If you’re going to create informational training products that SELL, you’re going to need to make it effective. With that in mind, you need to pay some attention to specifically engineering your product to get the stated result on the receiving end: your student.

To do that, we need to look at the different learning styles people have and specifically create our training to cater to them. In this way, you’ll have students who get results and end up praising your course.

We’ll discuss:

• The 7 primary learning styles
• How we can build each of these 7 learning styles into our product
• An overview of the 4MAT learning system
• A simple 5-party structure you can use to create training videos

In the end, it doesn’t matter how well you sell a course… if it doesn’t actually get the result, it will ultimately all come down. This is how you make your course DELIVER.

Here’s the thing… The last few episodes, we have been talking about various aspects of product creation. And we are primarily talking here about information/training products. So that is what we were talking about right now, but of all that, all the selling of information products and all the cool, sexy stuff that we talk about… all these stuff does not really matter that much IF our product does not really accomplish its primary task; and that is delivering a solution to the person who is going through it.

So that is what we are going to be talking about today, in light of different learning styles and how to structure your course in such a way that they actually work and actually get the result that you want.

Before we jump in to that, I want to let you know about the Blog Monetization Lab. You could say that this episode is brought to you by the Blog Monetization Lab. This is the training portion of Blog Marketing Academy. Now, when you jump in there, you are going to be presented with a full dashboard where there is a lot happening. We have got Action Plans in there on Lead Magnets and pretty soon we are going to have one on Creating Membership Sites. We are going to have one on Creating a Product which is all stuff that we are talking about right now on the Podcast, too. Basically, that will all going to be delineated in Action Step format. And we have got right now six (6) different Action Plans and I have got eight (8) on the agenda right now that are going to start coming out in rapid fire.

And these Action Plans are essentially checklist style courses that they provide just the information you need to do something and then you go and you do it and then you come and you check it off. So the whole idea is to accomplish something in the business; it is very concrete and you do it without a lot of fluff. Check it out and you are good to go.

Now inside the Lab we also have a number of different full-on training courses in order to catch all the theory in why things work certain ways. You can see different learning styles that are built-in into the Lab which is what we are going to be talking about here in this episode. We also have the fantastic community of the Blog Monetization Lab.

And actually, just recently I have created a big change to the Lab. We have had the private Facebook community for quite some time and it is pretty active, but one of the issues that we are having with the Facebook Group was that we have some really good conversations happening that sometimes those conversations would have value in the future but because of Facebook’s “less than stellar” search functionality, those things will just kind of go off into the past. And that was a problem. We have conversations in there that having to do with the Action Plans or the Courses inside the Lab that I think would be useful for people several months down the road and they will just get lost in the group.

So the big change that we have made just recently is that I have introduced a set of bulletin boards inside the Blog Monetization Lab itself. And instead of it being just a general discussion community; because I don’t anticipate that Facebook is going to stop being used here anytime soon, I have made these boards only relevant to the individual Action Plans and Courses. So the whole idea is that this turns each piece of training into a living, breathing entity where updates can be made to it, people can ask questions, I will respond and all those conversations will stand the test of time and provide an evolving set of knowledge to these topics.

So for example, I have an action plan on creating an effective lead magnets; if you have any questions or you want to run your lead magnet idea by me, we can do that on that bulletin board inside the Lab itself and then all that will be available for current and future members of the lab so that your questions can be answered by curiously through other people.

So that is how that works; where I am always making the Lab more effective because my job is to deliver the transformation to you. I want you to have a business based around your blog which is generating pretty good money for you. So that is the transformation that I deliver and I do that inside the Blog Monetization Lab.

 

Now along that line, this has everything to do with creating training that actually works. And that brings us in to the different learning styles that people have. And we are going to be talking about that on this episode starting right now.

The 7 Different Learning Styles

There are known to be 7 different learning styles that people have. And let us just go through these seven then we are going to talk about how you can apply these to training material that you create inside of your products.

