Teri Holland (00:05.016)
Hi Shannon, welcome back.
Shannon Boyer (00:06.865)
Hi, thanks so much for having me back. I'm really happy to be here.
Teri Holland (00:10.04)
Yeah, me too. It's been a while because we did, you were on, maybe about this time last year.
Shannon Boyer (00:18.333)
Yeah, I think it was a year ago that I was on. Yeah, yeah.
Teri Holland (00:20.526)
Yeah, yeah, and then I got to be on your show, which was also very exciting, and now here we are again. Yeah, so I want to start with, okay, last time you were on, we talked about AI, and you had some strong feelings about AI in the course creation world then, and then recently you reached out to me to say, I've changed my views on AI, so here we are.
Shannon Boyer (00:24.693)
Yes. Yes. Yeah!
Shannon Boyer (00:34.289)
Mm-hmm. Yes.
Shannon Boyer (00:48.467)
Yeah, yeah.
Teri Holland (00:49.432)
So what changed?
Shannon Boyer (00:51.591)
Well, mean, AI has changed a lot. Some would say for the better, some would say for the worse. It's just absolutely mind boggling and astounding how quickly things have changed and where we are now compared to last year. I think some fundamental things have not changed and I still pretty much agree with myself from last year, which is that it's really, really important that
Teri Holland (00:56.312)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (01:18.713)
our ideas and our background and our experiences are what goes into our course. And we don't want to exchange that for what comes up in a generic, you know, chat GPT or Claude or whatever prompt and response. So I think that is still at the core of what I believe. But one of the biggest changes that has happened fairly recently that I think has changed
you know, my perspective is this ability to create custom GPTs. And so it's funny, I was talking to someone saying, you know, like, I feel like it's this revolutionary thing, these custom GPTs, and probably in a couple of months, you know, people are going to be laughing that it's not so revolutionary anymore, because it's changing so quickly. But I think that my biggest problem with it, and still, is that when you use just the general chat GPT,
Teri Holland (02:03.83)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (02:15.507)
you're getting an amalgamation of what is out there. It looks really good. And that's one of the problems is that it looks really good. And we have a hard time then infiltrating our own personality and our own ideas into this thing that can seemingly be perfect. And so, yeah, a year ago I was really advocating for like, at least start out with your own ideas and then use chat GPT. And I still feel that way.
But with these custom GPTs now, what I have done is, because now I'm starting to use them in my business, is to create something that functions in a very specific way. So what I've done is taken all my frameworks, all the teaching methodology, all of what I do with my clients, and put it into this custom GPT.
Teri Holland (02:50.979)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (02:59.031)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (03:12.211)
So it walks the client or the student through a process that is very, very similar to as if I were sitting beside them and the kinds of questions that I would ask them and the kind of prompts that I would give them. And it's all based around my framework. So it's not a generic, right, chat GPT framework or some sort of generic outline that it's using or organizational framework. It's a very specific framework that it's using that I've trained it on.
Teri Holland (03:21.706)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (03:41.733)
set of questions that I've trained it on. And I think one of the biggest things that kind of takes it to the next level and mitigates some of those issues that I had last year and still have is that I have trained it to not provide any of its own information. So the client and the student has to be the one inputting the frameworks, the ideas, the stories.
Teri Holland (03:42.423)
Okay.
Teri Holland (04:01.709)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (04:10.461)
the techniques, whatever it is, it starts with that. And it doesn't add to it. What it does is organizes it and prompts for more and asks, like I said, questions that are very similar to what I would ask. So this is really exciting to me because it's an opportunity for people to have me beside them when I'm not beside them.
Teri Holland (04:18.808)
Okay.
Teri Holland (04:29.048)
Okay.
Yeah.
Teri Holland (04:39.412)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (04:39.445)
And so that's what's different is it is now elevating that process without watering it down. Yeah.
Teri Holland (04:51.01)
Yeah. So just so I'm clear, so you created these GPTs and then are your students going in and interacting with that or are you putting in stuff on behalf of your students that's generating information and like how are you utilizing it?
Shannon Boyer (05:12.147)
Yeah, great question. Cause the answer is yes to both. So I have created three custom GPTs and I use them in different ways. So I've got Chester, Lester and Stan. Yeah. So I call Chester the course creator. And so what he does, and I'm using air quotes that people can't see what he does is, I, so I work with Chester.
Teri Holland (05:14.978)
Teri Holland (05:23.79)
Chester, Lester and Stan, that's awesome.
Teri Holland (05:35.83)
Hahaha.
Shannon Boyer (05:39.717)
and I work one-on-one with a client and I input into that. So what happens is I'll give them a questionnaire and they fill out the questionnaire and then I take it and I put it in and through some back and forth with me, I get a course outline. And then I can take that course outline back to the client. I give them some more prompts around and then we like finesse it obviously. And then I give them some more prompts at the module level.
Teri Holland (05:56.792)
Nice.
Teri Holland (06:03.778)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (06:07.549)
And then what I get them to do is actually just do a zoom recording with themselves where they are just brainstorming and talking about what they would teach at that module level. So whether they've taught before, if they were working with a client or whatever. so just, yeah, based on the prompts I've provided, they just spew it all out. They don't have to worry about organization or any of that. So then I take the transcript from that and I put it back into Chester, work with it some more.
