The Art of Selling Online Courses

250 Building a Course Business in 25 Hours a Week

• John Ainsworth • Season 1 • Episode 250

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Nicole Hullihen runs a full-time VP role in pharmaceuticals, leads a family, and still finds 25 hours a week to build a course business on the side. I honestly wasn't sure how that was possible, but listening to her talk about it, it starts to make sense.

Nicole is the founder of Execute The Vision, where she teaches Excel and business operations skills through courses, done-for-you templates, and a work management software she built herself from scratch after deciding to learn to code a couple of years ago. She's got around 365,000 followers on TikTok and has sold to roughly 800 course customers in just over a year, all while keeping her prices deliberately low because, as she puts it, she just wants to get the information out there.

We talked about how she drives traffic from TikTok and YouTube to her site, the frustrations of linking off social platforms, why templates have actually outsold her courses, what shifted in organic reach after the TikTok ban situation in the US, and her thinking on content format and hooks for educational video.

There's something refreshing about someone who isn't trying to squeeze every dollar out of their audience and is just genuinely passionate about helping people work smarter. She's got a clear point of view and a lot of hard-won experience to back it up.

Hope you enjoy this one.

Check out Nicole's work:
🌐 https://xecutethevision.com/home
📸 https://www.instagram.com/xecutethevision/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/@XecuteTheVision

From Panic To Proficiency

SPEAKER_01

I would have panic attacks. I'd be in the parking lot crying because I had no idea what to do. Back then, there was no YouTube, there was no social media to go to to try to learn things. I work on this probably 25 hours a week in addition to my full-time job. I've got about 365,000 followers on there. Over the last year, I've had about 800 customers. My courses are in the$30 to$40 range. My competitors absolutely do charge two to three times what my courses are at least. A lot of them I've seen are in like the$500-600 range. No matter what product it is that I've been working on, everything is geared towards work smarter, not harder. Get home and time. Don't spend your weekend doing this. I can help you and have the tools to make it happen. I want you to have the tools.

SPEAKER_00

Hello, welcome to the art of selling online courses. We're here to get winning classes. My name's John Antwerp, and today's guest is Nicole Allen. Now, Nicole is an MBA qualified detective, founder of the Executive Division, and a two-time Microsoft MP, with a background spanning nine industries, including Staff, Biotech, Pharmaceuticals, Automotive, and Lightfactor. She spent five years as COO on the clock, leading 12 departments in driving scalable growth, and has since moved into a VP of product and pricing role in the pharmaceutical space. And then on the side, she's also teaching practical Excel and business operations skills. I'm not quite sure how she manages to do all of this. She's also in 2024 named one of Success Magazine's top 50 women of influence. Carl, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you. Thanks for having me.

SPEAKER_00

So talk us through this. Like, how much is this a side gig and like how much work are you putting into execute the vision?

SPEAKER_01

Well, I um I view it as more of like a hobby. I love to learn. I love to do and create and make things. So it's been the past few years, I've, you know, dabbled here and there in learning social media, learning how to create courses, um, all these different things. So I work on this probably 25 hours a week in addition to my full-time job. And I've got a family as well. So pretty busy sometimes.

SPEAKER_00

That sounds crazy. Okay. So what is it that you're what is it that you're helping people with through this?

SPEAKER_01

I'm helping people to be more efficient at work. So no matter what product it is that I'm I'm working on, everything is geared towards work, um, work smarter, not harder. So um the courses in particular that I sell are all about um teaching you how to utilize Excel. I when I started um learning Excel, I was kind of just thrown into it and I would have panic attacks, I'd be in the parking lot crying because I had no idea what to do.

SPEAKER_00

Oh, that's hopeful.

SPEAKER_01

Back then, there was no YouTube, there was no, you know, social media to go to to try to learn things. So I've taken the last 15, 20 years of doing this, and I tried to make these short videos to try to, you know, help people throughout their day. And in addition, I created courses from it because I was getting questions like, hey, you know, how can I learn everything? Like, how can I learn what you know? How did you do it? So I was like, well, let me put it together in a logical package.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Nice. Okay. So when did you start? You said you've been doing this for like 15, 20 years. When did you start sharing on social media?

