099 - Transforming Expertise into High-Profit Courses with Nancy M. Giere

[00:00:00] Writing a book can be the foundation for sharing your important message, but it won't work unless you are consistently marketing. This podcast is for those who have written a book to share their message with the world. I love talking all things authorpreneur and having guests

[00:00:19] join me to share their brilliance with you. Hello, authorpreneurs. It's Suzanne Tregenza Moore and I am excited to bring you another fantastic guest. Today I have Nancy Giere with me. She is a course creation expert. She works

[00:00:42] with businesses of all sizes from solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies to turn their expertise into high profit courses. She creates engaging, fun and interactive programs that get results and she is the author of Bundle Your Brilliance, Turn Your Expertise into Profitable Online Courses.

[00:01:08] Nancy, welcome. I'm so glad to have you here. I am very glad to be here today. I was so excited when I saw the topic of what you do because I think that one of the things

[00:01:21] that a lot of nonfiction authors forget about, if you will, is that bundling their expertise into a course can be really the best way to share the big message in the world that they want to get out.

[00:01:37] I'd love to just hear a few examples of how you have helped people do that, particularly when most of the people listening, they're not at Fortune 500 companies. More of the smaller independent business owner that has bundled their knowledge with you and how that served them and their people.

[00:02:00] Well, the good news is if you've written a book, that's a great place to start because when you write a nonfiction book, you have to think about creating a good outline and the structure and how what makes sense to go from chapter one to chapter 10 or however

[00:02:16] many chapters there are. So that organizational scheme is the place of foundation for the course. So then you can take a look at that and say make some decisions about, well, I want

[00:02:26] my book and my course to work together or do I want them to replicate each other? And if they're each other, then you have to think about, well, I'm moving to a different modality because I'm moving to a different modality.

[00:02:39] I have to think about the delivery of the content in a little different in a different way because now I can bring in video components. I can have quizzes. I can have worksheets. So you've got all these different tools that you can use. Yes.

[00:02:55] You also create on-screen interactive components. So it could be a flip card. It could be, you know, and oftentimes you'll see on a website, an accordion where there's a list and then you click on the top level in the list and then it expands

[00:03:08] to whatever the additional detail is about it. So you got more opportunities in ways to deliver the content. And I think, you know, myself, I started on my journey. I could have gone right to the course, but I wrote my book first because I

[00:03:22] knew what I was doing was pretty much a process. Step one, step 12. Yeah. These steps that work. And so writing it out first made it easier than for me to step back and look at it

[00:03:34] and say, OK, now that I've got the process thoroughly described, now what do I do to transition this to another modality? Another modality. Yeah. So I love that. I agree with everything you just said.

[00:03:47] And one of the resistance points that I see in people as someone who coaches people through a lot of stuff, one of the resistance points I see in people is, well, if I've written it all in the book, why would someone, you know,

[00:04:01] if someone can buy my book for 20 bucks, why on earth would they pay me for a course with the same material for like $4,000, right? Or whatever it might be. And it might be a hundred dollar course and it might be a $10,000 course. It doesn't matter.

[00:04:18] But I think people have trouble jumping over that cavern of like, well, if they can read it for 20 bucks, why would they spend so much more on a course? What do you tell people when they come to you with that?

[00:04:30] Because I bet that's not the first time you've heard it. Yeah, it does. It does come up and my key answer to that is, well, people like to learn in different ways. It's you could you could say, well, why should I do an audio recording

[00:04:43] of my book so we can read it? Well, you've got some people they want to read the book. There are some people they want to just listen. They're there in the car or over, you know, sitting at their wherever they are, they just want to listen.

[00:04:56] But then when you think about the course, the course is an opportunity to go a little bit deeper and there's more guidance along the way in in the course in that you've got more time in a course to do things. You can expand expanding amount of business book.

[00:05:12] I think if you get beyond a certain number of pages, people are going to be like, oh, I'm not doing this. Right. Yeah. Of course, that's divided up into more discrete modules. People kind of they expect that it's going to be chunked out.

[00:05:25] Yes. And the additional time is OK because they're coming at it from a different angle. The other part is to consider how does it fit into what you're doing to save you time? And this is to me, this is the this is the biggest part of all.

