How To Create An Online Course [Ultimate Guide]
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How To Create An Online Course – The Ultimate Guide. Learn how to build a profitable digital course business, and sell your expertise like a pro, step-by-step.
Selling your own online course is such a fantastic and smart way to monetize your blog.
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No matter what your niche is, there is someone out there who wants to learn what you have to teach.
I’ll share my tips for how you can easily become a course creator today.
How To Create An Online Course – The Ultimate Guide
Are you feeling drained from the endless hours of 1:1 client work? Wishing you had a way to push past the income ceiling you’re coming up against?
Enter: online courses — your path to limitless impact (and income!) as a digital entrepreneur. 🙌
In this post, I’ll walk you step-by-step through my entire process for creating a wildly profitable and popular online course.
We’ll cover everything from:
- The benefits of creating courses
- The tech and tools you’ll need to get started
- How to choose a profitable course topic
- My 4-step process for outlining your course
- How to record your course lessons
- How to set up your course platform so you’re ready to start selling
If you’re ready to ditch the client work hustle and start having those big-income months you’ve been dreaming of, grab your notebook and favorite pen (I know you have one!) and keep reading.
Why Create An Online Course?
Online courses are one of the best ways to package up your ideas and products and deliver it to the masses.
It’s also one of the best sources of passive income sources, too.
Basically, you create the content for your course once and sell it for all eternity. Do the work once, sell it multiple times.
Of course, I recommend you should still update your lessons frequently, but you know what I mean. It isn’t constant upkeep, like other types of revenue streams.
And let’s be totally transparent here. We want you to have a long-term revenue stream.
And courses provide that. I’m talking about you making a real living by selling digital downloads, online courses, and memberships.
Because the most important thing when it comes to selling your digital products and services is in making sure your voice is not left unheard.
How do you make sure your next big thing does not get lost in the sea of online marketing? You package it into a product that can be easily digested by your customer.
Think about it, an online course itself has more value than an ebook, any day.
You could write the exact same content in an ebook, and maybe sell it at most for $50. But sell it as an online course?
People will pay a lot more than they would for an ebook. Hundreds more.
My Story: From Bartender to Full-Time Course Creator
A few years ago, I was working a dead-end job as a bartender by night, marketing manager by day, making $30,000 a year… before taxes.
Now, I work from home, earning 7 figures running my own successful business. And I create courses for a living.
It sounds like the dream, and it is! But with that said, I don’t want you to think that this happened overnight, because it definitely didn’t.
I created my first course in 2017, a few months after going full-time in my business.
Over the last four years, I’ve created many courses, launched more than four dozen times, and generated a full-time income as a course creator.
But beyond the numbers, the reason I love this type of business model so much is the freedom that it’s created in my life and business.
I’m no longer chained to a desk all day like I was as a receptionist.
And even in the early days of my business when I was offering 1:1 services and coaching, I was working way more hours, for way less money than I work and make nowadays.
My biggest core value has always been freedom, and as a course creator, that’s exactly what I get.
So What exactly is an online course?
Just so we’re all on the same page, let’s talk about what an online course is and isn’t.
Here’s how I define a course:
“An online course is a compilation of training materials and actionable resources, hosted within a digital platform or ‘school’, that helps your students achieve a specific result or transformation in their life or business.”
Let’s break each of those elements down.
Training Materials & Actionable Resources:
These are the videos, audio mp3s, workbooks, and support documents that make up the content within your course.
Digital Platform or ‘School’:
This is the virtual, online space where you house your course content.
Students are given unique login details to access the course platform and work through the materials.
I’ll share my favorite course platform a little later in this post.
Achieve a Specific Result or Transformation:
This is key, because 95% of the time, people won’t buy a course simply because they’re interested in the topic. They’ll buy a course when they believe that:
a) It will help them achieve a certain result
b) The result is something that’s meaningful and important to them
We’ll talk in an upcoming section about what the result and “promise” of your course should be, so hang tight.
5 Benefits of Creating & Selling Courses
Just in case you aren’t already excited about the idea of creating a course, here are five big ways courses will be an invaluable resource to your business:
1. Courses create scalable revenue with no limits
If you’re currently a 1:1 service provider or online coach, you’ve likely realized that there’s a limit to the amount of revenue you can generate with that type of business model.
