In today's digital age, Strategic Collisions knows online learning has become a popular way for people to acquire new skills and knowledge, and for experts to share their expertise. One such example is the creation of our first online course, "21 Days to Launch with The_Entre_Professor" using the Thinkific platform. In this blog post, we will discuss the rationale for building an online course, why we chose Thinkific as our platform, and the steps we took to build our course.
The rationale for building an online course is three-fold. First, it allows us to establish ourselves as experts in our field by sharing our knowledge and expertise. This, in turn, can lead to increased credibility and visibility, which can open up new opportunities for us in our field. Second, it provides value to others by giving them access to information and skills that they might not have otherwise had. Finally, it generates a source of passive income, which can be an important stream while delivering meaningful value to up and coming entrepreneurs who are likely to become SCI clients in the future. .
After considering several online course platforms such as Kajabe or Udemy, we chose Thinkific for several reasons. Firstly, Thinkific allowed us to build the entire course and launch it without paying anything upfront. Instead, they only take a cut when people sign up, which saved us from putting up a lot of money upfront or getting locked into a monthly fee. The only downside is that we will have to start paying a monthly fee for the pro version if we go on to build another course. However, if the first course does well, we will have no problem justifying this investment. Secondly, Thinkific offers a user-friendly interface, customizable course landing pages, and built-in features such as payment options, analytics, and student management.
Here are the seven steps we took to build our online course that you can follow to create your own course:
Step 1: Choose a topic - The first step in creating an online course is to decide on a topic that you are knowledgeable and passionate about. We already had our topic since we had been giving thought to ways we could help those who weren't in a position yet to afford our coaching, training, and consulting services. We came up with the framework that we call “21-days to launch with The_Entre_Professor”.
Step 2: Outline your course - Once you have a topic in mind, create an outline of your course. This will help you organize your thoughts and ensure that you cover all the necessary topics. We had the benefit of a successful coaching program that we've used for a few years, so we were able to repurpose this content to some degree, but we also expanded and tailored this content to a slightly different target customer and objectives. We divided the content into three phases, each with 7 Days of topics, commentary, and simple worksheets for learners to follow.
Step 3: Create your course content - Now it's time to create the content for your course. For us, this included video lessons, written materials, and worksheets. We recorded videos in batches and then edited and saved the videos together so that we could upload several at a time into the Video Library. We also created a thumbnail for each video and a worksheet for each day in Canva, which we saved with the video. This way, we were able to go into each daily lesson and upload the video and worksheet along with brief written content that guides the learning on their path.
Step 4: Set up your Thinkific account - After creating your content, it's time to set up your Thinkific account. This includes choosing a pricing plan, setting up payment options, and customizing your course landing page. We went with the free version, and we're really glad we did since we got distracted and took about 9 months of procrastinating to get our act together…
Step 5: Once the SCI team chose the platform, the next step was structuring the course and uploading the content. The team used their outline to create an introduction and three section headers for the three phases of the course. They then created a daily module for each day of the course, making it easy to drop in the content they had compiled ahead of time. For each day, they pasted in the text, selected the video for the day from the list, and uploaded the worksheet for the day.
Step 6: After uploading the content, the SCI team tested the platform by asking six people to go into the platform and try it out. This allowed them to catch any quality issues or gaps in content before the course went live.
Step 7: Finally, it was time to launch the course and start promoting it to potential students. The SCI team created a video and description of the course benefits for the Thinkific sales page. This page is available on the Thinkific marketplace and is also a good way to promote the video through their own channels.
The course is about to launch and the SCI team is excited to see how well it will be received by aspiring entrepreneurs! At Strategic Collisions we know building an online course is a great way to establish expertise, share knowledge, and earn passive income. With the help of platforms like Thinkific, anyone can create and launch their own online course, and potentially help thousands of people around the world.
