S. 2 Ep. 46 – How To Take Your Content From 1:1 To 1 To Many

Taylorr: Welcome to another episode of Technically Speaking, we’re your hosts, Taylorr and Austin, and in today’s episode, we’re talking about how to bring your content from one-to-one to one-to-many, particularly, through the lens of courses and group coaching programs. Now, we’ve heard firsthand from all of our clients, who have launched courses or group coaching programs that sometimes the results are subpar. It’s hard to fill a bunch of people into a course at $297 or even a thousand dollars or fill a group coaching program cohort after cohort after cohort. And not only is the marketing tough, but sometimes the curriculum design is tough. 

So, we wanted to bring in an expert that could help us unpack all of these different issues and misconceptions and ideas we all have about courses and group coaching programs, and to help give us a little bit of guidance; and that guest expert is Jessica Terzakis. Now, Jessica is an expert in curriculum design and as a kid, she would, actually, teach her stuffed animals as her students, and, eventually, segued that into a full-time teaching career, and then, furthermore, segued that into helping entrepreneurs take what’s in their head and in their vision, and turn that into a curriculum that can help broaden their business, create more impact and get their story out there. 

So, Jessica knows firsthand what it takes to develop courses and group coaching programs that brings people through a transformation and gets people into your business and how to, actually, sell these and market these programs so that you’re not disappointed in the results of what it takes to fill a course or a group coaching program. She’s been passionate about curriculum design for many years, and Jessica has found nothing more satisfying than creating a successful lesson plan for entrepreneurs like us, and she’s the perfect fit for today’s show. 

Austin and I learned an absolute ton and she have this way of taking this, really, complex idea of running courses and group coaching programs and marketing them and distilling them down into, really, simple tactical next steps that we can all take. So, as always, we hope you enjoy this one and stick around until the end for some awesome resources that Jessica has to offer. See you in there. You going to make your noises again, Austin?

Austin: I thought about it, should I?

Taylorr: I think you’re [Inaudible – 02:27] this time, yeah.

Austin: Somebody stop me, please.

Taylorr: It tends to go for context. Lately, Austin’s been starting a show, he’ll make some song, basically, and then, so we’ve been just leaving it in at the beginning of the show, anyway, when he didn’t have one going, I thought, we have to get him to sing a little song.

Austin: That’s fair. Yeah. You’re in for something today, Jessica, so get excited.

Jessica: I’m excited.

Taylorr: Very unusual.

Austin: Right before we started recording, you were saying that you’re excited to talk about whatever we’re going to talk about. So, I’m hoping you can unpack, maybe, astrophysics or string theory, do you mind just, kind of, giving us your physics background?

Jessica: Yes, actually, I can do all of that in five minutes, are you ready for it?

Taylorr: Oh, wow.

Austin: Perfect, let’s do it.

Jessica: I’m just kidding. Absolutely not.

Taylorr: Great. I was like, I’m ready for it.

Austin: There was part of me; I’m not going to lie. There was part of me hearing you say that, just hoping you were going to launch into an academic lecture about string theory or something.

Jessica: Wouldn’t that have been amazing?

Austin: I would’ve been impressed.

Jessica: So, I’m an academic, but I’m an English Literature, old writing, kind of, nerd. So much respect for astrophysics and physics in general, but that is not my way of expertise.

Taylorr: Just the opposite end of the spectrum for you.

Jessica: Yep, it’s the opposite end of the spectrum, for sure.

Taylorr: Yeah, for sure.

Austin: Fair enough.

Taylorr: Oh, man. Well, this is going to be fun, luckily, for you listeners, we’re not talking about string theory today and, instead, curriculum design, which is going to be, really, awesome. Jessica, you have quite the depth here, so we’re, really, excited to unpack this, but, of course, we want to know more about you and your background. So, how did you go from old literature nerd into curriculum design, can you unpack that background for us?

Jessica: Yeah, I can see why people would be like, how did you end up here?

Taylorr: How did those connect?

Austin: Maybe they’re more related than we think.

Taylorr: Their [product’s – 04:08], really, close, it’s, probably, helpful, I don’t know.

