In this episode of LMScast Chris Badgett talks with Ali Mathis about technology partnership and the LifterLMS done for you set up service that has been re-released. They discuss what the LifterLMS Done For You set up service is, as well as confusion some customers in the past have had with terms used in course development.
The LifterLMS Done For You service was created by LifterLMS to help the person who is an expert in their own field, but they need technology assistance with building their course. Ali and Chris talk about what they have seen with the Done For You service and how going with the Done For You set up service can have a lot of benefits.
Many companies try to do everything themselves, because they think it will save money. But as Ali discusses, the hidden cost of creating your course alone is your time. Time is money, so it may be more effective for you or your business to sign up for the Done For You service and let the experts who have course design down to a science handle it.
Another benefit to using the LifterLMS Done For You set up service is the people who will be making your course are professionals that have done this before. So they have learned how to avoid the classic mistakes most first-time course creators usually make. Ali also makes the great point that as the content creator, you should focus on creating the content and ironing out the details rather than spinning your wheels putting together the website.
Chris and Ali talk about the difference between demo content and the teacher’s content. They also discuss the difference between content and design.
To learn more about technology partnership and the LifterLMS Done For You set up service, you can visit lifterlms.com/dfy
You can post comments and subscribe to our newsletter for updates, developments, and future episodes of LMScast. Thank you for joining us.
Episode Transcript
Chris Badgett: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. My name is Chris Badgett, and I’m joined by Ali Mathis. Today we’re getting into some exciting news about the re-release of the LifterLMS Done For You set up service. Thanks for coming on the show, Ali.
Ali Mathis: Thanks for having me, Chris. Good to be here. Hi, Everyone.
Chris Badgett: We got a lot of feedback around our Done For You services, and part of what it was is that we weren’t communicating as well as we could about what all was inside of it. So we spent a bunch of time recrafting the messaging, the pricing, and none of that changed. What we did is were just trying to better illustrate what you get when you get the LifterLMS Done For You set up service, which isn’t for everybody. There’s a lot of do-it-yourselfers out there. There’s a lot of people that are hiring their own agency to do a bunch of custom development and extend LifterLMS into interesting places.
But the LifterLMS Done For You set up service is for that person out there who is really just wanting to be the expert to do their piece, but they can’t do it all. They want to have a technology partner to help them on the journey. They want to get it set up fast, and they want to avoid the classic mistakes and leverage the benefits of working with the same team that makes the product – LifterLMS – and have that same team set up the service for them and launch in as little as two weeks. That’s what it’s all about.
Ali and I wanted to get in with you, and explain what we’ve seen and how going with the Done For You Set Up Service can have a lot of benefits, and the first one being just that speed to market of five to 10 business days, depending upon which of the packages you select … Launching quickly can have a lot of benefits, but tell us, Ali, what are some opportunity costs that people … What are you missing out on if you’re trying to do it all yourself and taking a long time? Like, what might be the hidden costs?
Ali Mathis: Well, one thing that I’ve seen in some of our clients is that they think that they can, maybe not necessarily save time, but save money by trying to do something themselves. When you don’t let an expert do it and you try to take it on yourself, while it can be a good personal learning and personal growth opportunity, sometimes it takes a lot longer for things to get done or it doesn’t work exactly right. Ultimately, I think we’re all very busy and your time is valuable.
I know it’s a cliché, but time is money, so the time that you spend fiddling around with things yourself when we could have the site up and running is time that really not only costs you your own money in terms of time, but you could be making money and getting a return on your investment from your website because we have it down to a science, and we have it perfected and we can just get it up for you in five to 10 days, depending on the level of the package that you need.
Chris Badgett: Absolutely. Yeah, having the team that built the product do it for you and save you all that time can be really critical. Like Ali said, it’s an investment, and our goal is always 10 times value, so whatever you invest in your set up service or if you’re a do-it-yourselfer and you’re just getting the software, we want you to see those returns. We’ve designed LifterLMS to be a publishing tool for building an online education platform that can create real results, impact and income in the world. In the beginning you do need to go through some investments, some startup costs, and if you’re going to have another team do it and do it quickly, there is an investment there. Our goal is to be a technology partner with you so that you can earn back that investment as quickly as possible.
The other thing, not only can going through the Done For You Set Up Service get your platform up fast, you can also avoid a lot of the classic mistakes that come with doing it yourself. Part of doing anything yourself, as we all know since we’re interested in things like education and learning, is that there’s a lot of mistakes. The very first time I built a website a decade ago I made a lot of mistakes. I can do it much, much, much faster now.
This ties into our earlier point about speed to market and how quickly are you going to start earning your investment back when you’re making some mistakes? Nobody is going to make less mistakes than the company that actually built the product. What are some mistakes that you see people making out there, Ali, who are perhaps trying to do it themselves when they do have the resources to invest in a team, but they just haven’t made that switch in their mind about partnering with a technology partner?
