#186: How to Launch an Insider Live Cohort

Welcome back to another edition of the Course Creation Incubator podcast. I’m your host, Gina Onativia, here to help you get excited about marketing, promoting, putting out your offers in a bigger way, and creating the online based business of your dreams. And did you listen to last week’s episode where I talked about overstuffed courses or your overstuffed content and what to do about it?

And did you take back control? Were you the boss of your course? Were you the boss of your outline? Hit me up on LinkedIn to let me know. And please leave me review if this podcast has left any kind of impact on you. Love to read the different reviews that come in and then let me know when you leave a review.

Now, if you guys have been listening to the podcast, you know, we’re big tennis fans and the Espinosa on a TV, a household, we are just obsessed. Tristan plays my ten year old, soon to be 11 year old plays, and the U.S. Open. The last slam of the year is our Super Bowl. I mean, we love football, too.

And it’s the beginning of football season. Go, Eagles. Now, we love the U.S. Open, though, because it’s our slam, it’s our home slam and there’s just an electricity and an energy in the air. The night matches are just incredible. They play way into the night. So for us on the Pacific Coast, it’s wonderful. We can watch tennis at 10:00.

And this year was especially exciting for the U.S. Open because the Americans, specifically the men and the women, too. But let me tell you, the American women have been fantastic all the time ever since I was growing up, too. Serena dominating and the American men, not so much. It’s been a special year, too, because the men, a few men, American men, made it to the latter stages of the tournament.

An American woman named Jessica Pegula, who has never made a Grand Slam final, made the final for the first time. And she had a coach, this guy David Witt, for a really, really long time. And she just decided to make a change. She decided to change it up because she had made it to a series of quarterfinals, Misses Consistency, made a ton of quarterfinal holes, never semifinals or a final.

So she changes her coach in the last few months, I think, this year. And then her coach went to coach an awesome player named Francis Tiafoe, another American player who’s just amazing, awesome energy. And Tiafoe had struggled for a good start of the year and he changed to Pegula is old coach in the last couple of months. Okay, stick with me now.

So Tiafoe, who had been struggling, made it to the semifinals of the US Open with this new coach and meanwhile Pegula with her new coach, made it to the finals for the first time. So it struck me. I always take lessons out of tennis. I’m always picking these things up, right? We’re watching so Tristan can learn tennis and can learn from these pros.

But what can we pick up? And I think the lesson here is sometimes you need a coaching change, right? You might be some with someone for a long time or with a mastermind or a group for a long time. And I’m not saying you abandon the mastermind or the group, but maybe you change it up. Maybe you bring in a different coach.

Another player, Coco Gauff, she won the U.S. Open last year because she had two different coaches on her side, and I think that mix really supported her. So do you need a change of mentorship? Do you need a change of coaching to think about that, To think about who’s at your side, who’s fighting for you, who’s looking at your business with expert eyes, and is it time for a change?

And yes, if you would like me to look at your business with my expert eyes, I would love for you to apply for a done for you. I take a couple a quarter course creation boutique dot com slash course you want to apply to get your course done. We do starter courses, legion courses, signature courses, live courses, whatever you want.

We do it in terms of getting it done. And you know what? Sometimes it’s just great to work with a coach who’s been there, knows the steps hold you accountable to to getting it done. And who knows, maybe you could make the U.S. Open finals, too, whatever that looks like for you. Now, in the meanwhile, when we’re not watching tennis and yes, we are getting some work done as well, I’ve been having some great phone calls with some former clients, new potential clients and just some colleagues about what does it mean if you want to go out there with the course, maybe are not ready to build it all just yet.

Is there another way to put yourself out there? And specifically talking to a friend who said that they felt like they wanted to put out this leadership program and wasn’t sure if it was a big static signature course or what it might look like yet. And I said, How about a live insider cohort? Okay, now what the heck does that mean?

Right? So let’s break it down. So it’s live. So you’re delivering it live in real time. Instead of prerecorded lessons, you’re creating discussions, you’re answering questions, you’re adjusting on the fly. You’re engaging with participants, Right? You’re fine tuning as you go. So that’s the live part of it. Insider In that you might guys go to your clients to offer them the opportunity to sign up.

It’s insider, It’s very exclusive or pass students to sign up or a past company that you’ve worked for that you’ve gone into and maybe taught before or trained before. And then finally, that third part cohort, just a specific tidy group that you’re going to maybe it’s 20, maybe it’s 15, whatever feels right to you feels manageable, but that’s the breaking down.

