We're going to dive deep into the world of master resell rights, what it means, how it's used, and why it's causing so much buzz. So, let's get started!

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What even are Master Resell Rights?

Master resell rights, often abbreviated as MRR, refer to the rights you acquire when you purchase a digital product or course, allowing you to resell it to others. Think of it as a digital version of wholesale buying in the physical product world. This concept primarily applies to digital products and online courses. Here's how it works:

1. Purchase a digital product or course with MRR.
2. You have the option to rebrand it (remove the original creator's branding) and sell it as your own.
3. Set your price and market the product to potential customers.
4. When someone buys the product from you, they also receive the right to resell it.

Sounds straightforward, right? However, the devil is in the details.

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The Problem with Master Resell Rights

While the concept of MRR itself isn't inherently problematic, the way it's being exploited in the online business world is a major concern. Here's what's been happening:

1. Pyramid-Like Schemes: Some companies or individuals create MRR courses or products and aggressively market them as opportunities to make quick money. They often target people who lack expertise and a substantial audience.
2. False Promises: These courses promise big earnings with minimal effort, painting a rosy picture of success. In reality, most buyers won't achieve the promised results because they lack the necessary expertise and audience.
3. Top-Heavy Earnings: The primary beneficiaries of MRR schemes are those at the top of the pyramid—the creators and early adopters. Those who join later in the game usually struggle to make a profit.
4. Lack of Expertise: Many people buying into these schemes lack the knowledge and authority to effectively market the products they've purchased. This results in a high failure rate.
5. Oversaturation: As more and more people enter the MRR market, the products become oversaturated, making it even harder for individuals to stand out and make sales.

The Best Alternative to MRR

Selling Your Own Products The bottom line is that if you want to succeed in the online business world, it's crucial to focus on selling your own products or services. Here's why:

1. Expertise: When you sell your own products, you're selling something you're passionate about and knowledgeable in. This authenticity resonates with customers.
2. Audience Building: Over time, you can build a loyal audience that trusts your expertise. This audience is more likely to buy from you repeatedly.
3. Long-Term Success: Building a sustainable business means avoiding shortcuts and quick-money schemes. Selling your own products allows you to create a brand and reputation that can last.

Master resell rights may sound tempting, but the reality is that it often leads to disappointment and financial loss for those who buy into it without the necessary expertise and audience. To achieve long-term success in the online business world, focus on selling your own products or services, where you can truly leverage your expertise and build a loyal customer base. Remember, there are no shortcuts to genuine success!

The post The Truth about Master Resell Rights appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

How to Create an Online Course | A Comprehensive Guide

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Before we dive in, if you're seeing this in real time and you want to learn more about LAUNCHING your course, you NEED to get in on my free workshop happening tomorrow (June 22)!

It's called $10k in 90 Days, and I'm sharing some MAJOR secrets about course creation and launching. Click here to save your spot!

Okay, now to the good stuff.

I have created a course in one day before…

That’s right – in the past, I’ve created a course in one day. It was a short one, but creating a longer one in a few days or a week is totally doable! The actual course creation is NOT the hard part – building your audience and selling it take the most work. (I’ve been talking about how to do that over on my YouTube channel if you’re interested!)

People always ask me questions about course creation and they’re full of overwhelm about that piece. Even though that’s not the hard part, I do understand that people get hung up on it!

I want to give you a comprehensive guide on how to create an online course, so let’s dive in!

1. Pick your course topic and your audience

You have GOT to nail those down right from the beginning. What will your course be about, and who are you creating it for? And by “who are you creating it for,” I mean SPECIFICALLY who is the course designed for and who is going to want to buy it and take it?

I see people making the most mistakes at this foundational part of the course creation process. Rather than targeting “all entrepreneurs,” it needs to be targeted at “service-based business owners who want to get clients,” for example.

Nailing the topic and the audience is key! It needs to be super niched so that the result you’re promising from the course will be easy to translate to them in the course content. That way, the marketing and positioning of the course will feel super natural – because you know that your audience will want it, and you know exactly what you’re delivering.

2. Pick a Course Platform

A course platform is a place where you can host an online course. Whenever you’re selling a course, students need to be able to log in somewhere and go through the modules.

There are a LOT of ways that you can bootstrap this. You can create it on a locked page on your website or send out videos. But I recommend (for ease of use for you and the student) using Teachable or MemberVault.

Let’s talk about why you’d pick one over another.

MemberVault is FREE for up to 100 students, so there’s no worry that you won’t make your monthly fee back from selling a course! However, it’s a bit less user friendly than Teachable for the creator, but they do have a ton of tutorials to help you learn the platform.

Teachable costs $99 per month and is SUPER user-friendly for people building a course and for people taking a course. This is what I use in my business currently (but I have used MemberVault before, too).

This is totally up to you to pick the one that fits your business the best!

3. Outline Your Course

Step three is to outline your course. This is the reason that you need to nail down your topic and audience CLEARLY beforehand. You can’t outline the course without knowing your topic and audience!

I recommend REALLY nailing down your customer journey so that you can outline your course well. Where is the customer before they buy your course, and where will they be once they take it? From there, you can outline the exact steps and pieces of information they need to know to get from point A to point B.

My favorite example right now is a farming course. If you’re doing a course about how to grow a vegetable garden, the content will be VERY different if it’s created for someone in an apartment building with a rooftop garden versus someone with 30 acres of land. See what I mean? The niche and customer journey should shape your entire outline.

4. Outline/Create the Slides for each Lesson

I start by outlining the BIG ideas for the course (in the last step) and then I go into a Google Docs and outline each lesson for each module. So it might look like…

• Module 1: Prep
  • Lesson 1: Which vegetables are you going to grow?

Then, I break it down further. You can break it down by topic and then figure out the slides as you’re making them, or you can go ahead and break down the content by slides here.

After you outline this, put it in slides!

When I did this all by myself, I used to do the outline as I was creating the slides. I’m a very visual person, so seeing the slides as I went helped me to create an outline.

Now, I outline by writing what I want on each slide and then my team actually creates the slides.

PS – you don’t HAVE to use slides! You could talk to the camera, create an audio only course, or something else. I use slides because I enjoy taking courses with slides and I like creating courses with slides.

I think slides keep the video content interesting (rather than just looking at my face forever). The other reason is that I don’t have to have my hair and makeup done when I’m talking over slides. I show my face in the welcome and conclusion video, and that’s all!

But you NEED to know your audience to know the type of modules you should create. I have a friend, Kendra Hennessy, of Mother Like A Boss. She teaches moms how to create systems and routines in their home so they don’t feel like their life is running them. She knows that her audience is full of busy moms, so watching video modules doesn’t make a lot of sense with their schedule. SO she creates AUDIO CONTENT in addition to her video content so that moms can listen to it on the go.

5. Create any worksheets or add-ons for your courses

This is where you actually make the stuff to accompany your course. Whether it’s a workbook, worksheet, or an audio format, get this stuff done now!

6. Create a sales page and link it to your checkout system

If you’re using Teachable or MemberVault, you can do the sales page and checkout system in both of those platforms! Don’t make it more complicated than it has to be.

I don’t actually do this. I use Elementor on my WordPress site to build my sales pages (because I’m an ex-web designer who’s picky), and then I use ThriveCart to checkout. ThriveCart is great for me because it gives me the option to add order bumps. And then I use Teachable to host the course. But I DO NOT recommend having three different platforms to anybody else (especially if you’re just starting out).

