Inside A One Person Business - An Interview With Alexandra Allen
Join Ellen as she sits down with Alexandra Allen, a course creator and project manager who embraced a unique opportunity that emerged from the pandemic (online learning) and used it to catapult her journey into freelancing.
Alexandra Allen is a project manager for learning and development programmes, turned course designer and consultant, who launched her business during a turbulent time that presented a unique opportunity; mid-pandemic. With a deep interest professional development and a natural talent for organisation, support and accountability Alexandra followed her interest and in January 2020 she was studying Learning Design & Tech at the Harvard Extension School Online. Through a series of events, opportunities and taking action Alexandra has built a successful business that transcends the micro bubble of the covid era and allows her to do work she loves. Ellen Donnelly, Founder of The Ask®, sits down with Alexandra to discuss her Unique Contribution and how it helps her differentiate her business, how one of the biggest hurdles her customer base face allowed her to evolve her own services and how she overcomes her 'Everest' of self promotion and marketing.
In this episode Alexandra and Ellen discuss:
How Alexandra’s background and interest in professional development led her to pursue her curiosity with further education
How serendipity and the pandemic created a unique opportunity for her business to start
How an insight into her client’s greatest pain point allowed her to shift her services and create a scalable community offer
How one dream client turned the tables and allowed her to go solo, cutting her teeth in the industry and setting her on the road to success
How, despite her skills and confidence to deliver her services, Alexandra acknowledges her ‘Everest’ of self-promotion and how she overcomes it
Where and why she shows up online to attract clients without a website
Read on for the full transcript.
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Ellen Donnelly
Hi Alexandra, thank you so much for joining The Ask’s One Person Business interview series. How are you doing?
Alexandra Allen
Good. Thanks. Thanks so much for having me. I'm excited to be here.
ED - I'm going to ask you the questions I've been dying to ask you for everyone else's benefit. So thanks for being here. Let's just start with the general intro. What do you do in your one person business? What's the beliefs, the mission that you, that you're standing for?
Yeah, so in one sentence, I help experts create online courses and workshops. And my goal with that is to help them raise their profile within their industry and also to scale their impact. And a big part of what drives me in this space is I'm a huge proponent of professional development, which I think is inextricably tied to personal development.
And I think that online courses are a really great way to Make professional development more accessible because in the past it's been, you know, really expensive to pay to go to a conference or you've had to really, you know, lobby to your boss or their boss to pay for something, you know, out of town or even in your own city.
So I think the great thing about courses is you get much closer to these experts who have experience with what you want to do and you can do them for a fraction of the price from the comfort of your home.
ED Yes, it's actually weird to think of the day that you'd have to travel to some out part like town outside of where you live for a day and give up a day of work just to learn. And now we can fit it in your lunch break after work and that accessibility I think this pandemic really made a big impact. So let's talk about the pandemic in the sense of like the, the wave of course creators, experts online, this accessibility piece, like what's your relationship to that time? And have you seen that interest sustained since the COVID era?
AA So just to back up for a second, I'll kind of just give a bit of context of how I got into the CBC space. So actually first sorry. I actually first forayed into it as a student. So in January, 2020, only a couple of minutes sorry, a couple months before the pandemic hit. I started studying learning design and tech remotely at the Harvard extension school.
And I was living in Paris at the time, the Harvard extension school being based in the U. S. So it was my first experience doing, again, kind of professional development type courses with other people around the world in this live online format. I'd previously done self paced courses, but I'd never done anything like this where it was like, Oh, we're all hopping on zoom together and, you know, using Google docs to give each other live feedback.
As well as async feedback. So it was super interesting to me and I just got to see the power of it firsthand. And the reason I started studying learning design and tech is because prior to that, I'd been a project manager for learning and development programs for different companies around the world.
And while I'd always loved the project management element and been, you know, I'm a natural organizer, so it's a good fit for me. I wanted to really beef up my skills on the learning side to be more of an advisor around the learning components. So when I started this program I was really excited to not only learn about how to create these courses from a teacher who's done this before, but also to see it modeled by actually taking a course in that format and then fast forward a couple of months in the pandemic hit, none of us thought coming, obviously, and I remember my professor.