[00:05:39] If you tell people you're in my coaching program, you're in my consulting program. And as part of being in my program, you get access to my online course. And I'm going to give you different assignments along the way. So you'll you'll complete a module in the course.

[00:05:53] And then when we get together and talk, we can go at a deeper level because they've had the experience of you teaching in the video and the other components that you bring into play. They get all of that done and then you can work deeper in the conversation.

[00:06:09] You can get them to application quicker. Yes. And that's where you can say not only is there an opportunity for this to generate more revenue for me, but if it saves me time, if I don't have to be teaching when I'm in conversation with my clients, right?

[00:06:27] I've you know that means I can I can serve more people, make more money. Essentially, it's what Mel comes down to. Absolutely. No, I see that 100 percent, which is why I have a lot of my teaching online, you know,

[00:06:39] in a vault, if you will, right, that my clients have access to for that exact reason, because I've said it so many times that I'm like, well, why am I saying the same things over again?

[00:06:51] Just two different person when I can just record myself and send it to the person. And then then we can say, OK, now that you have watched or listened to that, what did you think about it in terms of your business? How can we apply it?

[00:07:07] Where are you struggling to apply it and really getting in deeper than, you know, the 30 minutes of explanation and then only having 15 or 20 minutes to implement with them? Yeah, I love that. The other thing I always like to say to people when I get that point of resistance,

[00:07:24] because a lot of what I end up doing, you know, in coaching is saying, you should really build a course, right? Just because someone has read your book doesn't mean they have the ability to implement what you have taught them in the book.

[00:07:38] I don't I mean, you probably like me, like so many other people and certainly like many people listening. Most of the books that I consume these days, I consume on audible when I'm doing something else. I'm walking, I'm driving, I'm whatever.

[00:07:52] So the implementation of the principles doesn't happen in the moment. And yet when you take a course, you can implement as you're taking the course. It's it's much more focused attention than reading and or listening. To a course, you know, to a book, excuse me.

[00:08:14] Exactly. And what I think can happen when people are in the reading mode and even more so in the listening mode is let's say they get to the end of a chapter and, you know, here's five questions that I would like you to reflect on.

[00:08:26] Well, if I'm out walking my dog and I'm listening. Yeah. And then, you know, then I get back home. There's a good chance I'm not going to answer those five reflection questions. Right. It's a good chance that people are going to only have gone through

[00:08:38] the reading or the listening and not have taken the time to answer the questions or do whatever is whatever the recommendation is. Then they've got to take the figure out the time to go back to it, where I think it's just sort of, you know, psychologically,

[00:08:52] if they're sitting down, I'm taking a course. OK, I get to the end. There's homework. It's like, yeah, it takes us back to that mindset of being in school. Yes, absolutely. Yeah, you sit down, you give yourself time to learn something

[00:09:07] specifically, and there are usually worksheets or quizzes, as you said, or whatever that once you've done the learning, then it's how are we implementing this? What are we doing to do that? So another question I have for you about that is as someone who helps people

[00:09:26] create courses all the time, what are the really fun things that you are helping people incorporate into their courses that make the courses more interesting and help people to actually finish the courses? Because we all probably all know that a lot of those courses that are sold out

[00:09:44] there, the very small percentage of people actually finished them. Yeah, and the completion rates are terrible. And I tell people, you know, take heart and look at all the business books you have on your shelf and ask yourself how many of them

[00:09:56] have you actually read or the self-help books that you have on yourself. Yes. So, you know, there's always that risk of people buying something and not consuming it. But when you get into creating a course, there's things that you can do to add another level of engagement.

[00:10:10] And the first one starts with what people do in video. We're conditioned to consuming content on a screen. Yes. And when we consume content on screens, whether you think about from entertainment or news, when we're in that mode, everything is changing

[00:10:29] very quickly. There's a lot of scene changes. Oh, yes. The first thing that people can do is when they do their video to move away from it being just that person on camera to being able to make transitions

[00:10:43] between being on camera, having a graphic, having B roll footage, having keywords pop up on the screen while they're talking. Putting that into place into your video makes a huge difference. And the technology has gotten to a point where it's getting easier for people to do that.

