Have you ever considered adding a digital course to your coaching practice? My guest Nancy Giere has been creating online courses for 30 years. Tune in to our discussion and you may find the inspiration to begin looking at adding this profitable approach to your offerings.

In today's world, digital courses have become increasingly popular, and many coaches are beginning to consider adding them to their practice. I’m joined by Nancy Giere, an experienced online course creator, and we discuss the benefits of digital courses for coaches. She highlighted how courses can help coaches scale their businesses and offer their services to more people without having to work more hours. Additionally, a course can serve as a lower-priced entry point for potential clients who may not be able to afford one-on-one coaching yet but are interested in learning more about the coach's approach and principles.

Online courses or digital courses can help coaches streamline their work and save time by providing clients with basic information and exercises to complete before their sessions. This can make the sessions more focused and efficient while still achieving great results. In the long run, coaches can establish their brand and reputation as experts in their field while providing an additional revenue stream for their business.

Creating a course can be a versatile tool for coaches, allowing them to leverage their time, reach a wider audience, and offer value to clients at a lower price point. Coaches can share their expertise, knowledge, and insights with a wider audience, providing actionable steps and tools that clients can use to achieve their goals. The course can also be used as a lead magnet to attract new clients or as an upsell to offer existing clients additional value and support.

These digital courses can be a powerful tool for coaches looking to build their brand, increase their impact, and grow their business. By creating a course, coaches can share their expertise with a broader audience, streamline their work, and offer value to clients at a lower price point. It is an excellent opportunity for coaches to establish themselves as experts in their field while attracting new clients and increasing their revenue stream.

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Nancy Giere

Nancy Giere is a course creation expert. She works with businesses of all sizes from solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies turning their expertise into a high-profit course. She creates engaging, fun, and interactive programs that get results.

Website: https://nancygiere.com/

Social: https://www.linkedin.com/in/nancygiere/

Sign Up For The Free Resource: https://nancygiere.com/8easysteps/

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Take down Nov.25

Take down Nov.25

Hey welcome to she coaches, coaches, I'm your host Candy Motzek. And I'm going to help you find the clarity, confidence and courage to become the coach that you are meant to be. If you're a new coach, or if you've always wanted to be a life coach, then this is the place for you. We're going to talk all about mindset and strategies and how to because step by step only works when you have the clarity, courage and confidence to take action. Let's get started. There, and welcome to she coaches coaches. I'm so glad you're here for this week's episode. I have a special guest this week. Her name is Nancy Giere, and she is a course creation expert. She works with businesses of all sizes from solopreneurs to Fortune 100 companies turning their expertise into high profit courses. She creates engaging fun and interactive programs that get results. Exactly what we all want results. Nancy, welcome. I'm so glad you're here today.

I'm very glad to be here today, too. Yeah. So

tell me a little bit about how you got started. course creation is an interesting area of the industry. How did you get started here? Yes,

it has become very popular. All the cool kids are doing it now. And my career started about 30 years ago. And my boss had asked me to create a course. And I had no idea. I had never done anything like this before. But I didn't want to disappoint them. So I said, Sure. So I built it. And this is back when everything was live created this workshop ran it. And you know, I think it went it went okay, but I got really interested in it. We'll fast forward a job or two later. And I landed in this company in Naperville, Illinois that created at that time was called computer based training. And it was everything had to be done following a particular methodology. So I was there I learned about instructional design, I had no idea that there was a whole discipline that people needed to use to build out effective content. And the purpose of it was so that this team of people could all work together because we all were following the same guidelines. And while I was there, I had a Quality Assurance Manager and a direct manager that evaluated everything that I created. And they always said, What can we do to make it better. So now fast forward to where I am now, in the clients that I serve, that has stuck with me to look at their work and say, What can we do to make it better?

Yeah, what can we do to make it better? For many reasons, you know, better for the, you know, the recipients of the training so that they're getting the results better, so that it's more effective, more efficient, getting rid of any of the fluff. And also better for the I would assume better for the confidence of the company or the person who is creating the course like when they know, yeah, this is really good. That that just really helps them to feel more aligned with selling and promoting and all of those things, right?

