How to launch your own training course and start making money on it

2024 Author: Malcolm Clapton | [email protected]. Last modified: 2023-12-17 03:44

If you are a professional at something, share your knowledge and make money on it.

The first practical conference on online education EdmarketConf-2018 will take place in Moscow on March 20-21. The most famous Russian educational brands will share their expertise in the field of creating educational products. And the readers of Lifehacker today will receive practical advice on launching their own training course from one of the key speakers of the conference, Alexei Polekhin.

Any professional who has achieved some success in his field thinks about sharing his knowledge with others by creating his own educational program. Why not, because this is not only a great way to promote yourself as an expert, but also an opportunity to capitalize on your knowledge. I have compiled a step-by-step guide to help you get your education started from scratch.

Choose a theme

Despite the fact that you are well versed in your subject area, you should not try to make one universal curriculum about everything at once. It's worth starting with a small program for beginners. What are the basics of your profession? What skills should a professional have to qualify for a junior or even trainee position in your field? Answer these questions and this is what you will devote your first course to.

Beginners in any topic are less demanding, and the chances of success of the first program with this choice increase many times over. Also, by starting with the basics in your field, you leave yourself an obvious opportunity for the future development of your educational project.

Draft the program

You already envision the future curriculum, but it is always better to formulate its description in a document. Start with the formalities: a catchy name, a portrait of the target audience, the duration in hours, the introduction of the program experts.

If you have enough competence and time to conduct at least one program launch yourself, do just that. Additional experts should be recruited solely to work on narrow topics in which you may not be strong.

Give a short description of the program: what topics will be covered in it and, most importantly, what the graduate will learn.

Then the most important thing in this document is a structured description of the theoretical part. Start with thematic blocks, then detail the description before classes, and in the classroom write out as many theses as possible on a specific topic.

The optimal size of the program looks like this: 3-5 thematic blocks with 2-4 lessons each. In total, the optimal volume of an entry-level course is 10-12 lessons, two hours each for humanitarian topics and one hour for complex technical and mathematical lessons.

In the same document, describe separately how you see the practical component of the course. Sometimes it is worth starting not from the first lesson, but from the end - which may be the final result of the student's work on the course. For example, strategy, presentation, design layouts, project, analytical calculations, software product, and so on. And, having already fixed the result, you can try to decompose its achievement into steps in reverse order.

Create a landing page

At this point, you should consider making a landing page that describes all the benefits of your curriculum and start collecting applications. You will say that it is early, because we have nothing but a document with an approximate description of the program. But you don't need more information for the course page. And to test the hypothesis whether your educational product will be in demand, preferably before you spend a lot of time on its detailed study.

Put the start date of your course in about two months from the date of publication of the announcement. This time should be enough for you to work through the lesson materials.

Since you are a recognized expert in your field, we will not tell you how to advertise your course. I will note only one nuance: at first, it is you who must personally be involved in the sale of your product. Process applications personally, communicate with potential students, ask them as many questions as possible. This will allow you to clarify the portrait of your target audience.

Start working on materials

So, the announcement has been launched, applications have begun to come in - it's time to start working on the materials of the program. By default, we have chosen a synchronous training format - this is when there is a start date, there is a class schedule, a training group is formed and all its participants will watch webinars. This format is the easiest to implement and contributes to additional motivation of students to learn.

As part of the webinar, you can either tell the material based on the presentation, or show real workflows in services and applications through a desktop demonstration.

In order not to waste time on webinars explaining the basic principles of working with applications and services or demonstrating the settings of something, I advise you to record a screencast with comments and offer it as additional materials for classes. But remember that the screencasts do not show the keys that you press, so either speak them out or display them as text. I can recommend the Camtasia Studio service - it is a little more than just capturing a picture from the screen, but you also need a little more.

When working on class presentations, try to stop yourself from wanting to squeeze everything you know on the topic into the lecture. This is the most common mistake!

Remember that the amount of information you give students is far from equal to the amount of information they learn.

To estimate how long it will take you for a lesson on a finished presentation, calculate the time based on the ratio "one slide - 2 minutes." Thus, a 1 hour lecture should consist of 20–25 slides. Do not forget about the time for questions and communication with students!

Take care of the technical support

There are enough LMS (learning management system) on the market that you can choose as a platform for your course. But all of them in one form or another require customization, adaptation, integration with other services, so while you can do without them, use well-known tools. It can be either Google Docs or any task manager you are used to.

One lesson may include a link to a video (or a link to a future webinar), additional materials in the form of presentations and articles, tests, a description of a practical task, a questionnaire with collecting feedback. Maybe something else, but all this can be implemented in Google Docs or in Trello and Basecamp cards. At the first stage, do not complicate the presentation of the student's personal account.

You will need a webinar platform. Webinar.ru or Clickmeeting.com - both services work fine, choose either one. If you are not going to send each student a letter manually, you will need a mailing list service. Almost any will do. For example, Getresponse.ru with a simple and understandable interface for any beginner.

Also, consider separately whether your students need any services to complete the practice assignments. After all, it is always better to study in real conditions, and not to state theory on paper.

Now you are armed with everything you need and are ready for your first lesson.

Prepare for your webinar

Since a webinar is your main point of contact with students, everything should be perfect in it.

Preparing for the first lesson

I congratulate you: a group of students is assembled and in just a couple of days your first webinar will take place. Now is the time to send students a short introduction letter. In it, you can include a short description of what will be on the course, how theory and practice will be built, and introduce students to your colleagues in support of the program. It is also a great time to ask students about their expectations of the program. Create a simple questionnaire that includes questions about the student learning objectives and general questions to help you build a group portrait.

