In this Treasure Tuesday, I share three reasons why do-it-yourself courses fail miserably. Why is that?
The first reason is that many people will not complete or even start the course. Isn’t that heartbreaking for you as a course developer? You poured your brilliance into a course. It took time and money. Now people buy the course, but then they don’t complete it. They don’t create the impact they came to make – and neither do you. I don’t know about you, but that bothers me.
The second thing is that students do not benefit from the fresh eyes that you could bring to their situations. We all know fresh eyes are important. Think about it. We all have blind spots. Most often, people buy the courses because they have a problem. But often, that problem has something to do with something in their blind spot.
For example, in my case, with Brilliance Mining™, a blind spot consists of unconscious knowledge. You could describe it as a blind spot. There are other examples, too. How do I apply that brilliance in my business? There could be blind spots around that question.
Whatever you teach, chances are your students have blind spots, and no one sheds light on those areas when it’s a do-yourself course.
The third reason is that students need feedback. With a DIY course, they get no coaching or sounding board, which is often very important.
Three Options For Attacking This Challenge
What’s the solution?
Let’s go through three options.
- The first option is you could have a cohort. You offer people a course. They go through a course module on their own time, and then you offer them group coaching. Then you repeat the process for the next module. I’ve done that, too.
- The second option is you do that, but then you also add one-on-one support, and now it becomes more premium – I’ve done that as well.
- The third option is a self-paced course with one-on-one support scheduled by the student when they’re ready. Put some framework around it to ensure momentum. Because if your students schedule your assistance/ coaching only once a year, they will lose momentum.
The third option is amazing when dealing with business owners, CEOs, and other extremely busy people. Last year we offered the second option, a cohort group coaching with one-on-one support. It was a three-month program. That was a good timeframe because the learner didn’t just go through the course. They didn’t just learn how to do Brilliance Mining™, but they did it. They picked the project at the beginning of the course to apply what they learned and have a real outcome by the end of the course.
What I found is that for some business owners, that works. But once you get into businesses with at least a few million dollars in revenue, participating in anything that takes three months can be a tall order. Having five to eight people in a group at the same time and showing up every time can be challenging.
Important Questions To Ask
Think about these questions:
- What does this look like for my people?
- Do they like to come together for group coaching?
- Can I get them to meet reliably every time, for X times – however, however many times that is?
- Or do I have to “hunt them down” and catch them up?
- Or, the people who attended last time have to sit through you repeating what happened when others weren’t there and didn’t watch the catch-up session.
There’s a lesson there for all of us.
I’m Curious
First off, how does this apply to you?
Also, I would be remiss if I didn’t invite you to look at the Brilliant Mining course we’re now offering as a self-paced course with one-on-one support scheduled by the student when they’re ready.
If you have any questions about this, please ping me. I’d love to talk with you.
Live brilliantly,
P.S.: I appreciate you commenting and sharing this Treasure Tuesday with others. Thank you!
