Christine Schlonski [0:02]
Hey, Gorgeous. This is episode number 219 with our amazing guest Meike Hohenwarter.

Meike Hohenwarter [0:09]
Hi, this is Meike Hohenwarter. You are listening to Heart Sells! Podcast with Christine Schlonski. Enjoy.

Christine Schlonski [0:16]
I’m so super pumped to have Meike on the show today who is tuning in from Australia and Meike is the Online Course Queen. She helps solopreneurs to plan and create an online business so that they can successfully live from it. Her emphasis is on online courses and memberships as she is sure that cloning yourself and your expertise with the help of info products causes a big leap in any business. And that is so true and Meike shows it. She has created over 100 online courses and has served over 55,000 online course participants. I’m so excited to have her on the show today. To go deep into the strategies that you need, and to what you need to have an online business, because an online course, is key. Well, I am so excited to have you on the show today, Meike, welcome.

Meike Hohenwarter [1:16]
Hi, Christine.

Christine Schlonski [1:18]
Yeah, it’s so funny. We just had a little talk, right? We are both German-speaking. Now speaking in English, just because otherwise, most of my audience is not going to get what we’re going to talk about. And it’s going to be so juicy with the business you have created, that I can’t wait to share with them. So yeah, give us a little bit of background. What made you decide that you wanted to teach other people how to build online courses? And why do you think it’s important for entrepreneurs to have an online course?

Meike Hohenwarter [1:56]
First of all, thanks for having me. Teaching, yeah, I always loved teaching, long before I even knew anything about online courses is very diverse even possible. When I was at school, my teachers always recommended me for helping students. And so I already had lots of classes when I was 15. And teaching just was always like a red thread, always throughout my life. And I was always giving some kind of lessons in English lessons, German lessons, some lessons on different things. When I became self-employed, I started on a Learning Center, teaching children especially but also adults, on how to learn better, how to understand dyslexia and dyscalculia and things like that. I had a very special method. So teaching was always a part of my life and, but then my business didn’t go that well because of some regulations by the government. This gave lessons for free. All the people who were working in the afternoon learning segment lost lots of clients. And so I started to look for other ways. And so by some accident, I came to the Laptop Millionaire World Tour n Zurich. And I was there and from really fighting before to make ends meet, I suddenly had to plan on how I could earn more money and teach more people and that was teaching online. So when I was there, this was in the year 2012. So quite early, and I suddenly understood that I have to have webinars, online courses and other things to clone myself. And that’s what I did and started to put all the lessons I had online. And then I also had like teacher training. I had, like, licensed methods. Next thing was, I was putting my teacher training online. And suddenly I had more revenue. And yeah, and suddenly people came from all over and asking, “Meike, how do you do this? How is it possible to have a webinar? How is it possible to do online courses?” As I said, it was 2012, things weren’t that easy then. All the software and everything that was recommended by these Americans where I took the training, was in English, didn’t have any vet, didn’t have any double opt-in, all things that I needed. So it was quite hard, in the beginning, to find my way around, but I did. And then I started teaching people how to go online. And yeah, this is what I’m doing today. And by doing it, I created over 100 online courses. Have a big following like for example on Udemy, I have 55,000 people there with my platform.

Christine Schlonski [5:11]
Yeah, I was just going to say and, you know, not to mention that you already have, like 55,000 people who have gone through your courses, who have a booked online. And I mean, that’s incredible, right? So many people are dreaming of like getting their first 10 or 100, or maybe thousands of people into their courses, or have not even yet created a course because they don’t know where to start and what to do. So was that you created a wonderful platform for yourself and also you were able to influence in such a positive way or impact, like thousands of living, hundred thousands of lives, right? Not everybody who’s in contact with you who learns from you buys from you. So just taking that number and I know you’re working on an online summit as well. So you have like this big platform, and you teach people how to create their platforms. I just think it’s so important because it gives you that empowerment. You’re not reliant anymore on like, “Where do I find my next client? Right? How can I get them to work with me?” It’s like an automated system where people can just come and buy and get instant support.

Meike Hohenwarter [6:34]
Yes, right. It’s a lot about the right strategy. Because before that, before I went to Zurich, and learned how I do it right. I felt already that I had an online business. Because I had a Facebook page, I had my web page. So I thought, “Okay, online business doesn’t work. Because it doesn’t bring me any more people.” This is what often also happens when people come to me and ask me for help and they often say, “I’m already online. Why doesn’t it work?” I always tell them, “Facebook page plus webpage does not equal an online business.” Online business has to be a real strategy where online courses are embedded in it. It’s also not possible just to create an online course and think now everything changes the world there. It’s what people tell you, of course, yeah. But it’s because they want to sell you something. But it’s not the way it works there. An online course is part of an online business strategy.

Christine Schlonski [7:38]
I love that.

Meike Hohenwarter [7:39]
Then this happens what you said. Then it happens that people automatically buy.

Christine Schlonski [7:43]
Yeah, I agree. And I think an important point and I just want to repeat that or put some light on it because maybe people did not get it. You said you thought you were set up. You had an awesome business. And only when you invested in yourself when you went to Zurich, when you went to learn, you understood what the missing link was. And you were able to build a real online business that gives you the freedom you were looking for. And I think like this investing in ourselves piece is so important and so many people overlook that piece. Because they just think, “Well, I already know it. So why should I go and learn from another person?”

