Episode 227: Do this before buying another course
When was the last time you bought a course that you actually finished? In today's episode, Fiona shares tips on how you can avoid this and help you spend your money strategically rather than just spend it because you have this fear-based impulse. Tune in!
Topics discussed in this episode:
Introduction
How to asses if you need it
Skills matrix
Conclusion
Get in touch with My Daily Business Coach
Resources and Recommendations mentioned in this episode:
Welcome to episode 227 of the My Daily Business Coach podcast. My name's Fiona Killackey. And this is a quick tip episode where I'm gonna share a tip tool or tactic that you can implement immediately. And if you are somebody who's looking to save a couple of dollars, this episode is for you. Also, save your Saturday, not just your money, but we'll get into that in a second. Before we get into that, of course, I want to acknowledge the traditional owners and custodians of the land on which I record this podcast and the land on which I work and play and live and raise my children and that is the Wurundjeri and Wurrung people of the Kulin nation. And I pay my respects to their elders, past, present, and emerging, and acknowledge that sovereignty has never been seated. All right, let's get on to today's quick tip episode.
Hands up and be super honest. When was the last time you bought a course that you actually finished? I can just hear the silence. I can hear people going, one, maybe you don't remember the last time you bought a course online or two, maybe you just bought a course last night while you are scrolling Instagram, and you got fed a course for XYZ that you think is going to save your business. If you can just do it or three, you are like maybe the 10% of people who actually buy a course online, and it could be a program, a course, an ebook, whatever you wanna do, any sort of online education product, and you actually finish it because it's only 10%. Isn't that crazy? The number of people that are buying into a billion-dollar industry and not actually finishing it. Now, I'm not here to judge because I've got my hand raised.
I have also bought many courses that are still sitting on the digital shelf, not being done. I've also bought courses that have definitely worked through and I sell courses myself and I look at the progress and the reason that we actually started. So one of our bigger courses is Marketing for Your Small Business. And that is a really big course. It is a lot of modules. It's a lot to get through when we teach it in person it's a full day or full weekend. And the reason that we started the online course in a coaching program to put like a nine-week coaching live program with this was to make sure people finish it. I want people to go through my courses and actually finish them because when you finish them, it means that you got what you needed from it.
And now you are equipped and empowered to go ahead. And in that case, you really understand what marketing is and what it's not. Likewise, we have How to Start a Podcast. And I love the number of people that have bought that course. I would say probably 75 to 80% of people who've bought How to Start a Podcast course, which is a much shorter course, but still goes into depth of a whole lot of things, especially trying to set up a system. So you do not just start the podcast, but actually, keep going. We have a really good completion rate with that. And we have so many people who contact us who are like, “oh my God, I launched my podcast. Here it is”. And I'm like it's always so exciting to see that. So I'm definitely not judging, but today I wanted to give you a quick tip.
If you are somebody who finds themselves tempted by the next course, the next ebook, the next trip wire, the next thing that you can buy for $27, $19.95 or $57 or whatever the psychologically nice number is that is going to make you buy. And that is to assess if you need it. Definitely, there are some courses that I've bought that have been incredible, such good value. There are other courses that I've bought where really I've just let my fear take over and be like, “I need that course.” And I'm not talking just in business. I've bought other courses, I've bought parenting courses. I've bought all sorts of courses and some of them are great. And some of them have not lived up to the expectation whatsoever. So as this is a quick tip episode, I kind of wanna just give you a quick tip that if you're somebody who is looking at courses or you know, that you're somebody who's scrolling social media and quite often, that is where you're gonna see ads for these various courses to do with, in this case, maybe small business.
One thing that you can do before you buy the next course is to give yourself a little bit of time. I know they always have the like urgent messages. This will run out in 27 seconds. It won't, you can come back, you can find it. In most cases, that's just an evergreen funnel that is set up to make you feel like it's going to actually end when it's not, which I don't actually like that type of marketing myself. But I do know lots of people who use it and seems to work for them. But one thing you can do is literally take a bit of space and take some time out, or maybe do this, before you buy a course so that you have it there ready, and that is to work through the start, stop, keep framework. And we have a freebie on our website.
You can go and download it and also to look at the skills matrix. Now, again, we have another freebie on our website. You can download any of our freebies at any time at mydailybusinesscoach.com/free stuff. Or in some cases, you could Google a skills matrix. We are not the creators of the skills matrix, but you sit down and you figure out what is actually missing from the business. What information or skills don't we have? And that could come from your start, stop, keep. So your start, stop, and keep is really a framework. It has been around for decades. I first heard about it from Natasha Ace, from the Private Practice Alliance. And it's really to look at what you need to start doing in your business. What do you need to stop doing?
