--- title: Building an Online Course with Jane Atkinson date: 2023-02-14T05:30:00-05:00 author: Sean Smith canonical_url: "https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-6/building-an-online-course-with-jane-atkinson/" section: Podcast --- <!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-BEGIN\]\]>[Skip to main content](#main-content)![Jane Atkinson](https://website101podcast.com/uploads/hosts/_200x200_crop_center-center_none/JaneRedCropLowRes-2.png)Guest Jane Atkinson Jane Atkinson has been helping speakers catapult their careers for more than 30 years. She is the author of The Wealthy Speaker 3.0, The Epic Keynote, The Wealthy Speaker Daily Success Planner and Journal, and Scaling Your Speaking Business. Season 06 Episode 6 – Feb 14, 2023 38:50 [Show Notes](#show-notes) ## Building an Online Course with Jane Atkinson  0:00 0:00 1.0x 0.75x1.0x1.25x1.5x2x [](//dts.podtrac.com/redirect.mp3/website101podcast.com/uploads/mp3/season-06/S06-E06-Growing-Your-Online-Business.mp3) Advice from, Jane Atkinson, a veteran online business owner and coach on how to succeed in running an online business. ### Show Notes - Jane's background - Starting her online school for professional speakers - Course Platforms - Marketing & newsletters - Engagement and having a system - Community - Facebook and other options - Recruiting members is hard and costly - What is a Mastermind? - Metrics - Mistakes were made - Writing six books ### Show Links - [Speaker Launcher](https://speakerlauncher.com/) - [Wealthy Speaker](https://wealthyspeakerschool.com/) - [Learn Dash](https://www.learndash.com/) - [Thinkific](https://www.thinkific.com/) - [Thrive Cart](https://thrivecart.com/) - [Stripe](https://stripe.com/) - [Active Campaign](https://www.activecampaign.com/) - [Mighty Networks](https://www.mightynetworks.com/) Powered Transcript Accuracy of transcript is dependant on AI technology. **\[00:00\]** **Sean:** We're selling the dream. We're selling the pot a gold at the end of the rainbow. We're not selling how many calls we have each week and blah, blah, blah. We're just selling the greatness that comes from living your dream as a professional speaker. **\[00:19\]** **Amanda:** Welcome to another episode of the Website 101 podcast. This is the podcast for people who want to to learn more about building and maintaining websites. I am one of your three hosts, Amanda Loots. With me is Mike Mella. Hey Mike, what's up? **\[00:36\]** **Mike:** I am Amanda, good to be here. **\[00:37\]** **Amanda:** Very nice. **\[00:38\]** **Jane:** Hey Sean, how are you? I'm doing great. Happy to be back to work on Monday morning. **\[00:44\]** **Amanda:** We have a guest today. Hooray, a guest is doing us today. With us is Jane Atkinson. She is a business coach for professional speakers. You can learn more about her in our show notes below, but also you can go to wealthyspeaker.com. Jane, hi. Hi. How are you? Being thoroughly entertained by the three of you. **\[01:07\]** **Mike:** Already, how good. **\[01:08\]** **Amanda:** Has super generous of you to say, thank you. **\[01:12\]** **Mike:** So Jane, can you kind of give us a quick elevator pitch of what it is you do through your business? What is it? **\[01:20\]** **Sean:** So I actually have been a business coach and an agent and like in this professional speaking industry. So out there in the world there are people who are getting paid. In some cases a lot of money to speak and so you go to a big conference and there's somebody there delivering the keynote address or a workshop or whatever it might be, a lot of those people are getting paid. And so I found out about the industry about 30 years ago and I have been, first I was an agent, worked for a speaker's bureau down in Texas for about six years and I've been a coach for the last 20 plus years for speakers who really want to earn more money and kind of build the business of their dreams. **\[02:08\]** **Mike:** Wow. Cool. Interesting. So it's not, I mean, do you teach people about speaking on any particular topic or is it just whatever they happen to be a professional in sort of thing. **\[02:20\]** **Sean:** We do encourage people to pick a lane and so that's kind of like try to become known for solving one problem. A lot of people will come to us and they can speak on like five or six different topics. And the goal is to really be an expert in one thing, just like you know in your industry, you don't want to maybe be a generalist and somebody who does everything. if you've been coming and really specialized at one thing, that's how you get paid more. **\[02:48\]** **Jane:** Right, so you don't want to be the jack of all trades or a master of none. **\[02:53\]** **Sean:** Exactly, exactly. **\[02:56\]** **Amanda:** So the big reason why I wanted to bring Jane in to talk to us today is because she has an online course that you can find at wealthyspeakerschool.com. And I know that everyone is always trying