AMY PORTERFIELD: Well hey there, Amy Porterfield here. Welcome to another episode of the Online Marketing Made Easy Podcast. I’m your host and this episode is all about the play-by-play to rework your online course.
Before I get into today’s mini training I’ve got to tell you that if you have a really good ear for audio then you likely already know that this does not sound like my typical podcast. For the record, I do not have a very good ear for audio so I’d have no idea.
But if you guessed it you get a gold star. I’m actually in my brand new video studio. However, I haven’t set it up to record the podcast. If you follow me on Instagram, which I hope you do, I’m at Amy Porterfield on Instagram, I’ve been doing some InstaStories about my brand new video studio.
We’ve been working on the backdrop, all the lights, cameras, and monitors. It’s a big to do. David Foster, who built my studio, works with his partner, Luria. They are at LiveStreamingPros.com. I told David I needed to do my podcast in my video studio so that all the technology is in one room and I could make the other room my office without all of the recording equipment everywhere.
That’s exactly what he has set up here but we’re not 100% done. Because of that I am just recording on a Yeti mic into my MAC computer which is then going into Screenflow. For all you techies who ask me what equipment I’m using, as of today that’s what I’m using because this is a little makeshift until we get the video studio to support my podcast recording as well. We’re very, very close.
I just wanted to share that with you if you picked up on a little bit of an audio difference. Most of you probably didn’t pick up on that. Like I said, I never would have.
Let’s move on to the play-by-play to rework your online course. Today I’m talking about a process that is humbling each and every time I do it. I’m looking at one of my courses and saying I could do better. It’s time for a rework.
To be clear here, when I say that I can do better, it’s not about being a perfectionist. It’s more about looking at the feedback and data and knowing my students need something more from me or need something different or need something new that I didn’t offer the first time around but know I need to include it now.
Why so humbling? I think for me it’s the idea this baby I produced isn’t perfect. If you already have a course then I’m sure you can relate. I put a lot of work into my online courses, a lot of blood, sweat, and tears and I leave it all on the battlefield when that course is completed.
It’s not like I go into this half hearted. I’m all in. When I go back and realize something needs to be reworked or that something’s a little off that’s the part that’s humbling for me.
The thing is, as entrepreneurs, you have those moments. I know I have them more often than I like to admit. They are those moments when you know you need to do something differently. Your first try wasn’t your very best try and maybe you just missed the mark a little bit. That does definitely happen.
When I started to take another look at one of my very favorite programs I currently offer, List Builder’s Lab, I had to acknowledge the program is great. People are getting results but it can be better.
Today I’m breaking down the steps I took to rework that program, how I knew it was time to rework, how I approached the rework, and some other insights and tips and strategies along the way that I want you to keep in mind when you update your online training program.
Before we get there, there are two things you should know about this topic of reworking an online course. If you don’t yet have an online course but plan to have one in the future, for sure listen to this episode. The insights will add clarity while you’re creating your first edition of your course. This episode is a must listen-to episode for sure.
You can also use this episode to rework your services and offers and the different packages you have on your website if you do have a coaching/consulting service-based business. I think there’s something for everyone here even if you aren’t reworking an existing online course.
If you are creating a course for the first time I highly recommend you either do a beta test before you fully create and fully launch your course; or, I suggest you test the waters with what I call a pre-sell campaign before you create your entire course.
If it’s your first time out you’re likely wondering if people will actually pay for your program. A beta test or some kind of pre-sell campaign will answer that question. I teach both of these strategies in my program, Courses That Convert. If you’re thinking maybe you need that program and want to check out a webinar that leads to the promotion of Courses That Convert, you can go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/ courses and it will take you there to sign up for a free master c lass.
Again, I think a beta test or pre-sell campaign is really valuable if it’s your first time out. But even after you beta test or after you test the waters with a pre-sell campaign you will still find areas that you can improve on and make better after the first edition of your course I released.
If you care about your students, which I know you do, you will always be looking for ways to make your courses better and help your students enjoy the process even more and, of course, to get bigger results. With that said, here’s how you rework your online program.
Let’s start at the beginning, how you know it’s time to rework an online course or even rework a service you offer or a coaching package or whatever it might be. How do you know it’s time to rework?
In my case I have a private Facebook group where all my students get to hold each other accountable and ask questions. It’s a community. Although I am not active in the group, because this is one of my smaller programs (I’m active in my signature programs of Webinars That Convert and Courses That Convert), I have a community manager, Lindsay, and I rely on Lindsay to keep me updated.
