"If you're worried, you're not doing as bad as you think. Trust me. You are focused on the right things. You're probably learner-centric. If you think you're sailing and flying high and you don't need any work or help, chances are you're really not." - Danielle Gines

Incorporating a course into your business with Danielle Gines

In this episode of the Confessions podcast, we have Danielle Gines, the founder of DG Consulting. Danielle specializes in curriculum development and design, instructional design, English language learners, adult learners, nonprofit management, and international non-governmental organizations (NGOs).

Danielle discusses the challenges and fears she faced when choosing a niche for her business. She also explains the various services she offers, including curriculum development, curriculum revision, course mapping, audits, and learning management systems. Danielle provides insights into her pricing structure and how she receives payment for her services.

Highlights:

• The importance of understanding adult learning and designing courses that focus on behavior change and real-life impact.

• Collaboration and networking with other consultants has been instrumental in growing her business and attracting clients.

• A suggestion for consultants is to prioritize the three P's: presentation, practice, and production, in order to develop interactive and impactful learning opportunities.

• An important reminder for consultants is to embrace their worries and imposter syndrome, as it often signifies a dedication to self-improvement and a learner-centric mindset.

Connect with Danielle Gines:

Danielle Gines (Linkedin): https://www.linkedin.com/in/danielle-gines1

DG Consultancy (Website): https://dgconsultancy.us/

Email: danielle@dgconsultancy.us

Find Us Online:  https://www.confessionswithjessandcindy.com/

Connect with Cindy:

Cindy Wagman Coaching https://cindywagman.com/

The Good Partnership https://www.thegoodpartnership.com/

Connect with Jess: 

Out In the Boons: https://www.outintheboons.me

Transcript:

00:00:00: Cindy: Welcome to the Confessions podcast. I'm Cindy Wagman.

00:00:03 Jess: And I'm Jess Campbell. We're two former in-house nonprofit pros turned coaches and consultants to purpose-driven organizations.

00:00:11 Cindy: After years of building up our separate six-figure businesses from scratch, we've thrown a lot of spaghetti at the wall and have lived to see what sticks.

00:00:20 Jess: We're on a mission to help other nonprofit coaches and consultants looking to start or scale their own businesses past the six-figure mark by pulling back the curtain.

00:00:30 Cindy: Whether you're still working inside a nonprofit and thinking of one day going out on your own, or you've been running your consulting business for years, you understand that working with nonprofits is just different. We're giving you access to the business leaders who serve nonprofits as their clients. You know, the people who truly get it.

00:00:52 Jess: No more gatekeeping, no more secrets. This podcast is going to give you an inside look at what running a successful nonprofit coaching and consulting business looks like. Basically, we're asking people how much money they make, how they get paid, and what has and hasn't worked in their businesses.

00:01:10 Cindy: Listen in as these leaders share their insights, their numbers, and the good, the bad, and the ugly when it comes to building a nonprofit coaching or consulting business. We're going to empower you to make the power moves that give you the income and freedom you set out to create from day one.

00:01:27 Jess: You ready? Let's go.

00:01:31 Jess: Okay, Danielle, tell us, what was the scariest part about picking a niche in your business?

00:01:39 Danielle: I think it's very similar, and we've heard this from other consultants. It's the idea of, what if that closes me off for other things, right? The notorious fear and so I think in deciding a niche, and I feel like I'm always niching, and I feel like maybe we should be. We're always gathering data and input, and just like with learning, what your learners need, and so that's how I guided my business. And deciding on curriculum, it was just the common problem that kept coming up. People kept saying, I don't know if I'm doing this right. Can you look at this?

00:02:21 Danielle: And so I thought, all right, this is where I need to stay and to do programming specifically and not venture out into finance training or board training, which still gets a lot more attention with tempting, but I was like, no, I think this is where I need to stay because eventually, people do come your way. But yeah, the scariest thing was like, all right, hope there is enough.

00:02:46 Jess: Totally. Everyone, welcome to the Confessions podcast with Jess and Cindy. We have the honor and pleasure of being joined by my grad school friend, Danielle Gines of DG Consulting. We've known each other for a decade plus, which is bananas. And today, we are going to talk into all things, niching down, running a business that doesn't necessarily hit the financial pain points that a bunch of nonprofits experience to, how to design your own programs and curriculums as a nonprofit consulting in a way that benefits adult learners. We're going to get into all of it. So Danielle, tell us who you are and how you get paid.

