A Guide to Crafting Engaging and Aligned Online Courses with Shannon Boyer
Haley Hatcher 
Today, we’re diving into how to create a course that is structured, engaging, and actually works for students.
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Summary:
Today, we’re diving into one of the biggest challenges creative educators face when bringing their teaching online—how to create a course that is structured, engaging, and actually works for students. If you’ve ever struggled with organizing your lessons, figuring out how much content to include, or keeping students engaged from start to finish, then today’s episode is for you. I’m joined by Shannon Boyer, an expert in curriculum development and online course creation, who helps creative educators take their knowledge and turn it into a well-structured, engaging, and effective learning experience. While I focus on helping you get comfortable with the tech side of online teaching, Shannon’s specialty is what happens inside the course—how to make sure your students not only learn, but love the experience and keep coming back for more.
Topics:
The biggest mistakes people make when creating an online course and how to avoid them
The difference between live Zoom workshops and on-demand courses, and how to decide which one is right for you
The power of structure, pacing, and engagement strategies to make sure your students get the results they came for
How AI and automation can help streamline course creation and improve the student experience
About Shannon:
Shannon Boyer is an award-winning educator with a Masters degree in education and over 20 years of experience creating curriculum and courses. She helps purpose-driven entrepreneurs create high-touch, high-quality, high-impact online courses that get real results.
Connect with Shannon:
Click here to read a raw transcript of this episode
Lyric Kinard (00:02.071)
Hello friends, it is so good to have you with us and especially Shannon, we are so excited to have you with us. You have such amazing expertise, such the perfect area of knowledge for our audience. And thank you so much for being with us.
Shannon (00:22.478)
Thank you for inviting me. I'm so excited to be here. Makers and creators are always in my heart. So I'm just really excited for our conversation today.
Lyric Kinard (00:30.773)
It's a delight. Shannon, tell us a little, give us a quick broad overview of your business. What is it that you do?
Shannon (00:39.53)
Okay, so I help purpose-driven entrepreneurs or budding entrepreneurs create high quality, high impact online courses so that they can showcase their expertise. expertise doesn't mean that you are the world renowned expert, just means that you have talent, skills, and knowledge in an area. So showcase their expertise in a way that they can be proud of and in a way that gets their students results.
And that's what I focus on is making sure that your students are able to implement and actually do what it is you're teaching.
Lyric Kinard (01:17.431)
All right, so from what I understand of your business, what you just talked about is all about the curriculum and the presentation of that curriculum. At the academy, we teach like video tech and software platforms. So the vehicle to deliver that curriculum. So tell me, this is kind of a really specific thing. do you help getting into helping teachers craft
Shannon (01:34.369)
Absolutely.
Lyric Kinard (01:46.879)
what it is that they teach in a way that's engaging and effective for the audience. What was your journey to get here at such an interesting and specific niche?
Shannon (01:53.934)
Yeah, absolutely. So, and it's really good that you pointed out because when you go to someone to help you create your course, there's actually different kinds of people who you can go to because there's different components of course creation. So, like you said with the academy, you're focusing on the vehicle, I'm focusing on the content and what it is that actually goes into the course.
And then there's some people who are focusing just on what it looks like and making it pretty, like the graphic designers and others who are focusing on the marketing and everybody kind of has their special niche. And then some people are doing like multiple things, right? So yes, there's, when we talk about creating a course, there's lots of different components to it. So my background and how I got to this specific part of the niche.
is that I am a teacher. have a background in education, which is kind of a funny story in and of itself, how I got into education because I always swore I would never be a teacher. But probably a lot of people, actually. I did. went into education and I made my way into the world of adult education. I was working at a college and I was very successful at my job. I was there for almost 20 years.
Lyric Kinard (02:53.11)
You and me both!
Lyric Kinard (03:06.294)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (03:13.742)
I worked my way into administration, I had won awards, and I was leading teams of people with curriculum and course development, and I was in charge of student success and engagement at one point in time. So doing lots of different things over a very long career. I loved my job. I thought I was going to retire there. It was very, very rewarding. And that's something I talk about with my clients a lot is like when you create a course the right way, you love it. It lights you up.
