Teaching Mastery Academy for Digital Course Creators

From Idea to Impact - Crafting Your First Digital Course

• Francesca Hudson: Teaching Mastery Academy • Season 1 • Episode 6

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In this episode of Teaching Mastery Academy, we’re jumping into the transformative process of creating your first digital course. Whether you’re brimming with ideas or don’t know where to start, this episode will guide you step-by-step in turning your expertise into a course that delivers real transformation for your students—and positions you as a leader in your niche.

Here’s what you’ll discover:

  • How to come up with a purposeful course idea that aligns your passion, expertise, and audience needs.
  • Three key questions to refine your course topic and ensure it resonates with your audience.
  • The secret to structuring your course for maximum engagement using milestones and the Impact Framework.
  • Why storytelling is essential to your course’s success and how to weave it into your lessons.
  • Practical tips for overcoming tech overwhelm, from choosing the right platform to creating polished resources with ease.
  • Proven strategies for a successful launch, including building anticipation, offering a beta version, and crafting an irresistible offer.

This episode is packed with actionable tips to help you go beyond just sharing knowledge—creating an experience that changes lives. If you’re ready to take your first step toward creating a course that stands out, this episode is a must-listen!
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Your voice matters, and your course can too. Let’s make it happen! 🎧

Think of your course (or your course idea,) like a luxury car. People won’t pay top dollar unless it’s high quality, delivers an incredible experience, and meets their needs perfectly. Teaching Mastery Academy teaches course creators like you how to ‘build’ that luxury-level course—one that students trust, complete, and rave about, justifying premium pricing every time. Ready to take your expertise and ensure your digital course stands out from the crowd? Premium courses (and premium returns) start with the core teaching fundamentals that all the best course creators instinctively do, but now I'm showing you how! Join the VIP waitlist for Teaching Mastery Academy now! Click here to learn more.

Speaker 1:

Hello, welcome. I am so excited that you are here today. We are diving into an exciting and transformative process of creating your first digital course today. Whether you're just starting out or have an idea bubbling in your mind, this episode will guide you step by step from your idea to the impact that it is going to create. If you've ever thought I don't know where to start or you're worried that your course won't stand out, you're in the right place, my friend. Today we are going to uncover some strategies to build not just a course, but an experience that delivers real transformation for your students, and it will set you apart as a leader in your niche.

Speaker 1:

Coming up with a home-run course idea is something of a unicorn. It's kind of like the holy grail. Everybody in the digital marketing industry is wondering and looking for and researching into what is going to be a course topic to teach. Which is going to create a home run course, and it's not necessarily that hard or that complicated. I think we tend to overthink things to a certain extent, but in saying that, it isn't just simply pluck an idea from Thinia or go on chat GPT and type it in and then it's going to make you a millionaire overnight. But so what we need to look at is that every great course idea starts with an idea, but not just any idea. A purposeful idea that is the key purposeful. And here's the thing too many course creators dive into topics they think will sell, rather than focusing on what truly aligns with their expertise and what the audience needs. Let's flip that on its head.

Speaker 1:

I've got three very powerful questions that you can use to be able to help you when you're coming up with your next course idea. If you are wondering whether or not the topic that you want to teach is going to be successful or you're going to have to rethink things, then these three questions are critical for that. So the first question is what do I know deeply that others struggle with? So, in other words, we want to work out what we can help our audience with. What is their pain point that we know inside and out? But sometimes it's not as simple as knowing that straight away. We have to ask ourselves some more questions to really drill down and start to work out what pockets of our subconscious experience can we tap into to help other people solve a pain point? It might not necessarily be that glaringly obvious at first sight. So the next question that you can help to refine that is what problem do I love solving again and again? What am I good at? What do people around me, my friends and my family what do they always say oh, you're so good at doing that. You're always so helpful when it comes to doing A, b or C.

