Why Every Business Should Offer an Online Course Freebie [Alyssa Marshall Interview]

Why Every Business Should Offer an Online Course Freebie [Alyssa Marshall Interview]
Transcript
What just might be the ultimate lead magnet? An online course.  And it doesn't have to be complex to create either.
Join me for this interview with Alyssa Marshall, co-founder of Owwlish. After 10 years of studying to become and becoming a dentist, Alyssa created her own online course for dentists and then used that custom technology in co-founding Owwlish as a way to help other course creators win at courses.
But her technology is not only for course creators. It's for any business.
As Alyssa explains in this interview, you're missing out if you don't have an online course freebie for your business. We discuss the why of this, but also:
Why online courses will increase your opt-in rate - as a freebie on your website or you can run ads directly to them
How to make your online course quickly
How to use the course to fuel the rest of your business
After listening to this interview you'll never think of online courses as being just for content creators again!
Key Highlights
[03:16] Introduction of Podcast Guest, Alyssa Marshall
[05:53] How Alyssa Got Into Online Course Platform Industry
[11:42] How Did Alyssa Go About Launching Her First Courses
[13:53] Online Courses In A Lead Magnet Perspective
[22:59] The Easiest and Fastest Way to Get An Opt-in Gift for Free
[25:21] How to Use Course to Fuel Your Business
[28:19] How Alyssa Structured Her Platform
[35:49] Learning More About Owwlish
[38:37] How to Get Started in Owwlish
[39:59] Final Advice
[41:21] Connect with Alyssa
Notable Quotes
The advantage of a video course is that you get all of that, in one, it doesn't even have to be that complicated.
But the value you get as a business owner by having an online course opt in, like over like, after a week versus after three months, because you're complicated it your business is going to be at a at a much, much better place. 
Show up and do your thing.
It's super helpful to just gain that likability factor and trust and you have a captive audience that is not distracted with all these other videos on the site or pops up at the end of the video thing. This audience is with you and gaining a quick win while they're with you. And you can lead them to the next logical step, which is to join your coaching program or to purchase your course or whatever it is.
Make sure that you lead into selling, your course is not just going to be about teaching, but the last part should at least introduce selling.
The idea of owlish is that you should be able to have a beautiful looking course, even if you can't code on any page of your website that you say it should live on. 
So really good easy rule of thumb to think about in terms of that is the what is free, the how is paid. So tell them what to do.
So don't complicate this, just give them the watts, it's okay. That way they know you know what you're talking about. And they start to really trust you and think you're a credible source of information.
Guest Links:
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Download My Free Ebooks Here: https://nealschaffer.com/freebies/
Subscribe to my YouTube Channel: https://youtube.com/nealschaffer
All My Podcast Show Notes: https://podcast.nealschaffer.com
Transcript
Neal Schaffer:
0:01
online courses, maybe you've taken one, maybe you're thinking of creating one as a content creator. But let's take a look at online courses as the ultimate lead magnet. Why aren't you providing more education for your customers for your prospects in the form of an online course? We're going to tell you all the details as to the why and how you can easily do this for your business. On the next episode of The your digital marketing coach, podcast, digital social media content influencer marketing, blogging, podcasting, blogging, tick talking LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook, Instagram, YouTube, SEO, SEM, PPC, email marketing, whew. There's a lot to cover. Whether you're a marketing professional entrepreneur, or business owner, you need someone you can rely on for expert advice. Good thing you've got Neil, on your side, because Neal Schaffer is your digital digital marketing marketing coach, helping you grow your business with digital first marketing one episode at a time. This is your digital marketing coach. And this is Neal Schaffer. Hey, everybody, Neal Schaffer here. Welcome to episode number 285. Of the your digital marketing coach podcast. Well, first off my sincere apologies, if you are a regular listener to this podcast, you probably expect episodes to come out every week. And I try my best to do so. But if you haven't heard, there's a lot of stuff going on recently in my world and just in the world in general, as we begin to slowly emerge from this pandemic. For those of you that follow me on LinkedIn, or Instagram or Facebook, I've already talked about this, but I am the busiest that I have been either speaking and or attending conferences since the fall of 2019. So it's been a great thing for my business. I think it's a great thing for all businesses. And man, it's been really hard to keep up with my podcast recording schedule. What this means for you is man, there's a lot to talk about, because between the last time that I recorded an episode, and today, I attended and spoke at Content Marketing World for the first time I attended it for the first time as well. And I just got back from attending Vid Summit for the first time. So there's a lot of great episodes great content to share with you. My mind has just been blown. Over the last two weeks as well as experiences speaking in front of audiences, I did a private training for salespeople in the wealth construction industry, on how to better leverage social media, especially on LinkedIn. And next week, I will be in Santa Clara, California at the Digital Marketing World Forum. Hope to see you there. I'll be speaking on how to leverage the influencer marketing funnel for greater ROI. So anyway, it's been busy times here at Neal Schaffer Incorporated. But today we are going to switch gears as I have a very special guest Alyssa Marshall. Alyssa is founder of owlish. That's, oh, WW. Li sh. And what Alice does is they basically make it easy for you to create an online course and put it anywhere. Now, I know you may be thinking, Well, I'm not a course creator, or this isn't relevant to my business. But I think after you hear Alyssa story, she has a pretty incredible story of originally being a dentist, and then starting with a Facebook group to help other dentists. And then realizing that by creating something online, it can help more people 24/7 And then realizing that there's got to be an easy way to do this. And then voila, you have her company, Alice. But anyway, that's sort of a preview of what we talked about. But I think it just covers a lot of concepts as to how do we, how do we grow an audience and social media grow a community? And then where do we take these people? Next? How do we get them to create a deeper relationship with us using this format, which is the online course. So I'm gonna leave it at that because I really want to make sure that you listen, not just to Alyssa story, but to how this technology can really help. I think anyone listening to this podcast so without further ado, here is my interview with Alisa Marshall of our show. You're listening to your digital marketing coach. This is Neal Schaffer. For Alisa, welcome to the digital marketing coach podcast.
