Bryan McAnulty [00:00:00]:

If you've ever felt like your circumstances make it difficult to run a business on a normal schedule, you'll wanna hear what Lisa Leitner has to share. When Lisa realized the unpredictable schedule she'd need to have in order to care for her family would mean that it'd be difficult to maintain a normal job, she decided to start her own business helping other parents who had children with disabilities. After working with clients 1 on 1, she began to scale her impact using online courses and has been consistently building an audience in her niche. Today, she's an award winning special education advocate and has a blog that receives half a 1000000 views every single month.

Lisa Lightner [00:00:31]:

I am able to have a unique and personal voice and that I work for me, and the only person I really answer to is me and, of course, the customers who pay me. But I don't I don't work for a big agency. I don't have I'm not restricted by things I wanna say or things I wanna do in in a field that is pretty, you know, it's contentious, it's adversarial, there's a lot of opinions, but I can be me. And that's, you know, that's really the the greatest part of it is that I can be me and, I don't have to be the other people.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:02]:

Welcome to the creator's adventure where we interview creators from around the world hearing their stories about growing a business. Hey, everyone. I'm Brian McAnulty, the founder of Heights Platform. Let's get into it. Hey, everyone. We're here today with Lisa Leitner. She is a parent and award winning special education advocate living in Southeastern Pennsylvania. Her website, a day in our shoes, offers IEP tips and ideas for parents and teachers.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:34]:

She also provides special education advocacy training for those who wish to be parent advocates, and she hosts a free online forum for parents and school staff where every question is answered by an IEP advocate. Welcome to the show.

Lisa Lightner [00:01:50]:

Thanks. Thanks for having me.

Bryan McAnulty [00:01:52]:

Yeah. I'm excited to talk with you today. I'm also proud to be able to say that you've been a Hice platform customer for more than 4 years now. But I don't know you too well. So I'm excited to, to get to know you a little bit better here.

Lisa Lightner [00:02:06]:

Yeah. I actually bought the I bought it prior like, when it was really just an idea rolling around in my head, I bought it and just kind of shelved it for a little bit. So I don't think my course is I think my course has been on there maybe 3 years, but I was kind of poking around looking at things and and evaluating it before I really jumped in.

Bryan McAnulty [00:02:24]:

Cool. Alright. Well, my first question for you is, what is the biggest thing that he did over your are doing that has helped you to achieve the freedom to do what you enjoy?

Lisa Lightner [00:02:35]:

I I think it's really just, you know, just transforming my business. I started out as a one on one advocate, and I still work as a one on one advocate for families, in person, locally, obviously. But just transforming it to a mostly online business, which really had to take place. My son's health isn't great, and as such, you know, we have a lot of doctor's appointments. He misses school often, and things like that. And so, 2 times in my regular career, you know, when I was working out of the home prior to 2010, I had the the talk with my supervisors about how much time I was taking off. Right? Like, we know America isn't so family friendly to working moms and especially when your child has disabilities. So at 2 different jobs, it was, you know, hey.

Lisa Lightner [00:03:24]:

Do Do you need to take FMLA and things like that? So, you know, transformed it to an online business where I really can make my own hours and, you know, record the course sessions ahead of time and things like that. And and, you know, I might be recording things on Heights, you know, at 10 o'clock at night because that's just the the time I got that day. So, you know, really just having the freedom to to have an online business that works around my family's needs and my family's schedule.

Bryan McAnulty [00:03:55]:

Yeah. That's awesome. I think, even, like, I guess everyone listening to this is pretty much more trying to be entrepreneurs. But even if you're not, like, being able to have, like, a remote position where the company is, like, more, receptive to that, which is still hard to find even though there's so many more remote jobs now. I think it's so important because, like, for my schedule, like, there's things that a normal 9 to 5, like, it it just wouldn't work even with my schedule. It feels it feels so forced and and would throw things out of whack. Yeah. But, so, like, I find myself I I get more done in the morning before my my daughter wakes up.

Bryan McAnulty [00:04:35]:

And then in the evenings, I feel like I I'm also really productive. I tend to, like, wanna go out or do errands or or whatever in in the afternoon. But, like, if I had a normal, job, that would not be something I'd be able to do.

Lisa Lightner [00:04:48]:

Right. Right. Yeah. No. I my I mean, a big chunk of my work time is 4 to 7 AM, which, you know, not a lot of people would like that. I like it. Like, you know, and and it just it's it's also a necessity. Like, I don't really have the option to work or not work.

