212: 3 ways to formulate an online course idea!

In case you’re new here… I am taking a moment at the top of this episode to share a bit about me and what I’m all about! I am a technology strategist who works primarily with music teachers, who are expanding into one-to-many programming. What this means is that you are a teacher who has offered lessons and sessions for years and are ready to take all of the knowledge that you have, all of the practical experience that you have and all of the insight that you have gleaned and convert that into something that you can offer to more students at one time! This could be through courses or a membership site, it could be group programming, it could be workshops, it could be any number of online mechanisms. The key is that you want to do something different. You want to expand in new ways and flex your muscles. I also work with teachers who want to create resources for other teachers. So you don't have to necessarily expand online by doing more of what you've always done. You can take those practical approaches, those methodologies, everything that you've gleaned and create something that works for other teachers who haven't yet had those experiences. They haven't worked with your exact set of students and they don't have your exact set of insights. I love working with music teachers because you create opportunities for others to tap into their creativity and into their zone of genius. That's what it's all about. Working more inside of your zone of genius. The zone of genius as I describe it, is the space where your passions and your skill set collide. I consider this an expansive space because when our passions increase, we have more opportunity to spend time in our zone of genius. When our skill set increases we have more to offer inside of our zone of genius! I want you to be spending time creating and impacting your students and the greater community. That's me in a Nutshell; I work with my clients on creating pathways out of the 1-1 into the one to many. This includes everything from your website and your email marketing to structuring your courses and getting it all online. Every single part of this process comes together when we work on it as a cohesive unit. If you are interested in any of that, be sure to click here: https://callwithjaime.com! Let’s talk about 3 ways to formulate your online course idea. #1 Taking the 30,000 ft view That is looking at the landscape of the music industry or of your particular instrument or your particular modality and looking at it from that 30,000 ft view and seeing where there might be potholes or where there might already be skyscrapers and then honing in on those places that you know need improvement. If you see from that 30,000 ft view that there are beautiful skyscrapers for miles, but then there is a hill that has been completely untouched, you want to develop that hill. It’s here when you look at that one spot inside this landscape that allows you to truly make an impact and build your own skyscraper. This is looking at where there are gaps in the market; gaps in the online education space, because it becomes easy for us to fill those with something that's useful and needed. #2 Look at your own teaching business Ask yourself: What do you teach most often? What do you teach without prep? What do you teach that you feel is so foundational and so critically important that every student needs to know it? What do you teach that is so unique and revolutionary that you wish everybody knew? This is the second place to look. Here we can review our own curriculums, look at how you teach, why you teach, where you teach, who you teach and tap into something that you feel so insanely passionate about. This is where you could create the most incredible course that would help any single person who is seeking whatever it is you want to create. Here you are creating a superior course than anybody else and creating it out of your own track history, your own loves and your own teaching style. That is the secret sauce. This is the most common way for people to create online courses – by tapping into something that they have done for days, weeks, months, years, decades with their students and then converting it into something that they can teach in a mainstream course manner. By far, one of the most valuable aspects of this type of course is to focus on making it something that is done in a way that anyone can learn it. The way to do this is to imagine creating the course for five or 10 specific students and normalize the lessons so that all of them will find success. This will help you create a program that doesn't need you to be involved with each student. #3 Look at the needs of your audience This starts by truly identifying your ideal audience. Identify who you want to create the course for and then communicate with them. Take the time to understand where they are, what they are struggling with, why they're struggling with it and how you can fill the gap for them. Here we’re saying “I want to work with this particular subset of musicians.” And I know that I can offer something, I don't know exactly what it is yet, but I want them to tell me This is the method that allows you to build an audience while you're creating something for that very audience. Start thinking outside the box to start thinking inside your zone of genius. I truly believe that every single music teacher has a course that they can deliver. Now, if you are ready to get started begin with creating your own micro course (a four lesson course on a micro concept!) You can fast track yourself by going to https://expandonlinenow.com/micro-course/ to grab my made-for-music-teacher micro-course templates. I love being in conversation – Instagram – Facebook – Zoom Call. You can do this, creating something online that has never been created for is within your wheelhouse! It's time! Round 3 of the Online Music Course Accelerator is open for application. Click here for details.