Jessica: Yeah. Well, I got started in teaching, so I went to school to be a teacher, got my Master’s in English Teaching. Taught high school for six years, so one of the things, this is the only math that I do, right? I calculated how many 14- and 15-year-olds I taught in the span that I was a teacher and it’s, probably, around a little bit over 500, so I taught over 500-, 14- and 15-year-olds. Intended to retire as a teacher and made it a whopping six years, and I was like, okay, this is not sustainable, right? Everyone knows, right? It doesn’t matter whether you have a teacher in your family, or you’ve just read the news, teachers don’t get paid a lot of money, they just don’t.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Jessica: So, I was like, well, I have to figure out something to do. So, I, actually, it’s funny, I have a version of this story and my mom has a very different version of this because my mom and I are business partners. And she said this to me the other day. So, my version is, well, I just left teaching and I didn’t, really, have a plan, I just didn’t sign my contract, and then, there was nothing. Literally, left without a plan and, kind of, accidentally, in my mind, that’s how I interpret the story, fell into entrepreneurship, because I was like, well, I don’t, really, want to go get a job, I don’t have a portfolio, I can’t get into PR or copywriting, so what do I do? So, I got into the coaching space. 

So, my mom had already started a business coaching business and was working with a lot of clients, and, at that time, what I noticed, was a lot of entrepreneurs were super, super smart and, really, good at what they did. And they just were, really, not so great at teaching and talking about what they did and helping people learn from them. And I was like; these are, really, smart people and they would make a lot more money if they just knew how to teach, right? Now, my mom’s version is, well, wait a second, for the last two years that you were teaching, I was seeding this idea of like, hey, you should go into this business with me, wouldn’t it be fun if we did this business together.

Taylorr: It was all her idea.

Jessica: And I was like, oh my gosh. When I look back, I was like, oh my God, you did do that. So, that’s the quick story of how I went from teaching into entrepreneurship, and that was back in 2017.

Taylorr: Wow.

Jessica: So, I’ve been developing curriculum for over 10 years, specifically, with entrepreneurs for the past five years, and my mission is, basically, I feel like there could be so many better online courses and programs out there. And I’m just like, I want to help people create, really, killer curriculum so that they can teach more people, grow their businesses, make more money and make a difference, and that’s, sort of, my angle.

Taylorr: Heck, yeah.

Austin: Man, Jessica, I love your mission. I like you as a human being, so thank you for sharing all of that. I cannot help but make the observation that us and you have a very similar trajectory toward getting into this space.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Austin: In, technically, unrelated industries, made the observation that there are all of these specialists that just need some structure to be able to do a better job, and then, you came at it from the angle of education and curriculum and teaching and structuring content. And we came at it from the angle of business systems, but it’s, actually, the same problem that both of us saw and both of us happened to just be like, ah, we might be able to solve this problem. So, I feel a kinship toward you already, Jessica.

Jessica: Yes, yes, yes, absolutely.

Austin: Yeah. Help us get a better sense for the type of work that you do with your clients, because we hear coursework and curriculum and these are buzzwords, right? So, ground us for a minute here in, terms of, what’s the practical side of what you’re creating with your clients, typically?

Jessica: So, typically, the words I use to describe what I do is I help people develop courses and group coaching programs, they’re both, sort of, two different types of offers. There’s the passive online course, and then, there’s the interactive, sort of, live group coaching model. Now, what I do with both of them is pretty similar, people will come to me and they’re like, I have this idea, or I have these 50 ideas, I’ve been sitting on this idea for freaking ever. And I took so and so’s passive course on how to build a course or how to put content together and it’s taken me nowhere. 

And so, usually, what I do for someone is we sit down and journalist style; I, usually, pull out of their head what the most profitable idea is that they can make the most money with for their topic, for their course or program. And then, literally, I help them build, what is the curriculum? Now, curriculum means, basically, a set of sequential steps that you take someone from point A to point C, D, E, F, or wherever to get them a desired outcome. And I jokingly say a lot of my time is spent telling people the word, no. No, that’s too much. No, you don’t need that. No, your client, really, doesn’t need to have your booklist. 

So, it’s funny, that’s where I spend most of my time, is saying the word, no. And, actually, people walk away from working with me, realizing that you, actually, don’t need a ton of content. And this is a fun conversation I get into about worth and worthiness and what our value is; is that, I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking to be a valuable course creator, to be a valuable content creator; I have to give everything, right? Everything I’ve ever learned, and people walk away surprised at how little content they, actually, have created from the mess that they brought me and how much more valuable that is.