Alyssa Marshall:
Thank you so much for having me, Neal. It's a pleasure.
Neal Schaffer:
5:09
Well, yeah, I'm really excited to have you as well, because we talk a lot about content marketing here. And I'm really passionate about lead magnets. I did a two hour workshop for the American Association of auctioneers on just on lead magnets. Last week in San Diego. auctioneer's. Yes, exactly. Hey, everybody needs the mat. Everybody needs a list, right? That's true. And I'm really excited because I've seen a lot of companies start to do more educational things, not just to build their list, but also to build their community with customers. I know we're going to talk a lot about that today. Before we do, Alisa, I'd love for you to just introduce who you are and how you got to get into this space of online courses.
Alyssa Marshall:
5:53
Yeah, for sure. So, okay, my name is Elissa. I'm the co founder of polish, polish, just spin online course platform that makes it really easy for non technical creators to put up awesome looking online courses on their websites. Regardless of the platform. I did not start here. I am a dentist. I'm actually licenses to two countries, South Korea and the United States. I graduated from South Korea, and then my family circumstances brought me over to the US. And I had to become licensed here again. And I ended up going to UCLA graduated there in 2012. And that process that should have I mean, it sounds like it should be easier. I like a dentist over there, I should be able to be a dentist here. But that was not easy at all. It's very competitive, and really complicated. Lots of steps, and whatnot. So it took me two tries to get in. And the first trial obviously gotten nowhere. The second trial, I got it everywhere. And so like people started to reach out to me for help, right? Like, oh, how did you do this? Like, help me? Can you help me and just it was very organic. But that got me basically to start a business around it. And that business was largely structured around or is still largely stuck around online courses. And I mean, okay, I still do love dentistry. But online courses gave me something that dentistry couldn't write, I have students joining my course when I'm sleeping, whether I'm actively working or not over the holiday season,
Neal Schaffer:
7:21
are these courses for people that want to learn how to become dentists, basically. So they
Alyssa Marshall:
7:25
already have to be dentists. Okay, got it. Okay, from abroad, and not non American dentists. And then if you need to get your, you know, because you have to go back to school for two years, at least most people do. But you're competing against each other. You're not getting into those traditional dental school, let's say spots, you're competing against each other. And it's just so I think still, it's mind boggling how many dentists, international dentists, like have family circumstances that called the US? Sometimes it is just aspirational, right, like they want to move here. And yeah, so I retired as I'm working as a dentist and pursued that full time from when I was 31 years old. And it's I've never looked back, I really love you know, the freedom it gave me and like I can live wherever I wanted to which I absolutely fully took full advantage of before I settled down. I have kids. But But yeah, so I stopped practicing. And I had my dental business. And then that dental business being around online courses is what led me to eventually co found all ish, because of all the frustrations that came with platforms and whatnot. And we can talk about that later.