SPEAKER_01

Um, around the time of COVID, I would say, is when I started to get into it. There was some downtime not having a commute to work. And it's around the time I was getting my master's degree, and I was like, you know, how cool is it that you can promote things and help people and show people things for free? Basically, like all you need to do is record it and put it out there. And so I was like, this is pretty neat to learn for myself, but to learn how to utilize it in business. And so that's how I got started. And I uh the early videos have all been deleted, I'm pretty sure. But um, but you know, you gotta start somewhere.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay. And what kind of size audience have you got? You I think you've got YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. Do you use LinkedIn as well?

SPEAKER_01

I think maybe sometimes I use LinkedIn. I tend to keep that for a little bit more um directly work-related items, but yeah, definitely TikTok's the biggest. But um, I've got a decent following on YouTube and Instagram as well. And then a couple um others like Pinterest I'm on and um Lemonade. I don't know if you've heard of that. That's a TikTok uh offshoot, basically. And so um, yeah, so you can pretty much find them anywhere.

SPEAKER_00

And what's the how big's your audience on TikTok then, if that's the biggest one?

SPEAKER_01

The I'm sorry, the average?

SPEAKER_00

The audience size? Like, yeah, how much, how many subscribers or whatever?

SPEAKER_01

I've got about 365,000 followers on there. Um, and it's all ages, all industries, all background types. I find anybody can pick up Excel useful tips to like help your day, you know. So it's trying to cater to anyone in the workplace. And so anyone will find it logical to like take a course, you know, because you you hit everyone there, all different jobs, industries.

SPEAKER_00

Okay. Nice. And how do you find I I don't know if this is a quite fair question, but I'm gonna ask how do you find TikTok compared to any of the other platforms in terms of conversions to sales? Because I've I I'll tell you why I ask. I've had a lot of people who I've talked to who've had big audiences on TikTok and a smaller audience on, let's say, YouTube, and they've just found the YouTube one was converting way better to sales. Have you been able to see if that's like is the TikTok audience converting into people who are actually buying?

TikTok Versus YouTube Buyer Intent

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I haven't checked recently, but I did put a survey on my site and I had actually found it was fairly proportionate. Um the for the responses I got. So I asked basically where did you find me? And so I did find that it was fairly um consistent. I do find that YouTube seems to have a lot more like how do I questions in the comments. So it seems like people are a little bit more engaged in that way. Like maybe they're purposely going there to learn something, whereas a TikTok or an Instagram, I think sometimes I'm accidentally finding people. Um, you know, like in and so so yeah, I that's been my experience. I think YouTube is geared towards, you know, more the education focused.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that's generally what we found. There's one person who we've had on. I'm gonna try and find uh for everybody listening, I'm trying to find who that was, um, who was who was really crushing it with uh TikTok. That was like her main traffic source. And uh most other people have told me that that it's just not it's not nearly as big of a deal for them the TikTok. So that's really interesting to hear for you that that's that's working really well. Um is there a difference between the kinds of content you're putting up on TikTok versus YouTube or Instagram?

SPEAKER_01

Um for the most part, it's the same. I will generally start on TikTok and then I'll kind of disperse from there, but I will use YouTube for more in-depth things because you can do the full screen better. It just handles it. I know now TikTok will allow you to flip screen uh, you know, sideways so you can see a full-size video, but um, I don't know that people are like real familiar or expect that. I don't think they expect to see lengthy videos on there. So if it's things that are in-depth, I do prefer YouTube for that.

Getting Clicks Without Easy Links

SPEAKER_00

Okay, okay. And then what's the next step? Is it direct to sale? Like, do you put a link in the in the comments on I don't actually I don't know with TikTok. Can you link off to from a description or from a comment? Or how does that work?

