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Are you struggling to launch your online course? Maybe you don't have enough time, don't know where to start or are intimidated by other people with similar courses. Today, we will be talking about how to launch your online course. Whether you have never launched a course before or you want to relaunch an old one, these strategies will help you.

Outsource Your Course

I have worked with many course creators over the years and one of the top struggles is the amount of work it takes to create a course. There are various ways to create an online course - you can do it yourself, you can hire an agency or a coach, and you can outsource some portions of your course. This can help you save a lot of time, frustration and enable you to make a professional looking course. There are a lot of pieces of the puzzle where you could outsource, like graphics, website design, LMS setup, video editing, management, website hosting, and so much more! You can only grow your business if you have a team around you to help you succeed, and it all starts with outsourcing your online course. I will be conducting a specialized training for a small group of people called, "Outsource Your Course". If you are interested in learning how to outsource parts of the course creation process, you get on the waiting list to get a personalized training course built just for you and with you. I am only accepting a few people to this initial phase, so if you are interested in learning how to outsource some parts of your course, sign up now. I'll be reaching out to you to see if it's a fit and if it's something you want to participate in.

1. Know your why.

When you're thinking about your course, you have to know your why. One of my why's is to help you to teach many that will impact millions. If I can help you, then you can teach many who will also impact millions. The domino effect is pretty cool. It is my goal to teach 5 million people in 5 years, but I don't have to have 5 million people in my course. I just need good people who are passionate about what they do. They are the ones who will teach who are also going to teach others. Know your why and that will make things easier.

2. Get off the sidelines.

Some people have a lot of ideas for a course It can be frustrating at times because you can get easily sidetracked with all that you want to do. If I don't have a solid plan, I will not be able to execute. So if you have a lot of ideas, take the best idea and move on with that. A lot of times, people are on the sidelines because that have a lot of fears - the fear of failure or the fear of success. Let's say you spent a lot of time and money, yet the course does not sell. You can modify the course or survey your audience why they did not buy the course. All the things that you learned from a course, you can apply to your next course. Once you have learned what works, you can serve your audience in multiple ways. When your course gets too big and you get to hire people, I'll bet you've figured it out. Face your fear and get off the sidelines.

3. Know that other people are doing this and they are having success.

If other people can do it, why can't you?  I have worked with a lot of people since 2003 and most people aren't any smarter or better than you. I know that you can make a difference. If they can overcome the challenges, you can do it, too.

4. Think of what it will cost you if you don't make your course.

Probably, you're going to spend another year hoping, dreaming, and wishing you had a course. So, what will it cost you if you don't make a course? You won't make an impact and influence that you want. You won't have the income that you desire as well. If you don't make a course, you're going to save a couple hundred or thousands of dollars, but you'll never know the impact and influence you can have if you don't make a course.

5. Stop in being a cheapskate.

Invest in yourself and your course. I read a lot of books, listen to a lot of podcasts, and buy a lot of courses. It's going to take some investment of time and money.

6. What are the little things that you can do on a regular basis that will bring you towards your goal?

They could be marketing or you can write more content on your website. Maybe you need to plan your course or market better. Making a course is a lot of work and there's going to be a lot of things that seem overwhelming. But when you take one step towards your goal every single day, you will go higher towards the completion of your course.

7. Build your audience and influence.

What are the things that you can do to build your audience? You can do Facebook Live sessions, podcast interviews, blogs, video content, and ebooks. You can also reach out to partners and social media influencers. If you are looking for those, you can go to my website and search for marketing topics. I have several podcasts and videos that you can listen to and watch. The most important thing is you implement what you have learned.

8. Survey your audience.

Once you have built your audience, find out what they need and want. Ask them what are they struggling with. This can be both exciting and scary. When you know what they want, then it's time to deliver.

9. Plan your course.

I always recommend people to offer their course alongside their audience. Sell your course/idea to your audience. If enough people buy it, then you can walk them through your course as a group and they can get individual attention. Make sure you build your first course with the people and you sell it for something. It doesn't have to be hundreds of dollars.

10. Build your course.

A great piece of advice is your course doesn't have to be perfect before you launch it. You can always change and improve it. It has to be good with solid content. It needs to be out there. Take these ten steps and implement them this year, this month, this week, or even today. Get off the sidelines. Send me an email and let me know your thoughts or what you are working on. I love to get your emails and chat back and forth.

Outsource Your Course

I know making a course can be a lot of work. Maybe you don't have the money to hire me or somebody who does this professionally, I have a system and strategy that I use for outsourcing the different parts of your course creation process. You can sign up to get on the waiting list and I'll build a personalized training just for you. We're only going to be doing this for a small group of people.

Today, we are going to talk about the differences between private and public courses - courses for companies vs. courses for individuals. There is a huge untapped market with private, corporate e-learning courses. This podcast episode interview is with Aditi Ramchandani where we will talk about sales and marketing. She is a digital marketing strategist who works with businesses and entrepreneurs to build strong brands through strategic brand communication, online visibility, and expert positioning.

Sales is simply helping people, sharing the benefits of your services, and solving problems. It does not have to be a complicated thing where you are begging people to buy your course or to hire you. Based on my experience, listening is the easiest way to sell.

Another thing I want you to hear Aditi talk about is how many times she created momentum for herself. When you hear what she talks about, listen for ways on how you can create momentum in your own business.

I also want us to go over how to get corporate clients. It can be intimidating especially if you haven't been in the corporate world. There are many different strategies on how to find corporate clients. If you would like an in-depth course on finding corporate clients, feel free to send me an email.

Now, on to my interview with Aditi.

J: Tell me about your background and who you serve?

A: I have been in marketing for 14 years now. I was literally marketing things before I even know what marketing was. I did both my undergrad and Master's Degree in Marketing. I did six years in Corporate America before going back to Grad School and then started my marketing business full-time. Now, I've been working with entrepreneurs and mid-sized businesses. I help them with their marketing, online visibility, brand communications, as well as helping them position their company as a leader in the industry.

What is the difference between a private and public course?

A: A private course is a course that is not publicly advertised. It is only for a select group of individuals. A public course is a course that is promoted and everybody knows about it.

J: How did you launch your first public course?

A: A lot of times, companies provide on-the-job training for different roles that they have. Online courses are great for companies to use internally with their employees and externally for their customers. When I was in Grad School, I had friends who are entrepreneurs. I knew that they were seeking marketing help and I'm in school. So, I thought why don't I put some things together based on what I'm learning. At first, I did two private courses and just taking donations because I was afraid of charging. After that, I launched my first public course.

What do people need to have to get started with their first course?

A: People need to have a course outline. They have to have some sort of sales page. They should also have a payment method and a way to deliver the content to the clients. An email marketing system to keep in touch with people who enrolled is also important. It does not have to complicated when you are just starting out. Also, have a free content that leads to your course launch.

J: How much does it cost to run a course?

A: In general, I found that costs $0-300 to organically run a small-scale course without Facebook Ads and stuff like that. With my first course, it was zero cost because I used Google Hangouts and Google Drive. Running a public course would cost you a little bit more money.

With my third course, I spent only $300. I did not use Facebook Ads, I just did it with people who were connected to my network. I contacted my past clients if they wanted to jump into the advanced one. I also made a platform and videos uploaded, so I was able to charge a premium price for it. I'm always encouraging people that to start off, you don't need a lot of funds.

What is your favorite marketing strategy to enroll people in a course?

A: My favorite marketing strategy is doing a pre-sell. If you are anxious and if you have a few people enrolled in your course before publicly advertising it, you're gonna feel confident. In order to do that, you're going to literally reach out to people in your network. You can charge a cheaper price for a pre-sell. Also, you don't have to have the whole course created before you start selling it.

