The Simplification Principle: How to Turn Complex Skills into Quick Wins
And a question I have for you
Hi,
In today’s issue of Course Builder’s Corner, I discuss The Simplification Principle which is essential for creating successful courses and workshops.
Before we get to that I have a question:
Do you have valuable expertise and want to create a course?
Reply and I’ll give you a free suggestion to help you do it.
Now let’s get to today’s article.
Rodney
The Simplification Principle: How to Turn Complex Skills into Quick Wins
I once took a course on email writing that had an incredible pitch. The instructor clearly knew his stuff, and I was excited to dive in.
But here's what happened: Every lesson came with long lists of things to do, and frameworks to use. Ten things here, three things there, five other things to think about.
I watched the lessons and read the workbook and hardly knew where to begin.
And I know that I was not alone in that experience. Most customers would be overwhelmed before they begin too. And that's when it hit me—this instructor had made the classic teaching mistake.
He was trying to be complete instead of simple.
What's the difference between completing and simplifying?
When you try to be complete, you dump everything you know onto your clients. Every strategy, every technique, every possible variation. It feels like you’re giving tons of value, but it's paralyzing.
When you simplify, you give clients just what they need to take their next step forward. Nothing more, nothing less.
Here's the thing: Your job as a teacher isn't to show off how much you know. It's to help your clients achieve a result.
A better way to teach complex skills
When I teach clients to write sales pages, those pages have over a dozen elements. But I never present all dozen elements at once and say, "Now include these in every sales page."
Instead, we focus on one element at a time.
First, we brainstorm the features of their product. That's it—just features.
Then we take those features and turn them into benefits. Second step.
Then we practice writing bullet points from those benefits. Third step.
We build the page one piece at a time until they have all the elements working together.
The same approach works when I teach article writing. I know 14 different elements that make articles compelling, but I was taught those elements slowly over time. So that's exactly how I teach my clients.
Week 1: We just generate ideas. Don't worry about anything else.
Week 2: We outline those ideas using two simple formats.
Week 3: We flesh out the outlines using one formula.
One element at a time until they can write complete articles that engage readers and drive results.
The SAT essay breakthrough
I learned this lesson the hard way when I first started teaching SAT essay writing.
I had identified five key elements that students needed to include to a high score. I taught all five elements in one lesson, then said, "Go write an essay."
The essays were the exact same quality as before. Nothing had improved.
So I tried a different approach. I said, "You know what? I see the problem. I'm asking you to do too much at once."
Instead, I had them write just one paragraph in support of a prompt. That's it—one paragraph.
We worked on making those paragraphs stronger by improving their evidence and reasoning. Then we added a simple outline process. Then a basic formula for thesis statements. Then introduction and conclusion formulas.
By breaking it down into small elements, they got really good, really fast.
But here's the best part: These high school students actually emailed me months later saying how much easier essay writing became when school started. They had grasped the skills they needed to write great essays because we had focused on one piece at a time.
The key insight for course creators
If you teach too much at once, nobody learns anything.
If you teach one thing well, everybody gets it.
Your goal as a teacher is to figure out what that "one thing" should be. If your clients seem overwhelmed, scale back. Make it simpler. If they still struggle, make it simpler again. Keep going until you reach the point where everybody gets it.
This might mean leaving out information that seems important to you. It might mean not teaching every possible strategy or variation.
But remember: Your clients don't need to know everything you know. They need to know enough to take action and see results.
Why this matters for your business
This simplification principle is exactly what I focused on when creating Profitable Playbooks for Writers. That’s my book that contains powerful ideas to grow your business from over 20 successful creators who turned writing into steady income.
I could have included hour-long interviews covering every possible strategy these successful writers use. Instead, I kept each interview to ten minutes—just the essential insight you can apply starting today.
Each writer shared one clear approach, not a complex set of ideas. I made sure we focused on the essence, the minimum you need to move forward.
That's why Profitable Playbooks works: You get fantastic strategies you can actually implement, not overwhelming information you'll never act on.
Of course, it's a smorgasbord. You're not going to try everything at once. That’ll give you information indigestion. My suggestion is to ignore most of it and focus on the one or two areas that will really make a difference in your business.
Just like a good teacher would put blinders on you and say, "Don't look at the rest yet—we're just gonna focus on this one skill now."
The bottom line
Don't aim to be the Wikipedia of your field. Aim to be the teacher who helps students achieve one meaningful result quickly.
Your expertise isn't measured by how much you can teach, but by how clearly you can simplify complex ideas into actionable steps.
Because when your students succeed, you succeed too.
Want to see how top writers simplified their strategies into clear, actionable approaches?
Profitable Playbooks for Writers collects the essential methods from successful creators—no overwhelm, just results you can implement today.
Get your copy here and start applying these strategies immediately.
Still here?
Awesome!
One thing you can do for me is reply to this email and share: What's one complex topic you've been struggling to teach simply? Your response might inspire my next article.
Yes, i agree! I resonate with your final point in this article.