Wendy (00:02.274)
Hello there, welcome back to The Coaching Edge. I am your host, Coach Wendy McCallum. I am so happy to have you here. We're gonna be talking in today's episode and in the next episode of The Coaching Edge about online coaching courses and why every coach should consider creating one and maybe even more than one, depending on.
where you are in your coaching business. So this is gonna be part one of a two part series on online coaching courses, which is something that is near and dear to my heart and a topic that I not only support my coaches on in the BBB, which is my business building community for coaches, but also very specifically and in a very targeted and focused way in the CCC, which is my.
coaching course creator program that I offer a couple of times a year. Now, the CCC is about to launch again. If you're listening to this podcast episode, when it airs at the beginning of February in 2025, we are about to launch another cohort of the CCC. I would love to have you there. If after you listen to this episode, you're thinking to yourself, this is definitely something that I'm ready for and that would make complete sense for me in terms of a way to amplify my reach as a coach and also my revenue as a coach.
So I'll tell you a little bit about the CCC before we get into part one of this episode. The CCC is one of the most fun things that I coach. It is an eight week program that combines a combination of a content library, which is set up with eight modules. And then within each module, there's a series of very short, very concise video lessons that helps you get through every step required to take you from your big idea for a course to a completed, launched, marketable course.
And so we do all of this in eight weeks and the course is really carefully structured to help you get through every step. Not only do I include these modules of video content, I also include checklists to go with each stage of course creation for you so that you can make sure you don't miss a trick and you can work through things in a really systematic way. I also provide you with a planning tool for your course. It's a template that I created in Excel that I use every time I create a course.
Wendy (02:20.696)
that includes various fields, including the obvious stuff, which is what types of lessons and content you wanna be including in each of your modules and how you're gonna organize it, but also scheduling the time to actually create that content and get it uploaded, and then all of the additional resources that you might wanna create, including things like worksheets and templates to go along with each of your lessons. I've got a tool that helps you to get your...
course mapped out and organized. That's like just very, very helpful. And the coaches who go through the CCC say that's one of their favorite tools. So there's the eight modules of content. Then there are also eight live coach sessions with me with an intimate group of other content creators. So other coaches who are working on creating courses. This is a great place to ask any questions that you have. No questions are too stupid. It's an opportunity for you to
keep moving. So if there's something that's got you stuck during the week, you can ask me about it in that session and I will help you troubleshoot it and get you moving forward so that you don't get stuck and you actually have a completed course at the end of this thing. It's also an opportunity for you to do some crowdsourcing, hear what other coaches are doing, get inspired, get motivated and stay accountable through the process of the course creation. So all of that, those
Coach lessons, the eight modules and the checklists and templates and spreadsheets and organizing tools are all included in the CCC. It is an eight week course. The next cohort starts on February 26th. If you're curious about that, you can get the details through the link in the show notes. I would love to see you there. I have tremendous feedback from this program. This is one of the things I run that every single time I run it, I just get incredibly positive feedback from it. Coaches love the process. They love the support.
And they love the fact that at the end of all of this, they have a course mapped out and many of them have all of the content created as well and are ready to actually get into launch mode, which is something that I also support you through in the CCC. So I help you figure out how you're gonna launch, what your sales cycle is gonna look like and how to prepare any of the assets that you need to actually sell the program. Okay, so that's the CCC. I'd love to see you there. If you're curious about it, if you have questions, you can always send me a note at wendy at wendymcallum.com or connect with me.
Wendy (04:42.242)
via direct message on social media, on Instagram at Wendy McCallum Coach. Let's talk about some of the most frequently asked questions that I get about course creation from the coaches that I support, both in the BBB and just generally in my audience. So I often get questions from coaches. You can always send me any feedback, any questions that you have. And one of the things I get asked a lot is,
Why would I create an online course? So what are the advantages of creating an online course other than the obvious one, which is it's a way to potentially create another revenue stream. But for a lot of coaches, the idea of creating an online course feels really overwhelming. I get that. It's one of the reasons why I put together the CCC so that there was sort of a, you know, a very deliberate focused program that...
coaches could take to get them from that place of overwhelm to a place of clarity and a completed program. Cause it's a lot of stuff that goes into creating an online course. So for a lot of coaches, they're thinking to themselves, you know, I get generally that this makes sense, but I am not, I'm not convinced that this is something that is necessary for me as a coach. I'm happy with my one-on-one practice and it just seems like a lot of work and a lot of overwhelm for me.