It's absolutely something that you want to get up in the morning for. So I thought I was going to retire there. And then after struggling with infertility for six years, I had two kids in my 40s during COVID and it completely upended my life. And with my second, with my daughter, she had some health issues. had to actually be held upright 24 seven. So as I'm sitting in bed trying not to...
fall asleep because they tell you you can't fall asleep with baby. I started watching online courses just as a way of really staying awake more than anything. I was watching courses in all sorts of things like watercolor. I'm not a watercolorist. I watching this, that, and the other thing. And I slowly started to be watching more like longer courses and more involved courses and more expensive courses. And I started to think about now that I have these kids and I want to spend so much time with them,
How can I adjust my life? Is there something I can find? It's kind of like the side hustle road that I went down that so many people go down and how can I just have a little bit more flexibility in my life? And I was doing all sorts of, like I was taking courses on surface pattern design. I was, I mean, I was just going way down the road of things that were completely brand new to me. But while I was taking all these courses,
I realized that there were a lot of people out there who had amazing talents, skills, and expertise, but they didn't know exactly how to package them and present them in the best way possible to showcase those expertise and then to help their students get the results. And it was absolutely no fault of their own because they weren't trained teachers. They were the experts in their field.
Shannon (05:30.094)
And so I realized that there was this gap and I started reaching out to people and saying, okay, this is what I do. Would you like some help with that? And that's how it kind of started and grew and my business has grown mostly through word of mouth and just referrals. And yeah, that's how I got to where I am today.
Lyric Kinard (05:49.962)
So you had training as a teacher and teachers get, it's such a different skill than learning how to make something. We're here in this audience, we're makers, we're creatives, crafters, artists. So we develop these skills of how to do things with your hands, but expressing and passing on that skill to other people is a completely different skill set.
Shannon (06:19.256)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (06:19.314)
I I come from a family of teachers, so that's why we probably said we're never gonna be a teacher, but it's in our blood. So here we are. We just cannot help it. But I worked really, really hard to learn how to organize a course, how to efficiently...
Shannon (06:26.036)
Yeah. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (06:43.764)
get information across how to speak to all the different kinds of learning styles, and I practiced and practiced. So having an expert like you that helps somebody shortcut into here are some specific things looking at exactly what you do that you can improve on, that you can learn to teach online. And you work with online course creators, right?
Shannon (07:10.476)
Yeah, that's right. And so you make a good point because, like, so there are frameworks that I teach, there are teaching methodologies that I teach, there's different things about how the brain learns and how we remember things and how, you know, how to present things, how to organize things, how to chunk things, all of that kind of stuff. Because I think teaching is the only profession where people think like, well, I've,
watched people teach for 12 years or 16 years or however many years. So I've seen what they've done. I'm going to replicate it. Nobody says like, I've been a patient for 40, however many years. So now I'm going to go be a doctor. And I don't say that to like, you know, make anybody feel bad or fault anybody because we've all done it. I taught before I was a teacher as well.
Lyric Kinard (07:53.43)
Right?
Shannon (08:01.931)
You know, I think the point though is that there's things that go on behind the scenes that we're not aware of. And so what I do is I just uncover that to make it so much easier so that people don't have to go through that messy trying to figure it out and not having the confidence. This gives them the confidence to know that they're presenting it in a way that their students are going to be able to.
pick up what you're putting down. That's what the goal is. That's what you want and for them to be able to really implement.
Lyric Kinard (08:36.352)
And with hands-on skills, that's literal. I mean, we need to pick it up and do it. Walk me through, say that I'm a brand new business entrepreneur. I have worked really hard to build my skill in whatever it is. I am not an oil painter, so let's say oil painter, just because. But I've worked really hard to build this skill, and I love it so much that I wanna share it.
Shannon (08:39.583)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shannon (08:48.813)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (08:58.444)
Okay.
Shannon (09:01.9)
Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (09:05.3)
with other people. Walk me through very simply some of the things that you would first pay attention to and look at what I was doing to figure out how I needed to learn to teach.
Shannon (09:05.409)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shannon (09:21.387)
Right. So one of the things is that when you are creating a course, you always need to start with who is the audience? Like who is the specific person that you're designing the course for? What's the outcome of the course? So what do want them to be able to do at the end of the course they weren't able to do at the beginning? It has to be very, very specific. And then what are the assumed kind of prerequisites?
Lyric Kinard (09:45.974)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (09:50.685)
that you are expecting them to come to the course to. Now prerequisite sounds very academic, so you know don't get scared of the word, but we all have these assumptions of what people are coming into the course with. And for the example of oil painting, like it might be that they already have a set of oil paints and they've already dabbled with them, or it may not, or it may be that they already know that you have to have like an under layer before you can start painting that like
Lyric Kinard (09:57.184)
Right.
Shannon (10:20.149)
whatever stage of the process is, there's some assumed knowledge, skills, and attitudes that we expect our students coming in. And so it's important to uncover that for ourselves and be transparent about it so that we're getting the right students into our class. Because sometimes, especially on social media, there's a message that just get as many people in. It's about making the money, right? And we talk about launching and like...
but you don't want as many people in as possible. You want as many of the right people in as possible because they're gonna be happy, they're going to engage. If you have a community, they're going to engage positively, they're gonna talk about your program in a positive way, they're not gonna ask for a refund. It's better for you and for them that you get the right people in. So that's always step number one is kind of setting, I call them the parameters for your course.