Neal Schaffer:
8:38
Oh, I definitely want to talk about that. I go deep into marketing technology. But I want to take a step back when you launched this online course. What year was this? And was it free? Or were you charging people like you know, a monthly fee? Or what? What was the business model? Yeah. Okay. So
Alyssa Marshall:
8:52
in 2013 is when it started very early, the very beginning. So there were like a few forums and Facebook groups where my audience congregated, right. And I knew exactly where they were. And now the landscape is very different. I think I've inspired a lot of competitors to pop up to be quite frank. I was like the original like, you know, person, that the whole thing. But back then there was absolutely no help anywhere. So I did charge but I didn't build the course until I sold it first. And like the by selling I mean, I put up a sales page and a landing page. And it was like a video of me talking about what it was going to I what I was going to sell. And I was I had a price tag to it. And I said this is going to start in I think it was like I gave myself six weeks on this date and a new module will be released twice a week. And for how many long and this is this is what I did. But actually before we did the online course route, I did teach live first, okay, and so I got to really learn about their needs and wants and all of this first and then it was like okay, live teaching is fun and all but how do I scale Listen, I mean, this has never been done before. Like, you don't learn how to cut a tooth by watching a video, right, like dental spit, that's dental school and dental school is is a live thing. And so it was that big question mark of Will I be able to teach this online sufficiently? Well, so that they can pick up, let's say, the nuances in little hand techniques, right? Because it's fun, like, if you really think about, like, the best metaphor that I can think of is like teaching somebody how to paint a picture online. Like you just think of it like, Okay, I'm gonna go to a teacher and learn how to do this live. But like, I learned that I could, in fact, do this online. And it just, I could teach a lot more people right and lower my price point and help a lot more people, which I did. But yeah, the way it started was not just by jumping in and saying, I'm going to do this I, I had sufficient time to validate the fact that people actually wanted this, and I pre sold. And then I built the course.
Neal Schaffer:
11:00
It's like a textbook best practice, I'm sure, of course. But let me ask you for those live courses then. So you were you you organically got asked these questions, you began to hang out in areas where these people congregated, and then you sort of longitude. So the live courses were also for fee. Oh, yeah. Yeah. But then you started getting people attending. It's like, okay, this will fly. How then do I scale this? And therefore, the course I'm curious 2013 Because I am someone who's always looked at creating my own online course never did, but I've always looked at the platform. I'm missing out, Neil. I know, I know, I know. You're gonna convince me like, you're gonna get all my listeners. But I'm just curious back in 2013. What tech note, did you end up using like a WordPress plugin approach? Or how did you go about doing it?
Alyssa Marshall:
11:45
Yeah. So oh, gosh, thankfully, for me, my husband is a developer. Okay. And yeah, oh, I would not have been able to do that by myself. It was a WordPress and it still is on WordPress, right. So it's WordPress plugins. And we used so many of them and actually tried to move off of WordPress, too. Because for me, I'm like, I'm an independent woman, like, I want to be able to do things on my own. And I get into the WordPress back end that with, like, the plugin, I'm not gonna name names, but I use all of them. And whichever one we tried, it's just like, the back end becomes a disaster in like, a week or two. And just, I cannot, it just feels like I can't do anything on my own without like going through a developer or like, asking my husband for help. And it's just like, No, I don't want that.
Neal Schaffer:
12:27
I had the concept. For course, I actually hired a guy on up work to put it together and a WordPress plugin, but I couldn't I couldn't own it for that those very same reasons. Exactly. I totally get that. So let's talk about the technology last, because I think that's also going to be a natural lead into your product. But yours is a great case study of it. It wasn't so much a side hustle. But it was a great way to serve people, share your knowledge, charge a little bit of money able to scale it. And here we are today. And well, since you're from Korea, I can say not in my books that I'm me. That's the only time you ever hear me say Korean. I lived in Japan, 15 years, and I speak Chinese as well. And I actually took three months of Korean and did some business trips there. But you know, I can only say a few things. But anyway, before I embarrass myself even further. So online courses, I think a lot of people just think of them as well. This is how I'm gonna monetize my influence. You know, we talk a lot about influencers and stuff on this podcast, but you're saying you're looking at online courses as a way of increasing your opt in rate. So as far as this lead magnet, yes, that you can also run ads directly to them as well and sort of scale. I'd like to sort of uncover what that means. So we have a variety of listeners here. Some are businesses like your dentistry business, some are people that are influencers. So let's let's, you know, take a look at online courses from that lead magnet perspective. And can you share with our audience what you mean by those things?