[00:11:01] That is really interesting. Yeah, that's people are looking at where to invest their time and the dollars. You know, investing in an editor can be a very good thing. Yes. Because if you're and also, you know, and then to think about

[00:11:15] keeping your videos as tight as possible, oftentimes you will say, I've got this webinar recording and I'll just put that up there and I'll have that in the course. But when we're in a webinar, it's conversational. You're responding to questions in the moment.

[00:11:29] There's some banter going on and people are in community and an experience. When it comes when it turns into recording, I don't care about that community. That I wasn't in that group that day. Right. And to get to the point of what I need to know more quickly.

[00:11:45] Yes. Really thinking about having your videos be say as much as you need to say in as little time as possible and creative with the visuals with the part of me, the visuals. I'm working with someone now and we've got he hired somebody

[00:11:58] to do animation, which has made his bit adds more fun to it. The next thing you can do is think about is there's kind of a reward system that you can put into place. So yes, they get some kind of a badge when they complete.

[00:12:13] So thinking about badging, thinking about what can you do to have something have more of a game type of a feel to it? We love to play games and we can learn. Also, we love to win.

[00:12:26] I mean, I don't know about you, but I not only like to play games, but I like to win. I do it. Yeah. And so if I'm like, oh, I'm in like the top three, man, that I mean, nothing motivates me more. Right.

[00:12:40] There's an app called people probably are familiar with it. Duolingo for learning languages and your cuss. Oh, I want to get to the top of, you know, I want to get to the top of the leaderboard.

[00:12:51] I want to get to the I want to open up the little treasures. Now some of these things is, you know, they're more involved in putting them into play. But if you can think about what can I do to make it a game component?

[00:13:02] Can I set something up like a choose your own adventure? Yeah, people can go, you know, you can send them down different, different pathways, you know, and again, simulating a game, making it instead of just a straight up quiz. Yeah.

[00:13:16] I know somebody that did this very successful using a tool called Kahoot. Yes. It ends up where the quiz has a very light and fun feel. And at the end, you get, you know, every, you know, for second, third place

[00:13:28] so they can you can set it up where people are. They're competing. You're competing against other people at different times or you're just competing against yourself. Sometimes it's, can I get my score better? And that's really handy if you're working with people that they're

[00:13:41] perhaps they need to get some kind of a that they need to go and pass an exam. Yes. For their profession. And that's what she did this. I think it was in the project management space where this one happened to fall into line.

[00:13:54] But if I feel like in making it light, making it fun, games are the best. And really thinking about doing as much as you can to make your videos as engaging as possible in whatever your your budget is. Yeah. You know what?

[00:14:08] I have to say the thing that I pulled out of what you just said that really speaks to me is I ran a I ran a group for a long time where I would, you know, drop a piece of monthly content

[00:14:19] that was about marketing or helping you build your business or whatever it was. And every month I would think of something new and I would do a video and and do worksheets with the video. And one of the biggest pieces of positive feedback that I got from

[00:14:33] the members of the group was Suzanne, I love the fact that you say what you're going to say. You say it quickly. You make your points and then you get out. And, you know, I think as content creators of any kind, we have this

[00:14:47] feeling of like the more I provide, that's where the value is. And in reality, they loved it when I gave them a six minute video that really taught them a lot. And then the worksheets that helped them translate what they were learning

[00:15:07] on to paper for their own business. It didn't matter how short my videos were as long as they learned something from them. Exactly. Yeah. And I think, wow, if only they'd been visually stimulating too, and not just me as talking ahead.

[00:15:24] Well, it's amazing how much you can say in a short period of time. I was just in a storytelling contest and it was five minutes. Yeah. And you can tell a pretty good story. You can tell a fantastic story in five minutes. Absolutely.

