No matter how engaging courses you build, there always remains room for improvement to help you grow your business. Today’s LMScast episode will feature how to improve online courses that convert with Holly Chantal.
She is a speaker, author, and business integrator at hollychantal.com who loves to help course creators make their courses more polished. In this blog, she will share suggestions to improve online learning or courses for students.
How to Create a Signature Course that Converts?
To build an excellent signature course, you must figure out the target audience’s needs. For example, what solutions they are looking for, their difficulties, etc. After finding out everything, design a course according to their needs.
You must ensure that, with each course, your students develop skills and overcome their problems. So, prepare an ideal system for your business by following these. Now, how to brand your courses and reach more audiences? Keep reading to get your answer.
How do You Brand Courses Online?
Playing branding games is not necessary to sell courses online, as these can also sell through referrals. However, this can indeed offer additional benefits to selling courses online.
Excellent ideas can only discover through experiments. So, you need to experiment again and again to establish a brand.
First, test different prices and check if students are buying courses. Then find out your audience’s problem and offer solutions to those problems on your website. This means to start creating a brand and website thinking about the difficulties your target audiences face.
How to Create a Brand Persona?
A brand persona means giving the brand a face, setting voice and core values for your business. Your brand persona needs to build by focusing on the needs of your targeted audiences. Then, you should do a competitor analysis and list all your power features that your competitors don’t have.
While building a brand persona, course creators predominantly suffer from imposter syndrome due to a lack of confidence. Imposter syndrome means not being confident about products and thinking their products are not good enough to stay in the competitive market.
Therefore, while creating a brand persona, you should try to get rid of this imposter syndrome. This helps you to create a perfect brand persona for your online courses.
Tips to Recover from Burnout for Course Creators
It’s absolutely normal to go through burnout. But, facing continuous burnout is not normal. Besides, it reduces the productivity of course creators, which leads to less valuable courses. Therefore, you should try to recover from burnout to create improved courses that offer high value.
But how? What helps you to recover from burnout? Follow the following tips of Holly Chantal to get over burnout:
- Stop doing lots of things at a time. Minimizing the workload is effective in avoiding burnout or get rid of it.
- Focus on your time management. Must keep room for refreshment.
- Learn to take failure lightly. Build a motto that either you will win or learn.
By building your mindset like this, you can further overcome burnout and improve online education.
Start Improving Online Courses
People are always worried about creating and converting online courses. But, very few consider improving courses to increase sales and profits. However, sometimes course creators want to do it but don’t know how.
If you read till the end, you already get the guide on how to improve online courses. If you need more guidance, you can do a six-figure plateau masterclass of Holly Chantal to learn how to optimize your courses more.
At LifterLMS.com, you can learn more about new developments and how to use LifterLMS to build online courses and membership sites. If you like this episode of LMScast, you can browse more episodes here. Subscribe to our newsletter for updates, developments, and future episodes of LMScast. I’ve got a gift for you over at lifterlms.com/gift. Thank you for joining us!
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re looking to create, launch and scale a high-value online training program, I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of lifter LMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end, I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.
Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast, I’m joined by a special guest, her name is Holly Chantal, that’s at hollychantal.com. We’re gonna get into a bunch of ways to improve your online course or online learning business. Welcome to the show, Holly.
Holly Chantal: Hey, thank you for having me.
Chris Badgett: You see yourself as a business integration Coach? Tell us what that means.
Holly Chantal: So integration is a little it goes a little bit deeper than implementation. So implementation is kind of just the doing of things. And integration is really deeply layering new ideas, new strategies into your business so that you can create the result you want. So the way I work with clients is looking at what their goal is, what their vision is, and then we reverse engineer it. And then move forward with integrating piece by piece. Rather than having a to do list or checklist like it’s, it’s just a little bit deeper, it develops habits and lasting results versus kind of like a flash in the pan, they get one result once and then have to do it again. The way we work is because we put the weave deeply layered and built as we went, whatever result we created can then be repeated and repeated and repeated, because all the systems are there. And they’ve built the habits, the language, everything.
Chris Badgett: So who do you help who’s like your ideal person that you’d love to work with and get great results with?
Holly Chantal: I really love working with coaches, I have always been called Focus coaches when I first started back in 2009. Because they typically have one really interesting story and a really interesting point of view that I like to learn about. And they’re also very mission driven. So I figure if I impact them and help them serve more people, then it’s kind of also increasing my impact. Because I don’t have that wake, huge message or inspiration piece. So I work behind the scene so that they can do what they do best.
Chris Badgett: You’ve got a on your website, the buyers arc Marketing Guide. Tell us about that.
