The Art of Selling Online Courses

273 Coaches Told Her to Go High-Ticket. She Said No.

• John Ainsworth • Season 1 • Episode 273

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Lauren Bateman has 650,000 YouTube subscribers, nearly 900 videos, and over 58 million views teaching guitar to older beginners. She also survived cancer at 16, quit a pharmaceutical job in her twenties, opened a brick-and-mortar music school, and now runs the online side of her business with a small team of VAs and an editor. There is a lot going on.

What I loved about this conversation was how clearly Lauren has thought about the trade-offs in her business. She knows exactly why she will not do high-ticket coaching, exactly what kind of life she is trying to protect, and exactly what kind of teaching lights her up. Not many course creators at her level are this honest about what they want and what they are willing to give up to get it.

We also got into some real tactical detail. Lauren has two different sales pages with different headlines for different traffic sources, and she has the A/B testing data to explain why. I walked through what I think she could do to significantly increase revenue from her YouTube traffic, and she was genuinely open to testing it. The back-and-forth on email list strategy, lead magnets, and conversion rates was one of the more practical exchanges we have had on the show in a while.

And then there is the personal side, which surprised me a bit. Lauren said she has spent 20 years working toward a specific goal, and she has reached it. Now she is working with a coach to figure out what comes next. That part of the conversation stuck with me.

I think you will enjoy this one.

Check out Lauren's work:
🌐 https://www.laurenbateman.com/
📸 https://www.instagram.com/thelaurenbateman/
▶️ https://www.youtube.com/LaurenBateman

Time Freedom Over Arguments

SPEAKER_00

I make too much money now that I actually lose money if I argue with them. The freedom of my time is much more important to me than me selling my time for money. There's nothing in this business that's like an emergency. I've been working the last 20 years towards this specific goal, and I'm sitting here, and I have it, have it, and much more respect. I didn't think past that point.

SPEAKER_02

Hello

Meet Lauren And The Big Mission

SPEAKER_02

and welcome to the Art of Selling Online Courses. We are here to share winning strategies to act to top performers in the online course industry. My name's John Ainsworth, and today's guest is Lauren Bateman. Now, Lauren is a self-taught guitarist and at 27 quit her job in pharmacy school to follow her passion for music. She soon discovered her gift wasn't songwriting, performing, but rather teaching others to feel confident through learning music. And she turned that into one of the biggest guitar-teaching channels on the internet. She's been on YouTube for over 15 years, she's put out nearly 900 videos, and she's built an audience of over 650,000 subscribers, with more than 58 million views across the channel. An enormous number of people who have found her, sat down with the guitar, and actually started playing. And because she self-taught, she had to break everything down for herself the hard way, and that's why she's so good at breaking it down for everyone else as well. Her whole thing is making guitar make sense, especially for older beginners. People who've had learned the guitar on their bucket list for 30 years and they decided this is the year. Lauren, welcome to the show.

SPEAKER_00

Hello, thanks for having me. I'm happy to be here.

SPEAKER_02

So talk us

Why Teach Over-50 Beginners

SPEAKER_02

through how did you decide on the over 50s as your audience? Did that just happen to be the audience who was working for you, or do you like consciously decided that in advance?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I I consciously decided that in the van advance, and the reason was because um I had a brick and mortar music school, so I ended up opening a commercial location and I was teaching, and I found that the people that I truly enjoyed teaching the most were always over that age of 50. They one, their music actually has still had guitar in it. You know, as we get as we get into newer and newer music, you know, the electronic stuff gets a little bit more further into the music, but they they had music that I liked because it was the same music my parents listened to growing up. Um and they just came into it knowing what they wanted. Because you mentioned the bucket list. Like a lot of them was like, I I've been wanting to do this since I was a kid and like now I'm retired, or like now is the time. Um so I just really enjoyed teaching them because I felt like they really appreciated it and they really knew what they wanted.

SPEAKER_02

And what kind of songs are those? What's the kind of stuff that you like that that you have in common?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so we're doing a lot of like Fleetwood Mac, John Denver, Johnny Cash, Um The Eagles, Neil, Neil Young. Um so kind of like that 60s, 70s songwriter error.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Okay. Yeah. Okay. I think I don't know if it's that some of those are more American common, but I only I only know a couple of like music from a couple, but I love the Eagles.

SPEAKER_00

But the Beatles. We we I do plenty of the Beatles.

SPEAKER_02

I know them, yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Just you know, roll Rolling Stones, you know, so it's not just yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I'm with you. All right. I was learning, I play bass and I was learning cream recently. What's it called?

SPEAKER_00

Um White Rim.

SPEAKER_02

No, wait a second.

SPEAKER_00

It's kind of like their big one.

SPEAKER_02

It'll come to them in a minute. Anyway. Yeah. Um and I was like, I so I learnt it because uh someone had said that they'd always just love that song, and I was like, okay, cool, I can learn that.

Confidence From The First Song

SPEAKER_02

Um So what's the problem that you're solving for these guys who you're helping? Is it is it like are they total beginners generally when they're coming to you?

SPEAKER_00

Many of them are absolute beginners. Some of them are maybe like dabbled on and off. You know, they they took some in-person lessons, didn't like it, or they, you know, they tried another program, they tried another course, it didn't work for them, but for the most part, they're beginners.

SPEAKER_02

Okay. Yeah. Okay. And so where are you where are people trying to get to? Is is it like they just want to be able to play a few songs? Have they got like a certain standard they generally like what's kind of a normal for your audience?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I feel I feel it starts with people just wishing that they could play something that they recognize on the guitar. Uh, and then what ends up happening is someone's in the other room, whether it be that their spouse or their partner, and they come into the room and go, hey, that sounds like this song. And then they're like, wow, I'm actually getting I'm actually getting better at this. And it's for some of them, you there's a real one of the big things I teach is, and you mentioned it in the intro, is confidence. Because a lot of people that they still question one, are they talented enough? Is it too late? You know, are they too old? They've done this, you know, when they were a teenager in their 20s. So part of my process is is building up the confidence that they they can do this. And then once they get that confidence, they they either want to start, you know, performing, even if it's for like family, you know, I get people like, oh, I played happy birthday for for my wife's 80th birthday. And so they start getting that confidence to to share that gift with others, and then they start getting into to finger picking. And for a lot of people, I think it's it's it's kind of just just they really want to enjoy music. I know for me, playing music was very emotional and therapeutic for me. And I think for some of these people, it's kind of reliving the good old days too, with the music, you know, that they're that they're listening to. So um I I think it provides them a lot of joy and gives them something to do, you know, later in life. Because like I said, a lot of my people are retired and they're like, I I I need something to do with my time, and this is a great rewarding way to fill that time.

