#123 - How to choose the best course platform for you

We do know just that how important it is to make sure you have those right pieces in place in your business because it will make your life infinitely easier and that make that experience for your clients, as I already said, infinitely better as well.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your Host, serial entrepreneur, 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben, where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help help you do what you do online. But better, easier, and with a ton more profit too. Are you ready? Let's do it.

Hello. Hello everybody. It is Kate here from HelloFunnels Co, and welcome to episode 123 of the Doing It Online podcast. Now, today we are talking nerdy, as I like to do, and we're going to dive into one of my favorite things to really geek out on, and that is tech software. What works well, what doesn't, and more importantly, what is the best choice for you and your business. Because it seems like almost every second day a brand new piece of shiny software is released out into the world or you see someone talking about it. And if you're anything like me, I'm very easily distracted by shiny new pieces of software, almost more so than shiny new course ideas. And you know, it starts to make you go, oh, well, that looks good. Maybe that looks better than what I have. Should I move? Should I not? Or maybe you're currently, you're just getting started and you're like, I don't know where to start. Or perhaps you do have a tech stack already. You already have some tech and you're not completely in love with it. It doesn't do what you need it to do. This episode today, I want to break down six different scenarios, actually seven of different types of online teaching, online education, online coaching businesses, and the tech that we recommend in particular for your courseware. This is just one piece of your tech stack. Every online business needs its own sort of little combo, its own tech stack of courseware, of email, software, of website, all of that kind of stuff. But today we're just focusing on the courseware. And the other thing I just want to put in as a quick little caveat in here, which is kind of my rule of thumb for any new tech out there, and I would advise you, and I know this will piss off all of the people launching their new tech, but usually my rule of thumb when it comes to new tech that you see coming out is I don't like to use technology till it's at least two years old. Particularly if it's a more complicated piece of software, it doesn't apply. If it's like it's a really simple thing, it's just doing one thing because hopefully they figure out how to do that. If it's something that is like trying to do many, many, many complicated things. I would actually probably extend that rule to be three or four, possibly five years old, which might seem extreme. But the problem is with most new pieces of tech and it's pretty universal, it doesn't really matter if they've got a big budget or a small one, is that there's going to be problems. There absolutely will be. It's just the nature of it. The more complicated a thing they're trying to do, the more problems they're going to have. And I would rather that they iron out those problems first before I use them. They're also probably going to be lacking some features just because they haven't been able to get them all done in time. And the third thing with new tech is usually their customer service isn't that great yet because they're, they're growing, they're really just focusing on sales right now. They're really focusing on trying to put out these fires. And if they do have a lot of problems, whatever customer service they can afford to have on board are probably going to be really overwhelmed and not necessarily have any options to actually help with your problem. So that's my little rule of thumb on brand new tech. But besides that, let's talk about what is the best courseware for you for what you need for your business. As I said, every business is different and there are so many different ones out there now, particularly in the courseware space. Used to be just like one or two, you see, either do something on WordPress or use Teachable. Now most people don't use either. Yeah, let's dive right on. In the first place that I wanted to start with, the first scenario I want to share with is if you are not very techy minded and you really just want it to be simple, you just want it to be as easy as humanly possible to get it in, get it done, you want it to look nice and clean and just know that it works and you don't have to worry about it. If that sounds like you, you don't need any bells and whistles, you just need to be able to have your course there and have it be easy. Then the tech that we recommend is pro. They start, they actually start with a free plan. But then it's a $39 a month plan that I think most people would need to use. Super simple. The design looks really nice and clean. It's not either too masculine or too feminine, which can be a problem as that it's very, very easy to get in and get things set up because they have made it that more simplified version. And yeah, because of that there aren't, there isn't a whole lot of customization, but that's fine. They've thrown in some other things you can do with that, like building pages and stuff. I probably wouldn't use it for that, I would use something else. But if it's just for courseware and you want to keep it simple and easy, Podia is great. The next scenario is if you are, and probably this is if you're someone like me. But if you really want it to be very customized, like if you want to kind of break out of the hey, let's have a drip fed out releases every week kind of style program, you want to be able to release things at different points to really have a lot of control over how it looks and how it is delivered. Then you're going to have to go probably one of my least favorite options which is actually go WordPress plus an extra tool called Access Ally. Now I'm not saying throwing any shade on accessally it is a great product. I'm throwing shade on WordPress and the fact that when you have to have a WordPress based system that you are going to take on a lot more tech headaches, a lot more chances for errors, a lot more chances of there being problems and it's up to you to fix it. Not up to the platform because it's usually based on your individual hosting, your combination of plugins, all kinds of things. With that said, the fact that I don't love having your course based on any WordPress based thing. If you do want to have that really granular control, be able to create a really unique experience that's not just that linear Week one module one week two module two kind of thing, then Access Ally allows you to do that. It's a really clever piece of tech built by a really clever person. And yeah, but unfortunately it does mean you do have to then use WordPress with it. Option number three is if you want it to be able to look great, you want the to be able to have a bit more control over the design, but you don't want to go down the full on customized route. You don't want WordPress. This is the camp that I fall into for that instance then what we recommend is actually Kajabi pricing starts at 149amonth, which yes, definitely makes it one of the most expensive, but only marginally a lot of the other ones. Like I said, like Access LA is $99 a month plus you also need WordPress hosting on top of that. So it's probably coming in at a very similar amount. The benefits of having it on something like Kajabi on a third party system versus as I said, like on WordPress is generally touchwood. It's more stable and it's them who is in charge of making sure everything runs well, that nothing breaks. If there's bugs, it's their problem to fix, not yours. And usually for most of us who have this course