Bryan McAnulty: Welcome to the Creator's Adventure, where we interview Creator's from around the world, hearing their stories about growing a business. My name is Bryan McAnulty. I'm the founder of Heights Platform. And today I'm talking with Jasmine Jonte about how to create an online course that gets your customers results.

How to keep your audience engaged in that course. And if course completion rate is really as important of a metric, as some might think,

Hey everyone, we're here today with Jasmine. Jonte the founder of JJ coaching and consulting, and she helps experts create their world class programs and online courses. Her done for you course, creation agency takes care of everything from organizing ideas to launching a digital product that engages and sells Jasmine.

Welcome to the show. Hi, thanks for having me. So my first question for you today. Is if you could just tell us a little bit about what you do and how you got started in your online business.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah. So we have a done for you course creation agency which as you mentioned, takes care of everything from the big picture promise and, and program outline down to the last thumbnail that gets uploaded into the course platform and I for, for a while before this, I was doing my own programs.

Like I was launching my own programs. I was teaching my students got like crazy good, unheard of results, but I kept hitting, like I called it the scale wall. , you know, I'd build a program and try to scale it and then could make it happen and build a new program and try to scale it and couldn't make it happen.

And so I was building all these programs, all these masterminds, and eventually said sometime in the middle of 2020, it. Enough, like we're gonna shut this puppy down. And in the space that was created, I had conversations. I thought, what really lights me up, what really gets me going inside of business. And I learned that it was actually building the program that I liked the most, which is why I could never scale anything.

Cuz once I got out of that genius zone of creating really great content. I would just fall flat and the business would fall flat. So I pivoted into doing this for other people, using my background in teaching and instructional design. But also the savvy of launching my own programs and knowing what it takes to have an offer sell which landed us here.

And now I'm really blessed. I love what I do every day. Love building programs, love my team that helps me build programs. And we're just on this mission to help a million, a million students, right. Get results through the programs that we co-create with our experts.

Bryan McAnulty: Awesome. I think that's such a a great solution actually.

Because definitely I've noticed there are Creator's out there who they really just enjoy that process of building everything. But eventually you have to find out, well, how can you really turn that into a business? And the way you did that for yourself is by allowing yourself to focus on that part that you enjoy the most.

So that's a really great solution.

Jasmine Jonte: Thanks. Yeah. And it's so it's so curious how a lot of our clients, they come to us. They are an expert. They've done something for so long. They have such a vast array of knowledge. I always say to them, like, you probably have like 15 or 20 courses in you. And so the challenge becomes then, okay, well out of everything, I know, what do I really need to put inside this program to get my students results?

It's not so much throwing everything in there. It's like the smallest amount of content that they need to get the program transformation that promise. so

Bryan McAnulty: yeah, exactly. That's, I mean, that's a mistake. I think people make often that they think, well, my course has to be the longest and that's gonna make it more valuable.

Yes, but really you wanna assure as possible to get the person to that specific result?

Jasmine Jonte: Mm-hmm yes, absolutely.

Bryan McAnulty: Cool. So. Actually earlier on our show, on a previous episode, we had the pleasure to interview your boyfriend, Brad Hart. And we noticed on your website, you mentioned that originally he was your coach.

Is that how you guys met? Or can you tell us a little bit more about that?

Jasmine Jonte: yeah, we did. That was how we met. I was referred to him cuz I was building these mastermind programs at the time and was trying to figure out the scale thing and so I, I was like, who's my mastermind mentor. I was looking specifically for a mastermind mentor and someone who got me connected to Brad and I hired him and we worked together for over a year, completely platonic.

I thought he was a total nerd. I mean, he is a total nerd. I was totally right to think that and we were both single, but it didn't even cross either of our minds because it was, we were in this lane of he's my coach, I'm his, you know, his client and that's, it didn't even cross our minds. And then we, I like bought the upsell.

