How to Grow Your Expert Business with Josh Spector

In this LMScast episode, Josh Spector discusses his strategy for assisting professionals in expanding their businesses, especially concerning the skill sessions model. Additionally, he shares tips on how you can grow your expert business.

He emphasizes the benefits of cohort courses’ community component and the necessity of avoiding too complicated courses. Also Josh presents the idea of skill sessions as a means of efficiently packaging knowledge and offering the most value per minute.

Participants can interact with the material during the 15-minute Q&A that follows each session. Josh also talks about the inclusion of monthly jam sessions for subscribers, which offer chances for unrestricted Q&A on particular subjects. The goal of the workshops is to assist participants in overcoming obstacles and making progress more quickly.

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Episode Transcript

Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place. If you’re looking to create, launch, and scale a high value online training program, I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co founder of LifterLMS, the most powerful learning management system for WordPress. Stay to the end. I’ve got something special for you. Enjoy the show.

Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMSCast. I’m joined by a special guest. His name is Josh Specter. You can find him@joshspecter.com. Also, sign up for his new newsletter for the interested.com, and he has a podcast called the I Want to Know podcast. And Josh helps expert businesses grow. And I’m really excited to dig into some of the product creation, marketing, wisdom, communication, and teaching wisdom that you’ve developed over all your time doing this.

But first welcome to the show, Josh.

Josh Spector: Yeah. Thanks so much for having me. I appreciate it.

Chris Badgett: One of the things that jumped out to me about you was. Your skill sessions. Can you give us a little origin of how somebody who has some expertise might use skill sessions and how you crafted what

Josh Spector: those are? Yeah. So the, basic model is I let me start off with this.

I think that. I help experts grow their business. And, obviously anyone who is an expert when they’re going to do it through products, they’re trying to figure out what’s the best way to package my expertise for people. And that sometimes is on demand courses. Sometimes that’s cohort courses obviously consulting and services is its own separate thing.

I have found that in most cases, most courses are. Overblown, they’re bloated. Nobody needs 800 modules and 56 worksheets and whatever. I have found in most cases, cohort courses, people tend to be more interested in the community than they are necessarily the course itself. I also think cohorts there’s a certain you have to.

Beyond at this particular time, there’s it’s a sort of this whole other thing. And for the creator of it, you then have to be on at that specific time. And you’re doing it over and over again with different people. Maybe. For me, with everything I do, I am always trying to figure out what, how can I.

Create the most value per minute, both for my customers and for myself. So the skill sessions model, which is really a way to package my expertise for my audience came out of that. The basic model is that I do a, there are a series of 1 hour video presentation on zoom, usually about a 45 minute presentation where I show you exactly how to do.

Something specific, so I have 1 called the client generator about how to get clients. I have 1 called the product and the product in a day creator, which is literally how to create a product in a day. I have 1 called the newsletter social playbook, which is how to use social media to grow your newsletter.

One called the niche definer, which is about how to figure out and find your niche. So very specific things. Then I go through a presentation showing people how to do it basically typically based on stuff that I have done, proven things that have worked for me. And people can watch that.

And at the end we do 15 minutes of Q and a, and then that’s it. The sessions up until now, this is about to change, but up until now. The sessions are available individually, so you can just buy 1 that interests you for 50 dollars, or you can get an annual membership, in which case you get all the sessions you get to join live at the 6.

I do a session once every 2 months. You can join live at the 6 sessions in the coming year while you’re a member. You can ask questions, you get to vote on the topics. So when I’m going to do a new session, I send three potential topics to members and whichever one they vote for is the one that I do.

So I’m ensuring that I’m teaching just what I want to teach, but what people actually want to learn. And then the other thing I added I don’t know, maybe six months or so ago was I added what I call monthly jam sessions, which are basically members only. And they’re essentially an open Q and a.

So what I found was a lot of members have things that they want to learn or trying to figure out. They want feedback on their sales page, or there’s things that they want that I can help them with it. Maybe don’t warrant a full hour long skill session. So there’s this is an opportunity for them to come on, ask me questions and maybe in a 5 to 10 minute exchange.

I can really help them move something forward. That in a nutshell is the skill session model, right? It’s a way to package expertise and hopefully provide people with the most possible value per minute.

