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Show Notes:New years often mean new goals - goals like "create an online course".But it's such a big task, how do you get started and give yourself the best chance for success?Today we are going to talk about how to best approach your goal and take steps to achieve it.  Set a date for the goal.    If you have a task without a deadline it gets pushed to the bottom the list over and over.   Work out if you are motivated by internal or external deadlines.  Make time.  Unless you physically make time for your course, it won’t happen.  Set a really clear objective.  “By the end of your course, students will be able to……” Start to map your course out.   Start to think about how content will go into a program.   Action Steps:  The best thing you can do is set a date and block the time out so that you have a dedicated time to make it happen. Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

What's happening in the world of online courses next year? In this episode I'll share with you what I think you can expect to see in 2022 and how it will impact you as a course creator. This is the last episode of season 3 of course creation bites. At the end of this episode I'll also give you a sneak peek into what's coming in next season and how you can get involved. Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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 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: Working with a warm audience list.   You will get a far better response if you have a warm list.  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.  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.Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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.  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.   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.    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:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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: 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.  Flexible with course delivery.    Delivery flexibility is a really important part of making sure your students get what they need at the right time.  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.    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:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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.  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.  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.  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:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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.Other than that, 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  Just because it has worked for someone else doesn’t mean that it will work for you.   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:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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: Map it all out – work out exactly what you want your course to cover and in what order. Lay out all your existing content and see where the correlations are. Fill in the gaps.   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:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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.  Unconscious Incompetence – You don’t know what you don’t know.  Conscious Incompetence – You do know what you don’t know.  Conscious Competence – You know how to use the skill, but it still requires practice and conscious effort and hard work.  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:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

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 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 GroupInstagram

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 GroupInstagram

Show Notes: Let’s talk course type and price points.   There are three major styles of courses around at the moment.   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.    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.  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 GroupInstagram