So I hired him for longer. And part of the upsell was an in-person mastermind. And this was like the last contractual piece that he was obligated to provide. So we are on day one of this mastermind retreat and he pulls me aside at lunch and he says, so just so you know, like our contract's now complete.

You're completely paid up. Like now we can just be friends. Now in my mind, I'm thinking. What the heck, man, you're firing me. Like, you're fi like you don't want my money anymore. Like, what the heck? Why would you do that? Like that doesn't, I'm your testimonial? I'm your case study? Like, I'm the one you tell everyone about, like, why would you fire me as a client?

so I was very confused for about six hours because that night he asked me out and so it kind of became clear. Oh, okay. That's why you had that conversation, cuz you wanted to be in integrity when you asked me out later that night and it, I gotta tell you Bryan, like it was really weird in the beginning because we had been for over a year now in this.

Space of like, you know, he's my coach and I hire him and I'm a, you know, I'm his client. But we went out and it wasn't even like we hit it off, off the bat. It was truly like, our values are aligned. We want the same things in life. We have a, the same kind of lifestyle. We're re we have this really solid foundation of friendship and it just made sense.

It just, that was truly all. It was just like, okay, well, this makes sense. He was looking for his life partner. I was looking for my life partner and it just kind of happened that way. And what's really fascinating is that was in January of 20, 20 mm-hmm so, you know, we, and I was living in Virginia. He was living in California, so completely separate sides of the country.

We met up again in February. And then like March hit and it wasn't quite pandemic yet. It was like right in that kind of pre pandemic period. And he was like, just come to California, stay for a couple weeks, you know, like, let's, let's just see where this thing goes. And I'm like, okay. And then the pandemic hit during that, like a couple week trip and he said, just move.

Just because we don't know where this is going. So like, just move in. So in a 48 hour trip, I flew back to Virginia, got my dog, got as much stuff as I could take on an airplane, flew back and we've been together ever since. So we kind of caught we're in the the personal development world of like immersion events.

We've done a lot of Tony Robbins, a lot of Brendan Burchard, a lot of like these events. And so we just said, okay, well, immersion events work for us. So let's try immersion dating. And here we are, you know, two and a half years.

Bryan McAnulty: Oh, yeah, that's interesting. That's funny. Mm-hmm yeah, I know. I, my wife and I always feel very fortunate of how it worked out for us with the the whole pandemic situation, because we actually got married in 2019 and she's actually from Hong Kong.

So we had visas and stuff like that. We had to take care of. We feel so grateful that all that got settled before the pandemic, otherwise, like it would've been crazy. I can only imagine people who have had to been, had to have been completely separated from their partner for so long. So

Jasmine Jonte: yeah, I mean, and we feel the same way.

We're like, well, if it hap it happened in the pandemic, but it was either make it or break it. Like we were gonna know real fast, whether or not this was gonna work out.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Cool. So in your business you have what looks like three main types of offers. You have the V I P day done with you course creation and done for you course creation.

Can you tell us a little bit more about like, which one of these is really your core offering and what exactly would that include?

Jasmine Jonte: Most of most people come to S four done for. So we're typically booked like eight to 12 weeks out to start done for you projects. And I think it's because not a lot of people do it because it's so much work.

Like you're all, all the people listening, you guys know, like if you've ever done a course before, you know, it takes at least a hundred hours just to put together a five module course. Like easy by the time you plan out the lessons and put that on slide decks. If you want slide decks, do the video editing, pull together any workbooks or worksheets deliverables, uploaded into the platform.

Like it takes so much time. And so a lot of our clients, they contest cuz. they have a business of some sort and they wanna go into the education space or they have a program that they've done before and they want to revamp it. It's time to give it a refresh. Maybe it's been a couple years, they launched it on beta and now they're like, oh my gosh, I really need to make this good because I wanna double my prices.

I wanna sell out my launch. I wanna feel super confident in what I'm offering, but they know, oh my gosh, this is gonna take me. A full time person for months to do this, and then they have to train this person. So instead they're like, they just call us and we take care of it for 'em. And it truly is like completely done for you.