Chris Badgett: Wow. That’s awesome. So much wisdom in that. And I, I really noticed when I was digging into your site at joshspector.

com, the specificity of all the skill sessions. There’s nothing abstract. There’s like a, there’s like a problem and then the solution is there. And I’m sure every one of these could be like a different episode on this podcast, but to give us a taste of what’s inside the product in the day creator, what does that look like?

How do we create a product in the

Josh Spector: day? Let me first talk to this specificity. So that is, I’m glad that you noticed that, like it is very intentional. And I think one of the interesting things is the format of the skill sessions, right? The fact that I’ve got to be able to teach this in a 45 minute presentation, basically means you can’t do a sort of general newsletter course, right?

You can’t teach everything about newsletters in 45 minutes. So I actually think the format it’s a really, it’s a real good thing, right? You could do a course on how to build and launch and sell a product I don’t know that can be 3 years worth of stuff, right? But by narrowing it in, right? And I’m always trying to narrow it in.

And what that does is number 1, it forces a specificity and I think makes the information more valuable. We’re not talking about. theories of any of that kind of stuff will get very specific. And also it allows people to watch it, take it and go do it, right? Start doing these things versus getting overwhelmed with information.

So for example, in the product in a day creator I share different, a few different suggestions of ways that you can create a product, but it’s all about again, simplifying it if you start from the premise that, okay, you’re going to create and by the way, it’s create and launch and sell a product in a day.

That is such a right off the bat. You’re not going to go invent some new widget in a day and get it manufactured and do any of that stuff. So a lot of it is repackaging stuff that maybe you’ve already done and figuring out ways to do something very simple. So 1 of the examples that we use in there is.

My for the interested newsletter which I published for seven years. One of the things I do at the end of the year is I literally go collect everything I’ve shared in the newsletter. And it’s a curated newsletter. So some of it is links to blog posts I’ve written in videos and episodes of my podcast, but a lot of it is the best stuff I find from elsewhere about how to grow your audience and business.

All those newsletters exist, right? So I compile them all into a really simple PDF ebook. Sell it. I’ve done it. This is the 4th year. I’ve done it. I personally put it out as a pay what you can product. So people can download it for free, or they can contribute about I think about 15 percent of people pay something for it.

But that’s an example where the creation of that product is literally. Copying and pasting all my newsletters into a PDF and putting up a sales page. So that’s one of the examples that I talk people through and show them how to do. Another example is a lot of people maybe they, want to create some sort of course around their expertise.

That can be really overwhelming. Do I need professional video? Do I need all this editing time, Do I need to like all this stuff? And one of the simple ways to do it is I say pick very similar to my skill sessions, pick something super specific. That you can teach in 45 minutes or an hour, go on zoom and teach it, record the zoom live, no editing, no any, no anything.

Boom. You have a product, right? Maybe it’s someone else’s expertise invite someone else on that’s an expert and knows how to do something, interview them for an hour on zoom, record it, upload it, boom product, right? So those are some examples and I talk through in the. In the session, both how to come up with ideas for products that might work for you, how to actually produce them, and then getting into also, how do you promote them?

How do you start to promote them? How do you start to sell them all of that kind of stuff? And the idea is you watch that video for an hour and you can literally the next day, create and launch a product.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. How much of your skill sessions are tactical versus strategy and theory?

You said it’s light on theory because we’re going to, you’re going to walk away with something you can implement, but is there, tell us about that balance there or how you think about

Josh Spector: that. They’re, highly tactical and they’re, highly what I would say, even more so than tactical, I would say they’re highly actionable.

So for example, if you think about the, niche definer, so the niche defined there’s a big difference between the product and a day creator, where it’s I’m going to make this tangible thing and I’m going to sell it. And the niche definer is a level up. It’s a little more theoretical.

It’s a little more, I’m trying to figure out. My positioning and all of that kind of stuff, but in that session, I give specific exercises that you can do. That’s the actionable part. So I’m not just talking about, Hey, here’s how to think about niche. And here’s how to sort this through. I give literal specific exercises that like you can go through and you can map these things out.

Part of the premise of the niche definer is I started with the example of a sculpture. And that I I think what people get wrong about niche is they, try to build or pick or choose a niche. And I think your niche already exists and you’re just carving away the stuff that isn’t your niche, like a sculpture, right?

You start with a block of marble and you’re carving. The sculpture is already within it by you’re just revealing it by carving it away. So in that session, we go through exercises that helps you carve away it. And find the niche that actually already exists about as opposed to you’re randomly trying to pick and choose one.