Lisa Lightner [00:05:03]:

I haven't won the lottery or, you know, anything like that. So I have to work. And so, you know, you have to figure it out. So that's that's what we did.

Bryan McAnulty [00:05:14]:

Yeah. So for those listening who are not familiar with IEP, can you explain what that stands for and what it means to be an IEP parent?

Lisa Lightner [00:05:23]:

Sure. An IEP IEP stands for individualized education program. It does only apply to public school students in the American school system. So, that does include, the 50 states, military institutions overseas and US territories. It's a it's really all governed by this giant federal law called IDEA, the individual individual with disabilities education act. It's been around for just short of 50 years. It just started in 1975. But what it does is that it guarantees disabled students a free and appropriate education.

Lisa Lightner [00:06:08]:

And, much like all the other things that happen with our government, it has become this huge cumbersome, confusing, and aggravating process, really for both for both parents and for school staff, which all comes down really to public education funding, but I won't bore everybody with that. But navigating the I it's not just like you go, oh, okay. Here. Here's your your kid's IEP and and have a nice day. It's it's this ongoing process of evaluations and annual meetings and progress monitoring and all these other things that, like I said, it's just really overwhelming to most parents. And so that's what I do is I I started out as a one on one advocate where I would meet with you if you had you know, you said you had a daughter. If she had an IEP, we'd talk about your concerns and we'd go through the process, and I'd attend your meetings with you and things like that. But that's not really sustainable long term.

Lisa Lightner [00:07:05]:

There's so much need. You know, 15% of American students have an IEP. So it's not sustainable for us advocates to go around 1 at a time telling everybody, you know, helping everybody. So that's why I decided to start doing the course and scaling and being able to really reach a lot more parents at one time. Excuse me. At one time.

Bryan McAnulty [00:07:26]:

Yeah. That's great. So, I think it's really interesting. And as we we mentioned briefly before I hit record here, as aspiring entrepreneurs who are thinking about building, like, something like an online course, they typically don't think of, like, a topic like this. They're usually exposed to, like, the make money online stuff because they're trying to be an entrepreneur. And so that's what they're, like, kind of targeted with. But I love to share examples like this because as I mentioned to you, like, most of our creators are actually not teaching something about making money online. And I shared with you, I saw this morning somebody's, teaching, like, this beekeeping course and and things like that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:08:03]:

So, I'm interested, of, like, whatever you're comfortable with sharing. If you can share some details either of, like, the number of students that you've helped or, like, a particular, like, success story maybe with one of your students. I'd love to hear that.

Lisa Lightner [00:08:19]:

Yeah. Honestly, I don't I don't keep track of how many students are in it. I probably should check more often than I than I do. I'm really good at I'm really good at IEPs. I could talk about IEPs all day long, and I could get you, like, way into the weeds really fast with all the intricacies and, you know, kind of connecting the dots because it is just this big thing. When it comes to my business and, of course, the platform, I I really struggle. Like, I like Heights because I really struggle with the tech stuff and so do my read or my not my readers because I have a blog as well. My, the the parents who I serve and everyone, we kinda struggle with the tech stuff.

Lisa Lightner [00:09:04]:

It's just doesn't come naturally to us. I'm a little bit older. I'm gen x. So a lot of this stuff doesn't come naturally to me. But, you know, of the parents that I have served, which I'm gonna say is probably a few 100 at this point in the past 3 to 4 years, I just like that like, I mean, the compliments I get are just that thank you for finally explaining to the explaining this to me in terms that I can understand. Because just much like the the whole IEP thing itself and the laws are written by the government, when you have the agencies that are also government funded, they don't necessarily speak in plain language either. And I'm on the same journey as the parents who are you know, I am my own avatar. So, you know, I understand what it's like to go through this, and I can explain it.

Lisa Lightner [00:09:56]:

I just have a real knack for explaining it to peep explaining it to parents in terms that they can understand Yeah like I said I know it's been several 100, for my main product which is, like, a $300 product. I also have a much smaller $24.44 product, for those who wanna kinda just dip their toe in and see see if it's for them. That's that's really high at that number. That's probably into the thousands at this point, which is fun. But, I mean, I get I get compliments all the time. I just I don't I don't know. I'm not really good at tooting my own horn, but it is I mean, that's part of the reason why I do it is I I do enjoy getting those emails that are, like, thank you. This resource is fantastic.

