The Course Mentors Podcast
Hey there, future course creator!
Ever feel like turning your know-how into an online course is like trying to solve a Rubik's cube blindfolded? Well, grab your headphones because "The Course Mentors Podcast" is here to be your secret weapon!
Meet Aimee and Odette (that's us!), your new best friends in the course creation world. We've been in the trenches for over a decade, and for the last five years, we've been rocking the online course space. Now we're here to spill all our secrets in bite-sized, 15-20 minute episodes that'll fit perfectly in your coffee breaks.
No fluff, no filler - just real, actionable advice that'll take you from "um, what's a landing page?" to "holy moly, I just hit six figures!". We're talking everything from crafting your course to marketing it like a pro and building a business that'll have you pinching yourself.
Whether you're dreaming of ditching the 9-to-5 grind, adding a sweet extra income stream, or just want to trade demanding clients for students who think you're the bee's knees - we've got your back.
Think of us as your personal cheerleading squad, but instead of pom-poms, we're armed with proven strategies and a healthy dose of "you've got this!" energy. We're here to give you the straight-up truth (with a side of fun) to help you crush your goals and create that freedom-filled life you've been daydreaming about.
So, ready to turn your expertise into course gold? Tune in to The Course Mentors Podcast. And hey, once you're done implementing our awesome advice, swing by Instagram @thecoursementors and show us what you've created. We can't wait to celebrate your wins!
Let's make some course magic together, shall we? 🎉
The Course Mentors Podcast
Why More Content Could Be Sabotaging Your Online Course Success
Hey there, course creator!
In this episode of The Course Mentors Podcast, Aimee and Odette are about to drop a truth bomb that'll revolutionize your course creation game:
👉 More Content = LESS Money (and MORE frustrated students!) 👈
If you’ve ever thought “how am I supposed to fit EVERYTHING I know into course videos?!”, then this pod is for you.
In under 15 minutes, we’re going to break down why more content is going to do more harm than good, and how you can make sure the RIGHT content is going into your online course.
Using real-life examples that'll make you go "Aha!" (think house renos, puppy training, and maybe even a little knitting), we'll show you why less really can be more when it comes to your online courses.
You'll learn:
* Why your students don't need a PhD's worth of content to succeed
* How to focus and easily deliver on the good stuff that actually moves the needle
* The art of creating online courses that don't make your students want to pull their hair out
So, whether you're a seasoned edu-preneur or just dipping your toes into the course creation waters, this episode is your ticket to streamlined, impactful courses that'll skyrocket your online course success and create so much more ease in your business.
P.S. Warning: This episode may cause sudden urges to simplify, clarify, and course-ify. Side effects may include increased student success and a significant reduction in information overload 😉
Welcome to the Course Mentors podcast, where we talk about everything online course success.
Speaker 2:I'm Amy Hill and I'm Odette Eade. We're the Course Mentors, and today we're talking about what you actually need to include in your online course and what is too much. But before we get into it, denny, how was your week? Yeah, it's been great.
Speaker 1:My husband and I always save like cool cafes and restaurants and things to go out to in our Instagram, but we haven't like been to one, so we've decided to actually, once a week, go to a restaurant or a cafe that is in our Instagram, tick it off and actually use that great list of resources.
Speaker 2:I love that. I love that you guys like the idea of a crazy time for you guys is creating a bucket list of cafes and going to them.
Speaker 2:It never meant to be that way. It's so cute. I love it so much. It's like it's honestly a beautiful idea. Do you know what's great about that? You guys live in Brisbane, which is like a city right, obviously it's a city. I live at the Sunshine Coast. There is one cafe here, there is one place for everything, there's one place to take your child, there is one place to go to school. I'm just joking, I'm just joking, but I don't have that luxury. I don't have that problem. Back to the big smoke. I know what was I doing? So selfish, didn't I? We started a business, we started this business, this business, business, exactly this business together. And then, um, about a month into it, I said see ya, I'm leaving an hour and a half up the road. Yeah, I'm going all the way to the Sunshine Coast.
