Marketing Your Homeschool Program

Hello everyone and welcome to our first ever Marketing for Homeschoolers workshop. This workshop feels a little bit odd for me because I think that often when we think of homeschoolers, we think of people who do not enjoy being marketed too. So I rarely use those two words together. But after 10 years of working with the homeschooling community, I have really found a lot of interesting strategies for how to connect to homeschooling families and help serve their needs in a way that feels really good and authentic. And on the other hand, I have met so many more and more amazing teachers, parents and artists who are building really innovative opportunities for home homeschoolers and anybody who wants to innovate their education. So today is a very, very mixed crowd of people. I asked for your thoughts as you were signing up for this workshop. And we just have a huge range of micro schools curriculum online programs, people who are specifically focused on homeschooling and then others who have a really successful after school program and they're trying to reach the homeschooling market. So, so I'm really just going to talk for a very tiny amount of time about marketing to homeschoolers and then I really want to use most of this workshop to talk about your individual needs and see if we can come up with very specific strategies to support you. Because I think that one thing that you share in common is you really have wonderful programs. And I would like to be of help in making sure that more people who need those programs know about them. So just a little bit about my background, I guess now, I think it was 2009. I was an actress in New York City working as a private tutor and I taught for very elite. Yes, from New York. Woohoo. Fantastic. Fellow New Yorker. So I was doing a lot of tutoring. I was working for an agency. My friend and I wanted to tutor on our own. We were both teachers and so we went to and delivered flyers to a hundred different schools by hand and nobody ever called us for a single tutoring gig. And then I ended up working for an agency and I was working, you know, I was earning about maybe 50, $50 an hour. And then I started getting some referrals from a French language school and those gigs were around 100 or 175. But one day I kind of thought, you know, if I had a class with 20 people each paying $15, I could be making a lot more money than I am with these one on one tutoring gigs that I have to travel an hour there and an hour Back to get to. And so I started my first foreign language school. And at that time I was in a woman's group and we were kind of all encouraging each other. We were all artists. And I read this funny book about how to get rich. I don't even remember what it's called at this point. But one of the things that the book impressed upon me was the importance of marketing. And so essentially I spent two weeks just sending a personalized email to every single person I had ever met telling them that I was starting this French class and to please pass along the information to. To anyone they knew. And with this, you know, it was very time consuming. It took me about 10 to 15 hours a day over the course of two weeks. But at the end of those two weeks, I had filled my first class was when my way to filling my second class, and was able to repay my credit card debt, which was fortunately not too high since I didn't have a credit too high a credit card limit at that time. Things have changed. But it was a really interesting experience for me because I had always assumed that, oh, if you have something good people will come, and if it's not good, people won't come. And so I would kind of tell one person and then they wouldn't come and I would get sad and stop doing what I was doing. So the point of that story is to say that it took me reaching out to a lot of different people and hearing a lot of no's and also having something of value to the community. And I think that in some ways that really is what marketing is about, is that you have like. It's like two pieces of a puzzle where you have your thing that you're offering and then you have the people and then those things fit together. That's. That's what we're all looking for. And now I've experienced that in many different ways. During the pandemic I hosted when George Floyd was murdered, we just hosted a workshop on teaching kids about racism. And I posted to a few Facebook groups and that workshop got 2,000 signups in two days. And we raised nearly $10,000 for the facilitators. So that was an offering that was much needed at that time. Then we hosted a workshop for children on how to make their own mas with one of the most famous scientists in the world who is leading the masks for all movement. And that got 10 signups. And I was very embarrassed because the facilitator was so famous and he took his time to do this workshop. But as Funny as it is that the person who facilitated the workshop ended up becoming one of the most important customers because his child was five and he really wanted what we were offering. So it's interesting. These people can come in in different ways. And so what, what I the central theme of all my marketing, and I know that everybody is in a different place with their marketing, is that the most effective thing that you can do to get customers is to ask for feedback. And I know that some of you already expressed a little bit frustration, like, we've asked for so much feedback, we already know our customer. The last thing we want is ask for more feedback. But funnily enough, people really like to give their opinion. And so, you know, for example, I was doing some research on socialization and homeschooling and I put up a survey on Reddit and it got 2,000 responses overnight. Whereas sometimes when I put up my intro to homeschooling workshop, that only gets 20. So, for example, if Facebook groups is something that you want to use to help grow your program, one really effective strategy is approaching the owner of that group and with all humility, saying, I want to create something valuable for the homeschooling community. And I would love to get people's feedback. And you can have a type form or you can use whatever survey you like, but people really appreciate a humble