It’s a hazard of my job that I spend a lot of time looking for specific examples of strange things on social media. It doesn’t take long to find them. Scrolling past image after image of an influencer holding this product and that, wearing this outfit and that one, can make one existentially weary.

(What do you want to be when you grow up? Not someone who teaches influencer marketing, I hazard a guess.)

For many business owners with a strong moral compass, an analytical brain, and acute sensitivity, social media marketing is a vexed activity.

It can provoke anxiety, bafflement, bemusement, and despair. All this technology, all these possibilities, but we’re still searching for the perfect dress to feel whole and worthy. It’s enough to run away to live in a cave in Turkey.

But there’s something that needs to be said, to help us sensitive folk to better navigate business and, particularly, social media marketing. There’s a lot about social media marketing that’s reminiscent of being back in high school, surreptitiously watching the cool kids to try to analyse why they’re cool. But there’s a simple thing that many do, which could be making life and marketing far harder than it needs to be.

And, it could be the exact same thing that’s stopping you from growing.

You are not the product

There are many online business ‘gurus’ selling their lifestyle as the product. They are on display, in all their photogenic, enviably-styled lushness.

The finer details of exactly what they’re selling are not.

Their work is oftentimes deliberately elusive. They’re selling their face, feelings, fashion, opinions, and beliefs. They’re the ones on sale.

And the winning marketing message? “I’m proof.” (No honey, you’re not proof. Proof is a repeatable system with predictable results. One person does not proof make.)

The misappropriation of authenticity

Authentic marketing has been in the spotlight for some years now (I wrote the Authentic Marketing Manifesto back around 2013). But authenticity has been co-opted, misinterpreted, and cynically rehashed as a cult of personality.

[Tweet “Authenticity has been co-opted, misinterpreted, and cynically rehashed as a cult of personality.”]

And the problem with putting people on pedestals – you make yourself vulnerable to being toppled. Or, worse, you start to believe your own hype.

No matter how small your online following, there will always going to be people who don’t like something that you do or resist a change you make. You’re never going to please all people. You’re never going to please all paying clients, let alone your social media fans and email subscribers.

When you share your vulnerability on the internet with the hope of being authentic, relatable, and likable, you can attract sycophants and fanatics who want to put you on a pedestal and perhaps reverse engineer what you’re doing and why you’re doing it.

And while personal detail and personal stories are indeed important to creating rapport with strangers through screens, it’s not enough to build a business. It’s not enough to build sustainable business, and it will actively work against you as you grow and scale.

Sell your system, not yourself

Put your system in the spotlight. Communicate your system, process or framework that clients and customers implement for repeatable results. We are not the same and we are far from equal. Your process, methods, or techniques need to be effective for a range of people in a range of circumstances. They’re the outcome of years of work spent at your craft. They’re the process you’ve honed after years of working with different people.

My Hustle & Heart flagship program is a specific nine-step process that helps business owners to magnify the impact of their work by growing their professional reputation, building through leadership, and investing in their character.

It is a nine step system to achieve a specific outcome: to magnify the impact of one’s work.

Don’t buy because you like me

When your marketing focuses on communicating your system or framework, you’re creating sustainability. Because, as a wonderfully flawed human being, if I am selling myself, then I’m vulnerable. I’m going to be unreliable, unavailable or having an off day. At some point, I’m going to disappoint you. I’m going to disappoint myself.

When you put your work in the spotlight, you’re not branding yourself as the Lord and savior of sycophants who want your life. You’re selling a system, framework or process to achieve a specific outcome, for specific people with specific circumstances.

[Tweet “When you put your work in the spotlight, you’re not branding yourself as Lord and savior of sycophants who want your life. You’re selling a system to achieve a specific outcome, for specific people with specific circumstances.”]

Scaling your system, not a cult of personality

As well as reducing the self-consciousness of marketing yourself online, reducing your vulnerability and risk, and deterring followers who want to be you, when you showcase your system, you’re making your business far more scalable.

Scaling isn’t possible with a lot of one-to-one work, and when you’re selling yourself, people don’t want to buy your system, they want you. When you’re scaling your system, whether or not you’re having an off day is far less important. It’s not about you, it’s about your work.

There’s been a massive shift from face-to-face learning to online courses and classes, over 2020 in particular, for businesses who weren’t already operating fully online.