00:03:34 Danielle: Yeah. All right. Well, thank you. Thank you both so much for having me. So I've developed this quarter system where, you know, there's like four key things. It's curriculum development. That's the anchor. And so it starts, like if it's original, no one had any kind of course or any kind of curriculum. Starts at like 39, 45. And, you know, there's a lot of things that you can add to that, but it's the base. And then the one that kind of has made me the biggest revenue is curriculum revision. So things that exist that people have, that I'm going to cut costs or I'm going to make it myself. And then they realize, oh, you know, there's some things that I'm missing or I really would like an expert to come in and just find the gaps.

00:04:26 Danielle: And so there's the done for you side, which is the 33, 25 and then the course map, which has become really popular, where I just do a lot of discovery and then create basically like a system where you just go block by block in a nice table that says, okay, like this is what your objective and Cindy knows. This is what your objective needs to be, this is the, like practice that you're going to need. This is the like, follow up that shows you that, is this working or not. And so that's 26, 25. That went up a little bit.

00:05:02 Danielle: And then from that, even peeling back a little bit more and creating an audit. So spotlighting, just creating enough kind of revenue around like what people need, whether it's me or whether it's just a big light that says, hey, this is the problem. This is how you can fix it. Go forth and do it and then like come back and let's see how it works with implementation. And then the final kind of quadrant is learning management systems, which has not gotten as big, you know, money because the pandemic has faded. So virtual is taken more to hybrid, more to in-person and then the develop it yourself program that started out specifically for consultants who have their own courses.

00:05:49 Danielle: So it's kind of a pilot year, so it's nine ninety five. And then surprise, surprise, a nonprofit came and said, can I participate in this program? I want to learn how to do it. And I was like, sure, like I'm not going to turn you away if you want to learn. So I've been working with them and just seeing like, is this now something that I need to shift and pivot in another way? So those are kind of like my four main things.

00:06:16 Jess: And I know that you work with both nonprofits and then I know you do a little bit of work with nonprofit consultants. What would you say is your split between like, you know, what percent is nonprofits, what percent is consultants?

00:06:31 Danielle: Yeah, that's a great question. So ordinarily, I would say it's 70/30, 70 percent with nonprofit clients and then 30 percent with consultants who serve nonprofits. This year, it's been very flipped. I've had a lot more traction with consultants than nonprofit clients. But then it didn't, I mean, you know, the drill, like always watching and seeing where the patterns are, seeing more nonprofits kind of follow me on LinkedIn and get on the newsletter. And so they just take more time, you know, in terms of nurturing, but it's been amazing to see more consultants raise their hand and say, yeah, I'd like some more help in that.

00:07:13 Cindy: Okay, I want to talk, pricing and sort of your offer suite, because what I love is that you have a clear offer suite. Like, you're very clear, like, here's where you are in your journey and what you need and here's what I can do to help with that. I also think your prices are too low.

00:07:34 Jess: Oh my gosh, you’re going to get this coaching session here with Cindy Wagman.

00:07:39 Cindy: Having worked with you, like I'm, I was like, and actually, your price, your value for what you charge is outstanding.

00:07:50 Danielle: Thank you.

00:07:51 Cindy: So I'd love to hear a little bit about, like your thoughts around putting together that offer suite and then kind of like this, how you develop like that meta, you know, developing curriculum on, developing curriculum, like how you looked at your knowledge and created curriculum around that. That's kind of a complicated question. But let's talk a little bit about your offer suite and pricing and what, how you landed, where you landed.

00:08:22 Danielle: Right. Yeah. So a lot of, so I wanted, like a starting place. And I do. I think I look at my prices, especially this year, and I was like, they do feel low. And then I thought, well, this is where we can start. And then when it comes to facilitating guides, which is always a big thing, and that's a value add. And then it is per course, and so with, and I mean, with the curriculum development original, that's for the nonprofit client. They're always like, well, I'm going to need five courses. So, you know, it's, I mean, I don't want to say it sounds sneaky to be like, yeah, this is going to be significantly more. So, but, yeah, Cindy, I go back all the time. So, and I knew. I was like, I'm going to say something, which is good, because you're good at your job, too. When it comes to–

00:09:15 Jess: I know she's the best.