to get passive income, not to say that setting up an online school is passive by any means, but I mean, I would love to know more about it, and I'm sure some of our listeners, the business owners who listen to our podcast, might also be interested in how did it start, and can you, if you're comfortable sharing some stats from before and after, and how would you find new clients? **\[03:36\]** **Sean:** So originally, I was a coach, and I don't know if you guys have given this any thought, but when you trade your time for money, you are at some point going to get maxed out in terms of how much your income, you know, because that's a straight up trade. Your calendar gets full, you can no longer grow. So I knew early on that I wanted to expand my revenue streams, and so we do still have coaching as one level of income. We also have our school, which is another form of income, and then we also have a mastermind. So we're just actually in the throws of reinventing yet again. So when we started with the mask with the school, oh my gosh, probably 10 or 15 years ago, the very first school I ever launched was a bit of a train wreck, really. I didn't recognize that professional speakers all needed to be heard and so I had too many people, you know, back then we were really just doing things on the phone and people weren't able to be seen or heard and that was a bit of a problem so that didn't work out very well. So we had to go iteration number two, three, four. We're probably on number like 15 right about now and so I have to say we probably have it as close to being great as we're going to right now. We've gone from zero students to 50 students and our membership is $197 per month and that's kind of our offering right now. We're getting ready to kind of offer the course only if somebody wants to come in and just do the course, that'll be one price point. If they want to do our full school and what that means is it'll be both the online course and our community. So you'll go out on a Facebook community and you gather support and you get to talk to other people and you get to come on. We have weekly calls for them that they can participate in on Zoom and people are able to participate as fully or, you know, as little as they want. And then we also have of some upgraded masterminds from there. So, you know, we started and made all the mistakes. So, ask me any. **\[06:00\]** **Jane:** That's very cool. I like how you said you're on, like, you've been iterating through it. So, it's like version one, version two, and maybe version 15 now. Yeah, yeah. **\[06:09\]** **Sean:** We put a little V in front of the things. So, I would know, V100.4. **\[06:16\]** **Jane:** And I do have a question for you. So you're moving more towards online courses rather than in-person courses. What did you use for the online course component technology-wise? Is it something that you had a web developer custom build or are you using an online service geared at course creators? **\[06:41\]** **Sean:** So we started, I think this might have been the first one, there could have been one before it, but we started with LearnDash as our platform, and I have to tell you we had a security breach and one weekend all of our users got hundreds of emails from us and we couldn't stop it. So we found out that LearnDash didn't have a great backend support in place and we had to switch. So we have actually switched over to Thinkific and Thinkific has a very strong support and they have kind of the course element. They also offer the community element but we don't use their community. We have kept ours out on Facebook just because it's got all the features that we really loved. You know you kind of get used to something and you try something new and it's like, eh, I don't like it. So we backed off. So think if it is the way that we actually house the course itself. Now one thing I want to say to your listeners, to make sure everybody thinks that having a course is a great idea. But you have to make sure that you have the following to be able to go to them and say, hey, by my course. Because let me tell you, putting bumps in seats is a slog. It's, it's a lot of work and you've got to have a really good reputation. So I probably have out on my social reach is probably 20,000 plus, 25,000, maybe even 30, and so we're able to use that plus my marketing. I have an email list. We keep that pretty trim, maybe five to 7,500 people plus plus plus. Like this is 20 years of a build of a customer base in order to put 50 people into the school. **\[08:38\]** **Jane:** So what you're saying is if I want to launch a course tomorrow, I would probably have zero people. I don't have the big social meeting. **\[08:45\]** **Sean:** I don't know what you're following in Sean. And it's not necessarily social meeting. You just have to have people in your network waiting to see what you're going to do next. **\[08:55\]** **Amanda:** Right, right. Sean, if