November 29, 2023 • 52 mins
Ever wondered about the world of photography education and its potential for passive income? Prepare to have your curiosity piqued as we traverse this fascinating landscape with Laylee Emadi, the visionary behind the Creative Educator Conference!. We'll equip you with the skills and mindset needed for this exciting venture, tackle the realities of passive income, and reveal how a keen sense of education can be a game-changer in your professional journey.
Get ready for a deep dive into online education formats and the debunking of common myths surrounding passive income. Not for the faint-hearted, this episode will challenge your preconceptions and push you to hone your teaching skills. We dissect the impact of funnels, explore the difference between being a professional speaker and a professional who speaks, and examine the potential pitfalls of gatekeeping information.
To round things off, we'll delve into the realities and rewards of pursuing a career in photography education. Laylee, a veteran in the industry, shares her journey from novice to seasoned educator and highlights the emerging trends that are shaking up the industry. Whether you're considering becoming an educator or simply curious about the world of photography education, this episode promises to enlighten, engage, and inspire. Be sure to join us for this exciting exploration into the world of photography education!
ROB'S QUICK LINKS
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/square8studio
Course Creation Acceleator: https://www.square8studio.com/course-creation-accelerator
LAYLEE'S QUICK LINKS:
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/laylee_emadi
Website: layleeemadi.com
Creative Educator Conference: https://layleeemadi.com/conference
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:11):
You're listening to the Bop the business of
photography podcast with RobGreen, a photographer to
contagiously positive clientsand fierce believer in building
people-focused businesses thatleave a lasting impact.
If you're an entrepreneur withdreams in your head, ideas in
your heart and passions burningdeep down in your soul, this is
the perfect place to be, becausethis is where dreams come to
(00:33):
thrive.
So are you ready to build yourbusiness while your clients and
make photo magic?
Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Coming at you from DFW Texas.
You are listening to the Bop.
So happy to be back with you.
Friends.
Hope everyone had an incredibleThanksgiving, ate way too much
food, had way too much fun withfriends and family.
I know my crew.
We kind of do this.
I kind of just started thistradition of merging
Thanksgiving and Christmastogether because we don't always
(01:06):
get to see each other everyyear at both Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
So whenever we get the wholefamily together for Thanksgiving
, we just throw some Christmasfun in there.
We put the tree up, pass a fewgifts out.
We also do this thing calledthe Christmas Olympics.
This was just a fun littleseries of games we started that
are just really fun for thefamily and fun for the youngest
(01:27):
to the oldest.
Very, you know, like blowingcotton balls into cups off of
tables and dropping things offof second floor balconies down
into small cups below.
It was just an amazing time tohang out with the family, catch
up, share a few laughs, sharesome great food.
I hope your family and lovedones had an incredible
Thanksgiving as well.
(01:48):
Speaking of incredible, today'sinterview is going to be amazing
.
I cannot wait to share thisconversation with my friend
Laili and Madi.
This is for everyone who hasthought about getting into the
world of education.
I know in all the Facebookgroups I'm in right now there's
a lot of buzz right now amongstphotographers about this whole
(02:11):
idea of passive income andeducation and there's this sense
of like it almost feels like.
For some people, it's thisnatural next step that, hey, you
shoot for a little while andthen you do education because
that's what everybody else isdoing.
We're going to dive into allthis with Laili today and help
you figure out is this for me?
If it is for me, what do I needto be like, cultivating in
terms of skills and abilitiesand heart posture to be able to
(02:36):
break into education and do itwell?
So incredible interview linedup.
But before we bring Laili on, Iwant to share with you today's
bop bite.
Bop bites, for those of youthat are not familiar, are just
these little bite sized nuggetsof goodness that, if all you've
got is a few minutes in your caror on the way to work or school
, today I want you to be able totake away something actionable
(02:57):
for your business.
And so today's bop bite is thistomorrow's successes are
planned today.
Tomorrow's successes areplanned today.
What do I mean by that?
I mean you can be one of twopeople.
You can be somebody that lifejust happens to, or you can be
somebody that makes life happenfor you on purpose.
(03:20):
Everybody I know that hassucceeded has succeeded because
of prior preparations andplanning that they've put in.
Since we're talking abouteducation today, I'll just share
an example from my own journeyinto education.
My first course I ever createdis called the flash course.
It's a plain language versionof how to learn flash that
(03:43):
people can watch on a Wednesday,go shoot a wedding on a
Saturday and take the mostamazing flash photos they've
ever taken.
I recorded this course the dayour city was shutting down for
COVID back in 2020.
My roommate worked intelevision.
He gave me a heads up that themayor was going to be closing
(04:04):
down the city at midnight thatday, and they hadn't announced
it yet, but they were about to.
So I called up some friends andran into a natural light studio
in our area and dumped all ofmy flash knowledge onto camera
before the city shut down.
I could not have had all ofthis information organized and
(04:25):
ready to go if I had not been,for over a year, prepping and
planning live workshops to teachphotographers how to shoot with
flash.
I had been working through thisprocess, answering their
questions, working out the kinksin my delivery of the teaching
of this content, making theseplans long before I ever knew
(04:47):
that COVID was going to be athing, certainly long before I
ever knew that the mayor wasgoing to shut down our city for
a couple months.
But because of the planningthat I had done, I was ready for
the success that would sooncome.
But the story keeps goingbecause, once everything was
recorded, I still had to figureout how to organize it, edit it
(05:07):
all down, get it uploaded into acourse hosting platform.
I had to figure out things likehow do I grow an email list?
I don't even have an email list.
There was so much planning thatwent into this that, even
though I recorded the course inMarch, I mean we were doing
months of beta testing, gettingmore feedback from people,
(05:28):
letting people in at discountedprices to give us their feedback
on the course, then going backand re-recording at home some
additional content to round outeverything that went into this
course.
And then, finally, in Novemberof 2020, I was able to release
the flash course, and that weekalone, in our very first launch
(05:50):
of the flash course, wegenerated over $12,000 in
revenue.
That day's success was plannedover months prior.
The $12,000 part sounds great.
Who doesn't want that?
That's the part people hearabout when they hear about
education, when they hear aboutpassive income.
But what you don't hear aboutis the planning, the months of
(06:15):
work that went up to that momentand y'all.
Whether you want to break intoeducation or you just want to
keep being a really amazingphotographer that takes killer
photos, the success you'relooking for tomorrow, the
success you're going toexperience tomorrow, is
predicated on the planning andpreparation you put in today.
(06:36):
So take time today to startlooking at your calendar, to
start looking at your budget, tostart looking at your marketing
plan, to start forming a gameplan for the things that you
want to achieve in the yearahead, and start taking baby
steps towards those goals,towards those dreams, today,
because tomorrow's successes areplanned today.
(06:58):
I'm going to get into this a tonmore in next month's episode,
but we've got an amazinginterview for you today with
Leila Madi coming right up afterthe break.
You know what no photographerever asks how can I make less
money?
As small business owners, we'realways looking to make just a
little bit more, and most of usjust need someone to show us how
(07:20):
.
What if I told you college andsorority photography could give
you not one, not two, butseventeen different ways to make
more money in the months ahead.
To download my free guide,visit square8studiocom.
Slash 17ways today.
Welcome back On today's episode.
(07:40):
We're going to talk about howto dive in and thrive in
education.
When I started mapping out mydream guest for season two, I
knew the guest for today's showhad to be someone special,
someone who not only had a heartfor educating others and had
done so successfully, butsomeone who was willing to go
one step further and become aneducator to educators.
(08:01):
That qualification alone reallykind of narrowed my list pretty
tremendously.
But then you know, we lovebringing guests on the bop who
are incredible people first andforemost, and today's guest
ticks that box big time.
We've met on a few differentoccasions now and I have
instantly admired her unfilteredspirit and humor, her deep
rooted passion and her heart forhelping others grow and succeed
(08:23):
.
And when I asked one of herbesties, hope Taylor, what she
loved most about Lailia Madi, Iknew she would be the perfect
guest for this episode.
Hope said.
I've been lucky to call Lailia afriend for over eight years and
the reasons to love her areendless.
She's undeniably wise,passionate about her people,
fiercely speaks about herpassions and is the biggest
(08:44):
cheerleader I know.
She's always ready and willingto be a listening ear on a bad
day, a sounding board for a newidea or make you cry from
laughter if you just need asmile.
She's one of the greatest andyou guys are lucky to hear from
her.
Wow, what an endorsement y'allLely.
Welcome to the bop.
How are you friend?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.
I'm tearing up over here, butI'm good.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh my goodness, how long you all been friends now.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Oh gosh, like over eight years at this point.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Eight years of friendship Give us a funny story
that when Hope is listening tothis, she's gonna be like, oh my
gosh, she did not just go there.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Well, I can say this I don't know how fun, I don't
know like a specific story I canshare, really, but the anecdote
that I'll share is that when wemet, I was teaching high school
and she was either in highschool or just left high, like I
could have been her high schoolteacher.
And since then since then wehave had a great time together,
(09:44):
but it's like one of thosethings that I'm like one of my
best friends.
I could have been her highschool teacher and that, to me,
is a little insane.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That is wild.
Wow, I would love to know,because you and I we've chatted
several times now, but I feellike you're gonna be new for a
lot of our audience.
There's a lot still I'mlearning about your story.
Everything I learned about youis so fascinating.
But give us a quick rundown.
What is the Laelia Madi story?
How did you wind up in theeducation space?
Cause you actually you didn'tjust jump right in starting as
(10:13):
the education role you haveright now.
You did some other things first, right?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean my listen.
I'll give you the quick rundownbecause it was a long journey,
like it's definitely notsomething that happened
overnight.
But I actually started in thisindustry as a photographer, like
yourself, and at the same timeI was a high school teacher and
curriculum designer for ourdistrict, and so basically I it
(10:37):
was a very full circle journey.
For me, it was a really naturalprogression to go from
education full time with theside gig of photography to
photography with a side gig ofeducation, to now helping other
creative educators learn how toteach their craft and teach
their skillset and createtransformations for their own
(10:58):
students.
And so education's always beena part of my journey.
It's just been in differentformats.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
That's cool and I know in the education space,
especially the online educationspace, you can't talk about that
with also also hearing thisphrase passive income.
I know especially photographerslove talking about passive
income.
In recent years, you know it'slike I need to get more passive
income or I need to figure outhow to start generating passive
income in my business.
(11:24):
So first off, for those thatthat's a new term or maybe it's
a vague term and they don'tquite get it like, can you help
us define what passive incomeactually is and then maybe help
us understand, like, what aresome of the misconceptions?
Cause I hear a lot ofmisconceptions out there when it
comes to passive income.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah, I mean I think passive income is it's kind of
what it sounds like, with a fewcaveats of you're creating
revenue streams within yourbusiness where you're not having
to kind of trade money for timeor you're not having to be
hands on 100% of the time.
The caveat there is that nothingis truly passive in the world.
I mean there will become apoint where sometimes that the
(12:04):
work that you put in on thefront end is making you money
throughout time periods whereyou're not constantly having to
update or be hands on about it,but you are having to do certain
parts of the business to keepthat passive income generating
money for you.
So there are so many differentexamples of passive income, but
(12:24):
some of the misconceptions thatyou were asking about that I see
are one that passive income hasto be educational or education
based.
It absolutely does not.
In fact, I think a lot ofphotographers leave a lot of
passive income opportunities onthe table because they don't
quite understand that it doesn'thave to be education.
It can just fit so well intowhat you're already doing.
(12:44):
Another, I think, misconceptionis kind of what I had already
said about it being 100% passive.
I don't think anything is 100%passive, 100% at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
There's no free money out there.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
No, I know it's shocking.
It's shocking information.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Oh man.
