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Creating an Audio-Only Course with Sara Whittaker
It’s no secret that most of us buy online courses only to have them collect virtual dust. Even if we start them, it’s not often they actually get finished. And that’s not because the course isn’t great – it’s simply due to lack of time and accessibility.
For most courses, you’ve got to find the time to sit down at your computer, log in to the course, and watch the videos. Usually, even if you want to listen and not watch, you’ve got to drag your laptop around with you while you do other things. It’s a pain that means you’re not likely to do it.
And if you aren’t doing it – you know your students aren’t either.
But, what if I told you that you could create a course that your students were nearly guaranteed to not only listen to, but complete?
I’m joined this week by Sara Whittaker who has created a course that does just that.
Sara Whittaker is a teacher turned podcast strategist. She helps educators leverage the power of podcasting in order to build brand awareness, scale their business, and connect with their audience. Sara is also the host of the podcast, Podcasting for Educators, where she shares weekly tips on how to start, manage, and grow a podcast.
Thanks to her audio-only course, Sara has been able to ensure that her students finish the course – leading to better relationships and more referrals (and sales!) of her course. Today, she’s sharing not only her course strategy, but also her launch strategy for her course, as well as a way to make lead magnets that eventually convert. For my members instead The Community, you’ll get some really great tips as you’re creating your own lead magnets this quarter!
Links and Resources Mentioned in This Episode:
- Really quickly, before we dive into this episode – I just HAVE to share something I’m really excited about with you. My book, Chasing Simple Marketing, is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion. But without that Masters of Business Administration (MBA) or background in business, they find marketing overwhelming and frustrating. Throughout these pages, I’m going to take you on a simplicity-focused journey to improve your content marketing and you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing, so that you can fit your marketing into your business, without it taking over your business. To learn more about how to grab your copy, and even potentially get on the launch team head over to amandawarfield.com/book/ See you there!
- This week’s episode is brought to you by the Chasing Simple Content Planner and you can grab your own at amandawarfield.com/planner/
- Episode 095 on Sara’s podcast
- This week’s action step: Take 15 minutes and write out what problem you can solve, and all of the teaching points you can share to help get your students to that solution.
- This week’s book recommendation: Local Woman Missing by Mary Kubica
- Find me on Instagram and tell me you completed this week’s action step: @mrsamandawarfield
Sara Whittaker is a teacher turned podcast strategist. She helps educators leverage the power of podcasting in order to build brand awareness, scale their business, and connect with their audience. Sara is also the host of the podcast, Podcasting for Educators, where she shares weekly tips on how to start, manage, and grow a podcast.
Social Links:
Website: https://podcastingforeducators.com/
Podcast: https://podcastingforeducators.com/podcast
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/podcastingforeducators
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Rather Read? – Here’s the Transcript!
*Just a heads up – the provided transcript is likely to not be 100% accurate
Amanda Warfield: It’s no secret that most of us buy online courses only to have them collect virtual dust. Even if we start them, it’s not often they actually get finished. And that’s not because the course isn’t great, it’s simply due to a lack of time and accessibility. For most courses, you’ve got to find the time to sit down at your computer, log into the course, and watch the videos.
Usually, even if you want to listen and not watch, you’ve got to drag your laptop around with you while you do other things. It’s a pain, and you’re not likely to do it. And if you aren’t doing it, you know your students aren’t either. But what if I told you that you could create a course that your students were nearly guaranteed to not only listen to, but complete?
I’m joined this week by Sarah Whittaker, who has created a course that does just that. Sarah Whittaker is a teacher turned podcast strategist. She helps educators leverage the power of podcasting in order to build brand awareness, scale their business, and connect with their audience. Sarah is also the host of the podcast, Podcasting for Educators, where she shares weekly tips on how to start, manage, and grow a podcast.
