STP 76 | Short, Sweet, and Successful: The Ideal Online Course Length
===
[00:00:15] James Marland Podcaster: Hello, and welcome to the Scaling Therapy Practice. This is James Marland, your host. This is the show where we empower mission driven leaders to launch life changing online content. Quick quick announcement. We are going to be changing the title of the podcast. I think I've settled on something like mission in motion, launching life changing online courses.
[00:00:39] James Marland Podcaster: Something like that. I'm making sure that there isn't already a podcast titled that, but just letting you know that is where we are heading with the show. If you're a therapist or a coach or somebody who helps in the mental health service, definitely continue listening to the show because at some point you might want to stop trading your time for dollars and start investing in something like an online course that is work in the More dividends in the end, as you optimize it and get it ready for your a larger audience.
[00:01:12] James Marland Podcaster: today. We're going to be talking about. Optimizing your online course length for maximum impact. What's the question is how long should my online course be? Because for many of you, most of you, you probably are an expert in your subject matter. You've gone to school for your subject, or maybe you have had some life experiences, a job or some sort of exposure to your course topic.
[00:01:40] James Marland Podcaster: And it is something that you study about. You're in the world. You know, all the jargon, you know, the language and you could probably just talk about it for 30 minutes without an on an outline. Just if somebody asked you a simple question, so the experts in their field often have trouble breaking down exactly what they need to put in the course and how long should it be and they worry like, a director of a movie, you know, what should I cut from this to make?
[00:02:11] James Marland Podcaster: Sure. The story keeps moving along. In fact, often if you've ever seen director's cuts of movies and the deleted scenes, every once in a while, there's a deleted scene that you're like, wow, I wonder why they deleted that. But most of the time, most of the time when you see deleted scenes, you're actually glad that the producer, the directors, whoever delete scenes deleted that scene, because Those extra scenes don't move the story along.
[00:02:45] James Marland Podcaster: They don't move the character development. They're just extra dialogue that is either covered in a different scene or isn't really an important part of the story. And so sometimes favorite bits or favorite scenes of the director actually get cut to move the story along. And that, that kind of leads us into, you know, why do people watch movies?
[00:03:08] James Marland Podcaster: Well, they want to be entertained and they want to. Forget about some of their problems for an hour or two and Be fascinated by a story. Well, why do you take, why do people take online courses? Like what do they do? They just love education and they want to learn everything they have. No, most of the time, the people take online courses because of the promise of the course people in enroll.
[00:03:36] James Marland Podcaster: in courses and pay money for courses because the course is promising some them some benefit either they're going to an oasis they are going to a better place through the course or they are avoiding mistake or some sort of problem that the that they're having that the online course can help them solve and people are really looking for shortcuts they're looking for answers to their problems.
[00:04:04] James Marland Podcaster: And so that's the first part to start with when you're creating an online courses, what is the problem that they're looking for? What is the promise that you are helping them? I can help you with this part of your life, this part of your problem. What is it? You know, they're looking for the promise.
[00:04:26] James Marland Podcaster: So examples of promises could be career advancement. You have, they see a gap in their career and an education gap, and you can help them. I took a course on interviewing when I was in high school. Changing jobs. I didn't know how to interview. I didn't want to watch a ton of courses on interviewing. I didn't want to practice, but I also wanted to land a better job.
[00:04:50] James Marland Podcaster: So I took a course on interviewing. Maybe it's skill acquisition. When you're talking about online courses, lighting is lighting and microphones is a skill that you need to know a little bit about. To advance, to record a decent course, audio and visual. So I've watched some YouTube videos and taken some courses on audio and video.
[00:05:17] James Marland Podcaster: It's not like I was, it's walking around town thinking, oh, how am I going to light my course? How am I going to light my course? It wasn't anything like that. It was like, how do I look good? How do I sound better? How do I maximize my room? space, my lighting. I had that problem of bad lighting.
[00:05:39] James Marland Podcaster: My first course is I was in a basement with bad lighting, overhead lighting. I didn't have any, Key lights or backlight. I didn't even know what they were, but now that I recognized my videos didn't look very good. So I tried to solve that problem with some education. So your people take online courses, not because they love online courses.
[00:06:02] James Marland Podcaster: They take it because of the promise of online courses. And so your, your course, however long it is needs to solve a problem. It needs to solve a specific problem or pain point. For example if you need to hang a picture and you go to a hardware store, what are you looking for? Well, you might be looking for a nail, but if you come out with a cork board or something that can hang the picture, But it's not what you were looking for.
[00:06:32] James Marland Podcaster: You're going to be more confused. You come out with a nail, not because you love nails, but the nail has a job to do. It's solving a problem. I read books on habits atomic habits, and then the book getting things done. Not because I was excited about habits or not because I was excited about reading a book, but I was.
