Hello, hello. My goodness, there's three of us. I don't know what to do with three of us. My name is Lizzie McCauley. I am hosting today's episode of Digitally Done. We are here to set the scene today and I'm joined by two other excellent humans as well. You've heard Nikki, you've heard Sam. Hi guys. Hello, everybody.

Hi. So we thought it was important because this is a brand new thing, isn't it? We thought it was kind of important to tell you who the hell we are and what the hell we're doing here. So, you know, here we are  having that exact chat., hey, do you want to do some extended intros, guys? Sam, do you want to tell us a bit about you, where you're from, what you do, who you do it for, all the cool things?  Do you want to know my deepest awkward secrets? Yes, please.  Hi,  I'm Sam Winch, the course creator with a stupid name. Not the lunchtime food.

I figure I have to roll with that, right? Like, if I'm not Sam Winch, there's nothing else I can do. Clean, fully in.  So I make online courses, which is a really broad statement for a lot of people, but it's where I spent the past decade or so working and imagining that actually online courses have changed a bit after over the past decade, the industry is shifting really fast.

But outside of that, um, I've got four kids, which keeps me very busy. We've got three chickens, which also keeps me very busy. I have to have a conversation on a regular basis that chickens are an outside pet, not an inside pet. You wouldn't think it's a statement you have to say very often, but yes, yes, I do.

Um, and I have a military husband who works away a lot, so it is a bit of a wild house in the sandwich household, but such is life, but I think. I've just spent so long helping people translate all of that mush in their head into something tangible for other people. I got really, really good at looking at stuff and picking bits out and going, that it's awesome.

Let's take that. And that bit, we can put a pin in that. I say, with love, let's just park that bit over there for a moment. Cause we don't need that right now. And that kind of came naturally, but I've learned over the years, that's a skill more than I thought it was  definitely. Cause yeah.  I mean, I'm journalist background here, but they're like editing is one of the biggest skills you can have because yeah, we can have lots and lots and lots of great ideas, but you can't execute them all at once, I guess.

I think that's what people get tripped up. So that skill for you, Sam must be just enormously useful to the people you work with. And especially with sharing content. And I mean, we'll all know this, but we have so much stuff inside our head and all of the women that I work with and all of the people I work with, but.

Predominantly women do this more so than men is we have this desperate need to over deliver to overshare. And we're so keen to give value that we try and add everything we know into a program or a course or an ebook. And it doesn't fit right. It doesn't all fit. So a lot of our work is pulling things back and going, hang on,  we can't put all of that in there.

So what is, what do we really need right now? And that's yeah, that filtering of stuff is a, is a real skill.  Yeah.  So Nikki, I can hear you, I can hear you nodding, apparently, I can hear you agreeing at the very least. Why don't you give us a bit of a, an overview of where you're up to and how, how your skillset, your genius zone fits into this whole thing.

Where the hell do I fit in on all this? 

With all my background. I look, I come from a product developing background and project management. So  my, I don't know, I guess it's in the blood to be honest, but creating solutions, um, every time I came across something, it was like, nah, I've got to make a way to fix this. And I'm lazy. So I like to fix things that.

Turn out to be easy to use. So I went and created wisdom, but my background has always been in, um, producing products based on people's needs. Cause I come from the interior background and product development. So  out came wisdom from my own personal pain. And purpose that I needed for my membership and course creation.

So yeah, that's my whole world comes around the tangible actionable steps that you can take to deliver an actual product and launch it properly based in the digital world. Yeah. Maybe take us through with what wisdom is for the vaguely. I know everybody.  But not everybody, like, let's just take us through it anyway. 

Oh yeah. You know, anyone out there who's building a course or coaching program or basically engaging with a community through a membership, our platform, um, obviously secures your content, your IP values that content and IP and allows you to sort of, you know, share Your content securely and engage with the community that grows in a nice safe place.

So it's, yeah, that's why we built that for, you know, and look predominantly, yeah, we, we do support women in, in our platform because of it's, I think the way the UI, the user interface is designed, the ways the user experience flow is in our system. I think everything for me. You know, there's steps that you've got to take there's, you know, this journey, you've got to take people on whatever it is.

So that's when my brain comes into this whole thing  and I momentarily point out Nikki that not many people go, so I just created a platform and that is a really big statement.  She's like, Oh, so I just built this thing  and create it wasn't just me. That's why  I had the idea. I had to plan the framework.

Everyone else did the coding. I can't do the code. I'm not tech by any means, but you know, I've had to learn a little bit. But  yeah, but you've created something that, that. I really enjoyed your description there of the safety aspect of it. I sent you a thing the other, the other day about something that a bigger platform is, is doing using the AI bits and bobs about sort of absorbing people's IP into their AI  creative tech, I guess.