Teri Holland (06:19.886)
you
Shannon Boyer (06:37.437)
And so I think that that's one of the key things, especially at that really high level is that it still has me, the course expert, the curriculum expert, working with it, prompting it, saying, no, that's not quite right. Adjust that, go this direction, whatever. So it's facilitated. And I like to kind of use the analogy of a DJ soundboard. So, you know, where you're mixing like the...
Teri Holland (06:52.803)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (06:59.853)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (07:02.365)
I am not cool at all. this analogy might be a bit stretched, but you know, you're mixing different tracks together to get like a better outcome. Right. And so it's like their subject matter expertise coming together, together with my curriculum expertise. And then Chester, the DJ mixing board is really putting them together to create this output. And I used to do that one-on-one with clients before.
Teri Holland (07:12.119)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (07:25.102)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (07:31.849)
But the process would just take so much longer because you can imagine I'm trying to add in the curriculum expertise, they're trying to add in their subject matter expertise, and there's a lot more negotiation when you're just doing it human to human. So this is really literally allowing two heads to come together. Like the two heads are better than one. It's really happening. So that's Chester. So I am using that.
Teri Holland (07:31.885)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (07:46.264)
Right.
Teri Holland (07:54.498)
Okay.
Teri Holland (07:58.453)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (07:59.605)
And then Lester, the lesson planner, is the next stage. So Chester's doing the course map and the module outlines. At that point, I can hand it over to the client or the student. I do it in different ways. And then they have access to Lester, the lesson planner. And so Lester will say, OK, what's the course you're working on? What's the module you're working on? What lesson do you want to plan?
Teri Holland (08:02.382)
Yeah, it tells about Lester.
Teri Holland (08:13.805)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (08:25.213)
And so they take that work that we've done together, or it could be work that they've done on their own. They don't necessarily have to work one-on-one with me, with Chester. Sometimes people like DIY it. They take that and then put it into Lester, who then prompts them and asks them questions about like, what are analogies you've used to teach this in the past? Or what are some background stories of clients who've done this, or when you've done this, or what's the stories to support this?
Teri Holland (08:52.066)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (08:52.723)
write what are some frameworks or visuals or whatever. There's just a whole bunch of questions that he will ask to take them through. And the output is then my seven part anatomy of an effective lesson. And they can then take that and do their slide decks and their recordings or whatever it is that they do. So for most people, they would use Chester and Lester, or like I said, if they DIY, they're just going to use Lester and they could do that. And same thing, Lester,
Teri Holland (09:05.602)
Okay.
Teri Holland (09:13.923)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (09:23.023)
they have to input it all. Like he's going to ask prompting questions, but not going to supply any extraneous information. And then Storyboard Stan is my third one. And most people don't use that, but that's for people who are doing like demonstration style videos. So I have a lot of like makers and creators in my community. So let's say someone was doing like a quilting type course and they need to do demonstrations, then Storyboard Stan will
Teri Holland (09:29.666)
Right. Okay.
Teri Holland (09:42.068)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (09:51.093)
take what Lester created and storyboard it out. Like, you know, use this camera angle, have this shot go, you know, face on head, like a headshot now go overhead and kind of help them plan out the storyboard for their video. So yeah.
Teri Holland (09:56.269)
Nice.
Teri Holland (10:07.288)
Very cool. And I love your analogy of the mixing board because that was going to be my next question is, well, why do they even need the AI if they have you to work with? Like what does that add? And that makes so much sense that that's where it all mixes together and saves, I would imagine, a lot of time. yeah.
Shannon Boyer (10:27.477)
Yeah.
So here's the thing. In the past, if I had a one-on-one client, I would do 12 sessions with them. So we'd meet weekly for 12 weeks, and we would go through this negotiation process. And I did eventually have a course to support it with the theory and everything. But it was a long process, like I said, of the negotiation. But also, I was finding that all of my students and clients were getting to this really sticky, what I called the messy middle.
Teri Holland (10:49.645)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (10:59.285)
And I was saying to them over and over again, from the 20 % point to the 50 % point of course creation is the most difficult. And at the 50 % point, that's when you're making your slide decks and starting to do your recordings. And it's funny that that's in the 50 % point, because most people, when you think of creating a course, the first thing people do is like sit down with their Canva or whatever, be like, okay, I'm gonna do my slide decks. That's 50 % of the way through the process.
Teri Holland (11:09.954)
Right.
Teri Holland (11:21.144)
Yup.
Shannon Boyer (11:27.925)
So then it was educating them about all the things that needed to be done before that part. So here we were, they were working through the process step by step and they, know, honeymoon periods over, we're 20 % of the way in and it's getting difficult. They have to organize their ideas. They have to really, it's cognitively challenging, it's mentally taxing to do all of that.
Teri Holland (11:44.684)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (11:53.525)
work of figuring out what are the gaps? Where did you know, are people gonna fall through? What did I do when I was just learning that is now innate tonight? I don't really remember. So much goes on there. And I mean, students were just like, this is so hard. And did I make the wrong decision? And I was, I was really having to kind of pep talk people through that stage and being like, you know, you've got this, this is the hardest. Once we get over this, it's going to be a lot easier. Trust me, you know.