1. Visual

These are people who learn by pictures, by imagery… They learn by associating things in space. They are very spatial in the way that they think. A lot of people do this. I tend to be somewhat of a visual learner myself. And the way that you can make this work in your training content is to provide pictures, diagrams; things that really show what you are talking about on the screen. In the digital platform of the internet, we have an inherent issue in the fact that sometimes we are teaching about things that are out in the real world or something that we apply when you are away from your computer but we have to do it via a digital medium. And the way that we can get around that limitation is by using photos, pictures; things like that, diagrams and really show what it is you are talking about. I think that is very important when you are creating effective training.

2. Oral

It is the idea of audio but leaning toward the idea of sound and music and things like that. There are various ways that you can do this inside of your training. We always want to have an audio aspect of our programs. Now, it usually comes down to where we’re thinking of spoken word; and that is an important learning style. We are going to be coming up on that in a minute, but also there are other aspects to it. It could be showing demo clips of something where they are actually watching something happening and they can see it and hear it happening. That kind of thing really makes a difference because it is making things that we are talking about in the real world real on the screen and through the speakers at that point.

And so how can you provide that type of learning style in your training? You got to ask yourself that question. If you do a video where you are showing how to do something; that right there takes care of two different learning styles… You are going to be showing it which is visual and they are going to be hearing it happen. So that is right there, very simple; I am not talking about creating a real technical thing, here. It is just if you do video; that right there kind of takes care of this.

3. Verbal

Verbal is also very often with audio but it is just the spoken word and it is what I am doing with you right now through this podcast. But verbal also translates over to the written word. So this is one reason is why having transcripts and things like that is great. Having a written content like a written checklist style of thing like I do with the Action Plans work out really well. But even with my Action Plans inside the Lab, there has written in there. If it was only written, that might be an issue. So you would find that many of my Action Plans have videos also interlaced throughout them and that is because I have to hit different learning styles within the same Action Plan.

4. Physical

This is the idea of having a sense of touch like actually handling whatever it is that you are learning about. Now, how the hell can you deal with that one over a digital learning platform like the internet? Well, very simple. You can build in exercises where you go specifically and tell them to do it. That is how you do that one. You just get them to apply what they are actually doing because by doing that, they are going to feel that they are going to do it with their own hands and that makes it a lot more real to them.

5. Logical

It is the idea that some people work really well by following systems; by seeing how one thing leads to the next. It is the idea of reasoning out how it works. And many people work this way; a lot of engineers sometimes tend to work this way. And you can easily provide that in your training. Look at my Action Plans themselves inside the Lab. They are essentially a system. They go in a particular order and you check all of each one as you are done. That is a system. That provides a logical way of going through things. And if you are not using an action plan type of thing, you can certainly build that into your training by taking certain processes in whatever you are teaching and just give them a checklist on it. A checklist or a bullet point list is a great way to appeal to those students you are going to have that are more logical on how they approach things.

6. Social

This is the idea of people who learn best in groups or by interacting with other people. You will see a lot of teachers who will like to get students around a table or have them kind of work out something on their own or work in groups. I used to do that in the lab when I was taking various science classes or what have you. Many people do learn best in that situation.

So how can you put that together into a digital training program? Well, you will find that many training programs out there do a couple of things. One is they will often come with a group or a community. And the Blog Monetization Lab does have that. If you go into the private Facebook Group or you go in to the Bulletin Board that I just told you about, there is a group environment in there. And so for those people who learn better in social environments that is a real help. The other thing that many people do is they will actually teach classes in a live setting; maybe via webinar or something like that where people have this camaraderie of being there together and they hear other people asking questions. One of the things that I do sometimes with the Blog Monetization Lab is hold Office Hours Call where people can come in and ask me questions; but of course when one person is asking me a question, all the other people on the call hear the same thing. So, it provides that social element of learning.

7. Solitary

These are people who would rather learn by themselves. They tend to be self-studiers. With my Blog Monetization Lab members, I always have those people that as much as I want to get them involved in the group and things like that; they just fail to show up. They are still there, they are getting benefit from my training but they are just not that social inside the Lab. That is fine; I guess it does not always suit everybody. So for those kinds of people I think it is really important to have A: Do all these other learning types really well with visual, audio, verbal, physical; all that stuff, but then also provide that guidance to get them through the training. It could be the idea of giving them a checklist to guide them and say “This is what you do now, this is what you do next” and then between those you give them exercises because maybe there is a kind who want to go and apply the stuff on their own and not so much worry about doing things on a group. And that’s fine.