Lisa Lightner [00:10:43]:

You know, I've been looking for something like this and and things like that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:10:47]:

Great. Yeah. So, I wanna share for those who are listening and are inspired by this and thinking, okay. Well, now I how can I do this myself? Like, how how did it happen from you deciding to go from, like, this 1 on 1 IEP advocate to building this online business with it? Because we saw, like, on your website, you've got countless awards, in your field. You've even worked with politicians and congressmen. There we saw there's a picture of your, son Kevin, trying to snatch the, the iPad from the governor there. So can you walk us through, like, the the start of your career as an advocate? And then how did you transition that into online courses? And I guess, how did you start to build an audience and attract people into finding you?

Lisa Lightner [00:11:34]:

So the re the way it happened is, first of all, my son has been receiving services since he's 6 months old, and he's just he's just shy of being an adult. So, you know, I've been doing it a long time or, you know, personally. When he was in and he must have been a toddler. I got something from his preschool and it was to take this advocacy training. And I already knew, I mean, we had been doing it for a couple of years, but it was one of those things where, you know, I said to my husband, like, this is knowledge that we're gonna use for 20 years because, one thing about IEP students is that they can stay in the public school system until they're 22. I said because that training that I took was $2,000. But, again, I justified it, you know, with with my husband and I, when we sat down, we said, you know, we're gonna use this for for 20 years, so let's do it. I've since then, I took I took that training, and I've taken other of, you know, what now would really be my competitors' training, and they range in price from 1100 up to, like, 25100.

Lisa Lightner [00:12:40]:

All of them were the same in that they gave you all this knowledge, and they talked about the different parts of the law. And they even you know, this obviously this it's a giant administrative statute and they walked you through the different parts of it and then went to all the supreme court cases and then all, you know, and all the and so on and so on. But they didn't tell me what to do with the knowledge. You know, I can memorize court cases and and statutes all day long. I didn't know how to apply it. And I realized that that was kind of, like, a common denominator throughout these ex really expensive trainings that I was taking. And then as I as I was working as a one on one advocate with families, I realized in my head that I was going through the same process or the same strategy with each kid because even though the disabilities and the circumstances in the schools were all wildly different, the the process doesn't ever change. And I was using the same advocacy strategy with each person or each family.

Lisa Lightner [00:13:44]:

So I was like, you know, I could bottle this up and sell it. You know? And people were asking me. Another thing that happened is when I took that first training, the one that was $2,000, I met a friend and mom blogging was really in its infancy then, but we were just like, yay. Let's start a mom blog, you know, about special needs parenting. And it had intended to be, like, a memoir type thing because that's what was hot then. Right? It was just all these moms online with these mom blogs, just everybody sharing their daily stories and adventures and things like that. And we just thought that that's what we were gonna do is share stories of special needs parenting. But we were both working advocates, and then we quickly learned that that's why people were coming to our site, day in, day out.

Lisa Lightner [00:14:29]:

I mean, this is so long ago that I don't know if you remember when Google Analytics used to, actually behind the scenes in WordPress, you you could see your search terms. They eventually took that away. But early on, you could see, you know, without going to search console and all

Bryan McAnulty [00:14:43]:

that. Yeah.

Lisa Lightner [00:14:46]:

So we saw right away that people didn't care about our stories. They just wanted to know, like, what to do about this part of an IEP or what to do about that or, you know, what, you know, IEP meetings and all this other stuff. So that was when I was kinda like, oh, I think, you know, I think kinda onto something here. And there just wasn't any site out there that was meeting that need. So my my blog itself, A Day in Our Shoes, that's really the main component of my business and that draws in, some months the the viewership is as high as 800,000. It really kinda goes in between 308100000 page views a month. So that's, you know, literally millions of people each year tuning into the site, and so then they just filter that into a course. So you can still go to my site and get lots and lots of free information about how to, you know, handle a specific situation or specific issue.

Lisa Lightner [00:15:39]:

But if you want the comprehensive training, that's where heights came in.

Bryan McAnulty [00:15:45]:

Yeah. And, I mean, this all makes, complete sense how you've laid it out. And I've heard a lot of similar stories of a creator who recognizes that, okay, the solution that exists now is either not good, way too expensive, or both, like this case.

