Learn about the journey from corporate employee to branding web design small business owner with pricing and marketing expert Clare Fielder in this episode of the LMScast podcast hosted by Chris Badgett of LifterLMS. In this episode Clare and Chris dive into how online course creators can optimize their product offering and marketing message to get more students enrolled in their course programs.
Clare is the creator of ThePistachioClub.com, where she creates child themes and templates for website builders working with WordPress. She mainly works with Divi, so if you’re working with the suite of products from Divi and the Elegant Marketplace, we definitely recommend checking out what Clare has to offer.
Clare has a background as a trolleyologist which is someone who used to analyze trollies. The term comes from a joke in the UK, and it is more of a conversational hook than saying you work as a client director. She would work with analyzing buyer behavior online and in-stores. Now she works as a website designer building templates people can use for their sales funnels.
Building an online course and selling your course is a whole different process. It is important to recognize as a course creators that the finish line is not the launch of the course, but rather it is a continuing process that deals with the idea of following through and modifying your program over time. Developing a marketing strategy and building an effective sales funnel is part of that process.
One thing that is core to creating a great course offering is understanding what your proposition is. Understanding what value you have to offer people and what type of transformation you can deliver is key to communicating effectively in a sales environment. You can also look to competitors in your industry to determine what people are paying for programs like yours.
At ThePistachioClub.com/LifterLMS you can find Clare’s special offering to LifterLMS users. She is also listed on the LifterLMS experts page at LifterLMS.com/Experts if you’d like to check out that page for a freelancer or company to help you out with getting your course up and off the ground. You can also find Clare on social media, such as Facebook.com/ThePistachioClub. She is also on Instagram at @ThePistachioClub.
At LifterLMS.com you can learn more about new developments and how you can 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. Thank you for joining us!
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re a course-creator looking to build more impact, income, and freedom. LMScast is the number one podcast for course-creators just like you. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of the most powerful tool for building, selling, and protecting engaging online courses called LifterLMS. Enjoy the show.
Chris Badgett: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name’s Chris Badgett, and I’m joined by a special guest, Clare Fielder. She’s the Creator of ThePistachioClub.com. Go check that out, and go to thepistachioclub.com/LifterLMS. She’s got some stuff for you there.
Chris Badgett: She is a member of the Divi community. Clare has been working on a Divi child theme for LifterLMS, maybe several of them, so go see what she’s got going on. And she has a really interesting background that we’re going to get into, a lot of experience, corporate experience around sales, customer journeys. But she describes herself as a “trolleyologist.” What is a trolleyologist, Clare? And welcome to the show.
Clare Fielder: Hi. I don’t describe myself as that anymore.
Chris Badgett: Okay.
Clare Fielder: I am a website designer, but no, I used to be a trolleyologist. So trolleyologist is basically somebody who used to analyze trollies. We used to say that in the terms of both online behavior, and also in-store. It comes from a joke. It is a made up word, as you can tell, but there used to be an advert over here in the UK for BT, and the joke was there was this well known woman, and this guy is phoning up his grandmother about having passing some exams, and she went, “You’ve got an -ology. You’ve got an -ology.” And she’s just so excited. He failed all the other exams apart from this one ology. It just was a little bit of a joke over here in the UK.
Clare Fielder: So, rather than saying client director, or very dull stuff, which doesn’t create information flow, when I say I’m a trolleyologist, because when we think about creating conversations with people, it’s really important to put those conversational hooks on, for people to find out more about you.
Clare Fielder: So, it is just analyzing shopping behavior, doing branding, sales, marketing, pricing in corridors. So basically, very big, big companies based in the UK, different regions around the globe, and just helping them make far much more money in both online behaviors and also in-store. That’s the really short answer.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. One of the things that really piqued my interest and why I wanted to get you on the show is you joined the LifterLMS Expert program, which is a group of people that we recommend that have experience with LifterLMS, and have different specialties in terms of the website or marketing and whatnot.
Chris Badgett: I saw an example site you had that had sales pages with it. So, course-creators don’t just want a nice, beautiful website, which you can do, but they also need sales, and they would like to automate some of that process or at least have an intelligent flow of their customer journey.
Chris Badgett: Can you take us to school on a customer journey, and maybe give a lot of examples. We’re talking to course-creators here. So, if I’m teaching something, what do I need to know about the customer journey and how their sales funnels and pages work in that process?
Clare Fielder: That one question I could probably talk about four hours about.
Clare Fielder: So what we think, first of all, the first step is to recognize that you’ve created this amazing thing. And to me, creating a course is such a powerful thing to do, especially nowadays. When we look at our society, we don’t have our elders. We don’t have those pieces of information being passed on to other people. So, when we think about online courses, it really is about people helping other people to become better, to learn something in particular or to take them on a full transitional journey.
