Podcast: Play in new window | Download
Subscribe: RSS
Premium Podcast: (Protected Content)
On today’s podcast we help Flip Your Life Community member Tim Madison turn his web development skills into an online membership. We also show How to Start a Successful Youtube Channel! Tim is just starting out but he’s already built a website and starting to create courses for his future members. He’s a little unclear about who he’s going to serve. Shane helps Tim answer some important questions that anyone can ask when starting an online business. Shane helps Tim find a great domain name for his membership site and teaches him how to start a successful YouTube channel!
What You’ll Learn:
- Why you shouldn’t be building someone else’s dream. (10:00)
-
What is your value proposition going to be? (17:15)
-
How to make your next steps. (37:30)
Tim’s Story…
Tim Madison works as a full-time web developer and has been doing that for a little more than 10 years. He always knew he wanted to be an entrepreneur – trying freelance web development, making mobile apps, but none of the things he tried worked out quite right. Making money online make sense because after all – he lives online.
That’s when he ran across the Flipped Lifestyle Podcast! After listening to us, he decided to teach what he knew. Of course there are other people teaching web development online – but Tim can offer what the others aren’t. What aren’t they doing? Offering constant and community through a membership model!
Tim is actually very happy working the web development company he is with now. It’s ironically one of the reasons he wants to get into online business. Previously, he worked for a company that went bankrupt and had been in business as long as 50 years. But while working for that company he was miserable in that corporate setting. Luckily, about a month after leaving is when he started working for the company he is at now. While he loves the job he is at now – he has realized that he doesn’t want to build somebody else’s dream anymore.
Building someone else’s dream.
Even if you’re in a dream job it’s still somebody else’s dream! What’s worse? Who’s to say that it always be that awesome boss, the company won’t get bought out, what if people leave and the culture changes? Look at the COVID-19 pandemic: jobs are booming replaceable, positions reduced.
I’m not one to say, “I told you so” but I’ve been saying this forever. I’ve had jobs in the past that were bulletproof. I was a tenured school teacher – unless you break the law you’re untouchable. Even at that – I worked at a school where they consolidated and it erased tenure and just like that my job disappeared. Now people are really seeing how jobs that are “recession-proof” don’t exist. The only thing that is “recession-proof” is you rolling up your sleeves and taking care of yourself! We have seen this is in our own business first-hand. We have positioned ourselves to help people be self-sufficient. And, because of our businesses and because of that we actually grew during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Ex. Teachers might not be in the classroom and don’t need lesson plans but they still have to teach. Maybe they are uploading them into Google Classroom and other things so we started making adjustments. So, we changed things around and loosened our license so that we could offer things for Google Classroom. We were there to support them as they learned how to teach from home.
We just pivoted – when you have your own business you get to make that call! At least have a side hustle like Tim with your own membership site. That’s what online businesses buy you – freedom. You don’t have massive over-head, you don’t have to worry about your store-front being closed down, you have total control to pivot and move!
What is your value proposition going to be?
What are you going to offer people? Right now Tim is just getting started which is a great time for us to talk! Tim:
- Doesn’t have an email list yet.
- Is not using WordPress or Kajabi.
- Is a web-developer so he is building everything from scratch.
- Plans to show people that he can teach them anything they see on his site or in the membership area.
- Has built a custom membership area.
- Has built a custom forum.
- Has tarted recording the lessons.
Those lessons are going to be extensive because he is going to be teaching the basics and foundational aspects before he goes into more complex things like Javascript. His plan right now is that when he launches this he eventually wants to not just teach next-level courses but get to teach masterclasses using the same skills they learned to teach mobile app creation. He basically wants to get them into more advanced applications of what he’s teaching.
Right now Tim’s ideas sound really wide. That’s fine. A lot of people do that and throw mud on the wall to see what sticks. There are three really important questions here that we have to stop and ask:
- “What do you want?” This is the first thing anybody starting out has to identify. What you do you actually want this to be. I don’t think Tim has started off knowing exactly what it needs to be. He knows all the things he can do.