Are people getting to the finish line? Where are they having challenges? What’s being discussed? Of course I would look over Lindsay’s shoulder in the group and kind of see what’s going on and jump in periodically. But I just haven’t been a central force in that group.
I relied on Lindsay’s feedback, I paid attention myself, and I just realized people aren’t talking about their big wins and their big successes. They’re talking about where they’re struggling more than anything in the group, even more than my Courses program or my Webinars program.
Right there I thought there was a red flag. Something’s going on. You’ve got to pay attention. If you have a community where your students are talking to each other and have a platform where they get to ask you questions, pay attention to their struggles.
In any group that you have people will talk about their challenges. That’s normal. But they are also going to talk about their small wins and big wins. If those are few and far between then that might be a red flag.
Another question you want to consider is whether you need to rework your course or just update it. Let me give you a rework versus an update scenario so you know what I’m talking about.
If you realize your course just wasn’t having the impact your wanted then it’s time to rework it. If people aren’t getting the results you had expected for them and they’re not getting through the course as quickly as you think they should be getting trough it, like my situation, then it’s time to rework.
If your students have been confused or frustrated at very specific points throughout your course and it’s very clear something is stopping them then it might be time to rework that area. A rework does not necessarily mean you have to redo the entire program.
A rework is that you’re looking at the flow and content. You’re looking module by module, lesson by lesson and making sure those lessons are going to get people to the finish line with the results you’re promising.
Sometimes you’re just reworking one module or half of a module. You get to decide. But if there’s some frustration or confusion that’s a rework scenario.
Based on your experiences and your insights since you created the first edition of your course maybe you’ve discovered a more proven, better way to teach the content. Maybe you have a huge ah-ha moment and you thought, “Wait a second, I just realized through my own education and experiences and diving into the details with my students I can teach this in a way that will get them to the finish line faster.”
You’re not just guessing this, you’ve tried it out and proven it with yourself or other people so it’s a proven strategy and now you’re going to incorporate it into your program. That’s a rework as well.
Let’s shift gears to an update. What does and update look like? Let’s say you’re in an industry like mine, social media. Social media is not the only thing I teach but it’s part of every single course I teach in, or even worse, Facebook ads. These things change all the time.
Sometimes you just need to update portions of your program to keep them in the now. That might just be an update. I have to do this constantly when I teach Facebook ads. Every three to six months I’m updating some portion of a Facebook ads module. Updates are different than reworks.
Here’s another update. If you’re gearing up for a new promotion you may want to change out your bonuses from the last time you promoted. You may want to breathe new life into the program with new updated examples or new case studies that you didn’t have at the time you launched the first time. That’s more of an update.
If you want to charge a higher price for your program and you’ve decided you’re going to add an extra module or incorporate a new feature or new doodad (whatever that might mean for you) you might have to rework some of the program.
Be careful. Charging a higher price does not mean you add everything and the kitchen sink to the program to get the price up. There are some things you need to consider. If you’re going to charge a higher price for your program and you want to update the program so that it actually warrants a higher price you definitely have to listen to the podcast episode I did about how to price your online course. It’s Episode #107 at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/107 and I teach you how to price your online course. If you’re looking to raise the price then listen to that episode.
You now know the scenario of reworking versus updating the program. Once you’ve determined that, indeed, it is time for a rework here’s the play by play for your next course update. There are five steps and these are the exact five steps I took to rework my entire List-Builder’s Lab program. This is what I’ve done in my business and what I’m hoping you’ll do for your next rework to make it as seamless and stress free as possible.
Step 1 – Create Your Rework Master Doc
I put my master document on a Google Doc so I can share it with people involved in the process with me like my copywriter, my project manager, my community manager, Lindsay, who knows my content well. If I wanted to get her insight I wanted to be able to easily share this document and have them give me comments and notes so I put it in a Google Doc.
Evernote is another great tool you can use but make sure you put it in something that you can share with others as needed. What’s most important is for me to help you decide what goes into the rework master doc. That’s what this episode is all about.
The first thing you will do to create your rework master doc is to create a survey. You must survey your existing students. Even if you don’t have a lot of students I’m hoping you hear from a majority of them.
The freebie for this episode is the exact survey questions I asked my List-Builder’s Lab students. I got the most amazing feedback that I’ve ever received in any of the surveys I’ve ever sent.
A huge shout out to my copywriter, Ry Schwartz, who I actually have included in the copywriting section of List-Builder’s Lab because I teach some copywriting tips and strategies. I brought in my secret weapon, Ry Schwartz, because he’s a master. He also helped me create the survey so I just wanted to give him a friendly shout out.