7. LAUNCH YOUR COURSE!

Creating your course is NOT hard. The hard part is launching it and actually having people ready to buy it. If you ever wondered how to create an online course, these are your steps! Now go out there and launch baby launch.

The post How to Create an Online Course appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Why (and how) you should SELL a course before you CREATE it

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Launching a course probably feels overwhelming to you

I talk to y’all all the time, so I KNOW that you probably feel like creating a course is overwhelming. There’s the actual creation of the thing, the planning, the selling, the launching, and everything in between.

If you’re going to create the course and work on the launch at the same time, you need to give yourself at LEAST three months to do that. Plus, if you’re building your audience while you’re doing those things (which is totally doable!) then that entire three months is entirely dedicated to this process.

That process feels daunting because you would be working on it almost every day for those three months. It’s a major undertaking!

When I tell you that you should sell a course before you create it, that should alleviate a TON of pressure. But I know your next question is “how?”

Let’s start with the why and move to the how.

Let's talk about WHY you should sell before creating

First – you don’t want to waste time creating something that doesn’t sell

Trust me because I have done it. I’ve created courses that haven’t sold at all, and I’ve also created courses that I was excited about but didn’t sell as well as I expected.

You do NOT want to waste your time creating something that may not sell.

If you spend hours and hours working on a course, but nobody buys it (or only a few people do), that might not have been worth that time and energy.

That is so frustrating! And an experience like that might lead you to swear off courses forever – which you shouldn’t do.

Slight tangent here, but: there are plenty of reasons your course might not sell the first time.

You don’t have the right audience

You could have some audience, but not have the RIGHT audience for your course (see last week’s podcast if you want to hear more about that distinction). Maybe you don’t have a big enough audience to sell either.

Your positioning is wrong

You HAVE to know your positioning to make sure your course actually sells. I’ve realized over the past year that positioning is probably the number one thing that course creators overlook. Knowing who your person is, what their problem is, and how you can help them is KEY to selling a course.

The course structure itself isn’t right for the audience

If my husband wanted to create a course about growing vegetable gardens, he has to keep the audience in mind when structuring the course. The course would be VERY different if the course was for someone with five acres of land versus a rooftop garden space.

If he has his positioning down-pat, he might say “This is for urban dwellers who really want to create their own vegetable garden with limited space.” Then, he could cultivate an audience full of EXACTLY those people. But his messaging could make or break the course for that audience. If he has an outline of the course on a sales page that says “instructions for tilling the land,” that audience will NOT respond. Because that structure doesn’t fit their needs and problems.

When you sell a course before you create it, your students can HELP you build the course based on real-time feedback

It could be that you have the outline of what you want to talk about, teach the course live, and then get asked tons of questions from your students that you never thought about. That happens every time, and it helps you create a better permanent course in the future!

If you create the course before you sell it and realize based on feedback that you missed something important, it’s a LOT of work to go back through and edit every module. Creating the modules in real-time, even if you aren’t teaching it “live,” helps you make sure you get all the questions answered before the final version.

Creating one module per week takes WAY LESS TIME than trying to squeeze in all of the creation

You will save yourself a ton of time and stress doing it this way, promise!

How do you actually sell a course before you create it?

Is this cheating? Or will you not give your best course to people if you sell it before you create it? NO. 

If you’ve ever taken a course, odds are that you’re experiencing the third iteration of it yourself because that person has learned what works to make it the best for you.

People do beta launches ALL THE TIME. And that's something you have to communicate that with your students! You tell them that this is a live-run course where they get content weekly and they get a discount on the price that you would charge for when it’s an evergreen course. Give them the opportunity to provide feedback and set those expectations from the beginning!

To sell a course before you create it, you have to know your positioning REALLY well

The entire podcast episode last week was about this, so go give it a listen if you have questions. But in a nutshell, you need to know:

1. WHO your course is for, specifically
2. WHAT problem they’re facing
3. HOW your course is going to solve that problem (in a tangible way!)

If you nail your positioning, selling a course even though it’s not created will not be hard at all.

You need to know the basic structure of the course

Knowing the basic structure of a course is so important when you want to sell a course before you create it. That doesn’t mean the structure is set in stone! It can be a fluid, changing thing based on feedback.

Know that in phase 1, module 3, you’ll talk about X, Y, and Z.

When you know your positioning and the structure, you’ve got it covered!

Remember – to sell a course before you create it, you need to have essentially EVERYTHING in place except for the finalized modules. So you aren’t “cheating” or anything like that to operate it this way.

The basic structure is IMPORTANT when you’re selling the course, but don’t be afraid to get in the course with your first students and realize you need to change it up.

Have the welcome section and either bonuses or the first module done, but do the rest of it LIVE

There are two ways to create a course live. You could actually go live every week, share your screen, teach the things that you would normally teach in a pre-built module and then ask for questions and feedback. Then, you bundle up everything as you were teaching it, add the questions or take out anything that felt off, and then create the final module to film at a later date.

You could also create pre-recorded modules the week before they need to be shared with your students. If you don’t expect that you’ll need to do a lot of editing, then this could be great for you. It still saves you time by creating content weekly!

Either way  you decide to work it is totally fine. And having a “Welcome” module, bonuses, or “how to get started” module pre-recorded is ALL that they need going into the course.

Obviously, your student needs to know that that’s what they’re getting. Make it clear that the course will NOT be all available upon purchase, or you will have a lot of disappointment. Set the expectations for the schedule of the course and then drip the content as you go.

Creating a course doesn’t have to be as daunting as you think it is

There are a ton of moving pieces that are wrapped up in the course creation aspect. But it doesn’t have to scare you, because you can do it slow and steady!

Now go out there and sell a course before you create it.

The post Why (and how) you should SELL a course before you CREATE it appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Are you ready to create a course?

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Having the knowledge to create a course doesn’t mean you’re ready.

In one of my interviews for my other podcast, Small Town, Big Biz, I was talking to a business owner who said they wanted to create a course for passive income. And I immediately said, “that’s great – but not yet!” That person hasn’t established themselves as an expert in the field they want to create a course in  – which means they wouldn’t be able to sell it well.

Having the knowledge is the number one step to creating a course, but it is NOT the only step. If you have the knowledge but don’t have the other things I’m about to mention, then the answer to ‘are you ready to create a course?” is NO.

If you are already pursuing a million things in your business, then you are NOT ready to create a course.

I am a multi-passionate person too, so I get it. But ANYTHING you want to do in your business requires focus. You can’t pursue 17 different things at first and then add a course on top of it. Focus your time and energy on one avenue, and once you’ve hit your income goal, maybe then add on another one.

I’m five years into being a course creator, and I have learned over the past five years that I HAVE to focus my energy and attention on launches. I’m mid-prep for a launch right now, and just yesterday I wanted to change my entire business model. And thankfully I’ve LEARNED not to take immediate action on those ideas. I have taught myself how to focus my energy and attention on course launches. 

If that sounds like you, and you have a bunch of half-finished projects and are constantly bouncing around, then you are not ready to create a course yet. Even if you have everything else on this list, you need to learn how to focus on a project before you create a course.

If you don’t have the financial backing to spend time creating the course, you aren’t ready to create one.

There are really two qualifications to create passive income.

1. You have to be ready to go months and months without income because you have to focus on creating the thing, launching it, etc.

OR

2. You need to have built up a significant business FIRST before you’re able to switch into course mode

Courses take awhile to build and successfully launch multiple times. If you don’t have some padding coming in from another business financially, you’re going to potentially be hurting in the meantime.

