Introduction
We walked into the exhibit and stopped in our tracks. While my husband and kiddo were immediately thinking about how they were going to photograph the Chihuly exhibit pieces showcased, I had a different reaction.
My brain started overloading with inspiration and parallels between Chihuly’s beautiful art and our businesses as course creators, as entrepreneurs, as small business owners.
Have you ever had that kind of a-ha moment happen to you?
You are suddenly inundated with ideas and deeper meaning that makes you stop for a moment.
That is exactly what happened to me in that moment.
Now, we can definitely choose to keep our eyes, ears, minds, and hearts closed to those kinds of moments, but I hope you will agree that they can be powerful.
Today I’m sharing three of the lessons that got reinforced as well as one existential moment during the Sixty-Second Solution at the end of the episode. And if you want to get a peek into the exhibit and many of the other business takeaways I had from several of the pieces, head over to YouTube to the Digital Course Creator Guide channel for an entire series of short videos that is coming out on this exact topic.
Chihuly Exhibit at the Biltmore Estate
Oh, man. The Chihuly exhibit was amazing and began with a video about Chihuly and his approach to art and creation and then we got to head into the exhibit. We were going to an exhibit of his work at The Biltmore Estate so it wasn’t a huge exhibit, but it left us with so many neat ideas, perspectives, and moments that it was well worth it.
I think it is easy to ignore the moments because we are always in a rush, so we intentionally went through the exhibit twice. Today, as I mentioned I’m sharing just three of the a-ha moments that I had walking through and studying the pieces on exhibit. I’ll be sharing more with you on my YouTube channel in a special playlist called, “Lessons Learned from a Chihuly Exhibit”.
Three Lessons Learned
Lesson 1: Some people really do wait until the last minute
As we walked into the exhibit I was struck with something funny. We were entering the exhibit on the next to last day that it would be available. It had been available for nearly a year at this point, but we waited until the last moment to visit.
Ordinarily I’m early with pretty much everything except laundry. Laundry is often a scramble, but everything else in life, I get done early. The same goes inside my business, whether I’m on the entrepreneur side or the consumer side. I’m an early adopter, I get the email sequences for a webinar done weeks early, and I often have things pre-scheduled for several weeks.
But, this early-ness clearly was not present for the Chihuly exhibit. In fact, the exhibit was only open as long as it was because Hurricane Helene closed the exhibit for several weeks and the exhibit was extended.
So what lesson is learned here, or in this case what lesson was I reminded of?
It is simple and made me smile.
Lesson 1: People will wait until the last minute.
As course creators, one of the more nerve-wracking times in our business is when we have an open cart for our course. We watch the visits to the sales page, we track our email sequence opens, we reach out to webinar or masterclass attendees to answer questions, and we generally become despondent when the numbers aren’t great on day 1 or 2 or 3.
At that time, our entrepreneur friends remind us that people wait until the very last minute to purchase. Not because they aren’t sure, but often because they forgot or got busy.
This is exactly what happened with the Chihuly exhibit. We really wanted to go, but everytime we thought about it, we weren’t in a moment where we could choose a date, a time, and purchase the tickets. So it got put off.
And this is exactly what happens with our course students. They wait until the last minute to purchase, not because they aren’t committed or interested, but because life happens.
This is your reminder that people really do wait until the last minute and not to panic. Be diligent in what you are offering and how you are connecting with your audience and potential course students, but know that while your business is super important to you, it is just one of a million things in someone else’s life.
Lesson 2: People will pay for an upgrade
And this brings me to the second reminder I had about entrepreneurship. As annual passholders at the Biltmore Estate, the special exhibits that they bring in, like this Chihuly exhibit, are not part of our passholder benefits. We have to pay extra for exhibit tickets.
Even with our passes, that Chihuly exhibit still cost us $67 for our family of three to attend. It was an upgrade from our annual passholder costs and one that actually had me put off purchasing those tickets in the early days of the exhibit. I was frustrated that it wasn’t included in our passes.
But, clearly we ended up getting the tickets because the exhibit was important enough to us that we felt it was worth the price.
So many times as entrepreneurs and small business owners we can feel like someone won’t want to pay extra for our time or expertise, or even for a template that will simplify whatever we are teaching them. And you know what, sometimes that is the case. There will always be someone or a lot of people who don’t want to pay extra.
That is ok.
The people who want the upgrade, the shortcut, the extra time with you will be willing to pay. There will always be people willing to pay for an upgrade.
I purchased a live workshop recently and on the page after I hit purchase I was given the opportunity to pay for a small group live session a week after the workshop to ask questions, get personalized help, and hear what others were asking. For that specific topic, I said yes to the upgrade because I knew I would have some specific questions and wanted to get input. For another workshop on a topic that I felt more comfortable with, I declined that upgrade.
I bet you can think of a time when you took an upgrade, and a time when you declined it. These kinds of upgrades happen all the time and people take them, all the time. Go to Panera Bread and when you check out with a meal and a drink you are invited to get a bakery item for a reduced cost. It is an upgrade. I guarantee they sell a lot more bakery items because of this upgrade offer.
So, Lesson 2 that I want to remind you of today is that people will pay for an upgrade. Don’t be afraid to offer it.
One of the things that I often remind my clients of is that we are responsible as small business owners and course creators to make an offer. It is the other person’s responsibility to decide if it is the right offer for them.
