Here is Karl explaining what you will learn on his course:
And now Karl shares a bit of his experience creating his first online course:
What is the course about?
Here’s a quick intro:
Meditation Made Easy – The Step by Step Guide.
Learn how to meditate using powerful meditations that will enrich your life, even if you’ve never meditated before.
By taking this course you will be able to:
• Meditate easily and effortlessly
• Reduce stress
• Calm your mind
• Gain deeper levels of relaxation
• Increase your health & vitality
• Experience a greater sense of wellbeing
• Experience many levels and depths of meditation
• Receive many of the life enriching benefits that come from meditation
This course is as close as it can be to receiving private 1:1 sessions with me, for a fraction of the cost, and without you having to commit to regular appointments, or travelling to attend meditation classes.
You’ll get to experience the magic of meditation for yourself, while learning from the comfort of your own home.
How did you choose the topic of the course?
I’ve been a meditation teacher for a long time, so you could say the topic choice was a no-brainer.
Why did you decide to create an online course?
I realised a long time ago that my ability to help people was compromised by two factors. Time and Place. I could only ever be in one place at any one time. This meant it was only possible for me to personally help a limited number of people during my life, and even this was hampered by the necessity of having a mutually convenient time and place for us both to meet.
The idea of an online course meant I could be accessible to anyone-anytime. And I could give them what they were seeking INSTANTLY. I also realised that it would be possible to help people all over the world! Not just those within travelling distance of my geographical location.
How did you find time to produce it?
I made time. I made the course a priority. I made it a goal that I MUST complete no matter what. I set aside a few hours each day to work on it. Initially brainstorming ideas – then outlining a plan, then highlighting action points, then scheduling these into my diary so that I didn’t forget to do them.
How long did it take you to put together?
I’d thought about creating an online meditation course back in September 2015… But I only really had a clear plan of what I needed to do at the beginning of April 2016. I set myself a 30 day target to get it finished… I missed my first deadline, then my second, then my third…. Then I stopped setting myself deadlines and simply continued doing what needed to be done until finally on July 14th 2016 it was launched to the public!
What was the hardest thing to do?
Sticking to the daily schedule was the most difficult. Purely because my time estimations for the video production time was woefully inaccurate.
For example I would estimate that it would take me an hour to edit a video and add all the elements needed to enhance it for visual learners like myself… 6 hours later I’d still be working on the same video! My carefully planned schedule was kaput.
I have 61 videos, and I thought it would take 61 hours to get them all done… It took me about a month to get them all finished!
What was the simplest thing to do?
That’s a difficult question… Thinking about it I’m not certain that anything was simple. Perhaps the simplest thing was having the idea of wanting to create an online course in the first place.
How did you determine the price of the course?
For starters I didn’t want a high price tag on my course because I wanted it to be affordable to everyone. But I didn’t want it to be as sold too cheaply as that would imply the content was not valuable.
The meditation category on the Udemy marketplace is jammed with an excess of 100+ courses, so anyone genuinely interested in meditation would have to do a lot of searching and comparing courses to see which offered them the most value for their money. I looked at the prices of other meditation courses, what was in them, the credentials of the instructors, what the student would get from the course, etc.
I noticed that some of the best selling courses had an average of 30 lectures and between 2-3 hours of video content. Mine has 71 lectures and 5 hours of video. I priced mine at £25 ($30) less than some, more than others, but when compared side by side to the best sellers, mine gives more for your money, and hopefully that would be enough to encourage the shopper to take a closer look.
What is your marketing strategy to promote it?
At present, I have no strategy! All this ‘online marketing stuff’ is brand new to me. My goal is to create meaningful and lasting connections with people. I simply aim to be as helpful as I can, wherever I can, to whoever I can, so that I can add value to their lives and make it better in some way. I’m learning as I go along, and I’m open to all ideas – except for cold calling on the phone, or knocking on peoples doors.
In terms of what I did to promote it… I did show my finished course to a friend, who happens to be an established Udemy instructor. He said he was so impressed by the information and the way it was presented that he wanted to share it with his community. He felt it was aligned with his own values, and he felt that his community would benefit from it.
I also belong to an online Reiki forum which I’ve been active in for a while. The owner encouraged me to announce the launch of my course in there. I was humbled by the positive reception it got, and to see so many people singing up.
With just those 2 elements in place to support me, I went from officially launching my course on Udemy at 10pm Thursday 14th July – to waking up Monday 18th July to discover I had made it into the New and Noteworthy section!
Karl’s meditation course profiled on Udemy’s home page!
What software did you use?
iMovie and Screenflow (version 6) for video editing and production.
Audacity to enhance the sound and remove background noise, and to create the meditations on mp3 as resources for download.
Pages to write supplementary material that was converted into PDF as resources for download.
A wonderful little App called Teleprompter which helped me keep my promo video to the point and within time. It also helped with making sure my lessons didn’t meander off on any rambling tangents.
Affinity photo and Art Text 3 to create some of the images and graphics used in the video presentations.
Scrivener to write out the entire course. It was so much easier than using pages or Microsoft word, as I could keep track of all the sections and lectures at a glance without having to scroll through an entire document to make edits and additions.
What hardware did you use? (camera, microphone, lights, etc.)
Camera: Panasonic HDC-SD900
Microphone: Rode videomic pro
Lights: x2 studio lights & natural daylight from the windows
Green screen
x 2 Hallogen lamps to backlight green screen
Macbook pro
What was the part the Grumo course help you the most with?
The Grumo course helped with ALL of it… it actually took away a lot of the initial ‘overwhelm’ I was feeling about creating it. I sat watching the course before I even knew where to start on mine, and that was really helpful to me… It was like my guide showing me the things I needed to do, and the fastest way to do them. The Grumo course also helped with buying the right software, and then giving me the best and most entertaining crash course in how to use it.
But wait . . . I do have a confession, I’ll be honest with you Mr Grumo… I didn’t even finish your course! I was so inspired, encouraged and energised by what I was learning from you that I’d stop watching your course and carry on with creating my own course… Then I’d come back to your course a few days or weeks later when I was ready for the next stage…. or if I’d forgotten something and needed a refresher.
Although I did not finish your course, I did complete 59% of it. That was all I needed to take my course from an idea to reality. I WILL go back to your course. There is still so much I have to learn about marketing it. And I know your final section covers that aspect in detail 🙂
What other resources have you used to make your course?
One of the most helpful was Udemy’s own: How To Create Your Udemy Course. It’s short and sweet, and gets right to the point without any waffle. It also links to helpful videos.
For anyone interested in learning more about meditation, Karl was so kind as to share a special GRUMO fans only discount coupon:
And if you are interested in learning how to create and sell your own courses you can also check my course and get it for a nice 50% discount using the coupon GRUMO50OFF.
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