There are so many reasons why online courses are amazing to have. And listen, if you come into the CCC and this is your very first course that you've created, which is often the case for coaches, not always, we have lots of coaches in there who've already created things and are looking to create something bigger, something different. But if you come in and it's the first course that you've ever done, I am going to encourage you very, very strongly to keep it small. Okay, so I want you to keep that in mind as we're talking about online courses.
We're not talking about creating like, you know, the encyclopedia of all courses on whatever the topic is that you want to support people around. We're talking about starting small and then making sure that the content that you create is really flexible so you can use it in a bunch of different ways. Here are all of the reasons why you might want to think about creating an online course as a coach.
Wendy (06:55.254)
So the first thing I would say is that creating an online program. that is, when we're talking about online programs, really simply what we're talking about is content that is hosted online on an online platform somewhere that people can purchase and then access online. So this is prerecorded usually content, although it doesn't always have to be prerecorded. And we're gonna deal with that in one of the frequently asked questions in part two of this episode.
But for the most part, it is pre-recorded content that is uploaded and is available for people to go and access on their own time and oftentimes at their own pace. So one of the reasons why you might want to create an online course, especially as a newer coach, is that it will provide structure for you for live coaching sessions. So one of the most common...
complaints, I guess, or concerns that I hear from my newer coaches is that they are lacking confidence in their ability to coach people through a program. They don't know what to focus on in coaching sessions and it feels like they're just showing up and winging it. A online program can provide structure and support. So if you create, for example, let's say you're a coach and you coach people around menopause. I have a couple of coaches in my program right now in the BBB who are menopause and hormonal.
coaches help women in that phase of life. You might wanna create an eight module course, for example, that takes women through the eight, as you see them sort of eight key areas where women can find some empowerment around how they navigate and go through the hormonal transition from perimenopause to menopause, for example. And you might wanna focus on things like, I'm just throwing these out there, this is...
There are a million different ways to structure this, but maybe things like sleep and joyful movement and nutrition and stress management and relationships. So you set out these eight modules and then you use those eight modules as a structure for a one-on-one eight session program.
Wendy (09:10.582)
you design some really great coaching questions and maybe some even some worksheets and that kind of thing go along with each of these modules. And then you offer a one-on-one program where you take women through what you see to be the sort of eight pillars of wellness around, know, hormonal transitions, for example. So it allows you as a newer coach to have some touchstones for each of the live sessions that you do with your clients, which can be incredibly helpful in the early days of coaching. So.
That's one of the reasons why I love the idea of an online program. The other reason I love online programs is because the thing that I hear the most when it comes to sales stress from my BBB coaches is that they feel like they are overpriced. And in order to succeed as a business person and as a solopreneur coach, they need to set their prices at such a level.
that it feels really difficult for them to say that price out loud in a coaching call and really hard for them to sell it. Now, I've got lots of other episodes where I talk about pricing and where I talk about sales and the value of the transformation that you affect as a coach and how to build your confidence in the value of your pricing and also around the importance of making sure that you don't price too low because that's like a surefire way to go out of business and to fail as a coach. So I'm all about pricing at
the right level. But I get it, it can be really stressful in the early days, especially to state your price of your one-on-one programs with confidence. And I think confidence is really important when it comes to selling. One way to boost that confidence, one way to feel better about the value of the program that you're offering is to offer not only your one-on-one coaching sessions, but also an online course that goes along with that.
For many of my coaches, they say it makes it so much easier for them to talk about the pricing of their one-on-one programs when they can say this also includes a self-guided 12-week course that I've put together that you can access online with worksheets and modules that you can go through on your own time between our live coach sessions that I normally sell as a standalone course for $497 or something like that. It helps them.
Wendy (11:27.096)
to justify the pricing of the one-on-one coaching program. Now it's not essential, but it's a really good consideration. How would it feel if you were on sales calls and discovery calls and you were selling your one-on-one package and you could also, as part of that program, offer more than just your time as a coach? You could say, in addition to these sessions with me, you also get access to this really amazing course, right? So that's another reason why you might wanna think about creating an online program.