I don't know. Yeah. Not probably not the phasing, but  It's scary. Yeah. They utilize other people's information to build up a whole database and therefore spit it out again. And it's like, you don't know what information they're going to spit out again with that. So, yeah. Yeah. That's scary. . And I'm going to introduce you, Lizzie, because I have to say that, you know, the connection between all of us, thankfully is, you know, I started working with Sam Winch a while back when I was sort of.

You know, beta testing our platform and Sam came in and went, yep, no, yep, no, yep, yep, no, no. And Lizzie came in and stepped into my world as well. And I just adored just from a podcast  as an, as a guest of my podcast. And the, why is that? And we had an awesome conversation and I'd never done this before, but after the conversation, I said, I'm appointing you to help me with my copy.

And so Liz introduce yourself, please, to all of us as well.   , um, but yeah, the rest is kind of history for, from that point of view, Nikki, we've been a business  Speaking inseparable ever since, because I didn't have such mutual admiration for each other's work.

And Sam, . Now I know, , your genius as well, like this is going to be so much fun to work with you guys. , historically I have, I started , as a professional writer, nearly  10 years ago now, uh,  at a regional newspaper, regional Queensland, that's where I'm based. Don't hold it against me. 

But I, essentially what I was doing for the paper is also what I do for small business now. And I, I talk to business owners and I dig into the heart of what makes them tick and what makes their customers tick. And then we find a way. Of articulating that in a way that suits them in a way that makes them proud to share what it is that they're offering, you know, and, and sometimes that can be challenging to actually say what's on your mind.

It can be really hard to say, do you know what? I'm really proud of this. And I want to tell everyone, especially when it's coming out of your own brain,  sometimes we're not so good at complimenting ourselves compared to complimenting others or promoting ourselves compared to promoting others. So my job, especially as it's evolved over time, tends to be more in the  teaching aspects and this kind of.

Um, ability to, to pull out the essence of someone and give them confidence and, and the skills to, to say it for themselves and to do what they want to do. And I've said this recently, and I apologize, not really sorry, not sorry, but I'm kind of entering my rebel phase of life and I have no interest in doing cookie cutter stuff.

No interest in status quo, got no interest in doing stuff that's bland and boring. You know, like I think there's a balance to be struck between saying what you want to say and being the business owner you want to be and doing the things you want to do strategically  and towing the line. I think there's, there's, there's somewhere in there you can do both things.

And I think that's why we all get on so well is because we're not interested in just blending in. No.  We don't follow the normal rules of doing things, do we? I think anyway. Yeah. And, and towing the line just for the sake of towing the line doesn't serve anyone. And I think we've all learned that. I imagine that's how we all got here as well.

Like, yeah, look, I, I followed the norm. I did what everyone told me to do and it doesn't fit me. It doesn't work for me. You know, all of these influencers, good old inverted commas, tell us to follow, press this thing, follow the golden path, like whatever else they're talking about, but. One size doesn't fit all it just doesn't anymore.

And it really, it's about finding that thing that works for you. Perfect. In fact, that's the perfect segue. Fabulous job, Sam is, is, I mean, in the intro, we talked about the digital something, right? Which is as vague as you can get. Are we,  and it's deliberately vague because we aren't any of us telling anybody, you must do it this way.

This is the thing that's going to work because it worked for me because I hate that phrase. And that's a story for another day. Um, so what do we mean? I really wanted to dig into what is it that we mean by digital something? Do you think?  I build lots of digital somethings. Look, as. As a course creator, you'd think that I'd tell you that needs to be a course, but a hundred percent doesn't need to be a course.

I've talked to a lot of people out of building courses, which sounds really silly from a business perspective, but, um, I have talked to a lot of people out of building a course. For me, digital something is a format in which you can sell your knowledge on the internet. And that could be. Of course, but it might be a membership or a community or an ebook or a private podcast, or if you're into OnlyFans, who knows, but like, there's all sorts of formats in which you can sell digital content.

Maybe we're not going down that theme here.  There's all sorts of formats in which you can take the stuff that's inside you and share it with the world. And. That's why I feel like we've left it so broad is because we're not saying you must sell a five step program. We're saying, cool, you've got some really good knowledge inside you.

Let's find the right format for that knowledge that works for you and for your audience.  Absolutely. And that's, and that's how we've kind of designed the next 10 episodes is equipping our listeners with the skills and ideas to take action. Essentially, I think , in each of our spaces.

It seems that the common theme wasn't struggling with ideas. It was struggling with execution. Right. So that's what the whole point of this podcast is. Don't you think? Yeah. Perfectly. Yep. Yep. Yeah. Nikki, you got any thoughts on what's coming up?  I know that it's jam packed with ideas. Uh, what's going to be your favorite thing to look at?