Taylorr: Wow. That’s an interesting thought. Yeah, I can feel that too. we have a bit of coursework here at SpeakerFlow and it’s like, we just want to give everything, all the things we know, because then that’s what is valuable and it’s, probably, not the case because we’re not, really, acting as a filter at that point, you know? So, I think what you said was, really, cool, is that by saying no, you’re acting as a filter, you’re giving people permission to not worry about all the other stuff that’s out there and can give people a distilled set of things to focus on, rather than all of the things they could be doing. It, kind of, lasers them in, it sounds like.

Jessica: It does. It does. So, there are two parts to it, I think, in terms of the wanting to give everything away; one, I think there’s the conversation around what is the value, right? What makes a course valuable? And I think we assume that our clients want tons of information because that’s going to offer reassurance like, oh, this was a good investment, I spent my money wisely because I can visually see all this information in this portal or this course. 

And I think that online courses have been around long enough where our clients, our consumers, they are a little bit more savvy, they understand how these things work and what they’re looking for now more than ever is let me get a result, let me feel like I’m getting something done, don’t give me everything that I can Google. I just want someone to tell me, very simply, what are the steps I need to take to make ‘blank’ happen? And the more, as a course creator and curriculum developer, that you can embrace that, the more successful it will be for you to talk about what you’re creating, the more successful it will be for people to see very quickly that this is the solution for them. 

And this is where I geek out with curriculum. Once somebody’s inside, if you have a solid curriculum that’s focused, that isn’t info dumping, that is action-oriented, that’s when the chargebacks decrease, that’s when people, actually, follow through and get the course done. And that’s when people are like, all right, what’s the next step? How can you continue to support me on this? And so, it’s the one thing I see over and over and over, so I would caution anyone listening to this; if you’re feeling that temptation to info dump, your client doesn’t want all of your information, they, really, don’t.

Taylorr: Yeah, simple.

Austin: Ooh, wake up call, folks. Your alarm clock just rang, I hope you’re listening.

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s right.

Austin: No, really, there’s value in keeping it simple. In fact, this is the curse that you run into as an expert, which is over complicating everything. The definition of an expert is somebody that takes a very complex subject and makes it simple. And it’s funny, because I think we all know that and believe that inside, but when the rubber meets the road and it’s time to, actually simplify, it’s, actually, really, difficult to know what’s; well, it reminds me of that quote. Is it Mark Twain, if I would’ve had more time, I would’ve written a shorter letter. 

There’s a craft involved in distilling information down into its core principles, and it’s also the thing that gets people results, right? If there’s too much, too complicated, that creates overwhelm and resistance and then you get the chargebacks and the drop-offs from the course. So, anyway, I think it’s a valuable reminder here that you’ve pointed that out.

Taylorr: Yeah. So, I have something that’s been ringing in the back of my head, I’ve been wanting to ask you this since we started thinking about this episode. Especially, since we’re in this world of thought leadership. One of the things we hear all the time is, I want to create a course, because I just want passive income. So, I can imagine you have some thoughts.

Jessica: I do. How much time do we have?

Taylorr: Yeah, right?

Austin: This is an important note; we have as much time as we need for this subject.

Taylorr: Yeah, for sure. So, can we just stop there for a moment, and can you just unpack what your thoughts are about what I had just said?

Jessica: Yes. There’s no such thing as passive, honestly, even when you think about investing, right? Those aren’t passive, somebody’s watching it, somebody’s monitoring it, right? Your health isn’t passive, right? You’re making choices about what you are eating, right? You’re making choices about what you’re putting into your body. And even certain businesses, there’s no set it and forget it, and so I understand that it sounds, really, sexy, I understand that it sounds, really, alluring, but it is the biggest load of crap that people are putting out there. And I’ll be honest with you.

Austin: Oh, wow.

Taylorr: Yeah. You’re right, it’s a lie.

Jessica: From a curriculum standpoint and I’m going to be honest with you; there are lots of different ways that you can make income in a business. If your desire, right? And I’m speaking open and honest with whoever’s listening to this. If your desire is just to get into this because you want to make money; online courses are not it for you. It is not passive, right? It is not passive from how you set it up, it is not passive from how you launch it, and most importantly, from a curriculum standpoint, right? Curriculum is a living breathing thing. 

And for most of the things that people are building courses around, whether it’s LinkedIn and social media, whether it is business systems, whether it is investing or getting into crypto or whatever, all of those topics update, all of those topics are, you have to update. So, this idea that you can just build something once and then walk away from it, I think is, actually, grossly unfair for people to even hear that and imagine that, and that is when I see lots of people coming to me, right? 