Lyric Kinard (11:08.854)
Right. And this is, this applies to absolutely everything, to posting on social media, to building a community, to marketing. It's all about making an authentic connection, but it's so important to understand who it is that you want to make a connection with. That's the foundation of absolutely everything else you do.
Shannon (11:35.265)
Yeah, absolutely. And then when you have like that outcome that you want people to get and people talk about the transformation and there's lots of like different ways of talking about it, but it's really like, what is that skill? What are they going to be able to do at the end that they weren't able to do at the beginning? And then once you have that, you can start to work backwards. And that's, think, a mistake that a lot of people make sometimes too, is they're like, okay, step one is this, step two is that
But it's just like going on vacation. If you want to go, I'm in Canada, if I want to go from where I am in Canada to Seattle, I mean, there's a lot of long and winding, twisting ways that can get me there, but I want the most effective and efficient way to get there. I want to make sure that I hit all the important scenic tourist destinations. I don't want to miss anything. I don't want to run out of gas. There's so many things, and it's exactly the same with course creation. You start with that endpoint, because if you just
start on the road. Yeah, exactly. It's this twisting, turning, winding path that you end up on. So you have to start at the end and plan backwards. And that's also why it's so important that you identify those prerequisites because otherwise you don't know when to stop when you're moving backwards. So, you know, I've seen people, they start out with a good plan and then they're like, well, if they're going to know how to oil paint, then they have to know how to buy paints.
But if they're gonna have to go buy paints, then they have to go to the right place to do it. And so to get there, they've got to drive a car. so, you know, like I teach them how to drive a car before you know it, like, you know, you're teaching them how to wake up in the morning. So you've got to have those end points of your course so that you know where to start and where to stop.
Lyric Kinard (13:10.656)
you
Lyric Kinard (13:19.094)
And that's, I love it when other people preach my sermons, right? You have to know the end point. You have to know where you're going in order to know what direction your first step is, in order to chart the path there. What's next?
Shannon (13:24.673)
Hahaha!
Shannon (13:33.441)
Yeah, yeah, exactly, exactly. So once you have your course mapped out, for me, I take people through really a three step process. I mean, there's more, there's more, but the main three of the planning is that you do a course map. And so at the very high level, you plan out those big chunks. And then depending on the kind of course, you're gonna go into maybe modules or units.
Lyric Kinard (13:48.128)
of course.
Shannon (14:01.653)
and then down into lessons. So I know a lot of your listeners, they're going to be doing different sized courses. They're maybe not doing a big signature course. So when you're doing a signature course, the process of planning is quite in depth and detailed. Creating a course is not sitting down with Canva and making some slides. That's about 50 to 60 % of the way through the process, especially if you're doing like a big signature course.
Lyric Kinard (14:21.962)
Ha ha ha.
Shannon (14:27.853)
So you know how detailed you go and how much goes into each of those steps and whether you have all of those steps is going to depend on like the size of your course and what it is that you're hoping to accomplish. So there's that. There's deciding what kind of interactions you're going to have with your students. So I always talk about there's four different kinds of interactions that you can have.
and which ones you choose and how involved you choose to be with those is gonna depend on, again, the size of your course, how much you're charging for the course, your business model and all of those things. Yeah, yeah, so the first interaction, and this is not, so Michael Moore, not the Michael Moore everybody thinks of, but the researcher Michael Moore back in the 80s, he started to talk about correspondence courses.
Lyric Kinard (14:59.36)
Tell me more about four specific kinds of interactions.
Shannon (15:17.963)
And he was talking about three kinds of interactions with correspondence courses, and they're just as important today, but there's a fourth as well. So the first one is the student to content interaction. So student to content. So that's what we always think of first, right? What are the videos? What are the handouts? What are the worksheets? All of that kind of a thing. So student to content. The second is student to instructor. And so that can be through the videos.
But it's also through live, if you have a live component to your course, if you're doing live Q and A's, if you're doing co-working sessions, if you're giving feedback to your students in some way.
Lyric Kinard (15:57.322)
can be in the comment Q &A section under each lesson on an on-demand class.
Shannon (16:01.705)
It could be, yeah, exactly. It could be in a community if you're doing like a Facebook community or something. So lots of different ways. And so which ones you choose is going to depend again on like all those factors that we just talked about. So student to content, student to instructor. The third one is student to student. Now, this is when you're maybe having small groups or again through the forum. It could be through the forum. It could be if you let people interact in your lives.
