3 Types Of Business Support To Invest In (That Aren’t Courses)
Have you ever thought about buying a course? Maybe you thought a specific course would save the day for your business or teach you some secret hack you didn’t know yet. But when can courses (or the time it takes to search for and find the right courses) actually hinder your progress or prevent you from taking your business where it needs to go?
If you haven’t guessed yet, we’re talking all about courses including when you should buy them and how they can help you and your business. We're also going to talk about why I stopped buying courses, what other type of support is out there, and what I currently seek out as a business coach for myself and for my clients.
I'm going to start off by saying there is a time when you should buy a course or a course may be the solution that you are searching for. Here's what it's not.
How To Know When You Don’t Need A Course
If you go into a course with one of these expectations, odds are this course probably won't get you to where you’re wanting to go. Here are few ways to know when you actually do not need the course:
When your business is struggling
When you're brand new
When you don't really know why you're doing things
When you think this course will tell you how to be successful and make a million bucks from the beach
Another way to know when you don’t need a course is:
When you don't have the time to do the course and you know you won't prioritize it
How To Know When You Should Buy A Course
There are three times when you should buy the course. I use these when I am looking at courses for myself and my own business.
But first, to give you some history, I actually have a degree in business, specifically entrepreneurship. I went into the corporate world, I ended up opening my own hair salon. I still sought out courses because even though I understood business, it's different when it's your own thing. Sometimes we know better, but it helps to have someone else guide us and help us through. When I started my business, I felt like I came home with a baby from the hospital and no one gave me instructions. It was overwhelming. So I thought courses would help me out.
Now, there are three specific times where I think buying a course makes sense to do in your business.
When you want to learn something new and it gets you towards your goals
So for me, that was my podcast. When I launched my podcast, I knew for a long time I wanted to launch a podcast. I actually co-hosted one with a friend. But she had already launched it, I just came and talked into a microphone sometimes. So that was different.
For my own podcast, I bought a whole course on how to launch a podcast. I watched it and it was very helpful. Shout out to Jenna Kutcher. In fact, some of the decisions I made at the beginning of that process, I still use now. So in that situation, a course was helpful and cheaper than hiring a podcast coach. It made sense to invest in a course.
But I'm going to own up to something. I never finished the course. If you’re someone who feels the need to finish things and you're looking at a course, maybe a quick phone call might be a more efficient way to get you there. When I bought the course, I looked at the Cliff Notes and thought, I could start a podcast. So I did and learned as I went.
2. When you have the time to learn and implement the new thing
So for me, I knew going in that a podcast would be a lot of work. Again, owning the fact that I used to be a co-host of a different show –so I knew a little bit of the work that went into it. My previous co host April did a lot of the editing and the heavy lifting, but I knew it would take a lot of time. And it did.
If you want to start a podcast, and you're proactive and if it makes sense. I encourage you to hit me up because I will tell you the honest truth of when it makes sense to buy a course and when it probably doesn't.
If you're buying a course and you're wanting to learn something new, make sure you have time to learn it and implement it because nothing would be worse than taking an entire course on a thing and wasting all of that time learning the new thing and then never execute on it.
I bought one of the courses on Pinterest. Am I on Pinterest now? No. But I went through a time when I did prioritize that in my business. I know in time, I will plug that back in. But for right now, I can only handle so much.
The core message I want you to walk away from in this episode is knowing why you're doing stuff. If I were to distill what I do for my clients down into one statement, it's teaching them to do that, because I realized that there are a million ways to be a business coach. There's a million ways to be a podcast host. Ultimately, you have to do it your way. And you also have to know why you're doing it in the first place. That is such an important guiding post in all that you do.
A course isn't going to give you the answer to that. Unless it's a course on your why, then maybe I would argue that would. So make sure you have time to implement the new thing.
3. When you don't have anyone around that can teach you how to do it
I’ve already mentioned, if you want to start a podcast, just hit me up. But I mean it, I would argue having a phone call with someone who's been there, done that may save you time and money. Even if they charge you for the call, it gets you to your goal a lot faster because they give you customized feedback. So that's something to think about.
Why Courses Aren’t The Only Answer
Courses are not the be-all end-all in how to run a business. There's a time and place where they make sense. But ultimately, it is not something I do anymore. I've never sat and talked about why but I think it's important to have that conversation because I know people who have bought courses, and then they feel this pressure to finish them. And then all of a sudden, now they're spending tons of time on things that are not moving the needle in their business, and they're struggling –and they're wondering why. Well, my friend, this may be why.