Well, obviously, like you said,it's not always education.
There are things, especiallyfor photographers, that you get
left on the table.
But I know online education isthis booming like multi-billion
dollar year industry and withthat comes a lot of growth, a
lot of change.
Things are always.
People are trying new ideas,innovating with certain things.
(13:20):
Can you kind of walk us through, just so people understand
what's out there that arethinking about getting into
education, like, what are someof those most common formats
that online education takes theform of and what are the ones
that you really see like theseare working in today's market?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, I mean there's again.
Possibilities are endless here,but the main formats that I see
and that I teach on are onlinecourses.
Obviously, first and foremost Ithink that is what we've seen
such a boom around for the pastcouple of years is online
courses.
Online education memberships,digital products are another way
and those are kind of a gateway, I guess, into like passive
(14:00):
income for educators, if we'refocusing on that.
And then there's obviouslythings like summits and events,
and these can be virtual, onlineor in person conferences,
retreats, workshops.
Those have been around from thedawn of time.
Mentoring or coaching is more,I think, more popular to call it
coaching now.
(14:21):
But I'm one and the sameMentoring and coaching,
one-on-one education, basicallylike really hands-on, and then
small groups like masterminds.
Those have grown in popularityover the past few years.
It's funny.
I remember like when I launchedmy first mastermind was years
before, like it wasn't huge andpopular, and now the word
mastermind is thrown around tomean so many things, whether
(14:43):
people are actually talkingabout group coaching or actual
masterminds or whatever.
So there's group coaching,there's masterminds, small group
and then speaking, which Ithink again it's kind of like
taking on a life of its own inour industry, where speaking is
not just speaking on stagesanymore, it's speaking virtually
, it's speaking on your socialmedia, it's speaking through
(15:04):
podcasting, through YouTube.
So utilizing speaking to gainvisibility, I think, is even
more prevalent for allentrepreneurs, not just
educators, but it's definitely ahuge platform for education.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Very cool and, as you're saying that, I'm thinking
, okay, online courses.
You've got masterminds.
You've got group coaching.
You've got these high levelone-on-one things you're talking
about.
You've got memberships, more oflike a recurring lower ticket
thing.
You've got I think youmentioned summits, other
(15:38):
speaking opportunities.
Then you've got the more likemicro-level speaking
opportunities.
There's a lot of differentthings and opportunities there.
There's also I feel like youjust rattled off things that
require a lot more skills thanjust how to take a great photo.
So let's start with, just likefrom a heart level and from just
like an organic personalitylevel here, what in your mind
(15:59):
makes someone a great potentialeducator?
Not necessarily like the skillsside of it, just yeah, we'll
get there.
But if someone's looking attheir life and they're looking
at their business and they'retrying to figure out, am I
someone where education would bea good fit for me to explore?
Adding this, what are some ofthose qualities that great
educators just kind of bubbleout of themselves, that like
(16:23):
it's just who they are?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, I love this question because I feel like
there is this overwhelm when youhear the list I just rattled
off of, like how can I ever doall those things?
But they're learned skills,like you mentioned.
But if you're listening to thisand you're kind of in a place
of deciding like is this for me,I kind of feel drawn to it in
some way.
I have kind of a twofold answer.
(16:46):
And you mentioned, youmentioned in my intro that I'm a
little unfiltered, so you'regonna get what you're gonna get,
but here we go.
So one.
There is the heart side of it.
So a lot of creatives ingeneral, we're compassionate and
we're passionate.
We care so much about what wedo.
We care about people.
We wanna help them succeed, andso if you are starting to feel
(17:08):
like, wow, I am actually doingreally well at this first thing
that I do, let's usingphotography as the example.
So I'm feeling really confidentin my skills as a photographer.
I can see that this isimpacting my life so, so well,
and I feel really drawn to helpother people experience that
(17:28):
same success, the same freedoms,the same amazing things that
I'm able to now provide for myfamily and my friends, and all
the things, and you're wantingto kind of share that gift with
others.
That's your first indicatorthat education in some format
might be great for you.
Now here's the unfiltered part.
Some people don't feel that way.
Some people are just reallygood at what they do and they
(17:50):
really want some extra income.
Education also might be for you.
I mean and again like that'skind of the unpopular way to
approach it but I really,especially as a woman in this
industry, I feel like it'sreally important to say that
there is nothing negative aboutbeing motivated by financial
gain and financial, you knowwealth and building your wealth
and helping your family succeedand being a really positive
(18:14):
contributor to your family andto your community as well.
I don't think there's anythingnegative about that, so I wanted
to put that out there too, Forthose of you who are listening
and you're like well, I'm notreally like down to sit around a
fireside and play guitar forpeople, but I really am good at
what I do and I know I can helppeople succeed and I really
would love an additional revenuestream.
(18:35):
Yeah, education might be foryou too.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Totally the thing that, as you're saying that I'm
going, yeah, like I don't have aproblem with somebody wanting
to earn additional income, Ithink that's great.
But I thought it was interestingbecause, even as you're
describing that you're going, atthe end of the day that person
too still does have a desire tohelp.
If you're trying, from what I'veseen, the amount of work that
goes into this and you couldprobably attest to better I
can't get at your level, butlike the amount of work that
(19:01):
goes into education to get thosepassive income streams going is
so great that if your onlymotivation is trying to add
money, you're probably going toat some point see the like
mountain of work involved withit and go, ah, maybe there's
another way.
But if at the underneath thatdesire for earning additional
(19:23):
income for your family is alsothis desire to help people, that
can be like what pushes youthrough some of those like long
nights where you're up likeoutlighting courses or mapping
out strategies for things orwriting out email sequences and
you're like really.
But then you start thinkingabout okay, but one, this is
going to put food on the platefor my family and help me
support my family.
(19:43):
It's also going to help a lotof other people do the same for
their families.
Then it's like, okay, I'll losea little sleep for that.
Yeah absolutely.
Oh man.
So that's kind of the likeunderlying element of things.
What about, though, thoseskills we talked about, how
there's all these skills thatstart bubbling out when you talk
(20:04):
about all those opportunitiesfor coaching.
What are some of those skillsthat you know if somebody's
ticking all those boxes and it'slike I'm going to go for it?
When you look at people thatare thriving in the education
space, what are the skills thatthey are working on and
developing and refining andimproving or building in that
(20:25):
didn't exist?
To start out, with things thatyou can acquire as you go, that
you just see like as a commonthread running through a lot of
the successful people out there.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, I think there's like two sides of the skill
sets around online education.
One is the actual educationitself and that, in my
perspective, is the mostimportant aspect.
The tech, the building thingsout, that's kind of the other
side.
The funnels, the sales, the,you know, the copy, the
marketing, that's all the otherside.
(20:55):
So it's similar to yourservice-based business of
photography, of like, okay, well, I have to have the craft first
, like my work has to be there.
The work has to be good, it hasto be excellent, and then I can
market and bring in clients andcharge them more and do all the
things.
So the skill sets that you'regoing to want to grow are on
both sides.
But I always suggest and that'syou know, that's why I started
(21:17):
my academy several years ago isthere's just like no one really
teaching.
That it's kind of hard.
I feel like a lot of people whoare naturally gifted at teaching
have this advantage over peoplewho maybe have amazing skills
to share but they don't have anatural ability to teach.
It's a skill set, just likeanything else, and it needs time
to grow and to be cultivatedand to be perfected over time.
(21:39):
And so I always suggest startwith the education side first
and making sure that you're ableto promise and deliver on the
transformations that you'retelling people that you're able
to create for them.
So the actual skill of teachingis number one, and then, of
course, learning how totechnically deliver these things
.
So, whether it like, let's say,it's a course figuring out the
(22:02):
course platform you want to use,figuring out the marketing, the
funnels, the copy, like youwere saying, like you're up at
midnight, you know, like writingemail copy, those are all.
All of that stuff kind of addsup.
And I would say also this is Ilike to think of this as a skill
, honestly, but it's it'sknowing when to bring in
external help versus when to tryto figure it out by yourself, I
(22:24):
think.
I think for a lot of us who areentrepreneurs, and who are
successful entrepreneurs, we'rea little type A, we're a little
possessive of our work.
We really want to be the onesto make it happen on our own and
we're scrappy and that'sbeautiful and that's wonderful.
But at a certain point you'relike, okay, I might need to tag
in an expert here and there.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Absolutely yeah.
And there's the message.
It sounds like the core whatare you teaching, what are you
promising to be able to helppeople repeat what you've been
able to accomplish?
And then there's kind of themechanics of it as well, All
those nuts and bolts behind thescenes.
You said several things inthere that I think could be
potentially new terms foraudience.
I want to zero and on one tostart out funnels.
(23:06):
Talk to me about funnels.
What is a funnel?
Because I feel like that's aword that if you're a
photographer and you're thinkingabout this, you've probably
heard that word ping pongingaround in conversations or in
Facebook groups, but you're likeI don't know quite what it is
Explain to our audience.
What is a funnel?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I feel like, in simplest terms, like if I'm just
going to like make it as userfriendly as possible, it's like
the steps that you take to getyour person who you want to work
with, from not knowing you atall, or from the top, from the
very very start, point A topoint like E or F you know what
I mean or like take them downyour road wherever you want to
(23:44):
take them.
It's like you're guiding themthrough communication, so like
an email funnel, for example.
Someone may not know you, orthey may know you generally, and
then they sign up to get emailsfrom you, right, and so you're
funneling them through.
Think about like an actualfunnel that you're using in your
kitchen or whatever.
You're taking them from the top, guiding them through to
(24:06):
wherever you would like them toend.
Is that a product?
Is that just knowledge that youexist and you have offerings
for them?
It doesn't have to be like amassively complicated thing to
do.
It's literally just like howcan you get them from point A to
whatever point you want them toend at?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And typically like a real funnel.
Point A is very wide castingand you're trying to connect
with a larger audience that'swhere a lot of your traffic's
coming from and then you'renarrowing that down to just like
a real funnel, very narrow.
At the bottom you have a veryspecific subset of people that's
your audience that you'reconnecting with, that are
connecting with your education,investing in your education.
(24:45):
Yeah, no, that's great.
That's great.
I love that.
Now you've done something thatI think is absolutely brilliant.
A few years ago you saw andyou've kind of alluded this a
couple times already you sawthis need within the education
space.
You saw man, just like there'sa lot of photographers that take
great photos but have no ideahow to run a business, which is
a lot of the heart behind.
(25:05):
Why we started this podcast wasbecause it's like you know, we
talk about it like in terms ofworking out.
Like you've got a person thatgoes to the gym and only works
out one arm and leaves the othertotally unaddressed, and then
they get one arm that's likeswole, you know all the ripped
muscles and the others just likeflimsy, wimpy and that's the
business arm for a lot ofphotographers.
You saw the same thing in theeducation space.
You saw some really talentededucators with really great
(25:28):
messages, really great hearts,really great potential to earn
revenue through their educationand yet they didn't know how to
build up that other side of itthat you were talking about,
that the mechanical piece there,the funnels, the back end of
things, the all the peripheralstuff that goes beyond just the
message.
Help me understand.
(25:48):
How did you discover this?
What brought this onto yourradar and then what does it look
like for you to start helpingaddress that over these past few
years?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, I mean, I think honestly for me, this is just
my unfiltered.
This is lately unfiltered again.
I was going.
I always believe so strongly ininvesting in your own education
and I was doing that.
So I was showing up as aphotographer to photography
conferences from like day one ofmy career ten years ago, when I
started my business.
I was showing up wherever Icould.
(26:20):
Even if it wasn't like the bestfit, I would still go.
I would invest my money in mytime and I would go.
