The E-commerce Leader

[00:00:30]Jason: [00:00:30] Are you maximizing your potential to make money?
[00:00:33] If you know how to do something and you can teach it to others? For fun and profit, and you’re not doing that, then you’re leaving money on the table. In this episode, we’re going to discuss how to unlock your income, generating potential through online courses and teaching other skills that, you know, Michael, you ready to jump into this fun
[00:00:53] Michael: [00:00:53] one a hundred percent?
[00:00:54] Yeah. This is such a great topic. Absolutely
[00:00:57] Jason: [00:00:57] great. Well, so it’s a fun time. And , uh, I think that we’ve all had different experiences with , uh, teaching others. And we’d love to ask our audience today to jump in with us and you’re listening live with us for a reason. We love to ask you to just ask us any questions you have about teaching online, or share some fears that you have or frustrations that you have about maybe doing it or things that you feel like are barriers.
[00:01:21] And we’ll talk through those today in the comments. Yep.
[00:01:25] Michael: [00:01:25] Sounds good. Now I’ve got to mention, obviously you were talking generally unlocking your potential to teach other people, but more specifically, I guess, today, online courses. So you’ve written what over 10 books. Uh, there are a lot of best sellers.
[00:01:37]Uh, you’ve got over. What is it? 37,000 students on Udemy now, fewer courses, something like that is, it’s a huge number anyway, and it keeps going up probably time. We talk about it as well. So , um, I know you’re in multiple languages around the world, so obviously you’re a real master of creating , um, a bit of an information empire.
[00:01:51]Um, so how do we even get our hands around this big topic is even if we focused on online, online courses, that’s still a big topic. What was the starting point for your thinking about this stuff?
[00:02:00] Jason: [00:02:00] Well, I I’m a pragmatist I guess, and just think through these things as sort of, I don’t know , uh, the way I look at it as.
[00:02:10] Kind of like this. I heard Malcolm Gladwell recently do a talk and he asked this interesting question. It was sort of the thesis behind his book outliers. He asked this question , um, are we good at , um, capitalizing on human potential? And he was asking it in the abstract, in his talk at Microsoft and I, as I was listening to it, I thought, okay, that’s interesting premise for a book, but really the question could be applied to us personally, you know, am I maximizing my potential for, for earning and for making money?
[00:02:45] Are, you know, are you Michael? Uh, maximizing it are, are each of us listening to this conversation? Are we maximizing our ability to make money? And obviously as entrepreneurs, as people who are starting their own business, trying to spin up or. Online income. Uh, one of the questions is, is there an opportunity to unlock there for making incremental dollars through teaching others?
[00:03:07] And I think that’s a compelling place to start. And just asking that question, because it sort of has a derivative , uh, set of questions that follow on, you know, like the first one is , um, you know, how well am I doing it, capitalizing on my talents or on what I know how to do. Second question would be how much money and success could I have from that, you know, what’s, what’s possible there.
[00:03:27]Um, and then the third question is what impact would that have on me and my business in my life? Um, and on the students involved in learning. And I think those questions are really valuable and really important place to start. It’s almost like. Saying what’s the, what’s the full opportunity for you to use your gifts and talents to make money.
[00:03:49] And if you’re an Amazon business right now, that’s one aspect of your ability to make money, but there are these other abilities that I think are critically important as well. So I guess that’s where I’d start the conversation. Yeah. I
[00:04:01] Michael: [00:04:01] like those questions. So just to reiterate, how well do you capitalize your own talent?
[00:04:06] What were the other questions?
[00:04:08] Jason: [00:04:08] How much money and success would you have if you unlocked your intimate, incremental income from teaching? So, you know, how much w w how well would you do with it? Uh, and then what impact would that have on your own life and the life of others?
[00:04:24] Michael: [00:04:24] Yeah. Great question. So, I mean, I think , um, for me coming back to the core listener, the, the, e-commerce mostly probably physical product seller.