[00:15:37] There's and I think we mistake, as you said, you know, volume for value. Yes. And really, if you can get to the point in three minutes, that's fantastic. Yes. Seven or eight minutes. If you need ten minutes, you know, it's all that,

[00:15:51] you know, the content should drive how long it takes to do something. And I encourage people if they're moving past that five to seven minutes to go, can we split this into two parts? Or does it need to be this long? Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:16:04] The content really could drive it. It should. But the breaking things down into smaller pieces, I think we're conditioned that, you know, a shorter video is like, oh, well, I have time for four minutes right now. But if it's nine minutes, I don't know.

[00:16:21] But then if they do the four minute video and then they do another three minute video and another, you know, five minute video, people are more likely to get through more of them than if their each video is nine or 12 minutes because

[00:16:35] they look at that as more of a time commitment. And I'm I don't know about everyone I know. Feels like they don't have enough time and they have too many things on their plates. So yes, there's like that huge mental leap to keep going

[00:16:50] if the videos are longer. Yeah. And it's you know, if I feel like I, you know, if I feel like I've accomplished something, let's say between a video and doing an exercise, if I've accomplished something in 15 minutes. Yeah. You know, I can say, yeah, I've got 15 minutes.

[00:17:05] Yeah. Somehow when you push me to half an hour an hour is like, I don't know. Right. Right. Yes. There's a quote and I think it might be a Tony Robbins thing, but it's about progress is happiness.

[00:17:18] Whatever you're trying to accomplish in life, if you feel that you are making progress at it and in the moments that you are making progress at it, it lifts your spirits. It literally makes you happier. Your vibration goes up.

[00:17:33] Right. Whereas if you're not making progress, then you feel stagnant and you're you definitely have a lower vibration. So really, even if you never accomplish the end goal, right? Just having made progress toward it makes you happier and makes you more willing to continue to go forward.

[00:17:53] So I love that. And I love the idea of gamification. Oh my gosh. So fun. So fun. What can you do to and even think about the power of a good story. So if you build a story into it, oftentimes we're so concerned about getting

[00:18:07] all of our information out that we forget that a story or an example is what's going to anchor the idea. Yes. And if you think that that's how from the beginning of time, learning has been through storytelling. Yes. And both of the spoken word and visuals.

[00:18:25] Think about the cave paintings. Right. Yeah, exactly. So I took a tour of a Duomo in Italy. And when we were looking at all of the paintings, the guide said, look, this is what this is the story that's being told here.

[00:18:42] And it was a way because people at that time that couldn't read, they pick up the story by what they saw in the pictures. So we've got those things to balance. Then there's also thinking about, well, what do you need to consider

[00:18:53] from an accessibility angle, which adds in another dimension? And that's where having an audio book is great if someone is visually impaired. Yes. Having closed captioning helps if somebody can't hear. So I was thinking about what can you do to help make the experience work

[00:19:11] for differently able people? Yeah. Yeah. So if people want to get a taste of what working with you would be like or how you present your ideas, I know you have a free gift for everyone listening. Do you want to share a little bit about that?

[00:19:27] Sure. What I did is I put together, it's a very, very short ebook called Eight Easy Steps to Create Training That Sells, and that gives you a sense of what the overall methodology and process is like to get from idea to implementation.

[00:19:41] So just as an interesting place to start to gain understanding of what's the workflow going to be like? And what am I going to be in for? Right. Yes. This journey. Yes. Love it. Awesome.

[00:19:52] And of course, we'll have a link to that in our show notes for this episode. So if anyone wants to go grab that, they'll be able to do that there.

[00:20:01] I have a few questions I'd love to ask everyone who comes on and I'm going to jump into those. OK. The first is, do you think you're going to write a different book? Yes. OK. In fact, it's in play now, going in a completely different direction.

[00:20:18] I've got about 20,000 words in to a book that's loosely based on my Sicilian grandmother who left a whole family behind and ran away to the United States with my grandfather. Wow. That is a very different book. And we don't really know her story.

[00:20:38] It's very different. We really did. It's very different than writing about how to create a course. We don't nobody really knows her whole story because nobody taught. So it's all going to be it's all just going to be coming from my imagination.

[00:20:51] So that's operating it from a very different place. Wow, I'll say. Yeah. But that sounds like a very fun project to work on. Yeah. And then I do need to put the update my book around how does AI come into the

[00:21:06] picture when you're creating a course, which is another conversation for another day as a way of streamlining the process and opening the door to creativity. Instead of mediocrity. So that's yeah, so the two things I'm thinking about now. Yes. Yeah. AI is a whole different conversation.