Clare Fielder: So, when we’re looking you’ve created this amazing thing, which is fabulous, but to actually get people to buy it is a whole different step. And I think sometimes, it’s what course-creators don’t always think about, because that journey to get to that point of creating it, so much f-ing work that you kind of feel exhausted you now have created this thing and want people to come and buy it. And they kind of miss that element of having a sales funnels, and sales funnels-
Chris Badgett: Can you speak to the part where some course-creators … Yeah, I totally get that. I’m exhausted. I just made the course. And you know what? I’m actually kind of skeptical of sales and marketing, so that’s just not for me. Like, what do you have to say to that person?
Clare Fielder: And that’s fine if that’s what you want to believe, but is that making money in your bank account at the end of the day? No matter where we look at history, people are selling us things, they’re selling us ideologies. They’re selling us buying some milk, but telling us to get your fantastic new piece of technology. But people were selling things, whether it’s themselves or something they want to sell, like a physical product.
Clare Fielder: So, if you just build something, especially in today’s technology and today’s world, who the hell’s going to know about it? If you build it, and you’ve taken it all that time and all that energy, and then nobody consumes that knowledge you have or that insight, you can’t help the people you want to help. You can’t make the impact you want to make.
Clare Fielder: And that is quite sad for me that that kind of knowledge is wasted because you can help so many people with it. So, and I say this so many different things, whatever word is creating a block for you, change that bloody word. If you don’t like sales and marketing, change it to helping people or change it to supporting people. I hate the term trip wire. I hate it. I think it’s a horrible terminology to use as part of a sales funnel. So I call, in my head, I always switch it around and say it’s an offer gate.
Chris Badgett: What’s a better word for lead magnet?
Clare Fielder: It just is what it is. You know what I mean?
Chris Badgett: I don’t have one, I was just curious, because I had the same thing-
Clare Fielder: [crosstalk] in the comments, give us some ideas of something else to call it. Yeah.
Chris Badgett: Words have power and it becomes part of your brand. Some people don’t even call a course a course, they call it a challenge or a program, whatever.
Clare Fielder: Yeah, and that’s fine. It’s about owning what it means to you. So whatever we can get onto many different levels about terminology, and what it could mean and significance for people. But if you don’t like a word, and you’re finding yourself having that resistance to it, just change the word. It doesn’t matter if it makes no sense to anybody else. It doesn’t really matter. Words have power and meaning to us. That’s what’s really super important. Yeah, definitely.
Chris Badgett: Well, let’s let’s go back to the sales funnel. I’m looking at your Sage, that’s a child theme. And I’m looking at you have under sales funnel there’s an evergreen sales funnel, a webinar sales funnel, and then a challenge sales funnel. So, using those examples, what are we doing with those?
Clare Fielder: So it really is depending on … And one thing I’m really passionate about is people understanding, and this comes from [inaudible 00:08:21], is understanding your proposition. So understanding what do you have in your locker that you can offer people? So, even if you’ve created a course that answers the full transformation of somebody, if you’ve got something that’s 20% or 40%, can you create that into a small evergreen course? So, always look about how I can repurpose and use different elements.
Clare Fielder: So, if for example, evergreen is fantastic by definition. They’re just on autopilot. So they really need little input. I’m not saying they need no input, because quite often they need some readjustments along the way.
Clare Fielder: But if you’ve got something that’s quite steady, is a common, quite particular problem that you can solve for people, then an evergreen course is really great for you, because you’re not having that cycle of putting loads of time and energy into having a launch if it’s every quarter or every year or once a year, it’s just creating steady sales for you.
Clare Fielder: But then you have things like video challenges, or webinar series. And that was great again, because it allows you to dive maybe in the more expensive courses that you’re offering with the programs you’re offering. We know how super important video is in today’s society, especially with the scroll feed. That is because it’s an interrupter, and also say videos allow you to really come across as to who you are. Obviously some people fake being on camera and all that sense and stuff, but it allows people to see the whites of your eyes, hears the tone of your voice. And there’s certain people out there I would love to learn from, I can’t stand their bloody accents, though, and that’s just me and that’s my personal thing. It’s like, you are not the person for me, and you’re not going to be for everybody. But there’s one way of giving somebody a little bit of body.
Clare Fielder: So if you can create a video series, where you got like three videos, and each video, which one of those videos, is giving people a little piece of action, then people can see what it really is like to learn from you and implement that. And then when you have things like the challenges, especially on Facebook. We love a five day challenge.
Chris Badgett: Yeah.
Clare Fielder: I don’t think there’s a week when I’m not invited to about 700 of them. We love them, but they are an amazing way. And again, when you think about going down that particular sales funnel route, is thinking about the support you need. So, if you’ve got the pop up Facebook group, that just doesn’t happen by itself. You need people to help you monitor the group, to feed it, to implement it well, it’s not something that just happens on the back of a cigarette packet. You’ve got to plan that out.
Clare Fielder: So it really is about identifying what particular offering you have. What level engagement do you want? Where does it fit into your overall spectrum of products that you are offering? Where does it … There’s so many different elements to think about.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Thank you for sharing that. And I want to go over to your corporate background.
Clare Fielder: Back in the day.
