Entrepreneurship and education go hand-in-hand. So many of you have mentioned that you are pursuing your own opportunities and that you are looking for some tips and strategies to follow. Joining us today is someone I turn to for guidance on entrepreneurship, Dr. Barbi Honeycutt.
We talk about:
Finding your people
Getting around the “icky/slimy” feeling of selling
Letting go of your projects to focus on other areas
When to hire help
Listening to your audience
Starting a new idea
Taking your first steps towards entrepreneurship
Dr. Barbi Honeycutt and her mentioned resources:
The Lecture Breakers Podcast - https://barbihoneycutt.com/blogs/podcast
The Lecture Breakers Virtual Summer Conference - https://barbihoneycutt.com/pages/conference
The Lecture Breakers Facebook Group - https://www.facebook.com/groups/lecturebreakers
Your Teaching Coach - https://barbihoneycutt.com/pages/your-teaching-coach
Pat Flynn’s SPI Podcast - https://www.smartpassiveincome.com/
To learn more about myself and show:
Need a new learning platform? Check out Eduflow.
Thinking of corporate instructional design? Check out IDOL Courses Academy.
Non-profits looking for volunteers, check out IDOL World.
Want to take your higher education instructional design skills to the next level? Check out Instructional Design Institute.
Thinking about making your own online courses / creating your own business? Check out Kajabi.
Recording a podcast or conducting interviews online? Check out SquadCast.
Transcript
SPEAKERS
Barbi Honeycutt, Luke Hobson
Luke Hobson 00:00
Hey folks, before we begin today's show, I want to give a quick shout out to idol courses Academy. If you're looking to transition into the corporate instructional design space, you need the right guidance to do so. Dr. Sargent, her team have done an incredible job with focusing on what's important to be a corporate instructional designer like storyboarding it models and theories, authoring tools, project management tactics and more. They even cover how to make your resume and portfolio stand out from the crowd and have an impressive completion rate with their students work in organizations like Google, Salesforce, GM, Uber, Walmart, and Amazon. Also, you won't be going through this learning journey alone, you'll be studying alongside other aspiring instructional designers as well as working with experienced mentors and coaches. And as an added bonus, you'll get a free copy of my ebook what I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer. So check out the industry recognized program as showing up in job descriptions as preferred training and education by going to idle courses.com forward slash Academy, enrolling for the next cohort opens up soon on March 21. So use the promo code Luke to save $88 off your enrollment in the academy. And now let's start the show. Hello, everybody, and welcome on into your certified learning nerd podcast. I'm your host, Dr. Luke Hobson. I'm an author, blogger podcaster, and the senior instructional designer and Program Manager for MIT. My purpose, my passion is to help you make the online learning experience super fantastic for you and for your students. And you can find all my information over at Dr. Luke hobson.com. One thing that I love that I really haven't been so public about his entrepreneurship, I find it fascinating and motivating to hear from others of how they took one small idea inside of their heads. And then it manifests into a product or service that's now enjoyed by consumers. I found myself accidentally going down this entrepreneur path with my own brand. As of this moment, I have a membership for professional development for instructional designers, my own courses override edgy flow, a book, and I've done a number of workshops, presentations, and consulting work. The thing is, this was never the plan. And I accidentally kind of sort of gave myself a second full time job with all of my other projects. And I know for a fact that I'm not alone in this specifically within the educational world and the lnd world. I talked with many of you in this space from instructional designers, learning experience designers, professors, training managers, instructors, and you've been working hard on your brand. And now you want to be able to successfully launch a product or service, you've been coming to me with questions about well, how do I market my book? How do I start an email list and a bunch of other fantastic questions. But once again, to be transparent, I am not an expert on entrepreneurship, I have made plenty of mistakes and assumptions along the way. There have been some times where I think that you as the listener is going to love a podcast episode, Evan, the statistics tell me that I was dead wrong. Other times, I think something is cool and innovative. So I share it, I write about it in the blog or podcast and I put it out there. But I just have no idea how it's going to be received. And then all of a sudden, it does really well. A good example of this is actually the last episode of the podcast that was about gamification for online courses, but doing something a bit different with choosing your own adventure with learning paths. And with being able to change the difficulty levels. I honestly thought that that one was going to be kind of me, you know, but I didn't think it was gonna go so well. But your responses clearly prove me wrong, which is a very long way of saying that I don't have all the answers. And I wanted to bring on a guest that does have the answers specifically for educators and for instructional designers to help them on their path towards entrepreneurship. And that is why I'm so excited that today we have on Dr. Barbi Honeycutt for today's episode. You might know her from the lecture breakers podcast, or perhaps many of the books that she has written about as well. And for everything else that she does online. She's just absolutely incredible. Her story is awesome. It's inspiring, and most importantly for the fact is that it's real. There are many people out there who claim to be these amazing and fantastic entrepreneurs about how they quit their job overnight and they found immediate success and then they brag about how many cars they have. And yeah, that's not what today's show is about. This is going to be about real tips to help educators Like yourself to learn more about entrepreneurship, so I'm not going to waste any more time. Here is the one and only Dr. Barbi Honeycutt. Barbi, welcome to the podcast.
