Elizabeth Creighton - Scaling Your UX Consultancy: Newsletters, Courses, and Deliverables - The UX Consultants Lounge

Episode Transcript
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Kyle Soucy (00:15):
Welcome to the UX consultants lounge.
I'm Kyle Soucy, founder ofusable interface an independent
UX research consultancy.
You can find out more about mywork and the services I offer at
my website, usable interface.
com.
I'll be your host here at thelounge where I'll be providing a

(00:35):
place for UX consultants togather, share stories, and learn
more from one another.
My guest today is ElizabethCreighton.
She's the owner of Brazen, aconsultancy that specializes in
UX research services.
It was wonderful to talk withElizabeth because she has so
many things going on.

(00:56):
This was truly an interviewthat's just packed with a lot of
practical how to information.
We covered a lot of topics,including how to create a
newsletter, which Elizabeth hasdone, Back in May, and has over
600 subscribers, which isamazing.
So we discuss how important itis to have a newsletter and how

(01:17):
she's done it.
We also talked about creating anonline course for Maven.
Elizabeth has done this andshe's working on her third
cohort for Maven.
So we talked about how to fitthis into your client workload.
If you're interested in teachinga course and having possibly
another revenue stream andreally what student management

(01:38):
has been like for her.
Elizabeth also.
Talked with me about designing anew presentation template and
really how important it is forus to invest in our
deliverables.
And we had a good discussionaround whether or not we create
pitch decks or word docs for ourproposals.
And Elizabeth shared herexperience with hiring a

(01:59):
presentation designer.
Lastly, we talked aboutsomething a little bit more
personal.
What happens when you have topause your consulting practice?
Elizabeth and I are both mothersand we both took a maternity
break, which was quite scary todo and we talked about our
experience and what it's likewhen a consultant really has to

(02:22):
pause things and what it's liketo pick work back up again.
So let me tell you a little moreabout Elizabeth before getting
into the interview, uh, with 11years of experience conducting
impactful user research,Elizabeth has shaped the design
of all sorts of products,including websites, apps,
services, and physical products.

(02:44):
She's based in Toronto, Canada.
And frequently speaks on topicsrelated to UX at conferences and
events.
She also teaches courses in UXresearch methods for O'Reilly
media and Maven, which I justmentioned, which we talk a lot
about.
So let's get to the interview.
Please enjoy ElizabethCreighton.

(03:06):
All right.
Well, hi, Elizabeth.
Welcome to the UX consultantslounge.

Elizabeth Creighton (03:10):
Thank you so much.
I was so flattered that youinvited me to be on today.

Kyle Soucy (03:14):
Oh yeah, totally.
I love that we have anopportunity just to chat one on
one this morning.

Yeah, me too.
It's gonna be great.

Kyle Soucy (03:23):
I wanted to start with a very random question.
Would you say you're more of anearly bird or a night

Oh God.
Uh, definitely.
I'm naturally more of a nightowl.
But now that I have a two and ahalf year old, uh, she forces me
to get up, you know, relativelyearly.
When I do get up early.
I really enjoy it.
Like, I feel like I'm moreproductive in the morning.
Um, but if I were left to my owndevices and I didn't have a kid,
I would probably naturally wakeup at like nine to 10 AM or

(03:49):
something, but now it's morelike, six to 7 AM.
Uh, not by choice.

Kyle Soucy (03:54):
Totally.
My kids have ruined me when itcomes to my night owl routines
or my old night owl routines.
I used to stay up so late andbeing forced to wake up early.
Now I'm lucky if I can getthrough a movie, it's a miracle.

I know.
I feel the same way sometimes.
I feel like I aged 20 years, youknow, just by having a kid, but
that's okay.

Kyle Soucy (04:17):
Yeah.
And, you know, as independentconsultants, we have the luxury
of not having to punch in andpunch out at a certain time of
day, which is really nice.
And I'm curious, what are yourmorning routines like?
Do you have any rituals forstarting the workday?

That's a good question.
Um, not really, but it'ssomething I've been thinking
about a little bit.
I think part of it is that, myhusband and I usually kind of
decide on the fly in themorning, who's going to take our
daughter to preschool.
We're not really sure who's, whoneeds to shower, you know, who
needs to leave the house, thatsort of thing.
But then once I do come homefrom drop off or whatever, and I
have time to get started withwork, I, I mean, I always make
myself a big cup of tea and aparticular mug that I care about

(04:58):
a lot.
And usually the first things Ido are, uh, checking any
notifications that happened inthe morning before I got
started, usually Slack stuff oremail stuff.
Um, and then just kind of divingright in, but I know a lot of
people, it's very, like.
You know, founder mindset sortof thing to have kind of more of
a regimented routine and maybeget a workout in and, have a
journaling time or whatever, butI just haven't gotten there yet.

(05:20):
Maybe one day.

Kyle Soucy (05:22):
No, I have a routine.
it's regimented or in any waygeared towards work.
So I'm at the mercy of my kidstoo.
So I wake up before 6am onlybecause I have to get them ready
for school.
I would not wake up that earlyotherwise.
And I do, usually from 630 toeight, I have to get a workout
in.
And then I like to take my timeand as I'm eating breakfast, I'm

(05:47):
checking email, getting intoslack and all that.
But it's funny because unless Ihave a meeting, I am rarely
showered before 10 a.
m.

Um, yeah, that happens to me a lot too,
especially if I'm not the onebringing her into preschool,
like I'm, you know, still in mypajamas, maybe getting work
started at home in that case,which, which is fine.
But then ultimately, at somepoint, I do feel like I have to
shower.
And then that's kind of likeannoying to have to take a break
and go do that.
But, you know, important

Kyle Soucy (06:15):
It is.
It is.
It is so annoying to have tobreak and shower, like I,

have solved this by now.
Like there should be a way tojust have this done for me, you
know?

Kyle Soucy (06:26):
I've actually told him like, maybe I should wake up
at five, four, I'm like, no, no,that's crazy.
Oh, well, well, let's, get intoyour consultancy brazen.
I'd love for you to tell us alittle bit about brazen and the
services you offer.

Yeah.
So great.
So I've, uh, a very smallconsultancy called Brazen.
It's usually just me, butsometimes I bring in other
people as subcontractors to helpout.
You know, with larger projectsor with stuff that I'm not very
good at, like, for example, if Ihave to run research in a
different language, I mightbring someone in to help you
with that.
And so, yeah, I've been aroundfor seven years doing this or
rather this is my seventh year.

(07:05):
Um, and yeah, focus is justtotally on, on user research.
So I would say that, maybe like75 percent of the projects I do
these days are more likegenerative research and
foundational research.
A lot of like user interviewskind of based projects, um,
often for clients who have maybenever done a lot of research
before, never done any, and theyjust don't know anything about

(07:26):
their users.
And they need to kind of get asense of, you know, who their
users are, what they need, whythey even use their product in
the first place, and then helpthem make decisions about what
they could maybe be.
You know, creating next forthem.
And then the other maybe 25percent of my work is more
evaluative research.
So usability testing, sometimescard sorting, you know, surveys,
things like that, to help peoplekind of narrow in on a possible

(07:48):
solution to a problem and thenmaking sure that solution is
easier For people to use and,you know, enjoyable and all that
kind of good stuff.
So I have clients kind of allaround, I'm based in Canada.
So I'm based near Toronto.
Uh, so maybe around half myclients are Canadian.
Then the other half are mostlyAmerican, but, sometimes, in
other parts of the world aswell.

Kyle Soucy (08:07):
well.
you're the first non U.
S.
guest.

Oh, that's, that's exciting.
Yeah.
Exotic Canada up here.
Yeah.

Kyle Soucy (08:15):
So you are strictly a research gal like myself,

Totally.
Yeah.
A hundred percent research.

Kyle Soucy (08:21):
Okay.
And can you tell me a little bitabout the origin story of
brazen?

Yeah, for sure.
So, um, I first started thinkingabout starting my own business
when I was at my first UX job,actually, I was working at a, a
UX research consultancy calledCentralis in the Chicago area.
That was my first post gradschool, UX job.
And they were, you know, arelatively small consultancy,
uh, around, um, Like six toeight people at any given time.

(08:46):
And I remember working thereand, kind of doing these
projects for clients and beinglike, huh, like I bet, I could
kind of take on projects all onmy own eventually, once I kind
of get good at this and stuff.
And I kind of really, uh, likethe idea of one day starting my
own much smaller consultingbusiness, probably just me, or
maybe a couple of employees.
That's kind of what first cameto mind.
Put the bug in my head wasworking there.
Um, and then, a few jobs later Iwas at Shopify and Shopify, is a

(09:10):
company that really encouragespeople to start side businesses
of some sort, because, theproduct is for small business
owners.
And so I was thinking about itmore then.
And I made a kind of, uh,promise to myself that I would
quit my job at the end of thatyear, which was 2017.
And start my own business for2018.
And I did it.
I mean, I, I committed to it andI did it.
Uh, and kind of got some stuffsort of set up before I actually

(09:33):
quit and then just kind ofjumped right into 2018 with this
new business and it's beengoing, going really well ever
since.

