In episode 11, we discuss the art of transformation, and how you to effectively build a course that is an engaging transformational experience that your students love.

In it, we share the process of developing your process (which is a process in itself).

Come climb the mountain with us.

Watch, listen and check out the show notes for episode 11 down below…

Show Notes:

TWEETABLE: “Imagine your eCourse is a mountain. At the top of the mountain is the transformation or end result your student is signing up to achieve. Your job as their guide is to take them from the bottom to the top with the most amount of ease and enjoyability. How you design this experience is YOUR creative vision quest.” – The Great eCourse Adventure

The Mountain: is the journey. Your student or customer has come to you to help them get to the top of that mountain (end result/transformation). They have put their trust in you to be their guide. They’ve even paid you well. How do you take them from Basecamp to the summit effectively?

The Path: is your course. You are an experience designer. You must think about how you can most effectively and creatively guide your students to the top of the mountain.

The problem with the mountain is that it’s full of distractions and traps. You need to come up with creative ways to support your students to stay on the path so they get to the top.

Checkpoints and Steps: Are how they get to the top. Your course may have multiple checkpoints along the journey to the top, each of them providing a mini transformation, which is building towards the ultimate transformation. Within those checkpoints may be several individual steps (lessons) that your students must take or go through in order to achieve that mini transformation.

Your course is essentially a series of mini transformations and steps, which lead them up the path to the top of the mountain.

Advice for all eCourse Creators:

1. Do not have more than one lesson or call to action within each individual lesson.
2. Make it easy for your student to win. Shorter, more potent lessons is better than long, drawn out ones.
3. Use our lesson template, outlined in the show. Each lesson should have a clear purpose and CTA.
4. Design the lessons first, creativity second.
5. Create an experience that’s outta the box and never been done before.
6. Make it up.
7. Use big paper. Draw a map. Get away from your screen while brainstorming.
8. Put yourself in the student’s shoes. Create it with them in mind/heart.
9. Do the exercise given to you at the end of the show. That’s a great starter.
10. Have fun. This is supposed to be enjoyable and rewarding.

Much more was covered, but I got tired of typing, so you’re gonna just have to press play and listen or watch.

Other episodes you’ll probably wanna check out…

1. From Boring to Awesome: How to Spice up your eCourse

2. Engagement Games: Understanding and Applying Gamification in eLearning

3. Community Cultivation for eCourse Creators

We’d love to hear from you about your top takeaways about today’s show. Also, we’re open to your future show recommendations. Drop us a line and say hello!

We wanted to come up with a creative way that transformed your ordinary powerpoint-style webinars, into an entertaining, highly engaging experience that participants wanna stick around for.

So, we started experimenting…

We played with green screens, storytelling, pre-recorded video and a bunch of other prototypes, most of which were sloppy and not what we wanted.

However, after months of playing around, we finally GOT IT.

We created the most unique webinar we could possibly dream up. Our retention was in the 90%’s for the two live experiences we led.

Today, I’m pumped to tell you exactly what we did.

Imagine this.

Treating your webinar as though it were a play with three acts, rather than a formulaic, robotic presentation made for the obvious purpose of selling your product.

Now imagine this.

Delivering a highly creative, engaging, dynamic webinar on your topic, that captivates your audience for the entire hour, leaving them wanting more from you…

In fact, they love your eLearning experience so much that they stick around for the entire Q & A and then purchase the next step of your transformational process.

This is what we recently did. Here’s what a few people said about our delivery:

“This was the longest I have ever stayed engaged and interested. I feel sold in the first 15 min. Very impressed!” – Kimberley

“Watching your webinar revived my favourite times in University when I found a way to combine creativity with intellect.” – Fiona

“Well done and love what you are sharing for everyone to be able to design visual, animated and engaging courses – lord knows, we need them.” – Kelly

“The passion for what you guys do shines. Best webinar I’ve ever attended, and I’ve attended A LOT of webinars!”  – Lara

So how did we get these awesome testimonials from our webinar participants?

What I’m about to lay out for you is what we’re calling a, “Hybrid Webinars.”

These types of webinar presentations will allow you far more creative freedom in your presentation.

More Creativity = More Retention

So what is a Hybrid Webinar?