So I also want to tell you the what, when, and why behind the reason I stopped buying courses. After buying more courses than I could finish, what really hit me between the eyes was this realization that the online coaching world, if you're monetizing the thing you know how to do, you can work 24/7 and still never finish your to-do list.
When you research other people who do what you do, you only end up adding more to your plate every single time you look at their stuff. The short answer here is there are a lot of ways to do this. I would argue there's no perfect way there's just your way. So get clear on that.
I kept searching for this magical formula of how to be a business coach, only to realize that all that time wasted trying to find the perfect way to do things was actually getting in the way of moving me forward. This is a constant thing I'm always working towards –figuring out where is my time best spent and where do I want to go? Ultimately, I changed my expectation on where to find the solutions.
Basically, I stopped buying courses when 1) I had a couple of one-on -one clients who had proof of concept that my business was worthy and valuable to somebody. 2) My podcast was live and 3) I got to clear my goals and I also knew how I wanted to get there.
Now, I add that second part because in any business, especially in the coaching space, there are a million ways to do things. If you want to, you could probably build an entire business strictly on TikTok. I'm sure someone has done it. If you wanted to, you could probably build an entire empire through Pinterest. Jenna Kutcher preaches that all the time.
So if you want to make a large impact, have a successful business, whatever that means to you, there are a lot of ways to get there. And there's a lot of noise if you allow yourself to look for it.
Why Courses Can Be A Great Option (For Some Business Owners)
From my perspective as a business coach, it is such an efficient use of my time if I build a beautiful course and launch it. If I have 10s of 1000s of followers, and I just talk about it occasionally and maybe run ads to it, I get paid for nothing. I get paid for that front-end work I did. So from a business perspective, it's a great business model.
But here's the deal. Maybe a course isn't what you need right now. This is the point I'm hoping to get across to you. I want you to know what you need when.
So many people come to me asking for one thing. But what they really mean is something else. They're not sure. They don't know. They don't know what they need. So I encourage you to figure out what you need before you engage with people like me, people who have courses, people who have podcasts because at the end of the day, we all have a bunch of offers. We might deliver it to you, but maybe it's not what you actually needed in your business at that time.
3 Types Of Support You Can Invest In That Aren’t Courses
I want to equip you with the tools to make these decisions for yourself so you know what support you need. To do that, we have to talk about and define the different types of support because courses are just one of them. I’ve broken it down into three different things.
Doing It Yourself
First, there's the DIY, or do it yourself. To me, this would be a course that you pay for. It could be a book. It could also be this podcast. For example, maybe you listen to this episode and then you go and take action on something else. Maybe you listen to someone else, and you take action on what they mentioned.
So a DIY type of support is exactly what it sounds like. You're doing all the work. You're just paying for someone to tell you how to do the work. And that's great. You can see how that can be a great solution for someone who's in a very early stage in their business or wants to learn something specific.
I probably could do a course on how to launch a podcast. But if you want support starting a podcast, I would love it if you just hit me up for a call because that's more my speed. But teaching someone to start something new for the first time is a great way to do that.
2. Done For You
Then there's DFY, or done for you services. This is usually going to be contract work you might see with website design or copywriting services. For example, I have contractors and I also have a W2 employee that works for me like my assistant. Done for you means they are doing the work.
My podcast was the first thing I wanted to outsource because editing each episode, typing the show notes, plugging it into Lisbon, all of those logistics took time away from things that I am better at doing. I am not great at editing and I'm sorry if people listen to episodes 1-10.
But I knew contracting would be for me and that is done for you. So they're going and doing the work for you. What else does that look like? I have a client right now who is a fractional C suite person, meaning she works for businesses. Her clients are businesses. So she physically does the work for them and she has multiple people she does this for and does it in the marketing world.
So done for you means exactly what it sounds like, they do it for you.
3. Done With You
The last one is DWI, or done with you. That is what coaching or mentorship is. So that's where someone like me is coming alongside you. Where someone, a mentor or someone who's been there, done that walked further down the road, and they are helping you do it, too.
But here's what's cool about the last one.
