Speaker 1: You're here because
you want to successfully grow an online course business, or maybe you have an online course,
but you're completely stuck and you can't figure out why it's not magically selling
as easily as you might think it should. Now, this takes intention, strategy,
and a lot of focus in order to create a well-oiled online education business that runs seamlessly and
where you're bringing in consistent sales and clients that you really enjoy working with.
Now, this comes from a wealth of experience. I've helped thousands of people create, scale,
and automate their online course businesses, scaling all the way up to hundreds of thousands
of dollars a month without spending a dime on any paid advertising. So, doing this in a very
organic way. I do that through my program called the Authority Accelerator and I've created a free
guide for you that you can download right now to take a look at the 10 steps that are going
to help you create this business in a way that sets you up for success and avoiding a lot of the
common pitfalls. Totally free. You can download it right now at the link in the description.
Myself, I've been in this game nearly a decade now, which is crazy, meaning I have been working
the online education industry and selling online programs for nearly a decade now, and I've sold
over 30 million in course sales to date. So, I know a thing or two about this and I know what
you need to avoid from working with people every single day who are actually doing this
and making it a reality. So, if you're excited, click the like button. Be sure to subscribe for
new videos every week. We talk about creating a peaceful, purposeful, and profitable online
education business so you can make a massive impact on the people that need you the most.
I'm going to warn you, if you don't watch through to the end and watch all 10 of these things,
then you probably are going to fall into some of the common pitfalls that happen all too often. So,
be sure to stay tuned until the end so you know all of the things that you need to do and
you shouldn't be doing. Let's get into it. Number one, do not create your online course first. Now,
that might sound crazy because what are you going to sell? Well, I've talked a lot about
our strategy that we use with our clients to validate and pre-sell their online programs to
ensure that they have an audience of interested buyers and they can also gather social proof to
prove that their offer actually works. So, I put together a pre-sell playlist below this
video that will be a great resource for you to be able to better understand that strategy.
But the reason why you do not want to create your course first, and tell me if you can relate to
this in the comments or maybe you've done this, the reason you don't want to create it first is
because you are only going to create it based off of what you think people need, which is
the biggest mistake you can make. It's something that I did in the very beginning of starting this
journey, and it resulted in crickets. It resulted in not a lot of success in selling that program
because I had no market research, I didn't fully understand who my ideal client was, I was selling
to a broad audience, and the curriculum therefore wasn't as impactful as it could have been. So,
over the years, I've really learned we need to validate first, test first, sell first in order
to create a business that you can truly scale and to create an online program that can truly scale.
One of the biggest benefits to creating a program that we call prototypes, we call it a profitable
offer prototype when you do it this way, it gets you to market fast. Why that's important
is because the biggest key to growing an online course business is to actually get real world
feedback and to get results in the door. You can't get results if you're working away behind
the scenes with nothing to actually offer people. The other benefit to this is that you actually get
to learn as you go how to better articulate and better teach things because you might think you're
making sense, but when you deliver your curriculum to your test group of clients for your prototype
offer, they're going to tell you, "I wish this was before this lesson. I wish you taught it
in a different way. I didn't really understand that. Could you go deeper on this topic?" So,
it is going to make your final curriculum once you actually package this so much more impactful.
Number two, just because you have a course hosting platform or an app doesn't mean your
program's actually going to sell. Listen to me on this. The amount of people who are like,
"Oh, I'm just going to get this course platform and it's going to magically create sales," eh,
wrong. Doesn't happen that way. Such a massive mistake. Just because you have somewhere to upload
a program doesn't mean the program's going to work, doesn't mean you have a marketing vehicle,
doesn't mean you have leads coming in the door, it doesn't mean you have traffic. Don't do it.
Okay? The software means diddly squat at the end of the day. The software is the easiest
part of building an online course. The hard part is creating a course that actually works,
provides value, and developing a curriculum that makes sense for your ideal clients.