00:09:16 Danielle: When it comes to, so just like, help me to understand developing the curriculum to teach someone how to–

00:09:24 Cindy: Yeah. So, because you have, like people have different ways, right? It's like the done for you, when you have the curriculum development, the curriculum revision, the course map but all of these require you to share your knowledge and information with people knowing, talk to me a little bit about like the benefit of having those different options for someone like, are there different, let me try, say this way. Do I learn differently or take action differently based on which of those I choose?

00:10:04 Danielle: Yeah, definitely. So when it comes to the client perspective, the number one common denominator is, of course, collaboration. Like, I need input, especially in the discovery phase. So if you've got, you know, like Cindy, for your course, you have recordings. And so it's like, all right, I need to see how she teaches and to hear how she explains. And then what are the questions that keep coming up for people? And so a lot more, like the course map and the revision like bigger umbrella is more, give me everything you've got. And then, like, I kind of, Tetris and make sense of the pieces for you, when it comes to like from scratch, never been created, which is the development and the program. Like we are shoulder to shoulder. And so you get more of a curriculum partner instead of, kind of like a map maker, if that makes sense.

00:11:00 Cindy: Awesome. And then you're like, do it yourself one. Do you find that, like, there's a difference in terms of self-motivated? Like, what do I need to know about myself in order to pick the right level?

00:11:14 Danielle: Yeah.

00:11:14 Cindy: If that makes sense.

00:11:15 Danielle: Oh, absolutely. So I've established from sadly getting burned at the start of this year and being like, oh, my gosh, you know, pick the wrong person. It was not a good fit. So I have, like a pre-work form and it's like a self-select, you know, like, tell me what's going on. Tell me if you've got the time. Time is always the number one thing. If there's very little interest in, like, I have to move stuff off my plate because sometimes there are things that take priority. If it's not the right time, that's okay. So the biggest thing is how much time do you have to commit to this? Because if we need to be shoulder to shoulder, then, and you're 100% at capacity, this is not going to be the right place for you. But if you're like, I want to be coached, I want to do the work, I've got the time.

00:12:09 Danielle: Like summer, I've realized it's been a sweet spot for some of this nonprofit, especially because their programs aren't in high gear. So she's got the capacity. So time is the number one thing. Feedback. I mean, I know it gets really hard to be like, oh, this isn't working. But people get very sensitive. So one of my questions is, how do you feel about, like, healthy pushback to grow? And it's you know, you get three options. I love it. I hate it. I need it. You know. And so just from that, it's a way for me to know and for them to hopefully be honest enough to know, like, yeah, I can fit in this bucket or okay, maybe I'll just give it to her and she can figure it out without me, which is still not a good method, but we've got those.

00:12:59 Jess: I think this is all in all to say that you're phenomenal at what you do and are worth everything and more. One thing I'd love to dive into a bit is how you market yourself in a niche that doesn't hit on the pain points of nonprofits the same way that like Cindy and I's work does, specifically around fundraising, right. Like if you don't have enough money in your bank account to make payroll, like you feel that on a day to day basis in a different way than like designing a curriculum or redesigning a curriculum looks like. So how are you marketing yourself? How are you finding your ideal clients? What does that look like for you in your business? I'm really, like, sitting in the seat of our listeners who are, you know, not fundraisers, so to speak, and what that looks like and I think your answer could be really helpful.

00:14:04 Danielle: Yeah, it's amazing how, so I just had a call yesterday with another consultant who was like, I did curriculum and I feel alone because I'm not a fundraiser. And I was like, we're out there, you know, and this, I come from a space. Maybe it's because I'm a middle child. I don't know, from like, collaborate, right. Like, there's always someone that can help you. And so one of the things I did last year was start a newsletter very slow and steady. I mean, it's a small list, but all right. Since Josh is here, I'm going to brag a little. Like it is small, but mighty, y'all.

00:14:41 Jess: Mighty!

