Introduction
I’ve noticed a trend in course creation groups: asking for instructions on how to do a tech task. Sure you pay to be in these groups, they are filled with people who are on the same pathway you are, creating, launching, and serving a digital course, but the big, important questions can sometimes get buried under the smaller, simpler questions that can be searched on Google in 10 seconds or less.
This makes the groups less valuable. Hard stop.
You know I’m a big fan of being active in social media groups because you are building connections, trust, authority, and even gaining referrals.
So I understand the temptation to ask questions in the group when you get stuck. But that clogs up the groups and keeps your important questions hidden away. It is frustrating when you have a question about where a funnel isn’t working inside your business only to be drowned out by the mundane tech questions like how do I save as a PDF from a word document.
To get the most out of the paid and free groups that you are in, let’s talk about best practices and, of course, feel free to share this episode with your friends so that they too can become better members of those same groups you are in.
Getting Answers
When we are a part of a group, it is natural to ask all of our questions. But are we being good stewards of the group if we ask questions that can easily be answered in 5 seconds with a Google search?
Probably not.
I first started noticing this trend to ask questions rather than search for answers with my own college students. They would email me asking when an assignment was due. I feel like one of my jobs as a professor is to teach self-reliance, critical thinking skills, and encourage intrinsic (or self) motivation. So I often answer those questions with a simple statement, “I’m so glad that you asked. You are staying on top of the work and that will serve you well this semester. You can see all due dates in our course syllabus, in our weekly announcements where I lay out what is due each week and the week ahead, as well as in our course gradebook and course textbook platform. I’ve created a video in our course announcements titled Course Walk Through that shows you where all of these resources can be found and how to best use them. Please let me know what additional questions you have.”
A simple look in the syllabus would have yielded a printable chart of every single graded item for the semester by date and chapter that conveniently fits on one page with a column to check off that they have completed the task.
I’m supportive of my students, hence the affirmation that they are looking for due dates and the fact that I provide all of the ways to see the due dates and a video to explain everything to them, but I also know that when I spend time answering emails that could have been solved by looking at the syllabus, I’m not answering students questions about the content.
You might be thinking, of course the student should look in the syllabus first.
The same applies for the groups you are in.
Before asking how to save that document as a PDF, do a quick Google search. One thing that I love about our search engines these days is that you can type the actual question you have and typically get accurate results. When search engines were first starting out, yes I’m that old, we had to be very specific with our search. The key terms mattered and you really couldn’t type a full question and get great results. We’ve come so far.
Now, if I want to know how to make a Google doc available to clients but force them to make a copy, I can easily search Google and get step by step instructions. There are even YouTube videos on this.
If you have asked these kinds of questions in a group before, don’t feel bad, so have I. Sometimes we get wrapped up in our tasks and don’t necessarily think about the best use of our resources.
If asking these simple, Google-able questions isn’t the best use of a group, what is?
Let’s walk through 3 ways to make use of the groups that you are in. I’m going to start with my third choice and work up to my first choice for how to best use these groups that you are a part of.
3: Accountability
We all need accountability as entrepreneurs because as much as I’d like to say that we need to be motivated intrinsically, being an entrepreneur is hard, it is a long game, and we need support. Just knowing that someone is going to ask what you accomplished will help you push through the challenges that pop up when you have a sudden urge to clean the oven and all of the sink drains, fold all of the laundry and put it away, and get a jumpstart on meal prepping for the week as a way to productively procrastinate.
In several of the groups that I’m in there is the opportunity to post what you will be doing and want to be held accountable for throughout the week. This is a neat idea. For groups that don’t have an organized group post for this purpose, you can find out if it is ok to make your own post for accountability. There is a course group that I’m in and each week you will see members popping in and posting what they are going to be accountable for completely throughout the week. Then they come back at the end of the week and check in.
I have a bit of a love-hate relationship with using groups for accountability in this way. It is nice to be able to write down what you intend to do, but is that really accountability?
Think about the groups that have the weekly post where you talk about what you are going to do. Do you really read through what everyone states and then check in with them? Probably not. I’ll be the first to admit that I don’t read through those threads. And the groups where individual members are left to post their goals, that can clutter the feed and keep us from seeing the big questions.
So if these weekly threads aren’t super effective and the individual posts can clutter the feed, how can you use the groups for accountability?
One option is to connect with 2-3 other people in the group and create a group chat where you share your intentions and then actually come back and check in with one another at the end of the day or week. Another option is to ask the group admin to include in the instructions for that weekly post that you are responsible for checking in with the person who posted above you at the end of the week to see how they did.
The key to accountability working in these groups is that someone has to check in on you. You’ve heard me say it over and over, I love my co-working sessions because not only do I get to chat with other entrepreneurs on a regular basis, I also get to stay accountable during those 90 minute work sessions three times a week. That co-working group started because I put out a call in a group that I was in asking for folks to join me for co-working. That was three years ago and I still, largely, co-work with the same people.
Accountability is just one way to make the most of groups that you are a member of, in second place I would put sharing your successes.
2: Share Your Successes
We are all a part of groups where there is a weekly post that asks us to share our wins. We all excitedly rush in to share what we’ve done, but don’t necessarily read the other comments. When I say that groups are a great place to share your wins, this is not what I’m talking about.
As a member of a group, we want to give and receive. When we share our successes in a thoughtful way, we are giving insights into what is working, what isn’t working, the path we have traveled to get to this point, and offering evidence that success is possible. We, in turn, receive accolades from those cheering us on, we are able to receive words of wisdom for where to go next in our path, and we get to build our authority.