And I, from day one, when I wasa part-time photographer and
full-time educator, I was like,wow, this education is awful for
not all of it, not all of it, IGotta say it, you know it
(26:40):
wasn't all of it, and and what Irealized because I'm able to
see this and this is somethingthat I thought kind of everybody
saw, but I guess I was wrong Um, I could see that it wasn't
awful because the educators werebad at what they did.
They weren't, it's just thatthey were.
I make this, I make thisDifferentiation a lot within my
creative educator Academy of hey, you need to decide Do you want
(27:03):
to be a professional speaker ordo you want to be a
professional who speaks on theirprofession?
There is a huge differencethere, in my opinion, and so
what I was seeing at theseconferences were phenomenal
Photographers who were nottrained educators.
And so what happens when youhave that?
You have messy messages, youhave messy education, you have
(27:26):
lackluster Transformation thatnever actually hits the mark.
They're sharing what they thinksomebody needs to know in their
audience, but they don't reallyknow what the audience needs to
know, because how would they?
Nobody ever taught them to dothat.
And I started looking aroundand noticing like there's
nothing that's teaching thesepeople how to teach.
(27:47):
The online education space, thein-person Educate, the creative
education education space, inparticular, is not regulated
whatsoever.
There are no certificates.
There is nothing teaching youhow to do this thing.
And in fact, at that point intime a decade ago, the educators
, the speakers, the people onstages they were gatekeeping
(28:08):
every bit of what they needed toget to those stages, like they
weren't gonna help you figureout how they got.
They got to where they are interms of education now.
They were there to sell you onhow they got to where they were
as photographers, but theyweren't about to hold your hand
and take you through.
Hey, how did I get thisaudience?
How did I get on this stage?
How did I get selected to speak?
(28:28):
How did I sell millions ofdollars worth of courses?
They're not talking you throughthat.
At the time and I startedrealizing like I Want to help
these people, these people onthe stages who have brilliant
minds and amazing Skillsets butthey just don't know how to
actually teach the thing youknow.
And I mean, even if they couldfigure out the funnels, even if
they could figure out the courseplatforms, even if they could
(28:50):
figure out the tech in themarketing, their Messages were
messy and I wanted to help them,kind of like, create those
transformations.
At my conference I always tellI have a conference for creative
educators, and I talk about theripple effect.
It's like part of our brand,it's like an image of these
ripples, and I wanted to createthat ripple effect for people of
I can help you Learn how tohelp your community and then,
(29:13):
when you're helping yourcommunity, they're going out and
helping their communities, andso the beauty of that is that,
like I can visually seetransformations happening, you
know, worldwide, and and I thinkthat's kind of what motivated
me to get started Back in like2017, 2018, creating this and
then putting it out into theworld, and so it's just been.
(29:34):
That was kind of like thebackground of the origin story.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Wow.
So so you saw a bunch of peoplethat were doing something but
not showing people how to do it,and you're like man, I could
show people how to do it, I canhelp make that happen.
And and it's so funny because,like I think about conferences
I've attended and I remember Ishowed up at Show it's unite I
(30:01):
think I was at the last evershow it united and I remembered
as people were going up, Inoticed there was a consistent
quality of the peoplecommunicating from the stage.
And I come to find out later asI'm asking around, they had
invested in someone for thatconference guy named Mike that
was Educating and coaching allof those speakers and helping
(30:21):
them work on their talks.
And so as I went to otherconferences afterwards, I was
like wow, there's a radicaldifference in the Consistency
and the quality of thecommunication from the stage
when you make that investment.
So I that's why I think whatyou're doing with this is so
Brilliant, because it's like oneof my buddies always talks
(30:42):
about the gold rush of like whatit was 1848 or something.
It's like you know, everybodywas trying to go strike rich and
hit gold.
Some people did, some peopledidn't, but the people that
consistently made money were thepeople selling the picks in the
axes, and You've basicallypositioned yourself as somebody
selling picks and axes whereit's like, hey, I want to help
the educators that are trying toeducate others.
(31:05):
You, you have gone and saidthere's nobody helping those
people.
Let's help make sure the peoplethat want to pursue this, that
want to go for gold, have thetools they need To to make that
effort and put their best footforward with that.
So you've been at this nowsince 2017.
You've got six years.
You've been doing this.
I'm curious, number one whathas this meant for you in your
(31:27):
business?
How has your businesstransformed over the past six
years?
Where did it start out and whatdoes it look like today?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, I think, honestly, the biggest shift for
me was that I I mean thishappened to me when I was
teaching as well and I startedin photography.
We are as humans, we havefinite time, right.
And so I think the biggestshift for me was that I
unintentionally had to decidelike, do I want to continue on
as a full-time photographer or,as my education gained traction
(31:57):
and there was a true need for itand people really were enjoying
it, do I want to just gofull-time into education?
And I, as I said before, we'recreatives were passionate.
You don't get into photographybecause you don't love
photography like.
You have to love it like it'sfun and it's beautiful and it's
a creative outlet.
And I didn't mention, but when Iwas teaching, I was also the
(32:17):
dance director, so it's finearts have always been a huge
part of what I do, so I neverwanted to give that up.
But that's probably been thebiggest shift is that I've had
to step back from it and now Ionly shoot basically for my like
Coaching clients.
I'll do brand sessions for themhere and there, I'll do like a
creative session for myself hereand there or for family.
But my photography hasdefinitely taken a backseat to
(32:40):
my education Over the past.
I mean every year more and moreand I, like I, retired from
weddings in 2019 and that wasjust a huge shift, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
One of my buddies always tells me like the life
you want will always cost youthe life you have, and I think
that's an important.
When you're talking about thatlike this is an important thing.
If you're a photographer andyou really love shooting, keep
in mind the life you're sayingyou want, with all this
education stuff, is going tocost you the life you currently
have of doing all these shoots.
You're not going to have thesame amount of time that you
(33:13):
have always had to do theseshoots.
So just because it is morerevenue potentially coming from
one angle, it's also going tomean less revenue in another
angle and less of something thatyou love.
So make sure that trade-off youknow another one of my friends
always talks about likeeverything you say yes to in
life Means less of somethingelse.
So make sure your yes is worththe less.
And it's like yeah, make suresaying yes to education is going
(33:34):
to be worth it for you to do.
And and that's gonna bedifferent for everybody some
people like yeah, I'm ready todo less shooting.
You know, like in your case,you're going, I'm ready to let
go of weddings, I'm ready to doless of these other things.
For some people it's like no, Ireally love shooting.
I don't know if I could let goof doing all these.
You know nights and weekendsthat I'm doing with stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you said that,
because, although my entire likeecosystem of my business is
helping people get intoeducation, I feel like I turn.
I turn people away from it justas much as I bring people into
it, because I want the peoplewho are Wanting to do education,
I want it to be fulfilling forthem.
And so just know, if you'relistening this and you're like
(34:14):
I'm just trying to be the bestphotographer, I can be, listen,
like, climb that ladder, like bethe best in your industry.
You know what I mean and youcan give back through education
Without having it be like a hugepart of your business.
If you want to help otherssucceed, you can do that and
still be a full-timephotographer, like you just have
to.
You just have to.
Not You've got to double downon one you know what I mean and
(34:35):
then let the other come as youhave the capacity for it now
You've talked about yourecosystem.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You've got these different offerings, these
different formats and structuresthat you have built over these
past six years for helpingeducate educators.
What does that look like?
What is the landscape of yourbusiness now?
What are the things you'reoffering and and how do these?
How does somebody know?
Is that for me?
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Honestly, it's insane .
I'm not gonna lie like I don'tknow.
I don't know how it got to thispoint.
I mean I do know how, but it's,I'm gonna tell you.
My offerings and education runthe gamut like I mean, I do
everything but I don't do it allat once.
This is literally my taglinefor all my students is you can
do everything, but you can't doeverything at once.
(35:19):
But at any point in timethroughout the year you'll find
some different type of offer.
So I do one-on-one coaching andmentoring, which is how this
all started.
I have online courses, I minicourses and my signature academy
for creative educators calledthe creative educator Academy,
which then spiraled into thecreative educator conference,
(35:41):
which is an annual conferencefor higher level entrepreneurs
who are also educators.
Um, I have a podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
So I want to pause you right here.
You have an annual conferencefor people that want to educate
others.
Yes, not, not an annualconference that's helping
photographers go and get better.
And as educating photographerswhich, you have, an annual
conference that educateseducators.
Yes, like our people talk to meabout this.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
It's.
I mean, it's my it's, it's.
We've only done this is oursecond one, so annual, for who
knows how long I'm gonna be realabout that, Cause it is a lot
of work.
But, um, I love it because itis the only place I've ever been
and, honestly, this is kind ofhow all of my stuff starts is
I'm like I would love this formyself.
Okay, I'll just create it.
(36:31):
I mean, who doesn't think thatway?
So I, I just have never beensomewhere where everybody in the
audience could very well be onthe stage and they are of the
same caliber.
And so the conversations you'rehaving with the people next to
you I mean I've got attendeeswho I'm fan of.
Like, I'm a huge fan of many ofmy attendees and when I see
their names coming throughregistration, I fan girl over
(36:53):
them and I'm like, how are theycoming to this?
This is insane.
Um, but that's why it's created, right Is?
I wanted a place for people tocome together and share
strategies and share real lifehardships but real life
successes, cheer each other onand also have high quality, high
level education, because mostpeople, after a few years,
you're going to start to go tothese events and you're going to
(37:15):
start.
I've heard I cannot count thenumber of times that I have said
and heard yeah, this was agreat conference.
I mean, I didn't really learnmuch, but I got great
connections, and blah, blah,blah.
I want people to learn a lotwhen they come to my conference.
Um and so because of that, Iwanted to create a space that
was for the more established,like a very well established
entrepreneur.
This is not for bennett, forbeginners.
(37:36):
It's people who know whatthey're doing and are already
offering education or startingto maybe pivot into different
types of education or whatever.
So I love that.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I think so much of that comes down to, like when
you're talking about man,creating the thing you want for
yourself.
I'm thinking like that's for mewhen I'm sitting here in this
studio space right now, where wewill invite other educators to
come in and record their courseswith us and take a lot of those
mechanical things you'retalking about, like when to
bring somebody in.
I was going, man, what if wecould eliminate thousands of
(38:06):
steps in the course recordingprocess for somebody by creating
a studio that you can walk inand have a blank canvas to sit
down.
You walk in with a dream, youwalk out with a course, our team
is shot and edited the wholething by the time you leave,
like I wanted that for me.
And then it's like, oh well,there's.
I start talking to othereducators, like, oh, there's
actually more than just me thatneeds this.
(38:28):
So I did something just becauseI knew it would be helpful for
my business to start out with.
And also, and I realized, man,there's a broader need out there
, seeing a lot of what you'reseeing, there are educators that
need something more.
They are trying to takesomething to another level and
you have a skill set and youhave a resource and you have a
heart to help bring them up andelevate them to that level
(38:48):
they're trying to reach.
I think it's amazing.
So, as we're starting to landthe plane here with some of this
stuff, I want to hit on a fewdifferent audiences, because you
got the people that are tryingto get in the space, trying to
break in, figure out is this forme?
How do I get started?
You got the people that are init and some are having some
success, some are struggling.
They're trying to figure outhow do I become the next Lele
(39:09):
Amati or the next whoever?
And then you got the peoplethat have seen consistent
success in their business andthey're trying to look to what's
next and look to where's thefuture of the space going.
So I want to hit on each ofthose three audiences, if we can
, and let's just start withthose folks that are just
getting started.
They're thinking about jumpingin.
Maybe they're feeling some ofthat overwhelm that you were
(39:30):
talking about earlier.
They're like this just seemslike a lot.
I like the idea, but I don'tknow where to start.
