Hey there, quick question for you has 2020 shaking you up just a bit? Maybe you've realized the fragile nature of your job or career in business? If so, you are definitely not alone. I've talked to so many in my community that feel the same. over this past year, you might have found yourself wishing you had a proven path to a more resilient revenue stream, ideally one that lets you do what you love on your own timeline. Over a decade ago, I created my first digital course and since then, the online learning market has taken off. And before I say too much, let me quickly introduce myself. I'm Amy Porterfield, former corporate Yes girl turned successful digital course creator and host of the online marketing Made Easy podcast. I never could have predicted that my decision to create a course would mark the beginning of my journey building an eight figure business I definitely never could have predicted that 2020 would be the year digital courses became more popular and more important than ever before. With millions of people learning from home, this is just the beginning of my friend. The online learning industry is on track to grow to 320 $5 billion per year by 2025. And there's plenty room at the table for you to create and sell a course based on your own unique brand of brilliance. You don't need to know it all be a tech wizard have a huge audience or have a master's degree in teaching. All you need is a 10% edge which I can almost certainly guarantee you already have. If you're curious or committed to finding out how you could create a digital course one time that you can sell over and over again for year round revenue. Don't miss the free masterclass that I'm hosting live right around the corner. This masterclass is all about how to create and launch a profitable digital course from scratch. And in it, you'll discover the five behind the scenes secrets to generate revenue year round. Just for showing up live, you'll get a free resource to support you in building your email list of potential customers who can't wait to become your first students. I would love to have you there because I know just how life altering this opportunity could be for you. Even if you're not 100% confident that you could really create a successful digital course. Do yourself a favor and show up. I've seen too many incredible business owners surprise themselves with what's possible to let you sit on the sidelines. Worst case scenario you'll decide a digital course isn't for you, and you'll still walk away with an incredibly valuable resource to grow your email list. Best case scenario, you'll realize this whole digital course thing isn't rocket science and that you do have what it takes I hope to see you there.
Okay, I have to start this whole episode today just cracking up because I am very creative in the different ways that I brainstorm conten and how to come up with stuff and I'm always trying to kind of one up myself right and like a creative scene or like making a funny joke and today I'm just gonna tell you I just embarrassed myself because I was trying to start this off like really witty and Okay, for the record. I'm just sharing all the behind the scenes I didn't actually have to tell you all this stuff because it's probably making me look a little bit dumber than I want to but I you know, I love telling you all the behind the scenes things but I wanted to start this off with saying I don't always geeked out on technology. But when I do, it's podcasting or my online business. I know this is super cheesy, but the reason why I'm laughing is because I could not for the life of me remember what that original quote was? Right? Because this line I can imagine the guy right from the commercials, but I couldn't I just remember it was a beer commercial. I don't know how old it was. If it was a few years ago, if it was five years ago, I cannot even remember because now all I can think of his like the spin off memes that have happened from this, you have to know what I'm talking about. I hope that you know, I'm talking about otherwise I'm just gonna feel like a complete idiot. But it's the commercial where the guys like, I don't always drink beer. But when I do, I prefer dosa keys. You know, and it's like so serious and now I will was looking it up. So I'm on Google right now. And I typed in, I don't always mean, and I'm being flooded with all of these means, and I am cracking up. They're so funny. Oh my gosh, like, I don't even most of them aren't even appropriate for this podcast. But I just, I wouldn't have a creative way to start this show. And I know you're probably like, Krystal, just please get on with it. You're wasting our time at this point, but it's true. I don't always geek out on all things technology, but when I do, it's usually podcasting. And online business. Okay, now I feel like I need to go create a meme of me like, I don't even know because I can't grow a mustache. I can't look like that guy. And there's one that says, Okay, I'm gonna read this one to you. It says, I don't always have people tell me I resemble someone, but when I do, it's usually I resemble Kenny Rogers, and I'm cracking up because he absolutely he does look like Kenny But anyway, that's besides the point we have rambled on for almost way too long. So we today are going to be talking about master classes, what they are, what they mean and all the things so let's get right to it. Welcome to the profit podcast where we teach entrepreneurs how to start launch and market their podcast. I'm your host, Krystal, Proffitt, and I'm so excited that you're here. Thanks for hanging out with me today because if you've been trying to figure out the world of podcasting, think of this show as the time saving shortcut you've been looking for. So let's get right to it, shall we?
