42. A baker who wants to create an online course
Can a camera-shy baker rise to the occasion when it comes to course creation? 🥖 According to hosts Phil and Lauren, anyone can create a course if they’re aware of their strengths. In this week's episode, we speak with a baker who wants to bring her mega-popular bread-making classes to the masses. The hosts help Rhiannon figure out how to make a course in a way that’s comfortable for her. You knead to hear it.
Episode transcription
Phil:
Well, hello there. Welcome Brand Therapy from London. I'm Phil.
Lauren:
And I'm Lauren from Los Angeles.
Phil:
Oh, are you Lauren from Los Angeles? Look at us. We are for the first time, the first podcast episode, not recording in the same room. How does it feel to not have my face up in your face?
Lauren:
I've got to say, I really like not sharing a mike. It makes things a bit easier.
Phil:
Listeners don't know this, but when we do interviews we actually share a mike. Now that I have moved abroad and you have remained in LA. We obviously can't share the same room, but we're still recording. The podcast still continues as normal. In fact, people have asked that. They're like, so Phil, now that you've moved to London, which by the way listeners, I moved from La to London. Um, they've asked, so what are you doing with the business now? I'm like, well, what do you mean? I'm the same business I've had for seven years? Well, what about Lauren? I'm like, Lauren's in LA.
Lauren:
Well, I mean, oh, it's not like we were together that much before.
Phil:
No, I think I see you like three times a year and it's usually at Sugarfish. It's usually to get sushi.
Lauren:
And record Brand Therapy.
Phil:
And record Brand Therapy. So actually, nothing changes. But it's kind of funny that people are set in these kind of conventional ways of like, you know, I don't know, geography just doesn't matter. I pop around, we'll bop around. So I thought it would be fun to include the location on our podcast. So we'll do that at the beginning from wherever we are. We'll say it. Do you like that idea?
Lauren:
Sure, sure, sure. Let's start.
Phil:
I just make things up on the fly. Let's do it.
Lauren:
Let's get through the episode.
Phil:
Yeah, let's talk about it. Rhiannon. This was a good chat.
Lauren:
Yeah. She's a baker, which is a personal passion of mine from a consumption standpoint. She's in an interesting situation. Rhiannon is wanting to recreate the in person experience of her baking classes, but as a course.
Phil:
And I love this. I love when things in real life are really great. And then we have to think about strategically how do we do that while online. And usually doing it well online is just recreating what makes a great in real life. So let's talk about it. Here we go. Without further ado, this is our chat with Rhiannon.
Lauren:
Let's do it.
Rhiannon:
Hi, I'm Rhiannon and I run bread making classes and I've had some already great feedback from the students that I've had and have been very positive about the in-person teaching experience that they've had from me. So they say things like it's a very informative class and knowledgeable and friendly teacher. And I keep the vibe kind of relaxed and fun, very enjoyable, but they come away having learned a lot so they have a lot of confidence to go and bake their own bread at home. And my business has kind of grown in the last five years. And the next thing that I'd like to do is to start putting a little bit more of me online. To now I've kind of hidden a bit behind my logo and behind the pictures but I've put online but I have a growing online community including a quite large Facebook group of people. People that want to bake bread at home.
I want to kind of get more in touch with those and potentially have down the online courses. So I guess my question there is I'm translating from my kind of safe, safe one to one or one to a small group of in person teaching how I translate that offer to my online community. And my question is can anyone do that or is it something that I can use some techniques to help me do that. And what are your tips?
Phil:
Great. Oh this is an exciting one to tackle. You give us just kind of a little background on you. You are a baker, you teach other people. You also are a mom. I'm assuming I can hear a little bit of noise in the background, which means your hands are full all the time, right? Yeah, they're full with bread. Bread or babies. I got excited. I want to kind of understand to start what some of those successes look like. You told us a little bit about the feedback that people are giving you, but when you look at your business, you say that it's growing. What are some of those directions where it's growing and what are those wins? What are the wins look like? Those moments for you're like, yes, this is what I meant to do. This is what I meant to grow, to inspire more people, to reach more people.
Rhiannon:
Well, I think I've really grown the range of classes that I offer and the number of people that I have coming along to them. And I'm getting kind of also private bookings. So people doing bespoke bookings as well. And also through organizations. It's really taken, um, from doing them to small groups of individuals who wanted them bread. There's a whole different range of different things I can offer now. Also I started a Facebook group last year. It kind of took it away in itself and has um, 1300 people who are really interested. Everybody wants to learn to bake bread in their own home and I feel like I'm not really answering for my online community at the moment.
Lauren:
Awesome. I am curious to know, have you heard of Smitten Kitchen, the cooking blog?
Rhiannon:
Yes, I have. Yeah.
Lauren:
So, as soon as I heard that you were a baker and taught people how to cook bread, I'm immediately thinking of points of inspiration from all the wonderful bloggers and Instagrammers out there. And I think what's really remarkable about Smitten Kitchen is that the creator, I don't even know her name actually, but her presence is so, like, she's so present in every post that she does and every Instagram story that she does. She has a voice, you know, that she has two kids. She talks about her preferences with food and kind of gives a story behind everything that she writes. And I think that would be a good point of inspiration for you. I mean in your questionnaire you'd said that you, it was scary to put yourself out there and clearly it's scary for this other blogger too cause you don't really know what her face looks like. But she's still always there, which I think could be kind of a good angle for you.