you include a t-shirt, especially a nice scooped neck ladies cut t-shirt, I will sign up for your course. **\[09:04\]** **Jane:** Oh sweet. I do have another question for Jane. You said you're marketing and then you have your email newsletter and marketing. How much time do you spend on newsletters and marketing, **\[09:19\]** **Sean:** specifically like how often does your newsletter go out? So we have had a system in place for for over a decade, where for the longest time, we did a blog, a written blog post every Tuesday and we did a podcast every Thursday. So we have a podcast as well. We've released that to our mailing list also, but we just over the past, I've been starting to really look at, okay, how can I make my life simpler? You know, I'm not really winding down, but I'm thinking about winding down And so I've actually gone to two a month of Tuesdays a month, we do, and instead of doing a written blog, excuse me, we now do a video blog, a vlog, and we do reels kind of in between on social media, and then we do the podcast twice a month as well now. So I'll get back, scale back somewhere. **\[10:22\]** **Jane:** That's excellent. Please share the links to us, and we'll include those in the show notes. **\[10:25\]** **Amanda:** Well, Jane, how big is the team that you're working with right now and which do you think came first? Were you growing the team before you started the online course or did you start doing that and think, oh, I'm going to need some help to keep all of this up and running. **\[10:40\]** **Sean:** I think it happened really organically. So I have Monica, who's kind of my, like, my right arm, my left arm. She's on a beach in Mexico right now, so I have a meeting with Monica. Shout out to Monica. I just started her, you know, think about when you're growing your team to do it really organically. I started her with, actually she was doing like hotel and live events for me. And then I put her on to podcast duty and then we added the school to that. So her kind of things that she does for me really evolved and expanded over time. So that's Monica. And we also have an entire tech team, and I, you know, I count them as one, but there's probably five people that I work with on that team. So they do all my website development, they do all the back end. So we, in order to get paid, people come into our website, they make a purchase that triggers think if it to give them a membership, but we're actually collecting the money through Thrive Cart and Stripe because we do both US and Canadian funds. So Stripe is really good with US and Canadian. That's been a mainstay. We've had, we used to be with WooCommerce and now we've switched over to Thrive Cart. So I know I'm talking all kinds of geek language here for you guys. It's way **\[12:09\]** **Jane:** about my pay grade. I have to tell you. Oh, this is all good information. So we do have web developers who listen and they will find it helpful for their own clients. Yeah. We've tried things **\[12:22\]** **Sean:** and so we're off of WooCommerce now and we're on to drive car which my back end people say, this is way better and it's going to be really good. We also use active campaign. So when somebody comes into the school, and this just happened this morning, I'm kind of like just double-checking that did all the triggers take place, so they get tagged, and we also have active campaign as our CRM. So they get tagged in the CRM, and they get sent into an automation, and the automation makes sure that they, you know, do all the things that they need to do to get started, and then a separate thing comes out from thinkific that allows them access to the course. Sign them And, you know, I poke around in there, but I wouldn't say I could go into tomorrow and start a campaign. I can add to the course and I can do kind of some of the basic stuff myself. I can change my website myself using Elementor, but I'm not like, I mean, you guys are way beyond where I am. **\[13:25\]** **Amanda:** So the course that you offer or courses that you offer, is it asynchronous so that anybody can sign up at any time and take the course of their own pace? **\[13:35\]** **Sean:** Yeah, yeah. We in my world call that evergreen. You can you can sign it up and so what we're changing and evolving to is if you just want the course no support no community you can do that for like maybe $500. I want it to be a price point that's really really good and then we're going you be upselling them into the second option which will be the course plus the community and then from there we'll be upselling them into the third option which is the course plus the community plus the mastermind and the mastermind gives them like private coaching and everything and so my goal is to move them **\[14:17\]** **Mike:** through those channels. That's interesting yeah I was going to ask if you could kind of give examples of features that you offer that over time you've