Online courses are also incredible down sells. So we've talked a little bit about making sure that you have a diverse offer suite as a coach and how this is something you're going to want to build over time. Again, in the early days, you're not going to have a lot of diversity in your offers. You're probably going to start with just a one-on-one offer, but over time you want to develop a free offer, a low ticket offer, a medium sort of priced offer, and then a high ticket or VIP offer.
One of the reasons why you wanna have that breadth in your offer suite is that if you're on a sales call with someone or you're talking with someone and it becomes really obvious to you that they're not a good fit for your medium or your high ticket offer, maybe because they can't afford it, maybe because they're not somebody who you think you would want to work with one-on-one, it's so great to be able to offer them a down sell right on that call. You know what? I understand your concerns. Here's where I'd suggest you start. I have this really amazing self-guided course that I offer for $297 and
you can start there and that'll get you through the first 12 weeks of this. You're gonna learn so much. And then when you're done that course, if it feels like you could use some additional support, you can reach back out to me or whatever. having something that's online that you can sell that doesn't involve any more of your time, but it is less expensive than whatever the thing is that you sell as your medium or your high ticket offer, it's really, really, really helpful. So an online course can fit that.
It can fill that gap in your offer suite for you. Also, online courses make tremendous freebies. So, you know, I get that you don't want to put, you know, months and months of effort into content creation for something that's going to be completely free and not going to make any revenue off of it. But mini courses are terrific freebies. And I have seen this work so well for so many of my coaches in the BBB.
Wendy (13:47.5)
And I've done this myself. So I have a number of little mini courses that I offer. offer from small as my free master classes. And if you haven't accessed those yet, I encourage you to go and grab those off of the main homepage, wendymcallum.com. You're gonna find little one-off master classes that you can watch in like 45 minutes or an hour that teach you about a very specific topic. So I have some free ones and then I have some really low ticket ones like my one-on-one pricing master class is $37, right?
It's not a course in that it's just one module, but it's an example of like a mini course. I also have a little mini course around alcohol that I offer that has like, I don't know, maybe six little videos associated with it in a workbook. And that works really, really well as a free offer for people because the value is quite obvious when I describe what is involved in that course. And people love the idea of getting access to an online course as opposed to just a downloadable PDF, which
If you've listened to any of my episodes on freebies, you know that the days of downloadable PDFs as effective freebies are kind of gone. That chip has sailed. People will not exchange their email address for something small anymore. They want to be really sure of the value of whatever the thing is that they're getting. And many courses really fit that bill. I have one coach in my BBB who created a free 21 day course with very...
very small content on a daily basis that gets sent out. A lot of it is video content and some of it is audio content and text content. But it's a variety of content that gets sent out over a 21 day period. And she has used that now to add over a thousand people to her email list. It's been incredibly successful. So many courses can actually make incredibly valuable freebies and can help you to build your newsletter list and your audience.
And you know how I feel about that. That is the one asset that you own. You do not own your social media following on Instagram or Facebook or TikTok or wherever you are that can get taken away from you at a moment's notice. And the algorithm has tremendous power over who actually gets to see the things that you create. Your newsletter list is yours. It's a captive audience. You send an email, as long as you do things right, there's a very, very good chance it's gonna end up in your audience members inbox.
Wendy (16:07.328)
And then if you're writing good content, you can really influence the open rate on those emails. So you have a lot more control over that and you own that asset. Okay, so we've talked about how it can help you add structure to a coaching program with one-on-one clients, how it can help to add value when you are selling your one-on-one programs, how it can make that easier for you, how you can use it as a down sell on a sales call when somebody is not a good fit for one-on-one coaching.
how you can incorporate an online course as part of or as the main free offer that you use to build your newsletter list. It's also obviously a terrific thing to use a structure for a group coached program. So if you're thinking about running a group, you don't need to have online content to run a group. I have run group programs before where there has not been any additional online content.
but I find it again, very, very helpful as a way to both structure the group coaching sessions, to structure the path of the participant through the transformation that I am promising to help them affect in the course of whatever the group program is that I'm offering, and also to add value to the offer and to make it more marketable and sellable. So an online course can be a really great anchor.
to provide structure for a group program. So for example, you wanna do a 12 week group, you create a 12 module course online, and then your participants do a module a week. And that becomes the thing that you talk about at the beginning of each group coach session. What did everybody learn? What are the biggest takeaways? Where are people feeling stuck? Where are people feeling enlightened on the topic that we are all focused on this week?