So I've seen some courses where it's like very unidirectional, like one directional, right? Like no one's allowed to turn their camera on. Sometimes there's not even a chat. I mean, it doesn't even have to be live. It could be pre-recorded. Yeah, exactly. Or it's like pre-recorded. And then there's others that are quite interactive and they really encourage the students to interact with each other.
Lyric Kinard (16:39.22)
Yeah, more like a lecture, a webinar kind of thing.
Shannon (16:52.289)
And so that's another value add in some kinds of situations. And again, it's going to depend on like what your goal is for your course. And then the fourth interaction is the student to industry or student to real life. So in this kind of situation, it could be like if you're teaching people like sort of a business related course. So I was just helping someone on a course and she was developing
like for long arm quilters, how to design pantographs. So it was the business of pantographs. So giving students an eye into the behind the scenes of that kind of business, sharing her world with them of what she had learned in over the, you know, all of the time that she had been doing this and the trials and the tribulations and the lessons learned and even making connections with people who they otherwise wouldn't have.
access to. It could be through guest speakers, it could be through introductions, there's lots of different ways. Or just other ways that you can allow students to kind of have those real life interactions. Again, all of these things add value to our course. And so we want to think about how we want to have our course. And it's really important that you do it in a way
Lyric Kinard (17:49.78)
Right.
Shannon (18:15.469)
that is necessary for your students and for what it is that you're teaching. Like you can't just say, I'm gonna throw all these things in here, I'm gonna make this the most valuable how to paint a tree course ever, and I'm gonna charge $1,000 because they have all of these different interactions. Like no, that's not necessary for what it is you're trying to teach. So you have to be really careful about how you're making those decisions, but that's a really important part of the process as well.
Lyric Kinard (18:41.706)
That's so interesting. my brain is spinning through all the different kinds of courses and all the different levels of those four things that are offered in the different kinds of courses. What do you, what do you,
Shannon (18:44.45)
Yeah.
Shannon (18:52.215)
Yeah.
Shannon (18:56.449)
Well, I was gonna say that's just it is like in this online space, the sky is the limit. You are only limited by your imagination and what it is you want to create for your students. So that can be very freeing, but it can also be very paralyzing. So I take my students through like a very, you know, measured steps and stages for making these decisions. Because yeah, you can be like inspired.
And you can also be like completely overwhelmed. exactly. Yeah.
Lyric Kinard (19:26.592)
frozen, right? Well, the thing is you have the choice. I I have all different kinds of courses and some of them only offer interaction between the content, right? And that's perfectly acceptable. It's a small, inexpensive, demand. Here's some videos to show you how to do the thing course all the way up to the other end. So you as the teacher have the option. You don't
Shannon (19:49.633)
Yep. Yep.
Lyric Kinard (19:56.224)
have to add all of those things. You can choose which one of the things you want to add in. I wanted to go on and ask you, what do you think the biggest mistake that new online course creators make?
Shannon (19:57.653)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Yeah.
Shannon (20:08.525)
Mm.
Shannon (20:12.407)
I think this is where you and I will really align, maybe. Exactly. So I know that you teach people how to be confident on camera. One of the mistakes I see people make is not putting themselves on camera. I know that it can be like, you know, just create your first one, just get it out there and whatever. But I really want to encourage people to take those steps to get
Lyric Kinard (20:17.032)
As if we aren't already.
Shannon (20:41.613)
comfortable first because it goes so far to make a connection with your audience, to create engagement. And they don't, people buy from people. Like we hear that all the time, right? It's about the relationships that they, they're buying it because they want to learn the skill, but they want to learn the skill from you. And so it's really, really important.
that you show up for them because that's what's going to, like I said, engage them and encourage them to finish the course, but also encourage them to buy your next course. So I know with like, you know, your listeners is going to be a lot of like tutorials and demonstrations and stuff that people are doing. But at the very least, please show up at the beginning. Let's see your face. You can always do that little picture in picture if it's appropriate when you're doing the demo. Let's see you at the end where you're like.
you know, telling people the call to action and what they should go and do. It's really, really important. You are your harshest critic. So please, like we want to see you in all your glory and that glory could be messy glory, but we we want to see you and we want to connect with you.
Lyric Kinard (21:49.616)
I totally agree with you. And it's interesting that it's two truths at the same time. So the people are there because they want to learn from you. There's 400 people teaching the same thing, but they will choose you if you're able to make that authentic connection with them. At the same time,
You're not, it's actually not about you, right? It's about the student and what they can learn and how you're gifting them your knowledge that will make their lives happier, right? So you don't have to worry that you're not perfect. People want real so much more than they want glossy, especially with AI happening today, right?
