Marc Andre Sequin, Founder of jazzguitarlessons.net
Jared:
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Hello everybody and welcome to the Kajabi Edge Podcast, where we talk to real entrepreneurs to give you an edge on Kajabi. I'm your host Jared Lohman, Vice President of Customer Experience, and today I'm joined by my friend Mark, founder and instructor at jazzguitarlesson.net. How are you doing today Mark?
Marc:
Hey, Good! Thank you!
Jared:
Really glad to have you here today. So, we’d love to kind of just get started by figuring out a little bit of your backstory, how you got started in this field? And where you’re at kinda prior to joining Kajabi?
Mark:
Okay, it's gonna take a minute, but basically I got formal training, formal musical training here in Canada, and towards the end of high school I decided I wanted to pursue music, you know seriously, professionally. So, as things go, your teachers in high school will tell you, do you wanna do Classical Music or Jazz? Conservatory style or jazz? Cause a Jazz is serving the pop side of all of these, so I went, “Ah I’ll do Jazz.”
And after that, I fell in love with that kind of music, you know, it's a very expressive art form if you will, an American art form purely the improvisation side that really gelled with me. So I did my schooling, and after that I became a professional player and also a teacher, because most musicians can't really make ends meet, especially the time I graduated, just by performing, So I played a lot, recorded etc.
I was in Montreal that time. And then, I was starting to teach in grade schools, you know, teaching kids the Suzuki Method, just a classical guitar. I was teaching in music schools, like, you know the music store music school, that type of thing, where they sell the guitar and they wanna teach you lessons. So I started to do that, and the real deal happened when I sort of “Hey I’ll make a blog, I’ll make a website,” and I founded...it was actually January 1st 2009, where I registered the domain jazzguitarlessons.net. So I remember this like it was yesterday. So that’s sort of the prequel.
I played a lot of different music you know, rock and blues, more heavy stuff, progressive metal and jazz. But I sort of took the whole like performance and stuff took a back seat to becoming an instructor and a coach online.
Jared:
Very cool! Yeah, I’d love to even just zoom in a little bit more to that January of 2009, where you realized, hey! I think I've got something, I wanna create some content for people, like what was kind of the mindset there? What led you to the blog and wanting to move in that direction?
Marc:
I just found, well I love computers, that's one thing, like when I started to study in university here, I was in Computer Science, also I have a Bachelor's Degree in Statistics, so I’m a stats guy. I’m also in actuary, by training but not by trade rights. So I started a website and I found this thing, which is not a promotion, but they're probably still going, it's called Site Build It (SBI). It’s an old sort of a website builder, where they help you figure out the SEO, what keywords you wanna look for, and I didn't know, like I just registered the domain like I, I’ll make this page about XYZ, jazz guitar legend like Joe Pass and Wes Montgomery, and I’ll start there and what's gonna happen? I'm gonna put ads on a website, maybe, and you know even blogging wasn't like, at that time Youtube was not even owned by Google yet, you know that's way back in the day right?
So, I started to do that, and then, I started to offer my private teaching, actually, “Hey! take a lesson with me on Skype.” I was amongst the first guys online to do that, and I started to get some clients, you know in the UK, in Australia, etc. and that’s the moment where I...my plan was like put a website up and we’ll see, it was by no means going to you know, build a well say a career or becoming a full time instructor, but it’s, you know, it follows through experimentation.
Jared:
So, it kinda started out as like an advertising channel for you?
Marc:
Yeah, it could have been like, hey, I’ll build this and then I’ll get known for to be that guy that has a website, and then I can perform or you know, sell more albums or whatever. The case maybe make connections and I did. But it sort of took their routers and instead of well, with Covid it’s been good that I don't have any gigs lined up, but it took the routers instead of the career as a performer, you just became the career as, hey show people stuff. And I think it's right in line with the best good I can do in the world, like the calling. I think I’m better as an instructor than as a performer.
Jared:
Very cool!