I feel like I deserve an award for the most nonsensical podcast intro ever. This episode, but I hope that you enjoyed that because I do. I just felt like I was just thinking of this meeting. The whole time is like I don't always geek out on anyway. Okay, I'm not gonna bring it up again, we already wasted too much time today. But I do want to get right into what we're talking about. And that is the idea of master classes. So I wanted to share with you the things that I've learned about attending master classes and creating them, the free versus paid versions and all the things but before we even get there, I wanted to share with you the definition of a master class. And what that actually means because there's a lot of confusion. I feel like this word is thrown around a lot, especially since everybody started staying at home, you know, and like the virtual world just exploded in 2020. And the word masterclass to me, is a workshop that you attend, that is free, but you are learning something of value. It's not Something that you pay for, but it's something that kind of gives you a teaser into what someone could potentially teach you or what it would look like for you to learn from this person. So it's a step further than just watching a YouTube video about one specific thing, right? Because maybe one YouTube video would lead you to another one. And you kind of have to do like this patchwork of watching an entire playlist of videos before you ever get to the root of the content that you want. Right? Tell me I'm not the only one that goes down a YouTube rabbit hole. And then I come up four hours later and I'm like, Wait, what? What was my takeaway? What What was I even doing? Why did I come to YouTube in the first place? Right? I know, I'm not the only one. So a masterclass is someone teaching you something for a specific outcome. So it wouldn't just be if you're interested in podcasting, I could. Just say hey, anybody interested in podcasting come to my master class? No, that's that that would not be an effective use of your time or my time because it's too general. And whenever I think about master classes and whether I want to attend them or not, it really boils down to how specific is the topic of the masterclass? Right. So I have done master classes whenever I'm launching my digital course or whenever I launched my podcast membership, I did a masterclass which, for those of you that are around my age, or you grow up, I grew up in the era of PowerPoint, right, because PowerPoint kind of came onto the scene whenever we were in school. So I imagine it like a PowerPoint presentation that you're doing in front of people who are your exact audience like they are People that are interested, let's say in your podcast topic, or what you talk about on social media, or who who could be potential customers of whatever your business is about. Okay, so are we on the same page here? Are you nodding along? I'm assuming you're nodding along at least you're like, yes, Krystal. I got PowerPoint. Like we're at least we're on that same page. I can remember being a freshman in high school. And that was actually one of the classes that we took, it was called BCI. s, it was business computer information systems. And I remember being so nervous about having to develop my first PowerPoint slideshow and presenting it in front of the class. And I remember spending so much time on the animations and the slide transitions that I wasn't prepared to even deliver what was on my slides because I spent so much time on the transitions and animations and all that. So if you are of the generation coming up with PowerPoint, we probably have the same issues right? Like we're just presentations in front of the class was something that we had to do on an ongoing basis which now in hindsight, I'm so grateful to have had that experience because doing presentations and master classes comes a lot easier because I've been doing them since the early 2000s or before and I just feel really comfortable. Oh my gosh, I just realized, well, that's been 20 years. I guess I don't like to quantify things sometimes in years because that makes me feel old. But anyway, like you get the picture, right? We are talking about a masterclass is a way for you to deliver information using a PowerPoint or Google Slides presentation that has information around the topic that you want to teach to potential customers.