Alyssa Marshall:
13:53
For sure. So we've all heard the classic adage of like, you need to build your list and you have to own your list and you have to market to your list and all of this right? And what do we do to build the list like the classic recommendation for building the list is to make some kind of lead magnet and usually they it's been told to like make a PDF of something that is valuable, make it valuable, but make it also simple like a checklist or something that they would really want and put up a PDF and then put up a pop up and get your leads that way and then you can email market to them. The thing is how many people like Okay, first, okay, maybe people will opt in, but what is your opt in rate? Is it good? And do you think that if you created a small online course I'm not talking about a big flagship course and giving that away for free? Absolutely not. But if you made a small mini course about something just a few modules, and like a few minutes each have videos, right? But like now, when you're saying this is a get this online course for free, it's just like, oh, because the perceived value of Course is so much higher. So I have this exact experience in my business. In the beginning, I was just doing a PDF as well. And the PDF that I can really talk about in terms of like example, most easily, I think is the most the most common interview mistakes, because like to get into grad school, you have to take in or go through the interviewing process, right? So, and I was told, like, Okay, make the PDF. So I made the PDF, and I and I did get opt ins through it, yes, and I grew my list. But then suddenly, I realized, like, Hey, I have a course on interviewing, it was a flagship course, and I was selling them. And it was selling well, and what that but like, I wanted to have a funnel that would lead them to that course. And I was just like, I think this funnel could be stronger. If I swapped the lead magnet from a PDF, to a course, to a mini course where I where I'm teaching so that they can get a better idea of who I am. And see if they like me. And you know, like they say, you have to create know, like and trust. The advantage of a video course is that you get all of that, in one, it doesn't even have to be that complicated. So I got by swapping that out, my opt in, went up 70%, then from the people that opted in the conversion to the sale went up another 60%. So calculate that that was like a huge aha moment for me like, Oh, I'm selling courses, it makes a lot of sense to just have a little course as a opt in gift instead of doing PDFs.
Neal Schaffer:
16:35
Great advice. Yeah, I actually taught these auctioneers 25 Different lead magnets. But the online course Believe it or not, was one of those 25. And in for me, it's funny, because and I know we're gonna get into technology, but I've had talks and like, you know, the teachable and Thinkific. So I'm sure your competitors, and it's like, how long do I need to make these courses? And I love your answer, which is a few videos a few minutes apiece, we don't we tend to overcomplicate things, and we tend to put up these walls. Oh, gosh, mentally, and I'm sure you've dealt with a lot of people like this, right? So that advice of make it easy. You're just going to give them a little peek as to what it's like, what's your teaching style, like and just give away a little bit, give them an easy win. So you know, how then your online course quickly, I guess we have all the tools we need. We have iPhones, we could shoot videos with. Yeah, we have QuickTime that we can record ourselves with, we have loom is it just a matter of putting together those few things that will drive demand for our product? And then obviously using a platform like yours to get it up there? Is that? Is that really all there is to it? i
Alyssa Marshall:
17:39
Yes. So the short answer to that is absolutely yes, you do not. And you really shouldn't complicate things. I mean, there are so many things that like if you go down the rabbit hole of looking at the best filming gear and like the best mic and you know all of this, like, yeah, it's going to give like 5% better production. But the value you get as a business owner by having an online course opt in, like over like, after a week versus after three months, because you're complicated it your business is going to be at a at a much, much better place. So this is what I say, first of all, just try to make this a weekend project. And if you've been an whatever industry you're in, in business long enough, whatever, whether you're an influencer or a coach, or even if you're selling let's say a physical product, you probably already have content you've written about or created around this topic, right? Grab that first Don't stare at a blank computer screen trying to figure out like, Okay, how do I make a course like just don't do that, just grab those and if it's easier printed out, like have papers around you and be like, Okay, I talked about that over there, and that over there and that over there and let me just bring those as like lessons. And if you have video that you could cut up and just use Okay, go for it. Otherwise, you got your talking points created and if you are the type of person that needs some kind of teleprompter, there are free apps out there that video records and tele prompts you at the same time. It's everything is so easy. The apps have made everything so simple. Just use your phone and your computer and you do not need anything else. Like I have a better mic I'm using my not good mic right now because it broke over. No good last couple days but like like I didn't cancel with Neil because my mic broke like I'm here. You know, so show up and do your thing. So and dig up your old Facebook posts you know, and those still work really well right the long form social media posts, Instagram wherever you posted those long form posts. Those are super value packed and you probably they got like buried underneath your feet. Dig those up and find talking points from there. Don't start at a don't look at a blank screen and Really, for your, for your free course you're looking at a small topic, like if you were to teach this to somebody live, you really should be able to teach it in like 45 minutes to an hour like you are not looking to convey this gigantic big message, it should be something specific, because you want them to have a fast win. And that way they feel good about you because you've already given them a little win. And the last module of your course, or the last lesson should be about your paid course. Like, why they should continue with you further and what your flagship offers are. And I mean, speaking of I even knew of somebody that he had a business where he did not even have his flagship online course, on his website, it wasn't listed, you would only find out about it through his free opt in course,
Neal Schaffer:
20:56
I've seen someone who does it in order. Yeah, you do the free course then only if you go through that you actually get access,
Alyssa Marshall:
21:03
right right now you you are qualified to buy because you did your part of the work. Right. And
Neal Schaffer:
so you're saying 45 minutes to an hour for the free course.
Alyssa Marshall:
21:14
Yeah, yeah, that should all that should be all it takes for let's say, if I'm gonna go through your course, Neil, like I don't, I'm busy. Like, give me a quick win within an hour. Like, I don't want to spend more than that. Right. Nice to have a quick win on my hands.
