Course Lab – Episode 108
Expanding a Global Mermaid Brand Online (Marielle Chartier Henault)
Abe Crystal: It’s also a reminder that if you dive deep into some very specific niche area, you could probably find places where people are gathering around that, and that can be where you find your clients.
Ari Iny: Hello and welcome to Course Lab, the show that teaches creators like you how to make better online courses. I’m Ari Iny, the director of growth at Mirasee and I’m here with my co-host, Abe Crystal, the co-founder of Ruzuku.
Abe: Hey there, Ari.
Ari: In each episode of Course Lab, we showcase a course and creator who’s doing something really interesting, either with the architecture of their course, the business model behind it, or both.
Today we welcome Marielle Chartier to the show. Marielle is the founder and CEO of AquaMermaid, based in Montreal. In just a few years, she’s expanded across Canada and the United States, growing to over 10 locations to become the world’s largest mermaid swimming school. Her mission is to make mermaid dreams come true while educating and coaching people on the sports discipline of mermaiding. Thanks for joining us, Marielle.
Marielle Chartier Henault: My pleasure. I’m excited to be here.
Ari: Awesome. So the question that I always ask to kick this off is could you give us the 30,000-foot view of how you came to be doing what you’re doing and to the world of online courses?
Marielle: Yes. I always loved swimming, Princesses. Fitness. Then I kind of made a fusion with all my passions and created a mermaid business. I was inspired by a mermaid school that existed in Germany. I saw some videos on social media and I said, I want to start this where I live. I’m sure I will have a lot of fun creating mermaid schools. Mainly we teach people how to swim with mermaid tails. I made a fusion with synchronized swimming, monofin swimming, and different kind of discipline to create my own new sport discipline.
A lot of people were super interested because it’s quite unique, but they don’t live where I was teaching the lessons. Then I started to expand to different cities selling licenses and courses. But then I was kind of stuck because a lot of people wanted the training but they could not travel because it was too expensive. Then I decided maybe I make a digital course. That way I can reach more people, especially with a niche training like this. A lot of people internationally want this, but it’s not available in their region because it’s so unique. Then that’s really brought me to do the online training and that was fantastic because I was just extending something I was already doing and I don’t need to redo it every time in person.
Ari: Awesome. Could you tell us a little bit more about the path getting there. So it sounds like you started with teaching, is that right?
Marielle: Yes, that’s it. I started with the teaching of mermaid swimming lessons, but then I saw people wanted to have mermaid entertainers that I didn’t have in my teaching. And also what happened is COVID happened and all the swimming pools closed. I was out of places to teach swimming lessons. But we were able to continue and modify the business to go to people’s private backyard. Cool. And have mermaid performers for kids’ birthday parties. And that’s how kind of my business pivoted.
And then from there, same as the swimming lesson, I had people that wanted to become mermaid performers in their own cities. I was receiving all those requests for booking mermaid performers, but I didn’t have them anywhere. Then I said, I can have my own training. I train you, and I also offer you some work. Now that’s kind of what happened.
Ari: Awesome. So currently you have two online courses. One just teaching mermaid swimming and one is like, it’s a next step or is it its own thing where you teach mermaid swimming and being an entertainer.
Marielle: Yeah, you can do them separately. You can be just a swim instructor, or you can be a mermaid performer. A mermaid performer? You’re more like a princess entertainer for kids’ parties. You’re more like acting or like beautiful swimming techniques on the water in a big aquarium. And the other one is really for teaching swimming lessons. And you could be a regular swimming teacher. And you want to have like a specialty of mermaid swimming.
Ari: So just to clarify, you mainly teach people who want to use mermaid swimming professionally. So it’s not for the layperson who wants to learn mermaid swimming. It’s for the person who wants to either be teaching it or having it as a job. Is that right? Or do you also teach mermaid swimming to the lay people who want to learn it?