Kyle Soucy (09:40):
That's awesome.
And you have to tell me, what isthe story behind your company
name?
I've always wanted to ask

so, um, I, I kind of forget, I think I was
actually working at Centralis,you know, again, a million years
ago, and I think maybe I wasKind of goofing off for a bit
and taking a break from work.
And I was, I was trying to thinkof words that are related to
like, um, like boldness and, youknow, like the kind of thinking
was that when we give,recommendations from user
research, we're being bold andwe're kind of challenging what

(10:08):
our clients might, You know,what assumptions they have, what
they might think is right, thatkind of thing.
So I wanted a word related tobold and I also wanted something
where I could get a domain name,you know, I guess.
And so I was just, I think Iwas, looking at Google, a
different list of synonyms andstuff, and I came across brazen
and I, and I think I found thatI could get brazen.
io as a, as a domain name and Idon't remember if I actually

(10:29):
bought it way back then, or if Iwaited and just kind of peaked
on it every so often to see ifit was still available, but
that's kind of when I decidedon, on brazen as the name, it
seemed like the best fit in thatkind of category.
Category of, of words.

Kyle Soucy (10:41):
I love that.
I always find it so fascinatingto hear about, where people came
up with their names and, and,uh, How that came about.
So that's really fascinating.
It's not what I thought.
I'm like brazen.
I'm like, is this herpersonality?
Like,

Well, and I like your business name because
it's so straightforward, likeusable interface, like you know
exactly what you're getting witha company like that.
Whereas Brazen, nobody reallyknows what I do until I tell
them about it.

Kyle Soucy (11:05):
well, okay.
So that may be true, but I get,I did mention, uh, in the last
episode with Becca that I wishit was almost more narrow
because do you really know whatyou're getting?
Like usable interface that couldbe development, you know,
Graphic design, but it is whatit is.
And you know what, someone toldme a long time ago, does it
really even matter what we nameour business?

(11:27):
Probably not, but it's stillimportant.
You know what I mean?
I know we care probably moreabout our business name and our
logos more than anyone else everwould, but it matters.
It's, It's you know, how wepresent ourselves.

Totally.
It's like an extension of yourpersonal brand and your
personality and whatever.
And I think that's importanttoo.

Kyle Soucy (11:44):
Yeah.
Now, so you jumped in, uh, afterSpotify, you jumped into
consulting and Um, you know,what was that journey like for
you starting your business?
Was there fear or were youpretty confident in that?
I mean, it's been seven years,so it's gone well.

definitely.
And actually, first of all, itwas Shopify, not Spotify.
Everyone always, that was like abig, a big joke when working at
Shopify.
It was like, everyone calls itSpotify.
So yeah.

Kyle Soucy (12:09):
Oh my gosh.
You know, and I'm in likepodcast world, so I'm all like

Yeah, yeah, yeah, no, I mean, it always
happened when I worked there.
So yes, when I was at Shopify, Iwas nervous at first.
I remember asking my dad for alot of advice cause he'd had,
small businesses kind ofthroughout, throughout my life.
And, um, I, some of the things Idid to kind of prepare, before I
even quit my job, I'd likeworked on creating a website.
I think I started to make a listof people I might want to reach

(12:34):
out to, you know, when Iactually got started.
And actually the first project Igot, as a consultant was
through, a Slack group, themixed methods, uh, Slack, which
I know you're, you're a part ofas well.
And I think they had a channelthat was like.
you know, freelancing orsomething like that.
And someone posted that theywanted someone to help with a
market research project.
And I'm not really a marketresearcher, but I think I was

(12:54):
kind of like, ah, you know,whatever, I can do that.
Like it actually seemed likemore of a desk research sort of,
um, thing, which I'm, you know,I was comfortable with.
And so I got my first projectthat way before I'd even quit my
job, actually.
And that was pretty cool.
Cause it kind of gave me theconfidence to be like, okay,
like I've already kind of provenI can get some work.
It was a small project, but Iwas still.
You know, at my full time job.

(13:14):
And then, when I actually didquit my job and started it, full
time on my business, um, thatwas sort of like a nice thing to
have in the back of my mind.
And then I kind of, I think Imostly just, you know, I tweeted
about my business.
I wrote to some friends, youknow, everyone kind of knew it
was what I was doing.
Um, and this was back whenTwitter was like a more
enjoyable place and there were alot more kind of UX people on
there.
Um, yeah, I miss those days alot.

(13:37):
And, um, and so like, uh, youknow, got, got some decent.
action on whatever posts I madeand people were retweeting it
and leaving nice comments.
Um, and then the first kind of,you know, real client reach out
was through that Twitter post.
Um, someone who I'd originallyknown many years ago from a book
club I went to when I lived inChicago, she reached out over

(13:58):
DMS on Twitter and was like,Hey, I saw your post about
starting your business.
Um, You know, I'm working atMozilla now and we have a
project coming up.
That would be a really great fitfor you because of your kind of
background at Shopify with ecommerce and you know, you're
kind of, uh, you know, you're,you're consulting now.
So like, uh, we have an ecommerce related project for you
to help out with.
And so that was really excitingthat I, um, got my first kind of

(14:20):
real big project, um, that way.
Uh, and I've been working withthem for ages now.
Mozilla was my first kind ofreal, real client.
And, uh, I just finished up aproject for them.
Uh, yesterday, actually, sothey've been kind of, you know,
ongoing, uh, for many, manyyears.
So it was just really, I feellike there's a lot of these kind
of serendipitous connectionsthat lead to projects.
And that was one of them.

(14:40):
It was a cool early example ofthat.

Kyle Soucy (14:44):
So I think that you are the great example of just
proving how important it is notnecessarily to do, self
promotion.
I know some of us think of it asa dirty word, but just letting
people know you're out there.
Like you, you know, you postingthat on Twitter, if you hadn't
done that, maybe they wouldn'thave connected.
It's just so important to, togive that reminder.

(15:04):
And I think that's a really goodsegue into one of the things I
wanted to talk to you about.
Which is, a little bit aboutbusiness development, you know,
conducting outreach, andbusiness development is hard and
there are a lot of differentways to go about it.
I know you recently started anewsletter back in May, and I
know that because not only do wetalk and, um, We have, private

(15:28):
groups that we talk in andstuff.
But you also share these thingson LinkedIn and other places
where you're talking aboutthings that you're trying, which
I think is really great thatyou're transparent about the
things you're doing.
And I wanted to chat more aboutwhat this experience has been
like for you creating thisnewsletter.

Yeah.
I mean, that was kind of a, asurprising decision for me.
I think I'd never really been.
Thinking about doing anewsletter before usually I'm
pretty focused on client workand I don't really like to do a
lot of extra stuff because I,you know, I'm busy enough with
my, my client work.
But there were kind of twothings that happened that made
me think of starting anewsletter.
One was I was working on, um, acourse for the Maven platform,

(16:06):
which I think we'll probablytalk about later in this
conversation.
And I was trying to think ofways to kind of get the word out
about my course.
And I was thinking aboutnewsletters and then also my
client work had kind of gotten alittle bit slow.
So I actually had time to starta newsletter because I did.
was going through a slow period.
And so I was kind of like, well,it seemed like a big commitment.
I'm like, what am I signingmyself up for?
Right.
I kind of have to keep thisgoing for a length of time if I

(16:27):
don't want to be embarrassed andquit really quickly.
But I figured I would experimentwith it and you know, I had some
time on my hands and I wanted topromote this course.
So I figured I'd, I'd give it ashot.
Um, I also actually anotherrelated, aspect of that was I
joined a Slack group calledDesign Creators.
And it's like a very small, likekind of invite only group.
Um, that's mostly focused onpeople who are doing a lot of

(16:50):
like content creation andnewsletters and like kind of all
this other kind of extra stuffrelated to design or research or
other UX things.
And there's some people in thatgroup who have like very
successful newsletters throughwhich they get, you know, most
of the money they make isthrough, courses and things they
advertise through newsletters.
That was another kind of.
thing that put a bug in my earabout starting a newsletter.
Um, so yeah, I picked a platformpretty quickly.

(17:11):
I use ConvertKit.
I don't really remember how Ipicked it.
I think probably just through arecommendation from someone.
And I started playing aroundwith different templates and
things and trying to kind of geta visual design that made sense.
I think I also, um, signed upfor a bunch of other newsletters
to kind of get examples for howpeople structure them and, you
know, and whatnot.
It's been like a lot ofexperimentation since then.

(17:34):
I think my next issue is the11th issue or maybe 12th, so not
been around that long.
I send it out every two weeks.
Thanks.
Um, on Tuesdays and, um, yeah,I'm happy to, answer any
questions about how that's beengoing so far.
It's been interesting.
Right.

