Episode 130: Training & On-Boarding Employees With Rob Balasabas

Rob Balasabas is the Social Media & Community Manager at Thinkific. He manages the daily curation of Thinkific’s message on social media. You may also find him engaging with their private online community of over 14,000 (and growing) online course creators inside the “Thinkific Studio” Facebook Group. Rob joined the Thinkific Team in 2016, as a Customer Champion where we worked closely with customers to get their Thinkific sites off the ground, and quickly making the leap into the Marketing Team in early 2018. You may see Rob talking about Thinkific, Online Courses, and Digital Marketing strategies on webinars, livestreams and podcasts. When he’s not doing that, you can find him in line at the local taco food truck outside the office or a local coffee shop sipping on a “double-double” :) Biggest Takeaway Who is Rob Balasabas? [2:00] What is Thinkific? [3:45] How can a pet sitting business owner use Thinkific for ongoing training for their staff? [8:45] Can we use Thinkific as a marketing tool? [12:15] Special Offer When you sign up with Thinkific with Bella's affiliate link, you get a TON of bonuses like: 1 Month Free on the Thinkific Pro Plan An on-boarding call with a Thinkific On-boarding Specialist Premium Training Courses Sign Up Here: https://bit.ly/2RwNBmc Links Jump & Scale Webinar: http://jumpconsulting.net/scale Rob's Website: https://socialclub.thinkific.com/ Thinkific: https://bit.ly/2RwNBmc Thinkific Demo Video: https://www.facebook.com/groups/jumpmastermind/permalink/2162201460478145/ Transcript: This is episode 130 of Bella in Your Business. This episode is brought to you by my free webinar, Jump and Scale Your Business. It's my three-part training series all dedicated to finding and attracting the right kind of people that will scale your business. Did I mention it's free? Listen, you have to attend this if you want to grow your staff, you feel like you're being held hostage, you have high turnover, you feel burnt out, or you're just not seeing the results you want. Join me for this three-part free webinar series. Register now at jumpconsulting.net/scale. That's jumpconsulting.net/scale. I'll see you there. Welcome to Bella in Your Business, where Bella will discuss anything and everything about your pet sitting business to help you land on target. So get ready. Bella’s got your chute. Let’s jump. Welcome to Bella in Your Business. My name is Bella Vasta, and today I have a guy who’s quickly becoming one of my friends. You’re gonna know why later today. He’s been helping a lot of pet sitters and dog walkers almost inadvertently, and for free in a way—at least when it first starts. And this is gonna be an episode that, if you’re feeling like the hiring and onboarding process is a complete mess, you’re gonna wanna listen up. Today my guest is Rob, and Rob, help me pronounce your last name. Rob: Balasabas. You just gotta get the rhythm right and then you’ll nail it. I just know you’re the Rob of Thinkific because you are all over social media. You kill it on Instagram and you kill it on Facebook Lives. We just did one last week, but I’m so glad to finally have you on my podcast. It’s now first quarter 2019. I know everyone’s really interested in getting organized, and I wanted to have you on to kind of show them this awesome thing that a lot of pet sitters in the mastermind have already started doing with wild success. But before we get there—like that little teaser, you guys—Rob, why don’t you introduce yourself a little bit, tell us where you’re from, how long you’ve been with Thinkific, and your backstory. Rob: Sure. Thanks for having me on the podcast. Super excited. Just like you, I’ve been seeing you all over social media and getting a lot of knowledge from you. My name’s Rob Balasabas. I’m with Thinkific. I’m on the marketing team, and my role here is social media and community management. It’s been a really fun ride. It’s been about two and a half years now since I first started here. I started on the support team actually just answering tickets and helping with onboarding and new course creators getting started. I did that for about six months and then saw that nobody was really taking care of Instagram. It was just on autopilot. We were putting up blog post images as posts on Instagram, and it was growing organically. I talked to the VP of growth at the time and said, “Hey, if nobody’s doing it, I can do it. On my way out of the office, I’ll take care of it and engage with our audience there because it’s an opportunity for course creators or potential course creators.” Long story short, they said, “Instagram’s going really well. Do you want to do Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn?” So they moved me over to marketing. Before Thinkific, I worked in a digital marketing agency, building WordPress sites, doing SEO, audits, and paid ads. It was a small startup, but I learned a lot there