The Art of Selling Online Courses

219 30 Years of Teaching: What Actually Worked For Me

• John Ainsworth • Season 1 • Episode 219

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Venkat Subramaniam has been teaching tech for 30 years and has never sent a single marketing email. Not one. Companies like Adobe and Nike pay him premium rates, he travels 300 days a year, and at one point he was actually turning clients away because he felt guilty taking their money.

In this episode, Venkat shares what he's learned from three decades in education. We talk about why he quit online training after the pandemic even though companies were throwing cash at him, how he builds engagement that keeps students coming back, and the simple techniques he uses to get people actually completing his courses.

If you're wondering whether live training beats pre-recorded, how to get students to engage instead of just passively watching, or how to build a training business through word of mouth alone, this one's for you.

Check out Venkat's website: https://www.AgileDeveloper.com

SPEAKER_00:

This was 2007. He said, Well we want you to teach, we don't care where in the world you are. I was remote before the word remote was used in any kind of work. I've been doing this for 30 years now. And the number of times I've sent out an email or a marketing is equal to zero. Companies were just pouring money into it. They're like, here's a pile of cash, take it and offer these training. I was getting paid really well. But to me, there was a guilt. And the guilt was I'm not giving as much as I can give. Money comes, money goes. But the value that I provide is what I really care about. We don't become experts by being ignorant. We become experts by seeking out and asking questions and learning. We have the technology today to make that happen.

SPEAKER_01:

Hello and welcome to the Art of Selling Online Courses. We are here to share winning strategies. Super hats. Top performers in the online course. My name's John Ainsbert, and today's guest is Vencat Supermanio. He's won numerous awards, including Java Champion, three times Java One Rockstar winner, Jolt Productivity Award, Microsoft MVP. He's published 19 books and given thousands of talks. He's still around after 30 years of tech education. Still going strong. Most experts might fade after one technology cycle. Venkat has successfully reinvented himself through.NET, Java, functional programming, and now AI while maintaining its reputation. He can take the most complex programming concepts and make them stick. University students love him, corporate executives pay him premium rates, and developers worldwide seek out his talks. He's built the kind of credibility that lets him charge Fortune 500 companies like Adobe and Nike premium rates. And today we're going to talk about what he learned from being around in the education space so long. What kind of lessons has he learned that we can all learn from and what's some of the ways that he's managed to get along the way.

SPEAKER_00:

Really happy to be here.

SPEAKER_01:

So I covered it briefly, but can you talk us through who is it that you help with your training in any courses?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, so mostly my focus is on what I call as uh sustainable agile practices. And and what I want to emphasize there is the more emphasis on sustainability than agility. So I focus on what does it really help us to develop software that will maintain the value for the customers while preserving our reputation as a company. So that means doing the hard work, automated testing, continuous integration, continuous delivery, all the way down to use of technology. You know, I'm I focus a lot on multiple different languages, but quite a bit on Java and.NET as well. And so really enabling teams of developers to learn about technology, to you know, use those in the most productive way so that they can deliver software continuously and maintain their reputation and agility at the same time.

SPEAKER_01:

And how have you built up an audience for this? Do you I know that you do talks at conferences. Is that your main focus? Are you doing a lot of stuff online? Can you talk everyone through kind of how you've how you've worked in terms of your audience building?

SPEAKER_00:

So one of the things that uh really worked out for me uh is uh I've been doing this for approximately about 30 years now. And the number of times I've sent out an email or a marketing is equal to zero. So that's that's one thing that I've been very fortunate about. So one of the things that has helped me a lot is uh initially from the stage of being being discovered, so to say, I used to teach at the university. I still teach 34 years later, and uh, I used to teach part-time in the in the evenings, and I also used to work as a full-time programmer during the day, but the words got out that uh I've been I'm I'm I'm you know dating myself right here. Uh I used to teach a course on C ⁇ at the university. And and the word got out that there's this guy who is teaching C and distilling these complex concepts into um very digestible form. And uh this is where kind of you know they say luck is when your hard work meets uh opportunity, right? So essentially somebody heard about me uh and and without letting me know, uh, I had a large class, so it's not possible for me to know who is in the class. But this person shows up to my class, sits and listens to my lecture, and the next morning he emails me and saying, Well, I sneaked into your class just to see if it's true what people are saying about you. Uh I work for this company and I want you to come and teach courses uh for my company. And and that kind of was the tipping point. So being discovered uh to teach courses. And then once I went down to teach course for his team, uh, the next thing you know is another team is asking me to teach. And then a few months later, their uh, you know, division in, you know, other parts of the country want me to come and teach. So very quickly, I'm teaching across the country, and then another client picks it up. They're the one of the beautiful things about the world we live in is uh somebody takes my course, they move to another company, they get promoted to a leadership position, and they are looking for an opportunity to have somebody come and teach. And the question is, who should we hire? Oh, I know this guy that came and did this training was really good. Let me reach out and see if he's available. And the next thing you know, I got sent to Norway to teach courses for their branch offices, uh, you know, over there. And then it just became global after that. So uh so I had to spend my time really scheduling my courses rather than marketing my courses. So that worked out really well. Uh so it was purely a word of mouth. Uh, somebody taking my class, talking about it, and somebody else in their company saying, gosh, we need this training too. Why don't we organize it? And then you keep spreading that uh and then they do the marketing for you rather than you having to really spend the time. So I get to really focus on what I really enjoy, which is learning, and then to share what I learn as well.

SPEAKER_01:

Nice. So do you do all of your training in person? Are you selling courses online as well?

SPEAKER_00:

So it it was a bit of a journey that was not too pleasant for me. The the problem with the with what I do is um I am really dependent on uh very high energy interaction. And uh I'm not a fan of a monologue. Uh during the pandemic, so before the time of the you know, 2020, uh, I was traveling around the world doing a lot of training in person. And uh I I travel about 300 days a year, so it's a pretty intense travel schedule. And and pandemic.

SPEAKER_01:

That is a very intense travel schedule.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, and uh and uh I um the pandemic was uh was uh kind of a shock because it brought that to a grinding halt. And uh so quickly my clients uh who were international decided to convert my courses from being in person to online, uh, as you would expect. Uh, but I also acquired some new clients during the pandemic. But what I found out unfortunately was the training was superb in 2021. This was the time when we were still struggling, you know, we were not quite at uh work, not socializing, we were still in isolation, and people were eager and thirsty to learn and to be able to mingle with people, whether it's online or any other form you can get. So when I started teaching courses online in 2021, the interaction was superb. Uh by 2022, the you know, Zoom fatigue or in you know online fatigue just hits people. And most of my courses, and and because I have international clients, my day would typically start at 1 a.m. my time when I'm at home. And so it would run from 1 a.m. I would cover my Asia and European clients. And then by the time it's 9 a.m., 10 a.m. US time, I roll over to my US clients, and then my by the time I finish late in the day, uh, I'm exhausted being online for you know more hours than you normally spend on a day. And uh, but at the same time, though, there was a decline in participation. And people were signing up, I was getting paid really well, but to me, there was a guilt. And the guilt was I'm not giving as much as I can give, not because I don't have the content. Uh, and and and the companies were just pouring money into it. They were like, here's a pile of cash, take it, and and you know, offer these training. And they were scheduling out for an entire year. And I had to actually call my clients and fire them, actually, which was a very uh tough choice to make. And I pretty told them, I'm really sorry, but but the way I offer training is I need an enormous amount of engagement from the audience. So typically when I when I offer a course, there are people asking questions, making comments, asking me about the lab that I asked them to work on. And typically they stay behind for an hour after my class and they and they talk to me, and that's completely gone in the year 20, you know, second half of 2022. So that's when I made a very important decision that I'm gonna restart my in-person training and I'm not gonna do any more online. So the online I do right now is extremely minimum. I I wouldn't say I don't do it, but but the percentage of online I do is very small compared to uh the inline training uh in-person training that I actually do these days. And and typically when I go to do in-person training, I just came back from uh nearly about six, six, six, seven weeks of trip to Europe. Um, and uh I just got back uh two nights ago, and uh the interactions were just absolutely phenomenal. You know, you go there, your people are talking to you during the session, I finish the session, there is no break, literally, right? Because people stay behind, hey, let me ask you this question. So we're talking through lunch, we are talking into the evening after the classes are over, and and to me, that's the engagement I really look for, right? Money comes, money goes. But to me, the value that I provide is what I really care about. And I don't really see that happening, at least for me, on the on the online market. I can sell a lot of courses online, but I don't get the satisfaction because there's no that that I don't see that communication and the interaction happening in online as much as I do in-persons. That's a very important decision I made back in 2023 to almost completely bring to a grinding halt my online part and then focus on in-person trainings.

