What do you get when you cross a former teacher, a recovering course junkie, and a tech geek? The answer is Joanna May!
Joanna helps course creators use instructional design and email automation to create evergreen course experiences that mirror live courses–and with a background in Instructional Design and nearly 2 decades of experience in education, she’s the secret weapon all course creators need.
Joanna’s episode with us here on Creator Stories is long overdue because…fun fact, she’s been working with Interact since 2018. You might recognize her from quiz coaching or The Quiz Collective Community where she helps Interact quiz creators with all things tech. She’s truly a tech wizard and we are so excited to share her journey from her beginnings as a teacher to an entrepreneur today on Creator Stories.
Joanna’s website: https://joannamaymarketing.com/
Jessmyn:
Welcome to Interact’s Creator Stories podcast. Interact is the easiest way to convert curious people into loyal and happy customers by using a lead generating quiz. On Creator Stories we get to hear the entrepreneur’s journey. This is a podcast about how those creators took their knowledge and experiences to carve out a place in the world, owned what they know is special about themselves, and turned it into a successful company. Today we get to speak with Joanna May from Joanna May Marketing, who helps course creators use instructional design and email automations to create an evergreen course experience that mirrors a live course. All right, let’s get started.
Hi guys, and welcome back to Interact’s Creator Stories podcast. I’m your host, Jessmyn Solana. So excited to be with you as always. And today I have with me Joanna May. Joanna, thank you for joining us.
Joanna May:
Thank you so much for having me. I’m super excited to be here.
Jessmyn:
Of course. And this has been a long time coming. Fun fact for you guys, Joanna has been working with us since, I think, 2017?
Joanna May:
I think 18, but yeah.
Jessmyn:
- A long time. I feel like we’ve been at Interact around about the same time.
Joanna May:
Yeah, yeah. Pretty close.
Jessmyn:
Pretty close. So this has been a long time coming. Joanna, people have heard your more formal bio. Do you want to give us a little bit more detail, talk a little about cus… Oh gosh, wow, tongue twister. Talk a little bit about the customers that you serve and then take us back to the beginning. How did you get started in all of this?
Joanna May:
Sure. Okay. So I am Joanna May, and so my business is called Joanna May Marketing because it’s a super original name, obviously. And so what I do is I love working with, especially course creators, to help them nurture their audience to finish their courses so that they achieve the transformation and then will tell their friends and buy from them again. So officially, I’m helping course creators grow their visibility and their revenue. And I do that in two ways. So I love email marketing, Jess knows this. I’ve worked with email marketing since I started my business in 2018. And so I use email automations to transform courses from that evergreen feeling that nobody really finishes, into more of a cohort experience. So doing that through automations, checking in with them, stuff like that. So I use email automations. And then I also use instructional design.
I was a teacher for 15 years and so I have a master’s degree in instructional design back there, it looks so pretty, and it’s been very helpful in keeping, I don’t know, the picture frame filled. So what I do is I audit courses and help them make sure that everything is set up to help their customers or their course takers succeed and then nurture them through the email marketing. So it’s kind of a hybrid combination that’s not traditionally put together, I would say. And so it really is to help your customers succeed so that then they’ll want to buy from you again and tell other people how amazing you are. So I do, besides the tech stuff with the email automations, I also do copywriting for email marketing. So it all works together. So that is the gist of my main offering. I do write quiz funnels periodically, and so I am an Interact certified consultant. But yeah, the main part is really focused on course creators and helping them just provide a better experience to grow their visibility and the revenue.
Going back to starting my business, I did start out as a virtual assistant. And so that’s actually how I started working with Interact was as their blog manager. So that was one of the services I started out with. My original website is, and it’s still active, is May Virtual Assists. And so I’ve kind of added a second arm with the Joanna May Marketing so that I can really help, so I can help people with what they really need and so they can fully understand instead of a general virtual assistant website that kind of, here I’m here to help you and whatever that looks like, then it’s more focused on my new service offerings. So yeah, I offered blog management, I offered Pinterest management, eventually pivoted just email marketing. And then I’m a tech person, so I do the tech coaching for Interact. So I just started out with that and then just moved focus over focusing, nicheing down, niching down, depending on how you say that word, to really what is my passion and what I really believe is how I can help people.