We got the survey and, again, we got such great feedback from it that I thought it would be a valuable freebie for you. I like to give you my swipe file. I like to give you what I used in my own business.
To get your hands on it, the freebie for the episode, all you need to do is go to http:// www.amyporterfieldc.om/166download or, if you’re a texter and you like to get your stuff via text, just text the phrase 166download to 33444 and I’m going to send you the exact questions I asked on the survey.
I’m also going to give you little commentary as to why I asked each question and some surprising insights I received from asking the questions. I don’t want you to just totally steal the exact questions I asked and ask them to your students because they might not be the right questions. They might not get you the information you need.
If you hear a little commentary from me as to why I asked each question maybe you will phrase it a little bit differently because your program’s different and your students are different. I think you’re going to find the swipe file as my freebie today to be really valuable. It’s at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/166download.
The first thing I did was survey my students. It wasn’t enough just to send them an email and say, “Hey, fill out this survey.” Because List-Builder’s Lab is evergreen I only sent it to people that had been in the program for 60 days or more.
In addition to that I sent them an email asking them to fill out the survey twice. In the private Facebook group I mentioned it multiple times. I gave it about a week. For a full week I promoted the survey and explained that I was looking to rework the program.
I told them I wanted to make it exactly what they needed to get to the finish line, “Please take just five minutes to fill out the survey.” I sent it out to everybody and for a full week I promoted it saying, “Hey, don’t forget to fill it out.”
I got 100s of responses, which is great because that’s really valuable. I realize if you don’t have a lot of people in your initial program that getting a survey back from people when you only have 20 people in your program might mean that you get five or six back. I get that.
The survey might not be the only way to go. If you have to get resourceful you can get on the phone with some of your students. You may do a live Q&A with them and any question they ask is good to go. Tell them they can ask you anything.
Do the live Q&A and then take the opportunity to get some feedback from them in the moment. There are other ways to get feedback but these are paying students. You’re reworking an existing program so you should be able to get some feedback, for sure.
You send out the survey, you get your feedback. Now, in Step #1 the next thing you do is summarize the survey results. It’s not enough for you to just look at the survey results and make assumptions. I want you to sleep, breathe, and eat the survey over a few days.
I want you to embody it because your brain works in funny ways. The first time you might look at some of the results and you will instantly make a judgment or some kind of assessment. But if you sit with it for a little while you might start thinking of things in a different way.
I want you to open your perspective around this and see if there’s a different reason or different challenge you’re not seeing. You can read between the lines and learn something new.
What I did was actually pretty cool. My project manager, Chloe, thought of this. It wasn’t really anything I did but I was able to use it. Chloe asked Kate, who is in charge of customer service, and she asked Lindsay, my community manager, to look at the survey results and put a one-page review together of what they learned from the survey results. Chloe did the same.
When I was ready to sit down and analyze the survey I also had three different perspectives. Each of them took away something different from the surveys. It was really, really valuable. So, if you could have your assistant, your virtual assistant, or someone on your team look at the survey results and put a one-pager together in terms of what they learned and thought was happening or what stood out to them, that would be really valuable.
That’s exactly what I did and then I went in and poured over the results. We used Survey Monkey and used a Survey Monkey level that allows us to have word clouds, which I really like. I only think this is valuable if you are going to get a couple hundred surveys but they do word clouds for each question.
You can look and see which words were used the most to answer an open-ended question. It’s really valuable for me to see the words that stick out the most like “confidence,” accountability,” struggle,” and “challenge.” Those were words that kept coming out.
People wanted more accountability and didn’t feel confident in their ability to create a lead magnet. Stuff like that was coming up. The word clouds really made that clear.
You don’t have to use Survey Monkey. However, I think it is a great tool because the analytics, once you get the results, are stellar. I highly recommend you use a tool that will tell you some percentages in terms of how people answer the questions. I think that’s valuable, especially if you’re going to get 100 or more responses. You want somebody to tally the results for you, for sure.
Moving on, here’s what I did that I had never done before. I booked the entire day to pour over the results and dig in a little deeper. Once I looked at the survey results for a good day, really, by mid day, I started to see things coming up in the survey that I wasn’t sure what they meant.
Things were coming up in the survey and I wondered if they were calling “this” “that”. Let me give you and example because that’s confusing. A lot of people were saying, “I need help with my new subscriber email sequence.” Other people were saying, “I need to know how to create a funnel.” Many of them were talking about the exact same thing.
They were calling a new member email sequence the same as a funnel but then I wasn’t sure what they meant by “funnel” because some people were really vague in their responses.