SPEAKER_01:

Did you at any point do ones online that were pre-recorded? Or was it always, even when it was online, was it always live still?

SPEAKER_00:

Uh it was live. I I very rarely do pre-recorded. The the irony is I've been teaching at at the university for about 34 years, and I jokingly say this. Uh, so back in 2007, uh, it's kind of scary to think about it, 18 years ago, uh, I decided to move away from uh Houston. So I used to live in Houston, and I fell in love with the mountains of Colorado. So I I pretty much quit from my part-time job at the university. I was teaching evening classes still for at that time, uh, and uh I decided to move to uh to Colorado. And and six months after I moved, uh the department chair reached out to me and said, uh, hey, your name came up yesterday uh when we were in the faculty meeting, and the faculty decided to rescind you resignation. You're back a faculty, you're going to teach again. And I said, I'm really sorry, but thank you for asking. But there's no way I'm coming back to Houston. Uh, I've settled in Colorado, I love the mountains. And and this was 2007, and and he said something I would never forget. And he said, Well, we want you to teach, but we don't care where in the world you are. So I often tell people, I was remote before the word remote was used in any kind of work. So I've been teaching remotely since 2007. Uh, and and so in my 34 years of uh teaching, the past 18 years I've been entirely remote. And so what I have to do was to rediscover how I'm gonna teach my students when I'm not there physically. And uh, but also the problem was I was traveling around the world, so teaching synchronous was not an option because it would be 1 a.m. in a city where I'm in Europe. Typically, when it's 5:30 or 5 p.m. in Houston, that's not gonna be really pleasant for me to teach at 1 a.m. Mainly, I don't think people in the neighboring rooms in the hotels will appreciate this guy screaming through the lungs at uh 1 a.m. So I decided I was just gonna record and post my classes. Uh, but I do uh code reviews every single day. So it's a very different way of teaching the students at the university. And so 18 years later, I'm still doing the same thing. I'm recording my sessions, posting it, and they listen to it. But we do a three hours of three to four hours of code review every single day. So they are in constant, you know, students tell me at the end of the semester, uh, they're they've not seen me in the entire semester, and yet I am the one they have interacted with the most among all the faculty that they have access to. So, so to me, that that interaction again really comes to the play. Uh, I like teaching the students not because I'm able to post my sessions and they're able to listen to it, it's because we're in, you know, we have an engagement. We engage every day in technical conversation. They ask questions, they come up with ideas, they they get critiqued on what they do, and then we go back and refactor the code, and then we rework their design. And then by way of that, we are constantly interacting every single day. I tell them, you know, beginning of the semester, there's no weekends, there's no weekdays. It's gonna be a continuous flow for three and a half months. We're gonna be working on this stuff. So we work seven days a week for three and a half months, and so we learn a lot by way of interaction. So to me, the fundamental again is learning by way of doing, learning by way of failing, learning by way of retrying, and learning by way of you know, critiquing and engaging in conversation. That's where to me the learning really happens, uh, not in terms of passively listening to something, because oftentimes there's no retention when I just listen to something. Uh I'm this person, whether it's a book I'm reading or a tutorial I'm I'm re you know, reading through, or a video I'm watching, I'll be passing right away. And then the next three, four hours I'll be tinkering with code because that's when I learn, and that's what I expect my students to take away and do as well, whether it's a university student or a corporate student, is to really challenge them so that they can push beyond their their limits and then excel in what they do and and improve their critical thinking and get get deeper as well.