Telling us that all of us were getting into this industry at the most incredible time because she was saying there is going to be a huge spike in demand for online learning. So she was just saying, you know, it was a godsend that we got in when we did and she was right. There was a huge hype around it.
And specifically in 2021 is when I would say I really kind of got into the creator side of it. Because at that point I had moved back to Canada, so Montreal from Paris, and I started working with a startup hub, and I, they actually brought me in to help convert their programming into online programs, because again, it was this idea of Montreal is shutting down, we're required to shut the office, so either, We stopped running our programs altogether and, you know, abandon all the founders that need us, or we figure out a way to somehow replicate this experience online as best we can.
So I came in to help you know, with other teammates, create the structure for online. And again, I saw the power of it working really well. And I met a bunch of creators and entrepreneurs who, who were working in this space and really interested in it. And one of the companies that. Caught my attention.
After I started following Wes on Twitter, she was one of the co founders of Maven an online course platform that's really known, well known in the CBC space. So after after I worked at the startup for a while, I got so inspired by working with all these entrepreneurs that I thought, you know what.
I'm going to go for it and try to become an entrepreneur myself because I'd always, you know, dreamt of doing that. And I got really inspired being in that environment. So when I started freelancing, Maven was actually the first you know, client I got to freelance with, which was again, somewhat of a miracle now looking back on it because it was really the perfect gig.
To you know, learn how the sausage is made as they called it because I got to work with the team and coach course creators on how to build their courses. So there was a huge hype around that and other you know, platforms that popped up. I mean, some of them I think had been around even before Maven. Companies, you know, like disco circle. I'm not really sure what their exact timelines are, but there were, it was a very you know, lively time for people to get into this space. And there was definitely a flood of enthusiasm because a lot of people saw the, you know, again, that direct impact of, wow, I can learn from someone, you know, like get this close to them and get, you know, direct feedback and stuff.
So it was really interesting to see the flood of people come in. I think since then, specifically, you know, towards the tail end of 2022 and now, especially in 2023. There's been a huge, you know, a sharp decline in the sense that I think people overdosed on online time when we were in the pandemic because there was nothing else to do.
So people were like, you know, I'll use this time to connect with other people in the only way it seems possible, which is online and to do some learning, but I think now, two things is, yeah, people have overdosed on online time and now want to do things more in person or at least scale back on how much they do online.
And then I think the second component is that a lot of the people who rushed into making courses because they'd see people bragging specifically on Twitter and stuff of, you know, making six figures, running this online course, like, You know, hiring a team to do it for them super easy, but then people got a reality check when they tried to run them themselves and realize, no, it's actually a lot of work to run a CBC and the ones that do it exceptionally well have built a very robust system to support them in doing that.
And most of them have teams. It's, you know, really challenging to do it on your own. And the first few cohorts in particular are especially challenging because you're really. Going from zero to one, you know, in startup terms of taking this idea and turning it into, you know, an MVP experience that you then have to make tons of iterations on because every, every course, and you can look at examples like right of passage, which is a David Perel's online writing course, you know, the top online writing course in the world, I would say.
And you know, they make, they make millions in in revenue from, you know, cohorts of hundreds of people. And even them from cohort to cohort, they're now going into their 11th next month. And they're still making changes because that's what you have to do with, with cohort based courses. It's an iterative practice.
So it's not for the faint of heart. So I think those two things have contributed to the, the shift in in where they're going. And now. More people who are getting into the CBC space are those who are, you know, see it as a long game versus just kind of a fad.
ED Yeah, I love the reality dose that you give people in your newsletter. I think that's what drew me to you in the early days of hearing about your work. I was like, I tried it at CBC for anyone who's like, what is this? And I'll explain it in the. piece as well, but cohort based course, rather than joining a course and doing it in your own time, pressing pause, going away, making a dinner and coming back, whatever it's live, it's, it's synchronous time, it's with other people, you get home, right, you get next steps, and then you meet again.
And the host is typically the same person that creates the concept, is typically the same person that makes the, you know, the revenue. But as you said, Alexandra, there is typically a whole team behind that. And And the, the hype around it did make it look so easy. And I, I was kind of a, a, a war wound of, of the fact that it wasn't, I was googling like mad, how do you get people to sign up for a C B C?