Shannon (22:18.37)
Yes.
Shannon (22:23.906)
Yeah.
Shannon (22:27.712)
Absolutely.
Shannon (22:32.983)
Yes, yes, absolutely. You're 100 % right. It's like we are way more focused on ourselves than anybody else is. It's about us. So for your student, it's the same. It's about them. It's not about you. And I teach like, you you want to have a profession, like professional. And I use that in quotation marks in terms of how you present yourself, because it's not about being high production value.
It's about not having a mess behind you. I watched a really good course and this person had a drawer open in the background and it just distracted me. It drove me crazy the entire time. And know, she was very well known and it wasn't a cheap course. And I was just the whole time going like, please close that drawer. So you know, we want to think about these things, but also at the same time.
Lyric Kinard (23:17.131)
Right?
Shannon (23:20.821)
it's related, we want to be relatable. And when we're not perfect and when we don't have the perfect hair and the perfect makeup and the perfect manicure, blah, blah, that's what makes people relate to us and like us as human beings. So I think, again, it's like the two things, everything is about the balance, right? We want to take certain things into consideration so that we're not doing things that are distracting to our audience, but at the same time, we want to be very human and relatable.
Lyric Kinard (23:48.086)
Right, I encourage all of you to, the only way to get relatable and to get comfortable on camera is to be on camera, right? So pick up your phone and talk to your phone all the time. Record selfies all the time. Even if they're terrible, you're gonna delete them anyway, but that's how you get to the point of being comfortable. maybe, you know, maybe I'm a little bit farther out on.
this end where I really push people to get out before they think they're ready. Because if you wait till you're ready, right? Till you think you're ready, it's never, yeah, it just never happens. Perfect is the enemy of good and the enemy of finished at all, right?
Shannon (24:21.523)
I agree. You're never ready. Yep.
Shannon (24:32.525)
Yeah, exactly. Perfection is the enemy of progress for sure. And no, I agree with you 100%. Like you will never be ready. It is a very awkward thing to do. It feels really weird. And you know, as you get into bigger courses, especially, and you get into like the editing process, it is going to be very cringy to watch and hear yourself. And but I always also recommend to people to like the first time that you record.
Lyric Kinard (24:38.71)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (24:56.545)
Don't do your makeup, don't do your hair, wear your pajamas. You have to know that this is not gonna be the take that you actually use in your course. It takes practice, takes fiddling around, it takes getting comfortable. I did a rec...
Lyric Kinard (25:08.512)
Right? You can't get better at doing the thing without doing the thing itself. Right? And get over yourself.
Shannon (25:13.389)
Yeah, exactly. Before you and I... Get over yourself, right? Before we started recording, you and I were talking about like whether our mics were on or not, right? And I was telling you I recorded something. My kids had turned off the mic and it was something I needed to do quickly. It was for somebody else and I sat down. I was like, I'm do this in one take. I know this subject matter really well. It was a 30 minute thing. I don't normally suggest people record for 30 minutes at a time, but this was a special situation.
Lyric Kinard (25:21.686)
Yeah
Shannon (25:42.317)
and did the whole thing and I was really happy with it and then I realized it hadn't recorded and I was so upset but you know what as happy as I was with what I did the second time I did it it was better it was way better now having said that to the all the perfectionists out there you cannot re-record re-record re-record again for that perfection right so again it's about that balance like let's be reasonable with ourselves that it's
Lyric Kinard (25:55.989)
Right.
Lyric Kinard (26:03.647)
Over.
Shannon (26:11.629)
probably not gonna be the first take that is the one you're gonna wanna use, but at the same time, we do need to just get it out there. Like it's not gonna be perfect, yeah. I always say no teacher is perfect. Teaching is a practice. You will continue to get better at it throughout your entire life. I am not perfect, my course is not perfect, and it never will be. I will continue to reiterate it and make it better, but that doesn't stop me from putting it out there.
Lyric Kinard (26:17.942)
You guys start somewhere, right?
Shannon (26:41.133)
It's really important that you just do it and get it out there.
Lyric Kinard (26:45.206)
And that's one of the beauties of online teaching is that in a classroom with people, you're there unless you're in a school or somewhere where you see the same students over a long time. Usually you only see your students for a short amount of time in person, but online, you can continually improve. You can tweak that on-demand course. You can rewrite your whole.
Shannon (27:04.13)
Yeah.
Shannon (27:11.074)
Yep.
Lyric Kinard (27:13.938)
I rewrote our whole Academy Virtual Teaching Masterclass last fall after it's been out for four years, right? Because you're always learning along with your students and it will probably get rewritten again in a couple of years because we learn and we improve.