Marielle: Everybody is pretty much a beginner in general in mermaiding because it’s brand new. We teach people how to swim. I have discovery classes, but for the online course, I went further with more the instructor and the people that want to become professional.
Ari: Got it. Okay, that’s helpful. So it sounds like for the online course, you need people who have a certain base level of knowledge and experience in order to then do this. Because one question I definitely had about the online course is, I mean, what you teach is very– it’s a very physical thing. And so how does that translate or does it even translate to the online piece of it? Because it sounds like you’re working with people who already have a certain level of experience with it before they’re able to even do the online course.
Marielle: Yeah.
Ari: Is that right?
Marielle: Yeah. That was my challenge because I was wondering, will people buy a course that normally is done in person? Because you want to see your swimming skills, your level. Then what I did to make it work is you need to have a basic swimming level and on the mermaid tail. That’s the two minimum requirements. I have all the videos teaching you the different movements, and then I ask you to send me videos of yourself doing it at the pool.
Along the training, you need to send me recordings to make sure that I can give you feedback and tell you, hey, you’re on the right path, or you can correct this. That’s a really good way. I feel people also feel more involved and I know who’s doing it and who’s not doing it. We created like a community Facebook group and I asked them to post it there. That way, the other participant, they also see their progression and also can help with their own tips.
Ari: Very cool. I’m assuming with COVID, you needed to make this change that you were saying. That was kind of something that brought this on with all swimming pools closing. Now that things are open up again and people are able to go back to swimming pools, are you still seeing people with this? Again, very physical feeling, discipline. Are more people coming to you for the online courses? Is that still a big driver of your business or has that reduced with COVID no longer being as much of an issue?
Marielle: I feel most people prefer to do the digital course because they live abroad and the investment just to come for the trip is significant, then they prefer to do it at their own pace at their house, and I coach them along the way. And that can really reduce the cost of the training. International students and the cost, that makes it much easier. Also because my time is limited, it was not really worth it if one student wants to do the training like I want a few students to join a course and managing everybody’s schedule was really complicated.
And then if I have only a few bookings, it’s not profitable. It was just too much to manage for me. Then I pretty much stopped doing in person training for instructors. I just do like beginners’ introduction, all the people that we teach. But for the instructor, I feel you need the basic level and then I bring you further along.
Ari: Interesting. And so my next question is thinking about other course creators who teach something very physical, when you needed to make that transition of okay, usually I work with people in person, hands on, and I move to the online, what were the considerations that you were making as you were kind of designing your course. And what have you learned from delivering it and improving on it?
Marielle: I would say a lot of videos. Visual, like just not talking head, like you need to film exactly each movement and show it to them. I like them to show us what they do. I didn’t do live calls, like teaching the actual material, but I did some group calls with the first cohort. I mean, for me, it’s in the pool, but someone else that’s doing something like online, they could show it to you right there at the meeting. That would be really important. That way you can give them feedback. The students should be filming themselves and sending you videos. Keep track, give feedback.
Ari: Yeah. And so from the first time that you delivered it to now, the way that you’re delivering it, has something changed? Have you changed the way that you’re doing it? Have you learned things that you think are worth pointing out?
Marielle: I learned parts that were missing. For me, part of my completion of the training. You need to fill up the survey form. Then I got a lot of feedback and like, people, for them, what was really valuable was the community and sharing with the community. I feel that’s an important part and that’s where we were posting all the videos and photos. But being in person or being digital, I feel now everybody is used to digital and it’s just so much faster. I think that’s what someone should think about anything that’s normally in person, how to do it virtually, it’s just faster and cheaper. That’s what I would focus on.
Ari: Okay, awesome. Abe, any questions that you have or I go in a completely different direction.
Abe: I don’t have a lot of specific questions, so go ahead and then we can follow up.