To create a course, you need to be clear on these things:

1. WHO you are talking to?
2. WHAT PROBLEM are they facing?
3. HOW are you going to fix that problem?
4. WHERE will they end up after taking your course?

The answers to those questions should be SPECIFIC

Your “who” should be SUPER specific, and so should your problem.

Maybe you want to teach people to create digital products. Instead of saying “I teach all entrepreneurs to build digital products,” you need to focus that idea. Try “I teach burnt-out service-based business owners how to create digital products so that they can work less and live more.”

Your course needs to offer those specific people TANGIBLE things

Too many people try to sell fluff in a course. People don’t buy fluff – they buy tactical, tangible advice. You need to put a measurement of what you’re teaching in the course so that a potential customer knows.

Know who they are, what problem they have, how you’re going to solve it, and what result they’re going to get.

You HAVE to have that path before you create a course. The tech and audience are secondary to those questions.

You need to know more than just the course topic, but EXACTLY the who and the what

The messaging on your sales page should make them feel seen.

It’s OKAY to exclude somebody else here. You want to talk directly to that “WHO” about their problem and your solution. If you make your sales page too general, it won’t appeal to anybody. We make course sales when we speak directly to that exact person who the course will benefit.

And knowing the exact person you’re selling to will also guide how you create the course! You may make a very different course if you make a Facebook ads course for solopreneurs who know Facebook ads could benefit them but can’t hire help and don’t know where to start than one targeted at an ad agency.

People tend to get stuck on course topics rather than the people. “I want to create a course on Etsy” is fine, but you need to know who that Etsy course is for, what they’re going through, and where they want to be or else it won’t be a good course.

If you nail your positioning, the course WILL sell

I recently released a small offer funnel called “Crash Course Toolkit.” That funnel has sold and converted at way higher rates than some of the other ones I released because I nailed the positioning!

I’m talking to the person who’s creating their first course. They’re creating that course because they’re burned out, sick of trading dollars for hours, tired of working with clients, and sick of working when they could be spending time with their kids because they don’t have a choice.

They want a solution to that problem. My solution is creating a course – and here’s a bundle of stuff to help you do just that.

The order bump in my funnel is the “Course Tech Deck” that walks you through all of the tech-side of course creation. I KNOW that “But what tech do I use to do this?” is the very next question that person will ask after they see the course. I’m answering that right in the order bump.

I know the NEXT question is “that’s all great, but I don’t have an audience to sell it to.” The one-time offer in my funnel? 12 weeks to an audience who’s BEGGING for your offer.

Until you’re clear on who and what, you can’t develop your course. Your positioning will be all wrong.

Know the “guaranteed” results of your course

You can’t actually guarantee results from your course, because you can’t MAKE somebody do what you’re telling them to do in the course. The guarantee is more for your positioning because the actual results are up to them.

Maybe my husband wants to teach a gardening course to people who live in urban areas and want to grow their own vegetables but don’t have the space or knowledge to do it. His solution is the course he builds about gardening for them. And the guaranteed result is that they end up having a vegetable garden that sustains them without killing it.

Let’s talk about audiences now…

You DO have to have an audience to create and sell a course. But your audience doesn’t have to be huge.

Here’s where the problem lies: if you already have a service-based business for example, then you HAVE an audience. But that audience probably is NOT the same people that you’d want to talk to in a course.

If you only have 200 people in your audience, but all of those people fit your ideal client perfectly, there are tons of possibilities! But if you have an audience of 200 that aren’t the right fit for your course, you likely won’t see success.

If you feel stuck because you don’t have a big audience, DON’T!

Course audience vs. current business audience

You do need an audience, but it doesn’t need to be big. What you need is a focused audience that is EXACTLY the people you’re going to sell the course to.

There tends to be a disconnect between current business and course business. Maybe you have 10,000 followers somewhere, but they are current business audience and not course business audience. You’ll see that disconnect when you try to sell your course.

You don’t need a big audience, but you need a focused audience. And you can’t get in front of that audience until you know exactly who they are and what problem you’re solving.

See how it all goes back to those ideas?

So, are you ready to create a course?

If you know who you're talking to, what their problem is, and how you're solving it with tangible results, then you're ready to create a course. You just might need some time to build up an audience. But trust me, it doesn't have to take that long.

The post Are you ready to create a course? appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

$50,000 Course Launch with a TINY Audience

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First, I want to say THANK YOU to this episode’s sponsor, TubeBuddy!

TubeBuddy has been massively impactful in my YouTube growth journey, and I’m so excited to be partnering with them. If you want to start and grow a YouTube channel, and A/B testing, thumbnail generators, research and analysis tools, and so much more sound great to you, try out TubeBuddy for 30 days totally free! Just click right here to get started.

Names and niches have been changed for the purpose of this post!

We’re going to say this client’s name was Suzy, and she wanted to launch a course that teaches other people how to open a restaurant.

That’s a SMALL niche to begin with – someone who wants to open a restaurant requires a LOT of pre-work before they’re ready to buy a course about how to do it.

Sarah had spent years prior to this launch consulting with people who wanted to open restaurants, so she knew the market existed. Still, there’s a lot that has to happen before someone’s ready to open a restaurant and, more specifically, before someone’s ready to invest in a course about doing it. That requires some serious commitment and money.

It was tough to get in front of the people who dream of opening a restaurant and have the money to invest. That’s a small audience that's difficult to reach! If you get in front of only the people who don’t have the money, then your launch isn’t going to be as successful as you hoped.

Sarah didn’t have an audience when she started working to launch a course.

Sarah had been a service-based business and consulted for people up to this point. So she had a lot of audience to build before she launched a course!

She had been charging between $10,000 – $30,000 for people who wanted to open high-end restaurants to fly her in to their location and consult with them on an ongoing basis so she could help them open these restaurants. She had a streamlined system of word-of-mouth recommendations that she knew worked. Which is a very different kind of marketing strategy than one for a course!

The goal was to charge $1,000 for this course in its first iteration. To get to a $50,000 launch, she would need 50 people to buy this course. And she had 0 people in her audience. In fact, she only had 150 people sign up for the webinar that sold the course.

250 people signing up for a webinar USUALLY doesn’t convert to 50 people buying the course. That would be a 20% conversion rate, which is REALLY high for a webinar launch. But, this is the POWER of being really niched.

Sarah wasn’t talking to every single person who ever thought of opening a restaurant. She was talking SPECIFICALLY to an audience of people who are ready to open a restaurant and had started moving pieces toward that goal. And she knew that they were specifically ready because she had targeted them when she built her audience over the four months leading up to launch.

She made $50,000 on a course launch with only 250 people signed up for her webinar.

And if she hadn’t believed in herself and priced the course at $500, she would have only made half the money. Sure, maybe more people would’ve purchased if it was less expensive, but she KNEW her audience. And she had a successful launch because of it.

How did she go from an audience of 0 to a $50,000 course launch?

First, I want to say that a first course launch of any kind that makes $50,000 is amazing! And Sarah definitely hit some hiccups along the way. She had some feelings of self-doubt about the value of the course. And I’m glad I was there to remind her that the course was WORTH $1,000.

All of these moving pieces combined made this launch work for her. The fact that Sarah was REALLY good at what she did, understood her worth and valued the course appropriately, and built the exactly right audience set her up for success. She knew EXACTLY what other people in that position needed to know and positioned the course appropriately. The perfect webinar topic and the way to sell on a webinar sealed the deal. 