Holly Chantal: Yeah, so the buyers arc is this would be really useful for your course graders, it because it’s really the decision making process that people go through when they’re making a decision to buy a course the coaching program, take out on Friday house anything. And once you understand what that arc looks like, it’s very, we can again, then reverse engineer your marketing campaigns, and your website and any anything that you’re using to sell to satisfy those different points along the arc. So what you’re doing essentially, is just empowering people with the right information at the right times. So they can decide if your course is going to be the best next step for them. And it’s interesting, because the questions people ask themselves aren’t always what you expect or can’t be like they don’t ask the questions. Sometimes they really show up as their fear, anxiety, their own, like emotions, and they don’t realize that they’re actually questions. So, for example, toward the end of the buyers arc when someone’s actually deciding to commit, they’re the things that are holding them back are not typically price. It’s typically is there something I should be doing before this? Is this the best next step for me? Could I do this in a different way? Do I like the approach this person is taking? So they’re asking themselves all of those questions kind of unconsciously. But what they’ll say to you is, I can’t afford it. I need to think about it, those kinds of things. And so that’s why we feel like everything’s revolving around price. But the reality is, if they were completely confident that this is the best next step, this is gonna get them what they want. The price becomes a small, small piece of the puzzle.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. So that’s Hollychantal.com. Go look for the buyers arc there. What else? Like what else I know you do a lot with messaging. Like, where does the messaging work begin? Like for a coach or an expert. That’s alright, I’m moving in this direction. I keep hearing online I need to have my million dollar message or what whatever, like, where does that work begin?
Holly Chantal: So it begins at the beginning. And the, that’s the good news is that like, starting with messaging is going to set you up for success is that like, forever ends
Chris Badgett: Is that like the first step? Like, if we’re gonna do it, I’m called to be a coach, course creator, expert, whatever, I should start with messaging,
Holly Chantal: Right, you can’t just come out and say, I’m a coach, or I’m selling this widget, because no one will listen to you, no one will hear you. Because there’s so many other people in the space that are marketing to them, they sometimes don’t even know what they’re looking for a coach or a course or anything like that. So so it starts in the beginning, really understanding who it is that you’re looking for who those ideal clients are, and then creating messaging around your offer and how it’s how it’s going to take them from the point A of where they are now to the point B of exactly where they want to be. And you’d be surprised. Coaches think that you have to like cram so much into that to create value. If you move them one step closer to their goal, or eliminate one obstacle is highly valuable. And the more specialized and and detailed you can get in that step, it’s going to be easier for them to see that’s the solution. So it’s saying that, you know, it starts in the beginning, but your messaging is a iterative process. So you’re never going to feel satisfied that your message is done, buttoned up, I can move on now. And that’s, that’s something that I think a lot of business owners don’t realize. And they feel like a failure, because they’re like, Well, what I’m doing, I describe it differently every single time or I just feel like I’m constantly figuring things out. And, and the reality is, that’s, that’s the reality of business, because you are consistently, continually growing, evolving, adding skills, adding points of view, getting experience with clients, seeing what challenges they’re having, and your messaging and how you talk about your work evolves at the same time. And the key here is you need to keep your message and your audience match, like they have to stay aligned. Because over time, what will sometimes happen is your offers and what what you’re doing will start outpacing the audience. So the examples you’re giving, the stories that you’re sharing, the topics that you’re talking about, when you started worked out really well, and we’re attracting the right people. But as these of us, you have evolved, if you’re still talking about those same topics, you’re going to attract the audience that’s back here, not the ones that are ready for your services now.
Chris Badgett: Wow, that’s really cool! Is that is that kind of like, if you’re gonna market it to beginners? Let’s say, like, you might actually kind of like your people, and then you move forward with them. And now you’re doing intermediate stuff. Now you’re doing advanced stuff, and you’ve abandoned the beginners? But maybe that’s where all the opportunity is? Or should you track with them? Or tell us more about that? disconnect between audience and message?
Holly Chantal: Yeah, so it’s kind of like what you just said. And, and, and, yeah, so you start, like most people, when they’re starting out, they don’t feel confident enough to work with people that are further along in their journey, even if they themselves have a lot of experience. They haven’t coached before or taking some of your process. So they they’re a little bit hesitant to jump right in. So they’ll start working with people that are more at the beginning stages. And I feel like a good rule of thumb is to target folks that are about two years behind you in your journey. Because that gives you enough experience and lead time essentially solving these problems, that you’re still your message stays relevant. So what happens is, let’s say we’re targeting people that are at the beginning stages of their business. And then you know, a few years later, those people, you the people that you’ve worked with, have evolved, you have evolved, you’ve taken courses, you’ve worked with coaches, you’ve grown your own business, you have a lot more to offer now. But if you’re, you’re and you probably as raised, raise your prices along the way. Now you have more sophisticated services, you’re doing more detailed work, et cetera, et cetera. But if you’re still using the campaigns, the topics, the stories, etc, that you’re using, when you started that speak to the beginners, you’re going to continue to attract people that can’t afford you now. And that’s what I find happens. actually haven’t talked to someone that it hasn’t happened to so I’m gonna say 100% of the time. With a totally made-up statistic, they’re there every coach reaches a point where their business stops growing. And they’re not really sure why they think it’s that they need to market more, they need to bring new strategies in etc etc. So what will happen is they’ll hit this upper limit in their business, and then they’ll hit that element and they’ll actually start, their revenue will start to decline. And then they’ll do a big push, it’ll go back up to that upper limit, and then it’ll start to decline. And you’ll find that I’ve talked to a few people that have gone through this, the find that over the like, two, three years, their, their top line has actually started to decline. And they start to feel like, maybe this was that was it, they got really lucky. And now, you know, maybe I’m not, maybe I’m not supposed to do this anymore, maybe I need to get a job, etc. The problem, most likely, what happened is there’s a message to market match between what you want to be doing even, and the people that you’re currently attracting, so you start to outgrow your business. And if we can bring those things back into alignment, you’ll be back off to the races. Because what you have is still valuable. It’s just there’s a mismatch in how you’re talking about it.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. I know, another way you help people is with like mapping their method of how they solve the problem. And it for course creators and coaches, sometimes it’s called instructional design or teaching methodology or framework, how does? How does an expert, let’s say, who does not have any background in teaching or coaching? I see this as a big blocker for people. How do people like create that method, that signature program method that actually works?