Ari: Sure. So one question I have is just around the business model and the structure of it in that you were saying you will not run an online course for just one person. So it sounds like it is cohort based. How many people do you need in it with the community aspect being important? Is there a minimum amount of people that you have in it? Do people who’ve gone through the course in the past stay in the community indefinitely? How does that work?
Marielle: Yeah, like the minimum would be maybe five people. I would need to start a training. And then right now, what I did for the launch, I launched my pilot and I said, okay, let’s have 15 people in it as like a starter group. And that worked really well. I noticed, like 15 people bought it, but about 8 really did it. Other people just bought it because they wanted to do it later or they were not available or any other reason. I feel if you can have like a test group a bit bigger, it’s always better.
Ari: Essentially you have eight people who are actually doing the work. Is that enough? Like, because you were saying that the community aspect is important.
Marielle: The community aspect,I would say, the people that were participating, they were all in and the other one were just kind of, they still joined the group, but they were kind of watching you see the different types of personality. I started with the cohort program, but right now I’m just keep taking registration as we go because people can do it on their own time. And because of mermaid performance is more seasonal, it’s more the summer, then I will do like one cohort per year at the spring. You can buy it all year long. And then if you want in the spring, we do like an intense one month going through all the training together.
When you purchase it, you can rejoin if you want the next year. Anybody that signed up this year can join during this cohort and I thought that was the best way to do it. As the year progressed, people join, I put them in their group and they can see the other students sharing their experience, what they learned. It keeps them engaged. And also, they post their new videos that they are doing through the training. I think that was a good format for me that works well. That gives the everybody motivated in the spring for the summer season. I don’t need to be there all the time, but one month of the year I’m focused to bring all those people ready.
Ari: And do you see an influx of people in the spring? You know, I’m sure there are a lot of swimming pools that are open year-round if they’re indoors. So do you still have people trickling in throughout the year?
Marielle: A lot of students contact me during the summer because it’s the season. They’re like, oh, it’s happening, I need some training. Then I show them like quickly how it goes. They go with the training and then we do the next year. But I have people all year long, especially because I have an international base of students. The weather changes all over the year, but it’s all about marketing. If I advertise it, I get bookings when I push it. And if I stop a bit, I have less booking. Then it’s more about me promoting it than a seasonality.
Ari: And how do you usually promote your course?
Marielle: Yes, for me what was best is that I already had the following of people interested in mermaids on social media. YouTube is my big source of people watching me, and knowing me as an expert. TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, that’s my go to. I try with the newsletter and that was not the best because my newsletter is more my students that come to the classes or there are more beginners and I don’t know if other creator or people making content can relate to that. But for me, on the side of mermaid lesson, I book mermaid performers for events.
Then I’m like a booking agent for mermaids. I already have a lot of people that apply to work for me. I have a big list of people like when you post job posting on indeed in different places. Then I emailed those this list of people that was interested to work for me as a mermaid. And then I got a super good response because all those people were not train but they were interested to work. This course is not just learning, it’s also opportunity to work and make money.
And that was the best way to get students. It’s kind of a part of my business. You want to work? Here’s the training that you can get. It’s a bit like a lifeguard. You need to do the lifeguard course to become a lifeguard and then we give you the work. And that was the best way for me to get new students.
Ari: That’s really interesting. So it’s on the one hand you have the people who are interested in mermaid swimming, but on the other hand you have the people who are looking for work. They’re looking for a way to essentially create a job for themselves. And so they’re using this as a jumping off point to do that. I’m assuming you only will help people find work if they’ve gone through your training, correct?
Marielle: No, actually I’m pretty flexible. I think my training is good. There’s not a lot of training for mermaids. I mean they can have equivalent experience, but I hire people that are qualified. Then you can go through my training. But most people don’t have any. And I get a lot of young women, they contact me like, I want to be a mermaid. This is my dream. How can I do it? Here’s a training for you. I book people as a booking agent and I get the commission that you are trained with me or someone else. I was just fixing my own issue of untrained people and made money at the same time.