Chris Badgett: I see a lot of value kind of trapped in corporate that doesn’t always get down to small business or what’s called a VSB, a very small business, which could be a solo operator, course-creator. What’s a counterintuitive insight that, if you look at your experience with pricing and customer journeys and trolley-ology and everything, and you look at the very small business course-creator that like, “Oh, I wish I could help this person if they just knew X.” This is like a counterintuitive insight for my corporate experience. Let’s drop a bomb on some people that you’ve got.
Clare Fielder: There is so much information that we have from corporate world that actually is so any. I see so many small businesses apply. Well, I think the key problem I find with small businesses is people not opening up enough to say, “I can’t do everything.” Acknowledging you don’t have to be the expert in everything.
Clare Fielder: When you go from the corporate world into being a solopreneur, you forget that actually you are the [inaudible 00:12:49]. You are that person. You are finance. You are-
Chris Badgett: Sales and marketing.
Clare Fielder: … Yeah, you’re everything. You’re always going to be employee of the month, do you know what I mean? So you’ve got to take all of that type of knowledge. And I think quite often people don’t … Probably because of my background, I used to do quite a few roles and then get promoted pretty quickly. So, that scale go up and down, and seeing this thing from a very helicopter view to such a granular level of implementation and getting people, the soldiers on the ground to actually do the work that we need to go to do, comes very, very natural to me. An I think-
Chris Badgett: So, you can go big picture, and then you can go into implementation mode. But one without the other just makes no sense. And that’s how a lot of people operate.
Clare Fielder: … Yeah, it is, because they’ve not had to challenge themselves to develop that skill set. So for me, when I first started out in corporate, I had such an interesting experience. I had a team where I was part involved in and we had so much freedom, it was beautiful, that we could just go and create products. And because our structure, our reporting structure, was slightly different, all those barriers just weren’t there, and we had such a strong team environment where everybody supported one another.
Clare Fielder: And like I said, I got one particular, so [inaudible] I used to work for Procter Gambler as a consultant and I was speaking to some particular team I always spoke to, and I was like, “Who are they over there?” They would just always sit down. Who are they? Go and chat to them, find out about what the issues are.
Clare Fielder: And I was kind of shocked that they didn’t know some information. I felt geez, if I was in your position, I would want to know that information, that would make my job easier. And so I created a product for them. I just kind of was like well, they need to sort this out.
Clare Fielder: So I created this product, a very big spreadsheet and I went to my boss and went, “These people don’t know this. They need to know this. This is how they’re going to know that, this is going to affect all these other things, can I just sell that to them?”
Clare Fielder: And he’s like, “Yeah, sure. How much are you going to sell it for?” [inaudible] So we’ll just put that in, shall we, and see if they go for it.” And they did. So having that kind of freedom very early on, and I’m talking like 20 years ago, maybe 21, obviously, to do that is remarkable. And then you create this product and it does well, and then it gets rolled out to the whole [inaudible 00:15:36], and then you win a European award for innovation.
Clare Fielder: You’re like, “Well, all right, then.” It took two seconds. No, it didn’t. It takes far more than that. But it’s just that momentary thought you need to help people. And I think especially when you go from being in corporate to being a solo entrepreneur, maybe you’ve not had that freedom before, and you’ve been in that box of confinement about rules and regulations and actually having the ability to just go and create and do something is overwhelming because you’re not used to the processes and thought processes of getting something created and out there.
Chris Badgett: That’s really good stuff. One of the areas where I raise my hand, like I’m not an expert in pricing. I’ve done that for a long time ago, and I’ve gone to really smart people on pricing, who don’t just have ideas, but I’ve seen execute solid pricing strategies and help me think about pricing differently. You threw a term out, just kind of here you go, pricing corridors. That piques my interests. Like, what are you talking about? So, to frame the question-
Clare Fielder: Technically [inaudible] pricing corridor. When we were all in our own world we always used that to [inaudible 00:16:48].
Chris Badgett: Maybe I already know what it is. But I don’t know. The thing is, you the course-creator who’s listening to this or watching LMScast on YouTube. The two questions I get the most are, number one, which theme should I use? And number two … And by the way, go check out Clare’s theme, child theme for DIVY. But number two is, how much do I charge for my course, Chris? So I’m going to take that question I get asked literally on a daily basis, and put it right there over to you, Clare.
Clare Fielder: Well, thank you very much. [inaudible] a wonderful present. So there are a few things to think about when you think about pricing for a product. So one is the internals of your business, but also the externals of the environment you’re in. If we deal with the external stuff fast, then we can talk about the internals.
Clare Fielder: So one is to think about what are the price bounds or price corridors or similar products to you? So what are you offering in your course that somebody’s going to be very similar to?
Clare Fielder: So is it going to be between 100 and 200? Is it going to be the 2,000? Is it going to be the 10,000? Understand what is available in the market at the moment, and just really look at the competition.
Chris Badgett: Like what are people already paying? Is that what you mean? Like what re people already paying for some similar to what I’m making or have made?