SPEAKER_02

Nice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Now

Self-Taught Teaching Advantage

SPEAKER_02

you're self-taught and you kind of lean into that as a strength. Why do you think that that can make you a better teacher than someone who's trained the classical way?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, well, I know you you know, again, I own a brick and mortar school, so I hire a lot of the people who who went to Berkeley College of Music or went to university and have a have a degree in music. And I find for many of them um it is very difficult to get out of that university style of teaching, or it's very difficult for them to go back to what it's like being a beginner. I think for some of them it's actually very frustrating because they they perform at such a high level. Um it's it's fun for them to teach those high-level songs. Um, whereas for me, I I love seeing the aha moments the first time someone plays a chord and it comes out sounding good or clean. Um so those are the things to me. So sometimes I think it's it's hard for people to to break things down again and go back to, hey, you know, when you're a beginner, it's hard to make one note sound good, never mind playing three or four of them at the same time and playing a chord. So I think I use that to my advantage because also too, I think it it relates to a lot of the audience saying, hey, listen, I I use it in marketing too, because I'm like, I did this on my own for 10 years, on and off, probably just like you. And it took me so much longer than I wanted it to. And I finally got a teacher who helped me and I made more progress in those, you know, one year, one to two years than I did in the 10 years prior. But I also tell them, you know, I've been through the process, I know what it's like to go through it on your own. And, you know, I didn't go to school for music. And if I'm as if you think I'm good, then you can be just as good as me. Because I'm no better than you. I didn't go to school for it, and I mostly self-taught myself.

SPEAKER_02

So nice.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Well,

Why She Avoids High-Ticket

SPEAKER_02

I want to kind of uh get into something you'd mentioned to me before about the way you think about the business. And you'd said that like a lot of people, whenever you've talked to coaches, people have said if you got into the high-ticket side of things, then you'd make a lot more money. And you have said that you really don't want to do that. And I talk to people about this quite often because it's like there's there is this potential, and a lot of course creators don't realize that it's there. But I always say to people, you if you're gonna do this, you've got to know what you're trading, right? You know, like kind of how much work it is and then how much but how much money you can get out of it. And depending on where you're at and what you want and what kind of business you want to build, this might be a great idea. But you decided you definitely don't want to go down that route. So kind of talk me through why. What's your thinking?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, so I I love what you said, because I that's what I even tell my students. I'm like, you know, you can do whatever you want. There's trade-offs that come to whatever you choose, and you just have to accept that that you're willing to accept that trade-off. So for me, um time is always a big factor for me. So I mentioned um when I was younger, I actually had Hodgkin's lymphoma when I was 16. So really kind of came face to face with with death at a time limit, very young, um, which is a blessing and a curse. Uh but so for me, time, um, the freedom of my time is much more important to me than me selling my time for money or doing big ticket. Because the thing that comes with big ticket is, you know, people are expecting more of your time. They're they're expecting a little bit more of a personalized experience versus buying a $300 course for me. You know, you bought you spend $300 on a course, they kind of are probably expecting at that price point there's not going to be a lot of hand holding, right? There it's it's a done for you. You know, I have a little community that I do little QA's every once in a while. Um, but it's not like a deep dive. Um, for example, I do sometimes during the year for very short periods of time, do something that I call an intensive, where I will do group teaching in a format like this with students for a higher price. Um, but I don't I know a lot of musicians who have like a year-long package where they'll sell like a really high ticket, a $4,000 or a $5,000 package for the entire year. Um, and for me, that lock-in on a year is a long time, is a long time for me. I like working in short bursts, short periods. It just goes along with my personality style. And I'm I, you know, I'm very ADD. So if I do something for too long, it's it's our the joy starts, you know, coming out of it. So I find for me I can do like an eight to 10 week program because again, when I do those programs, it requires me to be available at specific days, at specific times when I do these these group sessions. And always towards the end, I'm just like, I can't wait for this to be over so I can have my Thursday night back, or I can't wait for this to be over. Because things come up. I'm I'm I want to say yes when opportunities come. I want to say yes instead of be like, no, I can't this week because I got to teach a class on Thursday.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That's the thing that gets me. So for me, that's the trade-off. Now the other side is, you know, you're selling a course for, you know, $297. You have to sell a lot more courses to make four or five thousand dollars. That's the trade-off. So I'm in more of the volume market, but it does require a lot less of my time personally, which fits with my lifestyle.

SPEAKER_02

One of the things I I say to people when they're getting started is it's I really think that it's worth considering doing one-to-one coaching offers of some kind or group coaching or some something like that when you've got a smaller audience. Because with a smaller audience, with let's say you've got, let's say you're listening to this right now and you've got 20,000 subscribers on YouTube, you could find in that 20,000 enough people to pay you a thousand dollars a month.

unknown

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

Or $500 a month, or something like that, that would allow you to go immediately. Let's say you're doing this at the moment, you've got the course business, you're trying to get it started, but you've still got a full-time job, you can't switch over. If you do some one-to-one coaching as well, you can just be all in on the thing that you're doing your YouTube channel about and that you're doing your courses about. And it helps you get better at teaching it, which helps make better courses and the whole thing moves forward. But you just get rid of the day job completely, like just through that one thing. Later on, like when you've already got the successful course business and it's like you make enough money from that, it's then you kind of got, okay, am I gonna do this? Am I not? Because it is a bunch more money, but it's a certain amount of time per week. Do you know um Scott's Base Lessons? You come across that channel?

SPEAKER_00

Yep, yep.

SPEAKER_02

So what Scott does is he's got coaches. He's not doing any of that coaching himself, but he's selling the high-ticket programs that they're doing. Now you've got teachers who work for you in your brick and mortar studio. Do you ever sell online training from those guys?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, I tell them, like, hey, I don't teach one-on-one, but if you would like to take a one-on-one lesson with a teacher that it I recommend, I do have music teachers who there's some teachers I recommend and there's others I wouldn't for for my particular audience and student. Yeah. And I say, have these teachers who know my program and they're great with beginners, and they're more than happy to help you. So yes, I will send people over um to my teachers and they can go book a you know one-off lesson, or some sometimes they sign up for weekly lessons for a few months. So there is there is that option.