I went into the private Facebook group and told them I had a question for them. I said, “Many of you told me in the survey they wanted ‘this’ but does it mean you want ‘this’ or something else I’m not thinking about?”
I clarified some of their responses, just a few, I think I did this on three different areas of the survey that I needed to dig deeper on. I really needed to understand what was stopping them in their tracks, where they were stuck, and I needed to understand the language they were using to explain where they were stuck.
I wasn’t even sure what they were talking about with the whole idea of funnels that everybody was bringing up because it looked so confusing in the open-ended responses. I just had to get clear. I did and it was priceless.
People were not only answering the questions in the private Facebook group but it was cool because they were thanking me for digging deeper. They knew what I was doing because I was very honest that I’m reworking the program. They loved that their first-hand feedback was going to actually be put into the program.
I’ve taken them on this journey with me and I think that has created an even better bond between us. I just wanted to throw that out not to be shy about getting clarification on questions you might have after you look at the survey results.
One thing that helped me a lot, I slept on it. I had so many thoughts and ideas and insights. I came to many conclusions after pouring over this data and then I thought I needed to sleep on some of it. To be honest, I had some angst.
I talked about this in some of my other private Facebook groups. I was feeling uncomfortable because I have this flaw in my personality. I really do think this is a flaw that I’m very aware of so I work on it. If I see a challenge I instantly go to “How do I fix it? What steps do I need to take? What will it take to make this better?”
I don’t allow myself to say, “This is a new opportunity. I’m not sure how I’m going to make it work. Let’s just develop the idea first.” I cut the idea right in half. I don’t even get to the total creation of it and I am already asking how I’m going to make it work.
A lot of the time, because I’m a worrier by nature, I will start to think that it won’t work and I can’t do that, “Oh no, what am I going to do? This isn’t going to work.” This is the scariness of living in my mind.
I’m aware of this so I just stop myself in my tracks and say, “Nope. I’m not going to try to solve it right now. I am going to sleep on it. In the morning I talk to some of my friend about it.”
That’s precisely what I did. Once I spent the entire day pouring over the results I did make some assumptions and came to some conclusions. Then I called two or three of my friends. Rick Mulready was one of them and I asked two other friends if I could just run it by them.
I said, “I think this is where my students are struggling. I’m thinking of teaching the program in this way to fix the problem. Would you do the same?” These were friends that knew my audience well, had similar audiences, and knew list building. They were good people to talk to.
That’s exactly how I approached it. Once I got really clear on the biggest challenges and what areas I needed to fix and what my students wanted I started to develop the core distinctions, major challenges, and new insights.
I documented all of them in the rework master doc. That’s where we are getting back to, the master doc. As I’m talking about this I’m thinking you are all going to find value if I just list all of the categories in my master doc. You don’t have to take notes right now.
In that freebie I promised you with the survey that I gave these students I’m going to also give you the categories of my master doc in case you want to create a similar doc to rework anything in your business. Again, it is at http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/ 166download. After the survey questions I asked I will put all of the categories of the master doc.
Let me run through them here with you. You don’t need to take notes but I want you to hear them from me. These are some things I answered in the master doc.
How did my students feel before joining the program? Why did they join the program?
Why have they not completed the course? Where have my students gotten stuck?
What was some of the negative feedback I had about the course? (That part’s really humbling)
What do my students want more of. Additional trainings I plan to add.
Addition support I plan to add.
As I’m reading the survey responses and getting in the Facebook and reading more of their questions and comments I realized I am never in the Facebook group, I never plan to be in the group a lot, but they want me in the group. They are struggling and they want to hear from the person teaching them.
I can’t be in the group every single week live on video like I do with my other program but I can at least be in the group two times a month. Right now I have decided when I relaunch List-Builder’s Lab I will be in the private Facebook group every other week for an hour or less, if that’s what it takes. As long as there are questions I’ll be there.
I will jump into the private Facebook group and do my Facebook Live Q&A. I think that’s really a great thing to do for your students. I’ve decided I’m going to add that to the mix because I heard too many times that they want to see me in the group.
Other people ask for things that just were a no go. People are going to ask for stuff but that doesn’t mean you have to give it to them. You have to make sure it fits into your business model, your lifestyle, your personality.
Some people ask for things and I’m thinking, “Nope! I ain’t going to do that. That’s too much.” At the time the program was $297 but it’s going to be $397 when I relaunch it. I’ll talk about the price increase and why I decided that in case that helps you decide for your own course. We’ll get to that in a moment.
I decided this is a cheaper course that I offer so I can’t do everything and give everything for it. I had to be a little bit choosy in that respect. You don’t have to give away the farm. You don’t have to answer every single request they have in the survey. But, if you can add more support in a different way then, by all means, add it in there during the rework.