Thanks to her audio only course, Sarah has been able to ensure that her students finish the course, leading to better relationships and more referrals and sales of her course. Today, she’s sharing not only her core strategy, but also her launch strategy for her course, as well as a way to make lead manics that eventually convert.
For my members inside of the community, you’ll get some really manics this quarter. You’re listening to episode 186 of the Chasing Simple podcast, and I’m your host, Amanda Warfield. This episode was brought to you by the Chasing Simple content planner, and you can grab your 2024 version at amandawarfield. com / planner.
How do I find time to create content without overwhelming myself? Where should I even be showing up in my marketing? How do I come up with fresh content ideas? Where should I be focusing my marketing efforts? What is lead generation anyways, and how do I do it? Are launches still a thing? And most importantly, how do I put it all together to market my business strategically?
Can I really grow my business without spending all of my time marketing? These are some of the questions that float around in your head when you think of marketing. Welcome, friend. This is Chasing Simple, where practical marketing strategy meets simplicity. I’m your host, Amanda Warfield, simplicity focused content marketing and launch strategist.
Speaker, educator, and author of chasing simple marketing. I traded in my classroom lesson plans for helping creative entrepreneurs sustainably fit marketing into their business without it taking over their business. So that they have time to grow their business, take time off, and live the life they dreamed about when they first decided to go out on their own.
When I’m working, you can find me working with one on one clients, such as The Contract Shop and Rebecca Rice Photography on their marketing strategy and copywriting, or helping my students simplify their marketing and launches. And when I’m not, you can find me spending time outside with my husband, Russell.
Reading in our hammock, watching Gamecock Sports, traveling, or forcing our cats to snuggle me. If you feel overwhelmed by marketing, you aren’t alone. Many entrepreneurs find marketing frustrating, overwhelming, and simply an obligation. They know they need it, but they don’t enjoy how easily it can suck up their time when what they really want to be doing…
Is the thing that they started their business to do, which is why I’m here to help make marketing simple and less time consuming so that you can spend less time on your marketing and more time growing your business and doing what you love each week. I’ll bring you transparent, conversations, actionable steps.
And judgment free community to encourage and equip you. So grab yourself a cup of coffee or whatever your drink of choices, and meet me here each week for love, support, practical tips and advice on uncomplicating, your marketing and business. Let’s do this entrepreneurship thing together, shall we? Really quickly, before we dive into this episode, I just.
Have to share something that I’m really excited about with you. My book, Chasing Simple Marketing is launching this July. I wrote this book for the business owner that stumbled into entrepreneurship because they were following their passion. But without that masters of business administration or that background in business, well, they find marketing.
Overwhelming and frustrating throughout these pages. I’m going to take you on a simplicity focused journey to improve your content marketing. And you’ll walk away with an actionable plan to simplify your marketing so that you can fit your marketing into your business without it taking over your business.
To learn more about how to grab your own copy and even potentially get on the launch team, head over to amandawarfield. com slash book. I’ll see you there. Sarah, thank you so much for joining me today. I’m really excited for this episode, mostly selfishly because I’m really excited to hear about what you’ve done with your course and how we can simplify our own course creation and launching process.
But I know everyone else is going to really love this too. So thank you so much for being here. Why don’t you tell us a little bit about yourself and who you
Sara Whittaker: serve? Well, thank you so much for having me, Amanda. You were just over on my podcast and now I get to be on yours. So I’m super grateful that I am here today.
I am Sara Whitaker. I’m a former elementary school teacher, and now I have a business that’s called podcasting for educators where we kind of have like two different sides to my business. On one side, we have a boutique podcasting agency where we do podcast production for online educators. If you’re familiar with TPT, teachers pay teachers, a lot of TPT sellers, we do their podcast production.
And then on the other side of things, I am a course creator and a podcast host of a podcast called podcasting for educators, where we focus on helping business owners use podcasting as a way to market their business. And
Amanda Warfield: you mentioned your podcast, why don’t you go ahead and share a little bit about that?
