Are Courses Dead?

Hey, everybody, it's Tara, Bryan, and you are listening to the course building secrets podcast. Whether you're a coach or a CEO, the success of your team and clients is based on your ability to deliver a consistent experience and guide them on the fastest path to results. This podcast will give you practical real life tips that you can use today to build your online experiences that get results and create raving fans. Why? So you can monetize your expertise and serve more people without adding more time or team to your business? If you're looking to uncover your million dollar framework, package it and use it to scale you're in the right place. Let's dive in.

Hey, everybody, welcome to today's episode, of course, building secrets, I am so happy to be here with you. And I hope that whatever you're doing and whatever time you are tuning in, you are having a great day, I wanted to come on today and talk about the concept of whether or not courses work. So I was reading something the other day about someone that I follow. And he said, Well, courses, our courses are boring courses are not effective anymore. And you know, we have just done away with all of our courses, we just do masterminds now we don't do courses. And it got me thinking about why you create a course, why it's important, and what it actually does for you when you're growing your business. And so I want to dive into that today into this concept of do courses work are courses worth the effort. And, and so you know, there are a lot of different avenues I can go down to have this conversation. But at the end of the day, I want to just break down the purpose of a course in the purpose of why it's important to, to really think about what you do in a in sort of a methodical way write something that has a starting point and something that has an endpoint. And whether or not you actually publish a course and put it out there and how you publish it and put it out there is a totally different story. But let's just talk about publishing a course. So if you think about it, for you know, ever people have been publishing books. And you've probably heard from people well, people don't read books anymore. People don't, you know, pick up a book and read through it. There's no value in books, because people, you know, people want to just connect with each other people just want to talk to each other people want to learn and be a you know, in a room with people. And so a book isn't gonna work. And so when you think about that, like it's like, well, I guess I mean, sure, a live experience where you're learning and applying and, you know, talking through various decisions and problems and obstacles with other people. Absolutely. Right. Like that's a great experience. But does that mean that that there's no value in having a book? No, absolutely not. Right there's there's just a different way of consuming knowledge it's a different way of learning it's a different way of taking in information and and valuable kind of tools and resources that help you get to where you want to go right their purpose and reading a book. Now I'm talking about obviously, like, a nonfiction book, right? Not not a brain candy book, like I talk about a lot of times that I that I do that I spend a lot of time reading those just for brain candy, just for fun, right? I'm talking about nonfiction books, where you're actually you are picking them up and reading them to learn something, write a business book. And if you've seen me on video, you know, I have a lot of those. But is there value in reading a book and getting information from a book? Absolutely. So when you look at that, and then you you look at well, is it valuable to take a course? Sure, right. Because it's similar to reading a book. You're it's just another method another way to have the information have the tactics and the resources and the tools and the various steps on how to do something appear. So a book you are reading, right? So you are just um taking it in

through your eyes and you're reading, if you want to listen to that book, it's the same book, it's just you're listening to it, you're adding in an auditory element you're adding in being able to not only read it, but hear it, when you add it in a course, you're able to not only add in the reading, and the listening, but now you're adding video, now you're adding a visual component with so whether you're recording it on video, or you're recording a PowerPoint deck, or you're, you know, making interactive learning, it's just another way to learn and consume what you want to get from point A to point B, right. So when you start from a, from that perspective of looking at a book, or looking at a course, then it's just another way to do it. Another layer on top of that is how do you add in practice and activities and interactions, either with a book with a workbook, or in a course with interactive elements, or with a live component, or with a workbook or, you know, however, you can dream up making the topic what you're teaching come to life, is you're just layering different elements on top of it. So when you look at well, I'm gonna throw out courses, I'm gonna throw up books, I'm not going to do any of that, I'm just gonna go to live events where I'm learning in an immersive environment, what happens is, you're losing the dimension that's happening by layering on various ways to learn through various senses. And so really think about that, when you think about, well, I'm going to get rid of my course, I'm gonna get rid of the book, I'm gonna get rid of all these things, I'm just going to have a mastermind I'm just going to have a way for people to connect together is that you do need to think about it multi-dimensional And it is a really positive experience to have multiple ways that people can consume information and, and learn what they need to learn. So you really have sort of this,