Again, one of my categories was what trainings I wanted to add based on the feedback and what additional support I wanted to add.
There was another category called, “My Ah-ha insights and discoveries.” I just had some ah-ha moments and you will too once you start to dive into the whole process. One of my big ah-ha discoveries I wanted to share was that I was attracting a lot of people to my program that did not know who their target market was.
I knew that to some extent but I didn’t know how many people I was attracting that had no clue who their target audience or target market was. I did a small training inside of List-Builder’s Lab right at the beginning to address this but they were still stuck.
I realized, this is just how I look at my trainings, I wasn’t going to add more training inside List-Builder’s Lab about finding your target audience. That’s not what this training is all about. That’s not where I want to start the conversation.
Because I did one smaller training about it I realized that’s not cutting it. That was one of the areas. They weren’t moving toward the finish line because they were still stuck on who their avatar was. I decided I would do a stand-alone training, How to Find Your Ideal Customer, so they could actually just focus on that.
It’s a process. It takes some time. You’ve got to do some digging. You’ve got to experiment with things. I don’t want my students who still don’t know who their avatar is to then feel pressured to move right into list building. As you know, list building means nothing if you don’t know who you are actually talking to.
I had a big ah-ha moment that I would create a mini training on the ideal customer avatar. I would take it out of my List-Builder’s Lab program and build it up to make it better and let it be someone’s main focus versus trying to work on avatars while they’re trying to list build.
That means when I relaunch List-Builder’s Lab I need to make sure I tell my audience the program is for them if they already know who their audience is. If you don’t know who your audience is just yet or are struggling I have a training for that. This allows me to expand my product suite.
For my students that are already in List-Builder’s Lab and are struggling with this, I’ll address that and take care of them. I’m just saying that looking forward, when I start to market it in a different way, that’s how I’m going to attack it.
I will attack it in a different, more personal way for my core students that are struggling in the program right now. I will probably do something special for them in the program to keep moving them forward but then I’m going to take that out of the program since it’s one little training. I’m going to make it a bigger training outside of it. Does it make sense?
I share this with you just so you can see how I decide to expand my product suite behind the scenes. I see a really big challenge. I’m going to address it with the mini course. That was my big ah-ha discovery as I went through all of the surveys and my private Facebook group.
A few more categories inside your master doc led me to:
Who is perfect for this program?
Who is not the right fit for the program? What is the promise of this program?
Those are things you will answer initially when you create the program but, based on your survey results and the feedback from your students, you will likely want to rework some of that. That’s why I added them as master categories in my rework master doc.
I also had a section for the core offer so I’m changing the offer just a bit. I’m cleaning it up and making it tighter. I actually took out some of the bonuses that I felt were probably overwhelming my students. I made the program tighter.
I changed the offer just a bit and then I reworked all of the modules and all the lessons. That’s the last thing you do in Step #1. Step #1 is pretty meaty. At the end I’ll talk to you a little bit about how long each step took me to get through. You’ll be surprised. It’s faster than you think.
Basically, those are the categories. Again, I ended with looking at my existing modules and then the lessons in each module to see how I would rework them based on the feedback I got. That’s basically what I would do there.
The one extra thing I added in the master doc is a section called “In Their Own Words.” When somebody said something that perfectly highlighted why I’m changing the program or where I needed to change the program I love to see things in my students’ own words versus me making assumptions or conclusions.
I have one-page of survey responses in their own words or things I found in the private Facebook group where they explained what was stopping them or where they were getting stuck in general. I love that section because I usually go back and use it to reshape my marketing message when I get there.
That’s the master doc for reworking. I’ll give you all of those categories in your freebie. Step #1 was creating the master doc based on your survey responses or phone calls you make or the Skype calls you get on with your students, however you collect the data.
You can’t compare yourself to me. I might have had hundreds of responses and you might have 20. Do the best you can with the information you have. Don’t let that comparison say that you can’t d o a rework because you don’t have enough information. Find a way to get the information.
Be resourceful. I promise you the process is so eye opening and can help you help your students more. Ultimately it will also make you more money. We’ll talk about that at the end.
Step #2: Do Your Rework Research
Once you’re clear on how your new modules and lessons are going to be outlined (because you’ve probably reworked the content based on the feedback) I want you to spend a little time making sure your content plan is fully fleshed out and that you’re well informed and feel confident in your content.
This is a time where you want to make sure you don’t get into copycat mode but instead you are truly doing your research.
