Course Creators Weekly #56 🗓 July 19th, 2021 - How to stand the f*** out

Louis Grenier meets with Joe Glover to share his story and tell us how we can radically stand out in a saturated market. This is an amazing talk that's worth listening to whether you're building your personal brand as a creator or positioning your SaaS product.

1. Get rid of your self-limiting beliefs

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  Standing out is risky—of course, but you must take risks, or you may never get noticed
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  Going against the grain is scary, but you don't stand out by accepting the status quo
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  Failing to focus on ONE thing because you're afraid of missing out, leads to mediocrity

2. Pick a direction

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  Define your ONE purpose—without this, you'll end up saying 'yes' to everything
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  Write your own obituary in 12 words or less, as a business or as an individual
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  Ask people who know you, to tell you what they think your unique ability is

3. Obsess over your customers

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  Understand the psychology of human behaviour and how we make decisions
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  Talk to at least 3 customers—act like a journalist, not a sales person
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  Apply "Jobs to Be Done" to understand their story—ask great questions
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  Go to the edge of the map—look for extreme desires, pains, triggers, disliked clichés

4. Identify the status quo

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  Identify and lean against the status quo—use it to position and differentiate yourself
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  Think and look beyond direct competitors for the status quo
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  Don't hate the players, hate the game—don't make enemies

5. Engineer your uniqueness

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  Plot everything you do that bring value to people
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  Remove anything that's against your purpose, or
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  …not the thing your customers love (use what customers have told you), or
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  …are considered clichés, or
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  …doesn't solve your customer's biggest pain
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  Add what serves your purpose, that customers love, or solves the biggest pain
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  Remove more than you add—it's more impactful

6. Show it to the world

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  Be radically clear: use your customer's own words
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  Be radically generous—share everything you know, for free
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  Be radically confident—challenge the status quo with authority

Joe Glover has also written an accompanying blog post with his own summary. Check it out to learn more!

Rob Hardy shares a 5-step process for finding your niche.

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  Audit yourself—brainstorm niche ideas that fit in with your identity and passions
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  Form a hypothesis—pick an idea that pulls you the most emotionally, to start validating
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  Research—build out a database (Market Map) of the major players in the niche
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  Dive deeper—once you've validated a niche, immerse yourself in it to ensure it fits you
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  Commit—make the commitment to show up and serve your people generously

Check out Rob's article to go much more in depth. Seriously, there's a lot in there!

We seem obsessed with completion rates of online courses, and I don't like it.

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  What does "completion" even mean? Attend every session? Do every assignment?
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  Completion rates distract us from what truly matters: transformation of individuals
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  Survey your students at regular intervals over weeks, months, or even years
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  Challenge yourself to collect as many success stories as you can—that's your success