[00:04:31] That’s listening , uh, probably listening. One of the things that strikes me is especially in the Amazon space, but not only, there’s a lot of a bad reputation that seems to go with online courses and things. So , um, one thing that strikes me immediately is like, if you’ve built a legitimate business and you really know what you’re doing, maybe you kind of owe it to the people out there to tell them something useful and truthful in your perception.
[00:04:52] If you perceive that there’s a exaggerated or untruthful marketing out there. So yeah, there are two ways to react to it, right? I mean, I think one, one mental barrier to overcome is I don’t want to be one of those people and the other one is, Hmm. What about if I actually taught people some really great stuff about, you know, grounded in years of, of hard work and success.
[00:05:09] So I guess I’m saying that for the cynical listeners who are thinking, I don’t want to be one of those guys. Well, why don’t be the good person who actually helps people as you say, impacts other people’s lives and as well in a, in an honest, positive way
[00:05:22] Jason: [00:05:22] as, as indeed. Well, totally right. The social good that can happen from teaching others is, is super important to think about.
[00:05:32] I I’m positioning this as sort of a money opportunity. You’re expressing it as a social good. Both are true. And , uh, you know, or can be. And both can be both can be correct as well. You can make no money and you can not help anyone. Um, and so those are, those are sad realities, but I think the opposite. Yeah.
[00:05:52] If you get the combo, right. If you’re helpful and it’s monetized, well, then it’s a win-win for everybody involved, you do teach good things and you make a profit doing it. So that’s, let’s use that suggested framework as the outcome. Yeah.
[00:06:05] Michael: [00:06:05] Sounds like a fantastic outcome. Okay. So how do we go about that then?
[00:06:08] You’ve obviously done this multiple times. So what’s your sort of framework for creating courses.
[00:06:12] Jason: [00:06:12] Yeah. Right. You know, it’s, it’s a relatively simple set of steps that , um, at first blush , uh, you know, it looks like a short and simple list, but there’s nuance and complexity in it. So I’ll just mention that, you know, the three steps in my mind, as I think about creating or, you know, opportunities to unlock your teaching, number one, identify your unique abilities and outline your knowledge.
[00:06:34] Number two, identify the best platforms or modalities. Um, and number three, reinvest your proceeds. So a very short list of to-dos there it’s a intellectual work , um, but it is incredibly valuable or can be at least, so we happy to break these down, but those are the, the shorts.
[00:06:53] Michael: [00:06:53] Yeah. I mean, that does sound kind of alarmingly simple.
[00:06:55] So let’s get into that first one, identify your unique ability and outline your knowledge. I mean, obviously , um, kind of sounds simple, but I guess it’s obviously not because when you, I dunno how many people listening have tried to do this, but I’ve certainly done this multiple times now. And so then Dan lining things, you know, is kind of the problem with too much, isn’t it, but I could kind of teach people about driving a car, but I guess I wouldn’t be that valuable given the millions of people can do it already, but then is it, I don’t know.
[00:07:20] And then you start questioning yourself. So how do you get a handle on that, that very big time?
[00:07:25] Jason: [00:07:25] Well, I think it starts within your unique abilities and your unique interests, enthusiasms, you know, passion for a topic. Uh, you, you want to lean into what you already have as a strength. And that’s the place to start.
[00:07:39] Don’t chase opportunity. Don’t, you know, don’t go after something you think will be popular, even though you don’t know anything about it, go for something that you have as a core trade skill that you would say, oh, I could teach. I teach anybody this because I’m, you know, competent at it. I’m, I’ve done it for a long time.
[00:07:56] And th that’s the first thing, the phrase unique ability is , uh, I guess popularized by Dan Sullivan , uh, really, really , um, you know, successful , uh, coach, a coach of coaches really , um, strategic coach is his program name. And , uh, he talks all about this idea of finding. Um, set of , uh, behaviors or actions that you’re uniquely good at with either your natural giftings or your ability gained over many, many long years of toil.
[00:08:21] You know, you either you either come by naturally or you just grind it and you perfect a gift over time and, or both , um, and get good at something. And I think that’s a really important thing to think through is, you know, how do you, how do you , um, get that clarity in your own heart and mind about what you are good at?