SPEAKER_01:

What do you think people who are who are selling pre-recorded courses can learn from the way that you're doing it in terms of the engagement? We had an episode recently with somebody who had started doing his training as cohorts and his completion rate, what he basically would do is you you you get access to the training and you have to do the homeworks every week. And if you don't do the homework any week, I think you got kicked out of this course. And you could still access the pre-recorded, you know, you still still access the recordings of it, but that was you weren't part of the program anymore. It was like very, very strict about you have to be absolutely doing all this stuff, otherwise there's no there's no real point to it. And his completion rate went up dramatically, his retention rate went up, the amount that people are willing to pay has gone up. And I thought that was super interesting because what we've seen, like over the last, I don't know, maybe 10 years or something like that, is that the the online course space has exploded and people have been able to record and create excellent quality pre-recorded courses online, and that has done great, and it seems like the market is now shifting and more people are after more interaction. Like the m the market's mature enough that people want more interaction, maybe they want a community, maybe they want feedback, like you're saying with your code reviews, what have you. So, with all of that in mind, what do you think people can learn from what you're doing that they could apply if they're currently just selling pre-recorded courses?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, I love it. The example that you gave is a really good one where this particular uh trainer uh really figured out it's not about just you know posting those recordings, but to really have them participate in the labs and and to kind of provide um, you know, uh uh a condition of continuation is that you're participating in it. So one of the things that can be really effective. So here's the here's the uh problem, right? Uh if somebody is looking for an easy route, you're not gonna have one because this is gonna require significant investment of your time, your attention. And and and for example, this this particular trainer you mentioned, uh, it takes effort on on you know on their part to be able to monitor the participation and stay engaged to make sure they're doing the lab work and so on. Uh what I find very effective is uh I want people to small form small groups. Support groups are awesome. So if I tell my online class when I post a recording, if I can tell them, let's form a group and and you pair with somebody and you work, and when you turn in your work, turn in as a group, as a small number of pairs of people rather than as individuals. The benefit that gives that it gives is often uh people get stuck on things, they get demotivated. They are good at what they do, but doing something different, and learning is almost always doing something different. It's frustrating oftentimes. But having that support of another person, and and what's really funny is when you're stuck on something, you go to somebody else and you start talking about it. There's this this concept of rubber ducking, right? So when you start explaining what you're having, an issue, you unlock your mind from the stuff that you're stuck with. So having a little pair or a small team to work with might actually improve your interaction rate. And this also gives you the opportunity for people who participate in it, are now going to go spread the word saying, I took this course, but the best part of the course was not only the good, you know, lecture, but also the participation with other people. So I learned, I mean, one of the things I enjoy in my courses honestly is when people say I learned from the instructor, but I also learn from my colleague that I was pairing