Well, certainly more and more people have added courses to their business. And it's really important to produce something of a quality that reflects your brand. Right? Because it is an extension of you.

Right. And so we were talking before, you know, I hit record. And I wanted to, you know, sort of make sure that our conversation went in this place of coaches, either brand new coaches, or coaches who are starting to really get some good traction, and they've, you know, signed some great clients, and now they're starting to feel quite busy. So coaches and course creation. And so, you know, just sort of keeping us within those kinds of guidelines. What are the kinds of things that you think that coaches might consider when they're wondering, should I create a course? What would it do for me? What would it do for my business?

Right? Well, first, the benefit is the gift of time. Because you can only work there's only so many hours in the week, there's only so many people that you can serve. So if you bring in a course to the mix, there's two ways that it can really benefit you what is you look at what is the the basic information that you tell every client What are you saying over and over and over again, if you can extract that and Put it into an online course, you have your client go through, say, look, I want you to go through, do module one, complete the exercise, and then we'll discuss it when we get together. So perhaps you've saved yourself 15 minutes, 30 minutes, which then gives you the opportunity to go, okay, I can either I can choose to serve more people and make more money, or I can work less and make the same amount. So it's, it's really a question of what how do you how do you want to have it, improve your business and really the quality of your own of your own life. So that's one angle. The other angle is, oftentimes people will want to engage with a coach, but maybe they can afford to pay for the one on one service or maybe even a group service. Well, then if you put together an online course, you can come up with some key ideas, some key principles that can help people move forward, in at a lower at a lower price point. They may continue with that they may be fine. Or they may go wow, I really like what this person has to say, I really liked the way that they do things. Now I'm ready to make a commitment at a higher level, whether it be that joining a group or a one on one program. So it really becomes a way to look at your business strategically.

Right. And as you're describing that, it reminds me that so often coaches are really embedded in their business, right? Like, these are personal relationships with our clients, we're watching them grow, we're watching them overcome whatever challenge and, you know, then move on to that next chapter. But what you've just described is really interesting. So having a course does, the way you've described it, there's a lot of different ways that it could be used. If you're too busy with your one on one clients, you could use it to, instead of repeating the same information over and over, giving that client access to that information prior to that week's call, so that they're already prepared. And then perhaps your sessions could be a little bit shorter. You could do the same thing in a group environment, you have a group of people, you know, maybe a group of eight or 10 people, and you're going to give them access to that particular chapter or module, and then have the coaching the group coaching, or the standalone version. And so it's interesting, because that one course, I guess you could almost create a course that does all three of those things, right? Like, could it could, that actually could support that you have one course, but you use it in three different ways.

And to me, that's the larger play for people. You know, when when we were, you know, we just were hopefully we're on the other side of the pandemic now. But during that everybody rushed to create online courses and figured I'm going to become a millionaire overnight. Which, yeah, if you have a huge list, if you like, have a Tony Robbins sized list, you can sell something for $97 and make a lot of money overnight. But most of us don't have big lists. So to me, the larger play is to look at your content and say, How can I incorporate this into what I do, and position it as part of a group or one on one program, which is a higher ticket item, I think it's easier to sell a smaller number of high ticket people than this, you know, then try to get to the get to the universe. And you can look at your content, then really strategically, and perhaps you have a group and everybody's going to go through for you know, modules one through 12, or we know 12 weeks, and everybody's going to kind of do the same thing each week. Or let's say you're working with somebody one on one. And whatever the issue is that the challenge that they present, you can just extract and you can say, I'm going to send you a link to court part of a course that I want you to take this, this will really kind of hone in on what we're talking about today. So you can either kind of have it be this very systematic approach that people go through, or you can use it and you can tailor it and you can meet people where they are. Right.