So I love the idea of an online course as part of a group program. Now group programs are what help my coaches scale their income. Group programs are what help people to create reliable streams of revenue and to actually plan a sales and launch calendar for the year as a small business person that feels really doable and that allows you to actually achieve and beat.
Wendy (18:23.788)
most of the time, whatever revenue goals you set for yourself. So I love group programs and online courses are a big component of group programs for most coaches. So that's another reason why I love creating a group program. Then the other thing about obviously online content like this is that it can create incredible passive income. So this can be something that you set up in a way that you can sell it.
anytime to anybody. This is what we call evergreen content. So it's always available for purchase. People can always start it. I love online programs, self-guided online programs for this as well, because I'm often offering a group coached version of that program, but not all the time. So in the off season, when I'm not offering, for example, the CCC as a coach led program, that's my coaching course creator program that I was talking about earlier.
it is available as a self-guided course. So if a coach comes to me and says, I really, I'm ready, I've got this great idea for an online course, but I just need some support and some structure and some organization, and I don't understand the tech side of it, and I need some help figuring out what to include and what not to include in my course, and I really wanna create better content this time around, I will say to them, look, the coached version of the CCC isn't being offered in the next month or two, but you can go and access the self-guided course, and that's a really great place for you to start. And sometimes I might even offer,
to add on a couple of one-on-one sessions with that coach to help them refine their idea and the structure of their course and then maybe to do a course audit at the end of the program. But that self-guided version of the course is something that's always available and it allows me to always have something to offer to somebody who needs a solution to that particular problem. So I love the idea of online courses creating passive income. I also use some of my online courses and I have many different online courses.
I use my online courses as ways to boost revenue in months or in seasons when my revenue is dipping. It might be dipping because I'm choosing to take a holiday, for example. It might be dipping because this is the time of year where people are less likely to engage a coach, which generally speaking, I find the summer to be. And those online courses that I have that are evergreen self-guided programs that people can join at any time, I will do a sales push on. So for example,
Wendy (20:44.874)
It's, you know, I'm recording this episode in January and I just did this with my self-guided ReRhyme program, which is my six week coach-led, mindful drinking program. So it helps women to take a break from alcohol. And I didn't have the capacity in January this year to run a coached group, to actually lead a group of women.
And so I did a push on the self-guided program. I offered a really great discount on it and I just started pushing it on social media, my newsletters and I sold a ton of those and it was a way for me to make a nice little sum of revenue in the month of January without actually having to spend any time coaching, right? Because it's a self-guided program. So it's just a great way to supplement your income as well. Okay, the last thing I think that I really wanted to make sure I talked about is the fact that
If you do this right when you're creating your online course, you can create content that is incredibly flexible and can be used in many different ways. And this is kind of the cornerstone of the CCC program is that I teach coaches how to do this and how to do this really, really well and how to do this, frankly, from now on, every time they're creating content to be thinking about how to create this content in a way that it can be used later in a different way. So,
What I teach you to do in the CCC and what I'm gonna encourage you to start thinking about when you start creating content is I really teach you to take a long hard think about the particular lesson that you're gonna be teaching. Again, keep your lessons bite-sized. Nobody wants to listen to somebody ramble on for a long time. I try to keep all of my video lessons at five minutes or less. But when I'm creating lessons, I'm always thinking to myself, can this stand alone?