Does that answer the question?
Jessmyn:
It does. I love it. I love it. I don’t know what word to use either. I always say niche.
Joanna May:
Yeah. Yeah, I talk about niches, but then niching for me feels like the word.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, I know both work. But yeah, I always just use both or I wait for someone else to say it, then I’ll use the same one that they use. And we had talked about this a little bit before we hit record. You are in the middle of pivoting your business and expanding more into a marketing niche, niche. This is going to bug me now. Guys, tell me what you say. And you are expanding this, tell me a little bit more about what that decision was like to go, I mean, you’ve been doing virtual assistance… Assistancey?
Joanna May:
Assisting.
Jessmyn:
Assisting. Gosh, wow, it’s Monday for me guys. But you’ve been doing that for-
Joanna May:
I think for everybody.
Jessmyn:
You’ve been doing that for quite a while and you realize, okay, well I’m doing of all this other work and it’s more marketing focused. It’s very, there’s more than just being a virtual assistant. So what was that decision like pivoting and finally making that move?
Joanna May:
So for me, my biggest drawback as to why I didn’t want to change the name was because I do have a small SEO. I mean, I have one blog post on Pinterest that is the featured post on Google, and I’m like, “What if no one can find me if I switch?” So for me, for a long time that was like, okay, I’m not going to switch because I don’t want to lose my little Google juice. But then there’s also people who come to my website expect a VA, and there is nothing wrong with being a VA. There are very qualified VAs, but pricing doesn’t always match where I would like it to be when people expect a VA.
And for me, that’s a real thing because I want to be able to be successful at what I do. I want to be able to help people, but I am also working to provide some support to my family and stuff like that. And that’s not really possible if people are expecting a price point of $5, $10 even, I mean even $50 that, and especially when I look at my experience and my background. I have a master’s degree, I have multiple years of experience at this. I am a certified consultant with Interact. I am a certified mailer light expert. I have multiple things that support the idea of a higher price point that didn’t fit with the title of virtual assistant. And then, yeah…
Jessmyn:
I was going to say that I feel like this kind of speaks to a bigger thing of this common misconception that if you call yourself a virtual assistant, you’re just starting out. This is the first step before you start a business, sort of, and I have heard people say it in the past where they would say, “I started out as a virtual assistant because I didn’t know what I wanted to do, so I just did everything.” So I totally hear what you’re saying there is… It’s interesting because there’s more to it than what you would think a virtual assistant would do, kind of do all these different things. But people expect that, oh, you’re starting, this is a starter, so you should charge starter prices. But that’s not necessarily the case.
Joanna May:
Yeah, definitely. I mean, it is hard, you know, you always worry about pricing yourself out of the market. And if someone is looking for a virtual assistant, quite often they don’t know what they need. And then they might hire you for one thing, but then they’ll keep asking you for other things, to do other things. And I don’t like to say no to people. I want to be helpful and I’m willing to help them. But it does add more on to the responsibilities. And I did end up doing things I hated. I did some email management where I was managing in the inbox, hated it. I did some social media stuff, hated it, and I’m bad at it. So I found that nicheing down or niching down gets me, has gotten me to a spot where I do think that I love. I love helping people grow their courses.
I love writing emails. Like subscriber emails, not like emails for email management. I love instructional design, I love looking at analytics. I was meeting with a client earlier and we were looking at the analytics and all the different things and where are these people coming from and solving mysteries. So for me, I love that and I love the opportunity to get to do that for my clients. And so I’ve just found that I can more effectively do it if I’m focused on what I want to do and I do a better job if I’m doing what I want to do.
Jessmyn:
In this sort of period of transitioning, you’re getting more clear on what your business is, what you’re good at, what you like doing as… I know you mentioned a little bit about feeling worried that people might not find you and you had that SEO juice going on. What does it feel like right now as it’s been a few months and you are doing it, you’re still doing it, even though you had that fear? What is it like?
