A course for visioning your offering , building your dream syllabus, and launching and teaching your own online class

This is a recording of a live class from July 2023

📒 WHO IT’S FOR : Artist, writers, weirdos, small business owners who want to launch an online course, dream up a beautiful syllabus, understand marketing strategy, and teach a class to invested students

⭐ I know I know there are soooo many online classes floating around the world wide web WHY add another one?! Because no one can teach what you know exactly like YOU CAN!
Visioning a class alone can be hard - Together we’ll get rid of creative blocks, understand how to set your course up digitally, and talk about marketing as artist, writers, and self employed creative visionaries

FIVE REASONS THE WORLD REALLY DOES NEED YOUR ONLINE CLASS

1. It roots you into your own practice : I have found that when I teach dance, I dance more. When I teach quilting, I make quilts. When I guide people to teach their own online classes, I become a better teacher

2. You will learn so much from your students : One of the most important aspects of my quilting class is learning from my students. In no way do I identify as an expert quilter, which means I get to hold a strong container and also be a learner

3. It’s a way to increase your income, which increases abundance in your community : Making more money isn’t bad it’s actually cool. You might actually make the same amount of money, but be less burnt out. This is a way to reach more people with less of your time, if you see clients in a 1:1 fashion you can only schedule so many sessions a week. With an online class you can reach dozens or hundreds or even thousands of people

4. Creating a course that generates income is an invitation to generate more generosity : You could find yourself having more time, money, joy, and freedom from teaching online. Hosting a weekend retreat. Sharing your knowledge. This may open uproar emotional capacity to be there for your friends and family, take on a new hobby in your new free time, set up reoccurring donations to organizations that support a more equitable world - the possibilities are endless and you will see them open up

5. It's fun and inspiring  : Teaching online is fun, an amazing way to facilitate digital togetherness, and connect with others. You get to witness growth, see growth in yourself, and laugh along the way. Even when bringing up serious topics in your courses, you can find ways to bring levity and humor and joy to the process, the world needs that.

6. OK ONE BONUS ONE : YOU DON'T HAVE TO BE THE BEST TO BE THE TEACHER : and embodying this brings humility and grace to your students. While I have a BFA in Dance, I have taken plenty of movement courses from people with no dance degrees and learned so much. I do not identify as an expert quilter, but in many ways that is WHY people take my class. The expert quilter intimidates them so they jump in with me! And still learn to make an absolutely beautiful quilt.

💐 MY BELIEF AND HOPE IN THIS COURSE'S IMPACT : I really believe in this work, the work of showing up for ourselves and our art practice or small business - I believe in trusting ourselves as teachers. Getting rid of what is blocking us so that we may be of maximum service to those who might shine a bit brighter from our classes.

WOVEN INTO EACH WEEK

• Every week we will drop in to our bodies in silence

• We will check in using the chat

• We will set intentions for the two hours

• And we will work through our offerings, syllabi, marketing

WEEK ONE: 📄  OFFERING + PRACTICE

In this first week together we will get clear about what it is you even want to teach and we will base this off what you’re excited about through a series of journaling exercises. We’ll talk about what formats these offerings can exist in, how to find the WHY behind your teaching, and how your own practice in art or business will live in harmony with your teaching

WEEK TWO: 📄  MAGIC SYLLABUS + DIGITAL TOGETHERNESS

Creating a syllabus is SO FUN! We get to plan the different weeks or modules of class, decide if you want to teach live or pre-record, and discuss all the different platforms and places for digital togetherness.
Once you start to lay the bricks of the foundation down for class it’s just about jumping right in!

WEEK THREE: 📄 MONEY + MARKETING

Pricing an online offering is HARD! Well it’s hard if you have a lot of buried money trauma and want to be affordable and also pay your rent! So in week three we will dig into what does “affordable” even mean, how to value your time, and how integrating scholarship and sliding scale options doesn’t mean you make less money - in fact it might just mean you are in more alignment!
We will talk MARKETING and how it can actually be really fun and not weird and cheesy and trashy. I promise I will never encourage you to buy ads with big social media companies and we will also talk A LOT about marketing OFF social media - hint, I am finding it works just fine!

WHO THIS CLASS IS FOR :

📌 This class is for artists, herbalists, weirdos, freaks, writers, poets, activists, hope filled humans who are ready to share their knowledge in a way that is of service to their own practice and those it could benefit!