Speaker 1:

So think about a problem that you love solving again and again, and it could be something really simple or it could be something highly qualified and technical, it doesn't matter. This is the beauty with the digital course creation world is that there are no boundaries when it comes to niche and expertise. You will have an audience that are needing a problem solved, no matter how small the problem is or how technical the problem is or how big the problem is. So think about a problem that you love solving again and again. And the third question to ask yourself is what transformation do I want to guide people through? Now? I call this the sweet spot strategy. It's the overlap between your passion, your expertise and what your audience really needs. That intersection, that's your course idea. But don't stop there. Dig deeper into the why. Why does solving this problem matter to you? Why does it matter to your audience. When you're emotionally connected to your course idea, that passion comes through in your teaching. And here's my pro tip for you If you're not sure what problem to solve, start a conversation with your audience.

Speaker 1:

Hold them on social media, on Instagram stories, for example, or you could host a Q&A session, or you could go live or even ask what's the number one thing you wish someone would teach you about your niche. Real feedback will clarify the need. And even if all of that is a little bit overwhelming or intimidating for you or you don't really go on social media that much, then pay attention to all the chat rooms. Go on places like Threads and see what people are talking about and asking for advice or help. Or go onto Reddit, on Google, and see what the community forums are talking about within your niche. You can sit back and observe without having to necessarily put yourself right in the middle of the conversation. If that's something that, at the moment, is just a little bit too out of your comfort zone, there are many ways of being able to look inside your niche and see what other people around you are looking for in terms of help and support, but it's all well and good having an idea. It's really important to structure the idea properly from the word go. You need to make up the journey, if you like, and yes, I said the word journey.

Speaker 1:

A digital course is more than a series of lessons. It's a guided transformation. Now I teach something I call the Impact Framework in Teaching Mastery Academy, and it's all about reverse engineering your course, and here's how it works. There are three steps involved to it, and you start with the end in mind. That's step one. So what's the transformation your student should achieve by the end of your course?

Speaker 1:

You need to be specific. For example, instead of saying learn social media, which is really vague, you could aim for create a 30-day social media strategy that increases engagement by 20%. Think about how specific I got there. I really drilled down and had a very narrow objective Create a 30-day social media strategy that increases engagement by 20%. I didn't just want to include the whole of social media. I didn't want to include every single thing that I know about social media to help other people. I chose a very specific problem. So that's the first thing is you want to start with the end in mind. So choose a very specific end result that you can achieve for your audience.

Speaker 1:

And then the second step is to break it into milestones. So these are like the big checkpoints along the way. Think of them like stepping stones across a river, for example. What do students need to know or achieve at each stage? We want to have really clear milestones. Think about it if you were trying to cross a river and there were two big boulders, but they were quite a way apart from each other, it would be difficult to cross that river compared to a whole lot of little stepping stones that you might have 10 or 15 of them to get across. Think of that like your lessons. You want to make sure that the milestones are broken down into really easy to digest, manageable, bite-sized pieces for your audience. So one lesson would have one objective, and so on and so forth to get to the other side.

Speaker 1:

And then step three we want to layer in the details. So with each milestone, you want to identify the skills or the tools or the knowledge that your students will need, and this is where your lessons come in. A milestone might be, for example, understand Instagram analytics, and then the supporting lessons could include how to read insights, set goals or track performance. So we want to be able to ensure that each lesson, we don't overload our audience. We don't overload our students and overwhelm them. So we start with the end in mind, we break it into milestones and then from there we layer in the details, not the other way around and remember less is more. We don't want to overwhelm our students with information. We want to focus on clarity and momentum instead. So every lesson should answer one key question how does this move them closer to their goal?

Speaker 1:

We want to ensure that our lessons are actually engaging, that our students actually want to attend and participate and show up, and it's the part that most creators overlook making your course engaging and unforgettable. But this is where you, my friend, can shine as a teacher. This is where courses become make or break courses. This is where course creators become experts, are seen as experts in their niche, or they get overlooked. We want to make sure that the content that you provide and your students is engaging.