with. So the at the end of the day, it's how how can we enrich their experience in learning? And they learn by saying, hey, why don't we do it this way? And somebody says, interesting, but have you tried this other way? And then can see them come back saying, My goodness, I learned so much that I didn't know by way of doing this. So I would say form that small group, small that pair or a group of three that can be really effective. That's one idea. The other is you can have these online sessions. But so to say, have an office hour once in a week when people who are taking your course, listening to your recordings, can jump in during that hour and just spend time just asking questions or asking for suggestions. This is one of the things that I do is uh even though my course material are recorded for my university, when my schedule permits almost roughly once a week, I give an hour and I send them a Zoom link and say, I'm gonna be in the Zoom link between 2 p.m. and 3 p.m. on this Saturday. Anyone wants to jump in, just about anything you want to talk about, I'll be delighted to. And sometimes the questions are, I'm working on this lab, I'm having an issue with this, how do I fix it? But you would be surprised. How should I approach learning? How should I collaborate with my colleagues? I'm an intern at this company, how can I get the most out of my internship? I'm graduating, I just got my first job. How can I succeed in my first job? What are the do's and don'ts? You'd be surprised at the type of questions people want to ask you that are not always directed at the specific course or the specific lab, but more field, which again is very enriching because we often start talking about it, and suddenly the conversation goes to let me talk about polymorphism, right? And it's like, how do you get down deep into the code suddenly? And we're talking about how this works in this particular language, and then we'll surface to automated testing. We'll talk about sustainability, what are the good practices, why is code quality important? So the discussions often range from multiple different topics depending on what the people in the conversation are interested in. And and that also really becomes a nice way to engage with people. That requires, again, commitment of time, right? You know, with my travel schedule, it's it's in I'm not even exaggerating. I'm not saying this to be proud of myself. I'm not even exaggerating. Literally, I'll come from airport, walk into my house at 2:45 p.m. to turn on Zoom to talk to the people at 3 to 4 because it gets very tight sometimes when you're traveling a lot. You need to find the time. I would be in some random city around the world, and my office hours would be 5 a.m. to 6 a.m. before I leave to a client site. So you have to sacrifice, you've got to find ways to make this work. And that's an investment that we have to do is how can we engage people? I think that becomes a lot more effective. Uh, I find that that's very effective when you do an open online course, because a lot of times, when you do an open online course, uh, there are people who are taking the course who are taking it because they want to take it. Uh, in my case, I've got two different scenarios. When I do it for the university, often they are taking for a credit, so that becomes a little bit easier for me. But most of the online courses I was doing was for specific clients, specific companies. That becomes a lot more tricky because employees of the company often may not have that commitment to spend the time you know offline and work on the labs because they're always in this, my gosh, here's my training time, and I cannot devote any more time after this. So your marriage may vary depending on the group of people, but I think it's worth trying to figure out how to bring that engagement. So smaller groups to work on the lab, office hours, so to say, to engage in conversations can be really helpful.