Holly Chantal: Right, so I like that you’re framing this as like coming from like instructional design, because that’s a really smart way to do it. I don’t think a lot of I don’t think everyone thinks of it that way. When most what I have found is that, when most coaches are planning on writing a course, they start thinking about what topics they can write about, and less about the progression of the student. And it’s, it’s really just, they just don’t have experience looking at it that way. So this is where integrated like that layers and integration analogy kind of makes sense. So what you need to keep in mind is, as you are building out your course, is understanding where your student is in their level of knowledge, their experience, et cetera, and then adding one, one layer at a time. So not jumping from topic to topic, so that you have a lot of different topics in your course. But like I said, maybe focusing in on one aspect, and going really deep into that aspect and making sure that they’re developing the skills along with the just the ability to implement. And so when I’m helping my people map out what their method looks like, what we’re looking at is okay, what is the starting point that someone’s at? Like, what? Where are they starting from skills experience? How long have they been? How long? Have they been trying to solve this problem? What if they tried before? What hasn’t worked? Why hasn’t it worked? So we really dig deep into, like, who this program is the best fit for? And then we look at what, where do they want to go. And since you have all that like rich detail in who it is you’re looking for, you know, what they’ve tried before, probably where their their sense of skepticism might be coming from their hesitations. And you also know what they have going for them at that point. So that you can design the course to really satisfy their specific needs. So that so once you have point A and point B, then it’s just a matter of reverse engineering, or like taking that point B and kind of taking steps back and how do we get there? And that becomes the trajectory of your course.
Chris Badgett: All right. When do we integrate in branding, I know you have the branding game. And I see a lot of people start with branding as they understand it with logos and colors and maybe throw up a website but when does branding come into the mix if you could have it your way and had to were able to shape somebody?
Holly Chantal: So it really depends. So I have there’s kind of like two different paths you can go the brand new game is geared towards people that are starting out and they need to get their ducks in a row and build that foundation so that they can have an effective website be able to market and be able to sell. So if you’re starting out so I find that a lot of coaches course graders, they feel like they need a brand, like a website logo and their offer all those things before they feel official enough that they actually have a business and start marketing. So the branding game is really about experimenting with those different pieces and finding where you fit so that you can create a solid foundation to grow from. In ideal world. If I’m working with someone that has an established business. They don’t they might not necessarily have a brand because a lot of coaches work by referral. And it’s when they need to move online and start it expanding their reach that that’s when branding and messaging really become important. Because when you’re working on referral, you have an opportunity to have a two way conversation with whoever’s coming to you. And you can really tailor what you’re saying to that. When you’re marketing online. It’s a one way conversation, you have to make sure that what you’re saying is very intentional about who you want to attract. And so in an ideal world, what I would have a client do is test their course idea with a few hand raiser emails or Facebook posts, just to see test interesting see, you know, is this something is this a viable ideas is what people want, and even start selling it before you read your website, write a sales page, like invest in launching the program, because you get a lot of information when you’re doing that testing about what promises land, what are what hesitations are people coming to you with? You know, does the method is make sense to people? Are they having a lot of questions about it, you get a lot of information that would go into creating the website, the brand, the even naming the program, that kind of thing. And so if you can test and sell before you actually, you know, make it all pretty and packaged, that’s really the ideal.
Chris Badgett: So the branding game on your website is a course is that right?
Holly Chantal: Yes. It has some coaching with me. So I do like bi-weekly q&a calls. But it is a course.
Chris Badgett: I’m just looking at the content is so good. I’m like, well, which one of these are we going to talk about right here? Let’s talk about brand persona a little bit. That’s something that people don’t always think about. Tell us your take on brand persona, what it is and how we should how we can create one?
Holly Chantal: Right. So as generally, we’re starting off as solopreneurs, you are the business. And so your persona really matters in how you’re marketing yourself. And some people are more introverted, some people are just naturally, here I am, I’m going to tell you all about me that kind of thing. So there’s kind of different levels of personality in a business. And the persona, is, we approach it from a couple of different ways. One, we actually approach it in three different ways. I’m gonna give you the second to sorry, caught me off guard of this question I can get I can really nerd out about this stuff. So configurable. The persona is, first, what aspects of your personality come out with different people in your lives, because you’ll notice that you behave differently if you’re with your children, than if you’re with your parents, if you’re with a client versus a CIO, a supervisor, a friend versus a relative, like there’s different aspects of your personality that come out with those different people. And it starts creating this self awareness for how you show up. And then you can make really intentional decisions about how do you want to show up in your business. Because, you know, do I share my political views? Well, it kind of depends on what type of persona you want to create, how do you want people to view your brand? Is your political views important to your clients? If not, then, you know, you don’t have to share those things. And so we look at it from that aspect. And then the other aspect is Archetypes. So there’s 12 different Archetypes. These are based on Jung’s psychology. And I find that the archetype kind of gives you a character to play in your business. And what this does is it drives the graphics and the style of your website, in your logos. If you’re having photos done, it drives the voice that you’re using in your writing, how like, even how you’re dressing and what your headshots look like, like when you know how you want to show up, all of those decisions become very easily and you know what to ask for, which I used to, I stopped my start. When I started my business, I was doing website design. And that was like the number one thing was that people would come and they would have no idea what to ask for. It was just kind of like, I’ll know it when I see it. And we just kind of had to pull rabbits out of a hat. So that’s why I started developing these modules. Actually, that’s what the Beretta game came from, is getting you to a point where it’s like you know exactly what you want, how you want to show up, what to say all of those things so that you can build your website.
