’re working an actual living, breathing online course, coaching program, internal training program, the human has to stay in the loop and be involved.

So the AI drafts, the human decides, the human edits, the human adds more context. That’s the signature before the response ships, whether that’s a course outline, course content, a response to a coaching client’s question conversations in the online community, and so on. If you’re doing grading and things like that with a learning management system like LifterLMS, you can bring AI in to do a first pass on the grading, but I’m a huge believer in the human in the loop.

This is like the four-hour workweek, and I think Tim got it right. He did not say the zero-hour workweek. And that’s what a lot of folks are trying to do, to their own detriment, is they’re trying to delegate everything to the artificial intelligence, which is a big mistake. In my opinion, the human should always be in the loop and be very much involved on the front end and the back end of whatever you’re doing with AI.

This is like the 10-80-10 principle, which is if you’re gonna work with AI, don’t give it 100%. You as a human, whatever you’re doing, put your 10% human magic on the front end, crafting good prompts and doing everything to provide context. Let AI go to work and do the 80% of the work.

But then when it’s done, don’t just say, “Sounds great, thumbs up,” and pass that information along to the finished product of whatever it is you’re doing. Add another 10% on the end to review, to be helpful, and, provide more context, provide more human stories. Write with your hands and, just create an exceptional product.

So don’t do the zero-hour workweek with AI. So the hidden cost is when you automate feedback and go blind to your own curriculum, you’re just removing yourself from the product you sold and you promised in the first place. So don’t do that. Again, this is not anti-AI. It can be super helpful. But your students, your coaching clients, your members are already running these tools too, so inject yourself in the process and understand the value of your own unique perspective, ideas, and the things that you bring to the table, and put that into your product.

So let’s talk about where the durable money is. So- I’m just gonna give you some examples from the LifterLMS community. So I wanna mention Michael Wolfe, who’s a course creator and coach. He’s an amazing human being. He’s been on this podcast before. You can find it. I honestly don’t know how much or how little Michael uses AI, but he has 33 courses, 3,000 lessons, and one of the cool things that Michael does that I’ve seen him do is coaching is a huge part of what they do.

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So they’re not just buying access to content, they’re buying access to group and sometimes private one-on-one coaching calls. Michael has run virtual and in-person events, so it’s very human what he does. So 3,000 lessons is a lot. If you have a huge corpus of work AI may be able to help you do some of the lessons, but in Michael’s cake- case, he does a lot of stuff with language coming from the Hebrew and Greek language, and AI translates it for free, but the business still stands because of all the coaching, community, event-based work, and real human work that Michael does.

I also wanna mention Tim McIvor, who does continuing education in the school psychologist niche. So this is where school psychologists have to earn continuing education credits to maintain their license and keep their jobs and get smarter and stay up to speed on what’s going on in their industry.

So Michael… or Tim McIvor has a lot of one-lesson mini courses, which are actually webinars that are delivered by humans delivering continuing education content. So if you think about the continuing education industry all those people can go to AI and type in chats about, “Hey, what’s new in our industry?”

“Give me information about my industry,” and so on. But what Tim MacGiver has done is digitize the human teaching so that it goes from conference rooms and hotels and conference centers to a, a more digital, infinitely scalable format. But there’s so much humanity involved in his continuing education.

He’s not just cranking out continuing education courses that a ChatGPT or Claude invented to provide the contin- continuing education credits. So events are becoming more and more valuable in the age of AI in the education concept. So if you’re not doing events, I would encourage you to do that. We’ve also looked at some of the statistics on course completion.

And when you do cohort-based courses according to a study by Rizuku, which is another LMS, a S- a SaaS LMS, they found that cohort-based courses have 64% completion rates, whereas self-paced courses have around 45% completion rates. So just that one data point right there shows you the power of a cohort, i.e.

community, moving through a course together as a community, taking lessons at the same time, asking questions in the community at the same time. It’s that human element of a cohort that makes community-based courses and cohort-based courses more effective in terms of completion rates. So if you’re using LifterLMS, we have a cohorts add-on so that you can do, easily do cohort-based courses, and I highly recommend that.

So when you think about the humans, not just using AI to pass information across inside of an online course, but if you think about humans in a cohort learning and growing together at the same time, that’s a really powerful thing to increase learning effectiveness and getting the results basically and whatever was promised in the course.

So The, the key thing here with AI is just to remember human in the loop, and we’re not going for a zero-hour work week. Everybody I know that works heavily with AI has never been more busy productive. They’re even having challenges in their personal life in terms of they’re just so overwhelmed by all the opportunity and all the things they can automate and all those, all the things they can do with AI, but they’re becoming more productive.

There’s something called Jevons paradox, which means that as a system comes into society that heavily incr- increases efficiency, the paradox is that system was supposed to give us a zero-hour work week, but we actually start working a lot more because of the efficiency and the increase in our productivity.

So Jevons paradox comes from when we introduced the steam engine in the industrial age. People didn’t work less after that came. They actually started working more, and I see that going on with AI, and that whole thing can be really overwhelming when you start getting really productive with AI. There’s just more stuff you can do.

But should you prioritize that? Should you be working on that? That’s just a challenge you need to introspect on. And also, the idea of unplugging from automation and AI and just being a human, helping other humans, has never been more important. So- Your expertise is not just knowledge. That’s what I want you to really take away from this episode.

