There are an endless number of means you tin brand coin online, and sometimes I feel similar I have tried them all. I have built digital products, and of class, I have a blog that has helped me earn millions of dollars over the years.
I’m also a YouTuber with more than 370,000 subscribers to my channel, called Wealth Hacker. After years trying nearly everything, I have found that nigh online income strategies tin work — that is,
if
you lot sympathise upfront that you’ll probably neglect a few times forth the way.
Non everyone knows this, but I likewise have an online form that is geared to fiscal advisors who want to build upward their online presence. I created this class since that’s
exactly
what I did.
Believe it or not, just I was in one case a fiscal advisor who wore a arrange everyday and met with clients in-person. But thanks to the internet, I sold my financial planning practice and focused on blogging and other online work instead.
Why I Created an Online Class
While my online course is targeted at a niche grouping of people (fiscal advisors), I was nevertheless able to earn more than than $200,000 over the course of a few years. That’s pretty amazing when yous think nearly it, mostly considering I didn’t really know what I was doing at first, and considering I had to make quite a few adjustments along the way.
Why did I originally create an online course?
To be honest, I got the idea from Ramit Sethi. If you’re not familiar with him, he’s a personal finance expert and New York Times best-selling author who is known for his books and his website,
I Will Teach You to Be Rich. Sethi has a ton of courses, and I know all nearly them considering I bought his first one.
That fabricated me want to build my ain class, but I only wasn’t certain well-nigh the topic at first. The thing is, I was somewhen shown very clearly what my commencement course should be about.
Recognizing the Demand
At the fourth dimension, I was getting contacted past financial advisors from all over the The states who wanted to know how I broke into the online space. And since I was so excited nearly blogging and my success, I would oftentimes become on the phone with people for 30 or 45 minutes — and all for gratuitous!
But over time, I started recognizing that nigh of the people I spoke to weren’t doing annihilation with the information I was sharing. Some of them would even come back again and once more with more questions, however they never put annihilation into activity.
At ane bespeak, I started just charging for those phone calls… starting at $100 per hour until I got upward to $500 per hour and then $one,000 per hour. At that point, I realized people were more than willing to pay for the information I was sharing. I also realized the type of people who were willing to pay were also the most probable to implement the strategies I suggested.
From there, my starting time successful grade was born — The Online Advisor Growth Formula. I built the course to assistance financial advisors figure out how to build an online brand they could apply to abound their concern and build new revenue streams. I started with a beta version that cost but $500, just I wound up charging nigh $two,500 for the concluding product.
The remainder is history. Over the course of two years, I made more than $200,000 with this course, and I learned a ton in the procedure.
How
Y’all
Can Build an Online Form
It is definitely not too tardily to build an online course that people are willing to pay for. In fact, a recent study of the global e-learning market showed that this industry is expected to be worth $374.3 billion dollars by 2026, up from $144 billion in 2019.
Imagine if you could get only a footling slice of that coin, from a few chiliad to a few hundred thou bucks of your own. That amount of money could be enough to alter your financial situation forever, or fifty-fifty enough you never take to work a regular “job” again in your life.
But, how do you create an online course? In my listen, there are nine chief steps you need to accept to plough your dream into reality. Here’s exactly what y’all need to do to go your course off the ground, and to kickoff making money while you sleep.
Footstep #1: Pick a Topic
The first stride you need to have is figuring out what your form should exist about. This volition all depend on your area of expertise, as well as the topics you’re passionate about.
You lot could create a course that explains how to get started in your favorite hobby, but you lot could besides build a course that relies on your professional credentials. The pick is really up to you, but you should make sure you’re not agape to recollect outside the box.
For instance, you can find online courses on cooking and baking, investing, pottery, photography, or podcasting. In that location are popular courses that teach watercolor painting, cake decorating, and the fine art of paper flowers.
To come with the all-time course for you, you have to recollect nearly what you’re good at. What do
you
know that other people want to learn?
Step #two: Market Research
Once you lot have an idea or two, y’all need to do some market place research. For the most office, this means validating the idea and so you lot know people will pay for the expertise y’all want to offer.
Funny enough, there are courses you can take on how to practice market research! However, there are plenty of ways to do some market research without a financial investment. For example, you could:
- Create a uncomplicated questionnaire using Google Forms and share it on social media, including LinkedIn
- Await for other courses on similar topics to meet if they accept had success
- Ask people you know for their thoughts on your idea
In the meantime, you’ll besides need to think about how much people might pay for your course. I was able to charge a heftier amount ($500 then $two,500) because my course was targeted to fiscal advisors who could hands recoup their investment, nonetheless you may exist able to charge more or less depending on your niche and your level of expertise.
For case, customers may be willing to pay large bucks for a grade that helps them earn coin vs. a course that teaches cooking or painting. To get an thought on pricing, it helps to bank check out other courses that are like to the one yous plan to create.
Step #3: Outline the Grade
Once you feel confident yous have a class idea that will piece of work, your adjacent footstep is creating a bones outline for your course. When I did this for my financial advisor course, I got help from a friend who asked me questions about my thought. With his questions and my answers, I outlined what the course should include and a bones society of the lessons.
If you’re working on your class outline on your own, here are some questions to ask yourself:
- What are the master lessons people want to learn from me?