What are some practical firststeps for that person to help
get the ball rolling with theirpursuit of an education platform
?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I would say number one first and foremost, take
your time and understand that,as I mentioned before, education
is its own skill set.
So I always say, like people,always, you know they want to
know how much time is this goingto take?
And I'm like a good rule ofthumb and this is not always
going to be the case but a goodrule of thumb for the norm, not
for the exception, but for therule is give yourself the amount
(40:07):
of time it took you to perfectyour skills that you're trying
to teach on to become an experteducator.
If you're an expert in yourfield, give yourself that same
amount of time to become anexpert educator.
Step one.
And then step two is kind ofperfect your self-awareness over
everything else.
So make sure that you have thatyou're looking at things with
that self-aware eye of am Iactually able to like do this
(40:30):
thing and be patient withyourself and be kind to yourself
, because nothing happensovernight and it's it might be a
bumpy journey, but it's goingto be worth it in the end.
So I would say just kind ofgive yourself the time and the
patience and the grace toactually try something without
the pressure of expecting anovernight success.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well, and, as you're saying, some of that I'm also
it's reminded me.
You know you were talkingearlier about like, what is the
transformation you're promising?
And I'm imagining some of thatself-awareness needs to be
rooted in what is thetransformation that I'm going to
be promising the people so thatI can be aware of.
Can I actually deliver on thispromise to people, really
getting crystal clear on what isit I'm trying to help people to
(41:11):
do.
What about the folks that arealready in the education space
but they're struggling because Ifeel like this is a rapidly
growing audience size, which iswhat makes what you're doing so
perfect as a resource and a toolfor these people.
But you know, maybe it'ssomebody that the passive income
streams.
They're just not quite flowingwith all the abundance that they
(41:32):
thought would happen when theyhear other people's success
stories.
Or maybe they've got thiseducational offering, but
they're like, how do I get it infront of people?
Now?
What's your encouragement tothe person that's?
Or wisdom to the person that'sgot something?
But they're just feeling stuckin the mud right now.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
I think number one, my encouragement, is that you're
not alone and I don't know oneeducator, no matter how
successful they are, who hasn'thad a failed launch or launches
or some kind of offer that fellflat and they had to recalibrate
and reframe it and try again.
So that's my encouragement.
As far as like wisdom goes orany kind of advice, it would be
(42:12):
to really take the time to pickapart what it is that you've
done and see where the gaps are,see if maybe is this too
similar.
I mean, the thing is, one ofthe biggest fears of educators
is like everybody's alreadydoing this, okay.
So what is my answer to that?
It's how can you differentiateyourself?
So take a look at what you'redoing.
(42:32):
Have you differentiated youreducation enough?
Your delivery enough?
Are you just copy and pastingwhat you're seeing out in the
world already?
Can you make it unique in anyway?
And then, of course, this iswhat I say to everybody, no
matter what level you're atbring a coach in, bring an
expert eye in, hire a certainlike, get somebody in.
(42:53):
If you can afford to hiresomebody, great.
If you have a business bestie,great.
Have somebody.
Take a look at it with fresheyes and see like hey, be blunt
with me, be honest with me, liketear it apart, where do I need
to make this better?
And then try again, try again.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yep, you definitely.
You've got to have thick skinin the education space.
There's just not time.
That was one of the biggestshocks to me when I got into
education is there's justbecause I'm like a recovering
perfectionist and there's justnot time for that when you get
into education, because there'salways another thing coming.
It's like you've got to put itout there imperfect, incomplete,
learn from it, grow from it andmove on to the next thing,
(43:29):
because there's going to beanother launch coming or another
something coming and you've gotto be ready to just take the
feedback, take the lumps, takethe lessons along the way and
jump right back in.
I also love what you said aboutdifferentiation in there,
because, man, I remember when Iwas first doing my first course,
I did a flash course and it'slike, man, there's 50 flash
courses out there already andthere's also way better
(43:52):
educators than me.
I had that imposter syndromethat I feel like we all wrestle
with when we're starting out,you know, yeah, and I realized,
man, all these flash.
I've taken a lot of these flashcourses and I didn't like them,
because everybody used allthese fancy words and had to
know five syllable words to beable to pay attention to what
was going on in the course.
I'm just, I'm not that guy.
(44:14):
I'm no rocket scientist, Idon't have any PhDs.
I'm like man.
Three syllables are less if I'mgoing to learn it.
We got to keep this thingsimple.
It needs to be so simple.
My mom, who's in her 70s anddoesn't do technology, needs to
be able to learn flash that way,and so that was what I did.
I was like let's just do flashfor ordinary people.
You know the people that aren'tthe rocket scientists and and
(44:34):
we've been able to resonate andanytime I have somebody that's a
rocket scientist kind oflearner that tries to come in,
I'm like, look, this course isnot for you.
Like, we got plenty of greatpeople that are teaching rocket
science.
Flash over here and over here.
If you want flash for ordinarypeople, come talk to me.
Yeah, so the differentiation isa great way to really stand out,
even if a market feels likequote saturated or whatever.
(44:56):
I think that's great.
And then I guess, finally,lately, because you've got this
really unique vantage point,because, as the educator to
educators, you know how metathat idea is right you get to
pull up out of the weeds that somany of us are in with our
funnels and our email lists andour sequences and all these
things that we're doing, and youget to look at this industry
(45:17):
for more of like a 30,000 footview.
And so I'm curious when youlook at the state of the
industry today, you look back atthe past six years of where
it's been, where it's at todayand where it's heading.
What are a couple of theemerging trends?
You see that you think man,today's educator, really needs
to be mindful of this as you'rethinking About where your
business is headed next.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, I think number one is kind of what I call like
the quick shift.
So I'm seeing a lot of it's abit it's been a weird couple of
years in education.
Honestly, like a lot of mystudents, a lot of my clients
have had a hard time selling asmuch as they have sold in the
past or Reaching as many peopleas they have reached in the past
, and I mean the reasons forthat I think are really nuanced.
(45:58):
But I mean there's like stateof economy and you know, or are
people spending money or peoplearound, are they already getting
like an influx of educationfrom other places?
There's a lot of questions thatgo along with that.
But I think the misstep that afew of my clients have made and
we've since recalibrated hasbeen the quick shift of like
okay, well, I need to changeeverything right away, like, I
(46:19):
just need to, like I just needto add Something new, I just
need to do something new.
And sometimes that's true.
But sometimes it's like adecision you make out of out of
fear, of scar, of like, you know, having that scarcity mindset,
of Feeling like you've got to dosomething to make it work.
But what I see Work out formore people If they have the
(46:40):
ability to kind of like weatherthe storm is that consistency
usually pays off a lot more thana quick shift Will pay off.
So that's something that I'venoticed a lot of.
I think we're kind of in aweather the storm kind of front
in this past, in this past twoyears, and I think we're
starting to see things kind ofpick back up.
So that's exciting and I thinkthat just the feeling of is
(47:03):
there room for everyone?
I mean, truly I do believe thatthere is.
I think our world has a lot ofpeople in it and a lot of people
who don't know who you are, nomatter how big you are, no
matter how small you are, howbig your audience sizes or your
quote-unquote Followings or howsmall.
There are so many people whodon't know the people you know
and look up to, and there are somany people who haven't met you
(47:24):
yet.
So I think just using that,that mindset, will really help
you kind of show up consistentlyand show up without the fear of
a failure.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
No, that's so good.
I remember when I was breakinginto education, I had sent our
friend Jordan an email and I wasjust asking him all these
questions about you know whatthat looked like and just some
of the imposter syndrome that Ifelt.
And he said to me Rob, you'vegot a heart to help people.
I know you talked about some ofthat as you were getting
(47:57):
started here with this as well.
Said, as long as your heart isto help people, and that's your
aim You're never gonna be animposter a day in your life.
So don't worry about fearingfailure.
Get out there and help people.
There's billions and billionsof people to your point on this
planet.
Not all of them are gonnaresonate with everyone the same
way.
The, the person that connectswith you and your message may
(48:20):
not connect with me and mymessage.
The person connects with me andmy message may Not connect with
you and yours.
If you want to help people,help people.
Don't let your own fears andinsecurities hold you back.
I love that you have positionedthis creative educator
conference and you've got it.
When's the next one coming up?
Speaker 3 (48:38):
It's in January.
It's coming up so soon, january20th or are there tickets left?
There's a few.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, there's a few okay, so so if so, I'm just
curious because I'm going in.
If I'm Somebody who's not heardyou and I'm hearing all these
opportunities, I'm going wait,there's somebody that educates
educators?
I would think, hey, I need tocheck out this creative educator
conference, see what it's about.
So how does somebody keep intouch with you?
If they want to continue thisconversation, if they want to
(49:06):
jump into the creative educatorconference, if they want to jump
in on one of your work stuff?
It's like what?
How do people stay in touch?
Because I just I have a feelingPhotographers and educators
listening to this today aregonna go.
I Got to hear more from thisgirl.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Oh, my gosh.
Well, first of all, I hang outon Instagram, I'm on there at
Lely underscore and body.
But, honestly, if you want freeresources, if you want some
guidance in your journey, lelymoddycom, we've got a bunch of
free resources on there and youcan also find the conference and
the academy and everything onthere as well.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
I will warn you guys, she likes cats.
I love you're gonna have to dealwith some cat posts.
Yeah, I'm a dog person.
I give her a hard time aboutthis all the time.
Just know you're, you'regetting into a cat person with
Lely.
It's gonna be a thing, andwe'll link to all of this in our
show notes as well.
So you guys, if you're like,how do you spell Lely?
(49:57):
Well, we'll have all that inthe show notes so that you can
click over and link to that aswell.
But, lely, thank you so much forspending some time today with
us just helping us understandhow this education space works.
I am a huge believer that whatyou are doing is Absolutely
raising the tide, not just foreducators but, like you talked
about that ripple effect, asyou're raising the tide for
(50:19):
educators, you're allowing allof us to raise the tide for our
audiences as well.
So thank you for what you'redoing.
It is making a huge impact onthis industry Y'all.
Isn't she fun Like I.
Just you cannot be around LelyAmati, and not laugh and not
walk away.
So inspired, so encouraged.
She's just got so, so manythings she knows and is
(50:41):
passionate about.
That just will light a fireunder you.
So I hope, if you are on thefence about doing this education
thing.
I hope you will take what shehas said to heart.
I hope you will jump in andgrab one of those remaining
tickets to her creative educatorconference coming up in January
.
Like I mentioned, we will havelinks to that in the show notes
for this episode.
(51:02):
I'll also put a link in thoseshow notes for our course
creation accelerator.
You heard me talking about howwe record courses for other
educators.
We had just this past year wedid about a half dozen courses
for other educators where theycome in.
We have everything set up foryou to be able to record your
content.
We help you, guide you, coachyou through the process.
(51:24):
We edit everything while youare in there in the studio.
You're recording module two.
We're editing module one sothat when you leave you've
literally walked into this spacewith a dream and when you leave
you walk out with your courseready to go upload it into your
course platform.
It's incredible.
So we'll have a link to thecourse creation accelerator as
well.
That's it for today's episode.
(51:45):
Next month we've got somethingthat I think is going to be
really beneficial for you,because I just walked through
some of it with my mastermindgroup and y'all watching their
eyes light up, watching thelight bulbs go off as we talked
through the topic of nextmonth's conversation.
It was just inspiring for me,and so I want to be able to
share it with all of you as well.
(52:06):
It's going to be three waysthat you can begin planning for
the year ahead to make sure nextyear's successes Happen on
purpose and not by accident, notby blind luck.
So thanks for tuning in folks.
Until next time, keep learning,keep loving and keep chasing
those dreams you were made foryou.
You're listening to the Bop the business of
photography podcast with RobGreen, a photographer to
contagiously positive clientsand fierce believer in building
people-focused businesses thatleave a lasting impact.