J: What do you find that people struggle with the most in terms of creating and running a course?

A: I found that people get really overwhelmed about what to put on the course. First ask yourself, what is the end goal? What will people get from taking your course? Be clear about what your customers are going to get out of your course and then work backward. Like, what are the five main areas or steps that can get you from point A to point B? You can break them down further, if necessary.

I also like people to make shorter videos rather than longer videos. A good timeframe is 5-15 minutes.

I've also seen people stuck in not feeling like they are the expert. They feel like they need to wait to have all the information ready. I always tell people to start making outlines and pre-sell the course. Pre-selling is also one way to validate your idea for your course. If you're not getting any presells, you can go back to the drawing board and see if you are offering what the customers really want.

J: Aditi, I appreciate you being here on the show today? Where can the customers know more about you and your services?

A: Everyone can head over to my website and I look forward to seeing you there. Thank you.

Whether you are just starting out or whether you have been doing courses for a while, I'm sure you have picked up some good strategies from Aditi Ramchandani.

As I have said, sales is all about serving. Let me know how you are doing with your sales and marketing as well as your questions about getting corporate clients.

If you haven't gone to my website in a while, there are some new things that you might want to check out. Go on there and check out some of my new videos and some of the past podcasts. I would also be honored if you can leave a rating or a review.

If you need coaching, you can go to the website, fill out the form, and see if we are a good fit.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast at https://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp

My background and expertise is creating and marketing online courses and my superpower is helping people create effective online course videos. I have plenty of podcast episodes and videos on onlinecoursecoach.com. Today, we are going to talk about something that affects us all. It’s called “How to Price Your Online Course”. If you are wondering about this, it’s either you are about to launch a course or you already have a course out there, but it’s not getting the sales that you want. If you’re trying to find out how to find that perfect price point, you can download my free resource, “7 Ways Marketing Tips to Market Your Online Course”. Regardless of what phase you are in your online course creation process, marketing is key. So, let’s start at the beginning with how to price your online course.

1. You and your knowledge are valuable.

There is a lot of worth in you and your knowledge so, do not undervalue what you have. There is value in your expertise and experience of the topic that you are teaching. There is also value in gathering information and putting it together into a roadmap or recipe for success. You may not have decades of experience, but the content that you gather is still valuable. You can listen to one of my latest podcast episode ”10 Creative Ways to Add Value to Your Students” to find out how you can increase the value that you provide to your students.

1. Look at what other people are selling similar courses for.

Doing so will give you a baseline and a minimum of what you want to charge. I do not recommend going to Udemy.com because they are always experimenting with the pricing. They also give away coupons, so the number of students in each course can be deceptive, especially for some of the higher ones. Instead, you can do some Google search and find podcasts and Facebook groups where people are promoting their courses. If there’s nobody in your industry, know what people are selling courses for in a broader parallel industry. Do not be the one to give the cheapest course. Be in the middle to upper levels of what you charge, so you can get better customers. Students are more likely to complete and take participation in a course and get more value out of it if it costs more. In return, they can give a better testimony.

2. Find out how much time a student currently wastes without a course and determine how much this is costing them.

Position your course as something that helps them save time and money. Your course cost should be a no-brainer compared to how much time and money they are spending without it. Show your students that your course may come at a cost, but it is lower than what they are spending with their time, money, and frustrations. Paint a picture of the benefits of taking your course. It might not be money or time saved, it can be something more valuable, like memories and family time.

3. Price your course based on the value it provides.

The value can be time or money. It can also be things that you cannot quantify, like happiness or enjoyment. Think of pricing that reflects that value. Do not think of your course as a one-priced item. If it’s a mini-course, you can charge it for less. If it’s a 10-lesson course that has a lot of content, you can give three package levels. I like to think of it as good-better-best. You can see this in electronics where they have iPhones with 16gb, 32gb, and 64gb hard drives. A lot of other industries have this kind of pricing levels.

4. Create pricing tiers and packages.

Think of what you can do to create a good-better-best pricing. Let’s say your cheapest course contains just the basics with not so many bonus content. The middle package can be a digital course with three bonuses. The most expensive package can provide more access to it. It can have a webinar, a group coaching session, and email access for a period of time with more bonuses. You can even give a certificate of attendance. For discussion purposes, the good level can cost $100. The better should be 1.5 times more than that and the best should be twice or thrice as much. Keep in mind that the more expensive the course is, the more access and bonuses you give to your students.  You can use fun names for your pricing levels.

5. Limit the direct access you give to your students.

Think of what can give more value to your course content, but do not offer it for the rest of your life. This is one of the benefits of having open and close enrollments.

6. Test your price points with each update or release of your course.

Do not be afraid to test the price points of your course every time you release an updated version of the course. If you still need to improve the marketing of your course, check out my marketing tips on how to grow your audience, build your influence, and sell more courses. By getting more students, you can better test your price points. This can also help you offer more value, bonuses, content, and even courses in the future. Also, let me know what you are working on. I love your emails and tweets. If you have questions about online courses, marketing, video creation, or anything course-related, feel free to contact me. Don’t miss out on new podcasts episodes and videos at onlinecoarsecoach.com. You can also fill out the coaching form if you need more coaching.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast at https://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp

In this episode, we will be talking about How to Avoid the Overwhelm of Creating an Online Course. My background and expertise is creating and marketing online courses, but my specialty within that is helping people create effective online course videos. I am also pretty talented at seeing ways to leverage the power of courses and technology to better teach, market, and sell. But that’s a topic for another day. I have been coaching a lot of people and this is one thing that is a big roadblock that people can’t get over. It’s easy to get overwhelmed with all the details. There’s not just the idea and the outline of what you’re going to teach, but there’s also the technology that you need to learn. There are a lot of technical hurdles and once you’ve created a course, you also need to know how to market it. It’s easy to get overwhelmed when we hear about course creators who made it big. A lot of times, these successful course creators might not talk about the teams of people that it took to create and market their course. They might have a team around them - people to brainstorm the idea and an audience to get feedback from. How do you stand a chance against them? You have to understand that at one time, these people weren’t big names at all. Seth Godin talks about not being the Seth Godin he is now. When you see these big course creators, you only see their success. That is just the tip of the iceberg. You don’t see what’s underneath - their hard work, struggles, failures, and the teams they have. So, let’s start at the beginning.

1.  Keep your goals in mind

A lot of people have big hopes and dreams. They want to sell a lot of courses and make a lot of money, but you have to know what your main goals are. It’s easy to get frustrated when your courses are not selling. But more importantly, you should start thinking how you could serve your students. How can you serve a small number of students?  You should keep your goal in mind. Is it only money? Do you want to make an impact or grow an audience? Do you want to serve more people? What is that one thing that you want your course do? I highly recommend Gary Keller’s book, The One Thing. In his book, he talks about how you can focus on that one thing.

2.  Think of your course as the first round of your first version of the course

Your first course does not have to be the final version of the course. A couple of years ago, I used to interview a very famous sculptor and he told me, “When I was starting out, it was just an ugly lump of clay.” It took him about two full days of molding the clay to create the eagle. It didn’t look like an eagle on the first day. As a matter of fact, it looked like an ugly chicken. And he said, “But I kept going. I trusted my creativity and my experience. I trusted that this ugly chicken will turn into a soaring eagle.” Maybe your course right now looks like an ugly chicken and you hate it, but as you work on it and refine it, it will get better. It’s okay if you only sell one course when you release it. Again, think of it as the first round of the first version of the course. It’s okay as long as it does what you needed it to do, which is to teach.