It is a webinar that is one part prerecorded, and two parts live.

There are A LOT of benefits and freedom you can gleam from doing it this way, which we’re going to dive into.

First, lets go back to the analogy of treating your webinar presentation like it’s a play with three acts.

ACT I: Foreshadowing

You know when you go to a play and the director comes out on stage and welcomes everyone. Usually they’ll tell a short story about the journey of making the play or perhaps the origins of the play.

The purpose of this is to set the stage (no pun intended) for the audience.

This is exactly what you’ll do in Act I of your webinar. Let your audience know what’s coming and why they are there.

Don’t take a lot of time here though, because everyone came for the feature presentation.

ACT II: Feature Presentation

This is when you magically press play on your pre-recorded presentation and stream it to your audience.

Your feature presentation is where you deliver the goods (as in lesson and value).

The reason for pre-recording it is: CREATIVE FREEDOM!

We’ll get to that in a moment.

ACT III: Q & A

Now your presentation is over, your audience is stoked and now they have some questions.

This is your time to shine in the live Q & A portion.

So, why is it better to do a Hybrid Webinar (Part Live, Part Prerecorded)?

1. Creative Freedom Galore!

Lets face it, most webinars are boring. The slides are unimaginative and the majority of people sign off long before the webinar’s are over. Our question was, how do we get more creative with our delivery, to keep people excited to stick around until the end?

Prerecording your presentation gives you a lot more creative freedom to add:

• special effects,
• music or music videos,
• creativity with your slides,
• storytelling,
• mini-skits to demonstrate your lessons,
• interviews,
• animated videos
• and so much more…

For us, we turned our old “Art of eCourse Creation” powerpoint presentation into an exciting journey through space, where our participants joined us aboard The eCourse Frontier Starship for an elite training that would prepare them for the new world of Online Learning.

We filmed the whole thing on green screen, which allowed us to do so much more than we could’ve if we would’ve done the “normal webinars” we were used to.

Pre-recording gives you unlimited creative freedom.

2. Interact with your Audience More!

Because you’re not focused on delivering your presentation, you can pour all that extra energy and presence into interacting with your audience in the live chatroom. Them knowing they’re having a real conversation with the real you LIVE will surely inspire them to stick around longer. Our chatroom was going off like never before!

3. Good-Bye Tech Glitches!

How freaking annoying is it when you go to a webinar and the sound is crappy or the video is all glitchy. Well, when you pre-record your webinar, you get to do it in the highest quality possible. The other bonus is that the video streams through Youtube during your webinar, so you keep all the quality.

One downer about the tech, is at the moment Webinar Jam is the only company that lets you stream videos live (as far as we know). However, Crowdcast (which we prefer and use for group coaching webinars) will soon have the ability to stream videos. That’s when we’ll make the switch fully.

4. Never Fear Nervous Nelly!

For those of you who get super nervous and have a fear of “screwing up your presentation,” you’ll find ease in knowing you can do as many takes as it takes to record your Feature Presentation.

Then, on webinar day all you have to do is a short intro, press play on the video and chat with your audience.

How much better does that sound to you?

5. Quality, quality, QUALITY!

If your presentation is of a crappy quality, then people will naturally assume that your paid offering is crappy too.

Record with your best gear. Edit out all your ums, awes and screw ups in post production.

Give your audience the coolest learning experience you possibly can.

There are so many limitations to doing your presentation live as a powerpoint. Whereas pre-recording it gives you total freedom and quality control.

What questions do you still have about Hybrid Webinars?

Wanna experience the one we created that’s turning heads and getting people fired up about what’s possible in the world of online learning? Sign up below.

$30,000+ in pre-sales revenue came in BEFORE we even created our course.

This is what funded us to build the Great eCourse Adventure.

In Episode 8, we’re talking about how to Validate and even Pre-Sell your eCourse (or ideas) to ensure they’re the best business decision to move forward with.

Looking forward to seeing you at noon PST next Wednesday for another episode of eCourse Adventures Live!