realized oh we have to add that. We have to add XYZ or some new feature you had is like oh well no one's really interested in this maybe we'll drop that. Can you speak about that a little bit? **\[14:38\]** **Sean:** A hundred percent engagement okay so you get your course going and so we actually have when somebody gets registered they get access to I think it's like seven or eight different modules. And we have one that's just called getting started and that kind of gives them the lay of the land. Then they move into this formula that we have called ready aim launch. So ready aim launch is really our system. It's what we talk about. It's what my books are based on. Everything is really aim launch. And so every time they finish one of these sections, We have a little celebration. So they get an email that has a fun, you know, it's like, good buddy. The gift from the guys in the office with, you know, doing the little happy dance or whatever it might be. And I take a screenshot of that and we put it out on Facebook and we say, yeah, go, go whoever. You're doing a great job. And so we're cheering people on at every stage. And then they also get a certificate when they're finished. So I think the engagement part is the part that I would really focus on, like how are you going to grab them when they get in there and kind of keep cheering them on along the way as they go through. An email is one thing, but I think, like, if there's something you can do to physically make them feel good about taking your course, that's going to be a game changer. **\[16:07\]** **Jane:** I really like that idea because any online course I've done, there's nothing until you're finishing. offer the certificate. But yeah, I've only ever finished one course. So yeah I mean maybe there **\[16:24\]** **Sean:** was some confetti and yeah a certificate is so easy because that's just a checkbox on your platform when you're learning platform that's really easy to offer and we just try to make it. The other thing we've noticed is that when people go it alone they're gonna have questions. So our goal is to get them from the self-study over into the community because, you know, you're going to want to know some answers. And when you get stuck, you're going to want to have some encouragement to kind of get you off of stuck. So, I would say the course community combo is probably pretty important or it might be important depending on, you know, what kind of course you're offering. **\[17:12\]** **Amanda:** equals Amanda. If, enjoy, website 101 podcast equals true, then go give us a positive review on Apple Podcasts. I can't even do it with a straight face or **\[17:26\]** **Jane:** wherever you get your podcast. How does your community operate? Is it part of the website or are you doing something like a Facebook group that's private? Yeah, we **\[17:36\]** **Sean:** We tried, there's one called Mighty Networks, there's one built right into Thinkific, there's a community and I didn't like either of them compared to Facebook, Facebook was just so easy. Now there's the odd, you know, we just ran a five day challenge and I would say one out of 25 people that registered wasn't on Facebook and didn't want to be and I'm like, okay, no problem. we'll accommodate you, we'll just figure it out. And so the community has a series of activities that are going on, so we have a weekly calendar and we're running ready, aim, and launch calls throughout the month. We're running open Q&A calls. They also get access to master classes that we do. And so we're trying to really keep them engaged and keep them interested in what's going on this month. So at the beginning of the month, the calendar comes out and it says, here are all the things they can subscribe to the calendar and get it all. Sean, you like this? Downwarded, right? **\[18:44\]** **Jane:** And that's a call back to something before we recorded it. So Jane, the advantage you have with Facebook is there's more engagement than those other, like, the... Yeah, and something else that you looked at. **\[19:03\]** **Sean:** Mighty Networks, I know it's possible to get all the things you want somewhere. I just feel like when you have something that I have so many changes all the time. Let me just stick with one thing that's working. Not no change just for the sake of change. It would have been great to use Thinkifix community. I just didn't feel any vibe from it at all. **\[19:29\]** **Amanda:** Well, it's only, it's not only you feeling the vibe, but it's also like your students, you know, like everyone's on Facebook all the time anyway. Why would you make them go and log in to some other social media platform, like just for your one specific thing? Like it's easier to do something if you're already at the place. **\[19:47\]** **Jane:** So yeah, I also think that if your community's on Facebook, even if they're not active in your community, they'll still get posts showing up in