If you're an entrepreneur withdreams in your head, ideas in
your heart and passions burningdeep down in your soul, this is
the perfect place to be, becausethis is where dreams come to
(00:33):
thrive.
So are you ready to build yourbusiness while your clients and
make photo magic?
Here's your host, rob Green.
Speaker 2 (00:44):
Coming at you from DFW Texas.
You are listening to the Bop.
So happy to be back with you.
Friends.
Hope everyone had an incredibleThanksgiving, ate way too much
food, had way too much fun withfriends and family.
I know my crew.
We kind of do this.
I kind of just started thistradition of merging
Thanksgiving and Christmastogether because we don't always
(01:06):
get to see each other everyyear at both Thanksgiving and
Christmas.
So whenever we get the wholefamily together for Thanksgiving
, we just throw some Christmasfun in there.
We put the tree up, pass a fewgifts out.
We also do this thing calledthe Christmas Olympics.
This was just a fun littleseries of games we started that
are just really fun for thefamily and fun for the youngest
(01:27):
to the oldest.
Very, you know, like blowingcotton balls into cups off of
tables and dropping things offof second floor balconies down
into small cups below.
It was just an amazing time tohang out with the family, catch
up, share a few laughs, sharesome great food.
I hope your family and lovedones had an incredible
Thanksgiving as well.
(01:48):
Speaking of incredible, today'sinterview is going to be amazing
.
I cannot wait to share thisconversation with my friend
Laili and Madi.
This is for everyone who hasthought about getting into the
world of education.
I know in all the Facebookgroups I'm in right now there's
a lot of buzz right now amongstphotographers about this whole
(02:11):
idea of passive income andeducation and there's this sense
of like it almost feels like.
For some people, it's thisnatural next step that, hey, you
shoot for a little while andthen you do education because
that's what everybody else isdoing.
We're going to dive into allthis with Laili today and help
you figure out is this for me?
If it is for me, what do I needto be like, cultivating in
terms of skills and abilitiesand heart posture to be able to
(02:36):
break into education and do itwell?
So incredible interview linedup.
But before we bring Laili on, Iwant to share with you today's
bop bite.
Bop bites, for those of youthat are not familiar, are just
these little bite sized nuggetsof goodness that, if all you've
got is a few minutes in your caror on the way to work or school
, today I want you to be able totake away something actionable
(02:57):
for your business.
And so today's bop bite is thistomorrow's successes are
planned today.
Tomorrow's successes areplanned today.
What do I mean by that?
I mean you can be one of twopeople.
You can be somebody that lifejust happens to, or you can be
somebody that makes life happenfor you on purpose.
(03:20):
Everybody I know that hassucceeded has succeeded because
of prior preparations andplanning that they've put in.
Since we're talking abouteducation today, I'll just share
an example from my own journeyinto education.
My first course I ever createdis called the flash course.
It's a plain language versionof how to learn flash that
(03:43):
people can watch on a Wednesday,go shoot a wedding on a
Saturday and take the mostamazing flash photos they've
ever taken.
I recorded this course the dayour city was shutting down for
COVID back in 2020.
My roommate worked intelevision.
He gave me a heads up that themayor was going to be closing
(04:04):
down the city at midnight thatday, and they hadn't announced
it yet, but they were about to.
So I called up some friends andran into a natural light studio
in our area and dumped all ofmy flash knowledge onto camera
before the city shut down.
I could not have had all ofthis information organized and
(04:25):
ready to go if I had not been,for over a year, prepping and
planning live workshops to teachphotographers how to shoot with
flash.
I had been working through thisprocess, answering their
questions, working out the kinksin my delivery of the teaching
of this content, making theseplans long before I ever knew
(04:47):
that COVID was going to be athing, certainly long before I
ever knew that the mayor wasgoing to shut down our city for
a couple months.
But because of the planningthat I had done, I was ready for
the success that would sooncome.
But the story keeps goingbecause, once everything was
recorded, I still had to figureout how to organize it, edit it
(05:07):
all down, get it uploaded into acourse hosting platform.
I had to figure out things likehow do I grow an email list?
I don't even have an email list.
There was so much planning thatwent into this that, even
though I recorded the course inMarch, I mean we were doing
months of beta testing, gettingmore feedback from people,
(05:28):
letting people in at discountedprices to give us their feedback
on the course, then going backand re-recording at home some
additional content to round outeverything that went into this
course.
And then, finally, in Novemberof 2020, I was able to release
the flash course, and that weekalone, in our very first launch
(05:50):
of the flash course, wegenerated over $12,000 in
revenue.
That day's success was plannedover months prior.
The $12,000 part sounds great.
Who doesn't want that?
That's the part people hearabout when they hear about
education, when they hear aboutpassive income.
But what you don't hear aboutis the planning, the months of
(06:15):
work that went up to that momentand y'all.
Whether you want to break intoeducation or you just want to
keep being a really amazingphotographer that takes killer
photos, the success you'relooking for tomorrow, the
success you're going toexperience tomorrow, is
predicated on the planning andpreparation you put in today.
(06:36):
So take time today to startlooking at your calendar, to
start looking at your budget, tostart looking at your marketing
plan, to start forming a gameplan for the things that you
want to achieve in the yearahead, and start taking baby
steps towards those goals,towards those dreams, today,
because tomorrow's successes areplanned today.
(06:58):
I'm going to get into this a tonmore in next month's episode,
but we've got an amazinginterview for you today with
Leila Madi coming right up afterthe break.
You know what no photographerever asks how can I make less
money?
As small business owners, we'realways looking to make just a
little bit more, and most of usjust need someone to show us how
(07:20):
.
What if I told you college andsorority photography could give
you not one, not two, butseventeen different ways to make
more money in the months ahead.
To download my free guide,visit square8studiocom.
Slash 17ways today.
Welcome back On today's episode.
(07:40):
We're going to talk about howto dive in and thrive in
education.
When I started mapping out mydream guest for season two, I
knew the guest for today's showhad to be someone special,
someone who not only had a heartfor educating others and had
done so successfully, butsomeone who was willing to go
one step further and become aneducator to educators.
(08:01):
That qualification alone reallykind of narrowed my list pretty
tremendously.
But then you know, we lovebringing guests on the bop who
are incredible people first andforemost, and today's guest
ticks that box big time.
We've met on a few differentoccasions now and I have
instantly admired her unfilteredspirit and humor, her deep
rooted passion and her heart forhelping others grow and succeed
(08:23):
.
And when I asked one of herbesties, hope Taylor, what she
loved most about Lailia Madi, Iknew she would be the perfect
guest for this episode.
Hope said.
I've been lucky to call Lailia afriend for over eight years and
the reasons to love her areendless.
She's undeniably wise,passionate about her people,
fiercely speaks about herpassions and is the biggest
(08:44):
cheerleader I know.
She's always ready and willingto be a listening ear on a bad
day, a sounding board for a newidea or make you cry from
laughter if you just need asmile.
She's one of the greatest andyou guys are lucky to hear from
her.
Wow, what an endorsement y'allLely.
Welcome to the bop.
How are you friend?
Speaker 3 (09:04):
Oh my gosh, thank you so much for having me.
I'm tearing up over here, butI'm good.
Speaker 2 (09:09):
Oh my goodness, how long you all been friends now.
Speaker 3 (09:13):
Oh gosh, like over eight years at this point.
Speaker 2 (09:15):
Eight years of friendship Give us a funny story
that when Hope is listening tothis, she's gonna be like, oh my
gosh, she did not just go there.
Speaker 3 (09:23):
Well, I can say this I don't know how fun, I don't
know like a specific story I canshare, really, but the anecdote
that I'll share is that when wemet, I was teaching high school
and she was either in highschool or just left high, like I
could have been her high schoolteacher.
And since then since then wehave had a great time together,
(09:44):
but it's like one of thosethings that I'm like one of my
best friends.
I could have been her highschool teacher and that, to me,
is a little insane.
Speaker 2 (09:52):
That is wild.
Wow, I would love to know,because you and I we've chatted
several times now, but I feellike you're gonna be new for a
lot of our audience.
There's a lot still I'mlearning about your story.
Everything I learned about youis so fascinating.
But give us a quick rundown.
What is the Laelia Madi story?
How did you wind up in theeducation space?
Cause you actually you didn'tjust jump right in starting as
(10:13):
the education role you haveright now.
You did some other things first, right?
Speaker 3 (10:16):
Yeah, absolutely.
I mean my listen.
I'll give you the quick rundownbecause it was a long journey,
like it's definitely notsomething that happened
overnight.
But I actually started in thisindustry as a photographer, like
yourself, and at the same timeI was a high school teacher and
curriculum designer for ourdistrict, and so basically I it
(10:37):
was a very full circle journey.
For me, it was a really naturalprogression to go from
education full time with theside gig of photography to
photography with a side gig ofeducation, to now helping other
creative educators learn how toteach their craft and teach
their skillset and createtransformations for their own
(10:58):
students.
And so education's always beena part of my journey.
It's just been in differentformats.
Speaker 2 (11:04):
That's cool and I know in the education space,
especially the online educationspace, you can't talk about that
with also also hearing thisphrase passive income.
I know especially photographerslove talking about passive
income.
In recent years, you know it'slike I need to get more passive
income or I need to figure outhow to start generating passive
income in my business.
(11:24):
So first off, for those thatthat's a new term or maybe it's
a vague term and they don'tquite get it like, can you help
us define what passive incomeactually is and then maybe help
us understand, like, what aresome of the misconceptions?
Cause I hear a lot ofmisconceptions out there when it
comes to passive income.
Speaker 3 (11:41):
Yeah, I mean I think passive income is it's kind of
what it sounds like, with a fewcaveats of you're creating
revenue streams within yourbusiness where you're not having
to kind of trade money for timeor you're not having to be
hands on 100% of the time.
The caveat there is that nothingis truly passive in the world.
I mean there will become apoint where sometimes that the
(12:04):
work that you put in on thefront end is making you money
throughout time periods whereyou're not constantly having to
update or be hands on about it,but you are having to do certain
parts of the business to keepthat passive income generating
money for you.
So there are so many differentexamples of passive income, but
(12:24):
some of the misconceptions thatyou were asking about that I see
are one that passive income hasto be educational or education
based.
It absolutely does not.
In fact, I think a lot ofphotographers leave a lot of
passive income opportunities onthe table because they don't
quite understand that it doesn'thave to be education.
It can just fit so well intowhat you're already doing.
(12:44):
Another, I think, misconceptionis kind of what I had already
said about it being 100% passive.
I don't think anything is 100%passive, 100% at the time.
Speaker 2 (12:53):
There's no free money out there.
Speaker 3 (12:55):
No, I know it's shocking.
It's shocking information.
Speaker 2 (13:00):
Oh man.
Well, obviously, like you said,it's not always education.
There are things, especiallyfor photographers, that you get
left on the table.
But I know online education isthis booming like multi-billion
dollar year industry and withthat comes a lot of growth, a
lot of change.
Things are always.
People are trying new ideas,innovating with certain things.
(13:20):
Can you kind of walk us through, just so people understand
what's out there that arethinking about getting into
education, like, what are someof those most common formats
that online education takes theform of and what are the ones
that you really see like theseare working in today's market?
Speaker 3 (13:38):
Yeah, I mean there's again.
Possibilities are endless here,but the main formats that I see
and that I teach on are onlinecourses.
Obviously, first and foremost Ithink that is what we've seen
such a boom around for the pastcouple of years is online
courses.
Online education memberships,digital products are another way
and those are kind of a gateway, I guess, into like passive
(14:00):
income for educators, if we'refocusing on that.