Watch the video, listen to the MP3 and read the show notes below…

Show Notes:

1. What is validation? The process of ensuring you’re creating a product people actually want.
2. Why is validation important? Solid validation will save you a ton of time, money and guess work. Not validating your course or idea is extremely risky and not the smartest business move.
3. How can I validate?
   a) Survey
   b) Customer interviews
   c) Market research (see what’s out there)
   d) Popular in person or private coaching/workshops (people paying you money for what you do)
   e) Clients asking you to create an online course or offering
   f) Make a free mini version of your big idea and see how people respond
   g) Pre Sell it in its beta version at a mega discounted price (the best option)
4. What if I presell and nobody buys?
   If nobody buys, then there is a good chance that:
   a) you’re not communicating what it is or why it’s valuable well enough (message needs refining).
   b) you’re trying to sell it to the wrong audience.
   c) It’s just not a good idea and you should give up (not usually the case).

5. What needs to be in place before pre-selling?
   a) Know and understand your audience.
   b) Know your product and understand what it does.
   c) Communicate with crystal clarity and confidence your What, Who, How and How Much.
6. How do you pre-sell your course?
   a) You need something of value to offer your intended audience
   b) You need a price tag. If it’s beta, then you need a “HELL YES” price tag that inspires the pioneers of your course.
   c) You need a way to collect money.
   d) You need due date that your course will be available.
7. Pre-Selling Resources:
   Here are two of resources we recommend for collecting pre-sales. They are super simple to set up.
   a) www.Gumroad.com
   b) www.Trycelery.com

Thanks so much for tuning into another fun episode of eCoruse Adventures LIVE. Send us your comments, feedback and ideas for next week’s topic.

Ready for adventure? Join us on the Great eCourse Adventure and learn our whole brain approach that’s revolutionizing the way we teach and learn online. Find out more here!

Well, the answer is: start growing your list (now).

And by list, we mean start making connections and and building relationships!

But how?

Glad you asked.

Growing your audience (and mailing list) is the conversation we had in episode 7 of eCourse Adventures LIVE.

Watch, download the MP3 and read the show notes below…

(Tune into eCourse Adventures Live every Wednesday at noon PST)

Show Notes:

“If you need certainty to move forward, then you’ll never move forward” – The Great eCourse Adventure

1. Instead of the old fashion online marketing “opt-in bribe,” why not take people for a walk in the park (or digital cup of coffee) as a way to get to know who you are and what you’re all about? Here’s an article to go deeper into that idea.

2. Unless you are paying for Facebook Ads and have a solid on boarding process set-up, making memes for social media is a hobby, NOT marketing. If that’s your marketing strategy, is time for a change of plans. Here’s an article on our no FB Ads approach to marketing.

3. Don’t make a crappy free offering. This should not be a second thought. This is people’s first impression of you and your work. Make an effort to truly WOW them!

4. You don’t need 10 bajillion humans on your email list to “make it.” 1000 true fans is all you need!

5. Go where the hubs are. Serve the hubs and serve the hub leaders. Better yet, create your own hub where YOU are the center.

6. Create a strategy on paper and DO IT!

7. Choose TWO marketing strategies to start. Do those things REALLY well, rather than doing a bunch of things mediocre. Keep it simple and enjoyable for you. (but be consistent)

We gave a bunch of specific strategies for building relationships and growing your list, but we don’t wanna spoil the surprise.

Enjoy the show! We’d love to hear your top takeaways after checking it out.

AND if you want to join us on the mountain for the greatest eLearning adventure in the history of the internet, then come on over here and get the goods on how to acquire your very own Trail Pass. 

Watch, listen and check out the show notes below…

EPISODE 4 SHOW NOTES:

The Three Phases of Growing your Community:

1. Getting it Going:
– At the core of every community is one thing. PASSION!
– Create the community you’ve always wanted to be a part of.
– Before launching your community, write out your “Code of Honour.”

Exercise:
a) Write a list of all the things you DO and DON’T like from the communities you’re a part of.
b) Write out all the features that are most important to your community.
c) Draft up your Code of Honour (watch/listen to episode to hear ours).

2. Keeping it Going:
– Quality of conversation is more important than quantity.
– Follow up on old conversations to re-spark people’s inspiration.
– Be present & have other representatives who keep the conversations going.
– Use email to direct members to hot topics and conversations.
– Encouraging your community to post videos and images is great for engagement.
– Gamify your community experience with challenges.

