How to sell your online courses with Jonathan Cronstedt

President and partner of Kajabi.com – Jonathan Cronstedt

I’m excited to have Jonathan Cronstedt on the show. Jonathan is the president and partner of Kajabi.com, which is an all-in-one platform that’s amazing for both building online courses, marketing. He is a leader at the executive level in finance, digital marketing, SaaS/EdTech, and direct sales. Jonathan previously served as the CEO of Digital Marketer and CEO of direct sales dynamo Empower Network. He also spent time driving results for Chet Holmes and Tony Robbins Groups.

Check out these episode highlights::

• How Kajabi became what it is today
• How to create, sell, and market your online course
• How to infuse your courses so it’s not just another marketing program
• Possible trends in the next 10 to 20 years in the internet

Jonathan’s Websites:

Kajabi.com

Transcript: Download

Video Transcription provided by GMR Transcription Services.

Jaime Masters:	Welcome to Eventual Millionaire. I am Jaime Masters and today on the show I have Jonathan Cronstedt. Now, he is the president and partner of Kajabi.com ? which is an all-in-one platform that?s amazing for both building online courses, marketing. Tons of my friends are on that. Thanks so much for coming on the show today.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Absolutely. Glad to be here. We?re gonna have some fun.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah, we are. So, I want to go through ? because what you guys started out on the all-in-one membership platform at the very, very beginning ? you were newer to this. People kept saying, ?Kajabi? ?and I was like, ?Wait. What did you say? How do you spell that?? So, can you sort of take me on a trajectory?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Exactly. We still get that sometimes.

Jaime Masters:	At least you are a name that so many people have heard of before. It is very rare now when I say it. So, tell me a little bit about the trajectory of being sort of newer in that space to where we?ve come now because there?s tons of competition in that space now.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Sure. You know it?s a really interesting market. When we started ? and this is gonna be almost nine years ago ? there was really nobody doing any element of this idea of selling courses online. You know the idea of what would be online education was really relegated to early stage ed tech in college or scholastic spaces or compliance training for large corporations. This idea of an entrepreneur being able to take something that would normally be packed in CDs, DVDs, and workbooks and be able to deliver it online was kind of crazy. 

	But as broadband internet?s gotten better and everything that?s now possible, it?s far more common. And so what?s been interesting is we have evolved along with the industry that, back then, it was weird to sell a course. Now courses are available in marketplaces like Udemy and SkillsShare or available in platform spaces like us and others. But also, now we?re really diving a lot more into the idea of marketing and selling and delivering that information. 

	So, versus just being a delivery mechanism back then, we now are a marketing, selling, and delivery application really moving more into a holistic online business platform because the reality of it is people aren?t coming to us because they woke up and thought, ?Boy, I want to sell a course this morning.? They?re likely coming to us because they want to deliver results for their business. Now those results may be course delivery. It may be marketing, selling, and delivering the course. But Kajabi is now really the place where we get to serve all of those needs.

Jaime Masters:	How did you figure that out too? I mean you?re technically going from, ?Hey, this is our core competency and now we?re actually scooting it over here? which a totally different ? Doing marketing is very, very different than just content delivery education, right? And so when you do that, you have to make the very conscious choice to go in a completely different market. What made you make that pivot?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	You know it?s interesting. It really, for us, hasn?t been a pivot. It?s been more of a gradual building. So, I would view it more like a house where you have the foundation for us, which is the content delivery element. That will never change. The idea of a membership site, course content, immersive digital experience will always be the foundation of what Kajabi delivers. And what we?ve always envisioned is being able to build on that. So, it?s certainly one of those things. First rule of business, you always want to stick with the girl that brought you to the dance. 

	For us, the membership site course content, that is really our home court. That?s where we love to play. What we began to find though is that a lot of the needs in this marketplace ? and the complexity that we have the ability to solve ? is people get a course platform and they?re like, ?Well, now what? Oh, I should go get Infusionsoft. I should go get MailChimp. I should go get some type of payment gateway. I should go get some type of blogging software, videos, whatever.? 

	It really ends up becoming something where we brought our part of the equation, but the intention was always that, as we grew, to be able to solve those needs in the way that we envision this industry should operate, which is really making technological superpowers accessible to people that really aren?t using them. 

	So, for us, although we started in the membership site course content area, the vision was always to be able to take our goals for our users and move it into a holistic solution, but obviously as many of your users might have ? or many of your listeners have probably learned ? it?s much, much easier to deliver on a smaller scope project and do it masterfully and then look at adding versus, ?We?re gonna do all of this subpar at the start.?

Jaime Masters:	I really appreciate you saying that that it was always in the core vision, which is really good to know. But the fact that you only did that little piece we, as entrepreneurs, have to still be slapped because we?re like, ?I know, but I really want to just ? What if we do two of the pieces at once or what if we do ? We could do ?? right? So, how long did it actually take you before you could really start adding the other pieces in chunks to the program?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Well, so if you go all the way back to the vision that Kenny originally had almost nine years ago, it was roughly six years of Kajabi classic ? which was really focused as the content delivery ? and then only three years in what was called New Kajabi, but now is just Kajabi as a holistic marketing platform. A real online business platform is what we?re calling it.