SPEAKER_02

Gotcha.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So

YouTube Rhythm And Content Strategy

SPEAKER_02

your YouTube channel, you've done this now for like 15 years. How often are you posting now? Are you still posting every week? Are you still managing to keep up that kind of a uh uh you know rhythm, or is it like that difficult to do nowadays?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So in terms of like if you go back, I think my first videos are from like 2009, 2010. In terms of me being really serious about YouTube, it was 2017. So if you go back to my older videos, it's a lot of like performances, me performing live, it's like student testimonials. So 2017 is really when I was like, I'm gonna really get serious about doing this guitar thing. Uh and started very, very haphazardly. And then for a few years I was doing twice a week, and now I just do once a week. I feel like that's a good rhythm for me. Um, it's a good balance of of my time and everything else that I have going on. But I'm consistently once a week. And sometimes I might throw in an extra, you know, if I've got something fun they want to share, like I do a community video or go live or something, I'll do a little extra, but minimum once a week for long long form.

Turning Viewers Into Buyers

SPEAKER_02

Then talk me through what's the journey for someone from there, from seeing your video maybe for the first time through to buying from you. Are you trying to get people onto your email list? Are you trying to get them straight through to a sale? What's your kind of system?

SPEAKER_00

It depends on the video. So if it's kind of like absolute beginner, hey, here's how to tune a guitar, here's how to hold a guitar, really, really basic stuff. I'm trying to send them over to my website to sign up for my free crash course. So that you know, gets their email, gets them on a list. And I mentioned we do run some Facebook advertising to get people over to this this crash course. Basically, like give it a try, you know, see if my teaching works for you. And if you like it, awesome. Well, we'll get you into the course. And then other videos, depending on what it is, is a straight call to action being like, hey, if you really enjoyed this, or this is one of the many exercises that I do within my course. So if you found this helpful, you know, go to the link in the description below. You can check out my my program. It's specialized for older adults. You know, a lot of people they tell me, like, oh, you said it was for older adults. So I it kind of like drew me to you because, like, you know, a lot of my people are in their 60s, 70s. Um, so I just basically tell people either we're going to check out the course, or two, you're gonna go check out the free crash course.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Do you have a feeling of like what kind of percentage is going to each one of those from your videos?

SPEAKER_00

I do I we yeah, we don't have like the UTM tracking to really get get that precise. Um, but we do do a survey for my my program being like, hey, why did you why did you buy this now versus three months ago or six months ago? Like what was the what was kind of like the catalyst that made you uh want to purchase this product now? Uh and and a lot of the, I would say 90% of them are like, I watched a few of your videos on YouTube and then I went by your course. So that that that seems to be a a trend is and it's great because people get to try you out. They get to see if they like you as a teacher, and I'm not the right teacher for everyone. So they try a few videos, they like the process, and and the big thing for me is like, we all love YouTube, it's great, but it's like it's it's all over the place. And you don't know if the next video that YouTube recommends is gonna be the right video for you. But when you buy the course, you're gonna go step by step in order so you know that the next video is the right thing for you to work on next.

SPEAKER_02

Tell

Sales Page Headlines That Convert

SPEAKER_02

you the reason I'm asking you about this. So I do a lot of work uh with people in the in the music space. So I work with uh do you know uh Dave from Guitar Zero to Hero? And we're kind of it's it's pretty consistent. What we're seeing is that you make generally a lot more revenue by getting people onto the email list first and then making the sale of the courses than going straight to the sales page. And you've got a great sales page. I don't say that very often. Not a lot of course creators have got great sales pages. You've got a great sales page. And I went and checked it out and I looked at the different versions because I saw you had like a there was a a YT at the end of it. So I was like, okay, if I delete the YT, am I gonna see a different version? And I did. I saw a slightly different version of the sales page, different headline. You've got great headlines, which is again is not normal. Most people have got like the name of the course. You've got some great headlines.

SPEAKER_00

If you're like, oh, it's great, those are things we've been working on them probably the last one or two years, like doing legitimate A-B testing. Does this headline get more clicks or does this one get more clicks?

SPEAKER_02

I'm gonna just to kind of m explain this actually to people before I go on to the next point. I want to just like read out your headline because a lot of people don't get the the job of headlines. Because people think, oh, the headline should just be like this is what the this is what's gonna be on this page, and it's kind of descriptive.

SPEAKER_00

And it's like sometimes it's not the headline you think. Like you'll do a random headline, and for some strange reason that will work so much better than another, and you're like, oh, I I didn't think that would work, but it works.

SPEAKER_02

You know, so this is the one that you've got as the link through from YouTube. It's YouTube, okay. Ready to join the thousands of students who've gone from aimlessly wandering on YouTube to finally having fun with their guitar. That's the headline. And most people I think would think that was really long. How did do you remember how you came up with that headline?

SPEAKER_00

Uh the the surveys.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

So this is this is where uh marketing 101. Use your own people's language.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know, so a lot of people in those surveys mentioned that they they were looking for a method, that they felt like they were wandering on YouTube, and that they they really wanted a methodology. That was kind of the word that kept like, I want a system, I want a method, and that's why I purchased. So we were like, okay, let's make a headline since this is a specific, you know, these are people who are coming from YouTube. Let's make a headline that's specific to bouncing around on on YouTube. Now the interesting thing, because you if you go to my regular course, it's a different headline.

SPEAKER_02

It's one that's about over 50s, I think. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

That headline did not work on the at that other head landing page. Okay. Slightly different audience.

SPEAKER_02

One that's the not YouTube one says, think you're too old or untalented to learn guitar. Think again. So you tried the one from YouTube on so who's mostly seeing YouTube? Okay.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, we so that one, those are probably people coming from my website directly. So we have little ads on my website. Um and we tried both. We're like, hey, let's try this headline on this page and this headline on that page. And the over 50 one did not work as well on the YouTube landing page. So we said, okay, we're gonna so this is where, again, you need volume to do these kind of these kind of tests. So if you're just getting started, you know, you you kind of gotta go with your best judgment. Um, but as you grow and your business grows, you can actually start getting enough data to be like, is this gonna make an impact or not? And that was why we have two different landing pages, because the two different audiences responded differently to two different headlines based on where they were coming from.