[00:08:38] And you might say to yourself, well, I’m good at a few things that aren’t really that popular or that aren’t really that kind of commercially interesting to a lot of people. Um, the Internet’s a big place. You’d be surprised. It wouldn’t take very much for a hundred people to be aggregated together, to learn a specific topic or a thousand people.
[00:08:57] And that’s really the exercise involved. And so that’s the first piece is unique ability. The second piece that I have here in the notes is outline your knowledge. Outline your knowledge. I think that trade skill of real trade skills here is to get very good at outlining and con con dancing and synthesizing information.
[00:09:19] And the only thing I just sexist suggest to people is get journals and get in the habit of like, this is my sister and it was ridiculous. This is from Barnes and noble. This is like, I don’t even know what it is, is like 15 inches tall and I’m holding it up for those that are watching this live. It’s a massive journal and all I do this, this is one of my journals.
[00:09:40] All I do is just outline, outline, outline. And if I watch a show, if I , um, read a book, whatever I’d love to just kind of outline what, what is this person saying? What are the steps involved? And I have literally a pile of journals next to me here. Um, and I think. The synthesis is the basis of a good teaching , um, you know, practice.
[00:10:04] And so I would just encourage people to get in the habit of that. And if you already do that, then you already have a goldmine of synthesized knowledge that you can just say, Hey, you know, there’s six steps to this. Hey, did you know that? So-and-so always does four steps every time he does this. Hey, did you know that Amazon wants you to do the following five things?
[00:10:25] Hey, did you know that for podcast success, you really just need to do 46 different things.
[00:10:32] Michael: [00:10:32] Yeah. But popular 46 step framework, joking apart. I really love that. It’s great to see the workings of your mind, dude, on, on that, that’s a notebook, never seen that before I’ve received your listing, the audio podcast.
[00:10:44] I mean, it’s just a handwritten series of steps in a giant journal , uh, over a foot high. Um, that’s very, very cool. So I guess what you’re saying is that your. It comes down to a habit of thinking and a habit of analysis and documentation, but in the way that you have of simplifying things, when we write outlines, I have a habit of writing outlines for the podcast.
[00:11:04] So this sort of 12 point 12 steps, and each one’s got steps, 12, 8, 12, B, maybe it’s comes from my, my dad’s lawyer genes. And you tend to simplify it right down, which I think is absolutely the right way to, to communicate better. And this is one of your other
[00:11:18] Jason: [00:11:18] journals. Wow. I guess I’m doing a show and tell for journalists for those who are watching us live with us, this is my smallest journal.
[00:11:24]Uh, and this I’ve had for probably 15 years. It is a unique journal for me. And you can see in my like, oh my ridiculous notes, like how can that many post-it notes in a book be helpful? Um, but this, this , um, little journal, what I started doing was I would , um, write down quotes. That I thought were incredibly valuable or meaningful.
[00:11:46] And so it’s gone back a long way now. And I would only do like the best ones , uh, and, and little, little lists, like, okay. Purchasing power. There are five steps to purchasing power that’s on that page, the next page, leveraging earned income to create passive and portfolio income. And there’s a little chart, like all of these little ideas and snippets, I would just document and journal and I’ve referred to this thing more times than you can imagine.
[00:12:13] And so I guess that’s the idea here that I’m suggesting everybody starts to take. And it’s good for you anyway, just to learn stuff, but it really. Powerful toolkit for teaching.
[00:12:23] Michael: [00:12:23] Amazing. I love this very much. I just had no idea that that was how you operated despite our many conversations. So this is revelation to me.
[00:12:30] Fascinating stuff there. You can have a look inside. The creative process reminds me of back in the day, my, my classical world, I mean, Beethoven was famous for going, walking with notebooks and he’d stop and scribble down ideas. And do Kellington also apparently said to some guy who said like, you know, when somebody come up with those musical ideas, that those ones you write down straight away cause they’re very valuable.