We cannot make that decision for them. The Biltmore Estate brought in the Chihuly exhibit and made an offer. They offered a lower rate to passholders than the general public was paying and then left it up to each passholder to decide whether to take advantage of the upgrade.
What upgrades could you offer in your course and business? Maybe it is a live Q&A with you after a webinar or workshop. Perhaps it is a personalized review of one step in the process that you are teaching. Maybe it is a discount on another one of your products that is complementary to what you are offering. For example, I have an accessibility workshop and I have an upgrade offer that will teach someone how to create a similarly constructed mini course of their own. Essentially giving them the behind the scenes look and roadmap.
Lesson 3: Not everyone will love your stuff
So far, I’ve shared two lessons or reminders that our recent visit to the Chihuly exhibit at the Biltmore Estate brought to the front of my mind. First, some people will wait until the last minute to take action, and second, people will pay for an upgrade if it is important to them.
I promised you three lessons in this podcast today, but many more on my YouTube Channel at DigitalCourseCreatorGuide on the playlist, “Lessons Learned from a Chihuly Exhibit”.
This means that we are ready for the third and final lesson of the podcast.
Lesson 3: Not everyone will love your stuff.
We were talking about the exhibit with some friends who shared that they had been to the Biltmore Estate’s exhibit as well as a Chihuly exhibit on the west coast and that the Biltmore Exhibit was disappointing. They didn’t love it and didn’t recommend it.
Despite their negative review, we knew plenty of people who had really loved it and felt it was well worth the trip. Being a scientist, I know that everyone is going to have different experiences and reactions to just about everything in life. In this case, those friends didn’t love the exhibit.
We, however, loved it. We loved it so much that we went through the entire exhibit twice to make sure we didn’t miss anything and could talk about the different parts that we loved and what we were taking away from it all.
No matter what, you will always have someone who doesn’t like what you offer, how you teach, or your price point. There is something that will be “wrong”.
There will be far more people who are excited for what you can offer them and how you can help. Focus on these people in your business. Being inclusive doesn’t mean that we have to serve everyone, just that we need to welcome and support anyone who is genuinely interested in what we have to offer.
I bet you can think of an offer that wasn’t right for you and you could pick it to pieces if you really wanted to. You can also think of offers that you loved and others were picking apart. We are not going to be everyone’s cup of tea and that is ok.
It can be tricky to let that go and not creep into your mindset so I invite you to keep a mission statement somewhere nearby that you can refer back to whenever you are trolled or have a detractor. Revisit that mission statement and be sure that what you are doing is in alignment with your mission. If it isn’t, make adjustments and if it is, keep moving forward.
So, Lesson 3: You and your offers will not be for everyone.
Action Item
I do still have one more kind of existential moment that I want to share with you from the exhibit, but first, let’s talk about taking action. When I was thinking about this in planning out the episode, I had a few ideas that went through my head.
I could ask you to look at your upgrades and make adjustments, I could ask you to create a plan for reaching out to your contacts at your next course open cart to make sure that you connect with everyone all the way up to the last minute, or I could ask you to get that mission statement and put it front and center.
Instead, I’m going to ask something completely different of you this week. I would like you to live in the moment during some activity this week where you might ordinarily be distracted. It might be putting your phone down in the grocery store line and just people watching. It could be sitting at your kid’s sports or arts lesson or practice and really just absorbing the experience. It could be something else entirely.
Just choose a time to be fully present. And this brings me to that moment I’ve been talking about this entire episode and why I’m not going with a typical action item in this episode.
Sixty-Second Solution
We were on our second trip through the exhibit and really taking our time. Stepping back and just observing and absorbing. Noticing the little details that we missed the first time around.
Part of living life to the fullest, as an entrepreneur, small business owner, course creator, human, you name it is to be present in our existence and our surroundings.
We have to stop and take time for the beauty and the experiences that surround us. In other words, don’t be like the mom who literally moved from exhibit room to exhibit room throwing her purse and coat on the floor and pulling out her cell phone, beckoning family members and a friend to come take selfies with her, posing her teenage kiddos in multiple ways, and then moving on to the next room. She never even stopped to look at the art. It was all about the selfie.
Now, it is quite possible that she and her family had been through the exhibit before, and they were just trying to grab photos now, but I didn’t get that vibe because the rest of her party was trying to look at the art and she just wanted the selfie. I’m sure that we looked the same to some of the guests who might have seen my hubby working on photography skills with our son or me getting different angles of the art with my phone camera.
I don’t judge that mom for grabbing the photos because you never know the full story. But it was a powerful reminder that we have to appreciate all that is around us. We need to stop and take time for the beauty and this is true of our business as well.
When was the last time that you noticed all of the good things happening in your business? The progress you’ve made? The new ideas that you’ve generated.
This is your invitation to do that. Take time.
Where to Go Next?
We’ve talked about three lessons or ideas today and there are more being posted on my YouTube Channel at Digital Course Creator Guide. We can have these a-ha moments anywhere and at any time. The key is to be open to these discoveries and reminders.
This is a big part of developing a mindset that allows you to keep going as a course creator. And if you are looking to do more work on your mindset, I encourage you to check out Episode #214: Master Your Mindset: Three Essential Actions for Digital Course Creators and Episode #154: Course Creation: Unlock Your Course Creation Success with These 10 Mindset Mantras.
As always, thank you so much for listening in. If you found this episode helpful, please share with your entrepreneur friends and colleagues who are building a digital course in their business and be sure to subscribe to the Digital Course Creator Podcast.
Until next time, happy creating!
