The #1 CRUCIAL Step Missed By Course Creators

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Courses seem to be all the rage right now. I can’t tell you how often I am asked to be a BETA tester for strangers or see posts desperately asking for testers in groups I am a part of. I am so very excited to see folks getting their courses out of their heads and out to the masses!!

As a full-time course creator for clients for several years now, what concerns me are a couple of trends I am seeing:

1) When folks ask, I find I am not usually their target market

2) They have no idea how to actually do a BETA test and don’t get any feedback

Or worst of all…

3) Courses are launched WITHOUT testing at all!


Ok let’s break this down so you can be empowered to rock your next course pre-launch.

First of all, what exactly is a BETA test. A BETA group is a very small group of users who are specifically your target market. You want their feedback before launching it to everyone else to ensure you “got it right”. Besides it being a great way to check for missing elements, bugs, or issues it’s also how you gather testimonials. Testimonials are critical for when you launch. Who the heck wants to buy a program that nobody has had success with before? Nobody. That’s who.

Steps For The Perfect BETA Test

  1. Before you created your program, you should have interviewed, polled, met with and spoken to at least 10+ folks from your target market. (If you didn’t do this and are just creating a course you think people want, please stop now) Once you have the test version of the course completed, go back to those 10+ people and invite them to be BETA testers for you! They get to access the new course for FREE in exchange for their feedback.
  2. Setup how you will gather their feedback. Interviews, small focus groups, or a group call work great! But the easiest method we use is to pop 10 survey questions onto a Typeform and email it to everyone. They have 2 weeks to go through the course and complete the survey otherwise their access is discontinued. We giveaway a $50 gift card to one lucky winner who responds by the date too. Each of these elements is critical. Making it easy for them to respond, giving an incentive, outlining the time they have to complete their test (or theres a consequence) and gathering the feedback in an organized way so you can actually do something with it once you have it. I don’t like going through emails and pulling random feedback from people or making 15 phone calls- do you?
  3. Organize the feedback. You are going to get a lot of feedback, not all of it can or should be done before going into a formal launch. Make a giant list of everything you get back and prioritize it. The most important items are 1s, the next phase or enhancements are 2s, and low importance or next product ideas or 3s. You just want to address the 1st before launch, the bugs, missing elements, broken buttons, etc. Honestly, everything else can and should wait.

Remember, we don’t want to get stuck in the BETA phase. Even with all the feedback you want to launch the most minimum viable product possible. That means, the product thats right in the middle between good enough and WOW for customers.

Alright now you have a proper BETA plan.

Does this feel overwhelming? It’s kind of a lot isn’t it. A VA can help tremendously with the surveys, organizing calls, gathering feedback for you, implementing minor fixes you need done before launch, etc. I have tons of referrals and can help you if this is a phase you are stuck in.

Don’t launch a sub par product that hasn’t been properly tested. Give your customers a WOW product thats truly going to solve their problem. Even the best content in the world gets put off when theres broken buttons, missing headers, missing downloads, etc. Its amazing how quickly this can sink your reviews.

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