Back for more? Excellent!
So we just talked about onboarding. That means getting your students inside your programme and up-to-speed so they can hit the ground running.
But once they’re inside, your beta isn’t going to run itself. You need to take the driving seat. That’s why I’m going to teach you how to run your beta like a boss.
Because it can feel like trying to keep a bunch of plates spinning. They’re not hard to get spinning but if you neglect one for too long it’ll come crashing down.
So I’m going to tell you the most important areas to focus on.
And there’s enough to cover that I’m dividing it into two parts and two lessons, so let’s jump into part one, starting with content.
Delivering Content
Your course content is the backbone of your programme so you need to make sure it’s available when people need it.
What that actually looks like will depend on your chosen platform.
If you’re using dedicated course software, it’ll mean uploading the content and making it visible. If you’re keeping things more basic, it could mean emailing students a bunch of links or attachments when they need them.
Either way, even if you’ve created all of your beta content upfront I recommend you only give people what they need for the current week.
Otherwise, some students may be tempted to skip ahead, just out of curiosity, which could mean they’re not giving the current material their full attention.
Also, other students may feel a little overwhelmed if they get inside your course and there’s a big wall of virgin content waiting to be studied.
So aim to drip out the content once a week, just before it’s needed.
And by the way, if you launch your beta without creating all the content upfront, which is pretty common, I really recommend having at least one week of lessons “in the bank” just in case something unexpected crops up.
I can tell you from personal experience it’s not much fun to have students nipping at your heels when you’re running behind.
Providing Coaching
Next, let’s talk about the coaching element of your beta.
We’ve already said that students may need more help in a beta than in your final course because of unintentional gaps in your content.
And coaching is one of the most effective ways to get people over their sticking points. But you want to set some limits on that coaching.
You don’t want to start with the intention of running a group beta and have it dissolve into half a dozen individual coaching programmes all running in parallel!
And I should say at this point that I’m using the word “coaching” in a pretty broad sense. It could cover any or all of the following:
- Answering questions about course content
- Helping students apply your teaching to their specific situation
- Giving feedback on work that students have completed
- Offering encouragement when things get tough
- Providing accountability around work to be done
And this coaching can happen in the weekly meetups or in your online community, if you have one. Or both.
On occasion I’ve jumped on a 1:1 call to help someone work through a specific problem. But try to make sure that’s the exception rather than the rule.
Here are my top three tips for supporting your beta members with coaching:
- Coach people in front of the group as much as possible so that others can learn by observing
- If several people are stuck on the same thing, try to create new content to help fill the gaps instead of solving it purely with coaching
- Avoid doing the work for your students – it serves your course much better to work out how to help students to do it for themselves
One more quick tip: find out what approach works best for you for different types of coaching.
For instance, when giving my members feedback on their work, I find that recording a short video using a service like Loom is the most efficient way.
Managing Community
Okay, community. Your beta course may or may not have a separate online community, like a discussion forum.
For me, a community gives students a place to ask questions and get feedback between meetups, and let them comment on each other’s work and progress.
But you can really ramp up the community element with daily community posts to check in with members and share tips and updates.
If you chose not to run Zoom-style meetups for your beta, you could use your community to do more of the heavy lifting.
Or you could dispense with a community feature and make your weekly meetups the focal point.
It just comes down to your own preferences and personal style.
So let’s quickly talk about meetups.
Running Meetups
Meetups are live virtual calls, using software like Zoom or Google Meet, where you can meet with your whole beta group and hang out in real time.
Holding regular meetups, for instance weekly, helps to set a “heartbeat” for your beta and it’s great for keeping your students engaged.
The focus and structure of your meetups will depend on where they fall in the week. Are they forward-looking or more retrospective?
Either way, you’ll find some suggested agendas in the resources section.
Do your best to bring as much energy and personality to your meetups as possible. You want people to look forward to them and feel invigorated after attending.
On a tactical point, I recommend recording the meetings so that you can share the video with anyone who wasn’t able to be there. These days you can easily generate transcripts and summaries and so those are great to share too.
And send out reminders too.
Ready for Part Two?
Okay, that’s part one of running your beta like a boss.
When you’ve caught your breath, head over to the next lesson, and I’ll see you in Part Two.
Bye for now!