Again, Google search, YouTube videos, and now AI. Knowledge is infinite. People can go find stuff on their own. So when you’re just selling information, those are the course businesses that are dying because you’re just basically repackaging what’s already available. But what can’t be repackaged is your unique human experience, the way that you provide additional context, stories, curation, and just the human element to an experience.

So we’re not just selling information, we’re creating learning experiences. Knowledge, what AI is literally intelligence, which is knowledge, is just a fraction of the pie chart. So all those other things you can do by creating community through cohorts or other means, in person or virtually, providing coaching and feedback in a one-on-one or group context.

These are part of what only a human can do. And remember, when people buy from you, especially if you’re trying to charge at higher price points, they’re not just paying for information, they’re also paying for access to you and others on the journey like them in terms of community. So if you’re digging what we’re talking about here, and you’re using AI heavily in your courses and coaching programs and training-based membership sites, I would encourage you to reach out to your learners and ask them why they bought from you instead of asking Google, YouTube, or ChatGPT or Claude.

What is the reason? ‘Cause you may not realize how valuable you really are as a human being in your space. So whatever those people say is your actual product. The knowledge, the information, the intelligence is, of course, important. It’s a part of what you offer. It is your information product, if you will.

But people don’t just want information. There’s more they want, and the, the more that they want is really related to the human element that you provide as a course creator, as a coach, as a education entrepreneur. So from the beginning of LifterLMS, we always had this saying, and I wanna give credit where credit is due to my original LifterLMS co-founder.

His name is Joshua Milich. And Joshua said in the early days of LifterLMS is that what we’re doing is we’re scaling the human touch with robotics. So we’re creating tons of automation. You can build a course or membership or school without needing the infrastructure that was previously required for example, an actual brick-and-mortar school or a stage to speak on.

There’s so much automation that happens in LifterLMS. It’s why people buy the software to, be more effective through high-powered automation in terms of things like e-commerce, engagement, membership- LMS things like reporting, progress tracking, grading, and so on. So we’ve always been inside this story, which is, scaling the human touch with robotics.

But our goal was never to make the human completely disappear. And going back to where we started in this episode, I think Tim Ferriss nailed it with the title of his popular book called The 4-Hour Workweek. And what I mean by that is, again, it’s not the zero-hour workweek, it’s four hours. So in that context, that’s 10% of the time, four out of a 40-hour workweek.

What does the human need to do? Like, why does the human still have four hours in the workweek if we have all this awesome automation and outsourcing and delegation? So I would encourage you to think about your most important four hours. And what I find is a lot of the best education entrepreneurs, they don’t work four hours a week.

They work like 40 hours a week or 30 hours a week or even 60, 70 hours a week because they love what they do. So use AI, use automation, use YouTube, get your information so it shows up in Google and all that stuff, but optimize the human element so that your courses, memberships, and coaching programs are not just information.

So put you and your team, if you have one, inside the product and don’t try to automate or give everything to AI to the point where you’re not needed because that’s not what the market wants. The market wants you. They’re signing up for you. They’re signing up for a human experience.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS.com/gift. Go to LifterLMS.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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In this episode of LMScast, Chris Badgett and Craig Shoemaker discuss how course designers and education entrepreneurs can boost revenue without continually pursuing new clients. The conversation is on developing more compelling offerings, enhancing the customer experience, forging deep connections, and adjusting to an AI-driven future while maintaining the human aspect.

According to Craig, one of the most common errors made by course designers is to concentrate only on making a course rather than establishing a comprehensive product. By providing only one pricing choice and neglecting to incorporate upsells, order spikes, premium tiers, or surprise bonuses that thrill clients, many firms lose money. Chris concurs that the offer is the cornerstone of any successful education company as flaws in the offer have an impact on all other aspects of marketing and sales.

The significance of looking beyond the original transaction is another important subject. Craig advises business owners to inquire, “What happens next?” following each client activity. There should always be a clear next step that strengthens the relationship, whether someone downloads a lead magnet, buys a course, or completes a program. Chris elaborates on this by offering useful tactics, such as utilizing thank-you sites to present supplementary materials during periods of strong consumer engagement rather than only instructing people to check their mailbox.

Craig also considers his own career, in which he made over $2.5 million in royalties from Pluralsight-published web development courses. Changes to the company’s royalty arrangement significantly decreased his revenue, despite the platform’s great popularity. He learned from that experience how risky it is to rely solely on third-party platforms and how crucial it is to own your audience thru email lists, lead magnets, and direct customer interactions rather than relying on the business of others.

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Browse more recent episodes of the LMScast podcast here or explore the entire back catalog since 2014.

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Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high-value online training program. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Craig Shoemaker. You can find him at craigshoemaker.net. Craig works one-on-one with education entrepreneurs to help them spot problems and opportunities they’re often too close to see their own course or membership businesses.

Craig also has a fascinating story from his own career as a course creator. He earned more than 2.5 million in royalties from web development courses and generated hundreds of thousands of watch hours. But when the company he published his courses with changed its author agreement, his royalties were cut by 68%.

That experience changed the way Craig thinks about audience ownership, platform dependence, and the idea that not all money is good money. Craig now helps other education entrepreneurs make more intentional decisions, get more value from the audience they already have, and work out where human judgment and leadership still matter as AI changes the education market.

Craig, welcome to the show. 

Craig Shoemaker: Thanks, Chris. Appreciate it. Glad to be here. 

Chris Badgett: Awesome. Yeah. I’m stoked to get into it, especially with another podcaster. Craig’s podcast is The Growth Question, and you’re gonna make it easy ’cause you’re a pro podcaster- … and you’ve been creating media and courses for a long time.