Audience-Building Strategies

Sarah needed an audience of people who knew they wanted to open a restaurant and were close to being ready to open one. There’s a fine line between creating content for people who are just dreaming and researching restaurants versus people who have secured a location or have financial backing to get it done. Building the right audience was SO key.

She had to be super specific with how she put herself in front of her audience, because they were difficult to reach. Instagram is cool, but people who have the money and are about to open a restaurant probably aren’t on that platform regularly. But they WERE on Facebook, and on LinkedIn.

Facebook Ads

During our time together, we really focused on Facebook and Facebook ads. She ran ads that led people into relevant opt-ins. A “how to start a restaurant” opt-in is tailored for a beginner – NOT Sarah’s ideal client. Instead, she offered opt-ins about how to secure financing to start your restaurant. If somebody is to the point where they’re searching for financing opportunities, they’re serious. She also created an opt-in about setting your pricing too. They were higher level free items that fit her exact customer.

Building the RIGHT audience for your offer is key. If you go “back to the basics” but your course is higher level content, you’re attracting the wrong people.

We targeted the age groups who we found were more likely to be serious about starting a restaurant (in this case, 40+ year olds) using Facebook ads. Then we did some testing to figure out what the interests of these people were and narrowed the audience from there.

We tailored Sarah's opt-ins so that she attracted the exact right audience to her email list. Then, we used the email list on Facebook to create a lookalike audience and target even more people.

A lot of people don’t have the additional money to throw behind Facebook ads, or the knowledge on how to set them up. If that sounds like you, I would highly suggest hiring a coach or purchasing a course to help walk you through that process.

If I were working with this client right now, I would recommend small-offer funnels instead

I worked with this client almost 3 years ago. That was around the time I stopped doing client work, which is why this is my example. If this were happening now, instead of offering freebies for Facebook ads, I would ABSOLUTELY recommend leading the Facebook ads to a Small Offer Funnel.

I have a whole podcast episode about that – you can listen online right here!

I currently have a small offer funnel that’s converting like crazy – and I’ve learned more about them even since I did that episode. So you can expect an updated episode all about those sometime soon!

Small offer funnels let you recoup your ad costs AND build your list at the same time – so it’s an actual win-win.

As a recap – we ran Facebook ads to freebies targeting our specific demographics and a lookalike audience to her email list.

She also ran ads reminding people about the webinar to her email list on Facebook

If you have an email list, you can export your list and upload it to Facebook to target those people with your ads. She didn’t leave anything to chance!

The really cool thing about using your email list for Facebook ads is that you can also upload and target your unsubscribers.

In addition to paid ads, she also did a few joint-venture webinars

Joint-venture webinars (JV webinars) are when two people co-host a webinar. One person's audience may benefit more, but the other person is given access to the people who signed up to attend the webinar.

A company with access to her exact ideal client approached her for a webinar. She was able to make connections and get in with this company to do a few joint-venture webinars so that she could get in front of their audience.

Since she showed up as an expert, she would get a list of people who signed up for the webinar. From there, it was really easy to target those people!

If I’m hosting a joint-venture webinar and I want to grow my list, then I’m going to try and get someone to co-host it who has a different list than me. Maybe the person is hosting a webinar about Facebook ads and I can come teach about small-offer funnels. Then I get access to the people who attend, and there’s 500 or so new people for my email list. And vice-versa.

Sarah didn’t have a massive email list at the time, so her currency was her knowledge. And this can apply to SO many of you! You don’t need a massive audience to host a joint-venture webinar – just expertise.

You should NOT approach these people cold. Work on building relationships and trust, and then ask them about potentially hosting a webinar together.

There’s a strategy behind adding those people to your email list in a way that doesn’t weird them out, since they didn’t opt-in directly. I like to send the people who attended an email with a personalized video that introduces me to them again right after the webinar. I’m fresh in their mind and it provides an opportunity for them to either stick with you or unsubscribe.

Sarah also focused on being a guest on podcasts leading up to her launch

She spent 3 solid months being a guest on ALL kinds of podcasts that had her ideal client listening. For some niches, this will be easier to do than others. But showing up in front of your ideal customer as an expert beside someone else that they trust will always help you!

When we started promoting the webinar, HALF of Sarah’s email list signed up

250 of the 500 people on her email list signed up for her webinar when it was announced. That’s absolutely unheard of in this industry! But let me explain why that happened in her situation.

1. Her audience was SUPER warm

In other words, there wasn’t anybody on the list who had a year to forget about who Sarah was. She had only been building her email list for 4 months, so everyone on it was warm.

2. She targeted the EXACT right people.

Sarah did a great job of finding and putting herself in front of the right people for her course. That's why she could have a $50,000 course launch with a tiny audience.

3. In that 4 month time period, she didn’t let her audience forget about her!

Part of the reason her audience was really warm is because she remained consistent in talking to them. Sending weekly emails and sending out freebies kept people on her email list really engaged! You can implement that strategy even if you started your email list 10 years ago.

Basically, Sarah created the perfect storm to get half of her audience to sign up for a webinar. Again – that’s UNHEARD of in our industry. 

The industry standard for making sales from an email list is about 2%. Thinking about her sales to email list comparison, she sold about 10%.

When I have a webinar, I can get close to 10% of people to sign up for my webinar. A lot of my email list is old considering I’ve been actively list building since 2016, and I do regular clean outs.

Remember that we ran ads to her email list to remind them about their webinar

This is SO important! You definitely don’t have to run ads if you don’t want to, and you could host a webinar without those reminders. But making sure people on your email list SEE that you’re hosting a webinar means more of them will sign up!

I have a high open rate compared to industry standards. I usually hit between 35-45% opens on an email. But even with that number, that means 55% of people on a good day aren’t seeing my email content! If I can show it to them via Facebook ads, then there’s a higher opportunity they’ll sign up. (I could also recoup some of those missed opens by resending an email, but that still leaves maybe 50% done.)

Plus, imagine what someone does when they DO read your email. Maybe they see something exciting, open it in a new tab and think they’ll do it later but never do. Reminding them to finish it with ads will seal the deal!

I love to do that myself, and I think it’s a great strategy when you’re going to launch anything!

My first course launch was NOT this massive

I had 500 people on my email list, and I sold 8 seats to the course at the time. Only 8. 

While she made $50,000 from a list of $500, I only made about $6,000 or $7,000 from a list of 500. But that’s because I didn’t know what I was doing back then! Now I do, and that’s much of the reason I was able to help Sarah.

I hope that was super motivational! You can definitely have a massive course launch with a tiny audience if you use the correct strategy.

The post $50,000 Course Launch with a TINY Audience appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Create and Sell an Online Course | Everything you need to know to get started

Want to watch a video version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

My income has come primarily from online courses for the past five years.

I’ve created more online courses than I can count, In the past five years, I’ve learned a lot about what works and what doesn’t when it comes to how to create and sell an online course. Not to mention I transitioned from a service provider to a course creator back then too, so I have a LOT to say.

Let’s hit the basics first.

Can I create and sell an online course

I believe that anyone who is creating content online already absolutely has the authority and the knowledge to put together an online course that people will want to buy. Courses are a good step for any content creator to take, whether they become a major part of your business or they’re a gateway to another offer.

Additionally, if you’re a burned out service provider, courses can be a fantastic mechanism to transition out of that model!

Before we jump in, I have a really cool offer for you!