A little disillusioned, a little frustrated like, I thought this would be the pathway to making lots of money. And it can be. But if you’re thinking of this like, I’m going to just set it and forget it and it’s going to make me tons of money, I can be on the beach and this thing in the background is making me money. I’m just going to be honest with you, it doesn’t happen that way.

Taylorr: Heck, yeah. Amen.

Austin: Oh, man. Everybody.

Taylorr: So glad you unpacked that.

Austin: Back it up. Listen to it again. It’s so hard to talk about this because there’s so much noise out there that is saying the opposite. The number of YouTube ads I’ve seen of somebody saying, oh, just follow this formula and you’ll make a million dollars a year and sit on the beach. Just as you were describing it a second ago, it’s a lot; there are a lot of people out there feeding people that and the number of conversations I have to have with people from the systems perspective of like, I can help you set this up, but I can tell you right now, your expectations are totally misaligned and it’s going to lead to disappointment. 

And then, from my perspective, now you have to reengineer everything, so that’s, kind of, annoying, but, really, people’s expectations on this subject are grossly misaligned with reality. It seems like, at least. So, I’m glad you, the expert is agreeing with that and I’m not just out here acting like an old man shaking my finger at the new way of doing things.

Jessica: And I’ll be honest with you. I think our world of the service-based entrepreneurs, there was a massive increase as a result of COVID, I think a lot of people jumped into this space and I am focused on creating sustainable long-term successful businesses. And I think there are a lot of people who got into this, and so the listener, those of you listening, be very mindful of who is marketing this to you as well, because it’s like, how long have you been around? Are you just taking someone else’s formula because you saw that this language sells and this language works, right? Does this person have any expertise in running a business, in creating curriculum, in creating courses other than they just know how to sell you?

Taylorr: That’s right. Yeah.

Austin: Good thing to watch out for.

Taylorr: Have to do your research, for sure. So, one of the things we were talking about, it was before the show. So, you mentioned this and it, kind of, re-popped in my mind, I guess. Is that having a single course isn’t a business and you’re about, obviously, creating a business. And so, can you tell us, what does it look like, the difference of just having a course, an offer to sell, versus making it a part of a business, can you help us understand how you define those things and how they’re separate?

Jessica: Absolutely. I feel like the two of you are bringing out a feisty side of me. I’m like, alright, I can help more than all of this wellness back. Yeah.

Taylorr: Oh, that’s what we need right now. We want the fire, Jessica.

Austin: What people need.

Jessica: Yeah. Well, so a few years ago somebody gave me a call; I promise this is leading somewhere, somebody got on a call with me and they just said, Jessica, can you help me build this course? And, really, I was like, well, what are your goals? What do you want this to do? She’s like, really, I just want to hang out on the beach and make money. I was like, well, again, there are lots of other ways that you can do that, but having one singular course is not a business, that’s one singular product. To have a business in our, particular, space of coaching, consulting, thought leadership, speaking; what that means is you, instead, have a customer journey. 

A customer journey, literally, means there is an entry-point; usually, it is a passive digital course that people come in and they take, and they get a taste of you. That’s another thing, I’m going to bookmark that as a sidenote, how courses are marketed for business growth, but we’ll come back to that. But you come in through an entry-point and I think people forget, they’re so focused on scrambling to find more leads and scrambling to fill a launch that they’re totally forgetting that once you get someone in and they love you and they love your content, your curriculum is solid, they don’t want to go. 

So, what’s the next step? Where are you taking them? And so, it’s having this, typically, it’s three steps in somebody’s business, right? You have an entry-point, you have your core offer, and then, at some point, they may do some higher-level, elite private coaching with you. And that extends, A, the lifetime value of a client, and it gets you out of this scramble mode of like, I’m just filling this one thing and I have nowhere to point all of these people. And having that customer journey is what gives you a business, right?

Taylorr: Man, that’s so simple to understand.

Jessica: It is. And it’s lots of fun, and I have so much fun creating that. We look at the curriculum and a conversation I have with my clients is like, where’s this thing going, where are you taking people? Because if they are loving your content and they are doing, really, well, they’re getting results. They’re going to want to stick around and they’re going to want to know what’s next. And it’s, actually, a pitfall. It’s funny, I work with a lot of people who are just starting out with creating group coaching programs, but I have some clients who are well into the seven-figure space. 