Sara Whittaker: Yeah, so I have a public free podcast, new episodes come out on Wednesday. And it’s really, I do have some episodes on, you know, starting a podcast, but most of it is focused on strategies for current podcasters, how they can grow their podcast audience, how you can really use your podcast to reach the goals that you have in your business and how you can really align your podcast content with your business.
I love it so much. And it’s
Amanda Warfield: such an important thing because I think so many of us, we get stuck on that content creation hamster wheel that we were just talking about for your podcast, right? And we forget that it’s not enough just to throw a podcast out there. There’s more that we need to do with it. So I think it’s so important what you’re doing, just continuing to educate and helping those of us that are podcasting, take things.
Further and take them to the next step. I know that even though you are an educator, uh, you also happen to fall into the same trap that I think most of us do in this online education space where we buy courses because we’re interested in a topic and maybe it’s on sale. Maybe they’re having a launch.
There’s some great bonuses and we’re ready to dive in. And then, Work happens and our days to day to day gets busy. We end up having way too much to do and it just kind of sits there and collects dust a little bit. You know, we, we have it in the back of our mind. Oh, we, we really need to get to work on that.
Or maybe we even take, you know, we watched the 1st lesson or 2, but we never get past it. We never actually implement and then. Nothing happens and things don’t change. But yet, you’re still such an advocate for online courses. So, can you tell us a little bit about why that is?
Sara Whittaker: Yeah, absolutely. And yes, I am super guilty of, uh, purchasing many courses that are collecting dust, and I have not made it all the way through.
But I consider myself a lifelong learner. I’m sure that so many of you do. There’s so… Many things for us to learn about this online business space. And there’s so many great courses out there. That’s why I love courses. I think that we can learn so much from them. I think sometimes they can also be a great way to connect with other people, if there’s a community component to it.
And so while I love courses, I just have trouble getting, getting all the way through them. And I’m sure that I’m not the only one that has that problem.
Amanda Warfield: Yeah, no, absolutely. I think. The vast majority of us do have that problem, but what have you found working with educators? What have you found that works to help improve
Sara Whittaker: that completion rate?
Yeah, so I was introduced to this idea of what’s essentially a private podcast. A few years ago through when I had I actually interviewed the creator of a platform called Hello Audio. I’m not sure if you’re familiar with it, but it basically lets you create a private podcast feed and they originally created it for.
With the intention of people who have a traditional course, you’re able to actually take all of the lessons in your course and turn it into just an audio format, and it becomes basically a podcast for your course and so then. In that example, your students in your course have the option of, okay, sitting down watching traditional slides that are usually found in a course videos, or they can listen to the audio version on the podcast.
And some people like to do both. Some people like to maybe listen first, front load the information while they’re driving in their car or on a walk. And then if it’s something that. Is visual that, that you need to sit down at the computer and look at, they could then log into the course and look at it that way.
And they found that it did really, really well. And it really increased the consumption rate of people who were taking these courses and people were getting, were actually getting through the content and not just stopping at lesson one. And so when I created my first course, I have a traditional. Online course with slides and videos that helps people learn how to start a podcast.
And about the time that I created that course, I had learned about Hello Audio. And so from the get go with that course, I signed up for Hello Audio and I put all of my lessons on there as a private podcast. And I get such great feedback about that component. And so I think it’s something that all course creators should look at.
I think that there’s a piece, at least one piece of your course that you could probably turn into audio format to just better that experience for your students that are in your course. So I did that. And then there’s so many different ways that you can use this. idea of a private podcast. You can create an audio lead magnet where maybe you have a freebie that’s just a PDF guide.
Well, instead of a PDF, you could turn it into an audio series. And again, with the idea that people are going to actually get through the content and consume it more. So I tried that, and that did really well, and it was a great strategy for increasing my email list. So then, this year, in 2023, I decided to try creating an audio only course, where there wasn’t a video or slides component, it was audio only.
