Teaching Mastery Academy for Digital Course Creators

Digital Course Creation 101: Why Teaching Isn’t About Being an Expert

• Francesca Hudson: Teaching Mastery Academy • Season 1 • Episode 18

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Ever felt like an imposter creating a digital course? You're not alone. Imagine stepping into your first teaching role and realizing that expertise isn't the golden ticket—it’s your ability to guide transformation that truly matters. 

Discover how being just a few steps ahead of your learners can be your superpower. 

We unravel the myth that you need to be the ultimate authority to make an impact, and instead, shed light on the value of relatability and understanding your audience's journey. 

Explore the real heart of teaching through the lens of personal growth and transformation. 

Drawing from experiences in digital course creation, we dive into the shift from focusing on personal insecurities to truly catering to student needs. 

Through stories like a simple sourdough baking course, we illustrate how vulnerability can foster trust and authenticity in our information-rich world. 

Let’s redefine what it means to teach and embrace the role of a guide, empowering you to connect with students on a deeper and more meaningful level.

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 and welcome back to Teaching Mastery Academy. I'm your host, rinchiska, and today we're tackling a big, sticky topic that I know so many of you are wrestling with and I've wrestled with this myself and it's called the imposter syndrome. Let me ask you this have you ever thought about creating a course or teaching something you're passionate about, but then that little voice inside your head says who am I to teach? I'm not an expert. Well, trust me, you're not alone. I went through this in reverse. I'm a teacher by trade. I spent 10 years in the classroom teaching teenagers, and then I went out and I started creating resources, worksheets for teachers globally around the world, but when it came to actually looking at the digital marketing side of things and putting together a course and being present, showing up on social media, I felt like an imposter. And this imposter syndrome is so common when it comes to the digital course creation industry, the online industry, the digital marketing industry. Anything that involves creating and selling a course online means that you need to have a certain level of teaching or coaching ability, as well as marketing, and I think that, if we look at the teaching side of things for a moment, one of the biggest misconceptions that I see amongst entrepreneurs is the idea that you need to have a PhD or years of teaching experience or be the top expert in your field to create and sell an incredible course.

Speaker 1:

Now here's the truth. Teaching isn't about being an expert. It's not about knowing everything or delivering lectures from some imaginary pedestal. Teaching is about guiding transformation. It's about meeting your students where they are and helping them to get where they want to be. And we can use the word teacher, or we can use the word coach, or we can use the word mentor, or we can use the word course creator. Premium coaches, mentors, teachers whatever word you like to use are about guiding those transformations and getting the best possible outcome for our students. So by the end of this episode, you're going to shift your mindset from I'm not a teacher to I'm a guide, and you'll walk away with the confidence to show up as the person who can create real transformation for your audience. Even if you don't feel like the world's leading authority, do not worry. So grab a notebook, settle in and let's rewrite the way you think about teaching.

Speaker 1:

Let's start with the elephant in the room the myth that you need to be an expert to teach this myth. We'll call it a myth is rooted in traditional ideas about education. Right, when we think of teachers, we often imagine someone standing at the front of a classroom lecturing on a subject they've mastered inside and out, and if you're not that person, it's easy to feel like you're not qualified to teach. But here is the thing online courses are a completely different ballgame. Your audience isn't looking for a professor. They're, in fact, just the opposite. They're looking for someone who understands their struggles and can show them a clear path forward.

Speaker 1:

So being an expert doesn't mean knowing everything. It means knowing enough to help someone else take the next step. You only need to be a few steps ahead, and often that connection being relatable and approachable is far more valuable to your audience than being the world's leading authority, and at Teaching Mastery Academy, that's what we focus on. We don't focus on how to be a professor. We focus on being able to ensure that the content that you want to deliver is relatable to your audience, and you, as the coach, as the mentor, are approachable. The engagement strategies that you're using opens up your audience to you.

Speaker 1:

Think about fitness instructors for a moment. Some of the most successful ones aren't Olympians or professional athletes. They're regular people who've overcome their own challenges, and now they're helping others do the same. So think about that and apply it to your own course or your own course idea if you haven't yet created one. Your audience doesn't need you to be perfect, my friend. They need you to be human, and the human connection outweighs everything else when it comes to digital marketing and digital course creation. And here's an unexpected truth about this Sometimes being too much of an expert can actually work against you.

Speaker 1:

When you're miles ahead of your audience, for example, it can be hard to relate to their struggles. You might skip over foundational steps because they seem really obvious to you, but you might not realize that your students are actually quite overwhelmed or even lost, and what they need instead is someone who understands their starting point and can break things down in a way that feels achievable for them. Once again, teaching Mastery Academy, that's what we show you how to do with your own courses, how to read the room, in other words, how to understand your audience's needs and how to deliver information to them in a way that they'll understand and be able to process it, because that, in turn, leads to trust. They will trust you, they will complete the course, they'll go on and buy your second and your third course, and so on. So hopefully I have busted that expert myth for you.