Speaker 1:And you, you said what, what don't do that and you were like pregnant or something, or having a yeah, I was pregnant. You're pregnant, weren't you? Yeah, so that's it, don't buy a house.
Speaker 2:I'm taking the baby don't take my baby, but I love it. I'm buying a house. I'm taking the baby, don't take my baby, but I love it. I love living by the beach and I'm so glad that I did it, even though I look back now at that time and I was like pregnant, moving house, buying house, whatever so crazy. I feel like pregnancy really can drive you into such a weird like I've got to get everything done now. Coaching call, actually as part of what we do the course mentors, online course school and um, I think there was like four or five women in there that were pregnant and the like, the crazy, like hustle that pregnant women get into like no, this is my launch date. I'm getting it out on this date because I'm giving birth on Halloween and we were like, yeah, okay, get it get it girl.
Speaker 2:All right, let's get into it. Let's get into it. Believe it. We're to start with a believe it or not? Are we Believe it or not? Putting extra into your course materials and we're talking videos, we're talking worksheets, we're talking resources is actually more harmful than helpful. Say what, what, what, what, how do we know this? Okay, where is this coming from? Why do we get to say this? Why do we get to be so audacious on this podcast saying crazy things like that? The thing is, online courses are not about the information. They are about the execution. People are not buying information.
Speaker 1:They are buying better versions of themselves. Tons and tons of information isn't necessarily going to get them to that better self.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and when they're looking into purchasing an online course, when they're finding the course that they want to purchase, when they're looking for the solution to their problems, the worksheets and the videos don't really play a part in that front-end marketing of the product. It's just not really what it's about, and part of the reason I'm going to go on so many tangents in this podcast because there are so many things I want to talk about with this, because it's one of our biggest things, right? How many times do we have to tell people strip it back, strip it back. It's crazy. We're like we know, you know so much, strip it back. It's like the most counterintuitive thing ever. But there are so many things that we're so passionate about, about stripping it bloody back.
Speaker 2:One of the things that I think is most important to talk about is videos and worksheets do not have any value to them. There is no value. How much value? How much is a video worth Literally? How long is a piece of string? It's only as valuable as the information that you get out of it, right? So what you get out of a course is the value, not the video, not the worksheet. The worksheet has zero value. There are billions with a, b, probably trillions, with a T amount of videos on YouTube. Does that mean that each one of those videos has a set value of $5? No, it's what I get out of it. So if what you get out of it is the value, the online course, the materials themselves, are worthless. It's the outcome that people are paying for. That's the value. So when we talk about having a shit ton of materials inside your course, they do not matter. As long as someone can get out what they originally sought from your course. That's all that matters. That's the value.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. People aren't sitting around saying, oh, I wish I had some worksheets. People buy courses because oftentimes they're overwhelmed, they're stuck, they need help moving forward or getting to a result as fast as possible. You know, if you're padding out a course with lots of stuff, that's not the most efficient and best way to get to that result. There's extra information. It's going to keep them stuck in that overwhelm. If you give somebody who's overwhelmed, 500 tasks to do because you think, well, that's valuable, I've given them all this stuff. That's going to keep them in that overwhelm and it's not going to get them out of where they were when they started.
Speaker 2:It's actually going to keep them exactly where they are, because where they are right now is already in the world of millions of videos. Let's say that I want to renovate my house, right, and I go to YouTube and I start searching like, oh, house renovation. There are probably so many videos on there about renovations, but some might be, you know, tailored towards tradies. Some might be tailored towards first like it's. It's so hard and you like sifting through that web of information. That's where you already are. So buying an online course is supposed to be getting you out of that, getting you to the actual solution. If you give someone every single thing you've ever known, you're putting them right back where they were before they purchased the course.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I've said it before, I'll say it again YouTube is not your competition. It's where they are before they're finally like can somebody just show me what to do, please? This can't be how I get to the solution.
