How to Start Creating an Online Course – 12 Actions and WORKBOOK

Today you are getting in front of the pack. 
Today you start building your future.

Let's see how:

STEPS TO START CREATING AN ONLINE COURSE

So, to help you take the first concrete steps towards the creation of your online course we are going to do the following together:

• STEP 1 - Embrace the Reality - Let's face the stories your might have been told before and commit to the reality of creating online courses (Action A1)
• STEP 2 - Stop Overthinking - We are taking each of those excuses and blockages in your mind, which tell you that you won't be able to make it... and we DESTROY them! (Actions A2 to A6)
• STEP 3 - Free your mind - Let's get unstuck, you might have been thinking about this course for a long time and have so many ideas. Let's free your mind to be able to take a step back and move forward (Action A7 and A8)
• STEP 4 - Collect Inputs - Time to generate the basis for your content and all the inputs that will help you define your course structure (Action A9 and A10)
• STEP 5 - Frame Your Course - Define your course and its boundaries, identify you first major structural items (Action A11 and A12)
• Celebrate - You started, Yeah!!! - What's next?

But let's be clear:

Today, I am now giving you the step-by-step guide to creating your entire online course. This is a fun process but a big one, which a simple blog post cannot explain... but a course can 🙂 

However, if you a ready to get started, I am taking you to a state where you have lots of inputs gathered as well as an initial framework... and where you are in in a rolling mode to creating an online course.

How does that sound? Ready to Start?

STEP 1 - EMBRACE THE REALITY

So you have probably read a lot of blog posts about creating online courses. 

Most articles give you the 6, 7 or 10 steps to creating an online course, making it sound SOOOOO simple. 

But you probably feel no more advanced than before. Don't worry this is not your fault!

The problem is that they talk about everything around your product but not much about how to create the content of the course itself!

Let me show you 2 examples:

See - for both the business and design experts, the creation part of the product is actually a maximum of 2 steps!

Seriously ???

They are not wrong about the other steps, but you are right to want MORE GUIDANCE on how to actually create your online course.

So: YOU ARE NOT CRAZY. You are right to want step-by-step instructions to create a whole course that makes sense and get results to the students.

Let's be clear, if you are looking for a quick guide to create your online course over the weekend. This is not it. You can stop reading now.

But if you want to create a QUALITY online course that will get big results for your students, you have to take the time and make some efforts.

It requires time to step back, have an overall vision, and create the right content with the student results in mind... 

... But it is fun!!! 🙂 So don't worry

Because it takes work and time, it is important to understand why you are creating your online course. What drives you? How will you feel when it is finally created and launched?

This way,  when you feel a little depleted, you can always go back to imagining your feelings when your course is complete and get a boost of energy!

Examples: 

• Excited that I sold a product during my sleep
• Proud to see my students get result
• Proud to have created a complete product
• Overwhelmed by the testimonials of how I impacted my student's life
• Happy to make an impact for a better world

STEP 2 - STOP OVERTHINKING

When thinking about creating your own online courses, your mind probably goes through so many excuses or 'what if'.

Want to know the good news?

YOUR BRAIN (LIKE MINE) IS WRONG 🙂

So let's walk through those excuses one by one to clear your brain before starting the creation activities.

Ohhhh this is a classic!!!! 

And we all suffer from it...

The fear of failure is here since the beginning of time.

But failure is a matter of perspective... the same as success 🙂

Our society tends to define success as "earning millions or changing the world big time or being the most amazing artist in the world".

How intimidating! Better not to start, don't you think?

The reality is that those cases are either exaggerating (playing with their numbers), using shady practices or are the exception (and most probably cannot repeat their "success"). ByRegina has a great article about the 6-figure blogger suck-in.

But try forgetting the norms of society, what does success mean to you?

For me it is:

• Receiving messages from people who tell me how much my organisation of information helped them understand and get results
• Helping people get their message out and change lives
• Feeling that I inspired people to move forward with their projects
• Earning enough to feel safe, comfortable and travel

And remember that: 

Brian Lang wrote on Problogger's article about the 5 fears preventing you from being successful that: "Successful people often reframe failure as a stepping stone towards success. Failure is only temporary and if we keep trying and adapting our approach, eventually we will succeed."

That is a classic. It is also called the Imposter syndrome. Even the most experts of us all feel that way (see this article by Van Schneider)

Our society created this vision that only EXPERTS with years and years of experience are worthy of transmitting knowledge.

But Remember that

• Even experts are not experts

There is no perfect expertise! No one knows everything there is to know about a subject

• You know more than other people

But can that person create an online course about the basics of knitting a scarf? - Of course! And other people, who don't want to feel overwhelmed by a full knitting course, would love a simple course about starting with scarves.

There is always an audience who knows less than you do, you just have to be honest and define clearly the objective of your course.

• In the end most people don't want experts

The expert, as we imagine him/her, is often too intimidating and makes people think you won't be able to do the same.

They want a normal person that shows them how to get from Point A to Point B.

What result can you help people, with less knowledge and experience than you, achieve?

Great! Another one down, let's go to the next.