[00:21:25] But when I get past the idea of my teenagers using it to write their term papers, you know, in totally inappropriate ways, I am realizing that it can be an absolutely amazing tool. Yes. And especially the more we learn about it, the more we set up our system

[00:21:42] so that it understands how we speak, how we express ourselves and things like that. The more it's like, wow, this can really skyrocket my ability to create content that feels true to me. So that is an exciting prospect.

[00:21:57] So the next question I'm going to ask you is what is something that you believe every entrepreneur needs to do or have in order to be successful? The drive and commitment to succeed and to be able to take things one project at a time

[00:22:15] and focus on a project and get it done. You know, have have your suite of things that you want to do, but be real strategic about what elements are you going to put in place and when and to avoid sort

[00:22:27] of the shiny object syndrome of all these different things that are coming in and all these different ideas, but to pick something and run with it and get it done and then pick the next thing and the next thing and the next thing.

[00:22:38] I love that is so true. Oh, my goodness. Yeah, you have to be strategic. It's so easy to have all these ideas and not follow through with them or try to do too many things at the same time. Love that. Certainly you've got there's I think

[00:22:55] one of and I'm challenged with it all the time is time blocking around. Am I going to focus on when and blocking out all the distraction? It's just so easy to get sidetracked. And then before you know it, you're like, well, OK, that's an hour.

[00:23:08] I'm never going to get back. Right. Yeah, totally. Couldn't agree more. Last question I ask everyone who comes on is what is your favorite book? Oh gosh, there's so many books in it and in what what genre in my dog is parking. Now hopefully she's not coming through.

[00:23:25] Wow, to draw a blank on this is terrible. I'm reading something out. It's rich as and there's an expletive. And I'm enjoying this book because her point of view around money is quite different. And I love reading anything that's around gratitude.

[00:23:41] Yes, that just sort of keeps me grounded. So I've got all kinds of little books and cards things here around gratitude. So I can't not a specific title isn't coming to mind, which as soon as we're done talking, it will come to me. Of course it will.

[00:23:54] No, that sounds like a great one, though. And a lot of times my guests will say, well, the most, you know, my favorite book that I've read recently, right? Or things like that because it is very difficult to choose just one book.

[00:24:09] But I find it very interesting what different people say and why. And I love the fact that rich as expletive. Yes, clearly has themes of gratitude in it. And it's what I'm reading now. And I'm going to really be thinking about, you know, the relationship with money.

[00:24:30] And and it just it's what I need right now. Yeah, I think it's I've read it. And that's that's what I'm going to go with today. OK, sounds good. It's going to be something different, probably because I'll be on to the next book. Absolutely. Yeah.

[00:24:44] Before we wrap up, is there anything else that you would like to share with the audience about course creation or your book on course course creation or anything? One of my key principles around course creation is for people to look at it

[00:24:59] from the point of view of intention. So be really intentional about what are the ideas that you want to bring out into the world and what is the best way for you to convey them in looking at whatever

[00:25:13] your opportunities and constraints are to find the balance to say within whatever my constraints are, these are my opportunities to create something that's going to make a difference. Love it. So important. Just about everything goes back to intention.

[00:25:27] And then to creating the time and space to do things and do them intentionally one at a time, right? Right. So my educational background is as an instructional designer and I've added recently this whole idea of being intentional to it as a way of kind of

[00:25:46] putting the sort of the methodology and the mindset together. I love it. I love it. Well, thank you so much for being here today, Nancy. I really appreciate your time, your thoughts, the conversation.

[00:25:59] And I know that anyone who listens to this episode will get a lot out of it. It was my pleasure to be here today. And to everyone listening, just a reminder, I have been speaking with Nancy Geary and her book is bundle your brilliance.

[00:26:14] Turn your expertise into profitable online courses. And I look forward to bringing you another episode soon. Thanks so much for listening. Thank you for listening to all things authorpreneur. Head to iTunes and leave us a rating and review.