I created an EASY PEASY lemon squeezy course creation guide for you! It’s $47, and it gives you all the info you need to know about creating and launching a course. Plus, there are ClickUp, Trello, and Google Sheets templates to help you out. Click here to learn more!

You HAVE to have an audience to create and sell an online course

I hear people saying you don’t need an audience to sell a course all the time. But truthfully, you DO. If you don’t have an audience, who do you expect to buy the course?

You DON’T need a ginormous audience (or even a medium-sized one) to sell a course. But you need a group of people who want to buy the thing you’re selling. If you don’t have an audience, you’re going to be really disappointed come launch time when you don’t make sales.

(PS – that’s not to say you can’t start from zero now and build an audience quickly, because you can! You’ll see the option to grab my training for how to build an audience in 12 weeks if you decide to grab A Course in A Box – and that baby is full of gold.)

You have to promise and deliver TANGIBLE results from this course

You can teach fluff – and you definitely can’t sell fluff. People want tangible promises with tangible results. If you ask someone to buy a course from you about “how to better your mindset,” that’s a very abstract topic. Attach that concept to a TANGIBLE RESULT.

Instead of, “buy this course on how to better your mindset,” try, “buy this course to help change your mindset SO THAT you can go after the life you want.”

I see people try to sell fluff way too often and totally miss the mark. Even if they’re teaching tangible information in the course, if people don’t purchase they’ll have no way of knowing that!

Instead of “how to be a billionaire,” try, “how to become a billionaire by 25 years old with YouTube.” Tangible things sell! Fluff doesn't.

That means YOU need to be super clear on what you’re selling. If someone goes through your course, what result will they get at the end?

Get clear on WHO your ideal student is for this course

I’ve talked about niching down SO MUCH, this should be no surprise. Sometimes, I hear people say that niching down makes them feel like they’re excluding a whole other group of people who could maybe use their course. I get that feeling! But the truth is, when you sell to everybody, you sell to nobody.

So spend time getting clear on who your ideal student is for this course. Who is going to benefit and get the results you’re promising? If you don’t know the specific student who you’re talking to, then selling your course is going to be a DISASTER.

Maybe I want to create a course about how to get started with podcasting, but I target it at “all entrepreneurs.” That’s WAY too generalized. Every single person who wants to start a podcast wants to start it for a different reason. Someone wants it to be their hobby, someone else wants it as a piece of their funnel, this person prefers audio content to video. And each of those different people has a different expectation for the end result. If you try to create one course to help all of those people? None of them will likely see what they want to see.

Instead, I could niche my course to be “How to start a podcast that leads into your sales funnel and makes you money.” Then, I know exactly who I’m talking to and I can include the exact information they need in the course.

Create a runway before you launch so people are ready to buy

You can be 10 times more successful with a course launch if you create a runway that leads people into purchasing your course.

I see tons of people (and I’ve done it, too!) decide to create a course, finish the course, and then decide to run some ads two weeks before the course launches to a webinar and then sell the course.

That’s fine, and I’ve done it a ton. But you can prime and sell to your audience SO MUCH  BETTER if you give yourself and your audience a lead-in to the launch.

You need to warm-up your audience and answer any questions they might have prior to selling. The best way to do that is to start SHIFTING YOUR CONTENT towards the person who wants to buy your course and the topic you want to talk about.

If I’m launching a course on how to start a podcast, then I would create videos on my YouTube channel made for the person looking for that course. Maybe I’d talk about how a podcast changed my business, how I use a podcast to support my business, or something else.

I recommend starting this content runway strategy 6-8 weeks prior to your launch.

This is the kicker – DON’T create the course until you’ve sold it

THIS is why this post isn’t about the software you should use to create a course. There are SO many reasons why you shouldn’t create the course until you’ve sold it.

If you’re preparing to create and sell an online course for the first time, you don’t know if it’s going to sell or if you’re marketing it correctly! You also haven’t had students go through the course before to know what their questions will be at each step along the way. Until you know what someone’s questions will be, you can’t fully finalize your course.

You need to know the content and the basic structure. You need a clearly defined ideal student, and you need an audience. But you do NOT need to build that course until you’re in it. And I know people aren’t telling you that.

Some of my most successful courses have been the ones that I created during time with my students. I was able to respond to their questions in real time with new modules and not have to backtrack.

Bam! Now go out there and create and sell an online course for your business.

The post Create and Sell an Online Course appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

PLAN WITH ME for a Course Launch in ClickUp | Setting Goals, Creating Systems, Being a Rockstar

Want to watch a video version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

I’m gearing up for a course launch in June, so I need to plan out those dates and get a plan in place!

Once I know the goal for the launch date, I need to reverse engineer all of the due dates for myself and my team. That way, I can plan out what my team and I need to do every week (and even every day!) to make sure the launch goes well.

This method will work whether you want to launch a course, a physical product, merch, a digital product, a service, a podcast… ANYTHING! Preparatory launch strategy stays the same across products.

I use this method with EVERYTHING I’m planning, so I promise this method will be useful for you.

I’ve learned that I am at my best when I’m working toward a goal.

I get the most done, stay my most productive, and do my best work when I have a goal to work toward. Sure, I take a step back after each push period to avoid burnout, but if I don’t have a goal to work toward at the end of that break, then I’m not at my best.

If that sounds like you, or you have any sort of personal, financial, or business goals that you want to hit but aren’t sure where to start, this is the method for you.

Step 1 – Look at your calendar and set a timeline

I always say that you need at least 6-8 weeks to launch ANYTHING. You need to give yourself enough leeway to get everything accomplished. If you don’t have a team, you might need longer than 6-8 weeks. If this is a re-launch, you may need less time.

I use my Google Calendar to get an idea for 6-8 weeks in the future and take a look at what else I have going on at the time. For me, knowing that we are pushing a lot of work into May since my kids will be on summer break in June meant I wanted to push this launch until June. I will ALWAYS push a launch further away to save my sanity and my team’s sanity.

Step 2 – Get set up in your project management software

You all know I love ClickUp, so I set up a brand new folder for my launch within my “programs” folder. In that folder, I set up an “Ideation” list and a “Launch” list where all of the moving pieces get dumped.

Ideation holds all of my ideas. How we’re going to launch, what the course looks like, etc. The Launch list is always pinned to a calendar view so I can literally map out everything backwards, by date.

I prefer to launch my courses using a webinar. However you choose to launch your new offering is totally fine! We still need to get some prep work done. 

Step 3 – Plan your MAJOR dates on your calendar

I’ve decided that I want to launch my course by hosting a webinar on June 22. So, I note June 22 as my launch date. Then, I work backwards.

I know that I need promotion time to get people signed UP for my webinar. So, I add “Start promoting webinar” to my calendar on Friday, June 11. That gives me about 11 days to promote, promote, promote this webinar.

Step 4 – Reverse engineer ALL of to-do items to make the launch happen

My recommendation is to create an SOP (standard operation procedure) that details EVERYTHING that needs to happen prior to a webinar launch. That way, you can have it to reference for any launch you want to do in the future.

I have an SOP set up for everything that needs to happen 3-4 weeks before a webinar in terms of prep work, email schedule, and social media schedule. That way, my team and I know exactly what needs to get done and can apply that schedule to this launch!

This definitely takes practice and some trial and error. I’d recommend giving yourself more time than you think you need the first time around and adjusting from there. Be sure to give yourself specific tasks and due dates to make it easier.