Kyle Soucy (17:48):
and, I know because I get the newsletter what it
includes, but can you share withthe audience, what you're
putting in your

Yeah, sure.
So the kind of main feature ofit, I guess, is like a kind of
longer form, kind of blog postytype bit that's usually centered
around some sort of piece ofresearch related advice.
So backing up for a second, thekind of audience for the
newsletter is mostly designersand product managers and content
strategists, people who are, youknow, interested in research,
but aren't necessarily doing alot of research themselves.

(18:15):
They want to get better at doingresearch.
So, there certainly are lots ofresearchers as well who
subscribe to the newsletter, butI kind of write it with, people
in mind who are maybe notresearch experts.
It's more like people who aretrying to get better at
research.
And so, yeah, the kind of mainkind of feature of the
newsletter is, um, Is usuallysome sort of, longer form thing
where I'm imparting some sortof, uh, piece of advice, usually

(18:35):
related to research.
So, for example, like a topicmight be how to get your
participants to actually show upfor their interviews or
usability tests or whatever,right?
Like that can be challengingsometimes getting.
people to actually come, eventhough they've signed up.
So that might be something Imight talk about in the
newsletter.
And then the rest of thenewsletter, there's an events
listing section.
So usually over the precedingtwo weeks, I've kind of, every
time I've seen somethinginteresting posted on LinkedIn

(18:57):
or through various listservs andother newsletters I'm on, I'll
kind of, file away for laterstuff I might want to include in
my events.
And I, Share them there.
Um, and then there's also like asection around other resources
like articles or courses or,podcast episodes or whatever
that I think people might beinterested in.
So it's kind of a mix of like,here's, a deep learning piece of

(19:17):
information and then here's abunch of like listings of things
you can go and check out if youhave more time and want to, dig
into some events or articles orwhatnot.

Kyle Soucy (19:24):
I think that doing this is so fantastic because
it's probably making you waymore active and, it's probably
making you a better researcher,just staying on top of all the
trends because you have to shareit in your newsletter, like
keeping your ear out there muchmore perked than you maybe would
normally if you didn't have thisnewsletter to put out every two

(19:45):
weeks?

Oh, absolutely.
Yeah, it's made me aware of alot of events I wouldn't have
ever really kind of consideredbecause I'm kind of, I have an
eye for trying to find them now.
It's also made me, you know,when you're trying to teach
someone something and you'rekind of writing it in that sort
of way, it makes you really diginto like, okay, what is the
most important nugget here?
Like what should everyone bekind of remembering?
And that helps me refresh myselfon some of these concepts too.

(20:06):
Sometimes, going back to theexample of getting participants
to show up for research, like,you know, I kind of know how to
do that from my many years ofexperience, but actually writing
down like here, like the actualthings you can do, like concrete
steps you can take, you kind ofrealize, Oh, right.
Like, so.
Some of these things are thingsI don't always remember to do,
but now that I've kind of takenthe time to write it out, I
actually have re informed myselfabout some of the things that, I

(20:27):
kind of take for granted or kindof assume that I know, and
really I don't actually always,have them at the top of my mind.
So it's been helpful for thatfor sure.

Kyle Soucy (20:35):
Absolutely.
Like, if you want to get betterat something, even our own
craft, teach it, or write a bookabout it.
Cause it really does.
And, and I have to say, I loveyour newsletter because it, it
does.
I'm like, Oh yeah, that's a goodtip.
And it's like, I know I knowthat, but I forgot it, you know?
And like, that's right.
I forgot about that.
I could do that.
So I've been finding it superhelpful.

(20:56):
And for the listeners, I'm goingto put a link in the show notes,
where to subscribe to thenewsletter.
It is called research for all,and it is really good.
Uh, before we jump from thistopic though, for those
consultants that are reallyStarting, this and it is a heavy
lift.
I can just imagine every twoweeks having to put out
something like this.
Now I myself have never done anewsletter besides.

(21:19):
I have a newsletter for thepodcast.
Just let people know a newepisode is out, but that's
nothing compared to this.
I can't imagine, doing thisbecause I, I want it to be done
right.
And I know that it's a lot ofwork.
Can you describe what this hasbeen like an impact on your
workload?
How do you get subscribers?
Just a little bit more of that.

Yeah.
One thing I learned prettyquickly is that, writing the
newsletter itself takes a lot oftime and there's things you can
do to save time when creatingthe newsletter, the kind of
biggest one that I don't think Irealized at first, but now pay
attention to is like, look forways to kind of standardize the
sort of sections you have inyour newsletter.
So you're not reinventing thewheel each time.
So I have templates I use forthe event listings and the

(22:00):
article listings and whatnot,and I can just kind of drop in
whatever images and links Ineed.
And that's much better than, uh,when I first got started, I was
Recreating these sections fromscratch every time.
And, it was very silly.
I also kind of look for ways tomake those sections like
simpler.
I'm just like simplifyingformatting.
When it comes to writing thatlonger form article, kind of
deciding it's not going to besuper, super long.
So I don't feel like I have to,write pages and pages.

(22:22):
Um, so that's, that's somethingI kind of keep in mind.
Yeah.
In terms of benefits I've seenand stuff.
Right now my newsletter has.
It's I think just under 600subscribers or so.
So it's like, yeah, I mean, itfeels amazing and also it feels
both small and big at the sametime.
Right.
You hear about lots ofnewsletters that have, tens of
thousands of people, but 600 isalso pretty cool.
Um,

Kyle Soucy (22:40):
Since May.
That's fantastic.

Yeah.
I mean, it's 600 people that Ipreviously would not have been
corresponding with.
So that's pretty neat.
Um, and so, yeah, for me, one ofthe main benefits of doing a
newsletter is that.
You have a direct line to these600 people.
Like there's no platform that'scontrolling it.
Like LinkedIn and Twitter havetheir algorithms.
They can choose what to show andwhat not to show.
Whereas these are people like Ihave access to their email

(23:03):
inbox.
Like that's pretty special.
Um, they don't have to open myemail, but I am there.
And that's really neat.
And one of the reasons why Istarted the newsletter is
because, I wanted a way to keepin touch with past clients as
well.
So.
I, send out, like a holiday cardto my clients at the end of the
year.
And that's one, one kind oftouch point I have with them,
but several of them have alsosigned up for the newsletter.

(23:23):
So that kind of keeps me ontheir minds as well.
It's all about kind of keepingyourself on other people's minds
to make it easier for them toremember that you exist and
think about you when a researchneed comes up.
So that's something that I tryto keep in mind and it's
actually happened.
I'm talking to a company rightnow about doing some training
for their team.
They're a German company I'dnever had heard of before.
And the way they got in touchwith me was, um, someone at

(23:46):
their company subscribes to mynewsletter and through my
newsletter watched a short talkI'd given on a research related
topic.
And I guess really liked thetalk.
And then they.
Um, and then, you know, a coupleof weeks later, they told their
company, Hey, you should hireElizabeth for this training so
that she wouldn't have beenaware of me if she hadn't,
subscribed to the newsletter,which is really cool.
I'm hoping that more of thosekinds of connections happen over
time.
I feel like, with a lot ofconsulting relationships, it's

(24:07):
sort of a slow burn thing wherelike you make these connections
and then maybe years later,someone comes out of the
woodwork and hires you for aproject.
But, for me, it's worth it.
I mean, it does take it, youknow, a few hours, um, probably.
two to four hours to like pulltogether a newsletter, which is
not a ton of time, but it is a,chunk of time.
And usually I procrastinate.
So I'm like, Oh my God, I haveto do my own newsletter by

(24:28):
tomorrow.
It's frustrating, but I reallydo think like long term it's
going to be worth it for me.
And I also really enjoy when,occasionally a newsletter reader
will just write back to me andbe like, Hey, I really enjoyed
the newsletter this week.
I, you know, you made me awareof an event I, I didn't know
about or whatever.
And that's always reallytouching, especially when it's
someone I don't know, to writeto me like that.
So that's really cool.

Kyle Soucy (24:48):
Oh, that's great.
And, the clients, this is maybea silly question, but do you,
let them know that you have thisnewsletter and give them the
choice to opt in or do youautomatically put them on and if
they want to, they'll takethemselves off of it?

Yeah, good question.
So I, I've never automaticallyput anyone on my newsletter,
whether it's a client or someonewho's on the wait list for my
Maven course, for example.
Like, I know some people will dothat.
I would rather people very muchbe aware of and like consent to
signing up for the newsletterbecause What I care about is
that I have, engaged subscriberswho will, like, click on links
and maybe, you know, pay forsomething or whatever, as

(25:23):
opposed to people who just getit in their inbox and never open
it or open it but never click,you know, that kind of thing.
So yeah, for my clients, I didlike a mid year, email.
Usually I just do a holiday cardemail.
This year I did a mid yearemail, or I guess it was before.
Prior to mid year.
Cause it was before mynewsletter started and I
mentioned it as a thing that Iwas doing and, you know, gave
the link.
And so, a handful of peoplesigned up that way.