and genuine request for feedback. And then the great thing is that after people give you their feedback and you create what they asked for, they will often sign up for it. So it's a win, win, win. So I'm always advocating just ask for feedback, ask for feedback, ask for more feedback. And. And that will be very appealing to people. So instead of having your marketing energy focused around pushing, pushing, pushing, like, please sign up for my thing. Here's all these beautiful social media images. Sign up for this, sign up for that. Kind of bombarding people. You can approach it with an attitude of receiving, what do you need? How can I be of help? What are some things that you think we could improve about what we're offering? And this is just a really beautiful way to engage and to connect. So that's just kind of a very brief intro. I also want to just dig in a little bit to the specifics of micro schools. So when I founded cottage class in 2015, that was my second startup. It was a platform that helped teachers start their own schools. And there were two things that we found really quite effective. One was that I was a member of several Facebook parenting groups, and at the time they had Google parenting groups and on those groups, what we would do is we would look for people's needs. So someone would say, I want a French playgroup, or I want a homeschool co op in Prospect Heights. And we would go and we would find a teacher with a space who was willing to offer that program. And then we would return to the parents and say, we have a teacher and a space. Can you find five friends? And it was quite incredible at how quickly those learning opportunities came together. And then the other thing, I know that some of you are already doing open houses, but for our micro schools, we. We hosted frequent open houses. We used Facebook events, and we would just bring people into the community. And those tended to even work better when there was a certain game or theme around it. So we had a learn and play festival where kids could come and try out different educational technology. We had a micro school tour where all of the different providers got involved and we visited different micro schools. But having kind of a date like that, like you come to the open house on that date, it puts a little bit of FOMO around it. And so it can be really effective at getting people in the door and getting to know them. So that was how we created micro schools, through cottage class. Those two methods of, on one hand, seeing what the need was and then filling that need, and then on the other hand, just having lots of events that we would post on Facebook to get people into the space. So now I run Modulo, which is helping to connect families with innovative learning opportunities. And really the main strategy that we currently use is going out and getting people's opinion, getting people's feedback on. On what we're offering. Going to Facebook groups, hosting events like this, where we collect feedback about what people need and then returning to people and. And sharing different opportunities that might be valuable to them. So then. So that's just like a little bit about me and how I've built a community in the homeschooling space. We now have about 10,000 visitors a month and a community of 4,000 people on our mailing list. People taking classes, curriculum tutors. And I'm looking to just even expand that community further and get people sharing each other's learning experiences. So this is kind of part of that. And I hope that in addition to us meeting and talking together, together today will also be the beginning of a network of people who can help get students into each other's programs. So just in that spirit, I really wanted to share with you some of the amazing programs that are here today. And I kind of keyed it up. I mean they're just like so not everybody arrived. But there's so many amazing programs. This is Brooklyn which is an after school zines and Pokemon camp in Brooklyn. We have the Gathering Place, a micro school for girls in Capitol Heights. Just amazing. I want to attend and redo my entire education. These, this, these girls look so happy. On the website Kamini A progressive Finnish early education program. I mean with. It's just so cool. I mean how completely unique is this program that is Finnish education in an Indian setting. I don't think there's anything else like this in the whole world. We have this amazing literacy arts program in la. These people are looking to connect with more underserved families. MB Success Academy Karen is transforming education virtually and just helping so much with individualized learning. GD and test prep is really vital skills. We have Pathfinder Learning Center. Self directed Learning center in Arlington. Lots of self directed schools here. And again that's an additional challenge of kind of helping people understand what self directed learning is and how that can benefit their children and taking that leap. Science is weird. Our friend Brandon who just has an absolutely unique and wonderful science program and Steps Learning center. So cool. A non traditional microschool for neurodiverse kids. I saw in your responses there seem to be two main needs special needs kids and parents who are looking for self directed learning. I thought that was interesting. Earthwise Forest school. I love forest schools. Just how wonderful. Who doesn't want to send their child to a forest school? Luminary Learning Village. More incredible self directed learning. And then we have Lemons Aid Faith based online learning for all ages. Just so, so many amazing offerings. And then Phillips helping children with dyslexia succeed. So vital they're reaching out to underserved children as well. And incredible Brook learn another amazing after school early childhood program in Brooklyn. So I really want to hear. I felt like you gave me such great answers but I really want to dig deeper into what you are individually struggling with and if I can maybe help give you each a technique to go away with. So would anybody be willing to talk a little bit about, you know, what they're struggling with and maybe get some tips. Who. Who wants. Feel free to unmute yourself and just go ahead. Yes, Brandon, I can do that.