SPEAKER_01

It's not ideal. My experience has been you'll see the comment yourself if you put the link, but then it's blocked for other people. Same thing on so like you think you're helping yourself, you know, and trying to do that. But so what I try to do is on my videos, I try to put the just the website. And I I think you know that might help like with searching. It's in my bio as well, but you'd be shocked at how many people do not understand what it means, like link in bio. Yeah, yeah. And and it's really unfortunate because it's like that's what the video platforms are trying to help you with is like, you know, advertise yourself basically. But if people still aren't getting it, like what that means, that's hard, you know, that's not helping anything either. So um, but yeah, I find if it's on the screen, I that seems to help a lot. Um Okay.

SPEAKER_00

And then in the case. So you point people directly to you point people to like to the home page, you point them to like a course sales page, you point them to a lead magnet, like what's the next step?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've I've tried both as like an A-B test, and I haven't really directly noticed too much of a difference. I tried to make my homepage ultra easy. Um, so whether you're landing on the shop page or the home page, like it's really clear. So for a while I had a banner up on the website saying like click shop for the um as found on TikTok or as found on you know social media YouTube um classes. And I found that that was helping too to have that. Um I I even then on my course posting on the um like the thumbnail, I put like as scene on social media. So like trying to make sure that people are associating the two because I do find feedback too of like, well, where do I get it? Where do I get it? On the site, but it's not always like it's you know, it's hard to associate the two because you know, but like they don't know. So it's like try to make it as easy as possible.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, for sure. It's one of the advantages with uh You're not sure, like test it with a friend. Yeah. It's one of the advantages with YouTube is that over Instagram as well, it's like you can't put links on Instagram off to wherever you want people to go to. So you then on Instagram you've got to put comment this, and then you set up many chat and then you respond to them with that, and it's like a whole you know fiddly thing. Whereas on YouTube, you can just put a link in the pinned comment, you could put a link in the description, you can put it above the fold, make it really, really obvious, point to whatever a lead magnet, a sales page, whatever you want to do. Yeah. Um it's just like, oh, there's so much I get why these platforms don't want to send people away. Like they want to keep them on the platform, that's their job. But it's like it's so annoying. Guys trying to make a living here.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_00

Um so what is it that you're what kind of price point are you selling the courses at?

SPEAKER_01

So I am trying to do a like a just a single one-time fee. I tried a subscription and I've settled on the one-time fee. I find that that's easier. My courses are like in the$30 to$40 range. So they're quite a bit cheaper than others. But what I'm trying to do is like share the information. I've had people say to me before, because I had the workbook for free on my site, people are like, how come you're not charging? Like, you could do this, you could do that. And I was like, you know, that is a good point. So great. Like you should be charging for this. So I was like, well, you know, that's true. I mean, it takes a lot of time to assemble that. Um, and so I started charging for the workbook, and then I migrated it over to a product called Think Iffic for the course. And I like it a lot. It's like a regular actual course. So you upload the videos and you can the user can go through and get a certificate. And so you do have to pay for that service. And so, you know, it definitely it makes sense to charge for courses if you're, you know, utilizing stuff like that. But um, but it's a great product and um the interaction goes well with people. There's even like a community where you can post things. So highly recommend it, um, especially if you're looking to get started because it's relatively inexpensive.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. Okay. And give people some kind of idea of the size of the business, like revenue if you're happy to share it, or like number of customers you've had, or something like that.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would say over the last year, I've had about 800 customers, um, 800 uh course purchasers. So I've I started the the official course um a little over a year ago. And so I've really um been kind of uh, you know, delving into a whole bunch of different things. And so I'd like to, you know, focus more on it in the upcoming uh year here. Um, but yeah, that's again, it's just kind of like a side side hustle right now.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And then what's the the other stuff that you're selling as well? Because you've got the courses, but you've also got like templates and software. Can you talk us through that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, so the templates have been going really well. Um people like the done for them. So um, you know, if you are offering a course and you can do something along with that, I highly recommend trying it out. But what it is is you can do the course for yourself and build your own tools. I teach you everything that there is, you know, to learn about Excel basically. But then if you just aren't quite the the doer, you know, you could you don't have time for that, then there's the template version. And those have been selling really well. Um and uh then if you're not so much into Excel, you're a little bit beyond that. I've uh recently launched a software on my website for um work management. And so it's got everything that Excel could do that you'd learn in these courses, except it allows you to collaborate, see updates real time. So it's kind of like different stages. So um my software does, you know, budgeting and PL and project management, time tracking, payroll stuff, you know, everything, but you don't have to do the spreadsheet. So, like I said, it's kind of like a staged uh type of plan and you kind of pick where you're at. If you're a do-it-yourself, if you want it done for you, or if you want a software and you don't want to have to do anything, it's all right there.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. And how did you build that software? Did you code that yourself? Did you hire somebody for it? Did you vibe code it? Like how do you make that?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've actually I decided a couple years ago I wanted to learn how to code. I love Excel. I love how to, or you know, how you can learn to like put in formulas and do super cool things. So to me, it was like a next stage of like, all right, what am I gonna what could I build next? I want to go beyond just spreadsheets. And so I've been um utilizing a bunch of different tools and uh just kind of like learning as I go. And it's been um a lot of work, but I love it. I'm a nerd at heart and I think it's like a great hobby. It's it's fun for me.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. And how's that? How's the three different options that you've got doing? Like, do you find you tend to get more people getting the templates or like how's this because the software's quite recent, right?

