Course Creators Weekly #39 🗓 March 22nd, 2021 - How to Create Your Online Course

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  Make sure your course idea has legs before investing time, energy and money into it
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  Remember that the only true validation is sales—everything else is pre-validation
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  Surveys: ask your audience about their challenges and solutions they've already tried
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  Customer discovery interviews: talk to people—pay attention to the language they use
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  e-Stalking: become a part of your target audience's community and listen intently
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  Be wary of people "lying" to please you or avoid discomfort—we're only human
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  Combine these ideas—e.g. interview survey respondents or e-stalk to verify answers

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  Create ~30% of your content and pre-sell a live pilot to truly validate your course idea
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  Use the live pilot to discover and fill gaps in your content—better find these early!

7 steps to running a live pilot:

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  Validate your course idea
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  Identify your course goal/desired transformation
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  Outline your content
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  Create your sales page
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  Pre-sell the course
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  Create the starter content
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  Run the live pilot

At this point, I highly recommend that you actually watch the video. Janelle walks through a worked example, demonstrating how she goes about outlining one of her own courses.

I'll share some of my key takeaways below:

On creating your content

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  Break down your course goal into a few key outcomes that contribute to it
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  Break down the key outcomes into modules + further learning objectives per module
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  Design lessons and assignments around those objectives
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  Define some "wins" for each module—things to celebrate

On creating your sales page

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  Use your audience's language
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  Tell stories of transformation
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  Show the modules and the lessons
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  Share testimonials
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  Share packages and pricing info (see the next video summary)

Again, check out the video—you'll love it!

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  Increase revenue by providing extra value in premium packages
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  Change the decision from 'yes' or 'no' to 'which package'
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  Allow your audience to self-identify by picking the right package for them
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  Start simple by offering 2 packages, or up to 3, with a middle option perfect for most
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  Take inventory of everything you have to offer + what students need to succeed
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  Don't have existing assets to offer yet? Give access to you as an extra

Janelle's next video is on pricing your packages! I might summarise this later, but if you're interested, you should definitely check it out: 3 Simple Ways to Price Your Online Course