Lisa Lightner [00:16:04]:

Right.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:04]:

And so, like, you don't have to think of something of, like, how am I gonna make a a $1,000,000,000 business or something crazy? But you can provide something that was helpful to you and what you had to go through to be able to share that with other people. And, that's really, like, the fundamentals of it. So, that's excellent. And and you really found that.

Lisa Lightner [00:16:24]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:25]:

The blog numbers are are really impressive. I think especially nowadays, it's hard to get attention with blogs, because there's so many. There there's so many there's so much content published all the time. And, like, you don't hear about people saying, like, oh, I've got a viral, blog post or something. You know?

Lisa Lightner [00:16:44]:

Yeah.

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:45]:

But, but

Lisa Lightner [00:16:46]:

yeah. And for you, it's like a viral

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:48]:

post though. This is, like, sustained traffic and, like

Lisa Lightner [00:16:50]:

Yeah. No. The blog the blog started in 2011, so that's part of

Bryan McAnulty [00:16:55]:

Yep.

Lisa Lightner [00:16:55]:

Why is that, you know, we yeah. We were one of the first as well. Now, of course, I do have a few more competitors, including AI competitors and and things like that. You know, it's it's gonna happen. But, but, yeah, it's been a nice little segue. And for those who just say, you know, I don't I don't wanna do the training. That's fine. You can just go through the the individual articles, and and get the information that way.

Bryan McAnulty [00:17:19]:

Yeah. Yeah. Exactly. And so nowadays, like, what is your your kind of marketing or or growth strategy with your your content? Are you still posting blogs all the time? Are you doing different things now?

Lisa Lightner [00:17:32]:

Yeah. I mean, I split up my weeks, yeah, between the blog and, you know, what I just called my products, you know, spending about half half of a week on each, updating and and new blog posts. As I'm sure you've heard, there have been a lot of Google changes in the past, 6 to 8 months. And I have been affected by them and not in a positive way. Not as not as hard as, you know, a lot of people lost everything. Knock on wood. That didn't happen. But I so I still use that and, you know, social media, email lists, just all the basic stuff.

Bryan McAnulty [00:18:14]:

Okay.

Lisa Lightner [00:18:14]:

Yeah. I guess yes. Yeah. The blog and social media, really.

Bryan McAnulty [00:18:18]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's good. So can you share more about, like, how do you balance managing, business while also managing your son's health concerns?

Lisa Lightner [00:18:29]:

Well, I mean, he just always takes precedence, and I'm a big fan of, the 12 week year. I don't know if you read that or read that. I I like little self help books like that. So I do divide my my years up into these 12 week increments. And I just talk about, like and I know you know, again, the blog has been online since 2011. The course I started putting together in 2020 or 2019, something like that. So I I know the patterns of my readers and my customers by now at this point, and that doesn't really change. So I know when my busy times are.

Lisa Lightner [00:19:09]:

I know know when my slow times are and things like that. So I just plan it out accordingly. So right now is a very, very slow time for me. Parents just really don't like to think about school in the summertime. It's just natural. It's how Americans are just socialized that we don't think about school in July. So, you know, I'm spending this quarter really cleaning up and redoing and, you know, I'm actually going through, each of my courses piece by piece and, like, is that PDF still good? Is that video still good? Do I like the title? Do I wanna change this? Do I wanna change the thumbnail, you know, and things like that? So that's really what I do is I do a quarter by quarter and kind of focus on what I need to to do and what kind of time am I gonna have. But I do it on my own.

Lisa Lightner [00:19:56]:

I don't have a VA, anymore. And, I mean, I do it all. I answer the email. You know, I do all the writing. I do all the course creating. And then if something comes up with Kevin's health, you know, he takes precedence. He always will. He has to.

Lisa Lightner [00:20:17]:

But I've gotten really good also with him as far as not putting too much on myself, and I know what our limitations are likely to be. Like, I used to have it in my head that, like, I worked a 40 or a 50 hour work week, and it's just, like, it's just not possible. So, you know, then I'm not I'm not gonna get things done, and I would create a to do list for, like, a 50 hour work week and I rarely can work more than 30 or 35 hours. So, you know but it can be done. And, you know, I started out as a side hustle, so it can be done. So

Bryan McAnulty [00:20:49]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's really inspiring, though. And, like, I can relate to that in ways myself. Like, it's easy to to give yourself this number of tasks for whatever number of hours and then realize, like, that doesn't match up with kinda reality.

Lisa Lightner [00:21:06]:

Right.