Barbi Honeycutt 05:11
Hey Luke, it is so great to be on your podcast. I'm so excited to talk with you. Absolutely
Luke Hobson 05:16
I am. So super stoked to her finally able to do this. I know we've been talking about it for like my feels like years at this point in time. Even though I think that I've only known you for probably a year and change. I think you're right. Oh my gosh, time is just so weird right now I have no idea what day time or week it is. It's just all kind of like a blur at this point with everything via zoom and working from home. So just super. But once again, though, so excited that you are here. And for those who actually don't know who you are Barbie, can you just please introduce yourself to the audience? Tell us a little bit more about who you are and what it is that you do? Sure, sure. So the short sentence is that I help educators create engaging learning experiences. And the main people that I serve are professors and educators in higher education. So I do a lot of work with Instructure, with instructors, and professors at all different stages of their career. And we talk about teaching. So how can we teach effectively? How can we connect with our students? How can we create spaces that are engaging, student centered, interactive, fun, and meaningful. So all of those things wrapped up into my work. So I guess if you were to describe, give me a title, I guess it would be maybe like an instructional coach, maybe a faculty development colleague. And so I really like to try to, you know, help faculty celebrate the work that they're already doing in the classroom, that's great, and then kind of take it to the next level. Wonderful, I love it. And one of the big things too, that I have found so impressive from everything that you actually do amongst all the amazing things we're going to be talking about this evening, but also was a fact is that I can just tell from speaking with you and hearing about like the entrepreneur spirit, with everything and seeing of what you have done is it's been so amazing to see everything that you have accomplished. And I keep on talking to more folks right now in the instructional design space in the educational space. And they're seeing me do a couple of different things with the blog, the book, the podcast, and all this stuff. And they assume that I am an expert in entrepreneurship, and I am not. So I wanted to bring on an expert, hence you to come in and talk about this because I want to make sure that the people are getting the best information about everything to make sure that you can actually enlighten us about all this good stuff. So I'm gonna love Bobby to start like with your journey about everything with entrepreneurship, it seems like everyone kind of has like a different path of how they fell into this world and stumbled into this. So how did you find entrepreneurship?
Barbi Honeycutt 07:46
Yeah, well, first of all, I'm not an expert. I think every single day, it seems but um, you know, so I started my business part time in 2011. And, and I was working in a university full time. And I was like, you know, I just want to, like, see what could happen, you know, and, you know, I think you're right, I have always had that entrepreneurial spirit back in college as an under undergrad, I had my own after school business for kids, I did a lot of after school programming. So even back then I was already like, tapping into that sort of create my own thing. And my parents, they, they were very entrepreneurial. They had their own business when I was very young. And so I kind of saw that as well. So I think it's just in my blood, maybe I don't know.But yeah, so 2011. I said, You know what, I'm going to try speaking and so in, in the work that I do in faculty development and professional development, kind of that traditional model is for people to prior to COVID, they would, you know, bring you to their campus kind of fly you in and you do a workshop or Keynote or something like that, and then you fly back home, and I would continue my work or my job. And that was fine. But man, once I got a taste for that, it was like, Okay, I want to do that. Like, I want this to be my life. Like I want to do things on my own terms. I was battling the bureaucracy that I'm sure many of us know, when we work in big institutions. We had a change in leadership, that was a not a good match for me. And it was like, You know what, it's time and I guess what sparked me or kicked me in the butt to do it full time was my son was born in 2015. And I knew that when he was born, I wasn't going back. Like I knew that I was going to do this on my own terms. So but even if he even if I wasn't becoming apparent, I think I was at that point where I was like, I'm done with doing this on somebody else's terms. I'm ready to do this on my own. So that's a little bit of my journey. I don't know if you want me to follow up, but I can I can talk about that part all day. Yeah, of course, of course. I mean, like the one thing that I was going to ask about is just from that is kind of seeing the trend about how people in education are now just like starting to gravitate towards things as far as online. Entrepreneurship. And I know from what you like, what you just said to is that for some of us, we've done speaking engagements or consulting or some freelance work or you know, something along the side. But now it seems to be expanding. And now that you're thinking about this in 2022, do you know why that is? Like, what is it with education? And like, why does it fit well into the entrepreneurial space? This is such a good question. Um, so like, I think, I think there's a couple of different things. So, one, I think that educators no matter what hat you wear, if you're attracted to the education space, whether that's an instructional designer, a professor, faculty development, professional, IT support whatever that is that you are, like, always wanting to be in a space where people are excited about learning that right there is, is amazing, because that shows that you are a good learner yourself, which entrepreneurs need to be right, we are always learning something new, my business has changed so much in the last 24 months. And I love the direction it's headed. But I've had to stay in that place where I'm constantly learning new things. And so if we've come up in a place where that's nurtured and fostered and awarded and celebrated, then I think we carry that into our entrepreneurial journey, you know, we take that with us. The other thing too, is, man, the educators that I know, and the instructional designers that I know, are so like creative and innovative with the way they look at the world. And we need that, right? That's That's how big businesses are built small businesses, you know, whatever it is you want to do, like, we need that energy. And I think many of us who are attracted to this space, bring that with us from from education, and just being curious about the world around us and saying, you know, what problem can I help people solve and, you know, that's the number one thing you have to do as an entrepreneur is help people solve problems. But then like, the other thing that's happening is, I think that people have seen, especially in the last 24 months, is like, there is a need for instructional designers and people who know how people learn. Because we've been doing this work for 20 years, we know how people learn. We know how people learn in the online space. But it wasn't until we were all just shoved in front of the computers during COVID. That it was like wait a minute, people have already they've already mastered this, wait a minute, those are the people I need to turn to. And so it's just opened up huge opportunities for like instructional designers, educators, people who know about learning to step into this space. And like just say, here I am. And now it's like our time to shine, right?
Luke Hobson 12:27
Oh, yeah. Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, I certainly can relate to that, too, because that was something that was kind of staring at me in the face was just like, hey, I have all this information inside of my head, I really should share this with the Internet. I'm like, I feel like I should do this. And that, in turn, ended up leading up to like, all these different things that I've now have. But that was never a goal. It was just like, hey, I want to help all these people. Because clearly, there's a need for it. And it's crazy, because I know that I am not the only one. There's many of us in this field who are doing all these incredible things. And a lot of people too, who are doing stuff behind the scenes, you don't even know about it from different types of freelance work and consulting and all these other different types of activities, where it's just like, oh, yeah, this this actually is a real thing. And I feel like we're busier than ever, but in a good way. Because now is he is being super good.
