Chris Badgett: You’ve come to the right place if you’re a course creator looking to build more impact, income, and freedom. LMScast is the number-one podcast for course creators just like you. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I’m the co-founder of the most powerful tool for building, selling, and protecting engaging online courses called LifterLMS. Enjoy the show.

Chris Badgett: Hello, and welcome back to another episode of LMScast. I’m joined by a special guest, Susan Wheeler Hall. How you doing, Susan?

Susan: Great, great, thanks Chris.

Chris Badgett: It’s great to have you on the show. We’re going to be talking about accessibility, and also Susan’s journey as an entrepreneur, a WordPress person, a course creator, and a champion and advocate for accessibility. And we’re just going to get into that and what that means in all kinds of different ways. But just to set the context for the episode here, can you tell us about you, yourself, and dealing with chronic illness, and how your accessibility story began? Where did all this arise out of?

Susan: Sure, that was a big question. Well, I was born with a disability. So my mother had it, and I have another brother with the same disability. It’s a progressive neuromuscular disorder called Charcot-Marie-Tooth, but nobody really knows. So it’s just, hey, what it seemed to you, it is what it is.

Susan: So it impacts me in the way that I walk very little these days, but I’m still walking, so that’s a good thing. I type with three fingers now. I started with all of them, but it sort of progressed. But it’s an interesting thing, that word progress, because in the medical world, it has totally different connotation. It can be both, “Hey, you’re doing well, you’re making progress,” and, “Oh, by the way, you have a progressive disease.” So you’re progressing in the wrong direction.

Susan: But it’s never really stopped me. I think I live by what I call my unstoppable principle. And one thing for sure, my disability has been my best friend, because it always teaches me to find another way. There’s always another way. And that’s what I really love about online work, because it’s a real level playing ground, if you like. Because disability was never really my best asset in the employment world, let’s put it that way. Which is why I decided, in my early 20s, to go to university and study social work, because I figured it would be the one place that my disability would work for me. And certainly did. But then I have this really strong entrepreneurial side to me, so counseling work alone just didn’t satisfy me, so I did a lot of writing, public speaking, disability advocacy, teaching about how to sell and service to the disabled population, things like that.

Chris Badgett: What brought you into the fold of WordPress? Because you also have your own design service, consultancy. Where did WordPress enter the picture? How did that happen? Were you blogging?

Susan: No, I had a publishing business, was part of, one of the things I did with writing books and back-of-the-room sales kind of thing. So the publishing work, it just naturally evolved into the web-work. She thinks I’m talking to her — my cat.

Chris Badgett: It’s common on podcasts where, if somebody has a cat, and as soon as they started talking, it comes over and …

Susan: Yeah, and dogs bark, bark. Yeah, so my publishing work just naturally evolved into web work, which I found really cool, because I’m very creative. So that’s how I got into that. And I paid someone, initially, to work on a website for a large disease organization, actually, and I work with them in New York. But them, I’m just entrepreneurial and I love learning, so I really love WordPress, so I got into it. And you just grow. Work is, there’s so much to learn. So that’s how I got into WordPress.

Susan: And then the online course creation, my first course was called, “Living Well when Unwell.” That was more of my coaching work. And that went really well. I really liked it.

Chris Badgett: So you were helping other people with dealing with chronic illness.

Susan: Yeah, it was very cool, because I had people from Norway and Alaska and Scotland, all over the place. It was wonderful, because there’s a real lack of support for people when they’re adjusting to a chronic disease or an illness. So yeah, it was a six-week course, and I really enjoyed doing that, but again, that’s one of the coaching, counseling work. But then that’s what led me into, I wanted to do it myself, get it on my own platform, and then that’s how I’ve been with Lifter.

Chris Badgett: Awesome, and one of your sights, lifesmarts.ca, I think, is a very beautiful implementation of a website. It’s got a nice, clean design. And you’re selling accessibility training courses into three different markets: festivals, theaters, and restaurants. And I just think the organization, the design, the implementation of the tools you chose to use for that, is a really great example of what you can do with an online course site, and also you’re selling in bulk, to businesses where you have a group plan, where they can have one to 49 students, or an organization plan where can have 50 to 100. Or a solo, one-person single student seat. This is a more advanced implementation, and you’ve done a really good job on all of the levels, from design to development and marketing and everything. It just looks really clean. What’s the story of that? Why did you make this?