What's different about sales for this compared to what I'm used to, which was one-to-one. And I did end up working with four people and I had a great experience, but wasn't in a rush to try again. So yeah, I know that feeling too well. And you write an incredible newsletter about, What it takes, how you help people maybe share a bit more about, yeah, the service you provide individuals.
If you take maybe me as a case study, if we were to work together, like how would you help me create a co op based course? What do you typically do in that engagement?
AA Yeah. Great question.
So initially when I started, and this is why I kind of alternate between calling myself a freelancer versus a solopreneur is initially I started freelancing with companies So like I said Maven freelance with them for about seven months, which is a fantastic write of passage and introduced me to a bunch of course creators who had their own small companies. A lot of them startups. So I worked with different companies with them and then I evolved into a place where I started working with more creators one to one and kind of trying to help them from where they were.
But the problem I noticed there is that again, building a course is so complex and there's no one way of doing it. And everybody has different ways of wanting to build their courses. So I'm like, you know, in Maven and stuff where there was a fixed course that people went through and I was supporting them through that journey.
It became really difficult for me to. Serve the needs of people at various points in the process. And also it became very costly for them because, you know, I would need so much time to explain stuff to them because it's such a, it's such a, it can be such an overwhelming venture and. A big part of what I tell people that's kind of surprising.
And with something that I first uncovered when I started freelancing at Maven was one of the biggest hurdles for people in launching their courses is actually the emotional, psychological aspects to it. For a lot of people, you're really putting yourself out there. For many creators, it's the first time they're selling something big like this, specifically an event and then they're scared of marketing it before it's ready.
And that was something that I myself struggled with too, of when I was helping people work on things was, Oh my God, we're like marketing and selling this, but we haven't built it out yet because you know, the comfortable thing to do is. Build it entirely and then start selling it. But the thing is, you don't get the feedback you need then. And this was all part of, you know, what the startup mindset that goes into it of why I'm so glad I worked at a startup hub beforehand, because I understood how, you know, you have to get your, you know, prospective students to validate your course concept before you build it out in full, see if people are going to buy it by marketing it upfront.
And then, you know, kind of build out the rest once you have that validation. So. I think I, at the moment now, what I've been doing is I've actually created my own course, which is asynchronous, but it has live elements in the form of office hours. So when people want to work with me now, rather than have them sign up for, you know, a few consulting hours, which could be really expensive.
And even though we get a lot done, it only puts a tiny dent in the grand scheme of building out a course. So what I do now is I direct them to my self paced course that I have on Teachable. The platform and then they can go through it in their own time with all the exercises and phases, you know, I have a five phase framework that I give people to work through, like, including like doing a presale and all of these steps of work through this at your own pace so that, you know, it's a fixed rate. I charge 500 for it. They buy it. They go through it at their own rate. And then they can drop into office hours, which I host twice a week for everyone who's in the community. And that's an opportunity for them to connect live with other people and ask me questions rather than pay, you know, my hourly fee to speak with me one on one.
And at the same time, they pick up tips from other people who are launching their courses and get that moral support from other people in the community. And I also offer office hours for people who, again, want to have like a more of like a premium package and some one to one time, which is also really nice now and then too, but.
The idea was really to make it as cost effective as possible because the issue a lot of creators have is they don't have a huge budget, right? And then when they're launching their course this is like a big undertaking for them. So they don't necessarily have the funds to spend a lot upfront. So I found that's been working well.
This summer was quite quiet because again, courses are not you know, we're not In full swing during the summer. So things will start to ramp up again in September. But at the moment, I'm actually open now to doing some new projects with some new organizations. I think in general, I'm looking to work more with startups now or specifically the founders of startups.
Because again, it's just easier and startups have you know, they have teams who can help with other elements that need to support the founder. They typically have bigger budgets as well. So it's just easier for me to do that and then keep the kind of creators in the other community that I've created.
ED - Yeah, that's what the kind of practical side comes in, right? It's summer is about time or I want to get this. firsthand experience with founders are going to do this. And I think a lot of business owners have such an idealized version of what their business will look like, that they fail to see the other opportunities surrounding that.
And that's what I've enjoyed about our conversations is you're thinking about it very practically, not just romantically. And there is probably a degree of romance still around the idea and the initial premise. But what I would love to ask you is about your. spin on what you do from a personality perspective, a values perspective, like, do you think there's something about you as a person or about your background?