Meike Hohenwarter [8:32]
Yeah, and you know, this is what many people make you think. There are so many, many people outside, they’re trying to sell you something and especially online business, there are so many people who are not successfully themselves about it. They’re selling courses on how to become successful in online business. So there are lots of empty shells of courses where people buy and why do people buy. I have bought some terrible courses, I would never have needed that. Why do they buy it because they buy into the idea? Because they have this longing for becoming rich overnight because they want to believe that it’s an easy path if you go online, and yeah, you know there are people like having their cocktails somewhere at the beach or just leaning to some red Ferrari or something and telling you, “Oh, I made this all by overnight and everything”, and you want to believe it. But overnight success, as if there are true. They only exist if you have like many, many years of preparation, many years of hard work. And also for me, today, it’s easy, I get a lot of passive income, but I have been working and still working very hard and then giving lots of benefits. Lots of things to the people, to my clients. Otherwise, you can always say you want, you just want to have it like a peak, like a shooting some best selling revenues, sell something and then just leave it that way and leave the people alone. This burns the fields. But you can also say, “I want to create a business that stays, that remains and that is my business.” If you want to do that, then you always have to give lots of value to the people. And of course hard work.

Christine Schlonski [10:35]
Yes. Oh, yeah, agree. And then there’s hard work and once you start reaping the rewards, right, then you can do whatever you want to do. Like for me, it’s like, the traveling is like one super important piece. Like you have choices all of a sudden that you might not have had before. But yeah, it’s true. It’s not an overnight success. I don’t know who this quote is from but like somebody else And it might be Gary Vaynerchuk that said, “Yeah, I’m an overnight success that took 20 years or something or 25 years”, then it’s all —

Meike Hohenwarter [11:10]
It’s more than just some weeks or something.

Christine Schlonski [11:15]
Oh, yeah, totally, totally. Tell us a little bit about why it would be a wise decision when I want to start building my online course and I am looking for having the level of success that you are having. Now I’ve learned, “Okay, I need a strategy. I cannot just throw costs together, put it on a platform, and then everything will happen by magic.” What is maybe another point that I need to know so I make the right decision?

Meike Hohenwarter [11:47]
First of all, an online course, you should have some experience, some knowledge. I know there are lots of online courses out there where people have read the book, maybe not even understood it, copied it for God’s sake, took to give credit to the person who wrote this book and want to sell it to him, but I’m not talking to these people. I’m talking, my clients are people who are in the fields of coaching, therapy, speaking training, who have many years of experience, who maybe even have their methods, but they have only been thinking of line so far. They are staying in the hamster wheel, that they’re working too hard and especially now in these times of crisis. They, of course, their whole bookings have vanished overnight. These people, want to go online to have passive income, to have more freedom, to have more free time. They already have everything or most of the things concerning the content they want to teach. They just have to understand that some things are a little bit different online, but they already have everything to teach who I am talking to normally. Now, they just have to find ways on how to make it attractive online, how to sell it online and of course, also how to record it. It’s always the first thing people are thinking of when talking about online courses. This is the easiest part. It’s much harder to do the planning first to understand that your offer, your online course offer has to be embedded into your whole offer, also your offline, your online, they all have to go together. I’m talking about the product staircase, where you have the so-called customer journey because what most people do online/offline is that they are just offering some different things, putting them on their homepage and think whatever the client can afford or feels more interactive to buy, he or she will buy, this is just not the way it works. You have to know the path, you want to lead the customer through your offer, starting with some free stuff in the beginning and then giving them more and more and offering them the first sales and so on. And then until they go to big premium products. Of course, not everybody goes all the path. But they all start there and you’re talking here of content marketing and content marketing means that about 95% will never buy it with you. They will always just consume your free things. And some people don’t like that and don’t want to offer it but it’s the only way that you can at the other end have your premium customers. Trust is one of the most important things in the online business, especially because there are many not so trustworthy people outside. You first have to give them little tasters for free. That’s like podcasts, like blogs, like videos, webinars, there are many different things that you can offer, ebooks and so on. Usually, you do that first completely for free. And then the next step would be to ask for their email address, so that you can put them on your email list, and are allowed to send them further information. From there, the nurture, nurture, nurture these people until some people are at the point of buying something. Some bought more. Some way even more and this is the customer journey that you should do. Many people who start creating an online course and are not aware of this, never think of, “Where on this path can my online course fit?” It can fit on any steps of the path. It just that you, should be aware of, “Which step is it that this my course fulfills?” Another thing I’m planning is that many people who start on creating online courses think of like a compendium kind of course, with all my knowledge into one course. This is completely wrong. First of all, it takes so long that most of the people never finish. Second, people don’t want that, that huge courses and they’re overwhelmed by it. And third, we’re talking about education for adults. For children, it’s cool to have to kind of learn that way. They keep forgetting everything. As adults, we don’t want to launch just gather knowledge of a certain method. We have problems and we want solutions to these problems. And so a course should always be a very specific solution to a very specific problem. Because only that makes it attractive. This is also very important when you plan a course that you think about that. What exactly, which exact clients do I want to serve by solving which exact problem? Don’t make the mistake not talking to them. Many people go somewhere in the backroom or the back room but the lonely room and create something they think people want to have. That’s a complete error. You can never really get what people want. You can only get it when you talk to them. This is hard. This is hard for beginners. It was also hard for me. Everybody wants to come out with the perfect product, not asking any questions before. But first of all, you go wrong, and you won’t create the perfect product if you do it that way. And second, when you ask people, you’re already collecting the first buyers, because people who have helped you create the course are very, very, very likely likely to buy it.

