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
Do Your Qualifications Make You Qualified?
Struggling with imposter syndrome? Worried you don't have enough letters after your name to teach? In this eye-opening episode, we're tackling the age-old question that keeps so many course creators stuck: Do you really need traditional qualifications to be qualified? And how qualified do you really need to be to create an online course?
Through personal stories (including Odette's journey from 12-year-old seamstress to successful course creator) and real-world examples, we're busting open the myth that degrees and certifications are the only path to teaching credibility.
In This Episode:
- Why your personal journey might be your best teaching credential
- How real-world experience often trumps traditional qualifications
- The surprising truth about what students actually care about
- Why connecting with your audience matters more than perfect credentials
- How to turn your "non-traditional" path into your greatest teaching asset
- Real, do-able strategies that you can do today to start to map out (and find hidden gems) in your knowledge
Whether you're second-guessing your expertise or wondering if your experience is "enough," this episode will help you see your unique journey through fresh eyes. Because sometimes the most powerful teaching comes from the path you've actually walked, not the certificates on your wall!
Stop waiting for permission to teach what you know - hit play and start owning your expertise! 🎓✨
Want to create your own 6-figure course? Apply to join Online Course School https://thecoursementors.com/application
Got questions or want more free content? Follow us at https://www.instagram.com/thecoursementors/
Catch us every Wednesday for your weekly dose of course creation wisdom. Got questions or loving the show? Let us know on IG @thecoursementors. For more on our courses and mentorship, check out Online Course School's website https://thecoursementors.com/application.
Hello and welcome to the Course Mentors podcast. I'm Odette, I'm Amy. Today, we are talking about something that trips up even the most successful experts the journey from being great at something to actually teaching it. Yes, I cannot wait to get into this one, me too, because being an expert doesn't automatically make you a great teacher, amy. How was your week, though?
Speaker 2:first, it's been bloody good. It's been really bloody good. Do you want to know why? Yes, okay, I'm really excited to tell you that's my question. I finally finished all of the episodes of Criminal Minds, yeah. I knew you were about to say that. Finally, I actually can't remember 15, 16 seasons in.
Speaker 1:I think Criminal Minds is one of those things. If you know, you know.
Speaker 2:If you know, you know the girls are, get it, get it. You know what I mean? Oh my gosh, if you are a true crime girly, if you are a procedural girly, then you will know Criminal Minds has been. I can't even. This isn't an episode about Criminal Minds, but I just have to tell you I am so deeply, thoroughly obsessed. Det would come over to my house or she would meet me for a meeting, and every time we saw each other she'd be like what are you doing? I'd be like Criminal Minds, that's all I've been doing.
Speaker 1:I'm terrible. I'm actually really excited too, because I'm going to stop hearing about criminal minds.
Speaker 2:Listen listen, the girls that get it get it. The whole show is basically models. Everyone in that show is ridiculously good looking Like they're all model level attractive and they're all wearing sexy little FBI vests. So they're just running around catching serial killers being good looking. It's like Scooby Doo for adults.
Speaker 1:It's so good it is. It's like scooby-doo for adults. It's so good it is your perfect show true crime plus psychology plus behavior analysis oh it's so good, anyway, get into it, get into it.
Speaker 2:Yeah, my husband actually bought me a criminal minds shirt for my birthday.
Speaker 1:Oh, I know you text me that morning with the photo it was.
Speaker 2:It's getting a little out of hand, but I'm finished now, so it means I get to restart it if it wasn't a 16 season of hand, but I'm finished now, so it means I get to restart it if it wasn't a 16 season commitment, maybe I'd give it a go just give one episode a go tonight, no, all right. Oh my goodness, let's get into it.
Speaker 1:Otherwise this is going to be a podcast about criminal minds. Don't tempt me. Okay, let's tackle the biggest expert block not feeling qualified enough.
Speaker 2:This is something that I think we hear all the time. I would say on a weekly basis. Would you say weekly? Definitely, yeah, I would say weekly. I think we see it a lot because when we're working with people, we do a lot of grunt work and figuring out what it is that they know and who they're going to be teaching it to. That's a lot of what we do at the very beginning of working with people, right? Just we figure out what it is that you're teaching, who you're teaching it to, and something that it comes up for. Not everyone, but a good portion of people is wondering about their qualifications and wondering if their qualifications make them qualified enough, and it kind of depends on what you're teaching for starters.
