Karie Price:
Hey there. You’re listening to Scale with Success®. The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. And in today’s episode, we’re talking about what it takes to set yourself apart from other course creators in your space so that your ideal student chooses your course.
Karie Price:
If you feel like there is a lot of competition out there, first of all, that’s a good thing. Competition means there is a need for what you have to offer. But if you think that attracting more students means marketing to the masses, this could actually stagnate your ability to scale.
Karie Price:
Today, we’re diving deeper into what it really takes to be the go-to course filled with ideal students. So if that’s what you want too, then keep listening, because we have a lot to talk about. So stay tuned.
Caitlin Bacher:
My name is Caitlin Bacher, founder and CEO of Scale with Success®, and I’m on a mission to help course creators all over the world grow their business in a way that is profitable and scalable. Together with my co-host and Director of Marketing, Karie Price, we are sharing revealing conversations about what it really takes to scale an online course business to millions of dollars per year. Join us here to discover the tough decisions we’ve had to make, the biggest failures we’ve had to bounce back from, and the learnings that emerged every step of the way. We are so grateful that we have the chance to share it all with you, right here on Scale with Success®: The Podcast Built for Course Creators™. Let’s get started.
Karie Price:
Today, we’re talking about how to set yourself apart from other course creators in your space. Because let’s face it, there is competition out there. There are other people who are trying to serve the same audience, and competition is not a bad thing. It actually means there’s a market for what you do. There are people out there looking for this solution, but we want to make sure that you’re able to really distinguish yourself so that people choose you.
Karie Price:
Now, one of the problems that we see when it comes to how to stand out, or someone’s really trying to make a name for themselves in their space, is they know they’ve got that great course. They know it’s going to get transformation for their students, but they think that the way to scale is to serve as many people as they can. So you broaden your audience of who you’re looking to serve, and so it gets really general. And just because you can help a lot of people doesn’t necessarily mean you should.
Caitlin Bacher:
So I think that’s a really common issue, right? And when we talk about broadening our audience, we’re not talking about having a course that is super targeted for people who want to grow a tomato garden in their backyard and reaching as many of those people as possible. It means broadening the audience of anyone who wants to garden or anyone who has an interest in plants or whatever.
Karie Price:
Yeah. And what happens when we start to try and speak to too many people and get really broad, then we kind of dilute our message and we sound really vanilla. And what’s important when we’re trying to stand out is you’ve got to be the thing that people think of to solve the problem that they have. And if they think like, “Eh, maybe they can kind of help me,” versus, “That’s the person that I know can help me because I have a specific problem, and they’re speaking to me.”
Karie Price:
And so that’s where niching comes in, or niching, depending on how you say that. And you may have heard the phrase, “The riches are in the niches.” And it’s true, because if we’re able to focus on a specific audience that we want to serve with a specific problem, we’re able to speak to them more directly. And all of our marketing, everything that we do, is tailored to that person, which is going to get them thinking like, “Hey wait, I think you’re in my head,” because you’re really going to get to know them and speak to their specific pains, problems and challenges and be the one solution that they are looking for.
Karie Price:
And I’ll give you a quick example. So I’ve recently taken up hand lettering as a hobby. I needed a screen-free hobby. We all have enough screen time these days, right? And I started looking at, there’s a lot of resources out there for hand lettering, whether it’s some free trainings and paid programs. And the one that I ended up enrolling in is somebody who teaches a lettering style that I want to learn. So they’re not trying to teach everything, right? It’s a specific style, I knew what I was looking for. They had a very structured approach, which is something I personally value. One of the sayings that really stuck out to me in their own marketing was, “Learn the rules like a pro so you can break them like an artist.” And I was like, okay, because I’m not a naturally artistic person. So telling me, well, I can learn rules. I can learn structure. And that that’s actually going to help me get creativity, they’re speaking to me, right?