Shannon (27:18.251)
Yeah. Exactly.
Shannon (27:29.388)
Yes.
And I want to talk about that. It's really important because there is a life cycle to a course. And again, you know, some people, there's an idea that like it's a set it and forget it thing. Like you do this thing and then it lives and it, you know, makes money for forever. But especially with bigger courses, like you're talking about your big course and especially with big courses, you know, they're going to go through a cycle.
Lyric Kinard (27:49.674)
Hmm hmm.
Shannon (27:55.357)
where the industry is going to change, you're going to change, not even just physically, but also the way you do things, you will come up with like better ways of doing things. Like I don't do it that way anymore. Actually, I do it this way. And so I want to make sure that what I'm teaching is current. Your students will change, your audience will change. Like things just change. And so I think we have to be open to that. And knowing that that's not, you know, when I was reaching out to people and I was saying, hey,
Lyric Kinard (28:04.95)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (28:24.961)
kind of looks like you're getting ready to revitalize your course. Would you like some help with that? That wasn't saying like, hey, I noticed you have a really bad course. Can I help you make it better? It was like, you've reached that point in the life cycle. And I see this a lot too, especially when people do that, like they just, they put something out there and they're creating it with their students. Like there are people who suggest you do that, that the first time you do it, you create the course with your students.
Lyric Kinard (28:51.946)
Yeah, there's nothing wrong with that doing it the first time, right? You got to start somewhere.
Shannon (28:57.709)
So what happens when you do that is that you start answering everybody's questions and the next time you offer it, you have a different group of students and they have different questions. So then you start answering those questions and blah, blah. And so after a few times, you kind of end up with like an albatross of a course that has lost its focus and its direction because you're trying to please everybody.
Lyric Kinard (29:07.382)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (29:23.149)
So at that point in time, while you may have done that to get started, and that's great, there does come a point in time where it's like, okay, now we need to refocus, and we need to go back to this, who is it for, what was the purpose, what are the parameters of this course gonna be, and sometimes it means you need to trim things down. And so again, it's just a natural part of the process.
Lyric Kinard (29:46.408)
I hear you, that's absolutely right. And it's, this is another thing where it's both times or both ways because as you tweak and improve your courses, in on-demand courses especially where I've filmed something and put it up and you you don't set it and forget it. I'm always answering questions but sometimes I've been up long enough that.
You get enough questions on one topic, you're like, I left something important out of the course, so you can go back and tweak it. But you're right, they're all focused on that one thing. And you really have a tight vision for your students' journey for their quest for transformation to pull the sword out of the stone or whatever, right?
Shannon (30:16.555)
Yeah. Yeah.
Shannon (30:23.04)
Yeah.
Shannon (30:34.561)
Yeah.
Well, and that's very normal also that we miss things out of our courses, especially when it's something we've been doing for a very long time. It is very difficult to remember what it's like at that beginning stage. So again, we make assumptions about what people already know. so, yeah, so those first couple of times you offer a course or if it's on demand, you know, after a period of time, you'll start to see where those gaps are. And so then you go back and you fix them.
Lyric Kinard (31:04.086)
All right. How do you suggest getting to know what your students need?
Shannon (31:11.213)
That's a really good question. I right now I have a freebie that's available and it's how to pick the most profitable course topic for you because it is very personalized. I believe what's going to be profitable for one person versus another and then a follow-up to that freebie that I have is a course of how to validate your course topic.
So for some people, they choose to validate a course topic by pre-selling. so validate what we mean by validate is like, there people out there who want to buy what it is you're selling? Right, exactly. Is there a market for it? And so there's some people who advocate for pre-selling the course, which means, you know, before you've actually spent the time to develop it, you sell it and see if people are willing to buy it.
Lyric Kinard (31:44.628)
Is there a market for it?
Shannon (31:57.869)
But I've had a lot of my students who say, I'm just not comfortable with that. You know, it's like, I don't want to sell air. It's too much pressure and stress because then I have to create this thing under a demand. It's just not, it's not a strategy for everybody. So what I teach is how to validate your course without pre-selling. And so what that means is you go through a process and this is a process we used at the college. I worked under a president who was at one point in time, really, really big on exponential growth.
Like she wanted 35 new programs and I don't even remember how many unreasonable years, but it was a lot in a very short period of time. And so like, what do you create? What do you do? So I had to go through this like validation process. And so there's, is a process to it and it involves doing what I, what's called an environmental scan. And you go through a needs assessment with your students and then a market analysis. And it sounds like very technical, but it's not. It's really just about getting out there.
Lyric Kinard (32:32.725)
What?