Chris Badgett: I just want to list them out. I’ll just pulling up the union archetypes. We’ve got the innocent the sage, the Explorer, the Outlaw, the magician, the hero, the lover, the jester, the everyman, the caregiver, the ruler and the artist. So using one of those as an example, perhaps with you are with one of your clients, like what’s an example of embodying one of these archetypes to really focus our brand persona?
Holly Chantal: So what’s interesting about each archetype is that there is the Attract apart and then there’s the shadow. So innocent as you’re talking, you just kind of like lit up for me. Because innocent is, I find that a lot of a lot of coaches tend to fall into that one naturally. And then we need to massage it a little bit so that they don’t seem to innocent. And the reason is the innocent is the one that is viewing the world through rose colored lens. And they’re so a lot of coaches like they’re so far ahead of their clients, that they’re just talking about this world that where they are, you know, living their best life, they’re energized, they’re so healthy, and vital and vibrant and vigorous, and all these things. And they are very inspirational themselves, but their clients are. They’re not there, it’s like they the coach is the butterfly, and the clients are the caterpillars, and they’re not speaking the same language. So what happens is, is that their clients don’t don’t resonate, because they can’t see what the coach is saying it’s possible. So that’s the shadow is like, you can be inspirational and talk about all the amazing things because you’ve gone through that journey, and you may have helped other people go through that journey. But unless you can put it into Caterpillar speak, they’re gonna think you’re just blowing smoke and making promises when you don’t know their specific situation. And how could you like, how am I supposed to do all those things when I have all these obstacles in front of me. So that’s like, that’s where we have to balance the archetypes. But they can be, they can be really cool. And it’s a neat tool to kind of play with. And I usually find that when people come in, go through the brand new game, a natural archetype just emerges for each of them. And then we get to play it and massage it and just make sure that they’re balancing out that shadow so that they are not, not shooting themselves in the foot and making sure that they’re speaking language that their clients are going to use. So it gives them a guide about how they want to show up. But also, you know, the pieces that they need to use in their messaging to balance it out.
Chris Badgett: Love that. But one more thing before we move off brand persona is a lot of course creators and coaches struggle with impostor syndrome. How can brand persona help us show up better or get through that barrier?
Holly Chantal: So imposter syndrome? Yeah, it’s a it’s a beast. And I feel like it’s something that we we all go through. And so when you are trying to think like, it’s, you don’t want to fake who you are, because then that brings up the imposter syndrome.
Chris Badgett: One quick point, I found it interesting what you said I hadn’t even really thought about it. But even if you’re very authentic, you kind of show up differently to the family, to the friend to the at work. So in some ways, I think that’s part of that story that
Holly Chantal: Right.
Chris Badgett: But it’s not that you’re being an imposter by being more reserved when you’re with family versus your ideal customer or something like that.
Holly Chantal: Right? So tell me how do you define impostor syndrome? I’m turning this around, asking you questions.
Chris Badgett: Mostly, it’s driven by the lack of progress is like the outward expression. And the inward expression is driven by the internal questions that people ask around. Who am I to do this? Will anybody buy my product? Is my programs not good enough, yet? I just doubt that people will respect me or, you know, my, my people, my friends or family will think I’m crazy or something like that. It’s just a it’s a dream of negative self talk.
Holly Chantal: Right. So the way that I combat that myself, and and works with clients is to build a body of evidence that those things aren’t true. So going through the persona exercise, for example, and like you said, how do you show up with different people will start to build a body of evidence that I’m not a complete failure. And people do find what I say is valuable. And, oh, yeah, I’ve helped this person and this is how this is how I did that. This is the role that I played in that journey that they were on. So you, you, it helps you again, self awareness. I’m just, that’s part of my personality. I’m very naturally self aware, to like kind of annoying, annoying degree. But I’m also helping people develop that self awareness because it’s really important as a business owner to be able to look at yourself objectively, without all that negative self talk, and just observe how you work. How you show up. That’s one of the things I’m really good at when we’re We’re looking at people’s methods is oftentimes, because you’re so creative. And because you’ve been working with referrals and kind of working as things come to you, people don’t think that they have a method or a system. They feel like it’s just creative. It’s inspired, it’s in the moment. A very intuitive like they say, that’s the kind of things that they say. And if they if we actually zoom out and look at, okay, the last five clients you’ve worked with, there’s usually a pattern that develops in the way you’re asking questions, what questions you’re asking, what were they, you know, what aspects they struggled with, and those are all things that you can build into your course. And you can start creating a system to like I call it you the method, your magic, you can start putting that system around it, that still allows you to be creative and intuitive and in the moment, but it gives a kind of tangible framework that makes it easier for your client to understand. And again, that’s like that caterpillar and butterfly language. So like second nature to you that when you explain what you’re going to do, makes total sence, but to the caterpillar. They’re not so sure yet. So this kind of that like that, finding the patterns and putting a framework around, it really helps with that. That’s awesome.