And then there's obviouslythings like summits and events,
and these can be virtual, onlineor in person conferences,
retreats, workshops.
Those have been around from thedawn of time.
Mentoring or coaching is more,I think, more popular to call it
coaching now.
(14:21):
But I'm one and the sameMentoring and coaching,
one-on-one education, basicallylike really hands-on, and then
small groups like masterminds.
Those have grown in popularityover the past few years.
It's funny.
I remember like when I launchedmy first mastermind was years
before, like it wasn't huge andpopular, and now the word
mastermind is thrown around tomean so many things, whether
(14:43):
people are actually talkingabout group coaching or actual
masterminds or whatever.
So there's group coaching,there's masterminds, small group
and then speaking, which Ithink again it's kind of like
taking on a life of its own inour industry, where speaking is
not just speaking on stagesanymore, it's speaking virtually
, it's speaking on your socialmedia, it's speaking through
(15:04):
podcasting, through YouTube.
So utilizing speaking to gainvisibility, I think, is even
more prevalent for allentrepreneurs, not just
educators, but it's definitely ahuge platform for education.
Speaker 2 (15:17):
Very cool and, as you're saying that, I'm thinking
, okay, online courses.
You've got masterminds.
You've got group coaching.
You've got these high levelone-on-one things you're talking
about.
You've got memberships, more oflike a recurring lower ticket
thing.
You've got I think youmentioned summits, other
(15:38):
speaking opportunities.
Then you've got the more likemicro-level speaking
opportunities.
There's a lot of differentthings and opportunities there.
There's also I feel like youjust rattled off things that
require a lot more skills thanjust how to take a great photo.
So let's start with, just likefrom a heart level and from just
like an organic personalitylevel here, what in your mind
(15:59):
makes someone a great potentialeducator?
Not necessarily like the skillsside of it, just yeah, we'll
get there.
But if someone's looking attheir life and they're looking
at their business and they'retrying to figure out, am I
someone where education would bea good fit for me to explore?
Adding this, what are some ofthose qualities that great
educators just kind of bubbleout of themselves, that like
(16:23):
it's just who they are?
Speaker 3 (16:25):
Yeah, I love this question because I feel like
there is this overwhelm when youhear the list I just rattled
off of, like how can I ever doall those things?
But they're learned skills,like you mentioned.
But if you're listening to thisand you're kind of in a place
of deciding like is this for me,I kind of feel drawn to it in
some way.
I have kind of a twofold answer.
(16:46):
And you mentioned, youmentioned in my intro that I'm a
little unfiltered, so you'regonna get what you're gonna get,
but here we go.
So one.
There is the heart side of it.
So a lot of creatives ingeneral, we're compassionate and
we're passionate.
We care so much about what wedo.
We care about people.
We wanna help them succeed, andso if you are starting to feel
(17:08):
like, wow, I am actually doingreally well at this first thing
that I do, let's usingphotography as the example.
So I'm feeling really confidentin my skills as a photographer.
I can see that this isimpacting my life so, so well,
and I feel really drawn to helpother people experience that
(17:28):
same success, the same freedoms,the same amazing things that
I'm able to now provide for myfamily and my friends, and all
the things, and you're wantingto kind of share that gift with
others.
That's your first indicatorthat education in some format
might be great for you.
Now here's the unfiltered part.
Some people don't feel that way.
Some people are just reallygood at what they do and they
(17:50):
really want some extra income.
Education also might be for you.
I mean and again like that'skind of the unpopular way to
approach it but I really,especially as a woman in this
industry, I feel like it'sreally important to say that
there is nothing negative aboutbeing motivated by financial
gain and financial, you knowwealth and building your wealth
and helping your family succeedand being a really positive
(18:14):
contributor to your family andto your community as well.
I don't think there's anythingnegative about that, so I wanted
to put that out there too, Forthose of you who are listening
and you're like well, I'm notreally like down to sit around a
fireside and play guitar forpeople, but I really am good at
what I do and I know I can helppeople succeed and I really
would love an additional revenuestream.
(18:35):
Yeah, education might be foryou too.
Speaker 2 (18:38):
Totally the thing that, as you're saying that I'm
going, yeah, like I don't have aproblem with somebody wanting
to earn additional income, Ithink that's great.
But I thought it was interestingbecause, even as you're
describing that you're going, atthe end of the day that person
too still does have a desire tohelp.
If you're trying, from what I'veseen, the amount of work that
goes into this and you couldprobably attest to better I
can't get at your level, butlike the amount of work that
(19:01):
goes into education to get thosepassive income streams going is
so great that if your onlymotivation is trying to add
money, you're probably going toat some point see the like
mountain of work involved withit and go, ah, maybe there's
another way.
But if at the underneath thatdesire for earning additional
(19:23):
income for your family is alsothis desire to help people, that
can be like what pushes youthrough some of those like long
nights where you're up likeoutlighting courses or mapping
out strategies for things orwriting out email sequences and
you're like really.
But then you start thinkingabout okay, but one, this is
going to put food on the platefor my family and help me
support my family.
(19:43):
It's also going to help a lotof other people do the same for
their families.
Then it's like, okay, I'll losea little sleep for that.
Yeah absolutely.
Oh man.
So that's kind of the likeunderlying element of things.
What about, though, thoseskills we talked about, how
there's all these skills thatstart bubbling out when you talk
(20:04):
about all those opportunitiesfor coaching.
What are some of those skillsthat you know if somebody's
ticking all those boxes and it'slike I'm going to go for it?
When you look at people thatare thriving in the education
space, what are the skills thatthey are working on and
developing and refining andimproving or building in that
(20:25):
didn't exist?
To start out, with things thatyou can acquire as you go, that
you just see like as a commonthread running through a lot of
the successful people out there.
Speaker 3 (20:34):
Yeah, I think there's like two sides of the skill
sets around online education.
One is the actual educationitself and that, in my
perspective, is the mostimportant aspect.
The tech, the building thingsout, that's kind of the other
side.
The funnels, the sales, the,you know, the copy, the
marketing, that's all the otherside.
(20:55):
So it's similar to yourservice-based business of
photography, of like, okay, well, I have to have the craft first
, like my work has to be there.
The work has to be good, it hasto be excellent, and then I can
market and bring in clients andcharge them more and do all the
things.
So the skill sets that you'regoing to want to grow are on
both sides.
But I always suggest and that'syou know, that's why I started
(21:17):
my academy several years ago isthere's just like no one really
teaching.
That it's kind of hard.
I feel like a lot of people whoare naturally gifted at teaching
have this advantage over peoplewho maybe have amazing skills
to share but they don't have anatural ability to teach.
It's a skill set, just likeanything else, and it needs time
to grow and to be cultivatedand to be perfected over time.
(21:39):
And so I always suggest startwith the education side first
and making sure that you're ableto promise and deliver on the
transformations that you'retelling people that you're able
to create for them.
So the actual skill of teachingis number one, and then, of
course, learning how totechnically deliver these things
.
So, whether it like, let's say,it's a course figuring out the
(22:02):
course platform you want to use,figuring out the marketing, the
funnels, the copy, like youwere saying, like you're up at
midnight, you know, like writingemail copy, those are all.
All of that stuff kind of addsup.
And I would say also this is Ilike to think of this as a skill
, honestly, but it's it'sknowing when to bring in
external help versus when to tryto figure it out by yourself, I
(22:24):
think.
I think for a lot of us who areentrepreneurs, and who are
successful entrepreneurs, we'rea little type A, we're a little
possessive of our work.
We really want to be the onesto make it happen on our own and
we're scrappy and that'sbeautiful and that's wonderful.
But at a certain point you'relike, okay, I might need to tag
in an expert here and there.
Speaker 2 (22:44):
Absolutely yeah.
And there's the message.
It sounds like the core whatare you teaching, what are you
promising to be able to helppeople repeat what you've been
able to accomplish?
And then there's kind of themechanics of it as well, All
those nuts and bolts behind thescenes.
You said several things inthere that I think could be
potentially new terms foraudience.
I want to zero and on one tostart out funnels.
(23:06):
Talk to me about funnels.
What is a funnel?
Because I feel like that's aword that if you're a
photographer and you're thinkingabout this, you've probably
heard that word ping pongingaround in conversations or in
Facebook groups, but you're likeI don't know quite what it is
Explain to our audience.
What is a funnel?
Speaker 3 (23:21):
I feel like, in simplest terms, like if I'm just
going to like make it as userfriendly as possible, it's like
the steps that you take to getyour person who you want to work
with, from not knowing you atall, or from the top, from the
very very start, point A topoint like E or F you know what
I mean or like take them downyour road wherever you want to
(23:44):
take them.
It's like you're guiding themthrough communication, so like
an email funnel, for example.
Someone may not know you, orthey may know you generally, and
then they sign up to get emailsfrom you, right, and so you're
funneling them through.
Think about like an actualfunnel that you're using in your
kitchen or whatever.
You're taking them from the top, guiding them through to
(24:06):
wherever you would like them toend.
Is that a product?
Is that just knowledge that youexist and you have offerings
for them?
It doesn't have to be like amassively complicated thing to
do.
It's literally just like howcan you get them from point A to
whatever point you want them toend at?
Speaker 2 (24:23):
And typically like a real funnel.
Point A is very wide castingand you're trying to connect
with a larger audience that'swhere a lot of your traffic's
coming from and then you'renarrowing that down to just like
a real funnel, very narrow.
At the bottom you have a veryspecific subset of people that's
your audience that you'reconnecting with, that are
connecting with your education,investing in your education.
(24:45):
Yeah, no, that's great.
That's great.
I love that.
Now you've done something thatI think is absolutely brilliant.
A few years ago you saw andyou've kind of alluded this a
couple times already you sawthis need within the education
space.
You saw man, just like there'sa lot of photographers that take
great photos but have no ideahow to run a business, which is
a lot of the heart behind.
(25:05):
Why we started this podcast wasbecause it's like you know, we
talk about it like in terms ofworking out.
Like you've got a person thatgoes to the gym and only works
out one arm and leaves the othertotally unaddressed, and then
they get one arm that's likeswole, you know all the ripped
muscles and the others just likeflimsy, wimpy and that's the
business arm for a lot ofphotographers.
You saw the same thing in theeducation space.
You saw some really talentededucators with really great
(25:28):
messages, really great hearts,really great potential to earn
revenue through their educationand yet they didn't know how to
build up that other side of itthat you were talking about,
that the mechanical piece there,the funnels, the back end of
things, the all the peripheralstuff that goes beyond just the
message.
Help me understand.
(25:48):
How did you discover this?
What brought this onto yourradar and then what does it look
like for you to start helpingaddress that over these past few
years?
Speaker 3 (25:57):
Yeah, I mean, I think honestly for me, this is just
my unfiltered.
This is lately unfiltered again.
I was going.
I always believe so strongly ininvesting in your own education
and I was doing that.
So I was showing up as aphotographer to photography
conferences from like day one ofmy career ten years ago, when I
started my business.
I was showing up wherever Icould.
(26:20):
Even if it wasn't like the bestfit, I would still go.
I would invest my money in mytime and I would go.
And I, from day one, when I wasa part-time photographer and
full-time educator, I was like,wow, this education is awful for
not all of it, not all of it, IGotta say it, you know it
(26:40):
wasn't all of it, and and what Irealized because I'm able to
see this and this is somethingthat I thought kind of everybody
saw, but I guess I was wrong Um, I could see that it wasn't
awful because the educators werebad at what they did.
They weren't, it's just thatthey were.
I make this, I make thisDifferentiation a lot within my
creative educator Academy of hey, you need to decide Do you want
(27:03):
to be a professional speaker ordo you want to be a
professional who speaks on theirprofession?
There is a huge differencethere, in my opinion, and so
what I was seeing at theseconferences were phenomenal
Photographers who were nottrained educators.