Speaker 1:So let's break down the two types of credentials that you might have bringing into your course.
Speaker 2:The first one traditional credentials, including degrees, certifications, paid training.
Speaker 1:That's the obvious one. If you're in a field like health, psychology, law, finance, these things are pretty much a must. You shouldn't be giving people financial advice if you're not qualified to.
Speaker 2:I think that's illegal. And very dangerous yeah don't be giving anyone health advice if you don't have the qualifications to do so, because that's illegal.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and it's pretty much a qualifier before you work with us, that, hey, are you going to teach people about their brain, or what do you know about the brain first, and where did you learn it?
Speaker 2:I watched a three-hour documentary on YouTube about how to do brain surgery. Is that enough?
Speaker 1:It's a whole minefield. So that's the first one. Obviously Traditional credentials come into it, but all courses don't necessarily need traditional credentials.
Speaker 2:But that is a very, very, very small number of courses that exist out there, Definitely Finance, legal advice and health and surgery and things like that. That's a very, very, very, very, very small number of people that work in those industries. The vast majority of courses are not about things like that. I mean the courses do exist.
Speaker 1:Financial, legal advisors exist. That's right. It's not the majority. And if we only included traditional credentials on our sales page when you're insuring yourself, it's going to sound like a resume. It's going to sound like you're trying to impress a potential employer.
Speaker 2:For anyone who's not in those really specific fields of law or finance again, very specific fields. If you're not in those fields, it's extremely likely that those on paper degrees and credentials do not.
Speaker 1:Fucking matter one bit. They can add to what you're doing, but it's not necessarily what you need to be showing people. What you need to show people is that you can connect and understand them, and usually that comes from real world credentials, which is our second type of credentials.
Speaker 2:And that is things like personal results, client successes, overcome struggles and real experience.
Speaker 1:As an example of this, Amy taught me how to speak Japanese. I have a really good theoretical knowledge of Japanese. I can tell you all the grammar. I can tell you all the vocab. I haven't been to Japan and taught. I haven't interpreted. I could technically teach Japanese, but as soon as somebody said hey, what would somebody generally say in this circumstance, I couldn't tell you anything because I've never gone to Japan and had conversations with people, Whereas Amy tell us about your experience. It's very different to that.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it comes down to like, if you've got two teachers, one's good on paper, one's got the degree, and then the other person has spent their life committed to learning something and teaching it and they've worked with hundreds of people and they care about it something and teaching it, and they've worked with hundreds of people and they care about it and they can show you their personal. I've been to Japan a hundred times or I've, you know, spent lots of time living there, or, you know, you've got all of that personal experience. Which one do you feel closer to? The person who's got the like paper qualifications technically, could teach you technically, could teach you, or the person that you can connect to because they have that passion and that energy that you have for that topic? It's almost always going to be the person with the real like the real world experience 100 way more compelling sales page for you about japanese.
Speaker 2:So don't discount your experience, because your journey is your credential but sometimes I think it's really hard to conceptualize the experience that you do have, because for so many of us we take a lot of our experience for granted. We say, yeah, of course I had to do that. Like, of course I had to go to Japan, I just had to do that. Of course you had to, like, stitch a hundred shirts before you figured out how to do it really well. But that experience of like being in the mud figuring it out, that is what people are paying to skip.
Speaker 2:So it's important that you don't just get bogged down in the like oh, I don't have a degree, yeah, babes, you don't have a degree, but you have a hundred or a thousand hours of really hard, sticky work that people want to skip over and that is really valuable, if not more valuable oftentimes than a bloody degree. But we know we know innately that sometimes it's really hard to talk about ourselves because sometimes it feels braggy or we undervalue ourselves, we're not taking into account the breadth and the variety of our skills, background or journey and it's really easy to get stuck in that trap. So here are some prompts to help you to look at your experience more in depth and unemotionally.
Speaker 1:Number one knowledge mapping. So that is listing everything that you do just automatically, without thinking. That's when you know you're really good at something. I don't have to follow a pattern anymore when I sew. I can just sew a dress, cut the pattern out, cut the pattern pieces out and then just start sewing. I don't follow any instructions anymore, I just know how to do it. I didn't realize that that was a skill. I just knew when to put armholes together and when to put the sleeve on, et cetera. I just do things automatically now and that's when you know you're really good at something. So go through every step that you do when you're doing, whatever it is that you do, and write down your expertise. List it out so that you can see on paper whoa, yeah, actually, these are all the crazy things I can do. Next, break each skill into tiny steps things I can do.