Karie Price:
And then what I found after enrolling is it is filled with a community of other people just like me that have those similar goals. I’m not trying to learn how to be a professional letterer or calligrapher, and most of the people that are in the course are learning for themselves too, as a hobby or for gifts. So it really became clear to me, they were attracting a very specific person, me, and now I’m part of a community that’s just like me too.
Caitlin Bacher:
I think what you’re talking about is kind of getting into the psychographics, right? So getting into, not just who people are in terms of age or gender or occupation, but also kind of getting into their belief system, right? And so for you, you are the kind of person that, you want to learn what the rules are, you like having that structure, and then being able to break them like an artist, just like the saying goes. And that’s something that, at our company, that we were really intentional about as well, because we want to make sure that we are working with clients, and this is again, when it comes to psychographics, we want to work with clients who are looking to make a real impact with their students and their audience. So yes, they do want to grow their revenue, but they also truly care about their students and the results that they achieve.
Caitlin Bacher:
And it’s interesting because this comes up a lot. We know we’re doing a good job of marketing and attracting the right people because a lot of times when prospects are on sales calls, a lot of times, they ask. They’re like, “Well, one thing that’s really important to me is that I’m making money and I’m growing my business, but I’m doing it in a way that does not take away from my students. I don’t want to have to make sacrifices when it comes to their experience and the results they get as I’m growing my business.” And the reality is, they truly care about their students and the results that they achieve.
Caitlin Bacher:
If you’ve been listening to this podcast for any length of time, then you know that we don’t try to sugar coat anything. And we don’t pretend that scaling a business is easy, right? Scaling a business is hard, but it’s also one of the most rewarding things that you will ever do. And there’s nothing more rewarding than growing your business and growing it in a way that allows you to serve more students, so that you can go to bed every night knowing that you’re making a positive impact on the communities that you serve.
Karie Price:
And I love that these are the people that we attract to us, right? Because we know we’re here to make a bigger impact in the world. And it is a ripple effect, by us attracting those people because it’s through them and their students that we’re making an impact. And so it really does matter that you know that that’s who you’re trying to serve and who you’re trying to attract, because that allows you to focus your messaging, the words that you choose to use when you’re talking to your audience, the way that you represent yourself and your brand when you’re putting yourself out there. Because you’re going to be able to speak much more directly to your ideal student. You’re not just talking to anybody. We’re not talking to just any online course creator, right? We are specifically looking for those online course creators that want to make an impact, a big impact in the world, and use their online course business by scaling that to and through seven figures so that they have the money and time freedom to do that.
Karie Price:
So we know that’s who we’re talking to, and every piece of content that we write keeps that person in mind.
Caitlin Bacher:
Definitely.
Karie Price:
And when you’re able to ensure that everything that you put out there really speaks directly to your ideal client, then they’re thinking like, “Oh my gosh, you’re in my head. You know exactly how I’m feeling, what I’m thinking, what I want. You have shared values,” and all of that builds connection and relationship. And marketing is all about creating connection and building relationship. And you can do that even at scale.
Caitlin Bacher:
When you are entering a relationship of any kind, whether it’s a relationship with your audience or with a prospect, or even with a client or a student, it’s really important for you to first get clear on who you are and what you stand for, because eventually, you, if you’re scaling your business, you are not going to be the one creating all of your marketing content, all of your course content. You’re not going to be the one doing all of that. As you scale and build a team of people who are taking care of all of that for you, it’s going to be much easier for them to amplify the message that you want if you are first clear on what that message is. And it’s really tough for a lot of us, as CEOs of our company, to get that out of our head and onto paper in a clear and concise way that is understandable.
Caitlin Bacher:
So it’s funny because we literally just did a training on this yesterday, a live training for our Stage 1 clients, where I gave them kind of a framework for figuring out what is their ideal customer profile. I get it. I’m a creative as well. And a lot of times, it’s more of like a feeling or all of these words jumbled together in your head, and having a framework, having something that you can actually use to tease out the most important bits of information from your head are really powerful for you and super helpful for your team. Imagine being able to hand over that document to someone and say, “Hey, here’s my ideal customer profile. Can you please create some marketing content that’s going to reach those people?”