Marc:
My slice of life. My two cents.
Jared:
So I guess what plight did you realize that you had something there, and like where did kind of your transition move over into Kajabi? When did that come into play?
Marc:
So, it's a long thing because since 2009, a lot of different things happened in the world of online stuff, as well as to my website, the pages, the content. So one of the first things that happened I sold a course, and I mean a single ala carte, hey learn your skills type of thing. And I put this up on Udemy back then, and Udemy is still going strong, it's a big company. But I was one of the early adopters of Udemy, and it's just sort of, it just made sense, so I published there, so I think I made 3, or 4 more in the same vein, of like you know “pay $29 and learn your skills.”
And then around say 2014, 2015 I figured Udemy started to change their pricing tier. The commission to the instructor, to the teacher was different, so I made my own website. And it was competition for you actually, it’s Teachable. And Teachable got me. I’ll tell you the only reason that they got me because you were in your platform, and you wanted to build a course on Teachable, they don't have that feature anymore, thank god! You just went up there and go click import from Udemy. So they just sort of scrape my content off of Udemy, and then I had a store, sort of, now I can charge my own price and bring my own traffic and whatever.
And it's funny because at that point Kajabi was still called “The New Kajabi” like 2015, and I made an experiment on getting all of the stuff on a Wordpress E-Commerce platform, where I could sell my stuff. I've been in and out of The New Kajabi to try the platform, and fortunately or unfortunately I stuck to Teachable until 2019. And in 2019, I guess you guys now offered a servicing more but there was a migration that has been done by a team of you guys. And it was tremendous! Called like VIP Experience.
We have over a 100 products, because now I have it as a single unit, it’s a course right? So starts you to do all of these, but there's a 100 songs, so right there that’s a hundred different...they're not products but they’re you know have to make it into a Kajabi product and on top of that there's all the modules now. The old courses, I used to call them module, I call them modules now because what I consider the course is that, the bundle is the course. It’s called Jazz Guitar Mastery now.
So really my evolution in 2 years in Kajabi was, honestly getting...having a hard time with Teachable, some of the features and the simplicity and the stuff, and the managing of the customers etc. So I just, I made the switch and I sort of I'm letting the other one sizzle, the Teachable side and I just wrapped up the Kajabi side.
So it was sort of a process rather than just like, “Oh! let me adopt Kajabi right?” And when I adopted it you can probably see some of my pins, like my pins, my hoodie, my cup, lika all the Kajabi hero stuff I had it because I launched when I used Kajabi. So we're gonna launch this thing, it's a bundle, it's called jazz guitar mastery so within the first 2 or 3 days I got like 3 pins already.
Jared:
I love it!
Marc:
And I...it was really encouraging, the support and the way...one of the biggest things that's happening, and maybe I'm jumping the gun on the interview, but I just noticed how much Kajabi evolved between 2015 and 2020 and I'm like, Ah! this is where I should be. I’m putting all my eggs in the same basket, this is working. And even now, jumping the gun at the moment we're talking, I'm gonna eradicate the, all the stuff is gonna be hosted on Kajabi, so it means 300 blog posts, the podcasts, the this, the that. I'm just migrating the entire website there.
Because lately Kajabi has had a custom sending domain feature at it, and I'm like I don't need another CRM, I don't need a Convertkit or Infusionsoft, or Drip, or Aweber, or Mailchimp I don't need that anymore because I can do it all from one place. So, it's been a process but it’s been...every time I’ve been, “Ah! alright let me put my trust, a little more trust, a little more trust, and I was like oh well, we’re getting married, for life.”
Jared:
I love it! I love it! I'm interested, what percentage of your business would you say is offline versus online?
Marc:
Oh! 100% online.
Jared:
That's cool! So, at what point or was there a point to where you kinda had that AHA moment? To where your business is truly an online, a fully online business? That happened progressively, naturally or did it… did you just go all in?