Joanna May:
Well, I am getting people to my new website, which is good. And is it fast? No, I mean I have had clients come back to me with my, and so then I’ve been able to talk to them about my new service offerings or whatever. And they’ve been very interested and receptive and stuff. It is a little bit like growing a business again, but now I kind of feel like I know how to do it. So I’m not walking down a dark hallway with no flashlight. I at least have a little bit of a flashlight because I’ve done this before. And so in some ways it’s easier. In some ways it is kind of different because I’m so focused on what I know that I want to do that I don’t… I totally lost my train of thought, but it’s almost frustrating in that it’s not happening faster because I’m like, I know what I’m doing, people should hire me for this. But obviously there’s a process you have to go through.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, it’s tough. It’s definitely interesting. You think, okay, it’ll just kind of flow. I already had this momentum going, once I make that pivot then it should be easy peasy or it should happen twice as fast as the first time. But it does go to show that it may not always happen that way. It may not always happen as fast or nothing ever goes to plan.
Joanna May:
Yeah, I mean I love it. It’s all about the journey, not the destination kind of thing. And I do, I’m learning things as I go too, about patience, about all sorts of things.
Jessmyn:
You feel like it’s not happening as fast, but in a way there’s less pressure to sort deliver the way that maybe if you had say a billion customers, I know that was a stretch. I mean, let’s say it happened super fast, you feel like there’s less pressure because you could actually test some things out. Maybe you have a client and you’re like, oh, I didn’t think… It kind of fits with the wheelhouse of what I want to do, but I haven’t tried that yet.
Joanna May:
Yeah, I mean definitely I think there is a lot of freedom in not being known for the thing. So that doesn’t come. So when you are known for the thing, it would be a little weird if Interact decided that they were going to start offering websites. They’re not known for that, so why would they do that? But they could possibly explore things that fit with adjacent type things that might make sense. They do have freedom within that. But again, completely different things. It’s a lot easier to be anonymous and do things that way.
Jessmyn:
I think about this all the time with this sort of jump in, everybody wanting to be a creator on Instagram, on TikTok, but you know, you get to a certain point and now everybody’s watching you and every little move you make and cancel culture is such a thing right now. So I totally hear what you’re saying.
Joanna May:
Yeah.
Jessmyn:
Something that caught my ear earlier was you had mentioned that you were a teacher for 15 years. So tell me about that. I feel like you very subtly said it, you’re like, “Yeah, and then I started a business.”
Joanna May:
Well I mean it is. It’s interesting coming from education, being a teacher is so central to your identity because it’s all about, that’s what you do. I mean, part of the reason I left teaching was because I had kids and I didn’t feel that I could be a good teacher and a good mom. It just is not possible. And while I still love education, I fully support education. For me it was just, I couldn’t do it and I couldn’t do it as a mom and a teacher. And so I have all this information. Before I left my job, I can remember crying to my husband, “I don’t know what I can do because I don’t know how to do anything else.” I knew how to teach and that’s it. So it was hard. It was so hard leaving education. And I mean, I’ve since learned that I have a lot of skills that I used in education that have transferred over.
Using tech is part of education. And I mean teaching people how to use tech. That was part of my job description as a teacher. And so working with Interact, setting up these automations, all of that ties in directly with what I did as a teacher. And then the whole instructional design thing. I mean, I had to plan things so that people could learn. And that sometimes with course creators, that can be missing. They don’t have that specialization as to… They know their content backwards, forwards, upside down, right side up, all the ways. But it doesn’t always present itself in a way that people can easily learn.
So just a little… Most of us don’t have 15, $20,000 to hire an instructional designer who is focused on helping them learn, helping them develop all of the course materials. Which is why I start with an audit so that I can help you look at it and say, “Oh, this is working well, here are some suggestions.” And that’s what I do. I look at the course, make suggestions for that. I look at the emails they’re sending, make suggestions for that, and we go from there. And then they can decide. They’re like, “Hey, this is great.” And they can say, “Okay, I need you to take care of all of this.”
Jessmyn:
No, that’s a lot. You do it.
Joanna May:
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. And so that then goes to the next service. But some of them, they’re like, “Oh, I love these suggestions. I can totally make these changes.” And so then, I love that I’ve helped them and they can go on their way. For those that want me to do that, I love that I can do that for them and they don’t have to worry about it. So it’s just-
Jessmyn:
In a way, you’re still getting the satisfaction that you were as a teacher, just different way with different people.