Neal Schaffer:
21:30
Gotcha. You know, it's funny, you mentioned UCLA. So I actually am teaching my first class at UCLA Extension tonight. Marketing. Yeah, another reason why is a little bit late starting this interview. And it was the first time I've taught at other universities. Usually I just teach a module this time, I had to come up with a course for the class. It's It's ours. And it's the core of it is five hours of just teaching about influencer marketing, I'm thinking in the back of my head. If I ever wanted to create a masterclass, I would probably create a different course. But if I ever wanted to do it, though, that very first hour really sells influencer marketing introduces what I'm going to talk about, and gets people excited enough, that that would probably be the natural thing that I would want to do. And I guess, as I create the courses, I realized there's subtopics, like, okay, there's bullet points for this hour, I want to cover these five or six things, right. And those become modules. So I guess, for everyone listening, it's really a great exercise, whatever, you're an expert in your business sells products around you already have tons of content. I was repurposing blog content, right? I want to talk about FTC influencer guidelines. So I have a blog post about it. I can repurpose that into slides. So once you start to create an outline of what you want to teach, and bullet points for the modules, and then just like, Where would the free end, it's all making sense to me, Alyssa is what I'm saying. So you're, you're doing a really good job. And just as you were speaking, I was thinking of my situation, I gotta follow
Alyssa Marshall:
22:51
up with you make sure you have a free course. But yeah, for people, like, you know, you might already have an online course that you're selling, right. And if you do, the easiest and fastest way for you to get a opt in gift for free, is to just open up one of those lessons for free, you know, and just see how many people opt in and see how that converts for you. And, you know, you can make like a low production course right now. And if it does really well for you, and you realize, like, Okay, this is worth it, then maybe maybe at that point, invest in better lighting, or invest in a better mic or camera and whatever. Think about that later, but just get something out there because it's so it's such a powerful tool to it's so much better than YouTube, like YouTube has like this. Their thing is like, Okay, keep people on their platform, show them another juicy video next and you know, and so it's it's different. Their objectives do not align with yours, your objective is for them to know like and trust you and to ultimately buy whatever it is that you're selling, whether it is like, I don't know, CBD oil or whatever, like and if you're selling physical products, you can like walk them through your production process and show why it is like, you know, your commitment to quality, if you will, because like things like CBD oil, like I've shopped for CBD oil before and it's just like, Can I trust that company? Yeah, I'll say they're wonderful. I know it's not regulated, like who can actually trust. And so like, you know, it's super helpful to just gain that likability factor and trust and you have a captive audience that is not distracted with all these other videos on the site or pops up at the end of the video thing. You might want to watch these other things like no, this audience is with you and gaining a quick win while they're with you. And you can lead them to the next logical step, which is to join your coaching program or to purchase your course or whatever it is.
Neal Schaffer:
24:51
I think there's a lot of perceived value as well in that it's not on YouTube. It isn't a gated community. And hey, this content is not available on my YouTube channel. I would pretty I'd say that at the beginning, yeah, that's a great idea. So I'm curious. So you've made it really easy for us to think about how to create our first course don't overcomplicate it, even if you wanted to buy mics, or I mean, these are like 100 203. I mean, maybe the camera, but outside of that we're not talking a lot of money. So don't over stress itself. I want to ask you that. So we have a course we have the lead magnet, how do we use that course? Now, to fuel the rest of our business? How do we how do we tie it together with everything that we do?
Alyssa Marshall:
25:31
Yes. So Oh, my gosh, once you have a course, like the things that you can imagine is, it's honestly, your imagination is the limit. But I already talked about in the course to make sure that you lead into selling, your course is not just going to be about teaching, but the last part should at least introduce if the word selling doesn't sit well good with you, you have to at least let them know that because if they had a good experience going through this course with you and got value out of this, then they probably are wondering, Okay, what else can I do with you? So introduce them to all the other things that you do? Like, can they do hourly coaching with you can they do a group program with you, whatever it is, let them know. And that Autumn, that's basically a Sales Machine for you, you got a captive audience on the other end, going through that. Or if you want to take it a step further, and you want to put a little bit more money behind it, try sending ads there, instead of sending ads to your, I don't know, sales page, where it's just like, buy this from me, I know you don't know me, but I know you will like this program. But
Neal Schaffer:
if there's a really long Click Funnels landing page, really,
Alyssa Marshall:
26:45
instead of doing that, or I mean, you know, the more savvy even like a low funnel offer or whatever, no, just send them to a free course, where you are going to in that course captivate them, give them a win, and let them know how else they can work with you. And of course, not everybody will do that. But the people that do that, you will see a lot more people converting from that, I think then if you would send them directly to the sales page directly.