Marc:
It’s a long story because it happened progressively. So there's a time where I went, “Hey! I'm in my early 20’s, I wanna finish that Statistics degree and become an actuary, let me do it!” So, I sort of put the website on hold. And it kept growing because of SEO right? People kept finding the videos and somehow I had this mailbox full of emails I didn't reply to and I'm like, I don't have time for this.
So, it's like after coming back from that Bachelor's degree, I looked at my options like local jobs and whatever, met my wife, actually we’re married and we have a kid now. So, I met someone in California, in your part of the world actually, and I had a mailing list, a modest one like 8,10K, and he's like, how often do you mail them? Like never, like...dude what are you doing? So, we had this conversation and sort of the week after I started to send emails, I said I'm gonna dust my old product and start to promote them again, look at the website, whatever.
Then I met a coach, kudos by the way, find him, Scott Miller. He's a sort of a business coach who is more niche type of business, like restoration and damage mitigation businesses, but anyways, a good friend. I started to teach him guitar, he started to give me unsolicited advice and then I'm like, yeah, what do you know? Oh! I’m gonna help you sell your courses because you wanted to learn guitar. So, this sort of happened, and then I guess you know in 2014, 2015. I'm like, well I guess this is what I do now. So it's...the click was very progressive.
Going back to school putting the stuff on hold and getting it back within, going like… yeah, you know I can probably extract a decent living wage off of just working on this and teaching students on Skype, whatever. So, it’s just like...it snowballed on me if you will. It's more of a surrender to life and then life’s gonna show you where to go, type of thing.
Jared:
Well tell me, like getting up and running, like when you started making that transitions, what were some of the challenges that you faced? The hurdles you had to overcome? To really gain that traction in this new online space.
Marc:
Well number 1, it was a battle for SEO, and even though it’s a very small niche, because I don't teach guitar guitar, I teach jazz guitar, well now at least... whatever the future is gonna hold, I don't know. But SEO was a big one, because I was pre-Youtube. Now, Youtube, I won't say I'm dominant but I...there's some work we’re doing on it. One of the challenges also was, actually my coach Scott, I just went...of all these pages and blog posts, you want the sheet music? Is there a click? Cause sheet music doesn't appear well on the page right? So on our phone, so just download as a PDF.
And Scott just told me little ideas like, why don't you put this behind an email? Not a paywall but just an email prompt. Of course I told him that's impossible, it's gonna be too much work blahh...blahh...So, I had about 100 or so or more pieces of content like this, so I just gave them all behind, I used Leadpages actually at that time. So it’s a lead boxer, click-open email-boom. And overnight I had 5,10 leads a week, you know just signing up for the newsletter and now it turned into like 500 a week. So, that was a challenge ago like, who am i gonna sell to? How do I fuel that mailing list? So, that was a big challenge, it was solved almost instantly, like this. Of course! I was kicking and screaming! But I still did it because, Scott.
And one of the other challenges that came around my time, where I adopted Kajabi, during a segue from Teachable was you know everybody gone on the bandwagon and the subscription thing, like you know, “Pay $29 a month and access all my stuff.” Then when you have people that have monthly charges, you have a lot of expired credit card, people have cancelled, you're looking at your retention rate etc. So, the challenge was this and now, I went, were gonna charge for the thing for a year period. You get it or you don't.
So, that solved a bunch of issues right? Cause if the credit card expired after a year it's like, do you want it for another year or no? You know it's an [inaudible 12:38]. But fighting with people for retention, making sure they're happy and whatever... so that was the big one, and maybe lastly, I tend to be...what's the word? Industrious? Or you know someone that produces a lot of stuff. So bundle this into a membership of sorts.
And then people after a while when you had too much, people will say “I got your thing where do I start?” What's what? Should I learn the songs? Or should I Iearn this technique or this chord or whatever. And we solved it by...actually I used a detour on the Kajabi library. Which the library...there's a redirect up in the code, where it goes to your product. Our product is called Concierge like the bellboy in the hotel right? And it’s just...it’s telling you over, now it's 125 weeks, it's telling you what to do on that given week. Start here, do all of these, so we just put the entire content, we just align it on one single line. Just start here and do all of that.