Do you think?  I think it's just like, literally, I think with each stage, the actionable step that they take and, and just seeing it come to fruition. Cause I think that's the biggest win for anyone having those little wins along the way. Um, but having a framework is I'm big on framework. I'm big on diagrams.

I'm big on all just planning things out. I think that's, you know, My background as a buyer has always been planning and forecasting. It's like constantly that. And I think as we go through each of these steps through our episodes, I think that's the exciting thing for me, ticking off each one, uh, and providing, you know, our listeners with something that they can take away from each episode with an action. 

And see what they come out with at the end. That's the exciting thing to me. Yeah, because I suppose we haven't even got to telling people that that's going to be a thing. You know, you're going to have something to do every single time you listen to us. And we mean that in the most positive, exciting way possible, because we want to take you from go to woe.

On doing something in that way, whether it's a course, whether it's a membership, whether it's a community, whether it's an ebook, that's for a lead magnet, that's for generating more people into your community, into your space, doesn't really matter. Uh, the fact is we are here to put a teeny tiny fire under your cute little backside so you can get stuff moving.

Isn't it? Uh, Sam, what are you looking forward to in the next 10? I don't know, but I can't help but say cutie patootie now that you've said that. We take a gentle nudge here at digitally done. We don't like to be. Forceful, we like it just nice and quick. No, it's with love. It's always with love. Always with love.

Um, I'm most looking forward to how it all fits together. So, I, I always tell people, and this, I'll harp on about this again and again and again and again, which is, if you build an online course, you know, Or anything else, you can't just plonk it on the internet and expect it to sell, because despite what you've been told, you won't wake up in the next morning, rolling around in your millions on your Lamborghini, because it doesn't work that way.

And so I know it's a real shame. I wish it did. Part of what I'm looking forward to is all of the bits fitting together. Like it's not just. We're going to tell you, you must go out and build a product and you'll become a millionaire. But it's like, we want to talk about the marketing and we want to talk about how you actually pull that together and get it done.

And we, I know Nikki desperately, cause she's the planning queen wants to talk about the plan for the future. Then cool. You've got this thing now. What? And all of those pieces come together to make a really practical business framework, not just a, you've built a digital something. Now what, but we want you to have a successful business model with this.

We want you to do well with this. And that's the key of the thing I'm looking forward to is it's not, we're going to plunk information out on the internet that says, just go build a thing, but like we're really genuinely invested in wanting you to do well with the thing. Yeah. And I think agility, like just having that understanding that.

Agile, be agile, meaning, you know, just, you can shift, you can change. It's okay. I think a lot of people have this, you know, thing, I've got to follow this. Like, you know, obviously there's steps and they all have a reason that you've got to follow this particular steps, but the agility of what you're sharing, the evolution of how you share it, all that sort of stuff, just being aware of that.

I think that's the exciting part too.

  So Lizzie, what are you, what, what are you all excited about with, um, the next few,  which I'm going to start that again. So Lizzie, which episode or what area of this journey you excited about? Well, I'm glad you asked cause I completely forgot to ask myself.

Would you believe?  Oh, look, I love anything marketing. I love anything innovation. I'm looking forward to seeing actually what our listeners come up with based on the teachings, because that's really what this is all about. This isn't really about us having a chinwag, although that is a delight and a highlight of my work week.

Uh, in saying that, But seeing the creativity and the wisdom and the knowledge that is out there, especially in female led businesses who maybe, uh, see the world slightly differently and, and take different approaches strategically, I'm really looking forward to seeing what people come up with. I think that's going to be super, super exciting.

Yeah. And I, you know, one thing I do want to add at the end of that, because I just love you girls so much, which is why we're doing this, is just, I'm excited for everyone else to see and hear how, you know, how Sam pulls all those ideas, that mumble jumble and puts it into some sort of consecutive.  Smart way of actually delivering it and sharing it with people and how you can help people articulate that information and, and, you know, magnetize a message so well.

I just love that. And you know, my stuff is, yeah, the framework and how to get it out there, but I'm just excited. I can't wait to, you know, see how we progress and, and share all this stuff with everybody.  

That all sounds really, really exciting. So,  well, that's kind of us setting the scene for today. Next time we come back, we're going to be talking about  What the thing is that the something is we're going to give you options, going to take you through, I don't know, pros and cons and why it's right for you versus why it might not be right for you.

Cause do you know what? Not everything is. And that is totally fine. So thanks for listening to this episode. Thanks guys for joining us today.  Thank you for having us. Thank you for having us.  Someone else's turn to be in the host seat next time. I'll have a little rest.  Have an amazing afternoon,  whatever.

We will talk to you super soon. All right. Signing off. Bye. Bye.