I have
Amanda Warfield: so many questions just based off of all of that. I’m just over here like taking notes like crazy. Um, where do I want to begin? Let’s talk about completion rates because you mentioned those a couple times. Yeah. What have you seen, both with your more traditional course and your audio only course, as far as completion rates?
How do they
Sara Whittaker: differ? So, my audio only course that I just did, Almost every single person that purchased the course is listening to the content and getting through the content, which is a really cool thing to be able to see. Like you can see how many, like the individual person, are they listening to this episode and how far it, how far, how much of the episode are they actually consuming?
Like what’s the consumption rate? Um, and I would say it’s 95 percent of my students. Um, yeah, and then same thing with my traditional course, looking at the, like the numbers of people. I don’t have like the exact stats in front of me right now, but looking at the actual numbers of people who have like completed the module versus listening to the module, the private podcast is actually higher than the traditional module with slides.
Do
Amanda Warfield: you know how much higher is there? Is it a large difference or? Um,
Sara Whittaker: I wish I had my numbers, but, um, I would say probably like 20 percent more. And a lot of people do both. A lot of people do both and they’ll come back. That’s another good thing about the audio component is. Maybe they purchased the course a year ago, they went through it, but then they need a refresher.
And so, I’ll constantly see like those numbers on the audio going up because people go back and they give themselves that refresher via audio. Yeah,
Amanda Warfield: because
Sara Whittaker: it’s so easy to. Exactly, yeah. Okay,
Amanda Warfield: so what happens What is the benefit of someone actually completing an entire
Sara Whittaker: course? Well, I think, you know, we have to have that mindset of if we’re creating this content, we believe in this content, we believe in the transformation that we want our customers to have.
We don’t want to just have this mindset of, oh, well, they bought the course. That’s all I wanted. I just, you know, wanted them to give me their money and, and I’m done. No, like we want people to actually get that transformation that we are promising them and that we believe in so that we can then. A, build that relationship with them, build that trust with them, and often then later they’ll also become not only return customers, but they also tend to become referrals.
If they are able to reach that goal that you promised them on your sales page, then they’re way more likely to then turn around and, and see, and maybe they have a friend who they know wants to achieve the same thing. They’re going to recommend you because they saw results with your course. Yeah, I’m so glad you led with
Amanda Warfield: the actual, you know, the whole purpose isn’t just to make money.
Because I think that gets lost in this sometimes in the business space of just, no, we’re here for real people with real problems that we can actually solve because we have the skills and the giftings to be able to do that.
Sara Whittaker: Yeah. I mean, I think we’ve all bought courses and digital products that you are promised so many things and then you buy it and you’re like, Oh, my gosh, this is not what I expected.
And there’s nowhere to go from here. Like, there’s nobody to ask questions to. I always include a community aspect to my courses so that people do feel like they have a place to come with questions or to celebrate their wins or to vent about a challenge that they’ve got because you don’t just want it.
people to buy and then feel like they’re kind of alone in the rest of the process. Yeah,
Amanda Warfield: absolutely. So you dropped this little nugget earlier where you said there’s probably at least one piece of your course that you could turn to audio. Explain a little bit more about that and what you meant.
Sara Whittaker: Yeah, so I, you know, of course there are Lots of courses out there where you need a visual component.
You need a video. You need slides. Like if I were to do a course all about how to edit a podcast, that’s not something that I’m going to create a private podcast or an audio course for. That’s something that I want you to see. I want to be able to share my screen. I want to show you what I’m doing. But Often, even with these courses, there are certain lessons in your course that you could turn into audio or, you know, a lot of courses or memberships have coaching calls or community calls or Q& A calls.
Those can be turned into a private podcast or an audio component of your course. Also, I know people who like I have a client who has a membership and a perk of joining the membership is that you get added to her private podcast where she does like quarterly podcast episodes. It’s not every week. It’s just once a quarter, but it’s just that bonus content that only her members.
So it’s just kind of another bonus piece that you can give people either for bonus content or just to make their learning that much more accessible.
