This blog series goes behind-the-scenes of a seven-figure launch I supported. Read on for tips and takeaways you can use for launching your online course, workshop or program.

In this article, I’ll specifically be breaking down how the team I’m helping - I’ll call them Team Awesome - weaves LIVE sessions into their training to motivate their students to actually take action on what they teach.

Why teach LIVE instead of everything being pre-recorded?

Having a LIVE component included in your training (whether you’re doing a masterclass, workshop, bootcamp or coaching program) can make a HUGE difference in getting your students to take action on what you’re teaching.

There’s an extra level of accountability and engagement when students get live access to their coach or instructor.

I want to break down how Team Awesome structured their 6-week training that was delivered live to over a thousand students.

Each week has 4 main components:

Live Virtual Training

A live training was taught each week and typically lasted 90 minutes. During the live broadcast, students could ask questions in the Chat thread. A coach would address those questions during dedicated Q&A portions of the training.

Each lesson was accompanied with a workbook that students were encouraged to fill out as the lesson was taught.

A replay of the training would later be uploaded to their course platform within 24 hours.

Why This Works: Students who show up live are rewarded with having their questions immediately answered during the training. Asking them to fill out a workbook or worksheet encourages active participation instead of passive listening.

If teaching in a weekly format, break your content down into consumable lessons that a student can keep up with.

Work Sessions

During the live training, instructors scheduled several small pockets of work time for students to complete parts of the workbook. So every 30 minutes or so of teaching would be followed by a 10-20 minute work session.

Why this works: Students often put off doing any work because they want to “consume” all the content first before taking action. The work sessions get students to make progress on a bite-sized lesson.

Timed work sessions increase productivity — Timed work sessions can increase productivity and lessen the tendency to procrastinate.

Homework

At the end of each training, homework would be assigned and due by midnight of that same day. Students submitted completed work via a form and were also encouraged to post in the Facebook group that they completed the homework.

To incentivize your own students, say that if they turn homework in on time, you will personally review their assignments and they have a chance to get personalized feedback during a Q&A call. (see next section)

Why this works: Completing homework gave students a small win they could celebrate in the Facebook Group. Posting wins also motivated other students to turn in their homework, too.

Live Q&A

Students were instructed to submit their questions ahead of time by posting them as a comment on a specific Facebook post. There was a deadline to submit questions, typically about 12 hours before the live Q&A session. This gave instructors time to review the questions and prepare responses.

As mentioned previously, during the Q&A session instructors would also provide feedback on completed homework. They would highlight specific student examples to use as case studies and also provide feedback on common themes and issues they saw across all the homework.

Why this works: If students completed homework on time, they had a chance to get tailored feedback from instructors - super valuable. Also, students pushed themselves to watch the replay of the live training in order to submit questions before the deadline.

**Tip**

Tell students to “Like” or upvote the questions they also want answers to. This gives you an idea of what needs further clarification in your training.

Conclusion

Build a habit for students to take (imperfect) actually quickly so they can make progress each week.

Consider following this model of having a tight turnaround for homework and Q&A‘s.

It was truly incredible seeing so many students post their completed homework! It was part of my job during the 6-weeks to cheer them on and point them to resources if they got stuck along the way.

By the end of six weeks, those same students were grateful not just for what they learned, but about how much they got DONE.

I hope this helps you structure your curriculum as you build out your program.

And if you have any questions please comment below 😄

You may also like these blogs:

Featured