SPEAKER_02

I say so. Who are thinking about doing an A-B test? It's like you need to understand the volume of data that you need, otherwise you're just wasting your time. And I saw a great presentation about this from a friend of mine, uh Hannah Vervag, and she was the CEO of Thrive Themes. Okay. Um and I get I get mixed up between Thrive Themes and Thrive Car. I think it's Thrive Themes that she was the CEO of. Anyway, her presentation was about doing A B tests, and she showed the results from an A-B test, and you like see it after a week or whatever, with a certain amount of data from it through it, or a couple of days, whatever. And you're like, you can easily see that's the winner. You can see A was the winner, B is not the winner. And she says, I can guarantee you that A is not better than B. How can I guarantee you that at this point in the data? She said, Because this is actually an AA test. It's the same page, and I've just sent half the data to one and half the data to the other, but they're exactly the same page. And over time you see it kind of start to all come together, and it's like, no, they're exactly the same. And she's like, you see that with loads loads of A-B tests, what you get back from it is there was no real difference between these two things that you just changed.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

But you don't know that unless you have enough data, and then you think, oh, I've I've discovered something brilliant, and I've and it could be worse, you know.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. And we've made changes and it's it's impacted us negatively. So for example, we uh we have an upsell on the course. We're currently A-B testing it. In the beginning, uh, the the original upsell or the new upsell was outperforming the original upsell. I'm like, great, this is good news because some of the course, some of the programs in that upsell were in a different package that we had. So we're like, oh, if we could take out those courses, it'll make this package kind of like be its standalone package. Well, over time, when you ran it long enough, it swapped.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

So if you went off of, you know, if you that's the other thing, because it's like, oh, I'm seeing a difference. Cool, we'll make that change. And it's like, no, you have to let it you have to get enough data into the system to make a really good educated test. And if you don't have enough data going into that system, you could run an A B test for a year and not get conclusive. So just because something looks good in the beginning over time, yeah, it can they can either level out or they can totally create. Cross spots and now we're like, uh, we might want to go back to the original upsell.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Yeah. So I'm gonna uh I'm gonna just talk everybody through a little bit of why you should go check out Lauren's sales page, and then I'm gonna jump back to the thing about uh what I think you could do that to kind of make some more revenue with this. So I would say go check out this page. If you're working on your sales page and you want to know, like give me an example of what does a good sales page look like. I would say there's a there's so much on here that's really good. So it's Laurenbatemanguitar.com slash course or slash course IT for YouTube. So we've got a great headline, we've got a great subheadline, we've got a sales video, we've got the trust badges underneath the um the button. The button is consistent throughout the page, it ex it breaks down false beliefs, it has a pain agitation solutions section in there, it has got social proof, it's got testimonials, there's like a lot of the stuff that if you've listened to this podcast long enough, you've heard me bang on about so many times. It's examples of it you can go and look at, and I think that's like totally worth doing to kind of see what this looks like in practice. Okay, let

Email Growth, Ads And Profit

SPEAKER_02

me jump back. So how um how many new email subscribers are you getting a m a month at the moment?

SPEAKER_00

I think I said about two to three thousand a month. Is that depending on the time of year?

SPEAKER_02

So is that okay, what does it depend on?

SPEAKER_00

I I would say probably sixty percent of it is from ads.

SPEAKER_02

Okay, okay. And about how many views are you getting a month at the moment on YouTube?

SPEAKER_00

Um maybe around like eight hundred thousand.

SPEAKER_02

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

It's the summer, so now it you know it's it's the slow season for music.

SPEAKER_02

Poor Lauren, only eight hundred thousand. Okay, so in my experience, pretty much everybody can get to a about one percent opt-in rate in terms of views to opt-ins per month. So if you're at 800,000, that would put you at 8,000 new opt-ins per month. Now, the disadvantages to that is you've got at the moment these links directly to the course. So you if you didn't have if you you know you've got tons of links in your descriptions, right? You've got links to the tip jar and you've got links to all your courses and all kinds of stuff. But you've got one that's the main one, which is above the fold, which is near which is most of the time from what I could see so far, is the the link to your course. If you swapped that, then for new videos, you would be losing that direct sale and you would then have to take a little while before you make the money back on the emails. But what I've seen is that 80% of the potential revenue in a course business is from email. As in, if you're currently driving people to uh directly to to a course, then you could probably make about five times more revenue by driving them to email. It might not be that that begin a crash course, because you're saying that's only for the absolute, you know, somebody just getting started, but some kind of lead magnet and then making the the promotion. Because I know you're doing promotions regularly, right? That's like a kind of a a mainstay for you out of your email

Lead Magnets Music Fans Actually Want

SPEAKER_02

list. Yep. Does this is this ringing true? Or have you run any A-B tests on this and you found out that didn't always work for you or anything like that?

SPEAKER_00

We haven't actually A-B tested running people to YouTube Optimum. Um so right now we're we're checking some data because like last year the quality of my Facebook leads kind of declined, which made the Facebook ads slightly unprofitable or sometimes just like break even, which is not good. So we've been doing some different things with our ads to kind of boost that, you know, income per email or what you know cost per lead and then what you make. So um we haven't done anything on on the YouTube side, but it's interesting because I'm gonna meet with my A-B tester and be like, we should A B test YouTube opt-ins and see how they do.

SPEAKER_02

And I'd said it's like one nearly everybody can get 1%. In music, you can normally get higher than that. And I know that a bunch of your videos are like teaching um songs, like how to play good riddance on guitar, for example, right? If you if you can put like here is the the breakdown, here's the written breakdown of like how to do that. Um bass it's tabs, I don't know what it's is it called the same thing on guitar? I don't know.

SPEAKER_00

Tab, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. So like here's the tabs for it, then that can tend to get a conversion rate of something more like four to five percent of views turn into opt-ins. Especially if it's mentioned in the video. Like it's uh it's above the fold in the description, it's in the pinned comment, but also it's like, you know, you start teaching the song and then you're like, oh, and if you want to get the tabs for this, then just download them, click the link in below, or go direct X-Link. Um, that's the that's the massive advantage I feel like music YouTubers have got is that that's such an easy connection between the video and the lead magnet that it's it just fits really, really nicely for people. It's almost like, oh, why on earth would you watch this video without downloading this? That would be foolish, you know? It's like it's such it's such a good fit to go along with it. Um so that's that's what I would test if I was you is testing on some of some of those kinds of videos and see what options you can get.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Yeah, I always wor I always worry about tab for for copyright issues. Distributing tabs.