Related Resources

How to Pick the Best LMS for Your Course How to Build Your Email List and Audience Marketing Tips for Course Creators

3. Find people who will go with you on your journey as you build your course

You don’t have to have the course built out before you pre-sell it to these people. I recommend that you charge for it so that when you ask them how you can refine the course, they will give you a good feedback. It will be like creating a custom course just for them and their needs.

4. Fear can keep you from releasing your course

Fear will tell you that your course should be perfect before you release it and you will waste time trying perfecting it. You should only spend a minimal amount of hours in refining the version one of the course. (Disclaimer:It’s not about releasing low-quality courses.) It’s about focusing on what would give your course content the most value, not the little things that make it pretty. You have to get over your fear, because it won’t do you any good if you won’t release your course.

5. Break the bundle one stick at a time

When I was in Junior High, I remember coming home from school overwhelmed with my schoolwork. My parents saw it and my dad told me to go out in the yard and bring in a big pile of sticks. So, I went into the backyard and brought the big pile of sticks. He told me to try and break the sticks. I tried with all my might but I couldn’t do it. So my dad told me to break the sticks one at a time and I did as he told me. One after the other, I’d break the sticks and before I knew it, I have already broken all the sticks. As an application, think about that one thing that you need to get done for the day in order to move your course forward. Also, you can write down one thing that no one else can do on your course. Write down the things that you can outsource and think of that as an investment. Think of the things that you can simplify. These are the most important things that your students should know first. Creating a beginner-level course can free some of you who are intimidated by others who know more about the course. All you need is a little bit more knowledge and experience than your students. You can also create a mini course to grow your email list. Take the top three things from your course and create a simple course on those topics. You can offer it on your website or you can approach people from a lead generation list.

6. Learn about the tech side of online courses

If technology is a big hang up for you, think about what you can do yourself and what can you outsource. You can also check out my Tech Guide for Online Course Creators at onlinecoursecoach.com/tech and you can download that to learn more.

Related Resources

How to Pick the Best LMS for Your Course How to Build Your Email List and Audience Marketing Tips for Course Creators

7. Think about the niche where your online course fits

Create a course specific to your niche. This will work very well because you are going to serve a specific group of audience. Think about who you can serve. If your audience is on Facebook groups, go in there and offer tips, answer questions, provide useful articles. By offering help, you can build your email list and even your income. Think about people who you can connect with. If you serve them, they might promote you. This may take time, but would you rather serve influencers who have large audiences? Or would you rather try to sell one course at a time and keep struggling?

8. Think of people whom you can leverage for maximum results

After you’ve launched your first course to your initial students, you can go to different influencers and build a partnership with them. Reach out to people from similar industries to gain good leverage. In conclusion, don’t look at the huge gurus who have thousand of followers and a huge team around them. Remember that they weren’t that big when they started. So, think of ways that you can focus your course on. Find the things that only you can do and outsource the rest. Just get that course out to the first 10 or 20 people and get their feedback. Think of creative ways that will give the most value to your course content. Again, if you get overwhelmed by the technology side, you can go to onlinecoursecoach.com/tech and download my top tech tips and resources. Focus on what your goals are. Lastly, realize that your course is going to improve over time. If you have trouble with marketing your course or any of these topics, you can go to onlinecoursecoach.com and go to the Videos tab and Podcast tab where there are topics about marketing, creation, or building your learning management system.

Related Resources

How to Pick the Best LMS for Your Course How to Build Your Email List and Audience Marketing Tips for Course Creators

Know that you’re in good company, so keep coming back for more podcasts and keep sending in those questions.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast at https://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp

Learn 10 effective ways to surprise your students and give them something that they would not expect that will turn them into raving fans. This will help you stand out from your competition. Before getting into the podcast, I want to know what content you want me to create in the future. You can go to onlinecoursecoach.com/survey and let me know your thoughts. You can get a free guide called “The DIY Video Studio Guide” when you fill out the survey. Also, a heavy discount will be given out to podcast listeners soon. So, stay tuned for that. I am also creating short, but powerful online quick tips every Tuesdays at 2 PM. You can find them at onlinecoursecoach.com/facebooklive and feel free to leave a comment. Also if you want to learn more about running Facebook ads, you can go to onlinecoursecoach.com/fbads.

1. Offer a free 15-minute call before they purchase the course.

This will help your students know if the course is right for them. Do not be afraid to tell them that a course is not right for them. If you have hundreds or thousands of potential students, think about how you can manage that. You can have 20 slots available. You can answer questions. You can have open office hours. This is not an easy thing to scale, but it is something that would definitely surprise your students. This would allow your students to know you a lot better. This would also let you know what the common questions are from your potential students.

2. Create free private Facebook groups for your students to join.

Even before you start to market your course, offer a free private Facebook group for your audience. This is a place where you can let them ask questions, get to know each other, build trust, and grow a community. The more they get to know each other and you, the better. You can also run promotions, giveaways, and other content to this group as a side benefit.

3. Offer free webinars before, during, and after the course to ensure your students are learning and doing the content.

You can set up a Q&A webinar before a course. You can do a check-in webinar during the course. Have another check-in webinar after 30-60 days to get any questions, see that they’re doing, or offer additional tips.

4. Offer free Q&A sessions.

You can do this through your Facebook page, Zoom calls, podcasts, or private Facebook group to make sure that your students can have continuous access to you. Also, make sure that the more that you charge, the more access to you that they have.

5. Send them something physical.

This could be food or a journal as a surprise. You can do this through sendoutcards.com/. Make sure though that the price of the course has enough margin for your gifts. You might want to do this to your top 20 students. This gets the ball rolling on how you could offer something unexpected to better serve your students that would turn them into raving fans.

6. Highlight successful members.

This encourages students who haven’t put in the time or the effort to learn the material. Once they see other people’s success, they would want to join them. Also, it makes those whom you are highlighting feel proud about their accomplishments. This could be done through podcasts, webinars, Facebook live videos, or typed out interviews. Interview them about their story, their problems, their solutions, their successes, and their future goals.

7. Offer a live event as part of the course.

This can be expensive, so you can do this to top-tier courses. It is a way for students to know each other and you. It also helps to make the content sink in more.

8. Create additional modules after the course is launched.

Add bonus materials that you can keep adding content to. You don’t need to overwhelm your students with 15 modules, but you can just add occasional updates.

9. Send them a book that you really like.

You can send your students a book that you like even if it does not fit within the course. It could be in the same industry or topic, but it does not have to fit your course. Make sure to ask your students for their mailing address when they are signing up.

10. Offer prize drawings for people who complete the course and post the results.

You can do a free 30-minute conference call or webinar for people who completes the course. That will help with engagement and completion. There are many courses that the completion rates aren’t that good. Incentivize your students to complete the course and verify if they really completed the course. These ways can help you stand out from the competition, because you will raving fans and raving students. You’ll build a community and you’ll have deeper relationships with your students. If you want more online strategies and tips to help you in marketing your course, go to onlinecoursecoach.com/marketingtips. Learn how to plan your course, build your course, how to pull the pieces together, and how to market your course.

Want to watch a summary video of this content? Watch my Facebook Live video I made about this topic.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast at https://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp

A popular strategy for building and planning your online course is creating a membership website for students. This can be done in conjunction with a learning management system that could house your course content, or as an alternative means of growing your membership base, interacting with your members and providing them new material. Membership sites are a really great strategy for building community and a great tool if you plan on having ongoing content.

How to Pick the Perfect LMS - the pros and cons of using self hosted or independent software for your online courses

Download the "Pick the Perfect LMS" Checklist

In this episode I spoke with Travis Northcutt of Member Up about the pros of using a membership site and what you should keep in mind if you plan on using one for your online course.