Barbi Honeycutt 13:19
Well, I'm glad you said service to you put that word in there that you wanted to kind of serve or be of service to people. And I didn't put that in my list of things. But you're absolutely right. You know, those of us who are in the education space, that's what we want to do. We want to help we want to serve. And you know, that's a huge part of being an entrepreneur, as well as how you combine that problem solving with that service piece. And so I'm so glad you mentioned that, and, and it's true. And maybe maybe that's why it's all kind of coming together and, and becoming just, there's just so many opportunities right now. Yeah, I mean, I can that kind of makes sense, because we love teaching others. So I can easily see how this now in turn says like, oh, but now I can teach about my specialty, which is my learning and how people learn and how to make something actually relevant and engaging and meaningful, and not just be super boring and watching someone to go through a lecture and then do a discussion board in an essay and then repeat. Right? There's so much more we could do. Actually. So no, so it makes sense. So what I wanted to also ask you about too, is the fact that like while we're talking about all these things, and obviously it makes sense like it's literally in front of us to go and say like hey, you should actually go and do this thing.
Luke Hobson 14:29
There's also this entire side of the house though as far as for with confidence in believing that you can actually go and do the thing it is very much a completely different mentality to be like I think I can do it too then actually going and building a brand and an email lists and you start to do campaigns like that's a completely different thing for you. Was there a a light bulb moment that gave you that confidence that you're like, you know what, I actually can do this. I know you said that once your son was born you're like Now I need to do it. But did anything feed your confidence as well to keep you keep on going?
Barbi Honeycutt 15:05
I do have a story. So on 2011. So 2010 I knew I was I wanted to try this speaking thing, because I'd seen other people do it. I was on, I was in the place on a campus where I was the person hiring the speakers to come to our campus. And I'm like, What the heck, I can do that, you know. And so I knew the business side of it. And I'm like, Okay, I want to, I'm going to flip that role. And I want to be the speaker. And so by 2011, I had built just basic, you know, here's a basic website, here's Barbie, this, why do you know, very, very basic. And I wrote a guest blog post. And that guest blog post was posted on a, in a big in a big on a big website for people who do what I do. And I got a lot of attention. It got a lot of social media sharing. And next thing I know, I have a person contacted me to say, Hey, will you come to our campus and do our keynote in August 2011. I'm like, okay, but here's the thing. Look, I was 35 years old, and never been on an airplane before. Terrified, you just have no idea. I was so scared of flying. And that I knew was holding me back. But I was, it was just a fear that I had had, but I'm like, You know what, if I'm going to be a speaker, if I'm going to do this, I gotta overcome this fear. So, but the plane ticket, terrified on the plane, the whole trip going, coming, all of it, you know, and there's a lot of stories I can share within that. But I did it and I it and then like just a spark just lit up. And I'm like, This is what I got to do right now. Like, this is it. And I had to face that fear. And so I guess that's one piece of advice is like, do the thing you think you can't do right? Just try it, see if you can do it. It's so funny, because people are like, wait a minute, you didn't have any fear of standing up in front of 700 faculty members at a campus. But you didn't want to get on an airplane. I'm like, yep. So I had no fear of public speaking, which is like the number one fear. So it's really interesting, you got to face that fear. And I think from that, overcoming that and really working through that helped me build my confidence. And I'm like, Okay, I'm gonna do this now. So that's, I guess that's my little story. And my motivational thing is like, get on the plane, right?
Luke Hobson 17:14
Do the thing. I find hilarious, by the way, cuz I'm also not a fan of flying. I really don't enjoy it. I'm like, which I have now been so thankful that I can do public speaking engagements in my office. It has been wonderful. I'm just gonna keep on doing this as much as as I possibly can. I didn't know that about you, though. As far as for not having any fear of public speaking. Were you always that way?
Barbi Honeycutt 17:37
No, I was an undergrad in college and had to take the public speaking class. Oh, no. terrified, terrified. I just, I don't know, I think somewhere along the way, when I knew that I wanted to teach. And I've kind of always known I wanted to teach, I'm like, Okay, this thing you have to overcome, like, you can't be a teacher and not be able to speak publicly, you know, so I worked really hard on that. And, you know, I also when I was at the university, I would teach workshops, and your teaching shows up and lots of different ways in a person's life teaching doesn't just have to be a formal classroom where you're grading students and giving lectures, I was doing workshops, I was helping graduate students kind of navigate graduate school, I was helping postdocs figure out how to teach their first class. And so there was teaching teaching can take on many forms. And that helped build my confidence as well as doing sort of, you know, I mean, I was teaching workshops three or four a week, and so kind of came overcame that fear that way. Yeah, it makes sense. I mean, I know that for me, personally, my biggest boost of confidence has always been collecting the feedback from people who either attend my workshops or my students in my courses or whatnot, because I know that that it actually hit home that the message did resonate, because someone was willing to actually go and dedicate hours of their life to either listening to me babble on the internet, or to actually go and be a part of the course, which is like even more time. And that's something that is just so incredible. When you collect feedback that obviously as for even for public speaking, that, hey, you're going to get better because you're going to get your different tips and think about the experience where you could do next time around, but be when you actually hear from the the target audience themselves about Yes, you were great. Or like, Hey, have you ever thought about doing maybe this instead? It's just super helpful? Great.
Luke Hobson 19:24
For sure. It's funny, too. I, uh, we, we did a course on not that we did a workshop the other day for edgy flow Academy. And it's always funny because there are so many people who are inside of this workshop and they come and attend. And I can tell right from the start, who has seen me give a public speech before and who hasn't. Because like when I'm doing a workshop because I only have you for an hour and this is something on Zoom. I crank up my volume times 10 I'm super loud. I try to be really passionate and energetic and make people be like, Wow, that's not a normal presentation. And for some people, they love that. And then there's always one or two people where they're like, Wow, I hate that guy. And I'm like, I'm not for everyone. It's okay.