But the first thing I wanted to ask you is, what do you see when you look at an education business that the owner is often too close to see? 

Craig Shoemaker: That is like the question, isn’t it? Because there’s so many d- th- usually what happens with an education business is it’s usually one person. Maybe there’s a small team, but they’re having to be responsible for being a domain expert in what they’re doing marketing, doing outreach, handling the financials.

And so there’s so much surface area for blind spots that there’s a lot of opportunity there. But I’d say one of the things that I find most often comes up is the way that the, the offer is constructed. And so a lot of times what course creators will do is they’ll create a course, and they’ll put it out there and they say, “Hey, it’s available for, whatever price point.”

What I’ve found is that if you don’t have multiple options available, so maybe like different tiers, or maybe you skip doing order bumps, or you don’t have an upsell available in your funnel. Or one of my favorite things, if you don’t have a surprise, if you don’t give people something that they never saw coming to create that goodwill, that these are things that people have often either never thought about or haven’t thought about it deeply enough to be able to integrate it in with what they’re doing.

Chris Badgett: I love that. Yeah, the offer is core, and if you mess that up- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: or if you have challenges with it, everything else is downstream from that. What are some more detailed offer mistakes- 

… 

Chris Badgett: Or gaps- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah.

Chris Badgett: that you see in the patterns of the people you work with or in the market in general?

Craig Shoemaker: I think a lot of times people will– they’ll create their checkout process or their order process, and then they won’t pay attention to the question of what happens next. And you get the chance to answer that question or pose that question all through the process. So when someone opts in to maybe a lead magnet, what are you showing on the thank you page, that confirmation page?

That, that’s one of the biggest buyer intent signals that people will have is the fact that they’re like raising their hand, saying, “I want you to contact me.” And often, and I’ve certainly been guilty of this myself, is that you’ll throw up a, a standard or, kind of template thank you page and go from there and hope your email sequence kicks in.

So that’s one place where you can say what happens next?” When you get people into the buyer flow and they’re, they’ve got that momentum going, and then they’re purchasing your main course or program, whatever they came to, on the other side of that, are you pitching something different or bigger to them in terms of an upsell?

So what happens next there? But then the one that kind of hides in the shadows a little bit is that once they’ve made a purchase, and maybe once they’ve begin going through your program what happens next after that? We don’t wanna be satisfied that they just started the program. We want to create a relationship with the people that we’re working with and figure out what does that entire customer journey look like?

Chris Badgett: I love that. I think that’s like thinking through time is the biggest unlock you can do. The customer journey before they buy from you, after they buy from you. It’s not just, “I have a product, here it is.” 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: What types of course and membership business owners come to you for coaching?

What do you notice that’s in common with them? 

Craig Shoemaker: So I’ve had people everywhere from medical doctors to people who help independent authors sell ads, to YouTube scriptwriters, to guitar teachers. And so the commonality isn’t in what they teach. The commonality usually is the … a question that sits behind the next decision that I have to make, especially ’cause I’m usually doing everything alone what is that decision going to cost me?”

Maybe I’ve put together this program, I’ve r- built this community, and I’ve been successful doing it, but I’m not … I think I know how I did it. Maybe I could do it again. And it’s just living within that uncertainty of saying “Okay I’ve built something and I’ve established resonance with my audience, but now I need to figure out where that next step lies and make sure that I’m heading in the right direction.”

Chris Badgett: I think that’s a backbone of good coaching programs where people hit some kind of growth ceiling. Whatever that is in terms of operations or sales or just figuring out how to move forward and scale, basically. Yeah. Yeah. And that’s awesome. I’ve seen so many coaching programs across different industries that it’s really

It’s not the beginners. Beginners need coaching, but the people that are hitting growth ceilings raise their hand. They have budget- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: typically, and they’re ready to invest in themselves, and they’re humble enough to realize, “I don’t have all the answers and I need help,” and raise their hand.

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah.

And that’s what makes working with people at that stage really fun and interesting because they have all the levers to pull. When we’re starting out and we’re beginning we’re trying to find ourselves and trying to figure out who, what sort of audience we resonate and that’s hard work.

But I found the, the way that I can help people most is when you have the, the mechanisms available to be able to say, “Okay we can at least test this idea because there’s an audience there,” or, “We can adjust pricing here because we know people are buying at this point.” And that’s what makes it fun because you can see the results a little bit faster.

Chris Badgett: Tell us the story of the 2.5 million in royalties from web development courses, and what happened there. What did the business look like at its peak? Yeah. And I know they, they changed their royalty agreement. I’m guessing this might be Udemy, but it could have been something else. What- 

Craig Shoemaker: N- 

Chris Badgett: What’s the 

Craig Shoemaker: story?

Not Udemy. So I try to, I describe it as it was basically Netflix for developers, right? And the I was very entrenched in the tech community and knew a lot of people who… i’ve published books, I’ve written for magazines, done conference talks and when I lived in Southern California, I would build a, a, a technology talk and then go on tour to all the different user groups in the area and did all that.

So I n- I was around the people who were about the business of teaching technology to our market. And there’s a, a, a group of developers in that community that started this this company called Pluralsight, and the idea was that basically they would get the best developers they could find to build courses for the the developer community.

And what’s so cool about it is that what they did is they didn’t overlap content. So if you had the course on beginning web development, anybody who used that service all around the world was going into that course. And I just so happened to be in the fortunate position to be able to do some of the very basics of web development.

