Baby Dragons & Online Education.

Online courses and providing world-class education for nail techs is what I do, it is the core of my business and what drives me to keep going. I have done this for years and it is not anything new, but what I love, devour in-fact, is finding a new way to deliver these courses.

As an education provider, when you see the option to deliver a course in a new professional way online, you get on board right away. Great education and innovation go hand in hand, discovering new ways to bring education in front of students allows educators to grow their offerings. Just look at the explosion of educators coming online to teach, when they normally only did face to face classes.

As someone who has always tried to be at the forefront of education and as a mentor to other online educators, I think it’s important to try out new systems of delivering education. So when other educators are choosing how they want to grow online, I can help them navigate their way around.

So when Facebook began to offer the ability to host paid events to certain pages I decided to investigate. It wasn’t difficult to decide what education would work best on the platform, but what I did find difficult was deciding on the price point.

I am very vocal with my students and anyone who will listen that they should not undervalue themselves. If you give everything away for free you’re signalling to those taking part that what you are giving them isn’t worth anything. This makes it harder for you in the future to charge for your work, but it also devalues the industry as a whole. There are lots of reasons people give things away for free, sometimes they are warranted, they are there to show people a glimpse of what they could get. Often though, it is a lack of confidence in the educator’s ability or a fear that no one will buy something from them.

This is why I avoid giving away too many free lessons or courses, I offer professional courses, with a dedicated home online. Somewhere I can constantly look at improving and updating what has been recorded.

But when it comes to Facebook LIVES, it is so far removed from the professional recorded and edited courses complete with downloads, introductions and other bonuses. A complete course online takes you through a journey to learn a technique from start to finish. You can pause, rewind and stop when you want, revisiting the footage time and time again. An online course or workshop is meant to not only teach you a new technique but also to inspire you to come up with your own designs.

A workshop is classed as: ‘An intensive educational program to focus techniques and skills in a particular field’. This is different from a masterclass which

The Facebook LIVE is a masterclass, a masterclass is different from a workshop or a course. So what is a masterclass? Defined as a class ‘Usually taught by someone who has an expert level of knowledge or skill in a particular area’. In a masterclass, students watch and listen to the lesson, much like a Facebook LIVE.

What is fantastic about this is that there is an opportunity to ask questions and interact with the ‘Tech teaching the class’. So if these are different from online courses, how much should educators charge for them? It comes down to what it is worth to the students.

I decided to try out these new paid events and am currently working on a ‘Baby Dragon Fantasy Nail Art Masterclass’. This will be one lesson done LIVE on Facebook with no editing or an added voice-over to make it cleaner and more professional. As well as this I will also be holding a virtual class for 25 students, where we can work together for 6 hours on a second baby dragon on the course.

I had to do some soul searching to figure out what it is I am trying to achieve, and in true Sam Biddle fashion I came up with a list.

Masterclass (LIVE)

Available Only on Facebook.

Limited Access.

Filmed LIVE so There May be Mistakes and Delays.

Can’t Pause so Cn Get Left Behind.

Can Ask Questions as You Work.

Only Learn One Thing. Experience May be Needed.

If the Educator Isn’t Entertaining, it can be Boring.

Cheaper Than a Full Course.

More Than a LIVE, Less Than a Lesson.

Why am I doing this?

I am a sucker for something new, especially if it has something to do with marketing. Plus, whilst we are on lockdown I wanted to show other techs what is possible. Techs who invest and who pay to attend a course are going to be far more receptive to what you teach them. This is also the first magical step in my marketing plan, if you want to know more I shall be talking about ‘How to Plan a Marketing Strategy’ in my other Facebook LIVE class.