I'll take a minute to think about that before I do, but can I start by asking the. The form that you had us fill out for this? It was really good. It was. It was so good. And I guess I may be thinking especially of the. Of the Second one, at the end of the first one, there is a link to the second one that I found myself writing better ad copy than I've ever written before for the Learning in depth project that I'm embarking on. What the heck was that? How did you make that? Like the software, but also like the framework that you used for that? Just because we've all gone through that. Would you be willing to speak on that?

Yes, absolutely. So for the form for this workshop, I use Typeform. I have played, I've used Google forms. I like them too. But mostly I stick with Typeform because I, for some reason, people find them very fun to fill out. And Typeform has this philosophy of just only doing one question at a time, which somehow seems to ease the process. In terms of the questions that I asked, I asked them. So I think. I don't know how helpful this is, but I was really coming from a place of genuine curiosity because I didn't want this workshop to be a lecture. I wanted you to. I wanted everyone who came to walk away feeling like their needs were met. And I think that so many times in marketing workshops I get these very obscure messages about branding or telling your story, but I don't actually have a way to get another student in the door. And I need, you know, and you need. You guys need money and you need more students. And so I felt that maybe if you actually told me what your needs were that it would help me. And the way I came with questions is that I also. This is probably an important point. I've had a lot of conversations with education entrepreneurs, and once you've had enough conversations, you know, the questions that you ask over and over again. So I asked you, you know, what are your goals for your program? What are you about? And then I asked, what, you know, what are your challenges with marketing? And what typically happens is that I'll give a suggestion and then someone say, well, I've tried that already. Give me something new. So that's why I wanted to know, what have you tried already and what have you not tried already and what do you love and what do you hate? Like, for example, I really dislike social media, and I try to avoid that at all costs. I don't find it helpful to my program, but maybe there's someone here who loves doing social media and I don't want to, you know, crush their joy. So that. That. So really. And I also have a curriculum planner on modulo and the way and it's based on 200 learning archetypes and the Way I built that curriculum planner is I had individual learning consultations with families over and over and over and over again until I found that I was asking the same questions over and over and over again. And when I get to that point where I'm asking the same questions and giving the same answers, then I know that I can put it in a type form and that will still get me the same answers and the same recommendations. And then with that type form, I don't know if I did it this time, but I usually ask people, do you have any feedback? So this is the first time I've done this workshop and I already know that there are things that I want to change. Like for example, I asked you what your goals were for marketing, but no one actually told me a number. Not a single person said, like, I want to get 100 more students or I want to get two more students. And there's a huge difference between the strategy for getting two students or 100 students. So if I had this workshop again, I would say, how many more students would you like to get? So that really comes from, you know, so I think the first phase is having one on one conversations. Like for you, Brandon, you have a science program just beautifully designed. But it might start out by saying, you know, reaching out to everyone in your community and saying, like, how did you find my program? Because that can kind of teach you where the people who like your program are coming from. The second question I would ask people are, you know, what was not sufficient for you in your previous science curriculum? And how has science is weird helped fulfill that need? That will both help me, like with my marketing and also to understand what's working in the current program. And then, you know, I would say like, what could be improved? And then that can help you understand how to better tailor your program so that. Thank you. I mean, it's such a great question and I love building those forms and it really is that process of one on one conversations to form, to iterating the form based on people's feedback using Typeform, which is not sponsoring us yet, but I hope I'm gonna ask them. I'm maybe gonna ask the founders for some investment soon because they're really cool guys. Yeah. Do you have any specific, more specific questions or does someone else have a specific question? Nothing is off limits. And in fact, if you have resistance and you're saying, you know what you're saying Manisha is wrong or not applicable to me, that's the type of feedback I really want to hear because that will Help me troubleshoot for you.

Well, my problem is. I'm sorry, Brandon.

What's your problem, Karen?

Is I haven't found anyone who's doing what I'm doing. And it's. It's sort of like my daughter or everyone else keeps contacting me and it's driving me nuts. I hear this in my ear. I haven't found anyone who's doing what I'm doing. So I haven't really found help anywhere for a lack of way of saying it. So I operate a digital learning product.

Yes.

So what I want to do is partner with homeschooling parents who actually need assistance with her kids that. Oh, well, I have to go back. I used to teach in a residential treatment facility for. These kids have behavioral, mental, emotional issues.

Yeah.

And when they transitioned home, a lot of them weren't ready to go back to school, so they were put in the online academy.

So.

And I was in charge of the online academy because I had a lot of experience because I have an academic coach and I'm a certified attention deficit consultant. So I had experience working with online. So they had me work with the kids in the online school. Then the company shut down. So when the company shut down, these kids had no place to go.

Right.

So they all just transitioned to me. However, all those kids are starting to go back to school. So I'm losing kids on a regular basis and I don't know how to get kids. Kids to come into the program.

It's a big problem. You know, we got this huge influx of students during the pandemic and then a lot of them decided to go back to school. So we had to adjust what we were offering. So what would you say is the kind of ideal student for you?

My ideal student is a child who has a focus related issue because the kids who sit. I got some kids sit in the classroom and some of them, they just pop in to give me an update and like, you know, keep up their progress. But I have some kids who sit in the classroom with me from 9 to 2 every day. I'm watching them, keeping them focused. I'm keeping them on track, making sure they're completing their stuff. I'm doing weekly meetings with them with, planning and coaching with these kids. And the parents like that because they can still go to work. So while I'm with their kids, I have one parent. That means the parent works in the other room because they work from home and I'm working with the kids. I have another parent who actually goes to work and I'm working with her kid all day long. So it's just.

So my initial feedback for you is that when I look at your website and actually even when I hear you speak, it's a little bit unclear what you're doing. And I think I probably would have a better understanding if I watched it or we had a longer conversation. And so I think you're saying, what you're saying is exactly right. It's hard for people to compartmentalize it and say, oh, this is this. So, so I see here you have like digital learning pod. Digital learning pod. You have programs like SAT practice test, credit recovery and academic coaching of these.

Are for the people. Like, I have a lot of kids with credit recovery because they were out of school for a period of time, so they were missing courses. Those are not the people that are actually in the digital learning pod. So only the ones that are in digital learning prize are the ones who have the focus related issues or behavioral issues that they can't go to school.

So would, would you say it's fair to say that you are most passionate about the digital learning pod and that's what you want to lean into or. Okay.

Yes, ma'.

Am. Okay. And so with the digital learning program, is it all you teaching the, the child? Is that the, the main.

Yeah, I'm not really teaching. I, I have sessions where I actually do teach, but most of these kids are in their self paced programs. So some of them are in sellers and some of them are actually in time for learning, which is edgenuity.