Barbi Honeycutt 20:09
That's okay. You know what it is what it is like, I would rather have it be different. I would rather you feel like you're a part of the the conversation about, you're enjoying something, and you're just not listening to me be monotone and like talking at a low pace, and yeah, blah, blah, blah. So now it's so funny to see our public speaking is kind of transformed over this timeframe. And what it is that we do, it's really, really interesting. And I'm curious to see where it's gonna go from here as well, too. Because yeah, and it's really hard. I mean, you talk about kind of building that confidence and overcoming the challenges. And so for me, a podcast was, like, impossible, because I've always been a teacher where I was like, I have to see my audience, like, I need them in the room with me, I, I walk around the room, I interact, you know, and we're working on things together, it's very hands on, I always have the worksheets in the workbook like it, that is what I know. And to redesign all that for an online space. That challenge was a challenge in itself, which we can talk about. But, you know, I do have a podcast called the lecture breakers podcast. And hence, you know, we're breaking up lectures and creating more engaging learning experiences. And that was a scary thing for me. So I took an online course, right meta here, I took an online course, to learn how to create a podcast, and then was terrified when I hit record and put the first episode out there. And it's taken a long time to get comfortable with talking to the wall, or talking to the camera, or talking in my mic and not having someone there to respond. And you just kind of have to keep practicing and pushing forward. And, and, you know, see, see what happens. But so many opportunities have come my way because of my podcast. I understand that.
Luke Hobson 21:51
Did I ever tell you but I deleted my first five podcast episodes because I hated them so much. I was like, Oh, I don't sound like me at all, like who is this person speaking and like, and they still exist, I had to redo them all first and foremost. And then I put them online. And now like, you can still go back and listen to them. And I'm like, Ah, cringe. But but you know, I like it. I like it when the when the pros out there share their like beginning stages, because we only see the polished version, you know, and there's such a journey to get to there. And nobody ever shows that right? I want to see the behind the scenes. I want to know that it's okay that I'm not starting out perfect.
Barbi Honeycutt 22:34
Oh, yeah, of course. Especially because as you said, like, if I go and you go on Google or YouTube something right now, I am seeing the polished product. And from some people, they have a team of like 15 people behind the scenes doing the editing, and the mixing and the mastering and the scripting and all this other different stuff. And I think about just me recording an episode of my bedroom closet. Right? We're not the same. Give me some hope that I could get there. Maybe someday, or at least half as good as you kind of thing. So yeah, and I love talking about the behind the scenes and the failures and the screw ups because it's real. Because, yeah, it's what people actually need to be able to hear to know that we're not robots, and we're definitely not perfect for podcasters.
Luke Hobson 23:20
Thinking about things that kind of like for surprising the audience, you probably just heard some of those things. And we're like, I didn't know that. One thing that actually want to be able to talk about with entrepreneurship is just kind of things that we didn't you know, expect about this journey? Was there anything that surprised you about this, that you didn't think about it from the beginning, and all of a sudden, you're in this and you're like, Oh, I never thought about it like that before.
Barbi Honeycutt 23:43
So I guess I can talk a little bit about kind of how I stumbled into doing this full time, like the kick that I got, I mean, it was becoming apparent. But before that, I knew that I was going to do this work. And I just remember had it's just it's like seared in my mind. It was it was like I think it was maybe three months pregnant and four months pregnant, something like that. And I remember putting away the baby clothes in the closet, like getting ready for this new person to join my life. And I was putting, you know, all the little ones ease up and all the little socks and all the things that come with a baby and I was doing that and I was listening to a podcast and it was Pat Flynn's podcast. And for those who don't know, he does the Smart Passive Income, everything podcast courses and everything. But I stumbled onto his podcast, I had never listened to a podcast in my life. And I put it on my what is the iTunes the apple like iTunes like I put it there that's how long ago it was like it was all that was brand new and I'm like I'm gonna see what a podcast is and you know, plug that in and listen to it and just listening to someone else talk about how they are living life on their own terms. They're doing it the way they want to, and and his whole story worry, I was just so inspired. And then, you know, I quit my job like six months later and full time. So I mean, like, it's the thing I needed. So I think, for me, that was surprising that other people out there, were already doing this. And I needed to go find them, like it was hard to find them at the time. So this was more than a decade ago, or 10 years ago, I guess. And I didn't know where to go find these people. I don't even know how I found Pat Flynn's podcast, like I couldn't even tell you how that popped up, or what I was even searching for. And so I think it was a lot harder than to find the people and find the support and people who do what you want to do. So I think, for me, maybe that's one of the surprising things is just like, you don't step into it. And these communities are already made at that time, they were in any way. Now there are communities that exist to support us all through this journey. And I think that's amazing. And I think the other thing, too, is is how much once I left my job. My whole life just became aligned with what was important to me. Where I always thought that my career was so important. And climbing the ladder was so important. And having the big title was so important and the security and all those things that were told. And like as soon as I did this on my own terms, I'm like, wait a minute, I don't need a ladder, I can build my own. I don't need a title. I can be whatever I want to be. I like everything just shifted. And suddenly I'm spending my days with my son and working a little bit in the evenings. Yeah, I did some weekend work to help build this business up. But like, suddenly my life revolved around like what the way I wanted it to be rather than okay, I'm going to work at eight getting off at five. This one doing attending all these staff meetings. Like I just didn't realize I didn't realize until as I did on my own that. Like this is what life could be. No, absolutely insane. Thank you. I don't know how I found Pat Flynn's podcast. I don't know. I have no clue either. I I've not not the slightest clue. Actually. No, I take that back. I do know how I found about his podcast. I was searching for ways of how to make a podcast. He pops up on YouTube. And ever since then, yeah, he's been absolutely incredible to listen to and dominates the space now. Well, that's just it right. He didn't start there. He started and he still has his old episodes up to speaking of the journey back from I think he started in 2009. Maybe. So he was very new in the space. People were like, What the heck is even a podcast? And just, you know, I didn't find him until 2014. And, you know, he he was, you know, getting pretty good at that point. And already doing things that I couldn't even imagine at that at that point. And so, yeah, it's really interesting how people have this journey that they share, but we just don't know about it until we step into those spaces, you know, right.
