How to create training courses for occupational therapists - Create courses for OTs
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[00:00:00] If you're an occupational therapist and you know, you are really good at X, Y, Z, like you're really good at something and you want to create an online program to share with other therapists, or maybe just other people in your community. My name is Wong. I'm an occupational therapist and certified hand therapist.
And I'm going to share with you how I started creating my online course. Courses very specifically for occupational therapists, but physical therapists are welcomed and also attend my courses. So I'm gonna share with you a little bit about what, um, I've been doing and I've been in my therapy clinic for over 10 years.
And then five years ago I started hand therapy secrets. But believe it or not, before I. actually officially started hand therapy secrets. I was creating on, um, actually wasn't creating online training courses. I was just creating training courses for occupational therapists. Specifically, I started with creating, um, an orthosis [00:01:00] type of course.
Um, so when I started my business, I, somehow got invited to teach at the university. And I think it was just because I was putting it out there that I was really interested in teaching. And I was speaking to a couple of people who were at the university level and I started teaching for the university.
And from that, I was like, Hey, you know, you have the space. I would love to be able to create a course where I could come and utilize your space to, to teach other therapists who are interested in, um, Creating custom fitted orthosis. So I kind of approached the university with that. And one of the reasons why I, um, One of the reasons why I approached the university was also because they could get me to see Hughes.
So That's essentially how I started, but I wrote down four things that I have been doing ever since then That helps me to get started so [00:02:00] One of the first things I want to encourage you to do is test out your idea on the marketplace to see if people are Interested in spending money on it. So You You can ask your friends and you can ask people who are trying to become entrepreneurs, business owners, Hey, would you be interested in this?
But at the end of the day, those people aren't necessarily people who would spend money on your course. And so the reason why I'm saying test it out into the marketplace to see who would be interested is because at the end of the day, you need to market your program, your course, whether you're doing it in person or online, people have to know more about it.
And people, have to like be interested in spending the money. Um, funny enough, your friends and the people who are doing what you're doing will you. seldom spend their money on your course. Um, that is the, that is the hard truth that you might not want to hear, but [00:03:00] I'm here to tell you people who actually know me don't buy my courses.
Strangers buy my courses. People who don't know me at all buy my courses. The people who actually know me, um, don't, um, it's weird how that works, but I'm not going to dive into that right now. Um, But so much of about it is a marketing to people and saying, like, would you be interested in this? And so, before I started officially launching Hand Therapy Secrets, I spent a whole year sharing my perspective, sharing on how I create splints, and how I think through what I would do, and why I would do what I do, and what materials I would use, things like that.
So I'm just giving you an example of the course that I created. And every single time I created another course or anything like that, I started marketing and I was like trying to see who would be interested in learning this. Um, and then at the end of the day, [00:04:00] learning, like, are there people, you know, who are willing to pay for my expertise, my knowledge, um, to be able to consolidate everything I know in a short period of time to help them save time?
Cause that's why people would spend the money. It's. It's not like they couldn't look on their own and learn on their own, but it would take them years and thousands of hours, right? Versus like, Hey, I'll, I'll pay 600 bucks or whatever to take a class and then learn it in a weekend. Um, and then you have, you know, people are willing to pay because they feel like there's a lot of value to taking, um, You know, a two day course outside of the whole CEU part.
I'll get to that in a little bit. Um, but yeah, test your idea out in the marketplace, start marketing, start sharing your perspective and seeing who would be really interested. Number two is then create the course. And I think what happens is people have a tendency to create the course, but without the marketing to see if there's people who would be interested in doing, um, Be [00:05:00] interested in spending the money on a course like that.
So what you want to do is you want to start marketing first and start sharing first and kind of seeing what the, um, what the interest is, because that's going to also help shape your course. You're going to have an outline and idea of what your course is going to be like, how you want to give it, how you want.
to to break it down. Um, I've created both online and in person courses. And so, um, believe it or not, what people are interested in kind of helps can shape your course, um, outline a little bit, even if you have a framework and idea around it. Uh, so, you know, market and then create it. And then the last thing you have to do is you have to really sell it.
So, um, when you market and you share your perspective and then you're like, Oh, like after a while and you get people who are interested. And then after a while you're like, Hey, I'm, I'm going here. I'm doing this. You know, you can buy my course now. Right? You can, you know, I created this, you said you wanted [00:06:00] this, didn't, didn't you?
You, you want to buy it? I know it seems kind of silly, but, uh, you can create, like, I'm sure tons of people create courses because they are so smart and they know so much, but if you're not selling it, if you're not like, hey, do you want to buy it? Then no one's gonna buy it. because they don't even know that you have that to offer.
