How do you make online courses more fun? Rebecca Ginger is a former TV producer director who founded Table Fables, which teaches children maths online in a fun, engaging way. Rebecca is dyslexic and by helping her children with their similar challenges, she found more creative ways to teach subjects like maths. Children with dyslexia and dyscalculia benefit from using different teaching techniques.
In this episode Rebecca tells Mark Egan how she goes about making maths more fun and how that can be applied to any online courses.
For shownotes to to: https://www.markeganvideo.com/podcast
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TRANSCRIPT
mark egan 00:10
My guest today is Rebecca ginger, who’s a former television producer, director. She’s also the founder of table fables, which helps children learn maths in a more fun and engaging way to what Rebecca’s tips for making your online courses more fun and effective.
00:26
Do you sell online courses or run live workshops? Do you have expertise that can help people in life or business? Are you even running an online training Empire from your kitchen table? Then you’re part of the knowledge industry, a fast growing industry that means that you can learn almost anything, and anyone can create a business around what’s between their ears. Welcome to the knowledge industry podcast with your host, Mark Egan
mark egan 00:53
said Rebecca, great to have you with us. So where in the world are you right now?
Rebecca Ginger 00:57
London based in London, UK. I mean, listen to your podcasts but yeah, London UK.
mark egan 01:03
Yeah, I don’t know. Listen to that, to be honest. Let’s be mad. Yeah, well, I’m in London too. And we actually have another similarity is our background. So I had a background in the media. And you had a similar journey, didn’t you? Yes, yes.
Rebecca Ginger 01:17
I was a television producer director. So yeah, for many years, which I absolutely adored. It was really, you know, really, really fun. And great, but I’ve which I think is probably led me on to what I’m doing now. But yeah, that’s sort of a correction. I’m sure we will. No,
mark egan 01:33
I think I think you’re slightly downplaying the you know, you worked on some some pretty big programs, awards and all that kind of stuff. So from what it what it what exactly what kind of programs were you working on?
Rebecca Ginger 01:42
Well, I never like to admit it. Don’t be modest. Come on. namedrop No, I didn’t ever even like No, it’s not. It’s not the name dropping. It’s because it’s people disapprove. I basically, I want I want awards for making documentary. So I did that. I worked at MTV for years, which is music channel. I don’t know if anybody listens to that anymore, either. But, and then I did something called dirty sanchez, which is a version of English version of jackass. That was my sort of baby. So I got Welshman to do very strange things along the way.
02:19
Jesse, I remember that program. And this is Yeah, he used to be almost like a jackass was the American type one and you just do crazy stunts and all that kind of. So you say this people disapproved or that people sort of thought, you know, proper job is they’re getting wealthy people to do weird things.
Rebecca Ginger 02:34
Well, not really. I mean, I absolutely adored it. And you know, and my, my contemporaries thought it was fine. But you know, admitting it to my mother, or now I now admitting it to my children. I don’t tell them what I did, because I haven’t really got a leg to stand on. If I was doing, you know, all that stuff. And then they go out and do crazy things. So yeah, I sort of slightly kept it hidden from the older generation, the younger generation, but oh, my God, I absolutely loved it. And it still sort of watched all over the world now. You know, sort of 10 years later. And yeah, I’m very popular with skateboarders, surfers, everybody like that. They all
03:09
know, they’re the only people that count surely. Yeah. What’s interesting is because a lot of people I speak to who are now in their online education space in some way, shape, or form, have weirdly had a background in the media, in the past in production, directing, all that kind of thing. So what was your journey from you’re doing that it’s a good job, it’s a fun industry, to doing what you’re doing now.