And one of the things we figure out, really, quickly is like, wow, we have to get you out of this churn and burn model of getting clients in, and then, they, kind of, leave and there’s no journey to take them on to sustain them from point A to point wherever, where you want to take them overall.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Austin: Man, this is a, really, important conversation to have, because of this sexy factor that courses have, right? This set it and forget it situation, it’s not that, and it’s grounded in the core premise here, which is that we’re solving a problem. And if you have a single course that solves a problem so completely, first try, that you can just stop at that point; then, probably, you’re going to sell so much of it that you don’t have to worry too much about the customer journey, but I also don’t think that’s even possible, so I wouldn’t set your mind on that. 

And so, we have to think like, if you’re truly an expert in something that is a sophisticated thing in any capacity, there are building blocks, right? And you, kind of, alluded to this earlier in curriculum design and that we’re taking them through the process from A to Z or wherever in-between, and so there are milestones that have to get met along the way, and I can start to see where this tiered offering approach can, kind of, be built into the basic premise here, which is that we have to build on top of the foundation. 

And so, get them in with the initial offer, give them the groundwork so that there’s context for them to go deeper with you in the signature offer, and then, for somebody that, really, just wants your brain to the table. Now, we have this coaching thing where we can customize the content that you’ve already learned to your specific liking. Obviously, I’m just throwing ideas out there, maybe that’s not how you see it, but.

Jessica: You know what’s, really, great about that too? Is when I said earlier, you have to be disciplined, you can’t put every single thing you’ve learned in one, particular, course. Well, if you have a journey, if you have this plan of where you’re going to take them, then it’s like, oh, well I can’t address that here, because that’s going to overwhelm them and that’s going to be too much, but I can take that concept and put that in this offer, right? And then, it becomes this clear steppingstone of like, okay, we tackled this, and then, the next natural step to solving the next problem you have is for us to work together in this capacity. 

And so, for some reason, I think it’s because we’re also focused on like, have to create this one offer, it has to capture all these leads, it has to do this and that; we put all this pressure on ourselves for this one offer to perform all of these tasks that is like, well, wait a second, why are we putting all this pressure on ourselves? Make it simple, make it focused, and then, you can take them along the way, just as you were saying.

Taylorr: Yeah, man. Simple, I love that. So, I want to get back to your sidenote, the marketing bit, a little bit. Of how we get butts in seats, so to speak, I think some people, they have the expectation, we touched on this, but you build a course; it can be perfect in the curriculum design, but if I built it and it’s perfect, everyone will flock to it. And often that just doesn’t seem to be the case, because we have to, obviously, bring awareness to the thing and scratch that itch that people have, so that they end up buying the product and going into that entry-point. 

So, based on all the experience you’ve had so far in curriculum design, getting courses, group coaching programs and stuff up and off the ground. How does one, and I know this is a loaded question, being a marketing expert myself, but maybe as simple as we can make it, how does somebody successfully launch a course or a curriculum, a program and what expectations should I have?

Jessica: I think if it’s the first time you’re launching something, I go back to my roots. I taught small groups, I taught in the classroom, and so even before I knew what this thing called group coaching was, and I was still in let’s create digital passive courses. I would tell clients, alright, unless you have some crazy following of multiple thousands of followers, and you have this gigantic email list and you have a ton of ad spend at your disposal. Chances are, you’re not going to get a hundred people into your course, right? So.

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s a lot of people.

Jessica: I like to see, yeah. And, again, we put all this pressure on ourselves to hit this home run, and I’ve seen behind the scenes of many launches, not many people achieve that, unless they have all those things in place ahead of time. So, I think the easiest way for people to get this out there, start serving more people, start teaching more people and making more money is, I just say do the group coaching model, where it’s like, take your curriculum that you would’ve done in a course, right? Where it would’ve been pre-recorded and canned, and teach that to a small group of 8, 10, 15 people. Most people I talk with, no matter what stage of business they are in, have 8, 10, or 15 people at their fingertips that would, probably, benefit from working with them.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Jessica: And what I love about that approach of, alright, let’s take this curriculum that you’ve just designed, let’s figure out a way for you to talk about it to people, let’s get you having conversations directly with people so that they can see the benefit of working with you. And you have to get this baby off the ground, right? That’s the beautiful thing about curriculum, is that it is interactive; it has to be. So, the pressure that you would’ve had on spending months of pre-recording and putting all this perfect content together, let’s make sure you at least have a clear roadmap before you want to take people, it’s contained. And then, you get a small group of people into it, teach it live over zoom. 