Speaker 1:

So in Teaching Mastery Academy, I talk a lot about the story-driven learning effort and because people don't connect with dry facts, they connect with stories, and here's how to weave storytelling into your course. So you want to start each module with a real-life example or a case study. For instance, if you're teaching email marketing, you could open with the story of a small business owner who tripled their sales using a simple strategy. You also want to use micro-narratives within your lessons. So you want to share personal anecdnarratives within your lessons. So you want to share personal anecdotes or examples from your own experience to make your content relatable. And finally, you want to end with empowerment. You want to wrap up each lesson by showing students how the knowledge or skill they just learned fits into the bigger transformation they're working towards. You really want to keep the mood and the tone of all your lessons positive.

Speaker 1:

We're looking for many small micro transformations within each lesson. We really want to work on building that confidence of our students. So what you could do and here's my tip for you is you could incorporate reflective prompts into your lessons so you could ask questions like how would the strategy apply to your situation or what's one way you can practice this today? Because reflection deepens learning and it creates engagement and it also means that students your students will sit up and pay attention because they'll naturally want to be out there. Subconscious, will naturally want to answer those questions. They'll be testing themselves to see how much prior knowledge they have going into your course and how much your course is going to help them.

Speaker 1:

So, now that we've got the engagement sorted, we need to look at the tech, and this is an area where a lot of people begin to panic a little bit, because the online digital marketing world can look very overwhelming in terms of recording and editing and technology that people use for their courses and for all sorts of different types of online digital training. So I'm going to break down some for you, because I know it can feel overwhelming. But here's the truth your course doesn't need to be fancy to be effective. It really doesn't. What matters is clarity, but not complexity. Your voice, your unique voice and your unique teaching style will shine through, no matter what tech you've got or don't have, and this is also another reason that makes or breaks course creators. Some course creators have an amazingly unique insight into their niche and how they teach it, and others don't, unfortunately, and so this is where Teaching Mastery Academy comes in, because we really do teach you how to strengthen your unique voice and your unique ability to teach your niche.

Speaker 1:

But let's get back to tech. So let's start small, so you can use platforms like Teachable or Kajabi, or think of it, to host your course. I use Kajabi myself and I really love it. It's an all-in-one platform. It's user-friendly and it requires zero tech skills. It has everything under one hood, so you have emails, you have your website landing pages, you have your sales pages, you have all sorts of your checkout carts, and my advice would be, rather than going to different websites to try and build your course that way, find a platform that has it all in one, to start with at least.

Speaker 1:

And then, obviously, we talk about the elephant in the room, which is video content, and video content doesn't have to be overwhelming, and I avoided the video camera for years, years and years and years. I started digital marketing, or my first digital course was back in 2013. And we didn't have the fancy or the easy, I should say, access to tech that we do nowadays with course creation. We did still have our phones and I found it very intimidating to stand in front of the camera and my face in front of the camera. It takes a lot of confidence to put yourself in front of the camera. It can feel overwhelming, but the thing it starts simple, starts really simple, even if you just are in front of the camera for a couple of seconds as an opener, before your webinar starts or before your lesson starts. You don't have to start with social media. If you don't want to be that public, you can do it, you know, in your gated content. So that's when people have signed up for a lead magnet or people have signed up for your course, and you can introduce yourself that way.

Speaker 1:

But video content is crucial. It is important. We are a society that consumes video content over static images, and so we need to get with the game. We need to be able to play the game to a certain extent when it comes to video content. So all you need really is a smartphone. A ring light in a quiet space and using tools like Loom or Zoom are great for recording lessons. I use Zoom all the time and it's just a really super smart and super economic way of recording your content. So think about video content, keep it at the front of your mind. It is really important.

Speaker 1:

And then, finally, you want to engage your students with downloadable worksheets, templates or action guides. You want to have some software that's going to make your downloadable products look really smart and professional, and Canva is obviously the go-to place for that. It's what I use and it's fantastic for creating polished, professional-looking resources. So if you haven't already discovered Canva, go check it out. It's really good.