So, there's really a multitude of ways that you can host a course. But like I said, this
is not something to worry about until you have a validated offer. I'm going to talk more about
that and how you do that without a course hosting platform and can get clients in the door without
having that in just a second. But there are course marketplaces out there, things like Skillshare,
Udemy, etc. Those platforms are platforms that I have never personally used because generally,
you're in a big marketplace, it is more competitive, and you're generally selling
at a lower ticket price point to a mass market. So, you don't really have control over who you're
serving and the kind of impact that you're having. Now, are there great courses on
there? I'm sure there are, but in the methodology that we use, we want our clients to create their
unique curriculum and really be able to own their program on their own hosting platform.
So, the other option is you can host it on a place like Thinkific, Kajabi. There's so many out there
where these are course hosting platforms. They are built for you to upload your curriculum and
bring in clients so that you can actually start delivering the curriculum to them. But again,
just remember, these are not marketing platforms. These are just places to host your curriculum.
The marketing is up to you, the traffic is up to you, the leads are up to you. So, it's not
magic. The other option, which I do not recommend because I've done it myself, is building out your
own website for your course. It is timely, it is costly, it is mind-numbingly difficult if
you're not an engineer or a coder. I tried to do it myself with my first course and it was a
painstakingly awful process, plus it just delayed the ultimate goal of an online course, which as we
talked about, is getting your clients' results. A big key to this is that if you can't actually
sell your program in the most bare bones prototype version of it without fancy funnels and tech and
marketing and a website and all these things, it's not going to last. So, our clients actually
use the methodology we teach in creating their prototype offer to get their course to market,
and in doing so, they're simply using Google Drive and Zoom. Those are their two delivery platforms
for their first version of their program. After they test it and validate it, then they package
it because they've got cash flow, they've got client results, and they have confidence that
their offer actually can sell. Number three. So vitally important. Please do not rely on a warm
audience. If you solely rely on an audience that you've already built on social media,
you're going to get what I call buyer's bias. This means that you might have a first initial
launch of your online course that's super successful because you've already built an
audience of people who know, like, and trust you. So, of course, they're going to want to
support you and buy whatever it is that you have to offer. But are they the right people?
The biggest issue here is that if you only sell to a warm audience and you have no clue on how to
generate leads that are cold, i.e. they don't know you already, you're going to inevitably run out
of leads at some point, which leads to a complete and utter plateau in your online course business,
frustration, feeling stuck, feeling like you're financially scarce, and it just creates a whole
kerfuffle of issues. Honestly, it leads to a lot of people just shutting down their
course and thinking the course doesn't work. But really what's happened is that they burnt
out their audience and they have no vehicle to bring in new leads. So, do not just solely rely
on your warm audience only. This is why inside of our program, we help people discover how to build
a list of their first 50 ideal clients from a cold audience, first and foremost, so they always have
that in their toolkits. They never run out of leads moving forward. Most importantly, this is
just done through a really grassroots method and really connecting and building relationships with
people because you don't need a ton of clients to actually make massive impact and make a great
income. What they do is they start building their email list from scratch. Why the email list is so
important is because it's the only asset that you own in terms of an audience. You don't own social
media, you don't own the algorithms, you don't own Instagram, TikTok, Facebook, YouTube. You own your
email list. So, building your email list first and foremost is the most important asset you can build
in creating sustainable online course business. Before we get into number four, I want to ask you,
what is your biggest challenge when it comes to your online course business right now? Comment
below and let me know. I'd love to hear what you're facing and what you're trying
to tackle and also if I'm able to answer it in this video, because you never know,
it might be coming up or I might have already talked about it. Number four, you do not need
an audience before you sell an online course. We have so many clients who are great examples
of this who had zero audience, weren't even maybe on social media a few of them, prior to building
their online program. If you want to check out case studies of our clients and real examples,
you can check them out on our other channel where we have hundreds of examples of how people
are implementing this system and methodology. Why it's important to understand this is because
it stalls a lot of people from making the impact that they can make because they think if I don't
have an audience, then I can't sell a program, and that's just not the truth. I'll give you a prime
example of this. We actually had a client come in and she had over half a million subscribers
on her YouTube channel and she wasn't able to sell more than two courses. This happens all the time.