Unless you want to scale to an agency format (which is a whole other ballgame), your income is essentially “capped” by the number of clients you can work with at any one time.
An online course removes all caps or limits on your potential income. You can sell your course over and over again, to an indefinite amount of people.
Whereas you might only feasibly be able to work with 10 clients at once, you could sell your course to 20 people, 50 people, even 100 people in the same time span.
2. Courses can generate passive income
I’m not always a huge fan of the phrase “passive income” because I think it’s thrown around a lot these days, but courses are one of the closest things you’ll ever find to passive income as a digital entrepreneur.
There are certain scenarios when selling your courses can be 100% passive.
For example, if you set up an automated sales funnel for your course and it’s a self-study program where students don’t receive any direct support from you.
However, if you have a student community for your course, like a Facebook group, your course sales wouldn’t technically qualify as “passive income.”
That’s because you would still be required to do some additional work to support your students in the community after they purchase.
3. Courses allow you to reach and help more people
As a big-hearted entrepreneur, I’m sure you’re passionate about using your gifts and knowledge to help other people.
That’s one of the reasons many of us get into business in the first place!
And when you take your knowledge, expertise, and experience and package it up into an online course, you’re able to help so many more people than you ever possibly could in a 1:1 format.
This is because as I mentioned earlier, there’s no limit to the number of students you can enroll in your course at any time.
Whereas with 1:1 services, you’re limited by the amount of time you have available to spend on client work. This limits the number of people you can help and impact.
4. Courses create more time freedom in your life and business
Like I said earlier, I’m all about that freedom lifestyle—and that’s probably what drew me toward the world of course creation in the first place.
I love that as a course creator, I don’t have to be in my office at a certain time each day, or really at all if I don’t want to be!
- I create course content on my own schedule.
- I choose when to launch my courses.
- And if I’m hosting Q&A calls for my students, I choose the dates, times, and schedule for those calls.
This business model has created infinite amounts of freedom, both in my business and my life.
For example, my colleague Krista spent four months living and traveling across Canada in an RV with her boyfriend. They rarely had decent WiFi, and she barely worked at all for those 4 months. Still, revenue from her courses came in daily.
Pretty dang cool, if you ask me.
5. You can create a course once and then profit from it forever
With 1:1 services, you’re constantly working with new clients and you essentially get paid for the amount of work you do (either hourly or on a project or package-basis).
And while 1:1 work can be super fulfilling and amazing in its own way, this also means you’re still tied into the whole “trading time for money” thing.
As a course creator, things look a bit different.
You’ll find that you invest a large amount of time, energy, and money upfront to create your course and get it out into the world.
Bbut from there, you can continue selling your course for years to come with a much smaller amount of effort.
For example, you might run a few launches a year for your signature program, continue to support students inside the course’s private Facebook group, and update your course materials once a year to keep them fresh.
So yes, there is some work involved (I mean, it’s not like I sit around at the beach all day… just for part of it 😉).
The course creator’s toolkit:
All the tech you’ll need to create your online course.
So you’re super excited at the thought of creating your first online course. Awesome! But you probably have a few questions about what that process actually looks like and what tools you’ll need to get started.
Tada! Here are my favorite tools, tech, and software for course creation:
1. Course Hosting Platform: Thrivecart or Teachable
2. Graphic Design: Canva
3. Course Design: Course Creation Roadmap
4. Slide Decks: Powerpoint or KeyNote, or Canva
5. Recording Course Videos: Vimeo
6. Editing Videos: Premiere
7. Microphone: This one
8. Webcam: This one
How to Choose Your Profitable Course Topic
Now that we’ve got your tech and tools sorted, let’s dive into the first step of creating your online course: Deciding what the heck your course is gonna be about!
I’m sure you’re a multi-passionate person with expertise in lots of different areas, so how do you whittle that down to just one topic to teach?
Here are the 3 criteria your course topic should meet:
1. Passion
First, you’ve gotta be passionate about it. What lights you up? What do you love talking about? What would you do for free for the rest of your life because you love it so much?
These are all clues to your perfect course topic.