So as their audience and as their reach grew, more and more people were watching my content. And it was… I learned so much about how to build good courses, how to communicate with people, and yeah just loved doing it. But a- as most companies do they grow, and they were bought and sold a few different times, and then they decided, okay what we need to do is basically change how we’re handling the the author agreements.

And so with that change, so did my royalties. And so- What 

Chris Badgett: year are we talking about? What time period is this? 

Craig Shoemaker: ’22, ’21, somewhere around there. And so th- what I wanted to do was, like, okay i- instead of continuing to push through a, a system that’s changed a lot, I realized I’ve had all this experience as an author, as a speaker, as a course creator, as someone who’s built courses that resonate well with people.

I want to take my experience and help other people build their businesses in a way that can, just be worthwhile. And part of that story, part of that scene was, like, I I wasn’t in the sort of- I didn’t understand at the time how valuable it would be for me to basically just put up a lead magnet within my courses and begin to build my own audience in parallel with everything that I was doing there so I could make my own offers.

And so this whole idea of not seeing your blind spots and paying the price for it is something that I’ve lived out 

Chris Badgett: So you felt that pain personally with the- Oh, yeah. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. And then describe the pivot to coaching. Do you mostly do coaching? Do you still make courses? How do you… what did you pivot to?

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. So I’m doing coaching with my clients one-on-one now. I still do the… I actually got contacted recently about making a- another course there in terms of the technology stuff, and then I, building some courses and digital products within my within my business right now.

But my main focus is working one-on-one with people because when you have a longer engagement with someone, you get to know their business, you get to know their habits, and you get to know how they think. And when I’m in that position, I’m able to help orient people’s business and growth in a way that you can’t do if you just meet once and then you go on from there.

And so it’s in building those relationships that I really get to have, have an impact in what people are doing. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. I’m a big fan of courses, coaching, and community, and you don’t always- Yeah … have to do all three or do all three equally, but, a c- coaching is very different from courses.

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah.

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Chris Badgett: But it… But like you said, it’s more personalized, and you can drive impact, and you have a lot more unique context to help people. Did you go the kind of individual coaching route, or do you do group coaching or a combination? 

Craig Shoemaker: Right now it’s individuals. It’s all one-on-one, yeah. I’d like to do group co- coaching in the future.

It’s… I’m just gonna see how that evolves a little bit. But yeah it’s getting down into the weeds with the individual right now is the w- where I can pull those levers the hardest. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Tell us more about the patterns and when you get into the coaching, and we talked about working on the core offer and thinking through time and customer journey.

What else are big areas where you unlock growth or get people unstuck or remove bottlenecks? 

Craig Shoemaker: This is gonna sound so cliche, okay? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Craig Shoemaker: But it’s true and that is around mindset. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Craig Shoemaker: Almost every one of my clients has been, at one point or another, essentially afraid to raise their prices, change their pricing, d- or go into a different area of expert- N- not totally wildly different, but y- just mindset stuff holding them back from either creating a new part of their program.

But particularly it comes down to pricing. And- There’s I think there’s just something in that situation to where you’re the single person, you feel like everything’s on your shoulders. You don’t want to make a mistake that will adversely affect, the wellbeing of you and your family, and so there’s fear there.

And so a lot of times I’ve been able to say, “Okay we can w- we can test in certain areas we can set up different kind of boundaries, make you feel comfortable.” But for the most part, it’s usually just by facing that area of saying I’ve never charged this much before,” or, “I’ve n- I’ve never…”

Maybe, I’ve, I had one person who essentially trained his audience to expect really low prices from him, and he was sweating bullets the first time I said, “We’re gonna, we’re gonna build a high-ticket, $5,000 a person mentorship program, and you’re gonna sell it to your audience.” And I don’t think he slept well the night before he launched it, but then when he sold out, he was sleeping actually quite well.

And so we all have it. We all have those, those areas that, that require some extra push. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Super valuable. And the mindset like imposter syndrome, fear of failure, fear of success- Yeah … financial insecurity. Yeah it’s such… Nobody can escape it. 

Craig Shoemaker: No. 

Chris Badgett: Anybody I’ve ever talked to, no matter whether they’re in software or digital products, physical products, when you bring up pricing, it’s always, there’s all this fear and what if it breaks or whatever.

What about like funnels as an example? What kind of gaps do you see people making in terms of the funnel? More on the before the conversion, what are people just not doing or doing poorly- 

… 

Chris Badgett: In their funnels? 

Craig Shoemaker: It’s the basics. The, the funny thing is that there’s so much information, like, being thrown at us all the time.

I think the thing that stops us from doing it is the fact that, one, one podcast will say one thing, one blog will say another, one email list will say this, and you just get… unless you really focus, that’s the, the thing that stops you. And so I would say that the, the gap is the ability to focus.

To be able to say, “Okay, I’m gonna take this one technique,” so maybe it’s confirmation or thank you pages. Okay, make sure when someone opts in for your thing, that the response that they get back, independent of the email that’s sent to their inbox, is congruent with whatever offer you want to pitch them in the future.

Maybe that’s an opportunity for you to give something generously to them at that point, and just do something different than what everyone else is doing other than, “Hey, you’re on the list. Congratulations. You might hear from me again.” So that’s one of the things. One of the other things is just being able to truly understand the progression between, okay, I have this thing that I wanna offer people.

Low ticket, high ticket, doesn’t matter. But again, that whole idea of congruence. Okay if I have a lead magnet or if I’m post- posting social content, h- how much does it make sense for them go from point A to point B to where I want them to go? Or am I just creating things because it’s fun or it’s exciting or it’s the trend or whatever?