Yes.

And some of the kids work in their own programs where I'm just working with them when they need help.

Yeah. So is it fair to say that you're kind of like an education coach for homeschoolers with adhd?

Oh, I like that.

Is that true?

I love that. For homeschoolers with adhd. Oh, I love you, honey.

I love you too, Karen. So I think that, you know, there's a couple things, like first of all, just in terms of how I can help you, I would love to do a workshop on helping homeschoolers with ADHD or helping parents who have ADHD with their homeschoolers, because those are both really big needs. And so.

I'm sorry.

Yeah. Oh, Alexandra has a question too. Hi, Alexandra. Yeah, hi.

This is actually the first time I join a workshop or.

So.

I'm excited.

Great.

Yeah.

It's so good to see you.

Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much. I do have a very specific question because the program that I have already, it's an on site program and we cater specifically for kids with varying exceptionalities. And then all of our students have moderate to significant needs. But another part of the program that I am doing, and I started a pilot of the program with two families that homeschool their homebound child. And what I do for these families is I give them lesson plans, fully made materials and all, including printed materials for them to be able to complete a learning like the learning day with their kids. Focusing on communication, mainly communication and of course, basic academic skills, but also very focused on functional and not so much on grade level or phonics or things like that, because these circuits have limited mobility. So most of their interaction with the activities is through eye gaze or through a communication device. And I know that there is no one doing that, and I've never seen anything. So my. My plan or what I want to do is to create a curriculum basically for homebound homeschoolers.

Yeah. Specifically for students who have learning disabilities or neurodivergence.

Yes, yes. But also very specifically for those who are homebound.

So mainly I see, like, so they have some kind of health issue. That's.

Yes.

Okay. Excellent. Okay, Alexandra, I want to get to you, but first I want to close the loop with Karen because I don't want to leave her hanging.

So.

So Karen, just in terms of recruiting new students, like within this framework, and you don't even necessarily have to change anything on your website, but within this framework of being an education coach for adhd, I would suggest, first of all, there's tons of Facebook groups with kids who have ADHD and homeschoolers. So if you do some type of workshop that's not at all promoting your services, but just giving information to these families and answering those questions, and we can absolutely do one together, then you'll start getting a list and more people coming in the door, and you can start sending them, you know, like, regular tips about helping their student. And then in terms of the digital pod, I would almost just like, forget about everything else that you're doing and have a pod which is like, I'm an educational coach for adhd. This is what I offer. And these are the rates and these are the success outcomes I'm seeing in students. And those are the key things that parents are going to want to know when they sign up for your program. And I think then you really have the puzzle pieces that fit. And you can start thinking about, like, where are all these parents with kids with ADHD going? What organizations are serving them? How can I partner with those organizations, and then you start to build this great network of homeschoolers with adhd.

The only problem with that is I can only have so many people in the digital learning pod at the same time.

Exactly. So you're going to need to figure out a financial model that allows you to make enough money with that limited number of students or find a way to grow your program so that it does make enough money. If you only need a certain number of people on your pod, then you're good. You can just stop marketing once it's full. But if you need more than that, you're going to have to first find a structure that allows for more students.

Students, Right. I do have to figure out something.

Yes.

Because I would. I would like to grow. I mean, I can't. Like I said, I can't watch everybody at the same time.

Yeah. So I would work on those two simultaneously. I would work on filling your first pod and then figuring out how you're going to expand that and grow. We can do another workshop on growth. But growth is going to be a good problem, right?

Yes, absolutely.

So, Alexandra, with regards to your program and helping building a curriculum for neurodivergence diverse kids, how far along are you in this process?

So I started, like I said, I'm working with. With two families. So I am building the curriculum using Google Classroom. So how I'm doing it is I do four weeks worth of work for four days in the week. So I am already making the curriculum. So I'm in the making of the curriculum program. Yeah, that is my program. That is the website.

So are you running. Are you running anything simultaneously or is this. Everything is in development right now?

No, that's already running. We've been open for two years. Okay. And we moved to a new location in June, where we're at right now. So this other part of the program started later in the past school year because I had this family just randomly reaching out to me, like, hey, I have a child. Like, is there any way you can help us? And then I came up with the idea of doing this, and it was also because I learned that there was this program that was signed into law that parents will get compensated to homeschool their homebound child or provide that care for their child, because a lot of parents are not able to work when they are caring for a child that is homebound.

So what's the.

Sorry to. What do you feel is. So, as you know, there's so many homeschool curriculum available. What gap does your curriculum fill? That doesn't exist. Have you thought about that or do you not? Are you not sure?

Yeah. It's based on conductive education. So our curriculum is not standards based, it's not grade or age based, and it's. How can I say, it's like a broad approach where we are focusing more on the communication and teaching the child independent skills as much as possible.

Yes, yes, absolutely.

While integrating academic skills.