Teri Holland (11:57.934)
Teri Holland (12:11.381)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (12:23.495)
all of this and it was really bothering me. And I was like thinking to myself, how can I facilitate this process? How can I make this less challenging, less mentally taxing, especially for people who are doing it the first time? It's, you know, I'm trying to teach how to be a teacher in a very short period of time. And so I was struggling with that, how to make this process easier and better for my clients.
Teri Holland (12:42.849)
Right.
Shannon Boyer (12:52.557)
And when people are marketing their products and their courses, they're always told, like, tell people you're going to make it easier for them. Tell people you're going to make it simpler for them. Tell people you're going to fast track. And here I was, and I was like, OK, it's going to be harder. It's probably going to be slower, but it'll be worth it. I promise. Right. It was like a really hard marketing message for me. Like, I promise you'll have a better outcome at the end, which was true. Like, you will have a high quality course. It will get your students results.
Teri Holland (13:02.926)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (13:08.106)
Hahaha
Teri Holland (13:12.961)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (13:18.453)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (13:22.037)
but you're gonna have to go through this hard part. And it was just a hard sell. So yes, for the past year, I've been constantly grappling with how can I make that messy middle 30 % more streamlined, less mentally arduous. this just does exactly that. It takes that really hard part where most people either give up or take the easy route.
Teri Holland (13:36.078)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (13:47.689)
that those were really the three options. You do the really hard work, you give up or you take the easy route and end up with a course that's not so stellar at the end. And now that's exactly what these custom GPTs do is they take that mentally tasking work of organizing those ideas because I've given the frameworks and I've directed them in a very specific way to come out with still that high quality outcome.
Teri Holland (14:11.64)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (14:15.65)
And then how do you, cause I know like last time when you were on, we were talking about how important it is to have your voice in the course and have it reflect who you are. So when you're going through this process and you're using AI, is that taking away at all from the course creator's voice or how do you protect that and make sure that they are still represented authentically?
Shannon Boyer (14:25.257)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (14:41.683)
Yeah, I love that question because it is so, so important. And I think moving forward, as we see chat GPT, not touch GPT, but AI change and advance, that is going to be even more important because otherwise we'll have all these courses out there that are very cookie cutter and look the same. And we want to make sure it's our voice, our perspective, our experiences, our background, all of that. So one of the things is to make sure that the output is still in point form.
Teri Holland (14:49.954)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (14:58.989)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (15:09.671)
I think that that's really, really important. So it's not scripting. And what it's doing is just organizing and directing. The other thing is that because the prompts are asking them for their stories, their analogies, and they're talking, like I said, they're doing that Zoom recording where they're just brainstorming. And then I take that transcript. The feedback I've gotten from clients so far, because I say to them like,
Teri Holland (15:10.785)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (15:19.182)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (15:37.213)
What do you think of this output? Is it off base? Does it still sound like you? Like they're the only ones who really know. And they're like amazed. Like this, I would say that, like that actually sounds like me. And I think it's the process that is making sure that that outcome still maintains their voice because they are talking and it's taking that and using that. And again, because I've told it like, don't supply any kind of information.
Teri Holland (15:39.874)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (15:48.76)
Wow, nice.
Shannon Boyer (16:06.257)
It's just working with what's been put into it. So I think that that's really, really important as we move forward to make sure that that is paramount. I think that the human aspect has to be maintained and that the number one kind of qualifier for anything that we do with AI is that it helps to elevate students getting the results.
Teri Holland (16:10.21)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (16:33.257)
That's always the most important thing to me is are we creating our courses in a way that's going to ensure that students get the results we're promising in the most effective and efficient way possible? I'll just kind of add on that note of like the human aspect. I had a student of mine, she sent me a video recently. I'm gonna out her, I won't tell her to say her name, but what she had done is she had used a different AI tool where all you do is you upload a photo of yourself.
Teri Holland (16:36.204)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (16:45.549)
Yeah.
Yeah, please.
Teri Holland (16:54.702)
You
Shannon Boyer (17:01.149)
You read the little paragraph for it to get your voice and then you write a script. So you just type the script. It takes that script. It takes your voice. It takes the photo and it basically animates it. So it is a video of you reading this. And she sent it to me and she was like, what do you think? Like this is, have I uncovered, you know, like the golden key here? And I have to admit, like it was pretty good. It looked
Teri Holland (17:21.344)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (17:30.53)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (17:30.997)
Pretty good. But it was missing that special something. you could, there was just, even though you had to like really scrutinize to see, you know, that it was AI if somebody hadn't told you, I mean, the mouth always looks kind of funny right now, but I still think that we as people connect with other people, even if it's on screen, like you and I are talking right now, we still connect with other human beings and
Teri Holland (17:46.156)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (17:53.536)
Yes. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (18:00.999)
who knows what's going to happen, but I feel like there is still going to be something missing in that AI composite that is missing our soul. It's missing us, you know, and connection is such an important part of the learning process. Like I won't get into the weeds too much, but there's this, it's called the social constructivist theory of learning. And it's all about the fact that we learn through dialogue.
Teri Holland (18:07.395)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (18:12.252)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (18:25.591)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (18:30.485)
through conversation, through interaction, through collaboration, through being challenged and pushed outside of our comfort zone. And I think that those things are so important for that deep learning that gets your students the real results. And I think that that's something that AI will never replicate. And I think I talked on the last podcast about like the four different kinds of interaction in a course, right? And so it's...