Neal Schaffer:
27:12
So I guess Yeah, the natural thing is when you're done, I mean, you're creating an online course as a lead magnet, but you truly want to serve people, and you're helping them you're educating them. So hey, here's how we can continue to serve you, here's how we can continue to help you. We have these products, we have the services. So I guess if we don't need to overthink it, just make it a natural extension. A great way to conclude it. So I now want to get into what we all geek out about which is the technology part. So I think over the years, it's become a lot easier to create online courses. I saw a gentleman named Brendon Burchard, many moons ago, and he was one of Kajabi is earliest, you know, heavy users. And a lot of people use them as this all in one solution. Yeah. And we've also seen the emergence of SaaS platforms like teachable think if ik Podio, there's a host of others. That make it easy, but they have their own complexities as well different than the WordPress complexities, but there's a lot of moving parts there. And it's not necessarily as easy as it sounds. I'm really curious, because hey, listen to this the first time I'm gonna get the deets about Ulisses platform as well, I'm really curious as to how you've structured your platform, different from all those other things I talked about?
Alyssa Marshall:
28:19
Yeah, for sure. Okay. So as a non technical creator, myself, the having to go back and forth with the developer just to make what seems like a little change on my site was, I did not like that feeling at all. And I've looked into the other platforms. And the reason I didn't go with them, is because I had to have a own my own dedicated subdomain, just for my online course. And my business had more complex needs than just that. Like, for instance, I needed my students or clients to be able to book mock interviews, not with just me, but like they needed to be able to choose like an interviewer, right? Like, I have, like, people that I work with, that helped my clients and so they needed to go through their profiles and be like, Okay, I want to work with that person for my mock interview. And then you need to book everything. And then like, the whole entire process of mock interviewing is also not just a back and forth, there needs to be like a structured way of pulling up questions to ask and like notes to type anyway, all this was really complicated. And no other platform could do this. Because, yes, having a subdomain makes it really easy to host a course. But just a course. And that's it. And you're at the end of the day, having to manage your own website and your course website separately. And I did not like that. And so the idea of owlish is that you should be able to have a beautiful looking course, even if you can't code on any page of your website that you say it should live on. And of course, it's gated, right? It's not just like, anybody can find it. No, of course you have to be logged in and all that. But as long as you're logged in, and yeah have access to the course you the Creator should be able to say, Okay, this page is where this course should live, not courses.neal.com. You know, like, it shouldn't be separate. I just really did not like that separation. So that is the biggest differentiating factor, because the only way to do that was WordPress, unless you hard code everything from scratch. WordPress and its plugins are wonderful. If you don't, I'm laughing, because oh, gosh, the complexities of WordPress, it's supposed to be easy. But really, you can't get your WordPress site to look like what you want and do what you want without the help of a developer. If you're not one, if you're not technical, oh, like I've tried to learn it. I know, just, it was just a hard no for me. So as much as as frustrated as I was, I just didn't learn. And I just chose to stay frustrated. But we built another software. So that was the whole thing of polish is that it doesn't matter which platform you use, you just drop a few lines of code inside your header. And it will display the course it basically takes over. And you can design it however you want it. And yeah, you have your coursework where you say should be.
Neal Schaffer:
31:12
So I guess it's sort of like landing page software where you print the landing page outside of your site. And then you have code. So you create the for instance, in WordPress, you create a page, put the shortcode in there, make sure the JavaScript in the header and boom.
Alyssa Marshall:
Why is that? Basically how that is? Exactly? It's Yes.
Neal Schaffer:
Okay. So are you like an iframe window inside the page then or
Alyssa Marshall:
not an iframe. Now we're getting technical.
Neal Schaffer:
Assuming the con, are you consuming the class inside the website?
Alyssa Marshall:
31:42
It's going to be displayed on your website. But not through a iframe. I know we use a different Tech because an iframe could end up with to scroll bars or something. It was just kind of kind of antiquated. It works. But it wasn't as seamless and modern looking as whatever it is that we chose to do. But I'm not the dev.
Neal Schaffer:
32:02
So if I want to do and I'm assuming then that page could include us support like payment? Yeah. Email marketing integrations.
Alyssa Marshall:
32:11
Yes. Yes. Yes. So whatever it is that you do you keep that what we do is put in the course where you say it should be. Okay. Yeah. So right now, we don't have our own payment gateway. But if you have your own payment gateway, and you're selling whatever, like what we do is just okay, here's you want the course here. Here's the course here.
Neal Schaffer:
32:32
Gotcha. So by clicking a button, then the it's going to call the course from your website to my Yes, basically, yes. Okay. But I have to control the payment gateway, and then user access?
