How I Got Paid $8k To Create My First Online Course

#47: Imagine making $8,000 before even creating your online course – sounds too good to be true, right? Well, that's exactly what I did, and in this episode, I'm spilling the beans on how I pulled it off. Listen in as I reveal my sell-first-create-second strategy, which I believe is the ultimate game-changer for busy service providers and freelancers looking to launch a successful online course. 

In this episode, I share: 

• The power of accountability and validation to step out of your procrastination and into creation mode. 
  
  
• Tips on crafting a solid outline to gain clarity on your course content.
  
  
• The benefits of teaching your course live for valuable real-time feedback and how it can help you see great success with the online course business model. 

Don't miss this chance to learn how to turn your expertise into a lucrative freedom-based business with online courses.

So, what are you waiting for? Tune in now.

Book your very own 30 minute Launch Game Plan Session here: https://www.louiseblakely.com/gameplan

Enjoy the episode,
Lou xx

View the shownotes here: https://www.louiseblakely.com/47

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Welcome to the online course creator show. I'm Lou Blakely, a launch strategist who helps female online entrepreneurs and, more specifically, freelancers and service providers, turn their knowledge into a profitable freedom-based business with online courses. In today's episode, i'm going behind the scenes and sharing with you a story for my own online course adventure. Now, before I dive into the episode today, i wanted to personally invite you to book in for a free 30-minute launch game plan call. If you're thinking about creating an online course or you just want to grow your existing online course and you'd like some advice and direction, we'll get together on Zoom and map out your game plan to achieve your goals. Sounds good? Great, you can book in at louislakelycom. Now let's get into today's episode. So I'm sharing the story of how I got paid $8,000 to create my first ever online course. So in 2017, i launched my first online course and I hadn't even created the course yet. I made $8,000, i think it was slightly more than that like $8,300 in sales during that first launch, which confirmed to me that people wanted this product. So then I created it with full confidence that it was worthwhile, because I had validated it in the best way possible, which was people actually paying for it, which told me that there was a demand for this product. Now, i think that it's the best way of validating a product because people have actually spent money on it. There is no better way to know if there is demand for your product, like sure, we can do the market research in the world, but to me that is the best way. So then, only after I had done the launch and seen that people wanted it, that there was demand for it and actually been paid up front for it, it was then that I actually started creating it With full confidence that the time that goes into creating a course was going to be worthwhile, because courses take time to create, as I'm sure you know. So this experience led me to believe that, without a doubt, the best way to create an online course as a busy service provider or freelancer is to sell it first and create it second.

Speaker 1: 2:31

And at that time, i was exactly where you may be today. I was a busy, booked out, feeling burned out service provider. I was a digital marketing professional who freelancers, who worked with a bunch of different clients, and I was busy. Okay, and this is the way that I took to create an online course, and I wouldn't do it any other way now. Because, honestly, if I hadn't done this this way, how many years later is it? It's like six years, seven years later. That's actually really hard to believe. Maybe it's six. Yeah, i would still be thinking about it. I promise you, if I had not done it this way Now, you might be thinking like why would I do that? You know that sounds crazy. Some people think it's not ethical And I disagree with every single one of those thoughts.

Speaker 1: 3:29

There's so many reasons in favour of selling the course first and then creating it second. Firstly, if you're already busy whether you're actually liking that busyness or not, i know I surely wasn't I'm willing to bet that you want to create an online course. You've already scheduled it in at least once, or made some kind of plan like in the next 90 days I'm going to do this. But then you didn't actually start. I hear you. This was me too.

Speaker 1: 3:59

Procrastination is the number one reason most course ideas never come to fruition. They never actually become the course, they never turn into a real thing. So if you sell first, you have customers waiting for it. You absolutely have to create it. Accountability at its peak, i think, like when people are waiting for it. You will do whatever it takes to get it out there, and I know you that you are the type of person who will do whatever it takes. Now, the second reason it works really well is you may have a course idea, but you're not really sure if people want it and will pay for it. So putting it out there and gauging the reaction is the best form of validation there is, as I spoke about earlier, because paying customers they're the best. No, paying customers after you've put an offer out there means that you can go back to the drawing board without having to waste months creating a course that no one wanted in the first place. Doesn't that sound refreshing? Now, this is an easy decision.

