What's going on with me and my business

Slightly different email this week.

Instead of the regular newsletter, I want to give you an update from inside my business.

There are a few changes on the horizon — all good for you I hope!

Short on time? Here’s the TLDR (Too Long; Didn’t Read) version:

1. This weekly newsletter is becoming The Art of Course Creation. Same format but with its own brand and syndication to places like Medium and Substack.
2. My paid program, Build Your Best Course, is getting close to beta launch. Details coming soon but I’ll likely combine early access to the content with a 3-month group mentoring cohort.

If you’re still reading, here’s the longer version:

I launched my blog and newsletter in early 2021, after focusing my business on helping people to build best-in-class online courses.

And as a subscriber, you probably discovered me via the Online Course Sprint, my free online class about online courses.

I first ran that class 18 months ago and the last cohort was nearly a year ago. Yes, it’s been that long!

Since then, I’ve stayed in contact via this newsletter. And I’m over the moon that you’re still on board.

But the truth is that my audience isn’t growing. The simple reason: I’ve done a much better job of serving my existing subscribers than finding new ones.

This needs to change. The first step is publishing more consistently on other platforms like Medium, LinkedIn, and Substack.

And to do that I believe the newsletter needs its own identity.

That’s why I’m rebranding it: The Art of Course Creation.

The basic format won’t change, at least initially, but I want it to be the obvious place for course-curious folks to land online.

However, it was always my intention to launch a paid program too.

In fact, it feels weird to be the course creation guy who doesn’t have a course to sell!

(I’ve even had people message me to say: “I love your free stuff, but when can I actually buy something?“)

However, I’ve been working on my course behind the scenes for more than a year now. Mostly on the principles underpinning it.

My goal is to make course creation as “paint by numbers” as possible, but in a way that still ensures the end result is engaging, distinctive and desirable.

This has turned out to be a tough nut to crack!

For instance, I went deep for a few weeks on a couple of new approaches for planning out your course curriculum, only to return to the drawing board in search of something simpler and more elegant.

During that time, I’ve also been working with enough clients to keep my business ticking over.

As usual, I’ve drawn on my experience to guide them through the course creation process, but in parallel it’s helped me to test and refine the “paint by numbers” version of my approach.

And I’m almost done. Excitingly, I believe these techniques have the potential to change the game around online course development.

But I won’t know for sure until people (like you!) start putting them into practice.

So here’s what I’m thinking…

Between now and the end of the year I’ll run a small group mentoring cohort to help you create a course you can launch (or beta launch) at the start of 2023.

The backbone of the program will be my course-in-the-making delivered in a no-frills format like text or audio and supported by downloadable resources.

It’ll be competitively priced since part of the deal will be you providing feedback on my materials. You’ll also get free access to the polished version of the course when it’s available.

There’ll be a simple application process to join and I’ll be aiming to get 5 - 10 people in the first cohort.

I’ll send more details soon, but that’s what I’m thinking right now. Sound interesting?

WHAT TO DO NEXT…

You can choose to do nothing and simply watch the changes unfold over the coming weeks via your inbox.

Or, you could do one of the following:

• If you’re interested in hearing more about the Build Your Best Course beta cohort, click here and I’ll make sure you don’t miss any of the details when they’re ready. If you’re definitely NOT interested this time around, click here and I’ll be sure to exclude you from future emails.
• If you have any questions, thoughts or feedback on the direction of the newsletter or the paid course, I’d love to hear from you. Just REPLY to this message and I’ll get right back to you.
• If nothing I’ve described above is particularly interesting to you, now is a great time to unsubscribe from this newsletter. (You can use the link at the very bottom of this email.) I’ll be sad to see you go, but I don’t want to clutter your inbox.

Okay, that’s it for now. If you’re read this far, well done! I’m excited about what lies ahead and I hope you’ll continue to be a part of what I’m up to.

See you soon,

Glen.

P.S. If “The Art of Course Creation” and “Build Your Best Course” sound familiar to you, that’s because they were two of the top-voted choices from my “help me name my course” survey of a few months back. Many thanks if you completed that survey. :-)