From Modules to Momentum: Transform Your Course Or Membership into an impactful Group Program - Kerry Dobson

00:00 Welcome to From Modules to Momentum. Transform your course or membership into an impactful group program. I'm your host, Carrie Dobson i'm a group program, architect meaning I work with established coaches, authors, consultants and other experts to help them build out their own impactful group program. Group programs that are profitable group programs that are repeatable and group programs that are fun to lead and group programs that people want to keep coming back to. 

00:28 I spent almost the last 20 years in the group space and in that time I've designed over 100 group programs that thousands of participants have taken part in. And I've helped over 200 people lead great group experiences. And I am passionate about groups and the impact they can have in the world, but also to your business and to the work that you do. So before we get started talking about how to actually take your course or membership and turn it into a group program, I want to get a few terms to make sure that we're on the same page 4 that's group course and membership O I'm going to tell you what I mean by those terms. 

01:06 You don't have to adopt it, but it will help you to understand what I'm talking about in the rest of the presentation. So for a group, I mean, anytime you get at least three people, ideally at least six, but somewhere between three to six at least together either online or in person for a certain amount of time so there's always a start date and an end date and there's a purpose for coming together. I call this purpose the program promise and it's the promise that you make that your participants will accomplish or experience in the time of the group. So what are the results that they're going to have? I don't necessarily mean you're going to guarantee them a result like a increase in revenue or you know, an amazing meditation experience, but it's the experiences and accomplishments that they are going to have. 

01:54 So that is what a group means to me. Sometimes when people talk about groups, they actually mean what I call membership, or we could call them Evergreen groups. And these are communities either online or in person where people come together over a period of time, but there is no stated end date. The community or the membership or the Evergreen group kind of lasts forever or until the leader of the membership says I'm done with it. Typically the membership is around a topic or a a purpose of some sort or kind of an area of interest, but there isn't a specific result or a specific program promise. It's just an opportunity for people with similar interests to get together and to talk about or do things together around a certain thing. 

02:45 And then finally, as a course, I'm talking about something that typically happens online, but it can be audio or it can be through workbooks where someone is learning and trying things out mostly on their own so they're independently responsible for kind of understanding things and trying things out. Sometimes it comes with an online platform where they can ask questions of the leader of the course or they can talk to other people, or sometimes there's even Q and A sessions with the leader of the group. 

03:16 But people can kind of come and go as they want and there is nothing that you're kind of inviting them to. They could literally start and end the course without ever interacting with you. So that's kind of my perspective on those terms again, you don't have to we don't have to be in agreement in it it will just help you to understand as I go through this presentation, what I mean when I say those. So why did I want to do this presentation for you today? It's because I want to address the biggest mistake that people make when they take a course or a membership they have and they try to turn it into a group. 

03:51 And that is they think that the group is about sharing information. So what I mean by this is they take the information that's in the course or they take the information that's in the membership and they just kind of throw it all together and then put a group of people together and kind of put them through it. What I want to help you to understand is that in order to truly transform your course or membership into an impactful group program, you have to go beyond this information sharing. So I talk with my clients and on my private podcast about the three I's result continuum. And this is kind of the three stages that need to happen for someone to go from knowing about something to having the results in their life, in their business, in their relationship, whatever it is you help them with. 

04:38 So in the first stage, information, that's where a course and a group can be pretty similar in terms of the content, even the membership, if you have lots of tools and resources kind of all over the place, that's where you would gather the information for kind of that first stage, the information. Unfortunately, that's where so many groups end and I pause it and my experience has been is the information is actually only the beginning of the group program and the results that you're trying to help people get what happens after information. 

05:12 I call it implementation, and this is where you're taking those pieces of information so whether they're tools or resources or frameworks or perspectives, and you're trying them on for size, you're actually putting them into practice, You're trying them out in the real world. And this is such an important part of an impactful group experience because it's in this implementation where people need the most amount of support. Here's what we know. Our brain is literally wired for us to have the same day we had yesterday today and without conscious thought and determination, we will not change our behavior. 

05:53 We are literally wired not to. So where we need help is in changing the behavior. When we try something new for the first time, for most of it, it's really uncomfortable. We don't do it great we might have some failures, we might be embarrassed, we might have some shame. Those are all uncomfortable things that most of us try to avoid, but when we get the support that a great group can have, we actually have that support to keep going even though we're uncomfortable as we try these new things. 

06:25 So during the implementation phase, it's super important that we're giving people support we're celebrating just them trying it, regardless of the results. The final stage on this continuum is integration. And this is where all that trying things out in implementation finally pays off. And those new ways of doing things or those new tools and those new resources, those new frameworks, they become our norm for us so it doesn't hurt as much to try it it's not as difficult, it's not as uncomfortable. It really just becomes the way we do things. I want to talk next about why a course and a membership can be so easily transformed into a group. And really it's because you've already done the heavy lifting. 

07:11 If you have a course, you literally have the content that we need for that first stage of information and a membership you've probably got resources and tools all over the place. You might even have some recorded sessions that have some great ideas for information and maybe even some implementation. Having done all that work, you don't have to worry so much about the information part. The part that you do and the information is really cutting down because you probably have too much. But that's OK. It's better to have too much to cut it down than to not have enough. 

07:43 The other reason why a course or membership can be so easily transformed is you don't have to give up either in order to have a group. Sometimes your course becomes part of your group. Sometimes it's something entirely different. You get to decide that, but you don't have to give up your course to have a group. And it's the same with a membership. You can continue to have a membership and just offer a group experience as a extra or a supplement to that membership. 