this, you know, layering approach to successfully helping your people get from point A, point A to point B, it's not really just like this, one thing is going to do it, right. So there's absolutely still value in courses. And really looking at the experience that you create around all of those different methods, all of those different modalities make a huge difference in helping people become successful. So whichever way you do it, there's not a wrong answer to do it. But there's not, you can't just say this one doesn't work. This one works. This one does this way this one does that way. It's more about how you put it together and how intentional you are about helping somebody get to a transformation versus the, the tool or resource that you use to deliver it. So that's on the on the actual consumer side, right, like, of course, throwing away books, or throwing away courses, or throwing away live sessions, or live instruction or however you want to think about it isn't, isn't the way to go, right? There's no like, we're just not going to do that anymore. That's not popular, that's not cool. That's not what we want to do. It's not a good reason to throw something away. So to that person, I would say, you know, having that online course got you to the place where now you're able to maybe teach in a different way, you're able to, you know, really get clear on what you need to teach and what you don't need to teach. So maybe instead of throwing away that course, you read, publish it in a way that streamlines the success that you can get for someone, right, instead of 100 hours of content, maybe you just need 10 hours of really targeted content that helps them get to where they need to go and get the result that you're looking for. And then supplement it with some coaching and accountability or some community aspects where people can connect and learn from each other. So there's lots of different ways to look at this. Then on the side of being a course creator or using a course to grow your business. One of the things that I think that most people don't think about is the power that comes from actually having to package what you do into something that can be repeatable. So again, whether it's a book, a course, or anything else that you are publishing once and providing to people to get a result. There's so much power and having to think through how do you articulate the steps that somebody needs to take to go from where they are today to get to that transformation? How do you simplify that into kind of one path How do you package it in a way that helps people get results? How are you really intentional about putting people into a place where they can practice or take action, or really think about what they need to do with the information that you're providing to them, all of those things are so valuable, and really provide you with that roadmap to take and do with what you want. So I thought it was interesting, because I kind of chuckled because this person has been very successful in in creating courses that help other people. And I would argue that in order for him to get to where he is today, where he can have people in a room, and succinctly give them what they need to be successful without them going through, you know, his content online in whatever way shape or form he published it is because he had that experience of creating courses are really getting very clear on how to teach people how to do things to get to results. Now he's, he's sort of mastered that, but you can't master that going from one on one or just helping somebody sort of meander through a path, you have to be able to package it, you have to be able to put it into something that people can consume, without you being there. And that skill, in and of itself is worth creating a course and putting it out there for other people to be able to, to use is because you've been able to articulate that. So that is my corresponding tip for today is don't just throw it a course, because it doesn't seem like it's something that people need or want, or you know, able to want to keep doing, right, like it's not the flavor of the day, but really think strategically about how you're using the course. And when you would use a course. And when you wouldn't use a course and how it's part of a bigger experience, a course isn't really meant to be its own thing necessarily. It's meant to be part of a bigger process where you're helping somebody get a result, if you can get them a result by just having a recorded course with some activities associated with it. Great, that's amazing. If it's part of packaging, what you do in packaging, your proprietary framework, that gives a jumping off point for for you to use in the rest of your business. That's amazing as well, right? Because that allows you to package package what you can so you're not reinventing the wheel every single time. I've told the story before but but it's definitely valid here is, you know, when I was early in my career, I used to do orientation for a company. And we would do exactly the same orientation, it was a week long orientation for every single new employee that came in, and we would sit in a room and we would do the same orientation every single week for new people as they came in. And it took a couple I mean, it was probably I don't know, a couple of months or something. But I literally got to the point where I could do orientation, and I didn't even have to be thinking about it anymore. Right? I was like, you know, I could be thinking about my day or what I was going to do that evening or whatever else. And I could still teach it because it became so you know, repetitive for me, I became something that I could just do without thinking of that as a great opportunity to put some of that into a package program that allows you to not waste your time and leverage the time and expertise of other people. So they can use that time practicing use that time applying, but not use that time just to learn kind of the basics that they could get in a different in a different way. So use that as you're thinking about this. But definitely, definitely think about how a course fits into your business and how it's just a small part of your business. Just like your book plays a you know, a specific role in your business, and your coaching your live events. Play a specific role in your business all adds together to give your person an awesome experience. So really use that and look at that. Think about that as you put together your bigger strategy. Alright, there you go. There is your course building secret for today.