And so it’s about being really intentional about saying, “This is the first problem I need to solve for people, and that will unlock the second problem, which is the thing that I can really provide for them.” 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. And I just wanna share a pro tip. Something I do that I learned is if, and this doesn’t apply to everybody, but on a lead magnet thank you page, one of the things I do is put in a little pause of five minutes before they get the lead magnet, and on the thank you page, I think the email might still send relatively quickly, but even email deliverability takes time sometimes.

But- … the basic idea is, “Thanks, your resource is on the way. While you wait, check out this thing.” And it might be, like, something further down the funnel, like a prerecorded webinar or something else. And you’re not gonna catch everybody, but it’s like the, the idea of a one-time offer, but just with- Yeah

information. And it works, and they still get the lead magnet or whatever, and they- Yeah … and it, the… I think of fast lane, slow lane, sidewalk buyers or whatever that framework is. 

Craig Shoemaker: Okay. 

Chris Badgett: If somebody’s on the fast lane they may be like, “Oh forget about a lead magnet. This thing further down I’m super interested in,” they just move faster through.

It’s just a fun little trick I learned that works. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: But it’s stuff like that, thinking through time,

if you could have a moment, instead of saying, “Thanks, check your inbox,” or whatever “Hey, while you wait, check out this cool thing real quick.” I don’t know. It’s just fun stuff like that.

Yeah. Once you start thinking in time and shaping experience there’s just so much you can do, and it’s all about adding value, not upselling and a million one-time offers or whatever. Yeah. Although that’s good, too, but not necess- but you have to do it in alignment with what’s right for them at that stage.

Craig Shoemaker: Yes. So I love the phrasing that you’re using, thinking in time, because I think that takes out the sense of urgency in terms of I have to pitch them with all of this stuff, as soon as possible. A 

Chris Badgett: one shot. Yeah. One opportunity, Eminem style. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. No multiple shots. And the way I like to phrase it for myself in my own coaching, but also with the clients I work with, is just how can we serve people the most powerfully, right? And when you use that mindset, then it’s less transactional and becomes more relational. And you can do that at scale.

You can care about people and their and their transformation even when you’re talking to a, a large number of people. But it’s the fact that the word I like to come back to is just being intentional about it and knowing why you’re doing what you’re doing for the benefit of the people you’re serving.

Chris Badgett: You mentioned relational. I’m a framework guy, so I’m dropping another one, which is, like, when it comes to marketing and sales, I see three buckets: inbound, which is content marketing; outbound, which is prospecting. Like you, you prospected to get on the show, and now you’re on the show.

I 

Craig Shoemaker: did. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: And then there’s relationships, and what I find is that entrepreneurs tend to have one of those be their superpower. 

Like for the work I do I’m primarily an inbound guy first, relationships second, outbound third. I do all of them. 

But I think the relationship-based marketing, sales, and business is is misunderstood, and people don’t quite realize that.

So you mentioned a lot, like maybe in your own business and with your client business, if somebody wants to leverage relationships, not just s- so I get more whatever, but in a win-win format. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah.

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Chris Badgett: How can entrepreneurs do better-based, relationship-based growth and scaling to either optimize what they already have or bust through that growth ceiling?

Craig Shoemaker: I think that’s getting easier now than ever. Okay, so you talked about how I prospected to get on the show. Yeah. And so we were talking a little bit before we hit record about the fact that I’ve built a booking agent that runs in the background, and what it does is basically scours the web to try and look for podcasts where I might be a good fit to come on as a guest.

That’s using systems automation in order to shortcut the part of the process that would be the most painful for me, which would be doing all the searches, trying to find the fit, and all that kind of stuff. So I can just hand that over to a machine. I don’t care, right? But then when it came time for me to send you an email, I made sure that I went through and I got to– tried to get to know you from a distance a little bit.

I watched some of- … some of your interviews, got a sense of what you did, and then wrote you a personal email in order to say, “Hey, if you’re interested, I’d love to come and have a chat with you.” And so I think more and more as the world is moving towards automation, is moving towards really sterile, soulless ways of communicating, that adding in those areas that kind of show, number one I cared enough to take the time to, to value you as a person, to be able to reach out in this way.

And we can talk about that at scale in a second. But n-number two, that I literally was the person on the keyboard doing it. I think there’s a texture to that, that, that comes across hopefully at least enough for people to be able to feel it. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Craig Shoemaker: And so I was just gonna say that for at the scale situation, it’s just it’s basically, being transparent enough to say “Here’s the areas of my business that are automated, that I have AI take care of,” and trust me, I do a lot of that.

Having a technology background I try to leverage as, as much as possible. But then to be able to tell people like, I’m… Customer interviews is something that I, I- is a big thing that I harp on a lot with my clients. Because when you’re teaching and you’re selling programs at scale, sure, you talk to your customers, you answer questions, you do support, all that kind of stuff.

But that’s a very distinct difference than getting on a call like this and asking very pointed questions about what’s important to them, how they found you, what they thought of the program and things of that nature. And so you can build those areas of relationship- … even when you’re working at scale, as long as try hard to make it happen.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, and in a AI world, I think relationships just become even more valuable. And I think sometimes people don’t realize … Do you know Dunbar’s number or whatever? 

Craig Shoemaker: No. 

Chris Badgett: So Dunbar’s number is that the human animal is designed to have relationships with 150 people. It’s like the size- Okay. Yeah, I 

Craig Shoemaker: have- … of a 

Chris Badgett: tribe.