This is what it looks like for me. First I outline my new modules and new lessons. I take what was there and rework it. Again, we’re never starting from scratch. That’s why this is going to be faster than you think.
I’m reworking my modules and lessons. I have them all outlined and then I dive into some free content. I’m not buying other people’s programs but I do dive into some free content from people I really trust that might be talking about similar topics. In this case it would be list building.
I want to see what some of my peers are teaching and how they’re teaching and what they’re talking about. I might have missed an area or have forgotten that I do “that” or “this”. It will spark some more inspiration. Just be careful that you’re not ripping people off and stealing their content.
I’m sensitive about that because I’ve seen people rip my content off too much so I would never do that. But you just have to be careful with it. My rule is that I try not to ever teach something I haven’t actually executed in my own business. This doesn’t work for everybody because I teach what I know and that doesn’t work for everybody in your business.
I have to have some of my own proven results behind anything before I teach it. Then I know I’m not ripping anyone off. Do you get it? I do research and I do read blogs and listen to podcasts and dive into videos. I just kind of see what everyone’s talking about and what they’re teaching in this area just to make sure I feel confident that I covered all of my bases.
Be careful that at the end of your research you haven’t added ten more modules. You don’t want to overload your students with too much information. This is a time to refine but you’re not coming back with tons more content you plan to teach. Deal?
Step #3: Create Your Slide Decks
Now that we’ve created our master doc and done our research you are going to create your slide decks. If you create scripts to teach via video or however you’re delivering the content, you are creating or reworking the content. Again, you’re not starting from scratch.
I can move through this part pretty quickly because my slide decks are already created. For some of them I might be starting from scratch because I want to teach it differently. But the framework is there. I’m going into those slide decks and changing them around and updating the content and using different examples.
I might even actually have a whole new flow. For List-Builder’s Lab I do. I’m totally changing the f low of how I teach it so it’s going to take me a little while to get all of the slide decks updated. But that’s is Step #3.
I do all of my slide decks before I record anything. I don’t change a slide deck and then record, change a slide deck and then record for each lesson because there’s always the moment where I realize I forgot to mention XZY in the video before. That’s not going to happen if I work on all of the slide decks before.
Step #4: Record Training Videos
Just as I said, in Step #3 you are reworking all of your slide decks, if you teach like I do. I have slide decks and then I record videos of just my voice. You may be creating your scripts in Step #3 and in Step #4 you are stepping in front of the camera and recording new training videos.
Step #5: Creating Your Enhancements
This is the final step. I call PDF cheat sheets, checklists, guides, and any kind of extra material that goes along with your trainings enhancements. That’s what you would do if you need to rework any of your enhancements. That is Step #5.
A lot of times the cheat sheets and checklists that you created for your initial program probably still stand in the rework. I don’t have to rework a lot of my PDFs and that’s great. But, in Step #5 you are at least looking at every PDF you’re offering and every support document to make sure it is still in the right place and offered at the right time and is the right content for your reworked training.
Those are the five steps. Again, I’ll repeat them just so you have them fresh in your mind.
Step #1: Create Your Rework Master Doc – That’s where you survey your audience and put all of the info together that you need to end the rework document with your reworked modules and lessons). This is all leading up to the actual content you’re teaching. I’m going to give you the survey questions to ask and the categories in my rework master doc, you will literally get the exact
categories I fleshed out in my document in my freebie at http:// amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/166download.
Step #2: Do Your Rework Research
Step #3: Create Your Slide Decks or Scripts for Training Videos Step #4: Record Training Videos
Step #5: Create Enhancements – Or just review all of the support documents you put together to make sure they are still accurate and still apply to your new trainings.
I have a few quick tips before we wrap up.
Tip #1: You Must Set Deadlines For Yourself Throughout the Entire Rework
I thought it would be valuable for me to tell you how long it took me to get through each step. Step #1, the master doc and all of that. I let the survey go a full week. We sent out multiple emails. We encouraged people to fill out the survey in the actual Facebook group. Give yourself a full week to collect the data.
Once you get the data back give yourself one full week to analyze all of the data. You might not need a full week. I used a full week to look at all the survey data, sleep on it, I met with Rick Mulready (like I told you), I called some friends, and just allowed myself a full week of a little bit of white space to kind of think about how I wanted to rework.
My rework is pretty significant. Yours might not be as intense as the one I’m planning so it might not take you a full week. But it took me a full week to analyze the data, talk to some friends, rework the outline, and just get it ready to go.
Step #2 is to do your research. I gave myself a full week to do that. I watched some videos, read blogs, listened to podcasts, and every day I might have done an hour or two of research. I gave myself a week to do that. I didn’t want to feel pressured so there was a lot of white space involved.