Chris Badgett: Let’s talk about brandable names, naming courses, naming coaching programs, choosing our URL, I guess. I see, let’s say How should I phrase this? I see a lot of bad names out there, I see. Where I can’t even I can’t tell or it’s too long, or it doesn’t sound fun or appealing. I don’t know how do we create a brandable? A name that’s going to work? I know there’s a lot that goes into it seems simple, but it’s not. And it’s hard. And I, I’ve created a lot of bad names of things too.
Holly Chantal: When you said let’s talk about brandable names, because naming is like, that’s my like, I hate naming my least favorite thing. But I have like entire modules around naming because, like I said a lot of in order to put something forward, you need to feel confident in things like your name and your logo and your your website. So yeah,
Chris Badgett: I just want to add, once you have your message, like you’re talking about, like it’s kind of the next step, because if you’re going to test the market, you need to invent the product, before it’s created. And you got to kind of have this vision and it needs a name like a person has a name.
Holly Chantal: Right. Now, because that’s exactly what I what I that’s one of the methods that we use. So what the process you just laid out is actually really important to point out that the message becomes before the name, because a lot of folks just try to figure out the name first. Or they’ll come to me like is this a good name? Oh, like depends on what’s in the actual program, or what you’re trying to do. Like, I can’t tell you if it’s a good name or not. So your name needs to be fun, it needs to have some kind of outcome attached to it needs to be clear, like what it is, to a point because you have to keep in mind that a name on its own is very rarely used. There’s usually a lot of context around it. So that’s why you find people using they use the acronym for the program. And because there’s been so marketing, so much marketing around it. People would like are indoctrinated into using that acronym. So the name matters less like Product Launch Formula. No one says Product Launch Formula. Everyone says PLF. Because there’s been so much marketing around it. And so much context built around it that the name is actually less important. It’s more content that people are focused on.
Chris Badgett: There’s a funny thing there too. I even hear people talking about the modules within the course by like the like PLC one or whatever. Like it’s crazy, but it makes sense. Sorry, go ahead.
Holly Chantal: Yeah, it’s like a whole other it’s like you learn a language. So one of the things like I can’t tell you how to name your course, because that would be like a whole, like, hour long thing on its own. But what I can tell you is you were saying kind of like a person like he needs a name. There’s a there’s a little test that I use with clients with their names. We call it the backdoor test. So I read I saw a video or read something once that, that when they were trying to name their child, they went outside and they yelled the name 100 times because they wanted to envision themselves yelling to this child this name, and they wanted to know if it would annoy them ever. I thought that was perfect. I was like that’s amazing. So your course say it on its own. Say it in a sentence like does it make sense? If you’re writing an email and like As the name of the course, do stumble over it when you’re reading, does it work in a sentence? Or does it like, sometimes people use? I don’t have a good. A good example. I don’t want to like bash someone’s name on. They use a word like tenses of words that don’t really go together. Oh, yeah. Or like, they’ll use the same tense word again and again, like continuing communicating program. And it’s like, oh, like, am I continuing communicating program? Like, that doesn’t make sense. But, so you need to make sure that the words make sense in a sentence. The other thing is, sometimes acronyms work. Sometimes they don’t. So I try to keep the names as short as possible. So like my programs are map your message Trailblazers collective, a brand new game, like they’re short.
Chris Badgett: Those are all the names, by the way, what makes them good, like maybe tell us a story of of one of those examples? Because I think they’re all just great.
Holly Chantal: So yeah, they all came from very different places. The branding game has a really funny story. Because it’s based on Candyland. Which is like my favorite game when I was a kid. And I have this just really, I was having a conversation with my mentor, who was Michael Porter, who I mentor I could afford at the time. He’s still Michael Porter. He was my mentor at the time. And he was talking about, I should have lollipops in my brand, like it was just this complete random conversation we were having. And I was like, it’s really stupid at the time. But afterwards, I was thinking it was like, You know what, what if I did this theme around Candyland. So I went to my business partner at the time was like, I have this crazy idea. I think we should create this program based on Candyland. And he was like I’m in so we called it brandy land. What else? Yeah, no, not good. So brandy land is a website for people who really like brandy, and actually have a problem with brand. Like, okay, maybe not. So that’s where we came up with the branding game. And so it, it just kind of came out organically. And what’s really funny is that I’ve wanted to change the name of that program for so long, because it’s from my old brand. And it doesn’t really fit what I’m doing now. haven’t been able to come up with another name for it. It’s just kind of stuck.