So those are the 7 Different Learning Styles and I gave you examples on how you can build those in your training.

4MAT

Now there is another system I want to tell you about here, before we end off; and it is called the “4MAT” system. Now I didn’t know about this one until a little bit more recently, but it is kind of cool. It can get a little complex but I am just going to boil that down to 4 basics because at the core, it is called “4MAT” a little bit of the number 4. So if you want to learn more about that search for the number 4 and MAT.

But there are 4 aspects here…

• The “Why”
• The “What”
• The “How”
• The “If”

So in the “Why”, what you are doing is starting off with MEANING. What does this mean to you? Why do you want to learn this thing that we are about to talk about? How is this going to apply to your situation?

From there you go into the “What”. So you cover the CONCEPT of what you are going to be doing; how it works… Maybe show some diagrams on screen in order to cover that “oral” sense of learning; the visual; pictures and spatial… And just show them the concept of what you are talking about.

Now once you’ve got that you go on to the third quadrant here, which is the “How”. You literally SHOW them the skills, you walk them through the procedure; whatever it is that you are doing, but this is the actual, this is the “doing” of it.

And then you go in to the “Adapt”. Now this part is really important because this is where people are going to begin APPLYING THIS to themselves. This is where the exercises come into mind that you should definitely be put in your training. And you should insist consistently inside of your training that they go and they do the stuff right away because it does not matter how many videos somebody watches or if they read your transcript or they look at your pretty pictures if they do not translate that stuff into their actual life by applying it and doing it; then that information doesn’t connect. It is not going to connect and they are not going to receive any outcome from it. And so you have got to get them to begin applying that stuff to themselves; to get it to adapt to their situation. Maybe they have got to take something that you taught them and tweak it a little bit for themselves. And that is fine; that is part of the learning process in order to adapt that.

Applying 4MAT To The Structure

And so what you can do with your structure here, if you are going to put together a training video you can do this… You can start off with “Here is why this is important…” And you just explain to them why what you are about to teach them is important and when is this going to come up for them.

The next is you go into the “What”… This is what the concept is; this is what you are going to be showing them to do. And then you go into the “How”. This is probably going to be the guts of the training video or the training piece or what have you but this is where you are actually going to show how to do it. You are going to show them the steps; you are going to demonstrate it for them. Now once you are done with that, you are going to show them how it applies. And you can actually show them how it applies but you can also tell them to go apply it; go do it, go adapt this to themselves.

And at the very end, I would recommend that you end off by re-stating the “why” yet again. You started off by saying “Here’s why this is important”, you’ll cap it again with saying “Here is why this is important; here is when you are going to do this and why you should go do this right now” or whatever it is that is relevant to the training that you are doing.

So that is a basic structure that you can use when you put together your training.

…

Now between those 7 Learning Styles and 4MAT, I hope you got some really good ideas about how you can create training that actually connects. I also said, and I think the last episode; I don’t remember which one, but I talked about the importance of words that you use and how not to use words that people don’t understand because you will lose people very quickly by doing that.

So, I am not saying you need to go and try to be dumb with the words that you use and talk like a third grader but you got to keep that in mind. At the very least, if you are going to use any jargon or terminology you need to provide the definition for it inside your training. Do not assume that they know. The first thing that somebody is going to do when they hit words they don’t understand; first they are going to just basically go, “What the hell this guy is talking about?” They are going to immediately going to disconnect from whatever it is that you are doing and teaching and eventually they are just going to be like “Dude, I’m leaving.” And that is when they request a refund or what have you; and this is not going to work out. So the word thing underlies everything that we just said.

So with all these in mind, I hope you can put it to use to create training content as a package that actually gets to result. You want people to use your training not as just a thing to consume and then think that they are done but because they actually used it and got a particular result. And your training content should be specifically designed to make sure that they get the exact result you said they are going to get.

So that is how to create training content which works. Get to work on that and I will see you on the next episode of Coffee Break Blogging! 😉