So that’s an example of something that’s a little more theoretical. But given actionable exercises that you can use to do it basically.

Chris Badgett: Let’s double click on that. Cause niche challenges are obviously a big challenge in the expert industry. Tell us a little more about carving the statue out of the stone to reveal the niche that we probably already have.

And we’re just not clear on.

Josh Spector: It’s funny cause it’s been a while since I’ve done that session. So I’m trying to remember some of the, exact stuff that I share in there. But the basic premise is. A couple of things. So number one, I think one of the reasons why people are hesitant to commit to a niche is because they’re worried that it’s going to turn off.

But I can help this person and that person or I want to do this thing and that thing They’re very worried about, that abandoning of other stuff, right? I don’t want to just focus on, this, right? Okay. And one of the things that, that I talk about in there that I think is really maybe arguably the most important concept to understand about niche is that niche is not about only, it’s not about your niche is not the only people you’re going to serve and it’s not the only thing you’re going to do.

Niche is about ideal. So the question is, when you’re choosing your niche, who are the ideal people you want to work with? What’s the ideal work you want to do? Because everything that you’re putting out there is designed to attract the ideal. You will still wind up doing other stuff and attracting and working with other people, but you should have some idea of okay, yeah, I like to do a, B and C things.

And I like to work with X, Y, and Z people, but everything being equal, who do you like working with the most? What do you like doing the most and optimize for that? The other thing is to understand that your niche is always going to evolve. It’s not a people are afraid to commit. They’re like, but if I do this, then I’m stuck.

You’re never stuck. Even if you choose something and it works fantastic, it’s still going to evolve over time, right? Even in success. So I think those two. Number one, start freeing people up because they go, Oh, okay. It’s not only it’s just, who do I most want to work with? And the truth is everyone, even if you say you want to do a bunch of things for a bunch of different people, they’re not all equal.

Some part of you is like. This is who I can best serve or who I most like to serve. And this is the work that I most like to do. So what I’m saying is focus on that in terms of your niche already existing and carving away the stuff. That isn’t your niche. There’s an exercise in there where, literally there’s like a chart and you map out and I forget the specific categories that I had in it, but you map out this combination of.

Okay. Yeah. Things you like to do experience you’ve had there’s 5 or 6 things where you put them all down and you’re looking for what are the similarities here, right? And what sort of off track and what winds up happening is you start to see some of these connections and you’re the natural niche based on what you like to do, who you can best serve, the skills you have, the experience you have the resources you have, whatever it is your, natural niche starts to emerge out of that. And then you can go from there.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. In my opinion, writing is super important as an expert and particularly, I’m just thinking about the future.

There’s a lot of people coming up who are like, Really well versed in video and the YouTube generation and maybe hasn’t haven’t spent as much time writing as a podcaster. I try not to ask two questions at once, but just to weave in some, color to this, I’ve really been impressed with what Justin Welsh has done in the past couple of years.

And I saw you mentioned him on your site. And I also find his material quite tactical and actionable. Yeah. And he’s obviously a great writer and he develops systems for writing. But tell us how to develop as writers and really use that skill and build our email lists, but most importantly communicate effectively.

Josh Spector: So I think that, I think there’s a few things. So first of all, I I agree. I think writing is incredibly important and it’s the, core of, I actually think writing is the core of any expert success, even if you’re going to do videos or podcast or whatever you’re going to do. But I think what’s important to understand is, I think the definition of writing is much broader than maybe some people think.

To me, writing is there’s, yeah, there’s writing newsletters and blog posts and social posts and all of that stuff. But there’s also writing sales pages and marketing emails and proposals. And writing emails to clients or audience members are giving them feedback that, that right.

When I talk about writing, I’m talking about all of that stuff, right? Not just, oh, you have to have a blog or you have to whatever, right? Videos, right? Your YouTube videos. Even if they don’t have a quote unquote script that you’re reading from a teleprompter, you’re mapping out ideas you want to talk about, right?

Writing is the process of communicating those ideas, even if you’re ultimately speaking them, right? On a podcast podcast, another example You’re going to have to write a title for the podcast, and you’re going to have to write a headline for the episode, and some sort of description, and when you share it on social media or in your email, you’re going to have to write that.