Rebecca Ginger 03:35
Okay, I mean, it was literally just sorting out my own problems. Really. I think that’s where an awful lot of sort of entrepreneurial things happen. My children, I, I’m dyslexic, and I’ve discovered this calculi. But as all my children, and I saw the same sort of problems happening with them. They didn’t understand maths, they were the bottom of the class English didn’t really make much sense to them, like male, this was fine. He’s just dyslexic, but it was fine with maths, but my daughter, oh, my God, it was just like, she just couldn’t count to 10. She couldn’t add numbers up to 10, you know, seven, and three, eight. And to me, she was just a mess. And, you know, the school pulled me in and said, Look, she’s really struggling here, what’s going on? And I remember the struggles and I could really identify, as you couldn’t learn to tell the time. I mean, it was just so many dyscalculia is basically like dyslexia for math, but it’s completely under researched. Anyway, so I then thought, come on, I’m intelligent. You know, just because I’m dyslexic does not mean my IQ is not high. I’ve got all these skills from TV. So I thought, right, let me just solve this problem because it’s ridiculous. And so I just created characters instead of numbers. And each character meets each other and they create a story and then it’s very easy to remember. It’s all actually based in science called the peg system of memory. You know, poker players use it to remember cards. They do. Remember the numbers that attach characters to each card? Scientists use it to remember lots of things, you know, that use images to remember all the bones in the body, for example, it’s a really recognize and very sort of underutilized tool. Anyway, so I just created that. And it just worked so well. Then people hurt my daughter went from bottom class to top the class. And then my friends heard about it. And they said, well, could you help my kid out on your own. And so then I did it with them. And then they told their mates and I did it again. And it just sort of snowballed like that. I think it was it. I think the geniuses of his I’m not a teacher, and I so I’ve looked at something from a completely different perspective. And I think the TV background really helped because I knew how visuals worked to impart information. So I just sort of put put those two things together as my kind of, you know, issues and problems, and then use my other skills to solve them. And so yeah, and it’s gone on from there, and we’ve created more, we’ve got, you know, I’ve got farting fractions coming out, which is a small Welsh Grandpa, that’s the Welsh bit that he thoughts and teach you how to, you know, do fractions and cetera, et cetera. So yeah. And
06:13
obviously, there’s a jump between helping your own children, and then people saying, oh, could you help somebody else? And then turning that into a business? So what was that process? What did you decide to do? And how does it look like now?
Rebecca Ginger 06:28
Well, that’s the hard bit. That’s always the heartbeat is just trying to get from Oh, my God, is this an idea is a good enough idea. So you stress tested a lot, you know, so there’s a lot of free tutoring and free testing and researching and things like that first, and then then I tried to raise money, but people just looked at me like Samsung crazy. And they just went sort of good idea. But you got to go off and prove it. And then I suppose the sort of big break was my brother is he works in computers. So he, you know, said are okay, I’ll come and do the technical logical bet. So that took one stress off. And then I had another friend who did all this graphic II stuff. And we found great animator online up works actually really, really helped. That was a real sort of turning point. Because you could find people that weren’t too expensive. You know, I’ve got a web designer in Wales and animator in Poland have never met them. You know, I absolutely. Well, that my door them. But that I found that both are not works. And that I think, was a real turning point anyway. But then you just it’s hard, bloody work. It’s a lot of lot of hard work and failing. A lot of failing was just so much failing, and then you go, Oh, that’s a really stupid idea. Let me try this. That’s a really bad email. Let me try this. So yeah, that is what a lot of failing I’d say.
mark egan 07:53
And so now you’ve got it to the point where it’s sort of interactive, you pay for a subscription, you go to websites to talk us through the actual you know, if I were a parent, and I was worried about some my child and how they’re picking up maths, what would you actually offer them?
Rebecca Ginger 08:09
Okay, so what? So yeah, your two children learning, we start from really young because it’s all cartoons. So we teach using cartoons and games. So it’s a subscription website. You know, if your child is struggling with math, or even if they’re not, it doesn’t really matter. We actually I never ever talk it about it being for dyscalculia or dyslexic because it’s not it works for every single child is cartoons what I have met child yet who doesn’t like cartoons, so they just sit down. So your child is like beginning of their math journey. Often maths is very sort of under review to like, you know, it’s not ever made fun. You’ve got equal, got great books, you’ve got amazing authors. maths, you got Carol Vorderman is about as good as it gets. I’m sorry, Karen Baldwin is great. But all she’s doing is numbers on a piece of sheet. And she might have pretty pictures around the numbers, it still just taught in exactly the same way. So what we do is we have characters, a through subscription, you buy a subscription. And one of our unique selling points is that we make our subscriptions more expensive. And then we give you money back, okay, once your child has completed a program, we made it cheaper, parents bought it and then they forgot to use it. And that was no good for you. And it was no good for us because you then didn’t go on tell how we amazing. So one of our USP says, we make it more expensive, the child finishes a course you get money back. So you sort of encourage your child along to actually do it, because you want the money back. And then either the parents keep the money themselves, they buy books, or they give the money to the child. It’s up. It’s up to you. But it’s a real sort of good way of sort of encouraging people to finish that course. I don’t know if you have similar things about you doing?