For example, if I know there will be 10 emails associated with this launch (whether they’re warm-up emails, actual offer promotion, or cart closing reminders), then I’d plan the date each email needed to be sent and give myself a specific due date when I needed to have them ALL written.

After I plan the actual course launch, I have two other areas of my business I need to plan for: my sales goals, and my free content leading up to the launch.

Once I figure out the dates that everything is happening, I need to plan out how much money I want to make, how many people I want to help, and how my free content works toward the goal of launching this course.

This is the MAGIC sauce, y’all.

Setting financial launch goals

When you hear people talk about having a $100,000 launch, that didn’t happen by accident! They absolutely planned for that to happen. On the flip side, if you aren’t sure how to use your current metrics to anticipate launch goals, then you are going to come out the other side really disappointed and frustrated.

If I know I’m launching something in June, then I’m going to work toward growing my audience in that time frame to make sure I have even more people in my audience to hit my goal.

Again, you have to do this a few times to really figure out where your numbers are at. Based on my past experience, I know that I can generally sell a course that I launch with a webinar to between 7-15% of all of the registrants for a webinar. I’ve even gone up as high as 25% before, depending on the webinar and course topic.

Conversion rates will differ between people and between the type of launch. It’s a very personalized amount that you have to figure out for yourself with time.

Example goals and how to achieve them

Let’s say I want to sell 100 of my new course at $1,000 each. I want to make $100,000 from a launch.

If I know I can sell to between 7% and 15% of people who sign up for the webinar, then I need to figure out how many people I need to sign up to reach that goal. In this case, if I get 1,000 people to sign up for this webinar, and I estimate that 12% of those people will buy the course, then I will sell 120 seats into my course.

Now, I need to figure out how to get 1,000 people to sign up to my webinar. Maybe I can look back at past examples and see that Facebook ads can get X people to sign up for my webinar who convert at a certain rate. Or, can I attract people to my email list in a certain way that will increase my sign ups?

I know that I can get 6-10% of people on my email list to sign up for a webinar. If I know that 6% of the people on my email list will sign up for my webinar pretty automatically, and I have 10,000 people on my list, then that’s about 600 sign-ups.

But my goal is to get 1,000 people to sign-up for my webinar. So, that means I have 8 weeks to attract 400 more sign ups. Now you can determine the best way to make that happen, whether it’s a new freebie, a small-offer funnel, or something else.

I use a Good, Better, Best System to plan my course launch goals

I like to set my “Better” goal as a realistic PUSH goal. In this case, that’s 1,000 webinar sign-ups.

My “Good” goal is going to be one that’s a standard number I can achieve without audience building. With this example, it would be the 600.

My “Best” goal is going to be a far-reaching goal that would take some work to hit! Maybe that’s getting 1,300 people to sign up for this webinar so I could sell 150 course seats. I will ALWAYS shift my mindset to go after that “Best” goal. But if I fall somewhere between my good, better, and best goals, then I’ve done my due diligence.

If you’re planning along with me, then I want you to remember that I have an audience! If you’re just starting out or have a really small audience, getting 1,000 people to a webinar probably won’t happen. Set realistic goals that you can meet!

How I plan my free content before launching

My free content leads up to my launches, too! But if I ONLY talk about the topics I want to launch a course about for the next 8 weeks, it’s going to get super mundane and boring for my audience. 

So, I start brainstorming what someone who is 8 weeks away from buying a course about this thing is wondering. What questions do they have? What are they thinking about? Then, I start incorporating it into my content.

Then, closer to my actual launch time, I am pushing that topic more.

Maybe I’m launching a course about Instagram. 8 weeks out, I’ll start posting content about how to decide what the right social media platform is for you, or how to plan content without it taking over your life. Imagine the questions this person is asking and create content to answer them!

Then, for four weeks prior to launch, I start to lean in to the “hard” topics that are directly related to the course. If I’m launching this Instagram course, I will do a video about hashtag strategy on Instagram, etc.

Whew, that was an in-depth plan with me for a launch in ClickUp! I hope this has given you ALL the tools you need to launch all the things. You've got this!

The post PLAN WITH ME for a Course Launch in ClickUp appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Do You Need a Big Audience to Incorporate Passive Income?

Do you want to listen to the podcast version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

Before we start, I have to tell you: when you’re reading this, one of my children has gone back to school – and I am SO excited. We started school in August, but our governor wouldn’t allow kids in any part of the state to go back full time. I chose virtual for my kids because 1) I had three days to make my decision and 2) everything was so up in the air and could change at any second that it seemed like the best option. I need consistency to work, even if the consistency isn’t ideal. Virtual learning was the most consistent option we had.

When we picked virtual learning, we had to select it for the whole first semester. I didn’t anticipate that our governor would let us go back before January,  but he did! And thanks to some different things happening and a little begging, my kids are starting back to school this week! They will still be home on Wednesdays because the schools are closed then, but one day versus five is GREAT.

Let’s dive in… Do you need an audience to incorporate passive income?

To start, remember my definition of passive income. Passive income is anything you can sell on a one:many level instead of one:one. It’s also something you create where the hard part is selling it and you don’t have to do much work after the sale. That can be courses, digital products, or anything else.

I don’t think that people who teach passive income are very forthcoming in this area. I will often see people say that you don’t need an audience to create a course or sell something. And that’s just not true.

You ABSOLUTELY need an audience to incorporate passive income.

I had someone in my real life ask me about digital products. I was straight up with her – I said that she needed to start offering a service before selling a digital product or else she wouldn’t make any money.

Now, for the asterisk: You DO NOT need a BIG audience to incorporate passive income! You just need an audience.

You have to have people there who are ready and willing to purchase what you’re going to sell. That being said, you can set up streams of passive income where you are building your audience and selling to them at the same time. You can use small offer funnels to do this – and I have a whole other episode you can listen to here to learn more.

Here’s a story about my first course.

I’ve talked about this before, but I’m going to say it again. I launched my first course with no audience. I launched it at the same time as I launched my podcast because I thought I would immediately be famous from my podcast. (Hilarious, right?)

I had 50 people or fewer on my email list and I sold 0. None. Nada. Zilch. I had NO audience, and I sold none – and that ratio makes sense. If you launch something to no one, no one will buy it. The days of just putting something out on the internet and assuming people will buy it are over. The market is too saturated. If we don’t have people ready and willing to buy the thing we’re selling, no one will.

The next time that I launched a course was five months later, and it was a successful launch. I had spent five months audience-building (just five months) and I wasn’t even on YouTube yet. I was doing webinars, freebies, funnels, Facebook groups, and more. I went from like 0 people on my email list when I launched my first course to about 500 people when I launched my second.

The course, called DIY Your Website, ACTUALLY SOLD! I didn’t sell that many of them at all. It was around $700, and I sold 10 of them – so I sold $7,000 worth of a course. At the time, that was the equivalent of two one-on-one web design clients for me, so it was massive. I sold 10 and I did NOT know what I was doing. If I did, I probably could have sold more.

Again – you DON’T need a massive audience. You just need some audience of people who want to buy the thing you’re selling.

To get the audience you need, you need to get clarity about who the person is who will want to buy what you’re selling.

Early on, I made the mistake of not thinking about the people who wanted to buy what I was selling. I didn’t coordinate my offers so that the person who bought my first product now would also buy my second product in six months. Coordinating your efforts is KEY.

I was creating a mix-matched pool of things. Person A would need the first thing I made, but they wouldn’t want the second thing; Person B would want that one but not the next one. That was not effective at growing my audience or my income.

