#98 - ”How the heck do you launch an online course in 2022” - Part 1

It's about an ideal client and an outcome or a transformation or some kind of change that you can help them best with.

This is the Doing It Online podcast with your host, serial entrepreneur 6 and 7 figure funnel strategist and super nerd Kate McKibben. Where every week we're here talking nerdy and sharing the things that actually work to help you do what you do online. But better, easier and with a ton more profit too. Are you you ready? Let's do it.

Hello. Hello guys and welcome to episode number 98 of the Doing It Online podcast. I am your host, Kate from HelloFunnels co. And today we are kicking off another series. Over the next coming episodes, we are going to get our practical hat on. As you know, I love to do. And I'm actually going to walk you through step by step, the process of how to launch your own online course. I know for some people it might seem like everybody already has an online course, but I also know there is a whole heap of people out there who don't yet who so and these episodes are for you. If you are some kind of expert or you're passionate about a topic, if you're out there currently serving people one to one or doing a lot of different done for you kind of, or consulting and that if you could somehow download your brain or at least certain parts of it into a course so it could be delivered in a more scalable way, that means that every time you bring on a new client, you're not just going through the exact same thing over and over again that you can, you know, start to really sort of hone in on what it is that you're really good at and start and map out the best possible scenario for people to work through from wherever they're starting to, wherever they need to go and just be able to deliver this experience, this outcome for more people without taking as much energy and time as it is now, then an online course is going to be able to help you do all of that and so so much more. Like, not just. I know a lot of people look at an online course as some kind of quick way of adding a little extra revenue stream. And I just want to jump in here first because, you know, I'm about the real talk and say, look, there's, there's nothing quick and easy about adding a course as an online revenue stream unless you already have, you know, a big team and a big, you know, email list and big social following. And there's something that you can quickly whip up in a weekend and send a few emails and people buy it. For most people it's a little more involved than that. But that thing is, that's okay. What an online course really is is it is an asset. It is something that you are going to create for your business. Something that once it's created and once you've done it right and you're probably going to test it and tweak it a bit and if you're anything like me, you know, you'll be constantly adding to it, constantly updating to it. Like this is. There is nothing one and done about an online program. But however, once it is set up, once you have run it a few times, once you have figured out how to market it, how to sell it. Yes. Then it becomes something that you kind of are going to think what did I do before this? What did I do without this? And the ideal scenario is you spend the time you invest in doing this right, in creating that program, getting it done as it, mastering how to promote it, how to run it, how to systemize it. Then all of a sudden it will be this extra income stream that frees you up, that adds more revenue, more reliable revenue, particularly if you go and do it Evergreen, which you know is one of my favorite things and then your whole business and everything that is connected to that can be so, so different. So how do we get there? How do we get to this? Well, that is what these next coming episodes are all about. Basically, I'm going to take you through a kind of condensed down version of one of the projects that we have inside our Ecourse Empire program. Obviously inside the program we can go in a lot more detail. There's worksheets, there's. This is an audio only format. I kind of can't show you the technical how to set things up in this format, but I've still got some really, really great, really useful exercises for you each week to help you sort of move your way through those milestones, help you to figure out what is going to be that best program for you. And of course, if you want some more help, if you want that, the templates, the tech, the all the support, the, the advice, all that stuff that we have inside that's just built into Ecourse Empire, you can come and join us inside the program. But let's dive in. Today's topic is we're going to start from the start. It's around choosing the topic or choosing what your online program, online course is going to even be about. Like let's not worry about the format let's not worry about the pricing. Let's not worry about any of those other things yet. We'll cover those off in other episodes. But today, like, what is your course? What is going to be the thing that makes the most sense for you? The thing that you can really, really put your plant your flag in the sand and say, this is what I want to be known for. This is what I want to help as many people as possible with. And this is what's going to make the biggest impact for my ideal clients as well as the biggest impact for my business. So how do you figure that out? Because I would imagine most people listening to this. Again, there's