SPEAKER_02

We have looked into this and I can't remember the details, but I'm gonna I'll connect you with Yosip after this because he was working with it might have been it might have been Dave over Guitar Zero to Hero, it might have been somebody else I could get. But specifically on that, he was he was working with them on how do we make sure you're not gonna get in trouble and you're getting your opt-ins. So I'll connect you guys and then and then he'll come for you on that. Yeah, no worries. Um Yeah, I can't remember. There there is some there is an issue, but it is it is workable around. And what I'll do, everyone listening, if you're a music course creator, I will check with Yosip as well what it is, and I'll talk about it in a future episode so that you can hear it as

After Financial Freedom What Next

SPEAKER_02

well. What's the vision for you? What do you where do you want to be with the the business? Is it like all already like one of the things you'd said actually, I want to just um uh reference it, you'd said to me in advance was that you feel like you're pretty happy however much you're making. Like more's better, but it's like actually you're you're actually quite happy. Like, so what's the what are you trying to where are you trying to get to with like the combination of what do you want your life to be like? What do you want the business to be like? How do they fit together? Big question. I know.

SPEAKER_00

No, it's a big question. And it is a great question because I'm kind of in like this this crossroads uh of my life. This is this is a question I've been battling with probably for the last year. Um, so I created this life. So so a lot of what I did goes back to me being sick when I was younger and part of why I quit my job and stuff, because I was like, man, if I ever get sick again, because that was that was pretty devastating, meaning like you can't get out of bed, you can't move. And I'm like, if I ever got that sick again, I was like, I can't work. I I would want to be able to like focus on my health, focus on me. So my goal is to get myself to a point where like, hey, I I don't have to go into work. And it was it was funny because I I was downstairs, you know, talk talking with my wife, and I was like, I'm at this crossroads because I'm like, I've been working the last 20 years towards this specific goal. And I'm like, and I'm sitting here and I have it. And now the and it's great. And and I said, the crazy thing is like for the last 20 years, I've been working towards this this specific goal. You know, it's taken a long time, it's taken a lot of hard work, a lot of energy, a lot of sleepless nights. And I said, But now, you know, I'm 43 and and I said, I have it, and I'm not sure what's next. Because I didn't I didn't think past that point. Right, right. Yeah. You know, 23 years, you know, 20 years ago, it seems so far in the future. You're like, I'm gonna be working at this for a long time. And then it's like, I'm here. What do I do now? So that's why I was like, you know, I I I feel like I I'm in a great spot because, you know, what I make from YouTube provides me the the financial freedom, you know, to go on a trip somewhere, or you know, we don't have to worry about what we buy at the grocery store. If the gas price goes up, it's okay, I could still fill up my car. So there's there's a lot of things that we're very grateful for for this. And I feel like, hey, if I got sick and I needed to take a year off of YouTube, I could. And my business wouldn't completely fall apart, you know. Um so there's that aspect of it. So now for me, it it's kind of rediscovering what's the next step and what's the why. What's what's gonna be the bigger meaning behind what I'm doing? Um so I'm st I I will fully admit I'm still trying to figure that out. Yeah. Um, but I do feel it has to do this older adult population is just like I just I just love working with them. Because I think particularly, I don't know if it's so much in Europe. Um, I know my my uncle, when he lived in Italy, I feel like there was just so much respect for for older adults there and people really took care. He lived in like a little small village and people really checked in on him and took care. It was like a real community thing. And and here in the US, I feel like as people age, um, they're kind of almost set aside or shelved, being like, not that they don't have value, but like, you know, it's really the focus is on being young. And um, so I there's there's really like this empowerment aspect of of doing something with older adults and making them feel like, you know, you're not washed up. You're you could, you know, kind of like what I teach in music. So I don't know if it's gonna be still around music. Um but I I'm honestly trying to figure that part of it out right now. But in general, I'm very happy and very grateful with where I am currently.

unknown

Yeah.

Designing Life Around Feelings

SPEAKER_02

I think it's just one of the one of the most important things to do, to think about how does this, how does the business fit with your life and what is it you're trying to do and how do you want it to be so that you don't work on something for 20 years and then go, oh shit. That wasn't what I wanted after all. And I didn't even enjoy that 20 years while I was getting there because I was working so hard to do it or whatever, you know. And I think it's so hard. And I I think about I spent a lot of time thinking about this. And one of the things that I'd done a number of years ago, I was working with a coach and he said, What do you want your life to be like? And I was like, I was very pleased with myself because I like I'd done loads of thinking about it, done loads of work on it. I was like, I want to be able to see my friends and family this often for dinners. I want to be able to see my mum this often, I want to travel this much, I want to live in this kind of place, I really enjoy nice views, so I want to have that on a regular basis, like all this stuff. And then I want the I had at the top of the list like how I wanted the business to be. And at the bottom of the list, I had what emotions I wanted to feel. And he was like, Why is the business at the top and the emotions at the bottom? And I was like, Oh, I don't know, it's just in a it's in an order, it's a random order. It doesn't, it doesn't he's like, I think it does matter. He said, I think it does. I think that the business is at the top because it's the easiest to measure, and the emotions are at the bottom because they're the hardest to measure. And I was like, I don't know if it's true, but there's a very important point that he's making. And I'm like, I thought about it a lot. And I was like, okay, these are the emotions that I want to feel, and then everything else is subsidiary to that. Like I want to, I want to see my friends and family this often, and I want to have nice views and whatever, so that I feel these emotions. I want the business to do well so that I can do these things with my friends and family so that I can feel these. Like it's that actually has to be the point. But I would treat it like, oh, I get to be happy when. Once I've done this thing with the business, once I've achieved this level. Otherwise, I'm going to just be like, no, you don't deserve it yet. You have to work harder, you have to achieve this thing. And I was just like, well, what would be the point of like spending 10 years not letting yourself be happy to achieve a thing that you don't know for sure will make you happy? I was like, that sounds like a terrible idea, but that's exactly what I was doing.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_02