Joanna May:
It is. The ones I work with now are taller, at least I think they are. Usually I only see about this much of them.
Jessmyn:
I really love that you sort of made this connection between transferring your skills from what you were doing before to now. I think that, I mean, even teaching is very different than if you were to start out in corporate or maybe you’re in banking or whatever, but if you are thinking about starting a business on your own and you don’t know where to start, but you just know this might be what it looks like, you really just have to peel back, okay, what are my skills? What am I good at? What do I like? And you don’t even realize that will transfer over into a business that you can actually have services and that can become your offers.
Joanna May:
Yeah, actually I did a training on, well it was for a client, focus on finding your niche or your niche. I pronounced it niche in that training and that was hard cause that was 30 minutes of me saying that word repeatedly, but on finding your niche. And so it was what are you good at? What do you like to do? And what does the market need? Because if you don’t consider that, you might have an amazing job that, or have amazing skillset and amazing interest, but if nobody needs it? You got to find the people that are willing to pay you for it too.
Jessmyn:
That’s I think the hardest part, but I feel like I’ve talked to a ton of people who started out as side hustles. They don’t always kind of have this realization, quit what they’re doing, and then just jump right into it. So I love that there’s this process or this formula that, I don’t know, maybe this needs to be an offer for you, Joanna, that you figured out. Kind of figuring out what that is and what that looks like. If you were to come to me and say like, “Yeah, I’m a teacher, but I want to own a business,” I would probably be confused at first.
Joanna May:
You’re like, “You going to be a tutor? What are you going to do?” And I mean, I did that for a while. I tutored when my boys were first. I took time off of teaching. But yeah, so I did that and I was like, I can’t be a tutor. I mean there’s not enough hours in the day for me to tutor for. And I had to leave my family to go to the people’s houses.
Jessmyn:
It sounds like that was a really tough decision of I love what I do, but I just love my kids more in a sense. And that’s where you want to be. So having to make that decision sort of selflessly for other people must have been super tough.
Joanna May:
It was, it definitely was. I would say it was partially, selfishly too because I mean, for me, for my mental health, for my time. I’m not going to lie, I love that I work four or five hours a day as opposed to leaving home at 6:30 and not getting home till almost five. And then having hours in the night to grade things because that’s the life of a teacher.
And so selfishly I’m like, I need my sleep, I need my mental health. But I mean also, yes, I did want to do what’s best for my family and then also the kids that I was teaching because they weren’t getting what they needed or what I had been able to give them before I had my own children. So that was a big part of it was because I didn’t have the same amount of time. Because I have to be a mom, I have to cook dinner. I mean, I don’t have to, but it’s either that or we pick up fast food every night. And for me, part of my identity of being a mom is I want to be able to feed my children healthy food too.
Jessmyn:
Was there a point where you made this transition, you made the decision, you did it, but you were sort of in between getting started and you were like, shoot, what did I do?
Joanna May:
I would say yes. I actually taught part-time for two years. I don’t even know if you knew this. I taught part-time for two years, from 2018 to 2020. I was also teaching part-time, I was teaching two days a week. And so Tuesdays and Thursdays, we never met on Tuesdays or Thursdays, because I was teaching those days. But I got to the point that I was losing money by teaching.
I was like, because I cannot be working on my business, I am losing money doing this. And I liked it, but not enough that it made sense for me to give up two days a week to do it. That when I could be doing things for my clients. And so yeah, it was the end of the school year in 2020. So the last six weeks of my teaching was virtual because of the start of COVID. And so that was special. But yeah, it was, and that was the point that I’m like, look, I’m losing money by teaching. If I go back to teaching and did it full time, yes, I’d be making more money, but I’d be right back where I was and that’s not what I want either. So I was like, okay, we’re going all in. So thankfully my husband puts up with me. He’s like, “Okay, go do it.”
Jessmyn:
It’s so crazy because my first thought for leaving this, and even though there was uncomfortability with teaching and not having time, there was this kind of safety component of, okay, well I’m going to have an income. And I guess what advice would you have for people if they’re trying to weigh the pros and cons of a situation like that where part of it is more emotional, but then part of it’s also logical. Okay, well I need to make money, I need to have an income, but then I also am sort of suffering in a way.