Clare Fielder: Yes. So people are always going to do price comparisons. But within that research, within that knowledge that you gain, that insight, then you can understand, is there … We always talk about the blue ocean strategy. Where is the clear water, where’s the clear sky about how are you different? So what is your uniqueness? Is it the way you deliver it? Is it the timeframe and results you’re getting. So understanding the value you offer the end customer, and understanding does that, then, put you in a different price point? Because it may well be, it may not.
Clare Fielder: That’s part of being an entrepreneur is the part that where we have to be realistic and self honest about things. Is it really groundbreaking or is it just being slightly different to somebody else? And that’s absolutely fine. But just understanding, where are you sitting within that framework of what’s being offered for that solution?
Clare Fielder: And the other point I’d probably go back to comes back to the customer journey, is for creating more interest in your course or understanding more about the buyers of your course, is to think about the journey that some of your customers are going to go on.
Clare Fielder: So, for example, if you are sending a course that is aimed at, say, breastfeeding moms, then you are going to have the most simple, plain-speaking language on that sales page you can possibly look at, because they’re probably looking at 3:00 in the morning, bleary eyed. And they just want, you’ve got this problem, they just wants to sort it. And you want them to be able to buy it really simply from you.
Clare Fielder: But it’s understanding the context of your marketplace, but also your consumers. So what are their journeys? What’s their triggers, what’s the parts of their psyche that will take them from, “I’m slightly interested in this thing” or “This is kind of a problem now, and I want to fix it.”
Clare Fielder: If you got like a had a bad night sleep, you’re not going to necessarily think I’m going to have a mattress. I need a new mattress. You’re not going to think that. But you might think, how do I sleep better? How do I get a better nighttime routine? It’s about putting all of that information into your blog post and all those different types of content we create to help people on that journey.
Clare Fielder: So when it comes to pricing internally, you need to start thinking for yourself how much is your time worth? But also, what are the real costs? So, for example, you need to know what your basic cost of for what you’ve created, whether it’s the time you put in, whether it’s different elements with all different technologies, et cetera, et cetera, making sure you’ve factored all of that in. Then understand what value do your customers receive from that transformation. And what evidence do you have to support it?
Clare Fielder: So when somebody comes to a website, they kind of have four different stages they tend to go through. One is about the arrival. I have the problem. I come and see your website. Next is I want information. So what do you do? How are you different? Then they want evidence. They want to know that thing that you did for somebody else, that course transformation you created for somebody else, how do you do that for me? And then the main thing is just buy.
Clare Fielder: So when it comes to pricing, it is a very personal thing. And sounds a bit peculiar, but when we talk about pricing as well, there is a difference between male pricing and female pricing.
Chris Badgett: What is this? Where are we going?
Clare Fielder: Well, again, this is all the internal stuff. For example, you often see … And generalization here. [inaudible] in the comments, generalization. So if a guy says, “This is the price” as a price there’s not a lot of other kind of thinking going on behind it.
Clare Fielder: But often for a female, especially female entrepreneurs, saying this is the price, there is a whole raft of thought processes going on. Am I good enough? Who am I to say this price? What would they think of me if I say this price? And it goes on and on and on and on, there’s a very long list.
Clare Fielder: So there is that part of owning your price. But what I see a lot, I think, within my own little world is people thinking that, “Yes, I’m owning my price. I’m going to say it’s $500. I’s £500. I feel really good about that.” Actually, they’re not backing it up with the delivery that they’re offering. So they’re not backing it up by the support systems, they’re not backing it up by the quality of the videos. They’re not backing it up in all the different ways that makes that course really, actually equate to 500 quids.
Chris Badgett: I think that’s a big problem in our industry. There’s message to market match, which is okay, I sold the big expensive program, but there’s also on the back end, the product and the experience has to also match. It’s got to be full flow.
Clare Fielder: Yeah, it was interesting, a couple days ago I met up with one of my business girlfriends, and we were just generally talking about business. But we came across a term I haven’t used for years, about somebody being client ready. And for me, I guess coming from corporate, you just have a way of dealing with people. [inaudible] I think I’m never going to get rid of it. A way of dealing with people. A way of supporting them in a way that you just process them through the projects or the course, that just gives that air of authority, of knowledge, of being a safe pair of hands. And that’s all you want from the whole course system.
Clare Fielder: And, as somebody who’s done a hell of a lot of courses myself, you can tell the difference to people have just put up a course, and it answers a problem and they don’t want to know anything else about it, to the people that really kind of go the extra mile and want to put in the TLC. And actually, you can tell that you’re being part … And it’s fine to recognize that you’ve being part of the bigger sales funnel, that’s absolutely fine. I love your stuff. Yes, sell me more, I don’t care.
Clare Fielder: But I think quite often people don’t think about the experience for the students. And that experience isn’t just how we learn, and when we think about how we learn, I think it’s like 67% of us are visual learners. But it’s also the different ways that we communicate and learn. So you have people who are the big blue ocean thinking, the people who to like to get down to the granular system. There’s also so many layers when you think about the cultures of learning. So, how we learn in the UK is [inaudible] very different to how you learn in the US or in Canada.