Jaime Masters:	Did you guys know at the beginning because there is a million softwares and what?s unfortunate is we end up cobbling them all together. And I have a degree in computers, but most people definitely don?t and I don?t even want to spend my time doing some of that stuff. So, was that sort of knowing where the trend was going potentially is why that vision was so big at the beginning?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	So, I would say that really where the inflection point came was when we split from Kajabi classic into what is now Kajabi. And that was really viewing six years of participating in an industry, watching the industry evolve, watching the industry expand, and seeing all of the ways it was being used. Kenny really sort of saw this inflection point early on and was just bold enough to say, ?You know what? We see where the industry?s going. We see a need for a more holistic platform and our current classic architecture will not allow us to do all of the things we will want to do.? 

	So, it really became something that it was first to replace the classic functionality in the new platform and then begin developing on top of it, but really viewing it as a completely different architecture, completely Greenfield project of, ?Okay, had we had the knowledge then of what the industry would become, how would we build this to be something that ? as the industry grows and matures, as the technology and how it?s applied changes ? having a world where we can continue to grow and change with it.? 

	That?s really where this new online business platform, it gives the ability to evolve it, that we can add what we call building blocks, which is really new functionality that not only allows a Kajabi user to have something that they?re likely paying somebody else for built in and integrated, but bringing with it all of the power of it being on the same platform ? providing automation and everything ? without all the middleware that?s normally required to make things work together.

Jaime Masters:	That?s a lot of work, as you know, right? It?s insane actually?

	[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Cronstedt:	And that?s really I mean you know and we?re gonna be talking a lot about business today because I know that your listeners are normally at that critical juncture in their business where they?re beginning to scale or maybe they?ve started scaling and are experiencing what scale brings. And for us, we really come from the place where our core belief is the No. 1 killer of success in the online world is complexity. I can?t tell you how many times I meet someone and they?ll say, ?Oh, well, you know I don?t use Kajabi.? It?s like, ?Okay. Well, why?? 

	They?re like, ?Well, you know, I wanted to be able to split test this page, multivariate 37 ways with a Taguchi methodology.? I?m like, ?Yeah, I understand what all those words mean too, but how much have you sold online?? They?re like, ?Oh, well I haven?t yet.? I?m like, ?Well, of course not because you?re still trying to come up with 37 multivariate ways to split test a page that you?ve never taken live.? 

	And this is a person that I?ll see a decade from now and they?re like, ?Man, I am just one more autoresponder away of having the perfect customer architecture.? It?s like, ?Dude, by the time you get this live, they won?t even be buying what you?re selling anymore. They?ll be onto something totally different.? So, we really try to I guess I would say ruthlessly apply the Pareto Principle of the 80-20. You know where is the 20 percent of whatever technology that drives 80 percent of the results and then make it as simple to apply it as possible really.

Jaime Masters:	Well, and that?s the point, right? Well, I just got off of Infusionsoft. I switched over to Active Campaign because I was like I had to pay a whole person to do Infusionsoft because I ? even a geek ? had to go, ?How do I? I can?t even select test a subject? What the heck??

Jonathan Cronstedt:	And honestly, I will tell you Infusionsoft is an amazing platform. Previously in my career, I spent time at Glazer-Kennedy. I watched Bill Glazer and Dan Kennedy first popularize this idea of a direct response-oriented online marketing software. It was amazing and the capabilities they have. It is amazing. I mean it slices, it dices, it juliennes, fries, it does everything you can imagine while watching your kids for the weekend. It is so unbelievably feature-rich and the challenge that they have is it does so much that you will meet the vast majority of their users that are either taking this 747 and using it like a go-cart or you?ll meet people that are like, ?Yeah, I?ve had it for three years. I?ve never built a campaign.? 

	?Why?? ?Well, because I just open it up. I get super-overwhelmed and I bail.? It?s like, ?Well, but do you have any idea how amazing it is?? It?s like, ?Yeah. That?s why I bought it and that?s why I keep it because everybody tells me it?s amazing? but you never get to the amazingness because you never get to actually implement it.

Jaime Masters:	Because then if you?re results-oriented, yeah, having all the complexity beforehand does nothing potentially unless you know how to use it. So, what I want to do is I want to shift. I want to ask you questions about your marketing and what you guys do because it is a competitive beast right now, right? So, especially as you?re adding in the new features of Kajabi, what did you do in your marketing to really shift into that?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	So, it?s interesting. We?ve really focused less on features. If you were to meet a lot of people that use us and use us successfully, they?ll even be surprised when we?re like, ?Oh, have you tried this feature?? They?re like, ?No, I didn?t even know you guys did that.? We?ve never really been I guess I would call it feature-oriented in our marketing. Where we have always come from is we believe that if we deliver more results for our users, the marketing takes care of itself in a lot of ways. So, the user success element and the user community is really where we focus the majority of our time in our marketing messaging. 

	It?s gonna be something that?s much more focused on the user?s outcome and the desires that they have versus just throwing features at something because, again, everybody wants the baby. Nobody wants the labor pains. And just looking at 342 features that we have that odds are any other platform you came from or any other five platforms you?ve come from probably have similar features. But those features only matter if you?re getting the results from those features. So, we really start at the results level and then help people back into those results leveraging the features of their choosing.