(25:43):
I also have it in my emailsignature.
Um, so it's there if peoplenotice it and want to sign up.
There's a, a woman who I thinkis really cool named, Lex Roman.
And I believe you're aware ofher too, cause I think you

Kyle Soucy (25:53):
Uh huh.

one of her trainings.
And, she is just so awesome whenit comes to anything related to
emails and conversions that wayand newsletter stuff and
whatnot.
She has two great newsletters.
One is kind of sunsetting inabout a week or so, which I'm
sad about.
Cause it's really great.
But it was called low energyleads and I really like her
content because it's all abouthow do you find these, you know,
low energy ways to like generateleads and keep yourself on

(26:15):
people's minds and getnewsletter subscribers and
whatever.
So, um, definitely recommendanyone listening to check her
out.
Yeah.
Lex Roman, um, low energy leads.
com.
And even though her newsletteris kind of sunsetting, there's a
whole archive you can, accessand she does a bunch of cool
trainings and stuff.
So, that's someone I reallyrecommend for anyone who's
interested in getting intonewsletter things.

Kyle Soucy (26:33):
And the holiday card.
So, I normally do a virtual one.
Do you as well, or is

Yeah.
Virtual.
I used to mail it back in theday.
I used to email.

Kyle Soucy (26:41):
Yeah.
Back

Yeah.
Pre pre pandemic.
It was mail.
Now it's email.
Yeah.

Kyle Soucy (26:44):
Yep.
Same, same.
And it's funny.
Cause way, way back in the day,like my first two or three years
in business, I would do littlegifts and then it was way too
stressful.
Oh my gosh.
Trying to think of somethingunique and different than
something that wasn't like atchotchke or lame.
And I and I, just.
I said forget it.
It was just too

I actually, so I copy what Centralis did
back when I worked there and Ido a donation.
So I do a donation kind of likeon behalf of my clients and that
way, I do get to kind of likespend some money on my clients,
but I don't have to worry aboutsending, flowers or, cookies or
whatever all around the world.

Kyle Soucy (27:21):
Right.
Right.
And, the mid year email, that'sbrilliant.
I, I love that.
Is that something you'll thinkyou'll continue to do?

Yeah, I think so.
I always feel kind of awkwarddoing something like that, you
know, just sending out an emailblast to all my, current and
past clients being like, Hey,this is what I'm up to.
I have time for projects.
Hey, I have this newsletter.
I have this course, but alsolike, whatever, it's just one
email.
They like me enough that they'renot going to, uh, get upset at
me, um, for sending out, one ortwo emails a year.
So, yeah, I think I'll keep thatup.

(27:48):
I think, I'll do the holidaycard this year and then I'll do
like a, you know, a mid year andholiday email next year, I
think.
Um, and I think that's fine.
And then, as I mentioned, like,you know, a good handful of them
are signed up to the newslettertoo.
So they kind of have that touchpoint as well.

Kyle Soucy (28:01):
You know, I have the same feeling.
I, really struggle with stayingin touch with my past clients
and that shouldn't be a problem.
Be and I know any goodsalesperson would want to slap
me across the face right now andbe like, what are you crazy?
You have to, you know?
Um, but I get a little, thaticky feeling when I'm just like,
am I bothering them?
Is that too much?
And you know what?
I know though, when I hear yousay this, that that's.

(28:24):
You're right.
Like one or two emails a yearfor me is not asking is not a
lot.
And it's just a nice check in.
It's nice to say, not just I'mstill here.
Remember me, but also do youneed help?
I'm here

Yeah,

Kyle Soucy (28:38):
Um, And I, I think it's really great that you do
that.
You do that way more than I doand I know I have to get better
at that.
So I always kind of look up toyou and how you're, you're
really good at it.
You're good at just kind ofbeing the squeaky wheel and you
need to, you need to do that.
So I, I love hearing thesestories from you cause I'm like,
damn, she's really on it.
I'm like, that's right.
I should do that.

Well, that's really sweet.
I feel like, yeah, I mean, theholiday card thing, it's
interesting because I, I alwaysget like a handful of really
nice responses back.
And usually two or three ofthose responses are like, Oh,
Hey, thanks for the holidaycard.
I actually have a project thatmight be happening in January or
February.
Like, let's make a plan to talkin January.
So it's actually gettingpotentially getting me business.
Or I remember one year, in myholiday card, I announced that I

(29:19):
was having a baby and I got somany nice responses to that.
So I know I'm not botheringpeople too much.
Like if they're going to read itand like be happy for me or
whatever, and send me a niceemail, then it means that they
appreciate it.
And, you know, again, like, Oneor two emails a year and we're,
we're in the sort of businesswhere our clients know us as
people, right?
It's not like we work for a hugecompany.
We're interacting with ourclients very directly.
And so I think they kind ofappreciate that we're colleagues

(29:42):
and sort of, you know, friendssometimes.
And it's okay to, to check in acouple of times a year on your
friends.

Kyle Soucy (29:47):
Yeah, yeah.
And, you mentioned, uh, talkingabout your newsletter on
LinkedIn.
I was wondering, you know, nowthat you're at this point, you
have 600 subscribers.
How do you continue that trendof getting more subscribers?
Do you promote your newsletteranywhere besides LinkedIn?

Yeah, that's a good question.
So, yeah, getting newslettersubscribers is, is hard and
confusing.
I don't always know where theycome from.
I do try to, yeah, occasionallypost on LinkedIn and kind of
like tease the next, you know,uh, issue.
Though it's, it's just funnybecause like last time I did
that, which was two weeks ago, Iguess, I posted this kind of
teaser, highlighting like whatwas going to be coming up in the
next issue.

(30:23):
And I got I think 2000 views onthe post and like probably 50,
likes and reactions andcomments.
And one person signed up to thenewsletter from that post.
So like

Kyle Soucy (30:32):
Hey, it's still one person.
That's all right.

Um, what's actually been the biggest driver
of newsletter signups is, um, soConvertKit and most of these
other newsletter platforms, theyhave something called the
creator network.
So basically, when someone signsup for my newsletter, they get a
little pop up being like, Hey,you might be interested in these
three other newsletters.
And I've kind of selected.
People whose newsletters, youknow, what kind of fit with my
target audience and then otherpeople also recommend me.

(30:57):
So through this, um, designcreator Slack that I'm a part
of, there were a few kind oflike really big newsletter
people on there who, willrecommend me recommend my
newsletter.
And so, um, usually, betweeneach newsletter, um, edition, I
get about 20 to 40 newsubscribers and probably at
least half of those come throughthis creator network where other
people are signing up through mynewsletter because they're

(31:18):
signing up through.
a different person's newsletterand they get recommended to
choose my newsletter as well.
And that's really helpful.

Kyle Soucy (31:25):
And, for those that are considering again, starting
a newsletter, what otherresources have been most helpful
for either creating or promotingyour newsletter or any advice
you have for

I think not being, uh, ashamed to your
newsletter link everywhere.
So for example, like it's in myemail, it's in my email
signature.
Um, if you go to my LinkedInprofile, they let you have a
link, you know, kind of in thetop.
I think right now it's like signup for my newsletter.
So I have it there make itreally easy for people to find
it basically.
Um, and also my newsletter kindof sign up page.

(31:57):
Um, there's a version of it thathas like the archive of all the
past issues.
And that's the one I tend toshare.
I feel like it converts betterbecause people can actually see.
What the newsletter looks like,as opposed to just getting a
little blurb about what it'sabout in general.
Um, I think people like to seeexamples because through that
little blurb, you can, you know,you can learn a little bit, but
I think one of the kind of, um,positive, you know, positive

(32:19):
things about my newsletter isit's written in a pretty casual
style.
Like, as, as you know, like, I'mkind of writing very familiar
early, like the first littleblurb is usually like me
relaying something that happenedin my life or whatever.
And I think if you like thatsort of style, you'll kind of
understand that that's what thenewsletter is all about.
If you can see an example ortwo.
And so I think people.
Uh, like to convert through thatpage because they can get a

(32:39):
chance to see what it's reallyall about.

Kyle Soucy (32:42):
love it.
Okay.
And you mentioned your courseand your Maven course.
And I'd like to talk about thatnow, just the training you
provide and this new onlinecourse called a user interview
skills for designers and PMs.
Um, I know there are a lot ofconsultants interested in
teaching courses, maybe as a, asecond form of income or just a

(33:04):
way to, to, you know, sharetheir knowledge.
And I'm sure they'd love to knowmore about how you created
yours.

Yeah, absolutely.
So, I guess kind of to back up,I first got started doing like
course creation stuff back likepre pandemic.
I went to a conference andsomeone from O'Reilly Media
approached me and was like, Hey,you know, I liked your talk.
And Have you ever thought aboutteaching a course?
We have this online platform andI ended up developing like a
three hour online course onusability testing for that
platform.