2. Expertise
Second, it needs to be an area that you have expertise, experience, or some kind of credentials in.
You don’t need to be formally trained in the topic, but you should have either achieved a certain level of success or have helped other people achieve success in this area.
3. Demand
Finally, you want to create a course that your audience actually wants and needs. You might be passionate about a certain topic and have expertise in it, but that doesn’t mean people would buy a course about it!
To ensure there’s market demand, you can do a few things:
- See if other entrepreneurs have created profitable courses or paid offerings in this specific area. This might seem like it’s “competition”, but it’s actually a good thing because it means your idea is viable.
- Speak with your own audience to gather intel on whether this is an area they would pay to have help in. Make sure to take their feedback with a grain of salt, because the only true way to gauge whether your idea will be profitable is to get people to put their money where their mouth is by pre-selling your course and running a beta launch.
If your course topic meets these 3 criteria, you’re set!
Course Topic vs. Course Result
Before we go any further, we need to make a distinction between the topic of your course and the result of your course. Ergo:
Course Topic = What your course is about
e.g., nutrition, fitness, Pinterest, graphic design, etc.
Course result = what your course helps students achieve
e.g., lose 15 lbs, improve their heart health, 5x their monthly blog traffic, create beautiful graphics to promote their podcast
While your course topic is important, your course result is what makes your course appealing to potential students.
People won’t buy your course because of the course topic; they’ll buy it because they want the result and transformation that your course is promising them.
Craft Your Student Transformation Statement
To help you clarify your course result, you can create what I call a “Student Transformation Statement”.
This is a short, sweet, punchy sentence that essentially serves as the elevator pitch for your course. Ready to write yours?
Here’s the exact template I give my students inside Course Creation Bootcamp:
When marketing your course, it’s important to focus on both the tangible result it helps students achieve, and the emotional transformation your students will experience.
Get clear on the external problem your course solves, the result it helps facilitate, the negative emotions your students feel before taking your course, and the positive emotions they feel after.
Then simply plug-n-play each of those elements into the template above to create your Student Transformation Statement!
The 4-Step Process for Outlining Your Course
Next, you’re ready to outline your course content. I never recommend jumping straight into the content creation process without having a solid game plan in place first.
Without a plan, your course content will lack cohesiveness and continuity, and you’ll waste a lot of time trying to figure out what content should go inside each lesson and each module.
Here’s a simple but effective 4-step process you can use to create a detailed course outline:
Step 1. Brain dump your content ideas onto sticky notes.
Get a fresh pad of sticky notes and on each one, write down a single thought, idea, topic, example, mistake, or step that you want to include inside your course.
Give yourself time to do this.
I like to spread this step out over a few days so I have plenty of time to get all of my ideas written down.
You can then put your sticky notes up on a wall or spread them out on your desk so you’re ready for the next step.
Step 2. Group your sticky notes into categories that will form your course modules.
From here, you’re going to group together similar topics and ideas by moving your sticky notes into piles, rows, or bunches.
These groups will form the “modules” of your course. If you aren’t sure how many modules you need and what content should go in each, think of it this way:
Each module in your course should help your students take one big step towards the overall result that your course promises.
So if students need to take 6 major steps towards that particular outcome, you’ll have 6 modules in your course. If there are 10 steps, you’ll have 10 modules.
Don’t stress over the exact number so much — just focus on the action steps that your students need to take, and in what order.
With this method, you should be able to figure out what your modules will be and what order they’ll go in. Again, this can take time, and you probably won’t get it right on your first try.
But that’s the beauty of using sticky notes! If you try grouping them together and it just isn’t working, start over and group them in a different way.
Do that again and again until you feel good about your modules, and the process you’ll be taking your students through.
Step 3. Create a spreadsheet where you record your modules, lessons, support docs, and student homework.
Now we’re getting into the really nitty-gritty stuff. But I promise, doing this legwork upfront will save you so much time down the road when it’s time to create your course content!
For this step, you’re going to transfer the information you wrote on your sticky notes into a spreadsheet. I like to set up my spreadsheet like this:
To determine what your lessons will be about, you can use the exact same process you just used to determine your modules, but on a smaller scale.
Each lesson should help your students take one micro-action towards the overall step of that module.