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. Okay. 

Chris Badgett: So we have, in our genetics or whatever, that kind of capacity. Yet we find ourselves in a world with social media, email lists, and all that stuff. So we’re still like our biology isn’t ca- has not caught up to our current reality. And I think the like even just shallow connections, like actually engaging in a conversation on social media with somebody you don’t know, like these shallow, the shallow network of relationships have a, hold a lot of power.

And as more automation and everything comes in, it doesn’t mean automate everything. It’s, you’re still pe- what I’m saying is the human connection is becoming even more valuable- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: in an automated world. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah, 100%. Yeah. And, and- What do you- I was just saying- Go … and we, we’ll get to a point, and we are now, but you can generate video.

And so being able to give the tells, the, like the very human tells to be able to say, like even if I’m gonna cold pitch you, to be on the podcast or to be a client or something like that, and I send you a video or whatever, it’s like just being able to connect, look into the camera and I don’t even know what the distinction is anymore but to be able to find those ways to be able to show that humanness is there is is a huge deal.

Chris Badgett: Yeah. I asked somebody once, what’s the difference between a high-ticket program and a low-ticket program, and he answered with one word, and he said fidelity. And I had to look it up and see what he meant. But it’s really access. Like- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: you could have $100 course, but if somebody has access to you on a monthly or weekly or whatever- Yeah

coaching call or some kind of coaching format, that’s a different product altogether. 

Craig Shoemaker: Oh, 100%. Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: What’s your advice for somebody, for a coach to transition from courses? In the sense that from where I sit, like, looking at AI and information, and, we have a course tool that has some community and coaching features in it and stuff, but I’m finding that courses are, just on the macro level, are becoming a little less valuable.

And that human connection, like the coaching and the community, becoming more valuable. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Not that courses are dying or dead or anything like that. They serve a place. They’re not going anywhere, just like books are still here. 

But and there’s only one you if you’re a coach. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah.

Chris Badgett: So that’s the, that’s one of the mindset things is like, yeah, I help businesspeople or whatever, but there’s already this famous business guru who said it all. But that’s not … I would be intimidated going to Tony Robbins for- … a private coaching call on personal development. I’d rather go to somebody who’s 60 that had a very similar life journey as me, even if they’re not well-known, but they’ve got what I want, and they’re, like, a kind, helpful person.

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. Yeah. I love that. Okay. So I think there’s a couple different questions in there. So the first one would be, like, how would you move into to coaching if you’re selling courses? And I’d say it’s a really natural progression. And on my website, the the, the hero text at the moment says, “Knowledge is now free or paid for your judgment.”

The whole idea of the fact that the procedural information that we have to sell, yes, is valuable because it’s organized, and it’s tested, and it’s vetted, and all that kind of stuff. And y- I even have a thing to where you can… I’ll show you how to put an AI model in the place of you as the teacher, and you get to see how well it can teach what your, what your program is.

But the fact of the matter is that the, the facts and the procedure are just one part of it, and that is enough for some people. They can just buy your course, they can learn the thing and go on. But other people want to know what that looks like in context and like you said, against the reality of someone who’s lived it.

And so a model will be incredibly confidently wrong sometimes, and if you don’t know where those dividing lines are, then you can be set off in the wrong direction pretty fast. And so as an education entrepreneur, being able to say y- and I like getting really practical here right now, right? So let’s say you, you have a course, maybe you have a community, and you want to start doing some sort of coaching or something one-on-one.

I would say look for building the high-ticket thing first. Create something where you can serve people really powerful. Charge an amount for it that scares you a little bit but also gets you to the point to where you know that if someone goes through this time with you, the transformation that they have at the end of it will be well worth it.

I always say anything we do should ultimately be free, right? Because people should be able to take what they’re in the, the business education con- context of it, right? But you work on building something that excites you to work on with your clients. It excites them to be able to get th- the transformation they’re looking for, and then you can prove out what that relationship looks like and what’s valuable to people.

And record every call transcript, use that in your research, and then from there you can go on and build maybe other group coaching type of programs and things of that nature. But the, the bottom line is what you have to sell is your judgment, not just your knowledge. 

Chris Badgett: I love that. Yeah, it’s like a different kind of asset.

Yeah. We think of the expert has the, the knowled- there’s a knowledge gap, and we help fill it. But the judgment- … and the discernment- Yeah … is also just as valuable. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: You say that running a, a lot of people are running a business based on instinct instead of intention. Unpack that for us.

And then by the way, guilty as charged. I’ve done a lot of stuff based on- We 

Craig Shoemaker: all 

Chris Badgett: have. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah we’re all in this group when you think about all the hats you have to wear as an entrepreneur, usually as a solopreneur. So I couch it in this area because most of the people who are in this arena are either doing it themselves or doing it with a, some virtual assistants for a very small team or whatever.

Even in those contexts, the thing that you’re doing is usually trying to run to an understanding of this, what is it that I’m selling? That’s the first thing that people want to figure out. Okay, what do I have to provide the market that’s going to, people are gonna buy and hopefully be profitable from, right?

Okay, so you get some traction there. People wanna buy your course or your program, cool. Then after that it’s okay how do I increase my profit margin? How do I make this thing kind of work for me? A lot of education companies start off with a really high profit margin because generally what you’re doing is selling, one to many and you’re able to work in a, a situation to where it’s not exactly passive, but it’s more passive than in other places, right?