Rhiannon:
Yes, I think it is. I think it's guesting more of me into the post. Um, I tried to give them kind of my perspective on what I'm doing, but it's actually stepping out and putting my face in as well. In terms of getting myself out there, I know I need to do that a bit more and get myself in front of the camera and get more of me into each post. And I do try to be there in terms of giving more insight into my, what I'm doing and how I’m based at home. I think it will be getting in front of the camera that needs to be done as well.
Phil
And it's one of those things like the more you do it, the more comfortable you're going to get. Right. I know it's like, ah, it's even, you know, where you were prior to, you've been able to kind of be behind the scenes as much as possible. Now it's like regardless of your business, you, the individual are such an integral part of that sale of the communication of what you do, why people should care. Right.
Rhiannon:
Yeah, absolutely.
Phil:
I'm interested in this course angle because this is something that you put a lot of time and effort into in terms of growing with your business as this idea of teaching classes. Can you walk us through what, what a bread making class looks like so I can start to envision how you could recreate this online?
Rhiannon:
Yeah. So if you come along to a class with me, it’s usually only six or seven people and I provide ingredients and equipment. Then everyone makes their own bread. So you get fully hands on and you have to mix your own dough, you have to shape it, you have to knead it. And then we bake it all at the end before you take it home and there’s lots of time for questions and it's very relaxed so there's no kind of silly questions. I want to encourage people to make sure they know what they're going to do when they go home so they can carry on baking bread and I want it to as successful as possible. So I just trust try to make it as informal as possible and you get to go home with lots of notes and recipes that you can try out at home as well. So I just to keep it as light but as informative as possible.
Phil
Great. What would be some of the biggest challenges of doing that online? I'm sure you've already started to experiment with what that would look like as a course on a site like skillshare or Udemi, have you started thinking about what that would look like and what some of those challenges would be?
Rhiannon:
Yeah, I think some of it would be perhaps breaking it down into the constituent parts because there are very clear parts of each of my course because it is just one day but I guide people through it very logically. So I think it would be kind of working out or how to present those different parts of the day to translate it online. But also I think being able to get that rapport when I'm filming, when you're talking to a blank space, it's quite hard to envisage. Whereas when I'm talking to people, you have that one on one interaction. So I think that's the slightly hardest thing for me as well is bringing that across and not feeling like I'm just talking into thin air and that no one's getting any benefit from it.
Phil:
Yeah. Let's talk about that for a second because if it feels that way, it also might look and sound that way. My best advice to you is don't ever put yourself in a situation where you are, it's just you in the camera. So I would, if you've got a friend, you know, if you've got a friend that you can trust that's willing to come over and help, you know that could stand behind the camera and actually you just speak to that person. You know, just never, I know cause I have to do this stuff occasionally and I'm pretty comfortable with it and I enjoy it obviously clearly. But I have my moments where I think, wow, the way that I'm speaking to a client right now on the phone, I need to come across that way on camera and I usually don't.
When I was doing, I've done projects and Lauren I'll say stop talking like that and just speak naturally. I just fall into like broadcast mode and actually that's not what you want. You want it to feel like a free flowing conversation like this. Lauren and I have microphones in front of our mouths, but it's as if we're just kind of speaking on the phone like we had joined the phone. So create that environment, that surrounding for you so that it allows you to operate almost nearly as naturally as you do when you're in front of a group teaching a class.
Rhiannon:
I totally agree. I have tried to do some already and I think I, I really set your advice about speaking to somebody because I pay them back and I sounded like, I don't know, like somebody had a gun to my head or something. You know, you go into that robotic mode and talk to the camera and it's not really personable.
Lauren:
It's hard.
Phil:
I have an idea.
Lauren:
What, Oh, what's your idea?
Phil:
I don't think if it doesn't feel natural and you're not comfortable and you don't enjoy doing it, then I don't think you should speak to the camera. I think instead. You know what's better? Why wouldn't you actually just recreate what you're already doing? Get a film crew in basic, you know, hire a student from a grad school or something that doesn't, not going to cost a fortune to at least try this format. But I would get someone in to film your actual bread making class and structure the course to be, you know, attend my bread making class first time ever. Like on, you know, now you can, you can join our class online and just have them film you doing it like done, you know, then you have to worry about all the awkwardness of staring into the camera, pretending it's a person, et cetera.
It wouldn't hurt to have a video top and bottom to beginning an end to say hi, this is who I am, this is what I'm doing. I'm excited that you're going to join in today on a class that I'm going to teach a group of people and you get to follow along as well. Here's what you're going to learn. Like you could do a video like that looking at the camera, that will be good cause that kind of recreates that in person experience. But in terms of the actual lesson, let's not make more work for ourselves. You're already teaching these classes, go and film them and make it look beautiful and interesting and exciting and there you go. Done.