Of course, people are gonna go faster, gonna go slower, gonna try to look at the bonuses instead, but that was one of the challenges which is engagement. How do you engage with people when you have so much stuff? And people come in at all kinds of different levels, you know because jazz is a sort of...we require people to already play, you’ve been playing guitar but you’re getting into jazz, that's our niche. So, people come in they're like heavy metal shredders but other people play folk guitar, another guy play classical guitar, so that's been another big challenge. How do you make it straight, and make it seem organized at least.
Jared:
Yeah! What would you say is been one of the...I guess the best ways to get your content priced and packaged in such a way that your audience is receptive to it?
Marc:
I'm gonna quote...so tremendous guy, I don't make a commission off of this but I’ll tell you. Till, T-I-L-L Boadella. He’s sort of a launch expert, so I took his trainings and worked with him in a course of a year. It has a process called the MAP. He’s brilliant, super easy. When you brand a product and you price it, you have to have a unique blend of M Unique Mechanism, A is Audience and P is Promise. So, typically a lot of the people say they have 2 but not the 3. When you have the 3, boom!
So, the best way to do the mechanism for us is that Concierge thing. Concierge is weekly, go week by week on your content. And now I rebrand it even beyond just delivering. It's like...it's called the Concierge Method. It's a way to think. It's a framework, it's like...you know the old way is doing that with your teacher. Now my way is the Concierge Method, so that “Mechanism” has been tremendously helpful. The “Audience” you validate, you get proof of concept through your conversion rates and whatever. And the “Promise” has been one to tweak as well. It’s like what are you gonna get out of this?
And so, the MAP is one way to bundle it and present it and the pricing side is just a yearly thing, you know between $4 and $800? You know anything above $1,000 you have to get on a call. Like nobody’s gonna put their credit for..no? So, just dealing with that guy...I met another copywriter, another people along the way that helped me just like by sheer dumb luck again like Scott, and Till really just helped me put a framework to it, then we launched, and it exploded! So like “Ah! Proof of concept right?” Validation.
So, MAP and getting something priced yearly, instead of the old challenge of I have all these individual products, you can buy this, you can buy that. You can buy an ebook or do you wanna have a private lesson, now it's like no,no...here's a bundle, here's a product. Get it! MAP you know? Does that answer your question? I'm sorry, I went like...
Jared:
Yeah! That's great! That's great! I guess you know, you’ve had a lot of things that went really well and went really right. Kinda looking back on things, what would you say or some kind of the key lessons that you've learned putting this together? Like how would you fast track this for someone else who is just getting started? Like what are some of the top points for you?
Marc:
Yeah! We are actually, I’m working with some other people in different niches of guitar to fast track their process. I'm not an instructor for that one. For one thing, MAP as I mention, but also, have one clear consistent offer that you can put in a funnel so that people...it's evergreen right? So, people just get in a funnel and get the offer or not. So you know, take your best shot, as saying hey, you subscribe, thanks for getting your email, take your best shot in making the sale early on. But offer one thing, not here's a page with 50 products you can choose from and they all priced at $19, like don't do that. That's been a mistake actually or you know a learning phase.
And the other thing that I’ve started to do only about a year ago is I coach people. So the music thing it’s… you know you take your private lesson. You know, you’re a kid and you go to that lady’s house and you spend half an hour or so...That’s my wife actually, she's a piano teacher. And that's whatever...that's $50, whatever that's the price.
So getting...for a musician to just divorce this concept and go “No, no, I'm not teaching private lessons, I'm not exchanging my time for money.” I have this coaching platform and it's actually...mine is called Jazz Guitar Accelerator and it’s 12 months and it's a perfect...the people that get the course, they are actually leads to get on to that thing.