SPEAKER_01

It's very new, yeah. So um, so yeah, it just launched officially about a month ago, and I've had um some things I've been working on, and I'm continually always adding to it. Um, but I've been uh yes, I've been really focused on that. But the templates I would say have probably been the best seller um above courses. It does seem like the preference is have it done for you because they can use those to learn. Like if you get a template and you want to see like how something was done, like you can, that's the beautiful thing with Excel is like you can click in the boxes and you could you could apply that wherever you want, or you can copy paste and you can modify it how you want. So maybe they're using um videos on social media to kind of learn some tips and tricks, but then also templates. So, like I said, it could be a great supplemental thing if you are teaching courses and you have some sort of like reference tool or you know, something additional to go with it.

SPEAKER_00

So, how many, how many templates have you got all together?

SPEAKER_01

Um, there's five different like packages, if you will, and it depends on what you're focused on. So if you're um focused on like process, you would pick number five, and that's got like project management in it. Um, I'm drawing a blank. Oh, like SOPs, um, you know, in it. It's so it's you know, uh pretty much anything around that. If you're looking for performance and dashboards, you'd pick number three. If you're looking for like HR people type things, like hiring uh, you know, applicant tracking type things in Excel, you'd pack pick number one. So um lots of different things depending on the area. I would say by far the process one with the project management has really done the best. Um, people really like it seems to use Excel still for things. And so it's like a Monday.com dupe, basically. Um all the screens you would see, all the colors, but it's in Excel. And you can even put your images in there of people, you know, your your photos, and and uh use the spreadsheet if you want. So yeah, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Sweet. Okay. And how much do you charge for those? Is that a similar kind of price range to the course of the phone?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, very similar. It's$25 for each package. So you get like six to eight templates in a package. So relatively cheap in comparison to what it would take to go through and build those, especially if it's, you know, if you're brand new to Excel and you know you want something done right now.

SPEAKER_00

And then what's your kind of system for selling those? Are you doing it all through the website, or have you got like uh do you do email promotion? You know, do you build an email list and do promotions, or is it all kind of direct from um TikTok or Instagram over to the website?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, it's been social media driven. I um I do a lot of blogging. So I'm trying to get links and such, you know, from that and um, you know, the SEO benefit. So I've recently, I would say I've recently been picking up that quite a bit more to get more traffic. Um, but otherwise it's been social media. So, you know, if you post videos of things like that and, you know, uh people see it, it's like, oh, right away. Like I said, the SOPs, project management, people were like, oh my gosh, I gotta have this. And so they're they know they're headed to the site to check it out.

