Why Did We Make A Udemy Course?
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It was a typical work day: I was sitting at my desk in my home office, staring at a blank document, the edges of my garden peeking around my monitor, door open to the breeze. In my most elegant voice I tested an outline title: “Digital Advancement for the Betterment of My English Coaches”. Too wordy; too corporate. I erased it and kept staring at the empty document. I sighed, got up, and wandered outside. The tomatoes were a bit overgrown, the brick path needed sweeping, the apple tree was drooping under the weight of ripening fruit. I took a deep breath and went back inside. I sat down, stared at the screen for a brief moment, and finally started typing. This, dear readers, was the beginning of an adventure in learning how to write, shoot, and edit educational videos. The whole process took 10 grueling months, but I am proud of the results and looking forward to other projects like it.
As I began typing I knew that I wanted to use educational videos to expand the offerings of My English Coaches, but I didn’t know exactly how. I wanted a way to reach out to students who couldn’t afford our face to face class prices. I wanted to tap into the ever growing online learning market. I also wanted to build something that would allow My English Coaches to reach a greater market and generate enough revenue so that Sophie and I could spend more time developing other areas of our business.
For some time I had been secretly longing to learn how to make and edit videos. I’d been raised on a healthy diet of do-it-yourself YouTube videos and am a hobbyist photographer, so I figured I could teach myself everything there was to know about the movie making process. While I’ve never been that inspired by Hollywood style “Movie Magic”, I’ve always wanted to make my pictures move, I’ve wanted to create something that inspires others. Luckily for me, learning how to edit has never been more accessible thanks to the influx of cheap digital cameras, reasonably priced monthly editing subscriptions, and enthusiastic educational Vloggers. Now all I needed was the motivation to self-teach, a business partner who supported my whacky ideas, and a good project to keep me inspired. I had the first two, now all I needed was the project...
Ever since becoming a business owner, I’ve kept my eye on the English as a Second Language industry, looking for trends and opportunities that we could use. Sadly, due to a variety of factors like politics and increased financial costs, one of the biggest trends that I’ve noticed is that the US isn’t necessarily as attractive as it once was to international folks. In the two years since we’ve opened our doors, I’ve watched competitors downsize or close their spaces in the US while expanding into other English speaking countries (I’m looking at you Canada and Australia!) Many of our teacher friends have left the industry altogether, seeking brighter futures in other fields. I definitely don’t want that for My English Coaches. Sophie and I have worked long, hard hours to grow our brand. Plus, English is the language of business and I know that our services are needed and appreciated. We’ve traditionally gone into workplaces and consulted with non-native English speakers who are trying their best to succeed in the English dominated business world. We believe in what we do and we want to continue to make a positive impact in the lives of our clients. That’s why closing our doors is not an option. So, I began looking into online teaching options as a way to not only secure our futures, but also to continue providing a valuable service to our students.
Online courses would cover many bases for us: first, they would allow us to grow our business to include many more clients than Sophie or I could ever teach in person. Second, they would allow us to teach at odd hours (i.e. any time you damn well please!). And third, they would release some pressure on the ever-urgent need to obtain more clients; allowing us to focus more time on creating more and better content for our clients.
When I first pitched the idea of online courses to Sophie she was understandably skeptical. How could I propose continuing my current workload (and she hers, frankly) while also piling a LOT more work on top of us? “Oh, it’ll be easy” I assured her. “We can have this out in a month, right before my vacation. It will practically make itself.” How optimistic and naive I was. While I’ll detail in another post some of the things that we did right (and the many things we can improve on), I will say here that the greatest thing I underestimated was how much time and effort this project would ultimately require.
By the time we put the final touches on everything, we ended up with 79 pages of notes, script, crossed out topics, suggestions, and recommendations. I’ve spent the last 10 months editing, re-editing, reviewing, and finalizing. I’ve made a separate document with notes on how I did all the things I learned, totaling 20 pages. I’ve seen the same video clips more times than I can count, and now Sophie’s son (who was only a year old when I began!) is 2 with a sister on the way. How does that even happen? Overall this project has deeply ingrained in me the principles of self-motivation and a dedication to constantly improve, and has been a reminder that a lifetime of learning is the best kind of life.
I now know definitively that Sophie is a flexible and understanding business partner, and a woman of great patience and deep expertise. The perfect combination to balance my enthusiasm and love of new and complex things. I hope that if you take our course (available here, use the promo code ‘MECBLOG’ for 50% off!) you’ll see beyond the imperfections of a novice and see into the passion for learning and teaching that we bring to our educational endeavours. We believe in our students and their ability to improve with just a little bit of love and attention from us.
Oh, and please let us know if you like the course! Leave us some feedback or a comment and let us know what you’d like to learn next. We’ve just begun on this journey and can’t wait to show you more interesting things about English!