Luke Hobson 27:50
And I think that's something that definitely surprised me too, is the fact that there are real people who are entrepreneurs. And it's not just the people who unfortunately, if you Google about entrepreneurship, you see people who are talking about like, immediately quit your job with no plan, get this course. And you're like, No. How about I don't see because I don't trust you. Who are you? What have you done, you know, kind of a thing. And then realizing later on in life, or like, oh, there's actually normal, wonderful human beings who are indeed entrepreneurs that you can meet online, as we were talking about, actually, before coming on to this call, where I do have a group of folks who I talk with every Tuesday just kind of about setting goals, and doing accomplishments where like, I will literally tell them that, hey, I'm going to record a podcast episode, I'm going to write this blog, I'm going to do this thing. And even as I was writing the book, I mean, they were my biggest cheerleaders of saying like, Oh, my gosh, she wrote chapter one, two, and three, like, Oh, my God, you know, what are you doing? Like, how is this going? This is fantastic. And that motivation from having people hold me accountable. As far as we're trying to just do stuff on my own. We're so different. I never experienced that until talking to other entrepreneurs. Yeah, right. It's not competitive. I'm in I'm in a couple of mastermind groups myself, and, and it's not competitive. Where as, I guess, when I was at a, you know, working in a department at a an institution, in this case, a university, you know, sometimes it can be a little competitive, you're like, how much do I want to share with people who are also competing for the same title that I'm chasing, you know, or whatever. And, you know, that might not be the case for everybody. But I could see where that kind of thinking could could, you know, kind of hold you back. And I have found very supportive spaces online for people who do what I want to do. And they're there. You have to find them. But yeah, they're, they're certainly there. And there's more now than ever before. Yes, yes. And that is definitely the other thing as far as for thinking about surprises of an entrepreneur. Entrepreneurship is the fact that if you don't have those people, it's very lonely. It's kind of weird, because you're like, Oh, I'm just working on my stuff by myself. Again 100th time have no one to talk about it. Because if you don't have a group, you'll talk to your parents, your partner, you know, but then like, sometimes you're, you're kind of weird about it to talk about it with your co workers. Because you're like, Well, I don't know about, like, if you're thinking that I'm blowing off work to go and do my other side project stuff, because that's definitely not true. But I could see how you would think that if I'm posting something on LinkedIn at noon, you're like, wait a minute, what do you know, like, so there's a lot of gray area where until I found my people, I was like, okay, okay, now I feel like this is a cool thing. But until then, it was kind of weird. And that was actually something that I've heard from some of the new folks going into this entrepreneurship world is actually the the word that I keep on hearing is icky. That selling ideas and products and services, it has like have a negative reputation for some reason. And what I keep on hearing is that people kind of feel icky about it, because it's different. You know, at no other point in time, during your professional career, are you actually selling just you and your own ideas?
Barbi Honeycutt 31:07
It's usually something on behalf of the organization, or, you know, whatever you are doing, or wherever you are working? Did you ever face this challenge of kind of feeling weird about promoting yourself and trying to do all these things as an individual? It's such a good question. I, I have not felt this, but I do understand it. Because there's so many issues that we have around money, like the money mindset pieces, a huge piece of being an entrepreneur, what do I charge? Is that enough? Is it more like there's just so I could do a whole episode on just money mindset stuff? So I totally get it. I guess that I didn't feel it because my first venture into the space was speaking, and people get paid to speak and like it was a natural conversation to have like, I didn't feel sleazy about it. But I do think that I could see where if I were trying to just jump straight into selling a course or a membership or something like that, that maybe that would feel that way. Because you really now you have to build trust with your audience. And the sleaziness or the shakiness, I think comes because there's so many people in this space, who are like, the marketing, like they're just pushing their message so hard. And they're doing it from a private jet that you know, is just a green screen. But there's so much that's not authentic. So I think if you're coming from a place where it's authentic, it's a conversation that feels good to you, it feels good to the person that you're working with, or your potential client, then it's, it doesn't feel sleazy or achy, but but I do get that. And I will say to that. Maybe I bypassed this because I started with speaking. And then the very next thing that I monetized, if you will, was that I, I wrote a little book, it's 101 ways to flip your class, and I sold it for $10. And I would sell it when I would go to conferences, I would set up a booth, I'd be the keynote speaker, I do a workshop. And then I'd say, hey, come to my booth and get my book for $10 I would just sell it and there was no like there was no shakiness in that because people are used to exchanging money for a physical book. And so I guess if those who are kind of feeling this way, maybe rethink, what's the issue with money, and there's a lot of podcasts about money that you can definitely go listen to for that. But also, maybe if you would feel more comfortable selling something that's kind of in the maybe your safe zone, like selling a book are selling speaking, maybe that would help with some of some of that.
Luke Hobson 33:41
Did you have to change your messaging or communication at all once you start to do more things with social media? Because I know that's something that for like, the icky Ness, quote unquote, kind of thing is that it seems like on social media, if you were talking about whatever you might be talking about for a product or service, it seems very much like Oh, me, me, me, me, like we're talking all about me because it's my channel and my product and my thing. Did you ever have to like do some experimenting to be like, No, this is who I actually am as a person is genuine and authentic? Like, I know this can help somebody. So here's let's talk about the real benefits and like, try to get away from other wording.