You’re going to have to write questions for the person you’re interviewing. You’re going to, like, all of these things are, ultimately writing, even if you don’t view yourself as a quote unquote writer. So in terms of how you get how you get better at writing, obviously there’s a million things, but I think the, first thing is.

Clarity is hugely important, right? Clarity and specificity. Understanding that every single word you use is a choice, and one choice conveys something different than another choice. For example one of the things that I talk about all the time is I, because I always see people and it’s such an easy, It’s such an easy improvement and fix is you’ll see people’s websites where they say here’s a perfect example, right?

They might say, I help people grow their business. People is a red flag word because people could be anything. And it’s a missed opportunity to insert. If I say I help experts grow their business. That means something totally different than people. If I say I help entrepreneurs grow their business, that means something different than experts.

If I say I help creators grow their business, that means something different than entrepreneurs. Now, there is no right or wrong. This is where it gets into alignment and understanding your niche and who you’re trying to reach and all of that. But just at a base level, understanding that every one of these words is a choice.

Am I helping them grow their business or am I helping them grow their revenue? Or am I helping them get more clients? Or am I helping them sell more products or get more customers? All of these things are choices. So in a, in the most simple sentence, right? I help people grow their business just by looking at people and grow their business, a million choices there, right?

So I think from a writing perspective at its base level, understanding that every word is a choice and making those choices consciously and deliberately. Is one simple thing you can do to improve your writing. Another simple thing you can do to improve your writing is stop trying to impress people with your writing, right?

Don’t be, don’t use fancy words. Don’t use don’t write like you’re writing literature. My background is in journalism, which I think is partially what in partially what fuels my approach, but you should always be trying to write like you speak and like others speak. You always want to the goal of any writing is to be understood.

So there is no such thing as good writing that people don’t understand or are confused by or whatever. And so I think a lot of times people go the opposite because they’re trying to be more formal. Some of it’s their own insecurity, some of it is really bad things that they were taught in school or in jobs or in whatever.

The, less formal, the more sort of normal and simple you’re writing, the more effective it will be, the more it will connect with people. Less is more in most cases. I say this with newsletters all the time. Most newsletters are overwritten. This is also true with blog posts. You’ll see things where it’s the intro is like today, I’m going to tell you about how to grow your business if you’re an entrepreneur.

And then the next part is here’s how to grow your business as an entrepreneur. Why just tell me it, why do you need to tell me what you’re about to tell me? If you look at newsletters, the intro paragraphs of most newsletters are completely pointless. They’re just wasting words and taking up space and unnecessarily lengthening thing.

They think that they’re helping people. They think that they’re like, Oh, I’m going to tell people what I’m going to tell them. And then that’s going to give them an idea. You could just tell them. And this goes back to value per minute. By the way, same thing with podcasts.

How quickly can you get into it now, different shows and different pieces of content serve different purposes and for different audiences. And that gets into alignment, but in general everything’s overwritten. So that’s another, tip. And the third tip I’ll give you, this is my favorite tactical writing tip of all a hundred percent guaranteed to make anything you write stronger, whatever you write.

When you’re done, like when you’re done, you’ve added it. You think you’re about to publish it. You’re like, this is good. I’m unleashing this on the world. Do a word count. Then force yourself to cut 10 to 20 percent of the words. It will make it stronger every single time. And the reason I love this besides that it, it works every time.

What happens is when most people edit their writing. What you’re doing is you’re going through and with each paragraph or sentence or each thing you look at, you’re going, you’re asking yourself, do I need this? And you’re like it’s valuable. I need you like, so chances are you’re going to skew towards.

Yeah, I need it. It’s good. When you have to eliminate words, now you’re going, what, instead of saying, is this valuable? You’re saying, what is the least valuable? I have to remove 10%. I have to remove the least valuable stuff and the difference in editing between looking at something and go. What’s the least valuable versus is it valuable will really tighten up your, writing and make it much stronger.

I write pretty tight to begin with and still I’m amazed every time I do this at the end. I’m like, Oh my God, there really was 10 percent or 20 percent I could cut and it’s, much better. So yeah, that, that’s a really simple one that anyone can do that always makes writing stronger.

Chris Badgett: That was a lot of value per minute.

Thank you. You also have a skill session on the solopreneur simplifier and having been in this expert industry for over a decade, I’ve noticed like within the past three years, the solopreneur thing is really getting big or just more, it’s always been big, but it has more focus and. Maybe some people in the industry or have built teams and they’re like, Oh, I just want solo again.