- Practice these lessons need to get in chronological order?
- What is the ultimate goal of this course? And what practise I promise people volition accomplish?
To use my form equally an example, my original outline started at the beginning with how I created a blog to begin marketing my financial planning practice. I also outlined modules on how to create your own unique brand, compliance for financial advisors, writing compelling content and using social media. From there, I outlined modules on search engine optimization (SEO), generating leads, monetizing online content, and more.
I basically thought through what people wanted to learn from me and the gild of the lessons that made the most sense. While your topic will probably exist much dissimilar than mine, y’all need to have on the same strategy.
Step #four: Decide on Delivery Methods
Once you have an outline for your course, you demand to recollect about where you lot plan to offering it. How volition y’all deliver your course to people who buy it? Likewise, how will you accept payment and go on rails of it all?
Fortunately, there are some platforms that make it easy to format and sell your course, and many will even keep track of payments and class members for you. Some of the best ones to cheque out include Teachable, Kajabi, and Thinkific.
These platforms don’t have to exist expensive, and they tin save you a lot of fourth dimension and attempt. With Teachable, for example, a basic course plan for unlimited students starts at just $29 per month although some additional processing fees tin can apply.
Step #5: Validate the Form
So yous have your class idea and yous have done some marketplace research. After that, you created a bones course outline to get the ball rolling.
At this signal, you’ll want to validate your course before yous practice a full launch. You can do this past finding your biggest fans and by trying to sell a beta version of your form.
I did this with my financial advisor course, and I sold the beta version for merely $500. I was able to find buyers considering I had an e-mail listing for my blog, and these people were able to get the course cheaper in exchange for their feedback.
When I sold my beta class, I asked members for more information on what else they wanted to larn. These original members were very generous with their fourth dimension, mostly because they were trying to get as much helpful information from me as they could.
Stride #half-dozen: Create the Course
As my beta testers shared their thoughts, I implemented their suggestions and used their feedback to build out the balance of the modules for my form, which I ultimately sold for $2,500.
This is exactly what you need to do one time you have a small-scale group of people who are going through your beta course. You need to ask them what is missing and use their suggestions to fill in the gaps.
Yous also need to decide how y’all want to share all the data your course has to offer. Will you brand video lessons? Audio lessons? Do you need to create a slideshow with graphics that explain the lessons yous’re trying to teach?
This is another area where y’all can check out other courses to see how they formatted their lesson plans. For instance, you can look at their course sales pages and see how the modules are laid out.
In one case once more, using a platform like Teachable or Thinkific from day one can brand a big difference. These platforms have tools built in to assistance you format your grade with video or written lessons so you don’t have to build anything yourself.
Pace #seven: Get Testimonials
Side by side upwards, you’ll want to get some testimonials from raving fans and post them on your class page as shortly as you tin. This is exactly what I did with my course for fiscal advisors. I reached out to members who were having success and I asked them to share with me. At that point, I posted their exact testimonials on my course sales page!
If people honey the beta version of your course and they accept participated in the process to build out the final production, they are commonly pretty invested. Getting testimonials is not that hard as a result. Nigh of the fourth dimension, all you have to exercise is ask.
Step #8: Launch the Course
Now that you have built out your final form product with the help of beta testers, it’s fourth dimension to jack up the cost. Of form, that’s not
all
yous take to exercise. You’ll also want to brainstorm reaching out to your networks to promote your course and permit people know it’southward ready.
Strategies you lot can use to launch your course include:
- Social media shares
- Posting on LinkedIn
- Reaching out to your electronic mail listing
- Learning how to apply Facebook ads
- Cantankerous promoting courses with other course creators in your niche
- Hosting a free webinar
- Promoting your class on YouTube
- Doing podcast interviews almost your course or the topic of your course
- Booking speaking gigs at local events
- Promoting your course on TikTok
These are but some of the ways you can initially promote your course, but the residue is up to you. The betoken is, don’t create your course then watch it fizzle. Get out there and tell people about it, or they may not find out on their own.
Stride #9: Ongoing Marketing
Finally, you’ll definitely desire to have an ongoing marketing programme if you desire to brand course sales into a reliable income stream. There are many ways you tin market your course for the long-term, and your best bet will depend a lot on the type of course yous have.
Some strategies to consider include:
- Creating a free mini course that introduces new people to your topic and helps you lot gain their trust
- Offering a free webinar that introduces you to potential new customers while providing a “tease” into what the full form offers
- Having course “sales” that last for a limited time
- Creating a Facebook ads marketing plan that targets user types who might exist interested in your production
- Getting bloggers to review your course
- Having an chapter plan for your course so other people can sell it and earn a committee
- Starting a Facebook grouping to help promote your course or the underlying theme of your course
- Advertising your course with YouTube ads or imprint ads
These are just some of the ways you lot tin can promote your course. Whatever y’all do, remember that courses rarely just sell themselves, and that you have to exit there and let people know what yous’re all about.
With some luck, you’ll notice the right combination of marketing efforts that sell courses without too much work on your part. Merely remember that you’ll probably take to try a few unlike strategies to find the correct fit, and that success may non happen overnight. Like it or non, information technology rarely does.
Source: https://www.goodfinancialcents.com/create-online-course/
