As I mentioned in an earlier article, adding an online course to your existing programs can have benefits for audiences, your client and you. Even better, you might be able to create your course easily from existing material. Here are seven easy ways you could do that …

1. Convert a workbook

If your training program or seminar already has a detailed handout or workbook, consider delivering it as an online course (instead of giving it out to attendees at the workshop itself). The material is already highly relevant to the program, so it’s the perfect fit for a follow-up course after the live workshop.

Of course, this might mean you have to provide a different handout at the workshop, but that could be just a cut-down version of the full handout – which is easy to create. Alternatively, you might decide you don’t need a handout at all for the live workshop, and simply deliver it as an online course later.

2. Summarise book chapters

If you have put the work into writing a book, you have thought about organising your material logically and delivering it in an appropriate sequence. So it’s easy to create an online course that delivers the material in those same sections and sequence. Of course, you won’t deliver the entire book chapter by chapter, but you can deliver a summary of each chapter in each course module.

This is exactly what I did with my book “Fast, Flat and Free”. The book has 9 main chapters, so I created an online course with 9 modules, and delivered one module a day for 9 days. Each module is about 300-400 words, and is broadly the introductory text of that chapter.

Register for the course here.

3. Extract articles from a book

In the previous example, your course provides just an overview of your book. You can change this slightly – and deliver more value – by sending more detailed material in each module. All you have to do is identify chunks of the book you can extract as individual articles, and then send these articles as an online course.

I did this with my book “Webinar Smarts”, which is about planning and presenting high-quality webinars. This is much more of a “how to” book than “Fast, Flat and Free”, so it would have been less useful to just send a summary of each chapter. Instead, I send an in-depth article (copied from the book) every two weeks to subscribers.

Register for the course here.

4. Collate related newsletter articles

You can also take the previous idea and do it the other way around: Rather than extracting articles from a book, you collect articles you’ve previously written, collate them in an appropriate sequence, and deliver them as an online course.

If you publish a regular newsletter or blog, this will be extremely easy to do. It’s even easier if you have been tagging your blog posts as you publish them, because it’s easy to see everything you have written on each topic. Simply look through the list, identify some that could be included in your course, and you’ve done 90% of the work!

5. Convert a list of bullet points

In all of the previous ideas, you provide substantial material (at least 300-400 words) in each course module. But there’s no reason your material has to be so long and detailed. Sometimes your course participants will appreciate receiving a shorter message, especially if it’s still relevant and practical.

Look for a list of things you teach and consider whether you can deliver each item in the list as a module (You might have to expand each list item into a paragraph or two, but not much more than that). For example, if you have written “The Top 10 Tips for Running Better Meetings”, each of those tips can be a course module.

This is exactly what I did with my “10-Minute Reputation Builders” course, which shows you how to boost your on-line reputation. It started life as a 20-point list in “Fast, Flat and Free”, and I simply copied that to a course, and expanded each item slightly.

Register for the course here.

6. Choose inspirational quotations

Another easy way to create an online course is by sending an inspirational or motivational quotation in each course module. Although some people might think this is a waste of space (and I certainly don’t like people who overdo this on Twitter or Facebook!), many people do like receiving a daily, weekly or monthly dose of inspiration. So collect relevant quotations and send them in a regular online course.

I do this with my “Create The Future” course, which sends you a quotation and photograph every Monday.

Register for the course here.

7. Use other people’s material

Finally, keep in mind that you don’t always have to provide your own material in your online courses. Just because it isn’t your own material doesn’t reduce its value. Your course participants will still value the fact you’ve sifted through the material and hand-picked what is most relevant for them.

Just be sure you have permission to use that material. If you are just linking to that material on a public Web page, you don’t need to ask for permission. But if you’re including any of the material directly in your course modules, be sure you have the copyright owner’s written permission to do so.

For example, one of the easiest ways to create a high-content online course is by finding a series of relevant videos from YouTube or TED.com, and simply using them as your course material. In each course module, you just link to the video, and add a paragraph or two explaining why it’s relevant for your participants.

Which of these could work for you?

Not all of these ideas will work for everybody, but I’m sure you can find some that will work for you.

In all these cases, you’re duplicating material that has already been published. But don’t ignore these ideas for that reason alone. Some of your course participants need to get the material delivered to them at intervals, and will appreciate you putting the thought into delivering it this way.

Build Your Own Online Course: Sydney 7th August

If you’d like to tap into the power of online courses, I invite you to attend my workshop in Sydney on Tuesday 7th August.

In this workshop, I’ll show you how to plan, build and promote online courses in your business. This is a practical workshop. I won’t just teach you how to create an online course; I want you to actually create one yourself! So you’ll walk out at the end of the workshop with a live online course, ready to sell!

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You might know you’re delivering great value in your workshops, and your participants and clients might know it as well. But that’s not enough to convince them to book you or buy tickets. One of the other concerns they have is that, despite the excellent value you offer in the workshop, they simply won’t take action afterwards.

If you’re selling to corporate clients, they worry that their people will attend, take lots of notes and even be sincere about taking action, but they will get caught up in everything else that’s going on in their job. And it can be worse when you’re selling to individuals, because they know how bad they can be at taking action.

One of the ways to address this issue is with an on-line course – that is, a series of e-mails sent to the participants at scheduled intervals, reinforcing the material you taught, reminding them to take action, and rebuilding the bridge between your course and their day-to-day activities.

On-line courses have benefits for your participants, your clients and you. Here’s why …

They embed the learning for participants.

When they learn the material for the first time in your workshop, they might understand it in theory. But it’s only when they later apply it to their life that they discover whether they really understand it. Most trainers know this, but they usually just leave it to the participants to try out the material later. Some will, but many won’t – especially if it’s new, daunting or risky (as many actions are!).

However, if they receive an e-mail from you, reminding them to take action, they are far more likely to do so. For those who were willing to take action, the e-mail is a timely prompt to do so. And even those who are unsure might do so anyway, because they see the on-line course as part of the training program.

They add value to your client.

Corporate clients are now expecting more value for their money, and a one-off workshop might no longer be enough. By adding an on-line course that extends the training by weeks – or even months – you increase the perceived value of your training. More importantly, you increase the real value, because you’re doing more to help the participants embed the learning.

They help you boost your training fees.

By offering an on-line course as part of your workshop, you increase its value, and so you can justify increasing your fee. Some of my clients have added many tens of thousands of dollars each year to their bottom line, simply by adding an on-line course to their existing workshop or seminar.

Even if you don’t want to increase your fee, your on-line course becomes a value-added product that demonstrates higher value to your clients.

It can also be an optional extra you can use as a negotiating point when discussing the program with your client.

Best of all, you only have to do the work once – in setting up the on-line course – and then leave it to (inexpensive) software to deliver the course material for you.

Don’t ignore the humble on-line course!

On-line courses are delivered by e-mail, which is not the most exciting technology – especially with all the fuss and hype about things like iPhone apps, video, interactive games and Facebook. Don’t be distracted by all this hype. By all means, add audio, video, surveys and other stuff to make your course material more engaging. But deliver it all by e-mail, because a person’s in-box is still one of the most important places in their work life.

Build Your Own On-Line Course: Sydney 7th August

If you’d like to tap into the power of on-line courses, I invite you to attend my workshop in Sydney on Tuesday 7th August.

In this workshop, I’ll show you how to plan, build and promote on-line courses in your business. This is a practical workshop. I won’t just teach you how to create an on-line course; I want you to actually create one yourself! So you’ll walk out at the end of the workshop with a live on-line course, ready to sell!

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