Jaime Masters:	That makes exact sense with what you were just saying about before if you are really results-focused. What does that mean? So, when you?re talking about, ?Oh, we let our user experience run for you.? You?re still running ads, I?m assuming. You?re still running. What sort of ? on the brass tacks level ? what are you actually guys doing on marketing that?s pushing those messages forward to make everybody actually buy it instead of just talking about it?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Sure. So, for us, one of the campaigns that we?ve had a great amount of success with ? that we really enjoy ? is this idea of results in advance. How can you take somebody, add a tremendous amount of value to their business, fast-track the success that they?re looking for, and really move that forward in a way where they have a transformative experience before they?ve ever given you any money? And for us, that?s been our 28-Day Challenge. 

	So, we offer a 14-day free trial or you have the ability to then take that and double the trial length to 28 days by taking advantage of the 28-Day Challenge. And what comes with that is a fairly ? I would call it ? robust experience of, ?We?re going to take you through an email coaching relationship where you?re going to create your product, market and sell your product before you ever pay a subscription fee to Kajabi.? So, the lofty goal of that program is to take you from, ?Hey, I?m excited to be here? to ?Oh, my gosh. I sold my first user? on whatever it is you?re marketing in that 28-day period so that before your subscription ever rebills, you are already in the black on your business. 

	So, that?s something, for us, that ? again going back to that focus on member success ? you can see that the campaign is not designed around, ?Let?s make you really good at email autoresponders.? The goal of that campaign is, ?Let?s get you the result you came for? which is ?I want a course live in the world of digital entrepreneurship and I?d like to get it done as fast as possible.? We?re like, ?Well, great. Why don?t we get it done before you ever pay us.?

Jaime Masters:	Well, that makes perfect sense when you actually think about it that way. Nobody really does that and the great thing about it on your side is if they spent that much time and effort building the course ? even if they haven?t built the course ? all the stuff?s there. So, why would they not pay you to finish it anyway, right, if you?ve gotten them that far over the hump? I feel like the industry on the course side has been changing a lot. A million people have courses it feels like on all sorts of the same topics. So, if you guys are sort of covering over the marketing, how do you help people sell that first course so they can really feel that results and the win?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Well, you make a great point. If you really look at the idea of let?s call it information. Information is highly commoditized. You know we talk about this a lot and this idea that the information age really never delivered on its promises. You know it promised that it was going to improve our lives when really all it?s done is make it far more overwhelming. Our attention spans are lower than they?ve ever been. All we have now is a whole lot more of I guess I would say just misinformation, disinformation. We now have this burden of defining what?s working, what?s not, who?s real, who?s not. 

	It?s really made our life so much more complicated. But this idea of knowledge transfer and what a course really is meant to be, of course, shouldn?t just be a commoditized item. It shouldn?t be just another banana in a pile of bananas that you can pick any banana and it?s a banana. It really should be something that is highly personal where you are selecting a guide and selecting somebody that resonates with you on a personal level. You don?t want to learn marketing from just anybody. 

	You want to learn marketing from someone who is in your industry who matches your values and what you want to bring to that industry, your vision, and you want to be able to plug into that person and benefit from their knowledge, not just a marketing course because if it was just a marketing course, I mean, gosh, there?s plenty of marketing courses. You want something that?s specific and speaks to you. That?s really where the course market is going and it?s something that Dan Kennedy ? I?ll give him credit for this statement. 

	He was at a conference for people that sold widgets, pens, and pads of paper, and magnets, and things that realtors would send you in the mail. And everybody there was talking about, ?Oh, it?s a commodity business. It?s a commodity business.? And he was like, ?Well, look. If you?re in a commodity business, get out.? And one of the women in the audience was so offended. She storms out, wants her money back. ?I?m leaving. I?m tired of being insulted by this guy.? She didn?t stick around long enough to realize he wasn?t saying, ?Get out of the business? like ?Leave this business.? He was saying, ?Get out of the fact that you are a commodity. 

	Rather than being just someone who?s got 742 widgets that someone could buy, provide systems. Maybe you provide the perfect prospecting kit for real estate agents that has an eight step sequence of a pen, then a pad, then a magnet, then a whatever and all of it comes together to be this thing that hangs on your fridge that you can write your grocery list on, whatever it happens to be.? 

	But courses are no different. You go to Udemy today and you see all of these creators that are powerful, brilliant individuals but ? because they?ve surrendered control of their content to that platform ? a course that they sold three years ago for $500.00 Udemy now comes out and says, ?Hey, guess what? It?s worth 20 bucks. I know it took you 20 years to learn that, but congratulations, you get $1.00 per year, $20.00. Go get them.? And really, that?s the commodity marketplace. I would recommend ? if you?re watching this and you?re asking ? avoid it at all costs. Unless you?ve got a very good plan to use the commodity marketplace as a lead gen for what you do, stay out of it.?

Jaime Masters:	Okay. This is exactly what I want to talk about especially going forward in the future and what you see as trends because, no offense, but that?s what we all see and people are like, ?Oh, well then why are so many people pitching how to make more courses, courses, courses, courses when, in reality, we really should be talking about how we get people to really interact with us or how to make them actually better and deliver more results like you were saying?? Get them actually to do the courses. One of the reasons why they?re only 20 bucks on Udemy is because nobody actually watches them, right?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Yeah. Well, and also too it?s one of those things that we, in this industry, oftentimes we don?t recognize how much time we spend in our own echo chamber that we believe everybody knows what we know. And if you really want to know where the rest of the world is on this adoption curve, look at the fact that if you go back to when Go Daddy was founded. I?m gonna say, gosh, they gotta be like late ?90s or somewhere around there, I mean a really, really long time ago. 