So it's a really crucial step in your whole process. And then as you market and as you create, and then as you sell it, then the last thing really to do is to go back through and then say like what was really good about it, review it and see how you can improve. That's, that's essentially a step that I take every single time I create something, whether it's a live, um, Or an online program.
I'm always, you know, taking a look at like, what can I do to improve? What do people actually really need? Um, and then, you know, I work to improve my program so that there's even more value that people are going to get what they need. You know, like I always want to essentially [00:07:00] over deliver, you know, like I want you to get so much value out of it and that it was so good that you're gonna tell your friends and you could share and that you would, you know, maybe come to another course or take another thing with me.
Um, if you think about it, that's how like That's how you work as a therapist, right? So, uh, as a patient, like if I'm working in my clinic, you know, I want to provide such great therapy for my patients that they want to come back the next time. So if you think about it like that, like creating a course for other therapists, it's essentially the same thing, but you have to make it a topic.
They're really interested in. So I, uh, when I first started, I did it with orthosis and then I, I did it twice. I taught at the universe twice. I started and I kind of, I have this tendency, which is like really bad is I, I tend to want to go to the next thing and the next thing, cause I get bored with the thing that I'm doing.
So don't do that. [00:08:00] It's very painful, but I created, I created orthosis, uh, one on one. And I always knew I wanted to create something online, but I also wanted to teach it live. And then it went so well. It's like, let me do this next thing. And I did the next thing. And it was like, like it was good, but I didn't know how.
I was going to make it even better, you know, like it wasn't necessarily going to work for, you know, teaching orthosis, um, very specifically that particular thing. So again, that was in my review and see how to improve and stuff like that because I was probably trying to move too fast. Um, so when I first started, I did not think that getting continuing education credits, is important.
I kind of still don't. Um, it's because I don't want to do the work. Like it is so tedious to get CEUs. [00:09:00] So when I first started, I wanted to see like, if people were really interested in the thing that has a big impact. to sell the thing that I wanted to teach because I loved it so much. I wanted to see, you know, find other people who wanted to learn what I had to teach.
And so CEUs was just not an important thing for me. So when I could do it through the university, the university got the CEUs for me, which made it really easy. Um, But once I started to do stuff on my own, I was like, you know what, in order to move really fast, right, in order to move really fast, and I would encourage you to move really fast, is that CUs will drag you down, because the process is so tedious, and they're like, well, you're gonna change this, you're gonna do this, and so it takes your time and energy away from the thing that you're trying to do.
So, that's my only thing. If CUs is really important core value of you and of what you want to do, then by all means do it. It is not a core value for [00:10:00] me. Um, I honestly, I believe in you know, I want to be the best therapist and I want to, I want to, you know, in order to teach, you have to keep learning. And so I have more CEUs and I know what to do with.
And so CEUs have never been a really important thing for me because if I want it, I can get it. CEUs are cheap, right? Knowledge is expensive. Knowledge, uh, actual knowledge takes time, effort, is more expensive. So to me, CUs, like, you know, you can go to whatever. com and get CUs for nothing. So that's why I kind of didn't value CUs.
I still kind of don't, but I can understand why it's important for therapists. And so now, because I have You know, someone to help me. Um, it is something that we are going to be able to do and get like a O. T. A. C. U. S. and whatever [00:11:00] C. U. S. for people because I recognize it is important to the people who want to buy my courses.
Um, and that was in the review and see how to improve process. Uh, but I didn't start there because I wanted to see, like, if my idea was valuable. If my idea was, um, going to be able to, um, to kind of like take off. Cause I, I didn't want to create a course that nobody was going to buy. Cause then I'd be really frustrated.
And I'm sure if you created a course and you're like, why is nobody buying? You might have missed. Steps one and three, which is one is that you got to share with people and see what people are actually really interested in. And then the third step was you got to sell it. So, uh, if you only created two, which is create the course, you're going to sit in a lot of frustration.
So anyway. That is essentially what I did to start [00:12:00] creating training courses specifically for occupational therapists and physical therapists. And now I have a little bit of a suite of courses under my, you know, my banner of hand therapy secrets. And it's very specific for, you know, hand therapy and everything that I promote in terms of hand therapy.
But I think that this, um, these four steps are great for any business that wants to create training courses for other therapists. So I hope this video provided with, um, I hope this video provided a lot of value and kind of just share what I've done. So maybe you can take some of those steps to create.
something that you want to be able to promote and share what you know. So if you like videos like this and you found this very helpful, definitely hit the subscribe button and leave me a comment below and see what else from a business standpoint, um, that you're interested in. So I can make more videos like this for you.
All right, until next time. See you [00:13:00] soon.