But then you’re have– You’re faced with this question of okay was it my positioning that, that nailed it, or was it timing that nailed it, or was it a bit, little bit of luck that nailed it? What caused me to be able to have that, that success that I’ve had so far? And so that’s where it comes into okay maybe you’re not entirely clear of how to repeat the process.

And so that’s where the intentionality comes in, is to be able to say, okay, there’s different systems and frameworks that we can put into place in order to make sure that maybe we’re gonna focus on profitability for this section, or maybe we’re working on retention for this section, or maybe we’re working on what our relationships work, work look like.

And all of that comes from basically being strategic and intentional about working on that thing specifically in isolation rather than, “I’m just gonna try a bunch of stuff and kinda hope it works,” which is how we all kinda start off. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, it’s super easy to get busy and lose your way. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: There’s a lot of we- weeds you can get into, whether that’s some kind of technology rabbit hole, or you start learning about funnels and then you’re building, like, all this stuff.

Or you get really obsessed with the video production or- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yep … 

Chris Badgett: I don’t know. There’s just so many- my- … places to get stuck. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. My my weakness is the fact that I just, I enjoy creating things, right? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Craig Shoemaker: So I play drums and guitar. I’ve written code for a living. I’ve, books and magazines, podcasts.

It’s I just love the creative process, and so sometimes what I’ll do is oh I wanna make this new lead magnet, or start building this new program, or do this other thing. It’s like no, gotta get back to, okay, what builds the business? So we all fall prey to it. 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. Shiny object syndrome is a real- Yeah

real thing. Let’s dig in a little bit more on AI. For education entrepreneurs specifically, what are some examples of ways they use AI, or might be using AI poorly versus things that- … tips and tricks you have on c- ways to use it in ways that unlock value? 

Craig Shoemaker: I think the poor ways to use it I th– I, I think the most obvious poor way to use it is also the most enticing.

So spinning up Claude and saying, “Hey, I need you to write my newsletter for me this week because I’m busy.” I’ve done that. I’m not super proud of it, but I’ve totally done it, right? And it’s this seduction of being able to say, “Okay, I know that the system knows about my positioning. I’ve given it, dossiers on all of my key clients.

Here’s my case studies. All of the, you know, here’s stuff that I’ve written before. Here’s all the rules that you’re gonna use to write like me,” right? And you spin something up, and you get… And it’s just it’s 80%. It’s not horrible, but it’s not you, right? And so I think it’s when you build systems and you have a lot of a lot of input that’s gone into it, and then you look for these places to where it’s like the key insight, the thing that really requires the thing that is most of who you are and what you most provide value to your your audiences, and you delegate that off to AI, whether it’s building stuff for your website, writing emails.

Building content that it shouldn’t be doing is, I think, the, the biggest misstep. And so what I like to do is, again, the customer research interviews, or in my case it’s on my coaching calls, is I like to use it more as a research arm for me to where it’s like I don’t try to invent who my ICP is.

I know who my ICP is because I have hundreds of hours of coaching call transcripts that I’ve then gone and asked Claude, say let’s do the pattern matching. Let’s figure it out. What are the things that they face most often? What are the words that they use to be able to describe the the obstacles that they face?”

And so that becomes much more powerful while still keeping me in the driver’s seat of actually running the business. 

Chris Badgett: You have a saying that not all money is good money. Unpack that one, ’cause I totally get that, but I’d love to hear your perspective on it 

Craig Shoemaker: So th- there’s a saying that says passive income doesn’t exist, right?

And that’s totally true. With my courses that I built, though, since I worked with a very strong and very capable publisher in the industry, I would be able to kill myself building a course, record it, publish it, and then be able to collect royalties on it for a long time without really having to y- you know…

I made a quality product, so it didn’t need a lot of updates and do all this kind of stuff. But the thing that got me in the end was the fact that it made me lazy. 

For many years I got the royalty checks and it was great, and I loved it. But what I should have been doing is figuring out, okay, in light of all of the success that I’m having, how do I build something in parallel, like I was saying before, that gives me, th- number one, gives me platform independence, and number two, gives me something long-term?

Because I always knew in the back of my head, I’d tell my wife, I’m like, “This money’s awesome. It’s not gonna last forever. We need to plan. We need to enjoy it while it is,” whatever. And so it was just the fact that, sure, you can make a lot of money doing something very specific, but make sure, one of my favorite words coming back to, is you’re intentional about it.

What are you doing with it? How are you making it into something that will last you long-term? 

Chris Badgett: I think that dovetails into what you were just saying about AI. And by the way, it’s human nature to be lazy or whatever. The brain is… wants you to not work as hard. Oh, yeah. That’s just a thing.

It’s part of the human condition. But if you’re lazy with AI, that’s different from using it as the ultimate research assistant that actually probably makes you work harder, ’cause now you have new insights, and you create more value and stuff like that- 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah … 

Chris Badgett: in some ways. Let’s talk about lifestyle.

You have five kids. I think you work from home. 

And that’s often… There’s often particularly in the early days of an online business, there’s this friction between family and work. But what have you figured out with five kids, like, how to strike that balance and move forward and be a present father while also, doing, having time for your entrepreneurship and doing what you need to do there?

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. Oh, man. It’s not easy. I have a la- I have a lam- I don’t have an on air light, but I have a laminated sign that says, “Recording. Don’t open this door unless there’s an emergency.” It’s on 

Chris Badgett: right now? 

Craig Shoemaker: It is on my door right over here, right? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah. 