Susan: I did that because I think I mentioned it to you before, I did some work with the cruise industry, and I’m teaching them how to sell and service to clients with disabilities. And then my partner, she’s a radiologist, so we go to a lot of festivals. So then I become like the accessibility police. So then I just started working with a lot of EDs and ADs on how to make their outdoor festival more accessible. So that’s how that started. And then we got hooked in with a music festival on a cruise. And then so it just seemed to naturally come together. So they asked me to do some training webinars. And I said, “Hey, how about if I make you an online course?” And they’re like, “Giddy-up.”

Susan: So I did that. That was the launch of that, the Life Smarts Accessibility Training. And then the good thing about that was, because of the tools that you have on Lifter, I can just clone them, which is great. So then I cloned it for restaurants and businesses and other markets, if you like. And then just tweaked them. Because it’s some basics. The accessibility training is not rocket science. It’s just basically knowing how to respectfully talk with people with disabilities. And basically, my goal in the training is to help the salesperson, if you like, or the cruise person or whoever, to feel more confident when they interact with a client or a customer with disabilities. So that was the goal. That’s how I was came about.

Chris Badgett: What do you do? Just I’m asking on behalf of other course creators out there that, when you’re doing a business-to-business sale. What marketing advice do you have just for how to get customers or clients for this type of training. What do you do? What’s working really well for you for marketing?

Susan: Yeah, or not.

Chris Badgett: Or are they just finding you?

Susan: Yeah, a little bit of both. I find that if you do one thing well, if you get in there and you do a good job with one festival, then they talk to-

Chris Badgett: Word of mouth.

Susan: … each other.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, yeah.

Susan: And then I do go to some industry conferences. So again, my partner, because of her work, she’ll go as the MC for a conference. And then I go and I get in free if I offer a presentation on accessibility. And then that’s how that started. So yeah, I go to a number of conferences like that.

Susan: And initially, I started by saying, well, it’s a little bit different here in Canada than in the US. I know that from my work. In the US, it’s much more welcomed. You have a bigger market. And so often, what I’ve done here is I’ll offer to do a full day presentation for free. And then that will create the interest. And then the next year, they welcome me back and pay me.

Chris Badgett: Playing the long game. That’s really cool. That’s good advice. And you’re getting out of the building and you’re going in front of people and doing stuff. It makes a lot of sense.

Susan: Yeah, and you know what was really interesting was this last winter, I was supposed to speak at a big conference in Montreal, and there’s big snow problem, we couldn’t go. And I was like, “Well, hey, I could do it online.” So there I was at the conference, still doing it online and then teaching about the online training. And then one of the other marketing things that I do, that really works well, is one person in attendance will get a free pass for 100 students.

Chris Badgett: Oh, like a giveaway kind of thing?

Susan: Yeah.

Chris Badgett: Cool. I’m a big fan of the giveaway. We use that in our marketing stack as well. Well, I want to get into our main conversation around accessibility here. And just to note, in the WordPress ecosystem in general, accessibility’s a hot topic. There’s a lot of people that are working to make it better. Things are okay but they’re not great or perfect by any means. Companies like mine, software companies, it’s important to us, but me personally, as a leader in a software company, I need some help figuring out what’s going on and what should I do. What’s the top priority. I think there’s an education gap, which hopefully, we’re going to get into today, so that people in any business, whether you’re selling courses or software, you have a brick and mortar business, just open the eyes to accessibility. And yeah, take us to school.

Susan: Well, okay, I’ve got a little, let me open up my screen a little bit. So I have to hit the share-the-screen thing, right? And sorry for the people on it. Oops. View. There I go, all right. So accessibility in online courses. Yeah, because I wanted to keep this conversation specific to online courses because that’s why we’re here. But basically the main things that I think are important to this market would be the overlooked client — well obviously, when I mean client — the customer population, underused employment segments, cross diversity, universal impact in learning styles.

