Speaker 1: Thanks for watching, and I'll see you in the next video. Hey, hey, good morning. Good morning, and welcome back to episode number, let me see, it's 27. 27 of our VA Mastery Series. I am Jody Marvin, and I am your host every single Wednesday here at 10 a.m. Eastern, right here in the Virtual Assistant Collective group. And as you're rolling in, please say hello and let me know where you're tuning in from. All right. So whether you're joining us here in the live or if you're catching the replay, you know, just or if you're new here, I'm thrilled to have you here. All right. So thank you so much for tuning in. And today we're actually going to be talking about a really crucial aspect of VA work. And that's going to be about creating and managing online courses. All right. So I am just going to come over here and check my messages, see that we are all set to go. And as you can see behind me, I have a different background because I am working on a new office. So very, very excited about that. All right. So here we go again. So I'm just going to remove my stream from the collective group and I am going to actually add it back on and see what happens here. I'm being very, very finicky today again. All right. So it looks like I am good here. All right. So Raga and Ann, if you can see me over on Instagram, would you do me a quick favor? Hi, Raga. I see you over there on Instagram. If you would do me a quick favor and just stream my YouTube video into the group because, again, I did fix my StreamYard connection with the group, but it's just being finicky. I just have a feeling that it's something that Meta has done and it's just they're just not going to let me. It's just not going to work. So that's OK, because you know what? We're just going to keep rolling with the punches here. All right. OK. So, again, today we're going to talk about creating and managing online courses with CRM tools. Now, for those of you who are new here or, you know, or if you're just popping in here and you're already an entrepreneur or you're a virtual assistant, you may have clients that are actually coaches or trainers or, you know, something along that line where they're they're creating courses right as part of their services. So that is why it's so important for me to come on here in the virtual assistant collective and talk about how to, you know, to manage the course, the course creation and the course management and, you know, all of that. OK, so I have three strategies for you today in regards to creating courses and managing those online courses, either for yourself or for the clients that you serve. OK. All right. So the strategy number one is, you know, it's really it's choosing the right platform for course management. OK, because, you know, first of all, choosing that choosing the right platform can really make a huge difference. And there's a lot of great options out there, like there's different platforms like Teachable, there's Kajabi, there's Thinkific. All right. But for me personally, my my journey with CRM was definitely wasn't straightforward. All right. I jumped from one to another. I had four different systems in total in less than a year. And each time really hoping that the next one would would meet my needs and be better and better. Right. And it really was too time consuming and sometimes a really stressful process. So now I actually found one after after CRM hopping for for a year. Right. But I found a platform now that really feels like home for me. It does everything that I need it to do. And as a matter of fact, they're always adding enhancements to it. And I'm always I'm always wowed. There's always a wow factor with them, but it's called Social Connector. And that is my platform, of course, because it definitely integrates all of the tools that I need just in one place. And just it makes my life easier. It makes everything easier to manage, you know, because, you know, anybody got time for, you know, having your having your different systems all in different places. Right. Having them in one place is so helpful. All right. Thank you, Raga, for doing that for me. I appreciate that so much. All right. All right. So Raga is going to get us over into the group with my YouTube link, and I'm going to make sure that I can see my comments over here. Yay. Thank you so much, Raga. I appreciate that. OK, so. Raga, I'm not seeing the stream and I'm not sure why. Maybe it's because I have to. OK. All right. Excellent. So we're going to keep going here. All right. So if I I'm just going to keep checking my comments over in the Facebook group. All right. So so strategy number one is about choosing the right platform. Right. And I just talked to you about how I was CRM hopping for a whole year. Really stressful, especially when you have a lot of contacts, you starting to build your email list and things like that. Right. And sometimes we just have to experiment with different platforms to see which one fits for us the best. And that's OK. Right. But I would recommend if you can find one in the very, very beginning when you're just starting your journey, it can be so much easier than CRM hopping because, you know, it can be stressful to move over into a platform, although it is doable. OK. All right. Especially when you have mentors or like if you have a VA staff or, you know, people on your team that can help you move over. All right. But again, so now I have everything in one place. I just I just absolutely love it. So I'm very, very happy that I finally got to that point because I moved over several times. It was just not a fun process. All right. So as far as choosing the right platform, here's your actual step for today. OK, so just take some time, whether it's today or this week or whenever, just to explore the current the features of the current and current platform if you're on a current platform. OK. And if you're not fully utilizing all the features on that platform, I would, you know, take some time and schedule a learning session for yourself to discover how you can better leverage all of its tools. OK, because you've got to take the time right to to learn how to use it, especially if you have a team. I always recommend that you know how to use it first before you train your team. So, you know, because you need to know how you use it yourself. Right. OK. OK, so that was strategy number one. Strategy number two is all about content development and organization. All right. Because we all know that developing really engaging content is key to success of any online course. Right. If it's not engaging, people aren't going to like it or they're not going to have fun with it. They're not going to finish it. Right. So whether