Six Things to Do Before You Record a Single Lesson

Most people start a course by hitting record. They set up the camera, open the slides, and start teaching everything they know. Months later they have a lot of video and nobody buying it.

I've built close to 200 courses. The ones that sell were decided before anyone filmed a thing. Here are the six things I have every expert do first. Do them in order. They take a few weeks, not a few months, and they save you from building something nobody asked for. The first two lean on a simple exercise from Pull Your Course Outline Out of Your Last Five Clients, so keep that one open.

Sell it before you build it

Number one is the one everybody wants to skip. Sell it first.

Ten people. Real money. No product yet. You describe what they will get, who it is for, and what it costs, and you ask them to pay.

"If ten people won't pay, two hundred lessons will not fix that."

That line saves people months. If ten people who already know you will not pay for the promise, the problem is the promise. Not the lighting, not the platform, not the slides. You want to find that out now, when changing it costs you a conversation, not after you have recorded forty lessons around it.

And if they do pay, you have something better than proof. You have your first group. You can build the course with them, hear what they get stuck on, and fix it while it is still cheap.

What to do this week: write a one paragraph offer and send it to ten people who already trust you. Ask for money, not feedback.

Name the finish line, then write down what you already do

Number two: name the finish line. Where does your student start, where do they end, and how long does it take? Write it as one sentence.

Compare "everything I know about nutrition" to "get off the 3pm crash in 30 days." The first one is a topic. The second one is a finish line. People do not buy topics. They buy getting somewhere.

Number three: write down what you do the same way for every client. Not what you would ideally teach. What you actually do. The first call, the first exercise, the thing you always explain in the same order. Most experts think they do something different for everybody. When they write it down, it is the same eight or ten steps almost every time.

That list is your curriculum. You did not invent anything. You just wrote down what you already do.

If you want a head start, the free course outline tool asks you three questions about what you teach and who you help, then builds a structured outline from your own expertise.

Build my outline

Cut it in half, then write the email that sells

Number four: cut it in half.

Take the list from step three and everything you wanted to add, and remove half. It will hurt. Do it anyway.

"Nobody finishes an 80 lesson course. You gave them a second job."

People do not pay for volume. They pay for the shortest way to the finish. Bloated feels like homework. Tight feels like a shortcut, and people pay more for shortcuts. Anything that is not on the path from the start of your sentence to the end of it goes.

Number five: build the email that sells before lesson two. Most people save the selling for the end. They finish the course, then try to figure out how to sell it. That is backward. Writing the sales email early forces you to say, in plain words, what someone gets and why they should buy now. If you cannot write that email, you are not ready to record lesson two, because you do not yet know what the course is for.

Decide who owns the outcome

Number six is the one people think least about: decide who owns the outcome.

Not who edits the video or designs the slides. Who is accountable if the course launches and does not sell?

A lot of experts try to answer this by hiring. A designer, an editor, a copywriter, a tech person. Hire four freelancers and you become the strategist, the project manager, the creative director, and quality control. "That's not leverage, that's a second full time job." I go through the math on that in Four Freelancers Is Not Leverage.

There are two honest answers here. You own it, and you plan and budget your own time to run the whole thing. Or one team owns it, start to finish, and is judged on whether it sells. Pick one before you record.

Composite example

Composite example, not a specific client. Two experts with the same knowledge sit down to build a course the same month.

The first hits record on day one. She films everything she knows, around 60 lessons, over three months. She builds the sales page after. Launch week, she posts the link and hopes.

The second spends the first two weeks on the six steps. She pre sells to ten people, and seven pay. She names the finish line in one sentence. She writes down the eleven things she does with every client and cuts to six. She writes the sales email. She decides she will own the build herself and blocks the hours. She films a tight course with her first group already inside.

Same knowledge. One of them was building a course. The other was building something to sell.

What to do next

1. Write your finish line in one sentence: who it is for, where they start, where they end, and how long it takes.

2. List every step you take with a client, in order, from your last five clients. Then cross out half.

3. Write a one paragraph offer with a price and send it to ten people who trust you before you film anything.

If you already have proof that people pay you and you want the whole thing built, from the offer to the course to the sales system, book your build call.

Book your build call.

Frequently asked questions

How do I plan an online course?

Plan it backward from the result. Sell it to a small group before you build it, write the finish line in one sentence, list what you already do the same way for every client, and cut anything that is not on the path. Write the email that sells it before you record past lesson one. Then decide who is accountable if it does not sell.

Should I pre sell my course before creating it?

Yes. Try to get ten people to pay real money before the product exists. If they pay, you have proof and a first group to build with. If ten people will not pay, two hundred lessons will not fix that. Pre selling tells you whether the promise is right while it is still cheap to change.

How many lessons should an online course have?

Fewer than you think. Plan everything you would teach, then cut it in half. People do not buy volume, they buy the shortest way to the result, and long courses rarely get finished. A tight course feels like a shortcut. A bloated one feels like homework. Keep only the lessons that move the student toward the finish line.

What should the first lesson of my course be?

Make lesson one the reframe: the moment where a client realizes they have been thinking about the problem the wrong way. You probably give it away around minute 15 of every call. Do not open with a portal tour or a welcome video. Open with the belief shift that makes every later lesson land.