Kickstarting Your Oline Course Journey - Lynne Kerr

00:03 So today I'm going to be talking to you about how to kick start your online course journey. So basically getting your course idea out of your head and out there whatever there is. So I meet and work with a lot of clients who have some fantastic ideas for courses and course content, but I've very much become overwhelmed about where to start. So this session is very much aimed at taking those first steps. 

00:38 So what are those first steps so I've broken it down into four key steps to setting up and building your course without stress and overwhelm so you're not wasting time creating content that doesn't sell. So you haven't got to a point where you've created your course, you've uploaded all the content, and only at that stage are you thinking about how to launch. So we're going to take a step back from that. But before we do that, let me tell you a little bit about myself and say I'm Lynn. As you know, I'm a Kajabi specialist i'm based in the UK, specifically in Edinburgh in Scotland. 

01:23 You may be able to tell from the accent, and I help coaches and course creators build their online courses and membership sites in Kajabi. I'm all about bringing clarity and simplicity to your online business so that it works for you. I'm a great believer in keeping things simple, not overwhelming people with the technical side of it or the technical jargon that often comes with implementation in whatever software that may be, not just Kajabi. So I like to to break it down and say and keep it as simple as possible so that's what I'm hoping to do with this session. 

02:06 So I mentioned key steps so what are those four key steps that we're going to talk about in this session? So the first step we're going to have a look at is your course transformation. So what do people ultimately want from your course what impact do you want your course to have? We'll have a chat about that. Next key step we're going to have a look at is identifying your target audience and your niche. Then we're going to move on and have a look at the course structure. And specifically we're going to have a look at the course structure in Kajabi so we're going to have a look at the the Kajabi back end and we're going to have a little chat about course structure and types of course content. 

02:58 And then lastly, we're going to have a fairly high level look at the pre launch stage. So. 

03:08 What you've got to the stage where you've ready to launch your course? What things do you need to be having a I think about? Ok, so that's the the four key steps. Ok, so we're going to take a look at the first step. That is the course transformation. So you've got your course idea, you're thinking about your structure, and you're starting to put together your content. But let's take a step back and have a look at the course transformation. What do people ultimately want from your course? I normally just started, but it's important to spend some time looking at the end in mind. 

03:53 Identify the why behind your course and what impact do you want to have. The most successful courses focus on taking students from where they are now to where they are or where they want to be, and that applies to personal, professional or skill based courses. So essentially it's about transformation versus information. The focus shouldn't just be on delivering information. The focus primarily should be about what is the transformation that your course is going to provide. The aim is not just to sell the course, but to get students to complete so they can get the outcome or the transformation in order to generate order mode, testimonials and ultimately more sales. 

04:52 This is particularly important as a really surprising statistics is that on average 85 % of students don't finish online courses. So the more that you can do to engage students in your course, the more likely you are to have them to actually complete the course. So 1 optional exercise for you and with regards to course transformation is to sit down and think about what is your course transformation? Define the transformation you want your course to deliver. So have a think about where your students are now, what change do they want to achieve or to have achieved by the time they've completed your course and what steps will help them bridge the cap between the two, between where they are now and what they want to achieve so essentially the the process between the two. 

06:01 Ok, we're going to move on to Step 2 of the four step process. In order to know the why, IE your course transformation, you also need to know The Who. So we're going to have a look at identifying your target audience and your specific course niche. So have a think about who your course is for, who is your ideal student and take time to try and understand their current situation and where are they now and what challenges are they currently facing, What are their biggest pain points? So to help you do this, if you haven't already done so, is take some time out to have a think about who your ideal student avatar is. 

06:55 Have you identified their demographics? So that's things like age, gender, occupation and so on. What are their biggest pain points? But it's really important to make sure you link to your actual course when you have a think about the the pain points, course goals, what are they hoping to achieve from your course? And then lastly, have a think about what are their biggest obstacles or challenges that are currently standing in their way now and how will your course help them resolve these obstacles or challenges? So it's a really useful exercise and doing this exercise will help you avoid one of the most common problems I see, and that's trying to create a course for everybody. 

07:50 It usually results in fairly genetic content that doesn't have the the impact that you were hoping to achieve. By narrowing down your audience and your niche, you become more focused and your content tends to be more relevant and impactful. It will also help with your marketing in general and your messaging. And that is, you know, your ability to speak to your audience as you have a clear understanding of who your audience. 