Clare Fielder: And then you think about how we pass on information between different societies. And I was recently looking at [inaudible 00:25:29]. Don’t ask me how I got into these videos, but looking about coming of age, coming of age ceremonies. And we don’t have that many, there’s many of them in many cultures around the world. But the percentage of the population, i.e., the majority of the world, they don’t have that anymore, so that information of elders isn’t being passed on.
Clare Fielder: And so that super fascinating, about how people then interact and learn, especially within our society, that you have an influencer who says, “Hey, this is how you supposed to think. This is what is best to know about this.” But there’s no two-way conversation about understanding your thought processes about that thought and all about that knowledge. And to get more insight to do whatever you want to do.
Chris Badgett: I have to fight myself not to interrupt you because you keep dropping all those gold, but I don’t want to break the flow. So you mentioned some of my favorite words or concepts, which is … And I have, actually, a background in cultural anthropology. So coming of age, rites of passage, elders, and things that go on generationally in culture are some my favorite topics. And I think creating an experience product like you’re talking about, and a company culture or brand, it’s a real thing. And when you pair that with the idea that we have an issue in our society where we have a lot of olders but not a lot of elders, and we are missing the rites of passage that indigenous side societies would have, where people coming of age would go through some kind of experience. And it’s not like they just take a test.
Chris Badgett: There’s like a test and [crosstalk 00:27:12].
Clare Fielder: Really vicious.
Chris Badgett: So, actually thinking about that, I think that’s a really good insight to look at some of those videos, and be like, when we don’t have technology and websites and courses and everything, how do we create? How has the human being? What elements are present without hurting people, which does happen sometime, like where people go and they touch a grizzly bear in, I think it was the Navajo. I can’t remember which. But anyways, it’s more than just content, is what I’m saying.
Clare Fielder: Yeah, and then I think that’s what lots of people … And when you think about what you’re doing yourself as a course-creator, you’re like, I’ve got this information I want to share, and the process of learning how to share it, how to structure a course, how to share information, we can all tell jokes down the pub, absolutely any day that we go [inaudible] but actually getting up on stage and being comedian? Completely different, completely different.
Clare Fielder: That is part of creating a course and sharing information one to one when you’re coaching people, you’re coaching a team or whatever you’re doing, and then actually coaching remotely, maybe just through video, and wanting people to have the same experience to a massive audience, there’s different challenges in that. And I think one of the key things as well, I’d say, is that, especially from that transition of being corporate into the solo entrepreneur world, is there’s many things that you kind of have to make that decision about whether you want to make that step or not.
Clare Fielder: I think one of them, which I don’t think many people talk about very often, is if you are a course-creator, reflect as yourself as a person. How to deal with the concept of being an icon or guru or leader? Do you have kindness in your heart to be able to realize people look up to you, because that’s a particular type of responsibility. And how you then communicate to people and help them on that journey is really, really important, and I don’t think a lot of people talk about that at all.
Chris Badgett: That’s a great insight. And before building LifterLMS, I built sites for the expert industry. My agency did that, and we specialize in online course membership site niche, and that’s where the LifterLMS product came out of, but from then until now, back in my agency days, I started noticing where these experts, and some of them already very successful with live events, and all these other things, and they’re adding courses to the mix. There is this inevitable stall out that happens right before a launch, and I used to not believe it when people said that there is fear of success, I understand fear of failure and fear of success, but what you’re talking about, are you ready to be a guru? Are you ready to be? Not that everybody is going to be as big as Tony Robbins or as big-
Clare Fielder: Yeah, and it’s not even being egotistical, it’s just people looking up to you. That’s the word you want to use, fine.
Chris Badgett: It’s a real thing. I think some of it is subconscious, people are scared, they’re like, I’m going on the record, I’m going on stage, and, yes, I don’t want to fail publicly or whatever, fear of failure, but this fear success thing is real.
Clare Fielder: Absolutely, but there’s many layers to the fear of success, I think what I’m talking about is: “Do you have that personality within yourself to do that, to be somebody who has somebody to look up to them, and to behave in a particular way that is congruent to your morals and who you are in helping people to get to where they want to be?” Are you going to be persuaded by the mix? Latest trend, and move your compass point to something that you’re not comfortable with?
Clare Fielder: The thing is, whenever you speak publicly, wherever you are putting yourself out there, you are catching far more people than you will ever know, especially in British society. We’re not very good at telling people, “Oh, I love that video!” Or, “That was really inspirational.” We don’t do that over here. It’s not the done thing, and they will never change.
Clare Fielder: But, when you are talking, when you are sharing information, you are impacting other people’s lives, and/or their thought processes, and it can be an important thing to do. You are never going to know about that. So, when you are in that space of putting yourself out there, yes, you’re dealing with a lot of internal barriers and going, “I don’t really want to put myself out there. Dear, this was horrible. Why am I doing this?” There’s also about the responsibility, if you are visible, what are you sharing with other people, and how are you helping them properly? I’d say, that’s my viewpoint.