their feed sometimes. Yeah, which is a way to kind of passively draw them back. **\[20:01\]** **Sean:** Lower them back in, yeah, passive. Let's lure them. **\[20:06\]** **Mike:** Yeah, yeah. Jane, I think it's really interesting that you seem to be focusing on long-term membership and keeping people engaged. Because I think a lot of people who start an online course would think of it as you've paid for it, you've succeeded, you've graduated, whatever, you're done goodbye. and now I have to replace you with a new person. And it sounds like you're really trying to keep people engaged. Do you have any, first of all, is that true? And do you have any tips to try to get people to think of their courses as a way to keep people as a member rather than just thinking of recruiting new members all the time? **\[20:46\]** **Sean:** Yeah, and it's hard to recruit new members. And it can become very costly. We've done Facebook advertising and we're going to actually do some LinkedIn advertising, which is even more costly. So we know that it cost us $8 to get that new member. So our goal is to keep people. We have some members of our community that have been coming back and active with us for probably three years. That would be the average, but I would say if we could get people for a year that we're really happy. And if we can move them into our mastermind, we also have some mastermind people that have been with us for three years. And so the fact that, and I put a lot of the kudos for that on Jen, who actually runs, she runs the school and runs the mastermind for all for me. And so she does the coaching on that. So I've taken myself out of the equation with the idea that I may sell the school at some point, and who I'll sell it to is Jen. So she's already got the relationships and everything, and so I'll just poke my head in the door once a month and hopefully collect the rewards. **\[22:04\]** **Jane:** Yeah, so I have a quick question. You've brought up Mastermind a couple of times. I don't know what a Mastermind is. I've heard it somewhere else. Can we, like a really quick summary? **\[22:17\]** **Sean:** Okay, let me tell you. So a mastermind can be, you know, us four get together twice a month and talk about our businesses. It could be like that. It could be very informal, and there are some are really well-run and some are, you know, just, hey, let's hang out. And so, that's us. Our mastermind is very kind of formulaic, of course. We have a plan, we get everybody's goals, and we spend a year with people. We typically will take no more than 30 people into our mastermind, and so each call, we might have 10 people on a Zoom call, and we're really making sure that we're holding, those are called accountability calls, we're making sure that they are, you know, being accountable to their dreams and making sure that they're taking action. So you might be dragging your butt one week and you show up at your masterminds, like, okay, I got that kick in the butt I needed, and now I am moving forward again. We've had, we also offer with our mastermind, this is uncommon, we also offer them quarterly one-on-one coaching. So that they can really get to know so Jen is the one that leads the coaching and she leads the accountability calls. And then I just pop in with them once a month and really make sure they're getting over any hurdles that are needed. **\[23:39\]** **Jane:** All right, so yeah, that's really cool. It sounds kind of like a 12-step program support group or mentor and or mentoring because because you got the regular **\[23:49\]** **Sean:** meeting with some structure. It's a support group for making money, Sean. Yeah I mean I want a support group for making money. I want to make more. We actually call it Acceleration Academy and the goal is for the people in our world who want to go from zero to a hundred thousand in their speaking income. That's the but they're on the fast track to doing that. **\[24:15\]** **Mike:** Cool. How specific do your students, I guess we'll call them? Do they come to you and say, look, I'm speaking at such and such a conference next month, I want specific tips for that engagement or does it get that granular at all? **\[24:30\]** **Sean:** You can, and so mostly we're focused on, okay, how are you gonna make more money from that engagement? How are you gonna leverage that? So most of you can talk about the business building and of things, but oftentimes, someone will come up and say, I'm really trying to workshop a new story and I'm struggling and here's the situation and we'll give them ideas on how to make their stories stronger. And so a really big part of marketing, we deal mostly with sales and marketing, but a really big part of marketing is a great and epic speech. And so we have a lot of lessons inside the school on how to speak also because it would be a miss if we didn't. **\[25:18\]** **Mike:** Right. Yeah, I've been to a few, well, we've all been