And you’d be surprised, I think people will often say to me, but that’s it, 8, 10, 15 people, because, again, they’ve seen the marketing where it’s, launch this to a hundred people. And I’m here to tell you that being behind the scenes of so many of these launches; it just doesn’t happen in that way. And so, I’d rather see you set yourself up for success, because I’ve been on the other side where I’ve seen people just, really, beat themselves up and question their value, question their worth, question what they’re doing because they didn’t get a hundred people in their online course, when that’s just the exception.

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s right.

Austin: Oh, true.

Taylorr: Well, it’s the definition of disappointment, having a bunch of expectations that aren’t met, you’re just setting yourself up for the worst if we have the expectation that hundreds of people are going to buy this. And, again, just for the listeners here, Jessica, you, probably, know this too. But there’s something called the Law of Averages out there. And it, basically, says it takes 50 interactions with people, so 50 unique interactions for somebody to buy from you. So, if you just reverse engineer the math there, a hundred people in a course, what are we talking about? Five, is that 5,000? 5,000.

Austin: 2000.

Taylorr: Unique. Yeah. Interactions. It just doesn’t scale, and then, that’s not accounting for the number of touchpoints somebody needs to have enough trust to buy it. So, you multiply that by 10 touchpoints on average, now, we’re at 50,000 touchpoints that needed to happen just to put a hundred people into a passive course. The math just doesn’t check out, and what’s cool about the group coaching thing, from, at least, my seat, and maybe you feel the same, is that, especially, for those first few groups, you get some iteration at play, you get to perfect what would, otherwise, be in the maybe one day more passive thing, the more entry-level thing. 

Because you learn what works and what doesn’t and you can, kind of, iterate through it; it doesn’t sound like it needs to be a diamond before you launch into a group program, right?

Jessica: Exactly. And I think, as much as I love curriculum, I know people are coming to me because they’re like, I want to make money with this bad boy, so how do I do that? And it’s like, well, if you think about it, right? You’re launching an online course at 2.97 to a hundred people, that’s a lot of freaking effort for not a gigantic…

Taylorr: Big amount of money.

Jessica: Payday.

Taylorr: Yeah, right.

Jessica: Right. And so, that’s why I’m like, let’s get you to iterate some of this curriculum and test it out and perfect it with a small group of people, and they’re going to pay you a little bit more because they’re going to have some one-on-one support. And so, I just think from a profitability standpoint it’s like, oh my God, I’ve had people come to me and they’re like, I spent all this time, and I got 10 people to buy my online course. And I was like, how much were you charging again?

Taylorr: Yeah.

Jessica: So, for all that time and all the investments that you had to make, you, basically, made no money.

Taylorr: That’s right.

Austin: That’s rough.

Taylorr: That’s rough.

Jessica: That’s not to say to people who are listening, to not do online courses, I think there’s a.

Austin: There’s a right way to do it.

Jessica: There’s a right way to do it. And I think there’s a profitable way to go about building it, and I think starting with the group coaching model, interacting with small groups, testing out your content, as you were saying, and figuring out what works; the comedians that we see on Netflix, right? They don’t get the Netflix special the first time around, they go to small clubs and places to test things out and see what jokes land, and it’s like, if they’re doing that, we should do the same thing, right?

Taylorr: Yeah, that’s a good analogy. I love that.

Jessica: And then, at some point, as I say to people, you may fall in love with the group coaching model and it’s like, I love teaching interactively, I love having this group of people, or you could say, you know what? I’ve taught this thing three time; I know the content, I know where people get stuck, I know where to focus, I’m going to prerecord this and it’s going to be an awesome online course. And that’s how I would suggest going about putting your curriculum out in the world.

Austin: Man, so we’re not even talking about a single run through live, we’re saying do it until you have such confidence that your content is where it needs to be, that it’s then worth the investment to record all of the videos and have all of them edited and get them uploaded to the platform, and then, start the marketing for it. So, there are iterations that you’re recommending having happened, probably, more than one before going to the online course, provided that somebody’s not coming to the table, already, with a massive audience or something.

Jessica: Exactly. Exactly

Austin: Is that what I’ve heard?