(33:30):
And it took a whole bunch ofwork to prepare that content.
But after I had that content, Icould then, you know, reuse it
for clients or, you know, inother situations.
And so I, before I startedteaching with Maven, I at least
kind of knew what it was like torun a course and, Create all
that content and whatever.
So that kind of was helpful.
And then it was, I think I firststarted talking to Maven in like
January or so of this year, Ithink I had a friend who worked

(33:52):
there and that, you know, thatkind of got me interested.
And, they used to have anaccelerator program where
they're kind of like help youget started with creating a
course.
And that helped a lot because Ifeel like even though I'd done a
lot of course content before,there's a lot that goes into
trying to like market a courseand get people to actually sign
up.
That's really confusing at thebeginning.
Um, but yeah, anyway, sorry.
I'd like the course.
Yeah.
It's called user interviewskills for designers and PMs.

(34:13):
As you might imagine, it teachespeople who are not necessarily
researchers how to run, reallygood user interviews and plan
them and analyze the data andall that kind of good stuff.
And right now it's a three weeklong course.
Previously, I taught it as twoweeks, but I wanted to make it a
bit more of a relaxed pace.
So I changed it to three weeksand it's on the Maven platform.
So it's, a live cohort basedcourse.
So, you're in a class of, maybe10 or 20 people, you know,

(34:36):
depending on how many peoplesign up.
And we meet several times forthese hour and a half long
workshops.
And then there's also someasynchronous content, like
written lessons and videolessons and stuff I've created.
Um, there's a couple of shortassignments as well.
So it's not really like awebinar or a one time thing.
It's an ongoing course thathappens over a few weeks.
So you get a chance to kind of,uh, meet other people, like

(34:57):
network a bit, become friends.
We have to do mock interviewswith each other as part of the
course.
That's kind of fun.
Um, Um, and then by the end,hopefully you've really like
kind of solidified this stuffbecause you're kind of, um,
doing your own little mini userinterview project along the way,
which is kind of fun.

Kyle Soucy (35:11):
That's really intense.

Yeah, it

Kyle Soucy (35:14):
And, and, uh, so tell me a little bit about that
decision process of, wanting todo that cohort based, learning
versus the asynchronous, youknow, webinar, or you can
download it anytime.
Do it at your own pace.

Yeah, that's a good, a good question.
I mean, part of it was that, um,this was, you know, again, back
when business was a bit slow forme, so I kind of had time to
think about running a course.
And I was really impressed withthe Maven platform.
Like, as you said, running acohort based course is a lot of
work, but they make it easier inthat, they host all of your
recordings and your syllabusand, um, you know, it's got a
Slack type platform for studentsto use to ask questions.

(35:50):
They can submit assignments, allthat kind of stuff.
So that kind of.
Got me interested in the cohortthings.
That's how they they run theircourses I think also like
whenever I run training forclients and and stuff like I
feel like you get the most outof the interaction with the
instructor and like thequestions people ask like
getting people enjoy when I cananswer their questions and we
can have Discussions and whatnotand you miss out on that if it's

(36:11):
just a pre recorded video, ofcourse, right?
um, I also in my mind likerecording a video just sounded
like a lot of work.
I don't know why.
I mean, I feel like it's thesame, the same work that I do
when I teach live, but, um, Ifeel like when you record a
video, you feel like it has tobe perfect.
Whereas when I teach live,they're usually pretty casual
sessions.
And, um, you know, there's a lotof questions from the students
and discussion and whatnot.

(36:32):
And also when you teach a livecourse, you can have lots of
activities.
So there's usually like breakoutroom activities.
We do stuff on Miro.
We do mock interviews, it's areally busy.
way to spend our time.
But I feel like having all thosedifferent activities really
helps people do and not justlisten and actually internalize
what they're, they're doing.

Kyle Soucy (36:51):
That's great.
And I feel like it, it probablyhelps when you're teaching live.
You feed off of their energyrather than just recording.
Yeah,

exactly.
And I've been lucky that I'veonly taught two cohorts so far,
but I've been lucky in that bothof them were pretty high energy,
especially the second one, liketons of questions, really good
discussions.
And that makes it feel morerewarding for me too.

Kyle Soucy (37:10):
Oh yeah.
I love that.
There's nothing worse than whenyou're teaching and they're not
really even wanting to be there.
Yeah.
Now.
Maven is one of many onlineplatforms, um, uh, to choose
from like Coursera.
And there's just so many, whatmade you choose Maven?

I mean, honestly, I hadn't done much
research into other platforms.
I knew about some other ones,yeah, like Coursera, and like
Udemy, and you know, there'smore.
I think, again, because I had afriend who worked at Maven, and
I followed them on Twitter, Iwas seeing stuff being posted
about Maven, so that kind of gotinto my mind.
But it also seemed like a muchmore, selective platform.
They didn't have a ton ofquestions.

(37:47):
like tech focused.
It seemed like my audience wouldbe there, like tech people.
It also seemed like a platformwhere the kind of typical price
point was on the higher side.
So it kind of attracts peoplewho are like, maybe working in
tech, have a bit more money tospend, like maybe have a
professional development budget,whereas some of these other
platforms, I think, are moreabout like, You know, uh, uh,
shorter, but cheaper courses andmaybe not a lot of live stuff.

(38:09):
Also, the folks that work thereare very nice.
It's like a small team.
They're really helpful.
Um, they have like a Slack, uh,for instructors where they'll
answer questions.
So it was just nice.
I feel like that kind of levelof support is probably not
available with like a, you know,a bigger, more established
company.
So that was a selling point forme.
Yeah,

Kyle Soucy (38:28):
many questions now, everything you say, I'm like,
Oh, I want to ask this now.
So you mentioned that you hadmaterial from, you know,
teaching previously with theO'Reilly course.
What was that time and, effortlike to modify that material so
that it fit like a cohort,class, like Maven in like
developing your course andteaching it, how much time is

(38:48):
involved in

that's a great question.
So I went from the O'Reillycourse and took that material
and then taught versions of itfor clients for like a few
years.
So I already kind of adapted it.
Like I took it from being a, ausability testing course and
adapted it to be a userinterview course at some point.
It was only a three hour long,workshop basically, right?
But at least I kind of shiftedit over to user interviews.
That was helpful.

(39:09):
Um, but then yeah, doing it forMaven, it was, it was probably a
lot more work than I expected.
Um, one thing I wanted to do wastake those three hours, you
know, that would normally betaught all at once, which I
think is too much, too much timeto spend on anything.
Um, and kind of break it outinto like, you know, you know,
four or six, like one and a halfhour long workshops.
And so definitely there weremore topics I wanted to include

(39:31):
and I had to do a lot more kindof slide creation there.
I also completely changed myslide template, which we might
talk about later and like rekind of redoing everything and
like a nicer looking template,which was a thing.
Also, so Maven really encouragesyou to have a lot of interactive
stuff in your, um, course.
They kind of have this like, Ido, we do, you do format where
they recommend, which is like,you know, you kind of lecture or

(39:53):
teach a concept a little bit formaybe like, you know, 10
minutes, five minutes, then youkind of all do something
together.
Like, maybe you do like a guidedcritique of something together,
or you like, you know, build adiagram together, you, you kind
of do something together andthen they go off and do
something on their own or insmall groups.
Like they have a discussion orlike they do a Miro board or

(40:13):
whatever.
So you're kind of like.
Guiding them towards doingthings themselves, um, which is
so I think it works really well.
I found that like the version ofthe course I do for Maven has so
much more interactivity and likenot like not nearly as much
lecturing as, my previous way ofdoing things.
It's totally changed the way Iteach.
Honestly, even when I'm teachinga private workshop for clients,
I do a lot less talking and alot more interactive stuff.

(40:34):
And I think it goes over better.
So, yeah, I mean, in terms ofnumber of hours or something,
probably a lot.
I mean, like, probably to, youknow, to kind of create my, what
is it, like, now I do a six hourand a half long workshops and
two office hours.
Probably each workshop is taken,you know, 20 plus hours to kind
of create, starting from zero,thinking back to, the O'Reilly

(40:56):
days, kind of like starting fromzero and like actually coming
out with a finished slide deck.
Um, I'm just lucky that sinceI've taught a lot of, a lot of
the stuff in different contexts,I can pull examples and stuff
and kind of like, uh, fromdifferent sources and kind of
Frankenstein a presentationtogether and then try to make it
look good and kind of flow well.

Kyle Soucy (41:13):
And what is, uh student management like?
Oh,

Elizabeth Creighto (41:17):
interesting.
So my first cohort, I think Ihad 14 students or something in
the second cohort.
I had 22 and it's challengingbecause, um, you know, those are
not particularly large classes.
Like some Maven courses have ahundred students, for example,
um, which is, yeah, which is alot.
But, um, You don't really knowwho you're getting.
Like, what level of knowledgethey'll have, what expectations
they'll have, how many questionsare going to ask.