Chris Badgett: I love that. I think having your values and your ethics, this is stuff people should think consciously about and have it be a North Star or a compass as to what, because there’s a big problem in our industry, and the online course, and the LMS industry of overselling and not delivering the value or whatever, you have to have your ethics.
Chris Badgett: And some people even make the argument, going back to our earlier point about, “I’m not really into sales or marketing”, some people make the argument that, if you believe in your product and you can transform somebody’s life in a positive way, you have a moral and ethical obligation to sell. I mean, some people do make that argument.
Clare Fielder: And that’s fine if, you know what, at the end of the day, if it’s not hurting anybody, and it helps them to get out of that barrier, knock yourself out. Do you know what I mean?
Clare Fielder: If it helps change your mindset, to be able to put yourself in that position, we hear stories all the time, and pieces of advice all the time, and we can hear it twenty times, and we are just not ready to hear it. We hear it, but not really hear it. Then somebody will say, “This is wonderful sage piece of advice.” And you’re like, “I’ve never heard before.” And then you go and take action, because that is the point where you’re ready to go and do that.
Clare Fielder: So, yeah, people do have a lot of blocks because you are being visible, you are sharing your business baby, your creation baby with the world and that’s not always an easy thing to do. If you look at a lot of artists, and musicians or writers, expressing what they express, and putting that out in the world or, if you’re an actor, and people criticizing that, it’s not always a great place to be, so I can understand why people do.
Clare Fielder: And sales and marketing too is basically putting yourself out there, and that’s not always easy to do, but it’s good to recognize that, I think.
Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s fantastic. How do people in the UK versus, say, the United States either buy differently, behave differently or respond differently to marketing or whatever?
Clare Fielder: So, yeah. Yes, there’s really quite a few ways. So, from like my corporate knowledge how we buy within supermarkets and all that sort of stuff. Over in the US you can have more extreme versions of couponing, and discounting, your supermarkets assess in a very different way, and you don’t have the breadth and depth of data that we do in the UK. We just, unfortunately, we are like 20 years ahead of you in that respect, because we’re a smaller country, then elements of logistics are slightly different as well, and so does there’s that element to think about as well, but, also as well, I think, I don’t know if I can swear.
Chris Badgett: That’s fine, yeah.
Clare Fielder: But in the UK I think we have quite a high B.S. factor and radar. If somebody is coming across as a bit of an inauthentic so and so, we notice quite quickly, and I think rather than being jollied along as it appears so in the US, we don’t always get on the bandwagon. We tend to enjoy a bit more banter.
Chris Badgett: So, Brits ave a higher B.S. meter, or better B.S. meter, is that what you’re saying?
Clare Fielder: I kind of think so. Or yeah, I kind of think we do.
Chris Badgett: And more skeptical, too.
Clare Fielder: Maybe, yes, and it’s also what is of value to us, is going to be slightly different. So, it’s not necessarily just if you’re British, or if you’re from North America. There are so many cultures over here. We are a complete fruit salad in that way, we treasure the strawberry for being strawberry, and the orange for being the orange, it’s not a melting pot.
Clare Fielder: There’s so many different parts of our society, and we just love all those different cultures, but also the way that we’re educated, which historically, but now it’s changing somewhat, because we love a speaker’s corner. We love a debate. We love to hear open discussion about around topics and when we learn, we tend to ask far more questions than our US counterparts, on general, and I’m sure people will tell me otherwise, and if not that’s absolutely fine.
Clare Fielder: But, we love to talk around subjects, and we’re not afraid to do so, but also, on the whole, quite respectful of people having different opinions, but I think if you look at a couple them, maybe not. But, so how we learn is very different, and I think when you take a US-based course, it’s very much this way or the highway, it’s very formulaic in the way that you’re learning, and there’s no side routes. So, if you don’t like learning that way, if you don’t like that methodology, there’s nothing else to kind of help you along that journey.
Clare Fielder: And I think in the UK, we tend to talk around a subject and tend to give a few more different offerings along the way to help people on that learning journey, I think. But again, I could be wrong. People are probably going to say, “Yeah, that’s not true.”
Clare Fielder: But when we come to buying as well, I think there is that sense of, I guess, when you look at the virtual assistant market, it’s so different in the UK, people are like, “I’m not paying for that.” Or, “I’m not too sure.” It’s like somebody is, paying somebody £30 to do something for you for an hour which I just going to take you five. They don’t see the price value in that.
Clare Fielder: I think over in the US people are like, “Yeah. Hell, just hire it out, that’s what we need.” So, I think there’s that part of that spending, that kind of, old kind of thinking of not wanting to spend money on things, because they don’t see the value, and that’s partly because the UK is behind the US in that kind of terms of thinking of entrepreneurship, and all that great stuff that you guys do over there, and then we learn from you. We don’t quite do it that way, and that would work better over here. We’re five, ten years behind you in that thinking, but the idea of hiring somebody else to help you out is very different, so when we come to pricing as well, and so there’s difference in how we view visually pricing.