Make sure that all of your offers are applicable/sellable to the same group of people.

It can be applicable all at once or at different stages of business. You need to spend your time building an audience who wants what you’re selling. You need an ENGAGED audience, not a big one.

Here’s an example of what an engaged audience looks like.

I worked with a client who created a very niched course that cost $1,000. The audience who would want to purchase this course was very, very small. When we started working together, she didn’t have an audience at all. Before she launched, she grew her audience to 250 people.

250 people – that’s it. The important thing to note is that they were 250 people who were perfect for the offer she had. We spent time AND money getting those people on her email list. When she launched that course to 250 people, 50 of them purchased.

She made $50,000 from a VERY small email list. She also incorporated affiliate links into her course, upsold people other places, and more. Not only did she make $50,000 from the first offer, she made residual money from passive income that she worked into the course. She made a lot of money from a TINY email list.

It is true that you will make more money from a larger audience, but that doesn’t mean you can’t start with a smaller one!

Even if you don’t have an audience now, incorporate the steps to get people to a sale for when you do.

Too many people say, “Oh, I’m not big enough yet to use affiliate links,” or “Oh, this is my first YouTube video so it doesn’t matter.” Setting up the sales tactics now, even before you have an audience, will equip you to make a lot of money when you do.

Let’s say you create a video on YouTube all about how to use an iPad, for example. You act like no one will ever see the video and you don’t include affiliate links to your iPad, pencil, and screen protector. Three months later, YouTube picks up your video and 20,000 people watch it. If you didn’t include those affiliate links, you missed out on the opportunity to make money!

Imagine that 10% of those views, or 2,000 people click on your affiliate link to your iPad. Then, 500 of them actually purchase it through your link. If you make $20 commission for each sale (I have no idea what you’d actually make but just go with me here), you could have made more than $12,000 just through affiliate links. People are going to buy the iPad anyway, so set them up to buy it through you. If you didn’t put in those links, you just lost $12,000.

It is NEVER too early to add links to things in your content. Set yourself up for success from the beginning, and you’ll be more successful later. Don’t let your house go up while you’re rushing to build the basement underneath – strong foundations are important!

The Allie Casazza Story

When I hosted the All Up In Your Lady Business podcast with Jaclyn Mellone, we had Allie Casazza share her story about how she went “purposefully viral.” (You can find Allie over on Instagram here!) Allie found this blog post with a step-by-step formula about writing an expanded guest blog post. You can read the blog post by Bryan Harris here – although warning, it was written in 2014 so it’s not entirely applicable.

Allie had NO audience at the time, but she followed the formula to a tee – which included incorporating a freebie into her guest post. And the formula worked! She went viral and she ended up on Good Morning America. Because of that freebie, she grew her email list to tens of thousands in a week’s time.

She hadn’t sold to them yet, but she had thousands of people on her email list who were READY to purchase the things she wanted to sell them. And she was prepared to sell something to her email list once she built it up! Allie had already created her product, perfect for someone who wanted the freebie, and was ready to launch. If you disappear for six months after your email list grows, people will have forgotten who you are.

Now, Allie has a multiple-7-figure business selling courses to moms in the minimalist category. And if she hadn’t added the freebie to grow her email list or prepped something to sell her audience BEFORE she had one, she would have missed out on all these possibilities.

You do need an audience to make passive income, but you SHOULD be taking the steps to incorporate passive income now so that you’ll be making more money later!

Another good example is my digital planner videos. I discovered the world of digital planning around Christmas of 2018. I decided to talk about it in my YouTube videos. Because I knew that content can “go viral,” I KNEW better than to put out this video without some way for me to make money from it.

So, I spent time over Christmas break to build my own digital planner. That way, when I did a video about it, I could say that I had my own for sale and link it below. My digital planner videos alone have made me more than $30,000!

That money comes from three different passive income streams. 1) it comes from the money I make when someone watches the video. 2) it comes from the affiliate money I make when someone clicks the affiliate link in the description. 3) It comes from the sale of my digital product.

Now, are those people the exact ones I want in my audience? No, not necessarily. Eventually, I will probably phase out digital planners or stop pushing them, but for the last few years it’s been a great source of income. I knew that video would take off, from both my past YouTube experience and the fact that not many people were talking about it on YouTube at the time.

If we don’t prepare our content, businesses, and social media with all the things that lead to passive income, we are going to be mad at ourselves later when that content goes viral.

You have to know that not everybody goes viral. It could be that you put affiliate links in your blog posts that no one reads now, but in two years you have 50,000 website visitors every day who read your stuff.

You absolutely DO NOT need a big audience to incorporate passive income. You absolutely don’t need any audience to start down this path!

To make sales and maintain a full-time income, you just need a group of people who want what you’re selling. It doesn’t have to be 10,000 people or even 1,000 people – they just need to want what you’re selling.

The post Do You Need a Big Audience to Incorporate Passive Income? appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

How to Turn Your Service into A Course

Want to listen to the podcast episode? I’ve got you covered!

Before we get into the actual how-to portion, I want you to know something.

Turning your service into a course has the potential to go one of three ways:

1. Your course could go super well and you could work yourself out of a job (intentionally or unintentionally)

When I did this, I purposefully worked myself out of a job – that was my goal. But it could also happen unintentionally, where everyone buys your course and no one is hiring you.

2. Your course could go really well and make people buy the course AND hire you!

Sometimes, it can be hard to find doers – people who are doing the things rather than teaching them. A lot of times, the doers are behind the scenes getting stuff done in businesses, while the “teachers” are more forward-facing. Sometimes, when you step into the spotlight, it will put you in front of the people who want to hire you!

When I was a web designer, I created a course with the intention of working myself out of a job. I did not want to be doing web design anymore. Even after years of being into my business as an infopreneur, I still to this day have people approach me and ask me to 1) design their website or 2) manage their social media. 

3. Your course could flop.

I want to be completely honest with you here – it is possible that your course will flop. If you do everything you’re supposed to do when you launch a course, like building an audience of your ideal customer, it shouldn’t. But again, it’s possible.

The first course I ever launched was a complete fail. I had gained a small audience, but it was a jumbled up combination of people from the All Up in Your Lady Business podcast, web design clients, and local friends. It was not a tailored list of people who would want to buy a course from me. I had this naive thought that, as soon as I launched the podcast, it would blow up and I would be RICH.

I launched my first course almost in conjunction with launching my podcast – and it completely flopped. As in, sold 0 of that course and it was incredibly disheartening.

When we get discouraged about our dreams because we didn’t do the things we needed to do prior to starting out on our dreams, it can turn us against them. And I do NOT want you to get turned against creating a course just because you don’t have all of the pieces in place right now.

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Here’s my course story.

I was a web designer, and I started my company in late 2010/early 2011. I didn’t quit my job and work at home until the very last day of November, 2010. At the time, it was very graphic design based and then morphed into web design in a few months.

I did web design consistently from 2011 to 2016 – that was my only stream of income. (There was a little stint in there where I was a personal trainer, but we’re going to ignore that!) I had this five year career as a web designer, and I was not happy with doing that anymore.

I knew that my power was in teaching things in a way that people can understand them. That’s one of the comments I get most often from listeners, and it’s my most treasured comment. I know that one of  my superpowers is teaching the thing, even when it’s complicated, without overwhelming you.