more than one specific outcome that you help people with. And I just want to check a caveat in here. You'll hear, I'm not saying niche or even topic. It's outcome. I want you to, when you are sitting down, going, all right, I want to create an online course. What should it be about? It's not about a niche. It's not about. It's about an outcome. It's about an ideal client and an outcome or a transformation or some kind of change that you can help them best with and in a way that is going to help them to do it faster, easier, with less stress, or with more likelihood of success. And traditionally, it's probably something that, if you're currently working one on one with people, is probably like one of the more common things that people come to you with. Like, they come to you and they go, I'm here and I don't like being here. I want to be there. Like, that is what you want to sit down and start to figure out a system around a framework, around something that you can then productize to understand into a course. I actually have a little exercise for you for how to figure out exactly which one of these outcomes it could be. What I want you to do is grab pen and a piece of paper. I like to go analog on this. I feel it's. I know it works best if you want multi. Like, if you're kind of like me and you like things to look a certain way, I would recommend grabbing multiple colored pens as well. But one pen, one piece of paper is fine. And if you need to hit pause and go do that, go, that's fine. The other thing I would recommend, if you want to do this exercise is you probably going to need about 10, 15 minutes. And I would recommend going somewhere quiet where you're not going to be disturbed, and even just somewhere away from your. Where Your traditional workspace is. So if you normally work at the kitchen table, go sit out in the garden. If you normally work at a desk, go, you know, sit out in the garden. Or you don't have to go or go to a coffee shop or something. Like I find these kind of exercises you need to. Because we're going to be using like a different part of your brain than what does the day to day tasks. So you almost need to put yourself in a different environment. I find for me anyway it's not always possible. I also just love going to local library is another great place if you need to go sit somewhere quiet. That just shakes things up anyway. Pen, paper, somewhere where you can just sit and think and you're not going to be disturbed. Okay, these are the questions that I want you to ask yourself and just kind of brain dump out on again. There's no censorship on any of this. Okay guys? Like this is. Feel free to write down stuff that might not even make any sense yet that just pops into your head. It all can help. It could be the thing that sparks the real thing. Just vomit like from your brain onto a page. Question number one or the thing I want you think of first is just to sit down and think about your ideal. To step into the shoes of your ideal target market, your ideal client right now. And I want you to think about, okay, right now in their life, what are all of the things that they are trying to find solutions for right now? What are all the things that are bothering them, all the things that are annoying them, all the things they wish were different, all the things that they are hoping to change or improve. And they do. And that when you're doing this, don't limit yourself to just the stuff that you feel is currently in your zone of excellence or in your even in your field. It could be that. I'm going to use an example that I'm very familiar with which is, you know, online marketing and business. If I stepped into my ideal client, a lot of them are mums, they have small kids they could be frustrated around trying to come up with meal ideas. Now obviously I am not an expert on this. My kids, kids eat fish fingers far too often. But like I said, we do not want to. We're not censoring anything here. It's just about writing it all down. You'll cull the things out later that don't make sense for you. But I just want think about every single pain point. So. And if you need more sort of ideas on how to do this, think about like them going, oh, I'm so sick of this. Wouldn't it be amazing if this happened? Oh, I just wish I could. Those blanks are what you want to write down. Just go nuts. Like I said, hit pause, Just brain dump onto the page. No censorship. It doesn't even have to freaking make sense because like I said, it wouldn't. Might be that weird thing that just popped into your head when you write it down, it might then spark another idea which does make sense. So just go and do that. Okay, so I assume that you've done that. Now the next thing I want you to do is, is I want this where the colored pens come in. But again, just one pen is fine. Is I want you to put a tick or a star or whatever you know makes sense to you next to all of the ones. So this is where we are going to start to filter things out. Next to all of the ones that you can actually help them really well with. Like that you've either got the personal experience or the experience from working with other people. Like that you can help them to solve that in some way. You might not be completely getting them from A to Z, but maybe you can get them from A to B or C or D. Put a little something next to it for that one. And as you go through, if there are the ones there that you're like, okay, well, I really can't help them with the meal planning for their