So, you let the funnel sort of feed itself, you sell the course and then you get people for your coaching. So lets say, get an offer for a course of sort and if you’re like a consultant, coach whatever get a... it's a high ticket offer, the coaching is financially...it's an investment and time investment as well. So just say, start with these 2 offers and raise that. And don't think of anything else right?
Early on...and that’s what I'm doing actually with a colleague, just tweet 2 offers and if you get on a call with someone that might want the coaching and it’s not a good shit, either for the pricing or the reasons you can always downsell the course. Say, well you could do it on your own with that stuff here and you know that’s hosted on Kajabi.
Jared:
Tell me, what are some of the things that you discovered perhaps later on in the game? Anything that you found out that once you got up and running, like once you had this course in motion, you had your pipeline and your funnels set up, what was kind of the next step or the next challenge you had to overcome?
Marc:
Probably, overcoming right now actually is just conversion rate, you know optimizing, I wouldn't say scaling yet because scaling is a big ugly word like Oh! But I'm getting a positive return on Youtube ads, which is not tremendous but it’s encouraging, so that’s one of the challenge which is just “Hey! It's working now.” So can we just keep the... you know, again 2 offers and optimize it. Look at the messaging at a certain email, make sure like you're striking home with a proper audience, all of these things.
Actually I talked to someone this afternoon to which I think we’re gonna start to work on that, in the form of either coaching consultancy. But the big mistake I used to do when I had a coach back then, local coach for business said that everything is running your way, everything is going. And yet these things and you know how close you are to all messing it up, like a house of cards you're just gonna destroy it. Because everything is going well, and now you don't know what to do, so you’re gonna mess it up completely.
So, I think the reverse of that is just let things in place run, just tweak them and measure the effectiveness of your change. So optimize would be the big take away, I think.
Jared:
I'm curious. What have you found to be most effective in terms of optimization? Like, what are you looking into at this stage?
Marc:
Right now, for the past say 6 months or so, we have an evergreen funnel, so that's... it was a play on word to say that we launched and we got validation. So, we turned it into a movable cart close date. So, hey! You opt in today and people say, well you’re sort of a liar. It is in a way but then it is automated. So, we replicate the process from day zero for when you come in with your email.
So that's one of the strategies that worked well because it’s...that’s the big difference in you know, yeah the pricing page. Of course! It depends on the company. If I want to get Kajabi, I want a pricing page. I want to get Kajabi, today I start my free trial now. I don't need a funnel to tell me they're gonna open in 2 weeks.
But for my information product, I sort of have to hold off a little bit, close the gate and go “No, it's not available at all times.” It's just we’re telling you, it’s gonna open on that date, and then there's value right? So, that's been optimized and then once it opens there's this urgency. In a way it's artificial, but in another way it's a great way to differentiate between tire kickers and just people that are serious.
So, if people are engaged and serious, and get an email they really wanna get in, all the tire kickers might, you know, click and get it and then look at it and go no, I want a refund whatever. We don't offer refunds anymore, that's another big lesson like, you get it or you don't. But just that we don't do that. So be sure to look at all the information before you get in.
Jared:
I'm really interested when you said you don't offer refunds. Like tell me more about that like what was the tipping point for you in that area?
Marc:
Putting a launch together and that...Till again, Im gonna...kudos to Till. His approach is pretty simple. You have an authority period. Mine happens to have 6 videos, and the 6 videos say, you know the MAP, the M unique mechanism you start off by saying, “Hey! Here's a 5...10 minute video where I'm gonna destroy the old way and show you my mechanism. The 2nd video is like, “Hey! Here's how you...I don't have anything for sale but you can pick up your guitar tonight and you can implement that mechanism,” - my Concierge. The 3rd video shares a secret on how to learn songs, something that I teach a private student, whatever. You know you're sort of making sure you have an authority as a figure in teaching. And that's a total of 6 videos.