And some new folks are like, I just want to keep it small, but focus on the lifestyle and not outsource my whole life, but be this awesome solopreneur. Tell us about that and how we, about being a solopreneur and how to simplify it. Cause it can be overwhelming. Like you said, all the different things now we’re writing in 50 different places.

Like how do we keep it simple and not run our life off the rails?

Josh Spector: So in that one, I share I share a bunch of different a combination of approaches that I use as well as tools. There’s a tool I talk about in there and I actually show exactly how I use it called text expander. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard it.

It’s fantastic. Create snippets and just little, like little simple things. And I show how I use it in, my stuff. So there’s some tool stuff in there. There’s also some approach stuff. I think I might share that 10 percent word count. trick in there as well. I’m not sure, but I think I might.

I talk a lot about there’s a lot of assumptions, right? So like with social media, there’s assumptions that like, you need to be on all these platforms and you don’t that the truth is one or two at most is more than enough. When you feel like I always laugh because people are like oh, I’m on Instagram, and I feel like I also need to be on TikTok and LinkedIn and Twitter.

And I’m always like, because you don’t think there’s enough people on Instagram to accomplish your goal? If you think about it that’s really what it is, right? I understand that maybe there’s people you’re missing, but you’ve really reached everyone on Instagram that could potentially be in your audience?

Of course not, right? Any of these platforms at this point is more than big enough to accomplish whatever your goals are. And the truth is, in order to succeed on any social platform, it takes a lot of time and effort and attention, right? And that you’re ultimately going to grow faster if you focus on one platform than if you spread your time and efforts across multiple.

So, that, that’s an example of, sort of ways to, simplify, breaking from some of these assumptions that that people feel. And then I also get into certain things like. I’m not huge on automations, but there are some basic automations how do you use a welcome email?

What do you send to people after they buy your product? Like, how do you do some upsells, like things that you can do to simplify your, work? And then even I do talk about just because you’re a solopreneur doesn’t mean you can’t get help from anyone, right? I talk a bit about.

How to do that. So for example, I have someone that helps me part time with stuff and, has for years, we don’t have weekly meetings or calls. We don’t do any of that. No, it’s we’ll talk occasionally when we need to. And here’s what you’re responsible for. Let me know if you have any questions.

We don’t need a weekly check in call, right? And I think lots of people have assumptions, right? That if you do have someone like you, you do need to do that. And in some situations, maybe you do. But I think a lot of it is removing a lot of these assumptions and really looking at how can you simplify everything that you do basically.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Client attraction. You have the client generator. It’s a popular subject on this. Podcasts in terms of course creators and coaches and people with training based membership sites, they want more clients. How, can you help them?

Josh Spector: It’s funny. It’s it’s the same thing. I’m really, some of these I haven’t put out in a long time.

So it’s I’m trying to remember like what’s in there versus things that I’ve talked about, but I’ll give you a sort of few examples, right? Like one of the, some specific examples. So one of the things that I talk about in there is I do this thing occasionally on Twitter that I call like free coaching tweets.

And basically what I do is I I’ll typically pick something specific, right? So I might go I usually say free coaching time. So if someone’s I’m on Twitter at Jay Spector, by the way. If you go there and search, for tweets that say, Coaching or free coaching time from my account.

And you’ll, see a bunch of these. So I’ll, do something that is, I might say okay free coaching time show me your newsletter signup page, and I’ll take a look and give you some suggestions to improve it. And so what happens is all these people reply because who’s going to turn down free coaching, right?

So here’s my thought so the tweet winds up doing pretty well because you’re getting a lot of engagement. Then I’m going through and I’m just looking at their, in this case, their signup pages and giving them some recommendations. Hey, your headline should be this or you should have testimonials or you should, whatever it is.

And what winds up happening with that is a couple of things. Number one, all that interaction, the tweet starts to perform really well in the algorithm. Number two, the people that I’m helping are like, Oh my God, this is so cool. And they’re more likely to buy my stuff. They’re more likely to book a coaching call with me or whatever it is.

But the other thing that’s interesting is all the people that didn’t reply are seeing me coaching literally. And what happens is they’re seeing it at scale, right? That, wow, that was a really great point he gave to that guy. And what a really smart idea he gave to that woman. And blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.

