5 Things I Wish I Knew Before Creating an Online Course

Hey Friend!

Are you considering creating a course for your online business?  In the past 15 years of being a full-time entrepreneur, I have made 10 or more online courses.  That’s a lot of courses and some of them were so embarrassing.  I’m glad they are long gone!  Podcasting and online courses are incredible tools to grow your business, help more people, and make consistent income.  I have created a 7 figure company through podcasting and online courses. I want to help you do the same by creating a course in a super simple way.   After all that I have learned, I don’t want you to learn the hard way and make all the mistakes I made, so I’m sharing 5 things I wish I knew before I created an online course.

Before Creating an Online Course, Coach First

It is important to understand who you are helping and to create a course around what they want and need.  Don’t create a product or an online course guessing if they will like it and want to buy it.  For example, don’t work hard creating an online course about decluttering your home when your clients want to learn how to detox their cleaning supplies. 

Inside my 6-month group coaching program on podcasting and creating an online course, Podcast to Profit, I have a 5-client rule.  Students must coach 5 people before they create a course. You should do the same.  This is to find the one core problem you will solve through your course.  Solving this one core problem for your client means that your course is super focused, relevant, and worth paying for in exchange for your help.

By coaching first, you have the opportunity to listen, solve their problems, and listen more.  What are they saying over and over again? What is the one solution that keeps coming up as you coach them through their problem?  Observe the consistencies.  These are all clues to what your course should be about.

Before Creating an Online Course, Choose Your Course Hosting Platform Wisely

Before creating your online course, choose your course hosting platform based on cost.  Avoid signing up for a fancy course hosting platform and paying around $1200 – $1500 a year!  If you have a smaller audience, you need to sell quite a few courses to break even on your course hosting.

A platform called Learn hosted through Thrivecart offers a great course hosting platform along with checkouts, affiliate programs, funnels, and tax reporting.  Thrivecart is a non-negotiable for doing business well.  Checkout conversions with Thrivecart increase by 40-50%.  Thrivecart charges a one-time lifetime fee.   Hosting your courses through Thrivecart saves you money and time.

* This post contains affiliate links. This means I get a small percentage of sales at no additional cost to you.

Before Creating an Online Course, Run It Live First

If you are beginning your business or are new to coaching before you do all the work to record your whole course, run it live at least once even twice. Running your course live with an audience of 2-4 people helps you work out the kinks. You’ll learn what resonates, where they need extra support, or what doesn’t belong in your course.  This clarity and feedback help you to make tweaks before you record.  Save yourself the mistake of recording the whole course and then realizing that you left out an important step or organized it in the wrong order.

Before Creating an Online Course, Price it as a Beta

Before you create multiple courses and struggle to make any sales with them, run your course as a beta.  As an example of what I did, after making 4 or 5 courses and struggling to make any course stick and convert because I was all over the place, I ran my now top-selling course, Podcast Pro University, as a beta.  Taking 5 people through the course live at $250 got the course in front of people to work out the kinks, provided feedback, and showed where to make changes.  At $250, this Podcast Pro University course was a low price so more people were willing to say yes to trying out the course.  Because more people were willing to buy at this low beta price, there was the opportunity to test and refine my program and method. 

Call this beta price whatever you want: beta, early bird, round 1 or founding membership pricing.  It doesn’t matter what you call it.  Your goal is a yes to more people in the audience of your course. 

Understand that you can always increase your price over time but you can’t decrease it.  Decreasing your price makes those who already bought upset. So always start a little bit lower with your beta price.

Before Creating an Online Course, Know that You Will Change It

You have the knowledge and the ability to solve your client’s problem.  That’s why you have an online business. So when should you build your course? Once you have done coaching and established a brand.  Now that you have launched your podcast and regularly generate leads.  Then it’s time to build your course.  If you want help creating your course from start to finish, Podcast to Profit is your go-to solution.

Once you create your online course, your next step is to bless and release it especially If you are a perfectionist or Enneagram Type 1 personality. You must move forward knowing that at some point in time, you will revise it. It doesn’t need to be perfect straight out of the gate.

Create the course and permit yourself to know that in time, you will refresh it because you are always learning, growing, and refining your method or program to meet your client’s needs.  Podcast to Profit, my group coaching program that teaches people how to create online courses, is on its fourth iteration. It began as a group coaching program with me and a video, super scrappy, with no slides.  Next, it evolved into a 3 month program, and then a 6 month program. Now I have other coaches, office hours, spotlight coaching, and templates that allow business owners to plug and play, drag and drop.  If there is any program that helps you make your business so successful with zero confusion step by step from a podcast, it’s Podcast To Profit. But it took 4 iterations to get it to where it is today.  

The same will be true for you.  Create your course and know that you will take it through several iterations.  Get started with what you know, do the best you can with what you have, and move forward regardless of if it is perfect. Believe that God will pave the way for you to continue to improve your course and to grow its impact on your clients for the Kingdom of God.

Before Creating an Online Course, Get Expert Support

If you have an online business and are ready to start a podcast, begin coaching, or create a course, the Stefanie Gass School has a solution for you.

If you are saying, “I have no idea where to start in my business,” Clarify Your Calling will give you direction and clarity. Maybe you don’t have a podcast yet but know it’s the best way to get leads and generate clients in an organic, easy way.  Then Podcast Pro University is for you.

If you already have a podcast or are close to launching one, Podcast to Profit is for you.  If you are saying, “I need to monetize my podcast.  Somehow, I must scale my business.  I really should stay consistent in sending emails and growing an email list. I really want to get this business to grow so that I make consistent income.”   Then apply for Podcast to Profit, my 6 month group coaching program where you will learn how to gain more podcast listeners, improve podcast SEO visibility, and grow your community and impact. 

Inside Podcast to Profit, we will build your course and coaching together, optimize any offers you have, and make more sales in your business from a podcast. You’ll learn all of the growth strategies, like podcast pitching, Pinterest, blogging, and everything else you can imagine when it comes to repurposing your show.  Learn every single step for putting together your own course, what the modules should be, and what you should call it.

Podcast to Profit gives you access to coaches holding your hands, office hours with other people growing their online businesses, and coaching with me. The only place to get coaching with me every other week is inside Podcast to Profit. It’s your next right step. Apply today to go to the next level in your podcasting journey and to create your course. 

I pray this blesses you!

Xo,

Stef

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