And so what happens when youhave that?
You have messy messages, youhave messy education, you have
(27:26):
lackluster Transformation thatnever actually hits the mark.
They're sharing what they thinksomebody needs to know in their
audience, but they don't reallyknow what the audience needs to
know, because how would they?
Nobody ever taught them to dothat.
And I started looking aroundand noticing like there's
nothing that's teaching thesepeople how to teach.
(27:47):
The online education space, thein-person Educate, the creative
education education space, inparticular, is not regulated
whatsoever.
There are no certificates.
There is nothing teaching youhow to do this thing.
And in fact, at that point intime a decade ago, the educators
, the speakers, the people onstages they were gatekeeping
(28:08):
every bit of what they needed toget to those stages, like they
weren't gonna help you figureout how they got.
They got to where they are interms of education now.
They were there to sell you onhow they got to where they were
as photographers, but theyweren't about to hold your hand
and take you through.
Hey, how did I get thisaudience?
How did I get on this stage?
How did I get selected to speak?
(28:28):
How did I sell millions ofdollars worth of courses?
They're not talking you throughthat.
At the time and I startedrealizing like I Want to help
these people, these people onthe stages who have brilliant
minds and amazing Skillsets butthey just don't know how to
actually teach the thing youknow.
And I mean, even if they couldfigure out the funnels, even if
they could figure out the courseplatforms, even if they could
(28:50):
figure out the tech in themarketing, their Messages were
messy and I wanted to help them,kind of like, create those
transformations.
At my conference I always tellI have a conference for creative
educators, and I talk about theripple effect.
It's like part of our brand,it's like an image of these
ripples, and I wanted to createthat ripple effect for people of
I can help you Learn how tohelp your community and then,
(29:13):
when you're helping yourcommunity, they're going out and
helping their communities, andso the beauty of that is that,
like I can visually seetransformations happening, you
know, worldwide, and and I thinkthat's kind of what motivated
me to get started Back in like2017, 2018, creating this and
then putting it out into theworld, and so it's just been.
(29:34):
That was kind of like thebackground of the origin story.
Speaker 2 (29:38):
Wow.
So so you saw a bunch of peoplethat were doing something but
not showing people how to do it,and you're like man, I could
show people how to do it, I canhelp make that happen.
And and it's so funny because,like I think about conferences
I've attended and I remember Ishowed up at Show it's unite I
(30:01):
think I was at the last evershow it united and I remembered
as people were going up, Inoticed there was a consistent
quality of the peoplecommunicating from the stage.
And I come to find out later asI'm asking around, they had
invested in someone for thatconference guy named Mike that
was Educating and coaching allof those speakers and helping
(30:21):
them work on their talks.
And so as I went to otherconferences afterwards, I was
like wow, there's a radicaldifference in the Consistency
and the quality of thecommunication from the stage
when you make that investment.
So I that's why I think whatyou're doing with this is so
Brilliant, because it's like oneof my buddies always talks
(30:42):
about the gold rush of like whatit was 1848 or something.
It's like you know, everybodywas trying to go strike rich and
hit gold.
Some people did, some peopledidn't, but the people that
consistently made money were thepeople selling the picks in the
axes, and You've basicallypositioned yourself as somebody
selling picks and axes whereit's like, hey, I want to help
the educators that are trying toeducate others.
(31:05):
You, you have gone and saidthere's nobody helping those
people.
Let's help make sure the peoplethat want to pursue this, that
want to go for gold, have thetools they need To to make that
effort and put their best footforward with that.
So you've been at this nowsince 2017.
You've got six years.
You've been doing this.
I'm curious, number one whathas this meant for you in your
(31:27):
business?
How has your businesstransformed over the past six
years?
Where did it start out and whatdoes it look like today?
Speaker 3 (31:34):
Yeah, I think, honestly, the biggest shift for
me was that I I mean thishappened to me when I was
teaching as well and I startedin photography.
We are as humans, we havefinite time, right.
And so I think the biggestshift for me was that I
unintentionally had to decidelike, do I want to continue on
as a full-time photographer or,as my education gained traction
(31:57):
and there was a true need for itand people really were enjoying
it, do I want to just gofull-time into education?
And I, as I said before, we'recreatives were passionate.
You don't get into photographybecause you don't love
photography like.
You have to love it like it'sfun and it's beautiful and it's
a creative outlet.
And I didn't mention, but when Iwas teaching, I was also the
(32:17):
dance director, so it's finearts have always been a huge
part of what I do, so I neverwanted to give that up.
But that's probably been thebiggest shift is that I've had
to step back from it and now Ionly shoot basically for my like
Coaching clients.
I'll do brand sessions for themhere and there, I'll do like a
creative session for myself hereand there or for family.
But my photography hasdefinitely taken a backseat to
(32:40):
my education Over the past.
I mean every year more and moreand I, like I, retired from
weddings in 2019 and that wasjust a huge shift, absolutely.
Speaker 2 (32:51):
One of my buddies always tells me like the life
you want will always cost youthe life you have, and I think
that's an important.
When you're talking about thatlike this is an important thing.
If you're a photographer andyou really love shooting, keep
in mind the life you're sayingyou want, with all this
education stuff, is going tocost you the life you currently
have of doing all these shoots.
You're not going to have thesame amount of time that you
(33:13):
have always had to do theseshoots.
So just because it is morerevenue potentially coming from
one angle, it's also going tomean less revenue in another
angle and less of something thatyou love.
So make sure that trade-off youknow another one of my friends
always talks about likeeverything you say yes to in
life Means less of somethingelse.
So make sure your yes is worththe less.
And it's like yeah, make suresaying yes to education is going
(33:34):
to be worth it for you to do.
And and that's gonna bedifferent for everybody some
people like yeah, I'm ready todo less shooting.
You know, like in your case,you're going, I'm ready to let
go of weddings, I'm ready to doless of these other things.
For some people it's like no, Ireally love shooting.
I don't know if I could let goof doing all these.
You know nights and weekendsthat I'm doing with stuff.
Speaker 3 (33:53):
Yeah, absolutely, and I love that you said that,
because, although my entire likeecosystem of my business is
helping people get intoeducation, I feel like I turn.
I turn people away from it justas much as I bring people into
it, because I want the peoplewho are Wanting to do education,
I want it to be fulfilling forthem.
And so just know, if you'relistening this and you're like
(34:14):
I'm just trying to be the bestphotographer, I can be, listen,
like, climb that ladder, like bethe best in your industry.
You know what I mean and youcan give back through education
Without having it be like a hugepart of your business.
If you want to help otherssucceed, you can do that and
still be a full-timephotographer, like you just have
to.
You just have to.
Not You've got to double downon one you know what I mean and
(34:35):
then let the other come as youhave the capacity for it now
You've talked about yourecosystem.
Speaker 2 (34:41):
You've got these different offerings, these
different formats and structuresthat you have built over these
past six years for helpingeducate educators.
What does that look like?
What is the landscape of yourbusiness now?
What are the things you'reoffering and and how do these?
How does somebody know?
Is that for me?
Speaker 3 (34:59):
Honestly, it's insane .
I'm not gonna lie like I don'tknow.
I don't know how it got to thispoint.
I mean I do know how, but it's,I'm gonna tell you.
My offerings and education runthe gamut like I mean, I do
everything but I don't do it allat once.
This is literally my taglinefor all my students is you can
do everything, but you can't doeverything at once.
(35:19):
But at any point in timethroughout the year you'll find
some different type of offer.
So I do one-on-one coaching andmentoring, which is how this
all started.
I have online courses, I minicourses and my signature academy
for creative educators calledthe creative educator Academy,
which then spiraled into thecreative educator conference,
(35:41):
which is an annual conferencefor higher level entrepreneurs
who are also educators.
Um, I have a podcast.
Speaker 2 (35:50):
So I want to pause you right here.
You have an annual conferencefor people that want to educate
others.
Yes, not, not an annualconference that's helping
photographers go and get better.
And as educating photographerswhich, you have, an annual
conference that educateseducators.
Yes, like our people talk to meabout this.
Speaker 3 (36:11):
It's.
I mean, it's my it's, it's.
We've only done this is oursecond one, so annual, for who
knows how long I'm gonna be realabout that, Cause it is a lot
of work.
But, um, I love it because itis the only place I've ever been
and, honestly, this is kind ofhow all of my stuff starts is
I'm like I would love this formyself.
Okay, I'll just create it.
(36:31):
I mean, who doesn't think thatway?
So I, I just have never beensomewhere where everybody in the
audience could very well be onthe stage and they are of the
same caliber.
And so the conversations you'rehaving with the people next to
you I mean I've got attendeeswho I'm fan of.
Like, I'm a huge fan of many ofmy attendees and when I see
their names coming throughregistration, I fan girl over
(36:53):
them and I'm like, how are theycoming to this?
This is insane.
Um, but that's why it's created, right Is?
I wanted a place for people tocome together and share
strategies and share real lifehardships but real life
successes, cheer each other onand also have high quality, high
level education, because mostpeople, after a few years,
you're going to start to go tothese events and you're going to
(37:15):
start.
I've heard I cannot count thenumber of times that I have said
and heard yeah, this was agreat conference.
I mean, I didn't really learnmuch, but I got great
connections, and blah, blah,blah.
I want people to learn a lotwhen they come to my conference.
Um and so because of that, Iwanted to create a space that
was for the more established,like a very well established
entrepreneur.
This is not for bennett, forbeginners.
(37:36):
It's people who know whatthey're doing and are already
offering education or startingto maybe pivot into different
types of education or whatever.
So I love that.
Speaker 2 (37:46):
I think so much of that comes down to, like when
you're talking about man,creating the thing you want for
yourself.
I'm thinking like that's for mewhen I'm sitting here in this
studio space right now, where wewill invite other educators to
come in and record their courseswith us and take a lot of those
mechanical things you'retalking about, like when to
bring somebody in.
I was going, man, what if wecould eliminate thousands of
(38:06):
steps in the course recordingprocess for somebody by creating
a studio that you can walk inand have a blank canvas to sit
down.
You walk in with a dream, youwalk out with a course, our team
is shot and edited the wholething by the time you leave,
like I wanted that for me.
And then it's like, oh well,there's.
I start talking to othereducators, like, oh, there's
actually more than just me thatneeds this.
(38:28):
So I did something just becauseI knew it would be helpful for
my business to start out with.
And also, and I realized, man,there's a broader need out there
, seeing a lot of what you'reseeing, there are educators that
need something more.
They are trying to takesomething to another level and
you have a skill set and youhave a resource and you have a
heart to help bring them up andelevate them to that level
(38:48):
they're trying to reach.
I think it's amazing.
So, as we're starting to landthe plane here with some of this
stuff, I want to hit on a fewdifferent audiences, because you
got the people that are tryingto get in the space, trying to
break in, figure out is this forme?
How do I get started?
You got the people that are init and some are having some
success, some are struggling.
They're trying to figure outhow do I become the next Lele
(39:09):
Amati or the next whoever?
And then you got the peoplethat have seen consistent
success in their business andthey're trying to look to what's
next and look to where's thefuture of the space going.
So I want to hit on each ofthose three audiences, if we can
, and let's just start withthose folks that are just
getting started.
They're thinking about jumpingin.
Maybe they're feeling some ofthat overwhelm that you were
(39:30):
talking about earlier.
They're like this just seemslike a lot.
I like the idea, but I don'tknow where to start.
What are some practical firststeps for that person to help
get the ball rolling with theirpursuit of an education platform
?
Speaker 3 (39:44):
I would say number one first and foremost, take
your time and understand that,as I mentioned before, education
is its own skill set.
So I always say, like people,always, you know they want to
know how much time is this goingto take?