Amanda Warfield: Okay, and so you mentioned that Not all courses would be great for audio only. So what types of courses do well in an audio format?
Sara Whittaker: Yeah, so I think courses that do well in an audio format are obviously things that aren’t going to need a ton of visuals like editing a podcast or maybe you’re a pantry organizer.
You’re going to want visuals for that. But if you have like a clear process that you can take people through in your course that You could, anything that you could create like a podcast episode for makes or a podcast series for makes a great audio course. I think that probably all of us have, maybe you don’t know it yet, but you could probably think of kind of like a series that you could create that you could turn into an audio course.
Many courses are great for audio courses that might just be like. Three to five lessons, 27 offer that would make for a great audio course, something that has like a clear end goal and a clear action item that people can take after listening.
Amanda Warfield: Okay. So since you brought up pricing, my first thought when I hear audio only private podcast feed is, does it take away from the value or the.
Not take away from the value, but take away from the perceived value of the course. And do you have to price your courses lower if you’re going to be an audio
Sara Whittaker: only format? Yeah, that’s a great question. And that’s definitely like a limiting belief that came up for me and that I know comes up for a lot of people when they’re considering an audio course.
And it really comes down to what you’re going to include in your audio course. Like, if it’s going to be a mini course, then I think Staying around that, you know, anywhere from like 27 to 47 is a great offer. But I, like, I can tell you from, for me, I, my audio course was 10 lessons. It included some resources in there that were linked in the, um, in the lessons.
And it also included a private Facebook group and I priced it at one 27. And my wait listers had a coupon code and I didn’t have any. Price objections. I think it’s all about the messaging. And as long as you can give and show what kind of result people are going to get, it doesn’t lessen the value at all.
I’ve seen people price audio courses way higher than 127 up to like that 500 range.
Amanda Warfield: I love that. Okay, just something because I know that if I thought it. Everyone else was probably thinking it too. Oh, for sure. I wanted to address that because pricing is something that’s so difficult and it’s so personal and like you said, there are a lot of limiting beliefs around it.
Now you mentioned kind of how you package your up with the face, yours up with the Facebook group and everything. What, when it comes to putting together that package for the audio only course, what does that delivery look like? Because I’m assuming you don’t have. You know, Kajabi or Kartra or any other platform teachable like that.
You don’t have a platform because hello audio is your platform. So what does that kind of packaging look like? Is there any kind of video component at all that. Maybe, let’s say for example, you have a welcome video within an e I, I don’t know, I’m just wondering like what does that packaging look like when you wrap it all up with a bow?
Sara Whittaker: Yeah, this is such a great question and this is something I really kind of tussled with for a while because there are, and this is also what’s really cool about an audio course because you can package it in so many different ways and it can look however you want it to look. What it looks like when I can kind of take you like on the journey that a customer would take.
So I had a full sales page for this. I had my checkout page in Thrivecart. Once they purchased in Thrivecart, they get an automatic email. That has their individual link for the audio course, which is like, just to be clear, essentially just like a podcast is just private. So it’s not searchable within Apple podcasts or Spotify or anything like that, but you can still listen within like your Apple podcast app.
So they get this email, they get their link. They get to choose which app they want to listen in on. And so now they have, I dripped out my content when I first launched it. So I did like one lesson per week. And so they get instant access to the feed and then instant access and lifetime access to the Facebook community.
There was no. Platform, like you mentioned, like no kajabi or anything like that, that they’re logging into. It’s just this private Facebook group and within that private Facebook group, any resources that I am providing them in the lessons. I also I created little guides in the if you know, like the guides tab in the Facebook groups.
I created those where they were linked there for them. And then they were also linked. In the lesson description within their listening app as well. So in a way it’s great for them too, because they don’t have to log into anything. Everything was provided right there with one click, and it was all things that they could just organize into their Google drive, if it was any kind of.
Resource that went with the lesson.
