Understand your Business, Earn More Money by Dan Strongin

Dan Strongin shares with us how was his experience creating his first course on Udemy after taking Grumo’s How to Create an Awesome Online Course:

Who are you?
Former 5 Star Chef, Gourmet Supermarket Executive, Marketing and Strategy Specialist for State Marketing Boards and private companies, and a specialist in helping small to medium sized companies (SME) find their way to long term, magical profits through pride and joy in work. I have coached some great people, who run wonderful businesses. I pioneered bringing restaurant quality food into specialty supermarkets in the 1980’s in Northern California. I have had the honor of working with varied businesses and industries, including the prestigious Ritz Carlton Corporation, the California Milk Marketing Board, the Dairy Business Innovation Center, I call myself the Uncorporate Consultant and try to speak with down to earth simplicity. My focus has always been on where the rubber meets the road, and I have deep faith in the ability of people working together doing something worth doing. I invented the modern Olive Bar, and the first retail cheese department in California to focus on American Artisan Cheese,and  eventually became the President of the American Cheese Society, and am a founding member of the Deming Collaboration. For what people have said about me look here: http://managenaturally.com/testimonials/

Why did you decide to create an online course?
The way business as usual consulting is done sucks for both sides. It is too expensive for the client, and there is no follow through. The consultant has to pretend he knows more about your business than you do, which is impossible. As a normal-style consultants I felt a bit like a drug dealer; give a taste in the hopes of getting you addicted.

But the truth is that no one can know as much about your business or your job as you.  What I have tried to do is find unusual but effective ways to share ideas, methods and techniques that can help you understand your business for yourself, better. In order to share these at a reasonable price I am creating online classes and hosting live SME peer groups for people who want to learn how to fuel their success and enjoy doing it. Heck, someone wouldn’t even get an hour of my time under a standard consulting agreement for what they are paying here for something that can, if used correctly, improve their business and personal life immensely.

How did you choose the topic of your course?
I began cooking in the trenches of some great kitchens, but the best training I got was at the Ritz in Boston. I have rarely seen a working system that works so well for creating quality to this day. I loved it so much I wrote an ebook about it: What I learned in Kitchens Part One: Working.

Because I was good at it, and worked hard, they made me a manager… thereby losing a good cook and gaining an untrained and therefore not so good manager. As I tried to find help in my new job, most of it was BORING and those spouting it didn’t seem to be doing much better than I was, or scientific and very dry; far from my everyday reality.

And when I rose to the level of running things the only information I got to help me was in dry columns and rows of data in so-called management reports and the P&L. Like everyone, I tried to make sense of them as best I could, and in hindsight, drove myself and everyone working for me crazy, first and foremost, because the data was about things that had already happened, but also, I didn’t know at the time, the influence of the  natural law of variation is huge, and knowing something about it can be the difference between enjoying success or the desperation of drowning. About the best solution I could come up with at the time was, work long hours.

Oh if I only knew then what I know now. To help others avoid the pain, I decided to attack the thing that can make the most difference for people who run things, better understanding through better feedback. I decided to make the course itself, down to earth, filled with real examples, easy to do, and enjoyable.

What is the purpose of this course?
Help people who run things take the same data locked into their profit and loss reports and transform it into instant visual understanding so they can know when, whether and where to act in a few minutes with nothing more than a pencil and paper.

People are working too hard to be making things worse, and a simple truth most people  don’t yet know can make all the difference.

How did you find time to produce it?
It is my profession being self-employed, and since I moved to Rio de Janeiro, I have had more time on my hands, between trips to the beach and listening to music.

How long did it take you to put together?
The course took me 9 months to put together, based on the work of a lifetime. 7 months of that working at least 20 hours a week. To take a potentially boring subject that has a lot of pitfalls if not fully understood, despite being easy to learn, requires work.

What was the hardest thing to do?
Editing. Editing Editing, particularly the audio, mainly because I had never done it before, and without Miguel’s super duper courses (I took the Word Press, the Demo Video for Keynote AND the How to make an Awesome Course) I would have made wooden junk.

How did you determine the price of the course?
People like you set the price, considering that what will be learned can help people make much more money and enjoy doing it, it was a difficult decision. That being said, after a lot of research and comparisons, I used the formula Udemy gives you.

What is your marketing strategy to promote it?
50% off here and on my site, managenaturally.com, aggressive optimization through my site and press releases,(taking another course Miguel recommended!) LinkedIN, Facebook and offering real, actionable value and stirring content with (hopefully) entertaining delivery. People deserve to know what really works, and what doesn’t.

What software did you use?
Keynote, Camtasia 2 for Mac, OmniGraffle, Curio, Photoshop, Audio Notes, Audacity, and Pixelmator, Pencil and Paper!

What hardware did you use? (camera, microphone, lights, etc.)
Logitech HD 910 for mac, Panasonic Camera, iPhone 4, Cowboy Studio lights, and my iPhone and a blanket for voiceovers, as in Miguel’s post on the internet (thanks again!)

What was the part the Grumo course helped you with the most?
Cripes, the whole thing. First, Miguel’s reassuring voice inspired confidence, then the careful and thorough presentation, the great topics, and help with animation for a super demo video you can watch here: http://managenaturally.com/learn-how-to-understand-your-business-earn-more-money-and-improve-your-business-intelligence/

What other resources have you used to make your course? 
Pencil and Paper and my noodle! In fact one of the “mottos” of the course is 30 minutes or less with just a pencil and paper to get all you need from the data.

Anything else?
Though I greatly enjoyed them, Miguel’s songs may have been a liability, witnessed by my foolishness in some of my videos.

Thank you Dan for taking my course and the time to answer these questions!

So if you are interested on taking Dan’s course he has made available a special 25% discount coupon link.
Here it is: https://www.udemy.com/understand-your-business-earn-more-money/?couponCode=Grumo59.

And if you would like to learn how to create your awesome online courses too here is Grumo’s own 50% discount link: https://www.udemy.com/how-to-create-an-awesome-online-course/?couponCode=LOVE2TEACH