It's kinda like ghost writing a book, you know, like our experts, they talk to us and then we translate everything to a program and all they have to do is record the videos. So it's a pretty sweet deal. It's a, it's a really snazzy offering that they. They love to, to take advantage of and outsource, outsource their course.

Bryan McAnulty: I mean, that's really what it comes down to. Got it. So going a little bit deeper into that, then who would you say is your ideal client and what, like other benefits maybe then that you haven't already mentioned would be for them in choosing you to help build their courses?

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah. Like, I, I think there's really, there's three kinds of people that come to us.

One is someone who has a business and they're going to education space. So for example, . We worked with Nick Bradley and Rob Williams, who are acquisition entrepreneurs. They have a background in private equity and they wanted to teach regular business owners how to grow and scale through acquisitions.

So that was one program where it's like, they know a whole ton of things, but they don't know how to teach. They don't have the time to pull something together. So they just hire us. We also have people who, as I mentioned, have a program, they launched it on beta it's okay. But it's not really great. And they wanna make it outstanding.

They want to help their learners get more results more quickly. They wanna include we use neurolinguistic program. inside of all of our, our program design. And so they wanna start to include some of those hacks that get people to take action and get into momentum quicker. So that's another type of person.

They just, they really wanna revamp and they don't wanna do it themselves. And then we also have quite a few speakers come to us and like, they're really good at keynotes. They're doing in person. They typically have a book or something that like helps get their name out there, but they don't have any kind of virtual offering that they don't have to trade time.

so they want something that someone could take as a follow up to a keynote and take the program and see the results that actually helps them apply what they learn in the keynote. So all those different kinds of people and I, yeah, the main benefits are just, Hey, your students are super fans now because they're part of a program.

They can't believe how good it is. This is like the one benefit to the course graveyard. Everybody talks about, you know, like courses or diamond doesn't and everybody's doing them nowadays. So how do I make mine stand out? Well, the good news is if you just have really sound instructional design, if you just help people get the results in the easiest way possible, it's, it's less and less difficult to stand out by just having a really rock solid program, because so many people are out there doing it, thinking they know what they're doing and.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, you said so many people are out there doing it and just making other, other kind of courses like this. Yeah. There's like, there's definitely a lot of people who will create some kind of course that maybe they're not putting too much thought into it and it is maybe this lower quality program.

So a as the point that you're making courses are so popular now, but that also means that a lot of people making courses are not really necessarily doing them the right way or putting. Enough really care into them where when either, if somebody wants to do it themselves, or if you help someone they're able to come up with this result, that when, when you're able to get the result for the student, it's really powerful.

And it, it stands on its own just like that,

Jasmine Jonte: basically. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, we often talk about, okay, what are the three ways to grow a business, right. It's like one, you can get new customers, so you can go to Facebook ads, YouTube, organic, whatever it is. And you get more customers, two, you can increase the transaction value, meaning you raise your prices or you add an order bump or an upsell or some kind of VIP option.

So that that person who comes in, they now, you know, buy more with you. But the third one, the one that people always forget is repurchases and referral. That is the easiest to close. And so it's like, wow. It, what is the best if you have, if you have a course kind of course, group coaching membership, one of these kinds of online offerings, the easiest way to get more clients is to do a good job so that they buy more.

They buy again and they tell all their friends. like, yeah, if you just had one referral for every three clients, what would that do to your business? And like, you're, you don't have to pay Facebook ads to go find those people. So I think it's just like one of those things when we put it in terms like that, duh, of course I should spend time making a really solid program other than just the fact that I wanna help people get results is that comes back to you.

That's like really good karma.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's great. I mean, yeah, definitely. I agree. That's super important. I think either I made a YouTube video about it or we've made a blog post or both maybe even of how important it is that like, when you have these customers, like don't stop there, you can sell them something else. And even if you've made a course, you're still not done.