Chris Badgett: One of the things I like about it, I heard this concept like a decade ago, this term called wallet closing words. So in your your messaging, your copywriting. And so calling a course like a game is like, that sounds fun. That’s like the opposite of a wallet closing word. Like some people say the word school may have a negative connotation, or it might feel like a lot of work, or it might bring up past memories or whatever. Yep. And I like what you have another one, though. It’s the collective right. Trailblazers collective Yep. And I love Trailblazer. And I like being with like, a collective of cool people. It just works, you know. So
Holly Chantal: It was called the trailblazers collaborative. This is where naming does make does matter. It’s called the trailblazers collaborative. And the biggest objection I was getting was, what if I don’t want to work with other people? There you go there and I was like, but that’s not what we’re doing. So I changed it to the collective. And now I don’t get that objection anymore.
Chris Badgett: You have a gorgeous like website, and just your own branding, and everything is just so good. Like, how does one get to this point? I know some people are good artists. So I’m gonna we’re gonna hire it out. So you didn’t do all this by yourself?
Holly Chantal: No, I did the layout and I built the site myself, just because I’m a kind of a control freak with my own stuff. But I had an artist that did the art and he’s he’s amazing. He actually does work for Starbucks and a couple other brands. But
Chris Badgett: When you say Did did the art you have like photographs you have like these cool drawings like what was the art?
Holly Chantal: So I hired him because my old brand DeLanda friend I was going to that was all cartoon, it was all drawn are all illustrations. And my the partner that did that we parted ways. He retired for design, he’s doing something else now. So I needed an artist to upgrade that branch. When I was working with this guy though, we decided alright, you know what, let’s get let go of the later brand and brand me is probably shouldn’t help. But I hired him because I was looking for an illustrator. So I went on what’s the website Upwork. I found them on Upwork I just went found illustrators found someone that I liked the style of and that’s how I started the conversation. And so he developed the plan for that photo shoot. So all of this behind me He he put together a concept for all of this and had like he like photoshopped a picture together. This is what your office needs to look like he picked out my paint.
Chris Badgett: Well, I actually I noticed that I actually noticed that I don’t, you can’t see my office right now. But it’s literally the colors of my brand, like each wall is different colors stuff. I was like, I bet she’s living inside her brand too.
Holly Chantal: I am. So yeah, he designed my office he, I have a peach wall over there, that some of my photos are against a peach wall, which apparently is really hard to photos. But my photographer did amazing. So he planned all of that out and sent me basically a brand sheet that said, you know, this is the style, these are the types of photos, etc. And then he thought chose the fonts. And then I basically gave him a wireframe of, okay, here’s what I need. And he just created certain images. So he did that banner, he did most of the banners at the top, and then that geographic graph, that geometric pattern. That’s my geomet. Like he made that custom for me. And I have a couple of different versions of that. And that’s really, that’s really all that went into the branding is the photos, the geometric pattern, the fonts and the colors. And everything else is just colors, like, you’ll notice like the boxes on the homepage are just solid, solid colors. So there’s actually no graphics there. The illustrations are there. Because he did like logos for each of my programs. But there’s very few graphics that had to be done.
Chris Badgett: That’s cool. Can you give us a sense of how much working with the illustrator like that costs are like your price range or something? If somebody’s like, hey, I want that, like what should they be thinking of?
Holly Chantal: It really It depends. So he was $75 an hour. And I think I think the logo ended up being around 2500. And I, so I did like three different logos with him. Because we did the we did three different brands, who did me the brand new game and the trailblazers collective. And so I think it was around $10,000 For three brands, including the website, graphics, etc. So if you’re doing just one brand, it would be less than that. I also have a designer that I work with that did the page for the branding game, and trailblazers collective. So if you look at those, they have kind of a different look and feel. It’s because it’s a different designer. But she laid out, I think it was like 20 pages of copy, like in a Word document, it was insane. She laid it out beautifully. I’ve cut it down since then. But that, you know, you can find good designers for I think she’s like she does VIP days in there about $3,000 for a VIP day, what’s a VIP day. So it’s like eight hours of design work. So she can do probably like half a website. So if you’re gonna do a whole website, I’d plan like two VIP days like $6,000. But she’s really, really good. And I’m happy to share her information. She’s Mesa
Chris Badgett: Is that something a VIP day that you’re present with a designer or they’re just doing they’re just giving you dedicated focus?
Holly Chantal: I’m finding that a lot of designers are doing, like their design work, like they have you batch everything. And then they just devote a whole day to your project. And basically what they’re doing is just checking in on certain things like the top of the page, she’s like, does this look good? Am I on the right track, because she just want to finish the rest of the page if like, there’s something wrong with the colors or fonts, etc. So I think she just was checking in, like a couple times throughout the day just to see like how things were going and making sure that it was on track. So that’s fine. A lot of designers do it that way. And I really like it because it’s not like this long drawn out process. It’s like just done
Chris Badgett: That was cool. I find that interesting. The like gets setting up the office like was part of the project was they suggest that or you suggest that you suggested that?
Holly Chantal: He suggested that. Because apparently I have terrible taste.
Chris Badgett: Hey, everybody, at some point realizes like everybody thinks you’re a good designer, whatever. I’m sure I’m sure you’re above average and most but I had that realization myself. And I know what that feels like.
Holly Chantal: Yeah, I’m not I’m not I will not I will say I am not an interior designer. My office is the most put together room in the house if that, if that helps.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Well, I want to dig back into your, your, your program, what’s the message to market audit? So I guess that’s where for somebody that’s already moving and struggling or or hit a wall?