Ari: Got it. Very cool. I really like that business model. And so would you say, if you don’t mind sharing, is you being the booking agent of the people that you’re training a larger part of the business or is it mainly the courses? And this is of course, aside from the schools, which is a completely separate piece of it.
Marielle: I would say the biggest part of the business is booking mermaid performers. And the online course helped me to fulfill all my work that I have. I need mermaids.
Ari: Like to have enough people, right?
Marielle: Yeah, that could be interesting for someone that’s have difficulty hiring, cannot find your own staff that is qualified and you create your own training for yourself. And that way, they are training exactly how you want them.
Ari: Abe, any questions about this or anything else?
Abe: I’m just wondering if you had any other insights or lessons learned from customers in a very specific niche because so what you do is very specific. It’s very focused. As opposed to a course creator working in a more generic area like health coaching or something broader like that.
Marielle: Yeah, like related to mermaid or a specific niche, I would say for us there’s blogs, forums that are just about mermaids. There’s also mermaid conferences. Like once a year, people meet up and there’s all the mermaid vendors of costumes, training, photo shoot. I think it’s really being part of this community, but it’s kind of also, from what I’ve seen, it’s sometimes it’s easier to not just stick to that community because those people already know everything about it.
For me, I went to see a more broad community that are swimming instructors, lifeguards, people that do performance art, circus. Then those were kind of my main place to find clients because my super niche community was maybe too small. You can sell a little bit to them because they already know and want that. But I would go a bit broader to the general area of what people like or their skills are in.
Ari: Is there anything that we haven’t spoken about that you think course creators out there would, you know, there’s a lesson they’d like to give them or share from your own experience that we haven’t talked about.
Marielle: Yeah, I feel a lot of people feel it’s never perfect and they always keep working and adding stuff. I really like the pilot version offering like a rough draft of your course as soon as possible. That will be my tip. Like just put everything, you know, fast together, ship it and then keep people engaged in your community and give them the extra later everything they that you miss. They were like, hey, what is this about? Or like I forgot about mermaid safety. I was like, oh, maybe I should add the chapter about this. And then I just add it as we go.
Also make it cheaper. The pilot make it cheaper. That way you get a big boost of people and also, I asked for my survey, would people recommend us? What do you think about the price? It was a long survey but I was like, I give you a cheaper price, I want some feedback. And I got some really good feedback that was really helpful. And also, I was just really open with people and I think that came through the reviews. People were saying, oh, she’s really transparent. I was asking them question, I was really clear like, this is my pilot, I’m an expert in this, but I’m not an expert in online class. I was asking, what do you think? How does it feel? Are you lost?
Something also I noticed because I have international clients, some people felt a bit like, oh my God, what you’re saying. I cannot really do that in Dublin or something like that. It’s kind of different. Then I was really trying to make it as general as possible and then I included like 30 minutes in person call with people if they have like any special question for them. And I think it’s nice to include that. But I think out of the 15 people, two people requested it. I just say it includes a call. Message me when you want to book it. And then you just kind of leave it open to people to contact you when they want. And most people don’t do it and it’s really good value for them because it doesn’t take that much time either.
Ari: One quick question on the community aspect. I mean you’ve mentioned a number of times how community has been really important. So other than making sure that people are sharing their videos and stuff like that in the group so that it fosters this feeling of people are doing things, I should do things, too, and mutual support, is there anything else that you’re doing to engage the community and keep it going in order to have people stay in?
Marielle: I mean, I just encourage people to ask questions and share about their milestone or what’s challenging for them if they got their first booking, send us photos. If you’re like stuck, I ask every mermaid to make like a video, a demo reel of who they are as a mermaid and then everybody was sharing. Yeah, I encourage people to share as much as possible their journey. That way, the other girls, it’s mainly girls in my classes. They just reply and comment and that they feel good. They feel like they are helping boosting other people.