Travis Northcutt Bio:

What is a Membership Site and Why Should You Consider One?

1. It’s just a label and a lot of the time the lines are blurry. A membership site has a subscription component, with ongoing payments. Usually it’s an open ended relationship, where you can be a member for a set amount of time. A helpful aspect of many membership sites is the community component you get with discussion forums or Facebook groups and the like.
2. Membership sites are particularly great if you have continuous content and not just a set course that needs to be housed and easily accessed. A membership site will generally have content that is available every month. Whether it is new content like webinars, or private Facebook groups, it is ongoing content.
3. If you would like to engage directly or have a more personal relationship with your members.

Travis: “You come for the content and you stick around for the community” Membership sites often have discussion forums and other types of community engagement. Forums can be used to market a membership site or to help with optimization through constant user feedback.

When Should You Have a Community Forum or Community Aspect?

• If you have the capacity to devote time and resources to it. If you need to nurture your community. If you need help building loyalty and commitment. If you would like feedback on how to improve your content.

Membership Websites Best Practices and Pro Tips

1. The core of most membership sites is the learning and training, so your content needs to be strong and regularly updated. However you do it, you need people to feel like they are getting value for their money. Your members should tot have to navigate a complicated site that needs them to be to prescriptively guided so they lose autonomy. Nor should it be too easily digested and then not beefed up with continuous opportunities to learn and develop.
2. Have an audience already. While you are creating the content for your online course also be building your audience. You don’t want be in the situation where you launch a membership site and then have to climb a mountain in order to create an audience to consume all the information you have spent hours compiling. You need people who have trust in and value your platform.
3. Study how other people connect with their audiences.

Areas That Are Often Untapped for Established Membership Sites:

1. Churn reduction: Travis believes that one of the biggest opportunities for churn reduction is tracking member engagement over time. This allows you to know when member engagement dips so you can do something to reactivate members who may be at risk of churning.
2. Upsells: You may find that on your site you have so called Super Members. These are the members who engage heavily, consuming all your content, writing regularly on forums etc. It is important to have something more to sell to these members, who are eager and committed. This could be one-on-one coaching, a private mastermind, personal invites to live events, or converting Super Members to an annual plan.

Membership Sites Give You Options and Create New Opportunities

Not every community is huge. There are many niche communities that are perfect for membership sites to tap into. These are opportunities for you to have a site that may cater for a small group of people within a narrow field of expertise. You could create a membership site for communities that may never have been brought together were it not for the forums on your membership site for example. A huge benefit of membership sites, especially if you are selling to corporate customers is that you can sell group access. This allows a single client to buy your content and make it available to an entire office or workspace.This means that you can capitalize on the amount of revenue you can gain from a single member. You could also create a membership site for a single company or branch of a company that allows you to create content for the needs of industry specific clients in a personalised manner that has value for you and value for your client.

How to Pick the Perfect LMS - the pros and cons of using self hosted or independent software for your online courses

Download the "Pick the Perfect LMS" Checklist

The point here is that with membership sites your options are not necessarily endless but they certainly become more prevalent. The opportunities a membership site can provide are limited only by what you can imagine and the knowledge you have to provide.

Don’t Become Overwhelmed by Content

There is no need to become overwhelmed by needing to create content. Start with a strategy for creating ongoing content for paying members such as a content calendar. If you need to be creating ongoing content then a consistent steady drip is probably the best way. Be dependable. Keep having something for people to look forward to. This will help with engagement and again aid in reducing churn. Don’t worry too much about how you are going to keep creating content in the long run. Focus on keeping the content up to date and consistently available now. Further, it is important that you have a good library of content before you start your membership site to allow you breathing room and to ensure that the content does not dry up early on.

Common Mistakes People Make With Sales

Most people will try and direct traffic to their signup page in order to get someone to join their membership site. This is simply another type of cold calling that banks on peoples’ immediate engagement. A better strategy for sales funneling is to direct people to a landing page instead and get them onto an emailing list first. This gives you more than one chance to sell to them. An emailing list also gives you a good sense of who it is you are trying to sell to. Rather than having a potential client land on your signup/sales page, bounce away, and never be heard from again, an email list allows you the opportunity for personalized feedback and engagement with a definable individual.

Marketing Strategies that Work for Membership Sites

Along with Facebook Adverts, another avenue for marketing is webinars. Weekly live webinars can be an excellent way to capture signups and engage with a whole new audience. Although this can be a time consuming endeavor, the potential increase in revenue may make the arduous task worth it in the end.

Conclusion

If you are looking for an effective way to get ongoing content out to a dedicated audience that you would like to grow then a you should definitely consider a membership site. Membership sites allow you to create community spaces, create new opportunities for your online course, and ultimately grow your revenue.

How to Pick the Perfect LMS - the pros and cons of using self hosted or independent software for your online courses

Download the "Pick the Perfect LMS" Checklist

For daily tips on running membership sites you can sign up to Member Up’s email list memberup.co/list Visit memberup.co/online/course for book discounts for listeners to The Online Course Coach Podcast and use coupon code "Memberzen".

Watch the Online Course Quick Tip Videos here.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Do you have a hub for all your content, blogs, promotions and courses? One of the most important pieces of your online business is your website. It's your hub and where everything should be focussed, even if you don't host courses on your website. I get a lot of questions about WordPress and thought I’d address a lot of them in this podcast. That way it can be a resource, so feel free to share it out.

Download My Guide of Recommended WordPress Themes, Plugins and Themes

Your website is your home base

Regarless if you use your website to host your online courses, your website should be where everything starts. And WordPress is my recommended website platform. WordPress is flexible, easy to use and allows you to control your home base, even if you don't host your online courses there. You can blog, share videos, post podcasts, give course promotions and share it all out to your social media channels.

Good hosting vs. cheap hosting

A bad hosting provider and cost you in many ways even if you think it is priced cheaply. It can cause your website to slow down dramatically, increase the risk of getting hacked and many other issues that you are not even aware of. Being on cheap hosting, which generally means you are on shared hosting is like being in an apartment complex. You don't know who your neighbors are and what nefarious things they are doing. Shared hosting is the same way in that you might have the same server as hundreds of other people and you don't know what they are doing.

Themes versus plugins

At the very Foundation of Wordpress are two things that are very important. The job of a theme is to give the overall layout, and design of your website and nothing else. The role of a plug-in is to give you increased functionality. This might be something like a form, slider, or any other thing that helps make your website more functional. A common mistake I see is when people purchase a theme for their website but it also includes things that I plug in should handle. So they're theme might include things like short codes, sliders and many other things. but this is a bad thing because when you want to change to a different theme your website will break because you will lose all the functionality that was built into that specific theme. That's why you want your themes and plugins to be different.

Cheap themes versus paid themes

While there are thousands of free themes in the WordPress theme directory I prefer using paid themes. I want to ensure that there is a developer that is getting paid for his work which means they will include support updates and other benefits in the future. By only going with a free theme you don't know if there will be a bug in it that will never get fixed. So it's worth the investment of purchasing a paid theme. I like the Genesis framework by Studiopress And have built many websites both for myself and my clients with this theme. When thinking of new themes make sure to read reviews, ratings, and see when they were last updated. That way you know if the developer continues to improve the theme or if the developer released it but are not interested in supporting it in the future.