Susan: And if you look at the population alone, this is one of the difference in Canada and the US, 61 million compared to 3.8 million in Canada, but that’s because you have a truckload of more people than we do. But that does mean that you have a larger market than here in Canada. So if I had to say the bulk of my work in selling services and supports to do with disability has come from the US, more so than Canada, I have to really fight for work here. Much easier in the US.

Susan: And in terms of underemployment, there’s a really large talent pool of people with disabilities, because working from home is ideal, and it creates more of a level playing field for people with disabilities. So things like VA and tech support. For a lot of your businesses like yourself, that are looking to hire people that maybe one tech support and one not, this is a great pool to work in, because people with disabilities primarily are not scared of devices, because we need a lot of them. And like I say, there’s a lot of people that need to work from home as opposed to want to work from home.

Susan: And there’s the transferrable skills. Problem-solving comes really easy for folks that have to deal with ongoing changes in their body and their health and life. So like in my case, it’s like retire or reinvent myself, and I just keep going for the reinvention.

Susan: And the cross-diversity thing. We are the only, I guess, marginalized group, you could say, that crosses them all. We’re going to show up in every single one of them. When I say “us”, I’m referring to people with various disabilities. And as the technology advances, certainly there’s a lot more people with disabilities online, which is great.

Susan: And in terms of universal impact, though, this might be really useful to you in terms of a web provider or software company knowing the guidelines in terms of what to follow, to make your product more amenable for people in a universal way. And the universal design, it can get really complicated. But so I’ve just pulled out the four basics for you. So the four main things that people look for is perceivability in terms of making sure that things are understood, little things like that the alt text in your image library. Now that’s a big deal. It’s usually one of the last minute things that someone may or may not do, because you’re always changing images, but for the visually impaired, that’s the only way they’re ever going to see your image, because they need to hear it back to them.

Susan: And then making sure that things are operable, keyboard and mouse access. And this is, like I said, I type with three fingers and so I’m feeling pretty good at doing that sort of thing, to get speedier over the years. But there’s certain most things that I can’t do, and I find different ways to adapt to do that.

Susan: So there are a lot of little tools, like when you’re planning something, just to make sure can it be done by a keyboard, can it be done by a mouse? And where I’m saying, block text, sometimes in the design factor — and this is where my serene web design work is coming in — I will have block text, big text block, image block, text block. So some unification, because you have to consider someone that can’t see it. So if you create a flow that they can quickly depend on, that’s like an anchor, and then also you have to remember that a lot of times, for speech reading devices, they’ll just use the arrow keys on the keyboard, so quickly clicking one to get over to the next block, “Oh, it’s an image, click again for text.” So creating those operable planning things is really helpful.

Susan: And then, of course, plain and we could all go crazy with trying to see the same thing sideways. And then having tools such as the one that you saw on one of my sights. we have all the tools for the course creators with Mark Mays and Jonathan Farley that I do some work with. It’s a really cool tool, and there are a number of universal disability tools to put on WordPress sites. But it’s the one that I like the best, and I like it the best because it doesn’t bloat the site, and it’s really, really easy to use. You click on it, and it can change your text and contrast and it does all the great things that somebody with a visual impairment would really need.

Chris Badgett: Do you have the name of it, off the top of your head?

Susan: Yes, it’s called User Way, and I’ll get you the link to that in a bit. But yeah, it’s a very good one. I like it. And it’s free, so that’s always nice.

Susan: And again, for the online course creators, … Hey. This is really going … Okay.

Chris Badgett: It’s all good. It’s not bad.

Susan: Learning styles, okay. And this is interesting because I worked in … Oh gosh, I’m giving away my age. In the early nineties teaching universities planning for disability services in their universities and colleges. And I did that, and that really took off because it was just the timing factor, but I went all over Canada and the US and Germany and taught universities how to set up disability support services in learning institution. And so when you think about learning styles — and we all have our own various learning styles. And Mark Mays is really great at this stuff. Your visual, auditory, empathetic, social learning, which you guys know a fair bit about with your social tools. Emotional, stress, or relaxation. And learning by teaching. And sometimes, I think, with the online learning, this doesn’t get lost, but it’s important to think about your ideal student, of course, and to plan that thread throughout, whether it’s learning or [gammification 00:21:04], all the different areas, to just try and make sure that you cover all of these different styles.