Alyssa Marshall:
32:44
Yes, yes. Well, the user access is automatically done with us. So basically, with your payment gateway, we will be communicating with that to be like, okay, this person paid, we give this person access. And so we sync with your user list, so you can control the users inside our app, or from whatever it is that you were using before as well. Okay,
Neal Schaffer:
33:05
and then what are some of the email marketing software that you integrate with just for the listeners?
Alyssa Marshall:
33:12
Um, okay, so email marketing, could we don't like integrate with email marketing? What we just sorry, I guess I should have been more clear, what we do is we just do the books the course part. And so this is not for people that need to have something like all in one, I think that really is more Kajabi, right. Like that really is like your website, your email marketing, like just do this one thing. This polish is for like, I have my site, I have all the moving parts, like I have my email marketing, I have this and I have that. But we will be able to, with a Zapier, talk to your email marketing software to be like, okay, this person is added to the list. That is what we do. But we don't actually have direct integrations at this moment.
Neal Schaffer:
33:57
Gotcha. Which makes a lot of sense because those integrations require support, and everyone uses different email marketing. So Zapier pretty much is the standard. So yeah, the busy on our list. That's where I am creating, uploading the videos and putting the course together. And then payment gateway and you know, a simple landing page on my website. And once people pay, then boom, once they click on the link, they're going to be able to see my course. From your website.
Alyssa Marshall:
34:23
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And like to make sure that it looked good was so important for me,
Neal Schaffer:
because you have a lot of templates that help people make really good looking courses.
Alyssa Marshall:
34:36
So it just looks good from the get go. We hired like a designer that was really mind blowing ly good. He actually works for the Dubai government. Anyway, he does like a bunch of apps. And anyway, he was he's very, very good. And so he did our the whole thing and then with CSS, so like there are like basic controls that you can do without the CSS now allege if you will, right like change and upload whatever's. Or if you can, like, if you want to get in more into the weeds, we have like an advanced setting area where you can like really geek out and change whatever it is that you need. And we are a young company. And so we stay super connected to our creators. And so if you need any help with any tweaking or whatever, just reach out to us, we'll get on a quick call with you, and we'll help you figure it out. We will not like so
Neal Schaffer:
when did when did you guys launch?
Alyssa Marshall:
35:30
Early this year? Right? Oh my gosh, now that you're asking that? I'm not sure? Well, it's
Neal Schaffer:
35:34
2022. So you're less than a year old? Oh, yeah. Yeah. Wow, that's pretty amazing for such a short time. And then are there any other things my listeners should know about your platform, compared to all those other different ways of creating and serving courses?
Alyssa Marshall:
35:49
Yeah. So we really are the place to come to if you don't want a subdomain, if you don't want a separate site, and you don't want to use WordPress is great. But otherwise, it's not. Um, you can upload the videos directly to us. Or you can, you know, if they're hosted on Vimeo already, you can just grab the link there as well. But it's so much easier to utilize an LMS like us, instead of let's say, because technically, you could cobble it together, right? Like, you can put a video on one page, and then you can be like, next lesson, and you can hyperlink it to the next video. And it's really the issue with that is that whenever you need to update your course, you have to update all of it. If you change, if you want to change the lessons around even you have to make sure that everything is still like connected correctly, versus ours, it's just like, you don't have to think about any of that you can drag and drop and change the lessons or the modules around and it will work for you exactly how it is intended. And that is why you would use an LMS versus like trying to hack it together. So don't try to hack it together. And yeah, like if your business has complex needs, it will, it will grow with you. Like whatever needs you are already have. Or even if you have a forum like whatever, like other parts of the business can stay how it is. And you can just put in a course, like it's perfect for this lead magnet thing, you know, like you can just put it on instead of having to be like, Okay, go to that subdomain and login again to be able to access that like, freebie course that you have, like, no, it's on my website, I control the branding, I control the entire experience for the users.
Neal Schaffer:
37:26
Gotcha. Yeah, I know that. That sounds great. So for those listening, I'm already thinking, you know, I'm a ConvertKit user. So you could create a ConvertKit landing page, introducing the course ConvertKit actually has payment processing built in, I have a mastermind where I use something called chargekeep, which I would recommend as well. It's an external one. Not a lot of people know about it. It's a great little great little software, if your email marketing software doesn't support payments. But that's something that easily could be built into ConvertKit landing page, it's free click here, they get the email, and the email has a link to be able to access the course. And it's a free course. So they basically create the user credentials, I'm assuming on your screen, and then away they go. So I can sort of see how it's not that hard to put together. And I know that we talked earlier that you have sort of a special deal. As a way I mean, seen as believing and I think for those that one who really like try it out, and they don't want to get bombarded by corporate salespeople every day asking them like, Hey, are you ready to buy that you have a truly you know, by graders fourth graders product, which I always want to support. So tell us about how our listeners can can get started to try you guys out?
