75 | Review of Zenler learning management system

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Welcome to In the Clinic with Camille. My name is Camille Freeman.

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I am an herbalist and nutritionist, and in this podcast, I share little tips

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and tidbits that might be helpful for other practitioners.

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Today, I have a question from Olivia. Olivia wrote in and asked if I could share

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a little bit of feedback about the e-learning platform that I use because Olivia

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is thinking about revamping an online program that she's created through the

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Collective Wonder Herb School.

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So, let me share some experience with you. Now, I get this question quite a

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lot, So I thought maybe it would be helpful to record a podcast episode so I

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can refer people here in the future.

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If you have no interest in online course and membership platforms,

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feel free to skip ahead to the next episode on your playlist.

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No hard feelings. You can always catch up with the next episode I publish probably next week.

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But for people who are interested in a little bit more, let me dive in.

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Now, I, as some of you know, I have spent, gosh, I've been teaching online through

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the university setting since 2010.

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And the learning management systems

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that are available through educational institutions are quite robust.

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So I have a lot of training and experience using those.

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And in 2019, I decided I wanted to set up my own through my own platform and

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started diving into the options that are available.

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Over that time, not counting the university-associated learning management platforms.

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I have used four different platforms, and they all have pros and cons.

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So I'm not here to evangelize for the one I use.

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No matter what you pick, you are going to be sacrificing some things and getting

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top-notch whatever other thing.

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So there isn't a perfect right answer. In my situation, I've chosen what appears

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to be the best choice for me for right now, but that may or may not be what

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you need and what fits in your budget.

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So all of that said, right now for my programs and membership.

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We use a program called Zendler.

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I switched over to Zendler fully about two, two and a half years ago.

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I tested it out for a little while before that.

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And there's a couple of main reasons that I use Zendler. One of them is that

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Zendler includes a Zoom account.

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So what that means is you can have up to 300 people on their Zoom.

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A standard Zoom, if you're paying for it yourself, it only accommodates up to 100.

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That's not super relevant for most people just getting started.

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But I do have some programs where there are more than 100 people registered.

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And I just want to make sure that if every single person decides to come to

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a live class or live session, that I am able to accommodate that number of people.

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So it's really handy to have Zoom inbuilt, and I do not have to pay extra for

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Zoom to use within the Zendler platform.

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The other reason that having Zoom within Zendler really helps is because I have

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multiple teachers and facilitators working within my ecosystem.

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And when I was using my own Zoom account, either I had to get a second Zoom

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account for teachers and facilitators to use.

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The ethics and the legality of it were a little bit weird. I don't want to pay

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for a whole separate Zoom account for each facilitator when they're only doing

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one class every two months. That seems like a really big expenditure.

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But on the other hand, it's also challenging to give everybody who's teaching

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within my courses and programs access to my full Zoom account.

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So it just got, it started to get a little bit murky. And I felt like the logistics were complicated.

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Because Zenler has built in Zoom, we can use that Zoom.

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Anybody who's teaching, we

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can set it up so that they can just start the Zoom, record to the cloud.

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And, you know, they don't have to record to their own computer.

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They don't have to have a separate Zoom account, a separate login, all of that stuff.

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So that's worked out really well. The only issue to know about, and this, again,

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this may or may not be relevant depending on how much you've got going on,

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is that you can't have two concurrent live Zooms going within your single Zimler account.

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So if I were teaching a class on,

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you know, herbs and fertility and somebody else at the same time wanted to host

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a Q&A session about something else, that wouldn't be possible.

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We have to only have one live class going at a time. Again, that's not super,

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super important for most people.

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But it's just a little thing that I've picked up along the way that you have

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to make sure there's not any overlapping classes.

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The Zindler Zoom, again, it holds up to 300 people.

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Zindler also provides you with Zoom webinar, which if you wanted to buy that

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separately through Zoom, I think it's something like $150 or $200 a month.

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In case you're not clear, Zoom webinar is the type of Zoom where nobody is on

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camera except the panelists.

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You don't even have the option to turn your camera on.

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People who are watching the webinar can only participate in the chat or the

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Q&A if given permission.

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You can set up the settings that way, but they are not visible.

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It doesn't have the little puzzle board of everybody's faces and all that.

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It's just a straight webinar.

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So that's a really nice feature if you wanted to teach bigger classes and so forth.

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Now, there's, you know, there's pros and cons to all of this,

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but it is a really, that's a great bonus added for me.

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And I don't actually use it that much, but it is nice to have it during the times when I do want it.

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The other things that the other main reason that I chose Zoom over some of the

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other platforms that are, I'm sorry, I chose Zendler over some of the other

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platforms that are available on the market is because it does have the assignment feature.

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And as somebody who's a former university professor, I really like to have courses

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where people are submitting things and getting feedback from me.

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I feel like it's really important to have that interaction as much as I can.

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So I did not want something where people would have to email me their assignments

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and then I'd have to keep track of it and somehow email back to them.

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That's very complicated, especially when you have larger numbers of students.

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So Zendler, unlike most other platforms, some of them are starting to get this

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now. But Zendler has a feature where you can add assignments.

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And what that does is it keeps track within Zendler. It'll show you from the

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instructor level, you have four outstanding assignments.

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And then you can go in there, you review the assignment, you can click approve,

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and then you can send feedback to the person in, you know, in a message or response.

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So I really, really appreciate that because it's just easy to keep track.

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I'm not trying to deal with emails and that sort of thing.