	So, let?s call it 15 years ago, plus or minus. Someone in the comments can tell me when it was actually and how wrong I am on the date, but nonetheless. All of that time ago, they were doing domain names and websites. But it wasn?t until about a year or two ago that Wicks and Squarespace figured out a way to have websites be accessible enough that they could run mainstream marketing to it profitably. So, if you think about the fact that literally just two years ago now all of a sudden you can run ads on television and tell people to make a website and people will say, ?You know what? You?re right. I need a website. I?m gonna go do that.? 

	But yet, it?s been around that long. This idea that everyone?s talking about courses and it?s commodified, it is commodified if all you?re doing is making something that someone?s already made and it?s totally undifferentiated. But if you look at the adoption curve of where broadband internet is going, you know Peter Diamandis talks about this rising billions all the time where you?ve got three to five billion people coming online in the next five years that have never had access to broadband internet before and guess what? They want the same stuff we do. They?ve got the same hobbies, passions, interests, desires for their life. 

	They?re gonna want stuff from people that they identify with. So, the market is also massive expanding, but this idea that everybody?s already learning stuff online, if you don?t believe me try this out at your next part. Be like, ?Hey, you ever taken any online learning?? People are gonna look at you like, ?What?s that?? ?Oh, yeah, I did that in college.? The idea that there are all of these cool things out there and available, it?s not that widely known. We think it is because it?s all we do. It?s all we?re plugged into. Our perspective is not the global perspective.

Jaime Masters:	Yes. Just talk to my parents and they will let you know that they have no idea what the heck I do for a living or most people online.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Isn?t it fun though? Isn?t it fun though to watch them when people ask them like, ?What does your daughter do for a living?? The explanation is probably always slightly different and never quite correct. She does?

Jaime Masters:	She has a book. Yeah.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Pod, pod, pod something, pod ? yeah, that thing. Oh, yeah internet thing, yeah.

Jaime Masters:	So, and we do have a tendency to get in our bubble. But what would you say that you could help people capitalize on this? So, I love the fact that you?re saying don?t commoditize in the ?We?re a marketer, we?re a marketer, we?re a marketer, we?re a marketer? right? But how do they go ahead and do that because even on the niching side, people are like, ?I don?t want to niche too much because then it blah, blah, blah? right? There are all these excuses. So, give us some tips on how to actually not be commoditized in some ? Let?s say we have a course right now that?s sort of already built, but we?re not selling a lot of it. How do we reinfuse it so it?s not just another marketing program?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Well, first of all, the key foundation piece is gonna be your transformative value. So, how quickly can you get someone from their current state to their desired state with as little brain damage as possible? So, if it?s something where you have a course and you?re not getting results, the first question is, ?Are your users getting results? Are the people that are going through the course getting results?? If they?re not, it means you?ve gotta transformative problem. 

	The course is not getting them to their desired state and it?s something where ? if that?s not happening ? you?re never gonna get that flywheel of people talking about the results that they?re getting and others want those results and this is where they got those results. So, first and foremost, transformative value has to be there and has to be there in spades. This is definitely not a market where you can just put up some bullshit ?pardon my language ? and that people are just gonna buy it because it?s well-marketed. They will buy it and then they will refund and they will be mad at you and they will talk about it online and you will be embarrassed. 

	So, transformative value, hopefully we knock that one out of the park and that?s in place. Assuming that?s in place, then it?s really going to be the niche elements. And anyone that says, ?I don?t want to niche down too far? really hasn?t ever niched down right. It?s really something that you really want to view niching versus a narrowing of your market. It?s not that. The visual is really more of a concentric circle ? almost like a dartboard ? where it?s like the goal is to hit the bullseye ? the smallest, most perfect market you can possibly imagine of your most rabid, rabid fans. 

	If you nail that, those people and their results are gonna help carry you to the next circle out, the next circle out, the next circle out. So, you are gonna go broader and broader with what you do, but if you try to start broad you?re never really gonna be able to access your market in a way that?s meaningful to them. So, I would say if you?re starting a fitness course ? a lot of fitness courses. If you?ve got a really unique angle or a really unbelievable story and some epic Instagram following, you can probably succeed with a general fitness course. However, if you?re going to sell a fitness course, one step better would be body weight only fitness. ?Great. Now I don?t need to buy equipment.? 

	One step better than that would be body weight only in less than 20 minutes with household items you already have. ?Wow, okay. So now I can do it in only 20 minutes with household items that I already have.? Well, now let?s take it one step further. Body weight workouts for men over 40 that used to play spots and miss looking that way on your schedule and results are guaranteed in 90 days. Now, all of a sudden, I have a market that I can speak to very specifically, the transformative value is there, and I?ve niched down to a market that it?s like, ?Okay, he?s talking to me and I really, really want that? whereas ?I didn?t wake up that morning wanting just a fitness course.?