Incredible. Okay, I got it. It sounds so useful. And so do you. So you're wondering how you're going to get people to buy this curriculum once you've finished it. Okay, so my first stop, if I were you, would be to connect. Are you familiar with the type of certification called child life Specialist? Okay, so it's this amazing growing field of people who are trained to work in hospitals with children, and they help communicate with the parents, they prepare kids to take shots, and they also support with homeschooling. And so there's big groups of them on Facebook and there's also professors. My most significant mentor, her name is Deb Vylas and she is now the head of Child life at Bank Street College of Education, also my favorite college of education. They use the developmental interaction approach. It's so wonderful. She's connected to this huge network of child life specialists. What I would do, first of all, send a message to me. Introduce yourself. Talk about your past and your goals, how you got into this and that. You. You're trying to develop a curriculum for children who are homebound and are looking for feedback from child life specialists. And I would create a survey that you can get out there to every hospital, every child life specialist, start posting it to all the child life specialist groups and start collecting emails and just as much information as you possibly can about what types of skills need to be covered in this curriculum. Just survey, survey, survey, survey, survey parents, survey kids get the child life specialist to send it to their parents. And then once you've got all that great information that you build the curriculum, you continue to ask their feedback as you go along. So you have this group that you're asking for feedback from as you go, and then boom, once you launch that curriculum, you just have all your consumers ready to go.

Perfect. That. That is a great, great game plan.

Okay, good. And I'm, I'm very excited to help. I think it's wonderful. Megan and Jan, we haven't heard from you at all. And I definitely, we're gonna, we're gonna dig in. More to science is weird too, but Megan and Janet, do you have any Specific questions. Megan, you're doing such amazing work that I would really love to, to be of support in your, your growth goals because you're already doing some really cool stuff.

Yeah. Thank you. I'm not really sure, I mean what, what you want me to ask you, but I've got.

Do you need help? Where are you blocked? What, what kind of. Do we have any puzzles? We could, we could target. It says you said in your form that you're your biggest. No, that's, that was Alexander. Yeah. What, what, what are your challenges right now?

It's enrollment and making sure that educators are taking advantage of grants that are funding their entire education path. So like we have a spark. It's called SPARK Grant for educators to come learn structured literacy in our program, you have to be an educator. You have to be on a. You have to be a Kansas educator.

Okay.

But your structured literacy coursework, which is, you know, a little over seven grand that structured literacy coursework to give you like Structured Literacy Intro and Structured Literacy advance would be entirely covered by that SPARK Grant. And we're begging people to come take this class. And to that point though, we've done everything except actually spend actual ad dollars on media. It's purely free with our university partnerships, they've promoted it. Their handles. We're tagging university partnerships work tagging.

The.

Kansas SPARK Grant and Kansas Health Children Whatever. So we're, we're making some of these tags on our Facebook, Instagram, etc post. But it's just getting people to take advantage of the grants available.

Yeah.

And then also enrollment for our educator type courses.

So when you say that you're, you're begging people to take it, I mean, it sounds like an incredible offering. What, what, what do you, do you hear any type of objections or people saying I don't have time. What is, what is. Where are the no's coming from?

Well, it's a, it's a, it's a bunch of different factors. I think the initial factor is in Kansas right now, the state of education is a mess. And the Kansas Board of Regents are worse than a mess. So when they're looking at confirmed structured literacy educators within the state of Kansas to educate and prepare educators to take, there's going to be like this exam called the reading intervention whatever exam that they have to take in order to be in a reading interventionist, it's, there's like three curriculums that are approved. Letters, pathways, keys. There's three different approved methods that you have to take or you can just take the test.

So why don't.

We don't use.

Why don't people want to take your course though? Has anyone told you why he wants.

To go to school as an adult?

Yeah, and no, it's not even that. It's.

They don't.

It really. It's not.

It's.

It's about. They don't know if our center is use utilizing the correct curriculum for actual credit to be considered a structured literacy reading intervention person. And will they be prepared to take that test? We've it. The. The water is muddy. It is not clear and so I think there's a lot of people if they're going to spend these kinds of hours to get these kinds of courses done, they want to make for sure that those courses are then being able to get credit within a Kansas Board of Regent University and then that they will be prepared for that exam. The buy in and affirmation of yes you will be able to get these credits. The Kansas Board of Regents universities will. You can apply these to your educational credits from these Kansas universities and yes, you will be prepared for that reading exam. Is missing on people. I don't know why, but it's just missing on people. We're saying it, it's in the, it's in the language, it's in the literature, it's in the white paper, it's in the flyer, it's in the emails, it's on the things but for a reason. It's missing.

Are you. I just want to make sure like because I want to really get clear and I, and I apologize if this is redundant for you but are you absolutely certain that there are enough people who really want to get this certification?

Yes.

Okay. And do you have universities telling people that your course is certified for their teachers?

Yes.

Okay. And so when someone gets a message from their own university telling them about this course, that qualifies them. Why don't they believe it?

I don't know. That's what I'm saying.

Do you send them a messaging to send along or do they create their own messaging?

We've provided messaging for the universities. We've provided creative, we've provided copy, we have provided additional support on our websites. We, we've done all of the different co joining of efforts.

Have you tabled at universities?

What's that mean?

Tabled? So basically you can go into base like the campus at a table and talk to people who are walking through the lobby at a fair. So you like two people there who would be talking to teachers at the.

University like go sit at a table At a university, like in their enrollment office or something like that, in their cafeteria.

Sometimes these university ups have career fairs and they can walk around and go to the different tables and talk to the different providers.

That's a good idea. Career fair participation table. That, that might be something.