Speaker 2:People buy courses because they're like they're frustrated by the wealth of free information out there. It's not helping them anymore. They want the execution and they want the outcome, and that's what a course is all about.
Speaker 1:The most concise and easy to consume path is the most powerful way to get someone moving and taking action toward their result.
Speaker 2:And I think it's so natural to get stuck in the value trap, which is like generally and I'll say, you know, blanket statement, 99% of people who teach online courses. They had a tough or awkward or tricky time figuring out what they now know and they're passionate about that journey of helping people bypass that. For a lot of people, they had to learn whatever they know now. It wasn't a linear journey, it wasn't straightforward, and they're passionate. They go. I want to save other people from having to learn how I did. That's a huge portion of people. So what they do is they say, well, I had to learn this and I had to learn that, and I had to learn that. And then they start to think, well, I had to learn all these different things and that's what helped me come to my conclusion. So they start including all of the stuff that helps them to learn, completely forgetting that that's what they were trying to avoid in the first place. That's right.
Speaker 1:They want to get them on a linear journey from A to Z they go.
Speaker 2:I need to value pack this program and I want it to be the most valuable thing on the market. So I'm going to value pack it full of every single thing that I have ever learned or experienced, and I think we'll say it, we'll say it one way and then this is it. Your course does not have to be a university level program.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. You don't pad out your course with stuff to get value. The best, most concise way to get to that end result is always way more valuable than way too much stuff.
Speaker 2:And you as the expert, you might know every single thing there is to know about renovating houses. Does that mean you need to pass every single thing on to the student? No, they can renovate their house without knowing every single thing that you know, Absolutely.
Speaker 1:A skilled teacher. They put themselves in the student's shoes. Yes, you might know every single thing there is about your topic, but that doesn't mean you should be passing it on to your student.
Speaker 2:What we routinely get people to do is write down everything you think that they need to get to the journey. Mark out what point A is, mark out what point Z is. Go all the way through, then start crossing shit off.
Speaker 1:Yeah, Is this really necessary? You know be discerning with your curriculum, then off. Yeah, is this really necessary? You know be discerning with your curriculum, then All right.
Speaker 2:This is all the you know, brain dump information. This is what I could all possibly teach, but strip it back and then roll this out and then interview people. Did you need that? Did you need this? Did you need that? Strip it back, strip it back, strip it back.
Speaker 1:Was it too much? How did you feel the amount of work was?
Speaker 2:And I think it comes back down to being concise is a skill. Delivering information concisely is a skill. It's a skill I'm still working on. Yes, nailed it in the course. But when it comes to telling a story, debt will say Amy, you've told me this part move it along and I'll say, a painting is worth nothing without the background darling. You do say that. It's really important that I acknowledge. Conciseness is a skill. Being concise and knowing what information to include and what not to is a skill yeah, completely.
Speaker 1:It's a harder skill than all the fluff. You know, it's okay if it feels hard, because stripping something back to its essence, to its lowest common denominator, is much harder than here's this and here's that and here's all the things, and it feels so counterintuitive, especially.
Speaker 2:I know that I struggle with this, I still do. I still struggle with it all the time. Right, it's normal. It's natural. I think, again, a lot of women who are in the online call space as well, and I'm generalizing too but I think that they're givers, I think that they're generous people who want to be generous with their information and their knowledge and maybe they felt like they didn't get that generosity and they want to give it back right.
Speaker 2:So they want to give everything that they know because they care, because they give a shit about people and and it's like so counterintuitive to think that if you actually care about someone, you give them less yeah, yeah, 100.
Speaker 1:It sounds crazy but it's not. And it's also deciding, like, how to deliver that information. You know you're the teacher. How are you going to give them that? You don't have to tell them every single thing that's inside your brain? You know you've got social media that you can share lessons on. You could do do maybe an extra masterclass, a live one, once a month. You know it's not like it's. You can never, ever give them that information. You could share it in. You know Q&A calls and things that can come up whilst you're teaching them, but you don't have to put everything, single thing, tiny little thing you know into your videos. It would be so overwhelming to do that, too, as a course creator.