Susan: Now there’s also, of course people with learning disabilities. And you think, “Oh, okay, disability like its own learning style.” And it’s not, really, because what happens is that we all have traces of these learning style, all of us. The difference with someone with a learning disability is they have larger gaps between them. We have maybe preferences, like,’ Oh, I prefer to watch video than to listen to an audio tape,” for example. But if the information was only available by audio, I would still manage. So that’s the preference as opposed to a need. And so it’s really good to be aware of these, and certainly to know your own learning style, but then also to be able to plan for other people’s.

Susan: But I think the biggest thing, in terms of online course creation is there’s a really large market that is still somewhat untapped. And let me give you an example. For example, when I did my Living Well when Unwell course, I created, I guess you call them upsells, like a little booklet on how to really get the best out of the time you have when your doctor. Because I don’t know about in the States, but here in Canada, you get your 15 minutes kind of thing. And a lot of people are not prepared. So I teach people how to basically create like a one-page resume, if you like, that [inaudible] about their medical situation. And then the minute you go in there and you hand them that, they love it. It’s very efficient and you end up getting more attention because you’re not saying the same thing again and again.

Susan: So there’s a lot of little things involved. I guess they’re not little, but there’s a lot of areas that are untapped that, as our population is aging, how to find an accessible house, and how to sell an accessible house. And there’s some of it, but there needs to be more, I think. And then also the exclusive approach. If you plan, from the beginning, when you’re making your course, to just consider some of these accessibility aspects, it’ll be much easier. Because doing it the other way around, it’s the same as a house. Renovating later is much more expensive than if you start off in the beginning making that ramp.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, wow, that’s really cool. If we’re going to be inclusive from the start, when we’re creating our course, what are some specifics we can do? We can potentially do as much accessibility planning around our website. Like we could use that User Way system. We can put alt text on images. What else can we do? In terms of the learning styles, like the lesson page or whatever, what would we do there with accessibility in mind?

Susan: Yeah, well that’s this great question. And that’s something that actually Mark is working on now, and he’s designing a way to help people keep all those things into consideration. Because basically, when you start your course, it’s great you have all the content, but you have to really map it out and make your blueprint, I guess we call it.

Susan: Look, what I would do is much like you might do for writing a script. Like, well, I did. I had a video, audio, handouts, downloads. And so I made these different categories knowing that if I had somebody that was blind, they would depend more on the audio. If I had somebody who was deaf, they would depend more on the video. So things like that. So whatever lesson I did, I made sure that all of those different sensory things were attended to, I guess.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s awesome. It’s funny, with the alt test, you usually hear that coming up as an SEO strategy. But that’s not the intent. The intent is to just put the accessibility mind first and help someone who can’t see understand what this image is, that’s what it’s really there for. And you’re going to get better SEO anyways, because you’re describing what’s in the image, which Google is trying to help bring people looking for what’s on your website and in your images and stuff.

Susan: Yeah, yeah, so it’s kind of like one of those crossovers, if you like, because it’s like when you talk about ramps, for example, never enough ramps, in Canada, anyways. Tons we’re so much behind you guys. But like a ramp, obviously, once it’s put in, you’ll see mothers and baby carriages, and delivery guys with carts — everyone uses it. It’s not just like, “Oh, it’s just for this person with a disability.” And one of the things I used to tell the people in the travel industry: if you’re working with a customer that has a disability, and you’re thinking that they can’t manage at an all-inclusive resort, tell them to follow the beer cart.

Chris Badgett: That’s funny.