Speaker 1:

Now let's talk about what teaching is really about. And a spoiler alert with this one, it's not about lecturing or showing off how much you know. It's actually about guiding transformation. You need to meet students where they are. Your role as the teacher, coach, mentor, whatever label you want to put on it is to meet your students where they are. That means understanding their pain points, understanding their goals and the obstacles standing in their way, and you can do this in a two-step process. So you start by listening. What questions is your audience asking? What frustrations do they share in the Facebook groups or on social media, or in conversations with you or in an email, or where are you seeing the frustrations coming through? So really listen to those questions that your audience is asking. And then step two is to reflect on your own journey, because chances are you've been in these shoes before and you already know what it feels like to face those challenges personally. So reflect back on the little hiccups along the way that you had, the little roadblocks. What did you do to overcome these? What are the simple questions that might seem obvious to you now, but when you were five years back in your journey, or even three months back, what were the questions that you wanted to find out? So I'll give you an example.

Speaker 1:

If your course is about social media marketing, think back to when you were struggling to grow your following. What did you wish someone had told you? What simple steps would have made all the difference? I like to think of it as thinking of yourself as a guide on a trail, and you don't have to know every single detail about the wilderness that you're in. You just need to know the way forward and help others navigate the path that are following you behind. And as a guide, your role is to provide clarity, so you want to help your students see where they are now, where they want to go and the steps to get there. You want to build confidence, so you want to encourage your students to take action, even when they feel unsure. You really want to motivate them and keep the positivity levels up, and your role is to celebrate progress. You want to acknowledge your students' wins along the way, no matter how small they are. Keep that positivity going. So what does this look like in a course. Well, we can use simple, actionable steps that your students can follow without feeling overwhelmed. We can share relatable stories from your own journey to inspire and connect with your students, and we can create checkpoints or milestones along the course's way where your students can reflect on how far they've come during that course. Because what I'm about to share with you now is a fairly critical mindset shift.

Speaker 1:

Your job isn't to cram your students' heads with information. It's actually to help them achieve a transformation. Information is everywhere, right, people can Google facts or watch YouTube tutorials for free. But transformation, on the other hand, that is what your students are willing to pay for. They're begging to pay for it. This is what they're crying out for. They need someone that is going to take them by the hands and show them the transformation.

Speaker 1:

Let's say you're teaching a course on baking sourdough bread. Let's choose an example like that. You're not just teaching the science of fermentation and I have heard a lot about the science of fermentation with sourdough from friends that have tried that, have bought starter kits. But anyway, back to the sourdough bread course. So you're not just teaching the science of fermentation, you're giving your students the tools, confidence and support to bake their first loaf of bread and experience the joy of creating something from scratch. That is the transformation, not the science of fermentation. It is the support to bake their first loaf of bread and experience the joy of creating something from scratch. It's the emotion behind it as well.

Speaker 1:

Focus on what your students do with the information, not just the information itself. Very passionate about that, because I think that there is a misconception that teachers focus on purely information, and almost to a point of information overload, and teaching is not that at all. Teaching, coaching, mentoring all of these skills that sit underneath the same umbrella of being able to impart knowledge to others. A good teacher, a good mentor, a good coach focuses on transformation, and that is what the students will remember, not the information. Okay, so now that we've redefined what teaching is, let's talk about the elephant in the room imp. Imposter syndrome. This is what we started the show with.

Speaker 1:

Imposter syndrome shows up as a nagging voice in your head that says who am I to teach this? Or what if someone asks a question that I can't answer? Or what if I fail and embarrass myself? And when I started out teaching, these were the same questions that I felt when I stepped foot in the classroom for the first time, I was so nervous I had a sea of faces looking back at me and I really had to fake it till I made it, in terms of confidence in my voice and coming across as if I knew what I was talking about. And I did know what I was talking about to a certain extent. But taking knowledge and being able to impart it in a way that others understand is totally different. It's a totally different skill, and so that imposter syndrome showed up for me as well. But let me tell you something every great teacher, mentor or guide has got this way as well at some point. All of us do so. We want to reframe your role instead.

Speaker 1:

Imposter syndrome often comes from thinking that you have to know everything, but remember, you're not trying to be the ultimate authority. You're simply guiding people through a transformation. Remember, you only have to be one or two steps ahead of your audience to be able to help them with the transformation that they need. So you can ask yourself these three questions that these three questions will help Can I help someone who's a few steps behind me, yes or no? Can I show them what's worked for me, yes or no? And can I provide support and encouragement along the way, yes or no? If the answer is yes, then you're qualified to teach, my friend, but let's take the spotlight off us as coaches, teachers, mentors for a second, because it is about our students. You're qualified to teach, my friend, but let's take the spotlight off us as coaches, teachers, mentors for a second, because it is about our students.