Jaime Masters:	Do you think that it has to be more personality brand driven or do you think it can still be ? especially in that example ? it can still be the niche is more important than the actual person that you?re connecting with?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	I would say they?re equally important and I wouldn?t say personality-driven because I think when you say personality-driven, people are like, ?Oh, I gotta be a Kardashian? or ?I gotta be on the Jersey Shore? or whatever it is. It?s not personality-driven, it?s story-driven that if you are able to essentially show someone that, ?Look, I?ve been where you are. I?m going to join you where you are and I?m gonna show you the way that I found to get out of where I was and I?m gonna walk you through the same thing.? 

	That?s the story that really illustrates that transformative value. And so the story element is going to be huge that if your audience doesn?t feel in true authenticity that you understand them, they?re never gonna buy from you.

Jaime Masters:	Okay. What if they don?t have that as a story, right? I have friends that are jump rope guys, right? That?s one of their niches. So, being able to do that, but they?ve always been extremely fit, but they?re helping people not be. So, how do you do ? do you just use a lot more testimonials? Give me more about what they do in that instance.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Definitely. So, there?s a lot of what I would call marketing bridge that ? if you don?t have the story ? that you can use stories. Social proof is a huge one that if you have created results for people, you don?t necessarily need to tell your own story because you have stories to tell ? the stories of others. And then there are also other ways. One of the popular copywriting methodologies is actually called a Blackie Story and a Blackie Story is, ?So, there I was on this bus stop and this old man come to find out he was a multimillionaire who worked for the Federal Reserve and he taught me all about how currencies really work.? 

	So, now I?ve sort of created this persona that has given me the story that I can now share and talk about. But again, all of the marketing I guess we would call it positioning or ways that you can bridge into the story, if the transformative value and impact isn?t there, the story won?t work. There is no story in the world that will save a shitty product. It just won?t happen.

Jaime Masters:	Which I?m thankful for also, by the way.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Oh, totally. Yeah, absolutely. Lord knows we?ve all bought enough stuff that you got it and you?re like, ?You gotta be kidding me.? I mean the world needs no more of those.

Jaime Masters:	A million times over. Give me another marketing bridge because I thought that was really awesome.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Oh, the Blackie Story? That?s one of my favorites. I would say one of the other ones that I really like using is definitely the third party market data. You know really digging into the research and if you don?t have credibility, then becoming credible by pointing to those that are credible. So, rather than saying, ?I used to be fat and now I?m not? it would be ? Or you know actually another good one that, quite frankly, it?s a little bit risqu?. So, I don't know, as long as your audience are adults, I?m gonna use this one because it?s one of my favorites. 

	This actually was a radio ad that was worked on by Chet Holmes ? one of the most brilliant marketers and positioning architects I know. Unfortunately, Chet?s no longer with us, so hopefully he won?t mind me telling this story. But it was actually a radio ad where Chet was working with a nutrition company. Now this nutrition company was large enough that they didn?t really have a personality. There wasn?t a story behind it and it was something that they weren?t using social proof. It wasn?t like, ?These are the stories we?re telling.? They really relied heavily on market data. 

	So, the radio ad would say, ?Dear men over 40, did you know that if you were born after 1975 that your father actually was twice the man you are? And what I mean by that is did you know that since 1950, the average sperm count of males has declined and today, we are actually half the men our fathers were?? Now it really goes into the ? I mean if you think about it as a guy you?re like, ?Whoa, wait a second. My mind is blown and no, I hate my dad. My dad was a jerk or well I really respect my dad, but he?s not twice the man I am.? You look at something that ? by using market data ? you?re able to package that in a way that is immediately going to trigger someone. 

	You?re gonna get visceral, polarizing reactions and you now have their attention, which really is half the battle. So, I would say that you?re going to find ? whether the data is correlational or causational ? you?re going to find extremely powerful market data that you can use to being that bonding process. Again, if you don?t have your story and you don?t have the story of others, market data would be another one I would really look at to say, ?Important, credible source says ? blank, blank, blank. Oh, my gosh, now I?ve got your attention. Let?s talk about how I can help.?

Jaime Masters:	Well, especially the psychology behind it though too. That?s what Holmes was so amazing at. It?s not like saying, ?These are the stats. Tada!? right? The way he did it is genius. What do you think about so if somebody doesn?t have that type of marketing person on their team because ? no offense ? he?s a genius and it?s hard to get people that are as good as he was, right? 

	What do you do if you?re trying to test something like this marketing bridge that you talked about like, ?Okay, we?ve got third party data. We feel like this is kind of good.? I know you?re not the marketing guy specifically of the company, but I know you know a lot about it. So, what do you think they should do if the owner isn?t a genius in marketing then too and doesn?t really know how to tell their marketing team to really go at this in the right way?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	I would say if you?re an owner and you have a marketing team that you feel like could do better but they just don?t get it, I would get them books and I would make them read them. It?s really one of those things that there?s ? I would tell you first and foremost that Dan Kennedy always says the number one sin of any business owner is outsourcing your marketing. It doesn?t mean you don?t have a marketing team, but it means that if you?re not overseeing the voice and the elements of marketing, you probably won?t succeed as well as you potentially could. 

	So, I would encourage you that if you?ve completely ? I would encourage you to delegate your marketing, but you should never abdicate your marketing and that, I guess, is the distinction I would draw. But I would say that if you have a marketing team that you?re like, ?Gosh, how did they do what we?re talking about here?? I would maybe take a look at the Ultimate Sales Machine book by Chet Holmes ? amazing, amazing playbook ? and then really select one element of it and say, ?Okay, team, we?re drilling this and we?re gonna work on it until we get it.? 