00:14:42 Danielle: Yeah. And I mean, I'm not even at 50 people and like I get 7% clicks and like, I actually write it down, you know, like B2, like 10%. What is it? 68% open last time. I mean, they're interested. So just to encourage people who are like, oh, I don't have big numbers. Just start. You've got value, so just start and keep going because I've literally leaped from two newsletters from last year, at the end of last year, to more consistency this year, or from 10 to what, like 42 people in that span. So for those of you, right, who are thinking, all right, I'm not a fundraiser, I'm not grants, I'm not marketing, start with realizing you've got people who are listening and collaborate and bring it together. So one of the things that I did is to have a consultant's corner on my newsletter and showcase other fundraisers or grant writers and say, this is how you could fundraise if you're thinking about a curriculum project.

00:15:46 Danielle: So it shows that one, like I believe in sharing places at the table, but also just like in a nonprofit organization, we are going to have to work together. And I often kid around and say, it's kind of like school where we're arts and music. Unfortunately, that always gets cut, but still very enjoyable, right? Like people want arts programs and music programs, literally. And so reminding people of the joy of learning and that learning is central to your organization, culture of learning. And so tapping into a lot of balance between here's a freebie and then here's a low price point. And then, hey, look at me working with so and so, you know, like how to fund [last], right, to this empathy and learners, right? You know, being able to collaborate with key people so that you're still top of mind, even though they may not purchase anything right away, has been really helpful.

00:16:49 Jess: I'm curious, you mentioned collaboration being, like, such an important part of your process and your values. I'm curious how much of your sales process involves collaborating with your clients on seeking funding or how to apply for funding. I can imagine that when you are working specifically with nonprofits, that might be part of the process. I know that there is some funding out there for this type of work. And so do you advise on that type of level or encourage people or do you find that your clients and customers when they are ready to work with you have the resources available?

00:17:27 Danielle: Right. It's been a mix. I did something. In fact, I'm in the middle of it now. I'm kind of putting a stake down on the end of summer learning bundle. And so collaborating with a bunch of consultants and we each have like a little freebie. It can build our email list, but also build, kind of, our reputation and our knowledge of being thought leaders in learning and development. But what that's kind of done is like, and I, it's a back and forth. I don't want to ever want to, I'm not a grant specialist. And so like my fall webinars are 30 minute intensive. This year, I'm purposely bringing in someone who can speak to that.

00:18:10 Danielle: And then like, I just want to be kind of like the face nearby in the mirror. But I do know there are some consultants that are like, I'll help you write the grant and I'll help you look for funding and then like the contract definitely goes to me. That's a lot and I just, I'm still very lean in my business. And I think if I get that additional support as my revenue grows, sure, that could be a component, but like it's just, it does feel a lot and outside my wheelhouse and capacity at this time for sure.

00:18:47 Jess: Okay, friend, we are back with another round of our rapid fire questions. You're playing.

00:18:54 Danielle: Let's do it.

00:18:56 Jess: Okay. Amazing. I know you are a proud Texan, but we met each other in New York.

00:19:00 Danielle: Yeah.

00:19:01 Jess: So what is one of your most favorite things that you did, [either] saw while living in the big city?

00:19:08 Danielle: Oh my gosh. Okay. So that's so funny you asked because I.. thinking of you today, knowing I would chat with you. I thought back on Murray's Bagels and just like hanging out. I mean, the people watching.

00:19:23 Jess: Nothing better.

00:19:25 Danielle: Yeah. So sitting down, you've got your Murray's Bagels and some schmear and you're just watching all the people walk by.

00:19:33 Jess: Yeah, for sure. So you are an expert in adult learning. I'm curious. Who do you like to learn from?

00:19:42 Danielle: That is, great question. I really love tuning into… it's a company called Maestro. They're just, they keep it easy. They keep it simple. And they're very learner centric, which is important to me. All the fellow consultants that are in learning and development, like Nancy Bacon, Heather Burry, I mean, we all collaborate and cheer each other on. And so seeing what they're doing and how they're adapting their kind of learning structure always keeps me inspired, truly.

00:20:15 Jess: Love that. And I know you are a big fan of traveling. Do you have any next trips planned? And if so, where?

00:20:25 Danielle: Actually I'm thinking Montreal in October. I've never been. So, and you know, it'll still be warm down here in Texas. So more plans to go north.

00:20:43 Jess: I love it. Thank you for playing.

00:20:45 Danielle: Yeah.