I’ve supported dozens of my clients who’ve moved their entire face-to-face and bricks-and-mortar services onto the internet. It’s been a steep learning curve of video creation, Zoom-ing and Loom-ing, website edits, and countless other adventures and misadventures.

Having taken this significant step, the next one is to take live teachings and convert them into e-courses and programs.

Why online courses? The online learning market worldwide is forecast to surpass 243 billion US dollars by 2022.

For small business owners and sole traders, online courses allows us to leverage ourselves and our expertise. Especially in a country with the geographical challenges of Australia, online learning makes sense, while the tools and technologies used to create, sell and run online courses are getting cheaper by the day.

Although I’ve been selling e-courses since 2012, it has NOT been smooth sailing. And while the majority of my income now comes from my flagship program and short online courses, it’s been a steep learning curve and I’ve made countless side-tracks, missteps and had total flops.

So I sat down with four digital course experts to help make the process of launching your first e-course more straightforward, more profitable and ultimately, more satisfying: I’m pleased to introduce you to the wise words and ways of Melanie Miller of the Profit Lovers, Ellissa Jayne of Flourish Online, Troy Dean of WP Elevation, and instructional designer and curriculum developer, Maria Doyle.

[Tweet “The online learning market worldwide is forecast to surpass 243 billion US dollars by 2022. Learn how to get your first #digitalcourse online, with five e-course experts.”]

Creating your online course

“People often don’t launch because they’re deeply entrenched in the wrong things, getting hung up on stuff such as what they should include, what course platform is best, the price, picking the perfect name – none of which matters,” says Melanie Miller of The Profit Lovers, who’s been running courses since 2013 and teaching others to do the same.

“What matters is making sure that people actually want the solution you’re going to offer. I always teach people to test their idea before anything else,” Melanie adds.

“The hardest part is figuring out what on earth to launch,” says Ellissa Jayne, of Flourish Online, who supports big online business entrepreneurs to build, launch and run their digital courses, as well as runs her own branding e-course. “Once people start writing content, it’s super easy to go from a clear, concise lesson plan to a course the size of War and Peace. And then the whole thing becomes overwhelming, for both you and your students.”

“Knowing who your course is for and what transformation it offers helps keep you on track so you can finish the thing, and do it well,” says Ellissa. “All the successful online courses and programs that I’ve helped to design for have a very specific niche market and offer a specific solution – make it really clear who your course is for, and what the transformation will be.”

Adds Troy Dean of WP Elevation, “the hardest part of launching a new online course is imposter syndrome and paralysis by analysis. People get stuck in ‘perfect’ and this becomes the serial killer of done.”

Says Maria Doyle, Teacher Trainer and curriculum developer, “People think that they can just recreate what they do face-to-face and put it online, but it doesn’t work. When you deliver face-to-face, there’s an energy, a dynamism. You’ve got interaction.”

“A lack of audience is also a problem,” says Troy. “The best time to launch an online course is when you’ve already proven people want to buy it. Start with one-to-one coaching, prove your model works, get your messaging right, and then leverage this into an online course so you can scale your revenue.”

> More resources: Creating online courses.

Selling your online course

“Especially when this is your first online course launch, you need to be available,” says Ellissa. “Show up in Facebook Lives, jump on sales calls, have a chat widget on your sales page. Talking to people – hearing their objections and fears – will enable you to do a better job.”

“Over the past couple of years, marketers and online course providers tried to automate all the things so launching was as hands-off as possible,” says Ellissa. “But people want to buy from people. We want to connect. So show up, run a live class or a challenge, give knowledge and time away for free and be known for being accessible and generous. And then ask for the sale.”

“When I first started launching online courses, I relied heavily on Facebook ads because I wanted to hide out and just pay people to find my freebies,” says Melanie. “And then the cost of ads increased.”

“Paid advertising should accompany your free efforts, not be your only source of leads. Free marketing gets you in front of the right people and showcases your expertise.”

Adds Troy, “My non-negotiable marketing activities would be a free Facebook group, an email list and Facebook remarketing ads.”

“You need to appreciate that launching is really stressful,” says Ellissa. “You’re going to be exhausted and extra emotional after your first launch – know that this is normal, and do it anyway.”