Let’s say you’re creating a wellness course, and the first module is all about helping your students determine their current fitness level and set goals. The micro action steps might be to:
- Measure and record their current fitness levels
- Complete a fitness assessment to determine their current fitness level
- Set goals for where they want to be 3 months, 6 months, and one year from now
- Create a wellness vision board that they hang up in their home
Four action steps = four lessons inside the first module of your course.
Write these topics down in the third spreadsheet column titled “Lesson Content”.
Support Docs
These are the additional resources you give your students to help them take action on what they’re learning. Support docs can be things like:
- Templates
- Workbooks
- Swipe files
- Calendars
- Planners
- Printables
- and more!
You don’t need to include a support doc with every lesson.
But if there’s a resource you could create that would help your students take action on a particular lesson and get results more quickly, create that resource and include it as a support doc.
Homework
Finally, it’s crucial that we encourage our students to take action. The implementation creates results.
I suggest having at least one homework item for every lesson in your course, even if it’s something super small.
This helps your students gain momentum and start having little wins as quickly as possible.
Once you’ve mapped out your modules, lessons, content, support docs, and homework, you’re ready for the final step in the outlining process…
Step 4. Create a full outline inside a Google Doc.
Don’t start creating your slide decks and recording your video lessons until you have a concrete game plan of what content will be included within each lesson. That’s where this Google Doc comes in handy!
Simply copy and paste the lesson list from your spreadsheet into a new Google Doc, and create a bullet point list that explains the main teaching points for each lesson.
You don’t have to include every tiny little detail here (some things will be added later as you create the actual lessons), but you want to have a list of the main points, examples, and tips you’ll hit on in each lesson.
Recording & Editing Your Lessons
Once you’ve worked through this 4-step process and you feel good about your course outline, it’s time to start recording!
There are several different types of lesson content you can create, including:
- Videos with slide shows
- Face-to-camera videos
- Audio files/mp3s
- Text-only lessons
- Image and text lessons
- Lessons with a downloadable resource only (workbook, template, etc.)
My advice is to mix it up!
Your students will all have different learning styles and preferences, so including only one type of media or content can make it challenging for some students to progress through your course.
If you’re curious, the process I generally follow to create a course lesson looks like this:
- Use the notes in my course outline to create a script for the lesson
- Design a slide deck for the entire module, if I’m using slides
- Record the video lesson using QuickTime (or LogiCapture, or Vimeo livestreaming)
- Edit the video using Premiere (iMovie could work too)
- Upload the video to Vimeo, and copy the link into my course platform and add a custom thumbnail
- Add a description for the lesson
- Include links, support docs, and homework items underneath the video
Simply repeat this process over and over until your course content is complete! The amount of time this takes you will depend on the length of your course and how fast and efficiently you’re able to work.
For reference, I generally create one course module per week.
This is on top of all the other work I’m doing in my business in any given week.
I would estimate that it takes me roughly 10-15 hours to create an entire module from scratch.
How to Set Up Your Course Platform
Once all of your modules and lessons are created, you’re ready for the final step: Setting up your course platform!
As I mentioned above, I use and recommend Thrivecart. I’ve tried other course hosting platforms, but I found that Thrivecart met more of my needs as a course creator plus I really like their student interface (i.e., what my students see when they login to my courses).
To create an account with Thrivecart, click here.
It’s a one-time payment, and then you get the software and all future updates for life. No monthly subscription!
When you sign up, you’ll choose a name and URL for your school. Once inside, you’ll want to press the little graduation cap icon at the top, to create a new course.
Give your course a title, a sub-title if you like, and you’re set!
Next, it’s time to start adding your course content.
Thrivecart makes it super easy to add new “sections” (modules) to your course and new lessons underneath each section.
You can quickly add lessons, link to videos, audio files, and PDFs with the click of a button.
I also like that it’s a drag-and-drop builder, which makes it super easy to layout your lessons however you like.
Once your course content is uploaded, you’re ready to price your course and start selling!
How To Create An Online Course – 3 Easy, Affordable Ways
Courses are a form of passive income, since creating a course is something you do the work for once, and then it sells over and over again on its own, forever. Cha-ching!