[00:12:48] So they recognize the value of ideas. Interesting. So tell me a bit about this. The next piece then that, that we haven’t talked about is really, I suppose we talked about a lot of things , uh, with physical product development. Last time we spoke and one of the things was trying to stick to what you understand and, and.
[00:13:05] You know, industry craft knowledge, if you like, as you’ve said the same thing, but one of the things that I have tended to do, and I have, I guess maybe this is good. And maybe this is over analysis is looking at the keyword research and then I’ve often managed to get to the point for maybe 15 years ago.
[00:13:22] I started thinking about creating some kind of, you know , um, training type information type products. And I’d look at the keyword research and I say, oh, other people are doing this stuff, or it doesn’t look powerful enough or, well, who am I to do this stuff? So where is the line between legitimate keyword research and, and sort of head trash?
[00:13:38] And , um, how do you differentiate
[00:13:40] Jason: [00:13:40] that? Yeah, I think it’s incredibly valuable to do some of that work as you take this next step, which is now that you’ve got tons of ideas and things that you’ve aggregated and you know, your unique abilities. The question of course is , uh, what is a hungry market out there available , uh, what you know, to, to consume the information and all things being equal.
[00:14:01] If there are two. Topic angles or tin associated ideas related to , uh, trade skill. Uh, you do want to find the nuance in it as best you can, and to find what the key phrases are. People are searching for the terms they use. Uh, those types of things can be incredibly helpful. So, I mean, I think when it comes down to actually taking this step towards , uh, course production , um, the keyword research, particularly for phrases and terms , um, you know, we are funny little thing we always say in this podcast is we’re the number one podcast on Spotify.
[00:14:32] If you use the E or the dash between the E and the C well, if you don’t use the dash between the E and the C and e-commerce, then we’re not number one. Well, that’s key phrase research and understanding what people typically type into , uh, you know, these, these marketplaces and online tools. And that is important.
[00:14:51] I mean, it does, it does help , uh, Polish the opportunity , um, I think all things being equal , uh, you know, that’s , uh, that’s a nuance that’s important to make incremental success occur. Um, the bigger topics, probably just what is the topic, the trade skill yourself that you’re teaching and is that trendy , uh, of interest or not.
[00:15:10] And I would just say , um, you learn your way through that as you go. Um, you know, for the first three books I wrote with McGraw-Hill, they were all about social media. And after each one, I was like, I wrote a book it’s at Barnes and noble, you know, it’s, it’s being translated around the world and, and , uh, but social media, wasn’t the thing that I was really passionate about.
[00:15:26] I was passionate about small business. And growing business, I was passionate about the general marketing social media was just one angle that I had a voice to speak into, I guess. But , um, w I realized that over time as I went to the conferences, you know, I’d be asked to speak at a conference.
[00:15:41] Occasionally. It was not like I was a big in demand thing, but , um, but when I’d go there, I was like, Hmm, I’m not sure these are my people. You know, these are all 22 year old social media managers, and where’s the boss, you know, where’s the business owner, where’s the guy who, or gal who started the business and he was trying to make it a success.
[00:15:59] I want to talk to that person. And so, you know, you find over time, not only what the online community, once you also find what you, you want to teach and who you want to, I guess, be a hero to, as Dan Sullivan says, but you know who you want to work with. Um, and that’s a learning and discovery processes.
[00:16:16]Michael: [00:16:16] It seemed that it’s , um, it feels less a keyword driven sort of intellectually kind of what’s the word process driven than, than I was kind of expecting really.
[00:16:26] And I guess the thing that’s different between ordering your own unique products that we talked about yesterday, when you might spend six, nine months, 10, $20,000 with your first sort of serious order versus creating a course, of course, it’s going to take time and effort, but I suppose you can afford to literally afford as in financially to make a few sort of stumbles and kind of find your way to getting a match between who you are and what you offer and what you care about.
[00:16:51] Yeah. And the market is, is that fair or is it more structured than that or is it really kind of piecemeal process?
[00:16:57] Jason: [00:16:57] It’s totally fair. And I think that every person who thinks about , um, doing , uh, you know, unlocking their ed, your ability to teach should think of it like a catalog. No, I think of it, like not a one-time life-changing course that you’re going to launch.