SPEAKER_01:

And how do you think people could facilitate those small groups? Do you tell people, go and organize your own, or do you like pre-select, right? You're gonna be with this person or what have you. Like, what's so what's any tips on that? Because I think that's something that isn't done very much in most of the people we work with. So I really want to dig into that and to practicality talk.

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah. Oh, so one of the things uh I do typically uh when I when I teach courses is uh in the industry, uh, when I do in-person, for example, is I make it a requirement. They have to switch pairs for every lab. So typically, right, if I'm doing a week-long course, or or in the case of online, it's it's a 40-hour course. You I typically will have maybe 10 labs, you know, in that course. And and what I tell them is your requirement is for every lab, you have to pick a person that you already have not paired with. So so one of the reasons I give them is I want you to be able to learn from somebody that's a person whom you don't work with every single day, and also to get a different perspective. I always say, one of the reasons I pair is I'm selfish. I'll I'll sit down with somebody to pair, and within a matter of, you know, minutes or even less, I would say, excuse me, what's a shortcut key that you just used? How did you switch between these windows so quickly? You know, you you were fascinated about how somebody is using a particular tool or an IDE, or the way they think or the way they search, and I will always say, wait, wait a minute, how did you arrive at this particular thing? That learning is very important, right? It's not just about the stuff you learn, but the approach you take to learn how you work. This can be very valuable as well. So the rotating pair is something so so I at a minimum, what what we could do is you have the list of attendees and you just tell people from this list you pick one random person, but the person you pick cannot be the one you already picked in a previous lab. So the first lab is gonna be just about anybody can pick anybody else. And the second lab, well, already paired with Sarah, so the next one has to be somebody in the list who is other than Sarah. So that that list keeps shrinking as you go through the labs, but people start rotating. Um, you're gonna see this is quite effective in some cultures, not as effective in others. And that is something you may have to really tread carefully. Uh when I go to my, you know, Western Europe, I just have to tell them once. And they're like, I can hear people moving around, they're pairing very quickly. Uh, in some parts of the US, I gotta beg people. It's like, please, you should pair. And it requires more encouragement. Uh, in in some parts of the US, it's very natural. Other parts of the, you know, the cultural difference within the, you know, US being a big country is is quite substantial. Uh, again, with no, you know, intent of any disrespect, right? Just an observation. If I'm in the middle, in the Midwest, for example, I gotta do a little bit more convincing people to, you know, talk and mix. Whereas I'm in Boston, I don't have to spend much time saying. I just say it once and boom, they start moving around and pairing. So it can't be different. And you gotta put in a little bit more of effort again and keep an eye out. You know, are are they pairing? Are they communicating? And and especially with online, um, you may have to look a little bit deeper into it. Uh, one of the things I also do is I look for commit messages, right? So if we create these small repositories for people who are pairing and they're committing code into the repository. And if you see that one person is committing and the other one is not, that's a time for you to intervene and say, hey, why is this person committing? What about the other person? You know, let's mix and match. Uh, and then that really helps people to learn about a few other things as well. Uh, some people have this tendency to commit frequently, some have this tendency to commit, you know, after doing a bulk of work. This is all opportunities for us to learn. Why do you commit so frequently? Why do you commit so less frequently? There are plus and minus for each one of them, but that's another topic for discussion, and they can learn from each other and say, oh, I've been doing it this way, but I can see why that can be useful as well. Maybe I will try that and vice versa. So there's a lot more than the course content we're going to be learning when we interact and pair. And that again, right, to be able to encourage them to see if they're actually doing it. Sometimes people are, I wouldn't say they are shy, they are reluctant. And they're like, oh, I would rather just do this myself. This also is another problem. Sometimes people don't want to pair with another person because they are a little hesitant that uh they may expose how little they may know. But that is another thing I always tell people is, you know, I always start my session saying, raise your hand if you know everything. And nobody raises the hand. And I'm like, see, nobody here knows everything. So we're all here to learn with each other. So don't worry about what you don't know. You know, there are things you know, and there are things you don't know. And the things that we are talking about right now, you may not know, but there's nothing to be ashamed about it. And again, that's uh that's that's another inhibitor, is people often are like, if I just work myself, I keep it to myself, I don't expose to others how ignorant I am. But we don't become experts by being ignorant. Uh we become experts by seeking out and asking questions and learning. And I think that's very important to promote as an instructor, is to be ready to say, what, dude? I don't know this stuff that you're talking about, and then query about what that is. And that gives courage for the attendees to say, gosh, it's okay for me to not know things. You know, the instructor, you know, herself or himself is saying that they don't know these stuff. So it's okay. We don't have to hide behind this uh you know pretension that we know stuff and we're not going to expose ourselves. There's so many aspects that come together. It's just mind-blowing in a way when you think about it.

SPEAKER_01:

Okay. So two big themes there then. One is the pairs or the small groups, and the other one is the office hours. So we dug into the groups a little bit. Is there anything with the office hours that's useful, useful tips or learnings that if someone isn't doing those at the moment that they might be able to take on?