Clare Fielder: So, when we view pricing, you need to think about how do your audience read as well. So, are they left to right, or right to left? And so, how you lay out pages and information and different colors that you use, which change all the time, but, different colors you can use to help people visually make an emotional connection, but also a visual connection that they need to take action is quite different as well. I think I’ve gone off topic, sorry.
Chris Badgett: No, that was fantastic. You’ve already given a lot of tips around this topic, but let me set it up. Course-creators, whether they’re doing an evergreen course or a more passive course, one of the things I teach as a model, I just call it Course Plus, where people need more than content to be successful. So, what are you going to add your course? Is there going to be group coaching, or maybe a private coaching up sell that’s really high end and expensive, or mastermind, or social learning communities, or whatever. Other products, software. What?
Clare Fielder: Or retreats, everybody loves a retreat nowadays, don’t they?
Chris Badgett: Yeah, retreats. So, what advice for somebody who’s like, “I want to do premium pricing.” You’ve mentioned be very careful and make sure you deliver the value, but also, if somebody, let’s say, they have that course and it’s valued at, let’s say, 500 bucks, you mentioned that price point earlier, and they want to have a $5000 private coaching up sell. What do they need to do to sell that, and to conceptualize the package?
Clare Fielder: So, that comes back to the point I was making earlier about you have your product range, your product offering, and understanding where everything sits within that.
Clare Fielder: So overall, for the logical point of view, you’re thinking through what are the problems I’m solving I’m for my client, and listing all the different types of pain points they have, and how to take them on that journey, and then how do you package it up there, and which of those elements have features and what are the benefits.
Clare Fielder: So, it’s understanding that all the way through, and obviously you can do the little drops in your view, this is only going to do this path for you, and to get more, but it’s also quite over delivering in a proper, authentic way, not just delivering pricing, getting some decent, some free, cool scripts or whatever, but actually truly over delivering value, and people seeing that, then those course really aren’t difficult, because people already know, they have self-awareness and self analysis that actually I’m ready to go to this level, that’s what I need to. I don’t know how to do that, let me learn from somebody else.
Clare Fielder: And it’s really about the way that you invite people into your world. I mean, we’re all going to have different fans, and even in our friendship groups, you’re known as this type of person or that type of person, and people love you for these types of reasons, and just, kind of be opening your eyes and you go, “I’m not for everybody.” And to transition people from point A to point B, it’s not always about you and your ability to sell, it’s maybe they’re just not ready yet, and I have to say, I’m not a fan of the B.S. like, put on the credit card, and that’s really kind of nasty selling techniques. I’m not a fan of those at all.
Clare Fielder: Generally, if people can’t afford it, they can’t afford it. So, if that is the case, if you’re getting that answer so many times, then what can you sell it, $2099, £3000 mark, is there a halfway point of what products that you can offer to help me to get a little bit more down to that journey, where they need to get to.
Clare Fielder: But I think it’s about people really knowing they could trust you, and being really consistent in what you’re saying, so it goes back to the values of who you are, and what you’re about, but if you’re somebody who’s always changing your mind about something, cool. Offering a course on this this week, and then this that, something else next week, then people aren’t going to be thinking, “Oh, she’s a [inaudible 00:43:37], she really knows what she’s talking about.” Or they’re, No, I can see them as the expert, I can see the journey that they’re going on, because people are always going to be looking at you, and they’re always going to be looking at your journey as well, and what they can learn from it.
Clare Fielder: So, I think it’s really important about knowing what you’re offering to your potential new client for your $5000, but it’s also about what is it of value? They just copy everybody else. Well, I’ll just shove this thing onto the sales page, because everybody has this. If people don’t actually find it of value, no. Stop it. Give them something that is really going to be of value. It’s a bit like me going to go get those gift bags from the conferences you go to. I don’t need another bloody hearing, I’ve got enough. It doesn’t mean anything. So, what are you going to offer that is really of value to them, I’d say.
Chris Badgett: As a small rabbit hole, my thing when I go to conferences, I need to come back with stuff for my kids. So, if they’re giving away, somebody gave away a unicorn stuffed animal thing, I’m like, “Yes, that’s your swag.”
Clare Fielder: You’re [inaudible 00:44:48]. Yeah.
Chris Badgett: I love your point about follow through focus and commitment. To me, that seems like it’s becoming an endangered species, and when people see that, and it doesn’t it’s not even necessarily a conscious thought. Chris has been in here talking for about courses for years, and I’ve been working in the industry for almost a decade. That sends a message just by the fact that you’re focused, and you follow through, and you’re committed, and if you’re like you said, if you could change your avatar or who you serve, what you do and how you do it? If you change all that too much, it creates a dissonance with that.