Right. So, so interesting. And what I start to think about as you're describing this is first off, making sure that you actually have a path that you know, works and that you are a subject matter expert in that area so that your path is efficient and effective and right right back to the beginning of our conversation. You know, how can I make this? How can I be continually improving? This right? So what you how do you how do you help people approach that finding that path that they would create?

Well, the first step is to always look at what's the outcome that you're driving toward. And I call this really a course transformation statement. So by the end of the program, what is someone going to be able to do that they couldn't do before? What are they going to know that they didn't know? Excuse me? How are they going to feel? So you start there with this is the outcome that I'm moving toward? And then you take a really good look at your audience, your clients? And who are they? And so think of it, it's not very different from when you're thinking about marketing a product or service, you want to focus on? Well, who do I serve? And what are their characteristics? And what do they need? So you start at the big view of kind of the outcome, who you want to serve. And then you look at What content do I need to create in a course, that's going to serve my clients and get them to the outcome that I that I envisioned for that. And then you get, then you start to break it. And then from there, you break everything down. That's where the heavy lifting comes in, actually started to build out all of the content, and come up with all of the exercises. So it really, once you define who then you look at what am I going to cover? And then from there, okay, how can I cover this in a way that's going to be engaging, that's going to be efficient, it's going to be effective. I was working with someone this morning, and we looked across what she had and thought, what can we do, where you will teach less, but create an experience. And by creating an experience, whether it's through a guided meditation or breathing type of exercise, whatever that might be, you're going to drop them into something, and then come out of that and then debrief. Right. There's all kinds of ways, you know, the content, I always think, you know, the content kind of dictates the How

interesting. I really and I think the part that I did is so valuable for the listeners here is that many of them aren't brand new coaches. And so what they're hearing is, you know, maybe two steps down the line in their evolution of their business. The greatest thing is that coaches have this listening skill. And when we listen deeply to what's going on with our clients, we're really hearing the real challenge, maybe the problem beneath the, you know, the presenting problem. So that, as you're thinking about what kind of a course could you create, you're like, Oh, I've heard this, I've heard this, what the last 10 people, this same theme over and over and over again, that's something that I could really help my clients with. Yes, there's another piece here that I think is really is really interesting. And I just sort of want to highlight for the listeners. So as a brand new coach, oftentimes, I'm suggesting that you start with a pilot program or a beta program, something that is relatively short five or six modules, where you want to help kind of guide that initial clients through, you're listening, you're fine tuning, and what you're learning from your clients. And essentially, your target market now becomes the material that you're going to use for a signature coaching program. But where you come in is say, we're taking that signature coaching program and making it even better, and then systematizing it and making it a course. So this is really part of like a you know, the staircase evolution of a coaching practice. Do you find that happens a lot with your clients that this is the place where they're really wanting to come in, you know, and get your help?

Yes, because it definitely is a different way of looking at the world, the the lens of the of the course, creator. And I can see patterns and process where maybe somebody in a lot lot of some of the best coaches that I've known, they're very intuitive people, and they know based on what is, as you said, what is presented, what and what's the problem under the problem, and maybe there's multiple layers, you know, they can hone in on where somebody is at a point in time and respond to it. where the challenge comes in is what can I how can I create this in a course from a process? Angle, where one And where whether the modules each is kind of stand alone and cover a particular area? Or do they need to be something where somebody's building the capability over time. So it's really to kind of step back and say, No, given your domain, your specialty, you know, the, your your secret sauce, you know, how do we take that and package it in a way? That's going to work for clients? And to and to also look at it from the perspective of what can they realistically do on their own? And where might they need additional support? And that's where that's where it becomes like integrating it into a whole practice. I was in a session one time where I volunteered for a hot seat coaching session. Kotze. Okay. Yeah. And it was talking about sales. And you and I kind of threw out what my challenge was, and she diagnosed the problem. But then we had to move on to the next thing. And I'm like, wait a minute.

No, I know what's wrong. Yeah, but wait a minute, you can't leave me hanging.