Rhiannon:
Fantastic. I think that to me that's a great idea and getting, someone in to help. Because to me that's probably the crucial part of getting really into how the bread is made rather than me always, I mean I do want to be on the camera, but actually guessing that in person experience, like you say, it will just be that recreation of what people would get if they paid to come and see me.
Phil:
Exactly, and I think it feels more valuable. Lauren, do you agree with this?
Lauren:
I completely agree. Completely agree. I know I do not feel comfortable being in front of a camera. It would be a freaking nightmare to me, but having that pressure taken off where it's more about the class and less about what you're saying on for the purpose of your course, I think is going to be so much better for you mentally. One thing to add is make sure when you hire that film crew that they get B roll and so that way if there's something that you don't communicate or isn't captured in the class, you can always add voiceover because that way you've got a bit of a buffer just in case.
Phil:
Explain what B role is.
Lauren:
Oh, sorry. So B roll. I don't even know the formal definition, but the way that I think of B roll are side shots and almost like filler shots that are either showing atmosphere or actions and not necessarily someone talking. So that way when you see like filler images of crowds at concerts, that's B roll and it would be the same thing for your class, but it would be like someone like you know, folding the bread dough or someone mixing the batter. Like not necessarily about you speaking but more about the action.
Rhiannon:
Yes. It's just kind of some insight.
Rhiannon:
Exactly. It's like supplemental footage. Basically. It's like an old term. A role means like the action B role is like, I've heard people always call it beauty role, like it's that idea of like that secondary footage so people can see and feel like they're there. Just really the whole thing is recreating the in person experience. I feel like we say it almost every episode, but really that's all branding is. It's like take inventory of what makes you so great and real life and recreate that online. So courses to me sounds like a really good idea because it's a path of lesser resistance. Right? And the idea of actually filming something you're already doing even better. Even while we're thinking of content creation, it's like if we're going to make the effort to write a blog post, how else can we use that piece of content? Really important, really useful. So I think this is great. So what are going to be your next steps?
Rhiannon:
So I think I will certainly take your advice on about not talking to the camera. I would really love to be able to film myself or be filmed. I no kind of being too nervous about it and not being too self conscious about it. And um, I think I will probably practice some more. So I know I'm plan out what I was online, but we say look into as and say getting someone in to help me with the filming because I think that's probably, I think I've tried a little bit of trying to get myself to recreate the in person experience. It's not quite what I’d like at the moment. So I think taking those next steps that I've laid, we have a local college that I'd like to approach to see if anyone is approachable there.
Phil:
I love when people start to think about how what they do in real life can be translated online and courses, classes, training is a really good one, right? It's one that usually is already replicating what someone is doing in real life, so that's kind of exciting.
Lauren:
Yeah. I feel like running a class in real life would probably be a lot more challenging than filming a course about it, don't you think?
Phil:
Well, it depends. Hopefully that's the case, but there is something about just having that audience, having that structure. People show up at a particular time. It ends at a particular time. The first time you're ever going to do something like this, it's always going to take the most work, but once you've done it once, then it becomes a lot easier and try to think about what are you doing in real life that you could do in exactly that form if it's being filmed, even if you're not staring at the camera. Think about what you could do in that way and do it online. I mean, it was just such a simple thing, right? It was like, well, if you don't like looking at the camera, then don't look at it. Because in fact that still think about that style. It's still gonna make us feel like we're there participating. So sometimes you just have to adapt some of those assumptions or maybe ways that other people are doing things and think, well, how can I do this in my way? So I'm, I feel good about that.
Lauren:
Yeah, it's very true. It's very true. If something doesn't feel right to you, then when it comes to the content that you're creating for your brand, then don't do it. Figure out another way that makes you excited.
Phil:
Yeah, absolutely. Well, hopefully you've found this episode interesting and maybe you're thinking about taking some of your ideas and parlaying them into courses, in fact, to something I'm in the middle of doing. I've been sitting on a lot of video content that I've been wanting to turn into courses and very, I've started publishing my own courses.
I didn't even plan on promoting those now, but I'm going to, I use Udemi I use Skillshare to post out courses that often answer questions that we get asked often by clients and sometimes by podcast guests because then I have something that I can refer people to if they want to dive deeper but then also have something out there like a little soldier that's working for me, right? That's working for me even when I'm not. So that's kind of cool. Curious to know what you're thinking. If you're making courses or classes and figuring out how what you do in real life can be translated online. We want to hear from you on Instagram and Twitter. I'm @philpallen.
Lauren:
I'm @thelaurenmoore
Phil:
#brandtherapy to keep this conversation going. Thank you for hanging out with us today. If you enjoyed it, leave a review please. Five star if you want, if you enjoyed it, that actually helps other people find our podcast, but it's been fun. I've liked today I've learned, I feel like I've learned a little bit and I hope that you have to, and we'll see you back next week right here on brand therapy.
Lauren:
See you then.
Have you ever made your own course or did things go “a-rye”? (Bread pun, can’t help it.) Comment below with advice for Rhiannon!
