Course Creation Bites

Show Notes:

Today I want to talk about some of the things I worked on, some things I have seen working and what you can take from this to help with your course and program. 

The year that was: 

I have worked with 34 different clients this year across 7 different platforms.     This is important and why I never recommend one particular platform to use – it is important to use the platform that works best for you and your course, and each person’s needs are different.

I’ve also done dozens and dozens of course mapping sessions with clients.   

We have worked with clients doing 3 different launches this year:   Waitlist launches, live launches and lots of smaller evergreen launches.   Again – there isn’t one right option for every client.    Anyone who is telling you that there is only one correct way is lying – there are lots of right ways. 

There are 3 takeaways I think are important:

1. Working with a warm audience list.   You will get a far better response if you have a warm list. 
2. Offer supported outcomes.   More and more I’m seeing students and clients wanting to be supported on their way through and into the outcome they are hoping to achieve. 
3. The ability to pivot quickly.  You have to take action and sometimes it is fast.  If there has been a shift and there is a change in people’s need – that’s when people are going to be searching for an answer. 

Action Steps:

One of the biggest things I think you should take from today is to build a warm list.  Build your audience and offer them solutions now.

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Show Notes:

If you are a small business or personal brand and you are the figurehead of your business, its important to understand that people are buying YOU.   

There are ways that you can leverage the understanding that they want You. 

1. Trust.  When someone is purchasing a course, they want the answers to the problem and they need to trust that YOU know those answers and are the right person to teach them.  
2. Learn from YOU.  If they have purchased a course, they want you to teach them.  The REAL you.  When it comes to video, they still want to learn from YOU, so show up as you.   
3. Time with YOU.  As a general rule, they still expect time with you.  They expect you to be the person facilitating the group calls or the coaching program.  They expect you to show up in the Facebook groups. 

So, what does that mean for you?  It means that you need to make sure you are allocating time for the delivery and facilitation of the program, not just the sales process. 

Action Steps:

I really want you to think about how you are showing up as part of your program.   If you have been putting off video for a while, think about how you would show up for a zoom meeting or a Facebook live and just do that for your video.  That is the you they expect.  
Outside of video, think about how you are showing up in your course.  How much access do they get to you?  Are you giving too much or not enough?   

Also, really think about that first stage coming in with the trust process.  Do they already know you, like you and trust you before they come to your sales page or are they coming from cold traffic – and if they are coming from cold traffic, how can you work on that trust process and why you are who you are from your sales page?

That’s it for this time, but really go away and think about how you can put you into your program. 

 Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

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Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

And I don't mean they can touch their toes... ;) 

I’m talking about flexibility in terms of course content and course material and how we do things.   This is a build on from episode from 3.17 where we talked about what a course is and how there isn’t a right or wrong.    

It’s important to be:

1. Flexible about course content.   A great course changes often.  It’s a continual growing process based on feedback from students and experience.   Taking out material that doesn’t work can be just as important as putting new material in. 
2. Flexible with course delivery.    Delivery flexibility is a really important part of making sure your students get what they need at the right time. 
3. Flexible with support methods.  Often, we offer the support we think we should offer, but this doesn’t make it the right support for your students.   
4. Open to feedback.   We need rounded feedback – positive testimonials but also good, robust feedback to assist with improving the course. 

Action Steps:

Make sure you get great feedback.  

If you have launched your course, reach out to current and past students to get well rounded feedback.  

If you haven’t launched your course yet, build the mechanism in to get feedback.  

 Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

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Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

I know when I work with clients and we talk about video, it seems to be one of the biggest stumbling blocks they have (other than tech).

There is a really important need for video but just remember that it isn’t always an essential element for a course. 

Here are some of the strategies I have used to make video recording easier. 

1. Find somewhere to set up where you feel comfortable.  Find a background that doesn’t confuse or distract students, but it also helps you relax and not worry about what is going on in the background. 
2. Relax.  I know that’s really hard sometimes, just remember that video represents you and your brand in the same way as all the other mediums.    Make sure you have good lighting and good sound, but otherwise treat it the same way as you would a conversation with one student at a time on a video hookup. 
3. Find a way to feel comfortable remembering what to say. This might be fully scripted or to have some key notes that you need to remember.   

Action Steps:

I encourage you to give it a go.   The wonderful thing about turning on the video and having a go is that no one has to see it.   Test different locations, lighting and how you work best remembering what to say. 

 Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

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Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

The reason that I ask this is that the word course has come to mean many things to different people. 

In essence a course is designed to educate and support a student from point A to point B.  

In theory a course is linear in some way, but it doesn’t have to be.

Really, it is completely up to you how you want your course to look:

• Drip feeding content out suits a live program, but progressive suits self paced programs. 
• Live rounds support community and group learning whereas evergreen supports that instant gratification and being able to get started immediately without having to wait.  

When you are making the decision on what suits you and your audience, just think about the reasons you are making those decisions. 

There are pros and cons to every type of course out there, every platform, every delivery method.   Every choice you have has pros and cons and there isn’t a right or a wrong.   

Just remember that 

1. Just because it has worked for someone else doesn’t mean that it will work for you.  
2. There isn’t one right way.   Be very hesitant if someone tells you this is what you ‘MUST’ do. 