Christine Schlonski [18:18]
Yeah, that leads to the next question. What are the one or two biggest mistakes that people do when they walk down that path?

Meike Hohenwarter [18:28]
Yeah, I think one is already, not planning. Many people think to start an online course, the first step to start an online course is to press the record button. And this is not the first step. There are many programs out there who say, “I teach you how to create an online course in one day.” I mean, sorry. Not even planning can only take you one day. I mean, where is the client in such an offer? Would you like to buy an online course that was created on one day? This is exactly what’s only producing empty shells, which is only producing info products for selling them but not for helping anyone. This is my disclaimer, I don’t have people like that. If you want to be of value for your customers, you, of course, have to take some time into the planning and not start recording right away. This is one very big mistake. Another big mistake is that people get lost in the text struggle. First of all, many are very afraid. When I tell him my frequently asked questions is, of course, technical stuff. Like, which software to use for that and they’re to like to edit your videos and which platform to use to upload your videos and stuff like that. Of course, these are questions that have to be asked at some point. But these are not that important questions when it comes to being successful with your online course. The strategic questions are like, how to put it in your offer? These are the questions that are much more important that have to be asked first. The tech stuff, first of all, it’s easier than you think. Second of all, think of outsourcing if you struggle with it. There are so many young people, the digital natives who can do it for little money and quick. Like my son does that for many of my clients, for example. Do you have to know how to set up your member’s side? Or is it just enough that you know how to like add a video here? Always be aware of this that you don’t have to do it all alone.

Christine Schlonski [20:48]
I just love that one fact about you, is also, that for the first time when you put yourself out there, you weren’t even on video. You already had more than 20,000 participants in your online courses and webinars and still, they only knew you from photos. That just amazes me. So you’ve got around that influencing or impacting so many people, not even being on camera. That should not be the worry like, how do I do it? That’s more the strategic part. We’re gonna dive into this in our next episode, which I’m super excited about because I still have so many questions and you already shared so much value. So I want to also invite people to check out the show notes because you are sharing with us a webinar where you talk about the five reasons why you need an online course. The only challenge is it’s in German. If you are a German speaker, or if you feel like you can get the message The link is in the resource section. Check it out. I had a look myself, I loved it. But we’re going to give you some more value in the next episode. So in case you’re not German-speaking, you still can get a lot of mica in the next episode. Thank you so, so much for being here with us and sharing your knowledge. It just comes out of you like a dwell, it’s just amazing. And it shows because you’ve been around the block a couple of times, and you know exactly what you’re talking about and I just love that. When you say over and over again, “These are not my people, these are my people. I want the heart-centered one. I want those that care for their audiences. I want those that help to provide value and not just doing fluff to get the money into their pockets.” So I just love that. Thank you so much.

Meike Hohenwarter [22:56]
You’re very welcome. Looking forward to the second part.

Christine Schlonski [23:00]
Well, that was a pretty impactful session, and I took away that it is true, sometimes we don’t know what we don’t know. So we might think we have an online business. We have the web page, we are on Facebook, we are on LinkedIn, on Twitter, Instagram, or wherever, on social media, and therefore we have an online business and we can work from our laptops, which is not true if we do not have the right strategy. I love how Meike went into creating the customer journey, of really being strategic where your course comes in. That also you should not be overwhelming people in giving all your knowledge in one course, but to break it down and little chunks so they have a much better learning success and implement what they have learned. Hop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/podcast for the show notes and also for my guest’s wonderful gift, 5 Reasons why you need an online course. It is in German. So if you can’t speak German, I am very sorry. But I also will link her course suite, so that you can see all the courses she is offering on Udemy under her name, and she has some amazing courses in English at a very, very good rate. So you can check that out nevertheless, and get support from Meike. Thank you so, so much for tuning in, pop on over to https://christineschlonski.com/podcast for all the episodes. And check out the show notes with Meike and the transcript. As well as all the links to connect with her on Facebook, Instagram, Twitter, LinkedIn, obviously, on her homepage, and yeah, have fun checking her out and while you’re over there at https://christineschlonski.com/ if you have not yet signed up for the empowerment notes. These are my notes right into your inbox, with the podcast updates, with content I usually do not share, with super special offers, with tips, ideas, advice, resources, you name it. It’s all there to support you on your journey to build a successful thriving business while having fun selling your products and services. Thank you so much for tuning in. Have a wonderful day wherever you are in this beautiful world. And I’m saying bye for now.