Transcript

0:00

Alright. So Olivier asked a question. I'm gonna record a response here. The question is, how do you define relevant topics for a course you're launching, George? And how do you name it so that it, resonates with your audience?

0:16

Because Olivia says and maybe some of you can well, I think all of us teachers can relate to this, what what's about to be said here. Olivia said, I've had an impulse to create courses, but they end up I end up trying to make it like an encyclopedia. It ends up being overwhelming to my actual students. Can any teacher relate to this? Because as a as a teacher and as someone who's passionate about your topic, you see connections, right?

0:42

You see connections that the student doesn't see. Like, well, if I teach this, that means I have to teach this too. Well, that means I have to teach these other two things. Well, that means I have to teach these 8 other things, and the whole thing becomes a, take my 12 year course, and we won't even be done. That's just part 1.

0:59

So so how so then the question is how do you how do you lean? How do you have a hint? How do you have an understanding of how to lean into what your students actually want? What what is their inner world, and how do you design the courses so that it's right for them and and and meets their objectives, meet helps them solve their problems or meet their yearnings? And Olivia is very courteous to say, if this is answered elsewhere, just let me know and I can find your answer.

1:26

Well, this is actually the answer to my market discovery course so if you, if you want the deep detailed step by step process for this, take, well you could take 1 of 2 courses or ideally take both. No. You could take the newest one for that I just did that goes deep into this process is called authentic market discovery. Consider taking that one. That's that's a required course for my clients.

1:51

In fact, in the coming year, when I'm coaching my clients, everyone has to take that one. The other one you might wanna take that's that kind of delves into this process and goes into course creation is my simple course creation course. So I've taught that. That was years ago I taught that. I think I'm gonna refresh that this coming year, so you may wanna hold off and do the authentic mark discovery first.

2:11

Anyway, here's the truncated, very brief answer for you. To figure out what's gonna resonate with your buyers, whether I'm this, by the way, makes sense whether you're launching a course, launching your service, 1 on 1 service, launching a group program. The process is the same, which is you must talk to human beings who you have access to, who might be right to buy from you. So the look at your social media. Is anyone responding yet?

2:50

If anyone's responding to your post, you might wanna look at talk to them, see if they're the type of person you would enjoy working with, and ask them questions such as open ended questions, not, hey. I'm developing this course. Do you think it's a good idea? Because when you have that conversation, people go, oh, yeah. Yeah.

3:12

I think it'll be I think it'll be good. People want to be polite to you. If you're asking them to validate an existing idea, they're probably you're gonna get skewed data that's not gonna be useful for marketing and for product creation. So you must ask them open ended questions such as so let's say I'm a relationship coach. I'm just gonna pick on a topic.

3:35

Let's say I'm a relationship coach. I wanna create courses about relationships. I wanna do some 1 on 1 coaching about relationships. I wanna do some group programs. I would ask the question in the area about think about your personal relationships, think about your romantic relationships, for example, or your family relationship, what whatever it is I coach people on.

3:52

Think about let's say I coach people on their family relationships. Think about your family relationship. Have you ever sought out, support when it comes to your family relationship? Have you got and, of course, this is a confidential conversation, but have you, for example, gotten therapy for it? Have you done some coaching?

4:13

Have you have you read books about it? Have you taken any course or gone to a workshop about it? And if so, please tell me what what what what if you went to a therapist, what was the presenting issue? What did you approach them? What was the question that you wanted to resolve or the problem you wanted to resolve or the, idea that you wanted to better understand?

4:34

It's a skill you wanted to develop. K. What was it that brought you to therapy or coaching or that workshop or what was the name of the book that you bought? Because these but then the questions show you, ah, this is the course I should be creating. Right?

4:51

Because yeah. So, so market discovery is asking questions that are like that, open ended for them to give you their in their language what they're actually keeping them up by what's keeping them up at night, so to speak. Right? Or what they're like going to find for resources. Okay.

5:11

Good. So then once you have these conversations, you're gonna get a variety of answers. Some of them are gonna be aligned. You take the aligned answers. K.

5:22

Maybe there are 3 answers or there are there's a bunch of people said something. Three things are in common, like at least 2 or 3 people had in common, these 2 or 3 issues. Then you make a poll, survey about these 3 issues and which one is most interesting to your audience right now. Because, ultimately, when you market your course or your program or your service, who are you marketing it to? The people most likely to buy are people who know you or who who follow you on social media.

5:54

So you're not marketing to strangers. Sure. You can learn how to run ads, but ads is a different thing. We could talk about this some other time. Reaching a cold audience is much getting a cold audience to buy is much harder than getting your warm audience to either buy or refer you to their friends who then are more likely to buy.

6:12

So you do a poll to your warm audience, people who you can reach already right now, which of these three issues is most alive for them right now or they know someone who who is really thinking about that issue right now. Well, then by polling, you know what the topic is of your next course. Got it? And if you think that topic is too big, oh, that's too encyclopedic. Yeah.

6:37

Oh, they just wanted to learn about better relationships. Too big. Then you have to it's then your job to brainstorm well under better relationships. What what is a more targetable thing that I could talk about in 3 to 6 weeks? Think about your course.

6:51

Like, it's it might be good for you to create a temporary limitation for yourself to say, my first course, my I'm I'm not as savvy, you know, not as experienced in teaching courses like George yet, so I'm gonna make small experiments. I'm not gonna teach a 1 year course, too long of an experiment. I'm gonna teach at most a 6 week course, Probably more like a 3 3 to 5 week course. So in 3 to 5 hours, what is reasonable for me to address in regards to better relationships? Okay.

7:22

What are some and you you would go back to your market discovery conversations, look at the data and go, okay. What what is a issue underneath better relationships that several people mentioned? Well, maybe I have to poll about this again. Right? If there are several issues, let me go and do another poll.

7:39

But you end up you end up with a specific targetable issue that you got from market discovery conversations that inspire you too. Obviously, you have to do something you're inspired by, so that's intersection between what inspires you and what inspires them. The market discovery conversation gives you that some of that information and then you pull your audience to confirm that information, and that issue is what you launch your course about. That issue you go, you know, I think I can I can talk for 3 to 5 hours about this and give them something useful? Good.

8:10

There you go. There's your there's your topic. And then ultimately, you then need to launch the course gently. I call them gentle launches. You know, you launch the course gently being unattached about the outcome knowing that finally when you launch it, you humbly offer this course to your audience.

8:29

They will finally tell you whether you you were on track, or or not. If not, then you have to go back to looking at your market discovery data or having some more conversations, and then the cycle begins again. So I've been doing this cycle for years and so having done it at you you do it cycle once or twice or 3 times and then you get clear and clear and clear about that intersection between what you love and what the what the place this is the quote I always like to bring in from Frederick Buechner. The place that God calls you to. Pardon the language if you don't like that language, the place that God calls you to is where your, is where your deep gladness meets the world's deep hunger, is where the place that God calls you to is where your deep gladness meets the world's deep hunger.

9:23

So what is that intersection between what you love and what keeps them up at night? And that's what you teach your course on. So I hope this helps and comment below, what you're taking away from that.