Creating an online course is so easy nowadays – literally, anyone can do it. All you need is the passion to teach one of your interests/skills!
It can be a bit confusing deciding just how you want to present your course to the world, but fortunately, thanks to some really good tools, creating and selling your course is actually really easy!
For the longest time I’ve run the HerPaperRoute blog school on a platform called Podia.
Podia is a course creation and hosting platform that handles every aspect you need to successfully sell courses smoothly and securely.
But there are other options for course creation too! I share a few more ways to create and sell your online course below.
Covering the pros and cons of each, and how to get the most out of each option, so you can choose which is the right option for you.
Here are three easy and affordable ways to become a course creator and start selling your expertise online.
Sell Your Course With A Course Creation Platform
A course creation platform is an online tool that provides all of the tools and technology to create, launch and host your course.This is a professional way to sell your course which your students will appreciate.
No website maintenance or tech know-how is required!
The main platforms are Thrivecart, Teachable, Kajabi. and Podia.
My pick is Thrivecart, because you just pay once and then you get to use the tool for life. No monthly fees, like the others! This can save you hundreds or thousands a year.
If you go with Thrivecart, you will just need to host your videos elsewhere, and then embed them. This is simple, and affordable when you use Amazon S3. Learn more about hosting your course with Thrivecart here.
Now, if you prefer to host on a platform that includes hosting (where you can upload videos right into the lesson) you have options. Such as Teachable, Kajabi. and Podia. Just be aware that you will pay a monthly fee for these types of platforms and it can get expensive.
There are a few really good reasons to use Podia:
- Podia handles all of the payment gateways
- Podia integrates with Convertkit, so as soon as anyone enrolls in any of my free or paid courses, they are automatically added to my mail list, and entered into my welcome sequence and sales funnel, without me having to do a thing
- Podia comes with a pretty amazing affiliate feature, where you can run an affiliate program for your courses and have your own affiliates promote your school, and they can log in to their own affiliate dashboard, track their commissions and more
- The price of the platform includes hosting, and its competitively priced
- You can also host a membership system and offer members-only content
Price:
Thrivecart is a one-time lifetime deal, meaning you pay $490 once and get it for life. Considering Kajabi is over $1000/year, Thrivecart is a no-brainer.
To use a course creation platform like Podia, you will need to pay a monthly membership fee too but it is more affordable than Kajabi.
There are 2 tiers of membership, depending on your needs. The Mover plan at $39 per month and the Shaker plan at $79permonth.
Pros Of Selling Your Course On A Course Creation Platform: It is very professional and simple to use – anyone can use it, no tech know-how required.
All of the tech, hosting, content creation apps and tools are included and managed in one place. Easily integrates with Convertkit, plus Podia handles your payment gateway, which is huge.
Ability to run your own affiliate program. Your students can log in to their own dashboard, and so can your affiliates.
Cons: Using a course creation platform is more expensive than self-hosting on your own website. (Unless you use Thrivecart, which is a lifetime deal!)
But, when you take into consideration that all you could sell your course for $100, you’d only have to sell one per month and you would be paying off the price and then some.
[adsense]Sell Your Course As An Email Course
Selling your online course as an email course is a more “grassroots” option.
The benefits of selling your course this way is that there it is usually the most cost-effective way to do it.
How an email course typically works:
- You create the video and/or text lessons
- You host the videos on Youtube as an unlisted link
- Then set up an automation sequence with your email provider
- Your students sign up to your mail list
- They pay for the course via Paypal
- And then receive a new lesson each day (or however often you decide).
Selling your course as an email course can be an affordable option.
It works best for courses that are smaller, and don’t need some of the resources that an actual course platform provides.
It can be a great option if you are just testing the waters on being a course creator and aren’t sure if you are ready to go pro yet.
But the cons of doing it this way is that you are really limited in what you can do.
It is less professional, and some of the more important aspects your course and students will need (and are custom to) either aren’t possible, or will take more tech-know-how on your part to make work.
Your students likely will want to be able to log into a dashboard, review the lessons and access various resources, which an email course doesn’t provide.
How To Create An Email Course:
- Record & edit your video lessons, or write out text lessons
- Host the videos as unlisted videos on Youtube
- Create an automation sequence with your mail provider. I recommend ConvertKit for this as this app handles everything from email sequences, opt-in forms, subscriber management and newsletters.