So, it’s a warm up, that is... also has a timer, countdown timer that is custom to use with an email link through this and that. I've told you about my mechanism enough, you know about me. We had a case study of successful students or more right? The testimonials are...right now, I tell you what's in it? And from that you can take and, I don't hold off like here's exactly what you get, and that's the price tag. No beating around the bush, no this and that. So knowing that, there's no refund you know. That's also...it's in a small case. Like no!...no!...no!...there's no... You know enough about this to know if it suits you or not.
So, it has a side of chasing off people like, “Oh there's no refund, I don't wanna take it.” And there is also the commitment aspect, so it plays on the psychology of using the thing, making the progress, learning the guitar, sitting...You just flunked $500 on that thing, for the year. So, you need to sit down with your guitar and make the most out of it.
So, that’s sort of philosophy came from, and also I saw other websites like, you know...you have to sell your guarantee, you know you have to put it out there whatever. I'm like actually no, you know we've done that for this $29 a month, like “Oh! You want a refund for your last 3 months because you didn't use it? Okay fine.” Now we're just like...it's sort of like we streamlined it. So the “no refund policy” is sort of a way to streamline everything.
And of course if someone has an issue, or he's on...it’s a yearly subscription and they forgot to cancel, it's like…”Look! I'm not using it, I paid for the 1st year and I'm not gonna pay for the 2nd year,” okay fine, and we’ll refund. But, it's just sort of, I think people started to take us very seriously as well. And ever since I increased the price, so I told you it’s $500 a year now and since we put the no refund policy, I've never received that many praise emails that goes “Your product is the best” whatever. Like, where were those guys when this was $9 a month? It was the same content. The psychology of the pricing, it plays in that.
Jared:
Yeah! That's really cool! It's something that I wouldn't...at least from my exposure I wouldn't say that that's common, like it seems like everyone is very strongly in trying to focus in on, like provide a satisfaction guarantee. But that's really cool that it worked out for you because it almost gave you a sense of credibility. Would you say that you...did you already have that credibility established before you initiated the no refund policy? Or did that...when did that happen?
Marc:
Yeah, I think the credibility was there. Now it's just like another step up like, look there is more content than anyone else in the web, there is more quality, there is more support, there is more of again “the Concierge,” the path that you follow A-Z, there's more like...name it, there is more of it. So, when I get an email going competition. Well site competition, truefire.com. They offer guitar lessons. They used to sell them on VHS and DVDs whatever. Right now it’s a subscription. They have a tiny portion of the website that's jazz and they say “Well, I could go to True Fire and pay extra month per month and get more stuff.” Like go! But I know you're not gonna get the same amount of jazz training because youre gonna get this instructor and this other guy...and this other guy. How does this relate?
Well the mastery, my Jazz Guitar Mastery, it's streamlined, it’s me, it's all from the...I’m the mastermind behind it. So there's a fake...not an actual fake kind of confidence, but it's like well the people that take it are successful. When they do what I tell them they are successful. So, the reputation was already there, I played on it going on like a...I guess it's take it or leave it. And it just simplified the, you know, the support, the emails, whatever.
Jared:
Sure! Going back would you have done it any sooner?
Marc:
Yeah!
Jared:
At what phase would you have done that? Like from the very get-go?
Marc:
No, I would have...because now I have a lot of content back then right? From the get-go one of the big monsters for me was Tune of The Month Club. That was like tying myself in the studio and re-shooting. So 1,2 in a month, So we went “Ah! We're gonna do this for about 50 songs right?” So that's like 4 years, and it was none of that.
But I charge, I'm like you can get this for $9 a month. So, for $9 a month you can get the new song that’s coming out and say it's like a magazine subscription right? So if you subscribe for this 3 months here, then you keep your copy forever. Right? So, I wasn't game to offer a no refund whatever. It’s like I was building it. And the when...the point where no refund say, when we started to say it’s yearly or nothing. That's where I said...and I implemented the no refund policy about 6 months after I started to offer the yearly payments.