Barbi Honeycutt 34:22
Yeah, my journey through rebranding has been ongoing. I feel like I'm constantly sort of redefining what I'm doing. I have pivoted my business one time significantly, and I'm about to get ready to do it again. And so when I first started out my business was flip it consulting. And, you know, I that was just kind of, I don't know if we'll talk about the evolution of the business idea in the brand. But I started with this idea of flip consulting and stepping into social media. I went kicking and screaming like I did not understand social media. I did not understand Twitter at all, I didn't understand why people were putting themselves out there like that. But from a business perspective, I totally understood it. I'm like, Okay, now I see how you build your tribe or audience or your clients, your colleagues. But it took me a long time to feel comfortable with social media. And I'm only right now on LinkedIn, and Twitter, and I do have a Facebook group for my podcast. And I feel okay, in those spaces, I have not ventured out into all of the other ones, I just can't keep up. So I tend to know my lane. In terms of messaging, you know, I can talk a little bit about like, how my business is evolving, and kind of where I started. But, but yeah, it's, I'm constantly tweaking those those messages and trying to show up as a person in these online spaces. Well, my next question is for you, we're actually going to be about building your brand. So please feel free to dive on in as far as for any steps that you took successfully to build your brand or, or what you're doing now or anything else, please feel free to talk away about branding. Okay. And I'm definitely not a branding expert. I just tried to, you know, make all these messages and what I'm excited about kind of come together. But yeah, so I, I started with a flip it consulting. And the flip actually means to focus on your learners, by involving them in the process. So it's an acronym. And it's really my whole philosophy is built on active learning, student engagement involving your students and your learners, and letting them discover the journey and not constantly talking at them, like really engaging them. And that's always been my mission. So I named my business flip consulting. That was in 2011, I would say in 2012, something came along that exploded across education called the flipped classroom. And I'm sure your listeners have heard about it, because their instructional designers and they have probably had to help educators do this. It was hitting the training, corporate training, it was hitting higher education, it was hitting K 12. It was everywhere. Well, the name of my business was the Olympic consulting, so people are like, cool Barbie must know all about this flip classroom stuff. I was like, okay, yeah, well, when I was reading about it, I was like, well, parts of this I do align with and they support my mission. But other parts of this, I don't. So I'm gonna go out there and be the voice that I am, which is, yep, some of this I agree with. And some of this, I don't. And I think some people really resonate with that, because they were really seeing some problems with the way the flipped classroom model was being defined a decade ago. So that was an interesting way to grow my business. I did not mean for that to happen. But I had to constantly remind people that I'm in this conversation, but I'm going to bring you a different perspective, I'm not going to teach you the flipped classroom model that you might have heard about. So that was really interesting journey to share. And I gave me a lot of opportunity. But it's also a challenge, right? To not be defined by that, which led to my next rebrand. So I would say, four years ago, three or four years ago, I realized that people know me by flipped classroom, they know me by flip it consulting, flip, flip, flip, right. And that was like the thing people knew me for and that's fine. But I did not want to stay in that lane. I knew I wanted to do more. So I rebranded my whole business around my name, Barbie honeycutt.com. And I knew that if I did that, I could do Flipped Classroom stuff. Great, you still want to contact me for that, I got you. But I also wanted to do more active learning and more faculty development, I want to work with graduate students, I have all these other big plans. And so now under that brand, the brand that is Barbie, I can do any of those things. I even dabbled for a while with something called the scholarly entrepreneur, where I was working with other entrepreneurs in the education space who wanted to start their own business. And I dropped that because it was just a real, it was real departure from what my lane is, which is teaching. And so I haven't come back to that yet. But the beauty of it is, I could do all that under my brand. Alright, so that was a big shift in my thinking and in my business. And then now under that umbrella, I have the lecture breakers podcast, and the lecture breakers virtual conference. And that exists as its own sort of mini brand under what I do. And then I also have a new one coming out called your teaching coach, which will be a whole separate product and service that I'm going to be offering again, under my brand. That's too much that
Luke Hobson 39:26
No, no, no, I was thinking about that too. Or it's just like I didn't know that. You know, it's I'm really glad that I asked about that because branding to me is just so interested clearly. I was not trying to be creative with branding my own stuff around like now it's my name. I'm done. I don't want it I like it. No, that is great. I will the other thing on top of all that too, which made me be like wow, I not sure if I want to go down this again is that I tried to trademark a thing, but I'm not going to say but I tried to trademark this thing. And I immediately get a cease and desist letter from my attorney. And I was like, Oh, you have trademarked this thing I see, well, I don't want to get sued. So I'm going to pick my name going forwards, and I'm fine. But that was fun. My first, my first taste of personal branding, I was like, Yeah, lawyers. What a great time. Like, yes, what a good time for everything. But it's so interesting, though, to hear about how you recognize what the market was doing. And then you actually have it before with lack of better return, you have flipped it to something different. Which is so fascinating to hear. Because now it's funny when I think about you, I think of lecture breakers. Like, exactly, it's like the branding has worked. It's exactly who identify you with is the entire topic of lecture breakers itself, which is fascinating. So like, clearly, your branding is clearly working is what I'm trying to say. Obviously, it's like it's gotten to that point. So that's fantastic. And now you're doing so many other things, which is kind of like mind boggling to me in a way as someone who also does a bunch of things, but you do even more things. As far as four, you've written seven books, I think that's correct. You host a lecture breakers conference, you obviously teach design your own courses, you do speaking events. So for many, soon to be entrepreneurs, one of the things I always hear about is, how do you have the time to do all of these things?