Yes - So you have to accept that the objective of an online course is to get a very precise result on a narrow subject.

Even more, you have to limit the knowledge you transfer to what is really necessary to achieve the result expected. Otherwise the student is overwhelmed and gets lost in the process.

Let's take the example of the coach:

I can understand your worry here, especially if you have been a coach for a long time.

What you have to understand is that an online course has a different objective than 1o1 coaching.

This is not an issue.

You course audience knows it. There are not expecting to get the same results as with personalized coaching.

For example a dating coach will take a coachee through the whole process until he/she meets someone and develops a relationship.

But online courses would narrow down the objectives e.g. 

• Getting dates
• or From First date to a second one for male
• or Moving from dates to a relationship...

So what you have to do is accept that you cannot share all your knowledge with your students, it would be counterproductive. What is important is to create an effective process based on all your experience.

And let's tackle our next excuse:

When googling 'creating online courses' or similar, many of the first page articles will tell you that you must choose your platform right now.

You know why?

Because those articles are written by the platforms' blog... or those looking for affiliate commissions for the use of those platforms. Don't get me wrong, I think those platforms are so practical... BUT

This is absolutely NOT where you should start!

Plus, to be honest, in the end it won't even make such a difference. You could even send your course by emails, if you wanted. As long as the content is well thought through, actionable and well communicated, the rest is the cherry on top.

There is?

FANTASTIC!!!!

I am Serious 🙂 

Want to know why?

Because competition means that there is a market, a need for your course. Isn't it great news?

I know, I know, it is hard! When you see someone else already doing it, you are thinking "what is the point?". It is a great excuse. 

I am guilty of that too. Other courses about online course creation exist. And I was thinking 'they are already established'... 'how can I find my audience?'...'with their experience it must be better'... But the important fact to remember is that:

YOU ARE UNIQUE - you bring a different way of presenting things, a different personality and a variety of experiences!

I understand your worry about existing competition, I am one of you:

STEP 3 - FREE YOUR MIND

So right now, you know you can do it. You are ready to start creating your online course. Yeah!

What's next?

How are you feeling? Probably many ideas are floating in your head and it is difficult to focus and find out where to start.

Most articles will have you start with writing down the outline of the course and it is tempting, 

I get it!

But to create the best process for your student to get results, you cannot start by what you think it should be but you need to extract from data what it needs to be.

So let's start:

With everything floating in your head you do not know where to start and it feels overwhelming. The result being: No action.

So the first step, it to write down all those ideas you are afraid to loose if you start with something else.

All you think so far about your course: which lessons you should have, the names that are floating in your head, the ideas for exercises, specific sentences you want to say.... everything that is looping your head.

The next phase is to get all the knowledge out of your brain somewhere so that it stops moving around and generates your concrete building material.

To be able to structure and create your online course, you have to gather a lot of data on the subject to be able to extract the process and the right information to share through it. 

Without everything on paper, it is difficult take a step back and see the big picture.

First step is to get all your expertise out of your brain and on the paper.

Write down everything your can think of: themes, examples, exercises, quotes, steps, tools... any bits of information.
Depending on your style you can write all that down:

• On a notebook
• On colored post-its to move around on a wall
• In an excel workbook
• On a voice recording device
• ...

Once you have a first go at writing down everything your first think of (themes, examples, exercises, quotes, steps, tools...):

• Take one of the ideas that inspires you
• Ask the questions: how, why, when, with whom, how often...
• And write down everything else that comes to mind

Everywhere you go, bring with you a way to record (notebook or writing app on phone) so that you can always write down what comes to mind.

STEP 4 - Collect Inputs

Now we continue with the Brainstorming phase, to collect more inputs that will help you find the big picture for the structure as well as help create content.

For your course to make an impact, it needs to speak to your customers: it must address their needs and hopes, fit with their level and use their language!

There are many activities you can do to collect the profile of your ideal student. Here is one of the most effective ones:

• Find today 3 potential customers for your course
• Ask for a little chat
• Start with easy questions about them and what they do today
• Then continue with positive questions about their hopes and dreams
• Always ask open questions

Those interviews are a good way to validate your idea for a course or refine it before you get any further. Are potential customers actually interested in buying such a course?

Ramit Sethi is adamant about validating your business idea before doing anything. And he is right. Even though sometimes, I think you need to get your idea out of your system anyway because you will learn from it, whatever the result.

Remember...

we said that the fact that a course already exists is a great thing.

Well time to dig into that!

1. From the list you created in A6 - Take notes of content: Chapter titles, Vocabulary - develop into what ideas does that trigger for you

2. Learn from their mistakes - if you can read reviews, have a look if customers are missing something or expecting something extra that you could include.

STEP 5 - FRAME YOUR COURSE

Objective = "Set up your minimum viable blog in 2 hours using WordPress"

In that case you can go with a timeline structure (this is only one example of how it could go):

Celebrate

You Started - yeah!! 

You will see, creating an online course is such a fun process! And what a feeling when it is done and you are impacting people's lives...

Wondering what comes next? Have a look at the Anatomy of an effective online course to get some ideas of critical elements to consider while creating your online course.