	So, maybe it is market research. ?Guys, I want you to go find 10 studies that are related to our product. Cool, we got these 10, okay. Which one of these now relate to the product that we?d like to sell? Cool, okay. What are three ways that we can take what we just figured out and package it into a marketing message and test it?? So, it?s really going to be something that ? even if you have terrible, terrible instincts and a terrible, terrible team and all of this stuff is completely new to you ? by being willing to just drill it and test it in very small, controlled environments, you?ll be able to let the data cover over any of the deficiencies in the marketing acumen.

Jaime Masters:	I really appreciate that too because lot of the times as an owner you?re like, ?Oh, that?s my marketing team.? But if they?re not necessarily good, you hire an outside consultant, but then they don?t and then everybody?s not really doing anything and then you don?t get any results and then you?re all mad when ? in reality ? they need to actually be paying attention to your marketing strategy because that?s where your money comes from people.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Yeah. It?s really something. If there?s one thing that I think faster than anything indicates someone who doesn?t necessarily understand how business works ? and I know for your listeners, they?re at a more mature stage in business so I?m sure all of them know this ? but the reality of it is the vast majority of people think, ?I hired a marketer and so really now that I have a marketer, it?s a slot machine that always pays out. Every time I put a quarter in, I get more money out.? 

	It?s like do you have any idea how hard that is? I mean if it was that easy I mean we?d all be following the yellow brick road and going to the Wizard of Oz because it?s like, ?Oh, yeah. I just woke up this morning and ? because I understand marketing ? now every campaign I have works, works well, and pays out every time.? It?s like, ?No. If I could wake up and trade a dime for a dollar every time, oh my gosh, I wouldn?t leave the house and I?d do it as much as possible.? But this idea that I think most people have is it?s like, ?Oh, well I have a marketing team so my marketing should just convert that way.? 

	It?s like, ?It?s not quite that simple. It can be, but it?s going to take a lot of repetition and a lot of trial and a lot of being willing to kind of put it through its paces and refine as you go.? But this idea if you?re listening to this and thinking, ?Gosh, I just wish I could hire a marketer.? It?s like I?m just telling you, if you just hire a marketer, it?s probably still gonna take some time.

Jaime Masters:	Thank you because that?s the other piece. Everyone?s like, ?Oh, you have digital courses or whatever, but yeah, you still have to sell the courses.? But it?s mostly easy to sell one to 10 courses and then ? as soon as you start going farther ? you?re like, ?Oh, yeah, there?s a whole thing to this. It is a whole skillset on its own? and a lot of owners don?t necessarily have that, but should have at least hardcore pieces of it in order to tell their team what to do also, right, because it?s ever evolving and moving? I know we have?

	[Crosstalk]

Jaime Masters:	Go ahead.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	That?s the one thing I would say to people that are listening and they?re wondering how to have a really high performing marketing team. I use this Bruce Lee quote all the time, but it really is relevant to me. It?s, ?I don?t fear the man who knows 10,000 kicks, I fear the man who knows one kick that he?s practiced 10,000 times.? I see so many business owners that believe that they need to be on all channels all the time and ? the reality of it is ? until you have the business that can support all channels all the time, you don?t need to be on all channels all the time. 

	There are businesses that are still selling hundreds of millions of dollars a year using this weird thing called mail. It?s paper. It shows up in a box outside of your house. If you?re a millennial, it?s probably the thing that you don?t check and you manage all your bills online. But there are people still using mail effectively. 

	So, whatever channel resonates the most with you, that?s the channel that you should make your realm, that you should master, and that you should figure out how to make it work for your business because ? once that channel is cranking ? that?s gonna throw off resources for you to then do the same thing for another channel and another channel. But if you take all of the channel and apply them mediocre at best across the board, you?re just gonna have a really mediocre strategy on all of the channels versus having one channel just crushing it bringing in sales.

Jaime Masters:	A recipe for disaster, but so many people are doing it it?s ridiculous. I?m actually interviewing next Joy from Postcard Mania and I chat with people they?re like, ?People still do postcards.? I?m like, ?Yes, people still do postcards.? 

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Yeah and massively successfully too, like really, really well.

Jaime Masters:	Yeah. Just because we have the internet does not mean it?s the most converting in many aspects in many ways, just so everybody?s clear.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Well, you gotta say to people it?s like, ?Do you realize that people still bought stuff before the internet? It actually happened.?

Jaime Masters:	What? No.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	I know. Sears and Roebuck catalog, people bought it through mail back when there wasn?t even a US Postal Service. They still bought stuff, so yeah.

Jaime Masters:	Thankfully, we?ve come a long way because I really don?t want to order ? I like drones potentially soon coming to my house and delivering my Amazon packages.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Hey, I?m in.

Jaime Masters:	Actually, on that note too, what do you see as the trends, right? You?re sort of on the forefront of this. So, what do you see as the trends in the next 10 to 20 years in this space?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Wow. I would say that I see a lot of unique things happening in what education is that education has long been relegated to this realm of, ?You go spend four years somewhere going to classes to learn something.? Today we?re moving far more towards an effectiveness element to it that ? if I can learn it in a hour ? I don?t need to spend three months or six months or a year. So, the desire for that transformative value is only going up and I think you?re gonna see the market continue to really skew towards the people that truly deliver the result. That it?s not any more good enough to just have a product that has the information in it, but you really need to be able to create that result. 