to conferences, web conferences and that where they have sort of a toast master's guy at the end giving the keynote and to varying degrees of success, I guess. But I've seen some really, really good ones that have really impressed me. And I guess they're the type of people who would go and take a course from you, right? **\[25:38\]** **Sean:** Masters are the people who come to us in order to learn how to take what they already know, which is how to speak and make money at it. So, toastmasters can help give people the foundations of a really good, strong speech. We have, like, inside the school, we have lessons from people who have won the World Championship of Speaking and Toastmasters. And so, then we help them learn **\[26:05\]** **Mike:** to make money from that. Wow, that's really great. Yeah. This, of course, Jane is going to depend **\[26:11\]** **Amanda:** on your comfort level, but I'm wondering if you have any measurable metrics that you would be willing to share with us from before your online program was set up to after or even early days to after. I don't know if it's maybe because of the online course, your personal billing rate went up or you know you started with this many classes and now you've got this many classes, just anything just before and after. We love to talk money over here. **\[26:44\]** **Sean:** So I'm happy. My coaching fee has tripled or quadrupled because as I get you know because working with me being at the top of the pyramid here in my school has become more and more exclusive. And so I actually raised it my feed last time during COVID, like smack dab in the middle of COVID. And so if we kind of tend to do things as fearlessly as possible, and it was just that I was due. And Jen actually who runs our school, she raised her face during COVID too, just because we were due. And so the metrics, while we started out, we've had a lot of evolution in terms of what our price points were and how we charged in the school and it was very convoluted at one point in time. We had the course separate, you had to buy that separately and then pay a monthly fee and we just we've tried so many things that did it work. So we're down to like a very simple it's 197 a month. If you want to join us in the school, it's 397 a month. If you want to join us in the mastermind. What we identified along the way was that the mastermind was very, very profitable for us. The school is really like the driving force. Yeah, the driving force, the rain maker for everything else. And actually, let me step back one more step for you. And I guess I don't have a copy of it right now. I have a new book coming out. And this will be the last, it's my sixth book that I've written for for the industry. And so it's going to be the last book. And all roads in the book lead to the school. And so this book will become the Rainmaker for the school. I'm hoping for the next 10 years. That's my goal is that we just push the book, push the book. So we'll do Amazon ads ads in order to pump up the book sales and keep them going really, really strong and that will become the rain maker for the school. Wow that's really **\[29:01\]** **Mike:** interesting. Do you have any, if you don't mind sharing them, any really sort of oh why did we do that? That was a total disaster kind of experience like specific to the program itself not necessarily details about what you do but you know what I mean like that listeners can take away. Yeah we definitely the **\[29:21\]** **Sean:** The very first iteration, you know, we, I don't know, had a hundred people or something join, and back then there was no Zoom, there was no online, there was nothing. We were just on the phone talking about the business, and it was a train wreck because there were way too many people, okay? So we recognized that perhaps we'd go a little bit smaller group. Now we're able to accommodate a hundred people, it's not a problem at all. So that was one mistake. Not making sure that our platform had good security, again, we were sending out emails to all the people, but that was a nightmare that we couldn't stop, it was like a training and we couldn't get it to stop. So making sure that you've got some back-end support and that they've got good security for hackers is really important. Why don't stuff we done really poorly? I would say we were mean when we had it so convoluted that you had to buy the school and then you had to join a monthly program to complex. Make the path to purchase as easy as humanly possible. **\[30:35\]** **Jane:** So frictionless approach. **\[30:37\]** **Sean:** Frictionless. So when we get our new pricing table in place, it'll be one of those ones where all the options are running down and then you check, you have the check marks next to the things that you get. It will be, if you want to do DIY, it's $497. If you want to do the course plus the community, it's $197. If you want that plus that plus mastermind, it'll be 