Exercise:
a) Write out your 2-3 key strategies for keeping your community engaged.
b) If you were interviewed on Oprah, what 5 questions would you want her to ask you? (these will identify the conversations you want to be having in your community)

3. It Goes on its Own:
– This is when your community takes on a life of its own (the goal).
– Be committed to the longterm journey and keep showing up for your members.
– Be patient and don’t get discouraged on the journey of getting here.

TWEETABLE: “If you want more conversions, start having more meaningful conversations.” – The Great eCourse Adventure

Tech Resources:

Before you check out the links provided before, we encourage you to start where you are, with the budget you have and the level of tech skills you have.

Below are a bunch of different resources you can check out for building your online community experience.

1. bbPress: bbPress is forum software with a twist from the creators of WordPress. Easily setup discussion forums inside your WordPress.org powered site.
2. Muut: Muut powes lively discussions for millions of sites, making users happier and more likely to return.
3. Disqus (comments) – Disqus offers is an add-on tool for site owners to power discussions, increase engagement, and earn revenue. 
4. IPboard: This dedicated forum software is a flexible, integrated set of apps for building great communities on the web.
5. Ning: Ning’s scalable hosted platform gives you the tools and expertise you need to publish and connect with your community – all in one place. Easy. Powerful. Affordable.
6. Mightybell: Create a dedicated community around an identity or interest with Mightybell Network.
7. Facebook comments: The Facebook Comments WordPress plugin makes it easier for you to setup, administer and customise Facebook comments from your WordPress site.
8. Private Facebook groups: Facebook Groups make it easy to connect with your students. Groups are dedicated spaces where you can share updates, photos, challenges, documents and message other group members. You can also do Facebook LIVE, answer questions and support all your students. This is the easiest place to start until you’re ready to scale up.

We hope this has been another informative, inspiring episode of eCourse Adventures LIVE. Let us know your biggest takeaway or most burning questions around eCourse Creation!

Join us on the mountain in the Great eCourse adventure. Get your Trail Pass today!

Aside from the potential for making more money and freeing up our time, the obvious answer is to help people.

Unfortunately, a lot of eCourse creators jump into building their course without really asking themselves: 

“How do I create the ultimate student experience that ensures my participants get the results I’m promising?”

Not exploring these questions is creating an eCourse epidemic where the majority of students who sign up for a course, never complete it.

That’s obviously not what you want, right?

Of course not.

Creating an eCourse is a ton of hours and a lot of work. To put in all that effort and then have most of your students fail would suck!

In this article, we break down three of the most important areas to focus on when building your course.

No matter what your budget is or which platform you use, follow these guidelines, do the journaling questions and you will do your future students a massive service.

Skip the homework and there’s a good chance your students will be another failure statistic in the industry of online learning.

Here is our “I” and two “E”s in the Art of eCourse Creation…

Inclusion. Engagement. Encouragement.

Let’s explore each of them now.

1. INCLUSION

Is to make someone feel welcome, wanted and important.

Many courses are failing to see the importance in doing this. They make their sale, automate the emails, have a comments section under the lessons… but they fail to make participants feel included.

When someone comes to your home for the first time, do you open the door and walk away, leaving them to figure out where to be and what to do? Or do you you welcome them and help them feel comfortable by engaging with them?

Well, many course creators are simply just walking away, leaving their students to fend for themselves.

Or they make the community experience of their course an added upsell, therefore creating exclusivity.

We honestly thought about doing this with the Great eCourse Adventure in the early stages. Having the course be one price and the community and coaching an upsell.

We’re so glad that we included both the coaching and our online community platform in our price, because BOTH have proven to be essential for making our students feel included, as well as for keeping them connected and engaged so they succeed.

Questions worth exploring…

1. How can you create a sense of inclusion for your students, clients and community members in your course and business operations?

2. Where in your current business and operating model are you failing to see the value in growing a community? And I’m not talking about an email list here

3. If you were joining your own eCourse as a student, what would YOU want in order to feel connected and included to your teacher and other students?

Note: Your community is NOT your blog or Youtube channel. Those are mediums for engaging with your community. Your community needs a town hall, a place for everyone to gather, connect and share meaningful conversations.