So now what I've tried to do is set up my days so that every day makes me happy. The kind of work that I do makes me happy, with with still having a goal of where I'm trying to get to. But if it doesn't work out or and I don't get there, or the world changes, or whatever, well, I've had a really nice time on the way.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah, yeah. And that's where me like, you know, because I I mentioned I have a a a little community and it and I'm definitely a people person. I'm definitely extroverted. I I I get a lot of energy from interacting with other people. Um, so I feel like that's gonna become a bigger part of my future because I'm like, okay, I'm I'm making enough money online with the courses, and it's like, now I don't I don't mind volunteering my time back because it's it's I'm choosing to volunteer my time. But I'm like, I really love meeting the students because I've done events and stuff where I've I've got to play music with the students. And for me, it just brings so much joy and energy just seeing just seeing these people is wonderful. So I think that's gonna become a bigger part of of the future, Lauren. Um but it's just figuring out exactly what those steps are. Because even I think about like I think about going traveling and doing like a women's retreat for women to just play guitar, like go to Italy, rent a villa, play guitar, you know, like those are things where I'm like, that would be fun. That would be great. Like, you know, so those are I think those are kind of like the next ideas and stages I'm thinking of being like, you know, when I first started YouTube, could I have done that? Sure, probably. But I'm like, now I have like the audience and and I have the means to travel and I've got great people in my audience who some of them do have extra money and do want to spend money to go and experience things and play guitar. So I'm like, that could be like the next avenue that I find exciting. You know?

SPEAKER_02

That's interesting.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

That's so not me, but I love that you know that about you, that that's what you want, you know?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. Like, my wife's the total opposite. She's like, I want to be alone.

SPEAKER_02

She's like, I don't want to come. You go after Italy.

SPEAKER_00

She'll come, yeah. She'll come. But you know, she she's much more, she likes small groups, much more introverted. Um, but I I th I think she would enjoy traveling if she's like, okay, you go teach and I'm gonna go, you know, I'm gonna go sit in the p palazza and you know, have gelato or something, you know.

SPEAKER_02

People fight people sometimes seem to find me confusing because I really like being on stage at conferences and I like being the center of attention, everyone knowing who I am. I love it, absolutely love it. But after that, I won't go to the parties, I won't, I'm not gonna be around, like if there's a whole big group of everybody standing around chatting, I'm not gonna be there. I'm gonna be like, I want to talk to like an absolute maximum of six people at a time. And I'm like, so I'll organise like little dinners, maybe one-on-one, maybe like a small group or something like that. And I'm like, people are like, oh, I'll see you at the party. It's like you so won't. Like, I've just I just won't be there. I'll be on stage and I'll everyone be like, oh, you're so extroverted. It's like, ah, you just kind of, you know. Setting I am, yeah. Yeah, exactly. For a short period, and then it's like, peace out, I'm out of here. Yeah. I much prefer when I'm working, I much prefer working on like systems, like building systems. I really love that. And systems.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

My wife loves to build systems. I I'm the here's a great idea, but I don't want to build the idea.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

I'm that person.

SPEAKER_02

Thank goodness there's so many different people in the world, right? It's like when I first found out there are people who like to just do the repetitive work. Who like they like to know how to do the work, to turn up, to do it.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And then it just be the same thing day after day because then they knew exactly what they were doing. When I found out that that people like that existed, I was so happy. Because I was like, I hate I hate doing that. I hate it. I like to build a system and then somebody else run it, but I don't want to run it. It would drive me crazy. And I was like, oh, other people want to do that. This is fantastic news. Great, I'll hire them.

SPEAKER_00

Exactly. Exactly. Yep.

Identity Shifts And Hiring Help

SPEAKER_02

How how do you feel like you're going to get to that next level of understanding? Like, what are you trying what are you doing at the moment to try and you said you've been working on this for like a year. What are you doing to try and figure this out?

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. So I finally, so I I I took a year off from kind of doing conferences and and coaching. I think I just needed to, I I I moved from Massachusetts to New Hampshire. So I kind of moved my entire life, my entire house. Um, and I think I just needed a little time off to think. So I started working with a new business coach. But I'm like, you know, well, when you're working through big problems like this, it does help to have a third party uh to kind of bounce ideas off of or even challenge your ideas, being like, is that really what you want? Or are you are you running away from something? You know. So so I'm working with a a business coach and we're really just focusing on the why. You know, why are you doing what you're doing? Like you had this great why for a long time, um, but that why is not really working to motivate you to to move forward. So we're trying to evolve and find out what what is the next why that is going to excite uh and drive Lauren. And it and it's it's very tricky because you know, for the last however many years, that's always been evolved around music. And thinking there might be something without music maybe in the future is uh it's it's different. You know, it's it's not music is comfortable. I'm comfortable being in music, I'm comfortable uh doing that, but it's kind of exploring different ideas of like, does it have to be related to music? Maybe, maybe not, you know? Um so we're we're really just focusing on that why. And he said it it he goes, honestly, it might take you a year to really deep dive and figure this out. He goes, it's for some people, it it does just doesn't happen like that. Um so that's what we're kind of working on because like I said, I have I have brick and mortar schools that I've had for a long time. I have the online business, I have real estate, I've I have lots of things I do and that I enjoy. Um, and those things have served me very well for the last 20 or so years. Um, but it's realizing that sometimes the things that served you to get you to where you are now aren't necessarily gonna be the things that are gonna serve you going into the future. So I'm kind of in a stage of of analyzing what do I want to keep in my life moving forward and what do I want to let go of and say, you know, it it's time to let go, let's move forward. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I think those things can be the hardest. The things where it's like that there was something that you specifically took on as your identity because it was serving you so well. And it was su it's you you you were good at it, and it helped you to achieve your goals, and you were like, I am gonna tell everybody I'm like this, and I'm gonna act like this, and I'm gonna deliberately like make this a part of who I am, and that was great, and then it stops being great, and you're now supposed to stop having that as part of your identity, or you're supposed to try and figure out some different way of doing it. It's like, oh because then it's like like if you if you talk to somebody who teaches martial arts, like it's it's easier to teach someone to do a kick who doesn't know anything than to teach someone who's learnt how to do it wrong. So it's like unlearning something is really difficult, right? And I've seen this in business a lot. Like a lot of my friends bootstrap their business. So to do that, they took on the identity of I am the kind of person who can learn anything and I can do anything and I can do all of the things at the same time. I can do a bit of this and a bit of this and a bit of this, because it was the only way to get it started. It was the only way to get it going. And then at some point you can afford to start hiring people. And so then you have to completely shift your mindset to, oh, but then I'm gonna hire other people who But it's it's kind of all right when you're hiring someone to do like the grunt work, but then when you first start to hiring someone who's like the expert and you're not the expert in something, it's like I've seen people really I I certainly struggle with it, but I've seen a lot of people struggle with that.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. I I'm not a good manager. Uh I'm uh I yeah, I'm the visionary. I like I like the big picture and I don't particularly like babysitting people. Unfortunately, I have a I have a music school with like 20 employees that I have that I have to babysit. But I didn't know that going into it, being like, wow, I really I really don't want to do the managing side. And like you say, let me find someone else who who actually likes doing this because I hate doing, you know, like I don't want to do billing. I don't want to do admin work. Like, oh wait, there's actually people who like to sit and do the billing. Or there's someone who likes doing this. Like, great, you can do that. I don't want to do it.