09:46
Well, I suppose. Yeah. Because I mean, one of the big talking points in online courses and all that kind of thing is gamification. It’s one thing getting people to buy a course or buy a subscription or whatever it is, but actually what you Once the transformation, you want people to get something out of it, there are a lot of people. And you know, I’m guilty of it myself where you buy a course or whatever it is, and you maybe watch the first video or anything, you know, I’ll get around to this eventually, then you forget about it, and you never actually got the benefit of that course. How much attention do you pay to, you know, all the way along, trying to gamify this trying to keep it engaging?
Rebecca Ginger 10:24
Well, that’s, I think that’s what also maybe my MTV background, and also the datacenter thing. I love playing games, I’ve always loved playing games, I think that’s why I was given these Welsh boys and they go, go, go do something with them. But that’s, uh, you know, I’m always making my friends play games with the camera for dinner party. I’m really sorry. You’re okay, I’ll feed you. But you got to play a game, you know, for camping is games. I just think it makes I just haven’t yet ever found. If you play a game, you laugh somewhere along the way. Or if you don’t you stop the game and change it. So I’m really, really big into game. So we’ve got you know, we’ve got the VIP area in table fables where your children can win extra money by getting into the top 20. We have, you know, we’ve just we teamed up with The Beano comic for last six months giving away beaner subscriptions to because, again, beaner uses exactly the same technique we do. It uses images and words. And we use images and numbers to actually be the I think most underutilized tool on the market. So if your parent get a beaner subscription, I can’t be no table fables. That’s all you need as a parent and the job done, put your feet up, basically. So you know, yeah, I just think if Why is that? Why does education have to be boring? Why does it have to be, you know, not fun. So that is my massive, massive passion. I don’t think I think people who go into teaching sorry, teachers, you’re awesome, you’re amazing. But I think we’ve gone into teaching because teaching work for them. And they just follow on the same technique that has been for hundreds of years. And nobody ever goes into it with fresh eyes and goes, Well, why why are we doing like this? Why aren’t we using The Beano? You know, comic you know, it’s like, they know the images and words work. So why isn’t every child got a comic? Or you know, been, they’ve got, you know, like amazing, worksheets online. It’s a bit like us, we’ve got these cartoons, we’ve got the amazing worksheets, it, it fosters a love of learning. And you know, and I know, if we enjoy doing something a we learn about and be we’ll carry on doing. So yeah, that’s what, yeah, that’s what we do.
12:32
So I understand, you know, obviously, if you’re talking about children, some people might think, okay, yep, I get that I get the gamification and trying to make it visually fine, and games and all that kind of thing. But somehow, when we get to adult education, it’s always Okay. Now, it’s serious, serious businesses. And some of that falls away at what do you think somebody who teaches online, whatever topic it is, who maybe is targeting adults could learn from the way that you teach children?
Rebecca Ginger 13:05
Oh, my God, I would so love to do I mean, we are going to Okay, this is putting out there to the universe. And we are going to start we’re starting from the young ages we’ve I’ve already got, say, for example, GCSE maths, I’m getting the dirty sanchez boys, they’re voicing over the little characters, who are going to throw televisions out of windows to demonstrate physics equations, or they’re going to be you know, so there’ll be little animated characters that will be all their voiceover and their humor to teach GCSE maths. So then we’ll go up to a level maths and go right, and we’ll make it fun. And it has to be effective as well, what the what the biggest thing I think our USP is, is that we I’m using images to create much more lasting memory hooks. Because if you just write down an equation on the board, you know, you’re going to have to try and remember and yeah, there was a certain percentage of people who can do that the rest of us are going, Okay, I need something to unlock that. So if I remember it for years to come, I think, you know, Einstein did. Yeah, yeah, it was Einstein said, you know, education is everything you remember after school is finished or something like that. And I think we just forget so much. Because a it’s boring, B, it’s not useful. And C, it wasn’t fun again. So if you make it fun, you will remember it. And that’s what we and so you can do that without education. Of course, you can do that. And so I would say to anyone who’s doing adult education, please, please just make it fun. This take 10 minutes extra to make it fun.