2. ENGAGEMENT

Without engagement, you don’t actually have an eCourse.

If you want to be successful, then you better do everything in your power and creative mind to ensure your course keeps your students enjoying the learning process from start to finish.

This’ll take thinking outside the blueprint and doing things differently.

Gamification is a huge part of what we’re teaching. We’re not just talking about giving an empty badge for completing a lesson either.

We’re talking about, making your eCourse feel like it’s a game. Creating challenges, rewards and opportunities to apply the lessons in real life and come back to your community to share a video, selfie or written story on their experience.

Inviting participants to go out and do something specific in their life, then come back and share the results or story takes care of both number one and two, inclusion and engagement. Especially if students get rewarded for their efforts.

In the Great eCourse Adventure, we created our own currency called “The Bajillion” through a fantastic WordPress plugin called MyCred.

This increased the fun-factor and levels of engagement to new levels.

Our students earn bajillion by participating in the forum, completing lessons and checkpoints, as well as when they complete special challenges we give them.

With each challenge, they earn “tools (aka: fun badges)” that go in their “backpack”. The tools earned show up on their profile.

They also gain the skills associated with the challenge; such as getting more comfortable in front of the camera, receiving feedback on their sales copy, website,  course idea and much more.

The coolest part about our currency though, is they can spend their bajillion in our “Mountain Shop” on real products, software and services that’ll help them build their dream eCourse.

We are giving real incentive to be engaged and it’s unbelievable how well it’s working!

People are motivated and inspired to push through their resistance to keep taking the next step.

Questions to ponder…

1. If you were to create the ultimate student experience, what features would be most important for you (as the creator) and for your students?

2. How can you get creative NOW to begin implementing those ideas and features into your courses?

3. How can you get creative with the ways you deliver your lessons and facilitate the learning experience for your students (see this article for ideas and inspiration).

3. ENCOURAGEMENT

Learning a new skill or making changes in our life can be extremely hard.

Remember what it was like when you first got started on your path?

No matter what your course is about, there will be an element of growth required to take your students from where they are to the result you’re intending for them.

If they don’t have the discipline to persevere through that growth curve or the ability to stay focused when “life happens” and they get distracted, then they’ll fail. That’s the bottom line.

The dropout rate of online courses is stupidly high (something like 80 – 97%, depending on who you ask).

This simple idea can be so powerful when done authentically and consistently with your students.

Encouragement means to give someone support, confidence, or hope. In other words, it means to encourage the development of a skill, state, or belief.

This requires planning and being consistent. The occasional post in your Facebook group or community forum is not enough. These students need you, so be present with them. So create a strategy.

Be their biggest cheerleader, at least until your community gets to a critical point that everyone is supporting one-another and your physical presence is less needed.  

You can also encourage through your email automations.

Many great services, like Active Campaign allow you to create if/then email automations.

Meaning, IF someone opens one of your emails and clicks a link, then that triggers a specific email series. Or IF someone does not open one of your emails after “X” days, then that triggers another series of emails to bring them back to the course.

This one tool has been monumental for bringing our wandering students back to the adventure to continue on their course creation journey.

We’ve also made our automations extremely fun to read, keeping our students excited to open their next “Smoke Signal” message.

Here are some questions to contemplate…

1. How can you be more present and encouraging in your online community?

2. Are you using the power of If/Then email automations? If not, would you see the value in learning them so you can better support your students? (we teach this)
3. What is your community encouragement plan to keep your students on track? Everyone has a marketing plan, but few have one of these.

There is so much more that goes into creating a remarkable eCourse. Following the guidance of this post will surely give your students a better chance at completing and achieving the desired results.

Rather than rushing to get your course launched in a frantic frenzy, be methodical and take your time.

Facilitating transformation and building incredible online learning experiences is an artform.

So play, be creative and have fun!

We’d love to hear your thoughts, ideas, questions and experience. Share in the comments below. Let’s talk!

12 seconds.

How do we craft eLearning experiences that keep students engaged long enough to get the results they signed up for?

This is the question more course creators need to be asking.

We believe the solution to “think outside the blueprint.”