So we’re going to talk in this episode about live insider cohorts. Are they right for you? Should you be doing one? What’s the criteria? How do you get started now? I’ll give you an example. This Wingspan Performance Academy, I had Kathy and Ivan on the show. They did a version of this. So it was insider in that they had a week list of former clients.

They did a live component and there was definitely a set cohort. And if you listen to that podcast, you know that they sold out in 48 hours. Now they did a live plus a static cohort, which you can also do. We’ll talk more about the live component. But the nice thing about that is you can do it on the fly.

So why would you do this? By the way, here I am talking about courses each and every episode, but it doesn’t mean you need a signature course built in advance. I think more and more we need to be flexible in terms of our courses. I think they need to take a different shape. So I said this in the beginning of this episode, like whether you’re doing a starter course or a lead gen course or experiential or, or it’s coaching, right, with like a little bit of a course component, it’s a different kind of experience.

And I think we need to be flexible in terms of what we’re delivering in this day and age. So I love this idea for a number of reasons. Number one, to test an idea, to test this concept that you want to put out in a bigger way and to see if it’s a moneymaker for your business, right? You never know unless you’re going to put it out there, but maybe you don’t want to put it out there in a bigger way.

So this is a great way to test the waters and see how it fits with the rest of your business. Second, I love this idea because you don’t have to put a bigger campaign around it. You’re not going to go out to a bigger audience. You’re not going to use affiliates. Insider You were going to go to past clients, past students, past organizations you’ve worked with, like I mentioned before, okay, So you don’t have to put together a formal email campaign.

You don’t even have to do a big sales pitch. We’ll get to that in a minute. You can keep it contained. That’s why I love this idea, right? It’s not a big blown out campaign. Three. I love this idea because it allows for immediate feedback. That’s one of the greatest things about going live. You can see what resonates, what needs clarification, where the most value is coming from direct from attendees and from participants.

Rather than spending months creating a course and hoping it lands live cohorts are a great way to refine your content as you go and making sure you improve it before you scale it. It’s less intimidating for you if you’re a new course creator to get your course off the ground without having to provide really polished prerecorded content. And then also it gives you a little bit of freedom to let it fly, right?

So if you’re like, I’m not quite sure what I’m doing with this, it’s okay. You can come up with a rough outline and kind of roll with it. That’s the great thing about a live cohort. And by the way, these people already know you. They’re past students or they’re past clients, so they trust you. They trust that you’re going to provide the value.

So you kind of let it rip, right? Because you know, it’s a safe space. You’re going to provide value because you’re awesome and these people trust you so you can go for it, You can take risks, you can play with things, you can play with stories. I know when I kept doing my six week accelerator live and I’ve talked about that in past episodes, as I got used to it more and more and I did it live and I knew the people in my space, I would throw out different metaphors and stories and some of it would stick and land and I would say, save it for the future.

And some of it, you know, not so much, but that’s okay. I had the freedom and the flexibility to do that. And that’s awesome. And that’s why it’s a win win for some of you to launch an insider live cohort. Okay. So how do you know if this is a good fit for you? Well, I mentioned it before.

You’ve got some clients under your belt student organization that you can reach out to. Also, people have been asking you like, hey, what else you got? Right? So Wingspan performance, Kathy and Ivan talked in that other episode about how folks would come up to them and say, Hey, I can’t afford your year long program. What else you got?

And that’s one of the reasons why they put together that first cohort so they could provide that other option at a lower price point. So they could expand their reach, so they could get their content out there in a bigger way. So that’s the second piece that, you know, there’s a demand because people have been asking you, Hey, do you have anything else?

Three, you have the bandwidth to test out this insiders live live cohort. You’re not going to go full out like you would maybe with a signature course, but it still takes a little bit of work to have this set up. So why give yourself a couple of months to set some pieces up, which we’re going to talk about in a minute.

And by the way, it’s helpful if you have at least one team member or, you know, like a part time virtual assistant who can help you with this. All right. So if you’re excited right now and you’re listening, you’re say, okay, Gina, how do I get started? This sounds awesome. I want to vet my live insider cohort. What do I do?

Well, first is the topic of your live cohort. And a lot of times I already have this in mind because it’s been rattling around in your head, right? You’re listening to me right now and the ideas are popping. I know, because I talk to you and every time I bring this up, we’re like, yes, I have the topic in mind.

Few things to think about. One relevance Does the topic address current needs or trends in your industry? Right now to that demand? Are people actively seeking out courses solutions related to this topic that you’re thinking about? And then three really drilling down to specifics, narrowing down your topic, ensuring it’s specific enough to provide clear value to attract a meaningful audience.