Joanna May:
Yeah, I would definitely say I know that I am incredibly privileged in that I have a partner, a husband who has a very stable job, makes good money and I supplement it. But we are not dependent on my salary. We’re not. I contribute, but it’s not my responsibility to make sure that the mortgage gets paid, it’s not my responsibility to make sure we have health insurance. So I know I am very privileged and not everyone has that privilege. And I will say that, so I do have a safety that a lot of people. So you do have to find that balance as to if I had stayed in teaching full-time trying to do this, I would’ve probably lost my mind.
It would not have ended well. So for me, the financial gain was not worth the mental health. That was just, it wasn’t worth it. And so there were days that I was teaching that I’m like, screw it, I’m going to go work at Target. I love Target, but right? But I’m like, I’m going to have to work at Target for 80 hours a week to make my teacher salary, which was why I then started the business. And then once it was I like having my business, I like working at home, I like the work I do with my customers and I’m losing money on the days I’m teaching? It was not hard at all to let that… It was like, okay, we’re done with that for now. Could I go back to teaching sometimes? Sure, my certificate is lapsed, but I pay $69 and it’ll be current again and I can go back to work. But for me right now, this is what I need. And it really is. I love it.
Jessmyn:
I love that you said sort of finding the balance, because you’re right, there’re different circumstances for different people. Maybe you’re starting a business but you’re not married or you don’t have another income to fall back on, or maybe you’re the breadwinner, things like that. There’re different circumstances. So it’s just sort okay, taking a step back and really weighing those out of, okay, what can I let go of, what do I need to keep? What’s the biggest priority for me?
Joanna May:
Yeah, I mean if I had to provide insurance, that would be the thing. Because again, we can talk about insurance in the US and all the things, but yeah, because my family comes first, so that is what it is.
Jessmyn:
I love that. When you were going through this and you finally made the switch, I guess, was there a part of you in that uncertainty that you had feelings of, should I just go back to teaching? Should I go back? Or if that was wasn’t the case, how did you talk to yourself or support yourself in that, hey, you can do this, take it out for a little bit longer. What did that part look like?
Joanna May:
I would say, I mean, I still have days that I’m like, am I really sure that this is it? But then I’m like, no, I love this. There are the bad days, there are good days. In every situation there are bad days, there are good days. And so you just have to figure out, do the good outweigh the bad? If there are more bad then good you might need to make a change if it’s… But also there’s also a sense of commitment in that I knew I wasn’t quitting my job before my contract was up. That was a thing. So I’m like, I will stick it out till the end of the year because I’ve only ever worked as a teacher. So there’s always that set time. Like I only have to make it to the end of the school year and then I can make a choice.
Whereas in a job, like your job, what two weeks notice? If you’re like, I’m done here, you give two weeks and you’re done. So in my contract it’s 30 days. So when I’m working with a client, if we’re on a retainer thing, then it’s like we have to give 30 days notice and then we’re done. So it’s a little bit different. Or if it’s project based, it’s the project gets done or we decide that this isn’t working and then… But it really is, every situation is different. So yes, there were days when I was teaching that I had to give myself pep talks. There are days now that I have to give myself pep talks.
Jessmyn:
I think moral of the story is always give yourself pep talks because they work.
Joanna May:
Yeah, it’s true. I talk a lot. I talk to myself a lot too. And so some days I need other people to give me pep talks. And so having those people that think you’re amazing and tell you so is great. My husband does that, my mother does that.
Jessmyn:
Those are important.
Joanna May:
My children do that.
Jessmyn:
Oh, that’s important.
I love that. Well, Joanna, thank you so much for telling us your story. So inspiring. I have two questions that I close out with if you’re open to it.
Joanna May:
Sure.
Jessmyn:
Okay. So second to last question, what are three things most people would not know about you?
Joanna May:
Three things. First thing was I actually lived in the Middle East for four years.
Jessmyn:
Wow. I feel like you might have told me that.
