Note: this transcript was generated automatically. It’s accuracy may vary.

[00:00:00] Biggest thing if you are wanting to make a course is be really clear on what you’re gonna offer. Break it down into achievable steps for your students along the way. Deliver that course. Create your marketing material while you are actually putting the course together, cuz that’s the top time you’re most excited about it.

And then use automation to market your course. We haven’t touched on it much today, but use automation to tap in and make sure that you are continually marketing people while you’re creating the course. Look at the lead magnets that you can do to attract people through to it. And then make sure you set up things like nurture sequences and those sorts of things along the way.

So the journey is taken and everything about course creation is a journey. It’s a journey from seed of interest right through to completion. When they get to the certificate and they go onto their next step, what is the next course and what’s the next thing that they need to learn? And it’s all about making sure that we plan that journey so it’s as smooth as possible for them.

Hey, my name is Olivia DeSouza. I’m dedicated to helping multi-passionate entrepreneurs turn their dreams into reality by building a career and a life they love and making a positive. In the world. I’m the [00:01:00] podcast and social media manager, a singer songwriter, a kids’ music creator, a , our wife and a mom.

I’m the secret weapon behind many six and seven figure entrepreneurs, helping them shine a line and call in the people they are here to serve. And now I’m here to help you. This podcast is here to help you learn and be inspired. You’ll learn about podcasting, lead generation business, and all about the real life stories of people behind the businesses.

Just like you think of it as a place to hang out with your like-minded business bestie who gets what it’s like. So grab a cup and hit subscribe so we can hang out again. This is Etic Quad, the podcast. I am here and I’m ready to brave, cannot miss me. I’ll stand on every stage. I’m available for.

Hey, friend, before we dive into today’s episode, remember to hit subscribe so [00:02:00] you don’t miss any of the tips we share in Magnetic Pod on podcasting, lead generation and business boosting ideas. And remember, if you have or you are thinking about starting a podcast, head over to my website@libbymusicmedia.com slash freebies.

I have loads and loads of free resources and templates that will help you get started. The link is in my show. Now here’s your show. Hello Linda. Welcome to Magnetic Pod. Hello. Thank you for having me here today. Absolute pleasure. I really admire you, so I’m very honored that you dropped your hat in the ring when I was looking for guests.

So I’ll just briefly introduce you that, Linda, is that how I say

to me anyway? Rockstar of marketing and PR, and also of course creation, and she’s the co-founder of a very well engaged. Big Facebook community called [00:03:00] business, business Business or BBB for short . I’ve, yes. and, and, uh, yeah, I have been following Linda for four years and learning from her, so I’m absolutely so thrilled that you could be here today.

So having meal board, and it looks like that the rain indigo is maybe affecting our internet connection, so I apologize. Uh, that’s a yes in my picture that, well, it’s a bit fuzzy, but the good thing about this, I’m using zencaster, so as long as we can hear each other Yeah, I can hear you fine. So it, it’s picture fuzzy, but yeah.

The final just don’t leave suddenly at the end. Oh, well just wait until it finishes uploading just to make sure we’ve actually got the recording. But yeah, it records locally to the computer and then upload. So hopefully any fuzziness or pixelation, ah, that will explain how our connection most probably can’t do both at once.

So apart from like you, I could say so much more about you. Is there anything else? To say, to let people know about yourself because there is so much. [00:04:00] Ok. Today, in today’s podcast, we’re talking about course creation. So you must probably wanna be a street cred about why I can teach course creation for that point of view.

So I’m a think approved expert. Have been since 20 year, uh, 19, which is a long time out there. I’m a trained teacher originally, and as, uh, Olivia said to you before I run, The business, business, business community. So we are leading our market and teaching every day inside that space. And that’s designed to help us be able to educate our market, work with our people, and do those sorts of things.

So I walk my talk, I teach, I have been creating courses. Literally up until we got on the podcast today, I was creating a course ready to go out for a course summit. And also my 12 courses are about to drop very early next year. So it’s a bit insane. But that’s what I do. . Fantastic. Well, I just think, I know for my clients that I help with podcasting or social media, that this is often where they’re wanting to funnel people to.

