Ep 349: Everything I wish I knew before trying to sell online courses

So the first thing that I wish I knew before I got started with online courses is that a great course isn't enough.

This was definitely one of my biggest mistakes getting started.

I put all of my effort into trying to create an awesome course that, you know, that people would love.

And I thought that that would be the The secret, it would be exactly what I needed to do to be able to have a successful course.

But the reality is that product quality really only matters after someone buys.

Marketing is what determines whether or not they will buy in the first place.

So a mediocre offer, a mediocre course with strong marketing is always going to outsell a brilliant course that has weak marketing.

So that's the very first thing that I wish that I knew.

Now, that's not to say that you shouldn't create a great course, but we should build the marketing engine before we try to perfect the course.

We just need to start with a great concept for a course, a good idea that there really is demand for.

and create a viable version of it, a version that is actually going to work, that is actually going to get people results, and it will give people a decently good first impression.

But we don't need it to be the ultimate version of what that course is going to go on to become if it does prove to, to satisfy market demand, and if we can prove to be able to effectively marketing it.

We really want to, and I didn't say that quite right, and if we can prove to be able to effectively market it, right? Because there's no point in putting all of that effort into perfecting the course if we haven't even found that we can successfully sell it yet.

The second thing that I wish I knew, again, having to do with creating the offer, is that people buy outcomes, not information.

Nobody wakes up wanting 12 modules of content, right? They want the result on the other side.

So when we are marketing this course, and even when we are initially creating the offer, right, when we're initially designing the course, we have to focus on that end destination and how can we get them there as quickly and effectively as possible, not focus on the journey and the steps they need to take, not nearly as much.

Of course, like that's essential to get them to the destination, but that's not what we should focus on.

We don't want to just teach them everything we know about a topic.

We instead want to help them get to an end result.

And then when we move on to the point when we are actually marketing the course, then we want to also focus on that end destination and really sell the destination, not sell the course itself.

Now, the third thing that I wish I knew was that less content is usually better.

I've really overbuilt my first courses.

And everybody has this instinct to add more modules, more bonuses, and more content, but that generally is not the best move because again, people buy the end outcome, right? That's what they really want.

And so the best way we can serve them is to give them the shortest path to that result.

Every extra lesson that you add is just friction.