Bryan McAnulty [00:21:06]:

And but if you try to go through that, then it's really stressful because you're not getting the things done that you're trying to, like, have planned out. But when you can kind of, like, embrace your constraints for whatever they are in your personal life, then I think it's much easier to be less stressed out about your business. And in the long run, like, it can work out. I think, like, as you're a great testament to that, whatever constraints which everybody has, which are different, there's a way to to make that work.

Lisa Lightner [00:21:40]:

Right. There are. And it's just, you know, I don't even, you know probably now we're in a we're in a place in our lives where Kevin usually misses he goes to school year round, first of all. Let me say that. So but he probably misses about one day a week, at home, and he needs one on one care for everything. He doesn't talk, and he's tube fed, and and it's a lot. It's not you know? So he needs a lot of 1 on 1 care. But even, like, when I do plan out my 12 week year, I can generally only get in 4 weekdays.

Lisa Lightner [00:22:09]:

And and just even that is very kind of liberating and then because I would beat my I would not get all these things done and then beat myself up over it. You know? It's like, well, you gotta be realistic. But, also, you know, the online piece of it is that if he does end up in a hospitalization situation, well, I just bring my laptop. And if I'm just gonna be sitting bedside anyway, you know, I just bring my laptop and and that's what we do. You know, and I've I've I've created a lot of content, you know, sitting in a hospital. And that's just that's just how my life is just very different from most people's, but you gotta make it work.

Bryan McAnulty [00:22:43]:

Yeah. Yeah. Well, I I really do think the the idea of, like, a 12 week year and, like, that that kind of planning is very helpful, especially for somebody who not only, like, you've got constraints around your family and and health, but also just as a creative entrepreneur. Because if you think about, like, a a musician, for example, like, they will spend this time to, like, write the music, and then they will go and record it. And then after that's done, then it shifts into, like, now we're gonna go on tour. And, like, that's a completely different thing. And, like, those things are not really connected. And so I think it's very helpful to give yourself these periods where it's like, alright.

Bryan McAnulty [00:23:25]:

Now we're focused on marketing or growing the business. I'm gonna do these things. And then the next one, like, as you said, okay. Now let's take a look back into everything that I created. What do I need to refine or adjust? And so with that said, I'm curious. Over time, has there been any, like, massive changes in your, like, course or product structure where, like, I get that you started out as, like, one on one advocate, realized you could impact more people by, like, sharing some of those repeated steps in the course. But, like, has the format or things like that changed over time? Or have you pretty much stuck towards the the one format and just, like, updated content?

Lisa Lightner [00:24:05]:

Right. So I'm I'm working on that. I have a lot of notes written down. What I started out with was I I was doing live training. And then when we would do the live training and I would let participants ask questions and things like that, that video would then go into the training library. So it was, you know, the best of both worlds for students. You could attend live if you wished and ask me questions or do it on your own time at your own pace and and watch it when you wanna watch it. I am at the point now, that I think I think there's a total of, like, 88 or 98 different modules in my course.

Lisa Lightner [00:24:50]:

If you buy the whole package, the $300 package, it's it's and what I found is that, like, I love talking about IEPs, and I'm like, okay. Well, now we're gonna talk about this part, and we're gonna talk about this. And, you know but what I'm finding now for for customers is that that's overwhelming. And what I was advertising as a benefit of, like, hey. You pay this price and, look, you're gonna get, like, a 100 different things. They're like, woah. A 100? Like, that's that's way too much. And they get overwhelmed by that even though, like, a 100 probably wouldn't even apply to every child.

Lisa Lightner [00:25:23]:

You know, they don't because there's different, you know, some are for preschool only and and things like that. So I started chunking it down into these mini courses and creating mini courses based on different subject areas for parents Those have not done as well as I would have liked I've not marketed them as much as I would've liked but that's, kind of, where I'm at now is listening to feedback from my readers that even though my $300 price tag is, you know, 20% of what some other places are charging, It's still too much. They don't wanna spend $300, and it's too big. It's too overwhelming. They just think, like, I I don't have time to take a 100 modules. So that's where I'm at now as far as trying to transform it into these mini courses and, and market them better and really just, again, meet my customers where they're at, which is they wanna, you know, less money and less time. So Yeah. I expect to be doing a little bit more sorting and organizing this summer as far as that goes.