I think that getting in front of these people face to face and getting into the schools can be a really good place to seed what you're doing. I mean, I know it's kind of a funny analogy. I don't know why it's the first thing that pops up to me, but that's how most dating apps get started, is that they actually go into the university and talk to people there. Like, could even be like stopping people and handing out flyers, like outside on the town square in the cafeteria. Or even you can go into a class and talk about your program face to face with people and get people to sign up on their way out. I think that that could be quite a, quite effective approach for you. Okay. And then just in terms of getting teachers, I know this is another kind of weird off the cuff idea, but do you have any bandwidth to pay them to take the class?

I mean, we're already covering a little over 7,000 of their actual education. You can take it virtually.

So it's not possible because I found that teachers, even if you're paying them like 20 bucks an hour, you can, you can get people to, you can get a lot of people.

I mean.

I think that that cheapens even further the actual experience of becoming a certified language professional or certified language therapist. And to, I mean, I know it.

Sounds really strange, but you know, if you think about the perspective of these people, a lot of them are, they're going into teaching profession where they're not going to get a lot of money. They're already working to support them throughout cells through schools. These are not the children of elite people who are getting Ivy league tuitions. They're probably working second jobs and it could be really help. And we desperately need more literacy teachers. I don't know, I don't know that it would necessarily cheapen the experience. And I think, you know, you could potentially recruit a lot of people very quickly. I'm not saying you have to do it. I'm just sometimes weird quirky ideas like that can be, can be incredibly effective. But I would say like if you're not going into the schools and tabling, you're missing a huge opportunity because these campuses have major network effects. Which means, like if, you know, if you meet people face to face and One club starts doing it or one person starts doing it, or one class starts doing it. The word starts spreading like wildfire. So. So looking for those types of opportunities, I think could be great. I see a hand. Karen, you want to thank him because.

It seems like it would be a good idea to partner with school principals so that they can point that information to their teachers, say hey, there's available for you to go back to school and get this.

Yep, that has been our latest campaign has been superintendents and principals. One of the harder things for educators is even the educators that because Kansas is so backward, middle ages level on dyslexia, the educators who come through structured literacy, become a CALP or in are in pursuit of their calt are still getting rebuffed when they go back into their school to put in a lot of those structured literacy lesson curriculum, teaching methods, etc, and their schools are saying, you, you absolutely cannot use that. Here we are, we are queuing system language crap and not. And not this other, this, this.

Okay, so that. So that is so. So the teachers are somewhat right to say that it might not apply to their school. Yeah, so that's, I mean, I think I agree that's a good place to start. But I would say don't start with the principles, start with teachers. Because I followed pretty closely these stories of remind, which you might know as a messaging app and also class dojo and the way principals are notoriously hard to get a hold of. But what happens is they go to individual teachers, they get that teacher to present the idea to other teachers and to the school. So individual classroom teachers start adopting it and then once the teachers have all adopted it, then the principal adopts it and then the superintendent adopts it and then all of a sudden you have the whole state using it. Okay, but Megan, I would love to explore this further with you. And just because we are talking about homeschooling, I mean, what qualifies an educator to get this? Because I think I might know some tutors in Kansas who would be interested in this certification.

Tutors in Kansas would be qualified, but not within the SPARK grant. There is another grant that would be available for tutors or paras that would also be covered through the structured literacy. So Manisha, if you have a handful of of Kansas educators of any kind, you can just say structured literacy is open with grants available. As an educator, as a tutor, as a para, as a home educator, etc.

I would love that, I would love to put some of our tutors through this so that they can do Literacy tutoring with kids. It's a. It's a huge industry. Very needed.

Anything. I wish there was something like that in Alabama.

Yeah, I know. Jealous. Jan, we haven't given you any time yet. I want to hear what's in your. Your heart and on your mind. I don't have any specific questions at the moment. I'm kind of just listening and learning and taking notes. Has a really amazing program. So, Jan, are you interested in providing learning opportunities for homeschoolers? I mean, you already have your after school program. Did you want to. It's such a cool program. I just feel like it's so up our alley. Zines and Pokemon is so cool. Yeah. Just kind of learning about the homeschool community. Really.

Yeah.

That's why I'm just kind of like listening and learning without any specific questions. Yeah, I mean, just regard. With regards to what you're doing and I mean, it's just so amazing because you're just. I mean, books. Books are just very, very central to homeschoolers because I'm not sure you're aware, but the black homeschooling population has grown five times since the pandemic. And a lot of people are homeschooling in Florida because people are just like, books are disappearing from their libraries. Like, the teachers will go in, and then there's just a book about Martin Luther King that was there the day before that isn't there anymore. It's very disturbing. And so books are really at the heart of homeschooling. And I think, I mean, you already have such a cool, fun offering. I mean, homeschoolers are also so into Minecraft and Pokemon and all of that great stuff. So I feel like, I mean, really your next step is really just to start posting these opportunities and homeschool groups. I mean, just contact every leader of every homeschool group in New York City and say, hey, you know, we have this class. We would love some homeschoolers to join us. Would it be all right to share this with your community? I feel like, you know, have a Pokemon. I. I mean, I would love to partner with you and just have maybe kind of some Pokemon meetup, and I'd be happy to share it with our community and then we could tell people about. I think people would just sign up right away for this because it's so cool.