And what do you need to keep doing now in that start, if you're like, actually we need to start focusing a little bit more on SEO, or we need to start focusing a little bit more on taking better photos of our products? And so if you have that and you've highlighted that, and you're aware of that then cool. If you see a course or a program that comes up, that's going to help you with that thing that you have identified that you need help with. Awesome. The issue is that so often we buy courses that add nothing to do with what we're trying to do in our business. We've just sort of fallen victim to a really good ad at a certain time of day. So you can either work through the start, stop, keep, and look at the things that you wanna start doing and look at.
Do we have that information already within us, within our networks, or within the work that we've already done, or within the skill set of the people that work for us, or do we need to outsource that or upskill in which case a course or a program can be really beneficial? The other way that you could do it is to look at a skills matrix. So skills matrix is something that I often suggest people look at before hiring staff, but you can also look at it before purchasing a course, or investing in a program. And that is just a document again, where you're gonna list out everything that is needed in the business that you're running. And you could do that by the department. So you could look at HR, we need recruitment, we need onboarding, we need people management, we need policies and procedures and things like that.
You may also decide that you need some legal things in there, like contracts and other things. So maybe when you do see a course come up for contracts, you might be like, “actually, that's exactly what we need right now because I've already identified it.” So in the skills matrix, you list out everything, that your business needs in terms of skills. And then you have three columns next to that, which are skills, interest, and experience. So you wanna tick is anyone in the business. And if it's just you, tick for yourself, got the skills to do that. So maybe you are a lawyer in a past life. So you're like, “you know what? I could actually do the contracts myself,” or you've got your networks or whatever. So you could tick that. Do I have the interest? Do I want to do this? And this is really where you are gonna outsource or hire somebody a program necessarily won't fix that part.
Maybe it will. Maybe it won't, but you wanna tick skills, interests, and experience. And you wanna have a look at where the gaps are, where haven't you ticked for the things that you've identified you need in your business? Now, those gaps are where you either want to hire somebody. You wanna outsource it. You wanna automate it somehow, or you want to up skill in those areas, the gaps that you've identified in your skills matrix. So either start, stop, keep, and really focus on what have you identified that you need to start doing. Or if you want you could use both, but otherwise the skills matrix, which is a framework, you look at all the skills, everything that's needed in the business, where are the gaps? Where are we not having that skills or that experience or interest in the business?
And if you are not in a position to necessarily hire somebody, then in that kind of interim period, you may well go, “you know what? I'm actually gonna upskill myself and figure that stuff out.” Or maybe you've got somebody who's just added to the business and you're happy to invest in them upskilling. And so if you have those things, you can print them off. You could take a photo on your phone. And so have that handy and just remind yourself, next time you are seeing some amazing program that offers everything and I'm not dissing programs. I sell programs. And I know that if people work through those programs, they will get the results that they're looking for. I know that, but if you are being tempted by something, you can ask yourself, okay, have I identified that we actually need this?
Is this a need? Is it a gap in our business? So focus on that, either do a skills matrix or do a start, stop, keep both of which you can find as freebies at mydailybusinesscoach.com/free stuff, download them, work through them, put them somewhere visual that you can see, or put them on your phone or put them somewhere else that you're going to be able to easily access so that when you see something come up, you can take a minute. Remember, you've always got a minute. You can take a minute and you can have a look and be like, “I actually need that.” I need to do that course, or that is actually really gonna help with this gap that we've identified. And it can just really help you spend your money strategically rather than just spend it because you have this fear-based impulse that, “oh my gosh, if I don't do this, I'm gonna lose out on X, Y, Z,” or whatever else the promise is that quite often you're being fed in these ads for online courses.
So I really hope that helps you again with the skills matrix and the start, stop, keep, you can find them along with a whole bunch of other free vs over at mydailybusinesscoach.com/free stuff, and link to that in the show notes, which you can find at mydailybusinesscoach.com/podcast/227. If you found this useful, or if you think a friend really needs to look at their start, stop, keep, or the skills matrix, please send this episode through to them. It just really helps us help other small business owners, which is what we are all about. Thanks so much for listening. I'll see you next time. Bye.
Thanks for listening to the My Daily Business Coach podcast. If you wanna get in touch, you can do that at mydailybusiness.coach.com or hit me up on Instagram @mydailybusinesscoach.