You can make more courses, you can make a coaching offering. There's so much more that your audience probably wants to get that from. Mm-hmm but I think some Creator's, especially when they're starting out think like, okay, well I made my product, I sold it now I've gotta go find new customers and yes, you can do that.

But you can also sell something additional to your existing customer.

Jasmine Jonte: Mm-hmm absolutely. Yeah. It's cheaper to do that too. Usually

Bryan McAnulty: yeah, definitely to go get new ones. Yeah, definitely.

So at Heights, we place a lot of importance in creating tools that help students. So, can you share some tips to help Creator's craft courses that will facilitate learning and keep students better engaged?

Jasmine Jonte: Yes. One thing I'll just reiterate, you wanna have the right amount of content, so we don't want too much. We don't want too little. We want what I call gold Goldilocks amount. You want the just right amount of content that they're gonna be able to get through. Take an action and see a result. So that's one thing.

I'd also say just like when you're planning a launch or sales and marketing, you often start from, with the end in mind, right? You reverse engineer. Okay. I want this many clients at this rate, which will give me this much revenue with, which will give me this much profit after I pay team and myself, et cetera.

So we start with the end in. You wanna do the same thing with your program? So when I'm crafting a lesson, right, which to me is a five to 15 minute video piece of content that someone will take and then see a result. My first question is what's the action steps. What are the action steps they're gonna take as a result of this video?

Because the results don't come from watching your. They don't, they come from the person, you know, filling out the spreadsheet or posting the thing on Facebook or whatever the action is for your, for your, your topic. So start with the end in mind and then chunk it back. And even when I'm planning a lesson, I then chunk back.

Once I have the action steps, then I think about, okay, how am I gonna lead them to the action steps? So you just, you know, always be thinking with that end in mind. And then in terms of chunking up your program, This is the terminology I use. So we have the program, right? Which is the, the main transformation, the, the program name.

And then we have modules, which are like your stepping stones to that transformation. They're bigger chunks of content. And then I break down modules into lessons, which are those five to 15 minute quick, hit versions quick hit pieces of content. So if you wanna make your program as binge worthy as Netflix, You wanna make sure you have these little tiny slices of content that they can feel like, oh, I'm really excited.

And you also create an open loop into what's coming next. Kind of like a cliff hanger, you know, like at the end of every lesson reiterate, here's the action step you're gonna take. I'll see you in the next lesson. I'm so excited cuz once you do this, you're gonna be able to, and then open loop into what's coming next.

So, those are just a couple things, make sure it's the right amount of content. Make sure it's chunked appropriately and then start with the end in mind. Always do action steps first.

Bryan McAnulty: Yep. Yeah, that sounds great. Yeah. And we, we have the same like terminology inside Heights of how everything's organized with your content.

And that's something that we say as well that it's better to, I, I, I guess a lot of Creator's tend to sometimes make the mistake of making too long of a. It's better to have the shorter lesson, like the five to 15 minute, like you're saying, because also like you're saying you want, you want your course to be binge worthy.

And just like the first point is when you're creating a course, maybe you're not already like an instructional designer, but the second part is maybe you're not really an entertainer either. And you want your content to be entertaining enough for people to actually go and get through it. And when you have these like two hour lectures in each of your lessons, that's like a whole movie, if you think about it.

Mm-hmm . And so even if someone's really motivated and wants to go through all of that, all of that and does go through all of that, even when they do that, it's hard to absorb it correctly. And it's hard to remember from that. Okay. I just watched two hours. Well, what am I supposed to do from here? Mm-hmm so a lot of the value comes in actually breaking that down into the smaller steps.

And saying, okay, here's this video now, these are the steps that you need to take. Then you go into the next video.

Jasmine Jonte: Mm-hmm yeah, totally agree. And there's so much you can do as well with, with, with these platforms. Like you don't have to have a video. This is something that comes up a lot. People's like, I need a video for every lesson.