Teri Holland (18:38.104)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (18:47.086)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (18:52.748)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (18:56.386)
Yep. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (18:59.753)
just if anybody hasn't heard it, it's like student to content, student to instructor, student to student, and student to real world. Those things are going to be even more important as we see a proliferation of AI generated content because it is ultimately what's gonna set the courses apart and make sure that students get those real results.
Teri Holland (19:16.94)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (19:22.252)
Yeah, I'm so glad you mentioned all of that. And I'm also curious just from the business perspective of now that you have built out these GPTs and how has that changed the way you're running your business? like just from the business owner standpoint, how has that changed for you?
Shannon Boyer (19:42.067)
Yeah, so it's changed quite a bit actually because what I was doing in the past is I offered my signature course and I would take people through it in a cohort based way. And then I had a one-on-one experience, like I said, that people could do over 12 weeks working with me once a week for an hour. But I always had people asking for more of a like,
Teri Holland (19:51.17)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (20:08.389)
done for them. They're like, can't you just do it for me? And I was like, no, I can't do it for you. Like, it's your knowledge. It's your information. It's your thing that you have to own, stand behind, and then teach. So no, I can't do it for you. And then people would ask for kind of more of like a VIP day sort of a thing. Like, let's just work really in a really concentrated way. And again, I was kind of like, well, it's a process. It's a process of really
Teri Holland (20:11.895)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (20:36.863)
thinking and reflecting and all of this. So I wasn't comfortable with that either. But what this has allowed me to do now is to, I'm calling it the accelerator and VIP experience. And so what I do is in the course of just a week, in a concentrated week, Chester, myself and the client can get through that course mapping and module outlining phase.
Teri Holland (20:37.259)
Right.
Teri Holland (20:49.453)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (21:06.237)
and it basically jumps them from that 20 % mark right to that 50 % mark. And they can then, it boils that down to a week as opposed to several weeks or even months that some people were working through that process in the past. So that's the biggest change. And then I've also started something called the Build Lab where...
Teri Holland (21:19.501)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (21:24.622)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (21:29.769)
people can come in. I don't want to call it a membership because I really don't expect people to stay there for an extended period of time, but they can come in for as many months as they want. They get access to certain modules from my course. They get live support from me, the community, all of that. And they also get access to Lester, the lesson planner and storyboard stand. So it's kind of like instead of people having to jump right in and invest in my signature course, which can be a
Teri Holland (21:36.066)
Gotcha.
Teri Holland (21:51.16)
Cool.
Shannon Boyer (21:58.313)
big commitment for somebody who's not really sure if course creation is right for them. They're questioning whether or not they've got a good idea. Like, should I even pursue this? This allows them to just come in, learn how to validate their course, learn how to choose the format and the topic, get that support, get some access to those tools. And then it's also the only place where I offer my course, a la carte. So they can buy module by module.
Teri Holland (22:00.312)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (22:07.543)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (22:26.635)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (22:28.285)
Yeah, so that's something that I don't think I've seen anybody else do. You buy the signature course or you don't buy the signature course. So with students coming into the Build Lab, they can get the first module for free. So that does all of that, or I should say not for free, but as part of the entry fee. And then they can buy module two when they're ready for it. They can buy module three when they're ready for it.
Teri Holland (22:33.134)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (22:43.159)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (22:50.092)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (22:51.997)
And so it just allows people to progress at their own rate as they're ready for it and as they're ready to invest in the next section of it. So yeah, I'm really excited about these changes. And that's all been inspired by these chat GPTs or these custom GPTs.
Teri Holland (23:00.418)
Very cool.
Teri Holland (23:08.908)
Yeah. And okay, so now I'm ask you a little more of a personal question on the business end. And feel free to decline answering if you'd like, but I'm curious about like, has this changed your price structure? Cause I know like you were saying for people to invest in your signature course is a commitment. So has doing this affected how you price your services as well using AI?
Shannon Boyer (23:13.447)
Sure. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (23:27.507)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (23:36.981)
Yeah, okay, great question. And I don't mind answering at all. So when I was doing, it's kind of an interesting answer actually, because I was doing the 12 sessions one-on-one with me, they got access to my course, it was 1997 for that. And the course itself was 997. And so then I came up with this accelerator VIP experience and I was kind of struggling then with what do I charge?
Teri Holland (23:40.033)
Okay.
Teri Holland (23:51.128)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (23:54.616)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (24:04.817)
It's still quite a bit of my time, because I'm working behind the scenes, not so like not as much one-on-one with the student, but still quite a bit of my time. But it's also adding the value of time. Like it's saving them so much time. So on the one hand, I was thinking, this is so much more valuable than what I have done before. But at the same time,
Teri Holland (24:05.25)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (24:13.634)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (24:18.529)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (24:25.89)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (24:30.961)
If someone hasn't experienced that struggle themselves, they haven't experienced that messy middle, they don't necessarily appreciate what I'm saving. I'm saving you this, you just have to trust me that you don't have to go through this messy middle part. So I talked to a client of mine who I'd worked with on a couple of courses with her one-on-one.
Teri Holland (24:36.588)
Right.
Teri Holland (24:42.698)
Yeah!
Shannon Boyer (24:55.381)
And she was kind of a beta tester for me. And she was just loved the output, loved the experience. She's like, I want to make more courses. This is phenomenal. And so was kind of talking about pricing with her. Like, what do you think? Cause you paid me the 1997. I'm thinking of charge. So I charged 1497. think I'm thinking 1497. And she was like, well, that's kind of a lot for one course.