Bryan McAnulty [00:26:32]:

Yeah. I'm glad you shared that because I think that's so powerful to understand for especially somebody, like, just getting into course creation. Because it's such a common worry that somebody says, like, oh, I'm not I'm not good enough. I'm not the best expert at this yet. But when you're so experienced with it, you wanna talk about all these things that your customer actually doesn't care about yet. And so you've gotta find a way as that that, like, top expert. How can you give them the things that they want as a result right now and get them to the point where now they care about it like you. And now they wanna get into all of that and and learn about all that.

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:10]:

So in some ways, it can actually be harder when you know more. But then also, like, the importance of getting people to that result and figuring out that, like, the length of the course is not why people buy it. They would buy the shorter course, actually and spend more money on it if Yeah. They can get the result more confidently and faster.

Lisa Lightner [00:27:31]:

Right. Yeah. Yeah. No. Being an expert in my field is, you know, both a help and a hindrance because I do go right here. Like, right away, I'm like, let's talk about this. And I had an audit done on my site in 2018. And, so so it was in existence for 7 years.

Lisa Lightner [00:27:50]:

And some of the feedback was, I didn't even have a blog post that that was titled, what is an IEP? Like

Bryan McAnulty [00:27:58]:

you know

Lisa Lightner [00:27:59]:

what I mean? It was like this because, again, I go right here. I go, like, I'm already, like, at the top. So that was that was a big shift for me, and that was actually kind of what nudged me into training as well, because the marketing agency and the SEO agency who did that did surveys and and people said they wanted training and they wanted affordable training. But, yeah, getting that beginner stuff. So you're right. You don't have to be an expert. You you know, even the beginners, there's people need that beginner information. You know? Like, I don't, you mentioned beekeeping, and I have some neighbors who do it, but I know nothing about it.

Lisa Lightner [00:28:36]:

Like, I I wouldn't even know, like, what bees to buy or, like, I see these boxes in their yard, but, like, what are they? And where do you get them? And and, you know, and all that, like, basic, basic stuff that I wouldn't know.

Bryan McAnulty [00:28:46]:

There there's gonna be, like, terms in a a blog title that someone wrote about that that you won't even know the term to even begin to search for it yet.

Lisa Lightner [00:28:54]:

Yep. Yep. I I say that all the time that my customers and my parents, they don't know what they don't know. So I'm answering questions for them that they don't even know they have those questions. And dialing that back is probably the biggest challenge, you know, both on the blog and in the training is dialing that back to, you know, meet them where they're at.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:16]:

Yeah. Yeah. I I think it's important for so many businesses, like, with with us building the software, we constantly like, I constantly have to remind myself, like, okay. The customer does not understand this thing yet. And, like, there we have to make sure that every individual piece the the concept is understood, how they can use it. And and remember that not every customer has been using the software, like, for years like you. They've just seeing it for the first time, there's a lot that can happen there. There's a lot that that could be

Lisa Lightner [00:29:45]:

done. Yep.

Bryan McAnulty [00:29:47]:

So I'm curious. What advice would you give to somebody who is considering to create online courses or some kind of online business in a space related to health, especially if they're also dealing with, like, somehow that issue themselves in a way?

Lisa Lightner [00:30:05]:

I mean, I really just started out with it started out with as simple as we I did have a VA at the time. We started just a little folder in email. And when we would get inquiries from readers, just kind of keeping those in one spot for months months. And then just evaluating that and talking it over and really taking notes with my 1 on 1 clients with what they knew and what they didn't know. And just thinking about what what's the problem that you're solving what, you know, what's the pro you know, what result are these people trying to get that they can't get elsewhere? And that's really been it is is focusing on, you you know, if you don't have a website already, you know, you're you're gonna have to get online to either some, you know, message boards or chat forms or Reddit or Facebook groups and just kind of lurk and listen and see what people are you know? Because let's let's be honest. There's I mean, how many weight loss courses are out there? Probably, you know, 100 of 1,000, if not millions. So what is going to, you know, what are you going to do better than all of these other people offering the same thing? Because even something as niche as mine, I I do have a lot of competitors. So, you know, you have to focus on what what your niche is for you, not just within your niche, but what your talent is within your niche.

Lisa Lightner [00:31:38]:

And to not be I wasted a lot of time, I think, trying to be the big agency or trying to compete with the big agency that has the $2,000 training, but that's not that's not what I'm good at. What's what I'm good at is being me. And there's a reason why they're coming to me rather than a big agency and kind of, like, appreciating what you have and who you are while at the same time, you know, maybe not competing with my competitors, but offering an alternative to those as well.