Amanda Warfield: What I love so much about this whole idea is by utilizing the hello audio feed, You mentioned this, but I want to reiterate it because I think it’s such an important part of this. But utilizing the Hello Audio feed, your course automatically ends up in the podcast player of their choice, just like any other podcast they listen to.
So it’s a known entity, and there’s not, how do I use Kajabi? How do I use Kartra? Where do I click? It’s just this automatic, oh, I use Apple Podcasts every day to listen to podcasts that I already listen to. This is the same thing. I just. I couldn’t access this until I had that private link, right? And so I love that not only does it make creating the course so much simpler for you, but it also makes accessing and using the course so much simpler for the students.
And so it’s simplified in multiple ways here, which I just, chef’s kiss, so good. What I’m most curious about. Is how does this actually differ? How does an audio only course differ from a
Sara Whittaker: private podcast? Well, it, it doesn’t really, I mean, I think the differentiating factor here is that when we think of private podcasts, we usually think of free, like I mentioned how I’ve created a private podcast before as an, as an audio lead magnet.
So. In that scenario, it’s free content and all they have to give me their email address in order to access that content because it’s still gated. It’s still private, but with the audio course, I’m putting a price tag on it. Instead of giving me their email, they’re giving me money. So I would
Amanda Warfield: say, and almost push back to that, I would say they’re different just in the way that they’re.
What they’re teaching and how they’re teaching, whereas I feel like and correct me if I’m wrong because I haven’t done this personally, but I feel like a lead magnet is going to solve one small problem for sure, yes, versus a course is going to give you all the steps you need to solve a particular problem and.
A lead magnet and a private podcast is going to deep dive into one particular thing versus a deep dive into multiple
Sara Whittaker: particular things. Yes, definitely. And I think we all probably know now as business owners, if you’re signing up for somebody’s lead magnet, you’re going to be sold to you’re going to, they are trying to funnel you into a paid offer, whereas with an audio course.
You are, like you said, getting all of those steps inside of this course and you’ve already purchased it. So you’re not like being sold to throughout that content.
Amanda Warfield: Right. Yeah. That’s so true too. It’s, it’s private podcasts are always going to be used. Up front to sell something to lead into a launch, most likely, which funnily enough, you had mentioned that you lazy launch this, how do you put it?
I would, I would love to hear more about that because I’m always interested in learning new launch strategies. So what exactly do you mean by lazy launch and how did you go about, you mentioned a wait list, but what else went into this launch for
Sara Whittaker: you? Yeah. So I definitely call it a lazy launch, meaning that I just, I feel like when I think about Live launch, you’re thinking of the live webinars and maybe a ton of Facebook ads, like really going all out for this.
I really wanted to experiment and see what I could do without doing those things. And so my main strategies were, um, using my public podcast in the months leading up to. This audio course launch and so what I mean by that is really creating podcast episodes that really poked at the pain points that this audio course was going to solve so, um, and that that went on for, you know, three months or so creating this really intentional content.
So that by the time it came to the live launch, people were very problem aware. And now they know that there’s a solution. If they join this audio course, I created a waitlist. I had my waitlist open probably like two months before I opened doors. And I always, this, I always use a waitlist anytime I launch anything.
And I always tell my waitlist that. If they’re on the wait list, they will get a coupon code that only wait listers will get, and that’s always been super effective for me. I know I’ve heard mixed feelings about the wait list situation. I personally. Love a waitlist. It has worked for me and I will continue using it.
But yeah, really just being like intentional with the pre launch content and utilizing that waitlist. And then I had doors open for, I let them know what coming, what was coming. Like I really built that buzz. People knew what I had created. When doors were going to be open, I ran dynamic ads on my podcast for inviting people to join the wait list.
I ran a dynamic ad one week before doors open, letting people know doors are opening in a week. And then I ran another ad saying, Hey, doors are open this week. They close on this date. And so I used my podcast. I sent out. Daily emails that week. And then I created maybe three Instagram reels and went on my stories and that’s it.