Alyssa Marshall:
38:37
Yeah, so for all of the missed listeners of Neil's podcast, we are going to give you if you so want to two months free for our plan. So all you need to do to get that is to come to owlish.com. And that's two W's o WW. lish.com. Forward slash Neil. And just put in your name and email and you'll get two months for free.
Neal Schaffer:
39:02
That is awesome. Thank you so much. Remember that is I am the real Neil so any al don't don't Starbucks barista error there people know eyes. But K and e l e there. But yeah, you know, I challenge you all, if you've been thinking about like, I have to spend, you know, 60 days and try it out and get something up. And if you need help, I'm sure the outlets are there. If you need help with Well, what lead magnets can I create? That's what my support group, my digital first mastermind group is four. So feel free to check that out at Neal schaffer.com/membership. Alyssa, this has really been awesome. I'm hearing your journey and how you organically created this product. But there's a need in the market. I agree that once you have a subdomain, it's its own little world right? And you really want people to be able to easily navigate between the course and your other products and services right which exactly of them and you can't so any other advice that you can offer our listener about your product or about online courses that we haven't discussed.
Alyssa Marshall:
39:59
Just take Keep It Simple Oh, I do have one little thing that like popped into my mind before. I know some people really struggle with like, Okay, what is free and what content is free or what content is paid. So really good easy rule of thumb to think about in terms of that is the what is free, the how is paid. So tell them what to do. But if you actually want the nitty gritty of how to do it, that's in your flagship paid program, don't give that away for free. So don't complicate this, just give them the watts, it's okay. That way they know you know what you're talking about. And they start to really trust you and think you're a credible source of information. But the how, and you keep alluding to that even in the online, the free course like and in our, whatever course is your name. We talk more about how to do this. But here we're going to talk about what you need to do and you go off right. And so don't just just get going with something
Neal Schaffer:
40:55
that is really great. I'm thinking and that's exactly you know, what is influence marketing, the benefits of influencer marketing, really generating demand for a paid course, which shows them how to do it without giving away the goods in the or without rolling up the kimono as exactly some marketing speakers say. So that's really great advice. Alyssa, thank you so much for your time once again. Where can people go to grab the two months free trial of your software?
Alyssa Marshall:
41:21
That's all a stock calm owlish with two W's forward slash Neal and E A L.
Neal Schaffer:
41:27
O WW, Lis. WW lsh.com. Forward slash na al Alissa, thanks so much. Wish you only the best of luck. And yeah, you will be my accountability partner for my own course. So thank you for well reach out to you. Alright, thank you so much.
Alyssa Marshall:
Thank you for having me.
Neal Schaffer:
41:46
Yeah, that was a really powerful interview. And it's always great to hear the stories, I think, behind the companies behind the product, as we got to do this time and Alyssa. So, you know, I've always looked at creating my own course. It's funny, because I ended up creating a course for UCLA Extension before creating my own online course. So I'm almost there. That was a really, really good exercise for me. But hey, I really hope you enjoyed this episode. If you did, I would be honored. If not only you would hopefully subscribe to this podcast if you haven't already. But if you can go to your favorite podcast, App Player and just, you know, leave a few words, or tag me on social media. I mentioned this a lot. But of all the different content forms, podcasting can be quite well, I don't want to say lonely, but I really did staring at a wall and talking to virtual people that I picture on my wall, which are you, even though a lot of you have never met in person, but hey, it would really mean the world to me. So I'm gonna leave it at that. And eight, wherever you are in the world, I want to remind you to always keep your eye on the goal. And in fact, there is something that I thought of that is even better than that, as I watch my son's soccer games, and as I attend these various conferences, and talk to a lot of marketers and entrepreneurs and influencers, it's really, you know, put yourself in the game, be a resource, right? Be an option. It's like when you're throwing in a ball at a soccer game, show up check in so that you're an option. Because otherwise, if the person throwing in doesn't have the options, you're never going to make a pass and win the game. So be an option. That's what I'm gonna say from now on when to end these podcasts. Be the option get out there part of being the option is actually showing up 80% of success is showing up, show up be the option and you'll reap the results. Or I say you'll reap the benefits. Anyway, I think you know what I mean? All right. This is the longest anything I've ever done. I'll stop here. Hey, until next week, be an option. This is your digital marketing coach Neal Schaffer signing off. You've been listening to your digital marketing coach, questions, comments, requests, links, go to podcast dot Neal schaffer.com. Get the show notes to this and 200 plus podcast episodes, and Neal schaffer.com to tap into the 400 Plus blog posts that Neil has published to support your business. While you're there, check out Neil's Digital First group coaching membership community if you or your business needs a little helping hand. See you next time on your digital marketing coach.
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