Because the frustration people have sometimes is selling time for money. And so [00:05:00] if they can sell courses, they sell the one thing to multiple people and they get some of their time back and it’s a bit more leveraged. So I am just really happy to have you on to, to learn more about that because I know there’s people that wanna.

And podcasting is a great way to be able to direct people through to your courses. It’s a great way to give them that taste test of what it is like to learn from you in a format, but, and it’s one of the learning styles, you know, auditory learning is one of the learning styles that you will engage as you teach your people.

So Podcasting’s a great platform to start with. , and I’m not even biased about that. I agree with you. . . Okay. So where to even start? If people want to have a course, What would be the first thing that they should. Clear on simplify. First thing first, do you wanna teach everything? You can’t teach everything online in one course because you’re gonna overwhelm your students.

Your students, especially when we’re talking about online course creation. They need to be able to self-pace. They need to have little mini wins along the way. So of course, you know, bias to me is gonna say, go [00:06:00] download our course planning sheets and start to, you know, Break it up that way, but it is really important that you plan what you’re going to teach.

The first thing we, an exercise we normally run people through is, you know, what questions are people asking you? What do you feel you can talk underwater about and what do you feel really frustrated? Cuz this is the one that I really think is, is a big thing to teach. People come and ask you this all the time.

You’re like, how? How do you not know how to do that? They’re the normal things that you can be able to teach because it’s second nature to you, and you’ve gotta remember that. You’ve gotta teach the basics before you can teach the advanced. Because if you don’t lead them through the basics, then there’s gonna be gaps within your journey.

So when you start to put your courses together, you might have an introductory course, a mid-level course, and then an an advanced course, or you step them through those stages. But if you try and step them through all those stages in one course, you quite often can overwhelm them. So it’s about making sure that you plan your course creation journey.

One thing I’ve learned in my time is it’s more than one. There’s different things that people want to learn about different topics. They might come to you saying, I wanna learn everything at once. But there [00:07:00] are different things that people wanna learn about different topics along the way. So does that make, does, should people do when they’re trying to decide which way to go?

Is it like a short burst of a, like a 90 minute workshop? Or does it, is it a six week course or there’s no answer, have never done it? There’s no answer on that one. For the market, it depends on how much knowledge you’ve gotta teach. If there’s homework in between, sometimes a six week challenge can work really, really well.

Sometimes it can be a webinar, sometimes All that you are prepared to do as a course creator is to turn up and deliver an hour. Okay, you’re not ready for doing all the extra course creation stuff. And I will say there’s a lot of work that goes into course creation. This is not a magic, do it overnight.

Here you go. You’ve got a course, you’re making $10,000 the next day type situation. There’s production involved, there’s planning, there’s engagement, there’s delivering the course, watching it, tweaking it. And Olivia, you’ve been in one of my challenges that we used to run over a yearly basis, and we used to run it over a.

Because that’s what I thought our people needed, but it was incorrect because I’d stopped, well, [00:08:00] actually, I stopped making sales in February and people were wanting to come in throughout the year. So we changed that up into a membership style. So it’s an evolution. So there’s not an answer that says yes, that can be taught in 90 minute course, because it may not be able to.

It might need three or four or 90 minute delivery methods to be able to teach. But if you are leading your student through something, it’s about making sure you give them short, sharp wins along the way. So teach something, let them implement and use that learning, and then move on to the next step. And it’s about breaking it down into small little chunks.

Some of us gotta go back to what it was like, you know, teaching our kids to eat or teaching our kids to walk. Mm-hmm. And putting that one foot in front of another. And that’s exactly what we’re doing when we’re teaching someone else what we do. Okay. And it sounds like it’s ever evolving, like jump in and do the course creation and you’ll probably end up changing it.

You will. Because there’ll be different people that you engage with. Like, it, it is not. Course creation isn’t a set and forget type [00:09:00] situation. It’s a set and forget as much as you can until it needs to be updated. , you know, technology changes, providers change. Um, for example, we’ve got our podcasting course which teaches podcasting.