Speaker 1:

We want to focus on our students and one of the best ways to quiet that imposter syndrome is to shift the focus away from yourself and onto your students. Instead of asking am I good enough to teach this? Ask how can I serve my audience today? Oh, love that. How can I serve my audience today? Because when you focus on the impact, you're making those self-doubts start to feel less important. And here's a secret your audience doesn't need you to be perfect. They need you to be real. When you're honest about your own challenges and your learning experiences, it builds trust and makes you so much more relatable. And I'm telling you now that word trust is going to get bigger and bigger and bigger as we go on in this course creation world, because there are so many other ways that people can access information, and we've got AI now, which is mimicking human behavior, and people want to know that they can trust you. People want to know that they're interacting with someone who's real, who's been there, who's done that, who's experienced the same problems that they had, and so we really want to make sure that your voice is authentic, and that means showing up all your flaws as well as how perfect you are at this particular subject that you're teaching. So, if you're teaching a course on launching an online business, don't be afraid to share the story of your first failed launch. Talk about what you learned and how it shaped your approach moving forward, because vulnerability is an awareness, it's a superpower that helps your students see what's possible for them.

Speaker 1:

I've been in the digital course industry for 10 years, and when I pivoted to start thinking about creating high ticket offers, I had a product called Nucleus Floor Plans. It was in a totally different niche. It was in the architectural design market, because, funnily enough, I've also got interior design under my belt. I have done interior design, and we wanted to create a product where we could sell beautifully designed, architecturally designed floor plans. That came with all the bells and whistles, all the interior design schedules, the color schedules, the kitchen design, everything and we could do this to universal measurements, so we would have a Northern Hemisphere style measurement system, would have a northern hemisphere style measurement system or a southern hemisphere style measurement system, depending on where you are.

Speaker 1:

Anyway, I invested a lot of time and energy and expertise and infrastructure into building this brand and it just didn't go anywhere and it got to a point where we had to make a decision if we were going to continue with it or use our time and resources elsewhere, and I thought you know what I'm not feeling this, I don't have the passion for this, that I do for education and so that was a flop. That was my big flop, but I learned so many transferable skills from it. I learned about building landing pages and putting in place behind the scenes infrastructure and being able to use virtual assistants and I use. There were so many other skills that I learned from that flopped course that I think has propelled me forward. So I think you can always find the silver lining, even in the most vulnerable of situations. All right, so now that I've digressed and we've addressed the mindset side of teaching, let's get practical.

Speaker 1:

Here are some actionable strategies that you can use to guide transformation in your courses. Let's start with small wins. One of the best ways to build momentum is to give your students quick, achievable wins early in the course. This boosts your students' confidence and it keeps your students motivated. Achievable wins early in the course this boosts your students confidence and it keeps your students motivated to continue. So, for example, if your course is about time management, you could start with a simple exercise like creating a morning routine. It's a small step, but it creates a sense of accomplishment.

Speaker 1:

We also want to make it interactive for your students. So transformation happens when your students actively engage with the material. We want to look for ways to make your course interactive, so we want to be including worksheets or templates that your students can fill out. Maybe think about hosting live Q&A sessions where your students can ask questions, or maybe create challenges or assignments that encourage your students to apply what they've learned. Then we want to check in regularly with our students, with our community. We don't want to let our students feel like they're on their own. We want to check in with them regularly through email updates or course announcements or even community discussions. And here's my pro tip for that Use these check-ins to celebrate student progress and remind your students of the big picture transformation that they're working towards, always circle back to the big picture transformation.

Speaker 1:

We want to look at feedback, because feedback is a powerful tool for transformation, but it needs to be delivered in a way that's encouraging, not discouraging. We want to focus on what your students are doing well and we want to provide constructive suggestions for improvement. So, for example, instead of saying this isn't right, we could try. You're off to a great start. Here's a tip to take it to the next level Positivity, positivity. We really want to keep it positive. All right, okay, so we've covered quite a lot.

Speaker 1:

Let's wrap this up with a quick recap. We've covered that teaching isn't about being an expert. It's about being a guide. Remember, we want to be the inspiration for our audience, for our students. We want to be able to show them the way, not tell them the way. We want to be seen as more than just the teacher sitting at the front of the classroom or the professor showing off as to how much they know. We want to really inspire the people that we are serving, our students that we're serving. We also covered how our role as teachers or coaches is to meet our students where they are, show them the path forward, help them achieve transformation.

Speaker 1:

We looked at imposter syndrome and it's normal. It is completely normal. We all feel like this, we've all been there, and I don't want you to think that it defines your ability to teach. It doesn't. When we focus on our students, when we embrace our vulnerability and remember you don't need to be perfect to make an impact, so let's start small, small steps. We only have to be one or two steps in front of our students to be perfect to make an impact. So let's start small, small steps. We only have to be one or two steps in front of our students to be able to help them with their own transformations. And then, finally, we looked at some practical strategies, like starting with small wins, making your course interactive and providing supportive feedback, which can really help you guide your students towards success.

Speaker 1:

And here's what I want you to take away from this episode you don't have to know it all to teach, my friends. You just have to care. Care about your students, care about their goals, care about their transformation. That's what makes a great teacher and that's what makes your course invaluable. If this episode resonated with you today, don't forget to subscribe, leave a review and share it with a friend who might need a little encouragement to start teaching. And hey, if you're ready to create a course that transforms lives, then join the waitlist for Teaching Mastery Academy at theclassichighschoolteachercom. Forward slash TMA. That's T for teaching, m for mastery, a for academy. Until next time, keep creating, keep serving and remember you've got this. Bye for now.

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Francesca Hudson

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