SPEAKER_02

So do you have that for the do you have like a manager for the for the music schools?

SPEAKER_00

I have a really good admin team.

unknown

Okay.

SPEAKER_00

That kind of and I kind of have like head instructors that help, you know, open school, close the school, because I'm not even in the state same state anymore. So I do have people who help, and I kind of, you know, for example, I help with hiring and stuff. I kind of do the higher level, the higher level things. Um, but that's something too, because I know there's a lot of big YouTubers who've even come out with videos recently being like, they went back to being solo YouTuber because they they didn't like having a big team. They're like, I didn't like managing. And I I think that's an important thing to understand about yourself. Like, you know, everyone's like to grow and be big, you need a big team. And it's like, yes, because you're now leveraging other people's time to do work, but for some people, that's not the right path for them. Like they're fine, you know, maybe being a being a solo YouTuber and having an editor and maybe a customer service like a couple VAs, which is mostly what I run. I mean it's me and I have some I have my editor who edits my stuff, and I have my VAs who help me with customer service and fixing things on the websites and stuff. And I'm like, that works, that works great. I I make more money with that than I do with 20 employees in a music school.

unknown

Right.

SPEAKER_02

Then that works, right? You know?

SPEAKER_00

So I'm like I like this much better.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah.

Managing Without Endless Meetings

SPEAKER_00

Like this works for my personality.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I really don't like managing people. And that was like a I had an impression of what managing people meant. You know, you have a weekly meeting where you go through and you do all the planning and you have um check-ins with them to see how they're doing against their plan, and you you come up with a plan for them for the quarter of what they're gonna be working. And then I my friend Laura, Laura Rhoda, she she like co founded, if you've ever heard of B School with Marie Forleo, she like co founded that. So she'd been around in the kind of internet marketing space for quite a while, and she'd done a lot of really interesting things. And she had a business that had a whole big team, um, software business, big team, and like managing lots of people, and she hired a CEO to manage it for her and whatever. And then at one point she went back in and she just fired everybody who wasn't like the crucial like 80-20 part of the business. And just kept on, like, okay, I'm gonna keep on this developer like part-time, but we're never gonna talk. They're gonna message me in Slack and I'm gonna message them in Slack, and then that's kind of it. And I was like, that's cool for Laura, that's great, but it's like, you know, you can't, you can't do that. That's not an And then I've kind of moved gradually more and more in that direction. So uh Petra, who edits this, hey Petra, and I we we hardly ever talk. We have a one-to-one for 15 minutes about every four to six weeks. And apart from that, the closest we come to talking is we'll agree to be on Slack at the same time.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

And she does an amazing job. Like everything runs smoothly. Everything that she's supposed to do is done. I don't ever have to think about it. I don't have to check, I don't have a task list to go through and make sure that she does the thing she was supposed to do. Occasionally she'll message me and go, I spotted this thing that I think we could do better. Is it okay if I do that better? I'm like, Yeah, yeah, that's that's okay. Please. I just don't I don't mind that if you do that. Improved. And it works amazingly. And like she seems really happy. Petra, tell me if you're not. And I'm really happy, and everything is just great. And I'm like, oh, yeah. I like that kind of managing people. Like, I like having a team like that. That's cool. You know? Yeah. So it's like that was for me a real breakthrough of like, okay, there is more than one way to do this. There's more, there are ways to do this that can mean maybe you have got people, but you don't have all of the the I don't know, stuff that makes you unhappy that goes with having people.

SPEAKER_01

Right.

SPEAKER_02

So the all the meetings, all of that. Like I read that have you read that book? Um wait a sec. Uh traction.

SPEAKER_01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02

So I read that book and I was convinced, I was convinced this is completely obviously true, this is how things work, and they've got all these meetings. They've got the Daily Huddle, they've got the weekly issues review, they've got all this stuff. And I went through and I did all of it. And after doing that for quite a long time, I was like, I honestly think that mostly we're just wasting our time here. And I'd be better off spending that time just building things and doing the work and not talking about the work, not planning the work, not discussing what's wrong with the work, just doing the work. And I was like, I don't know if for definite, it seems like it's better, but I'm definitely happier.

unknown

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02

I know

Perspective On Real Emergencies

SPEAKER_02

that.

SPEAKER_00

I I always even tell people in the music school, you know, it's the same thing with the the the the course business. I'm like, we're we're not surgeons, nobody's having brain surgery, no one's going to die. There's nothing we can do like that's going to kill someone. So there's really, there really isn't an emergency. Like, even, you know, when I go away, if I go away to Europe like last this in September, but it was my wife's 40th. We went to Ireland for a month. Okay. So we took off to from Ireland for a month. And I told my teammates, like, I'm unavailable. I don't even want to hear from you, hear from you. There's nothing I should hear from you unless the building burns down. And I said, and if the building burns down, call my call the fire department. Don't go because I'm like, because I'm in Europe and there's nothing I'm gonna be able to do. So it's just like, call the fire department, call the insurance agent, and then when I get home, I'll handle it. But it it's just, you know, when you when you think about stuff like that, going like there's nothing in this business that's like an emergency that we can't fix. It really isn't. You know, that we can't fix. This this customer's upset. Okay, refund them.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah. Simple. Don't talk to me about it.