But in that time, ishka, who was a major player here in Australia, is no longer a major player here in podcast hosting. They’ve been bought out by Spotify. It’s now anchor or, but all the information and the tutorials that we did using the hosts that we used to use back then need to be updated. So those things happen, you know, if you are a marketer or unless you are literally teaching how to sew something on, you know, hand stitching or something like that where it’s repetitive and you know the needle’s not gonna change , there is normally something is gonna change.

Even with sewing machines, you know, the machines change, the functionality changes, better techniques come out and we need to keep updating our courses throughout that process. But it is a way to teach to. . It is a way to either teach a live course to many and deliver a live, and that’s most probably the first function you actually have to wake out is, do I wanna do this live or do I wanna do it evergreen?

Okay. Mm-hmm. live to [00:10:00] beta test is, is easy because if you forget something, your audience is there in front of you and you can fill in the gaps. Mm-hmm. . But if it’s an evergreen course and you’ve forgotten something, you’re relying on someone actually having the guts to tell you that you forgot , a major step, but, and you don’t have the ability to see the deer in headlight moments that you can see when you’re teaching live.

So normally if I have my preference with a course creator and we work, we can on creating courses, I’ll say, let’s teach live first. Let’s see what a live webinar comes out. Like. Let’s see what gaps we need to fill in. Did we forget something before? Did we forget something after? Well, we completely off the mark, and if we were completely off the mark and we’ve done a presentation and it’s live with a little bit of a workbook, we can shelve it and come back.

Mm-hmm. Or we can look at adding some more stuff in there. But if you’ve developed a five or six hour course and you’re completely off the Mark , then that’s a little bit more painful. . Yes. . So I was going to ask actually about Evergreen versus live. So if you start with the live [00:11:00] can, do you reuse that content much or do you.

Okay, you might start teaching live start from screen. Might start to develop that into Evergreen because there’s a slightly different version. I don’t believe in handing out my live recordings of other people who’ve attended in a evergreen course type style, unless it’s under a membership situation where they’re replays of how to sessions or something like that.

And everyone understands what they’re there to be recorded for. Because if you’ve come to a live training course and there’s six of you in the room and you’re happy to be the six of you working through that course, you’re not expecting that course. Your discussions and that to go out. , and there’s a fine line with that as well too about whether that’s ethically correct or not to do what I am a big believer of.

Is that going okay? Yes, I’ve tested the teaching methods, I’ve tested the workbook, I’ve tested the PowerPoint or the presentation, I’ve tested the quizzes. Yep, it’s ready to go. It’s now ready for me to spend time to record that. So I used to live as the the testing ground to work out with. Yep. Are we ready to teach that in an evergreen format?

Now, just because you create an evergreen course doesn’t mean you can also do the reverse and teach it. [00:12:00] Especially if you feel like maybe not getting the right completion rates, or you need to test it in a live environment, but also some people, different learning styles in course creation and evergreen course doesn’t suit all learners.

The rise of the social learner is coming even more and they need that interaction with other people, whether it’s in a Zoom environment or whether it’s in a classroom environment, and they need that interaction of other people as well. So while self-paced and evergreen learning is one way you can deliver your course live supported, cohort-based is other ways that you can deliver your courses as well.

And there’s lots to take into consideration, but normally live or evergreen’s the first place you. Okay. Is there, as far as one that’s more successful to sell, whether as in the students taking it, is there a preference, do you find? No. No. There is a sense of urgency on life because there’s a set date that someone has to sign up for, but there is a convenience in Evergreen, so there’s not.

You yourself will [00:13:00] push a live course harder than your pushing evergreen course because you need to fill however many people you thought you should have in that live course by that date. Whereas an evergreen course, you’re like, oh yeah, it’s there. If I don’t get to marketing it this week, I’ll mention it on my socials this week.

I’ll mention it next week. And that’s where the things fall behind the way was like, because it is evergreen and people can take it. And the other component from that point of view is it is an evergreen course so that people are sitting there going, yeah, well I know that Linda’s got this course. , but I’m not ready for it yet.

So I might come back and look at it three to six months. Whereas in a live course, they’re going, yep, okay, I’ve gotta be in by this day. But the live course also has a downside of, I’m not available on that day, or I’m not available. That’s my busy time of year. So they both have their pluses and minuses. I don’t see either of them each selling out.