Teri Holland (24:58.99)
Cool.
Shannon Boyer (25:22.877)
And that floored me because I was like, but it's the same outcome. Like everybody says, you're selling the transformation, you're selling the outcome, right? And I was like, it's the same outcome, maybe better, less time. It's taking less of your time to get there. And when I explained it to her that way or kind of framed it that way, she was like, yeah, you're right. yeah, that's totally worth the money. Like that's a steal. That's less than I was paying before.
Teri Holland (25:28.811)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (25:32.482)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (25:39.639)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (25:51.096)
Yeah!
Shannon Boyer (25:52.021)
a better outcome. But it was really, really interesting to me that she was thinking about it differently in her head. So it's 1497 for that VIP experience, which I think is well worth it to think, yeah, that you can kind of jump over that really difficult part and streamline.
Teri Holland (26:04.13)
Nice.
Teri Holland (26:08.192)
I think so, yeah.
Shannon Boyer (26:13.801)
Because one of the things I find too, when people come to me and they want to create a course, and I always ask in my kind of initial conversation with them, like, when do you want to launch this course? What's your timeline? And generally, I feel the timelines are quite tight. People expect to go from nothing to launching a course in a very short period of time. A lot of that is because not everybody understands everything that goes into. If you've never created a course before, you don't really understand everything that goes into it. It's very similar to writing a book.
Teri Holland (26:23.874)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (26:28.206)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (26:33.836)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (26:43.911)
I think, like, you know, the process and how detailed it gets. So that's part of it. Yeah, so it's kind of like, there's a little bit of a gap between what people are kind of expecting and then the reality of it.
Teri Holland (26:44.43)
For sure.
Teri Holland (26:57.965)
Right.
Teri Holland (27:01.742)
Okay, can you maybe share with us without giving away any client information, of course, but can you share with us maybe an example or a case study of how you've used these tools and you've used AI to working with a client and what their outcome was like?
Shannon Boyer (27:08.105)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (27:20.841)
Yeah, so what happens is, so when they come into the experience with me, like I said, there's like the back and forth. And then, so what it produces is the framework. And so I think that's another interesting point is it's going to give a framework which doesn't necessarily represent all of the thought.
Teri Holland (27:41.964)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (27:47.317)
and negotiation that goes into this output, right? Because the course outline, what it's gonna do is it's going to output like the course objective, the module objectives, the key teaching points in each of the modules, the application activity for how students are going to actually apply what it is that they've learned. And so in terms of like an actual output, if somebody just looked at it on paper, they could kind of be like, that's it.
Teri Holland (27:49.646)
yeah.
Shannon Boyer (28:16.885)
right. Because of the terms of like words on the paper, it's like, it's representative of a lot of like knowledge and organization and, and everything else. So yeah, that's generally like, I'll take this student through the process or the client through the process. And then we do the module outlines. Like I said, then they go through, they, take it through to the, to Lester, then take it through to the slides.
Teri Holland (28:17.292)
Right.
Teri Holland (28:23.712)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (28:46.431)
They do the recording of it. And then actually, I'm just having students launch their courses now because there's these GPTs that they've only been, I mean, it took me a few months to create and take all of my frameworks and put them in. And I've just rolled them out. I don't know when this is going to air, but about eight weeks prior to the recording of this.
Teri Holland (28:53.835)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (29:10.865)
So yeah, so students are just kind of finishing with the recording and starting to launch the courses now. Yeah, so no feedback in terms of like the student experience of it. But yeah, really, really amazing feedback from the students and clients who are using it. Like game changer, this has saved me so much time. Like I said, this reflects me and my voice.
Teri Holland (29:10.924)
Okay.
Teri Holland (29:17.933)
Nice.
Teri Holland (29:32.375)
Amazing.
Shannon Boyer (29:40.149)
This is, yeah, just has really, I don't wanna say sped up the process, but simplified, I think simplified it and just made it a whole lot more manageable, manageable. People are feeling encouraged and motivated that this is something they can do now, as opposed to that old experience of.
Teri Holland (29:49.836)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (29:56.31)
Absolutely.
Teri Holland (30:01.366)
Nice.
Shannon Boyer (30:04.733)
you know, sometimes tears, really, to be honest. Like sometimes tears. One of my clients said that, she's like, you can use me as an example. Tell them I cried. And now she's like, and now I'm just excited to create more courses. I'm excited to create more courses and no more tears. So yeah.
Teri Holland (30:06.986)
Yup.
Teri Holland (30:15.188)
Teri Holland (30:20.774)
that's amazing. No more tears. I love that. Yeah. so as a, for those listening who are maybe they've already created courses or maybe they are thinking about creating a course. How can we tell as course creators once we've used, we've used AI and we've created our course that it's still high quality.
Shannon Boyer (30:48.882)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (30:49.09)
Like, is there a risk that we might lose our sense of what a high quality course looks like by using AI or how can we differentiate what's still high quality?
Shannon Boyer (30:58.421)
Okay, I love this question. So for me, the definition of high quality, number one is, is it getting students results? And what that means are students finishing the course and are they implementing what you have taught them to do? We actually don't want them binging it like Netflix and then going about tomorrow the exact same way as they went about before they took the course. Their life should be different. What they are doing should be different after they've taken the course.