SPEAKER_00

Do you think there's a space for doing anything higher priced? Because I'll tell you why I ask is that generally what I found, this is not Excel specific at all, right? This is like across selling courses, is that at least when you're doing an email promotion, the sweet spot is somewhere around the kind of hundred to two hundred dollar mark. Whereas if you sell stuff that's cheaper, you might get more sales, but not enough to kind of make up for the um the decrease in in price per offer. And obviously you could do bundles, right? And I I don't maybe you do already, but like um Yeah, do you do you think there is a space with your audience for something higher priced? Or do you think that like, no, my my audience wants this kind of cheaper, smaller things?

SPEAKER_01

I wanted to be able to help people learn these things, and so it hasn't been my priority to to turn this into a like a high margin product.

SPEAKER_00

But my competitors Because it's more of a hobby and more of a yeah, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_01

So I was like, let's just kind of see. I'm I'm kind of a tinker and you know, like let's just see what we could do. But I would say this my competitors absolutely do charge like two to three times what my courses are at least. Right. Um, a lot of them I've seen are in like the five, six hundred dollar range for like a full package. And so um, you know, and I do I don't know, but I do believe that they're doing well with it. So I do think that that is a possibility.

SPEAKER_00

But it's not something that is not the kind of direction that you want to to try going in.

SPEAKER_01

Um, no, and I think honestly, it's because my my focus has just been sometimes I'm a bit scrappy, and it's like I just want to get the information to you. I want to get it out. And so it's like those courses that are in the five, six hundred dollar range, they've been done in a studio, they're ultra polished, and it's just a different approach. And you know, so no, there's nothing flying across the screen on mine. Um, there it's very much like I'm sitting with you, talking, teaching you. Like you've got your workbook and you've got that open, and you've got your videos in the in the, like I said, in Think Ethic, where you're gonna cross off or they're gonna cross off for you as you do them. We're gonna check your progress with quizzes. Um, there is live interaction through the community boards, um, but that's more the focus. It's almost like how I learned where like I was sitting at work learning with my coworkers. And so my courses are geared towards like real life application of like, hey, today we're doing a budget tracker. So, like this is your course. This is how you do all these different things and apply it real life. Like I said, almost like I'm just sitting with you talking to you, um, like you're we're working together as coworkers. So that is the approach I have taken. And um, you know, like I said, I'm I just want to like give back, I guess, to the the people that took their time to help me because man, that was a miserable time, you know, not having to get that. There was no YouTube, there was no help back then. It was like, hey, uh Bill over here, like, you know, I need help with this. Uh so so yeah, that's that's been the approach I've taken.

SPEAKER_00

I remember back when I was a kid, there was like trying to learn something about basketball. And the best I could think of was like, it was either go talk to a coach, like I had I went and played once a week, but it's like uh with it, you know, I went to a coaching session once a week. But that was all quite full and busy, and there was a plan already and whatever. And the next option was a book, and I was like, learning basketball from a book just sounds insane. You know, it's like it was no it wasn't YouTube showing how something worked, and it's just like oh, it was harder.

SPEAKER_01

That's how it was. You could go to Barnes and Noble's or Borders at the time, that's what it is here, and you know, you could get an Excel book, um, or you know, you can take a course, and it was great, but the course teaches you ABC and you have to be able to troubleshoot on the fly in the workplace. And so that's what my courses are like trying to teach you is like multiple different ways to do things because that's not how real life works. Like it's not the book. Like, is that you've got to be able to troubleshoot and be on your feet and and you know, think of like, oh, I learned that here because we did this neat thing. Um, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00

What's next for you? Like, I know that you obviously you've just launched the software, so that's a big deal, but like what's the what's the goals for this over the next kind of year?

