Need Extra Cash? Consider Creating an Online Course
It’s no fun being let go from your job, especially due to something completely out of your control. There’s no way around the initial shock and panic you feel. In time, however, you could soon find that it may have been a huge opportunity thrust upon you.
Whatever it is you do, businesses obviously need it. If they didn’t, you wouldn’t have had a job in the first place. So as you’re searching for the next full-time position, in addition to offering your services to companies and contacts in your network at a freelance rate you should also consider creating an online course.
There are several great course creation platforms such as Udemy or Thinkific that you can easily get started on. All you need is decent video production equipment, organized content and you’re good to go.
Once you’ve created your course, promote the hell out of it on your social media, especially LinkedIn. That’s where you will find the most potential customers. (LinkedIn has its own Professional Course Learning platform LinkedIn Learning that you can apply for as well).
Historically, professionals have been reluctant to share their expertise freely for fear that if what they knew was ubiquitous and easily accessible, it would drive their own economic value down. (This is something that organizations deal with all the time, subject matter experts refusing to truly collaborate outside their silos out of fear of becoming obsolete).
It’s an absurd anxiety, you want to share what you know with others so they can not only appreciate the value of what you do but also view you as a thought leader in your field.
When you first research it, creating a course will seem like a daunting task. If you need help, don’t hesitate to contact us.
It’s a lot like dancing or being funny. A lot of people think they can do these things. A lot of people are wrong.
Yet, despite multiple examples of major companies committing unbelievably stupid marketing communication blunders, the attitude persists.
Imagine watching football with your friends and one of them makes some mind-numbingly asinine comment like “I can do that too, I know how to run.” That’s how marketing people feel when someone says they can do what we do because they know how to write an email.
Don’t get us wrong, we find it adorable when we read emails from these kind of people. We just wonder if they properly identified their audience and developed character profiles, determined the motivations and interests of each one, highlighted the common spheres of motivations, packaged and customized content to those inclinations, developed counterarguments to likely objections, created a call to action, designed a simple glide path for them to follow, redrafted the content, targeted the identified audience, deployed at statistically-measured optimal times to disseminate, measured the email’s effectiveness, targeted the group who failed to take action with new customized content, socialized the results with leadership in the form of an easily digestible presentation, advised on organizational course corrections in light of the data, built messaging around the new direction, calculated ROI from the aggregated completion of desired actions, then brainstormed on a new campaign series to increase the effectiveness of the next email.
That’s all.
All kidding aside, let’s be frank: Creative marketing and communications professionals are as economically valuable, (if not more), as those working in finance, IT or operations.
We wonder those things because all of that is just one small facet of our jobs, email marketing. Since anyone can do it, it’s baffling to us how people with such busier lives and far more important jobs find the time to do all of it. We truly must be a sad lot.
All kidding aside, let’s be frank: Creative marketing and communications professionals are as economically valuable, (if not more), as those working in finance, IT or operations. Here are a few reasons why:
Creatives Can Learn Anything. No One Can “Learn” To Be A Creative. When it comes to finance, IT and operations, there is a certain science to them. You have to be good at calculation. Calculation, though, is a skill. Anyone, including creatives, can learn a new skill. Especially in a world where virtually every knowable skill is available to learn on the spot via Google or YouTube. Talent, on the other hand, is innate. It can’t be learned, only developed. If you do not have the natural talent for marcom, for creativity, you never will.
The More Digital Things Become, The More Important We Become. In an increasingly digital world, content is indeed king. The days in which face to face meetings in order to get buy-in, close a deal or work out a project was the standard for business are long gone. Nowadays, the majority of instances in which people interact with you or your brand will be digital. That means the content at each touchpoint is more significant than ever.
Creativity Can’t Be Automated. Almost Everything Else Can/Will Be. Machines will only get better at calculation. They’ll get better at seeming human. One thing they won’t ever be able to do is be truly creative. 74% of educators say that the risk of job automation is lower in professions that require creative problem-solving skills. Yes, we know. There’s that AI that wrote a novel. We also know that book sucked. So again, we win.
Many of those in marketing and communications were among the first let go by companies who were impacted by COVID-19 out of a general belief they are not a “critical business function.” It’s unfortunate because many of those companies will quickly learn how important effective marketing and communication strategies are to their business operations. If you understand how important it is to have professionals managing your marketing and communications, contact us today.