Susan: That’s how they’ll learn how to get to all the different areas in the resort, usually.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s awesome. Well you mentioned something in your learning styles I wanted to talk about, which is the social learning component. And I think this is, actually, like a crossover, too, to just general entrepreneurship, which is like a lot of entrepreneurs are isolated. And part of what they’re looking for is not just information, but connection and community, and to feel a part of the tribe, basically to run in a similar pack that has similar problems and goals and challenges and that kind of thing. And I think it’s easy to get stuck just in information, but it makes total sense to me if it’s not as easy to get out into the world and do stuff, and you can get isolated. Can you tell more how, about just social learning and what community means to you, in a learning context? How you’ve experienced that online?

Susan: Sure, yeah. Well, yeah, it’s an interesting thing to unfold, because one of the things I used to always say to people, that I used to sell the hardest product in the world, because nobody wants to be part of my [club 00:28:49]. Nobody aspires to have a disability or, “Wow, can I use a walker.” Nobody wants that. And whenever anyone moves my walker, I always say, “Welcome to your future.” Little reminder. But yeah, so that social learning is a big part.

Susan: And part of my training, and the work that I’ve done, there’s two camps to disability. And actually Mark and I were just talking about this morning. There’s what I call the always disabled, which is someone like myself, which is someone like myself, who grew up with the experience, to the newly-disabled. That would be someone who had been in a car accident, or through diabetes or illness has acquired a level of disability, a totally different experience, such that, this morning, when I was talking to Mark about it — Mark Mays — and he uses a walker and has some physical limitations. So he said to me, “Well I’m not disabled.” And he said that in conversation, and so then I stopped him and said, “Did you just say that you don’t have a disability?” And he was taken aback. Because see, in his mind, because he acquired it, it’s a different thing. So it’s like catching up to that, it’s different.

Susan: So then when I asked him, I said, “Well, if someone who didn’t know you saw you walking down the street with your walker, what would they see?” And he said, “Well, somebody old.” And old and disability do have, unfortunately, an association.

Susan: But yeah, so the social aspect is huge, in terms of the marketability for again, connecting this community. I still go out. I drive with hand controls. I’m pretty good that way. But then there’s a lot of times that I can’t. So then there’s the online world has just been phenomenal, because it’s so much less effort to connect with people.

Chris Badgett: Yeah,

Susan: Yeah. And when I did the Living Well when Unwell course, I’d say about 30% of it was geared onto the social aspect of that. The one thing that I did find really interesting, that I think would be important to your community, now, if you remember my background’s social work, so I did a lot of therapeutic group work. And there’s a whole science and process to that.

Susan: So I was like, “Wow, how is this going to work online?” So then when I did that, I was absolutely amazed. It actually was better online than in person. And I thought, “Now why would that be?” In the in-person group — and don’t forget you’re dealing with a vulnerable population. Like I said, nobody aspires to be in this club. And so there, everyone’s a little hesitant. They don’t really want to be there, but they know they need some support. So it’s difficult to open up and disclose information. Whereas online, they still have the comfort of their own home. There’s less physical effort needed. And there’s just more safety, if you like. So I’ve found people are much more willing to open up faster. So the whole process of what someone goes through, with group work in a therapeutic sense, I’ve found, is remarkably effective online.

Chris Badgett: That’s a really great insight, that people, in an online social learning context, because they’re in the comfort of their own home, with less effort to get there, and they’re in more control of how long they’re going to stay or whatever, that’s really empowering. I’ve never thought about that. That’s really counterintuitive insight.

Susan: Well, and something as simple as having a shoes on can be a really difficult thing for some people. And so the whole time they are sitting in the therapy session, they might be worrying about, “How am I going to make it home?” So there’s this whole other aspect of the before and after, not just being there. Where it’s like it’s all taken care of. So you don’t have to worry about that online. I’ve attended some of your Master Minds in my pajamas. You don’t know.

Chris Badgett: Yeah.

Susan: You don’t care. And sometimes, actually, you know I just will have my little [preacher] up, because I’m not having a good day, but that I can still be there. So I find that helps me a lot, dealing with my chronic pain.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s a fascinating point. I wanted to ask you a few questions, before we go, about your just journey as a course creator. I guess as an education entrepreneur, with a background in social work, what contributed to pulling together all these skills? For example, online, when I first noticed you, I think I saw, somewhere you have a graphic. It’s like a picture of you, or a woman with gray, curly hair, in a what do you call it?

