Hey, boss, it's Sunny Lenarduzzi.
Welcome to the Sunny Show for the bright side of branding, business, and being your own
boss.
Today I'm gonna give you my five steps for how to create your online course.
Now, I started making online courses a few years ago and I've learned a lot along the
way.
The beauty of online courses is I started working with a handful of clients to being
able to scale my business, make a greater impact, and serve people all over the world.
So I'm able to have a greater impact by using online courses, packaging my knowledge into
them, and selling them to people all over the place.
So in order to make your first online course, you need to know you have a good idea, so
stay tuned until the end of the video, because I will be giving you a checklist to make sure
that your course content idea is a winner.
Step number one is craving.
You need to make sure that your course solves a huge problem or an insatiable craving, because
people might say, "Oh, that's a really good idea.
I'd buy that course."
But then when you launch it, nobody wants to buy it.
So whatever you are selling has to solve a problem that someone is not willing to solve
on their own or Google to find out the answer on their own and they need your unique method
to solve that problem or satisfy that insatiable craving.
So a really great question to ask when you're trying to figure out your course idea is to
survey your community, send an email to a few of your customers, and say, "What is your
biggest struggle with X?"
When we launched our course YouTube For Bosses, before we launched it, a few months in advance,
we surveyed our audience.
The number-one question that we asked that gave us the best response for building the
course and actually marketing the course was "What is your biggest struggle with YouTube?"
So start there, and whatever your answers are, bank them, because you can actually use
the answers when you market the course.
So a lot of our responses are, "I really need more views," "I need to know how to use YouTube
for my business," "I'm lost," and we took some of those answers and actually put them
into the writing for our website and the landing page for the course, and that's when people
go, "Whoa.
She's reading my mind," because we're using the verbage that they gave us.
So to validate your course idea, ask questions and survey your audience and make sure that
it's something that is unique to you in your course.
It's a program or a strategy or a solution that you've come up with that only you know,
and that's gonna make sure that more people actually want to invest in it.
Step number two, following up in that idea of craving, you also want to make sure that
your audience is kind of prematurely and psychologically committed to your program before you even
sell it.
So I'm not talking about Jedi mind tricks here, I'm not talking about anything crazy,
but something simple that I do when I'm thinking about when I'm thinking about a project or
a service is I'll, again, ask my audience or throw it out there and see the response.
This also validates your idea, because if the response is crickets, then you probably
shouldn't make that product or service.
If it's a huge response and there's a ton of feedback, that validates that this is a
really good idea and it also ensures that your audience is kind of primed and ready
for when you do launch that program.
So another example of this is we were thinking about doing a program or a course in a few
months.
I asked my audience if they would be interested in this specific program or course in the
Be Your Own Boss mastermind group, and the response was crazy, and I've actually had
several people say "I'm holding out and waiting for your program that I know you're creating
as you mentioned.
When is it coming out, how much is it gonna be, because I want to make sure that I save
for it."
So it's a really good idea to get people to psychologically commit and kind of give them
a warning about your program that's coming out by telling them about it and asking if
they're interested.
If they say they're interested, then they're most likely going to be a buyer.
Step number three is, of course, your content.
What is your teaching style?
There are courses out there that are one-page PDFs.
There are courses out there that are simply a checklist.
There are video courses.
There are all different kinds of courses.
There's live courses.
So I teach best on video, but my courses also incorporate checklists and PDFs and documents
and strategies so that people can follow along and do those written pieces of the course
along with the videos.
So as far as content goes, this is probably the easiest thing that you need to figure
out, because you are the expert at what you're teaching and you've probably already been
teaching it for years.
Now you just have to figure out how you're gonna package it.
So what do you do most naturally?
Is it writing or is it video?
Whatever that is, that's kind of how you want to formulate the course, and the first thing
you want to do for your content is create a content plan for the program and set deadlines
and dates of when you need to have each piece of content finished.
And as far as the length of your content or your course, it completely depends.
However, if you're gonna be doing videos, you need to make sure that they're digest-able
and not too overwhelming.
So I recommend that you keep your videos under ten minutes if you can so that your students
aren't completely lost and overwhelmed with what you're teaching them.
Step number four is your customers.
So where are your customers gonna come from?
We kind of touched on this a little bit, but the best places for your customers to come
from is your warm audience.
So people who already know, like, and trust you.
That's why your email list is your most valuable asset as an online business.
So start building your email list asap and if you have one, big or small, make sure that
you're nurturing your relationship with your email list by providing lots of value and
free content so that when you have a paid service, they're happy to jump on board with
it.
So your email list; if you have a Facebook group, that's also a wonderful place to launch
your product and find your customers because it's your most loyal audience.
We've done a ton of launches within my Facebook group.
And there's also your social media channels and paid traffic.
So you can do advertising to your warm audience.
You can also advertise to people who don't know about you yet, warm them up, and then
turn them into buyers.
So those are really the four places that you're gonna find your customers online.
Step number five is cash flow.
So there's actually a way to kind of fund your course before you even create it, which
I know sounds weird, but a lot of times people will sell a course before the course is even
finished.
And I've done this in the past, and it's not anything that's against the norm; it actually
makes perfect sense because making a course can be a huge undertaking, so you want to
actually prove people will buy it.
So what this is called is a beta launch.
So a beta launch, you usually launch your course at a reduced price just to get people
in the door to get really good testimonials and to get your first round of students going
through the program.
And when you tailor the content and build the content as they're going through it, so
it's really tailor-made for them and you know that they want it and therefore there's more
people out there that would be looking for this kind of content.
So that's a really great way to start launching courses without having to go through the massive
undertaking of making an entire course and not knowing if it's gonna sell.
There's also, if it's a really low price point item that you're selling, you can just set
up your sales page, have all of your marketing done for your product, give people the outcome
that they're gonna get, sell the product to get people in the door, and then create it
from there.
So beta, sell at a low price point, you can actually get some cash flow before you go
through the process of creating the entire course.
But of course, we're all ethical here, right?
So you're not gonna create it and sell it and not actually finish the course.
So make sure that is a top priority for you, because I won't be happy with you.
So that is how you get some cash flow in the door for your course.
And then a little bonus tip here.
I know you're probably thinking, "Okay, cool, I understand the steps, but how do I actually
make the course?"
That is the least of your worries.
I went through the process of making a course from scratch and using all these different
sites and technology and integration.
It was a nightmare.
So I use one platform and one platform only now, and it's called thinkific, and it's the
easiest way to make courses online.
I am an affiliate for them and I shout them from the rooftops because they are such a
wonderful company with the best customer service I've ever experienced.
So if you're interested in trying thinkific, you can click the link below to do a free
trial run and see what it's all about, but it's truly the easiest way to make your first
online course.
Now you know the steps to making your online course, but you need to know if your concept
is any good.
So make sure you grab our checklist below to prove your course concept is a winner.
If you like this video, hit the "like" button below, share it with your friends, and be
sure to subscribe, and I'll see you in the next video.