No, you can just have a written lesson. You can just have a written lesson with a workbook. Like there's different ways to meet these different learners other than. Talking head or even just screen share. So start to think about that as well. Like how can we meet all these learners and help, help move them along that path to the, the result?

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's a great point. Is there any kind of like GA gamification techniques or tools or other things that you would implement in online courses that you work.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah, we do some gamification for sure. I think the biggest myth about gamification is that it's points and prizes. When we hear that word, gamification, we think points and prizes, and actually the thing that people want the most is status.

You know, they want that feeling of significance. So if you're going for, if, if you're trying to think, okay, what are some easy, quick things I can do for gamification rather than thinking, what swag am I gonna send out? Or. You know, how can I turn what they're doing into points start to consider? What are the key behaviors I want to take?

I want them to take those milestones. I want them to achieve. And then how can I give them status as a result of that? Can they get a certain name in your community? Can they be added to a leader board? Can they like, can they be recognized? Like if you've ever heard about like the award ceremony strategy.

once a quarter, you look at the different milestones you want your students to achieve, and then you give them public praise, almost like a graduation of sorts, right? For the people inside your program, you do it publicly on Facebook or wherever. And you're like, these people, you know, achieved this milestone because they did X thing.

So rather than when it comes to gamification specifically, just think, what are the milestones you really want them to achieve? What are the key behaviors you want to see them doing on a consistent basis? And then how can you give them status for that? And then second to status is access. So like once you've done XYZ thing, you unlock a private call with the course creator, the, the expert, or you unlock a private group training or something like that, they get more access to you.

So status and access over something like swag. And, and prizes and things.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. I like that. That's a great point. It also made me think of even when you were saying that, that you're right. Like so many people will associate, okay, well gamification means points. And there there's so much more to it even just in the sense of your own lesson creation, where you mentioned like the shorter lessons that really helps give the student this sense of progress.

Because if they go through, let's say you have the two hour lesson, or you have a bunch of 15 minute lessons. When the student goes through all those 15 minute lessons. Now they went and they completed all these things. They felt like they really accomplished something versus like, oh, well I watched a two hour lesson, but I only got them one lesson today.

And so even just how you structure your program can really help that, that overall sense of progression. And, and that's something to consider along with any thoughts you might have about gamification or something like.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah. And a lot of people ask me, well, if I'm gonna do 15 minute lessons, how do I do that live?

Like, do your, do a lot of your the people on Heights, do they do live beta launches, like group coaching kind of style?

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, that's definitely a popular thing. Yeah.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah. So then the question is, okay, well, how do I do it live, but not do our long videos to my community. And I have, I like to teach something called the studio audience method.

So, if you've ever thought about any of the game shows where they have a live studio audience, like the price is right, for example, and they have a 15 minute segment and then they cut to co. right. And they'll be, be right back. Now you can do the same thing with your 10, 15. However many people are on, on the call as you're filming.

It is in the beginning. You say, Hey, this is studio audience method. So I'm gonna teach for 15 minutes and then I'm gonna cut and we're gonna break and we're gonna do Q and a, and you're gonna have a chance to take some action, action steps. Then we're gonna come back. We're gonna do the next 15 minute seconds.

So you're filming a lesson at a time with the live studio audience there. And they get like that Q and a time in between, but those 15 minute segments, that's what you upload into the portal. So there is a way to like, do it, you know?

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Well, when you tell people that, are they usually delivering those 15 minute segments, like all in the same day and breaking it up or is it multiple days?

Jasmine Jonte: It's usually in the same day. So if you think about like an hour, like a module is an hour long, so let's say there's like five lessons inside of that hour long module. Right? And some are 10, some are five, some are 15, et cetera. So when they're presenting it live, they do, you know, the five minute teaching and then they hit end on the recording and they take a little.