Now where it can differ and another word that used A lot is webinar. That's another way I don't really like the word webinar. I'm more of a fan of masterclass because I feel like webinar has, in me at least as like a reaction to hearing the word webinar. I think of, okay, someone's just going to sell me something at the end and I have to just live through it. I just have to live through the beginning, you know, and then kind of get to the end and then I'm just gonna drop off like I like it. The value kind of lowers for me when I hear the word webinar, but whenever my brain has a totally different trigger, when I hear the word masterclass, because I hear the word master like, ooh, someone is like Scott the skills Okay, I'm just gonna tell you a bunch of stories today because whenever now that I'm thinking about the word Master, my dad has been a plumber almost all of my life and he had to get a license. To be a certain level of a plumber, like you have an apprentice, then you have a journeyman license and then you have a master plumbers license. And we always used to joke that he would get his master plumbers license and be like, Oh, you got to call me Master now. So that's just like, whenever I think of master it, just it cracks me up. And I think of my dad to Who is the most he's the most hilarious person that you will ever meet in your life. He is that funny. Okay, so back to master class. That's another reason why I like this word. So webinar can be used interchangeably with the word master class, but I prefer masterclass. And so, I wanted to give you a definition of where I'm coming from whenever I talk about this word, because it's very important.
And then now I want to tell you, Oh, I'm totally embarrassed to tell you this, but I'm gonna go like and I'm just going to move forward and I hope that you give me some grace because I like Sharing the behind the scenes, even when they're super cringe worthy. And you may say like, Oh, we need to feel bad for Krystal. She just was a poor, lonely spirit who had no idea what she was doing. So I get it. Oh, it's not a pity party. But I will say I have pity for myself when I first started because I had no idea what I was doing. I just watched other people conducting their masterclasses and thought I could figure that out. That looks simple. I can do this, not knowing that they had a full team of people behind the scenes, designing their presentations and setting up the technical equipment and helping them actually run the audio video whenever they were alive. But I learned a lot of things along the way.
Okay, so now that we talked about the definition, I want to tell you about how I have created magic masterclasses and what it's look like for me doing a free version, and a paid version of a masterclass. And I'm not talking about my attendees having to pay because any masterclass I've ever done has always been free. I'm talking about me not paying for a software and me actually paying and investing in a platform that allowed for me to do different things. So let's start with the free version because I know a lot of people are gonna say Wait, I didn't even know you could do a free version of a webinar or a masterclass What are you even talking about? Well, I don't really like to talk about this a ton because I do not want you to do this. So I'm just going to preface this entire next thing I'm going to say which I do not recommend this. It was a lot of work. It was a lot of headache in I feel like it took me 10 times longer than it would have had had I just signed up for a actual software that did all the things that I'm about to tell you. Okay, so I do not recommend this. But I was looking for a free solution and I being the cheapest person alive. I did not want to invest in a webinar platform, until I knew that I could actually make money on a webinar or a masterclass with what I was doing with my presentation. It's like I needed the proof of concept before I was able or willing to invest in a platform that did this. Okay, so that's, that's my whole reasoning. I'm trying to give you my logic. I don't know if it was really logical. I'm trying to give you my reasoning for why I opted for the free version of doing my first masterclasses. So what I did is I set up a web page, right so I have My own website, I was doing this on my WordPress website. And I just went down a Google YouTube rabbit hole of how you can host a live video on a web page on my WordPress website. And what the solution that I finally found right after hours of looking at YouTube video was that I could embed a YouTube live on a web page, and I could send people to that web page whenever it was go time. Now, there are a few issues that you run into here. First of all, you have to figure out the technology for doing a YouTube Live. Now this was 2017. Whenever I first started thinking about doing this, I was just was kind of observing. I wasn't doing anything to actively create A webinar I just first started attending masterclasses of other people and I kind of was like, Oh, I wonder how they do that. But in 2018, I thought, you know what, I'm actually going to figure out how to do this on my website. And in 2018 is when I first started using WordPress. And in 2018, there were not services like there are today that make streaming to YouTube. So easy. Okay, there that that was not available, you had to have OBS, which is this open broadcast software. You had to have that downloaded onto your computer and do these like Streaming API keys between OBS and YouTube and I had to figure all this stuff out. And I was really stressed and I was doing all this myself. I didn't have anybody else helping me and I didn't have an audience at this time. Really. I was trying to grow my audience. So it was that much more stressful. I was doing all of this work on the back end, and still didn't know if anybody was actually going to show up whenever I did one of these live master classes, so there was a lot of pressure I was putting on myself