Ali Mathis: This isn’t a specific mistake, more as I guess an overall comment that you, you the customer out there, are the expert in your field and you have a vast knowledge base to share, which is why you’re putting together an online course platform, whereas we are technology experts. You should really be spending more of your energy finalizing and refining the details of your course in your area of expertise, and not worrying about the technical details or getting bogged down in terms of just wasting time or spinning your wheels by building your website when we could be doing that.
Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. If you want to find out more about this Done For You Set Up Service, you can just go to lifterlms.com/dfy. That stands for Done For You. You can also find the Done For You Set Up Service in the store. We have a little quote generator that you can select the type of things you want done, and it’s going to give you an exact price and the package for that. When you invest in that, you’re going to be … the stop watch has started and once we get everything we need from you so that we can get on the scene and do what we got to do, it’s anywhere from one to two weeks, and you’re up and running.
Ali Mathis: I think one thing, Chris, I know that you and I worked on a lot when we were pulling the service together is really listening to customers and their requirements. You know, I’m not interested in selling somebody a product that they don’t need, so that’s why we offer four different sort of levels that are tailored to your budget and your technological needs.
Chris Badgett: Absolutely. This is a big decision. It’s a big investment. If you need to have an email conversation or anyone to jump on a call, we have ways to do that. You can find all that at lifterlms.com. Really just I’d encourage you to take a step back and think about your project. As I’ve said many times on this podcast, there’s four things that you need to be successful. First, you need expertise. Second, you need community. Third, you need instructional design or the ability to teach and package your course. The fourth is the online course delivery system, the technology part. It’s very rare that one person can do all those things, so I would encourage you to consider, if you have the means and the resources, to have us just step on the gas pedal for you as a technology partner to get your learning platform launched as soon as possible.
Ali Mathis: Chris, one thing before we go that I think would be helpful would be maybe for you to go over the difference or for us to talk about, to help clarify, what demo content is versus people’s own content because that’s a question that we seem to get a lot in terms of different package levels.
Chris Badgett: Absolutely. In the web world, demo content it’s basically like placeholder content. It’s images, it’s text, it’s videos, it’s badges. When we get into e-learning and online courses, it’s certificates. It’s LifterLMS engagement emails that have stuff in there. It’s just not your stuff. It’s not your pictures, your courses, your lessons, but what that does is, it’s like going to a neighborhood, if you’re looking at real estate, and you go to the spec home. You can see, oh, okay, there’s a couch here. This is what the kitchen layout is. But this is not my stuff. This is just some demonstration stuff.
There’s really two reasons that people go with demo content instead of having us at LifterLMS install your content. That is, one is price. It’s more time intensive on our part to gather all your course materials and platform materials, and install and configure all that. Also, some people just preferred, instead of just … if you were to just buy the LifterLMS software tools, it’s like showing up on a piece of lawn with a bunch of stacks of wood and bricks and everything, and you have to put it together.
In this case, somebody just wants, “Well, just set it up for me. I know it’s not my stuff and it’s a little bit cheaper, and I’m going to come behind you, and I’m going to replace your paint with my paint. I’m going to put my course image where yours was. Now I know where that goes. Oh, I see you have these sample engagement emails. I’m going to go in there, but I’m going to reword the wording so that sounds like it’s coming from me, and I’m talking about the things I want to be talking about.”
That’s why people use demo content. Or if you really … you’re already … you’ve got your course material together and you’re not really using the demo to save money or as a starting point for your course, you might want to just really step on the gas pedal and have us install your content, and in the very act of us collecting it all for you, it’s going to ensure that you’ve thought of everything and have all the pieces you need to make a successful platform.
Ali Mathis: One confusion that I hear a lot is the difference between design and content. I think we should just clarify that all four levels of the package do include configuring, and styling the launchpad theme to match the basic colors of your logo and your color palette. You can give us a design reference to work with. That’s included in every level package.
Chris Badgett: Yeah, absolutely. Design is really important and that’s another reason to leverage the ability of the professionals out there. You may have a logo, you may have a color palette, but even if you just have a logo and you have some design references of sites that you like from a design perspective, that’s all we need to take those design cues and implement that on your learning platform. Design is really important, but just like going to some college dorm rooms versus that same person, when perhaps they’re a little older, you can see how the design changes over time or how the ability to appreciate good design changes. It’s good to work with a design professional, so that’s another important part of the package as well.
Ali Mathis: If you head on over to the lifterlms.com store, which is underneath the Ad-ons item on our main menu there, you can actually click on the Done For You product and see the difference in what each package includes.
Chris Badgett: Yeah. Just to give the listener just a little more like, “Well, what is it going to look like?” go look at the LifterLMS demo and see what that looks like. Just realize that those same tools can be configured to a very different design and made to look completely different based on your design preferences or your content and that sort of thing, so just to give you an idea of what type of platform it is that you can get through the Done For You Set Up Service.
Ali Mathis: Definitely.
Chris Badgett: Awesome. Well, thank you, guys, for checking another episode of LMScast. Go find us at lifterlms.com if you have any questions about the Done For You set up service, and let’s build great online learning experiences together.
