Introducing the On-Demand Platform Interview Series

I’m excited to introduce an upcoming series where I’m sitting down with representatives from some of the biggest teaching platforms.

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Hello, my creative friends. You're a teacher. You might have a lot of classes that you teach – you might even have videos all ready to go. Then when you sit down to choose which online platform to use for an on-demand course, there's so many.

It’s completely overwhelming!

When I started teaching, somebody came to me and they had a platform and I said, sure, I'll take it.

Now this was dial up modem days, no video lessons, just a lot of grainy photos and a lot of emailing back and forth with students. But which platform to choose wasn’t a problem. They were literally the only choice out there at the time.

Later, I took a break after that platform closed, because I wanted to own my own content and control my own business and I didn't know where to go yet. I was frozen. There weren't many options yet… but now there are.

In fact, there are so many of them, that it feels impossible to make a decision.

All of them say they're fabulous, that they're the best, that they can do everything for you.

How do you choose? Sometimes I don't choose. Sometimes I wait till the last minute and just go, this one. I'm not going to do all the research. I'm just going to go here because it's in front of me and it's easy.

My friends, that's not the best way to make a decision.

I've used a lot of different on-demand course platforms and all of them have had things that are good and things that could be better.

Now, instead of me telling you which one to use, I'm going to start a series of interviewing representatives from many of the big course platforms. They can tell you themselves and you can choose.

Back in episode 10, we talked about what an on-demand course can look like in your creative business and the different ways you can structure it, but we didn't get into specifics of platforms. So that's what we're going to do.

But first I want to introduce you to a few things to think about as you start researching for yourself, as you go through and listen to the amazing things that each of these on-demand course platforms can do for you.

You need to know where you are right now in your business.

What do you already have?
Do you already have a website?
Do you already have a way for people to hire you?
Do you already have an email list?

Take stock of what you already have built in your business before you step off the cliff, right?

I'm a huge fan of knowing the big picture of what you want your finished business to look like and where you want to end up. It's a fantastic exercise. Take a few minutes now, maybe pause and do that. Just imagine there was an easy button and it was finished.

Now look back to where you are and you have to know where you are before you can take the first step towards that goal. You want to always take steps in that direction, but they can be baby steps. If you're already halfway up the mountain, you don't need to start back at the beginning, right?

So these are some of the things that we are going to talk about with online on-demand course platforms to help you make an informed decision, think about where you are…

Are you techie or you're not techie?
Do you do both live Zoom and on-demand courses?
Do you sell physical goods, physical products?
Do you need an online shop for that? Do you already have one?
Do you get hired by groups or do you bring in your own students?
Do you already have a social media platform?
Can you grow what you're already doing right now?
Can you scale it?
Can you help your business become that thing that you imagined way up on the top of the mountain?

So, as I talk to each of the people from the on-demand course platforms, I'll ask some of the same questions from each representative so you can compare apples to apples, right? Of course, again, they're all different, but some of the topics that we'll talk about are features that matter most to creative educators, video downloads, hands-on project support, interaction with your students, Zoom integration, and student community features.

Something else to think about: how involved do you want to be in your on-demand classes? Do you want them to run on their own or do you really want to interact with your students? You can do either one in an on-demand class.

What about pricing structure and onboarding costs? This can be expensive, right? And it's good that we pay software platforms to build this structure for us because they take care of so many things that suck up so much of your time that I don't want you to have to worry about.

I want you to spend your time being creative. I want you to spend your time connecting with your students and teaching because that's what we're doing, right? We're creative souls. We love the making and we love it so much that we have to share it and sharing it online is a way to reach so many people with this beauty, with this joy, with this creativity, with this happiness that you can teach.

The joy and creativity that you bring to your students' lives is beautiful. It's worth it. It makes their lives better. But it's also expensive and it's complicated or it's not.

Some of the platforms can do a lot of different things for you. Some of them are very simple. Some of them you can start without any startup costs. Some of them you have to know where you're going and believe in the investment that you're making. It's worth it, my friends. And again, how scalable is it?

Yes, we're going to talk about how AI is being integrated into different course platforms because it's a game changer for content creation and business workflows.

So, if you're a quilt or a craft or an art teacher, you probably didn't get into this work because you love tech, but choosing the right platform makes teaching easier and more profitable.

A good platform makes your stuff look good, makes it look professional. Some of them have drag and drop features. So you just have the scaffolding there and you plug in your information and off it goes.

But then some of them, if you're a control freak or if you love the design process and you are a techie, you can control every part of the process.

All of them can grow as your growth expands. So this series is just one part of how I'm helping creative educators get more comfortable with video and online teaching.

The more we understand our tools, the easier it becomes to share what we do with a global audience, to give your students creativity and joy.

Make sure to subscribe to the podcast so you don't miss out on any of the episodes. Bring a notebook, jot down what resonates from you with each interview, and maybe join the academy. We have membership there where we talk about these things, where we compare different platforms. We've got teachers who are using all kinds of different modalities to get their lovely teaching out to the students that they want to reach.

So stay tuned and listen in. Your creativity deserves to be seen and supported. Online teaching is a powerful way to make that happen. I can't wait for you to hear these conversations. So stay tuned for the first interview. I'll see you soon.

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