397. Like I'm hoping that is really, really seamless and so we'll continue to get less words on our website and here's something for everybody to remember. The whole top of the website, we're selling the dream, we're selling the pot a gold at the end of the rainbow, we're not selling how many calls we have each week and blah blah blah, we're not selling the features, we're just selling the greatness that comes from living your dream as a professional speaker. And so that's what we're doing the whole top of the website. Then we'll do the features and benefits on that pricing table so that people can really see that. Yeah, it's **\[31:46\]** **Jane:** the emotional argument at the top. And then it's the rational stuff at the bottom. Exactly. Let me **\[31:53\]** **Amanda:** you don't want to overwhelm people with like, you know, here's all of the steps that we're going to make you do over the next three months. Like, that's just going to petrify everybody. Yeah, **\[32:03\]** **Sean:** or make it sound like work right so we want to be really clear on the idea that you know they're going to get everything that they need to kind of follow this recipe for success. I think that **\[32:16\]** **Jane:** Jane's examples of things that she did wrong are incredibly helpful and beneficial to people who are looking to do the same thing or starting any sort of endeavor realize that you're going to make mistakes and you just have to improve on it going forward. **\[32:33\]** **Amanda:** Mistakes are beneficial so long as you learn something from them. **\[32:36\]** **Sean:** Yeah, exactly. Okay, I've got even a good recent one so I'm at the final stages for people who might be interested in writing a book someday. I'm at the final, final pages of my book and it's been like the hardest book to write because we keep updating so it was the wealthy speaker then the wealthy speaker 2.0 and this will be the wealthy speaker, three pointos. And this is it. We're not doing anymore. We're done. The third in the trilogy is done. So I get the book from Amazon. You can order a proof. So I decided, oh, well that was another mistake. I got out of the bookshipping business. So we had a warehouse that had books in Michigan for me. Probably for five years. We paid them every month to just hold our books and ship them out as needed. it was ridiculous and way over, it was way more cost than what we needed. So now we've gotten rid of all the books and we're only, we put a big spire sale on, got rid of all the books and now we're only running everything through Amazon. So I get my proof, Amazon will send you a proof to make sure that you like what you see and I get the proof and I'm like, I can't read this book, this books are too small. You know, and this is my same team that has done six books with me. So I say team, I don't like the font, what are we gonna do? So we make a decision, okay? We're gonna change the font, 11th hour. This is the mistake I made. When you write a book, make sure you print out the pages and compare it to a book that you like so that you can see exactly how it's going to look. The last book to this book, it was so minuscule. I don't even know if I would have noticed, but I think I would have been able to see that I couldn't quite read this font. And so we went back through when we changed the whole book and now we're ready to roll again. But anyway, that way is a big good juicy recent mistake. **\[34:44\]** **Amanda:** As a final question, you mentioned earlier, Jane, that the goal is to step back and have maybe a little more of the balance, right? But from before the online courses, when you were doing your coaching, to after the online courses with your coaching, is there a big difference? Are you trying to get your clients in a different way or do more clients come to you personally because they know you from through the school. Is it the same? **\[35:16\]** **Sean:** I think a lot of the people who come to me for private coaching, it's been and has been for the past decade word of mouth. Oh, I was talking to so-and-so who was a fast client of mine and they said you need to talk to Jane. And I do have a really good reputation in the industry. And so people will hear my name two or three times and then they'll finally come. I think that the course has freed me up personally to do only the things. Like we talk about really creating a life where you're doing your three core competencies. And so for me, that is writing, selling, and delivering content. And if I'm only doing those things and I'm putting everything else out to the team. And everything else goes to the school. And I love that that's been the, it feels to me like I have just created the lifestyle of my, you know, making the perfect lifestyle for me by taking more and more things off my plate. So my team at the school keeps taking more and more and I keep backing up a step. And so, that's the goal, that's the goal for