There's one mistake you can make while recording your course lessons that will slowly erode your students' trust in you, and you won't even know you're doing it. Welcome to Course Creation for Solopreneurs. I'm Dr. Curtis Satterfield, and I've spent 17 years as an educator and course designer helping thousands of students learn new skills. Now I help solopreneurs like you create courses that actually transform your students and grow your business. Let's get into it. So today I'm going to answer the question I get all the time. Do I need to script my lessons or can I just speak off the cuff? After 17 years as an educator and helping thousands of adults learn new skills, I'll give you my honest answer, including the tool that completely changed how I approach recording. You basically have three options for preparing your lesson delivery. And in this episode, we're going to cover all of them, and I'll share my personal recommendation. Let's start with the option I recommend for most people. When I first started creating online courses over a decade ago, they weren't great. I had issues with students getting through the content. They'd start strong and then just stop. So I went back and started watching my own recordings looking for clues. And I noticed something. I kept circling back to the same point. I'd explain something, move on, then five minutes later I'd say, and remember, like I mentioned earlier, and basically repeat myself. I thought I was being thorough and reinforcing the material, but here's what I didn't realize. Think about who repeats themselves most often when they're talking. People who are trying to convince you of something they're not sure about. People who don't trust that you understand them. People who are making things up as they go. I'm not saying you're doing any of that in your course lessons, but your students' brains make that association unconsciously. The more you repeat a point, the more it sounds like you're not confident in what you're saying. You lose credibility without ever knowing why. Now, repetition itself isn't bad. Intentional repetition, where you recap key points at strategic moments, that's good teaching. But haphazard repetition, where you keep circling back because you forgot you already covered something, or you're not sure you explained it well enough, that's what kills your credibility. That's why I script everything now. A script means you say what you need to say, you say it once, you say it well, and you move on. No tangents, no, like I mentioned earlier, no filler where your brain catches up to your mouth. Now I know the objection. If I read a script, I'm going to sound like a robot. And yes, when you first start, it feels weird. You're reading words instead of talking, and it sounds off. But this is a skill you develop. You learn to read in a way that sounds conversational. And there's a tool that made this way easier for me. I'm recording this episode right now using a teleprompter, and you probably can't even tell. I have mine set up so I can read my script while looking directly at the camera. Now, obviously, for the podcast, you can't see the video, but in a video lesson, it would look very natural. So the words scroll in front of the lens, I read them, and it looks like I'm just talking naturally. I also use software that only scrolls the text as I speak, so there's no odds speeding up or slowing down. I'll do a whole episode in the future about my recording setup where I'll go deeper on the teleprompter and how I use it. But for now, just know this tool exists and it's not as expensive or complicated as you might think. If you don't have a teleprompter, you can still script. Practice reading your script out loud before you record, then glance at it between sentences. It will take more takes, but it works. So that's option one, and my recommendation is full scripting. But what if you're comfortable presenting and you just want some guardrails? Some people really can deliver great content from just an outline. If you've done a lot of presenting, if you're comfortable on camera, if you can riff on a topic without losing your thread, bullet points might be enough for you. But there's a right way and a wrong way to do this. I've seen people create bullet points that say things like, talk about pricing, or explain the framework. Then they hit record, look at the bullet, and spend the next three minutes figuring out what they actually want to say about it. They ramble, they backtrack, they end up with 10 minutes of footage that should have been three. If you're going to use bullet points, they need to be specific, not talk about pricing, more like three factors that affect pricing credibility, transformation, value, audience ability to pay. The more specific your bullets, the less your brain has to figure out in the moment. Put your bullets in the notes section of your slides so you can glance at them while you're recording. And here's the most important part. Be honest with yourself about whether this is actually working. Record a lesson and watch it back. Did you hit everything you planned to hit? Did you repeat yourself? Did you go on tangents? If the answer to any of those is yes, bullet points might not be enough for you yet. You might need to move to full scripting. So that's option two. Bullet points as the acceptable minimum if you can pull it off. But what about option three? What if you just know your stuff so well that you don't need any notes at all? I've had people tell me they don't need a script or bullet points. They're experts, they've been doing this for years, they can just talk. And look, I get the appeal, it feels more authentic, more natural. You're just sharing your knowledge the way you would in a real conversation. But here's the thing. Sharing knowledge is not the same as teaching. The structure and order in which you present information matters. It affects whether your students actually understand and retain what you're telling them. And if you just go off the cuff, you're more likely going to get that structure wrong, especially if you're new to presenting for online courses. Now, are there people out there who can do entire presentations and lessons on the fly? Absolutely. But they're also used to presenting. They're used to teaching. They have the experience doing both things at the same time. If you're an expert, but teaching and especially teaching to a camera is new to you, I really don't recommend off the cuff to start. Here's what actually happens when you record without any preparation. You're not just thinking about your content, you're also thinking about looking at the camera, speaking clearly and naturally, whether you hit the record button, whether the lights look okay. Your brain is juggling all of that while trying to remember what you wanted to say. And memory is unreliable under that kind of pressure. You forget to cover something important, you cover things in the wrong order, and you confuse your students. You spend 10 minutes on a point that should have taken two because you didn't have a clear sense of scope. Then you watch it back and think, I'll just edit out the rough parts. But now you're spending three hours editing a lesson that should have taken 30 minutes to record cleanly. Some people will push back and say scripting makes them sound inauthentic. But here is what I have learned. Your students don't care if you're recording from a script. They care if the lesson helps them. A well-structured, clearly delivered lesson serves them better than a rambling, authentic mess. Done beats perfect, but prepared beats winging it. So here's my recommendation. Have something written down before you hit record. Ideally a full script, at a minimum, detailed bullet points. Your students will trust you more, you'll cover everything they need, and you'll spend way less time editing because you won't have to cut out all the tangents and repetition. If you're working on a course and you want help thinking through not just the recording, but how to actually get your students the transformation you're promising, that's exactly what I help with. You can book a free course roadmap call, the links in the show notes, and we'll figure out where you're stuck and what your next step should be. Thanks for listening. If this episode helped you, take a second to subscribe and leave a review. It's the best way to support the show. Also, be sure to check the show notes for any links and resources mentioned in this episode. Now go create a course that transforms.