Download My Guide of Recommended WordPress Themes, Plugins and Themes

My Recommended Plugins for Online Course Creators

Plug-in Repository

This is the best place to find free plug-ins. They are all vetted by WordPress but still read the reviews, ratings and when they were last updated to ensure that it will work with your version of Wordpress and that it is reliable to use on your website. Well I have many paid plugins that I highly recommend I still use many free plug-ins that I find directly in the plug-in repository. I don't recommend finding free plug-ins outside of the plug-in repository unless you know exactly what you're looking for and how to find quality plugins by a reputable developer.

Backupbuddy

this is my favorite plug in and a must-have if you are running a business with your website. It allows you to back up your website two places that are not on your server like Amazon S3 and Dropbox. The key thing to remember with a backup plugin is that you need to know how to restore a backup once you need to. I find that some of the free or cheap back up plugins are very difficult to restore from the back up when needed. So it's well worth the money for me to purchase this plug-in.

iThemes security pro

This is another must have plug-in since there are constantly hackers trying to attack your website. This plug-in allows you to monitor the health of your website and block people that want to hack into your website. It is simple to setup and use.

Gravity forms

This is another premium plug-in but it is one of my favorite plugins and I use it on all my websites. It allows you to create customized forms. So whether you want to create a contact form or customize something for your students this is the best form builder available today.

Leadpages plugin for WordPress

I highly recommend Leadpages for building simple landing pages and sales pages and this plug-in makes it easy to install on your website and create a custom URL that allows you to send students to your landing pages.

Yoast SEO

This is a free plug-in but is one of the best available. It gives you a grade based on your SEO score. This plug-in has been around for awhile so it is very stable and one of the most downloaded plugins for WordPress.

PrettyLink

I recommend creating shareable URLs for your content and in order to do that this plug-in allows you to quickly and easily create short sthatredirectbacktoyourcontent.thisisperfectforblogging,podcasting,videos, course promotions and anything else that you create and want to share.

Bluberry power press for podcasting

I love podcasting and have used this plug-in on many websites over the years. It's easy to set up a podcast.

Disqus for commenting

While most people have become accustomed to commenting via Facebook I still recommend the website allows comments on your blogs. this will help build your community and keep people on your website so you can continue to teach them and add more value.

Learning management system plugins for WordPress

While there are many third-party solutions that offer a software-as-a-service I highly recommend having your course hosted within your website. While it does mean you have to be a little more technical the benefit is that you pay for the plugin once and perhaps update the license each year but you don't have to pay an on-going monthly fee or a fee per transaction like you do with many software-as-a-service solutions.

LearnDash

This is one of my favorite learning management system plugins. They are always creating new Integrations and features. Plus, they are highly invested in the WordPress Community as well as the education sector. Listen to my interview with the LearnDash creator here.

LifterLMS

This is another good solution especially if you want something free to begin with. They do offer paid upgrades and Integrations but this might be a good first step if you want to test the waters of your online course. Listen to my interview with the LifterLMS creator here.

WPCourseware

If you don't need a lot of bells and whistles end this plugin is a great solution.

Download My Guide of Recommended WordPress Themes, Plugins and Themes

Do you struggle with building your audience, influence and email list? I created a strategy for using Facebook Live Videos that will not only grow your audience on Facebook, but it will also send traffic to your website and build your email list.

7 Ways to Use Facebook Live Videos to Grow Your Audience

Before we get to the content, I want to get YOUR thoughts. I was planning my next free mini-courses that I want to create but I want to know what YOU need me to create first. I have several great ideas that I’m excited to do but I want to know which items you would like me to create first. I’ll be taking the top vote and creating that mini-course first and giving it away to you. Go to onlinecoursecoach.com/survey to tell me what I should make first. Additionally, as a thank you, I’m giving away my free guide called, “The DIY Video Studio Guide”. It gives my recommended gear and software to create easy videos. Facebook has said that video content will get more traction and favor throughout their platform, and Facebook Live Video is no different. If you haven’t seen any of my live videos, go to onlinecoursecoach.com/facebooklive where you can first, “like” my page so you can get alerts each week when I go live.

1. Start by Creating Your First Facebook Live Video

I recommend creating a short video each week where you give tips and resources to build your credibility and promote your online course. The key is to keep it under 5 minutes. I personally only watch short Facebook Live videos and I’m guessing most people do the same thing. So don’t feel pressure to make these long pieces of content. Have your videos be at the same day and time each week. I do every Tuesday at 2pm EST for the Online Course QuickTip Tuesday. Ask your audience to engage, but know that if you have a small audience it will take a while of promoting it to get any traction. I use Ecamm Live to schedule my FB Live videos, add graphics and make it look more professional…but you can use your iPhone or the Facebook app.

2. Create giveaways, checklists, and content that you give away to grow your email list

It’s one thing to get video views on Facebook, but how do you get them to your website or build your email list? By creating supplemental content you will greatly benefit them and grow your email list. This will allow you to contact them to give additional content and even sell your course. The key is to create a system that automatically delivers the bonus content without you having to manually send it. I created a video tutorial on the exact steps and services I use to set up each giveaway, and it only takes a few minutes to set everything up. And it’s even easier to duplicate for each new piece of bonus content you give away. Go to onlinecoursecoach.com/freeguidesetup

3. Put the videos on your website

It’s one thing to take the time to create the Facebook Live Videos, but you should also leverage this video by embedding it onto your website. Simply grab the code from the Facebook video and add that to a new blog post on your website. I have a category on my website that has all my FB Live videos. You can see it at onlinecoursecoach.com/videos

4. Download them and put them on your Youtube channel

Now that you’ve create amazing video content and put it on your website, you can also download the HD video from Facebook and then upload to your YouTube channel. This will help with your SEO. Additionally, a different audience will watch the videos on your YouTube channel that wouldn’t have seen them on your website or Facebook. Plus, this only takes a fe minutes to do…so why not do it!?!

5. Create a podcast from each Facebook Live Video

You can take the video and make a video podcast as well as an audio podcast, by simply stripping out the audio. You’ll reach a new audience that watch or listen to podcasts. However, keep in mind that you might be showing people or interacting with your audience on the FB Live video so it it might seem strange if you have it as an audio podcast and are asking your audience to “comment below”, like you would in your FB Live video.

6. Use this to market your upcoming course launch

While I don’t recommend that you only use these Live videos to promote your courses, it is a way to grow your audience and trust. So don’t be afraid to occasionally promote your material. Let’s say you are launching your course in 3 months. I recommend doing a Live video each week but barely mentioning your upcoming course launching during the first month. You may want to do a brief promo during month two. And then in the third month you may want to do a behind the scenes or showcase the benefits of your course. Just make sure you’re adding value with any Facebook Live video that you do.

7. Use the Facebook Live videos as Facebook Ads

While there are many ways you can promote your Facebook Live Videos, start to get comfortable by “boosting the post”. You can also use these strategies:

1. Create an ad from your FB Live Video that only people who “like” your page will see
2. An ad that only people who visited your website will see
3. Create an ad based on age, device, income, location or interests
4. Create a custom audience for anyone who watches at least 20% of a video and send that audience additional videos

If you want to learn how to use Facebook Ads to promote your Live videos and courses, go to onlinecoursecoach.com/fbads to sign up for the course. While there are many other ways to leverage the power of Facebook Live Video, here are 7 to start with. The key is to get started and get comfortable. And the only way to do that is to practice. You’ll only get better and if you have a smaller audience then you can grow in your skill level as your audience and influence grows. Whether you want to make better online course videos or Facebook Live videos, go watch this free video to learn my tips for being on camera. So get started today.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

I get the opportunity to talk to a lot of people about their courses. From my podcast guests, to coaching clients, to online educators, many of them tell the same story of success and failures. And many times the failures could have been minimized or avoided altogether. Here are 3 reasons why your online course isn't successful and how to fix it.