The only component that is most probably in a live situation is when you’re classroom based, you have restrictions by obviously the number of people you can fit into the room. , I guess. I mean, I think my personal style is, I’ll probably be more likely to do it if it’s live. actually do the content . [00:14:00] They need the live version.

Yeah. But, uh, but also, yeah, so I work with, but it’s nice to have the reference. I work with a career coach at the moment. Her, most of her market is working during the day where she could teach a course. So Evergreen has to be how she delivers it. Mm-hmm. that makes sense. And it’s, it’s convenient for, it’s convenient for them.

More convenient for people. , they may not be ready to move a job today and she delivers a live version today, but tomorrow they’ve gone into working on, no, that’s it. I’m out . Then they’re looking for the course and that’s where the evergreen option comes in. So try and do it both ways. There is no reason that you can’t do it both ways.

Mm-hmm. And they, the pluses and minuses. Well, I dunno if pluses and minuses are the right words, but there’s, yeah, there’s different things to consider. I. Yes, and evergreen is probably really good in terms of just having it. They’re able to sell at any time and passive income. Once you’ve done the hard work at the, and you consistently market it cuz it’s not passive unless [00:15:00] you consistently market it.

Cuz if you forget, it’s not , it’s not passive as, it’s not passive. I’m sorry guys. Passive income is really not passive. There’s a hell of a lot of work behind it before it starts with you picking into gear. , I think there needs to be a better word than passive. Probably it’s not quite. It needs to be like mad ducks spinning underwater to get to the point.

And now we’re floating along

what else did I want to ask you? I guess one thing that’s really hard for people probably to decide on too is a price point. Do you have any advice around working those things out? Okay, so they do either do one or two things in the industry. Normally when I say a course come through our desk to have a look and review, they’re either under price.

which therefore has the person questioning value or they’ve overpriced it as if they’re doing one-on-one consulting with the person and you sit there and go, oh yeah, that’s great. But uh, I don’t think anyone’s gonna pay you that when you’re not turning up in-person [00:16:00] yourself to deliver that area.

Mm-hmm. . Now, I don’t say that any of these courses don’t have value, but you’ve gotta hit the sweet spot and you’ve gotta understand that, you know, it might take a month or two for that course to start to generate the sales that you want it to generate, but the investment you put into a course in time and production and preparation and planning.

Is going to, you know, translate more to towards in the future of a longer term payoff and a longer term reward. It’s just like if you do an in-person or a live event type situation that, you know, there’s a certain level where you break even and then every registration after that, you know, make is, is profit as we like to say.

So, you know, you’ve gotta look at it from that point of view. How many students do I need in this to get my time? For my money and you know, is that achievable? If it’s, you know, a thousand, 2000 students, I’d be sitting there going, oh, do we really wanna be doing an evergreen course? You know, this seems to be, maybe we need to break it down into smaller chunks where the investment, you know, return on investment risk isn’t a thousand people to register.

We’re looking at maybe, you know, 10 to 20 [00:17:00] or 30 throughout the process. But what we find with most course creators, They’ve done the other thing. They’ll go, oh, I’m just gonna charge $27 for it. I’m gonna charge $9 for it. I’m gonna charge, do the, you know, a small amount for it. And then the question is, you know, there’s maybe an hour and a half, two hours worth of learning material in there.

And they’re going, well, what’s the point? , what am I actually gonna learn out of this stuff? You know, there can’t be anything of any value in there. It’s all gotta be a sales pitch. So it’s about making sure that you price in the right point of view, that people aren’t sitting there looking at it. If you are gonna teach for an hour and give someone a workbook and tutorials and how to at least price it to the point of you value that the time and the transition, and quite often it’s the transit.

When course creation people are paying for the knowledge that you have now, it might only take you an hour or so to teach it, but you’ve spent 10 or 15 years to learn it. Mm-hmm. . So Exactly. While you might have spent all that time learning it, they’re paying for the shortcut. Okay, so remember the pain points that your students might have to go through if they had to learn [00:18:00] this themselves without your know-how and shortcuts, you know, how much Googling would they have to do, how much YouTube looking would they have to do?