Teri Holland (31:07.342)
Okay.
Teri Holland (31:13.004)
Yeah.
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (31:22.539)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (31:26.761)
So that's always the standard of any course or the students finishing it. Are they giving you good reviews and are they implementing what they've learned? So that's gonna be your marker regardless of whether you're using AI or not. The other thing then I think, so I teach high touch, high quality, high impact online courses. That's what I teach, right? And the high touch is those interactions that we talked about prior.
Teri Holland (31:35.115)
Okay.
Teri Holland (31:44.673)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (31:51.219)
So I think that that's a critical component. It's going to be even more of a critical component moving forward. And so are you still maintaining those interactions, those touch points? Are you still giving feedback to your students? Feedback is the number one thing that students need to make progress and to get results. I took a course, just to give a quick example, it took an on-demand course on how to do Facebook ads. I was like, okay, I think I have to.
Teri Holland (31:51.491)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (32:11.639)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (32:15.254)
Sure.
Shannon Boyer (32:21.129)
you know, dabble in this world of Facebook ads. And the course was set up very step by step, click here, do this, go here. And then it said, now click publish. And I was like, what? What do you mean click publish? I don't know if this is a good ad. I don't know if I followed this properly. What makes a good ad? You know, like where, where is the input? Where's the criteria? Where's the feedback? And then after I hit publish, how do I know if it's doing well?
Teri Holland (32:23.725)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (32:36.865)
Right.
Shannon Boyer (32:48.883)
Like, should I be paying $5 a lead or should I be paying a dollar a lead? How do I know if I'm wasting my money or investing my money wisely? And so I actually shut down and just did not do anything more with the course because it was missing those key components. So even though technically it had taken me through step-by-step click here, I could proficiently put an ad on Facebook.
Teri Holland (32:49.678)
Hmm?
Teri Holland (32:54.508)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (33:16.93)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (33:17.169)
It was missing so many of the other components that would have made it a high quality course. So yeah, I think we have to take that into consideration.
Teri Holland (33:23.182)
Yeah, that's
Absolutely. it's so interesting hearing you talk about that because I was just having a conversation with my friend, Yehal, who's also a business consultant and he's been my business consultant. And we were talking about AI in our space, in the coaching consulting world and how it's affecting things. And he said the one thing that humans will still always need is validation from a human expert.
Shannon Boyer (33:38.09)
Hmm.
Shannon Boyer (33:52.585)
Yes. Yeah.
Teri Holland (33:53.228)
So he was like, AI can replace all the technical issues, the I don't know how to do this. You don't know how to do a Facebook ad. So it can teach you that and create a course for that and do all that. But you still need that human to validate and say, yes, this is correct. This is good. This is quality. Or this isn't very good. Yeah. Yeah. Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (34:09.62)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (34:12.917)
Absolutely. And empathy. AI is never going to have empathy, right? So, you when I talked about the times of like the pep talks that I would give my clients and like pulling them through and you know, the light is at the end of the tunnel, you're there, you can do this, don't worry. Like, that's a lot of the work I do with my one-on-one clients is helping them keep the motivation going and encouraging them and you know, they'll see somebody out there who's created something that they think is similar.
Teri Holland (34:30.516)
I bet. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (34:39.027)
And so I helped them kind of reframe it and look at how they're different and how are they unique. And, you know, somebody might think, well, you can put those two inputs into chat GPT and it can tell you how you're different than that. But it's not the same. We still are human and we still need that human connection. And so that's what I would challenge everybody to do is just, whether it's now or in the future, look at your course and ask yourself, where is the humanness of this course?
Teri Holland (34:40.174)
Mmm.
Teri Holland (34:52.278)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (34:57.698)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (35:08.309)
How can I maintain that? How can I preserve that? And how can I capitalize on that? Because I really think, I thought that last year, I think that now, and I will continue to think that that is the differentiator for our courses, for the ones that are high quality and that are good. It's the ones where the course creator truly cares about the results of their students. They are in the course, they are with their students, they are helping them along. And we have to do that as human beings.
Teri Holland (35:08.878)
Hmm.
Teri Holland (35:14.381)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (35:38.261)
There's a lot of talk out there about this trust recession that we're in. It's kind of the catchphrase. We're in a trust recession, right? Okay, one of the things that's led to the trust recession is that we have all bought these courses that have over-promised and under-delivered, and we're all jaded now about where we're gonna invest our money and how we're going to invest our money. And the only way we're going to get past that is if people start to create courses that actually deliver on their promises.
Teri Holland (35:42.795)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (35:52.258)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (35:58.008)
Yep.
Teri Holland (36:05.422)
Absolutely. It's such good advice. And I'm also curious that for you behind this business, now that you've changed your approach to doing things and you've implemented AI into your business, what has that done for you? How does that? How has that changed your life for how you're spending your time?
Shannon Boyer (36:24.745)
Yeah, it's interesting because in a way you would think that implementing all of these GPTs has freed up all of my time and now I have like all of this, cause that's kind of like how they're sold, right? Like now you can automate, automatize everything and you'll have all of this extra time. But I think because I still really value those, human interactions with people.