📌 This class is for anyone who doesn’t feel in alignment with other courses that are not rooted in questioning capitalism. This is for people who read marketing emails and hate them and feel gross and don’t know how they’d ever write one.

📌 This class is for you if instead of a get rich scheme online course you just wanted to reach a small group of students to work in an intimate setting and get fairly compensated for your time.

📌 You DO NOT have to know what you want to teach in order to take this class. Maybe the universe just gave you a whisper that you would like teaching and it feels like it’s time to follow that

✏️ You do not need to think you are an artist or writer or business person to take this class. Perhaps you just have a keen curiosity for inventing a one off class or an online community space. Want to sharpen your marketing skills, be on IG less, make better connections with other people - there is no wrong reason to take class!

🌻 WHO THIS CLASS IS NOT FOR If you are trying to create a $300,000 online workshop launch this probably isn't the class for you. However it might be just what you need to believe in yourself enough to try something like that :) Many of my creative advising clients have launched classes that make anywhere from $5k - $45k for a four week class and I like to be honest with these numbers because if you want that $1mil online course business there are a ton of classes like that out there for you and this isn’t it! However the lessons here could absolutely open up a door to that path for you!

This class is directed more closely to the artist/creative person who wants to teach art, writing, or on any topic of their choice.

If you think I am not very funny or my art is stupid you probably won't want to take this class. If you want someone with an MFA in art to teach you that is not me. But if you want someone who has a BFA in Dance and takes the work seriously but doesn’t take themselves seriously - you’ll probably like class.

FAQ’S

Q : Do I need a nice camera and editing skills to create a profitable online class?

A : NO NO NO! I have created multiple successful online courses where I create the pre-recorded videos using my iPhone or recording myself using zoom, or teaching live on zoom. Also, need better lighting? You’d be surprised how far a $30 ring light will take you! This is a huge block for a lot of people - you need very little to create your own online class!

Q : As a teacher are you a whiz at automating and scalability and marketing?

A : Yes and no :) My strengths as a teacher are getting you through the blocks of deciding what and how to teach, creating a beautiful syllabus, selling and teaching your course. I will give you the exact formulas and systems I use for organizing emails, communicating with students, and marketing - which has all proven successful for me and those I have coached 1:1. I do not buy ads for my courses, use affiliate links, or some of the other more scalable models other online marketers teach. ALAS I would say I am pretty good at the intuitive side of marketing and promoting your class!

Q : Does this class work if I want to create one night of performance, an online fundraising event, a weekend retreat over zoom, etc?

A : Absolutely! We will go over a lot of different formats for teaching and sharing that can be applied to all sort of digital sharing

Q : I took one of your other classes and am wondering if this one is for me?

A : YES! This is a perfect class for anyone who took The People's Research, The Architecture of Book Writing, or The Shapes of Our Offerings - we get really specific in this class and build off a lot of the ideas we started with in those classes!

DISCLAIMER

WHO IS TEACHING THIS CLASS

Consider this before you sign up - when signing up you are consenting to taking a class with a tornado person - This class is taught by Cody Cook-Parrott, an artist and writer, who has been self employed and teaching online classes since 2017

Cody is not a therapist, mental health professional, trauma informed facilitator, or anything else that would give them credentials for talking about the brain and how it figures out how to plan a day

They are a hermit and a social person and many things and skilled at planning as a Gemini, Human Design Manifestor, Queer person, freak, and artist

They love to create fun and joyful containers for figuring out how to live in the world as an expert of nothing, a devotee to the mystery

Many of the lessons in this class are borrowed by and inspired by healing with ADHD, 12 step rooms, spiritual practice, The Artist’s Way, and more

See terms and services for all online class here

Whether you are neurodivergent, ADHD, have a mood disorder, chronic pain, the list goes on - how much access we have to our relationship with overwhelm, distraction, and shutting down is dependent on many factors. It is important to remember I am facilitating as an artist, not as a therapist or someone trained within modalities of mental health. What this means is you'll have to take what you like and leave the rest! Not everything will work for every person, this container will, however, empower you to have the information to mold and fit to your specific needs and desires. It will also help you determine the difference between when you are just beating yourself up for not "doing something you said you would do - and shifting into a space of awe and devotion. This part might activate you - that's good : may the pushing back guide you closer to yourself. See you there!