to get this right. Even though I honestly didn't even know if one person was going to show up. So that was my experience with the free version is I figured it out. I embedded a YouTube Live video on my website page. And the other issue with doing it this way was there wasn't an easy way to collect an email address for registration. So I had to create another registration page that was really complicated because I was using a different email service provider at the time. So I was using MailChimp and I didn't really understand how to do MailChimp and embedded form it didn't have landing pages like ConvertKit does, which is what I use now. So there's a lot of back end techie stuff that made it a lot more complicated than it needed to be. So I'm just gonna tell you my very first masterclass. I was trying to sell my podcasting course which it was still rookie podcasting. It hadn't changed over to profit podcasting yet. It was still branded with the old version. And I did my very first one. I'm actually trying to remember the topic. I could go back into my YouTube because still on my YouTube archives, maybe I'll have to go find it. I'll show you what it was. I don't think I deleted it. Hopefully I did. I'm gonna go try to find it and link to it in the show notes. But I had one person attend my mom. And I did this like patchwork thing called Chat Tango. And because I was like, Well, if people attend they need to be able to say something. So this chat Tango was like an app that you could embed on your website. And it allowed a chat conversation to happen. But I didn't actually know how it worked. I only saw what it looked like on my end the users or like the the back end, not the user experience that someone actually attending. The master was just it was terrible. So I didn't realize until the second one that and I did for I did four master classes during this launch, that all of the chat that had happened from the previous ones, were still there. So people could tell there was only one person there my mom. The next masterclass, I did, there was only one person there and it was a one person in my community. I knew who she was. So that was comforting to know that someone the person that was watching was someone that I knew. That gave me a little comfort, but it also made me Really sad that there was only one person that showed up to my masterclass mall was you know, like, like I said I just had pity not pity for myself Krystal today in 2020. But back then whenever I first tried out a masterclass, I had no idea what I was doing. I was just going off of what I had seen other people do and it was just, it was not a good confidence boost, okay, like, let's just throw that out there. That's the free version.
The paid version that I eventually switched to around November of 2019 is a program called Demio. Now Demio can run anywhere from around 50 bucks a month to 100 and I know you're like, Whoa, that sounds super expensive. And I don't even know that I would ever want to do a masterclass. I don't know. Why I would need to just bear with me for a second because I want to tell you, I had done a few more of these YouTube patchworked webinars masterclasses and they were so stressful. They were super stressful because I didn't know if the technology was working on my end, I had no way to, I could kind of test it, but I couldn't test it with that the length that I was actually going to use to go live because then that link would disappear after I stopped the broadcast. So that was that made it just so much more stressful. So with Demio, what I'm able to do is I can actually go in there, schedule everything and they can actually handle all the registration stuff that I was trying to do myself. And it's just, I can't say enough amazing things about Demio. Making all the master classes that I have. I actually have an evergreen masterclass, that runs All the time now, and I have been able to generate money with that masterclass that it's just it pays for itself. Now, I don't even I don't even worry about the cost of the webinar software because it pays for itself every single month in that it's converting my course that's on evergreen. So that's fantastic. I love that you have a great chat box in there, and that it supports evergreen and you can do a mo G's and you can do like calls to action in there and there's a lot of fun things. Maybe I'll do another one, specifically about Demio I think I'm gonna be doing some YouTube videos on how I use it and how it's been really helpful for me. But I wanted to talk about this because the free version while Yes, it was free. It was costing me time and energy that I really did not have because I could have been spending all that time and energy I was trying to figure it out on making my presentation better to have a higher converting presentation, right like making it to where people were excited or just filling up, filling up the masterclass with people. I think I spent so much time on the tech and everything else and when it was like finally ready, then I had only spent a small amount of time actually marketing my masterclass to make it successful. So, at the end of the day, if you ask me like Krystal, would you invest in a free or paid masterclass software I'm going to tell you to go paid and I want you to set a goal that allows for you to pay like reimburse yourself with money that you make from converting people to let's say, buy your products sign up for your membership, however, you're using a masterclass okay like that and this is coming from Miss cheapo make cheaper sin over here. I'm going to tell you to it is Worth it it is worth your sanity to purchase a masterclass platform software like Demio. If you want to know more about Demio, go to KrystalProffitt.com/Demio. And check out all the features that they have. But like I said, I'm gonna be doing a YouTube video pretty soon about all the things. So that is we talked about the definition of a masterclass, we've talked about the free versus versus paid.