creator, educator, coach type business, we are not tech support. We don't want to be tech support and we don't have to hire full time tech support. That usually is, yeah, that's a better option if you want to have that bit more customization and you can get some really gorgeous templates for Kajabi. They're bringing out more and more, they're adding more features. As far as the rest of the things Kajabi does, I don't love them as much but as a courseware platform I think that they are really great. Next option if you are thinking, look, I don't just want a standard course. It's really important for me to be able to incentivize people to complete. I really want to kind of get into that learner psychology mindset and really I want to be able to have rewards, I want to incentivize people, I want to have gamification and all that kind of stuff. Like if you want to kind of plan out a program that involves all of that, then there's a really cool platform out there called Experience Ify and that starts at about $49 per month and it lets you do that like it's a really cool set up once it's going. The only downside I would say to experience a fire is it is a little on the fiddly side. But that is because it does have these things like being able to have little pop ups that come up and give and celebrate people when they complete things. And so it's definitely most of the functionality is around those rewards, those giving people points for doing things. And the actual lessons and modules is very basic. It's like here's a video, here's a very small place for text. If you were again needing something A bit more. You want it to be able to have a bit more in your actual lessons besides videos and text. It might not be the right choice for you. But if you do want to have that very asana like, like if you ever used asana, you would know that one of the best things about it is every now and then when you tick something off, a unicorn flies across the screen. Like it's that kind of thing. Like you can add those kinds of elements in as people work through your program, which is pretty fun as it and it can be has been proven to help increase completion rates as well, which is always very important. Next scenario is if you are just getting started. The boot, your bootstrapping and those straps are very tight and you just want to spend as little as possible. You just want to get something up that works. But it's very important that you keep things very budget friendly. Then our recommendation again would be Podia because they do have that free plan. Bearing in mind though the free plan when you use it, it has limited features but it's enough to get you started. And they do take a percentage. I think at last check is about 8% of all your transactions. So you will pretty quickly want to upgrade then to the $39 plan. But that still is keeping in the more budget range of all the options that we've seen that are actually worth recommending. So Podia again, it's simple as that. You can start with it being totally free until you're getting enough sales coming through that it's going to start covering its own cost, which it should do within a couple of sales and then you can upgrade to that $39 plan. Your other option again if you're very mindful of spending, not wanting to have huge outlays every month is if you're also going to be looking at something like a Thrive cart or a SAM cart for your checkout if you do need that more advanced checkout functionality, both of those now come with is usually a bit of an extra option but they do now come with built in courseware against very limited, very basic courseware but it does the job. And if you're already paying for those checkout systems, why not use their courseware as well? Okay, on to where we up to 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6. Onto number six. Two more to go guys. This scenario is for if you are a coach and it's really a more of a coaching experience, less of an online course style experience. And what you're really prioritizing and really find value in is that being able to see the client's progress, being able to have notes about the client for clients to be able to easily book calls with you and also potentially being able to track maybe habits or particular actions and and see those as as well as having, you know, your community and stuff like that there. So if that's more of your bag, if you are sort of, you know, if you're more of a coach who has a online hub versus a sort of a group coaching program versus an online course, then have a look at Upcoach by Todd Herman. Again, it is one of the newer players, but it has been around for a couple of years. They've been definitely developing it heavily and adding lots of great new features. Looks wise. It's a little basic, but again, if that's not your priority, if you want the really pretty one, as I mentioned, go have a look at Kajabi, go have a look at maybe your WordPress slash access ally. They're going to get you those more beautiful styled ones. But if you want to be able to have these extra tools to help you deliver your coaching, to help you sort of track that client's success, then Up Coach is a really great option. And then last but not least, if the experience that you are creating is definitely community first and then your courseware, education side of things, curriculum side of things second, then you're going to want to have a look at something like a Mighty Networks to a lesser extent, Circle. We've already done a whole episode on Circle, what's good, what's not, so you can go check that out. If you're wanting to get sort of up to date with Circle of the two of Mighty Networks and Circle. We probably still prefer Mighty Networks at this point because just does still have a few more features than Circle does. But I'm sure they will come in. They both seem to be copying each other pretty heavily, and I'm sure they'll probably end up being extremely similar products in the not too distant future. Mighty networks, it's $99 a month if you want to be able to have the courses included as well as part of your setup. If you don't want the courses, you just want Community, then it's only $33. Last time I used my networks, which was over six months ago, they were in the middle of releasing a really big update that was meant to sort of iron out some of the main issues we had with Mighty Networks. We haven't used it since then, but we know a lot of people who use it who love it and if that it is that building that community, having that real sort of online like almost like your own mini Facebook kind of thing, then it's a really great thing to go and check out. So hopefully guys, as you've been going through this, we've been able to help point in the direction to a tech, a piece of tech that's going to make your life easier, make your clients lives easier and better, and make the experience you're creating as amazing as possible. If we've missed one, please let us know. Or if we've mentioned your favorite, just DM us over at hellofunnels. We always love hearing from you guys or post a story, tag us. All the good things, let us know. We love to sit down and nerd out on tech. It is one of our favorite things and we do know just that how important it is to make sure you have those right pieces in place in your business because it will make your life infinitely easier and that make that experience for your clients, as I already said, infinitely better as well. We hope this has been helpful guys, let us know. Please share this with anyone who is currently looking to update their tech stack or looking to get started and choose the right tech. We would love to help point them in the right direction as well. And until other than that guys, make sure you come back same time next week where we will be talking nerdy once again and we can't wait to chat to you then. Alrighty guys, bye.

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