5 Tips for Crafting a Great Course Curriculum

March 8, 2023

Background image overlay of dark-haired woman sitting at table typing on laptop and microphone and title Struggling to create a course? Try these 5 tips! stefaneigass.com/blog

As a Christian entrepreneur, you know how important it is to make sure your course curriculum is well-crafted, organized, and easy to follow. You want your course to be something that your audience will consume with enthusiasm and recommend to others.

As a pretty seasoned course creator, I have not only created 7 failed courses, but I have created some super successful courses and programs too. And I want to share it all with you!

Note: I go into this extensively in my 6-month group coaching program for podcasters, Podcast to Profit. There we unpack what your offer should be, which one is the best fit for you based on your superfan number and where you are in your business, and we come up with how to create it. This is all the way from the idea, through the outline of their curriculum to the technical how-to of putting the course together, and then to how to sell the thing.

Here are five tips to help you create an amazing course curriculum that will leave your audience feeling informed and empowered.

Tip #1: Start with the Why

Before diving into the details of creating your course, take some time to figure out why you’re doing it in the first place. Ask yourself: What do I hope to accomplish by offering this course? And what value will it bring to my target audience?

Knowing the answers to these questions can help guide you in creating content that truly resonates with people and sets you apart from other courses in the same space.

Knowing the why as to why you are creating something is going to help you know the outcome and objective (more on that shortly). It will also create clarity to prevent you from needing to dig into details and re-work things. It will also save you a bunch of time.

From my experience, students often create advanced offers that might confuse their learners. Remember your students are coming at this from a beginner standpoint 99% of the time. So when we start with keeping the why at the forefront, it helps us to build a course that supports that.

Gold splatter and gray background and quote When we start keeping the why at the forefront, it helps us build a course that supports that. -Stefanie Gass

Tip #2: Craft Clear Outcomes & Objectives for Your Course Curriculum

Now that you know your why, start laying out a clear outcome that you want your learner to do or understand. In Podcast to Profit, we call that the number one problem. We spend weeks making sure we know what our student’s/ clients’ number one problem is. Not what we think it is.

When we build out an offer, we have to reverse engineer backward from the outcome to how we get them there. You’ve got to know the outcome before you can ever know the beginning. This is going to help you in creating content that is pointed to one outcome and deliverable.

Quote You've got to know the outcome before you can ever know the beginning. -Stefanie Gass

This also helps you sell it. When I ask my students what their course does, and they give me 5 different answers, I make them go back to determine what is the one humungous, incredible, outcome that their course provides.

People want to buy one solution, not seventeen. One solution that will give them what they want. They might want seventeen things, but the one solution that gets them those seventeen things is what you sell.

Tip #3: Get Organized & Create an Outline of Your Course Curriculum

With the why and the outcome you want to achieve sorted, now comes the time to plug in all the pieces to the puzzle to get organized.

You can do this yourself, but if you want to save a lot of time, consider joining us at Podcast to Profit where you can plug and play. This will help keep you organized. I help you with strategies, titles, and deciding what your modules should be.

You will need to decide where you are going to outline and build your course so that everything is super organized. In Podcast to Profit, I share my operating system for you to download and upload my workflows. Another option though is to use an Excel file or a Mind Map at MindMeister.com.

This will then give you an overview of what topics need to be covered. Remember to go from the beginner’s perspective step-by-step until you reach that desired outcome.

I teach this by starting with one sentence. Like Step 1 is what? Step 2 is what? Step 3 is what? Then under the main bucket, I go deeper where I create sub-steps that get me to where Step 1 is achieved. And then under the sub-steps are the how.

We don’t need storytelling in a course. All of the extras that create that trust and connection points aren’t needed as the buyer is warm traffic and most likely loves you already. They just want an outcome. Courses don’t need to have any fluff at all.

Tip #4: Add Variety & Engagement Strategies Inside Your Online Course

To keep learners engaged throughout the material, consider adding some variety into each lesson plan by including different types of content such as videos, podcasts, or interactive activities like quizzes or polls. This can help break up longer modules and keep learners interested as they progress through their studies.

You also don’t know it all, so don’t be afraid with the higher ticket courses/ programs to get other experts in to teach on specific topics. There may be someone better suited to teach a piece of your course than you are.

Tip #5: Test Your Content Before Launching Your Course

Once all of your lessons are created and organized into an outline, it’s important to test them out before launching your course officially!

In Podcast to Profit, there is a specific methodology that I take my students through to test their content. They meet with people and have a certain number of people to coach before they can move to course creation because the worst thing is spending months creating a course and realizing that it isn’t selling.

Either the messaging is wrong, the outcome is wrong, the title isn’t correct, or the pricing is off. Having to go back to the drawing board and start again is excruciating. Believe me, friend, I have been there more times than I would like to admit to you.

Gold splatter background and quote It's so important to go slow to grow fast. -Stefanie Gass

It’s so important to go slow to grow fast. You have to go in order which I know is difficult when you want to be making money from your business and podcast. Creating whatever course you can in as little time seems like the answer, but it’s not. The answer is to go step-by-step through a framework that gets you to the right course, the right objective, the right thing, the right modules, the right stuff inside the modules, and the right way to sell it.

A free option is to sit with people. Ask friends or family members who fit within your target demographic if they’d be willing to review some of the material and provide feedback on their experience before going live with it officially—this could save countless headaches down the line!

Plan and Prepare Before You Create a Course Curriculum

Crafting a great online course as a Christian entrepreneur doesn’t have to be hard—all it takes is some thoughtful planning and preparation beforehand! By following these five tips—starting with why you’re doing this in the first place; crafting clear outcomes & objectives; getting organized & creating an outline; adding variety & engagement strategies; and testing your content before launching —you’ll have everything set up for success long before going live with your amazing new online course!

If you want to work with me in my 6-month group coaching program Podcast to Profit, all the details can be found at stefaniegass.com/school.

Thanks for hanging with me. I’ll see you soon.

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

P.S. Also, listen to podcast episode 581 for the full training on 5 Tips for Crafting a Great Course Curriculum.

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