I am working on creating some free mini-courses but want YOUR input. I have several good ideas but want to know if you need this content too. I’ll be taking the top vote and creating that course first and giving it away to you. Go HERE to fill out the short (2 minute) survey. As a thank you, I’m giving away my free guide called, “The DIY Video Studio Guide”. It gives you my recommended gear of how to set up a mini-studio for your course videos and where to buy it.

Knowing The WHY of Your Online Course

I was at my mastermind group in Nashville last with with friends like, Dan Miller, Aaron Walker, Jevonnah Ellison, Jim Cockrum and others are in the group. We talked about our "Why". My passion is leveraging technology to teach online and my superpower is helping create effective online course videos. My why is not about teaching you how to become a better internet marketer, but how to get to know your students better, be a better teacher, teach effectively online and promote your course without feeling icky. That's why my tagline at the end of the podcast is, "helping you, to teach many, to impact millions. I want to start a movement with online education that blends entrepreneurship, education and technology. Here are the 2 videos from Simon Sinek and his Ted Talk about starting with Why.

• https://www.ted.com/talks/simon_sinek_how_great_leaders_inspire_action
• https://youtu.be/IPYeCltXpxw

3 Reasons Why Your Online Course Isn't Successful and How to Fix It

These are all things that I’ve seen with my coaching clients and have experienced them myself. We get excited when people talk about their success with their course but if you haven’t done the work up front, you won’t have the success later.

1. You don't have a large audience, email list or influence

If you don’t know your why, I believe you won't reach the level of success that you want. Your course isn't (or shouldn't) just be about making more money. It’s (should be) about the impact you have with your students, the influence you are creating and the life change that should happen in their lives. But if you don't have an audience, email list or influence it's going to be VERY HARD to sell your online course. Just because you have a great idea for a course or have the experience to create one doesn't guarantee success, in fact, I can almost guarantee limited success without a good following. If you don't have a large audience, email list or influence, start today to grow your email list. I have a podcast coming up that talks about specific ways a course creator can grow their list. Subscribe to the podcast to download it when it comes out.

2. You haven't surveyed your audience and don't know what they truly want

3. You haven’t put any marketing or promotions into it

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Who doesn't love a monster, created or robot in the movies? Now you can go toThe Stan Winston School of Character Arts to learn how to create these yourself with their webinars and online courses. I've always loved big, blockbuster movies like Jurassic Park, The Terminator movies and more! And, I've known about Stan Winston through the countless DVD special features I've watched over the years. So when I was able to have Matt Winston on the podcast to talk about how a Hollywood practical effects master teaches online courses I was elated. Matt talks about creativity and how his team plans the course content. While they have the names of famous movies to help market and promote their courses, they still do a lot with social media marketing. I was impressed with how personable Matt is and devoted he is to the online training community. It's not just a way for him to make money, but a way to teach the next generation how to make physical effects for movies and television. And more important than that, it's a way for him to extend the legacy of his father, the late (and great) Stan Winston.

Click Here to Watch "7 Tips to Create Better Online Course Videos"

Matt Winston's bio

About Stan Winston and The School of Character Arts

For over 40 years, the name Stan Winston has been synonymous with iconic fantasy characters, including the killer cyborgs of The TERMINATOR series, the extraterrestrial monstrosities of ALIENS, the alien hunter from the PREDATOR series, the prehistoric giants from the JURASSIC PARK films, and the iconic suits from IRON MAN. By relentlessly pushing the limits of art, technology & imagination, Stan Winston Studio continually set new standards of excellence and innovation for character creators worldwide. After Stan's untimely passing in 2008, the Winston family founded Stan Winston School of Character Arts to preserve Stan's legacy by inspiring and fostering creativity in a new generation of character creators. Through connecting the world's finest artists and technicians with students worldwide, our mission is to empower aspiring artists and technical wizards to push the boundaries of character creation for years to come.

• Nominated for 10 Academy awards and won 4
• Known for Terminator series, Aliens, the first 2 Predator films, Jurassic Park 1-3, Iron Man
• The Stan Winston School of Character Arts
• Instructors have 24 Academy nominations with 12 Academy awards
• Stan and his company have worked with James Cameron, Steven Spielberg and more!

Questions for Matt Winston:

1. With a background as fantastic as your father’s, how was it growing up to get a front row seat as Stan developed characters for the Terminator series, Aliens, Jurassic Park and many more?
2. Since Jurassic Park is one of my favorite movies and I know you were able to work on set with the all the live action dinosaurs, do you have a favorite memory about that movie and how it was created? \
3. You’ve been in some very popular films and television shows like Fight Club, Little Miss Sunshine, Scrubs and Star Trek Enterprise. Why did you decide to start the Stan Winston School of Character Arts?
4. Take us behind the scenes of these courses, how many people does it take to produce a single course, like how many camera operators, writers, etc or is it a simple operation?
5. Do you have a template you follow to create each course for the online school?
6. Since many of the courses deal with creating a monster or effect while learning from the instructor, how did you remove the barriers to entry so users can not only follow along online but also use the same materials as the instructors use?
7. What lessons have you learned with creating your courses?
8. What types of marketing do you do?
9. What would you tell someone who wants to start an online school that’s as ambitious as The Stan Winston School of Character Arts?

Click Here to Watch "7 Tips to Create Better Online Course Videos"

Self hosted LMS options vs hosted LMS options - the pros and cons of using either learning management system for your online course

All Learning Management Systems should include the following:

• It should teach well
• Allow you to communicate with your students before, during and after the course. Some of this is done with email, social media and other channels and some of it should be done within the LMS
• Make it easy for the student to learn
• Have the ability to use video, audio, images and text to teach your students

But remember, an LMS isn’t a one size fits all and there are new LMS providers emerging each year.

Self Hosted LMS Options using WordPress:

• Listen to my interview with Cory Miller of iThemes on why WordPress is best for creating online courses
• LearnDash - Listen to my interview with the owner of LearnDash
• LifterLMS - Listen to my interview with the owner of LifterLMS
• Sensei
• WPCourseware

All-In-One LMS (SAAS) Options:

• Teachable - Listen to my interview with Teachable
• Thinkific
• Ruzuku - Listen to my interview with the owner of Ruzuku

7 Ways To Pick The Perfect LMS for Your Online Course

1. What is your Your technical level?

• Do you want to build it yourself, hire someone to do it or use a platform with templates. This will help you know what direction to go.

2. Would you rather  pay monthly or per sale vs up front?

If you’re just starting out, you may want to find a cheaper alternative, but don’t sell yourself short. If you plan on making this a business, then you need to treat it like one. Don’t shy away from an LMS just because it’s expensive. Keep in mind the all in one solutions pay for hosting, security, updates, support and more. If you build it on WordPress, you pay a minimal fee for plugins, some of which are annually, but you get the support community of those plugins and the flexibility of creating your website and learning management system all within your website.

3. Do you want to customize everything about your course or you’re happy with what the LMS allows?

• Is the LMS you're looking at easy to create the course itself?
• Are there options for payment gateways (Stripe, PayPal, etc)?
• How much can you or a developer modify the html or css?
• Can it be on your domain easily?

4. How easy it is to get your content in and out?

There's nothing worse than going "all in" with a learning management system and then it goes out of business or doesn't innovate.

5. Are you able to monitor the student’s progress throughout their learning path?

If you can track the student's path throughout their course, then you can engage with them, congratulate them and help them learn faster.

6. Does it offer various learning styles (self directed, scheduled group learning, hybrid, offline, etc)

The type of online course you want to create should be compatible with your LMS.