Holly Chantal: Yeah. So audits can be used in a couple different ways. Sometimes it’s things aren’t working. Tell me what Tell me tell me what’s going on. Like I’m doing all the things I’m marketing, I’m sending emails, but I’m still not getting the number of leads. I know I could be. So in that case, we audit for that message to market match. And I’ll point out these are all the points that you’re losing people or you know, if we just change these words, you’ll change your results. And then sometimes it’s just someone wants to know how they can improve. So I do a lot of webinar. Like funnel audits where someone’s running a webinar, but there might not be getting, like the numbers that they know they could be. So just audit that one funnel. And I’m finding that people get about a 300% conversion, like upping their conversion by 300% After the audit. So there’s really kind of like you can’t see your own stuff because you’re so close to it. Just having an objective I come in and just look at the messaging and how everything’s structured and fresh eyes. Like as I kind of look at, like, the buyers aren’t like, we’re kind of looking through that, that mindset and that point of view, I can kind of see what people are thinking at different points and what questions they’re asking that aren’t being answered. That could make a big difference in conversion.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. What um, I’m on your six figure plateau. masterclass what, what is the what does the six figure plateau? Like? What what causes people to get stuck there? And first of all, it’s great to celebrate that. I mean, hey, what an achievement. But sometimes people want to go a lot further. why don’t why don’t people stall out at six figures?
Holly Chantal: Yeah, so the six figure plateau is conceptually it’s about you, when you start your business, six figures is the goal, right? But then you find you get there, and it’s like, okay, should it be smooth sailing that right? And it’s not. Because like I said, your business is going to continue to be an iterative process, you’re going to outgrow things, things are going to change, the markets gonna change, you have to continually adapt. So the six year plateau is where someone has hit that stagnation point, that upper limit that I was talking about earlier, I find a six figure plateau is kind of like a fun name, like it rolls off the tongue and people get it, but I find that it sometimes it happens around $50,000, not even six figures. So it can happen at any point, that you just hit this plateau where you can’t take on any more clients, you try to raise your prices, but people then are saying they can’t afford it and your leads dry up, you might try to go from one on one to groups to start creating more leverage for yourself. But you’re finding you’re putting so much work into filling that group that has actually dollars for hours less than if you were to book someone one on one. So there’s just all these different levels of complexity that come up when you start when you reach your upper limit, and you start trying to figure out how do I break through that next level. So that’s why I traded, I created the trailblazers collective, because that’s a longer term program where we find your message to Market Match upfront and create your messaging, and your website, copy and like all those pieces. And then we end like that’s the integration part, we integrate over 612 months, so that you can dial the messaging and further, make sure that everything’s getting implemented, you’re developing new habits, we deal with all the mindset stuff that comes up as you’re breaking into that next level. So it’s a really holistic, completely integrated program.
Chris Badgett: Where do people kind of get stuck? The most Do you think with in terms of not, you know, kind of being having a fully integrated, you know, expert coach type business, like what what is the most common missing pieces or lack of connection, that’s that shouldn’t be there that’s holding them back.
Holly Chantal: There, I would say there’s there’s two, but then they really go down to one. So mindset is probably one of the biggest things like you are your own worst enemy. And why I say like, there’s two and it kind of goes down to one. Because because the second one is when you’re trying when you want to do something different, and kind of take that next level, or you’ll continually get in your own way. So you’ll have other ideas that take you off track. And you will unconsciously procrastinate, because you’re not really sure where to start. So you’ll start working on what feels urgent, and what is going to give you a win right now because this other piece is so like that new thing you don’t know if it’s going to work. It’s a lot of work to put together. I might as well just stay where I am. So that’s where the upper limit stays. But it comes down to one because that’s all mindset, like and that’s why privilege was selected. Like that’s my favorite program. Like if I could just do that all day. I love it. So it’s me and I have a partner who is a communications and human behavior expert. So she is really good at finding those blocks for like, we observe you basically as you’re implementing, you’re coming out of the calls and we’re finding that we’re identifying different patterns and then she helps people. Once we identify the patterns, she helps offer alternatives and ways to overcome it. And then I’m working on the like strategic piece just making sure that it’s not just their mindset that’s holding them back that actually you know the strategy sound this messaging sound there’s filling up the way they want to be those kinds of things.
Chris Badgett: How about avoiding burnout or overcoming it?
Holly Chantal: Yeah, I’ve been there. Three kids.
Chris Badgett: I just find like coaches and people that want to serve and help people and create impact in the world, and also build business, they’re prone to burnout. So like, how do we..