	So, I think you?re gonna see these one dimensional products really lose a lot of ground to the multidimensional approach. So, the product that has group coaching calls and Q&A or live event components, support groups, and things that really get the relationship piece and the results element I think are going to become much bigger. We, at Kajabi, are really going to be diving deep into this community feature that we?re gonna be releasing end of January because we also believe that a space that?s largely been filled right now by the free option of a Facebook group I think you?re gonna see that really go away. 

	You know the idea that you can create transformation in a Facebook group is insane. You?re battling with cat pictures and relatives and everything else. It?s like you?re not gonna have a meaningful transformative experience in the most distracted portal available, not to mention all you?re doing is uploading your best buyers for your competitors to target via ads. So, I think you?re gonna see people really move back to reevaluating, ?What is this idea of community and connection and how do I leverage that to create results and that transformative value in my product?? So, I think you?re gonna see community and connection really get reevaluated in some exciting ways.

Jaime Masters:	Well, I really appreciate it. I don?t like digital products in general because it doesn?t have the community and connection and they usually just throw them in a Facebook group and go, ?Hopefully, you figure it out. Great.? And I think Facebook and being in that space is a recipe for disaster. But do you think it?s more ? especially because I?m a super geek ? do you think it?s more on the adaptive technology side and getting better at that or do you really think the core is the community and connection that really facilitates the learning side?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	So, it?s gonna be both. I think it?s the community and connection that is the actual where change happens element. But the big challenges with Facebook they?ve built it to be addictive. You know they have built literally every element of that to prompt us to stay plugged into it. So, it?s gonna take some people I think realizing the ? I guess I would call it ? the backlash from what social media brings with it and we?re now just beginning to see it. You?re now beginning to see all of the data and privacy abuses come out. 

	You?re now beginning to see all of the manipulation of it coming out. So, I think that the technology platforms that are going to be built to leverage this idea of community and connection they?re going to take what worked and the best practices to create that transformative value in our industry specifically, but I think they?re gonna try and remove a lot of the distraction and things that stand in the way of it and I think that?s a big trend that I?m noticing. And I think the other trend that I?m noticing is I think creators are getting tired of relegating their future to platforms they don?t control. 

	You?re seeing more and more people get thrown off of platforms because their views might not agree with whoever holds the keys to that kingdom and really, I mean, you?re seeing freedom of speech in general just erode to a point that it?s getting diluted that you can?t say anything unless nobody?s offended. It?s like, ?Well, then really why are you doing it?? So, when you look at all these creators that have, quite frankly, made YouTube, made Patreon, made Udemy, made Skillshare and then ? all of a sudden ? they?re being told what they can teach and how they can teach it, that?s pretty problematic. 

	It?s almost like if you go back to New York in its early developing years. You had all of the cool tastemakers ? the artists, the individuals driving culture forward ? living in Soho. They made it so cool that they couldn?t afford Soho anymore so they got pushed out to outer reaches of Manhattan. Then they made those cool and then they got pushed out Manhattan entirely and are now in Williamsburg, Brooklyn, but now they?ve made that too cool and so now they?re getting pushed into Queens. 

	It?s sort of this situation where I think you?re beginning to see creators say, ?You know what? I?m not gonna come in and make your platform just so that you can then tell me that I can?t be on your platform.? So, think that you?re gonna also see a real desire for influencers, creators, celebrities, individuals that have influence, they?re going to want to begin to control their media versus being controlled by their media.

Jaime Masters:	A million times over, yeah, because ripped out from underneath you way too many times, yeah. Friends of mine off Facebook, off of all those things and you?re like, ?Oh, great. There goes all my hard work. How awesome.? One quick question before I ask my final question because, to me, we?re told that everybody can be a creator. Everybody?s got something in them, blah, blah, blah, but there?s not very many courses on how to create a course for the educational side so that people actually get better at learning. 

	Do you know any books or resources or anything like that in that space because I feel like I have clients that try and create courses and trying to go based on adaptive technology or learning styles? A lot of creators don?t even realize that there?s a million different learning styles and ? when we try and figure out how to create the course ? there?s a lot more into it than just sort of putting out a bunch of information. So, do you know the best way or some resources that we can refer to on that?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	In all sincerity, I would say there?s not a best way because I mean you hit the nail on the head. I can go through every aspect of instructional design and the auditory-visual-kinesthetic learners and how everybody consumes information. But quite frankly, even those terms are a little bit dated and someone?s gonna tell me that there?s now like 37 others that I?m unaware of. So, rather than give you ? I guess I would call it ? the instructional design du jour, I will give you the never fail, will not be outdated ever format that I would go with for course creation. 

	It would be what?s the current state? What?s their desired state? How can you get them from point A to point B? Take a couple people through it and then ask them how it went. ?Where did you get stuck? Where would you like more? Where would you like less? Where did you get confused?? And after you go through that process three, four, five times, you will have caught enough of all of the different types of learners and different types of methodologies that your course will be facilitated in a way that speaks to all of them and you?ll be able to do it far faster than trying to learn all of the areas of instructional design only to have them change. 

