On this episode of the Course Creators HQ podcast, host Julie Hood gives you 13 secrets to finish your course in no time flat! Use these tools and techniques to complete your course, just in time for a new revenue stream in 2021. This is a preview for the 24 Hour Course Creator program.
On this episode of the Course Creators HQ podcast, host Julie Hood gives you 13 secrets to finish your course in no time flat! Use these tools and techniques to complete your course, just in time for a new revenue stream in 2021. This is a preview for the 24 Hour Course Creator program.
LINKS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
Get Julie’s help with your course with the 24 Hour Course Creator Daily program -
https://www.CourseCreatorsHQ.com/24live
Let’s brainstorm about your course –
https://www.CourseCreatorsHQ.com/brainstorm
Start Ugly book by
https://coursecreatorshq.com/start-ugly-book
Fiverr for outsourcing tasks –
https://www.CourseCreatorsHQ.com/fiverr
Spotify “Focus Music” playlist –
https://coursecreatorshq.com/SpotifyFocus
Pandora “Classical for Studying” station –
https://www.pandora.com/genre/classical-for-studying
Focus at Will music
FREE TRAINING
Is My Course Idea Any Good?
https://coursecreatorshq.com/idea
COME VISIT
Get Julie’s help with your course with the 24 Hour Course Creator program -
https://24HourCourseCreator.com
Website
https://www.CourseCreatorsHQ.com
Facebook
https://www.facebook.com/CourseCreatorsHQ/
Instagram
https://www.instagram.com/CourseCreatorsHQ
Twitter
https://www.Twitter.com/CourseHQ
Today. I have a question for you. Just how busy are you? And almost everyone I asked this question mentions how they are so busy and that they don't have time to create an online course, but I bet you could find 24 hours to create your first or your next online course. And today I'm sharing 13 secrets to help you find more time and finally get your course done.
Welcome to the course creators, HQ podcast, helping you navigate the latest techniques for creating and marketing online courses. And now here's your host Julie Hood. Hi, there you are Here just in time for episode 10 of the podcast. Online course creation 13 secrets to finish faster. I am super excited this week. Not only Because we've reached a double digits of episodes,
but because next week we are starting the 24 hour course creator live program and helping even more experts get their courses up and running and just an hour a day. Plus they will all have coaching for me in live coaching sessions each week. So if you're interested, just go to coursecreatorshq.com/24live that's coursecreatorshq.com/24live to get all the details.
And let me know if you're joining us from the podcast, because I've got a special bonus training that I want to share with you just because you're jumping in from the podcast. So let's get started. Here are the 13 ways to create your course even faster. So, number one, I want you to outline thoroughly, take the time to outline your course content.
And this means sitting down and thinking through exactly what your student needs to go from, where they are to where they want to be. So using Google docs can be a great way to do this because you can access your outline from all kinds of different devices. And some folks actually like to do a mind map instead of an outline, which is fine.
You just keep breaking it down into smaller and smaller sections until you've explained the steps that your students need to take. And then go back and do a review to make sure that you haven't missed any steps and your lessons will come together so much more quickly. This way you take what the transformation is that your course is promoting and providing, and you break it down into very detailed outline and it'll help so much when it comes time to actually create your lessons.
So that's suggestion number one, which is to outline or mind map really thoroughly. Now suggestion number two is to set up your computer folders ahead of time for each of your modules. And because you don't want to waste time looking for all your files. So you set up the folders for each module all at once, and then put everything you create into those folders.
I do not want you to use your computer desktop to put information. That's just asking to waste time digging and looking around for your stuff, learn how to save and download everything to specific folders. And you could even use Google drive or Dropbox if you don't want to use your computer, but keep it all organized into folders from the beginning. So you aren't wasting time hunting and looking for folders and files.
Number three is to start ugly. The first round of your course does not have to be beautiful. I'm actually taking an accelerator course right now with the author of the book Start Ugly, Chris Krimitsos And one of the things he talks about all the time is just get started, get it together, even if it's ugly and make some progress. So I'm giving you permission to start ugly and improve.
As you go forward, you can obviously always be improving your course. So let's just get started. Let's get it selling. Let's get some money coming in the door and then you can hire someone to help you improve it. So tip number three is to start ugly. Now suggested number four is to shorten your course. So remember you do not have to share everything,
you know, about a topic to make a very worthwhile and helpful course for your students. Talk and teach less, pare down to just the essentials that they need in order to get the transformation. For example, let's say you have five different case studies all about a piece of your course. And so you could share yes, all five of those case studies,
but that makes the course longer. And it may not really provide that much more for your students. So don't feel like you have to use them all. Just pick one of the five case studies that is the most helpful and talk about that. So really, really work on figuring out how you can talk less and it may help you to actually type up a script for your first few lessons.