Links to the webinar should be sent a couple of hours before its start and necessarily 10-15 minutes before it starts. This will ensure the maximum turnout. There is no point in sending a link a day.

Picture

I recommend getting an HD camera and a good headset or microphone. Don't rely on the built-in camera and microphone in your laptop for good quality. If your budget allows, buy a simple light - one small LED panel will be enough.

A solid background is not up for discussion. Do not even try to go on the air against the background of household interiors or an office rack.

Frame

Make sure the camera is at about eye level. To do this, you can use a special laptop stand or simply place a stack of magazines or books under it. Try to make the shot with you close to TV: there should be a small gap between the top of your head and the top edge of the frame. Precisely small! And the bottom edge of the frame should be in the middle of the chest.

The most common mistake in the choice of the frame: the speaker looks into the laptop camera from top to bottom. Students get the feeling that the speaker is hovering over them, and this clearly does not add comfort.

Communication test

The worst thing that can happen is unplanned technical problems: the camera is not connected properly, the microphone does not work, the students do not see the presentation, and so on.

Therefore, do not be lazy to test the connection 30-40 minutes before class, so that there is time for troubleshooting.

Also check your connection speed. For a regular webinar with a presentation, it should be at the level of 2-3 Mb / s. If you are planning to do a desktop demonstration, then 4-5 Mb / s. I also advise you to connect to the Internet via cable for the webinar. This will provide additional guarantees of stability.

Webinar hosting

If you have no experience in hosting webinars, at first it may seem strange to you to talk to a monitor in an empty room. However, remember that you are not alone. You can feel the presence of students. Ask them questions, joke around, ask them to feel comfortable and express more emotions in the chat at the beginning of the lesson.

You are required to look at the camera as much as possible during the lesson. Also try to avoid pauses, say something all the time, even if you just comment on what is happening on the screen, like a letsplayer. And feel free to call students by name, they love it!

Lead communities

In order for your students to have a good impression of the time spent, it is worth taking care of what you will occupy their attention outside of class. Create a closed Facebook group, add all students and participants in the process from your side there. But do not expect that chaotic group management will yield results.

Consider a content plan for your gated community in advance.

What can be included in it: reminders of classes, thematic articles for classes, provocations for discussions, and so on. Try to hold contests in a group, it always gives additional dynamics. And you should always start with an acquaintance: tell a little about yourself and ask your students to do the same.

When you have stable recruitment after recruitment and you have to follow not one, but several Facebook groups at once, start using delayed posting services. You enter the materials of your content plan in them, indicate the desired publication dates and no longer worry about the materials of your closed group. Very comfortably! To get started, you can use the simple and convenient service Kuku.io, you should have enough of its free features for the first time.

Prepare practice assignments

No training program can be complete without a practical component. Think over and describe each Practice Activity. Start by stating a goal and describing the skill that is being practiced as part of the assignment. Next, describe in simple language the essence of the task and propose an algorithm for its implementation. The more detailed the specific steps for achieving the goal are described, the better. Be sure to add a commented example to the assignment.

You should not try to tie a practical task to each lesson, but the more they are in the course, the better. At the same time, the completion of each task should not take an unprepared student more than 1-3 hours.

The speed of response to practical assignments of students is critically important. The optimal waiting time for a student is 1–2 days, then he either starts to get nervous or loses interest in this task and learning in general. Therefore, as soon as you feel that you cannot provide the required feedback rate, immediately involve assistants in the process.

Provide a graduation project

The diploma project is a good opportunity for each student to take stock of the training, ask the last questions, record the experience gained and put an end to the training. Therefore, do not neglect the stage of writing a diploma, give the student the opportunity to feel the significance of the moment.

The assignment for a thesis project can be either the preparation of a compilation of the work done within the framework of the training, or a full-fledged work on a new project under the guidance of a mentor. Less motivated students may choose the easy first path, while hard-working students will opt for a new, complex project.

The defense of the diploma in front of the commission, although an exciting moment, is remembered as something positive.

Give each student the opportunity to defend their work. Invite your colleagues to defend, this will add meaning to the event.

It will also be interesting for students to visit the back side of the webinar - this is also an additional experience that may be useful to them.

Remember your "lawyers"

In any group there are always students who are especially involved in the educational process. Try to befriend them. If your study program is successful, you may be able to invite them to participate in future recruits as mentors to new students. They can also help you with the routine maintenance of the program. This is a great example of a win-win relationship.

In addition, build and support your alumni community. After all, they are the key to the good reputation of your curriculum.

Even if your course is entirely online and students live in different cities, find the opportunity to have regular face-to-face meetings. It is a very good tool for keeping your alumni community on track.

What's next

I am sure that you take your project seriously and immediately after the idea was formulated, you have already spent time building a business plan. If not, do it now. This is not difficult. Write down the planned expenses separately for periods, and then try to guess what the revenue side should be so that your whole enterprise makes sense.

If you do this exercise honestly and include not only the direct costs of services, marketing and expert fees, but also the cost of your time to maintain this project and taxes, then you will most likely not be very happy with the profit. But don't worry. The profit becomes more noticeable when the project begins to grow and part of the costs begins to be divided between different groups.

If, after reading this article, you decide that you want to make your own educational product, then you should visit EdmarketConf-2018, which will be held on April 20-21 in Moscow. This is a hands-on conference on online education where top managers from leading education companies will show you how to create, market and sell educational courses from scratch. Come to the conference at the Skolkovo Technopark or watch it online.