Barbi Honeycutt 41:29
So one of the things I always mentioned too, is as this like, what was not like I started them all at the exact same time, like I would have exploded, it's impossible. So I would love to ask you about your journey with all of this is how did you start this entire process and eventually get to hosting a conference and building all the courses and everything else? Like what was your process to finally be able to arrive at everything with all of your different projects while maintaining your your sanity? Well, nobody says I've maintained my sanity. I do not have a beautiful path laid out in front of someone to say here do these things. I did very much follow my passion and my interest and my curiosity, as well as listening to my audience and trying to anticipate like what's coming. So speaking was like, safe, because that's what the I mean, faculty development is built on that sort of model where you know, we fly in, we do a workshop when we leave, or this day and age, we, you know, do a webinar, and then we're done. So they're kind of like one off events. And from that, I remember, I had been listening to podcasts, and they were like, you know, online courses is where it's at. And I'm like, Well, I've been teaching courses for the last 20 years. So this seems like a natural evolution from what I'm doing. So I did that. So the first thing that I did, though, was not a course I really like events. So I did a flip it Summer Teaching Institute, way back in like 2013, or 2012 was very early in my business. And I loved that. So I would run two cohorts in the summer, and people would send their faculty and when we would, you know, do the flipped classroom work virtually. And that was great, you know, and I was like, Okay, I enjoy this. And I can see how I can scale my business with this, but I never let go of speaking I kept on speaking. And so I'm doing speaking and I'm doing these summer, summer events, and that was fine. Then I learned about well, all along, I had been blogging, and I was getting so burned out on blogging. I was like, I cannot blog anymore. It got to the point where I couldn't even put a blog up once a month like I was just to the point I didn't want to write anymore. And so I stopped doing that I made all of my blog posts sort of like evergreen like they don't have dates on them. They're just topics and I actually went through during my rebrand to Barbie Honeycutt calm and I probably got rid of 75% of my old blog posts and I stayed focused on the ones that had the most clicks are their most important given where I was going. So I dropped the blogging. So that's important lesson. Don't be afraid to let go of stuff. And instead I picked up podcasting. And I'm like, alright, this I like, this is new, I can do this. It's not such a struggle. I'm not burned out on it. I'm gonna do it till I burn out. So here we go. And I am 116 episodes in and I'm still enjoying it, you know. And that's another thing too. My podcast started weekly. So every single week, I am interviewing people I am editing, I did all my editing. I did all the marketing around it. I did all the show notes. I did it all. And I did it for 100 episodes weekly, and episode 100. I knew I cannot do this anymore at this pace. So I made two big changes. The first one is I switched my podcast to seasonal. So now I run it two times a year. And I also hired editors, Please edit my podcast for me. best money I've ever spent is on editing and Pat Flynn actually recommended the company For me to use for editing, and so it's been great. Now I'm reenergized, I'm refreshed, I cannot wait for season three to come out in March. And it's like, wow, this is exactly what I needed to do. And I'm sharing all of these little steps. Because pay attention to what I did, right? I'm letting go of the things that were draining my energy, or I am hiring somebody to take something off of my plate, because I don't like to do that anymore. I'm burned out on it. And I'm staying focused on the things that I enjoy doing that give me passion. I'm like, super excited to do. And I realized I can't do that for everything, but for the things that I can. That's what I try to do. I love it. I shake my head anymore. I'm gonna get dizzy. So hard, because I understand completely. As someone who's also like, wow, I spent so much time editing and doing other things this Yeah. Oh, my gosh, I totally understand everything that you just said. Insane that you actually were able to delete us to 75% Oh, yeah, I look a lot. I mean, a blog post? Yes. Oh, my gosh, that's insane. I can't imagine what you went through trying to do that. And to think about just which ones would survive as you're picking and choosing and try to think about that. So part of that process, and I hired a VA. Okay, so here we go, this is something I was like, I am not going through all of these blog posts, I'm gonna hire VA. And so the VA went in and made a spreadsheet for me. And it gave me the title of the blog posts and the number of downloads so that I could do a quick scan, I did a quick scan and said, Get rid of these. These are not in alignment with where I'm headed. As for my business, these I want to rework or re add or edit. And I had so much stuff around just flipped classroom language that I stripped some of that out and really start to focus on the new direction I was headed breaking up lectures, active learning, putting my language back in there. And some of the flip stuff still survived. But I really tried to do that and just had every blog post tight and clean. And so again, the VA went in and did that whole first pass for me, because I was like, I can't even deal with this. This was too much. And then let's see the conference. The conference came from my audience. So every year I send my audience a quick survey and just, you know, a few questions just to ask, where are they interested in really looking for when it comes to professional development, things like that. And I did not ask straight up for a conference. But in the open ended piece, people were writing things like, I really want to be able to connect with other people and like, share ideas, like get together with people and share ideas. And I'm like, well, that's a conference. So I said, Okay, So way back in like September of 2019, I was already planning a conference, a virtual conference, back then, which nobody was doing at the time. Look, the virtual conferences in higher ed were like, not a thing. They're everywhere, right. But I saw I had planned my conference from September 2019. And then it was gonna come out in June of 2020. So of course, everyone in March of 2020, like hit the brakes on all of their conferences, or we're making quick changes to get them virtual. And I was like, nope, my conference is ready to go. Let's go. Everybody come to Barbies conference, you know. And so I was in the space when I needed to be, which was just really good timing. I'm, it's not like you can anticipate a pandemic. But what I did was listen to my audience, and I took what they said and said, Okay, I can turn this into a virtual conference, here's what I'm going to do. And so I guess that's another tip maybe is to listen to your audience and, and ask them what they're looking for. And sometimes I know, and sometimes they don't know. Like, they didn't say conference, right? I just took their words and turned it into that. Yes, yes, I couldn't agree more. If that last tip is a fantastic tip, just to talk with the people. And whenever you're trying to think about even thinking about like, what topics you want to actually go into talk about next, whether you're starting up a blog, or a podcast or YouTube channel, or like whatever it is, just talk to people and ask and listen, just let them go for it and let them do a brain dump of all the things that they're going through. Even some things I don't even need to ask because people are already sharing about what they want. I mean, even on LinkedIn, if I just go and scroll up and down my feed really quick, I can see what everyone is talking about. For pain points. It's clear, like it's it's so clear, because everyone is either so happy about something or they're so frustrated about something. And that was one of the things that I just made was about trying to go through the interviewing process and applying for jobs and just how to do it in a more effective manner. And what I talked about with that for a blog and a podcast did like super well, better than probably anything I put that put out in the last year honestly. And it's because of the fact that people are struggling. And they're trying to go through and they're getting ghosted, and we're getting like