[00:17:11] And then, you know, the rest will be history. Think of it more like a you’re a Sunday school teacher and the next Sunday’s coming and you’ve got to have a, you’ve got to have something to share. And so think of it more like a catalog where you’re going to build over time. Topic, number one, topic, number two, topic number three, and you’ll find your way forward.
[00:17:33] If you treat it as a one and done, and you hope to monetize it on it as a one and done you either will. Be very , uh, you know, unhappy with the outcome. You’ll be moderately happy or you’ll be extremely happy, but chances are, you’ll be unhappy with the outcome. But if you say I’m going to do this 10 times in the next 10 years and get better at it each time, then, you know, your you’ll find your way forward for both the content and for , uh, you know, how to do all the work involved.
[00:18:01] Michael: [00:18:01] This is really excellent advice I can say as a sort of crash test dummy of, of the kind of danger of creating a life-changing single giant course that I’ve done that. I mean, I, I guess I emulated the courses that I’d personally taken, which would solve for a lot of money back in the day. And, and in retrospect where it just.
[00:18:19] Crazily unwieldy because it forces you as a student to put all your faith in one person, because you spent so much money in one place, which is not healthy, but also as the creator, what I’ve done is create a monster. And I just, just about enough people go through the course to look at the completion stats.
[00:18:34] And I think, you know, two or three people out of maybe a hundred that took the course managed to get 50% of the course done, not a good statistic , uh, because it was just too much. So like 300 videos. It was just the most complete Amazon course in the world. But I mean, what I should have done in retrospect is break it into multiple smaller courses, geared to people with different needs.
[00:18:54] And then it’s kind of easy to say now, looking back, and that’s kind of what I’ve been in the process of doing is kind of starting to create , um, courses , um, modes of, of interaction that really focus on more specific needs. But it’s taken me a long time to get to that, I guess. Well, it’s to let go of the model you learn.
[00:19:09] Jason: [00:19:09] Initially, maybe that’s what I was going to say is you are modeled something that you replicated and it was a bit big, massive course that costs a lot of money. Obviously, podcasting is just the opposite. It’s free to listeners and it is a micro , uh, you know, topics broken down. Um, and so, yeah, I, I do think that that , uh, that’s part of it is , um, is learning your way forward through that.
[00:19:29] So there you go. I mean, hopefully this is helpful so far, and I would just say, if you’re listening to this, give us a shout out, say hello. If you’re listening, live with us as we record this, and I’d love to have you throw in to the chat, what your unique ability or skill is that you think you could teach on.
[00:19:43] You don’t have to go into detail. Just say the broad topic. I’m good at the following. So feel free to leave a comment underneath , uh, wherever you’re watching this live with us. And we’ll weave that into the topics and conversation here. So
[00:19:55] Michael: [00:19:55] sounds good. Yeah. I would say if anyone’s listen to the podcast as well, that you could do the same thing.
[00:19:59] I mean, just whatever you’re doing, if you’re driving, don’t do this, but you know, once you’ve got a moment to sit down with a piece of paper and just, just make that same list would be very valuable, I think. Yeah. Good. So you mentioned platforms, obviously, I sort of, kind of took us right down the path of the idea of getting the perfect kind of course, and I guess to painful amounts of keyword research.
[00:20:21] And actually it turns out you don’t need to have that mentality, but nevertheless, you mentioned that the different platforms have different supply and demand on, so how do we even. Decide, which of the many options to go for?
[00:20:32] Wrapup-P1: [00:20:33] Well, ladies and hope you enjoyed that as much as I did always great to talk to Jason about , uh, one of his huge areas of expertise, which is creating not only books and not any courses, but the whole thing of thinking through digital content creation. And let me just say again, if you are listening to this and you are a physical product retailer or.
[00:20:53] A wholesaler or you think of yourself as such. I would really, really encourage you to follow Jason’s example on that of some of his clients. And I’m trying to persuade my clients right now to start this journey and thinking. What else could your current customers need? I was going to say, what else can you sell your current customers?