So I use podcast email. and Instagram, which are the three things that I usually focus on. I just want to,
Amanda Warfield: for everyone listening, I just want to point out some of the things that Sarah said that you’ve heard me say over and over again, and I hope that if it hasn’t already stuck, maybe hearing someone else say it will, but she prelaunched for three months, for 12 weeks, which every time I say that, I think people think, you know, I’ve got horns growing out of my head.
12 weeks of prelaunch, of really leaning into what those pain points were. She created the waitlist, which, I’m with you, the waitlist strategy works every single time, but it only works if you prelaunch. Yes. And that’s, I think, where some people, they put a waitlist out, but they’re not actually pre launching, they’re not addressing pain points, and they’re like, well, no one wants it.
Well, you haven’t given them a reason to want to be on the waitlist. Right. Um, and yes, I love the coupon code. Every time I do a waitlist, and I teach this in my launch strategy course, is give them, I open the doors for the waitlist a day early, they get a special coupon code, only good for that first day.
Oh, I like that. And then. And then you get the majority of your sales at the beginning of the launch instead of the end, which just creates a ton of momentum and leads to more sales because you’re able to say, look, all of these people have already signed up this week.
Sara Whittaker: Exactly. That’s what, that’s, what’s always the case for me.
My biggest sales day is always the first day because it’s people on the wait list.
Amanda Warfield: They’re ready. You have prepped them. They’ve heard about this for ages. They’re ready to go and they’re ready to buy in and it doesn’t take much to do that. It just it takes pre launching. But you also mentioned that you were able to launch.
Without this whole entire webinar strategy and all of this extra fluff. And I don’t even think we need to call that lazy launching. That should just be launching. We don’t need these major hype pieces that I feel like so many of the gurus are like, you’ve got to have a webinar or you’ve got to have a challenge or you’ve got to have this, those things are great additions.
But when you’re launching for the first time, they’re not necessary and they’re not always necessary. It’s one of those, if you can fit it in great, but if not, you can have a really successful launch without them. And they’re often just one more thing that you have to coordinate and handle and do. And then there’s all the emails and it’s a lot, but you’re gonna have a super successful launch just with your content and your current audience.
So thank you so much for sharing all the details and just letting everyone kind of have a peek behind the scenes of. What that looked like for you and yeah, just what works for you with your launches in a way that isn’t overwhelming and exhausting and taking up all of your mental time and capacity.
Sara Whittaker: Yes, of course. I love talking about this stuff and I, the other thing that popped into my head when you were asking about pricing and messaging for this, if you are somebody who’s listening and you’re like, I don’t know if my, like what I could price an audio corset. One thing that I really focused on for messaging is thinking about who my audience was, which is probably very similar for a lot of our audiences because everybody’s busy.
People know That they want the transformation that courses offer, but they like a lot of people know that they’re not actually going to complete it. And so sometimes that’s a hesitation when people buy a course. And so I really had that in my mind with my messaging and making it clear that these lessons are going to be bite sized.
They’re going to be tight. They’re going to have action items at the end of them. They’re going to be, you know, short so you can really get through this content. And that was a big piece of my messaging that I think helped with selling the course. Yeah,
Amanda Warfield: absolutely. We, we are all exhausted and burnt out and it’s a lot that, I mean, that’s the entire premise of my membership is, hey, I’m not going to give you a new education every month, you’re going to get new education once a quarter and the rest of the quarter, we’re just focusing on taking action one small step at a time because, you know, we had the whole heyday, what, four years ago with online courses and, yeah, Everyone wanted one.
And now they’re great in theory, but no one gets through them. And we’ve come to realize that. And so it’s, it’s definitely, you know, we have to shift into this mindset of, okay, how do I make things as simple and as easily digestible as possible?