Teri Holland (36:36.419)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (36:53.973)
as well as when I use Chester. Like I am still very much involved in the process. It is still a negotiation between Chester and I to make sure that the output is high quality. I won't say that it's freed up a whole ton of my time. It's just changed the way that I work. I think it's freed up a ton of time for my clients, but I'm still very much involved in the process actually, and just in a different way.
Teri Holland (37:00.29)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (37:11.991)
Okay.
Teri Holland (37:16.969)
Okay.
Teri Holland (37:23.054)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (37:23.325)
Well, I worked with clients more one-on-one. More of my work is kind of behind the scenes now with Chester, which is to be completely honest, for me personally, not really a benefit because I love working one-on-one with my clients, right? Like I love that work and now I'm working with Chester more than I'm working with them in some cases. My clients want me there. They're like, no, no, I still need to have, I still want you. I still want you through the whole process.
Teri Holland (37:27.374)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (37:38.261)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (37:53.257)
we still crave that human validation, like you were saying. So yeah, I think that's how it's really changed my business is I'm working more with Chester than with my clients, but not hugely. It's still through the Build Lab where I have that interaction in the weekly lives in the community with the students and all of that. I'm still very much getting the interactions with the students.
Teri Holland (37:53.634)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (37:58.062)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (38:09.39)
Okay.
Mm-hmm.
Shannon Boyer (38:22.517)
It's just, it is, it has shifted a little bit of the ratio there. Yeah.
Teri Holland (38:26.7)
Okay, because I'm just picturing you like, you know, instead of maybe being at your desk, maybe you're doing more work like sitting outside in your garden with your laptop and able to like, relax a little more, right?
Shannon Boyer (38:33.173)
Actually, that's true. That is true. Actually, I was tied to my desk because of the camera and the one on ones and I am I am now summer. I'm sitting in the backyard with my computer and it has changed that for sure. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.
Teri Holland (38:44.907)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (38:50.826)
Nice. that's good. I'm happy to hear that because that's a different kind of freedom. Maybe it hasn't freed up a lot of time for you, but it's freed up how you're working and your environment and you can still enjoy the sun and get your work done, which is cool. Yeah. What's a mindset shift that you think entrepreneurs or course creators need to make in terms of incorporating AI into their process?
Shannon Boyer (39:04.991)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. For sure.
Shannon Boyer (39:19.135)
Hmm, that's a great question. So I think the biggest mindset shift is to understand that it is an assistant and a co-creator. It is not going to do it for you. And you need to capitalize on, like we said before, your unique experiences and background and stories and what makes you different from everybody else out there.
Teri Holland (39:42.722)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (39:47.431)
and use it for what it's good at, which is the organization and the brainstorming. can help you with the brainstorming and that. It can actually also criticize you. Like you have to ask it to, right? Like if you've ever been in chat GPT, it's a very congratulatory, like it's always telling me that idea is gold. You are the smartest person in the world. And you know, it'll just, it'll continue to tell you that everything that you do is wonderful.
Teri Holland (40:05.792)
Yes.
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (40:15.951)
But you can actually ask it to be critical of you as well. And so that's something that I think it's, especially when you're first using it, it's very easy just to be like, it thinks I'm wonderful. This is a great, I'm onto something. This is a great idea. And so you need to step back also and be critical of it and still have that critical lens on the output and yourself and ask it to give you some constructive feedback as well and be critical of you.
Teri Holland (40:29.08)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (40:43.66)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (40:45.759)
So think that's, yeah, co-creator, assistant, capitalize on what it's good at. Don't lose what makes you unique and what you're good at. And then I think kind of going back to the question of pricing that you said is we need to still value high quality outputs. So.
Teri Holland (41:00.44)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (41:06.008)
Yes.
Shannon Boyer (41:06.856)
Right? Like when I use it with my clients, it's very easy for them to look at that and think, well, you did that very quickly and it just spit that out. That's not very valuable. But where the value comes in is all the work that I did prior training that GPT with the inputs and the frameworks and the teaching methodology and all of my experience that went into creating that thing that was then able to give the output.
Teri Holland (41:20.706)
Yes.
Shannon Boyer (41:34.505)
I think that's probably a bit of a mindset shift as well.
Teri Holland (41:34.626)
Yeah.
Absolutely. And I'm so glad you mentioned that. I was having a conversation with another friend recently also about AI. And she had that question of, can shorten my process a lot in what I do, but then do I charge less for my work? Like, do we... And so I love your perspective of keeping it focused on the value of the outcome we're providing. And it's not about the time. We're not...
Shannon Boyer (41:43.445)
Ha ha ha.
Shannon Boyer (41:56.842)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (42:05.368)
We're not hourly employees. This isn't about an hourly basis, but looking at what is that output. And if the output is going to be greater and save the client time and get things done more effectively and efficiently, then there is a lot of value to that. It's not just the time we put in. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (42:07.518)
Yes.
Shannon Boyer (42:21.811)
Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, there's an artist and I'm gonna misquote this. I think it was Picasso, could be very wrong. But when he was asked, you know, why is this painting so expensive? It obviously didn't take you very much time to create. And he said, no, actually, it took me 20 years, because it was all of the experience and all of the practice and all of the trial and error that allowed him to create that one piece of work that they were actually looking at.
Teri Holland (42:35.501)
Mm-hmm.
Teri Holland (42:41.623)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (42:51.453)
And I think it's very much the same here, right? Like although I am able to provide a faster output for the client, what went into creating that tool that can create that output was the 25 years of experience and education and knowledge and trial and error, right? So, yeah.