Joanna May:
I’ve told you that, but I talk to you more than other people. So I lived in Dubai, which is why I have the Dubai skyline right here.
Jessmyn:
I love that.
Joanna May:
Out of Legos. So that’s one thing. Kind of tied with that, I know about seven words in Arabic, even though I lived in the Middle East for four years. I know seven words of Arabic. The third one, I love to sing.
Jessmyn:
Oh, that one I did not know.
Joanna May:
No, you didn’t know. I don’t do it a lot, but I’m always, I make up songs for my sons to wake him up in the morning and I sing in the car. So the boys and I jam out to music from the eighties, nineties, and today kind of station.
Jessmyn:
Love that.
Joanna May:
So yeah, we’ve got everything from Whitney Houston to Ace of Base. They know some Backstreet Boys. They know [inaudible 00:34:08] going on in there.
Jessmyn:
I love that. I just had a core memory unlocked when you said, “I wake them up by singing.” My sister used to take back in the day, oh God, I’m aging myself, but we had those big stereo system. And she would turn on the radio and take one speaker and put it right at my face.
Joanna May:
That’s just mean.
Jessmyn:
Yeah, that’s how she woke me up. I’m the youngest, so that’s what happens.
Joanna May:
No, I’m very nice. There’s songs, their names are in the songs. It’s all something.
Jessmyn:
It’s like a beautiful angelic voice. My sister was just like, “Wake up.” No, yeah. I love that. Okay, last question for you. If you could give yourself a single piece of advice at the start of it all, what would it be?
Joanna May:
I would say probably it would be really, really think about what you’re good at and figure out how you can use that to help people. And it might not be a way that anyone else would think it would. I mean, whoever thought about combining instructional design and email marketing? I mean, that’s weird.
So it’s okay, it’s okay to be weird. But yeah, just finding out what you’re really good at and figuring out how to make that work for people. And so you don’t have to do, I mean when I started in 2017, 2018, Pinterest was the big thing. It was right before it went public. I was like, okay, I’m going to be a Pinterest manager. And I hated it. So yeah, I’m like… And it’s okay to try things and fail. That’s another really big thing. Because it is, it’s okay to try and fail. We’ve all done it. We’ll all do it again.
Jessmyn:
It’ll happen. It’ll happen.
Joanna May:
Yes.
Jessmyn:
Well, where can people find you online?
Joanna May:
So the best spot is my website because I’m really bad at social media. You can find me on LinkedIn and that’s actually Joanna E. May. I’m there, I’m inconsistent. But yeah, so those are probably the best two places. If you want to look at some really bad, bad Instagram stuff, that’s the place to be. I have eight posts. I go through spurts and they’re about a year in between. It’s fabulous.
Jessmyn:
At least you let people know. So they will, they’ll get there and wonder if it’s real or not.
Joanna May:
Yes. No, it’s real. It’s me. I’m just bad at it. Reason number 587 I don’t offer social media marketing as my offerings.
Jessmyn:
And then your website URL.
Joanna May:
Yes, that is joannamaymarketing.com. Don’t go to joannamay. She’s an artist in the UK. I tried so many combinations and I’m like, “And we’re going with this.” So joannamaymarketing love it. And my last name is actually May, it’s not two first names. That’s my actual real name.
Jessmyn:
I always wondered that.
Joanna May:
Yeah. Yeah.
Jessmyn:
Now I know. That’s another thing that I didn’t know about you.
Joanna May:
Yes.
Jessmyn:
We’ve known each other for so long.
Joanna May:
Is very true. Joanna May is my, I actually got married to become Joanna May.
Jessmyn:
And we’ll link that for you guys. So you will have that in the show notes. But Joanna, thank you so much.
Joanna May:
Thank you.
Jessmyn:
I always love chatting with you. For those of you listening, don’t know, every time we get on a call, it’s 30 minutes, but we spend 20 minutes talking about life and 10 minutes talking about work. So love it.
Joanna May:
Shhh, don’t tell Josh that, or Annie, don’t tell Annie that.
Jessmyn:
I love it. I love it. Well guys, thank you so much. We’ll see you next time and…
Joanna May:
Thank you so much for having me guest. Bye.
Jessmyn:
Bye.