And then they come back and they do the less than two, 15 minutes or however long it is. So it's like, you're, you're filming these mini segments while people are on live with you. So you still get, because a lot of people have trouble filming by themselves at a computer because there's no energy coming back.

It's just you talking to a screen and these star expert personalities, they struggle with. I. I, I can't just talk to a screen. I have to have some feedback from some people . So it, it, it works for both of those reasons.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Yeah. I like that idea. So a common struggle that we see among online course Creator's is also improving the completion rates of your course.

So as a creator, of course you wanna be ensuring that those who purchase the course are going to actually complete it. So what would you suggest to Creator's who want to improve their completion rates?

Jasmine Jonte: Wow. Bryan, you might not like my answer. This is something I totally stand against is the idea that course completion rates are an indicator of your success.

Because it depends on the program. Okay. So that is the caveat. It depends on the program, but most of the programs I've ever taken as a student, I have not nearly completed, but I have gotten my results from every single one. There are a, there's a lot of content and a lot of courses and you don't actually need all of the content to get the result.

For example, like three weeks ago I bought an email marketing mini course. I didn't watch a single video. My course completion rate would be zero, but what I did is I went in and I took the resources and I stripped them out and used them. I totally got the results from that course. But if you look at that number, Jasmine is a terrible student who hated your stuff.

Right. So I think, yes. Is it something we wanna look at? Sure. It can tell us valuable things. Like what are the lessons that students seem to be watching the most that lets you know, what their most interested in what their biggest problem is. If you have like we did one course recently it was like a weight loss health kind of course.

They really had to watch like the first half of the course in order to get the. Like, they just weren't gonna get it unless they had those four pieces. But the back half of the course was more like supplemental. What if kinds of questions? Like, you know, okay, well, I, I get this, but what if I just had a baby, maybe that makes a difference in and then getting the results.

So first is like, don't take this course completion rate as an indicator of your success, because most of the time it's just not true. you actually wanna look at what do they actually need to complete to get the, the results? And what are your testimonials saying? What's your net promoter score, right? On a scale of one to 10.

How likely are they to refer you? Those are the kinds of things that are, are gonna be tracking your success in repurchases referrals, more than did they actually watch the thing because you can flip it. There's plenty of courses. People have watched the entire thing of, but didn't get any results. .

Bryan McAnulty: Yep.

Yeah. I'm really glad this was your answer, actually, so, oh, good. Because no, I completely agree with that. And like I have countless examples myself of getting a result from something but not going all the way through it. And everybody has like in your case, like the course, you mentioned getting that result was dependent on you going and looking at the workbook.

But for somebody else, that's gonna be different for somebody else. Maybe the result that they're looking for is going to be through some videos in that or something else. You know? An example I think of for myself is when I started reading the four hour work week by Tim Ferris, like shortly after that came out I didn't finish the book and I thought to myself, okay, I get it.

Yeah. That's that? All right, makes sense. I'm gonna go travel the world now and go do that. and and I went and did it, and so I feel like for me, in that case, it was kind of providing me like the example and like validation that like, oh, this is possible. And that's all I needed from it. I didn't need to hear like the additional steps and yeah, for everybody that's gonna be different.

So it's a great point that you make. And I think. It's really important to not, not make it as like an excuse for yourself. If, if you say, oh, no one logged into my course at all, like, that's fine that maybe they're still getting a result. No but definitely like, it's not the like, be all end all indicator of if people are actually getting results or not with your course.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah. And if nobody's opening it, then you probably have an onboarding process issue just yeah. Heads up there that's really, that is

Bryan McAnulty: important. Yeah, definitely. You wanna make sure that they at least get. Yeah, for sure. So let's talk a little bit about some online learning trends. What kind of trends do you see happening in online courses and what is your kind of forecast for the future?

As a online course expert?

Jasmine Jonte: One would be micro niches, micro niches, whichever way you say that word. I think that because more and more people are coming into the space, which is great. what you need to stand out is to be really, really dialed in on your niche. So if you're Tony Robbins or Brenda ARD, sure.