Karie Price:
Yeah, definitely. And this is where it’s really important that you do spend some time figuring out how to speak to those people so you don’t sound like anybody else. So getting clear on who it is you’re trying to attract is the first step. But, as we talked about, this episode is on how to stand out from your competition, right? So it’s important that you know how you speak about the pains, problems, challenges, desires, and wants that your ideal audience has. It’s potentially going to be the same concepts than somebody that is competition to you. But if you can speak about it in a way that’s unique and gives you a one of a kind perspective on it, that’s what’s going to help your ideal client remember you when they’re ready to make that investment, right?
Karie Price:
Because if everybody’s saying the same thing and nobody stands out, they’re not going to remember you. Worse, maybe you’re promoting the other person without knowing it because you’re using their same language. So you need to figure out, how do you want to show up? How does your voice sound? And when I say your voice, your brand voice, right? The inflection, the words that you use, the tone and the feeling that you want, so that people remember you distinctly.
Caitlin Bacher:
When we talk about what does that look like at scale, well, eventually, you’re going to have a director of marketing, just like we have Karie, who is able to put together a language guide for you. So one of the things that Karie did when we first started working together is she was able to assemble a language guide, and it’s literally a list of words that we do and do not use to really further set us apart and clarify our message and make sure that our whole team is on the same page about what we do and what we don’t do.
Caitlin Bacher:
Because in your head as an entrepreneur, you might say like, “Oh, you know what? I really hate things described as…” My thing is the word empowered. I don’t like the word empowered. So I have to be really clear about that. Because if not, if you use that in your marketing, that’s totally fine. I just don’t want it to be used in our marketing. And so it’s going to be inconsistent if we hire a copywriter or a social media manager or whatever, and they start to make content that used the word empowered. Then it’s like, it starts to go off brand a little bit.
Karie Price:
Yeah. And you can tell when you’ve got this really clearly defined and your whole team is operating with that same language when you start to get feedback from people about it too. They know you’re building a team, they know you must have a copywriter, but we get feedback regularly where people say, “You have a great copywriter.” It always sounds consistent. It sounds like it’s coming from Caitlin, we know that that’s what Caitlin believes in and what we stand for here. And so we’re able to have that consistency in everything that we do.
Caitlin Bacher:
And that’s something that our Stage 2 clients struggle with is they’ve done the work of figuring out, well, this is my message. This is my ideal client. This is what I want to say. This is how I want to say it. But what they’re struggling with is how to then disseminate that information, communicate that information, onto their team. And I don’t know, I just had a really good idea actually for training that you and I should do together, that I think would be really helpful for that.
Karie Price:
I love it. I love good ideas that come out of these types of conversations.
Karie Price:
And so I think the big takeaway is when you’re able to get really focused and clear on the niche of people that you want to serve, you really understand them, demographics and those psychographics, the psychographics are really important, and you have your own language, your own way of speaking about things that your audience understands. We’re not talking about creating jargon and lingo that people aren’t going to understand, but it’s just your own perspective and way of talking about things so that everything gets that same unifying message, that’s what’s going to help you start to separate and stand out in your market so that people remember you and they choose you, the people that you are wanting to attract and serve.
Caitlin Bacher:
So we’ve talked a lot today about how to really make yourself stand out from the competition. And we’d love to hear directly from you on some things that you are currently struggling with when it comes to standing out in your space. So go ahead and hit us up on Instagram, send us a DM, and let us know. Talk soon.
Caitlin Bacher:
Are you ready to scale your online course business so you can impact the lives of more people and create real change in the world? Join us inside our signature program, Scale with Success®, where you’ll get the content, coaching and community you need to successfully implement our proven process to help you scale so you can start reaping the rewards of running a highly profitable online course business.
Caitlin Bacher:
Scale with Success® is a multi-year group coaching experience built for online course creators who are ready to scale their business to and through $1 million with certainty as a result of having the right support at the right time. What are you waiting for? Click over to scalewithsuccess.com and apply now.
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