You’ve been wanting to make an online course
for a long time, but haven’t quite gotten around to it yet. What if I told you there was a way for you
to create and publish your online course in just 90 minutes? What if after watching this video you could
make and launch your first course today? We’re going to get you there in 4 steps. Let’s get into it. Hello creators, I’m Ben Toalson from Podia
where we empower creators like you to make a living doing what they love. If you’ve been dragging your feet making
your first course, that’s all going to change today. The following four steps are going to get
you on the path to creating and publishing your first course! Step 1: Write an outline The first step is to outline your course material. This is a relatively quick, but very important
step in the process because everything else depends on it. The most common mistake in this step is to
brain-dump everything you know and try to organize all of that information into a course,
which can leave your students with information overload. The goal of your course is not to deliver
as much information as possible, but to deliver a result. The question you want to answer before you
write anything else is, what end result do I want for my student? To make sure we stay on track, we’re going
to use a course outline template we’ve created. If you’d like to get the outline and follow
along, you can find the link below this video. As an example, we’ll outline a course around
the subject of hand-lettering. Rather than writing down all the things we
know about hand-lettering, we’re going to focus on a goal. What kind of result might a student want from
hand-lettering? Maybe they want to learn how to make hand
lettering art that they can turn into physical products and then sell and enjoy for themselves. That sounds like a great result so we’re
going to put that at the very top of the outline. Now that we know what outcome we’re trying
to produce, we can break that outcome down into its component parts. Think of the various steps involved in producing
the final result: - Your student will need to find or write
a quote they can turn into a hand lettering piece. - They’ll want to make rough drafts to find
out how best to organize the text to make their message stand out. - You’ll want to give them specific pointers
on letter forms and styles. - You’ll get into the tools and techniques
for making a finished piece. - You’ll want to teach them how to convert
their hand-drawn design to a digital format that can be printed. - Finally, you’ll want to tell them where
and how they can print and sell their finished design. Now that you have an overview of the various
components, you can decide how to break these up into individual modules. We’ll use the outline template to break
these steps down even further to provide more specific instructions and a clear path to
the result we’re trying to produce for our student. Normally we’d talk about writing down which
content types to use for each of the steps, but because we’re trying to get this done
in 90 minutes, we’re going to stick with something simple for now. The great news is, now that you’ve got this
outline, there’s no reason you couldn’t go back in the future and remake this course
using several different mediums. Step 2: Create slides For step two, we’re going to use our outline
as a guide for creating slides for a visual representation of the material. Our slides are going to consist of 3 different
components. Text, pictures, and screen captures. We are going to use Google’s free Slides
tool to put our presentation together. You can build your presentation from scratch,
or you can use one of their pre-made templates. You’ll want to create separate presentations
for each of your modules, and put your course title, along with the module and lesson title
on the very first slide. Before we get into creating the slides, let
me share a few pointers on the 3 components, text, pictures, and screen captures. - Text - When you add text, you want to make
sure the information is clear and easy to read. Organizing your information into bullet points,
adding titles, and bolding key takeaways are some of the ways you can design your text
to be as clear and effective as possible. - Pictures - If you are taking your own pictures,
you’ll want to make sure that your subject is well lit, properly aligned and centered
in the frame, and that there aren’t other objects cluttering the image and distracting
from the main subject. If you are using photos from the web, make
sure you’re using royalty free images so you don’t get hit with a copyright claim. Take it from someone who had to pay shutterstock
$275 for a placeholder image. Some of my favorite places to find images
are unsplash.com and pixabay.com - Screen captures - If you’re using a PC
there are several free screen capture tools out there. One of my favorites is Jing. On a mac, you can open the built in screen
capture options by using command+shift+5. Be sure to avoid showing sensitive or personal
information in your screen capture. Once you’ve got all of your images and screen
captures ready to go, create your slides as you follow along your outline. As you’re sharing info in your outline,
remember that you don’t have to write everything out. In the next step, you’ll be going more in-depth
on each section, so for now just focus on the key points and take-aways. Step 3: Screen record each lesson individually For step 3 you will screen record your presentation
while you deliver a voice over of each lesson. A quick note before we get into this step…
if you’re concerned you might have trouble delivering your course material off-the-cuff
from your outline, you may want to add a step before this and actually script your course
out. It may take you an hour or two of focused
writing time, but if you’re not confident you can deliver your course without it, it
may end up saving you some time in this third step. For screen recording you can download a free
tool called “Free Online Screen Recorder” by Apowersoft. This app is available on Mac and PC and allows
you to select which audio input you’d like to use, and lets you select a specific portion
of your screen to capture. This will allow you to use a good quality
microphone to deliver your course material as you screen record your progression through
the slides. Be sure to set your destination folder and
name your recording files so they will be easy to find and upload once you’ve worked
through your lessons. Step 4: Upload your videos and write your
course description The simplest way to share your course is to
upload it to a learning management platform. A learning management platform is a website
that allows you to upload and sell your courses. They’ll often provides sales data and other
services related to digital products. For this example, I’ll show you how you
can use Podia’s dashboard to upload and sell your course. [Instructions] From your dashboard, click
on the “Products” tab and then click “New Product.” When the pop-up window appears, select the
“Online Course” Option and then type the title of your course into the “Product Name”
field and then click “Create & Continue.” Now it’s time to add your course content. We’ll start by adding our first section
by clicking the “Add section” button. Following your outline, title your new section
either based on the modules or component parts. Repeat this step until you’ve added all
of your course sections. Next we’ll add your video files. Click the “Add Content” dropdown in the
section that corresponds with your video, choose “add files,” then drag and drop
your video file to upload. Once you’ve uploaded your file you can click
on the edit button next to your file and add a title, description, and thumbnail. Repeat this until you’ve uploaded all of
your course videos. When you’ve finished uploading your course,
click on the Settings tab. This is where you can edit your course title,
url, and categories. You can also set a specific start date if
you want to start selling your course now and launch in the future, or if you want your
students to work through the course at the same time. In this section you can also add integrations
for ConvertKit or Drip. Near the top of the settings section, look
for the following: “To set a product image, write a Storefront description and change
how your product appears on your Storefront, visit the Editor.” This is where you’ll want to add an image
and description for your course. Remember the result you’re creating for
your student? That will be the focus of your course description. In a few sentences, describe the problem your
student might be experiencing, then make it clear what result your student can expect
once they’ve finished your course. Now we’ll click on the “Pricing” tab. Enter your course price and if necessary,
change your currency. You can also add a payment plan and coupons
in this section. For our final step, we’ll click the “Draft”
dropdown on the right of the page and select “Published” And that’s it! Congratulations, it’s a course! If you haven’t made your first course yet,
I want to encourage you to give this a shot. The reality is every course is different. You could get it done in 60 minutes, or it
might take you a day. The point of this exercise isn’t to make
a course as quickly as possible, but to make your course, period. You can’t improve on what you haven’t
created, so get started today. I want to hear from you! What kind of course are you going to work
on and what result do you want to create for your students? Write your answers in the comments below. If you found this video helpful and want more
relevant content like this, click the subscribe button and hit the notification bell so you
can be the first to know when we post a new video. Thank you for watching and I’ll see you
next time.