Adds Melanie, “My first two launches were absolute failures, so I assumed no one wanted what I had to offer and I gave up. It took a year to get the courage to try again, and I am so glad I did. The hardest part of launching an online course is resilience – you’ve got to be willing to let your ego take a bit of a hit, dust yourself off, and improve for next time.”

> More resources: download the Essential Launch Checklist.
> More resources: Writing Sales Pages (that sell!) course.

Running your online course

Once you’ve launched and sold your e-course, you then need to run it. “Your job starts when people buy your course,” says Troy. “Your number one objective is to make sure people do your course, take action, and get results. This is not passive income.”

“If you pull out all the glitter and music to make the sale, then make sure you deliver the product beautifully. Don’t take the money and run,” says Ellissa.

But, says Maria Doyle, “You can’t motivate someone who doesn’t want to be motivated. If someone’s dropped off, it’s not necessarily your fault, so don’t take that on board. There could be lots of reasons why – so ask them. How else can I help you? Look at the whole experience – is it what they want? Is it what they need? And if it’s not, adjust it.”

“I’ve seen a lot of online course creators who were amazing at launching, but had lackluster courses and so disappeared, which left space for quality course creators to flourish,” says Melanie. “People are looking for more than glittery, pretty launches and bold empty promises.”

“Online courses are not magical passive income, especially if you don’t want to spend your life pitching $10 courses,” says Melanie. “The more you support your course members, the more likely they’ll get a great result, which means amazing testimonials, which means more sales!”

Trends in online courses

“More and more, people will pay for insights and fast-tracking,” says Troy. “If you do coaching, offer it as a high ticket upsell to people who buy your online courses.”

“I’m noticing courses with less content selling better,” says Melanie. “People don’t want everything and the kitchen sink – it’s overwhelming. People want fast results and quick solutions.”

“Students often appreciate the community aspect of e-courses more than the learning,” says Ellissa. “I’ve seen lots of memberships buddy people up with other local people so that the community can grow face-to-face as well as online.”

“Online business is all about experimenting and being willing to listen and learn – offering flexible pathways that allow people to consume all the content rather than drip-feeding is great to support students who are time-sensitive.” Says Ellissa. “A great course creator is flexible with how they deliver, listening closely to their students so they’ll fall in love with your product (and you!) even more.”

Your e-course action plan

1. Write your one-page plan. Nail your structure, learning outcomes, and what you’ll include.
2. Get your preliminary sales page up and start promoting it to gather an interest list.
3. Download your Essential Launch Checklist (it’s free).
4. Create your training materials.
5. Write your sales page.
6. Choose your tech (this shouldn’t be a big deal. Your tech doesn’t sell your course).
7. Launch! Market the hell out it.
8. Deliver, do an exceptional job, measure your course efficacy, make changes.
9. Celebrate!
10. Repeat steps 7-9.

When the extraordinary happens, reality unfurls at rapid speed and business as usual is a thing of the past. Small business owners need to respond right now, or risk losing credibility. We need to be agile, responsive, creative and resourceful.

Luckily, we already have this in spades.

The threat to our businesses right now is very real and becoming more serious by the day. But we are in this together and together we can adapt. Let’s come up with your survival plan to ensure that you can keep your business operating in our new reality.

First, let’s take an inventory:

• Are you already selling and delivering online? If so, what offers could you make?
• Do you have plans to get online? Can you accelerate and prioritise these?
• Can you deliver your business services online? If so, what technologies are you already using and adept at?

Second, physical distancing and physical isolation don’t mean social isolation. Don’t stop meeting people.

[Tweet “Physical distancing and physical isolation don’t mean social isolation. Don’t stop meeting people.”]

Take your meetings, coffee dates and drinks online. This is the time for social cohesion and comradery, not isolation. The marketing and business development you do now will pay off in three months’ time (or sooner).

Essential digital tools for getting online ASAP

Zoom is my go-to tool for online business training and coaching. For $21 a month, I have access to high-quality video, automated recordings (for when you forget to hit ‘record’), group calls, and the ability to live stream onto Facebook, YouTube or custom platforms (good for webinars).

You can also create ‘break out rooms’ for groups, which is good for trainers like me when we give exercises for people to do in groups of two or three.

Loom is another great online tool for those who want to share their screen, while also keeping people engaged by using their webcam to film their faces as they present.

