#181: Workshop: Brainstorm Your Next Brilliant Course Topic

Welcome back to another edition of the Course, Creating an Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to inspire you to take action, to work on your course or your program, whatever that peat offer might be, and to go out there in a big way and build up your online based business of your dreams. And it’s time for a workshop episode.

I’m just going to cut to the chase. I’ve been having fun getting back to this podcast, and one of my favorite episodes to do is to workshop with you guys and break it all down. So get out whatever you write with a notebook, your phone, an iPad, and we’re going to brainstorm your next course topic. Now, it could be a course group coaching a half day.

It could be a hybrid. It could be part course, part live, whatever it is, it’s your next. He’d offer topic that you want to go out there with in a bigger way. And to me right now is an inspiring time. People are outside, they’re soaking up the sun and it’s just a great time to see what’s possible. And part of this episode was inspired by this rituals book I’ve just finished reading, and if you’re on YouTube, you could see the book, and it’s called The Ritual Effect From Habit to Ritual.

Harness the surprising powers of everyday actions. And the author is Michael Norton. And just having the idea of rituals going beyond habits. And he talks about that in the beginning of the book. What’s difference between a habit and a ritual? And he’s saying that a habit or a ritual goes beyond routine, and you attach emotion to it and it’s meaningful to you.

And I wanted to read part of this is whether they’re an invitation of good cry, a chance to channel anger or connection to awe and wonder. I see rituals as one of humanity’s most efficient tools for summoning the widest possible range of our emotional repertoire. Ritual offers the possibility of transforming activities as ordinary as mourning hygiene, household chores, or daily exercise from automated to animated experiences, conjuring up delight or wonder or peace.

Is it good? So good. I just get so many emotions just reading that passage. So I’ve been thinking about my rituals and how to transform what were habits or what I’m trying to create as habits into a ritual where I have emotion attached to it. So, for example, my content morning routine, I love to listen and feed my mind in the morning, whether it’s an audiobook or I’m reading something like the Ritual Effect.

And then right, how do I respond to this? How does it help my course creators? How does it help students and clients and just responding to it and then thinking about how do I transform that into a ritual that is meaningful to me, that gets my creative juices flowing that I’m looking forward to. That doesn’t feel like a habit that I have to develop or some kind of chore.

Another fun ritual I have, by the way, is reading with trust in my ten year old at the end of the night. Tristan’s a huge reader. He reads all the time. He reminds me of someone I know, and a lot of times we can’t give him entire series because if we give him, say, four or five books at a time, he will stay up all night and read those books until they’re done.

I mean, it’s a quality problem as a mom. But but sometimes I’ll sit down with him. And lately it’s been every night and we’ll read for 15 minutes together. So I’ve been reading my rituals book, he’s been reading whatever, probably a risk reward in book that he is just devouring. And sometimes I make him share the light, his little book light to his chagrin.

But it’s special to me because it’s our time. I’m attaching a really cozy emotion to it, and it’s become one of our favorite new virtual. So I’m reading this to encourage you to create some rituals not just around your course creation in your business, but maybe around your family, maybe about your personal life. Because I think it does make us the better for it.

And I think that’s the argument that Michael Naughton is making throughout this book. By the way, this episode is brought to you by my coaching and audit package. If you want your expert eyes on your next offer, I take one creator a quarter. I’d love to work with you, give you some ideas of how you can create a bestselling course and market it in a big way.

Course Creation Bootcamp slash audit to apply and would love to work with you. All right, let’s jump in to our workshop and brainstorm your next program topic. And I just did this with two different clients. One is putting out a new offer in the fall, so it’s rather immediate. And another client who’s going to put out their offer probably in about six months.

So this might be an offer that you’re putting out in a few weeks, or it could be six months, it could be a year, whatever is appropriate for you and your business. So it could be tied to an opportunity. Maybe you have a book coming out and you want to put together an offer that goes along with it.

Some of you are getting booked out with podcast and I’ve been talking to some of you saying Gina booking more podcasts. I’d love to get an offer out that goes along with that. What should I do? What does that offer look like? So that’s what today is about brainstorming your next course topic or whatever. Again, your program is and come up with different options and how to know where to go next.

Step one I want you to think about what you’ve been seeing and feeling and working with and digesting and kind of taking it all in. What have you been brainstorming about? What have you been taking in over the last few weeks or even months or maybe even years? I was just working with Beau Esten, who’s been on this podcast.

I talk about Beau all the time. ex-NFL player, storyteller, trainer. And Beau is very passionate about what’s going on in the world and we were just collaborating about his next topic and he was saying that with all the things going on in the world, with all the distractions, how do people still stay loyal to their dreams? How do we do that?

And I talked a little bit about dreams in the last episode and how Beau asked this really critical question about what makes the boat go faster. So how do we stay loyal to our dreams? And I love that Beau’s asking that. And sometimes Beau talks about this in a deeper way and about how we really need to stay true to our outcomes.

And I’ll link to that in the show notes where you can learn more about what Beau does and how he ties it all into story as the vehicle for your dreams. So here’s another example of someone who’s just thinking through what is happening in the world today, or what are they digesting? What are they thinking and feeling? I have a client who’s on a mission to support women in midlife who they’ve just been telling her it’s too late.

Women over 50 who’ve been saying, you know, I always wanted to do X, but I feel like it’s too late now. And she’s saying, of course it’s not too late. You can do this, you can transition, this is not be it. And she says to me, Gina, I need to do something about this. I need to serve these women.

I need to provide something for them. So think about that. What have you been hearing? What have you been digesting? It might not be reading books as not to be a ritual book, right? You’ve been listening to podcasts, talking to friends, having discussions to beads. I just went out for burgers yesterday after seeing this great show about Johnny Cash, and I could do a podcast about this show, and we had this great debate over burgers and pale ales, and now I can’t stop thinking about it now.

