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About ten things probably make up 90% of the MANY messages I receive every day.
Some are great to receive, and some are really boringly annoying!
A – These are the top comments I get by direct message, in order
- “Thanks! I loved your course!” – please do keep these coming, I love to receive them! Never expected to get anything like this when I started making my online courses.
- “How can I start a PM career? / Do I need qualifications?” – I’ve written a blog about this and soon there will be a complete course. it’s a great question, it just takes a long time to answer!
- Would you like to collaborate / sell our product in your posts / put your videos on our site/advertise on our site / let us advertise on yours? – No!
- “Will you be my mentor?” – thanks for asking, I’m flattered, but I don’t have the time, and also I wouldn’t be any good at it. I’m a trainer not a coach – they require quite different skills, e.g. showing off vs listening! More details here.
- “Would you speak at our conference / do some training for us?” Absolutely! I wish this was the top one, but it’s great to get the occasional genuine work enquiry.
- “Hi….” then a bit later: “Can we talk about something?” – when it starts off all coy it’s either a scam or an offer of marriage!
- “I love your website/channel but there’s something wrong with it and you’re losing out and we can fix it for you, shall we jump on a call, would you prefer Wednesday or Thursday?” Neither thanks.
B – These are the top Questions I get from the Q&A in courses
- “How do I get my certificate?” (Mostly they have missed one video so they are not all ticked with a green tick. Sometimes the problem is that they are doing the 28 day free trial, where you get the videos but not the certificate.
- “Where are the exercise files?” The LinkedIn Learning site isn’t brilliantly clear I agree – they are on the Overview Tab.
- It’s not loading properly / there’s a fault with a video / can you please fix it? Difficult, because it’s always their computer or their connection. What can I do about that? Is it more likely to be an error on Linkedin’s site, with 3000 people watching my course at any one time and nobody else having problem, or one person in Mongolia with an ancient laptop?
- Really good proper questions – things I can answer that really help people. I love these!
- “I don’t agree with your opinion” – OK then, when you make a course you can do yours your own way.
- Suggested improvements / I’ve found a typo – these are often good ideas, but the course is DONE. To change it I’d have to fly to Los Angeles, assemble a film crew for a day with all the lighting etc, then get the whole course renumbered, change the graphics, and get it uploaded. Linkedin Learning have other priorities I’m afraid.
- “Can you give me more detail / I wanted to know more / you didn’t cover X / Can you add one more video please?” Yes I would love to, but it’s a 1 hour course – that’s what people want, or what LinkedIn Learning feel that people want, so that’s what I have been asked to make. So you can’t have every corner fully explored I’m afraid. I do have some longer courses on udemy.com but even those are always a compromise, it’s always a judgment call as to what goes in, and if you are obsessed with an obscure corner then I’m sorry – and good luck finding a course by someone else on that subject.
- “I want you to check the details of my project / I need information for my college assignment / please answer these 17 questions / please reply ASAP” – What did your previous slave die of?
Thanks for letting me have that rant. I feel better now. I hope you found it interesting to see into the world of someone who deals with large numbers of the public. The main points are that people like me are busy, most things are not in our control (like the design of the LinkedIn Learning or Udemy platform), but also that we DO like to be thanked!
CC
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