Speaker 2:I'm an example person, I think, examples like man, they really, they rock, they get me the problem.
Speaker 2:If I want to train my dog to being less responsive and anxious, the value is in having a less responsive and anxious dog, not in 500 hours of dog training yeah, right, like you might want to include every single goddamn thing you've ever learned about dog training in your course, and there's all this extra background and there's the psychology of dog behavior, and there's every, every experience you've had and all these examples, and you want to include it all. But people want a less responsive and less anxious dog. Okay, what about if I wanted to learn how to knit a jump? We chose knitting, because I am fucking obsessed with knitting at the moment yeah, amy keeps trying to get me to knit a blanket I'm so, so cool, I'm so cool.
Speaker 2:I'm telling you I'm cool.
Speaker 1:You are cool. Knitting's cool. I'm into it, but I just don't have the time right Because I'm just reading. Instead. I read you knit.
Speaker 2:Yeah, we're really really cool people who have really cool hobbies.
Speaker 1:So I want to learn how to knit a jumper and I want to understand basic stitches.
Speaker 2:If I wanted to.
Speaker 1:The value is not in understanding every single variation of thousands of stitch patterns that have ever existed. How long has knitting been around? You know you don't have to teach them the world of knitting, that'd be mental.
Speaker 2:Do you know how many videos were in this knitting course that I purchased? 12, and it was phenomenal. It was 12 videos I needed, could replay them as many times as I wanted to. Making a jumper gorgeous, great, and I'm loving every part of it yeah, 100%.
Speaker 1:And and you got like a good foundation of the art of knitting. Could you go and knit something else? Or yeah, yeah, feel great cool. You don't have to say I'm going to teach you everything you'll ever need to know about knitting either. It's like you can have a foundational course in knitting.
Speaker 2:At the end of the day, the outcome is the value. Are we saying that you need to strip it back to zero, it needs to be five videos, and leave them high and dry? Absolutely not, god, no, no. What we're saying, though, is that online courses the best ones are the gold mines.
Speaker 1:It's just gold mine, gold, gold mine, gold mine. Yeah, clear point, clear point, clear point. Oh, this is what I'm getting out of it. Okay, understand where I'm at, what I'm doing and how this translates to the end result.
Speaker 2:Exactly it's all for a purpose, it's all purpose driven and there is no extra shit. That's in there just for fun yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 1:We're not saying like strip it back to nothingness. You know you can still have great time, you can still include lots of great resources, but it's just finding that balance of what's too much, what's too little, what's actually contributing to the transformation or the experience. You know you can have a reflection tool or something within your course that's adding to maybe not the curriculum, but it's adding to the experience of your course. It's giving somebody who needs space.
Speaker 2:They're overwhelmed so they need space to reflect on what they've done. That's a good course inclusion. The biggest thing to take away from this episode is that oftentimes we think that building an online course is going to be so much harder than it actually is. My god, yes, we see a lot of people, before they go into the course creation phase, going this is going to take me a year to build. I've got 100,000 videos to film. I've got to have this done. I've got to have incredible videos that are filmed by film crew. I've got to have worksheets that are designed by a designer. I've got to have all of this stuff.
Speaker 1:Three red flags right there. A few quality resources is way more powerful than half done, half thought out ideas. So it's about. For me, I guess, takeaway is like quality over quantity and like finding that balance of what your students need to fulfill the curriculum. Get them to the A to Z and have a really good experience doing it.
Speaker 2:And it's probably so much less than you actually think it is, especially if you're like so many of the women that we work with that want to be so generous with everything that you know and you're thinking this is going to be the biggest undertaking of my life, creating this massive course. It's probably so much easier than what it seems like in your head, agree?
Speaker 1:so hopefully that makes things a little less scary or daunting. Heading into course creation, remember it is about the most succinct way to get from a to Z. The best path is the most concise one. I think you're going to do great.
Speaker 2:That's about it from us guys. Thank you so much for listening. See you next week. Bye.