Now, I wanted to tell you about master classes that I've attended, that have actually helped me so much in my business. Now, I'm going to tell you the names of these and they may not actually be the full names because I couldn't find some of these, whether they've been discontinued or the people that created them originally, maybe they went in a different direction with their business, but I wanted to tell you some of the ones that I've attended in the last two years, because they have absolutely helped me and I didn't end up buying all Have these products. So I wanted to throw that out there like I've attended some of these and gotten incredible results just from attending these master classes. And I want you to think about that if you are in the stages of developing a master class or thinking that that's how you would eventually want to sell a product, a service, a membership, whatever that looks like, I want you to think about the takeaways and I'm going to tell you about these master classes.
So the first one is, I actually attended one of pat Flynn's master classes way back in the day. And I cannot tell you for the life of me what it was called. But I just remember it was about getting your podcast up and running. And the the biggest takeaways for me was how to market your podcast in unique ways and like how to get the word out about your podcast and I learned so Much so much in this one masterclass and I know it was for his podcasting course. But I didn't end up buying anything because I was so new to exploring the idea of podcasting and I was just like, I'm not sure that I want to go all in and, you know, spin a whole bunch of money on a podcasting course if that wasn't for me, so I attended his master class. I walked away with so many notes. I'm a note taker whenever I go to a master class, like because it's my time, I don't have a ton of free time to sit down and watch an hour long presentation and be doing five other things. If you get me to a masterclass. I'm absolutely going to pay attention. I'm going to take notes, whether it's in one of my you know, fancy notebooks, I say fancy it is not fancy. It's a $25 or $25. Well, that's a boujee notebook. I do not have Fuji notebooks. I have a 24 I sent from whenever I buy them when they go on sale for back to school shopping, but I have my notebook or I have a Google Doc. And I will keep notes. I will keep track of what I'm learning. And then I will go back to them and reference a lot of these notes. So there was a period in my business whenever I was first starting, I was attending all these master classes, and his was one. I remember I got so much out of it, and then I knew the next steps I needed to take in my journey. And so that was a super helpful one.
Another masterclass that I attended was all about organizing my time, and my households. And I know that sounds like kind of a funky one looks like well, what would what do you mean? So, Ruth Sukup. She is a blogger that I've followed for a really long time. I've referenced her many times on this podcast, I guess I don't always say her name. Always say this blogger that I've followed for a really long time, but she She did a masterclass all about time management and organizing your household. And what she was actually doing was she was getting ready to launch her planner that I have talked about many times she has the living well planner. And I've highly endorsed this for a long period of time because it is fantastic for managing your time and managing your household in a way that I had never seen anybody else with a planner do and so I got so much I guess just ideas on ways that I could save time and energy throughout my day as I'm a work from home mom like different ways to approach how I do the dishes and look at laundry and spending time with the kids and all the things that really just factor into my everyday life. So that was a huge huge takeaway that I got from watching one of her master classes and I ended up buying her living well planner and it's still so thing I highly endorse for someone that is looking to have a little bit of help managing their time at home.
And then another masterclass that I did was with Marie Forleo. And I cannot remember if it's a five ways to write, like non sucky copy or something like that. So she has a program called the copy here. And I remember sitting down and watching this, and I had so many aha moments again, because I was just brand new baby online entrepreneur, and I had no idea how to write emails and write headlines for post and write captions on social media. And the things that she taught me in this were all about not sounding robotic, and showing up in an authentic way that made me just sound like myself and I have this one specific masterclass to dedicate Though many of the things and the ways that I run my online business today, for sure, because I just learned I got to sound more natural I have to sell more like myself because then people will relate to me and who I am and not this like picture perfect robotic sounding like textbook copy that is all over my website. So that was a fantastic masterclass that I've attended.