Step # is where you create your slide decks. That took me one full week. It might have taken me a week and a half. I reworked a lot of the content and a lot of the flow. I also decided to create videos that were ten minutes each or less versus if you have been in any of my programs you know my videos can get a little bit long.
Some of you are like, “Hallelujah, thank you Amy! Finally!” I did it with this program and it was tough. It was tough for me but most of my videos are ten minutes each. I had to do more videos but make them shorter and get to the point faster. That’s why the slide deck took me a week and a half.
Step #4 is to record them. I’m pretty quick to record once my slide decks are all done. I gave myself a week to record. I did all of the recordings over. When you’re reworking that doesn’t necessarily mean you have to redo everything, as I mentioned in the beginning.
In my case I did rerecord all of the videos because I significantly changed the flow of the content. The roadmap that I’m taking my students on now is very different than the initial course. I just kind of had an epiphany of needing to teach differently and I am teaching it exactly how I approach it in my business and that’s what I did here. I took a good week to record all of the videos.
Step #5, the enhancements, took me just a few days. I didn’t rework all of the cheat sheets and checklists. I just moved them around a bit to talk about them at different times in the video trainings. That just took me a few days. If I had some new ones to get created I used my team to help me get that done.
I wanted to give you some timeline just so you understand that I did set deadlines. I did not let myself analyze the data for more than a week. A week, for me, is Monday through Friday. I didn’t let myself work on the slide decks more than about a week and a half. I gave myself some pretty clear deadlines. I communicated them to the team so I couldn’t cheat and I got it done.
Tip #2: Communicate With Your Students About the Changes
This is a big one, communicate all along the way and definitely before you relaunch anything. I mentioned to you before that I did the survey to let them know I wanted to know where they were struggling and where they were getting stuck. I told them I would like to work the program if need be and to please let me know.
As I got into the data I knew a rework had to happen so I communicated that inside the private Facebook group, “I’m updating the program. Here are some things I know I’m going to be adding from the get go.”
I already knew instantly what I wanted to add. I then said, “Let me understand your challenges more. Give me some more feedback.”
What’s going to happen is that in mid July the reworked program will be rolled out. Before I promote it in my evergreen webinars or tell my email list about it or anything like that I will send an email to my existing students letting them know what I’ve done to rework the program.
If it was as simple as, “Hey, I’ve reworked Modules 3 and 4 and here’s what I did,” then that’s what I would put in the email. For me, it’s a bigger conversation of why I wanted to rework the program, “You all shared this and this and that with me so you will see the rework come out in this way or that way because of your feedback.”
I’ll probably even make them a video but it’s important you communicate with your existing students before you market a reworked program. It’s only fair to them.
That leads me to a question you might be asking. Should my existing students get all of the updates? Here’s how you decide. It depends on your offer guarantee. If you promised life-time access then yes, anytime you update the program in any way they should definitely get the updates.
Let’s say they have only had access for a full year. If that full year is up and you come out with a reworked program I would suggest you call it 2.0 or differentiate in some way or another that it is a different program from the initial program.
If you want to create customers for life you can offer them a discount. I did this with The Profit Lab. When I had The Profit Lab I went through a really intense rework one time over a period of three years with that program.
My students only got one year of access into that program. When I reworked it I actually offered $200 or $100 off to my older students that had expired out of the program but a lot of the content was similar. I was just teaching it differently.
I felt a discount was warranted and that’s something you might want to consider. I think you’ll know in your gut how you should approach it. Do the right thing. Do what you think is going to be best for your students. In my case, if you are a List-Builder’s Lab student, you will definitely get the rework.
One more thing I forgot to mention. When you do a rework you are, of course, making your content better and getting your students bigger results, getting them to the finish line faster, and your messaging will get better.
Who the product is for will get more clear in your mind. That clarity will make its way into your sales pages, into your email marketing, and into your social media as you promote. A lot of times you will see a boost in sales the second time around after a rework because you have more clarity in your marketing message. That’s always a big plus.
In addition to that you might want to rework your price. That’s why I mentioned Episode #107 where you can learn about pricing your online course. In our case, for List-Builder’s Lab, it was $297. In late July when we relaunch the reworked program it will be $397.
The reason for the change is because we have actually added some more advanced strategies and we’ve changed the program enough that it’s actually for an audience that is very clear on who they are selling to.
They might not have a lot of things in place to sell to that audience yet. They are getting closer and closer to that. But they are clear about who they’re selling to. They already have a website with a blog. They’re creating content, probably not consistently, but they’ve got their foundation set but they are really struggling with list building.