you're using a specialized course, a platform or maybe like an integrated system like Social Connector that I just told you about, organizing that content really effectively is going to be super crucial. OK, so your actual step for strategy number two today and strategy number two again was content development and organization. So the actual step today is to take a few minutes to map out the structure for one of your upcoming courses. OK, or one of your upcoming clients courses. All right. And just start with the course objectives. All right. And then outline all the modules and the lessons. All right. And you can use your platform's content management features to really organize all these these elements. All right. Because these, you know, the course platforms are built for this. Right. They can help you organize that for sure. So just make sure that you're taking care of taking full advantage of, you know, any of those features in your course platform. All right. And strategy number three today is this is kind of one of the most important things. Right. It is marketing your courses. OK, it's all about marketing your courses or your clients courses. Now, you know, and this goes for anything, but effective marketing is is really crucial for for attracting clients and for keeping clients, retaining those clients. Right. So, you know, what another thing that you can do is to just, again, really utilize the built in marketing tools of your course management platform. OK, and that this will help you to reach your audience as well. And this might include things like, you know, email campaigns, social media integration. Right. Like Social Connector has a social planner where you can go in and schedule all your posts and get them all done. So you have to think about it all the time. And also you can offer promotional discounts as well. OK, so your actual step for strategy number three today is to just sit down and create some kind of marketing plan. OK, for whatever your next online course is going to be, or if you say that your client already has their online course, they're just not doing well with it and they're, you know, they're their social media just isn't there. Right. Is to just, you know, outline that that that marketing plan. OK, you know, because it is so helpful. I mean, then rather than just winging it. Right. And so not only create your marketing plan, but try to include at least one promotional activity using the marketing tools that are available on your platform. OK, that could be sending out an email. All right. It could be posting something on social media. All right. As simple as that. Right. Simple steps. But sometimes when you're looking at the overall strategy, you're getting overwhelmed with it. It could be hard, but that's why you got to break it down a little bit. All right. OK. And again, you guys, I'm super sorry about the the streaming issue on into the Facebook group. I'm really just going to have to do something different next week. I thought I had it all figured out and I do not. And that makes me really, really sad because a lot of you are not going to be able to view this live and that's OK. All right. So let's do a quick wrap up. OK. So to wrap up today's discussion, this is what we've covered today. So we have explored selecting the right platform for your needs and just making the most of all the features. Right. Now, a lot of these platforms have tons and tons of features, so it can be overwhelming. So just just try one at a time. Right. Just focus on one at a time and get to know what that feature is. All right. And then move on to the next. The second thing we talked about is we talked about developing and organizing compelling course content. And how can we do that? Well, well, first of all, you need to know your audience. Right. And what they want. Secondly, you can utilize other tools like chat GPT that can really give you some ideas. Now, of course, you want to write it in your own voice. You want to write it with your own knowledge. OK, because you're unique. Right. You're going to be offering your unique your uniqueness. You're going to add your unique flair to to your content. All right. And check out your tool as well, because Social Connector does have an AI tool that can help you create various things in there. So make sure that you're taking a look at that. OK, to help you develop and organize your really compelling course content or your clients course content. And number three, we covered, you know, just effective marketing strategies for your online courses. Getting getting the word out there, because, you know what? Unfortunately, like it was that one movie, Field of Dreams. If you build it, they will come. Yeah. That I wish that I wish that it was that way. Right. Yeah. That doesn't happen. So, you know, make sure that you have a marketing plan and that, you know, you're taking it step by step and and, you know, getting the word out there. OK, so that's it for the three strategies. And I just want to talk to you about, you know, if you have struggled with finding the right CRM and you want a more integrated solution, as I just told you, I totally understand that frustration and transitioning between platforms can really be overwhelming. But, you know, finding the right one can really significantly streamline your operations. And that's what happened with me. All right. The first three that I three or four that I went through. It just it just wasn't working for, you know, what I needed. I just had so many different software subscriptions and it was just it was becoming overwhelming. It was becoming expensive. And I just didn't you know, I needed to look at my overhead and cut some of that overhead. And Social Connector did just that for me because it basically serves as my all in one solution. All right. So so if you are interested in learning more about CRM automation and how Social Connector can serve as your all in one solution, then I want to invite you to come to my upcoming masterclass that I'm holding. It's called CRM Automation, Mastering CRM Automation for Virtual Assistants. OK, it's going to be on September 25th. So we have two more weeks. All right. All right. And it's going to be at 12, 12 noon. All right. And just come at masterclass below for registration details. OK. And we'll we'll put that link right here and in the group if we're streaming into the group. And that is it for today. So thank you so much for tuning in today. And remember to just keep learning, keep growing and, you know, just use the best tools out there that are possible. Right. To build a business that you love from home. All right. Thanks so much, guys. And I will see you next time. Bye.