(41:38):
Like in my second court, I hadsome students who were
wonderful.
They asked a ton of questions,which was great, but also like,
made the, sessions feel kind ofrushed sometimes, right?
Because sometimes it's like.
You know, there's maybe twice asmany questions as I might have
expected.
So it can be kind of challengingwhile you're teaching live to
make sure people are gettingtheir questions answered, but
also making sure you can kind ofend on time.
And, on, on zoom where I, I hostthe sessions, there's a chat and

(42:00):
I try to keep my eye on the chatas well.
Cause a lot of students feelmore comfortable typing in the
chat than they do, you know,unmuting and asking a question.
And so that can be kind ofchallenging managing that, in a
live session.
The Maven platform has, youknow, the student area where
people can ask questions in aSlack like, platform and submit
assignments and stuff.
And, you kind of have toremember to check pretty

(42:21):
regularly to see what questionspeople are leaving and, not make
it feel like a ghost town where,like, you know, people asking
questions and there's nodiscussion happening.
I was really lucky with my lastcohort where like students would
answer each other's questions.
And that was really cool.
Like to kind of have more of adiscussion happening there
rather than just me answeringquestions, one by one.
Um, and then having peoplesubmit assignments.
So there's two assignmentspeople do.

(42:41):
And I think I assumed my courseis not cheap.
It's like 490, I think you'dthink people would, you know, do
the work and submit theassignments, but maybe about
half of students just don't, um,which is.
Yeah, which is totally, youknow, their prerogative, right?
Like they're, they're paying,they don't have to do anything.
I don't, I tell them to do.
Um, but I guess I would havethought, you know, this is their
opportunity to get feedback fromme, and I do give really

(43:02):
detailed feedback.
And so, um, it was kind of, sadto see that not everyone was
submitting their assignments,but also the people who did
submit their assignments, it wasgreat to be able to give them
really detailed feedback ontheir stuff.
And honestly, even like, uh,yeah.
Leaving feedback on, you know,10 assignments instead of 20 is
still a lot of work.
So maybe I didn't mind that noteveryone submitted their
assignments sometimes.

Kyle Soucy (43:24):
Yeah.
I can't imagine planning this.
If you want to teach a courseand fit it in with your client
work, it must be really trickyto try and time it just right.
So, you know, you have.
A good amount of time to spendon

Yeah,

Kyle Soucy (43:37):
without working crazy hours.

Cause you, right.
Cause you have to kind of committo the timeline for the course
pretty early.
Cause you want to get it up onthe website so people can, buy
seats and all that kind ofstuff.
And so, I'm setting the datesfor the course, though, really
necessarily knowing what myclient.
Work life is going to be so mynext cohort is coming up in
November and I'll probably beactually kind of busy with
client work, but I have it setso I can't, you know, I can't do
anything about it.
It's it's set.

(43:59):
I already have a couple ofstudents signed up.
And what's interesting isactually, this is kind of neat.
So like, um, Now that I have theMaven course and people are
aware of it, I've had clientsinterested in a private cohort
of the Maven course.
So I'm actually teaching, yeah,I have a new client, um, next
week who I'm going to beteaching a private cohort for.
So basically it's like the Mavencourse, but it's it's 10 people

(44:19):
from their company are going totake it.
And I'm just kind of teaching aseparate version just for them.
So that's one of the neat thingsabout the Maven course is it's
given me this opportunity tosell, This, you know, private
cohort or just kind of gotten myname out there a bit more in
general as like someone who doestraining.
So it's kind of neat to getopportunities maybe outside of
the typical like Maven publiccohort platform thing to do more

(44:41):
to do more training.

Kyle Soucy (44:42):
And so if it's over 400 a person for the course, how
much of that do you get to keepversus Maven?

Yeah, good question.
So Maven takes a 10 percent cutand then Stripe.
Yeah, I mean, like, you know,it's it's not bad for me.
I know that there's, there'ssomeone on the platform who, um,
they have like 100 personcohorts that they sell for like
1, 000 a piece that, you know,it's bringing in like 100 grand
per cohort, and then Maven takes10 grand of that.
So it feels like a big chunk,you know, when it's like 10

(45:10):
grand, it feels big for me, youknow, it's, it's, it's fine.
Um, it's, so it's 10 percent andthen Stripe takes 3%.
I think it was a bitdisappointing in my first cohort
because, the idea is like one ofthe benefits of using the Maven
platform is that they will,advertise your course in their
emails and on their marketplaceand stuff.
And so in my first cohort, Iactually only got one student
through the Maven platform.

(45:31):
Everyone else I brought inmyself.
And so it kind of Kind of suckedto have to pay my 10 percent for
all these students who I broughtin, like, they didn't, you know,
Maven didn't bring in for me.
Second court went better.
Almost half of my students camethrough the Maven platform, so
Maven kind of earned their moneya bit better on that one, where
like, you know, I didn't mindpaying the 10 percent because
they were getting me students.

(45:51):
Um, and then my third cohort, I,I barely kind of advertised it.
I have two students signed up sofar and one of them is from the
Maven platform.
So that's nice.
I have at least one studentwho's kind of covering the costs
of, of, the Maven stuff foreverybody.

Kyle Soucy (46:02):
Now, how do you get people to sign up?
I see it on LinkedIn.
Do you promote elsewhere?

So it's so hard, honestly.
Like, I mean, it's much harderthan I expected.
I think I thought because I havea pretty good network and, you
know, I have different slacksand listservs I can tap into
that it would be easier to getsignups.
Um, but you know, it's hard.
I mean, like my first cohortwith 14 people or whatever, That
took a lot of blood, sweat andtears to get, the 13 that didn't
come through Maven.

(46:28):
A few things that helped.
I mean, one was reaching out topeople individually who I know
who, who might want to take thecourse.
And for example, one of myfriends from Shopify, she signed
up and got three of hercoworkers to sign up through,
through their professionaldevelopment fund.
Um, so that got me fourstudents.
Through that one connection,which was really helpful.

Kyle Soucy (46:47):
great.

that was really great.
I also always do a financial aidapplication.
So, I'll give people like a 50to 70 percent discount if
they're in difficult, financialcircumstances.
And so I just do a short Googleform to collect, info and then
make a decision.
And so in both of my cohorts,I've taken four or five students
that way.
And so they pay a lot lessmoney.
I'm still getting some money,but they pay a lot less money.

(47:09):
But I would rather have morestudents like enjoying the
course than having everyone paythe full price.
One thing that also has helpedis, um, Maven has this thing
called lightning lessons, whichis where you teach a 30 minute
free, you know, seminar kind ofthing.
And they advertise it on theirplatform.
And I did a lightning lessonbefore my second cohort, and got
a, I think there was like 800people signed up for it.

(47:30):
Um, which is crazy.
Um, about 150 people actuallyshowed up the rest, you know,
could get the recording or, orwhatever.
And so I ended up getting in theend, I think I got four
students.
Signed up through the lightninglesson.
I gave like a 20 percentdiscount, code for people who
are there.
So those are some, some thingsthat have helped me, but
honestly, like it's kind offrustrating.
I mean, I recently launched mythird cohort and I did like an

(47:51):
early bird, you know, promo.
So you got a hundred bucks offthe course.
If you signed up during thatfirst week, put it on LinkedIn,
put it on Slack, like put it inmy newsletter and I got one sign
up, right.
Like, um, so, you know, it's,it's, it's.
You can put in a lot of effortand just not see a lot of
results, and it's interestinghaving the newsletter because I
can see what people are clickingon.
So, you know, maybe 30, 30people clicked on the link to go

(48:13):
check out the course with the100 discount and then one person
ultimately signed up, right?
It's like, it's a really anumbers game.
You need a lot of, of eyes onyour stuff.

Kyle Soucy (48:23):
but yeah, but that's good that showed that they were
interested and they may do itnext time you offer it You never
know.
Yeah.
Yeah.

ConvertKit, I kind of segment those people.
I have a segment for like anyonewho's ever clicked on my Maven
course, right?
So I have, maybe a few hundredpeople there that I can like
target for a special promotionor whatever, because they've
shown some sort of interest inthe course in the past.

Kyle Soucy (48:43):
Well for any listeners that are interested in
the course I will include a linkin the show notes so you can
check it out and Elizabeth, youmentioned that, you wanted to
create a new presentationtemplate, uh, for this course.
And a while back, privately youshared with me that you were,
going through this process ofcreating a new presentation

(49:04):
template and hiring a designer.
And I was like, Oh, wow.
I wonder what the impetus forthat was.
And now I know it was thiscourse, but, I think that, It's
so important for us asconsultants to invest in our
deliverables.
We want them to look sharp.
We want them to look good.
And, when you mentioned that youwere getting a new template
done, I was like, that's a goodidea.