00:20:49 Cindy: So you also help, as we know, consultants, including myself. I want to switch gears a little bit and talk about this kind of, like helping, how you help consultants, specifically one of the things I hear all the time is like, my next step is an online course. Right. And I don't always agree that is the right next step, but it is great. And a lot of people are moving towards one to many offerings as they get more established in their business. And there's tons of resources out there from like the Amy Porterfield’s or the James Wedmore on how to sell your program.

00:21:34 Cindy: But what I've found game changing and working with you is learning how to teach my program. So talk to us a little bit about that side of what you do or like, you know, how you work with consultants but specifically, like how do adults learn? Why is this actually something we need to understand before we start creating a program?

00:22:06 Danielle: That's a million dollar question and I love that you ask it because like, I mean, I hear it as well. You know, I want a course and I'm tired and I'm burnt out. And like, you shouldn't start a course with that.

00:22:20 Cindy: It's not going to solve all your problems. This is shit ton of work.

00:22:25 Danielle: It is. I'm like, get ready, because then you'll be burned out from the course and you'll hate PowerPoint, Google slides. So the biggest thing, especially with adult learners, like, they're highly tuned into self motivation. And the big question of like, how does this affect me? Right. Like if it's not relevant, if it's not connected to some kind of impact in their lives, like, is this going to make my life easier? Am I going to be able to raise more money? Or it's usually connected to economics and finances. If you can't connect those dots and then constantly reinforce over and over again and using like, and I'm obsessed and, you know, Cindy, you saw this, like use real stories and character guides to make it come to life.

00:23:12 Danielle: I think there's this false sense of, I can create a presentation and go from a core, like create a course from there. And a presentation is different. You know, it's kind of like, I'm looking at, even if you have an activity in your presentation, which is great. It's different than a course. A course says behavior change. I need your habits. I need your mindset and think about how big that is to ask an adult to do, like shift your mindset, shift how you think, shift how you react. So, yeah.

00:23:45 Cindy: I mean, that is exactly why I hired you, because I had like, no, I can give people information, but that's not going to get them to change their behavior. So what, break us, walk us through a little bit of some ways that you have helped people change the way that we teach so that we get that behavior change or like, what are some insights that will help us think about things a little differently that we can apply?

00:24:17 Danielle: Yeah. So my biggest thing is like the three P's, presentation, practice and production. And like, you want to be able to say, how do I step ladder my learner? Right. And so presentation, often it's like words on a slide or like me telling you something. We'll start with, you know, shock and awe, like come in with a pain point that someone is experiencing that's very relatable. But also even create action. I just did an audit for a workshop for another consultant. And I said, if they have, like it was for AI, if they have, you know, ChatGPT on their computers, have them take a moment, pause and like, put in the prompt so they can start to see themselves. Like the more hands on that you're able to connect, especially if it's still virtual only, the better. Right.

00:25:15 Danielle: And so it keeps them coming back, keeps them engaged, but also they're starting to develop new habits. The more you can touch something, the more you can do something. And then make your questions more critical. We often want to like, our assessments are, did you learn this? Did you not learn this? Instead of like, okay, so you learned, for example, you know, I learned that ChatGPT can have bias, right. And that was kind of the whole central and core to this workshop and it was Nina DiSesa. I hope she doesn't mind me saying, but she's amazing. And her workshop is phenomenal.

00:25:53 Danielle: And you know, now what can you do? And so creating a pause and say, all right, here's a prompt that came up that is biased. How would you fix this prompt? Right? And so instead of like, is this the right prompt? A, B or C, it's now, Oh, I have to like, again, reform and unlearn and relearn what exactly you as the instructor, as a facilitator, as the coach want me to do through action, right? So keeping it action-based is critical and it doesn't have to be big action. You don't want people running around or sweating unless it's like some camp gladiator thing, which is fine. But yeah, like always asking, can I get them to do something here?

00:26:41 Jess: Okay. That's super duper helpful. I'm, like sitting here curious and I'm thinking like, what does Danielle's ideal client come with in order to, like do this process well, to be ready to do this process. Well, you said you have, like a form specifically where you ask things like, have you, take feedback? And it's like, if they're like, I second taking feedback. You probably adjust how you do things. But like, what are some ready steps people can do before they actually engage with you and get things going? For example, like I have all of my curriculum in like a platform, but I don't necessarily have, like a written out syllabus. Maybe I should, you know, or everything right now is in video, but it's not necessarily also transcribed. Maybe I should do that.