about digital marketing. That’s cool. So not like I’m interviewing you or anything, but that totally tells me a part of you that you’re loyal and stick it through with people and you’re not jumping around, which is kind of cool to know that we have a great contact with Thinkific. So why don’t you tell us what Thinkific is? Rob: Thinkific is an online course platform. If you want to teach anything online, you would use our platform. If you want to do any type of training for staff or customers, that’s what you would use Thinkific for. We try to make it as easy as possible for people to create courses. You can also integrate with other tools to market and sell your courses, track student progress, run quizzes, and upload videos—all in one place. So, for those of you listening, you’re like, “Well, I don’t do online courses, Bella, that’s you.” I want you to expand your mind a bit here. Something we tested on a couple of people and then rolled out in the mastermind—more people have started catching on to it—is this whole process of training and onboarding your new staff. Rob, so that you know—and maybe for people listening who haven’t yet got staff—the typical traditional way of doing this is: a new pet sitter comes on board and we email them documents. A lot of documents. Then we expect them to understand it all. Maybe there’s a printed quiz they fill out and bring to orientation. But it’s just documents that get downloaded to their computer, which can get lost—or worse, repurposed if someone starts their own company. What Thinkific has done for a lot of pet sitters is taken this and brought it to life. I did a video (we’ll link it in the show notes) showing how easy it is. Going back to what Rob mentioned about WordPress—it’s as simple as uploading a Word document. You can take your training manual and break it into modules. At the beginning of each module, record a one-minute video—nothing fancy. Just say, “Hey guys, this next section is about X. Pay attention to this part. I’m glad to have you learn this.” Then at the end, they can take a quiz. Now, Rob, tell me how this software allows someone like a business owner to follow the process and see how much reading or quiz-taking someone’s doing. Rob: Basically, when you go to thinkific.com, you’ll see how it looks. On the left-hand side, you have the outline for the course—video lessons, quizzes, PDFs, and text—all step by step. You can control the experience for your staff so they must finish lesson one before moving to lesson two. On the backend, you can track all progress. You’ll see, for example, that someone stopped at lesson three and hasn’t moved for a few days, so you can reach out. Or, if someone says they completed everything, you can verify whether they actually did. That’s fantastic. An idea that came up while you were hanging out in the mastermind with us was to take this a step further. Pet sitters use software that clients often have questions about—like “How do I sign up?” or “How do I update my info?” You could set up a Thinkific course for your clients with short videos and step-by-step guides. It’s an easy way to deliver information, empower your clients, and cut down on admin time. Another example is ongoing training. You mentioned drip campaigns—so how could a pet sitter use this for continued learning at 1, 3, 6, or 9 months in? Rob: A drip lesson is where the content is pre-recorded but only released after a set time—say, a week or a month. You could use it for evaluations, follow-ups, or check-ins. It automates the process—staff get an email like, “Hey, it’s been a month. Here’s a quick survey.” You can also use it for clients—create short courses teaching pet owners how to use your systems, update billing, or even care tips for their pets. It becomes a centralized resource hub, saving time for everyone. The reason this excites me—and I hope it’s clicking for you—is because once we have staff, we face challenges reminding them of policies or maintaining consistency. Thinkific helps preserve valuable content like training sessions, updates, or live meetings that would otherwise be lost. It streamlines education and empowers your team. The best part? You can get started for free. The free plan includes three modules—enough for your employee manual. You can make the course private or use a free coupon code so it’s not public. Rob, I love Thinkific. I love how your tool can revolutionize training and scaling for so many pet businesses. Do you have any other ideas or did I miss anything? Rob: Just one more—use it as a marketing tool. Instead of giving away a free checklist PDF, create a free course. Teach potential clients something useful—like dog care or behavior tips—and show off your expertise. When they need a sitter, you’re top of mind. Exactly! Or you could partner with a local behaviorist for a “What Does It Mean When My Cat Does This?” course. It’s a great marketing carrot—something no one else offers. Rob: Totally.