Loom is good for training, especially with technology when helping your staff or clients better understand how they can do business with you online. One major benefit of Loom is that distribution is in-built: your videos are automatically saved to your Loom account, from where you can email out the link to the video. People can access this without a Loom account or needing to download any software.

Acuity Scheduling is a favourite tool of mine which I use to schedule and organise my training and coaching. Recently I’ve started using its ‘group classes’ feature for my monthly group coaching calls that are part of my Hustle & Heart program.

Acuity allows you to open particular times within your days and weeks and for clients to book in without needing 43 emails and phone calls to pick a suitable time. You can make these appointments paid or unpaid. I have Stripe payments synced with Acuity, along with Zoom, but you can use other payment processors too, such as PayPal.

So clients may book into a single coaching session, pay via their credit card, answer relevant questions within Acuity, and receive a Zoom link to join me at the time. Plus Acuity will send them follow-up reminder emails to reduce the likelihood of no-shows.

Dropbox: if you’re using Zoom, you’ll need to distribute your videos and uploading these to your website isn’t an option (slows down your site and/or you’ll have to pay more website hosting) nor is emailing them (if it’s possible; nobody wants a massive file emailed!).

Dropbox enables you to create folders, share these with specific individuals and upload your videos and other materials there.

YouTube is another great option for uploading your private client videos. To make videos private, you create them as ‘unlisted’, and then embed your video into a private or hidden page on your website. Alternatively, you can simply email clients the YouTube video link without embedding the video.

Facebook is another awesome option for uploading and distributing your content. For example, I use our private Hustle & Heart program Facebook community group to regularly do Facebook Live videos. This solves the distribution problem as your Facebook Lives are posted (when you do this straight after you finish your video) into your private group of clients, where it will sit forever after (unless you delete it).

Your website and email

The quickest and easiest way to ‘hide’ content from the public so that it’s accessible to your clients only is through creating an ‘orphan page’ that isn’t connected to your main menu navigation and emailing this web page link to clients.

Of course, it’s not secure or ‘locked down’. If you have a WordPress website, you may not know that you’re easily able to add password-protected pages. To do so, simply look at the top right corner of the page where it says ‘visibility’ and click ‘edit’. It will be public by default.

Select ‘password protected’ and set yourself a password. Then email the page link, plus the password to clients. See screenshot, right.

If you’re already online

If you already have the technology in place to run your business online, this is the time to consider the types of offers you can put out right now. Remember to keep marketing, because this doesn’t pay off immediately.

When you can continue to show up for your online community, with useful, valuable and relevant information, you are best placed in future for purchases.

Ask yourself, ‘where should I position myself now to be lifted by the changes that are happening?’

Case in point: this morning, Luxury Escapes sent me an email “Buy now, decide later”. What specific, no-brainer, value-driven offers could you put to your community today, and in the next week, that will reduce your risk and improve their lives?

Don’t stop what you’re doing. Step forward. Keep communicating.

Be a beacon for others. Change is the only certain in life and small businesses are perfectly placed to be responsive, agile and lean. Keep supporting your small businesses!

“I have no time!” is the lament of workers the world over. This is especially so for self-employed folk. Over and over again, people tell me all the things that take up their time, leaving them with none.

My clients sometimes go into great depth and detail listing out what’s stopped them from doing what they told me they really, desperately want to do. They tend to be juggling children, relationships, ageing parents. Sometimes they have a side business they’re wanting to grow into a full-time concern while also holding down a job. If they’re working in the creative arts, they’re not likely to have just one source of income.

[Tweet “Confronted with this great pile of seemingly important responsibilities and obligations, how can we make time for more important things?”]

Confronted with this great pile of seemingly important responsibilities and obligations, how can we make time for more important things? First know, I’m never going to suggest you set the alarm for some ungodly hour (I’m not that kind of punk). But let’s start by defining what important things are while appreciating that they’re different for all people.

Important work

You can define important things in your work by two criteria: assets you’re creating to leverage (hopefully for many years into the future); and of high monetary value.

Your assets could include (but aren’t limited to):

• A book
• A course, workshop or program, whether delivered face-to-face, online, or a hybrid of both
• A repeatable framework or process
• A video series.

High monetary value could be work that translates to a high dollar rate per hour invested by your business. That could come from a premium-priced product or the fact that you’re leveraging your time to deliver one-to-many services that, again, delivers a higher rate per hour rate of return for you.