So that becomes it’s almost like a testimonial or like proof of whatever, like on steroids, right? Not just for the people you help individually, but for everybody else. And so I would do those pretty regularly. And I think anyone. Can do a version of that right to share your expertise and it takes you out of just again, it gets more specific because you’re giving specific feedback to people about specific stuff.

It takes you out of the, just here’s another tweet where I’m sharing my philosophy on whatever, right? The different, and I’ll do that too, but the difference between me saying the difference between a tweet where I go, Hey, there’s here’s three things you should have in your newsletter signup page.

And me doing that one on one coaching stuff. Number one, it’s going to get a lot more reach. Number two, I’m going to surface more stuff. I can also then repurpose some of that. So from a getting client perspective, that’s way more powerful than just, Hey, here’s three things you should do. So yeah, so that’s one example of, a way that you can, and that’s really what the client generator is, right?

It’s a whole variety of actions you can take and things you can do like that, that are going to lead. I think another one in there is with a newsletter welcome email, right? So when people sign up to my newsletter I’m not doing this right now, but I used to do it I used to do it a lot more they would sign up and I would ask them tell me what you’re working on.

I’m happy to give you a suggestion on how you can improve it or accomplish your goal or whatever. And probably 35 percent or so, the people that subscribed would reply. It’s also interesting because they would never, they’re just shocked that someone wants to hear from them. They’re like, I’ve never seen anyone like ask me whatever.

And then when I reply back, they’re really shocked because they can’t believe anyone’s paying attention. So someone might reply and they might go, Oh, I’ve got this newsletter and I’m trying to grow it and blah, blah, blah. So I would reply back to them and say, Oh, here’s a few things you might find helpful.

Like I give them some specific suggestions. I checked out your page and your sign up page is missing this or whatever. Instead of saying people, you should say entrepreneurs or pick a different word. And then I would say, here’s here’s an article, a blog post I wrote about how to grow your newsletter.

Here’s a podcast episode about ways to monetize your newsletter, whatever. I give them some relevant resources, which draws them deeper into my world. And then I might go, no, by the way, if you ever want I have my skill sessions, which you can. Blah, blah, blah. Or if you want a coaching call, here’s how that works.

So I would have people literally go from sign up to the newsletter, reply to tell me about themselves, which by the way, they’re telling me exactly what they’re trying to figure out. So from a client perspective that’s someone else might reply and go, Oh, I’m trying to figure out how to sell more products.

I can give them my product stuff, right? So I’m matching my expertise to their thing. And then I’ve had people literally turn around right from that and be like, let’s book a call or buy my skill sessions or whatever, right? Just by having automated automated welcome email that prompts a conversation and them telling them.

Telling me about themselves as opposed to what most people do, which is congratulations. You’re signed up for the newsletter. See you soon. So it’s those kinds of things, right? Little things you can do that can have a massive impact on your ability to get clients.

Chris Badgett: I feel like social media is really misunderstood and it’s because there’s two words there.

There’s social and there’s media. And like, with their Twitter example, here’s three things I recommend. That’s some great media. But when you actually do live coaching and there’s all this conversation, that’s the social part. And same with your reply to the, welcome email. It’s actual social stuff.

People don’t just want media. They want conversation and

Josh Spector: connection. A thousand percent. And also I think with email, people forget that it’s a two way medium and completely different two way medium and completely different than social. Because what’s interesting is It’s one of the reasons why I’m huge on newsletters.

There’s a million advantages of it over social media. So number one is this algorithm proof. So whatever I send, they may not read it, but whatever I sends landed in everybody’s inbox, right? That’s you’re lucky if your tweet gets in front of 10 percent of your followers, right? Total difference. Number two.

They’re reading it. It’s a more intimate medium. So especially if you write in the way that you’re writing to 1 person as opposed to writing to everyone, you will never see me in a newsletter. Be like, Hey, everybody no it always feels like you’re writing to 1 person. But what’s interesting is when someone sees something you share on social media, they also see.

How many likes does it have? How many retweets does it have? What are the replies? Is everyone else saying this is a dumb idea? I guarantee you there are people that think it’s a smart idea until they see other people saying it’s dumb. That doesn’t happen in your inbox, right? So in an inbox, they are just one on one with you and processing what they think about it.