There are people with all of these vanity metrics. This could be you and you're not able to make one
sale. So, we helped her really create a list of qualified buyers from scratch and she's now
doing upwards of $50,000 a month consistently with our online program. Now, I could go into
depth on this here, but I've actually created multiple videos on selling an online course with
zero audience and breaking that process down. So, I'll link to that playlist below as well.
Number five, social proof scales way faster than good marketing. What I mean by that,
you might see people out there grinding every day posting content every day, marketing what
they do every day, and they're not making any sales and they have no clients. It's the truth.
It's a painful truth, but it's the truth because when you ultimately don't know exactly who you're
selling to and most importantly where that person is at on their journey where they're
most likely to invest because it's virgin for them, you're not going to actually be able to
make sales and your content isn't going to land. That's why we harp so much on creating magnetic
messaging, which means it's messaging that it's speaking directly to your ideal client to bring
them into your realm and ultimately convert them so that you can help them and have the impact on
them that they are seeking so desperately. So, when you think about creating an online
program and why we talk about not creating your course first, but creating the prototype version
of it first and foremost and getting that real world, realtime feedback is because we want to
get social proof in the door for you as quickly as possible because ultimately,
people want to buy a program that they know works and is validated. So, focusing mostly
on case studies, client testimonials, screenshots of wins, all those things, that is going to help
you scale faster and further than any kind of good marketing or branding ever will.
On that same note, I talk about this often, but what we do with our clients is we help them create
transformative programs. They can actually really gather that incredible social proof
and validation. So, it's not just teaching for the sake of teaching or information, but we help
you create a program that takes your client from a challenged zero state to their hero state outcome
so that they have a solidified outcome and result that they can share once they've gone through the
program, which is really important to gathering more and more social proof. If people are just
learning for the sake of learning, there isn't a real outcome or social proof along the way,
which is a massive mistake that people make when they build out their curriculums,
which brings me perfectly into my next point. You don't want to work with every client,
and I say this because if you are trying to appeal to more of a mass market, you're letting anybody
into your program, it ultimately will kill your social proof, and not everybody is at the place
where they're actually ready to do the work and get the results, and that's a lose-lose for
everybody. It makes it look like your program doesn't work and it leads to a lot of unhappy
customers and clients. So, focusing on who you do want to work with specifically is vital to
the longterm success of your online program. I have a whole video about attracting dream
clients. We'll link to that below as well. Number seven, paid advertising does not solve
problems. Oh, my goodness, if I could wear one billboard for the rest of my life, I think that
would be it. We've had people sink upwards of $50,000 into paid advertising because that's what
they thought they were supposed to do and not make any sales from it. Talk about a horrible ROI and
it kills your business. Not only that, but your soul and your financial stability. Okay. Here's
why this is so important. Facebook ads are not a magic cure. They take a lot of time and strategy
in order to make them work and testing. So, if you can't sell your program organically,
which means for free with free traffic and leads, it ain't going to sell with paid advertising,
guaranteed. If you try and do it that way when you don't have magnetic messaging or solidified
messaging, it means that you're just really throwing money in the fire. Sorry, not sorry.
Your price point has absolutely nothing to do with how much information is inside of your
program. This is really important to understand because so many people will say to me, well,
I have a shorter program, so I'm going to charge $97 for it, or I have a longer program, so I
think I can charge around a thousand dollars for it. They are not related. Price and information
are not related. Price and transformation are related. So, the value of your outcome of your
program and where you're taking your client to and the value that they're getting from the program,
that is what people are ultimately investing into and that's what dictates your price point. A
lower price point will oftentimes bring in a less serious client. What does that do? It ultimately
leads to you having less and less social proof, which ultimately leads to you killing the momentum
of your business. It's really important not to overstuff your program either and think if I
just add in more bonuses or guides or whatever it may be, then I can charge a higher price point.
That actually can works against you because think about it from the client's perspective and the
person investing. The last thing they want to do is spend more time to get the outcome that they're
trying to get. They want efficiency. So, how we teach our clients to build their curriculums is
how can we make this the most efficient path to get them from zero to hero as possible so that
they're getting that ultimate outcome and win as efficiently as possible so they can
share that result and be super happy with the process? I also have a whole video on pricing,
so be sure to check that out. I'll also put that in the description below.