Action Steps:

Your course can be anything you want it to be.  It’s designed to suit you and your students and designed to take them from Point A to Point B.   

What I really want you to do today is become really clear on what a course means to you.  What do you want it to do?  What functionality do you want it to have? What experience do you want to create?   

Close your eyes if it makes it easier or grab a piece of paper and makes some notes. 

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

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Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Repurposing – Using something that already exists for another purpose. 

Most people I talk to have a huge amount of content that they have already produced for blogs or books or podcasts, and the good thing about that when creating a course is it means that you don’t need to start from scratch.  The truth is you probably have a huge amount of content that could be easily repurposed. 

The steps for repurposing what you already have into course content are:

1. Map it all out – work out exactly what you want your course to cover and in what order.
2. Lay out all your existing content and see where the correlations are.
3. Fill in the gaps.  
4. See exactly what you have – now you can re-create as required.

 Action Steps:

If you haven’t started creating your course because if felt like the task was too big or you have too much on, don’t worry about the course content at the moment - instead start with a course map.  Work your way from the beginning to the end and work out exactly what your modules and lessons would be and in what order.  Then you can look at a strategy to work your course materials out.   It all starts with a solid, really clear course map. 

I have both course mapping templates and programs available, or if you need help sorting out what is going on in your head that is something that I can take you through as well.   

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

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Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

The 4 Stages of Competency is a model based on the premise that before learning something, learners are completely unaware of what it is that they need to learn and they move through 4 psychological stages before achieving full competence.  

In this episode we'll look at these 4 stages and how these impact you selling and running your course. 

1. Unconscious Incompetence – You don’t know what you don’t know. 
2. Conscious Incompetence – You do know what you don’t know. 
3. Conscious Competence – You know how to use the skill, but it still requires practice and conscious effort and hard work. 
4. Unconscious Competence – You have enough experience with the skill that you know how to do it unconsciously. 

Action Steps:

Think about your current audience and work out where they are at in their competence journey.  Are you trying to sell them something that doesn’t meet their needs?   

It's really worth thinking about where your audience is and what suits them best.  It will save your time and effort trying to sell them something that doesn't meet their needs, and it also means they are going to be more satisfied with the product.

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

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Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

When it comes to course creation, people seem to have an urge to make things more complicated than they need to be, so let’s talk about keeping things simple. 

The first thing you can do to keep it simple is to use what you already have.    

The second thing you can do is to keep it small.  Good quality content is important, but there doesn’t need to be a lot of it - there just needs to be the right information to solve their problem. 

The next thing to think about is the technical component.   Think about your processes - these should be as small & as simple as possible as well. 

Lastly, think about what is easiest for your audience.   Who are they and where are they?  What are they doing and how are they using your content?  Target your delivery to what is easiest for your student, not what you think is best. 

Action Steps:

The one thing I want you to take away is Keep It Simple.   What do you already have that you can use, what can you do to make this the smallest and easiest course it can possibly be?   It’s better for you because it’s easier to build, but it's also better for your audience because it is quicker to use.   

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

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Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Let’s talk about getting online fast.    What do you do when you are in a position where you need to get a course online fast?

The first thing you can do to speed up your production time is to get clear on your outcomes and modules.   This will make your content creation process much faster. 

The second way to speed up your production is to understand that content creation takes time.   The production of the content – the videos, the PDFs etc – they all take time.  Understanding this allows you to block out time specifically to get it done or to outsource it.   

The third thing you can do if you need to move quickly is to presell the program.   The risk with preselling is that it is incredibly stressful – so if you need to get things moving, my advice is to at least create module one so you have a) something to give your students, and b) so you have an idea about what a realistic timeframe is to create the rest of the course.  

The last thing to understand is that sometimes you will have to let the perfection slide a little.  What is the minimum viable product that you can get online now? What are the minimum pieces that your students need to have?

Action Steps:

If you need to get a course online fast, look at your calendar for the next few weeks and block out the time to work on your course now.    Then when it comes to that time you have a period when you can work on your course without being interrupted.   This is the biggest piece of advice I can give you no matter where you are in your course creation journey.

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

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Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food. 

Show Notes:

Let’s talk course type and price points.  

There are three major styles of courses around at the moment.  

1. The Tiny Offer($0 - $100): An entry component to a major course & should be value laden.    Will suit you if you have higher priced content that you want to build a warm list for – it’s great for attracting new clients to check out your content and to build that know, like and trust factor.   
2. Pre-training ($100 - $900): Prepares/trains your audience for what you want them to do next, a lead in for the high-level sales.    This mid-range course gets your client thinking about what level they are at and what they need to work on so that if they want to invest in a high level course they can move that way when they are ready. 
3. Signature Program ($1000 – $10,000+): High price, high touch, guided programs.  People come to you for this because you are known for it. 

Instead of trying to build all three straight away, decide where your current gap is, and which one is going to suit you best at the moment.   Look for the one thing that suits you where you are at and what suits your business model. 

Action Steps:

If you are thinking about building a course, think about this three-level system and what suits you and your business model.   

Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:

Content Into Courses Facebook Group

Instagram

Find out more at samwinch.com.au
Or connect on socials. Simply look for samwinch... no one else is silly enough to be named after a lunchtime food.