I really wanted out of the service model and into the course model, but I needed the money I was making from my service. Raise your hand if you feel that way, right? WIthout the money from providing web design services, I couldn’t afford to hire the VA that was going to help me get this course on the web. I couldn’t afford to put groceries on the table without it, at that point in my life.

People often think that, to be successful with a course, you need to do a 180 and immediately switch to receiving all of your income from courses rather than a service. That is not what you need to do at all!

You need to come up with a plan and metrics to help you phase out your service (if you want to phase it out).

You can totally be the person who is doing the service and creating the course – that’s okay! But if you want to take less clients or stop taking them altogether, you’ve got to come up with a plan to do that.

You can think about it in terms of income. Let’s say you charge $1,000 per client and you have five consistent clients every month. You might realize that you need a baseline of $5,000 every month to keep things going, and you’ll want to make a plan that allows you to keep that income.

Maybe you keep those clients, launch a course and then make $1,000 from that course sale. Next time you launch, you only take on four clients as a result, Then, you launch again and make $3,000. Now, you can take less clients and you know the metrics it took to get you from a $1,000 course launch to a $3,000 course launch and you can replicate it!

DO NOT cut the service arm of your business off thinking you’ll instantly get rich with courses. It takes time and work.

Before we get into the how-to of creating a course from your service, I need you to know that the people you are selling to do not have the skill sets that you do.

There’s a reason people are buying your course – they don’t know how to do the thing you’re teaching them. I find SO OFTEN that people don’t break things down well enough in a course. They assume that their common knowledge is common knowledge for everybody else, and it is absolutely not.

You need to keep things easy for your customer to understand and do.

WHen you’re thinking about creating a course, you need to know that what feels like a “duh” to you is completely new information to your customer!

People feel like their course needs to be extra long and extra in-depth if they want to charge a substantial amount for it. That is so far from the truth! Your course needs to take people from A to Z. It needs to take from people where they are right now in their struggles to fixing that struggle with your solution.

Why would somebody want to drive their car down a bunch of squiggly side roads to get where they’re going when they could just drive straight there? Think of your course the same way. It’s worth their money to buy your course because they don’t have to watch hours and hours of videos and tangents they don’t need.

How to Turn Your Service into a Course, Step-by-Step

First: Figure out where your people are right now and where they want to be.

Because you’re already doing this thing as a service, you probably already know these points! You can see how people feel when they come to hire you for your service and what they usually ask for your help achieving. What’s point A and what’s point Z?

This will take some mapping out. You need to figure out exactly how your course will get people from point A to point Z in a logical way.

Second: Take a deep-dive into your service and define the whole process, step-by-step.

Remember that you want to get them from A to Z. If your process is really complex, you might only want to teach a piece of it in your course. In fact, if you want to keep offering your services, teaching only one piece is great! You could create a course focused on the first part of what you do that would mean they don’t need to hire you for as much time, but you could upsell the course to get them to work with you to complete the other parts.

In my case, teaching someone brand new to web design how to design a whole custom website was WAY too much to fit into a course. So, I took a condensed version of my service and taught that.

Give people the detailed breakdown they need to actually do the service.

Remember to explain which tools they need to use to do it! Do they need some kind of paid software, graphics, or something else? Provide recommendations.

Third: You need to teach people the ground floor information they need to know that you might take for granted.

Think. about what the ground floor of information they need to complete this course looks like. I think this is what service providers often miss putting in their course. You think the ground floor is obvious, but it’s only obvious to you!

My first course (that I ever actually sold) was DIY Your Website. I was still a web designer when it launched, so I’ll use that as an example.

When you hire a web designer, there’s a lot going on behind the scenes that you don’t see. Even if you’ve already purchased your domain, the web designer has to go in and set up the domain so the web design can be installed. They’re creating brand boards, looks, and mockups and figuring out what the website needs. Once they design it, they’re buying a theme and customizing it to what you want.

All you see as a customer of a web designer is the bare bones of it. You send them your login information for the domain, you send them the things you liked, they send you a mockup and now they’re going to design it.

As a web designer, it was second nature for me to know that I needed the login for their domain. I knew they needed hosting services and other things that felt obvious. But it isn’t obvious! So many people are creating web design courses and leaving out these parts. In my DIY Your Website course, I needed to make sure people not only knew they needed a domain and hosting, but to explain what that was and how you get it.

Let’s say you’re a copywriter and you do market research. That’s something you may take for granted that someone who takes your course will do, but they may not know about it at all! Include those ground floor pieces of information.

Fourth: Think about how your process may look different than theirs. How can you simplify your process in a way that will help your customer?

After you list every single step that happens in your process, look back at it! Maybe you analyze your process after you’ve written it down and realize that they don’t need to do the steps as intricately as you do.

To use my DIY Your Website example, I custom-designed all of my websites with the Genesis WordPress theme. But that is SUPER techy, it’s something that took me years to learn, and it’s something that breaks easily. Instead of teaching them in that way, I taught them how to build their website with Divvy, a drag-and-drop builder, on WordPress.

Their process looked super different than mine, but it helps them achieve their end result much more quickly than my process would!

Remember – I made my course for business owners who wanted to design their own site. If my course was meant to teach people how to be web designers, I would teach a COMPLETELY different process. Your audience is key!

Fifth: What do they need for you to hand them so it’s easy? What do they need for you to spoon-feed them so it’s simple?

You might want to teach X, Y, and Z in this course. But would it be easier if you gave them X and then taught them just Y and Z? Think about what you need to give to your customer to make sure they get where they want to go.

Alright, here’s a wrap-up:

1. Figure out who your people are and what they’re trying to achieve
2. Set the steps from A-Z of how they’re going to do that
3. Keep it easy – people don’t know all of the tech-related jargon you know (and they probably don’t want to)
4. Provide ground floor information and the tools they need to get the thing done
5. Think about how their process might look different than yours and teach accordingly
6. Make sure you hand your customer as many things as you can hand them to make it easy

There’s a lot more that goes into making a course, like creating it and selling it and all the things, but that would be a whole course in itself!

The post How to Turn Your Service into A Course appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.

Want to watch a video version of this post? I’ve got you covered!

So you want to create an online course but aren’t sure where to start. It’s easier than it seems! Just keep these things in mind.

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Pick where you're going to host the course

To figure out the best place to host your course, you need to think about how you want to structure it. Hosting will look different if you want your course to be available all at once vs if you want it to be spread out over 6-8 weeks.

If you’re looking for a platform to host your course, check out Thinkific, Teachable, or Kajabi.

If you want a more DIY solution, you can absolutely host your course on your own website! If you’re using WordPress, there are plenty of plugins available to sell your courses. Just know that these plugins don’t work super well when your course has a lot of students in it. As you grow, the upgrade is probably worth it.

Hosting your course doesn’t have to be fancy! You can also send out links to unlisted Youtube videos or DropBox files. If you’re just starting out, you can use this method to test the waters before you use a larger service.

Create and Develop the Content

The content can be whatever you want it to be – all video, all text, all audio, or a mix of the three.

Most courses are taught using video, but it’s up to you to figure out the best way to convey the information you want to share for your audience. Don’t over complicate your stuff because you think you need more content – you’re giving value to your audience by teaching them what you know in the most efficient way possible!

Remember – you have to sell it

You do NOT want to spend hours creating a course that ends up never selling. So, while you’re making the course, build your audience! Create buzz around the course while you’re creating it and it’ll sell when you’re done.

The post How to Create an Online Course appeared first on Jessica Stansberry.