Jessica: Yes. Yes. And just think about too, and people hear that, they’re like, well, shoot, that’s going to take all that time. And it’s like, well, what’s interesting about, one of the questions I always get from people is, well, which idea should I pick, and then, how much should I charge for this? Or, yeah, what should I charge for this? And I, usually, say to people, a successful program, a successful curriculum gets filled not, necessarily, because of the price point, it gets filled because you know how to talk about it, you know how to describe this, you are confident that you can get people results. 

There’s the, kind of, woo energy that comes with that, it’s like, well, Taylorr, you could charge 4.97 for this first time group coaching program, go for it. When you say that number you have to believe in it, and so the more that you test it out, the more that you put it out there that’s when the sales becomes a little bit more effortless, because you’re like, I’ve seen this, I’ve tested, I know that it works, I know what results I get people. And that’s why I love curriculum, it gives service-based entrepreneurs, specifically, because we don’t have that tangible, I’m going to sell you this Yeti.

Taylorr: Yeah.

Jessica: Right? The curriculum gives you that confidence of, I have a system, I know what works, I get people results, I can see what I do for people.

Taylorr: That’s exactly right. Yeah, conviction. I don’t think that’s talked about enough and the process of selling all this stuff, because believing in the price point, and honestly, also being excited about it, right? The way I like to price things is I like to be a little scared of the price I’ve just sold somebody at, just a little bit. It gets me excited; it makes it feel worth it, right? If you’re not excited by 10 people at 4.97, well, that should be maybe your first indicator that we should increase that a little bit. Having the conviction to sell it and the excitement about delivering at that value, you’re going to deliver well above and beyond that price point, so this was a, really, valuable lesson, I don’t think gets talked about enough. 

It’s like, well, if you have a good enough product, people will buy it. Well, it’s not the entire equation, because sometimes there’s intangible ROI, it’s not like, as you said, you’re picking up a Yeti and you can equate value to it, initially. The buyer is making a gamble before the end of the program, and they’re going to need to see the results ahead of time, and so those intangible ROIs can only be sold if you know how to communicate it in a way that gets people excited to buy it.

Austin: Which is true for any offer, by the way.

Taylorr: Yeah. Right.

Austin: It doesn’t matter what you’re selling. It’s value pricing, we get to decide what things are worth, only us get to decide what things are worth, but it only sells if we’re confident, that’s it. That’s the thing, you can sell anything if you’re confident enough, but.

Taylorr: Yeah, for sure. There’s a threshold, for sure.

Austin: True.

Jessica: Yeah.

Taylorr: Holy crap. Jessica, this has been enlightening, to say the least, and I like how simple you’ve made it. We say this a lot and I think our listeners are getting sick of it, but the true Litmus Test of an expert is taking something abstract and making it, really, simple and you’ve done that today. So, thank you for sharing all of your wisdom, I feel like we need to have an ultra-deep episode at some point about curriculum.

Jessica: Oh, I’d love that. Yeah, I feel like we just were getting started.

Taylorr: Yeah. I know right. We’d be here for an hour.

Austin: We, literally, got through, maybe, two or three of our questions that we had for you.

Taylorr: I know. Yeah. Well, okay, guys, leave it in the comments. If you want to longer episode on curriculum design and stuff, let us know, we’ll be happy to humor that. But in the meantime, Jessica, if people want to learn more or if they want to get some more value from you, what are you working on right now that everyone can benefit from?

Jessica: Absolutely. So, I have a, a guide to share. One of my favorite things to do is once you know what your curriculum is, the next question is, how am I going to fill it? So, I’ve assembled through testing it myself and through my most successful clients’ experience, 10 easy ways that you can fill your group coaching program or an online course, if you’re trying to put it out there to a small group of people, that do not rely on you having a big email list, a ton of followers, ads spend or anything crazy like that. 

And I love this because part of my mission is helping more people get good curriculum in the hands of their clients, and this is, absolutely, the way that you do that. So, follow these 10 steps, you’re going to get your program out there, you’re going to get some clients some amazing results, and I know that’s going to be linked in the show notes. So, that’s what I’ve been up to.

Taylorr: Awesome. That sounds great. Of course, it’s in the show notes, so go click on that link, it is an incredible guide, Austin and I are going to have a copy ourselves, so definitely download it. And, hey, if you like this episode, don’t forget to rate it, like it, subscribe to it, and if you want more awesome resources like this, go to speakerflow.com/resources.

Austin: Bye, everybody.