00:27:38 Jess: Like what are two or three things you recommend people who do have courses and they're like, I don't know if this is effective, like, I don't know. Like what would you say before coming to you is kind of like step one, or is that something you walk people through and you kind of handhold them through that process so that is just another reason why you should increase your prices.

00:28:00 Danielle: Right. I think, well, and I've learned that sadly there's always the same three problem, learning objectives. So, you know, I, and I always have kind of, like, a five point list. I'm like, where do you think your biggest problems are? And so learning objectives for one, there's still the use of, if you get anything from this episode, words like understand, no, like I could know what you mean, K-N-O-W and then learn are too highly subjective. Yes, we use them a lot in every day, but like, when we have them as learning objectives, you're not going to be able to measure at all, like it's too subjective.

00:28:44 Danielle: So right away, you know, people can check for that. Then they're not going to know, they're going to know, they're going to be able to decipher, oh, okay, like, can I actually even measure this? And so if they're too subjective, they're not able to measure. So they're not going to be able to really pinpoint the problem. So looking at your learning objectives. The next is flow. Are you only presenting information? Because there has to be some kind of action in there and there has to be some production, is like my favorite. So you present, it's information that you need to know when you practice, show me that you're learning and you're kind of gaining skills and then production. You are owning it.

00:29:28 Danielle: So they're kind of starting to fly solo, like the baby bird and the nest. So they're starting to flop their wings, and you and they get to see, all right, you're now acquiring these and completely new skills. So if your whole flow, like in your course, is a lot of presentation, like for example, you have module one, you're like, I give all the information in module one. Well, you still need to have like each quadrant of like practice and production. So those are, that's another biggest challenge. And then I think the third is what kind of questions are you asking yourselves and of your learners? How are you really assessing? Cause if you have a pre-assessment and that's just to say how, you know, like how confident are you in creating learning objectives and you can use percentages.

00:30:16 Danielle: Like I'm 50%. Like I did that with this nonprofit that did my pro or that's doing my program now. And she's like, I'm like 40% to 50%. Like, and then ask, okay, like how would you explain learning objectives? So then when we're done, she gets the same assessment, but I get to see, did she go, was she like, oh, now I'm 30%. I completely didn't understand. Now it's worse or all right. I'm a solid, hopefully like 80%, 90% where I get under, like, there's metrics and actions, that's it, so having a pre-assessment and being able to measure is also kind of a big thing, like, do you have that in place?

00:30:57 Cindy: I love that because I think as people working in the nonprofit sector, and of course, your clients are also nonprofits and consultants, like those metrics and actions are critical because that's actually like, I think we sometimes forget that the impact has to be there. Like I, when I started learning about an online course, and this was probably back in 2017, I think I launched my first one, maybe even earlier, like the stat was going around, like only 3% of people who buy your course will actually complete it. And that scared the shit out of me. I was like, what? And it is because of how we design our curriculum.

00:31:44 Cindy: And so the metrics and actions actually let us know how we're doing and that people are actually, like, I think all of us want to make sure that whatever we're selling gets used properly. We don't want to take money from nonprofits and have them not actually benefit. So I think that that's such a critical piece to what you do and to all of us, like, I don't know how many of us have been invested in programs and not finished. Can we talk a little bit about the ways to bake that into the program or ways to encourage, to continue to encourage? So aside from, like, you talked about how to design the learning to encourage action, but how do we also encourage people to, you know, pass the finish line, like to get through and actually keep going outside of maybe the specific curriculum design, but in the container, like within the course design?

00:32:46 Danielle: Yeah, definitely. So you want them to kind of finish the course or like the kind of the, okay.

00:32:53 Cindy: Yeah. Maybe do the first module and you complete that action and things are looking good, but then you kind of get busy and things don't happen. And so like, how do we make sure that people are actually going through the program?

00:33:05 Danielle: Yeah. Oh my gosh. That's another million dollar question. Like, I feel like healthcare and higher ed and everything, they're like, how do you do them? And, you know, there's always the incentive route. You know, I know gamification is really big and really huge. I, for me personally, like the pre-work, involving and not getting too personal because, you know, you want to respect others, but asking like, is this the right time? And we talked about that a bit earlier. You know, have you time blocked this and, you know, can you show me? And like, it sounds almost like, insulting in elementary, but when it comes to adults, we are doing all the things.