14:38
Well, let me Okay, let me give you a challenge. And we give you a scenario, something that’s really techie and maybe quite dry. So perhaps somebody teaches businesses how to use Facebook ads to get leads to their business, to kind of obviously sell more products or whatever they sell. So the normal course would be selling Somebody’s firing up their screen share and saying, Okay, first of all, you click here, and then you click on this audience and all that kind of thing. And somebody who does that kind, of course might say, yeah, this is all well and good when you’re talking about, you know, throwing TV sets out and all that kind of thing. But how would you do something as sort of maybe dry? and technical? Is this and use your approach to make it more interesting?
Rebecca Ginger 15:24
Okay, well, I use YouTube a lot. I don’t know, if you you do, I’ve got a problem. I’m washing machines broken down. I’m straight onto YouTube. How do I clean out my filter or something like that? The biggest thing I would say is, start fast. Don’t waffle on for ages about and that’s because that’s just your ego, count your ego out of it, just get straight into the point because people just don’t have time to get straight into the point, then make it I would say make it funny. You could have like a, you know, 10 second thing going, right? This is what’s going to happen to your What are we doing Facebook ads, this is what’s going to happen to your Facebook ads is rubbish, this is what’s going to happen to mine. Okay, that will take 10 seconds, you and I know that to watch TV, you know, 10 seconds is a long time. See, that’s all you need 10 seconds to just go right? That’s the rubbish way, this is going to be awesome. And you’re going to hit everybody. And then make it quick. Make it really, you know, just press that, press that, press that, okay, and then have some joke at the end, I would say for those information things short, short, people have got very small attention spans. And a lot of it is their ego going I’m really great. And I got this amazing channel on the web. I mean, I’m talking about YouTube, but cut them off or just cut it all with them script writers on films, for example, you know, you’ll write out a whole script, and they always say, come in late finish early. You know, that’s, you just want the bare information and you don’t need the waffle. So yeah, I think that’s I’m not sure that’s quite what I’m not,
16:53
you know, I think in essence, you know, keep keep it Pacey keep engaging add humor, regular basis, cut to the chase. That’s exactly and I think that, you know, coming back to is about the media. Once you’ve worked in something like television, you know that a few seconds, you don’t mean you have to do that thing we do some like documentaries or news programs, whatever. And people get a tiny little soundbite. You might do a longer interview. But what they don’t understand is that the entire piece you’re creating is a very short amount of time, and you’ve got to cram a lot in so there’s no time for any wastage. Of course, you know, when you’re editing something like a documentary, the most painful part is you do a documentary you’re really happy with. And then they say right now cut it in half so it fits in the slot you’re given. And that’s probably that what you’re getting at is that almost like being ruthless cutting to the chase, anything that shouldn’t be there, just so that it’s as compelling as as, as it can be. So yeah, I think that’s a really good point. And, you know, you mentioned about teachers What do you think if if you could be the Minister of Education, and you can wave a magic wand, because you’re talking for something specific, they’re here like timetables, or you know, there’s very specific problems you’re trying to solve, but if you could look at the whole education system, what would you do differently?
