The post in which I tell you about Teaching Sells and what I think about it

September 3, 2009 by Johnny
Filed under: Announcements, Online biz

Let’s get something out in the open right away, shall we? I’m a Teaching Sells affiliate. If you buy it through one of my links, I will get a commission. I’m not telling you this because I have to. I’m telling you so that if you’d like, you can decide right now that I’m untrustworthy and am slanting my review because I want to make money. If you think that, I’d rather have you leave now instead of staying and being all bitchy.

Still here? Good. Fuck those people who stopped reading. They were all ugly and wore bad shoes.

Cool. Let’s talk.

But before we get started, if you think you might be into Teaching Sells, skip down to the very end of this post and follow the 4-step procedure there. That’ll get you on the Early Bird signup list, and you’ll be able to get the info you need to sign up. This is important because the course may very well fill up before the official launch at 1pm EST today. There are 3750 people on the Early Bird list now, and the course is already open to those people. If you wait for the official launch, you may well get shut out.

And, there’s four bonus modules that the first 250 people get. They include how to do seminars, and seminars are where the real money is. So yeah, if you’re going to get in, do it now.

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Okay, on to my review.

Now, the purpose of this post is not to comprehensively review the course. I can’t do that because I haven’t finished it. I got in there for the first time two days ago, and there’s way too much in there for me to have gotten through more than some of it. The best I can do is to give you my impressions of what I’ve seen on skimming and the lessons I’ve actually listened to.

So, to start, what is Teaching Sells? If you’ve been to the site (use one of the links on this page; they’re affiliate links; nom nom nom give me money unethical sales techniques nom nom nom), you’ve been able to check out the video for the official Brian Clark description of what it’s all about.

But if you’re still wondering, here’s how I’d describe it: It’s a really, really, really comprehensive step-by-step guide to taking the knowledge you have in your head about a topic you know well and creating an online “interactive learning environment” (a “paid membership site” to you and me) in order to teach it to people.

It’s not a get-rich-quick guide. The Copyblogger team (that’s who created this in case you didn’t know… a group of people with a pretty damn good reputation for quality) has been really clear that this is about building a business, over time. They project four months to build a site for most people, but you work at your own pace. If you’re slow, it’ll take you longer. If you’re screaming insane, you can have it ready to go in two months.

I do honestly like this model a lot. There are plenty of courses out there that will teach you how to sell widgets. You create a widget of some sort; you get the word out about your widgets; you do some Google AdWords; you make millions. That’s what they claim, anyway. But this one teaches you how to get paid to teach. The beauty of this is:

1. Everyone is good at something. Everyone knows something really well, and

2. Look around at the people who make big money online or even off. What do they do? Answer: They teach. Hell, it’s part of what I do. Going forward, it will be more of what I do.

The course itself is divided into content modules. There are fifteen of these, and holy shit do they cover the gamut. Although that’s a lie. They don’t so much cover the gamut as suffocate the gamut until it starts to kick, scream, and eventually twitch into lifelessness. The one thing TS does not suffer from is lack of content.

Here are a few of the modules. I’m paraphrasing because I don’t know how detailed the CB team wants me to be:

• Designing and developing content
• Market research (i.e. making sure there’s a group who will pay for what you know in advance)
• Creating profitable business models
• Actually building an online membership site (i.e. “the technical how-to”)
• Marketing and positioning
• How to conduct a successful launch
• How to tie in and maximize affiliate marketing in an “under the radar” way (I’m looking forward to this one. I think half of what I’ve made online has been through affiliate marketing, and it’s a fantastic win-win-win way to do business)
• Conducting seminars and workshops

That last one is a biggie. How do big “infopreneurs” (people who sell information; I like annoying buzzwords) make most of their money? Through large, live events like seminars.

(Oh, I should mention, though, that the seminars and affiliate marketing modules are two of four bonus modules that only the first 250 people will get. So if you want those and know you want to buy, DO IT NOW.)

These modules are further divided into 119 lessons, each of which is available in at least a streaming audio version, online text version (like a blog post), or printable PDF. Some have video. You can also download the narrative lessons as MP3s to play on your iPod while you do Pilates and shit.

Right away, I was blown away by the fact that each lesson is offered in multiple formats. I tend to be auditory and have always liked listening to content. Most courses don’t have the option. Tony Robbins’ stuff is typically all audio, and countless other courses are all text. Because Tony and these other programs don’t offer different options, text people are going to be annoyed by Tony Robbins and audio people like me are going to be annoyed by courses you have to read.

Also, the lessons are read by Sonia Simone. Brian’s cool, but you can imagine Sonia being all hot with the pink hair and all.

In addition, a bunch of the modules have bonus audio discussions between Brian and Tony. These clarify some of the content in the main article/audio, but unfortunately, neither participant has pink hair.