I know you worked in like project management and learning and development, so that that is quite evident, but anything else about the way you show up as a person that you think has got you into this space and makes you the go to person for course creation? And just to give it the name it deserves, this is what I call your unique contribution. When I work with clients, it's about finding that thing and using that to inform their business building.
AA - Yeah.
I love that positioning and it's interesting cause I had this conversation with a marketing coach, a friend of mine who asked me that same thing, you know, what is it that makes you unique?
And, my advice to anyone who's, who's stumped on this, cause I was too, is ask other people, specifically your clients to tell you.
Because again, it's this, this was something I learned in marketing again at the startup hub where people would say, when we try and think of marketing, we think we have to sound intelligent and use specific lingo to sound smart when in reality, they say, speak to your clients, your customers, and put their words in your mouth. And that's the best way to speak the same language as the people you're trying to connect with. So that's exactly what I did. I asked a bunch of people what they thought.
And one of the ones that stood out that a bunch of people agreed with that, and a friend, a friend who I've worked with, for a few years now said to me that I thought was interesting is he said that he's a, he's like a multi time startup entrepreneur and stuff. And he was saying the reason that he loves working with me is because he said that I'm a rare blend of someone who's calm and warm, but I'm also very methodical and really motivate and keep people accountable to get shit done.
So he's like, I really need that in the sense of, I have like the, you know, the warmth and empathetic side of. Like I said, a lot of people, their blocks are more psychological and emotional, even if they don't realize that there's a lot of fear that masks you know, the challenges they're having, and they kind of think it's, it's things about tactical things, but really, it's a lot of fear that holds people back.
So I think having that kind of warm side to like handhold people through that part and empower them to be more confident in going after what they want is helpful, but at the same time. I'm not so soft that I won't hold them accountable. I will really, you know, make them get practical, tactical and decide, okay, what is our project plan and how are we hitting those targets, celebrating them along the way, but really pushing them to get shit done as they say.
ED - Cool. Yeah. That sounds so perfect for what you do and the process you take people on. And I couldn't help feel like how much in parallel there is with what I do. It's, you know, the psychological component of business building is most of the time what keeps people stuck. Again, like you say, it's wrapped in this banner of tactical, I can't make this decision, I'm not sure if this is a good enough niche. And at the bottom of that, the foundational layer is often, I'm afraid to show up and be more of myself. Or I don't want to be ostracized from the group about being so bold as to choose this thing or whatever, you know, we could go into the psychological components in depth, I'm sure, but it sounds like you've really identified like that unique blend, as you say, of those two skill sets and the founders that work where you get access to both sides and it's like a toggle between the two as I described it.
AA - Yeah. And I think another thing that kind of spinning off that, that people have told me is again, a lot of them being startup founders themselves is they've said that again, me having the background of working with a startup hub and specifically that I worked on programming with startup coaches, being able to speak the startup lingo to them really is speaking their language of how course creation is similar to creating any other product.
So for them, that was a huge help as well. So I think having that in mind with the project management really makes it a good fit and You know, one of one of our clients or a couple of them actually like joke about how they say, I'm almost like have a, could be like a kindergarten persona, but for, you know, startup founders who are trying to build courses of making, you know, taking all this stuff that a friend of mine who had young kids said he used to always get so overwhelmed when he went to their kindergarten.
I guess like teacher visitation or whatever. And he was saying, he was always amazed that the teacher could keep everyone calm. Cause to him, it was so stressful with the kids chaos. So much going on and he was saying you have that ability to stay calm when everything's chaotic. And, you know, make everyone feel comfortable and just like explain what we're going to do in order to just like get everyone, everything under control.
So that was kind of the analogy they gave me was like, yeah, making it the complex, like kindergarten simple for, for them, ABCs of course, creation for founders.
ED - Nice. Yeah, you do, you do have a nice calming presence, actually, now, now you mention it. So you've mentioned something we've been back and forth a bit about what we can talk about. And you mentioned marketing has been your Everest. That doesn't sound like maybe the calmest area for you then. What, what do you mean by that? And tell us about, yeah, how have you marketed Alexandra services, working with you and getting that pipeline of clients?