Rebecca Ginger 18:14
Oh, my God, I’ve thought about this a lot, specially a lockdown. So I’ve got a whole system that I really want to do. Really sorry, teachers could really hope no teachers listening, I get I basically get rid of them all. Okay, I would employ every teacher went minimum 1500 150,000 pounds. So that all paid incredibly well. Okay, but you cut them down, you literally just literally cut them all down. I don’t know if you were at school, you’re at school, we all remember that one or two teachers, maybe maybe one or two. So we get very, very small of them, but they’re amazing. Okay, and they’re kind of entertainers they’re incredibly knowledge and how we would set up you know, in a lecture hall and go to university you get from the young ones all the way up. So you’ve got five year olds to 18 year olds maybe a bit but you might split them up you know, but the whole primary school then these teachers these say six teachers would put on this incredible play incredibly informative play to all the old you know to everybody a bit like so horrible histories I have an issue with horrible histories because jumps around so much that you can’t actually learn proper information. But so they put this incredible play on afterwards. Obviously, the younger children will be given worksheets or iPads that they would have to remember the information was given on the play the plays obviously recorded so you can watch back what what the teachers have said. Obviously the older ones are given harder worksheets and are made to do more things. So that’s one thing Okay, so all sort of lectures all in play format, but incredibly funny, informative. You do the same play every single year so you can you can make the plays incredible with a great props and everything like that. So that would be that then I would Zero to seven, I would teach them all only about plants. I’m like, I don’t understand why we don’t know what’s edible and what’s not edible, even just around us, I once went to this, you know, great retreats and those is really informative parents who are, you know, homeschooling. And they, they told us on this walk, we had to pick from the hedge row, not from any of the gardens, just when the Hydra salad for 120 people, we did it in that half an hour. And they were so informed. They knew exactly what we could pick what it was, etc, etc. And we had this amazing salad for 120 people, why does our children not know that so I was zero to seven, no, like sort of work staff is a bit like Swedish thing. And then after that it’s plays and really informative thing. And I would say bring in ex army people to deal with discipline, teachers do not have to deal with that they basically it’s army people, they send them off an assault courses or whatever if they’re Noy or figure out, I don’t know, physical education because they think kids need more of that nowadays. So that’s basically what I would do you really
21:05
have thought about this. I was half expecting an answer. If you know, like, you know, I think it’d be nice to just try and find ways make more engaging, but you actually have a complete roadmap of an Excel spreadsheet already.
Rebecca Ginger 21:19
I do. I’m gonna make it happen someday, somehow, someway. Because I think your education was set up for industrial age years ago and not not ever rethought about.
21:30
Well, that brings me nicely on to my next question, which was with the lockdown with homeschooling, and you know, virtual training, you know, even live stuff on on things like zoom, it opened people’s eyes to some of the problems, how difficult it can be, you know, you might have children who are fidgety, don’t sit still and not engaging very well on the zoom training, maybe because it’s difficult for them? Or maybe it’s because of the way it’s being taught, you know, I don’t know. And even, you know, for what I do, I’ve been training people all over the world from here in my spare bedroom. So there’s definitely been a shift. How do you see the big picture sense, education changing both for children and for adults? After what we’ve been through?
Rebecca Ginger 22:13
Well, I think there will be, of course, and shift online, I think it’s gonna happen. And that’s, and that’s fine. I think that’s okay. But I don’t think you should ever ignore the in person thing. You know, we need communities, all those Blue Zones around the world, they’re figuring out it’s not just food, it’s actually communities that are the biggest thing, driving those blue, blue zones and making you live longer. So you can never, ever ignore that I’m massively keen on communities and people. So you have to, you have to get a balance of the two. As I say, I just think it’s, I think the wrong people, groups or teachers, I really, I really think education attracts the wrong people. I just don’t understand. That is the most important thing. You cannot change generation, if you’re not educating them, and teaching children how to change themselves. And I just think it’s criminal. And we all know it. And I think maybe hopefully, the lockdown has sort of highlighted how important that is. I just think people go back into their own little ways. And they can’t, they don’t want to think about it. But I just don’t understand why lawyers, why people go into TV, actually, why did they not go into teaching the really bright than the brightest of the bunch. They’re, in fact ambitious, and they’re entertaining. Why have they not been to teaching, they’ve not been to teaching because it’s not. It’s not a new status, there’s no status, and also has no money, unfortunately, money and status that have come to come together. and respect. That’s the word I was looking for. There’s no respect. And that is the biggest thing I think needs to change, because I don’t think you’re going to change anything in the world. Unless you change education, and you really, really concentrated and zero to seven, actually more important than anything in the whole. Yeah,
23:58
I’m probably gonna have to hide from the teaching unions after this podcast goes out. My dad is a teacher as well.