You don't want to read it for your lessons word for word, because that's really, really boring for your listeners, but just the fact that you have written it out, it will help you stay focused and keep you from straying off topic and making your course longer than it needs to be. So number four was to shorten your course, any way you can.
Number five is to batch your lessons. And what I mean by this is that you can group together different types of work so that you can sit down and focus. Maybe you have an hour and you spend that hour working on the content for one specific module, or you spend that hour doing videos for the lessons or creating PowerPoints, but you have a specific time slotted to do each of the activities.
And so if you have everything organized and laid out, then you can just sit down and crank it out. So I really recommend, as you finished your time period, then think about what am I going to do next? And plan that out. So that for the next time you sit down to work, you know where to get started. You'll be so much more productive when you don't have to start with saying,
okay, now what do I do next? So tip number five was to batch your lessons. Tip number six is to hire out parts of the puzzle of an online course. So maybe you get a designer to do your graphics or update your PowerPoints for you, especially you can hire out video editing. If you're doing videos, it's a huge time eater.
So you can even maybe hire out some of the research if you need to dig into a specific section or a specific module. So you can use a service like Fiverr that's F I V E R R, to hire out the tasks rather than hiring a full-time virtual assistant. It can be easier sometimes to just hire someone who has an expertise in the specific area that you need help with.
So you could have someone that helps you upload the files to think if it, or to teachable or whatever hosting platform you're using. There's so many different pieces to getting your course finished, that even getting a little help here and there will speed up the process significantly. So number six, hire out parts of the puzzle. Number seven is, you know what I give you permission to dump the video for this first round of your course,
just do a written course or an audio course, or maybe you have PDFs with audios and video adds a whole nother level of complexity to putting together a course. And you can simplify it just by not having to worry about creating videos at the beginning, or, and this is suggestion number eight, if you do want to use video, simplify it, instead of trying to be a full face on the camera,
where you have to come up with all of the content without necessarily having a script use PowerPoints, and then put your face in the corner, you can do this with zoom. It'll be easier for you to record since you have the notes of the PowerPoint to record and kind of keep you on track for your course. So that's one way to make video simpler.
If you do want to include that in the first round of your course. So tip number nine is to create as you go. So this is an option. If you are fairly productive and fairly good at knowing how much time you have to work on things is that you create the first few lessons of your course and you pre-sell it. And then you create the lessons as you go.
So hopefully you are a few weeks ahead. So in case life ever gets in the way you've got the lessons ready, but if you can have kind of a feeling for how long it takes you to get a lesson or a module finished, then you can create the course as the students are going through it. And that way you can get started faster.
Now, I really want to make sure you have the first few lessons done and created because you don't want to get caught in a course where you don't have time to get the lessons ready in time for your students. So create the first few lessons, get down your process for how you're going to create a module or a lesson each week, and then how you're going to drip those out to your students.
And that can be one way to get your course created much more quickly. Now suggestion number 10 is to keep the tech really, really easy for yourself. So some ways you can do this, you can put the lessons into Google drive and then have one main Google doc that links to each of the lessons. So it's a much less tech complicated way to put your course together.
And granted it's not the ultimate experience for your students, but let's just get that first version created. And then we'll go onto adding some more complex tech or another option is to use a Facebook group. You put the files for your course in the Facebook group and your students get access by being part of the group. You can also, and trying to figure out how to get paid is use a PayPal button and get a link and you send it to potential students,
and that's how they jump in. So I'm really trying here to give you the bare bones basics way to get started. I don't recommend these as long-term solutions. If you're planning to have an online course business, but to get started, this is a definitely an option to keep things simple, straightforward, and inexpensive to get going. And then you can always upgrade as you go forward.
So number 10 was to keep the tech easy. Now, number 11 is to use music to help you focus when you're working. So I've got three different music to help you stay focused. First on Spotify, if you search for focus, there's a playlist with an instrumental set of songs called focus music. Secondly, if you're a Pandora listener, I really like the classical for studying radio station.
It seems to really help when I'm trying to study and trying to get my next lesson or project finished, it really does help me focus. And then the third resource is actually a paid service. It's called focus at will. And you can find it at focusatwill.com and they have paid programs to give you music and focusing tools to help you focus. They do have a free trial,
so you can test it out, see if you like it. So really just pick whatever music or listening tool that helps you focus because my son even sometimes will just put on his noise, canceling headphones and it'll stop the outside sounds so that then he can focus. So figure out what exactly will help you focus. That's tip number 11 to use music and tools to help you focus.