Sara Whittaker: Yes, absolutely. Okay. So you
Amanda Warfield: mentioned that all of your, your course modules end with an action step and we always end chasing simple with an action step.
So I would love to know if you could just give the listeners one action step to take this week to start moving towards being able to create their own audio only course, what would it be?
Sara Whittaker: I think that I would recommend just getting out a piece of paper, or if you prefer, you know, doing things on a Google doc or in your project management tool, and really give yourself 15 minutes and think about if you want to create an audio course, start with the problem that you want to solve for people, and then start listing out the teaching points that will get them that solution.
So you can really start to think about how you can break This course down into bite sized lessons that would be appropriate for an audio course, sometimes just giving yourself those few minutes to do this and doing kind of like a brain dump on paper will help you organize your thoughts and help you really see, Oh, this is something that I could do.
Amanda Warfield: Yes, that moment of, Oh, I actually do know enough to do this. That’s how I felt when I started outlining for the book, because for the longest time it was, I don’t know, do I have enough to say? Like that seems like a big deal. And I know people feel that same way about the course. And the second you start just drafting things out, it’s this light bulb moment of, oh, I do know what I’m talking about.
Yes. I do actually have things to say and I can share this and help other people with it. So I love that as an action step. Thank you, Sarah. Of course. One last thing. I don’t let anyone leave without giving is a book recommendation. So if you could share one book that everyone should read, it can be business, but it can also be fiction or whatever.
Literally anything. What would it be?
Sara Whittaker: Okay. This is one that I can actually answer it. If you had asked me this a year ago, I don’t know that I would have been able to answer it, but I finally joined a book club and we. And it’s gotten me reading again, which has been awesome. So I have lots of books I could recommend.
I think one of my favorites that I’ve read recently is called local woman missing. If you like thrillers, I’m blanking on who the author is. Um, it’s so, so good. And I don’t even want to give anything away, but if you like thrillers, you will love this. Have you read it? I think
Amanda Warfield: so. I’m looking up the local missing, local woman missing.
I’m looking it
Sara Whittaker: up right now, guys, because I know, I have it on my Audible, if I can pull it. Mary Cubica?
Amanda Warfield: Yes, that’s it. We’ll link to it in the show notes, guys.
Sara Whittaker: So good. It had me on the edge of my seat the whole time and I did not predict how it ended. I love
Amanda Warfield: those. Those are, I just love a good twist. And I don’t, my husband’s the kind of person that like has to figure it out before it happens.
And I’m just like blinders on. I don’t want to know. I want the surprise Yes.
Sara Whittaker: So good. Highly recommend. Perfect.
Amanda Warfield: Wonderful. Okay. Well, Sarah, I know that everyone is like, okay. This has been just one of the most informational educational podcast episodes we’ve ever listened to. I need more from Sarah. Where
Sara Whittaker: can they find you?
Yeah, so I make it really easy. I am podcasting for educators everywhere. That’s the name of my podcast. I actually episode 95 on my podcast. I do like a full debrief of this audio course launch with specific numbers and things like that. So if this is something that you’re. Interested in hearing more about check out that episode.
Um, but yeah, that’s my podcast. I’m podcasting for educators on Instagram. That’s my website. My email is Sarah at podcasting for educators. If you have any questions. ,
Amanda Warfield: we will make sure to link to all of that, including that episode in the show notes, guys. So go ahead and head there so you can learn more and connect with Sarah further.
Sarah, thank you so much for being here today.
Sara Whittaker: Thank you. This was so fun.
Amanda Warfield: Thank you so much for joining me here today, friend. You can find this episode show notes as well as all of the resources you need to simplify your marketing over@amandawarfield.com. If you liked what you heard here today, be sure to subscribe to the podcast so that you never miss an episode. And if you could take a moment to leave a rating and review, it would truly mean the world to me.
Ratings and reviews are the number one way that you can support a podcast and ensure that it sticks around for many more episodes to come. I’ll see you next time. Now go out and uncomplicate your marketing and business.
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