Organize Your Course Lessons
In the previous lesson you have created an outline for your online course with all the concepts that you want to cover.
It is now time to organize the lessons in the correct sequence so that it forms a logical procedure. What is the best way in which you can guide your audience so that they can get quick results?
Your course should cover all the ways in which you can help your students to save money, time and effort and to avoid making mistakes that can hold them back.
In each lesson you should show them how to overcome the possible obstacles in their way. People that are able to reach their goals without too much of a hassle will thank you for your help and will be prepared to tell their friends about it.
It will give them great satisfaction to be able to help their friends as well and it is the best promotion you can get for your products.
If a third party tells somebody about a service, then the listener will much easier believe them than when you try to promote your own stuff.
How to Create Your Lessons
The easiest way is to make use of a word processor but some people like me, still like to use a piece of paper and a pen to create the outline of my course.
Sticky notes are also very handy and easy to organize the sequence of your lessons. Write the core concept of each lesson on a separate note and then move them around until they make logical sense.
You might even find that you can combine two or three concepts in one lesson if they fit together. Just try to keep the ideas you cover in one lesson to not more than five.
There are many tools that you can use like Google Docs and OpenOffice, which are free options. If you have access to MS Word, then you can obviously use it as well.
Create each lesson and save it as a separate file in a folder inside Documents on your computer. Later you can then copy it to your web pages or emails if you don’t have a website yet.
Here is a great free solution to create a quick website with hosting that you can use to create your online course. HubSpot also comes with a built-in autoresponder, landing page creator and CRM service.
CRM stands for Customer Relations Manager which can come in very handy to offer customer support. You can build your own list up to 500 members absolutely free of charge and if you want to go bigger then it only costs $19 per month.
You can also deliver your course automatically with a follow-up email series to your customer service. You will have to upgrade in HubSpot to do it but you then also gain access to their marketing services that can help you to make more sales sooner.
Formula for Each Lesson
From years of experience, the following simple formula have been found to give great results.
- Tell them what the lesson is about and how it will help them.
- Tell them why you have chosen to give it to them.
- Why is it important to know?
- How to use it to get results?
- What can happen if they act on it?
Your Conclusion
End each lesson with a summary of what was covered in the lesson to refresh their memory.
Give them an assignment to do in which you tell them exactly what to do and why, so that they can see progress. Even little consistent progress will motivate them to keep going.
Without any action on their part, no results can be expected. Show them clearly what will be the cost of not taking action. It is almost always more costly to not act on proven instructions that work, than to carry on in the way they did before.
A little pain and effort now can protect them from major harm later.
Who would not like to improve their lives for the better.
Many people feel that they are not expert enough to create courses, but if you do not offer your services then you are doing humanity a disservice.
Everybody know something that can help a fellow human in one way or another. Especially if it is something that you find easy to do. To you it might be easy because it is your ‘talent’ but to the next person it might not be so easy. To them it might be a blessing to learn from you.
What is Next?
Always end your lesson by telling your audience what to expect to receive next. It will help them to know how everything works together to give them their desired outcome.
Now let’s practice what we preach.
Summary of What Was Covered
- Organizing your course lessons.
- How to create your lessons.
- Formula to create interesting lessons.
- Your conclusion and summary.
- What comes next?
What’s Next?
In the next lesson we will look at your conclusion of your course and how you show your students what can happen when they follow your guidance.