Shannon (32:57.133)
and talking to people and figuring out what are their problems, what are their desires, what is it that they want and why, what are their sticking points, what have they tried that hasn't worked, what has stopped them from doing certain things. So it's just getting out there and really talking to people with some really pointed questions. It's about listening more than talking. I find that's the biggest mistake that people make. get into it, because you can do surveys or focus groups or one-on-one interviews, can do whatever.
But sometimes when people are talking, they get so excited. And we'll say like, yeah, exactly. Yeah. Well, I've had a problem with this. Oh, OK. Blah, blah, blah, blah. And it's like we you know, it's difficult. We have we have to really sit back and listen. That's that's the biggest thing that you need to do. I.
Lyric Kinard (33:29.984)
We're teachers. We talk, talk, talk.
Lyric Kinard (33:37.27)
Mm-hmm.
Lyric Kinard (33:43.926)
This is one of the places where actually not having a huge audience can sometimes be an advantage because if you have a very small audience or email list, it makes it so easy to say, hey, get on a 20 or 30 minute Zoom call with me and tell me your problems. Tell me how I can help you. And it's such a good way to do exactly what you're talking about, to listen and hear.
Shannon (33:50.914)
Yeah.
Shannon (34:03.189)
Yeah, yeah.
Lyric Kinard (34:11.81)
in their own words that you can later use for marketing and for helping understand what your customer needs, what their pain points are, you can hear what it is that they need that you might be qualified to help them.
Shannon (34:14.199)
Yes.
Shannon (34:23.136)
Absolutely.
Shannon (34:29.535)
Absolutely, it's kind of funny because I was doing that a while ago, maybe a year and a half ago, and I had a conversation with someone and she saying, you know, this is what I'm struggling with, this is what's holding me back, blah, blah. When I did my marketing for my signature course, I actually used exactly what she said, because I do recommend like you record them so that you can have the exact words. And she reached out to me.
And she was like, Oh my goodness, I need your course. Like you are talking to me. That is exactly my problem. She didn't say like you copied me or you you used our interview or anything, but she exactly she was like, I am that person. Yeah. And I was like, yeah, I didn't tell her. I was like, yeah, actually, you were you were that person who told me that exact situation. So.
Lyric Kinard (35:05.494)
It was you get me
Lyric Kinard (35:14.07)
Because she was!
Lyric Kinard (35:20.253)
All
And this doesn't mean that you go out and see what the market is and then make up a new skill to teach, right? This isn't about creating a course that's out of alignment with what you love and what you wanna do.
Shannon (35:30.922)
Right, right.
Shannon (35:38.637)
Exactly. And that's why it's the two parts. So I start with the freebie about narrowing down. I call it my course filter. So you're narrowing down the ideas to what's going to be profitable for you so that you're staying within your zone of genius and your passions. And then you're going out and refining it. So it's really important that you do it in that order. I've seen people who are like, they teach, you know, go and look at the trends and figure it like, here's all the things that are selling right now. And it's like, no, no, no, that's backwards.
Lyric Kinard (35:46.358)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (36:07.389)
You have to start with what, where are your areas of expertise? What are you confident in? What are you passionate about?
Lyric Kinard (36:11.2)
Yeah.
Yeah, and it might be profitable in the short term, but it's going to suck your soul dry.
Shannon (36:19.967)
yeah, yeah, and then yeah, it's gonna suck your soul dry. You're gonna hate that course. You're going to hate talking about it. And you're gonna hate course creation. Like that's my goal because I know how rewarding being an educator can be and what a wonderful business or arm of your business that it can be. And so I wanna make sure people are doing it and they say the right way in quotation marks again, because there's no one right way.
Lyric Kinard (36:37.152)
What?
Shannon (36:44.717)
But I want to make sure that people are doing it in a way so that they can really experience that joy of being an educator. That's another thing to talk about. Like when you have a course, no matter how small it is, whether you how much money you charge for it doesn't matter. You are stepping into the world of being an educator. And that's not a scary thing. That's like a really exciting, rewarding thing. And when you fully take that on as part of your identity, it just opens up so many wonderful doors for you.
Lyric Kinard (37:12.862)
I love it so much because creators, anybody who knows or understands a thing and then chooses to impart that knowledge is amplifying the impact that they can have on the world. I could make a really cool piece of art, right? And it could bring somebody joy by living on their living room wall. But if I can teach other artists,
to do the same thing, to do their own thing, right? That is just spreading the beauty and the joy so much farther than we could. Teachers have such beautiful souls. Teachers are so important to the world.
Shannon (37:56.653)
Yeah, absolutely, absolutely.
Lyric Kinard (38:00.166)
Shannon, tell me, let's look back at your own business for a minute and kind of a little bit of an off the wall question. If you looked back at yourself at the beginning of the business that you're working in right now, what advice would you give yourself?