SPEAKER_00

Simple. You know, and in the beginning, because I got, you know, I I've coached clients in courses and they're like, oh, this person wants a refund. And I'm like, refund them. Is it really worth the aggravation of fighting with this person? And I was like, and maybe it is because you're you're holding up your values and your principles and they're not following the following the rules. Like sometimes we uphold rules. That's the reasons there's rules. But I'm like, sometimes it's just easy to just here's your money back. Have a great day.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

It doesn't waste anyone's time. Actually saves me time. I tell I'm like, I make too much money now that I actually lose money if I argue with them. Like I'm losing time sending emails. Yeah. And you're just like, just just refund them. It's fine. We make enough money. Just give, you know, for the the you know, two or three percent of refunds we do a month. It's like, that's that's just a business expense at this point. If they're not happy, uh there's nothing I can say that's gonna make them happy.

SPEAKER_02

I have people sometimes talk to me about like, but is it fair? And I'm like, I don't know if it's fair. Like, because they we did all this work for somebody, and then if they wanted a refund, then it's like, yeah, but it's it's fine.

SPEAKER_00

It's just like if we don't, you know, if someone's like, oh, it didn't work for me, and then we go in and we see they watched the entire program, we'll be like, Well, you watched the entire program. If it didn't work, you would have stopped after like maybe the first four or five videos. So there's stuff like that. We'll push back and be like, but you know, if someone's a real pain in the butt, I just tell my team to you don't have to ask me, just refund them. It's not I'm not losing sleep over it.

SPEAKER_02

Can't remember if this was from from Yosip or if it was from such something I'd seen online, but somebody had had their like out of office message that they'd left with the team, like, don't contact me unless it's an emergency. And if it's an emergency, take a really deep breath and let it out and realize that it's not an emergency. And then still don't contact me. It's like, what a how can it be an emergency? Like, what could it possibly be? You know?

SPEAKER_00

The thing I learned, and that you learn this, you know, I think you learn this more in like when you once you have teams and develop teams, and you know, as the owner, the amount of stress that you can handle is so much higher than the amount of stress that your employees can handle. So for them. So for them, it does seem like an emergency to them. But for me, I'm like, that's not an emergency. Like we literally in 2012, I had a car crash through the front of my building. I basically had a car crash through the brick and mortar. That was an emergency. So for me, I put everything in perspective to I don't have a car in my business, I'm not shutting down my business. You know, it's not COVID. My business isn't shutting down. Honestly, when COVID happened, because I had that, I someone told me, he's like, one day you're gonna thank that woman who drove through your business. And then COVID happened. COVID was the most stress-free. I was like, I don't have a car in my business. I like my business isn't open, but I can handle this. So for me, it was easy because I had already gone through a high level of stress to be like, well, for most people, COVID was here. I'm like, well, now it's down here for me because I have a different perspective. But for my employees, they're like, what are we doing? And I'm like, it's fine, we got it. And we did. We, you know, I moved everyone over to Zoom, we were proactive, and and we obviously weathered that storm. But it's like for them, something as simple as the internet going down is like an emergency. And it's like, that's really not an emergency.

SPEAKER_01

It'll come back. Like, I'm sure you it'll come back.

SPEAKER_00

Beethoven did not have the internet when he was learning to play piano. I'm pretty sure you can still teach piano without the internet. I know it it's beneficial and it improves the lesson experience, but the internet goes down, it's literally not the end of the world. It will come back, I promise. So keep that in mind. So sometimes what's what's not an emergency to you might be an emergency to someone else. And it's training them like what is an emergency. This is what you can call me for. This is what you should not call me for. This is an email. This is a phone call. The school is on fire. That is a phone call, you know?

SPEAKER_02

After the fire department, let me know. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

Yeah. The internet went down. That's an email.

unknown

I don't want to know.

SPEAKER_00

So yeah, always. I like that.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, I like that reframing. I had a guy on the podcast yesterday who was in the uh the SAS, was in the army, and they're in wherever it was, Afghanistan, and they're they're caught in the middle of a everything's gone terribly wrong. They're caught somewhere under gunfire 12 hours before they can manage to get out. They don't know if they're gonna live. And it's just like, I don't know if I want to like imagine that for myself. But if I imagined even something a fraction of that, then it puts everything else in perspective, right? Of like just uh, oh shit out, it'll be fine, it'll be fine. It's all good.

SPEAKER_00

That's it. I'm not being shot at. I'm alive. Like, I'm good. I'm stressed, but I'm good. I'm alive. But yeah, that's just so it's like that. The the level of stress that he can probably tolerate because he has that perspective.

SPEAKER_01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00

You know, it is my my wife's a nurse, so like they have alarms going off all the time. So one time our our fire alarms went off at one of our rental properties when we're we're living there, and I'm like, no, like where's the fire? And she's just like, she didn't even hear it. It was it was like she was she was deaf to the alarm because she's so used to people like a real emergency is like someone needs CPR, like someone's coding, or like someone's, you know, something bad is happening. And she's just like, oh, it's like just a fire alarm. And I'm like, You didn't hear that? She's like, Oh no, I guess I just didn't notice it. But again, it's all about perspective.

SPEAKER_02

Yeah, for sure.

Consistency On YouTube And Goodbye

SPEAKER_02

Lauren, this has been an absolute delight. Uh, I love what you're doing. I love the approach you're taking. Um, I love uh everything about what you're doing with the business. Guys, go check out what Lauren's doing. Even if you have no interest in learning guitar, you're not over 50, go check out her website, go check out her sales page, Laurenbatemanguitar.com slash course or slash course y t Lauren Bateman on um YouTube. So L-A-U-R-E-N, B-A-T-E-M-A-N. Go check it out. Anything else you want to tell people about before we sign off?

SPEAKER_00

I think I think the biggest thing with YouTube, because I used to say again, you get a variety of people on here kind of like earlier in their stages, you know, the bit some people who are bigger, but not most people aren't 650,000 subscribers. Uh and the key is just to be consistent. You know, say stay consistent what you're doing, stay true to the messaging for your audience. And if you're not seeing a lot of growth, you know, in the beginning, just understand it takes time. But once that snowball takes off on YouTube, it's it's a really fun thing. Um, so just keep going and stick with it and and enjoy the process.

SPEAKER_02

Beautiful. Lauren, thank you so much for coming on. I really, really appreciate your time. This has been awesome.

SPEAKER_00

Absolutely. Have a good one.

SPEAKER_02

I will see you guys in the next podcast. Talk to you then.