Rebecca Ginger 24:06
Really amazing. You’ve done a great job. I just think you’re maybe in the wrong job. But anyway, never mind.
24:12
Yeah, well, I mean, I suppose one of the arguments you’re making earlier was that the system of teaching hasn’t changed. So even if you were an individual teacher, and you wanted to do something crazy, wacky and outrageous, you would have a curriculum and you’d have inspections, and you have to do it in a certain way. So you try and be as creative and entertaining as you can within that, you know, even if you were, even if you are a great teacher, but
Rebecca Ginger 24:36
I do think just talking about it, because you know, you know, sort of the way I think people would think, Oh, you don’t approve of testing and things like that. When when I grew up in the 70s 80s. We were when I went through primary school, we didn’t have any tests. I didn’t never check whether my spelling was okay. And nobody checked whether I could do my multiplications I just fudged it all. I just you went up and picked your own worksheets out. You did it. And then I just jumped a couple of worksheets, nobody checked at all. So you sailed through education with nobody checking or anything had ever gone wrong. So I actually do really believe in the checking. I don’t think it should be made stressful. But there’s you. I think there’s not enough checking, unlike going, you know, there’s one school I heard around here that they, you know, the son does a chemistry test. Okay, if they get below 70%, they do the chemistry test again. And I’m thinking, yeah, of course, what because if they haven’t learned it the first time around, I mean, they should have learned the first time around. But if they don’t get 70%, go back and redo it. And so you get 70%. And do that all through the year. And so when it comes to your exams at the end, you know, 70% of the code, it doesn’t make sense. I think that’s what we do at table fables. We’re always checking, we tell the information. We, you know, we check whether they’ve learned the information that we reshow the information, then then they go back again, it’s all about checking whether you actually understand what the hell anybody’s talking about. Because if you don’t, then what’s the point of being?
mark egan 26:02
Now just moving on to the business side of what you do? I mean, you said we, so presumably, you have some kind of team? And if you go to a certain level, you’re gonna need that. So. But what’s the first? I mean, how do you get people to find you? And then when you when they do, who is you? And who else? What’s the structure of what you do?
Rebecca Ginger 26:23
Well, the biggest thing that I’ve learned, and we paid law instead of Facebook, advertising Instagram, as a special education, marketing companies, and then I taught something called planet Botha, who is really good, actually, they’re great after us. They’re an online company. But they he just said education is really weird. space, you know, you it’s only on recommendations. So you wouldn’t go to your primary school because you saw it on the back of a bus. I love those back of the bus adverts. I was going you wouldn’t go there. Unless a friend probably told you about it, you might be reminded about it. But everything in education is on recommendation. Is it a weird sort of space that I think the probably medicine might be similar that you know, you good? Well, not as much anyway, so it’s really slow burning education. But I think once you get a reputation, and then people you know, you get one parent, they tell 10, then those 10 till 20, you know, because so that’s basically how we’ve had to go. We do a lot of Instagram stuff, connecting with homeschoolers are really good. They’re early adopters, because they can think outside the box, and parents who are struggling, so we contact them, we give them free subscriptions. Everybody who comes on to type of fables has a free online class, because I’m a parent myself, I don’t know if you’ve mark, you’ve done this, we’re trying to work out on your website that somebody is given just that, oh my god, what am I doing? I press What do I do? So we give every person who signs up a free online class, we teach them all the children we teach them multiplicate sevens divide, we
mark egan 27:57
say free? Is that a live human being? Or is that access to recorded
Rebecca Ginger 28:03
live human, a live human being with lots of different families, you don’t have to have a subscription even, you know, you just literally can join these classes to see what that what it’s like. Because again, you know, we’re all like going, Oh my god, I don’t want to spend that money if I don’t know what it’s like. So they join the classes, whether they’ve got a subscription or they’ve not got a subscription, they we teach them the seven multiplication seven dividing in all within this hour, we play games. And then then parents know how to navigate or more importantly, children and how to navigate around the site. So they don’t need the parent to come and go Mom, can you work this out? What do I do? They we explain all the competitions to the kids. So then the kids are really excited to sell be self motivated. So then again, you don’t have to nag them to go we just do toward staples into you know, what would you do? You’re adding you know, home where you just go go do that and you get a reward at the end of it. I can’t actually remember what the question was.