Algorithm Shifts And Better Hooks

SPEAKER_01

The goal is to um really polish the software. It's it's in a great spot right now. Um, like I said, as of about a month ago, and I really would love this to expand and try to focus on getting, you know, more traffic and getting more customers. Um, same thing with the Excel stuff. Like I just feel so strongly and passionately about these things and that these tools are what will help you. So when I was a COO, um, you know, focused on operations, like these are the tools I needed, whether it's spreadsheets, the templates, or the software. And I just I know because I've heard people over the years not have these tools or not know where to go. And And so I really just want to like get it out there and like let me help you. Like get home on time. Like, don't spend your weekend doing this. Like, I can help you. And I just want to like drill that message into people and like get it, get it in front of them. Um, because I just I know so many people who are like, oh, I'm I'm working on this spreadsheet and I'm, you know, I'm not gonna be able to leave till eight o'clock at night. Or it's you don't have to do that. Like now when I get a request at work, it's just like like seconds. I'm like, oh, okay, like I might put it off a little bit just because I've got other things to do, but I have the tools to to make it happen. And I want you to have the tools. So I really want to teach you, you know, like this does not have to consume your life. Like you can, like I said, work smarter, not harder.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. What's the biggest challenges for you at the moment? Like, what's uh what's the challenges that are stopping you from reaching any of your goals?

SPEAKER_01

Um, biggest challenges right now, I would say, um, would be technical pieces. Um, there's some things I I've got some issues with my website, for example, that's kind of causing trouble with being able to get traffic. Um, that it's some pretty major issues that's not on my end, but it's from using these third-party tools. Um, so you're kind of dependent on tools. They don't always work. So I would like to learn a little bit more about how to uh condense and migrate some things um so that you know you you've got you're using the best of of what's out there and best available. But that's always going to be a little bit of a challenge because that's the world we live in now. Things, things go down sometimes. But um, but um other than that, it's just kind of like learning to um to uh, you know, the the marketing piece and like it's one thing to like run a business where there's lots of people, you know, helping and doing things, but it's quite another to try to do it yourself. And so I'm going through all this and learning like, you know, it's just it's a learning curve. Um so I would say that's you know, that's another challenge is uh, you know, it it you don't really have anybody to bounce things off of sometimes. Um so yeah, I would say those are the biggest ones right now.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. How's the how's uh it going in terms of growing your audience? Like, is that something that have you had consistent growth with that or have you found that anything's like changed for you over the last six, twelve months in terms of what's working?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I would say uh since though the the United States had a thing going on with TikTok, that whole issue with you know wanting to ban it and all that. And I would say since then things have changed with social media, it seems across the board. I and I don't know, you know, it just seems like videos don't get the same traction. They're really pushing um to promote videos, like so you can't constantly get these ads to like, you know, pay to pay to play, basically. So it doesn't seem as organic as it once did on a lot of them to me. Um, and and I would say like view count is definitely reflected in that. Like it was way easier a couple years ago, it seemed, to hit over a million views. Um, and I, you know, it could be market saturation too. Um, but I know I've talked to a lot of people and they've noticed a difference with TikTok in particular. Um, YouTube's actually been going pretty well. There's been pretty consistent growth with that. Um, but yeah, I would say um ever since that whole the ban, it seems like there was a little bit of a shift in social behavior somehow that's uh making it a little slower than it used to be.

SPEAKER_00

Is there anything you've you've been working on to try and negate that or to to work around?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I've been um I guess I've been really busy building the software. And so now I'm jumping back into it. Like I'd say as of like a week ago, to be honest, like that's how recent it is. And I'm really trying to come up with like the the things that people identify with. You know, they say you if you're gonna make videos, they gotta educate, you know, entertain, you know, something to like grab people. And so I'm trying to think of like, okay, you know, um, should you have like a character that, you know, you kind of play? Because I I notice a lot of um, you know, videos will take off when people can identify with a character or something like that. So I'm really trying to think of like actual pain points, making sure that that's the hook to try to catch people. So it's like, you know, I want in the first second or two that they see it to be like, oh, that's me. Like that's my problem. And to be like, okay, like this is how we fix it. So I've been really trying to focus on that approach more than just like here's the tip or trick. Um so so yeah, trying some new things with that.