Tip number 12 is to eliminate something that you're currently doing to find more time to work on your course. So if you're not sure what you could eliminate, I want you to start by jotting down how you spend your time for a week, create a time map with days across the top and times down the left-hand side of the page, and then start jotting in the different boxes,
what it is you're doing. And when, so you can then review that and see some patterns and find something that maybe you could remove. For example, grocery shopping can be a big time waster. So either pick up your groceries at target or Walmart, let them do all the shopping for you, or even have them delivered to you with something like Instacart or Shiped and take those hours that you would spend putting the grocery list together and driving and picking out your groceries.
Use that time to work on your course. And then the second piece of this, when you're trying to find more time, is there are some ways when you can multitask. So maybe you can listen to instructions and something that you're researching while you're folding laundry or while you're cleaning, or especially I used to do this a lot is I would listen while I was in the car.
So I listened to podcasts a lot. When I was driving my kiddos back and forth to school and sports practices. It was a time when I definitely knew I could sit down and listen to the podcast that I liked or listen to lessons and I was trying to finish. So all of these little things can start to add up as you use them going forward.
Okay. Number 13, our last tip is to schedule time to work on your course on your calendar. I want you to make on breakable appointments with yourself to work on your course. For example, during my 24 hour course creator program, I asked people to plan an hour a day during the weekdays and make it the same time every day, that way they can plan it into their routine and they don't have to worry about finding an hour each day it's scheduled in.
They agree that they're going to work on it then, and we take the 24 weekdays and get their course completed. So since you have made it this far, I want to reward you with a free brainstorming session with me. So just go to coursecreatorshq.com/brainstorm to see when the next one is scheduled and sign up and join us. We'll be talking about potential courses,
whether they're good ideas, titles, niches. I love to brainstorm about all the pieces of a course. So I want to hear about your course and what you have an idea for, and potentially if we can work together with the 24 hour course creator program, I would love that. So I have one last request for you today. Could you please,
please, please hit that subscribe button in your podcast app. And if you've learned anything useful from these 13 tips, I'd really appreciate your five-star review. They have me doing the happy dance around my office, and I really appreciate your help because when the podcast apps see positive reviews, then they suggest this podcast and help others who want to learn more about course creation.
So thank you so much for listening. Thank you for subscribing and thank you for your reviews. I really appreciate it. And so that's the end of the official episode with all of the content for you. But this week, I want to add something at the end and it's a bonus just for you who listen all the way. It's one of my favorite YouTubers that adds something to the end of her YouTube videos.
And so I'm going to try it too. She shares her content at the beginning of her, her videos. And then at the end, she'll share a little bit more about what is going on behind the scenes. So this week I thought I would tell you about a dilemma I've been facing and how we handled it. So you see, I am very,
very, very particular about which experts in which tools I recommend to you. It takes a lot of reviewing and vetting by me personally. And I ask my connections and friends, what they think of experts before I share something with you. And so right now there's an expert. Who's being promoted by everyone for her training on creating courses. And her affiliate manager actually asked me to promote her too.
So I got access to the program and went through it for you. And it was fine, nothing exceptional, but it was missing one essential piece of the puzzle for me, the technology side of creating a course, and that raised a really big red flag because it's such an essential piece of the puzzle for folks. It's where they get hold up a lot when they're trying to create their course.
And this course had nothing included in it to help folks with that. And then secondly, the course was on the high end, as far as being expensive and then the upsells to get more help or even more pricey. And that could be part of the reason why this expert had so many affiliates. When you have the high price like that, you can generate a lot of income and commissions for your partners,
but that doesn't really work for me. I don't promote things just because they're expensive and I earn a high commission. I promote what's best for you. What I think is the best place to spend your money and the best investments that you can make. And then finally, actually I didn't feel like the freebies she was giving away were really all that helpful.
They looked really good. They were designed really well and they had some really intriguing titles. So they made me want to download and open them, but they didn't have a lot of substance to them. So for these three reasons, I'm not promoting this expert and it's one of the most popular ones. So I want you to do the same thing for your community.
You are the advocate, their trusted advisor. So please make sure that everything you love, you share with them, but make sure you really do take a look at these different products and these experts and make sure there's something that you would want to use and you feel is something your audience should also take a look at. So let me know if you like these behind the scenes details into what we're doing and why we're doing it,
and I'll continue sharing them when I have something useful For you. So thanks for listening. And I can't wait to connect with you on the next episode of the course creators, HQ podcast.