And that’s the other thing is just because it is out there on Google or YouTube doesn’t mean that you can’t teach it because what they’re looking for is a succinct way and a. in your course when you are looking at teaching it. Whereas you could Google something from this guy today and it’s outta date, but you’ve watched it and you’re thinking it’s end date, uh, and it’s not the latest trend, or it’s not the latest how to.

So you know, you wanna make sure that you are providing them a path and a supported learning path. So if you gotta put a course out there, unless it’s a free mini course, which is under an hour, here you go. Here’s my tutorial. Then I think your starting price has to be somewhere about the $57 mark and above.

Interesting. And what do you think about the thought of, uh, value ladders that I’ve heard people talk about, you know, having a range of products at different prices. Is that something that you resonate with? Well, we do, we do do that. But I talk about whether does the person sit within the learning journey or within the business journey [00:19:00] of your offering as a coach or a consultant.

So, you know, I talk about, and this is long topic, short version. Um, we talk about trees and we talk about where you’re offering trees is and how they’re going to climb. So, It’s not so much having a different price point, it’s about having a different knowledge point. So we know, as we said, teach the basics.

So we, the entry level stuff could be, and the basics could be your blogs, it could be your podcasts, it could be your how-tos. And then the next level up is, okay, well I’m ready for a little bit of understanding how to do this more myself. So they’ll go into the how to do it more myself, course type situation.

Then they’re like, Ooh, actually I need a little bit more help. So do I have a membership? So that where you, I offer a little bit extra level of support with a few of my courses in there or all of your courses or whatever you wanna do from that point of view. And you’ve the membership offering and then your coaching.

Cause we about selling time. Your coaching starts to sit up the top. Okay. And it’s priced appropriately because it is sitting up the top and it is the one-on-one time from you. That they’re able to work their way up to. [00:20:00] Now. Some people will be, you know, rapid climbers and they’ll climb straight up the top going, right.

I want the coaching I’m in. Get me that. That’s exactly what I’m doing. Other people need to climb a little bit, sit in a branch, make sure they feel comfortable, and then climb to the next branch. and it’s not, I’m not a fan of, and I’ll say this, all honesty, I’m not a fan of, hey, buy this course now. You bought this course now, then in the next five minutes if you upgrade, you can get all of these extra bonuses, you know?

Mm-hmm. , be clear with your people and also be honest with them. Cuz that half the time turns me off and sends me to the PayPal refund button and in my response is, you know, if you and I, and that’s where those really low price courses, that’s the expectation the market has, and especially here in Australia, we are incredibly.

We are the most suspicious market you’ve ever seen. Mm-hmm. . And we think, you know, what’s, why, why are they doing that? What, what? What’s in it for me? Mm. It’s all you think, oh, this is just a, a lead magnet that I’m paying for almost , like it’s a trip wire thing. So where’s the, where’s the next component? . . [00:21:00] So, okay, so if we’re making a courses, I guess the key thing is getting people into the courses.

So what are your recommendations around. . Okay. The first things first is, is about planning and making sure that you actually have got your introduction. If you don’t have that plan in place and you don’t have tho those areas, from there, getting people to the course is nothing else. So we need to, you know, do a bit of market validation and that sort of stuff.

So, as I said, look at what people are asking. You look at all of those sorts of things. And then marketing is 80% of the job. Okay. . So if you don’t have time to market your course, there is no point in making one. I’m sorry guys, but there is no point in making a course if you can’t turn up and educate your market and you know, host things like a podcast.

Be a guest contributor on other people’s blogs, being able to educate and share your knowledge and expertise. Answer questions inside Facebook groups if you can’t do that. There’s only so much Facebook ads and Google ads and all of those sorts of things we’ll do for you. And I say from an organic point of view, [00:22:00] you can run all the Facebook ads in the world that you’d like, but if the people get to your Facebook page and see nothing else, there’s no credibility.

And when we teach online, we have to have credibility with our audience. So they need to be able to go to Google and find you. When they do their due diligence and their research. So that is where the marketing and the blogging and the guest posts and the lead magnets, you know, okay, well I’ve got this course I wanna teach on this topic.