Speaker 1: 5:05

If you put an offer out there and you get no buyers, like it's a no brainer will know and wants it. But what if you got one to two buyers? Is it still worth it versus? like you know, i think with my online course, i think I had maybe about 13 or 14 people that bought it the first time around. I can't quite remember, but if I had one or two, i think I still would have gone ahead and created it. But if I had none, then there's no way I'd create it. And the reason that I would go ahead with one or two, like some people will tell you, do not create a course that only has one or two buyers. But if you've got a small audience, like I did, then actually one or two can is quite reasonable when it comes to like conversion rates and that kind of thing. So if you've got a teeny tiny audience, then yes, i would continue. If you've got a large audience and by large I mean, say, over 5000 people on your email list and your conversion rate is well below 1%, then I would actually at that point say, ok, this offer does not have legs and I'd refund them and move on to a better idea. I would actually find out from my audience what they actually do want.

Speaker 1: 6:19

Now the third reason that selling your online course first and then creating it, the third reason that this is so such a good strategy is you can create your course in confidence, in real time, with your best audience, the people who have just brought off you your buyers. They are right there in it with you. You can even teach it live. So instead of pre-recording all of the modules, you can do live calls on Zoom, like maybe once a week everyone comes, you present the lesson, ask if they've got any questions and then upload that particular recording into your course portal as the lesson. But it's like version one, right? You can even go through that a few times, so you do version one, version two, version three before you actually start to see what questions are people asking. Where are they getting stuck? What do they need extra time on? What maybe in your content is confusing them rather than helping them? And once you get that feedback and you notice where those patterns are, you can continually make your content even better. And then you can pre-record the final version that goes in the course portal. That will be there for the future rounds, right? So that is actually a really good way to do it. You do not need to do that live, though. If that doesn't appeal to you. You can pre-record and then work out a way to get feedback as people move through the program. However, the live teaching it live is a great option, because the success of your online course in the long term really depends on the results you are able to get for your students. So this process of teaching it live with real-time feedback is going to become a massive advantage for you, and it's something that I would really only consider if you have not even started with creating your online course yet.

Speaker 1: 8:14

Now there are a few things you need to know for this to work. Firstly, you need to have a solid outline, like you need to. It needs to be comprehensive. You need to know what goes where. You need to know exactly what is going to be inside this course. So spending time getting super clear on exactly what is inside your course before you go into launch mode the first time is key. Now you need to be very, very clear on this so that you can share it with your students, so they know what they're buying right, like no one's going to buy a course when they don't know what's inside. It's also going to give you the confidence to launch it well when you've got that clarity of what you know inside. And it also stops you from over committing, because I find that if that time is not spent on creating a really solid outline, then you can kind of go into the launch just winging it a little bit and say, yes, yes, i'm covering that, i'm covering that, i'm covering this and I'm covering that.

Speaker 1: 9:10

But when it comes to actually creating the course you realize of, you know you've over promised or these things you've committed to having in there because you said in your launch they aren't actually that important and you would actually quite like to not have them in there because you think it's going to make it harder for everyone. So just a reminder on that the point of a course is to make the process from getting to A to B whatever that is for your customer as simple as possible, and sometimes that means pulling out a lot of this stuff that is not necessary. Now, the second thing that you need to know, when it comes to selling first and creating second, is you need to have the time put aside after the launch finishes to create the course. I think this is fairly self-explanatory, but you definitely need to put some thought into what this is going to look like for you, because creating a course takes time. You do the work first and then you can reap the rewards for years, but that first iteration of that first creation process you do need to invest your time into. The creation of it, like there's no doubt about that is time-consuming.

Speaker 1: 10:17

So my suggestion is that you actually drip the content out to your new students week by week or, if it suits you, even fortnightly. Just make sure it's realistic and it's also in line with what your audience wants. If you do it this way, then you can realistically set aside time each week to get it done, or you can teach it live, which I spoke about earlier. I recommend having a full one to two days per week to work on your course content for the duration of the course. So if it's a six-week course, i recommend putting aside one to two days and having very clear boundaries around that, so you're not doing client work on those days, you're not doing marketing or other stuff in your business, it's just full on creation mode, remembering the payoff that's going to come once you've created this online course, and you also can remember that you only have to do this once, right? So if you're out there listening to this episode and you're putting your course on the one day, someday list, it's time to stop that and get it done by pre-selling. It really is the best way to create your course.

Speaker 1: 11:23

Thanks so much for listening today. If you learned a thing or two in this episode, i'd love you to take a screenshot of this episode in your podcast player and share it to your Instagram stories. Don't forget to tag me at Lou Blakely underscore. And don't forget, if you're interested in a free 30-minute launch game plan session with me, simply go over to louiseblakelycom forward slash game plan and book it in. I'd love to meet, you, have a great week and I'll see you in the next episode. Thanks, course, creators and go-getters. You're incredible and I hope you enjoyed today's episode. If you haven't done so already, make sure you hit subscribe in your podcast app so you don't miss an episode. If you'd like to find out more about what I offer, hit across to LouBlakelycom. See you next time.