[00:21:11] I mean, there’s nothing wrong with thinking that way, but what else might they need that might be delivered in the form of digital products, such as a book or a course or anything else? An online membership is something we haven’t really discussed, but that Jason and cinnamon, his wife do actually offer as part of their e-commerce business.
[00:21:29] Those kinds of questions. Could you lead you to, to have an uncommon, competitive advantage? Most people I know are very , um, physical product centered in econ. And kind of dismiss digital marketing, these two products, rather as a separate kind of product. And it is a separate product, but it doesn’t need to be a separate business.
[00:21:46] I would argue we’ve discussed that elsewhere, but I thought it was reiterating that worth reiterating. So today we really talked about this idea of , uh, Malcolm Gladwell , uh, gave that to Jason expressed, which is how good are we at capitalizing on human talent, which is a really good question. And , um, How do we capitalize on our own talent?
[00:22:03] How much more money could we make if we unlocked an incremental income from teaching others? Obviously Jason had living example of the app. The answer is it can be pretty substantial. And what would the impact of that on our lives? Be over time, the same kind of questions you’d ask about your own physical products business.
[00:22:21] If you have one, but there is nothing to stop you adding. Uh, digital components that if you don’t have a business, there is nothing to stop you deciding to create the digital part first it’s not either, or it’s both. And so really Jason’s outlined that we’ve got three steps to teaching others and how to create this digital.
[00:22:40] Product wing to an existing business or indeed separate business. The first thing being, identifying your unique ability and outlining our knowledge. We had a great example of that today from Jason, with his notebooks, which if you watch the video version, you’ve seen a couple of notebooks. He’s got these had for years that he, he takes , um, quotes that are really cool or outlines somebody else’s processes and just really puts it all together and documents things.
[00:23:04] And that’s very, very cool. I do, I suppose my own version of that. Um, haven’t got physical notebooks, but I have a lot of. Notes that I’ve taken over the decades. So very much a habit to get into or to structure better if you’re already doing that. And I think a lot of this comes down to confidence and , um, being able to, you know, actually dare to put yourself into action.
[00:23:26] We’ll talk a bit more about that in the next couple of episodes, but think of it as a catalog businesses. And also another thing that struck me. Very hard. First of all, it’s not one and done. I personally created a monster video course that I would therefore recommend nobody else does that creating a one monster course is much worse than creating little bite-size or , um, absorbable bits of content, whether that’s a book or a course or whatever else, it may be.
[00:23:53] So that really, yeah. Also ties in beautifully with the e-commerce thinking, whereas you have a physical product catalog. Um, I would encourage you to think in terms of creating a digital product catalog that overtime compliments and works with not instead of, but as well as the physical products. And if you are in that position, right.
[00:24:10] Jason’s uh, clients are, then I think you’re in a really strong position unless we forget in 2021, this is year when the costs of physical products itself put above their freight has really exploded for most of the people I work with. And that’s a difficult scenario. And I do think that digital products could be an obvious logical and very powerful response.
[00:24:30] So I hope you’ve enjoyed today’s session as ever. Please don’t forget to subscribe. We are actually running a contest at the moment for the subscription. So if you go to www.to contest dot the e-commerce leader.com. Uh, that is contest dot the e-commerce leader.com. You could be in a running. All you’ve got to do is subscribe to the podcast on your favorite player, whichever one that is Spotify , um, Google and apple podcasts being the most common, I guess.
[00:24:58] And you could win a $250 visa gift card. So do go and subscribe to that. And of course, don’t forget to subscribe to the show, keep listening if you’re interested in this topic, and next time we’re going to be discussing the second of the three parts of this, which is identifying the best platform or modality, which is the way of delivering things.
[00:25:17] Is it a video courses at a book, et cetera, and that’s also a fascinating discussion. So stick around for that. But meanwhile, thank you so much for listening to the e-commerce leader.
[00:25:26]
[00:25:26]
[00:25:59]
[00:25:59]