Expand Beyond the 'One Client at a Time' Hustle by Creating a Course, Group Program or Membership
Scale Your Impact Without Adding More Calls to Your Schedule
Working with clients one-on-one is so incredibly rewarding for many business owners (me included!). For some reason the self-proclaimed "gurus" in the online business world have decided to demean 1:1 work in favor of "passive income," but I call bullshit.
If you love working with clients, don't let anyone tell you there's something wrong with it.
That being said, there are benefits to leveraging your time outside of your client work and diversifying your revenue. Creating a course, group program or membership can help you do that.
Before you dive headfirst into the world of courses and group programs let's do a little planning, so you know the kind of experience you want to create for your students (and yourself!).
Keep in mind there is no right way to create a course or group program. YOU get to decide what works best for you and your students.
Let’s Plan Your New Course, Program or Membership
First grab a notebook and pen and answer the questions below (or click here to get the PDF & Notion versions of the workbook in your inbox).
Do you have a signature process that consistently gets results for your clients?
Is your signature method or process something that could be taught asynchronously (i.e. via videos, audios or written content) and still be effective?
What kind of schedule would feel amazing for you if you could cut down on 1:1 calls? Do you want to completely clear your calendar or are a few calls per month ok?
Do you have the time and energy to regularly interact with students in a community or would you prefer to be more hands off with your course?
Are you able to execute 1 or more live launches during the year to welcome in new students or would you prefer to have rolling enrollment (i.e. an evergreen program)?
What level of support would be best to help your students attain the transformation they are seeking? Can they do it alone with your guidance in recorded or written form? Do you they need access to you to ask questions? Would group coaching calls help them make the transformation more quickly or maintain it better? Brainstorm the idea experience for them.
Would your students benefit from being able to interact with other people who are also seeking the same transformation? If yes, would a community or group call work? What if they join at different times and are in different parts of the course? Would they benefit from going through the material in a cohort?
How much content do you already have created that would support your students in making the transformation they are seeking? Do you have freebies, workshops, webinars, mini-courses, blog posts or other long-form written content?
Do you have the bandwidth to create content on a regular schedule (weekly or monthly) or host regular group calls or would you prefer to create the content once and then update as needed, without providing live support?
How many students do you feel like you could realistically support in a group format? Would you need to limit your group(s) to a certain number or can your signature method scale to a larger (or unlimited?) amount of people?
Do you plan to maintain the content and any community features yourself or would you bring someone onto your team to help facilitate? Do you have the budget for a new team member?
When students enroll will they get lifetime access or will they have access to the material for a certain amount of time. Who will manage removing their access if they don’t have lifetime access?
Write out the content progression students will go through here. These steps will eventually become your modules & lessons so you can think about that as you sketch out the roadmap they need to take to achieve the result they want.
Which Course Type is Best for You & Your Students?
SELF-STUDY COURSE
Can create the content once and sell it multiple times (passive-ish income)
Best for transformations that a student can achieve independently with your asynchronous guidance
Works well with both evergreen enrollment or live launches
Need to be skilled at teaching on camera without any live participants
More work up front to create the content and supporting materials
Often includes lifetime access to the course content
COHORT COURSE
Can create the content ahead of time, but may require more participation by the teacher than a self-study course
Best for when students would benefit from other students learning the material alongside them
Doesn’t work well for evergreen enrollment; requires live launches
Usually includes live calls or some kind or community forum where students can interact with each other and the teacher
Need to determine if lifetime access or time-limited makes the most sense
GROUP PROGRAM
Can create some content ahead of time, but often includes live teaching over a certain time period
Best for teachers who want to facilitate the transformation, but with a group
instead of 1:1
Can work with both evergreen enrollment or live launches depending on how you
set up the learning parts
Need to be skilled at teaching live to a group, answering questions and managing different personalities
Need to determine if lifetime access or time-limited makes the most sense
MEMBERSHIP
Often requires regular content creation (monthly, quarterly)
Best for teaching beyond a single transformation; can help students solve multiple problems instead of just one main one
Works well with both evergreen enrollment or live launches
Would be a great options for someone who already has a bunch of content around various topics within their niche
Usually includes some kind of office hours, Q&A, group call or community interaction, but doesn’t have to
Ok, rockstar! You just did a TON of work, but you set yourself up for success with your new program, so give yourself a high five 👏
The next step is to choose which platform to use to host your program - and I completely understand this is a tough decision because there are SO MANY platforms out there.
I’m working on a post that profiles a bunch of course platforms and their features so you can compare — and I’ll include notes on my experience as well as what kind of program a platform would work best for.
Stay tuned for that post coming soon!