So that’s first you want to talk about your topic, right? So this is you’re excited, you want to move forward here the first steps. Second, you want to think about your benefits. What transformation are you going to provide your live participants? What will they be able to do or understand after completing these live workshops or sessions with you?

How will this course impact their lives? Careers, businesses, if possible, provide measurable outcomes such as Learn how to build a starter website in just 30 days above the timeline on that increase student retention for your membership by 30%. And then maybe there’s a timeline to do in the next six months and then think about that. So what rule that we learn from master writer Meghan O’Leary, who’s like the greatest copywriter, I know I’ll link to both of her episodes in the show notes.

O’Leary’s always pushing me to say, So what? So she’ll say, What is this really about? And then I’ll give her maybe a start of a benefit bullet and she’ll say, So what? Or so they can. What? Keep digging, keep getting specific, because that’s what’s going to make people move to want to do business with you. Third, you’re going to want to think about your audience, right?

The specific former students or clients that you want to go to with this offer. So I was just meeting with my business coach and I’m thinking about putting together a different kind of package. And she said, okay, as one of your steps, make a list of five people, you know, in this industry that you’re going to go out to with this package that, you know, is connected.

So all the things that we’ve been talking about, these former students, organizations, whatever, make a list, is it corporate? Is it entrepreneurs, business owners? Are they specific organizations? Are they nonprofits that you’re going to go out to? This is the time to make that list of specific names. Okay. For how long do you plan to teach it and how will you deliver?

Determining the duration is super important. Will it be a few weeks, a couple of months? I don’t recommend going over three months because you’re testing the waters. I don’t want you doing this for a year if you’re not sure of how it’s going to pan out. How many live sessions will you plan to have? Maybe you’ll do one a week to a week.

You’ll want to plan out your session lengths, one hour weekly sessions, 90 minute deep dives. Then you could decide on the ideal duration for each session based on your audience’s available. How will you deliver the material? Zoom Google Meet another platform? Is it going to be all live or will there be a mix of live sessions and prerecorded content?

I’ve seen clients do that or are you going to use Q&A, chat polls, etc. to keep participants engaged? Okay, so these are all things that you want to think about when going live. I’ll link to that episode where I walk through like, Why going live is so awesome. And then five What are your launch dates? You’ll need to determine your timeline.

Typically you should decide on a pre launch so you get that we list out there, start building up awareness. Then you’re going to decide on your cohort start date. Think about choosing a launch date that gives you lots of time to prep that aligns with your participant needs and make sure you’re avoiding holidays or industry events. And then I mentioned that simple sales page, which can really help you to convert interest into participants.

Now, I don’t think you need a big sales page because again, you’re going to people that know you that probably know your content, but you want enough information that they can make a decision, right? So you do want those benefits that we talked about. They want dates, they want pricing on what’s included like number of sessions and sprinkle in a number of testimonials.

Yes, they know you, but they still want to make sure people are getting results include a clear call to action. And it could be low key, right? So it’s directly to your shopping cart. If you’re using hijabi, you could do a shopping cart even if you’re going live. I love Thrive Cart. I’ll link to that in the show notes as well.

And then I’ll also linked to some episodes where you’ve done on sales pages to help inspire you. Now you’ll notice I didn’t talk about what you will teach a link to my posted exercise process to give you a head start with this and then listen to last week’s episode to make sure you don’t crush your audience with too much content.

All right. I’ve given you a lot to chew on, but I don’t want to leave you until we talk about what’s next. You’ve gone live with your insider cohort. What are the next steps? You’ve got some options. One, you call it one and done, and that’s okay. That’s part of what’s awesome about this live insider cohort. You can decide, you know what this content is not for you or it didn’t resonate with your audience or it just doesn’t fit into your business.

Cool. You tried it, you went for it. Great job. Or second, you can refine it and put it out in a different way, or you could just tweak it. I continue to tweak my six week accelerator. Every cohort that I watched, or maybe third option, you create a static live course hybrid. Maybe you take some videos, you take some of the videos that you recorded the first time, and then you add a light component to it and it’s kind of a hybrid or forum, maybe a team up with another expert and leverage both your audiences.

There is no one size fits all when it comes to course creation. Like we’re always talking about, make the experience work for you. Let me know what you think. If you’re going to go ahead and launch an insider live cohort, I’d love to hear about it. Hit me up on LinkedIn. Think about getting my expert eyes on you with our done for you service.

We take a few a quarter, go to a course creation boutique dot com slash course, make sure you’re subscribed. I’ve got some awesome guest episodes coming up until next time go create be you and be brilliant and get it done.