mark egan 28:57
I was actually asking you about, you know, how you get people in? So, I’m surprised that you actually have a human element. Cuz obviously nowadays, everyone’s like, well, you can automate. If you want to scale you can automate absolutely everything. But for you, it’s important to actually have a human connection early on.
Rebecca Ginger 29:14
Oh, yeah, I really think that I just think customer service over servicing is just a massive thing. You know, especially at the beginning, I actually always always want to have the human element there. I want you know, we’ll just have more graduates who are there on on the you know, giving these live lessons, teaching the children I wish more people took it up, they don’t actually need it. We’ve got a great funny animated instructions. So people a lot of people don’t need it. But we’re always there for people to you know, to see the technique or to do things so I will never give that up. I think that’s our unique selling point is competitions and life people.
mark egan 29:53
It’s funny because I’ve heard a few people say recently, you know that the whole idea of when everything’s going one way, go the other way and because everyone He’s trying to turn everything into bots and AI responses. And everything is completely automated, that the people who do give it a human touch stand out. It’s kind of like you say, a kind of unique selling proposition. So you mentioned that you had some people who do some of these calls for you. So how, how have you structured your team to actually make this a sustainable business? Well,
Rebecca Ginger 30:26
you’re always learning and you’re always moving on and things. So we’ve got, you know, people who do the classes, but they can teach 10 families at a time, you know, so it’s, it’s really interactive, like I do the schools, and I can teach 90 children all at once, and everyone gets at least three or four questions thrown back at them. So I could do three classes all at once. And we’re playing because it’s playing cartoons, I’m constantly asking questions. So they’re always interacting. So we strapped to it just, it’s fine. Everyone’s working from home, all it is, is resume, people log in Via calendly, they pick a time slot that they want to do, and then they get a teacher in front of them. So it’s Bree. Technology has made it really, really simple.
mark egan 31:10
moving forwards, you know, like we spoke about earlier, things are changing, this may be a bit more virtual bit more mix of in person and virtual. Where do you see this whole online learning thing going over the next 510 years? Do you think that schools will be using more of what you do? Or? Which way do you see it going?
Rebecca Ginger 31:32
I think it’s gonna be really hard to change schools. You know, they’re really, really stuck in their ways, for good reasons to you don’t want to like go, Whoa, let me do this this year. Oh, let me do that that year. So I get that they’re quite stuck in the ways, I do think you should probably always have sort of testing schools, when you test out new ideas, or you know, things, but I think it’d be hard to change it. You know, I think we’re Slow, slow days, even before lockdown, I was using zoom, you know, you would have to explain to parents, you know, I take about 10 emails to try and explain to parents what zoom was, it’s really fine. It’s really easy, you know, and then suddenly, you get pandemic, and everybody’s on zoom within a half an hour. So you kind of need a push, you know, so hopefully, the pandemic on in some ways has actually been really good for that. So that’s great. But unfortunately, I think human beings are quite slow to change. So I don’t see a massive, is massively changing overnight, I just really hope there’s a slow onto online, but as an human, or using technology in a bright way, so that you can really focus on things that matter.
mark egan 32:42
Just to finish by summing up, you know, somebody listening to this and thinks, you know, I’ve got some expertise, maybe I want to teach children, maybe got some expertise that will help adults and, you know, thinking about doing this, and I haven’t been through the process you have of making the mistakes and figuring out what works, what doesn’t work, you know, what would if you if you could sit them down and have a coffee with them and say, Look, I’ve got a minute here to give you a bit of advice. What would that advice be?