Bits and things and stuff and guff

Most business owners are spending way too much time on bits and things and stuff and guff. Admin is a major culprit. A lack of processes, procedures and templates is another. Another major culprit is low-value jobs and low-value service offerings.

The first thing I do with clients who are suffering from a bad case of timeitis is to clear some space. It’s a pointless undertaking to pile more stuff on top of an already over-full schedule. (This is a short road to overwhelm and burnout.)

In my Hustle & Heart program, the first thing we do is carve out space to do the program by saying no to non-essential things. Following this, one of our first exercises is the Profit Plan, which enables you to analyse all your different service offerings to quickly see which are profitable, and which aren’t. Unless you have a strong strategic reason for offering something that isn’t delivering a healthy profit, it should be the first to go.

Second, admin. Most people spend way too much time dealing with one-to-one inquiries that don’t translate into new paying clients. If this is you, take your email address off your website and possibly your phone number too. Replace these with a smart form that asks intelligent questions that set expectations, subtly educates your prospects, and arms you with all necessary information to get back to prospects more effectively.

When digital marketing is done well, admin should be reduced because your marketing is comprehensively addressing concerns, overcoming misconceptions, misunderstandings, and barriers to purchase, and answering frequently asked questions (once and for all). Your digital marketing leverages your time – not just by attracting prospects but also by reducing the need for one-to-one communications.

Third, boundaries. If you work in the helping or healing sector, you almost always will have loose boundaries. Why? Because you tend to be empathetic and have a strong drive to help others.

If your ideal client group is impoverished and marginal, you’re far better off soliciting for work from agencies that have the funding to serve this group, rather than continually discounting your services for people who can’t afford you. When you take on others’ financial burdens as your own and begin believing that you are morally obligated to help people who cannot afford to pay a fair rate, you are undermining your ability to do this well, for many years to come.

Repeat after me: you are not an emergency doctor. You are not here to triage your clients, or anyone else. You can take all care and no responsibility. Your responsibility is to yourself and your family. Your time is your own to spend.

Time, effort, cash and kind

Your actions speak louder than your words. Words (and good ideas) are cheap. Good intentions are good, but follow through is so much better.

Technology has been deliberately designed to be addictive. This is only going to get worse. It’s time to take back control.

[Tweet “Technology has been deliberately designed to be addictive. This is only going to get worse. It’s time to take back control.”]

Your action plan (should you choose to accept it):

• The first thing you do is the ‘important thing’ – give yourself an least an hour as soon work for things that create leverage in the long-term and/or things that are high value. (In the Hustle & Heart program, everyone is given a challenge in the second week to do just that – to create a new, premium-priced offering that can be leveraged.)
• Marketing, lead generation, and business development should be a close second priority. If you want to be in business for the long-term, then a major part of your role is developing ninja marketing and sales skills (this is what my Hustle & Heart program teaches). Yes I know you’d rather do what you love that persuade people to buy it, but it’s marketing and business development that enables you to do what you do, and for your work to have a far greater impact and reach (far) more people.
• Write down your working hours. Give yourself a clear start time and finish time each day that you work. (Time off is essential. Please. For the love of sanity and sleep, take a day or two off every week!)
• Take control back. If your personal life is regularly eating into your working life, it’s time to get mad, and then get even. Use what resources you have available to create stronger boundaries, to set the agenda, to plan ahead and follow through. Healthy boundaries create healthy profits and a future-proof business.
• Take control back from technology by using it to play its own game. Restrict access to your digital heroin to create better boundaries with communications and improve the quality of yours while reducing wasted time. Use constraints to stop depleting your natural reserves. If your attention is splintered and you’re a chronic procrastinator, use a timer when you’re at your computer.
• Accountability buddies are the bomb. In the Hustle & Heart program, everyone is paired up with an accountability buddy. This helps to ensure that people follow through. Most people aren’t intrinsically motivated and are far less likely to break a commitment to someone else than to themselves.

Nobody is going to give you time. ‘The perfect time’ to build your business is a myth. Your clients, boss, friends, family and assorted others aren’t ever going to take away your pressing responsibilities so you can focus and find clarity and set your business direction, unhindered. You aren’t gifted time. You make time.

Actions speak louder than words. What you give your precious time to are things that you demonstrate that you value. Is this true for you? Remember, more profits can buy you more time and more ease.