08:12 Or you might offer the group ahead of time and it's the membership that you offer once they're through the group. So you don't have to give up anything in order to have a group. It's actually an addition to your business, to the work that you do, to the support that you provide. That's really complementary. What are the benefits for you to having a great group? You'll reach more people. I don't always mean that you'll reach literally more people. Your numbers may or may not increase that way but what I mean by reach more people is that you will actually support them in implementation and integration. So they will actually take the action. 

08:54 They will take your tools, they will take your ideas, and they will put them into action so that impact that you've always wanted to have will be for more people because you're supporting them through that process. It really is an opportunity for you to work more closely with your participants to get a better understanding of what they're struggling with, to really see the results there's nothing better than when a group participant member tells you all about the success that they've had and how excited they are about it and for you to know that you were part of that. 

09:28 What about the benefits for your group participants? They get to connect with other people in more than just an online discussion board they get to actually have conversations with people. They get to meet people. They get to really connect with people. They get to feel supported and celebrated by you and the others in the group, which often creates momentum as we're getting supported and celebrated, we believe in ourselves more. And Speaking of momentum, another benefit of a group is there's something about when someone else in the group accomplishes something or has a success that gets the other people to believe it's possible for them too. So the momentum in the group kind of gets added to each other as one person has momentum, the other ones feel it and the other ones feel it, and it just really feeds itself in a way that an online course or even a membership often can't do. 

10:21 I'm going to walk you through the first steps you can take to transform your course or membership into an impactful group experience. This list is not exhaustive it would be a really long presentation if it was, but I want to get you started enough down the path that you will actually be able to get feedback and know if you're kind of going down the right route. So often what happens when someone has a course or a membership and they've decided that they want to put together a group program, they take all the content from the membership or all the content from the course and they just build a group around it. But what these three steps will help you to do is to help you get really clear about what to include and what not to include. 

11:04 And we'll get you feedback from your potential group participants. So the three steps are determine program, promise identify key experiences and get feedback. The first step, determine your program promise. I talked about program promise earlier in this presentation and I just want to remind you it's the promise you make to your group program participants about what they will accomplish or experience during your group. So you want to get really clear on what that is. Again, if you have a course, you might have some course objectives. So you might want to start there and say, OK, these are my course objectives, but I'm bringing a group together, which means I'm going to really want to focus on implementation and integration. 

11:49 So how do I adjust or enhance these objectives so that they are a program promise for a group program? Alternatively, if you have a membership, again, you probably have a mission statement or some kind of statement about what it is and what you're trying to do there you're going to want to get that more detailed you're going to want to break that down and figure out what is it that I'm going to focus on. And here is my disclaimer it's less than you think it is and not because people don't want to do big things and have great results from your group. 

12:20 It's more about you don't want to over promise and over whelm the people that are in your group. You want to have a really clear program promise so that they know exactly what they can expect and you are really comfortable that you can help them get that result. Once you have the program promise determined, we move into the next step, which is identify the key experiences. And this is where, based on that program, promise you're going to have to identify what key experiences your group program members need to have in order to accomplish that program promise. And again, less is more here. 

12:58 So what I mean by key experiences are not all the things you could possibly do with them, but are the things that they have to do in order to get that result. So many times when we're experts and we have a course or we have a membership, there's so many resources and so many things we could help people with, but we need to actually curate it we need to get it down to the experiences that they have to have, not the nice to haves or not the oh, this happened to me once, so I want to tell you about it. 

13:29 But they're the key experiences that without those experiences, they really could not get the results that they signed up for. You want to get really clear, you want to probably cut it down. What I typically say is that you don't want to have more than five key experiences for any group program that's less than three months. And you know, I can talk to you about why that is and kind of what I mean by that if you want to ever have that conversation with me but the key is, is your inclination will be to include way too many experiences so I want to try to limit you to no more than 5 unless you're looking to have a much longer program. 

14:09 Once you have your program promise and your key experiences, then I want you to get feedback. I don't want you to go out and build that group program and never talk to anyone about it until you've launched it. Instead, before you've put too much effort or too much time into this, I want you to talk to people about it and get feedback. I want you to talk to between three to five, people that if they were in your group, you would be ecstatic you would be so happy to have them. So this isn't your family and friends. 

14:38 These are the people that you would love to work with and if they were in your group program, you know they would really benefit from it and you know that they'd really be a great participant. Once you have identified them, I want you to reach out to them and have a conversation with them and I want you to share what the program promise you have for this group and describe the key experiences and find out what they think about it. Is it something that they're excited about? Is it something that they would be interested in? Is there something missing? Because what's going to happen is they'll either identify for you, this doesn't quite match, or there's something missing, or they'll be super excited about and say, yes, that's exactly what I need. 

15:18 And then for many of them, they'll be like, how do I get on the wait list and who doesn't want to start building their program from the point of already having people on their wait list? Again, that list of steps is not exhaustive, but it's the first step for you to be able to transform your course and your membership into your group program. I'm going to end it here, but I am going to invite you to check out the great Group Revolution Private podcast. This is my podcast where I talk about the strategies, ideas, and tactics that you can use to build out your own great group. 

15:52 And in each episode, I include an invitation for an action you can take right away for your own great group. Thank you so much for watching this presentation you have so many options in this summit and I just feel really honored that you're here and you're listening and thinking about your own great group. Thank you.