Rebecca Ginger 33:09
I guess, I think the first one, I mean, I, I think we got connected via something called join up dots, I think, who is a sort of business coach, whatever, I think a business coach is really good. Because it really accelerates you forward, or just pushes you in the right direction. And that and the one thing that was on David never actually said it to me. But on his website was a book called thinking grow rich. I know that’s not my recent really crass and horrible, but actually in it, you can Think and Grow Rich more spiritually, or happier, or it doesn’t rich does not mean to just mean money. But for me, that was a real turning point, because it sort of gave me Well, I always really believed in the idea, but it just said, just believe even more, you have to believe in your idea. Like, you know, sort of the 1,000% was not accurately grabbing, you know, you just have to believe in it so much. If you don’t believe in it that much. I think it’s pretty much impossible. So read that book, and just make sure whatever you’re doing, you just believe in so much that you will make it work, you will figure out all the problems.
mark egan 34:16
What is funny you say that because I’ve read that book. And I remember when I left broadcasting cease with the BBC. And I went out on my own and I suddenly, you know, I was working on a series of documentaries, and then those ended abruptly. And it was like, Oh, right, you need more than one client. Okay, I need to figure out the business side of things. So I went and read a bunch of books. And one thing that really struck me was even people who were like on Dragon’s Den and, you know, speak we just thought were kind of straight down the line, no nonsense. They all had some chapter of their book about, you know, lying in a darkened room and, you know, envisaging things or lots, you know, it was just lots it was mindset, and I Come to those books thinking I need to know, you know what, how do you work out your business plan and all this kind of stuff. And it was all mindset. And I fully understand now why that because if you’ve got the wrong mindset, it is going to result in whatever you do not working. So. So yeah, I fully hear you on that in the sense that if you don’t have the right mindset, you don’t believe in your product. Nothing else matters. It’s not about tactics and do this right, right or wrong. It’s all that kind of thing. I’m sure people be very interested to, you know, go and actually dig into what you’re doing. So they want to find out more about you and what you offer. Where should they go?
Rebecca Ginger 35:36
Okay, we’re table fables. dotnet. Online. So yeah, table fables will get you there. Do not buy the book. There’s a book that unfortunately came out the same time some is called fable, where table fables their fable feathers anyway, don’t buy the book. Unfortunately, it’s it’s really nothing to do with us. But that’s what you find out. You can contact me there, you can sign up for a free lesson. No subscription required. We’ll teach you. You know, all your modifications. And it’s just yeah, so table fables. dotnet.
mark egan 36:06
Great, and I really appreciate the fact you know, you’re talking about dyscalculia and dyslexia, maybe I did, because I think those are the kind of things that being identified a lot more now. And I remember, you know, I remember interviewing people like, you know, Henry Winkler, the Fonz, Richard Branson. And one thing was struck me how many people were dyslexic. And they all told the same story is that I was told I was stupid, or not capable, anything. I was being lazy. It wasn’t trying. And now they see it as their superpower. So if you know you’re providing something, which I know is not just for people with those challenges, but instead of anybody, but I think it’s brilliant that nowadays, unlike the 1970s, or whenever these kinds of things are available, so I wish you continued success. And thanks for sharing your ideas on life, the world and your very well planned educational plan for the UK education system. I’ll pass it on to the government ministers of
Rebecca Ginger 37:07
education. Yeah, yeah. Yeah. I think I might have to become the Minister of Education before I ever get that through. But nevermind.
mark egan 37:13
Well, you’d be popular with teachers. Anyway. Apologies to all teachers. My dad was a teacher. I love teachers. So you disclaimer there. Okay.
Rebecca Ginger 37:24
Yeah, yeah. No, I do love you. And I think you should pay a lot, lot more. And so I think it would figure itself out those that are worth, you know, 150,000 I think would stay and those that we are anyway. But yeah, that’d
mark egan 37:36
be a whole new podcast, isn’t it? Like how do we structure and teachers paying for the future? But thanks again. And, yeah, maybe have you back on in the future, see how things are going when you launch to the next stage and start throwing TVs out of windows and stuff like that. So thanks again. Thank you very much for having me. If you want to get started showing up on video and sharing your expertise, head over to Mark Egan video.com to access some of my free training. Don’t forget to join the knowledge industry group on Facebook. And if you want to connect head to mark Egan video.com