Teri Holland (42:51.916)
Yes.
Teri Holland (43:09.716)
Absolutely.
Yeah.
And can you tell us a little bit about your, a little bit more about the Builder Lab, Build Lab or Builder Lab? The Build Lab, okay. Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (43:20.137)
Build, the Build Lab. yeah, that's the, yeah, it's, so all my courses are called Your Best Course. So I have Your Best Course Experience is my signature course. And really it's called the Your Best Course Build Lab. I just call it the Build Lab. So it's a school group. It's on school and everybody can find it at school.com slash build lab. And so what it is is the place where I support all my clients. my,
Teri Holland (43:29.848)
Okay.
Teri Holland (43:35.559)
cool.
Teri Holland (43:43.374)
Thanks.
Shannon Boyer (43:46.837)
accelerator clients, my signature course clients, your best course experience, they all come into that build lab where I can support them with hot seats and coaching and feedback and one-on-ones and Q &As and they can support each other. They can use the GPTs, et cetera. And we just really make sure that their course actually gets completed. That's why I call it the build lab because it's where the work happens. It's where they get the support, the answers and the tools they need to actually get it finished.
Teri Holland (43:58.048)
nice
Teri Holland (44:09.525)
awesome.
Shannon Boyer (44:15.797)
But I do also allow people who are not students and clients of mine, active students and clients to come in. Right now the price is $47. They can come in, they can get that first module, access to all the lives in the community and Lester and Stan to get that course creation process started, figure out if it's, know, course creation is right for them, if they've got an idea that they can validate and that they should move forward with. So yeah, it's really...
Teri Holland (44:16.618)
Awesome.
Teri Holland (44:32.59)
Thanks.
Teri Holland (44:44.216)
That's awesome.
Shannon Boyer (44:45.223)
It's really an opportunity for people to come in, get their feet wet, get to know me more, get to know more about creating a high quality course, and then decide if they want to take the next steps or not.
Teri Holland (44:56.416)
Amazing. And that will be linked in the show notes. And now I'm doing something different than what I did last time you were on, which is when each guest gets to pass along a question to the next guest without knowing who they are. So Dorothy Andreas was the last guest on the show and her interview comes out tomorrow for when we're recording. And she asked the question, what did you think you would be when you grew up and how did that impact your journey?
Shannon Boyer (45:09.397)
Shannon Boyer (45:16.629)
Okay.
Shannon Boyer (45:25.869)
my goodness. Okay, this is a really great question and a lot of pressure. So the funny thing is when I was little, I thought I was going to be an artist. And I actually don't have that great of artistic skills, but now I work with so many creatives. So that's kind of interesting. But when I was a child, my mom said to me over and over again, Shannon, you should be a teacher, Shannon, you should be a teacher. And I was like, no way.
Teri Holland (45:30.382)
It's okay. So no pressure, no pressure.
Teri Holland (45:38.19)
Teri Holland (45:43.925)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (45:53.71)
Wow.
Shannon Boyer (45:54.773)
that has got to be the most boring job in the world. There's no way that I'm gonna become a teacher. And then through a series of events, I eventually did. And now I'm working with creatives. I think actually that course creation is a very creative process. And so it is how I express myself creatively. I'm also kind of a serial hobbyist.
Teri Holland (45:57.302)
Hahaha
Teri Holland (46:13.013)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (46:19.581)
And when I'm in the thick of course creation, all of those hobbies kind of fall through to the wayside because all of my creative energy is going into course creation. So I found the best of both worlds, I guess. Yeah.
Teri Holland (46:19.734)
Nice.
Teri Holland (46:29.71)
Wow. I love that. And what's a question that you would like to pass on to a future guest without knowing who they are?
Shannon Boyer (46:39.765)
Okay.
What, this is hard because if I ask this question, they have to work with clients. And I don't know if they work with clients. They're gonna work with clients. Okay, so my question then would be, what is the number one thing you notice between your clients who take your advice or use your work and go on to have success and the ones who don't?
Teri Holland (46:52.078)
pretty much all the guests that I have on work with clients. Yeah.
Teri Holland (47:10.264)
Great question. love that. That's awesome. Any?
Shannon Boyer (47:12.381)
Yeah, that's always my question for anybody that anybody I'm working with, like I'm taking a course from or they're a coach of mine. I want to know that what is the biggest differentiating factor between those who succeed and those who don't.
Teri Holland (47:18.549)
Yeah.
Teri Holland (47:25.442)
great one. love it. And any final words you want to leave the audience with today?
Shannon Boyer (47:31.221)
I think the final words that I want people to think about is AI can seem intimidating and potentially disturbing and scary. But at this point in time, I think that we are at a point where it can really benefit us when used correctly, when used with good judgment, when used with a critical eye.
Teri Holland (47:58.359)
Yeah.
Shannon Boyer (47:59.101)
and when we're very aware of its limitations. So I would encourage everybody to play around, get more comfortable with it, stay open-minded to it, but maintain that critical eye.
Teri Holland (48:13.678)
Perfect. Thank you so much. This has been a lot of fun.
Shannon Boyer (48:17.277)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. love our chats.
Teri Holland (48:20.566)
Yeah, me too.
Shannon Boyer (48:22.343)
you