[00:06:56] James Marland Podcaster: I was looking for the promise. You know, how do I make achievement automatic? How do I get things done? What am I missing in my system and in my life that helps me improve on my ability to get things done on a regular basis? I wanted to accomplish things. So people are looking for that promise when they want your online course.
[00:07:22] James Marland Podcaster: They're also looking for shortcuts. They don't want a master's degree in whatever you have. They don't want a doctorate. They don't even want an associate's. In fact, if they could get away with not taking your course, they would. They want a shortcut. There's an appeal of finding the answer and using somebody else's path to do it.
[00:07:47] James Marland Podcaster: So the key factor for, to sum all that up, the key factor For determining how long your course could be is the desire for results. It's not really the course itself. So, as a course creator, you got to focus on the outcomes people enroll in the course for results, not necessarily the process and you need to be able to communicate the end goal to them from the very beginning and then keep communicating that to them as they're going through your course.
[00:08:18] James Marland Podcaster: and meet their expectations. So the course creator aligns their course content with the student expectations. If they're expecting you to solve their problem with habits or their problem of feeling like their life is out of control and your solution is habits, then you better deliver on the promise of being able to help them develop habits that will enable them to feel more in control of their life.
[00:08:46] James Marland Podcaster: And then the other thing is you avoid unnecessary content that detracts from the core promise. So there's two, two principles focus on the problem promise. And that's it cut out everything else that doesn't communicate the promise and deliver on the results that you're looking for. My rule of thumb, and I forget exactly who said, this is your course late length.
[00:09:12] James Marland Podcaster: The optimal course length should be just long enough to achieve the promise and no longer. The ideal course length is efficient and concise. It's balancing the depth of content with the time investment. You also need to avoid burnout. There's risks of making a course too long and people start losing attention when either the course is too long or you're not zipping through the content and helping them get to their benefit.
[00:09:49] James Marland Podcaster: Just like the movie producer who has to cut a scene because of pacing, you might have to cut a scene or cut a Some content to help people get to their end result quicker. Other ways to make people feel motivated and like they're moving along through your courses, checklists, worksheets, quizzes, that help them restate the information that you're giving them games, gamification, giving them points.
[00:10:17] James Marland Podcaster: There's many templates out there that people get points and rewards and stickers and Certificates for achieving certain things. Also, groups are good where people are doing the course together and they can post questions and answer and get feedback during the week and I also like drumbeat meetings or regular check ins, especially for the more higher priced courses, where you include coaching or some sort of cohort.
[00:10:47] James Marland Podcaster: And you just keep people on track with giving them the ability to ask additional questions. And there, if the subject comes up, you're able to share your extra knowledge to them in the groups and in the cohort. Then finally, another thing that helps me when I'm taking an online course is regular emails, an email reminding me what section I'm supposed to be on, an email reminding me.
[00:11:12] James Marland Podcaster: of when the cohort meetings are an email reminding me of best practices or tips. Some of those emails keep me engaged and allow me to finish courses. So remember when you're creating an online course, remember people want the promise of the course. When, if you can, if you have an hour course and you need every second of that hour to deliver the promise of that section then that's how long it should take.
[00:11:42] James Marland Podcaster: However, if you can break it down into four 15 minute chunks and leave them along, that might be a better way to organize the material. So you want to deliver on the promise. You want to help solve their problem. The perfect length is just long enough to get the result and no longer. And then you perfect your offering with feedback.
[00:12:07] James Marland Podcaster: How do you know if you're doing a good job with your course and how long it should be? Just to ask, like, ask them what they needed. Ask them what was too much. Ask them where they needed what was the most beneficial thing? And what was the item that they needed more instruction on. And then you just improve a little bit of iteration.
[00:12:27] James Marland Podcaster: Course creators are little scientists where we are making, we're running rapid experiments on our content to see what hits. And so run an experiment and then gather some feedback. I encourage you to take a look at your course and see if it is, if there's too much, look at the promise. And then ruthlessly evaluate your content towards the promise.
[00:12:55] James Marland Podcaster: Are you getting them to their destination as quick as possible, as safe as possible? For example, you don't you can go a hundred miles on the highway and get people there safe, but it's also, or get people there, but it's also not safe. And you can go 10 miles an hour, but that's also, you're not getting, To the destination quick enough.
[00:13:16] James Marland Podcaster: So how can you get people to the destination? Quick, ask them, follow their feedback.
[00:13:24] James Marland Podcaster: I want to thank you for listening to the show. If you like some of this content, please like, and review on Apple. It helps me get found and. Other people can find the show and also benefit from the content produced here.
[00:13:38] James Marland Podcaster: Remember the scaling therapy practice is the content is the opinion of the host. And if you need professional advice in a specific area, please reach out to a professional that deals with those areas.
[00:13:56] James Marland Podcaster: This is James Marlin from the scaling therapy practice, hoping you put your mission in motion.