It is very cool.

Yeah, that would be. That would be my. My thoughts. Awesome. Thank you. You're so welcome. I mean, the homeschooling community has changed a lot because it used to be. Nobody ever wanted to spend money on anything. But I think that it has, you know, it's a bigger mix right now and people are either working remotely so they can afford homeschooling programs, are developing structures where it's easier for low income families to attend if they can't pay. And so everyone feels better about giving money to the program because they know it's equitable. And clearly your program has an equitable focus. And then there are also people who are very wealthy who are homeschooling who can help, you know, sustain these programs for all of us.

Yeah.

Okay, back to Brandon. How can we grow? Science is weird. And.

So I'm. I'm very fortunate that I'm. I've been working at Science is Weird for more than four years now. And it's actually at a comfortable place which is allowing me to focus on some side projects from this. So, like the, I don't know, it's weird to say that the objective meaning of your life is. And then to actually finish that sentence, but the objective meaning of my life is to take the like what I think is absolutely world changing ideas of this recently deceased Canadian. Yes, this good educational theorist named Kieran Egan. I've been going on podcasts, I've been trying to bring him into the mainstream.

Cool.

This is his baby called Learning in Depth, which there's a whole book that's about it that I have here. And unfortunately it hasn't been accessible in a way that is really enjoyable to lots of people. You needed to be part of a school that was doing it, a classroom that was doing it. And so I am partnering with a friend in Italy who's this up and coming Egan Scholar. And we have made this learning in depth online experience. And we did a inaugural cohort, sort of a beta version of it, I guess an alpha version of it this summer. And it went really great. We were super proud of it, except that we squeezed it all into six weeks, which we knew would be too squishy or too squeezed.

It was.

And it was even more too squeezity than we feared it would be. So now we're taking it. We are expanding it out to a year, which is good. I know that I will be working on Learning in Depth and taking it to different populations for the rest of my life. Like next year we have a profoundly gifted and talented group that we're looking to partner with. After that, we'd like to do some special education stuff. People who are experiencing dementia, like all sorts of like things that are Cool. In the future. However, about two weeks ago, we realized, crap, we, we do not have anything lined up, at least online, this online version of it for next year. We don't need the money or whatever, but we do need to take all the advantage that we can of getting another year of learning in. So we are committed to doing this online. Doing this online for everybody around the world who wants it over the next year. It starts in three weeks. I think we have six people signed up. We need to like do at least 20, 25 people in order to just like not lose money on it. Now we're still going to do it if we lose money on it. How would you approach this, this task of getting 20 people to sign up in three weeks?

Okay, wow. First of all, I think it sounds amazing, but I'm a little bit unclear what it is looking at it. So that would be the first thing to tackle. So if I were to take this class, it's for grownups, but also for kids, and if I participated in this, what would I do? What would I learn?

Do you want me to answer that question?

Yes, I do. Yeah.

So part of the difficulty of answering that question directly is because the class is in some ways it's not a class. Right. We call it a cohort, but it is largely self guided for this that a lot of the purpose of the whole thing is to teach people how to go off on their own and do these things in order to. If, obviously if we went just extremely that way, we wouldn't have anything. So what we do is we twice a week send out these, we call them pokes, these little imaginative, sort of wacky, zany challenges to people. Sorry, I should say that the very beginning, the day before we start, we assign people a random boring topic and that is their topic for the whole year. They're typically disappointed in it when they first begin this, which is part of the magic of the whole thing. And then they get challenges like, okay, imagine that you shrunk down to be a millimeter tall. Now tell us what, what can you see about your topic that you weren't able to see otherwise? Imagine you go back in time to the very first one, the first instance of your topic. Topic. What are you looking at? We have people pretend to be their topic. We have them amass like, what are the cultural proverbs that different cultures have around their topic? Does that answer your question or not? Because I think you're totally right that describing what the thing is, it's tough.

Because I also understand that part of the magic of this is not knowing what it is coming into it.

Yeah.

I'm just, you know, the six people who signed up, what. What inspired them about it? How did they hear about it through.

We have a two or three thousand email list. What's that called?

That's. Yes.

And we've pushed it out once so far and talked about it and linked to this web page. And they are, I think, entirely people who have taken my science classes for a year or two. So we're planning on doing that more. Yeah.

How many people have taken your science class?

Thousand. Somewhere around a thousand over the years.

Okay. So basically you sent out this post which obviously was clear. Clear enough for people who've taken your science classes to get excited about it. The post on substack.

The page. On the page on the website.

But what about the subs? What about the newsletter you sent out introducing it?

I am. That I'm actually preparing a new post about that. I'm about 9, 10 of the way done.

I just know. But I. But I think that. Sorry. Sorry to say. No, no, Brandon, no. What I mean is like these say you.

You.

I'm thinking about in terms of conversion here. So you sent out a newsletter to a thousand people or more, and six people said, this looks great, and they signed up for it on the spot. Is that correct?

Not quite. I have a substack that has between 1 and 2000, and I have a mailing list for Science is Weird that has between 2 and 3,000. So we sent out the one on Science is Weird.

Do you have. Do you know, can I find that really quickly the one on Science is Weird or could you share it with me?

It would take a bit to pull.