Does Tim want this to be a place to build websites? Mobile apps? What does he want his community to look like? What does he want to talk about every day? We have to narrow things down a little bit. Tim believes that this is not actually broad. Ex. Tim is building a mobile app for his current job but he is doing it with web development technology. So, the same stuff that he would teach someone to put a website up is the same knowledge he would use to more advanced things. There are a lot of sites online teaching people what they need to build a website but they don’t take people to the next step. It’s “here’s your skills go out there and get a good job.” Tim’s approach would be that his membership would teach them but a big part of it would be how to help them get a job using it. He wants to teach people how to correctly structure their resume to get attention for whatever position or place they are applying at.
We now need to turn his “what you want” into a “so that” statement. What he really wants is to help new programmers get a job. He wants to go to that next level. He wants o teach them how to do everything correctly – but also how to turn it into a life. His statement is, “I’m Tim. I help people use web tools for web development so that they can get a good job.” Everybody needs a “so that” statement. The first part is what you teach. The second part is the result.
- “Who is the person you serve?” What os your avatar? What is your demographic? Who do you want to serve with your “so that” statement?
Does Tim want to target young, broke people coming out of a joke of a college program? This was a tough question for Tim. He had thought about wanting to teach anybody that wants to know web development. He realizes the people that are going to come to him are likely people who for them this isn’t their first job. These are people looking for something “recession proof” that they could do.
We need to be super clear on this. Have you taken our Avatar course inside the Flip Your Life Blueprint yet? We have to narrow everything down – just not this very second. This question is critical because it will guide everything you do form here forward. Every decision you make will be based on your avatar. I’ve got some ideas for this one. One idea here is failed freelancers which happens way more often than you think it does. People try freelancing but then they don’t feel comfortable with self-promoting doing cold calls, people have the hustle but not the skill-set. It could be an interesting place to explore because what we’re looking for is people who have already made the decision to become a better coder so that they can go to an employer or company and get a job.
What we don’t want Tim to get into is convincing people that they need to get into coding because they can get a good job. You don’t ever want to educate people about the industry. Tim wants people who wants to learn how to code to give themselves a better opportunity. That starts defining who your avatar is, it sets a boundary. Now they find Tim and Tim will walk them through A to Z.
- “What does our product look like?” For Tim he believes his product would be tiered. 1) Learning the basics. 2) Have the resources to take that knowledge further.
Right now Tim is working on courses that would allow him to teach people enough coding and CSS to get them a job in about 90 days. His product, his membership is no longer “how to learn coding.” It’s now “I’m going to make you a job-ready web developer in 90 days.” The hook or the reason they would become a forever customer is “when you get your job, I’m your secret. Anything you still don’t know how to do, I’m going to be here for you.” This will keep paying month after month and year after year. Now we’ve turned courses into a membership. It would be a great idea for Tim to offer certificates and permission to use him as a reference if they finish the courses.
Your next steps.
Building out the website and courses are not going to be a problem. The biggest problem for Tim is getting his focus back on content. How are we going to build an audience? How do we get people to follow you? Tim’s biggest concern is making himself stand out.
People log into Facebook and Google every single day. That is a train that is not coming off the tracks anytime soon. However, I think the best thing for Tim might be YouTube because he is going to be doing a lot of screen sharing which is what YouTube is all about. He can still make himself stand out in this space on YouTube even though there are a lot of web developers on YouTube. He could talk to HR directors on what they look for in a web developer, he could talk to CEOs (everybody uses YouTube). Tim just needs to create the content for YouTube because that is where his content would most likely be searched.
Use keyword research to your advantage. In Tim’s case he wants to rank for YouTube but this doesn’t just have to be for YouTube. Your wording plays a huge part in being found in searches and by the right people. Ex. Tim searched for “how to create a website.” There were over 100,000 searches a month for it but those searches could be from anybody. It could be someone that wants to blog but not necessarily become a web developer. Let’s switch the search to “how to become a web developer.” “Web development tutorial” has 42,000 searches – that is much more on par with Tim’s avatar. (VidIQ is great for this)! Your keywords you use on YouTube will also help you get found on all search engines!
Leave a Reply