SPEAKER_00:

Yeah, uh it could it could help to uh start by actually asking questions because there are times, honestly, people who come on board and they literally say, Oh, I just wanted to sign in and just watch what others are saying. You know, that's fine. Nothing wrong with it. But after a few minutes, find those people who are quiet and then ask something that's non-intimidating, right? Rather than asking, how did this lab go? And and they feel like they're put on a spot, but instead, you know, it isn't it Mark Twain who said, uh, and thank goodness for weather, otherwise we all will be quiet people, or some I'm paraphrasing what he's saying, said said right. But but that's a great way because, you know, hey, how's the weather? Where do you are? It's it's pretty good sunny day here. Well, that's an icebreaker. You're not asking them about the particular algorithm or data structure, but but but or or whatever we're teaching, but instead you are asking them about, you know, how are things? It's a very simple question to just break the ice, and that might help to uh to talk. On that note, I'm glad you asked that question. One of the things I encourage people deeply, and this is so hard for people to do today, is keep your videos on. And and we have this technology. You know how many times people don't keep videos on? And when people come on board, I encourage them, I say, hey, you know, you're most welcome not to keep your video on, but if you do, it's gonna make for such a much better conversation. What people know but don't really realize is that communication is not entirely verbal. Uh we receive so much feedback, right? I'm I'm seeing you nodding your head. That's a feedback loop, a visual feedback loop. I'm talking to somebody, I'm explaining a concept, and while I'm explaining the concept, in the corner of the screen, I see Sarah nodding her head, and I see John looking at it like, what is this idiot talking about? And and immediately I'm like, okay, this is not making sense as much to John as it did for Sarah. And and in a in without having to use words, furthermore, I can say, let me dive a little deeper into this. And then I go into more details, and I can see John now nodding the head saying, okay, I can see what's going on right now. So, so so that communication is something we often don't realize. But when we do bring in that video into it, something as trivial if you think about it, right? Well, you're you're talking to somebody, you've got the technology, why don't you keep the video on? Well, there are a hundred reasons people will tell you why they don't want to keep your videos on. But with today's technology, you can face against a wall which is blank if you want to. You can have virtual backgrounds, uh, and uh you can have noise cancellation headsets. So even if somebody is talking to you, I often take calls in a very crowded, busy Starbucks. And uh I keep my background on with the virtual background, and and I, you know, ask people is the is the audio, you know, audio bothering you from surrounding noises? Oh, I don't even hear anything like good, this is doing a good job noise canceling. But we have the technology today to make that happen. Uh, and and once people get a hang of it, they keep the video on from the next meeting onwards. I am seeing this happen uh in a non-threatening way when when you kind of either kind of motivate them or they simply see you keep the video on, and the next time they're like, oh, I better keep the video on as well, because I can see him talk, it's effective, and they begin to learn from it. So that's another thing I would say is constantly look for things that can be improved, uh, you know, video and and look at their body language, uh, and and uh you know, ask questions if somebody is quite silent. Uh sometimes there are going to be people who dominate conversation. Uh, this happened a couple of weeks ago. Uh I was in a in a you know uh uh one of these uh sessions, and and one person, like, boom, I've got things to talk to you about, right? So for a good 10 minutes, we both are just chatting back and forth. When a third person is like, okay, I'm just listening. And then at some point I realized and I said, uh, hang on a second, this is great talking to you, but I just want to yield for a minute. I'm curious to know your point of view and point to the other person. And the person, oh, me, yes, and then jumps into the conversation and becomes engaged, engaging after that. So be mindful of the people and and and bring them in into the conversation along the way as well. Amazing.

SPEAKER_01:

Fancat, this has been absolutely fascinating. I love what you've uh what you've been doing and hearing about kind of your whole journey here. If people want to go check you out or find out like more about what you've been doing or or follow you along with your um your teachings, where should they go?

SPEAKER_00:

I would say two places. Uh Google my name. Uh you'll find tons of information. Uh, my website itself is agiledeveloper.com. So agile developer.com, that's my website. And I do most of the uh you know material through the website. So check it out, Agile Developer.

SPEAKER_01:

Perfect. Thanks so much for coming on again. And as always, dear listener, thanks so much for uh for listening in. Fantastic.

SPEAKER_00:

Appreciate it having me here soon. Thank you. Cheers.