A course doesn’t have to replace all of your existing clients and offerings.
In fact, I highly recommend that it doesn’t.
Having all of your eggs in one basket is risky, whether that’s only doing face to face training, or only doing online courses… whenever it includes the word “only” it opens us up to risk.
So, when I work with clients to develop an online course, we look at how it fits with their existing business offerings and overall strategy. Rather than being a standalone, it should become an integrated part of your business.
3 ways you can add a course to your current strategy and offerings.
Pre-work
Creating a mini course as part of the customers journey before they work with you one on one, or use your services, is a great way to deliver engaging content that could otherwise have been very boring.
This pre-work could cover elements of your on boarding like how to use platforms or systems you will give them access to and maybe an FAQ, to handle questions they may have. You can also take them through ground work they can to do to make working together easier. Maybe that is getting certain systems and files in order.
For example, if you are an accountant, a pre work course could cover
- How to use the client portal and upload files
- FAQ covering questions that most of your clients have, maybe relating to how they get charged, turnaround times, etc
- How to organise their files and details in the best way, so they can make the most of your time, rather than pay you to fiddle with things.
The same logic could apply with most service based offerings. A mini pre-work course is a great way to cover content which needed to be covered anyway, in a more engaging manner. You can even include short face to camera videos, so they “get to know you” before they start working with you.
Updates
Had something change in your business or processes recently?
Rather than have to explain the same thing to hundreds of customers or team members, why not create a course module instead.
You can explain the changes and the reason why they happened, or why they are important. You can even screen share to demonstrate new systems or processes, and create a flow chart of the process so they can follow it next time.
It might feel like it takes a little more time at the beginning, but it will save you answering the same email 100’s of times.
Bonus Material
Want to add value to your existing clients, or maybe increase the perceived value of a current service.
Providing bonus material in the form of a mini course is a great way to do so.
Rather than just sending bonus material in an email, or in a pdf, you give them the experience of logging in somewhere. They get to work through a step by step process which leads to a specific outcomes.
While the content you provide as a bonus may well be the same as you would have sent in the email or in the pdf, the perceived value is different. They have an experience learning with your content.
And there are lots of other options
This definitely isn’t a list of all the ways you could use a course as part of your existing business structure, there are dozens more. You could use a course as part of your onboarding process for new team members, you could use a course as part of your off boarding process to past clients, you could use a free course to re-engage a tired list… the options are endless.
Rather than replacing all your current strategies and service offerings with courses, why not look at enhancing your existing processes.