kids. Feel free to cross those out. Next, I want you to put another tick or a star or whatever it is you're doing next to any of these topics that you'd be really excited to help them with. Like things that you've done before that have really, like, lit you up. Next, again, go through the whole list. I want you to put another tick, star, whatever, next to the ones that people are happy to invest to solve this problem. And you know this because they, they do invest, whether it's because if it's a health issue, like they, they might be getting supplements for it, they might be paying gym memberships and things like, like there, there are certain outcomes out there in the world. And also this will vary again from target market to target market. Some things people are happy to invest in and some things people would prefer to invest the time in, or some things people just hope magically will just fix themselves. We want to now start to bring out those topics that people are already investing either a lot of time and energy or money into solving. Final one. And hopefully you should already be able to start to see there's some here that should already have 3, 3 ticks next to them. The final one is I want you to put one more tick, one more star, whatever it is next to the topics that you are pretty sure. And again this, this is an educated guess here. We never know what's gonna happen. But you're pretty sure that five years from now you would still be happy to be talking about, to be helping people out with. Because if you kind of put the effort in guys to making an online program, you wanna make sure it is, like I said it's. It's building an asset. It takes investing time, energy, money, all of that stuff. So if you're going to do that, you don't want it to be something that six months down the track is out of date or that is based on really on a fad that is just going to come and go or that is something that you're like yeah, I'm kind of interested in this right now. But you know, probably won't. It's probably not going to float my boat but that look like I probably would get pretty sick about of it if I talked about it all the time. You want to make sure this is something that you are happy to still be helping people with. Answering questions about going out and promoting and talking about many years down the track. As I said, things might change. You may come up with another better idea in 12 months time. But let's just do our best. Educate a guess. So now I want you to have a look at that page and go where are the four ticks? Where are those outcomes that have four ticks that are something that you can help people with, that you have the experience you've done it before for yourself or for someone else. Ones that you'd be excited to help them with. Like if you could help somebody solve this and you saw how it changed their life, it would make you feel really damn good. It's going to have a tick because you know that they are already investing in this either you've seen there's other programs out there on this topic. You know that your ideal client is spending money on different, in different ways around like they're happy to invest and the final tick that they are that you are sorry pretty sure that five years from now you would still be pretty happy to be talking about this thing. Now I just want to say here that like not everybody gets this right the first go. I certainly didn't. My first online course, it ticked some of those boxes. It ticked the. I knew I could help people with it and I had the experience, I'd done it. I wasn't particularly excited about helping with them. I was excited about creating a course. I thought that sounded cool. But the actual topic I wasn't particularly excited about. I knew that they were happy to invest in it. And number five, no, I was already sick of talking about it. So I, you know, I probably like, I wish I'd had this list when I was coming up with my first program. But you don't know what you don't know until you know it, right? And then when you know better, you do better. That's why I want to give you these questions. You can do that little self audit now. Hopefully something really jumps out at you. Now again, for some people something is going to maybe more than one thing is jumping out at you. And that's great too. Over the following episodes we're going to help you to refine it down even further and to pick which one is going to be the one that makes the most sense. There's going to be like it's going to be the most life changing for you, for your business, the most profitable, the most enjoyable. That's going to be the easiest to sell. Like this is what we call like a health like inside Ecosys Empire. We call this a Hells yes offer. We're going to help you to narrow that down. If you have found this really useful, and I hope you have, please give us a shout out at hellofunnels. Let us know what you loved about it. Please share it. If you think can think of anyone who would get a little bit of value out of this episode and then make sure you come back same place, same time next week for part two of of our how the heck do you launch an online course series. I'll see you then guys. Bye.

Thanks so much for listening to the Doing it online podcast. If you love this episode, don't forget to subscribe and leave us a review. And if you're ready to take your online course sales to the next level with your own six or seven figure funnel, let Kate show you exactly how today@stealmyfunnel.com.

Sam.