Speaker 1:

Now here's my tip you want to resist the urge to overproduce your first course. Perfectionism is the enemy of progress. You want to be focusing on delivering value and you can always upgrade later, because your first course is all about finding your unique voice, your unique teaching style, and your first course might not necessarily be your hit home run course. So if you spend all this time polishing it and making it look perfect and then it doesn't actually succeed in the way that you had hoped it did, then you've potentially wasted quite a lot of time. So get your first course out there and test the messaging. Use it to practice, to really get into the groove, get into the rhythm of teaching online and then from there you'll be able to see, based on the feedback from your audience, which direction you want to take that first course in. Do you want to carry on polishing it and making it look perfect, or maybe you need to pivot slightly and try a different angle to your niche? Because launching is all about confidence and putting yourself out there, as I mentioned before, takes confidence. I know I totally get that, totally understand.

Speaker 1:

So let's talk about launching. Your course is ready to go, but how do you get it into the hands of your audience? Well, the secret is creating anticipation and trust. So you first of all, want to build a launch runway. You want to start talking about your course weeks before the launch. You want to share behind the scenes content, tips related to your course topic and testimonials or success stories. Very, very, very casually drop the name of your launch product into that content. Every time you have a piece of content online, you want to be casually referencing your launch course. You also want to offer a beta launch, so invite a small group of students to enroll at a discounted rate in exchange for feedback. This not only helps you refine your course, but also gives you testimonials to use in your full launch. And if you don't have an audience yet, if you don't actually have anybody that's willing to pay for it, then you can see if any friends or family are willing to use the course themselves and review it for you, because that way you can at least still get some testimonials and potentially some feedback before you create your full launch. So having a beta launch is really important. Don't look at it from a money-making point of view. Don't look at it from a success point of view. Look at it as a part of the refining and editing process for your full course.

Speaker 1:

And then, finally, we want to craft the irresistible offer. So you want to focus on the transformation that you're promising. Remember, people don't buy courses, they buy solutions. So you want to use the testimonials that you just gathered from your beta launch. You want clear outcomes and you want bonuses to make your offer irresistible. So don't overlook or underestimate the effect of bonuses, because bonuses are. It's like that two-for-one offer that people are getting. They're getting way more than what you're selling your course for, and you want people to feel like they're ripping you off. You want people to feel like they are getting way more benefit from the relationship than you are. That is the key to a successful, irresistible offer. So bonuses are a really good way to do that, and you can also look at your testimonials and have really, really, really, really clear outcomes.

Speaker 1:

The solutions your audience are buying solutions.

Speaker 1:

What's in it for them? What will they help them achieve to do? And don't get caught up in listing all the features of your product on your sales page. Don't confuse features with solutions. Features are just simply what's included in the course. You want solutions. You want to be listing the solutions, all the ways that your course will help your audience. It's a very subtle difference, but it's a trap that a lot of people fall into with their sales page copy is that they're so busy listing features of their course they're forgetting that that's not actually the solutions that they're promising their audience. So think about that.

Speaker 1:

So there you have it, your step-by-step guide to creating a digital course that goes beyond the surface and delivers real impact. Remember, your course isn't just about sharing what you know. It's about changing lives. So start with a purposeful idea, structure it with the learner in mind and don't be afraid to put your own unique spin on it. If this episode sparked your interest and you're ready to dive deeper, check out Teaching Mastery Academy. The waitlist is open now Head to theclassofchisportteacherycom forward slash TMA or click on the show notes up a link in there to learn more. Thank you so much for joining me today, and don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share this episode with someone who's ready to make an impact with their first digital course. It's been a shorty episode, I know, but sometimes the short ones are the most powerful. So until next time, keep creating, keep teaching and remember your voice matters. Bye for now, my friends.

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Francesca Hudson

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