If you have an offer that includes some sort of live element like a group call, 1:1 call, or community, and you have a curriculum, this post is for you. 

I hear this all the time from clients and particularly clients who have hired me to come in to help them improve the curriculum in their group program. They’ll tell me they have a lot of trainings in their curriculum but that it’s kind of disorganized and that no one ever uses it, and that their people just ask the questions on the call, or they ask the questions in the community instead. 

And here’s the thing, yes, your curriculum is probably disorganized and it probably does need some structure, and more often than not group programs with curriculums tend to become these overwhelming amorphous blobs that contain every single piece of training or content that could possibly be helpful for your people in one spot. 

And as a result your people get overwhelmed and don't really know where to look. 

But also...

You need to train people to go to the curriculum for their answers. To look for it if they have questions. To go for it for action steps and next steps. 

If every time someone has a question, needs clarification, or they want more detail on something they can come to you on a call, or in the community, and you answer it (even though you know you’ve talked about this somewhere before in your curriculum) then you are training them to ignore this incredible curriculum you’ve created.

And instead they just come to you for all the answers which usually results in you feeling resented and thinking, what the heck this program is supposed to be scalable but here I am still answering the same questions over and over again.

There are two key things that you can do to help train your people to go to the curriculum. 

1) The first is that in your program orientation you really need to be intentional about how you explain how the program is laid out. 

Saying that like I’ve structured it this way, Here’s the framework here’s how the content fits into my framework, here are the pathways through it. Here’s where to go if you have a question. If it’s a linear progression how to follow it, if it’s pathways how to choose your pathway. Be really intentional about showcasing how the program is structured so that your people right from the start get to go on this is where I can find my answers in the curriculum and you can say the group calls are intended for xyz not to recapitulate what’s been put in the curriculum. 

2) The second thing you can do is in your actual group calls you can point them back to the curriculum.

And this is probably going to take a bit of practice, and maybe a little bit of internal boundary setting, but you can say, Oh that’s a really great question! I go into that in module x, and, I would love for you to go into that module and do the training and test things out and if you still need clarification let me know and we’ll circle back around to it. 

And if you’re feeling like that feels mean to set that boundary, especially if they’re on the group call and they’ve got a question now and you can just answer it then. And I totally get it.

And you may be in that position if you haven’t structured your program in a way where right from the start you’ve set intentions for the program, by saying to people like the curriculum is for x and the group calls are for y, and that in order to prepare for the group calls you want  to make sure they’ve gone through the curriculum and done the exercises. 

If you haven’t set that boundary, then it probably is going to feel a little bit more awkward on the group calls. 

So here’s a quick fix that you can do right now to remedy that situation in your program. 

In text (you don’t even have to record a video) go into your program orientation and write out that the group calls are for xyz and what your intentions are for the group calls, or the community. 

And that you encourage them to go to the curriculum first to find their answers, and that they may hear you on a group call redirect them to the curriculum. And that’s to make sure that they’re getting the in-depth support they need while also maximizing the time on the group calls for the intentions that were set.  

And in the long term, you take a look at the actual infrastructure of your program. And ask yourself - Is the curriculum designed so that you feel confident it can hold your people if you’re not involved? Are the individual pieces set up so that the intention of each mechanism of your program has a clear intention to support your people? And is the curriculum designed to guide your people to the results they want and need?

And if you’re feeling overwhelmed at that idea I know someone who can help - it's me! Turn your brilliant idea or already amazing (but disorganized) curriculum into a scalable program so you can help even more people.

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