Bryan McAnulty [00:32:15]:

Yeah. Yeah. That's excellent advice. And I've made similar mistakes myself in the past that, yes, it's so important to just be the way that you are. And your unique message and experience, that's what's valuable to people. And pretending to be like, the big the big competitor, it's it's not helpful, and you're not them. You can't be them as well, but they can't be you. And so, like, when you when you are actually doing things your own way, you're going to have these unique things that they can't copy or they can't offer in the same way.

Lisa Lightner [00:32:49]:

Right. Yeah. And it's just it's I'm able to have a unique and personal voice and that I work for me. And the only person I really answer to is me and, of course, the customers who pay me. But I don't I don't work for a big agency. I don't have to you know, I'm not what's the word I'm looking for? I'm not restricted by

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:13]:

things

Lisa Lightner [00:33:14]:

I wanna say or things I wanna do in in a field that is pretty, you know, it's contentious, it's adversarial, there's a lot of opinions, But I can be me. And that's, you know, that's really the the greatest part of it. Is that I can be me and, I don't have to be the other people.

Bryan McAnulty [00:33:31]:

Yeah. Yeah. I love that. I've got one more question for you. And on the show, I like to have every guest ask a question to the audience. So if you could ask our audience anything, whether something you're curious about, something you wanna kinda get everybody thinking about, what would that be?

Lisa Lightner [00:33:48]:

Gosh. I know you I this was sent over in the email, and I couldn't think of anything then, and I'm struggling to now. I guess for me is I would love to hear from other creators just at times how you stay creative. Because, again, my my website's been up up since 2011. I started doing this in 2010. The course started in 2020. And as I'm sitting here this summer and I'm like, okay. I'm gonna revamp everything and I'm gonna look at every section and, you know, what am I gonna add for fall and winter? Like, at at at some point, I think, like, my gosh.

Lisa Lightner [00:34:27]:

I don't I I just can't even I can't say one more thing about IEPs. Like, I just can't do it. So I would guess I have just asked, like, where they turn, you know, when when you have been doing it for so long, where you find your creativity and your inspiration when you're having those lulls in it. Mhmm. You know, besides kind of trying to look around online and you know, but I'm not seeing anything, like, great and unique. And, oh my gosh. That's so great. I wanna mimic that.

Lisa Lightner [00:34:57]:

You know, it's it it gets it's it's a lot. It's I love what I do. I don't know that I'll ever do anything else, but that's not to say that it doesn't have its challenges. And, you know, again, when you've been talking about IEPs 247365 for 15 years, you get you reach a point where you're like, okay. I have 800 blog posts about IEPs. Like, what what's number 801 gonna be about? Like, I I don't you know what I mean? Like, what are you gonna say? Or what when you have a 100 training modules, what's number 101 gonna be about? Or, you know, those kinds of things.

Bryan McAnulty [00:35:32]:

Yeah. Yeah. I think that's a a really excellent question. I'm curious to see what people say to that as well. Alright. Well, Lisa, before we get going, where else can people find you online?

Lisa Lightner [00:35:43]:

So if you wanna see the blog and all the articles, and there are also links to my products there, That's adayinourshoes.com. If you just wanna see the products, that's adayinourshoes.org. And that is that is a page that's just a one page thing, but it has a whole bunch of images and buttons that will lead you to the various heights courses and things like that, and the mini courses, the full course, the IEP toolkit. I recently we last year at this time, we released the IEP toolkit for teachers because, you know, so so often after I sold the toolkit, we would receive an email. Like, do you have anything for teachers? So I did have a teacher. 2 teachers helped me develop that. But again, that that if you're interested in those as a day in our shoes dot org. And other than that, I mean, I'm on Facebook.

Lisa Lightner [00:36:33]:

I have a YouTube channel, you know, Pinterest, Instagram, all of it. So

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:40]:

Awesome. Well, Lisa, thanks so much.

Lisa Lightner [00:36:42]:

Thank you.

Bryan McAnulty [00:36:43]:

I'd like to take a moment to invite you to join our free community of over 5,000 creators at creatorclimb.com. If you enjoyed this episode and wanna hear more, check out the Heights Platform YouTube channel every Tuesday at 9 AM US Central. To get notified when new episodes release, join our newsletter at thecreatorsadventure.com. Until then, keep learning, and I'll see you in the next episode.