I might not create a course on it, but it’s something that stuck with me and I know that’s what’s on the minds of my audience, Right. Well, what does this mean to you? All right, So you don’t have to start with the structure. A lot of times on this podcast, I’m like, We’re starting with the structure, right? I’m actually giving steps to this workshop, but here I’m okay with you brainstorming and throwing something against the wall and just downloading and even journaling.

And I know I talked to some of you said, Gene, I don’t journal. That’s okay. I sometimes I trouble journaling as well, but I love downloading so pick up your phone and record some audios. That’s great to just get it down, get it out of your head and into some kind of format, whiteboard. It where you can think about it.

So that’s step one. How are you feeling? What are you feeling? What is being talked about? What are you digesting? I want to start with you as a content creator and as a course creator, because it comes from the heart. It comes from you. And if you’re having strong feelings, it’s likely because others have are having strong feelings.

That’s step one. Step two, we’re going to bring it down. Always, always, always. To our audience, what does our audience need? What What do they want? What are they saying? Getting the pulse of that. And if you don’t have a pulse of that, well, let’s go find out now if you already have clients or students, you can pick from what your conversations are happening.

If you’re having one to ones, if you’re a coach or consultant, you’re on the front lines with them, which I love. You know exactly what they’re feeling. You’ll notice recurring topics or problems that keep coming up, and this can be a natural next step. In terms of your topic. So I just did this process with another client. I mentioned that up front and they had some new surveys that they had just sent me and they were so insightful because these moms just got back into the workforce and their comments were so powerful about their frustration with their bosses, with their husbands or their partners.

Sometimes they felt frustration with their mother in law, right. That people were supposed to help them, the grandparents. So in the guilt piece, the guilt was was insane to read, but it was so real and authentic. That’s the kind of detail you can only get from surveys. Or polls are asking for feedback. That’s the kind of great juicy detail that you want.

And I’ve been doing a few calls for another client. Yes, this is why I’m talking right now. So many different clients swirling around and hearing desires. So there’s frustrations and challenges that you want to hear, but there’s also the desire and the dreams right? What’s the dream that they’re not fulfilling on right now? How can you help them get there?

So get on calls with people, interview them, find out what they’re really looking for in terms of what they want and what’s holding them back from getting that dream. Another place to look is social and comments, not just your social. By the way, if you’re saying I’m just starting social right now where I don’t get a ton of comments, we’ll get other people socials that have a similar audience to who you’re looking for.

What are people commenting right now? What are the frustrations? That’s one of my favorite things to do is look at a thread. It’s not my thread, but somebody else’s thread that posted a pain point. Then I’m doing research on and just see what people are talking about. You can dig out so much great information based on that. So I want you to be proactive.

You can’t sit back and wait for your audience to come to you. You’ve got to push for this. You’ve got to go after them to know what they’re really thinking. You have to dig like a reporter. I’ve talked about that on the podcast before, so it’s step two. You’re going to find out what your audience is feeling and seeing and their frustrations and their hopes and desires.

Okay. Then down to the third step, which is we’re going to figure out what solutions really needed right now. And the solution is dictated by your course promise. So I’ve talked about this on the podcast before, a link to the episode in the show notes. It’s about the transformation your providing. So if you know your women in midlife are thinking that they can no longer transition, it’s too late for them, then what’s the solution?

Do you have a process that allows women to seamlessly transition in midlife? What’s the system that you want to lead them through? What is the solution like? You know, you want to help them with this specific pain point, but what do you have that uniquely solves for that? And once you figure out that promise, then you can think about the delivery.

Is it a half day? Is it a workshop? Is it a community? Is it a static course? Is it a hybrid? What is it? But first you have to think through the transformation that you’re providing, your unique solution that you’re going to provide for them. But then you’ve got to think about that unique solution that you’re providing and wrap it up into the topic.

Now, notice I said topic here, right? And I didn’t say title. I could do a whole other podcast about title, but this is really a brainstorm what the topic is and ultimately your course promise. So out of this, after you realize what you’re feeling and seeing what your audience needs and the solution you provide, you should have a course promise out of this.

You should have the transformation that you are going to promise them. And then the title stems from there. So hopefully this has been helpful for you to even get that brainstorm going for. You get the juices flowing and a few last thoughts on this. When you’re done with these three steps, then set a zoom date with a writer friend or a content developer or someone who’s really great with ideas.

I’ve had Meghan O’Leary on this podcast multiple times because she’s an absolute writing genius, and I did these three steps and then I had a one hour zoom session with O’Leary and the ideas were popping pop, pop, pop. We talked about titles, we talked about how we want to deliver. We talked about how do we want these women to feel.

And it was just excellent. So I highly recommend, as a follow up to this, booking out some kind of Zoom session with that friend or that colleague that you know, you can pitch and catch with. So I’d love to hear from you. If you’re putting this out in the next month, six months, or maybe the next year, and by the way, once you come up with your title and the topic, test it out, put it in a post.

If you have a Facebook group, put it in there. What do you guys think? You know, give me your feedback. You could email your list. Hey, what do you guys think about this? You could put out a form, a Google form and see what resonates. You could even put up a waitlist and share it for a period of time and see if you have any interest before moving forward.

So in closing, I encourage you to really put yourself out there. I hope this was helpful for you. I’ve got some great guests coming up on the podcast. Of course I’ve got that audit and coaching would love to work with you. Of course Creation Boutique e-commerce audit. Make sure you subscribe so you don’t miss one episode. And until next time, go create, be you and be brilliant and get it done.