me. **\[36:44\]** **Amanda:** I, yeah, you've got the goal of only doing the things that you wanna do and, you know, delegating the rest and it sounds like you're making it work. **\[36:53\]** **Sean:** Yeah. And I think as entrepreneurs, really deciding and defining what does the perfect life look like to you and how am I going to get there? And for some people it means, you know, pulling some people in on your team. It doesn't mean you're hiring a full-time employee. It means that you might use somebody for five hours a month who takes something that you hate doing off your plate. **\[37:18\]** **Mike:** Yeah, we often, the three of us being freelance web developers often work with each other for that very purpose. Not necessarily any things that we hate to do. Maybe sometimes it's something I hate to do. I'll hire Amanda to do it for me. But most often it's things I can't do. **\[37:33\]** **Amanda:** Go yell at this client and be mean to them. Oh, right. **\[37:38\]** **Mike:** Yeah, if only I can get someone to do that for me. **\[37:41\]** **Sean:** Borsair. Perfect. **\[37:45\]** **Mike:** OK, Jane, well, thank you so much for being on the show. I really appreciate it. Where should people go to learn more about you? **\[37:51\]** **Sean:** Well, actually, the best website is probably speakerlauncher.com. And because that's kind of a clearinghouse for everything that we do over here, speakerlauncher.com is a perfect starting point. **\[38:03\]** **Mike:** Excellent. Awesome. We'll put it all in the show notes. Sean will put it in the show notes. That's his role. **\[38:08\]** **Jane:** Yep. I'm a showiner. **\[38:10\]** **Mike:** Yeah. All right. Thank you very much, Gene. Thank you so much. **\[38:14\]** **Sean:** Thanks, Jane. Thanks, everybody. **\[38:17\]** **Amanda:** The website 101 Podcast is hosted by me, Amanda Loots. You can also find me online at AmandaLoots.com. **\[38:27\]** **Jane:** Recording from a secret layer while plotting world domination, I am Sean Smith, your co-host. **\[38:33\]** **Mike:** One of your hosts today was me, Mike Mella. me online at belikewater.ca or on socials at Lake Mella. Close Transcript Have a question for Sean, Mike, and Amanda? [Send us an email](/contact). [![Listen on Google Play Music](/assets/images/google_podcasts_badge@2x.png)](https://www.google.com/podcasts?feed=aHR0cHM6Ly93ZWJzaXRlMTAxcG9kY2FzdC5jb20vZmVlZC5yc3M%3D)[![itunes badge](/assets/images/itunes-badge.png)](https://itunes.apple.com/ca/podcast/website-101-podcast/id1449510012)[![itunes badge](/assets/images/spotify-logo.png)](https://open.spotify.com/show/3rmSM1R9t6q1U8DmYWJRSO?si=NrYPMgDaRV6Dd56PjEaPow)### Season 06 - 1 [ Tools of the Trade](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-1/tools-of-the-trade/) - 2 [ Website Contract Advice From an Actual Lawyer](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-2/website-contract-advice-from-an-actual-lawyer/) - 3 [ Choosing a CMS](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-3/choosing-a-cms/) - 4 [ Tips for Website Maintenance](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-4/tips-for-website-maintenance/) - 5 [ Working with Conflicting Personalities](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-5/working-with-conflicting-personalities/) - 6 [ Building an Online Course with Jane Atkinson](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-6/building-an-online-course-with-jane-atkinson/) - 7 [ PodCamp Toronto 2023 Recap](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-7/podcamp-toronto-2023-recap/) - 8 [ The Good, The Bad, and the Ugly about RFPs](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-8/the-good-the-bad-and-the-ugly-about-rfps/) - 9 [ Here's how to work from paradise](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-9/heres-how-to-work-from-paradise/) - 10 [ Rebroadcast: Pimp Your Typography](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-10/rebroadcast-pimp-your-typography/) - 11 [ Internet Privacy with Michael Geist](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-11/internet-privacy/) - 12 [ Lessons from a plugin developer with Ben Croker](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-12/lessons-from-a-plugin-developer-with-ben-croker/) - 13 [ Stand Out on Social Media with Jessica Perreault](https://website101podcast.com/episodes/season-06/episode-13/social-media-with-jessica-perreault/) ### All Seasons - [Season 01](https://website101podcast.com/season/01/) - [Season 02](https://website101podcast.com/season/02/) - [Season 03](https://website101podcast.com/season/03/) - [Season 04](https://website101podcast.com/season/04/) - [Season 05](https://website101podcast.com/season/05/) - [Season 06](https://website101podcast.com/season/06/) - [Season 07](https://website101podcast.com/season/07/) - [Season 08](https://website101podcast.com/season/08/) - [Season 09](https://website101podcast.com/season/09/) <!\[CDATA\[YII-BLOCK-BODY-END\]\]>