7. What features and integrations does it have? (The more the better)

• Does it have payment gateways like Stripe or Paypal
• Quizzes and tests
• Membership systems
• Zappier
• Email marketing platforms (if build in, how easy is it to customize student emails before, during and after the course)
• Google Analytics and Facebook pixel
• Landing pages like LeadPages
• Coupons
• Badges and gamification
• Video hosting (built in or 3rd party)
• Certificates
• Mobile friendly (especially if your audience is mobile first)
• Is it white labeled?
• Does it look attractive?
• Are forums built in or do you use 3rd party solutions?
• Does it have an affiliate program to market your course to other affiliates?
• Lesson timers
• Selling options - one time, subscription, memberships, course bundles

Would you like an in depth coaching session on how to pick the right LMS for your online course? Fill out the form below and we'll set up a coaching session. 

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Meet Facebook Ads Expert Jon Loomer, The ‘Accidental’ Marketer and Online Course Creator. He shares his experience with, tips on, and insights into both marketing itself and online training, he calls himself an “accidental marketer” and revealed that he started providing online courses just to see how’d it go. Despite being a successful Facebook marketing coach, author, speaker, and strategist, he didn’t set out to be a marketer at first. His first “real job” after graduating from college was as a telemarketer. But he was always uncomfortable doing it. “Any sales-related job I’ve ever had I absolutely hated it.” he said. He was “hung up” on sales people, whom he considered as “deceptive.” A self-confessed honest person by nature, he didn’t see himself as a sales person at all. Even though he didn’t like sales people in general and never took a business course, he got good at sales. He moved up along the corporate ladder and landed a high-ranking job working as Senior Manager at Fantasy Games for the National Basketball Association (NBA) in 2007. This was when he was first exposed to Facebook. The NBA partnered with the social media giant to create its Facebook group and an app. He was the admin of the group. His first major job involved marketing, but he didn’t realize it at the time. Nevertheless, he became so good in it that the person who hired him at the NBA suggested he apply for the job of VP at Strategic Marketing for the American Cancer Society Great West Division when he moved on from the league. He did. He oversaw all of the digital marketing planning, experimentation, piloting and execution in his division, including social media strategies, email marketing, Facebook applications, and mobile application development and strategies. He also led the development of the first ever ACS iPhone app, More Birthdays. In the fall of 2011, he decided to use his expertise in Facebook marketing to start his very own business, "Jon Loomer Digital", with the goal of “helping other businesses maximize social media that makes a difference." In less than two years, he built a profitable, self-branded business around JonLoomer.com, his very own website that serves as the most complete online resource of advanced Facebook marketing tips and tutorials which is updated almost every day. His site has been just as successful. Not only has it gained over four million page views, Social Media Examiner recognized it in January of 2013 as among the top 10 social media blogs of the year. In February of 2014, he decided to start his very own online training program. Despite having a thriving business and a popular website, getting into online training scared him. He was unsure and worried that no one would take his training program. He didn’t know how he was going to do it. He didn’t know if there were any legal issues he needed to be aware of. He stressed over all of the uncertainties until the day he decided to send his email list of 5,000 people a message with a PayPal link asking whether they would pay for his training program in advance. More than 1,000 of them did. Fast forward into the present, he now has the Power Hitters Club (PHC), a growing online community for Facebook marketers to share, learn, and help one another. To better serve his community, he’s working on turning PHC into three websites:

1. PHC Basic for first-time Facebook marketers
2. PHC Elite for seasoned professional Facebook marketers
3. A website for entrepreneurs

Jon Loomer’s Tips for Facebook Marketers and Online Trainers

Build a long-term relationship with your audience instead of just selling to them.

Having been in business for 10 years now, Jon has learned that people really respond to transparency and not being pushy. Being able to convince someone to buy something now gets you money right away, but it doesn’t let you build a genuine connection with the customer where you gain his trust. Without it, there’s no guaranteeing he’ll buy from you again and again and again or promote your business. An effective way you can gain your audience’s trust is by providing them with helpful content without expecting anything in return. It shows how sincere you are to help, encouraging them to put their confidence in you.

Promote your product(s) or service(s) to people you know

Selling to strangers his hard. Increase your chances of making a sale by promoting your product(s) or service(s) to people who have shown interest in them. They include those who have visited your website, signed up to your newsletter or online program, or liked or shared your content.

Be in it for the long haul

Whether you’re doing a Facebook campaign, providing an online course, or both, know that seeing results takes time. It requires a lot of work. For example: Jon has been writing a blog post every week for over five years now. He writes the content and promotes it to the people who have visited his website by sharing it to his social networks and email list. When they visit his website, a lot of them subscribe to his email list or like his Facebook page. He didn’t achieve this overnight. He only saw results after repeating the process and making tweaks until he got it right.

Learn as much as you can about targeting

Before marketers targeted potential customers based on such general information as age and location because these were what they could get. Now there are tools that can give you much more granular information on your audience. On Facebook you can target the people who:

• Have visited your website
• A specific page or section
• Engaged with your posts
• Watched your video(s)

Having such specific information lets you send your audience a very specific message based on their actions, instead of blasting everyone and hoping someone responds, improving your chance at getting a positive response.

Find out what works for you

Jon started online training by offering static courses. Everything went well until the members of his community complained that the content was outdated. Facebook and Facebook marketing change so much so fast, so he started offering live trainings that he can tweak every month to keep up. This and membership have completely changed his business for the better. If you’re just starting out with Facebook marketing, run three campaigns:

1. One campaign promoting your content that’s useful and helpful with no strings attached to build your audience
2. One campaign building your email list of the people who have visited your website
3. One campaign promoting your product(s) or service(s) to the people who have subscribed to your email list or visited your website

At first, focus most of your budget on your target audience who don’t know you yet. As your connections, network, or following grows as more and more people visit your website or get included in your email list, start shifting your budget to them.

Last Take-Away

Looking back, Jon learned how important it was for him to figure out what he was good at, what he was passionate about, what he wasn’t good at, what he hated to do, and what is really the reason he was doing everything he was doing—his wife and three kids. These are the driving factors for his business, pointing to even more success for him in the future. Aside from JonLoomer.com, you can connect with Jon through Facebook and Twitter.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Whether you’re a first-time speaker or a seasoned expert who delivers keynote speeches, no matter your field or niche, you can help more people and create more income through your very own online course. Here are strategies to pick your topic and ideas to create online courses from free to top-tier. There is only so much valuable, useful information you can give your audience within an average 30-minute or 1-hour talk. If you have more knowledge to share, instead of limiting yourself to each live speaking session, you can start by offering virtual coaching. Doing so lets you easily make your additional, supplementary or complementary content or lessons available to your audience virtually anytime, anywhere. You have more for back-of-room sales After speaking you can make a majority of your money with selling relevant products and is common practice for speakers as an additional revenue stream.

Common ways a speaker can sell product at the back of the room:

• Your book(s)
• Training modules
• Workbooks
• Audio CDs
• DVD videos
• Branded items like tee shirts, coffee mugs, and other items that have slogans or other sayings that match the topics of the talk
• Online Courses

While it may seem easy for someone who is already a speaker, you can become an industry expert by following these steps. And who knows maybe you'll go from doing free speeches to being paid top dollar to deliver keynote addresses to large audiences.

How to build yourself as a public speaker:

1. Claim and master your topic. After you master 1 topic, then you can diversify and add additional topics
2. Make sure you already love this topic and are always learning about it.
3. Choose a topic you already love to do
4. Think about what you've always wanted to learn.
5. What have you been through in life and have succeeded out of struggle
6. Choose a topic you're willing to live and speak about for the next 5 years

Why a speaker should create online courses?