Speaker 2:Next, break each skill into tiny steps. Someone who we work with, who is phenomenal and we love so so much does decluttering. Now, for her, the process of decluttering is probably just a lot of things in her head moving around at one time. She knows exactly what she's doing when she's decluttering, but it's very methodical what she does. So to help her create her course curriculum, she had to film herself decluttering something and then say it out loud and say right now I'm opening up a drawer and I'm just tipping out the contents, and then now I'm sorting out every single item in order of which room it needs to be in. And she didn't realize that she was doing that for every single drawer. And so now she knows when she goes back to watch that video okay, this is what I'm doing here, this is what I'm doing here.
Speaker 2:So it's about like really writing down concretely every tiny little step that you're doing and why you're doing each one of those steps through this, you'll be able to identify any assumed knowledge, to create that method and then, through this process of really methodically writing down every single thing that you do as part of your process, you'll be able to identify any of your own assumed knowledge'll be able to identify any of your own assumed knowledge, but also really concretely look at your page and say, oh shit, I actually know a lot of stuff.
Speaker 1:That way you can create beginner definitions and really get back to like brass tacks and like step one, step two, so that you're not missing anything when you're teaching. Next is teaching test. So a really easy way to do this is to get somebody to come over and teach them something. Amy could ask somebody who's never spoken any Japanese to come over and see what questions they ask when she starts teaching them.
Speaker 2:And this process again is going to come back to showing me how much it is that I really, really know, because I bet, for every single person listening to this podcast, you know 10 times more than you think you know. It's just that you only see the skills at their top level when you break those back down into practice, teaching and writing down the steps of everything that you possibly do inside of your process. I guarantee that that page is going to fill up real fast and then you're going to be able to look at what it is that you actually do and say, oh shit, I know a lot.
Speaker 1:Yeah, oh, this is going to be really valuable.
Speaker 2:This is when a light bulb goes off for a lot of people is oh, this is what I can teach people, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:And then the third thing that I want you to do is story banking, and story banking is writing down your three top struggles and then documenting all of the mistakes that it took you to get from where you were to where you are now. Again, this process is going to probably show you a lot of big gaps that other people are willing to pay to skip over. For so many of us, I know that that kind of experience we take for granted. A lot of the time we say, yeah, of course I had to fuck it up to get it right, of course I did. Some people don't want to do that. They want to skip over that. But by story banking and sitting down and writing out your journey and talking about what it was that you had to learn and what it was that you had to get wrong and what are all the expensive, costly, time-consuming mistakes that you had to learn along the way, those are incredibly valuable.
Speaker 1:Record your breakthrough moments too. It's going to be really difficult doing this task because you're really going back into the past and trying to remember what it was like when you were starting out. But if you record your mistakes, record those breakthroughs, you'll really create some stories and understand what your value is.
Speaker 2:But that is about it from us guys. I hope that this episode really helped you to see that degrees and qualifications and paid training yeah, those are really really important and sometimes, specifically if you're working in a field like law or finance or health or psychology, those qualifications are kind of like needed, necessary, necessary, and people are going to assume that you have them. So make sure that you do. Of those really really specific fields, which is 99% of people, I want you to know that hard qualifications, trainings, degrees they're not required and they're not necessary. Your experience, the time that you've put in and all of the mistakes you've made along the way are actually 10 times more valuable than a degree. Half the time.
Speaker 1:Absolutely. I could have a degree in sewing, but it's not going to make me any better at teaching sewing. What makes me great at sewing is the fact that I've been doing it since I was 12 years old, that I figured it out myself until I finally went and did a couple of courses, some weekend courses and things that figuring it out all on my own, without any real formal training. That's what people want to skip. That's what people want to skip. That's what people want to skip, and I can condense all that down for them. You know, don't discount your experience, your journey, everything that makes you you, because people want to learn from real people Okay, that is about it from us guys.
Speaker 1:Hopefully that broke down some barriers or some fears about what your experience brings to the table. If you were on the fence of whether you could get into course creation or not and whether your qualifications are good enough. We see incredible students, month on month on month on month on month, come through our doors that have amazing, crazy, varied experience and they just make incredible courses and change people's lives absolutely all right guys, see you next week.
Speaker 1:Bye.