Show Notes: Online courses don’t work.  This seems like a strange thing for an online course creator to make – but if you look at the stats this is something you could easily think. The truth is online courses can work and do work, but it is worth considering some of the reasons that they don’t work so that we can improve those things.  Initial course login process is complicated/delayed.  In that period between pressing buy and getting access to their course materials, a student gets distracted and never comes back.    It's easy to hide.   It is easy to drop away and never come back as there is no accountability.     It's online.   It’s very easy for students to get distracted while on the internet.    Action Steps: What are you doing to make sure your course does work?   How easy it to get into your course content and log in?   How easy is it for your students to hide once they are in your course?  Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes: The question I have been asked is – Will online courses replace traditional, classroom style classes? – and the answer is no.   Online courses are not the death of traditional courses and I believe will not replace face to face learning.  They are not the same.  This is because: While you can teach technique online, you cannot correct/influence technique online.  You can’t provide  the interaction & support that a classroom does, online. While I don’t expect online courses to replace face to face learning, I do expect to see more online blended learning going forward – a combination of online and face to face learning.   Action Steps: Think about how you would deliver the course face to face, and how you can bring some of those elements across to your online course.   Would you have an opportunity for students to ask questions at the end?  Would you get people to do an icebreaker at the beginning of the course?  How would you bring some of the great aspects of face to face training to your online course?Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes:In this episode I take you behind the scenes in a client's course. This week we are talking all about The Seedling Group. You can find out more about their amazing work here: https://www.theseedlinggroup.org/ The program we are looking into is called the Billabongs of Knowledge Training by The Seedling Group.    The Billabongs of Knowledge Training is a series of 8 modules, each about an hour duration, and is all about culturally safe trauma informed practice – specifically designed for first nations people or those who work with or deliver services to the community.  Things I love:  It comes from a place of experience, knowledge, research and understanding.     Its delivery style.   Kelleigh & Nicole sit side by side and use story telling and a really conversational manner to talk through some incredibly heavy information, but they come across in such a way that it feels like you are talking to family.  It uses an app called Padlet to offer a whole range of resources and links that go with each of the lessons.  Because it is offered slightly separately to the program, it means that you aren’t overwhelmed while you are trying to go through the content, but you do have a wonderful range of resources when you are ready for them.  They have some fun engaging worksheets that are designed in a manner that suits the program perfectly but have a graphic element that makes them really fun to work with.  Things they could do to improve: This is heavy content, and it would be good to see other elements of support available within the course.  The length of the sessions – one hour can be quite long and it would be better if it were in smaller bite sized pieces.  Action Steps: Firstly, when you are looking at your courses, take a moment to stop and think about the wealth of experience you have – because for most people I work with, it is more than they realised.     Secondly, really think about your delivery styles – can you vary your delivery style?   With your additional resources, how are you delivering them to the student – are they accessible, are they overwhelming, are they opening in a different window?  How are you giving them the information and are you giving them too much at one time?  Can you pull it back and bit and put it in a bonus lesson rather than putting it all into one place and hoping they go through it in one go?Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes:So often we aim for a standard that just doesn't exist. Are you waiting for your course to feel 'finished'?   Today we are going to talk about one of my favourite sayings:  Progress over perfection.   Course creators often wait for something to be finished or perfect or done before releasing their course to their students.   Unfortunately though, that is a standard that is often unattainable - mostly because it is a standard that is only in YOUR head.  The standard of finished is completely different for everyone.  Another important thing to think about when considering ‘perfect’ or ‘finished’ is that a course isn’t designed for you – it's for the person using it - and we don’t know if it's any good until someone else is actually using it.   Until it's in the hands of the user, it's just theory about what is finished or perfect.  Action Steps: If you have a course that is part built or not finished, take a step back and think about what needs to be done.  Write a list of everything you think still needs fixing or finishing – be as thorough as possible.  Next, look at that list and decide which tasks are essential and which ones have a work around that could get your course out and circulating earlier.  Where can you look for the concept of progress over perfection.  I want you to have a great course, but I also know that most people are striving for a standard that physically does not exist.   What is the fastest way you can get your course out and live?Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes:Let’s talk all things Notion.    If you are not familiar with Notion, it is an all-in-one workspace.  It can do just about anything you want it to do – it is a single space where you can think, write and plan anything you want.   It takes planning and project management to the next level.    If you haven’t looked at Notion, go have a look – the link is: https://www.notion.so/ Notion can also be used to host course content and guides, workshops, modules and lessons.  It isn’t a course platform as such, but because it is a completely blank page you can make it into one.    If you have found yourself limited by a platform because you want more flexibility with your branding, or you want to break things into more than just lessons and modules, then Notion might be something to consider.  The downside is also that it is too flexible – opening a blank page can be incredibly overwhelming if you don’t know what to do.    It’s also important to remember that it isn’t a course platform, and therefore isn’t designed to host courses or show you all the data that specific course platforms can.  Things to consider if you are thinking about trying Notion: It is free so great to experiment with. It a blank slate & therefore has a lot of flexibility. It gives you the opportunity to be smart about the way you build a content database. If you want all the functionality that comes with a course platform, Notion is probably not for you.   Action Steps: If you found this interesting, then by all means go and look at Notion and see if it could work for you. If you have a course platform that is working for you though, then stick with it. If you know you need some of the functionality of a course platform, then don’t get distracted by this podcast!  Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes: Let’s talk all things time.    Research shows that the main thing that gets in the way of people creating their course is time.  Finding the time to create new content or new course material is hard, especially when you are already busy with client work.   I want to share with you some of the things I use to create my own courses. External deadlines.   You will find that with an external deadline you will work faster and harder than you will for your own deadlines.  Accountability & POM Sessions.   Having an accountability buddy really keeps you accountable and the POM sessions means you get a dedicated work time. Outsource.  Outsource the tasks that are taking up your time so you can dedicate your time to building content and creating income.   Or you could hire a course creator to help build the course.   Action Steps: Today I challenge you. If time has been the one thing that is stopping you from moving forward what I want you to do today is set the date for when the course is going to go live and then Go and Tell someone about it. Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes:In this episode I'll take you behind the scenes in Kim Dunn's course, Essential Self Care for Psychologists.Kim is a psychologist who has a large network of psychologists and clearly knows her target audience and their needs.    It makes such a difference when you are going through a program that is written for exactly the people it is intended to reach and help, and that is probably the biggest takeaway of this course review – the more you understand the people you are trying to help the better you can help them. Firstly, I want to make it very clear that when I do a course review, I am not looking to rip the course apart or find great holes.  I’m looking at it to find those small niggly bits that might prevent your audience from doing the work you want them to do or that might take away from the experience.   Most courses I review have great content.  Things Kim has done really well: Used activities that are helpful to her students Understood the needs of her students Broken down her content into reasonably sized modules Asked questions that genuinely make people stop and think In terms of user experience some of the things she can look at are: Small spelling and grammar mistakes (that everyone makes) The length of gaps and spaces in both written and video media The ways that videos are embedded and the kind of information that is available on and around them Connect with Kim:CourseWebsite   Action Steps: What I hope you have taken away today is some of the insights into what I find when I go through a program.   I generally find that the content (physical words) is great – you know your stuff.  Helping you build a course isn’t about you knowing your content though.  The focus needs to be on knowing your audience and then all the little things that impact user experience – the gaps, pauses and the little idiosyncrasies that might break their concentration.Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram

Show Notes: What I want you to think about today is what you can sell people before they buy your course, product, or service.   How can you use courses to help prime your audience for the courses you really want them to buy that might be bigger, or more expensive, or that they aren’t ready for yet?    These are likely to be freebies or lower priced programs that are an ideal lead into something you want them to buy next.  There are a couple of ways you can do this: 1.       Alternate smaller courses.  If a client lands on your sales page, has requested information and shown a lot of interest but doesn’t finalise the sale, you could offer them a smaller program instead.   The person was obviously interested or curious, but they weren’t quite ready for your larger, more expensive product or course.  2.        Using a course to help clients get ready for the thing that you want them to buy.  Having a course that is a bit of a downsell or a presell helps potential clients get ready to use your products and services and they are more likely to come back to you for the big purchase because they know you and they trust you.  This is a great way to warm your leads and also a great way to pre-qualify them so they are ready to purchase from you.  Action Steps: Take a moment and think about what you are selling that some people are not quite ready for yet.    Could you offer a free or low-priced program to help people get ready so that they are able to purchase your signature program from you?  Is there something people need to know or have done, or is there a system or a process they need to go through before they are ready to work with you?    I get so excited because there are so many opportunities to support your clients to get them ready for you & your product that aren’t being taken advantage of yet because you just haven’t thought about it. Connect with Sam Winch About Your Online Course:Content Into Courses Facebook GroupInstagram