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So that was a really big one for me. The third really big reason that I chose

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Zendler over some of the other platforms that are available is because it has built in video hosting.

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And if you're familiar with my programs, I actually offer, I have Monday Mentoring,

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which we have three live sessions every Monday.

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And then I frequently teach classes that have live sessions,

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you know, once a week, as well as video lectures that are posted in the classes.

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You know, I do frequent webinars for the public, that sort of thing.

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All of these, I want to be recorded and the recordings posted within my course,

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more learning management system.

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And a A lot of them do not provide video hosting, meaning you have to get your

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own Vimeo account or some other type of hosting and then connect it and then

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upload the videos there and then post them, blah, blah, blah.

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It just gets very complicated.

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So for me, I was like, I need simplicity. I need as few logins and platforms

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and things like that as I can get because things are already complicated on the back end.

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And so Zendler has built-in video hosting.

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I can upload as much as I want into Zendler. There's not limit within reason.

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And I think they probably would cut you off if you tried, you know,

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depending, but I haven't reached any, nearing any limits. And so that really works well for me.

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The nice thing about having Zoom built into Zindler is that if I have a guest

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coming in and hosting a Monday mentoring session or whatever,

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they hit record, it saves it to Zindler's Zoom.

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And then I, when I'm working with an assistant, my assistant can go in there

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and get the recording and post it within Zoom. so I don't need to be involved.

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Nobody's trying to email MP4s and blah, blah, blahs back and forth.

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It's just all within the ecosystem.

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So for me, those are the really big things. Also, the price is right.

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Zindler is quite affordable relative to many of the other kind of e-learning platforms.

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Once you start into the kind of paid system, I believe all of the paid tiers

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are unlimited numbers of courses and unlimited numbers of students.

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So that You're not limited to just three courses that you can have or 100 students

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or something like that. So I feel like there's a lot of room to grow.

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I haven't had any limitations on what I want to do.

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So those are some of the reasons that I have worked with Zendler.

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Like I said, I have tried multiple other platforms extensively,

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sometimes for a year or more.

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And just for me right now, because of these main three things, it is a good fit.

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They are all very similar. And again, and some have pros and cons in other ways.

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The things that I don't appreciate as much about Zendler are I don't think it's very pretty.

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It's not out of the box. I don't think it looks super modern and up to date.

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So I have kind of worked as much as I can around that.

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I tried to make the pages feel modern and branded and that sort of thing. And,

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So that's one thing. I think it looks a little bit more dated than some of the

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other platforms, but maybe that's just a personal opinion.

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It is still in beta, and there are some glitches that happen from time to time.

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I think this is true of everything.

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All of the platforms I've used have had some small and some major glitches along

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the way. But again, Zendler is still under development.

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They've been saying they're going to revise the community discussion boards,

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for example, for years. And as far as I know, that has not happened.

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That is another con for me. There are discussion boards, community spaces associated

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with, you know, you can associate them with different courses.

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But again, they're not very pretty. The notifications are not nuanced.

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I actually use a different community space for Monday Mentoring because it's pretty limited.

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But there is a discussion space. It's pretty preliminary. It is possible to use it.

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Support is not super fast. You email them.

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Often they get back to you within a day, but I have had times where the ball

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is entirely dropped and I never hear back from them.

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So, you know, sometimes it's really solid and sometimes it's less than solid

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and I have to do a bunch of follow-up.

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And, you know, there's, again, there's just like small things that come up along

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the way, but I do believe that that's, this is just something that happens with

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any tech platform. There's just going to be pros and cons.

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So overall, I am happy with Zendler. I don't have plans to move unless I decide

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to host everything on my own website, just to have a little bit more control and even more...

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You know, streamlining of things. But that's a huge undertaking to move everything

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over. So, you know, I don't think that's coming.

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A couple other things that came up for me, Zendler does not take any fees.

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So a lot of these platforms are like, oh, you know, you pay a monthly fee.

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And then when somebody pays you to join a class or a membership,

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they also take a percentage, you know, usually one, two, three,

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five percent of how much the person is paying you.

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Zendler doesn't do any of that. There's just a flat monthly fee. So I do like that.

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They do have quizzing. They do have webhooks and automation.

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For some people, that matters.

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For some people, that's just too techie.

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Anyway, there's a bunch of features. You can read all about the features on

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basically every review that's ever been posted about Zimler.

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But for me, the features that stand out are unlimited courses and students,

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the built-in Zoom, including Zoom webinar,

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the assignment feature where you can kind of keep track of who submitted what

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and do that, as well as video hosting built in so that you don't have to pay for that separately.

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So those are the highlights for me. I hope that helps. If you have any questions,

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please let me know. And then lastly, if you are thinking about signing up for

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Zindler, I do have a referral link, which is the same price for you,

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but does provide a little bit of a kickback for me.

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So I'd appreciate it if this review has been helpful for you,

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or if you do decide to use it, if you would use my link, I would love that.

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If not, you can just, you know, Google it and find the link yourself as well.

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All right, let me know if you have any other questions.

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For folks who are listening to this and would like to submit your own question

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to the podcast, you can go to intheclinic.com and leave your question using

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the little pink sidebar.

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Otherwise, I do have a practitioner newsletter that goes out every Thursday.

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I think you'll really like it. You can sign up at camillefreeman.com.

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Just go and put your email address in and next Thursday, I will send you my practitioner notes.

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All right, thank you so much for listening and I'll talk to you soon.