Clare Fielder: But also, I think people in the scrolling age, we’ve got so many more friends to try and remember what they do. We know one year they’re a coach, next year, I don’t know, they’re whatever. Then you’re not going to recommend them as well. So, that element of word of mouth, by being consistent, by having a great five day challenge, or a video series. People talk about it, because you’ve shown them in a small amount of time a transition of what differently thinking, and they’re like, “I’m going to share this with my friends.” So, you’re really missing out on a valuable piece of marketing, the old fashioned word of mouth. And it’s possible.
Chris Badgett: I have a surprise question for you, it’s just something I’ve observed about corporate people is sometimes they’re really good at frameworks, Venn diagrams, or doing a matrix, and stuff like that, and I think, I don’t know if you’re a framework person or not, but I do see those as being very powerful when you’re teaching in a course, or something like that. I hope I’m not springing on you, but can you talk to me about frameworks, or talk to the course-creators out there about what’s one they should use, or your experience and some tips?
Clare Fielder: Yeah. As I said, lot’s of them-
Chris Badgett: I just want to say, you’re pricing corridor thing was kind of a framework, and I could draw that out, I could diagram what you described to me.
Clare Fielder: … And that’s the point, is most of us are visual learners. We bloody love the diagram. I mean, who doesn’t? I don’t know if you have the book over there, but there’s an amazing book called “Information is Beautiful”.
Chris Badgett: I’ll put that on my list.
Clare Fielder: For somebody like me, it’s kind of infographic porn, I tell you, it’s beautiful. And it allows you to digest information. So, when we’re thinking about a sales funnel, or a course creation, or anything you’re doing in your business, you should be going from point A to point B, and you can do this exactly alone, whatever. Absolutely. But when you are responsible for other people and their learning and they’re taking on board information, you need to structure it from A to B to C to D, to et cetera. You need to structure into small steps. So they don’t get lost, they don’t get fearful, and then you don’t lose them, and obviously you’ve got the refunds and et cetera.
Clare Fielder: I think we’ll say from the corporate perspective, yes, we love structure because when you’re dealing with that mass of people you need structure to do that and you need systems in place so people know what their boundaries are and if you want to break any rule, which is absolutely fine in my book, then you need to know that you’re doing that. You know also what I mean, I think often my previous corporate experience where I could just go and create stuff and then you can’t, it’s like, why can’t I just do that?
Clare Fielder: But it’s also when you’re managing teams, then you’re managing those individuals and you learn social and unique skill. I didn’t have kids myself but as soon as I had kids, that you treat everybody the same but differently. You want them to get to the same point. But one person if you praise them in front of the whole group over your team, they’ll just hate you for it. They’ll be like, “Why the hell did you do that? I’m not speaking to you again.” But other people will relish in it. But it is about understanding. Okay. So if it’s important for them to get recognition, what’s the best approach to do that?
Clare Fielder: I think within the framework of creating a course, is what other macro action points, what’s the macro takeaways that can get people so they can see their progress as well? I think especially the long courses people can think, “I never learn anything,” I’m like, “I’m still where I was.” But you’ve changed so much, but you just don’t recognize it.
Clare Fielder: And I think personally and I’m sure you may disagree on this, but having a really key structure is really important. But also having mindsets at the front of the course as well is super important, especially if you’re changing attitudes, especially if you’re trying to get people to really take a leap of faith in that circumstances. And so I think having really good mindset section at the beginning just allows people to understand these are the boundaries of where we’re going and you might feel uncomfortable, you might resist this change. And that’s absolutely fine. But you allow them to self monitor themselves about what they’re struggling with and where they need help, which helps. They’ll then reach out to you and get better resources and improve the course in a different way as well.
Chris Badgett: Wow. That was great. Clare Fielder, you can find her at thepistachioclub.com//LifterLMS. She’s also in the LifterLMS Experts program. Go check her out. Is there any final words for the people and also anywhere else they can connect with you?
Clare Fielder: They can connect with me anywhere. I tend to be quite friendly. I’m mainly on Facebook. So my business page is the Clare Fielder The Pistachio Club. I’m on Insta, I’m always in Insta, I have to say that. Yeah, there’s so many things to say. But I think we know when we’re talking about, before we know, the question we get asked so many times is people want to create something and they’re in that corporate role and how do they make that transition?
Clare Fielder: So, I think it’s really important to understand your self motivation. Do you start a thing and then stop it? Because if you’re starting a business, if you’re starting a course, that element of keeping that motivation going it’s really important. But also I think it’s really important to do self reflection and know you’re in self reliance on yourself, and if you’ll be able to complete the project with your other hand as well. So, yeah.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. Well, Clare, thank you so much. We’ll have to do this again sometime.
Clare Fielder: I’ve got so much more to talk about.
Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I hope you enjoyed the show. This show was brought to you by LifterLMS, the number one tool for creating, selling, and protecting engaging online courses to help you get more revenue, freedom, and impact in your life. Head on over to LifterLMS.com and get the best gear for your course-creator journey. Let’s build the most engaging results getting courses on the internet.