(49:25):
You know, the one I createdmyself, which is not as sharp as
something a designer would do.
I'm like, yeah, that probablyneeds a refresh.
So could you tell us a littlebit about what that process of
having a new template designed,for your presentations was like?

yeah.
So, right.
So yeah, definitely the impetuswas doing this course where I
was like, okay, like I, youknow, I've kind of put off for
the longest time, doing some,better design work on my
template.
Cause like you, I had one that Icreated myself and it was fine,
but like, not, not great.
It was, you know, I did the job,but it wasn't very pretty.
And since I was going to becreating all these course
materials, including prerecordedvideos that might be around for
a long time, I wanted to, tohave, um, some nice looking

(50:02):
slides.
And actually the first thing Idid, so I came across someone on
Twitter, who, was a slidedesigner.
It sounded like she wasrelatively new to it, but she
had an example in one of hertweets that looked good.
And I think I did a not so smartthing, which is I kind of hired
her essentially immediately.
We had a, like a Zoom chat and,she sounded awesome.
Um, and I hired her.
And she didn't really have muchof a process, again, because she

(50:22):
was kind of new to it.
And so, um, you know, I kind ofsent her over the types of
slides I wanted to have created.
And she did work on it for a fewweeks or whatever, and then sent
me back, essentially the finalversion.
I think she actually, sorry,backing up.
She'd given me, um, threedifferent kinds of color
palettes to pick from.
And I picked one of those.
And then she kind of took all myslides, came back and was like,
okay, here you go.

(50:43):
And they just weren't hittingthe mark for me.
So, um, I thanked her and I paidher, but I ended up not using
those slides.
it wasn't super expensive, butit was a bit of a lesson
learned, like, okay, I shouldreally vet people a bit better
maybe.
And then I forget how I cameacross her, but I came across a
slide designer named Marika.
And of course, I'm forgettingher last name right now, but I
can share the, you know, thelink to, to her website.
She is based in South Africa.

(51:03):
She was amazing.
The process was, we had, a Zoomcall and just talked about.
what I would be using the slidesfor and, what I cared about and
whatnot and, things I liked anddidn't like.
And she'd had a bunch ofexamples on her website.
So I could kind of be like, Hey,I really like these three, you
know, presentations you've donein the past.
So something along those lineswould be nice.
And so I also then shared withher, like a Google drive where I

(51:26):
had, placeholder examples forthe types of slides I wanted.
Like, for example, I wanted atitle slide and I wanted a slide
that had lots of quotes on itand, you know, whatever.
She basically created a roughkind of version of a few of
those slides.
So just kind of like, Hey,here's a design direction I'm
thinking about here, what acouple of those slides would
look like.
And then I gave her somefeedback on a few things.
And then she created the largersort of set of slides.

(51:47):
And she was really good about,taking in feedback and making
some adjustments and whatnot.
What she kind of returned to mewas a full deck with all the
slides, which is great.
And even a couple of slides thatare a bit more about like, you
know, here are the overarchinggoals.
Like here's how I'm bringing inyour brand personality.
Here's the color palette, andhow it works together, a much
more kind of professionaldelivery sort of.
And I love the slides.

(52:07):
Oh my God.
They're so great.
I just, they're so versatile.
They have things set up nicelywhere like, I know exactly what
fonts and sizes I'm using foreverything.
Every time I put an image in,it'll like automatically size it
properly for the box it's goingin.
Like it's just, they're so niceand easy to work with.
They're kind of like a balanceof professional and playful, so
I can use them for clientpresentations and for course

(52:27):
stuff.
And it feels like it fits wellfor both of those.
So yeah, I'm really happy withthat experience.

Kyle Soucy (52:32):
And I'm sure it makes the process of creating
these decks quicker for

Oh, totally.
And I feel like, whereas with myprevious slides, I knew I wanted
to change them.
So I didn't love them because Iknew at some point I'd be
changing them.
Now I'm like, okay, I'm probablygoing to stick with this
template for, years.
Until maybe at some point in thefuture it'll feel outdated or
something.
But right now it feels great.
So I feel like invested in usingthem.

Kyle Soucy (52:53):
I love that you have this now, this template that you
feel really confident in and,and proud of.
And I think that changes, howyou approach your work and
you're excited.
Like, you know, I'm going to.
Wow.
You with this report now?

yeah, absolutely.
And I've had, actually, thefirst time I used it, I had the
client comment after, like, thatshe loved, she's like, I love
the new deck.
It looks so great.
Who did this?
It looks so professional.
So yeah, it definitely isgetting good results.

Kyle Soucy (53:16):
Oh, that's so great.
And when you first told me aboutthis, um, that you were having
this template done, I wasthinking in my head, I'm like,
oh, is this for pitch decks, youknow, or, or not.
And, I remember I asked you, sodo you write your proposals like
as a deck or is it still a worddoc?
Cause I'm old fashioned.
A final proposal for me isusually written in, a word doc,

(53:36):
or something like that.
And I, I wondered, I'm like,huh, maybe I should be switching
this up.
But then I talked to you andyou're like, no, no, no.
You still do a word doc too.
Right.

Yeah, I'm still, I don't know, old school
or lazy or something.
Yeah, I, I, I still do like, youknow, WordDoc basically, like I
have my sections I alwaysinclude, a little background on
the project to make sure I'munderstanding their problem
correctly, you know, like thescope of work and like a little,
uh, schedule chart and thepricing and whatever.
And I have a couple of pages atthe end that are about me and my
business and, You know, andstuff.

(54:08):
And I mean, that's worked finefor me so far, as far as I can
tell.
I don't, you know, who knows?
Cause I don't know sometimes Idon't get a project and maybe if
I'd used a deck instead, I wouldhave gotten it.
I don't know, but, um, it'sworking fine for me, but yeah,
like a lot of these, especiallylike bigger agencies use pitch
decks that look, Much moreflashy and interesting and I
guess I don't know to whatextent my clients care about the

(54:28):
flash part versus just thecontent, right?
I'm really just focusing on thecontent of the proposal, whereas
a deck can make it, much nicerkind of flashy presentation.
Now that I have this template, Icould probably create a pitch
deck template pretty easily,right?
I mean, I know what kinds ofslides I basically just be
taking what I would normally putin a written proposal and kind
of piece it out onto slides andmake it look a little bit.

(54:48):
Uh, flashier, and maybe at somepoint I'll try, but I guess part
of me is like, you know, if itain't broke, don't fix it, you
know, my current way of doingthings is fine, even if it's not
super exciting and, you know, Iland most of the projects I'm
pitching for, so I'm not tooworried, but maybe in the
future, I'll give it a try.

Kyle Soucy (55:02):
Yeah.
I have similar feelings and I'dlove to know from the listeners,
if you're doing pitch decksinstead of written proposal
docs, let me know.
I, you know, I'll share it withthe audience.
I'm curious to get people'sfeedback on this.
Um, yeah.
Are we old school or just doingthings like everyone else?

Yeah, and also if any listeners want to
share their examples of coolpitch decks, I'd love to see
them.

Kyle Soucy (55:23):
Oh, yeah, me too.
Me too.
Now I'd like to switch gears totalk about something a little
more personal.
We're both mothers, and we tooktime off consulting when we had
our children, which can be quitescary.
And I know there are plenty ofconsultants, both men and women,
who at some point, May need topause their consulting practice

(55:44):
for one reason or another.
And I was wondering if you couldshare what, you know, what was
your experience like pausingyour consulting practice when
you had your child two and ahalf years

I mean, um, it was, It was scary.
It was a scary thing to do.
So, uh, so I'm in Canada wherelike a typical maternity leave
is like either 12 or 18 months.
Um, so, you know, pretty muchall of my friends who have had
kids would take 12 or 18 monthsoff, which, is very luxurious
compared to what many Americansmight be able to take, of
course.

Kyle Soucy (56:11):
Yeah.
Totally envious.

Um, and so I always had in my mind that I
probably wanted to take a year.
Cause that's just seems kind ofstandard here.
Okay.
But I also knew that, um, Iwouldn't get any money from the
government.
So if I was working a full timejob, I would get a chunk of, it
wouldn't nearly be anywhereclose to my full salary, but it
would be, a decent chunk ofmoney.
Um, whereas I wouldn't get anyof it because in Canada, your
business has to pay into theunemployment insurance, program

(56:34):
in order to eventually, accessit.
and get maternity leave benefitsand my business does not pay
into it and my accountant haskind of advised me that it's
just not worth it like itfinancially would either be a
wash or wouldn't be worth it ifI were to kind of pay into it
the idea is you have to pay intoit for the rest of the life of
your business if you ever wantto take benefits so like There's
a lot, a lot to weigh there.
And we basically decided itwasn't worth it.

Kyle Soucy (56:54):
yeah.

I also, you know, knew that even if I was
taking time off, I might want totake on a bit of work here and
there.
Like, I had no idea how muchtime I'd want to be fully off
versus maybe like partially off.
And so that was kind of anotherfactor.
And so, with, with the idea inmind that I wanted to take
probably about a year off, Istarted, Just trying to save a
lot of money, basically.
I mean, leading up to when Igave birth to my daughter, I was

(57:16):
trying to take on as manyprojects as possible, trying to
squirrel away a bunch of money.
Because what I wanted to do wasstill pay myself my normal
salary throughout my maternityleave as if I was still working,
because like my household stillneeded the money.
And so I wanted to make sure Ihad that really big cushion so
that I could kind of keep payingmyself like usual, and then
hopefully just transition backto work and then pick up where I
left off.