Beyond that, two things that are particularly badass about TS are the content library and the member forums.

The content library has 460 packages of information on all sorts of different topics that, depending on the usage license, you can use as content in creating your own teaching programs and sites. If you decide to start a business teaching about nutrition and diet, there’s a package called “1000 Atkins diet recipies” and a bunch of other recipe packages. If you’re running a realty site, there’s things like “101 tips for selling your home.” This is information created by other people but is available for you to use — so you don’t have to create everything de novo. (This is intended to be supplementary, though. You can’t just borrow all of your content. You will obviously need to add your own, with these as supplements.)

The member forums are where you can ask questions of other TS members, share your experiences, gain support, or learn best practices from your peers. I’ve seen this approach work extremely well in Project Mojave. There, the students become their own teachers, and the “in the trenches” experiences often add valuable insights that the instructors couldn’t know to include.

The program really is step-by-step. You follow this content from end to end and do what it says, you’ll end up with a site where you can teach information that you know well and that people have demonstrated they’re willing to plunk down money to learn. And everyone knows something well, whether it’s knitting or snake taming or rat massage, so it’s aces for anyone who’s determined and at least somewhat personable. (Note: I have no advance information on the profit potential inherent in the rat massage niche.)

My opinion

Before you start getting all skeptical and annoying about me giving my opinion, go ahead and read the first few paragraphs of this post again. YES, I have a vested interest in this program. But YES, I also think I’m mature enough to tell you what I honestly think.

I like what I’ve seen of this course very much. If I didn’t like it, I wouldn’t have written this post and opened myself up to all sorts of criticism about being a hypocrite. I would have slowly faded into the background and avoided eye contact with Brian Clark, which would be easy because I’ve never seen him in person.

The Teaching Sells model correctly implies that pretty much anyone can teach, and that hence, pretty much anyone with some initiative and the willingness to invest can start a teaching business. The grease monkey showing his son how to change spark plugs? That’s teaching. The weirdo showing off his Transformers collection? Teaching. It’d be up to you (with the help of TS content) to determine if Transformers knowledge has profit potential, but it’s teaching nonetheless. Everyone knows something. Everyone can teach. Just about anyone can find a way to make money off of it, if they try hard enough.

What’s more, TS isn’t based on bullshit and hype. I can smell bullshit a mile away, and if the program were based on razzmatazz and flim-flam and exploiting internet “magic” to make money, I wouldn’t dig it. But this is sound business. First, you understand that what’s in your head is actually worth something (because most people don’t realize that and it holds them back; I’ve written about it recently). Then, you define your market and find out whether it’s full of people who are willing to pay for what you know. You slowly build your name and your expertise in that market, so that people come to see you as an authority with a high perceived value. Then you put your content into several usable formats (audio, video, text) like TS has done, build a site, launch it, and start getting paid to teach. Maybe it’s slow at first or maybe it happens quickly. You learn, adapt, and grow. Then, if you got in in time to get those bonus modules, you make some extra scratch on affiliate sales, seminars, and so on.

Not flim-flam. Logical, true, reality-based business principles.

Will this course make you money? No, nothing (no thing) will make you money. Will it give you the tools so that if you bust your nuts (you too, ladies, regardless of nuts), you can sell what’s in your head? I’d bet it will. Use the shit and persevere and you’ll get there.

Okay, so if you think this course sucks, thanks for reading.

But if you want in, you should totally use this link to go to the site. Do it now, and here’s why:

1. Brian says that there are 3750 people on the Early Bird list. There are only 500 slots, and the course is already open to those people. He predicts that the course may fill up before the official, general launch.

2. You’ll only get those bonus modules (including affiliate marketing and seminar-building) if you’re one of the first 250.

Note: Signing up isn’t straightforward yet because the general launch hasn’t happened. Here’s how you do it:

1. Go to the site and put in your email address.
2. You’ll get an email with a link to your free preview content. On that page is a signup to join the Early Bird list.
3. Put your email in again for the Early Bird list.
4. Follow the instructions that are emailed to you. They’ll tell you how to sign up.

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Tags: Teaching Sells

Comments

2 Comments on The post in which I tell you about Teaching Sells and what I think about it

Mike Drips on Thu, 3rd Sep 2009 11:00 am

See Johnny, you can write like a professional when you set your mind to it.

Well in your case when there’s money involved.

Anyway it’s a very polished posting even though I won’t be signing up for Teaching Sells in the immediate future if ever. Namely because the Copyblogger people are in Texas and I would rather fund Al-Queda than send a Texan a dollar.

By the way, there are books available (granted they are from the 90s) that were written by Tony Robbins.

Johnny B. Truant on Sat, 5th Sep 2009 8:29 am