And I'm like a good rule ofthumb and this is not always
going to be the case but a goodrule of thumb for the norm, not
for the exception, but for therule is give yourself the amount
(40:07):
of time it took you to perfectyour skills that you're trying
to teach on to become an experteducator.
If you're an expert in yourfield, give yourself that same
amount of time to become anexpert educator.
Step one.
And then step two is kind ofperfect your self-awareness over
everything else.
So make sure that you have thatyou're looking at things with
that self-aware eye of am Iactually able to like do this
(40:30):
thing and be patient withyourself and be kind to yourself
, because nothing happensovernight and it's it might be a
bumpy journey, but it's goingto be worth it in the end.
So I would say just kind ofgive yourself the time and the
patience and the grace toactually try something without
the pressure of expecting anovernight success.
Speaker 2 (40:50):
Well, and, as you're saying, some of that I'm also
it's reminded me.
You know you were talkingearlier about like, what is the
transformation you're promising?
And I'm imagining some of thatself-awareness needs to be
rooted in what is thetransformation that I'm going to
be promising the people so thatI can be aware of.
Can I actually deliver on thispromise to people, really
getting crystal clear on what isit I'm trying to help people to
(41:11):
do.
What about the folks that arealready in the education space
but they're struggling because Ifeel like this is a rapidly
growing audience size, which iswhat makes what you're doing so
perfect as a resource and a toolfor these people.
But you know, maybe it'ssomebody that the passive income
streams.
They're just not quite flowingwith all the abundance that they
(41:32):
thought would happen when theyhear other people's success
stories.
Or maybe they've got thiseducational offering, but
they're like, how do I get it infront of people?
Now?
What's your encouragement tothe person that's?
Or wisdom to the person that'sgot something?
But they're just feeling stuckin the mud right now.
Speaker 3 (41:49):
I think number one, my encouragement, is that you're
not alone and I don't know oneeducator, no matter how
successful they are, who hasn'thad a failed launch or launches
or some kind of offer that fellflat and they had to recalibrate
and reframe it and try again.
So that's my encouragement.
As far as like wisdom goes orany kind of advice, it would be
(42:12):
to really take the time to pickapart what it is that you've
done and see where the gaps are,see if maybe is this too
similar.
I mean, the thing is, one ofthe biggest fears of educators
is like everybody's alreadydoing this, okay.
So what is my answer to that?
It's how can you differentiateyourself?
So take a look at what you'redoing.
(42:32):
Have you differentiated youreducation enough?
Your delivery enough?
Are you just copy and pastingwhat you're seeing out in the
world already?
Can you make it unique in anyway?
And then, of course, this iswhat I say to everybody, no
matter what level you're atbring a coach in, bring an
expert eye in, hire a certainlike, get somebody in.
(42:53):
If you can afford to hiresomebody, great.
If you have a business bestie,great.
Have somebody.
Take a look at it with fresheyes and see like hey, be blunt
with me, be honest with me, liketear it apart, where do I need
to make this better?
And then try again, try again.
Speaker 2 (43:08):
Yep, you definitely.
You've got to have thick skinin the education space.
There's just not time.
That was one of the biggestshocks to me when I got into
education is there's justbecause I'm like a recovering
perfectionist and there's justnot time for that when you get
into education, because there'salways another thing coming.
It's like you've got to put itout there imperfect, incomplete,
learn from it, grow from it andmove on to the next thing,
(43:29):
because there's going to beanother launch coming or another
something coming and you've gotto be ready to just take the
feedback, take the lumps, takethe lessons along the way and
jump right back in.
I also love what you said aboutdifferentiation in there,
because, man, I remember when Iwas first doing my first course,
I did a flash course and it'slike, man, there's 50 flash
courses out there already andthere's also way better
(43:52):
educators than me.
I had that imposter syndromethat I feel like we all wrestle
with when we're starting out,you know, yeah, and I realized,
man, all these flash.
I've taken a lot of these flashcourses and I didn't like them,
because everybody used allthese fancy words and had to
know five syllable words to beable to pay attention to what
was going on in the course.
I'm just, I'm not that guy.
(44:14):
I'm no rocket scientist, Idon't have any PhDs.
I'm like man.
Three syllables are less if I'mgoing to learn it.
We got to keep this thingsimple.
It needs to be so simple.
My mom, who's in her 70s anddoesn't do technology, needs to
be able to learn flash that way,and so that was what I did.
I was like let's just do flashfor ordinary people.
You know the people that aren'tthe rocket scientists and and
(44:34):
we've been able to resonate andanytime I have somebody that's a
rocket scientist kind oflearner that tries to come in,
I'm like, look, this course isnot for you.
Like, we got plenty of greatpeople that are teaching rocket
science.
Flash over here and over here.
If you want flash for ordinarypeople, come talk to me.
Yeah, so the differentiation isa great way to really stand out,
even if a market feels likequote saturated or whatever.
(44:56):
I think that's great.
And then I guess, finally,lately, because you've got this
really unique vantage point,because, as the educator to
educators, you know how metathat idea is right you get to
pull up out of the weeds that somany of us are in with our
funnels and our email lists andour sequences and all these
things that we're doing, and youget to look at this industry
(45:17):
for more of like a 30,000 footview.
And so I'm curious when youlook at the state of the
industry today, you look back atthe past six years of where
it's been, where it's at todayand where it's heading.
What are a couple of theemerging trends?
You see that you think man,today's educator, really needs
to be mindful of this as you'rethinking About where your
business is headed next.
Speaker 3 (45:38):
Yeah, I think number one is kind of what I call like
the quick shift.
So I'm seeing a lot of it's abit it's been a weird couple of
years in education.
Honestly, like a lot of mystudents, a lot of my clients
have had a hard time selling asmuch as they have sold in the
past or Reaching as many peopleas they have reached in the past
, and I mean the reasons forthat I think are really nuanced.
(45:58):
But I mean there's like stateof economy and you know, or are
people spending money or peoplearound, are they already getting
like an influx of educationfrom other places?
There's a lot of questions thatgo along with that.
But I think the misstep that afew of my clients have made and
we've since recalibrated hasbeen the quick shift of like
okay, well, I need to changeeverything right away, like, I
(46:19):
just need to, like I just needto add Something new, I just
need to do something new.
And sometimes that's true.
But sometimes it's like adecision you make out of out of
fear, of scar, of like, you know, having that scarcity mindset,
of Feeling like you've got to dosomething to make it work.
But what I see Work out formore people If they have the
(46:40):
ability to kind of like weatherthe storm is that consistency
usually pays off a lot more thana quick shift Will pay off.
So that's something that I'venoticed a lot of.
I think we're kind of in aweather the storm kind of front
in this past, in this past twoyears, and I think we're
starting to see things kind ofpick back up.
So that's exciting and I thinkthat just the feeling of is
(47:03):
there room for everyone?
I mean, truly I do believe thatthere is.
I think our world has a lot ofpeople in it and a lot of people
who don't know who you are, nomatter how big you are, no
matter how small you are, howbig your audience sizes or your
quote-unquote Followings or howsmall.
There are so many people whodon't know the people you know
and look up to, and there are somany people who haven't met you
(47:24):
yet.
So I think just using that,that mindset, will really help
you kind of show up consistentlyand show up without the fear of
a failure.
Speaker 2 (47:35):
No, that's so good.
I remember when I was breakinginto education, I had sent our
friend Jordan an email and I wasjust asking him all these
questions about you know whatthat looked like and just some
of the imposter syndrome that Ifelt.
And he said to me Rob, you'vegot a heart to help people.
I know you talked about some ofthat as you were getting
(47:57):
started here with this as well.
Said, as long as your heart isto help people, and that's your
aim You're never gonna be animposter a day in your life.
So don't worry about fearingfailure.
Get out there and help people.
There's billions and billionsof people to your point on this
planet.
Not all of them are gonnaresonate with everyone the same
way.
The, the person that connectswith you and your message may
(48:20):
not connect with me and mymessage.
The person connects with me andmy message may Not connect with
you and yours.
If you want to help people,help people.
Don't let your own fears andinsecurities hold you back.
I love that you have positionedthis creative educator
conference and you've got it.
When's the next one coming up?
Speaker 3 (48:38):
It's in January.
It's coming up so soon, january20th or are there tickets left?
There's a few.
Speaker 2 (48:45):
Yeah, there's a few okay, so so if so, I'm just
curious because I'm going in.
If I'm Somebody who's not heardyou and I'm hearing all these
opportunities, I'm going wait,there's somebody that educates
educators?
I would think, hey, I need tocheck out this creative educator
conference, see what it's about.
So how does somebody keep intouch with you?
If they want to continue thisconversation, if they want to
(49:06):
jump into the creative educatorconference, if they want to jump
in on one of your work stuff?
It's like what?
How do people stay in touch?
Because I just I have a feelingPhotographers and educators
listening to this today aregonna go.
I Got to hear more from thisgirl.
Speaker 3 (49:18):
Oh, my gosh.
Well, first of all, I hang outon Instagram, I'm on there at
Lely underscore and body.
But, honestly, if you want freeresources, if you want some
guidance in your journey, lelymoddycom, we've got a bunch of
free resources on there and youcan also find the conference and
the academy and everything onthere as well.
Speaker 2 (49:36):
I will warn you guys, she likes cats.
I love you're gonna have to dealwith some cat posts.
Yeah, I'm a dog person.
I give her a hard time aboutthis all the time.
Just know you're, you'regetting into a cat person with
Lely.
It's gonna be a thing, andwe'll link to all of this in our
show notes as well.
So you guys, if you're like,how do you spell Lely?
(49:57):
Well, we'll have all that inthe show notes so that you can
click over and link to that aswell.
But, lely, thank you so much forspending some time today with
us just helping us understandhow this education space works.
I am a huge believer that whatyou are doing is Absolutely
raising the tide, not just foreducators but, like you talked
about that ripple effect, asyou're raising the tide for
(50:19):
educators, you're allowing allof us to raise the tide for our
audiences as well.
So thank you for what you'redoing.
It is making a huge impact onthis industry Y'all.
Isn't she fun Like I.
Just you cannot be around LelyAmati, and not laugh and not
walk away.
So inspired, so encouraged.
She's just got so, so manythings she knows and is
(50:41):
passionate about.
That just will light a fireunder you.
So I hope, if you are on thefence about doing this education
thing.
I hope you will take what shehas said to heart.
I hope you will jump in andgrab one of those remaining
tickets to her creative educatorconference coming up in January
.
Like I mentioned, we will havelinks to that in the show notes
for this episode.
(51:02):
I'll also put a link in thoseshow notes for our course
creation accelerator.
You heard me talking about howwe record courses for other
educators.
We had just this past year wedid about a half dozen courses
for other educators where theycome in.
We have everything set up foryou to be able to record your
content.
We help you, guide you, coachyou through the process.
(51:24):
We edit everything while youare in there in the studio.
You're recording module two.
We're editing module one sothat when you leave you've
literally walked into this spacewith a dream and when you leave
you walk out with your courseready to go upload it into your
course platform.
It's incredible.
So we'll have a link to thecourse creation accelerator as
well.
That's it for today's episode.
(51:45):
Next month we've got somethingthat I think is going to be
really beneficial for you,because I just walked through
some of it with my mastermindgroup and y'all watching their
eyes light up, watching thelight bulbs go off as we talked
through the topic of nextmonth's conversation.
It was just inspiring for me,and so I want to be able to
share it with all of you as well.
(52:06):
It's going to be three waysthat you can begin planning for
the year ahead to make sure nextyear's successes Happen on
purpose and not by accident, notby blind luck.
So thanks for tuning in folks.
Until next time, keep learning,keep loving and keep chasing
those dreams you were made foryou.
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