08:29 Is next, we're going to turn our attention to the course structure and the best way to break down the content into clear, logical steps and milestones in your student journey. So first of all, let's have a look at how this course structure is set up in Kajabi. 

08:53 So our content hierarchy, we have our modules up at the top and then sub modules, well, these are optional depending on the amount of course content that you have. So if there's a large piece of content per module then you may want to break these down into individual sub modules. Underneath that then sits your license so you can have a number of license in both modules and sub modules. And then another optional but really useful piece is quizzes or assessments within Kajabi. So that's your content hierarchy and we'll we'll go into the back end of Kajabi in a minute to have a look at the actual set up. 

09:43 The other thing to consider is the type of content. So we have video and audio, which is fairly standard. These can be uploaded into the license within kajabi, though this is limited to One Piece per lesson so that's either one video or one audio. And then you've also got the option to add in unlimited text links. And then you also have your downloadable so things like worksheets or checklists, ebooks, various PDS that you can attach to each lesson. 

10:29 And these are unlimited content. So let's just go into Kajabi itself and have a look through the setup within Kajabi so I'm just going to take one of my mini courses here. I'm just going to open that up and. 

10:51 I'll take a look so the course, the mini courses, I'd set up your course outline in Kajabi. And if we take a look here, it's broken down into 5 modules. So we've got Welcome to the Course Transformation foundations, the course structure and type or content so let's just look at it from a student perspective, preview from that side so we've got the course title and then down the left hand side, we've got the modules and then the lessons so the modules in this course, as I mentioned, are the Welcome to the Course Transformation Foundations. And then underneath each of these modules will have the individual license, such as the welcome course outcomes lesson which sits under the transformation module. 

11:45 In the Foundations module we have two license, so site details and then other site settings for course creators. 

11:55 And then if you go into an individual lesson, you'll see I've got some video content here, a little bit of text. And then if there was any attachments or downloads that would appeared in the the right hand side here, you can mark your lesson as complete. And then it will take you through to the next lesson where you'll have either some video or audio or none, some text and then potentially some downloads. So let's go back into the the back end again, I just expand these out by the drop down. You can see I've got various lessons, but no sub modules for this course. 

12:46 As I say, it's a mini course, so content is relatively small so I've just kept to modules and lessons so if I want to add a module and just go up to the top right hand side, click on add content, click on module, give it a title. So let's put let's go back to what we're just covered, identifying your audience, a niche. 

13:18 Niche. You can put in a very brief description here about what the module's about. Always make sure that you add in a thumbnail for each course or lesson. So I'm just going to just pull up one that I've got. 

13:39 Within my recent images just to show you what it looks like. 

13:44 Ideally I would have the text across the bottom section in terms of what the module or lessons called. Click create module. 

13:58 Well, I'm getting a minimum length. Just add in. 

14:05 There we go oK, so there's my module now if I decide this module's got it's going to have a large amount of content, I may then want to break that module down into sub modules so I'm going to click on add content and then I can add in my sub module so let's just since it's audience and niche inside this sub module is going to in relation to your audience, again, add in your thumbnail and then create subnet. 

14:38 Ok so 1 sub module going to be audience the other one I'm just going to make in terms of your identifying your niche. 

14:49 Ok, create sub modules. Ok, so I've now got 2 sub modules under this module here. And then from within the sub module, I can then add in a number of lessons that will sit underneath that sub module and then ultimately that module. So let's just put in a couple of lessons here. 

15:14 And then similarly for my niche sub module now you can identify that it's a sub module as it has what looks like took two folders and to the left of your title. 

15:29 So add in another lesson. 

15:40 Ok, so there's my module 2 sub modules and then the various lessons that are sitting underneath those sub modules. You can move the lessons around just by dragging and dropping so if I decide lesson 2 will become before lesson 1 just literally just drag and drop it. 

16:06 So you'll also notice that these are sitting in draft, so I'm going to move them to published. 

16:17 You can also drip out your course over a number of days or weeks. If you don't want your students to consume or have access immediately to all the content, then you can drip it out. And you can also lock particular lessons or sub modules. If we're going to let's take a look at the individual lessons to see and have a look at content type. 