disheartened about everything because they're not hearing back and this is not going well. And that's why it's like yeah, all I have to do is go on LinkedIn and see what everybody is talking about this and yeah, if I can help you then like, here we go. Like yes, yeah. Social media has been the place where you like now I use social media for my business in a way to do exactly what you just said, I'm scanning looking for trends, what are people talking about? What are the pain points, I'll do that in Twitter. I'll do that on LinkedIn. And for me, Twitter has been more enlightening. And then my Facebook group, so my lecture breakers Facebook group is, it's free. But I still make sure that I'm approving every person that comes in. So I'm keeping it very, very focused on the people who want to be there want to be there, you know. And then it has finally, after all, this time, turned into a space where they're helping each other. And it truly is a community. And I am in there every day. And I'm always asking questions and looking for the topics. And so every week, I'll always post a new question. And sometimes they're just questions to build a community. But a lot of times are questions to give me insight into like, what do I need to create next? Like, what's the next thing? What are they looking for? Where do they need help? And as someone who is actually in your group, I can say that that is true. And it's really cool to actually be able to see you ask a question. And then like, all of a sudden, one of the next podcast episodes comes out. And it's an expert in that field that's centered around that question. Yeah. try really hard to do. You're fantastic at it. I'm always so impressed with how you were able to find these people within your network to talk about a very, very specific thing within education, where I'm like, Oh, wow, I had no idea that you know, XYZ person knows about all these crazy things. And it's just yeah, it's absolutely so cool. But speaking of your brand, though, with everything, I have to ask, what's next for lecture breakers, any projects you can share, but you are currently working on? Yeah, so the lecture breakers conference is back for 2022. I thought that last year would be the last one because I thought people would be burned out on conferences that were virtual. I thought we were kind of all zoomed out and done. But I was wrong. So speaking of listening to your audience, and and also being humble and realizing you don't know everything, that's a really good tip. They told me just like Barbie, no, you have to keep this conference virtual. Got to keep it going. And they gave me 100 reasons why and I and like, I was like, Okay, I'm listening to you. So we're bringing it back. So 2022, June 7 through ninth, we have nine amazing speakers. I mean, I cannot tell you, the lineup is impressive. I am it's always been impressive every group of speakers I had, but this year, I, I think it's gonna be really amazing. So I do want encourage people, if you want to talk about teaching and learning in higher education, or how people learn to check out the conference that lecture breakers conference calm. The other thing I'm launching is called your teaching coach. And it is a mobile micro learning program for professors, educators, and instructors. And basically, the way I've conceptualize this is that each week, you'll get a micro lesson. And then you if you want to learn more, you can go into our community, which will include webinars and downloads and worksheets and things like that. And you can also connect with a community to keep you know, being inspired and supported in your teaching. And so I don't know where that might go. But I am trying to look at the market and look at the needs of our audience. And I know that my audience is so overwhelmed right now. There, they just are so overwhelmed, I don't have another word for it. And to be able to step out of offering, you know, our two hour, three hour long courses, these big events, like they just can't take that right now. And so I'm looking for something smaller, still valuable, still based on the research, still connecting with other people. But let's do it in a smaller, bite sized way. So that's kind of the next big thing that I'm doing. And if people want to sign up for that, do have a sign up list. It's free at your teaching coach comm Love it. Love it. I think that's fantastic. But you were listening to your audience and doing something different, just kind of going more in that micro learning direction. So that may not work look. So I mean, that's things and it might work. It might not work. It's gonna be some adjustments and feedback, but it's just kind of always staying on that that cutting edge and looking for the next thing that you can contribute to. Yeah, that's always my favorite thing too, is that you think that some idea is going to be a slam dunk, and it's going to be your greatest YouTube video you ever made. And then no one watched it. You're like, Oh, I missed a miss on that one. Okay, on to the next thing.
Luke Hobson 54:32
So Barbie, final question for you. For someone who is brand new to starting this entrepreneurship journey? What would be your best piece of advice? Do you have any recommendations for folks on something they should do first, or check out a particular resource or anything else?
Barbi Honeycutt 54:49
Well, I think we both mentioned Pat Flynn. That's a great source to start with, for sure if you want to build a business any niche. And so I guess for me, maybe is maybe maybe two things. One is to really start to surround yourself with people who are doing what you want to do, right. So finding those communities, those pockets of people who are, it may not necessarily be in your same discipline or your same, you know, business or industry, but find people who are kind of doing what you want to do so that you can hear what they're thinking about struggling with talking about, I listened to so many business podcasts every week, while doing the dishes, or the laundry or whatever, taking a walk. And so I just immerse myself into the world that I want to be in. So not physically, but just around me all the time. So that would be one and I guess the other one is when you get to a certain point, and it's not when you like, make it but like when you get to a point with your energy, or your frustration or your time. It's okay to let go of stuff, right? So it's hard to let go of stuff but I hope that one of the messages I've shared here is like I let go of my blogging, I replaced it with a podcast then when my podcast became so much but I love it still. I change the format and that's okay, like I let go of weekly Okay, and then I let go of editing which was a huge step for me because I'm such a control freak when it comes to this. But like, let go of stuff so that you can give yourself the opportunity to grow into you know the type of professional you want to be. I love it. fantastic advice. Let's end on there Barbie work people go to learn more about you and your work. Excellent. You can go to Barbihoneycutt.com
Luke Hobson 56:39
Fantastic. Well, Barbie once again, thank you so much for coming on the show. Really, really appreciate all the words of wisdom that you share with us today.
Barbi Honeycutt 56:46
Thank you, Luke.
Luke Hobson 56:46
Barbie, thank you so much for once again, coming on today's show, folks, if you haven't done so already, go down into the show notes. And check out all of the links from all the resources that Barbie mentioned on today's show, talking about your teaching coach, the lecture breakers podcast, the new summer conference that's coming about literally everything else on the show notes, be sure to go down there and to check that out as well. And if you enjoy today's podcast, give it a five star rating wherever you are listening, Apple podcasts, Stitcher, Spotify, or wherever you get your podcasts. But I am just not familiar with at the moment, but I'm sure there are other platforms. So give it a five star rating wherever you are listening. Also, if you have already picked up the book, what I wish I knew before becoming an instructional designer and you enjoyed it, go on over to Amazon and give that one a rating as well. A bunch of new ratings have been coming in. And it's just been so awesome to read your reviews and hear about your learning experience with the book and how it's helped out with everything else too. So go ahead and give a review over on there. And last but not least, folks, if you want to check out anything else that I had, you can always head on over to Dr. Luke hobson.com. Thanks so much, everybody. Stay nerdy out there. Now talk to you next time.