They have no context for anything else. So I’ll, give you another example of this where it’s like when I was early on in my newsletter because people have no context, I think everyone should be completely honest. I’m not suggesting anyone lie about anything but their interpretation of anything that’s going on with you is solely based on what they hear from you.

So the more excited you are, the more you sound like things are going well, again, I’m not saying to lie. But the more you have that, the more they feel like, Oh, this is a thing. So really simple example of that is early on in my newsletter, I think I had asked some question or whatever, or maybe posted something and three or four people replied, I didn’t have a ton of subscribers, whatever. But the next week, I think I wrote Oh, I was blown away by the replies to last week’s newsletter. If you’re in a vacuum, you don’t know, you don’t think I literally was blown away. I got three or four people to reply and it was great, but you have no idea how many subscribers, like you read that and you’re like, Oh, everyone’s replying.

I should have replied, I had something to say about that. Oh, this is a thing that I’m part of. So the way you talk about things and on social, that can’t happen right on social. They can see Oh, this reached 30 people and it has one so he’s blown away by one it’s just a totally, different medium, but to go back to your point, yeah, the social is way more important.

And so with that, you’re standing one on one interactions and engagements on social or email or whatever, way more powerful. I talk about, people ask me all the time. They’re like, how do I get. How do I get a thousand subscribers to my newsletter? And I go you get one subscriber a thousand times.

Stop looking to try to get you don’t get a thousand subscribers. You get one by one. And that’s the truth of any of this, right? How do I get a bunch how do I get 20 clients? You get one client 20 times. How do I publish I’ve published 300 in my weekly newsletter I’ve published for 396 weeks in a row, something like that.

And people go how do you, publish 300 new? I was like, you publish one newsletter 300 times. Like it seems obvious, but I think it’s a really important mindset that people don’t have because they see all these big numbers. And they’re, chasing that growth and they don’t understand that, like all of those things purchases, subscribers, any of that stuff, it’s individuals making those decisions and every individual interaction you have makes that person way more likely to do so related to

Chris Badgett: that.

380 newsletters. You have a another skill session called the content maximizer and the content compass for people with the experts curse, who were experts in investing or certain type of entrepreneurship or parenting or whatever it is. How do they get a framework to get that expertise out and, not be overwhelmed with, Oh my gosh, what am I going to write about?

What am I going to make a course about? How to help, us with the content writer’s

Josh Spector: block. So let’s start here. So the first thing, the first key concept to understand is that everything is content. And I think people think about, Oh, I need to create content. Like it’s some other thing. Especially, if you have some expertise or whatever, your business is day to day.

If you go to your inbox and look at the last 100 emails that you’ve sent to people, I guarantee there’s at least 20 pieces of content and probably more in there. Because your emails and your exchanges, whether it’s teaching what you know, whether it’s answering questions that people have had for you, just related to your work.

I’m not even talking about content specifically. All of that is content. So a lot of times people would ask me stuff and I would, there have been times that I have specifically said, let me email you that answer because emailing, it’s going to force me to write it. And now I can repurpose it.

I literally can copy and paste it. I can Oh, that idea was interesting. Maybe I’ll write something more about that or whatever. So number one, your inbox is full of potential content. All content is, just transferring the expertise that you have any question that anyone ever asks you, not just in an inbox or whatever, right?

Something comes up in a meeting. What do you think we should do about this? Any question? Your answer is content, right? Super easy. You start to put yourself in the mindset of recognizing that. Oh, that person asked me that. Oh, yeah. Everything is content. Okay. That’s an easy post. Okay. As opposed to staring at a blank page and going, how do I come up with content?

It’s some new and different thing. You’re just transferring the stuff that’s already existing. The other thing is when you get into curation and going a step further. Anything you find interesting. Is content, so the book you’re reading the TV show, you watch the YouTube video, the podcast, you listen to the whatever again, when you start to have that mindset of everything I’m saying, or sharing outside of social platform outside of the content world can easily become content and everything I’m consuming.

Oh, I was in a meeting and that guy said, something super interesting. Let me go look at my notes from the meeting. What did I write down? That’s content. And by the way, here’s the other thing. It could literally be like, let me just look, I’m just looking at my notes to see if there’s anything that I wrote down recently.

But anything, let’s say you’re in a meeting and you write something down, depending what it is, you literally could even take a photo of it and just post the photo. Was in a meeting about whatever such and such said this. Yes. I wrote it down and it would probably do really well. So I think that mindset makes it much easier.

