Streams of Income Series #2: Teaching Is Something You Already Do Everyday
Streams of Income Series #2: Teaching Is Something You Already Do Everyday
You've Been a Teacher All Along Without Realizing It 👩🏻🏫👨🏼🏫
“If you’re a parent, you’re a teacher. If you’re a manager, you’re a teacher. If you’re a coworker, you’re a teacher.” ~ Baz
Most writers don’t see themselves as teachers…
One of the most common responses I hear from writers when they consider creating eBooks, courses, and services that involve teaching include:
“I could never be a teacher; I’m an introverted writer.”
“I didn’t study education or even graduate from college.”
“Who, me? I could never be a teacher.”
I have news for you…
You’ve been teaching all your life…
Chances are pretty high that you’ve been in one of the following roles at some point in your life:
a parent
a manager
a coworker
a team leader
a best friend
a sibling
You’ve undoubtedly counseled a friend or offered them a listening ear, shared your perspective or opinion with your boss or with your subordinates, and encouraged another's progress.
Perhaps you’ve also demonstrated how to perform a task like tying one’s shoes, right?
“Each of these roles involves sharing information with another person. When stripped of the labels and imagery we associate with the term, ‘teaching’ is ‘sharing information’ —nothing more, nothing less.”
Since you can share information, all you need to begin earning money teaching on Substack is a juicy problem…
Problems are the bread and butter of any online business.
Depending on the authority topics you’re most qualified to teach, packaging your existing knowledge and expertise into easily digestible bites is a matter of pulling together the right pieces of information and presenting them in a logical sequence that’s educational and entertaining.
Who said online courses need to be all serious and sh*t?
The more fun you can make your topics, the more popular they will become.
Let’s say you’ve got a juicy problem and an excellent solution that your tribe will love…
When sharing (teaching) your solution with others, there are two choices you will need to make:
the format
the packaging
The formats at your disposal include:
courses
ebooks
mini-books (printed)
workshop slides or documents
reports
podcasts
Consider how your audience will best receive your message when choosing the appropriate format. For example, suppose you want to market a mini-book (a printed paperback of less than 80 pages) that teaches your audience to convert free subscribers to paid subscribers. In that case, the content should express a single solution rather than a survey of several.
Choosing the packaging
Your format’s packaging (book and report covers, podcast artwork, slide design, etc.) should be professionally designed; that doesn’t mean you can’t DIY it using design software such as Canva or Designrr. I use Canva and adapt their professionally designed templates for all my covers and artwork graphics.
Online Teaching Styles Vary
If teaching online conjures up images of having to produce video lessons, audio support files, or accompanying PDFs, they aren’t always necessary.
One of my favorite teaching formats for online courses combines email delivery and Zoom calls.
The way it works is simple. I use Gumroad.com’s Workflow function to drip lessons out via email daily or every other day. The lessons might be in PDF attachments, via narrative messages in the email's body, or a video link. The content of the lesson will determine which format to use.
Recap
Since you teach when you write, if you’re a writer, you’re a teacher.
Since teaching is essentially sharing information with others, you’ve probably been doing some form of it all your life.
You’ve been a teacher simply by being a sibling, supervisor, spouse, or parent.
Various teaching formats exist, including ebooks, print books, workshops, courses, and podcasts.
Professional packaging of each product isn’t as tricky as it sounds. DIY design tools such as Canva and Designrr are popular choices.
I want to emphasize that you don’t have to stand in the middle of the room to share information/teach your online course.
What to do next…
Are you ready to start teaching? Writing a mini-book? Outlining and creating an email course?
Send me a DM or book a Discovery Call, and we can discuss how to get started.
We can create a custom coaching plan that works for you.
Writing is essentially teaching.