By having your own online courses, you can increase your influence and impact to your audience. You can also benefit from these 6 things.

• You can continue serving their audience
• It creates residual income
• It gives you something else for back of the room sales
• It has a higher perceived value then a book, DVD series, etc.
• It keeps you top of mind to your audience, even after you leave the event
• It builds you as an industry leader

5 types of online courses a speaker can create to leverage their business

While there are many types of online courses you can create, here are 5 that you should consider, from free to top-tier.

1. A simple free text based course

Do you think an online course has to be complex to make and deliver to your audience? A simple text or sms based course that you send out every day or week that is easily readable by your audience may be a good start.

2. A free mini online course on your website

I highly recommend that you create something of value to get people to give you their email address and a freed mini course is the best way to go. A free mini-course delivers high value to your audience but is simple for them to go through.  Carrie Wilkerson of the Barefoot Executive has a free 7 day business blitz video series that walks the viewer how to be more productive. I highly recommend you go through it to learn from her and see how simple a mini-course is. I produced the videos for her mini course.

3. A cheap paid online course

Have a cheaper paid course that fills in the gaps to your talk. Think of it as an expanded version of your talk. Surely you can't give all the information in your 30-60 minute talk, why not create a course that's under $97 that you can offer on stage or at the back of the room? A basic, paid course is best for offering your audience the information pertaining to your live talks that you weren’t able to discuss. Think of it as an expanded version of your in-person speaking sessions that fills in the gaps. It can be a five-series, five-chapter or five module course where you explain more.

4. Middle-range paid online course

This type of course is more valuable than a basic, paid course. A middle-range course teaches your audience a new concept that’s related to your talks. Consider it as a movie sequel. For example, if you discuss self-motivation in your basic-paid course further, you can talk about how to turn positive thoughts into action in your middle range course. The ideas are endless because once you have your main topics you speak about on stage you can create additional material that can be easily updated and improved with any of your online courses.

5. A Top-tier paid online course

A top-tier course is the most valuable type of paid online course you can offer. It features more content, giving your audience a richer online learning experience than a basic, paid course or a middle-range course. It can include a copy of your book or merchandise, a number or group coaching sessions and access to a private Facebook group. Think about how to add the most value which will allow you to increase the price on this top-tiered course. You can offer more valuable content than most other types of content. Just make sure that you aren't creating more work for yourself with monitoring a private Facebook group or coaching calls. Think of ways to streamline and create value while reducing your time commitment.   Being able to give your audience even more content ensures their learning experience is satisfying. You stay at the top of your audience’s mind. An online course can be described as an intimate way to engage your audience. Unlike a live speaking session, where you communicate with them as a group, watching and listening to an online video of you giving a talk at the comfort of their home makes each of them feel as if you’re teaching only him or her. You can even make it interactive by letting them leave comments and replying. Taking your online course this way makes it much more personal, letting you create a deeper connection with your audience. Since they can access your videos whenever they want, they are more likely to keep you in mind than speakers who don’t have an online course. Having an online course also positions you as more of an industry leader. Credibility is one of the factors that dictates whether you succeed as a speaker. You won’t make any progress without earning the trust of your audience. While giving live talks still works, having an online course is now more effective given its accessibility, reach and the rapidly increasing number of netizens who are also potential students. As long as you offer the best content possible and make as many meaningful connections as you can, you’ll gain a following and become recognized or popular in your field or niche. Listen to other Online Course Coach Podcast interviews with acclaimed speakers Dan Miller - How Dan Miller uses online courses and digital products Tom Ziglar - Selling Tips and Building Ziglar on Demand Jane Atkinson - How speakers can leverage their knowledge with online courses Michael Kitces - Innovative Membership Sites Grant Baldwin - How speaker can create online courses   These are only a few examples of how a speaker can leverage the power of an online course. If you would like to learn more about my coaching packages, please contact me below. I would love to help you create additional revenue streams for your speaking business! Simply go to OnlineCourseCoach.com to fill out the contact form.

Please help us bring more content to the masses by subscribing to the podcast here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/itunesapp Leave a review here: http://onlinecoursecoach.com/review

Almost everybody wants to start their own business, like an online course. Take Millennials in the USA, who now outnumber the Baby Boomers, for example. A 2015 Bentley University survey of this generation revealed that 66 percent of the respondents “have a desire to start their own business,” 37 percent “would like to work for themselves,” and 25 percent “would like to own their own company.” However, as of 2013, only 3.6 percent of all businesses in the country were owned by someone under 30, according to Forbes Contributor Jared Mayer in his July 20, 2015 article on this topic. This comes as a surprise to us, considering entrepreneurs make more than employees. In fact, there are online course creators or coaches who are making tens of thousands of dollars per month, but more importantly they've impacted and helped their students! If you have not yet acted on your idea for an online course, now is as a good a time as any to take stock and ask yourself, "why haven’t I gotten started"? If you don’t know how or where to start, you think you don’t have enough time to do it, or you’re worried about failing, stop worrying over being stuck anymore, because it just takes three easy steps that are all focused on visualization. Visualization is mankind’s powerful way of creating a mental image of things we want to see or have that we are yet to reach or attain, like our goals. Indeed, visualization enabled the residents of the Marshall Islands learn to navigate the surrounding waters by canoe in the daytime 500 years ago—without looking to the stars as guides. By harnessing your visualization capabilities with our surprisingly simple 3-step exercise, we’re more than confident that you’ll be able to successfully kick off your online course.

The first step is determining want you want to achieve with your online course.

Are you trying to teach a certain number of students? Are you trying to build your very own platform? Do you want to make a certain amount of money each month? Knowing for sure what you want to get out of your online course makes focusing on it easier—significantly improving your chances of keeping at it even if the going gets rough. The most effective way of visualizing that goal is not coming up with just one but three: an easy goal; a slightly harder goal; and a big, hairy, audacious goal. Breaking up your main goal—launching your very own online course—into three makes it easier to achieve by dividing the difficulty of succeeding into levels. Say your easy goal is getting 10 students; your slightly harder goal is getting 100 students; and your big, hairy, audacious goal is guesting on podcasts as a thought leader. By achieving your two easier goals, not only have you succeeded at launching your online course; you already have the experience, credibility and confidence to go after your big, hairy, audacious goal. Now that you have a clear idea of what your goals are for your online course...

The next step is coming up with a strategy for your online course.

You can create a detailed action plan to launch your online course, put dates of completion for each item (i.e., creating the course itself; choosing a web host; creating graphics, or hiring someone to create these; shooting the videos; etc.) and allot budgets for them. Creating a detailed action plan ensures you are on the right path and you can get back to it if you veer off course by simply reviewing your plan. Setting a deadline for each item of your plan (e.g., 6 months or 1 year) ensures you accomplish them in a reasonable amount of time. You will need to spend some money for tools to create stunning graphics, tools to shoot engaging videos and coaching.

The last step is getting rid of the negative thoughts or behaviors that have you stuck.

If you do not have enough time to create your online course, you can begin clearing up your schedule by lessening the time you spend on your low-priority tasks and doing away with your tasks that are not important at all. If you do not know how to go about doing an important part of the process, like marketing or reaching out to potential partners and affiliates, start reading up on it, or get help from a professional. Launching an online course is a very rewarding business to start. Yet many are discouraged from doing it, assuming it’s harder than they can handle. Actually, achieving success hinges largely on how well you can visualize the goal and how committed you are to it by removing the things that are preventing you from your life. By knowing for certain what your goal is, figuring out the best way to arrive at it and ridding yourself of the obstacles, you’ll succeed.