Now, she was kind enough to send me an email afterwards to give me some guidance based on what she heard. So I thought, well, you know, good, I knew that you realize that I needed more. But that particular group venue, it was a networking kind of situation, she wasn't able to fully look at it. So that the point and making this long story even longer is you have to look at it. You can't open up a wound, that someone isn't going to be able to address on their own through reflection to be careful about them. That's what we look at along the way.

So they're your sounds like a lot goes into planning that path. Right? And, you know, as you're describing it, it reminds me of loops, right? Like, there is nothing worse than an open loop. Our brain just wants to close that loop. And so your description of what happened is like, okay, but now the, you know, I've got this open loop, and my brain must close that loop, like, right, so it's gonna be forever looking about how to close the loop. Yeah. So for somebody who is, you know, their interest is piqued? How do they? How do you help guide them if they're ready to think about creating a course?

Well, I do it in a couple of different ways. I'll do what I call a done with you service. So it's a coaching type of an opportunity. And I'll either work with people in a group, or one on one. And we in both instances take about 12 weeks to get from idea to implementation. One of the challenges is, is that you have to carve out time to be able to do the work along the way. And that's often where people get get can get stuck. And depending on how much content you already have, you know, that kind of dictates how much are we repurposing? And when are you starting with, you know, just Well, I got an idea. But so there's, there's that coaching, I coach people through the process. And there's some people that I do more of a done for you service, where they act as a subject matter expert, I pull the information from them, and I build the course for them. So done with you. They're building, there's a lot of co creation going on done for you. I'm doing the heavy lifting, if you will. Right. Right. And I run workshops to teach people the methodology, from time to time, and I wrote a book called bundle your brilliance which tie which is another way that people can learn learn the approach, when everybody's different in terms of, you know, how much support do they need to, to get to the finish line?

And also, you know, like, this is our business. And yes, we want to be strategic. But people have different ways of working to like there's got to be people that love the, the done with you option, because now they're in a bit of a cohort, and they're creating more community and they're meeting more people. And just being in that group atmosphere, their brain is like coming up with, you know, even better ways of approaching how they do their work. And then some people just want to get it done. It's just like, I've got it all. Just give me the course or

some people like I don't want to I don't want to be in a group. I just want you to get me to get it done. Let's just get it done. And yeah, it's

a different purpose. Right. So any, as we're thinking of wrapping up any other tips that you have for people who were thinking, hey, maybe this is for me, what would you suggest?

The biggest tip and all of this is I think you want to be really intentional about about what you're doing, and really be focused on that client, and what they need, and how you can get them from where they are, to where you want them to be. And I think looking at it more from a hybrid angle, where you're offering different types of ways of working with you, but there, but it's packaged. Mm hmm.

So back to what you were describing for how you, you know, how your business is done for you still creating a course done with you creating a course but in a guided fashion? Yes. And also done on your own doing it on your own. Right, right. So but it all starts with the end in mind.

It all starts with the end in mind, and I use whatever way I work with people, whether it's a weekend workshop, group program, one on one, it's the same process, it's the same model. And my take is that most coaches have a process or a model and approach that they're using. And so how can you take that model and deliver it in different ways? Right,

strategically,

strategically,

that's the that's the thing, right? Yeah. I love that. Got my wheels turning.

Okay. All right, can see.

So, Nancy, thank you. This has been really interesting. And I hope that what it's done is that the coaches who are listening to this are starting to get their wheels turning to it's like, wait a minute, maybe I am ready to go down this path. How do I and so the question is, how do they find out more about you? How do they find out where you are? How do they get into your world?

Okay, well, I gave you a lead magnet that you can give to people that will bring them into my university, etc, eight easy steps to create training that sells so that will bring people into my world. My website is my name dancing theory.com. So if you're listening, listening, Geary is g i e, r e. And my email is Nancy, at Nancy geary.com. So that's best, best way to find me. I'm also on LinkedIn and would love to connect and continue the conversation with anybody that would like to do that.