In many cases, the ideal client probably skipped the list building part and are thinking they should have focused more on that. They need to back up a little bit.
That’s going to likely be a lot of the students in this course. But some of them are just to that point that they know who their audience is, they’ve been creating content, they want to get more consistent with their content creation, and they want to start list-building strategies within their content creation and within their social media in order to grow their list more rapidly because they want to start to promote more online.
They are coming to the table with an understanding of who their audience is. Because of that it’s a little bit more of a sophisticated audience than a total beginner. You have to look at who your audience is when you’re thinking about price point. If you want to add more advanced strategies that can warrant a little bit of a higher price.
I also have included more expert interviews in some of the advanced strategies so I’m adding some more experts to the mix. I’m enhancing the program in that way. There are some other reasons we have increased the price due to the content we’re creating, getting people to the finish line faster, and streamlining the entire course.
I won’t get into all of that because I talk about those reasons in Episode #107. I just wanted to touch on this because I said when you rework a program you can often see a boost in sales, clarity in your sales message, and possibly an increase in price if it warrants it, is always a nice perk to a reworked program.
Let’s go ahead and wrap it up. The final thing I want to share with you is that through a rework you’ve got to get a bit uncomfortable. At least I know I definitely did through my recent rework. I felt uncomfortable because I had to read some of the negative feedback about the program.
For the record, every single program you create will always have some negative feedback. You can’t make everybody happy. But you will see, if you get the freebie with the survey questions I asked, I asked for the negative feedback. I wanted to know what they wished I would do differently or what was missing.
I set myself up for the negative feedback. I had to get thick skinned and read through some of that. At times it made me feel really uncomfortable. I’m a sensitive kind of girl so it just made me feel like I had messed up. Then I had to remember I created a really good course.
My students have definitely gotten results. I just want more of my students to get to the finish line so they can get results as well. I had to give myself credit. I did a really good online course and I care enough to show up to make it better. That’s what I want you to remember when you’re reading through the results of your survey.
Reach out. Get peer advice and feedback and insight. Talk to a few people that you feel would know your audience well, know you well, and know the content well. Whether that be someone on your team or ideally someone outside of your company you’ve built a relationship, ask them some questions.
Run your outline by them and just see what they have to say. For the record, this is a little bit of a side note. You guys know Rick Mulready because he’s been on the podcast a bunch as my sidekick with the episodes around Facebook ads. It’s not that I sat down with Rick and handed him over ten pages of my master doc. I don’t even think my master doc was ten pages.
I didn’t hand him all of the pages of my master doc and ask him to read the review to let me know if I am on the right track. That’s just not fair to do to a good friend that’s helping you out. Instead, we had lunch and I asked if I could get 20 minutes where I run him through some of the insights I think I had gotten from the survey.
I asked him to let me know if I was on the right track. We did that. I think it took us into a conversation beyond 20 minutes. I really spent time running him through the new outline so that he understood the new framework and then I had his feedback from that. You can’t expect somebody else to do all the work for you but use them as a sounding board.
Finally, just focus on the flow of your content. Is the roadmap you put together the right roadmap to get them to the finish line as fast as humanly possible? I think that’s what I took out of the survey results the most.
The roadmap I had created needed to be tweaked in order to get people to the finish line feeling confident and felling like the was doable and not feeling overwhelmed. Essentially, the things I taught in List-Builder’s Lab the first time out and the things I teach in the rework have tons of overlap.
How I teach it and how I break it down and the new examples and insights and simplifying the entire thing with shorter videos is how I’m going to get them to the finish line a whole lot faster. That’s just kind of a little insight into my world so you can see how it might relate to yours as well.
Finally, once you look over all the data, you’ve created your new outline, you know where you’re going to go with this, I want you to sleep on it and go with your gut. It’s never going to be perfect. We’re not going for perfection. But care enough to make it fantastic for your students and that’s why you’re showing up for the rework. That is what you want to focus on.
Hopefully you’ve found all of this information valuable. I love sharing the insides of my business since I’m so lucky to teach what I do. I love to be able to take you behind the scenes and share some of my own angst and uncomfortable situations that I’ve pushed through and gotten through to the other end. That’s exactly what this episode was all about.
Hopefully you’re going to get the freebie so that when you rework your program you know what questions to ask in your survey and how to put your rework master doc together. Go to http://amyporterdev.wpenginepowered.com/166download to get your hands on it right away.
I can’t wait to see you next week. Make it a great week and I’ll see you soon. Bye for now.