AA - Yeah, absolutely. So I always joke that marketing is my Everest because it's the one thing that I find I'm really good at what I do. So the designing and delivering courses and workshops and the project management aspects but the marketing being such a key point of it's, it's all well and good if I can do this, but without the marketing pipeline. You know, not people don't not enough people know who I am to promote my work.
You know, in a way that will scale it scale its impact. So it's something I'm still struggling with.
So one of the things I do to kind of keep to stay top of mind with people is again. We talked about my newsletter. So I publish that weekly on Wednesdays. It kind of is a mix of, I mean, I think initially in the description, I put, it's about course creation and I, perhaps when I started, it was, but now it's kind of evolved to include also just cut the kind of creator, like solopreneur mindset and just things I'm learning along the journey.
So it's a bit of a mix of that with some tutorials on core stuff and teachable moments that I incorporate into that. So that's how I stay top of mind and kind of reflect on things and share what I'm learning and what I'm promoting and passionate about at the moment. And I share additional content on Twitter and LinkedIn.
But again, from speaking to a marketing a marketing associate or acquaintance, I should say He was just saying, he's like, you're not doing enough direct marketing. And he was saying, you know, you're doing great stuff, but not enough people know about it. So this is a question I'm still ruminating on of how can I be better about marketing things?
I think the whole personal branding and creating content online is definitely something that I need to keep in mind, but I also. Think that I need to do more spend more time pitching perspective clients, because I think that's where there's a bit of a disparity of people assume if you build a huge audience online, obviously it will serve you.
And that's a fantastic resource to have, but it doesn't guarantee that you're going to be bringing in the, you know, monthly earnings you need to be making to sustain your living or, you know, scale your business. Whereas when you're directly pitching clients I find the return on investment can be a lot higher in terms of like the, the quota.
So a ratio, I should say. But it's still something I'm, I'm working on. So that's kind of for this next quarter and, you know, the next six months, something I'm continuously thinking of, how can I market my business better to bring in new clients and just let more people know what I'm doing and how I can serve them.
ED - It sounds like you, in a pure course creation style, you know, you've been able to see the process of your business and see the gaps and be able to plug it and say, right, this is the hole that needs to be filled and my efforts in content creation are not doing me justice, what else is there? And I wax lyrical, or at least I feel like I do, maybe I could talk about it more because it's still not spoken about enough about the idea that creators get wrong, which is audience equals revenue. It's like, no, audience equals audience. What's the revenue? Is it paid products in services? Don't let it just be sponsorships and paid slots in a newsletter because that's not going to pay your bills, right? You need to offer something as a service.
And most of the time people aren't going to come knocking to find that you need to go to them and tell them about it. And that's that direct marketing cold pitching, whatever you want to call it. It takes more vulnerability and more fear because of the fear of rejection that you get when you directly approach somebody, but it's much more powerful.
Like you said, a return on investment. From networking. And I did an interview with somebody yesterday, Phoebe Dodds who's coming out after this one actually. And she talks a lot about networking being what she sold her pipeline. So you should watch that. And so should everybody else. And yeah, these are just two sides of the same coin. So the marketing tell people what you do sales ask for the sale, not wanting the same thing. So on that note, how can people find you follow up with you, work with you, like, where should we direct them?
AA - Yeah. So Twitter and LinkedIn are probably the best in terms of just following along. And if you want to send me a DM, you know, always love to hear from people who are interested in whether it's just connecting to explore synergies or if they have a project in mind.
So Twitter and LinkedIn, Alexandra Allen, if you type in Montreal, I'm sure I should come up because it's a, otherwise a pretty generic name pretty common, I should say. And otherwise if people want to get more kind of in depth of what I'm working on and, you know, here, you know, what I'm sharing as part of my journey.
They can subscribe to my newsletter, which is on Substack. So again, alexandraallen.substack.com they can just subscribe there. I'm quite selective about the newsletters I read. Yours is one of them. So I think if anyone likes the Ask Newsletter, they'll resonate with yours. You know, there's a blend of practical, personal, solopreneur, life, love lessons as we connected on the other day.
So yeah, loads of gold in there. So I'll link everything. And yeah, we're pretty much coming up to time. So thank you for your time today. Really cool to hear your story and yeah, reach out to Alexandra if you need course creation, expert help, project management, everything, all the good stuff. I appreciate that.
Thank you so much, Ellen. Really appreciate you having me on. See you soon. Bye.
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