So this topic that I'm talking about, is this a topic that stands alone or is it necessarily connected to something else that I've said so that I would not be able to use this video elsewhere, plug it into another program, for example. I'm always looking at standalone topics when I'm deciding how to organize my content so that I can record it in a way that I can then take that content and plug and play into another program down the line. Case in point, just this morning I was thinking,
Wendy (23:00.716)
I really should create an online self-guided burnout program that women can access online that's less expensive because I don't have the capacity anymore to do nearly as much one-on-one coaching as I used to do because I'm busy doing all the other things I'm doing as a coach. But I have lots of women contacting me for support around burnout. And I'm thinking to myself, how can I create a burnout course online that's really comprehensive and amazing without actually recording any new content? And the answer is really easily,
because I follow my own rules. And that is that when I'm recording content, I really try to make it standalone content. I don't reference the name of the program when I'm recording content. I don't reference the date. I don't reference the time of year or the season or who it's for. I just talk about the topic and I start each video by introducing the topic and I don't reference the day. So I don't say this is day one of the 30 days of lasting change program.
I don't reference the date. don't reference any of those things. And I tend to also record my videos with exactly the same background so that they're really easy to, like I said, plug and play into other programs. So I've got tons of content I can choose from, from the variety of programming that I've done over the years to create a really comprehensive, really supportive, really helpful, really valuable online burnout program right now. So.
When you are creating an online course, if you do it right, if you follow my system that I teach in the CCC, you're going to be able to use that content in at least three ways. You're going to be able to use it as self-guided course that you sell evergreen. So something that is available on your website that people can buy any time and go through at their own pace and you don't have to do any coaching. There's absolutely no involvement from you. So you can use it as a self-guided online course. You can use it, as I said earlier, as a way
to add value to a one-on-one, to a private coaching package. So something that all of your one-on-one clients get access to, and that is incorporated in your sales and marketing language around your one-on-one offer, right? You can also use it as the basis or the structure for a live group coached program, right? So one content, one set of content.
Wendy (25:17.282)
you can use at least three different ways. So that's three different revenue streams. Now there are all kinds of other ways you can use it too. And we talk about a lot of those things in the CCC. We talk about, you know, creating like taking, pulling out lessons and using pieces of your course as a freebie or as a teaser or as a, you know, try it before you buy it. We also talk about using course content from one course as bonus content in another course or as early bird.
you know, kind of sign on incentives for people. So there are so many different ways that you can use your content if you record it in a way that you are, you are really consciously thinking about making sure the content is multipurpose, flexible standalone content. And again, something that I teach in the CCC. So for all of the reasons that I've just gone through online courses are something you need to be thinking about as a coach. It's really, really hard to make a great
income as a coach without online programming because if you're just working one-on-one with people you can only spend so many hours coaching and there really is a ceiling on what you can charge for coaching especially in the early years. I know there are lots of coaches out there will tell you you can price yourself at a thousand dollars an hour but honestly for most of us the market just does not support that and I think a lot of us don't feel good about charging that amount so if you want to scale your business which I want you to do
and I'm in the business of helping coaches scale their businesses. If you want to do that, online courses are going to be a key piece of that. So these are all the reasons why I want you to be thinking about, could I create a course? And if so, what might that be? And I really want to encourage you to listen to part two of this episode where I'm going to go through some of the most frequently asked questions that I get around coaching courses online, including things like, how do I know if my idea is good?
How do I figure out what to include and what to not include in my course? How do I price my online course? How long should my course be? Do I need to create a fancy sales page? How do I get out of overwhelm in this thing? I've had this idea for forever, but I just can't seem to get going with it, right? Do I need bonuses? What platform do I use? We're gonna talk about some of those things in part two of this episode, but I hope that this episode served to get you excited.
Wendy (27:36.534)
and get your wheels turning around what type of online content you might be able to create. Now you may already have some online content. I would really encourage you to ask yourself, what else can I do online? Because the more of these online programs that you have available to you, the more streams of revenue you have available as a small business owner. So again, if you found that helpful, if you're excited about creating an online course, I wanna really encourage you to check out the CCC. It's so fun.
You will get to meet with me every single week in a small group of coaches. We keep the groups really small so that I make sure I can deal with all of your questions. I'm gonna get to know you, your business, and the course you're trying to create and help you go from your idea, which may not be fully formed yet, and that's okay, to a completed course in that eight week period. So if you're curious about that, just go to the show notes and check out the CCC at Wendy McCallum.
Have a great week and be sure to listen to part two of this episode in a couple of weeks.