What’s the lead magnet? And then, Running that through a nurture sequence, cuz I see so many people go, yeah, I’ve got my lead bang up, but it’s not converting. And I’m like, well, what did they do after they get it? Oh, nothing. They just go, oh great. Yay. got an email list. I’m not doing anything with it. So often it’s like I got an email list.

I’m like, when’s last time you emailed them? Oh, three months ago? I’m like, oh gee, they’re a. Even if you do email them now, they’re gonna be going, what the hell’s going on? ? Who’s this again? Yeah, So long since I’ve spoken to you. So it’s about consistency, it’s about planning everything in course creation and marketing comes [00:23:00] down to planning.

You can fly by your seat, but fly by the CD pants, but it’s only gonna get you away from it for so long, and then you forget. and you notice that I’ve said s multiple times today. It’s all about ma. It was all about remembering to market your course. It’s all about turning up and having the conversations inside the Facebook groups or Cora or those places where people are going to be looking for your course and always remembering if we are teaching a course which is evergreen, which solves our people’s problems, there are gonna be new people with those problems each and every.

So we need to be able to continue to put our course out in front of the market and I can guarantee you that none of your audiences all at on a time in the first day that you share that Facebook post about your course. So you need to keep sharing it and keep sharing it, and then something to be reminded that you have the thing in the first place.

So that’s right. It’s, it’s our whole world what we do, but people have got their own lives and we need to remind them until the point that they actually need the thing . Well, people won’t need it right now. They’ll need it in two or three years time. [00:24:00] And that’s the beautiful thing about creating something that’s evergreen.

The need wasn’t there today, but it is tomorrow for the person and they can access it when they need to. So, uh, nearly time to wrap up, but is there anything I haven’t asked that. Should have. Is there any key takeaway, anything that you would want people to know about? Okay. They wanna make a course.

Biggest thing if you’re wanting to make a course is be really clear on what you’re gonna offer. Break it down into achievable steps for your students along the way. , deliver that course. Create your marketing material while you are actually putting the course together, cuz that’s the top time you’re most excited about it.

And then use automation to market your course. We haven’t touched on it much today, but use automation to tap in and make sure that you are continually marketing people while you’re creating the course. Look at the lead magnets that you can do to attract people through to it. And then make sure you set up things like nurture sequences and those sorts of things along the way.

So, The journey is taken and everything about course creation is a journey. It’s a journey from seed of interest right through to [00:25:00] completion. When they get their certificate and they go onto their next step, what is the next course and what’s the next thing that they need to learn? And it’s all about making sure that we plan that journey so it’s as smooth as possible for them.

Wow, that’s lovely. That’s really valuable actually because it’s thinking about all the components and making sure that, you know, you’re not wasting your time making a course, but that you’re really marketing it well and thinking ahead. And also, I love the, you know, love automation as well. Let’s make it as easy as we can repeat.

Okay, well, how can people reach out and learn more from you? Okay, so most probably, if you’re wanting to find course creation, head to the course, creator circle.com au. You’ll see our upcoming events, our how-tos our membership is in there, which is got our whole course creation process in there, tools and tips and handouts along the way.

And if you wanna book a call with me, you can do that on that website as well to help you get started. So that’s most probably the easiest way if you’re looking at course creation, if you’re looking at marketing. Linda Reed enver.com [00:26:00] au will send you there and once again, you’ll find me on either one of the sites.

It’s pretty easy. . Okay, and we’ll put all of that in the show notes. So thanks so much, Linda. Beautiful. Thank you. Bye so much for having me. Bye. So what were your key takeaways from today? Did it raise any questions? What would you like to know more about? Let me know. You can contact me via social media or email.

I don’t care which way you use. Just reach out to me. I’d love to chat with. And remember, you can get access to lots of free podcast resources that’ll help you get started or help you improve your podcast@libbymusicmedia.com slash freebees. Hit subscribe cuz I wanna see you again for now. Go forth. Be the awesome person you are.

Live the life you want to live and have fun. You’ve got this. See you next time.[00:27:00]

Hierarchy. It’s move baby Rock solid

to reach.