Lessons learnt from hosting an on-line 5-Day Challenge

The live on-line Q&A session was starting in 5 mins, and I was frantically making up questions just in-case no one asked any!  Self-doubt is not something I’m used to feeling, especially having spent many years successfully running face-to-face training sessions!  But here I was, about to hit ‘unmute’ on day one of our 5-day challenge, wishing...​

I’d just pre-recorded the whole bloody thing!

The Context;
The challenge was entitled ‘How to gain training experience, without being a Trainer,’ and was aimed at those wanting to launch their career in L&D.  On each day of the five days, they would have access to a video tutorial, worksheet and a live Q&A session (x 5!).

The Reason;

1. Learners – To enable potential trainers to make the most of their current work situation to gain training experience. (Rather than just spending gazillions on qualifications to gain knowledge)
2. Personal – To allow me to pull together a programme on-line and learn from it
3. Business – To increase my warm audience list and highlight the paid courses in the Curious Trainers Academy.

The Reality;
Before I started I thought… “All I need to do is create 5 pre-recorded videos with worksheets, and be ready to answer some questions each night, right?”  Well maybe there was just one or two more things involved, like…  

• Creating a marketing strategy
• Drumming up interest
• Fathoming out how to set it all up on-line
• Creating an email sequence to capture interest and prompts for the week itself
• Creating a sales funnel to suggest further value
• Creating content for the Facebook group
• Dealing with well-intended comments about what’s wrong with my challenge (with no positive aspect offered… at all… ever!)
• Running so many soundchecks that your neighbours think you’re applying for a DJ position

The Learning:

• I became an ‘expert’ on Thinkific (www.thinkific.com) , Audacity, Canva, Zoom and ConvertKit!! 
• I’m a dab hand at navigating YouTube to find solutions to my technical issues… of which there were too many to list here!
• I realised that half the people who signed up weren’t my intended audience
• I learnt that when you tell people the live Q&A sessions are going to be recorded so they can listen back later… most people don’t attend the live sessions.
• I become very good at talking to a non-responsive audience
• I felt good that I could answer spur-of-the-moment questions about L&D (and they actually give value!)

The Up-shot...
Would I do it again?  To be honest… not in rush, unless it was the same topic, as I have everything already created and ready to go! But I have learnt tons, especially about the difference between facilitating face-to-face and on a digital platform, how to create a challenge on a wonderful course creation platform (www.thinkific.com)...  and, that I’m very good at making up my own questions if I need to!

You can find the challenge and much much more at www.curious-trainers-academy.com