Shannon (38:07.009)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (38:12.939)
Okay.
Shannon (38:22.957)
that's such a good question. I think the best advice is to know that no matter what stage of the entrepreneurial journey you're at, it's a roller coaster. It is ups and downs. It is elation and turmoil. And you know, the downs don't mean that you're not doing it right, or that you don't have it in you or that you can't be successful.
And the ups don't mean that you've got it all figured out either. So I think I've, you know, I've had the pleasure of working with so many entrepreneurs now at all different stages of their business. And I have seen it at all stages of business. It changes a little bit. But the turmoil is still the same, the doubts, the questioning, the elation, all of it.
Lyric Kinard (39:17.534)
I feel like you were talking straight to me. It's been a very roller coaster just over the past couple months and it's so true. You know, there's some parts that kind of even out, right? But there's always going to be huge up and downs and the downs feel like I'm a failure. This is not working. This is never going to work. And then the highs are like, this is awesome. And then the next time it doesn't work and you're what is going on?
Shannon (39:19.853)
Hahaha!
Shannon (39:39.02)
Yeah.
Shannon (39:43.745)
Yeah. Yeah, exactly.
Lyric Kinard (39:46.762)
But you know, it's not a down and you get off the roller coaster. It's a kind of continual climbing of the roller coaster. You're up and down, but you can always improve. It's always getting better as long as you don't give up.
Shannon (40:01.473)
Yep, that's it, that's it exactly. You just have to keep putting one foot in front of the other and figure it out. Figure it out.
Lyric Kinard (40:09.622)
Shannon, this was so much really, really useful advice, really actionable. And I encourage everybody, if you're struggling with any of this, definitely go look at Shannon's freebie. It sounds amazing. And look at her course. And if you've already got courses built, it never hurts to bring in somebody and make them just so sweet, just so much better.
Shannon (40:14.957)
Awesome.
Lyric Kinard (40:37.076)
So for our very last question, Shannon, I love to ask my guest, what's the last thing that you made?
Shannon (40:40.3)
Mm-hmm.
Shannon (40:44.671)
I love this question. It's so nuanced because you didn't say, what are you making? You said, what did you make? What's the last thing you made? And I'm just like, I'm laughing at myself because I focus on course creation and finishing it and getting it out there. But when I look at, I know you said my answer could be whatever I want, but I am also a creator. I am a serial hobbyist, but I love quilting. And it's funny because I'm very, I don't have a lot of time for it.
So I'm very, very slowly working on an EPP quilt for my daughter who's three, but my goal is that I finish it when she's 18. Yes.
Lyric Kinard (41:23.286)
English paper piecing, hand work. It's very meditative, very slow. It's a to-go project that you can take anywhere. And just to make you feel better, I have five children. By the time number three came around, they didn't get their quilt till they graduated high school. Number five is in college and hasn't gotten a quilt yet.
Shannon (41:42.655)
Okay, that's my goal, so yeah.
Shannon (41:47.885)
I love it.
Lyric Kinard (41:51.574)
So it's okay, it's an achievable goal.
Shannon (41:54.397)
Yeah, yeah, I love it. keeps me busy in the five minutes that I have here and there. I always say I'm a course creator because it's just as much of a creative outlet as any of the hobbies that I have as well. But it's always nice to do something with your hands as well.
Lyric Kinard (42:11.688)
It is, and especially as a parent, I can't tell you how many hours I spent at hockey practice and violin lessons and play practice and carpool line and all the things. And if you have something that you can do for two minutes a time that's small and always with you with your hands, I'm just saying it makes life so much more tolerable than when you're sitting in carpool forever.
Shannon (42:33.377)
Yep. It does. It does. Yep, for sure.
Lyric Kinard (42:39.092)
Shannon, thank you so much. It's been a delight and a pleasure. Tell us where our audience can find you.
Shannon (42:45.429)
Yeah, thank you so much for having me. I really enjoyed this conversation. So I am Shannon L Boyer, L the letter. ChatGPT has started to make me Spanish with the EL, like Shannon L Boyer. So no, it's Shannon L the letter, Boyer everywhere. That's my website, on Instagram, LinkedIn. I'm not on TikTok, but on all the majors, that's where you can find me. And yeah, I'd love to give you the link for the how to choose the best course topic
for you and for your listeners as well.
Lyric Kinard (43:16.233)
Excellent.
We will have all of the links right here in the descriptions and in the show notes. So make sure you look at those, make sure you go check out what Shannon has to offer because she is absolutely fabulous. It's been lovely, Shannon. Bye bye.
Shannon (43:31.789)
Thank you.
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