SPEAKER_00

Nice. Okay. That makes sense. I was chatting with somebody earlier, uh, Scott from Scott's Bass Lessons. It's like a uh YouTube channel teaching how to play bass, and it's like, I don't know, five million views a month or something like that. I forget exactly. Big channel. And one of the things that he was talking about that I I don't hear people talk about very often, I thought was really interesting, was um the importance of the format of the video. He's like, because most people talk a lot about the title and the thumbnail and the hook. Yeah. He was like, all that stuff's important, but he's like, but I think that the thing that's neglected is what is the exact format. So he was talking about um he'd recorded a video with a famous bassist called Victor Wooten, and he was like, This is gonna take off, this is gonna do brilliantly, because Victor Wooten's such a famous bassist. But what he was doing was he interviewed him, and he's like, at no point in the video did he play the bass. And he's like he's like, what would have worked better is if he'd been playing the bass and then interviewing and then talking about why did he play it like that, or like it's kind of breaking it down, that kind of thing. And um, I just can't that really made me think a lot. I don't know, I'm not a massive, you know, YouTube expert, it's like not my kind of world, but um have you found anything in terms of different kinds of formats that work on on TikTok, I guess is the kind of the biggest channel for you.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, I um I try to pay attention to feedback and make sure you're always trying different things for sure. Because hindsight, you know, after you post a video is much easier, of course. Um when it comes to like you know, the format, I have really tried to make sure I speak clearly and I slow it down because I've had a lot of feedback where it's like that's too fast. But then other people are like, this is a great pace. So I try to like accommodate different learning styles too, and like again, be very, very clear. Like just like your website, like you gotta try to be clear. So it's like I have a habit of like wanting to dump all the information, but that doesn't always work for people because especially if they're new to something and they're trying to learn, they're not gonna be able to pick it up. So it's like whatever you're teaching, whatever your you know, video is, I would definitely try to keep it clear. Um, showing is good, you know, that's definitely something that's been successful for me. If I put a dashboard on the screen done first, then I say this is what we're gonna do, I get much better feedback or in engagement because people are like, oh wow, like I again with the hook though, you know, you see the dashboard, I want to do that. And then we go into the details. Um, that works really well. So um I did have feedback recently um where people were like, it's much nicer when a person's in the video for at least a little bit. And I was like, okay, that's good feedback too. So it's not just a screen. And you know, I don't know again, like they always say with social that like you want to try to engage with your audience and and get them to buy into you. So again, like, you know, that could be something like if you're showing yourself, teaching, talking, like people will, you know, remember you identify your videos easier, maybe feels like more of a personal type video. So those are some some big things um I've I've tried to incorporate.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, that makes sense. Do you are you uh are a lot of yours how to your videos?

SPEAKER_01

Yeah, a lot of them are. A lot of them, it's like um, here's something super cool that you probably had never seen before in Excel. So this is how we do it. Um, sometimes, like I was mentioning a little bit ago, like I'm you know, trying to work towards more of the things people identify with, so more like a problem. So I've been working on that too, where it's like here's a problem and here's the solution. So it's not like a direct how to, but it's like how to get a solution or instructional. I've been kind of taking those two formats.

Where To Find Execute The Vision

SPEAKER_00

Okay. That makes sense. Nicole, this has been awesome. I love hearing about your your journey and what you're what you're building with this. Thank you. If anybody wants to go check this out and see your see your site, where should they go?

SPEAKER_01

Execute the vision.com. So it's x-e-c-e the vision.com. We chop the e off. So if you are searching for it, uh that's the site. And then shop is where the courses are at and the templates if you're interested.

SPEAKER_00

And then is it execute the vision on TikTok, Instagram, YouTube as well?

SPEAKER_01

Yep.

SPEAKER_00

Perfect. Amazing. Nicole, thanks so much for coming on. I really, really appreciate your time. Um and everybody listening, if you want to hear that I mentioned about Scott and his talk about formats. Uh he came on the podcast before and was talking about this actually. It's episode 117. So if you want to check that one out, then uh then go do that as well. Um, as always, thank you so much for listening. And Nicole, thanks again for coming on.

SPEAKER_01

Thank you.