Number nine, what you need to know to generate consistent sales and clients. Most importantly,
you need to understand that there are really two marketing vehicles. You have on demand
marketing methods, as we call them, and we have evergreen. So, evergreen kind of works in the
background. It's like a YouTube channel. People are discovering my videos every single day and
they're learning more about what I do, getting value from the videos, and ultimately joining our
list or becoming a client. That's completely evergreen. I don't have to make more content
in order for that to happen. All of my videos are working for me. That's why I love YouTube,
and I've made tons of videos on why YouTube is amazing for attracting clients on this channel.
The other option is on demand. On demand is your first testing ground. You don't want to
start with evergreen traffic because if you don't have your messaging dialed in, it's only going to
work against you and you're going to confuse the algorithm, and they're not going to know,
they're, as if it's percent, the algorithm is not going to know who to serve your content to.
So, you really want to dial in your messaging first. Test on demand platforms, which are
things like email, other platforms that are more reactive, things like Instagram, Facebook, TikTok,
etc. Test there because it's a lower barrier to entry and it's a lower shelf life, shorter shelf
life on those platforms. So, you're not committed to that content constantly working for you for
the rest of time and maybe working in the wrong way. You're making that post, it's up for two to
three days where it's getting actual traction, you can test if it's working or not, and then
that's going to help you identify the messaging that you want to turn into evergreen content
later on that will bring in evergreen traffic for you to sell consistently. So, you kind of need a
blend of both in order to create consistent scale and sales for your online program.
Having an evergreen asset is really important when you get to that stage so you can have your
on demand and your evergreen traffic sending to something like a video sales letter or sending
to something like a webinar. But building that before you have any of these things in place
or a proven offer is just, it's backwards. I was going to say something else, but I'll be polite.
It's backwards. The final piece of this, to sell consistently, you have to know how to generate
cold leads. I talked about this earlier. We have a methodology inside of our program where we set
up our clients for success and always knowing how to attract cold leads so that they never run out
of that method for themselves so that if their evergreen traffic slows down or it maybe takes a
little longer for it to work, they know they have this, we call it a lever to pull in their business
where they can always go to find more clients. Number 10, this is a business. I think oftentimes
people think, I'm going to create an online course and it's just going to sell like magic, etc. Yes,
that can happen, but it's not necessarily sustainable for the longterm and it actually
can create a lot of headaches because you might be bringing in the wrong people and eventually
resent the business and it's a whole kerfuffle. So, our theory and how we work with our clients
and why we take it so seriously is that this is what we call a legacy business. You're building
something that can stand the test of time and create an impact even when you're long gone. So,
you want to take it seriously from the beginning. Part of that is understanding how it works and how
it does start to work for you on autopilot in a really sustainable and impactful way.
So, we have the flywheel in our business that we always mention, and it really is the engine
that runs your online course business. It's quite simple and it's made up of four components. So,
first and foremost, you have to know who that ideal client is. From there, you need to know
exactly how you can attract them and enroll them. From there, you need to create the transformation
for them with your curriculum inside your program. Once you do that, you have all of these
happy clients and social proof to validate the offer, which leads to more ideal clients, more
enrollments, more transformations, more social proof, and you'll just start to work on autopilot
and start to generate clients on autopilot because you're really positioning yourself as the go-to
expert and authority with your program, which is something we take a lot of pride in helping
our clients do, and we've been able to do this with so many people over the years.
So, really important that you don't just treat it like a side hustle, a hobby. If you want to take
it seriously and you really do want to scale, you need to really treat it and understand that
it is the business and how business operates. So, thank you for watching until the end and
I really do want to know, comment below with the biggest challenge you're facing with your
online course business and if I maybe helped a little bit with something I said here today.
Comments are my love language, so I love to know when things actually land for you. If you liked
this, be sure to hit that like button and be sure to subscribe. Like I said, I've created a
free guide for you with the 10 steps to scale your skillset and smash the income and impact ceiling,
all without trading time for money, by using an online course as the vehicle to grow your impact,
your authority, and your business. So, be sure to grab that totally for free in the link in the
description. Thank you so much for watching and be sure to check out this video next.