I don’t do anything else really special. Sometimes, I just like to share what I’m doing, hey, I got this contract or if I find a job offer to like visit pools or do something like that that’s related, I post it because I know a lot of those people that are looking for work. If I find any other work opportunity related to water, ocean, mermaids, kids, I share it. That way they know also, oh, I can find job, I can find motivation, I can find friends. Then it’s like different things you can find on the group.
Ari: All right, very cool. So my last question is, if our audience wants to learn more about you and what you do, where should they go?
Marielle: Yeah, they should go to AquaMermaid website, aquamarmaid.com and they can find us AquaMermaid on YouTube, Instagram, TikTok. And they can become mermaids themselves for one day for a party, or they can evolve for a professional mermaid.
Ari: All right, awesome. Thank you so much for taking the time to speak with us.
Marielle: My pleasure.
Abe: Marielle is the founder and CEO of AquaMermaid, the world’s largest mermaid swimming school, where she teaches young women to perform as a mermaid so they can make money as an entertainer.
Danny Iny: Now, stick around for my favorite part of the show, where Abe and Ari will pull out the best takeaways for you to apply to your course.
Abe: All right, Ari. Very unique course today. Unlike any other in the world, perhaps. I think it’s interesting to show the example of how you can create a course in such a highly, highly specialized area.
Ari: Yeah, very, very unique. I feel like we don’t have a lot of people who teach something physical like that come onto the show. And so I think there are some things that are worth remembering as you might be approaching something like it. Making sure that you’re able to properly assess the way that the people that you’re teaching, how they’re doing what they’re doing so that you’re able to correct things. And so having that built in so they’re filming their own videos and doing stuff like that, I think that’s important to remember.
The thing that I feel is most interesting, though, about the way that her business works, essentially, she wants to be booking more entertainers. And so her course is really a vehicle for her to generate those entertainers. Win-win scenario, people learning a new skill to then be able to find work. And she’s able to increase her business in that way, which I find very interesting.
Abe: Yeah, I mean, I think it’s a takeaway for people that in your general field, can you think of ways to create offerings that help your clients build their own business? And that’s very powerful if you can do that.
Ari: Yeah, I mean, it becomes very attractive whenever you can promise a clear ROI, return on investment on whatever it is that you’re teaching. It’s just generally easier to market, especially if it’s in a niche that they’re already interested in and would like to get into.
Abe: I think it’s more the monetary ROI, too. I mean, that’s a piece of it. But also that, like, more and more, I think people want the autonomy of running their own thing. And so if you can position your training as a path to that, that’s very compelling.
Ari: Absolutely. Anything else that stood out to you?
Abe: It’s also a reminder that if you dive deep into some very specific niche area, you could probably find places where people are gathering around that, and that can be where you find your clients. Right? So she mentioned like finding blogs and forums specifically about being a mermaid or having a mermaid business. Right? And so if you can track down what are those kind of analogous gathering places in the niche you want to work in, that can be the way to reach the people you need to reach.
Ari: All right, I don’t have anything else.
Abe: Marielle is the founder and CEO of AquaMermaid, the world’s largest mermaid swimming school. She provides several online programs as well as indoor swimming lessons. You’ll find the link to her website in the show notes.
Thank you for listening to Course Lab. I’m Abe Crystal, co-founder and CEO of Ruzuku, here with my co-host Ari Iny. Course Lab is part of the Mirasee FM Podcast network, which also includes such shows as Once Upon a Business and Making It. And if you don’t want to miss the excellent episodes coming up on Course Lab, follow us on YouTube or wherever you listen to your favorite podcasts. And if you’re enjoying the show, please go ahead and leave us a starred review. It really does make a difference. Thank you and we’ll see you next time.
So Ari, who is coming on the.
Ari: Show next week, next time we have Quinn Simpson. She co-founded Graydin that trains educators in coaching skills.
Abe: Looking forward to learning more about that.