- You will have to set up PayPal buttons and place them in your welcome email, or on a page on your website so that people can pay to enroll in your course
- Once your new student has paid, your automation sequence will start sending out the lessons (or the links to the lessons).
Price: About $29 per month for ConvertKit, plus PayPal transaction fees (2.9% per sale)
Pros To Selling Your Course Through Email: Affordable
Cons: It is a lot more work, you have to build everything separately instead of having one ‘hub’ of all the content, and you are limited in what you can do and what you can offer your students
Host Your Course On Your Own Website
Hosting and selling your course on your own website is another option, one that will give you more flexibility and control as a creator.
To set up your website, first follow my website starting guide, and then all you need to do is choose a course-centric theme.
The best way to sell your course on your own website is to use a professional WordPress theme that is designed for courses. These are called LMS themes (Learning Management themes).
I recommend the Academy Pro Theme from StudioPress or the Eduma Theme from ThimPess.
Academy Pro Theme
The Academy Pro Theme was created for online course creators, membership site owners, and educational content marketers.
These types of sites need to explain all of their hidden value, demonstrate authority, and tease their content — without being off-putting, losing trust, or giving all your exclusive ideas away.
Academy Pro Theme handles all of this for you. It is also easy to customize, easy to embed or host video lessons directly, search engine optimized, and run on the ever popular Genesis Framework, a system that simply makes websites better!
Test out a full demo of the Academy Pro Theme here.
Related: What is the Genesis Framework by StudioPress And Why Does Your Website Need It?
Eduma Theme
The Eduma Theme gives you everything you need to run a professional school right from your own website.
This theme includes a selection of premium plugins, including LearnPress, the #1 LMS plugin on the official WordPress Plugins directory.
Price:
$129.95 for the Academy Pro Theme, (includes the Genesis Framework)
or $69.00 for the Eduma Theme.
Pros To Selling Your Course On Your Own Website: Professional, easy to customize, and you have full control of your own website. It is cost-effective.
Cons: If you aren’t comfortable customizing your own website and themes, this option probably isn’t the best for you.
Also, you will have to handle the payment gateway yourself. This isn’t really a con, but worth mentioning.
Why You Should Create Online Courses
For service providers, burnout is a HUGE problem.
When you’re working with clients and spending tons of time at your desk every single day, it’s easy to feel overwhelmed at the thought of keeping up with that pace forever.
Here’s a secret: it might be time for you to create online courses!
Chances are, if you’re feeling any of the signs of burnout, you’re a skilled professional who’s reaching your limits in revenue capacity.
You might be ready to create online courses to share your expertise, reach tons more people, and skyrocket your business revenue.
Of course, not every entrepreneur needs to create a course…
But with the right personality, business, and expertise, courses can unlock a whole new level of growth for you!
So how do you know if you’re truly ready to create online courses?
Whether you’re already considering creating an online course or you have no idea if it’s the right path for you, you probably want more information about what it’s actually like to be a course creator!
So here are some of the biggest benefits you’ll experience when you create online courses to sell to your audience:
You Can Serve More People In Less Time
With online courses, you’ll be able to serve more people in less time. As a one-on-one service provider, you’re basically trading dollars for hours.
Your time is used to directly generate income, whether that’s through packaged services or hourly work.
But with an online course, you’re able to serve an unlimited number of people. There’s no ceiling to how many people you can reach, educate, and help!
Especially if you’re a heart-centered business owner who loves to help others, a course gives you the opportunity to reach so many more people.
You’ll Have Unlimited Income Potential
Just like how creating courses removes the limits on how many people you can reach, it also removes any sort of cap on your income potential. As a course creator, your income isn’t tied directly to your hours working or the projects you complete for clients.
That’s why you have the opportunity to really skyrocket your income! Once you put in the work upfront to create online courses, you can sell that course again and again for as long as you’d like.
Honestly, that ability to make money over time for work you do once (with small updates, of course) is one of the best parts of online courses.
Just remember: online courses aren’t totally passive income.
Once they’re set up, you can obviously create automated sales funnels with ads and marketing.
