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Hi. This is Michele with the course creators edge in the Monday segment called strategic Monday, where we talk about, what are the issues with today's course creator segment of the Creator economy, and how can we improve this? How can we get better results for our customers? How can we gain better trust. How can we be more transparent? How can we truly deliver quality in the courses? As we know, there's too many inflated promises, a lot of focus on marketing, and there's people who say you can create a course in a weekend. Now in this conversation today, I want to talk to you a little bit about that course in a weekend, or you just create an outline, an A to Z outline, and there you have a course, and you just fill in the blanks. It's really easy. You can do it in a week. Well, I was a professional educator for many moons, taught. I was a teaching professor at the university level. I was corporate trainer, and I've taught in several countries, and it's a challenge to create a quality course, and there are principles of how to do that. But what seems to be missing in this course creation segment of the Creator economy is honest, straight talk about what it takes to create a course. Now there's several reasons that that is important. One. If you take money from people, you've got a contract, you've got a promise to deliver. You tell them the course is about learning how to use Excel spreadsheets and as an as an intermediate level, and you'll learn different formulas. Then at the end of the course, the people that took that course, that paid you money for that should be able to do just that. They should be able to know all, learn all the formulas, and to be able to use Excel spreadsheets. So that's a simple look at how we deliver on our promise. But I want to step back and say why this matters so so much. This isn't a piece of plastic you're selling to somebody. This isn't a widget. This is messing with their thoughts, their beliefs, their feelings, their attitudes, their knowledge, their skills. If you are purporting to offer a course that delivers a particular result, you are influencing other human beings, and that, in and of itself, should be a pretty big deal to anybody. It's also an ethical charge to do right by other people. It's one thing if you're selling I saw a gentleman who was telling people how they could be millionaires
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if they would just sell all these
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little plastic blingy things to decorate cell phones, and mostly it was to decorate cell phone covers. And he also sold these blingy little plastic throwaway things you could decorate key chains or hair barrettes or whatever. I'm not into that stuff,
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but you get the idea.
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And he ordered these in
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bulk, I think he said he used AliExpress, and he would spend about five to 10 cents per little bling thing, and then he would turn around and sell it for one to $5 and therefore make a really good profit, and it covered all of its shipping and etc. And the number one thing that's wrong with that, of course, is that those products were manufactured in probably unsafe environment. They were probably sourced, if you will mind, or manufactured in unsafe environments, and the people that manufactured those probably weren't getting paid anything then. So there's a lot of things wrong with that. I'm going to call it the bling model of selling online or selling anywhere, for that matter. That's kind of an honest trade.
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You say I've got this bling
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that I'm selling you, and people can see the bling.
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It's it's little fake rhinestony,
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plasticky things, and they can stick it on stuff, or it comes as a cell phone cover or whatever. And so if you say this is $5 they see what the product is.
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That's the trade.
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They bought a $5 piece of junk that's on them. You got your money, no harm, no foul, except for possibly the environment and the people who manufactured it. But you think that's a transparent, honest exchange. But here in the course creation segment of the Creator economy, the digital creator economy, that is not such a clear transaction if you promise to teach someone something only you really don't know how to teach and you really didn't create a quality course, because you just created an outline and then told set it up as a to z, that that is not how you create a course. But. What people have promoted that that is so now you're presenting this course that people can't really
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see, and all they have
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to go on with this transaction is to hope and assume you are giving them what you're promising to give them, and with a failure rate of 90 to 99% failure rate in the course creation segment of the Creator economy. That means our customers just aren't getting it. They aren't getting what you're talking about. And talking is not teaching. Let's get real clear about that, slapping a couple slides up there and talking is not teaching. It's not a course. You haven't designed a course. People call themselves instructor instructional designers. That's one. That's the delivery part. Of course, creation isn't is another delivery part. It is, excuse me, is another design part, and then your curriculum is how that is. These are three very separate things that we mix and match, and we say, Oh, I'm teaching, I'm training, I'm coaching you, and it's just is not true. These are not quality courses. And I don't care how big the names are there, there is a lot of myths and misinformation on what course is, and when people buy a course and then are not getting the results. The most common thing that happens with big course creators is that they blame the customer. Well, the customer didn't want it enough. They don't have a red hot desire. They do not have the discipline they must they must have the wrong habits. But we use mindset a lot for blaming the customer for not opening or finishing a course. And there are reasons why people don't open a course, and we don't look at those. We don't look at the reasons why customers aren't completing a course. We just simply have a culture in this creator economy that we blame the customer and
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profits are not an
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indicator, likes are not an indicator,
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and are
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nor testimonials an indicator of quality courses. So getting
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back to why is this such a big deal?
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Well, one, you made a promise. This person, you needs a fair exchange. You say, this is the course. Here's what you're going to get. They don't get it because they can't really see the product. They believe in you and they believe in your marketing, but they may not get what was promised. So the first big deal is that it is a breach. It's a breach of your either specific or implied contract. Then it's unethical, because you're influencing someone else's thoughts, beliefs, behaviors, knowledge, skill,
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and so you've messed with that,
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if they're not getting the results, then the third thing that's wrong with it is if you're blaming the customer, if you're going, Oh, my course is really good. I'm an expert. I know this stuff. You can be an expert, but that doesn't mean that you know how to teach it. It doesn't mean you know how to create a course. So those are the three, the first three big reasons why this is this is wrong. This isn't okay, and it's caused for a lack of trust. It's caused for a sort of downswing
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in people's interest in buying courses
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in this creator economy. And it's caused some, well,
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anger, I think, and
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it's really lessened this perfect this, this business space. But then I want to tell you about a fourth reason why this is such a big
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deal when we do
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not know how to create courses,
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and we're just making it up, or we're talking we say it's A to Z, it's like, I'm an expert, therefore I know how
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to help you learn this.