00:33:47 Danielle: And so we want to be able to finish something and feel successful when it starts to kind of feel like, oh no, I'm failing, adding in support systems there. And so, you know, that's why my program, I know both of you, adding a coaching component, virtual only, online only, especially when consultants say, I don't want to do coaching. I want them to do the course and then that'll replace my one too many. It's never going to replace you. So adding a you element in there, adding kind of like, it may be accessibility, you know, can they, instead of typing, can they record, can it, they send you a video or something?

00:34:28 Danielle: There have been things where, you know, there was kind of an option instead of filling out a form, send a recording, like I mentioned, and then also can you do something different? You know, like there was this presentation where someone actually sent in a drawing. And I was like, okay, that's fine. Like explain your drawing, you know, like making it adaptable in a way that does fit your learner. And it does put a bit more pressure on you to be open because we, you know, not to ding the education systems, but we come from the framework of learning being, here's a form, here's a worksheet, learn the thing, regurgitate information, send it in and like, let's see how you're really learning when really you're just testing the knowledge in that moment. So adding in some grace to yourself as well, I think is always important. But being highly adaptable and knowing that you are going to have to shift even within, kind of your course in the moment by saying what could work, right.

00:35:34 Cindy: Yeah. I think that's so important to understand that, like different people show up differently. And now with kids in the education system, I see it big time. So Danielle, one of our favorite questions, in fact, the only question we ever ask every single episode is for confession. What's your confession? So share with us one thing that, maybe you wouldn't tell other people about your business or about how you run your business, something that has been hard to say out loud before.

00:36:14 Danielle: Oh gosh. Now I almost want to go, camera off. So I always, when people come to me, they're always like, Oh, I know it's bad. It's sad. If you're worried, you don't have a bad curriculum. If those–

00:36:29 Cindy: I love that.

00:36:31 Jess: Totally.

00:36:33 Danielle: Are worried that are like, I'm good past, like I've had consultants, like private message me and be like, actually, did you know the words you're using are out of date, like pushback and it's really like, why are you the expert way? And I knew I was like, you're the one with the problem. And that's how it is. If you're worried, you're not doing as bad as you think. Trust me. You are focused on the right things. You're probably like, learner centric. If you think you're sailing and flying high and you probably have big gaps. And I don't know if I want to–

00:37:07 Jess: I love that too, that's such a good confession.

00:37:10 Cindy: Love, love, love that because it's, they say the same thing about imposter syndrome, right? Like if you're worried, and if you feel imposter syndrome, chances are it's because you are trying and you're doing most of the things right. And, but you really care. And if you think you're like this shit and you don't know, need any work or help, chances are, you're really not.

00:37:32 Jess: Yeah. I have a friend who says the world could be divided into people who are self-aware and everyone else. So that's kind of that.

00:37:41 Cindy: Oh, love it.

00:37:43 Jess: Danielle, this was such a helpful conversation and I can't wait for more consultants specifically since that's [inaudible] listening to know more about you. If folks want to get in touch or reach out to you with a question, what's the best way for them to do that?

00:37:58 Danielle: Yeah. So either LinkedIn or email. So it's my first name Danielle, and then @dgconsultancy.us. I'm not being big, like us.com was taken. Just FYI.

00:38:16 Cindy: Amazing. Danielle, thank you so much for joining us on the podcast and for your awesome work.

00:38:23 Cindy: Thank you, ladies. This was a pleasure. Always happy to meet with you both.

00:38:26 Cindy: Thank you again for listening to the Confessions podcast for nonprofit coaches and consultants. If you enjoyed today's episode, which I sure hope you did, you can show your support in one of three ways.

00:38:38 Jess: Number one, post the screenshot of this episode to your Instagram stories or LinkedIn profile and tag Cindy and I so we can repost you.

00:38:46 Cindy: Number two, share this podcast with a fellow nonprofit coach or consultant.

00:38:51 Jess: And number three, leave a positive review on Apple podcasts so we can continue to grow and reach new listeners.

00:38:56 Cindy: And of course, make sure you subscribe so you can get the latest and greatest interviews as they drop every Thursday.

00:39:03 Jess: And to our fellow nonprofit coaching and consulting friends, remember, we're an open book and here to answer your burning biz questions.

00:39:11 Cindy: See you next time.