Of course, there's one thing I do yearly payments of $500 or you can do 6 payments of whatever, so that's over 6 months. I will tell people after you're done paying your 6 months get 6 more months of access and it’s already paid for. So, that's been helping for people that don’t have $500 right away, or they're not sure with the trust like, I don't wanna pitch $500 to a guy online. You can just split it off.
Jared:
Cool! I know that everything in life, when you're listening to this through this perspective it's not always necessarily a fork in the road. But, just like thinking back to the fork in the road if you will. Like, had you gone on to just continue like private instruction, private trainings - like, what’s changed for you as a result of the shift to online business?
Marc:
One of the biggest shifts if reliving it back to almost like being a guitar teacher, guitar instructor for people. So the course people buy, I’m less of their guitar instructor and more of the persona in their camera. I'm like they know me but I don't know them right? That's one thing. The coaching side where I call the accelerator, the big change that is... it’s not even doable in real life, and you can only do it online is the way the students get support. So in my accelerator they're about, I think you can have 10 or 15 ways in which you can get support. There’s all...chat bubble, you can comment, the students can submit a video and get review. There's a group call, there's tons of things.
Well, if you're a 1on1 instructor, you get to my house, we play and then you go home and that's it! I don't want you to call me like...don't call me. That's one of the big changes and also sideline to that, I find that any information product I think there's typically too much stuff. So, that's why I say my jJazz Guitar Mastery is 125 weeks, that's 2 years and a half. You will need 2-3 years to finish all this content. That's why it's a subscription, it's a yearly subscription. But the good news is that it's more like an encyclopedia. It's a whole library drink from the fire hydrant like you get all the songs and get everything, it's not even dripped. It's like Boom!
But Concierge tells you, that's week 1, that's week 2, that there's that. They can still cherry pick and move around but also they have an order that is really precise. With the coaching side, it’s interesting because there's actually less stuff. There’s less songs, less materials, whatever. But you’re held your higher level of accountability of achieving things, meaning my student Bob has to sit here this week, he looks at his planner, there's a spreadsheet. I have this spreadsheet on my computer as well. And this week he owes me the song and video. So, it's like raising the heat on this guy. It’s like “Hey! You have to do this.”
But the amount of content is minimal. It's not even 10%, so maybe 5%. But your tied to...So that's a big, like fork in the road for just a private guitar teacher and the studio can’t provide the sort of channels of support. And can’t provide that sort of, “Hey! This is the road map for you here, we're gonna tailor it to you.” But on those days you know you’re expected to film stuff, send it to your way in, participate to the group call. It’s almost like a yoga class, you know with all these guys and then they come and we play together, and we do a work out...it's guitar work out. So that's practically impossible to do for not online instructor if you will.
Jared:
Do you think you would have been as successful, had you not gone down this path?
Marc:
Well, maybe I would have been a statistician or… but no, I think the fact that I can say, hey you know I have a mortgage and this kid and etc. And I can make ends meet and maybe you know put money aside, save money and you know live. I'm not wealthy by any measure but the fact that I can at least make a living is due to this online thing. And the fact that, yes I have these calls with my students, the one on ones. I have one you know coming up in twenty minutes. But I have one on ones, I have group calls and I have these sessions with my team because I have some people working with and for me, but I still decide my schedule.
If you’re a private instructor in a studio, I’d say package your content in a way that streamline that simple, make 5-7 minutes video, sell a course because you have leverage. You can stay in bed in the morning and people can go by your course. Well if you’re doing one on one or say even if you are a college guitar teacher you have to get there and teach a thing, right? So that’s basically lazy right?
So, I like when people...things are leveraged and I make money when I’m not necessarily doing my thing. You know I tried as best as I could.
You know I read theTim Ferris when it came out in 2009. So, I leveraged my time as much as possible and stopped exchanging directly my time for money. And it allows me to do things like this, you know be on podcast interviews, and think about the business, or go take a walk with my kid, my wife, or you know write a song...or you know life.
