Here’s What’s Missing From Most Traditional Course Creation Advice
A lot of the gurus out there will persuade you into thinking you can go from taking your raw ideas and course content all the way to the end result that you want to provide for your people by focusing on the transformation and the outcome alone.
The problem with this approach is it doesn't take into consideration the skill set that you are helping your people build as a part of your learning experience.
And it also doesn’t ask whether your people actually want to have mastery over those skills or if they just want the end result.
Let’s take a look at 3 different examples of the same journey & how we can design them differently within your program structure.
Within these three examples, each example is starting with the same raw ideas and taking people to almost the exact same outcome. The difference is how are we taking people there and what level of skills are they building along the way.
Example #1 - RAW IDEAS TO TEMPLATE OUTCOME
So in this first example, we want to take our people from raw ideas and just want the outcome. For example - your people want to build a sales page as the end result. Outcome based programs where our people just want an end result and no mastery of a skill set would then be a template style of program where people can just copy and paste the template exactly as it is. They take your very specific ideas and put them in this very specific order and will get an exact outcome.
In this type of program, there’s not a lot of room for customization. But at the end of the day if someone just wants the outcome and they don’t want to learn how to build the skills for themselves, then this is a great option.
Example #2 - RAW IDEAS TO BUILDING A SKILL SET
When we move into the next example, again starting with the same raw ideas, but this will be the type of course where we give people a framework with some general rules and building blocks to play within. In this program structure example, your people would be getting a pretty similar end result, but they’re also going to be given a little taste of building the skill set. Using our sales page writing course, this program might look like a semi-finished style where your people have examples and sections to pick from, and include different ways of stacking them together. People are still moving from ideas to the outcome, but in this program structure they're building a little bit of a skill set along the way.
Example #3 - RAW IDEAS TO SKILL MASTERY
And in the final example, again starting with the same amount of ideas, but this type of program structure is really about teaching our people to think like us, and helping them develop skills and get to a level of mastery as part of our programs. So instead of just doing all the work for them, this is the type of program where we teach them how to ask the right questions, and the right ways to think about an outcome so that they can distill their own ideas. They can actually get from idea down to the outcome on their own by learning to think like we do. And as a result they get all different types of outcomes in the process - but they're unique and bespoke to their situation. In this type of program you might even provide examples of possibilities, or share bonuses, or frameworks about different examples of ways people have asked themselves these questions to get to end results.
TO SUM IT ALL UP…
All three of these examples are completely valid structures and approaches to designing a program. There’s absolutely nothing wrong with having a template approach, or more of a building block structure to teaching your people how to think like you do. It all comes down to the levels of skills you want to provide, what kind of outcome your people desire and the experience that you’re crafting.
Where most people get stuck is that they focus on the themes and the content of their programs. And they’re thinking about all the raw ideas. Using our sales page example again, people think they want to teach people how to build a sales page, and then think, Ok so I’m going to design a course on sales pages.
But what that level of thinking misses out on is the nuance of the type of experience that you want to create, and what sort of end result you want your people to walk away with. And completely misses out on the sort of skill level you want your people to build and forgoes what level of mastery your people are already bringing into your program.
Those are all going to be factors that are going to contribute to a wildly different course creation experience.
Have an idea for a program or online course and don’t know how to structure it? Check out my in-depth program Masterpiece, where we take your abstract genius idea to a transformation-driven, structured body of work.
