Luxr.co has produced a new “direct line to awesome” for entrepreneurs to learn, be inspired, and grow their startups. Back in May I blogged about their upcoming services, and now it’s live!
I had a chance recently to try these new workshops from Luxr and I was really pleased with just how relevant the materials are to challenges I face right now as an entrepreneur. The format is a set of very short, actionable videos and exercises from a variety of thought leaders.
The first virtual workshop I “attended” was “Start a Successful Remote Collaboration Environment”, by William Donnell of Sodium Halogen, which covered how to setup remote teams and use collaboration tools like Google Hangouts to run effective distributed team meetings. Remote teams are not sexy, but they are an important part of many companies and startups, and managing collaboration of those teams can be crucial to your success. My company is highly distributed between the US, Costa Rica, and Nicaragua, so I figured this was a good place for me to start and see how the Luxr workshop format works. The videos were short and to the point, conveying only the most important information, and covered the same material I would tell someone running distributed teams for the first time.
Next up on my agenda was “Run an Excellent Sales Call”, by Sales Consultant Wanda Brown. My background is technical, but as an entrepreneur and leader in my startups, I spend more time doing business development and sales than actual coding these days. All my sales training is, well, non-existent. Wanda’s video lays out the format for sales calls, and how to focus on what the customer actually wants. I am usually so excited about what I’m selling that I want to barge right into a long pitch, and Wanda’s workshop reminded me to back up and listen to the customer first before I relate their needs to my product. It’s a workshop that I plan to repeat a few times in coming weeks to drive it into my head and create more of a systematic and productive approach to my sales calls. This workshop alone is well worth the Luxr subscription for me.
I’m a fan of Laura Klein’s books about UX, and so it’s great to see her have several workshops on the Luxr lineup. The first workshop of hers that I attended was “Improve Your Conversion”. Like the other workshop’s in Luxr’s library, the videos are very actionable, with brief exercises in between each video. Here’s what the video player looks like for Laura’s conversion workshop looks like:
The interface is clean and simple, with each video and its length clearly shown on the right. It’s easy to tune into a specific segment and then come back later when I have time to finish the workshop, which is key for the busy and easily-distracted schedules of entrepreneurs like myself.
Laura’s workshop helped me to better visualize how new visitors will see my landing page, and gave me practical advice (like using fivesecondtest.com) to gather data on how well my landing page conveys my product idea. It’s too easy to get caught up in your own head as an entrepreneur, and so Laura’s workshop was a practical reminder for me to not just test landing page conversions, but to test if prospective customers even get the message I am trying to deliver.
I think Luxr.co is on to a very valuable service here. High quality content in a very digestible and actionable format is exactly what entrepreneurs like myself need. If you already know everything, it’s not for you. But if you’re like the rest of us who are constantly learning and honing our skills, then you should check it out.