Jared:
Well, what's next on the horizon for you? What's coming up?
Marc:
We will take Jazz Guitar Mastery, and I’m not sure we have plans for mid-September and call it Jazz Guitar Mastery 2.0. Just there's a refurbishments and...meaning I reshoot some old lessons, we add, you know you have lesson 7 and 8, but now you have 7.1, 7.2, 7.3. We’re sort of, we’re still looking at the content, that is the paid content. And I'm looking for a 2.0 release of that, the 1.0 Jazz Guitar Mastery was November 2019. So 2.0, 2 years later something like that. Add stuff, remove stuff, add more bonuses maybe you know that’s coming up.
But also, I work with a local designer and she's looking into the design aspect, just to make it look better, shiny. You know, because I'm not a designer. My old stuff you can go...you know this way back machine? The archives? You can go back online and say, go check out the site back in 2010. “Oh my god!” So, that’s on the horizon really to re release it to our same audience, just capture more revenue, help people progress more.
I wanna keep doing the...getting my leads for the coaching side of things. So just you know, getting on more calls. For me it's super simple on transfers, I have this course, I have this coaching. And here is the price like... I don't even do sales, I just sit here and wait for the... Inbound is so powerful because of SEO.
Of course, we wanna finish transitioning fully to the Kajabi platform which means again, there's design, there's CSS, there’s tiny things. I have most of my automations already set up, the funnel and the newsletters, whatever. That’s already in Kajabi as of like last week, so it's just a coincidence.
I'm working with partners, so a guitar guy, a drum guy, and also someone, and then told the other niche and they have their websites on Kajabi as well. I'm like silent partnering into some side businesses like this. But I think the highlight, I just don't know when I'm gonna have time to do this with all of the stuff. But, I want to go back to teaching, that's the A-chord, that's the E-chord. The beginner, beginner, beginner guitar, so just start a brand new domain and just sort of offer these lessons for, just to capture a bigger part of the market. That's coming.
Jared:
Well, for anyone who does, you know, wanna learn a little more about you, learn about your offerings, how should they best find out about you?
.
Marc:
Jazzguitarlessons.net that’s a blog/website. Someone interested? If you play guitar but you've been interested in doing jazz, top right, book a call and you’ll talk to me, no BS. When you give me a call, I can tell you about that road map that I have...We can talk about the challenges they have, talk about the road map I do with my students. Best case scenario, “Hey! Come in coaching, have fun with all the other guys.” Alternatively there's this thing called Jazz Guitar Mastery which we have on our automated funnel.
People watching this the next few months, they can always join the waitlist, to be notified the moment. So, I have a general announcement, and also I have an early bird which I announce 24 hours before I go live. So that's gonna hopefully come up September 15, whatever the Sunday is, that mid-September. So, jazzguitarlessons.net you can find out all about it. And of course! Opt in with your email, say “Yes! I want messages from Marc” and we’ll do our best to harass you until you get the training.
Jared:
I love it! I love it! Well Mark, thank you so much for joining us today. I really appreciate you being here.
Marc:
Thanks for having me. Been loving everything that Kajabi platform has brought, improvements, the new stuff, the new layouts, the way, it's just...it made sense. And honestly with the Teachable side we had a bit of an issue with the subscription side, I don't wanna get into detail. But I went to Kajabi and it was like “Ah! Finally someone has figured it out,” just like Paypal, Stripe, connections all these. It's wonderful. If I could move...I would actually work for Kajabi or try to get in and go visit cause I love this platform. It's fantastic!
Jared:
That is so awesome! Thank you again Mark. For everyone else listening, really appreciate you joining us on the Kajabi Edge Podcast. Don't forget to leave us your review, subscribe, share this with your friends so that more and more people can be exposed to this incredible content shared directly by entrepreneurs, who are using this platform successfully. We will look forward to seeing you all next week on the Kajabi Edge Podcast.