You can go put out a productivity course and it will sell because you have the brand presence. You have the reach, you have the audience, like you could pretty much put out anything and it would sell. However, if you are just getting started, if you're, you know, if you haven't done six figures in, in courses yet, then your productivity course would be like how to help moms.

With toddlers, get more done in a three hour nap than, you know, I don't know whatever the opposite is like in a, in a, in a five day work week using your proprietary method. Right. So it's like, instead of going, why you really, really gotta go narrow? So I see that working really, really well is MicroAge. Another way the industry is moving is shifting the way that we view community, especially with like web three, coming out like more and more people are just really concerned about community and being aligned with the values of the community that you're providing.

People are seeing that as more of a, a benefit than ever before. So whether or not you have a community, I. Consider either starting one or how you can make it better. People are moving off of Facebook groups, they're moving into things like circle. They're giving things like Voxer group access. They're doing things like even Instagram DM groups, I've started to see that slack channels.

Like what are the different ways that based on who you're serving, you can create a A group forum for lack of a better word using intentional technology. So I'm seeing that and Hey, I'm seeing live events come back like with a force so if there's some kind of live event component to what you do.

I'd say jump on that soon. Get, get back on that bandwagon, if you haven't already and even providing like meetups, depending on if your community's local or across the world, like finding ways to create meetups so people can connect in person cuz it's yeah. That's coming back a lot. A lot now.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah, definitely. I, I agree with all those and I'm, I'm seeing the same things. Uh mm-hmm here as well. I have kind of a selfish question for you related to the community, actually. So definitely we're, we're seeing that become more and more popular. But we're maybe not at a crossroads, maybe that's not the best way to say it, but we're trying to figure out how we can improve our own community features inside Heights.

And I guess the dilemma. where do we draw the line between what is the best way for the potential student or member to get access, to like past questions that were similar versus creating this community space. That is just something that everyone kind of wants to be a part of and interact with each other.

But might not provide. Like direct answers in that way as immediately. And I guess what I mean by that to describe it a little bit more. So we have, like right now we have more of a traditional kind of forum structure of our like community software. And it's really easy to find like a past post and then see what people are talking about and add a comment to that.

And I am seeing more and more though, that community platforms that people end up choosing. Sometimes for their business ends up being something like even slack or discord or Instagram, DMS, and some of those tools, like they will have search features, but I don't feel like they really work as well in the sense of providing value for the students to learn from each other, with like past conversations.

It's more about what is currently being discussed in the community. So I guess my question then is, do you have any opinions about that? Whether that's better or worse, or whether like people really see the most value or have the most desire for just the community of people to engage with, or is it important and valuable enough for people to be able to kind of reference those past conversations easier?

Jasmine Jonte: I think it depends a little bit on the program and like who you're attracting into it. Like if it's a very. strategic, almost scientific. I'm seeing like a lot of screen share videos, technical kind of program. Like I'm thinking about a YouTube program. We did like, it was very technical. Then I would see the forum being way more valuable.

However, if we're thinking about Like a different program, which is a podcasting, like how to start a podcast program. They love the community cuz they get guests based on the commu, like the community building that they're doing, what's going on right now. Like different ways to do different things. So I wanna like caveat it with that.

If I had to make a judgment call like one way or the other. I would say having the member directory with the ability to see what's most recent now would be the thing that people want more, you know, across the board. I'm not saying a hundred percent, but overall I see that being what people want. And there are ways that you can take all of that data, that user data and questions that they have and turn it into.

In your instance, like FAQ kind of help center content. You know, you could turn those into like user manuals or blog posts or FAQs or whatever, so that they still have access to that user generated feedback. But it's not in a form it's more in like a, a help portal, which, for courses that can look like a workbook or an FAQ section in a module.

But for you guys as a SAS, it would look. What do you kind, what do you call that? Like your help sex center or something?