I think where people get in trouble is they sit down and they go, now it’s time to create content. What do I say? The other thing is, if you are going to do that a really simple exercise you can do is. Sit down, think about who the audience is you want to attract or serve or help, right?

As specific as possible. What they want, and more specifically, what the transformation is they want to make. They’re at point A, they want to get to point B. Write a list of the 20 questions that person probably has, and or the 20 things that they need to know. So I’ll show you right now. Give me like throw.

We’ll do an example right here. Throw an example of any either. It’s someone you want to reach or just a hypothetical, right? This is the audience they want to reach. And this is the transformation. And I’ll show you how we would come up with content ideas.

Chris Badgett: I think I want to make my first course. Let’s, say that’s a people come to us.

They’re like, yeah, I think I’m going to do this course thing and I want to become a course creator. That’s my transformation. Okay,

Josh Spector: perfect. So if I were to, if I were to sit here and think about that, I’d go, okay, what are 20 things that person who wants to create their first course? Needs to know or figure out right.

Or is wondering. Okay. And I’m just going to rattle these off the top of my every one, the answer, my answer to every one of these is great content. Okay. How do I, what platform or technology do I use to host the course? How do I figure out what the course should be about? I don’t have a connection to any audience.

How do I get people? How do I make people aware of the course? What do I, how much should I charge for the course? What, and these are such obvious questions, but that’s the point. And the answers to all of these are super easy content. How do I get started, How do I map out what should be in the course?

How do I decide if the course should be video or audio or written or any of that stuff? Should I be concerned if other people already offer courses on this subject? Do I how do I actually collect the payments? How do I deal with taxes, How do I, what should I call the course? How many modules do I need?

And by the way, once you start doing this, you could take any one of those questions and come up with 10, 15, 20 questions about that topic, right? For example I’ll, pick just one of them randomly, right? Let’s pick the, I’ll do the payments one, right? How do I, collect payments?

Okay. What question, what questions are within the payments one? Do I need to be incorporated as a business. do I need a PayPal account? Do I need, does my website need any kind of special security, right? What percentage should I be willing to give to the platform that’s processing the payments?

So you can see really quickly. There’s an infinite amounts of content ideas, right? And so I think when people, once people do that and understand that the excuse of I don’t know how to create content goes away or should go away.

Chris Badgett: That’s awesome. Josh, that was a lot of value per minute.

Josh Spector: I told you that’s what I, that’s what I try to do.

Chris Badgett: You’re a great teacher and the journalism background. Wordsmith and a communicator. I really appreciate it. Yeah. Thank you. Tell tell us how we can find you on the internet. What are the best places and ways to connect with you and go deeper with you?

Josh Spector: Joshspector. com. You can find all my stuff there.

My newsletter, it’s free for the interested. com slash subscribe. My podcast is called, I want to know it’s on all the various platforms. Also my skill sessions. So I mentioned before that there is going to be a slight change. So this I know it’s streaming live now. I’m not sure when this will come out, but on January 30th, so right now you can buy any of my skill sessions individually.

You go to joshspector. com slash sessions. You can get any of them individually for 50, or you can get a membership for 197 a year and you get all of them and you get to go to the coaching. Sessions and all of that stuff. On January 30th, I’m no longer going to be selling them individually. You’ll only be able to get them with a membership and the membership price is going up to three 50 a year.

So if you have any interest now is the perfect time to buy them. If your, price will never be raised. So if you become a member, your price isn’t going to go up when the price goes up. You’ll just. Be getting a better deal. So josh Spector dot com slash sessions to, to learn all about that.

And yeah, I’m on Twitter at Jay Spector.

Chris Badgett: Thank you, Josh. I appreciate you coming on the show. And again, I’m super impressed with the specificity of, all your stuff, really zeroing in on the problems and challenges and opportunities that are out there for experts. So keep up the great work and thanks for coming on the show.

Josh Spector: Thank you. Thanks for having me. And thanks for giving me an excuse to try, to remember everything I’ve taught in skill sessions a year ago. So I appreciate it.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMS cast. Did you enjoy that episode? Tell your friends and be sure to subscribe so you don’t miss the next episode. And I’ve got a gift for you over at LifterLMS. Go to lifterlms. com forward slash gift.

Keep learning, keep taking action, and I’ll see you in the next episode.

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