Susan: A scooter.

Chris Badgett: A scooter. And you just had this branding just nailed. Like “This is Susan’s brand.” And it shows in what you do. So there’s these branding skills, design skills, technology skills. You’re talking about learning styles, like teaching skills. What allowed you to blend this all together? Was it just wanting to serve your community, or what? What was the driver?

Susan: Yeah, okay, that’s a really good question. I’m not really sure that, yeah, that’s an interesting … there’s my cartoon there. That’s my partner, Jan.

Chris Badgett: And by the way, where did you get that design? Or did you design that?

Susan: Yeah, it’s mine, yeah.

Chris Badgett: Oh, you designed it. Cool.

Susan: Yeah, I make all the cartoons.

Chris Badgett: Wow.

Susan: Yeah.

Chris Badgett: So artistic.

Susan: Yeah, like I say, I’ve always been fairly creative. So yeah, I don’t know … One of the things I try to do is, disability is so heavy. And that’s always been my thing, even when I worked as a social worker. And I think because I grew up with it, I don’t know, who knows, whatever. But like I say, I perceived my disability is my best friend, teaches me many things. Sure, it’s a pain in the ass some days, but it’s my life. So I try to lighten it up for people, because yeah, I didn’t see a lot of cartoons online with people with disabilities. There was nothing fun. So that’s why I thought, “You know? I need to do that.”

Susan: So then that’s how I came to brand myself, I guess. Now my little cartoons are, people are like, “Hey, you haven’t made a cartoon in awhile.” And I get a lot of requests for them, but I don’t have time to do very many. I did Mark and Jonathan. I’ll probably end up doing one for you. You look like you’d be easy to do.

Chris Badgett: Oh that’s cool. I’d love that. I’d really love that. Susan Wheeler Hall, you can find her at susanwheelerhall.com. If you want to see a great implementation of Lifter site, check out her teaching site called lifesmarts.ca. She also has a podcast called, “Living well today.ca. And her hub coaching site, susanwheelerhall.com, and her web design is over at serenewebdesign.com. I got to ask you before we go about the podcast. What inspired that? I see the course creators and coaches and stuff, they need some free content out there, and I’m a big champion of podcasts and YouTube videos. How did your podcast begin? Or why?

Susan: Well actually, I did a radio show here in Canada for seven years called Accessibility Matters. And that’s where that site came from: Accessibility Matters. And they wanted me to continue, and I was like, “Nah, I get a little tired being just the disability thing.” I thought the Living Well Today, because I’m blending more of my Living Well when Unwell work, was a better fit. Because then basically, it’s more than just, “Don’t put up stairs.” It’s a little bit more about the experience and how to do that. And yeah, sure, marketing, it’s a great marketing tool, great way to connect with people. And it’s amazing how podcasts people find me, reach out to me, which I love when they do that. Yeah, and I find, for myself, personally, I listen to a lot of audio things, because it helps me deal with chronic pain.

Susan: So when I’m not able to work, which is not often, then I like to listen to audio, because it helps me move my mind away from pain. And yeah, so the podcast is really helpful that way.

Susan: And I also do a fair bit of work with Mark and Jonathan these days at Tools for Course Creators. So of course, I’m [inaudible] your Mastermind. And so we work together daily now, so it’s kind of cool, to have that connection.

Chris Badgett: Yeah, that’s awesome. There’s another plug for the power of community. The relationships that form, for you watching or listening to this as a course creator, sometimes the value is just connecting other people. Or that’s a big part of it. Susan, thank you so much for coming on the show. I really appreciate it. And we’ll have to do this again sometime.

Susan: Great, well thanks for having me, Chris.

Chris Badgett: And that’s a wrap for this episode of LMScast. I’m your guide, Chris Badgett. I hope you enjoyed this show. This show was brought to you by LifterLMS, the number one tool for creating, selling, and protecting engaging online courses to help you get more revenue, freedom, and impact in your life. Head on over to lifterlms.com and get the best gear for your course creator journey. Let’s build the most engaging, results-getting courses on the internet.