As a business owner, you have to own your own decision-making. As a coach, I can't tell you what to do. Sure, I could tell you what I would do if I were in your shoes. But as you're growing and evolving into this leadership role (because that's what being a business owner is) you have to come to a place where you know how to make decisions and why you're making them in the first place.
At that higher level, when you're in that space, that's where a mentor or coach can be a great fit because it gives you a second opinion and it gives you some support and some tools to help you in making that decision and then executing on that decision.
But there comes a place where you have to grow beyond these courses that are solving a very core specific problem that you're asking versus giving you the guidance to confidently make decisive decisions. That's the biggest up-level or glow up in business –when you can step from A to B.
What A Course Doesn’t Teach You
As business owners, we have to make decisions that work best for us. For example, I’m revisiting our entire marketing strategy because I've realized we're not serving our target audience and there's something wrong here. So we need to reassess what we're doing. I have one client right now who has all her eggs in one basket, which I would argue is a little risky. But her methodology behind that was, I don't have the time and bandwidth to master multiple platforms, and I want to do one, and I want to do it well. I respect that.
Here's what's cool. As a coach, there's no perfect or right way to do things. But I help people be more confident in how to make these decisions in business because that's what it takes to run a business. That is the shift that happened in me and my business. Instead of me looking for someone to hold my hand through the entire process and tell me what next step to take, I learned that the answers lay within myself. I just had to say them and seek them out.
You have to do the work and sometimes it's not fun work. Sometimes it means reaching out to people who have told you no. Sometimes it means following up with someone who you feel has ghosted you. Sometimes it feels like pitching in front of an empty room where no one's paying attention. It can not feel great, but some of those core activities are so important in your business.
And I would argue that this is just not something that a course is going to teach you.
What I Do Now & What I Tell My Clients To Do
Now, I want to share what I do now and what I encourage my clients to do depending on the level that they are at.
Pick One Podcast To Consume A Time
Instead of seeking out these short-term answers, like a masterclass about TikTok Lemonade or buying a course on how to be a guest on the podcast –instead, just pick one podcast today that will help you move the needle in your business.
Full transparency, one thing I'm actively working on in my business is my sales strategy. Newsflash business owners, I didn't realize we were salespeople until recently, more recent than I would like to admit. Now that's a muscle I want to build. Not enough to buy a course. But I seek out podcasts that can help me improve my process.
So I pick one a day, that way, I can have the ability to execute on what I learned. I'm not inundated with ideas from too many sources because there was a time when I was collecting courses and binging all the major podcasters. And not a lot of action was happening.
If you find yourself in that boat right now, it's okay. But you need to get off because it will prevent you from actually taking action and getting you where you want to go in your business. So instead of listening to 10 podcasts a day, maybe it's one. It may be on days where you're feeling extra inspired. Maybe it's two, but go for quality over quantity and really try to pick things that are filling the gaps that you have in your leadership and in your business.
2. Put yourself in rooms where you are the dumbest, poorest person
I know I'm in those rooms because the conversations are intimidating. The attire is more professional. I purposefully put myself in rooms where I'm around people who have walked further down the road than myself. I also enjoy being around people who are outside of industry. I also actually like being around men, male business owners because a lot of my world and my communities (which I love) are female-oriented. I like being around people who are different than me in many ways. I feel like there's value there.
So I constantly put myself in those rooms and I shut up. When I do talk, I try to ask more questions and be more engaging so the person can speak versus just talking about myself. I used to be really intimidated when I would be in these networking opportunities. I would just word vomit on these people until hopefully, they understood what I did. There is power in patience and quiet confidence. So I've been practicing and focusing more on just listening and asking them questions. How do they do it? People love to talk about themselves. So I give them the space to do that.
3. Revisit Your Why & Your Goals
The last thing and most important thing. Revisit your why and your goals. A course can help you quickly understand how to do a thing. But you need to know why you want to do it in the first place.
We live in a world with so much support: ideas, motivation, education, online education, and trainings, which is great. But it keeps you from knowing why you're doing stuff in the first place. So anytime you're feeling overwhelmed, it's because it's in conflict with your why. Anytime you’re unsure about what kind of support you need, it's because you don't know what your goals are.
So at the end of the day, revisit those things. Maybe a course is for you. But maybe it's not. Hopefully, this gives you another filter you can slap on anytime you are in a free webinar, and you are for sure being sold to buy a course. Just pause and make sure it's going to be the best fit for you. Because at the end of the day, I want you to get shit done in your business.