(57:36):
And for the most part that'skind of how it went.
Like I managed to have a reallygood year, got a lot of money
saved, you know, that was allgreat.
But it was kind of scary comingback because, I'd been gone for
almost a year.
Um, and I had to kind of, youknow, probably send an email out
to all my clients being like,Hey, by the way, I'm back.
Um, which, you know, um, I thinkthe problem is, you know, with
the kind of work that we do is,you A lot can happen in a year

(57:58):
and people might hire aresearcher in house or make a
relationship with a differentconsultant or whatever.
And so I kind of lost, um, someclient relationships because
they'd found another solution,right.
Which is totally reasonable.
They can't wait around for ayear for me to come back.
So I went back, uh, in, what wasit like April of, of 2023, I
guess, and, Yeah, 2023 was kindof a rough year.

(58:18):
I think it was for a lot ofpeople, but in, for me in
particular, because I was, alsohaving this challenge of coming
back from zero basically, andhaving to rebuild those
relationships and get that kindof engine going again for work.
Plus also like the challenge ofhaving a young child, even
though she was in daycare at thetime, it's still a lot.
On your plate, you have no moreweekends and stuff anymore.
So I did find that challenging.
I feel like it worked outultimately well in the end.

(58:40):
And now, this year is 2024 andit's going to be a better year
than 2023 was, but I'm alreadythinking about, you know, if I
do have another kid, um, Goingthrough that whole process again
and how difficult it's going tobe, it'll be easier the second
time around, but I'm still kindof dreading the idea of again,
disappearing for another, youknow, X number of months and
having to come back and rebuildafter

Kyle Soucy (59:00):
Yeah.
Yeah.
So with my experience, it wasdefinitely easier the second
time around.
So 2009, um, had my first childand I, I was not good about
preparing for it.
It was just like, I was in like,whatever, like, you know what,
it's, it's going to be what it'sgoing to be.
And I, I didn't really.

(59:20):
Think about it much.
It was on the heels of the 2008recession or crash or whatever.
And that kind of sucked becausemy time off was longer than I
expected it to be.
I thought a few months and I'dbe back in the swing of things.
And I just figured I would just,as.
As the leads came in, I'd eitherturn them down or take them.
Right.

(59:41):
But then there were no leads forlike 10 months.
And I'm like, Oh no.
Did I take myself outcompletely?
What just happened in themixture of the bad economy and
everything that was just scary.
But then once it ramped up, itwas back, you know, but it took
a bit.
Um, with the second one, I thinkI took, I would not suggest

(01:00:03):
this, but I think I took likethree

Elizabeth Creighton (01:00:05):
Oh my God.
Oh, Kyle

Kyle Soucy (01:00:07):
well, it was a hard time.
So, uh, my husband was laid offand he was going through a
career change.
So he's going back to school andit's okay.
Cause it worked out, but I wasalmost kind of mid project and
they knew, you know, of course Iwas taking a break.
Um, but things were just therefor me.
They were okay with me.
Taking time off and they'relike, well, are you going to be
okay?
I'm like, yeah.

(01:00:27):
And it's so, it's kind of funny.
It's kind of funny.
Like was I, I don't know,probably not my best, but you
just kind of do what you have todo.
Like it works out.
I don't know.
Um, but it's funny.
The first is hard.
Cause it's motherhood.
You're new, you're new tomotherhood.
You're new to everything andyou're obsessed and you're just
like, but the second timearound, it's like a juggling

(01:00:49):
act.
You're like, Oh yeah, yeah, Iremember this.
I got

yeah, yeah, like, I mean, right, like, I've
already decided, you know,again, if we have another kid,
um, as opposed to the kid beinghome with me for a full year,
I'll probably do nine months,because now that I've had the
experience of, shifting a kidover to daycare, I know that
it's challenging, but I alsoknow that, The baby can get
through it, if you know what Imean.
So I'm like more comfortablewith them going, you know,
sooner.
And I also remember that ninemonths is when I started to feel

(01:01:12):
kind of antsy at home beinglike, okay, when's the project
going to come around?
Like, okay, I should be,thinking about this.
And yeah, I think a lot ofaspects will be easier though.
I'm also not looking forward tothe idea of, you know, um,
having a second kid with a veryneedy toddler also, wanting me
at home and, you know, kind ofbalancing that.
But, I'm sure when it, you know,when it

all works out.
Yep.
It all works out Yeah.
Well, thank you so much forsharing that I appreciate it
because I know there there areother folks out there that are
concerned, you know If I go outon my own, what do I do if I
have to take time off and it itworks out You figure it out.
Yeah,

exactly.

well What I wanted to do to wrap up here is just
have some rapid fire questions.
Uh, if you had to describe UXconsulting in one word, how
would you describe it?

um, thrilling.

Thrilling.
Okay.
Yeah.
And what's the best piece ofbusiness advice you've ever
received?

Oh, that's a good question.
Um, so I think the only peoplewho have kind of explicitly
shared business advice with mewas, Kathy Kaiser, and Lyman
Casey at Centralis, my, youknow, my first UX job.
And I remember one of the thingsthat they kind of taught us,
was, Good news is an email, butbad news is a phone call.
And really it's more like aphone call or a meeting.

(01:02:28):
What they're, what they'retrying to say is that you can
share good news, with the clientin any way you want, but if it's
going to be bad news, you wantto have that like real
conversation with them, it's aphone call or it's a meeting.
It's not just like a, an emailsaying like, Oh, by the way, we
can't get our participants thisweek, or, Oh, by the way, the,
the.
Projects delayed by a month orsomething like that.
No, you have a real conversationabout it.
And I'm not going to say Ialways take that advice.
Sometimes I take the easy wayout and send the email and don't

(01:02:50):
have the conversation and hopethat no one really cares that
much.
But, I do definitely try moreoften to, inform people in a
more personal way and have areally good conversation about
it.
If I have to relay some sort ofbad news about a project to a
client.

That is good advice.
Yeah.
Cause you can minimize a lot of,of damage by having that

Exactly.
It's like scary to do.
It's very awkward and scary todo, but it's worth it in the
end.

Love it.
Yeah.
And lastly, what consultingresources have been most helpful
for you?
Is there a must read book orpodcast or a coach or anything?

Yeah.
Good question.
I feel like I have not been verygood at seeking out help.
There are coaches and peoplethat can help with this and I, I
feel like, um, I always just getso zoned into my world and I
kind of forget like, Oh right.
I should be doing things to makeme better at, at, What I am,
right?
I don't know everything aboutthis stuff.
One of the reasons why yourpodcast is so great is I can
listen to these episodes, likethe one with Karen McGrane, the
first episode was awesome.

(01:03:44):
I mean, they've all beenawesome, but yeah, one book I
really enjoyed that I read, um,when I was first getting
started, I think, is calledcompany of one by Paul Jarvis.
And so it's basically about theidea of, intentionally having a
company of one, whether it's aconsulting business or something
else that you do makingsoftware, whatever.
Thinking about the complexitythat gets added on when you add
even just one more person ontoyour team is huge.

(01:04:06):
And if you value having a prettysimple, straightforward,
flexible life, you might justwant to stick to being a company
of one, of course there aredrawbacks that too, you can't
take on as much work as oneperson, you know, or maybe you
have more ups and downs causeyou're just one person.
But for me, I really value likethe kind of simplicity and
flexibility of consulting andthinking about my company as
always being a company of one.

(01:04:26):
Has been a helpful frameframework, I guess.

Uh, I have to check that book out.
I have not heard of it and Iwill definitely include a link
in the show notes to that andreally everything that you've
mentioned.
I am so grateful, Elizabeth,that you could spend this time
with us and share just yourwealth of wisdom.
You're doing so many greatthings.
You're doing a lot of thingsright that.
Things that I know I should bedoing that I'm not doing.

(01:04:50):
So I'm just so grateful that youcould share this with us.

Oh, I'm so glad you had me on the podcast
and I'm going to, I'll create adiscount code for my course.
For your podcast listeners,probably like UX lounge 15 or
something like that for 15percent off.
I'll share that with you.
So you can put that in the shownotes, but I really appreciate
it, Kyle.
I'm flattered you invited me.
I always love talking to you andwe never get a chance to talk
for this long.
Um, so I'm glad that we did it.

Great.
Well, I'm so glad to, well,thank you so much.

you too.

All right.
Take care.

Bye Bye.

All right.
That wraps up this episode.
Thanks for joining me.
So do you have a topic or aquestion that you would like us
to explore on a future episodeof the UX consultants lounge?
Perhaps there's an anonymousconsulting story you want to
submit.
If so, click on the link in theshow notes to submit your story

(01:05:42):
or question from the podcastwebsite.
Until next time, keep thatconsultancy going.
I can't wait to have you back inthe lounge for our next episode.

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.css-14f5ked{margin:0;word-break:break-word;display:-webkit-box;-webkit-box-orient:vertical;box-orient:vertical;-webkit-line-clamp:2;overflow:hidden;}Elizabeth Creighton - Scaling Your UX Consultancy: Newsletters, Courses, and Deliverables