Craig Shoemaker: And everybody’s old enough that they can read. So- Yeah.

I’ve been working from home for the last 15 years, even longer. So my, my kids have basically grown up with me working at home, and so a lot of it is just been the culture and the nature of what it means to live in this area. But for right now, I literally have a puppy tethered to my chair because I- no one else can watch him right now and I don’t want him to eat all the cords in the house.

So I think it just comes down to having a, an- an understanding of when you need to focus, how can you build boundaries and expectations ahead of time to make sure that happens? And then it’s s- so then once you have all the people around you giving you what you need, then it becomes, okay, how do I focus my mind well enough that I don’t get distracted on social media or, answer emails that I don’t need to at the time or, you know, whatever.

And so it really comes down I think the… Now that I’m articulating it, the, the bottom line is really just self-discipline. What does it look like to be able to say, “I need to have these things in my environment and in my mindset to be able to do what I need to do”? 

Chris Badgett: Yeah, and that goes back to your favorite word, intention.

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Like, when you intentionally hold the space or- … intentionally be present at dinner time and stuff like that. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. That 

Chris Badgett: intention is everything, and it’s actually, in my experience, a relief ’cause when you’re trying to do all the things at the same time- 

… 

Chris Badgett: It’s just hard. 

It is.

As I’m talking to you, I saw a voicemail come in from, on my phone from my daughter who’s in the other… i’ve… I like to have a separate workspace, so I’m, like, in a detached garage office, but they’re only three feet away. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: But it’s… she knows that I work, that I’m usually working at this time, and I’ll get to her- Yeah

when I get to her, and if there’s an emergency, the door behind me will open just like your dog will- It 

Craig Shoemaker: has hinge- 

Chris Badgett: hinges. That’s right … do. So life, sometimes you gotta do it. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. 

Chris Badgett: Tell us more about how people can work with you. Who’s the perfect fit person- … for your coaching, and what can they do to reach out to you?

And just to add another question on top of that, I know on your website you have something called the Offer Map. If s- … if somebody s- wants to check that out, tell us about those things. 

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. So that, that was exactly what I was thinking of. So the, the person that I work best with is a education entrepreneur who has a program or a course that they’re selling and wants to figure out how they’re gonna scale and grow from there.

And like I said, that gives… There’s so many different opportunities to go into a business like that and find areas where you can create growth and extra profits that’s i- is worthwhile. Also, going back to one of the first things that we talked about was just having an understanding of what your offer is.

And so if you go over to my website, there’s a link at the top for the Offer Map, and it’s a free tutorial series where I take you through my framework of how I think about building offers. At the end of it, you can get access to a calculator that takes all of the different elements of the Offer Map, and you can plug all that in there, and it gives you an idea of what your revenue might look based off of your audience size, your conversion rates, and each of the different elements of the Offer Map of what that might look like for you.

You just have to provide your email to get to the calculator, but everything, you know, everything’s available for free. On the AI side of things I have some- something that you can get access to, which is basically an assessment that you can take that gives you a sense of where your– I call it your AI gap.

And so as a teacher, as someone who, is– your business is built around education, h- how much can AI do, and where is that, that lane of judgment and le- and of leadership s- remaining for you? And I’ve… That’s an exercise that you can go through. It’s… I’ve seen some wild stuff, right? In, in one, one guy’s situation, we went through and we’re like, “Okay we’re telling Claude teach this this thing about ads.”

And it got it really close, but it wasn’t basically the nuance of the niche that he sells to, right? So it’s not just general ads. He does it specifically for authors who are inde- independent authors trying to sell their books through ads. So some of the procedural stuff it got right, and then it’s another part of the, the system that I take you through is like, okay here’s this really gnarly specific question that someone had that came in as a support email, and it answered that incredibly well, which is not what I had anticipated, right?

I thought that the more relational specific type stuff it was gonna fall down on, and the other stuff it would do better. So it’s just a very revealing exercise to be able to put any AI model I like to use Claude a lot, in your spot and be able to see, okay if someone was just gonna spin up a new chat session, what might they get if they were trying to learn the thing that you do?

And then by seeing those gaps and seeing those edges, that gives you a place to adjust your positioning. 

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Go check it out. That’s at craigshoemaker.net. And if you like podcasts, you’re listening to one now. Craig has a podcast called The Growth Question. Can you tell us what that’s all about?

Craig Shoemaker: Yeah. So The Growth Question is a place where I co-host with my friend John Brosio. And we do similar fashion like this, where we’ll have people come in, but we’ll do live breakdowns. And so they’ll come in and say, “Okay this is an element within my business that’s not working, or I wanna fix, or I wanna grow in.”

And so the two of us together dig into the nitty-gritty of the situation and basically do a, a live coaching session right there on the channel. And so it’s, i- it’s a great way to be able to see us working in real time, and also learn from, some very real similarities that you might have with the guests’ questions that they have.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. So subscribe to The Growth Question podcast, and definitely get- take a visit to craigshoemaker.net. And thank you for being a shining example of a education entrepreneur. As a course creator, somebody who has made courses, made money with courses, maybe put courses on a platform, and whether it was Udemy, Pluralsight, or wherever, and had issues with not owning the platform- 

And wants to get into coaching, Craig’s walked a mile or two in those shoes. So check him out. That’s craigshoemaker.net. Craig, thank you so much for coming on the show. We really appreciate it. 

Craig Shoemaker: Thank you. It’s been a pleasure.

And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS.com/gift. Go to LifterLMS.com/gift. Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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