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Like a knowledge base or something almost. Yes. Yes. Thank you. Yeah. I mean, I could even see that though, as, so what you're saying is like, even if there's a more a community, more like something like a discord or slack where it's more immediate in the conversations.

There could be a separate section in there where you, as the creator, you have your own kind of moderation to say like, Hey, this is some highlighted FAQs or discussions that everybody might wanna check out.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah, yeah. You could definitely do that. Yeah. Like a resources section or something. Cool. Mm-hmm

Bryan McAnulty: All right. And then with working with your clients, you probably see so many online courses. So what would you say at least in your experience are the biggest mistakes that course Creator's tend to make?

Jasmine Jonte: Well, we covered a couple of them, one being, I'm gonna put everything I know into a program.

UNO mm-hmm number two, being not having action steps. At the end of every lesson. So they know exactly what they need to do. Number three, being meeting all learners, all different types of learners, right? So we have visual, we have auditor and we have kinesthetic learners. Visual learners are typically taken care of, which is good, cuz they're the biggest part of the population.

I think it's 65% are visual learners and they learn by. Watching. So a video is helpful to them. Slide deck, especially showing some, some kind of process, even more helpful to them. But you also have these auditory learners. One of my favorite ways to do that is to take your, your course and turn it into a podcast.

So now you have a private podcast feed. If you wanna talk about course completion rates, , it will go through the roof, cuz they will listen on repeat now whether or not they take the action. But if they have that repetition, they will ingrain a lot more. They'll retain a lot more than if they were just, they had to log into a portal and watch something, especially for your auditory learners.

So taking care of them with, with something like that, which is better than just like an MP3 download because sometimes it's hard to get those on. It's just not very user. okay. Yeah. And then you have your kinesthetic learners and they're gonna do really well with like note taking. So having some mechanism for them to take notes on what you're doing.

Yeah. They can like pull up a piece of paper and do it on their themselves. But if you have something that's branded and beautiful, like a workbook or a manual, something that they can follow along with and take notes as they go, they'll also learn it on a new level. And of course anybody can combine these things.

You know, I like to sometimes listen to an audio book as I'm reading it and taking. Holy cow. Do I remember those books? So of course, like meeting all learners that's probably the third thing I, I would say is like, They're doing one, but not both. And so then you're leaving out a big part of the population that you're teaching.

Bryan McAnulty: Yeah. Yeah. I like that point. Definitely. We try to think of that in our own software design and understanding that not every creator understands or is like an instructional designer themselves. Yeah. They're a creator. They wanna focus on what it is that they do in. . And so besides that you can add like a audio file or a video file.

We have an option where students can go in and bookmark lessons or can take notes on lessons. So that way it's kind of built in for you that the student has those options. Mm-hmm . Yeah. Well, alright. So my last question for you is we like to ask all of our guests if they have any questions for our audience, So, if you could ask our audience anything, what would that be?

Jasmine Jonte: I would love to know how you currently surprise and delight your students. And from another perspective, if you're just new and getting started as a student, what are some of the ways that your teachers have surprised and delighted you inside of online program? Cause I think if we could crowdsource that we'd all walk away with some really cool strategies.

Bryan McAnulty: yeah, I agree. Yeah. That the answers answers to that can be some really powerful information. I think mm-hmm, absolutely awesome. All right. Well, Jasmine, thank you so much for coming on the show. Before you get going, can you tell me where can people find you.

Jasmine Jonte: Yeah. So everything's under my name, jasmine.com.

Jasmine Jonte Instagram, Jasmine Jonte on Facebook. Very easy to find.

Bryan McAnulty: All right. Awesome. Thanks so much, Jasmine. Thank you. If you enjoyed this interview and want the chance to ask questions to our guests live tune in on Tuesdays. When new episodes premier on the Heights Platform, Facebook page, to learn more about the show and get notified when new episodes release, check out the Creator's Adventure dot com until then keep learning and I'll see you in the next episode.