16:47 And you can see you can attach various media so if you remember, you can either upload one video or one audio per lesson, or you don't have to have any media at all. So if I click on video, select a file, upload a new file. Now you can upload your content directly from your PC or from Dropbox or Google Drive. So if it's Dropbox, for example, you'll need to connect to your Dropbox account. 

17:25 First of all, let's just take a video just like this one here, 

17:34 And it's just uploading. So it is much quicker to, if you've got particularly large video or audio, it's much quicker to upload directly from Dropbox or Google Drive rather than directly from your PC. So that's just something to bear in mind click Save, 

17:58 Make sure you add in your license thumbnail here. Then you can underneath your media you can add in some text add. 

18:10 Some text in here and then you've got the usual formatting options you know, you can bold it, underline, format it so you can put heading text in and so on. Ok. You also have the option, as we talked about before, if you want to add attachments, so you know, ebooks or worksheets, checklists, whatever it is you want to to add in so you can just attach it here. 

18:47 And then the other thing is comments so if you want students to be able to comment on each of the lessons or the course in general, you can just keep this visible. You can hide it so there's no options at all, or you can just lock it so students aren't able to comment. So let's just let's click save and then we'll click on preview. 

19:15 Ok, so we can see the the lesson or the video that I've just uploaded, the section where we've added in some text and then we've got the attachment down the right hand side here. So that's the core structure and content type within Kajabi. So let's just go back and have a look at one final exercise before we move on. And that's actually mapping out the course itself so we've got an understanding of how it's structured within Kajabi. But before you get to that stage, just have a look at how you're going to map out your course. So obviously, first of all, think about the course transformation or the outcome that you want students to achieve, which we've had a lot of chat about key milestones within your course so that's essentially your modules, whether you will have sub modules and then map out the lessons that will sit underneath those modules. 

20:22 Or sub modules. And then lastly, the other thing to have a think about is actually the the media mapping side of it. So have a think about what's the best way to present the information for your course. So is that going to be video, audio, screen share? Are you going to have a workbook or checklists as attachments? And then once you've decided on that, have a think about what software that you're going to be using for each of those media types. 

21:00 Ok, so we're going to have a look at the final step in this session and that's the pre launch. So you've identified your audience and niche. You know your why, you're likely to have your course structure and you're starting to put your content together in Kajabi. So what's next? The aim of this section isn't to go into any great depth about pre launch strategy. 

21:30 That's a whole topic in its own right, but it's to give you some key things to have a think about before you go into launch mode. And primarily two key things are have you built your audience and do you have a pre launch strategy in place? So a really useful exercise to do is to look at what you currently have in place. So I've put together a checklist of some of the key things that I think you should have in place now this is not exhaustive, but it's just some of the main things to have a little think about so do you have an active social media presence? So hopefully you should know where your audience generally hangs out in terms of social media is it Facebook, Instagram, LinkedIn and are you actively keeping these updated? Do you have an email marketing list within kajabi? Do you have a lead magnet or AKA freebie that provides value and solves a problem for your ideal client? If not, definitely worth getting one in place and setting up a lead magnet funnel in Kajabi to help build your email marketing list. 

23:01 How are you going to sell your course do you have a compelling course sales page and funnel in place or looking to build 1? 

23:13 Do you have a lower ticket or introductory offer, 

23:19 A regular newsletter? So again, that's going back to building your email marketing list. And finally, do you have a wait list page in place? How are you generating excitement ready for your A course launch good. A really good way of doing that is just putting up a wait list page in Kajabi and getting people to leave their name and their email addresses so that you have content contacts ready to email once your course launches. So definitely a really worthwhile exercise to do just to establish where you are currently. 

24:06 And has it highlighted any gaps for you in terms of what you need to do next with regards to the pre launch stage? Ok, so that's the four key steps that I've covered off. Step one, your course transformation, Step 2, identifying your target audience and niche. Step 3, your course structure and we've had a look at the Kajabi back end and how that's structures within Kajabi. And then Step 4, we've briefly touched on pre launch strategy and some of the key things that you need to have a think about before actually launching your course. So hopefully you've found that useful. 

25:00 Any questions at all, please don't hesitate to drop me a message or pop a comment down below.