Now, this can be a tricky proposition because there is a balance. You can’t gush and look like a braggart, nor can you simply put a cursory note with, “we had a successful launch and 20 new students”. Neither of these will help you or the community.
Instead, what you can do, and these are some of my favorite posts to read, is provide an accounting that is detailed. For example, if you are sharing a debriefing of your launch you might start with where your business started, what your following is, email list size, launch process, course topic and format, and then walk through the highs AND lows of the launch. What worked and why, what didn’t work and ideas as to why and what you might try in the future, as well as what surprised you most. You can also ask for ideas for the next launch to try. This gives people a more well-rounded view of your success post. If you had $100,000 in sales, let people know if that was from a teeny tiny, engaged email list, or a following of 1 million and 20,000 on your email list.
From there you will get some congratulations, but you will also get ideas that someone from the outside might see more clearly than you do when you are in the middle of the tornado of post-launch course delivery. You will be letting people who are just getting started know what the path could look like for them. Not right now, but in the future. And you are getting to know your colleagues who are at the same level as you just a bit better.
The key is to be genuine in your effort to share your success. Go in with the mindset that you want to show others what is possible, help them avoid the same mistakes you’ve made, and have some ideas of what might work for them that they can test out. It is never about getting the accolades. That is when it feels slimy. It is truly about bringing awareness to the options and providing solid courses of action for others to emulate if it makes sense for their business.
But you’ll remember that I said I’m actually going backward in my list of how to use groups effectively. We’ve talked about accountability and sharing successes, which means it is time for my number favorite way to make the most of the groups you are in right now.
1: Ask Questions that are Specific
When you are in a paid group, or even an unpaid group like my friend and colleague’s group, Be a Confident Entrepreneur, the best possible way to make use of this resource is to ask specific questions.
You might be thinking that this is a no-brainer, but there is a formula to follow that will yield better results. It is not enough to pop into a group and just ask a question on the fly. I can guarantee this is a recipe for getting a lot of clarifying questions and even advice that doesn’t make any sense at all. The last thing you want is to feel discouraged because you aren’t getting the feedback that you need.
So let’s walk through the formula to improve your chances of getting a decent response to your question. First up, set the stage. Tell people what you do and the necessary background for your question so that they know what lens to look at your question from. For example, if you are in a digital course group and want to ask if you should separate out your modules further, you might share the depth of the course, who it is for, the price of the course, and the outcomes for the course.
Next up, explain your challenge that led you to needing feedback. What is happening and what solutions are you exploring? This will not only help others in the group to get more context, but they will know the type of solutions you are considering and can give you feedback on those ideas while also providing ideas that might be adjacent that you haven’t considered.
And this leads me to the last part of the formula for crafting a question that will get you meaningful help in a group. You need to ask for something specific. Do you want to know which of the ideas they have seen work, do you need ideas for the next step to take, or maybe you want something that is outside the box of what you’ve already tried. But the key is that you can only ask for one thing.
People are busy when they are reading your post. They are likely allocating a specific amount of time to the group and want to help as many people as possible. Keeping your question formatted using this formula and ending with just one question will help you and them.
I’ll give you the perfect example from an adjacent field. Many family doctors now have a way for you to message them via a portal. They are busy throughout the day with back to back appointments, they are squeezing in their charting obligations, and then they still have to answer the online messages they’ve received. We have found that, although we have an amazing family care practitioner, if we ask more than one question in a message, some will get missed. But when we separate the questions into different messages, they all get answered. We have to keep the questions easy to find.
The same is true of entrepreneurs in the groups that you are in. If you make your question multi-faceted, you are likely only going to get piecemeal responses.
So just to quickly recap the formula for my number one way to use a group, ask a specific question by first presenting the background information, only what is necessary to provide context, share what is going on and the solutions you are considering, and then wrap up with your specific question that you’d like answered.
Action Item
We have now hit that point in the episode where I talk to you about taking action because we can have these grand ideas, but unless we do something with them, nothing will change. Nothing changes if nothing changes.
In order to take effective action and not just create more productive procrastination in your business and life, do a 15 minute audit of how you’ve used the groups that you are in over the last 3 months. If you haven’t been active, choose a group and share your successes. If you have been active, but maybe haven’t been getting the kinds of answers you needed to your questions, follow the framework that we talked about today. And if you are at a place where your to-do list is growing but you aren’t checking things off at a rate that keeps the list from getting to gargantuan size, see if you can get some accountability set up.
The question I have for you is what action will you take this week? Preferably right after this episode ends and you are fired up ready to make the most of the dozens of social media groups and live in-person groups you are in.
Where to Go Next?
With your time being used more effectively in the groups that you are in, this should free up some time to take action in other parts of your business. I love when that happens. One question I’ve been talking to a lot of people about lately is whether or not you need paid ads to sell your course and that is something that I talked about in Episode 179: How to Sell Digital Courses Without Paid Ads.
And if you are feeling the crunch of the last few months of the year or are just wondering if AI could be a shortcut for you, I’d encourage you to listen to Episode 173: AI in Digital Course Creation: Capabilities and Limitations. AI definitely has it’s place, but also has some pretty big limitations.
Regardless of what your next step is, the key is always to take action. It is from the action that you can learn, make adjustments, and figure out next steps that make sense.
Until next time, happy creating!
