In my years of growing my online education business, this ONE business concept easily ranks in the top 2.
This is why I'd recommend you put down other things you are doing right now and focus on reading this. Because it is VERY important!
I love helping my students brainstorm and workshop on their new courses.
But guess what my students and I spend the most time on?
Email lessons? Slides? Wrong.
Course structure? Wrong.
Course topic? Bingo!
When your topic is spiky
Sometimes we spend 50% of the time ideating, challenging, and finally finalizing the topic. Why?
Because if you pick the right topic to build your course on, you already have one foot into the "viral engine" door. You need a topic that's:
Triggering!
Memorable!
Worth spreading!
The problem is when no one is at your party
Funny thing. The lessons don't matter as much — from this marketing angle.
It is kind of like making YouTube videos — people say you need to focus on the title and thumbnail the most. Spend 50% of your time on it! Because if people aren't even clicking, they are not going to see your content.
It is like hosting a Christmas party and you're worrying about the deocrations when you haven't even invited anyone.
There is a big problem I faced all the time:
Most people come up with flat topics.
Examples here:
- How to write catchy headlines
- How to build a community for knowledge sharing
- 5 Strategies to come up with endless social media posts
I'm sure you can imagine my face reading these topics (because it is your face right now) — I am shrugging my shoulders with an emotionless face.
(Of course, here I make it sound dramatic but I'm not judging because I know this is an ideation process everyone, including me, has to go through)
These topics are flat and tasteless. You see them everywhere.
How you inject spiky-ness into a flat topic
I'm a big fan of Wes Kao's spiky point of view, so I started helping students dig deeper to come up with a spiky (and spicy) topic.
The best way is to
1. Think about a false belief your target audience has and what they are doing wrong, then
2. Think about your true belief and how they can do it right.
Ok, let's have more examples.
- Blogging for Devs: “You don’t have to be famous on social media to drive traffic to your blog. Here’s another way.”
- Making Twitter Friends: “Instead of manipulating the social media machine, you can grow by focusing on relationships.”
- Evergreen Sales: (the course I bought impulsively) “Launches make a ton of sales at once, but sales plummet quickly. Typical evergreen funnels don't bring in sales. What can you do to keep sales steady, day after day? Revenue routines.”
Only when you have this line, you play with the packaging —
The course name.
Package spiky-ness into 2-3 words
I then stumbled upon this book on Twitter/X.
And my 1st reaction was: WHAT THE .....?
Read the book title + subtitle before scrolling down.
Proven ways to save money but the book title is Just Keep Buying??
I immediately went to Amazon to check out this book.
That's the kind of title that gets everyone's attention.
That's the kind of title that makes people share with their friends.
Paradox is a great technique. Of course, there are other ways.
You can use this 2-step approach to come up with a spiky and spicy point of view that makes your products or lead magnets memorable and worth spreading.
If you struggle with this and want me to workshop it with you, happy to help.