And then of course, I cannot conclude this episode today without talking about Amy Porterfield and all of her incredible master classes. I can't even count how many I have attended of her master classes to date because it's too many. Even if I already have purchased something that she was selling. I still attend her master classes, which makes me sound like a total stalker like total like creeping on Amy. But the reason why is because as Every time I watch her, I learned something new. Whether it's about the registration process and how she does it or how she makes me really urgent to show up live to one of her master classes or even just the way that I feel welcome in her community. Like I said, I've attended so many from her membership, her courses from B school, okay, I'm just gonna be really honest. Her B school masterclass in 2019 was what made me want to jump into the program. I was already on the fence, watching Marie Forleo and all the things that she was doing. But her B school masterclass was so impactful, and she shared about her own charity and the results that she had gotten and I was just totally blown away. I was like, Yes, I want whatever you're talking about, like whatever's coming next. I want in like the girl knows her stuff. She knows exactly how to teach a master class that you are just like on the edge of Your seat, you feel engaged, you feel connected to everything that she's doing. And the reason why I bring up Amy, last but certainly not least, is because she is actually about to have a masterclass coming very soon.
So if you're listening to this in real time Amy is going to have in the beginning of September, a few different master classes. It's all in the same subject, but they're going to be offered at different times. And it's all about how to create and launch a profitable digital course from scratch. It's the five behind the scenes secrets to generate revenue year round. And the reason why I want you to go sign up for Amy's masterclass is because I want you to do all the things that I just talked about. I want you to show up and see what it's like for the entire process of a masterclass this, if you've never heard of a masterclass before, if you've been listening to That's your like Krystal, I don't understand what you're talking about. This is like the one to go to. Okay? I could tell you to go watch my previous masterclasses. There's ones that I've, you know, I've done but I'm gonna tell you like, I'm the B team. I'm the B team, like I'm the JV junior varsity showing up saying, Okay, I know what I'm doing. Amy is like the star player that you put in at the end of the game. You're like, we got to make this work. We got to go for the gold. We need that Hail Mary like, she is the one that you want to watch. She's the one that you want to learn from, because anytime I've ever watched her stuff, I'm like, Oh my gosh, just tell me what it is already because this is so good. And there's been several of her master classes that I've walked away from not purchasing what Amy was selling or promoting at the time, but I learned so much and that's actually one of her values. I've heard her say over and over again is no matter what, I want people to walk away from one of my master classes, being more informed, being more educated and having more confidence that they know what to do they know what their next steps are. So I love this about Amy so I want you to go register for her new masterclass it's brand new. I don't know that she's taught this before maybe she has but it's not going to be in the same way. And I highly encourage you go check it out. So go to KrystalProffitt.com/AmyClass, A-M-Y-C-L-A-S-S and go check out this masterclass if you're listening and it's way later than September 2020, then you've probably missed it. I don't know that there's gonna be a replay on evergreen forever and ever. But I really want you to listen to this if you're listening in real time because I want you to pay attention to every little detail that goes into the masterclass registration process to the emails that she will send you to remind you to show up live because it will be so worth it like watching her conduct a masterclass is a masterclass within its own right. I've told you about Russian nesting dolls, and that's what I think about it's a masterclass within a masterclass about master classes like, boom, my mind just exploded. Oh my gosh, I feel like I'm totally like this should be a drinking game every time Krystal says masterclass you take a shot which is funny because I don't drink anyway. But you know, it's one of those things like master class master class about master classes.
But that's all I have for you today guys. I just wanted to kind of peel back a few layers on what a master class is how I've used them, ones that I've attended that have helped me get results and I really want you to consider thinking about a master class and what it could do for your business and how you approach Selling to your audience. But that's all I have for you today. So remember go register for Amy's masterclass, KrystalProffitt.com/AmyClass. And if this is your first time tuning in, I'm so happy that you're here with us. Would you hit that subscribe button wherever you're listening to this podcast and leave us a rating and a review. Tell me what you liked about this show. Tell me what your favorite takeaway was from this episode, or let me know some of the other things you want to hear about on this podcast. But the Show Notes for this episode are KrystalProffitt.com/Episode184. I'm gonna go dig through my archives and see if I can't find that YouTube video where that one person showed up for me all those years ago, but I think it'll be worth it if I couldn't find it. So again, KrystalProffitt.com/Episode184 for today's show notes and remember, keep it up. We all have to Start somewhere