Yeah, don't worry about it. So I think that it's pretty incredible that you send out a mailing about this and six people just signed up on the spot. And so I think that there was probably some language in there that was very clear about what it was and that helped people understand it. So how much time do you have over the next two weeks to get more. To get 15 more people to sign up?

I mean, I think it depends on how important we say that sleep is. I'm willing to give quite a bit of time to make this happen.

Okay.

So I feel very confident that with individual outreach to your list of 3,000 people, you can find 15 more people to sign up. And I would do the following. You already have some signups. Yeah, I would call each of those people who've signed up and said, we're so excited to have you in this program. We know it's pretty weird, and we're trying to find more people. Could you find a friend to join so that already you're up to 12?

Wow.

So then. And then I would just say take that list of a thousand people and write something personal to each person and say, we have this really cool program coming up, and I'd love to have you in it. Let me know if you have any questions about it. So I'm going to teach you a little hack that I have for that, which is. I mean, the best thing to do is just to start with the people you already know and send them an email that's personal. But you can also use a little tool called yam. It's called Yet Another Mail Merge. And what you do is, like, you take Google spreadsheets and you have an extension and you can upload your mailing list and have a column for like, first name, and then you just create a draft in Gmail and it looks like you're sending a personalized message and you can also send text. So in that message, I would. I always go, like, as simple as possible. Because you want to make it easy for people to reply and just be like, say, like, I have this new program. I'd love to have you in it. What do you think? So, you know, like, please reply. I think that will work for you.

Hi.

I'm so sorry to interrupt. I actually have to jump off, but I didn't want to, like, just disappear. Oh, that's so nice. Okay, I think that we are winding up. Does everyone find. Feel like they have something that they can do this week?

Absolutely I do.

I'm so happy to know all of you and bye, Jan. But also, before everyone goes, why don't we all share our. Our social media so that we can follow each other and like each other's posts?

Oh, goodness. Oh, there you are.

And I think I promised something to each of you, so make sure that you take me up on it, because I have a very powerful list and I. I always follow through. Can you. Can you send the actual link to the Fun Learn Center, Megan? Or is that. Is that on Instagram or Facebook or Twitter? I think you're muted. I'm on Brandon's email list.

Oh, there we go.

Fun Learn. Okay, I'm gonna like you right away, and I'm gonna share one of your posts.

Awesome. Thank you, guys.

Thank you so much. It was so wonderful to meet all of you and. And I'm really excited to help you in whatever way I can.

Appreciate it. Thank you. Good day, everybody.

Have a wonderful nice day, everyone.

Thank you so very much for this, especially for saying things that were hard to take.

Thank you.

You're so welcome. I hope I didn't offend you too much. If I get passionate, it's because I'm excited about your program.

I. I wouldn't have valued it otherwise. And also other people had gone before me, so I think I was ready for it.

Yeah, I try to be listening and understanding, but occasionally I just come out with a no.

I have a follow up question. My wife just came down to tell me that. And then I have a Calvin and Hobbs class that I need to go run, teach. But I have a follow up question for you about how does one get onto homeschooling podcasts? I've been on Kate Curley's before and maybe another. I've done a lot of podcasts. I think another one was a homeschooling podcast. But is there like a best strategy for doing that sort of thing?

Yes. So first of all, I would love to interview you. Did you fill out our program questionnaire?

Is that the really long one that was linked at the end of the. Of the first one that was.

Yes.

I was wondering, is this actually to be in the podcast? Because, like, where you asked me what's a challenge that you've had and how did you overcome, like, that's a podcast question, is what that is.

Help me write a very nuanced article about you that ranks on for essays, for search results. But I think we do need to kind of figure out how to at least let people go back to part two when they have more time. So that's, that's good feedback. See, I literally like to throw things out there because then you learn, then you learn stuff like this very quickly. Okay, so podcasts. Yes. Make a list of homeschool podcasts, listen to them and write a thoughtful email that says, I would like to be on your podcast. I really liked this episode because of xyz. It's surprisingly effective. Yeah, just like make a list of 100. Go through the list. You can look at my gosh.

Wow. I was thinking four. Okay.

Make a list and watch podcasts.

Yes. I mean, I think there are a couple that will almost definitely say yes, you can, you can look for what I've been on. Secondly, I would say it, it helps to have your own podcast and to interview other people and then sometimes they will ask to interview you.

Oh, so I got to do more work.

Oh, Gosh, no. Start with one thing you already have. You have enough on your plate. Because I don't know that whole podcasts are going to get you people either.

I don't think it is in all the home. I'm actually, I am on homeschool groups, but they all say the same thing. Do not market yourself. So I'm sitting there and I'm. I'm watching all these people who have said all these issues that I can very well help them with, but I can't say that. Oh, by the way, this is what I exactly do, and I can provide a service to you.

Well, yes, you can. You can reply to posts often. You can often reply and. But I would just say let's start simple, Karen. Let's do that workshop about adhd. I post workshops all the time, the groups, and it's fine.

All right.

It was so wonderful to have you make sure that you take me up on my offers to help. And I want to hear when you get your new student. Thanks to this workshop. So you better write to me. It was so lovely to see you in person, Brandon, and thank you so much for coming, Karen and Alexandra and Megan and let's talk soon.

Thank you.

Thank you. Have a great night.