	Because if you learned instructional design 10, 15 years ago, it would be very different in application today when Microsoft is doing studies showing that our attention span is now less than a goldfish. You know we?re sub eight seconds on our attention span. So, what instructional design was back then when you were in a classroom environment where no one had mobile devices to today, very, very different. So, I would encourage you ? rather than trying to focus on the right format ? focus on the only thing that matters, which is how can you get the most results for the most people and then continuing to ask them, ?How can I refine it??

Jaime Masters:	See I love that. We do that method. We?ve run, we call them betas. We run a bazillion betas for us too and I just wish I had a little bit more because when I go back through instructional design, it is so outdated it?s ridiculous. And so I just haven?t found an updated medium that can sort of go, ?Oh, you know what? When we?re looking for this refined result and they said these three things that I need to change, which order is the best order, right?? 

	So, I know there are experts in this and we?ve hired experts. I just didn?t know if there was anything in that I highly, highly agree with you that the results are the most thing that matters. But it?s that trying to get that subset of types of people in it and who to listen to and who not to is?

	[Crosstalk]

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Yeah. For us, we always really go back to, ?How can we teach methods that ? no matter what changes, what trends take place ? they will continue to work?? because there?s no doubt about it, there?s huge value in a lot of those constructs. It?s just gonna take you a long time to internalize it. So, it?s something that do I believe that you can get 80 percent of the value by putting a course together and iterating? I do.

Jaime Masters:	Yup, a million times over. I just want a robot to just tell me all the things. Come on.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	That would be pretty awesome.

Jaime Masters:	We?re not there yet.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Hey, don?t worry. Amazon?s working on it. From what I understand, they?re getting close.

Jaime Masters:	The world we?re gonna live in in 20 years is gonna be completely different. On that note, okay, what?s one thing listeners can do this week ? one action that they can do this week ? that will help them with their goal of a million?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	So, I would say I?ll share something from my learning of looking back over my 2018 now going into 2019 and I?ll use a quote from Warren Buffet to start what prompted my reevaluation of what I looked at over the past year and the quote from Warren Buffet is, ?The difference between successful and really successful people is really successful people say no to almost everything.? And so if you, as an entrepreneur are wondering how you can really drive your business forward in powerful ways, you?re going to need to get a lot better at a lot fewer things. 

	And so as you look at your calendar, how much of it is taken up with meetings that don?t have an agenda, that aren?t prepared in advance, that rarely have outcomes or action items assigned after them? How many phone calls are you taking because you got someone on LinkedIn who said, ?Hey, I?d love to talk to you. Can you schedule 15 minutes?? How many ways are you giving up the one asset you never will get more of, which is your time, and assigning it to things that really aren?t aligned with your interests or goals? 

	So, for me, it would really be start saying no a lot more and, quite frankly, saying no unapologetically. It?s certainly something don?t feel that you owe anyone an explanation. If you don?t want to get on a call, don?t get on a call. Just reply and say, ?Hey, more of an email guy? and guess what? If they can?t surmise the point that they have in a five line email versus a 30 minute phone call, you shouldn?t be working with them anyway.

Jaime Masters:	I love that. I love that ? more of an email guy. That just answers everything for you and it doesn?t feel?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Yeah, but I mean just for everyone listening, it literally took me like five years of being the guy that I just totally felt like because people wanted a phone call with me, I was required to give them one. And all of a sudden I?m like, ?What if I just said I don?t really like phone calls?? How do you argue with that? Like, ?Well, you should like phone calls. You?re a jerk.? I?m like, ?Well, okay. We probably shouldn?t work together then.? 

	It?s just those little, little things but I mean, for me, it?s really one of those things saying no a whole lot more and making room to really evaluate deep, impactful, transformational ideas in your business is where the big change is gonna happen because very few great businesses ? if any ? were ever built by being on email all the time, being on phone calls all the time, and wondering how your business is gonna move forward when you?re too busy just doing random things based on other people?s agendas.

Jaime Masters:	Perfect way to end this. Make sure everybody that?s listening actually says no at least sometime once this week, twice this week, ideally 100 times this week because we?re getting bombarded by tons of things all day long. Where can we find more about you and Kajabi and check it out?

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Just head over to Kajabi.com. Give our trial a try. I would highly recommend grabbing the 28-Day Challenge. You will love the coaching and the step-by-step process that takes you from zero to marketing and selling your course in 28 days and we would love to help you find success in this lovely world of digital entrepreneurship.

Jaime Masters:	Thank you so much for coming on the show today and giving your wisdom because this industry is such an interesting thing and I love your integrity in it. Thanks so much for coming on the show.

Jonathan Cronstedt:	Absolute pleasure, Jaime. Take care.

Tags: entrepreneur podcast, eventual millionaire, how to sell online course, jaime masters, jonathan cronstedt, kajabi, millionaire entrepreneurs, online course software, Online courses, podcast, start-ups / startups, startup entrepreneur, top entrepreneurs

Categories: All, Business, Featured Millionaire Interview, Marketing, Marketing Automation, Membership Sites, Millionaire Interviews, Online Courses, Online Sales, Sales, Software/Resource Reviews

Hi I’m Jaime. Each and every week I bring you the top business advice from the people who know best.

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