Holly Chantal: Yeah, I mean, there’s so many different things that lead to burnout. And it definitely impacts you, because a lot of times, it really comes down to one thing, and in the big scheme of things, it’s reacting versus responding, versus being in command. So there’s like three different levels. And my point is, I want to give credit where credit’s due Michelle, my partner, she’s one that teaches this piece. So I’m going to speak her words for a moment. So Michelle Quinn, she’s the one that teaches us concepts. So when you, when you’re in business, and you have emails coming in, and you have family to take care of, and you have just always all these demands on your time. You feel like when you start, it’s like you’re reacting to things. You’re constantly putting out fires, you’re responding, you’re reacting to what’s in the what’s in your email, how your numbers were this month, how do I get more clients because I need to pay the bills, and it’s all reactive. And it’s all like, happening to you. The next step is, we get you to a place where you can respond to those things. So giving yourself enough breathing room, to be able to make thought out decisions that aren’t just in the moment and going to create more problems later. But because you have an outside perspective, or because you have made certain choices in your business, you have that that space to really start making intentional choices. And sometimes that has to do with how you’re structuring your time. What you’re saying yes to with clients, so setting expectations and boundaries with it during the sales process, not just with your clients, but during the sales process makes a huge difference. Because that’s where the burnout happens. It’s like you can’t keep up with all the demands. But if the demands weren’t there, you can keep up with them. And some of those demands are not always, not always necessary. So for example, one of our trailblazers, he just week after week was not getting the pieces done that he wanted to for his business. And he kept saying, it’s so important to me that I get this piece done. Like, this is my goal. This is my dream I want it was a webinar, I need this webinar done so that I can start marketing it. And so I asked him, Okay, what is getting in the way? Like, why? What’s going on? How are you scheduling your time, because he kept saying, I’m scheduling time to do, et cetera. So he was doing the most productive time of his day he was giving to his clients, because he wanted to be on for them and give them the best service, etc, which makes complete sense. Until I asked him when you’re working with clients, does it matter if you’re tired? Do you like most coaches, they turn it on when they’re on the phone with a client no matter where they are during the day. And he’s like, Yeah, you’re right. Like, I could do them in the afternoon and be completely energized and fine, because it’s completely different doing client work than it is doing your work. So we just had him flip flop his schedule. So now his most productive time was spent on his projects, which are harder to execute. And then his afternoon time, when he’s feeling a little bit more lagged, he devoted to clients gave them the exact same experience they would have had already. But now he was getting his stuff done. So just those kinds of things. In that case, he was reacting to, like, the perception that his clients needed a certain aspect of him and they in it and he didn’t like once he took a step back, he can make a more intentional choice. So the third level is being in complete command. So that’s where you have orchestrated your life, your business, your clients everything so that you aren’t, oh, my audio go out?
Chris Badgett: No, you’re fine.
Holly Chantal: Okay, went out of my ear. So now you’ve orchestrated your business, your life, everything so that you’re more in a director role. Rather than being in the weeds all the time, it doesn’t mean you don’t sometimes end up in the weeds, like if a lot of calamity happens at once. But in general, you’re able to handle the day to day and you’ve designed thanks so that you don’t feel burned out. You’re giving everyone the attention they need and you find yourself in a place of balance.
Chris Badgett: Wow, that’s really cool. Any just kind of tactical tip on how to transcend up to the command level. Like what was the big driver for you to feel more in command as opposed to reactive?
Holly Chantal: Yeah, So for me, this was back in 2017, that I hit my low, where I was completely burned out. Because I had a… So my son, my second son was just under a year. And I had and then my older son was three. So I had like a toddler and a baby. And a business. Yeah. And I was, I was putting way too much pressure on myself because I, I, you know, foolishly went to the expectation of when I had kids, my business wouldn’t change, like it still have my goals, I’d still do everything I was doing, I found very quickly when I had my first son that that was not the case. And basically fought that for the first few years. And that’s why I’m burning myself out. So the this is where it’s hard to recognize for yourself. But like when you’re feeling that burned out, something’s got to give. And so that was when I actually started working with with Michelle myself, to work on those aspects and helping me kind of manage all of the demands on my time and expectations of myself expectations from others, those kinds of things, and really just restructured not just my business, because that part I was actually pretty good at I’m good at restructuring and redoing offers and like changing my business model. And that’s like, that’s why I help other people do that. Because integration like that’s, that’s what it is, like you’re making those changes. But the mindset aspect was really, really important to understand how I was communicating to myself. So all that self talk, the expectations that I was setting with clients, and how that could be creating some of that reactivity. And if I just shifted some of the onboarding, or how the sales cycle was working, to set those expectations up front that I wouldn’t, I would have less problems. So there’s like all these like subtle nuances that when they all add up, really creates a lot of space for yourself. So now, I work 20 hours a week, four hour days. And back then I was doing that too, but it was painful. Now it’s very easy. It’s like I have plenty of time, because I’m not biting off more than I can chew. And I know what my limitations are. And now I have three kids. And you know, one of them just turned two yesterday. So it’s it’s something that once you have it into place, it can grow with you, and really changes how your business looks like in a lot of different ways.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. That’s Holly Chantel. That’s Hollychantal.com. Go check out the buyers arc over there. Any final words for the people or other ways they can connect with you?
Holly Chantal: Yeah, so I’m so glad everyone was listening. I hope you got something out of it today. And yeah, the buyers arc is a really cool place to start if you’re looking at wanting to sell higher ticket offers, if you find yourself reaching that upper limit. If you’re having a hard time selling your courses. In that PDF that you can download, there’s exercises, questions, we ask yourself at each stage examples of what type of content belong at each stage. So that’s basically all the things you would need to kind of get started with implementing.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. Well, thanks so much for coming on the show. You’ve dropped so many words of wisdom and sharing your experience and everything really appreciate it.
Holly Chantal: Thank you. This is a lot of fun. We should do it again sometime.
Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at lifter lms.com forward slash gift. Go to lifter lms.com forward slash gift. Keep learning. Keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.