But I highly recommend incorporating some level of student support so that you can really build an audience that trusts you.
That way, if you decide to launch other courses later on, your audience knows that you truly provide value!
You Can Position Yourself As An Expert and Leader In Your Niche
Online courses also help you position yourself as an expert and leader in your niche. Now, you might not be thinking about this when considering whether or not you want to create online courses.
But as a course creator, there are going to be so many other amazing opportunities that come your way!
With courses, you truly become an educator. Others in your industry will start to recognize your expertise and value. From there, collaborations, summits, and other expert opportunities will start to pop up for you!
You’ll Experience Time Freedom and Flexibility
The fourth benefit you’ll experience is time freedom. As a course creator, you’re going to have so much more freedom in how you spend your time.
You likely started your business as a service provider in order to gain a better work-life balance. But every entrepreneur knows that the reality of working for yourself is tons of client work and lots of hours growing your business. Ugh!
If you’re craving time, flexibility, and freedom, it’s probably time to create online courses for your business.
Now that you know some of the main benefits of creating online courses, how do you know if you’re ready to take that leap?
Here are four signs that you ARE ready to move forward and create online courses.
1. You Have Experience Facilitating Results For People
Do you already have some kind of experience helping to facilitate a specific result for someone (or a group of people)?
This can happen in a lot of ways, from one-on-one mindset work to sales copy. And this happens in every single niche out there, from health to finances!
Courses are all about results.
People buy courses to experience a specific result you offer, and they want actionable steps that they can take to achieve that result!
Think about what results you’ve helped your clients achieve. Or, think about what results you have achieved for yourself, both in your life and your business.
Either way, if you feel ready to help other people achieve some specific result, you’re likely ready to create online courses.
The bottom line is that you do need to have some sort of experience helping people achieve a result, or have experience creating results for yourself. That’s the foundation of successful course creation!
2. You’re Willing To Spend Time, Energy, and Effort Creating Your Course
The next sign that you’re ready is that you’re willing to devote time, energy, and effort to create your course.
This goes far beyond creating your actual course content. Instead, you need to be willing to put in the work to sell your course!
There’s also lots of work involved in supporting your students once they are actually in your program.
Although courses can largely be a form of passive income, there is continued work involved if you want your students to be successful.
Are you willing to do that work, both initially and long term?
3. You Have Some Type Of Audience For Your Potential Course
A huge way to know that you’re ready to create online courses is that you already have an audience. Whether that’s a social media following or an email list, you need at least a handful of people you can start marketing your course to.
There’s no set number of followers or email subscribers that make you ready to launch a course.
Instead, you just need some kind of interested audience who knows you, likes you, and trusts you! That way, they’ll see you as an expert and be primed to hopefully invest in your future course.
If you’re strongly considering creating an online course, it’s time to focus on building your audience. Focus on building your social media presence, cultivating an audience, and driving people to subscribe to your email list.
Related: 5 Reasons Nobody is Signing Up for Your Freebie & How to Change That
4. You’re Amazing At Sales (or Are Willing To Work On Improving)
The last big sign that you’re ready for course creation is that you’re great at sales—or willing to invest time and resources into becoming great at selling!
As mentioned above, your course won’t sell itself.
You are going to be the salesperson, so you need to craft the messaging, be persuasive, and implement strategic sales techniques.
And unless you have a sales background, you probably are going to need to learn some of these skills for the first time!
If you’re looking for a place to start, visit your local library and check out some books on the psychology of sales. Consider learning about things like copywriting and sales funnels.
You don’t have to spend tons to learn these fundamental skills, but you do have to be willing to learn.
No matter your experience, course creators need to be good at selling their own courses.
If you meet all four of these criteria, congratulations! You’re ready to create online courses and skyrocket your revenue potential.
How To Create An Online Course – Conclusion
Thank you for reading the Ultimate Guide On How To Create An Online Course.
Congrats! It’s not easy to create an incredible online course, but all of your hard work will pay off hugely in the long run — I can guarantee that. 😉
Want more support as you create your first course?
You may also like my 30-day program, Course Creation Bootcamp, which you can learn more about here.
Free Gift: Course Creation Roadmap
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Great ideas. Thank you!