Don’t get us wrong.

Blueprints are great.

We all need a solid framework and foundation to build upon.

But the blueprint alone is purely mechanical.

A truly outstanding e-course goes far above and beyond providing a series of steps to take.

Four walls, a roof and a floor is not what makes a house a home.

• The feeling of our love and passion
• The sight of our favorite art on the wall
• The smell of dinner cooking on the stove
• Mementos and memories of our stories and experiences.

These are the things that make our square box feel like home.

What’s this have to do with eCourses?

Everything.

Anyone can build an eCourse these days.

We have more tools available to us than ever before. Which is awesome.

However, with attention spans being at an all time low, we need to get creative to keep our audience engaged.

Embrace this, or struggle to make your course succeed. Your choice.

The old paradigm:

1. Make a series of talking heads videos or slide-show presentations (boring)
2. Give downloadable PDF, which is really just video transcripts (lame)
3. Run a private Facebook community (full of distractions)

This approach is clearly NOT working.

The numbers don’t lie.

The dropout rate for online courses is somewhere between 80-97%.

According to Seth Godin, it’s 97%. Other sources cite around 80%.

Whatever the case, the industry standard success rate sucks. It sucks HARD.

“Innovation distinguishes between a leader and a follower.” – Steve Jobs

Raise your hand if you are tired of the same old pitch and the same old course with a different cover.

It’s ridiculously predictable and it’s making people paranoid.

Everyone’s like, “F$*K, can I just find a teacher who is real and a course that truly delivers!?”

The good news is that this issue is paving the way for a huge opportunity.

Honest teachers that are willing to go above and beyond to serve their students are in high demand.

We’re beginning to see a surge of innovative, creative, wildly unique courses and brand new ways to teach, facilitate transformation and market online.

That’s evolution baby!!

Someday (soon) we will look back on the $2000 powerpoint presentations of our time and laugh.

The word “eCourse” as we know it is going through a huge transformation.

This change begins with a mental shift.

We must treat eCourse creation like it’s an art-form, in the same way we do music, movies and video games.

Most courses are left brain dominant.

They feed the student information, facts and linear steps, but they forget to include the right brain in the learning process.

This is a big mistake.

People need right brain stimulation to engage, process, digest and integrate information. The right brain is the key to facilitating lasting, effective change for our students.

However, it’s not about just the right brain either…

As Evan Williams, the founder of Twitter says so well:

“It is ‘whole-brain’ that makes innovation possible.”

The purpose of creating an eCourse is to give students a path to follow in order to achieve a specific result (left brain). As modern eCourse creators, our job is to come up with the most engaging and enjoyable way to do this (right brain).

Right brain learning is imperative.

Creating a whole brain eLearning experience

Take your step-by-step blueprint and infuse it with your creative brilliance. Don’t just give students another cheap powerpoint presentation.

Instead, transform their lives with an imaginative transmedia experience.

If you say, “well, I’m not a creative person,” then team up with one or two of your creative friends who are hungry for a meaningful project to sink their talent and passion into and split the profits with them.

Because as they say, “Good art makes money!” Especially when it transforms lives.

This is what we did for the Great eCourse Adventure and the results have been far beyond anything any of us could have done on our own as solopreneurs.

Treat your eCourse as a work of art. Because it IS a work of art.

• Break free from the mould.
• Don’t let “good enough” suffice any longer.
• Seek to discover your creative edge.

Create epic learning experiences that people flock to NOT because of your great sales copy or fantastic funnel, but because they’ve been moved by what you stand for and what you’ve built for them.

Put on your adventure hat, because this is where the fun begins.

Here is a list of questions to get you started in the “Art of eCourse Creation.”

1. What would change if you were to approach eCourse creation like it’s an art project?
2. What are your favourite art-forms that you could apply to your eCourse lessons, platform and brand to make the content more beautiful and engaging?
3. How would you most want to learn? What styles of art, entertainment and educating would keep you excited?
4. What would make you pull out the wallet and buy your course? Are you doing this now?

Don’t worry about the “how” yet. Just focus on the “what”.

With today’s tools and talent available, the HOW is the easy part.

Share your epiphanies, questions and thoughts below. We’d love to hear from you!