Can you create a course that matters as an information product?  One that is engaging, offers multiple ways to experience the knowledge and instructions on how to use that knowledge for your own benefit.  Well Catherine Caine has achieved just that with her wonderful new product.  I asked Catherine to give us some insight into how she created DIY Magnificence and you can read it all below. 

Hello, my name’s Catherine and I run a marketing business called Cash and Joy. While my old business had a few courses, this new one has been, up until now, entirely delivered as consulting.

Actually, I’ve been calling it coachsulting, because I tend to deliver a mix of helping-you-figure-out-your-own-answers (the classic coaching model) with a dash of here’s-what-you-need-to-do-next (consulting).

It’s easy enough to create information resources around the consulting model. All you need is a something like “Insert Tab A into Slot B, unless you’re a Taurus, in which case use Tab H.” When you’re doing consulting, you have the answers.

But what about the coaching model? How on earth do you create an information resource that helps your users figure out the answers for themselves?

Here’s how I created an information product from my marketing transformation service, Goddamn Radiant, with Ainslie’s help.

Step 1: Focus on the source.

I listened to some of my session recordings with a notepad and pen. I knew that I spent most of my time in the sessions asking questions, but which ones? And which ones were the most effective?

The result was a list of a hundred questions that I asked during my sessions, and a shorter list of the twenty or so I thought were the most powerful for the majority of my clients. (The Eureka! questions.)

Step 2: Analyse.

A lot of the power in those questions came from slightly different follow-up questions, digging deeper into the answers, and linking pieces together to make a cohesive meta-idea.

Could someone do that for themselves? Could they dig into their own answers and vary the approach slightly and link ideas together?

Ummm… not really. Certainly not in the way I do it.

Crap!

This product is doomed, I thought. How the hell do I create the same impact without me guiding the process?

And the answers are:

1. You can’t. That’s why people pay me for coachsulting in the first place.

2. But you can get people to guide themselves and create a comparable impact.

If the essence of my work is asking the same questions over and over in different ways until my clients start answering with deep insight, then they already know the answers.

So if they ask themselves the same questions over and over in different ways they should start answering with deep insight. Right?

Hooray! I can create that!

Step 3: Furious planning.

I needed to create an environment in which people can ask themselves related questions multiple times… without getting bored or frustrated.

Ainslie, help!

With Ainslie’s advice, I ended up planning to produce the following, as physical products instead of the standard digital:

• a workbook that covers the questions in more depth
• flash cards of the 65 best questions
• an audio CD of me reading the questions

With those three different media, there are a thousand ways to engage with the material. People can have the CD playing in the background to stimulate thought on the topics, or hand the flash cards to someone and ask them to conduct an interview – a method I personally would love to use, I’ve been known to print out worksheets and ask The Dude to read me the questions – or draw in the big spaces in the workbook, or… all of the above!

Ainslie helped me realise that I have to let go of the process and simply create as many opportunities as possible for my audience to do the work alone. I can’t push people down the right path, because there IS no right path… there are lots of paths, and whichever one works for you is something I can’t tell in advance. (Of course, when we’re working one-on-one it’s easy to figure out the right path for you and adapt, but I can’t do that for products.)

Step 4: Execution!

The nicest part of deciding that my audience can direct their own engagement with the materials? I had no need to be controlling. It’s an iterative process where the answers from one section will change the next… so it doesn’t matter where my audience starts. I could relax and let the information flow.

The only concern was, “What would give my audience the best chance of creating massive impact with these questions?” I added a preparation chapter, and one with tips on how to get the most from the resource.

It was the most stripped-down writing I’ve ever done, because there’s only one action… I need to present the questions clearly enough that my audience can answer them. That’s it. For some questions I explained the rationale because I think it makes it easier to answer the questions well, and that grew the resource more than I expected: the final result is 72 pages long.

But otherwise, I added zero fluff or direction: everything is in the hands of the audience. They can use all of the resources, or only one. I had to make sure every resource was useful by itself: the audio had to explain itself, and the flash cards needed to work without the workbook. It was challenging as hell, but fascinating, too. At every stage, I had to stay out of the way of the material and let it speak for itself.

For example, I read the questions aloud in a calm, unobtrusive voice. And then I thought, “Well, this would make me sleepy. I’d want to hear them in a much more energetic voice.” So I read them again, with much more excitement.

I listened to both versions and tried to decide which one to use. I couldn’t, of course, because it was easy to realise that some people would want the calm voice, and others would want the energy of the excited voice. (Or the same person might want either, depending on their mood.)

So I made two CDs instead of one, with downloadable versions for portable devices. There were plenty of decisions like that, and the answer was always, “What would serve my audience best?”

It’s a LOT more work than just doing the simplest thing, but the resource is a thousand times better for it.

The lessons I learned.

1. When you aren’t physically present to teach, it’s much better to let your audience choose rather than choose for them.

2. Give them options on how to engage with the material, including at the minimum one visual and one auditory medium, with plenty of exercises for the kinethetic learners.

3. Let them set the timetable, too. This isn’t high school any more, we take responsibility for our own learning and we want to do it at our own pace.

4. Hire Ainslie, she’s amazing (or join my course – registration closes today)

So what did I create? It’s called DIY Magnificence, and you can learn more about it here  (aff link).

I was one of the beta testers for this course and I am crazy in love with DIY  Magnificence.  Catherine jumps off every page and when you immerse yourself in the workbook and listen to the audio you really think she is in the room with you, working her little butt off to work out how to market you and your dream.

Catherine runs Cash and Joy from her secret underground lair in Brisbane, Australia. Her nefarious plan is to help every creative service provider start delivering their best work to their best audience. Mwa ha ha ha.