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That creates the three main problems I just spoke of.
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But the fourth thing
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I'd like to introduce the topic, what are called the determinants of health. Now I can hear you going, well, what's with the determinants of health? We don't want to know about that. Well, yeah, you do, because there are certain things across humanity. Doesn't matter where you live, even in what era you live. It is these determinants that will determine how well and how long people live, and two of the leading determinants of health are economy and education. And there's lots of reasons for this, but just let me help you understand that two of the leading determinants health and that will lead to the. Health and well being, and how long a person will live our education and their economy, so how well they're doing financially.
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So I want you to let that sink in a
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little bit. It is a very big deal to take people's money and propose their education so they can, even if you are adding on so you can make money doing so you're messing with two
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of the leading determinants of health.
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Now, imagine the power and the
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goodness if we did this industry. Well, if we got to
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that, what Brendan
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Richard says professionalism of this
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business, then we would really dig in and learn about how to create courses, we'd learn first about how to create curriculum, then courses, then instructional design and production, then the teaching components and the training components, and then the coaching components. At the very least, those are the skill and knowledge sets of education, the very basic ones. So imagine that the fourth important reason that you care about quality, not just for yourself, and how good it feels
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to create a quality product,
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but how important it is for those you serve that you could actually be impacting
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quality in years of life,
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and so it's not to be messed with this. Oh, I'm a teacher, I'm a trainer, I'm a coach, I'm a mentor, I'm an expert, therefore I'm teaching you, and I'm so successful and, oh, look, I'm a
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millionaire, therefore I'm the best
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teacher in the world. All of
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that is just
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a bunch of fui bonui.
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It It takes some work to learn how to create a
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course and how to design it. Then it takes work to learn how to deliver the course, and that's your
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instructional design and production
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and and how you teach that, how
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you present it. Or are you training? Teaching, training and coaching are very, very
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different. So that's what this
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course creation
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edge podcast is all about.
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And when we think about strategic Monday, what are the strategies we have to learn and do, and how can we improve the quality and truly professionalize this business space that is really suffering right now? It is. There's a lot of like I said, mistrust. They're not as easy to sell as they used to be. A lot of our customers are really savvy about the marketing, and people aren't getting results. They're talking to each other and they're saying, Oh, don't take those courses. You won't get anywhere, whatever it may be. But we can do better, and if we start thinking of this truly strategically, and strategically could mean two things.
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It can be the strategies we choose.
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But when I'm talking about strategically, professionalizing
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the course creation segment
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of the Creator economy,
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then that means choosing the highest
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strategies, the best strategies. It's not just long term, mid range or short term planning. It is about studying it and understanding, doing some assessments and some reflection, and saying, Okay, what exactly are the very best strategy? What are the best practices? What are the standards? What are the
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guidelines here? What's, the ethical
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imperative that we reach for? These are the things that lead to professionalism and where we can truly put some legs under that table. And so I hope is, if you join me in some more of the course creator's edge, either the Monday strategic
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a Monday segment where we
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look at these kinds of strategies and thinking, or, on Thursday, the segment for the course creators edge is the master's way. And the Master's way we look at
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actually how you do stuff, what?
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What exactly is
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a curriculum, and what are the key components to it? How do you put in? How, what? How does that align with your value ladder? So there's many things we discuss in the master's way on Thursdays, but twice a week, this podcast looks at, how do we professionalize this, these learning products that we're promoting? How do we do so ethically, and how do we do that thing where we're truly helping our customers as learners get the results, that we promise, that we're taking money from them, and that we have our ethical standards and guidelines, and that we're actually providing that service to them that may contribute to the well being and length of their life, because
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they've been able to learn something.
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And you know, it doesn't have to be a big something.
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If you've ever
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heard the story of the apple mortgage cake lady, or maybe the mortgage apple cake lady. She She was able. She learned how to make an apple cake from her grandmother, and during the 2008 recession, she there was a big balloon payment. I don't know that. I can't remember the full story, but it was a big, big chunk of money she had to come up with to save her family home. She was a single mom with boys, and there's a house she was raised in, and she was able, because she knew how to do this. One thing, she knew how to make a really, really good apple cake. She, of course, she got some help and friends, and I believe it was within a month she was able to save maybe it was one or two months, I don't know, but it's a remarkable story. I'd encourage you to look it up. The Apple mortgage cake lady, there's a movie about her one apple cake saved her family home, and a home kept a home for her and her boys, and I believe, went on to create a career for her to support her family. So it's, it's not big, huge stuff you're teaching people, but if you do it well, like her grandmother did a really good job of teaching how to make a quality apple cake. If her grandmother would have taught her how to make a just so, so apple cake, her story would have been very different. So join me here for the course creators edge, and we'll take a look each each week at what quality really means, how we can regain trust or gain it, perhaps for the first time, authentically here in the course creation segment, and truly be of service and help people. And while we're helping others to do well and to do good that we too benefit, and we charge those prices that match the quality of our courses, not just more access to us or whatever it may be. And as always, there is a link below. There is a set of try it and apply it. Lab guides for you for each episode, and that link is down below. And then check out our courses at the course creation lab, where we build those foundations of being honest about what quality is and being transparent about what the business is
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and and honestly, we're going to talk about the struggles.
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Let's let's up the quality. Thank you
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so very much for being here and best wishes to you on your journey
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as a course creator
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creator in the Creator economy. Blessings.
